Re: Fw: Intro to natural language processing
The following comment presupposes a very large amount
of "metaphysical mush" that devastated linguistics,
psychology, and philosophy during the early 20th
century, and the stench is still lingering today:
PoC> Lest we get engulfed in "metaphysical mush" let
> us keep in mind that as empirical psychology became
> a science it disassociated itself from both philosophy
> and theology...
C. S. Peirce was adamant about getting rid of mush, but
he also recognized the impossiblity of getting rid of
metaphysics. I like to quote his comment on that point:
CSP> Find a scientific man who proposes to get along without
> any metaphysics... and you have found one whose doctrines
> are thoroughly vitiated by the crude and uncriticized
> metaphysics with which they are packed. We must philosophize,
> said the great naturalist Aristotle — if only to avoid
> philosophizing. Every man of us has a metaphysics, and has
> to have one; and it will influence his life greatly. Far
> better, then, that that metaphysics should be criticized
> and not be allowed to run loose.
Peirce directed that criticism at Ernst Mach, the experimental
physicist whose name is synonymous with the speed of sound.
Unfortunately, Mach dabbled in philosophy and made a fetish
out of Auguste Comte's postivism. During the 19th century,
he fought a foolish and horribly wrong-headed battle against
Ludwig Boltzmann because Boltzmann's statistical mechanics
was based on the assumption of unobservable atoms. Einstein's
comment is exactly correct: "Mach was a good experimental
physicist, but a miserable philosopher."
Fortunately for physics, people like Einstein had enough
confidence in the success of theoretical physics that they
could ignore Mach. But Mach's legacy led to three misguided
abominations in the "soft" sciences: logical positivism in
philosophy, behaviorism in psychology, and Bloomfield's
antisemantic prejudices in linguistics.
As for experimental psychology, it was well established in
late 19th-century Germany and in the US by William James, who
studied in Germany and established a laboratory at Harvard.
For an excellent summary of the state of the art circa 1890,
read _The Principles of Psychology_ by William James. When
that book was reprinted in the 1960s, psychologists remarked
on how "fresh" and up to date it seemed. If you compare it
to Ulrich Neisser's textbook _Cognitive Psychology_ (1967),
it seems as if there was only a difference of about a decade
between them instead of nearly eight decades. The behaviorists
set back psychology by at least half a century.
PoC> They also know that a sample of natural language can be
> held up against the measure of a table of norms, and both
> table and sample are as scientific as an amoeba in a petri
> dish. If the table is not available, they know it can be
> generated....
That comment and the rest of the note show a complete
misunderstanding of the nature of science, natural language,
and experimental method.
John Sowa