Goals of Linguistic
Mr.1. Introduction
1.1. Approaching the issue
The task of setting out (to use a neutral word) the goals of a human activity may be approached in a variety of ways depending on conditions such as who is involved in the activity and who has the power to determine the goals. In the case of the goals of a scientific discipline, the question may, in principle, be approached by established scientific methods: * Deductive approach: The highest and most general goal is taken as an axiom, more specific and lower-level goals are deduced from it. * Inductive approach: By methods of the sociology of science, the goals actually pursued by scientists may be ascertained; by sociological methods, it may be ascertained what goals a community thinks should be pursued by the sciences that it entertains.
The deductive approach suffers at least from the following shortcomings: * The postulation of the highest goal is itself outside the scope of science. * Clean deduction is only possible in the logical disciplines. What is called deduction in (the rest of) philosophy, the humanities and social sciences is really informal and heavily dependent on the interpretation of words.
The inductive approach suffers at least from the following shortcomings: * Just like other people, scientists occasionally pursue selfish or idiosyncratic goals, which a purely inductive approach would not be able to separate out. * The extra-scientific members of a social community – be they politicians or citizens – have limited presuppositions of making a rational contribution to the discussion of the goals of a science, lacking both knowledge and experience of the nature and possibilities of scientific work and presuppositions for appreciating the spiritual side of objective knowledge (see below). On the basis of available evidence, it is safe to say that few of them can distinguish between scientific insight and technological “progress”.
Thus, if one wants at all a scientific
1.1. Approaching the issue
The task of setting out (to use a neutral word) the goals of a human activity may be approached in a variety of ways depending on conditions such as who is involved in the activity and who has the power to determine the goals. In the case of the goals of a scientific discipline, the question may, in principle, be approached by established scientific methods: * Deductive approach: The highest and most general goal is taken as an axiom, more specific and lower-level goals are deduced from it. * Inductive approach: By methods of the sociology of science, the goals actually pursued by scientists may be ascertained; by sociological methods, it may be ascertained what goals a community thinks should be pursued by the sciences that it entertains.
The deductive approach suffers at least from the following shortcomings: * The postulation of the highest goal is itself outside the scope of science. * Clean deduction is only possible in the logical disciplines. What is called deduction in (the rest of) philosophy, the humanities and social sciences is really informal and heavily dependent on the interpretation of words.
The inductive approach suffers at least from the following shortcomings: * Just like other people, scientists occasionally pursue selfish or idiosyncratic goals, which a purely inductive approach would not be able to separate out. * The extra-scientific members of a social community – be they politicians or citizens – have limited presuppositions of making a rational contribution to the discussion of the goals of a science, lacking both knowledge and experience of the nature and possibilities of scientific work and presuppositions for appreciating the spiritual side of objective knowledge (see below). On the basis of available evidence, it is safe to say that few of them can distinguish between scientific insight and technological “progress”.
Thus, if one wants at all a scientific