Re: Grice on Aristotle

Speranza

In "Grice on Aristotle", R. B. Jones writes

"On returning to Code I see now that
I was confused about which
paper of Grice he was
referring to. I had supposed, incorrectly
it now seems to me, that
Code referred (in footnote 2) to a
paper by Grice called

"Semantic Multiplicity and
Copulative Being", (at a conference...)

but I now suspect that
that paper was actually by Code."

Yes. That seems to be right.

Jones goes on:

"In a later footnote (4) Code (in PGRICE) refers to a paper by Grice presented at the same conference entitled "Aristotle on Being and Good" (specifically he refers to a section of that paper entitled "Semantic Multiplicity and Copulative being").
I wonder if this paper rings any different bells for Speranza?
I see that he does mention that this is an unpublished paper in the archive."

Mmm. So, it seems

"Semantic Multiplicity and Copulative Being"

is by Grice. -- Rather than by Code.

Citation:

Grice, H. P. "Semantic Multiplicity and Copulative Being" -- being Section (II) of "Aristotle on Being and Good", The Grice Papers.

---

So the right citation would be:

Grice, H. P. "Aristotle on Being and Good"

--- This should be distinguished from:

Speranza, "Aristotle on Being Good". (Unpublication, Unfiled).

----

So, the citation is:

Grice, H. P., "Aristotle on being and good" -- The Grice Papers.

And, as Jones notes, within that essay, there is a section, entitled:

"Semantic multiplicity and copulative being".

----

And so on.

Note that, intersetingly, this comes just after Quinion informs us that 'pragmatic' is the word most looked up during 2011.

And we have Grice, typically reactionarily, speaking of

SEMANTIC multiplcity.

----

Grice revised that section, "Semantic multiplicity and copulative being" (Section (II) of "Aristotle on being and good" -- into

"Aristotle on the multiplicity of being" -- Pacific Philosophical Quarterly.

----

Note that 'good' quite does not compare to 'being', so one can see the EXTENT of Grice's talent in dealing with _being_ and _good_ (not on being good, alas) in Aristotle, in the same conference (coffee break).

Within the 'being', there's the 'copulative being'. Because we are interested in Quine's idea that copulation is otiose (it possibly is).

S is P

becomes, in Quineanese:

(Ex)Fx & Gx.

Yet, Aristotle, and Kant, and Kantotle (or Ariskant, aka Grice) likes to play with the idea of "COPULATIVE" being.

----

To that, we add,

"Semantic multiplcity".

In the language (or lingo) of 'izz' and 'hazz', the point is that

ESSENTIAL attributes are part of the "Izz".

Accidental attributes are part of the "Hazz".

It's like Grice is suggesting that Aristotle was confused in failing to realise that, in the deep structure of Greek, there are TWO verbs at play:

"einai" proper -- i.e. to 'be' (It's amazing how, in English, we have like 30 roots for that:

is
am
are
been
were
was

and keep counting... -- I hold that FOR EACH ROOT there is a semantic multiplicity, alleged, involved --.

And there is

'ekhein', i.e. to have.

"To have" is NOT cognate with Latin 'habere', or Greek 'ekhein' -- but Grice possibly knew what he was talking about when he said that 'hazz' is BASIC -- and possibly a counterpart to copulative being.

----

The PPQ essay is not clear what is responding to. The Canada conference WAS VERY HISTORIC -- archaeological almost -- and Code was since then "An Aristotelian Scholar" (broadly understood).

(whereas Grice remained Kantotelian at heart).

----

And so on.

Cheers.