H. P. Grice's Philosophical Ethology

H. P. Grice’s PHILOSOPHICAL ETHNOLOGY -- ethnocentrism Ethics, epistemology, philosophy of social science [from Greek êthos, custom] The position of using the traditions of one’s own culture or society as a starting-point for judging any practice. In a sense, ethnocentrism is inevitable, because we are deeply shaped by the beliefs and values of the communities in which we are raised. We become people in the abstract by becoming members of such particular concrete groups. If this contingent fact is given too much weight, however, ethnocentrism will collapse into cultural relativism, chauvinistic conservatism, and racism. One can balance ethnocentrism with an attempt to find a universal and more objective point of view. Even if this Enlightenment ideal cannot be achieved, ethnocentrism need not confine our outlook to narrow limits. One must have an open mind to converse with people who have grown up with a different Êthos, and it remains a fallacy to take one’s own Êthos as objectively and universally correct. “Ethnocentrism only involves taking one’s language, beliefs, desires and the interests of one’s community as a starting point.” D. Hall, Richard Rorty -- ethnology Philosophy of social science [from Greek êthnos, nations, people] J. S. Mill’s term for a theory about the laws of the formation of character, including both national and individual character. These laws are hypothetical and affirm tendencies. They are based neither on simple observation nor on the highest generalizations, but constitute a system of corollaries from experimental psychology. This science is supposed to contribute to educational improvements. Mill claimed that it is a deductive science and the “exact science of human nature.” “Ethnology will serve for the ulterior science which determines the kind of character produced in conformity to these general laws, by any set of circumstances, physical and mental.” Mill, “On the Logic of the Moral Sciences,” in Ayer (ed.), A System of Logic, vol. VI -- ethnomethodology Philosophy of social science An approach to sociology initiated by Garfunkel, so called because it emphasizes the study of the methodologies of people (ethnos) in daily life in contrast to scientific method. Empirical sociology claims that sociology can establish firm connections between social facts on the grounds that social life is actually not regulated by rules and that social action has no intrinsic identity. Ethnomethdology rejects this position and claims that any imputation of beliefs and desires is incorrigibly contextual, depends on indexicals, and is marked by uncertainty. Any purported sociological generalizations are based on the analyst’s unexamined assumptions. Social facts should be dealt with by ethnomethodology, the characteristic of which is ad hoc rationality. It does not subject a social action to rigorous definition and does not set criteria for adequacy of its account. Instead, ethnomethodology holds that the properties of social life lie in the mutual dependence of meanings on their context and on the actor’s motives. Rather than being generally endowed with a store of social knowledge that describes their surroundings, people constantly exercise their social knowledge and are forever theorizing about each other’s actions. In a word, people are fundamentally their own sociologists. Ethnomethdology is hence interested in the properties of intersubjectivity as exhibited by social factors in the day-to-day world. “[Ethnomethodology] aims to examine the ordinary, common-sense, mundane world in which members live and do so in a way that remains faithful to the methods, procedures, practices, etc., that members themselves use in constructing and making sense of this social world.” Benson and Hughes, The Perspectives of Ethnomethodology