Why Hacker is a better philosopher than Grice

-- he isn't!

(I'm studying the cancellability of 'why' implicatures in restricted contexts:

----- I want to study in Oxford.
----- JLS: You should study with Grice.
----- Prospective Student: But Grice is dead.

(end of conversation).

Prospective Student: I want to study Grice.
Speranza: You should study with Grice.
Prospective Student: But Grice is dead.
Speranza: Is he? So is Aristotle.

If you go to Oxford, don't miss Hacker. He lives, and has tea, in the same room where Grice taught FOR YEARS.

Grice was engaged by St John's back in the day. The tutor there was a Scots, by the name of Mabbott. "Good ole Mabb", Grice called him. Alas they are both dead, now, but just before he (Grice) died, Grice was pleased to learn that "good ole Mabb" had such an excellent concept(ion) of Grice, -- "an excellent philosopher", Mabb calls Grice in "Oxford Memories" a book which is NOT listed by Oprah Winfrey's Monthly Book Club.

----

When Grice left for the States. He just left Oxford, but as the Americans say, "for the States" sounds _nice_. St John's found itself without a tutor. Yes, there was Mabb, but who wanted Mabb?

So they engaged Gordon Baker. Gordon P. Baker, if you must. He is dead now, too. And he was or is American.

When Baker was a tutor, and Grice living in the USA, St. John's also engaged P. M. S. Hacker.

Now with Baker dead, Hacker succeeded Grice, as it were, as philosophy tutor at Oxford.


Prospective Student: I would like to study philosophy at Oxford.
Speranza: You should study at St. John's with Grice.
Prospective Student. But Grice is dead.
Speranza: So? So is Plato.

----

J writes:

"Hacker seems like an authentic philosopher. Or sounds like it, at least."

Yes. And have you seen his beautiful handwriting?

----

"I don't always agree, completely with his traditional readings of St. Witt but he's a weighty figure."

Yes, I dunno what's with these St. John's types, newish ones. It took DECADES to Grice to find himself independent from all bad Continental influences ("Wittgenstein can't speak English," he would implicate) to have the new generations of tutors all crazy about Witters.

A worse case is D. F. Pears. He was so English in outlook when he discussed things with Grice. Grice leaves for the USA, and Grice dies, and Pears concentrates his WHOLE LIFE in writing and writing and writing about Witters.

-----

J:

"[Hacker's] critique of Quine's naturalism a few years ago sort of...modified my thinking for a bit."

----- I don't like Quine. He would often criticised Grice for his lack of 'hygiene', if that's the word. I should revise Quine's autobiography ("My days in Oxford"). In a sort of praise by faint damn, he noted that ONLY ON ONE OCCASION he (Quine) found that Grice had dressed appropriately. It was fair day at St. John's.

-----

J:

"That said, I don't think the ordinary language types (whether Witt. or Strawson, Toulmin, etc) did what they wanted to, or something."

Yes. Toulmin possibly wasn't an ordinary language type. Ordinary yes, but language no.

The best of the lot, if you heard of him, was called Grice. There is a club to his honour -- somewhere.

---

J:

"Doesn't mean one defends the logic choppers exactly... but in certain contexts, it's difficult to get away from proof and evidentialism (or ...formality--e.g....programming)."

Yes. If you've been to Oxford you won't see much of those charming 'logic choppers'. They finally got rid of Formal Logic altogether. Wiliamson taught as Wykeham professor of Logic. If you read Williamson you'll see what he writes is 'hardly' logic the type Quine wanted logic to be!

There is a Chair called "Mathematical Logic" at Oxford. But this is dependent on St. Giles Institute of Mathematics, and usually taught by Poles or other continental types. The Oxonian crowd has realised that you don't need to speak (or write) English to teach logic. Or learn it, as the case may be.

J:

"Toulmin seemed like a reasonable compromise to me for some time until I discovered that pro. philosophers, links oder rechts considered Toulmin....a dilettante or something--mere rhetorician."

Yes. His book on Witters's Vienna I'm surprised does not contain sheet music for Strauss's Waltzes. I mean...

Imagine if I were to write a booklet:

Grice's Harborne.

(Grice was born in Harborne, in Staffordshire. Other philosophers born in Staffordshire include R. B. Jones).

---- I mean, it becomes pretty _unphilosophical_. It's different,

Grice's Dreaming Spires (meaning Oxford), because Oxford (unlike Harborne) is full of philosophers.

Oddly, Grice never owned a house in Oxford. St. John's provided him with an apartment on Woodstock Road, walking distance to the college.

So, you shouldn't be surprised by THE LOVE he grew for his beautiful 'colonial' house up in the hills of Berkeley, with a lovely view to the Bay -- always sprinkled with them lovely white sail boats --.

He would drive a Wolkswagen up and down the hills, and would often have a drink at the bar of the one-and-only 5-star hotel in Berkeley. When he was not dining in that odd little Italian restaurant in Oakland.

Ah, the good leisurable life of a philosopher!

J:

"I don't think he was exactly--mo' like a pragmatist of a sort, w-o the Rortyian hype."

Bayne, who runs a list on the history of analytic philosophy, likes Toulmin. I find Toulmin slightly boring. Indeed, his book on "Uses of Arguments" Toulmin was scandalised to learn was treated as a mere 'rhetorical' bookie in the New World.

"St. Witt. also supposedly well-read in Wm James." -- and TOULMIN.

I never liked that anecdote on Witters. Witters had been 'publishing' his views on reason and its place in ethics at his seminars at Cambridge. Toulmin attended. Eventually, Toulmin wrote his DPhil, "The place of reason in Ethics". Witters was OFFENDED. He thought Toulmin had stolen the ideas from him. As if philosophical ideas could be copyrighted like that...

In this respect, what they did WITH GRICE'S IDEAS we should explore in a different blog post, on a longer day. From Strawson's sending (unbeknownst to Grice) a copy of Grice's Meaning to "Philosophical Review" to Lakoff photocopying a thousand copies of the mimeo (not typed by Grice), on implicature.

In those days linguists were, 'like a vacuum cleaner', Partee recalls, drawing from Grice. Kaplan commented. "Odd that. Since it's usually _dust_ that a vacuum cleaner cares to collect."

Ah well.