Why Language?

Abstract

I had planned to deal mainly with the concept of translation, but after listening to some talks I have decided that I should present a different point of view and move in a different direction. The direction I will point out is perhaps orthogonal to the Stegmilller-Sneed structural approach based on the advice to ignore language and to use Bourbaki-style structures. So here I want to make a point for language analysis in the philosophy of science. Technically the Bourbaki-style structures can be very useful for bringing out certain points and sometimes one gets very elegant formulations. But when it comes to basic philosophical questions that are related to the philosophy of science, I do not see that you can get around linguistic considerations. One of the reasons is that one does not want to commit oneself ahead of time to a particular interpretation. When trying to analyse a theory without commiting ourselves to a particular ontology, the most obvious handle that we have is the theory’s language. The linguistic-oriented approach is the most promising when we want to do philosophy of science in a way that applies not only to classical physics but to very different disciplines like mathematics, physics, psychology and others, and which brings out and illuminates analogies. I am not saying that I am opposed to Bourbaki-style structures; I am saying only that this might restrict us in ways that we do not want to be restricted. In some cases linguistic analysis cannot be avoided.