Publications

Publication details [#13989]

Cummings, Louise. 1998. The scientific reductionism of relevance theory: The lesson from logical positivism. Journal of Pragmatics 29 (1) : 1–12.

Publication type

Article in journal

Publication language

English

Keywords

rationalism | reductionism | relevance theory

Person as a subject

Putnam, H. | Sperber, D. | Wilson, D.

Place, Publisher

Elsevier

ISBN

0378-2166

Journal WWW

www.sciencedirect.com/web-editions

Annotation

Putnam's critique of the logical positivist account of rationality and its ensuing scientific reductionism is validated within Sperber and Wilson's account of relevance. It is shown how a reductionist analysis causes the undoing of the very notions which demand explanation.