Page 236 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

213 Notes

37. In this connection, U. Oevermann points out interesting parallels
with Piaget’s concept of reflecting abstraction. Perhaps the procedure of
rational reconstruction is only a stylized and, as it were, controlled form
of the reflecting abstraction the child carries out when, for example, it
“reads off’’ of its instrumental actions the schema that underlies them.
38. W. J. M. Levelt, Formal Grammars in Linguistics and Psycholin-
gurstics, vols. 1-3 (Amsterdam, 1974).
39. Levelt, Formal Grammars, vol. 3, pp. 5-7.
40. Ibid., pp. 14 ff.
41. In response to the doubts that Botha raises against the ‘clear case
principle” (Justification, p. 224), I would like to reproduce an argument
that J. J. Katz and B. G. Bever have brought against similar doubts in
a paper critical of empiricism, “The Fall and Rise of Empiricism,” unpubl.
MS (Feb. 1974), pp. 38-39:

Such a theory ...seeks to explicate intuitions about the interconnectedness
of phonological properties in terms of a theory of the phonological com-
ponent, to explicate intuitions about the interconnectedness of syntactic prop-
erties in terms of a theory of the syntactic component, and to explicate intui-
tions about the interconnectedness of semantic properties in terms of a theory
of the semantic component. The theory of grammar seeks finally to explicate
intuitions of relatedness among properties of different kinds in terms of the
systematic connections expressed in the model of a grammar that weld its
components in a single integrated theory of the sound-meaning correlation
in a language. ,
These remarks are, of course, by way of describing the theoretical ideal.
But as the theory of grammar makes progress toward this ideal, it not only
sets limits on the construction of grammars and provides a richer interpreta-
tion for grammatical structures but it also defines a wider and wider class
of grammatical properties and relations. In so doing, it marks out the realm
of the grammatical more clearly, distinctly, and securely than could have
been done on the basis of the original intuitions. As Fodor has insightfully
observed, such a theory literally defines its own subject matter in the course
of its progress: ‘There is then an important sense in which a science has to
discover what it is about; it does so by discovering that the laws and con-
cepts it produced in order to explain one set of phenomena can be fruitfully
applied to phenomena of other sorts as well. It is thus only in retrospect
that we can say of all the phenomena embraced by a single theoretical frame-
work that they are what we meant, for example, by the presystematic term
‘physical event,’ ‘chemical interaction,’ or ‘behavior.’ To the extent that such
terms, or their employments, are neologistic, the neologism is occasioned by
the insights that successful theories provide into the deep similarities that
underlie superficially heterogeneous events.” [J. A. Fodor, Psychological Ex-
planation (New York, 1968), pp. 10-11].

42. H. Leuninger, M. H. Miller, and F. Miiller, Psycholinguistik (Frank-
furt, 1973), and Linguistik und Psychologie (Frankfurt, 1974); H.