Dummett gets interviewed

Speranza

Jones was wondering about the source for the Dummett interviews.

One is at:

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/552/

-- and there are TWO interviewers, which I have simplified as "Q", and where Dummett becomes "A". The two interviewers are R. F. and M. S. They tend to expand on the questions in a charming way. At one point, Dummett (our "A") utters, (words to the effect): "Hey, I shouldn't be posing the questions, I know..."

There is another interview, to Dummett, which Dummett cared to reprint in his book, "Origin of Analytic Philosophy". He conducted the interview in German. He later found the thing fascinating enough to care to translate it to English. It is perhaps less technical than the RF/MS interview.

BUT...

The interview in "Origin of Analytic Philosophy", and I was thinking of sharing this with "City of Eternal Truth" AND Carnap Corner, there is a reference, by Dummett to

CARNAP.

This in the context of Austin. He calls Austin's influence 'noxious', and I can only think that if Grice was motivated to defend the Oxonian dialectic, was to counterpoint this rather otiose comments by Dummett.

When it comes to Austin, Dummett notes that it was not so much what Austin DID that bothered him, but what Austin CEASED to do. "Disregard for Carnap", comes first to Dummett's mind.

So --- it's like saying that Austin should have been different from what Austin was.

Oxonian types of a certain generation -- not Grice's -- expected too much from their tutors and stuff (staff?). Dummett, as the interviewer to "Origin of Anaytic Philosophy" points out, disregards Austin.

"So, Austin did teach you something useful, then?" (The interviewer is referring to the fact that Dummett would never have heard the name "Frege" had it not been for Austin caring to translate the "Grundlagen" into English prose for Blackwell for this 'Foundations of modern epistemology' course.

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The RF and MS interview was published in a non-philosophical venue, and it covers pretty much everything. The latter sections of the interview bring in Dummett's philosophy of mind, and his conception of metaphysics as "philosophy of physics".

And so on.

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Hopefully, the Dummett unpublished papers will be deposited at the Bodleian, for Griceains and Dummettians alike to investigate.

As we know, the references by Grice to Dummett are meagre: a passing reference in WoW:4, and a mention of Dummett as a "no" philosopher (along with female philosophers Murdoch and Anscombe). But we can imagine further connections, as we bring in Urmson into the picture (who taught Dummett at Christ Church) and indeed Flew, a tutee of Grice -- this is something that fascinates philosophers: the 'genealogy' in terms of tutorials.

On the whole, the most technical reference by Dummett to Grice is the idea that 'implicature' is so technical a notion that it cannot fit with 'ordinary language philosophy' (in "Is analytic philosophy systematic, or ought it be?", repr. in "Truth and other enigmas").

Personally, I believe that "The influence of Grice on Frege" should also shed light on further connections. It seems to be considered that Dummett's Frege is the definite, reference Frege. But he ain't! --- There are many notions in Frege that correspond quite closely to notions in Griceian pragmatics: colouring, for example. Dummett was interested in just one side to Frege, and wanted to 'deconstruct', as it were, the idea of truth behind 'truth-conditional' semantics as Dummett saw it or failed to do it!

---- The funeral for Dummett took place at St. Alosyus, Oxford.

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R. I. P.