Subject: lx as * science * ?

i accept the editors ' recent challenge for resuming last year 's thread ( which i missed , before subscribing ) on whether linguistics is / should be considered a science - - by which i am assuming everyone means newtonian * science * rather than the quantum / relativity science which has been current during this century . [ n1 ] . i will argue 1 ) that while much of our work is * scientific * , much of our work goes beyond the traditional definitions of * science * ; 2 ) that being categorized solely as * science * is to our long-term professional detriment ; 3 ) that we are uniquely positioned to aim higher . academics over the centuries have used various prestige words when desiring to assert their rigor . * scientific * is such a word today , and has been a prestige word since the early 1800 's when it replaced * philosophical * as the term academics use when indicating some ultimate in rigor and truth . and well before that , in seventh-century rome , boethius and others used * logical * as their prestige word . [ n2 ] i ' m confident this is not the sole reason for most linguists ' claim that linguistics is a * science * . but for those few for whom it is : saying it 's * rigorous * is sufficient to describe that side of our work . perhaps instead our discipline is looking for professional prestige and advancement in academe , and aligning politically with * science * is seen as the best strategic move . [ n3 ] is this a reason ? if so , perhaps we can talk together about it out loud rather than it remaining as a professional assumption . but there are other reasons we might consider giving up * science * as a label - - including our unique perversity in cultivating the process of working with meaning . a physicist friend once told me that if physics had to deal with the dimension of meaning ( s ) as well as everything else it deals with , physics could no longer be a science . [ greg derry , personal communication ] . newtonian physics was long held as the model of hard * science * , and all of its principles exclude ( d ) meaning . but so do the principles of 20th - century physics . is any linguist ready to give up meaning ( including the systemic meaning of structure ) in order to be * scientific * ? is linguistics not at least as much art as science ? can anyone provide me a good reason for categorizing linguistics as science in the context of these remarks ? is n't there something more inclusive we can aim toward ? but where 's our model in the social / soft sciences ? actually , linguistics is the best potential candidate for such a new , meaning-full model of science . other disciplines have been watching us for decades . after all , we train in our methodologies for a very delicate balancing act in consciousness between form and meaning ( i . e . , when doing historical work , we compare forms even from other languages , but we can't stop with that - - we must also be aware whether they have changed semantic categories , etc . ) . this is what some in other disciplines would call a systems approach , which goes beyond modern structuralism [ n4 ] . like the complementarity principle in physics , form and meaning in linguistics are complementary ( not polar ) opposites , both necessary for the total system to work properly . alas , our own theories are another matter . because of the terminological shackles of a meaning-less * science * that some would place on our discipline , we continue to use the dead metaphors of that meaning-less * science * in our attempts at meaning-full theory building . [ n5 ] notice how we have historically treated those who urged us to move our theories to the level of our methodology - - to the level of systems thinking : which describes a world of uncertainties and mutual interdependencies rather than mono-certain anything ; or chaotic ' attractors ' pulling events toward them into material manifestation [ n6 ] , instead of one thing directly causing another . whorf took one step , in transforming einstein 's relativity principle from the more limited geometry focus to the larger focus of human language in general , which he called the linguistic relativity principle . [ n7 ] that physics has in this century been dealing with deep linguistic questions has unfortunately been lost on most linguists . and the deeper mergers of language and philosophy have been ignored for universalist perspectives in the latter half of this century [ n8 ] . and linguistics departments are closing as the rest of academe ruthlessly renders its own self-serving judgement : linguistics is becoming irrelevant , a " pseudo-science " , in the late 20th - century . please understand : i am in no way against the * scientific * mode of linguistics - - it is uniquely appropriate to studying form . it is not , however , appropriate to studying meaning , for obvious reasons . the answer is not to let the part overwhelm the whole such that our entire discipline becomes * scientific * , but to accept the challenge and develop theories and principles of a meaning-full science that other disciplines will so admire that in the 21st century they will start claiming to be * linguistic * as a way of claiming ultimate rigor in their search for truth . * * * * notes : [ n1 ] i assume this because of the way all the social sciences treated whorf , who was attempting to tell them that the very definition of * science * / science was changing underneath their certainties . if it were otherwise , we would n't need this discussion . [ n2 ] dineen on boethius : " logic became the prestige study of the day , the medieval 's most precise and respected intellectual tool . it held the same position in the intellectual world then that science holds now : serious study today must be 's cientific ' - - then it had to be ' logical ' " . [ n3 ] however , as one christian de quincy wrote recently , " [ m ] ost scientists do not recognize the limits of science , nor do they want to . there is a power given to the society that supports science . if one were to take the power and possession [ of science ] away from the corporations and politicians , what would be the standing of science in society ? " [ n4 ] . . . and what some consciousness anthropologists would call a 's hamanic stance ' , balancing with a foot in both worlds . eastern philosophers would probably talk about the interpenetration of yin and yang within the tao , as david bohm found out in his dialogues with j . krishnamurti . [ n5 ] including such pre - relativity / quantum * scientific * vocabulary as ' cause ' and 'd etermine ' ( especially when linked , as in monocausal determinism ! ) . we even try to project these dead * metaphors onto people using systems thinking ( e . g . , sapir , whorf , pike , lamb ) . [ n6 ] per current chaos theory in mathematics , for those who like to use mathematics in their linguistics theories . [ n7 ] einstein also had the larger language issues in mind , which he talked about in a 1941 radio speech ( " what is it that brings about such an ultimate connection between language and thinking ? . . . the mental development of the individual and his way of forming concepts depend to a high degree upon language . this makes us realize to what extent the same language means the same mentality . " ) . [ n8 ] there is so much more that needs to be done in interesting areas such as how reason and logic and philosophy grow out of the grammars of languages . most are not aware , for instance , that the word ' karma ' - - long before it was a term of eastern philosophy denoting the process of what goes around comes around with emphasis on the ' comes around ' experiential phenomena - - was a term within the system of sanskrit linguistics meaning 'd irect object of verb ' [ james ryan , sanskrit & philosophy scholar , personal communication then presentation at society for the anthropology of consciousness , 1992 ] . what might a well-articulated philosophy of animacy from native american languages look like ? - - moonhawk ( % - > ) < " the fool on the hill sees the sun going down and > < the eyes in his head see the world spinning round " > < - - john lennon >
