Linguistics, psychology and philosophy
On the occasion of the recent publication of the French translation of Bühler's Sprachtheorie (1934) - Théorie du langage. La fonction représentationnelle, edited by Janette Friedrich and Didier Samain, Agone, January 2009 -, the Chair of Philosophy of Language and Knowledge at the Collège de France (Prof. Jacques Bouveresse) and the UMR 7597 History of Linguistic Theories (HTL) of the CNRS and Université Paris-Diderot are organizing a symposium on April 29 and 30 at the Collège de France, Paris, entitled: Karl Bühler, penseur du langage. Linguistics, psychology and philosophy.
Born at a time when psychology was establishing itself as an autonomous discipline, yet still nourished by philosophical reflection, Bühler's work occupies a privileged position in the contemporary history of the language sciences, and is permeated by the diverse questions of the time. His critical relationship with Wundt and Gestalt, with Husserlian phenomenology and the Vienna Circle, and, on the linguist side, with nascent phonology have often been mentioned. These are only the most notorious interferences. In linguistics, the work undoubtedly owes as much to Paul and Brugmann as to Troubetzkoy, and the same applies mutatis mutandis to other disciplinary fields. Bühler's originality as a physician and philosopher lies in his constant dialogue with the great linguists of his time, even though he was not a "linguist" himself.
Long ignored in France, Bühler is now attracting real interest. The forthcoming publication of a French translation of his major work, Sprachtheorie, the first critical edition of which, moreover, will fill a real gap in French-language publications. However, as with the rest of his work, access to this text and understanding of its issues remains no less tricky. To cite just one immediate example, Bühler is generally credited, and rightly so, with the thesis that language is not limited to its cognitive function, since it also possesses an "appealing" and an "expressive" function. However, it is the representational function that the author mentions in the subtitle of Sprachtheorie, automatically giving it a privileged status.
Bühler's work, which was linked to theentire body of linguistic, psychological and philosophical knowledge of a particularly fertile period for the human sciences, engaged a general reflection on the relationship between language and cognition, and between the sciences of language and related disciplines. It also, and perhaps more fundamentally, invites today's linguist and philosopher to reflect on
notions (language, sentence, etc.) that make up their ordinary metalanguage.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Morning Chair: Didier SAMAIN
9:00 Opening: Jean-Jacques ROSAT (Collège de France)
Sylvie ARCHAIMBAULT (CNRS, HTL)
9:15 Janette FRIEDRICH (University of Geneva)
The representational power of language
10:30 a.m. Break
10:45 André ROUSSEAU (Université Lille III)
Karl Bühler's debt to two predecessors: Philipp Wegener and Alan Gardiner.
12:00 Lunch break
Afternoon Chair: Sylvie ARCHAIMBAULT
2:00 Michel DE FORNEL (EHESS)
Deictic field and symbolic field
3:15 pm Fiorenza TOCCAFONDI (University of Parma)
Karl Bühler's Theory of Perception
4:30 pm Break
16:45 Jérôme DOKIC (EHESS)
Deixis to the imaginary and simulation
18:00 End of the first day
Thursday, April 30th, 2009
Morning Chair: Janette FRIEDRICH
9:15 Didier SAMAIN (Université Paris 7)
Linguistics or language theory, genericity of concepts and axiomatization of domains
10:30 a.m. Break
10:45 Perrine MARTHELOT (Université Paris1, EXeCO)
From the Crisis of Psychology to Language Theory: language grapples with the world
12:00 Pause
Afternoon Chair: Jean-Jacques ROSAT
2:00 Kevin MULLIGAN (University of Geneva)
Meaning vs. meaning in Bühler, Wittgenstein and their contemporaries
3:15pm Federico ALBANO LEONI (University of Rome "La Sapienza")
Karl Bühler and the acoustic physiognomy of words: missed opportunities in phonology
4:30 pm Break
16:45 Jacques BOUVERESSE (Collège de France)
Karl Bühler and axiomatic thinking in the language sciences
6:00 pm End of symposium
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