Pirotological Concerns

I would think Grice could be heard as saying,

"Some like Waissmann, but Carnap's my mind"

He was so enamoured with Carnap's piece of wisdom

Pirots, if left alone, will karulise elatically.

that gave him the whole idea for an observer-ideal theory: pirotologica.

Pirots are our ancestors. We concern about pirots, and they concern about theirselves.

In 'Method in philosophical psychology', Grice writes against the devil of scientism. Functionalism is allright, but ... is it enough?


"The psychological theory which I envisage would be deficient as a theory to explain behaviour, even, if it did not contain provision for interests in the ascription of psychological states OTHERWISE than as tools for explaining and predicting behaviour, interests (for example)on the part of one [pirot] creature to be able to ascribe these rather than those psychological states to another [pirot] creature

BECAUSE OF A CONCERN

for the other [pirot] creature" (repr. in _The Conception of Value_ Clarendon, p. 160).

But love qua concern, even, _is_ a trick, as the many definitions "love is..." (a la "is never having to say "I'm sorry"") testify. Note that 'love' is also related to 'want'. I love Mary. I want Mary. I desire Mary. Is _love_ what S. Alexander would call a 'conation'? I can also _love_ to drink champagne, or a painting by Mondrian. And 'love' can be followed by what Austin called a 'that'-clause ("I love that they won"). Surely I would not like to say that 'love' is _ambiguous_ (qua word = verb). So there must be a central kernel (truth-conditional, Davidsonians
would say). And I don't see how 'autonomy of the lovee' can get in the picture. (Or technically, in the _truth-conditions_ for a 'love' ascription). So: explain what philosophical circles you are giving ear to! I hope not one of those followers of Jowett's _Symposium_... Of course you can narrow the collocation of 'love' and say that what is suggested applies to this narrow collocation, but it beats one as a
violation of Ockham's razor (modified): "do not multiply senses beyond
necessity". I agree it can all get quite complicated, as it perhaps should.

Etc.