Criticizing Linguistics

Fri Sep 28 10:32:05 UTC 2007

Dear Steve,
in your response to my posting you wrote (among  others):
> If I were as interested in criticizing the field of linguistics as Alex 
> appears to be, I think I'd start with any view of language that leaves out the idea 
> of communication, as Wolfgang's apparently does.
Well, I think that things are bit more difficult. Naturally, I do not 
negate the fact of communication, but the question is how we can explain 
communication and which effects such an explanation would have on 
assumptions about the ontology of language. Let me put it into very 
brief and simple words. It probably is an uncontroversial fact that all 
we can observe (for now) are various types of language output. But it 
seems likewise uncontroversial to assume that a language output would 
never come into existence without a cognition producing this output (as 
we're used to say: 'language happens in the brain'). This type of 
Counterfactual Conditional Operator (in the sense of David Lewis) 
suggests a causal relationship between cognition and language, whereby 
language cannot be without cognition (in the sense of weak emergence). 
Accordingly, *all* properties of language, be it symbolization via 
articulation (and breath disturbance), be it morphosyntax, pragmatics, 
or lexical issues etc., are ultimately grounded in and structured by 
cognition. Again nothing new. Naturally, a non-modular hypothesis has to 
assume that various layers in cognition and various layered processes  
(networking together) are responsible for what we find in a language 
output. But again these layers are not hazardously working together, but 
(from a bottom-up perspective) in terms of motivated 'chains' and 
networking processes. All this brings us to the basic question whether 
we should describe the ontology of language in terms of a causa finalis 
or a causa efficiens (plus causa formalis, I think), hence whether to 
ask 'why is language' (efficiens) or 'what is language for?' (finalis). 
Sure, it is a matter of conviction to decide from which of these two 
'forensic questions' we have to start. Here, much is preshaped by 
corresponding scientific and (alas) ideological paradigms that can be 
related to the two key terms 'mythic' ('why') and 'utopic' ('what for'). 
The 60ies-80ies strongly favored the 'utopic' view, whereas the (second) 
cognitive turn is strongly related to 'myth' (both terms are here used 
as applied in science theories). Personally, I think that we cannot 
describe a telic ontology of language without referring to the causa 
efficiens before. Hence, we must know 'why' language 'is' in order to 
describe what it is for.

This brings me back to cognition. There is sufficient evidence stemming 
from Radical Constructvism that cognition is a biological apparatus to 
guarantee the interaction of an individual with its environment. A 
cognition that does not in which way so ever interact (not: 
communicate!) with its environment is said to be 'dead'. The main point 
now is that much of what cognition 'does' happens in terms of 
'unconscious' processes (poiematic, in my words). This is the difference 
between thinking as a cognitive process (German: Denken) and thinking as 
a conscious process, usually based on (fragments of) language (German: 
Nachdenken = intraindividual 'communication'). In English, we can refer 
to the distinction Thought (pre-language) and Reflection (among others: 
language-based). It is common assunmptioon in Constructivism that 
Thought encompasses cognitive processes to make sense (what ever this 
means) of all the un-ordered, chaotic set of world stimuli that 
constantly effect a cognition via perception (turning it into 
experience). One of these stimuli - I think - is what cognition 
construes as 'language'. A cognition thus interprets the corresponding 
input (which may likewise be cognition-internal [the experience of 
reflection]) as some kind of 'system' (basically as a part of the 
overall experience building and experience storing process). In 
addition, a cognition experiences its own expressive behavior as the 
same kind of 'syystem' as it experiences it via the Outer World 
(naturally, we have to add the recursive and engrammaticizing processes 
initiated by learning). As an effect, a cognition combines this complex 
set of experience (among others) as communication. Hence, 
'communication' is an epiphenomenon of 'language' (better of its 
preconditions) rather than an ontological need of human beings.

The main task naturally is to find some evidence for these hypotheses 
(that I assemble under the framework of 'Radical Experiantialism', 
RadEx) in the output of linguistic behavior. I'm working on this in a 
project (called 'Cognitive Typology'). Anybody wishing to learn a bit 
more about RadEx and CogTyp can contact me. I would guide him/her to 
some of the relevant publications....

Best wishes,
Wolfgang           

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*Prof. Dr. Wolfgang 
Schulze                                                                   
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