The Boy's Habeas Corpus

T. Hughes used to say:

"Cricket should be to an English boy what habeas corpus is to an Englishman".

ObGrice: His obituary in The Times: "Professional philosopher and amateur cricketer".

The problem is -- what IS habeas corpus?

From

http://lsv.uky.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0811B&L=CLASSICS-L&P=R231&I=-3

There's a lot about habeas corpus in the OED -- 'habeas corpus', that which 'produces' the 'body' of the following inscription as 'first':

1231 Bracton's Note Bk. (Maitland 1887) 527

Preceptum est uicecomiti quod habeat corpus eius, etc.


Is 'habeas corpus' an operative or performative verb?

For the record, J. L. Austin rediscovered these 'Scots' operations for the whole humanity when he started talking of 'performatives' (of course, murdered to death, those expressions by Sedgwick and her ilk! :)).

In any case, as J. Ross would say (a favourite linguist amongst
philosophers), we would have more like a 'performative' hypothesis here:


[we -- order -- thee to PRODUCE [John Brown's] body]
In the 1231 quote it is the 'impersonal' (I hate that!), 'preceptum est...'
which would be the festival of joy for the Kelsenite (if it _is_ a precept,
then it gains moral authority!).

I tend to agree with M. Davidson.

But what does _this_ some[body], i.e. I, _know_ --, that 'corpus' sounds too Orphic to be true.

I rather produce the _soul_!

In any case, it is worth reminding that the paraphrase, 'produce' is
a good alert that 'habere' and 'have' are truly FALSE friends!