Owen and Grice on Aristotle

Speranza

There is an online document by Prof. Cohen, at

http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/433/GriceCode.pdf

which I have excerpted. The issue is to add Owen to the bargain, as we think that Grice (who was lecturing with Strawson on Aristotelian categories) possibly found the connection with what Owen was calling the 'snares of ontology', or something.

"Grice and Code on IZZing and HAZZing" is the title of Cohen's essay.

"The distinction Paul Grice and Alan Code have come up with a useful terminology with which to express a key distinction that Aristotle introduces in the Categories and continues to use in later works."

"The distinction is between essential and accidental predication."

"According to Aristotle, "animal" is predicated essentially of "human", and both "animal" and "human" are predicated essentially of the individual human, Callias."

"Similarly, virtue is
predicated essentially of bravery, and both virtue and bravery are predicated essentially of
various individual virtues, such as one that inheres in Callias."

"On the other hand, we can predicate bravery not just of an instance of virtue that inheres in
Callias, but of Callias himself."

"(We can say not only that one of Callias’s virtues is bravery,
but that Callias—since he is brave—is an instance of bravery.) But predicating bravery of
Callias is what Aristotle would call accidental predication. So Callias is essentially a human
being and an animal, but accidentally brave."

"The Categories terminology"

"In the Categories, Aristotle uses the technical terms SAID OF and IN to express this
distinction. He would say: animal is SAID OF human, and both animal and human are SAID OF
Callias."

"In other words, the SAID OF relation holds between a universal and something that
falls beneath it in the same category. Similarly, virtue is SAID OF bravery, and both virtue
and bravery are SAID OF an instance of virtue that inheres in Callias."

"On the other hand,
neither virtue nor bravery is SAID OF Callias. Rather, bravery is IN Callias, and virtue is IN
Callias."

"In other words x is SAID OF y is the converse of y is essentially x (x is SAID OF y iff y is
essentially x), and x is IN y is the converse of y is accidentally x (x is IN y iff y is accidentally
x)."

"Notice that when we express the fact that bravery is IN Callias by means of a sentence in
ordinary English (or Greek, for that matter) we would say “Callias is brave” rather than
“Callias is bravery.” This is the phenomenon Aristotle calls paronymy (Cat. 1a12-15)."

"The
entities involved in this predication are a substance (Callias) and a quality (bravery); but...

Refs:

1 Grice, H. P. “Aristotle on the Multiplicity of Being.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 69 (1988) 175-200.
2 Code, A. “Aristotle: Essence and Accident.” in Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories,
Ends, R. Grandy and R. Warner, eds. (Oxford: 1983) 411-439.

... instead of using the name of the quality (“bravery”) we use a paronym of it (“brave”) in our
linguistic predication.

"The point is that although the two predications “Callias is human” and
“Callias is brave” are superficially similar, the underlying ontological relations are different.
Human is SAID OF Callias but not IN Callias."

"Bravery is IN Callias but not SAID OF Callias."

"Aristotle also notes (Cat. 2a29-33) that sometimes the point about paronymy may be
obscured by the linguistic oddity that the name of the entity that is IN a subject and the
adjective that we use to characterize it are the same. Just as we characterize someone as
brave if the virtue bravery is IN him, so we characterize a body as white if the color white is
IN it."

"In English (“white”), as in Greek (“leukon”), the same word is both the name of a
quality and an adjective that characterizes something so qualified. This might create the
illusion that white is SAID OF a body (in the way that bravery is SAID OF a certain virtue or
human is SAID OF a certain animal). But white is not SAID OF a body, since “the definition of
white is never predicated of body” (Cat. 2a-34). This gives us necessary and sufficient
conditions (in terms of linguistic predication) for the (ontological) SAID OF relation."

"x is SAID OF y iff both the name of x and the definition of x are predicated of y."

******

The Grice-Code terminology

"Grice made up the verb “to IZZ” for Aristotle’s idea
of essential predication."

"So, Grice would
express the fact that y is predicated essentially of x by saying that x IZZes y."

"On the other hand [usually the left one -- Speranza] Grice uses the verb
“to HAZZ” for Aristotle’s idea of accidental predication, and would express the fact that y is
predicated accidentally of x by saying that x HAZZes y."

"(Note that ‘IZZ’ and ‘HAZZ’ are
regular verbs: “I IZZ, you IZZ, she IZZes, …, I HAZZ, you HAZZ, he HAZZes, …” etc.)."

"Code
doesn’t use the made-up words IZZ and HAZZ."

"He prefers the capitalized words “Be” and
“Have” as technical terms with the same meaning."

"So SAID OF and IZZ are converses: x is SAID OF y iff y IZZes x."

"Likewise, IN and HAZZ are
converses: x is IN y iff y HAZZes x."

"Here is the way Aristotle’s claims, above, would be expressed in the language of IZZing and
HAZZing:

Aristotle’s claim In IZZ- HAZZ terminology

Human is SAID OF Callias.

Callias IZZes [a] human [being].

Animal is SAID OF Callias.

Callias IZZes [an] animal.

Animal is SAID OF human.

Human IZZes animal.

Virtue is SAID OF bravery.

Bravery IZZes virtue.

Bravery is IN Callias.

Callias HAZZes bravery.

Virtue is IN Callias.

Callias HAZZes virtue.

Notice that nothing ever IZZes what it HAZZes or HAZZes what it IZZes.

Callias IZZes human,
but he does not HAZZ human.

Callias HAZZes bravery, but he does not IZZ bravery.

Note too
that IZZing is NOT identity."

Human IZZes animal, but human ¹ animal.

Identity might be
defined, however, as reciprocal IZZing:

x = y iff x IZZes y & y IZZes x

Some further ramifications

"Notice that the logical properties of IZZing and HAZZing are different."

"IZZing is transitive."

"If x IZZes y and y IZZes z, then x IZZes z."

If Callias is human and a human is an animal, then
Callias is an animal.

If something belongs to a species, it belongs to every genus under
which that species falls.)

"But HAZZing is not transitive."

"Callias HAZZes bravery, but he does
not HAZZ all of bravery’s accidental attributes—e.g., the attribute of having been
exemplified at the battle of Thermopylae."

"Likewise, IZZing is reflexive."

"For every x, x IZZes
x) but HAZZing is not—Callias does not HAZZ Callias, nor does bravery HAZZ bravery.

3

"(If these claims, or any of the following, seem dubious to you, try to think them through and
figure out why they are true.)"

"The reason why Callias IZZes animal is that he IZZes human, and human IZZes animal."

"So we
may generalize and say that when x IZZes y, it follows that x IZZes something that IZZes y."

"In
other words, if x IZZes y, then $z (x IZZes z & z IZZes y)."

"Likewise, the reason why Callias HAZZes virtue is that he HAZZes bravery, and bravery IZZes
virtue."

"Again, we may generalize and say that when x HAZZes y, it follows that x HAZZes
something that IZZes y."

"In other words, if x HAZZes y, then $z (x HAZZes z & z IZZes y)."

"Notice an important upshot of this: every predication, even accidental predication, implicitly
involves some kind of essential predication (i.e., classification)."

"In “Callias IZZes human” it
is there explicitly."

"But in “Callias HAZZes bravery” it is there implicitly: Callias HAZZes
something that IZZes bravery."

"That is, Callias is (accidentally) brave because something that
happens to inhere in him is (essentially) an instance of bravery."

"To put the point another
way."

"When we predicate human of Callias, we are classifying him by means of an essential
predicate of his. And when we predicate bravery of Callias, we are classifying one of his
qualities by means of an essential predicate of that quality.

--- note: 3 The idea that “bravery HAZZes bravery” is often attributed to Plato (and called the “literal self-predication” of
Platonic Forms)."

And so on.