[MD] Plains Talk and Pragmatism

[Matt Kundert]

Hey Dan,

Dan said:
Over the years, many of Whorf's claims were rejected as contrary to 
common sense, and most of his ideas were considered fringe science 
at best and outright fraud and hoax by most of the scientific community. 
But lately, there has been some renewed interest in Whorf's work...

Matt:
Hunh.  My sense of Whorf's position in the tradition is different.  My 
sense has been that the general claim people like Whorf and Sapir 
were putting forward is an extension of Kant extended to language, and 
that was moreorless common sense on the Continent and in 
Anglo-American circles by the 50s.  Maybe not though.  Maybe it's only 
common sense now, and the icebergs were just breaking up in the 
seminal work from the 60s and 70s I'm thinking of.

But, at any rate, the idea of "language shaping our perception of the 
world," in my experience, is the common sense of most intellectual 
circles these days, which is good for us.

Matt