Linguistics as a "special science": A comparison of Sapir and Fodor

Independently of each other, the linguist-anthropologist Edward Sapir (1884–1939) and the philosopher of mind Jerry Fodor (1935–2017) developed a similar typology of scientific disciplines. “Basic” (Fodor) or “conceptual” (Sapir) sciences (e.g. physics) are distinguished from “special” (Fodor) or “historical” (Sapir) sciences (e.g. linguistics). Ontologically, the latter sciences are reducible to the former, but they keep their autonomy as intellectual enterprises, because their “natural kinds” are unlike those of the basic sciences. Fodor labelled this view “token physicalism”. Although Sapir’s and Fodor’s ideas were presented in very different periods of intellectual history (in 1917 and 1974) and in very different intellectual contexts (roughly: Geisteswissenschaften and logical positivism), the similarity between them is striking. When compared in detail, some substantial differences can also be observed, which are mainly related to contextual differences. When applied to linguistics, Sapir’s and Fodor’s views offer a perspective of autonomy, albeit in different ways: for Fodor, but not for Sapir, linguistics is a subfield of psychology.