Immediacy of Experience and Linguistic Relativity: Epistemological Architectures in the Pirahã Debate
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The Pirahã debate has been predominantly framed as an empirical dispute over recursion and universal grammar. This article argues that such framing leaves important epistemological assumptions insufficiently examined. Based on a systematic qualitative review of Web of Science-indexed publications (n = 25), the study uses structured coding to examine positions on recursion, conceptions of experience, and underlying epistemological assumptions. The qualitative synthesis was operationalised in a comparative matrix (Experience × Epistemology × Recursion × Relativity). The analysis identifies three ontologies of experience – data, norm, and structure – and four explanatory architectures: cultural–pragmatic, computational–universalist, methodological–formal, and ontological–phenomenological. It also situates the debate within weak linguistic relativity, including numerical cognition research on Pirahã. Across these perspectives, ‘immediacy of experience’ emerges as an epistemologically variable construct rather than a deterministic constraint. The article rejects strong determinism and reframes Pirahã as a limit case revealing competing hierarchies of explanation.
Source: Problemos
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7225264376