H. P. Grice: "The English tutee, myself, and the Scots tutor! A cross-cultural conversation!"

H. P. Grice

“I count myself wonderfully fortunate to have begun my studies as tutee of W. F. R. Hardie, president of my alma mater, Corpus, the author of an essay on Plato which both is and is recognised as a master-piece, whose explorations on the Nicomachean Ethics, in one of their earlier incarnations, as a set of lecture notes, sees me through terms of teaching Aristotle's moral theory.”

“It seems to me that I learnt from Hardie just about all the things which one can be taught by someone else, as distinct from the things which one has to teach oneself.”

“More specifically, my initial rationalism is developed at Hardie’s tutorials into a belief that a philosophical question is to be settled by a reason, that is to say, by an argument.”

“I learnt also from Hardie how to argue.”

“In learning how to argue, I came to learn that the ability to argue is a skill involving many aspects, and is much more than the ability to see a logical connection (though this ability is, by no means, to be despised).”

“From Hardie, I came also to see that, though philosophical ‘progress’ is pretty difficult to achieve, and is often achieved only after an agonising labour, it is worth achieving; and that the difficulty involved in achieving philosophical ‘progress’ offers no kind of an excuse for a lowering of standards, or for substituting for the goals of ‘philosophical truth’ some more easily achievable or accessible goal, like rabble-rousing.”

“Hardie’s methods, I grant, are too austere for some.”

“In particular, Hardie’s long silences at tutorials are found somewhat distressing by some tutees (though as the years went by, the tempo did speed up.”

“There is a story, which I am not sure that I believe, that at one point in one of Hardie’s tutorial, a very long silence developed when it is Hardie’s turn to speak, which was at long last broken by Hardie with: ‘And what did you mean by ‘of’?’”

“Another story, which I think I do believe, has a tutee of Hardie’s deciding that the next time a silence develops in one of Hardie’s tutorials, the tutee is not going to be the one to break it.”

“In the next tutorial, after the tutee finished reading his essay to Hardie, there follows a silence which lasts twenty-five minutes, at which point the tutee can stand it no longer, and says something.”

“Hardie’s tutorial rigours never bother me.”

“If philosophising is a difficult operation, as it plainly is, sometimes time, even quite a lot of time, will be needed in order to make a move, as chess-players are only too well aware.”

“The idea that a philosopher either has already answered all questions, or is equipped to answer any question immediately, is no less ridiculous than would be the idea that Karpov ought to be able successfully to defend his title if he, though not his opponent, were bound by the rules of lightning chess.”

“I like the slow pace of discussion with Hardie.”

“I like the breath-laden ‘Ooohhh!’ which Hardie sometimes emits when he catches his tutee in, or even pushes him into, a patently untenable position (though I prefer it when this ejaculation is directed at someone other than myself).”

“I also like Hardie’s resourcefulness in the defence of what may be a difficult position, a characteristic illustrated by the following incident which Hardie himself once told me about himself.”

“Hardie had parked his car and gone to a cinema.”

“Unfortunately, Hardie had parked his car on top of one of the strips on the street by means of which traffic-lights are, at the time, controlled by the passing traffic.”

“As a result, the lights are jammed, and it requires four policemen to lift Hardie’s car off the strip.”

“The police decides to prosecute.”

“I indicated to Hardie that this did not surprise me at all and asked him how he fared.”

“‘Oh,’ Hardie says, ‘I got off.’”

“I ask Hardie how on earth he managed that.”

“‘Quite simply,’ Hardie answers, ‘I just invoked Mill’s method of difference.’”

“‘The police charged me with causing an obstruction at 4 p.m.’”

“‘I tell him that, since my car was parked at 2 p.m., it could not have been my car which caused the obstruction at 4 p.m.’”

“Hardie never discloses his views to his tutees, no doubt wishing them to think their own thoughts (however flawed) rather than his.”

“When a tutee did succeed, usually with considerable difficulty, in eliciting from Hardie an expression of his own position, what one got was liable to be, though carefully worked out and ingeniously argued, distinctly conservative in tone.”

“Not surprisingly, it would not contain much in the way of battle-cries or campaign-material.”

“Aspiring knights-errant require more than a sword, a shield, and a horse of superior quality impregnated with a suitable admixture of magic.”

“They require a supply, or at least a procedure which can be relied on to maximize the likelihood of access to a supply, of damsels in distress.”