You Name It: Robinson and Grice on Ontological Commitment

Grice cares to quote from Robinson, "You name it", on the first page of his PPQ essay, vol. 67.

--- Who WAS the man?

From the Independent obituary, by N. Walter


"an ineffectual don,"

---- Silly. Joan Rivers has a lot of effects, but she Kant compare.

"His career certainly looked conventional"

---- Well, he wasn´t bitching in the Village, like Joan Rivers.

"He came from a middle- class family."

And so did Joan Rivers. So?


"He was ... married for more than 60 years."

Can´t say the same about Joan Rivers.

"Robinson was a successful ... administrator".

And so is Joan Rivers. Witness the bucks she makes at QVS.

He wrote:

The Province of Logic (1931)

-- well before Strawson!

And we all know about his

Definition (1950) -- which is a gem.

"An Atheist's Values, was published in 1964".

"After putting the old question of what is good, it considers various goods (life, beauty, truth, reason, love, conscientiousness), and ends with a discussion of political goods (state, equality, freedom, tolerance, peace and justice, democracy)."

"An Atheist's Values is one of the best short accounts of liberalism (a term Robinson accepted)"

--- what Grice called "pinko".

" a rational defence of rationalism."

Imagine the opposite!

"Born Watton, Norfolk 12 April 1902; married 1933 Elizabeth Pestereff; died Oxford 6 May 1996."

Robinson could NOT have accepted in Austin´s group because Saturday mornings were his "kindergartens", and Robinson was his senior by 8 LONG years.