Globalized Parochialism: Consequences of English as Lingua Franca in Philosophy of Science

Abstract

In recent decades, English has become the uncontestable lingua franca of philosophy of science and of most other areas of philosophy and of the humanities. To have a lingua franca produces enormous benefits for the entire scientific community. The price for those benefits, however, is paid almost exclusively by non-native speakers of English (NoNES). Section 1 identifies three asymmetries that individual NoNES researchers encounter: ‘publication asymmetry’, ‘resources asymmetry’, and ‘team asymmetry’. Section 2 deals with ‘globalized parochialism asymmetry’: thanks to English being a lingua franca, a special (‘parochial’) perspective, mostly US and British, is being globalized and is replacing European topics and approaches. This has serious consequences for history of philosophy as well as for philosophical theory: thinkers of the past tend to be dealt with on the global level at best only if and insofar they are translated into English. Similarly, the theoretical agenda of globalized philosophy of science is set by—mostly American—native English speakers (NES). This way, interesting and important topics and approaches from the European continent are marginalized or completely ignored in the world of globalized parochialism. In my view, the structural asymmetry and even unfairness on the global level between NES and NoNES cannot be eliminated but only attenuated.

Acknowledgements

I presented a previous version at this paper in the symposium, ‘How Distinct Is European Philosophy of Science?’, 4th Biennial Conference, European Philosophy of Science Association, Helsinki, August 2013. I would like to thank my friend Katri Lahti (Helsinki) for the Finnish translation and for the hard job of coaching my Finnish pronunciation. I thank the editor of this journal for helpful comments on an earlier draft.

Notes

1 The term ‘Finlandization’ referred during the Cold War in a pejorative way to the wise Realpolitik of small Finland towards the neighbouring Soviet superpower. Finland, which had lost a war and part of its territory to the Soviet Union, in this way could preserve democracy and (to a very large degree) also sovereignty. Finlandization (Finnlandisierung) originated as a political catchword with US-centric West German conservatives in the 1960s and 1970s, in order to fight the Ostpolitik of the social democrats, especially Willy Brandt, which aimed at improving the relationship with East Germany, the Soviet Union, and other ‘socialist’ countries.

2 There might be a price for NES in the long run, though: see note 9.

3 I take these acronyms from Clavero (2010, 552). In the rest of this article I shall refer only to European NoNES—I like pronouncing it ‘nones’. Taking account of the rest of the non-Anglophone world is beyond the scope of the article.

4 I should like to add that both references in languages other than English relate to historical texts.

5 I am aware of the fact that this is not so in some philosophical sub-disciplines, for example ancient philosophy.

6 It is possible that the ERIH committee regards the fact that NES come from different countries as sufficient for ‘internationality’. Such an interpretation of the internationality criterion would, however, completely miss the point.

7 In conformance with widespread use of ‘Europe’ in Britain itself, the UK is not regarded as ‘European’ in this article.

8 These rankings are the UK-based Times Higher Education (THE) ranking and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) ranking, and the Shanghai-based Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).

9 The misconception of their parochialism as universalism might be the price that NES are paying, mostly without being aware of it (Stekeler-Weithofer 2011, esp. 77ff.).

10 Note that also European NoNES are often—and often rightly—themselves accused of parochial ‘Eurocentrism’ by non-European NoNES.

11 In December 2013, David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, recommended learning Chinese with the following argument: ‘I want Britain linked up to the world's fast-growing economies. And that includes our young people learning the languages to seal tomorrow's business deals.’ This economy-driven assessment of the value of language learning (and probably of the humanities in general) is quoted from Watt and Richard (2013).

12 I do not share Trabant's impression of an ‘active’ colonialist treatment by NES because I cannot detect a corresponding intention.

13 I have left the German Wissenschaft in this text because rendering it in English as ‘science’ would be misleading. Wissenschaft includes every discipline taught at universities, even theology. Similar things (in most cases excluding theology) hold for the French science, the Italian scienza, the Dutch wetenschap, and other non-English equivalents.

14 ‘Nicht nur gibt es eine aktive kolonialistische Behandlung anderer Wissenschaftskulturen durch die englischsprachige Wissenschaft (es wird so gut wie nichts Anderssprachiges mehr zitiert), sondern junge dynamische Wissenschaftler aus diesen anderen Sprachwelten sind stolz, dass sie so schön englisch reden und schreiben können. Sie verachten längst die alten Wissenschaftskulturen, denen sie entstammen, das heißt sie nehmen aktiv an der Zerstörung dieser Wissenschaftskulturen teil. Die gigantische Zerstörung von anderssprachigen Wissenschaftskulturen könnte nur durch wissenschaftliche Mehrsprachigkeit verhindert werden. Die Aussichten dafür stehen schlecht.’

15 In the respective article, the verifiability criterion of meaning is also traced back to British empiricism.

16 All but one of the editorial advisors are NES.

17 ‘Translations into Chinese, Italian, Korean, Russian, and Spanish’ are announced in the 1999 edition as ‘forthcoming’. Happily enough for ‘Logical Positivism’, we read 15 years later on the Cambridge University Press website that those translations are still ‘underway’ (CUP 2014).

18 Although Parrini's book is in English, it has been ignored almost completely. This shows that publishing in English even for excellent philosophical work is only a necessary but not a sufficient condition for being recognized on the level of globalized parochialism. Those who read Italian may consult the presentation of Preti's work in Parrini and Scarantino (2004).

19 On some consequences of so-called professionalization in the case of philosophy of biology, see Callebaut (2013).

20 I am well aware of exceptions, like the late Steven Toulmin, Philip Kitcher, Helen Longino, and a few others.

21 A telling example of this conference policy is what was described in a circular in English as the ‘First International Conference of the German Society for Philosophy of Science/Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftsphilosophie (GWP) e.V.’, which took place in March 2013. At this founding event of a German Society for Philosophy of Science that avoids the word ‘German’ in its very name, the circular mentions seven ‘keynote speakers’: four NES, one Greek, and, after all, two Germans.

22 McAllister (2008, 2) correctly observes that the first of these networks did not appear ‘to identify any specific European themes or approaches’, a shortcoming that was slightly improved in the second.