Re: Origin of Chinese spoken languages - 7th evidence

From: Des Small (des.small_at_bristol.ac.uk)
Date: 10/31/04 

Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 13:13:16 GMT

"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> writes:

> Des Small wrote:
> >
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> >
> > > SJ wrote:
> > > > A theory should be able to predict not yet observed pattern in
> > > > the future observations. If not, it's not science, at least
> > > > according to
> > >
> > > I repeat: why do you think history is a predictive science? What are
> > > "future observations" of history?
> > >
> > > > Karl Popper. Science philosophy based on the Vienna school has been
> > > > dominant in modern science.
> > >
> > > Scientists don't do philosophy of science.
> >
> > Except when they do, of course.
>
> And when they do, they play the fool.

Except, of course, when they don't - Medawar himself being a case in
point.

> > I went to the recent Medawar Lecture, given at Bristol by the
> > philosopher Peter Lipton, on "The Truth About Science," in which he
> > remarked that Popper's philosophy of science is very much more popular
> > with scientists than contemporary philosophers of science.
>
> That's like "transformational grammar" being very much more popular with
> psychologists than with linguists.

Everyone outside linguistics accepts Chomsky's preeminence in the
discipline. It is so very wearing!

> > On other accounts I've heard, the "demarcation problem" (developing
> > criteria to distinguish "science" from "non-science") simply went out
> > of philosophical fashion, no more solved than when it came in.
> >
> > But it's not every day you see a troll wielding the Popper Bat!
>
> Is that anything like Wittgenstein's Poker?

It is slightly more metaphysical, but otherwise very similar,

Des
is protected by the Hoary Hosts of Husserl 

-- 
"[T]he structural trend in linguistics which took root with the
International Congresses of the twenties and early thirties [...] had
close and effective connections with phenomenology in its Husserlian
and Hegelian versions." -- Roman Jakobson

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