Article ID: CBB127640719

Linguists and Their Work: Epistemic and Ethical Challenges (2020)

unapi

This paper aims to show how the specific ethics of scientific undertaking tightly underlies epistemic reflection upon the nature of linguistic work and its outcome. The relationship between linguistics and ethics seems evident at the level of the narrative, i.e. the language in which the basic linguistic findings are established. The article is intended as an introduction to an interplay of linguistics, epistemology and the ethics of linguistic work. The departure point for the argument is the CONTAINER perception of language by linguists, which produces the well-established distinction between internalist and externalist positions. The paper, however, invites the reader to reconsider the tension between internalists and externalists and instead argues for a more general opposition, i.e. between the non-transcendental naturalists (naturalists) and transcendental naturalists (extra-naturalists). The polarity is seen as underpinning the present-day debates, while concurrently transversing the traditionally recognised dichotomies. The distinction promises to be productive both at the level of substantive assessment of linguistic research and at the level of epistemic qualification of the outcome of a linguistic study. Sharp and uncompromising as the naturalist vs extra-naturalist dichotomy seems to hold, the paper offers ways to bridge the gap between the apparently exclusive philosophies. The proposed solution, while seemingly only aesthetic, ultimately touches an ethical dimension as it centres on the appropriate construction of the narrative of linguistic fact-finding, which promotes approximative rather than definitive statements in the scholarly discourse. The desired effect is an ethical consensus underlying the work of a linguist.

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Authors & Contributors
True, Micah
Jonathan Hugh-Jones
Wagner, Henri
R. B. Le Page
Ferrara, Silvia
Laks, Bernard
Concepts
Linguistics
Science and ethics
Epistemology
Philosophy of science
Philosophy
Language and languages
Time Periods
19th century
21st century
20th century
20th century, late
17th century
Early modern
Places
England
United States
Russia
Italy
France
Mesopotamia
Institutions
Jesuits (Society of Jesus)
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