Grammatical Theory and Metascience: A Critical Investigation into the Methodological and Philosophical Foundations of 'Autonomous' Linguistics

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE E.F.K. KOERNER,...

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GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE

E.F.K. KOERNER,

Series IV -

General Editor

CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY

Advisory Editorial Board Henning Andersen (Copenhagen); Raimo Anttila (Los Angeles) Tomaz V. Gamkrelidze (Tiflis); Klaus J. Kohler (Kiel) J. Peter Maher (Hamburg); Ernst Pulgram (Ann Arbor, Mich.) E. Wyn Roberts (Vancouver, B.C.); Danny Steinberg (Honolulu)

Volume 5

Esa Itkonen Grammatical Theory and Metascience


A CRITICAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE METHODOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF 'AUTONOMOUS' LINGUISTICS

ESA ITKONEN University of Helsinki

AMSTERDAM / JOHN BENJAMINS B.V. 1978

©Copyright 1978 - John Benjamins B.V. ISBN 90 272 0901 4 / 90 272 0906 5 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm or any other means, without written permission from the publisher.

PREFACE By 'metascience' I understand the methodology and/or the philo sophy of a given science, or of science in general. 'Science' will be used in the sense of Wissenschaft, i.e., as covering the area of natural sciences (e.g., physics), human sciences (e.g., sociology), and formal sciences (e.g., logic). 'Grammatical theory', or more simply 'grammar', will stand for Saussurean autonomous linguistics, as distinguished from socio- and psycholinguist!'cs on the one hand, and from mathematical linguistics on the other. The present investigation will concern itself with the meta scientific status of grammatical theory. This does not, however, mean that I think other forms of linguistics are less important. In my forthcoming article "Qualitative vs. Quantitative Analysis in Linguistics" and, in more detail, in my forthcoming monograph Causali , I shall analyse the metascientific status of socioty in Linguistics and psycholinguistics. I shall argue here against positivism, or the metascientific doctrine according to which the model set up by the natural sciences is directly applicable to all human sciences, including (autonomous) linguistics. I shall refer to 'hermeneutics' as an alternative, nonpositivistic philosophy of science. However, what I shall say is fully compatible also with (modern interpretations of) such non-posi ti vi s ti c doctrines as phenomenology and marxism. I shall also argue that grammatical theory is nonempirical. More particularly, grammatical theory should be regarded, in my opinion, as qualitatively

VI different not just from the natural sciences, but also from the empi rical human sciences. My discussion will to a large extent centre around the status of transformational grammar (henceforth to be abbreviated as 'TG'). In the present context I shall not so much criticise TG as a scientific theory, but rather I shall criticise its metascientific concept of it self. I have presented my criticism of TG primarily in my article "The Use and Misuse of the Principle of Axiomatics in Linguistics". The central issue here concerns the role of normativity in lin guistic data. I do not think that the importance of this concept has yet been grasped in current theoretical linguistics. As long as this continues to be the case, no adequate understanding of the meta scientific status of linguistics can, in my opinion, be reached. This book is the second, revised edition of my 1974 dissertation Linguistics and Metascience. My interest in the topic dates from 1968, when I could no longer ignore the discrepancies between empirical ex planation and what was referred to as 'grammatical explanation'. It was during discussions with Matti Juntunen and Lauri Mehtonen, in the early seventies, that for the first time I became aware of the inadequacies of positivism, and realised the need for an alternative philosophy of science. I owe a great debt of grati tute to Professor E. F. K. Koerner, who selflessly gave so much of his time to edit the manuscript. Helsinki, December 1977

Esa Itkonen

TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE

V

TABLE OF CONTENTS

VII

1.0. THE IDEA OF 'POSITIVISM' 1.1.

The Data of Positivist

1

Science; the Definition

'Empirical ' 1.2.

Explanation, Prediction,

1.3.

Comparison with Peirce's

of

2 and Testing Logic of Science

4 9

1.4. Theory and Observation

12

1.5. Ontology

16

1.6.

Concluding Remarks

18

2.0. THE IDEA OF 'HERMENEUTICS'

20

2.1. Psychology

21

2.2. Sociology

24

2.3.

Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy

2.4. Sociology

of Knowledge

30

33

2.5. Philosophy

42

2.6. Logic

48

2.7.

Concluding Remarks

54


VIII

3.0. 20TH-CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES: A BRIEF SURVEY

55

3.1. Saussure

55

3.2. Hjelmslev

59

3.3. Sapir

61

3.4. Bloomfield

68

3.5.

Harris

71

3.6. Transformational Grammar 3.7.

'.

Some Recent Developments in Linguistic

75

Theory

87

3.8. Conclusion

89

4.0. PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE CONCEPT OF LANGUAGE

91

4.1.

Characterisation

4.2.

Refutation

of the Traditionist

of the Traditionist

The Axiomaticity

4.2.1.

Epistemology

91

Epistemology

94

of the Concepts of Person and Thing

. . . .

4.2.2. Mind, Behavior, and Environment Characterisation

4.2.3.

96

of Mental Phenomena; the Notion of

'Pattern' 4.2.4.

104

General Characteristics

of the Conceptual

Employed in the Present Study 4.2.5. 4.3.

The Impossibility

Implications

94

Distinctions

.

108

of Private Languages

for Linguistic

109

Theory

113

4.3.1. Psycho Unguis tics

113

4.3.2. Theory of Grammar

117

5.0. THE CONCEPT OF LANGUAGE

122

5.1.

Ontology: Rules of Language as Constituted by 'Common

Knowledge1 5.2.

Epistemology: the Distinction

Intuition

122 between Language and

Linguistic

131

TABLE OF CONTENTS

IX

5.3.

Rules of Language and Certainty

141

5.4.

Rules of Language and Social Control

151

6.0. THE BASIS OF THE NONEMPIRICAL NATURE OF GRAMMAR 6.1.

The Difference

between Rule-Sentences

155

and Empirical

Hypotheses

156

6.2.

Examples of Rules and Rule-Sentences

166

6.3.

Two Different

168

Types of Rule-Sentence

7.0. THE INELIMINABILITY OF LINGUISTIC NORMATIVITY 7.1. A Synchronic Grammar Does not Investigate Utterances, but Correct Sentences 7.2.

Grammatical Concepts Are not Comparable to Concepts of Natural Science

175

Spatiotemporal 175 Theoretical 177

7.3.

Rules Are not Regularities

7.4.

Grammatical Descriptions Cannot Be Replaced by Psycholinguistic and/or Sociolinguistic Descriptions

7.5.

The Position

of Non-Normative Actions

of Transformational

182

187

Grammar vis-à-vis

Linguistic Normativity

188

8.0. LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR

192

8.1.

The Basis of the Difference between Natural Science and Human Science: Observer's Knowledge vs. Agent1 s Knowledge . . . 193

8.2.

The Two-Level Nature of the Human Sciences:

Atheoretical

vs. Theoretical

198

8.3.

The Two-Level Nature of Grammar

208

8.4.

The Ontological Reality

219

of Grammatical Descriptions

9.0. THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR

228

9.1. General Remarks

228

9.2. Explanation and Prediction

233

X


9.3. Testing

245

9.4.

Universal Linguistic

Theory

9.5.

Appendix: Examples Taken from the

263 Transformationalist

Literature

264

10.0. GRAMMAR AND LOGIC 10.1.

276

The Basis of the Similarity

between Generative Grammars

and Systems of Logic

276

10.2. Testing

280

10.3. Explanation

287

11.0. GRAMMAR AND PHILOSOPHY

294

11.1.

The Methodology of Classical

Philosophy

11.2. The Concept of Explication 11.3.

Grammars as Instances

of Explication

294

301 307

CONCLUSION

311

NOTES

313

REFERENCES

331

INDEX OF AUTHORS

349

INDEX OF TERMS

352

1.0. THE IDEA OF 'POSITIVISM' The term ' p o s i t i v i s m ' can be i n t e r p r e t e d i n d i f f e r e n t ways. cording to one i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , ' p o s i t i v i s m ' , or more p r e c i s e l y

Ac-

'neopo-

s i t i v i s m ' , is i d e n t i f i a b l e w i t h the trend i n the philosophy of science represented during the 1930s by such authors as S c h l i c k , Neurath, Carnap,

and Reichenbach, and known as ' l o g i c a l p o s i t i v i s m ' or ' l o g i c a l em-

pirism'.

This trend was characterised by the methodological

requirement

t h a t a l l t h e o r e t i c a l statements, should be wholly reducible to observation statements; i n a sense, theories would thus be superfluous.

This

inter-

p r e t a t i o n of ' p o s i t i v i s m ' would exclude from p o s i t i v i s m Popper's ' c r i t i cal r a t i o n a l i s m ' as well as Hempel's and Nagel's current conception of the philosophy of science, which i s a d i r e c t outgrowth from the older ' l o g i c a l empirism'.

The two trends last-mentioned d i f f e r i n several r e -

spects, but they are i n agreement on the r e j e c t i o n of the 'strong reduct i o n i s m ' mentioned above: Instead of viewing science as an inventory of i n d u c t i v e generalisations based upon observation, they emphasise the r o l e of t h e o r y - c o n s t r u c t i o n . However, i n one fundamental respect a l l of the types of philosophy of science mentioned have something i n common: they a l l adhere to the s o - c a l l e d 'methodological monism', or the conception t h a t a l l

empirical

sciences are characterised by common methods of e x p l a n a t i o n , p r e d i c t i o n , and t e s t i n g , methods t h a t i n t h e i r most e x p l i c i t form appear w i t h i n the natural

sciences.

A l l sciences i n v e s t i g a t i n g human or social phenomena

are presumably to be subsumed under t h i s concept of ' e m p i r i c a l science'. The word ' p o s i t i v i s m ' has also been used as a common denomination f o r a l l of those m e t a s c i e n t i f i c schools t h a t subscribe to methodological monism ( v i z . the u n i f i e d - s c i e n c e i d e a l ) , as i t is defined here ( c f .

for


2

instance Martindale 1960:56).

This usage has been adopted in the subse

quent argument. 1.1. The Data of Positivist

Science;

the Definition

of

'Empirical'

The uniformity of methods of description presupposes the uniformity of what is to be described: according to positivism, all empirical scien ces deal with events located in space and time. Knowledge about such Primarily, ob events is obtained through (intersubjective) observation. servable events contain only qualities and relations that can be measu red in terms of length, time, and weight. In addition, also events in volving such 'secondary' qualities as colour, sound, and smell are allow ed to be observable, with the understanding that they are to be operationalised, or translated into events involving 'primary', measurable qua lities only. For Popper for instance the empirical nature of a theory depends on whether there is a class of 'basic statements' which might falsify it; basic statements are about observable events, and such an event is defined as "an event involving position and movements of mac roscopic physical bodies" (Popper 1965:103). On the other hand, from the fact that space, time and weight define the notion of observability, it does not follow, of course, that they establish some kind of universal conceptual framework to which unobservable microphenomena for example must also conform (Nagel 1961:170-71, n.12). It is sufficient that statements about microphenomena imply some basic statements about ob servable events. In the light of what precedes, it is understandable that 'observa bility' has been closely linked to what I would like to call 'empiricalness'. In fact, 'empirical' has mostly been defined, in the Poppen an spirit, as 'falsifiable on the basis of observation'. However, theories may contain sentences with mixed quantifiers à la '(x)(Ey)(Fxy)' , and these are not falsifiable, but only testable, i.e. confirmable or dis confirmable (cf. 1.2. below). Secondly, if observability taken strictly in the sense of measurability is defined as 'pure' observability, then we might say that in classical mechanics we have to do with pure obser vation motivated by theoretical considerations (but not, of course,

THE IDEA OF 'POSITIVISM'

3

with pure observation tout c o u r t ) . In most 'observational' sciences, however, pure observability is only an ideal which is never achieved: in such cases, just as in everyday life, observation as such contains interpretive or 'theoretical' elements. Consequently, it is best to define 'empirical' as 'testable by (sen tences referring to) what happens or obtains in space and time', with the following qualification: That, and only that, which happens or obtains in space and time can be observed, observation being an act inseparable, perhaps in more than one way, from theory. From this it follows, among other things, that i n t u i t i o n , for instance, is not a form of observation. To call all ways of gaining knowledge by the same name, i.e., 'observa tion', not only is uninformative but - as we shall see later on - also conceals important methodological differences. The whole point of giving a definition of 'empirical' is to provide a criterion to distinguish (empirical) science from 'metaphysics', phi losophy and logic being prime examples of 'metaphysics'. The abovementioned definition of 'empirical' is clearly able to differentiate between physics, on the one hand, and philosophy and logic, on the other. Accordingly the latter two - and all sciences of a similar kind - will hence be called nonempirical

sciences.

Notice that the present notion of 'empirical' is entirely value-free: it is not implied that logic, because of its nonempirical status, would be treated as less valuable than for instance physics. On the other hand, there exists another, value-laden notion of 'empirical', which aims at dis tinguishing good science from bad science or 'ideology'. I shall have nothing to say about this latter notion of 'empirical'. The measurability of observable events is guaranteed by the mathematisation of nature, which largely constitutes the content of Galileo's 'revolution' of science. That is to say, empirical science in the positivistic sense concentrates upon those (physical) characteristics of events which can directly be given numerical values, or operationalises events so that they acquire such characteristics. This idealising proce dure amounts to a r e - d e f i n i t i o n of events: their similarity or difference is determined solely on the basis of their measurable properties, and


4

it becomes meaningless to ask whether two events with the same measu rable properties are veally (1974b:66) puts it:

similar or interchangeable. Or, as Mittelstrass

Als 'empirisch' oder 'empirisch begründet' kann im Rahmen des Galileischen, für die Methodologie der Physik in Geltung bleibenden Er fahrungsbegriffes nur noch das Ergebnis einer messenden Pvaxis be zeichnet werden (cf. 2.5. below). 1.2.

Explanation,

Prediction,

and

Testing

According to standard positivism, "science is interested in estab lishing predictive and explanatory connections between observables" (Hempel 1965:179). For reasons that will later become apparent, I shall restrict my discussion to the so-called 'deductive-nomological' (= D-N) model of explanation (e.g., Hempel 1965:335-38). According to this view, explanation and prediction are similar, insofar as in both cases it is necessary to deduce a sentence that refers to a particular event from a whole that comprises one or more sentences referring to general regu larities, and one or more sentences referring to particular events, or so-called 'antecedent conditions'.2 It is also said that regularities are 'explained' by deducing the universal hypotheses referring to them from some other, more abstract universal hypotheses. Nevertheless, not only is the explanation of regularities qualitatively different from the explanation of events (von Wright 1971:184, n.12), but the former is also logically secondary with respect to the latter, since particular events determine which universal hypotheses about general regularities are (as sumed to be) true. Hempel even claims that (inductive-)statistical ex planations, too, are meant to explain particular events (Hempel 1965:381). However, von Wright (1971:13-15) points out that, unlike D-N explanations, statistical explanations cannot properly be said to explain why an event occurred, but rather, why its occurrence was to be expected. Because of the supposed structural symmetry between explanation and prediction, and of the interdependence of these two notions with testing, i.e., confirmation or disconfirmation, all these methodologically central notions can be clarified with the aid of the D-N model. The general form of this model is as follows:


5

The standard type of a D-N explanation is a causal explanation, and in such a case antecedent conditions and explanandum-events are identifiable as 'causes' and 'effects' respectively. However, there are non-causal D-N explanations too, that is, explanations based on 'laws of functional dependence', where two sets of facts determine each other si multaneously (Hempel 1965:352-53, and Nagel 1961:77-78). In such in stances it is to some extent a matter of opinion which facts are to be explained in terms of which others, and the term 'antecedent condition' is clearly misleading. - von Wright (1971:175, n.35) notes that the ge neral idea underlying the D-N model, or the "'Popper-Hempel' theory of explanation", has been "something of a philosophical commonplace ever since the days of Mill and Jevons". The simplest case of a D-N explanation is According to Hempel (1965:275), this sentence expresses an explanation Presented in the form which "surely is intuitively unobjectionable". of the D-N model, one obtains as follows: Fa Ga By applying the r u l e of ' u n i v e r s a l i n s t a n t i a t i o n ' to we get

, and from t h i s , together w i t h ' F a ' , we can derive 'Ga'

by Modus Ponens. 'Fa'

and 'Ga' r e f e r to observable events, which means t h a t the i n -

dividual-expression

' a ' r e f e r s to a space-time p o i n t or r e g i o n , and the

predicates ' F ' and 'G' r e f e r to measurable p r o p e r t i e s . Moreover, the events r e f e r r e d to by 'Fa' and 'Ga' ( o r , e q u i v a l e n t l y , the properties r e f e r r e d to by ' F ' and 'G') must be conceptually independent, t h a t i s , 'Ga'

must not be deducible from 'Fa' alone. In explanation,

we s t a r t from 'Ga' which we know, on the basis of

o b s e r v a t i o n , to be t r u e , and we t r y to f i n d a s u i t a b l e explanans from

6


which it can be derived. If there is such an explanans, i.e., one which consists of the true observation-sentence 'Fa' and of the universal hy pothesis or theory which can, for independent reasons, be assumed to be true, then we may tentatively consider the event referred to by 'Ga' as being explained. on the other hand, we start from the explanans, which In prediction, we hold to be true, and deduce from it the sentence 'Ga', or predict that 'Ga' will be true. The truth or falsity of predictions is deter mined on the basis of observation. Making a prediction, bringing about the antecedent conditions, and deciding the truth-value of the prediction, constitute an experiment. It is customary to discuss only the predictive or experimental as pect of the testing of theories. However, if testing is equated with the method of selecting, on objective grounds, one theory from among others, then the explanatory aspect is just as important. The predictive componenet of testing is concerned with the question whether the theory generates only true sentences about observable events (of the relevant domain). If the prediction 'Ga', which has been made on the basis of the 'theory' and of the truth of 'Fa', turns out to be true, then it is said that the observation-report 'Fa&Ga' (predictively) confirms the 'theory'. Of course, no amount of such reports, e.g. 'Fb&Gb', 'Fc&Gc', etc., can conclusively establish That is to say, since 'Fa&Ga' is true, the truth of is true, and if we from this sentence (and from any number of similar sentences) infer , we are making use of the logi cally invalid argument form (where 'p' and 'q' stand for and respectively). From the above it follows that no theory or universal hypothesis can be conclusively confirmed, or verified, on the basis of observational evidence. The weakness of this characterisation of confirmation lies in the fact that is true not only if 'Fa&Ga' is true, but also if either '-Fa&Ga' or '-Fa&-Ga' is true, which means that the events re ferred to by these latter two sentences are also 'confirmatory evidence' for the truth of . In fact, since is logically


7

equivalent to '-FavGa', either '- Fa ! or 'Ga' would alone suffice to make it true and, hence, to 'confirm' '(x) something which hardly makes sense. To put it in different terms, since '(x) , confirmable by 'Fa&Ga', is logically equivalent to '(x) confirmable by '-Ga&-Fa', it must also be confirmable by the last-men tioned sentence« This is the basis for the so-called 'paradoxes of confirmation' (Hempel 1965:3-46), Even though extensively discussed in the literature on philosophy of science,they are entirely artificial and result from the gratuitous belief that truth-functional logic, more pre cisely, universally quantified material implication, provides an adequate way of expressing empirical hypotheses, or that the truth of an empirical generalisation is determined exactly in the same way as that of a mate rial implication. The predictive component does not yield conclusive confirmations which means that it cannot conclusively establish that the theory gene rates only true sentences. But it can conclusively establish that the theory does not generate only true sentences: all that is needed is one false prediction. In terms of our example, let us assume that the pre diction 'Ga' turns out to be false. Since 'Ga' was validly inferred from &Fa' and now '-Ga' is the case, it follows, by Modus Tollens, that ' &Fa' must be false too. If 'Fa' is false, the matter ends there. But let us assume that the antecedent conditions are as they were supposed to be, namely that 'Fa' is true. We then have the observation-report 'Fa&-Ga', which is identical to saying that is false. Now was validly inferred from , and therefore if the former sentence is false, then the latter sentence is, again by Modus Tollens, also false. In other words, has been conclusively dis confirmed, or f a l s i f i e d . 6

Thus it cannot be established that a theory generates only true sentences. But even if it could, this would not be enough, because the theory in question might still be ever so narrow or one-sided, and there fore worthless. Obviously, the predictive component of testing is not sufficient in itself., but must be supplemented by the explanatory compo nent, or the requirement that the theory generate all true sentences.

8


It is immediately evident that a theory may be tested not only on pre dictive but also on explanatory grounds: there is an event belonging to the domain supposedly covered by the theory, and we ask whether the theory explains the event, or generates the sentence (truthfully) refer ring to it. If it does, it is (explanatorily) confirmed; if it does not, it is (explanatorily) disconfirmed. More precisely, a theory A is disconfirmed if there is a set of facts which it is unable to explain, and there exists an alternative theory Β which is able to explain these facts, together with all the facts explained by the theory A. The testing may or may not expand the stock of evidence which the theory is supposed to account for. Instead of predicting new, unobser ved facts or of observing new, unpredicted facts, we may ask whether the theory under scrutiny explains well-confirmed regularities or subtheories, i.e., whether this theory surpasses others in the generality of its ex planations : Theoretical synthesis, with no addition of new evidence, is classically taken to lend further support (by the very fact of its being successful at all) to the joint theory than to either theory taken separately (Harre 1970:170).

However, this principle cannot be taken in an absolute sense, as Popper (1965:269-73) does, for instance. That is, it is not true that the more general hypothesis, although unfalsified at the moment, is always better confirmed, or more probably true, than the less general one implied by it (Barker 1957:160). After all, there is a countless number of wel 1-established observational hypotheses which have never been and will probably never be falsified (even if they have been made more, precise in the course of time), whereas the various theories that have been superimposed on them at one time or another have all been falsified sooner or later. It must be admitted that, in view of the supposed symmetry between explanation and prediction, the terminological distinction 'explanatory testing' - 'predictive testing' is not mandatory. Given an event, it would be possible to ask, not only whether the theory explains it, but also whether the theory would have predicted it. Similarly it would be possible to reformulate predictions as explanations. However, the dis-


9

tinction I want to make here is not primarily that between prediction and explanation but - to use neutral terms - that between the descrip tive capacity of a theory and its object of description. More precisely, either we first determine what the theory claims, and then check whether what it claims is in fact the case; or we first determine what is the case, and then check whether this is what the theory claims. In actual practice these two points of view always occur together, but it is use ful to differentiate between them for analytical purposes. It is un deniable that the former corresponds in a rather natural way to prediction while the latter corresponds to explanation. - This way of defining the no tion of testing will facilitate the comparison of natural-science theo ries with generative grammars and systems of logic (cf. 9.0. and 10.0. below). Both in predictive and in explanatory testing i t is required that the new evidence which is supposed to confirm or to disconfirm the theory is conceptually independent from previous evidence. This means that if the theory predicts, with the aid of the anteced ent conditions Fa and Fb, first the event Ga and then the event Gb, the latter event (predictively) confirms the theory, over and above the confirmatory support given by Ga, only if it is logically independent from Ga. Correspondingly, if the theory explains the events Ga and Gb, the latter (explanatorily) confirms the theory, over and above what has been done by Ga, only if it logically independent from Ga. Itshould be remembered that empirical explanation and prediction, in turn, require the logical independence between Fa and Ga, on the one hand, and between Fb and Gb , on the other. 1.3. Comparison with Peirce's

Logic of

Science

We can sum up the methodological notions introduced so far by showing their relation to the triad deduction-induction-abduction, which constitutes the essence of Peiree's logic of scientific method (cf. Peirce 1958, Bk II, chap.3). Deduction is, first, the method by means of which a prediction is derived from the theory. Induction is made use of in determining the outcome of the prediction as well as in

10


assessing its effect upon the theory. If the event predicted fails to occur, this means, of course, that the theory in its present form is falsified. But it also means that something else, some unexpected event, has occurred. This event demonstrates the need for a new theory which could explain it (along with all facts previously explained). It is the function of abduction to suggest such a theory. Hence, deduction is a necessary component of abduction, because what is abduced is a theory which explains the unexpected event, i.e., a theory from which the sentence referring to this event can be deduced. Abduction is sole ly responsible for the growth of (scientific) knowledge. The value of the new theory must be ascertained, again, by a combined use of deduc tion (in the sense of prediction) and induction. And so the scientific process goes on indefinitely, as illustrated by the following diagram:

In this example the prediction 'Ga' turns out to be false, i.e., 'Ha' turns out to be true, and this gives rise to a new, more differen tiated theory. Explanatory confirmation or falsification comes into play when we come across an event, for instance one referred to by 'Gd&Hd', and ask whether or not the theory can explain it (or, alternatively, whether or not the theory would have predicted it). Peirce succintly characterises his three basic operations by say-


11

ing that deduction determines what must be as a matter of logical ne cessity, induction determines what is as a matter of fact, and abduction determines what could be as a matter of empirical possibility. His ter minology is rendered a little opaque by the fact that he uses the term 'abduction' also to refer to the process of eliciting (part of) the antecedent conditions in a case where the explanandum-event and the re levant regularities are known. Predictive confirmation, explanatory confirmation, and abduction (in the primary sense) can all be represented by the invalid argument known as the 'fallacy of affirming the consequent1, where 'p' stands for the theory (plus statements of antecedent conditions) and 'q' stands for a sentence derived from it:

However, all the three above-mentioned operations are clearly distinct and necessitate therefore distinct ('pragmatic') interpretations of the schema in question. In predictive confirmation we start from 'p', and from it we go forth, or 'progress', to 'q'. When we notice that 'q' is true, we take this as an indication that 'p' might be true too. On the other hand, both in explanatory confirmation and in abduction we start from 'q' and go back, or 'regress', to 'p'. The difference between the two operations lies in the fact that in the former case 'p' is readily available (perhaps as one among several alternative theories): we notice that 'q' can be derived from 'p', and in our opinion this lends support to 'p'. In abduction by contrast', when we have 'q', 'p' does not yet exist. The fact referred to by 'q' must be explained, however, and to this end we invent 'p' which is such that 'q' can be derived from it. It would be somewhat unnatural to say at this point that 'q' 'confirms' 'p', because the latter has been created expressly to account for the former. It is convenient to represent predictive falsification and expla natory falsification by two different schemas. Although these both exemplify the valid Modus Tollens argument and are thus logically

12

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIEΝCE

e q u i v a l e n t , they are pragmatically q u i t e d i f f e r e n t .

In predictive falsification (cf. A ) , we start from 'p' and derive 'q'. We then notice that 'q' is false, which means that 'p' too is false. In explanatory falsification (cf. B ) , we start from 'q', which we know to be true, and then we notice that 'p' (which is available) entails the negation of 'q' and is thus false. In addition, this latter figure of thought serves the function of hypothesis elimination, which is a necessary component of successful abduction: before we arrive at a satisfactory theory which explains the unexpected event referred to by 'q', along with all other known facts, we have mentally discarded several theories because they entail the negation of 'q' or of some other true sentence. My notion of 'predictive testing' corresponds to Bocheñski's (1971:100-04) notion of 'progressive reduction' (which he also calls 'verification'). By contrast his notion 'regressive reduction' (which he also calIs'explanation') covers solely the area of abduction. As I have already pointed out, in the philosophy of natural science the existence of explanatory testing is not clearly distinguished from predictive testing, on one hand, and from abduction, or the invention of theories, on the other (see, however, for instance Hempel 1965:29, It must be added that positivism has generally paid little

η.36).

attention to the concept of abduction. 1.4.

Theory

and

Observation

The preceding sketch of the basic methodological notions under lying (the philosophy of) natural science and, hence, positivist science is definitely oversimplified, because theories have been represented by universal implications containing the same concepts, i.e., 'F' and 'G', which are contained in observational sentences. In reality, the relatio between theory and observation is of course much more complex. A some-


13

what more r e a l i s t i c p i c t u r e can be gathered from analysing the i n t e r play of t h e o r e t i c a l and observational concepts in D-.N explanations. Suppose we have to explain the event 01a.

(Here ' T ' and

f o r ' t h e o r e t i c a l ' and ' o b s e r v a t i o n a l ' , r e s p e c t i v e l y . )

'0'

stand

If

is a w e l l - c o n f i r m e d hypothesis, then we might set up the f o l l o w i n g D-N explanation:

Now, since ' T ' i s a t h e o r e t i c a l concept, we cannot have any d i r e c t

(i.e.,

observational) evidence f o r the t r u t h of ' T a ' . Nor do we have any i n d i r e c t evidence independent of the t r u t h of which we are t r y i n g to e x p l a i n .

Suppose,

i.e., however,

the explanandum t h a t there

also e x i s t s a w e l l - c o n f i r m e d hypothesis

Suppose f u r t h e r

t h a t we can d i r e c t l y v e r i f y the t r u t h of ' 0 2 a ' . Then we could w i t h some j u s t i f i c a t i o n set up the f o l l o w i n g t e n t a t i v e i n d u c t i v e argument:

I t is only as a r e s u l t of t h i s i n d u c t i v e step t h a t we are e n t i t l e d to assume the t r u t h of

'Ta'

and to use i t in our D-N e x p l a n a t i o n .

s l i g h t l y more complicated (and more r e a l i s t i c )

-

A

case is discussed i n

Stegmüller (1974:166-76). Notice t h a t the requirements previously imposed upon statements of antecedent conditions are here seen to p o i n t in d i f f e r e n t

directions:

Only ' 0 2 a ' r e f e r s to an observable f a c t or event, and only 'Ta' permits the deduction of the explanandum ' 0 2 a ' . -

and

are i d e n t i f i a b l e as maximally simple cases of correspondence rules

(cf.

below). Moreover, to be p r e c i s e , the two a's referred to by the expression 'Ta' and 'CLa' (or 'CLa') cannot be s t r i c t l y i d e n t i c a l . Rather, we would need s o - c a l l e d basis rules to connect the numerical space-time reference of t h e o r e t i c a l statements l i k e

'Ta' to t h a t of observational ones l i k e

14


(cf. Stegmüller 1970:317-19). It is most convenient to characterise the relation of theory and observation by comparing it against what until recently was the 'ortho dox' or 'standard' view of the matter (cf. Feigl 1970 and Hempel 1970). According to this view, a scientific theory is, ideally, an axiomatic system. Axioms contain the primitive concepts of the theory and impli citly define the latter in a purely formal or syntactic way. Primitive concepts are used to define new concepts,, These two types of theoreti cal concepts acquire empirical meaning through rules of correspondence which connect them with empirical concepts. The latter, in turn, are connected through operational definitions with classes of directly ob servable, measurable events and states. (Sometimes no distinction is made between rules of correspondence and operational definitions.) With the aid of standard rules of inference and of suitable statements of antecedent conditions» it is then possible to derive from this sys tem of axioms and definitions either true or false statements about par ticular measurable states and events. This conception was always meant to be an idealisation, but it has turned out to be over-idealised. Its revision consists, essentially, in changing the status of correspondence rules and operational definitions: from definitions, they are changed into statements which eventually ad mit of confirmation or falsification. It follows that theoretical con cepts acquire a genuine meaning and do not just become meaningful through stipulation. The distinction between theory and observation is also lessened by noting that theoretical concepts build upon older (and less abstract) theoretical concepts which largely retain their customary meanings even after new scientific discoveries have been made. Theoretical hypotheses are logically prior to observational ones, because the latter are deduced from the former. As a whole, however, observation is epistemologically prior to theory, because the latter is abduced on the basis of the former. The function of definition is simi lar to that of deduction: these two operations integrate the concepts and the sentences of the theory, respectively. Since theoretical hypotheses are tied into a whole by the concepts


15

they contain, a prediction is always deduced jointly from several hypo theses (plus statements of antecedent conditions), and therefore it is impracticable to try to confirm or to falsify one single hypothesis at a time. If the prediction turns out to be false, one is to a certain extent free to decide which hypothesis from among the hypotheses consti tuting the theory has been most directly affected. That is to say, a theory must be treated as a whole whose parts are linked to each other by relations that are partly conceptual (or stipulative) and partly em pirical, but the line between conceptual and empirical may be drawn in more than one way. Furthermore, because of the great distance between theory and observation, it is an exaggeration to say that one false pre diction (even with true statements of antecedent conditions) is able to disconfirm 'conclusively' the theory: most often a false prediction effects only a readjustment of the lower-level hypotheses of the theory. The existence of instances of theoretical concepts is hypothesised on the basis of observable events which are taken to be caused by them. (This line of thinking can be continued: unobservable instances of theo retical concepts can be considered as caused by instances of more theo retical concepts,) Instances of hypothetical theoretical concepts pro duce their observable effects only under certain observable conditions, which means that theoretical concepts are normally of a dispositional nature. The relation between theoretical and observational concepts may be either nomological or statistical, but it must above all be a constant one. In other words, in whatever manner the operational defi nitions are interpreted (cf. above), it must be possible to formulate them in terms of space-time coordinates, and this is actually done in physics for instance. On the other hand, correspondence rules are most ly formulated in a "comparatively loose and imprecise" way (Nagel 1961: 99). If one ignores the need for operational definitions and concen trates only on the 'loose and imprecise' character of correspondence rules, one may with some apparent plausibility try to apply the naturalscience approach, and in particular the 'theoretical concept - observa tion concept' distinction, to instances where it is not applicable in fact. This is the case with certain trends in modern theoretical

16


linguistics for example,as I shall demonstrate later on (7.2. below). When a (type of) observable event has been e x p l a i n e d , i t i s seen i n a new and d i f f e r e n t way, namely ' t h r o u g h ' the theory which explains I t has been claimed, in p a r t i c u l a r w i t h i n c r i t i c a l

it.

rationalism, that a l l

observation is theory-dependent: f o r i n s t a n c e , the acceptance of

'basic

statements' about observable events is viewed as an a p p l i c a t i o n of the very same theory which such statements are supposed to confirm or to falsify

(Popper 1965:106).

S i m i l a r l y , i t is claimed t h a t from the cur-

rent p o i n t of view, events and f a c t s can only e x i s t w i t h i n one or other

s c i e n t i f i c theory (Feyerabend 1968).

an-

Although I admit t h a t there

is no hard-and-fast d i s t i n c t i o n between observation and t h e o r y , I cannot accept the above conclusion of an i n e v i t a b l e l o g i c a l c i r c l e between the two.

The ' s c i e n t i f i s a t i o n ' of one's outlook is not an i r r e v e r s i b l e pro-

cess; r a t h e r , i t is possible to r e - e s t a b l i s h t h a t common-sense or practical

approach of looking at things which precedes science both w i t h i n

c o l l e c t i v e h i s t o r y and w i t h i n i n d i v i d u a l one.

Although the p r a c t i c a l

view i s a theory of i t s own, and v a r i e s , to some e x t e n t , both geographic a l l y and d i a c h r o n i c a l l y , i t nevertheless represents the only

possibility

f o r c o n s t r u c t i n g an o b j e c t i v e basis on which d i f f e r e n t theories can be compared and evaluated. 'constructivist'

A s i m i l a r a t t i t u d e is c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of the

philosophy of the s o - c a l l e d Erlangen school ( c f . ,

Kambartel & M i t t e l s t r a s s 1973).

e.g.,

As we s h a l l see, these questions are o

in no way limited to natural science only. 1.5.

Ontology

The ontology of positivism is still today based on the logical atomism of the early Wittgenstein; a world constructed along these lines can be called a Tractatus-viorld

(von Wright 1971:44).

The thesis of

atomism can be taken as a reformulation of the definition of empiricainess given in terms of spatiotemporal testability (cf. 1.1. above). Both attempt to draw the line between empirical and nonempirical scien ce by imposing certain conditions upon the data of purportedly empiri cal descriptions.

The thesis says, essentially, that it must not be the

case that the existence of some states of affairs is logically (or con-

17


ceptually) necessary to the existence of some other states of affairs. The distinction at issue is that between empirical science and concep tual analysis.

It is based on the distinction between natural and logi

cal (or conceptual) necessity, which we might illustrate, respectively, by the sentences "If a piece of metal is heated, it expands" and "If Bill is a bachelor, he is unmarried"

What is at

issue here is 'simply' the difference between what can and what cannot 9 be thought or imagined. The use of a 'psychologistic' concept like 'imaginability' as the criterion of natural vs. conceptual necessity or, to use other terms, of contingent vs. necessary truth, has sometimes been objected to, but there is actually no alternative to it (Pap 1958: 216-18): all more formal criteria derive their meaning from the fact that they rest upon this 'psychologistic', i.e., intuitive, distinction; or else they have no meaning at all.

Now, it seems undeniable that it

is possible to imagine 'q' to be false without being forced to imagine 'p' also to be false; and this shows that the (causal) relation between the events referred to by 'p' and 'q' is not conceptual.

This presup

poses of course a previous acceptance of the customary rules of logic. Yet it also seems undeniable that if we imagine 's' to be false, there is no way for us to imagine that 'r' might nevertheless be true. There fore the relation between (the facts referred to by) 'r' and 's' must be conceptual.

Interestingly enough, there are conceptual relations also

between spatially and temporally distinct actions

i or more precisely

between the meanings of such actions (cf. 4.2.2. below). Conceptual relations cannot exist in space and time, because the entities between which they hold, i.e., concepts or meanings, do not exist in space and time.

Now, the

de facto

identity of the thesis of

atomism and the thesis of spatiotemporal testability, as definitions of empi ri cal ness, can be seen in the fact that while the latter bases the notion of 'empirical' on what happens or obtains in space and time, the former excludes from the domain of 'empirical' precisely that which does not happen or obtain in space and time, i.e., conceptual relations.

The

rationale behind the thesis of atomism seems to be the Humean idea that in space and time anything whatever could occur, even if its occurrence

18


is highly improbable. Since anything could occur, observably in prin ciple, in space andtime, empirical sentences and theories, which are about space and time, are necessarily testable on the basis of obser vable evidence. The empirical world differs from the 'world of concepts' precisely because it is not imaginable that in this world anything what ever could occur. In fact, notions such as 'spatiotemporality', 'occur rence', and 'observation' constitute a coherent whole which is incompa tible with any characterisation of the 'world of concepts'. We noted already that concepts are not spatiotemporal entities. Nor do they occur or fail to occur in the real world (although it is true, of course, that given concepts may or may not be consciously held at a given time and a given place). This is connected with the fact that relations between concepts hold necessarily, not contingently. It is a necessary (conceptual) fact that, for instance, 'bachelor' entails 'unmarried', contradicts 'married', is compatible with 'tall' and in compatible with 'divisible by 3', although usually only entailment and contradiction are called 'necessary' relations. The necessary character of conceptual relations is not called into question by the fact that concepts change in the course of time or, more precisely, that people replace old concepts by new ones: this only means that new necessary relations are substituted for old ones. -The distinction between conceptual analysis and empirical science will be discussed in greater detail in the next chapter (see 2.0. below). 1.6. Concluding Remarks In the beginning I defined 'positivism' as that philosophy of science which claims that all empirical sciences must make use of the methods of natural science. Above I have characterised these methods so as to make the basic tenet of positivism more precise. We may ask what are the sciences which, according to positivism, might be able to acquire the status of an empirical science. In my view the following disciplines could well qualify: sociology, economics, linguistics, anthropology, possibly psychoanalysis and history, and perhaps also classical philo logy; lastly,if at all, the study of literature, music, and the fine arts.


19

As we noted in 1.1., philosophy and logic constitute the opposite of empirical science. It is a remarkable fact that in the positivist tradition the relation between empirical science and nonempirical scien ce has practically never been explicitly discussed. The positivist de finition of philosophy and logic is a purely negative one: they are simply those sciences (or 'disciplines') which are not empirical. I try to put linguistics into its proper place within the system of sciences. This requires a reinterpretation not only of linguistics, but of some other sciences as well, as will be seen in the next chapter.

2.0. THE IDEA OF 'HERMENEUTICS' I shall use the term 'hermeneutics' to denote all those schools of thought which make an irreducible distinction between observation and understanding, and claim that the investigation of human phenomena is, in one way or another, qualitatively different from the investigation of physical reality. Thus, as a philosophy of science, hermeneutics is clearly opposed to positivism. Such an interpretation of 'hermeneutics' appears historically justified. However, as will be seen toward the end of this chapter, this view will lead to a somewhat modified concep tion of 'hermeneutic science'. Hermeneutics constitutes itself, first, as a set of theories of particular (human) sciences and, second, as a theory of the nature and the presuppositions of science, or of scientific knowledge, in general. In the latter instance, hermeneutics overlaps with so-called 'transcen dental philosophy'. There exists no uniform hermeneutic method, compa rable for instance to the positivistic notions of explanation ortesting. This is due to the fact that the subject matter of (the sciences analy sed by) hermeneutics is not as uniform as the measurable subject matter of natural science. As a purely informal characterisation, it might be said that hermeneutics acquires its data through understanding meanings, intentions, values, norms, or rules, and that the hermeneutic analysis consists in reflection upon what has been understood. It goes without saying that, depending on the nature of the investigation, hermeneutic methods may be combined with more empirically oriented methods. To my knowledge, Radnitzky (1970) contains the most thorough dis cussion of the relationship between positivism and hermeneutics (al though these terms are not used quite in the same way as here). Haber-

THE IDEA OF 'HERMENEUTICS'

21

mas (1970) offers a good exposition of the hermeneutic modes of think ing. Apel (1973a) emphasises more the purely philosophical aspect of hermeneutics.

Other theoretists will be named below in the course of

discussion. In this chapter, I shall illustrate the hermeneutic point of view by starting from experimental psychology and proceeding gradually - in the direction of decreasing empiricalness - to philosophy and logic. 2.1.

Psychology

In the most general terms, hermeneutics says that it makes a dif ference whether one investigates physical nature or human nature. There are instances where the truth of this claim is rather obvious (though far from universally acknowledged). However, I want to begin from an example where there is apparently no difference between natural science and human science, and to show that even there the existence of such a difference can be demonstrated in a precise way. If human beings are investigated strictly from a physical or biological point of view, then it is trivially true that the resulting description is pure natural science. Experimental psychology comes closest to being a science which while studying humans qua humans, is nevertheless comparable to a natu ral science. Both in experimental psychology and in natural science spatiotemporal phenomena give rise to explanatory hypotheses about those unobservable mechanisms which make the phenomena in question happen. Therefore it may seem rather natural to assume that one single concept of science is operative here. This is indeed the prevailing opinion in modern theoretical linguistics for instance. Thus it is claimed that there is no difference between a physical concept like 'redness' and a psychological concept like 'intention': the occurrence of instances of either concept can and must be scientifically ascertained by means of objective, measurable criteria (Schnelle 1973:37-39). In what follows, I shall compare precisely these two concepts. Applied to the case at hand, my objection to the thesis of a strict equivalence between experimental psychology and natural science runs as follows. It is possible, in principle, to investigate, within a given experimental set-up, the redness or non-redness of all objects of the wor'

22


without exception. By contrast, investigating, within a given experi mental set-up, the occurrence or non-occurrence of intentions divides the objects of the world into two strictly separate classes, namely those which can, and those which cannot, even in principle, be subjec ted to experimentation. To illustrate: Suppose that there is a group A of experimental psychologists and that one half of A, i.e., A-,, intends to investigate the occurrence or non-occurrence of specific intentions in a group of test persons. Then the other half, or Α 2 , may justifiably claim that it is illegitimate to speak about any intentions of A-,, until their occurrence has been established by means of objective measurements, and A2 proceeds to make such measurements. But this means - and both A-, and A2 know that it means - that A2 intends to make the requisite measu rements. And yet, if A-, and A2 accept the general thesis of positivism, they must claim that it is illegitimate to speak of knowing any such intentions of A 2 until they have been measured by A 1 . But measuring them implies, again, intending to measure them, and these intentions of A1 ought to be measured first by A 2 ; and so ad i n f i n i t u m . Notice, on the other hand, that there is no difficulty whatever for A-, to measure the occurrence or non-occurrence of redness on the faces of the members of A2 and vice versa. Or, to choose an example from mechanics, there is no difficulty whatever for A-, and A 2 to use each other as specimens of freely falling bodies. The same point can be made even more easily in the following way: Suppose that a given psychologist intends-, to investigate intentions of his test persons. Then, in order to justify his undeniable know ledge of his intention·,, he ought to measure it, which implies intending,, to measure it, but then he ought to (intend3 to) measure his intention2 first; and so on. By contrast, he could easily investigate the redness on his own face or use himself as a freely falling body. To give one more example, suppose that someone is experimentally investigating the process of understanding in his test persons. It goes without saying that he understands-, the outcome of his experiment, i.e., whether it confirms or falsifies his hypothesis, and more importantly, he knows that he understands it. But he cannot subject his understanding1

THE IDEA OF H ' ERMENEUTICS'

23

to experimentation; and even i f he c o u l d , i t would be necessary f o r him to be able non-experimentally to understand 2 the outcome of t h i s e x p e r i ment; and so on.

I t i s i n f a c t a r a t h e r s e l f - e v i d e n t t r u t h t h a t when I

am conducting experiments, I must know what I am doing; but i t is not on the basis of experiments (on myself) t h a t Ï have acquired t h i s knowledge (of m y s e l f ) .

Nor can i t be claimed t h a t , when I see others per-

forming experiments and know what they are doing, I have acquired t h i s knowledge on the basis of experiments. points o u t , an experiment presupposes

As Wittgenstein (1967, I I , § 71) mutual understanding.

We have seen, f i r s t , t h a t w i t h i n a given experimental

situation

there are objects whose i n t e n t i o n s or lack of them cannot be measurably tested and, second, t h a t these are p r e c i s e l y objects which are known to have i n t e n t i o n s .

By c o n t r a s t , the redness or non-redness of a l l

objects,

i n c l u d i n g the measuring instruments and the bodies of the s c i e n t i s t s , can be measurably tested in a given experimental

situation.

Above, I presented a c l e a r - c u t d i f f e r e n c e between natural science and experimental psychology.

Since the l a t t e r i n v e s t i g a t e s the occur-

rence of instances of concepts ( e . g . ,

'intention')

on which, as forms

of human a c t i v i t y , a l l sciences - i n c l u d i n g experimental

psychology

i t s e l f - are necessarily based, i t i s l o g i c a l l y impossible t h a t i t exhaustively describe (the knowledge of) a l l

could

instances of such concepts.

(Instances of ' i n t e n t i o n ' f o r example are necessarily contained in the very act of d e s c r i p t i o n . ) Attempts at providing an exhaustive e x p e r i mental d e s c r i p t i o n i n e v i t a b l y lead to an i n f i n i t e regress, as has been shown above. The regress can be halted only by g i v i n g up the attempt at o p e r a t i o n a l i s i n g one's knowledge i n i t s e n t i r e t y and by s t a r t i n g to flect

re

on t h a t p a r t of one's knowledge which cannot be operational i sed.

We have seen t h a t even i n experimental psychology there e x i s t s t h i s type of knowledge, t h a t i s , even there not a l l knowledge about what is to be i n v e s t i g a t e d , e . g . i n t e n t i o n s , is experimental knowledge.

In such a

case, then, experimentation i s not j u s t unnecessary, but also impossible. By c o n t r a s t , physical science does not i n v e s t i g a t e instances of concepts on which i t , qua science, i s based.

A l l physical p r o p e r t i e s of scien-

t i s t s and of measuring instruments a l i k e are measurable, which means

24


that, within physics, all (potential) knowledge about what is to be in vestigated is experimental knowledge. The unsuccesful attempt to turn all psychological knowledge into experimental knowledge is clearly analogous to the attempt to formalise the whole of logic, i.e., to turn all (logical) languages into formalised languages. Today it is universally agreed that the attempt at total formalisation is a logical impossibility. In each particular case, the formalised language must be intuitively understood - otherwise the formalisation would simply have no point - and this understanding re mains of course unformalised and can only be expressed through ordinary language. And if it subsequently becomes formalised, then the new (meta-)formalisation will presuppose an intuitive understanding of its own, expressible, again, through ordinary language only; and so on. This ge neral principle has been formulated in the dictum "ordinary language is always the last metalanguage". The only way to stop the infinite re gresses of formal languages and of psychological experimentation is (self-)reflection, ordinary language being just its expression. At first glance, experimental psychology and logic are rather dis similar. They agree, however, on using experimentation and formalisation, respectively, as means of externalisation of knowledge. As we have just seen, all knowledge cannot be externalised; the non-externalisable part can only be reflected upon. Externalisation is a more inclusive concept than operationalisation, and a more restricted one than expression. As a method, reflection is clearly different from empirical testing with its predictive and explanatory components (cf. 1.2. above): the former operates on knowledge whereas the latter operates on events in space and time. As Habermas (1968:9) has succintly said, lack of re flection is positivism. Reflection is an objective method and leads to objective results, but its objectivity is of course different from the measurable objectivity of natural science. 2.2.

Sociology

Just like experimental psychology, main-stream or Durkheimian so ciology is in important respects similar to natural science: it constructs (probabilistic) causal models in order to explain actual (social) beha-


25

viour (cf. Blalock 1964 and Boudon 1974; as for applications to linguis tics, cf. Itkonen forthcoming

a).

In this section, however, I shall

concentrate specifically on those aspects that distinguish sociology from natural science. The uniformity of the data of natural science is guaranteed by the fact that only its measurable properties are taken into account.

Since

each centimeter or second is identical with each other centimeter or second, the differences and similarities between (physical) things and events can be ascertained in a precise and perfectly general way. In experimental psychology already, it is only seldom that behaviour and its relevantsurroundings can be given numerical values in an equally re liable way. Yet, intuitively speaking, it seems to be possible that different types of behaviour and surroundings relating, e.g., to the psychology of perception could be assigned to relatively stable and easily generalisable categories.

In sociology, however, even this in

tuitive confidence is lacking to a large extent.

Such sociologically

relevant dimensions as welfare or discontentment are not measurable in the same self-evident way as length or time.

Nor has it been possible

to make them measurable through operationalisation, as has been done to the dimension of colour for example.

As a consequence, no feelings or

acts of discontentment are interchangeable, as measurably identical things or events are, and results obtained in one social context can only with qualifications, if at all, be generalised to other social con texts . Of course, it is possible to give exact space-time coordinates to particular instances of social behaviour, and in this sense, then, so cial data are 'measurable'.

But it is justifiably felt that, taken by

themselves, space and time are sociologically irrelevant dimensions: giving a spatio-temporal definition to social physical

behaviour changes it into

behaviour and makes the data of sociology simply disappear. On

the other hand, dimensions such as welfare or discontentment are felt, again justifiably, to be sociologically relevant, whatever spatio-temporal

manifestations

turn

their

exact

out to be.

The framework of universal measurability defines the notion of

26


scientific way is

observation

observable.

(Beobachtung):

space and. time measured i n such a

Unable to impose a s i m i l a r , s c i e n t i f i c a l l y

relevant

framework on social d a t a , the s o c i o l o g i s t is forced to t r y to (deuten)

or understand

(verstehen)

interpret

them, as best he can, before he can

even t h i n k of s c i e n t i f i c a l l y explaining them.

This f a c t is c l e a r l y e v i -

dent i n cases where one sets out to describe a f o r e i g n community the discussion of Sapir in 3 . 3 . below).

(cf.

When one describes one's own

community, the element of understanding is apparently lacking, because one has unconsciously acquired the r e q u i s i t e understanding while growing up in the community; i n t h i s case, the data are s i t u a t e d on the l e vel of one's pre-understanding

(Vorverständnis).

Understanding pertains to the meaning (Sinn) of i t s r e s u l t s .

of social behaviour or

There is no known way, f o r instance no strategy of

t h e o r e t i c a l concepts, correspondence r u l e s , and operational

definitions,

to e l i m i n a t e meaning or to reduce understanding to observation ( c f . a b o v e ; f o r more d e t a i l s , see 4 . 0 . and 7.0. below).

Therefore understanding,

which i t s e l f may be of explanatory character (Weber 1968:546-48), must remain a precondition f o r s o c i o l o g i c a l

explanation:

Soziologie ... soll heissen: eine Wissenschaft, welche soziales Handeln deutend verstehen und dadurch in seinem Ablauf und seinen Wirkungen ursächlich erklären will (Weber 1968:542). Diese Mehr leistung der deutenden gegenüber der beobachtenden Erklärung ist freilich durch den wesentlich hypothetischeren und fragmentari scheren Charakter der durch Deutung zu gewinnenden Ergebnisse er kauft. Aber dennoch: sie ist gerade das dem soziologischen Erken nen Spezifische (o~p.cit., p. 555). It is often claimed that understanding is a heuristic tool which merely facilitates access to the data of sociology.

This is an entirely

misleading formulation, however, because understanding provides the only access to the data of sociology.

If this access is blocked there is

nothing to be described; and if the access is distorted the data are distorted accordingly.

It is a remarkable fact that no one has ever

tried to describe a society or,

for that matter, a language in purely

observational terms, which is another way of saying that no one has ever tried to describe a society or a language whichhe has not under stood (at all). Therefore it is pointless to insist that this could be


27

done, in principle. All attempts at reducing understanding to observation are inspired by the positivistic idea of Einheitswissenschaft.

They are characteris

tic of philosophers of sociology, not of practicing sociologists, who have difficulties enough in trying to explain satisfactorily social data as such.

However, many sociologists think that even if the data of

sociology and physics are qualitatively different, they are nevertheless governed by the same type of laws.

This position is certainly justified

to some extent, but it cannot be accepted without qualifications. Com pare Runciman (1969:10): The less extreme positivistic position, which concedes validity to individual characters and intentions but claims that they are reducible in terms of general laws of human behaviour, can be countered simply by pointing out that no such reduction has been succesfully made. Different people will respond differently to different situations in the light of knowledge which is now un foreseeable, and any procedure on the strict model of natural science is therefore bound to break down. And: The historian (and therefore the social scientist) can never be a thoroughgoing positivist; but he must, once he has realized this, still try to behave up to a point as though he were (op. cit.., p. 11). In sociological field work the data depend crucially on how the people define the sociologist who is investigating them.

There is no

effective way of controlling this process of definition because it is performed by 'Objects' who are, in principle, just as unpredictable or free in their actions as the sociologist himself.

Thus, sociological

field work (on which the subsequent theoretical description is entirely based) is an interaction, pretation.

or a process of mutual definition and inter

The deeper one enters into this interaction, the better and

richer data one obtains but, at the same time, the more one is forced to give up the scientific, data-controlling attitude (Cicourel 1964, chap. 2).

The interactional character of sociological research brings out the

general truth that one cannot understand someone else without the possi bility of being understood by the latter in return.

This possibility

contributes in an essential way to distinguishing understanding from

28


misunderstanding, (It is another,contingent matter that often this possi bility is not actualised, for instance because of the temporal distance between the one who understands and the one who is being understood.) When people are misunderstood, they generally show it. Indeed, it is a universal phenomenon that people may reject an interpretation, perhaps a numerical one, which is being imposed upon them - one need only to think of slaves rejecting the concept of 'slave' - and similar phenomena may occur, and have occurred in fact, in the context of sociological interpretations, especially when sociology works in a close cooperation with the political establishment. In such instances, it is even possible that the interpretation produces a change in what is being interpreted. It is well known that in natural science research instruments may affect the behaviour of research objects; but there this phenomenon is predic table. The constant possibility of a change of social behaviour points to the pervasive historicity of social data: not only types of behaviour and of surroundings change in the course of time, but also the criteria with which they are evaluated or 'measured'. Moreover, the variation in time is compounded by a variation in space. Now let us, for comparison, consider the situation in physics. It does not make sense to say that physical objects define or understand the physicist. Physical objects and the physicist 'interact' only in the figurative sense of the word; it would be more accurate to say that only the latter acts, namely by manipulating the former. The degree of the data-controlling attitude increases with the degree of the physical 'interaction', not vice versa. Physical objects 'reject' a proposed in terpretation only in the figurative sense of the word. Finally, though eyery particular conception of natural science is historically given, as is evident from the discrepancy between the Aristotelian and the Gal i lean traditions, the current conception consists precisely in describing phy sical reality in ahistorical terms. Physical reality may have a history, e.g., it may be true that the universe is constantly expanding, but this history is expressed in ahi stori cal terms. It might be possible to de scribe the physical reality differently, but we have decided to consider


29

in it only that which is measurable by means of units of length, time, and weight, categories which are explicitly defined as ahistorical enti ties. The important thing is that this decision has proved to be wellmotivated: it has not led to a conflict with physical facts; rather, it seems to reflect the very nature of physical data adequately, in a pri mitive, noncircular sense of 'adequacy'. In sociology, by contrast, a similar decision, i.e., a decision to adopt a fixed, ahistorical system of descriptive concepts, leads immediately to a conflict with social data. This is an undisputable fact. The only thing that can be dispu ted about, is whether or not this situation must remain the way it is. In my opinion, no amount of progress can bring about a qualitative change in this respect. To do justice to the historicity, which sociology shares with its subject matter, it must work with an essentially open system of primitive descriptive concepts. Sociology sets up hypotheses that are confirmed or falsified by what occurs or obtains in space and time. To that extent, it would be accurate to call sociology an 'empirical' science. We have seen, on the other hand, that the data which either confirm or falsify sociological hypotheses cannot be defined in a uniform, numerical way. Rather, the data come to be seen as what they are through the process of understand ing a given culture, or, more generally, a given body of social relation ships or meanings; and there is no known way to operationalis.e either this process or its result. Since the knowledge of social data cannot be operationalised in a uniform way, namely, in terms of "position and movement of macroscopic physical bodies", it follows that sociological theories cannot be falsified in such terms, which again means that so ciology is not an empirical science in the same sense as physics (cf. 1.1.). In other words,sociology contains an irreducible hermeneutic component. Where there is a danger of confusion, I shall use the terms 'empi rical 1 ' and 'empirical2' as equivalent to, respectively, 'empirical in the physical, measurable sense1 and 'empirical in the social, non-mea surable sense'. It is the same fact which separates both experimental psychology

30


and sociology from natural science: psychologists and sociologists in vestigate something which they themselves, qua scientists, are part of. It is impossible for them to reach avantage point from which all psy chological or social-historical phenomena could be exhaustively described, Such a vantage point would lie outside of the human nature; but no one can step outside of himself. By contrast, the physical reality, inclu ding the bodies of scientists themselves, can be viewed from such a vantage point. Within sociology, the fact that scientists investigate what they are part of, or what is qualitatively similar to them, draws attention nature of man and, hence, to problems of interpreta to the historical In the discussion of experimental psychology in 2.1., the role tion. of interpretation appeared nonexistent. In retrospects it can be seen, however, that psychological phenomena, like intentions, are identified as what they are solely on the basis of a common pre-understanding which psychologists share with their 'data', i.e., test persons. Such a preunderstanding (or Vorverständnis) is inevitably a culture-dependent or historical phenomenon. 2.3.

Psychoanalysis

and

Psychotherapy

Sociology investigates phenomena in space and time and offers causal explanations, for them: it at the same time has to struggle with the prob lem of interpreting its data. All these elements reappear in the context of psychoanalysis. However, their constellation is new, and the empha sis on the hermeneutic component is stronger. - My view of psychoanaly sis is based primarily on Habermas (1968) and Lorenzer (1973). The psychoanalyst attempts, essentially, to trace disturbances in the patient's behaviour back to certain early traumatic experiences, and to cancel their negative influence. The immediate data which he has to start from are almost exclusively of verbal character: they consist of dream-reports and reported free associations« The immediate task is to interpret this verbal material, or to translate it into ordinary langu age. Freud already noticed the analogy between this undertaking and philological work (Habermas 1968:263). Translation between two langu ages is not possible, unless they possess common meanings. The very


31

possibility of psychoanalysis rests on the fact that the patient's langu age is a distorted variant of ordinary language. Its interpretation cannot succeed, unless the systematicity of the distortion is revealed, and this presupposes, in turn, the existence of a general psychoanaly tic theory. There are several such theories, but they all seem to share the assumption that neurotic disturbances in language and behaviour are symptoms of, or caused by, an early conflict between one's personal wish es and properties of one's social environment: the conflict is resolved, and the consistency between individual and social is reinstated, by re moving the offending wishes from one's consciousness and, at the same time, by removing the corresponding expressions from one's language. This is only an apparent solution, however, because the wishes remain buried in the unconscious and give rise to neurotic surrogate behaviour. Rather than interpreting the conflict as existing between two selfconsistent but opposite entities, i.e., the patient and his social en vironment, it is also possible, and perhaps preferable, to locate the conflict, or contradiction, in the latter, that is, to claim that one of these two entities, viz. the social environment, is in fact selfcontradictory. The patient merely internalises the social contradic tion. This brings him into an insoluble 'can't win' situation, where neurotic or psychotic behaviour appears as the only 'rational' solution (Laing & Esterson 1964). Interpreting the patient's language, or translating it back into ordinary language, is a typically hermeneutic undertaking, given that traditional hermeneutics originated in philological analysis and clari fication of texts (Palmer 1969:75-83). Taken in itself, this phase of psychoanalytic research has little or no connection with the methodology of natural science. However, the situation changes when we take into account that the psychoanalyst is, after all, looking for causal factors, i.e., those conflicts which have caused, inter a l i a , the disturbances in the patient's language. To this extent, it seems, then, that the psychoanalyst is doing empirical science. However, his preoccupation with causality is of a peculiar nature, because as soon as he discovers a cause-effect relationship, he tries to abolish it, something which

32


would be unimaginable w i t h i n natural science.

That i s , i t is not j u s t

a question of preventing a cause-effect r e l a t i o n s h i p from being actual i s e d , but of l i t e r a l l y a b o l i s h i n g

it.

We saw in 2 . 2 . (above) t h a t the s o c i o l o g i s t must enter i n t o an i n t e r a c t i o n w i t h the people he is i n v e s t i g a t i n g .

In psychoanalytic r e -

search the degree of i n t e r a c t i o n is considerably higher.

The a b o l i t i o n

of the causal f a c t o r s t h a t have been responsible f o r the p a t i e n t ' s neur o t i c behaviour c o n s t i t u t e s the c r i t e r i o n f o r the success of psychoanal y t i c work.

But the success depends on the a c t i v e cooperation of the

p a t i e n t : the e a r l y c o n f l i c t looses i t s causal g r i p on him, only i f he understands

i t as what i t i s ; t h u s , understanding abolishes

causality.

The r e l a t i o n between the psychoanalyst and the p a t i e n t is not j u s t an i n t e r a c t i o n ; more p r e c i s e l y , i t is a dialogue.

In the beginning, the

dialogue may be very d e f e c t i v e , but i t is p r e c i s e l y the task of the psychoanalytic i n t e r p r e t a t i o n to improve on i t .

In the end both p a r t -

ners are supposed to have a normal d i a l o g u e , i . e . ,

to speak the same,

n o n - d i s t o r t e d language. - Here, I t h i n k , any analogy to natural

science

i s too f a r - f e t c h e d to deserve a comment. Psychoanalysis is a critical

science: i t t r i e s to show to the pa-

t i e n t t h a t , in important respects, his (self-)knowledge i s l i m i t e d or d i s t o r t e d , or simply false.

The p a t i e n t achieves, h o p e f u l l y , true know-

ledge when he becomes conscious of those f a c t o r s t h a t have been, from the o u t s i d e , as i t were, determining his (previous) consciousness. has often been noted t h a t psychoanalysis shares t h i s c r i t i c a l with Marxist sociology. prescriptive

It

attitude

The d i f f e r e n c e between c r i t i c a l science and

science i s , a g a i n , one of degree or emphasis ( c f . 2 . 5 . be-

low) . Insofar as i t can be s a f e l y assumed t h a t the c o n t r a d i c t i o n r e s i d e s , p r i m a r i l y , i n the p a t i e n t ' s social environment, the way t h a t psychoanal y s i s - o r , r a t h e r , psychotherapy paragraph as a c r i t i c a l

- was characterised in the previous

science, i s no longer a p p r o p r i a t e .

assumption, psychotherapy i s c r i t i c a l

On t h i s new

p r i m a r i l y of e x i s t i n g social con-

d i t i o n s and only secondarily of the p a t i e n t ' s self-knowledge; t h a t i s , his knowledge is f a l s e only i n s o f a r as he has taken his social e n v i r o n -


33

ment as representing an unquestionable and immutable truth. Habermas (1968, chap. 10) considers psychoanalysis as analogous to the philosophical critique of 'knowledge. On this interpretation, the patient and the psychoanalyst fulfil respectively the functions of knowledge and of critical reflection upon knowledge. This analogy is illuminating but not very fruitful, because it is not able to represent new knowledge: the truth towards which the achievement of any actually the 'critical reflection' is progressing is always known in advance, i.e., it is that common-sense knowledge which the psychoanalyst already possesses and which the patient is supposed to (re)gain at the end of the treatment. However, it would seem to be more fruitful to reverse the roles in such a way that the psychoanalyst, or his knowledge, comes to represent the knowledge to be criticised. Of course, the patient cannot literally take over the function of critical reflection, but in any case he gives the evidence in the light of which the psychoanalyst may criticise and improve his own knowledge. That is, from seeing what kind of social relationships are inadequate to, because destructive of the human mind, he may draw tentative inferences as to the 'real' natu re of the human mind and to the type of society adequate to it. 2.4.

Sociology

of

Knowledge

All the human sciences that I have discussed so far share a concern with particular entities whose location in space and time can, or could, be specified with a high degree of precision. Even in psychoanalysis, the traumatic experience that causes neurotic behaviour was itself caused by an event or a series of events that could be, at least in principle, spatiotemporally specified; and events of this kind are part of the subject matter of psychoanalysis. On the other hand, sociology of knowledge, also called 'phenomenological sociology', is characterised by the fact that it excludes the consideration of particular space-time entities. This feature sets sociology of knowledge (as well as in this respect similar sciences) definitively off from natural science. Metho dological characteristics that are common to sociology of knowledge as well as natural science are common to all sciences without exception. To begin with, I want to explain under which conditions it is rea-

34


sonable and even necessary to make scientific descriptions without any regard to particular spatiotemporal entities.

Let us consider, for in

stance, the description of such entities as beliefs.

It is clear that

a person must possess some internal ,psychologycal mechanisms which en able him to acquire beliefs or, alternatively, which determine what kinds of belief he may acquire.

It is also clear that certain external,

social factors or mechanisms determine, to a high degree, what kinds of beliefs he does acquire in fact.

Furthermore, it is not only the case

that beliefs are determined by internal and external mechanisms; beliefs are themselves part of a determining mechanism insofar as they influence the behaviour of the one who maintains them, or, alternatively, are ma nifested in and through his behaviour.

And yet, after we have described

what determines a belief, and what it determines, there still remains the task of describing the belief itself.

Since psychological and so

cial factors determine only in a rather abstract and unpredictable way which beliefs one actually comes to uphold, it is necessary

to describe

beliefs in their own right, in addition to the fact that it is always possible

and legitimate to do so.

This is not to deny that, depending

on the purpose at hand, the description of a belief may occur as only a part of a larger, e.g., historical description, which must then con tain also the causes and effects of the belief in. question. (What I have said here about beliefs, is generally true of attitudes, opinions, ideas, goals, ideals, etc.) To give a still clearer example, let us consider, next, such enti ties as games. played,

All games must be, at least potentially, learned and

and since processes of learning and playing necessarily take

place in space and time, it follows that games necessarily have a spa tiotemporal reference.

And

yet, although games and (at least poten

tial) processes of learning and playing always occur together, they are clearly different

aspects of one and the same phenomenon.

Indeed,

it would be a serious mistake not to distinguish between descriptions of games and descriptions of how they are learned and/or played.

The

former are, directly, descriptions of rules (or norms) and hence, in directly, of possible

correct

behaviour.

The latter are descriptions

THE IDEA OF 'HERMENEUTICS' of actual

35

behaviour, whether correct or not.

The distinction between normativity and spatiotemporal ity will occupy us later at a greater length (cf. 7.0. below).

Here I simply

state it as a fact that normativity cannot be reduced to, or exhausti vely defined in terms of space and time.

This is not a repetition of

the thesis that social behaviour cannot be reduced to physical behavi our, i.e., to mere sounds and movements (cf. 2.2.).

It means, rather,

that a norm cannot be adequately defined by means of any number of factual nonnormative actions, which are of course spatiotemporal, but not only

spatiotemporal, entities.

Games are learned and played under psychological and social con ditions, and therefore descriptions of the processes of learning and playing games are psychological and/or sociological (in fact, socialpsychological) descriptions.

As such, they are directed towards dis

covering those causal (or perhaps teleological) mechanisms that, together with (people's subjective conceptions of) the rules themselves, would explain the game-behaviour; hypotheses about the mechanisms involved are confirmed or refuted by spatiotemporal actions which may, but need not, occur under experimental conditions.

By contrast, within the de

scription of rules there is no room for mechanisms of any kind. notion of (causal) 'mechanism' is inseparably

The

tied to space and time,

that is, to the idea of making something happen in space and time. 12 Rules and norms do not exist in space and time, fined in spatiotemporal terms.

nor can they be de

This idea is expressed by calling norm-

descriptions 'conceptual analyses'.

It is indeed an analytical truth

that conceptual analyses are incompatible with the (empirical) search for causal mechanisms.

This analytical truth is reflected in the simple

fact that no one would consider for example descriptions of the rules of chess or poker as causal descriptions. - The same basic distinctions as here are made by Weber (1968:332-43).

Weber (542-48) explicitly re

moves normativity outside of (empirical) sociology. It can be seen, in retrospect, that the description of beliefs and ideas, too, has in itself nothing to do with the search for causal mechanisms.

A causal element may be involved both in acquiring a be-

36


lief or an idea and in maintaining it or acting in accordance with it, in analogy to the two processes of learning a game and playing it. But beliefs or ideas in themselves, or knowledge tible with causality.

in general, are incompa

This is evident from the simple fact that know

ledge about an event in space and time is not itself in space and time, whereas causality must obtain between entities in space and time. In linguistics, for instance, it is customary to speak of 'uncon scious mechanisms that

underlie knowledge' or, simply, of 'underlying

knowledge', which might give rise to the impression that descriptions of knowledge are somehow imperfect without corresponding causal de scriptions.

However, these expressions refer in fact to the mechanisms

underlying the acquisition and performance of those actions

(of sentence

production and recognition) which, or whose results, constitute the object of the knowledge in question.

The only mechanisms that underlie

knowledge, and not for instance actions as the object of knowledge, are those little-understood mechanisms which produce and maintain (self-) consciousness in general, and which cannot be limited to individual psychology (cf. 4.0. below). A description of a game, of chess for example, cannot be empirical ly falsified, in that precise sense in which empirical (i.e., empirical1 or empirica 2 ) falsification is defined as falsification on the basis of particular events or actions in space and time.

No particular action

performed in playing chess can invalidate the rules of chess, or the corresponding description: all such actions are either correct or in correct, and in both instances they have no impact upon the rules. Con sequently, according to Popper's 'criterion of demarcation', a game-de scription is 'metaphysical', since it is not empirical (Popper 1965:4042).

Of course, a description of chess may be falsified by pointing

out that it misrepresents the rules, or fails to describe them as they are.

But it is impossible to reformulate this as a case of

falsification.

empirical

It should not be surprising that conceptual analyses

are not empirically falsifiable.

In accordance with the use of subin

dices up to now, I shall say that empirical1 theories are testable 1 , empiricai ? theories are testable 2 , and conceptual analyses are testable 3 .

THE IDEA OF H ' ERMENEUTICS'

37

One cannot describe a game adequately unless one knows it, or knows its rules. Therefore it might be said equally well that one describes a game or the knowledge of a game (for details, see 5.0.). This is the reason why it is proper to discuss games in the present context. Above, I have made a clear distinction between describing a game and describing the process of learning it. This means that I must now make an equally clear distinction between knowing or mastering a game and learning it. In practice, the existence of such a distinction is always taken for granted. For instance, it would be absurd for me to doubt indefinitely whether or not I have learned the rules of poker. It is no objection to point to the fact that no one can tell the precise moment from which on one is no longer learning the game, but masters it. There are count less distinctions, e.g., those between young and old, or rich andpoor, whose existence it would be absurd to deny, in spite of the fact that it is impossible to tell where, precisely, the rich for example ends and the poor begins. Nor is it an objection to point to the fact that some people are sometimes forced to start describing a (complex) game before they master it properly. Descriptions of games can be Supplemente d, and perhaps even modi fied, by psychological or sociological descriptions of how they are learned and played; but they cannot be replaced by the latter. There exists an important asymmetry between these different types of descrip tion: it is possible, and quite normal, to describe games in their own right, without reference to their psychological or sociological as pects; but it is impossible to describe psychological or sociological aspects of games without reference to games themselves. This lengthy exposition was necessary in order to give a general justification for the kind of science that sociology of knowledge is. My principal sources in this domain are Mead (1934), Schutz (1962), and Berger & Luckmann (1966). This type of research was anticipated in Husserl (1962[1913]:91-96).13 Sociology of knowledge is primarily interested in the analysis and clarification of common-sense knowledge, not in those conditions which determine the nature of this kind of knowledge. Thus, unlike

38


psychoanalysis or Marxist sociology, sociology of knowledge is not a critical science: it tries to describe knowledge, not to influence it. However, a critical dimension could be seen as a rather natural exten sion of the general analytical concern with knowledge. In the discussion of empirical sociology in 2.2., we noticed that the description and explanation of social behaviour presupposes fami liarity with the culture or, more narrowly, with the institutions with in which the behaviour in question takes place. One cannot even begin to explain a set of (spatiotemporal) actions until one has understood them as what they are, that is, until one has succeeded in interpreting their cultural and institutional background. Now, empirical sociology and sociology of knowledge investigate the same reality, but they do so from differing points of view. The latter deliberaty disregards actual social behaviour, which constitutes the data of the former. In stead, it is centred on that cultural and institutional background which makes both the existence and the understanding of social behaviour possible, given that social is only what is understood as such (cf. 5.1. below). Sociology of knowledge focusses on the precondition of empiri cal sociology, i.e., upon what must be known before behaviour can be seen as social, and therefore it is only natural that sociology of know ledge is also called 'aprioristic sociology'. Again, it is clear that there can be no culture without people who 'support' it, but the descrip tion of a culture can be just as little reduced to the description of social behaviour as the latter can be reduced to the description of phy sical behaviour. The more abstract or general the knowledge described, the more phi sophical and the less sociological the description is in character. Consider, for instance, how Mead (1934:152-64) and Schutz (1962:312-29) analyse the basic structure of a social interaction between two persons A and B. A plans and evaluates his actions in terms of what he thinks that Β expects from him, and vice versa; and A knows that Β plans and evaluates his own actions in the same way, and that Β also knows that A knows this, and vice versa. This 'reciprocity of perspectives' con stitutes the conceptual framework, or the a priori condition, of all


39

actual, spatiotemporal instances of social interaction, and the descrip tion of the former differs accordingly from that of the latter. The analysis of the reciprocity of perspectives is rather philo sophical in character. It is indeed impossible to empirically falsify such an analysis. That is to say, a theory of natural science can, in principle, be falsified by a few events, or even by a single event, which contradicts it. But we have absolutely no idea of what such an action would be like which could falsify the 'theory' of the reciproci ty of perspectives for instance. If someone plans his actions without adopting in the least the perspective of others, we content ourselves with stating that his actions are peculiar in this respect. Therefore, this theory is not empirical, not even in the non-measurable sense of 'empirical'. This result can be generalised so as to apply to all theories of sociology of knowledge. The most we can say is that these theories, and generally all conceptual analyses, are false, if they mis understand or misrepresent the knowledge which is their subject matter. But this is not a case of empirical falsification. When the number of those people decreases who possess the body of knowledge to be described, the description gets a more sociological or, loosely speaking, more 'em pirical' flavour. In particular, this is true of describing particular institutions of a given society. However, the points I made while dis cussing the description of maximally general knowledge remain validhere as well. An institution is constituted by a set of norms which define the appropriate or correct behaviour within it. Norms also define a set of more or less constant roles. The distinction between norms, on the one hand, and mere habits or customs, on the other, is only a gradual one; I shall concentrate exclusively on what are felt to be relatively clear cases of norms. Depending on the explicitness of the norms involved, institutions have a more or less pronounced existence. A game with de finite rules is the limiting case of an institution; in fact, it is a defining property of institutions, as this term is being used here, that they possess a recognisable similarity to such a game. Hence, what I have said about games, applies to institutions as well. There are se-

40


veral institutions within one and the same society, and therefore it is normally the case that one person does not know all of them. In this sense, then, knowledge about institutions is less general and more 'em pirical' than for instance knowledge about the reciprocity of perspec tives. However, one is able, in principle, to come to know any insti tution of one's own society, or even of any other society. Moreover, we cannot help making a distinction between learning an institution and mastering it; here the analogy to the games is obvious. When one mas ters an institution, one knows it. That is, one can never know with certainty how different people have acted or will act within the limits of an institution, but one can know its norms with certainty. Descrip tions of such a knowledge may be false in several different ways, but they can be empirically falsified just as little as descriptions of the reciprocity of perspectives, or descriptions of games in general. Learning to master an institution means learning to act correctly, and knowing that this is what one is learning. Therefore, the resulting knowledge can be appropriately called 'agent's knowledge'. On the other hand, physical reality or, more generally, spatiotemporal reality of any kind, cannot be learned or mastered in any literal sense; it can be ob served or hypothesised about, but it cannot be acted out. Therefore the knowledge about what happens in space and time can be called 'observer's knowledge'. The basis for the distinction between these two types of knowledge has been formulated in the classical hermeneutic tradition as follows: Die Natur ist uns fremd. Denn sie ist uns nur ein Aussen, kein Inneres. Die Gesellschaft ist unsere Welt. Das Spiel der Wechsel wirkungen in ihr erleben wir mit in aller Kraft unseres ganzen We sens, da wir in uns selber von innen, in lebendigster Unruhe, die Zustände und Kräfte gewahren,aus denen ihr System sich aufbaut (Dilthey 1914:36). Nur was der Geist geschaffen hat, versteht er. Die Natur, der Gegenstand der Naturwissenschaft, umfasst die unabhängig vom Wir ken des Geistes hervorgebrachte Wirklichkeit. Alles, dem der Mensch wirkend sein Gepräge aufgedrückt hat, bildet den Gegenstand der Geisteswissenschaften (Dilthey 1927:148). Das Subjekt des Wissens ist hier eins mit seinem Gegenstand, und dieser ist auf allen Stufen seiner Objektivation derselbe (op. c i t . , p. 191).


41

It is to be noted, however, that traditional hermeneutics fails to clearly distinguish between knowledge, in particular normative knowledge, and social behaviour, and, hence, between aprioristic and empirical so ciology. The relation between knowledge and social behaviour is a dia lectical one: the two are clearly different, but presuppose each other. with respect to any particular action: it is part Knowledge is a priori of the concept of action that an action is understood, at least poten tially, by the one who performs it, and by others, as what it is; and this presupposes the existence of a body of knowledge on the basis of which the action is understood. Similarly, an institution or a norm with respect to any particular action subsumable under it. is a priori Durkheim (1938:57) expresses the same idea by saying that a social fact (fait

social)

is independent

of, rather than a priori

with respect to,

any of its individual manifestations. On the other hand, knowledge (of with respect to all social institutions or norms) cannot be a priori behaviour. I view descriptions of any kind of institutional knowledge as qua litatively similar to sociology of knowledge. This judgement applies to large areas of cultural anthropology and of jurisprudence for example. Actual institutional behaviour constitutes data for corresponding empi rical descriptions. Sociology of knowledge, as it is known today, makes little or no use of formal methods. This may be due to the fact that current research is to a large extent concerned with the preliminary task of interpretat i o n , as it pertains either to the most general features of the social reality or to specific institutions. It should be evident, however, that a systematic description of an institution, once it has been inter preted, or of several institutions at the same time, cannot be carried out without appropriate means of formalisation. A certain amount of formalisation appears in fact already in Lévi-Straussian anthropology. Sociology of knowledge is not necessarily restricted to the ana lysis of the common knowledge of social reality. It is perfectly pos sible to subject the common knowledge of physical reality to a similar anlysis. For instance, Aristotelian physics was based on a method of

42


analysis which was practically identical with that of sociology of know ledge (cf. 9.3. below).

Therefore it is only logical that Aristotelian

physics should have been called 'phenomenological physics' (Lorenzen 1969b:144). 2.5.

Philosophy

There is no clear distinction between sociology of knowledge and philosophy. It is largely due to an historical accident, which problems have come to be seen as 'philosophical' ones.15 Analysis of knowledge is what philosophy and sociology of knowledge are about. Analysis of knowledge means, in turn, analysis of those con cepts into which knowledge is structured or, equivalently, analysis of those expressions which are used to express the concepts. Concepts are tied to norms for their correct understanding and use. It might even connected with every coherent set be said that there is an institution of concepts. Such an institution can be experimentally investigated just as little as any other institution orgame. Rather, the 'institution' condition for the possibility of of the use of concepts is the a priori experimentation. To illustrate: In 2.1. (above) we noted that concepts like 'redness' and 'intention' are different insofar as there are differences between the ways in which their instances can be experimentally investigated. However, as far as the possibility of experimental investigation is con cerned, the concepts themselves are quite similar: they - or, rather, their use - cannot be subjected to experimentation, because in this case it is impossible to uphold the principle that the outcome of a test must be accepted, whatever it turns out to be. Thus, if a test person claims that things which we know to be red are not red, or that stones have such and such intentions, this outcome has no effect upon our concepts 'redness' and 'intention'; and therefore what we have here is not a test about these concepts. Rather, it is a test about the perceptual or cognitive state of the test person. If we were 'testing' the concept 'redness', for instance, we would accept only such outcomes where things that are really red are claimed to be red. But this only

43

THE IDEA OF 'HERMENEUTICS' means, again, that we are not dealing with genuine tests. What I have said here about concepts all rules

or

norms:

is by the same token true of

the existence of a rule cannot be established ex

perimentally or by observing actual behaviour.

Rather, a rule must be

learned; and once it has been learned, it gives us a criterion with which we may evaluate actual behaviour as

either correct or incorrect.

Of course, learning involves both observing and hypothesising. one has learned a

But when

rule, it is known, that means one knows how to act

correctly, and therefore the sentence expressing the rule is not an ex perimentally testable hypothesis. Consequently, whatever ontological differences there are between red things and intentions, and whatever methodological differences there are, as the result, between corresponding descriptions, experiments with red objects and those with intentions presuppose in just the same way the knowledge of the respective concepts.

Similarly, when these con

cepts are being operationalised, or given scientific definitions, the success or failure of operationalisation can only be judged by ring proposed definitions against the pre-experimental concepts.

compa

knowledge of these

Giving scientific definitions to everyday concepts does not

eliminate the latter, or the need for them. The fact that analysis of concepts is methodologically the same, whether the concepts are about social or physical reality, does not do away with the general distinction between human science and natural science, as it was formulated by Dilthey for example. All concepts with out exception are made and used by man. Therefore the knowledge about them is agent's knowledge, and they are properly considered as the sub ject matter of human science. Physical reality, however it is conceptu alised, is not made by man; here even if the concepts are man-made, the instances of concepts are not. (As for games, by contrast, man has not only made the concept 'correct move', but he also makes all correct moves as well as all incorrect ones.) Therefore the knowledge about physical reality is observer's knowledge, and physical reality itself is investigated by natural science. Events in space and time could not possibly be explained and predicted by mere conceptual analysis.

44

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE All concepts are similar in two important respects,

First, as we

have just seen, they all belong into a normative context, or an 'insti tution' of their use, which cannot be experimentally established or tested, but is simply known, once it has been, learned.

Secondly, all

concepts, even philosophical or mathematical ones, are somehow, either directly or indirectly, manifested in space and time.

Therefore the

mere fact that a concept has, for instance by means of a suitable 'func tion', been put into relation with something in space and time, proves in itself nothing about the empirical or nonempi ricai nature of the science which the concept in question is characteristic of (cf. 7.2. below). The institution of the use of everyday concepts is identical with Mittelstrass' (1974b) notion of elementary praxis of distinction and orientation (Unterscheidungs-

und Orientierungspraxis)

sive discussion, see Lorenz 1970, chap.2),

(for

a more exten

Philosophy, in the tradi

tional sense of this word, analyses everyday concepts as well as con cepts which have grown out of previous analyses of everyday concepts: Philosophy is the explicitation of our pre-philosophic life in and with the world. It reveals to us the truth which is s till conceal ed in it in an implicit way. It brings our original understanding of the world and of ourselves over into a philosophic comprehend ing. It brings us to a higher degree of truth, but does not change our understanding of the world in an essential way,...(Kockelmans 1969:37). The method of philosophical analysis, or explication, in 11.0. (below).

will be described

It is clear that explication is an institution

of its

own, that is, an institution which has developed out of simple reflec tion upon everyday concepts, as it arises for instance in connection with various disagreements and misunderstandings of daily life. of course, explication pertains also to scientific concepts.

Today,

But here

too it remains true that explication does not change in an essential way our understanding of its object.

That is, science so changes in an es

sential way our understanding of (certain aspects of) the world, but ex plication does not in a similar way change our understanding of science. - Our knowledge of explication is based on its institutional character. It is the purpose of explication as practiced in the philosophy of

THE IDEA OF 'HERMENEUTICS' science not only to clarify,

but also to justify

45 the scientific method.

The Erlangen school has made an intriguing attempt at providing a jus tification (Begründung) for natural science, in particular physics. This is done by reconstructing, in a stylised form, of course, the ge nesis of science, that is, by showing how science, as it is today, can be constructed, step by step, from everyday life.

Both science and

everyday life are considered throughout from a realistic

point of view,

that is, as combinations of social activity and socially determined knowledge.

The programme of reconstruction can be divided into two,

obviously interconnected parts: first, the reconstruction of scientific language;

second, the reconstruction of scientific measurement. (Notice

that these two a

-priori

conditions for natural science do not yet exhaust

its methodology.) As the elementary 'praxis of distinction and orientation', ordinary language is the inevitable starting point for the reconstruction of scientific, formal language (cf. 2.6. below).

The reconstruction of

scientific language is carried out, in outline, in Kamlah & Lorenzen (1967), and has been often repeated elsewhere. The reconstruction of scientific measurement is called 'protophysics'.

It is subdivided into the theories of measuring space, time and

mass, or geometry, chronometry, and 'hylometry' (= classical mechanics without gravitation), which are sciences of increasing complexity. The objective or empirical-, character of (Galilean) physics is due to the intersubjective agreement upon those ideal

norms,

formal isable or explic

able as the axioms of protophysics, which govern actual measurement. Protophysics has grown out of a practical concern with things and events (= Herstellung

spraxis).

It is an

a priori

science which, instead of

investigating actual physical events, investigates possible physical events, i.e., the concept 'physical event', as defined by the ideal norms of measurement (Lorenzen 1969a and Böhme 1976). constitute an institution

These norms obviously

of measurement.

Protophysics as conceived by Lorenzen is a descriptive since it describes the ideal norms as they are. scriptive

science,

However, it has a pre

function as well for those who have not clearly grasped the

46


norms in question. The same is true of the philosophy of science in general. For instance, Hempel's D-N model intends to explicate the no tion of deterministic explanation as it is; but it may also be seen as containing an implicit recommendation for how this notion ought to be applied in practice. In my opinion, the work of the Erlangen school ought to be seen as a systematic elaboration of Husserl's thesis that the meaning of modern science cannot be understood unless the internal connections between are brought back to conscious science and everyday life, or Lebenswelt, ness. As for its constructivist method, the Erlangen school is, to be sure, not indebted to Husserl but, rather, to Dingler (cf. Mittelstrass 1974c). In any case, Lorenz (1970:149-50), for instance, makes use of the notion Lebenswelt in explicit reference to Husserl. The following excerpts, which formulate the recurrent theme of Husserl (1954), show the connection between Husserl and the Erlangenschool: Die geometrische Methodik der operativen Bes timmung einiger und schliesslich aller idealen Gestalten aus Grundgestalten, als den elementaren Bestimmungsmitteln, weist zurück aud die schon in der vorwissenschaftlich-anschaulichen Umwelt, zuerst ganz primitiv, und dann kunstmässig geübte Methodik des ausmessenden und überhaupt messenden Bestimmens (Husserl 1954:24). So macht denn jede gelegentliche (oder auch "philosophische") Rück besinnung von der kunstmässigen Arbeit auf ihren eigentlichen Sinn stets bei der idealisierten Natur halt, ohne die Besinnungen radikal durchzuführen bis zu dem letzlichen Zweck, dem die neue Naturwissen schaft mit der von ihr unabtrennbaren Geometrie, aus dem verwissen schaftlichen Leben und seiner Umwelt hervorwachsend, von Anfang an dienen sollte, einem Zwecke, der doch in diesem Leben selbst liegen p.50). und auf seine Lebenswelt bezogen sein musste (op. cit.,

Since then, this general position has gained ground because of the popularity of Wittgenstein's later philosophy (cf. below, and 4.0.). How ever, the idea of Lebensapriori was expressed already by Dilthey (1924: 136) in the following terms: Die fundamentalen Voraussetzungen der Erkenntnis sind im Leben ge geben, und das Denken kann nicht hinter sie greifen... sie sind nicht Hypothesen, sondern... aus dem Leben entspringende Prinzipien oder Voraussetzungen, welche in die Wissenschaft als die Mittel, an weiche sie gebunden ist,eingehen.

47

THE IDEA OF H ' ERMENEUTICS' As part of his c r i t i c i s m of the u n i v e r s a l i s t i c claims of p o s i t i -

vism, Apel (1973b) has shown convincingly t h a t the community of s c i e n t i s t s , w i t h i t s own l i n g u i s t i c and methodological r u l e s , is the a

priori

c o n d i t i o n f o r the p o s s i b i l i t y of empirical science; and t h i s community (which has in turn developed out of n o n - s c i e n t i f i c communities) cannot be i t s e l f i n v e s t i g a t e d by methods of empirical science, but only by hermeneutic r e f l e c t i o n . Royce.

These ideas go in part back to Peirce and

Popper (1965:52 and 55) too notes t h a t the philosophy of empi-

r i c a l science is i t s e l f not an empirical s c i e n c e , b u t i n his terminology a kind of 'metaphysics'.

More r e c e n t l y , Popper (1972:162-63) has

i d e n t i f i e d t h i s kind of metaphysics w i t h hermeneutic understanding, or w i t h the study of a r t (p. 180) or l i t e r a t u r e (p. 185).

Such remarks,

coupled w i t h the Popperian thesis of the u l t i m a t e i r r a t i o n a l i t y

of

science, hardly provide a s a t i s f a c t o r y c h a r a c t e r i s a t i o n of the p h i l o sophy of science. Radnitzky (1976) has t r i e d to show t h a t Popper's not i o n of the Letztbegründung

of science is in r e a l i t y the same as Apel's

and, one may add, the same as t h a t of the Erlangen school. In my o p i n i o n , what he says is c o r r e c t i n i t s e l f , but represents his own standp o i n t more than Popper's.

Whether or not the thesis of the i r r a t i o n a l i t y

of science is meant only f i g u r a t i v e l y , as Radnitzky suggests, i t is r e f u t e d , f i r s t , by p o i n t i n g to the f a c t t h a t science grows out of the d i f f e r e n t i a t i n g use of language and, second, by noting with Wittgenstein (1969, § 549), in a way reminiscent of D i l t h e y and Husserl, t h a t You must bear in mind that the language-game is so to say something unpredictable. I mean: it is not based on grounds. It is not rea sonable (or unreasonable). It is there - like our life. The question of the l a s t presuppositions of ( s c i e n t i f i c ) is c l o s e l y connected w i t h the question of the critique

knowledge

of knowledge.

According to Hegel, i t is possible to strengthen the r e l i a b i l i t y

of

one's knowledge by r e t u r n i n g to the p o i n t where t h i s knowledge o r i g i n a ted and by s y s t e m a t i c a l l y working one's way back up to the present:

the

knowledge one f i n a l l y a t t a i n s at the end of t h i s journey is no longer the same as i t was at the beginning (Habermas 1968:14-35).

This idea

48


is s t r i k i n g l y s i m i l a r to the c o n s t r u c t i v i s t programme of the Erlangen school (Kamlah & Lorenzen 1967:22, n.l

notwithstanding):

For i n s t a n c e ,

protophysics achieves a more accurate understanding of modern physics p r e c i s e l y by r e t u r n i n g to the logical

o r i g i n of physics (which l a r g e l y

coincides w i t h the h i s t o r i c a l one) and by c o n s t r u c t i n g i t s

rationally

j u s t i f i a b l e development from there up to i t s present form. hand, as a form of c r i t i q u e of knowledge, the c o n s t r u c t i v i s t

On the other programme

does not make the (transcendental-)hermeneutic r e f l e c t i o n superfluous, because each method, even the one which t r i e s to unearth a l l

presuppo-

s i t i o n s , has i t s own presuppositions, which are i n need of c r i t i c a l

re-

f l e c t i o n ( c f . Bubner 1976). 2.6.

Logic

Knowledge of logic is acquired through learning the rules for making valid inferences and, secondarily, for stating necessary truths. Knowing the rules does not guarantee their correct application in each particular instance, given human fallibility. Therefore knowledge of logic also implies the ability to detect contradictions in what is being said. But since this ability too may be misused, there must be general rules for attacking and defending the logical truth of assertions. The fact that logic is deeply rooted in everyday thinking and act ing, is evident in many ways. In the discussion of psychoanalysis in 2.3. we have already seen, incidentally, that even at the least con scious or 'logical' levels, the need for eliminating contradictions out weighs all other psychological needs: the contradiction between indivi dual and social, or, alternatively, the social contradiction in its in ternalised form, is removed, and the consistency of one's psyche is established even at the cost of producing neurotic or psychotic beha The same concern with consistency reappears in connection with viour. logicians' system-construction. Moreover, even the most elementary forms of decision-making contain logical inferences. For instance: "If I want to achieve A, I have to do B. I want to achieve A. Therefore I have to do B." Finally, experimental research shows that where people are appa rently making fallacious inferences, they are often in fact inferring

THE IDEA OF 'HERMENEUTICS

49

correctly, but are using premises which are different from those intend ed, that is, they are not peerforming the task they are supposed to (Hen ie 1962). And when it is shown test persons that the (perhaps only apparent) fallacies which they have committed are in contradiction with other, de

facto

valid

inferences,

it is always the fallacious inferences,

never the valid ones, which are subsequently modified (Wason 1964), Hence, in addition to the passive ability of delecting contradictions, one also possess the active ability of replacing logical invalidity by logical validity. These few remarks may suffice to refute the old myth of the illogi cal character of ordinary thinking. Of course, logic proper represents only one part of ordinary thinking. But this does not mean that the domain of ordinary thinking which goes beyond logic would have to be contrary

to logic.

Logic is not something 'eternal', something which is only contingent ly related to man. On the contrary, it is based on, or grows out of everyday life, precisely like philosophy and science in general (cf. 2.5.).

Since logic is ultimately a social phenomenon, an adequate de

finition of logic ought to present logic seem to be intuitively obvious.

in use.

This requirement would

More importantly, it is also conceptu

ally necessary, because - as will be shown in 4.0. (below) - the exis tence of all languages, including logical ones, is necessarily based on their intersubjective a pragmatic situation

use.

Therefore, the definition of logic must be

one. In particular, it must be able to reconstruct the of the use of logic, i.e., the characteristic interaction of

those who are in this situation. As we have seen in the beginning of this section, this interaction must consist of acts of attacking and defending logical truth, to be performed in accordance with definite rules.

It is desirable, moreover, that these acts could be presented

as a natural extension of acts of attacking and defending empirical truth. A dialogical or g a m e - t h e o r e t i c a l conception of logic, which satis fies the afore-mentioned requirements, has been developed by Lorenzen and Lorenz since the late fifties (see, e.g., Kamlah & Lorenzen 1967,

50


chaps. 5-6, Lorenzen 1969a, and Lorenz 1973). In addition to its prag matic nature, this conception has still other advantages over more tra ditional conceptions. First, both the junctors and the quantifiers are introduced in the same, dialogical way. Second, although in truthfunctional logic the truth-value of a complex formula can be determined only if the truth-values of its elementary sentences are already known, game-theoretical logic does not have to accept this clearly unrealistic restriction; rather, the truth or falsity of elementary sentences is established only in the course of the dialogue-game. The game is a succession of attacks and defenses between two dispu tants, i.e., the 'proponent' and the Opponent'. The junctors and, or, if - then, and not are introduced as follows: If the proponent asserts the sentence 'A&B' , the opponent attacks it by questioning either 'A' or 'B'; if the proponent can defend both 'A' and 'B', he has won; other wise he has lost. If 'AvB' is asserted, the opponent attacks it by questioning it as a whole, and the proponent wins if he is able to de fend either 'A' or 'B'. If is asserted, the opponent attacks it by asserting 'A', the proponent attacks by questioning 'A', but if the opponent is able to defend 'A', the proponent wins only if he is able to defend 'B'. Finally, if '-A' is asserted, the opponent attacks by asserting 'A', and the proponent attacks in his turn by questioning 'A'. The opponent wins or loses depending on whether he can or cannot defend 'A'. The rules for the use of quantifiers, which are superimposed upon the above-mentioned rules, are introduced as follows: If the proponent asserts a universally quantified sentence '(x)Fx', the opponent attacks by picking out an object a which he thinks is a counter-example. If the proponent is able to defend 'Fa', he has won (which does not mean, of course, that he has proven the truth of '(x)Fx'). On the other hand, the opponent attacks an existentially quantified sentence '(Ex)Gx' by simply questioning it, and then the proponent must pick out a suitable object b and defend 'Gb'. If he is unable to do so, he has lost (which does not mean, of course, that the opponent has proven the falsity of '(Ex)Gx').


51

The game starts from the entire sentence and proceeds gradually to the elementary sentences of the type 'Fa'. In order to win, one seeks an object which could falsify a universally quantified sentence, or ve rify an existentially quantified sentence. If one has been able to find or, perhaps, to produce such an object, one has won the game. If this aspect of dialogue-games is emphasised, they could be called 'games of seeking and finding'. The dialogical introduction of the predicates, junctors, and quantifiers serves at the same time the programme of re constructing the scientific language (cf. 2.5.). A complex sentence is empirically true if the proponent always wins, that is, if he is able to defend it against any opponent, by de fending those constituent, elementary sentences which he has asserted in the performance of any game connected with the complex sentence. If any opponent is able to win, the sentence is empirically false. true , if the proponent has to de A complex sentence is logically fend an elementary sentence which has been previously defended by the opponent. In such a case, the opponent has been forced to defend and to attack one and the same sentence, which means that denying the complex sentence has led to a contradiction. The contradiction means that one and the same sentence has been attacked and de fended, whatever this sentence is, and therefore it is permissible to consider merely sentence-formulae, instead of sentences. Finally, logi cal implication is defined in such a way that a formula 'B' is said to be implied by the formulae 'A1'...'An ', if 'A1 '... 'An' are asserted by the opponent, and the proponent is able to defend 'B' so as to force the opponent into a contradiction. - The dialogical approach has also been extended to modal logic (Lorenzen 1969a, chap.6). In sum, the truth, whether empirical or logical, is here defined as the defensi bili ty of a sentence or a formula against any opposition, connected which is equivalent to the existence of a winning strategy with the sentence or the formula. Since the mid-sixties, Hintikka has also been developing a gametheoretical conception of logic (cf. Hintikka 1973). He admits the for mal similarities between Lorenzen's and Lorenz' conception and his own.

52


However, in his opinion, the 'absolutely cruciar difference between the two consists in the fact that Lorenzen's and Lorenz' games are purely formal, 'indoor' games, whereas his own 'outdoor' games are played in constant reference to the external reality (Hintikka 1973:80-81; also pp. 108-09). This is a curious misunderstanding. As we have seen, in the di alogical conception empirical truth is ascertained, ultimately, by finding out whether or not certain objects possess certain properties and relations. For instance, the opponent wins the game connected with the sentence "For all x, if χ is an atheist, χ is stupid or wicked", because he is able to find an object, i.e., Bertrand Russell, who, al though an atheist, is not wicked (nor stupid)(Lorenzen 1969a: 26-27). Similarly, the proponent wins the game connected with the sentence "In all Bavarian lakes there are fishes", only if he can find an object with the property 'fish' in Tegernsee, which is a Bavarian lake suggest ed by the opponent (op. cit., p.31). More generally, Kamlah & Lorenzen (1967) devote an entire chapter to the question of how the truth-value of an elementary sentence can be determined: Wer über Einzelgegenstände - über Personen, Dinge, Ereignisse wahre Aussagen machen will, der muss sich in jedem Fall und in der jeweils geeigneten Weise Zugang zu diesen Gegenständen verschaffen, sei es durch Beobachtungen, durch Experimente«, durch Befragung von Zeugen, Interpretation von Texten und so fort (op. c i t . , ρ.124). Consequently, the f o l l o w i n g c h a r a c t e r i s a t i o n of H i n t i k k a ' s (1973:81) 'games of seeking and f i n d i n g ' applies with equal force to d i a l o g i c a l games: They are not 'indoor games'; they are 'played' in the wide world among whatever objects our statements speak about. An essential part of ail these games consists in trying to find individuals which satisfy certain requirements.

The dialogical conception of logic is a stylised reconstruction of that institution which is constituted by the rules of making valid in ferences and, secondarily, of formulating necessarily true sentences. There is no method by which the adequacy of this reconstruction could be definitively established. However, it is possible to present intui tives conceptual, and experimental, evidence for it (cf. the beginning of this section).


53

Logical knowledge is acquired through participation in the abovementioned institution. In addition to reconstructing the situation of the intersubjective use of logic, there are other ways of presenting logical knowledge in a systematic form, for instance the axiomatic method. This method will be described in 10.0. (below), where I discuss axiomatisations of deontic propositional logic in relation to generative grammars. It is important to notice that, unlike the dialogical method, the axiomatic method does not even raise the question as to the origin, or the basis , of logical knowledge. To a still higher degree than philosophy of science, logic is a prescriptive science. It starts by formalising those rules of inference which are used in ordinary language, but it is also constantly engaged in devising more precise ways of speaking and in extending this preci sion to new domains (for a further discussion, see Itkonen 1976a). The general idea of logic which I have outlined here is closely similar to that contained in Wittgensteinian philosophy, In Winch's (1958:100) formulation, "criteria of logic are not a direct gift of God, but arise out of, and are only intelligible in the context of, ways of living or modes of social life". Here again, however, Husserl was the first to clearly conceive and formulate the issue (cf. 2.5.), as can be seen from the following lengthy quotation: Wir können dafür auch sagen: die vermeintlich völlig eigenständige Logik, welche die modernen Logistiker - sogar unter dem Titel einer wahrhaft wissenschaftlichen Philosophie - glauben ausbilden zu kön nen, nämlich als die universale apriorische Fundamentalwissenschaft für alle objektiven Wissenschaften, ist nichts anderes als eine Naivität. Ihre Evidenz entbehrt der wissenschaftlichen Begründung aus dem universalen lebensweltlichen Apriori, das sie beständig, in Form wissenschaftlich nie universal formulierter, nie auf wesens wissenschaftliche Allgemeinheit gebrachter Selbstverständlichkeiten, immerzu voraussetzt. Erst wenn einmal diese radikale Grundwissen schaft da ist, kann jene Logik selbst zur Wissenschaft werden. Vor her schwebt sie grundlos in der Luft und ist, wie bisher, so sehr naiv, dass sie nicht einmal der Aufgabe inne geworden ist, welche jeder objektiven Logik, jeder apriorischen Wissenschaft gewöhnlich en Sinnes anhaftet: nämlich zu erforschen, wie sie selbst zu be gründen sei, also nicht mehr 'logisch', sondern durch Rückleitung auf das universale vor-logische Apriori, aus dem alles Logische, der Gesamtbau einer objektiven Theorie, nach allen ihren methodo logischen Formen, seinen rechtmässigen Sinn ausweist, durch wel-

54

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE chen also alle Logik selbst erst zu normieren ist (Husserl 1954: 144) .

Of course, it is neither possible nor meaningful to discuss the problem of the basis, or the justification, of formal methods in all those contexts where such methods are used. But to ignore even the existence of this problem, is indeed 'naive'. It is a curious fact, but a fact nevertheless, that formalists are often the last to think about the meaning and the genuine applicablity of their formalisations. Positivism and formalism are, essentially, simplistic philosophies. They are based on the a priori assumption that all entities that can be ('scientifically') spoken about, must be of one and the same type. However, truth is more complex. 2.7.

Concluding

Remarks

My general thesis is that synchronic autonomous linguistics, or 'grammar', is methodologically similar to such hermeneutic sciences as logic and philosophy. This claim will be justified in detail in 10.0. and 11.0. (below). However, both logic and philosophy contain a pre scriptive component, which seems to be absent from grammar as well as from other forms of linguistics (yet cf. 6.3.). Consequently, of all the sciences discussed in this chapter it is sociology of knowledge that comes closest to grammar. The two can be characterised as de scriptive normative sciences: they investigate institutions, rather than actual (institutional) behaviour, from the descriptive point of view. Psychology and sociology have, of course, their linguistic counterparts in psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics (yet cf. n.13). My main disagreement with traditional hermeneutics concerns the status of logic: it is generally thought that both natural science and formal logic are equally opposed to the concept of hermeneutic science. For me, however, formal logic is a full-fledged hermeneutic science.

3.0. 20TH-CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES: A BRIEF SURVEY The m e t a s c i e n t i f i c self-understanding of modern l i n g u i s t i c s is a l most e x c l u s i v e l y p o s i t i v i s t i c . this claim.

In what f o l l o w s , I s h a l l t r y to document

As a r u l e , l i n g u i s t s have made no d e t a i l e d statements of

their metascientific

positions.

Therefore d i f f e r e n t schools of l i n g u i s -

t i c s w i l l be c h a r a c t e r i s e d , from the m e t a s c i e n t i f i c p o i n t of view, only on the basis of t h e i r g e n e r a l , i n e x p l i c i t a t t i t u d e towards the question of whether l i n g u i s t i c s c o n s t i t u t e s a natural science among o t h e r s , or whether i t has, i n common w i t h other human sciences, c e r t a i n character i s t i c s which d i s t i n g u i s h i t from t y p i c a l natural sciences.

3.1.

Saussure

Saussure's philosophy of science as expressed in the Cours de linguistique générale (CLG in the following) is not easy to expound. He emphasises throughout the conventional nature of language, which could be taken to imply a difference between linguistics and standard natural sciences. However, he also points out that, as a sub-area of semiotics {sémiologie), linguistics is a part of social psychology, and hence ultimately of general psychology (CLG 33).20 Now it is clear that the unique character of conventional (or normative) data is bound to disappear if they are introduced together with all other types of psychological data, namely as data to be investigated by the predomi nantly experimental methods of general psychology. Saussure seems to realise this because he emphasises that language must be clearly dis tinguished from faculté de langage: The former is a social entity (cf. below), while the latter is a quasi-natural entity, and they must be investigated, respectively, by linguistics and psychology, conceived as autonomous sciences (CLG 25-27, 34).

56


It is questionable whether Saussure quite succeeds in his attempt to clearly delimit linguistics against psychology. On the other hand, he apparently believes that he has discovered genuine methodological differences between linguistics and certain other human sciences (in cluding even jurisprudence and political history). However, these alleged differences are fictitious. It could be pointed out first that language is clearly not the only object which can be studied both synchronically and diachronically (CLG 114), - this is so, even if for the sake of argument we retain Saussure's unsatisfactory view that diachrony deals exclusively with particular elements; and secondly, on the assump tion that 'panchronic laws' of linguistics are comparable to regulari ties in nature, it does not make sense to claim that such laws exist, but are independent of any concrete facts (CLG 134-35). Of even greater interest is the need of clarification of Saussure's account of the social nature of language (langue). To begin with, he characterises langue, which he views as the only genuine subject matter of linguistics, as a social institution: La langue est la partie sociale du langage, extérieure à l'indi vidu, qui à lui seul ne peut ni la créer ni la modifier; elle n'existe qu'en vertu d'une sorte de contrat passé entre les membres de la communauté (CLG 31). Nous venons de voir que la langue est une institution sociale (CLG 33). Langue d i f f e r s from other social i n s t i t u t i o n s p r e c i s e l y i n t h a t i t a system of communication, a system of signs.

By v i r t u e of t h i s ,

is it

c o n s t i t u t e s i t s e l f as the central p a r t ofsemiotics or "une science qui étudie la vie des signes au sein de l a vie s o c i a l e " (CLG 33). is important to note t h a t , although langue is

conceived of as a

phenomenon, the only access to i t is provided by the individual ousness of the speakers, namely, by what we would today c a l l speaker's l i n g u i s t i c

It social

consci' t h e native

intuition':

La synchronie ne connaît qu'une perspective, celle des sujets par lants, et toute sa méthode consiste à recuillir leur témoignage; pour savoir dans quelle mesure une chose est une réalité, il faudra et il suffira de rechercher dans quelle mesure elle existe pour la conscience des sujets (CLG 128).

57

20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES With his langue - parole

dichotomy Saussure formulates, but does

not s o l v e , the problem of the social s u b j e c t i v e modes of existence l'acte

vs. i n d i v i d u a l , or o b j e c t i v e vs.

of language: "Par la p a r o l e , on désigne

de l ' i n d i v i d u r é a l i s a n t sa f a c u l t é au moyen de la convention

s o c i a l e , qui est la 1 angue" (Saussure 1957:10). The question as to the precise nature of

langue and, by i m p l i c a t i o n , of l i n g u i s t i c s may be

reduced to the f o l l o w i n g questions: How does a convention or r u l e e x i s t (= o n t o l o g y ) , and how is i t known (=epistemology)? sent my answer in 5.0. (below).

Modern

I s h a l l pre-

t h e o r e t i c a l l i n g u i s t i c s mis-

understands or ignores these questions, equating ' s u b j e c t i v e ' w i t h i n t u i t i o n and ' o b j e c t i v e ' w i t h observation, and f a i l i n g to see t h a t , taken i n i t s e l f , observation too is a wholly i n d i v i d u a l and s u b j e c t iv e process. Within a conceptual framework which defines the notions and ' o b j e c t i v e '

'subjective'

in the way i n d i c a t e d , the notion ' s o c i a l ' must remain

u t t e r l y incomprehensible. I t is no accident, then, t h a t w i t h i n TG, f o r i n s t a n c e , the s o c i a l and normative nature of language simply disappears from the view

( c f . 7.5. below).

What Saussure has to say, i n g e n e r a l , about language being a social

is in i t s e l f c o r r e c t but not very r e v e a l i n g .

to answer the question of the nature of the (synchronic) language, however, his account becomes confused.

fait

When he attempts ' l a w s ' of

Given t h a t langue

is

a social i n s t i t u t i o n , i t would be natural to t h i n k t h a t ' l a w s ' of language are analogous to constituents of i n s t i t u t i o n s , i . e . ,

r u l e s . Saussure

c o r r e c t l y notes t h a t " t o u t e l o i s o c i a l e a deux caractères fondamentaux: e l l e est impévative

e t e l l e est générale; e l l e s'impose, e t e l l e s ' é t e n d

à tous les cas, dans certaines l i m i t e s de temps e t de l i e u , bien entendu" (CLG 130); notice t h a t loi

sociale

is here i d e n t i c a l w i t h

'rule',

and not w i t h ' r e g u l a r i t y ' , in the sense to be explained i n 6 . 0 . However, he continues by endeavouring to d i s t i n g u i s h l i n g u i s t i c rules from social ones, on the basis of the alleged f a c t t h a t although the former are gen e r a l , they are not imperative.

Contrary to what one might expect, t h i s

statement does notaim at the equation o f l i n g u i s t i c rules w i t h natural r e g u l a r i t i e s , as Saussure admits t h a t "sans doute [la l o i

synchronique]

s'impose aux i n d i v i d u s par la c o n t r a i n t e de l'usage c o l l e c t i f "

(CLG 131;

58


see also p.104). What he means by the non-imperative character of l i n g u i s t i c rules i s , r a t h e r , that language does not possess any force that could guarantee the maintenance of a given r u l e . But this is of course a universal truth about all social r u l e s , not j u s t l i n g u i s t i c ones, as was in f a c t implicitly admitted by Saussure himself when he stated that social rules are valid within certain limits of time and place (cf. the quotation from CLG 130 above). When we elucidate Saussure's account of this point, i t is apparent that in his theory l i n g u i s t i c rules are de facto analogous to social r u l e s ; this is in perfect agreement with his view that language is a social i n s t i t u t i o n ; and social rules are to be distinguished from reg u l a r i t i e s in nature, since the l a t t e r are not ' i m p e r a t i v e ' , i . e . , normative. I t may be added that on this i s s u e , crucial from the methodological standpoint, Saussure seems to have been misled by the errors in his own analysis referred to above. At l e a s t , he has not drawn any e x p l i c i t methodological consequences from the difference between rules and r e g u l a r i t i e s . As can be seen from the preceding argument, Saussure's methodological statements which go beyond the description of language as a system of signs are mere hints and suggestions. Therefore I cannot but agree with Koerner's (1973:53) following assessment: ...the social nature of language, langue as a fait social, etc. do not constitute, anywhere in the whole of the Cours, an integral part of Saussure's theory... Since Saussure wished to make linguistics a science in its own right and with a frame of reference of its own, sociological ex planations of linguistic behaviour were of only secondary or even tertiary importance to him (op. c i t . , p. 58).

Saussure was interested, above all, in delineating the subject matter of linguistics as an autonomous science. Within synchrony, this subject matter coincided for him with that of traditional grammar. As his famous comparison of language with the game of chess demonstrates, linguistics was to describe a system of entities whose relations to each other were determined by conventions or rules. Hence, language was defined as a game or i n s t i t u t i o n , but - as we have seen - Saussure

59

20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES was s a t i s f i e d w i t h t h i s r e s u l t and d i d not s e r i o u s l y i n q u i r e i n t o the o n t o l o g i c a ! and epistemological nature of the 'language-game' Nor did he i n q u i r e i n t o i t s psychological and s o c i o l o g i c a l although he was f u l l y aware of t h e i r existence.

sodefined. substrata,

He c l e a r l y considered

a l l these questions as l y i n g outside of l i n g u i s t i c s

proper.

3.2.

Hjelmslev

Above

( 3 . 1 . ) , Saussure was located somewhere between p o s i t i v i s m Hjelmslev, the founder of ' g l o s s e m a t i c s ' , takes i n

and hermeneutics.

turn a p o s i t i o n at the i n t e r s e c t i o n of Saussure and p o s i t i v i s m .

He ex-

p l i c i t l y takes the Saussurean conception of language as his s t a r t i n g p o i n t , and elaboratesand r e f i n e s several Saussurean themes (suchas pression-content'

'ex-

and 'form-substance' d i s t i n c t i o n s , the i n t e r p l a y of

syntagmatic and paradigmatic r e l a t i o n s , and language as a system of val u e s ) , which have been a l l but ignored by other schools of s t r u c t u r a l linguistics.

S i m i l a r l y , he places natural languages w i t h i n the context

of general s e m i o t i c s , which extends "from the study of l i t e r a t u r e ,

art,

and music, and general h i s t o r y , a l l the way to l o g i s t i c s and mathematics"(PTL 108).

21

Games, understood as " a b s t r a c t transformation systems",

are the l i m i t i n g case of semiotic systems. or not a given system i s a ' s e m i o t i c '

The t e s t f o r deciding whether

consists i n the discovery of

whether the two planes of expression(-form) and content(-form)

can or

cannot be demonstrated as having the same s t r u c t u r e throughout, w i t h a one-to-one r e l a t i o n between the e n t i t i e s of the one plane and the e n t i t i e s of the other (PTL 112).

In the case of a genuine sign-system the

two s t r u c t u r e s are not isomorphic.

I f , f o r i n s t a n c e , we consider the

expression-form /man/, and the corresponding content-form 'man', i t clear t h a t they are both f u r t h e r analysable, i . e . ,

is

the former is ana-

lysable f i r s t i n t o phonemes, and then i n t o d i s t i n c t i v e f e a t u r e s , whereas the l a t t e r i s analysable i n t o meaning components (or 'sematic m a r k e r s ' ) . However, no one-to-one r e l a t i o n e x i s t s between the unanalysable e n t i t i e s of the two planes. I t would appear t h a t the preceding c h a r a c t e r i s a t i o n of the subject matter of l i n g u i s t i c s suggests a n o n - p o s i t i v i s t i c i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of

60


glossematics. Nevertheless, Hjelmslev's sketchy account of the metho dology to be applied in the description of natural languages (and other semiotic systems) thus characterised hardly supports this conclusion. First of all, Hjelmslev contrasts his own approach to language with what he regards as the standard methodology of humanities, or human sciences. According to this conception, human, as opposed to natural phenomena, are non-recurrent, and consequently cannot be subjected to exact and generalising treatment; this implies that the only possible method utilisable by human sciences is mere description of particular facts and events, that is to say, a method which is nearer to poetry than to exact science (PTL 8-10). It is precisely my thesis that a dichotomy exists between natural sciences and human sciences, and hence between positivism and hermeneutics, The above-mentioned form of such a dichotomy, however, is quite obviously false. For example, when we study a human institution, we have to make reference to (possible) par ticular actions that are in conformity with the rules of this institu tion, that is, to particular correct actions; naturally enough, this does not imply that we are as a result merely giving a ('poetic') de scription of these particular actions for their own sake. In other words, a given analysis of rule-governed intentional behaviour is always meant to be general in the sense that, as it stands, it automatically applies to, and defines, an indefinite number of correct actions. While the existence of a rule guarantees at least the possibility of the re currence of correct actions instantiating this rule, it is true, on the other hand, that an action that does not fall within the category of rule-governed behaviour possesses no similar guarantee of recurrence. But from this it does not follow, of course, that such an action is non recurrent , and that consequently its description possesses no generality. Actions are identified by the intentions 'behind' them, and there are no logical obstacles, although there may sometimes be considerable factual obstacles, which prevent the recurrence of actions with identical inten tions. Moreover, even if a given action is de facto non-recurrent, the method of analysing it, viz. the so-called 'practical syllogism' is of course meant to be generally applicable (cf. von Wright 1971; Stoutland 1976).

20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES

61

In any event, Hjelmslev, with a view to avoiding the alleged weak nesses of standard human sciences, undertakes the construction of a uni versal linguistic theory on the basis of the model of the hypotheticodeductive theories of more advanced (i.e., natural) sciences. He further distinguishes between the arbitrary and the appropriate aspects of his theory. The former expresses the fact that a fully explicit scientific theory can be viewed as an uninterpreted deductive system which is in dependent of experience, whereas the latter expresses the obvious fact that a theory must be able to account for empirical data. The theory has to fulfil the following 'empirical principle': "The description shall be free of contradiction (self-consistent), exhaustive, and as simple as possible" (PTL 11). Different self-consistent and exhaustive descriptions derived from the same theory are evaluated on the basis of their simplicity, whereas different theories are evaluated on the basis of the extent to which they approximate to the ideal formulated in the 'empirical principle' (in whatever way this is to be decided in practice). By virtue of its calculative character, the universal theory "must be of use for describing and predicting not only any possible text composed in a certain language, but ... any possible text composed in any language whatsoever" (PTL 17). 22 Hjelmslev's notions of explanation and testing remain vague, as is to be expected, given that at the time he wrote his Prolegomena, precise explications of these notions were only in the process of emergence. In any event, a universal linguistic theory of the glossematic type would apparently be a kind of general typology of natural languages: these would be described and classified on the basis of the various (combina tions of) dependences which they contain at the hierarchically-ordered levels of the expression-plane and the content-plane, both in the para digmatic and in the syntagmatic dimensions. Uldall (1957) has tried to apply greater precision to this 'algebra of language', but his account of the 'glossematic form' is no more than an application of the familiar calculi of classes and first-order functions. 3.3.

Sapir

Unlike other representatives of American structural (including trans-

62


formational) linguistics, Sapir is a methodologist who has

integrated

linguistics into the wider framework of the social and human sciences, as distinct from the natural sciences.

Sapir's conception of society,

and of the role played in it by language, bears a striking similarity to that of Mead, Schutz, and Winch, and I would not hesitate to call him a de facto

hermeneutician (as this word is understood here). Of ne

cessity, the foregoing calls into question TG's reinterpretation of his tory, according to which Sapir (in much the same way as Humboldt and 23 Descartes) was f i r s t and foremost a forerunner of TG.

TG a r r i v e s at

t h i s i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of Sapir by concentration upon a s i n g l e aspect of his work, i . e . ,

phonology.

I t is true t h a t both S a p i r ' s phonology and

the TG phonology are d i f f e r e n t f r o m , because more a b s t r a c t than, the post-Bloomfieldian 'taxonomie' phonology.

This merely negative charac-

t e r i s t i c , which also applies to Trubetzkoy ( c f . his concept of

'archi-

pnonerne')

for in-

and to Hjelmslev ( c f . his concept of 'phoneme form')

stance, does not by any means j u s t i f y the claim of a strong s i m i l a r i t y between S a p i r ' s and TG's p o s i t i o n s .

And as regards the general nature

of language, S a p i r ' s p o s i t i o n is not j u s t d i f f e r e n t from, but d i r e c t l y opposite to t h a t of TG, as w i l l be seen below. From the outset S a p i r , l i k e Saussure, draws a c l e a r l i n e between l i n g u i s t i c and natural phenomena:

"Language is p r i m a r i l y a c u l t u r a l

and social product and must be understood as such" (Sapir 1949f:166). More p r e c i s e l y , language is comparable to a s o c i a l i n s t i t u t i o n ; t u t i o n a l behaviour is of course subject to psychological

insti-

description

and e x p l a n a t i o n , but the primary task is to describe i t qua i n s t i t u t i o n a l , t h a t i s , to describe the i n s t i t u t i o n w i t h i n which i t is performed: We can profitably discuss the intention, the form, and the histo ry of speech, precisely as we discuss the nature of any other phase of human culture - say art or religion - as an institutional or cultural entity, leaving the organic and psychological mechanisms back of it as something to be taken for granted (Sapir no date: 11) . As institutional behaviour, speaking is characterised by.its inherent meaningful ness, Sapir maintains: Speech, like all elements of culture, demands conceptual selection, inhibition of the randomness of instinctive behaviour. That its

20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES

63

'idea' is never realized as such in practice, its carriers being instinctively animated organisms, is of course true of each and every aspect of culture (op. c i t . , p. 46. n.2).

This quotation expresses succinctly the notion that any adequate theory of language, as a part of a theory of cultural behaviour, must be able to account both for the similarities and the differences between intended action and performed action, for instance, between intended sentence and uttered sentence. As the object of grammatical description, the 'idea' of speech has priority over actual speech. This is justa re formulation of Saussure's claim of the priority of 'langue' over 'paro25 le' as the subject matter of linguistics. In other words, in describing language it is necessary to go beyond 'sense data', or the purely physi cal side of language (Sapir 1949b:45). The contention that "no entity in human experience can be adequately defined as the mechanical sum or product of its physical properties" (Sapir 1949c:46), does in fact neatly sum up two constant themes in Sapir's work: First, under whatever aspect it is viewed, human experience is always organised into 'con figurations', i.e., structures; secondly, intentional or meaningful en tities are not reducible to physical ones, and therefore - since meaning cannot be observed, but only understood - a distinction has to be made between observation and understanding. (This is of course the axiom of hermeneutics.) From the nature of language, as characterised above,Sapir (1949f:166) draws the conclusion that better than any other social science, linguistics shows by its data and methods, necessarily more easily defined than the data and me thods of any other type of discipline dealing with socialized be haviour, the possibility of a truly scientific study of society which does not ape the methods nor attempt to adopt unrevised the concepts of the natural sciences.

Observation shows us movements and sounds connected with human bo dies, but it cannot in itself tell us what the people in question are doing or whether, in fact, they are doing anything. To decide this question, we must be able to arrive at the meaning of this (observable) behaviour, but we can only achieve this through understanding. Since, as Mead among others has repeatedly emphasised, meaning exists only in


64

a social context, understanding is a socially acquired process. Sapir (1949i:546-47) thus comes to the conclusion, later to be defended in detail by Wittgenstein and Winch, that all intentional behaviour must be of a social nature: It is impossible to say what an individual is doing unless we have tacitly accepted the essentially arbitrary modes of interpretation that social tradition is constantly suggesting to us from the very moment of our birth. Let anyone who doubts this try the experiment of making the painstaking report of the actions of a group of nati ves en gaged in some form of activity, say religious, to which he has not the cultural key. If he i s askillful writer, he may succeed in giving a picturesque account of what he sees and hears, or thinks he sees and hears, but the chances of his being able to give a re lation of what happens in terms that would be intelligible and acceptable to the natives themselves are practically nil. This account is d i r e c t l y r e l e v a n t to our discussion ( i n 2 . 2 . above) of how the data of sociology are acquired i n the f i r s t place.

Under-

standing is a two-way process: i t is not only the case t h a t the s c i e n t i s t must understand the behaviour of the people described but - p r e c i s e l y to check whether or not he has in f a c t understood them - the people described must also be able to understand and accept at l e a s t the nont h e o r e t i c a l p a r t of the d e s c r i p t i o n .

To use Apel's (1973b)

the objects of a s o c i o l o g i c a l or s o c i a l - a n t h r o p o l o g i c a l must be p o t e n t i a l

' c o - s u b j e c t s ' of the social

terminology,

investigation

scientist.

The i n d i v i d u a l gradually acquires the key to an a l i e n c u l t u r e by s t a r t i n g to i m i t a t e o v e r t behaviour, and, it,

as Sapir (1949d:105-06)

" i n the process of f a l l i n g in w i t h the ways of society one i n

put effect

acquiesces in the meanings t h a t inhere i n these ways". From the c i t a t i o n s given so f a r , i t is clear t h a t Sapir i s a c t u a l l y o u t l i n i n g a f u l l y - f l e d g e d philosophy of human sciences.

But he is not

content w i t h the mere announcement o f methodological g u i d e l i n e s , he also gives exemplary hermeneutic analyses of several s p e c i f i c a l l y human phenomena which are simply incompatible w i t h any kind of p o s i t i v i s t i c description.

A case i n p o i n t is the analysis presented i n his "The Me

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Selected Philosophical and Methodological Papers

Anticipatory Systems: Philosophical, Mathematical, and Methodological Foundations, 2nd Edition

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A Historical and Theoretical Investigation into 'Communalism'

A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics

Disrespect: The Normative Foundations of Critical Theory

Welsh Negation and Grammatical Theory

Philosophical Analysis and Structural Linguistics

Aquinas on simplicity: an investigation into the foundations of his philosophical theology

Aquinas on Simplicity: An Investigation into the Foundations of his Philosophical Theology

The Philosophical Foundations of Early German Romanticism (Intersections: Philosophy and Critical Theory)

Persons, Souls and Death: A Philosophical Investigation of an Afterlife

Philosophical foundations of quantum field theory

The Autonomous Brain: A Neural Theory of Attention and Learning

Foundations of Speech Act Theory: Philosophical and Linguistic Perspectives

Philosophical Foundations of Physics

The Foundations of Philosophical Semantics

The Foundations of Philosophical Semantics

Philosophical Foundations of Physics

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Philosophical Foundations of Education

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Language, sense and nonsense: A critical investigation into modern theories of language

Language, Sense and Nonsense: A Critical Investigation into Modern Theories of Language

Language, Sense and Nonsense: A Critical Investigation into Modern Theories of Language

Grammatical Theory and Metascience: A Critical Investigation into the Methodological and Philosophical Foundations of 'Autonomous' Linguistics

Selected Philosophical and Methodological Papers

Anticipatory Systems: Philosophical, Mathematical, and Methodological Foundations, 2nd Edition

The Conceptual Foundations and the Philosophical Aspects of Renormalization Theory

A Historical and Theoretical Investigation into 'Communalism'

A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics

Disrespect: The Normative Foundations of Critical Theory

Welsh Negation and Grammatical Theory

Philosophical Analysis and Structural Linguistics

Aquinas on simplicity: an investigation into the foundations of his philosophical theology

Aquinas on Simplicity: An Investigation into the Foundations of his Philosophical Theology

The Philosophical Foundations of Early German Romanticism (Intersections: Philosophy and Critical Theory)

Persons, Souls and Death: A Philosophical Investigation of an Afterlife

Philosophical foundations of quantum field theory

The Autonomous Brain: A Neural Theory of Attention and Learning

Foundations of Speech Act Theory: Philosophical and Linguistic Perspectives

Philosophical Foundations of Physics

The Foundations of Philosophical Semantics

The Foundations of Philosophical Semantics

Philosophical Foundations of Physics

The Foundations of Philosophical Semantics

Philosophical Foundations of Education

Foundations of Computational Linguistics

Physicalism: The Philosophical Foundations

Incorporation: a theory of grammatical function changing

Language, sense and nonsense: A critical investigation into modern theories of language

Language, Sense and Nonsense: A Critical Investigation into Modern Theories of Language

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