[I don't intend to draw the Grice Club into my debate elsewhere in regard to Israel, but perhaps the matter of the "need for an enemy" might be of some interest to it.]
Billy Blogblather has left a new comment on your post "Second comment by Undercurrent on the Jews":
I have written in another venue, that for me you awaken memories of the late 50's and early 60's when the political right wing was all abuzz with the sky-is-falling Communist scare. Some people, I said (in different words) seem to need an enemy to focus on, else their lives have no center. And indeed I am probably just such a person. Why else am I here but to rant and rage? It makes me feel alive. That's sad, but that's true. Your position regarding radical Islamism is, I presume, shared by most of the world -- you're not very radical in this. What seems to me radical in your thinking is your apparent belief that all Islamism is or has become radicalized. You're arguments in defense of Israel, it seems to me, are not so much in defense of Israel as in opposition to anything Islamic. Islamism is your mew Communism. OK, then, that's your game and you seem to be enjoying it. Carry on, as Ritchie would say.
LAWRENCE RESPONDS TO BILLY BLOGBLATHER:
I have written in another venue, that for me you awaken memories of the late 50's and early 60's when the political right wing was all abuzz with the sky-is-falling Communist scare. Some people, I said (in different words) seem to need an enemy to focus on, else their lives have no center. And indeed I am probably just such a person. Why else am I here but to rant and rage? It makes me feel alive. That's sad, but that's true. Your position regarding radical Islamism is, I presume, shared by most of the world -- you're not very radical in this. What seems to me radical in your thinking is your apparent belief that all Islamism is or has become radicalized. You're arguments in defense of Israel, it seems to me, are not so much in defense of Israel as in opposition to anything Islamic. Islamism is your mew Communism. OK, then, that's your game and you seem to be enjoying it. Carry on, as Ritchie would say.
LAWRENCE RESPONDS TO BILLY BLOGBLATHER:
You bring back memories to me as well: the days when Leftists were denying that the Communists had spies in government, spies in the scientific community feeding military secrets to Moscow, and arguing that the Rosenbergs were innocent. Okay, you have dusted it off and applied it to the current Islamist threat.
In thinking about this implication of yours, you may be saying that there is no threat and that I (speaking for the non-Left-wing) have create the illusion that there is because I need a threat.
Or you could be saying that there is a threat but my need for it is uncivilized -- much as Undercurrent said about Israel preventing supplies they considered useful for military purposes from being sent to the Palestinians. Undercurrent thought the potential threat of Islamism less important than the "uncivilized" behavior of Israel. So you could be saying something like that about me.
But if there is an actual threat then my need for it wouldn't have brought it into existence. And if this is the case then some other expression might be more pertinent to my actual need. It might be more appropriate to say that inasmuch as there is an actual threat, I feel a need to defend my country. And in regard to Israel, believing as I do that there is an actual threat, I sympathize with the steps they have taken to defend their country.
Posts
Larry Helm is right about the need of a threat. In Grice's case, of course it was Strawson, not Straw Man. Horn has played with this pun, and I think I like it. The idea of a strawman is interesting for philosophical debate.
ReplyDeleteJones/Speranza have some pdf notes on this in their joint Carnap/Grice document. The idea, for Jones & Speranza, is that there are two types of argument: 'gladiatorial' -- what Grice calls 'epagoge' -- and 'conversational' -- what Grice calls 'diagoge'.
In general, up to say, 1986, all argument, for Grice, was 'epagoge'. An enemy meeting another enemy -- incredible how they do find ground for cooperation. In 1986, or circa 1984 when Grice was in his 70s and had seen the light, argument could be 'diagogic'.
Anyone who has taught philosophy knows how BORING it can be. Take 'empiricism' -- British empiricists. The only way to motivate the students into that is to tell the Cartesian story of the 'innate rational ideas', or some sort. I.e. you need to 'construct' an enemy that 'justifies' the existence of Locke! -- And then you tell the story of Kant and you NEED to mention that he thought Hume had awoken him from his dogmatic slumbers -- so that you have to start seeing dogmatism of the type made popular in Germany by Baumgarten and the empiricism of Hume as some sort of 'platform' AGAINST which Kant responds.
And then you get to the universal categorical imperative and you NEED to tell your student that it was ALL opposed by Hegel, and so on and so on.
Philosophy is a FIGHT!
---- But there ARE differences. In a way it is like scientific 'progress' via revolutions. And you do need an enemy. I may try to think who we can held to have been Grice's 'enemies' BEFORE Strawson (strawman) joined the scene, too!