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,

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

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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:

THE IDEA OF 'POSITIVISM'

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

THE IDEA OF 'POSITIVISM'

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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-

THE IDEA OF 'POSITIVISM'

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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-

THE IDEA OF 'POSITIVISM'

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-

THE IDEA OF 'POSITIVISM'

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

(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

THE IDEA OF 'POSITIVISM'

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

THE IDEA OF 'POSITIVISM'

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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.

THE IDEA OF 'POSITIVISM'

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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-

THE IDEA OF 'HERMENEUTICS'

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

THE IDEA OF 'HERMENEUTICS'

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

THE IDEA OF 'HERMENEUTICS'

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

THE IDEA OF 'HERMENEUTICS'

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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 -

THE IDEA OF 'HERMENEUTICS'

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

THE IDEA OF 'HERMENEUTICS'

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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).

THE IDEA OF 'HERMENEUTICS'

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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').

THE IDEA OF 'HERMENEUTICS'

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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).

THE IDEA OF 'HERMENEUTICS'

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

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
ing of R e l i g i o n " . Where are the r u l e s of correspondence and the oper a t i o n a l d e f i n i t i o n s which would connect in a f i x e d way the concepts, e . g . , ' s p i r i t u a l s e r e n i t y ' , t h a t appear i n S a p i r ' s account w i t h p a r t i -

20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES

65

cular events in space and time? Since such concepts must be defined afresh for every culture, the conceptual differences between different cultures should themselves be defined by means of culture-independent rules of correspondence, if this positivistic programme of interpreting Sapir's description in terms of space and time is to be carried out. I claim that there is no way to operational ise a concept like 'spiritual serenity in the Ojibwa culture', still less a concept like 'Ojibwa culture' itself. So long as no correspondence rules are proposed, even tentatively, to prove the opposite, I am entitled to disregard all ob­ jections to my claim, or more generally to the claim that cultural con­ cepts are qualitatively different from concepts such as 'atom' and can­ not be treated according to the canons of natural science. Consequently, in "The Meaning of Religion" Sapir is not making an empirical1 descrip­ tion. Nor - as far as I can see - is he making an empi rical2 descrip­ tion: because he is not speaking about, or even clearly implying, any specific types of action, the occurrence, or lack of occurrence, of par­ ticular actions cannot falsify his description in any straightforward way. I think most positivists would agree with me that the description in question is nonempirical. From this they would infer that it is nonscientific as well. I would disagree with such a conclusion. Sapir's description is clearly testable: it would be false precisely in case re­ ligion is not what he claims it to be. There are objective methods for deciding this question, but these methods are not as simple as the con­ firmation and the falsification employed by empirical science. Nor is there any reason why they should be as simple, apart from the aprioristic requirement of the 'unity of science' (which, of course, is no ge­ nuine reason). Consequently, I shall say that descriptions of cultural or institutional phenomena are testable 3 . If they can be taken to pro­ vide explanations, then they are to be characterised as explanatory3. Sapir's analysis of various Amerindian religions is remarkably si­ milar to Winch's (1964) interpretation of Zande magic. Both authors reject the Western, excessively technological standards as a vantage point from which to make intelligible and to evaluate (i.e., criticise) the religious institutions of primitive societies. Rather, these in-

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

66

s t i t u t i o n s have to be understood w i t h i n t h e i r own conceptual

universes,

even to the extent t h a t the p o s s i b i l i t y of a communication between d i f f e r e n t universes comes to be recognised as a genuine, i f not unsolvable problem.

Winch also acknowledges the importance of language i n forming

the Weltanschauung

of a given s o c i e t y , and in f a c t , he u n w i t t i n g l y gives

a s u c c i n t formulation to the 'Sapir-Whorf hypothesis' g e n s t e i n ' s remark from the Tractatus

by quoting W i t t -

( 5 . 6 2 ) : "The l i m i t s of my language

mean the l i m i t s of my w o r l d . " Furthermore, i t is not too much to say t h a t Sapir a n t i c i p a t e s some of the most important i n s i g h t s of Lévi-Straussian s t r u c t u r a l i s m .

In

discussing the p a t t e r n i n g of social u n i t s , Sapir (Ί949g:340-41) notes t h a t i n p r i m i t i v e s o c i e t i e s f u n c t i o n a l groups are generally subsidiary to k i n s h i p , t e r r i t o r i a l , and status groups.

I t has turned out t h a t i n

e n t i r e l y unrelated s o c i e t i e s the organisations of such non-functional groups e x h i b i t formal or s t r u c t u r a l s i m i l a r i t i e s to a s t r i k i n g degree; t h i s n e a r - i d e n t i t y of form obviously poses a problem. the way f o r an answer by r e l a t i n g the

Sapir prepares

above-mentioned formal s i m i l a r i ­

t i e s , and analogous s i m i l a r i t i e s i n other f i e l d s as w e l l , to "a c e r t a i n innate s t r i v i n g f o r formal e l a b o r a t i o n and expression and to an uncon­ scious p a t t e r n i n g of sets of r e l a t e d elements of experience"

(Sapir

1949e:156). When Sapir advocates "a social psychology of form which has hardly been more than adumbrated", he seems to be g i v i n g an accurate c h a r a c t e r i s a t i o n of the basic o b j e c t i v e s of Lévi-Straussian s t r u c t u r a lism: The true unraveling of the basic and largely unconscious concepts or images that underlie social forms has hardly been begun. Hence the anthropologist is in the curious position of dealing with im­ pressive masses of material and with a great number of striking homologies, not necessarily due to historical contact, that he is quite certain have far-reaching significance, but the nature of whose significance he is not prepared to state. Interpretative anthropology is under a cloud, but the data of primitive society need interpretation none the less. The historical explanations now in vogue, often exceedingly dubious at best, are little more than a clearing of the ground toward a social interpretation; they are not the interpretation itself (Sapir 1949g:338-39).

At the most general level, Sapir criticises existent human scien-

20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES

67

ces by reason of their predilection to specialise in one single, dis­ connected aspect of human or social behaviour, with man being ignored as the ultimate, integral object of inquiry. Instead, he envisages "an inclusive science of man, one that does the best it can to harbor the value judgements of experiencing human beings within its own catholic 'universe of discourse'" (Sapir 1949j: 584). Similar attempts have been made before. For instance, Dilthey (1924:139-240) outlined a 'descrip­ tive and dissecting (zergliedernd) psychology', which, in contrast to empirical, explanatory psychology, would consider man as the phocal point of those multiple contexts of meaning which constitute his social28

historical environment as he himself experiences it. Sapir mentions cultural anthropology and psychiatry as possible candidates for evolu­ tion into such an 'inclusive science of man', but adds that to date psychiatry has disqualified itself, by reason of its having, quite un­ realistically, ignored the effects of the larger context of society on the individual psyche. Thus Sapir (1949j: 588) notes: For all practical purposes a too low income is at least as signi­ ficant a datum in the causation of mental ill-health as a buried Oedipus complex or sex trauma. Why should not the psychiatrist be frank enough to call attention to the great evils of unemploy­ ment or of lack of economic security?

Sapir concludes by making the proposal that psychiatry should re­ commend a more equal distribution of wealth. As a psychiatrically-minded social scientist, Sapir wishes to grasp man in his totality, and in the process he breaks the barriers of value-free science: not content with mere description of social reality, he wishes also to change it. Sapir's psychiatry is a critical science, with the emphasis laid on the critique of the social environment (cf. 2.3. above). Or, if we con­ sider his reference to cultural anthropology, we might say that he is striving for a sociology of knowledge furnished with the critical di­ mension (cf. 2.4.). Sapir's theory of the human sciences could of its very generality. For instance, he fails between normative and spatiotemporal aspects of comparisons with the methods of natural science

be criticised because to distinguish clearly institutions. Detailed are also lacking. Just

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GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIEΝCE

as in the case of Saussure, however, anyone voicing such a criticism would show a lack of historical perspective. 3.4.

Bloomfield

Bloomfield has endorsed the positivistic philosophy of science in a rather extreme form, as a combination of A. P. Weiss's 'physicalist' psychology, and Carnap's and Neurath's 'logical empirism'. As a behaviou­ rist he endeavours to account for meaning by resorting to the stimulusresponse model: meaning is the speaker's stimulus (i.e., physically or phy siologically definable features of his total situation) and the hearer's response, whereas an utterance is the speaker's (substitute) response and the hearer's (substitute) stimulus (Bloomfield 1935:22-27). Interes­ tingly enough, Bloomfield admits somewhat later (p. 145) that, from the standpoint of linguistics, it is a necessary assumption that each lin­ guistic form has a constant and definite meaning. However, as far as their physical features are concerned, the speaker's situations may differ in innumerable, uncontrollable ways, and may eventually involve practically anything in the world. As a consequence. Bloomfield is forced into the paradoxical conclusion that the necessary assumption mentioned above cannot be confirmed in a single case: Actually, however, our knowledge of the world in which we live is so imperfect that we can rarely make accurate statements about the meaning of a speech-form .... It is true that we are concerned not so much with each individual as with the whole community. We do not inquire into the minute nervous processes of a person who utters, say, the word 'apple', but content ourselves rather with determining that, by and large, for all the members of the commu­ nity, the word 'apple' means a certain kind of fruit. However, as soon as we try to deal accurately with this matter, we find that the agreement of the community is far from perfect, and that every person uses speech-forms in a unique way (Bloomfield 1935:74-75; emphasis added),

And later on (p. 158) : We assume that each linguistic form has a constant and definite meaning, different from the meaning of any other linguistic form in the same language ... We have seen that this assumption cannot be verified ...

Bloomfield has borrowed his notion of 'accuracy' from the me-

69

20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES thodology of natural science.

That is, his approach is precisely the

opposite of the correct one: instead of trying to define meaning in terms of physical features, he ought to have accepted meaning as given, and to have used it as the criterion for decision as to which physical features are relevant or distinctive. The errors in his reasoning are instructive in many ways, not only because they illustrate the inadequacy of the behaviouristic approach. Rather, they should lead to question the appropriateness of the whole notion of empirical confirmation in this context, and, by the same token to the realisation that only the latter member of the dichotomy 'obser­ vation - understanding' is adequate for the study of linguistic data. Neither 'taxonomie' linguistics nor TG has ever been able to grasp the nature and the implications of the above dichotomy in any systematic way.

The only area in which this dichotomy has received due attention

is that of the study of sounds, since the linguist cannot help drawing a distinction between (physical) phonetics and (mental) phonology. Similarly, when Bloomfield states his basic principle that "in every

speech-community some utterances are alike in form and meaning",

he admits that it is simply on the basis of "our everyday knowledge" that we are capable of making the judgements in question (Bloomfield 1935:77-78).

It is clear that everyday knowledge of language is iden­

tical with the native speaker's linguistic intuition.

However, intui­

tion is not reducibleto observation, and linguistic schools which strive to dispense with the distinction between intuitive and observational knowledge are attempting to force linguistic data into the straitjacket of methodological monism. In his explicitly metascientific statements, Bloomfield subscribes to 'physicalism' (which is a form of the 'strong reductionism' noted on p.l): ... all scientifically meaningful statements must be translatable into physical terms - that is, into statements about movements which can be observed and described in coordinates of space and time (Bloomfield 1936:90). This standpoint is diametrically opposed to that held by Sapir. Furthermore, Bloomfield is particularly interested in that part of the

70

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

physi cal i s ti c programme that is concerned with the translation of men­ tal istic terminology into physical terms. It is evident that if such entities as ideas, concepts, and thoughts need to be eliminated in favour of something more tangible, then the most likely substitutes are the words and sentences which have been thought to express these enti­ ties. (Actually, this last sentence may serve to show how difficult it is to rid oneself of mentalistic terminology.) Accordingly, in Carnap (1937:233-37 and 284-92), sentences that speak about mental en­ tities are treated as 'quasi-syntactical', that is, as sentences which seem to be about the world, but are in fact about language. Equivalently, within the framework of Weissian psychology, mental entities are reduced to language, viz. a 'noise' which the speaker makes, and which "acts with a trigger-effect upon the nervous systems of his speechfellows" (Bloomfield 1936:93). In conformity with the physicalistic programme, Bloomfield does in fact try to translate the 'material mode' of sentences that contain expressions for mental entities into the 'for­ mal mode' of sentences that contain expressions for suitable linguistic entities; for example, he replaces 'idea' by 'definition' and 'what can be conceived' by 'what the definition says'. In work of this kind, he even perceives one of the major tasks of linguistics. (Fortunately, he did not take his own advice quite literally.) Positivist as he was, Bloomfield never identified the linguist's task with describing a given corpus of utterances» On the contrary, he was fully aware of the 'creative' nature of language: ... it is obvious that most speech-forms are regular, in the sense that the speaker who knows the constituents and the grammatical pattern, can utter them without ever having heard them; moreover, the observer cannot hope to list them, since the possibilities of combination are practically infinite (Bloomfield 1935:275).

Today when reading books on linguistics, one easily gets the impres­ sion that (aside from Humboldt) TG has discovered the creativity of language. To Bloomfield, however, this fact was Obvious' (cf. the quotation above) and in no need of elaboration. TG's emphasis on crea­ tivity rests on its use of recursive rules (which were not available in Bloomfield's time). However, the emphasis on recursivity rests on mis-

71

20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES

understanding, because only the use of a quite restricted amount of recursivity can be justified in natural language grammars (cf. Itkonen 1976a). This also means that Bloomfield is correct in emphasising, as against TG, that the possibilities of combination are practically , but not theoretically, infinite, 3.5.

Harris

Harris develops the Bloomfieldian conception of l i n g u i s t i c s , but f o r the most p a r t omits e x p l i c i t reference to the philosophy of science t h a t underlies i t .

In view of the general disparagement of

'taxonomic'

l i n g u i s t i c s by TG, i t is i n t e r e s t i n g to note t h a t , at the level of general methodology, H a r r i s ' s view of grammar as a s c i e n t i f i c theory i s c l o s e l y s i m i l a r to t h a t of Chomsky.

As w i l l be gathered from a quota-

t i o n on p. 78, Chomsky considers a grammar as a theory t h a t

predicts

utterances and explains them by s t a t i n g the s t r u c t u r e s of these p r e d i c t ed utterances on each l i n g u i s t i c l e v e l , and by showing t h a t these s t r u c tures conform to the rules of the grammar. In H a r r i s ' s o p i n i o n , a grammar is concerned w i t h " r e g u l a r i t i e s selected aspects of human behaviour" with

in

(Harris 1961:22), more p r e c i s e l y

" r e g u l a r i t i e s i n the d i s t r i b u t i o n a l r e l a t i o n s among c e r t a i n features

of speech"

(op.

cit.,

p.5).

These can only be described by concentrating

on a ' c o r p u s ' , but "the i n t e r e s t i n our analysis of the corpus derives p r i m a r i l y from the f a c t t h a t i t can serve as a predictive language" (p.244; emphasis added).

sample of the

In other words, "when a l i n g u i s t

o f f e r s his r e s u l t s as a system representing the language as a whole, he i s predicting

t h a t the elements set up f o r his corpus w i l l s a t i s f y

all

other b i t s of t a l k i n g in t h a t language" ( p . 1 7 ; eraphasis added). 29 Hence, a grammar makes p r e d i c t i o n s and i s e i t h e r confirmed or disconfirmed (and i f the l a t t e r , then modified) depending upon whether or not i t s t i o n s are matched by l i n g u i s t i c data.

predic-

Consequently, H a r r i s - t y p e grammars

are t e s t a b l e p r e c i s e l y i n the same way as Chomsky-type grammars.

Harris

i s i n f a c t constantly concerned w i t h the d i s c o n f i r m a b i l i t y of his d e s c r i p t i o n s , as i s c l e a r l y evident from the f o l l o w i n g passage: It is ... often convenient to make the division into morphemic seg­ ments first in the case of those utterances and parts of utterances

72

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE in which the difference in adequacy among various alternative seg­ mentations is extreme. The less obvious choices of segmentation can then be decided with the help of the classes of morphemic seg­ ments which have already been set up. Even then, new data may lead us to rescind some of our previous segmentations in favor of alter­ native ones which pattern better with the new data (Harris : 163).30

Harris (p.369) arrives at (and/or describes) linguistic structures on the basis of segmentation and classification: "As a result of these operations we not only obtain initial elements, but are also able to define new sets of elements as classes or combinations (sequences, etc.) of old ones". Utterances have hierarchical structures consisting of different levels in such a way that "each element is identified relatively to the other elements at its level, and in terms of particular elements at a lower level" (p.370); "each stretch of speech in the corpus in now com­ pletely and compactly identifiable in terms of the elements at any one of the levels" (p.364). Since the Harris-type grammar is a predictive theory of the linguistic structure, it 'explains' the predicted utter­ ances in a manner quite similar to the Chomsky-type grammar, namely by stating their structures at each linguistic level, and showing that these structures conform to the rules of the grammar. To be sure, in the Harris-type grammar, rules of grammar are mostly not explicitly formulated, but are rather exhibited by the structures in the represen­ tative sample, as they have been discovered on the basis of the standard operations of segmentation and classification. From the above, it follows that from TG's point of view, 'taxonomie' grammars and transformational grammars must have the same metascientific status, i.e., they are both to be seen as testable, explanatory theories. (Notice that we are discussing grammars of particular languages, not universal linguistic theories; for the latter, see 9.4.). However, since - as we shall see later on - formal and systematic descriptions of linguistic data do not provide genuine explanations (cf. 9.2.), in this respect Harris's position actually seems to be more correct than Chomsky's, given that the former plays down the 'explanatory' aspect of grammar. In any event, it is definitely incorrect to say that postBloomfieldian American linguistics was merely concerned with 'observa­ tional adequacy', i.e., with presenting the observed primary data cor-

20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES

73

rectly. (Yet this distortion, as formulated in Chomsky (1964d:28-30 and 97-98) and elsewhere is today almost universally accepted as true.) Harris (1957:142) explicitly points out that he is concerned with ma­ king g e n e r a l i s a t i o n s ; this should in fact be evident to anyone, given that the Harris-type grammar is a -predictive theory, as we have seen above. Moreover, even when dealing with his data, Harris by no means restricts his attention to merely observing whatever occurs in speech. In morphemic analysis, for instance, he selects a definite frame of sub­ stitution which serves as the basis of the (substitution) test by means of which morphemes and morpheme sequences are grouped into (substitution) classes (Harris 1957:143-44). It is clear that substitution frames do not occur in speech qua substitution frames. The considerations which lead to the selection of one substitution frame over others refer to the over-all simplicity of the description; that is, they are of a purely theoretical nature and may in no way be simply derived from observation: The criterion which decides for -ing, and against un-, as the rele­ vant environment in determining substitution classes [for verbs] is therefore a criterion of usefulness throughout the grammar, a configurational consideration (Harris:143, n.6)

And more explicitly: This means that we change over from correlating each morpheme with all its environments, to correlating selected environments (frames) with all the morphemes that enter them. The variables are now the positions, as is shown by the fact that the criterion for class membership is substitution. The element which occurs in a given class position may be a morpheme which occurs also in various other class positions. We merely select positions in which many morphemes occur, and in terms of which we get the most convenient total description (p.150; emphasis added,).

In this connection, mention should be made of one additional respect in which the contrast between Harris and Chomsky is much less real than it would appear at first sight. The former expressly attempts to con­ struct discovery procedures for grammars, whereas for the latter, who has adopted the methodological maxim that the context of discovery and. the context of justification need to be strictly separated, the interest in discovery procedures is one of the major flaws of 'taxonomie' linguistics. 31

Instead, Chomsky recommends replacing discovery procedures

74

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

by 'evaluation procedures' which are used to determine which of two al­ ternative grammars is the better one. This seemingly clear contrast of opinions calls for two comments. First, the principle of separating the contexts of discovery and justi­ fication, is not unknown to Harris, but he interprets it in his own way, viz. by (implicity) distinguishing between methods which might be called 'discovery in practice' and 'discovery in principle': The latter is the theoretically justifiable reconstruction of a discovery procedure (one might even say: the context of justification for discovery procedures), whereas the former represents the way in which linguists actually pro­ ceed. This distinction is clarified by the following passage, which is characteristic of pre-transformational American linguistics: In determining the morphemes of a particular language, linguists use, in addition to distributional criteria, also (in varying de­ grees) criteria of meaning difference. In exact descriptive lin­ guistic work, however, such considerations of meaning can only be used heuristicaliy, as a source of hints, and the determining cri­ teria will always have to be stated in distributional terms (Harris 1961:365).

Secondly, it is generally agreed outside standard positivism that all aspects of scientific discovery cannot be disregarded, because con­ centration on the -post hoc justification (or 'rational reconstruction') of well-established theories gives a wholly distorted, static picture of science. A philosophy of science which neglects the question of the growth of science, the central question for every practising scientist, is inadequate almost by definition. Notice that even TG's 'evaluation procedure' tries to capture one aspect of the growth of the linguist's knowledge, viz. the selection of the better of two proposed grammars. The interpenetration of the contexts of discovery and justification can be illustrated more precisely as follows. Suppose that a transfor­ mationalist is deliberating on whether the verbs of a given language should be described by means of a single v-category, supplemented by strict subcategorisation rules to be found in the dictionary, or with three distinct categories V a, F b , Vc, along with corresponding subindices assigned to every verb, or by a common category W for both verbs and adjectives, supplemented by strict subcategorisation rules. It then

20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES

75

would become evident that the category, and ultimately the grammar, is the one which he can best justify on the basis of which he discovers considerations referring to the over-all simplicity of the description. But this standard procedure of a transformationalist grammarian is pre­ cisely the same as the one which Harris explicitly considers as his own (cf. above). Hence, discovery is always implicit in justification, and any absolute distinction between the two is just an artifact. It may be added that the replacement of discovery procedures by less demanding evaluation procedures has in practice been largely symbolic: it may be true that it is impossible to devise exact and rigorous disco­ very procedures for grammars; but no exact and rigorous evaluation pro­ cedures for grammars have been devised, either. Nor should this be sur­ prising, considering that procedures for purely formally determining the superiority of one theory over another have so far not been devised in any science, whether empirical or not. To sum up: Harrisian grammars are explanatory and testable theories with the same right as those advocated by TG. In keeping with the re­ quirement of 'strong reductionism', however, Harris tries to make his approach as observational as possible and to minimise the role of theo­ ry. Like Bloomfield, Harris thus represents the strict positivistic standpoint that characterised much of the philosophy of science in the 1930s. It would be unfair to criticise them for subscribing to the pre­ dominant methodological trend of their own time. To be sure, alternative methodologies were available already then. 3.6.

Transformational

Grammar

When TG is compared with earlier schools of linguistics, its most original contribution is seen to lie in the domain of syntax. To some the contrast seems pronounced enough to justify the talk of a 'Chomskyan revolution' in linguistics; in phonology, whether synchronic or diachronic, and in semantics such claims are certainly less justified. It has also been claimed that Chomsky revolutionised linguistics at the metascientific level as well. It is with this claim that I shall come to terms in the present section. It is generally thought that TG's originality in metascience rests

76

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

on two closely connected factors, namely its theoveticol and m e n t a l i s t i o character. First, let us consider more closely the t h e o r e t i c a l charac­ ter of TG. From the beginning it has been claimed that TG, as no school of linguistics before it, has been able to turn grammars into genuine theories and hence to lift linguistics onto the level of exact natural sciences. (That is, the adherents of TG have never bothered to make the distinction between natural, i.e., empirical1, sciences and empiri­ cal, i.e., empirical2, social sciences.) Lees (1957:377), reviewing Syn­ tactic Structures, noted: ... Chomsky's book on syntactic structures is one of the first se­ rious attempts on the part of a linguist to construct within the tradition of scientific theory-construction a comprehensive theory of language which may be understood in the same sense that a chemi­ cal , biological theory is ordinarily understood by experts in those fields. It may seem strange to some linguists that a grammar can be consi­ dered to be a theory of a particular language, and not just a re­ ordering or abbreviation of a text. But when we consider the ge­ nerality which must be required of a grammar ... we see that it is analogous ... to a scientific theory embodying proposed laws of nature (p.380). The other most important result of Chomsky's theory of language is his very strict axiomatization of linguistic theory. He has chosen to take seriously the requirement that a grammar be not merely an arbitrary reorganization of some corpus, but (in a specifiable sense) a simplest machine which will generate all and only the gram­ matical sentences of a language (p,381).32

As it stands, the claim of the uniquely theoretical character of TG is clearly false. As we have seen in 3.5. (above), because of its predictive character, a Harri sian grammar is not "just a reordering or abbreviation of a text" or "an arbitrary (!) reorganization of some corpus", as Lees would have it. Similarly, Harrisian 'substitution classes', elicited on the basis of selected 'substitution frames', are clearly theoretical concepts. Furthermore, both Harris and Chomsky agree that the theoretical concepts must be constructed in accordance with considerations referring to the over-all simplicity of the grammar: Notice that simplicity is a systematic measure; the only ultimate criterion in evaluation is the simplicity of the whole system. In

20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES

77

discussing particular cases, we can only indicate how one or an­ other decision will affect the over-all complexity. Such valida­ tion can only be tentative, since by simplifying one part of the grammar we may complicate other parts (Chomsky 1957:55-56).

This is also Harris' position (cf. p. 73). Below this level of abstraction, however, there is of course a genuine difference between Harris and Chomsky, or between 'taxonomie' linguistics and TG. Harris tries to minimise the number of theoreti­ cal concepts and to keep them as concrete as possible, whereas Chomsky accepts no similar constraints. This difference in methodology is inti­ mately related to a difference in what is regarded as legitimate data for grammatical descriptions: because Chomsky allows the free use of in­ tuitive criteria, he is able to perceive in linguistic data a great num­ ber of relations (e.g., relations between different sentence-types) that are more abstract than anything accepted by 'taxonomists' as being ob­ jectively given. The description of a wider range of phenomena quite naturally necessitates the use of a greater number of theoretical con­ cepts. However, no clear answer is given to the question of how, pre­ cisely, the theoretical concepts are to be interpreted, i.e., whether in terms of intuition or of observation. The theories of 'taxonomie' linguistics are much less abstract than those of TG. Bach (1965) sees these two positions in linguistics as representative of two clearly distinct scientific traditions, namely the 'Baconian' and the 'Keplerian'. In his opinion these two traditions are exemplified, in the modern philosophy of science, by the logical empirism of the 1930s and for instance by Popper (1965) and Hempel (1952), respectively (Bach 1965:114 and 118, n.10). This means that at the le­ vel of general methodology the 'revolution' brought about by TG amounts to bringing the metascientific assumptions of linguistics up to date. TG regards American 'taxonomie' linguistics as 'positivistic' be­ cause of its allegiance to logical empirism (see, e.g., Chomsky 1968:2; Postal 1968a:231-32). I have argued that the current Popper-HempelNagel conception of the philosophy of science, to which TG subscribes, is merely an improvement of logical empirism and deserves, by virtue of

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GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

its adherence to methodological monism, to be equally subsumed under the notion of 'positivism' (cf. p.l). Hence, TG explicitly espouses the positivistic philosophy of science, 'positivism' being understood, here and elsewhere, in the sense of 1.0. (above). The supposed analogy between grammars and theories of natural scien­ ce has been construed by Chomsky as follows: A grammar of a particular language can be considered, in what seems to me a perfectly good sense, to be a complete scientific theory of a particular subject matter, and if given a precise enough form, a formalized theory. Any interesting scientific theory will seek to relate observable events by formulating general laws in terms of hypothetical constructs, and providing a demonstration that certain observable events follow as consequences of these laws. In a parti­ cular grammar, the observable events are that such and such is an utterance and the demonstration that this observable event is a con­ sequence of the theory consists in stating the structure of this 'predicted utterance on each linguistic level, and showing that this structure conforms to the grammatical rules or the laws of the the­ ory (Chomsky 1975 [1955]:77; emphasis added).

Given the assumed symmetry between prediction and explanation (cf. 1.2.), the demonstration that a predicted utterance is a consequence of the grammar amounts to an explanation

of this utterance.

- In Syn­

tactic

Structures (p.49) Chomsky repeats the above statement, and express­ ly equates the grammatical concepts with theoretical concepts of physics. A nearly identical passage recurs in Chomsky (1964a:223). The same insis­ tence upon the strict similarity between linguistics and physics charac­ terises Chomsky's most recent statements: "... our scientist S ... stu­ dies language exactly as he studies physics, taking humans to be 'natu­ ral objects'" (Chomsky 1976:183). As an explanatory and predictive theory, a grammar must of course be testable. The predictions which are used in testing grammars are more precisely characterised by Bach (1964:176) as follows: A grammar for a specific language forms the basis for a series of predictions of the following sort: If Τ is a terminal string in phonetic transcription derivable from a grammar G of a language L, then Τ is in L. That is, the grammar generates only sentences of the language and no nonsentences. Further, if T' is in L, then T' is derivable from G; i.e., all the sentences of the language are derivable from the grammar. Finally, the grammar must assign a set of markers (structural descriptions) to each generated string.

20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES

79

The markers form the basis for other predictions about relations between sentences, ambiguity, and so on.

From the preceding quotations it is clear that TG intends grammars theories (see to be formalised empirical theories or, briefly, axiomatic also Chomsky 1964b:576). This calls for a few comments. A generative grammar is definable as an axiomatic system (see, e.g., Wall 1972:197212), but it cannot be an axiomatic theory (of a language L ) , for the simple reason that, unlike the sentences constituting an axiomatic theo­ ry, the rewriting rules constituting a generative grammar, e.g., S→NP + VP, do not admit of truth-value. Similarly, aside from the last lines of derivations, the 'theorems' of a generative grammar are not sentences, but just strings of symbols. Of course, what transformationalists have always meant - although they have not been able to express it clearly is that the me tagrammar of a grammar is a genuine theory, i.e., a theory which claims, truly or not, that such and such rewriting rules express generalisations about L and generate all and only correct sentences of L or, more realistically, generate relatively many correct and relative­ ly few incorrect sentences of L. Thus Lieb's (1974) sharp rejection of TG for instance is unfounded, as it stands, because it rests solely on the trivial fact that expressions like S →NP + VP are not sentences. In view of the fact that TG has brought to bear on linguistics the 'Kepierian' point of view, it is curious to note how few references can actually be found in transformationalist literature to modern represen­ tatives of the 'Keplerian' philosophy of science. There are passing references to Popper, Hempel, and Nagel for instance in Chomsky (1964d: 98), Postal (1968a:295, n.7), and Katz & Bever (1974:57, n.26), but the applicability of the methods of natural science to linguistic data is always simply taken for granted. It is only outside of TG circles that the relation of linguistics and philosophy of science has become the object of serious study (cf. 3.7. below). The incessant use of such terms as 'explanation', 'prediction', and 'empirical testability' does nothing to lend methodological rigour to TG descriptions, because their meanings either are never made clear or, if made clear, turn out to be misconceived.

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GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

For instance, consider TG's notion of 'empirical'. In Chomsky & Katz (1974) and Chomsky (1976) the following type of statement occurs a dozen times: "the defining characteristic of empirical science: nontrivial theories are underdetermined by data" (Chomsky & Katz 1974:350); "nontrivial empirical theory is underdetermined by evidence" (Chomsky 1976:209). 'Underdetermined by data1 is identical with 'falsifiable', which in turn is considered identical with 'noncircular' and'nontautological' (Chomsky 1976:173-74). It is by virtue of this characterisa­ tion that "linguistics is an empirical science, not a branch of logic and mathematics" (Chomsky & Katz 1974:354). This notion of 'empirical' is plainly wrong, apparently because Chomsky and Katz have less than adequate knowledge of such nonempi rical sciences as formal logic. They seem to be led by the principle 'logic is tautological'. However, such a formulation is quite unacceptable. Deontic logicians, for instance, attempt to construct systems or theo­ ries which would generate all intuitively valid or tautological formu­ lae and no intuitively invalid or nontautological formulae. Such theo­ ries can be, and are, falsified by contrary evidences which means that they are underdetermined by data, or 'empirical' in Chomsky's and Katz's sense (cf. Itkonen 1975b, and 10.0. below). Considering that linguistics is concerned with correctness, as logic is with validity or tautologicalness, it would be just as meaningful to say that 'linguistics is cor­ rect' as to say that 'logic is tautological'. Consequently, if one wishes seriously to inquire into the empiricalness or nonempiricalness of linguisties, then use must be made of the de­ finition of 'empirical' given in 1.1. (above). 'Falsifiability' is not enough; what is needed is spatiotemporal falsifiabili ty (or more preci­ sely, testability). For a grammar to be an empirical theory, it is re­ quired, first of all, that it deals with spatiotemporal data. It is also required that the basis for 'grammatical predictions' is conceptually independent from what is predicted or, equivalently, that in 'grammat­ ical explanations' the explanandum-event (or -fact) is conceptually inde­ pendent from the antecedent conditions. In 9.0. (below) I hope to show that, against the nearly universal belief, these requirements are not,

81

20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES and cannot be, met by any type of grammar.

This result presupposes of

course an explanation of the precise nature of the subject

matter

of

grammar. TG's position on the last-mentioned issue seems clear enough: A grammar is comparable to a theory of natural science precisely because it deals only with spatiotemporal, observable phenomena. However, the situation is in fact more confused.

Chomsky's Syntactic

Structures,

wherein linguistics is explicitly compared to physics, also contains the following passage: ... we assume -intuitive knowledge of the grammatical sentences of English and ask what sort of grammar will be able to do the job of producing these in some effective and illuminating way. We thus face a familiar task of explication of some intuitive concept - in this case, the concept 'grammatical in English', and more generally, the concept 'grammatical' (Chomsky 1957:13; emphasis added). Here we have a genuine confusion which has v i t i a t e d TG's conception of s c i e n t i f i c methodology from i t s i n c e p t i o n .

TG has never been able to

grasp the d i s t i n c t i o n between e x p l i c a t i o n , i . e . , analysis of concepts (or of conceptual knowledge), on the one hand, and empirical and p r e d i c t i o n

of spatiotemporal data, on the other.

explanation

Given t h a t the

former is the method used by philosophers and l o g i c i a n s while the l a t t e r is the method used by empirical s c i e n t i s t s , i t follows t h a t TG has never f e l t i t necessary to d i s t i n g u i s h between philosophy and l o g i c , on the one hand, and empirical science, on the other.

Therefore the TG-type

'methodology' contains i n d i s t i n c t l y each and every form of

scientific

a c t i v i t y and, as such, i t i s not only u n i n f o r m a t i v e , but also i r r e p a r a b ly

self-contradictory. The conception of grammar t h a t I have been discussing so f a r r e -

presents the standpoint of 'autonomous l i n g u i s t i c s ' , not too d i f f e r e n t from Saussure's p o s i t i o n .

That i s , whether the subject matter of grammar i s

conceived as a set of observable events or as a body of conceptual knowledge o r , i n c o n s i s t e n t l y , both, i t is a s e l f - c o n t a i n e d , purely t i c realm of phenomena.

linguis-

With the subsequent psychologisation of l i n g u i s -

t i c s by TG, e x p l i c i t l y formulated i n Aspects, however, even more confused. t e r of TG comes i n t o p i c t u r e .

the s i t u a t i o n becomes,

This is also where the m e n t a l i s t i c charac-

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GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

By its mentalistic subject matter TG understands two different things, without making, however, almost any distinction between them: on the one hand, conscious intuitive knowledge of language; on the other, mechanisms of sentence perception and production that lie beyond the le­ vel of consciousness. The confusion between these two domains has been produced inevitably, first, by calling both of them 'knowledge' and, secondly, by postulating somewhere between them a nonexistent middle term called the 'ideal speaker's intuition', which seems to possess cha­ racteristics of both. A confusion of the kind discussed here occurs in Chomsky (1965:19) for instance, where the expressions 'tacit knowledge' and 'the linguistic intuition of the native speaker' are used to refer to one and the same thing. In other words, we have here a confusion between the following two types of entities: on the one hand, the concept 'correct sentence of a language L', which is the object of conscious knowledge; on the other, utterances of a language L, which are manifestations of unconscious 'know­ ledge'. In the former case, 'knowledge' equals 'consciousness', while in the latter, 'knowledge' is a hypothetical dispositional concept. The elimination of any distinction between conscious and unconscious know­ ledge is officially sanctioned by Chomsky's decision to let 'cognize' stand for 'knowing' in both senses: "For psychology, the important notion will be 'cognize', not 'know'" (Chomsky 1976:165). Denying the relevance of consciousness agrees with Chomsky's conviction that linguists study humans as "natural objects" (op. cit p.183), given that conscious­ ness is the only thing which distinguishes humans from inanimate things. Notice that Chomsky is here forced to make, in the classical positivist tradition, an absolute break between' linguists and their objects of in­ vestigation, since he surely would not deny that linguists ought to have at least some conscious idea of what they are doing. The inconsistency of this position hardly needs to be pointed out: Chomsky, for one, has investigateci nothing but his own conscious knowledge of English, for in­ stance his knowledge of the sentences "John is easy to please" and "John is eager to please". But then it is simply false to say that he has been investigating a natural object, because natural objects have no conscious ness. 34

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20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES

The nature of the TG-type mental ism becomes evident from a conside­ ration of the 'mentalistic' (or 'rationalist') explanations that grammars are thought to provide.

The following passage provides a good starting

point: The important point about mentalism here is that Hockett, like Bloomfield, can apparently not accept that language is an abstract object represented in a physical system, an object determining in part the behaviour of the system (Postal 1968a:295). The behaviour of a physical system is determined by causal f a c t o r s . Katz (1966:182) i n f a c t argues t h a t the mental e n t i t i e s postulated by TG are "causally e f f e c t i v e y e t o b s e r v a t i o n a l l y inaccessible phenomena", i n every respect comparable to unobservable e n t i t i e s postulated by the p h y s i c i s t . Elsewhere ( i n Katz 1967:75) he pleads s u c c i n t l y f o r a "causal of mentalism".

Now 'causal e x p l a n a t i o n ' is synonymous w i t h

e x p l a n a t i o n ' (von Wright 1971:2).

conception 'mechanistic

I t f o l l o w s , perhaps s u r p r i s i n g l y ,

that

TG-type m e n t a l i s t i c explanations are in f a c t mechanistic explanations. Their sole requirement is t h a t they possess a c e r t a i n degree of a b s t r a c t ness.

Thus, Postal

(1968a:295, n.7) notes t h a t i t was the work of people

l i k e Carnap, Hempel, and S c h e f f l e r , i . e . , work i n s p i r e d by natural science, which "completely destroyed the philosophic basis of antimental ism". This remark shows t h a t , as properties of TG, 'theoretical' are literally

identical.

and ' m e n t a l i s t i c '

So much is evident also from a passage where

Chomsky i d e n t i f i e s "the general antipathy to theory" w i t h "the ' a n t i - m e n t a l ism' "(Chomsky 1964:70,

n.8).

so-called

34a

S i m i l a r l y , Lenneberg, who is one of the f i r m e s t supporters of TG w i t h i n the f i e l d s of psychology and physiology, emphasises the importance of mechanistic explanations i n a way which may seem paradoxical

at

f i r s t glance: The great achievement of contemporary psychology was the replacement of mentalistic explanations by mechanistic ones and the simultaneous insistence upon empirical testability of hypothesized laws (Lenne­ berg 1964:600) . However, he is using the term 'mentalism' in a sense in which most people would probably use it and which is directly opposite to TG's sense of 'mentalism'. In TG's sense, then, mentalism or rationalism in linguis-

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

84

tics means simply acceptance of the actual canons of natural science, in­ stead of some simplified versions thereof: A theory is empirical if it is about the empirical world, and as such, comfirmable or disconfirmable on the basis of observation and experimentation. Thus, Chomsky's rationalism is every bit as em­ pirical as Bloomfield's empiricism (Katz &Bever 1974:75, n.25). A m e n t a l i s t i c grammar is no longer a purely l i n g u i s t i c grammar in the Saussure-Sapir-Bloomfield t r a d i t i o n .

That i s , instead of describing

j u s t utterances or sentences or l i n g u i s t i c knowledge, i t t r i e s to uncover the

-psychological

mechanisms determining l i n g u i s t i c

behaviour:

In a good sense, the grammar proposed by the linguist is an expla­ natory theory; it suggests an explanation for the fact that ... a speaker of the language in question will perceive, interpret, form, or use an utterance in certain ways and not in others (Chomsky 1968; 23) .

Perceiving, interpreting, forming, and using utterances are process­ es that go on in space and time. Such processes are investigated in terms of 'external observation' (Chomsky 1972:14-15, and 1973:111) and experimentation, i.e., in terms of the methodology outlined in 1.0. (above). Thus we see that the TG-type mental ism, or 'rationalism', is a form of positivistic psychology. Because it tries to convert all knowledge into external, experimental and observational knowledge, and cannot even conceive of a different type of knowledge (cf. Chomsky 1973:111), it is theoretically untenable for reasons indicated in 2.1. This may not be regarded as a serious defect because it is common to positivistic psy­ chology in general and does not affect in any way the results of actual experimental research (although it does affect the philosophical inter­ pretation of such results). What is serious, however, is that TG wants to be at the same time, and with the same data and methods, both a gram­ matical and a psychological theory. On the one hand, TG is a grammat­ ical, or linguistic, theory which claims to be based on observation and experimentation: Intuitions take somehow the role of observable data (Dougherty 1974:126 and 133); experiments in turn are supposedly simi­ lar to those used in astronomy, i.e., they are "questions put to the

20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES

85

nature", and the "linguist testing his grammatical formulations poses questions which can only be answered by appealing to observations" (Dougherty 1974:130-31). On the other hand, TG is a psychological theo­ ry which stubbornly refuses to make genuine experiments, although it could do so, or at least refuses to let experimental results affect nonexperimental grammatical descriptions, i.e., descriptions resulting from 35 It follows that grammatical nonDougherty-type pseudo-experiments. experimental descriptions serve, circularly, as the only basis for con­ firmation or falsification of claims about their own psychological real­ ity, i.e., about how language is represented in the human mind, although the only (independent) evidence that could possibly confirm or falsify such claims is provided by 'external evidence', including experimentalpsychological research on linguistic behaviour. Today this kind of criticism has become quite common. Its possible impact on the work within TG will be discussed in the light of the work by Fodor & Bever & Garrett (1974)(see 8.4. below). Because the methodology of naturai science is the one that TG espous­ es, TG is by definition unable to account for the specifically human cha­ racter of language. In Chomsky (1966a) and elsewhere Chomsky is opposed to mechanistic explanation of linguistic behaviour, but this is incon­ sistent because - as we have seen - TG has no other type of explanation to offer in its stead; at most, it is just a question of increasing the complexity of proposed mechanistic explanations. In this context Chomsky insists on the creative aspect of language, which he defines as 'rulegoverned creativity' (Chomsky 1964d:22) or as freedom within innately given limits: Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied (Chomsky 1973:182).

The interesting thing is that, due to his general posi ti vi sti c out­ look, Chomsky simply does not possess the methodological concepts to capture the creative, non-mechanical character of human behaviour, for instance, language use. The first step in this direction would be the realisation that human sciences differ systematically from natural seien-

86

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIEΝCE

ces, for instance in the ways indicated in 2.0. (above).

On another

count, Chomsky (1973:175) clearly thinks that the "restrictive attribu­ tes of mind" which constrain human creativity and freedom (of language and thought) can be investigated empirically, or in accordance with the standard methodology of natural science.

Experimental study of the li­

mits of thought, however, requires a knowledge of both sides of these limits, i.e., also of what cannot

be thought.

But this is obviously

impossible (cf. Itkonen 1974:291-94). The non-creative or non-innovative character of recursivity (cf. n.36) is in conflict with any reasonable interpretation of that funda­ mental tenet of TG which says that a (recursive) grammar is able to ge­ nerate an infinite number of completely

novel

sentences.

To non-trans­

formationalists, this notion of complete novelty has always seemed ex37 tremely puzzling. Therefore the following clarification offered by Postal (1968b:267) is certainly welcome: The purpose of this book has been to provide the basis for an ex­ planation of an almost miraculous and easily overlooked fact: Any speaker of a human language, like English, French, or Chinese, can produce and understand utterances which are completely novel to him. ... As an illustration of this novelty, you will observe that the sentences on this page are completely new to you; that is, you have never seen exactly these sentences before. Perhaps the easiest way to convince yourself that normal use of language involves com­ pletely novel expressions is to try to find in a book or a news­ paper some sentences which you can reasonably claim to have expe­ rienced before in their entirety. A search of this sort will re­ veal an interesting fact: Even in a long book it is unlikely that you can find a repetition of the same sentence. In other words, a sentence A is completely sentence B, i f only i t is not exactly o f , B.

identical

novel

i n r e l a t i o n to a

with,

or a

repetition

This is a good i l l u s t r a t i o n of the i r r e s p o n s i b l e way i n which

TG has often been g i v i n g new meanings to w e l l - e s t a b l i s h e d words, w h i l e denying the existence of such a p r a c t i c e .

Notice t h a t , according to TG's

usage, even a system c o n s i s t i n g of the two rules X→XO and X→0 i s able to generate an i n f i n i t e number of expressions, i . e . , which are completely

novel

s t r i n g of zeros,

w i t h respect t o , because not exactly i d e n t i c a l

w i t h , each o t h e r . To sum up, i n s o f a r as terms l i k e 'mentalism' or ' c r e a t i v i t y '

are

87

20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES used i n connection w i t h TG, they do n o t h i n g , i n s p i t e of t h e i r connot a t i o n s , to a l t e r the thoroughly p o s i t i v i s t i c character of TG.

3.7.

Some Recent Developments in Linguistic

Theory

As f a r as I know. Saumjan is the f i r s t to have provided a clear formulation of the underlying p o s i t i v i s t i c assumptions of TG, and to have attempted to raise l i n g u i s t i c s from a ' d e s c r i p t i v e ' 'explanatory' tradition.

science to an

one by bringing i t squarely i n t o the hypothetico-deductive

(The same attempt was made, w i t h varying degrees of success

and e x p l i c i t n e s s , by B l o o m f i e l d , Hjelmslev, Chomsky, and o t h e r s . )

Saum-

jan is also the f i r s t to have e x p l i c i t l y i d e n t i f i e d grammatical explanations w i t h D-N explanations (Saumjan 1971; the Russian o r i g i n a l in 1965). Although I think i t an easy matter to demonstrate t h a t Saumjan's account is untenable, i t does possess the m e r i t of s t a t i n g the p o s i t i v i s t i c pos i t i o n in a consistent and e x p l i c i t way, so t h a t e i t h e r agreement or c r i t i c i s m becomes p o s s i b l e .

Saumjan's own theory of l i n g u i s t i c d e s c r i p -

t i o n s , i t must be s a i d , contains several f a l l a c i e s . F i r s t and foremost, his notion of 'dynamic', as opposed to ' s t a t i c ' , synchrony is w i t h o u t substance.

More p r e c i s e l y , the idea t h a t generative grammars (as opposed

to 'taxonomie' grammars) in some sense reveal the 'dynamic inner f u n c t i o n ing of language' i s based upon the f a l l a c y of a s c r i b i n g the properties of a way of describing to the thing described.

I t should be c l e a r , how-

ever, t h a t , to o f f e r a simple example, the immediate-constituent analysis of a sentence remains the same, i r r e s p e c t i v e of whether i t is presented in a ' s t a t i c ' , H a r r i s - t y p e grammar, or in the phrase-structure component of a 'dynamic', TG-type grammar.

Moreover, Saumjan's view

(which i s , i n c i d e n t a l l y , repeated i n Sampson 1975) t h a t a l l

factually

occurring utterances are c o r r e c t , does not admit of any sensible i n t e r pretation. Botha (1968) has independently given a c o n s i s t e n t l y

positivistic

i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of TG, which i s i n a l l relevant respects s i m i l a r to t h a t presented by Saumjan. critical

In his l a t e r works Botha has grown i n c r e a s i n g l y

of TG (Botha 1971 and 1973).

He notes, i n p a r t i c u l a r , t h a t TG

does not f u l l y s a t i s f y the requirements of empirical explanation or of empirical t e s t a b i l i t y .

In his opinion TG ought to be developed so as

88

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

to satisfy them, but he does not make any concrete proposals about how this could be achieved. TG is subjected to a similar criticism in Derwing (1973) and in Sampson (1975). They note that TG, as it is today, is not a genuine empirical science, and propose changes and/or reinterpretations which should transform it into such a science (for discussion, see 7.0. below). It is not always clear whether Botha, Derwing, and Sampson mean their results to be applicable only to TG, or to grammatical description in general. It is possible to agree with the criticism offered by the abovementioned authors, while arriving at a fundamentally different conclusion In a series of publications I have defended the thesis that theories of autonomous linguistics are not, and cannot be, empirical theories (I tkonen 1969, 1970, 1972a, 1972b, 1974, 1975a, 1976b). As a result, the methodology and the philosophy of (autonomous) linguistics need to be rethought in their entirety. In the present discussion I hope to give as full a justification as possible of this view and explore as many of its implications as I can. Apel (1973c) has subjected TG to a careful philosophical scrutiny, and comes up with the conclusion that, because of the impossibility of the "Subjekt-Objekt-Trennung" (cf. 2.1. - 2. above) TG is, to a cer­ tain degree, not an empirical, explanatory science, but rather a re­ construction of a given rule-system, or of a competence pertaining to such a system (cf. also Habermas 1971b:171-75). 'To a certain degree' is, of course, problematic. Apel (1973c:283) thinks that formal univer­ sals, which he erroneously identifies with transformations tout court, are genuine laws of nature, but he is apparently unaware that such formal universals as are known today (supposing that there are any) are arrived at purely on the basis of grammatical analysis and hence cannot possibly be given a deterministic or nomic status. Furthermore what little ex­ perimental research has been done, shows that transformations do not have psychological reality, i.e., deterministic power (cf. 8.4. below). On the other hand, it would be pointlessfor Apel to speak about non-discovered (and probably non-existent) formal universals. Perhaps worse, Apel takes

20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES

89

over from TG the confusion between rules of language and rules of grammar, While this confusion permits TG to see rules of language as non-normative (cf. 7.5. below), it permits Apel (1973c:281 and 284) to see rules of grammar - other than 'formal universals' - as normative. From this it follows, implausibly, that grammars can be considered as somehow social and normative entities. In keeping with Apel's general philosophical line, Andresen (1974) offers a detailed analysis of the concept 'explanation' in TG, and arrives at the conclusion that TG explanations do not meet the criteria of D-N explanation. Weydt (1975) achieves the same result. In Dretske (1974) and Hutchinson (1974) a clear distinction is drawn, with differing value judgements, between grammatical explanations and psychological or menta­ listic explanations, the former being denied an empirical status. (In fact, puzzlement about their status is expressed already in Botha l968: 109.) Ringen (1975:36) argues that "if grammars are to be compared with scientific theories at all, they should be compared with axiomatic theo­ ries in nonempirical sciences like logic and mathematics and not with theories of physics and chemistry". Lass (1976) comes up with the con­ clusion that phonological theories, instead of being empirical in Popper's sense, are forms of 'rational metaphysics'. Similarly, according to Kac (forthcoming), the normativity of linguistic data necessitates the nonempirical character of grammatical descriptions; he proposes a type of description which, unlike TG descriptions, would directly account for linguistic normativity. The issue of the psychological reality of grammatical descriptions has been seriously taken up by scholars like Andersen, Antti la, Campbell, Hsieh, Linell, Skousen,Steinberg and Krohn, who all represent, in dif­ fering ways, what has come to be called 'concrete phonology'. 3.8.

Conclusion

Saussure, Hjelmslev, Sapir, Bloomfield, Harris, and Saumjan consider language as an autonomous, self-contained object of study.

Saussure and

Sapir realised that in whatever way, precisely, the mode of existence of language is to be defined, it is not individual, but social. More pre­ cisely, language does not exist at the level of social spatiotemporality,

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GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

but at that of (social) institutions. In Sapir's opinion, language as an institutional or cultural entity needs methods of description which are not those of empirical sociology or psychology, let alone of pure natural science. Saussure's position is less clear. Even Sapir deve­ lops, however, no explict methodology. Bloomfield, Harris, and Saumjan regard language as an observable, physical entity, and therefore they subscribe to positivism. Hjelmslev does likewise, for somewhat unclear reasons. TG regards language not as an autonomous entity, but as a psy­ chological one. It subscribes to the methodology of natural science; yet, at the same time it concentrates upon intuitive knowledge and dis­ misses the use of experiments. In sum: Saussure's methodological position cannot be pinned down. Hjelmslev represents inexplicit positivism. Sapir represents inexplicit hermeneutics. Bloomfield, Harris, and Saumjan represent explicit and consistent positivism. TG represents explicit and inconsistent positi­ vism.

4.0.

PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE CONCEPT OF LANGUAGE

With regard to its relation to knowledge, language may be consider­ ed either as merely its expression or - more plausibly, I think - as virtually identical with it. In both instances it is clear that the question concerning the nature of language cannot be treated apart from the question concerning the nature of knowledge. In other words, lin­ guistics cannot be discussed in entire abstraction from general epistemology. In the present chapter an attempt will be made to substantiate this claim. 4.1. Characterisation of the Traditionist

Epistemology

The history of epistemology has been dominated by one powerful tradition, which has been represented by mind-matter dualists like Descartes and Locke, subjective idealists like Berkeley, empiricists like Hume, and phenomenalists like Russell and Ayer. The basic tenet of this line of thought (which, in agreement with Saunders & Henze 1968, I will term 'traditionism') is that subjective experiential data are the primary source of knowledge. This egocentric position entails that public things and qualities are thought to be in some way constructed out of subjective experiences. Furthermore, the knowledge of other minds is supposed to be gained inductively , on the basis of the socalled argument from analogy: When I perceive that bodies (constructed out of my sense-impressions and) resembling mine behave under similar circumstances in the same way as my body does, I may infer with a high degree of probability that these bodies are possessed by minds which think and feel in ways similar to mine. Hence my point of view is gi­ ven as the inescapable Cartesian foundation of everything else, where-

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as in contradistinction to the existence of my mind, the existence of other minds is a contingent fact. In addition, the existence of other connected with the be­ minds (which is only probable) is contingently haviour 'pointing towards' it, which means more specifically that psy­ chological or mental concepts such as pain, knowledge, and intention possess no necessary or conceptual link with their manifestations. A similar conclusion can also be drawn from the consideration of my mind, as opposed to other minds: In relation to me, the existence of psycho­ logical concepts is necessarily given, but since it appears self-evi­ dent that I know what I think or feel without having to observe my own behaviour, the relation between psychological concepts and behaviour is, again, contingent. According to the traditionist conception, what is immediately gi­ ven is my experience, especially sense-impressions and perceptions. That is to say, the immediately given and indubitable aspect of other human beings (if that is what they are) is their physical appearance, i.e., the movements performed, and the sounds emitted by their bodies. On the basis of this observational evidence, I make inductive inferen­ ces concerning their possible mental states and processes (which are instances of corresponding psychological concepts); however, these in­ ferences are at best probable inferences. Mind and the related psycho­ observe, logical concepts represent something that I cannot literally but only understand. Mind in its various ramifications is something 'behind' the external, observable behaviour. Since mind is a deriva­ tive and more or less unreliable notion, understanding is a derivative and unreliable way of gaining knowledge. Consequently, as far as other I ought to try to replace 'mind' by 'beha­ human beings are concerned, viour' , and understanding by observation. This means that no differen­ ce in principle should exist between the natural sciences and the human events sciences; in both cases, I, as a scientist, deal with observable (obviously in conformity with the hypothetico-deductive method), and all apparent differences between the two types of science are merely attributable to the failure of the human sciences to imitate the exam­ ple of physics with a sufficient degree of fidelity. This is the only

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reason why the human sciences have not yet been able to rise from the merely descriptive level to the explanatory one. At most, understand­ device in setting up positivistic causal ing can be used as a heuristic explanations of observable events belonging to the domain of human be­ haviour. When the traditionist thesis is briefly expressed in the above manner, it probably seems nothing more to the average scientist than harmless philosophical speculation which has no connection with his work. However, upon closer inspection it has already become apparent that this thesis has methodological implications that have been extre­ mely effective and decidedly harmful in the history of scientific re­ search influenced by positivismo First of all, human sciences have been assimilated to natural sciences; secondly, both within human and within natural sciences the status of the scientist, i.e., the one who observes the behaviour of things and (other) human beings, has remained unaccounted for. The former deficiency has been especially criticised by hermeneutics, while the latter has been criticised by all those schools of philosophy and metascience (including hermeneutics, of course) which emphasise the nature of science as a historically given, social enterprise. Recently, Apel (1973b) has shown in detail that traditionism in the form of 'methodical solipsism' provides still today the epistemological foundations of the positivistic philosophy of science. The scientist is not in the world, in which are his objects of re­ search, including all other human beings; rather, he is on the limit of the world. Or, as the early Wittgenstein put it: Dass die Welt meine Welt ist, das zeigt sich darin, dass die Grenz­ en der Sprache (der Sprache, die allein ich verstehe) die Grenzen meiner Welt bedeuten ... Ich bin meine Welt ... Das Subjekt gehört nicht zur Welt, sondern es ist eine Grenze der Welt ... Hier sieht man, dass der Solipsismus, streng durchgeführt, mit dem reinen Rea­ lismus zusammenfällt. Das Ich des Solipsismus schrumpft zum aus­ dehnungslosen Punkt zusammen, und es bleibt die ihmkoordinierte Rea­ lität (Wittgenstein 1969a: 5.62, 5.621, 5.63, 5.632, 5.64)

It is paradoxical, or one of the ironies of the history of ideas, that positivism, generally regarded as the philosophy of 'hard facts',

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rests on such an exotic epistemological foundation. The traditionist thesis may be reformulated in linguistic terms as follows: Since the knowledge of the objective or public world is somehow derived from subjective experiences, ordinary intersubjective languages which refer to public things and qualities must (or could) have been preceded by subjective or private languages referring to sub­ jective experiences only. Hence 'private language' could be taken to mean a language logically prior to any intersubjective language. How­ ever, private languages can just as well be considered from a more ge­ neral perspective, and be defined as languages logically independent of any intersubjective language; that is, each word of a private langu­ age must be conceptually independent of public, objectively given phe­ nomena. During the last 25 years, the notion of private language has been the object of intense philosophical discussion. This notion was initi­ ally developed by the later Wittgenstein, who used it as an explication of his own earlier views, as expounded in the Tractatus . By his de­ monstration of the impossibility of private languages, he expressly re­ futed those mostly implicit and unexpressed presuppositions which have underlain the epistemology of positivism. since the time of the Tractatus 4.2.

Refutation

of the Traditionist

4.2.1. The Axiomaticity

Epistemology

of the Concepts of Person and Thing

I believe it to be generally felt that the traditionist account of knowledge is in some way unnatural. No one seriously believes that the existence of other persons is less than certain. More precisely, I cannot seriously believe that I am the only person who exists with certainty. Moreover, not only the notion of person, but also the no­ tion of thing implied by traditionism is unsatisfactory: no one has ever succeeded in showing how, precisely, public things could be con­ structed out of subjective experiences. The existing tentative formu­ lations can be demonstrated as making circulary use of that very notion of thing which they should define. It is not surprising, therefore, that several thinkers, including Marx and Engels, Dilthey, Mead,

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Husserl, and Heidegger, have come to reject the traditionist epistemolo38 gy. In what follows, I shall apply the Wittgensteinian approach to prove the primarily social nature of knowledge and language. This approach ought to be seen as part of a more general trend in (social) philosophy (cf. n.38). We may start by concentrating upon the internal inconsistencies of the analogy argument, which may be represented more explicitly in the form of the following (invalid) inference: (i)

If I have the experience A, I am usually in the situation Β and behave in the way C.

(ii)

(I perceive that) a body resembling mine is in the situa­ tion Β and behaves in the way C.

Therefore it is probable that the body has the experience A and thus possesses a mind similar to mine; i.e., I have here to do with another person. The premises which should make the conclusion probable are supposed to represent that primary state of knowledge in which I know nothing but myself and my private experiences: this is the whole point of tra39

ditionism. It is the conclusion that introduces the concept of some­ one else's experience, and hence of someone else. However, it is quite easy to see that there can be no concept of 'I' without the correlative concept of 'he' (and 'you' and 'we'), just as, for example, there can be no concept of 'wrong' without the correlative concept of 'right'. Consequently, in contradistinction to the basic assumption of traditionism, the concept of person (i.e., I and others) must be assumed from the outset, a priori , and all purely egocentric accounts of knowledge are inherently inconsistent. Furthermore, since the world which I perceive is necessarily intersubjective, the things in it are public things, not constructions out of my private sense-impressions. There­ fore knowledge is social at its origin; and the social origin of know­ of knowledge (cf. 5.3. below). ledge guarantees the social control

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This is not to deny the reality of sense-impressions but only to main­ tain that they are dependent upon public things and qualities; as a consequence, they cannot be 'subjective' or 'private' in any absolute sense.

The concepts of thing and person are axiomatic, since, instead

of being something which we could gradually construct out of our expe­ riences, they determine the form of our experiences.

The same is true,

incidentally, of rules of inference which are meant to be applied in the analogy argument, or any other argument: such rules must be objec­ tively given, but it is obviously impossible to construct them for ex­ ample out of my subjective feelings of certainty. The thesis of intersubjectivity may be formulated more precisely as follows: First, 'I' does not exist in a vacuum, but rather in combi­ nations like 'I do' and 'I think'. to at least potentially self-conscious

Second, 'I do' and 'I think' refer processes, and not to some in­

stinct-like unconscious processes, which means that they entail, and not only are entailed by, 'I know I do' and 'I know I think'.

Third, the

concept of 'I' is - as we saw above - interdependent with the concept of 'others'.

From these three points taken together, it follows that

a person A cannot know that he is doing or thinking X, and thus cannot do or think X, unless he is able to know what it is for some other per­ son Β to do or think X.

The same is true, in turn, of B's knowledge of

his own actions and thoughts with respect of A's (possible) actions and thoughts.

Hence, it can be shown on purely conceptual grounds that A

must be able, in principle, to identify B's various mental states or processes, and vice versa.

This means that mental states and processes

exist only at the level of common knowledge to identify them, wherever they 4.2.2. Mind, Behaviour, and

i.e., of a common ability

occur.41 Environment

The existence of the above-mentioned common ability was establish­ ed as the result of a kind of 'transcendental deduction'.

The question

still remains open how this ability is put into practice.

It is only

trivial to state that we come to know what others are doing or thinking by understanding their behaviour.

(Behaviour may be either observed or

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understood. But notice that we neither understand observable, or phy­ sical, behaviour nor observe understandable behaviour. Rather, we un­ derstand understandable behaviour and observe observable behaviour; cf. immediately below). Hence, as a first approximation we might say that identification of mental states and processes rests on public behaviour­ al criteria. However, Ï want to argue, with Wittgenstein, that this is not just a contingent but a necessary truth, which means that there is no sensible way to separate a mental state or process from its (under­ standable) criteria. Probably no one would deny that an action qua action must necessarily possess some public aspect. It is easier to think that thoughts and feelings might be only contingently related to any public criteria. To give an extreme example, it seems at least lo­ gically possible that even if A must be able, in principle, to identify B's thoughts and feelings, he might do this on the basis of telepathy. However, although this could be sometimes the case it could not be the case always. Thoughts and feelings cannot be consistently conceived of, if they are deprived of any relation to public behaviour, that is, of any possibility of even indirect expression or manifestation. Without this possibility, it becomes impossible to tell one thought or feeling from another. Therefore the relationship of psychological concepts to their public criteria is not just contingent. Moreover, A can, as a matter of conceptual possibility, understand B's behaviour only if it does not vary at random, but exhibits a certain uniformity. Consequ­ ently, all actions, thoughts, and feelings, including those of any pur­ ported Cartesian ego, are conceptually dependent upon the constancy of their public, i.e., intersubjectively understandable, manifestations: "An 'inner process' stands in need of outward criteria" (Wittgenstein 1958: §580). 42 After discussing the relationship between mental phenomena and their behavioural criteria, let us consider their relation to the si­ tuational context of the latter. The thesis of atomism says that there can be no conceptual relations between distinct physical states of affairs, e.g., between an event and its physical context, which means that any event might conceivably occur in any environment (cf. 1.5.

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above). By contrast, there are conceptual relations between actions, considered either as such or as criteria for the occurrence of thoughts and feelings, and their (social) environments. In other words, it is simply not true that any action might conceivably occur in any environ­ ment. To give an example, let us suppose that in a context A there is an act of obeying, i.e., B. Is the existence of Β independent of A? Certainly not. It is a conceptual truth that one can obey only when commanded to do something. Therefore it is a conceptually necessary condition to the existence of Β that there has been C, i.e., an act of commanding performed by someone else. C may be simply identified with A. 4 3 To continue, let us take A as our point of departure. Does the existence of A necessarily require the existence of something else? Here the situation is slightly more complicated than in the previous instance. Of course, if someone gives a command, it is not conceptu­ ally necessary that he will be obeyed. But it is clear that there is a conceptually necessary relation between the types, i.e., concepts, of which A and Β are tokens: if the concept of obeying (and that of disobeying) were nonexistent, the concept of commanding would, of ne­ cessity, be nonexistent, too, with the consequence that acts of com­ manding would be conceptually impossible. That is to say, the exist­ ence of A does not require the existence of B, but it does require the existence of the concept exemplified by B. Moreover, in order to exist, A in fact requires the existence, not only of the concepts of command­ ing, obeying, and disobeying, but also of a definite state of affairs. Evidently, this state of affairs is not simply the action B, but the exclusive disjunction of B, i.e., the act of obeying, and its contra­ ry C, i.e., the act of disobeying. If A is followed neither by Β nor by C, then, appearances notwithstanding, A does not exist. For instance, if in the presence of a corpse I say 'Open the window!', and nothing happens, I have been neither obeyed nor disobeyed, but then I have not given a command either. This makes clear that 'C' does not simply equal '-B', because what the corpse 'does' is both '-B' and '-C'; this is why 'B' and 'C' are contraries, and not contradictories.

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Notice that it would be quite wrong to say that in order to exist, a natural event like rain requires the existence of the concept which it exemplifies, let alone the existence of some related concepts. Rain would exist even if man had not conceptualised it, and indeed even if man did not exist. But acts of commanding would not exist, if they as well as acts of obeying and disobeying had not been conceptualised by man. The above discussion of the conceptual relation between commanding on one hand and either obeying or disobeying on the other (i.e., 'A=D' where 'D' = ' B ^ C ' ) , may be profitably compared with our previous dis­ cussion (in 1.5. above) of the empirical relation between the heating of a piece of metal and its expanding ('E F'). These two discussions can be summed up by noting that the falsity of 'D' entails the falsity of 'A', whereas the falsity of 'F' does not entail the falsity of 'E'. There is only one possible objection: We could make the relation of 'E' to 'F' a conceptual one by d e f i n i t i o n , i.e., by taking it to be a defi­ ning property of metal that it expands when heated. As a consequence, 'E' would entail 'F', because '-F' would entail '-E': if a piece of what we thought was metal does not expand after we have heated it, i.e., if 'F' is false, then eo ipso what we heated was not metal, i.e., 'E' is false, contrary to what we first thought. However, even upon this in­ terpretation the relation between 'E' and 'F' remains completely differ­ ent from that between 'A' and 'D'. Natural events are what they are, regardless of how we define o r interpret them; and they would continue to exist even if we did not define or interpret them at all. By con­ trast, being interpreted is essential to being an action (cf. the prin­ ciple "'I do' entails 'I know I do'"). Consequently, if upon the prevail­ ing interpretation the relation between two actions, or action complex­ es, is conceptual then its conceptuality is not just due to some defi­ nitional trick but really 'is in the world', that is, in the social world of actions and institutions. What was said here about actions such as commanding and obeying in­ holds true more generally of all well-established forms of social teraction: there can be no buying without selling, and so on. Now, it

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might be somewhat misleading to regard conceptual relations as holding just between separate actions, as I did above. It would perhaps be more accurate to say that they constitute (part of) those customs or institutions (of interpretation) which, in the first place, give mean­ ing to actions, or make them what they are. Such customs or institu­ tions specify not only types of action, but also types of persons who are to perform the actions in question, and types of (spatial and/or temporal) settings in which they are to be performed. One needs only to think of what is required for an act of marrying a woman to be per­ formed. Thus the (social) environment to which an action stands in a conceptual relation may consist of different kinds of components. It may not always be clear what is the exact environment of an action, and - due to the conceptual relation between action and envi­ ronment - the nature of the action itself remains unclear in such a case. However, just as there are conceptual limits upon which actions can be performed in given environments, there are also conceptual li­ mits upon how an environment can be interpreted. It may on occasion be unclear whether a person has been commanded to do something so that he can either obey or disobey, or whether the environment is such as to allow a wedding to take place. But at least it is certain that a man standing alone and without any equipment of communication in the middle of nowhere can then and there neither give a command nor marry anyone. - In sum, as far as mental phenomena are concerned, they ne­ cessarily require public criteria not only of the behavioural, but also of the situational type. It is literally an optical illusion which makes us think that actions could be conceived atomistically i.e., in isolation: they only seem to occur independently or their environments. Wittgenstein characterised the constancy of mentally relevant behaviour and its relation to social environment as follows: 46 'Grief' describes a pattern which recurs, with different varia­ tions, in the weave of our life. If a man's bodily expression of sorrow and joy alternated, say with the ticking of a clock, here we should not have the characteristic formation of the pattern of sorrow or of the pattern of joy (Wittgenstein 1958: II, i).

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An expectation is embedded in a situation, from which it arises. The expectation of an explosion may, for example, arise from a situation in which an explosion is to be expected (I, §581). Could someone have a feeling of ardent love or hope for the space of one second - no matter what preceded or followed this second? - What is happening now has significance - in these surroundings. The surroundings give it its importance and the word 'hope' refers to a phenomenon of human life. (A smiling mouth smites only in a human face.)(§583). Now suppose I sit in my room and hope that N.N. will come and bring me some money, and suppose one minute of this state could be isolated, cut out of its context: would what happened in it then not be hope? - Think, for example, of the words which you perhaps utter in this space of time. They are no longer part of this language. And in different surroundings the institution of money doesn't exist either (§584). An intention is embedded in its situation, in human customs and institutions. If the technique of the game of chess did not exist, I could not intend to play a game of chess. In so far as I do in­ tend the construction of a sentence in advance, that is made pos­ sible by the fact that I can speak the language in question (§337). In order to get clear about the meaning of the word 'think' we watch ourselves while we think; what we observe will be what the word means I - But this concept is not used like that. (It would be as if without knowing how to play chess, I were to try and make out what the word 'mate' meant by close observation of the last move of some game of chess .)(§316). And if things were quite different from what they actually are if there were for instance no characteristic expression of pain, of fear, of joy; if rule became exception and exception rule; or if both became phenomena of roughly equal frequency - this would make our normal language-games lose their point (§142) . Behaviour which is or can be understood is meaningful

behaviour.

Conceptual relations between actions and their environments are indeed comparable to meaning-relations

, as these exist in language.

an instance of human behaviour

has meaning or not, can only be decided

Whether

by considering the wider aspects of the social or cultural context of the behaviour in question.

Actions can be understood (and, in the first

place, understood as actions), only if one has the 'cultural key' to them, as Sapir would have said.

In the following remark von Wright

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asserts the analogy between l i n g u i s t i c and n o n - l i n g u i s t i c actions as well as the culture-dependent nature of action in general: Intentional behaviour, one could say, resembles the use of langu­ age. It is a gesture whereby I mean something. Just as the use and the understanding of language presuppose a language community, the understanding of action presupposes a community of institutions and practices and technological equipment into which one has been introduced by learning and training. One could perhaps call it a life-community. We cannot understand or teleologically explain be­ haviour which is completely alien to us (von Wright 1971:114-15; cf. also 3.3. above).

From the fact that the environment of an action partly determines its meaning, it follows that if an action is transferred into a differ­ ent environment, it may no more be the same action (or, perhaps, any action at all). Conversely, if a given environment in which certain actions are performed as a matter of course is deprived of these ac­ tions, it ceases to be the environment which it was before. Because meaning cannot be measured in terms of length, time, and weight, it transcends the conceptual universe of the positivist. This explains why positivists have taken it for granted that the relations between actions and their environments satisfy the thesis of atomism (cf. 1.5. above). It is only on this (false) assumption that one can try to force human intentional behaviour into the model of (causal) D-N explanations (cf. 1.2. above). So far we have come to see that our knowledge of mental facts is inseparable from our knowledge about behavioural and situational facts. But from this it by no means follows that we should be able to give any nearly exhaustive lists of public, behavioural or situational criteria to be used in identifying various actions, thoughts, or feelings. This apparently paradoxical fact is due to the 'creativity', or more gene­ rally the unpredictability, which is typical of human actions: There is obviously no limit to the number of the ways in which, for instance, one might try to make someone else angry, or might manifest one's anger. However, by virtue of the mutual ability of understanding (whose exist­ ence has been proved above), we can be sure that as new criteria of men­ tal phenomena appear, they will be understood by others.

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The unpredictability of criteria is coupled with that of the envi­ ronments in which they appear. In other words, what is the environment of an action, often cannot be known in advance, but only after the action has been done, because it is only at that moment that one can see how the agent had interpreted, or even had decided to interpret, the envi­ ronment of his action. Moreover, a new way of interpreting an environ­ ment may amount to creating a new type of environment, not to speak of less contemplative ways of creating new environments (which in turn may require, or make possible, new types of mental phenomena or at least new criteria of old types). It is for these reasons that historians generally cannot predict actions, but can try to explain them only after they have been produced. - It should be remembered, however, that there are conceptual limits upon how a given environment can be inter­ preted. Mental concepts are sometimes compared to theoretical concepts of natural science (cf. 1.4. above). It is apparent from the previous paragraph why this analogy is defective. The exact nature of those ob­ servable events to which a theoretical concept is linked by a chain of correspondence rules and operational definitions is in principle open, due to the openness of the nature of the circumstances in which they may occur. But once the circumstances are known, the nature of the ob­ servable events in question must be predictable , at least within a de­ finite range of statistical variation. If the predictions are not born out, the concept has to be modified; o r , to put it in other terms, the correspondence rules and/or the operational definitions have been shown to be false. By contrast, public criteria of (an instance of) a mental concept are essentially u n p r e d i c t a b l e ; and the occurrence of an unpredicted criterion by no means calls for a modification of the cor­ responding concept. This difference between the two types of concepts is intimately connected with the fact that the mental concepts in question are of an atheovetical character. Theoretical concepts of psychology act more like theoretical concepts of physics. Atheoretical concepts are not hypothetical (we know what 'anger' means) even if we often do not know whether they are applicable in definite situations.

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By contrast, theoretical concepts are necessarily hypothetical. Wittgenstein's method of eliciting criteria of mental phenomena, for example those of imagination, consists in 'looking at', or remind­ ing himself of the ways in which corresponding words, e.g., 'imagina­ tion', are used. Such an analysis easily reveals the infinite variety of, e.g., the criteria for imagining. Wittgenstein's method is empha­ tically not that of introspection of one's consciousness while one is imagining. It is impossible to identify any single and coherent 'con­ tent of consciousness' which is always present when one is imagining (or hoping, intending, calculating, and so on) and which could thus constitute the meaning of 'imagination'. Similarly, it is hopeless to try to determine the meaning of 'imagination' somehow in abstrac­ Although it can hardly be said that the meaning of a word liter­ to. ally is its use, it is most certainly shown by its use. From the above, it follows that, although public criteria are the logical basis of mental phenomena, all lists of such criteria are bound to be incomplete. This implies that no single criterion is a necessary condition, and no amount of criteria constitute a sufficient condition, for the occurrence of a given mental phenomenon. It is further quite clear that when we make use of such criteria, we will sometimes be wrong. Thus we may on occasion be led to think that a person is think­ ing or doing something, when he is not, and the reverse may happen too. Nevertheless it would not make sense to suppose that we could be wrong all the time, that is, that no one would ever be thinking or doing what others would understand him to be thinking or doing. This would be just as senseless as assuming that everybody could make nothing but false moves in every game, although one in fact arrives at such a con­ clusion by the apparently innocuous inference from 'x sometimes happens' to 'x might always happen' (cf. Wittgenstein 1958:§344-45). 4.2.3. Characterisation

of Mental

Phenomena:

the Notion

of

'Pattern'

The realisation that experiences qua possible objects of (communic­ able) knowledge are logically dependent upon, or inseparable from intersubjectively understandable behaviour in characteristic surroundings

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does not of course mean reducing them to behaviour; nor does it mean claiming that experiences independent from public criteria do not exist, but only that nothing can be said about them. Wittgenstein incommunic­ justly notes that purely subjective, and ex definitione able, experiences have no place in the public, intersubjectively understandable language in which we talk about our thoughts and feel­ ings for instance; and such an language, or an artificial but still intersubjectively understandable language based on such a language, is the only logically possible language (cf. 4.2.5. below). Con­ sequently, the question about the existence of something about which nothing can be said in any language, turns out to be a spurious one. On the other hand, with regard to the status of communicable experi­ ences, Wittgenstein goes out of his way to repudiate the charges of simple-minded behaviourism: "And now it looks as if we had denied men­ tal processes. And naturally we don't want to deny them" (Wittgenstein 1958: I, §308). Nonetheless, Wittgenstein admittedly remains vague in regard to the positive definition of the nature of mental phenomena and of the method of gaining knowledge about them, i.e., understanding them. The following remark seems to indicate the direction in which one should look for the answer: When it looks as if there were no room for such a form between other ones you have to look for it in another dimension. If there is no room here there is room in another dimension (Wittgenstein 1958: II, p.200),49

I try to make the meaning of this somewhat cryptic statement clear The reason why actions can by applying it to the analysis of actions. be taken as representative of mental phenomena is that intentions are an inseparable part of them. Now the positivistically-minded usually claim that actions consist of nothing but observable parts, and hence simply fall within the domain of observation. But it is the characte­ of bits of observable behaviour, embedded in characte­ ristic pattern ristic environments, which reveals the presence of an intention over and above the purely physical, observable side of an action. It might

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be said that behaviour of this kind is (understood as) 'directed' (Tay­ lor 1964:55). More precisely, given the conceptual relation between action and social environment, the pattern consists equally of bits of observable behaviour and also of observable environment. Although (observable) bits of behaviour and of environment are ob­ served, the pattern qua pattern is understood. Behaviour is observed or understood depending on whether it is considered in itself or as contained in a characteristic pattern: We observe a sound when we sim­ ply hear it as it is. We understand it, e.g., as an English word, when we consider the present situation as a speech situation (which means establishing the conceptual links between an action and its environment), and when we further embed the present speech situation into the larger context of English language. One and the same behaviour may be embed­ ded into different patterns, and thus be understood in different ways, but - as we have seen - there are conceptual limits upon which patterns may be taken to exist objectively. To use Wittgenstein's expression, we might now say that patterns exist in a different dimension from their (atomistically conceived) parts. The first dimension is understood, the second is observed. Since a pattern is more than its parts, we have the (justified) feel­ ing that understanding is more than the mere observation. Therefore, when we say that mental phenomena, e.g., intentions, are something 'behind' observable behaviour, we are in a sense right. But we are wrong insofar as we try to locate mental phenomena in the same (spa­ tial) dimension as observable behaviour, with only the difference that the former are supposedly behind the latter It seems to me that Mead has in mind precisely the same distinc­ tion which I have been trying to make here, when he explains why his 'social behaviourism' need not deny the existence of mental phenomena: ... the existence as such of mind or consciousness, in some sense or other, must be admitted - the denial of it leads inevitably to obvious absurdities ... we may deny [the] existence [of mind] as a psychical entity without denying its existence in some other sense at all; ... Mental behaviour is not reducible to non-mental behaviour. But mental behaviour or phenomena can be explained in

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terms of non-mental behaviour or phenomena, as arising out of, and as resulting from complications in, the latter (Mead 1934: 10-11; emphasis added).51

Saunders & Henze (1968:18) call Wittgenstein a 'nonreductionist behaviourist', and, in light of the above quotation, this term applies to Mead as well. Throughout the present investigation I am trying to defend the standpoint of nonreductionist behaviourism. I shall have to deal mostly with the three dimensions of observable behaviour, ac­ tions, and norms. Although actions are patterns of observable beha­ viour, they are not reducible to the latter. Similarly, although norms are patterns of actions, they are not reducible to the latter (cf. 5.1. below). A sentence referring to an action neither entails nor is entail­ ed by any definite set of sentences referring merely to movements and/ or sounds. One and the same action(-type) may be performed in an in­ definite number of different ways, so that knowing that a certain ac­ tion has been performed does not entail knowing which particular move­ ments have been made or which particular sounds have been emitted in performing this action. By contrast, the mere fact that certain move­ ments are made or certain sounds are emitted, does not entail that any­ thing is being done intentionally (cf. Taylor 1964:54-57; von Wright 1971:111-13). This is Brentano's well-known 'thesis of intentionality'. Its latter part shows, once again, why we are justified in thinking that understanding (a pattern) is 'more' than observing (its atomistically-conceived parts). 52 Apart from the inherent inconsistency of the analogy argument, the traditionist position vis-à-vis actions is just as unnatural as any behaviourist view contradicting the thesis of intentionality. It is certainly not the case that, from the fact that a human-looking body emits the sounds [aIm bo:d], I draw the inductive inference that pro­ bably a person is saying 'I am bored'. More generally, it is not the case that I believe, on the basis of past experience, that all these bodies similar in appearance to my body are equipped with minds; rather my attitude towards these persons (because that is what they are) is an attitude towards beings equipped with minds (Wittgenstein 1958: II,

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iv; 1969b: §404). Moreover, it would not make sense to ask whether this attitude, which guides all my actions, can be justified by offer­ ing reasons for it. The reasons for our actions will come to an end sooner or later, and then we will just act; but to act without reasons does not mean acting unreasonably (Wittgenstein 1958: I, §211 and 289; 1969b: §110 and 1.48). On the contrary, if justification by experience did not come to an end sooner or later, it would not be justification (Wittgenstein 1958: I, §485). Or to put it otherwise, doubt which has no end is not even doubt (Wittgenstein 1958: II, v; Wittgenstein 1969b: §115 and 150). It is the way people think and live, their form of life, that shows what they accept as the ultimate justification (Wittgenstein 1958: I, §325, and II, xi, p.226; 1969b: §148 and 204). This idea is of course identical with Husserl's conception of the role of the Le~ bensapriori (cf. 2.5. above). To say that the concept of person is axiomatic is just another way of saying that it is part of our form of 1ife. 4.2.4. General Characteristics of the Conceptual Employed in the Present Study

Distinctions

Together with the axiomanaticity of thing and person, the refutation of traditionism also establishes the axiornaticity, or irreducibility, of the interconnected distinctions 'observation - understanding', 'event - action', 'physical - mental'. The conceptual apparatus which I am introducing in this study contains many other dichotomies of the same type. We have already come across the distinction between learn­ ing a game and. mastering it in 2.4. (above), and we shall make use, inter alia, of distinctions between 'rule' and 'regularity', 'correct' and 'incorrect', 'atheoretical' and 'theoretical'. The use of such dis­ tinctions is sometimes objected to because of their relative nature. I state here once and for all that in my opinion this 'objection' has no convincing force in its favour. All distinctions which either in­ volve social life (e.g., 'physical - mental') or obtain in it (e.g., 'correct - incorrect') are relative. This is a trivial truth which need not be repeated once it has been stated. However, the important thing is that even if each of the distinctions concerned forms a con-

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tinuum, the end points of such a continuum are absolutely different (in the relevant respect) and, moreover, they both represent extreme­ ly large numbers of important cases. For instance, there is an infi­ nite number of physical entities and mental entities as well as correct entities and incorrect entities. In this context two opposite mistakes are often made. Let us take as an example the 'correct - incorrect' distinction. On the one hand, from the fact that some cases are unclear, it is inferred that all cases are unclear; this is the standpoint of the current empiricist trend in socio- and psycholinguistics (cf. 5.4. and 7.4. below). On the other hand, presumably because of their untidiness, the factually existing unclear cases are taken to be purely apparent, so that clear cases are what exists in 'reality'; this is the 'classical' standpoint of TG: Chomsky ... views each and every string of the language as belong­ ing to one or the other of the two categories 'grammatical' or 'ungrammatical'. For him, the middle range of 'undecidable cases' reflects not some inherent gradient in the phenomena which a de­ scriptively adequate rule must represent but simply incomplete knowledge on the part of the linguist (Katz & Bever 1974:11).

The fallaciousness of both of these lines of thought should be evident. Take the distinction between young and old: It would be equally absurd to claim that since some people are neither young nor old, all people are neither young nor old, and that in reality there are only young people and old people. I hope to avoid both of these fallacies. All distinctions concerned are relative, but at the same time they have huge numbers of absolutely clear cases in their favour. Both aspects of these distinctions may be legitimately explored. I for one feel that, in the instances to be explored in this study, the end points of a continuum are more important that its middle section. 4.2.5. The Impossibility

of Private

Languages

The refutation of traditionism, as presented above, can be trans­ lated without difficulty into a refutation of the possibility of pri­ vate languages. We may first consider that type of private language which would most fully satisfy the requirements of traditionism, that is, which would be logically prior to any intersubjective language.

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Given that, as a matter of logic, there can be no 'I without 'he', 'you', and 'we', I could not say that I, in the logically primary sense, privately invent a rule of language and then begin to follow it, since at that point I could not even have the concept of myself. Second, we may consider the case in which a person already lives in the public world and speaks an intersubjective language, but then tries to invent a private language, viz. a language which would be lo­ gically independent of any intersubjective language. Each word of such a language would have to refer to some purely subjective experiences which would be logically independent of publicly identifiable phenome­ na. However, we have seen that even if there exist subjective experi­ ences of this kind, nothing can be said about them, which for all, both practical and philosophical, purposes amounts to saying that they do not exist. From the fact that nothing can be said about these experi­ ences, it follows, more particularly, that one could not without con­ tradiction try to discuss the question of whether or not there can be a private language referring to them. - Notice that this instance is different from the one, to be discussed in 5.3. below, where it is admitted that an alien logic might exist even if we cannot know it. Here we are discussing a private language which we ourselves suppo­ sedly ought to be able to invent and to use. Yet we cannot know or imagine such a language. Any such language which we try to imagine is bound to contain concepts and, hence, words of some public language. This is why we cannot make even the first step towards constructing a private language (cf. n.48). Third, let us consider a possible objection which says that we have inferred too much from the refutation of the analogy argument: even if one needs the concept of other persons, one does not actually need other persons. Suppose that there is a man who is completely un­ acquainted with social life, and particularly with social rules, but whose world-conception is nevertheless roughly similar to ours, once the social aspect is eliminated; he sees trees and stones, and does not have to struggle with the problem of how to construct them out of his sense-impressions. Is it possible for this man to invent a (pri-

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vate) language for himself, and to use it to refer to (observable) things and qualities? To begin with, it can be plausibly argued that this question is unacceptable, since it rests upon unacceptable assumptions. Presumably, the man would have to acquire the concept of himself, that is, the con­ cept of his own person, by contrasting himself with the surrounding (non-social) nature. But it is not at all clear that the resulting con­ cept of person would in any way resemble our concept of person. Conse­ quently, it is not at all clear that the man could be said to be per­ ceiving things in the same way as we perceive them, or that he could be said to be doing something (such as inventing a rule and following it) in the same sense as we are doing it. However, the decisive argu­ ment is that if the man invents a rule and tries to follow it (suppos­ ing, for the sake of argument, that he can do such things), then he has no independent checks on whether or not he is following the rule cor­ rectly. He uses a word as he remembers having used it before, but if he wants to check whether he is using it correctly, all he can do is to compare his present use with exactly the same memory which already constitutes the basis for it (cf. Kenny 1975:192-93). Perhaps he in fact uses the word correctly, as some outsider might be able to as­ certain; but he has no way of knowing it himself. Everything that would seem correct to him, would be correct, which would of course de­ prive the word 'correct' of its meaning. To think that one is follow­ ing the rule correctly is entirely different from following the rule correctly (Wittgenstein 1958: §202 and 258). Consequently, there can 53 be no private rules. Rules just like concepts exist on the level of common knowledge (cf. 4.2.1. above), and common knowledge is in­ separable from social control of what is known. It still may be objected that even if there is a group of per­ sons, there might yet be no genuine social control, supposing that each member of the group is continuously using words incorrectly. Now, if they are making mistakes at random, they have no public language; and obviously they have no private languages either. Thus we cannot speak here of making mistakes. On the other hand, if they

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all make mistakes in the same way, it is misleading to speak of making mistakes at all. The necessarily social nature of rules illustrates the aspect of the notion 'methodical solipsism'.

methodical

The positivistic philo­

sophy of science implies, not only that one man can observe 'from the outside' the rest of the world, including all other human beings, but also that one man can invent and apply the rules of scientific research. The latter point indicates that some of the differences between stan­ dard positivism and Popperism may be more apparent than real. The three preceding arguments (which are, in a sense, of decreas­ ing strength) apply to three different types of private languages. More precisely, these types are ordered in such a way that the second argument, and the third, also apply to the first type, and the third argument also applies to the second type. The refutation of traditionism, viz. private languages, makes it clear, first of all, that such psychological concepts as knowledge are inseparable from outward criteria, and secondly, that rules must be intersubjective or social.

When these two results are combined

and applied to the question relating to the nature of language,

it

follows that language, as well as the knowledge of it, is inseparable from the use of language which conforms to social

rules.

Wittgenstein

(1958: I, §508-10) has illustrated this point by the following example. If I imagine that 'a b c d' means 'The weather is fine', does it follow that 'b' now has the meaning 'weather'?

No, just as it does not follow

that there is a book on the table, if I imagine that there is. Of course, the reason is that no actual use or practice exists in support of the claim that 'b' has this or that meaning.

Meaning exists only in the

context of use; and since no language without meaning exists, there is no

language without the use of language.

Given that, as a matter of

logic, (regular) use must be public, not private, it follows that a theory of language which does not explicitly

account for the

social

rules constituting the use of language is inadequate on both factual and logical grounds.

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Wittgenstein is generally credited with philosophically justifying this social and functional conception of language. However, Mauthner (1923) anticipated several of Wittgenstein's basic insights. In parti­ cular, he affirmed the impossibility of private languages and, together with it, the social nature of knowledge: Die Sprachbewegungen des unter sprachlosen Mitmenschen allein re­ denden Individuums wären aber gar nicht Sprache. Ein einzig sprech­ ender Mensch unter sprachlosen Volksgenossen is t ebensowenig vor­ stellbar wie ein redender Gott, der den Menschen die Sprache erst schenkte. Oder er wäre wie der Teilnehmer an einem ausgedehnten Telephonnetze, das keinen zweiten Teilnehmer hätte. Seine Zweck­ bewegungen wären nicht Sprache. Sprache werden diese Bewegungen erst durch ihre über das Individuum und über die Wirklichkeit hin­ ausgehende Eigentümlichkeit, da sie bei einer Gruppe von Menschen die gleichen, da sie dadurch verständlich, da sie nützlich sind. Als sozialer Faktor erst wird die Sprache, die vor Erfindung der Buchdruckerkunst noch nicht einmal in einem Wörterbuch beisammen war, etwas Wirkliches. Eine soziale Wirklichkeit ist sie; abge­ sehen davon, ist sie nur eine Abstraktion von bestimmten Bewegung­ en (Mauthner 1923:17-18). Wenn Begriff und Wort, wenn Denken und Sprache ein und dasselbe ist, wenn ferner die Sprache sich historisch und im Gebrauche des Individuums nicht anders als sozial bilden konnte, so muss auch das Erkennen der Wirklichkeit eine gemeinsame Tätigkeit der Mensch­ en sein {op.cit. , p.30). 56

4.3. Implications

for Linguistic

Theory

In this section, as elsewhere, I take TG as a representative example of current theoretical linguistics. The relevance of the preceding phi­ losophical discussion to an evaluation of this particular theory of grammar lies in the fact that, in accordance with its general posi tivistic assumptions (cf. 3.6. above), TG maintains a conception of langu­ age which is demonstrably equivalent to the private-language conception. 4.3.1 .

Psycholinguistics

First of all, it is of importance to point out that the question of whether knowledge is primarily subjective or intersubjective is more fundamental than the question of whether, supposing (falsely) that know­ ledge is primarily subjective, its acquisition requires a more intricate innate apparatus (= 'rationalism') or a less intricate one (='empiricism'

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Consequently, in this more fundamental context, the well-advertised distinction between rationalism and empiricism disappears (see, e.g., Chomsky 1965:47-59). The same happens to another well-known distinction, viz. that between mentalism and behaviourism. We have already seen that TG, while failing to differentiate clearly between grammar and psycholinguistics, purports to explain observable events, and similarly to test its explanatory hypotheses against new observational evidence. This means that TG, including TG-inspired 'mentalistic' psychology, views itself as a genuine hypothetico-deductive, i.e., positivistic, science. The question that may be asked is, where lies the difference between TG and behaviouristic psychology, which also claims to be a hypothetico-deductive science dealing with observable events. It lies merely in the fact that TG postulates more complex systems of theore­ tical concepts, that is, an innate linguistic 'theory' and an acquired 'competence' of a particular language, with a view to accounting for observable linguistic behaviour. It goes without saying that the dif­ ference between TG-type psychology and behaviourism is a difference not in kind, but in degree. In fact, TG-type mentalistic explanations have turned out to be mechanistic explanations (cf. 3.6. above). The Wittgensteinian psychology, by contrast, establishes the ir­ reducible, qualitative difference between observation and understand­ ing, and hence between positivistic and nonpositivistic (i.e., hermeneutic) explanations of human behaviour. In view of this, one must be careful not to be misled when Chinara & Fodor (1966) attack Witt­ genstein's (nonpositivistic) 'logical behaviourism' in the name of (positivistic) 'mentalism'. However, the situation is considerably clarified by the following passage, which illustrates the use by TG of the 'analogy argument', and hence its particular variant of method­ ical solipsism. Chinara & Fodor (1966:414) reject the thesis of the logical dependence of psychological concepts upon public criteria, and continue: The belief that other people feel pains is not gratuitous even on the view that there are no criteria of pains. On the contrary, it

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provides the only plausible explanation of the facts I know about the way that they behave in and vis-à-vis the sorts of situations I find painful.

Here we have the lone observer who believes that other people feel and think - in fact, that there ave other people - because on this be­ lief he can best explain to himself the movements and sounds made or emitted by familiar-looking bodies around him. It can be said that the TG-inspired psychologists and philosophers represent the methodic­ al solipsism in its purest form. Certain recent developments within TG might seem to call the pre­ ceding account into question. Partly in connection with the attempt to integrate the theory of speech acts into TG, Fodor, Bever and Garret (1974:1-21) now explicitly recognise the difference between action and event in a way which amounts to a de facto acceptance of the thesis of intentionality. However, this apparent departure from the positivistic standpoint does not change TG's general methodological position, as I will try to demonstrate in what follows. Fodor et al. start from the correct observation that human actions, and in particular acts of speaking, differ significantly from events investigated by physics in that their occurrence or non-occurrence can­ not be predicted in terms of their environment (cf. 4.2.2. above). However, as they see it, this difference is not as great as one might think. They view a human being as a mechanism with simple external states and complex internal states; that is, the internal states of the mechanism determine its output behaviour to a much higher degree than its external states do. Therefore, the output behaviour cannot be predicted merely on the basis of information about the external states or the environment. However, insofar as the internal states become known, the behaviour becomes predictable, and in the unlikely, but theoretically conceivable case where the internal states are known entirely, the behaviour is entirely predictable. Consequently, the difference between action and event is, according to Fodor et al. after all but a matter of degree. The same conclusion may be reached in the following way.

Fodor

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et al. (1974:3-4) differentiate between events related to the human body, for instance pure reflexes, and actions similarly related, by assuming that these two types of phenomena are underlain by different types of 'schemas'. And as might be expected, the schemas underlying actions are assumed to be characteristically more complex than those underlying events. In fact, Fodor et al. go so far as to identify or individuate different actions by reference to the schemas which sup­ posedly underlie them. For instance, different acts, or act-tokens, of writing one's name are said to belong to one and the same act-type, and to differ from any other apparently quite similar act-tokens, be­ cause one and the same schema underlies the former act-tokens and other schemas underlie the latter act-tokens. But this formulation clearly means putting the cart before the horse. We cannot use something which we do not know, to identify something which we do know. For instance, the characteristic property of snow is its whiteness, and not the fact that we possess - as we certainly do - some psychological mechanisms which enable us to perceive its whiteness. The confusion here involved can be cleared up as follows. On the one hand, I consciously identify acts of writing one's name as what they are, on the basis of certain public or social criteria. These criteria are rather self-evident; ordinary people can discuss them and agree on them quite easily. On the other hand, I can make the additional hypo­ thesis that the conscious social criteria which we all use in identify­ ing acts of writing one's name are underlain by unconscious psycholo­ gical mechanisms of a certain type, to be discovered only by means of psychological experimentation. The situation is the same in linguistics. We identify the diffe­ rence between 'John drinks bourbon' and 'Does John drink bourbon?' by means of qui te obvious public criteria, but we do not know those parti­ cular mechanisms which make us so identify it. Recent developments in psycholinguistics have made it overwhelmingly clear that the analysis of our consciousness, or of the object of our consciousness,58 must be sharply distinguished from the analysis of the psychological mechanisms presumably underlying those actions which, or whose results, we are

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conscious of. It is simply wrong to assume that linguistic grammars are as such psychologically real, or are as such identical with mental grammars. The dichotomy between these two types of grammar is just a special case of the general dichotomy between conscious and unconscious means of identifying (results of) actions. Consciousness is a specifically human phenomenon. The hypothetico-deductive method is unable to differentiate between conscious and unconscious, or nonconscious, phenomena (cf. the Katz & Bever quotation p. 8 4 ) . It is perfectly legitimate to offer psychological explanations modelled upon the hypothetico-deductive method. What must be regarded as illegitimate, however, is to think - as Fodor et al. do - that appli­ cations of this method could bring out the special nature of human beha­ viour. In particular, it is impossible that the scientist could hypo­ theti co-deductively describe his own behaviour in its entirety, for "Even ideally refined behaviourism can ... merely explain the behaviour of the observed, not of the observing scientist" (Schutz 1962:54; cf. also 2.1. above). In light of the Katz & Bever quotation referred to above, TG psy­ chology, as a relatively sophisticated variant of posi ti vi sti c psycho­ logy, might well be taken to represent a form of 'refined behaviourism'. Since according to this view the scientist can hypothetico-deductively describe everybody else except himself, we see that TG remains as com­ mitted to methodical solipsism as ever. 4.3.2. Theory

of Grammar

The distinction between competence and performance has been inter­ preted in Chomsky's 'standard theory' of TG in such a way that (know­ ledge of) language is primary while (knowledge of) its use is secondary. This conception of language is at the same time non-functional, viz. formal, and individualistic, or in other words 'Cartesian'. It has been expounded in detail by Moravcsik (1967), who claims that such communica­ tive skills as announcing or requesting which imply a reference to the (intentional) situation of language-use do not belong to the primary linguistics skills, i.e., those which are part of the competence. More-

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over, if it is permissible to speak of the use of language at all in connection with the competence, it can supposedly only be said that one uses language to articulate one's physical and social environment, and to 'freely express' one's beliefs and thoughts. Humboldt seems to have held similar views with respect to the primary characteristics of langu­ age, and on several occasions Hjelmselv voices the idea that 'system is primary with respect to process'.60 Such a formal (and individualistic) conception is demonstrative­ ly untenable. A language into which the roles of speaker and hearer have not been built in as essential constituents of the concept of speech situation (which in turn is inseparable from the concept of language itself), viz. a language in which the intersubjective or social aspect of rules is treated as theoretically secondary, is equivalent to a private language. Such a language bears no resemblance to natural languages, and consequently a linguistic theory which either implicitly or explicitly endorses this private-language conception is inadequate on factual grounds. This is the case of the Chomsky-type TG. However, since private languages are not only factually 'queer' but also logic­ ally impossible, the Chomsky-type TG is, in this respect, not only factually inadequate but also logically inconsistent. This incon­ sistency is well illustrated by Moravcsik's (1967) claim that since language use is secondary, hearers could understand sentences without knowing the conditions for their correct use. What this implies is in fact that all speakers could be misusing language all the time, and could apparently also refuse to use language at all, but would still remain speakers of this language ( but what language?). This is the fallacy of making the inference from 'x sometimes happens' to 'x might always happen'. It may be added that Fodor et al. (1974:167-70) try to base the semantic component of their grammar-conception on the Wittgensteinian idea that the meaning of a word is its role in a language-game. This view has no real connection with their theory, however. Rules are necessarily social entities (cf. 4.2.5. above), but the authors do not discuss the social aspect of language at all.

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As is well known, TG intends to describe the ideal speaker-hear­ er's competence within a totally homogeneous speech-community. From the primacy of the individualistic or private aspect, it follows for TG that the similarity (or, in the above idealisation, the identity) of the linguistic rules which differentmembers of the same community follow is a contingent fact. To be sure, it is explained by a refe­ rence to the similar psychological and physiological make-up of the speakers of a given language, but this, again, is a contingent fact. The refutation of private languages shows, however, that the nearidentity of the rules in a speech-community is due to their intersubjectivity, which in turn is a necessary characteristic of rules. It is important to realise that there is no boundary between innate and social aspects of language: The disposition to socialisation is itself innate; furthermore, as Leontiev (1971) has noted, the social setting does not merely act as a trigger that actualises innate struc­ tures but rather plays an active role in the formation of specifical­ ly human, including linguistic, abilities. From the above, it is evident that for both philosophical and methodological reasons TG has been unable to draw the distinction between particular uses of language and the general principles of language use, of which the latter obviously are ingredients of the linguistic competence and thus constitute an essential subject matter for any theory of language. It has been shown (in 4.2.5. above) that language is logically interdependent with public use of language. Use of language consists in actions conforming to intersubjective or socially valid rules. are conceptually necessary parts of actions, including Intentions speech acts. Thus every adequate theory of language must take speech intentions into account. This idea has found a clear formulation in the theories of language of Grice (1957, 1968), Strawson (1971), and Searle (1969); (cf. also Itkonen 1972c). It should further be noted that even within its own framework TG cannot consistently deny the re­ levance of speech intentions, since even if - as TG claims - language were used only to freely express one's beliefs and thoughts, it would still remain true that the free expression of one's beliefs and thoughts

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is an action which, as a matter of logic, requires the presence of the corresponding intention. According to this functional or pragmatic conception, the speech act is the primary unit of language. Within the speech act, one may go on to distinguish between the level of intersubjective interaction between speaker and hearer, viz. the level of 'metacommunication', and the level of a reference to extralinguistic reality, viz. the level of communication (cf. Habermas 1971a). Here language serves as a proto­ type of science: even natural sciences that are concerned with observ­ able, ultimately non-human events (= 'communication') must presuppose the social rules of scientific activity (='metacommunication'). The traditional concept of 'sentence' proves to be a unit secondarily ab­ stracted from the (primary) speech act. Considerations that bear varying degrees of similarity to those presented above have led an increasing number of linguists to replace the formal Chomskyan notion of competence by a notion that involves a pragmatic or communicative component (cf. in particular Hymes 1974). It is also interesting to note that the same functional conception can be applied even in the study of logic (cf. 2.6. above). To my know­ ledge the most satisfactory treatment of the pragmatic basis of langu­ age is Schneider (1975), which combines the Wittgensteinian approach with the constructivist approach of the Erlangen school. Sentences and types of speech acts are equally normative entities: the former are concepts exemplified by utterances which in turn are results of act-tokens exemplifying the latter. Speech act grammars analyse the concept 'correct (type of) speech act' just as sentence grammars analyse the concept 'correct sentence'. Consequently, there are no methodological differences between the two types of grammar. Since sentence grammars are much more well-established than speech act grammars, it is understandable that I shall concentrate on the former, in spite of the fact that they have just been seen to be lo­ gically secondary with respect to the latter. It. is only when we go beyond the analysis of the concept of speech act, and start investi­ gating how definite groups of people actually speak under definite

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circumstances, that we arrive at a methodologically different type of linguistic description. This is precisely the difference between gram­ mar and sociolinguistics or, more generally, between aprioristic and empirical human sciences (cf. 2.4.-6. and 2.1.-2. above).

5.0.

THE CONCEPT OF LANGUAGE

The term 'rule' may be understood in two different ways. On the one hand, rules are norms which govern intentional social behaviour and are in turn manifested by this same (rule-following) behaviour. On the other hand, rules are sentences referring to, or establishing, rules in the former sense of 'rule'. I distinguish between these two types of entities by calling them 'rules' and 'rule-sentences', respectively. It is for instance a rule of English that the definite article precedes (and does not follow) the noun. This rule is (truthfully) described by the rule-sentence "In English the definite article precedes the noun." 65 In this chapter I shall examine how rules exist, and how they are known. The status of rule-sentences will be analysed in 6.0. (below). 5.1.

Ontology:

Rules

of Language

as Constituted

by 'Common

Knowledge '

An analysis of rules presupposes an analysis of actions. On this point we can refer to the results of 4.2.2-3. (above). It is possible to abstract from every action the intentional element which, properly speaking, constitutes an action qua action. (This 'intentional element' is to be understood, not as some psychical substance, but as a 'pattern'.) What is left, in such a case, is a physical, observable event. There is no action without the corresponding physical event, which might be called the 'substratum' of the action. Intentions, which are necessary constituents of actions, must be at least potentially conscious: to do something, one must be able to know, at least under some description, what one is doing. Thus knowledge is, in principle, inseparable from

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action. We have seen in 4.0. (above) that knowledge is necessarily social. From this it follows, first, that to be able to do an action x, a person A must know the action-concept 'x', that is, he must be able to identify instances of 'x' done by himself or by others. Second, A must know that others know 'x' and, third, A must know that others know that he knows 'x'. When this is the case, we say that 'x' is an object of common

knowledge.

In other words, if the following three conditions are true of an entity χ and of practically any two persons A and Β of a community, then χ is said to be an object of common knowledge: 1) A knows1 x 2) A knows2 that Βknows1x. 3) A knows3 that Β knows2 that A knows1 x. If only the first level of this three-level knowledge would hold of (practically) every member of a community, we would have a set of solipsistic consciousnesses or, supposing in particular χ to be a rule of language, a set of private languages. For conceptual reasons, this is impossible, as was shown in the preceding chapter. If only the first two levels were to hold of any two members of a community, we would have a set of cases of Apel's (1973b) 'methodical solipsism'. Every member of the community would only have a unidirectional access to every other member: although he could (try to) control others, he could not conceive of the possibility that he might in turn be con­ trolled by them. Hence it is only at the third level that genuine s o c i a l i n t e r a c t i o n (which is a logical precondition to the existence of consciousness and language) becomes possible. Still higher levels of common knowledge (or belief) exist, but they do not change the basic pattern of social interaction which can be regarded as established al­ ready at the third level. In light of what precedes, the question concerning the mode of existence of actions must receive a somewhat differentiated answer. At first glance, actions seem to exist just in space and time. How­ ever, the concepts which they exemplify exist at the level of common knowledge. The same is true of concepts exemplified by events, or of

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concepts in general, but it is the characteristic property of actions that they, in contradistinction to events, are inseparable of the way in which they are conceptualised (cf. p. 99). This is why there can be conceptual relations between actions, although there cannot be such relations between purely spatiotemporal entities. We must distinguish between normative and non-normative actions; they might be illustrated, respectively, by speech acts and acts of opening a window. Every respect in which an action is or could have been incorrect reveals the existence of a rule; any speech act fol­ lows or fails to follow a large number of different types of rules, from pragmatic to phonological. A normative action qualifies either as correct or as incorrect. This distinction may occasionally re­ semble those between successful and unsuccessful, rational and ir­ rational, or usual and unusual actions, yet all those distinctions are in principle distinct. To the extent that the 'correct - incorrect' dis­ tinction cannot be kept apart from the others, the existence of the corresponding rule is uncertain, a phenomenon which is only to be ex­ pected sometimes, given the general relativity of the distinctions in­ volved (cf. 4.2.4. above). To me there seems to be a good sense in which even non-normative normative. All actions are inse­ actions can be said to be implicitly parable from their interpretations; but interpretation, or use of con­ cepts, is a clear-cut institution which consists of rules of its own (cf. p. 42); thus there exists the constant possibility of correct vs. incorrect interpretation. To illustrate: The action of opening a win­ dow certainly does not seem to be normative in the least. But insofar as it is an action, the one who does it must be able to identify it as what it is: it is certainly a reasonable requirement that people must be able to know what they are doing, if they are really doing something, and not just undergoing certain uncontrolled processes. Therefore, the one who is opening a window must be able to identify his action; and this implies at least the possibility ofmisinterpretation. In this sense, then, all actions are implicitly normative. Moreover, their

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normativity becomes explicit when the interpretation in question is given a linguistic expression: A man who is opening a window, and who says "I am closing the window", or "I am painting the wall", is, on the face of it at least, vising words

incorrectly.

Because common knowledge is about what everybody knows that every­ body knows, or ought to know, it necessarily contains social control of what is or ought to be known. We have seen in 4.2.5. (above) that there is a difference between being correct and seeming correct, or, more generally, between reality and appearance, and that this diffe­ rence can be established only by checks independent of each other, i.e., checks to be provided by a social community. What is true of actions is, at a higher level of complexity, also true of rules. Just as abstraction of the intentional element produces the (physical) substratum of an action, so abstraction of the normative element produces the substratum of a rule, this substratum consisting in a regularity of (non-normative) actions; just as the existence of an action is, as it were, spread over both space-time and common know­ ledge, so is the existence of a rule: it is commonly known to be what it is, and it is manifested by a regularity of spatiotemporal actions, and is, again, commonly known to be so manifested. I would like to emphasise that in my opinion rules are commonly known as rules , not as construed out of something more elementary, to which they could again be reduced. That is, I consider normativity as not reducible to non­ normativity. Actions are 'patterns' of observables, and rules are 'patterns' of actions, but the dimensions of intentionality and nor­ mativity, constituted respectively by these two types of 'patterns'., are not reducible to ontologically simpler forms. Since rules exist as objects of common knowledge, they cease to exist, once they cease to be its objects. As I understand it, there cannot be rules which no one knows. Empirical sociology is mainly con­ cerned with (statistical) uniformities in social behaviour that are not known to people themselves. In such a case, according to my terminology, regularities. we have to do not with rules but with (causally effective) On the other hand, regularities of physical events may also be objects

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of common knowledge, but whether they are or not, has no influence upon their factual existence. To put it more simply, there can be no norma­ tive entities where there are no people, whereas there certainly can be, and are, physical entities where there are no people. Since I regard a language as a system of rules, I have given here my account of what it means to say that a language exists. Objections to the effect that there are no (genuine) rules of language, will be discussed in 5.3. and 6.1-2. However, I must add that at the level of common knowledge langu­ age does not exist as a system, but rather as a set of rules. It is the grammarian's task to work out the system in question. In other words, atheoretical knowledge of language as a set of rules shades off into theoretical knowledge of language as a system of rules. This is why, after a system has been proposed, we sometimes have the feeling that we knew it all along (cf. 11.1. below). This is also the sense in which it might be said that the grammarian reveals the language as it 'really' is. In language, the inseparability of doing and knowing that one does, is actualised as the inseparability of speaking and knowing that one speaks; one's knowledge of speaking, or of object language, becomes In other words, natural language is charac­ expressed as metalanguage. terised by the fact that it functions both as object language and meta­ language. This linguistic reflexivity is not a logical flaw, but just the expression of the inherent reflexivity of consciousness in general. The strict separation of object language and metalanguage, as it has been carried out in formal logic, is analogous to the research situa­ tion in natural science, where knowledge pertains to something which has no knowledge or is treated as having none (cf. 2.1. above). In aphasia the loss of metalinguistic capacities means that one's langu­ age withdraws from under social control insofar as one is no longer able to perceive differences between one's own language and the langu­ age of others (cf. Schlieben-Lange 1975b). At first glance, this might appear to be the beginning of a development toward a private language. Yet what we have here, is in reality no longer a genuine

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language, precisely because it lacks (the means of expressing) the re­ flective linguistic consciousness. There is no language without con­ sciousness, and no consciousness without social control of it. It is also interesting to note that the social contradiction, the internalisation of which is taken to cause neurotic behaviour (cf. 2.3. above), may characteristically have the form of a contradiction between object language and metalanguage: the prospective patient continuously receiv­ es messages and comments on these messages in such a manner that their meanings systematically contradict each other (Schlieben-Lange 1975b). Moreover, the neurosis so created is linguistically manifested preci­ sely as the loss of metalinguistic capacities. Just as knowledge about norms, all scientific knowledge is common knowledge, except when it is just being newly produced. Of course, it is not knowledge in the sense that we know which theories are true, but in the more modest sense that we know which theories have been proposed and what is, approximately, their degree of uncertainty. I have presented here one particular way of refuting the so-called methodological individualism, which has been, and still is, an import­ ant trend in the philosophy of sociology (cf. Nagel 1961:535-46; for an overview, see Lukes 1968). According to this view, institutional and normative phenomena must be reduced to actions performed and, possibly, to beliefs held by individual persons. It has become evident by now why, in my opinion, the program of methodological individualism cannot be carried out: since a rule exists at the level of common knowledge, it cannot be analysed as a set of particular beliefs held by individual persons. As an object of common knowledge, a rule is the focal point of an extremely complex configura­ tion of interdependent knowledge-relationships. Analysing this con­ figuration as a mechanical sum of its parts would destroy the very no­ tion of common knowledge and replace it by disconnected instances of subjective; Cartesian knowledge. Methodological individualism is in fact merely an application of Cartesian or traditionist epistemology. to sociology, and the falsity of the latter entails the falsity of the

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former. (It may be added that methodological individualism has not even been aware of the fact that actions already constitute counter­ examples to its idea of a homogeneous space-time ontology, viz. an ontology which admits only of the existence of distinct spatiotempo­ rally definable occurrences.) Accepting the autonomous existence of normali vity means accepting an ontology which is much more complex than any variant of the positivistic space-time ontology. This is as it should be, however, because it is precisely the most obvious flaw of positivism that it is utterly uncapable of accounting, first, for the existence of the subject matter of sciences like philosophy and logic, and second, for the existence of science in general. Now, an ontology which contains both spatiotemporality and normativity, as well as the continuum between them, would make the existence of every type of science understandable. A philosophy of science incorporating such an ontology might conceivably construct a general framework into which it can rather naturally place itself. A good philosophy does not make itself all sciences, including It may also be noticed an exception, and must therefore be reflexive. that even if the ontology here outlined is rather complex, it is hardly more complex than the ontology required by the 'possible worlds' seman­ tics (cf., e.g., Quine 1969:153), which positivistically-minded philo­ sophers may without any scruples make use of in connection with their logical work. I have presented here my conception of the mode of existence, not just of actions and norms, but of all social phenomena, from institu­ tions to tools. Social reality is meaningful, and meaning exists only as an object of common knowledge; there can be no private meanings. When science investigatessocial reality, the causes which it may discover are unknown before their discovery, and hence cannot, at least not qua causes, be ob.iects of common knowledge. In my terminology, then, struc­ phenomena, tural properties of a society for instance are not social as long as they remain unknown. Opponents of methodological individualism have always expressed views more or less similar to what I have been saying here. In particular,

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it is customary to describe the equivalent of common knowledge in terms of spatial metaphors emphasising the interdependence of the instances of knowledge constituting this notion. Consider, for example, how Durkheim (1938 [1895]: 11-12) characterises his 'faits sociaux': Ainsi ce n'est pas leur généralité qui peut servir à caractériser les phénomènes sociologiques. Une pensée qui se retrouve dans toutes les consciences particulières, un mouvement que répètent tous les individus ne sont pour cela des faits sociaux.

And: ... la société n'est pas une simple somme d'individus, mais le système formé par leur association représente une réalité specifi­ que qui a ses caractères propres. Sans doute, il ne peut rien se produire de collectif si des consciences particulières ne sont pas données; mais cette condition nécessaire n'est pas suffisante. I1 faut encore que ces consciences soient a s s o c i é e s , combinées, et combinées d'une certaine manière; c'est de cette combinaison que résulte la vie sociale et, par suite, c'est cette combinaison qui l'explique. En s ' a g r é g e a n t , ense p é n é t r a n t , en se fusionnant, les ames individuelles donnent naissance à un être, psychique si l'on veut, mais qui constitue une individualité psychique d'un genre nouveau ( o p . c i t . , p.127; emphasis added). Voilà dans quel sens et pour quelles raisons on peut et on doit parler d'une conscience collective distincte des consciences individuelles (ibid., n.l; emphasis added) .

However, Durkheim fails to distinguish between institutions and their causes, as well as between learning an institution and knowing it. It is at least partly because of this lack of differentiation that he arrives at his controversial view that 'social facts are things', things, to be sure, which are not reducible to ontologically simpler phenomena (cf. the quotations above and also the clarifications he offers in his Preface of 1901, p.xi). Mauthner (1923:19) describes the existence of language in even more graphical terms: "Wo ist also das Abstraktum 'Sprache' Wirklichkeit? In der

Luft.

Im Volke, zwischen

den

Menschen."

It seems to me that Durkheim's term 'conscience collective' and Hegel's (and, following him, Dilthey's) term 'objektiver Geist' can be given a clear and sensible meaning, if they are reinterpreted as

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equivalent to common knowledge, as here defined. Dilthey (1927:208) defines his conception, and delimits it against Hegel's, as follows: Ich verstehe unter ihm [sc. dem objektiven Geist] die mannigfa­ chen Formen, in denen die zwischen den Individuen bestehende Ge­ meinsamkeit sich in der Sinneswelt objektiviert hat.

Earlier he had stated (p.150): Indem so der objektive Geist losgelöst wird von der einseitigen Begründung in der allgemeinen, das Wesen des Weltgeistes ausspre­ chenden Vernunft, losgelöst auch von der ideellen Konstruktion, wird ein neuev Begriff desselben möglich: in ihm sind Sprache, Sitte, jede Art von Lebensform ebensogut umfasst wie Familie, bürgerliche Gesellschaft, Staat und Recht. Und nun fällt auch das, was Hegel als den absoluten Geist vom objektiven unterschied: Kunst und Religion und Philosophie unter diesen Begriff.

Hence, the 'objective mind' is based on the fact that existing ways' of thinking and feeling are necessarily common to all. In conclusion, I want to point out some rather obvious difficult­ ies connected with defining the social mode of existence as being an object of common knowledge. Like all social concepts, common knowledge is a relative or gradual one, and therefore the existence based on it is also relative or gradual. (However, there are absolutely clear cases; cf. 5.3. below). Moreover, even if a norm exists only if it is known to exist, it is far from clear to what extent it is required, in addition, that it be manifested in actual behaviour. Norms and ideals are often worth describing even after they have ceased to become mani­ fest in the behaviour of any group of people. It is precisely the task of cultural history to show the significance of norms and ideals which are no longer followed or maintained. It would be rash to say, unconditionally, that such norms and ideals do not exist any more (as I would say of norms and ideals which have been completely forgotten). Evidently, one should distinguish here between different types or de­ grees of existence; by contrast, in the realm of physical reality some­ thing either exists or does not exist. Even more importantly, there may be norms or ideals which have, as yet, never become manifest in the behaviour of any group of people, but which we think should do so, and are therefore definitely worth describing (cf. 6.3. below). Again, it would be rash to say that such norms and ideals do not exist.

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There are also instances where (potential) human products must be said to exist, even if they are not (yet) objects of any actual know­ ledge. When something is known, and when there is a known method to draw conclusions from it, it must be said that all conclusions exist, and not just those which someone has actually happened to draw, or which are known to have been drawn. Similar arguments apply to other forms of unactualised but actual i sable common knowledge. Finally, I would like to point out that the notion of common know­ ledge must not be confused with Popper's notion of 'third world'. The latter contains all possible objects of knowledge or thought, of which those of common knowledge, even in its relativised versions, are a vanishingly small portion. The 'third world' is clearly Platonistic, but Popper insists that it is nevertheless created by man (e.g., Popper 1972:179, n.8). However, it would seem that if the possibility of every­ thing that can ever be thought is objectively given, then it must pre­ exist all thought. 5.2. Epistemology: Linguistic

the Distinction

between Language and

Intuition

Certainly no one would deny that the physical reality investigated . On the other hand, it is only by natural science exists objectively in a subjective act of observation that one can acquaint himself with this objective reality. That is to say, one cannot have someone else's experiences: If I close my eyes, I do not see anything, even if you keep your eyes open. Consequently, in natural science we are bound to make the distinction between objective reality and subjective acts of knowledge pertaining to it. (Of course, I do not mean that the acts in question are subjective in any absolute sense. They operate with soci­ ally-established concepts, and may themselves become an object of in­ vestigation, as in psychology of perception). In linguistics, the corresponding subjective act is called 'lin­ guistic intuition'. (I temporarily distinguish between subjective linguistic knowledge and linguistic intuitions as acts of actualising this knowledge.) What does linguistic intuition pertain to? The posi-

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ti vi sti c answer is that it pertains to spatiotemporal phenomena, i.e., actual utterances and reactions to utterances. However, this would be a misleading answer, as I hope to show in 7.0. It is possible, to be sure, to observe uttered sounds and written marks as purely physical, spatiotemporal phenomena. But if they are understood as linguistic entities, the primary component of what is understood in this (intui­ tive) manner consists of the rules which, precisely, constitute that (This view is which is being understood, as a specimen of language. argued in detail in Friedman 1975; cf. 7.3. below). It is undisputable that a grammar investigates correct sentences. The concepts 'correct sentence' and 'sentence exemplified by spatiotemporal utterances' are, however, entirely different. On the one hand, there is an indefinite number of correct sentences which have never been exemplified in space and time, but which constitute, never­ theless, a legitimate subject matter of grammar, just like there is in chess an indefinite number of correct (combinations of) moves which have never been actually made, but which must be accounted for by any ade­ quate description of chess. On the other hand, there is an indefinite number of spatiotemporal utterances which do not exemplify correct, but incorrect sentences. Consequently, even in cases where linguistic intuition seems to pertain to actual utterances, it pertains primarily to rules, as defined in 5.1. (above), since utterances are what they are solely by virtue of the fact that they exemplifyeither correct or in­ correct sentences, and what is a correct sentence in a given language is determined by the rules of this language. The fact that linguistic intuition pertains to rules of language is even more evident in cases where one neither hears uttered sentences nor sees written sentences, but just thinks of, or reflects upon language. To sum up, rules, and not spatiotemporal occurrences, are the ob­ jective reality to which subjective linguistic intuition pertains to. For instance, the rule expressed by "In English the definite article precedes the noun" exists objectively, that is at the level of common knowledge, and my subjective intuition pertains to this rule. This conception follows logically from the autonomy of the normative di­ mension (cf. 5.1.).

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I surmise that most linguists find it difficult to accept the dis­ tinction between language and linguistic intuition in the form present­ ed here. To make it more acceptable, I shall offer analogies from lo­ gic and philosophy. This is in keeping with my general claim that sciences like grammar, logic, and philosophy are qualitatively similar (cf. 10.0. and 11.0.). Logical intuition is obviously something which one can have only for oneself, that is, it is something subjective. On the other hand logical rules of inference and logical truths like the following are 72 certainly something objective.

(It should be noted that logical truths, just as well as conceptual truths, are rule-governed in the sense that it is incorrect not to accept them.) Hence, we have here the same situation as in connec­ tion with language: subjective intuition pertains to objective rules. Logic is a social phenomenon, and its objective existence means exi­ stence at the level of common knowledge (cf. 2.6. above). It is, I think, because Husserl and Russell, on the one hand, were convinced of the objectivity of logic and, on the other, regarded physical rea­ that they were led to claim, in cer­ lity as objective par excellence, tain phases of their careers, that logic is somehow 'eternal' and in­ dependent of man. Next, let us consider a very simple example of philosophical ana­ lysis: the concept 'father' is identical with 'male parent'. This is an objective fact. That is, the corresponding sentence certainly de­ scribes an objective conceptual relation, which is normative in the sense that it would be incorrect not to accept it. And yet everyone can understand this relation only subjectively, on the basis of what might be called 'conceptual intuition'. (Of course, intuition pertain­ ing to conceptual relations is practically identical with linguistic intuition pertaining to sentences expressing such relations.) There

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could be no conceptual, necessary relation between 'father' and 'male parent', or between any other concepts, if the existence of concepts as objective, normative entities were denied, that is, if it were claim­ ed that there are no objective concepts 'father' and 'male parent', but only separate subjective acts of conceptual intuition about 'father' and 'male parent', acts to which their objects would be inherent. On this interpretation, we would have to say, either that the necessary relations hold between separate acts, or that there are no necessary relations. Both alternatives,however, would be equally unacceptable. Moreover, it is simply wrong to claim that a sentence like "A father is a male parent" is about an indefinite number of intuitive, subjec­ tive acts. This can be seen from the fact that, on such an interpre­ tation, it would be impossible to find out the truth or falsity of any such sentence; or at least, their truth or falsity could only be of statistical nature. All these views are clearly false, and therefore the view from which they were derived, namely the thesis of the nonobjective character of concepts, is false, too. This means at the same time that conceptual relations, and more generally all facts residing at the level of common knowledge, are not psychological facts.73 Precisely the same argument applies to logical relations obtaining between formulae. Consider the equivalence '[p&(qVr)]≡(p&q)V(p&r)]'.74 If one does not allow for the objective existence of the formulae, i.e., the formula-types, 75 'p&(qVr)' and '(p&q)V(p&r)', it follows that the equivalence in question should obtain, not between two formulae (to which subjective intuitions happen to pertain just now), but between two intuitions (which pertain to the formulae in question). For seve­ ral reasons, such an argument is nonsensical, one reason being that it simply does not make sense to say that the one intuition is a conjunc­ tion and the other a disjunction. The same argument applies also to the issue of linguistic rules vs. linguistic intuition. Its relevance to linguistic methodology will be seen when we come to discuss whether linguistic descriptions satisfy the general requirement upon empirical explanation and testing, viz. that the antecedent conditions be conceptually independent of the fact

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explained or predicted, or that an empirical hypothesis be testable against new, conceptually independent evidence (cf. 9.0. below). In grammar, logic, and philosophy, then, temporally definite, subjective acts pertain to something objective, namely rules exist­ ing at the level of common knowledge, whose temporal limits are quite indefinite. We might say, then, that common knowledge constitutes a rule, whereas intuition pertains to it. More precisely, to return to our definition of 'common knowledge', A's three-level knowledge about x is simply identical with his (subjective) intuition about x. His intuition about x is his contribution to common knowledge about χ and, eo ipso, constitutes the latter in part. Since χ is, in turn, literally created by common knowledge about x, it follows that A's intuition both pertains to χ and, in part, creates it. - It should be remembered, however, that common knowledge, and hence the exist­ ence of x, is, strictly speaking, independent of (the intuition of) any particular

person.

The objects of linguistic, logical, and conceptual (or 'philoso­ phical') intuition differ from those of observation in that the former are dependent on, while the latter are independent of man. If someone should feel that the object of intuition, as here defined, cannot be compared at all with the object of observation, because the latter is, presumably, 'present' to the agent of the subjective act in quite an­ other way than the former, it may be useful to compare intuition, more specifically, with the memory of (once observed) physical facts. Both in intuition and in remembering the object of the respective act is equally 'absent'. (Of course, this is not to deny the general diffe­ rence between social and physical data.) As we have seen already, the similarity between grammar, logic, and philosophy rests on the fact that in each case we have to do with an institution, viz. an institution of correct speaking, correct in­ ferring, or correct use of concepts (cf. 2.5-6. above). This simila­ rity can be now specified more narrowly by pointing out that in each case we also have to do with intuition pertaining to language, i.e., either language as such (as in grammar), or language qua expression

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of conceptual relations (as in philosophy), or language, whether natu­ ral or formal, qua expression of junctors and operators relevant to truth-value (as in logic). The basic similarity between all these types of (objects of) intuition explains why it is so easy to move from logic and philosophy to grammar, and vice versa, as witnessed by a book like Davidson & Harman (1972) for instance. Within TG, the distinction between 'grammatical' and 'acceptable' corresponds, in a way, to that between language and linguistic intui­ tion. To use 'correct' as a superordinate term, it might be said that 'grammatical', as a concept belonging to competence, represents what is really correct, whereas 'acceptable', as a concept belonging to performance, represents what is apparently correct. TG defines a language as the set of sentences generated by the optimal grammar; such sentences are indeed tautologically 'grammatical'. However, this is a very odd notion of language. From the unlimited use of recursivity in grammar, it follows that, in this interpretation, speakers are able to understand only a tiny fraction of their native language. Con­ fronted with this result, TG, instead of modifying its notion of 'langu­ age', modifies its notion of 'speaker': language, as here defined, is said to be spoken and understood by an 'ideal speaker'. But this non­ entity is simply identical with an axiomatic system (cf. Itkonen 1976a: 208-15). My notion of language is entirely different from TG's insofar as it is a social one (cf. 4.0. above). Language is a set of rules exist­ ing at the level of common knowledge, and grammar is a (theoretical) description of these rules, or of this knowledge. My correct— incor­ rect distinction obtains at the level of language, not of intuition, and is in this respect similar to TG's grammatical — ungrammatical dis­ tinction; on the other hand, I have no counterpart to the acceptable — unacceptable distinction. What is correct or incorrect, is commonly known. The cases where such a knowledge does not exist with any great amount of agreement are explained by reference to a decrease in social control (cf. 5.4. below).

THE CONCEPT OF LANGUAGE

13 7

The distinction between language and linguistic intuition, or between objective and subjective, corresponds to the distinction be­ tween reality and appearence, It is equally necessary to maintain this distinction whether it be in natural science, linguistics, logic, or in philosophy; we would otherwise be forced to accept the traditionist epistemology which fails to distinguish between, for instance, being correct and seeming correct, and must therefore be rejected. In most instances objective and subjective fall together; this fact is express­ ed by saying that we come to know in a subjective act what is objecti­ vely given. When a group of people is looking at a tree, in most cases they all agree, without even a shade of doubt, that what they are look­ ing at is a tree. Similarly, when a group of English speakers are re­ flecting upon whether the English article precedes or follows the noun, or whether 'cat' means an animal or a number, in most instances they all agree unanimously that the article precedes the noun, and that 'cat' means an animal. The same applies to the truth of the formula '[(pVq)&-p] q' and of the sentence "A father is a male parent". Here disagreement is empirically possible; it is perfectly possi­ ble that someone would claim, against the opinion of others, that what they are looking at is not a tree, but, say, a butterfly, or that 'cat' means a number. It is precisely this constant possibility of disagree­ ment which reveals the existence of a distinction between reality and appearance, or objective and subjective, even if they de facto fall to­ gether in most cases. In instances like those described above, possi­ ble disagreement is deemed pathological; it does nothing to relativise the distinction between objective and subjective. It is conceptually necessary that disagreement of this kind is the exception, and not the rule. Our concepts and our consciousness thereof are based on the pos­ sibility of social control and would disappear without it (cf. 4.2.5. above). Disagreement presupposes agreement: "In order to make a mis­ take, a man must already judge in conformity with mankind" (Wittgen­ stein 1969b: §156). It would be equally misleading to say that everything is real or that everything is only apparent. Even when the two fail together -

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as they almost always do - they must be kept apart. A grammar inves­ tigates a language, or what is correct. Psycholinguistics investiga­ tes, i n t e r alia, linguistic intuition, or what seems correct. (Notice that even if a grammar does not investigate intuition as such, it must nevertheless rely on it, because it is only through the subjective act of intuition that one gets hold of language as objectively given.) The same distinction obtains between logic and psychology of logic: the former investigates formulae which ave (both intuitively and formally) valid, whereas the latter investigates formulae which seem valid. The same distinction recurs, again, between physics and psychology of per­ ception: the former investigates what happens as a matter of fact, whereas the latter investigates what seems, or is perceived, to happen. One may also notice that reality and appearance are relative to the point of view: what is apparent from the point of view of grammar, lo­ gic, or physics, is real from the point of view of psychology: for psychology, intuition and perception are real, and what is apparent, are the various subjective acts by means of which intuition and per­ ception are (perhaps mistakenly) identified. Wittgenstein formulates the decisive importance of the respective points of view in the follow­ ing terms: Is an experiment in which we observe the acceleration of a freely falling body a physical experiment, or is it a psychological one showing what people see in such circumstances? - Can't it be either? Doesn't it depend on its surroundings: on what we do with it, say about it (Wittgenstein 1967: I, §160).

Labov for example finds it somehow theoretically unacceptable that subjective intuition is employed to acquire knowledge about language as a social entity; he labels this view as 'Saussure's paradox' (Labov 1972:185-87). However, there is nothing paradoxical in this procedure. Quite the contrary, it is conceptually impossible that rules qua rules could be reflected upon in any other way. Hence, Saussure was perfect­ ly right to distinguish between langue, parole, and faculté de langage and to move the latter two realms of phenomena, to be investigated, re­ spectively, by empirical sociology and psychology, outside of unguis-

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tics proper, i.e., of grammar, The point is precisely, that even if language is asocial entity, it is also a normative one, and, as such, it cannot be the subject matter of a science subsumable under the general category of empirical sociology; rather, it must be investi­ gated by a science falling under the general category of aprioristic sociology (cf. 2.2. and 2.4. above). What Saussure might be criti­ cised for, is that he did not maintain the distinctions involved with sufficient consequence. For instance, he apparently found it diffi­ cult to accept the ontology of autonomous normativity, which led him to say, occasionally, that langue, though a 'fait social', is of psy­ chic nature and exists in the brain (Saussure 1962:32), something which a 'methodological holist' like Durkheim would never have said. It is no accident, then, that Durkheim anticipates the subjective — objective distinction as it has been defined here: Les moralistes ne sont pas encore parvenus à cette conception très simple que, comme notre représentation des choses sensibles vient de ces choses mêmes et les exprime plus ou moins exactement, not­ re représentation de la morale vient du spectacle même des règles qui fonctionnent sous nos yeux et les figure schématiquement: que, par conséquent, ce sont ces règles et non la vue sommaire que nous en avons, qui forment la matière de la science, de même que la phy­ sique a pour objet les corps tels qu'ils existent, non l'idée que s'en fait le vulgaire. Il en resuite qu'on prend pour base de la morale ce qui n'en est que le sommet, à savoir la manière dont elle se prolonge dans les consciences individuelles et y retentit (Durkheim 1938:30-31).

Dilthey (1927:84) emphasises that what is attained in subjective acts trying to get hold of common knowledge, or objective mind', does not belong to the category of psychological knowledge: Das Verstehen dieses [objektiven] Geistes ist nicht psychologische Erkenntnis. Es ist der Rückgang auf ein geistiges Gebilde von einer ihm eigenen Struktur und Gesetzmässigkeit.

For instance, to know why a given person uttered a given sentence at a given moment is a case of psychological knowledge. On the other hand, to know the (conventional, standard) meaning of the sentence, or of the speech act, in question is a case of non-psychological know­ ledge, i.e., (subjective) knowledge getting hold of (objective) con-

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ceptual r e l a t i o n s e x i s t i n g at the level of common

knowledge. 75a

Collingwood (1946:218) shows t h a t the same s u b j e c t i v e - o b j e c t i v e d i s t i n c t i o n applies also to h i s t o r i c a l

facts:

For the historian, the activities whose history he is studying are not spectacles to be watched, but experiences to be lived through in his own mind; they are objective, or known to him, only because they are also subjective, or activities of his own.

History exists, necessarily as part of the present, only so long as it is known to exist: "The historical process is itself a process of thought, and it exists only in so far as the minds which are parts of it know themselves for parts of it" (Collingwood 1946:226). For Collingwood, to be sure, common knowledge, or 'corporate mind' ( o p . c i t . , p.219), is only part of the objective historical facts which are subjectively known through a process of 're-enactment', or simply of understanding. Taken as a totality, however, history must be seen as a type of common knowledge, because it exists only insofar as it is (commonly) known to exist. This is the most obvious interpretation of the thesis (which I take to be established beyond doubt) that in social matters the past is linked to the present in part conceptually, and not just by a contingent, causal tie. There are less obvious, but still I think - correct interpretations of this thesis which all have to do with social knowledge and meaning: When for example an institution is being changed, it happens with the (unconscious) collective intention that this same institution ought to be,and eventually will be, differ­ ent in certain respects. It is this (near-)identity of the meaning of the institution in the process of change, and the knowledge of it, which ties the different phases of the process of change together by a semi-conceptual tie. An individual speaker possesses a dual role as the agent of (sub­ jective) linguistic intuition and as a 'supporter' of the common know­ ledge constituting (objective) language. To the extent that his par­ ticular intuitions are mistaken, he fails to support common knowledge. He is able, nevertheless, to regain this role, in each particular case, insofar as he remains responsive to social control. A man's intuitions

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disappear with him, but common knowledge is independent of any single man. In the preceding argument, I have used the term 'intuition' to refer to the act of actual ising one's subjective knowledge about some­ thing objectively given. From now on, in conformity with the general usage, I shall not distinguish between subjective linguistic knowledge and its actualisations. Both types of phenomena will be covered by the term 'linguistic intuition'. 5.3. Rules

of Language

and

Certainty

In analytical philosophy it is customarily thought that logical formulae and conceptual sentences, for example "[(pvq)&-p] q" and "A father is a male parent", are necessarily true, and that their truth is known with absolute certainty. On the other hand, it is thought that no sentence which is, in one way or another, about space and time can be necessarily true or known with certainty to be true. Such sen­ tences are conceived as empirical, or testable (in principle) on the basis of what happens in space and time (cf. 1.1. and 1.5. above). Since the existence of a given language seems to be an empirical, spa­ tially and temporally delimited fact, and since the use of language seems to be just a process which goes on in space and time, it is main­ tained, in particular, that no sentences about language can be known with certainty to' be true (or false). In my view such a general conception is entirely false. In 6.0. (below) I shall demonstrate its falsity particularly in relation to sentences about rules of language. In this section I intend to show, with reference to Wittgenstein's philosophy, that there is no basis for dividing sentences into two such strictly separate classes. To begin with, mathematical and logical truths are open to sub­ jective mistakes just like truths of other types: I cannot be making a mistake about 12 χ 12 being 144. And now one cannot contrast mathematical certainty with the relative uncer­ tainty of empirical propositions. For the mathematical proposi­ tion has been obtained by a series of actions that are in no way different from the actions of the rest of our lives, and are in the same degree liable to forgetfulness, oversight and illusion (Wittgenstein 1969b: §651).

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GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE If the proposition '12 χ 12 = 144' is exempt from doubt, then so §653). too must non-mathematical propositions be (op. cit., The question 'But mightn't you be in the grip of a delusion now and perhaps later find this out?' - might also be raised as an ob­ jection to any proposition of the multiplication tables (§658).

The special character of mathematical and logical truths supposed­ ly resides in the fact that it is impossible to doubt them. However, other types of truths, notably those about language, share the same character: We say: if a child has mastered language - and hence its applica­ tion - it must know the meaning of words. It must, for example, be able to attach the name of its colour to a white, black, red or blue object without the occurrence of any doubt. And indeed no one misses doubt here; no one is surprised that we do not merely surmise the meaning of our words (Wittgenstein 1969b: §§522-23). 'I don't know if this is a hand.' But do you know what the word 'hand' means? And don't say 'I know what it means for me now'. And isn't it an empirical fact - that this word is used like this? And here the strange thing is that when I am quite certain of how the words are used, have no doubt about it, I can still give no grounds for my way of going on. If I tried I could give a thou­ sand, but none as certain as the very thing they were supposed to be ground for (§§306-07; cf. also, in particular, §§369-70).

Wittgenstein (§306) fails, however, to make an important distinc­ tion. It is certainly a contingent (rather than empirical) fact that the rule governing the use of 'hand' is what it is, since it is easy to imagine this rule being replaced by another. More precisely, what we have here is the contingent existence of a norm. It is in fact a mis­ leading shorthand expression to say that "This word is used like this". What is meant, is: "This word is used like this, if it is used correct­ ly", which is equivalent to "This word ought to be used like this". In the same way, all grammatical statements about language are of course intended to be statements about correct language. Now, this 'ought'element is not empirical, nor can it be so reinterpreted (cf. 7.0. be­ low). Wittgenstein realises this in part when he asks: "Is it that rule and empirical proposition merge into one another?" (op. cit., §309),

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although I would place contingent (rather than empirical) and normati­ ve elements here at different levels, rather than let them merge into one another. In addition, the presence of the normative element explains the fact which seems to puzzle Wittgenstein, namely that he can give no grounds for his certain knowledge about how a word is (to be) used. The normative force of a genuine rule resides precisely in the fact that one knows what one ought to do. Hence, the force of a rule re­ sides in the rule itself, so to say, not somewhere outside of it. It is futile to argue, on the basis of (non-normative) physiological, psychological, social or economic facts, that there is a rule of a certain kind, if its existence is not evident without such arguments. Conversely, if people are convinced that there is a rule of a certain kind, it is futile to argue, on the basis of physiological etc. facts, 78 that it does not exist.' Moreover, although all rules have different kinds of non-normative substrata, it is impossible to redefine them solely in terms of the latter (cf. again 7.0. below). From the above, it follows that there can be no qualitative dif­ ferences between logi co-mathematical certainty and linguistic certain­ ty, the latter being restricted, of course, only to the simplest type 79

of statements about language. What needs to be pointed out in par­ ticular, is that in Wittgenstein's opinion linguistic certainty per­ tains, not only to semantic aspects - although those are naturally the most interesting ones from the philosophical point of view - but also to phonological aspects of language (cf. also my standard example from morpho-syntax concerning the place of the English definite article): We know, with the same certainty with which we believe any mathe­ matical proposition, how the letters A and Β are pronounced, what the colour of human blood is called, that other human beings have blood and call it 'blood' (Wittgenstein 1969b: §340). Every language-game is based on words and objects being recogniz­ ed again. We learn with the same inexorability that this is a chair as that 2 x 2 = 4 (op.cit., §455).

144

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE It is hardly surprising that linguistic knowledge should turn out

to be at least as certain as logi co-mathematical knowledge.

When

ex­

ploring the limits of possible doubt, Descartes goes so far as to doubt the most elementary arithmetical truths.

However, he does not even come

to think of the possibility of doubting the meaning of those very words with which he expresses his doubt.

It is easy to show that such a doubt

would no longer be rational (cf. Kenny 1975:205).

Therefore those lin­

guists who, in the name of 'absolute falsiticationism', claim that no truths about language can be known with certainty, are expressing a doubt more radical than the Cartesian one, and are, hence, refuting themselves by reductio

ad absurdum (cf. the results of 4.0. above).

The preceding argument may give rise to the following objection: How can the claim that we know the meanings of words with certainty be reconciled with the fact that philosophers apparently for ever dispute about, and thus obviously do not know, the meanings of words like 'time', 'knowledge', or 'freedom'? I think we must distinguish here between two types of knowledge, viz. 'atheoretical' and 'theoretical', to be introduced properly in 8.0. (below).

Philosophers know with absolute certainty

cular kind of uncertainty

what parti-

is connected with a given word;

for in­

stance, they know for sure that the one connected with (the meaning of) 'time' differs from the one connected with 'freedom'.

To put it

in different terms, they know, atheoretically, many different types of (correct) uses of 'time' etc., but what they do not know, is the theoretical framework or system which could put each of these uses into its proper place.

It has been suggested, notably by Wittgenstein,

that there can be in fact no such systems.

However, because this claim

is about theory, it is itself of theoretical nature, and therefore its truth can be known just as little as the truth of theoretical claims in general. It follows quite inescapably, then, that we do know, atheoretically, the meanings of the words of our language (as well as many other atheoretical facts about language).

Chomsky for one is opposed

to this view, claiming that it can be experimentally determined "what

THE CONCEPT OF LANGUAGE

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words really mean" (Chomsky 1972:23). Suppose that one of Chomsky's experiments would reveal that 'dog' really means 'cat'. Of course he would disregard such an experiment, for the sensible reason that its result conflicts with what he (intuitively or pre-experimentally) knows to be the case. But then, clearly, he would not be conducting experi­ ments at all but merely imitating, for whatever reason, the terminolo­ gy of natural science. To see this, we only need to consider an ana­ logous case in physics: Our experiments reveal the existence of waveparticles, and we accept this result although it patently conflicts with our intuitive conception of the nature of the universe. But this is precisely why we have, in physics, to do with genuine experiments. Notice that Chomsky has abandoned here one of his earlier positions, according to which "there is no way to avoid the traditional assump­ tion that the speaker-hearer's linguistic intuition is the ultimate standard that determines the accuracy of any proposed ... operatio­ nal test" (Chomsky 1965:21). Wittgenstein is not content with eliminating the traditional di­ viding-line between logico-mathematical and linguistic truths. He al­ so points out that there are sentences about the external, physical world whose truth can be doubted just as little as that of the most secure logico-mathematical or linguistic sentences. Such apparent­ ly empirical sentences characteristically possess the property that, as long as we do not give up the law of contradiction (and stop think­ ing rationally), their falsity would necessitate the falsity of prac­ tically everything else; and this consequence is unacceptable because we cannot consistently (i.e., again, without giving up the law of con­ tradiction) think that literally everything we (supposedly) know is false. Wittgenstein (1969b: §52) says: ... 'At this distance from the sun there is a planet' and 'Here is a hand' (namely my own hand). The second can't be called a hypothesis. But there isn't a sharp boundary line between them. For it is not true that a mistake merely gets more and more im­ probable as we pass from the planet to my own hand. No: at some point it has ceased to be conceivable.

146

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE This is already suggested by the following: if it were not so, it would also be conceivable that we should be wrong in evevy state­ ment about physical objects; that any we ever make are mistaken. So is the hypothesis possible, that all the things around us don't exist? Would that not be like the hypothesis of our having mis­ calculated in all our calculations? (op. cit. , §54-55).

Hypotheses or uncertain claims about physical, social, or logical matters all presuppose indubitable pre-experimental knowledge of the relevant domains: I want to say: propositions of the form of empirical propositions, and not only propositions of logic, form the foundation of all operating with thoughts (with language)(op. c i t . , §401). If I say 'we assume that the earth has existed for many years past' (or something similar), then of course it sounds strange that we should assume such a thing. But in the entire system of our language-games it belongs to the foundations. The as­ sumption, one might say, forms the basis of action, and there­ fore, naturally, of thought (§411).

Seemingly empirical sentences of this type cannot be genuinely empirical, because we cannot even (consistently) think of what might count here as disconfirmatory evidence. For a theory or hypothesis to be empirical "criteria of refutation have to be laid down before­ hand: it must be agreed which observable situations, if actually ob­ served, mean that the theory is refuted" (Popper 1963:38; cf. 1.1. above). In the case at hand, this requirement cannot be fulfilled: If someone doubted whether the earth had existed a hundred years ago, I should not understand, for this reason: I would not know what such a person would still allow to be counted as evidence and what not (Wittgenstein 1969b: §231). It strikes me as if someone who doubts the existence of the earth at that time is impugning the nature of all historical evidence (op. oit., §188).

Taken by themselves, sentences about rules of language do not seem to possess the property that their falsity would entail the fal­ sity of practically everything else. This is due to the fact that the existence of particular languages is contingent in a way in which

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the existence of our world-picture or of our logic is not. We have seen, however, that the falsity of sentences claiming certain know­ ledge of rules of language would indeed necessitate the falsity of the sentences claiming any kind of certain knowledge; and this is clearly an unacceptable consequence. As for the contingent vs. necessary cha­ racter of existence, the difference between language and worldpicture, or logic, is not as great as it might seem at first glance. It is an obvious fact that different cultures may possess world-pic­ tures which differ in quite fundamental respects, and that even the scientific world-picture may change considerably in the course of time (cf. Wittgenstein 1969b: §94-97). Similarly, even if we cannot imagine a logic fundamentally different from ours, we can imagine the possibility of such a logic; in this special sense, then, even the existence of our logic and mathematics is 'contingent': Now can I prophesy that men will never throw over the present arithmetical propositions, never say that now at last they know how the matter stands? Yet would that justify a doubt on our part? (op. cit., §652; cf. also Stroud 1966).

Similarly, the fact that English may (in fact, will) change in the future, does not in the least call into question my knowledge of English such as it is today. Because mistakes and delusions are always empirically possible, we reach a conclusion similar to the one we reached in connection with the identification of mental phenomena (in 4.2.2. above): it is con­ ceptually necessary that people, when dealing with the stock of every­ day knowledge, are usually right in what they say, think or do, and there are objective criteria for deciding this question; but in each particular case it is possible that an individual person is making a mistake: But since a language-game is something that consists in the re­ current procedures of the game in time, it seems impossible to say in any individual case that such-and-such must be beyond doubt if there is to be a language-game - though it is right enough to say that as a rule some empirical judgement or other must be be­ yond doubt (Wittgenstein 1969b: §519).

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At the level of language, what is known with certainty, are rules of language as defined in 5.1.-2. (above). Truths like "In English the definite article precedes the noun", "[(pvq)&-p] q", and " 2 x 2 = 4" are exempted from doubt and used as criteria to find out whether or not someone understands English, logic, or arithmetic. If someone doubts the truth of such and similar sentences, this tells us nothing about them, but quite a lot about the one who is doubting their (necessary) truth. Their special character is not due to the feeling of certainty, which one is likely to experience when thinking about them; such a feel­ ing may be ill-founded, as the constant possibility of mistake or de­ lusion demonstrates. Rather, this character is due to the objective fact that there is no way to falsify them, a fact, to be sure, which arouses, or is accompanied by, feelings of certainty. From the fact that logical truths are no more certain than some truths about the external world, it does not follow that logic is an empirical science (Wittgenstein 1969b: §98). The same argument applies to grammar. Notice in particular that among the sentences which speak about the external, physical world, the unfalsifiable ones are clearly the exception; they pertain to the most fundamental properties of our world-picture. As regards sentences about language, the situation is entirely different: Rules constitute a language, and are known with 81

certainty; (atheoretical ) rule-sentences, each of which describes a single rule, are accordingly known with certainty to be true (or false), which means that they are unfalsifiable; consequently, a representati­ ve number of sentences about language, namely those which describe lan­ guage most directly, are similar to logical sentences and different from the vast majority of sentences about the external world. It must be added, to anticipate what I am going to say below (in 8.3.), that a theoretical grammar which tries to systematise for example 50,000 rules at the same time, is definitely not known to be either true or false. As has been noted before, this is a universal property of all theories. I consider a theory whose truth is not uncertain, or open to doubt, as a contradiction in terms.

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149

The precise meaning of a sentence, and hence the precise degree of certainty attached to it, depends on the context in which it is uttered. Even the most secure sentences may appear doubtful when they are imagined as being uttered in exceptional circumstances; for instan­ ce, " 2 x 2 = 4" is false, when it is agreed that '2' means '3', and it is meaningless when it is agreed that '2' means 'cat'. Similar even if less drastic considerations have been used in current linguist­ ic discussion to support the view that linguistic facts, the meaning of words and the correctness of sentences, for instance, can never be known with certainty. It is in this vein that Bever (1970:346) urges us to "give up the belief in an 'absolute' intuition about sentences". I regard this position as definitely false. It is a psychological fact that contexts can be created where people come to doubt their senses and even their reason. But this fact does not relativise in the least the objective existence of physical reality and of logic, or our (common) knowledge thereof. Analogously, there may be contexts in which the correctness and meaningful ness of even the most ordinary sentences can be made appear doubtful, but this does not alter the objective fact that they are correct and meaningful. The assumption underlying this claim is that there is something like the 'standard' or 'normal context' in which sentences about different realms of phe­ nomena are, and ought to be , considered (cf. Wittgenstein 1969b: §27). In linguistic matters, this normal context is the one which has serv­ ed as the basis for grammar-writing at least during the last two millenia. During that time, this context, in which basic metalin­ guistic questions like "What does X mean?" or "Is Y correct?" are, and are known to be, asked and answered in a standard fashion, has proved its worth, primarily in language-teaching. First, the existence of a well-established context in which rules of language are known with certainty, is an undisputable fact. Second­ ly, it is a justifiable fact, because grammar cannot be replaced by psycho- or sociolinguistics, which is another way of saying that lin­ guistic normativity cannot be done away with (cf. 7.0. below). It goes without saying that, as a social phenomenon, this normal context

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cannot be defined in precise terms (cf. 4.2.4. above). Yet we cannot help viewing language within it. It is precisely within this context that we are convinced, for instance, of the correctness of the senten­ ces "John is easy to please" and "John is eager to please". The firm­ ness of our conviction is evident from the fact that if a psycholinguistic experiment produces evidence to the contrary, we conclude that the experiment - and not the sentences - is incorrect (cf. the discus­ sion of Chomsky above). One final remark. Rules of language, as defined here, are certain­ ly known or knowable. But let us assume, for the sake of argument, that there is an English-speaking person who is not able to grasp the truth of "In English the definite article precedes the noun". Does this fact relativise the truth of this sentence, or the existence of the corresponding rule? - Not at all. We can safely assume that there is an English-speaking person unable to grasp the truth of "A father is a male parent", without having to draw the conclusion that this sentence is not conceptually, but only probably true. The mere fact that we, as linguists, know the truth of rule-sentences, would already suffice to distinguish them from empirical hypotheses the truth of which no one can know (cf. 6.1. below). Coseriu is one of the few linguists who would agree with what I have been saying here: Gelegentlich wird behauptet, das Sprechen sei eine 'unbewusste' Tätigkeit oder die Sprecher 'seien sich' der Normen der Sprache, die sie sprechen, 'nicht bewusst'; das ist jedoch ein unglücklicher Gedanke, der abzulehnen ist (Coseriu 1974:49). Denn das sprachliche Wissen - das Sprechen- und Verstehenkönnen ist kein theoretisches Wissen, das heisst, es lässt sich nicht oder zumindestens nicht in allen seinen Teilen motivieren. Dennoch ist in jedem Sprecher, der seine Sprache spricht, ein klares und sicheres Wissen (op. cit.,p.50).

And finally: In Wahrheit aber sind sich die Sprecher des Systems und der soge­ nannten 'Gesetze der Sprache' voll bewusst. Sie wissen nicht nur, was sie sagen, sondern auch, wie es gesagt wird (und wie es nicht gesagt wird); auf eine andere Weise könnten sie zumindest nicht

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151

sprechen. Andererseits geht es sicher nicht darum, das Sprach­ instrument zu 'verstehen' (was Sache des Sprachwissenschaftlers ist), sondern darum, es anwenden zu können, die Norm erhalten (nachschaffen) und in Uebereinstimmung mit dem System Sprache schaffen zu können (op. cit., p.51). 5.4. Rules

of Language

and Social

Control

Up to now I have been speaking exclusively about linguistic know­ ledge which is both general and certain. Knowledge of this type (which must of course be of normative, conceptual nature) pertains to rules On the other hand, it is clear that all linguistic know­ of language. ledge is not of this type and thus does not pertain to rules of lang­ uage. Uncertain linguistic knowledge may be either a) atheoretical or b) theoretical. There are two principal types of uncertain atheoretical knowledge of language. Each linguistic change is characterised by the fact that the rules undergoing the change hold only approximately: when a (rulegoverned) entity A is changing into, or is being replaced by, a (rulegoverned) entity B, there is a period during which it is impossible to say that either A or Β is definitely correct or definitely incorrect. of rules has decreasI would say that in such cases the social control ed. Where this happens, statistical description of factual occur­ rences, that is empirical description, is in order even at the level of grammar. 83 Retrospectively it can be said that in the case of genuine rules of language, discussed in the preceding sections and in 6.1.-2. (below), social control is absolute. When this is, and is (commonly) known to be, the case, consideration of factual occurrences is just as unneces­ sary as it would be in description of any well-established game or in­ stitution, and - it should be noted - such a description is of a con­ ceptual , and not an empirical, nature. The existence of linguistic change and of the concomitant lack of social control brings about a qualification of what has been said in this chapter so far, but it does not constitute an objection to it. First, it is obviously not the case that all rules of a language are

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changing at the same time. Here as elsewhere, uncertainty presupposes certainty; rules which hold only approximately presuppose the existence of rules which hold absolutely. Grammatical description traditionally has concentrated on the latter kind of rules. Secondly, and more import­ antly, the uncertainty typical of linguistic change always obtains with­ in the limits of absolute c e r t a i n t y : the uncertainty about the correct­ ness vs. incorrectness of the two entities A and B, of which the one is in the process of supplanting the other, is to be contrasted with the absolute certainty with which we know that all other (possible) entities D, C, etc. are incorrect. This is why linguistic change, or linguistic variation, relativises only to a quite limited extent the general the­ sis about absolute atheoretical knowledge of language. The second instance where social control of atheoretical linguist­ ic knowledge, or of rules of language, decreases, is represented by ex­ traordinary use of language. It is indeed a self-evident truth that, where something exceptional is being done, rules must prove insufficent. Therefore it is only to be expected that social control will decline, and intuitions will diverge, to the extent that sentence-types not rooted in actual use of language are being taken into consideration (cf. 4.2.5. above). In current theoretical linguistics this problem has acquired a central importance. Transformationalists originally based their ana­ lysis on such unequivocally correct sentences as "The man hit the ball" and "John found the boy studying in the library". Little by little, however, they have been driven to analysing more and more complex or outlandish sentences, of the type "John reminds me of himself" or "What's this outmoded tack doing being taken on a complex social issue like ureic deriboflavinization?", with the re­ sult that it is increasingly difficult, and often impossible, to reach a general agreement concerning correctness, synonymy, ambiguity, etc. of sentences under discussion (cf. Botha 1973:178-85 for elabo­ ration). In fact, far-reaching theoretical claims have been (alle­ gedly) refuted simply because of the unreliability of the intuitive data on which they are based. This situation, which is rightly con-

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sidered intolerable (Labov 1972:191-202), can be avoided easily enough, however. Where linguistic knowledge is unreliable, that is, where there are no absolutely binding rules of language, it is natural to take recourse to observation of actual speech and/or to psycholinguistic experimentation. These alternatives have been espoused, for exam­ ple, by Labov and Bever respectively. It must be emphasised, however, that the unreliability of some intuitions by no means entails the un­ reliability of all intuitions. We have already seen that this falla­ cious inference has been made at least by Bever when he urges the re­ jection of an "absolute intuition about sentences" (cf. 5.3. above). - More generally, it is hardly a healthy development that sentences like "John reminds me of himself" become increasingly an object of linguistic analysis. In cases like this, "language goes on holiday" (Wittgenstein 1958: I, §38). Since there are no reliable criteria (which could only be supplied by actual practice, actual use of langu­ age), these sentences "hang in the air" (op. cit., I, §380), and any­ thing whatever can be said about them. Linguistic change, or more generally linguistic variation, and extraordinary use of language are, then, the two cases where atheoretical linguistic knowledge is less than certain, or where the social control of such knowledge is less than absolute. The possibility of spontaneous change is a necessary precondition for the continuous functioning of language, and distinguishes natural language from such artificial normative systems as formal logic or the game of chess. Moreover, linguistic change represents the exact point at which ling­ uistic normativity and linguistic spatiotemporality contact each other, or merge into each other. For my general conception of science, such a point is of absolutely crucial importance since it provides the na­ tural link between the empirical sciences (cf. 1.0, and 2.1.-2. above) and conceptual analyses in the widest sense (cf. 2.4.-6.). On the other hand, theoretical linguistic knowledge is always un­ certain, which means that grammars and any other kinds of theories ex­ pressing such knowledge are always liable to falsification (i.e., fal­ sification 3 ). Falsifiability is indeed a defining property of theories.

154

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIEΝCE

It seems to me that Russell & Whitehead's axiomatisation of propositional logic might be mentioned as an example of a scientific descrip­ tion which starts out as a theory and ends up as an 'instrument of language' (cf. Wittgenstein 1967: II, §29); that is, it is no longer subjected to doubt or revision, but is used, instead, to express and explore doubt about other matters (cf. also 10.0. below). It goes without saying that there are intermediate cases between clear cases of what is atheoretical and what is theoretical. It makes sense to ask for additional criteria of knowledge only when knowledge is less than certain. This means that at the (atheore­ tical) level of the data of grammar, such criteria, to be provided by psycho- and/or sociolinguistic research, can be made use of only when investigating entities exhibiting (diachronic/social/geographic) varia­ tion or representative of extraordinary use of language. At the (the­ oretical) level of grammar, on the other hand, it is always possible to make use of psycho- and/or sociolinguistic evidence in order to decide which one among - using purely grammatical criteria - equally good grammars is the best one. In addition, it is possible (though not necessary) to modify a proposed grammar on the basis of psychoand/or sociolinguistic information. Here we have a working inter­ action between empirical theories and conceptual analyses.

6.0.

THE BASIS OF THE NONEMPIRICAL NATURE OF GRAMMAR

A grammar is a theory of a language. A theory is empirical if, and only if, it is testable on the basis of space-time entities, i.e., events or actions. There are two ways in which a theory may be nonempirical: Either it does not deal with space-time entities at all, in which case it cannot of course be falsified spatiotemporally. Or it deals, at least apparently, with space-time entities, but is formulat­ ed in such a way as not to be falsifiable by them. Philosophical and logical theories are nonempirical in the former sense. Within theoretical sociology, moreover, it is generally agreed that rules are not spatiotemporal, but conceptual entities. Compare the following statements: Zunächst kann die 'Norm': die Spielregel also, als solche zum Gegenstand rein gedanklicher Erörterung gemacht werden (Weber 1968:337; emphasis added). . . . the sociological concern with rules, as also with the roles which they govern, is a concern with forms of behaviour which can be assessed as correct or incorrect performances (Ryan 1970: 137; emphasis added). Thus the regular causal sequence has [in connection with rules] an 'inside' to it, namely the concept u a l , rule-governed sequence (op. cit., p. 140; emphasis added).

To know a rule is to know which entities exemplify, or fail to exemplify, the concept 'correct entity E', whether or not they occur in space and time. Hence knowledge of a rule is knowledge of a (certain kind of) concept; it is not knowledge of what occurs or will occur in space and time. This property of (the knowledge of) rules has its lin­ guistic counterpart in the fact that a sentence describing a rule, viz. a rule-sentence, can be neither confirmed nor falsified by what occurs or will occur in space and time.

156

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE From t h i s c h a r a c t e r i s a t i o n of the standard type of r u l e i t follows

t h a t f o r the same reason as philosophical and l o g i c a l theories ( c f . above) theories which i n v e s t i g a t e only rules could not possibly count as empi¬ rical . In 5.0. (above) I made i t appear at l e a s t p l a u s i b l e t h a t rules of language are s i m i l a r to genuine r u l e s .

In the present chapter I w i l l

attempt to show that rule-sentences describing (non-variable) rules of language and those describing rules of game d i f f e r equally from empirical hypotheses in t h a t they cannot be f a l s i f i e d on the basis of space-time entities. court,

In f a c t , I w i l l demonstrate t h a t they are u n f a l s i f i a b l e

which means t h a t they a r e , i n t h i s technical sense,

t r u e ' or ' n e c e s s a r i l y f a l s e ' . given t h a t (non-variable)

tout

'necessarily

This r e s u l t should not be s u r p r i s i n g ,

rules are known with

certainty

( c f . 5 . 3 . above)

The nonempirical nature of (synchronic) grammars follows now conclusivel y from the nonempirical nature of rule-sentences, if

(and only i f )

it

can be shown t h a t grammars indeed i n v e s t i g a t e o n l y , or mainly, rules f i guring as denotata viz.

of nonempirical rule-sentences.

This l a t t e r

the i n e l i m i n a b i l i t y o f l i n g u i s t i c n o r m a t i v i t y qua

point,

o b j e c t o f gram-

matical d e s c r i p t i o n s , w i l l be proved i n 7.0. (below). 6.1.

The Difference

Between Rule-Sentences

and

Empirical

Hypotheses Our discussion rests on the fundamental distinction between regularities in nature and rules of human

behaviour.85

It is an axiom of the

philosophy of natural science that a universal hypothesis referring to a presumed regularity is falsified, if there occur counter-instances to it (cf. Popper 1965:41, and Hempel 1965:39-40); for example the hypothe­ sis "All pieces of metal expand when heated" is falsified, if we find a piece of metal that does not expand when heated.

On the other hand, a

sentence referring to a rule is not falsified simply because there occur (what looks like) counter-instances to it. Consider the sentence "In poker a full house beats a flush".

This sentence is not falsified by the

fact that in one particular game a player with a flush takes in the pot even though someone else is holding a full house.

Such a performance is

THE NONEMPIRICAL NATURE OF GRAMMAR incorrect,

whereas the rule-sentence is about correct

157 performances o n l y .

I t i s a remarkable f a c t t h a t behaviour v i o l a t i n g a r u l e does not f a l s i f y the corresponding rule-sentence.

The reason is t h a t what one does has

no d i r e c t r e l a t i o n (although i t c e r t a i n l y has some r e l a t i o n )

to what one

ought to do; and a rule-sentence is p r e c i s e l y about what one ought to do. In other words, a rule-sentence is about possible ( c o r r e c t ) actions which ought to be done, and not about f a c t u a l a c t i o n s , whether c o r r e c t or i n c o r r e c t , which are done.

(Of course, a r u l e would cease to e x i s t - i n

any strong sense of ' e x i s t e n c e ' - i f c o r r e c t actions conforming to were no longer done as a matter of f a c t ; but t h i s is a d i f f e r e n t

it

question.)

Now since counter-instances are simply i r r e l e v a n t , we cannot even s p e c i fy the circumstances in which our rule-sentence could be taken to be f a l sified.

But t h i s means that rule-sentences do not s a t i s f y the most basic

requirement imposed on empirical hypotheses and t h e o r i e s , according to which "criteria

of refutation

have to be l a i d down beforehand: i t must

be agreed which observable s i t u a t i o n s , i f a c t u a l l y observed, mean t h a t the theory i t r e f u t e d " (Popper 1963:38). This d i f f e r e n c e between empirical hypotheses and rule-sentences has been c l e a r l y recognised by Ryan (who, to be s u r e , f a i l s to d i s t i n g u i s h between rules and

rule-sentences):

A causal generalization has only one task to fulfil, namely tell­ ing us what will and will not happen under particular conditions, irregularities are thus falsifying counter-examples to the causal law. But rules are not falsifiable in any simple way - except of course that it may be false to say that there is a rule - and breaches of a rule are errors on the part of those whose beha­ viour is governed by it (Ryan 1970:141). By now, I t h i n k I have established beyond reasonable doubt t h a t rule-sentences describing rules of game ( e . g . , rules of poker) and emp i r i c a l hypotheses describing (presumed) r e g u l a r i t i e s in nature

differ

from each other i n t h a t the l a t t e r a r e , and the former are n o t ,

falsi-

f i a b l e on the basis of particular ations. ing

observable

space-time

events

or

situ­

In what f o l l o w s I am going to show t h a t rule-sentences describ-

rules of language are i n every r e l e v a n t respect s i m i l a r to r u l e -

sentences r e f e r r i n g to rules of game and a r e , hence, d i f f e r e n t from em-

158

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

pirical

hypotheses.

Consider our previous rule-sentence " I n English the d e f i n i t e art i c l e precedes the noun".

This sentence is not f a l s i f i e d even i f we

should come across an utterance l i k e " G i r l the came i n " : such an u t t e r ance is incorrect

whereas our rule-sentence is about c o r r e c t utterances

(and sentences) o n l y ,

On the other hand, our rule-sentence cannot of

course be f a l s i f i e d by an utterance l i k e "The g i r l came i n " : such an utterance is c o r r e c t , or such as the rule-sentence says i t ought to be. Consequently, the rule-sentence can be f a l s i f i e d n e i t h e r by i n c o r r e c t utterances nor by c o r r e c t u t t e r a n c e s , which means i n e f f e c t t h a t cannot be spatiotemporally f a l s i f i e d at a l l . tiotemporally

falsifiable'.86

'Empirical'

equals

it 'spa-

Since our rule-sentence is spatiotem-

p o r a l l y u n f a l s i f i a b l e , i t must be nonempirical. Moreover, according to one common d e f i n i t i o n ,

'necessarily t r u e ' equals ' u n i v e r s a l and u n f a l s i -

fiable'.87 Since our rule-sentence is both universal (cf. n.86) and unfalsifiable (cf. immediately above), it follows, then, that it is also necessarily true in the present, technical sense. - Before we accept this conclusion, I shall dispose of one rather obvious objection that may be brought up. One might admit that in the present state of English our rule-sen­ tence about the definite article, and all similar rule-sentences (cf. 6.2.), are in fact unfalsifiable. But - one might argue - it is clearly possible to imagine a state of English in which phrases like "girl the" would be correct. In this imaginary English, then, our rule-sentence would apparently be false, which would mean that it is not unfalsifi­ able, or necessarily true, after all. There are several reasons why this argument cannot be upheld. First; the rule-sentence is here supposed to be falsifiable by the existence of a rule differing from the one which exists in fact. It will be recalled that an empirical hypothesis is falsifiable only by spatiotemporal events or facts. But it is not a spatiotemporal fact that a language contains this or that rule. This can be seen most di­ rectly from the definition of rule, which says that rules exist only at the level of common knowledge (cf. 5.1. above). Moreover, I shall

THE NONEMPIRICAL NATURE OF GRAMMAR

159

show in 7.0. (below) that there is no possible way to redefine rules in spatiotemporal terms. Second; the argument against my thesis, viz. against the nonempi¬ rical nature of rule-sentences, is valid only if it is able to establish a complete analogy between rule-sentences and empirical hypotheses. There can be no such analogy, however, because it would mean that hy­ potheses of physics could be falsified only by the change of physical

regularities

those

to which they were supposed to refer. But this

is of course not how hypotheses of physics are universally understood as being falsified or falsifiable. change

Besides, the whole notion of a

of (physical) regularities, or 'laws of nature', is very

suspi­

cious. Third; consideration of changes chronic

which a state of language might

undergo conflicts with the fundamental attitude of syn­

conceivably

-grammatical description.

Analogously, a description of the

rules of poker must disregard the possibility that they will perhaps be changed in the future.

A description of the present rules of poker

cannot be falsified by any future changes, since it is the express pur­ pose of such a description to describe the rules before occurred.

any change has

Therefore, a synchronic rule-sentence which could be falsi­

fied only diachronically, cannot be falsified at all. The sentence "In English the definite article precedes the noun", which is intended to refer only

to English as it

is

today , and which is known with abso­

lute certainty to refer truthfully to it, cannot be falsified by refer­ ence to some other

state of English, past or future, which it is defi­

nitely not intended to refer to. Notice also that if English were to contain a rule according to which "girl the" could be correct, then

we

would know this rule with the same certainty as we know the actual rule oo

today.

-

We have seen that a similar situation exists even in logic

and mathematics: it is possible that the future rules of inferring and calculating will be different from the present ones, but this is no reason to doubt the latter today (cf. p.147) The sentences which we have been examining here might be reformu­ lated as universal implications e.g. in the following way: "For all x, if χ is a piece of metal and is being heated, then χ will expand".

160

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

"For allxand for all y, if χ is a full house and y is a flush in poker, then χ beats y", "For all χ and for all y, if χ is a (correct) English definite article and y is a noun correlated with x, then χ precedes y". In the first implication the relation between the denotata of the ante­ cedent and of the consequent is an empirical one, as is shown by the fact that the antecedent may conceivably be true even if the consequent is false (cf. 1.5. and 4.2.2. above). On the other hand, in the latter two implications the relation between the denotata of the antecedent and of the consequent is a conceptual one: it is impossible for the antecedent to be true if the consequent is false, because it is a de­ fining property of any full house and any flush, as correctly under­ stood, that the former beats the latter, just as it is a defining pro­ perty of any correct definite article in English that it precedes the noun correlated with it. If in a particular game a full house does not beat a flush, the game is not being played correctly. If in a particu­ lar utterance of an English sentence a definite article does not pre­ cede the noun correlated with it, English is not being spoken correctly.89 - We see that rules are in conflict with the thesis of atomism: they determine properties which are internal, or conceptually tied, to entities under discussion, e.g., definite articles or full houses. This only repeats the result we have reached above. The rule about the place of the definite article in English obvious­ ly has no exceptions, and is also known to have none. But - it might be asked - is it not true that most rules of language do have excepti­ ons, and do these not constitute falsificatory evidence against the cor­ responding rule-sentences? Answering this question gives me an oppor­ tunity to specify my notions of rule and rule-sentence more precisely. As an example of a rule of language, the rule about the English definite article is unnecessarily abstract or general. For my purposes, it is sufficient to divide this rule up into a set of lower-level rules which determine for each particular noun of English that, when the noun is correlated with the definite article, the article precedes, and does not follow, it. The corresponding rule-sentences are of the type "In English the definite article precedes the word man", "In English the de-

THE NONEMPIRICAL NATURE OF GRAMMAR

161

finite article precedes the word woman", etc. It is clear that such sentences refer to genuine rules, and not to particular spatiotemporal events, because they refer to word-types (or word-concepts), and not to any particular one from among those potentially infinitely many spatiotemporal word-tokens which may exemplify any given word type. 90 My rules and rule-sentences are primarily meant to exist at this level of concreteness . I take it for granted that ordinary people, not to speak of professional linguists, are able to know with certain­ ty also rules of a more abstract type. But I have no need for such rules, because I am interested only in proving that in language there are genuine rules; and the most concrete kinds of rules are best suit­ ed for my purpose. From this requirement of concreteness it follows, among other things, that at the linguistic level examined here there 'exceptions' are absolutely no exceptions because the (traditional) ave themselves rules. Consider the rule according to which the end­ etc.). ing of the English plural is -s (and not -t, -rk, -buruburu, I break down this rule into a set of rules which state the correct plural forms of each particular English noun. According to one of these rules, the correct plural for boy is boys', according to another, the correct plural for man is men. To repeat, I am sure that in addi­ tion to knowing the rules which determine the correct plural form for each noun taken separately, ordinary speakers are also able to know the generalised rule according to which -s is the correct ending for almost all nouns. I am also sure that ordinary speakers can be guided into knowing even more general types of rule. I am, however, not concerned here with establishing the boundary line between atheoretical and theoretical, or what can, and what cannot be known. This is obviously an empirical question, which can be an­ swered only on the basis of psychological experimentation (cf. n.90); and the answer must certainly be formulated in statistical terms. Here as elsewhere, I am solely concerned with conceptual questions. (This should be kept in mind throughout my argument. The methodology of an empirical science - not to speak of the methodology of grammar - is not itself an empirical science.) Accordingly I am concerned here with

162

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

e s t a b l i s h i n g the existence of those absolutely clear cases t h a t may be taken as the two extremes of the continuum leading from a t h e o r e t i c a l to t h e o r e t i c a l : At the one end, we have rule-sentences l i k e " I n English the d e f i n i t e a r t i c l e precedes the word man" or " I n English the p l u r a l of boy is

boys";

at the other end, we have grammatical hypotheses

the ' s u b j e c t r a i s i n g t r a n s f o r m a t i o n ' or the 'A-over-A p r i n c i p l e ' 9.5. below).

like

(cf.

There can be, and a r e , f a l s i f i c a t o r y counter-instances to

such hypotheses, f o r the obvious reason t h a t n e i t h e r t h e i r scope nor t h e i r t r u t h i s known w i t h c e r t a i n t y ( c f . 5 . 3 . - 4 . above).

On the other

hand, we have seen t h a t there can be no counter-instances

(or 'excep-

tions')

to rule-sentences, the term 'rule-sentence 1 being used here to

r e f e r to rules of the most r e s t r i c t e d and concrete type ( f o r more examples, c f . 6 . 2 . below).

Moreover, the counter-instances to

grammatical hypotheses are which the hypotheses f a i l

rules

-

(theoretical)

and not events or occurrences

i n one way or another to account f o r .

-

91

A rule-sentence l i k e " I n English the d e f i n i t e a r t i c l e precedes the word man" cannot be f a l s i f i e d because i t is known to be t r u e .

On the

other hand, a rule-sentence l i k e " I n English the d e f i n i t e a r t i c l e f o l l o w s the word man" i s known to be f a l s e , but i t can be said to be

falsified

j u s t as l i t t l e as f o r instance the sentence "A f a t h e r is a female parent" can be. U n t i l now we have been discussing the concept of f a l s i f i c a t i o n . Next, l e t us consider the concept of c o n f i r m a t i o n .

I t is an axiomatic t r u t h of

the philosophy of natural science t h a t empirical universal

hypotheses

can only be confirmed to a higher or lower degree, which means t h a t they may eventually be assumed to be t r u e ; but they can never be conclusively confirmed, or v e r i f i e d , i . e . , known to be t r u e .

By c o n t r a s t , true r u l e -

sentences are of course known to be t r u e : t h i s is p r e c i s e l y the reason why they are u n f a l s i f i a b l e .

To deny t h i s is to claim t h a t even when

examining English as we know i t , we can only 'observe' p a r t i c u l a r r e c t occurrences "the man", "the man", "the man" e t c . 'hypothesis'

cor-

' c o n f i r m i n g ' the

" I n English the d e f i n i t e a r t i c l e precedes the word man",

but t h a t we can never know f o r sure whether t h i s But such a claim i s surely absurd.

'hypothesis' i s t r u e .

Since our ( t r u e ) rule-sentence can-

THE NONEMPIRICAL NATURE OF GRAMMAR

163

not be falsified by incorrect utterances (nor, of course, by correct ut­ terances), it cannot be verified by correct utterances, either. According to another axiom concerning the nature of empirical hypo­ theses, an existential hypothesis like "There are unicorns" can be veri­ fied by finding a confirmatory instance, but cannot be falsified, i.e., conclusively disconfirmed: if we do not find any unicorns, this does not prove that there are none (although it makes this highly probable), Now if we make an analogous existential statement concerning English, e.g., "In English there is a preposition b l i p which is fully synonymous with 92

on", it is clear that we know its falsity with absolute certainty. To deny this is to argue, absurdly, that although we do not personally know of any such English preposition, this does not prove that it does not exist in English as we know it. And even if we did make an utterance like "This book is blip the table", which apparently contains a confir­ matory instance verifying our 'hypothesis', we would simply brush aside this example as irrelevant, because it is - once again - incorrect of English. This means that, analogously to the case of falsification (atheoretical) true universal statements about English, we cannot even specify the conditions under which we would be willing to consider our (atheoretical) false existential statement about English as verified. And since this (false) statement could not possibly be verified, it can­ not properly be called falsified either, just as our unfalsifiable rulesentence concerning the place of the definite article could not proper­ ly be called verified (cf. above). A doubt concerning the truth of "In English the definite article precedes the word man" and the falsity of "In English there is a prepo­ sition blip which is fully synonymous with on" is fundamentally differ­ ent from a doubt concerning the truth of an empirical universal hypothe­ sis and the falsity of an empirical existential hypothesis. In these latter instances, as we have seen, a doubt is a conceptual necessity, whereas in the former cases a doubt is excluded. Therefore, if we have to find in the context of natural science an equivalent to a doubt of the former type, we should compare it, rather, to a doubt concerning the outcome of particular experiments or the observational data in general:

164

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

I see that this piece of metal expands when heated but I doubt it; and no amount of evidence can convince me that my doubt is baseless. This example makes it clear that doubts of this kind are essentially irra­ tional. If they were taken seriously, empirical (or grammatical) re­ search could not even begin. It would be just as irrational for me to doubt, when playing poker, whether a full house r e a l l y beats a flush, in spite of the fact that I have always been playing, and seen every­ body else play, according to this rule and that, if I ask others, they tell me that this is indeed the correct way of playing. It is important to notice that in my opinion the paradigmatic case of language description is the one where the linguist is describing his native language. It is easy to see that this is the ideal to which ling­ uists describing foreign languages have always attempted to approximate in their efforts to better understand the languages under study. Whether this has been acknowledged or not, the primary object of linguistic de­ scriptions has always been language as it is known by those who fluent­ ly speak it, and the use of informants for instance is nothing but a short-cut to that intuition which, due either to the lack of time or to self-imposed methodological restrictions (as in the time of American 'taxonomic' linguistics), one was not in a position to acquire. However, native speakers have no uniquely priviledged status. New languages can be learnt, and when one speaks a foreign language reasonably well, one is entitled to consider describing it with roughly the same competence as native speakers are. We may conclude that in matters of confirmation and falsification empirical hypotheses and (linguistic) rule-sentences behave in funda­ mentally different ways, due to the fundamental difference between re­ gularities and rules. This difference could be summed up in the follow­ ing way: Rules are known to exist, and they determine which occurrences (i.e., normative actions) are, and are known to be, correct, whereas oc­ currences (i.e., events and non-normative actions) determine which re­ gularities are assumed to exist. Or, from the perspective of linguistic expression, rules determine which rule-sentences are known to be true, whereas occurrences determine which empirical universal hypotheses are assumed to be true.

THE NONEMPIRICAL NATURE OF GRAMMAR

165

I think the facts which I have been discussing here are quite un­ ambiguous; I also think that the conclusions which I have drawn from these facts are beyond dispute. It might seem surprising then that TG and most other schools of linguistics either have never discussed these relatively simple questions at all or have at most made summary claims which are tantamount to a denial of the conclusions drawn here. However, there is a logical explanation for this seemingly peculiar attitude. The difference between rules (of language) and regularities, which was demonstrated above, is based on the normative nature of rules. Now, probably because of the general intellectual climate of our century, it is generally thought that linguistics is an empirical science in the positivistic sense, i.e., comparable to any standard natural scien­ ce (cf. 3.0. above). But there is, and could be, nothing normative about natural events, e.g., the movements of planets or gas molecules. And this non-normativity of events exemplifying regularities in nature is conceptually linked to the fact that regularities can never be known with certainty, which means that hypotheses referring to them can never be known with certainty to be true. Consequently TG, as well as most other schools of linguistics, must claim that in language there are no rules, but only regularities, and that sentences referring to these 'regularities' are genuine universal hypotheses, i.e., can never be known for sure to be true. We have just seen that this attitude is contrary to the facts. As a representative of positivistic linguistics, Harris (1961:254) that "given the present Eng­ was logical enough to claim, i n t e r alia, lish system in which / η/ does not occur initially, the possibility that someone will pronounce an English utterance containing initial / η / , e.g., in / n e n / is very remote", with the clear implication that if such an utterance should occur, it would have to be accounted for in the pho­ nological description of English. Here Harris is straightforwardly adopting the position that in language, just as in nature, all actual occurrences are equally relevant. But we have seen that the fact that someone utters a form like "girl the", for example, has no relevance to the description of English, because such a form is incorrect, and there-

166

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIEΝCE

fore i r r e l e v a n t .

I t is clear t h a t on t h i s issue TG would not wish to

share H a r r i s ' s p o s i t i o n , but the i n t e r e s t i n g thing is t h a t i t has in f a c t no right

to exclude i t s e l f from sharing i t .

To repeat, TG claims

to be a natural science dealing w i t h observable events: but natural events cannot

be e i t h e r c o r r e c t or i n c o r r e c t s whereas utterances and

sentences must be; and the notion of correctness is c o r r e l a t i v e w i t h the notion of r u l e . The 'ordinary-language philosophers' have f u l l y recognised the nonempirical nature of statements about language ( c f . Cavell 1971a and Hare 1971).

93

Since they are concerned w i t h the use (and hence the

meaning) of p h i l o s o p h i c a l l y i n t e r e s t i n g words, the t r u t h of the s t a t e ­ ments they make is of course f a r from e v i d e n t .

This means t h a t , i n ­

stead of being comparable to rule-sentences, such statements represent a c e r t a i n type of t h e o r e t i c a l hypothesis about (what i s meant i n ) guage

lan­

( c f . 8 . 3 . below). 6 . 2 . Examples

of Rules

and

Rule-Sentences

I t i s an essential requirement f o r rule-sentences t h a t they be absolutely t r i v i a l : sentences about language whose t r u t h or f a l s i t y i s not known immediately and beyond the p o s s i b i l i t y of doubt are ex definitione

not rule-sentences.

Therefore there can be no s c i e n t i f i c

i n t e r e s t i n s t a t i n g rule-sentences of a given language.

However, there

is a considerable m e t a s c i e n t i f i c i n t e r e s t i n merely r e a l i s i n g t h a t the­ re ave such sentences, i n view of the f a c t t h a t , because of t h e i r nonempirical n a t u r e , they f l a t l y c o n t r a d i c t the p e r s i s t e n t claim t h a t linguistics

( i n the sense of 'grammar') i s an empirical science. That

i s , they prove t h a t n o n - t r i v i a l grammatical t h e o r i e s , whose t r u t h or f a l s i t y i s not known, are not empirical t h e o r i e s , but hypothetical

con­

ceptual d e s c r i p t i o n s , given t h a t both ( a t h e o r e t i c a l ) rule-sentences and (theoretical) (normative)

grammars speak

-

When I d i r e c t a t t e n t i o n to entities. facts.

i n d i f f e r e n t ways

-

about the same

reality. r u l e s , I am not i n t r o d u c i n g any new

A l l t h a t I o f f e r i s reinterpretation

of some well-known

This can be made more precise as f o l l o w s .

Each science must

THE NONEMPIRICAL NATURE OF GRAMMAR

167

have its own set of basic statements, i.e., statements dealing with the simplest aspect of that region of reality with which the science in question is concerned. The basic statements of natural science are about particular spatiotemporal occurrences (cf. above). What do the basic statements of grammar look like? Bach (1974:61-63) and Leech (1974:84-90) give examples of, respectively, morpho-syntactic and se­ mantic basic statements. For instance: "The past tense of play is played. singed hut sang."

The past tense of sing

is not

"Sing is a verb, It is by virtue of this property that it can occur in contexts like these: me a song.' To The best

is more fun that to be silent . but not like these: is Home on the range.

John is

er that Mary.

The extremely

man told me a long story."

"Sing is a verb of the class that can occur in the progressive as­ pect {He is singing a song) , as opposed to verbs like know (' He is knowing the answer). " "Sing can occur in the passive: This song was first Vallee. ( This man is resembled by his mother.)"

sung by Rudy

"Sing can stand with two NP's in its predicate: She sang me a song (compare She saw me a sailboat)." "I am an orphan or mother. "

is synonymous with I am a child

"I am an orphan

entails I have no

"This

orphan

has a father

and have no

father

father."

is a contradiction."

To this list we can add the following phonological rules for in­ stance: "The words pill and pan (kill and can, etc.) begin similarly" and kill (pan and can, etc.) begin differently". and "The words pill Notice that those 'basic statements of grammar', i.e., rule-senten­ ces, which contain theoretical terms like 'progressive aspect' or 'syno-

168

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

nymous', are not immediately understandable to a layman.

To t h i s ex-

t e n t , then, they do not j u s t express p r e s c i e n t i f i c or a t h e o r e t i c a l everyday knowledge.

However, i t is obvious that they could be r e f o r m u l a t -

ed i n purely a t h e o r e t i c a l

terms.

Besides, the meaning of those theore-

t i c a l terms t h a t occur i n the rule-sentences here considered can be e a s i ly taught to everybody. False rule-sentences most often look simply r i d i c u l o u s , f o r instance: "The past tense counterpart of He is singing

is He singebat".

But t h i s

is p r e c i s e l y the proof of the absolute c e r t a i n t y w i t h which we know t h e i r falsity. There are cases d i f f e r e n t from those enumerated above, where the social control of rules is less than absolute ( c f . 5.4. above). For i n stance, i s i t ( d e f i n i t e l y )

c o r r e c t or i n c o r r e c t to say "You d o n ' t know

nothing"? However, such l e s s - t h a n - c l e a r cases do not r e l a t i v i s e cases which are c l e a r .

In a d d i t i o n , even the uncertainty about the former

type of examples obtains w i t h i n the l i m i t s of absolute c e r t a i n t y .

We

know, f o r i n s t a n c e , t h a t only sentences l i k e "You know n o t h i n g " , "You d o n ' t know a n y t h i n g " , and "You d o n ' t know nothing" are here possible candidates f o r correctness.

Nothing would be easier than to imagine

non-existent expressions which might be perceived as t r y i n g to say the same t h i n g , but which would be (known to be) d e f i n i t e l y i n c o r r e c t , e . g . , "You knewing anything n o t " . 6 . 3 . Two D i f fe r e n t Types

of

Rule-Sentence

I t i s often held t h a t rule-sentences (generally r e f e r r e d to as 'rules')

lack t r u t h - v a l u e .

Thus, according to the p o s i t i o n of e a r l i e r

p o s i t i v i s m and, more generally, of the ' i n s t r u m e n t a l i s t '

school of the

philosophy of science, universal ( t h e o r e t i c a l ) hypotheses are i n t e r preted as ' r u l e s ' , or recommendations, f o r making p r e d i c t i o n s about observable events, which is then taken to imply t h a t universal hypotheses are n e i t h e r true nor f a l s e .

And l o g i c a l t r u t h s are even more f r e -

quently i n t e r p r e t e d as rules f o r making c o r r e c t inferences.

Such a

view is understandable i n so f a r i t concentrates upon the p r e s c r i p t i v e or imperative f u n c t i o n of rule-sentences, because imperatives are obv i o u s l y n e i t h e r true nor f a l s e , but rather appropriate or inappropriate

THE NONEMPIRICAL NATURE OF GRAMMAR and, i f the former, then e i t h e r obeyed or disobeyed.

169 "Close the door"

would be inappropriate i f u t t e r e d in the middle of a desert or i n a room w i t h a closed door.

I t would be a p p r o p r i a t e , i f i t were u t t e r e d

in a room w i t h an open door and addressed to a person who is able to close the door.

I t might j u s t be possible to i n t e r p r e t the sentence

" I n English the d e f i n i t e a r t i c l e precedes the word man" as meaning "Place the d e f i n i t e a r t i c l e in f r o n t of the word man, when speaking E n g l i s h ! " . But i t i s q u i t e unarguable t h a t under normal circumstances the sentence i n question is ascribed a d e s c r i p t i v e f u n c t i o n , i . e . , i s taken to be a d e s c r i p t i o n , and a true

it

d e s c r i p t i o n , of a r u l e of Eng-

l i s h , j u s t as i t s negation " I n English the d e f i n i t e a r t i c l e does not precede the word man" is taken to be false.

Consequently I accept

it

as a f a c t about language t h a t i t s rule-sentences have t r u t h - v a l u e . The t r u t h or f a l s i t y of a rule-sentence is determined by the existence or the non-existence of the r u l e which i t purports to r e f e r t o . Logical t r u t h s l i k e

' p v - p ' d i f f e r from rule-sentences in t h a t they

are not m e t a l i n g u i s t i c , t h a t i s , they do not speak about uage, l i k e the l a t t e r .

(object)

lang-

(We saw i n 5 . 2 . above t h a t metalanguage is simp-

l y the expression of one's r e f l e x i v e consciousness as i t p e r t a i n s , spec i f i c a l l y , to acts of speaking.)

Yet, l o g i c a l t r u t h s might be said to

be based on natural language i n s o f a r as they a r e , o r i g i n a l l y , f o r m a l i sations of c e r t a i n types of necessary t r u t h s expressible in natural language.

In t h i s sense, t h e n , natural language, as well as the t h i n k -

ing and a c t i n g i n t o which i t i s embedded, c o n s t i t u t e s the Sinnes funda­ ment of l o g i c ( c f . 2.6. above). values, i . e . ,

Replacing the symbols f o r the t r u t h -

'T' and ' F ' , by a r b i t r a r y symbols l i k e

'1'

and ' 0 ' may

be a convenient way of b r i n g i n g out the purely mechanical, manipulative aspect of formal l o g i c , but i t should not make one f o r g e t the meaning of l o g i c .

That ' p v - p ' has on a l l i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s the value '1', means

n o t h i n g , u n t i l one learns t h a t ' 1 ' stands f o r

' t r u e ' , and t h a t t h i s

is

a s p e c i a l way of saying t h a t (any sentence exemplifying) the formula ' p v - p ' i s necessarily t r u e . Consequently, i t i s p e r f e c t l y proper to speak of l o g i c a l Of course, rules of inference

like

truths.

170

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

which show how one is to get from given premises to the conclusion, cannot be called true or false, but only valid or invalid. However, they can be easily transformed into formulae admitting of truth-va­ lue, e.g., "[(pvq)&-p] q". This is why validity is generally used as a superordinate term applying both to rules of inference and to formili ae. In this chapter I have limited the notion of rule-sentence in such a way that (atheoretical) rule-sentences and (theoretical) gram­ mars not purporting to refer to existing rules are decreed to lack truth-value (cf. the discussion of the impossibility of diachronic falsification of rule-sentences in 6.1. above). I now have to reveal the presupposition on account of which it makes sense to treat lin­ guistic descriptions in this way. It is a self-evident truth that a natural language fulfils a multiplicity of different functions. It appears to be generally felt that language fulfils these functions well enough, one reason for this being that mostly they do not exist prior to and independently of language, but are rather made possible by language and develop (spontaneously) together with it. Be it as it may, the fact is that it is only seldom that there arises a need to change, i.e., to improve, language in such a way that it better suits those functions which it is supposed or required to fulfil. And when such a need does arise, it mostly manifests itself in the creation of technical sublanguages or formal languages which stand clearly apart from natural languages and, hence, are not part of the (traditional) subject matter of linguistics. It is important to realise that it is only in the context of an activity with no built-in interest in con­ scious change and improvement that, strictly speaking, it makes sense to establish the synchronic - diachronic dichotomy. Our everyday speech is generally thought to be such an activity, that is, the state of language preceding a linguistic change has no conscious or inten­ relation to the state of language that will tional (i.e., conceptual)

THE NONEMPIRICAL NATURE OF GRAMMAR

171

emerge a f t e r the change; consequently, i t makes sense to e s t a b l i s h synchronic studies which have, at l e a s t in p r i n c i p l e , no r e l a t i o n to the h i s t o r y of

language. 94

referring to existing

And, in the synchronic c o n t e x t , only sentences

rules are t r u e .

However, there are also other types of 'games', i . e . , ed a c t i v i t i e s , than the one exemplified by speaking.

rule-govern-

For instance, the

research conducted by a natural s c i e n t i s t , which follows i t s own procedural r u l e s , contains a b u i l t - i n i n t e r e s t in improving i t s e l f ,

i.e.,

in

i n v e n t i n g new rules capable of f a c i l i t a t i n g the f u l f i l m e n t of the overa l l goal of the a c t i v i t y in q u e s t i o n ; and such new, e f f e c t i v e rules of course replace the o l d e r , less e f f e c t i v e ones.

Now, i t i s obvious t h a t

my notion of rule-sentence which was so devised as to apply to games analogous to natural languages does not apply to games analogous to the p r a c t i c e of the natural sciences.

According to the previously given

d e f i n i t i o n of rule-sentence, a sentence recommending or imagining a so f a r non-existent r u l e is n e i t h e r

true nor f a l s e .

is i n t e r p r e t e d as p u r p o r t i n g (and f a i l i n g ) r u l e , then i t is simply f a l s e .

I f such a sentence

to r e f e r to some e x i s t i n g

We have, however, j u s t seen t h a t in

some contexts a sentence which does not r e f e r to any (as y e t )

rule may precisely

existing

for this reason be the ' t r u e ' one:95 such a sentence

recommends a new r u l e which i s , according to some pre-established standard, more c o r r e c t t h a t the e x i s t i n g r u l e s , and t h e r e f o r e the actions conforming to the new r u l e would be more c o r r e c t than the c u r r e n t l y performed actions which conform to e x i s t i n g rules and are of course c o r r e c t i n r e l a t i o n to these.

I f , w i t h respect to the p r a c t i c e of

science, only sentences describing what is

done (and not what ought

to

be done) were t r u e , science could never have developed out of magic, in the f i r s t p l a c e , and we would, f o r i n s t a n c e , s t i l l earth is f l a t .

believe t h a t the

(Notice t h a t actions are c o r r e c t in r e l a t i o n to r u -

l e s , whereas rules are c o r r e c t in r e l a t i o n to the c l e a r l y

identifiable

o v e r - a l l f u n c t i o n or goal of the t o t a l a c t i v i t y , supposing t h a t i t has one.

Insofar as speaking has no such f u n c t i o n , i t is not reasonable

to ask whether rules of language are c o r r e c t or i n c o r r e c t . ) What I said about the p r a c t i c e of a natural s c i e n t i s t applies the p r a c t i c e of a social s c i e n t i s t in a two fold

way,

to

Here, t o o , there

172 are

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE pre-established standards which determine what is to be considered

as true or f a l s e w i t h i n the social t h e o r y , but the o r i g i n of these standards is not the same as w i t h i n the natural sciences, as Marcuse (1964: 6) has pointed out: 'Truth' and 'falsehood' of needs designate objective conditions to the extent to which the universal satisfaction of vital needs, and beyond it, the progressive alleviation of toil and poverty, are universally valid standards. But as historical standards, they do not only vary according to area and stage of development, they al­ so can be defined only in (greater or lesser) contradiction to the prevailing ones.

Consequently the prevailing standards, as opposed to the 'real' or universally valid standards, are precisely those of a false conscious­ ness, or 'ideology' in the pejorative sense. To put it more precisely, here the standards of truth and false­ hood are not primarily set up at the level of science but at the level of the social reality which is the object of science, and social scien­ tists merely take over and define these standards. The basis for this is that, unless social scientists, under the influence of positivism, are willing to ignore the social character of their subject matter and hence to accept a distorted view of social sciences, they have to admit that they cannot trascend the social reality in which they live and which at the same time is the object of their study; because they are inside , they cannot bring from outside any standards of measurement and truth with which the social reality could be confronted (cf. 2.2. above). Since the social reality is permeated with conflicting, all-em­ bracing standards of truth and falsehood, which coincide, roughly, with conflicting social classes, social scientists cannot avoid accepting, either implicitly or explicitly, one or another of those standards. And if, as is done within 'critical' or 'emancipatory' sociology for in­ stance, they accept the above-mentioned standards of the satisfaction of vital needs and of the alleviation of toil and poverty, they reveal a built-in interest in developing and improving not only (the rules of) their own science but also its object. From the above it follows that if one accepts the standards of critical sociology, which are, on the

THE NONEMPIRICAL NATURE OF GRAMMAR

173

global scale, certainly the most universal ones, then - just as in the case of sentences describing the scientific practice - only those sentences pertaining to social reality which describe something that does not exist (i.e., alternative social realities) but which ought to exist are 'true'. Sociological practice consists in defining the notyet-existing truth on the basis of, and in contradi ci tion to the exist­ ing falsehoods and in trying to change the latter into the former; com­ pare Marcuse's (1964 : xii) observation that the "values attached to the alternatives do become facts when they are translated into reality by historical practice. The theoretical concepts terminate with social change" (cf. also the Sapir-quotation p.67) Whether or not there will be a change as envisaged, constitutes the criterion for the success of the theory. However, it does not seem adequate to say that it constitutes as well the criterion for the truth of the latter, because a theory may correctly identify the truth, while simultaneously analysing and predicting its own, at least temporary, lack of success. By contrast, posi ti vi sti c (including Popperian) sociology rejects the above-mentioned standards of truth and falsehood. This leaves two possibilities open: either it tries to prevent a change as envisaged either to bring the change about above from coming about; or it forbears or to prevent it from coming about (for these notions, cf. von Wright 1968:38-39). The latter alternative corresponds to the position held by traditional 'value-free' science. Now, the social change at issue is a qualitative change; it concerns not just particular actions, but social regularities (rather than rules) governing particular actions. No similar change is possible within natural science, because the change of physical regularities, if possible at all, lies at any rate outside This non-parallelism between social the human sphere of influence. science and natural science might be objected to on the grounds that the variant social regularities which are quite obviously open to the human influence are in reality just manifestations of some invariant social regularities comparable to genuine laws of nature. This objec­ tion is without substance, however, because sociology has never been

174

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

able to uncover such invariant regularities (cf. 2.2. above). Because the subject matter of natural science lies outside the human sphere of influence, one can try neither to bring about nor to prevent a change of the laws of nature; nor can one forbear to do either. We have seen, by contrast, that these possibilities of action are necessarily open to the social scientist. He cannot avoid being confronted with the normative, or indeed e t h i c a l , question as to what he ought to do about the subject matter of his own science, i.e., whether to try to bring about a certain type of change, or to try to prevent it from coming about, or to forbear to do either. What is im­ portant here, is to see that even forbearance is an answer to a value question. Therefore, contrary to what seems to be the case at first glance, there can be no value-free social science. Earlier prescriptive grammars often tried to prevent linguistic changes from coming about. Today it is generally thought that any sci­ entific form of linguistics must adopt the attitude of forbearance to­ wards linguistic behaviour. However, this view is in no way inevitable, and it has been effectively challenged by Hymes (1974, chap. 10) and by other representatives of what can only be called 'emancipatory linguist­ ics' . Critical sociology is comparable to philosophy of science, logic, and mathematics insofar as all these sciences are concerned with invent­ ing new and better, or more effective, forms of activity within the do­ main of their data. I have indicated before that there is no hard-andfast division between prescriptive science and critical science. The aporopriateness of the one label or the other depends on whether the new forms of activity merely differ from old ones or are in contradiction to them. As a descriptive science, (the traditional form of) linguistics differs from critical sociology as well as from (the traditional form of) logic.

7.0.

THE ΙΝELIMIΝ Α Β I L Ι Τ Υ OF LINGUISTIC

NORMATIVITY

There are two main objections against my p o s i t i o n : E i t h e r the ana­ logy between games and synchronic states of natural 'languages i s d e f e c t i ­ ve; or both game-descriptions and synchronic-grammatical d e s c r i p t i o n s are empirical.

In 5 . 0 . - 6 . 0 . (above) I refuted the former o b j e c t i o n

ing t h a t language contains genuine r u l e s . tend to' r e f u t e the l a t t e r o b j e c t i o n .

by show­

In the present chapter I i n ­

P a r t i c u l a r actions are c o r r e c t i f ,

and only i f , they exemplify any of the concepts ' c o r r e c t action A ' , ' c o r ­ r e c t action B ' , e t c . , which are (known to be) determined by the r e l e v a n t rules.

Since ' r u l e ' and ' c o r r e c t n e s s '

are interdependent, an attempt

to redefine the one i n purely empirical terms implies an attempt to r e ­ define also the other i n s i m i l a r terms.

Such a wholesale attempt to get

r i d o f n o r m a t i v i t y i n general i s involved i n the claim t h a t all

descrip­

t i o n s of r u l e s , whether rules o f game or rules of language, are e m p i r i c a l . Prima facie

already, t h i s claim i s rather i m p l a u s i b l e .

have seen 6 . 1 .

-

Since

-

as we

there i s a genuine and i r r e d u c i b l e d i f f e r e n c e between

rule-sentences and empirical hypotheses, any r e d e f i n i t i o n of n o r m a t i v i t y i n purportedly empirical terms must contain a f a l l a c y of one type or an­ other.

That t h i s i s indeed the case, w i l l be seen below.

I shall

dis­

cuss f o u r representative types o f c r i t i c i s m s of the notion o f l i n g u i s t i c normativity.

In conclusion, I s h a l l examine TG's p o s i t i o n on t h i s ques­

tion. 7.1.

A Synchronic Grammar Does not Investigate Utterances,

Spatiotemporal

but Correct Sentences

The most s t r a i g h t f o r w a r d way to equate grammars with empirical

the­

ories i s to say t h a t they i n v e s t i g a t e only spatiotemporal l i n g u i s t i c oc-

176

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIEΝCE

currences, i.e., utterances and, possibly, reactions to utterances. This line of thinking seems to be congenial to American structural linguistics as represented by Bloomfield and Harris (cf. 3.4.-5. above). The difficulty with this position is that, even if we grant for the sake of argument that grammars investigate utterances, it is neverthe­ less clear that they do not investigate everything that ever is utter­ ed, but only correct

utterances.

So the problem is how to pick out

those (correct) utterances which are de facto

investigated by grammars,

while not making use of the normative, nonempirical concept of 'correct­ ness'.

That is, the problem here is how to redefine the concept of

'correctness' in purely spatiotemporal terms, i.e., how to se (our knowledge of) this concept.

operationali-

In what follows I shall examine

the solution to this problem offered in Sampson (1975). Sampson (1975:62) undertakes to give a spatiotemporal redefinition of 'correctness' by stating, as a first approximation, that everything that a fluent speaker of English utters, is correct and must be descri­ bed by a grammar of English.

However, it is obviously false to try to

define 'correctness' in terms of 'fluency'.

The correct procedure is

precisely the opposite one: whether or not a person is (considered) a fluent speaker of English, depends on whether or not he speaks English correctly.

Thus 'correctness' remains, so far, a primitive notion.

Furthermore, Sampson (p.66) is forced to admit

that even fluent

speakers make incorrect utterances, and that the speech situations con­ tain (practically) no spatiotemporal criteria on the basis of which in­ correct utterances could be differentiated from correct ones.

But this

means precisely that there is no way to operationalise the concepts 'correct utterance (or sentence)' and 'incorrect utterance (or sentence)' The non-operationalisable character of linguistic knowledge, or of the concepts functioning as objects of such knowledge, is a fact which has not totally escaped linguists' attention.

When discussing the con­

cept of 'synonymy', Chomsky (1969) correctly notes that it cannot pos­ sibly be defined in operational terms pertaining to the speech situati­ ons, and he concludes (p.65):

THE INELIMINABILITY OF NORMATIVITY

177

What a person does or is likely to do and what he knows, may be related, in some way that cannot, for the moment, be made precise; the relation is, however, surely in part factual and not a strict­ ly conceptual one. This is only a more general formulation of the familiar truth that "the speaker-hearer's linguistic intuition is the ultimate standard that determines the accuracy of any proposed ... operational test" (Chomsky 1965:21). Now, Sampson (1975) tries to escape from this dilemma by referring to the general

fact that people make mistakes even when there are no ob­

servable facts in terms of which the mistakes might be explained. So it is not surprising that people also make mistakes in their speech (p.6667); this more particular

fact should apparently be somehow derivable

from the former one. This is a rather weak argument.

What Sampson does, is in fact to

state my general thesis: (knowledge of) normativity in general ducible.

is irre­

It is surely awkward to claim that linguistic normativity can

be defined in spatiotemporal terms because it is a special case of gene­ ral normativity which cannot be so defined. (linguistic)

In fact, the reason why

knowledge cannot be operationalised in terms of (linguistic)

behaviour is simply the general creativity

or unpredictability

of human

actions (cf. 4.2.2. above). I have refuted here the straightforward

argument to the effect that

all the linguist has to do is to observe linguistic occurrences and deno scribe them. Insofar as Labov's plea for the primacy of the observa­ tion of actual speech can be understood as a variant of this argument, it has also been refuted here. In the two following sections I shall examine slightly more elaborate attempts to dispose of linguistic norma­ tivity. 7.2.

Grammatical Concepts

Concepts

of Natural

Are not Comparable

to

Theoretical

Science

A natural science makes use of a strategy of theoretical concepts and correspondence rules:

To explain the behaviour of observable enti­

ties, the existence of unobservable entities, e.g., electrons, that

178

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

exemplify the corresponding theoretical concept, e.g., 'electron', is postulated, and the unobservables are partially interpreted in terms of the observables by means of correspondence rules and operational definitions indicating a constant relation between the occurrences of both types of entities. Consequently a description of natural science could be reduced to the following basic components: observable spacetime, theoretical concepts, and rules of correspondence (cf. 1.4. abo­ ve). If this descriptive apparatus can be applied without distortion to linguistic data, then linguistics is of course a genuine natural science. In the previous section we have seen in a preliminary fashion that the strategy of theoretical concepts and correspondence rules is in fact impracticable within linguistics. The attempt at operationalising a concept like '(in)correct utterance (or sentence)' means giving it the status of a theoretical concept and trying to find out suitable ru­ les of correspondence. The failure of operationalisation makes the ana­ logy between grammar and natural science collapse. The reason of this failure was seen to lie in the elementary fact that human behaviour differs in fundamental ways from the 'behaviour' of physical things. Here I shall examine somewhat more closely what is involved in the at­ tempt at reinterpreting grammatical descriptions in this way as descrip­ tions of theoretical natural science. Chomsky has been claiming from the beginning that grammatical con­ cepts like 'phoneme' and 'phrase' are comparable to theoretical concepts of physics like 'electron', and that grammatical rules are comparable to the laws of a physical theory (cf. p. 78). This is TG's official position up to the present day (see further references in 3.6. above). The same position has been further elaborated in Kasher (1972). Kasher interprets 'sentence' as a theoretical concept and defines it as a string of letters plus its 'verbal context', i.e., the relevant syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic structures as conceived by the re­ spective linguistic theories. 'Sentence' is thus equivalent to the full grammatical description. 'Utterance', on the other hand, is an observa­ tional concept consisting of an 'inscription' and a set of indexes rela-

THE INELIMINABILITY OF NORMATIVITY

179

ted to the speech situation/ Kasher then defines an 'instance func­ tion' correlating utterances with sentences. He further distinguishes between (correct) utterances and 'defective utterances' just as well as between (correct) sentences and 'doubtful sentences'. It might seem, then, that the descriptive apparatus of natural science has been suc­ cessfully introduced into grammar: we seem to have to do here only with observable space-time (= 'utterance'), theory (= 'sentence'), and rules of correspondence (= 'instance functions'). However, such a view is totally mistaken. In 7.1. (above) we saw that Sampson (1975) at least tries, even if unsuccessfully, to solve the problem of normativity in positivistic terms. By contrast, Kasher (1972) prefers simply to ignore it. But of course the problem remains precisely the same as before: How is one to distinguish correct utterances from 'defective' ones? And once again, the only possible answer is that this happens on the basis of one's nor­ mative linguistic knowledge. The fact that Kasher ignores the exist­ ence of the rules of language which determine that a given utterance exemplifies a correct sentence, makes it evident that he fails to see sentences as atheoretical concepts. But certainly nothing is gained by eliminating the distinction between (atheoretical ) sentences and their theoretical descriptions. Since 'verbal context', as part of 'sentence', is explicitly defined by reference to existing grammatical theories, and since 'utterance' is defined as an instance of 'sentence' as so defined, it follows, absurdly, that neither sentences nor utter­ ances can be said to exist in a speech community with no grammatical tradition. Kasher fails to explain how initial linguistic data, i.e., correct or incorrect sentences and utterances as they are known by the linguist, are to be adjusted to his 'theoretical - observational' di­ chotomy, but he seems to assume that linguistic normativity will some­ how disappear in this process. There is of course no basis for such an assumption. Secondly, and as a corollary of what precedes, it is clear that instance functions are in no way comparable to correspondence rules. Kasher's 'verbal contexts' are in reality theoretical grammatical de-

180

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

scriptions of atheoretical sentences, i.e., atheoretical concepts , or of the rules determining such concepts; and his 'utterances' are in reality exemplifications of sentences as here defined. Therefore grammatical descriptions deal with space-time just as little as any other conceptual analyses do. This is directly born out by the fact goes on in space and that Kasher speaks nothing about what really time, i.e., which utterances r e a l l y occur in which spatially and tem­ porally defined circumstances. Without explicitly recognising the existence of atheoretical sentences, he is merely pointing out which utterances would exemplify atheoretical sentences described by his 'verbal contexts', if such utterances happen, under whatever circum­ stances, to occur in space and time. The reason why Kasher knows so little about actual space-time, i.e., actual linguistic occurrences, and is thus unable to formulate genuine rules of correspondence, is simply that, in contradistinction to physical behaviour, human beha­ What we viour is characteristically creative or unpredictable. do know, however, are the rules, and hence the sentences, of our lang­ uage. We know which sentences are correct, irrespective of whether they have ever been uttered, or alternatively which utterances would be correct if they were to occur. It is this normative knowledge which constitutes the object of grammatical descriptions, even though positivistic linguists are unable to perceive this fact. Far from being comparable to correspondence rules, Kasher-type instance functions formulate an abstract relation between theory and space-time, a relation which holds not only in grammar, but also in logic, mathematics, and philosophy of science. For illustration, let us examine inferences. In connection with their everyday decision­ making different people may on different occasions make the following inference: "If I want to buy this thing, I must get the money for it. I want to buy this thing. Therefore I must get the money for it". All such inferences made on different occasions represent of course as many inference-tokens exemplifying the corresponding inferencetype quoted above. Within propositional logic, for instance, this inference-type may in turn be given a theoretical description charac­ terising it as a case of Modus Ponens and involving such theoretical

181

THE INELIMINABILITY OF NORMATIVITY concepts as ' m a t e r i a l i m p l i c a t i o n ' and ' t r u t h f u n c t i o n ' .

Using the

Kasher-type d e s c r i p t i v e apparatus we might say now t h a t i n f e r e n c e - t o kens are ' u t t e r a n c e s ' and t h e i r t h e o r e t i c a l t r u t h - f u n c t i o n a l t i o n s are 'sentences'.

descrip-

Obviously nothing would be easier than to f o r -

mulate an 'instance f u n c t i o n ' between utterances and sentences so def i n e d , although t h i s would require i g n o r i n g the c r u c i a l r o l e of i n f e rence-types corresponding to the atheoveticdl above).

(cf.

concept of sentence

But surely such a r e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of l o g i c would not t r a n s -

form l o g i c i n t o a natural science.

S i m i l a r l y any p a r t i c u l a r acts of

m u l t i p l i c a t i o n , or ' m u l t i p l i c a t i o n - t o k e n s ' , exemplifying a given t i p l i c a t i o n - t y p e ' might be c o r r e l a t e d w i t h d e s c r i p t i o n s of the l a t t e r .

'mul-

theoretical-mathemati cal

Or r e c u r r e n t acts of e x p l a i n i n g a given

phenomenon might be c o r r e l a t e d , via the concept

exemplified by these

a c t s , w i t h Hempel's t h e o r e t i c a l d e s c r i p t i o n of (D-N) explanations. From t h i s i t does not f o l l o w of course t h a t mathematics and p h i l o sophy of science would be natural sciences, or even empirical s c i e n ces.

-

To sum up, i t is a rather obvious f a c t t h a t i n a l l

nonempirical sciences l i k e grammar, l o g i c , or philosophy,

normative, theoretical

concepts are in one way or another r e l a t e d to what people do. From the f a c t t h a t instance functions are not comparable to correspondence rules i t also f o l l o w s t h a t , contrary to Chomsky's o p i n i o n , grammatical concepts and rules are not comparable, r e s p e c t i v e l y , to t h e o r e t i c a l concepts and hypotheses of natural science; or i f they a r e , so are the concepts and statements of other normative sciences t o o . For instance (the ordinary language i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of) the raising'

'subject

t r a n s f o r m a t i o n , which is needed to systematise the i n t u i t i v e

concept ' c o r r e c t sentence ( i n L ) ' , i s a t h e o r e t i c a l empirical hypothesis to the same extent as (the ordinary language i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f ) the axiom of p r o p o s i t i o n a l deontic l o g i c

' - ( 0 p & 0 - p ) ' , which is needed

to systematise the i n t u i t i v e concept ' v a l i d (deontic) f o r m u l a ' .

Simi-

l a r l y , e i t h e r both of the concepts 'noun phrase' and ' t r u t h f u n c t i o n ' are empirical t h e o r e t i c a l concepts, or n e i t h e r of them i s ; and since ' t r u t h f u n c t i o n ' is not e m p i r i c a l , n e i t h e r is 'noun p h r a s e ' .

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GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

It may be claimed that the particular events correlated with grammatical theories do not concern the uttering of sentences, but 102

the learning of language. Such a proposal makes no difference, however. Not only rules of correct speaking, but also those of correct inferring and calculating must of course be learned. But this obvious fact certainly does not make logic or mathematics any more empirical; and the same is true of grammar as well. Describing a game is different from describing how it is learned (cf. 2.4. above). 7.3 Rules Ave not Regularities

of Non-Normative

Actions

In the two previous sections I discussed attempts at showing that the subject matter of grammar is purely spatiotemporal, and that gram­ mar is accordingly a pure natural science. This standpoint was refuted in some detail, but prima facie already, it is quite implausible in view of the fact that actions, as distinguished from events, are not purely spatiotemporal, and that utterances are undeniably results of linguistic actions. This non-material nature of language has been once again proved in Friedman (1975), where it is shown, in particular, t h a t words cannot be described in the 'material object language' em­ ployed by (theoretical) physics, since rules of use are an inseparable part of words, and those cannot be described in such a language. I also agree with Friedman's over-all assessment of why linguists have been so eager to view their subject matter in material, or purely spa­ tiotemporal terms: The initial tendency to view words and sentences as exclusively concrete occurrences or alternatively as classes of these, arises I think out of two confusions. The first, as in synecdoche, is to consider the salient features of an object as representative of its totality. In this way the evident concreteness of the sound of words leads one to ignore the extent to which use, how­ ever intangible, is necessary to word-hood, The second error is linked to the former: it is the conflation of exclusively physic­ al systems (such as the solar system) with systems (such as lan­ guage) which also contain material elements (Friedman 1975:94).

It may be added that this attitude of "materialist imperialism' (as Friedman calls it) is mainly due to the influence of positivism.

THE INELIMINABILITY OF NORMATIVITY

183

It is the same attitude which underlies the tendency to eliminate the distinction between (physical) event and (human) action. So it is clear that the subject matter of grammar cannot be de­ fined in terms of physical s pace-time. But it still may be argued, with a higher degree of initial plausibility, that it can be defined space-time containing an irreducible meaningful or in terms of social conceptual component. Such a non-normative redefinition of rules, in­ cluding rules of language, has been undertaken in Lewis (1969). Lewis' analysis is further developed in Bennet (1973) to provide a non-norma­ tive, or 'nominalist', account of speech acts. Lewis bases his analysis on the concept of 'common knowledge', roughly in the sense in which it was defined here (see 5.1. above). He gives a recursive definition which generates an infinite number of higher-order beliefs (or 'expectations') concerning what everyone· be­ lieves (or 'has reason to believe'). I am not concerned here with the factual correctness of this definition. Nevertheless I would like to point out that the definition seems to be defective insofar as it achie­ ves recursivity only by inadvertently using the word 'to indicate' in two fundamentally different senses. The definition of 'indicate' is as follows: "A indicates to Β that C" = "If Β has reason to believe that A, B would thereby have reason to believe that C". Now, in the sentence "That the streets are wet in­ dicates to everyone that it has been raining", which is modelled upon Lewis' third premise on p.52, 'indicates' stands for a relation between matters of fact which holds contingently in the external world. This can be seen more clearly by translating the sentence into its explicit form: "If everyone has reason to believe that streets are wet, then everyone would thereby have reason to believe that it has been raining". to By contrast, in a sentence like "That the streets are wet indicates everyone that everyone has reason to believe that streets are wet", which is modelled upon Lewis' second premise, 'indicates' stands for a conceptual relation, i.e., a relation which is a constitutive part of our very concepts of knowledge and belief. The explicit form of the sentence is: "If everyone has reason to believe that streets are

184

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

wet, then everyone would thereby have reason to believe that everyone has reason to believe that streets are wet". This sentence is a neces­ sary truth reminiscent of the theorem of epistemic logic In the former sentence 'thereby' stands for a contingent, inductive connection whereas in the latter it stands for a conceptual, deductive connection. It is the latter type of sentence which is employed to constitute the recursion step of Lewis' definition. Now, if it is ad­ mitted that 'indicate' stands here for two different things, then the recursive generation of higher-order beliefs cannot even get started (cf. Lewis 1969:52-60). Whether or not Lewis' conception of common knowledge is acceptable in the technical detail, he utilises it to define rules, or 'conventi­ ons', in such a way as not to make use of any inherently normative concepts. The most important part of his definition is the following (p.78): A regularity R in the behaviour of members of a population Ρ when they are agents in a recurrent situation S is a convention if and only if it is true that, and it is common knowledge in Ρ that, in almost any instance of S among members of P, (1) almost everyone conforms to R; (2) almost everyone expects almost everyone else to conform to R; . . .

A regularity R is known on the basis of the memory about past ac­ tions conforming to it, and this memory serves as the basis for the expectation about similar actions: "Given a regularity in past cases, we may reasonably extrapolate it into the (near) future" (Lewis 1969: 41). Lewis does not explicitly define the concept of 'correct action', but it is clear that correct actions are actions conforming to a regu­ larity of the relevant type. And, as we have seen, such a regularity exists at the level of common knowledge about what is either remember­ ed or expected. There are no explicitly normative elements in this definition. Has Lewis genuinely succeeded, then, in eliminating the problem of normativity? First of all, it is clear that the regularity of actions necessa­ rily correlated with any given rule contains both correct and incor­ rect actions. Therefore, if Lewis' definition is to be upheld, 'me-

THE INELIMINABILITY OF NORMATIVITY

185

mory' and 'expectation' must be defined in such a selective way as to mean correct actions only. With respect to memory it is not at all clear whether this can be done in any natural way: when one thinks of past cases of a regularity, one can certainly remember also incorrect ones. It seems more natural to say that the actions which one expects to come upon in connection with a regularity are precisely correct ac­ tions; but even this cannot be asserted with absolute certainty. Let us assume, however, that correct actions can be satisfactorily defined in terms of what is (commonly) remembered and expected as a matter of fact. Now it is a self-evident fact that memory and expectation are just as subject to human fallibility as any other forms of human activity: it is true of them, too, that what one does has no direct relation to what one ought to do. In other words, we cannot help distinguishing between correct

and incorrect

memories as well as between correct

and

incorrect

expectations. Hence there seems to be no way to eliminate the concept of correctness or normativity. This last observation is my basic objection against Lewis' (and Bennett's) analysis. There are some complementary points as well. Lewis' factual, non-normative approach is evident from the 'almost'qualifications figuring in his definition of 'convention'. But it is clear that any such statistical account of rules is quite unable to express the absolute 'either - or' character of all genuine rules (cf. 5.2.-3. above). Moreover, Lewis fails to see the implicit normativity of his notion 'recurrent situation S'. Just as we need rules to iden­ tify and to perform correct actions, we need rules to identify situati­ ons as recurrent. (Such rules for the use of concepts have been dis­ cussed p.42 and 100.) It is perhaps the basic insight of Winch (1958) that we need definite criteria, whose use is governed by rules, to identify entities as same or different, and that as regards social to them. entities, such criteria are internal At any rate, Lewis' concept of rule has the merit that he does not try to define rules purely as sets of actions, or purely in terms of social space-time. That is to say, even if he tries to reduce ru­ les to regularities of actions, he does not try - as far as I can see - to reduce in the same way that common knowledge which neces-

186

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

sarily pertains to such regularities.

However, as an analysis of rules

of language, Lewis' account is rather unsatisfactory. there must be such rules.

He admits that

However, he refuses to name any and doubts

whether any can be genuinely known (Lewis 1969:60-68).

This common

view, which in my opinion is based on the confusion between rules of language and rules of grammar, as well as on the general positivistic attitude concerning language, has been refuted in detail in 5.0. and 6.0. (above). 1 0 3 In this chapter I have been discussing the tendency to deny the autonomous character of normativity, which leads to various attempts at reducing normativity as far as ce and time.

possible to the categories of spa­

In my opinion this very

tation of the empiricist

general tendency is a manifes­

theory of knowledge, which maximises the role

of environment and minimises the role of mind in the acquisition of knowledge.

It is a

self-evident

truth that rules of language, logic,

and mathematics are all learned, little by little, in definite spatiotemporal situations, and that, once they are mastered, their mastery becomes manifest in similar situations.

But there

is certainly more

to learning and mastering rules than those definite situations in which they are learned and applied. active and creative

This additional element is the

contribution of the human mind.

It is a general

truth that human creativity in its various forms cannot be captured by means of correspondence rules or of any similar method.

There is

no reason why the creativity related to rules should be different. (This does not mean, of course, that the learning and the application of rules could not, and should not, be investigated empirically.) It is generally agreed that rules of logic and mathematics cannot, at least in any direct sense, be reduced to the situations in which they are learned or applied.

I do not see why rules of language should be

treated any differently.

However, Lewis (1969:100) draws an absolute

distinction between rules of language on one hand and rules of logic and mathematics on the other, by claiming that the latter "may have nothing to do with the conduct of human agents, except that human agents might benefit by taking account of them". The discussion in 2.6. (above) was directed against precisely this conception of logic

THE INELIMINABILITY OF NORMATIVITY 7.4.

187

Grammatical Descriptions Cannot Be Replaced by Psycholinguists c and/or Socio Unguistic Descriptions

Sampson and Kasher clearly view grammars as empirical theories. Lewis seems to think likewise (even though the role of common know­ ledge makes this position problematic). On the other hand, certain linguists - e.g., Botha, Derwing, and Hutchinson - who also ad­ here to the posti vistic conception of science, have come to the con­ clusion that grammars, at least those of the TG variety, are not em­ pirical theories (cf. 3.7. above). Since, in their view, "the subject matter of science is the class of public, not private, events" (Derwing 1973:248), they are led to argue for a new conception of grammar. According to it, the existing methods of grammatical descrip­ tion must be modified in such a way that grammars become directly open to experimental falsification, given that the only alternative to ex­ perimentation is thought to be speculation (Derwing 1973:306-08). The experiments envisaged here would be mainly of a psycholinguistic nature, with the consequence that the distinction between grammar and psycholinguistics would be effectively eliminated. I largely agree with the criticism which the above-mentioned au­ thors have levelled against TG's metascientific self-understanding. I should like to mention in particular Botha's by now classical refutation of TG's claim to psychologic reality, or of the view of TG as a form of 'mentalistic linguistics' (Botha 1971:167-70), as well as Derwing's (1973:270-96) demonstration of the lack of empirical testability in TG. However, these authors fail to connect the nonempi rical nature of (TGtype) grammars with the normativity of linguistic data. They also fail to see that the fact of normativity opens up the possibility to subsume grammar under the general concept of human science (cf. 2.0. above). It is this lack of perspective, viz. the view that positivism is the only possible philosophy of science, which makes linguists like Chomsky, Sampson, and Kasher consider grammars simply as empirical theories, and makes linguists like Botha, Derwing, and Hutchinson attempt to turn grammars into empirical theories, once they have realised that grammars, as they exist today, are nonempirical.

188

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

However, experimentation and speculation do not exhaust the possi­ bilities of intellectual activity. Speculation may not be scientific, but conceptual analysis or explication is a valid scientific alternative to experimentation; and explication deals neither with public events nor with private ones. In order to prove that grammar, or grammatical explication (cf. ll.0. below), cannot be replaced by experimental psy­ cholinguistics, I simply refer to the obvious truth that description of games cannot be replaced by description of game-performances. The re­ levance of this truth to linguistics resides in turn in the analogy be­ tween rules of language and rules of game, which I have proved in 5.0. and 6.0. Experimentation with language presupposes knowledge of langu­ age, and grammatical descriptions concentrate upon this knowledge. The same argument which has been used here against the primacy of psycholinguistics, can also be used against the primacy of sociolinguistics (cf. 7.1.). 1 0 5 7.5. The Position Linguistic

of Transformational

Grammar

vis-à-vis

Normativity

TG tries to dispense with linguistic normativity roughly in the same - unsuccessful - way as Sampson has recently proposed. In 7.1.-2. (above) it became evident that, as against Chomsky's opinion, grammars do not deal just with observable events, and rules of grammar are not comparable to theoretical hypotheses of natural science. On the other hand, TG's position is further complicated, and is indeed made in­ consistent, by the fact that it also wants to account for the existence of linguistic intuition. In what follows, I shall examine, against this background, how TG comes to terms with the rule - regularity distinction. Given that TG deals with intuition, i.e., rules of language as they are intuitively known, but aspires to be a natural science, it is not surprising that its official position on the rule - regularity dichotomy is rather confused. Since natural sciences do not (in fact, cannot) recognise the existence of rules and norms within their data, it is to be expected that TG professes to be investigating regularities, not rules. This is indeed what is asserted in most methodological sta-

THE INELIMINABILITY OF NORMATIVITY

189

tements made within TG. But it has also been claimed that, due to the degenerate quality of actual speech and to the novelty of utter­ ances, there are in speech in the sense of Saussure's 'parole' no regularities to be described (Chomsky 1966:32, n.8), - a claim which is neatly contradicted for instance by the observation that there are already regularities in the speech of eighteen-month-old children (Slobin 1971:53). As far as I can see, Chomsky's position here could be reconstruct­ ed as follows. On the one hand, as a positivist, he cannot accept (known or knowable) rules as the subject matter of grammar. On the other, he is well aware that he is dealing with intuitive knowledge and that, from this point of view, eventual regularities exhibited by actually occurring utterances are simply irrelevant; so much is indeed evident from his repudiation of statistical considerations in grammar (cf. 9.1. below). Thus, he comes to the conclusion that TG has to do neither with rules nor with regularities, but only with particular (correct) sample sentences. However, a natural science not investi­ gating regularities in nature is clearly a contradiction. It is asto­ nishing that Chomsky has managed to avoid facing this very simple truth. To be sure, using a vocabulary so vague as to make useful discussion impossible, Chomsky has always maintained that TG aims at discovering some 'deep' or 'basic' regularities of language (e.g., Chomsky 1965:5). What he has in mind is simply that TG attempts to make generalisations concerning the correct sentences of particular languages. (Notice that all sciences, empirical and nonempirical alike, make 'generalisa­ tions'; cf. 10.0. and 11.0. below.) Within TG, generalisations are expressed through rules of grammar. From this, it can be seen that rules, i.e., the only type of rules which TG allows for are grammatical components of theoretical descriptions, about which native speakers mostly have absolutely no antecedent, intuitive knowledge. This has several unnatural consequences. For example, although rule and correct­ ness are correlative concepts, TG is forced to maintain that native speakers are aware of the correctness of sentences without being (able to become) aware of the rules determining their correctness. Hence,

190

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

bound by its allegiance to positivism, TG ignores the existence of linguistic rules as socially given, as normative phenomena, and inter­ prets languages simply as infinite sets of sentences (i.e., correct sentences). Sentences are straightforwardly taken to be 'objects' of some kind, and they are supposedly investigated by means of methods identical with those used by natural scientists in the investigation of their data. It is generally acknowledged by nonpositivists that one of the most harmful consequences of the positivistic world-view is the objec­ tification, or the 'reification', of entities belonging to the human sphere. Equating men with things, positivism treats intentions, goals, and values on a par with theoretical concepts of physics by simply em­ bedding them in presumed cause-effect relationships. This attitude is entirely inadequate, because it draws an absolute distinction between people as research objects and people as researchers, and ignores the role of the latter. As for TG, this reificatory tendency becomes appa­ rent in the above-mentioned fact that the social and institutional aspects of language are discarded and language is defined as a set of objects (i.e., sentences). Within this static and reificatory frame­ work there is no way to represent the obvious connection between sen­ tences and the intentional, rule-governed actions of uttering them. Moreover, within this same positivistic framework it remains incom­ prehensible why this particular set of objects (i.e., sentences), as distinguished from sets of objects investigated by standard natural sciences, requires its own type of knowledge (i.e., linguistic intui­ tion). But within a nonpositivisti c or hermeneutic framework linguisticintuition is seen to be a special case of the 'agent's knowledge', i.e., man's knowledge about his own (possible) actions and the (social) rules governing them. I suspect that TG's inability to perceive the existence and the nature of rules of language is due, not only to its allegiance to po­ sitivism, but also to its emphasis on artificial languages whose sen­ tences are just strings of a's and b 's. In contradistinction to nat­ ural languages (and to languages of logic and mathematics), such lang­ uages cannot of course be used in any meaningful sense of the word.

THE INELIMINABILITY OF NORMATIVITY Consequently there can be no rules

191

(of use) connected w i t h these langu-

ages, and they can only be defined as ( i n f i n i t e ) sets of sentences, generated or not by grammars each of which i n turn c o n s i s t i n g of a ( f i n i t e ) set of grammatical

rules.

On the other hand, i t would be perverse to

define natural languages in the same way, given t h a t they are spoken and w r i t t e n , rules.

i.e.,

used, according to s o c i a l l y v a l i d and c o n t r o l l e d

I f we have to give a d e f i n i t i o n of natural language, then i t

is

most n a t u r a l , and in keeping w i t h a long t r a d i t i o n in l i n g u i s t i c s , to i d e n t i f y i t w i t h a set of social r u l e s . ence of the a r t i f i c i a l

Nevertheless, under the i n f l u -

s i m p l i c i t y of the ab-languages, TG p e r s i s t s

d e f i n i n g natural languages too as sets of sentences.

in

8.0. LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR Metascience deals with the dialectics between scientific descrip­ tion and its object. Once we know the object, we know what type of de­ scription it admits of. What still remains to be done in the matter is to analyse those descriptions which are used in fact to describe the ob­ ject, and, if possible, to suggest ways of improving upon them. As I have pointed out earlier in this study (p.16), I do not think that whatever is investigated by a theory, exists for us only qua the subject matter of the same theory. In this sense, then, language is in­ dependent of linguistics, as is confirmed by the self-evident fact that there were languages long before there were grammars to describe them. Yet even if we grant that language pre-exists all particular grammatic­ al theories, it is clear that we cannot scientifically speak about it in its pregrammatical state without using a more or less theoretical appa­ ratus of some kind. It is certainly the case that we possess atheoretical knowledge of language, but the concept 'atheoretical' is not it­ self atheoretical, given that it is interdefinable with the concept 'theoretical', which is itself theoretical. Even more obviously, con­ cepts like 'rule-sentence' and 'unfalsifiabi1ity!, which are needed to analyse language, are of a theoretical nature. Consequently we are forced to make the following distinctions: First, there is the dis­ tinction between language and its theoretical analysis (this latter being, to repeat, different from grammar). Second, there is the theo­ retical (i.e., metascientific) analysis of the relation between langu­ age, as theoretically analysed, and grammar. In 4.0.-5.0. I was almost exclusively concerned with the theory of language, i.e., with the analysis of what will in the grammatical con­ text turn out to be the object of grammatical descriptions. I reached

193

LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR

the conclusion that language is not an entity definable in spatiotem­ poral terms, which means that in whatever way grammatical descriptions are constructed, they must be fundamentally different from empirical theories. In 9.0.-11.0, 1 shall investigate in detail the relation­ ship between grammatical descriptions (of the TG variety) and language, as previously analysed. In the present chapter I shall outline the basic characteristics of this relation. 8.1.

The Basis

of the Difference

Human Science:

Observer's

between Knowledge

Natural vs.

Science

Agent's

and

Knowledge

To understand an action is to understand why and how it is done, which implies that one might under suitable circumstances be able to do it oneself. To understand a rule is to be able to follow it one­ self, i.e., to do the same as those whose rule-following behaviour has revealed the existence of the rule concerned in the first place. This means that when we understand actions or rules, we must in a sense iden­ tify ourselves with those who are doing the actions or following the rules. This simple truth underlies the widely misunderstood 'method of Verstehen', and is sufficient to expose the qualitative difference be­ tween actions and rules, on the one hand, and events and regularities, on the other. We can never come to understand events and regularities investigated by the natural scientist, for we are obviously unable to identify ourselves with planets or molecules for instance. This inabi­ lity of ours is not simply due to the fact that planets and molecules 'differ too much' from us, but is, rather, a purely logical point. It is a conceptual impossibility for us to learn to follow for example regularities exemplified by the observable behaviour of people under hypnosis. And the reason is, of course, that it is a conceptual im­ possibility (to attempt) to learn consciously and intentionally to do something in which consciousness and intentionality seem to be entire­ ly lacking. We could sum up the preceding passage by saying that our knowledge of events and regularities is observer's (or 'Outsider's') knowledge, whereas our knowledge of actions and rules is agent's (or 'insider's')

194

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

knowledge.

This d i s t i n c t i o n was p r e l i m i n a r i l y introduced p.40.

The

basis f o r the p e c u l i a r nature of agent's knowledge can be seen i n the f a c t t h a t , as I have noted i n connection w i t h my W i t t g e n s t e i n - i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , man's r e l a t i o n to his actions i s not e m p i r i c a l , but conceptual.

A c t i o n s , qua a c t i o n s , must be conscious, i . e . ,

(potential-

l y ) understood and known by those who perform them; t h i s knowledge i s u l t i m a t e l y based on the c o l l e c t i v e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n c a r r i e d out by the whole s o c i e t y .

Now, since man cannot be separated from his a c t i o n s ,

and actions must be known by the one who performs them, i t

follows

t h a t knowledge about one's a c t i o n s , whether rule-governed or n o t , is i n f a c t the p r i n c i p a l

type of self-knowledge.

(And, a f t e r what has

been said in 4 . 2 . , i t should be c l e a r t h a t self-knowledge can be separated from n e i t h e r knowledge of others nor knowledge by o t h e r s . ) To those who are puzzled by the d i f f e r e n c e between observer's knowledge and agent's knowledge, i t seems perhaps less s u r p r i s i n g

that

self-knowledge should be q u a l i t a t i v e l y d i f f e r e n t from the knowledge of the e x t e r n a l , observable w o r l d . In the h i s t o r y of philosophy there is a long t r a d i t i o n which d i s t i n g u i s h e s , in one way or another, between observer's knowledge and agent's knowledge, and m a i n t a i n s , i n p a r t i c u l a r , t h a t only the l a t t e r represents genuine

or certain

knowledge.

For P l a t o , genuine knowledge

is comparable to the s k i l l of an a r t i s a n : the man who knows something is the one who can produce the object of his knowledge ( c f . , H i n t i k k a 1974b).

e.g.,

On the strength of the same p r i n c i p l e , Hobbes t r i e s

to demonstrate a basic s i m i l a r i t y between geometry and p o l i t i c a l

scien-

ce: The science of every subject is derived from a precognition of the causes, generation, and construction of the same; and con­ sequently where the causes are known, there is place for demon­ stration, but not where the causes are to seek for. Geometry therefore is demonstrable, for the lines of figures from which we reason are drawn and described by ourselves; and civil phi­ losophy is demonstrable, because we make the commonwealth our­ selves. But because of natural bodies we know not the construc­ tion, but seek it from the effects, there lies no demonstration of what the causes be we seek for, but only of what they may be (Hobbes quoted from Neuendorff 1973:33).

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LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR

It is clear that the word 'cause' is being used ambiguously here. The 'causes', or generative principles, of geometrical figures are the rules

in conformity with which they are drawn, not the motives which

make someone draw such figures in such and such ways.

By contrast,

the causes of political behaviour are precisely those motives or pas­ sions which make people behave in the ways they do. Vico also characterises in a similar vein the general difference between natural science and human science: But in the night of thick darkness enveloping the earliest anti­ quity, so remote from ourselves, there shines the eternal and never failing light of a truth beyond all question: that the world of civil society has certainly been made by men, and that its prin­ ciples are therefore to be found within the modifications of our own human mind. Whoever reflects on this cannot but marvel that the philosophers should have bent all their energies to the study of the world of nature, which, since God made it, He alone knows; and that they should have neglected the study of the world of na­ tions, or civil world, which, since men had made it, men could come to know. This aberration was a consequence of that infirmi­ ty of the human mind by which, immersed and buried in the body, it naturally inclines to take notice of bodily things, and finds the effort to attend to itself too laborious ; just as the bodily eye sees all objects outside itself but needs a mirror to see it­ self (Vico 1968[1744], §331:96-97). In the l a s t sentence of t h i s q u o t a t i o n , Vico draws a t t e n t i o n to the general lack of ( s e l f - ) r e f l e c t i o n i n s c i e n t i f i c t h i n k i n g .

This

c r i t i c i s m has not y e t l o s t i t s a c t u a l i t y today, given t h a t p o s i t i v i s m is s t i l l

the p r e v a i l i n g philosophy of science, and t h a t "dass w i r Re-

f l e x i o n verleugnen, ist

der Positivismus" (Habermas 1968:9).

-

p o s i t i o n recurs i n an almost i d e n t i c a l form w i t h i n the c l a s s i c a l man hermeneutics ( c f .

Vico's Ger-

the Dil they-quotations i n 2 . 4 . ) .

The t r a d i t i o n a l notion of agent's knowledge (by whatever name i t i s c a l l e d ) contains an element of t r u t h , but i t c l e a r l y cannot be accepted as i t stands.

The d i f f e r e n c e between actions and events has

been demonstrated here in d e t a i l , e s p e c i a l l y i n 4 . 0 .

Nevertheless,

it

i s obvious t h a t f a c t u a l actions i n v e s t i g a t e d by empirical sociology are located i n space and time j u s t l i k e f a c t u a l events i n v e s t i g a t e d by nat u r a l science.

This means t h a t

they

share w i t h

the l a t t e r the

properties stemming from man's i n e v i t a b l e epistemologi cal l i m i t a t i o n s

196

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

vis-ã-vis space and time. On a priori grounds, then, knowledge about regularities of actions is just as hypothetical as knowledge about re­ gularities of events. However, from the general creativity and histo­ rical i ty of human behaviour it follows, in addition, that knowledge about regularities of actions is more hypothetical or uncertain than knowledge about regularities of events (cf. the Weber-quotation p.26). Therefore, if genuine knowledge is equated with certain knowledge, na­ tural science represents genuine knowledge to a higher degree than em­ pirical sociology or political science. In other words, even though I understand people's actions in a way in which I cannot hope to understand physical events, I know what people have done or will do with much less certainty than I know which events have occurred or will occur. The same argument applies even to myself. It may be true that in many instances I know with a very high degree of certainty what I have done. But I am much less sure about my future actions. This is a joint result of my free will and my being subject to unforeseeable physical and emotional influences. However, although the knowledge about actions which have been, are, or will be done is necessarily uncertain, and more uncertain than the knowledge about past, present, or future events, there is one type of knowledge of actions, or one type of agent's knowledge, which is absolutely certain, i.e., more certain than knowledge of events. It is, of course, the knowledge That is, normative of what ought to be done, or the knowledge of rules. knowledge is a type of agent's knowledge, and in an extremely large num­ ber of representative cases it is absolutely certain (cf. 5.3.-4. above). The difference between invariably uncertain observer's knowledge and agent's knowledge qua certain knowledge, i.e., normative knowledge, is manifested as the difference between empirical hypotheses and (unfalsifiable) rule-sentences (cf. 6.0. above). All actions, rule-following or not, are subject to the disturbing influence of unpredictable physical or emotional factors, but rules themselves are not. Therefore such factors, while making knowledge of the factual occurrence of actions quite uncertain, cannot have a simi­ lar effect upon knowledge of rules. Similarly, since rules exist as

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197

objects of common knowledge, and not in space and time, (subjective) knowledge about them, once they have been learned, cannot be inhibited by man's epistemological limitations vis-à-vis space and time. Further­ more since rules do not exist in space and time, knowledge about them cannot be in any sense observational; therefore it is appropriate to call it 'intuitive'. This non-observational nature is precisely the defining property of so-called 'practical knowledge' (cf. Anscombe 1958:49-57): I cannot observe the action which I intend to perform. And when my intended action is a normative one, I can just as little observe those rules in conformity with which I intend to perform it. True, there is an element of observation involved when I under­ stand an action which has been performed in my presence, given that each factual action has its physical substratum. However, in each particular case knowledge of actions, or agent's knowledge, is first and foremost non-observational, because it is acquired through under­ standing which pertains to such unobservable entities as intentions, meanings, or rules (cf. 5.2.-3. above). To sum up: Agent's knowledge is certain, and hence 'superior' to observer's knowledge, only when it is about what ought to be done. Even more narrowly, this 'ought' does not comprise the ethical aspect of actions; rather, it is the 'ought' which applies to actions purport­ ing to conform to such clear-cut rules as rules of language, logic, or geometry (cf. the Hobbes-quotation above). On the other hand, even if other types of agent's knowledge are much less certain, they remain qualitatively different from observer's knowledge. The distinction here at issue is often conceptualised as that between 'practical' knowledge and 'theoretical' (or 'speculative' or 'contemplative') knowledge (cf. Hintikka 1974c). This dichotomy has its own merits but it is clearly different from the one which I have in mind, given that there are, on the one hand, grammatical or logical theories theories based on agent's knowledge and, on the other, physical based on observer's knowledge. In Hintikka's opinion, it is pointless to try to base the 'quest for certainty' on the notion of agent's knowledge (or 'maker's know­ ledge 1 ). Such a view is comprehensible because Hintikka pays no atten-

19 8

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

tion to rules. It is for the same reason, I think, that when dis­ cussing Plato's concept of episteme, he fails to connect it with the concept of anamnesis (cf. 8.3. below). And yet, for Plato, only 'forms' or 'ideas' are objects of genuine knowledge, and this knowledge is acquired, not by sense-impression, but by recollection (cf. Plato 1963b, §73-76). Finally, Hintikka subsumes both natural science and human science under the label of 'maker's knowledge': ... modern experience may be said to demonstrate how little truly intentional action there is even among the phenomena studied in Vico's "New Science" - that is, in language, culture, history, literature, and politics. Man's mastery over his physical envi­ ronment has opened a much larger scope for maker's knowledge than the most rudimentary control he exercises over his society or his culture (Hintikka 1974c:83).

If there is "little truly intentional action" among human phenomena, there surely is even less among physical phenomena. More seriously, the 'behaviour' of physical things can be predicted and manipulated better than the behaviour of human beings, but I am not concerned with this self-evident truth. From my point of view, there is precisely the same amount of intentionality in language for example as there is in logic or geometry, conceived as the subject matters of the correspond­ ing* disciplines: I can intentionally utter a correct sentence just as I can intentionally make a valid inference or draw a (correct) geomet­ rical figure. By contrast, there is, to repeat, not the smallest bit of intentionality within the physical reality; what is intentional, is the behaviour of the one who is investigating or manipulating the phy­ sical reality. Moreover, in one decisive respect the control over the social reality is, after all, better than that over the physical reali­ ty. The laws of nature are immutable. But it is possible for man to change the regularities governing social behaviour (cf. 6.3. above). This is the idea behind the certainly unobjectionable exhortation that man should strive to minimise all that makes him a merely natural being, and to become a self-controlling, wholly human (or 'historical') being. 8.2.

The Two-Level Atheoretical

Nature vs.

of the Human Sciences

:

Theoretical

It has become amply clear that the difference between actions and

LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR

199

rules on the one hand, and events and regularities on the other, is that between intentionality (or consciousness) and the lack of it. The category of actions is considered here as representative of the larger category of social behaviour, which means that social behavi­ our qua social is at least potentially conscious of itself. Further­ more, science is a social activity which follows its own procedural rules, and is at the same time anxious to improve them. From this, it follows that a science investigating any type of social behaviour must, of necessity, involve tuo types of consciousness and of know­ ledge, viz. that of the research objects on the one hand, and that of the researchers on the other. For obvious reasons, I call these two types of knowledge 'atheoretical' and 'theoretical', respective­ ly. Together, they make up the 'two-level' character of any social or human science. Normative human sciences like grammar, logic, or philosophy con­ centrate upon a given body of atheoretical knowledge, i.e., upon an atheoretical conceptual system or institution. Empirical human scien­ ces like psychology or sociology concentrate upon what is done as a matter of fact, as atheoretically understood by means of concepts pro­ vided by such systems or institutions. (It goes without saying that behaviour so understood is explained by means of theoretical concepts which are not available to the research objects, i.e., ordinary peop­ le.) In conformity with my interest in the metascience of grammar, I am concerned here primarily with the 'atheoretical - theoretical' distinction insofar as it applies to normative human sciences. The natural sciences are identifiable as one-level theories: their research objects either have no consciousness or are treated as if they had none. In other words, the natural sciences involve only the consciousness of the researchers. This implies that the difference between the layman's atheoretical knowledge about regula­ rities in nature and the natural scientist's corresponding theoretic­ al knowledge is one not in kind, but in degree. In fact, the know­ ledge possessed by each of them is equally hypothetical, and hence falsifiable by new events. A confirmation of this one-level charac­ ter can be seen in the fact that, although there are well-known dif-

200

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

ferences between types of universal hypotheses, e.g., between simple or inductive generalisations and theoretical hypotheses, these differences are to a large extent treated as philosophically secondary. For example, Hempel (1965) illustrates his theories of confirmation and explanation with hypotheses as simple as "All swans are white" and "All pieces of metal expand when heated". In other words, the relation of theoretical thinking to atheoretical thinking differs according as it holds within natural science or with­ in human science; this difference could be expressed succintly as follows: In natural science theoretical thinking replaces atheoretical thinking; they both pertain to the same reality, but in different ways. In human to atheoretical science, by contrast, theoretical thinking vervains thinking, either exclusively, as in grammar for example, or partially, as in empirical sociology. From the point of view of theoretical phy­ sics, atheoretical thinking about physical events and regularities pos­ sesses no scientific interest whatever; and the reason is of course that such thinking is very often incorrect. By contrast, a man capable only of atheoretical thinking is the ultimate authority on several questions which are an inseparable part of what human sciences are investigating, for instance: Does he think that the food prices are too high? or: How did he understand such and such an action? The distinction between atheoretical and theoretical is clearest in a descriptive normative science like grammar, where atheoretical knowledge is (to a large extent) certain and theoretical knowledge is (as always) uncertain or, to put it in verbal terms, where atheoretic­ al rule-sentences are unfalsifiable, and theoretical grammars are falsifiable. However, in addition to descriptive human sciences, there are also prescriptive and critical human sciences, whether normative or not. Such sciences do not just accept atheoretical thinking as it is, but try to improve it or in part even to reject it. By way of a summary, we may quote Schutz' (1962:5-6) characterisa­ tion of the essential difference between natural and human (or social) sciences: The facts, data, and events with which the natural scientist has to deal are just facts, data, and events within his observational

201

LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR

field but this field does not "mean" anything to the molecules, atoms, and electrons therein. But the facts, events, and data before the social scientist are of an entirely different struc­ ture. His observational field, the social world, is not essen­ tially structureless. It has a particular meaning and relevance structure for the human beings living, thinking, and acting the­ rein. They have preselected and preinterpreted this world by a series of common-sense constructs of the reality of daily life, and it is these thought objects which determine their behaviour, define the goal of their action, the means available for attain­ ing them - in brief, which help them to find their bearings within their natural and sociocultural environment and to come to terms with it. The thought objects constructed by the social scientists refer to and are founded upon the thought objects con­ structed by the common-sense thought of man living his everyday life among his fellow-men. Thus, the constructs used by the social scientist are, so to speak, constructs of the second de­ gree, namely constructs of the constructs made by the actors on the social scene, whose behaviour the scientist observes and tries to explain in accordance with the procedural rules of his science.108 Atheoretical knowledge as here defined is roughly identical with what hermeneutic philosophers cal1 Vorverständni

s.

Instead of using

the term 'atheoretical', representatives of the analytical philosophy have variously spoken of 'presystematic' , 'preanalytic', or 'prescientifie' knowledge.

A large part

of atheoretical knowledge is not

'knowledge that', but 'knowledge how', i.e., knowledge which cannot be readily verbalised.

A. favourite example is the knowledge about how

to ride a bicycle.

It is commonly assumed that linguistic knowledge

too is of this type (e.g., Lewis 1969:63-64, and Robinson 1972:19). The incorrectness of this view is evident already on quite formal grounds: the knowledge about how to speak is normative in character, whereas the knowledge about how to ride a bicycle is not. More con­ cretely, I have already shown that this is indeed the case, viz. that (unfalsifiable) rule-sentences about atheoretical linguistic knowledge are quite easy to formulate. As Schutz points out in the quoted passage, the theoretical con­ cepts utilised by a social scientist must ultimately be based upon, or tied to the atheoretical concepts that are utilised by the people investigated by the scientist.

This means, more precisely, that the

criteria used to determine the identity of the basic units of a social

202

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

science must be those provided by atheoretical thinking.

Within lin­

guistics. this requirement is self-evident because it is of course not the linguist, but the native speaker, who decides which successions of sounds are or are not utterances of his language, which utterances are similar to or different from each other, etc.109 Within other social or human sciences the requirement in question may seem more controversial, since it could be taken as a threat to the theoreti­ cian's autonomy vis-à-vis his subject matter. However, the following illustration by Winch of the determining role of atheoretical concepts seems compelling enough to me even if we have to admit that sometimes the distance between theoretical and atheoretical concepts may be much greater: For example, liquidity preference is a technical concept of eco­ nomics: it is not generally used by business men in the conduct of their affairs but by the economist who wishes to explain the nature and consequences of certain kinds of business behaviour. But it is logically tied to concepts which do enter into busi­ ness activity, for its use by the economist presupposes his understanding of what it is to conduct a business, which in turn involves an understanding of such business concepts as money, profit, cost, risk, etc. It is only the relation be­ tween his account and these concepts which makes it an account of economic activity as opposed, say to a piece of theology (Winch 1958:89) .

Mehtonen (1971) has correctly pointed out that Winch's position in effect contains the far-reaching implication that practice deter­ mines the nature of theory. The same view is espoused by the Erlangen school which constructs sciences like physics and logic out of atheo­ retical practice (cf. 2.5.-6. above). However, the relation of deter­ mination can be here only a partial one - a certain type of practice does not with causal necessity bring about a certain type of theory and so we are left with the problem of distinguishing between what is determined and what is not, and of explaining why a theory qua undeter­ mined is the way it is. As regards the social sciences, moreover, it is clear that in societies with conflicting social classes and, hence, with conflicting forms of practice, there obtains the necessity of a choice between these different alternatives (cf. 6.3. above). Thus

LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR

203

there remains the question both about those reasons and about those causes, i.e., unconscious and/or external factors, which lead to the choice of one alternative over another. In the light of the preceding discussion, it is clear that a pu­ tative human science which would disregard people's own criteria of conceptualising and classifying phenomena would eo ipso disqualify it­ self as a human science and be, instead, a natural science only accident­ ally investigating human beings, i.e., objects that would in some other context be identifiable as human beings. Biology, for instance, meets this characterisation. However, the interesting thing is that, con­ trary to the explicit intentions of positivistically-minded psycholo­ gists and sociologists, it is simply impossible for them to treat human beings strictly on a par with inanimate objects. As Taylor (1964) in particular has pointed out, even within behaviourism, which does every­ thing in its power to imitate the methodology of natural science, and with apparent success, the phenomena under study are in the last ressort classified, or interpreted, according to criteria borrowed from the gen­ eral atheoretical knowledge which the behaviourists share with their re­ search objects (cf. 2.1. above). This is the only possible reason why certain objectively measurable features of external behaviour are taken as defining the notions 'motivation' and 'learning' for example, and not just some arbitrary notions 'X' and 'Y'. More strikingly, even with­ in animal psychology the psychologists cannot help projecting the gener­ al atheoretical notions of 'deprivation', 'gratification', etc. into the supposedly purely observable behaviour of animals (Taylor 1964:63-71 and 87-97). There must be a constant mediation between atheoretical and theore­ tical because, on the one hand, theory has grown out of atheoretical thinking and, on the other, the scientist can describe new social phe­ nomena only if he has acquired the atheoretical knowledge which, for the people involved, constitutes these phenomena as what they are. This mediating link between atheoretical and theoretical is provided by under­ standing. Hence, understanding proceeds both horizontally and vertic­ ally, so to say. In the vertical direction it connects two different

204

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

types of agent's knowledge.

The emancipatory p o t e n t i a l of sciences

l i k e psychoanalysis or c r i t i c a l

sociology resides p r e c i s e l y i n the

f a c t t h a t people are able to understand the r e s u l t s of a science which has been i n v e s t i g a t i n g them, and to change t h e i r behaviour and t h i n k i n g in the l i g h t of such r e s u l t s .

The necessity of a mediation

between a t h e o r e t i c a l and t h e o r e t i c a l proves t h a t the d i s t i n c t i o n between the two must be a r e l a t i v e one ( c f . 4 . 2 . 4 . above).

Considered

from this

sciences,

p o i n t of view, the human sciences are one-level

because researchers stand i n an i n t e r n a l r e l a t i o n , or are p a r t l y ident i c a l , w i t h t h e i r research o b j e c t s . are

in this

respect

By contrasts the natural sciences

two-level sciences because they involve an abso-

1 ute s u b j e c t - o b j e c t - d i v i s i o n . One can acquire the a t h e o r e t i c a l

knowledge of a community only

by, in a sense, i d e n t i f y i n g oneself w i t h the members of t h i s communit y , t h a t i s , by understanding the ( a t h e o r e t i c a l )

rules which they

f o l l o w in acting and, more g e n e r a l l y , in i n t e r p r e t i n g t h e i r

life;

t h i s kind of understanding is out of question w i t h i n the natural sciences ( c f . 8 . 1 . above). thod of

Nothing more special i s meant by the me-

Verstehen:

The fact that in common-sense thinking we take for granted our ac­ tual and potential knowledge of the meaning of human actions and their products, is, I suggest, precisely what social scientists as a want to express if they speak of understanding or Verstehen technique of dealing with human affairs (Schutz 1962:56). It is a gross misunderstanding to interpret Verstehen

as requir­

ing some mysterious, essentially subjectivistic powers of imagination, which of course would be dispensable from the point of view of scienti­ fic research aiming at intersubjective validity.

This misconception

was first presented to the positivistic audience in Abel (1948), and it is widely shared still today.

For instance, in Nagel (1961: 473-85) it

is maintained that understanding pertains to 'subjective' or 'private' states.

It is certainly easy to criticise such a (fictitious) position,

considering that private states have been proved logically impossible (cf. 4.0. above).

LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR

205

The simplest case of Verstehen is understanding the meaning of some ordinary word or action. It should be clear that whether the meaning of a word like 'boy' has been understood or not, can be de­ cided by means of objective criteria. It is not required that the meaning of 'boy' be understood in some mysteriously deep sense, but only that it be understood. It is just as easy to find out whether someone understands the meanings of words like 'time' and 'knowledge' as they occur in some tyoical contexts. It is only when philosophers or real meaning of 'time' or 'knowledge' that try to capture the total difficulties arise (cf. 5.3. above). On the other hand, when we set out to describe societies that differ markedly from our own, the role of so-called 'empathy', or Einfühlung, obviously increases. But there are still intersubjective methods of checking the correctness of our description, although these methods are not as simple as the confirmation and the falsification used within natural science. It is interesting to note that in the investigation of ancient and/or pri­ mitive societies, gaining the requisite atheoretical knowledge, which is then to be subjected to a theoretical treatment, may prove to be more difficult and methodologically more demanding, than conducting the theoretical analysis itself, It seems to me that the situation is not too different in certain areas of the study of art or, for that matter, in many cases of psychoanalytic treatment. In natural science the atheoretical - theoretical distinction corre­ sponds to some extent to that between observational concepts and theore­ tical concepts. The strategy of theoretical-cum-observational concepts does not work within the human sciences (cf. 2.2. and 7.2. above), and therefore the atheoretical - theoretical distinction has here a differ­ ent meaning. Furthermore, the rule-conception operating with the atheo­ retical - theoretical distinction must not be confused with a conception which distinguishes between an 'internal' and an 'external' attitude in regard to rules, in such a way that the former is characteristic of those who act according to rules and thus know them 'from the inside', whereas the latter is characteristic of those who are describing rules. This conception is espoused in Miller & Isard (1967), for example, and it has been defended more recently in Gumb (1972, esp. pp.48-53).

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I do not think that the 'internal/external' account of rules is defensible, even if it is partly correct insofar as it at least recognis.es (but then also distorts) the social and normative aspect of rules. As I have pointed out already, there can be no external attitude in regard to rules: one who has not('internally', or intuitively) under­ stood rules, cannot (theoretically) describe them at all. The most that he can do is to describe observable (statistical) regularities of sounds and movements. Therefore, description of rules can only build upon their atheoretical, 'internal' understanding; it cannot be separated from it as a totally different, unrelated attitude. This is also why Gumb and others go astray when they think that, from the exter­ nal point of view, the difference between rules and regularities is not methodological, but merely heuristic: If rule-governed behaviour is re­ ally viewed externally, i.e., as a series of recurrent events consist­ ing in sounds and movements which are not (and could not be) understood, then there is absolutely no difference, not even a heuristic one, be­ tween rules and regularities; on the other hand, if one sets about to describe actions which one has understood by relating them to rules which one knows, then any 'external' point of view is a fiction (due, once again, to an uncritical imitation of the methodology of the natu­ ral sciences), and the difference between rules and regularities cer­ tainly has the greatest methodological importance. It might also be pointed out that espousing the standpoint of 'intensional positivism', which admits the meaningfulness of actions and thus separates them from events, does not significantly improve the po­ sition of those who deny the methodological importance of the rule regularity distinction: If they have not understood that actions which are in fact rule-governed, are rule-governed, then they have misunder­ stood them; and if they start to describe these actions on the basis of the above-mentioned misunderstanding, they are indeed describing regularities, i.e., regularities of actions, but then, again, their description has nothing to do with a description of rules. One either understands or does not understand the rules involved; there is no third pass from regularities (whether of possibility. One cannot gradually

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events or actions) to rules;110 nor can one arrive at a description of rules by describing regularities. In actual practice, Gumb and others always make sure that they have ('internally') understood the rules which they are going ('externally') to describe; but once the description has begun, they, in the name of 'scientific methodology', pretend not to have understood the rules, thus deceptively placing them on a par with regularities. The same type of argument has also been forwarded by Hart (1961:87): If, however, the observer really keeps austerely to this extreme external point of view and does not give any account of the manner in which members of the group who accept the rules view their own regular behaviour, his description of their life cannot be in terms of rules at all, and so not in the terms of the rule-dependent no­ tions of obligation or duty. Instead, it will be in terms of ob­ servable regularities of conduct, predictions, probabilities, and signs. For such an observer, deviations by a member of the group from normal conduct will be a sign that hostile reaction is likely to follow, and nothing more.

Nevertheless, I cannot accept the 'internal/external' account of rules in that form either in which it is presented by Hart. For him, the 'external' point of view is characteristic also of the one who under­ stands the rules, but does not accept them: [The] attitude of shared acceptance of rules is to be contrasted with that of an observer who records ab extra the fact that a so­ cial group accepts such rules but does not himself accept them. The natural expression of this external point of view is not "It is the law that..." but "In England they recognize as law ... whatever the Queen in Parliament enacts..." (Hart 1961:99).

Within my conception this distinction between acceptance and nonacceptance of rules is accounted for by noting that rule-sentences are necessary while the rules which they refer to exist contingently (cf. 6.1.; esp. n.88). However, this distinction is of course entirely dif­ ferent from that between understanding rules and observing regularities. Hart seems to have confused these two distinctions, with the consequence that his position comes rather close to Gumb's, after all. It may be added that Hart's account of the 'internal' aspect of rules is not quite satisfactory, either. He argues convincingly that

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the normative element of rules cannot be explained away, for instance in terms of behavioural regularities and/or sanctions (Hart 1961:6-12, 54-56, 86-88). Yet he is less convincing when he tries to explain what, precisely, the normativity of rules consists in. He emphasises, again correctly (p.56), that it is not a matter of subjective feeling; but his answer, which is to the effect that it is a matter of 'critical re­ flective attitude', does not quite succeed in establishing the basis for the intersubjective validity of rules. In my opinion, such a re­ sult is unavoidable as long as one does not come upon the notion of common

'knowledge,

8.3.

The Two-Level

Nature

of Grammar

In conformity with the fact that a human science cannot start un­ til the relevant atheoretical knowledge has been acquired, a linguist­ ic description cannot be made until the linguist has learned the langu­ age to be described. As I have mentioned before, the use of informants is nothing but a way of speeding up this language-learning process. For the sake of illustration, consider the case of a linguist facing a language unknown to him. As transformationalists have emphasised in particular, a large part of the linguistic data available to the langu­ age learner is incorrect in one way or another. Therefore, to be able to write a grammar of the language in question, the linguist must be capable of discarding incorrect or accidental forms and uses of langu­ age; in other words, he must come to understand the rules of this langu­ age. If we assume that he would be collecting his data in the manner of a natural scientist, the result of his description could not possi­ bly represent the language concerned in any relevant sense. First of all, it is totally unclear by which criteria he would be identifying the ba­ sic units in the data to be described. And even if we by-pass this in itself insurmountable difficulty, it is still the case that, since in actual speech there occurs a certain number of incorrect forms, and since within natural science all occurrences are equally relevant, a linguist collecting his data in the manner of a natural scientist could not distinguish between correct and incorrect, or between rules and vio-

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lations of rules (cf. 7.1. above). Consequently, his description would be based on the average of all so far observed occurrences, whether cor­ rect or incorrect, and would necessarily be of a statistical nature. But an adequate description of linguistic rules cannot be statistical (for qualifications of this claim, see 5.4. above). In the course of language acquisition children must develop an abi­ lity to understand rules, i.e., to distinguish between correct and in­ correct uses of language. TG assumes that they are aided in this by a full-fledged innate linguistic theory. This is unnecessary, and even misleading, because normativity is by no means restricted to linguistic behaviour but is, rather, characteristic of human behaviour in general, so that the ability to distinguish between correct and incorrect must be equally general, The paradigmatic case of language description is the one in which the linguist has learned, and tnus knows, the language which he is go­ ing to describe. As far as typical games are concerned, it is undisputable that once they, i.e., their rules, have been learned, they are learned in their entirety, and no new facts are relevant to them. One may still learn new strategies to apply the rules, that is, ways to im­ prove one's playing, but this is irrelevant to the knowledge of rules as such. Now I claim that the same is true of language as well: once the atheoretical knowledge of a language has been acquired, it is acquired in its entirety, and no new facts are relevant to it. There are a few rather obvious objections against this claim, but none of them is of serious consequence: i) It is impossible to tell when, precisely, a language has been learned. - This is true, but irrelevant (cf. p.37 above), ii) There are instances where one starts learning a language, but never fully learns it. - Again, this is true, but irrelevant to the present argument, iii) The number of words contained in the le­ xicon of any given language is indefinite; therefore it can never be said with certainty that someone knows all the words of a given langu­ age. - This is true, and requires that "learning a language L" is de­ fined as equivalent, roughly, to "learning the phonological, morpholo­ gical, syntactic, and pragmatic rules of L as well as the 'central' part

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of the lexicon of L". It would be unacceptable to say that a normal English-speaking adult has not learned, and does not know, English just because he does not know and still must learn new words related to the latest technological advances for instance, iv) No one can fully learn a language because all languages keep changing. - It must be possible to abstract synchronic states in one way or another from the diachrony of languages. It would be unacceptable to argue that the ancient Romans had not learned Latin just because they had not learned French. What I have been saying here is plain common sense.to anyone who has ever been describing a language which he knows - primarily, but by no means exclusively, his native language. In such a case, it never happens that while making the description, one discovers for example new prepositions, new morphological affixes, or new grammatical pat­ terns, of which one had no previous knowledge. At any given moment one may be unaware of such linguistic facts, simply because man's po­ wers of attention are limited, but once any such facts are brought to his attention, he must admit that he in effect knew them already. This claim is merely a restatement of my view that rules of language, as previously defined, are what grammars are describing. On the other between rules are not part of one's hand, the (abstract) relations knowledge of language. Such relationships are expressed through theo­ retical generalisations like the subject-raising transformation or the A-over-A principle, of which no one could have any previous knowledge and which therefore remain falsifiable3. Yet all such theoretical gen­ eralisations and claims can be shown to be about a range of linguistic (normative) facts, i.e., rules, each of which was known separately be­ fore the description got started. This is the distinction between atheoretical and theoretical as it obtains in grammar. - So I repeat that once the (atheoretical) knowledge of the rules of a given langu­ age has been acquired, it is acquired in its entirety, and no new facts are relevant to it. The next question to be answered is: How is knowledge of this kind investigated and described? Although this is obviously one of the central

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questions of theoretical linguistics, it has received very little atten­ tion from the part of linguists, probably because of the misconception that only the 'context of justification' is worthy of scientific treat­ ment (cf. pp. 74-75). It is not suprising, then, that only philosophers, more precisely those in the Wittgensteinian tradition, have devoted de­ tailed attention to the question how knowledge of language is analysed (cf., e.g., Hare 1971, Cavell 1971a and b, and Henson 1971). They ag­ ree that, when we analyse our language for philosophical purposes (though the same is also true of a purely linguistic investigation), we are not looking for any new facts. Rather, all the facts are given once and for all, and the question is what we are to make of them. We know all these facts in an intuitive and unsystematic way, but we wish to come to know them in some more disciplined way. We feel that there are problems connected with these intuitively known facts, but we cannot justify this feeling, let alone find solutions to the problems felt, until we have rearranged and systematised the facts involved. We are looking for a descriptive system which would 'explain' (i.e., explain3) the facts by giving a somehow coherent account of them, viz. by bringing them into an illuminating, and hence 'true', relationship with one another. Because any such system is theoretical, it is also falsi fiable 3 . If it can subsequently be demonstrated as unfalsifiable3, or necessarily true, it ceases to be a theory and turns into an 'instrument of language' (cf. p.l54above). As we just noticed, any attempted systematisation is a creative act, i.e., it brings into existence something new viz. something which is of the theoretical order. It seems perfectly proper to say, then, that the analysis brings about new 'facts', which may in turn become the object of analysis. But these new facts are of a different kind than the ini­ tial, intuitively known or atheoretical facts. In this sense it remains true that the analysis does not require looking for new, as yet unknown facts (that is, facts of the same kind as the known ones), but making the available knowledge explicit. The actual description may be carried out with varying degrees of formalisation of course (cf. 11.0. below). It is clear that we have to do here with a process of coming to

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know better what one already knows in an indubitable, but merely intui­ tive way. To this end, as Wittgenstein himself notes, one has to remind oneself of the way in which expressions are used and of the diffe­ rent constructions in which they occur, or may occur. The same idea, that one has not to search for new facts, but to remind oneself of those which one knows already, is also emphasised for instance in Hare (1971:237), Cavell (1971a:147) and (1971b:184), Henson (1971:214), Sear­ le (1969:13-14), and Vendler (1967:18-19). Notice in particular that here one is not asked to remember how he or someone else has as a mat­ ter of fact used a certain word for instance, something which would be a more or less empirical question, but, rather, how this word is to be used, which is an entirely different, i.e., conceptual and normative, question (cf.Henson 1971:325, n.5). This process of sharpening one's intuitive knowledge has been per­ tinently characterised by Specht (1969:132-33), who in this context coins the term 'immanent reflexion': So far as there are rules of usage for a word they must ... be de­ rivable from the use of the word alone. Wittgenstein thereby makes exclusive use of a method which we wish to call "immanent reflection on linguistic use", the possibility of which rests on the fol­ lowing fact: as children we are brought up to use the words of the language exactly as they are normally used in the linguistic com­ munity. The consequence is that all members of the community re­ ally do follow the same rules. Without this homogeneity of lin­ guistic use our language would lose its character as a general me­ thod of communication. Now, if, as an adult, one is asked about the rules of linguistic usage one only needs to reflect on how words are used in everyday linguistic practice. One already uses words, of course, in accordance with the rules that have been in­ culcated into one, and can, therefore, recognise them by reflect­ ing on one's own linguistic usage. This reflection is "immanent" to the extent that one does not need to go beyond what one alrea­ dy knows of linguistic use.

The method of immanent reflection is known under different names, e.g., "rehearsal of usage" (Black 1962:90) and "exhibition analysis" (Korner 1957:763). Because it necessarily pertains to what is first learned and then remembered, it remains, as a method of gaining (theo­ retical) knowledge, absolutely different from comparable methods with­ in the empirical sciences. First of all, the memory of past experiments

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and observations plays an indispensable, but nevertheless only partial, role in the empirical data-collection: Empirical science is essential­ ly science of space and time. Therefore it is necessarily open towards the future; but it is logically impossible to know, and hence to remem­ ber, future events. Moreover, it is vractieally impossible to know most of the past events; therefore, they cannot be remembered, but must be empirically discovered. (Notice that remembering an event is not a form of empirical discovery; cf. Hare 1971:225 and 229.) Secondly, it is not only the case that natural science does not collect its data on the strength of memory about what has happened; it is, if possible, even more obvious that natural science does not collect its data on the strength of memory about what ought to happen, or about any other norma­ tive matters. Yet it is only in this way that sciences like grammar, philosophy, or logic, in brief: all normative sciences, collect their data. We are once again confronted here with the nonempiricai nature of normative sciences (cf. 6.0. above). Hare (1971:239) has pointed out that the role of recollection in linguistic analysis, e.g., in the analysis of the meaning of 'right', offers a certain justification to Plato's concept of anamnesis: Plato is right in implying that in recognising that such a proposition [i.e., "It is always right to give a madman back his weapons which he entrusted to us when sane"] is not analytic we are relying on our memories. It is an exam­ ple of the perceptive genius of that great logician, that in spite of being altogether at sea concerning the source of our philosophical knowledge; and in spite of the fact that his use of the material mode of speech misled him as to the status of the analyses he was looking for - that in spite of all this he spotted the very close logical analogies between philosophical discoveries and remember­ ing. He was wrong in supposing that we are remembering something that we learnt in a former life … What we are actually remembering is what we learnt on our mother's knees, and cannot remember learning.

Moreover, Plato's claim that genuine knowledge, or episteme, is the result of recollection is directly supported by the fact that it

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is only knowledge of rules which is absolutely certain (cf. 5.3. above), and that such knowledge, i.e., knowledge about what one ought to do, is indeed actualised through recollection (as we have just seen). It goes without saying that this genuine knowledge (about what one ought to do) is a case of agent's knowledge. For Plato, anamnesis pertains to ideal norms for 'similarity', 'good', 'beautiful', 'right', etc., norms which the actual reality can only approximate. As Husserl and Lorenzen, among others, have pointed out, such norms are man-made constructions, whether they pertain to ethics or to logic (cf. 2.5.-6. above). From what has been said so far, important consequences can be drawn concerning the scope and the limits of the notions of intuitive know­ ledge and immanent reflection. It is clear that when a philosopher and a linguist who are native speakers of English for example start to inves­ tigate their native language, their respective subject matters are iden­ tical. It is also clear that, whatever their more specific purposes, there is absolutely no difference between the respective methods which they apply in order to gain a better understanding of their linguistic intuitions, because they cannot help relying on immanent reflection. However, their attitudes differ as to the scope of this shared method. Linguists study language for its own sake, and are accordingly equally interested in forms and meanings of a language. By contrast, philoso­ phers focus their attention on selected aspects of pragmatics and seman­ tics, occasionally also of syntax. Philosophers neglect the study of morphology and phonology entirely, because their interest in natural languages derives from the fact that language is the inevitable medium through which problems about man and the world must be approached. That is to say, for those who are equipped with language, the world is inse­ parable from language (but not from any particular language), as is evi­ dent from the fact that sentences like "'X' means 'Y'" and "an X is an Y" are freely interchangeable. This merging of language and the world sentence is illustrated by Specht's (1969:148) remark that an a priori like "All bachelors are unmarried" is about objects in the world, but "depends exclusively for its truth value on the rules of usage of the linguistic sign which signifies the object". Now, since knowledge of

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language is of an intuitive nature, and language is inseparable from the world, it follows, somewhat suprisingly, that knowledge of the world is intuitive, too. However, the contradiction here is only apparent. Know­ ledge of natural events cannot of course be intuitive. What is intuiti­ ve about the knowledge of the world is, rather, its specifically lin­ guistic component, that is, knowledge of the concepts expressed or creat­ ed through language. If we, for the sake of clarity, consider concepts used within the natural sciences, we perceive at once that, because con­ cepts, in contrast to things and events subsumable under them, are hu­ man constructions, it is only logical that they should be part of in­ tuitive knowledge, i.e., agent's knowledge (cf. p.43 above). The notions of intuitive knowledge and immanent reflection are va­ lid not only within sciences like grammar and philosophy which deal, though in different ways, with rules of language; rather, and more gen­ erally, they are valid within all sciences dealing with any types of rules of human behaviour. Some such normative sciences, e.g., logic, have a greater prescriptive emphasis that others, e.g., grammar (cf. 6.3. above). Since knowledge of rules is analysed through immanent reflection, and since there are rules determining the correct use of any concepts, I conclude that immanent reflection is the general method of conceptual analysis, Knowledge of linguistic rules is a case of atheoretical, intuitive knowledge. This knowledge is directly expressed in corresponding rulesentences. Theoretical generalisations about this knowledge, or about the rules which are its object, are formulated by means of grammatical hypotheses, e.g., (ordinary-language interpretations of) transformati­ ons. I use the term 'grammatical hypothesis' instead of 'grammatical rule' on purpose, because the latter term is apt to create confusion. Grammatical hypotheses express results of immanent reflection upon athe­ oretical linguistic knowledge. Consequently, rule-sentences are atheo­ retical, whereas grammatical hypotheses are theoretical. This termino­ logy is based on the stipulation that a grammar of a language L, con­ stituted by a set of (nonempirical) grammatical hypotheses, is consi­ dered here as a theoretical description of L. This stipulation is ar-

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bitrary insofar as there is a perfectly good sense in which it can be said that a description of L constituted by a set of (atheoretical) rule-sentences describing the rules of L is also a grammatical descrip­ tion of L; indeed, traditional school-grammars sometimes approximate such an atheoretical notion of grammar. A grammar consisting merely of rule-sentences would be unfalsifiable3, because the latter are unfalsifiable3 . But, to repeat, I am considering grammars of L as theo­ and hence falsifiable3 descriptions, of L. Similarly an axioma­ ries, tic system of propositional deontic logic for instance is a (falsifiable 3 ) theory of the logic of obligations, permissions, and prohibi­ tions . If writing a grammar of L would mean just enumerating rule-senten­ ces describing rules of L, linguistics would be a very trivial under­ for taking. However, knowing the rules of L is only a precondition writing a theoretically interesting grammar; a mere list of (unfalsifiable3 or necessarily true) rule-sentences is certainly not such a grammar. Rule-sentences simply describe atheoretical knowledge which exists prior to any attempts at describing it. By contrast, grammat­ ical hypotheses express theoretical knowledge which has been created through immanent reflection upon atheoretical knowledge, and which did not exist prior to attempts at creating and describing it. This general distinction can be clearly seen in the standard case of language description: A linguist sets out to describe a language that he knows, i.e., of which he possesses atheoretical, intuitive knowledge, but when his description proceeds, it produces new, theo­ retical knowledge about which he has no previous intuition. From the fact that I know1 something, it by no means follows that I also know2 how to describe this knowledge-, of mine in the best possible way. Kiparsky (1968:172) makes a similar point in the following way: For example, most linguists would agree that two rules of the form X → Y Ζ → Y if not separated in the ordering by any other rules, should be

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combined by factoring out their common right hand side as follows:

We would say that the braces represent a linguistically significant generalization about these two rules. But how do we know that they do? … There are no conscious a priori ideas of generality that we can appeal to here in the way that we can appeal to intuitions that reflect features of structural descriptions, such as ambigui­ ty and synonymy. The processes of normal language learning being unconscious, we have absolutely no ideas about the form of gram­ mars, though we have clear ideas about the forms of sentences which grammars account for.

In fact, Kiparsky's example illustrates the tentative character of our theoretical or grammatical knowledge even more effectively than he intended it to do. That is to say, today it is agreed that the use of braces, or curly brackets, does in fact not represent a "linguistically significant generalisation". On the contrary, "curly brackets are an admission of defeat, since they say that no general rule exists and that we are reduced to simply listing the cases where a rule applies" (Lakoff 1971a:291; cf. also McCawley 1972:508-13). Accordingly, both par­ ticular theoretical descriptions and the general principles underlying them are only tentative and subject to revision. This - it should be noted - is a direct consequence from the fact that, at least initi­ ally , our theoretical knowledge is not, and could not be, of the intui­ tive nature. Due to its general positivistic outlook, TG has never been able to acknowledge the two-level nature of linguistics, which means that TG has not been able to distinguish between atheoretical rules known by the native speaker and theoretical-grammatical 'rules' constructed by the linguist. This confusion has led to the generally accepted view that native speakers (consciously) know the rules of their language only in an unreliable and incomplete way. As a justification for this positi­ on, transformationalists customarily refer to the incontestable fact that speakers do not know the 'rules' contained in the (transformati­ onal) grammar, i.e., the theoretical description, of their language. But this 'justification' has no force whatsoever, because it is self-

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evident that knowing atheoretical rules does not entail knowing their theoretical descriptions, although the reverse must be true (cf. the Schutz-citation p.201 above). As an example of the above-mentioned fallacy, consider how Slobin (1971:54) characterises what he takes to be the generally accepted no­ tion of 'rule': But there are even more stringent tests, or definitions of a rule. Later on in his development, the child will demonstrate a normative sense of rules - that is, he will be able to judge if an ut­ terance is correct with respect to some linguistic standard ... When a child stops and corrects himself one can infer that he is monitoring his speech against some notion of correctness ... Perhaps a more stringent test of the sense of grammaticality is met when the child detects deviations from the norm in the speech of others. Three-year-olds are also heard to correct the speech of other children (and even of their parents), though the chrono­ logical relation between self-correction and correction of others has not been established. The most stringent criterion of grammatical judgement is response to a direct question. One can ask the child, for example, if it is 'better' or 'more correct' to say 'two foots' or 'two feet'. Up to now, Slobin seems to have been discussing equivalents of my (atheoretical) rules: His rules are normative phenomena exhibited or instantiated by people's actions; moreover, from the fact that as sim­ ple a rule as the one for correct plural endings in English is used to illustrate these rules, it is clear that they are known or knowable by the native speaker.

But Slobin (p.55) then adds:

Note that I have left out the most stringent test for the existen­ ce of rules, namely: Can the individual state the explicit rule? As I pointed out before, using this as evidence, of course, we would all fail the test. Since no complete and adequate grammar of English (or any language) has yet been written, in fact none of us knows the rules of English according to this criterion. We can follow them and use them implicitly, but we can state them only rarely, imperfectly, and with uncertainty. From (atheoretical) rules of English, which even the average speak­ er is able to formulate in corresponding rule-sentences, if given pro­ per help, we have now suddenly moved to (theoretical) 'rules' of some

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imaginary 'complete and adequate' grammar of English, which even the best linguists are unable to formulate. And from the fact that the latter are unknown, the conclusion is retrospectively drawn that the former must be unknown, too., When Slobin admits that speakers are able to re­ cognise deviations from the norm, but denies that the norm itself can be known, he is asserting that contradiction which, as I have mentioned, is generally characteristic of TG: although (in)correctness and rule are correlative concepts, it is maintained that the one can be known while the other cannot. To put it differently, the 'normative sense of rules' does not really make sense, if rules are identified with 'rules' of grammar which are not known by anyone, not even by the lin­ guists. Briefly, the practitioners of TG do not seem aware of the fact that they are using the term 'rule' in widely different senses. TG's one-level conception of linguistics has moved Postal (1968b: 274-75) to draw a comparison between 'implicit' knowledge of language and the layman's knowledge about the regularities governing food diges­ tion: in his opinion, writing a grammar is in every way similar to discovering the biochemical processes involved in digestion. The ex­ tent of the positivistic indoctrination within TG can be seen from the fact that analogies so patently false have gone unchallenged. And yet, a special effort is needed in order not to see that digestion is some­ thing that happens to us, whereas speaking is something that we oursel­ ves do. Similarly, it takes a lot of training until one is able to dis­ miss the obvious fact that, since there are right and wrong ways of speaking, speaking is a normative activity whereas digestion is an obser­ vable, natural phenomenon; and it goes without saying that knowledge about norms cannot be compared to knowledge about observable events. 8.4. The Ontological Reality

of Grammatical

Descriptions

It is undeniable that rules exist, in some sense; and in 5.1. (above) I have shown what I take their mode of existence to be. It is undeni­ able, then, that true rule-sentences refer to something which exists, or possesses 'ontological reality'. It is also clear that, assuming a gi­ ven grammatical hypothesis to be true, it possesses ontological reality

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at least in the sense that it makes a generalisation about, or systema­ tises our knowledge of, a set of linguistic rules. The question is whe­ ther there is a stronger or more direct sense in which grammatical de­ scriptions can be said to be ontologi cally real. In the American 'taxonomie' linguistics this question was concep­ tualised as a controversy between 'God's truth' and 'hocus-pocus' posi­ tions, as Householder put it in 1956. The rise of TG gave it new actu­ ality, in view of TG's claim that the referents of grammatical descrip­ tions are features of unconscious psychological mechanisms; in brief, linguistic grammars and mental grammars were supposed to be either iden­ tical or at least closely related. As formulated by TG, this position contains two obvious fallacies (which were briefly indicated pp.82-84 and 116). First: A synchronic grammarian analyses conscious knowledge, mostly his own. This knowledge is about the concept "correct sentence in L", which may be further subdivided into concepts "correct sound combina­ tion in L", "correct case ending in L", "correct relative clause con­ struction in L", etc. The theoretical-grammatical description at which he arrives is the result of immanent reflection upon such (conceptual) knowledge. This method of conceptual analysis, or explication, is ful­ ly legitimate from the scientific point of view; logic and philosophy (of science) for example rely exclusively on it. There is just as little reason for trying to support descriptions of conscious linguis­ tic knowledge by appealing to unconscious mechanisms as there is for trying to support descriptions of conscious logical or philosophical knowledge by similar appeals. From Saussure to Harris, in fact, lin­ guists were content to describe language as an autonomous, non-psycho­ logical entity. Today's Montague-grammarians consider language in the same perspective. Second: It is of course possible and indeed interesting to try to enlarge one's point of view by trying to find out in what relation, precisely, linguistic grammars stand to mental grammars, As we just noticed, TG makes the hypothesis that the two types of grammars are closely similar. It ought to be self-evident that this psycholinguis­ tic hypothesis must be tested on the basis of new, independent eviden-

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ce provided, above all. by psycholinguistic experimentation, and not on the basis of those very

same grammatical descriptions which, in the

first place, gave rise to the psycholinguistic hypothesis in question. Curiously enough, TG has mostly proceeded precisely in this circular fashion.

For example, consider how Katz (1967:82-83) characterises

TG's notion of (causal) psycholinguistic explanation: It is necessary to explain why the speaker says this [i.e. knives] rather than knifes. The mentalist, I have argued, explains this fact of English pluralization by crediting the speaker of English with a linguistic description that contains both the kind of rules and the kind of ordering restrictions that Bloomfield mentions [i.e., "We can describe the peculiarity of these plurals knives, mouths, and houses by saying that the final f, θ, s of the under­ lying singular is replaced by v, d, z before the bound form is added ... ; thus, the plural of knife adds not -s, but -z: 'first' the -ƒ is replaced by -v, and 'then' the appropriate alternant -z is added"]. The mentalist asserts that an English speaker says knives rather than knifes because sentences whose underlying syn­ tactic form is ... knife + pZ ... are produced by using such rules and ordering restrictions to pass from this syntactic form to its phonological realization knives. In conformity w i t h Katz's reasoning, the f a c t t h a t an English speak­ er

says 'the man', and not 'man t h e ' , is causally explained by c r e d i t ­

ing him w i t h the corresponding r u l e which is p a r t of his psychological competence and is u l t i m a t e l y rooted in his neuro-physiological mecha­ nisms.

Or when we notice t h a t in Swedish the i n d e f i n i t e a r t i c l e and

the d e f i n i t e one are d i s t r i b u t e d thus: 'en f l i c k a ' - ' f l i c k a n '

('girl'),

we may again ' e x p l a i n ' t h i s by saying t h a t Swedish speakers have i n t e r ­ nalised a n e u r o - p h y s i o l o g i c a l l y based r u l e which causes them to say 'en f l i c k a ' and ' f l i c k a n ' . ons'

I t should be clear t h a t Katzian

'explanati­

are i n no way d i f f e r e n t from pseudo-explanations r i d i c u l e d a l r e a ­

dy by M o l i è r e : a drug causes people to f a l l

asleep, 'because' i t pos-

sesses a ' v i r t u s d o r m i t i v a ' , or the power to cause people to f a l l

a-

sleep. More r e c e n t l y , constant c r i t i c i s m has forced TG to give up the most obvious a b s u r d i t i e s of i t s p o s i t i o n .

That i s , TG has recognised t h a t

psychological experimentation is relevant to the question of psychological

reality.'

According to the current p o s i t i o n as expounded i n

Fodor & a l . ( 1 9 7 4 , chap.5), only one h a l f of l i n g u i s t i c grammars of the

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TG variety is psychologically real; that is, surface structures and deep structures are psychologically real whereas 'transformations con­ necting the two are not. Moreover, in this context the term 'deep structure' may be interpreted in different ways depending on the ex­ perimental make-up.

It seems that, when the attention of test persons

is directed to linguistic detail, evidence supports a notion of deep structure determined by fixed lexical units and logically transparent grammatical relationships.

On the other hand, in experiments where

test persons are given less instructions and which, therefore, resem­ ble spontaneous use of language more closely, evidence supports a notion of deep structure where the meaning of the sentence, in whatever way it is formally expressed, is the determining factor.

In any case, even

if transformations are not psychologically real, the psychological real­ ity

of deep structures shows, according to Fodor and others, that, to

this extent, TG has been 'dramatically succesful', even from the psy­ chological point of view.

It seems clear to me, however, that this

assessment is based on a misinterpretation of the facts. If we demythologise the notion of deep structure, we see that the deep structure of a given sentence is essentially a paraphrase

of this

same sentence, a paraphrase constructed according to more or less fixed rules.112

For

instance, the sentences "John hit his wife in a garden

with a hammer" may have as its deep structure a tree diagram containing the simpler ('abstract') sentence "John has a wife", "He hit her", "He used a hammer", "This happened in the garden".

(Of course, this ana­

lysis can be refined ad libitum.) Paraphrases, or deep structures, of this kind are rather obvious; they amount to "saying the same thing dif­ ferently", viz. more simply.

Because they are so obvious, it would have

been extremely surprising, and scientifically interesting, if they had not

been psychologically real.

On the other hand, transformations con­

necting deep structures with surface structures, as well as their spe­ cific order, are not obvious, and therefore it would have been scienti­ fically interesting if they had turned out to be psychologically real. But, as Fodor et al. admit, they did not. Because, with respect to the scientific interest, the psychological reality of deep structures and

LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR

223

that of transformations are not at all on an equal footing, it follows that, even if it could be said that one half of TG descriptions is psy­ chologically real, it is in any case the less interesting half. However, a further point is that TG descriptions cannot be divided into two halves so to speak, Within TG the notions of deep structure and transformation are defined in terms of each other, i.e., they are conceptually interdependent. Now, since transformations are psycholo­ gically unreal, it cannot be claimed that deep structures, qua entities conceptually dependent on the former, are psychologically real. Or, if such a claim is made - as it has been done -, this must mean that the term 'deep structure' is being used in a new sense. In its new sense 'deep structure of a sentence S' is simply identical with 'meaning of S ', the term 'meaning' being used in a general sense unrelated to any par­ ticular theory of grammar. Consequently the claim of the psychological reality of deep structures boils down to the claim that the meanings of sentences, in whatever way they are formalised, are psychologically real. But this is a trivial result indeed. Even today, the following confusion, connected with the central notion of 'knowledge', continues to debilitate TG's general methodolo­ gical position. On the one hand, there is conscious knowledge as the standard object of conceptual, including grammatical, analysis. On the other hand, there is unconscious 'knowledge' as a dispositional property, the existence of which can only be hypothetico-inductively inferred from its behavioural manifestations. Because TG has chosen to use one and the same term to refer to these fundamentally different en­ tities, it continually confuses them and remains unable to make a viable distinction between grammar and (experimental) psychology. Even if the answers given by TG are not very encouraging so far, it remains true that ontological support for grammatical descriptions can be sought in psychological experimentation. However, such a sup­ port is in no way necessary, and under no circumstances can it replace the role of grammatical description (cf. 7.4. above). So here we are left with the problem of the (non-psychological)

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ontological reality of grammatical descriptions. For semantic de­ scriptions, there seems to be an easy answer: The semantics of a sen­ tence is the analysis of the state of affairs to which the sentence (i.e., its syntax or 'form') purports to refer; the analysis is ontologically real to the extent that it captures this (possible) state of affairs as it really is (cf. Itkonen 1969a and b, and 1970b). For in­ stance, the semantic description of "John is taller than Bill" is on­ tologically real insofar as it succeeds in analysing the state of af­ fairs consisting in John's being taller than Bill. Now, there may be some doubt as to whether this kind of analysis is really a proper task of linguistic, or grammatical, description. More importantly for the present discussion, different true descriptions of one and the same state of affairs are always possible, and therefore there remains the question whether such differences too are ontologically relevant. This question, i.e., the question of the ontological reality of theoretical (non-empirical) descriptions, is precisely the one which I raised in the beginning of this section. In my opinion it can be plausibly argued that the ontological real­ ity of grammatical descriptions resides solely in the fact that they systematise rules of language. However, I do not think that this view exhausts the whole truth. I admit that the qualifications which I am going to offer are of a highly speculative character. Nothing of what I say elsewhere in this book depends on the truth or the falsity of what follows below. It should be borne in mind that the validation of proposed theo­ retical descriptions is entirely different in the natural sciences and in grammar. In the former case, the basis of validation is constituted by events which, even when they are initiated by us, 'happen in the world', i.e., outside us, and which we therefore cannot come to under­ stand, in the precise sense of the word. Accordingly, when we are deal­ ing with an empirical hypothesis formulated in a technical language that bears no, or very little, resemblance to natural languages, we can only be said to understand this hypothesis insofar as we are able, in prin­ ciple, to find out. whether or not it is ultimately validated by obser-

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LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR

vable events. In particular, to be able to devise an empirical theore­ tical hypothesis that is confirmed by the truth of test predictions is to understand this hypothesis. In the case of grammar - and of normative (hermeneutic) sciences in general - the subject matter of the theoretical description is something that we have first understood and that we intuitively know since then. It could be argued that the same principle of understand­ ing which applies to the subject matter ought to apply, by way of exten­ sion, to its theoretical description, too. That is to say, it should not be sufficient that we, as it were, merely observed that our atheoretical knowledge can be systemati sed in such and such ways according to criteria based on some preconceived notion of simplicity; rather, the systematisation itself should be illuminating in such a way that it produces understanding which is situated on the same continuum as the initial, atheoretical understanding, only higher. It seems to me that in this particular respect TG descriptions vacillate somewhere be­ tween philosophical analyses and theoretical hypotheses of natural sci­ ence: On the one hand, it is undeniable that both TG descriptions and philosophical analyses are, broadly speaking, systematisations of atheo­ retical, intuitive knowledge; on the other hand, while it is the expli­ cit purpose of philosophical analyses to extend the domain of our under­ standing, by eliminating conceptual confusions and by solving puzz­ les for instance, TG quite generally uses 'theoretical concepts' which are not (intuitively) understandable in themselves, but are justified solely because they simplify the description in the sense of reducing the number of grammatical rules needed for generating correct sentences. (Here it would be awkward, even if factually correct, to speak of 'gram­ matical hypotheses' instead of 'grammatical rules', or interpretations of such rules.) I would say that only those grammatical rules which either have or may receive an intuitive backing and which in this re­ spect resemble the 'rules' of good philosophical analyses may claim to have ontologically real counterparts in 'language itself'. Since only 'illuminating' rules of grammar are said to refer to something existing we see that in this context questions

of exristenoe

ave inseparable

from

226

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

questions of value. Grammatical rules which systematise and simplify the data in more or less unintelligible or 'opaque' ways may be quite useful for certain purposes, but they do not seem to possess ontolo­ gical reality in the sense here specified. - The preceding discussion to the requirement of 'naturalness' within the metatheois related ry of TG. Initially it was assumed that simplicity and (intuitive) naturalness simply coincide, but since then it has become more and more evident that paying due attention to the naturalness of descrip­ tions may necessitate important methodological changes. I have outlined here a difference between two very general ap­ proaches to grammatical rules. It could perhaps be said that according to the one view, grammatical rules are only means to ends, while accord­ ing to the other, they have an intuitive significance of their own. This is of course an oversimplification, but I nevertheless maintain that something like the difference here outlined is discernible in the cur­ rent practice of language description. The two viewpoints might be illustrated by the following quotations. On the one hand, grammatical categories are simply theoretical concepts: Motivated now by the goal of constructing a grammar, instead of a rule of procedure for constructing an inventory of elements, we no longer have any reason to consider the symbols ΝΡ, S e n t e n c e , VP and so forth, that appear in these rules to be names of certain classes, sequences, or sequences of classes, and so on, of concrete elements. They are simply elements in a system of representa­ tion which has been constructed so as to enable us to characterize effectively the set of English sentences in a linguistically meaningful way (Chomsky 1964a:216). Instead of viewing the phonological section of the grammar as an inventory of phonemes, constructed by procedures of analysis based on such rather arbitrary principles as biuniqueness, we can con­ struct the simplest possible grammar of the appropriate form and consider the phonemes of this language to be the elements that appear in the representation of utterances on the appropriate le­ vel in this grammar (ibid. p.220).114

On the other hand, even the theoretical description itself must somehow be intuitively acceptable: That is, we know ahead of time in some sense what we want to come out with as a result of our analysis. This is one sense in which'

LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR

227

it can be said that linguistic analysis tries to account for the linguistic intuition of the native speaker (Bach 1964:151).

We have to do here with two different conceptions of the nature of conceptual analysis, or explication. The former is expounded for example in Quine (1960:257-62); it is closely connected with the use of formal logic as a tool of analysis. The latter is represented by Wittgenstein-inspired (linguistic) analysis which continues the clas­ sical philosophical tradition (cf. 11.1. below). The discussion of this topic is made very difficult by the inevi­ table vagueness of the crucial notion of the intuitive acceptability or naturalness of grammatical descriptions, as well as by the fact that either the one or the other of the two notions of grammatical rule here discussed is only seldom applied in a conscious and con­ sistent way, so that there is an almost infinite number of unclear or intermediate cases. In any event, I accept the possibility that (cer­ tain types of) grammatical hypotheses could refer to, or directly re­ present, something existent in language itself, i.e., in the (poten­ tial) knowledge of language.

9.0. THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR In this chapter I will concern myself chiefly with the methodolo­ gy of TG. However, I shall carry out my analysis at a level of abstrac­ tion where everything said about TG also applies to any other general method of providing theoretical-grammatical descriptions for natural languages. I shall prove here that TG does not satisfy the criteria of empirical explanation or of empirical testability. Examples of this will be given in 9.5. (below). In 10.0. and 11.0. (below) I shall prove that TG satisfies those criteria of 'explanation' (i.e., explanation3 ) and 'testability' (i.e., testability3) which are characteristic of lo­ gical and philosophical analysis. Therefore reading the two last-men­ tioned chapters is essential for fully understanding what is going to be said here. 9.1.

General

Remarks

Since TG aspires to be an empirical science, modelled upon the example given by the paradigmatic natural sciences, TG descriptions ought to make use of the methods of explanation, prediction, and test­ ing, as they have been specified by the positivistic philosophy of science (cf. 1.0. above). Now, if TG really were a psycholinguistic theory of faculté de langage - as i t often claims to be -, then it might qualify as an empirical science. The processes of language ac­ quisition and use go on in space and time, and it is only natural to try to explain them by postulating some general psychological regula­ rities which involve non-observable (i.e., theoretical) and partly in­ nate mechanisms, and by adducing actual language-learning situations which function as antecedent conditions; together the regularities and the antecedent conditions might be used to tentatively explain any

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THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR

number of p r o t r a c t e d explanandum-events c o n s i s t i n g i n t h a t a given c h i l d becomes a f l u e n t speaker of a given language.

N o t i c e , however, t h a t

even i n t h i s instance TG could not possibly count as a natural

(or em-

p i r i c a l · , ) science, because the notion of fluency is dependent on the notion of ' c o r r e c t n e s s ' , and because correctness cannot be d e f i n e d , or o p e r a t i o n a l i s e d , i n spatiotemporal terms ( c f . 7 . 1 . above). On t h i s i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , t h e n , TG would be an empirical 2 theory i n v e s t i g a t i n g a mixture of s p a t i o t e m p o r a l i t y and n o r m a t i v i t y , i . e . , a set of f a c t u a l normative a c t i o n s .

S o c i o l i n g u i s t i c s too is a science

of t h i s t y p e ; but of course, TG has never viewed i t s e l f as a s o c i o l i n guistic

theory.

Whatever i t s methodological claims may be, however, TG i s and foremost a grammatical theory.

t a i n a genuinely e x p e r i m e n t a l - p s y c h o l i n g u i s t i c

component, as envisaged

in Fodor e t a l . (1974), i t is clear t h a t t h i s component cannot the grammatical one.

first

And even i f i t should come to conreplace

Now, as grammatical d e s c r i p t i o n s , TG d e s c r i p t i o n s

cannot make use of empirical methods of explanation and t e s t i n g , f o r the simple reason t h a t t h e i r subject m a t t e r , c o n s t i t u t e d by the rules of a given language, is not spatiotemporal.

Notice also t h a t rules de-

termine p r i m a r i l y the correctness of sentences,

or

sentence-types,

and

not of u t t e r a n c e s , or sentence-tokens, which means t h a t i n grammar types are primary w i t h respect to tokens. In empirical science, by cont r a s t , tokens, as objects of e x p l a n a t i o n , are primary w i t h respect to types.

Compare Hempel's (1965:423) following observation: However, given this notion of explaining a particular occurrence of a solar eclipse or of a rainbow, etc., one can speak derivatively of a theoretical explanation of solar eclipses or rain­ bows in general: such an explanation is then one that accounts for any instance of an eclipse or a rainbow. Thus, the notion of explaining particular instances of a given kind of occurrence is the primary one.

As a supposedly empirical theory, TG claims to be investigating space and time, but - as will be seen from what follows - it has been forced to admit, implicitly, the falsity of this claim.

230

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE Within p o s i t i v i s m , explanations are divided i n t o two d i s t i n c t

types, namely deductive-nomological ve-)statistical

explanations.

(= D-N) explanations and ( i n d u c t i -

As the name i n d i c a t e s , i t i s the charac-

t e r i s t i c property of the l a t t e r t h a t (some of) the laws which occur in them are of s t a t i s t i c - p r o b a b i l i s t i c f e r e n t objects of research

-

form ( c f . Hempel 1965:376-93). D i f -

such as planets or diseases

or may r e q u i r e , d i f f e r e n t types of e x p l a n a t i o n .

-

require,

Consequently i t beco-

mes an empirical q u e s t i o n , which type of explanation is appropriate in which ( e m p i r i c a l ) science.

In other words, the adequacy of the one

or the other type of explanation must be experimentally

established.

In t h i s c o n t e x t , i t is extremely revealing to note t h a t , assuming t h a t TG is an empirical science, i t is the only cludes s t a t i s t i c a l

considerations

empirical science which ex-

on a pviovi

grounds:

Evidently, one's ability to produce and recognize grammatical utterances is not based on notions of statistical approximation and the like. The custom of calling grammatical sentences those that 'can occur', or those that are 'possible', has been respon­ sible for some confusion here. It is natural to understand 'pos­ sible' as meaning 'highly probable' and to assume that the lin­ guist's sharp distinction between grammatical and ungrammatical is motivated by a feeling that since the 'reality' of language is too complex to be described completely, he must content him­ self with a schematized version replacing 'zero probability, and all extremely low probabilities, by impossible, and all high­ er probabilities by possible'. We see, however, that this idea is quite incorrect, and that a structural analysis cannot be un­ derstood as a schematic summary developed by sharpening the blur­ red edges in a full statistical picture (Chomsky 1957:16; emphasis added) . I t is r e a d i l y d i s c e r n i b l e t h a t the inadequacy of s t a t i s t i c a l

ex-

planations is not established here upon the foundation of experimentat i o n , but of insight

or intuition.

By way of comparison, consider the

absurdity of an astronomist who would 'see' t h a t s t a t i s t i c a l t i o n s are ' e v i d e n t l y '

considera-

i r r e l e v a n t in dealing w i t h c e l e s t i a l phenomena.

Since TG cannot adopt the ( i n d u c t ! v e - ) s t a t i s t i c a l n a t i o n , i t obviously has to adopt the D-N t y p e ,

if,

type of expla-

in conformity w i t h

i t s self-imposed p o s i t i v i s m , i t wishes to be considered as an e m p i r i cal theory.

This is why I have omitted the analysis of

statistical

231

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR explanations (cf. 1.2. above).

Curiously enough, representatives of TG

have not been able to identify TG 'explanations' with D-N explanations; therefore it was left to linguists outside TG to do this (cf. 3.7. above). However, the fact that the alleged similarity between TG 'explanations' and D-N explanations is established on a priori, shows, precisely, that we do planations.

or intuitive, grounds,

not have to do here with genuine D-N ex­

That is, I entirely agree with TG that the statistical

point of view is irrelevant within grammar (cf., however 5.4. above). But contrary to what TG assumes, this fact only proves the nonempirical nature of grammatical descriptions: We see that because rules determine, and are known to determine, the correctness of sentences qua conceptual possibilities, any statistical concern with utterances either exemplify­ ing or failing to exemplify correct sentences is evidently

irrelevant.

More concretely, the D-N model cannot apply to TG descriptions, because the 'individuals', i.e., space-time points or regions, referred to by 'a', 'b', etc., which occur in D-N explanations, have no role to play within TG. When we are analysing institutions by analysing the con­ cept 'correct (result of) action', or in particular 'correct sentence', we may validly deal with actions or sentences tokens of which have never occurred in the intersubjective spatiotemporal world.

We may 'explain'

an action (or a sentence) which has never been performed (or uttered) by relating it to some general properties of correct actions (or sen­ tences) of the same or of a different category.

And we may 'confirm'

our analysis by means of nonexistent actions (or non-uttered sentences), i.e., by showing that actions (or sentences) which according to our analysis ought to be correct are indeed correct, irrespective of whether or not they have ever been or will be exemplified in space and time. We can do this, because we know the rules which determine the correctness of actions (or sentences), and because knowing the rules means knowing an infinite number of possible

correct tokens of actions (or sentences).

Compare this situation to that prevailing in the empirical sciences: it would be absurd to say that an empirical scientist confirms his theory on the basis of nonexistent events: a thought experiment is not an ex­ periment (Wittgenstein 1958: I, §265).

It is clear that natural scien­

tists make use of thought experiments too, but these are parasitic upon

232

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

genuine experiments, which aim at discovering what really goes on in space and time. By contrast, grammarians rely solely on thought ex­ periments; or, what comes to the same, any apparently genuine experi­ ments conducted by grammarians are parasitic upon thought experiments. That is, if I notice that my grammar generates a sentence 'X s , I know whether 'X' is correct or incorrect and, accordingly, whether my gram­ mar has been confirmed3 or disconfirrned3, irrespective of whether I have ever observed the spatiotemporal occurrence of any utterance of 'X'. Nothing is changed if I make such utterances occur by uttering 'X' my­ self, or if I subsequently hear someone else utter 'X'. Such spatiotemporal data are simply irrelevant for the construction and the test­ ing of grammars. Grammars describe what we know, i.e., what we have once learned, and what we now remind ourselves of (cf. 8.3. above). In my opinion, the reason why the above-mentioned facts about the nature of grammatical descriptions have always been overlooked by TG (and by practically all other schools of linguistics as well) can be seen inter olia in the peculiar character of acts of speaking. While sitting in my arm-chair, I can think of any type of correct action, rang­ ing from the correct way of playing football to that of getting married. In practically all instances the distance from imagining a (correct) action to performing it is considerable, It may even be that, in spite of a lot of energy, time, and movement in space, I am prevented from performing the (correct) action which I was thinking of. Yet there is one type of rule-governed action with respect to which the difference between thought and actual performance is almost nonexistent. Of course, this is the (locutionary) act of speaking. Since we can straight away utter all the correct sentences we can distinctly imagine, we are in­ clined to think, erroneously, that when we are describing a language, we are dealing with empirical, observable events only. When describing the game of football for instance, we are not likely to commit the ana­ logous fallacy, precisely because the distance between thought (of cor­ rect performance) and actual performance is much greater. The same fal­ lacy arises also in connection with writing generative grammars: when a grammar generates a sentence 'X', it is possible to construct an ex-

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR

233

piicit derivation which ends with a written utterance, or inscription, of 'X'. So it may seem that grammars deal only with observable data, i.e., black marks on a white paper. However, the notion of generating (written) utterances is secondary with respect to the notion of genera­ ting sentences (cf. the discussion of Friedman in 7.3. above). What I have said in this section, and in previous chapters, may suffice to demonstrate the inapplicability to TG of the empirical no­ tions of explanation, prediction, and testing. For the sake of com­ pleteness, however, I shall explore these matters in greater detail be­ low. 9.2. Explanation

and

Prediction

So far I have been concerned only with the metascientific analy­ sis of grammars, understood as descriptions of particular languages. Their relation to the notion of universal linguistic theory will be discussed in 9.4. (below). However, in approaching the problem of explanation in TG we should mention already at this point the role of universal linguistic theory, in as much as it is concerned with the notion 'explanatory adequacy'. A grammar is said to be 'descriptive­ ly adequate', if it correctly describes the native speaker's linguis­ tic intuition or, in more controversial terms, if it correctly descri­ bes the tacit competence of the idealised native speaker. A linguis­ tic theory is descriptively adequate, if it provides a descriptively adequate grammar for every particular language. Finally, a linguis­ tic theory possesses explanatory adequacy, if it is capable of select­ ing for each language the 'right' descriptively adequate grammar oyer other possible grammars of the same type (cf. Chomsky 1965:24-25). First of all, it should be noted that the distinction between de­ scriptive and explanatory adequacy has very little theoretical or prac­ tical value. It is certainly impossible to describe adequately one particular language while using concepts which have no general appli­ cability whatever. That is, describing one language adequately re­ quires some knowledge about language in general, whereas any adequate general theory of language must, of necessity, build upon descriptions

234

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

of particular languages. We have here to do with a clear case of the hermeneutic 'circle of understanding'. Furthermore, it is a truism about the nature of scientific activity that scientists are intent up­ on making their theories as general or 'universal' as possible. Further­ more, since the problem of constructing an 'evaluation measure' for se­ lecting the right descriptively adequate grammar for each language is practically identical with the problem of defining the notion of lin­ guistically significant generalisation' (Chomsky 1965:42), it simply follows that the best descriptions or theories, both at the level of one language and at the level of all languages, are always the most general ones. Hence the 'descriptive' level and the 'explanatory' le­ vel are inseparable in practice. As one example among many, consider Chomsky's (1964d:41) requirement of the recoverability of deleted elements. This 'general condition on TG' is supposedly part of the theoretical apparatus which for the first time makes explanatory ade­ quacy possible; but since this condition is needed, inter alia, to pre­ vent elliptical sentences of English from being infinitely ambiguous, it must be part of every descriptively adequate grammar of English, regardless of whether or not we are concerned with writing grammars for any other language; but then again it might be argued that noticing the relevance of this condition (and the irrelevance of some other theo­ retically possible conditions) requires some knowledge about language in general. Secondly, the question of descriptive vs. explanatory adequacy is irrelevant in the present context anyway, since TG has made it eminent­ of particular languages, ly clear that it views grammars as theories that is, theories strictly in the positivistic sense. It is of course the defining property of such theories that they explain and predict observable events and are tested, i.e., confirmed or disconfirmed, on the basis of such events. As a consequence, the topic here is the notion of explanation in (synchronic) grammar. I shall concentrate on establishing the truth of three specific claims. First, the D-N model does not apply to TG; in particular, in addition to the fact that the data to be 'explained'

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235

are not spatiotemporal, the requirement of the conceptual independence between antecedent conditions and explanandum-'events' cannot be ful­ filled either. Second, 'explanation' in TG is identical with (nonempi­ Third, a TG description is a self-referential rical) generalisation, description (equipped with a metalinguistic interpretation): it 'ex­ plains' its data by showing them. I shall discuss these three claims in relation to two phenomena which, within the TG tradition, are commonly assumed to be 'explained' or 'explainable' by grammar, viz. the correctness of sentences and the distribution of sentential properties. - Because of the structural identity between explanation and prediction, the results achieved in analysing the former will hold true of the latter too. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that a statement to the effect that a sentence 'X' is a correct sentence of a language L, might quali­ fy as a genuine explanandum in Hempel's sense. What would the corre­ sponding explanans look like?TG has never given a clear answer to this question. Wang (1972) proposes an explanans where the roles of univer­ sal hypotheses and statements of antecedent conditions would be ful­ filled, respectively, by universal sentences involving grammatical ca­ tegories and sentences assigning words to lexical categories, This proposal is unacceptable because, first of all, a sentence like "man is a noun" is not about space and time, and hence does not qualify as a statement of antecedent conditions. Nor can it be defined in spatiotemporal terms, for example by means of Kasher-type instance functions (cf. 7.2. above). The same is true, of course, of the putative expla­ nandum "The sentence 'X' is a correct sentence of L". In effect, with­ in grammar there is no room for statements about particulars; rather, all grammatical hypotheses, in whatever way they may be formalised, are equally universal. This is directly confirmed by the fact that in old­ er variants of TG words were introduced by means of the same type of rules as any other grammatical categories, i.e., man woman

236

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

It was just a technical innovation that words were later introduced as parts of a 'lexicon'. Changes in the ways of describing language do not of course affect the nature of language itself.

Moreover, the de­

velopment of generative semantics has at least called into question the use of a self-contained lexicon.

-

My position here is further support­

ed by the close analogy between generative grammars and axiomatic sys­ tems of logic (cf. 10.0 below), given that the latter contain no state­ ments about particulars. Secondly, if the correctness of sentences is what grammars are re­ quired to explain, it is clear that, irrespective of their specific for­ malisations, the substance of grammatical

'D-N explanations' must be

this:

Now, it is clear that a's cause

having the property complex F. is not the

of, or more generally does not empirically

determine

a is correct sentence of L; rather, the former fact entails That is, to have the property complex F. is L.

the fact that the latter.

to be a correct sentence of

Consequently the second premise entails the conclusion all alone,

which means that the condition of conceptual independence is not met: it is not possible that the 'statement of antecedent conditions' is true and the 'explanandum' is false. To give a simple example, to notice that in the form the man the ar­ ticle precedes the noun is

to notice that this form is correct.

in which the article follows the noun is incorrect by conceptual sity

(cf. pp.158-60).

A form neces­

The same argument applies to all more complex

cases: We cannot notice that an utterance 'Y' has all the properties of a correct utterance, without noticing that the utterance 'Y' is correct. Similarly we can neither observe nor think of a closed figure with three lines without observing, or thinking of, this figure as a (correct) tri-

237

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR angle.

By contrast, we can think of a piece of metal being heated,

without being forced to think of it as expanding as well.

This is

why the notion of antecedent conditions applies in physics, but not in grammar or geometry for example. Next, let us consider the case where a grammatical description 'explains', not just the correctness of sentences, but the distribu­ tion, among correct sentences, of some syntactic phenomena. analyse an example from Lakoff (1971).

I shall

Referring to R. Lakoff's stu­

dies, Lakoff claims that the distribution of the subjunctive and of the negative particles non and ne in Latin can be explained

by pos­

tulating abstract predicates not appearing at the surface.

For in­

stance, the similarity in form and meaning between the sentence "Im­ pero ut venias" and "Venias", on the one hand, and "Impero ne venias" and "Ne venias", on the other, is supposedly

explained

by showing

that they can be derived from a common deep structure (cf. the figure).116

Lakoff (1971:289) sums up the rationale of postulating abstract deep structures and, by the same token, of providing grammatical expla­ nations, in the following way: If the same syntactic phenomena that occur in sentences with cer­ tain overt verbs occur in sentences without those verbs, and if those sentences are understood as though those verbs were there,

238

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE then we conclude (1) a rule has to be stated in the case where the real verbs occur; (2) since the same phenomenon occurs with the corresponding understood verbs, then there should be a single general rule to cover both cases; (3) since we know what the rule looks like in the case of real verbs, and since the same rule must apply, then the sentences with understood verbs must have a structure sufficiently like that of those with the overt verbs so that the same general rule can apply to both (emphasis added).

I shall return to this example below. Here I consider it only from the perspective of the D-N model. If in connection with the cor­ rectness of sentences the data to be explained are not spatiotemporal, they can be so even less in the present, more complex case. What about the requirement of conceptual independence between the data to be ex­ plained and their antecedent conditions? The substance of the 'expla­ nation' which Lakoff has in mind must be something like this: i)

"For all χ and y, if χ and y are sentences having the same deep structure, then they are alike in meaning and at least partly alike in form."

ii) "a and b are sentences having the same deep structure". "Therefore a and b are alike in meaning and at least partly alike in form." Again, it is clear that the second premise entails the conclusion all alone. In the grammatical tradition within which this 'D-N expla­ nation' is formulated, for two sentences to have the same deep struc­ ture means that they are alike in meaning. Lakoff expressly stipulates that the sentence b, where the overt verb is lacking, must be understood as containing it, i.e., as similar to the sentence a which contains it (cf. above). Secondly, and analogously, it is necessarily the case that the sentences a and b having the same deep structure are at least part­ ly alike in form: Lakoff expressly stipulates that there must be the same syntactic phenomena (viz. the subjunctive and the negative partic­ les) occurring in both a and b. (This is not to deny that in other con­ texts a common deep structure may be postulated for sentences with appa­ rently no formal similarities.) Consequently, the requirement of con­ ceptual independence between the second premise and the explanandum can­ not be met here, either. To sum up, it is not only the case that what TG descriptions purport

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR

239

to explain is not of spatiotemporal, but of conceptual nature; in addi­ tion, it stands in a conceptual, necessary relation to everything which might be taken as its 'antecedent conditions'. Therefore any attempt to force TG descriptions into the D-N model amounts to an (impossible) attempt to split one and the same concept, or one and the same piece of knowledge, into two. Now, if TG descriptions are not (empirical) D-N explanations in the sense of 1.2. (above), what are they then? This question brings us to my second claim, viz, that in TG 'explanation' simply equals 'generalisa­ tion' . In TG it is customarily said that a grammar explains a sentence by generating it. In this context the terms 'explain', 'predict', 'produce', 'deduce', 'generate', etc.. are used synonymously. Botha ' s (1968:62) follow­ ing remark is characteristic: It can be said that Lees' grammar of English nominalisations explains nominal compound types in that it is possible to deduce them from the rules, i.e., the explanatory principles contained in the gram­ mar .

Kanngiesser has discussed this topic in some detail. He accepts the thesis of the structural symmetry between explanation and predic­ tion, and formulates the aims of TG in the following terms: Da nun kein logischer Unterschied zwischen der Herleitung einer Aussage und einer Prognose besteht, lässt sich zu Recht, wenngleich etwas verkürzt, sagen, dass die Erklärung eines sprachlichen Sach­ verhalts, eines Datums in seiner Voraussage besteht; ... Nun sind es zweierlei Leistungen, die ein linguistisches System in Hinblick auf seine prognostische Kapazität vollbringen muss: es muss erstens die Klasse der in einer Sprachgemeinschaft möglichen grammatischen korrekten [sic] Sätze voraussagen, d.i. e r z e u g e n , und es muss zweitens die Klasse der Strukturbeschreibungen prognosti­ zieren, die diesen Sätzen zuzuordnen sind, und die als Spezifika­ tionen der Art zu interpretieren sind, in der die Sprecher/Hörer der Sprachgemeinschaft diese Sätze verstehen (Kanngiesser 1972: 8).

He then sets up an artificial language L consisting of the senten­ ces ab and aba and answers the question as to what it is to these sentences:

explain

240

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE Um die obigen Sätze … erklären zu können, muss offenbar eine Theorie von L, in linguistischer Terminologie und mit einer ge­ wissen Vereinfachung: eine Grammatik G von L existieren, die die Sätze ... erzeugt, also eine Prognosededuktion ermöglicht, und die es weiterhin gestattet, die für die Sätze ... einschlägigen Strukturbeschreibungen zu prognostizieren (ibid.).

Now the following grammar G1 fulfils these requirements: G1:

S → SS S → a S → b

(p 1 ) (p 2 ) (p 3 )

In other words, this grammar generates the sentences ab and aba (as well as all other combinations of a's and b's) and automatically assigns structural descriptions to them. The sentence aba may receive, e.g., the following versions of derivation and structural description: S

(given)

S

S

(Ρ 1 )

a

S

a

S

S

(P1)

a

b

S

(P 3 )

a

b

a

(p 2 )

(P 2 )

I think that, as far as it goes, Kanngiesser's interpretation of the notion 'explanation in TG' is quite correct. But notice that in precisely the same way we could 'explain' for instance any string con­ sisting of one or more zeros: for instance, the string 000 is 'explained' as follows: G2:

X → XO

(q 1 )

X → 0

(q 2 )

X X

(given) 0

X

0

0

(q 1 )

0

0

0

(q 2)

It should be clear that such 'explanations' have very little to do with the way in which observable events are explained on the basis of their antecedent conditions and some hypothetical regularities. There­ fore it is quite clear, again, that TG does not use such methodological­ ly central terms as 'explanation' and 'prediction' intheir customary em-

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR

241

pirical sense, as defined in 1.2. (above).117 Yet it is not too dif­ ficult to find a common denominator for D-N explanations1-2 and TGtype explanations3. To put it somewhat metaphorically, in both in­ stances we have to do with bringing order into (apparent) disorder. The main difference lies in the fact that in the one case the disor­ der obtains among space-time events and facts, while in the other case it obtains among conceptual entities exemplified by strings of sym­ bols. At a higher level of abstraction, again, it is easy to see that in both cases the levels of disorder and order might be called, re­ spectively, 'atheoretical' and 'theoretical'. That is, order is achiev­ ed by postulating a set of theoretical-descriptive devices which are able to show that things which previously seemed disconnected actual­ ly belong together. As was pointed out earlier (p.211), theory is creative insofar as it brings into existence something which did not exist before, viz. something which reveals the coherence of, and thus simplifies, the atheoretical disorder which did exist before. There­ fore an empirical theory explains1-2 an event only when it also ex­ piains1-2 an indefinite number of other events. Similarly, it makes sense to say that the grammar G2 'explains3' the string of zeros 000 only because it also explains3 all similar strings and thus shows their connection with one another. A theory creates order precisely because it does not record each event or each string of symbols separately, but rather says something about all events or strings of symbols, or at least about as many events or strings of symbols as possible. That is, a theory creates order by being general. A theory is the better, the more general it is; its greater generality is manifested as its capacity to make a greater num­ In TG, in turn, "we have a generalisation when ber of generalisations. a set of grammatical rules about distinct items can be replaced by a single rule (or, more generally, partially identical rules) about the whole set, ..." (Chomsky 1965:42). For instance, the grammar G1 is more general than any grammar generating all combinations of a's and b's by means of more than three rules. It is the basic purpose of a TG description, then, to present in a maximally simple and general way the relations of similarity and dif-

242

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

ference between the correct sentences of a given language. As we have seen in 3.6. (above), it is the merit of TG, as against earlier Ameri­ can linguistics, to accept more abstract sentential relations, e.g., the similarity between the active and the passive, and the difference between seemingly identical 'easy'- and 'eager'-constructions, as well as to provide more explicit methods of formalisation. Consequently a TG description resembles, not only a logical derivation, but also a proof of geometry: In an analogous manner, it is the basic purpose of geometry to present the similarities and the differences between dif­ ferent (correct) figures in a maximally simple and general way. In empirical science, the nearest analogue to TG descriptions is not ex­ planation of events, but classification of (empirical) types. Even if the data to be classified has been obtained experimentally, the classification itself is no longer an experimental undertaking; ra­ ther, it consists in presenting a given body of (empirical) knowledge in a maximally simple and general way. It follows that a (taxonomie) classification 'explains' its data in precisely the same sense as a TG description, e.g., the grammar G1 above, does. - From the above, it also follows that the axiornatisation of an empirical science is ra­ ther similar to grammar-writing. In light of the preceding discussion, it is self-evident in which sense grammars can be said to 'explain' the correctness of sentences. It is the same sense in which systems of logic can be said to 'explain' the validity of their theorems (cf. 10.0. below). Therefore it only needs to be shown here that Lakoff's example of grammatical explanation agrees with my interpretation of the TG-type explanation. Remember that the distribution of the subjunctive and of the morphemes non and me was meant to be explained by the postulation of an abstract predi­ cate 'ego impero'. Now, the explanatory import of such predicates resides precisely in the fact that they permit us to express generali­ sations about sets of sentence-types which would otherwise remain un­ noticed and unexpressed. (To be sure, it is debatable whether postu­ lating additional, abstract structures is the only or even the most adequate way of expressing generalisations in grammar; cf. n.125.) In

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR

243

other words, a generalisation is made here by dispensing with those phrase structure rules (or node admissibility conditions) which would have generated a separate deep structure for "Venias" or for "Ne veni­ as". Consider the two sentences "Impero ut venias" and "Venias", and let "(ego) impero", "tu ven-", and the subjunctive be referred to, respectively, by A / a , B/b, and c/c, where the capital letters and the small ones stand for deep forms and surface forms, respectively. At the surface level, then, the two sentences are represented as abc and bo. If we did not postulate a common deep structure for them, they would be generated by the following two sets of rules: 1) S → ABC→abc 2) S → BC → bc The postulation of a common deep structure ABC makes the rule S → BC superfluous. The generation of bc now looks like this: 2') S→ABC → BC → bc We see that the gain in simplicity, viz. the elimination of the rule S → BC, is counterbalanced by a loss, viz. the addition of the rule ABC → BC. However, it can be safely assumed that deletion transfor­ mations are extremely common, or 'independently motivated', so that the gain here outweighs the loss. It is clear, then, that Lakoff's 'explanation' is a 'generalisation' precisely in Chomsky's sense: two different grammatical rules are replaced by a single one (plus an in­ dependently motivated rule). The meaning of these formal exercises is to show that apparently disparate things belong in fact together, or, in a however modest way, to 'bring order into (apparent) disorder'. Let us turn, finally, to my third claim, viz. that TG offers s e l f - r e f e r e n t i a l 'explanations' of its data. Above, it became evi­ dent that TG explains its data, i.e., the sentences of a given langu­ age, by presenting them with all their various properties in the maxi­ mally general way. In this respect TG-type descriptions were seen to resemble taxonomie classifications of empirical science. However,

244

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

there i s also a clear d i f f e r e n c e here. For example a g e o l o g i s t who is g i v i n g a c l a s s i f i c a t o r y d e s c r i p t i o n of his data i s not manipulating d i f f e r e n t types of m i n e r a l s , but sentences r e f e r r i n g to the former. By c o n t r a s t , when a grammarian ' e x p l a i n s '

the correctness of some

sentences, he i s l i t e r a l l y manipulating these same sentences ( o r , r a t h e r , i n s c r i p t i o n s representing them).

For i n s t a n c e , we ' e x p l a i n ' a

given s t r i n g of a's and b ' s , by means of the grammar G1, by

showing

how one can, applying the rules of G1 , gradually a r r i v e a t an i n s c r i p t i o n of p r e c i s e l y t h i s s t r i n g .

In the same vein the s i m i l a r i t y be-

tween the sentences "Impero ut venias" and "Venias" i s ' e x p l a i n e d ' by showing t h a t i t is from a common source t h a t one a r r i v e s at the corresponding i n s c r i p t i o n s . I t i s c l e a r , t h e n , t h a t a TG explanation i s a

picture,

con-

s t r u c t e d according to maximally general p r i n c i p l e s , and t h a t , i n addit i o n , the elements of the p i c t u r e , i n p a r t i c u l a r parts of natural language sentences (or i n s c r i p t i o n s ) , represent nothing

but

themselves

A d e r i v a t i o n (or ' e x p l a n a t i o n ' ) of a theorem i n l o g i c i s a s i m i l a r ' p i c t u r e ' ; I s h a l l have more to say about t h i s t o p i c i n 10.0, (below). A TG d e s c r i p t i o n i s s e l f - r e f e r e n t i a l

i n the way of a p i c t u r e ,

not of a sentence; t h a t i s , i t does not admit of t r u t h - v a l u e .

How-

ever, i t is always meant to be accompanied by a ( m e t a l i n g u i s t i c )

na-

t u r a l language i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , even i f the l a t t e r i s mostly not s p e l led out e x p l i c i t l y , l e t alone mechanically assigned. tion

admits, of course, of t r u t h - v a l u e .

This i n t e r p r e t a -

I t claims t h a t the sentences

described are c o r r e c t , t h a t the d e s c r i p t i o n expresses such and such generalisations, etc. -

More g e n e r a l l y , the metagrammar is

i t speaks about the ( s e l f - r e f e r e n t i a l )

resembles ordinary (non-empirical)

grammar

-

referential

and therefore

theories.

When discussing TG, I always assume that the distinction between grammar and metagrammar is made as indicated here, and when I speak simply of 'grammar', I mean 'grammar-cum-metagrammar'.

It is rather

pedantic, and even a little dishonest, to argue that since TG fails to make this distinction in a way which would meet the most rigorous requirements of explicitness, it does not make the distinction at all

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR

245

(cf. p.79above). This is tantamount to substituting, without any jus­ tification, one's own aims and standards for those of someone else. It is true, of course, that TG is largely guilty of the same arbitrary reinterpretation of the earlier history of linguistics. For instance, American 'taxonomie' linguistics is viewed as trying, and failing, to do precisely that what TG does. Postal (1964) is only the most bla­ tant example of this wide-spread attitude. It has sometimes beensaid that available grammars are not expla­ natory because the types of descriptive devices which they make use of are in no specific way suited for the description of natural language; it is, rather, only by adding otherwise unmotivated, and hence ad hoc, constraints that such devices can be made to generate, even in a very rough outline, the correct sentences of a given natural language. By saying this, it is implied that inventing more adequate types of de­ vices (or 'rules') would automatically render grammars truly explana­ tory (cf. Peters 1972). This is an interesting line of thought, but it is clear that the resulting (generative and generalising) explana­ tion., must not be confused with empirical explanation1-2 9.3.

Testing

A decisive criterion by which the empirical or nonempirical nature of a description is to be judged is the presence or absence of concep­ tual independence among the data which the description deals with. In practice this question falls together with the question of the spatiotemporality of the data. On closer inspection, however, four possibi­ lities can be distinguished here. If the data are constituted by se­ parate spatiotemporal events, like Fa and Ga or Ga and Gb in 1.2. (above), then their mutual conceptual independence, and the empirical character of proposed explanations and confirmations (or falsifica­ tions) is guaranteed. If it can be shown, however, that "Fa" and "Ga" or "Ga" and "Gb" refer to one and the same event (or fact), then there is no conceptual independence, and the proposed explanations are not empirical in spite of the fact that they deal with space and time. If the data are not spatiotemporal at all, and hence are conceptual,

246

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

then the nonempirical character of correlated explaining and testing is guaranteed. But there are still two possibilities: Either there is, or their is not, conceptual independence between the data. For instan­ ce, 'father' is dependent upon 'male', and 'father' and 'male parent' are dependent upon each other. By contrast, concepts like 'cat' and 'stone', not to speak of concepts like 'two' and 'pleasant', are certainly inde­ pendent of each other: there might conceivably be stones without there being cats, and vice versa. Since I have In previous chapters demonstrated the conceptual cha­ racter of grammatical data and thus the nonempirical character of gram­ matical descriptions, I am in this chapter mainly concerned with the question of conceptual independence vs. dependence. In the previous section I have shown that in grammatical descriptions the relations be­ tween antecedent conditions and facts to be explained, or, in terms of our D-N model,between Fa and Ga, is not conceptually independent. In this section I shall analyse the relation between old evidence and new one, or between Ga and Gb. According to TG's standard position, a grammar is constructed on the basis of a given corpus of a language L, and it is tested by find­ ing out whether it generates all and only correct sentences of L, in addition to those contained in the corpus, and assigns correct struc­ tural description to them. The 'all' and 'only' aspects correspond, respectively, to my 'explanatory' and 'predictive' types of testing (cf. 1.2. above): On the one hand, we think of a correct sentence and ask whether the grammar generates it; on the other, we make the grammar generate a sentence and ask whether it is correct. Before we go any further, TG's conception of testing must be qua­ structural de­ lified in two respects. First, the notion of correct scription is not as unproblematic as it might seem. We possess intui­ tive (and atheoretical) knowledge about an enormous number of differ­ ent structural features of correct sentences; but since structural de­ scriptions of these same sentences are results of theoretical analysis, and since we are not supposed to possess intuitive knowledge about theoretical matters, it follows that we could not properly speak of

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR

247

correct structural descriptions. In practice, a structural descrip­ tion can be divided into roughly two parts, one about which we have intuitive knowledge and the other about which we have not: if for example a sentence has two different readings, a structural descrip­ tion is (known to be) correct insofar as it represents this fact; but it may represent this fact in many different ways, and normally we are not able to decide which way is the intuitively 'correct' one. If the requirement of the correctness of theoretical descriptions is to be taken seriously, however, then it supports my claim that systematisations of intuitive knowledge should, as extensions of this knowledge, be themselves intuitively acceptable (cf. 8.4. above). Secondly, from TG's point of view the relation between the gram­ mar of L and the (correct) sentences of L does not simply consist in that the former is tested against its capacity to generate the latter. In connection with very complex sentences the order of reasoning is rather the inverse one: We have no intuition about their correctness, but we can convince ourselves of it, if we can show that these senten­ ces are generated by recursively applying grammatical rules which have already been confirmed by the fact that they generate simpler, intui­ tively correct sentences. This 'clear case principle' amounts to the claim that grammars are decision procedures for the correctness of complex (and otherwise intuitively unclear) sentences. In such instan­ ces, then, it is not sentences which say something about the grammar, but the other way around, the grammar which says something about sen­ tences. - The clear case principle rests on an assumed analogy be­ tween logical induction and what might be called 'grammatical induc­ tion'. However, it is shown in Itkonen (1976a) that this analogy is nonexistent. It follows that grammars cannot be used as decision pro­ cedures for correctness and that recursivity loses almost all of its justification in grammar. Now, TG's standard conception of grammatical testing can be il­ lustrated as shown on the next page.

248

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

In this presentation we have assumed that both test claims are true. Are we now entitled to say that our grammar G3 has been empiri­ cally confirmed? Obviously not. We must consider the full consequen­ ces of the fact that the corpus does not simply consist of factually occurring utterances, but of factually occurring correct utterances. Utterances like ba, aab, and aba have been left out of consideration because we, as fluent speakers of L3, intuitively know that they are incorrect. Therefore the utterances in the corpus are utterances exemplifying an intuitively known rule according to which correct sen­ tences of L3 consist of any number of a's followed by an equal number This means that G3 does not in reality describe (correct) ut­ of b's. terances, but (the knowledge of) the above-mentioned rule which deter-

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR mines the correctness of utterances only via

249

the correctness of sen­

tences. Consequently, establishing a corpus of factually-made correct utterances is just an idle ceremony.

In actual practice no transfor­

mationalist or Montague-grammarian ever bothers to base his descrip­ tion on a real corpus. Their sample

sentences are rather in the style

"Sincerity may frighten the boy" or "Every man such that he loves a woman is a man". The important question here is whether the new 'confirmatory' evi­ dence constituted by the sentences (rather than utterances) aabb and aaabbb

is or is not conceptually independent of the old evidence ab,

aaaabbbb, aaaaabbbbb sis of G 3 . gative.

contained in the corpus and constituting the ba­

It is not too difficult to see that the answer must be ne­

The correctness of ab is correlative with the rule which makes

it correct, and which we know.

The same is true of the correctness of

aabb (and of any other sentences of L 3 ) .

Hence, it is the rule in

question which provides the conceptual tie between ab and aabb , or be­ tween the old evidence and the new one. In other words, if I try to 'test' G3 by finding out whether the 'predicted' sentence aabb is cor­ rect or not, I am using as the criterion of the correctness of aabb, and hence of the truth of G

3

that very same rule which I intuitively

know, and which I describe with my grammar G3.Since

one and the same

entity is here both the subject matter of the description and the cri­ terion of its truth or falsity, there can be no new, conceptually in­ dependent evidence

which could empirically

firm the description.

either confirm or di scon-

The truth of this claim is established in ab­

straction from the fact that empirical confirmation or disconfirmation is here out of question anyway, because the 'entity' here at issue is a piece of (conceptual) knowledge, To give another simple example, suppose that on the basis of the 'corpus' the man, the woman, I construct the following fragment of the grammar of English : G4:

NP → the + Ν

Suppose further that I attempt to 'test' this grammar by picking out the unit girl from the lexicon and making the 'prediction' that the

250

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

girl is a correct form. Of course, I know in advance that my 'pre­ diction' is true (and hence is no genuine or empirical prediction), because I know the rule in question. Similarly, I cannot meaning­ fully ask whether G4 generates the correct form the boy, since I know in advance that it must do so. It would be rather silly to say that forms like the girl and the boy merely 'confirm' G 4 . What I am doing here is just to reaffirm the basic difference be­ tween rules and regularities. It would be a serious error to claim that the grammars G3 and G4 are 'too simple'. What we have here is a matter of principle. TG has never claimed that there is a conceptual difference such that some grammatical descriptions are empirically testabie, whereas others are not. And if this is so, then each description has the same claim to methodological relevance, It is only by starting from the simplest possible cases that one can hope to make transformationalists see their errors, which they 'nave not been able to see in connection with more complex ones. Now, since rules of language constitute the sub­ ject matter of any grammar (cf. 7.0. above), each grammatical genera­ lisation is about a greater or smaller number of rules of language and must be ultimately analysable as a set of descriptions of single rules. 119 And since, as we just have seen once again, the description of a rule of language is nonempirical (in the sense both of not being about space and time, and of not satisfying the requirement of concep­ tual independence), it follows that each grammatical generalisation must be analysable as a set of nonempirical descriptions. This is surely tantamount to saying that grammatical generalisations, and hence grammatical descriptions, are nonempirical. As regards the question of empirical testability, then, maximally simple grammars like G3 and G4 are fully representative of grammars in general: as descriptions of rules of language, all grammars from the simplest to the most complex are nonempirical. On the other hand, there is of course an important respect in which G3 and G4 are not re­ presentative of grammars in general: As descriptions of a single rule they are known to be true, which means that they are unfalsifiable (as well as unverifiable). In just the same way an equally simple grammar

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR

251

G5 would be KNOWN to be false, and would thus also be unfalsifiable (cf. 6.1. above): G5:

NP → Ν + the

In view of their unfaLsifiability, it is not only the case that such grammars are not empirically testable, but also that they are not nonempirically testable, either.

By contrast, it goes without saying

that ordinary scientific grammars are (nonempirically)

testable 3 , for

the simple reason that we do not know whether they are true or false. To avert any possibility of misunderstanding, I present the distinc­ tions here at issue in the following diagram: (empirically) testable1-2

(nonempirically) testable3

simple grammar G1-5

NO. Reason: normativeconceptual nature of subject matter

NO. Reason: truth or falsity is known

ordinary scientific grammar G.

NO. Reason: normativeconceptual nature of subject matter

YES. Reason: truth or falsity is not known 119a

A grammar like G4 describes one single rule (which could be de­ composed into an indefinite number of more concrete rules; cf. p. 161), whereas any complete grammar of English describes perhaps 100,000 rules or more.

Now we cannot say simply that the difference in testability3

between G1-5 and G1 is a direct result of the difference between the degrees of complexity of their respective data. A grammar of English which merely lists rules of language and/or correct forms exemplifying them is not contrary to facts; it is even known to be true. Yet it is uninteresting. Traditional school-grammars are generally not critici­ sed for making claims which are literally false (although this occurs too). From the scientific point of view, their defect is, rather, that they make claims which are too obviously true, i.e., claims which re­ main at a VERY concrete level, and thus are nor felt to 'explain' any­ thing. To put it otherwise, school-grammars make only true claims, but not all true claims which there are to be made; they stand up to the 'predictive' testing (so to say), but not to the 'explanatory' one.

252

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

In contrast to these grammars, a grammar which makes strong theo­ retical generalisations about a large number of rules is interesting and informative, but likely to be false in one way or another. The more systematic the grammars are, the more difficult it becomes to modify some of their (nonempirical) hypotheses so as to make them better fit the facts, without unwittingly modifying some other hypo­ theses with the result that they lose their correspondence with the facts. It is well known that "the amount of empirical information content, increases with its conveyed by a theory, or its empirical degree of falsifiabi1ity" (Popper 1965:113). But this principle is true, not just of empirical theories, but of every kind of theory. Both in physics and in logic, for instance, it is an equally valid truth that the more information a description supplies, i.e., the more phenomena or 'entities' it accounts for in a systematic and gen­ eral way, the more possibilities there are that the description could be (shown to be) false. It follows, then, that for a grammar to be testable 3 , two things are required. First, the grammar must purport to describe a relative­ ly large number of rules of language. Second, it must be non-trivial, i.e., it must attempt to make explicitly formalised generalisations about its data, G3 is an example of a grammar which meets the second condition, but not the first one, while an average school-grammarmeets the first condition, but not the second one. As a result, neither of them is testable3 . In keeping with the gradual character of all distinctions having to do with language (cf. 4.2.4. above), there extends a hard-to-define middle ground between the two extremes, viz. grammars which are defi­ nitely untes tables3 and those which are definitely testable 3 . For in­ stance, if we clearly delimit a not-too-large area of a certain langu­ age and propose a theoretical description of it, it is probable that our description will be (shown to be) false in some respect, and also that its revised or amended versions will be false as well, But since our subject matter is clearly delimited, it is possible that after a certain number of modifications we are able to convince ourselves and

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR

253

others that our description is not false, i.e., that it generates all 120 and only those entities which it was meant to generate. This does not yet mean that the description is the best possible one, or that it will not be refuted, because we have not proved that there cannot be a more general, i.e., scientifically more interesting, description of the same subject matter. It is far from clear whether, and when, this latter objective can be achieved. Yet there seem to be some indisputable cases where this has been done. For instance, it took a long time to invent a grammar like G3 for a language like L 3 , but once it has been invented, it seems impossible to conceive even of the possi­ bility of a more general description for the same subject matter. If this result can be accepted, I do not see why it could not be generali­ sed, at least in principle, to more complex cases. An analogous exam­ ple is given, in a different domain, by the axiomatisation of propositional logic, which certainly was the result of a long succession of tri­ als and errors, but has a long time already been accepted not only as unfalsifiableo, or untestableo, but also as the most general (axioma­ tic) description of its subject matter. It is however self-evident that in view of the extreme complexity of its subject matter, no gram­ mar which both describes a given natural language as a whole and is in­ tent upon maximal generality can ever be (shown to be) unfalsifiable3. The opposite situation would be a practical, even if not logical, im­ possibility. Consequently scientific natural-language grammars will remain testable3. In the previous paragraphs it became evident that there are two principal reasons why one grammatical description is inferior to an­ other. First, it may be true, but less general. Second, it may be more general, but (partly) false. These two types of defects are un­ derlain by two distinct psychological factors, viz. the grammarian's lack of insight

or his lack of attention.

Lack of insight is involved

when the grammarian presents his data truthfully, but simply does not come up with any interesting generalisations. An instance of this kind was discussed above in connection with school-grammars. On the other hand, we have to do with lack of attention when the grammarian

254

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

overlooks or is mistaken about aspects of his own linguistic knowledge, or when he fails to notice inconsistencies obtaining in his own descrip­ tion. The defects due to lack of attention are rrristakes: one overlooks something that one knows in fact, More particularly, it is practically impossible that one should be mistaken about the content of single rules of language, but it is quite usual that one overlooks such rules when they conflict with a tentative generalisation that one is in the process of formulating (for examples, cf. 9.5. below). Mistakes are corrected by means of r e c o l l e c t i o n : one reminds oneself of something which one knows in fact, but just was not aware of at the moment of making the generalisation (cf. 8.3. above). The role of recollection in grammatical analysis points to the li­ mited nature of grammatical data. However many rules one language may contain, their number must be finite; to know a language is to know all of its rules; once a language has been learned, it is known in its enti­ rety. This fact raises the question of conceptual independence in a new form. As we have seen above, there can be no new, conceptually indepen­ dent evidence for grammars like G3 and G4 which describe respectively one single rule, because new sentences exemplifying the rule are con­ ceptually interdependent with old ones; and insofar as ordinary gram­ mars are broken down into their irreducible components, viz. claims about single rules, the same is true of them too. However, since or­ dinary grammars make generalising claims about classes of rules, we may ask, in addition, whether these rules are conceptually independent of one another. That is to say, a typical grammatical claim singles out a class of rules and states that some property is true of it, viz. of the entities exemplifying any of the rules belonging to the class. Let 'A', ' A ' , and ' A 1 ' stand for, respectively, class of rules, rule, and exemplification of rule, e.g., sentence. relations can be presented as follows:

Then their inter­

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR

255

If the grammatical claim is "A is B", it may be tested both at the le­ vel of rules and at that of exemplifications of rules. with G3 and G4 it became evident that if

In connection

is old evidence,

can­

not be conceptually independent new evidence, because they both exemp­ lify the same rule A 1 . However, whether,

for instance is or is not

conceptually independent new evidence with respect to

,

depends on

whether or not the rule A 2 is conceptually independent of A-,. Within the theory of grammar, this is a relatively new type of question. In­ stead of any further discussion of it here, I simply point out the fact that analogous questions, as well as methods for providing answers to them, are well-known in the domain of philosophical analysis. Irrespective of whether rules A1 .. .An are or are not conceptually independent of one another, there is an obvious sense in which their totality, and, more generally, the totality constituted by all rules of a given language, does not meet the condition of conceptual inde­ pendence. In empirical science it is axiomatic that, when a proposed description is being (empirically) tested, the test criterion, i.e., the criterion of the truth or falsity of the description, must be con­ ceptually independent from the object of the description. Now, when a grammarian has written a grammar of a language L, what is it that he compares his grammar with, in order to find out its truth or fal­ sity? It is the language L itself. Or when a semanticist has given an analysis of the kinship terminology of L, what is it that he 'tests' his grammar against, in order to find out its truth or falsity? Again, it is the kinship terminology of L itself. It would surely be absurd to say that the kinship terminology of L which the semanticist has been analysing is conceptually independent from the kinship termino-

256

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

logy of L against which he is 'testing' his analysis. But if this is the case, it follows that, at the level of totality, there can be no conceptually independent evidence for or against descriptions of a given language. It may seem possible to deny this conclusion by claiming that the same argument applies to natural science as well: physics for example describes the physical reality, and is in turn tested against it. This is, however, a rather superficial, and indeed misleading, analogy. As objects of research, a language and the physical reality are given to us in thoroughly different ways. Once a language has been learned, it is (atheoretically) known in its entirety, even if, because of its com­ plexity, no one can be simultaneously aware of it in its entirety; but one can always remind oneself of what one has learned, and thus knows. By contrast, the physical reality extends infinitely both in space and in time; one can remind oneself neither of what happened in some other galaxy one million years ago, nor of what will happen there in one mil­ lion years. More concretely, physics does not describe the physical reality and then test its description against this same reality. Ra­ ther, physics bases its description on definite space-time events and then tests its description against different space-time events. It is an elementary conceptual truth that difference in (purely physical) space and time entails conceptual independence. On the other hand, to repeat, semantics bases its description on the kinship terminology of L for instance and then tests its description against this same termi­ nology. It is an elementary conceptual truth that an entity X is not conceptually independent of itself. To be sure, the parts (here: rules) of X may or may not be conceptually independent of one another. In light of what precedes, we see that the inferiority of one de­ scription vis-à-vis another has different roots in empirical science and in grammar. To be sure, empirical scientists can display lack of insight just as grammarians can; and the former can, just as well as the latter, make mistakes about what they know or about the consis­ tency of their descriptions. But there is one very important respect in which empirical scientists cannot be mistaken whereas grammarians

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR

257

(as well as philosophers and logicians) can. When the former make ge­ nuine predictions which then turn out to be false, it would be inaccu­ rate to say that they were mistaken. It is a matter of conceptual ne­ cessity that the outcome of an experiment cannot be known in advance (intuitively or otherwise), which is precisely why genuine predictions as well as universal hypotheses tested on their basis are empirical. But, of course, one cannot make a rrristake about something that one does not know. On the other nand, it is the basic assumption of all (syn­ chronic-grammatical work that the grammarian does know the language which he is going to describe. (What he does not know are true theo­ retical generalisations about the language.) At any given moment he can make any number of mistakes about his data but, as opposed to the empirical scientist, he always could have known his data. This instead of just being wrong. is precisely why he is making mistakes, And when he corrects a mistake, he reminds himself of some rule of 121

language which he has known all the time. (Here I have been mere­ ly showing the relevance of the discussion in 8.3. to the question of empirical testability.) At this stage, there remains only one possible argument for the claim that grammatical data are conceptually independent in the re­ quired sense, after all. It is the argument which says that gramma­ rians investigate, not language, but linguistic intuition. On this view, more precisely, the object of grammatical description is not a set of entities, be it sentences or rules of L, such that they exist objectively in the sense of being independent of any particular speak­ ers of L. Rather, this object is a set of entities (namely intui­ tions) of such a kind that they exist objectively in the sense of being mental responses of particular speakers of L. If this view is correct, then it is quite clear that grammatical testing satisfies the condition of conceptual independence, and even of empiricalness. Intuitions of one person are temporally distinct happenings, and those of different persons are spatially distinct as well. Therefore if the grammarian describes one set of intuitions and tests his description against an­ other set, the testing has at least the appearance of being empirical.

258

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

In 5.2. (above) I presented the general reasons why I reject the view that what grammarians investigate is not a given language, but a set of intuitions (cf., in particular, n.73). This view implies intev alia that descriptions of rules are (or should be) of statistical cha­ racter, and that grammar is in reality a branch of experimental psy­ chology. The erroneousness of such implications was demonstrated in 7.3.-4. (above). Here I shall show that the implications of the view at issue for the notion of testing are equally unacceptable. If this view were correct, then a grammar like G4 would be an em­ pirical theory. It is based on my intuitions according to which 'the man' and 'the woman' are correct, and it predicts that according to a future intuition of mine 'the girl' will be correct too. This is an empirical prediction. It is thoroughly possible that for whatever, perhaps pathological, reason I will find 'the girl' incorrect, and 'girl the' correct. But this means, then, that my grammar G4 has been falsified, or has been shown to hold true only with a certain degree of probability. This consequence is certainly unacceptable, and there­ fore the view which it is a consequence of is unacceptable too. How­ ever, its unacceptable i ty can be made still clearer. On this view, even descriptions of maximally simple rules of language would be empirical. Consider the description which says that the expression 'the man' is correct. This can be taken as a claim about either the expression-type 'the man' or about corresponding ex­ pression-tokens. In both instances, I may have several temporally distinct intuitions about 'the man', and it is an empirical possibi­ lity that according to some of them 'the man' is incorrect. Similar­ ly it is an empirical possibility that I shall sometimes find a sen­ tence like "John is easy to please" incorrect. Here, at the latest, it has become evident that the view which I am discussing fails to make an absolutely crucial distinction. It is at least conceivable that one and the same piece of metal sometimes expands and sometimes does not, when heated; this is why the non-statistical character of the relevant laws is an empirical matter. But it is simply inconceiv­ able that expressions and sentences like 'the man' and "John is easy

259

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR to please" would be sometimes c o r r e c t and sometimes i n c o r r e c t

(within

a given synchronic s t a t e of language); t h i s is why the n o n - s t a t i s t i c a l character of grammatical d e s c r i p t i o n s i s a nonempirical , a t e r ( c f . 9 . 1 . above).

priori

mat-

In other words, i t is not possible t h a t an ex122

pression or a sentence is sometimes correct and sometimes incorrect; but it is possible that it seems sometimes correct and sometimes in­ correct. This distinction is essential; it is the distinction between (objective) common knowledge and (subjective) intuition. It is also clear that the former, viz. what is correct, is the subject matter of grammar, while the latter, viz. what seems correct, is (part of) the subject matter of psycholinguisties. When distinguishing between what is the case and what seems to be the case, we have a genuine analogy between grammar and natural science. The latter investigates physical reality, not our (subjective) observa­ tions of it, as can be seen from the fact that each time when there is reason to believe that our observations do not accurately reflect the physical reality, we dismiss them. This is so even if it is through our observations (and our logical reasoning) that we get hold of the physical reality. (Of course, there is then another, psychological science which investigates our observations, whether accurate or not.) The same holds, mutadis mutandis, in grammar too. We investigate lan­ guage, not linguistic intuition, although it is through the latter (as well as through logical reasoning) that we get hold of the former. The view of intuitions as grammatical data can be shown to fail not only in connection with testing, but also, retrospectively, in connection with(D-N) explanation. Even though the properties of a correct sentence entail, and do not empirically determine, its correct­ ness, it is conceivable that someone's intuitions about the former differ from his intuitions about the latter. But this makes the rela­ tion between those properties and the correctness empirical just as little as the fact that someone may fail to notice the mutual entail­ ment between 'father' and 'male parent' makes the relation between the two empirical. And here as elsewhere it is with sentential pro­ perties, not our intuitions thereof, that we are dealing.

260

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIEΝCE I t is in connection w i t h t e s t i n g , I t h i n k , t h a t the

d i f f e r e n c e be­

tween empirical sciences and normative sciences l i k e grammar, philosophy, and l o g i c becomes most e v i d e n t .

Each science makes use of some kind of

t e s t i n g , but empirical science tests i t s theories by confronting them, e x p e r i m e n t a l l y , w i t h space and t i m e , whereas normative science

testsits

theories by confronting them w i t h concepts, or w i t h (common) knowledge. Compare W i t t g e n s t e i n ' s (1967 I , §98) dictum: " I can calculate

in the me­

dium of i m a g i n a t i o n , but not experiment", The de facto

non-experimental nature of grammar has been sometimes

admitted i n a d v e r t e n t l y by t r a n s f o r m a t i o n a l i s t s : That is, we know ahead of time in some sense what we want to come out with as a result of our analysis. This is one sense in which it can be said that linguistic analysis tries to account for the linguistic intuition of the native speaker (Bach 1964:151; cf. also the Chomsky-quotation p.81).

Here the analogy to logical and/or philosophical analysis hardly needs to be pointed out. In discussing the analysis of rules of be­ haviour (including rules of language) which one is able to follow one­ self, Hare (1971:230) notes that "it is in this same way that a logi­ cian knows, before he sets out to investigate the logical properties of the concept of negation, what concept he is going to investigate". By contrast, it would be absurd to say of empirical scientists (among which Bach nevertheless counts himself) that, when they under­ take an investigation, they already "know in some sense what they want to come out with as a result of their analysis" or investigation. The impossibility of such a view is shown (if it needs any showing) for in­ stance by Kaplan's (1964:145) following remark which sums up the fun­ damental characteristic of empirical science and, by implication, the fundamental difference between empirical or experimental science and normative science: It is experimentation that expresses the basic empiricism of scien­ ce. The scientist cannot lead us into nature's secrets unless he will risk having her slam the door in his face; experiment knocks on the door. The cardinal principle of experimentation is that we must accept the outcome whether or not it is to our liking.123

261

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR Because experimentation expresses the true nature of empirical

science, particularly of natural science, a science which refuses to make use of experiments is nonempirical and rather comparable to a normative science like grammar.

For us it is not quite easy to con­

ceive of a nonempirical natural science.

However, it seems that

Aristotelian physics was precisely this kind of science. (theoretical) explication

It was a

of the everyday knowledge about the physi­

cal reality and did not call this knowledge into question, as Mittelstrass (1974b:64) explains: Erfahrung wird von Aristoteles definiert als ein begriffliches (allgemeines) Wissen, das aus "Erinnerungen" hervorgeht und da­ bei als ein "Wissen des Besonderen" in exempl arischer (nicht et­ wa induktiver) Weise gleichzeitig eine "Wahrnehmung des Alige­ meinen", an dieser Stelle repräsentiert durch den Begriff (nicht den generellen Satz), leistet. Insofern genügt dann auch "eine" wiederum sogenannte "Erfahrung", d.h. hier ein Einzelfall, auf den die Ausgangsunterscheidungen zutreffen, um ein solches be­ griffliches Wissen zu vergegenwärtigen. Theoretische Sätze, also z.B. physikalische Sätze, sind in diesem Zusammenhang trotz ihres hochkomplexen Charakters Explikationen eines elementaren Erfahr­ ungswissens, d.h. "in der Erfahrung" getroffener Unterscheidungen, die stets als gemeinsam gelernte und beherrschte Unterscheidungen gelten. Alle zentralen Sätze der Aristotelischen Physik … las­ sen sich in dieser Weise verstehen. I t is only l o g i c a l that the r o l e of recollection

should be the

same i n A r i s t o t e l i a n (nonempirical) physics as in conceptual in

general. 1 2 4

Mittelstrass'

analysis

account is f u r t h e r in agreement w i t h

Feyerabend's (1975, chap.5) claim t h a t the p r i n c i p a l merit of Copernican and Galilean physics as compared w i t h A r i s t o t e l i a n was to introduce

the idea that laws of nature are hidden and must be discovered j o i n t e f f o r t of imagination and

experimentation.

125

by a

The d i s t i n c t i o n

between ( e m p i r i c a l - ) e x p l a n a t o r y and ( n o r m a t i v e - ) e x p l i c a t o r y

sciences

w i l l become c l e a r e r i n 11.0. (below). Moreover, even though normative science is fundamentally from empirical science, i t is rather s i m i l a r to axiomatisation latter.

different of the

In the case of a x i o m a t i s a t i o n , t o o , we do not t r y to expand

our knowledge through the t e s t i n g of empirical hypotheses.

Rather,

262

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

the universal (or s t a t i s t i c a l )

hypotheses contained i n the theory to

be axiornati sed are assvmed to be t r u e , and t h e i r mutual l o g i c a l

rela-

tionships are e x p l i c i t l y stated by p o s t u l a t i n g axioms and p r o v i d i n g d e f i n i t i o n s in such a way t h a t l o w e r - l e v e l hypotheses can be deduced from h i g h e r - l e v e l ones, the axioms c o n s t i t u t i n g the top of t h i s h i e rarchy.

Axiornatisation is thus systematisation of an e x i s t i n g body

of knowledge, whether empirical or conceptual; and i n each case syst e m a t i s a t i o n produces new, t h e o r e t i c a l

knowledge.

I have been emphasising the methodological differences between empirical science and normative science, because i n the theory of grammar a t l e a s t , those differences have been almost completely overlooked; more c u s t o m a r i l y , i n f a c t , t h e i r existence has been e x p l i c i t l y denied.

However, I am d e f i n i t e l y not claiming t h a t w i t h i n e m p i r i -

cal science new knowledge is gained only, or even p r i n c i p a l l y , observation of space and time or through experimentation.

through

Especially

more advanced natural sciences develop, in the f i r s t p l a c e , through the agency of c r e a t i v e t h e o r e t i c a l a n a l y s i s , which makes use of the general method of conceptual a n a l y s i s ; compare Campbell's

(1952:88)

statement: At the present time, in the more highly developed sciences, ... it is very unusual for a new law to be discovered or suggested simply by making experiments and observations and examining the results (although cases of this character occur from time to time); almost all advances in the formulation of new laws fol­ low on the invention of theories to explain the old laws. In the same vein, it is important in my view to show that all sciences make use of some variants of predictive and explanatory test­ ing, and that the notion of 'generalisation' plays a similar role in all sciences (cf. above, and 10.0.-11.0. below).

Nevertheless, it

still remains true that empirical science is ultimately

based upon

experimentation or, more generally, upon the fact that one has to accept what happens in the natural course of events even though one cannot know in advance what this will be like (cf. the Kaplan-quota­ tion above).

In this respect, which I consider fundamental, norma­

tive science qua analysis of conceptual knowledge is different from empirical science.

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR 9.4. Universal

Linguistic

263

Theory

It might be argued that even if, in light of the three preceding sections, the grammar of a natural language cannot be empirically test­ ed by confronting it with the same language which it describes, the related theory of grammar is nevertheless bound to contain empirical hypotheses in the sense that it is an empirical question whether the principles of analysis applying to the description of the language in question will also apply to the description of other languages. Since any general theory of grammar, or universal linguistic theory, would thus be falsifiable by data coming from different languages, the con­ struction of such a theory would apparently be an empirical task, even if the construction of a grammar would not. This seemingly conclusive argument does not show, however, that universal linguistic theory and empirical science have the same logical structure. It is a contingent fact that there have been, and are, so many languages in the world, and that we have not been, and are not, in a position to learn all of them. However, it is theoretically possible that, if only there were sufficient documents concerning all these (states of) languages, we would be able to learn and to know them. By contrast, even if there existed one single natural regularity in the world, we could never come to know it in the same way (cf. 6.1. and 8.1 . above). Suppose that all languages of the world which have existed so far are known, and that this knowledge has been written down in grammars. In that case the task facing the grammarian would be, from the metho­ dological point of view, exactly similar to that whicn is facing him when he starts to describe his native language or any group of langu­ ages

known to him sufficiently well. The only difference with respect

to grammar-writing concerns the amount of data to be described and the corresponding level of abstractness: it is question of making generali­ sations not just about rules of one language, but also about hypotheses in different grammars and thus, indirectly, about rules of different languages. reement

The following remark by Chomsky (1965:46) is fully in ag­

with my position:

Thus the most crucial problem for linguistic theory seems to be to

264

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE abstract statements and generalisations from particular descrip­ tively adequate grammars and, wherever possible, to attribute them to the general theory of linguistic structure, thus enrich­ ing this theory and imposing more structure on the schema for grammatical description.

It is obviously impossible to construct a universal theory without depending on some preliminary ideas about the form of such a theory, which may then be revised or discarded in the course of actual theoryconstruction. However, any eventual universal theory will be reached as a result of the generalisations made from different grammars. Can it be said that a tentative universal theory so constructed explains grammars of new languages and thus these languages themselves, as TG's notion of 'explanatory adequacy' suggests (cf. p. 233)? This can be said only to the extent that a theory for instance which systematises card games of our Western civilisation by generating descriptions of correct hitherto unknown card games of game-performances can be said to explain other civilisations insofar as it succeeds in generating the correspond­ ing descriptions of game-performances. So much is clear, in any event, that this is not a case of empirical explanation. I repeat (cf. p. 228) that if TG is taken to be a general theory of language acquisition and use, then it is an empirical theory, which, to be sure, contains the theory of grammar, i.e., nonempirical theory, as an autonomous component. 9.5. Appendix: Examples Taken from the

Transformationalist

Literature The claims which I have made in the previous sections will be further substantiated here on the basis of certain representative TG descriptions. Let us first consider Kiparsky & Kiparsky (1971). The authors note that a distinction illustrated by the following two groups of verbs can be made among the predicates which take sentences as their objects: A

B

regret

assert

ignore

believe

resent

conclude

THE METHODOLOGY OF

265

GRAMMAR

These two types of predicates d i f f e r in the f o l l o w i n g respects: i)

Only A-predi cates can have as t h e i r object the noun fact

with

e i t h e r a gerund or a t h a t - c l a u s e : the fact that she is late. He

the fact of her being late.

the fact that she is late» *He

ii)

the fact of her being late.

Gerunds can be objects of A-predi cates, but not freely of B-pre-

dicates:

iii)

Everyone

Joan's being completely drunk.

Everyone

Joan's being completely drunk.

Only B-predicates allow the accusati v e - a n d - i n f i n i t i ve c o n s t r u c t i o n :

Mary to have been the one who d i t

it.

Mary to have been the one who d i t

it.

The foregoing differences are of s y n t a c t i c nature, the d i f f e r e n c e between A- and B-predicates

Semantically

rests on the f a c t t h a t when

the speaker asserts a sentence containing an Α - p r e d i c a t e , he presupposes t h a t the t h a t - c l ause or i t s e q u i v a l e n t , f u n c t i o n i n g as the o b j e c t , ex­ presses a true propositions or refers to a f a c t , whereas no such pre­ supposition is made when a sentence containing a B-predicate is assert­ ed.

For t h i s reason, A- and B-predicates are c a l l e d factïve

factive,

respectively.

and non-

266

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE The Kiparskys present the f o l l o w i n g ' t e n t a t i v e explanatory hypo-

t h e s i s ' , which presumably accounts f o r the above-mentioned s y n t a c t i c and semantic data: The presupposition of a complement i s r e f l e c t e d i n i t s ( s y n t a c t i c ) deep s t r u c t u r e , which means t h a t the underlying form of f a c t i v e and n o n - f a c t i v e clauses w i l l

be,

respectively:

NP

F i r s t of

a l l , i t is

important to r e a l i s e t h a t the data which

the Kipars kys propose to explain are c o n s t i t u t e d by rules in the f i r s t place rules about the constructions in which predicates can or cannot occur.

of

language, particular

The s t a r t i n g p o i n t i n the d e s c r i p t i o n

of the verbs assert, believe, and conclude

f o r example is the i n t u i t i v e

knowledge about the rules which determine separately f o r each of these verbs t h a t they cannot have as t h e i r object a that-clause the noun fact

preceded by

nor a gerund e i t h e r w i t h or w i t h o u t the noun fact,

as they can have as t h e i r object the a c c u s a t i v e - a n d - i n f i n i t i v e tion.

whereconstruc-

I t is obvious t h a t these are rather concrete r u l e s , j u s t

a l l rules p e r t a i n i n g to d e f i n i t e s i n g l e words or expressions ( c f .

like 6.2.

above). What does i t mean to say t h a t the Kiparskys' analysis anything?

F i r s t , i t shows t h a t apparently d i f f e r e n t

and i i ) - A - s e n t e n c e s are in reality

similar.

l a t i n g a common deep s t r u c t u r e f o r them. r e s u l t s i n making a g e n e r a l i s a t i o n .

'explains'

i)-A-sentences

This is done by postu-

As always, such a postulate

To i l l u s t r a t e :

Factive sentences

of the type " I r e g r e t the f a c t t h a t John is i l l " are closest to the postulated deep s t r u c t u r e

can be derived tional

Now, the other f a c t i v e sentence-types

from t h i s basic type w i t h the aid of the f o l l o w i n g op-

transformations:

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR Second, in a d d i t i o n to

'explaining'

26 7

(or simply shoving)

the i n t e r -

relatedness of the four sentence-types in q u e s t i o n , t h i s analysis also ' e x p l a i n s ' the incorrectness of i)-B-sentences and i i ) - B - s e n t e n c e s : They lack the r e q u i s i t e deep s t r u c t u r e , which d i r e c t l y represents A-sentences and is the input f o r gerund-formation and

transformations leading ( i n t h i s order) to i i ) - A - s e n t e n c e s . same token, the analysis

'explains'

By the

the surface s i m i l a r i t y and the

semantic d i f f e r e n c e of f a c t i ve and n o n - f a c t i v e that-clauses

as in

" I regret t h a t John is i l l " and " I believe t h a t John is i l l " : former are derived from

i)-

fact-deletion

via f a c t - d e l e t i o n ,

The

whereas the latter-

are derived d i r e c t l y from The preceding considerations under the headings i ) and i i ) .

' e x p l a i n ' the data presented above

The 'explanatory'

import stems from

the g e n e r a l i s a t i o n which has been achieved when a set of s y n t a c t i c and semantic f a c t s are described i n a uniform way, v i z . with the aid of two p l a u s i b l e deep s t r u c t u r e s and two r e l a t i v e l y natural rules. ed f o r :

However, the data presented under i i i )

still

transformation

have to be account-

Why i s i t t h a t the a c c u s a t i v e - a n d - i n f i n i t i v e construction may-

occur only i n n o n - f a c t i v e complements? why does the ' s u b j e c t - r a i s i n g ' ply to n o n - f a c t i v e

complements,

Or, to put i t more t e c h n i c a l l y ,

t r a n s f o r m a t i o n , i l l u s t r a t e d below, apbut not to f a c t i ve complements?

268

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

"He believes Bacon to be the real be the real

author",

but: *"He ignores Bacon to

author".

The d i f f e r e n c e between these two sentences is 'explained' by r e l a ting

i t to the s o - c a l l e d complex noun phrase c o n s t r a i n t , which pre-

vents

transformations from taking

the c o n f i g u r a t i o n

.

c o n s t i t u e n t s out of a sentence S in

This c o n s t r a i n t , which i s needed f o r

the d e s c r i p t i o n of many d i f f e r e n t constructions (see below), can be used to ' e x p l a i n ' why f a c t i v e complements cannot have the accusativea n d - i n f i n i t i v e construction:

is of the type

Since t h e i r underlying s t r u c t u r e

and is thus subject to the

complex noun

phrase c o n s t r a i n t , the subject of the embedded clause cannot be taken out of S and be made i n t o the object of the upper sentence. l y s i s r e q u i r e s , o b v i o u s l y , t h a t the s u b j e c t - r a i s i n g precedes / a c t - d e l e t i o n t r a n s f o r m a t i o n ,

-

This ana-

transformation

Here the impression t h a t

something has been 'explained' r e s u l t s , once again, from a g e n e r a l i sation: eral

The data presented under i i i )

constraint

are shown to conform to a gen-

which is required i n the grammar f o r the d e s c r i p t i o n

of many other constructions as w e l l ; and since the data conform to the c o n s t r a i n t only on the assumption t h a t the proposed deep s t r u c t u r e s f o r f a c t i v e and n o n - f a c t i v e complements are c o r r e c t , i t seems natural to think t h a t they are i n f a c t c o r r e c t , or at l e a s t t h a t the 'hypot h e s i s ' about t h e i r correctness has been ' c o n f i r m e d ' . On account of what has been said above, the pronoun

it

which

may occur in connection w i t h f a c t i v e predicates can be i n t e r p r e t e d as an optional reduction of the I r e g r e t i t t h a t John is I believe i t t h a t John is The f a c t i v e it

fact'. ill. ill.

must not be confused with the e x p l e t i v e it

i s introduced in. the place of an extraposed

that-clause,

of whether the predicate to which the that-clause

regardless

i s assigned e i t h e r

as i t s subject or as i t s o b j e c t , i s f a c t i v e or n o n - f a c t i v e : I t is r e g r e t t e d t h a t John is i l l .

which

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR

269

It is believed that John is ill. As a result, the Kiparskys are ready to refute Rosenbaum's (1967) analysis according to which the factive it

and the expletive it

are

derived from the same source, viz. an i t which is assumed to be part of the deep structure of all noun clauses.

The Kiparskys' position

is further supported by certain facts concerning relativisation and so-pronominalisation.

It is to be noted that Rosenbaum's analysis

is not refuted, or 'disconfirmed' , in the sense that it would have been shown to be unable to generate all and only correct sentences of the types here discussed (if only because it could always be supple­ mented with ad hoc rules).

Rather, it is refuted because it misses

one or more generalisations, or fails to describe the data under study in the most general and simplest way. For example, it fails to account for the similarity of the sentences "I regret the fact that John is ill" → "I regret it that John is ill" → "I regret that John is ill", as contrasted with the incorrectness of

"I believe it that John is

ill". By now it has become succifiently clear that in Kiparsky & Kiparsky (1971) the term 'explanation' is used in the sense indicated in 9.2. (above).

It signifies a generalising systematisation of in­

tuitively known, conceptual data, i.e., rules of language.

An ever

higher degree of generalisation is attained when more and more data are described with the aid of fewer deep structures and grammatical rules.

It is important to realise that 'explanatory' systematisation

consists, not just in rearranging the intuitive data, but in postula­ ting some

additional,

theoretical structure which puts the data into

a new, unifying and revealing perspective. Next, we may ask how the Kiparskys' analysis is supposed to be tested.

Remember that a description may be tested in either of two

ways, namely, by asking whether it is false or whether it is less gen­ eral,

i.e., less

'explanatory', than some other description.

It is

not clear to what extent the Kiparskys' analysis can be disconfirmed by showing that it is (partly) false.

This is due to the fact that

their subject matter has been clearly delimited so as to be easily 'surveyable'.

Therefore they can convince themselves that the de­

scription has no false consequences.

In fact, its untestabi1ity is

270

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

hightened by the fact that the authors dismiss disconfirmatory evi­ dence.

That is, they admit that there are numerous exceptions to

their principal generalisation, i.e, predicates which are semantically factive but syntactically non-factive, or vice versa.125 The Kiparskys apparently think that they can afford to ignore these ex­ ceptions as long as their number is, intuitively speaking, not yery high.

This is a problematical assumption.

Furthermore, the Kiparskys

admit that their data do not conform to the intuitions of a good num­ ber of English speakers, but then they add:

"We have

chosen to de­

scribe a rather restrictive type of speech (that of C K . ) because it yields more insight into the syntactic-semantic problems with which we are concerned" (1971:348, note). This "rather restrictive type of speech" happens to be such that it makes precisely those distinctions which the Kiparskys' 'explana­ tory hypothesis' requires to be made: since it (in part) creates the problems, it certainly "yields more insight" into them than does a dialect which does not recognise their existence,

Lakoff (1972:653,

n.l) uses a similar argument to convince his readers that his descrip­ tions are not based on nothing:

"The argument ... does not depend on

the particular examples given being correct for all dialects, but only on the existence of examples of this sort for some dialects." This formulation leaves open the possibility that examples taken from different dialects are summarily lumped together and subjected to a falsely unifying treatment. a yery

secure criterion:

In addition, existence in itself is not

when examples are claimed to exist only in

very restricted dialects, ultimately in idiolects, there is the dis­ tinct possibility that they do not exist, as a matter of fact. As the impossibility of private languages has shown, whatever seems cor­ rect in such a case, is correct, with the consequence that the notion of a language

ceases to apply.

-

Insofar as intuitions differ here

in fact, we have to do with a decrease in the social control of lan­ guage.

In such a case (statistical) description of actual use of

language and/or psycholinguistic experimentation is needed in order to ascertain what the facts are

(cf. 6.4. above).

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR

271

With regard to the second type of testing, the situation is re­ latively simple. The Kiparskys' analysis can be 'disconfirmed' in the same way that they have 'disconfirrned' Rosenbaum's analysis, name­ ly, by showing that certain generalisations have been missed. We might say that the inferiority of Rosenbaum's analysis (assuming that it has been established) is due to lack of insight, rather than of attention (cf. p,253). His theoretical description does to lack not literally conflict with those facts which it purports to cover, but the alternative account proposed by the Kiparskys covers a wider range of facts. To take another example, let us consider Ross's discussion of Chomsky's 'A-over-A principle' (as Ross calls it), which is formula­ ted as follows: What A is gory (but

this principle asserts is that if the phrase X of category embedded within a larger phrase ZXW which is also of cate­ A, then no rule applying to the category A applies to X only to ZXW) (Chomsky 1964c:931).

The A-over-A principle is a (theoretical) generalisation out of, and hence an 'explanation' of, a set of more or less obviously inter­ Elements of relative clau­ related syntactic data. To illustrate: ses

may not be questioned or relativised; compare "I chased the

boy who threw a snowball at our teacher", but: "Here is the snowball which I chased the boy who threw at out teacher". Secondly, an NP which is exhaustively dominated by a determiner cannot be questioned or r e l a t i v i s e d out of the NP which immediately dominates t h a t deferminer; compare "Whose book did you f i n d ? , but *"Whose did you f i n d book?"

However, the A-over-A principle is 'disconfirmed' by showing that it conflicts with, or excludes some perfectly correct construc­ tions, like "Who would you approve of my seeing?" or "The book which I lost the cover of is on the table". This deficiency has given Ross the reason to construct his own 'complex noun phrase constraint' which can handle also the latter cases and thus replaces, together with some other independently needed constraints, the A-over-A principle.

272

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE Since Chomsky does not present the above-mentioned correct con­

structions as exceptions to his A-over-A principle, we must ask why he formulated it so as to exlude them.

Do they constitute new dis­

confirmatory evidence of which he could not possibly have been aware at the time when he formulated his principle?

Of course not.

In rea­

he knew these constructions all the time, and the fact that his

lity

principle excludes them is simply due to his lack

of attention

(cf. p.

253),which is, by the way, quite understandable, given that his sub­ ject matter is so complex as not to be surveyable any longer.

When

Chomsky or any other linguist becomes aware of the (correct) construc­ tion "Who would you approve of my seeing?", he reminds himself

of its

existence (cf, p.212 and 254). For comparison, suppose that I am struck by the fact that people who make frequent insinuations tend to be malevolent and mendacious, with the result that, when I am making the semantic analysis of to

in­

sinuate,

it

I set up the following implication: "a insinuates that

is not true that p". But then my analysis may be 'disconfirmed' simply by pointing out semantically correct sentences where something that is de facto

true is said to be insinuated by someone.

Consequently I

have overlooked quite an undeniable aspect of the meaning of to nuate,

insi­

which means that the defect in my analysis is due to my lack of

attention.

I would maintain that even if my example is artificially

simple, it is not qualitively different from Chomsky's A-over-A prin­ ciple.

And since my example constitutes a case of conceptual analysis,

so does Chomsky's principle too. To pursue the same example, it could be said that my imaginary analysis of to insinuate

makes the (false) 'prediction' that sentences

where something de facto

true is said to be insinuated are semantically

incorrect.

Analogously, Chomsky's A-over-A principle makes the false

'prediction' that sentences like "Who would you approve of my seeing?" are incorrect. eyery

To give another example, Ross (1968:1) requires that

adequate grammar of English should make for instance the follow­

ing 'predictions' about the sentence "A gun which I had cleaned went off":

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR

273

The constituent a gun which I had cleaned is a constituent of the same kind as the constituent I. Similarly, went off is the same type of constituent as had cleaned, and neither is of the same type as I, a, or off.

In other words, a grammar of English must be able to 'predict' that (what we would call pronouns and verbs) belong to different gram­ matical categories. But just as well we might require of a semantic theory that it 'predict1 the difference between things and events, or of a mathematical theory that it 'predict' the difference between odd and even numbers. The peculiarity of TG's use of the term 'prediction ' can be clear­ ly seen also in connection with redundancy rules, which are usually said to 'predict' redundant semantic, syntactic, and phonological fea­ tures (cf. Chomsky 1965:164-70). Thus, on the basis of the feature "(+human)" we may presumably 'predict' the features "(+animate)" and "(+concrete)". But according to the general consensus among philoso­ phers and methodologists, what we have here is not a relation of (em­ pirical) prediction, but of (conceptual) entailment. The confusion between the two last-mentioned concepts can be rather well observed in a passage by Katz, where he states that, like any scientific theory, the semantic component of TG makes empirical predictions: for example, it predicts that sentences like "I saw an honest stone" are semantically anomalous (Katz 1966:174). But what this means is only that TG must be capable of giving a formal expres­ truth that a property like honesty which is sion to the analytic only predicable of humans is not predicable of non-humans, e.g., stones. If a description of this kind is 'empirical', then so is each and every philosophical or conceptual analysis. In TG's view, then, it is a matter of empirical description that a property, e.g., "unmarried", which is a constitutive part of a con­ cept, e.g., "bachelor", is predicable of all things exemplifying this concept, yielding "All bachelors are unmarried"; for surely we can 'predict' that if this bachelor is unmarried, so is also the next one, just as we can 'predict' animacy on the basis of humanness (as shown above). But, of course, there is nothing empirical about a

274

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

d e s c r i p t i o n of these matters.

" A l l bachelors are unmarried", equiva-

l e n t to " A l l unmarried men are unmarried", is an instance of the gical

truth

,

t h a t e x t e n t , necessarily is

necessarily

false.

lo­

and a d e s c r i p t i o n which says so i s , to

t r u e , whereas a d e s c r i p t i o n which denies

it

TG's p o s i t i o n here amounts to the claim t h a t

a n a l y t i c a l philosophy is an empirical science, which only would suggest t h a t TG simply does not understand the meaning of the term 'empirical'

( c f . also p.80 above).

Notice t h a t i t w i l l not do to claim t h a t i t is only the

semantic

component of TG which is s i m i l a r to conceptual a n a l y s i s , as p r a c t i s e d by a n a l y t i c philosophers, while the other components are s i m i l a r to empirical t h e o r i e s .

F i r s t , such an i n t e r p r e t a t i o n is

definitely

ruled out by a l l representative statements expounding TG's methodology.

Secondly, f o r a long time i t has been overwhelmingly clear

t h a t there i s no hard-and-fast d i s t i n c t i o n between semantics and syntax.

Therefore, while conceptual analysis and empirical

science

must be kept a p a r t , the whole of TG must be i n t e r p r e t e d as conceptual a n a l y s i s , or e x p l i c a t i o n . I t is p r e c i s e l y i n connection w i t h Katz's semantics t h a t I f o r the f i r s t time became aware of the i n c o m p a t i b i l i t y of the e m p i r i c a l science model and the d e s c r i p t i v e p r a c t i c e of TG.

In a paper w r i t t e n

i n 1968 I showed t h a t , contrary to Katz's c l a i m s , semantic markers (or meaning components) cannot be i n t e r p r e t e d as hypothetical

con-

cepts, to be e m p i r i c a l l y confirmed or disconfirmed on the basis of t h e i r a b i l i t y to p r e d i c t such semantic r e l a t i o n s as a n a l y t i c i t y , anomaly, and ambiguity. to explicate

I n s t e a d , they are concepts which may be used

our i n t u i t i v e notions of a n a l y t i c i t y ,

e t c . I concluded:

Wenn man bewusst darauf verzichtet, die Komponenten zu definieren (statt z.B. die Analytizität als den primitiven Begriff zu wählen), und auf ihrer Grundlage die anderen Begriffe explizit definiert, so ist dies natürlich eine übersichtliche und legitime Art und Weise, die vorhandenen Kenntnisse zu systematisieren; sie kann aber nicht empirisch verifiziert werden, solange sie implizit wenn auch nicht explizit zirkulär bleibt und keine unabhängige Evidenz vorhanden ist (Itkonen 1970a:9)

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR

275

In other words, I anticipated here the basic tenet of 9.3. (above): In semantic (or more generally, grammatical) analysis there is no new, conceptually independent evidence. The semanticist is given a set of intuitively known meaning-relations, and all he can do is to give a systematic description theoreof, for instance using meaning components as primitive descriptive concepts. From the above, it also follows that not just empirical testability, but also empirical (D-N) expla­ nation is impossible within grammatical analysis (cf. Itkonen 1972a and b ) . 1 2 7

10.0.

GRAMMAR AND LOGIC

Because I consider TG as representative of grammatical theory i n g e n e r a l , I have to r e s t r i c t here my a t t e n t i o n to axiomatic l o g i c , when comparing grammar and l o g i c , given t h a t generative grammars are d e f i n able

as

axiomatic

systems ( c f . below).

That i s to say, TG-type se-

mantics too i s described axi ornatically or s y n t a c t i c a l l y , i . e . , by generating

sentences

of 'Semantic Markerese' (Lewis 1972:169-70) which

are r e l a t e d to sentences of English f o r instance as the meanings of the latter.

This procedure i s problematical, but I can dispense w i t h

t i c i s i n g i t here. tions

of l o g i c a l

cri-

The reason i s t h a t what I have to say about the no' t e s t i n g ' and ' e x p l a n a t i o n ' , as well as t h e i r r e l a -

t i o n to t h e i r grammatical e q u i v a l e n t s , i s general enough to apply not only to axiomatic l o g i c , but also to model-theoretic or semantic l o g i c and to Lorenzen & Lorenz's game-theoretical

logic.

There are also considerable differences between grammar and l o g i c , l a r g e l y due to t h e i r d i f f e r e n t research i n t e r e s t s .

I can omit discus-

sing t h i s question here, because I have presented my views on i t i n Itkonen (1976a) . 10.1.

The Basts of the Similarity 'between Generative Grammars and Systems of Logic

An axiomatic system consists of a set of axioms and of a set of rules of inference by means of which theorems are derived from axioms and/or from theorems previously derived.

Generative grammars, from

type 0 to type 3, are subsumable under the general notion of axiomatic system (Wall 1972:197-212).

The basic similarity of axiomatic systems

can be brought out by comparing two systems, one in the rewriting no­ tation and the other in the language of predicate calculus, both of

GRAMMAR AND LOGIC

277

which generate the same set of theorems, viz. all and only sentences of the type a n b n , or the language L3 of 9.3. (cf. the figure below). Both derivations, when interpreted, say the same thing: aabb 'is' an S or belongs to the class s.

'Axiomatic system' is a concept which contains 'axiomatic theory' as a special case. In connection with the former a rule of inferen­ ce is merely a procedure for mechanically passing from strings of symbols to other strings, whereas in connection with the latter the strings must admit of truth-value and rules of inference are truthpreserving procedures for passing from strings to other strings. The fact that generative grammars are a subclass of axiomatic systems is not, as such, any conclusive proof of the similarity between grammar and logic, because the best-developed natural sciences have also been axiomatised. What must be shown, in addition, is that there is a significant difference between axiomatised natural science, on the one hand, and grammar and logic, on the other. The axiomatisation of a natural science generates a set of univer­ sal and/or statistical hypotheses as its theorems. These sentences purport to refer to something in the external world, namely higherlevel or lower-level regularities obtaining in that particular domain of reality which is investigated by the science to be axiomatised. If such regularities exist, the theorems, or hypotheses, are true; other­ wise they are false. If they are false, then one or more of the high­ er-level theorems from which that were derived are - by Modus Tollens-

278

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

also false, and must be modified accordingly. In other words, it is the purpose of the axioms and of the rules of inference to generate (empirically) true sentences as theorems, and the criterion for the truth of a sentence lies outside it, i.e., in the external world. Let us now compare this situation to that prevailing in gramma­ tical theory. The sentences generated by the grammar of a natural language do not, of course, refer to anything in the external world which would be the subject matter of linguistics in the same way as, for example, regularities of such and such a type are the subject matter of physics. Rather, these sentences, with their characteris­ tic meanings and presuppositions, are themselves the subject matter of linguistics. That is to say, it is the purpose of a naturallanguage grammar to generate, not tvue sentences, but. (syntactically and semantically) covvect sentences, as its theorems; and the cri­ terion for the correctness of a sentence lies in the sentence it­ self, not outside it. In the last-mentioned respect, logic seems at first glance to occupy an intermediate position between grammar and natural science. Just like the axiomatisation of a natural science, an axiomatic sys­ tem of logic is not interested in generating just correct sentences. for the sentences to be Rather, it is in both cases a precondition generated as theorems that they be (formally) correct or 'well-form­ ed'. On the other hand, a system of logic is not interested in gen­ erating sentences which are simply true. Rather, it purports to generate sentences which are valid, or logically true. Validity is truth in 'all possible worlds', which means that reference to the external world has no bearing on the validity of sentences. Conse­ quently, and most importantly, the criterion for the validity of a given sentence, just like that for the correctness, lies in the sentence itself. (Horeover, since validity is given a formal defi­ nition, logic may concentrate directly upon sentence-formulae, in­ stead of dealing with sentences exemplifying formulae.) In this decisive respect, logic and grammar are similar to each other and different from natural science. By noting that sentences and formulae themselves are the re-

GRAMMAR AND LOGIC

279

spective subject matters of grammar and logic, I merely reaffirm the self-referential character of grammatical and logical descrip­ tions (cf. p. 243). I have noted before that self-referential grammars are equipped with referential metagrammars which provide natural-language inter­ pretations for the former. A metagrammar is a theory which claims, either truly or falsely, that such and such rewriting rules express generalisations about a language L and generate, or approximate to generating, all and only correct sentences of L. Now, since meta­ grammars deal with truth and falsity, and not just with correctness or incorrectness, it may seem that they are just empirical theories among others. However, this is not so; or it is so only on the as­ sumption that the same argument has turned logic as well into an em­ pirical science. As we have just seen, a metagrammar claims, either truly or falsely, that the correlated grammar generates all and only correct sentences of L. But in precisely the same way the metalogic of a given logical system claims, either truly or falsely, that the system generates all and only valid formulae of a given logical language. Instead of saying that grammars and systems of logic deal with sentences and formulae, we might as well say that they deal with the (normative) common knowledge constituting sentences and formulae, or constituting those rules which make sentences and formulae correct and valid respectively. This knowledge is a case of agent's know­ ledge: it is acquired through common participation in the institu­ tions of (correct) speaking and (correct) inferring. Logic tries to formalise the rules of inferring as they are intuitively known by everybody; this is the meaning of the somewhat shorthand expression that what logic does is to formalise logical intuition. (The analo­ gous claim that it is linguistic intuition what grammarians are de­ scribing, must be understood in the same way; cf. 5.2. above). It is in this precise sense, then, that logical intuition can be said to precede, and to constitute the subject matter of, any type of formal logic, whether syntactic as in axiomatic logic, semantic as

280

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

in model-theoretic logic, or pragmatic as in Lorenzen & Lorenz's game theoretical logic. Pap has clearly expressed this primacy of logical intuition (even though he ignores its pragmatic or institutional ori­ gin): The test of whether the range of a statement is universal [i.e., whether a statement is logically true] is constructed on the assumption of the logical truth of the laws of contradiction and excluded middle. This assumption is formally reflected by the 'convention' to assign either Τ or F, but not both, to each ele­ mentary proposition, and the 'convention' to include in every state description a given atomic statement or its negation but not both. It follows that at least the logical validity of these two simple and fundamental laws is not known as a result of such a formal test. Incidentally, this simple consideration shows that the claim that our knowledge of the laws of logic is purely formal, not intuitive as claimed by many traditional logicians, must be taken with a grain of salt (Pap 1958:157). Moreover, i t i s c l e a r l y wrong to say, w i t h Rescher (1966:54), t h a t the contrast between the axiomatic method and the model-theore­ tic

one is simply t h a t between an i n t u i t i v e approach to l o g i c and

a n o n - i n t u i t i v e one: ...little has been gained by Carnap's disguise in semantic termi­ nology of the Leibnizian conception of 'truths of reason' as truths holding in all possible worlds. The definition is still as circular as it ever was: a possible world can be nothing else that a world conforming to the laws of logic (Pap 1958:151).

Although both grammar and logic are based on intuition, their re­ spective attitudes towards it are different. Formal logic tries to overcome the inherent limitations of intuition, and to this end it devises more and more effective methods of calculating. On the other hand, it would not make sense to say that this is what grammar too is aiming at (for details, cf. Itkonen 1976a). This is precisely the difference between descriptive normative sciences like grammar and prescriptive normative sciences like logic. 10.2.

only

Testing

A grammar is 'tested' by finding out whether it generatesalland correct sentences of L (with their 'correct' structural descrip­

tions).

The same requirements are imposed on axiomatic systems of

logic, except that the crucial concept is not 'correctness' but 'vali-

281

GRAMMAR AND LOGIC dity'.

Once a formal definition of validity has been given, it is

required that the system in question be both 'sound' and 'complete'. It is sound, if it generates only if it generates all

valid formulae, and it is complete,

valid formulae.

The system is then 'tested' by

finding out whether it generates all and only valid formulae. over, even if the system is provably

More­

sound and complete, it may still

be tested with the view to finding out whether validity as defined within the system corresponds in each case to the

intuitive

notion

of validity, that is, whether all theorems of the system (which have been proved as formally valid) are intuitively valid, and whether all intuitively valid truths formal i sable in the language in question are theorems of the system. tioned

properties

No general proofs concerning these last-men­

of axiomatic systems can be given.

would require a formal

definition

of intuition,

Such a proof

or of intuitive vali­

dity, which either is a contradiction in terms or leads directly into infinite regress (cf. p.24). The axiomatic systems of the most familiar types of logic, i.e., propositional logic and predicate logic, have been proved both sound and complete.

Therefore it would be pointless to test them with a

view to investigating their soundness, i.e., the formal validity of their theorems, or their completeness, i.e., the theoremhood of their formally valid formulae.

However, befove

these proofs had been given

this kind of testing was perfectly reasonable. erally

Moreover, it is gen­

agreed that formal validity in propositional and predicate

logic corresponds to, and deviates from, intuitive validity in con­ trollable and defensible ways.

For instance, once the truth-func­

tional definition of material implication has been accepted, the in­ tuitive oddity of formally valid formulae like does nothing to undermine the 'truth' or, rather, the adequacy of the axiomatisation of propositional logic.

Similarly, once the rules

governing the introduction and the elimination of the quantifiers have been accepted, the formal validity of an intuitively non-obvious formula like

does not constitute counter-evidence

against the system of predicate logic but, on the contrary, enhances its importance.

Consequently, it hardly seems reasonable to test

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GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

systems of p r o p o s i t i o n a l or predicate l o g i c by comparing t h e i r formal notion of v a l i d i t y w i t h the corresponding i n t u i t i v e n o t i o n .

In b r i e f ,

as regards t e s t i n g , these systems (which have become 'instruments of language' in the sense given on p.154) o f f e r only a l i m i t e d analogy to natural-language grammars.

Therefore I s h a l l turn to a d e f i n i t e l y

more i n t e r e s t i n g example, namely deontic l o g i c , as defined and developed by von Wright. Deontic l o g i c i n v e s t i g a t e s l o g i c a l r e l a t i o n s between the basic v a r i e t i e s of norm, namely o b l i g a t i o n s , permissions, and p r o h i b i t i o n s . The domain of deontic l o g i c is not as w e l l - d e f i n e d as t h a t of propos i t i o n a l or predicate l o g i c , because our i n t u i t i o n s about normative r e l a t i o n s cannot be d e l i m i t e d in advance in any d e f i n i t i v e way. Consequently, an analysis of the ordinary-language counterparts of deontic

formulae

proves to be indispensable and t h e r e f o r e , contrary to

what is the case in p r o p o s i t i o n a l or predicate l o g i c , the f a c t t h a t ordinary language r e f l e c t s

(our knowledge of) l o g i c only i m p e r f e c t l y ,

c o n s t i t u t e s a genuine obstacle to l o g i c a l

analysis.

Propositional deontic l o g i c is based on p r o p o s i t i o n a l l o g i c . The essential a d d i t i o n is the deontic operator gation.

A formula l i k e

' 0 ' , which stands f o r

'0p' means " I t i s o b l i g a t o r y t h a t p"

more p r e c i s e l y , "One ought to see to i t t h a t p".

obli­

or,

von Wright's so-

c a l l e d Old System of Deontic Logic contains the f o l l o w i n g two axioms: A1

-(0p&0-p)

A2

0(p&q) = (0p&0q)

Al i s the deontic counterpart of the law of c o n t r a d i c t i o n , and A2 regulates the d i s t r i b u t i o n of the

o- o p e r a t o r .

The rules of i n -

ference are the rules of s u b s t i t u t i o n and of detachment (= Modus Ponens), as in p r o p o s i t i o n a l which says t h a t i f

l o g i c , plus the ' r u l e of e x t e n s i o n a l i t y '

' p ' and ' q ' are l o g i c a l l y e q u i v a l e n t , then '0p' and

' 0 q ' are l o g i c a l l y e q u i v a l e n t . defined as f o l l o w s :

F i n a l l y , the concept of permission

' P ( - ) ' = '-0 - ( - ) '

is

( c f . von Wright 1951 and 1971a)

The v a l i d i t y of a deontic formula may be decided by transforming the formulae of p r o p o s i t i o n a l l o g i c w i t h i n the scope of the o-operators i n t o t h e i r p e r f e c t conjunctive normal forms and by d i s t r i b u t i n g the

283

GRAMMAR AND LOGIC operators in accordance with A2.

The r e s u l t i n g expression i s a con­

j u n c t i o n of o-expressions each of which consists of one

o-operator

having a d i s j u n c t i o n of p r o p o s i t i o n a l variables in i t s scope. Such o-expressions are c a l l e d o - c o n s t i t u e n t s of the o r i g i n a l formula. The l a t t e r expresses a t r u t h - f u n c t i o n of i t s o - c o n s t i t u e n t s , and i t s va­ l i d i t y i s decided by t r u t h - t a b l e s , as in p r o p o s i t i o n a l l o g i c , w i t h the r e s t r i c t i o n t h a t a l l possible o- c o n s t i t u e n t s cannot be true a t the same time.

Hence, the system i s deci dable.

I t is also both

sound and complete. How i s such a system of deontic l o g i c to be tested? I t is im­ p o r t a n t to r e a l i s e t h a t t h i s question can be sensibly asked in s p i t e of the f a c t t h a t the system has been proved both sound and complete. In e f f e c t , the subsequent development of von Wright's Old System is a good i l l u s t r a t i o n of how an axiomatic system of l o g i c may be modi­ f i e d and

r e f i n e d in response to ' d i s c o n f i r m a t o r y '

claims to the ef­

f e c t t h a t i t does not generate something which i t ought to generate, or generates something which i t ought not to generate.

At a s u f f i ­

c i e n t l y high level of a b s t r a c t i o n , the analogy to the t e s t i n g of natural-language grammars ( o f the TG v a r i e t y ) should be obvious. As f a r as the l o g i c of absolute or unconditional norms is con­ cerned, i t i s possible to prove in the Old System several

intuiti­

vely obvious formulae as well as formulae which are non-obvious but acceptable on closer i n s p e c t i o n , and therefore extend l o g i c a l know­ ledge beyond mere l o g i c a l i n t u i t i o n .

However, as has been pointed

out by P r i o r (1954) and Chisholm (1963), i t is impossible to give an adequate f o r m a l i s a t i o n of the notion of commitment o r , more general­ l y , of r e l a t i v e or c o n d i t i o n a l norms, in the framework of the Old System,

von Wright o r i g i n a l l y used the formula

to express

the c o n d i t i o n a l norm t h a t doingp commits one to doing q.

Now, be­

cause the equivalent formulae

and

are theo­

rems o f , or generated by, the system, i t follows t h a t , w i t h i n

it,

doing something f o r b i d d e n , i . e . , -p in the f i r s t and ρ in the second formula, commits one to doing anything whatever, i . e . , q; but t h i s is i n t u i t i v e l y unacceptable. is

formally

In other words, although

v a l i d , w i t h i n the system, i t is nevertheless

intuitively

284

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

i n v a l i d , and therefore the system must be m o d i f i e d .

Here as e l s e ­

where, i n t u i t i o n is the primary t h i n g , and a f o r m a l i s a t i o n i s deemed a success or a f a i l u r e depending on whether we ( i n t u i t i v e l y )

know

t h a t i t represents adequately the i n t u i t i o n to be f o r m a l i s e d . (On the other hand, as I j u s t noted, i t is true t h a t an adequate f o r m a l i s a ­ t i o n also reveals hidden l o g i c a l i n t u i t i o n , or produces new l o g i c a l knowledge«) In order two obviate P r i o r ' s and Chisholm's p a r t i a l

'disconfir­

mation' of his systematisation of deontic l o g i c , von Wright i n t r o ­ duced

the

a d d i t i o n a l symbol ' / '

and replaced the monadic n o t a t i o n

of the type '0p' by a dyadic n o t a t i o n of the type ' 0 ( p / q ) ' .

This

l a s t formula can be read: "One ought to see to i t t h a t p when q". Accordingly, he replaced the two axioms of the Old System by the f o l l o w i n g three axioms: B1

-[0(p/q) & 0(-p/q)]

B2

0(p&q/r) = 0 ( p / r ) & 0 ( q / r )

B3

0(p/qvr) ≡ 0 ( p / q ) & 0 ( p / r )

Bl formulates Al i n r e l a t i o n to the condition q, while B2 and B3 determine the d i s t r i b u t i o n of the o-operator in accordance w i t h the requirements of the new, dyadic n o t a t i o n . c a l l e d the New System of Deontic Logic.

The r e s u l t i n g system i s The decision procedure f o r

v a l i d i t y is modified in the obvious way: Tne formulae to the l e f t and to the r i g h t of ' / '

are transformed r e s p e c t i v e l y i n t o t h e i r

perfect

conjunctive and d i s j u n c t i v e normal forms, a f t e r which the o-operators are d i s t r i b u t e d in accordance with B2 and B3. i s a conjunction of 0-constituents

The r e s u l t i n g formula

of the type ' 0 ( . . . v . . . /

... & . . . ) '

and, subject to c e r t a i n r e s t r i c t i o n s , i t s v a l i d i t y is decided by t r u t h t a b l e s , by considering o - c o n s t i t u e n t s as atomic components. 128 I t can be shown t h a t the dyadic equivalents of the objectionable formulae

and

are not theorems of the New

System, and, to t h i s e x t e n t , von Wright has succeeded in answering P r i o r ' s and Chisholm's ' d i s c o n f i r m a t o r y '

c r i t i c i s m . However, some of

the theorems of the New System, t o o , are i n t u i t i v e l y i n v a l i d , i n s p i t e of t h e i r formal v a l i d i t y .

As Geach has p r i v a t e l y pointed out to von

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GRAMMAR AND LOGIC

Wright ( c f . von Wright 1971a:115), the system generates as i t s theo­ rem the formula

, which says, i m p l a u s i b l y , t h a t

if

there is an o b l i g a t i o n to see to i t t h a t ρ under circumstances q, then there is no o b l i g a t i o n to see to i t t h a t not-p under some other circumstances v.

That is to say, the New System too generates some­

thing which i t ought not to generate and needs to be revised accord­ ingly. von Wright's answer to t h i s challenge is to modify Bl , which was meant to be the dyadic reformulation of A l , i . e . ,

' - ( 0 p & 0 - p ) ' . As he

sees i t i n von Wright (1971a), i t is not the purpose of Al to deny t h a t there are the o b l i g a t i o n to see to i t t h a t ρ and the o b l i g a t i o n to see to i t t h a t n o t - p .

Rather, he now i n t e r p r e t s Al as making the

weaker claim t h a t , loosely speaking, not a l l deontic

possibilities

(of the monadic type) can be true at the same time.

As applied to

the simplest dyadic case, t h i s p r i n c i p l e produces the f o l l o w i n g r e ­ formulation of Bl : Bl'

-[0(p/p)&0(p/-p)&0(-p/p)&0(-p/-p)]

The c o u n t e r - i n t u i t i v e formula

is not a theorem

of the amended New System containing B l ' in l i e u of B l .

In t h i s sense

the disconfirmatory claim has been, again, disposed o f .

However, t h i s

r e s u l t is obtained at the cost of allowing f o r the existence of genui­ nely

(and not j u s t apparently) c o n f l i c t i n g c o n d i t i o n a l norms.

For i n ­

stance, both ' 0 ( ρ / ρ ) ' and ' 0 ( - p / p ) ' may be t r u e , which means t h a t , i n such a case, one ought to see to i t t h a t the s i t u a t i o n ρ remains as i t is,

and one ought to see to i t t h a t the s i t u a t i o n ρ ceases to e x i s t .

This p r i n c i p l e is problematic, to say the l e a s t .

In f a c t , i t has been

suggested t h a t the New System ought to be amended by r e v i s i n g B3, not B l , which would both prevent the c o u n t e r - i n t u i t i v e formula from being a theorem and exclude the existence of c o n f l i c t i n g norms (Føllesdal & Hilpinen 1971:28-31).

The examples I have adduced here suffice to show that there are several possible systematisations of deontic logic. They also make it clear enough that, just like every transformational grammar, every particular system of deontic logic is, and will remain, subject to

286

GRAMMATICALTHEORYAND METASCIENCE

(nonempirical) testing and, eventually, to di sconfirmation. Both in linguistics and in deontic logic there is, then, no possibility to give a general proof to the effect that a given description is the best one or the definitive one. In deontic logic, this property of axiomatic systems in rendered even more comprehensible by the fact that there obtains considerable disagreement as to the correct (intuitive) interpretation of certain formulae. One might mention the much-discussed formulae and' , of which the former (known as 'Ross's paradox') is, and the latter is not, generated by the Old System. On intuitive grounds, this treat­ ment of the two formulae seems unsatisfactory. That is, the former of them seems to contradict the principle that a system ought to gen­ erate only (intuitively) valid formulae, while the latter seems to contradict the complementary principle that a system ought to generate all (intuitively) valid formulae. It is therefore only logical that von Wright (1968) should have constructed a system which does not generate the first formula and generates the second. But again, his position is not universally accepted. Some linguists seem to be startled by the fact that there are conflicting linguistic intuitions. They apparently think that this fact seriously undermines the status of grammar as a respectable science. Therefore I wish to emphasise, in addition to what I said in 5.4., that this situation is by no means unique to grammatical analysis. We meet the phenomenon of conflicting intuitions in logical and philosophical analysis as well. The interesting question is, in the first place, why this fact alarms grammarians so much and logicians and philosophers so little. As exceptions to this rule, one might men­ tion at least Naess (1952) and Mates (1971), who have recommended some­ thing like an empirical approach to philosophical analysis, with, signi­ ficantly, very little sympathetic response. In conclusion, I repeat that the requirement that a system generate all and only valid formulae may be taken in two senses: Either it con­ cerns formally valid formulae, and in that case it may be proved that the system fulfils or fails to fulfil the requirement, Or it concerns

GRAMMAR AND LOGIC intuitively

valid formulae, and in that case no general proofs about

the generabil ity can be given.,

In the ideal case formal validity and

intuitive validity coincide as a matter of fact. proved

287

But it cannot be

that they do so, because intuitive validity lies beyond formal

proof. The testing of a logical (or grammatical) system as to its sound­ ness and completeness is structurally similar to predictive and expla­ natory testing, respectively (cf. 1.2.). At a sufficiently high level of abstraction, then, all sciences are seen to make use of the same notion of testing.

At this level, 'testing' simply means finding out

whether the description is as it should be. Experimentation is of course only one way of doing this. 10.3.

Exp lana

tion

Within TG, explanation i s equivalent to g e n e r a l i s a t i o n .

A genera-

l i s a t i o n consists i n reducing apparent or ' s u r f a c e ' v a r i a b i l i t y 'deeper' u n i f o r m i t y . i.e.,

to

Because a generative grammar has only one axiom,

the symbol S, i t i s s e l f - e v i d e n t t h a t i n TG making generalisa-

t i o n s manifests i t s e l f as decreasing the number, not of axioms, but of rules of inference and, eo ipso,

of deep s t r u c t u r e s as w e l l .

One of the main p r i n c i p l e s guiding the c o n s t r u c t i o n of systems of l o g i c is to t r y to s i m p l i f y the system w i t h o u t unduly diminishing i t s generative c a p a c i t y .

I t is easy to see t h a t t h i s p r i n c i p l e is

i d e n t i c a l w i t h the attempt to replace a set of grammatical rules by a s i n g l e r u l e , or the attempt at g e n e r a l i s a t i o n , as p r a c t i s e d i n l i n g u i s tics.

Hence, although the terms ' e x p l a n a t i o n ' and ' g e n e r a l i s a t i o n '

are seldom used i n l o g i c , there obtains i n l o g i c too a p r a c t i c e corresponding to them.

For i n s t a n c e , a f t e r i t was proved t h a t the f i f t h

axiom of Russell and Whitehead's o r i g i n a l system of p r o p o s i t i o n a l logic, i.e.,

, need not be s t a t e d separately but can

be derived from the four o t h e r s , the r e s u l t i n g system w i t h only four axioms was c l e a r l y more general than the previous one, since i t both was simpler and retained the same generative capacity. In l i n g u i s t i c s i t is a well-known f a c t t h a t making a generalisat i o n that coverss e.g.,

a c e r t a i n number of sentence-types r e s u l t s

in

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GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

a d e s c r i p t i o n which i s more t h e o r e t i c a l or more a b s t r a c t than the des c r i p t i o n o f any of these sentence-types taken separately.

In l o g i c ,

t h i s property of grammatical d e s c r i p t i o n i s to some extent r e f l e c t e d i n the f a c t t h a t the most obvious or 'concrete' l o g i c a l t r u t h s do not s u f f i c e to generate a l l v a l i d formulae. system of p r o p o s i t i o n a l t a u t o l o g i e s as

In Russell and Whitehead's

l o g i c , f o r i n s t a n c e , such i n t u i t i v e l y

obviou-

or ' p v - p ' do not f i g u r e among axioms but have to

be proved i n q u i t e roundabout ways, whereas the axioms contain such a r e l a t i v e l y complex formula as

.

I t could be

said t h a t , as a r u l e , g e n e r a l i s a t i o n leads both to greater

simplicity

and to greater abstractness of the e n t i r e system.

The notion of simplicity is notoriously a difficult one, and in logic too it can be understood in different ways. If we take decreas­ ing the number of primitive terms and axioms as the decisive criterion of simplicity, then we ought to consider Nicod's axiomatisation of propositional logic as the simplest and, hence, the most general one, because he achieves it by means of one single connective, i.e., the so-called 'stroke function' equivalent to '-(p&q)', one single axiom, and a modification of Modus Ponens as the rule of inference (Copi 1967: 267-76). On the other hand, Nicod's single axiom is more complex than any of the axioms of standard systems, and it contains five propositional variables instead of the three needed in standard systems. More­ over, proving theorems in Nicod's system is an extremely complicated undertaking. Therefore, at least from the practical point of view, this system can hardly be deemed more general than Russell and White­ head's. Analogous difficulties in interpreting the notion of simpli­ city are familiar in grammar: should we for instance prefer one complex transformation to two (or three or ...) simple ones? Up to now I have been discussing the similarity of the notions of explanation in grammar and in logic at a rather abstract level. How­ ever, this similarity can be shown to hold in much greater detail. In what follows, I shall compare the notion of logical explanation as de­ fined in Hintikka (1969), with the notion of grammatical explanation as defined in 9.2. (above).

GRAMMAR AND LOGIC

289

The descriptive framework employed by Hintikka in his investiga­ tions on epistemic logic is not axiomatic but model-theoretic or se­ mantic. This difference is not directly relevant to the issue at hand, however. Hintikka is concerned with the question how methods of formal logic can be made use of in philosophical analysis, more precisely, how epistemic logic may contribute to the clarification of philosophical problems connected with the concepts 'knowledge' and 'belief'. So we might be inclined to say that the explanandum is philosophical while the method of explanation is logical. Such a strict separation of philosophy and logic is, however, an illusion. For instance, deontic logicians freely adduce philosophical arguments, when debating about the correct interpretation of the formula (cf. 10.2.). By way of an example, Hintikka examines the analysis of the mean­ ing of the expression 'knowing that one knows', as presented in Hin­ tikka (1962). He notes that this expression has several actual or 'residual' meanings which are felt to be more or less closely related. Providing a mere list of these meanings is scientifically not very revealing. Rather, their interrelatedness may be explained by pos­ tulating a 'basic' meaning from which the residual ones may be de­ rived or 'predicted' by means of certain general considerations per­ taining to contextual or pragmatic features connected with (the utter­ ing of) the sentence 'a knows that he knows that p'. In accordance with a view held by several philosophers, the basic meaning is taken to be "a knows that p" simpliciter, and the residual meanings are seen to arise out of the fact that using the roundabout expression 'a knows that he knows that p' is generally understood as aiming at specific psychological effects, the exact nature of which may be de­ termined only by considering the actual speech situation. These facts are summed up in the figure on the following page.

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GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIEΝCE

This figure is closely similar to that on p,257: the basic mean­ ing and the residual meanings correspond to the deep structure and the surface structures, and the lines which might be thought to connect the two types of meaning correspond to transformations connecting deep and surface structures. The principal difference between the two de­ scriptions consists in the fact that in the present case we have to do with meaning whereas in the previous case we had to do with form. That is to say, in Lakoff's example the (affirmative) meaning "I order you to come" remains constant and the abstract syntax or form 'Ego impertu tu ven-' is transformed, for instance, into the concrete syntax or form 'Venias'. By contrast, in Hintikka's example the form 'a knows that he knows that p' remains constant, and the basic meaning "a knows that p" is transformed, for instance, into the residual meaning "a is aware that he knows that p". Consequently the two descriptions, gram­ matical and logical, are structurally identical, even if they differ as to their content. Hintikka (1969:5) characterises his method of analysis as follows: A branch of logic, say epistemic logic, is best viewed as an ex­ planatory model in terms of which certain aspects of the workings of our ordinary language can be understood. If our explanatory model is an appropriate one, and if we have correctly diagnosed the pragmatic and other extra factors involved in the different cases, we shall in this way be able to explain what actually happens on the different ocasions of ordinary use (op. cit., p.7).129

GRAMMAR AND LOGIC

291

Thus, in logical analysis of ordinary discourse two or more en­ tities are explained when, instead of being described separately, they are derived from a common source, which means that a generali­ sation has been made. By now, the analogy to grammatical explanation ought to be overwhelmingly clear. In carrying out his analysis, Hintikka is forced to rely exten­ sively on less-than-secure logi co-linguistic intuitions. His discus­ sion is interspersed with locutions like "x is not an unnatural thing to say about y", "whoever utters x is not likely to deny y", "x comes very close to one of the ways in which y could naturally be taken", 'it is much more unobjectionable to say χ than to say y" (Hintikka 1962:116-17). Given the general unreliability of such intuitions, Hintikka reaches the conclusion that whether there is a genuine dif­ ference in meaning or just a difference in use, can be decided only by reference to the explanatory model: If the meanings in question have different roles in the model, i.e., if they are different basic meanings, then they are genuinely different meanings; if they can be accounted for or explained in terms of basic meanings, i.e., if they are different residual meanings, then they merely reflect different uses of the words or expressions in question. There is an air of circularity about this strategy, which is identical with the clear case principle used in deciding the correctness or incorrectness of intuitively unclear natural-language sentences, and same kinds of objection apply to both: An explanatory model or a grammar decides absolutely nothing, unless it is an adequate one; and this question, i.e., the question of adequacy, cannot be decided formally by refe­ rence to the model or to the grammar, but only by finding out whether, in a great number of cases, the model or the grammar is intuitively understood as being an adequate representation of unequivocally dif­ ferent meanings or unequivocally correct sentences, that is, meanings , and and sentences which are known to be what they are intuitively not on the basis of a (circular) reference to the model or to the grammar. Secondly, it still has to be shown that such absolute di­ chotomies as 'correct - incorrect' or 'difference in meaning - dif-

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ference in use' reflect, also in non-obvious cases, the nature of the object of description and are not arbitrary categorisations imposed by the method of description (cf. 4.2.4., 5.4., and Itkonen 1976a). Just as 'testability', if understood in a wide enough sense, was seen in 9.2. to be a necessary characteristic of every type of descrip­ tion, so 'explanation', if used synonymously with 'generalisation', is necessarily a desideratum for every type of description. Consider the paradigmatic case of sociological explanations viz. Durkheim's (1960) explanation of suicide. Durkheim noticed that suicide correlated, inter alia, with being Protestant, unmarried, and city-dwell er. In­ stead of simply listing these factors as causes of suicide, however, he sought for a generalisation, i.e., a common or 'deep' cause from which these three 'surface' causes along with the effects, i.e., actual cases of suicide, could be derived. He was able to identify the common cause as the lack of social

cohesion.

Moreover, equating explanation with generalisation applies even to the description of a particular historical action, for instance the crossing of the Rubicon by Caesar, which is not meant to be explained by appealing to general 'laws of history'. This one of Caesar's actions can be described in a revealing or explanatory way only by subsuming it, along with several others of his actions, under some unifying purpose which, coupled with a set of beliefs, can be plausibly attributed to him and from which the actions in question can be 'derived'. We might even say that all these particular actions, with their 'residual' or 'surface' intentions, are derived from the one 'basic' or 'deep' inten­ tion by means of certain general considerations concerning human ratio­ nality and its liability to extraneous influences. Generalisations are not restricted to phenomena within a single discipline but may cut across several disciplines. It is plain that in the reduction of chemistry to physics we have to do with a genera­ lisation: two sets of theoretical laws are replaced by a single set, plus a set of definitions correlating physical and chemical terms. To give another example, the attempt has been made to reduce deontic logic to alethic modal logic, or modal logic proper, by adding the

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GRAMMAR AND LOGIC definition

and the axiom '-NS' to the two axioms of

the modal system M, viz. stands for

necessity

and

, where 'N'

(Hi 1 pi nen & Føllesdal 1971:19).

The definition

says, roughly, that doing p is obligatory if and only if it is neces­ sarily the case that not doing ρ implies liability to sanction, or 'S'.

'-NS' says in turn that it is not necessary that one is liable

to sanction no matter what.

Together with the axioms of the system

M, these two formulae generate the axioms of a standard system of deontic logic.

Once again, we have to do with a generalisation:

two sets of axioms are being replaced by a single set, plus two formulae, one of which, i.e., the definition, functions as an ana­ logue of the definitions encountered in the reduction of chemistry to physics. It is perhaps the best proof of the pervasiveness of the striv­ ing

after

generality in science that when I am right now pointing

out similarities between the notions of

'generalisation'

as exem­

plified in grammar, logic, sociology, history, and natural science, I am, again, making a (metascientific)

generalisation.

11.0. GRAMMAR AND PHILOSOPHY My thesis is that grammar, logic and (formal) philosophy make use of one and the same method of conceptual analysis.

It is the

purpose of this method to transform atheoretical, intuitive neces­ sity into theoretical, formal necessity. here defined is identifiable as explication

Conceptual analysis as in the sense of Pap (1958),

albeit with the qualification that, as I wish to argue, it is not re­ stricted to philosophy only.

In addition, it is my claim that clas­

sical philosophy, as represented by Plato, does not differ methodo­ logically from modern formal philosophy. 11.1. The Methodology of Classical

Philosophy

We have defined ' e x p l a n a t i o n ' i n grammar and l o g i c as i d e n t i c a l w i t h ' g e n e r a l i s a t i o n ' , and we have noted t h a t the g e n e r a l i t y of a des c r i p t i o n increases p r o p o r t i o n a l l y to i t s f a l s i t i a b i l i t y as well as to i t s s c i e n t i f i c i n t e r e s t .

These conceptions play a central

also i n P l a t o ' s philosophy.

I t goes w i t h o u t saying t h a t i t cannot

be question here of ernpirical

generalisations or of empirical

role falsi-

fiability. Let us consider the dialogue Meno.

In the beginning, Meno asks

whether v i r t u e can be taught, and Socrates r e p l i e s t h a t , before answering t h i s q u e s t i o n , one must f i r s t know what v i r t u e i s , or give an analysis of ' v i r t u e ' .

Meno's f i r s t t e n t a t i v e d e f i n i t i o n i s as f o l l o w s :

First of all, if it is manly virtue you are afer, it is easy to see that the virtue of a man consists in managing the city's affairs capably, and so that he will help his friends and injure his foes while taking care to come to no harm himself. Or if you want a woman's virtue, that is easily described. She must be a good housewife, careful with her stores and obedient to her husband. Then there is another virtue for a child, male or fe-

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male, and another for an old man, free or slave as you like, and a great many more kinds of virtue, so that no one need be at a loss to say what it is. For every act and every time of life, with reference to each separate junction, there is a virtue for each one of us, and similarly, I should say, a vice (Plato 1963c: 71e-72a). Socrates does not object to this analysis on account of its being directly false, but rather on account of its lack of generality.

To

use our terminology, we might say that Meno's analysis is falsified not on predictive, but on explanatory grounds: what it says is true from the viewpoint of the contemporary Greek society (or at least not clear­ ly false), but there are truths which it leaves unsaid, and these are precisely the most important ones.

They concern the 'deep' or 'basic'

virtue which, being common to the 'surface' or 'residual' virtues enu­ merated by Meno, would show that these apparently disparate virtues actually belong together.

This is the same concept of 'explanation' as

in grammar (cf. 9.2.) or in logic (cf. 10.3.).

In other words, Meno's

analysis is comparable to a school grammar, while Socrates seeks the equivalent of a generalising, theoretical grammar. might be summed up by saying that it Socrates demonstrates the prima

is false facie

not to

His position here generalise.

need for generalisation in

the analysis of 'virtue' with the aid of a previous generalisation, i.e., by making Meno admit that qualities like health, size, and strength are the same for a man and a woman and the rest, and by generalising this result to the quality 'virtue' as well.

When Meno questions the

justifiability of this generalisation, Socrates demonstrates it more concretely as follows: SOCRATES: Well then, didn't you say that a man's virtue lay in directing the city well, and a woman's in directing her house­ hold well? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: And is it possible to direct anything well - city or household or anything else - if not temperately and justly? MENO: Certainly not. SOCRATES: And that means with temperance and justice? MENO: Of course. SOCRATES: Then both man and woman need the same qualities, justice and temperance, if they are going to be good. MENO: It looks like it.

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SOCRATES: And what about your child and old man? Could they be good if they were incontinent and unjust? MENO: Of course not. SOCRATES: They must be temperate and just? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: So everyone is good in the same way, since they become good by possessing the same qualities. MENO: So it seems. SOCRATES: And if they did not share the same virtue, they would not be good in the same way. MENO: No (Plato 1963c :73a-c).

At this point Meno offers his second definition, which is, this time, meant to be a geneval definition of virtue: according to it, virtue is "simply the capacity to govern men". This analysis is, again, falsified, namely by pointing out, first, that it does not apply to slaves and children and, second, that 'capacity to govern' cannot suffice in itself, but must be reformulated as 'capacity to govern justly but not otherwise'. This latter point reveals a further difficulty. Justice is not the only virtue, but there are also virtues like courage and tempe­ rance. Therefore 'justice' cannot be used to define 'virtue' as a whole. At the same time, a definition based on 'justice' alone is not general enough since it leaves many types of virtue out of account. The question remains the same as before: what is the 'deep' or 'basic' virtue which underlies all these different types of virtue? At this point Socrates offers an analogy from geometry: there are many different shapes, but they all undeniably exemplify one and the same concept 'shape'. Therefore there must be one general defini­ tion of 'shape', i.e., a definition which captures the veal meaning, or the essence , of 'shape'. Socrates proposes, first, to define 'shape' as "the only thing which always accompanies colour". After Meno has objected that 'colour' is no more primitive that 'shape' and hence may not be used to define it, Socrates gives another definition: "Shape is that in which a solid terminates, or more briefly, it is the limit of a solid" (op. cit. 76a). - This analogy shows clearly that for Plato analysis of concepts of whatever type is methodologically one and the same undertaking. It may be added that Aristotle remained equally con-

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297

vinced that, far from being just 'conventions' of some type, definitions, disregarding all that is variable or accidental, express the general and 130 unchanging essence of things. Next, Meno tries to analyse the concept of virtue along the lines of the geometrical example.

His third definition is as follows: virtue

means "desiring good things and being able to acquire them". To begin with, Socrates falsifies this analysis by showing that its first part, i.e., 'desiring good things', is empty, because no one evil.131

sires things which he thinks are tion:

de-

So Meno modifies his defini­

now virtue means simply "the power of acquiring good things".

This definition is again refuted by pointing out that the manner

of ac­

quiring good things like health, wealth, and high offices in the state is all-important here.

If good things are not acquired justly and

righteously, then the power of acquiring them is not virtue, but vice. The definition is modified accordingly, but this modification is reject­ ed, again, by pointing out that 'justice' is here used to define 'vir­ tue', although it was agreed previously that the former is only one type of the latter and therefore cannot be meaningfully used to define it. At this point Meno gives up. eral

His attempt to give a maximally gen­

definition has each time led to falsification.

that the whole dialogue ends inconclusively.

It may be added

Instead of offering a

full-fledged definition of virtue, Socrates contents himself with stating some of its general characteristics. a form of knowledge:

On the one hand, it is

"good men cannot be good by nature".

hand, and in at least apparent contradiction

On the other

to the foregoing result,

the initial question whether virtue can be taught must be answered in the negative, for instance on the common-sense evidence that the most virtuous men of Greece often had rather unvirtuoussons. As I noted on p. 144, Wittgenstein is opposed to the search of basic or real meanings; he wishes to replace the latter by 'family resemblances' between meanings.

Wittgenstein's position constitutes a

meaning theory of its own, and its applicability must be determined in different contexts separately.

For instance, it may well be that

there is no single definition which could capture 'virtue' in its en-

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GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

tirety.

By contrast, it would be simply false to say that there can be

no such definitions of geometrical concepts either. I already have discussed Plato's conception of knowledge as recol­ lection and have connected it with his conception of genuine knowledge as agent's knowledge (cf. 8.1.).

Here I wish to examine Plato's former

conception in relation to the task of conceptual

analysis and, in par­

ticular, to what is nowadays known as the 'paradox of analysis'. I also briefly suggest my own solution to this 'paradox'. Meno discovers an apparent paradox in that Socrates professes not to know what virtue is, but is nevertheless willing to search for an analysis of it. Socrates identifies Meno's argument as the one which claims that "a man cannot try to discover either what he knows or what he does not know.

He would not seek what he knows, for since he knows

it there is no need of the inquiry, nor what he does not know, for in that case he does not even know what he is to look for" (Plato 1963c: 80e). The paradox of analysis, in turn, is as follows: if the concept to be analysed, i.e., analysandum, lysis, i.e., analysans, failed. trivial. ly.

On the one hand,

and its proposed ana­

are (semantically) different, the analysis has

On the other hand, if the two are identical, the analysis is Let A and Β stand for analysandum and analysans, respective­

If Α ‡ Β, the analysis has failed.

If A=B, then (A=B)≡(A=A),

which means that the analysis is trivial. The two paradoxes are clearly akin to each other in that they both deal with the relation between analysandum and analysans, even if the former paradox emphasises the question of the knowledge two whereas the latter emphasises the question of the identity

about the between

the two. A coherent account of the nature of conceptual analysis must provide an answer to both of these questions simultaneously. Plato illustrates his conception of knowledge as recollection by letting Socrates elicit from one of Meno's slaves the true claim that the side of an eight-foot square is the diagonal of a four-foot square. Since Socrates does not teach him this truth, at least not by directly telling it to him, it must be the case that in some sense he knew it already before, even if he did not know that he knew it, and that he has now merely become aware of his previous knowledge:

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299

SOCRATES: What do you think, Meno? Has he answered with any opi­ nions that were not his own? MENO: No, they were all his. SOCRATES: Yet he did not know, as we agreed a few minutes ago. MENO: True. SOCRATES But these opinions were somewhere in him, were they not? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: So a man who does not know has in himself true opinions on a subject without having knowledge. MENO: It would appear so. SOCRATES: At present these opinions, being newly aroused, have a dreamlike quality. But if the same questions are put to him on many occasions and in different ways, you can see that in the end he will have knowledge on the subject as accurate as anybody's. MENO: Probably. SOCRATES: This knowledge will not come from teaching but from questioning. He will recover it for himself. MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: And the spontaneous recovery of knowledge that is in him is recollection isn't it? MENO: Yes (Plato 1963c :86b-d). So far, Plato's account can be accepted, but in the sequel he goes definitely astray.

Plato namely assumes that there are only two pos­

sible ways in which someone's knowledge (of geometry or of virtue) can be explained: either he has acquired it, and for Plato knowledge can be acquired

only through teaching; or he has always possessed it. Now,

since the slave in question knows geometry although no one has ever taught it to him, it follows that he must have known it already before he came to be what he is now, i.e., that "his soul has been forever in the state of knowledge". I t may be added t h a t the above-mentioned argument has no cogency f o r A r i s t o t l e , because he does not accept P l a t o ' s r e s t r i c t i v e view of the nature of the a c q u i s i t i o n of knowledge: All instruction given or received by argument proceeds from pre­ existent knowledge. ... The pre-existent knowledge required is of two kinds. In some cases admission of a fact must be assumed, in others comprehension of the meaning of the term used, and some­ times both assumptions are essential. ... I imagine there is no­ thing to prevent a man in one sense knowing what he is learning, in another not knowing it. The strange thing would be, not if in some sense he knew what he was learning, but if he were to know it in that precise sense and manner in which he was learning it (Aristotle 194lb:71a-l, 71a-i0, 71b-5).

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GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

In other words, there is no mystery in trying to make implicit knowledge explicit. More precisely, one must, first, become aware of that intuitive, atheoretical knowledge which one already has. This is, for instance, knowledge about different ways of being virtuous or about rules of a language L. Secondly, one must try to give a general, theoretical analysis of the atheoretical knowledge once it has been brought onto the level of consciousness, i.e., one has to provide a definition of 'virtue' or write a grammar of L. This theoretical ana­ lysis produces, in turn, knowledge which one never had before. This last point shows the connection with the paradox of analysis: If the theoretical, analysis, i.e., analysans, is something which we did not know before, how can it be identical with the analysandum? And if, on the other hand, the former is not identical with the latter, what justification is there for calling it the analysans of precisely this analysandum, and not of something else? In practice the solution consists in relaxing or 'liberalising' the condition of strict identity between analysandum and analysans. All that is required is a sufficient degree of similarity between the two (cf. Pap 1958, chap. 10). This solution is adopted also in what follows (cf. 11.2.-3.). However, it seems to me that the philosophical problem, i.e., the one concerning the simultaneous identity and dif­ ference between analysandum and analysans, remains untouched by our decision to regulate the selection of analysantia in such and such ways. Moreover, I do not think that this problem can be solved at all in that formal and static frame of reference which is generally characteristic of analytic philosophy. What needs to be seen, is that analysandum and analysans are not just concepts or expressions which are being compared with each other; rather, they represent different stages of a process. Analysandum represents a body of knowledge in its prescientific, atheoretical state. Analysans represents a dif­ ferent state of the same body of knowledge, viz. its scientific or theoretical "tate. This explains why the two are simultaneously identical and different; the relation between them is a conceptual or necessary one. but it is not logical equivalence in the sense of

GRAMMAR AND PHILOSOPHY formal l o g i c .

301

Rather, t h i s r e l a t i o n can be adequately characterised

only i n terms of Hegelian or dialectical

logic.

Hegel sums up his

t h i n k i n g by saying t h a t i t deals w i t h "das. werdende Wissen", knowledge i n the process of becoming (Hegel 1975:593).

This aspect is

badly neglected i n a n a l y t i c philosophy, which is s t i l l

today the pre-

v a i l i n g trend i n Anglo-Saxon philosophy. I t may seem paradoxical t h a t the a n a l y s i s , while leading from imperfect knowledge to more p e r f e c t knowledge, also leads from cert a i n t y to u n c e r t a i n t y ( c f . p. 1 4 4 ) .

However, the a t h e o r e t i c a l

cer-

t a i n t y is about disparate and very concrete (normative) f a c t s , whereas the t h e o r e t i c a l u n c e r t a i n t y is about t h e i r systematic

totality.

As I noted b e f o r e , analysans, or theory, produces genuinely new knowledge. old

But since i t i s , at the same t i m e , only a new stage of the

knowledge, i t is perhaps understandable t h a t Plato was led to

claim t h a t analysis t o o , and not j u s t i t s o b j e c t , is remembered. Taken l i t e r a l l y , t h i s is obviously i n c o r r e c t , but i t i s s t i l l case t h a t atheory, or the set of r u l e s , shades off

the

i n t o t h e o r y , or

the system of rules ( c f . p. 126). In the next section the terms 'analysandum' and 'analysans' be replaced, r e s p e c t i v e l y , by the e s s e n t i a l l y synonymous terms

will 'ex-

plicandum' and ' e x p l i c a t u m ' .

11.2.

The Concept of

'Explication'

I s h a l l make use of t h a t concept of ' e x p l i c a t i o n ' which is developed

i n Pap (1958).

In the course of e x p l i c a t i o n an i n t u i t i v e l y

known concept or conceptual system, i . e . ,

'explicandum', which is r e -

f e r r e d to by the corresponding explicandum-expression(s), is replaced by i t s redefined or reconstructed form, i . e . ,

' e x p l i c a t u m ' , which again

is r e f e r r e d to by the corresponding e x p l i c a t u m - e x p r e s s i o n ( s ) .

Expli -

candum-expressions belong mostly to ordinary language, whereas e x p l i catum- expressions are mostly p a r t of some t h e o r e t i c a l , formal language. Often i t is needless to d i s t i n g u i s h between explicanda or e x p l i c a t a and the corresponding expressions.

An explicandum i s i d e n t i f i e d w i t h the

aid of s o - c a l l e d c r i t e r i a of adequacy, i . e . , sentences which are

intui-

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GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

tively known to be necessarily true and in which the explicandum(-expression) occurs essentially.

To give an example, if we explicate

the concept of knowledge, we may start identifying our explicandum with the aid of the following sentence which is intuitively known to be necessarily true: "If a knows that p , then ρ is true." (This is precisely why to know is a facti ve verb; cf. 9.5.).

The actual

process of explication consists in transforming these necessary truths of the merely intuitive kind into necessary truths of the formal or analytic kind.

In the sentences functioning as criteria

of adequacy, this is achieved by replacing the explicandum, which mostly has no, or very little, inner structure, by an appropriate explicatum which has an explicit, articulated inner structure. Fre­ quently it is also necessary to change the whole sentence-structure of the initial criterion of adequacy.

This means de facto

initial, non-explicated criterion of adequacy will be into its explicated counterpart.

that the translated

If this new sentence which results

from replacing the explicandum by the explicatum (and from changing, in the process, the structure of the original sentence) is formally true, the explicatum is said to satisfy the criterion of adequacy in question.

Since the criterion of adequacy was originally used

to identify the explicandum, and since it is now satisfied by the explicatum, it follows that the explicandum and the explicatum are similar.

Their similarity is guaranteed, above all, by the requi­

rement that the explicatum must satisfy several identifying the explicandum.

criteria of adequacy

Explication would of course lose its

point, if explicata could uncontrollably differ from explicanda. Explication is an attempt to formalise intuition, more precisely, that which is intuitively known (cf. 5.2.).

Not only in logic (cf. p.

280 ) , but more generally in each type of conceptual analysis intui­ tion is primary with respect to formalisation: ... it must be conceded that it is intuitive perception of ne­ cessity of propositions which guides the selection of the mate­ rial criteria of adequacy for a given explication, and that if this is denied, explication appears either as circular or as philosophically irrelevant (Pap 1958:416). Yet, since it is only by means of modal judgements that we can

303

GRAMMAR AND PHILOSOPHY clarify concepts - e.g. 'is it logically possible that a man should be wholly devoid of reasoning ability' we ask, in order to make clear to ourselves the meaning of 'man' - faith in mu­ tual understanding of basic modal terms is indeed an indis­ pensable presupposition of all analytic philosophy. To him who does not grasp the sense of 'possible' in which the exis­ tence of immortal men is possible yet the existence of round squares not possible, no analytic philosophy can be taught. ... The distrust of the 'intuitional' basis of analytic philosophy is rooted in nothing less than an imperfect understanding of scientific method - in the broad sense of 'scientific' in which analytic philosophy can be scientific (op. cit., p. 419).

For illustration. I present here one possible explication of the meaning of "a knows that p" (cf. Pap 1958:295): Explicandum: a knows that p (= 'q') Criterion of adequacy: if a knows that ρ, then ρ is true (=

) Explicatum: a has good reasons to believe that p, and a believes that p, and ρ is true (= 'r&s&t') Explication: a knows that p = def. a has good reasons to believe that p, and a believes that p, and ρ is true (= 'q =

r&s&t')

Criterion of adequacy after explication: if a has good reasons to believe that p, and a belives that p, and ρ is true, then ρ is true (= ) I f we take the c r i t e r i o n of adequacy as our s t a r t i n g p o i n t , the same e x p l i c a t i o n can be presented as f o l l o w s : Explication: We thus e s t a b l i s h a d e f i n i t i o n a l equivalence between the c r i t e r i o n of adequacy and i t s new, analysed or e x p l i c a t e d form.

stands

here f o r a sentence which is merely i n t u i t i v e l y known to be necessarily t r u e , whereas

stands f o r (and i s ) a f o r m a l l y necessary t r u t h .

N o t i c e , on the other hand, t h a t the d e f i n i t i o n a l equivalence, whether i t obtains between the two versions of the c r i t e r i o n of adequacy or be­ tween the explicandum ' q ' and the explicatum 'r&s&t' a f o r m a l l y necessary t r u t h , i . e . , a logical

is of course not

equivalence.

This is so

already f o r the obvious reason t h a t the explicandum is normally an unanalysed expression(-complex) of ordinary language.

Moreover, remember

t h a t explicandum and explicatum represent d i f f e r e n t stages of the pro-

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GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

cess of a n a l y s i s :

the l a t t e r i s a developed form o f , or an improve­

ment upon, the former.

I t would be c l e a r l y c o u n t e r - i n t u i t i v e

to

claim t h a t the s t a r t i n g p o i n t and the end p o i n t of a process of development ought to be l o g i c a l l y e q u i v a l e n t .

On the other hand,

there is c l e a r l y a conceptual or necessary connection here between explicandum and explicatum, p r e c i s e l y because they p e r t a i n , though i n d i f f e r e n t ways, to one and the same concept.

And, as in a l l good

d e f i n i t i o n s , t h i s connection is i n t u i t i v e l y acceptable. peat, i t cannot be i n t e r p r e t e d as a l o g i c a l

Yet, to r e ­

equivalence.

Our example is q u i t e simple because i n i t the explicatum i s j u s t the conjunction of those sentences which the explicandum e n t a i l s as i t occurs in d i f f e r e n t c r i t e r i a of adequacy.

(For i n s t a n c e , there

must be a c r i t e r i o n of adequacy l i k e the f o l l o w i n g : " I f a knows t h a t p , then a (also) believes t h a t p " . )

Therefore i t is only t r i v i a l

that

t h i s type of explicatum should turn c r i t e r i a of adequacy i n t o f o r m a l l y necessary t r u t h s .

The same method i s applied in a l l standard examples

of conceptual a n a l y s i s .

For i n s t a n c e , 'male parent' as the explicatum

of the explicandum ' f a t h e r '

i s obtained by c o n j o i n i n g the consequents

of the two i n t u i t i v e l y necessary i m p l i c a t i o n s " I f α is a f a t h e r , a is male" and " I f a i s a f a t h e r , a is a p a r e n t " .

Formal l o g i c o f f e r s an

example of a more complex e x p l i c a t i o n : in i t a whole idiom which ad­ mits o n l y , or mainly, of i n t u i t i v e necessity is t r a n s l a t e d i n t o a d i f ­ f e r e n t idiom which admits only of formal necessity.

For i n s t a n c e , or­

dinary language sentences about norms, which are only i n t u i t i v e l y ne­ cessary, are turned i n t o formal t r u t h s by t r a n s l a t i n g them i n t o the language of deontic l o g i c .

Thus when, f o r i n s t a n c e , the sentence

one ought to do p and is not forbidden to do q , then one is

"If

permitted

to do both ρ and q" i s t r a n s l a t e d i n t o the language of von W r i g h t ' s 'Old System', i t becomes v a l i d w i t h i n t h i s system.

, which is q u i t e obviously Each i n t u i t i v e l y necessary deontic sentence

c o n s t i t u t e s a c r i t e r i o n of adequacy f o r corresponding l o g i c a l

explica-

tion. E x p l i c a t i o n r e s u l t s i n proposing an explicatum, which is tested in the usual explanatory-cum-predictive way, namely by f i n d i n g out

GRAMMAR AND PHILOSOPHY

305

whether it satisfies all, and only, those criteria of adequacy which it is meant to satisfy. To the extent that it fails to do so, it is (nonempirically) falsified. Of two equally complex explicata the one which satisfies a greater number of criteria of adequacy is more gen­ eral, and hence more explanatory. Philosophy is a prescriptive science: it tries to make us think better. Therefore it is possible that the explicatum will have re­ percussions on the way in which the explicandum(-expression) is used (cf. Hanna 1968:42-43). However, it is not the purpose of explication to change our basic intuitions, but rather to develop them (cf. p. 44 above). It might well be said that explications 'educate' our in­ tuitions in the sense that several aspects of the knowledge which we have possessed all along become transparent to us only in an expli­ citly formulated framework. Similarly, it is only in such a frame­ work that several questions about our own intuitions can be intelli­ gibly asked. In general, it is not possible to state in any straightforward way all those necessary sentences in which a given concept occurs es­ sentially, and which could be used to identify this concept. Conse­ quently, every explicandum offers in principle the basis for an in­ definite number of possible criteria of adequacy. The selection be­ tween these is to a certain degree a matter of decision, and depends largely on the specific purpose of the explication in question. The material implication as an explicatum of the conditionals of natural language is a good example of an explicatum which can be accepted for the purpose at hand, although it neglects most of the possible crite­ ria of adequacy. The one criterion of adequacy for the explication of conditionals which is crucial to scientific thinking, and which is also satisfied by the material implication, is that, if the ante­ cedent is true, the implication as a whole is true only in case the consequent is true. To give another example, the different explica­ tions of the concept of truth, as represented by 'correspondence theory', 'coherence theory', and 'consensus theory', reflect differ­ ences of opinion and of taste concerning the relevance vs. irrele-

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GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

vance of d i f f e r e n t possible c r i t e r i a of adequacy, because i t i s q u i t e clear t h a t i ) a true sentence must in some sense correspond to r e a l i t y , ii)

a true sentence must be compatible w i t h other true sentences

mulated w i t h i n the same frame of r e f e r e n c e ) , and i i i )

(for-

the notion of

t r u t h persupposes t h a t people are able to agree upon what is or i s not true. On the other hand, because an explicandum is i d e n t i f i e d on the basis of c r i t e r i a of adequacy, s e l e c t i n g a d i f f e r e n t set of f a c t u a l l y amounts to s e l e c t i n g a d i f f e r e n t explicandum.

criteria

I t may also

happen t h a t analysts do not agree as to whether a given, c r i t e r i o n of adequacy r e a l l y d e f i n e s , or i d e n t i f i e s , the explicandum under study. Most often disagreements of t h i s kind are merely verbal i n s o f a r as the disputants turn out to have d i f f e r e n t explicanda i n mind ( c f . Pap 1958:384-86).

However, i n more subtle cases there is a p o s s i b i l i t y

of genuine disagreement ( c f . p. 286). I have been claiming here t h a t conceptual analysis as p r a c t i s e d by c l a s s i c a l philosophy and e x p l i c a t i o n are r e a l l y one and the same thing.

(For i n s t a n c e , the analysis " f a t h e r = male parent" is an exam-

ple of P l a t o ' s and A r i s t o t l e ' s

'real d e f i n i t i o n s ' . )

62) is s t r o n g l y opposed to t h i s view.

Quine (1960:257-

In his opinion i t is not the

purpose of e x p l i c a t i o n to discover hidden meaning or to make e x p l i c i t what we have known a l l along.

His paradigmatic example of philosophica

analysis is Wiener's e x p l i c a t i o n of the ordered p a i r ( x , y) as {y,

ø}},

i.e.,

{{x},

the class of those two classes whose sole members a r e ,

on the one hand, χ and, on the o t h e r , y and the empty c l a s s .

It

is

the m e r i t of t h i s e x p l i c a t i o n to reduce ordered pairs to o b j e c t s .

As

another example, Quine mentions the e x p l i c a t i o n of natural-language c o n d i t i o n a l s as material i m p l i c a t i o n s ( c f . above).

What makes these

examples paradigmatic, i s t h a t they concentrate upon one s i n g l e aspect of a d i f f i c u l t concept and show t h a t , f o r the purpose at hand, t h i s

is

sufficient. Quine's p o s i t i o n is open to two main o b j e c t i o n s .

F i r s t , the con­

t r a s t between the t r a d i t i o n a l analysis and the Wiener-type analysis

is

f i c t i t i o u s ; i t depends merely on the number of those c r i t e r i a of ade-

307

GRAMMAR AND PHILOSOPHY quacy which one chooses as r e l e v a n t to the problem at hand. problem was such t h a t s a t i s t y i n g one ( c r u c i a l )

Wiener's

c r i t e r i o n was s u f f i c i e n t .

I t i s s e l f - e v i d e n t t h a t a d i f f e r e n t problem would have required a d i f ferent solution.

Second, philosophical

problems are

characteristically

those whose s o l u t i o n requires the s a t i s f y i n g of several adequacy.

c r i t e r i a of

In t h i s respect they d i f f e r from mathematical problems, i n -

cluding Wiener's problem: Quine e x p l i c i t l y admits t h a t there i s only one s i n g l e c r i t e r i o n of adequacy here, and t h a t i t is imposed by "uses in mathematics".

Consequently, the ordered p a i r seems to be a r a t h e r

bad example of philosophical a n a l y s i s . as i l l - c h o s e n .

Quine's other example is j u s t

I t goes w i t h o u t saying t h a t material i m p l i c a t i o n is

t o t a l l y unable to express the notions of natural necessity and l o g i c a l e n t a i l m e n t , which are expressed by natural-language c o n d i t i o n a l s , and of which the former, in p a r t i c u l a r , c o n s t i t u t e s a genuinely p h i l o s o phical problem.

I t is only understandable, t h e n , that attempts at

more adequate e x p l i c a t i o n of c o n d i t i o n a l s are continuously made ( c f . , e.g.,

Sosa 1975) . E x p l i c a t i o n ranges from simple analyses of s i n g l e concepts to en-

t i r e systems of l o g i c .

In the former case formal necessity i s achieved

by r e p l a c i n g explicanda by e x p l i c a t a w i t h i n f i x e d s e n t e n c e - s t r u c t u r e s , whereas i n the l a t t e r case i t is achieved by t r a n s l a t i n g sentences of an explicandum-language i n t o those of an explicatum-language.

By way

of a summary, I quote Pap's (1958:388) s u c c i n t c h a r a c t e r i s a t i o n of the method of e x p l i c a t i o n : The conception of analysis outlined so far involves the steps (1) intuitive perception of the necessity of propositions by means of which the explicandum is, though not uniquely, identified (of course, such 'perception' is inseparable from an understanding o f words, especially in view of the inseparability of abstract thinking from verbal images); (2) construction of an explicatum; (3) test of adequacy of the explicatum, consisting in formal de­ monstration of the pre-analytic entailments (criteria of adequacy) by substituting explicatum for explicandum.

11.3. Grammars as Instances

of

Explication

Since grammatical descriptions are conceptual analyses, they must

308

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

be identifiable, more narrowly, as explications. This is plausible already in view of the fact that grammatical analysis and philosophical analysis practically coincide in one area, viz. the analysis of mean­ ing. The foregoing analysis of "a knows that ρ", which was taken from Pap (1958), could just as well be presented in a grammatical context. Other examples can be freely added. It is a well-known fact that kin­ ship terminology was one of the first areas where linguistic semantics was systematically developed (for an overview, see d'Andrade 1970). Compare this fact with the following, definitely philosophical state­ ment: The proposition, e.g., that all concepts of kinship relations that happen to be meanings of predicates of the English language are definable in terms of just the concepts male, female, and pavent is knowable a priori , by reflecting on concepts. So is the pro­ position that the primitive concepts of arithmetic are definable in terms of logical constants alone; ... (Pap 1958:274).

It still remains to be shown, point by point, how the different components of grammatical analysis correspond to the components of ex­ plication set forth in 11.2. In grammar the explicandum is ultimately the language to be described. More precisely, we describe a language L by analysing the concept 'correct sentence in L'. Therefore 'langu­ age L' is really a short-hand for 'all the rules which are relevant to the correctness of sentences in L', and for instance the sentence "In English the definite article precedes the noun" should read "So far as the correctness of sentences in English is concerned, the de­ finite article precedes the noun". Notice that in the expression 'correct sentence in English' the constituents 'correct sentence' and 'English' are so-called incomplete symbols: neither of them can be ana­ lysed in itself, but their conjunction must be analysed as a whole. The explicandum of a linguistic explication is identified with the aid of an indefinite set of rule-sentences, which could be rendered more formally as universal implications. As was shown in 6.1. (above), rule-sentences are necessarily true (or false); their necessity is of the non-formal, merely intuitive kind. Consequently, they function as criteria of adequacy. Now, if the explicandum is the language L, then it is obvious that the explicatum must be the grammar of L, i.e., G. .

309

GRAMMAR AND PHILOSOPHY In

other words, GL is a theoretical analysis of L.

It is clear, then,

that grammatical explication consists in replacing the atheoretical reference to L by a theoretical reference to GL . Because GL is an extended axiomatic system, rule-sentences, which are either true or false, cannot be directly reformulated in, or trans­ lated into, the language of GL . That is, GL shows what rule-sentences say in an atheoretical way.

It is the language of the metagrammar, or

of the theory of GL , which reformulates the rule-sentences: sentences in this language are the explicated counterparts of rule-sentences, i.e., the former say in a theoretical way the same thing which the latter say in an atheoretical way. If we concentrate here only on the 'weak generative capacity' of GL, or the requirement that GL generate all and only correct sentences of L, then, according to what has just been said, grammatical explica­ tion consists in a systematic translation of sentences about 'correct in L' into sentences about 'generable by G, '.

The former sentences,

i.e., rule-sentences, are necessarily true (or false) in a merely in­ tuitive way.

If GL , or more precisely its metagrammatical , natural-

language interpretation, is to be an explicatum in Pap's sense, then the latter sentences must be true (or false) in a formally way.

This is indeed the case.

necessary

It is a formally necessary truth that

an axiomatic system, whether extended or not, generates what it gen­ erates.

That

is, a sentence like "An application of the rule 'S→aSB'

followed by an application of the rule 'S→ab' generates the string aabb"

is formally true, or analytical, in precisely the same way as

the sentence "'q' is derived from 'p=q' and 'p' by Modus Ponens". More generally, the same is true of all sentences about the genera­ tive capacity, both weak and strong, of natural language grammars. I repeat that there is no formally necessary truth within GL , but only within the metagrammar which speaks about what GL generates or does not generate. If all true rule-sentences, which are intuitively necessary sen­ tences about a language L, can be transformed in the way here discus­ sed, and salva

veritate

, into formally necessary sentences about the

310

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

generative capacity of the grammar of L, and vice versa, then the grammar satisfies its criteria of adequacy and is, consequently, adequate. On the other hand, if there are true (atheoretical) sen­ tences about L which cannot be transformed salva veritate into corresponding metatheoretical, or metagrammatical, sentences, this means that the grammar fails to generate something which it ought to generate. Conversely, if there are true metatheoretical sen­ tences about the forms generated, and the structures assigned, by the grammar which have no counterparts among true atheoretical sen­ tences, this means that the grammar generates something which it ought not to generate. These are the two principal ways, explana­ tory and predictive, of falsifying any proposed grammar, reformu­ lated in terms of the present 'explicatory' framework. Above, I have demonstrated the formal or structural identity between explication and grammatical analysis. The terminology of 'explication' provides merely a reformulation of the general ratio­ nale of writing generative grammars: Systematic translation of sen­ tences about 'correct in L' (and other sentences about L) into sen­ tences about 'generable by GL ' means the same thing as writing a generative grammar of L. The only difference is that the former formulation reveals, via the concept of explication, the connection with logic and philosophy. The notion of explication provides, then, the common denominator of all normative sciences, viz. grammar, logic, and philosophy.

CONCLUSION In this book I have analysed the nature of the science of gram­ mar. After presenting some methodological (1.0.-2.0.) and historical (3.0.) background, I set forth a theory of language (4.0.-7.0.) and a theory of grammar (8.0.-9.0). The end result of my analysis is that, as a science investigating (the knowledge of) rules, the science of grammar is not an empirical, but a normative science comparable to logic and philosophy (10.0.-11.0 . ). The normative sciences are cha­ racterised by their use of the method of explication (11.0.). By contrast, psycholinguistics and sociolinguisties are empirical sciences. As sciences investigating human, and hence meaningful, be­ haviour, however, they are qualitatively different from the natural sciences. In linguistics there can be no question of directly adopt­ ing the methods of natural science. Psycholinguistics and sociolinguisties constitute what might be called 'space-time linguistics'. They are akin, respectively, to (experimental) psychology and (empi­ rical) sociology, just like the science of grammar, which might be called 'norm linguistics', is akin to logic and philosophy. It is in my view the central task of theoretical linguistics, or general l i n ­ guistics , to work out the integration of norm linguistics and spacetime linguistics. The difference between empirical science and normative science is relative to the level of abstraction. At a sufficient high level of abstraction, all sciences, including metascience, are seen to make use of the same methods of 'explanation' and 'testing'. The philosophy of science which my analysis requires is not posi­ tivism, but hermeneutics (interpreted perhaps in a somewhat unorthodox

312 way).

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE I t has proved to be necessary to r e j e c t the p o s i t i v i s t i c space-

time ontology and to adopt instead a continuum-like ontology extending from physical space-time to consciousness and n o r m a t i v i t y .

Within t h i s

framework a l l sciences, i n c l u d i n g l o g i c and philosophy, can be brought in a rather natural way i n t o r e l a t i o n w i t h one another.

The t r a n s i t i o n

from empirical social science to normative science i s provided by the science which i n v e s t i g a t e s (spontaneous) conceptual change, or change of r u l e s .

There must be a s i m i l a r t r a n s i t i o n between physical science

and empirical social science, provided by an i n v e s t i g a t i n g the emergence of meaning.

as y e t nonexistent science

Chap. 1. THE IDEA OF 'POSITIVSM' Notes 1-9 1

The classic presentation of this topic is Husserl (1954) . Von Wright (1971b) and Mittel strass (1974b) characterise, from somewhat different angles, the difference between the Aristotelian and the Galilean con­ ceptions of science; cf. also here 9.3. 2

There are well-known difficulties with the notion of DN-model (cf., for example, Stegmüller 1974, chaps. 1-2 and 10). Yet no clearly superior models of deterministic explanation seem to be forthcoming.

3

This claim is not uncontested, however. For instance, Radmtzky (1970:i, p.169) objects to the use of 'explanation' according to which "whenever a person has rejoined the question why something behaved in a certain way with the comment that all entities of that kind behave in this way, he had been producing an explanation sketch"; similarly Harre (1970:16 and 20) . 4

'p' and 'q' stand for any sentences. 'F' and 'G' stand for any pro­ perties or relations. 'x' and 'y' stand for any individuals. The junctors '&', 'v', , '≡' , and '-' stand, respectively, for con­ junction (= 'and'), inclusive disjunction (= 'and/or'), implication (= 'if - then'), equivalence (= 'if, and only if, - then'), and ne­ gation (= 'not'). The quantifiers '(x)' and '(Ex)' stand, respecti­ vely, for universality (= 'all') and existence (= 'some'). For in­ stance, the formula '(x) reads: "For all individuals x, if χ has the property F, then it has the property G." The rule of univer­ sal instantiation permits to infer any (for instance, 'Fa') from all (i.e., '(x)Fx'). The rule of Modus Ponens permits to infer 'q' from and 'p'. The rule of Modus Tollens permits to infer '-p' from and '-q'. Cf. 2.6. below. - I adopt the convention according to which ρ and Fa stand for the referents of the sentences 'p' and 'Fa'. 5

Cf., e.g., Hempel (1965:39-40), and Popper (1965:41). It is well known that Popper tries to dispense with the notion of confirmation by evaluating theories on the basis of their liability to falsifi­ cation. However, it is difficult not to see the similarity between confirmation and Popper's notion of 'corroboration' which is defined as the ability of a theory to stand up to tests (cf. Popper 1965:26569).

314

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE .

.

....

6

Peirce and Popper, for instance, have emphasised the falsifIability as the defining property of scientific theories. However, this 'fallibilistic' principle holds true not just of empirical science, but of any type of science, including 'pure' philosophy, cf. Moore (1912: 8-9): "The probability is, that hardly any positive proposition, which can as yet be offered in answer to [fundamental ethical questions] will be strictly and absolutely true. With regard to negative propo­ sitions, indeed - propositions to the effect that certain positive answers which have been offered, are false - the case seems to be different. We are, I think, justified in being much more certain that some of the positive suggestions which have been made are not true, than that any particular among them is true,.."; cf. also here 9.3. - If, in our example, the prediction would be of the form '(Ey)Gay' (i.e., there is some individual y to which a has the rela­ tion G), straightforward falsification of the corresponding theory would not be possible. Therefore, to achieve greater generality, 'falsiflability' must be replaced by 'testability' (cf. 1.1.). I wish to emphasise that, for instance, Lakatos' (1970) criticism of 'dogmatic falsificationism' does nothing to undermine the fact that (intersubjective) testability is the hallmark of scientific rationa­ lity, or the only thing that distinguishes science (whether empiri­ cal or not) from poetry, or from magic.

7

8

9

Just think of a theory of mechanics pertaining to the behaviour of round falling objects weighing less than 1 kg. Such a theory would be uninteresting. That is, even if all sentences generated by it are true, which means that it generates only true sentences, it still does not generate all sentences (about mechanics) that are true. Perhaps the most serious shortcoming of the 'standard' conception of scientific theories has been its unwillingness to consider the con­ struction of causal models, i.e., models for those actual mechanisms that make things happen in the way they do happen (cf. Harre 1970). The quotes around 'simply' are meant to indicate that this is in f act no simple question at all. The problem is, to put it bluntly, that we must have a way of discarding spurious or inconsistent thoughts.

Chap. 2.

THE IDEA OF 'HERMENEUTICS'

Notes 10-19 10

The so-called 'psychology of personal constructs' has been purpose­ fully developed in opposition to positivistic psychology. It takes account of the reflexive structure of consciousness, both in psycho­ logists and in their test persons, as well as of the de facto social character of all psychological experiments (see Bannister & Fransella 1971) . This last point is also emphasised in the critique of positi­ vistic psychology offered in Harre & Secord (1972, chaps. 2-3).

NOTES

315

When, due to the lack of time and resources, no proper psychoana­ lytic or psychotherapeutic treatment can be offered, the same result is striven for through the administration of suitable drugs. This amounts to the attempt to obstruct one form of causality through an­ other. Characteristically, the treatment of the latter type produces poorer results. 12

Notice that this claim is fully compatible with the obvious fact that different groups of people follow different sets of rules at differ­ ent times and different places; cf. n.88. 13

Douglas (1973) offers an original selection of readings from the field of the sociology of knowledge. Because of its generally nonstatistical character, 'ethnomethodology' is closer to sociology of knowledge than to empirical sociology (cf. Turner 1974), The same seems to be true of the Hymes-type 'ethnography of speaking'.

14

Cf. Lessnoff (1974:44-45): "It scarcely needs to be said that, for an institution to function, those involved must know what the rules are, and must expect one another to keep more or less to the rules. Language is not only involved in all social institutions, it is it­ self a social institution..." Cf. Ryan (1970:145): "The concepts which individuals possess are simply the mirror-image of the rules which shape their lives in their society. ... Thus when we elucidate concepts we are elucidating the possibilities of social life, and conversely when we explain social life we elucidate the concepts available to members of that society. When we began our account of philosophical argument we described it as essentially a conceptual study. Now we see that the social sci­ ences are permeated by conceptual considerations; ... it is the task of social science to reflect on the concepts with which we make so­ cial life intelligible... But this activity is much like that of phi­ losophy through the' centuries..." - This important passage, which refers to Winch (1958), elucidates the sense in which sociology of knowledge, philosophy, logic, and grammar are, in my opinion, all cases of conceptual analysis. 16

What I am saying here is intimately connected with the distinction between rule and regularity (cf. 6.1.). Moreover, experimentation and observation are in order when the existence of rules is less than certain (cf. 5.3-4.).

17

This striving after the consistency of one's psyche is the basic ex­ planatory principle employed by the so-called theory of cognitive dissonance (or consistency); cf. Abelson et. al. (1968) 18

This does not mean, however, that formal logic would be psychologically real. On the contrary, body of evidence showing that several principles ginning with the equivalence '(p∩q)≡ (-pvq)', are real; cf. Wason & Johnson-Laird 1972.

in its present form there exists a large of formal logic, be­ not psychologically

316

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

19

This means that Hintikka's (1974:157) following claim is mistaken: "... the games I have defined are the only explicitly defined games to be found in the literature so-called both in the sense of game theory and in the sense of Wittgenstein's language games." In the same context Hintikka equates 'language games' with "rule-governed activities serving to connect our language to the reality it speaks of". This is an accurate characterisation of Lorenzen's and Lorenz's dialogical logic. - Wessel (1972) offers an excellent overview of Lorenzen's and Lorenz's approach, fully recognising its philosoph­ ical importance.

Chap. 3.

20-TH CENTURY LINGUISTIC THEORIES

Notes 20-37 20 I am using the 1962 edition. 21 'PTL' stands for Hjelmslev's Prolegomena,

the 1963 edition.

22 The analogy to the general goals of TG, and especially to the notion of 'evaluation procedure', should be obvious. - I have omitted here certain inconsistencies and oddities in Hjelmslev's account; for de­ tails, see Itkonen (1968). 23 Cf. Chomsky & Halle (1968:/6, note): "... in many significant re­ spects we are following in the general line of Sapir's approach to linguistic structure." See also Halle (1959:13-14); Chomsky (1964d: 69-70); Postal (1968:305-06). 24 , . . . An historically accurate picture of Sapir which takes his contribu­ tion to larger methodological issues into account is given in Hymes (1975). 25 It is questionable whether Sapir had in fact read Saussure's Cours at the time. 26 Cf. Mead (1934:6-7): "We want to approach language not from the stand­ point of inner meanings to be expressed, but in its larger context of co-operation in the group taking place by means of signals and ges­ tures, Meaning appears within that process. Our behaviorism is a social behaviorismo Social psychology studies the activity or be­ havior of the individual as it lies within the social process; the behavior of an individual can be understood only in terms of the be­ havior of the whole social group of which he is a member, since his individual acts are involved in larger, social acts which go beyond himself and which implicate the other members of that group." 27 A few excerpts will be given here: "The formula that I would venture to suggest is simply this: Religion is man's never-ceasing attempt to discover a road to spiritual serenity across the perplexities and dangers of daily life" (Sapir 1949h:347). "What constitutes spirit­ ual serenity must be answered afresh for every culture and for every

NOTES

317

community - in the last analysis, for every individual. Culture defines for every society the world in which it lives, hence we can expect no more of any religion than that it awaken and overcome the feeling of danger, of individual helplessness, that is proper to that particular world. The ultimate problems of an Ojibwa Indian are dif­ ferent as to content from those of the educated devotee of modern sci­ ence, but with each of them religion means the haunting realization of ultimate powerlessness in an inscrutable world, and the unques­ tioning and thoroughly irrational conviction of the possibility of gaining mystic security by somehow identifying oneself with what can never be known" ( i b i d . ) . PR

Today, it is the express purpose of the 'psychology of personal con­ structs' to describe individual persons as self-conscious idiosyncra­ tic or largely unique totalities; cf. Bannister & Fransella (1971). For an attempted synthesis of anthropology and psychiatry, cf. Becker (1971). 29 It is against this background that the following statement must be understood: "The over-all purpose of work in descriptive linguistics is to obtain a compact one-one representation of the stock of utter­ ances in the corpus" (Harris 1961:366). TG has been particularly fond of quoting this statement because, taken out of context, it wholly distorts and trivialises Harris's conception of grammar. Bach (1965) even goes so far as to quote this passage twice within the limits of one rather short article. 30 Notice that in addition to the general principle of disconfirmability, Harris is formulating here a precise equivalent to Chomsky's 'clear case principle'. 31 Cf. Chomsky (1957:56): "In short, we shall never consider the ques­ tion of how one might have arrived at the grammar whose simplicity is being determined... Questions of this sort are not relevant to the program of research that we have outlined above. One may arrive at a grammar by intuition, guesswork, all sorts of partial methodological hints, reliance on past experience, etc. ... But this problem is not within the scope of our investigations here." 32 Lees goes on to claim (p.407) that the data of grammatical descrip­ tions are of a physical nature. 33 Bach's two types of prediction, i.e., the derivability of all and only sentences of L, correspond respectively to my 'explanatory' and 'pre­ dictive' types of testing (cf. 1.2.). 34 In 2.0. I have tried to show that in the human sciences any absolute distinction between scientists and their objects of investigation must be an illusion; cf. further 8.1-2. 34a The preceding discussion can be summed up by the following question: Is there, in the TG opinion, any methodological reason why theoretical

318

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

physics cannot be called 'mentalistic physics'? 35 In a public discussion at Salzburg, August 1977, Gaberell Drachman claimed that no transformationalist has ever let experimental data falsify an otherwise plausible grammatical description. Motsch (1974: 118) makes use of the same argument in constructing his well-balanced critique of TG. Chomsky (1976:230, n.ll) has this to say about the nature of linguis­ tic creativity: "Appropriateness is not to be confused with control, nor can the properties of language use noted here (what I have else­ where called 'the creative aspect of language use') be identified with the recursive property of grammars. Failure to keep these very dif­ ferent concepts separate has led to much confusion." Characteristi­ cally, however, he fails to mention that he is the one who has created all the confusion here; cf. Chomsky (1967:7): "The available evidence shows that the output of this device is a system of recursive rules that provide the basis for the creative aspect of language use and that manipulate highly abstract structures." 37 The following statement expresses the 'standard' TG position: "A human speaker has the ability to create and understand an unlimited number of completely novel sentences." Consider how Householder (1969:88889) comments upon it: "So far the Bloomfieldian would generally have agreed, but this was never one of his vital doctrines. He might ques­ tion the word 'completely', which suggests that no sentence bears any partial resemblance to any other sentence - a claim so obviously false that Langacker must mean something else, though I cannot for the life of me figure out what." Chap. 4.

PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE CONCEPT OF LANGUAGE

Notes 38-64 For relevant passages, see Marx & Engels (1973:30-31,37); Dilthey (1927:141,147); Mead (1934:223, and 223, η.25); Lauer (1965:155); Rossi (1972:158). 39 This presumed rock-bottom of knowledge is described by Descartes as follows: "... it is I who have sensations, or who perceive corporeal objects as it were by the sense. Thus, I am now seeing light, hearing a noice, feeling heat. These objects are unreal, for I am asleep; but at least I seem to see, to hear, to be warmed. This cannot be unreal; and this is what is properly called my sensation" (Meditations II, p. 71). 40 Saunders & Henze (1967:136-41) attribute this insight to Strawson (1967:94-107)= However, the same idea is already expressed in Witt­ genstein (1958:I,§398): "And this too is clear; if as a matter of logic you exclude other people's having something, it loses its sense to say that you have it." Cf. also Wittgenstein (1965:63-64,55). As we have seen, the essentially same conclusion was reached already by

NOTES

319

Marx and Engels, Dilthey, Mead, Husserl, and Heidegger, among others. It is conceivable that in other cultures the Cartesian fallacy would have been easier to overcome or would not have come up at all. In the Tanzanian countryside there is a proverbial Swahili saying "Niko kwa kuwa tuko" (= "I am because we are"), which reflects the traditionally strong solidarity between the members of a community and constitutes, incidentally, the perfect formulation of Strawson's semi-grammatical insight. (I am indebted to Dr. Raimo Harjula for bringing this proverb to my attention.) 41

This crucial notion will be defined in 5.1.(below). 42 Cf. also Marx & Engels (1973:21): "Wie die Individuen ihr Leben äu­ ssern, so sind sie." 43

44

The following discussion is strongly influenced by Winch (1958) .

. . I take this to be an indisputable truth, born out by what we know about the history of the earth. I know fully well that any attempt to specify the relation between our concepts and the physical reality 'as it really is' involves formidable philosophical difficulties. I decline to make any such attempt here, since I can draw my general distinction between event and action, without being committed to ex­ plain what 'events an sich1 are. - Ringen (1977:415, also n. 6) disputes the dissimilarity between events and actions as here de­ scribed, referring to the fact that descriptions of physical regular­ ities, e.g. dispositional law statements, may contain conceptual rela­ tions. My reply is that Ringen fails to distinguish between events and descriptions of events. As human constructions, the latter may quite obviously contain conceptual relations. However, this is not true of the former. Cf. Mackie (1974:16-17): "Of course, we can find descriptions of causes and effects such that the description of a cause is analytically connected with the description of its effect, but this is a trivial point on which no time need be wasted." Cқ. also n.9.

45 The symbol 'Λ' stands for exclusive disjunction (= 'either - or'). 'D' does not, strictly speaking, meet the definition of exclusive disjunction, because it is conceptually impossible for the disjuncts ' 'B' and 'C' to be true at the same time. Consequently, 'D' is false only when both 'B' and 'C' are false. 46 . The point that he is trying to make here is not easy to grasp; it runs counter to all ingrained atomistic habits of thinking. This is why I have chosen to quote him at some length. 47 . . . . . . The inseparability of mental phenomena and their environment is graphically expressed by Marx & Engels (1973:30, n=2): "Mein Verhält­ nis zu meiner Umgebung ist mein Bewusstsein." 48 Wittgenstein (1958:I,§285 and 261) vividly describes the traditionist's predicament: "I want co keep a diary about the recurrence of a

320

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

certain sensation, To this end I associate it with the sign 'S' and write this sign in a calendar for every day on which I have the sensa­ tion. ... What reason have we for calling 'S' the sign for a sensa­ tion? For 'sensation' is a word of our common language, not of one intelligible to me alone. So the use of this word stands in need of a justification which everybody understands. - And it would not help either to say that it need not be a sensation; that when he writes 'S', he has something - and that is all that can be said. 'Has' and 'something' also belong to our common language. - So in the end when one is doing philosophy one gets to the point where one would like just to emit an inarticulate sound." 49 Wittgenstein is discussing here the distinction between seeing and seeing as, which is clearly analogous to, though not identical with, that between observing and understanding. Somewhat similar ideas are expressed in Donnelian (1968), where it is shown that the meaning of an utterance is conceptually dependent upon its context, the term 'context' being of course understood widely enough to contain the previous usage of the words making up the utter­ ance . 51 The same standpoint, namely that qualitative differences result from the increasing complexity of the data, is advocated by modern systems theory and marxist philosophy, for example. 52 From the irreducibility of intentional to physical, Quine (1960:21621) draws the surprising conclusion that the former must be ignored. 53

As always, I am not denying the existence of intermediate cases, as in the language of schizophrenics, for example.

54 The 'logical syntax' is only an apparent exception. It is charac­ terised by the fact that its marks can be manipulated as if they had no meaning; but the whole point of manipulating them is that they do have meaning, namely, a certain analogy to certain thought-operations. 55 . Linguists have for the most part ignored the private-language argu­ ment; and when they do consider it, they seem to have difficulties in grasping its subtlety. For instance, Schnelle (1973:39-40) purports to 'refute' Wittgenstein's position by constructing for himself the following rule which is both private and applicable at best once: "If I meet a lion in the wilds, I shall go directly to it and caress it." This may or may not be a witty example; in any case it has nothing to do with the epistemological questions raised by Wittgen­ stein. The same judgment applies to Fodor (1975 : chap.2). Fodor's putative defense of private languages rests on his identification of 'private language' with 'unconscious, largely innate cognitive struc­ ture'. Yet there is nothing to justify such an identification. Just as well one might call the internal structures of individual atoms their 'private languages', at least if one accepts TG's general meth­ odological line (cf. n.34a). Fodor's (1975:63) knock-down argument

NOTES

321

speaks for itself: "Hence, in general, any behavior whatever is com­ patible with understanding, or failing to understand, any predicate whatever. Pay me enough and I will stand on my head if you say 'chair'. But I know what 'is a chair' means all the same. - So much for caveats." The topic of this section has several far-reaching implications, only a few of which I can mention here. Poetic language is often a result of the tension between the triviality of the public language and the impossibility of a private language. It is a natural urge for many a poet to try to create an entirely new, and hence private language, which would nevertheless be understandable to his audience. Now, the logical proof that even a private language understandable only to the poet himself is impossible, serves to illustrate the dilemma of those who, like Rimbaud for instance, try to innovate language in a radical way, and, sensing the impossibility of their attempt, may ultimately be reduced to silence. In this respect their attitude resembles that of mystics; cf. Wittgenstein (1969a:6.521 and 6.522): "Die Lösung des Problems des Lebens merkt man am Verschwinden dieses Problems. (Ist dies nicht der Grund, warum Menschen, denen der Sinn des Lebens nach langen Zweifeln klar wurde, warum diese dann nicht sagen konnten, worin dieser Sinn bestand.) Es gibt allerdings Unaussprechliches. Dies zeigt sich, es ist das Mystische." Here one is reminded of Buddha's 'answer' to the question concerning the meaning of life. Furthermore, the impossibility of a private language that could at the same time be used for communication explains, quite simply, whyit is that when people who possess some truly extraordinary, or liter­ ally private, gift try to explain this gift of theirs, for instance in their memoirs, their accounts invariably sound disappointingly trivial. 'Explanations of the latter type are widely discussed in the current philosophy of action; cf., e.g., Harré & Secord (1972). Compare this result with Chomsky's unsuccessful attempt to account for creativity within his self-imposed methodological restrictions. This distinction will be discussed in 5.2.(below). Compare the following passages from Humboldt (1968[1836]:208, 212, and 206, in that order): Die Sprache wird durch Sprechen gebildet, und das Sprechen ist Ausdruck des Gedankens und der Empfindung." - "Jeder nun braucht die Sprache zum Ausdruck seiner besondersten Eigenthümlichkeit: denn sie geht immer von dem Einzelnen aus, und jeder bedient sich ihrer zunächst nur für sich selbst." - "Der wahre Vorzug einer Sprache ist nur der, sich aus einem Princip und in einer Freiheit zu entwickeln, die es ihr möglich machen, alle intellectuelle Vermögen des Menschen in reger Thätigkeit zu erhalten, ihnen zum genügenden Organ zu dienen, und durch die sinnliche Fülle und geistige Gesetz­ mässigkeit, welche sie bewahrt, ewig anregend auf sie einzuwirken. In dieser formalen Beschaffenheit liegt alles, was sich wohlthätig für den Geist aus der Sprache entwickeln lässt."

322

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

60 For comments, see Itkonen (1968). However, the emphasis on the indi­ vidualistic aspect of language is lacking in Hjelmslev's theory. . 61

The same judgment applies to the theory of language presented m Lieb (1970) for example, which takes idiolects of individual speakers as basic units and constructs other linguistic entities out of them by means of repeated application of the set theory. Here we have a case where a method of description projects its own properties into the data, instead of presenting the latter as they really are. Another example of the inadequacy of formal logic as a method of conceptual analysis will be presented in the end of 11.1. (below).

62 Curiously enough, they do not even mention Wittgenstein's name. This Wittgenstein-inspired criticism of TG's position is very similar to Marx's criticism of Feuerbach's conception of religion; cf. Hymes (1974:121-22). 64

Here 'grammar' stands for any analysis of rules (of speaking). It follows that part of what today is generally labelled as 'sociolinguistics' should, in my opinion, be subsumed under the notion of gram­ mar. By contrast, 'sociolinguistics', as I understand this term, stands for an empirical science necessarily characterised by statis­ tical methods of description. Chap. 5.

THE CONCEPT OF LANGUAGE

Notes 65-84 Attempts to base the existence of rules solely on the existence of rule-sentences are discussed in Itkonen (1974, chap.3). To give one more example, Harre & Secord (1972:12 and 181) claim, too, that "rules are propositions". - It might be advisable to read 6.2.(below), before entering upon the present chapter. Otherwise much of what I say about 'rules' and 'rule-sentences' may be difficult to understand. For the notion of 'doing something under some description', cf. Anscombe (1957:37-47). 67

This is the central concept of social philosophy. It is discussed extensively in Mead (1934) and Schutz (1962) for example, and, more recently, in Lewis (1969) and Schiffer (1972). In my terminology con­ cepts and rules are 'objects' both of common (or social) and of sub­ jective knowledge. Common knowledge literally constitutes concepts and rules as what they are, whereas their (social) existence is inde­ pendent of the subjective knowledge of any individual person; cf. immediately below. . . . 68 To qualify as incorrects an action must have a recognisable relation to a possible correct action from which in doviates for whatever reas­ on. If no such relation can be made out, an action cannot even be called incorrect, Therefore it is impossible that a speech act for

NOTES

323

instance could be incorrect in each conceivable respect, i.e., that it could violate all, or even most, of those rules which would determine the correctness of its correct counterpart. This issue is familiar to those who have tried to determine different degrees of (un)grammaticalness. 69

. This is, I think, the precise meaning of the basic tenet on Winch (1958), which has puzzled some commentators (e.g., Maclntyre 1967a), that all actions are rule-governed. On the other hand, I must admit uncertainty about the precise status of those 'rules' whose ubiquity is taken for granted in Harre & Secord (1972), for instance, and more generally in ethnomethodology.

70 This brief remark is only meant to show that I am aware of the fact that the notion of common knowledge, as here defined, does not pay sufficiently attention to the notion of conceptual innovation. 71

Such a philosophy of science was briefly outlined in 2.0.(above). member Habermas's dictum: "Lack of reflection is positivism."

Re­

72 The inference says that from 'p or q' and 'not-p', we may validly in­ fer 'q'. Within ordinary thinking, the necessary truth of 'p or not-p' is self-evident; and yet, from a definite point of view it can sensibly be called into question, as in so-called intuitionist or con­ structivist logic. 73

The above point can also be made in the following way. If a concept like 'father' is inherent to, or contained in, particular subjective intuitions, then we have simply no way of knowing what 'father1 means outside of those intuitions, i.e., what father' means tout court. An intuitional account of the existence of concepts cannot help relying on objective, not-just-intuitive meanings of concepts, and therefore defeats itself. The same argument can be used to show, e.g., that 'good' cannot be defined as 'what X thinks is good' (cf. Maclntyre 1967b:29). In other words, 'transcendental idealism', which makes no difference between subjective knowledge and its object, is certainly false.

74 The meaning of this formula should be clear on the basis of n.4 and 45. 75 It is clear that the equivalence is not meant to hold between formulatokens. If we consider only the latter, i.e., physical marks on paper, we have no right to think of them as logical entities. 75a What we have here is Dilthey's and Weber's well-known distinction between Zw eckverstehen and Aus drucksverstehen. - There are rules of social behaviour which specify what one ought to do next. In such a case, explaining why an action was done does not produce psychological knowledge, or does so only if the explanation pertains to why the per­ son in question followed those rules, instead of breaking them. - Johach (1974) presents a modern interpretation of Dilthey's work.

324

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

Collingwood ' s concept of 'thought' is here âe facto identical with 'social context' in the sense used in 4.2.(above), or with the process which gives social contexts the meanings they have. Intuition as used in linguistics is to be distinguished from introspection as used in psychophysics. Ringen (1977:415-16) justifiably criticises Itkonen (1974) for not explaining how the objects of intui­ tion and introspection differ from each other. The foregoing discus­ sion should make it clear that uses of intuition and introspection result in quite different kinds of claims. Introspection is about temporally definite happenings in one person's nervous system whereas intuition is about entities that obtain, within rather broad stretches of time, equally for each member of a community. It can be further asked, of course, why there should be such a distinction, but this is like asking Heidegger's (and Leibniz's) question, viz. why there is something rather than nothing. 78

Of course, it is quite reasonable to argue that a rule should ist, for instance if it is morally repugnant.

not ex­

79 When I speak here of 'certainty', I of course mean objective cer­ tainty, not any kind of subjective or 'incorrigible' certainty. All subjective knowledge is fallible and hence liable to correction through social control. On the other hand, objective certainty, or certainty at the level of common knowledge, does not mean immutable or superhistorical certainty. 80

Cf. the Hare-quotation p.213.

81

However, this is not true of all rules of language; cf. 5.4.(below). One has to distinguish between what might be called 'invariant' and 'variable' rules (of language). The former type of rules are known with certainty; I also call them 'genuine rules'. When in this book I speak simply of 'rules', I always mean invariant or genuine rules. Elsewhere, e.g., in Itkonen (forthcoming b), I have analysed in detail the relation between invariant and variable rules. 82 It should be evident that I am not using the term 'social control' in the sense of an explicit system of sanctions. - In my opinion, lin­ guistic intuition is a type of (subjective) pre-experimental know­ ledge. Therefore it could not be claimed without contradiction that intuition could be exhaustively defined as an object of experimenta­ tion (cf. 2.1.). This does not mean that there are no checks on in­ tuition. Such checks are provided by intuition's amenability to so­ cial control. Hence, at the level of intuition, social control is my counterpart to testability. The difference between the two may seem trifling, but it has its philosophical importance. 83 . . . Instead of linguistic change, we could speak, more generally, of diachronic/geographic/social variation in language. The topic under discussion is intimately related to the rise of 'vari-

NOTES

325

ationist' schools of linguistics, represented by Labov, Bailey, Bickerton, and others. The argument of the present section 5.4. can be summed up by quoting Labov's (1971:496) rationale for variationism: "When you find that intuitions have dissolved into fragmentary idiosynchratic views then it is quite possible that help from observation may be useful." This formulation is, if anything, much too cautious; for discussion, cf. Itkonen (forthcoming a and b ) . Chap. 6.

THE BASIS OF THE NONEMPIRICAL NATURE OF GRAMMAR

Notes 85-97 85

I use the terms rule and regularity' as they are generally used in the theory of social science, for instance in Ryan (1970) and Lessnoff (1974). This is not how linguists are accustomed to use these terms. 86

Ofcourse, my standard definition of 'empirical' is 'spatiotemporally testable'. But the rule-sentences (which I am discussing right now) are of the universal from, and universal sentences are tested by try­ ing to falsify them.

87

For instance, the standard example of a necessarily true sentence, viz. "All bachelors are unmarried" is o.bviously both universal and unfalsifiable. 88

A similar type of argument is used by Hare (1971:232-33) when he de­ fends his view that a statement about how the dance 'eightsome reel' is correctly danced is a priori, i.e., universal, nonempirical, and necessarily true (or false): "There is first the danger of thinking that it could not have been the case that the eightsome reel was danced in some quite different way. It is, of course, a contingent fact, arising out of historical causes with which I at any rate am unacquainted, that the dance called 'the eightsome reel' has the form it has and not some other form. If it had some different form, what my dancers have learnt in their childhood would have been different, and what they would have learnt to call 'the eightsome reel' would have been different too; yet the statement 'the eightsome reel is danced in the following manner, etc.' would have had just the same characteristics as I have mentioned (though the 'etc.' would stand for some different description of steps and movements)." 89

Dahl (1975:3-4) makes precisely the same point in what he, oddly, takes to be a criticism of my position. 90 Of course, terms like 'definite article' may be unknown to ordinary people, but the referents of such terms are definitely known to them. Besides, terms like 'definite article' are in any case dispensable here. The rule in question could be formulated as "In English the expression the man is correct, and man the incorrect", which contains no technical terms. On the other hand, it is quite clear that rules, which - as here defined - are fully accessible to conscious lin­ guistic intuition, must be tied together by some more abstract or more

326

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

general psychological mechanisms which are not accessible to intui­ tion, but can only be discovered by psycholinguistic experimentation. 91

. The distinction between atheoretical certainty and theoretical uncer­ tainty should not be too difficult to grasp (cf. also 5.3.above). Surprisingly enough, there are linguists who find even this little bit of conceptual differentiation 'confusing' (e.g., Dahl 1975:2).

92 To be sure, what we have here is not a genuine existential statement. Since it is about the existence of a rule, it is implicitly of univer­ sal character. In other words, grammar and empirical science are so different that they offer no basis for genuinely analogous examples. The statement that there is at least one utterance of such and such a sentence in some unidentified region of space and time, would be genu­ inely existential, but grammar is not concerned with such statements (cf. 7.0.below). 93 In their debate with Cavell, Fodor & Katz (1971, esp. p.203) defend an exceptionally rigid positivistic line. They go so far as to count philosophy of language among the empirical sciences. 94 . . . . This is not to deny that, even m linguistics, synchrony can be prop­ erly understood only with reference to its counterpart, i.e., diachrony. Moreover, even if the relations between different states of language are not conscious, they are not purely atomistic either, since linguistic changes normally display a functional or teleological character. 95 It is clear that the 'truth' of such a rule-sentence cannot be known with the same immediacy and certainty as the truth of rule-sentences discussed in 6.1.-2. 96 The growth of scientific knowledge involves both a relative and an absolute concept of truth: A sentence proposing a new methodological rule may be more true than a sentence referring to an existing rule in relation to an absolute truth which science approximates, but which it never reaches. However, the view of science as developing in such a rectilinear way has been called into question by Kuhn and Feyer­ abend, among others. 97 Notice that the splitting of atoms and the creating of living cells, for instance, take place within unchanging laws of nature. Chap. 7.

THE INELIMINABILITY OF LINGUISTIC NORMATIVITY

Notes 98-107 98 The foregoing also answers Sampson's (1976) criticism of Itkonen (1975a). In fact, it was anticipated and answered, more fully than here, already in Itkonen (1974:169-70); cf. also Itkonen (1976d: 56-60). 99 The 'index' of an utterance contains the 'rules of operation on the

NOTES

327

inscription' in question. The nature of these rules is not specified more narrowly by Kasher. In any case, it hardly seems correct to treat rules (of whatever type) and speakers equally as 'indexes' of utterances. Moreover, this treatment loses sight of the fact that rules determine primarily the correctness of sentences (in my sense), not of utterances. Kasher's account is espoused in Kanngiesser (1976:121), for instance. A somewhat similar attempt to combine grammatical concepts with spacetime is made in Schnelle (1973:120-25). 101 To be sure, Labov's work has shown that, by introducing a set of in­ dependent linguistic and social variables, we are able to fix quite reliable conditional probabilities for selected subsentential phe­ nomena, taken as dependent variables. But, to repeat, Kasher is not at all interested in what really goes on in space and time. This surely is a curious form of 'empirism'. 102 Cf. Schnelle (1976), who bases this claim on his interpretation of Lorenz's (1970) concept of Lern- und Lehrsituationen. 103

104

There are further difficulties with Lewis's (1969) position. If he really wishes to make linguistics empirical by eliminating the ref­ erence to correctness in favour of the reference to mutual expecta­ tions, then the actual existence of such expectations must be estab­ lished. If this cannot be done in purely empirical terms, then Lewis has failed. Now, suppose that a person A has some actual expecta­ tions about what another person B will say. Shall we discover that A has the expectations that B will say "It's raining", and not "It's rainil" (or some such form), "I'm tired" and not "I'k tired" (or some such form), and similarly for the whole incalculable number of cases where one can say something either correctly or incorrectly? Or shall we discover that A has only the general expectation that whatever B is going to say he will speak correct English? I am certain that the latter alternative is the true one. But this means, once again, that we just cannot get rid of normativity. The same is true also of Dretske (1974), Ringen (1975) and Lass (1976), who - like myself - explicity argue for the nonempirical character of grammar.

105

An analysis of Labov's descriptive practice shows that the relation between grammar and sociolinguistics is analogous to that between protophysics and physics, the former being the 'transcendental' counterpart of the latter; cf. Itkonen (forthcoming a and b ) .

106

The emptiness of TG's concept of 'novelty' was exposed on p.86.

107

This is denied by Dougherty (1974:133), for instance, who claims that "intuitions are observations". I submit that this formulation is devoid of sense.

328

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

Chap. 8.

LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR

Notes 108-114 7 OR

Juntunen (1977) offers an analysis of the notions of atheoretical knowledge utilised in the human and in the natural sciences. 109 Cf. Hymes (1974:11): "Ethnographic objectivity is intersubjective ob­ jectivity, but in the first instance, the intersubjective objectivity in question is that of the participants in the culture". 110 Of course, the learning of rules is gradual. But this does not mean that the transition from regularities to rules is gradual. One learns a rule by making successive hypotheses about it and by mod­ ifying them in the light of new evidence. It is this transition from wrong guesses to the right guess, and then to genuine knowledge, which is gradual. 111

Chomsky is here still the exception; cf. 3.6.

112 Immler (1974:139) uses the term 'normierte Paraphrase1. 113 The question is, of course, what is the 'linguistically' meaningful way. 114 Notice that the phonemes are not supposed to have any intuitive (or experimental-psychological) reality. Rather, we, as it were, observe their sudden appearance at a certain level of our theoretical de­ scription. Chap. 9.

THE METHODOLOGY OF GRAMMAR

Notes 115-127 Notice that it is the number of utterances, not of sentences, which is claimed to be potentially infinite. I expressly reject the notion that the number of the sentences of a given language could be infin­ ite (cf. Itkonen 1976a). Today Lakoff has abandoned the view that grammatical explanations must have the structure of (vertical) derivations; cf. n.125. 117 Kanngiesser (1976:148, n.25) tries to avert this conclusion by appeal­ ing to Kasher-type functions; but this appeal is without force, as we saw in 7.2.(above). 118

I use here my own terms 'predictive test claim' and 'explanatory test claim' to explicate TG's notion of testing a grammar like G3 . It will turn out immediately below that maximally simple grammars like G3 are in reality untestable. (In this respect they are similar to rule-sentences.) Therefore we do not have genuine test claims here.

NOTES

329

119 Notice that I am not saying here that theoretical-grammatical de­ scriptions are reducible to rule-sentences (which would be something like a nonempirical counterpart of 'strong reductionism'). What I am saying is that a theoretical statement about (a fragment of) a lan­ guage must be analysable into a set of (theoretical) statements about rules. 119 a This means, incidentally, that 'testability ' does not necessarily entail conceptual independence: there may be conceptual connections too complex for us to grasp. 120 As an example, one could mention the componential analysis of the kinship terms of English by means of the three components 'male', 'female', and 'parent'; cf. p.308. 121 In Itkonen (1970a) I devised a quasi-experimental method for elic­ iting new components of word meanings in new verbal contexts, How­ ever, this method is experimental only in appearance. It merely serves to direct our attention to semantic facts which we know in principle, but which we might otherwise have overlooked. 122

Cf. Wittgenstein (1967 : III, §52) : "We do not acoept e.g. a multi­ plication's not yielding the same result every time." - The relation of normative science to experimentation will further occupy us in 10.0.(below). Cf. Aristotle (1941c :980b-981a) : "Now from memory experience is prod­ uced in men; for the several memories of the same thing produce fi­ nally the capacity for a single experience. And experience seems pretty much like science and art, but really science and art come to men through experience".

124

It is also interesting to note that, in Feyerabend's (1975:81-82) opinion, Galileo retained the notion of recollection, i.e., anamnesis, for propagandistic purposes. 125 Such cases are obviously due to the operation of analogy. T. Itkonen (1976) adduces several examples from Finnish morphology and syntax that cannot be handled by TG-type discrete and vertical derivations, but only by nondiscrete and multidirectional 'derivations', identi­ fiable as sets of mutual analogical influences of varying force. Taken as a whole, such an 'influence unity' constitutes a Gestalt roughly in Köhler's sense. Strikingly similar views have been for­ warded in Lakoff (1977), albeit without experimental evidence. For criticism of Bever's (1974) notion of analogy, cf. Itkonen (1976a: sect.13); for a general discussion of analogy, cf. Anttila (1974). The following formulations and examples are taken from Ross (1968: 10-13). 127 Besides criticising the methodological self-understanding of Katzian semantics, Itkonen (1970a) contains an attempt to make semantics an empirical science. Yet such an attempt could not succeed; cf. n.121.

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

330 Chap. 10.

GRAMMAR AND LOGIC

Notes 128-129 128

To illustrate, let us apply the above-mentioned transformations to the the formula '0(p&q/pvq)'. We obtain: i) 0[(pvq)&(-pvq)&(pv-q/(p&q) v(-p&q)v(p&q)] ii) 0[(pvq)/(p&q)v(-p&q)v(p&-q)]&0[(-pvq)/(p&q)ν(-p&q) v(p&-q)]&0[(pv-q)/(p&q)v(-p&q)v(p&-q)] iii)[0 (pvq)/(p&q)]&0[(pvq)/ (-p&q)]&0[(pvq)/(p&-q)]&0[(-pvq)/(p&q)]&0[(-pvq)/(-p&q)]&0[(-pvq)/ (p&-q) ]&0[ (pv-q) / (p&q) ]&0[ (pvq) / (-p&q) ]&0[ (pv-q) / (p&-q) ] 7 9Q

.

.

.

Hintikka's formulation is apt to suggest the misleading impression that, when doing logic, he claims to be doing empirical psychology. In reality, he is making conceptual distinctions, i.e., distinguish­ ing between different types of (possible) use. Which types are actualised on which occasions, is an entirely different question. In other words, "what actually happens on the different occasions of ordinary use" is not a concern of the logician, but of the psycho­ logist . Chap. 11.

GRAMMAR AND PHILOSOPHY

Notes 130-131 130

Cf. Aristotle (1941c : 1031a,10-15): "Clearly, then, definition is the formula of the essence, and essence belongs to substances either alone or chiefly and primarily and in the unqualified sense." And: "Each thing itself, then, and its essence are one and the same in no merely accidental way ... because to know each thing, at least, is to know its essence, so that even by the exhibition of instances it be­ comes clear that both must be one" (op. c i t . , 1031b,15-25).

131

Of course, Socrates overlooks here the possibility that 'desiring good things' might mean things which are good in spite of the fact that one may not consider them as good.

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Evanston: Northwestern Univ.

Pap, Arthur. 1958. Semantics Yale Univ. Press.

and Necessary

Peirce, Charles S. 1958. Collected Papers, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.

Truth. vol.

. Frankfurt/Main:

New Haven, Conn.:

7, ed. by A. W. Burks.

Peters, Stanley. 1972. "The Projection Problem: How Is a Grammar to Be ed. by S. Peters, 171-88. Selected". Goals of Linguistic Theory, Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall. Pitcher, George, ed. 1966. Wittgenstein. tions .· Garden City: Doubleday,

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344

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Rosenbaum, Peter S. 1967. The Grammar of English Constructions. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Ross, John R. 1968. Constraints on Variables Indiana Univ. Linguistics Club, mimeo.

Predicate

in Syntax.

Complement

Bloomington:

Rossi, Sirpa. 1972. "Ueber das Problem der Verdinglichung bei Lukacs und Heidegger". Ajatus 34.155-61. Runciman, W. G. 1969. Social Cambridge Univ. Press.

Science

Ryan, Alan. 1970. The Philosophy millan.

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Sampson, Geoffrey. 1975. The Form of Language. Nicolson.

Theory.

Sciences.

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London: Mac­

London: Weidenfeld &

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London:

52:4.961-65.

New York: Harcourt, Brace &

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der

Linguistik.

INDEX OF AUTHORS A.

C.

Abel, T.: 204 Abelson, R. P.: 315n.l7 Andersen, H.: 89 d'Andrade, R. G.: 308 Andresen, H.: 89 Anscombe, G. Ε. Μ.: 197, 322η.66 Anttila, R.: 89, 329n.l25 Apel, K.-0.: 21, 47, 64, 88-89, 93, 123 Aristotle: 261, 296, 299, 306, 313n.l, 329n.l23, 330n.l30 Ayer, A.: 91

Campbell, L.: 89 Campbell, N.: 262 Carnap, R.: 1, 68, 70, 83 Cavell, S.: 166, 211-12, 326n.93 Chihara, Ch.: 114 Chisholm, R. M.: 283-84 Chomsky, N.: 71-73, 75-87, 114, 117, 144-45, 176-78, 181, 187-89, 226, 230, 233-34, 241, 243, 260, 263, 271-73, 316n.23, 317n.30, 317n.31, 318n.36, 321n.57, 328n.lll Cicourel, A.: 27 Collingwood, R. G.: 140, 324n.76 Copi, I. M.: 288 Coseriu, E.: 150-51

B. Bach, E.: 77-78, 167, 227, 260, 317n.29, 317n.33 Bailey, Ch.-J.: 325n.84 Bannister, D.: 314n.l0, 317n.28 Barker, S. F.: 8 Becker, E.: 317η.28 Bennett, J.: 183, 185 Berger, P.: 37 Berkeley, G.: 91 Bever, Th. G.: 79, 84-85, 109, 115, 117, 149, 153, 321η.125 Bickerton, D.: 325η.84 Black, M.: 212 Blalock, H. M.: 25 Bloomfield, L.: 68-71, 75, 84, 87, 89-90, 176 Bocheñski, I. M.: 12 Böhme, G.: 45 Botha, R. P.: 87, 89, 152, 187, 239 Boudon, R.: 25 Brentano, F. C.: 107 Bubner, R.: 48 Buddha: 321n.56

D. Dahl, Ö.: 325n.89, 326n.91 Davidson, D.: 136 Derwing, B. L.: 88, 187 Descartes, R.: 62, 91, 144, 318n.39 Dilthey, W.: 40, 43, 46-47, 67, 94, 129-30, 139, 195, 318n.38, 319n.40, 323n.75a Dingler, H.: 46 Donnelian, K.: 320η.50 Dougherty R. C : 84-85, 327η.107 Douglas, M.: 315η.13 Drachman, G.: 318η.35 Dretske F. I.: 89, 327η.104 Durkheim, E.: 41, 129, 139, 292 E. Engels, F.: 94, 318n.38, 319n.40, 319n.42, 319n.47 Esterson, A.: 31

350

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

F. Feigl, H.: 14 Feuerbach, L.: 322n.63 Feyerabend, P.: 16, 261, 326n.96, 329n.l24 Fodor, J. Α.: 85, 114-18, 221-22, 229, 320n.55, 326n.93 Føllesdal, D.: 285, 293 Fransella, F.: 314η.10, 317n.28 Freud, S.: 30 Friedman, H. R.: 132, 182, 233

Hsieh, Η-I.: 89 Humboldt, W. von: 62, 70, 118, 321η.59 Hume, D.: 91 Husserl, E.: 37, 46-47, 53-54, 95, 108, 133, 214, 313η.1, 319η.40 Hutchinson, L. G.: 89, 187 Hymes, D.: 120, 174, 315n.l3, 316n.24, 322n.63, 328n.l09 I.

G. Galileo: 3, 261, 313n.l, 329n.l24 Garrett, M. F.: 85, 115 Geach, P.: 284 Grice, H. P.: 119 Gumb, R. D.: 205-07 H. Habermas, J.: 20-21, 24, 30, 33, 47, 88, 120, 195, 323n.71 Halle, M.: 316n.23 Hanna, J. F.: 305 Hare, R. M.: 166, 211-13, 260, 324n.80, 325n.88 Harjula, R.: 319n.40 Harman, G.: 136 Harré, R.: 8, 313n.3, 314n.8, 31411.10, 321n.56a, 322n.65, 323n.69 Harris, Ζ. S.: 71-77, 89-90, 165-66, 176, 220, 317n.29, 317n.30 Hart, H. L. A.: 207-08 Hegel, G. F. W.: 47, 129-30, 301 Heidegger, M.: 95, 319n.40, 324n.77 Hempel, C. G.: 1, 4-5, 7, 12, 14, 46, 77, 79, 83, 156, 181, 200, 229-30, 313n.5 Henle, M.: 49 Henson, R.: 211-12 Henze, D. F.: 91, 107, 318n.40 Hilpinen, R.: 285, 293 Hintikka, J.: 51-52, 194, 197-98, 288-91, 316n.19, 330n.l29 H j e l m s l e v , L . : 5 9 - 6 2 , 87, 8 9 - 9 0 , 118, 316n.21, 316n.22, 322n.60 Hobbes, T.: 194, 197 Householder, F.: 220, 318η.37

Immler, M.: 328n.ll2 Isard, S.: 205 Itkonen, T.: 329n.l25 J. Johach, H.: 323n.75a Johnson-Laird, P. N.: 315n.l8 Juntunen, M.: VI, 328n.l08 K. Kac, M. B.: 89 Kambartel, F.: 16 Kamlah, W.: 45, 48-49, 52 Kanngiesser, S.: 239-40, 327n.l00, 328n.ll7 Kaplan, A.: 260 Kasher, Α.: 178-81, 187, 235, 327η.99, 327η.100, 327η.101, 328η.117 Katz, J. J.: 79-80, 83-84, 109, 117, 221, 273-74, 326η.93, 329η.127 Kenny, A.: 111, 144 Kiparsky, C : 264-71 Kiparsky, P.: 216-17, 264-71 Kockelmans, J. J.: 44 Koerner, E. F. K.: VI, 58 Kohler, W.: 329n.l25 Korner, S.: 212 Krohn, R. K.: 89 Kuhn, T. S.: 326n.96 L. Labov, W.: 138, 153, 325n.84, 327η.101, 327n.105 Laing, R. D.: 31 Lakatos, I.: 314n.6 Lakoff, G.: 217, 237-38, 242-43, 270, 290, 328η.116, 329n.125 Lakoff, R.: 237

INDEX OF AUTHORS Lass, R.: 89, 327n.l04 Lauer, Q.: 318n.38 Leech, G.: 167 Lees, R. Β.: 76, 317n.32 Leibniz, G. W.: 324n.77 Lenneberg, Ε. Η.: 83 Leontiev, A. A.: 119 Lessnoff, M.: 315n.l5, 325n.85 Lewis, D.: 183-87, 201, 276, 322n.67, 327n.l03 Lieb, H.-H.: 79, 322n.61 Linell, P.: 89 Locke, J.: 91 Lorenz, K.: 44, 46, 49-52, 276, 316η.19, 327η.102 Lorenzen, P.: 42, 45, 48-52, 214, 276, 316n.19 Lorenzer, Α.: 30 Luckmann, Th.: 37 Lukes, S.: 127 M. Maclntyre, Α.: 323n.69, 323n.73 Mackie, J. L.: 319n.44 Marcuse, H.: 172-73 Martindale, D.: 2 Marx, K.: 94, 318n.38, 319n.40, 319n.42, 319n.47, 322n.63 Mates, B.: 286 Mauthner, F.: 113, 129 McCawley, J. D.: 217 Mead, G. H.: 37-38, 62, 64, 94, 106-07, 316n.26, 318n.38, 319n.40, 322n.67 Mehtonen, L.: VI, 202 Miller, G. A.: 205 Mittelstrass, J.: 4, 16, 44, 46, 261, 313n.1 Montague, R.: 220 Moore, G. E.: 314n.6 Moravcsik, J. M. E.: 117-18 Motsch, W.: 318n.35 N. Naess, A.: 286 Nagel, E.: 1-2, 5, 15, 79, 127, 204 Neurath, 0.: 1, 68 Neuendorff, H.: 194 Nicod, J.: 288

351

P. Palmer, R. E.: 31 Pap, Α.: 17, 280, 294, 300-03, 306-08 Peirce, Ch. S.: 9-10, 47, 314n.6 Peters, S.: 245 Plato: 194, 198, 213-14, 294-99, 301, 306 Popper, K. R.: 1-2, 8, 16, 36, 47, 77, 79, 89, 131, 146, 156, 252, 313n.5, 314n.6 Postal, P. M.: 77, 79, 83, 86, 219, 245, 316n.23 Prior, A. N.: 283-84 Q. Quine, W. V. 0.: 128, 227, 306-07, 320n.52 R. Radnitzky, G.: 21, 47, 313n.3 Reichenbach, Η.: Ι Rescher, N.: 280 Rimbaud, Α.: 321η.56 Ringen, J. D.: 89, 319n.44, 324η.77, 327n.104 Robinson, W. P.: 201 Rosenbaum, P. S.: 269, 271 Ross, A.: 286 Ross, J. R.: 271-72 Rossi S.: 318n.38 Royce, J.: 47 Runciman, W. G.: 27 Russell, Β.: 91, 133, 154, 287-88 Ryan, Α.: 155, 157, 315n.15, 325n.85 S. Sampson, G.: 87-88, 176-77, 179, 187-88, 326n.98 Sapir, E.: 61-67, 69, 84, 89-90, 101, 173, 316n.24, 316n.25, 316n.27 Saumjan, S. K.: 87, 89-90 Saunders, J.T.: 91, 107, 318n.40 Saussure, F. de: 55-59, 62-63, 68, 81, 84, 89-90, 138-39, 189, 220, 316n.25 Scheffler, I.: 83 Schiffer, S.: 322.67 Schlieben-Lange, Β.: 126-27 Schneider, H. J.: 120

352

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

Schnelle, H.: 21, 320n.55, 327n.100, 327n.102 Schutz, Α.: 37-38, 62, 117, 200-01, 204, 218, 322n.67 Searle, J. R. : 119, 212 Secord, P. F.: 314n.l0, 321n.56a, 322n.65, 323n.69 Skousen, R.: 89 Slobin, D. I.: 189, 218-19 Socrates: 294-98, 330n.l31 Sosa, E.: 307 Specht, E. Κ.: 212, 214 Stegmülier, W.: 13-14, 313n.2 Steinberg, D. D.: 89 Stoutland, F.: 60 Strawson, P. F.: 119, 318n.40 Stroud, B.: 147 Τ. Taylor, Gh.: 106-07 Trubetzkoy, N. S.: 62 Turner, R.: 315n.l3 U. Uldall, H. J.: 61 V. Vendier, Z.: 212 Vico, G.: 195

W.

Wall, R.: 79, 276 Wang, J. T.: 235 Wason, P. C : 49, 315n.l8 Weber, M.: 26, 35, 155, 323n.75a Weiss, A. P.: 68 Weydt, H.: 89 Wessel, H.: 316n.l9 Whitehead, Α.: 154, 287-88 Wiener, Ν.: 306-07 Winch, P.: 53, 62, 64-66, 202, 315η.15, 319η.43, 323η.69 Wittgenstein, L.: 16, 23, 46-47, 64, 66, 93-97, 100-01, 104-08, 111-14, 137-38, 141-49, 153-54, 227, 231, 260, 297, 318η.40, 319n.48, 320n.49, 320n.55, 321n.56, 322n.62, 322n.63, 329n.122 Wright, G. H. von: 4-5, 16, 60, 20383,101-02,107,173,282-86,304, 313n.l

INDEX OF TERMS a c t i o n 17, 4 1 , 60, 98-102, 105-08, 115-20, 1 2 2 - 2 5 , 1 8 2 - 8 3 , 193-94, 319n.44 anamnesis 198, 213-14, 298-99, 301, 3 2 9 n . l 2 4 atomism, thesis of 16-18, 97-102, 106-07, 160, 319n.46 basic statement in grammar 167-68, 250, 254 in natural science 2, 16, 167 behaviorism 68-70, 105-07, 114-15, 117, 203 causality 5, 15, 17, 21, 24-25, 31-36, 83, 115-17, 195, 202-03, 221, 292, 314n.8, 315n.11, 319n.44 certainty vs. uncertainty 40, 141-54, 194-97, 301, 324n.79, 326n.91 vs. feelings of certainty 96, 148

empirical, definition of 2-4, 16-18, 29, 36, 80, 146, 155-57 event 2-4, 25, 99, 115-16, 122-24, 182-83, 193-94, 319n.44 explanation empirical 4-11, 24-26, 81, 84, 89, 228-30, 292, 313n.2, 313n.3 nonempirical 65, 71-72, 78, 233-45, 264, 266-69, 287-93, 295 explication 17-18, 35-36, 39, 42-48, 81, 188, 215, 220, 261, 272-75, 294-310, 315n.l5 falsification see testing generalisation 73, 79, 189, 217, 220, 239-43, 264-65, 268-69, 287-88, 291-93, 295-96 grammatical rule/hypothesis 72, 89, 162, 181, 215-18, 224-28, 251-56, 329n.ll9 introspection 104, 324n.77

common knowledge 41-42, 96, 111, 122-31, 139-41, 182-86, 208, 259, 322n.67, 323n.70, 324n.79 conceptual analysis see explication confirmation see testing disconfirmation see testing

intuition as recollection 104, 212-14, 222, 254, 257 see also anamnesis linguistic 56, 69, 77, 131-41, 257-59, 280, 291-92, 324n.77, 324n.82 logical 133-36, 279-87, 291-92 philosophical 133-36, 286, 289, 301-07

GRAMMATICAL THEORY AND METASCIENCE

354

knowledge acquisition vs. mastery of 37, 40, 43, 64, 182, 186, 209-10, 299-300, 328n.ll0 agent's vs. observer's 40, 43, 190, 193-98, 214-15, 279, 298 atheoretical vs. theoretical 103-04, 126, 144, 148, 151-54, 161-62, 166-68, 179-80, 198-219, 241, 246-47, 269, 300-01, 326n.91, 328n.l08 conscious vs. unconscious 36, 82, 96, 116-17, 217-27, 298-300, 325n.90 conventional vs. psychological 134, 139-40, 323n.75a critique of 33, 47-48 experimental vs. pre-experimental 22-24, 42-43, 145-46, 188, 324n.82, 329n.l21 incorrigible, nonexistence of

137, 147, 324n.79 objective v s . subjective 57, 91-96, 113-14, 127-28, 137-41, 259, 322n.67, 323n.73 language artificial vs. natural 24, 126, 153, 169-70, 190-91 private vs. public 94, 109-13, 118-19, 126-27, 270, 320n.55, 321n.56, 322n.61 see also rule of language logic axiomatic 53, 154, 236, 253, 276-88 dialogical/game-theoretic/ pragmatic 48-54, 276, 316n.l9 model-theoretic/semantic 128, 276, 280 social origin of 48-49, 53-54, 147, 159 mentalism 82-84, 114-15, 187, 221-23, 317n.34a necessity conceptual vs. 97-104, 119, 160, 183-84, 254-57, 259,

natural 17-18, 124, 134, 140, 236-39, 245-50, 273, 319n.44

intuitive vs. formal 17, 280-87, 302-10 norm see rule normativity vs. factuality 89, 157, 185 irreducibility of 35, 125, 128, 149, 175-90, 207-08 observation vs. intuition 2-4, 57, 69, 77, 84-85, 197, 206 vs. theory 1-3, 12-16, 178-79 vs. understanding 20, 22-23, 26-27, 63-64, 69, 92-93, 96-97, 105-08, 114, 132, 193, 320n.49 operationalisation 2-3, 23-26, 29, 43, 64-65, 176-81 prediction see explanation, testing psychological reality of grammar 88-89, 116-17, 219-23, 328n.ll4 of formal logic 315n.l8 recursivity 70-71, 86, 136, 183-84, 247, 318n.36 reflexion 20, 23-24, 33, 44, 47-48, 126-28, 132, 195, 212-16, 220, 314n.l0 regularity see rule rule as known or knowable 37, 150, 161, 186, 218, 263, 315n.l4 in general 34-54, 111-12, 322n.65, 322n,67, 323n.69, 328n.ll0 of language 57-58, 89, 112, 122-68, 182-86, 189-91, 266, 324n.81 vs. regularity 58, 156-66, 173-74, 182-86, 189, 206-07, 263 rule-sentence 122, 148, 156-74,215-16, 249-52, 308-10, 322n.65, 325n.86

INDEX OF TERMS science axiomatic 14, 79, 242, 261-62, 277-78 critical/emancipatory 32-33, 38, 67, 172-74, 204 descriptive vs. prescriptive 45-46, 53-54, 174, 200, 280, 305 empirical vs. nonempirical 1-4, 19, 44, 80, 153-74, 231, 260-64, 273-75, 326n.92 growth of 10-12, 74-75, 171-74, 326n.96 human vs. natural 21, 28-29, 32-33, 43, 55, 60-61, 64-65, 85-86, 92-93, 187-88, 195, 198-203 preconditions of 20, 45-48 value-free 67, 173-74, 225-26 sentence vs. utterance 82, 120, 132, 175-81, 190, 229, 233, 244, 248-49, 323n.75, 328n.ll5 social control as precondition of knowledge 95, 111-13, 125-27, 151-54 vs. testability 324n.82

355

statistics, use of 134, 151, 161, 185, 209, 230-31, 270, 322n.64 testing empirical 4-12, 29, 36, 69, 84-85, 156-57, 313n.5 nonempirical 36, 39-40, 65, 71-72, 78-79, 156-66, 245-262, 269-75, 280-87, 294-297, 304-05, 310, 314n.6, 328n.ll8 theoretical concepts in natural science 13-15, 64-65, 103, 177-78 in grammar 73, 76-78, 178-81, 225-27, 328n.ll4 understanding see observation variability of knowledge in general 16, 28-30, 147, 286, 306, 315n.l2 of language 151-54, 158-59, 270, 286, 324n.81, 324n.83, 324n.84