INTELLECTUAL VERSUS PRAGMATIC EVOLUTIONISM

We have noted earlier that Bréal and Whitney, who both championed the influence of the will on language, differ in their stress on the intellect as a force of change. This difference in approach might be explained by different influences on the work of these linguists. However, this is only speculation, given the lack of direct sources.

In his article on ‘evolutionism’ for the Dictionary of the History of Ideas Goudge cites two variants of evolutionism: ‘vitalistic evolutionism’ and ‘pragmatic evolutionism’ (cf. 1973:182ff.). The first is ascribed to Schopenhauer and Bergson, famous for the philosophy of the ‘world as will and representation’ on the one hand, and for the theory of the ‘élan vital’ on the other. Reading the description of this form of evolutionism together with a note concerning a book on philosophy in France in the nineteenth century, written in 1867 (!), one cannot escape the impression that Bréal might have been influenced by Schopenhauer’s ‘voluntarization’ and ‘intellectualization’ of the world. Ravaisson, the author of this philosophy manual, argued against the dominant view of nineteenth-century philosophy that nature is governed by blind, mechanical laws, and sought to reintroduce reason, will, and consciousness. He argued: ‘there is absolutely nothing that thought, that the will could not explain…. In short, the reason of everything is reason’. And more specifically on language: ‘It seems that one can say of language what Emerson has said about the universe: “That’s the exteriorization of the soul”, and what Schopenhauer has said about the body: “That’s the will rendered visible, the objectified will”’ (Ravaisson 1867, quoted by Chiss and Puech 1987:169).

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Others, such as Aarsleff (1982:387), have speculated about a

Bréal seems to have read some German philosophers, as his note on Nietzsche’s etymologies

suggests, cf. Bréal 1896a.

different source of influence on Bréal’s glorification of the intellect; the positivistic psychology of H. Taine, the author of De l’Intelligence (1870). Aarsleff sees a connection between Taine’s philosophy and Bréal’s mentalistic conception of grammar, which was especially important for his theory of latent ideas. However, this mentalism had earlier been expressed in 1866 with specific reference to Humboldt, and we shall see that Humboldt can be regarded, as did Steinthal, as one of Bréal’s sources for the concept of latent ideas. But one has to admit that Taine’s influence on Bréal’s thought can be detected in the marked increase in Bréal’s use of the term ‘intelligence’ after 1870, in contexts where Bréal would formerly have used the terms ‘pensée’ or ‘conscience’, for example. (He explicitly refers to Taine in ES: 271244.)

The second version of evolutionism, pragmatic evolutionism, can be traced back to the philosophers and psychologists Peirce, Dewey, Mead, and James. Whitney could only have known Peirce. But even this is unlikely, given that Peirce only published a few, little-noticed philosophical papers during Whitney’s lifetime (cf. Peirce 1878), and that most of his semiotic studies only appeared in the mid-twentieth century (Peirce 1931–5). Nevertheless, the description of pragmatic evolutionism strikes one as astonishingly similar to Whitney’s conception of language:

On the pragmatic approach, man is recognized to be engaged, like every other living thing, in a constant process of adapting to his environment. His mental capacities are, therefore, adaptive devices which serve him well or ill in this process. Ideas are instruments for coping with the world, and must be tested by observation and experiment to determine their worth. Thought and action, when functioning properly, are inseparable, for man adapts to an existing situation either by making his behavior conform to it or by actively changing the situation to meet his needs.

(Goudge 1973:184)

This pragmatic view of the evolution of ideas can be transposed directly onto language and we arrive at Whitney’s pragmatic linguistics:

Once more, there is nothing in the whole complicated process of name- making which calls for the admission of any other efficient force than the reasonable action, the action for a definable purpose, of the speakers of language; their purpose being, as abundantly shown above, the adaptation of their means of expression to their constantly changing needs and shifting preferences.

(LGL: 144)

In this sense the laws of human action are also the laws of language-change (cf. LGL: 156).

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INTELLECTUAL VERSUS PRAGMATIC EVOLUTIONISM