A Tentative Exploration Into The Fuzziness Of Words

This paper makes an attempt to elaborate the origination of fuzziness of words. It consists of four chapters.The first chapter is an introduction. In this chapter, the author reviews first of all the traditional interpretation of words, that is, most words are considered to be composed of intensions and extensions. This interpretation leads to the inference that all words inevitably have transcendently fixed intensions that can be accurately formulated for the purpose of establishing the extensions. According to the previous study of fuzzy words, it is clear that the fuzziness of words is in most cases explored on this basis. In other words, the fuzziness of words lies in the uncertainty on the part of either the intensions or the extensions. Nevertheless, since fuzzy words can't be interpreted with the pattern of intension and extension, the author turns to human cognition to explore the fuzziness of these words. Obviously, language embodies human understanding of the world, that is, it is closely related to human cognition and perception. As a result, the exploration into the fuzziness of words will call for the reexamination of the pattern of intension and extension, and involve human cognition and perception.For the convenience of discussion, in this thesis the fuzziness of words is approached from two perspectives, namely, the perspective of ontological fuzziness and the perspective of epistemological fuzziness. The second chapter is concerned with the words embodying ontological fuzziness, which are dealt with from the perspectives of divisional fuzziness and categoreal fuzziness, and the latter is further divided into categorealfuzziness concerning conditions and categoreal fuzziness concerning degree. With the analysis of the words exemplified in this chapter, the author arrives at the conclusion that, instead of the intensions and extensions, it is human cognitive activities and approaches that, in actual contexts, determine the application and interpretation of these words. Now that these words do not fit into the established category system built upon the concept of intension and extension, the perplexity of fuzziness will arise.The third chapter is concerned with the words embodying epistemological fuzziness. These words are grouped into the fuzzy words abstracted from relation and those representing the abstraction of perceptive images. According to the analysis in this chapter, it is clear that the meanings of these words invariably derive from concrete cognitive and perceptive experiences and keep on shifting and changing as a result of various human cognitive activities and approaches such as metaphor, synaesthesia and transferred epithet. In view of this factor, we may realize that it is impossible to achieve transcendent and exact intensions of these words, because, firstly, these cognitive experiences can't be accurately formulated, and secondly, the meanings of these words have always been shifting with human cognition. In addition, owing to the diversity and flexibility of subjects, it is also impossible to single out certain objects as the absolute embodiments of these fuzzy words. Evidently, the fuzziness of these words points to the contradiction between the old pattern concerning intension and extension and actual human cognition.The fourth chapter is the conclusion. This chapter first of all points out that the deep-rooted logocentrism in human thinking has given rise to the binary opposition of intension and extension. At the same time, the ideal of exactness and accuracy impels people to put intensions in exact linguistic or mathematic forms and extensions in exact and distinct confines. However, the occurrence, application and understanding oflanguage heavily depend on human cognitive and perceptive activities, and consequently are closely related to subjects and contexts. Leaving out all these factors, we even would not be able to make clear what is meant by fuzziness or exactness on earth. In most cases, people tend to interpret words by resorting to the binary opposition of intension and extension, while what actually governs the meaning of a word is simply human cognition. Between them, there is a collision, which accounts for the occurrence of the fuzziness of words...