Edge and universalism vs. particularism

Tue Mar 11 13:17:32 UTC 2014

My concern for doing things that other people consider scientific is why I spent 30 years doing field research on 20+ languages of the Amazon. To figure out how languages work. 

I forgot to mention in my previous post field research - that is to me the basis of everything else in linguistics. But anyone who does it seriously knows that there is no label for it other than “holistic engagement of one’s being in trying to figure out as much as you can before the opportunity is lost to do more.”

Dan

On Mar 11, 2014, at 9:12 AM, Elisabeth Leiss <e.leiss at germanistik.uni-muenchen.de> wrote:

> Dear Professor Everett,
> 
> there are still  linguists who are engaged in science and not in art (in the sense of Roger Bacon). Christian Lehmann quoted one of the best scientists in the late medieval ages. What a pity, that Lehmann's quote and commentary was rated as "chauvinist".
> And as you put it: Rorty never did science. But we are talking about science, don't we? We all agree that there are activities worth doing it, such as story-telling or story-listening, without being science.
> For instance, the story below about the roots of pragmatism belongs more to art than to science.
> 
> And to come back to Frans Plank: I think, HE is the person who was able to do typology in a scientific way. And Wilhelm von Humboldt and Georg von der Gabelentz, his forerunners, were able to do so.
> The search for ABSOLUTE truth was, by the way, never the aim of science. In this sense, modern science follows Karl Popper and not the guru Wittgenstein.
> 
> Elisabeth Leiss
> 
> 
> 
> Am 11.03.2014 13:28, schrieb Everett, Daniel:
>> Richard Rorty is dead. And when he was alive, he never did science.
>> 
>> William James and C.S. Peirce were the founders of Pragmatism and Pragmaticism, respectively. Rorty, along with his former student, Bob Brandom (my former colleague at Pittsburgh) are among a large number of neo-Pragmatists who certainly trace their roots to James and Peirce, your misgivings notwithstanding.
>> 
>> The entire pragmatist position, which is arguably an outgrowth of American Indian (Wampanoag and Iroquoian) philosophy via Roger Williams, is distinctive precisely because of its rejection of truth. Truth is simply a hangover from religion.
>> 
>> All a person can do is to tell the best justified story that they are able to tell. Truth would be a story that cannot be improved on for any future audience (to quote Rorty). Since we cannot say that any story cannot be improved on (except, if we are religious and are talking about the Koran, the Bible, etc), we cannot say that any story is true.
>> 
>> This is most certainly a controversial position. And many respectable philosophers, from John Searle to Bertrand Russell reject it as nonsense (which of course, in the Wittgensteinian sense, all talk of Truth is). But it is neither original with me.
>> 
>> However, your judgement that my statements are by and large nonsense is of course your story. If they help you navigate through the conceptual world, then they are truth to you. As Rorty said (linking his work to James’s):
>> 
>> " On James's view, "true" resembles "good" or "rational" in being a normative notion, a compliment paid to sentences that seem to be paying their way and that fit with other sentences which are doing so.• Introduction to Consequences of Pragmatism (1982)
>> 
>> Dan
>> 
>> On Mar 11, 2014, at 8:16 AM, Elisabeth Leiss <e.leiss at germanistik.uni-muenchen.de> wrote:
>> 
>>> I do not see any commonalities between William James and C.S. Peirce on the one side, and Richard Rorty on the other side.
>>> Maybe, Richard Rorty put it your way. But he is not doing science anymore, as far as I am informed.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Am 11.03.2014 13:08, schrieb Everett, Daniel:
>>>> I still bring out the best in you, I see, Prof. Dr. Leiss.
>>>> 
>>>> The idea that “truth” and the striving for it outside of theology is a debatable position, but it does include other proponents of nonsense, from William James ,C.S. Peirce, John Dewey, Richard Rorty, and many others.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Dan
>>>> 
>>>> On Mar 11, 2014, at 7:55 AM, Elisabeth Leiss <e.leiss at germanistik.uni-muenchen.de> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Nonsense as usual!
>>>>> 
>>>>> Am 10.03.2014 23:01, schrieb Everett, Daniel:
>>>>>> The quaint concept that science is “the pursuit of truth” is a hangover from the Calvinistic and Lutheran roots of the Enlightenment.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> It is a historical oddity. Some do seem to believe it however.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I will be debating Nancy Cartwright and George Ellis on a related matter, is there anything we might call “independent evidence” in support of this or that at the How the Light Gets In Festival at Hay on Wye in May. http://howthelightgetsin.iai.tv
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> At that same conference I will be debating a couple of anthropologists on what hunter-gatherers have to teach us about our evolutionary roots (my answer is "pretty much nothing").
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Dan
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Mar 10, 2014, at 4:31 PM, Matthew Dryer <dryer at BUFFALO.EDU> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The idea that the search for diversity is somehow less scientific than the search for similarity is nonsense.  Science is the pursuit of truth, whether that truth involves diversity or similarity.
>>>>>>> Matthew
>>>>>>> _______________________
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Matthew Dryer, Professor
>>>>>>> Department of Linguistics
>>>>> <e_leiss.vcf>
>>> <e_leiss.vcf>
> 
> <e_leiss.vcf>