Leonard Nick, Rips Lance J
Philosophy Department, Northwestern University, 1860 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
Psychology Department, Northwestern University, 2029 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
Cognition. 2015 Dec;145:89-103. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2015.08.003. Epub 2015 Aug 29.
Sortal terms, such as table or horse, are nouns akin to basic-level terms. According to some theories, the meaning of sortals provides conditions for telling objects apart (individuating objects, e.g., telling one table from a second) and for identifying objects over time (e.g., determining that a particular table at one time is the same table at another). A number of psychologists have proposed that sortal concepts likewise provide psychologically real conditions for individuating and identifying things. However, this paper reports five experiments that cast doubt on these psychological claims. Experiments 1-3 suggest that sortal concepts do not determine when an object ceases to exist and therefore do not decide when the object can no longer be identical to a later one. Experiments4-5 similarly suggest that sortal concepts do not provide determinate conditions for individuating objects. For example, they do not always decide whether a room contains one table or two. All five experiments feature ordinary objects undergoing ordinary changes.
分类词，如桌子或马，是类似于基本层次术语的名词。根据一些理论，分类词的意义为区分对象（区分个体对象，例如区分一张桌子和另一张桌子）以及随时间识别对象（例如确定某个特定时间的一张特定桌子与另一时间的是同一张桌子）提供了条件。许多心理学家提出，分类概念同样为区分和识别事物提供了心理上真实的条件。然而，本文报告了五个实验，这些实验对这些心理学主张提出了质疑。实验1 - 3表明，分类概念并不能决定一个对象何时不再存在，因此也无法决定该对象何时不再与后来的对象相同。实验4 - 5同样表明，分类概念并没有为区分对象提供确定的条件。例如，它们并不总是能决定一个房间里有一张桌子还是两张桌子。所有五个实验都以经历普通变化的普通物体为特征。
