6.1 記號論（theory of signs）
討論信息承載元目（information-carrying entity）、溝通 信息傳遞的哲學理論、科學理論。洛克（Locke）使用「符號學」（semiotic）這個詞指稱 研究記號與意義的學科；經由裴爾斯（Peirce）與查理斯．莫理斯（Charles Morris）著 作的影響，這個詞得到更廣泛地使用。關於語言符號的符號學研究可區分成三個領域：語用學（pragmatics）——研究人、動物或機器（如計算機）使用符號的方式；語意學
（semantics）——從符號的使用中抽離出來，研究符號與其意義之間的關係；語法學
（syntax）——從符號的使用和意義中抽離出來，研究符號與符號之間的關係。在歐洲 使用的是一個幾乎相同的術語：「符號學」（semiology），為瑞典語言學家費南特．德 索緒爾（Ferdinand de Saussure）首先提出的。
廣義來說，「記號」指任何信息承載元目，包括語言符號、動物的動作標記、地圖、
路標、圖示、圖片、模型等等。例如我們以冒煙作為失火的記號，以交叉路口上的紅燈作 為要求駕駛停車的記號。純就語言而言，言說時的言語表達——例如聲韻特徵（語調、
重音），以及附屬於語言所產生的特徵（強音、聲調、手勢、臉部表情等等）——及字詞 和語句等都是廣義上的記號。裴爾斯把記號定義成「代表某物的某些方面或身分的東西」，
並將記號區分成三種：「符號」（symbol）、「象符」（icon）與「指符」（index）。
符號又稱「約定記號」（conventional sigh），其乃自然語言形式中特有的記號，與 其指涉對象沒有任何有意義的物理符應或相似之處（事實證明，許多十分不同的記號 可以指涉同類對象），而且，在記號之出現與其指稱對象之間沒有相互關係。
指符又稱「自然記號」（natural sign），此種記號之出現與其指稱對象之出現具有 因果上或統計上的相互關係，而且其產生並非出於刻意。因此我們可以說，打呵欠是倦 睏的自然記號，鳥鳴也許是警告的自然記號。在語言現象裡，提高說話聲調是憤怒的記 號。
象符是這樣的記號，其形式相應或類似於其指稱對象或其指稱對象的特徵。例如裁 縫師拿給顧客看的樣本是象符，因為這樣本是類似於一件有顏色、式樣和質地的織物的 記號。在語言現象裡的例子是擬聲語——如「嗡嗡聲」。一般來說，記號之所以為象符，
與約定俗成和文化都有關係。
參見grammar 文法；meaning 意義；philosophy of language 語言哲學；semiosis 符號探究 W. K. W. 撰 莊文瑞審訂
6.2符號探究（
semiosis
） 源自希臘語 sēmeiōsis，意為「符號的觀察」。「符號探究」是符 號、對象和心靈三者之間的關係的意涵。符號學（semiotic）是研究「符號探究」的科學。聖多瑪斯的約翰（John of Saint Thomas）和裴爾斯（Peirce）的符號學皆包含了以下兩 個不同的部分：意涵的關係和符號的分類。對他們而言，意涵的關係是三元關係，它不 能被化約成以下從屬於它的三個二元關係的總合：符號－對象、符號－心靈、對象－心
靈。一個符號對一個心靈表徵一個對象，就如同A 給 B 一個禮物。和一般所認不同的，
「符號探究」並不僅僅是以一個符號－對象二元關係和一個符號－心靈二元關係組合而 成，因為這些二元關係缺乏本然的意向性去將心靈和對象統合起來。相同的，「符號探 究」並不僅僅包含一個符號－對象二元關係和一個對象－心靈二元關係，它還包括統合 符號和對象的意向。
在多瑪斯的士林邏輯（Scholastic logic）中，符號－對象二元關係是一個範疇關係
（categorial relation [secundum esse]），亦即，列屬亞里斯多德（Aristotle）的關係範疇 中的一個本質關係，而符號－心靈二元關係是一個先驗的關係（transcendental relation [secundum dici]），亦即，一個僅僅是類比意義下的關係。因此，對多瑪斯而言，「符號 探究」形式上的理據主要以符號－對象二元關係構成。而在裴爾斯的邏輯中，符號－對 象二元關係和符號－心靈二元關係皆只是具有「符號探究」的潛質而已，因此古埃及文 字在羅塞達石板（Rosetta Stone）發現之前只是具有符號的潛質，就如同對一個沒有注 意到它的汽車駕駛而言，一個道路標誌只是一個具有成為符號可能性的東西。
符號的歸類通常依憑著「符號探究」的邏輯，因此根據符號和它們的對象之間的關 係，多瑪斯將符號區分成自然符號（natural signs，例如煙作為火的符號）、風俗符號
（customary signs ， 例 如 桌 上 的 餐 巾 作 為 晚 餐 將 上 桌 的 符 號 ） 以 及 創 設 的 符 號
（stipulated signs，如新製文字的確定）；多瑪斯也依符號和心靈之間的關係做了以下 的分類：一個工具的符號（instrumental sign）必須先被認作一個對象，它才能有其意 涵（例如一個書寫的字或一個徵兆）；一個形式的符號（formal sign）在它能指引心靈 至它的對象之前，其本身並毋須先被認作一個對象。形式符號並不作為我們認識的對象 而是作為我們認識對象的途徑。另一方面，所有工具對象皆預設在認知中的形式符號的 行動。裴爾斯也有類似的作法，他根據符號和以下三種東西的關係將符號區分成三類：
它們自己、它們的對象和它們的詮釋者（通常是心靈）。莫理斯（Charles Morris）緊緊 地跟隨裴爾斯的作法，將符號彼此之間的關係稱之為「符號探究」的語法面向，將符號 和詮釋者之間的關係稱之為「符號探究」的實用面向。
參見John of Saint Thomas 聖多瑪斯的約翰；Peirce 裴爾斯；theory of signs 記號論 J. B. M. 撰 林從一審訂
6.3 Humboldt, Wilhelm von (1767-1835) German polymath and philosopher of language.
The elder brother of the explorer Alexander, Wilhelm von Humboldt was born in Potsdam and educated at Frankfurt and Göttingen. He combined the general scholarly interests of his time with a special concern for political philosophy. Until 1819 he was active in public service in Prussia. His collected works (seven volumes, 1841-52) cover a great variety of topics, but his principal philosophical importance lies in the role that he attributed to language, not as the mere external vehicle of thought, but as a repository of the spirit, and something whose ‘inner form’ itself dictates the kind of thought that can be available for comprehension. See also Sapir – Whorf hypothesis.
6.4 HUMBOLDT, WILHELM VON (1767-1835), Prussian statesman, humanist, and linguistic scholar, was born in Potsdam; a young brother was the scientist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt. Humboldt’s early education was placed in the hands of private tutors and was augmented by private instruction in Greek, philosophy, natural law, and political economy from distinguished men of Germany’s Enlightenment. From these youthful studies Plato’s idea of the soul and Leibniz’s concept of force left lasting impressions on his thought.
During and after his university years at Frankfurt an der Oder (1787) and at Göttingen (1788- 1789), Humboldt began to question the rationalistic presuppositions of the Enlightenment. Like Herder, he viewed human society as a manifold of organic forces, closer to nature than to reason, and came to believe that true knowledge of humanity depended on the cultivation not of pure analytical reason but of deep-lying intuitive faculties.
Humboldt’s political philosophy was outlined in a long essay, Ideen zu einem Versuch die Grenzen der Wirksamkeit des Staats zu bestimmen, written in 1791. Focused on the central theme of his thought – the inalienable value of the individual – this work propounds the humanistic creed that man’s goal is “the highest and most proportional development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole”. Reason must guide this development, but reason for Humboldt was a formative rather than a generative aculty. He criticized state control of education and religion for inflicting an arbitrary framework on diverse, organically developing human forces, whose unity could not be imposed from without but sought only from within.
In the last decade of the eighteen century Humboldt was occupied with various scholarly projects, none of which he completed; at the same time his growing friendship with Schiller and Goethe brought him into contact with contemporary aesthetic problems. From 1802 to 1807 he was Prussian ambassador to the Vatican, and in 1808 he was appointed to the ministry of religious and educational affairs in Berlin, in which position he drafted several papers on education and was chiefly responsible for the foundation of the University of Berlin. Thereafter, he served as Prussian diplomatic representative in Vienna (1810-1813), at
the peace negotiations before and after Napoleon’s downfall (1814-1815), and in London (1817-1818). Defeated in his effort to achieve a constitutional monarchy for Prussia in 1819, he retired from public service and devoted the remainder of his life to study.
History. Humboldt’s humanism was based on his idea of historical experience. “The broadening of our existence and of our knowledge,” he wrote in a letter of 1823, “is possible historically only through the contemplation of previous existence.” Searching for a discipline by which man’s accumulated historical experience could become the foundation for a philosophy of man, Humboldt had already written several essays and drafts outlining principles for the study of Greek antiquity (Über das Studium des Altertums und des griechischen insbesondere, 1793), for a comparative anthropology (Plan einer vergleichenden Anthropologie, 1795), and finally for the historian’s profession (Die Aufgabe des Geschichtschreibers, 1821). Sharing his generation’s enthusiasm for ancient Greece, Humboldt believed that the study of Greek culture in its broadest aspects would promote a true philosophical knowledge of men, including “the knowledge of the manifold intellectual, sentient, and moral human powers.” For Humboldt the Hellenic world was a unity of diverse forces, a cultural unity which his own times lacked but might regain through a comprehensive of the Greeks. His plan for a comparative anthropology was to study the moral character of different human types; a great variety of sources would provide the data for establishing an ideal norm, which was not adequately represented by any specific individuality. To comprehened the wholeness in the diversity of human types required aesthetic insight, which was fundamental to the art of the historian. In an essay on Goethe’s Hermann und Dorothea, he conclude that epic poetry, of which Goethe’s drama was an example, could be compared to history. “The condition of the soul which gives rise to the necessity of history (in the truest and highest sense of the word) is similar to that out of which an epic is produced with the help of imagination and art.” In Humboldt’s essay Die Aufgabe des Geschichtschreibers, in which the affinity of his thought to Schelling’s philosophy is clearly manifested, the historian’s imagination is likened to the poet’s. It differs from the free fantasy of the poet’s in that it is more strictly subordinated to the historian’s experience and feeling for reality; it is actually a
“divining faculty” (Ahndungsvermögen) and a “connecting ability” (Verknüpfungsgabe).
The most notable feature of this essay is Humboldt’s attempt to elucidate the role of ideas in history. “Everything that is active in world history,” he declared, “is also stirring in the inner being of man.” The ideas in history have preserved human experience in the mind. “The eternal original ideas of everything conceivable provide existence and value, the beauty of all physical and spiritual forms, the truth in the unalterable working of every force according to its indwelling law, the justice in the inexorable course of events which are eternally regulated and meted their just reward.” For Humboldt the goal of history is “the realization of the idea representing itself through humanity from all sides and in all forms in which the finite forms can be connected with the idea.” The task of the historian is therefore to represent this process
of ideas being actualized in history.
Language. Humboldt’s language studies represent his chief legacy to posterity and marked, according to Ernst Cassirer, a new epoch in the history of the philosophy of language.
Humboldt saw in the origin of language that crucial moment when man emerged from nature and, thus, the moment of connection between nature and idea. Language is for Humboldt the faculty by which man is identified as man. Speech and understanding are only different products of the power of language. The formation of languages depends on the spiritual forces of humanity, and languages are thus not merely an intermediary between individuals but “the most radiant sign and certain proof that man does not possess intrinsically separate individuality.” Languages delineate the cultural characteristics of nations, each of which has its own individuality and arouses a sense of unity in men.
Humboldt’s chief contribution to the study of linguistics was his concept of the “inner form” of languages (innere Sprachform), which consists of more than just external grammatical principles; it implies a deep-rooted subjective view of the world, a spiritual attitude, that controls the formation of concepts. “Because of the mutual dependency of thought and word,” he wrote, “it is evident that the languages are not really means of representing the truth that has already been ascertained, but far more, means of discovering a truth not previously known. Their diversity is not a diversity of sounds, but of world outlook.”
Humboldt’s idea that each language has its own characteristic outlook, or inner form, found support in the linguistic studies of A. F. Pott and Heymann Steinthal in the nineteenth century and was suggested anew in the twentieth in the works of Benjamin Lee Whorf and Edward Sapir. His influence can also be traced in other areas of nineteenth-century thought – a passage from his political treatise provided the motto for J. S. Mill’s essay On Liberty; his notion of the idea in history is closely related to Leopold von Ranke’s doctrine of ideas; and his notion of historical experience is basic to the philosophy of Wilhelm Dilthey. In the twentieth century Ernst Cassirer, in the first volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, provided a penetrating evaluation of Humboldt’s linguistic insights and a general philosophical context foe the unmethodical profusion of his thought.