--- by J. L. Speranza
------ for the Grice Club
SOMEONE in the Russell Society should get hold of this mimeo by Grice and publish and edit it in the proceedings of the Russell Society. It's all about Mind, 1901, Mind, 1948 (Strawson) and Russell, "Mr. Strawson on referring". And it's a tribute to Russell against the limpid vernacular of Strawson (to echo Quine's phrase that amuses D. Frederick).
We are discussing Russell with J in "Owen Barfield" so I thought I would let less focus to Barfield! --
What a great man Russell was. There are so many connections, Grice-Russell, that they may hurt! Or not.
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I don't think I have read this paper, and its on JSTOR so I only get to see the first page.
ReplyDeleteBut what delight it is, that first page, or even that first paragraph!
For Russell starts out by telling us that he is about to engage in a polemic (and tells us why). Then he says:
"I may say, to begin with, that I am totally unable to see any validity in any of Mr. Strawson's arguments."
Which certainly put you in the picture.
And how modest! He refrains from stating that Strawson's arguments are invalid (which he undoubtedly believes) but performs out of modesty a small "epistemic retreat", and reports only something which he knows with an even greater degree of certaintly, viz. that he cannot himself see their validity.
I feel exactly the same way about Quine's "Two Dogmas" (except that I am not so modest as Russell) and when I eventually get round to writing a proper response (which I do still intend to do), I may steal this sentence from Russell (and possibly the next one, in which he labours on the epistemic retreat by mentioning that the fault might be his).
This is of course all about style rather than substance, but we need not fear lack of substance in Russell.
RBJ
Yes -- it IS a fascinating little paper!
ReplyDeleteTo think that Philosophy exists for and in the annals of Mind!
I found the "Mr." patronising, though. In the literature, one avoids titles like that. I suspect Russell, NOT being Mr. Russell (but I'm not sure about this -- and we have to consider his title at the time of writing "Mr. Strawson on referring" -- WOULD make a difference.
Note that Strawson became Professor in, when was it, 1968, but of course, that's neither here nor there. He later became Sir Peter, of course (but that's NOT, unlike the Roussel thing, hereditary).
The paper is repr. in Mace's collection -- and it exactly resonates along the same points that Quine remarks about Strawson when reviewing "Introduction to Logical Theory": "a philosopher has brought his limpid vernacular to the study of logic" (opening passage, that amuses Frederick -- or words).
Jones is right it's all about the style, but surely Russell's is a guarded thing, hence "I'm afraid I am totally unable to see any validity...", etc. Apparently by the time of publication, Russell had ceased to be the grand lord of philosophy (antonym of 'grand dame'): Joad apparently was!
So, I would think he was aware that there was something (not necessarily rotten to me, but rotten to Lord Russell) going on in Oxford.
Note that Mind was edited (still then?) by Moore so Russell must have had no problem in publishing the thing in "Mind" -- it's all CONTRA Oxoniensis.
---- Basically, the rest of the essay goes on to express what we knew already: that Russell never cared for fidelity or faithfulness to the iota operator to represent 'the'. And goes on to comment on 'the silly things silly people say' (I think) -- or as I prefer, unimaginative things unimaginative people say on Saturday mornings' --.
But Strawson's thing involved TWO points:
-- the connection of the iota operator with 'the', which is taken up by Grice.
-- the truth-value theory and the 'presupposition' theory, which Grice understands as involving the overlap of the 'iota' operator with the "~" of negation. "The A is B" ENTAILS there is an A; "The A is not B" merely IMPLICATES it in a default, nonomonotonic way.