Homepage van de Engelse vertaling is nu "up and running"

De Engelse, uitgebreide vertaling van De Vergeten Wetenschappen heeft sinds kort een eigen homepage. Ook kan het boek al worden besteld bij Oxford University Press (al is men wel erg onduidelijk over de precieze verschijningsdatum).

My talk "How Hierarchical is Language?" at Max Planck is online

The debate whether language is hierarchical or sequential is as old as Panini's work (500 BC). Even in today's linguistics the problem has not been settled. Or has it? Recently the debate has flared up again with new empirical evidence. See the slides of my talk on this heated discussion.

English translation of "De Vergeten Wetenschappen" is in press

The English translation of De Vergeten Wetenschappen is now in press with Oxford University Press, and is mentioned in their catalogue as follows:

"Many histories of science have been written, but A New History of the Humanities offers the first overarching history of the humanities from Antiquity to the present. There are already historical studies of musicology, logic, art history, linguistics, and historiography, but this volume gathers these, and many other humanities disciplines, into a single coherent account.

Its central theme is the way in which scholars throughout the ages and in virtually all civilizations have sought to identify patterns in texts, art, music, languages, literature, and the past. What rules can we apply if we wish to determine whether a tale about the past is trustworthy? By what criteria are we to distinguish consonant from dissonant musical intervals? What rules jointly describe all possible grammatical sentences in a language? How can modern digital methods enhance pattern-seeking in the humanities? Rens Bod contends that the hallowed opposition between the sciences (mathematical, experimental, dominated by universal laws) and the humanities (allegedly concerned with unique events and hermeneutic methods) is a mistake born of a myopic failure to appreciate the pattern-seeking that lies at the heart of this inquiry. A New History of the Humanities amounts to a persuasive plea to give Panini, Valla, Bopp, and countless other often overlooked intellectual giants their rightful place next to the likes of Galileo, Newton, and Einstein."

Click here for more information on A New History of the Humanities at Oxford.

Geesteswetenschappen niet (langer) vergeten op kennislink.nl

De wetenschapsite Kennislink.nl is de geesteswetenschappen niet (langer) vergeten. Sinds 8 februari is er een aparte pagina voor deze tak van wetenschappen:

"De vakgebieden die je tegenkomt op de Kennislink-pagina Geschiedenis, Taal & Cultuur vallen allemaal onder de geesteswetenschappen. Maar wat zijn geesteswetenschappen eigenlijk? Hoe zijn ze ontstaan en hebben ze een specifieke methode die ze onderscheidt van de andere wetenschappen?"

Lees hier verder!