THE SCIENTIFIC REDUCTIONISM OF RELEVANCE THEORY - THE LESSON FROM LOGICAL POSITIVISM

In the postface to the second edition of their book Relevance: Communi cation and cognition, Sperber and Wilson describe the intellectual imp act which has followed from the first edition of their text: ''The boo k has been translated into several languages, its implications for pra gmatic theory have been explored in a growing number of books and arti cles; it has inspired work in neighbouring disciplines, including ling uistics, literary studies, psychology and philosophy.'' (Sperber and W ilson, 1995: 255) The appeal of relevance theory within certain academ ic circles is beyond doubt, Its acceptance within pragmatics and relat ed subjects is to be expected given the scientism which pervades cogni tive disciplines. The scientism of these disciplines, scientific reduc tionism, has in recent years come under increasing attack in the form of the philosophical arguments of Hilary Putnam. Putnam's (1981) criti que of the logical positivist account of rationality is particularly p ertinent to this discussion. In this paper I demonstrate the exact nat ure of the reductionism within Sperber and Wilson's account of relevan ce, To this end, I examine their description of (1) the logical or ana lytic entries of concepts, (2) the deductive device, and (3) the funct ional concept of confirmation. In each case I will indicate how a redu ctionist analysis brings about the destruction of the very notions whi ch demand explanation.