Re: Grice and Hume

Speranza

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R. B. Jones writes:

"I am still trying to come up with a book in which Hume's fork has a central place (as in Hume's "Enquiry"), and I have recently been focussed on that central place.
The fork is, of course, the analytic/synthetic distinction, the underdogma to the defence of which, against Quine's attack, Grice and Strawson rallied (only the words, or this particular use of them, are Kant's)."

--- Lovely. We cherish R. E. G.'s pun there: dog-dogma-underdogma.

"Naturally, at some point in reconsidering this issue the connection with Grice came to mind. It is a feature of the Grice/Strawson defence that it pretty much ignores the arguments which Quine deploys against the analytic/synthetic distinction.
It is therefore not at all specific to Quine's attack but is instead a kind of defence which might still be of some interest if we should all one day have forgotten about Quine."

--- Excellent point. And, for the record, Quine did not seem all too often to have paid serious attention to the 'defence' (or 'defense' if you must) of the underdogma. I seem to recall he reviews Grice's and Strawson's point in "Word and object" but that was basically it.

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Jones:

"How then does their positive case for the distinction relate to the case which is put by Hume? Well it seems to me that there are some similarities. The impression I have of Hume, extracted from his chapter in ECHU "on the different species of philosophy", is that he had acquired a good sense of the relevant distinction (possibly from reading Aristotle, the distinction for example, between necessary and contingent truths, but more probably from diverse sources), and that it had become incorporated into his way of evaluating philosophical arguments."

Very good, and interesting you mentioned Kant's terminology early on. We know that Kant felt that it was Hume who had awoken him from his dogmatic (underdogmatic really) slumbers.

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It's like Grice and Strawson provided an _alarm clock_ almost.

(Incidentally, perhaps Hume's terminology is, more than from Aristotle, who Grice worshipped -- in the figure of "Kantotle" -- from Locke direct, whom Jones has edited. For Locke, analytic propositions are 'trifle'.

Jones:

"It is valuable in cutting a swathe through complex abstract argumentation when it is connected with the expectation that arguments a priori can establish only analytic conclusions. The effect is that any argument, however complex and subtle, which purports to demonstrate a matter of fact without being based on factual premises, i.e. an argument a priori to a synthetic or factual conclusion, must be unsound."

Nice way of putting it; and of course, one that connects with what Grice called elsewhere (yes, in the "Reply to Richards") Humean projection. Or the is-ought question, too. In the case of the is-ought question, it would be that no conclusion containing the 'moral' 'must', say, can be drawn from premises that include the 'alethic' 'must' only.

Jones:

"There is in such cases no need to examine the detail of the argument, it need not be taken seriously. So long as you can tell whether or not a proposition expresses a "matter of fact" you have an intuitive test which will often tell you that you need not take an argument seriously without troubling with its details. In reading philosophers he observed that they frequently offered arguments a priori for propositions concerning matters of fact, that this simple rule about what one can establish a priori seemed not to be understood. The essence of Hume's new philosophy consisted in taking this rule seriously."

--- In the context of Grice's philosophy, perhaps due to A. G. N. Flew (but I will have to revise this) there was possibly an interest in the historic basis of Hume's philosophy. Ayer had dedicated a few paragraphs to Hume's philosophy in his development of a theory of 'knowledge', and perhaps it may do to revise the 'historiography' of Hume elsewhere.

Jones:

"Hume has two notions of metaphysics at play. At first he uses the term in what he thinks perhaps a lay sense, to refer to that kind of philosophy which consists in reasoned arguments on matters profound. In this kind of metaphysics he observes some difficulties which he proposes to remedy in a new more rigorous "metaphysics".
However, he also uses the term more narrowly, using it specifically for the pathological elements which are to be excluded from his new kind of philosophy. This is the more familiar picture, in which the new kind of philosophy is positivism, formed primarily by the eviction of metaphysics (in the narrow sense).
My concern here is not with that new kind of philosophy, but with the special conception of metaphysics which leads Hume to it, and the intuitive understanding of the phrases "relations between ideas" and "matters of fact" which connect with Hume's conviction that the metaphysics is unsound and unsatisfactory."

Good. The mention of the 'relations between ideas' is a good one, and a reminder that much of Hume (the best of Hume in my view) draws directly from Locke. Recall that for Locke there is:

-- the way of things ------ this is what Newton is all about.

-- the way of ideas ------- the focus of Locke's book, Essay concerning Humane (sic in the original folio) understanding.

AND:

-- the way of words.

------ When Grice compiled his book, he was thinking about Locke. The distinction about, as Yolton and other scholars have noted, is a complex one:

thing
idea
word

-- For what about a trifle proposition like

2 + 2 = 4

What _thing_ does it 'represent'? The locus classicus, more in Aristotle than Kantotle, is "De Interpretatione". Aristotle says that

ideas

are

phantasmata

of

things (pragmata).

This is trifle enough. And he adds that words (logoi, or propositions proper) are phantasmata of _ideas_. So the 'way of words' is a MEDIATE one for the 'immediate' one.

There is an 'immediate' connection between the

thing

and the

idea.

But there is a _mediate_ connection between the thing and the word. So that a word, as in the proposition, linguistic now, of

"2 + 2 = 4"

signifies, mediately, that 2 + 2 = 4.

----

These are complex matters. When Hume speaks of 'relations between ideas', we then have to take this point by Aristotle (and Locke, in what Locke calls _semeiotic_) seriously.

For, in the case of 'matter of fact' propositions, we STILL have ideas. Empirical ones.

"Sugar is sweet."

Say. Or to use an example that fascinated Grice:

"Nothing can be green and red all over". -- Synthetic a priori.

Here we have TWO ideas, which are both empirical. And the connection (relationship) is said, yet, to be _informative_. Perhaps Grice's category of Quantity (which he jocularly takes from Kant) may prove relevant.

The apriori/aposteriori terminology can only confuse.

An occulist is an eye doctor.

This proposition may be said to be trifle. Yet, for someone _learning_ (a posteriori) the meaning of 'occulist' it may be _informative_ enough. And so on.

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Jones:

"It seems to me that some philosophers have, and others do not, a good intuitive grasp of when a proposition says something about the world and when it does not. Hume had, but others do not."

I'm always fascinated by Mill. To me, Mill just followed the empiricist -- and why not, positivist? -- position to the extreme. For he thought that

2 + 2 = 4

rather than a formalism alla Hilbert that merely reflects a play on words, is a statistical empirical generalisation. Analytic, mabbe, but surely not a gratuitous statement as most philosophers think it is.

Jones:

"I'm guessing that Hume may have acquired it from Aristotle, for I think it is there to be had. I think it probable that it came to me through reading Ayer's "Language Truth and Logic" very early in my philosophical education. But some seem to me not to grasp it, quite possibly despite reading both these sources and more. Among today's philosophers, few will have been nurtured in an environment sympathetic to this particular insight (and few will think much of this paragraph)."

I find it fascinating. To rescue old terminologies. How Aristotle's terminology fared with Kant, say. And how Kripke forgot about all this -- almost, when he started to provide tables of equivalence. Perhaps a philosopher who has 'annotated' Kripke has discussed the history of these six or so central issues in philosophical terminology.

Jones:

"In my limited reading of Critical Rationalism this is the principal difficulty which I find, that despite its serious desire to be a sceptical philosophy, it is shares the rationalistic defect by failing to perceive the limits of what can be established by deductive arguments."

At this point, Peirce can only complicate the picture. For he, who was well imbued in classical terminology, would speak of 'ab-ductive' reasoning, and that quite opens a can of worms. For it may be argued that scientific reasoning is not deductive OR inductive as such, but ABductive. In the case of abductive reasoning, the point about the apriority or analyticity of propositions seems less relevant, though, granted.

Jones:

"Of course to carry through this critique I should have to get to specific examples which I won't do here, but I will say that the most easily identifiable reason why (despite all the problems one can find in positivistic philosophers) I prefer to call myself a positivist rather than a critical rationalist, is precisely that at the heart of positivism I see this important distinction, and in critical rationalism it has no such special status."

Excellent. "Positivism" has a very long pedigree to it. "Rationalism" has undergone so many changes that in "Logic and Conversation" (WoW:ii) Grice feels the need to grant that he is

"enough of a rationalist"

to want to say that ... people are rational. I was always amused by 'enough of a rationalist' (cfr. the otiosity of 'enough of an empiricist'). Note too how in "Reply to Richards" he goes on to qualiy his 'rationalism' as:

'irreverent, reactionary'

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Jones:

"In the existence and relative solidity (at least for philosophy) of these intuitions lies support for the Grice/Strawson response to Quine. The status of the analytic/synthetic distinction as a source of philosophical insight does not rest upon any detailed formal characterisation of the distinction. The sympathy between the two is however limited. There is no suggestion in Hume that his ability to perceive the defects in metaphysics is something he would expect to see in common sense or to draw from ordinary language. Hume is talking about profound abstract reasonings, not about ordinary discourse."

Indeed. He was talking about too many things! I am always fascinated by the fact that in his big oeuvre, he found the time to write a "History of England". (I'm more fascinated by the fact that he was a Scot, and that his surname was spelled 'Home').

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Jones:

"And then of course, the purpose to which he initially deploys his insights, the elimination of "metaphysics", is not one with which Oxford or Grice could wholeheartedly support."

Indeed. Bennett, a friend of Grice, who has studied these things, would of course group the empiricists as:

Locke
Hume
Berkeley

-- but I never found them to be so easily groupable! (or clubbable). They belonged to such different traditions! Locke was, in my view, never too serious a philosopher, but I am fascinated by the fact that Oxford revers him (Grice was John Locke Lecturer). Hume I group more in the 'common sense' (Scots?) philosophy. And Berkeley was of course a bishop more than he was a philosopher.

It is difficult to see how Hume would fall squarely within the English institutional traditions in philosophy. Locke didn't, easily, but his "Essay" was so magnificent, and Oxford BEING IN NEED of having a 'patron' (saint), it is understandable that his place in the longitudinal unity of philosophy (as Grice calls it) was secured.

---- Still, Hume was a genius, and Grice would often refer to him, in publications and other. -- He would often contrast him with 'minor figures' in the philosophical firmament that one rather can be without (Wollaston, Bosanquet, "Witters").

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Jones:

"Hume can hardly be thought of as a "Viennese redneck" but he is a primary source of the arguments with which they swept aside huge swathes of our intellectual history. Grice accepted the analytic/synthetic distinction, but preserved a respect for at least some kinds of metaphysics.
Does he speak of that specific notion of metaphysics common to Hume and Carnap (inter alia) which consists in a priori demonstration of synthetic claims?"

Will look for any reference. As I said elsewhere, I was fascinated to check that when G&W compiled "The publications of H. P. Grice" in the appendix to PGRICE (that came out OUP 1986) there is no mention of:

Grice-Strawson-Pears, "Metaphysics".

This was published in 1957 in Pears, "The nature of metaphysics". It was meant as the transcript of a Third programme BBC lecture. It is informal in nature, but it considers, briefly, the history of metaphysics. It is acknowledged in the "Metaphysics" entry in P. Edwards, Encyclopaedia of philosophy.

So, we see, by 1957, Grice systematically engaged (with Pears and Strawson) in the historiography of metaphysics.

By that time, Grice was lecturing with Strawson on Aristotle, and it was by attending these lectures, by Grice and Austin, that a new 'trend' in metaphysics started in Oxford, when J. L. Ackrill thought of going back to the Greek (language) as it were.

----- As we know, Grice left Oxford and it was only later that he found the time and energy to look back on the "Athenian dialectic" which he associated with Aristotle, as it paralleled the "Oxonian dialectic" which he had lived through.

-------- As an Anglo-American analytic philosophy, he possibly never felt the need to defend continental metaphysics (alla Heidegger, say) against whom Grice calls the 'Vienna rednecks'. So, the metaphysical position that Grice assumed seems a subtler one, and one where ordinary language (or the vernacular, as he preferred) plays a major role.

Jones asks:

"Does [Grice] speak of that specific notion of metaphysics common to Hume and Carnap (inter alia) which consists in a priori demonstration of synthetic claims?"

---- I would have to check. A good point of contact, though, seems to be Spinoza, no? For he thought of 'moralia' 'more geometrico', and that may relate. I'm not sure Grice makes much use of the

a posteriori
a priori

distinction.

His idea of 'demonstration' is perhaps best made evident in his third book, "Aspects of Reason". Here he considers 'trivial', which may relate to Locke 'trifle'. Grice wants to say that some reasoning is 'trivial' when it is not even (or almost) reasoning.

"I have "1 + 1" hands; therefore, I have '2' hands".

Say. He wants to say that in some 'demonstrations', which are, granted, analytic, nothing _is_ demonstrated. He makes the point that he will STILL consider such 'demonstrations' demonstrations, and he appeals to 'implicature'. It is a mere implicature that has us think that trivial demonstrations are no demonstrations.

In unpublications, he considers

"Nothing can be green and red all over"

-- and a few other instances of 'synthetic a priori'. This is indeed a special concern of his metaphysics, because even for an ordinary-language philosopher like him, it is not easy to grasp where such 'demonstrations' or premises derive their validity. He was interested, informally, in the ontogenesis, as it were, of such claims. When do children start to think that "nothing can be green or red all over" states an a priori analytic truth, as it doesn't? And if it expresses an a-posteriori synthetic truth, what does it mean to say that it IS 'a posteriori'. I possibly did expand on that particular proposition elsewhere in the annals of the club, should the search engine be working, but will try to retrieve the right quote.

---- Grice left MANY unpublications and 'a new discourse on metaphysics' was one of them. So, he possibly thought of these deep issues as central to his endeavours. Oddly, like Kripke, he kept an eye on the turns of idioms that articulate these truths. Kripke had said (and Dummett requoted it) that there are "seas of language" which are deep enough, and that puzzle us with idiomatic twists like "Socrates was called Socrtes". Similarly, Grice spoke of the berths of language.

Grice was also especially interested in the metaphysics (or ontology, really) of Scientism (the 'devil of scientism', as he called it): Eddington's Table, for example. When examining this, he would go back to the 'vernacular' which he now opposed not to the technical terminology of Carnap, say, but to 'the learned'.

Since Grice was, like Popper, also interested in, say, where _mind_ fits in a world of facts, his metaphysical views connected with issues of supervenience of the mental, say. His "Conception of Value", his second book, in fact derives strictly from Hume. For Grice wants to add to the 'world of facts' not just our 'souls' (or minds -- he preferred 'soul', hence 'philosophical psychology') but VALUES themselves. For where do 'values' come from? For Grice, it was the ideea (or 'conception,' Humeanly) of 'value' that proved essential. He connected this with metaphysics and the idea of freedom, in ways which are difficult, but not impossible, to systematise! And so on!

Thanks for the thoughts, R. B. Jones.

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