漢字構造の代數的記述について --人文學における形式的思考の一側面--

Abstract

Information technologies inherently present formal systems about objects in various fields of researches. The notion of formal system is an important subject underlying knowledge information technologies. In the present day, they are the essential requisites for researching humanities. This paper discusses relation between formal systems and objects in humanities. The first purpose of this paper is to present an algebraic representation for structure of Chinese characters. In order to present it, we use equational logic and term rewriting as formal systems. An equational calculus presents unification rules for Chinese characters, and a term rewriting system produces an abstract model of their verification. The second purpose of this paper is to discuss its representation as formal content in humanities. G. -G. Granger (1920-2016) presented the notion of formal content in order to characterize the movement of understanding of phenomena in the empirical science. He insisted that the duality of the operational and the objective takes on its most obvious significance, for the object is nothing more than the invariant of a system of operations. So contents from a formal system constitute worlds of possible objects. Our treatment of structure of Chinese characters presents an aspect of formal content in humanities.