Grice and Heidegger

by J. L. Speranza
-- for the Grice Club.

HELM has been mentioning Heidegger, notably in his recent post on 'smoking gun'. I mentioned in my comment the Ryle-Heidegger link. Further to it at:

http://manwithoutqualities.com/2007/05/06/ryle-and-oakeshott-on-the-knowing-howknowing-that-distinction/

"Philosophically, [Ryle and Oakshott] were positively anti-systematic and deflationist in that they sought to dissolve what they saw as metaphysical portentousness. Both had an appreciation of Heidegger; unlikely as it sounds, Ryle’s critical notice warmly welcomed Sein und Zeit in Mind XXXVIII (1929), pp. 355-370."

---- Grice's attitude towards metaphysics was perhaps slightly more complex. In this vein, I found his "Metaphysics" conference (repr. in Pears, The Nature of Metaphysics, 1957) fascinating. Since it's all about systematic (yet perhaps deflationist) metaphysic Pretentiousness if not portentousness!

---- Grice would of course be more familiar with Heidegger's main critic in Germany: Carnap. Carnap had used Heidegger as an example of "The" Metaphysician as "The Obscure". Carnap is funny about this. He notes that while he will focus on Carnap, 'any other grand old metaphysician would do' (or words to that effect) -- notably Aristotle! In the end, Carnap's systematic vein is clear. He proposes a 'linguistic analysis' of Heidegger's bland utterances (like "Noth itself noths" -- Das Nicht selbst nichtet) and the rest is history.

The connection via Oxford is an interesting one. While Ryle had welcomed Heidegger in Mind of 1929, he had the 'idea' (one of THOSE ideas) of sending his tutee, Freddie Ayer, to Vienna -- 'to see what was going on', or something. Ayer returned with a fresh copy of Carnap's criticism of Heidegger, which Ayer published in Mind in the 1930s. And Oxford philosophy would never be the same!

As an undergraduate, while Grice was mainly interested in playing football for Corpus Christi, he would have heard of all this, and it would take some 20 years to finally have his word aired on the matter!

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