The End of Linguistics

[Celso Álvarez Cáccamo]

em 00:01 2001-03-27 +0900, John McCreery escreveu:

>Plainly, Halpern has in mind a narrow view of what a science is. He assumes
>that a science must have a distinct and coherent subject matter. I take this
>to be the point of  Celso's remark concerning a Real Unified Object. But
>since Celso does not explain himself or offer a cogent alternative view of
>what a science might be, the illocutionary effect is near zero and the
>perlocutionary effect little more than a sniff from an upturned nose.

I am sorry I wasn't quick enough to produce an elaborate answer when you
needed it. My second message was written before reading some other, much
more articulate messages than mine.

I am unable to offer any cogent view of what a science is or might be, and
I know it. I don't like lying to myself.

John continues:

>Be that as it may, the proper rebuttal it seems to me is either (1) to
>demonstrate that all of the various things in Halpern's laundry list do have
>some coherent relationship to each other or (2) to offer an alternative view
>of science that allows, for example, a scientific analysis of a series of
>phenomena that share some family relationships at various points in the
>series but not a set of properties uniformly shared by all of its members.
>There is also, of course, (3) to disclaim interest in the field's being a
>science at all--a move that some anthropologists, e.g., Ruth Behar, have
>made vis-a-vis anthropology.

It seems to me there you have some possible answers to the question you
yourself posed.


Celso Alvarez Cáccamo              Tel. +34 981 167000 ext. 1888
Linguística Geral, Faculdade de Filologia     FAX +34 981 167151
Universidade da Corunha                          lxalvarz at udc.es
15071 A Corunha, Galiza (Espanha)  http://www.udc.es/dep/lx/cac/