--- by JLS
----- for the Grice Club.
Grice lists 8 strands
Strand 1. "the first of these strands belongs to the philosophy of perception". I am sticking, with Jones, to the 'headlines'. Grice speaks here of 'main' strand (as opposed to non-main) and he uses 'theses' to qualify them. There are, he finds, two theses in this main strand for example. -- actually three theses: a. causal analysis, b. experientialism, and c. physicalism defined in terms of phenomenalim --which was very "prominent" at one time, but is unrepresented in his publications.
Strand 2. analytic-synthetic distinction. Grice/Strawson, In defense of a dogma.
Strand 3. 'ordinary-language philosophy': the man in the street encounters Eddington's OTHER table and has to choose. The idiocies referred to by Malcolm and Moore on behalf of the philosopher.
Strand 4. "Meaning". What to make of it. Relativised meaning as basic.
Strand 5. "What U centrally means by x" --
Strand 6. The cooperative principle and rationality in discourse and elsewhere. This is "Grice for the masses" and Asa Kaher, a disciple of a disciple of Carnap, managed to reprint this whole strand in his book (expensive one) with Routledge: "Pragmatics: Critical Concepts: Implicature").
Strand 7. Grice's feet (one of each) in the camp of the modernist and the neo-traditionalist. THIS IS MY FAVOURITE strand, especially, since, hell, my PhD dissertation claimed it's "the essential Grice".
Strand 8. The post-modern move. How to get both feet OUT of the warring camps and get away with it.
Strand 9. To the above then we multiply by 2 and get. Value. This becomes his "Conception of Value" book.
Strand 10. Reason. This becomes his "Aspects of Reason" book. As a matter of fact, we foresee a "Philosophical Papers" volume which should contain strands not here touched:
Strand 11. Actions and events. This is his "Pacific Philosophical Quarterly" essay for 1986. Touches on Reichenbach, von Wright, Davidson. It does not fit with the 8 strands he lists in WoW.
Strand 12. Intention. This would include his very influential (as England goes), "Intention and Uncertainty" which was his 1971 Annual Philosohical lecture as a member of the British Academy. This important essay -- published in the Proceedings but also distributed as a separatum, by the Clarendon Press, is not really covered in the 8 strands. It concerns the analysis of 'intention' in terms of 'willing' AND 'believing' and is labelled by Grice as 'neo-Prichardian'.
Strand 13. Method in philosophical psychology. This fortunately got repr. as appendix I of Gr91. It is an extended treatment by Grice of "Ramsified naming" and "definition" as it applies to psychological predicates. It contains detailed thoughts and arguments against what he dubs, after a remark by Myro, the 'devil of scientism'.
Strand 14. Details of calculus. This would be his "Vacuous Names", for the Quine volume, and where Grice provides a detailed account of a formal system (which he calls "System Q" in honour of Quine). It deals wit very technical logical material, as it pertains the specific topic of 'ontological commitment' vis a vis cancellation by negation (hence the 'vacuous' in the title) for both names AND his favoured topic, 'definite descriptions'.
Strand 15. Longitudinal Essays. I.e. on the history of philosophy. Here Jones has espeicially expanded, elsewhere, on Grice on izzing and hazzing as per Grice's "Aristotle" paper (PPQ 1988, but written in the early 1970s).
Strand 16. Etc.
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It is a good idea to ask whether you have too many here, whether they are quite the right ones, whether they are all distinct.
ReplyDeleteOne way to approach this is through Grice's words which explain what they are supposed to be which I paraphrase as:
1. They exhibit some deeper unity in aspects of Grice's work
2. The are important.
3. They warrant further work.
Some of the doubts relate to the threads which Grice identified, do 4 and 5 deserve to be different threads in these terms.
How about 7 and 8, Grice's headline descriptions make these seem rather narrow, the discussion which follows is of a different character.
You haven't actually used Grice's description so you evidenly agree its not ideal, don't you think (important as it is to you) it should be just one thread?
How do they all fare against Grice's triple criteria?
RBJ
No. I think we should stick to threads being 16. So please do make the change in the pdf, CarnapGrice because we have 15, so far.
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, Strand 16 still reads, just "Etc." which will irritate, I think, Nick E. A., this blog --.
But surely I am ready to expand Strand 16 as "Odds and Ends".
"Odds and ends" is the way the executors of Grice entitled some file in "The Grice Collection" -- wich 'apparently didn't seem to fit any of his self-identified strands'. They call this a 'hodgepodge'.
But a thread with just one thread is just not a fabric of a philosopher of such rich strands as Grice was. So we do need the 16 strands. I will provide the correct headlines at the proper time. (After I breakfast, or something).
Jones's criterion, I'll revise Grice with this -- seems excellent. It's triple:
For any thread, it is a strand (from a French word of unknown origin that means, 'strand'): iff and only iff:
C 1. It exhibits some deeper unity in aspects of Grice's work.
as minuted in the Club
I'd add. For nobody seems to care about the works and the workshops anymore.
----
C2. It is important.
where the focus is on the 'tant', rather than the 'impor'.
Grice said that there were TWO hateful words in the English language: and 'portant' wasn't one of them. They were 'releVANT' and 'imporTANT'. For 'releVANT', he was echoing the OED2 quote, "What a horrible word, 'relevance' is".
C 3. It warrants further work.
This sounds like "all work and no play makes Paul a dull boy."
----
We already have 'work' in C1. Do we need to be reminded of it in C3?
So I propose:
1. The Club judges that Strand S is important. (This encapsulates your C1-C2-and-C3 above.
2. S is important. (Intensionally speaking).
3. And by that, we do mean, 'important'.
I.e. it merits, warrants, some further work. We hasten to add that this work is to be undertaken by Jack, who is, admittedly, a dull boy.
Well we could call it "play", but Oxonians seem only to do this in a mob with nothing to write on.
ReplyDeleteI never get paid anyway.
RBJ
Can't say I understand your 'a mob with nothing to write on'?
ReplyDeleteA mob in Oxford?
--- I see you are referring to Austin's "play group". For what Grice recalls, "I never used the expression in front of him. It would have offended him."
--- I discuss a lot about the Play Group in S. Clark's forum, which specialises in global warming. One poster wrote, "While the play group plays..." which elicited a few replies.
"I never get paid anyway"
ReplyDeleteThat is a good one. Detach the implicature! If they start paying you it wouldn't be a game anymore.
And surely we prefer a game than a work.
I compare this Grice with Grace, the famous cricketer. He (Grace) was an anatomist, but he played cricket amateurishly (sort of). He was a 'gentleman'.
The problem with Austin's "Play Group" is that it was a misnomer. A requirement was that each member had to be a full-time tutor with some college (university lectureship not a precondition). So, visitors, 'amateurs', were not allowed.
But we may need to elaborate on that. Or not.
Jones:
ReplyDelete"I never get paid anyway".
Never say never.
No blackboard.
ReplyDeleteRBJ
Ah, yes.
ReplyDeleteNo blackboard.
I thought 'mob' was hyperbolic. I would think the most they got at those meetings was:
1. J. L. Austin
2. H. P. Grice b. 1913
In strict order of seniority:
3. J. O. Urmson
4. S. N. Hampshire
5. R. M. Hare
6. P. H. Nowell-Smith
7. H. L. A. Hart
8. P. F. Strawson
9. G. J. Warnock
10. Patrick Gardiner
11. J. F. Thomson
12. D. F. Pears
13. G. A. Paul
and a few others.
I should see if I find the correct 'lack of blackboard' quote. This, strictly, came from a student who attended Grice's post-death-of-Austin meetings. With Austin dead, Grice took the lead.
At one point Grice overheard Austin say, "If they don't follow ME, who do THEY want to follow?"
He had that sort of self-appointed charisma.
When Grice led the Play Group, he obviously no longer called it "Play Group".
He started to accept Americans: Stephen Richard Schiffer (born in Atlantic City), some of which were mere students! Schiffer ended up betraying him!
Then there was an American born in Dallas, another Rhodes scholar (one would think Rhodesia is in the U. S. A. by the lack of native Rhodesians in the Oxford of its day):
John Rogers Searle. He ended up betraying Grice, too!
And there were others!
The problem here was Strawson. He kept having students and students and students and pupils and pupils and pupils. And he thought, "Hey, let them all have a free lesson from the Master."
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One good thing about not having a blackboard is that they didn't need chalk which is bad for the best of tweeds.