Modern Science: Language

Abstract

The Linguistic Turn is now more than a half-century old and most of the time has been the subject of numerous criticisms, but still many hold that science can essentially be described as an internal and external, verbal and propositional discourse, that is, as thinking and communicating. It has been assumed that contemplating and debating are genuine, truth-generating activities pondering beyond observations. This assumption is strenghtened by the fact that reasoning and discoursing are often rewarded with enlightenment. However, such a view goes against the experience of modern man and the basic premise of modern natural science that the new knowledge about nature, and a reasonable confidence in it, can be achieved only through physical interaction with the object. Bacon and Bohr notwithstanding, only recently has it become clear, even to some philosophers of science, that this interaction, in its various existential and experimental modes, is epistemologically fundamental, and that the structure and the role of scientific language and theory must be reconsidered accordingly.