----- J. L. Speranza
------------ for the Grice Club
SORRY for boringness of title, but elsewhere someone was talking about farmers, and I got to think, etc. So I'm sharing with this forum, this little piece.
In "Retrospective Epilogue", Grice has one page for a theory of representation. I was so fascinated by it, that when my PhD thesis advisor had joined me in his group, an official research group -- I had to join, sort of -- I had then to propose things to research, etc. So we discussed 'representation'. When I say official, I don't really know what I mean, so don't take it seriously. The seminar was all about 'representation'. "Representation" here, representation there. "Mental representation" yonder. I got pretty fed up with the 'word'. My advisor would often speak of Analytic Philosophy of Ordinary Language -- but the seminar was pretty overpopulated, and while he was a Grice-ian at heart, and also I, we couldn't just dwell on "I represent that p iff". We had to move on. Especially, poor man, he had to justify his research by noting its relevance to science, you know how things are or stand.
Anway, to make a short story long, Grice says:
"England cannot represent England; that's why cricket exists." (or words). "A cricket game does for England what England cannot do for herself: notably, engage in a game of cricket".
Anyway, that sort of ideas is for what post is for, and also because I'm going to add "representation" in the rubric at the bottom of it. And here the farmer thing which notes the realisability of Grice's idea. For while it may be possible that a thng may self-represent, it's not like the farmers in "Wonderland":
In Lewis Carroll's more ambitiously 'Gricean' novel -- Borges's favourite too, but dull by most angles you look at --"Sylvie and Bruno", he has this German, stuffy, philosopher talking to Bruno (never Sylvie) of things:
"I thought it best to change the subject.
“What a useful thing a pocket-map is!”
-- I remarked.
“That’s another thing we’ve learned from your Nation,” said Mein Herr, “Map Making."
"But we’ve carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest map that would be reallyuseful?”
“Aboutsix inches to the mile?”
“Only six INCHES!?!” exclaimed Mein Herr.
“We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to themile."
"And then came the Grand-est Idea of All!"
"We actually made a map of the Country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!”
“Have you used it much?” I enquired.
“It has never been spread out, yet”; said Mein Herr: “The farmers, typically, objected. They said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight!"
"So, we now use the Country itself as its own map."
There was a paused silence.
"and," he added smilingly, "I assure you: it does nearly as well."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
My thing for that official project -- I must have the number of the project: it's impressive, and I'm listed in the team! was called (I keep the mimeo somewhere): "Conversation without representation" (trust me to be heterodoxical), and it's basically a reprimand to Cummins's idea of the homunculus in "Meaning and Mental representation". Much more recently, I happened to be _near_ Yale when they were celebrating Cervantes's 400th celebration of _Quixote_, and I was asked to speak. I did, and the thing got published in _Southern Connecticut State University Press_, ed. C. A., "Don Quixote". I entitled my lengthy (and pretty philosophical thing, by the look of it) thing, "Mise en abyme" sic spelt -- the thing has ISBN! --, and I managed of course to dedicate it to "my two mentors": "Borges and Grice" who were both visiting lectures at Harvard back in the day (1967). In that paper, where I use Andre Gide's idea of the heardic device of the mise-en-abyme, I explore issues of 'speculation' alla Daellenbach, which relate to the curious Carrollian experiment. Indeed, the locus classicus in Borgesian literature for this is "The Partial Magics in the Quixote" where he traces the idea of the 1:1 map to its philosophical source. Etc.
ReplyDelete