Grice the Cosmologist

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

BOB DOYLE defines himself as a cosmologist, which is what he is. This gave me the idea of defining Grice as a cosmologist. Cosmologist is a great word and it should be used more often. The Ancient Grecians indeed were all 'cosmologists'. There is a fine distinction to be made between

physicist

and

cosmologist

--- Grice avoids multiplying words, and prefers to multiply adjectively. So he would say he is a 'philosophical cosmologist'. He surely thought of himself as a 'philosophical psychologist', or as a philosopher contributing in 'philosophical psychology' (as opposed to 'scientific psychology', I expect).

For the old Greeks then, and this distinction is preserved in Kant -- and thus in Grice ("Kantotelianism") we get:

--- ontologia generalis


------------ ontologia specialis ---- cosmologia

------------------------------------- psychologia rationalis.

We know from Chapman that Grice did use 'rational psychology' in specifically this (and only one) sense.

When people speak of "Weltanschauung" they mean cosmological visions. The idea of 'cosmos' is biased, but in a good way. "Cosmetics" we know what stands for. Hence the cosmos is more than 'physis' or 'nature' itself. It represents some order (which may include chaotic bits about it -- how?) and so on.

Grice was perhaps the most systematic philosopher that ever existed. At least that's what Grandy and Warner say, and they have studied a lot (of Grice).

Etc.