In:Essays on Linguistic Realism:
Edited by Christina Behme and Martin Neef
[Studies in Language Companion Series 196] 2018
► pp. 7–20
Chapter 2What kind of science is linguistics?
Published online: 26 July 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.196.02pit
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.196.02pit
Abstract
I argue that what determines whether a science is ‘formal’ or ‘empirical’ is not the ontological status of its objects of study, but, rather, its methodology. Since all sciences aim at generalizations, and generalizations concern types, if types are abstract (non-spatiotemporal) objects, then all sciences are concerned to discover the nature of certain abstract objects. What distinguishes empirical from formal sciences is how they study such things. If the types of a science have observable instances (‘tokens’), then the nature of the types may be determined empirically. If they types have either abstract tokens, or no tokens at all, their nature must be determined by non-empirical methods involving intuition, reasoning and proof. I conclude that the status of (theoretical) linguistics depends on the methodologies of syntax, semantics, phonology, morphology and orthography (and any other subdiscipline that is concerned with the study of the structure of language).
Keywords: empirical, formal, ontology, methodology
Article outline
- 1.The nature of formal and empirical sciences
- 2.Methodology vs. ontology
- 3.Linguistic kinds: Sentences
- 4.Discovering and investigating meaning structure
- 5.The phenomenology of meaning
- 6.Linguistics as a mixed science
Notes References
References (6)
Pitt, David. 2004. The phenomenology of cognition, or, What is it like to think that p? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research LXIX: 1–36.
Cited by (5)
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Swiggers, Pierre
2023. Review of Aarssen, Genis & van der Veken (2018–2020). Historiographia Linguistica 50:2-3 ► pp. 353 ff.
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