Jon A, Gary F, and Jeff BD, Jon
The most important difference between linguistics and logic is that linguistics is descriptive while logic is normative.
No. Grammars and dictionaries have traditionally been considered normative. Note l'Académie française. Modern linguists emphasize the descriptive aspects in order to claim that they are scientists. Furthermore, Truth is the normative goal of logic. Language is the primary means for communicating and reasoning about truth. That kind of reasoning is usually called informal. Formal logics are a helpful, but secondary innovation. Gary
Peirce invested the greater part of his attention to semiotics in what he called speculative grammar, which is not a normative science but a descriptive one. The connection between logical “grammar” and linguistic “grammar” is by no means accidental.
Jeff
What reasons do you have for thinking that speculative grammar--as it is studied in philosophy--is not a branch of semiotic considered as a normative science?
Every empirical science must describe and make testable predictions about some observable phenomena. The value judgments that state preferences for some kinds of phenomena make a descriptive science normative. Engineering, for example, is normative because it makes value judgments, such as "Bridges and airplanes should not fall down." In any case, I agree with Gary that there is a strong connection between grammars of formal logics and grammars of language. This point is independent of whether you consider logic and linguistics purely descriptive or both descriptive and normative. Jon
Peirce advises a non-psychological approach to logic, which he defines as formal semiotic, using "formal" to mean "quasi-necessary", which is the moral equivalent of "normative" to us.
I agree with the text up to the word 'using'. But the word 'formal' is a synonym for "according to form", not 'quasi-necessary'. In the Century Dictionary, Peirce's definitions of 'form', 'formal', and 'formalism' emphasize the surface patterns (AKA syntax). See the attached formalSign.jpg. To see his definitions of the other terms, see http://www.global-language.com/century/ The connections among formal, quasi-necessary, moral, normative, and truth are indirect. Peirce explicitly said that diagrammatic reasoning draws quasi-necessary conclusions by observing patterns by perception, in Greek 'aisthesis'. Those perceptual patterns are the basis for aesthetics, the first of the three normative sciences. The word 'moral' implies ethics, the second of the normative sciences. Ethics in action and behavior is determined by the beauty of the action and its consequences in the social setting. Wanton destruction of the social fabric is unethical because it is ugly. Third, truth is determined by aesthetics and ethics in reasoning and communication. Truth is good and beautiful. Falsehood is bad and ugly. In short, Peirce would never claim that the term 'formal' is a synonym for 'quasi-necessary', which he would never claim is equivalent to 'normative' by any version of ethics or morality. John
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