Edge and universalism vs. particularism

[Nigel Vincent]

I may express myself a little less brutally than Elisabeth but I'm inclined to agree with her assessment of the relation between truth and theology. One of the people I have always found most eloquent and articulate on this issue is Simon Blackburn, cf in particular his book 'Truth', where he writes (p.196):

“There may be rhetoric about the socially constructed nature of Western science, but wherever it matters, there is no alternative. There are no specifically Hindu or Taoist designs for mobile phones, faxes or televisions. There are no satellites based on feminist alternatives to quantum theory.”

I hold to the belief that linguistics is in this same sense a science and I'd be very reluctant to go down the Rortian relativistic road.
Nigel



Professor Nigel Vincent, FBA MAE
Professor Emeritus of General & Romance Linguistics
The University of Manchester

Vice-President for Research & HE Policy, The British Academy

Linguistics & English Language
School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
The University of Manchester
Manchester M13 9PL
UK


http://staffprofiles.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/Profile.aspx?Id=nigel.vincent

________________________________________
From: Discussion List for ALT [LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG] on behalf of Everett, Daniel [DEVERETT at BENTLEY.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 12:08 PM
To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Edge and universalism vs. particularism

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>