Why so many linguists in public intellectual life?

[lansinglambert]

A big difference is that lingusitics trains student to solve problems, aka you develop problem sovling skills and do not just end up being a polemicist.

[richardmullins44]

I think all this logic puzzle stuff you are talking about, is basically about cutting the numbers down - the university has to have a pyramid system - they like to cut the numbers down. They do this too in maths, philosophy, psychology. Effectively, many of the students are used as "cannon fodder".

[richardmullins44]

why do they go into philosophy? it is philosophy. e.g. you can study "philosophy of language", or, if you like, "the language of philosophy".

[zagacks]

You look like Katherine Heigl

[bakukenshin]

I would largely agree.Postmodern philosophers having convinced themselves of the impotence of the mind, would be poorly motivated to use the mind to tackle practical problems in the public sphere.Also, with regards to linguistics, I would agree that they are complementary fields.Philosophy studies ideas. Linguistics studies language.But how often in phil do we find ourselves quibbling over terms?And study of ling leads us to look closely at what people say and why.They feed into each other.

[courtabeth]

You are creating a false dichotomy between linguistics and philosophy. Granted they are separate fields, but each has a valid place when put into a proper context. Socrates was put to death for supposedly corrupting the youth in the name of philosophical freedom. Likewise, Chomsky shares a similar temperament. You need to put your ideas in a clearer context.

[swimidiot]

And to totally spam this vid, are there so many linguist public intellectuals? There's Chomsky, Pinker, WcWhorter, and the only other prominent linguist I can think of is George Lakoff. And I'd say that of those two, only Lakoff and Pinker are famous for linguistic reasons. McWhorter is sought after for being a rare black conservative, and Chomsky makes headlines for his controversial left-wing literature.

[swimidiot]

Also, I just want to say that you mischaracterize modern philosophy courses as being mired in postmodernism. Postmodernism was a very small part of my education in philosophy. It was mostly the couple thousand years of arcane, mind-numbing dogmatism that gave rise to the absurd and confused punching bag known as postmodernism that I learned from the philosophy courses I took.

[swimidiot]

Second, and to the point, I think you're begging the question. Linguists are good with the public sphere because they have the skills to deal with the public sphere. My take is this: I think linguists can develop a more elegant rhetorical style given the fact that they study words all the time. This makes them more apt to ...stumble across? hunt down? certain words and phrases that enable one to distill one's thoughts in an elegant or succinct fashion.

[linguistmuz]

My experience is that studying language doesn't affect your own use of language at all. If there were a scientific method to find the most elegant wording for a particular thought, writers should have been extinct by now. (And I think Chomsky is a good example of a linguist who does not have an elegant style, at least in his linguistic work.) So I don't think this reasoning works (it would be nice if it did though :) ).

[swimidiot]

Yeah, I guess you're right. But I sure do appreciate the efforts of those linguists mentioned. I guess Pinker is the one that made me craft my bunk theory. His command of the language is, for me, truly awe-inspiring. Whenever I get a chance, I always read his books or watch him on the the old youtube. Also, McWhorter has a lecture course through The Teaching Company that is really entertaining. Though McWhorter is sadly lacking on youtube.

[swimidiot]

Rorty was not a postmodernist. He was a pragmatist. His comment about books on shelves was a reflection of the pragmatic style, which is to judge the validity of a given social practice by how useful it is to the society surrounding it. Approached from that angle, one can understand how he might say that all philosophy does is put books on shelves, narrow as that view may be. One can only say something like that if one forgets how all of science gestated in philosophy before the Enlightenment.

[EnduringRain]

'[Majoring in Philosophy] is a hugely arcane, mind-numbing, pointless thing to do.' - nine9s

Is this a personal preference, or a universal statement?

[cozmikzen]

linguistics isnt rare among intellectuals. communication is themost important skill when dealing with people. it's um...kind of obvious.

[nine9s]

I'm talking about the field of linguistics as an academic discipline. I thought that was um...kind of obvious.

[maksiiiskam2]

Strange, I am interested in both linguistic and philosophy, except the shift occured in the other direction from linguistic to philosophy. I had never seen a real link between these two domains before.

[pythagoras9]

The reason why a lot of nonsense and contradiction occurs in the philosophical community is because most philosophers have large ego's and they like to think that they are winning discussions and are right all the time, so they make the mistake of thinking that the truth is subjective, and relative so that it suits their ego's and feeling that they think they have won an imaginary discussion or argument.

[pythagoras9]

What a lot of philosophers forget is that most of our ideas of the truth are objectively attained through the senses and can only be corroborated upon empirically, and factually. I have a strong belief that if more people have a correct approach to philosophy it will yield more answers and become more useful, but it is hard convincing people of this because they usually have a cynical, apathetic, and skeptical attitude towards philosophy and its value.

[pythagoras9]

I think that it is stupid for academic types to claim that Ayn Rand was not a philosopher! This is like saying Picasso was not an artist because he rejected academic art.

[Kaaru]

I'm curious: how would you respond to the rather cynical opinion that the underlying motive for the objectivists' hatred of academic philosophy is resentment ("ressentiment") that their gal was denied a place at the philosophers' table?

[nine9s]

Kaaru: I'd say that both (a) Objectivists' hatred of academic philosophy and (b) the rejection of Rand as a philosopher stem from the same thing: differences in philosophical ideas. Ideas are the issue; the rejection of Rand is only a symptom, not the primary problem.

[Kaaru]

But I don't really see any objectivists getting stuck into any of the specific ideas that are current in philosophy. Rather I hear them talk about how contemporary philosophy is irrelevant, trivial, a haven for subjective relativists, and other equally implausible over-generalisations. Still, I am impressed with the reasonableness of your post. Could you give me one of Rand's original metaphysical or epistemological ideas that you think contemporary philosophers should pay more attention to?

[nine9s]

"Could you give me one of Rand's original metaphysical or epistemological ideas that you think contemporary philosophers should pay more attention to?"

Measurement-omission as the process of concept formation would be awesome.

[Kaaru]

Measurement-omission sounds like too simplistic an idea to really be a bone of contention between Rand followers and all of academic philosophy. It could be fleshed out into any number of other philosophers' views on concepts. I just can't really imagine group O hating group P because P don't agree with O's idea of concept formation. Maybe I asked the wrong question. Could you give me a contemporary philosophical idea that is a substantial source of objectivist hate?

[nine9s]

Where do I start? Relativism, subjectivism, skepticism, mysticism... And particular attitudes about philosophy, that it has no practical use and has no real answers to offer, so to prove the point they write hairsplitting treatises about trivia.

Basically, the problem is that an enormous amount of balderdash is tolerated in philosophy. Imagine if astronomy departments were to teach astrology as well as astronomy, or if chemistry professors still taught alchemy to provide "balance."

[nine9s]

Examples: Hume, the ultimate skeptic, who said that at the end of the day he has to put philosophy aside in order to live his real life, and that he has no basis for thinking any idea is any more true than any other. And there's Kant who said that all we can know is the appearances of things. There's what I quoted Rorty as saying in this video. There's so much anti-reality, anti-knowledge crap going on in universities that I'm rather astonished that examples have to be given.

[Kaaru]

I was kind of hoping for one specific example there! I don't know. It seems to me like you're just falling back on all the old objectivist over-generalisations. But not all philosophers these days are subjective relativists or sceptics. John Searle and Daniel Dennett aren't, to give you just two examples.

[Kaaru]

Hume and Kant aren't contemporary. Rorty was well-known, but a marginal figure really. Let me change tack. Would you be prepared to admit that *for all you know* there could be plenty of academic philosophers these days that believe that we can get objective knowledge about the world?

[nine9s]

I'm puzzled. You asked for specific ideas and I gave you skepticism, relativism, etc. I gave you specific names. Hume and Kant are required reading everywhere, even though they're not contemporary. How much more specific do you want me to be?

Mentioning two philosophers who aren't skeptics doesn't refute my point. It's not that there are *no* rational people anywhere in philosophy; it's that there's so much nonsense and trivia being taught. Nonsense isn't tolerated in other fields.

[Kaaru]

Once, when I was a kid, I was at a dinner with neighbours and one neighbour, a practical man, a farmer, said to another, a very good artist, "What you do isn't really art, is it?" You know what he meant: the guy didn't paint apples and stuff. I wouldn't want to press the analogy too hard, but . . . . You know, plenty of people don't like thinking too hard. Plenty of people just want the answers. And that's ok.

[Kaaru]

But now I've satisfied myself that when I see an objectivist criticising philosophy, I'm looking at something analogous to my farmer neighbour (who I respected nonetheless, you know). It's strangely reassuring that those among us who claim to be more objective and rational, are really just as subject to those subjective irrationalities that the rest of us are.

[nine9s]

I really wish you'd answer my question. What kind of answer were you looking for when you asked for ideas in academia that Objectivists opposed? I gave a list, I named names, and I gave reasons why. What else are you looking for?

[Kaaru]

I guess I was looking for evidence that you knew something about what's going on in contemporary metaphysics, epistemology, phil. of science, religion, mind, etc. Connections between names like (like! - only a few loose examples here) David Armstrong, Jerry Fodor and John McDowell and ideas like truthmakers, the language of thought and conceptual content. But, like I said, I see now that you don't know much about it, and that's ok.

[nine9s]

Kaaru, I'm really tired of your condescension. You ask for particular ideas, and in order to cover as much ground as possible, I give you the big picture. Excuse the hell out of me for not answering questions you never asked. If you'd really wanted to talk about mentalese or truthbearers you would have said so, but your real goal was to find an excuse to talk down to an Objectivist. Take your personality disorder somewhere else.

[Sparkygravity]

I agree, I don't think there is a coincidence, there is definitely a common mind set. Even for those interested in philosophy they tend to get wrapped up in semantics, etymology, and defining words.

[pythagoras9]

My next point is that i disagree with richard rorty's skeptical and cynical opinion about philosophy. And this is for the simple reason that philosophy has given human beings many answers and useful conclusions in the short space of time it has been around and it has done this in most of the branches of thinking.

[pythagoras9]

I agree with you about postmodernism but it is not in my nature to use the strong language that you do. My opinion about postmodernism is that it is a meaningless gimmick full of disparate associations designed to make up for peoples general lack of understanding of the times we live in. I hope people won't dislike me too much for this opinion but it is a value judgement based on what it makes me think and feel.

[mikecampochiaro]

I wanted to major in philosophy but creative writing was more fun.

[ContraWagner]

I'd say you are almost right on except the part that current trend of philosophy is dominated with postmodern thinkers. Maybe it's because my school is more of an engineering/science school than arts/humanities school, but most of upper year philosophy students and graduate school students are very analytic. There was a lecture on feminist science and social constructionism just a week ago from another school, and the lecturer got bombarded with objections by the graduate schoolers here.

[jwoodswce]

For integrating linguistics with other disciplines to create a compelling story, I enjoyed Ivan Van Sertima's _They Came Before Columbus_ (1976), which combines sections of dramatic narrative with academic prose to make the case for pre-Columbian African contact and influences in the Americas.

Recently, while driving down Constitution Ave, I saw a large stone Olmec head outside the Smithsonian, which reminded me of his scholarship.

[parispeter2]

Wow! You really have it in for Philosophy! I don't know where your experience is, but on the whole postmodernism is to be found in literature and language e.g. French departments, rather than in Philosophy departments. And I don't think it can all be dismissed as bullshit. But History of Philosophy and Analytic Philosophy remain strong in Philosophy departments. I've really no idea why you might consider it mind-numbing.

[nine9s]

You live in France. The university systems and cultures are different.

[parispeter2]

I wasn't talking about France, but about the US, which I do know a little about. And I've just been looking at some US Philosophy Dept websites to check. A broad range of Philosophy is taught in most US universities, so what you say is simply untrue. And at least some postmodern philosophy offers a serious contribution, inspired by great thinkers like Nietzsche and Heidegger. You need to make more of an effort to understand it, rather than simply condemning it from your present perspective.

[parispeter2]

I wasn't talking about France, but the US. I checked the sites of some US Ph'y depts to confirm, and they teach a wide range of ph'y, so what you say is simply untrue. I also think that much postmodern ph'y, inspired by great thinkers like Nietzsche and Heidegger, does make a serious contribution. It IS often hard to understand, but if you make the effort you'll see that thinkers like Foucault, Kristeva, Agamben and Zizek have more substance than we'd think from reports in the mass media.

[parispeter2]

I'd say that - beyond a little perseverance - having the imaginative capacity to step outside your usual frames of reference and criteria and see what such thinkers are trying to get at, would be the most important quality required in making such an intellectual effort, and this is not easy. But you have to be able to honestly say that you understand their positions, before being able to say - with any authority - that you think they are trivial or mistaken.

[nine9s]

Reading three-sentence-long course descriptions doesn't begin to give an idea of what the course is actually like--a disappointment I faced often.

[parispeter2]

Well I was contesting - as another commenter did - your idea that PM is dominant in US universities, and the range of courses offered seems to refute this idea. The courses may be disappointing, but that doesn't mean PM dominates: it would be hard to teach Aristotle, logic, or analytic ph'y in a PM way I think. I was more disappointed, in my UK ph'y studies, by the dominance of analytic ph'y, and I think that is to some extent true of the US. PM, as I said, is more dominant in lit departments.

[nine9s]

But your main point is that I don't understand these philosophers, and you probably reached this conclusion because I didn't give any concrete examples. Fair enough. But one doesn't have to read an author's entire body of work to conclude that they're operating from incorrect premises, or that the work is exactly analogous to asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. One can know a lot about a philosopher very quickly.

[parispeter2]

I'm not sure that you CAN know a lot about a ph'er very quickly, particularly when that ph'er is working in a radically different way of thinking to the one you are most familiar with. On the contrary, switching to such a different paradigm takes considerable effort. Any 21st century college student can roll about laughing at Aquinas' question about those angels. But if they understood more about the historical and textual context they would probably be in awe of that question. Likewise with PM.

[randyhelzerman]

Interesting vid. For an ironical experience, you might want to check out Richard Rorty's book "The Linguistic Turn" where he documents how philosophy started getting inspiration from analysis of language, i.e. linguistics :-)

[qtronman]

I took a course in "cognitive science" at Uni, which is basically a cross between linguistics, computer science (AI), psychology and philosophy (logic). Pinker was the principal author of our books, but the field seems like it's in the "fact gathering" stage; i.e., there are just a few delimited areas within it that have well established truths (e.g., vision).

[qtronman]

Chomsky believes linguistics is a "science" akin to geometry. In academia, are there universally agreed-upon tenets in linguistics or just a fruit salad of warring theories?

[azrienoch]

Don't know if I'd quite agree about the "postmodern bullshit" part, as linguistics has evolved from its positivistic roots. I tend to think philosophy of language (which is quite postmodern these days) deals with how language works in the semiotic sense, while linguistics deals with how language works in the structural, semantic sense, though both have their crossovers.

[azrienoch]

I am curious, however: I might be wrong, but I had in mind that you are an objectivist, and objectivists tend to concern themselves with linguistics and philosophy of language as little as possible. If you are an objectivist, could you do a video on how objectivism informs your approach to linguistics and vise versa?

[nine9s]

Also, my perspective on language has occasionally put me at odds with MrCropper. He and I have an ongoing argument about the nature of definitions: I say a word's definition is created by how it's used, that it makes no sense to say that a word's "real" definition is something other than what people actually mean by it. I regard that as intrinsicism. :)

But other than that, I don't see much overlap between my Objectivism and linguistics.

[azrienoch]

Oh, I'm sure Cropper is at odds with objectivism at large in a number of ways. ;)

[nine9s]

n my mind, linguistics and Objectivism don't overlap very much. Linguistics is pretty scientific for the most part, or at least it was as it was taught at my university. As for my "approach" to linguistics, I haven't done diddly squat with my linguistics knowledge (that's the problem with majoring in arcane liberal arts subjects), so my approach is "it serves no purpose for me right now, so I will generally ignore it."