---- Grice on "necessity"
------- by JLS
------- For the GC.
---- KRAMER WAS OBJECTING (smoothly) on the Gricean hammer and the Gricean nail. As he notes, there is
* the Gricean nail
---
but there is also
* the Gricean hammer
---
Or, "people, 'disapprovingly', say that to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail".
His point:
there is the Griceist phenomenon: conversation as a rational activity, etc. as per Grice's untiled William James Lectures (I follow J. Kennedy, elsewhere, this blog) that 'untitled' is the apex of a healthy narcissism -- "All titles narrow down the stuff, and I contain multitudes").
-- This is the Gricean nail. As when we say: "He e.g. Leech hit the (Griceist) nail".
If Leech hits the Griceist nail with the Griceist sledgehammer (e.g. "Leech explains the rationality of conversation along Griceist lines") then he is a full-blown or something Griceist.
---
This is different from 'reductionist'. As Kramer notes, he (Kramer) is a reductionist, and relies on 'evolutionary necessity' like a good Darwinist (or Darwinian). His point is that there is a PHAINOMENON ('evolution', as per Herbert Spencer, the philosopher, and his obsession with it). There is the Darwinist sledgehammer, too, 'evolutionary necessity'.
Two points then on the former and the latter:
---- evolutionary necessity. For a Griceist, few things are necessary. On analysis, it can be shown that what was held to be a posteriori analytic is, as R. B. Jones taught me, 'mere a priori definitional stuff'. Cfr. "The fate of evolution", "evolutionary necessity". There is the minor problem of qualifying necessity. Grice refers to 'ichthyological necessity': the necessity of fish, that is. Do we need a concept of 'ichthyological necessity' ("I guess you do if you are a fish", I hear someone comment). A necessity for the fish is different from a different about a fish -- cfr. "You're the cream in my coffee", also cited by Grice, the song that ends: "My only necessity is you".
--- reductionist: Kramer is wanting to say that all reduces to 'evolutionary necessity', and that is an excellent point. Grice had qualms regarding 'reductionism', though. (He was a reductivist alright, but not perhaps a reductionist). A reductivist explains things, and explaining is to 'reduce', i.e. via, e.g. reductive analysis. A reductionist Grice rather sees as an 'eliminationist'. Suppose we do explain the love of chimpanzees as a 'evolutionary necessity' ("If a chimp loves a chimp other than himself, that's an evolutionary necessity"). This 'reduces' the experience of love in the chimp to 'evolutionary necessity', but surely the chimp's experience of love is irreducible (or unreductible). So one has to be careful there. The reductionist may have a problem in having lost the baby with the tub water, as they say. (This is a hyperbole, unless it's a newt baby, or something). Etc.
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I use "evolutionary necessity" to refer to the notion that the biosphere looks as it does because all other paths would be dead ends. The idea is that natural selection on a planet with our geography favors the survival of precisely those creatures and traits that have in fact survived. The reason we are not blue is that melanin is not blue, and melanin is a more competitive skin pigment than any blue competitor. Deer could not be day-glo orange. So, what are the limits of what could be? People who believe that randomized mutation and natural selection control evolution - whatever we choose to call such people - argue over the tolerable deviations from what we are. Does our intelligence only help us if we walk upright and have opposable thumbs, eyes in front of our heads, etc.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, that's evolutionary necessity. I am agnostic on the validity of the claim, i.e., I do not "rely on" it. I mentioned it as analogous to the idea that Grice's thought can only be viewed through a phisosopher's prism, that when it comes to analyzing Grice, only a philosopher has the necessary traits to "survive." I can see how that's a bit of a stretch, but stretching is what we reductionists do.
I say that I am a "reductionist" because I see the world as variations on simple themes. A hammer is a wheel and axle, which is really an angular lever. I suspect that all of the simple machines are levers, but I haven't thought it through, and I wouldn't be sure I was right even if I concluded that they were.
Conservation of momentum and energy, the second law of thermodynamics, economies of scale, diminishing returns, and probability pretty much account for everything on the macro level. Quantum stuff, I'm uncertain about. And, of course, I'm oversimplifying, but not by as much as others might think, or at least, I call myself a reductionist because I believe that I am oversimplifying less than others might think.
Excellent point, thanks L. J. --.
ReplyDeleteI'll medidate about them. I think I like your idea of 'evolutionary necessity'. And thanks for elucidating for me the import of your simile which went over my head at the time (you were making it). I was thinking that you were analogising Grice and Darwin -- and that all variations on a Darwinian theme will appeal to a notion of 'evolutionary necessity', and that similarly, all variations on a Gricean theme need not be philosophical variations, etc.
-----
I don't think it's a stretch, etc. You are saying that perhaps it ain't necessarily so, where 'it' is: Grice speaks to more than philosophers. Indeed. And I would go as far as to argue that if Grice speaks to you (or one in general) then you (or one) is a philosopher. I think I am playing with the idea of 'philosopher' or 'a philosopher'.
Recall that my commentary on Cameron/Taylor was biased. I was wondering if a philosopher can receive illumination for someone who does NOT label as a philosopher may say about a philosopher. I suppose he can. In fact, McCreery.
McCreery studied philosophy but nowadays he considers himself a non-philosopher and he is always willing to let us know how superior than any good ole philosopher he feels (to be), etc.
I don't think philosophers evolve evolutionistically (it's all about the tenure rather).
Re: 'evolve evolutionarily': I am examining whether it is always otiose, as I think it's not, to have
Adv Adj
with the same root:
"That picture is beautifully beautiful".
"She is obesely obese.:
Etc.
Griceanly Gricean, etc.
It seems to me that 'beautifully beautiful' makes sense. Possibly otiose sense, but sense at least/last. The idea is that 'beautifully' qualifies 'beautiful', NOT 'picture'.
"Wickedly wicked". Etc.
People (who have what J. Kennedy calls the 'people's mindset') will simplify, and take 'wickedly wicked' as an otiose emphatic.
"Otiosely otiose".
"Cooperatively cooperative"
"rationally rational".
Etc.
Oddly, since 'good' can be an adverb ("How are you?", "I'm good"), 'good good' should be treated analogically. Etc.