'The "way the world really is"...

Question

Quote from a discussion on prescrptive and descriptive science:

'The "way the world really is" is something that can never be known for certainty by an agent within such a world.'

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-98110.html

Does that also apply to language learning and teaching?

Forbes · Accepted Answer

MilkyQuote from a discussion on prescrptive and descriptive science:

'The "way the world really is" is something that can never be known for certainty by an agent within such a world.'

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-98110.html

Does that also apply to language learning and teaching?

No. The study of language is not about the "way the world really is".

However, I do think that one of the problems of studying language is that we are too much "inside it" to see everything clearly. We are the like the man who has never left the forest who believes that the wind is caused by the trees waving their branches.

Milky · Answer

Forbes
No. The study of language is not about the "way the world really is".

However, I do think that one of the problems of studying language is that we are too much "inside it" to see everything clearly. We are the like the man who has never left the forest who believes that the wind is caused by the trees waving their branches.

Hmm. Someone once said something similar, if I understand your meaning correctly:

Thus, http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Thomas%20Kuhn is reacting against the prescriptive tradition that draws its conclusions about what science ought to look like from `finished' historical examples. These sorts of examples are misleading, and only show a picture of science that science wants to show. What wants to do is analyze and describe how science works when we `aren't looking' (i.e. the process behind the classics and the textbooks).

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1276481

CalifJim · Answer

Forbes,

While I agree with you on the 'language' part of your response, I was astonished to see you cast doubt on the fact that wind is caused by trees waving their branches.

CJ

Forbes · Answer

In a way the man in the forest is a metaphor for a scientist. So long as he stays in the forest the theory holds.

MrPedantic · Answer

If "the way the world is" can't be known with any certainty by agents within that world, how can agents within that world know that "the way the world is" can't be known with any certainty?

CalifJim · Answer

And anyway, does "the way the world is" even exist apart from our perception of it? Or has that little Bishop Berkeley problem already been solved (while I wasn't looking)?

CJ

Forbes · Answer

CalifJimAnd anyway, does "the way the world is" even exist apart from our perception of it? Or has that little Bishop Berkeley problem already been solved (while I wasn't looking)?

CJ

I thought Dr Johnson had solved it!

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, "I refute it thus."

[Boswell: Life of Johnson]

MrPedantic · Answer

(My query really related to the "can never...with certainty", in the original statement. We would presumably need to know "the way the world is" with certainty, before we could justify the phrase.)

CalifJim · Answer

I must say, you have a marvelous "circularity detector"!

CJ

'The "way the world really is"...

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