In:History of Linguistics 2011: Selected Papers from the 12th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (ICHoLS XII), Saint Petersburg, 28 August - 2 September 2011
Edited by Vadim Kasevich, Yuri A. Kleiner and Patrick Sériot
[Studies in the History of the Language Sciences 123] 2014
► pp. 127–136
Earlier and later anti-psychologism in linguistics
Published online: 29 August 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/sihols.123.11elf
https://doi.org/10.1075/sihols.123.11elf
Psychologism has been a mainstream view in linguistics throughout many centuries. Serious and prominent anti-psychologism flourished in the first half of the 20th century, mainly in European structuralism. As a minority view, mostly dubbed ‘anti-mentalism’, anti-psychologism resurfaced in the 1970s in reaction to Chomsky’s strong psychologism. I will show that, in spite of differences due to their relationship to divergent problem contexts, the earlier and later varieties of anti-psychologism share as a common kernel a full recognition of the intentional character of language. However, the locus of intentionality differs between the two.
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