The Middle Grice and the paradigm-case argument (for free will and stuff)

Wittgensteinian scholars speak of an early Witters, a middle Witters, and a late Witters. Ditto for Grice.

Earliest Grice: from birth to pre-teen years.
"Teen" Grice
"Oxford" Grice -- the earliest
------------------- the middle (after the "Phoney" war)
------------------------ the later (after the death of Austin).

Post-dated Grice -- Grice in America.

---

"Posthumous" Grice -- anything that Grice said in the papers which he never published (his 'unpublications' as he called them) but which we can cite today.

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--- I think B. Doyle does consider this, but there's

Danto, "The paradigm-case argument and the free will problem", in
"Ethics", vol. 69--.

While thought of as deceased, this sort of argument was one that Grice (and
Griceians) held for a time. And, in any case, it is nice to revive it in
any attempt to understand the issue that Searle cleverly found a 'scandal'
(loved the title of Doyle's book) from a 20th. century (Oxonian)
philosophical perspective.

Thus, from an online source:

http://gfp.typepad.com/the_garden_of_forking_pat/2004/06/resurrecting_th.htm
l

"I'm working on a paper to resurrect something like
the paradigm case argument (PCA)"

---- perhaps, as L. Horn said of 'conventional implicature', the obituaries
were somewhat premature?

"and I'd love to get feedback (note: I am still reading Flew's argument and
trying to understand what the PCA actually is)."

----

Indeed, and of course, Flew was Grice's FIRST tutee in post-war St. John's,
Oxford! So we know where he got his brilliant idea from! (Oddly, Flew
would socialise with fellow pub regulars of the spiritualist type at "Bird and
Baby" more often that he would socialise with his tutor!).

The blog above contains this answer by a poster: "I think reviving the
paradigm case argument would require some work in the philosophy of
language--especially the question of meaning. Flew and Stace were both in the grips
of the later Wittgenstein's views on meaning as use--a view that has been in
disfavor post Kripke/Putnam."

Indeed. But I'm not sure if bringing the Griceian complexities on "...
meaning ..." here would not turn to become a vicious circle (of sorts!).

"In any event, I think Eddy is also correct", this blogger at the link
above goes on, "to suggest that if the paradigm case argument can be recast in
the negative--so to speak--then the only viable way of responding will be
to use something like Pereboom's generalization strategy."

Or something, as I prefer to say. From another online source:

_http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwVariousDouble.html_
(http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwVariousDouble.html)

In the case, the summary is one of the shortest one can ever find:

"The Paradigm Case Argument maintains that
we learn the meaning of by "free action" by reference to
unimpeded actions; thus, the free will problem can be put to rest."

---- Oddly, there is this controversy as to whether it ever was a 'problem'
for Aristotle -- vide below on "Oxonian" versus "Athenian" dialectic --.

Again, now, from the Blackwell online reference, 'free will' IS the thing
to quote when discussing "PCA" as a methodology (as in Uschanov's online
essay on "The strange death of ordinary language philosophy"):

_http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781405106795_chunk_g9
78140510679517_ss1-10_
(http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781405106795_chunk_g978140510679517_ss1-10)

"the fact that words such as “choose” and “decide” are in
common use *shows the existence of free will*."

Similarly, the phrase,

"Look it up in *the* dictionary" shows the supremacy of Oxford. For what
other dictionary would you look it up in?

----

Grice only ONCE went the 'whole hog' of Austin's advice ('go through the
dictionary' -- "How clever language is!")-- he was studying phrases involving
'feeling' -- and got VERY fed up when he found out, by reaching the "BY-"
in the Oxford dictionary, that even 'feeling Byzantine' made sort of sense.

----

The Blackwell reference goes on:

"This argument, influenced by Wittgenstein 's account of language games ,
had wide appeal in the 1950s and 1960s."

Only that, as Austin would say, "Some may like Witters, but Moore's OUR
MAN".

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While Grice discusses (substantially) 'freedom' in the closing section of
his important "Actions and Events" (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 1986 --
he suggests that the focal meaning seems to be "the thing moves freely"
from which, by analogy, we get to higher stages of what he calls 'strong'
freedom -- but never committing what he calls the worst sin a philosopher can
ever commit: to 'multiply' senses of "free" (or any other word) beyond
_necessity_ --) (and three's a nondated seminar on "Freedom" -- notes available
from the Grice Papers, at the Bancroft Library), he explicitly reminisces,
somewhat affectionately, on the paradigm-case argument of the type
everybody seemed to be practising in the Oxford of his day -- not just Flew, but
G. A. Paul ("Is there a problem about sense data") and Urmson (refs. in
Grice, "Way of Words" -- Retrospective Epilogue).

In any case, just a basic answer to Jeff's question. For the paradigm-case
arguer indeed 'free will' CAN be shown to exist! Grice, while a Kantotelian
rather than strict Aristotelian (vide J. Baker, "Counting categorical
imperatives" in Kant Studien, 1988) would often refer to how Oxonian dialectic
managed to brilliantly supersed Athenian dialectic. Thus, while Aristotle
is never clear if by 'ta legomena' (e.g. when he says, and Epicurus loved
this, that some actions are 'up to us -- "par'hemas" and also "eph'hemin") he
means sayings or opinons, the Oxonian dialectician is ever clear: it was a
(serious) matter of speaking! (and not just 'silly things silly people
say' as Lord Russell, at his silliest, would say). In conferences Grice would
often recourse to manoeuvres like: "So it would seem as we NEED a [concept
of free will], which is of course some evidence that we already possess it"
(This would provoke healthy laughter in those attending, e.g. that
conference on 'intending' as 'being sure' about one's future actions, e.g. -- his
reply to Davidson on "Intending").

I have been reading Doyle's documents: both his pdf and the information
site. Very informative. Was especially fascinated by his treatment of Epicurus
and where he stands vis a vis Aristotle on things which are done "kata
sumbebekos" -- i.e. just accidentally. And so on.

I also enjoyed to browse the ref. sections in Doyle's pdf. They all seem to
be there: Pears (who collaborated with Grice -- he also has "Problems in
the philosophy of mind" and "Motivated irrationality", which deals with
'compulsions' of the Freudian type that seem to 'refute' 'free-will'), but also
Hamsphire, S. I. Berlin (fail to remember what "S" stands for) -- and his
two 'senses' of 'free' --, Strawson, of course, and a few Oxonian others:
like Nowell-Smith (who left Oxford as 'overwhelmed by Grice' the obituary
read), Hare (who cites Grice in "Freedom and reason") and Lucas.