The fundamental criteria of the exact and natural sciences, which have remained unchanged through paradigm shifts and so-called revolutions, are contrasted with the canons of the humanitarian disciplines including linguistics, as the latter not only remain tacit and largely unacknowledged but are not even appreciated as issues meriting discussion. Linguists in particular are charged with forgetting that their discipline is part of general semiotics, i.e., the study of sign systems. The question of the place of experimentation in the humanities is addressed in a review of the recent work of Russian linguistics schools, noting confusion of the differences among experiment, self-observation, and observation. The explanatory thrust of cognitive linguistics is argued to be paradoxical, as hypotheses are often replaced by metaphors; the principal weakness of linguistics is held to be a stubborn unwillingness to address its underdeveloped methodology and specifics. (J. Hitchcock in LLBA 2003, vol. 37, n. 2)