Grice on the King of Prussia

--- by JLS
------ for the GC

In "Hegel's regent and Dale's Law of Philosopher-Regent Pairs", R. E. Dale mentions my "bring[ing] up the crucial case of Hegel who was associated with the regent Frederick William III." He comments:

"This case is especially important here because Grice seemed to have a tic when it came to Hegel even though Grice was, unbeknownst to himself, deeply influenced by Hegel in crucial ways which I hope soon be writing on."

Can't wait. In stuff, I have talked (and even written) on Plategel -- so far not to much avail, although Hegel features large in the last chapter of my essentially Kantotelian PhD dissertation on Grice. We learn from The Grice Papers that Grice played with TWO combos for his favourite philosopher ever (he was into the Longitudinal Unity of Philosophy, and nobody (that I know) beat him in the Latitudinal Unity): "Kantotle" (which Bennett uses in "In the tradition of Kantotle" -- his review of PGRICE for the Times Literary Supplement -- cfr. Atlas on "Kantotelianism" in Petrus) _and_ "Ariskant". This makes more of a chronological sense, hence my Plathegel as being some anti-Grice counterpart's favourite philosopher.

Dale continues, to focus on an apparent anomaly to his law which is soon enough removed:

"The basic law works with Hegel as well since Frederick III, being the regent associated with Hegel, died in 1840 while Hegel died in 1831. Of course, part of Dale's Law of Philosopher-Regent Pairs has it that "the further from 180 C.E. in either direction, the larger the gap between the death of the members." And, since a 39 year gap between Descartes' death in 1650 and Christina's death in 1689, one would expect by the law, that 1831, being further removed from 180 CE than 1650, the gap between Hegel's death and Frederick III's death should be larger than 39 years. Obviously the anomaly is due to (1) the fact that Frederick III's reign was interrupted in 1806--as Hegel was completing the "Phenomenology of Spirit"--by the Napoleonic wars, and (2) meteorological conditions. Frederick III's reign continued again in 1813 after Napoleon's fiasco in Russia in 1812."

The removal of the apparent counterexample, in Griceian fashion, proceeds by a mere reformulation of the necessity and sufficiency ("neither too strong -- nor to weak", as Grice liked his tea) of the Formula:

"So, I hereby revise the Law as follows: "Dale's Law of Philosopher-Regent Pairs". It goes like this: For any pair of a philosopher and a regent he/she is closely associated with, the order in which the members of the pair die is strictly determined: before 180 C.E., the regent died first, then the philosopher; after 180 C.E., the philosopher died first, then the regent; and, ceteris paribus, the further from 180 C.E. in either direction, the larger the gap between the death of the members."

---- For which he fails to quote, but I will, Schiffer's seminal stuff on this, "Ceteris Paribus".

In strict Spelling, for Cicero (a philosopher who surely observes Dale's Law -- he postdated his regent, Julius Caesar), that should be:

cæteris paribus

--- actually, Cicero disliked the use of small and would have had the 'u' properly replaced by a more 'severe' pair of strokes:

CÆTERIS PARIBVS

--- but I disgress.

Dale continues:

"Thus: In 323 B.C.E., Alexander died. Then, in 322 B.C.E., Aristotle died. In 44 B.C.E., Julius Caesar died. Then, in 43 B.C.E., Cicero. In 180 C.E., Aurelius died: both a regent and a philosopher. (This is the crossover point.) In 525 C.E., Boethius died. Then, in 526 C.E., Theodoric the Great died. In 804 C.E., Alcuin died. In 814 C.E., Charlemagne died. In 1650, Descartes died. In 1689, Queen Christina died. In 1831, Hegel died. In 1840, Frederick William III died (ceteris not being paribus in this case: Frederick's reign was interrupted in October 1806 by the French under Napoleon at the very battle of Jena that Hegel was so impressed with as he was finishing writing the Phenomenology of Spirit; Frederick's reign continued in 1813 after Napoleon was defeated in Russia; this is what caused the anomaly in the law, along with singular meteorological conditions in 1811). I hope that clarifies everything."

Yes, thank you.

For the Griceian club member, it should be pointed out that while perhaps Schiffer did not quote from Grice's "Method in philosophical psychology" in his "Ceteris paribus" thing, perhaps that's the locus classicus for Grice on that. And so on.