Message from Ms. Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, on the Occasion of World Logic Day
教科文组织总干事奥德蕾·阿祖莱世界逻辑日致辞
14 January 2022
2022年1月14日
In his novel Nouvelles nourritures, André Gide said that "the fear of stumbling makes the mind hold tightly onto the handrail of logic". This elegant metaphorical statement sums up logic's crucial role in the development of human thought.
“因为担心失衡跌倒,我们的思想紧紧抓住逻辑这个扶手。”这一精辟的比喻摘自安德烈·纪德的小说《新粮》,它形象地概括了逻辑对于人类思想发展的重要作用。
Logic is the essence of logos, a Greek term which means, variously, "speech", "language" and "reasoning". It is thus, to use Kant's definition, a science which meticulously sets out and rigorously demonstrates the formal rules of all thought.
逻辑是“逻各斯”(logos)的精髓,这个希腊词同时具有“话语”“语言”和“推理”的意思。因此借用康德的定义,逻辑学是“一门详细阐释和严格证明所有思想的形式规则的科学”。
We can see it in the treatises of Aristotle, Euclid, Leibniz and Spinoza; it is evident in the founding texts of Mohist philosophy in China and of the Nyaya school in India: the study of logic has fascinated countless philosophers and mathematicians throughout the history of thought.
不论是从亚里士多德或欧几里得、莱布尼茨或斯宾诺莎的著述中,还是从中国墨家学派或印度正理学派的典籍中,我们都能看到,逻辑研究在思想史上一直吸引着数不胜数的哲学家和数学家。
It is because of its innumerable practical applications – perhaps especially because of them – that logic has been studied so extensively. To be sure, logic has been a key element in the development of the sciences, engineering, cognitive psychology, linguistics and communication. A wellspring of innovation, logic has always been a veritable catalyst for change.
逻辑之所以得到如此广泛的研究,也得益于并且可能主要得益于它具有诸多实际应用功能。逻辑在科学、工程学、认知心理学、语言学、传播学的发展中发挥了重要作用。逻辑作为创新的源泉,也切实推动了思想变革。
At the dawn of this new decade – indeed, now more than ever – the discipline of logic is utterly vital to our societies and economies. Computer science and digital technology, which provide the structure for today's ways of life, are rooted in logical and algorithmic reasoning.
在这个新的十年开始之际,对我们的社会和经济而言,逻辑学比以往任何时候都更为不可或缺。左右着我们今天生活方式的计算机科学和数字技术,就是基于逻辑和算法推理的技术。
Artificial intelligence (AI), the unprecedented progress of which constitutes a technological and even anthropological revolution, is itself founded on logical reasoning. Through the drafting of the first global standard-setting instrument concerning the ethics of AI, UNESCO has undertaken to establish an ethical framework for this innovative product of logic.
人工智能前所未有的进步,构成了一场技术革命乃至人类学革命,而人工智能本身就建立在逻辑推理基础之上。通过拟定世界上第一部关于人工智能伦理的准则性文书,教科文组织已经着手为这一逻辑学创新制定一个伦理框架。
Yet despite being surrounded by logic, we remain quite unaware of its ubiquity.
逻辑在我们的生活中无处不在,但我们却很少意识到这一点。
Thus, to draw attention to the importance of logic in the development of knowledge, UNESCO has proclaimed 14 January World Logic Day. This date was chosen in honour of two great logicians of the twentieth century: Kurt G?del and Alfred Tarski. G?del, who died on 14 January 1978, established the incompleteness theorem, which transformed the study of logic in the twentieth century. Tarski, who was born on 14 January 1901, developed theories which interacted with those of G?del.
因此,为了让人们充分认识到这一学科对于知识发展的重要意义,教科文组织宣布1月14日为“世界逻辑日”。之所以特地选择1月14日,是为了纪念二十世纪的两位逻辑学巨匠:去世于1978年1月14日的库尔特·哥德尔(Kurt G?del),其不完全性定理改变了二十世纪逻辑研究的面貌;出生于1901年1月14日的阿尔弗雷德·塔斯基(Alfred Tarski),其理论与哥德尔的理论形成了对话。
Marking this day affords us an opportunity to reinforce our commitment to knowledge, reason and ethics.
值此世界逻辑日,让我们加强对知识、理性和伦理的承诺。