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Wednesday, May 20, 2020

"zabarella" -- from Grice's Dictionary.


zabarella: Grice was often called the English Zabarella, after philosopher Jacopo Zabarella, of Padova. Zabarella produces extensive commentaries on Grice’s favourite tract by Aristotle, “De Anima,” and Physica and also discussed some Aristotelian interpreters. However, Zabarella’s most original contribution is his work in semantics, “Opera logica.” Zabarella regards semantics as a preliminary study that provides the tools necessary for philosophical analysis. Two such tools are what Zabarella calls “order” (cf. Grice, ‘be orderly’). Another tool is what Zabarella calls “ method.” Order teaches us how to organize the content of a discipline to apprehend it more easily. Method teaches us how to draw a syllogistic inference. Zabarella reduces the varieties of orders and methods classified by other interpreters to compositive order, and resolutive order, and composite method and and resolutive method. The compositive order from a principle to this or that corollary applies to this or that speculative, alethic or theoretical discipline. The ‘resolutive’ order, from a desired end to the means appropriate to its achievement applies to this or that practical discipline, such as ‘pragmatics’ understood as a manual of rules of etiquette. This much is already in Aristotle. However, Zabarella offers an original analysis of ‘method.’ The compositive method infers a particular consequence or corollary from a ‘generic’ principle. The ‘resolutive’ method INFERS an originating gneric principle from this or that particular consequence, corollary, or instantiantion, as in inductive reasoning or in reasoning from effect to cause. Zabarella’s terminology influenced Galileo’s mechanics, and has been applied to Grice’s inference of the principle of conversational co-operation out from the only evidence which Grice has, which is this or that ‘dyadic’ exchange, as he calls it. In Grice’s case, his corpus is intentionally limited to conversations between two philosophers: A: What’s that? B: A pillar box? A: What colour is it? B: Seems red to me. From such an exchange, Grice infers the principle of conversational co-operation. It clashes when a cancellation (or as Grice prefers, an annulation) is on sight: “I surely don’t mean to imply that it MIGHT actually be red.” “Then why be so guarded? I thought you were cooperating.”

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