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socially constructed, but then postulate a stratum of non-physical and
non-social facts out of which the other types of facts emerge. This
doctrine has been adopted by Latour and Callon, who see the realm
of primordial facts as composed of  actant networks from which the
other strata of facts emerge (cf. Callon and Latour 1992; Latour
1993). This manoeuvre seems to be a purely terminological one,
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Social Constructivism and Sociology of Knowledge
however, as long as there is a reliance on one or another of the Broad
Arguments; such a reliance will inevitably introduce the problem into
the new segment of reality, no matter how it is designated.
It is a safe prediction that a crisis concerning the theoretical
foundations of science constructivism is inevitable on account of this
problem; indeed the indications of such a crisis are clearly visible in
the literature.7 The sole solution lies in abandoning the idea that
science creates fact, and stick with the thesis, held in common with
less radical members of the  new sociology of science, that societal
conditions determine the contents of scientific theories.
Let me end this brief note on the science constructivists by
observing that, fortunately, the problems attaching to their
metaphysical stance has not prevented these authors from producing
valuable empirical work. A number of penetrating case studies have
been presented which must henceforth be taken into account by any
writer on the history, sociology or philosophy of science.
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CHAPTER IV
The Linguistic Relativity
Argument
The ancestry of the linguistic relativity argument can be traced back
to certain ideas that were widely influential in Germany in the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the nationalistic,
romantic spirit of the German counter-enlightenment, such thinkers as
Johann Georg Hamann and Johann Gottfried Herder celebrated the
uniqueness of the spirit (Geist) possessed by each individual people
(Volk). They considered language to be the major source of this
uniqueness as well as being the medium to afford it the richest
possible expression; in literature and poetry in particular, this Geist
was thought to achieve its supreme manifestation.
The most influential figure in this movement was the Prussian
polymath Wilhelm von Humboldt. In his works on linguistics,
Humboldt stressed the organic connection between language and
thought: a language is not just a nomenclature, a set of labels
affixed to an already existing structure of concepts in the mind, and
introduced only to facilitate their communication. Rather, language
contributes essentially to the very constitution of this conceptual
structure. It does so in a thoroughly holistic manner, such that a
difference in one area will have repercussions in every other.
Accordingly, every language has a unique essence, its  inner
linguistic form which comprises semantic as well as grammatical
elements and which distinguishes it from all other languages. In
virtue of this distinctive form, its shapes the entire  world picture of
the population whose native language it is. A true child of the
nineteenth century, von Humboldt identifies the linguistic
community with the  Volk , the people. As his famous
pronouncement has it,  Language is, as it were, the outer appearance
of the spirit of a people, the language is their spirit and the spirit
their language; we can never think of them sufficiently as identical
(Humboldt 1988:46).
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The Linguistic Relativity Argument
In the present century, the linguistic relativity view has primarily
been associated with the names of two American linguists, Edward
Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf. A historical link ties the German
and the American arguments together, since Sapir and Whorf knew
of von Humboldt s work through the German-born linguist-
ethnographer Franz Boas. It was Whorf who coined the phrase  the
principle of linguistic relativity to designate the view that languages
differ in their fundamental lexical and syntactical structure and that
these differences lead to corresponding differences in thought. This
thesis has occasioned considerable debate in social anthropology,
especially in the subdiscipline known as cognitive anthropology.
While linguistic relativity was glorified by the German romantic
thinkers as a crucial element in their nationalistic philosophies, it
turns into something of an embarrassment when we look at
empirical linguistics and empirical anthropology as these disciplines
are conducted in the present century. Linguistic relativity is a threat
to the comparative linguist s aim of developing a unified conceptual
framework in which to describe the semantics of diverse languages,
and raises a powerful challenge to the ethnographer s professed
ability to penetrate the native mind and to convey the results of the
inquiry in the researcher s own language.
In our present context, however, we are only interested in this
doctrine to the extent that it serves as a premise of a constructivist
position. What I refer to here as  the linguistic relativity argument
draws upon the principle of linguistic relativity, but conjoins it with
the doctrine that the language-induced differences in thought
generate different realities. We must now examine these ideas more
carefully.
The first premise in the linguistic relativity argument is the tenet
that language shapes thought; more specifically, that differences in
language translate into differences in thought. Language is not a set
of labels that come to be attached to a range of previously-existing
mental contents in man. The situation is rather the reverse: man thinks
the thoughts that language puts into his head. Whorf expresses the
point as follows:
Actually, thinking is most mysterious, and by far the greatest
light upon it that we have is thrown by the study of
language. This study shows that the forms of a person s
thoughts are controlled by inexorable laws of pattern of
which he is unconscious. These patterns are the unperceived
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The Broad Arguments
intricate systematizations of his own language shown
readily enough by a candid comparison and contrast with
other languages, especially those of a different linguistic
family.
(Whorf 1956:252)
We saw in Part One that, in linguistic and mental phenomena,
significant behavior [is] ruled by a specific system or
organization, a  geometry of form principles characteristic of
each language. This organization is imposed from outside the
narrow circle of the personal consciousness, making of that
consciousness a mere puppet whose linguistic maneuverings are
held in unsensed and unbreakable bonds of pattern.
(Ibid.: 257)
A second tenet is that, via our thoughts, language determines the way
reality is divided up:
As I said in the April 1940 Review, segmentation of nature is an
aspect of grammar one as yet little studied by grammarians.
We cut up and organize the spread and flow of events as we do,
largely because, through our mother tongue, we are parties to an
agreement to do so, not because nature itself is segmented in
exactly that way for all to see. Languages differ not only in how
they build their sentences but also in how they break down
nature to secure the elements to put in those sentences. This
breakdown gives units of the lexicon.  Word is not a very good
 word for them;  lexeme has been suggested, and  term will
do for the present. By these more or less distinct terms we
ascribe a semi-fictitious isolation to parts of experience. English
terms, like  sky, hill, swamp , persuade us to regard some [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]