Amor Theologicus, Odium Theologicum: Eschatological?

by JLS
for the GC

THIS IS A COMMENTARY TO JONES´s commentary on ´amor theologicus´, etc.:

"Thanks for drawing out the connections so well, with the other matters on which we are engaged. I had not appreciated how central abhorrence of adulation might be."

Thanks. In fact, it was all moved by YOUR comment on Grice´s ´diffidence´, to which we may want to come back! I actually was echoing Tim W, this blog, -- I think in "Meany" -- who refers to Grice as "a diffident chap". I overreacted to that, too! Just like YOU did when I mentioned the same as applied to a Brit character. When I had read Tim W´s post, I had to do a semantic study on ´diffidence´, and I´m never sure I know what it means! But surely Grice was NO diffident. Tim W just meant that he was guarded in his writings, or something. Or that he would NOT publish unless forced, etc. But all that can be explained by other traits of Grice´s genial character than his diffidence.

-----

Incidentally, revising the quote on "amor theologicus", I see that Grice goes one step further than you do in your guardedness. For Grice is willing to extend adulation and abhorrence (I loved your labels) to CREEDS and not just people. But these days, "Griceianism": is it a creed or a person? I have discussed these thing extensively elsewhere, vis a vis my abhorrence for terms like Neo-Gricean, neo-neo-Gricean, post-Gricean. And have coined palaeo-Griceian as a vengeance. Not that I am one. I want to define myself as a Griceian. But I am VERY liberal in the use of "Griceian". If you say YOU are a Griceian, you are one. It is an identity label, for which you have privileged access and incorrigibility! So there!

But the point about the abhorrence and adulation of Minimalism and its twelve offspring (the betes noires) is worth examining.

In the City of Eternal Truth, indeed, there should be no room for this passionate thing. We are into what Grice calls a "DISpassionate" contemplation -- I´m not sure about his ´commendation´, which sounds to me like to cover, via implicature, some adulation about it -- of the Truth, which is Eternal, rather than merely Philosophical.

Jones:

"I am diverted at present by the implications (thought perhaps remote) of this kind of thinking. for you have now connected love and admiration with minimalisation, via my preference to talk of Grice as disliking certain dogmas (just the dogmatic minimalisations) and then (not yet discussed) going on to think that more subtlety is required (for classification as "dogma" is unsubtle)"

It may be unsubtle but it is FUN and very much covers the spirit. Recall that Grice/Strawson, while, granted, echoing Quine´s bad choice of a term, did came to "the defense" of a dogma. If a dogma is a good thing, it is it NEEDS no defense! So Grice and Strawson are STRETCHING uses there. They mean, "In defense of a "dogma"", with scare quotes. Meaning: What Quine has isolated is NOT a dogma, i.e. it is not an article of faith. It is a methodological fundamental thing about analytic philosophy as an activity. By analysing that there is no such thing as ´analyitic´, Quine didn´t know (exactly) what he was doing!