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PROTOTYPICAL CATEGORIZATION - LINGUOCOGNITIVE FORM OF FLEXIBLE RATIONALITY
Dr. Svetlana Masalova, Institute of Professional Development of Specialists in Education, Rostov on Don, Russia, Email: [email protected]
Received: January, 19. 2014. Accepted: February, 02.2014.
Review Article UDK 001:165.172 81'372:165.172
Abstract. The article discusses the prototypical categorization as linguocognitive form of the flexible rationality. Flexible rationality reveals the correlation of the rational and irrational in cognition. The embodiment form of the flexible linguistic consciousness is a concept as a category protoform. The process of formation of the conception from the concept is a prototypical categorization. Serving as the cognitive "tool", prototypical categorization as a linguistic structure demonstrates the perception integrity and meaning system of the cognizing subject as the ontic holistic bearer of the flexible rationality in unity of the anthropological and socio-cultural specifics.
Keywords: Rationality, Cognizing subject, Flexible rationality, Concept, Category, Protoform, Prototypical categorization.
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of the article is the analysis of the prototypical categorization as one of the linguocognitive forms of the flexible rationality.
In national and foreign philosophical literature, the analysis of the rationality and its forms, the role of rational and irrational (primarily - intuition) in the development of the scientific knowledge was conducted by many philosophers, but mostly in isolation from each other. Only in the last decade, the interest in the issue of the interrelation of the rational and irrational has intensified.
Aspect under which the rationality is analyzed in our paper, - a flexible rationality, introduced by us as a developing category (Maca^OBa, C. H. 2006), which is absent in the modern epistemology, but demanded in the scientific cognition, which is an element of novelty.
There are virtually no studies addressing
Corresponding Author Svetlana Masalova, Institute of Professional Development of Specialists in Education Russia, Rostov on Don, Email: [email protected]
the issue of the flexible rationality.
Study object - flexible rationality as the ability of the subject to the adequate and effective constructive scientific cognition.
Study subject - prototypical categorization as linguocognitive form of the flexible rationality.
1. FLEXIBLE RATIONALITY IN POSTNONCLASSICAL SCIENCE
Flexible rationality issue has not been studied, but it is worthy of serious analysis. We believe that the flexible rationality is precisely transitional form (stage) of the scientific rationality that characterizes the rational and irrational aspects of the scientific search. Flexible rationality - logical cognition in combination with the pre-logical and anthropological assumptions of the cognizing subject. It is typical for the post nonclassical rationality type and peculiar to the global evolutionism.
The subject of the cognitive activity is considered not as an abstraction, but a holistic cognizing person, as a binary epistemo-logical-ontic subject - bearer of rationality, possessing, according to its ontic nature, also irrational and natural gift (intuition). In the scientific search-"wandering" of the subject through the maze of the consciousness, such binarity is manifested, which we defined as "flexible rationality". Subject intuitively uses the intuition as a tool for the disclosure of this rationality. In general, there was a shift from the predominance of the "power" of the epistemological subject to the "power" of the empirical subject, interacting in its activity with the environment through dialogue.
Indicator "flexibility" describes the characteristics of the subject ontology, its specific anthropological and psychological characteristics.
In psychological terms it is - flexibility
of thinking, i.e. the quality of the productive thinking, manifested in the alteration of existing ways of problem solving, in changing the way that ceases to be effective for the best possible.
Cognizing subject exhibits the following skills:
- Refusal from the stereotypical mode of action,
- Identification of new properties and relations of the objects;
- Reframing;
- Search for the opportunities for the previous experience transformation;
- Active transformation of one's knowledge and activity in the new conditions.
In this case the subject alters oneself, becomes flexible.
As flexible rationality aspects in its ontology, one can consider sensitivity, vigilance, shrewdness, depth, historism of thinking, its dialectic, and wisdom. Underlying all of these roles of flexibility of thinking is the knowledge and high sensitivity, resonant tune to the object. Antipodes of flexibility of thinking are dogmatism, rigor, and vacancy of thought.
Philosophical meaning of the flexible rationality is wider than psychological, as it considers the epistemological, methodological, cultural aspects - characteristics of the logical cognition, role of prior knowledge, methodology of scientific cognition, cultural and historical conditions of the scientific creativity of the cognizing subject. Flexibility characterizes the cognizing subject in its interaction with the surrounding socio-cultural environment in the scientific work in which there is a "sharpening" of the best practices and forms of cognition and activity, improvement, transformation and modernization of problem solving methodology, gradual unfolding of the issue in the scientific search.
2. LANGUAGE - LINGUOCOGNI-TIVE FORM OF EXPRESSION OF THINKING
Axiom is the thesis of the unity of language and consciousness. Language shapes the thought and is its generating mechanism.
Language and consciousness, as a unity of form and content, capture not only the unity of the material world, but also its diversity, not only the general laws of cognitive (and every possible) activity of the people, but also its
multidimensionality, multi-variability under different historical conditions. Conditions change, consciousness and language change.
Consciousness as its ontological counterpart - thinking, "appears in two forms:
1) as the image of certain objects, their description or reflection, i.e. as a captured knowledge, and
2) as a process or activity by which this image is obtained, formed, in other words, thinking appears, first, as knowledge, and secondly, as cognition" (^egpoB^KHH, 1957).
Both forms serve as constructs of the consciousness itself and language adequate for it. Different "projections", "copies" of human reality can be performed using different conceptual and linguistic resources. One of these "projections" is enshrined in each language, which is supplemented, corrected during the process of development of society (and therefore language).
Scientific rationality, changing from classical through nonclassical to postnonclas-sical, changed its language, its form.
Classical rationality paradigm operated such forms as: perception, representation, concept, hypothesis (as a form of "pure" rational cognition), and theory. But cognition is not confined to these traditional forms.
New paradigm of rationality is such: pure forms of rationality do not exist in nature, there are mixed forms - on the border of sensory-experienced and rational cognition. Studies in this area are widely conducted both abroad and in Russia. New forms are studied and represented. It was not the flexible rationality, but the cognitive science, cognitology that came to the conclusion that there are specific forms characterizing the consciousness of the cognizing subject.
Language can be verbal and nonverbal. Results of cognition, knowledge about the cognition are recorded in various forms, are currently being studied by the computer science, logic, cognitive psychology, cognitive linguistics, semantics framing, philosophy of science, as a whole - by the number of the cognitive sciences. These forms define the strategy of the scientific cognition.
Language as a linguocognitive form of expression of thinking reveals the correlation of the individual and general, subject and world of culture. To the linguocognitive forms of the flexible rationality we attribute the prototypical categorization; metaphor, discussed in scientific discourse; comparison; metonymy, etc.
Let us consider the characteristics of the
prototypical categorization.
3. PROTOTYPICAL CATEGORIZATION
In the most general terms, the study of the flexible rationality language can be defined as the study of the categories that can be expressed in language. The main efforts of linguists, cognitive linguists and philosophers are focused on the identification of the common patterns of the process of formation, generation and identification of such categories, their definition and formation of the rules, establishing the belonging of language units to the different categories.
Grammatical categories enable the development of the basic categories of thought. Sentence structure can be regarded as the interaction of the conceptual categories. Growth of productivity in language is related to the evolution of consciousness, when the idea of the process, i.e. dynamics becomes leading (Степанов, Ю. С. 1999).
Categorization - a certain way of organizing the human experience. In linguistics, the category - characteristic (parameter) underlying the partition of a homogeneous whole of language objects for a limited number of non-overlapping sets whose members are characterized by the same meaning of this characteristic.
Category - grammatical form, having constant and variable characteristics. Constant "rigidly" attached characteristic of the grammatical form - is strong expressive means of language. Variable characteristic, yielding in this respect to the constant one, has another advantage: it is expressed only when it is necessary, when it is required by the act of communication. The necessity of the constant characteristic, by giving it strength, however, leads to redundancy. Optionality of the variable characteristic, by weakening its expression, turns out to be the cause for a greater flexibility.
We consider concept as an embodiment form of the flexible linguistic consciousness. Concept - it's a fact of culture, "bunch" of representations, concepts, knowledge, associations and feelings that accompany the word (Степанов, Ю. С. 1999). By volume it is amorphous, vague. But it is genetic.
Concept - a form of flexible rationality, one of the forms of cognition. Concept - it is
not the main category of the flexible rationality, it is only its embryonic form, developed on the stage of prehistory of science. The evolution of the concept leads to the emergence of a conception in which the flexible rationality is a developing category.
Concept as an embodiment form of the flexible linguistic consciousness is the category protoform, and the process of formation of the conception from the concept - prototypical categorization. Thus, the concept serves as a backbone element of the flexible rationality construction.
We can identify in the concept as the prototypical form of the flexible rationality, those units that involve it in the activity of the subject - it is the meaning, sense, matching the sphere of concepts of the culture that the subject cognizes. Subject in the concept as a "bridge" connects the aspects and results of its own individual cognition with the public one in the culture through the communication process. It expresses "keywords" and gives an estimate of views on certain phenomena of different national linguocultural communities, promotes the mutual understanding, removing (at least partially) the inherent difficulties in the process of the intercultural communication. Thus it carries out not only the permanent access to the individual world picture, but its continuum. Perceived words or text are understood as conditional interval of the multidimensional perceptual-cognitive-affective continuum that is reflected, explored and used by the cognizing subject.
Results of the study of the genesis and functioning of the linguistic consciousness confirmed the validity of the nomination and further study by the cognitive sciences, especially cognitive linguistics, of the anthropo-centric factor, emphasizing the importance of the role of the speaking subject in the sense generation processes. Interaction of the multiple forms of reality reflection in person and operation of them at different levels of awareness provide functionally sufficient support for the understanding of solutions for not clearly defined objectives while operating fuzzy sets, which usually are beyond the linguistic units used by people.
Later on in the scientific cognition there is a "hardening" of the concept rationalization and "crystallization" of it in the category - form of not flexible but "rigid" rationality, understanding the ways of person's relationship to the world.
The philosophical categories among the scientific categories best reflect the universal
characteristics, laws of the objective world, thinking, and cognition. But in the process of their formation, a philosophical concept as a prototype, protoform of the philosophical category, served as a regulator and form of the flexible rationality. Basic concepts - are primary linguocognitive forms of the individual vision of the world, reflecting the characteristics of the "cognitive matrix" of each philosopher as the cognizing subject. Therefrom afterwards with the evolution of attitudes of the scientist, the categories, principles, theories were born, which overlapped with this individual cognitive imprint, and this led to diversity, exclusivity and individuality of the uniquely designed philosophical systems, concepts, doctrines.
4. CONCLUSIONS
1. Flexible rationality has "incarnation" - the flexibility of rationality as knowledge, flexibility of rationality as activity, flexibility of methodology of the activity itself. Flexible rationality - is the deployment of the mental essence of the actively cognizing subject, his self-consciousness during the activity.
2. Language as a linguocognitive form of expression of thinking captures the variety of the world and diversity of the human activity. Conditions change, consciousness and language change.
3. Consciousness - knowledge about the world and activity to achieve this knowledge. Both of these forms of consciousness serve as constructs of the consciousness itself and language adequate for it.
4. Scientific rationality changes its language and form. The new paradigm of the postnonclassical rationality recognizes not "pure" but mixed forms of rationality - on the border of the sensory-experienced and rational cognition.
5. The study of the flexible rationality language is the study of the categories, expressed in the language. Evolution of the grammatical categories development reveals the evolution of the logical structures of intelligence.
6. We attribute the prototypical categorization, scientific discourse metaphor, metonymy, comparison to the linguocognitive forms of the flexible rationality.
7. Categorization - a certain way of organizing the human experience in language, characteristic of the grammatical form as a strong expressive means of language. Concept
- adequate linguocognitive form of the flexible rationality, verbal facility, intermediate from the sensory to the logical cognition. Concept as an embodiment form of the flexible linguistic consciousness is a category protoform, and the process of formation of the conception from the concept - prototypical categorization. As a result of the "hardening" of the concept rationalization, its "crystallization" and transformation into the category occurs.
Conflict of interests
Authors declare no conflict of interest.
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