Griceanism and Hebraism

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

THIS IS A COMMENTARY ON L. K. Helm's "More on the Ninth Commandment", THIS BLOG. It focuses on Helm's brilliant providing of the many commentaries on Exodus's [You shall not testify against your neighbour a false witness] --, especially Child who provides the original Hebrew -- and compares it with some 'theological' strands in the thought of Grice.

Thank you, Lawrence. An excellent post, surely!

The detail of the quotations, complete with page numbers and all, is overwhelming. Since you mention my reference to the Hebrew at the beginning, I should emphasise my endearment to B. ("Brevard", what a great name) Child's commentary, that deals with it directly. As you quote him, he writes in A Critical, Theological Commentary on The Book of Exodus (p. 387, and pp.424ff) of "You shall not testify against your neighbor as a false witness", "[t]he ninth commandment contains several technical legal terms which point quite clearly to its original significance."

It's fascinating to read those commentaries and see the balance the critics are looking between a legalistic or a more general moralistic (or as you lovingly write, 'loving') approach. These issues fascinated Grice: he would often say that the 'legal' can be epistemological prior to the 'moral', and even he would distinguish into ways in which the 'moral' may or may not be said to be 'prior' (various 'uses' of "conceptual prior" he distinguishes -- in Reply to Richards) to the legal.

Child goes on:

"Their term ed saqer [lying witness], which in the [Deut.] formulation appears as ed saw, arises out of the concrete legal procedure [...], a procedure which was common [...]. A man testifies against another in a court of elders . . . He can be a true witness (Prov. 14.25) or a lying witness (Deut. 19.18; Prove. 6.19)."

Excellent! No truth-value gaps allowed! "And thy answer shall be yeah or nay!" -- This may relate to the so-called 'sin of omission' dear of meta-ethicist! No such thing as the morally vacuous.

Child goes on: "[The] verb 'nh [answer] likewise reflects a legal background and points to the reciprocal response of the parties in a trial."

This is genial. In his Oxford Logic and Conversation Lectures, which predated the William James, Grice would often mention the minimal context: comment/answer. Just the two things are all we need for a study of implicature. So here the 'conversational' emphasis is clear. In English, even, to 'answer', reflects a former 'and-swear', where 'and-' is the prefix meaning 'against'. Cfr. the clearer, perhaps, German, 'ant-worten' (the 'and-word', or contra-diction).

Child:

"Again rea [neighbor] refers to the full citizen within the covenant community."

I love Helm's empahsis on the original meaning of things, if any! (vis a vis Darby). I AM an etymologist at heart, and am always fascinated by the very etymology of such a thing as a 'neigh-bour'. He who lives by, as it were. "Vicino" in the Romance languages does the same thing, with emphasis on the 'near'. Apparently, the 'rea' then is more connected with the Greek notion of 'polites' or Roman 'citizen', dweller of THIS polis or city. What a great field of concepts that has given things like the controversial 'cosmpo-polites'.

Child: "The commandment is directed primarily toward guarding the basic right of the covenant member against the threat of false accusation. The original commandment is, therefore, not a general prohibition of lying, but forbids lying which directly affects one's fellow."

I enjoyed the other comments that look for a 'flowing' as it were, of the thing out of God himself. Grice liked to play God! He called his programme 'genitorial', in that the philosopher (qua philosopher) sees himself as a 'pro-genitor' of creatures which he designs for purposes of philosophical elucidation. He would often contrast the Genitor with the Engineer who would rather go and BUILD the creatures -- and suggested God keep a close eye on feasible designs!

Anyway, an excellent comment, Helm, many thanks. And which serves very well to trace the oldest roots of something that is quite central to Grice's doctrine as such, and for which you need the insight and intelligence that you have to perceive in all its light!

And, if Arnold played with Grecianism and Hellenism with such depths, here's for the Griceanism versus Hebraism, too!