Grice uses quâ, in handwritten graph, in "Aristotle" etc.
"qua" as indeed an Aristotelianism. I once thought it was a feature of his northern Greek dialect, but apparently not: it was his own idiosyncratic idiocy.
For Aristotle, 'qua' is a dative -- hence the long 'a'. It's 'he' in Greek. He uses to mean pretentious things which are best left unsaid:
Man, qua man, is a rational animal.
As opposed to...?
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A buen puerto vas por a qua.
ReplyDeleteLo siento mucho.
Right. It is apparently a good idiom. There are apparently two versions:
ReplyDeleteto a bountiful port you are for water.
to a bountiful bush you are for timber.
a buen puerto vas por agua
a buen bosque vas por lena.
-- Literally, there's nothing ironic about them.
I suppose I can use them literally to mean,
"You are consulting the right expert here".
But it seems it's best used otherwise.
But there IS a difference, Larry.
When I said it, it's because you wrote
"help"
which possibly WAS ironic. Meaning, 'if you can -- because all your fastidious jargon is getting on me'.
Now this qua, I'm not really going for you.
But I thought you would find it ridiculous too.
Apparently Aristotle wants to say,
"As a reptile (for we ARE said to have reptile brains) we are not rational"
"As a bunch of atoms, we are not rational"
"As stuff (Greek 'hyle', Latin materia, Spanish madera, wool) we are NOT rational"
Only as SOMETHING _else_ we are rational. I think he thought the SOUL was rational.
As depositories of a rational soul we are rational.
This poses a question to the Third World, in Popper's sense: for the rational soul cannot survive Marx, yet his "Capital" is still read. Etc.
I.e. The Capital contains some pretty reasonable, if not entirely rational, things to consider. Yet, if what's rational about Marx was his soul and his soul 'has gone aloft' (alla Tom Bowling) -- what is the qua of the Marx that we find 'rational'?
Aristotle may also have in mind "Man" as an idea. Recall Socrates to Diogenes: "I see a bottle, one bottle, this bottle, that bottle. But I don't see bottleness." "Perhaps you need glasses?" was Socrates's retort.
As a universal, Man is not rational.
Only as a tode ti, a prima substantia, prote ousia, is _one_ man rational.
Etc.
Given my limited Spanish, I would probably cobble together "A otro perro vas por ese hueso." Are you saying that the idiom is best used ironically to mean "How should I know?" or maybe "Don't ask me to defend it - I disagree with it."? (I like to learn this stuff.)
ReplyDeleteMy "help" was a sincere but overstated request for clarification. In that list of rhetorical thingies, where is the opposite of meiosis?
I actually like "qua." It makes explicit just which logical device a physical device instantiates, where that may be unclear:
Think of the utterance "p," qua utterance, as the shell, and the words "p" as the yolk.
In English, "as a" can sometimes work as well as "qua," but I think a word with the precise translation "considered without regard to any property not common to all X's" is necessary in some situations. Obviously, such a word can be misused to comic effect. But I wouldn't dismiss it.
Kramer proposes a 'sense' to 'qua'. To wit:
ReplyDelete"considered without regard to any property not common to all X's". So, we get:
Man qua man is rational.
Man qua mammal has tits.
Man qua matter is heavy.
I think we may distinguish between
X qua Y
and
X qua X
-- There is a technical term for this, as there should, I think it's qua-propositions, and I recall a Dutch person, of all people, tried to analyse it in Aristotle's speech, and I think failed.
Apparently, qua can be used for inessential properties (what Grice has as 'hazz')
Aristotle, qua white man, was white.
But it can also be used essentially, for izzing properties.
Aristotle qua rational laughed.
This is ambiguous in that it may be an idion (proprium) or not. A man, and only a man laughs. This proprium is to some derivative of the essence, but not to Aristotle.
The fact that there are no articles in Latin confused the scholastics a bit. But we cannot blame Aristotle for that.
They were _so_ into articles that they would say
ho Socrates
i.e. the Socrates.
This is used in some parts of Italy (usually in titles of Opera -- La Tosca -- but it can only confuse.
Man qua man
Man qua animal
Man qua living being
are the important categories
Maybe
Man qua matter
Man qua ens
---
Etc.
But it would be good to consider other examples for
"considered without regard to any property not common to all X's".
For "Man, qua animal," seems to take a property which is common to ALL men" (as opposed to 'white', say).
Etc.
For "Man, qua animal," seems to take a property which is common to ALL men" (as opposed to 'white', say).
ReplyDeleteI don't think so. It takes a property common to all animals, but only if the need arises. The essence of "qua" is the need for the distinguishing precision of the definition I proposed. That's why I offered the utterance example.
I don't know that there is a situation in which "man, qua animal," would ever make sense. In any case where "man, as an animal" or "man, being an animal" would work, "qua" is unnecessarily precise, violating the quantitative maxim I suppose.
I really think the logical/physical thing is very helpful here. I've probably mentioned Logical Ted, my son's Platonic instantiation. When my son would do something that I considered self-destructive, I would get visibly angry at him. So he'd try something like "Why are you angry at me? I'm hurting myself, not you." I would reply "I don't care what you do to yourself, but you are hurting my son, who I love." We came to refer to "my son" as "Logical Ted" - a logical device instantiated by physical Ted.
What Ted did to himself, qua Larry's son, mattered to Larry. In that sentence "Ted, qua Larry's son" identifies "Ted" as instantiating the logical device "Larry's son" (and so asks that we consider only his properties as such, including most relevantly that Larry cares about his welfare) and not the logical device "the individual called 'Ted Kramer'".
The role of identifying the relevant logical element that a subject occupies is very limited. It's way more refined than just "as a" or "being a." It is, as I said, more like "considered only as a ..." where the temptation might be to consider it as something else. Used in that way, and only that way, I think "qua" has a useful role to play, especially considering how economically it goes about its business.
Lovely example.
ReplyDeleteI revise your propossed daffynition. Sorry but I have to be pedant about that. Call it Speranza's Gricean deflationary view of daffynitions. To wit,
A qua B
iff
A "considered without regard
to any property not common
to all Bs"
--- I think on first reading of your daffynition (sorry) I was led astray by what Robinson says,
"don't define by the negative"
and you have TWO negatives there:
without
and
any
"considered withOUT regard
to ANY property NOT common
to all Bs".
Three: I had forgotten about "not" (Talk of meiosis vs. litotes, "an uncommon property" etc.)
"considered without regard to any property not common to all X's".
A problem for Aristotle, but possibly just to him, is haecceitas (or thisness).
So, I don't think he would allow that _your_ Ted, or "Ted", has an essence.
But that's Aristotle's problem. Let's play a bit on the Ted-qua, and Ted-qua, and see if this clarifies your logical/physical thing.
I think Ted-qua-Ted is right: you should NOT get too concerned about Ted-qua-Ted-self-i.e.Ted's-his-self-destructive things, but I share your concern.
Ted-qua-Larry's-son
Ted-qua-anything-else
The problem is rigidity. I think Ted-qua-your-son should NOT disassociate Ted-qua-your-son from, well anything-else.
Kripke, in Naming and Necessity said,
"You should say that the Queen
of England having blue eyes
is inessential to her"
"But it's not"
-- "The Seas of Language" he said, "See how deep the seas of language get, even at your local marina", or something.
-- I.e.
Ted-qua-your-son
is essential to him, and he is rigidly connected, or rigidly designated, indeed, "Ted" because he is your son.
(It's totally different with Larry-qua-my-father, because surely his existence cannot justify _your_ essence).
As for physical, dunno. Ted grows. So I'm not sure there is ONE physical device, as he apparently thinks there is, associated with him. I am told that the moment we are born to any other time, we possibly changed all our cells in our body. So where's Ted?
The logical device, when it comes to Ted-your-son remains to be 'demonstrated', or as Goedel would say, 'provable'.
Goedel uses 'logic' _Very Narrowly_: it's only decidable, provable (rather than probable) things which are _logical_. It's none of the rigmaroles of Tweedledee correcting Tweedledum (who had said, 'It isn't so, nohow') here:
`If it was so, it might be;
and if it were so, it would be;
but as it isn't, it ain't.
That's logic.'
---
Etc.
Since you did prove that I did use 'qua'
ReplyDeletex qua utterance
x qua content of utterance
I guess I will have to reconsider this. I THINK I talked about this to M. Chase in Classics-L, so will find out. I wouldn't guess who would have lent me ears there. Just joking. I do recall this online site on 'qua propositions', too, in Aristotle, too.
But we still to bring some Grice to some Mill, as they say.
As regards the definition, maybe "considered only as" would get the job done. That has a nice differentiating feel from "as a" or "being a."
ReplyDeleteBy all means some Grice to the Mill. Maybe we can invite some physisists, too, to explain the Alpher, Bethe and Gamow of it.
I located the Classics-L thing, where I point "to the metaphysical complexities of 'qua'" -- pataphysical, really. But THAT group, you mention 'metaphysical' and they, as they should, _tremble_. "Indeed," I go on -- "here we have a case (to use M. Chase's mixed metaphor) of Aristotle forging the Gk" -- of his papa and his mama. I lecture:
ReplyDelete"'qua' is, in Greek 'e' i.e. eta in dative."
"It has uses other than Aristotle's
(and earlier Herodotus -- if you ever care to read him)." "But with Aristotle it become a technicism -- as in 'Met.' as the science of "being qua being" -- one of the greatest irreverencies ever compiled by a single man (as Arist. was). "Now," I go on, "the Romans" -- I never use Latins since I was told that Jenny Lopes was one -- "translated that as 'qua' in ablative." Meaning, whatcha gonna do abaht'it? "There are, again, parallel uses other than in philosophical discourse," meaning -- but who SHOULD care? I'm a philosopher to the backbone, and honest, the use my greengrocer make use of 'qua' leaves me cold. "But 'ens qua ens' being the Scotus thing". I go on: "Now what 'qua' introduces is a 'partitive' proposition." He said smugly. "These are usually harmless, 'the dog qua animal'," Meaning: others bite. "'the king qua human being'" "'Jesus qua god'. "In general," I conclude, "for a genus/species pair, in a scale, it's easy to use species qua genus. It's Much More Otiose to use it as Arist. uses it". This provoked a post by a lister, "Can't you try and send a post to this discussion that mentions neither Grice or otiose?" And then, I add there's species qua species or genus qua genus -- homo qua homo, being qua being. "Personally," I add provocatively among the pedants who never use that otiose sentence adverbial, "I wouldn't distinguish between 'in re' and 'qua re'". As if the original poster, who can't speak Latin, would care. You should consider that the 'qua res' amount, to the same _dogma_." Or underdogma, I would now add. "Note that if you use 'as' ('as the thing'), that's possibly a COMPARATIVE which should be avoided unless you want to deal with the unwanted 'implicatures' of 'as if' (Weininger)". But Kramer seems to be immune to them: "Man as an animal". I think your "Man, being an animal" while longer is perhaps less comparative in nature. "the structure _as_ universal" But cfr.
"She paints as nicely as Peter."
"She paints as nicely as herself
Meaningful? I think so; but otiose and misleading in terms of implicature. For try to translate to Ovid's languaage, the line in East Clintwood's "Million Dollar Baby":
"This bleach doesn't smell so bad"
"It does. It's bleach. Bleach smells like bleach". I think 'qua' may be something the Latins had in mind -- but I'm not sure what's Roman for 'bleach'. Bleach qua bleach smells. Bleach as bleach smells. Bleach being bleach smells. The problem then is the partitive subproposition. For surely it's more of a clause than a proposition proper. It's sub-sentential, although the idea, in those who use 'partitive proposition', is that it can be expanded onto a proposition. "Ted, qua my son, is tall", i.e. as presupposing the whole
proposition, "Ted is my son". Etc.
Yes, physicists too. Grice his-self joked on the "Grice to the Mill". I actually think it's a pretty bad pun -- and since I'm unfamiliar with the literal proverb underlying it, it leaves me cold. But it did impress Chapman who is all over the place about it:
ReplyDelete(words)
"Grice could be so witty. He was always playing with names of philosophers: Kantotle, Ariskant"
Oddly, I played with Plathegel elsewhere which fell flat.
"And his most delighftul pun is with his own self: the Grice to the Mill. Can you think of a more charming pun?"
Well, grouse?
---
The whole idea of you knowing it's a pun but not knowing why makes me sad. It's like an unresolved diminished seventh; sheer agony.
ReplyDeleteThe pun's not on a proverb. We were playing with adjectives, so riddle me this: if you put an adjectival noun in front of "mill," do you describe what powers it, or what it grinds?
Thanks. I guess I did have an idea, but never cared much. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI see "grist" is OE and the idea is grain-for-grind.
So yes, I understood that it´s like the raw matter for one´s contraception, or something.
But to be honest, I think /grais/ and /grist/ is quite a stretch, phonetically, whereas /mil/ is indeed homophonic -- and indeed the same word.
I should have where Chapman quotes as Grice using this. I don´t THINK it is related to Mill on sous entendu -- and one wonders what idea in Mill Grice thought as providing illumination for, or something.
Etc.
But, yes, the idea of knowing the pun and not the thing, or the implicature and not "what is said" _is_ like a diminished seventh.
ReplyDeleteOr like Ebeneezer´s eighths, if you like (Noel Coward said he had only one lesson in music by one Ebeneezer Prout. "He told me not to use fifhts. I replied that Debussy used them like mad. And that what was good for Debussy was good enough for me").
Consider Tapper´s
"She´s got a bee in her bonnet"
and my reply
"That´s surely a red herring".
Pathetic, on my part, but what are you gonna do? When Helzerman taught me that expression it took me years (almost) to find out the literal meaning: these herrings were painted red, and stupid dogs would follow them. So it´s a false clue.
The bee in the bonnet seems more transparent, but still.
I suppose "Peter is between John and Smith" is just as metaphorical.
Oddly, I like to pun eventually, as when I say, "Robbing Peter to Pay Paul", etc. knowing that what I mean, literally, is an old legend about St. Paul´s cathedral being built as a competition to Westminster, aka St. Paul¨.
Oddly when I was in Brazil lecturing in English, an Englishman was listening to my talk -- Jasper Taylor, a student of Gerald Gazdar, in Brighton. He said, "I liked your talk, but you were so metaphorical it hurt".
He later elaborated that indeed people may use a pun or an expression which does not make literal sense, etc. I took the thing as such a bad criticism on my idiom that I started to love him.
Similarly another Englishman wrote to me telling me, "I like the way you keep using expressions from the First World War".
Anyway...
-- If I´d tell you that I learnt most of my English from Grice, you´d NOT be surprised. But he can be literal, too. As when he calls one of his metaphysical principles, Bootstrap. It took me some time to find the idiom behind it, the meaning behind the idiom behind it, to finally (if you allow me the split) retrieve what the heck he might have been meaning by it: some very abstract thing about object-language and meta-language, or how to pull yourself by your own bootstraps. Etc.