This course is part of HF’s PhD Week
Course description
Students will learn about how fundamental ideas from philosophy of science apply to – and are well illustrated by – linguistics. Discussions and disagreements between linguists will often relate to different philosophies of science. Nicholas Allott will focus particularly on the application of philosophy of science to linguistic theories and research programmes such as generative grammar, covering topics such as confirmation holism (Duhem), questions about rationality and progress in science and the units of science (Popper; Kuhn; Lakatos; Laudan) and abstraction and the relation of theories to data (Bogen & Woodward; Fodor). Luca Onnis will address the conceptual basis of statistical inference, which has direct bearing on the practice of using empirical linguistic data to draw theoretical generalizations and test competing hypotheses. We will motivate the reasoning behind different schools of thought in statistical thinking, as well as discuss confusions and misuse of orthodox statistics, and what the alternatives might be.
Credits: 1 ECTS
Course preparation
Course participants will read the mandatory readings and select roughly 100 pages of their own choice from the lists of suggested readings. Participants will also write a brief (1 page) response-paper where they critically engage with a proposition in one or several of these texts.
Assignments
Course participants will write a 2-page essay relating themes from the workshop to their own field or research project. In class your reflections will be the starting points for our discussions—in groups and plenary. Expect an interactive and problem-driven day filled with intellectual engagement with core issues, starting with discussing issues arising from your response-papers, to move on to your reflections centering on your own field or research project.
Language
The course language is English.
Course convenors
Professor Luca Onnis, ILN/Multiling
Senior lecturer Nicholas Allott, ILOS
Teaching
Two lessons of 2 hours each.
One of these lessons will be taught by Associate Prof. Luca Onnis. The other lesson will be by Dr. Nicholas Allott, ILOS.
Mandatory literature
Allott, N. & Lohndal, T. (forthcoming). Minimalism: Emergence and theoretical foundations. In K. Grohmann & E. Leivada (Eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Minimalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sections 1 & 2. Ca. 5 pages.
Allott, N., Lohndal, T., & Rey, G. (2021). Chomsky’s “Galilean” explanatory style. In N. Allott, T. Lohndal, & G. Rey (Eds.), A Companion to Chomsky (pp. 517–528). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell. Ca 8 pages.
Dienes, Zoltan. 2008. Understanding Psychology as a Science: an Introduction to Scientific and Statistical Inference. New York: Red Globe Press – Palgrave Macmillan. Ca. 50p. selected by the instructor.
A further 80-100 pages to be selected from
Bybee, Joan. 2006. From Usage to Grammar: The Mind's Response to Repetition. In Language, 82, 711–733
Dienes, Zoltan. 2008. Understanding Psychology as a Science: an Introduction to Scientific and Statistical Inference. New York: Red Globe Press – Palgrave Macmillan. Any smaller parts not covered in the obligatory reading section.
Gregersen, Frans & Simo Køppe. 1989. “A Normative Theory of Humanistic Knowledge”. In Zeitschrift für allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie [Journal for General Philosophy of Science] XX/1, 40–53. Ca. 15 p.
Lakatos, I. (1970). Falsification and the methodology of scientific research programmes. In I. Lakatos & A. Musgrave (Eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (pp. 91–195). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Matthews, P.H. 2001. A short history of structural linguistics. Cambridge: CUP. Ch. 1–2, 6, 8 (or any smaller part).
Newmeyer, Frederick J. 2003. “Grammar is Grammar and Usage is Usage”. In Language, 79, 682–707.
Van Valin, Robert D. 2017. “Ch. 8: Functional Linguistics: Communicative Functions and Language Structure”. In Aronoff, Mark & Janie Rees-Miller (Eds): The Handbook of Linguistics, 2. edn., 141–157.
Woodward, J. F. (2011). Data and phenomena: a restatement and defense. In Synthese, 182(1), 165–179. Ca. 15 p. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41477624
Registration
Registration opens on 20 September, and closes on 10 November.