This paper provides arguments for and against cognitive linguistics as an emergent paradigm in the theory of language. Idealized cognitive models, postulated by some proponents of cognitive linguistics, are compared to other mental representations such as prototypes, archetypes and stereotypes. The old controversy for realism or cognitivism in science, respectively in linguistics, is again brought to the fore. The author is in favor of a dualistic approach to the study of language, since reference and conceptualization presuppose each other — in order to refer, we have to conceptualize, and we cannot conceptualize, unless we refer.