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Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Grice Himself

Speranza

In a previous note, I was referring to this excursus by Popper in "Unended quest" against analysis.

I checked it out and see Popper sees things dialytically, not analytically. He is using a figure of speech used by Publio Rutilio Lupo and the term of art was appreciated by W. Bartley, III, enough to include "dialysis" in one of his essays -- if not in the index of terms for it!

But back to Eccles, I see he includes "memory" within not the "pure ego" (an expression which Popper would have avoided using), and which forms the basis for *Grice*'s analysis (never dialysis) of "I".

Eccles says he is following this author, which is not that fair, seeing that he prefaced his essay. 

Eric P. Polten, Critique of the psycho-physical identity theory: A Refutation of Scientific Materialism and an Establishment of Mind-matter Dualism by Means of Philosophy and Scientific Method. With a preface by J. Eccles. The Hague.

A bit of a plug by Eccles there.

For the record, then, Grice's analysis he himself presented, in "Personal Identity" of the ordinary English:

i. I hear a noise.

if and only if 

ii. a. A past hearing of a noise is an element in a total temporary state which is a member
of a series of total temporary states, such that every member of the series EITHER
b. would, given certain conditions, contain as an element  A MEMORY OF SOME EXPERIENCE which is an element in some previous member,
OR
c. contains, as an element, some experience A MEMORY OF WHICH would, given certain conditions, occur as an element in some sub-sequent member;
d. there being no subject of members which is independent from all the rest.

Grice is attempting to defend Locke’s conceptual analysis of "I" -- in the mandatory reading for Grice's BA Lit Hum, "An Essay Concerning Humane [sic] Understanding," by making some alterations to it. 

Grice introduces as part of the analysans the concept of a total temporary state, and formulated his reductive (never reductionist) conceptual analysis such that each temporary state is within a temporal series. 

Grice further claimed that each total temporary state contains within it, as an element, a MEMORY (to use Eccles's phrase) of some experience ("hearing a noise"), which will therefore be included as an element in all following members of this temporal  series. 

However, this reductive analysis would still fall victim to criticism by Reid, aka The Lone Ranger.

So Grice feels forced to insert an extra prong: only under certain conditions would a total temporary state contain an element that had been experienced in a preceding member of the
series.
Grice obviously realises that so-called consciousness is complex and often memories are not  held onto.

Grice formulated his analysis such that every experience of one’s "identity" being remembered for the rest of that identity’s existence is a pretty absurd idea. 

Basically, Grice trusts that consciousness is what provides the necessary continuity to constitute an identity, but that consciousness is infallible -- if not as he read "Personal Identity" to Hardin, his tutor at Corpus ("What does he know anyway?").

Grice got a first.

Incidentally, Popper's dialysis, like Grice's analysis for that matter, has the proper (beloved by Oxonians) Graeco-Roman pedigree

In the disgression in "Unended Quest," Popper calls his approach "dialysis" in contrast to the conceptual analysis favoured by Grice.  

Neither Grice's analysis nor Popper's dialysis can ever solve a problem as it is.

Both are only a means to an end.  

But dialysis is a deemed by Popper as much less time consuming means to the same end.

It happens to be a Graeco-Roman concoction:

Roman

dĭălysis , is, f., = διάλυσις, rhet. t. t.,
a separation, Publio Rutilio Lupo, 1, 15, p. 52.
Dialysis. Hoc schema contrarium est superiori. 
Nam, demptis omnibus articulis, sententiae divisae pronuntiantur. 
Daphnidis: 
Quid autem me convenit facere, Byzantii? 
Subire publicae causae iudicium, magno nomini adversariorum fortiter resistere, non vereri periculum, diligenter  posteritatis crescere , non minas extimescere, constanter in causa pro vobis perseverare? 
Omnia feci, vestrum commune commodum spectans. Tamen non desunt, qui ex tantis meis officiis aliquid velint vituperare. 
Item Lysiae: 
Omnibus in rebus suam confidentiam ostentabat.
Debitum petebamus? 
Non dissolvebat. Minabamur? Contemnebat. Lex nihil valebat; magistratus neglegebat.
Venit hoc tamen nobis novissime tempus ulciscendi.

For the record: Il trattato De figuris... venne ancora citato come riferimento linguistico dal celebre grammatico del Cinquecento, Pierfrancesco Giambullari, (1495-1555), nel suo Regole della lingua fiorentina.

Greek


Usage 1. 
separating
parting, 



its dissolution,
 Platone, Phd.88b
cf. Democr.297
the failure to break the bridges, 
disbanding of troops, X.Cyr.6.1.3
breaking up of an assembly, opp. συλλογή, 
the time of its breaking up, Hdt.3.104
broke offthe action, Th.1.51
liquidation of debts, Platone, Lg.684d, cf. POxy.104.20 (i A. D.), etc.; 
"δγάμου” divorce,  Plu.Sull.35, etc.; “ φθορὰ δοὐσίας”  Arist.Top.153b31: hence abs., 
dissolution, opp. σύνθεσις, Id.Cael.304b29, cf. Thphr. Ign.37; “διάκρισις καὶ δ.” 
Pl.Phlb.32a; opp. γένεσις, Phld.D.3.6
resolution into elements, e.g. of words into letters, D.H.Comp.14
dissolution of friendship, 
***** 
Usage 2.
ending, cessation, “κακῶν”  E.Ph.435; “πολέμου”  Th.4.19, v.l. in Isoc.6.51: abs.,
cessation of hostilities, Com.Adesp.21.23 D.settlement, compromise, IG12(2).6.20 (Mytilene, iv B.C.), PAmh.2.63.9 (iii A.D.), etc.: in pl., 
settlement of a dispute, “ἠξίου δὲ καὶ πρὸς ἔμ᾽ αὑτῷ . . γίγνεσθαιτὰς διαλύσεις”  D.21.119, cf. Phoenicid.1
Usage 3. 
solution of a problem, A.D.Synt.243.11; “χρησμῶν”  Luc.Alex.49
Usage 4. 
refutation of an argument, S.E.P.2.238
Usage 5.
resolution of a diphthongἐν διαλύσει, = διαλελυμένωςA.D.Pron.29.13
Usage 6. 
Rhet., asyndeton, Alex.Fig.2.12, etc. 
Usage 7. 
discharge, “χορηγιῶν”  PRyl. 181.10 (iii A.D.); “τῶν χρεωστουμένων”  POxy.71.13 (iv A.D.).
Usage 8. 
deed of separation or divorce.
PLips.39.10(iv A.D.); “ἔγγραφος δ.”  PMasp.153.16 (vi A.D.). 
Usage 9. division of inheritance.
Sammelb. 6000.22(vi A.D.), etc.

1 comment:

  1. It's still not too clear why Popper thinks 'dialysis' is so _different_ from 'analysis'!

    ReplyDelete