The Izz and the Hazz, the Deep and the Shallow

Speranza

Jones was sharing some material in phil-logic, which I quote below.

Jones is interested in the

necessary-contingent distinction

as it parallels the

analytic-synthetic distinction

and how this touches on

Grice's izz-hazz distinction.

On top of that, I brought Kripke into the picture, with Kripke's examples of

Socrates

Socrates is

Socrates is called "Socrates"

and so on.

Kripke jokes:

"See how high the seas of language can rise. And
at the lowest points, too."

----

The "lowest points" I identified with what Grice calls the 'shallow' almost, "BERTHS" of language -- the Grice manuscript reads, "deep berths". For Grice there are deep berths and shallow berths. If he mentions Long. and Lat. elsewhere, here he mentions depth. He was a sailor at heart.

----

I would suggest that he saw necessity and analyticity as dealing with the deepest berths (which are at premium, and thus beyond controversy/denial/doubt -- they constitute 'knowledge').

---

On the other hand, Jones is considering both 'mathematical' and other types of 'knowledge'. I would think that Grice (like me) never considered science (empirical science) as a matter of 'necessity'.

In "Aspects of Reason" he mentions, as a joke, the idea of

ichthyological necessity.

He is considering uses of 'must'. He wants to say, "You must not kill" and "what goes up must come down". Surely, there are NO two senses -- one 'alethic', one 'practical' -- of "must". There is a Thesis of AEQUI-vocality, as he calls it. It's the same vox ('must') that allows for the different uses. Similarly, here the joke, it would be otiose to think of the necessity of fish.

"Ichthyological necessity".

---

We should provide some generalisations in empirical science about fish, and find what's allegedly necessary about them. Nothing! But perhaps what a fish izz is not what a fish hazz.

---

Here below some running commentary on some material by Jones elsewhere that may relate:

Jones recalls his source hre:

"This is in fact close to my point of entry into Aristotle. My interest was provoked by [...] [a] version of set of semi-formal principles formulated by Code following his collaboration with Grice on some Aristotelian studies. Grice was interested inter alia in "the multiplicity of being", i.e. in whether the verb "to be" has many different or one single "sense". In this connection Grice coined two words to unambiguously express essential and accidental predication, viz: "izz" and "hazz"."

Jones goes on to point out that

"[his -- i.e. Jones'] formal treatment of the Aristotelian syllogism"

and the points regarding

"predication in Aristotle's philosophy",

to wit,

that

"affirmative propositions carry existential import and that
there is no presumption of non-emptyness of the extension of
terms."

Jones notes that in view of this,

"the theory of the syllogism is in need of
modification once Aristotle's distinction between essential
and accidental predication (as given in the Metaphysics
rather than the Categories) is taken into account."

Jones then brings Maritain into account.

For Maritain,

"the existential import is associated with
affirmative propositions only if they are accidental, not if
they are essential."

Jones comments:

"[Maritain] does not seem to be offering any way in which we can
discover whether a proposition is essential or accidental,
and this characteristic is shown in his examples by
parenthetical remarks, suggesting that in the absence of
these remarks there is material ambiguity on this point.
This seems to me quite a radical departure from anything I
have previously seen suggested about Aristotle's
syllogistic, and so naturally, in default of textual
evidence (which in the passage in Maritain [...] is
not conspicuous) I would have to suspend judgement on it."

Jones goes on:

"At some point I did intend to produce a better combined
partial model of the syllogistic with accidental and
essential predication, since I wanted to remove the
presumption of non-emptyness in the terms."

"Prior to reading Maritain I would have done this by instead
attaching existential import to affirmative propositions,
irrespective of whether they are accidental."

"If I believed Maritain then I would have to do this
exclusively for accidental predication, and I would have to
do something different for essential predication, withdrawing
existential import from both universal and particular
essential predications."

Jones then goes to consider

Some A is B

A = B

Some A is A.

Jones rewrites this, as it

"seems to correspond to my reading of
Maritain, which can be rendered in Gricean terminology by
saying that:

All A izz A

and

Some A izz A

are necessary truths, but

All A hazz A

and

Some A hazz A

will be at best contingently true, if an A contingently
exists."

Jones notes:

"The question then arises whether this reading can be shown
to be true to Aristotle."

Jones is

"looking for specific refences in the contemporary
secondary literature which explain the relevant Aristotelian
doctrines, preferably with appropriate detailed references
to the Aristotelian texts."

A mention of

Terence Parsons

--- cited by Grice in "Vacuous Names" --

incidentally, was

"was enough for [Jones] to find on
his web site a description of Aristotle's syllogism which was
clear on the required points"

For the record, the site to Aristotle's work at

http://texts.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/classics/aristotl/o1110c.htm#18

As we provide the Aristotle quotes...

Part of this is Greek (to me).

Grice (his wife would confess) complained that Berkeley students could read no Greek. Grice was already suffering that in Oxford.

In the Oxford of Grice's youthful days, NO ENGLISH translation of Aristotle was necessary. Loeb -- we love Loeb -- Loeb is all you need -- is a charm, but it was not Loeb's Aristotle that Oxonians were reading. They were dealing with the Oxford Aristotle -- in Greek only.

By the time Grice was tutoring in Oxford, he happened to have J. L. Ackrill as one of his students. Ackrill will go on to translate Aristotle into Greek. The sad thing is that Oxford would then go on to publish Aristotle _in English only_! (In the preface, Acrkill credits Grice -- and Austin, his other tutor).

----

So, when discussing Aristotle quotes, we have to consider the 'deep berths' of Greek syntax, too.

Recall that

"All A izz A"

"Some A izz A"

"Some A hazz B"

then become things to consider.

Recall that the Greeks, from what I recall, also use things like 'ekhein' (to have), and perhaps things like 'participate'.

--- So we should start with predication as a syntactic phenomenon.

Surely the Square of Opposition, as set by Aristotle, is a basic thing. But we should also be careful when we deal with 'singular terms' (not a Greek notion) like "Socrates".

The examples by Aristotle do involve

"Socrates"

and

"white".

"Socrates laughs".

"Socrates is rational"

"Socrates is mortal"

"MEN are mortal".

"Men laugh."

----- Consider 'to idion'. What is proper (Latin proprium). This FOLLOWS from a necessary predication, but is not necessary itself.

Then there's the 'qua'.

This particle Aristotle uses. Aristotle did not care much for 'ordinary language'. In fact, Grice would say that, like Austin, or Grice himself, Aristotle felt the need to 'work' on the ordinary language and come up with concoctions like 'implicature' or 'performative'. In the case of Aristotle, the

'qua'

-- in Greek, 'e' --

we have a dative case formation.

"Socrates, qua man, is mortal."

But consider

"Plato".

"I was reading Plato".

In this case,

"Plato, qua man, was NOT what I was reading."

Plato can refer to something resembling a world-3 construction by Popper. The THOUGHTS of Plato, say, rather than Plato qua res extensa. More like 'res cogitans'. And so on.

-----

The point about Grice's "deep berths" reappear, more superficially, in his "Presupposition and Conversational Implicature" -- In fact, in "Indicative Conditionals" and "Presupposition and Conversational Implicature", and Jones may examine this.

Grice, indeed following Terence Parsons, considers the square-bracket device:

Some A izz A
Some A hazz A

as

[Some A] izz A
[Some A] hazz A

The point is to consider things like

"My aunt's cousin went to that concert"

as

[My aunt's cousin] went to that concert.

In the "Oxford philosophy" notes (MS, Grice collection) where he speaks of 'deep berths', he is considering the syntax of predication. If there is such a thing like 'knowledge', it would correspond to those things which we cannot challenge. We are anchored to them; deep berths are at a premium.

----

Grice, in his more colloquial parlance, considers what it would be a 'conversation without' THAT type of logic -- where EVERYTHING can be doubted or denied.

Recall that his:

Tweetie: "That looks like a big black cat to me."

---- should only project the implicature of 'doubt or denial' (D-or-D, in the parlance of "Causal theory").

In "Presupposition and Conversational Implicature" he has A and B:

A: Lovely concert.
B: I agree.
A: You went?
B: No. Not me. My aunt's cousin did.


"It is quite natural to say to somebody,
when we are discussing some concert,
"My aunt's cousin went to that concert,"
when we know perfectly well that the
person we are talking to is very likely
not even to know that we have an aunt,
let alone know that our aunt has a cousin.
So the supposition must be not that
it is common _knowledge_ but rather that
it is _noncontroversial_, in the sense
that it is something that we would
expect the hearer to take from us
(if he does not already know). That is to
say, I do not expect, when I tell
someone that my aunt's cousin went
to a concert, to be QUESTIONED whether
I have an aunt, and if so, whether
my aunt has a cousin."

---

Here Grice is then, mutatis mutandis, considering the non-emptyness of classes.

The class

"My aunt"

the class

"my aunt's cousin".

This is in the context of

"The Loyalty Examiner won't be summoning you."

(WoW: 271).

In this case the square-bracket status

[There is a loyalty examiner]

is cancelled, qua implicature that it was.

This is what Grice calls a 'contextual cancellation':

---

An implication regarding the non-emptyness of the subject-class

"seems to be", on occasion, "contextually cancellable, that is
cancellable by circumstances attending the utterance [of a
negative S-P sentence, The S is not P.].

"If it is a matter of dispute whether the
Government has a very undercover person who
interrogates those whose loyalty is
suspect, and who, IF HE EXISTED, could
be legitimately referred to as "The Loyalty
Examiner"; and if, further, I am KNOWN to be
very sceptical about the existence of such
a person, I could _perfectly well_ say to a
plainly loyal person,

"Well, the loyalty examiner won't be
summoning you, at any rate."

--- "without, I would think, being taken to
IMPLY that such a person exists."

----

This then relates with commentary by Jones, elsewhere, along the lines of:

"Marmaduke Bloggs won't be at the party."
--- "Well, he doesn't exist."
--- "That's what I mean. When I use "There is", I don't implicate the things I do when I say, "There exists"."

And so on.

And so on.

-----


It is in "Vacuous Names" that Grice quotes from Parsons, and indeed Boolos and Myro and Mates. This in the context of Quine, but surely the point can be extended to cover Aristotle.

Strawson, for example, never understood Quine, and thought him otiose. Strawson would rather play with Aristotle _for hours_, if indeed _not years_. Predication in Aristotle, or Kantotle, if you mustn't, is Grice's essential game.
Or something.

Cheers.



Cheers.