Frances to William and listers... My tentative assumption so far, as culled from reading the available literature, is that the "philosophic theory" of integrationism supports the "scientific thesis" of integrational linguistics. The "thesis" or doctrine is seemingly an approach to the act of lingual communication that emphasizes the lay importance of context and contact, and rejects the scientific models of verbal language which are especially based on fixed signs and firm rules that are isolated from the practical practice of signing. It was reportedly developed by a group of European linguists in an attempt to "improve" the use of language in common ordinary life. Integrationists further appear to hold that the semiological approach to lingual communication as originally posited by Saussure is the best way to treat the field of linguistics and the study of languages, because this will likely yield a unified stand and an integrated model of social human communication, with verbal signs being used at their widest and fullest.
The "thesis" if successful would be expected to fail in satisfying the logical research needs of science. While the "thesis" clearly needs to fail as a general or global account of all situations and languages and linguists, in order to satisfy its own stated criteria, it nonetheless seems to be partly useful as a limited local approach in its account of intellectual experiences. My thought here turns to the evocation of intellectual aesthetic responses caused by works of fine art that are say conceptual installations, such as found industrial objects like manufactured toilet products, whereby artistic meaning must be read into them by able percipients as if the works were conditional propositions or literary fictions or narrative discourses. For what it may be worth to my slow deep read of this book, some side trips have been occurring into another book by the author on writing. The comparison is interesting and illuminating.
