[lbo-talk] munchers

[Carrol Cox]

Miles seems to identify "research program" with research itself. But if
we don't accept this identity, then we can agree with Miles that
_research_ is always empirical. But a Program cannot be empirical. It is
rather a set of rules or procedures which identify the object of search
and specify the kinds of empirical data which will  satisfy the
purpose(s) laid out in the program. A Reseach program, then, is not
itself research, and cannot consist of empirical data.

When Chomsky  came on the scene, philologists and structural linguists
had, over several centuries, accumulated huge mountains of data.  The
problem was what do do with all that empirical material - beyond piling
up more of it. Chomsky laid out a program for the interpretation of
current empirical knowledge and for further research. It may  be that
that program is, now, exhausting its potential, and a new program is
needed - and if so, and if that program is produced, it will be no less
free, itself, of empirical data than was Chomsky's.

Carrol