In his interesting "Pervasive metaphysics and other Grice/Carnap tensions", THIS CLUB, R. B. Jones writes:
"I don't know why I should have been surprised when Speranza pointed out the pervasiveness of metaphysics in Grice's philosophy, for surely every aspect of our language engages with its own special kinds of entity and thus involves some special metaphysics."
Well, but it's ALWAYS _nice_ to be surprised. In Greek, 'surprise' was spelt (or spelled') 'wonder', and note that anglophones nicley abuse this word, "I wonder who's kissing her now", the title of an old song goes. So, it's nice to wonder, i.e. it's nice to be surprised -- and there are, as these, 'meta-surprises, as when Jones wondered why he wondered ... (and so ad infinitum).
Jones continues:
"Naturally I ask the question whether this deals a serious blow to the prospects for our Grice/Carnap dialogue."
Good.
"The simple answer is: "not at all!", for surely this is what Carnap's principle of tolerance is all about, freedom to use languages irrespective of whatever ontology they presuppose (though I don't think that way of putting it is Carnap's), subject only to pragmatic questions (does it serve any purpose?), not the meaningless metaphysical "external questions"".
Indeed. I think Carnap's principle of Tolerance is a brilliant one, and Griceian in parts. Note that 'tolerance' was after all, the favourite (if not pet) word of Grice's favourite philosopher, John Locke.
INTERLUDE FROM WIKI:
"A Letter Concerning Toleration by John Locke was originally published in 1689. Its initial publication was in Latin, though it was immediately translated into other languages. Locke's work appeared amidst a fear that Catholicism might be taking over England, and responds to the problem of religion and government by proposing religious toleration as the answer. This "letter" is addressed to an anonymous "Honored Sir": this was actually Locke's close friend Philipp van Limborch, who published it without Locke's knowledge."
---- END OF INTERLUDE
Now, it may be a good exercise in Carnapian/Griceian linguistic botany to look for fine (if not nice) distinctions between 'tolerance' and 'toleration'!
Jones goes on:
"This kind of response, however, leaves us with a puzzle. If Carnap's positivism is so very accomodating, what is left of his rejection of metaphysics? Is this something which just melted away? On the other hand, can we be sure that the pervasive metaphysics in Grice is entirely concerned with questions which Carnap would recognise as "internal", as we might suppose by considering Grice's methods."
Good questions.
I would even go on and apply the universal quantifier and talk of Grice's
all-pervasive metaphysics!
Oxonian interlude:
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/all--pervasive
all-pervasive
(also all-pervading)
adjective
--- end of Oxonian interlude.
Jones goes on:
"I revisited some of the milestones in Carnap's writings on Metaphysics to clarify my thinking on the first of those puzzles, and it is interesting to see that this very question (about what is left of Carnap's proscription of metaphysics after "Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology") is answered in the statement of his position on metaphysics in the Schilpp volume.
Evidently other people had wondered, after "Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology" whether Carnap's objections to Metaphysics had not just dwindled into nothingness (Carnap is responding to Beth)."
Let's Wiki Beth for the record. Carnap, unlike Grice, was fortunate ('lucky' is perhaps too informal an epithet) that Schilpp was able to have him in his "Library of Living Philosophers". As things are, while Strawson (Grice's junior) also made it -- and Strawson's is my favourite "library-of-living-philosophers" volume -- Grice didn't, but then, there is the ever expanding Library of Dead Philosophers.
----- LONG INTERLUDE ON "THE BOOK OF DEAD PHILOSOPHERS"
"The book of dead philosophers"
by Simon Critchley
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of
the Month, February 2009: For professor Simon Critchely, how we die is
possibly more important than how we lived.
In The Book of Dead
Philosophers, Critchley presents a lineup of nearly 200 famous (and not so
famous) philosophers and explores how, through their deaths, one might be
inspired to lead a richer life. From a few words to a few pages, each great
thinker's death is examined in an enlightening and entertaining manner as the
author waxes on the often brutal (and odd) ways they left this mortal coil. And
along with natural causes, murders, and suicides, you'll discover what dark
departures from suffocating in cow dung, indigestion, and lethal insect stings
have to do with how we live today. At times the "sobering power of the
philosophical death" might seem more like a morbidly ironic punchline to the
life each philosopher led, but Critchley writes, "My hope is that, if read from
beginning to end, a cumulative series of themes will emerge that will add up to
a specific argument about how philosophy might teach one how to die, and by
implication, how to live." --Brad Thomas Parsons
From Publishers Weekly
According to Cicero, to philosophize is to
learn how to die. Critchley (Infinitely Demanding) illustrates this claim
in his portraits of the deaths of more than 190 philosophers from the ancients
to the analytics of the mid–20th century. A primer on just about every notable
philosophical figure in history, this book challenges readers to learn from the
philosophers' conduct in life and the circumstances of their deaths. Confucius
believed that mourning underscored the value of life; accordingly, his followers
grieved his death for at least three years. Thoreau, Emerson and John Stuart
Mill died of ordinary ailments while relishing the natural world. Aquinas found
serenity contemplating the bough of a tree, fitting consolation for the
philosopher who preached the interconnectedness of nature and the soul.
Dionysius spent the second half of his life rejecting Stoicism and embracing
hedonism yet committed a protracted suicide by voluntary starvation. David Hume
proved that atheists could die happy. The book offers an interpretation of
death's potential as a final artistic and intellectual endeavor; it is a witty
and generous gift that will leave readers perhaps a little less afraid of death
and more appreciative of life. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Dismayed by the devolution
of philosophy into a dry academic specialty, Critchley reconnects his discipline
with the most universal of human concerns. For it is in pondering death that
serious thinkers have discovered the wellsprings of wisdom. Seneca is thus
voicing a persistent philosophical motif when he insists, “He will live badly
who does not know how to die well.” However, because death refuses to shrink
into a tidy intellectual construct, Critchley scrutinizes not only what
prominent philosophers have thought about the subject but also how they have
actually died. Readers thus contemplate the dying Augustine reading the Hebrew
psalms in tears; the doomed Nietzsche rushing into the street to embrace a
horse, so signaling a final descent into syphilitic madness; the heroic Bergson
contracting his fatal illness by voluntarily joining fellow Jews forced into the
bitter cold of midwinter to register with Nazi authorities. Scholars may
complain about the scrapbook style of (dis)organization, as the deaths and death
thoughts of almost 200 philosophers pass in quick review. But most readers will
recognize the aptness of the rapid-fire summary, each entry a piquant reminder
of the brevity of life and a forceful rejection of the illusions of intellectual
progress. A work that makes philosophy matter again. --Bryce Christensen
Review
“A provocative and engrossing invitation to
think about the human condition and what philosophy can and can't do to
illuminate it.”
—The Financial Times
“Rigorous, profound and frequently hilarious. . . . Critchley is an engaging, deadpan guide to the metaphysical necropolis. . . . At a time when much popular philosophy is either frivolous, dull or complacent, his is a bracingly serious and properly comic presence.”
—The Daily Telegraph (UK)
—The Financial Times
“Rigorous, profound and frequently hilarious. . . . Critchley is an engaging, deadpan guide to the metaphysical necropolis. . . . At a time when much popular philosophy is either frivolous, dull or complacent, his is a bracingly serious and properly comic presence.”
—The Daily Telegraph (UK)
About the Author
Simon Critchly is Professor and Chair of
Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York. He is the author
of many books, most recently, On Heidegger's Being and Time and
Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance.
The Book of Dead Philosophers was written on a hill overlooking Los
Angeles, where he was a scholar at the Getty Research Institute. He lives in
Brooklyn.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Pre-Socratics, Physiologists, Sages and
Sophists
Philosophical thought emerged in the Greek-speaking world two and a half millennia ago. First we encounter the various sages and so- called “physiologists,” like Thales and Anaxagoras, who attempted to explain the origins of the universe and the causes of nature. We will then turn to the sometimes shadowy figures, like Pythagoras, Heracleitus and Empedocles, who define the world of thought prior to the birth of Socrates and the struggle between philosophy and sophistry in Athens during the Classical period of the fifth and fourth centuries bc.
Of course, one might with some justice claim that the Sphinx was the first philosopher and Oedipus the second. This would also have the merit of making philosophy begin with a woman and continuing with an incestuous parricide. The Sphinx asks her visitors a question, which is also a riddle, and perhaps even a joke: what goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening? If they get the answer wrong, she kills them. Furthermore, when Oedipus guesses the right answer to the riddle—man crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two legs as an adult and with a cane in old age—the Sphinx commits philosophical suicide by throwing herself to the ground from her high rock.
Thales
(flourished in the sixth century bc)
Thales came from the once mighty port of Miletus, close to the present Turkish coast, whose harbour long ago dried up thanks to the unending attention of silt.
Thales was the possible originator of the saying “know thyself,” who famously predicted the solar eclipse of May 585 bc. He believed that water was the universal substance and once fell into a ditch when he was taken outdoors by a Thracian girl to look at the stars. On hearing his cry, she said, “How can you expect to know about all the heavens, Thales, when you cannot even see what is just beneath your feet?” Some feel—perhaps rightly—that this is a charge that philosophy never entirely escaped in the following two and a half millennia.
Thales died at an advanced age of heat, thirst and weakness while watching an athletic contest. This inspired Diogenes Laertius to the following execrable verse:
As Thales watched the games one festal day The fierce sun smote him and he passed away.
Solon
(630–560 bc)
Solon was a famed Athenian legislator who repealed the bloody laws of Dracon (although it was Dracon whose name was turned into an adjective). Plutarch remarks that Solon suggested that brides should nibble a quince before getting into bed. The reason for this is unclear. When Solon was asked why he had not framed a law against parricide, he replied that he hoped it was unnecessary. He died in Cyprus at the age of eighty.
Chilon
(flourished in the sixth century bc)
A Spartan to whom the saying “know thyself” is also sometimes attributed. He died after congratulating his son on an Olympic victory in boxing.
Periander
(628–588 bc)
Like Thales, Solon and Chilon, Periander of Corinth was considered one of the Seven Sages of Greece. To others, like Aristotle, he was simply a tyrant. However, there is a bizarre story about the lengths to which Periander went in order to conceal his place of burial: he instructed two young men to meet a third man at a predetermined place and kill and bury him. Then he arranged for four men to pursue the first two and kill and bury them. Then he arranged for a larger group of men to hunt down the four. Having made all these preparations, he went out to meet the two young men for he, Periander, was the third man.
Epimenides
(possibly flourished in the sixth century,
possibly a mythical figure)
A native of Crete, the setting for Epimenides’ famous paradox. Epimenides’ original statement was “Cretans, always liars.” He appears to have intended this literally, as the great Cretan lie is the belief that Zeus is mortal, whereas every sensible person knows that he is really immortal. However, in logic, this paradox takes on a more acute form. Consider the sentence “This statement is not true.” Now, is this statement true? If it is, then it is not; if it is not, then it is. This is a perfect example of a paradox. That is, it is a proposition whose truth leads to a contradiction and the denial of its truth also leads to a contradiction.
Legend has it that Epimenides was sent into the countryside by his father to look after some sheep. But instead of tending to the sheep, he fell asleep in a cave for fifty-seven years. Upon waking, he went in search of the sheep, believing that he had only taken a short nap. When he returned home, everything (unsurprisingly) had changed and a new owner had taken possession of his father’s farm. Eventually, he found his younger brother, by now an elderly man, and learnt the truth.
Epimenides’ fame spread and it was believed thereafter that he possessed the gift of prophecy. Diogenes tells of how the Athenians sent for him when the city was suffering from the plague. He again took some sheep and went to the Areopagus, the high rock in the centre of Athens. He commanded that a sacrifice be made at each spot where a sheep decided to lie down. In this way, apparently, Athens was freed from the plague.
According to Phlegon in his work On Longevity, Epimenides lived to be 157 years old. This makes him a centurion, excluding his long nap in the cave. The Cretans claim that he lived to be 259 years old. But, as we all know, Cretans are always liars.
Anaximander
(610–546/545 bc)
Anaximander somewhat obscurely claimed that the Unlimited or that which is without boundaries (apeiron) is the original material of all existing things. He discovered his own limit at the age of sixty-four.
Pythagoras
(580–500 bc)
Sadly, it is now almost universally assumed by classical scholars that Pythagoras never existed. It seems that there was a group of people in southern Italy called Pythagoreans who invented a “Founder” for their beliefs who, accordingly, lived and died in a manner consistent with those beliefs. But let’s not allow Pythagoras’ mere non-existence to deter us, as the stories that surround him are so compelling. They are also illustrative of the wider point that disciples of a thinker will often simply invent stories and anecdotes that illustrate the life of the master in whom they want to believe. Perhaps we should be suspicious of this desire for a master.
Be that as it may, Pythagorean doctrines were bound by an oath of secrecy, so we know very little prior to the version of them that appears in Plato. These include a belief in the immortality and transmigration of the soul and the view that the ultimate reality of the universe consists in number. Pythagoreans regarded even numbers as female and odd numbers as male. The number 5 was called “marriage” because it was the product of the first even (2) and odd (3) numbers (the ancient Greeks considered the number 1 a unit and not a proper number, which had to express a multiplicity). Pythagoreans also believed that their master had established the ratios that underlie music. This had huge influence in the notion of musica universalis or music of the spheres, where the entire cosmos was the expression of a musical harmony whose key was given in mathematics.
However, the Pythagoreans also observed a number of other, more worldly doctrines, involving food in particular. They abstained from meat and fish. For some reason red mullet is singled out for especial prohibition, and Plutarch notes that they considered the egg taboo, too. Pythagoras and his followers also inherited from the Egyptians a strong revulsion to beans, because of their apparent resemblance to the genitalia. Apparently, “bean” may have been a slang term for “testicle.” But there are many other possible reasons for this dislike of beans.
There are some fascinating remarks in the Philosophumena [Philosophizings] or the Refutation of All Heresies by the Christian Bishop Hippolytus written around ad 220. According to him, if beans are chewed and left in the sun, they emit the smell of semen. Even worse, if one takes the bean in flower and buries it in the earth and in a few days digs it up, then, “We shall see it at first having the form of a woman’s pudenda and afterwards on close examination a child’s head growing with it.” Of course, as many of us know to our cost, beans should be avoided as they produce terrible flatulence. Oddly, it was because of beans that Pythagoras is alleged to have met his end. But I am getting ahead of myself.
So the legend goes, Pythagoras left his native Samos, an island off the Ionian coast, because of a dislike of the policies of the tyrant Polycrates. He fled with his followers to Croton in southern Italy and extended considerable influence and power in the region of present-day Calabria. Porphyry, in his Life of Pythagoras, relates how a certain Cylo, a rich and powerful local figure, felt slighted by the haughtiness with which Pythagoras treated him. As a consequence, Cylo and his retinue burnt down the house in which Pythagoras and his followers were gathered. The master only escaped because his followers bridged the fire with their own bodies. He got as far as a field of beans, where he stopped and declared that he would rather be killed than cross it. This enabled his pursuers to catch up with him and cut his throat.
Yet, there is another story, related by Hermippus, that when the cities of Agrigentum and Syracuse were at war, the Pythagoreans sided with the Agrigentines. Unbelievably, Pythagoras was killed by the Syracusans as he was trying to avoid a beanfield. Thirty-five of his followers were subsequently burnt at the stake for treachery.
Philosophical thought emerged in the Greek-speaking world two and a half millennia ago. First we encounter the various sages and so- called “physiologists,” like Thales and Anaxagoras, who attempted to explain the origins of the universe and the causes of nature. We will then turn to the sometimes shadowy figures, like Pythagoras, Heracleitus and Empedocles, who define the world of thought prior to the birth of Socrates and the struggle between philosophy and sophistry in Athens during the Classical period of the fifth and fourth centuries bc.
Of course, one might with some justice claim that the Sphinx was the first philosopher and Oedipus the second. This would also have the merit of making philosophy begin with a woman and continuing with an incestuous parricide. The Sphinx asks her visitors a question, which is also a riddle, and perhaps even a joke: what goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening? If they get the answer wrong, she kills them. Furthermore, when Oedipus guesses the right answer to the riddle—man crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two legs as an adult and with a cane in old age—the Sphinx commits philosophical suicide by throwing herself to the ground from her high rock.
Thales
(flourished in the sixth century bc)
Thales came from the once mighty port of Miletus, close to the present Turkish coast, whose harbour long ago dried up thanks to the unending attention of silt.
Thales was the possible originator of the saying “know thyself,” who famously predicted the solar eclipse of May 585 bc. He believed that water was the universal substance and once fell into a ditch when he was taken outdoors by a Thracian girl to look at the stars. On hearing his cry, she said, “How can you expect to know about all the heavens, Thales, when you cannot even see what is just beneath your feet?” Some feel—perhaps rightly—that this is a charge that philosophy never entirely escaped in the following two and a half millennia.
Thales died at an advanced age of heat, thirst and weakness while watching an athletic contest. This inspired Diogenes Laertius to the following execrable verse:
As Thales watched the games one festal day The fierce sun smote him and he passed away.
Solon
(630–560 bc)
Solon was a famed Athenian legislator who repealed the bloody laws of Dracon (although it was Dracon whose name was turned into an adjective). Plutarch remarks that Solon suggested that brides should nibble a quince before getting into bed. The reason for this is unclear. When Solon was asked why he had not framed a law against parricide, he replied that he hoped it was unnecessary. He died in Cyprus at the age of eighty.
Chilon
(flourished in the sixth century bc)
A Spartan to whom the saying “know thyself” is also sometimes attributed. He died after congratulating his son on an Olympic victory in boxing.
Periander
(628–588 bc)
Like Thales, Solon and Chilon, Periander of Corinth was considered one of the Seven Sages of Greece. To others, like Aristotle, he was simply a tyrant. However, there is a bizarre story about the lengths to which Periander went in order to conceal his place of burial: he instructed two young men to meet a third man at a predetermined place and kill and bury him. Then he arranged for four men to pursue the first two and kill and bury them. Then he arranged for a larger group of men to hunt down the four. Having made all these preparations, he went out to meet the two young men for he, Periander, was the third man.
Epimenides
(possibly flourished in the sixth century,
possibly a mythical figure)
A native of Crete, the setting for Epimenides’ famous paradox. Epimenides’ original statement was “Cretans, always liars.” He appears to have intended this literally, as the great Cretan lie is the belief that Zeus is mortal, whereas every sensible person knows that he is really immortal. However, in logic, this paradox takes on a more acute form. Consider the sentence “This statement is not true.” Now, is this statement true? If it is, then it is not; if it is not, then it is. This is a perfect example of a paradox. That is, it is a proposition whose truth leads to a contradiction and the denial of its truth also leads to a contradiction.
Legend has it that Epimenides was sent into the countryside by his father to look after some sheep. But instead of tending to the sheep, he fell asleep in a cave for fifty-seven years. Upon waking, he went in search of the sheep, believing that he had only taken a short nap. When he returned home, everything (unsurprisingly) had changed and a new owner had taken possession of his father’s farm. Eventually, he found his younger brother, by now an elderly man, and learnt the truth.
Epimenides’ fame spread and it was believed thereafter that he possessed the gift of prophecy. Diogenes tells of how the Athenians sent for him when the city was suffering from the plague. He again took some sheep and went to the Areopagus, the high rock in the centre of Athens. He commanded that a sacrifice be made at each spot where a sheep decided to lie down. In this way, apparently, Athens was freed from the plague.
According to Phlegon in his work On Longevity, Epimenides lived to be 157 years old. This makes him a centurion, excluding his long nap in the cave. The Cretans claim that he lived to be 259 years old. But, as we all know, Cretans are always liars.
Anaximander
(610–546/545 bc)
Anaximander somewhat obscurely claimed that the Unlimited or that which is without boundaries (apeiron) is the original material of all existing things. He discovered his own limit at the age of sixty-four.
Pythagoras
(580–500 bc)
Sadly, it is now almost universally assumed by classical scholars that Pythagoras never existed. It seems that there was a group of people in southern Italy called Pythagoreans who invented a “Founder” for their beliefs who, accordingly, lived and died in a manner consistent with those beliefs. But let’s not allow Pythagoras’ mere non-existence to deter us, as the stories that surround him are so compelling. They are also illustrative of the wider point that disciples of a thinker will often simply invent stories and anecdotes that illustrate the life of the master in whom they want to believe. Perhaps we should be suspicious of this desire for a master.
Be that as it may, Pythagorean doctrines were bound by an oath of secrecy, so we know very little prior to the version of them that appears in Plato. These include a belief in the immortality and transmigration of the soul and the view that the ultimate reality of the universe consists in number. Pythagoreans regarded even numbers as female and odd numbers as male. The number 5 was called “marriage” because it was the product of the first even (2) and odd (3) numbers (the ancient Greeks considered the number 1 a unit and not a proper number, which had to express a multiplicity). Pythagoreans also believed that their master had established the ratios that underlie music. This had huge influence in the notion of musica universalis or music of the spheres, where the entire cosmos was the expression of a musical harmony whose key was given in mathematics.
However, the Pythagoreans also observed a number of other, more worldly doctrines, involving food in particular. They abstained from meat and fish. For some reason red mullet is singled out for especial prohibition, and Plutarch notes that they considered the egg taboo, too. Pythagoras and his followers also inherited from the Egyptians a strong revulsion to beans, because of their apparent resemblance to the genitalia. Apparently, “bean” may have been a slang term for “testicle.” But there are many other possible reasons for this dislike of beans.
There are some fascinating remarks in the Philosophumena [Philosophizings] or the Refutation of All Heresies by the Christian Bishop Hippolytus written around ad 220. According to him, if beans are chewed and left in the sun, they emit the smell of semen. Even worse, if one takes the bean in flower and buries it in the earth and in a few days digs it up, then, “We shall see it at first having the form of a woman’s pudenda and afterwards on close examination a child’s head growing with it.” Of course, as many of us know to our cost, beans should be avoided as they produce terrible flatulence. Oddly, it was because of beans that Pythagoras is alleged to have met his end. But I am getting ahead of myself.
So the legend goes, Pythagoras left his native Samos, an island off the Ionian coast, because of a dislike of the policies of the tyrant Polycrates. He fled with his followers to Croton in southern Italy and extended considerable influence and power in the region of present-day Calabria. Porphyry, in his Life of Pythagoras, relates how a certain Cylo, a rich and powerful local figure, felt slighted by the haughtiness with which Pythagoras treated him. As a consequence, Cylo and his retinue burnt down the house in which Pythagoras and his followers were gathered. The master only escaped because his followers bridged the fire with their own bodies. He got as far as a field of beans, where he stopped and declared that he would rather be killed than cross it. This enabled his pursuers to catch up with him and cut his throat.
Yet, there is another story, related by Hermippus, that when the cities of Agrigentum and Syracuse were at war, the Pythagoreans sided with the Agrigentines. Unbelievably, Pythagoras was killed by the Syracusans as he was trying to avoid a beanfield. Thirty-five of his followers were subsequently burnt at the stake for treachery.
------ END OF LONG INTERLUDE, and add "Grice" to Critchley's book of dead philosophers.
Jones goes on about Carnap's reply to Beth which reminds me that I should wiki Beth:
---- INTERLUDE ON BETH:
Beth was born in Almelo, a small town in the eastern Netherlands. His father had studied mathematics and physics at the University of Amsterdam, where he had been awarded a Ph.D. Evert Beth studied the same subjects at Utrecht University, but then also studied philosophy and psychology. His 1935 Ph.D. was in philosophy.
In 1946, he became professor of logic and the foundations of mathematics in Amsterdam. Apart from two brief interruptions – a stint in 1951 as a research assistant to Alfred Tarski, and in 1957 as a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University – he held the post in Amsterdam continuously until his death in 1964. His was the first academic post in his country in logic and the foundations of mathematics, and during this time he contributed actively to international cooperation in establishing logic as an academic discipline.
He died in Amsterdam.
Contributions to logic
Definition theorem
The definition theorem states that a predicate (or function or constant) is implicitly definable if and only if it is explicitly definable.Semantic tableaux
Semantic tableaux are a proof method for formal systems. Cf. Gentzen's natural deduction and sequent calculus, or even J. Alan Robinson's resolution and Hilbert's axiomatic systems. It is considered by many to be intuitively simple, particularly for students not acquainted with the study of logic (Wilfrid Hodges for example presents semantic tableaux in his introductory textbook, Logic, and Melvin Fitting does the same in his presentation of first-order logic for computer scientists, First-order logic and automated theorem proving).One starts out with the intention of proving that a certain set
of formulae imply another formula 
, given a set of rules determined by the semantics of the formulae's connectives (and quantifiers, in first-order logic). The method is to assume the concurrent truth of every member of and of 
(the negation of ), and then to apply the rules to branch this list into a tree-like structure of (simpler) formulae until every possible branch contains a contradiction. At this point it will have been established that 
is inconsistent, and thus that the formulae of together imply .Beth models
These are a class of relational models for non-classical logic (cf. Kripke semantics).See also
Books
- Evert W. Beth, The foundations of mathematics. A study in the philosophy of science. XXVΊ + 722 pp. Amsterdam, North-Holland 1959.
- Evert W. Beth, Epistemologie mathematique et psychologie (with J. Piaget). 352 pp. Paris P.U.F. 1961.
- Evert W. Beth, Formal Methods: An introduction to symbolic logic and to the study of effective operations in arithmetic and logic. D. Reidel Publishing Company / Dordecht-Holland, 1970. ISBN 90-277-0069-9.
References
- Francella, Miriam (1999). "Evert Willem Beth's Scientific Philosophy". Grazer Philosophische Studien 57: 221–236. doi:10.5840/gps19995712.
- Heyting, Alan (1966). "In memoriam: Evert Willem Beth (1909–1964).". Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 7 (4): 289–295.
- Mooij, J J A. "Beth, Evert Willem (1908–1964)". Biographical Dictionary of the Netherlands: 1880–2000. Retrieved 22 April 2013.
External links
:
Jones goes on:
"Carnap's answer there is interesting because it presents a new aspect of what he had introduced as the internal/external distinction."
Good.
"In relation to Grice's metaphysics it is easy to imagine that as an ordinary language philosopher all his metaphysics is based on the analysis of ordinary language, and that the ontological and conceptual analyses thus obtained are all "internal" in Carnap's terms and hence unobjectionable to Carnap."
Exactly.
"Of course, Carnap might have preferred the topics be
addressed in formal languages, and then yield necessary conclusions, and would
have considered the study of ordinary language to belong to pragmatics (though I
myself think him mistaken to exclude the possibility of a semantic study of
natural languages, even though the results would be synthetic)."
Good points. We can also add the point that Grice (qua ENGLISH speaker) is studying English (qua ordinary language) and thus using ENGLISH as a meta-language, too.
----- But, as Jones is well aware, Grice did play with the possibilities of a formal calculus, or system, that he called Q (after Quine -- anathema to Carnap!) -- and Myro retitled G, and Speranza calls it System GHP.
Jones goes on:
"However, the distinction between internal and external questions is particularly difficult when it comes to natural languages, for all Carnap's examples of external questions are couched in natural l.nguages."
Indeed, while he does tend to focus on a formal approach to the internal answers to the internal questions.
-- I focus on the 'answer', seems it seems it's an expression hardly used by Carnap -- or Witters for that matters -- Philosophy as concerned with 'questions' rather than their potential answers. To this, Carnap would have been fascinated by that Symposium -- Aristotelian Society -- by Rush Rhees eet al, on
"Unanswerable questions"!
Jones goes on:
"Natural languages are
often their own metalanguage and the distinction between internal and external
is muddied."
Indeed. In Davidson's contribution to Grandy/Warner, "PRGIRCE" ("A nice derangement of epitaphs"), Davidson denies there is such a thing as a 'language', and I agree. Grice speaks of Deutero-Esperanto (once) for the kind of thing he sometimes felt like speaking -- as while laying in the tub of his bathroom --. Grice technically prefers to speak of 'idiolect', where the root is 'idio-', which, while having the same root as English 'idiot', means 'particular', rather. So, Grice speaks Griceish, rather, or Griceian, if you mustn't -- rather than a 'natural' language (which would be an abstraction) as "English" is supposed to be.
INTERLUDE ON GRICE'S TUB:
"X [may be current] only for utterer U. It is only U's practice to utter X
in such-and-such circumstances. In this case, U WILL have a readiness to
utter X in such-and-such circumstances."
There is also the scenario "in which X is NOT current at all, but the
utterance of X in such-and-such circumstances is part of SOME SYSTEM OF
COMMUNICATION which U has devised but which has never been put into operation
(like the highway code which I invent one day while lying in my bath). In that
case, U HAS a procedure for X in the _attenuated_ sense that he has
envisaged a possible system of practices which WOULD involve a READINESS to
utter X
in such-and-such circimstances."
---- Studies in the Way of Words, WOW, p. 128.
in such-and-such circumstances. In this case, U WILL have a readiness to
utter X in such-and-such circumstances."
There is also the scenario "in which X is NOT current at all, but the
utterance of X in such-and-such circumstances is part of SOME SYSTEM OF
COMMUNICATION which U has devised but which has never been put into operation
(like the highway code which I invent one day while lying in my bath). In that
case, U HAS a procedure for X in the _attenuated_ sense that he has
envisaged a possible system of practices which WOULD involve a READINESS to
utter X
in such-and-such circimstances."
---- Studies in the Way of Words, WOW, p. 128.
--- END OF INTERLUDE on Grice's DEUTERO-ESPERANTO (from WoW -- Way of Words)
Example by Grice that does NOT involve a 'convention' in this 'usage':
"I can INVENT a language,
call it Deutero-Esperanto,
which nobody every speaks."
"That makes me the AUTHORITY,"
--- cfr. 'arkhe': authority, government (in plural), "authorities".
"and I can lay down"
--- while lying in the tub, no doubt --
"what is PROPER".
"I can INVENT a language,
call it Deutero-Esperanto,
which nobody every speaks."
"That makes me the AUTHORITY,"
--- cfr. 'arkhe': authority, government (in plural), "authorities".
"and I can lay down"
--- while lying in the tub, no doubt --
"what is PROPER".
-- END OF INTERLUDE ON GRICE'S DEUTERO-ESPERANTO.
Jones continues:
"External questions are often put using the word "real" or
"really"".
Excellent point. A word that Austin and Grice would say is the one that 'often wears the trousers'. (Grice refers to Austin's 'artless sexism' here).
Jones goes on:
"Do these kinds of entity "really" exist? (Carnap often exemplifies external question using talk of "reality")."
Very good points.
And I think 'real' is an excellent word for linguistic botany -- as prescribed by Austin. Grice once responded -- was it a bad day for him? -- to Austin:
"I actually don't give a hoot what the dictionary says".
"I actually don't give a hoot what the dictionary says".
Later, Grice would recall his mistake by bringing up Austin's rebuke, "And that's where you make your BIG mistake".
----
The Romans are said to have invented 'reality', qua term --. I think the Greeks -- or Grecians, as I prefer -- lacked the notion.
Jones goes on:
"This works fine when we are talking
about the ontology of a formal language and the talk of "reality" is confined to
the metalanguage. But in a natural language, talk of "reality" is internal and
all those external questions are internalised."
Good point.
"Real" and "reality" needs some fine linguistic botany. Austin deals with these in his brilliant -- that some -- including Grice! -- found boring -- lectures on "Sense and Sensibilia". "real duck" versus 'duck', for example.
---
Jones goes on:
"So it's helpful that in the Schilpp volume Carnap gives us an alternative vocabulary for talking about what he means by "metaphysics" and which he still rejects."
OK. Good for Beth inspiring Carnap thus.
Jones goes on:
"As it happens this has been my preferred way of thinking of this for some time. The alternative account distinguishes between ontological claims which are relative to some language, and those which purport to be absolute, and on this account Carnap's rejection of metaphysics becomes a rejection of absolute ontological claims. Relative (aka internal) claims (relative to some language) are to be settled by the "rules" of the language, yielding answers only for specific languages which may disagree among themselves (between different languages)."
"As it happens this has been my preferred way of thinking of this for some time. The alternative account distinguishes between ontological claims which are relative to some language, and those which purport to be absolute, and on this account Carnap's rejection of metaphysics becomes a rejection of absolute ontological claims. Relative (aka internal) claims (relative to some language) are to be settled by the "rules" of the language, yielding answers only for specific languages which may disagree among themselves (between different languages)."
Well, here we have two fascinating dichotomies, then:
internal/external -- and its variants: 'unanswerable internal questions' vs. 'answerable external', say.
-- and
absolute/relative.
Grice spends QUITE SOME TIME on this distintion in his "Conception of Value". He is concerned with the absolute value of things -- in formal terms -- like
p!
and especially the imperative form:
(p --> q)!
i.e. he is trying to follow Kant as to what makes the 'categorical imperative' one of 'absolute' value. As it happens, Grice fails, and his account is now described as merely 'constructivist', i.e. as proposing a CONSTRUCTIVIST approach to 'the absolute' (value).
-- Incidentally, my favourite Absolute should be served with 'greens', i.e. T. H. Green, the philosopher, and it's the Snark, by Carroll:
"'If your Snark be a Snark, that is right: Fetch it home by all means—you may serve it with greens,. And it's handy for striking a light."
In his "Annotated Snark", M. Gardner -- an interesting philosopher, mathematical philosopher, even -- thinks, with other authors he quotes, that 'greens' there is a coded reference to the Hegelian philosopher of the "Absolute", Thomas Hill Green.
INTERLUDE:
Thomas Hill Green (7 April 1836 – 15 March 1882) was an English philosopher, political radical and temperance reformer, and a member of the British idealism movement. Like all the British idealists, Green was influenced by the metaphysical historicism of G.W.F. Hegel. He was one of the thinkers behind the philosophy of social liberalism.
----
Jones goes on:
"With this clarification in mind we may ask again how Grice's work might have appeared in Canap's eyes. The question then becomes, is Grice's interest in metaphysics exclusively relative to some language (presumably English), or does he get into more absolute questions? That's a question for JL perhaps, but I shall speculate a little myself. It seems to me that Grice's species of ordinary language philosophy is not so exclusively concerned with the analysis of language as would be needed for there not to be an issue here. For Grice "ordinary language" is not an exclusive subject matter, but rather an ubiquitous source of insight. In at least some of his metaphysical enterprises the object of his studies does not seem to be language."
Indeed, and my caveats here would be:
Grice's 'idio-' "lectal" practices
-- his "deutero-Esperanto".
For a time, it was unfashionable in Oxford to speak of Grice as a philosopher of language. He was rather, merely concerned with 'mean' and 'meaning'. I think it was
C. A. B. PEACOCKE
the first (as I like to think) who started to take the questions of 'language' seriously. Notably in a colloquium organised by Evans and McDowell. M. K. Davies later followed suit, as did B. F. Loar and others. Even Schiffer.
But there is a gap between Grice's analysis of what an Utterer means (what he is interested at elucidating, and which occupies most of the pages of his WoW -- Way of Words) and what an expression in a Language (for a Population P) means.
For the more or less explicit and formal definitions of 'meaning in a language for a population' then I refer to Peacocke, who incidentally, succeeded Strawson as Oxford's Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy (as he should! -- for this is ALL metaphysics we are talking about!). I'll try to re-trace some of Peacocke's most formal definitions.
Add to that the Grice-oriented type of scepticism as to what a language is (or isn't) as per Davidson's "Nice Derangement". This paper, unfortunately, was published by Davidson separately (what's the use of providing an essay for a festschrift if you're going to publish it elsewhere) but it merited an intertesting reply by Hacking, and (of all people) Dummett -- and they all more or less shared Davidson's sceptical approach to this abstraction that Ferdinand de Saussure called 'Language' -- even "natural".
Jones goes on:
"In some cases the point might be exegetical, [Grice] might be excavating the metaphysics of philosophers (Aristotle perhaps). This would not fit Carnap's narrow conception of philosophy, but at least it would not be the proscribed metaphysics."
Indeed. Grice can get to be over-exegetical, as in "Aristotle on the multiplicity of 'being'" (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, published posthumously in 1988) which is Grice's reply to Owen's rather rude remark that, in Aristotle, 'being' is polysemous! ("einai" in Greek -- The Griceian result is the outcome well known to Jones of distinguishing izzing from hazzing)
Jones goes on:
"I think however, that even when considering, say, some aspect of Aristotelian metaphysics, Grice is not purely, or even primarily. exegetical, rather he seeks to take up and progress some aspect of the problem which Aristotle was addressing."
-- while criticising Owen.
For 80% of Grice's pleasure derived from providing arguments to his seniors. Owen ended up writing the obituary of Gilbert Ryle, and he says words to this effect: "I am often asked: what group exercised the bigger mysticism? Ryle's group, or Austin's group, later led by Grice. And I would say Austin's and Grice's -- Their 'Play Group' acquired a cult status that the group that Ryle led and to which I belonged never did".
Owen's essay is nicely entitled, "The snares of ontology", for he thinks that Aristotle is precisely trapped in 'external' questions to the Greek language (of which he only spoke a 'lower' dialect, some say!).
Jones goes on:
"Aristotle is of course one of the early sources of just those metaphysical "pseudo-problems" which Carnap criticised, and so it seems likely that Grice may well in this way find himself crossing Carnap's line."
Good. I would think Carnap's IMMEDIATE target of attack was Heidegger with his things like, "Nothing noths", but it's true that Aristotle could go over the top, and invent a 'category' when he couldn't find it!
Jones wonders:
"Why should we care whether Carnap would have found the problems which Grice addressed genuine? What was the point of fantasising about a conversation between these two philosophers. There is more than one, but in this domain it seems to me that what is happening is that we are stripping away those kinds of metaphysics to which it is easy to give meaning (say, descriptive metaphysics, or the exegesis of Aristotelian metaphyics) and which for that reason do not fall foul of Carnap's critique, and when focussed down on the real metaphysics (perhaps what Strawson called "revisionary" metaphysics, perhaps only a part of that), we can imagine Carnap challenging Grice to give meaning to the enterprise. To the extent that Grice succeeds in doing so, the scope of Carnap's critique would be narrowed."
Excellently put.
Jones goes on:
"There is interplay here between method and meaning. Carnap wants to see a definite meaning for a metaphysical claim, because in default of that we can have no idea how it can be verified (using that term loosely)."
And cfr. the 'entrance' of Popper with his talk on falsifiability.
INTERLUDE ON "FALSIFIABILITY" and internal metaphysical claims in the vernacular
Falsifiability or refutability is the trait of a statement, hypothesis, or theory whereby it could be shown to be false if some conceivable observation were true. In this sense, falsify is synonymous with nullify, meaning not "to commit fraud" but "show to be false". Science must be falsifiable. The scientific method can not be implemented without the theoretical possibilities of both disproof and verification.
By the problem of induction, no number of confirming observations can verify a universal generalization, such as All swans are white, yet it is logically possible to falsify it by observing a single black swan. Thus, the term falsifiability is sometimes synonym to testability. Some statements, such as It will be raining here in one million years, are falsifiable in principle, but not in practice.[1]
The concern with falsifiability gained attention by way of philosopher of science Karl Popper's scientific epistemology "falsificationism". Popper stresses the problem of demarcation—distinguishing the scientific from the unscientific—and makes falsifiability the demarcation criterion, such that what is unfalsifiable is classified as unscientific, and the practice of declaring an unfalsifiable theory to be scientifically true is pseudoscience.
In falsificationism, an unfalsifiable and thus unscientific theory is not necessarily intrinsically false or inappropriate, since metaphysical theories might be true or contain truth, but one cannot know for sure. Simply, to be scientific, a theory must entail at least one observation, which may or may not be the case. (Falsificationism is not a general epistemology, then, which for Popper is critical rationalism, aimed to be the first epistemology fully based on criticism and discarding quest for justification.)
----- END OF WIKI INTERLUDE ON "FALSIFIABILITY".
Jones goes on and concludes with what he calls two 'concessions'.
The first concession:
"Conversely, if we could say in what way such claims could be verified or refuted then those methods would suffice to give meaning to the claims. The effect of the dialogue is to extract from Grice more detail about meanings and methods, and from Carnap consequent narrowing of the scope of critique.
Further effects might be hoped for. From Carnap it seems to me one might hope for two further kinds of concession. The first is in the use of the term "metaphysics", which for Carnap is used exclusively in a perjorative, proscriptive way. We could reasonably hope that he might be persuaded to accept a wider use ot the term which embraced questions which he does not consider meaningless, e.g. to encompass descriptive metaphysics. We might suggest perhaps in the first instance that Carnap reserve the term "absolute metaphysics" for the external questions which he regards as meaningless and allow that internal ontological questions (especially ones internal to natural languages) be spoken of as a kind of meaningful metaphysics."
---- A related point would be to add 'ontological' to the vocabulary, as per Quine (yes, we know, a big critique of Carnap) alla "On what there is".
The term 'metaphysical' surely shouldn't be taken so seriously, seeing that it's merely an accidental Greek idiom for what Aristotle felt fell 'beyond the physical' books' -- or something.
"Ontological", rather, makes it explicit that what we are into is the use of 'copulative' expressions of this or that type.
The second concession Jones expresses as follows:
"A second concession which might be easy to extract is the acknowledgement that meaningfulness is not discrete, that it is the business of philosophers and particularly of metaphysicians to probe into just those areas where meaning is hard to grasp, and that one should perhaps in metaphysics accept more a more tenuous grasp on meaning that one might hope for in say, arithmetic. The concessions here, in relation to metaphysics, seem all on Carnap's side, Grice's part, clarification of meanings and methods seemingly just more of what he is ordinarily engaged in. It is in the dogmas that we seek concessions, and we have been talking here about Carnap's anti-metaphysical dogma.
The place for Grice's concessions is in his own dogmas, which is what I am here calling his Betes Noire, the various aspects of "minimalism". There is a symmetry here, for the dogmas of Carnap and those of Grice are both anti-dogmatic."
Indeed. Grice in particular, would rather be seen, to use Grandy's pun, defending the under-dogma anyday.
Jones concludes:
"Carnap rejects external questions as criteria for the acceptability of languages, because he wants to be tolerant about language forms. Grice rejects minimalism for similar reasons. He construes minimalism as a set of nominalistic dogmas and he doesn't like being deprived of any of the ontology implicit in our language. Carnap's minimalism is however a pragmatic rather than a dogmatic enterprise. Our conversation will progress more fruitfully if Grice(*) would recognise that not all minimalism is abhorrent."
Indeed. And it isn't!
Thanks for a most enlightening post!
Posts
Thank you also Speranza for your commentary, as always interesting and entertaining (I feel as if I must have written that many times).
ReplyDeleteOf course I cannot follow up on much of it for fear of becoming completely distracted, but I am interested in this question of who we should consider the principal targets of Carnap's metaphysical zeal, Aristotle or Heidegger.
In fact I didn't offer Aristotle as being one of Carnap's targets, so much as the source of the kind of philosophising which Carnap abjured, since his "Metaphysics" is the first volume in which (or rather, of which) that term is used.
Undoubtedly Heidegger was a better loved (hated?) target, but it was an extreme, and we might get a better sense of Carnap's opposition by considering Carnap's less exotic examples, one source of which is his recollections of student life.
I don't think it makes sense to go into more detail here, but I think this will come up again, in connection with Grice of course.
RBJ