Living with Manny's dangerous idea

Discourse Studies 7 (4-5):431-453 (2005)
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Abstract

Daniel Dennett, in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, argues that natural selection is a universal acid that eats through other theories, because it can explain just about everything, even the structure of the mind. Emanuel Schegloff in ‘Between Micro and Macro: Context and Other Connections’ opposes the importation of ‘macro’ factors into the ‘micro’, suggesting that one might reverse the strategy instead. Like Darwin, he is coy about whether he just wants his own turf, but the idea opens up the possibility of interactional reductionism. I will argue against interactional reductionism on methodological grounds: Don't bite off more than you can chew! Instead I'll support the good old Durkheimian strategy of looking for intermediate variables between systems of different orders. I try and make the case with data from Rossel Island, Papua New Guinea.

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References found in this work

Footing.Erving Goffman - 1979 - Semiotica 25 (1-2):1-30.
Pragmatics.S. C. Levinson - 1983 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 49 (3):531-532.
Conversation and Brain Damage.Charles Goodwin (ed.) - 2003 - Oxford University Press USA.

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