"Ask the doctor" and "Carry the coffin": Lift the coffin

There is such a story in Afanti's story: Afanti mentioned that he was working as a servant in the palace, and the emperor told him: "Afanti, when I order you to do something in the future, it will be related to this matter. You have to find a way to do things well, and you have to develop this habit!" One day, the emperor fell ill and sent Afanti to ask for a doctor. After Afanti invited the doctor, he went to the temple to read the scriptures on his way back! The master came forward, took the copper pot for washing the body with him, asked four people to carry the coffin (used for placing the body), and came back with shouts. When the emperor saw it, he immediately became furious, pointed at the scribe and the coffin and shouted: Afanti, I sent you to ask for a doctor, why did you bring all this!

"Your Majesty!" Afanti said slowly: "You have personally given me instructions. When you order me to do something, you must also find a way to do the things related to it. According to the rules This order, I thought, if the emperor's illness cannot be cured and he dies, wouldn't he have to ask for a scribe and a burial bed? So I brought these."

This is a joke. . The astute Afanti took advantage of the ambiguity of the emperor's order and gave the emperor a hard time. Because "things related to this matter" is an unclear concept, and many things in the world are related. Afanti took advantage of this and connected "sickness" with "death", which made the emperor suffer the disadvantage of being dumb.

Clarity of concepts is the minimum requirement for thinking. When concepts are confused, thoughts will be confused and debates will become entangled, which is a waste of time. Learning some logical knowledge on how to clarify concepts can improve our thinking ability and is also helpful in debunking various sophistry.

The relationship between concepts and words

To clarify the concepts, it is necessary to clarify the relationship between concepts and words.

Concepts are the basic form of thinking, and words are the basic units of language. Concepts exist in people's minds and cannot be seen or touched. Only by expressing them with the help of words can others understand them.

However, there are differences between concepts and words, which are mainly reflected in:

First, not all words express concepts. Content words that reflect certain things and have real meaning express concepts, while function words that do not reflect certain things and have no real meaning generally do not express concepts. Specifically, nouns, verbs, adjectives, numerals, quantifiers, and pronouns express concepts, while adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, particles, and interjections generally do not express concepts.

Second, the same concept can be expressed in different words. In grammar, this is called synonyms or the phenomenon of multiple words with one meaning, and in logic, it is called different words expressing the same concept. For example, cement is also called cement, cement, and clay; potatoes are also called potato, potato, yam egg, etc. In literary works, authors often use this phenomenon of using different words to express the same concept to achieve vivid, vivid and humorous effects.

It is said that when Emperor Qianlong went to the south of the Yangtze River, he met a 141-year-old man celebrating his birthday. Qianlong sent a pair of couplets to the old birthday girl. The first couplet is: "The sixty-year-old blooms again plus thirty-seven years", and the second couplet is: "Ancient and rare double celebrations add one more spring and autumn." A sixty-year-old is sixty years old. Two sixties plus three, seven and twenty-one years old are equal to one hundred and forty-one years old; an ancient seventy is seventy years old. Two ancient seventies plus one year old are also one hundred and forty-one years old. This couplet is quite cleverly written.

Third, the same word can also express different concepts. In grammar, this is called polysemy or polysemy. In logic, it is called the same word expressing different concepts.

There is such a short story in "Lu's Spring and Autumn Period·Cha Zhuan": In the Song Dynasty, the Ding family had no well but a drain for irrigation, and they often lived alone outside. When his family went through a well, he told people: "I went through the well and found someone." Someone who heard about it said: "Ding's went through the well and found someone." The people of the country learned about it and heard about it to Song Jun, who asked people to ask about it. To Ding, Ding said to him: "To get an envoy, you have to get a person in the well."

This story is intended to warn people not to believe in rumors and to investigate and research, but it also involves multiple meanings of the word. question. If someone Ding did not say "I can get someone to go through the well", but said "I can get someone to go through the well", wouldn't unnecessary misunderstandings be avoided? Since logically the same words can express different concepts, when we choose words, we should try to avoid using words that are prone to ambiguity. At the same time, when we listen to other people's speeches and read other people's articles, we should also be careful to avoid "reading the text for meaning". , and it is necessary to understand what concept a word reflects based on a certain language environment and context.

Connotation and denotation of concepts

Every concept has connotation and denotation. The so-called clear concept means to clarify what the connotation of the concept is and what the extension of the concept includes.

What is the connotation of the concept? It is the essential attribute of objective things reflected by the concept; what is the extension of the concept? It is the type of things that the concept reflects. The connotation of a concept reflects things from a qualitative aspect, and it answers the question "What are the essential attributes of this thing?"; the extension of a concept reflects objective things from a quantitative aspect, and it answers the question: The question of "what objects does this thing include?" For example: the connotation of the concept of "country" is "a tool for the ruling class to suppress the ruled class", and China, the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan... in short, all countries in the world are included in the extension of the concept of "country".

How to clarify the connotation of a concept? To clarify the connotation of a concept is to give the concept a definition that reflects its essential attributes. For example, "commodity", its essential attribute is "the product of labor used for exchange". Therefore, the connotation of the concept of "commodity" can be expressed by the definition of "commodities are products of labor used for exchange."

The definition must reflect the essential attributes of the concept, otherwise conceptual confusion will occur, or even make a joke. For example, the essential characteristic of "human" is "an animal that can create and use tools." Therefore, the definition of "human" should be "human is an animal that can create and use tools." The ancient Greek idealist philosopher Plato gave the following definition of "human": "A human is an animal that walks upright on two legs without feathers." Someone made a joke, holding a chicken with its feathers plucked, and said: "This is Plato's 'man'". Plato's definition became a laughing stock because it failed to capture the essence of the concept.

How to define a concept? First, we need to place the concept in a larger concept than it, and then find out the essential difference between it and its neighboring concepts. For example, to define "college student", we must first put "college student" in the extension of "student", and then find out the essential difference between "college student" and "middle and primary school students", that is, "in colleges and universities" Learn” this. Therefore, we can define "college students" as follows: "College students are students studying in institutions of higher learning."

When defining, you must also abide by the following rules:

First, the extension of the defining concept must be equal to the extension of the defined concept. If the extension of the defining concept is greater than the extension of the defined concept, it is called an over-broad definition, and vice versa, it is called an over-narrow definition. A definition that is too broad or too narrow is a logical error. The "Gang of Four" once defined "university" as "university, university, everyone comes to study." This definition is logically absurd and nonsense. If "university" means "everyone comes to study," then "middle school" and "primary school" also mean "everyone comes to study," and the defining concept "everyone comes to study" is much broader than the defined concept "university."

Second, the defining concept cannot directly or indirectly include the defined concept. Violation of this rule is called circular definition or tautology. For example: "The circumference is a closed curve composed of arcs" is a circular definition, because the "arc" itself must be explained by "circumference", and "the arc is a part of the circumference". Originally, the defined concept had to be explained by the defining concept, but now the defining concept has to be clarified by the defined concept. In this way, both concepts are unclear.