By Roger Bishop Jones for The Grice Club
Not at all.
On re-reading (possibly even first reading) the last section of the "Retrospective Epilogue" and thus acquainting (or re-acquainting) myself with the content of Grice's comparison between his and "the other" Oxford, I note that this is a rather specific comparison between two kinds of philosophical method. It is interesting and informative, and contains no hint of hubris.
Roger
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Thank you. Yes, it is an excellent section, the last one. And I´m glad you enjoyed it. There is much to say about Grice´s mention of
ReplyDeleteSocrates -- who rambled in the agora.
Plato -- who settled in the Academy (originally an olive grove by a beautiful rivulet "without the city walls" of Athens, strictly)
Aristotle, who charged students at the Lyceum.
I enjoyed Grice´s apt commentary that the Oxonian dialectic would never "BUY" the ´truth´ of any specimen of "ta legomena" (what is said, but also, "received opinion", as Grice notes) of "hoi polloi" (the many, the ordinary-languagers) on the part of "the wise" (the ordinary-language PHILOSOPHER).
I enjoyed his reference to URMSON as perhaps having held, at times, that from the application of a the paradigm-case argument would one be justified to infer the "TRUTH" of what the argument shows.
I especially enjoyed Grice´s precise references to the three bits in the corpus of Aristotle. The critical stamina of Oxonian dialectic vis a vis ordinary language, in connection with these specific comments by Grice, should be reviewed time and again by so-called "critics" of ´ordinary language philosophy´ who would overlook what "ardent students" of classical Greek philosophy the members of the Play Group were.
That he adds Socrates is very good, vis a vis that excellent "Eschatology" paper in WoW where Grice assumes a neo-Socrates role to rebuff what he sees as the prevalent Neo-Thrasymachus of our times!