On nonobjects of syntactic study

Dan Everett Dan.Everett at MAN.AC.UK
Wed Jul 11 17:04:26 UTC 2001


Tom,

It is indeed the fact that we must put up with the purities. But we ought to
avoid basing our theory on a philosophy built around the assumption that
someday, somehow, we can overcome them. Idealization, a common heuristic
device in most sciences, is fine in methodology. But it is seriously
misguided in ontology. This is the force of the discussions of Pragmatism
and why James offers a better story about how to think about the world than
Descartes (or Popper, Carnap, Ayer, Russell, etc.)

So we must put up with them at some level. But we must not put up with them
in the quest for TRUTH, which is itself a rather unuseful construct in
inquiry.

Dan


----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Givon" <tgivon at oregon.uoregon.edu>
To: "Dan Everett" <Dan.Everett at man.ac.uk>
Cc: <FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2001 10:35 PM
Subject: Re: On nonobjects of syntactic study


>
> "Perfect biological system" uncontaminated by any other lever, such as
> biology, cognition, neurology, culture, communication? Sounds like a
> perfect dream for a philosopher. But alas, science has always been
> heavily contaminated by 'other levels' (even physics is, once you off
> the Newtonian level in either a macro or micro direction...). So we'll
> just have to put up with the impurities. TG
> ===========================
>
> Dan Everett wrote:
> >
> > I think that is right. If the model depends on the purity of the data  -
> > free from contamination by other levels or other domains, e.g. Universal
> > Grammar as a 'perfect biological system', then it is going to be subject
to
> > the complaints of pragmatism that it is using the wrong metaphors to
tell
> > its story by. Looking 'deeper and deeper' rather than 'wider and
thicker',
> > to paraphrase Rorty a bit.
> >
> > Dan
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Marc Girod" <girod at STYBBA.NTC.NOKIA.COM>
> > To: <FUNKNET at listserv.rice.edu>
> > Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2001 1:03 AM
> > Subject: Re: On nonobjects of syntactic study
> >
> > > >>>>> "Dan" == Dan Everett <Dan.Everett at MAN.AC.UK> writes:
> > >
> > > Dan> The basic thesis is that in a Chomskyan/Cartesian linguistics
> > > Dan> there is in principle no object of study.
> > >
> > > Do you mean by "Chomskyan/Cartesian linguistics" linguistics built
> > > upon a layered model of language? With one-way dependencies from upper
> > > layers to lower ones?
> > >
> > > I find this kind of a model in Carnap's "Introduction to Semantics",
> > > which I am currently trying to read, following a quote from Karl
> > > Popper.
> > >
> > > Anyway, I believe then (with Dan Parvaz, as I understand), that the
> > > problem is then not specific to linguistics, but bound to inherent
> > > limitations of layered models.
> > >
> > > I.e. if one wants to exclude from the lower layers (syntax, and
> > > semantics meta-language) everything which depends on the upper ones
> > > (semantics, pragmatics), there isn't anything left.
> > >
> > > [Popper also mentioned an other layered model for the functions of
> > > language: expressive/ stimulative/ descriptive/ argumentative -- but
> > > this is in an orthogonal dimension]
> > >
> > > --
> > > Marc Girod        P.O. Box 310        Voice:  +358-71 80 25581
> > > Nokia IM          00045 NOKIA Group   Mobile: +358-50 38 78415
> > > UPS1 2/4          Finland             Fax:    +358-71 80 22227



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