Dummett and Grice

Speranza

The obituarist to "The Daily Telegraph" describes Dummett as "among the most significant British philosophers of the last century."

"Logic, language and mathematics were his chief philosophical preoccupations."

----


Logic and language were GRICE's chief philosophical preoccupations.

"Dummett was particularly interested in the work of Gottlob Frege (1848-1925), a German mathematician who tried, but ultimately failed, to demonstrate that formal logic could govern all mathematical truths."

O. T. O. H., Grice was interested in Aristotle.

----

Pity this DT obit is anonymous!

"In his book, Frege: Philosophy of Mathematics (1991), Dummett attempted to pinpoint precisely where Frege had gone wrong, and in the course of his analysis he argued that Frege’s work had two significant by-products for philosophy."

"First, Frege had invented a new formal language for logic in which, for example, it is possible to describe the difference between the phrase

Everybody loves somebody.

and the phrase

There is somebody whom everybody loves.

"and to demonstrate clearly how different conclusions can be derived from each of these propositions."

--- Grice's favourite example is:

Every nice girl loves SOME sailor.

-- (He was one).


"Second, Dummett suggested, Frege’s theses about the nature of logic opened up a whole new field – the philosophy of language, through which philosophers might account for thought through an analysis of grammar and semantics."

Or, in Grice's parlance, implicature.

"As well as his work on Frege, Dummett was known for his struggle to resolve the argument between what he termed “realist” philosophers and “anti-realists” (idealists, nominalists etc), who disagree about the logical principles they apply to propositions that are under dispute."

"For Dummett, the championing of anti-realism meant a rejection of the realist principle of bivalence — the idea that any sentence which attempts to make an assertion must be either true or false."

Grice hated that, as much as he did 'truth-value gaps' that Strawson worshipped.

"Dummett held that this was not the case for sentences that discuss certain subjects — for example, mathematics."

"In particular, Dummett argued that metaphysical debates – such as whether unicorns are real – are properly understood as debates about logical laws and the nature of truth."

"He delivered his most complete statement of the nature of such metaphysical debates, and the means by which they can be resolved, in The Logical Basis of Metaphysics (1991)."

"Thought and Reality (2006) was a further disquisition on anti-realism."

"Though he influenced a whole generation of analytic philosophers, including such figures as

John McDowell [born in the North of England]

Christopher A. B. Peacocke, and Crispin Wright, Dummett’s work was not easy reading."

"His stature amongst colleagues was immense, but inevitable difficulties in communicating his theories concisely prevented him from achieving the wider attention he deserved."

"When asked by his publisher to supply a new introduction to a work on Frege, for example, Dummett supplied 500 pages of material."

"But his commitment to truth had very practical applications, and ones which he pursued with vigour and personal courage."

"In particular, throughout his career he maintained a deep interest in the ethical and political issues concerning refugees and immigration, informed by what he described as “an especial loathing of racial prejudice and its social manifestations”."

"In the post-war period, Dummett and his wife Ann were among the earliest and most dogged campaigners on race relations."

"In 1958 they co-founded the Institute of Race Relations think tank and in the 1960s, as the trickle of immigration became a flood, they drove a battered van to Heathrow Airport day after day to take up the cases of Asian and West Indian immigrants threatened with deportation."

"On one occasion they were arrested and prosecuted after staging a protest against a market stallholder who refused to serve black customers."

"Police dropped charges and the then Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, apologised."

"Dummett saw the root of the problem as lying in the political system."

"In his book On Immigration and Refugees (2001), he argued that lurking behind the egalitarian veneer of democracy is the more manipulative principle of playing on people’s prejudices to gain votes."

"This, when applied to issues of immigration, has invariably led to a jingoistic policy – a policy founded, essentially, on racism."

"In Britain, according to Dummett, much of the blame rested with the Home Office, a department which he accused of “decades of hopeless indoctrination in hostility”, first against Commonwealth immigrants, and later against asylum seekers and refugees."

"“For the Home Office,” he once wrote, “the adjective 'bogus’ goes as automatically with 'asylum seeker’ as 'green’ does with 'grass’.”"

"Dummett’s political concerns made him increasingly convinced that political parties were essentially undemocratic institutions which, through a distorted voting system and the use of whipping procedures in Parliament, had become little more than “devices for frustrating the will of the majority”. In Voting Procedures (1984) and Principles of Electoral Reform (1997) he proposed a proportional representation system known as the Quota Borda or Quota Preference Score system, a highly complex arrangement designed to encourage consensus by giving candidates the incentive to appeal to as wide as possible a cross-section of voters."

"But Dummett was perfectly capable of turning his mind to lighter matters. He was an avid reader of science fiction and an enthusiastic player and historian of card games – the Journal of the Playing Card Society was one of many to which he contributed articles. In The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City (1980) one of several publications in this field, he argued that in the Middle Ages the Tarot was used as a set of playing cards and that it only acquired its association with the occult in the 18th century."

"Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett was born in [a posh part of London] on June 27 1925."

"He attended Winchester College, where he was a Scholar, and served in the Armed Forces from 1943 to 1947, first in the Royal Artillery, and then in the Intelligence Corps in India and Malaya."

"After his military service, he went on a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford, graduating with First Class Honours in PPE in 1950, whereupon he was immediately given a fellowship at All Souls."

"He remained based in Oxford all his life and in 1979 was appointed Wykeham Professor of Logic, a chair which he held until his retirement in 1992."

"Concurrently with these appointments, however, he frequently lectured abroad, particularly in America, where he was variously a visiting professor at Stanford, Minnesota and Princeton."

"In 1976 he was William James Lecturer in Philosophy at Harvard."

"Although Dummett was brought up an Anglican, by the age of 13 he regarded himself as an atheist."

"In 1944, however, he converted to Roman Catholicism."

---

"In the early part of his career he regarded himself as a “Wittgensteinian” but he did not accept the view, expressed by some admirers of Wittgenstein, that philosophy has no practical relevance to people’s lives or that metaphysics is an ultimately futile pursuit."

"Further, Dummett never saw faith and logic as in any way mutually exclusive."

"Dummett’s first philosophical article was a book review, published in "Mind" in 1953."

"He went on to publish many more, his articles later being compiled into three volumes."

"His first book, Frege: Philosophy of Language (1973), was a long time in coming partly because he had put his academic career on hold to campaign against racism. A second, enlarged, edition of the book was published in 1981, the same year that saw the publication of The Interpretation of Frege’s Philosophy."

"In the 1970s Dummett also published Elements of Intuitionism (1977) and his first collection of papers, Truth and Other Enigmas (1978)."

"Later works included Frege and Other Philosophers (1991) and The Seas of Language (1993)."

"Also in 1993 he published

"Grammar and Style", a book prompted by his infuriation with declining standards of literacy."

"Last year he summed up the intellectual pursuit to which he had dedicated his life in "The Nature and Future of Philosophy.""

"Dummett was a Fellow of the British Academy and was knighted in 1999 for “services to philosophy and to racial justice”."

"He celebrated the award with a demand that the Home Office’s entire immigration staff be replaced."

"Michael Dummett married, in 1951, Ann Chesney."

"She survives him with three sons and two daughters; a son and a daughter predeceased him."

"Professor Sir Michael Dummett, born June 27 1925, died December 27 2011."


absalom
12/30/2011 07:53 AM

"I can't help feeling that a lot of linguistic philosophy is very bogus."

"Pick up a dictionary and look at the different uses of the same word."

"Learn a bit of another language and see how the thinking behind the words used is both similar and different."

"Read the works of the ancient Greek playwright Euripides and go and see his plays performed."

"True linguistic philosophy belongs on stage and in debate, not in obscure books read only be fellow academics."


donjose


"I am fascinated by the philistinism, ignorance, and bigotry of several of the posters here."

"They know all the middle-brow cliches about "pointless ordinary language philoosphy" and "philosophers kings" and "professional anti-racists"".

"Sad that their profound knowledge is not accompanied by a knowledge of how to think or write."


danielwaweru

"For a useful comparison, you might want to read the paper's obituary of Lt. Gen. Peter Walls, and the comments below it."

LabanTall

"We can't all be Oxford dons, Jose. Some of us just aren't bright enough."

"Nonetheless, the dimmest he (or she) that is in England had a life to live as the brightest he - until some clever people - as it might be Professor Dummett - decided that their monochrome lives needed a bit of enhancement."


"I'm no Oxford don; i'm an adjunct instructor in Poliitcal science at a community college in Michgan."

"Michael Dummett's idea of 'enhancing his monochrome life"as you put it, was to try to help make sure non-white people in Great Britain were treated with respect and dignity."

"To that end, he and his wife sacrifice dtheir comfortable Oxford lives and spent countless hours doing evil things like trying to help families from Africa who had fled to England after being expeled by tyrants."

"He did not do this "enhance his life"".

"He did so, among other reasons, because he remembered a certain family who had once been told their was no room at the Inn."

"You mistake my point."

"It was not Prof Dummett's doubtless richly fulfilled and certainly multifaceted life which he decided needed "enhancing", but the lives of millions of ordinary Britons, none of whom were consulted about their forthcoming cultural enrichment , and very few of whom would have agreed with it."

"Oh I see, so he had the temerity to remind his fellow white Britons that they should respect fundamental principles of Justice and fairness, rather than be paranoid about minorities."

"When i last noticed, even the Conservative eparty had some very able non-whites among their MPS.. I suppose such people have impoverishhed the lives of white Britons. There is also all that poisonous, evil, Pakistani and Indian food."

icanseethroughthat
12/29/2011 04:47 PM

"Ah, philosophy of language."

"A misnomer if ever there was one."

"In reality 'philosophy of language' is nothing but a glorified parlour game - a curious form of navel-gazing indulged in by Anglophone academia - as it addresses none of the great questions of philosophy."

"Hardly surprising then, that Wittgenstein should encourage his brightest students who were about to leave universtity to do something in the real world, something totally unconnected with 'philosophy.'"

"In other words, something meaningful..."

"... you mean like go spy for the USSR?"

"Your comments only show that you did not bother to actually read the article, or to familiarize youself with the wide range of Dummett's writings."

"Dummett was trained, not only in "philosophy", but in Political science and economics as well."

"He did not confine himself to philosophy of lanaage, but also thought, hard and deeply about Logic, Mathematics and metaphysics."

"He also made internationally recognized contributions to the study of voting procedures and public choice analysis."

"Incidentally, Wittgenstien did encourage a numbe rof his students to pursue phuilosophy."

"One was Dummett's Oxford teacher Elizabeth Anscombe, who wa sone of the fomidable intellects of the twentieth century."


AWoLsco

"Dummett: rather an unfortunate surname for a professor of logic.
I wonder if he was born in Dummer?"

---

"England does seem to come up with incongruous, or perhaps apposite, surnames."

"I remember once hearing of a manhunt for a dangerous rapist being led by a detective-inspector very aptly named, "Bob Prickett""

"And, no. I didn't read that in" Private Eye."

.
LabanTall
"He remained based in Oxford all his life"

"It figures - and not in Blackbird Leys either."

"It's odd how so many professional anti-racists find themselves living in leafy, monocultural parts of the UK."

"Must just be coincidence."

"Hmm..if youactually dd some research, youwould find out that he spent 1944 , 1945, and 1946 in those well-known monocultural sociieties India, Burma and Malaya, fighting for his country."

"It witnessing how Whites mistreated black and brown people in those countries that turned him afYou would also find out that he taught in Ghana."

"Dummett lived for a year in a black neighbourhood in Berkeley when he was steaching there."

"He also went to Montgomery Alabama and helped a certain Reverend Martin Luther King in his bus boycotts."

"Ah, nothing like spitting on the grave of someone who actually fought agaqinst the mistreament of Britons who happened to be of a different skin color than himself."


"It is unfortunate that the good professor 's response to mistreatment by some British people in our then colonies was to, if this obituary is correct, found an organisation directed against all native Brits - although I find nothing about the IRR in the Guardian obit, only his work for the JCWI."

"I'm sure he was a brave and gallant soldier, and may he rest in peace, but so have many been whose politics were sociopathic. As Quinx said, he's an excellent argument against the Philosopher King."

"Excuse me, how does protecting the rights of mistreated immigrants threaten all native brits? Are you saying that ALL native Brits benefit from treating non-whites unjustly?d dclaim."

"I realize that some people have a pathological fear of evils like Pakistani foo0d and carribean music. mores the pitry."

"Civilized people should reserve the term "sociopathic politics' to describe the beliefs and practices Stalinists or Nazis; Dummett was neither."

"He in fact disliked both Labour AND the conservatives."

"He did this for two reasons. 1. Both parties stoked the flames of racial paranoia in Britian. 2. Both parties rig the electoral sytem in their favor."

"I will agree however that "gallant soldiers" ( in his intelelctul autobiography, Dummett was rather slf deprecating when it came to his service.) can be political sociopaths.. J.Enoch Powel,la nd Oswald Mosley come to mind."


"Rather than continue to cough all night I got up and wrote my comments at 5 .00am. You are right, it was the Met."

"But the rest of my remarks on how in the public sector and across the board in government a rabid 'only whites are racialist' policy was adopted stands. Such became the Met's ludicrously extreme over zealousness that 'Private Eye' ran a cartoon strip on 'PC PCs'."

"I have simply stated the reason why politically motivated senior policemen were like rabbits in the headlights until given direction by the Home Office's PC zealots."

"Ludicrous? Only to a zealot."

"This is an obituary column and would not be the place for such argument were it not for the fact that the internationalist policymakers of the Labour Party wholeheartedly embraced Professor Dummett's views."

"Sadly, I think he was more successful than he ever could have imagined. diwas wrong."

"R.I.P all the same."

"Why does Quinx think that Dummett illustrates how Plato Idea of"philosopher -kings"( Incidentally, Quinx, like most peopel who invoke the phrase, have a very shaky grasp of what Plato actually said andmeant- but tha is an argument for another day.)"

"Dummett was aprofoundly religious man, a campaigner against racism, and an advosate for voting reforms that, if carried out, would make the British government more accountable to its citizens and assur ethat the parliament was more representaive of the full spectrum of British public opinion. All of those points of view deserve to be heard."

"A good example of why philosophy is important, but Plato's idea of Philosopher Kings a disastrous folly."

"'but he did not accept the view, expressed by some admirers of Wittgenstein, that philosophy has no practical relevance to people’s lives or that metaphysics is an ultimately futile pursuit. Further, Dummett never saw faith and logic as in any way mutually exclusive.'
I'm not someone with Dummett's brainpower but I'm inclined to disagree on both points.
He was right about undemocratic political parties, which deny the will of the people but it is extraordinary that such a brilliant man could be so diametrically wrong about the Home Office and its approach on immigration.
Ever since the false accusations by a judge that everything in the UK is 'institutionally racist' the Home Office has appointed PC police chiefs who are less concerned with criminality than 'Equality and Diversity' to the extent that they took no initial in action in London because the rioters were predominantly black. It was only after increasing press and public outcry that politicians forced it to get the cops to take appropriate action."

"Actually, Sir Michael was booted out of the anti-racist forum he created as soon as the 'immigrant' militants could get rid of him. They proclaimed that a white man, even as committed to the ideals of equality like he was, is unfit to represent black people."

"Like many academics, Sir Michael was not au fait with street politics - and ended up being ignominously used as a catspaw."

"If you take the Protestant notion of faith as belief without evidence on the basis of internal feeling, you are of course right that faith and logic are mutually exclusive. But if, like Dummett, you take the Catholic notion of faith as belief on the authority of a divine witness having supplied verifiable evidence of its existence and the fact of its having made a revelation, there is no mutual exclusivity.
In other words, the debate between the philosopher and the Protestant consists in the philosopher asking the believer to rely on reason and the believer asking the philosopher to cease to do so. But the philosopher and the Catholic have the same rational departure point: their debate will centre on the credibility of the arguments for God's existence and for his having made a revelation.
It is regrettable that the atheists having the courtesy and intelligence to participate fruitfully in this debate are seldom those who feel called upon to contribute to religious subjects in these Telegraph Comments columns."

"Most of them could also usefully read Dummett's masterly work on Grammar and Style since the ability to use one's native language correctly is a necessary prelude to any debate."

"Rest in peace, Sir Michael."

"A more useful grammar book and one which is probably more accessible is ‘Eats, shoots and leaves’ by Lynn Truss."

"Protestants, like Catholics believe in paranormal beings so one would assume that they too believe in divine witness. I have known a number of them who believed that the Bible is factual. Professor Dummett believed that RC dogma is factual. He believed that the activities of divine beings are factual because they were ordained divine beings whose existence he did not question!
Professor Dummett did not regard faith and logic as mutually exclusive. I don’t think that makes sense. Professor Richard Dawkins, who wrote ‘The God Delusion’ would probably agree."

"It is crystal clear from the obit that Sir Michael *did* question the existence of God. Having questioned it, and initially rejected it, he finally concluded in its favour."

"The point I wanted to clear up was your initial implication that anyone who believes in God, even if he is a professor of philosophy, switches off his reason in order to start believing. I think this is true of Protestant-type faith but I know it is not true of Catholic-type faith. By all means argue that belief in God's existence must be due to misuse of the reason - then we shall see what your arguments are worth. But don't assume that the reason has not been used at all. Many of us are rationally convinced of God's existence, and when our opponents invoke the mighty name of Dawkins instead of arguing, we allow ourselves to smile."

"At the risk of appearing contentious, I also question your view that "Eats, shoots and leaves" is a more accessible grammar book than Sir Michael's. I found both excellent, but the latter positively delightful."

"What "assertion by a judge that everything in the UK is 'institutionally racist'"? The Macpherson inquiry concluded that the Met Police were 'institutionally racist', but it is a far cry from that to your ludicrous allegations."


"Rather than continue to cough all night I got up and wrote my comments at 5 .00am. You are right, it was the Met. But the rest of my remarks on how in the public sector and across the board in government a rabid 'only whites are racialist' policy was adopted stands. Such became the Met's ludicrously extreme over zealousness that 'Private Eye' ran a cartoon strip on 'PC PCs'."

"I have simply stated the reason why politically motivated senior policemen were like rabbits in the headlights until given direction by the Home Office's PC zealots."

"Ludicrous? Only to a zealot."

"Ironically the Professor was more successful in changing government policy than he could ever have imagined as the Labour Party's internationalist policymakers wholeheartedly took his wrong headed views on board. Institutional racism directed against white males is official policy enshrined in Harman/May's Equalities Act.
This is an obituary column and not a forum for politics except that however brilliant the Professor was at Maths and philosophy, he was terribly wrong on social issues.
R.I.P."