二○○四年四月十八日

A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the School of

Foreign Studies, Anhui University

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for

The Degree of Master of Arts

By Xu Chunshan

Under the Supervision of Prof. Zhang Ming

English Department

School of Foreign Studies, Anhui University

April 30, 2004

本论文就词语的模糊性及其产生的原因作一探讨和论述。全文共由四部分组成。

第一部分为引言。在此部分中，作者首先对词语进行分析，指出，词语的理解长久以来建立在精确的内涵决定精确的外延这样一个基础之上。而在以往的模糊语研究中，不难发现，词语的模糊性总是和内涵或外延的不确定有关。同时语言的产生及使用是人对世界范畴化和结构化的结果。它是人的认知活动的结果，表现了人对世界的理解和认识。因此，探讨词语模糊性，就必须涉及词语的内涵和外延以及人类的认知活动。

第二部分就本体论意义上的模糊语的模糊性进行分析。本文将此类模糊语分为范畴模糊语和边界模糊语。前者可进一步分为条件组合上的模糊语以及程度上的模糊语。通过对上述模糊语模糊性的分析，作者得出结论，决定语言产生，使用和理解的往往是人的认知方式和过程，而非一个永恒的精确内涵决定精确外延的模式。

第三部分就认识论意义上的模糊语的模糊性进行分析。本文将其归纳为从对象与人的关系中抽象而来的模糊语以及从具体的感知表象抽象而来的模糊语。通过对上述模糊语模糊性的分析，作者得出结论，它们都来源于人们最基本的认知经历，同时由于隐喻，通感，修饰语移置，提喻等思维及认识方式的作用，不断的迁移变化。这种认知经历和迁移变化过程难以用语言精确表述，即无法给出精确的定义。同时，由于主体的多样性和多变性，也无法确定永恒不变的外延。显然，内涵决定外延的模式亦非人类理解使用此类语言的依据。

第四部分是全文总结。人的思维中根深蒂固的逻各斯中心导致他们以内涵和外延这样一组对立的二元解释词语。而对确定性理想的追求又使得人们总是试图为词语找到明确的语言形式甚至数学形式的内涵以及范围明确的外延。但是词语的出现，使用和理解和人的认知，和主体、语境密切相关。脱离了这一切，精确或模糊本身也失去了意义。脱离了人，脱离了人的认知活动，试图以永恒超然的精确内涵和精确外延这样一个模式去理解语言及其使用，这就是词语模糊性产生的原因.

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 makes respective analysis on words and fuzziness, and points to the fact that there is a long standing pattern of interpreting words in philosophy—the pattern of exact and transcendent intension establishing exact extensions. In addition, according to previous research work, it is clear that the fuzziness of words are either related to the uncertainty of the scope of the extension of a word or the uncertainty of the intension, i.e., lacking exact linguistic or mathematic formulation, or even both. At the same time, this chapter also points out that language embodies human understanding of the world, which is closely related to human cognition and perception. As a result, any exploration concerning the fuzziness of words inevitably involve the pattern of intension and extension as well as human cognition.

The second chapter is concerned with the words embodying ontological fuzziness. In this chapter, ontological fuzziness is discussed from the perspective of divisional fuzziness and categorieal fuzziness that is further divided into categorieal fuzziness concerning conditions and categorieal fuzziness concerning degree. On the basis of analysis of these kinds of fuzziness, the author arrives at the conclusion that human cognitive and perceptive approaches and processes, which determine the application and interpretation of these words in actual contexts, deny the pattern that transcendent and exact intensions establish transcendent and exact extensions.

The third chapter is about the words embodying epistemological fuzziness, which are grouped into the fuzzy words abstracted from relation and fuzzy words representing the abstraction of perceptive images. These two type of fuzzy words are both based on certain fundamental perceptive experience and develop with some human cognitive means like metaphor, synaesthesia, transferred epithet etc. But it is impossible to put either the cognitive experience or the development into clear formulation. At the same time, because of the diversity and flexibility of subjects, it is also impossible to single out certain objects as the absolute embodiment of these fuzzy words. This contradiction with the old pattern concerning intension and extension is the cause of the occurrence of fuzziness of words

The fourth chapter is the conclusion. This chapter points out that the deep-rooted logocentrism in human thinking leads to binary opposition of intension and extension, while the ideal for exactness and accuracy leads people to put intension in exact linguistic or mathematic form and extensions in exact and distinct scope. Nevertheless, the occurrence, application and understanding of language heavily depend on human cognitive and perceptive activities, closely related to subjects and contexts. Leaving out all these factors, it is also impossible to make clear what is fuzzy or what is exact. Between the old pattern that exact and transcendent intensions establish their corresponding extensions and human cognitive and perceptive approaches and activities restricting occurrence, application and understanding of language, there is a collision, which is the reason for the occurrence of fuzziness of words.

Chapter.1. Introduction

Fuzzy words, as the term itself indicates, are words with the characteristic of fuzziness. According to Mill, the British philosopher and logician, words are mostly appellations, which fall into two types, namely, proper names and general names. A general name has its connotation and denotation, or intension and extension, of which the former can be equated to the definition of the name or the word, while the latter, the set of the objects prescribed by the definition. In short, intension states the fundamental attributes of certain name, or word, and extension is the set of objects, which are considered to have these attributes and hence labeled with the word. Obviously, this way of thinking will resultantly lead to the conclusion that extension totally depends on intension. On the issue of the meaning of words, this is a long-standing dichotomy still exerting considerable influence today and unavoidably bringing out such following inferences. Firstly, there must be a distinct and exact intension for the reason that it is absolutely impossible to precisely establish the correlative extension without such an intension serving as the yardstick for judgment. And secondly, as extension rests with intension that is generally regarded to depend on nothing, an intension must be something transcendent and objective, or rather, a thing-in-itself exposing itself only to the description but never to the prescription of human beings. In the discussion in following chapters, it can be learned that the occurrence of fuzziness concerning words is closely related to this pattern of interpretation of words.

The concept of fuzziness is originally advanced by the American professor, L.A.Zadeh, who points out the fact that it is hardly possible to classify all objects in the universe precisely, as is well illustrated by such instances as the concepts of “big integers”, “high buildings” and “beautiful women”, for people can not make sure their extensions, or exact intensions for the aim of establishment of extension. Through the research into these linguistic phenomena, he learned that these concepts make some categories of which the borderline is far from being clearly fixed, namely, there is no strict circumscription on the scope of the application of concepts carried in these names. Obviously, this argument involves the fuzziness in language in terms of the uncertainty of the range of extension, which is decided by the concept, or intension of words. However a second thought will dawn on the fact that the intensions of these names are also uncertain. For example, no one can define such concepts as “big”, “high” and “beautiful” strictly and distinctly, and in other words, the uncertainty in terms of extension is a reflection of uncertainty in terms of intension. Therefore, the traditional idea has been undermined that distinct and exact intension establishes distinct and exact scope of extension. This indicates that the old pattern of meaning theory about intension and extension can no longer accommodate new discoveries of deeper exploration of language. In view of this fact, it is somewhat necessary to reexamine the concepts of intension and extension as well as the relationship between them

As known to all, human beings distill their understanding and knowledge of the world into language. All human understanding and knowledge of the world is undoubtedly constructed on the basis of human cognition, of which the basic approaches are gestalt perception, mental imagery as well as motor movement. (Zhao Yanfang, 2001)⁽¹⁾ Consequently, a word, no matter how abstract, transcendent and objective it may seem to be, is associated somewhat and somehow with subjective and concrete cognition and perception on the part of human beings, which restricts people’s application and interpretation of words. As a result, to explore the issue of fuzziness of words will necessarily involve human beings’ cognition of the world and the approaches and patterns, which are employed consciously or unconsciously by human beings in its process.

As far as the topic of fuzzy words is concerned, it seems too inclusive. It is generally acknowledged that there is a distinction between so-called ontological fuzziness and epistemological fuzziness. This paper is intended to commit some exploration to these two types of fuzzy words from the perspective of the pattern of intension and extension as well as the perspective of human cognition with stress on the approaches in generalization and categorization.

Chapter.2. Words Embodying Ontological Fuzziness

Professor Wu Tieping once mentioned that attention should be paid to the distinction between ontological fuzziness and epistemological fuzziness. (Wu Tieping, 1999)⁽²⁾ The former refers to the kind of fuzziness that actually exits in universe and has nothing to do with human being, in other words, a kind of fuzziness as a thing-in-itself. For example, the life forms such as bacteria and virus can be definitely ranked into neither the category of plant nor that of animal, which is obviously an objective phenomenon. As a result, such words as “plant” and “animal” bear ontological fuzziness. In other cases, the words signifying age and temperature, like “old”, “young”, “cold” and “hot”, are labeled with ontological fuzziness because the passing of time or ranging of temperature is itself continuous, constituting a continuum.

For the convenience of discussion, this type of fuzziness can be further divided into fuzziness and vagueness, as suggested by cognitive linguistics. The former points to the uncertainty of membership of certain category with regard to independent objects while the latter denotes that of the division with which one can tell one object from others around or next to it. In other words, the former refers to the fuzziness of category and the latter, the fuzziness about the actual division among an independent object itself and other objects around or next to it.

On the basis of these distinctions, the following sections will make an analysis on the ontological fuzzy words by grouping them into categorieally fuzzy words and divisionally fuzzy words, which respectively reflect abovementioned fuzziness and vagueness.

It has been mentioned that such words as “plant”, “cold” and “old” are fuzzy because people sometimes find it too difficult to decide whether certain object can be exclusively regarded as an extension of one of these abovementioned words. Therefore it is safe to say they signal the categorieal fuzziness. But further analysis will reveal the fact that the fuzziness related to “plant” or “animal” is a result of the discovery of bacteria and virus, which triggers uncertainty on the part of people concerning the conditions or characteristics differentiating what is plant from what is animal, while the fuzziness related to “cold” and “old” is a matter of being unable to achieve an agreement on a certain degree on a scale, such as 10 degrees centigrade or the age of 50, as the yardstick to distinguish the two categories. In one word, the former is the fuzziness concerning the conditions determining the membership of certain category, and the latter, the fuzziness concerning the degree to distinguish two categories. Next section will be devoted to the analysis on the categorieal fuzziness concerning conditions

2.1.1 Words indicating categorieal fuzziness concerning conditions

On the probing into the matter of fuzziness, in addition to the abovementioned example of bacteria and virus, people often gravitate to the facts─the unsureness with regard to the membership of crossopterygian with the category of amphibian, or that of platypus with the category of mammal. This unsureness derives from the fact that these creatures have some characteristics that are usually considered to be the attributes of more than one species. In other words, a creature has the necessary conditions of more than one species. As a result, the borderline between categories is somewhat blurred, and the words signify these categories has become fuzzy.

As known to all, the existence of these creatures is undoubtedly a matter of fact, which will naturally drive some people to the conclusion that these words reflect objective ontological fuzziness. This conclusion, of course, can never be claimed as totally wrong. But in these cases, it is noticeable that the fuzziness lies in the category other than the creature itself. A creature is an objective thing, but a category is quite different on the ground that it is apparently the result of human categorization and structuralization in the process of the interaction between subjects and objects. Hence it reflects to a great degree subjective epistemological fuzziness, which points to that a category is not a thing totally objective and transcendent, but a thing depending heavily on human being.

For the purpose of survival and progress, it is vital for human beings to pose certain assortment and classification on their experience in this world, or, being unable to make analysis on the past and predication on the future, they will be eternally confined to immediate situations and therefore confronted with an ever-varying world which is permanently beyond their perception, letting alone exerting any adaptation and adjustment to it.

Differences and similarities among the temporal know no bounds. As a result, the assortment and classification can only be effected on the grounds of the perceivable, stable and practically significant differences and similarities in terms of human beings, which inevitably suggests that both the assortment and the yardstick are somewhat human centered or arbitrary rather than totally objective.

But human beings are not able to conduct coverall observations and explorations into everything to the core. In other words, there must be numerous things beyond human cognition. This fact considered, it is natural to reach the conclusion that assortment and classification can only be approached on the basis of some limited “samples” in the world, to be exact, some limited experience of human beings in this world. With their own experience as the foundation, human beings begin to formulate and facilitate their perception and understanding of the world through structuralization and categorization with a discrete pattern, which certainly presumes that everything outside of human experience have being unknowingly neglected in the process and in the result of this process.

The results of the process of structuralizaion and categorization are rather fixed and static once fashioned and accepted by people, while human cognition of the world is flexible and dynamic, developing with practice. Meanwhile, what was previously beyond human cognition would come into their horizon, which is likely to arouse some contradiction with the old pattern people set up for interpretation of the world in a form of a concept (category) system. So if a new item cannot well fit into an old category or concept system, the puzzling issue of fuzziness comes up. But as learned from preceding discussion, this pattern is a man-made one with every concept, or intension in terms of philosophy, distilled from human cognition and experience. As a result, people can accommodate the newly found items to this discrete pattern by conducting necessary adjustments and adaptations to the concepts composing this pattern, as is shown by the fact that people can either establish new intension like that of “animalcule” to class bacteria and virus into a new category or revise old intension like that of “mammal” so as to lodge newly found items, or extension , like platypus.

So far, it has been made clear that the traditional pattern of intension and extension has been exposed to oppugn concerning two aspects. Firstly, intension and extension inevitably imply generalization and categorization of objective items, which are undoubtedly activities undertaken by human beings in a discrete way on the basis of their own limited experience, or rather, their limited cognition and perception. That is to say, instead of being completely objective, they are somewhat and somehow subjective. As the interactions between subjects and objects become more intensive and extensive, new findings will force some adaptation to the existing intension system and then find their places in corresponding extension system, proving that intensions and the accordant extensions are not transcendent and static but dynamically related to human practice and cognition. Secondly, the relationship between intension and extension can not be simply reduced to that of one thing being decided by the other. As has been known, assortment, categorization and classification can only be effected on the grounds of the perceivable, stable and practically significant differences and similarities among experienced objects in terms of human being, which suggests that the essence of intension originally derives from these perceived differences and similarities among objects. In other words, human beings construct intensions according to the objects they experienced, which can be clearly accounted for by the example of animalcule and platypus. People set up a system of intension on the basis of objects and in turn fit all of them into the system by regarding them as extensions of different intensions. This pattern is gradually fixed up and handed down from generation to generation to facilitate human being’s understanding of the world. To be brief, intension and extension are interdependent.

.In the cases abovementioned, fuzziness arises as a result of the deep-rooted belief that an intension, which is objective and transcendent, absolutely prescribes its extensions. So when a new item of objects come into the vision of human beings without a present-at-hand intension to fit in as an extension, the issue of fuzziness naturally appears. But the fact should be noticed that intension is rather dynamic and subjective, depending somewhat on “extensions”. If so, it is not difficult to dispose of the fuzziness by setting up a new intension or adapting existent intension to hold the new item. Obviously, the fuzziness occurring in these cases is actually a matter of contradiction between the advancement of human cognition and practice, and the old pattern of intension and extension, which is generally considered as static, absolute and transcendent.

2.1.2 Words indicating categorieal fuzziness concerning degree

Bertrand Russel once brought forward such a question that how many stems of hair is the exact number to judge if a man is bald or not. Taking this as the basis, a paradox is arrived at the end of the course of inference that a person without even one hair cannot be viewed as bald, or, one is still bald no matter how many stems of hair he has. In other words, it is impossible to agree upon an exact number or degree that can be utilized as the division between these two categories. As a result, this word is fuzzy, for people cannot agree on a degree as the circumscription.

The paradox produced by Russel implies a presumption that such mathematical concept as an exact number of quantity is the ultimate criterion to distinguish baldness from non-baldness. But in every day life, no one will have a careful count of one’s hair before attributing “bald” or “not bald” to him, which throws light on the fact that the exact number of quantity is not the actual ground on which people makes the judgment.

As Saussure puts it, meaning lies in differences. But he believes that the differences among signifiers give birth to meaning while the poststructuralist applied this reasoning to the signifieds, arriving at the conclusion that the signified (or concept) can only be known through its relationships and its differences from other signifieds.

As a result, the concepts (or intensions) like “baldness” is actually an indication of difference, to be exact, the difference from “non-baldness”.

Cognitive linguistics believes that the meaning of language first of all consists in the direct and important experience with the outside world produced by some basic human perceptive abilities like gestalt perception, mental imagery and motor movement. The concept of baldness is obviously a result of visual holistic perception instead of a matter of careful counting.

Every time when the word “bald” is used, it symbolizes difference, which may come out as a result of cognitive activities in the form of human perception. It may occur as some perceptible difference arising from comparison with other concrete visual perception, or in most cases as a result of the comparison with the general image of what is not bald, as is considered to be the normal situation of one’s head, which is indicated by the fact that there is no word to express this situation of not being bald, that is, it is unmarked. This image comes from one’s experience with other people, is distilled from his perception of them, and becomes integrated knowledge of human beings. Deriving from concrete perception but leaving out many details at the same time, this image has become a general rather than a specific one.

Anyway, this comparison and the subsequent difference is not a issue in terms of counting and the resultant statistics, but a matter of visual holistic perception in human mind. In other words, this word, when applied, embodies and invokes perception and perceptible differences. As have been mentioned, the quantity of one’s hair has influence on others’ visual perception but it should be noticed that it is not the only factor that can exert such effect. For example, different distribution of same quantity of hair may give rise to different visual images. In addition, if the quantity is taken as the sole variant, the variation of it must accumulate to such a degree as to trigger some perceptible difference, namely, for such a word as “bald”, the difference in perception, if considered in terms of quantity, can only appear on a discrete basis.

On the grounds of above discussion, one point is made clear that the essence of the word “bald” actually consists in perceivable difference with regard to visual image instead of the quantity of one’s hair, though quantity is still related to the linguistic sign in a quite indirect way. Put it in another way, both intension and extension are related to human perception because, consciously or unconsciously, people apply and understand this word according to their holistic perception. But this perception is so subtle that it denies a distinct definition with language, and hence can’t stand as an intension, while the traditional pattern concerning exact intension and exact extension is so cherished. As a result, people shy away from the inexplicable and flexible perception to other fields for the purpose of obtaining an exact and objective yardstick serving as the intension to establish its extensions. In comparison with human perception and image, quantity of hair is more welcome as an intension for , firstly, it is so charmingly exact and objective, subject to no variation once it is set, and secondly, it actually has influence on human perception though it is in a very indirect way. Out of the eagerness towards accuracy and definiteness, people employ the quantity as the criterion for judgment and the intension for the establishment of extensions. But when people relate the word with quantity, they are not aware that they have omitted so many factors staying between them, such as subjects, discrete pattern, contextual factors, to name a few. Figure of number comes from exact counting of the stems of hair, which is a matter of mathematics and statistics rather than holistic perception determining the application and interpretation of the word concerned.

As Heidegger has pointed out, “Language goes on as the taking place or occurring of the dif-fernce for world and things”(Heidegger, 1999).⁽³⁾ The essence of these words consists in human perception and differences in terms of it, which is the intension and extension. It calls for no language formulation or mathematic formulation. In the case of the word “bald”, it indicates a kind of difference in terms of visual perception and image, which are the essence, the intension and extension of the word. Being a segment of human understanding and knowledge, “bald” is “bald”, calling for no further explanation or definition. This segment (or difference) is clear enough; otherwise it cannot find a place in language. The confusion of fuzziness only occurs as a result of forcing a transcendent pattern of exact intension establishing exact extension on the word and the resultant introduction of standards of the field of mathematics and statistics into that of everyday linguistic activities.

Another case in point is the words signifying age like “old”, “young”, etc. On the first glance, the passing of time is permanently invariable, and hence units of time such as year, month, etc, form an accurate scale to count on. Nevertheless, another paradox similar to that of “baldness” will unavoidably arise if the exact number of units of time like “30 years old”, “50 years old” are taken as the only standard for the using and understanding of the words indicating age. What such a word as “old” invokes in human mind is not a figure of number at all. It indeed indicates the passing of time, which brings onto human beings differences comprehended by mankind in most cases from the angle of perception of physical and psychological differences. Of course, the passing of time can also be comprehended in an abstract way, namely, by measurement with some human-prescribed units of time. But as far as daily linguistic activities are concerned, the essence of “old” consists in people’s physical or psychological perception of the differences as a result of a lapse of time. For example, such a phrase as “old man” will invoke in us the images associated with an old person like white hair, wrinkled face, etc, which has become fixed as a part of our general knowledge of human being. If we see a man with these features, the word “old” will naturally occur in our mind without resorting to the knowledge that how many years this man has lived. To sum up, people can comprehend the passage of time either with the accumulation of such units as year, month, etc, which is in fact a kind of measuring, or with the perception of both physical and psychological changes resulting from the passage. Seeing the children gradually grow up, parents will sigh out that they have turned old, which results from a perceptible psychological change indicating the realization of lapse of time. Finding a stem of white hair will make a woman lament, “I am old now”, which is not related so much to her age as to her perception of her physical change.

However if one wants to find out the exact intension for the word “old” and then builds the extension, he will soon discover that neither the perception of physical change nor that of psychological change can be employed as the intension of this word because they are so subtle that any attempt of language formulation only makes it more confusing. Therefore, resorting to the figure of number seems to be the only way, and the most objective way as well. In fact, quantitative standard is well utilized as criterion in some linguistic context in which human intuitionistic perception doesn’t play important role at all. For example, “adult” is legally prescribed as a person beyond the age of 18, and a professor under the age of 45 is ruled as “young” professor in regulations decreed by some universities. In these fields, a clear and objective yardstick is needed and these words are applied and interpreted without any involvement of human perception, which is quite different from the cases of those applied in daily language. As far as daily linguistic activities are concerned, the application and interpretation of such a word like “old” is, as has been argued in preceding paragraphs, closely related to human intuitionistic perception, which totally denies language formulation, not to mention the mathematic formulation.

In terms of human perception, or rather the perceivable difference brought about by the passage of time, only in a discrete way can the difference become perceivable, and in other words, the change that the passage of time brings to people is gradual, and resultantly can only be comprehended by human being with the intervals of certain period of time. If we set, say 45, as the division, it suggests that 45.5 belongs to a different category, while human perception will ignore half a year when such concept as “old” is concerned, for it brings no perceivable difference. Put it in another way, this way of establishing an intension contradicts with the discrete pattern related to human perception, on the basis of which such words are used and understood in daily linguistic activities.

On the other hand, that these words are related to human perception implies that these words are closely related to the subjects, who are so diverse and variable in concrete contexts. In one word, the meaning of such a word heavily depends on concrete contexts. For example, a thirty year-old guy may brag that he is still young after playing a football match without being exhausted, while in the next day he laments that he has to admit getting old as his body aches from head to sole. In this case what is different is not the age but what the subject feels—his perception of his body. A son and a father may both mourn over they becoming old for one of them has a daughter who will get married, while the other, a granddaughter, which shows what is common between the son and the father is not the age, but the similar psychological perception invoked by the girl’s marriage. People put their perception of difference resulting from the lapse of time into this single word, which itself embodies this perception exactly. In this sense, it is not fuzzy but exact because the perception is so clear as to get shaped in linguistic form. These words are fuzzy just because they always fail the attempts to achieve quantitative intensions for them, as an abstract number can’t cover the perception, standing as the intension.

However, anybody will know that a man at the age of eighty is “old”. In other words, this utterance is universally true without any factors associated with context taken into account. This argument neglects one point that people’s knowledge of human beings is also part of context. Everyone knows, of course, how long persons can generally live, how an eighty-year old man looks like, how he reacts to other people and all the relevant aspects on which he differs from a 20-year-old or 40-year-old one, which has been fixed into human mind through countless perceptive activities. We know that a person will, as time passes by, undergo considerable changes or occurrences of differences, which, i.e. the perceivable difference, is the essence of the words like “old” and “young”. And later, we know that time can be scaled by certain human prescribed units in the form of figures, which enables us to scale our life span in the same way. These two aspects form the “general” context of the abovementioned utterance when combined together, which is often neglected. It is not a definition but only a judgment still related to perception and context.

On the basis of previous discussion, it is clear that both “bald” and “old” have direct relation to human perception which is indirect related to quantity as the following graph shows:

Human perception

Sign Concrete quantity

As has been mentioned, the application and interpretation of “bald” and “old” is directly related to human perception, which has indirect relation to concrete quantity symbolized by the figures of stems of hair or years one lives. This relation is subject to contexts on a basis of discrete pattern. So the relation between these words and concrete quantity is quite indirect. When people want to set up a pattern that exact intensions prescribe exact extensions, they avoid the subtle human perception by turning to the concrete quantity for exact intension and extension, and thus link the sign directly with the concrete quantity, totally overlooking the roles of discrete pattern and contexts as well as its relevant factor. Habermas points that social science is related to subjects, not completely subject to quantitative analysis. (Zhao Dunhua, 2001)⁽⁴⁾ But people always attempt to find a clear quantity for these words as exact intension to determine the exact extension, while leaving out human perception, which determines the application and interpretation of language in a different way from quantitative analysis. This contradiction causes the confusion of fuzziness.

As has been mentioned in previous sections, divisionally fuzzy words points to a kind of fuzziness, or vagueness as termed in cognitive linguistics, which is characterized by the uncertainty of division with which one can tell one object from others around or next to it. According to this criterion, the terms representing different parts of body such as “hand”, “leg” and “feet” belong to this group because human body is evidently a continuum without clear dividing line between these parts. Now that there are no definite dividing lines on human body, how can human beings make distinctions among all these parts and bring out correspondent concepts? The answer is that they are the results of human practice and cognition. In Psychology of The Child, Piaget. J, the Helvetic psychologist, points out that in his very early stages, a child is even not able to make a distinction between subject, i.e., himself, and the objects, i.e., the things around him, in other words, he is unconsciously in a self-centered situation though he has no any idea of himself at all. The primitive human beings had undergone similar stage, during which animals and plants can get mixed up with human beings and gods, physical matters with psychological matters, the zoetic with the azoic.(Li Xiaoming,1985)⁽⁵⁾.Together with the progressing of the interaction between subjects and objects, the distinction between the subject and object also advances ,thus results in the knowledge of the subject which naturally involves disparting body into different parts.

An infant begins contact with outside object by his own actions, which may cause the movement or change on the part of outside object. For example, he can perform some actions like waving a rattle-drum to sound it or pushing an object down to ground from table, through which the child initiates cognitive activities of distinguishing himself from the objects around him, and takes to know that “hand” is something belonging to him (surly, he doesn’t know the name then.) by means of the actions of his hand which is in harmony with the movement of his eyes. In Piaget’s opinion, the action scheme is one of most basic means with which human beings effect their cognition. As to children, their initial action schemes are some actions that are born with them, some instinct behavior. In the case of hand, the instinct behavior is the grabbing reflex, that is, the automatic action of grabbing the things put to an infant’s palm. This action involves the entire part below what is later known as wrist, initiating children’s cognition of hand, which can be consolidated in other more complex actions. Taken the knowledge of hand as a basis, children can accomplish their cognition of other parts such as arm, because they will gradually realize that the actions of hand usually involve arm, which is not rigidly connected with hand. Though hand and arms forms a continuous wholeness, the wrist still break the continuum in terms of movement. Hence, in later intensive cognition, hand and arm can be regarded as two parts according to the principle of continuation. This principle also accounts for the reason why joints circumscribe most parts of our body. Of course, at this stage, an infant’s knowledge about his body has not found place in language, being a kind of pre-linguistic cognition.

Obviously, the human cognition of their body initially derives from the interaction between the body and the surrounding objects. In this process, what establishes the preliminary compartmentalization of different parts of human body is nothing but the areas or parts of body that can perform certain movements, accomplish certain actions and suggest a holistic wholeness to human consciousness. What is vital in this case is action, movement and the holistic wholeness rather than drawing a line on human body. But the former is too difficult to formulate clearly and exclusively with language, so people turn to the latter for an intension, which is exact enough but would inevitably lead to the inexplicable fuzziness because it is more of a matter of geometry or physical measuring than a matter of cognition

When human being’s cognition of the parts of their body gets shaped and consolidated, the so-called distinction between intension and extension is not necessary, and to be exact, they are closely intermingled. But once the results of human cognition find their places in linguistic system and the pattern that exact intensions establish exact extensions has been set up, people persistently get engaged in a pursuit of exact intension and extension. As to hand and arm, the easiest way out is nothing but to prescribe a line on body, which is the most direct, accurate, and seemingly “scientific” method, thus the exact intension and extension come out. However, the actually course of compartmentalization of human body is totally different from the “scientific” one. It can cause nothing but confusion of fuzziness when such a line is taken as the explanation of the compartmentalization, which derives from a long and complex cognitive practice. This way of division is accurate and exact enough in terms of action scheme and holistic perception, though too fuzzy in terms of geometry or physical measuring. But they are two different cognitive fields. It is not necessary to impose the standards in one field on the results of cognitive activities in the other.

As far as this case is concerned, the conclusion may be reached that human beings’ strong desire for exact intensions and extensions drives them to employ geometry and physical measuring in setting them, which is in contradiction with the actual human cognition bringing out the division, in short, drawing a line can not explain the division. The

issue of fuzziness comes from the contradiction, from the mixing up of two different cognitive fields and from the imposing of the standards of one field on the other.

Chapter.3. Words Embodying Epistemological Fuzziness

Contrary to the abovementioned words embodying ontological fuzziness are the words such as “beauty”, “justice”, “bravery”, “spirit”, “holiness”, “soul” and “anger”, which are considered to represent the orientation and taste on the part of the subjects, i.e. the human beings. Therefore they are more closely related with subjects than the objects. Generally, these words are regarded to reflect the fuzziness concerning human understanding or notion, that is, the kind of fuzziness existing only in human beings’ mind and thinking.

As to the fuzzy words exemplified in the preceding chapters, people can in any case impose artificial intensions on them in terms of science or mathematics though these intensions contradict with the actual human cognition bringing out these concepts, and therefore can’t reasonably establish extension in everyday use of language. As far as the words discussed in this chapter are concerned, they are so oriented and related to individual subjects that it is even hardly possible to impose on them any contrived intensions as has been done in the abovementioned cases of the words embodying so-called ontological fuzziness.

With regard to these fuzzy words, Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher, believes that the essence of them lies in the absolute ideas. In Parmenides, there is such remarks as following, “There are certain ideas of which all other things partake, and from which they derive their names; that similars, for example, become similar, because they partake of similarity; and great things become great, because they partake of greatness; and that just and beautiful things become just and beautiful, because they partake of justice and beauty.”(Bertrand, Russel, 1945)⁽⁶⁾ But people soon find that it is really an impossible task to give clear definitions of the ideas of such word like beauty, justice and goodness. As a result, when discussing the meaning of such words, people will turn to concrete examples and instances such as “This painting is beautiful.” or “This behaviour is brave or good.” to obtain explanation for these words, which obviously evades the perplexing questions that whether there is an transcendent idea and what it is on earth, and resultantly avoid the embarrassing situation of being unable to establish definitions of the intensions of these words. But another problem arises almost at once that perhaps there are no instances that everyone can universally agree upon as beautiful, good or brave. The reason is that, though this method makes us able to shy away from the issue of an objective and transcendent idea, it sets up a concrete instance as the transcendent embodiment of the idea, looking the intension of these words as the innate properties of these instances. In short, these words are only attached to certain concrete instances, with the most important and active agent—human beings—being totally omitted. It is truly ironic that on one hand these words are considered to be reflecting epistemological fuzziness and on the other hand, the subjects of cognition—human beings—are left out of consideration.

It is out of question that the fuzzy words of this type are abstract ones. It is known now to all that what is abstract comes from what is concrete. Consequently, the concept (or intension) of these words must derive from the direct experience obtained by the most basic human perceptive abilities including gestalt perception, mental imagery and motor movement. Of course just as the so-called ontological fuzziness, which is not totally ontological, the epistemological fuzziness also has something to do with object, and is not totally subjective.

To facilitate the discussion and analysis, this paper makes a rough distinction on this type of fuzzy words between the fuzzy words abstracted from relation and the fuzzy words abstracted from sensorial perception, of which the former refers to such words as “beauty”, “good” and “just” that reflects the relation or relations between object and subject instead of a fixed property of certain object, while the latter refers to those words like “anger”, “holy”, “soul” that derives from and reflects the subjective sensorial perception of objects. The following chapters will attempt some analysis on the fuzziness of these two types of fuzzy words.

Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher, has said:

“Good and ill are one.”

“To God, all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong and some right.”

“The way up and the way down is one and the same.” (Bertrand,Russel,1945)⁽⁷⁾

This argumentation denies, firstly, the theory of transcendent ideas about these linguistic signs on the grounds that beyond human horizon these distinctions, which are only human-centered labels, do not exist in God’s eyes at all; and secondly the perspective that these words indicating some permanently fixed properties of certain objects, for it is just men who hold some things wrong and some right

while “although human bodies in many respects agree, yet in many others they differ; so that what seems good to one seems bad to another; what seems well ordered to one seems confused to another; what is pleasing to one displeases another;”(Spinoza,1955)⁽⁸⁾.Then a problem surfaces. That is, how mankind can apply, understand and exert mastery over a linguistic sign now that the meaning of such a sign can’t be decided by either a transcendent idea or referring to it as fixed attribute of an actual object in universe. Perhaps, a segment of the treatise of Spinoza on this issue as following can help find out the answer:

“After men persuaded themselves, that everything which is created is created for their sake, they were bound to consider as the chief quality in everything that which is most useful to themselves, and to account those things the best of all which have the most beneficial effect on mankind. Further they were bound to form abstract notions for the explanation of the nature of things, such as goodness, badness, order, confusion, warmth, cold, deformity, and so on;”(Spinoza, 1955)⁽⁹⁾. From the observations of little children, Piaget noticed that in the early stages when children can not make the distinction between what is subjective and what is objective, the observable emotion first of all depends on general rhythm,……which can polarize into the desire to seek pleasing stimulus and the desire to evade displeasing stimulus.(Piaget, 1980)⁽¹⁰⁾ Spinoza clearly points out in his argumentation that these linguistic signs suggest certain relation or relationships between objects and subjects, which are fundamentally the relationships concerning usefulness or beneficialness in terms of human beings, as has been confirmed by Piaget’s observation into children. In view of this, one point is clear that what governs these words is neither objective ideas nor concrete objective items themselves, but human-oriented relations between objects and human being, which are basically and initially concerned with the issue whether they can fulfill any concrete purpose or satisfy any practical need from the perspective of human beings, especially of the employer or interpreter of the words. In Chinese Etymologicon, the etymon of “美” is that it originally refers to daintiness or tastiness as in the description of food or drinks, and from then on is applied to depict all nice or good things.(Chinese Etymologicon, 1983)⁽¹¹⁾ Lindqvist, the Swedish sinologist, puts forward a conjecture that the Chinese character of “美” may derive from the image of a big sheep.(Lindqvist,1998)⁽¹²⁾ The grounds are, firstly, this character can be dissected into character of “羊” and that of “大”, and secondly, a big sheep is a considerable fortune for the ancients, that is, it is a good thing. Between these two cases, one thing is common that the linguistic sign indicates a kind of satisfaction of human need. In the first example, it is human sensual needs that get satisfied while in the second it is human utilitarian needs, which can find their roots in sensual needs. This word originally reflects a sense of joviality resulting from a concrete sensual desire being satisfied, which then gradually transcends the area of concrete sensual need to other diverse areas more complex and more abstract as a result of such approaches of human thinking as metaphor, synaesthesia and so on. No matter how diverse the objects are, one thing is persistent, that is, the sense of joviality, a relation between objects and subject, which is characterized by the satisfaction of certain desire on the part of the subject.

The case of “brave” is a little more complex. Though there are expressions like “brave man”, “brave heart” and so on, the word indeed is applied according to the conducts of the agent. At a word, what is brave is not the agent but his behavior that, from the perspective of the man who judges the behaviour being brave or not, is both rather displeasing and beneficial for the agent in order to fulfill a larger goal or accomplish collective advantages. In other words, the word “brave” in fact implies a network of relations among a behavior, its agent and the user or interpreter of the word. In this general pattern, there at least exist three variants, namely, the behavior, the agent and the subject that makes the verdict, which means any change of any of these three agents will likely cause the alteration of this network of relation. In addition, people may employ such approaches of thinking like metaphor, synaesthesia, transferred epithet and so on to extend the application of this relation pattern, which can be illustrated with those examples like “The oaks fight bravely against the gale.”, “The fledgling bravely tried his first flight.” or “He has a brave heart.” and so on.

In the first case of “beautiful”, it is concerned with a relation between object and subject, which is mainly a matter of pleasing or satisfying certain desire, usually a sensual one, and the resultant sense of joviality. This analysis obviously denies both the theory of a transcendent idea of beauty partaken by all beautiful objects and the view attributing beauty as a property of objects and leaving out subjects. The reason for this denying is that the pattern of relation contained in this word obviously includes two variants, i.e. object and subject, which points to that application and interpretation of the word depends heavily on the subjects, which are so diverse and flexible. In short, “beautiful” implies a relation, which is perceived by mankind in a form of joviality, between object and subject with regard to pleasing and satisfying. As far as intension of the word is concerned, the relation or the sense of joviality can impossibly be formulated clearly in exact linguistic signs, to say nothing of being subject to quantitative analysis. As for the extension, because of the diversity of subjects and variability of a subject, it is hard to find any object as universally acknowledged extension of this word. Now that we can establish neither exact intension nor exact extension, fuzziness naturally arises.

In the second case of “brave”, its relation pattern contains three variants, involving not a single relation but a complex network consisting of many relations, of which each one somewhat touches the matter of pleasing and displeasing or satisfying and dissatisfying. At the same time, the approaches of human thinking and cognition like metaphor, synaethesia, transferred epithet, etc, further complicate the pattern. This fact taken into consideration, it is not surprising why people are unable to secure exact intension and extension for this word, attributing it to fuzziness.

These words represent the perception and understanding of human beings about objects from an angle of relation or relations between them, which is mainly focused on the respect of pleasantness, satisfaction, and thus usefulness and beneficialness. This perception and understanding is clear enough, otherwise it can’t take shape in the form of a word. The word, like “beautiful” or “brave”, embodies and invokes this kind of perception and understanding in a most refined, exact and clear way, calling for no further general and fixed explanation with language, which can only effect confusion and complication. In this sense, this inexplicable perception and understanding with regard to relations is the exact intension though it fails human beings’ definition and explanation. Every time, when we employ such words, both intension and extension are clearly not fuzzy because we know the object and the subjects as well as their relevant factors, with a perceivable sense or understanding occurring in or invoking from us. In other words, in concrete context, it is safe to say the extension and intension are not fuzzy anymore if the exactness is considered from the angle of human perception.

In conclusion, the fuzziness of this type of words is also a result of the deep-rooted belief that ontologically transcendent extensions are strictly prescribed by an ontologically transcendent intension, which can and should be labeled as exact in the form of a clear definition with language. According to the old pattern of intension and extension, it is evident that there is no transcendent and exact intension as well as fixed extension. That is why these words are viewed as fuzzy. But if we can forsake this old pattern, probe into these words in actual using and concrete context from the perspective of human cognition and understanding, we may find that the perplexity of fuzziness has unknowingly dissolved.

From preceding discussion, it has been known that there are no transcendently fixed extensions for above-mentioned words because what is beautiful or what is brave is subject to individual subject in concrete context. However, someone may protest by arguing that it is possible to arrive at an agreement upon certain object as beautiful or brave though people are different from one another and variable in themselves, which can be obviously illustrated by the fact that all people will acknowledge that Mona Lisa is a beautiful painting.

This is true. When the individual differences and flexibility being mentioned, another key point should not be neglected. That is, besides differences, individuals also share considerable similarities impelling them to reach rather alike opinions on the issue if an object can be labeled with these words. Li Xiaoming has noticed this phenomenon and pointed out that though different person may have different opinions on certain object, hardly will anyone of modern civilized society deny that the statue of Venus is beautiful. (Li Xiaoming, 1985)⁽¹³⁾

The commonness among people can be traced back to two sources. At first, belonging to the same species, human beings have common physical composition and sensory organs, and therefore get similar concept system when provided with the same perceptive and cognitive abilities as well as the same material world. (Zhao Yanfang, 2001)⁽¹⁴⁾ As quoted from Spinoza in previous paragraphs, the core of all relations between object and subject is with regard to pleasantness or satisfaction related initially to human sensorial desires. Obviously, this kind of desires is decided by the same physiological constitution, which will inevitably effect some unanimity on different individuals concerning the question whether certain objects are pleasing or not. For example, no one will think straw delicious, which is decided by common human digestive system, having nothing to do with personal taste.

Secondly, human beings are also social beings living in society, which is an integer constituted by different individuals, and leads to the occurrence of some criteria, view, etc, in terms of the whole society. These criteria, views, and so on, are then infused into everyone and handed down to every generation by means of culture, education, etc, till they get a permanent position in human thinking mind unconsciously. Together with the knowledge of the sameness of their physical composition, this stuff makes up the “collective unconsciousness”, as termed by Jung, which people in a lot of cases unconsciously take as a general context when they exert understanding or application of abovementioned words. Different persons under similar culture influence hold this rather similar general context. As a result, the verdict or interpretation made in this general context is rather similar. For example, as social animals, human beings are apt to hold higher regard to the benefits of collective instead of that of individual person, hence when the relation between object and subject is considered, subject is no longer individual but the whole group. As a result, for different members of the group, they can form similar opinions on an object because the diverse subjects have replaced by a single collective. In The History of Aesthetics, Bosanquet points out, when commenting the commonness in ancient Greek artistry, that it is no wonder that harmony and orderliness are omnipresent in ancient Greek artistry, for this characteristic of Greek artistry represents, in terms of sensual perception, a most abstract relation deriving from well-ordered and well-sequenced lives or activities. (Bosanquet, 2001)⁽¹⁵⁾

3.2 Fuzzy words representing the abstraction of perception

The preceding section is mainly concerned with the type of the fuzzy words that indicate the abstraction of the relation between object and subject, and the attitude and judgment of the subject towards the object, while this section will deal with another type of fuzzy word which is not abstracted from relation but from the concrete perception, to be exact, the pertinent perceptive images of different objects, and therefore not related to attitude and judgment of a subject.

The view that this type of words derives from concrete perception may find support in Herder’s treatise: the whole structure of oriental language proves that with no exception, all abstract forms in it derive from and contain concrete content of perception, as can be seen from the fact that the etymon of “spirit” is wind or expiration, “holy”, solitude and loneliness, and “anger”, the sound of snorting. (Herder, 1999)⁽¹⁶⁾ Ling Huixiang, the Chinese anthropologist, also notices that some abstract words derive from concrete words with the illustration that in Tshi, a local language in Africa, “kai”, which means memory, drives from “ka”, which means touch. (Ling huixiang, 1991)⁽¹⁷⁾

Among these examples, there is one thing in common, that is, they all come from certain concrete outcome of direct perceptive activities. Voltaire holds that one can easily admit that his sensual organs provide him all ideas and notions, if he makes an objective exploration into his own understanding and thinking faithfully as how it really occurs. (2002)⁽¹⁸⁾

This dawns on the fact that human beings always initiate their understanding of world from their direct experience related to concrete objects and situations in terms of basic approaches of perception like the sense of hearing, sight, touching, and so on, as well as imagery and motor movement. Once these basic and preliminary perceptive experiences get shaped as linguistic signs, human beings begin to extend their application to other contexts by means of metaphor, synecdoche, analogy, and so on. Hence, these linguistic signs are no longer the literal mirroring or represent of the world. In this process, the applications of these signs have been extended to so wide and diverse contexts and the meanings of them have been altered so greatly that it is very hard to discern its etymon. But no matter how many shifts and how much shift these words have gone through, the basic preliminary perceptive experience is there, though much blurred, still looming after so long and complex course of semantic changing. In the application and understanding of these linguistic signs, the blurred but looming perceptive experiences get unconsciously combined with reality to shape, express and invoke human understanding of the world in an extremely twisted way. Chen Jiaying points out that a word can hardly ever break away from its etymon and word formation. Word formation points to the etymon of a word, which is deeply related to human preliminary perception. (Chen Jiaying,2003)⁽¹⁹⁾ These words take roots in human preliminary perception and then are incessantly applied to new contexts to shape new perceptions, which are somewhat related to the earlier ones. No matter how long and complex, this chain of perceptive image projecting is, we can still detect the relation between the present use of these abstract fuzzy words and their etymon, namely, the preliminary concrete perception. As Hume has pointed out, though our mind seems to be unlimitedly free, in fact it is confined to a quite narrow scope; the creativeness of human mind is nothing other than an ability of relating, substituting, widening and narrowing the materials provided to us via our sensory organs in our experience. (2002)⁽²⁰⁾

This type of fuzzy words derive theirs meanings from intuitionistic perceptions, which denies exact definition, and from then on, shape other perceptions related to this one. They are signs indicating human perceptions and the relativity among human perceptions, which are the intensions and extension at the same time, and in other words, it is impossible to make such a differentiation concerning these words. As a result, they are fuzzy. But every time when they occur, they express or bring out clear perception and understanding, otherwise how can we use these words or understand them. In this sense, they are clear and exact. Put it in another, such words are absolutely not a matter of being exact or fuzzy in common sense.

Derrida holds that the entire history of Western metaphysics from Plato to the present is founded upon the search of a transcendental signified, which once found, would provide ultimate meaning, and a reassuring end to the reference from sign to sign. In other words, the transcendental signified provides the center of meaning. Derrida names this proclivity for desiring a center as logocentrism, namely, the belief that there is an ultimate reality or center of truth that can serve as the basis for all our thoughts and actions. On this foundation, a system of binary opposition occurs as the ground on which human thinking operates. People also create a number of binary oppositions with regard to words, among which the most well-known one is intension and extension. The former is a transcendental center that distinguishes one word from others and builds the latter. As words consist of intension and extension, the fuzziness of a word must lie in either the intension or the extension or both of the word concerned. That is to say, if, for a word, we can’t obtain an exact intension or establish clear borderline for the scope of the extension, the word will be labeled as fuzzy.

But the appearance of language is much earlier than the appearance of philosophy, not to mention the binary of intension and extension. Language get shaped, applied and interpreted by people without any knowledge of such a binary for thousands of years. Meantime, people only resort to their intuitionistic perception. Language embodies and invokes human understanding and perception of the world. Words are the links forming a language and therefore very tiny particles and segments of human perception and understanding, which is the essence of words. What matters is neither intension nor extension but perception and understanding, which, as being abovementioned, relies on the foundation of holistic perception, imagery and motor movement. For example, if one says “My uncle is bald.”, he needn’t refer to any exact intension but the perception and understanding deriving from the image of his uncle’s head, while on the part of the listener who maybe doesn’t know the uncle at all, and what the “bold” evokes in him is also not an exact intension but the perception and understanding related to the this word. How can we define its intension as an exact number, and then label it as a fuzzy word by pointing to the uncertainty of its extension judged by this intension? In fact, the perception and understanding is the intension, and the extension as well.

As to exactness, it is always the ideal cherished by human beings. In recent centuries, people have committed this task of achieving exactness to science, which is generally considered to be a kingdom of exactness. We can interpret the exactness in terms of science from two perspectives. The first type of exactness is the one concerning category. In science, the categorization is carried out among what people have known, and in other words, it covers everything concerned in human eyes and endows everything we have known membership of certain category in the established concept system. The reason is that human beings set up this system just for the purpose of holding everything they know, and therefore allow no ambiguity in terms of category with regard to an object. As a result, there is no categorieal fuzziness, for the conditions (or intension) and the members (extension) are clear and definite. The second is the type of exactness suggested by the using of figures or numbers, which perhaps is the most exact form human beings can obtain.

These two types of exactness represent the concept of exactness in the mind of mankind, which reflects that, consciously or unconsciously, people put these standards and thinking approaches associated with science and mathematics at an ultimate place in their mind. As a result, human beings usually employ such concept of exactness in daily life to explain words and its meaning, and naturally label a word as fuzzy if these approaches and standards fail to explain it. The structure of scientific category makes people assume that, with regard to daily language, any object can be viewed as an extension of one word or another in binary oppositions, but never both or none of them, which is a transcendental arrangement. This assumption leads to another assumption that there must be a strict circumscription to decide if the object is the extension or not, as what occurs in scientific categorieal system, which means there must be a clear and exact intension to establish the extensions. But the scientific category is a result of induction. The intensions of scientific categories are by nature the generalization of the characteristics of classified objects. These characteristics are perceivable and shaped in form of linguistic signs, which can hardly be further defined. Obviously, a name of scientific category is actually nothing but a substitute for a series of other linguistic signs indicating these characteristics. In this sense, it has exact definition in linguistic form. But if we ulteriorly question about the definitions of the words composing it, it will turn out fuzzy again. Different from these scientific terms, the words used in daily linguistic activities, similar to those words forming a scientific concept, are not a result of induction and generalization, but a result of distillation and embodiment of our direct perception and understanding which are themselves the definition of those words, the intension and extension of those words, denying any prescription in language. According to the standard in the field of science, it is and will ever be fuzzy. But in terms of human cognition, it is exact. As to the issue of extension, as we have known, what matters is not the objects themselves but if they could bring about certain perception or understanding on the part of subjects, as a result it is too complicated to make sure the scope of extensions of some words. Till now we are not sure about the working mechanism of human brain, but the diversity and flexibility of subjects, the discrete pattern of human perception, and the thinking approaches like metaphor, synaesthesia, etc, all build up the uncertainty with regard to the objects which can bring about the perception. This proves that we don’t need a fixed extension system, for what is important for these words is not the objects but the perception and understanding they bring to us which can only be sensed and comprehended in contexts. The “uncertainty” is a verdict made according to a standard of scientific categorization, which fixes an object into certain class fixedly and exclusively.

Sometimes, even if people can find a definition for a word in linguistic form, they will still find that definition is not exact enough because others may still question about the definitions, or intensions of the words composing the former, which seems to be a circle without end. To break the puzzling circle, the easiest way is to turn to figures of number for help, for no one can question about a quantitative prescription which is so objective and accurate. When discussing the fuzziness of such words like “bald”, “old”, “cold” etc, people just set a number, then on this basis point out the uncertainty of their intension and extension. However, this approach is not the one in which people apply and interpret these words in daily life and therefore can’t account for using and understanding of them. The label of fuzziness of exactness from a quantitative perspective is actually meaningless for these words in terms of everyday use. It just indicates a contradiction.

As Gaddamer has pointed out, the language employed in one field of study displays a world view, i.e., the understanding of world from the angle of this field, but the world view of whatever field can’t claim itself to be a faithful and exact reflection of the world, thus no world view, especially that of natural science, can be put at an ultimate position, overtopping all the others. In other words, the language employed in this field can’t replace daily language. (Zhao Dunhua, 2001)⁽²¹⁾ This argumentation reveals that the confusion of standards as to exactness and fuzziness of different cognitive fields is an important reason for fuzziness of words.

Even in the field of natural science, exactness is forever dependent on human being. Put it in another way, “exact” or exactness” has no transcendent intension or extension. As far as scientific categorization is concerned, it is based on human beings’ knowledge and may become fuzzy as people extend their horizon. As to the divisional fuzziness, in micro world, no one can tell where is the borderline between a bucket and the water it holds. In measuring, no one knows how many decimal digits the measurement should contain so as to be called exact. At a word, if not bound to actual application, concrete context and human beings, the linguistic signs like “exact” or “fuzzy” are significantless when stand alone.

Chen Jiaying mentions that meaning is always closely related to intuitionistic perception.(Ch Jiaying,2003)⁽²²⁾ Cheng Qilong holds that the concept is not an entity but certain neurological network that links different perceptive information. For example, “milk” is actually a network linking vision information, smell information, taste information, etc. (Cheng Qilong, 2001)⁽²³⁾. In one word, they both argue that words, as the basic units of language, are deeply connected to human beings, to their direct perception. Words can never break away from human beings as well as their application and interpretation, because the words take shape from human perception, express human perception and invoke human perception. But from the theory of idea produced by Plato to the structuralism and analytical philosophy emerging in 20th century, the factor of “men” was totally neglected in the research of semantics while language itself was regarded as an ontological object independent of human beings. Frege, the founder of analytical philosophy, advanced a principle that there have to be a distinct and strict differentiation between what is psychological and what is logical, what is subjective and what is objective. This tendency is not changed till the appearance of Wittgenstein ’s thesis, which claims that meaning of language lies in its application, and Austin’s speech act theory, which brings the factor of human beings into consideration. Thus many problems, which failed the traditional approaches to language, become less tough. Looking back on the issue of fuzzy words, what is neglected is just subjects—the human beings. We impose a rigid pattern of exact intension determining exact extension on the interpretation of words, borrow standards of exactness from natural science for they seem so objective and transcendent, only to get trapped in the perplex of fuzziness.

In conclusion, the old way of thinking, which is mainly concerned with the binary opposition of exactness and fuzziness with the standards borrowed from the field of natural science and the binary opposition of intension and extension as a objective pattern to interpret words, contradicts with the actual approaches and course of human perception, cognition, and understanding, which gives rise to language origination, development, application and interpretation. People are so used to ask “ What is this”, such as “What is beauty?”, “What is baldness?”, which will naturally drive men to search for an ultimate answer, a definition, an intension for the word. This collision is the source of fuzziness of words.

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