Linguistics, Science, and the Demarcation Problem

The article discusses the so-called “demarcation problem,” i.e. the difficulties of determining the defining criteria of legitimate science, in the context of linguistics. The demarcation problem preoccupied philosophers of science for a good part of the twentieth century and is now considered to be unsolvable – it is impossible to provide a cut-and-dried list of necessary and sufficient features of “scientificness.” Consequently, this means that it is impossible to establish by means of a rational argument whether linguistics is a science and if not, how to turn it into one. The article reviews several attempts at solving the demarcation problem, briefly discusses the reasons for their failure, and demonstrates their relevance for linguistics.