Grice’s handwave. A sort of handwave can mean in a one-off act of
communication something. It’s the example he uses. By a sort of handwave, the
emissor communicates either that he knows the route or that he is about to
leave the addressee. Handwave signals. Code. Cfr. the Beatles’s HELP.
Explicatum: We need some body – Implicaturum: Not just Any Body. Why does this
matter to the philosopher? The thing is as follows. Grice was provoked by
Austin. To defeat Austin, Grice needs a ‘theory of communication.’ This theory
applies his early reflections on the intentional side to an act of
communication. This allows him to explain the explicatum versus the implicaturum.
By analysing each, Grice notes that there is no need to refer to linguistic
entities. So, the centrality of the handwave is an offshoot of his theory
designed to defeat Austin.
Grice’s
creatures: the pirots. The programme he
calls ‘creature construction.’ “I could have used the ‘grice,’ which was
extinct by the time I was born.”
Grice’s myth. Or Griceian myths – The Handbook of Griceian mythology. At
one point Grice suggests that his ‘genitorial programme’ a kind of
ideal-observer theory is meant as ‘didactic,’ and for expository purposes. It
seems easier, as , as Grice and Plato would agree, to answer a question
about the genitorial programme rather than use a first-person approach and
appeal to introspection. Grice refers to the social
contract as a ‘myth,’ which may still explain, as ‘meaning’ does. G. R. Grice
built his career on this myth. This is G. R. Grice, of the social-contract
fame. Cf. Strawson and Wiggins comparing Grice’s myth with Plato’s, and they
know what they are talking about.
Grice’s predicament. S draws a pic- "one-off predicament"). ...
Clarendon, 1976); and Simon
Blackburn, Spreading the Word (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984) ... But
there is an obvious way of emending the account. Grice points out. ... Blackburn helpfully
suggests that we can cut through much of this complexity by ... The above
account is intended to capture the notion of one-off meaning. Walking in a
forest, having gone some way ahead of the rest of the party, I draw an arrow at
a fork of a path, meaning that those who are following me should go straight
on. Gricean considerations
may be safely ignored. Only when trying to communicate by nonconventional means
("one-off predicament," Blackburn,
1984, chap. Blackburn's mission
is to promote the philosophy of language as a pivotal enquiry ... and
dismissed; the Gricean model
might be suitable to explain one-off acts. The Gricean mechanism
with its complex communicative intentions has a clear point in what Blackburn calls
“a one-off predicament”
- a situation in which an ...
Grice’s shaggy-dog story: While Grice would like to say that it should be in the
range of a rational creature to refer and to predicate, what about the hand
wave? By his handwave, the emissor means that _HE_ (subject) is a knower of the
road (or roate), the predicate after the copula or that he, the emissor,
subject, is (the copula) about to leave his emissee – but there is nothing IN
THE MATTER (the handwave) that can be ‘de-composed’ like that. The FORM attaches
to the communicatum directly. This is strange, but not impossible, and shows
Grice’s programme. Because his idea is that a communicatum need not a vehicile
which is syntactically structured (as “Fido is shaggy”). This is the story that
Grice tells in his lecture. He uses a ‘shaggy-dog’ story to explain TWO main
notions: that of ‘reference’ or denotatio, and that of predicatio. He had
explored that earlier when discussing, giving an illustration “Smith is happy”,
the idea of ‘value,’ as correspondence, where he adds the terms for ‘denote’
and ‘predicatio,’ or actually, ‘designatio’ and ‘indicatio’, need to be
“explained within the theory.” In the utterance ‘Smith is happy,’ the utterer
DESIGNATES an item, Smith. The utterer also INDICATES some class, ‘being
happy.’ Grice introduces a shorthand, ‘assign’, or ‘assignatio,’ previous to
the value-satisfaction, to involve both the ‘designatio’ and the ‘indicatio’. U
assigns the item Smith to the class ‘being happy.’ U’s intention involves A’s
belief that U believes that “the item belongs to the class, or that he ASSIGNS
the item to the class. A predicate, such as 'shaggy,' in my shaggy-dog story, is a
part of a bottom-up, or top-bottom, as I prefer, analysis of this or that
sentences, and a predicate, such as 'shaggy,' is the only indispensable 'part,'
or 'element,' as I prefer, since a predicate is the only 'pars orationis,'
to use the old phrase, that must appear in every sentence. In a later lecture
he ventures with ‘reference.’ Lewis and Short have “rĕferre,” rendered as “to
bear, carry, bring, draw, or give back,” in a “transf.” usage, they render as
“to make a reference, to refer (class.),” asa in “de rebus et obscuris et
incertis ad Apollinem censeo referendum; “ad quem etiam Athenienses publice de
majoribus rebus semper rettulerunt,” Cic. Div. 1, 54, 122.” While Grice uses
‘Fido,’ he could have used ‘Pegasus’ (Martin’s cat, as it happens) and apply
Quine’s adage: we could have appealed to the ex hypothesi unanalyzable,
irreducible attribute of being Pegasus, adopting, for its expression, the verb
'is-Pegasus', or 'pegasizes'. And Grice could have played with ‘predicatio’ and
‘subjectio.’ Grice on subject. Lewis and Short have “sūbĭcĭo,” (less
correctly subjĭcĭo ; post-Aug. sometimes sŭb- ), jēci, jectum, 3, v. a.
sub-jacio. which they render as “to
throw, lay, place, or bring under or near (cf. subdo),” and in philosophy,
“subjectum , i, n. (sc. verbum), as “that which is spoken of, the foundation or
subject of a proposition;” “omne
quicquid dicimus aut subjectum est aut de subjecto aut in subjecto est.
Subjectum est prima substantia, quod ipsum nulli accidit alii inseparabiliter,
etc.,” Mart. Cap. 4, § 361; App. Dogm. Plat. 3, p. 34, 4 et saep.—.” Note that
for Mart. Cap. the ‘subject,’ unlike the ‘predicate’ is not a ‘syntactical
category.’ “Subjectum est prima substantia,” The subject is a prote ousia. As
for correlation, Grice ends up with a reductive analysis. By uttering
utterance-token V, the utterer U correlates predicate P1 with (and only
with) each member of P2 ≡ (∃R)(∃R')
(1) U effects that (∀x)(R P1x ≡ x ∈ P1)
and (2) U intends (1), and (3) U intends that (∀y)(R'
P1y ≡ y ∈
P1), where R' P1 is an expression-type such that utterance-token V is a
sequence consisting of an expression-token p1 of expression-type P1 and an
expression-token p2 of expression-type P2, the R-co-relatum of which is a
set of which y is a member. And he is back with ‘denotare. Lewis and Short have
“dēnŏtare,” which they render as “to mark, set a mark on, with chalk, color,
etc.: “pedes venalium creta,”
It is interesting to trace Grice’s earliest investigations on this. Grice and
Strawson stage a number of joint seminars on topics related to the notions of
meaning, categories, and logical form. Grice and Strawson engage in systematic
and unsystematic philosophical exploration. From these discussions springs work
on predication and categories, one or two reflections of which are acknowledge
at two places (re: the reductive analysis of a ‘particular,’ “the tallest man
that did, does, or will exist” --) in Strawson’s “Particular and general” for
The Aristotelian Society – and “visible” as Grice puts it, but not
acknowledged, in Strawson’s “Individuals: an essay in descriptive
metaphysics.””
Grice’s
theory-theory: “I am perhaps not too happy with
the word ‘theory,’ as applied to this, but that’s Ramsey for you” (WoW: 285). Grice’s theory-theory: A theory of mind concerning
how we come to know about the propositional attitudes of others. It tries to
explain the nature of ascribing certain thoughts, beliefs, or intentions to
other persons in order to explain their actions. The theory-theory holds that
in ascribing beliefs to others we are tacitly applying a theory that enables us
to make inferences about the beliefs behind the actions of others. The theory
that is applied is a set of rules embedded in folk psychology. Hence, to
anticipate and predict the behavior of others, one engages in an intellectual
process moving by inference from one set of
beliefs to another. This position contrasts with another theory of mind, the
simulation theory, which holds that we need to make use of our own motivational
and emotional resources and capacities for practical reasoning in explaining
actions of others. “So called ‘theory-theorists’ maintain that the ability to
explain and predict behaviour is underpinned by a folk-psychological theory of
the structure and functioning of the mind – where the theory in question may be
innate and modularised, learned individually, or acquired through a process of
enculturation.” Carruthers and Smith (eds.), Theories of Theories of Mind. Grice
needs a theory. For those into implicatura and conversation as rational
cooperation, when introducing the implicaturum he mentions ‘pre-theoretical
adequacy’ of the model. So he is thinking of the conversational theory as a
theory in the strict sense, with ‘explanatory’ and not merely taxonomical
power. So one task is to examine in which way the conversational theory is a
theory that explains, rather than merely ad hoc ex post facto commentary. Not so much for his approach to mean. He
polemises with Rountree, of Somerville, that you dont need a thory to analyse
mean. Indeed, you cannot have a theory to analyse mean, because mean is a
matter of intuition, not a theoretical concept. But Grice appeals to theory,
when dealing with willing. He knows what willing means because he relies on a
concept of folk-science. In this folk-science, willing is a theoretical
concept. Grice arrived at this conclusion by avoiding the adjective souly, and
seeing that there is no word to describe willing other than by saying it is a
psychoLOGICAL concept, i.e. part of a law within that theory of folk-science.
That law will include, by way of ramsified naming or describing willing as a
predicate-constant. Now, this is related to metaphysics. His liberal or
ecunmenical metaphysics is best developed in terms of his ontological marxism
presented just after he has expanded on this idea of willing as a theoretical
concept, within a law involving willing (say, Grices Optimism-cum-Pesimism
law), within the folk-science of psychology that explains his behaviour. For
Aristotle, a theoria, was quite a different animal, but it had to do with
contemplatio, hence the theoretical (vita contemplativa) versus the practical (vita
activa). Grices sticking to Aristotle’srare use of theory inspires him to
develop his fascinating theory of the theory-theory. Grice realised that there is no way to refer
to things like intending except with psychological, which he takes to mean, belonging
to a pscyhological theory. Grice was keen to theorise on theorising. He
thought that Aristotle’s first philosophy (prote philosophia) is best rendered
as Theory-theory. Grice kept using Oxonian English spelling, theorising, except
when he did not! Grice calls himself folksy: his theories, even if
Subjects to various types of Ramseyfication, are popular in kind! And
ceteris paribus! Metaphysical construction is disciplined and the best
theorising the philosopher can hope for! The way Grice conceives of his
theory-theory is interesting to revisit. A route by which Grice hopes to show
the centrality of metaphysics (as prote philosophia) involves taking seriously
a few ideas. If any region of enquiry is to be successful as
a rational enterprise, its deliverance must be expressable in the
shape of one or another of the possibly different types of theory. A
characterisation of the nature and range of a possible kind of
theory θ is needed. Such a body of characterisation must itself
be the outcome of rational enquiry, and so must itself exemplify
whatever requirement it lays down for any theory θ in
general. The characterisation must itself be
expressible as a theory θ, to be called, if you like, Grice
politely puts it, theory-theory, or meta-theory, θ2. Now, the
specification and justification of the ideas and material presupposed
by any theory θ, whether such account falls within the bounds of
Theory-theory, θ2 would be properly called prote philosophia (first
philosophy) and may turn out to relate to what is generally accepted as
belonging to the Subjects matter of metaphysics. It might, for example,
turn out to be establishable that any theory θ has to relate to a
certain range of this or that Subjects item, has to attribute to each item this
or that predicate or attribute, which in turn has to fall within one or another
of the range of types or categories. In this way, the enquiry might lead
to recognised metaphysical topics, such as the nature of being, its range of
application, the nature of predication and a systematic account of
categories. Met. , philosophical eschatology, and Platos Republic,
Thrasymachus, social justice, Socrates, along with notes on Zeno, and topics
for pursuit, repr.in Part II, Explorations in semantics and metaphysics to
WOW , metaphysics, philosophical eschatology, Platos Republic, Socrates,
Thrasymachus, justice, moral right, legal right, Athenian dialectic.
Philosophical eschatology is a sub-discipline of metaphysics concerned with
what Grice calls a category shift. Grice, having applied such a technique to
Aristotle’s aporia on philos (friend) as alter ego, uses it now to tackle
Socratess view, against Thrasymachus, that right applies primarily to morality,
and secondarily to legality. Grice has a specific reason to include this in his
WOW Grices exegesis of Plato on justice displays Grices take on the fact that
metaphysics needs to be subdivided into ontology proper and what he calls
philosophical eschatology, for the study of things like category shift and
other construction routines. The exploration of Platos Politeia thus becomes an
application of Grices philosophically eschatological approach to the item just,
as used by Socrates (morally just) and Thrasymachus (legally just). Grice has
one specific essay on Aristotle in PPQ. So he thought Plato merited his own
essay, too! Grices focus is on Plato’s exploration of dike. Grice is concerned
with a neo-Socratic (versus neo-Thrasymachean) account of moral justice as
conceptually (or axiologically) prior to legal justice. In the proceeding, he
creates philosophical eschatology as the other branch to metaphysics, along
with good ol ontology. To say that just crosses a categorial barrier (from
the moral to the legal) is to make a metaphysical, strictly eschatological,
pronouncement. The Grice Papers locate the Plato essay in s. II, the Socrates essay in s. III, and the Thrasymachus essay, under social
justice, in s. V. Grice is well aware that in his account of fairness, Rawls
makes use of his ideas on personal identity. The philosophical elucidation of
fairness is of great concern for Grice. He had been in touch with such
explorations as Nozicks and Nagels along anti-Rawlsian lines. Grices ideas on
rationality guide his exploration of social justice. Grice keeps revising the
Socrates notes. The Plato essay he actually dates. As it happens, Grices most
extensive published account of Socrates is in this commentary on Platos
Republic: an eschatological commentary, as he puts it. In an entertaining
fashion, Grice has Socrates, and neo-Socrates, exploring the logic and grammar
of just against the attack by Thrasymachus and neo-Thrasymachus. Grices point
is that, while the legal just may be conceptually prior to the moral just, the
moral just is evaluationally or axiologically prior. Refs.: There is a specific
essay on ‘theorising’ in the Grice Papers, but there are scattered sources
elsewhere, such as “Method” (repr. in “Conception”), BANC.
Grice’s three-year-old’s guide to Russell’s theory of types, with an
advice to parents by Strawson: Grice put forward the empirical hypothesis that a
three-year old CAN understand Russell’s theory of types. “In more than one
way.” This brought confusion in the household, with some members saying they
could not – “And I trust few of your tutees do!” Russell’s influential solution
to the problem of logical paradoxes. The theory was developed in particular to
overcome Russell’s paradox, which seemed to destroy the possibility of Frege’s
logicist program of deriving mathematics from logic. Suppose we ask whether the
set of all sets which are not members of themselves is a member of itself. If
it is, then it is not, but if it is not, then it is. The theory of types
suggests classifying objects, properties, relations, and sets into a hierarchy
of types. For example, a class of type 0 has members that are ordinary objects;
type 1 has members that are properties of objects of type 0; type 2 has members
that are properties of the properties in type 1; and so on. What can be true or
false of items of one type can not significantly be said about those of another
type and is simply nonsense. If we observe the prohibitions against classes
containing members of different types, Russell’s paradox and similar paradoxes
can be avoided. The theory of types has two variants. The simple theory of
types classifies different objects and properties, while the ramified theory of
types further sorts types into levels and adds a hierarchy of levels to that of
types. By restricting predicates to those that relate to items of lower types or
lower levels within their own type, predicates giving rise to paradox are
excluded. The simple theory of types is sufficient for solving logical
paradoxes, while the ramified theory of type is introduced to solve semantic
paradoxes, that is, paradoxes depending on notions such as reference and truth.
“Any expression containing an apparent variable is of higher type than that
variable. This is the fundamental principles of the doctrines of types.”
Russell, Logic and Knowledge. Grice’s
commentary in “In defense of a dogma,” The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
villa grice: Grice kept a nice garden in his cottage on Banbury Road,
not far from St. John’s. It was more of a villa than his town house at
Harborne. While Grice loved Academia, he also loved non-Academia. He would
socialize at the Flag and Lamb, at the Bird and Baby, and the cricket club, at
the bridge club, etc. In this way, he goes back to Plato’s idea of an
‘academy,’ established
by Plato at his villa outside Athens near the public park and gymnasium known
by that name. Although it may not have maintained a continuous tradition, the
many and varied philosophers of the Academy all considered themselves Plato’s
successors, and all of them celebrated and studied his work. The school
survived in some form until A.D. 529, when it was dissolved, along with the
other pagan schools, by the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I. The history of
the Academy is divided by some authorities into that of the Old Academy Plato,
Speusippus, Xenocrates, and their followers and the New Academy the Skeptical
Academy of the third and second centuries B.C.. Others speak of five phases in
its history: Old as before, Middle Arcesilaus, New Carneades, Fourth Philo of
Larisa, and Fifth Antiochus of Ascalon. For most of its history the Academy was
devoted to elucidating doctrines associated with Plato that were not entirely
explicit in the dialogues. These “unwritten doctrines” were apparently passed
down to his immediate successors and are known to us mainly through the work of
Aristotle: there are two opposed first principles, the One and the Indefinite
Dyad Great and Small; these generate Forms or Ideas which may be identified
with numbers, from which in turn come intermediate mathematicals and, at the
lowest level, perceptible things Aristotle, Metaphysics I.6. After Plato’s
death, the Academy passed to his nephew Speusippus, who led the school until
his death. Although his written works have perished, his views on certain main
points, along with some quotations, were recorded by surviving authors. Under
the influence of late Pythagoreans, Speusippus anticipated Plotinus by holding
that the One transcends being, goodness, and even Intellect, and that the Dyad
which he identifies with matter is the cause of all beings. To explain the gradations
of beings, he posited gradations of matter, and this gave rise to Aristotle’s
charge that Speusippus saw the universe as a series of disjointed episodes.
Speusippus abandoned the theory of Forms as ideal numbers, and gave heavier
emphasis than other Platonists to the mathematicals. Xenocrates who once went
with Plato to Sicily, succeeded Speusippus and led the Academy till his own
death. Although he was a prolific author, Xenocrates’ works have not survived,
and he is known only through the work of other authors. He was induced by
Aristotle’s objections to reject Speusippus’s views on some points, and he
developed theories that were a major influence on Middle Platonism, as well as
on Stoicism. In Xenocrates’ theory the One is Intellect, and the Forms are
ideas in the mind of this divine principle; the One is not transcendent, but it
resides in an intellectual space above the heavens. While the One is good, the
Dyad is evil, and the sublunary world is identified with Hades. Having taken
Forms to be mathematical entities, he had no use for intermediate
mathematicals. Forms he defined further as paradigmatic causes of regular
natural phenomena, and soul as self-moving number. Polemon led the Academy, and
was chiefly known for his fine character, which set an example of self-control
for his students. The Stoics probably derived their concept of oikeiosis an
accommodation to nature from his teaching. After Polemon’s death, his colleague
Crates led the Academy until the accession of Arcesilaus. The New Academy arose
when Arcesilaus became the leader of the school and turned the dialectical
tradition of Plato to the Skeptical aim of suspending belief. The debate
between the New Academy and Stoicism dominated philosophical discussion for the
next century and a half. On the Academic side the most prominent spokesman was
Carneades. In the early years of the first century B.C., Philo of Larisa
attempted to reconcile the Old and the New Academy. His pupil, the former
Skeptic Antiochus of Ascalon, was enraged by this and broke away to refound the
Old Academy. This was the beginning of Middle Platonism. Antiochus’s school was
eclectic in combining elements of Platonism, Stoicism, and Aristotelian
philosophy, and is known to us mainly through Cicero’s Academica. Middle Platonism
revived the main themes of Speusippus and Xenocrates, but often used Stoic or
neo-Pythagorean concepts to explain them. The influence of the Stoic Posidonius
was strongly felt on the Academy in this period, and Platonism flourished at
centers other than the Academy in Athens, most notably in Alexandria, with
Eudorus and Philo of Alexandria. After the death of Philo, the center of
interest returned to Athens, where Plutarch of Chaeronia studied with Ammonius
at the Academy, although Plutarch spent most of his career at his home in
nearby Boeotia. His many philosophical treatises, which are rich sources for
the history of philosophy, are gathered under the title Moralia; his interest
in ethics and moral education led him to write the Parallel Lives paired
biographies of famous Romans and Athenians, for which he is best known. After
this period, the Academy ceased to be the name for a species of Platonic
philosophy, although the school remained a center for Platonism, and was
especially prominent under the leadership of the Neoplatonist Proclus.
griceism. Gricese. At Oxford, it was usual to refer to Austin’s
idiolect as Austinese. In analogy with Grecism, we have a Gricism, a Griceian
cliché. Cf. a ‘grice’ and ‘griceful’ in ‘philosopher’s lexicon.’ Gricese is a
Latinism, from -ese, word-forming element, from Old French -eis (Modern French -ois, -ais), from Vulgar Latin, from Latin -ensem, -ensis "belonging
to" or "originating in."
grecianism: why was Grice obsessed with Socrates’s convesations? He does
not say. But he implicates it. For the Athenian dialecticians, it is all a
matter of ta legomena. Ditto for the Oxonian dialecticians. Ta legomena becomes
ordinary language. And the task of the philosopher is to provide reductive
analysis of this or that concept in terms of necessary and sufficient
conditions. Cf. Hospers. Grices review of the history of philosophy (Philosophy
is but footnotes to Zeno.). Grice enjoyed Zenos answer, What is a friend? Alter
ego, Allego. ("Only it was the other Zeno." Grice tried to apply the
Socratic method during his tutorials. "Nothing like a heartfelt dedication
to the Socratic art of mid-wifery, seeking to bring forth error and to strangle
it at birth.” μαιεύομαι (A.“μαῖα”), ‘to serve as a midwife, act a; “ἡ
Ἄρτεμις μ.” Luc. D Deor.26.2. 2. cause delivery to take place, “ἱκανὴ ἔκπληξις
μαιεύσασθαι πρὸ τῆς ὥρας” Philostr. VA1.5. 3. c. acc., bring to the birth,
Marin.Procl.6; ὄρνιθας μ. hatch chickens, Anon. ap. Suid.; αἰετὸν κάνθαρος
μαιεύσομαι, prov. of taking vengeance on a powerful enemy, Ar. Lys.695 (cf.
Sch.). 4. deliver a woman, esp. metaph. in Pl. of the Socratic method, Tht.
149b. II. Act., Poll. 4.208, Sch. OH.4.506. Pass., τὰ ὑπ᾽ ἐμοῦ μαιευθέντα
brought into the world by me, Pl. Tht. 150e, cf. Philostr.VA5.13. Refs.: the
obvious references are Grice’s allusions to Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Zeno,
The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
grosseteste: Grice
was a member of the Grosseteste Society. Like Grice’s friend, G. J. Warnock,
Grosseteste was chancellor of Oxford. Only that by the time of Warnock, the
monarch is the chancellor by default, so “Warnock had to allow to be called
‘vice-chancelor’ to Elizabeth II.” “I would never have read Aristotle had it
not been by this great head that grosseteste (“Greathead” is a common surname
in Suffolk).” – H. P. Grice. English philosopher who began life on the bottom
rung of feudal society in Suffolk and became one of the most influential
figures in pre-Reformation England. He studied at Oxford, obtaining an “M. A.,”
like Grice. Sometime after this period he joined the household of William de
Vere, of Hereford. Grosseteste associated with the elite at Hereford, several
of whose members were part of an advanced philosophical tradition. It was a
centre for the study of liberal arts. This explains his interest in dialectics.
After a sojourn in Paris, he becomes the first chancellor of Oxford. He was a secular
lecturer in theology to the recently established Franciscan order at Oxford. It
was during his tenure with the Franciscans that he studied Grecian an unusual endeavour for an Oxonian schoolman
then. He later moved to Lincoln. As a
scholar, Grosseteste is an original thinker who used Aristotelian and
Augustinian theses as points of departure. Grosseteste (or “Greathead,” as he
was called by the town – if not the gown) believes, with Aristotle, that sense
is the basis of all knowledge, and that the basis for sense is our discovery of
the cause of what is experienced or revealed by experiment. He also believes,
with Augustine, that light plays an important role in creation. Thus he
maintained that God produced the world by first creating prime matter (“materia
prima”) from which issued a point of light lux, the first corporeal form or
power, one of whose manifestations is visible light. The diffusion of this
light resulted in extension or tri-dimensionality in the form of the nine
concentric celestial spheres and the four terrestrial spheres of fire, air,
water, and earth. According to Grosseteste, the diffusion of light takes place
in accordance with laws of mathematical proportionality geometry. Everything,
therefore, is a manifestation of light, and mathematics is consequently
indispensable to science and knowledge generally. The principles Grosseteste
employs to support his views are presented in, e.g., his commentary on
Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, the De luce, and the De lineis, angulis et
figuris. He worked in areas as seemingly disparate as optics and angelology.
Grosseteste is one of the first to take an interest in and introduce into the
Oxford curriculum newly recovered Aristotelian texts, along with commentaries
on them. His work and interest in natural philosophy, mathematics, the Bible,
and languages profoundly influenced Roger Bacon, and the educational goals of
the Franciscan order. It also helped to stimulate work in these areas.
groot
-- grotius, h., de groot, philosopher, a founder of modern views of
international law and a major theorist of natural law. A lawyer and Latinist,
Grotius developed a new view of the law of nature in order to combat moral
skepticism and to show how there could be rational settlement of moral disputes
despite religious disagreements. He argued in The Law of War and Peace 1625
that humans are naturally both competitive and sociable. The laws of nature
show us how we can live together despite our propensity to conflict. They can
be derived from observation of our nature and situation. These laws reflect the
fact that each individual possesses rights, which delimit the social space
within which we are free to pursue our own goals. Legitimate government arises
when we give up some rights in order to save or improve our lives. The
obligations that the laws of nature impose would bind us, Grotius notoriously
said, even if God did not exist; but he held that God does enforce the laws.
They set the limits on the laws that governments may legitimately impose. The
laws of nature reflect our possession of both precise perfect rights of
justice, which can be protected by force, and imperfect rights, which are not
enforceable, nor even statable very precisely. Grotius’s views on our combative
but sociable nature, on the function of the law of nature, and on perfect and
imperfect rights were of central importance in later discussions of morality
and law.
Grice’s
grue and grellow, -- and bleen: H. P. Grice was
fascinated by Goodman’s ‘grue’ paradox and kept looking for the crucial implicaturum.
“The paradox is believed to be mainly as arising within the theory of
induction, but I’ve seen Strawson struggling with gruesome consequences in his
theory of deduction, too.” According to Nelson Goodman, “a philosopher from the
New World,” every intuitively acceptable inductive argument, call it A, may be
mimicked by indefinitely many other inductive arguments each seemingly quite analogous to A and
therefore seemingly as acceptable, yet each nonetheless intuitively *unacceptable*,
and each yielding a conclusion contradictory to that of A, given the assumption
that sufficiently many and varied of the sort of things induced upon exist as
yet unexamined which is the only circumstance in which A is of interest. “Goodman
then asks us to suppose an intuitively acceptable inductive argument.”A1 every
hitherto observed EMERALD is GREEN; therefore, every emerald is green. Now introduce
the totally unnatural colour predicate ‘grue’ – a portmanteau of blue and green
– as in Welsh ‘glas’ -- where for some given, as yet wholly future, temporal
interval T an object is ‘grue’ provided it has the property of being green and
first examined before T OR blue and NOT
first examined before T. Then consider the following inductive argument: A2 every
hitherto observed EMERALD is GRUE; therefore, every emerald is grue. The
premise is true, and A2 is formally analogous to A1. But A2 is intuitively
unacceptable. If there is an emerald UNexamined before T, he conclusion of A2
says that this emerald is blue, whereas the conclusion of A1 says that every
emerald is green! Granted, other counter-intuitive competing arguments could be
given, e.g.: A3. Every hitherto observed emerald is grellow; therefore, every
emeralds is grellow. where an object is ‘grellow’ provided it is green and
located on the earth or yellow otherwise. It would seem, therefore, that some
restriction on induction is required. “Goodman’s alleged of induction offers
two challenges. First, state the restriction
i.e., demarcate the intuitively acceptable inductions from the
unacceptable ones, in some general way, without constant appeal to intuition.”“Second,
justify our preference for the one group of inductions over the other.”“These
two parts of the paradox are, alas, often conflated.”But it is at least
conceivable that one might solve the analytical, demarcative part without
solving the justificatory part, and, perhaps, vice versa. It will not do to
rule out, a priori gruesome” variances in nature. H2O varies in its physical
state along the parameter of temperature. If so, why might not one emerald vary
in colour along the parameter of time of first examination? One approach to the
problem of restriction is to focus on the conclusions of inductive arguments
e.g., every emerald is green, every emerald is grue and to distinguish those
which may legitimately so serve called “projectible hypotheses” from those
which may not. The question then arises whether only non-gruesome hypotheses
those which do not contain gruesome predicates are projectible. Aside from the
task of defining ‘gruesome predicate’ which could be done structurally relative
to a preferred language, the answer is no. Consider the predicate ‘x is solid
and less than 0; C, or liquid and more than 0; C but less than 100; C, or
gaseous and more than 100; C.’This is gruesome on any plausible structural
account of gruesomeness. Note the similarity to the ‘grue’ equivalent: green and
first examined before T, or blue and not first examined before T. Nevertheless,
where nontransitional water is pure H2O at one atmosphere of pressure save that
which is in a transitional state, i.e., melting/freezing or boiling/condensing,
i.e., at 0°C or 100; C, we happily project the hypothesis that all
non-transitional water falls under the above gruesome predicate. Perhaps this
is because, if we rewrite the projection about non-transitional water as a
conjunction of non-gruesome hypotheses i
water at less than 0; C is solid, ii water at more than 0; C but less than 100;
C is liquid, and iii water at more than 100; C is gaseous we note that iiii are all supported there are
known positive instances; whereas if we rewrite the gruesome projection about the
emerald as a conjunction of non-gruesome hypotheses i* every emerald first examined before T is
green, and ii* every emerald NOT first examined before T is blue we note that ii* is as yet unsupported. It
would seem that, whereas a non-gruesome hypothesis is projectible provided it
is unviolated and supported, a gruesome hypothesis is projectible provided it
is unviolated and equivalent to a conjunction of non-gruesome hypotheses, each
of which is supported.
grundnorm:
Grice knows about the ground and the common ground – and then there’s the
ground norm -- also called basic norm, in a legal system, the norm that
determines the legal validity of all other norms. The content of such an
ultimate norm may provide, e.g., that norms created by a legislature or by a
court are legally valid. The validity of such an ultimate norm cannot be
established as a matter of social fact such as the social fact that the norm is
accepted by some group within a society. Rather, the validity of the basic norm
for any given legal system must be presupposed by the validity of the norms
that it legitimates as laws. The idea of a basic norm is associated with the
legal philosopher Hans Kelsen.
guise
-- Castaneda, H. N., analytical philosopher. Heavily influenced by his own critical
reaction to Quine, Chisholm, and his teacher Wilfrid Sellars, Castañeda
published four books and more than 175 essays. His work combines originality,
rigor, and penetration, together with an unusual comprehensiveness his network of theory and criticism reaches
into nearly every area of philosophy, including action theory; deontic logic
and practical reason; ethics; history of philosophy; metaphysics and ontology;
philosophical methodology; philosophy of language, mind, and perception; and
the theory of knowledge. His principal contributions are to metaphysics and
ontology, indexical reference, and deontic logic and practical reasoning. In
metaphysics and ontology, Castañeda’s chief work is guise theory, first
articulated in a 4 essay, a complex and global account of language, mind,
ontology, and predication. By holding that ordinary concrete individuals,
properties, and propositions all break down or separate into their various
aspects or guises, he theorizes that thinking and reference are directed toward
the latter. Each guise is a genuine item in the ontological inventory, having
properties internally and externally. In addition, guises are related by
standing in various sameness relations, only one of which is the familiar
relation of strict identity. Since every guise enjoys bona fide ontological
standing, whereas only some of these actually exist, Castañeda’s ontology and
semantics are Meinongian. With its intricate account of predication, guise
theory affords a unified treatment of a wide range of philosophical problems
concerning reference to nonexistents, negative existentials, intentional
identity, referential opacity, and other matters. Castañeda also played a
pivotal role in emphasizing the significance of indexical reference. If, e.g.,
Paul assertively utters ‘I prefer Chardonnay’, it would obviously be incorrect
for Bob to report ‘Paul says that I prefer Chardonnay’, since the last
statement expresses Bob’s speaker’s reference, not Paul’s. At the same time,
Castañeda contends, it is likewise incorrect for Bob to report Paul’s saying as
either ‘Paul says that Paul prefers Chardonnay’ or ‘Paul says that Al’s
luncheon guest prefers Chardonnay’ when Paul is Al’s only luncheon guest, since
each of these fail to represent the essentially indexical element of Paul’s
assertion. Instead, Bob may correctly report ‘Paul says that he himself prefers
Chardonnay’, where ‘he himself’ is a quasi-indicator, serving to depict Paul’s
reference to himself qua self. For Castañeda and others, quasi-indicators are a
person’s irreducible, essential means for describing the thoughts and
experiences of others. A complete account of his view of indexicals, together
with a full articulation of guise theory and his unorthodox theories of
definite descriptions and proper names, is contained in Thinking, Language, and
Experience 9. Castañeda’s main views on practical reason and deontic logic turn
on his fundamental practitionproposition distinction. A number of valuable
essays on these views, together with his important replies, are collected in
James E. Tomberlin, ed., Agent, Language, and the Structure of the World 3, and
Tomberlin, ed., Hector-Neri Castañeda 6. The latter also includes Castañeda’s
revealing intellectual autobiography. guise theory, a system developed by Castañeda
to resolve a number of issues concerning the content of thought and experience,
including reference, identity statements, intensional contexts, predication,
existential claims, perception, and fictional discourse. For example, since i
Oedipus believed that he killed the man at the crossroads, and ii the man at
the crossroads was his Oedipus’s father, it might seem that iii Oedipus
believed that he killed his father. Guise theory blocks this derivation by
taking ‘was’ in ii to express, not genuine identity, but a contingent sameness
relation betweeen the distinct referents of the descriptions. Definite
descriptions are typically treated as referential, contrary to Russell’s theory
of descriptions, and their referents are identical in both direct and indirect
discourse, contrary to Frege’s semantics. To support this solution, guise
theory offers unique accounts of predication and singular referents. The latter
are individual guises, which, like Fregean senses and Meinong’s incomplete
objects, are thinly individuated aspects or “slices” of ordinary objects at
best. Every guise is a structure c{F1 . . . , Fn} where c is an operator
expressed by ‘the’ in English
transforming a set of properties {F1, . . . , Fn} into a distinct
concrete individual, each property being an internal property of the guise.
Guises have external properties by standing in various sameness relations to
other guises that have these properties internally. There are four such
relations, besides genuine identity, each an equivalence relation in its field.
If the oldest philosopher happens to be wise, e.g., wisdom is factually
predicated of the guise ‘the oldest philosopher’ because it is consubstantiated
with ‘the oldest wise philosopher’. Other sameness relations account for
fictional predication consociation and necessary external predication
conflation. Existence is self-consubstantiation. An ordinary physical object
is, at any moment, a cluster of consubstantiated hence, existing guises, while
continuants are formed through the transubstantiation of guises within
temporally distinct clusters. There are no substrates, and while every guise
“subsists,” not all exist, e.g., the Norse God of Thunder. The position thus
permits a unified account of singular reference. One task for guise theory is
to explain how a “concretized” set of properties differs internally from a mere
set. Perhaps guises are façons de penser whose core sets are concretized if
their component properties are conceived as coinstantiated, with non-existents
analyzable in terms of the failure of the conceived properties to actually be
coinstantiated. However, it is questionable whether this approach can achieve
all that Castañeda demands of guise theory.
habermas:
j. Habermas cites Grice quite extensively,, “but as extensive as he is, the
more wishy washy he becomes” – A. M. Kemmerling. J. philosopher and social
theorist, a leading representative of the second generation of the Frankfurt
School of critical theory. His work has consistently returned to the problem of
the normative foundations of social criticism and critical social inquiry not
supplied in traditional Marxism and other forms of critical theory, such as
postmodernism. His habilitation, The Structural Transformation of the Public
Sphere 1, is an influential historical analysis of the emergence of the ideal
of a public sphere in the eighteenth century and its subsequent decline.
Habermas turned then to the problems of the foundations and methodology of the
social sciences, developing a criticism of positivism and his own interpretive
explanatory approach in The Logic of the Social Sciences 3 and his first major
systematic work, Knowledge and Human Interests 7. Rejecting the unity of method
typical of positivism, Habermas argues that social inquiry is guided by three distinct
interests: in control, in understanding, and in emancipation. He is especially
concerned to use emancipatory interest to overcome the limitations of the model
of inquiry based on understanding and argues against “universality of
hermeneutics” defended by hermeneuticists such as Gadamer and for the need to
supplement interpretations with explanations in the social sciences. As he came
to reject the psychoanalytic vocabulary in which he formulated the interest in
emancipation, he turned to finding the basis for understanding and social
inquiry in a theory of rationality more generally. In the next phase of his
career he developed a comprehensive social theory, culminating in his
two-volume The Theory of Communicative Action 2. The goal of this theory is to
develop a “critical theory of modernity,” on the basis of a comprehensive
theory of communicative as opposed to instrumental rationality. The first
volume develops a theory of communicative rationality based on “discourse,” or
second-order communication that takes place both in everyday interaction and in
institutionalized practices of argumentation in science, law, and criticism.
This theory of rationality emerges from a universal or “formal” pragmatics, a
speech act theory based on making explicit the rules and norms of the
competence to communicate in linguistic interaction. The second volume develops
a diagnosis of modern society as suffering from “onesided rationalization,”
leading to disruptions of the communicative lifeworld by “systems” such as
markets and bureaucracies. Finally, Habermas applies his conception of
rationality to issues of normative theory, including ethics, politics, and the
law. “Discourse Ethics: Notes on a Program of Moral Justification” 2 argues for
an intersubjective notion of practical reason and discursive procedure for the
justification of universal norms. This “discourse principle” provides a
dialogical version of Kant’s idea of universalization; a norm is justified if
and only if it can meet with the reasoned agreement of all those affected.
Between Facts and Norms 2 combines his social and normative theories to give a
systematic account of law and democracy. His contribution here is an account of
deliberative democracy appropriate to the complexity of modern society. His
work in all of these phases provides a systematic defense and critique of
modern institutions and a vindication of the universal claims of public
practical reason.
Bradley’s
thatness: :The investing of the
content, which is in Bradleian language a `what', with self-existent reality or ‘that-ness'." Athenaeum 24 Dec. 1904’ If
thought asserted the existence of any content which was not an actual or
possible object of thought—certainly that assertion in my judgment would
contradict itself. But the Other which I maintain, is not any such content, nor
is it another separated “ what,” nor in any case do I suggest that it lies
outside intelligence. Everything, all will and feeling, is an object for
thought, and must be called intelligible. This is certain; but, if so, what
becomes of the Other? If we fall back on the mere “ that,” thatness itself
seems a distinction made by thought. And we have to face this difficulty: If
the Other exists, it must be something; and if it is nothing, it certainly does
not exist. There is only
one way to get rid of contradiction, and that way is by dissolution. Instead of
one subject distracted, we get a larger subject with distinctions, and so the
tension is removed. We have at first A, which possesses the qualities c and b,
inconsistent adjectives which collide; and we go on to produce harmony by
making a distinction within this subject. That was really not mere A, but
either a complex within A, or (rather here) a wider whole in which A is
included. The real subject is A + D; and this subject contains the
contradiction made harmless by division, since A is c and D is b. This is the
general principle, and I will attempt here to apply it in particular. Let us
suppose the reality to be X (abcdefg . . .), and that we are able only to get
partial views of this reality. Let us first take such a view as “ X (ab) is b.”
This (rightly or wrongly) we should probably call a true view. For the content
b does plainly belong to the subject; and, further, the appearance also—in
other words, the separation of b in the predicate—can partly be explained. For,
answering to this separation, we postulate now another adjective in the
subject: let us call it *. The “ thatness,” the psychical existence of the
predicate, which at first was neglected, has now also itself been included in
the subject. We may hence write the subject as X (ab*); and in this way we seem
to avoid contradiction. Let us go further on the same line, and, having dealt
with a truth, pass next to an error. Take the subject once more as X (abcde . .
.), and let us now say “ X (ab) is d.” To be different from another is to have already transcended
one’s own being; and all finite existence is thus incurably relative and ideal.
Its quality falls, more or less, outside its particular “ thatness”; and,
whether as the same or again as diverse, it is equally made what it is by
community with others.
The
hic, the hæc, and the hoc – “Scotus was being clever. Since he
wanted an abstract noun, and abstract nouns are feminine in both Greek and
Latin (‘ippotes, eqquitas’), he chose the feminine ‘haec,’ to turn into a
‘thisness.’ But we should expand his rather sexist view to apply to ‘hic’ and
‘hoc,’ too. In Anglo-Saxon, there is only ‘this,’ with ‘thisness’ first used by
Pope George. The OED first registers ‘thisness’ in 1643.” – cf. OED: "It is at its such-&-suchness,
at its
character -- in other words, at the
_universal_ in it -- that we have to
look. the first cite in the OED for 'thisness' also
features 'thatness': "thisness,” from "this" + "-ness": rendering ‘haecceitas,’ the quality of being 'this' (as distinct from anything else): = haecceity. First cite: "It is evident that [...] THISness, and THATness belong[...] not to matter by itself, but onely as [matter] is distinguished & individuated by the form." The two further quotes for 'thisness' being: 1837 Whewell Hist Induct Sc 1857 I 244: "Which his school called ‘HAECcceity’ – from the feminine form of the demonstrative masculine ‘hic,’ in Roman, neutre ‘hoc’ (Scotus uses the femine because ‘-ity- is a feminine ending) -- or ‘thisness.’", and 1895 Rashdall Universities II 532: "An individuating form called by the later Scotists its ‘haecceitas’ or its `thisness'"). "The investing of the content, which is in Bradleian language a `what', with self-existent reality or ‘that-ness'." Athenaeum 24 Dec. 1904 868/2. -- OED, 'thatness'. Trudgill writes in _The Dialects of England_ (Oxford: Blackwell), that Grice would often consult (he was from Harborne and had a special interest in this – “I seem to have lost my dialect when I moved to Corpus.” The 'this'-'that' demonstrative system is a two-way system which distinguishes between things which are distant and things which are near. Interestingly, however, a number of traditional dialects in England (if not Oxford) differ from this system in having what Grice called a Griceian _three_-way distinction. The Yorkshire dialect, for example, has ‘this’ (sing., near), ‘thir’ (pl. near), ‘that’ (sing. Medial) ‘tho’ (plural, medial), thon (sing. distal) and ‘thon’ (pl., distal). The Mercian Anglian dialect has ‘these’ (sing. near), ‘theys’ (plural, near), ‘that’ (sing. medial), ‘they’ (pl., medial), ‘thik’ (sing./pl., distal). “The northern dialect is better in that it distinguishes between the singular and the plural form for the distal, unlike the southern dialect which has ‘thik’ for either.” Grice. Still, Grice likes the sound of ‘thik’ and quotes from his friend M. Wakelin, _The Southwest of England_. "When I awoke one May day morn/I found an urge within me born/To see the beauteous countryside/That's all round wher'I do bide./So I set out wi' dog & stick,/ My head were just a trifle thick./But good ole' fresh air had his say/& blowed thik trouble clean away." -- B. Green, in _The Dorset Year Book_. Dorset: Society of Dorset Men. “Some like Russell, but Bradley’s MY man.” – H. P. Grice: Grice: "Russell is pretentious; Bradley, an English angel, is not!" "Bradley can use 'thatness' freely; Russell uses it after Bradley and artificially." all the rest of the watery bulk : but return back those few drops from whence they were taken, and the glass-full that even now had an individuation by itself, loseth that, and groweth one and the same with the other main stock : yet if you fill your glass again, wheresoever you take it up, so it be of the same uniform bulk of water you had before, it is the same glassfuU of water that you had. But as I said before, this example fitteth entirely no more than the other did. In such abstracted speculations, where we must consider matter without form, (which hath no actual being,) we must not expect adequated examples in nature. But enough is said to make a speculative man see, that if God should join the soul of a lately dead man, (even whilst his dead corpse should lie en- tire in his windingsheet here,) unto a body made of earth, taken from some mountain in America; it were most true and certain, that the body he should then live by, were the same identical body he lived with before his death, and late resurrection. It is evident, that sameness, thisness, and that- ness, belongeth not to matter by itself, (for a general indiffer- ence runneth through it all,) but only as it is distinguished and individuated by the form. Which in our case, whensoever the same soul doth, it must be understood always to be the same matter and body.” (Browne, 1643). Grice. Corbin says that English is such a plastic language, “unlike Roman,” but then there’s haec, and hæcceitas -- Duns Scotus, J., Scottish Franciscan metaphysician and philosophical theologian. He lectured at Oxford, Paris, and Cologne, where he died and his remains are still venerated. Modifying Avicenna’s conception of metaphysics as the science of being qua being, but univocally conceived, Duns Scotus showed its goal was to demonstrate God as the Infinite Being revealed to Moses as the “I am who am”, whose creative will is the source of the world’s contingency. Out of love God fashioned each creature with a unique “haecceity” or particularity formally distinct from its individualized nature. Descriptively identical with others of its kind, this nature, conceived in abstraction from haecceity, is both objectively real and potentially universal, and provides the basis for scientific knowledge that Peirce calls “Scotistic realism.” Duns Scotus brought many of Augustine’s insights, treasured by his Franciscan predecessors, into the mainstream of the Aristotelianism of his day. Their notion of the will’s “supersufficient potentiality” for self-determination he showed can be reconciled with Aristotle’s notion of an “active potency,” if one rejects the controDuhem thesis Duns Scotus, John 247 247 versial principle that “whatever is moved is moved by another.” Paradoxically, Aristotle’s criteria for rational and non-rational potencies prove the rationality of the will, not the intellect, for he claimed that only rational faculties are able to act in opposite ways and are thus the source of creativity in the arts. If so, then intellect, with but one mode of acting determined by objective evidence, is non-rational, and so is classed with active potencies called collectively “nature.” Only the will, acting “with reason,” is free to will or nill this or that. Thus “nature” and “will” represent Duns Scotus’s primary division of active potencies, corresponding roughly to Aristotle’s dichotomy of non-rational and rational. Original too is his development of Anselm’s distinction of the will’s twofold inclination or “affection”: one for the advantageous, the other for justice. The first endows the will with an “intellectual appetite” for happiness and actualization of self or species; the second supplies the will’s specific difference from other natural appetites, giving it an innate desire to love goods objectively according to their intrinsic worth. Guided by right reason, this “affection for justice” inclines the will to act ethically, giving it a congenital freedom from the need always to seek the advantageous. Both natural affections can be supernaturalized, the “affection for justice” by charity, inclining us to love God above all and for his own sake; the affection for the advantageous by the virtue of hope, inclining us to love God as our ultimate good and future source of beatitude. Another influential psychological theory is that of intuitive intellectual cognition, or the simple, non-judgmental awareness of a hereand-now existential situation. First developed as a necessary theological condition for the face-toface vision of God in the next life, intellectual intuition is needed to explain our certainty of primary contingent truths, such as “I think,” “I choose,” etc., and our awareness of existence. Unlike Ockham, Duns Scotus never made intellectual intuition the basis for his epistemology, nor believed it puts one in direct contact with any extramental substance material or spiritual, for in this life, at least, our intellect works through the sensory imagination. Intellectual intuition seems to be that indistinct peripheral aura associated with each direct sensory-intellectual cognition. We know of it explicitly only in retrospect when we consider the necessary conditions for intellectual memory. It continued to be a topic of discussion and dispute down to the time of Calvin, who, influenced by the Scotist John Major, used an auditory rather than a visual sense model of intellectual intuition to explain our “experience of God.” haecceity from Latin haec, ‘this’, 1 loosely, thisness; more specifically, an irreducible category of being, the fundamental actuality of an existent entity; or 2 an individual essence, a property an object has necessarily, without which it would not be or would cease to exist as the individual it is, and which, necessarily, no other object has. There are in the history of philosophy two distinct concepts of haecceity. The idea originated with the work of the thirteenthcentury philosopher Duns Scotus, and was discussed in the same period by Aquinas, as a positive perfection that serves as a primitive existence and individuation principle for concrete existents. In the seventeenth century Leibniz transformed the concept of haecceity, which Duns Scotus had explicitly denied to be a form or universal, into the notion of an individual essence, a distinctive nature or set of necessary characteristics uniquely identifying it under the principle of the identity of indiscernibles. Duns Scotus’s haecceitas applies only to the being of contingently existent entities in the actual world, but Leibniz extends the principle to individuate particular things not only through the changes they may undergo in the actual world, but in any alternative logically possible world. Leibniz admitted as a consequence the controversial thesis that every object by virtue of its haecceity has each of its properties essentially or necessarily, so that only the counterparts of individuals can inhabit distinct logically possible worlds. A further corollary since the possession of particular parts in a particular arrangement is also a property and hence involved in the individual essence of any complex object is the doctrine of mereological essentialism: every composite is necessarily constituted by a particular configuration of particular proper parts, and loses its self-identity if any parts are removed or replaced. Grice was more familiar with the thatness than the thisness (“Having had to read Bradley for my metaphysics paper!”).
features 'thatness': "thisness,” from "this" + "-ness": rendering ‘haecceitas,’ the quality of being 'this' (as distinct from anything else): = haecceity. First cite: "It is evident that [...] THISness, and THATness belong[...] not to matter by itself, but onely as [matter] is distinguished & individuated by the form." The two further quotes for 'thisness' being: 1837 Whewell Hist Induct Sc 1857 I 244: "Which his school called ‘HAECcceity’ – from the feminine form of the demonstrative masculine ‘hic,’ in Roman, neutre ‘hoc’ (Scotus uses the femine because ‘-ity- is a feminine ending) -- or ‘thisness.’", and 1895 Rashdall Universities II 532: "An individuating form called by the later Scotists its ‘haecceitas’ or its `thisness'"). "The investing of the content, which is in Bradleian language a `what', with self-existent reality or ‘that-ness'." Athenaeum 24 Dec. 1904 868/2. -- OED, 'thatness'. Trudgill writes in _The Dialects of England_ (Oxford: Blackwell), that Grice would often consult (he was from Harborne and had a special interest in this – “I seem to have lost my dialect when I moved to Corpus.” The 'this'-'that' demonstrative system is a two-way system which distinguishes between things which are distant and things which are near. Interestingly, however, a number of traditional dialects in England (if not Oxford) differ from this system in having what Grice called a Griceian _three_-way distinction. The Yorkshire dialect, for example, has ‘this’ (sing., near), ‘thir’ (pl. near), ‘that’ (sing. Medial) ‘tho’ (plural, medial), thon (sing. distal) and ‘thon’ (pl., distal). The Mercian Anglian dialect has ‘these’ (sing. near), ‘theys’ (plural, near), ‘that’ (sing. medial), ‘they’ (pl., medial), ‘thik’ (sing./pl., distal). “The northern dialect is better in that it distinguishes between the singular and the plural form for the distal, unlike the southern dialect which has ‘thik’ for either.” Grice. Still, Grice likes the sound of ‘thik’ and quotes from his friend M. Wakelin, _The Southwest of England_. "When I awoke one May day morn/I found an urge within me born/To see the beauteous countryside/That's all round wher'I do bide./So I set out wi' dog & stick,/ My head were just a trifle thick./But good ole' fresh air had his say/& blowed thik trouble clean away." -- B. Green, in _The Dorset Year Book_. Dorset: Society of Dorset Men. “Some like Russell, but Bradley’s MY man.” – H. P. Grice: Grice: "Russell is pretentious; Bradley, an English angel, is not!" "Bradley can use 'thatness' freely; Russell uses it after Bradley and artificially." all the rest of the watery bulk : but return back those few drops from whence they were taken, and the glass-full that even now had an individuation by itself, loseth that, and groweth one and the same with the other main stock : yet if you fill your glass again, wheresoever you take it up, so it be of the same uniform bulk of water you had before, it is the same glassfuU of water that you had. But as I said before, this example fitteth entirely no more than the other did. In such abstracted speculations, where we must consider matter without form, (which hath no actual being,) we must not expect adequated examples in nature. But enough is said to make a speculative man see, that if God should join the soul of a lately dead man, (even whilst his dead corpse should lie en- tire in his windingsheet here,) unto a body made of earth, taken from some mountain in America; it were most true and certain, that the body he should then live by, were the same identical body he lived with before his death, and late resurrection. It is evident, that sameness, thisness, and that- ness, belongeth not to matter by itself, (for a general indiffer- ence runneth through it all,) but only as it is distinguished and individuated by the form. Which in our case, whensoever the same soul doth, it must be understood always to be the same matter and body.” (Browne, 1643). Grice. Corbin says that English is such a plastic language, “unlike Roman,” but then there’s haec, and hæcceitas -- Duns Scotus, J., Scottish Franciscan metaphysician and philosophical theologian. He lectured at Oxford, Paris, and Cologne, where he died and his remains are still venerated. Modifying Avicenna’s conception of metaphysics as the science of being qua being, but univocally conceived, Duns Scotus showed its goal was to demonstrate God as the Infinite Being revealed to Moses as the “I am who am”, whose creative will is the source of the world’s contingency. Out of love God fashioned each creature with a unique “haecceity” or particularity formally distinct from its individualized nature. Descriptively identical with others of its kind, this nature, conceived in abstraction from haecceity, is both objectively real and potentially universal, and provides the basis for scientific knowledge that Peirce calls “Scotistic realism.” Duns Scotus brought many of Augustine’s insights, treasured by his Franciscan predecessors, into the mainstream of the Aristotelianism of his day. Their notion of the will’s “supersufficient potentiality” for self-determination he showed can be reconciled with Aristotle’s notion of an “active potency,” if one rejects the controDuhem thesis Duns Scotus, John 247 247 versial principle that “whatever is moved is moved by another.” Paradoxically, Aristotle’s criteria for rational and non-rational potencies prove the rationality of the will, not the intellect, for he claimed that only rational faculties are able to act in opposite ways and are thus the source of creativity in the arts. If so, then intellect, with but one mode of acting determined by objective evidence, is non-rational, and so is classed with active potencies called collectively “nature.” Only the will, acting “with reason,” is free to will or nill this or that. Thus “nature” and “will” represent Duns Scotus’s primary division of active potencies, corresponding roughly to Aristotle’s dichotomy of non-rational and rational. Original too is his development of Anselm’s distinction of the will’s twofold inclination or “affection”: one for the advantageous, the other for justice. The first endows the will with an “intellectual appetite” for happiness and actualization of self or species; the second supplies the will’s specific difference from other natural appetites, giving it an innate desire to love goods objectively according to their intrinsic worth. Guided by right reason, this “affection for justice” inclines the will to act ethically, giving it a congenital freedom from the need always to seek the advantageous. Both natural affections can be supernaturalized, the “affection for justice” by charity, inclining us to love God above all and for his own sake; the affection for the advantageous by the virtue of hope, inclining us to love God as our ultimate good and future source of beatitude. Another influential psychological theory is that of intuitive intellectual cognition, or the simple, non-judgmental awareness of a hereand-now existential situation. First developed as a necessary theological condition for the face-toface vision of God in the next life, intellectual intuition is needed to explain our certainty of primary contingent truths, such as “I think,” “I choose,” etc., and our awareness of existence. Unlike Ockham, Duns Scotus never made intellectual intuition the basis for his epistemology, nor believed it puts one in direct contact with any extramental substance material or spiritual, for in this life, at least, our intellect works through the sensory imagination. Intellectual intuition seems to be that indistinct peripheral aura associated with each direct sensory-intellectual cognition. We know of it explicitly only in retrospect when we consider the necessary conditions for intellectual memory. It continued to be a topic of discussion and dispute down to the time of Calvin, who, influenced by the Scotist John Major, used an auditory rather than a visual sense model of intellectual intuition to explain our “experience of God.” haecceity from Latin haec, ‘this’, 1 loosely, thisness; more specifically, an irreducible category of being, the fundamental actuality of an existent entity; or 2 an individual essence, a property an object has necessarily, without which it would not be or would cease to exist as the individual it is, and which, necessarily, no other object has. There are in the history of philosophy two distinct concepts of haecceity. The idea originated with the work of the thirteenthcentury philosopher Duns Scotus, and was discussed in the same period by Aquinas, as a positive perfection that serves as a primitive existence and individuation principle for concrete existents. In the seventeenth century Leibniz transformed the concept of haecceity, which Duns Scotus had explicitly denied to be a form or universal, into the notion of an individual essence, a distinctive nature or set of necessary characteristics uniquely identifying it under the principle of the identity of indiscernibles. Duns Scotus’s haecceitas applies only to the being of contingently existent entities in the actual world, but Leibniz extends the principle to individuate particular things not only through the changes they may undergo in the actual world, but in any alternative logically possible world. Leibniz admitted as a consequence the controversial thesis that every object by virtue of its haecceity has each of its properties essentially or necessarily, so that only the counterparts of individuals can inhabit distinct logically possible worlds. A further corollary since the possession of particular parts in a particular arrangement is also a property and hence involved in the individual essence of any complex object is the doctrine of mereological essentialism: every composite is necessarily constituted by a particular configuration of particular proper parts, and loses its self-identity if any parts are removed or replaced. Grice was more familiar with the thatness than the thisness (“Having had to read Bradley for my metaphysics paper!”).
haeckel: an impassioned
adherent of Darwin’s theory of evolution. His wrote “Die Welträtsel,” which became
a best-seller and was very influential in its time. Lenin is said to have
admired it. Haeckel’s philosophy, which he called monism, is characterized
negatively by his rejection of free will, immortality, and theism, as well as
his criticisms of the traditional forms of materialism and idealism. Positively
it is distinguished by passionate arguments for the fundamental unity of
organic and inorganic nature and a form of pantheism.
ha-levi, philosopher. His
philosophy introduces Arabic forms in Hebrew religious expression. He was
traveling to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage when he died. His most important
philosophical work is Kuzari: The Book of Proof and Argument of the Despised
Faith, which purports to be a discussion of a Christian, a Muslim, and a Jew,
each offering the king of the Khazars in southern Russia reasons for adopting
his faith. Around 740 the historical king and most of his people converted to
Judaism. HaLevi presents the Christian and the Muslim as Aristotelian thinkers,
who fail to convince the king. The Jewish spokesman begins by asserting his
belief in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of history who is
continuously active in history, rather than the God of the philosophers. Jewish
history is the inner core of world history. From the revelation at Sinai, the
most witnessed divine event claimed by any religion, the Providential history
of the Jews is the way God has chosen to make his message clear to all
humankind. Ha-Levi’s view is the classical expression of Jewish particularism
and nationalism. His ideas have been influential in Judaism and were early
printed in Latin and Grecian.
hamann: philosopher.
Born and educated in Königsberg, Hamann, known as the Magus of the North, was
one of the most important Christian thinkers in G.y during the second half of
the eighteenth century. Advocating an irrationalistic theory of faith inspired
by Hume, he opposed the prevailing Enlightenment philosophy. He was a mentor of
the Sturm und Drang literary movement and had a significant influence on
Jacobi, Hegel, and Kierkegaard. As a close acquaintance of Kant, he also had a
great impact on the development of Kant’s critical philosophy through his Hume
translations. Hamann’s most important works, criticized and admired for their
difficult and obscure style, were the Socratic Memorabilia 1759, “Aesthetica in
nuce” and several works on language. He suppressed his “metacritical” writings
out of respect for Kant. However, they were published after his death and now
constitute the bestknown part of his work.
hamilton:
“Hamilton and I have many things in common: he went to Balliol, I went to
Corpus – but we both have a BA and a MA Lit. Hum.” – H. P. Grice. philosopher, educated at Oxford, he was for
most of his life professor at the of
Edinburgh 182156. Though hardly an orthodox or uncritical follower of Reid and
Stewart, he became one of the most important members of the school of Scottish
common sense philosophy. His “philosophy of the conditioned” has a somewhat
Kantian flavor. Like Kant, he held that we can have knowledge only of “the
relative manifestations of an existence, which in itself it is our highest
wisdom to recogHaeckel, Ernst Hamilton, William 360 AM
360 nize as beyond the reach of philosophy.” Unlike Kant, however, he
argued for the position of a “natural realism” in the Reidian tradition. The
doctrine of the relativity of knowledge has seemed to many including J. S. Mill contradictory to his realism. For Hamilton,
the two are held together by a kind of intuitionism that emphasizes certain
facts of consciousness that are both primitive and incomprehensible. They are,
though constitutive of knowledge, “less forms of cognitions than of beliefs.”
In logic he argued for a doctrine involving quantification of predicates and
the view that propositions can be reduced to equations.
hampshireism: His second wife was from the New
World. His first wife wasn’t. He married Renée Orde-Lees, the daughter of the
very English Thomas Orde-Lees, in 1961, and had two children, a son, Julian,
and a daughter. To add to the philosophers’ mistakes. There’s Austin (in “Plea
for Excuses” and “Other Minds”), Strawson (in “Truth” and “Introduction to
Logical Theory,” and “On referring”), Hart (in conversation, on ‘carefully,”),
Hare (“To say ‘x is good’ is to recommend x”) and Hampshire (“Intention and
certainty”). For Grice, the certainty is merely implicated and on occasion,
only. Cited by Grice as a member of the
play group. Hampshire would dine once a week with Grice. He would discuss and
find very amusing to discuss with Grice on post-war Oxford philosophy. Unlike
Grice, Hampshire attended Austin’s Thursday evening meetings at All Souls.
Grice wrote “Intention and uncertainty” in part as a response to Hampshire and
Hart, Intention and certainty. But Grice brought the issue back to an earlier
generation, to a polemic between Stout (who held a certainty-based view) and
Prichard.
hare:
r. m. cited by H. P. Grice, “Hare’s neustrics”. b.9, English philosopher who is
one of the most influential moral philosophers of the twentieth century and the
developer of prescriptivism in metaethics. Hare was educated at Rugby and
Oxford, then served in the British army during World War II and spent years as
a prisoner of war in Burma. In 7 he took a position at Balliol and was appointed White’s Professor of Moral
Philosophy at the of Oxford in 6. On
retirement from Oxford, he became Graduate Research Professor at the of Florida 393. His major books are Language
of Morals 3, Freedom and Reason 3, Moral Thinking 1, and Sorting Out Ethics 7.
Many collections of his essays have also appeared, and a collection of other
leading philosophers’ articles on his work was published in 8 Hare and Critics,
eds. Seanor and Fotion. According to Hare, a careful exploration of the nature
of our moral concepts reveals that nonironic judgments about what one morally
ought to do are expressions of the will, or commitments to act, that are
subject to certain logical constraints. Because moral judgments are
prescriptive, we cannot sincerely subscribe to them while refusing to comply
with them in the relevant circumstances. Because moral judgments are universal
prescriptions, we cannot sincerely subscribe to them unless we are willing for
them to be followed were we in other people’s positions with their preferences.
Hare later contended that vividly to imagine ourselves completely in other
people’s positions involves our acquiring preferences about what should happen
to us in those positions that mirror exactly what those people now want for
themselves. So, ideally, we decide on a universal prescription on the basis of
not only our existing preferences about the actual situation but also the new
preferences we would have if we were wholly in other people’s positions. What
we can prescribe universally is what maximizes net satisfaction of this
amalgamated set of preferences. Hence, Hare concluded that his theory of moral
judgment leads to preference-satisfaction act utilitarianism. However, like
most other utilitarians, he argued that the best way to maximize utility is to
have, and generally to act on, certain not directly utilitarian
dispositions such as dispositions not to
hurt others or steal, to keep promises and tell the truth, to take special
responsibility for one’s own family, and so on.
harris: philosopher of language – classical.
Grice adored him, and he was quite happy that few knew about Harris! Cf. Tooke.
Cf. Priestley and Hartley – all pre-Griceian philosohers of language that are
somehow outside the canon, when they shouldn’t. They are very Old World, and
it’s the influence of the New World that has made them sort of disappear!
That’s what Grice said!
hart:
h. l. a. – cited by Grice, “Hare on ‘carefully.’ Philosopher of European
ancestry born in Yorkshire, principally responsible for the revival of legal
and political philosophy after World War II. After wartime work with military
intelligence, Hart gave up a flourishing law practice to join the Oxford
faculty, where he was a brilliant lecturer, a sympathetic and insightful
critic, and a generous mentor to many scholars. Like the earlier “legal positivists”
Bentham and John Austin, Hart accepted the “separation of law and morals”:
moral standards can deliberately be incorporated in law, but there is no
automatic or necessary connection between law and sound moral principles. In
The Concept of Law 1 he critiqued the Bentham-Austin notion that laws are
orders backed by threats from a political community’s “sovereign” some person or persons who enjoy habitual
obedience and are habitually obedient to no other human and developed the more complex idea that law
is a “union of primary and secondary rules.” Hart agreed that a legal system
must contain some “obligation-imposing” “primary” rules, restricting freedom.
But he showed that law also includes independent “power-conferring” rules that
facilitate choice, and he demonstrated that a legal system requires “secondary”
rules that create public offices and authorize official action, such as
legislation and adjudication, as well as “rules of recognition” that determine
which other rules are valid in the system. Hart held that rules of law are
“open-textured,” with a core of determinate meaning and a fringe of
indeterminate meaning, and thus capable of answering some but not all legal
questions that can arise. He doubted courts’ claims to discover law’s meaning when
reasonable competing interpretations are available, and held that courts decide
such “hard cases” by first performing the important “legislative” function of
filling gaps in the law. Hart’s first book was an influential study with A. M.
Honoré of Causation in the Law 9. His inaugural lecture as Professor of
Jurisprudence, “Definition and Theory in Jurisprudence” 3, initiated a
career-long study of rights, reflected also in Essays on Bentham: Studies in
Jurisprudence and Political Theory 2 and in Essays in Jurisprudence and
Philosophy 3. He defended liberal public policies. In Law, Liberty and Morality
3 he refuted Lord Devlin’s contention that a society justifiably enforces the
code of its moral majority, whatever it might be. In The Morality of the Criminal
Law 5 and in Punishment and Responsibility 8, Hart contributed substantially to
both analytic and normative theories of crime and punishment.
Hartley, British philosopher.
Although the notion of association of ideas is ancient, he is generally regarded
as the founder of associationism as a self-sufficient psychology. Despite
similarities between his association psychology and Hume’s, Hartley developed
his system independently, acknowledging only the writings of clergyman John Gay
1699 1745. Hartley was one of many Enlightenment thinkers aspiring to be
“Newtons of the mind,” in Peter Gay’s phrase. In Hartley, this took the form of
uniting association philosophy with physiology, a project later brought to
fruition by Bain. His major work, Observations on Man 1749, pictured mental
events and neural events as operating on parallel tracks in which neural events
cause mental events. On the mental side, Hartley distinguished like Hume
between sensation and idea. On the physiological side, Hartley adopted Newton’s
conception of nervous transmission by vibrations of a fine granular substance
within nerve-tubes. Vibrations within sensory nerves peripheral to the brain
corresponded to the sensations they caused, while small vibrations in the
brain, vibratiuncles, corresponded to ideas. Hartley proposed a single law of
association, contiguity modified by frequency, which took two forms, one for
the mental side and one for the neural: ideas, or vibratiuncles, occurring
together regularly become associated. Hartley distinguished between
simultaneous association, the link between ideas that occur at the same
harmony, preestablished Hartley, David 362
AM 362 moment, and successive
association, between ideas that closely succeed one another. Successive
associations occur only in a forward direction; there are no backward
associations, a thesis generating much controversy in the later experimental
study of memory.
Hartley, Joseph –
philosopher.
Hartmann: philosopher who
sought to synthesize the thought of Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer. The
most important of his essays is “Philosophie des Unbewussten.” For Hartmann
both will and idea are interrelated and are expressions of an absolute
“thing-in-itself,” the unconscious. The unconscious is the active essence in
natural and psychic processes and is the teleological dynamic in organic life.
Paradoxically, he claimed that the teleology immanent in the world order and
the life process leads to insight into the irrationality of the “will-to-live.”
The maturation of rational consciousness would, he held, lead to the negation
of the total volitional process and the entire world process would cease. Ideas
indicate the “what” of existence and constitute, along with will and the
unconscious, the three modes of being. Despite its pessimism, this work enjoyed
considerable popularity. Hartmann was an unusual combination of speculative
idealist and philosopher of science defending vitalism and attacking
mechanistic materialism; his pessimistic ethics was part of a cosmic drama of redemption.
Some of his later works dealt with a critical form of Darwinism that led him to
adopt a positive evolutionary stance that undermined his earlier pessimism. His
general philosophical position was selfdescribed as “transcendental realism.”
His Philosophy of the Unconscious was tr. into English by W. C. Coupland in
three volumes in 4. There is little doubt that his metaphysics of the
unconscious prepared the way for Freud’s later theory of the unconscious
mind.
hartmann, n. philosopher
(“Not to be confused with Hartmann – but then neither am I to be confused with
[G. R.] Grice.” – Grice. He taught at the universities of Marburg, Cologne,
Berlin, and Göttingen, and wrote more than a dozen major works on the history
of philosophy, ontology, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. A realist in
epistemology and ontology, Hartmann held that cognition is the apprehension of
something independent of the act of apprehension or any other mental events. An
accurate phenomenology, such as Husserl’s, would acknowledge, according to him,
that we apprehend not only particular, spatiotemporal objects, but also “ideal
objects,” “essences,” which Hartmann explicitly identified with Platonic Forms.
Among these are ethical values and the objects of mathematics and logic. Our
apprehension of values is emotional in character, as Scheler had held. This
point is compatible with their objectivity and their mindindependence, since
the emotions are just another mode of apprehension. The point applies, however,
only to ethical values. Aesthetic values are essentially subjective; they exist
only for the subject experiencing them. The number of ethical values is far
greater than usually supposed, nor are they derivable from a single fundamental
value. At best we only glimpse some of them, and even these may not be
simultaneously realizable. This explains and to some extent justifies the
existence of moral disagreement, between persons as well as between whole
cultures. Hartmann was most obviously influenced by Plato, Husserl, and Scheler.
But he was a major, original philosopher in his own right. He has received less
recognition than he deserves probably because his views were quite different
from those dominant in recent Anglo- philosophy or in recent Continental
philosophy. What is perhaps his most important work, Ethics, was published in
G. in 6, one year before Heidegger’s Being and Time, and appeared in English in
2.
hartshorne: chief exponent of process philosophy. After
receiving the Ph.D. at Harvard in 3 he came under the influence of Whitehead,
and later, with Paul Weiss, edited The Collected Papers of C. S. Peirce 135. In
The Philosophy and Psychology of Sensation 4 Hartshorne argued that all
sensations are feelings on an affective continuum. These ideas were later
incorporated into a neoclassical metaphysic that is panpsychist,
indeterministic, and theistic. Nature is a theater of interactions among
ephemeral centers of creative activity, each of which becomes objectively
immortal in the memory of God. In Man’s Vision of God 1 Hartshorne chastised
philosophers for being insufficiently attentive to the varieties of theism. His
alternative, called dipolar theism, also defended in The Divine Hartmann,
Eduard von Hartshorne, Charles 363 AM 363 Relativity 8, pictures God as supremely
related to and perfectly responding to every actuality. The universe is God’s
body. The divine is, in different respects, infinite and finite, eternal and
temporal, necessary and contingent. Establishing God’s existence is a
metaphysical project, which Hartshorne characterizes in Creative Synthesis 0 as
the search for necessary truths about existence. The central element in his
cumulative case for God’s existence, called the global argument, is a modal
version of the ontological argument, which Hartshorne was instrumental in
rehabilitating in The Logic of Perfection 2 and Anselm’s Discovery 5. Creative
Synthesis also articulated the theory that aesthetic values are the most
universal and that beauty is a mean between the twin extremes of order/disorder
and simplicity/complexity. The Zero Fallacy 7, Hartshorne’s twentieth book,
summarized his assessment of the history of philosophy also found in Insights and Oversights of
Great Thinkers 3 and Creativity in
Philosophy 4 and introduced
important refinements of his metaphysics.
hazzing: under conjunctum, we see that the terminology is varied.
There is the copulatum. But Grice prefers to restrict to use of the copulatum
to izzing and hazzing. Oddly Grice sees hazzing as a predicate which he
formalizes as Hxy. To be read x hazzes y, although sometimes he uses ‘x hazz
y.’ Vide ‘accidentia.’ For Grice the role of métier is basic since it shows
finality in nature. Homo sapiens, qua pirot, is to be rational.
hedonism,
the view that pleasure including the absence of pain is the sole intrinsic good
in life. The hedonist may hold that, questions of morality aside, persons
inevitably do seek pleasure psychological hedonism; that, questions of
psychology aside, morally we should seek pleasure ethical hedonism; or that we
inevitably do, and ought to, seek pleasure ethical and psychological hedonism
combined. Psychological hedonism itself admits of a variety of possible forms.
One may hold, e.g., that all motivation is based on the prospect of present or
future pleasure. More plausibly, some philosophers have held that all choices
of future actions are based on one’s presently taking greater pleasure in the
thought of doing one act rather than another. Still a third type of
hedonism with roots in empirical
psychology is that the attainment of
pleasure is the primary drive of a wide range of organisms including human
beings and is responsible, through some form of conditioning, for all acquired
motivations. Ethical hedonists may, but need not, appeal to some form of psychological
hedonism to buttress their case. For, at worst, the truth of some form of
psychological hedonism makes ethical hedonism empty or inescapable but not false. As a value theory a theory of
what is ultimately good, ethical hedonism has typically led to one or the other
of two conceptions of morally correct action. Both of these are expressions of
moral consequentialism in that they judge actions strictly by their
consequences. On standard formulations of utilitarianism, actions are judged by
the amount of pleasure they produce for all sentient beings; on some
formulations of egoist views, actions are judged by their consequences for
one’s own pleasure. Neither egoism nor utilitarianism, however, must be wedded
to a hedonistic value theory. A hedonistic value theory admits of a variety of
claims about the characteristic sources and types of pleasure. One contentious
issue has been what activities yield the greatest quantity of pleasure with prominent candidates including
philosophical and other forms of intellectual discourse, the contemplation of
beauty, and activities productive of “the pleasures of the senses.” Most
philosophical hedonists, despite the popular associations of the word, have not
espoused sensual pleasure. Another issue, famously raised by J. S. Mill, is
whether such different varieties of pleasure admit of differences of quality as
well as quantity. Even supposing them to be equal in quantity, can we say,
e.g., that the pleasures of intellectual activity are superior in quality to those
of watching sports on television? And if we do say such things, are we
departing from strict hedonism by introducing a value distinction not really
based on pleasure at all? Most philosophers have found hedonism both psychological and ethical exaggerated in its claims. One difficulty for
both sorts of hedonism is the hedonistic paradox, which may be put as follows.
Many of the deepest and best pleasures of life of love, of child rearing, of
work seem to come most often to those who are engaging in an activity for
reasons other than pleasure seeking. Hence, not only is it dubious that we
always in fact seek or value only pleasure, but also dubious that the best way
to achieve pleasure is to seek it. Another area of difficulty concerns
happiness and its relation to pleasure.
In the tradition of Aristotle, happiness is broadly understood as something
like well-being and has been viewed, not implausibly, as a kind of natural end
of all human activities. But ‘happiness’ in this sense is broader than ‘pleasure’,
insofar as the latter designates a particular kind of feeling, whereas
‘well-being’ does not. Attributions of happiness, moreover, appear to be
normative in a way in which attributions of pleasure are not. It is thought
that a truly happy person has achieved, is achieving, or stands to achieve,
certain things respecting the “truly important” concerns of human life. Of
course, such achievements will characteristically produce pleasant feelings;
but, just as characteristically, they will involve states of active enjoyment
of activities where, as Aristotle first
pointed out, there are no distinctive feelings of pleasure apart from the doing
of the activity itself. In short, the Aristotelian thesis that happiness is the
natural end of all human activities, even if it is true, does not seem to lend
much support to hedonism psychological
or ethical.
plathegel
and ariskant – Hegel, “one of the most influential and
systematic of the idealists” (Grice), also well known for his philosophy of
history and philosophy of religion. Life and works. Hegel, the eldest of three
children, was born in Stuttgart, the son of a minor financial official in the
court of the Duchy of Württemberg. His mother died when he was eleven. At
eighteen, he began attending the theology seminary or Stift attached to
the at Tübingen; he studied theology and
classical languages and literature and became friendly with his future
colleague and adversary, Schelling, as well as the great genius of G. Romantic
poetry, Hölderlin. In 1793, upon graduation, he accepted a job as a tutor for a
family in Bern, and moved to Frankfurt in 1797 for a similar post. In 1799 his
father bequeathed him a modest income and the freedom to resign his tutoring
job, pursue his own work, and attempt to establish himself in a position. In 1801, with the help of
Schelling, he moved to the town of Jena,
already widely known as the home of Schiller, Fichte, and the Schlegel
brothers. After lecturing for a few years, he became a professor in 1805. Prior
to the move to Jena, Hegel’s essays had been chiefly concerned with problems in
morality, the theory of culture, and the philosophy of religion. Hegel shared
with Rousseau and the G. Romantics many doubts about the political and moral
implications of the European Enlightenment and modern philosophy in general,
even while he still enthusiastically championed what he termed the principle of
modernity, “absolute freedom.” Like many, he feared that the modern attack on
feudal political and religious authority would merely issue in the
reformulation of new internalized and still repressive forms of authority. And
he was among that legion of G. intellectuals infatuated with ancient Greece and
the superiority of their supposedly harmonious social life, compared with the
authoritarian and legalistic character of the Jewish and later Christian
religions. At Jena, however, he coedited a journal with Schelling, The Critical
Journal of Philosophy, and came to work much more on the philosophic issues
created by the critical philosophy or “transcendental idealism” of Kant, and
its legacy in the work of Rheinhold, Fichte, and Schelling. His written work
became much more influenced by these theoretical projects and their attempt to
extend Kant’s search for the basic categories necessary for experience to be
discriminated and evaluated, and for a theory of the subject that, in some
non-empirical way, was responsible for such categories. Problems concerning the
completeness, interrelation, and ontological status of such a categorial
structure were quite prominent, along with a continuing interest in the
relation between a free, self-determining agent and the supposed constraints of
moral principles and other agents. In his early years at Jena especially before
Schelling left in 1803, he was particularly preoccupied with this problem of a
systematic philosophy, a way of accounting for the basic categories of the
natural world and for human practical activity that would ground all such
categories on commonly presupposed and logically interrelated, even
interdeducible, principles. In Hegel’s terms, this was the problem of the
relation between a “Logic” and a “Philosophy of Nature” and “Philosophy of
Spirit.” After 1803, however, while he was preparing his own systematic
philosophy for publication, what had been planned as a short introduction to
this system took on a life of its own and grew into one of Hegel’s most
provocative and influential books. Working at a furious pace, he finished
hedonistic paradox Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 365 AM 365
what would be eventually called The Phenomenology of Spirit in a period of
great personal and political turmoil. During the final writing of the book, he
had learned that Christina Burkhard would give birth to his illegitimate son.
Ludwig was born in February 1807. And he is supposed to have completed the text
on October 13, 1807, the day Napoleon’s armies captured Jena. It was certainly
an unprecedented work. In conception, it is about the human race itself as a
developing, progressively more self-conscious subject, but its content seems to
take in a vast, heterogeneous range of topics, from technical issues in
empiricist epistemology to the significance of burial rituals. Its range is so
heterogeneous that there is controversy to this day about whether it has any
overall unity, or whether it was pieced together at the last minute. Adding to
the interpretive problem, Hegel often invented his own striking language of
“inverted worlds,” “struggles to the death for recognition,” “unhappy
consciousness,” “spiritual animal kingdoms,” and “beautiful souls.” Continuing
his career at Jena in those times looked
out of the question, so Hegel accepted a job at Bamberg editing a newspaper,
and in the following year began an eight-year stint 180816 as headmaster and philosophy
teacher at a Gymnasium or secondary school at Nürnberg. During this period, at
forty-one, he married the twenty-year-old Marie von Tucher. He also wrote what
is easily his most difficult work, and the one he often referred to as his most
important, a magisterial two-volume Science of Logic, which attempts to be a
philosophical account of the concepts necessary in all possible kinds of
account-givings. Finally, in 1816, Hegel was offered a chair in philosophy at
the of Heidelberg, where he published
the first of several versions of his Encyclopedia of the Philosophical
Sciences, his own systematic account of the relation between the “logic” of
human thought and the “real” expression of such interrelated categories in our
understanding of the natural world and in our understanding and evaluation of
our own activities. In 1818, he accepted the much more prestigious post in
philosophy at Berlin, where he remained until his death in 1831. Soon after his
arrival in Berlin, he began to exert a powerful influence over G. letters and
intellectual life. In 1821, in the midst of a growing political and nationalist
crisis in Prussia, he published his controversial book on political philosophy,
The Philosophy of Right. His lectures at the
were later published as his philosophy of history, of aesthetics, and of
religion, and as his history of philosophy. Philosophy. Hegel’s most important
ideas were formed gradually, in response to a number of issues in philosophy
and often in response to historical events. Moreover, his language and approach
were so heterodox that he has inspired as much controversy about the meaning of
his position as about its adequacy. Hence any summary will be as much a summary
of the controversies as of the basic position. His dissatisfactions with the
absence of a public realm, or any forms of genuine social solidarity in the G.
states and in modernity generally, and his distaste with what he called the
“positivity” of the orthodox religions of the day their reliance on law,
scripture, and abstract claims to authority, led him to various attempts to
make use of the Grecian polis and classical art, as well as the early Christian
understanding of love and a renewed “folk religion,” as critical foils to such
tendencies. For some time, he also regarded much traditional and modern
philosophy as itself a kind of lifeless classifying that only contributed to
contemporary fragmentation, myopia, and confusion. These concerns remained with
him throughout his life, and he is thus rightly known as one of the first
modern thinkers to argue that what had come to be accepted as the central
problem of modern social and political life, the legitimacy of state power, had
been too narrowly conceived. There are now all sorts of circumstances, he
argued, in which people might satisfy the modern criterion of legitimacy and
“consent” to the use of some power, but not fully understand the terms within
which such issues are posed, or assent in an attenuated, resentful,
manipulated, or confused way. In such cases they would experience no connection
between their individual will and the actual content of the institutions they
are supposed to have sanctioned. The modern problem is as much alienation
Entfremdung as sovereignty, an exercise of will in which the product of one’s
will appears “strange” or “alien,” “other,” and which results in much of modern
life, however chosen or willed, being fundamentally unsatisfying. However,
during the Jena years, his views on this issue changed. Most importantly,
philosophical issues moved closer to center stage in the Hegelian drama. He no
longer regarded philosophy as some sort of self-undermining activity that
merely prepared one for some leap into genuine “speculation” roughly
Schelling’s position and began to champion a unique kind of comprehensive, very
determinate reflection on the interrelations among all the various classical
alternatives in philosophy. Much more controversially, he also attempted to
understand the way in which such relations and transitions were also reflected in
the history of the art, politics, and religions of various historical
communities. He thus came to think that philosophy should be some sort of
recollection of its past history, a realization of the mere partiality, rather
than falsity, of its past attempts at a comprehensive teaching, and an account
of the centrality of these continuously developing attempts in the development
of other human practices.Through understanding the “logic” of such a
development, a reconciliation of sorts with the implications of such a rational
process in contemporary life, or at least with the potentialities inherent in
contemporary life, would be possible. In all such influences and developments,
one revolutionary aspect of Hegel’s position became clearer. For while Hegel still
frequently argued that the subject matter of philosophy was “reason,” or “the
Absolute,” the unconditioned presupposition of all human account-giving and
evaluation, and thereby an understanding of the “whole” within which the
natural world and human deeds were “parts,” he also always construed this claim
to mean that the subject matter of philosophy was the history of human
experience itself. Philosophy was about the real world of human change and
development, understood by Hegel to be the collective self-education of the
human species about itself. It could be this, and satisfy the more traditional
ideals because, in one of his most famous phrases, “what is actual is
rational,” or because some full account could be given of the logic or
teleological order, even the necessity, for the great conceptual and political
changes in human history. We could thereby finally reassure ourselves that the
way our species had come to conceptualize and evaluate is not finite or
contingent, but is “identical” with “what there is, in truth.” This identity
theory or Absolute Knowledgemeans that we will then be able to be “at home” in
the world and so will have understood what philosophers have always tried to
understand, “how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang
together in the broadest possible sense of the term.” The way it all hangs
together is, finally, “due to us,” in some collective and historical and
“logical” sense. In a much disputed passage in his Philosophy of Religion
lectures, Hegel even suggested that with such an understanding, history itself
would be over. Several elements in this general position have inspired a good
deal of excitement and controversy. To advance claims such as these Hegel had
to argue against a powerful, deeply influential assumption in modern thought:
the priority of the individual, self-conscious subject. Such an assumption
means, for example, that almost all social relations, almost all our bonds to
other human beings, exist because and only because they are made, willed into
existence by individuals otherwise naturally unattached to each other. With
respect to knowledge claims, while there may be many beliefs in a common
tradition that we unreflectively share with others, such shared beliefs are
also taken primarily to be the result of individuals continuously affirming
such beliefs, however implicitly or unreflectively. Their being shared is
simply a consequence of their being simultaneously affirmed or assented to by
individuals. Hegel’s account requires a different picture, an insistence on the
priority of some kind of collective subject, which he called human “spirit” or
Geist. His general theory of conceptual and historical change requires the
assumption of such a collective subject, one that even can be said to be “coming
to self-consciousness” about itself, and this required that he argue against
the view that so much could be understood as the result of individual will and
reflection. Rather, he tried in many different ways to show that the formation
of what might appear to an individual to be his or her own particular intention
or desire or belief already reflected a complex social inheritance that could
itself be said to be evolving, even evolving progressively, with a “logic” of
its own. The completion of such collective attempts at self-knowledge resulted
in what Hegel called the realization of Absolute Spirit, by which he either
meant the absolute completion of the human attempt to know itself, or the
realization in human affairs of some sort of extrahuman transcendence, or full
expression of an infinite God. Hegel tried to advance all such claims about
social subjectivity without in some way hypostatizing or reifying such a
subject, as if it existed independently of the actions and thoughts of
individuals. This claim about the deep dependence of individuals on one another
even for their very identity, even while they maintain their independence, is
one of the best-known examples of Hegel’s attempt at a dialectical resolution
of many of the traditional oppositions and antinomies of past thought. Hegel
often argued that what appeared to be contraries in philosophy, such as
mind/body, freedom/determinism, idealism/materialism, universal/particular, the
state/the individual, or even God/man, appeared such incompatible alternatives
only because of the undeveloped and so incomplete perspective within which the
oppositions were formulated. So, in one of his more famous attacks on such
dualisms, human freedom according to Hegel could not be understood coherently
as some purely rational self-determination, independent of heteronomous
impulses, nor the human being as a perpetual opposition between reason and
sensibility. In his moral theory, Kant had argued for the latter view and Hegel
regularly returned to such Kantian claims about the opposition of duty and
inclination as deeply typical of modern dualism. Hegel claimed that Kant’s
version of a rational principle, the “categorical imperative,” was so formal
and devoid of content as not to be action-guiding it could not coherently rule
in or rule out the appropriate actions, and that the “moral point of view”
rigoristically demanded a pure or dutiful motivation to which no human agent
could conform. By contrast, Hegel claimed that the dualisms of morality could
be overcome in ethical life Sittlichkeit, those modern social institutions
which, it was claimed, provided the content or true “objects” of a rational
will. These institutions, the family, civil society, and the state, did not
require duties in potential conflict with our own substantive ends, but were
rather experienced as the “realization” of our individual free will. It has
remained controversial what for Hegel a truly free, rational
self-determination, continuous with, rather than constraining, our desire for
happiness and self-actualization, amounted to. Many commentators have noted
that, among modern philosophers, only Spinoza, whom Hegel greatly admired, was
as insistent on such a thoroughgoing compatibilism, and on a refusal to adopt
the Christian view of human beings as permanently divided against themselves.
In his most ambitious analysis of such oppositions Hegel went so far as to
claim that, not only could alternatives be shown to be ultimately compatible
when thought together within some higher-order “Notion” Begriff that resolved
or “sublated” the opposition, but that one term in such opposition could
actually be said to imply or require its contrary, that a “positing” of such a
notion would, to maintain consistency, require its own “negating,” and that it
was this sort of dialectical opposition that could be shown to require a
sublation, or Aufhebung a term of art in Hegel that simultaneously means in G.
‘to cancel’, ‘to preserve’, and ‘to raise up’. This claim for a dialectical
development of our fundamental notions has been the most severely criticized in
Hegel’s philosophy. Many critics have doubted that so much basic conceptual
change can be accounted for by an internal critique, one that merely develops
the presuppositions inherent in the affirmation of some notion or position or
related practice. This issue has especially attracted critics of Hegel’s
Science of Logic, where he tries first to show that the attempt to categorize
anything that is, simply and immediately, as “Being,” is an attempt that both
“negates itself,” or ends up categorizing everything as “Nothing,” and then
that this self-negation requires a resolution in the higher-order category of
“Becoming.” This analysis continues into an extended argument that purports to
show that any attempt to categorize anything at all must ultimately make use of
the distinctions of “essence” and “appearance,” and elements of syllogistic and
finally Hegel’s own dialectical logic, and both the details and the grand
design of that project have been the subject of a good deal of controversy.
Unfortunately, much of this controversy has been greatly confused by the
popular association of the terms “thesis,” “antithesis,” and “synthesis” with
Hegel’s theory of dialectic. These crude, mechanical notions were invented in 1837
by a less-than-sensitive Hegel expositor, Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus, and were
never used as terms of art by Hegel. Others have argued that the tensions Hegel
does identify in various positions and practices require a much broader
analysis of the historical, especially economic, context within which positions
are formulated and become important, or some more detailed attention to the
empirical discoveries or paradoxes that, at the very least, contribute to basic
conceptual change. Those worried about the latter problem have also raised
questions about the logical relation between universal and particular implied
in Hegel’s account. Hegel, following Fichte, radicalizes a Kantian claim about
the inaccessibility of pure particularity in sensations Kant had written that
“intuitions without concepts are blind”. Hegel charges that Kant did not draw
sufficiently radical conclusions from such an antiempiricist claim, that he
should have completely rethought the traditional distinction between “what was
given to the mind” and “what the mind did with the given.” By contrast Hegel is
confident that he has a theory of a “concrete universal,” concepts that cannot
be understood as pale generalizations or abstract representations of given
particulars, because they are required for particulars to Hegel, Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 368
AM 368 be apprehended in the
first place. They are not originally dependent on an immediate acquaintance
with particulars; there is no such acquaintance. Critics wonder if Hegel has
much of a theory of particularity left, if he does not claim rather that
particulars, or whatever now corresponds to them, are only interrelations of
concepts, and in which the actual details of the organization of the natural
world and human history are deduced as conceptual necessities in Hegel’s
Encyclopedia. This interpretation of Hegel, that he believes all entities are
really the thoughts, expressions, or modes of a single underlying mental
substance, and that this mind develops and posits itself with some sort of
conceptual necessity, has been termed a panlogicism, a term of art coined by
Hermann Glockner, a Hegel commentator in the first half of the twentieth
century. It is a much-disputed reading. Such critics are especially concerned
with the implications of this issue in Hegel’s political theory, where the
great modern opposition between the state and the individual seems subjected to
this same logic, and the individual’s true individuality is said to reside in
and only in the political universal, the State. Thus, on the one hand, Hegel’s
political philosophy is often praised for its early identification and analysis
of a fundamental, new aspect of contemporary life the categorically distinct realm of political
life in modernity, or the independence of the “State” from the social world of
private individuals engaged in competition and private association “civil
society”. But, on the other hand, his attempt to argue for a completion of
these domains in the State, or that individuals could only be said to be free
in allegiance to a State, has been, at least since Marx, one of the most
criticized aspects of his philosophy. Finally, criticisms also frequently
target the underlying intention behind such claims: Hegel’s career-long insistence
on finding some basic unity among the many fragmented spheres of modern thought
and existence, and his demand that this unity be articulated in a discursive
account, that it not be merely felt, or gestured at, or celebrated in edifying
speculation. PostHegelian thinkers have tended to be suspicious of any such
intimations of a whole for modern experience, and have argued that, with the
destruction of the premodern world, we simply have to content ourselves with
the disconnected, autonomous spheres of modern interests. In his lecture
courses these basic themes are treated in wide-ranging accounts of the basic
institutions of cultural history. History itself is treated as fundamentally
political history, and, in typically Hegelian fashion, the major epochs of
political history are claimed to be as they were because of the internal
inadequacies of past epochs, all until some final political semiconsciousness
is achieved and realized. Art is treated equally developmentally, evolving from
symbolic, through “classical,” to the most intensely self-conscious form of
aesthetic subjectivity, romantic art. The Lectures on the Philosophy of
Religion embody these themes in some of the most controversial ways, since
Hegel often treats religion and its development as a kind of picture or
accessible “representation” of his own views about the relation of thought to
being, the proper understanding of human finitude and “infinity,” and the
essentially social or communal nature of religious life. This has inspired a
characteristic debate among Hegel scholars, with some arguing that Hegel’s
appropriation of religion shows that his own themes are essentially religious
if an odd, pantheistic version of Christianity, while others argue that he has
so Hegelianized religious issues that there is little distinctively religious
left. Influence. This last debate is typical of that prominent in the
post-Hegelian tradition. Although, in the decades following his death, there
was a great deal of work by self-described Hegelians on the history of law, on
political philosophy, and on aesthetics, most of the prominent academic
defenders of Hegel were interested in theology, and many of these were
interested in defending an interpretation of Hegel consistent with traditional
Christian views of a personal God and personal immortality. This began to
change with the work of “young Hegelians” such as D. F. Strauss 180874,
Feuerbach 180472, Bruno Bauer 180982, and Arnold Ruge 180380, who emphasized
the humanistic and historical dimensions of Hegel’s account of religion,
rejected the Old Hegelian tendencies toward a reconciliation with contemporary
political life, and began to reinterpret and expand Hegel’s account of the
productive activity of human spirit eventually focusing on labor rather than intellectual
and cultural life. Strauss himself characterized the fight as between “left,”
“center,” and “right” Hegelians, depending on whether one was critical or
conservative politically, or had a theistic or a humanistic view of Hegelian
Geist. The most famous young or left Hegelian was Marx, especially during his
days in Paris as coeditor, with Ruge, of the Deutsch-französischen Jahrbücher
1844. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 369 AM
369 In Great Britain, with its long skeptical, empiricist, and
utilitarian tradition, Hegel’s work had little influence until the latter part
of the nineteenth century, when philosophers such as Green and Caird took up
some of the holistic themes in Hegel and developed a neo-Hegelian reading of
issues in politics and religion that began to have influence in the academy.
The most prominent of the British neo-Hegelians of the next generation were
Bosanquet, McTaggart, and especially Bradley, all of whom were interested in
many of the metaphysical implications of Hegel’s idealism, what they took to be
a Hegelian claim for the “internally related” interconnection of all
particulars within one single, ideal or mental, substance. Moore and Russell
waged a hugely successful counterattack in the name of traditional empiricism
and what would be called “analytic philosophy” against such an enterprise and
in this tradition largely finished off the influence of Hegel or what was left
of the historical Hegel in these neo-Hegelian versions. In G.y, Hegel has
continued to influence a number of different schools of neo-Marxism, sometimes
itself simply called “Hegelian Marxism,” especially the Frankfurt School, or
“critical theory” group especially Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse. And he has
been extremely influential in France, particularly thanks to the lectures of a
brilliant if idiosyncratic Russian émigré, Alexander Kojève, who taught Hegel
in the 0s at the École Pratique des Hautes Études to the likes of Merleau-Ponty
and Lacan. Kojève was as much influenced by Marx and Heidegger as Hegel, but
his lectures inspired many thinkers to turn again to Hegel’s account of human
selfdefinition in time and to the historicity of all institutions and practices
and so forged an unusual link between Hegel and postwar existentialism.
Hegelian themes continue to resurface in contemporary hermeneutics, in
“communitarianism” in ethics, and in the increasing attention given to
conceptual change and history in the philosophy of science. This has meant for
many that Hegel should now be regarded not only as the origin of a distinctive
tradition in European philosophy that emphasizes the historical and social
nature of human existence, but as a potential contributor to many new and often
interdisciplinary approaches to philosophy.
heideggerianism: heideggerian implicaturum of
“Nothing noths.” Grice thought Heidegger was the greatest philosopher that ever
lived. Heideggerianism:
Arendt, h. tuteed by Heidegger and Jaspers; fled to France in 3; and emigrated
in 1 to the United States, where she taught at various universities. Her major
works are The Origins of Totalitarianism 1, The Human Condition 8, Between Past
and Future 1, On Revolution 3, Crises of the Republic 2, and The Life of the
Mind 8. In Arendt’s view, for reasons established by Kant and deepened by
Nietzsche, there is a breach between being and thinking, one that cannot be
closed by thought. Understood as philosophizing or contemplation, thinking is a
form of egoism that isolates us from one another and our world. Despite Kant,
modernity remains mired in egoism, a condition compounded by the emergence of a
“mass” that consists of bodies with needs temporarily met by producing and
consuming and which demands governments that minister to these needs. In place
of thinking, laboring, and the administration of things now called democracy,
all of which are instrumental but futile as responses to the “thrown” quality
of our condition, Arendt proposed to those capable of it a mode of being,
political action, that she found in pronounced form in pre-Socratic Greece and
briefly but gloriously at the founding of the Roman and republics. Political action is initiation,
the making of beginnings that can be explained neither causally nor teleologically.
It is done in the space of appearances constituted by the presence of other
political actors whose re-sponses the
telling of equally unpredictable stories concerning one another’s actions determine what actions are taken and give
character to the acting participants. In addition to the refined discernments
already implied, political action requires the courage to initiate one knows
not what. Its outcome is power; not over other people or things but mutual
empowerment to continue acting in concert and thereby to overcome egoism and
achieve positive freedom and humanity. Heidegger,
Martin: “the greatest philosopher that ever lived” – H. P. Grice. G.
philosopher whose early works contributed to phenomenology and existentialism
e.g., Sartre and whose later works paved the way to hermeneutics Gadamer and
post-structuralism Derrida and Foucault. Born in Messkirch in the Black Forest
region, Heidegger first trained to be a Jesuit, but switched to mathematics and
philosophy in 1. As an instructor at Freiburg , he worked with the founder of
phenomenology, Husserl. His masterwork, Sein und Zeit Being and Time, 7, was
published while he was teaching at Marburg . This work, in opposition to the
preoccupation with epistemology dominant at the time, focused on the
traditional question of metaphysics: What is the being of entities in general?
Rejecting abstract theoretical approaches to this question, Heidegger drew on
Kierkegaard’s religious individualism and the influential movement called
life-philosophy Lebensphilosophie, then
identified with Nietzsche, Bergson, and Dilthey
to develop a highly original account of humans as embedded in concrete
situations of action. Heidegger accepted Husserl’s chair at Freiburg in 8; in
3, having been elected rector of the , he joined the Nazi party. Although he
stepped down as rector one year later, new evidence suggests complicity with
the Nazis until the end of the war. Starting in the late thirties, his writings
started to shift toward the “antihumanist” and “poetic” form of thinking
referred to as “later Heidegger.” Heidegger’s lifelong project was to answer
the “question of being” Seinsfrage. This question asks, concerning things in
general rocks, tools, people, etc., what is it to be an entity of these sorts?
It is the question of ontology first posed by ancient Grecian philosophers from
Anaximander to Aristotle. Heidegger holds, however, that philosophers starting
with Plato have gone astray in trying to answer this question because they have
tended to think of being as a property or essence enduringly present in things.
In other words, they have fallen into the “metaphysics of presence,” which
thinks of being as substance. What is overlooked in traditional metaphysics is
the background conditions that enable entities to show up as counting or
mattering in some specific way in the first place. In his early works,
Heidegger tries to bring this concealed dimension of things to light by
recasting the question of being: What is the meaning of being? Or, put
differently, how do entities come to show up as intelligible to us in some
determinate way? And this question calls for an analysis of the entity that has
some prior understanding of things: human existence or Dasein the G. word for
“existence” or “being-there,” used to refer to the structures of humans that
make possible an understanding of being. Heidegger’s claim is that Dasein’s
pretheoretical or “preontological” understanding of being, embodied in its
everyday practices, opens a “clearing” in which entities can show up as, say,
tools, protons, numbers, mental events, and so on. This historically unfolding
clearing is what the metaphysical tradition has overlooked. In order to clarify
the conditions that make possible an understanding of being, then, Being and
Time begins with an analytic of Dasein. But Heidegger notes that traditional
interpretations of human existence have been one-sided to the extent that they
concentrate on our ways of existing when we are engaged in theorizing and
detached reflection. It is this narrow focus on the spectator attitude that leads
to the picture, found in Descartes, of the self as a mind or subject
representing material objects the
so-called subjectobject model. In order to bypass this traditional picture,
Heidegger sets out to describe Dasein’s “average everydayness,” i.e., our ordinary,
prereflective agency when we are caught up in the midst of practical affairs.
The “phenomenology of everydayness” is supposed to lead us to see the totality
of human existence, including our moods, our capacity for authentic
individuality, and our full range of involvements with the world and with
others. The analytic of Dasein is also an ontological hermeneutics to the
extent that it provides an account of how understanding in general is possible.
The result of the analytic is a portrayal of human existence that is in accord
with what Heidegger regards as the earliest Grecian experience of being as an
emerging-into-presence physis: to be human is to be a temporal event of
self-manifestation that lets other sorts of entities first come to “emerge and
abide” in the world. From the standpoint of this description, the traditional
concept of substance whether mental or
physical simply has no role to play in
grasping humans. Heidegger’s brilliant diagnoses or “de-structurings” of the
tradition suggest that the idea of substance arises only when the conditions
making entities possible are forgotten or concealed. Heidegger holds that there
is no pregiven human essence. Instead, humans, as self-interpreting beings,
just are what they make of themselves in the course of their active lives.
Thus, as everyday agency, Dasein is not an object with properties, but is
rather the “happening” of a life course “stretched out between birth and
death.” Understood as the “historicity” of a temporal movement or “becoming,”
Dasein is found to have three main “existentials” or basic structures shared by
every “existentiell” i.e., specific and local way of living. First, Dasein
finds itself thrown into a world not of its choosing, already delivered over to
the task of living out its life in a concrete context. This “facticity” of our
lives is revealed in the moods that let things matter to us in some way or
other e.g., the burdensome feelings of
concern that accompany being a parent in our culture. Second, as projection,
Dasein is always already taking some stand on its life by acting in the world.
Understood as agency, human existence is “ahead of itself” in two senses: 1 our
competent dealings with familiar situations sketch out a range of possibilities
for how things may turn out in the future, and 2 each of our actions is
contributing to shaping our lives as people of specific sorts. Dasein is
futuredirected in the sense that the ongoing fulfillment of possibilities in
the course of one’s active life constitutes one’s identity or being. To say
that Dasein is “being-toward-death” is to say that the stands we take our
“understanding” define our being as a totality. Thus, my actual ways of
treating my children throughout my life define my being as a parent in the end,
regardless of what good intentions I might have. Finally, Dasein is discourse
in the sense that we are always articulating
or “addressing and discussing”
the entities that show up in our concernful absorption in current
situations. These three existentials define human existence as a temporal
unfolding. The unity of these dimensions
being already in a world, ahead of itself, and engaged with things Heidegger calls care. This is what it means
to say that humans are the entities whose being is at issue for them. Taking a
stand on our own being, we constitute our identity through what we do. The
formal structure of Dasein as temporality is made concrete through one’s
specific involvements in the world where ‘world’ is used in the life-world
sense in which we talk about the business world or the world of academia.
Dasein is the unitary phenomenon of being-in-the-world. A core component of
Heidegger’s early works is his description of how Dasein’s practical dealings
with equipment define the being of the entities that show up in the world. In
hammering in a workshop, e.g., what ordinarily shows up for us is not a
hammer-thing with properties, but rather a web of significance relations shaped
by Heidegger, Martin Heidegger, Martin 371
AM 371 our projects. Hammering is
“in order to” join boards, which is “for” building a bookcase, which is “for
the sake of” being a person with a neat study. The hammer is encountered in
terms of its place in this holistic context of functionality the “ready-to-hand.” In other words, the
being of the equipment its “ontological
definition” consists of its relations to
other equipment and its actual use within the entire practical context. Seen
from this standpoint, the brute, meaningless objects assumed to be basic by the
metaphysical tradition the
“present-at-hand” can show up only when
there is a breakdown in our ordinary dealings with things, e.g., when the
hammer breaks or is missing. In this sense, the ready-to-hand is said to be
more primordial than the material objects treated as basic by the natural
sciences. It follows, then, that the being of entities in the world is
constituted by the framework of intelligibility or “disclosedness” opened by
Dasein’s practices. This clearing is truth in the original meaning of the
Grecian word aletheia, which Heidegger renders as ‘un-concealment’. But it
would be wrong to think that what is claimed here is that humans are initially
just given, and that they then go on to create a clearing. For, in Heidegger’s
view, our own being as agents of specific types is defined by the world into
which we are thrown: in my workshop, I can be a craftsman or an amateur, but
not a samurai paying court to a daimyo. Our identity as agents is made possible
by the context of shared forms of life and linguistic practices of a public
life-world. For the most part, we exist as the “they” das Man, participants in
the historically constituted “cohappening of a people” Volk. The embeddedness
of our existence in a cultural context explains our inveterate tendency toward inauthenticity.
As we become initiated into the practices of our community, we are inclined to
drift along with the crowd, doing what “one” does, enacting stereotyped roles,
and thereby losing our ability to seize on and define our own lives. Such
falling into public preoccupations Heidegger sees as a sign that we are fleeing
from the fact that we are finite beings who stand before death understood as
the culmination of our possibilities. When, through anxiety and hearing the
call of conscience, we face up to our being-toward-death, our lives can be
transformed. To be authentic is to clear-sightedly face up to one’s
responsibility for what one’s life is adding up to as a whole. And because our
lives are inseparable from our community’s existence, authenticity involves
seizing on the possibilities circulating in our shared “heritage” in order to
realize a communal “destiny.” Heidegger’s ideal of resolute “taking action” in
the current historical situation no doubt contributed to his leap into politics
in the 0s. According to his writings of that period, the ancient Grecians
inaugurated a “first beginning” for Western civilization, but centuries of
forgetfulness beginning with the Latinization of Grecian words have torn us
away from the primal experience of being rooted in that initial setting.
Heidegger hoped that, guided by the insights embodied in great works of art
especially Hölderlin’s poetry, National Socialism would help bring about a
world-rejuvenating “new beginning” comparable to the first beginning in ancient
Greece. Heidegger’s later writings attempt to fully escape the subjectivism he
sees dominating Western thought from its inception up to Nietzsche. “The Origin
of the Work of Art” 5, for example, shows how a great work of art such as a
Grecian temple, by shaping the world in which a people live, constitutes the
kinds of people that can live in that world. An Introduction to Metaphysics 5
tries to recover the Grecian experience of humans as beings whose activities of
gathering and naming logos are above all a response to what is more than human.
The later writings emphasize that which resists all human mastery and
comprehension. Such terms as ‘nothingness’, ‘earth’, and ‘mystery’ suggest that
what shows itself to us always depends on a background of what does not show
itself, what remains concealed. Language comes to be understood as the medium
through which anything, including the human, first becomes accessible and
intelligible. Because language is the source of all intelligibility, Heidegger
says that humans do not speak, but rather language speaks us an idea that became central to
poststructuralist theories. In his writings after the war, Heidegger replaces
the notions of resoluteness and political activism with a new ideal of
letting-be or releasement Gelassenheit, a stance characterized by meditative
thinking, thankfulness for the “gift” of being, and openness to the silent
“call” of language. The technological “enframing” Gestell of our age encountering everything as a standing reserve
on hand for our use is treated not as
something humans do, but instead as a manifestation of being itself. The
“anti-humanism” of these later works is seen in the description of technology
the mobilization of everything for the sole purpose of greater efficiency as an
epochal event in the “history of being,” a way things have come-into-their-own
Ereignis rather than as a human accomplishment. The history or “sending”
Geschick of being consists of epochs that have all gone increasingly astray
from the original beginning inaugurated by the pre-Socratics. Since human
willpower alone cannot bring about a new epoch, technology cannot be ended by
our efforts. But a non-technological way of encountering things is hinted at in
a description of a jug as a fourfold of earth, sky, mortals, and gods, and
Heidegger reflects on forms of poetry that point to a new, non-metaphysical way
of experiencing being. Through a transformed relation to language and art, and
by abandoning “onto-theology” the attempt to ground all entities in one supreme
entity, we might prepare ourselves for a transformed way of understanding
being.
hellenistic philosophy: “Once the Romans
defeated Greece, at Oxford we stop talking of ‘Greek’ philosophy, but
‘Hellenistic’ philosophy instead – since most Greeks were brought to Rome as
slaves to teach philosophy to their children” – Grice. Vide “Roman philosophy”
– “Not everybody knows all these Roman philosophers, so that’s a good thing.” –
H. P. Grice. Hellenistic philosophy is the philosophical systems of the
Hellenistic age 32330 B.C., although 31187 B.C. better defines it as a
philosophical era, notably Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Skepticism. These all
emerged in the generation after Aristotle’s death 322 B.C., and dominated
philosophical debate until the first century B.C., during which there were
revivals of traditional Platonism and of Aristotelianism. The age was one in
which much of the eastern Mediterranean world absorbed Grecian culture was
“Hellenized,” hence “Hellenistic”, and recruits to philosophy flocked from this
region to Athens, which remained the center of philosophical activity until 87
B.C. Then the Roman sack of Athens drove many philosophers into exile, and
neither the schools nor the styles of philosophy that had grown up there ever
fully recovered. Very few philosophical writings survive intact from the
period. Our knowledge of Hellenistic philosophers depends mainly on later
doxography, on the Roman writers Lucretius and Cicero both mid-first century
B.C., and on what we learn from the schools’ critics in later centuries, e.g.
Sextus Empiricus and Plutarch. ’Skeptic’, a term not actually current before
the very end of the Hellenistic age, serves as a convenient label to
characterize two philosophical movements. The first is the New Academy: the
school founded by Plato, the Academy, became in this period a largely
dialectical one, conducting searching critiques of other schools’ doctrines
without declaring any of its own, beyond perhaps the assertion however guarded
that nothing could be known and the accompanying recommendation of “suspension
of judgment” epoche. The nature and vivacity of Stoicism owed much to its
prolonged debates with the New Academy. The founder of this Academic phase was
Arcesilaus school head c.268 c.241; its most revered and influential
protagonist was Carneades school head in the mid-second century; and its most
prestigious voice was that of Cicero 10643 B.C., whose highly influential
philosophical works were written mainly from a New Academic stance. But by the
early first century B.C. the Academy was drifting back to a more doctrinal
stance, and in the later part of the century it was largely eclipsed by a
second “skeptic” movement, Pyrrhonism. This was founded by Aenesidemus, a
pioneering skeptic despite his claim to be merely reviving the philosophy of
Pyrrho, a philosophical guru of the early Hellenistic period. His
neo-Pyrrhonism survives today mainly through the writings of Sextus Empiricus
second century A.D., an adherent of the school who, strictly speaking, represents
its post-Hellenistic phase. The Peripatos, Aristotle’s school, officially
survived throughout the era, but it is not regarded as a distinctively
“Hellenistic” movement. Despite the eminence of Aristotle’s first successor,
Theophrastus school head 322287, it thereafter fell from prominence, its
fortunes only reviving around the mid-first century B.C. It is disputed how far
the other Hellenistic philosophers were even aware of Aristotle’s treatises,
which should not in any case be regarded as a primary influence on them. Each
school had a location in Athens to which it could draw pupils. The Epicurean
school was a relatively private institution, its “Garden” outside the city
walls housing a close-knit philosophical community. The Stoics took their name
from the Stoa Poikile, the “Painted Colonnade” in central Athens where they
gathered. The Academics were based in the Academy, a public grove just outside
the city. Philosophers were public figures, a familiar sight around town. Each
school’s philosophical identity was further clarified by its absolute loyalty
to the name of its founder respectively
Epicurus, Zeno of Citium, and Plato and
by the polarities that developed in interschool debates. Epicureanism is
diametrically opposed on most issues to Stoicism. Academic Skepticism provides
another antithesis to Stoicism, not through any positions of its own it had
none, but through its unflagging critical campaign against every Stoic thesis.
It is often said that in this age the old Grecian political institution of the
city-state had broken down, and that the Hellenistic philosophies were an
answer to the resulting crisis of values. Whether or not there is any truth in
this, it remains clear that moral concerns were now much less confined to the
individual city-state than previously, and that at an extreme the boundaries
had been pushed back to include all mankind within the scope of an individual’s
moral obligations. Our “affinity” oikeiosis to all mankind is an originally
Stoic doctrine that acquired increasing currency with other schools. This
attitude partly reflects the weakening of national and cultural boundaries in
the Hellenistic period, as also in the Roman imperial period that followed it.
The three recognized divisions of philosophy were ethics, logic, and physics.
In ethics, the central objective was to state and defend an account of the
“end” telos, the moral goal to which all activity was subordinated: the
Epicureans named pleasure, the Stoics conformity with nature. Much debate
centered on the semimythical figure of the wise man, whose conduct in every
conceivable circumstance was debated by all schools. Logic in its modern sense
was primarily a Stoic concern, rejected as irrelevant by the Epicureans. But
Hellenistic logic included epistemology, where the primary focus of interest
was the “criterion of truth,” the ultimate yardstick against which all
judgments could be reliably tested. Empiricism was a surprisingly
uncontroversial feature of Hellenistic theories: there was little interest in
the Platonic-Aristotelian idea that knowledge in the strict sense is
non-sensory, and the debate between dogmatists and Skeptics was more concerned
with the question whether any proposed sensory criterion was adequate. Both
Stoics and Epicureans attached especial importance to prolepsis, the generic
notion of a thing, held to be either innate or naturally acquired in a way that
gave it a guaranteed veridical status. Physics saw an opposition between
Epicurean atomism, with its denial of divine providence, and the Stoic
world-continuum, imbued with divine rationality. The issue of determinism was
also placed on the philosophical map: Epicurean morality depends on the denial
of both physical and logical determinism, whereas Stoic morality is compatible
with, indeed actually requires, the deterministic causal nexus through which
providence operates.
helmholtz: philosopher known for groundbreaking work in the
philosophy of perception. Formally trained as a physician, he distinguished
himself in physics in 1848 as a codiscoverer of the law of conservation of
energy, and by the end of his life was perhaps the most influential figure in
G. physical research. Philosophically, his most important influence was on the
study of space. Intuitionist psychologists held that the geometrical structure
of three-dimensional space was given directly in sensation by innate
physiological mechanisms; Helmholtz brought this theory to severe empirical
trials and argued, on the contrary, that our knowledge of space consists of
inferences from accumulated experience. On the mathematical side, he attacked
Kant’s view that Euclidean geometry is the a priori form of outer intuition by
showing that it is possible to have visual experience of non-Euclidean space
“On the Origins and Meaning of Geometrical Axioms,” 1870. His crucial insight
was that empirical geometry depends on physical assumptions about the behavior
of measuring instruments. This inspired the view of Poincaré and logical
empiricism that the empirical content of geometry is fixed by physical
definitions, and made possible Einstein’s use of non-Euclidean geometry in
physics.
helvétius: philosopher
prominent in the formative phases of eighteenth-century materialism in France.
His De l’esprit 1758 was widely discussed internationally, but condemned by
the of Paris and burned by the
government. Helvétius attempted to clarify his doctrine in his posthumously
published De l’homme. Following Locke’s criticism of the innate ideas,
Helvétius stressed the function of experience in our acquisition of knowledge.
In accord with the doctrines of d’Holbach, Condillac, and La Mettrie, the
materialist Helvétius regarded the sensations as the basis of all our
knowledge. Only by comparison, abstraction, and combination of sensations do we
reach the level of concepts. Peculiar to Helvétius, however, is the stress on
the social determinations of our knowledge. Specific interests and passions are
the starting point of all our striving for knowledge. Egoism is the spring of
our desires and actions. The civil laws of the enlightened state enabled egoism
to be transformed into social competition and thereby diverted toward public
benefits. Like his materialist contemporary d’Holbach and later Condorcet,
Helvétius sharply criticized the social function of the church. Priests, he
claimed, provided society with wrong moral ideas. He demanded a thorough reform
of the educational system for the purpose of individual and social
emancipation. In contrast to the teachings of Rousseau, Helvétius praised the
further development of science, art, and industry as instruments for the
historical progress of mankind. The ideal society consists of enlightened
because well-educated citizens living in comfortable and even moderately
luxurious circumstances. All people should participate in the search for truth,
by means of public debates and discussions. Truth is equated with the moral
good. Helvétius had some influence on Marxist historical materialism.
hempel: eminent
philosopher of science associated with the Vienna Circle of logical empiricist
philosophers in the early 0s, before his emigration to the United States;
thereafter he became one of the most influential philosophers of science of his
time, largely through groundbreaking work on the logical analysis of the concepts
of confirmation and scientific explanation. Hempel received his doctorate under
Reichenbach at the of Berlin in 4 with a
dissertation on the logical analysis of probability. He studied with Carnap at
the of Vienna in 930, where he
participated in the “protocol-sentence debate” concerning the observational
basis of scientific knowledge raging within the Vienna Circle between Moritz
Schlick 26 and Otto Neurath 25. Hempel was attracted to the “radical
physicalism” articulated by Neurath and Carnap, which denied the foundational
role of immediate experience and asserted that all statements of the total
language of science including observation reports or protocol-sentences can be
revised as science progresses. This led to Hempel’s first major publication, “On
the Logical Positivists’ Theory of Truth” 5. He moved to the United States to
work with Carnap at the of Chicago in
738. He also taught at Queens and Yale
before his long career at Princeton 55. In the 0s he collaborated with his
friends Olaf Helmer and Paul Oppenheim on a celebrated series of papers, the
most influential of which are “Studies in the Logic of Confirmation” 5 and
“Studies in the Logic of Explanation” 8, coauthored with Oppenheim. The latter
paper articulated the deductive-nomological model, which characterizes
scientific explanations as deductively valid arguments proceeding from general
laws and initial conditions to the fact to be explained, and served as the
basis for all future work on the subject. Hempel’s papers on explanation and confirmation
and also related topics such as concept formation, criteria of meaningfulness,
and scientific theories were collected together in Aspects of Scientific
Explanation 5, one of the most important works in postwar philosophy of
science. He also published a more popular, but extremely influential
introduction to the field, Philosophy of Natural Science 6. Hempel and Kuhn
became colleagues at Princeton in the 0s. Another fruitful collaboration
ensued, as a result of which Hempel moved away from the Carnapian tradition of
logical analysis toward a more naturalistic and pragmatic conception of science
in his later work. As he himself explains, however, this later turn can also be
seen as a return to a similarly naturalistic conception Neurath had earlier
defended within the Vienna Circle.
Heno-theism, allegiance
to one supreme deity while conceding existence to others; also described as
monolatry, incipient monotheism, or practical monotheism. It occupies a middle
ground between polytheism and radical monotheism, which denies reality to all
gods save one. It has been claimed that early Judaism passed through a
henotheistic phase, acknowledging other Middle Eastern deities albeit
condemning their worship, en route to exclusive recognition of Yahweh. But the
concept of progress from polytheism through henotheism to monotheism is a
rationalizing construct, and cannot be supposed to capture the complex
development of any historical religion, including that of ancient Israel.
Henry de Ghent: philosopher.
After serving as a church official at Tournai and Brugge, he taught theology at
Paris from 1276. His major writings were “Summa quaestionum ordinariarum” and “Quodlibeta.”
He was the leading representative of the neoAugustinian movement at Paris in
the final quarter of the thirteenth century. His theory of knowledge combines
Aristotelian elements with Augustinian illuminationism. Heavily dependent on
Avicenna for his view of the reality enjoyed by essences of creatures esse
essentiae from eternity, he rejected both real distinction and real identity of
essence and existence in creatures, and defended their intentional distinction.
He also rejected a real distinction between the soul and its powers and
rejected the purely potential character of prime matter. He defended the
duality of substantial form in man, the unicity of form in other material
substances, and the primacy of will in the act of choice.
heraclitus
fl. c.500 B.C., Grice on Heraclitus: They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were
dead,/They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed./I wept as I
remembered how often you and I/Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down
the sky./And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,/A handful of
grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,/Still are thy pleasant voices, thy
nightingales, awake;/For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take. Grecian
philosopher. A transition figure between the Milesian philosophers and the
later pluralists, Heraclitus stressed unity in the world of change. He follows
the Milesians in positing a series of cyclical transformations of basic stuffs
of the world; for instance, he holds that fire changes to water and earth in
turn. Moreover, he seems to endorse a single source or arche of natural substances,
namely fire. But he also observes that natural transformations necessarily
involve contraries such as hot and cold, wet and dry. Indeed, without the one
contrary the other would not exist, and without contraries the cosmos would not
exist. Hence strife is justice, and war is the father and king of all. In the
conflict of opposites there is a hidden harmony that sustains the world,
symbolized by the tension of a bow or the attunement of a lyre. Scholars
disagree about whether Heraclitus’s chief view is that there is a one in the
many or that process is reality. Clearly the underlying unity of phenomena is
important for him. But he also stresses the transience of physical substances
and the importance of processes and qualities. Moreover, his underlying source
of unity seems to be a law of process and opposition; thus he seems to affirm
both the unity of phenomena and the reality of process. Criticizing his
predecessors such as Pythagoras and Xenophanes for doing research without
insight, Heraclitus claims that we should listen to the logos, which teaches
that all things are one. The logos, a principle of order and knowledge, is
common to all, but the many remain ignorant of it, like sleepwalkers unaware of
the reality around them. All things come to pass according to the logos; hence
it is the law of change, or at least its expression. Heraclitus wrote a single
book, perhaps organized into sections on cosmology, politics and ethics, and
theology. Apparently, however, he did not provide a continuous argument but a
series of epigrammatic remarks meant to reveal the nature of reality through
oracular and riddling language. Although he seems to have been a recluse
without immediate disciples, he may have stirred Parmenides to his reaction
against contraries. In the late fifth century B.C. Cratylus of Athens preached
a radical Heraclitean doctrine according to which everything is in flux and
there is accordingly no knowledge of the world. This version of Heracliteanism
influenced Plato’s view of the sensible world and caused Plato and Aristotle to
attribute a radical doctrine of flux to Heraclitus. Democritus imitated
Heraclitus’s ethical sayings, and in Hellenistic times the Stoics appealed to
him for their basic principles.
herbart: philosopher
who significantly contributed to psychology and the theory of education.
Rejecting the idealism of Fichte and Hegel, he attempted to establish a form of
psychology founded on experience. The task of philosophy is the analysis of
concepts given in ordinary experience. Logic must clarify these concepts,
Metaphysics should correct them, while Aesthetics and Ethics are to complement
them by an analysis of values. Herbart advocated a form of determinism in
psychology and ethics. The laws that govern psychological processes are identical
with those that govern the heavens. He subordinated ethics to aesthetics,
arguing that our moral values originate from certain immediate and involuntary
judgments of like and dislike. The five basic ideas of morality are inner
freedom, perfection, benevolence, law, and justice or equity. Herbart’s view of
education that it should aim at
producing individuals who possess inner freedom and strength of character was highly influential in nineteenth-century
Germany.
herder: philosopher,
an intellectual and literary figure central to the transition from the G.
Enlightenment to Romanticism. He was born in East Prussia and received an early
classical education. About 1762, while studying theology at the of Königsberg, he came under the influence of
Kant. He also began a lifelong friendship with Hamann, who especially
stimulated his interests in the interrelations among language, culture, and
history. After ordination as a Lutheran minister in 1765, he began his
association with the Berlin Academy, earning its prestigious “prize” for his
“Essay on the Origin of Language” 1772. In 1776 he was appointed
Generalsuperintendent of the Lutheran clergy at Weimar through the intercession
of Goethe. He was then able to focus his intellectual and literary powers on most
of the major issues of his time. Of particular note are his contributions to
psychology in Of the Cognition and Sensation of the Human Soul 1778; to the
philosophy of history and culture in Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of
Mankind 178491, perhaps his most influential work; and to philosophy in
Understanding and Experience 1799, which contains his extensive Metakritik of
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Herder was an intellectual maverick and
provocateur, writing when the Enlightenment conception of reason was in decline
but before its limited defense by Kant or its total rejection by Romanticism
had become entrenched in the G.-speaking world. Rejecting any rational system,
Herder’s thought is best viewed as a mosaic of certain ideas that reemerge in
various guises throughout his writings. Because of these features, Herder’s
thought has been compared with that of Rousseau. Herder’s philosophy can be
described as involving elements of naturalism, organicism, and vitalism. He
rejected philosophical explanations, appealing to the supernatural or divine,
such as the concept of the “immortal soul” in psychology, a “divine origin” of
language, or “providence” in history. He sought to discern an underlying
primordial force to account for the psychological unity of the various
“faculties.” He viewed this natural tendency toward “organic formation” as also
operative in language and culture, and as ultimately manifested in the dynamic
development of the various cultures in the form of a universal history. Finally,
he often wrote in a way that suggested the dynamic process of life itself as
the basic metaphor undergirding his thought. His influence can be traced
through Humboldt into later linguistics and through Schelling and Hegel in the
philosophy of history and later G. historicism. He anticipated elements of
vitalism in Schopenhauer and Bergson.
interpretatum:
h
“While ‘heremneia’ sounds poetic and sweet, ‘interpretatio’ sounds thomistic
and rough!” – H. P. Grice. “Plus ‘hermeneia is metaphorical.’ hermeneia: hermeneutics,
the art or theory of interpretation, as well as a type of philosophy that
starts with questions of interpretation. Originally concerned more narrowly
with interpreting sacred texts, the term acquired a much broader significance
in its historical development and finally became a philosophical position in
twentieth-century G. philosophy. There are two competing positions in
hermeneutics: whereas the first follows Dilthey and sees interpretation or
Verstehen as a method for the historical and human sciences, the second follows
Heidegger and sees it as an “ontological event,” an interaction between
interpreter and text that is part of the history of what is understood.
Providing rules or criteria for understanding what an author or native “really”
meant is a typical problem for the first approach. The interpretation of the
law provides an example for the second view, since the process of applying the
law inevitably transforms it. In general, hermeneutics is the analysis of this
process and its conditions of possibility. It has typically focused on the
interpretation of ancient texts and distant peoples, cases where the
unproblematic everyday understanding and communication cannot be assumed.
Schleiermacher’s analysis of understanding and expression related to texts and
speech marks the beginning of hermeneutics in the modern sense of a scientific
methodology. This emphasis on methodology continues in nineteenth-century
historicism and culminates in Dilthey’s attempt to ground the human sciences in
a theory of interpretation, understood as the imaginative but publicly
verifiable reenactment of the subjective experiences of others. Such a method
of interpretation reveals the possibility of an objective knowledge of human
beings not accessible to empiricist inquiry and thus of a distinct methodology
for the human sciences. One result of the analysis of interpretation in the
nineteenth century was the recognition of “the hermeneutic circle,” first
developed by SchleierHerder, Johann Gottfried von hermeneutics 377 AM
377 macher. The circularity of interpretation concerns the relation of
parts to the whole: the interpretation of each part is dependent on the
interpretation of the whole. But interpretation is circular in a stronger
sense: if every interpretation is itself based on interpretation, then the
circle of interpretation, even if it is not vicious, cannot be escaped.
Twentieth-century hermeneutics advanced by Heidegger and Gadamer radicalize
this notion of the hermeneutic circle, seeing it as a feature of all knowledge
and activity. Hermeneutics is then no longer the method of the human sciences
but “universal,” and interpretation is part of the finite and situated
character of all human knowing. “Philosophical hermeneutics” therefore criticizes
Cartesian foundationalism in epistemology and Enlightenment universalism in
ethics, seeing science as a cultural practice and prejudices or prejudgments as
ineliminable in all judgments. Positively, it emphasizes understanding as
continuing a historical tradition, as well as dialogical openness, in which
prejudices are challenged and horizons broadened.
hermetism, also
hermeticism, a philosophical theology whose basic impulse was the gnostic
conviction that human salvation depends on revealed knowledge gnosis of God and
of the human and natural creations. Texts ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, a
Greco-Egyptian version of the Egyptian god Thoth, may have appeared as early as
the fourth century B.C., but the surviving Corpus Hermeticum in Grecian and Latin
is a product of the second and third centuries A.D. Fragments of the same
literature exist in Grecian, Armenian, and Coptic as well; the Coptic versions
are part of a discovery made at Nag Hammadi after World War II. All these
Hermetica record hermetism as just described. Other Hermetica traceable to the
same period but surviving in later Arabic or Latin versions deal with
astrology, alchemy, magic, and other kinds of occultism. Lactantius, Augustine,
and other early Christians cited Hermes but disagreed on his value; before
Iamblichus, pagan philosophers showed little interest. Muslims connected Hermes
with a Koranic figure, Idris, and thereby enlarged the medieval hermetic
tradition, which had its first large effects in the Latin West among the
twelfth-century Platonists of Chartres. The only ancient hermetic text then
available in the West was the Latin Asclepius, but in 1463 Ficino interrupted
his epochal translation of Plato to Latinize fourteen of the seventeen Grecian
discourses in the main body of the Corpus Hermeticum as distinct from the many
Grecian fragments preserved by Stobaeus but unknown to Ficino. Ficino was
willing to move so quickly to Hermes because he believed that this Egyptian
deity stood at the head of the “ancient theology” prisca theologia, a tradition
of pagan revelation that ran parallel to Christian scripture, culminated with
Plato, and continued through Plotinus and the later Neoplatonists. Ficino’s
Hermes translation, which he called the Pimander, shows no interest in the
magic and astrology about which he theorized later in his career. Trinitarian
theology was his original motivation. The Pimander was enormously influential
in the later Renaissance, when Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Lodovico
Lazzarelli, Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples, Symphorien Champier, Francesco Giorgi,
Agostino Steuco, Francesco Patrizi, and others enriched Western appreciation of
Hermes. The first printed Grecian Hermetica was the 1554 edition of Adrien
Turnebus. The last before the nineteenth century appeared in 1630, a textual
hiatus that reflected a decline in the reputation of Hermes after Isaac
Casaubon proved philologically in 1614 that the Grecian Hermetica had to be
post-Christian, not the remains of primeval Egyptian wisdom. After Casaubon,
hermetic ideas fell out of fashion with most Western philosophers of the
current canon, but the historiography of the ancient theology remained
influential for Newton and for lesser figures even later. The content of the
Hermetica was out of tune with the new science, so Casaubon’s redating left
Hermes to the theosophical heirs of Robert Fludd, whose opponents Kepler,
Mersenne, Gassendi turned away from the Hermetica and similar fascinations of
Renaissance humanist culture. By the nineteenth century, only theosophists took
Hermes seriously as a prophet of pagan wisdom, but he was then rediscovered by
G. students of Christianity and Hellenistic religions, especially Richard
Reitzenstein, who published his Poimandres in 4. The ancient Hermetica are now
read in the 654 edition of A. D. Nock and A. J. Festugière.
Herzen: philosopher, he moved
in his philosophy of history from an early Hegelian rationalism to a
“philosophy of contingency,” stressing the “whirlwind of chances” in nature and
in human life and the “tousled improvisation” of the historical process. He
rejected determinism, emphasizing the “phenomenological fact” of the
experienced “sense of freedom.” Anticipating the Dostoevsky of the “Legend of
the Grand Inquisitor,” he offered an original analysis of the “escape from
freedom” and the cleaving to moral and political authority, and sketched a
curiously contemporary-sounding “emotivist” ethical theory. After 1848,
disillusioned with “bourgeois” Europe and its “selfenclosed individualism,” but
equally disillusioned with what he had come to see as the bourgeois ideal of
many European socialists, Herzen turned to the Russian peasant and the peasant
village commune as offering the best hope for a humane development of society.
In this “Russian socialism” he anticipated a central doctrine of the Russian
populists of the 1870s. Herzen stood alone in resisting the common tendency of
such otherwise different thinkers as Feuerbach, Marx, and J. S. Mill to
undervalue the historical present, to overvalue the historical future, and to
treat actual persons as means in the service of remote, merely possible
historical ends. Herzen’s own central emphasis fell powerfully and consistently
on the freedom, independence, and non-instrumentalizable value of living
persons. And he saw more clearly than any of his contemporaries that there are
no future persons, that it is only in the present that free human individuals
live and move and have their being.
heuristics,
a rule or solution adopted to reduce the complexity of computational tasks,
thereby reducing demands on resources such as time, memory, and attention. If
an algorithm is a procedure yielding a correct solution to a problem, then a
heuristic procedure may not reach a solution even if there is one, or may
provide an incorrect answer. The reliability of heuristics varies between
domains; the resulting biases are predictable, and provide information about
system design. Chess, for example, is a finite game with a finite number of
possible positions, but there is no known algorithm for finding the optimal
move. Computers and humans both employ heuristics in evaluating intermediate
moves, relying on a few significant cues to game quality, such as safety of the
king, material balance, and center control. The use of these criteria simplifies
the problem, making it computationally tractable. They are heuristic guides,
reliable but limited in success. There is no guarantee that the result will be
the best move or even good. They are nonetheless satisfactory for competent
chess. Work on human judgment indicates a similar moral. Examples of judgmental
infelicities support the view that human reasoning systematically violates
standards for statistical reasoning, ignoring base rates, sample size, and
correlations. Experimental results suggest that humans utilize judgmental
heuristics in gauging probabilities, such as representativeness, or the degree
to which an individual or event resembles a prototypical member of a category.
Such heuristics produce reasonable judgments in many cases, but are of limited
validity when measured by a Bayesian standard. Judgmental heuristics are biased
and subject to systemic errors. Experimental support for the importance of
these heuristics depends on cases in which subjects deviate from the normative
standard.
habitus:
hexis
Grecian, from hexo, ‘to have’, ‘to be disposed’, a good or bad condition,
disposition, or state. The traditional rendering, ‘habit’ Latin habitus, is
misleading, for it tends to suggest the idea of an involuntary and merely
repetitious pattern of behavior. A hexis is rather a state of character or of
mind that disposes us to deliberately choose to act or to think in a certain
way. The term acquired a quasi-technical status after Aristotle advanced the
view that hexis is the genus of virtue, both moral and intellectual. In the
Nicomachean Ethics he distinguishes hexeis from passions pathe and faculties
dunamis of the soul. If a man fighting in the front ranks feels afraid when he
sees the enemy approaching, he is undergoing an involuntary passion. His
capacity to be affected by fear on this or other occasions is part of his
makeup, one of his faculties. If he chooses to stay where his commanders placed
him, this is due to the hexis or state of character we call courage. Likewise,
one who is consistently good at identifying what is best for oneself can be
said to possess a hexis called prudence. Not all states and dispositions are
commendable. Cowardice and stupidity are also hexeis. Both in the sense of
‘state’ and of ‘possession’ hexis plays a role in Aristotle’s Categories.
tisberi
-- Heytesbury: w. also called Hentisberus, Hentisberi, Tisberi before
1313c.1372, English philosopher and chancellor of Oxford . He wrote Sophismata
“Sophisms”, Regulae solvendi sophismata “Rules for Solving Sophisms”, and De
sensu composito et diviso “On the Composite and Divided Sense”. Other works are
doubtfully attributed to him. Heytesbury belonged to the generation immediately
after Thomas Bradwardine and Kilvington, and was among the most significant
members of the Oxford Calculators, important in the early developemnt of
physics. Unlike Kilvington but like Bradwardine, he appealed to mathematical
calculations in addition to logical and conceptual analysis in the treatment of
change, motion, acceleration, and other physical notions. His Regulae includes
perhaps the most influential treatment of the liar paradox in the Middle Ages.
Heytesbury’s work makes widespread use of “imaginary” thought experiments
assuming physical impossibilities that are yet logically consistent. His
influence was especially strong in Italy in the fifteenth century, where his
works were studied widely and commented on many times.
hierarchy, a division of
mathematical objects into subclasses in accordance with an ordering that
reflects their complexity. Around the turn of the century, analysts interested
in the “descriptive set theory” of the real numbers defined and studied two
systems of classification for sets of reals, the Borel (due to Emil Borel) and
the G hierarchies. In the 1940s, logicians interested in recursion and
definability (most importantly, Stephen Kleene) introduced and studied other
hierarchies (the arithmetic, the hyperarithmetic, and the analytical
hierarchies) of reals (identified with sets of natural numbers) and of sets of
reals; the relations between this work and the earlier work were made explicit
in the 1950s by J. Addison. Other sorts of hierarchies have been introduced in
other corners of logic. All these so-called hierarchies have at least this in
common: they divide a class of mathematical objects into subclasses subject to
a natural well-founded ordering (e.g., by subsethood) that reflects the
complexity (in a sense specific to the hierarchy under consideration) of the
objects they contain. What follows describes several hierarchies from the study
of definability. (For more historical and mathematical information see
Descriptive Set Theory by Y. Moschovakis, North-Holland Publishing Co., 1980.)
(1) Hierarchies of formulas. Consider a formal language L with quantifiers ‘E’
and ‘D’. Given a set B of formulas in L, we inductively define a hierarchy that
treats the members of B as “basic.” Set P0 % S0 % B. Suppose sets Pn and Sn of
formulas have been defined. Let Pn!1 % the set of all formulas of the form Q1u1
. . . Qmumw when u1, . . . , um are distinct variables, Q1, . . . , Qm are all
‘E’, m M 1, and w 1 Sn. Let Sn+1 % the set of all formulas of that form for Q1,
. . . , Qm all ‘D’, and w 1 Pn. Here are two such hierarchies for languages of
arithmetic. Take the logical constants to be truthfunctions, ‘E’ and ‘D’. (i)
Let L0 % the first-order language of arithmetic, based on ‘%’, a two-place
predicate-constant ‘‹’, an individual-constant for 0, functionconstants for
successor, addition, and multiplication; ‘first-order’ means that bound
variables are all first-order (ranging over individuals); we’ll allow free
second-order variables (ranging over properties or sets of individuals). Let B
% the set of bounded formulas, i.e. those formed from atomic formulas using connectives
and bounded quantification: if w is bounded so are Eu(u ‹ t / w) and Du(u ‹ t
& w). (ii) Let L1 % the second-order language of arithmetic (formed from L0
by allowing bound second-order variables); let B % the set of formulas in which
no second-order variable is bound, and take all u1, . . . , um as above to be
second-order variables. (2) Hierarchies of definable sets. (i) The Arithmetic
Hierarchy. For a set of natural numbers (call such a thing ‘a real’) A : A 1 P0
n [ or S0 n ] if and only if A is defined over the standard model of arithmetic
(i.e., with the constant for 0 assigned to 0, etc., and with the first-order
variables ranging over the natural numbers) by a formula of L0 in Pn
[respectively Sn] as described in (1.i). Set D0 n % P0 n Thus: In fact, all
these inclusions are proper. This hierarchy classifies the reals simple enough
to be defined by arithmetic formulas. Example: ‘Dy x % y ! y’ defines the set
even of even natural numbers; the formula 1 S1, so even 1 S0 1; even is also
defined by a formula in P1; so even 1 P0 1, giving even 1 D0 1. In fact, S0 1 %
the class of recursively enumerable reals, and D0 1 % the class of recursive
reals. The classification of reals under the arithmetic hierarchy reflects
complexity of defining formulas; it differs from classification in terms of a
notion of degree of unsolvability, that reflecting a notion of comparative
computational complexity; but there are connections between these
classifications. The Arithmetic Hierarchy extends to sets of reals (using a
free second-order variable in defining sentences). Example: ‘Dx (Xx & Dy y
% x ! x)’ 1 S1 and defines the set of those reals with an even number; so that
set 1 S0 1.The Analytical Hierarchy. Given a real A : A 1 P1 n [S1 1] if and
only if A is defined (over the standard model of arithmetic with second-order
variables ranging over all sets of natural numbers) by a formula of L1 in Pn
(respectively Sn) as described in (1.ii); D1 n % P1 n 3 S1 n. Similarly for a
set of reals. The inclusions pictured above carry over, replacing superscripted
0’s by 1’s. This classifies all reals and sets of reals simple enough to have
analytical (i.e., second-order arithmetic) definitions.The subscripted ‘n’ in
‘P0 n’, etc., ranged over natural numbers. But the Arithmetic Hierarchy is
extended “upward” into the transfinite by the ramified-analytical hierarchy.
Let R0 % the class of all arithmetical reals. For an ordinal a let Ra!1 % the
class of all sets of reals definable by formulas of L1 in which second-order
variables range only over reals in Ra – this constraint imposes ramification.
For a limit-ordinal l, let Rl % UaThe above hierarchies arise in arithmetic.
Similar hierarchies arise in pure set theory; e.g. by transferring the
“process” that produced the ramified analytical hierarchy to pure set theory we
obtain the constructible hierarchy, defined by Gödel in his 1939 monograph on
the continuum hypothesis.
Grice’s formalists: Hilbert,
D. – G. mathematician and philosopher of mathematics. Born in Königsberg, he
also studied and served on the faculty there, accepting Weber’s chair in
mathematics at Göttingen in 1895. He made important contributions to many
different areas of mathematics and was renowned for his grasp of the entire
discipline. His more philosophical work was divided into two parts. The focus
of the first, which occupied approximately ten years beginning in the early
1890s, was the foundations of geometry and culminated in his celebrated
Grundlagen der Geometrie (1899). This is a rich and complex work that pursues a
variety of different projects simultaneously. Prominent among these is one
whose aim is to determine the role played in geometrical reasoning by
principles of continuity. Hilbert’s interest in this project was rooted in
Kantian concerns, as is confirmed by the inscription, in the Grundlagen, of
Kant’s synopsis of his critical philosophy: “Thus all human knowledge begins
with intuition, goes from there to concepts and ends with ideas.” Kant believed
that the continuous could not be represented in intuition and must therefore be
regarded as an idea of pure reason – i.e., as a device playing a purely
regulative role in the development of our geometrical knowledge (i.e., our
knowledge of the spatial manifold of sensory experience). Hilbert was deeply influenced
by this view of Kant’s and his work in the foundations of geometry can be seen,
in large part, as an attempt to test it by determining whether (or to what
extent) pure geometry can be developed without appeal to principles concerning
the nature of the continuous. To a considerable extent, Hilbert’s work
confirmed Kant’s view – showing, in a manner more precise than any Kant had
managed, that appeals to the continuous can indeed be eliminated from much of
our geometrical reasoning. The same basic Kantian orientation also governed the
second phase of Hilbert’s foundational work, where the focus was changed from
geometry to arithmetic and analysis. This is the phase during which Hilbert’s
Program was developed. This project began to take shape in the 1917 essay
“Axiomatisches Denken.” (The 1904 paper “Über die Grundlagen der Logik und
Arithmetik,” which turned away from geometry and toward arithmetic, does not
yet contain more than a glimmer of the ideas that would later become central to
Hilbert’s proof theory.) It reached its philosophically most mature form in the
1925 essay “Über das Unendliche,” the 1926 address “Die Grundlagen der
Mathematik,” and the somewhat more popular 1930 paper “Naturerkennen und
Logik.” (From a technical as opposed to a philosophical vantage, the classical
statement is probably the 1922 essay “Neubegründung der Mathematik. Erste
Mitteilung.”) The key elements of the program are (i) a distinction between
real and ideal propositions and methods of proof or derivation; (ii) the idea
that the so-called ideal methods, though, again, playing the role of Kantian
regulative devices (as Hilbert explicitly and emphatically declared in the 1925
paper), are nonetheless indispensable for a reasonably efficient development of
our mathematical knowledge; and (iii) the demand that the reliability of the
ideal methods be established by real (or finitary) means. As is well known,
Hilbert’s Program soon came under heavy attack from Gödel’s incompleteness
theorems (especially the second), which have commonly been regarded as showing
that the third element of Hilbert’s Program (i.e., the one calling for a
finitary proof of the reliability of the ideal systems of classical
mathematics) cannot be carried out. Hilbert’s Program, a proposal in the foundations
of mathematics, named for its developer, the German mathematician-philosopher
David Hilbert, who first formulated it fully in the 1920s. Its aim was to
justify classical mathematics (in particular, classical analysis and set
theory), though only as a Kantian regulative device and not as descriptive
science. The justification thus presupposed a division of classical mathematics
into two parts: the part (termed real mathematics by Hilbert) to be regulated,
and the part (termed ideal mathematics by Hilbert) serving as regulator. Real
mathematics was taken to consist of the meaningful, true propositions of
mathematics and their justifying proofs. These proofs – commonly known as
finitary proofs – were taken to be of an especially elementary epistemic character,
reducing, ultimately, to quasi-perceptual intuitions concerning finite
assemblages of perceptually intuitable signs regarded from the point of view of
their shapes and sequential arrangement. Ideal mathematics, on the other hand,
was taken to consist of sentences that do not express genuine propositions and
derivations that do not constitute genuine proofs or justifications. The
epistemic utility of ideal sentences (typically referred to as ideal
propositions, though, as noted above, they do not express genuine propositions
at all) and proofs was taken to derive not from their meaning and/or
evidentness, but rather from the role they play in some formal algebraic or
calculary scheme intended to identify or locate the real truths. It is thus a
metatheoretic function of the formal or algebraic properties induced on those
propositions and proofs by their positions in a larger derivational scheme.
Hilbert’s ideal mathematics was thus intended to bear the same relation to his
real mathematics as Kant’s faculty of pure reason was intended to bear to his
faculty of understanding. It was to be a regulative device whose proper
function is to guide and facilitate the development of our system of real
judgments. Indeed, in his 1925 essay “Über das Unendliche,” Hilbert made just
this point, noting that ideal elements do not correspond to anything in reality
but serve only as ideas “if, following Kant’s terminology, one understands as
an idea a concept of reason which transcends all experience and by means of
which the concrete is to be completed into a totality.” The structure of
Hilbert’s scheme, however, involves more than just the division of classical
mathematics into real and ideal propositions and proofs. It uses, in addition,
a subdivision of the real propositions into the problematic and the
unproblematic. Indeed, it is this subdivision of the reals that is at bottom
responsible for the introduction of the ideals. Unproblematic real
propositions, described by Hilbert as the basic equalities and inequalities of
arithmetic (e.g., ‘3 ( 2’, ‘2 ‹ 3’, ‘2 ! 3 % 3 ! 2’) together with their
sentential (and certain of their bounded quantificational) compounds, are the
evidentially most basic judgments of mathematics. They are immediately
intelligible and decidable by finitary intuition. More importantly, they can be
logically manipulated in all the ways that classical logic allows without
leading outside the class of real propositions. The characteristic feature of
the problematic reals, on the other hand, is that they cannot be so
manipulated. Hilbert gave two kinds of examples of problematic real
propositions. One consisted of universal generalizations like ‘for any
non-negative integer a, a ! 1 % 1 ! a’, which Hilbert termed hypothetical
judgments. Such propositions are problematic because their denials do not bound
the search for counterexamples. Hence, the instance of the (classical) law of
excluded middle that is obtained by disjoining it with its denial is not itself
a real proposition. Consequently, it cannot be manipulated in all the ways
permitted by classical logic without going outside the class of real
propositions. Similarly for the other kind of problematic real discussed by
Hilbert, which was a bounded existential quantification. Every such sentence
has as one of its classical consequents an unbounded existential quantification
of the same matrix. Hence, since the latter is not a real proposition, the
former is not a real proposition that can be fully manipulated by classical
logical means without going outside the class of real propositions. It is
therefore “problematic.” The question why full classical logical manipulability
should be given such weight points up an important element in Hilbert’s
thinking: namely, that classical logic is regarded as the preferred logic of
human thinking – the logic of the optimally functioning human epistemic engine,
the logic according to which the human mind most naturally and efficiently
conducts its inferential affairs. It therefore has a special psychological
status and it is because of this that the right to its continued use must be
preserved. As just indicated, however, preservation of this right requires
addition of ideal propositions and proofs to their real counterparts, since
applying classical logic to the truths of real mathematics leads to a system
that contains ideal as well as real elements. Hilbert believed that to justify
such an addition, all that was necessary was to show it to be consistent with
real mathematics (i.e., to show that it proves no real proposition that is
itself refutable by real means). Moreover, Hilbert believed that this must be
done by finitary means. The proof of Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem in
1931 brought considerable pressure to bear on this part of Hilbert’s Program
even though it may not have demonstrated its unattainability.
“what-is-hinted”
-- hint hinting. Don’t expect Cicero
used this. It’s Germanic and related to ‘hunt,’ to ‘seize.’ As if you throw
something in the air, and expect your recipient will seize it. Grice spends
quite a long section in “Retrospective epilogue” to elucidate “Emissor E
communicates that p via a hint,” versus “Emissor E communicates that p via a
suggestion.” Some level of explicitness (vide candour) is necessary. If it is
too obscure it cannot be held to have been ‘communicated’ in the first place!
Cf. Holdcroft, “Some forms of indirect communication” for the Journal of
Rhetoric. Grice had to do a bit of linguistic botany for his “E implicates that
p”: To do duty for ‘imply,’ suggest, indicate, hint, mean, -- “etc.” indirectly
or implicitly convey.
Hintikka, J. Non-Indo-European Finnish
philosopher who emigrated Finland early on to become the first Finnish Griceian
(vide his contribution in P. G. R. I. C. E.)
with contributions to logic, philosophy of mathematics, epistemology,
linguistics and philosophy of language, philosophy of science, and history of
philosophy. His work on distributive normal forms and model set techniques
yielded an improved inductive logic. Model sets differ from Carnap’s state-descriptions
in being partial and not complete descriptions of “possible worlds.” The
techniques simplified metatheoretical proofs and led to new results in e.g.
probability theory and the semantic theory of information. Their main
philosophical import nevertheless is in bridging the gap between proof theory
and model theory. Model sets that describe several possible “alternative”
worlds lead to the possible worlds semantics for modal and intensional logics.
Hintikka has used them as a foundation for the logic of propositional attitudes
(epistemic logic and the logic of perception), and in studies on individuation,
identification, and intentionality. Epistemic logic also provides a basis for
Hintikka’s logic of questions, in which conclusiveness conditions for answers
can be defined. This has resulted in an interrogative model of inquiry in which
knowledge-seeking is viewed as a pursuit of conclusive answers to initial “big”
questions by strategically organized series of “small” questions (put to nature
or to another source of information). The applications include scientific
discovery and explanation. Hintikka’s independence-friendly logic gives the
various applications a unified basis. Hintikka’s background philosophy and
approach to formal semantics and its applications is broadly Kantian with
emphasis on seeking-andfinding methods and the constitutive activity of the
inquirer. Apart from a series of studies inspired by Kant, he has written
extensively on Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, Frege, and Wittgenstein.
Hintikka’s academic career has been not only in Finland, chiefly at the
University of Helsinki, but (especially) in the United States, where he has
held professorships at Stanford, Florida State, and (currently) Boston
University. His students and co-workers in the Finnish school of inductive
logic and in other areas include Leila Haaparanta (b.1954), Risto Hilpinen
(b.1943), Simo Knuuttila (b.1946), Martin Kusch (b.1959), Ilkka Niiniluoto
(b.1946), Juhani Pietarinen (b.1938), Veikko Rantala (b.1933), Gabriel Sandu
(b.1954), Matti Sintonen (b.1951), and Raimo Tuomela (b.1940). Hintikka set,
also called model set, downward saturated set, a set (of a certain sort) of
well-formed formulas that are all true under a single interpretation of their non-logical
symbols (named after Jaakko Hintikka). Such a set can be thought of as a
(partial) description of a logically possible state of affairs, or possible
world, full enough to make evident that the world described is indeed possible.
Thus it is required of a Hintikka set G that it contain no atomic formula and
its negation, that A, B 1 G if A 8 B 1 G, that A 1 G or B 1 G if A 7 B 1 G, and
so forth, for each logical constant.
Hippocrates, philosopher from Cos. Some
sixty treatises survive under his name, but it is doubtful whether he was the
author of any of them. The Hippocratic corpus contains material from a wide
variety of standpoints, ranging from an extreme empiricism that rejected all
grand theory (On Ancient Medicine) to highly speculative theoretical physiology
(On the Nature of Man, On Regimen). Many treatises were concerned with the
accurate observation and classification of diseases (Epidemics) rather than
treatment. Some texts (On the Art) defended the claims of medicine to
scientific status against those who pointed to its inaccuracies and conjectural
status; others (Oath, On Decorum) sketch a code of professional ethics. Almost
all his treatises were notable for their materialism and rejection of
supernatural “explanations”; their emphasis on observation; and their concern
with the isolation of causal factors. A large number of texts are devoted to
gynecology. The Hippocratic corpus became the standard against which later
doctors measured themselves; and, via Galen’s rehabilitation and extension of
Hippocratic method, it became the basis for Western medicine for two millennia.
historicism, the doctrine
that knowledge of human affairs has an irreducibly historical character and
that there can be no ahistorical perspective for an understanding of human
nature and society. What is needed instead is a philosophical explication of
historical knowledge that will yield the rationale for all sound knowledge of
human activities. So construed, historicism is a philosophical doctrine
originating in the methodological and epistemological presuppositions of
critical historiography. In the mid-nineteenth century certain German thinkers
(Dilthey most centrally), reacting against positivist ideals of science and
knowledge, rejected scientistic models of knowledge, replacing them with
historical ones. They applied this not only to the discipline of history but to
economics, law, political theory, and large areas of philosophy. Initially
concerned with methodological issues in particular disciplines, historicism, as
it developed, sought to work out a common philosophical doctrine that would
inform all these disciplines. What is essential to achieve knowledge in the
human sciences is to employ the ways of understanding used in historical
studies. There should in the human sciences be no search for natural laws;
knowledge there will be interpretive and rooted in concrete historical
occurrences. As such it will be inescapably perspectival and contextual
(contextualism). This raises the issue of whether historicism is a form of
historical relativism. Historicism appears to be committed to the thesis that
what for a given people is warrantedly assertible is determined by the
distinctive historical perspective in which they view life and society. The
stress on uniqueness and concrete specificity and the rejection of any appeal
to universal laws of human development reinforce that. But the emphasis on
cumulative development into larger contexts of our historical knowledge puts in
doubt an identification of historicism and historical relativism. The above
account of historicism is that of its main proponents: Meinecke, Croce,
Collingwood, Ortega y Gasset, and Mannheim. But in the twentieth century, with
Popper and Hayek, a very different conception of historicism gained some
currency. For them, to be a historicist is to believe that there are
“historical laws,” indeed even a “law of historical development,” such that
history has a pattern and even an end, that it is the central task of social
science to discover it, and that these laws should determine the direction of
political action and social policy. They attributed (incorrectly) this doctrine
to Marx but rightly denounced it as pseudo-science. However, some later
Marxists (Lukács, Korsch, and Gramsci) were historicists in the original
nonPopperian sense as was the critical theorist Adorno and hermeneuticists such
as Gadamer.
heterological: Grice and Thomson go
heterological. Grice was fascinated by Baron Russell’s remarks on heterological
and its implicate. Grice is particularly interested in Russell’s philosophy
because of the usual Oxonian antipathy towards his type of
philosophising. Being an irreverent conservative rationalist, Grice found
in Russell a good point for dissent! If paradoxes were always sets of
propositions or arguments or conclusions, they would always be
meaningful. But some paradoxes are semantically flawed and some have
answers that are backed by a pseudo-argument employing a defective lemma that
lacks a truth-value. Grellings paradox, for instance, opens with a
distinction between autological and heterological words. An autological
word describes itself, e.g., polysyllabic is polysllabic, English is English,
noun is a noun, etc. A heterological word does not describe itself, e.g.,
monosyllabic is not monosyllabic, Chinese is not Chinese, verb is not a verb,
etc. Now for the riddle: Is heterological heterological or
autological? If heterological is heterological, since it describes itself,
it is autological. But if heterological is autological, since it is a word
that does not describe itself, it is heterological. The common solution to
this puzzle is that heterological, as defined by Grelling, is not what Grice a
genuine predicate ‒ Gricing is!In other words, Is heterological
heterological? is without meaning. That does not mean that an utterer, such as
Baron Russell, may implicate that he is being very witty by uttering the
Grelling paradox! There can be no predicate that applies to all and only those
predicates it does not apply to for the same reason that there can be no barber
who shaves all and only those people who do not shave themselves. Grice
seems to be relying on his friend at Christ Church, Thomson in On Some
Paradoxes, in the same volume where Grice published his Remarks about the
senses, Analytical Philosophy, Butler (ed.), Blackwell, Oxford,
104–119. Grice thought that Thomson was a genius, if ever there is one!
Plus, Grice thought that, after St. Johns, Christ Church was the second most
beautiful venue in the city of dreaming spires. On top, it is what makes Oxford
a city, and not, as villagers call it, a town. Refs.: the main source is
Grice’s essay on ‘heterologicality,’ but the keyword ‘paradox’ is useful, too,
especially as applied to Grice’s own paradox and to what, after Moore, Grice
refers to as the philosopher’s paradoxes. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
hobbes: “Hobbes
is a Griceian” – Grice. Grice was a member of the Hobbes Society -- Thomas.
English philosopher whose writings, especially the English version of Leviathan
(1651), strongly influenced all of subsequent English moral and political
philosophy. He also wrote a trilogy comprising De Cive (1642; English version,
Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society, 1651), De Corpore
(On the Body, 1655), and De Homine (On Man, 1658). Together with Leviathan (the
revised Latin version of which was published in 1668), these are his major
philosophical works. However, an early draft of his thoughts, The Elements of
Law, Natural and Political(also known as Human Nature and De Corpore Politico),
was published without permission in 1650. Many of the misinterpretations of
Hobbes’s views on human nature come from mistaking this early work as
representing his mature views. Hobbes was influential not only in England, but
also on the Continent. He is the author of the third set of objections to
Descartes’s Meditations. Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-politicus was deeply
influenced by Hobbes, not only in its political views but also in the way it
dealt with Scripture. Hobbes was not merely a philosopher; he was mathematical
tutor to Charles II and also a classical scholar. His first published work was
a translation of Thucydides (1628), and among his latest, about a half-century
later, were translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Hobbes’s philosophical
views have a remarkably contemporary sound. In metaphysics, he holds a strong
materialist view, sometimes viewing mental phenomena as epiphenomenal, but
later moving toward a reductive or eliminative view. In epistemology he held a
sophisticated empiricism, which emphasized the importance of language for
knowledge. If not the originator of the contemporary compatibilist view of the
relationship between free will and determinism (see The Questions Concerning
Liberty, Necessity and Chance, 1656), he was one of the primary influences. He
also was one of the most important philosophers of language, explicitly noting
that language is used not only to describe the world but to express attitudes
and, performatively, to make promises and contracts. One of Hobbes’s
outstanding characteristics is his intellectual honesty. Though he may have
been timid (he himself claims that he was, explaining that his mother gave
birth to him because of fright over the coming of the Spanish Armada), his
writing shows no trace of it. During more than half his long lifetime he
engaged in many philosophical controversies, which required considerably more
courage in Hobbes’s day than at present. Both the Roman Catholic church and
Oxford University banned the reading of his books and there was talk not only
of burning his books but of burning Hobbes himself. An adequate interpretation
of Hobbes requires careful attention to his accounts of human nature, reason,
morality, and law. Although he was not completely consistent, his moral and
political philosophy is remarkably coherent. His political theory is often
thought to require an egoistic psychology, whereas it actually requires only
that most persons be concerned with their own self-interest, especially their
own preservation. It does not require that most not be concerned with other
persons as well. All that Hobbes denies is an undifferentiated natural
benevolence: “For if by nature one man should love another (that is) as man,
there could no reason be returned why every man should not equally love every
man, as being equally man.” His argument is that limited benevolence is not an
adequate foundation upon which to build a state. Hobbes’s political theory does
not require the denial of limited benevolence, he indeed includes benevolence
in his list of the passions in Leviathan: “Desire of good to another,
BENEVOLENCE, GOOD WILL, CHARITY. If to man generally, GOOD NATURE.”
Psychological egoism not only denies benevolent action, it also denies action
done from a moral sense, i.e., action done because one believes it is the
morally right thing to do. But Hobbes denies neither kind of action. But when
the words [’just’ and ‘unjust’] are applied to persons, to be just signifies as
much as to be delighted in just dealing, to study how to do righteousness, or
to endeavor in all things to do that which is just; and to be unjust is to
neglect righteous dealing, or to think it is to be measured not according to my
contract, but some present benefit. Hobbes’s pessimism about the number of just
people is primarily due to his awareness of the strength of the passions and
his conviction that most people have not been properly educated and
disciplined. Hobbes is one of the few philosophers to realize that to talk of
that part of human nature which involves the passions is to talk about human
populations. He says, “though the wicked were fewer than the righteous, yet
because we cannot distinguish them, there is a necessity of suspecting,
heeding, anticipating, subjugating, self-defending, ever incident to the most
honest and fairest conditioned.” Though we may be aware of small communities in
which mutual trust and respect make law enforcement unnecessary, this is never
the case when we are dealing with a large group of people. Hobbes’s point is
that if a large group of people are to live together, there must be a common
power set up to enforce the rules of the society. That there is not now, nor
has there ever been, any large group of people living together without such a
common power is sufficient to establish his point. Often overlooked is Hobbes’s
distinction between people considered as if they were simply animals, not
modified in any way by education or discipline, and civilized people. Though
obviously an abstraction, people as animals are fairly well exemplified by
children. “Unless you give children all they ask for, they are peevish, and
cry, aye and strike their parents sometimes; and all this they have from
nature.” In the state of nature, people have no education or training, so there
is “continual fear, and danger of violent death, and the life of man, [is]
solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” But real people have been brought
up in families; they are, at least to some degree, civilized persons, and how
they will behave depends on how they are brought up. Hobbes does not say that
society is a collection of misfits and that this is why we have all the trouble
that we do – a position congenial to the psychological egoist. But he does
acknowledge that “many also (perhaps most men) either through defect of mind,
or want of education, remain unfit during the whole course of their lives; yet
have they, infants as well as those of riper years, a human nature; wherefore
man is made fit for society not by nature, but by education.” Education and
training may change people so that they act out of genuine moral motives. That
is why it is one of the most important functions of the sovereign to provide
for the proper training and education of the citizens. In the current debate
between nature and nurture, on the question of behavior Hobbes would come down
strongly on the side of nurture. Hobbes’s concept of reason has more in common
with the classical philosophical tradition stemming from Plato and Aristotle,
where reason sets the ends of behavior, than with the modern tradition stemming
from Hume where the only function of reason is to discover the best means to
ends set by the passions. For Hobbes, reason is very complex; it has a goal,
lasting selfpreservation, and it seeks the way to this goal. It also discovers
the means to ends set by the passions, but it governs the passions, or tries
to, so that its own goal is not threatened. Since its goal is the same in all
people, it is the source of rules applying to all people. All of this is surprisingly
close to the generally accepted account of rationality. We generally agree that
those who follow their passions when they threaten their life are acting
irrationally. We also believe that everyone always ought to act rationally,
though we know that few always do so. Perhaps it was just the closeness of
Hobbes’s account of reason to the ordinary view of the matter that has led to
its being so completely overlooked. The failure to recognize that the avoidance
of violent death is the primary goal of reason has distorted almost all
accounts of Hobbes’s moral and political philosophy, yet it is a point on which
Hobbes is completely clear and consistent. He explicitly says that reason
“teaches every man to fly a contra-natural dissolution [mortem violentam] as
the greatest mischief that can arrive to nature.” He continually points out
that it is a dictate of right reason to seek peace when possible because people
cannot “expect any lasting preservation continuing thus in the state of nature,
that is, of war.” And he calls temperance and fortitude precepts of reason
because they tend to one’s preservation. It has not generally been recognized
that Hobbes regarded it as an end of reason to avoid violent death because he
often talks of the avoidance of death in a way that makes it seem merely an
object of a passion. But it is reason that dictates that one take all those
measures necessary for one’s preservation; peace if possible, if not, defense.
Reason’s dictates are categorical; it would be a travesty of Hobbes’s view to
regard the dictates of reason as hypothetical judgments addressed to those
whose desire for their own preservation happens to be greater than any
conflicting desire. He explicitly deplores the power of the irrational
appetites and expressly declares that it is a dictate of reason that one not
scorn others because “most men would rather lose their lives (that I say not,
their peace) than suffer slander.” He does not say if you would rather die than
suffer slander, it is rational to do so. Hobbes, following Aristotle, regards
morality as concerned with character traits or habits. Since morality is
objective, it is only those habits that are called good by reason that are
moral virtues. “Reason declaring peace to be good, it follows by the same reason,
that all the necessary means to peace be good also; and therefore that modesty,
equity, trust, humanity, mercy (which we have demonstrated to be necessary to
peace), are good manners or habits, that is, virtues.” Moral virtues are those
habits of acting that the reason of all people must praise. It is interesting
to note that it is only in De Homine that Hobbes explicitly acknowledges that
on this account, prudence, temperance, and courage are not moral virtues. In De
Cive he distinguishes temperance and fortitude from the other virtues and does
not call them moral, but he does not explicitly deny that they are moral
virtues. But in De Homine, he explicitly points out that one should not “demand
that the courage and prudence of the private man, if useful only to himself, be
praised or held as a virtue by states or by any other men whatsoever to whom
these same are not useful.” That morality is determined by reason and that
reason has as its goal self-preservation seems to lead to the conclusion that
morality also has as its goal self-preservation. But it is not the
selfpreservation of an individual person that is the goal of morality, but of
people as citizens of a state. That is, moral virtues are those habits of
persons that make it rational for all other people to praise them. These habits
are not those that merely lead to an individual’s own preservation, but to the
preservation of all; i.e., to peace and a stable society. Thus, “Good
dispositions are those that are suitable for entering into civil society; and
good manners (that is, moral virtues) are those whereby what was entered upon
can be best preserved.” And in De Cive, when talking of morality, he says, “The
goodness of actions consist[s] in this, that it [is] in order to peace, and the
evil in this, that it [is] related to discord.” The nature of morality is a
complex and vexing question. If, like Hobbes, we regard morality as applying
primarily to those manners or habits that lead to peace, then his view seems
satisfactory. It yields, as he notes, all of the moral virtues that are
ordinarily considered such, and further, it allows one to distinguish courage,
prudence, and temperance from the moral virtues. Perhaps most important, it
provides, in almost self-evident fashion, the justification of morality. For
what is it to justify morality but to show that reason favors it? Reason,
seeking self-preservation, must favor morality, which seeks peace and a stable
society. For reason knows that peace and a stable society are essential for
lasting preservation. This simple and elegant justification of morality does
not reduce morality to prudence; rather it is an attempt, in a great
philosophical tradition stemming from Plato, to reconcile reason or rational
self-interest and morality. In the state of nature every person is and ought to
be governed only by their own reason. Reason dictates that they seek peace,
which yields the laws of nature, but it also allows them to use any means they
believe will best preserve themselves, which is what Hobbes calls The Right of
Nature. Hobbes’s insight is to see that, except when one is in clear and
present danger, in which case one has an inalienable right to defend oneself,
the best way to guarantee one’s longterm preservation is to give up one’s right
to act on one’s own decisions about what is the best way to guarantee one’s
long-term preservation and agree to act on the decisions of that single person
or group who is the sovereign. If all individuals and groups are allowed to act
on the decisions they regard as best, not accepting the commands of the
sovereign, i.e., the laws, as the overriding guide for their actions, the
result is anarchy and civil war. Except in rare and unusual cases, uniformity
of action following the decision of the sovereign is more likely to lead to
long-term preservation than diverse actions following diverse decisions. And
this is true even if each one of the diverse decisions, if accepted by the
sovereign as its decision, would have been more likely to lead to long-term
preservation than the actual decision that the sovereign made. This argument
explains why Hobbes holds that sovereigns cannot commit injustice. Only
injustice can properly be punished. Hobbes does not deny that sovereigns can be
immoral, but he does deny that the immorality of sovereigns can properly be
punished. This is important, for otherwise any immoral act by the sovereign
would serve as a pretext for punishing the sovereign, i.e., for civil war. What
is just and unjust is determined by the laws of the state, what is moral and
immoral is not. Morality is a wider concept than that of justice and is
determined by what leads to peace and stability. However, to let justice be
determined by what the reason of the people takes to lead to peace and
stability, rather than by what the reason of the sovereign decides, would be to
invite discord and civil war, which is contrary to the goal of morality: a
stable society and peace. One can create an air of paradox by saying that for
Hobbes it is immoral to attempt to punish some immoral acts, namely, those of
the sovereign. Hobbes is willing to accept this seeming paradox for he never
loses sight of the goal of morality, which is peace. To summarize Hobbes’s
system: people, insofar as they are rational, want to live out their natural lives
in peace and security. To do this, they must come together into cities or
states of sufficient size to deter attack by any group. But when people come
together in such a large group there will always be some that cannot be
trusted, and thus it is necessary to set up a government with the power to make
and enforce laws. This government, which gets both its right to govern and its
power to do so from the consent of the governed, has as its primary duty the
people’s safety. As long as the government provides this safety the citizens
are obliged to obey the laws of the state in all things. Thus, the rationality
of seeking lasting preservation requires seeking peace; this in turn requires
setting up a state with sufficient power to keep the peace. Anything that
threatens the stability of the state is to be avoided. As a practical matter,
Hobbes took God and religion very seriously, for he thought they provided some
of the strongest motives for action. Half of Leviathan is devoted to trying to
show that his moral and political views are supported by Scripture, and to
discredit those religious views that may lead to civil strife. But accepting
the sincerity of Hobbes’s religious views does not require holding that Hobbes
regarded God as the foundation of morality. He explicitly denies that atheists
and deists are subject to the commands of God, but he never denies that they
are subject to the laws of nature or of the civil state. Once one recognizes
that, for Hobbes, reason itself provides a guide to conduct to be followed by
all people, there is absolutely no need to bring in God. For in his moral and
political theory there is nothing that God can do that is not already done by
reason. Grice read most of Hobbes, both in Latin (for his Lit. Hum.) and in
English. When in “Meaning,” Grice says “this is what people are getting at with
their natural versus artificial signs” – he means Hobbes.
Hobson’s
choice: willkür –
Hobson’s choice. One of Grice’s favourite words from Kant – “It’s so Kantish!”
I told Pears about this, and having found it’s cognate with English ‘choose,’
he immediately set to write an essay on the topic!” f., ‘option, discretion,
caprice,’ from MidHG. willekür,
f., ‘free choice, free will’; gee kiesen and Kur-kiesen, verb, ‘to select,’ from Middle High German kiesen, Old High German chiosan, ‘to test, try, taste for the
purpose of testing, test by tasting, select after strict examination.’
Gothic kiusan,
Anglo-Saxon ceósan,
English to choose.
Teutonic root kus (with
the change of s into r, kur in the participle erkoren, see also Kur, ‘choice’), from
pre-Teutonic gus, in
Latin gus-tus, gus-tare, Greek γεύω for γεύσω, Indian root juš, ‘to select, be fond of.’ Teutonic kausjun passed as kusiti into Slavonic. There is
an oil portrait of Thomas Hobson, in the National Portrait Gallery, London. He
looks straight to the artist and is dressed in typical Tudor dress, with a
heavy coat, a ruff, and tie tails Thomas Hobson, a portrait in the National
Portrait Gallery, London. A Hobson's choice is a free choice in which only one
thing is offered. Because a person may refuse to accept what is offered, the
two options are taking it or taking nothing. In other words, one may "take
it or leave it". The phrase is said
to have originated with Thomas Hobson (1544–1631), a livery stable owner in
Cambridge, England, who offered customers the choice of either taking the horse
in his stall nearest to the door or taking none at all. According to a plaque
underneath a painting of Hobson donated to Cambridge Guildhall, Hobson had an
extensive stable of some 40 horses. This gave the appearance to his customers
that, upon entry, they would have their choice of mounts, when in fact there was
only one: Hobson required his customers to choose the horse in the stall
closest to the door. This was to prevent the best horses from always being
chosen, which would have caused those horses to become overused.[1] Hobson's
stable was located on land that is now owned by St Catharine's College,
Cambridge. Early appearances in writing
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known written usage of
this phrase is in The rustick's alarm to the Rabbies, written by Samuel Fisher
in 1660:[3] If in this Case there be no
other (as the Proverb is) then Hobson's choice...which is, chuse whether you
will have this or none. It also appears
in Joseph Addison's paper The Spectator (No. 509 of 14 October 1712); and in
Thomas Ward's 1688 poem "England's Reformation", not published until
after Ward's death. Ward wrote: Where to
elect there is but one, 'Tis Hobson's choice—take that, or none. The term
"Hobson's choice" is often used to mean an illusion of choice, but it
is not a choice between two equivalent options, which is a Morton's fork, nor
is it a choice between two undesirable options, which is a dilemma. Hobson's
choice is one between something or nothing.
John Stuart Mill, in his book Considerations on Representative
Government, refers to Hobson's choice:
When the individuals composing the majority would no longer be reduced
to Hobson's choice, of either voting for the person brought forward by their
local leaders, or not voting at all. In another of his books, The Subjection of
Women, Mill discusses marriage: Those
who attempt to force women into marriage by closing all other doors against
them, lay themselves open to a similar retort. If they mean what they say,
their opinion must evidently be, that men do not render the married condition
so desirable to women, as to induce them to accept it for its own
recommendations. It is not a sign of one's thinking the boon one offers very
attractive, when one allows only Hobson's choice, 'that or none'.... And if men
are determined that the law of marriage shall be a law of despotism, they are
quite right in point of mere policy, in leaving to women only Hobson's choice.
But, in that case, all that has been done in the modern world to relax the
chain on the minds of women, has been a mistake. They should have never been
allowed to receive a literary education.[7]
A Hobson's choice is different from:
Dilemma: a choice between two or more options, none of which is
attractive. False dilemma: only certain choices are considered, when in fact
there are others. Catch-22: a logical paradox arising from a situation in which
an individual needs something that can only be acquired by not being in that
very situation. Morton's fork, and a double bind: choices yield equivalent, and
often undesirable, results. Blackmail and extortion: the choice between paying
money (or some non-monetary good or deed) or risk suffering an unpleasant
action. A common error is to use the phrase "Hobbesian choice"
instead of "Hobson's choice", confusing the philosopher Thomas Hobbes
with the relatively obscure Thomas Hobson (It's possible they may be confusing
"Hobson's choice" with "Hobbesian trap", which refers to
the trap into which a state falls when it attacks another out of fear).[11]
Notwithstanding that confused usage, the phrase "Hobbesian choice" is
historically incorrect. Common law In Immigration and Naturalization Service v.
Chadha (1983), Justice Byron White dissented and classified the majority's
decision to strike down the "one-house veto" as unconstitutional as
leaving Congress with a Hobson's choice. Congress may choose between
"refrain[ing] from delegating the necessary authority, leaving itself with
a hopeless task of writing laws with the requisite specificity to cover endless
special circumstances across the entire policy landscape, or in the
alternative, to abdicate its lawmaking function to the executive branch and
independent agency". In
Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U.S. 617 (1978),[15] the majority opinion ruled
that a New Jersey law which prohibited the importation of solid or liquid waste
from other states into New Jersey was unconstitutional based on the Commerce
Clause. The majority reasoned that New Jersey cannot discriminate between the
intrastate waste and the interstate waste with out due justification. In dissent,
Justice Rehnquist stated: [According to
the Court,] New Jersey must either prohibit all landfill operations, leaving
itself to cast about for a presently nonexistent solution to the serious
problem of disposing of the waste generated within its own borders, or it must
accept waste from every portion of the United States, thereby multiplying the
health and safety problems which would result if it dealt only with such wastes
generated within the State. Because past precedents establish that the Commerce
Clause does not present appellees with such a Hobson's choice, I dissent. In Monell v. Department of Social Services of
the City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978)[16] the judgement of the court was
that [T]here was ample support for
Blair's view that the Sherman Amendment, by putting municipalities to the
Hobson's choice of keeping the peace or paying civil damages, attempted to
impose obligations to municipalities by indirection that could not be imposed
directly, thereby threatening to "destroy the government of the
states". In the South African
Constitutional Case MEC for Education, Kwa-Zulu Natal and Others v Pillay, 2008
(1) SA 474 (CC)[17] Chief Justice Langa for the majority of the Court (in
Paragraph 62 of the judgement) writes that:
The traditional basis for invalidating laws that prohibit the exercise
of an obligatory religious practice is that it confronts the adherents with a
Hobson's choice between observance of their faith and adherence to the law.
There is however more to the protection of religious and cultural practices
than saving believers from hard choices. As stated above, religious and
cultural practices are protected because they are central to human identity and
hence to human dignity which is in turn central to equality. Are voluntary
practices any less a part of a person's identity or do they affect human
dignity any less seriously because they are not mandatory? In Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis (2018),
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented and added in one of the footnotes that the
petitioners "faced a Hobson’s choice: accept arbitration on their
employer’s terms or give up their jobs".
In Trump et al v. Mazars USA, LLP, US Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia No. 19-5142, 49 (D.C. Cir. 11 October 2019) ("[w]orse still,
the dissent’s novel approach would now impose upon the courts the job of
ordering the cessation of the legislative function and putting Congress to the
Hobson’s Choice of impeachment or nothing."). Popular culture Hobson's Choice is a
full-length stage comedy written by Harold Brighouse in 1915. At the end of the
play, the central character, Henry Horatio Hobson, formerly a wealthy,
self-made businessman but now a sick and broken man, faces the unpalatable
prospect of being looked after by his daughter Maggie and her husband Will
Mossop, who used to be one of Hobson's underlings. His other daughters have
refused to take him in, so he has no choice but to accept Maggie's offer which
comes with the condition that he must surrender control of his entire business
to her and her husband, Will. The play
was adapted for film several times, including versions from 1920 by Percy Nash,
1931 by Thomas Bentley, 1954 by David Lean and a 1983 TV movie. Alfred Bester's 1952 short story Hobson's
Choice describes a world in which time travel is possible, and the option is to
travel or to stay in one's native time.
In the 1951 Robert Heinlein book Between Planets, the main character Don
Harvey incorrectly mentions he has a Hobson's choice. While on a space station
orbiting Earth, Don needs to get to Mars, where his parents are. The only
rockets available are back to Earth (where he is not welcome) or on to
Venus. In The Grim Grotto by Lemony
Snicket, the Baudelaire orphans and Fiona are said to be faced with a Hobson's
Choice when they are trapped by the Medusoid Mycelium Mushrooms in the
Gorgonian Grotto: "We can wait until the mushrooms disappear, or we can
find ourselves poisoned".In Bram Stoker's short story "The Burial of
Rats", the narrator advises he has a case of Hobson's Choice while being
chased by villains. The story was written around 1874. The Terminal Experiment, a 1995 science
fiction novel by Robert J. Sawyer, was originally serialised under the title
Hobson's Choice. Half-Life, a video game
created in 1998 by Valve includes a Hobson's Choice in the final chapter. A
human-like entity, known only as the 'G-Man', offers the protagonist Gordon
Freeman a job, working under his control. If Gordon were to refuse this offer,
he would be killed in an unwinnable battle, thus creating the 'illusion of free
choice'. In Early Edition, the lead
character Gary Hobson is named after the choices he regularly makes during his
adventures. In an episode of Inspector
George Gently, a character claims her resignation was a Hobson's choice,
prompting a debate among other police officers as to who Hobson is. In "Cape May" (The Blacklist season
3, episode 19), Raymond Reddington describes having faced a Hobson's choice in
the previous episode where he was faced with the choice of saving Elizabeth
Keen's baby and losing Elizabeth Keen or losing them both. In his 1984 novel Job: A Comedy of Justice,
Robert A. Heinlein's protagonist is said to have Hobson's Choice when he has
the options of boarding the wrong cruise ship or staying on the island. Remarking about the 1909 Ford Model T, US
industrialist Henry Ford is credited as saying “Any customer can have a car
painted any color that he wants so long as it is black”[19] In 'The Jolly Boys' Outing', a 1989 Christmas
Special episode of Only Fools and Horses, Alan states they are left with
Hobson's Choice after their coach has blown up (due to a dodgy radio, supplied
by Del). There's a rail strike, the last bus has gone, and their coach is out
of action. They can't hitch-hike as there's 27 of them, and the replacement
coach doesn't come till the next morning, thus their only choice is to stay in
Margate for the night. See also
Buckley's Chance Buridan's ass Boulwarism Death and Taxes Locus of control
Morton's fork No-win situation Standard form contract Sophie's Choice Zugzwang
References Barrett, Grant.
"Hobson's Choice", A Way with Words
"Thomas Hobson: Hobson's Choice and Hobson's Conduit".
Historyworks. See Samuel Fisher.
"Rusticus ad academicos in exercitationibus expostulatoriis, apologeticis
quatuor the rustick's alarm to the rabbies or The country correcting the
university and clergy, and ... contesting for the truth ... : in four
apologeticall and expostulatory exercitations : wherein is contained, as well a
general account to all enquirers, as a general answer to all opposers of the
most truly catholike and most truly Christ-like Chistians called Quakers, and
of the true divinity of their doctrine : by way of entire entercourse held in
special with four of the clergies chieftanes, viz, John Owen ... Tho. Danson
... John Tombes ... Rich. Baxter ." Europeana. Retrieved 8 August
2014. See The Spectator with Notes and
General Index, the Twelve Volumes Comprised in Two. Philadelphia: J.J.
Woodward. 1832. p. 272. Retrieved 4 August 2014. via Google Books Ward, Thomas (1853). English Reformation, A
Poem. New York: D.& J. Sadlier & Co. p. 373. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
via Internet Archive See Mill, John
Stuart (1861). Considerations on Representative Government (1 ed.). London:
Parker, Son, & Bourn. p. 145. Retrieved 23 June 2014. via Google Books Mill, John Stuart (1869). The Subjection of
Women (1869 first ed.). London: Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer. pp. 51–2.
Retrieved 28 July 2014. Hobbes, Thomas
(1982) [1651]. Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth,
Ecclesiastical and Civil. New York: Viking Press. Martinich, A. P. (1999). Hobbes: A Biography.
Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-49583-7. Martin, Gary. "Hobson's Choice". The
Phrase Finder. Archived from the original on 6 March 2009. Retrieved 7 August
2010. "The Hobbesian Trap"
(PDF). 21 September 2010. Retrieved 8 April 2012. "Sunday Lexico-Neuroticism".
boaltalk.blogspot.com. 27 July 2008. Retrieved 7 August 2010. Levy, Jacob (10 June 2003). "The Volokh
Conspiracy". volokh.com. Retrieved 7 August 2010. Oxford English Dictionary, Editor:
"Amazingly, some writers have confused the obscure Thomas Hobson with his
famous contemporary, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. The resulting malapropism
is beautifully grotesque". Garner, Bryan (1995). A Dictionary of Modern
Legal Usage (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 404–405.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/437/617/ "Monell v. Department of Soc. Svcs. -
436 U.S. 658 (1978)". justicia.com. US Supreme Court. 6 June 1978. 436
U.S. 658. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
"MEC for Education: Kwazulu-Natal and Others v Pillay (CCT 51/06)
[2007] ZACC 21; 2008 (1) SA 474 (CC); 2008 (2) BCLR 99 (CC) (5 October
2007)". www.saflii.org. Snicket,
Lemony (2004) The Grim Grotto, New York: HarperCollins Publishers p.145 -
147 Henry Ford in collaboration with
Samuel Crowther in My Life and Work. 1922. Page 72 External links Chisholm,
Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hobson's Choice" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 13
(11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 553. Categories: English-language
idiomsFree willMetaphors referring to peopleDilemmas. Refs.: H. P. Grice and D.
F. Pears, The philosophy of action, Pears, Choosing and deciding. The H. P.
Grice Papers, BANC.
hohfeld,
of Stanford and Yale. His main contribution to moral theory was his
identification of EIGHT fundamental conceptions: One person X has a duty to a
second person Y to do some act A when it is required that X to do A for Y. X
has a privilege (or liberty) in face of Y to do A when X has no duty to Y not
to do A. X has a right (or claim) against Y that Y do A when Y has a duty to X
to do A. X has a no-right against Y that Y not do A when Y has a liberty in
face of X to do A. X has a power over Y to effect some consequence C for Y when
there is some voluntary action of X that will bring about C for Y. X has a disability
in face of Y to effect C when there is no action X can perform that will bring
about C for Y. X has a liability in face of Y to effect C when Y has a power to
effect C for X. X has a immunity against Y from C when Y has no power over X to
effect C. Philosophers have adapted Hohfeld’s terminology to express analogous
conceptions. In ethics, these fundamental conceptions provide something like
atoms into which all more complex relationships can be analyzed. Semantically,
these conceptions reveal pairs of correlatives, such as a claim of X against Y
and a duty of Y to X, each of which IMPLIES the other, and pairs of opposites,
such as a duty of X to Y and a liberty of Y in face of X, which are
contradictories. In the theory of rights, his distinctions between liberties,
claims, powers, and immunities are often used to reveal ambiguities in the
language of rights or to classify species of rights – Grice thought this was
“all implicatural, and due to an inability to understand Hohfeld.”
hölderlin:
studied
at Tübingen, where he befriended Schelling and Hegel, and at Jena, where he met
Schiller and Fichte. Since Hölderlin never held an academic position or
published any of his philosophical writings, his influence on philosophy was
primarily through his personality, conversations, and letters. He is widely
viewed as the author of the so-called “Oldest System-Program of German
Idealism,” a fragment that culminates in an exaltation of poetry and a call for
a new “mythology of reason.” This theme is illustrated in the novel Hyperion
(1797/99), which criticizes the subjective heroism of ethical idealism,
emphasizes the sacred character of nature, and attempts to conflate religion
and art as “overseers of reason.” In his veneration of nature and objections to
Fichte’s treatment of the “Not-I,” Hölderlin echoed Schelling’s
Naturphilosophie. In his Hellenism and his critique of the “philosophy of reflection”
(see Ueber Sein und Urteil [“On Being and Judgment”]) he anticipated and
influenced Hegel. In Hölderlin’s exaltation of art as alone capable of
revealing the nature of reality, he betrayed a debt to Schiller and anticipated
Romanticism. However, his view of the poet possesses a tragic dimension quite
foreign to Schelling and the younger Romantics. The artist, as the interpreter
of divine nature, mediates between the gods and men, but for this very reason
is estranged from his fellows. This aspect of Hölderlin’s thought influenced
Heidegger.
holism: From Grecian ‘holon,’ Latin ‘totum.’ “One
of Quine’s dogma of empiricism – the one I and Sir Peter had not the slightest
intereset in!” – Grice. Holism is one of a wide variety of theses that in one
way or another affirm the equal or greater reality or the explanatory necessity
of the whole of some system in relation to its parts. In philosophy, the issues
of holism (the word is more reasonably, but less often, spelled ‘wholism’) have
appeared Hohenheim, Theophrastus Bombastus von holism 390 4065h-l.qxd
08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 390 traditionally in the philosophy of biology, of
psychology, and especially of the human sciences. In the context of
description, holism with respect to some system maintains that the whole has
some properties that its parts lack. This doctrine will ordinarily be trivially
true unless it is further held, in the thesis of descriptive emergentism, that
these properties of the whole cannot be defined by properties of the parts. The
view that all properties of the wholes in question can be so defined is
descriptive individualism. In the context of explanation, holism with respect
to some object or system maintains either (1) that the laws of the more complex
cases in it are not deducible by way of any composition laws or laws of
coexistence from the laws of the less complex cases (e.g., that the laws of the
behavior of people in groups are not deducible by composition laws or laws of
coexistence from the laws of solitary behavior), or (2) that all the variables
that constitute the system interact with each other. This denial of
deducibility is known also as metaphysical or methodological holism, whereas
affirming the deducibility is methodological individualism. In a special case
of explanatory holism that presupposes descriptive emergentism, holism is
sometimes understood as the thesis that with respect to some system the whole
has properties that interact “back” with the properties of its parts. In the
philosophy of biology, any of these forms of holism may be known as vitalism,
while in the philosophy of psychology they have been called Gestalt doctrine.
In the philosophy of the social sciences, where ‘holism’ has had its most
common use in philosophy, the many issues have often been reduced to that of
metaphysical holism versus methodological individualism. This terminology
reflected the positivists’ belief that holism was non-empirical in postulating
social “wholes” or the reality of society beyond individual persons and their
properties and relations (as in Durkheim and other, mostly Continental,
thinkers), while individualism was non-metaphysical (i.e., empirical) in
relying ultimately only on observable properties in describing and explaining
social phenomena. More recently, ‘holism’ has acquired additional uses in
philosophy, especially in epistemology and philosophy of language. Doxastic or
epistemic holism are theses about the “web of belief,” usually something to the
effect that a person’s beliefs are so connected that their change on any topic
may affect their content on any other topic or, perhaps, that the beliefs of a
rational person are so connected. Semantic or meaning holism have both been
used to denote either the thesis that the meanings of all terms (or sentences)
in a language are so connected that any change of meaning in one of them may
change any other meaning, or the thesis that changes of belief entail changes
of meaning. Cited by Grice, “In defense of a dogma” “My defense of the other
dogma must be left for another longer day” Duhem, Pierre-Maurice-Marie,
physicist who wrote extensively on the history and philosophy of science. Like
Georg Helm, Wilhelm Ostwald, and others, he was an energeticist, believing
generalized thermodynamics to be the foundation of all of physics and
chemistry. Duhem spent his whole scientific life advancing energetics, from his
failed dissertation in physics a version of which was accepted as a
dissertation in mathematics, published as Le potentiel thermodynamique 6, to
his mature treatise, Traité d’énergétique 1. His scientific legacy includes the
Gibbs-Duhem and DuhemMargules equations. Possibly because his work was
considered threatening by the Parisian scientific establishment or because of
his right-wing politics and fervent Catholicism, he never obtained the position
he merited in the intellectual world of Paris. He taught at the provincial
universities of Lille, Rennes, and, finally, Bordeaux. Duhem’s work in the
history and philosophy of science can be viewed as a defense of the aims and methods
of energetics; whatever Duhem’s initial motivation, his historical and
philosophical work took on a life of its own. Topics of interest to him
included the relation between history of science and philosophy of science, the
nature of conceptual change, the historical structure of scientific knowledge,
and the relation between science and religion. Duhem was an anti-atomist or
anti-Cartesian; in the contemporary debates about light and magnetism, Duhem’s
anti-atomist stance was also directed against the work of Maxwell. According to
Duhem, atomists resolve the bodies perceived by the senses into smaller,
imperceptible bodies. The explanation of observable phenomena is then referred
to these imperceptible bodies and their motions, suitably combined. Duhem’s
rejection of atomism was based on his instrumentalism or fictionalism: physical
theories are not explanations but representations; they do not reveal the true
nature of matter, but give general rules of which laws are particular cases;
theoretical propositions are not true or false, but convenient or inconvenient.
An important reason for treating physics as nonexplanatory was Duhem’s claim
that there is general consensus in physics and none in metaphysics thus his insistence on the autonomy of
physics from metaphysics. But he also thought that scientific representations
become more complete over time until they gain the status of a natural
classification. Accordingly, Duhem attacked the use of models by some
scientists, e.g. Faraday and Maxwell. Duhem’s rejection of atomism was coupled
with a rejection of inductivism, the doctrine that the only physical principles
are general laws known through induction, based on observation of facts.
Duhem’s rejection forms a series of theses collectively known as the Duhem
thesis: experiments in physics are observations of phenomena accompanied by
interpretations; physicists therefore do not submit single hypotheses, but
whole groups of them, to the control of experiment; thus, experimental evidence
alone cannot conclusively falsify hypotheses. For similar reasons, Duhem
rejected the possibility of a crucial experiment. In his historical studies,
Duhem argued that there were no abrupt discontinuities between medieval and
early modern science the so-called
continuity thesis; that religion played a positive role in the development of
science in the Latin West; and that the history of physics could be seen as a
cumulative whole, defining the direction in which progress could be expected.
Duhem’s philosophical works were discussed by the founders of twentieth-century
philosophy of science, including Mach, Poincaré, the members of the Vienna
Circle, and Popper. A revival of interest in Duhem’s philosophy began with
Quine’s reference in 3 to the Duhem thesis also known as the Duhem-Quine
thesis. As a result, Duhem’s philosophical works were tr. into English as The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory 4
and To Save the Phenomena 9. By contrast, few of Duhem’s extensive historical
works Les origines de la statique 2
vols., 608, Études sur Léonard de Vinci 3 vols., 613, and Système du monde 10
vols., 359, e.g. have been tr., with
five volumes of the Système du monde actually remaining in manuscript form
until 459. Unlike his philosophical work, Duhem’s historical work was not sympathetically
received by his influential contemporaries, notably George Sarton. His supposed
main conclusions were rejected by the next generation of historians of science,
who presented modern science as discontinuous with that of the Middle Ages.
This view was echoed by historically oriented philosophers of science who, from
the early 0s, emphasized discontinuities as a recurrent feature of change in
science e.g. Kuhn in The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions 2.
hologram:
the image of an object in three dimensions created and reproduced by the use of
lasers. Holography is a method for recording and reproducing such images.
Holograms are remarkable in that, unlike normal photographs, every part of them
contains the complete image but in reduced detail. Thus a small square cut from
a hologram can still be laser-illuminated to reveal the whole scene originally
holographed, albeit with loss of resolution. This feature made the hologram
attractive to proponents of the thesis of distribution of function in the
brain, who argued that memories are like holograms, not being located in a
single precise engram – as claimed by advocates of localization of function –
but distributed across perhaps all of the cortex. Although intriguing, the
holographic model of memory storage failed to gain acceptance. Current views
favor D. O. Hebb’s “cell assembly” concept, in which memories are stored in the
connections between a group of neurons.
homœmerum:
an
adjective Grice adored, from Grecian homoiomeres, ‘of like parts’). Aristotle: “A lump of bronze differs
from a statue in being homoeo-merous. The lump of bronze is
divisible into at least two partial lumps of bronze, whereas the statue is not
divisible into statues.” Having parts, no matter how small, that share
the constitutive properties of the whole. The derivative abstract noun is
‘homœomeria’. The Grecian forms of the adjective and of its corresponding
privative ‘anhomoeomerous’ are used by Aristotle to distinguish between (a) non-uniform
parts of living things, e.g., limbs and organs, and (b) biological stuffs,
e.g., blood, bone, sap. In spite of being composed of the four elements, each
biological stuff, when taken individually and without admixtures, is
through-and-through F, where F represents the cluster of the constitutive
properties of that stuff. Thus, if a certain physical volume qualifies as
blood, all its mathematically possible sub-volumes, regardless of size, also
qualify as blood. Blood is thus homoeomerous. By contrast, a face or a stomach
or a leaf are an-homoeomerous: the parts of a face are not a face, etc. In Aristotle’s
system, the homœomeria of the biological stuff is tied to his doctrine of the
infinite divisibility of matter. The homœomerum-heterormerum distinction is
prefigured in Plato (Protagoras 329d). ‘Homœomerous’ is narrow in its application
than ‘homogeneous’ and ‘uniform’. We speak of a homogeneous entity even if the
properties at issue are identically present only in samples that fall above a
certain size. The colour of the sea can be homogeneously or uniformly blue; but
it is heteromerously blue. “homoiomeres” and “homoiomereia” also occur –in the ancient
sources for a pre-Aristotelian philosopher, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, with
reference to the constituent things (“chremata”) involved in his scheme of
universal mixture. Moreover, homœeomeria plays a significant role outside
ancient Grecian (or Griceian) philosophy, notably in twentieth-century accounts
of the contrast between mass terms and count terms or sortals, and the
discussion was introduced by Grice. ANAXAGORAS' THEORY OF
MATTER-I. 17 homoeomerous in Anaxagoras' system falls into one of
these three class. (I. 834), for example, says: 'When he ... by FM Cornford - 1930. Refs.
Grice, “Cornford on Anaxagoras.”
homomorphism:
cf. isomorphism -- in Grice’s model theory of conversation, a structure-preserving
mapping from one structure to another: thus the demonstratum is isomorph with
the implicaturum, since every conversational implicaturum can be arrived via an
argumentum. A structure consists of a domain of objects together with a
function specifying interpretations, with respect to that domain, of the
relation symbols, function symbols, and individual symbols of a given calculus.
Relations, functions, and individuals in different structures for a system like
System GHP correspond to one another if they are interpretations of the same
symbol of GHP. To call a mapping “structure-preserving” is to say, first, that
if objects in the first structure bear a certain relation to one another, then
their images in the second structure (under the mapping) bear the corresponding
relation to one another; second, that the value of a function for a given
object (or ntuple of objects) in the first structure has as its image under the
mapping the value of the corresponding function for the image of the object (or
n-tuple of images) in the second structure; and third, that the image in the
second structure of an object in the first is the corresponding object. An
isomorphism is a homomorphism that is oneto-one and whose inverse is also a
homomorphism.
co-substantia: homoousios.
Athanasius -- early Christian father, bishop, and a leading protagonist in the disputes
concerning Christ’s relationship to God. Through major works like On the
Incarnation, Against the Arians, and Letters on the Holy Spirit, Athanasius
contributed greatly to the classical doctrines of the Incarnation and the
Trinity. Opposing all forms of Arianism, which denies Christ’s divinity and
reduced him to what Grice would call a “creature,” Athanasius teaches, in the
language of the Nicene Creed, that Christ the Son, and likewise the Holy
Spirit, are of the same being as God the Father, cosubstantialis, “homoousios.”
Thus with terminology and concepts drawn from Grecian and Graeco-Roman
philosophy, Athanasius helps to forge the distinctly Christian and
un-Hellenistic doctrine of the eternal tri-une God (“credo quia absurdum est”) who
became enfleshed in time and matter and restored humanity to immortality,
forfeited through sin, by involvement in its condition of corruption and decay.
Homoousios (Greek, ‘of the same substance’), a concept central to the Christian
doctrine of the Trinity, enshrined in the Nicene Creed (Nicaea, “Holy, Holy,
Holy”). It attests that God the Son (and by extension the Spirit) is of one and
the same being or substance (ousia) as the Father. Reflecting the insistence of
Athanasius against Arianism that Christ is God’s eternal, co-equal Son and not
a “creature,” as Grice uses the term, the Nicene “homoousios” is also to be
differentiated from a rival formula, “homoiousios” (Grecian, ‘of SIMILAR substance’),
which affirms merely the Son’s LIKENESS in being to God. Though notoriously and
superficially an argument over one Greek iota, the issue was philosophically
profound and crucial whether or not Jesus of Nazareth incarnated God’s own
being, revealed God’s own truth, and mediated God’s own salvation. If x=x, x is
like x. A horse is like a horse. Grice on implicaturum. “There is only an implicaturum
to the effect that if a horse is a horse a horse is not like a horse.”
“Similarly for Christ and God.” Cicero saw this when he philosophised on ‘idem’
and ‘similis.’
homuncularism
-- Grice on the ‘fallacia homunculi’ Grice borrows
‘homunculus’ from St. Augustine, for a miniature ‘homo’ held to inhabit the
brain (or some other organ) who perceives all the inputs to the sense organs
and initiates all the commands to the muscles. Any theory that posits such an
internal agent risks an infinite regress (what Grice, after Augustine, calls
the ‘fallacia homunculi’) since we can ask whether there is a little man in the
little man’s head, responsible for his perception and action, and so on. Many
familiar views of the mind and its activities seem to require a homunculus. E.
g. models of visual perception that posit an inner picture as its product
apparently require a homunculus to look at the picture, and models of action
that treat intentions as commands to the muscles apparently require a
homunculus to issue the commands. It is never an easy matter to determine
whether a theory is committed to the existence of a homunculus that vitiates
the theory, and in some circumstances, a homunculus can be legitimately posited
at intermediate levels of theory. As Grice says, a homunculus is, shall we say,
a bogey-man (to use a New-World expression) only if he duplicates entire the
talents he is rung in to explain. If one can get a relatively ignorant,
narrow-minded, blind homunculus to produce the intelligent behaviour of the
whole, this is progress. Grice calls a theory (in philosophoical psychology)
that posit such a homunculus “homuncular functionalism.” Paracelsus is credited with the first mention of the
homunculus in De homunculis (c. 1529–1532),
and De natura rerum (1537).
Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Paracelsus.”
horkheimer: philosopher,
the leading theorist of the first generation of the Frankfurt School of
critical theory. Both as director of the Institute for Social Research and in
his early philosophical essays published in the Zeitschrift für
Sozialforschung, Horkheimer set the agenda for the collaborative work of the
Frankfurt School in the social sciences, including analyses of the developments
of state capitalism, the family, modern culture, and fascism. His programmatic
essays on the relation of philosophy and the social sciences long provided the
philosophical basis for Frankfurt School social criticism and research and have
profoundly influenced Habermas’s reformulation of Frankfurt School critical
theory. In these essays, such as “The Present Situation of Social Philosophy
and the Tasks of an Institute for Social Research” (1931), Horkheimer
elaborated a cooperative relation between philosophy and the social sciences
through an interdisciplinary historical materialism. His “Traditional and
Critical Theory” (1937) develops the distinction between “critical” and
“traditional” theories in terms of basic goals: critical theories aim at
emancipating human beings rather than describing reality as it is now. In the
darkest days of World War II Horkheimer began collaborating with Adorno on The
Dialectic of Enlightenment (1941), in which they see the origins of modern
reason and autonomy in the domination of nature and the inner self. This
genealogy of modern reason argues that myth and enlightenment are inseparably
“entwined,” a view proposed primarily to explain the catastrophe in which
Europe found itself. While Horkheimer thought that a revised notion of Hegelian
dialectics might lead beyond this impasse, he never completed this positive
project. Instead, he further developed the critique of instrumental reason in
such works as Eclipse of Reason (1947), where he argues that modern
institutions, including democracy, are under the sway of formal and
instrumental rationality and the imperatives of self-preservation. While he did
little new work after this period, he turned at the end of his life to a
philosophical reinterpretation of religion and the content of religious experience
and concepts, developing a negative theology of the “completely Other.” His
most enduring influence is his clear formulation of the epistemology of
practical and critical social inquiry oriented to human emancipation.
humanism:
Grice distinguishes between a human and a person – so he is more of a
personalist than a humanism. “But the distinction is implicatural.” He was
especially keen on Italian humanism. a
set of presuppositions that assigns to human beings a special position in the
scheme of things. Not just a school of thought or a collection of specific
beliefs or doctrines, humanism is rather a general perspective from which the
world is viewed. That perspective received a gradual yet persistent
articulation during different historical periods and continues to furnish a
central leitmotif of Western civilization. It comes into focus when it is
compared with two competing positions. On the one hand, it can be contrasted
with the emphasis on the supernatural, transcendent domain, which considers
humanity to be radically dependent on divine order. On the other hand, it
resists the tendency to treat humanity scientifically as part of the natural
order, on a par with other living organisms. Occupying the middle position,
humanism discerns in human beings unique capacities and abilities, to be
cultivated and celebrated for their own sake. The word ‘humanism’ came into
general use only in the nineteenth century but was applied to intellectual and
cultural developments in previous eras. A teacher of classical languages and
literatures in Renaissance Italy was described as umanista (contrasted with
legista, teacher of law), and what we today call “the humanities,” in the
fifteenth century was called studia humanitatis, which stood for grammar,
rhetoric, history, literature, and moral philosophy. The inspiration for these
studies came from the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Latin texts; Plato’s
complete works were translated for the first time, and Aristotle’s philosophy
was studied in more accurate versions than those available during the Middle
Ages. The unashamedly humanistic flavor of classical writings had a tremendous
impact on Renaissance scholars. Here, one felt no weight of the supernatural
pressing on the human mind, demanding homage and allegiance. Humanity – with
all its distinct capacities, talents, worries, problems, possibilities – was
the center of interest. It has been said that medieval thinkers philosophized
on their knees, but, bolstered by the new studies, they dared to stand up and to
rise to full stature. Instead of devotional Church Latin, the medium of
expression was the people’s own language – Italian, French, German, English.
Poetical, lyrical self-expression gained momentum, affecting all areas of life.
New paintings showed great interest in human form. Even while depicting
religious scenes, Michelangelo celebrated the human body, investing it with
instrinsic value and dignity. The details of daily life – food, clothing,
musical instruments – as well as nature and landscape – domestic and exotic –
were lovingly examined in paintings and poetry. Imagination was stirred by
stories brought home by the discoverers of new lands and continents, enlarging
the scope of human possibilities as exhibited in the customs and the natural
environments of strange, remote peoples. The humanist mode of thinking deepened
and widened its tradition with the advent of eighteenth-century thinkers. They
included French philosophes like Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau, and other
European and American figures – Bentham, Hume, Lessing, Kant, Franklin, and
Jefferson. Not always agreeing with one another, these thinkers nevertheless
formed a family united in support of such values as freedom, equality,
tolerance, secularism, and cosmopolitanism. Although they championed
untrammeled use of the mind, they also wanted it to be applied in social and
political reform, encouraging individual creativity and exalting the active
over the contemplative life. They believed in the perfectibility of human
nature, the moral sense and responsibility, and the possibility of progress.
The optimistic motif of perfectibility endured in the thinking of nineteenth-
and twentiethcentury humanists, even though the accelerating pace of
industrialization, the growth of urban populations, and the rise in crime,
nationalistic squabbles, and ideological strife leading to largescale inhumane
warfare often put in question the efficacy of humanistic ideals. But even the
depressing run of human experience highlighted the appeal of those ideals, reinforcing
the humanistic faith in the values of endurance, nobility, intelligence,
moderation, flexibility, sympathy, and love. Humanists attribute crucial
importance to education, conceiving of it as an all-around development of
personality and individual talents, marrying science to poetry and culture to
democracy. They champion freedom of thought and opinion, the use of
intelligence and pragmatic research in science and technology, and social and
political systems governed by representative institutions. Believing that it is
possible to live confidently without metaphysical or religious certainty and
that all opinions are open to revision and correction, they see human
flourishing as dependent on open communication, discussion, criticism, and
unforced consensus. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Italian humanism, Holofernes’s
Mantuan, from Petrarca to Valla.”
human
nature – Grice distinguishes very sharply between a human
and a person – a human becomes a person via transubstantiation, a metaphysical
routine – human nature is a quality or group of qualities, belonging to all and
only humans, that explains the kind of being we are. We are all two-footed and
featherless, but ‘featherless biped’ does not explain our socially significant
characteristics. We are also all both animals and rational beings (at least
potentially), and ‘rational animal’ might explain the special features we have
that other kinds of beings, such as angels, do not. The belief that there is a
human nature is part of the wider thesis that all natural kinds have essences.
Acceptance of this position is compatible with many views about the specific
qualities that constitute human nature. In addition to rationality and
embodiment, philosophers have said that it is part of our nature to be wholly
selfinterested, benevolent, envious, sociable, fearful of others, able to speak
and to laugh, and desirous of immortality. Philosophers disagree about how we
are to discover our nature. Some think metaphysical insight into eternal forms
or truths is required, others that we can learn it from observation of biology
or of behavior. Most have assumed that only males display human nature fully,
and that females, even at their best, are imperfect or incomplete exemplars.
Philosophers also disagree on whether human nature determines morality. Some
think that by noting our distinctive features we can infer what God wills us to
do. Others think that our nature shows at most the limits of what morality can
require, since it would plainly be pointless to direct us to ways of living
that our nature makes impossible. Some philosophers have argued that human
nature is plastic and can be shaped in different ways. Others hold that it is
not helpful to think in terms of human nature. They think that although we
share features as members of a biological species, our other qualities are
socially constructed. If the differences between male and female reflect
cultural patterns of child rearing, work, and the distribution of power, our
biologically common features do not explain our important characteristics and
so do not constitute a nature.
Grice
and the humboldts: Born in Potsdam, Wilhelm, with his
brother Alexander, was educated by private tutors in the enlightened style
thought suitable for a Prussian philosopher.This included Grice’s stuff: philosophy
and the two classical languages, with a bit of ancient and modern history. After
his university studies in law at Frankfurt an der Oder and Göttingen,
Humboldt’s career was divided among assorted posts, philosophising on a broad
range of topics, notably his first loves, like Grice’s: philosophy and the
classical languages. Humboldt’s broad-ranging works reveal the important
influences of Herder in his conception of history and culture, Kant and Fichte
in philosophy, and the French “Ideologues” in semiotics. His most enduring work
has proved to be the Introduction to his massive study of language. Humboldt
maintains that language, as a vital and dynamic “organism,” is the key to
understanding both the operations of the soul. A language such as Latin
possesses a distinctive inner form that shapes, in a way reminiscent of Kant’s
more general categories, the subjective experience, the world-view, and
ultimately the institutions of Rome. While all philosophers are indebted to
both his empirical studies and his theoretical insights on culture, such
philosophers as Dilthey and Cassirer acknowledge him as establishing the Latin language
as a central concern for the humanities. H. P. Grice, “Alexander and all the
Humboldts.”
hume:–
“My unfavourite philosopher” – Grice. “His real name was “Home””. See Grice’s
“Humean projection,” or “Humeian projection,” “I like his spread.” Philosopher
who may be aptly considered the leading neo-skeptic of the early modern period.
Many of Hume’s immediate predecessors (Descartes, Bayle, and Berkeley) had
grappled with important elements of skepticism. Hume consciously incorporated
many of these same elements into a philosophical system that manages to be both
skeptical and constructive. Born and educated in Edinburgh, Hume spent three
years (1734–37) in France writing the penultimate draft of A Treatise of Human
Nature. In middle life, in addition to writing a wide-ranging set of essays and
short treatises and a long History of England, he served briefly as companion to
a mad nobleman, then as a military attaché, before becoming librarian of the
Advocates Library in Edinburgh. In 1763 he served as private secretary to Lord
Hertford, the British ambassador in Paris; in 1765 he became secretary to the
embassy there and then served as chargé d’affaires. In 1767–68 he served in London
as under-secretary of state for the Northern Department. He retired to
Edinburgh in 1769 and died there. Hume’s early care was chiefly in the hands of
his widowed mother, who reported that young David was “uncommon wake-minded”
(i.e., uncommonly acute, in the local dialect of the period). His earliest
surviving letter, written in 1727, indicates that even at sixteen he was
engaged in the study that resulted in the publication (1739) of the first two
volumes of A Treatise of Human Nature. By the time he left college (c.1726) he
had a thorough grounding in classical authors, especially Cicero and the major
Latin poets; in natural philosophy (particularly that of Boyle) and
mathematics; in logic or theory of knowledge, metaphysics, and moral
philosophy; and in history. His early reading included many of the major
English and French poets and essayists of the period. He reports that in the
three years ending about March 1734, he read “most of the celebrated Books in
Latin, French & English,” and also learned Italian. Thus, although Hume’s
views are often supposed to result from his engagement with only one or two
philosophers (with either Locke and Berkeley, or Hutcheson or Newton), the
breadth of his reading suggests that no single writer or philosophical
tradition provides the comprehensive key to his thought. Hume’s most often
cited works include A Treatise of Human Nature (three volumes, 1739–40); an
Abstract (1740) of volumes 1 and 2 of the Treatise; a collection of
approximately forty essays (Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, first
published, for the most part, between 1741 and 1752); An Enquiry concerning
Human Understanding (1748); An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals
(1751); The Natural History of Religion (1757); a six-volume History of England
from Roman times to 1688 (1754–62); a brief autobiography, My Own Life (1777);
and Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1778). Hume’s neo-skeptical stance
manifests itself in each of these works. He insists that philosophy “cannot go
beyond experience; and any hypothesis, that pretends to discover the ultimate
original qualities of human nature, ought at first to be rejected as
presumptuous and chimerical.” He says of the Treatise that it “is very
sceptical, and tends to give us a notion of the imperfections and narrow limits
of the human understanding.” But he goes well beyond the conventional
recognition of human limitations; from his skeptical starting place he projects
an observationally based science of human nature, and produces a comprehensive
and constructive account of human nature and experience. Hume begins the
Treatise with a discussion of the “elements” of his philosophy. Arguing that it
is natural philosophers (scientists) who should explain how sensation works, he
focuses on those entities that are the immediate and only objects present to
the mind. These he calls “perceptions” and distinguishes into two kinds,
“impressions” and “ideas.” Hume initially suggests that impressions (of which
there are two kinds: of sensation and of reflection) are more forceful or
vivacious than ideas, but some ideas (those of memory, e.g.) do sometimes take
on enough force and vivacity to be called impressions, and belief also adds
sufficient force and vivacity to ideas to make them practically
indistinguishable from impressions. In the end we find that impressions are
clearly distinguished from ideas only insofar as ideas are always causally
dependent on impressions. Thomas Reid charged that the allegedly representative
theory of perception found in Descartes and Locke had served as a philosophical
Trojan horse leading directly to skeptical despair. Hume was fully aware of the
skeptical implications of this theory. He knew well those sections of Bayle and
Locke that reveal the inadequacy of Descartes’s attempts to prove that there is
an external world, and also appreciated the force of the objections brought by
Bayle and Berkeley against the primary–secondary quality distinction championed
by Locke. Hume adopted the view that the immediate objects of the mind are
always “perceptions” because he thought it correct, and in spite of the fact
that it leads to skepticism about the external world. Satisfied that the battle
to establish absolutely reliable links between thought and reality had been
fought and lost, Hume made no attempt to explain how our impressions of
sensation are linked to their entirely “unknown causes.” He instead focused
exclusively on perceptions qua objects of mind: As to those impressions, which
arise from the senses, their ultimate cause is, in my opinion, perfectly
inexplicable by human reason, and ‘twill always be impossible to decide with
certainty, whether they arise immediately from the object, or are produc’d by
the creative power of the mind, or are deriv’d from the author of our being.
Nor is such a question any way material to our present purpose. We may draw
inferences from the coherence of our perceptions, whether they be true or
false; whether they represent nature justly, or be mere illusions of the
senses. Book I of the Treatise is an effort to show how our perceptions cohere
to form certain fundamental notions (those of space and time, causal
connection, external and independent existence, and mind) in which, skeptical doubts
notwithstanding, we repose belief and on which “life and action entirely
depend.” According to Hume, we have no direct impressions of space and time,
and yet the ideas of space and time are essential to our existence. This he
explains by tracing our idea of space to a “manner of appearance”: by means of
two senses, sight and touch, we have impressions that array themselves as so
many points on a contrasting background; the imagination transforms these
particulars of experience into a “compound impression, which represents
extension” or the abstract idea of space itself. Our idea of time is, mutatis
mutandis, accounted for in the same way: “As ‘tis from the disposition of
visible and tangible objects we receive the idea of space, so from the
succession of ideas and impressions we form the idea of time.” The abstract
idea of time, like all other abstract ideas, is represented in the imagination
by a “particular individual idea of a determinate quantity and quality” joined
to a term, ‘time’, that has general reference. Hume is often credited with
denying there is physical necessity and that we have any idea of necessary
connection. This interpretation significantly distorts his intent. Hume was
convinced by the Cartesians, and especially by Malebranche, that neither the
senses nor reason can establish that one object (a cause) is connected together
with another object (an effect) in such a way that the presence of the one
entails the existence of the other. Experience reveals only that objects
thought to be causally related are contiguous in time and space, that the cause
is prior to the effect, and that similar objects have been constantly
associated in this way. These are the defining, perceptible features of the
causal relation. And yet there seems to be more to the matter. “There is,” he
says, a “NECESSARY CONNECTION to be taken into consideration,” and our belief
in that relation must be explained. Despite our demonstrated inability to see
or prove that there are necessary causal connections, we continue to think and
act as if we had knowledge of them. We act, for example, as though the future
will necessarily resemble the past, and “wou’d appear ridiculous” if we were to
say “that ‘tis only probable the sun will rise to-morrow, or that all men must
dye.” To explain this phenomenon Hume asks us to imagine what life would have
been like for Adam, suddenly brought to life in the midst of the world. Adam
would have been unable to make even the simplest predictions about the future
behavior of objects. He would not have been able to predict that one moving
billiard ball, striking a second, would cause the second to move. And yet we,
endowed with the same faculties, can not only make, but are unable to resist
making, this and countless other such predictions. What is the difference
between ourselves and this putative Adam? Experience. We have experienced the
constant conjunction (the invariant succession of paired objects or events) of
particular causes and effects and, although our experience never includes even a
glimpse of a causal connection, it does arouse in us an expectation that a
particular event (a “cause”) will be followed by another event (an “effect”)
previously and constantly associated with it. Regularities of experience give
rise to these feelings, and thus determine the mind to transfer its attention
from a present impression to the idea of an absent but associated object. The
idea of necessary connection is copied from these feelings. The idea has its
foundation in the mind and is projected onto the world, but there is
nonetheless such an idea. That there is an objective physical necessity to
which this idea corresponds is an untestable hypothesis, nor would
demonstrating that such necessary connections had held in the past guarantee
that they will hold in the future. Thus, while not denying that there may be
physical necessity or that there is an idea of necessary connection, Hume
remains a skeptic about causal necessity. Hume’s account of our belief in
future effects or absent causes – of the process of mind that enables us to
plan effectively – is a part of this same explanation. Such belief involves an
idea or conception of the entity believed in, but is clearly different from
mere conception without belief. This difference cannot be explained by supposing
that some further idea, an idea of belief itself, is present when we believe,
but absent when we merely conceive. There is no such idea. Moreover, given the
mind’s ability to freely join together any two consistent ideas, if such an
idea were available we by an act of will could, contrary to experience, combine
the idea of belief with any other idea, and by so doing cause ourselves to
believe anything. Consequently, Hume concludes that belief can only be a
“different MANNER of conceiving an object”; it is a livelier, firmer, more
vivid and intense conception. Belief in certain “matters of fact” – the belief
that because some event or object is now being experienced, some other event or
object not yet available to experience will in the future be experienced – is
brought about by previous experience of the constant conjunction of two
impressions. These two impressions have been associated together in such a way
that the experience of one of them automatically gives rise to an idea of the
other, and has the effect of transferring the force or liveliness of the
impression to the associated idea, thereby causing this idea to be believed or
to take on the lively character of an impression. Our beliefs in continuing and
independently existing objects and in our own continuing selves are, on Hume’s
account, beliefs in “fictions,” or in entities entirely beyond all experience.
We have impressions that we naturally but mistakenly suppose to be continuing,
external objects, but analysis quickly reveals that these impressions are by
their very nature fleeting and observer-dependent. Moreover, none of our
impressions provides us with a distinctive mark or evidence of an external
origin. Similarly, when we focus on our own minds, we experience only a
sequence of impressions and ideas, and never encounter the mind or self in
which these perceptions are supposed to inhere. To ourselves we appear to be
merely “a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each
other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and
movement.” How do we, then, come to believe in external objects or our own
selves and self-identity? Neither reason nor the senses, working with
impressions and ideas, provide anything like compelling proof of the existence
of continuing, external objects, or of a continuing, unified self. Indeed,
these two faculties cannot so much as account for our belief in objects or
selves. If we had only reason and the senses, the faculties championed by,
respectively, the rationalists and empiricists, we would be mired in a
debilitating and destructive uncertainty. So unfortunate an outcome is avoided
only by the operation of an apparently unreliable third faculty, the
imagination. It, by means of what appear to be a series of outright mistakes
and trivial suggestions, leads us to believe in our own selves and in
independently existing objects. The skepticism of the philosophers is in this
way both confirmed (we can provide no arguments, e.g., proving the existence of
the external world) and shown to be of little practical import. An irrational
faculty, the imagination, saves us from the excesses of philosophy: “Philosophy
wou’d render us entirely Pyrrhonian,” says Hume, were not nature, in the form
of the imagination, too strong for it. Books II and III of the Treatise and the
Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals reveal Hume’s concern to explain
our moral behavior and judgments in a manner that is consistent with his
science of human nature, but which nonetheless recognizes the irreducible moral
content of these judgments. Thus he attempted to rescue the passions from the
ad hoc explanations and negative assessments of his predecessors. From the time
of Plato and the Stoics the passions had often been characterized as irrational
and unnatural animal elements that, given their head, would undermine
humankind’s true, rational nature. Hume’s most famous remark on the subject of
the passions, “Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions,”
will be better understood if read in this context (and if it is remembered that
he also claims that reason can and does extinguish some passions). In contrast
to the long-standing orthodoxy, Hume assumes that the passions constitute an
integral and legitimate part of human nature, a part that can be explained
without recourse to physical or metaphysical speculation. The passions can be
treated as of a piece with other perceptions: they are secondary impressions
(“impressions of reflection”) that derive from prior impressions and ideas.
Some passions (pride and humility, love and hatred) may be characterized as
indirect; i.e., they arise as the result of a double relation of impressions
and ideas that gives them one form of intentional character. These passions
have both assignable causes (typically, the qualities of some person or some
object belonging to a person) and a kind of indirect object (the person with
the qualities or objects just mentioned); the object of pride or humility is
always oneself, while the object of love or hatred is always another. The
direct passions (desire, aversion, hope, fear, etc.) are feelings caused
immediately by pleasure or pain, or the prospect thereof, and take entities or
events as their intentional objects. In his account of the will Hume claims
that while all human actions are caused, they are nonetheless free. He argues
that our ascriptions of causal connection have all the same foundation, namely,
the observation of a “uniform and regular conjunction” of one object with
another. Given that in the course of human affairs we observe “the same
uniformity and regular operation of natural principles” found in the physical
world, and that this uniformity results in an expectation of exactly the sort
produced by physical regularities, it follows that there is no “negation of
necessity and causes,” or no liberty of indifference. The will, that “internal
impression we feel and are conscious of when we knowingly give rise to” any
action or thought, is an effect always linked (by constant conjunction and the
resulting feeling of expectation) to some prior cause. But, insofar as our
actions are not forcibly constrained or hindered, we do remain free in another
sense: we retain a liberty of spontaneity. Moreover, only freedom in this
latter sense is consistent with morality. A liberty of indifference, the
possibility of uncaused actions, would undercut moral assessment, for such
assessments presuppose that actions are causally linked to motives. Morality is
for Hume an entirely human affair founded on human nature and the circumstances
of human life (one form of naturalism). We as a species possess several notable
dispositions that, over time, have given rise to morality. These include a
disposition to form bonded family groups, a disposition (sympathy) to
communicate and thus share feelings, a disposition – the moral sense – to feel
approbation and disapprobation in response to the actions of others, and a
disposition to form general rules. Our disposition to form family groups
results in small social units in which a natural generosity operates. The fact
that such generosity is possible shows that the egoists are mistaken, and
provides a foundation for the distinction between virtue and vice. The fact
that the moral sense responds differently to distinctive motivations – we feel
approbation in response to well-intended actions, disapprobation in response to
ill-intended ones – means that our moral assessments have an affective but
nonetheless cognitive foundation. To claim that Nero was vicious is to make a
judgment about Nero’s motives or character in consequence of an observation of
him that has caused an impartial observer to feel a unique sentiment of
disapprobation. That our moral judgments have this affective foundation
accounts for the practical and motivational character of morality. Reason is
“perfectly inert,” and hence our practical, actionguiding moral distinctions
must derive from the sentiments or feelings provided by our moral sense. Hume
distinguishes, however, between the “natural virtues” (generosity, benevolence,
e.g.) and the “artificial virtues” (justice, allegiance, e.g.). These differ in
that the former not only produce good on each occasion of their practice, but
are also on every occasion approved. In contrast, any particular instantiation
of justice may be “contrary to the public good” and be approved only insofar as
it is entailed by “a general scheme or system of action, which is
advantageous.” The artificial virtues differ also in being the result of
contrivance arising from “the circumstances and necessities of life.” In our
original condition we did not need the artificial virtues because our natural
dispositions and responses were adequate to maintain the order of small,
kinshipbased units. But as human numbers increased, so too did the scarcity of
some material goods lead to an increase in the possibility of conflict,
particularly over property, between these units. As a consequence, and out of
self-interest, our ancestors were gradually led to establish conventions
governing property and its exchange. In the early stages of this necessary
development our disposition to form general rules was an indispensable
component; at later stages, sympathy enables many individuals to pursue the
artificial virtues from a combination of self-interest and a concern for
others, thus giving the fully developed artificial virtues a foundation in two
kinds of motivation. Hume’s Enquiry concerning Human Understanding and his
Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals represent his effort to “recast”
important aspects of the Treatise into more accessible form. His Essays extend
his human-centered philosophical analysis to political institutions, economics,
and literary criticism. His best-selling History of England provides, among
much else, an extended historical analysis of competing Whig and Tory claims
about the origin and nature of the British constitution. Hume’s trenchant
critique of religion is found principally in his Enquiry concerning Human
Understanding, Natural History of Religion, and Dialogues. In an effort to curb
the excesses of religious dogmatism, Hume focuses his attention on miracles, on
the argument from design, and on the origin of the idea of monotheism. Miracles
are putative facts used to justify a commitment to certain creeds. Such
commitments are often maintained with a mind-numbing tenacity and a disruptive
intolerance toward contrary views. Hume argues that the widely held view of
miracles as violations of a law of nature is incoherent, that the evidence for
even the most likely miracle will always be counterbalanced by the evidence
establishing the law of nature that the miracle allegedly violates, and that
the evidence supporting any given miracle is necessarily suspect. His argument
leaves open the possibility that violations of the laws of nature may have
occurred, but shows that beliefs about such events lack the force of evidence
needed to justify the arrogance and intolerance that characterizes so many of
the religious. Hume’s critique of the argument from design has a similar
effect. This argument purports to show that our well-ordered universe must be
the effect of a supremely intelligent cause, that each aspect of this divine
creation is well designed to fulfill some beneficial end, and that these
effects show us that the Deity is caring and benevolent. Hume shows that these
conclusions go well beyond the available evidence. The pleasant and
well-designed features of the world are balanced by a good measure of the
unpleasant and the plainly botched. Our knowledge of causal connections depends
on the experience of constant conjunctions. Such connections cause the vivacity
of a present impression to be transferred to the idea associated with it, and
leave us believing in that idea. But in this case the effect to be explained,
the universe, is unique, and its cause unknown. Consequently, we cannot
possibly have experiential grounds for any kind of inference about this cause.
On experiential grounds the most we can say is that there is a massive, mixed
effect, and, as we have through experience come to believe that effects have
causes commensurate to them, this effect probably does have a commensurately
large and mixed cause. Furthermore, as the effect is remotely like the products
of human manufacture, we can say “that the cause or causes of order in the
universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence.” There is
indeed an inference to be drawn from the unique effect in question (the
universe) to the cause of that effect, but it is not the “argument” of the
theologians nor does it in any way support sectarian pretension or intolerance.
The Natural History of Religion focuses on the question of the origin of
religion in human nature, and delivers a thoroughly naturalistic answer: the
widespread but not universal belief in invisible and intelligent power can be
traced to derivative and easily perverted principles of our nature. Primitive
peoples found physical nature not an orderly whole produced by a beneficent
designer, but arbitrary and fearsome, and they came to understand the activities
of nature as the effect of petty powers that could, through propitiating
worship, be influenced to ameliorate their lives. Subsequently, the same fears
and perceptions transformed polytheism into monotheism, the view that a single,
omnipotent being created and still controls the world and all that transpires
in it. From this conclusion Hume goes on to argue that monotheism, apparently
the more sophisticated position, is morally retrograde. Monotheism tends
naturally toward zeal and intolerance, encourages debasing, “monkish virtues,”
and proves itself a danger to society: it is a source of violence and a cause
of immorality. In contrast, polytheism, which Hume here regards as a form of
atheism, is tolerant of diversity and encourages genuine virtues that improve
humankind. From a moral point of view, at least this one form of atheism is
superior to theism.
husserl: philosopher
and founder of phenomenology. Born in Prossnits (now Proste v jov in the Czech
Republic), he studied science and philosophy at Leipzig, mathematics and
philosophy at Berlin, and philosophy and psychology at Vienna and Halle. He taught
at Halle, Göttingen, and Freiburg (1916–28). Husserl and Frege were the
founders of the two major twentiethcentury trends. Through his work and his
influence on Russell, Wittgenstein, and others, Frege inspired the movement
known as analytic philosophy, while Husserl, through his work and his influence
on Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and others, established the movement known
as phenomenology. Husserl began his academic life as a mathematician. He
studied at Berlin with Kronecker and Weierstrass and wrote a dissertation in
mathematics at Vienna. There, influenced by Brentano, his interests turned
toward philosohumors Husserl, Edmund 403 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page
403 phy and psychology but remained related to mathematics. His habilitation,
written at Halle, was a psychological-philosophical study of the concept of
number and led to his first book, The Philosophy of Arithmetic (1891). Husserl
distinguishes between numbers given intuitively and those symbolically
intended. The former are given as the objective correlates of acts of counting;
when we count things set out before us, we constitute groups, and these groups
can be compared with each other as more and less. In this way the first few
numbers in the number series can be intuitively presented. Although most
numbers are only symbolically intended, their sense as numbers is derived from
those that are intuitively given. During 1890–1900 Husserl expanded his
philosophical concerns from mathematics to logic and the general theory of knowledge,
and his reflections culminated in his Logical Investigations (1900–01). The
work is made up of six investigations preceded by a volume of prolegomena. The
prolegomena are a sustained and effective critique of psychologism, the
doctrine that reduces logical entities, such as propositions, universals, and
numbers, to mental states or mental activities. Husserl insists on the
objectivity of such targets of consciousness and shows the incoherence of
reducing them to the activities of mind. The rest of the work examines signs
and words, abstraction, parts and wholes, logical grammar, the notion of
presentation, and truth and evidence. His earlier distinction between intuitive
presentation and symbolic intention is now expanded from our awareness of
numbers to the awareness of all sorts of objects of consciousness. The contrast
between empty intention and fulfillment or intuition is applied to perceptual
objects, and it is also applied to what he calls categorial objects: states of
affairs, relationships, causal connections, and the like. Husserl claims that
we can have an intellectual intuition of such things and he describes this
intuition; it occurs when we articulate an object as having certain features or
relationships. The formal structure of categorial objects is elegantly related
to the grammatical parts of language. As regards simple material objects,
Husserl observes that we can intend them either emptily or intuitively, but
even when they are intuitively given, they retain sides that are absent and only
cointended by us, so perception itself is a mixture of empty and filled
intentions. The term ‘intentionality’ refers to both empty and filled, or
signitive and intuitive, intentions. It names the relationship consciousness
has toward things, whether those things are directly given or meant only in
their absence. Husserl also shows that the identity of things is given to us
when we see that the object we once intended emptily is the same as what is
actually given to us now. Such identities are given even in perceptual
experience, as the various sides and aspects of things continue to present one
and the same object, but identities are given even more explicitly in
categorial intuition, when we recognize the partial identity between a thing
and its features, or when we directly focus on the identity a thing has with
itself. These phenomena are described under the general rubric of
identitysynthesis. A weakness in the first edition of Logical Investigations
was the fact that Husserl remained somewhat Kantian in it and distinguished
sharply between the thing as it is given to us and the thing-in-itself; he
claimed that in his phenomenology he described only the thing as it is given to
us. In the decade 1900–10, through deeper reflection on our experience of time,
on memory, and on the nature of philosophical thinking, he overcame this
Kantian distinction and claimed that the thing-in-itself can be intuitively
given to us as the identity presented in a manifold of appearances. His new
position was expressed in Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and
Phenomenological Philosophy (1913). The book was misinterpreted by many as
adopting a traditional idealism, and many thinkers who admired Husserl’s
earlier work distanced themselves from what he now taught. Husserl published
three more books. Formal and Transcendental Logic (1929) was written right
after his retirement; Cartesian Meditations (1931), which appeared in French
translation, was an elaboration of some lectures he gave in Paris. In addition,
some earlier manuscripts on the experience of time were assembled by Edith
Stein and edited by Heidegger in 1928 as Lectures on the Phenomenology of Inner
Time-Consciousness. Thus, Husserl published only six books, but he amassed a
huge amount of manuscripts, lecture notes, and working papers. He always
retained the spirit of a scientist and did his philosophical work in the manner
of tentative experiments. Many of his books can be seen as compilations of such
experiments rather than as systematic treatises. Because of its exploratory and
developmental character, his thinking does not lend itself to doctrinal
summary. Husserl was of Jewish ancestry, and after his death his papers were in
danger from the Nazi regime; they were covertly taken out of Germany by a
Belgian scholar, Herman Husserl, Edmund Husserl, Edmund 404 4065h-l.qxd
08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 404 Leo Van Breda, who, after World War II, established
the Husserl Archives at Louvain. This institution, with centers at Cologne,
Freiburg, Paris, and New York, has since supervised the critical edition of
many volumes of Husserl’s writings in the series Husserliana. Husserl believes
that things are presented to us in various ways, and that philosophy should be
engaged in precise description of these appearances. It should avoid
constructing large-scale theories and defending ideologies. It should analyze,
e.g., how visual objects are perceived and how they depend on our cognitive
activity of seeing, focusing, moving about, on the correlation of seeing with
touching and grasping, and so on. Philosophy should describe the different ways
in which such “regions of being” as material objects, living things, other
persons, and cultural objects are given, how the past and the present are
intended, how speech, numbers, time and space, and our own bodies are given to
us, and so on. Husserl carries out many such analyses himself and in all of
them distinguishes between the object given and the subjective conscious
activity we must perform to let it be given. The phenomenological description
of the object is called noematic analysis and that of the subjective intentions
is called noetic analysis. The noema is the object as described
phenomenologically, the noesis is the corresponding mental activity, also as
described by phenomenology. The objective and the subjective are correlative
but never reducible to one another. In working out such descriptions we must
get to the essential structures of things. We do so not by just generalizing
over instances we have experienced, but by a process he calls “free variation”
or “imaginative variation.” We attempt in our imagination to remove various
features from the target of our analysis; the removal of some features would
leave the object intact, but the removal of other features would destroy the
object; hence, when we come upon the latter we know we have hit on something
essential to the thing. The method of imaginative variation thus leads to
eidetic intuition, the insight that this or that feature belongs to the eidos,
the essence, of the thing in question. Eidetic intuition is directed not only
toward objects but also toward the various forms of intentionality, as we try
to determine the essence of perception, memory, judging, and the like. Husserl
thinks that the eidetic analysis of intentionality and its objects yields
apodictic truths, truths that can be seen to be necessary. Examples might be
that human beings could not be without a past and future, and that each
material perceptual object has sides and aspects other than those presented at
any moment. Husserl admits that the objects of perceptual experience, material
things, are not given apodictically to perception because they contain parts
that are only emptily intended, but he insists that the phenomenological
reflection on perceptual experience, the reflection that yields the statement
that perception involves a mixture of empty and filled intentions, can be
apodictic: we know apodictically that perception must have a mixture of empty
and filled intentions. Husserl did admit in the 1920s that although
phenomenological experience and statements could be apodictic, they would never
be adequate to what they describe, i.e., further clarifications of what they
signify could always be carried out. This would mean, e.g., that we can be
apodictically sure that human beings could not be what they are if they did not
have a sense of past and future, but what it is to have a past and future
always needs deeper clarification. Husserl has much to say about philosophical
thinking. He distinguishes between the “natural attitude,” our straightforward
involvement with things and the world, and the “phenomenological attitude,” the
reflective point of view from which we carry out philosophical analysis of the
intentions exercised in the natural attitude and the objective correlates of
these intentions. When we enter the phenomenological attitude, we put out of
action or suspend all the intentions and convictions of the natural attitude;
this does not mean that we doubt or negate them, only that we take a distance
from them and contemplate their structure. Husserl calls this suspension the
phenomenological epoché. In our human life we begin, of course, in the natural
attitude, and the name for the processs by which we move to the
phenomenological attitude is called the phenomenological reduction, a “leading
back” from natural beliefs to the reflective consideration of intentions and
their objects. In the phenomenological attitude we look at the intentions that
we normally look through, those that function anonymously in our
straightforward involvement with the world. Throughout his career, Husserl
essayed various “ways to reduction” or arguments to establish philosophy. At
times he tried to model the argument on Descartes’s methodical doubt; at times
he tried to show that the world-directed sciences need the further supplement
of phenomenological reflection if they are to be truly scientific. One of the
special features of the natural attitude is that it simply accepts the world as
a background or horizon for all our more particular experiences and beliefs.
The world is not a large thing nor is it the sum total of things; it is the
horizon or matrix for all particular things and states of affairs. The world as
noema is correlated to our world-belief or world-doxa as noesis. In the
phenomenological attitude we take a distance even toward our natural being in
the world and we describe what it is to have a world. Husserl thinks that this
sort of radical reflection and radical questioning is necessary for beginning philosophy
and entering into what he calls pure or transcendental phenomenology; so long
as we fail to question our world-belief and the world as such, we fail to reach
philosophical purity and our analyses will in fact become parts of worldly
sciences (such as psychology) and will not be philosophical. Husserl
distinguishes between the apophantic and the ontological domains. The
apophantic is the domain of senses and propositions, while the ontological is
the domain of things, states of affairs, relations, and the like. Husserl calls
“apophantic analytics” the science that examines the formal, logical structures
of the apophantic domain and “formal ontology” the science that examines the
formal structures of the ontological domain. The movement between focusing on
the ontological domain and focusing on the apophantic domain occurs within the
natural attitude, but it is described from the phenomenological attitude. This
movement establishes the difference between propositions and states of affairs,
and it permits scientific verification; science is established in the zigzag
motion between focusing on things and focusing on propositions, which are then
verified or falsified when they are confirmed or disconfirmed by the way things
appear. Evidence is the activity of either having a thing in its direct
presence or experiencing the conformity or disconformity between an empty
intention and the intuition that is to fulfill it. There are degrees of
evidence; things can be given more or less fully and more or less distinctly.
Adequation occurs when an intuition fully satisfies an empty intention. Husserl
also makes a helpful distinction between the passive, thoughtless repetition of
words and the activity of explicit judging, in which we distinctly make
judgments on our own. Explicit thinking can itself fall back into passivity or
become “sedimented” as people take it for granted and go on to build further
thinking upon it. Such sedimented thought must be reactivated and its meanings
revived. Passive thinking may harbor contradictions and incoherences; the
application of formal logic presumes judgments that are distinctly executed. In
our reflective phenomenological analyses we describe various intentional acts,
but we also discover the ego as the owner or agent behind these acts. Husserl
distinguishes between the psychological ego, the ego taken as a part of the
world, and the transcendental ego, the ego taken as that which has a world and
is engaged in truth, and hence to some extent transcends the world. He often
comments on the remarkable ambiguity of the ego, which is both a part of the
world (as a human being) and yet transcends the world (as a cognitive center
that possesses or intends the world). The transcendental ego is not separable
from individuals; it is a dimension of every human being. We each have a
transcendental ego, since we are all intentional and rational beings. Husserl
also devoted much effort to analyzing intersubjectivity and tried to show how
other egos and other minds, other centers of conscious and rational awareness,
can be presented and intended. The role of the body, the role of speech and
other modes of communication, and the fact that we all share things and a world
in common are important elements in these analyses. The transcendental ego, the
source of all intentional acts, is constituted through time: it has its own
identity, which is different from that of the identity of things or states of
affairs. The identity of the ego is built up through the flow of experiences
and through memory and anticipation. One of Husserl’s major contributions is
his analysis of time-consciousness and its relation to the identity of the
self, a topic to which he often returns. He distinguishes among the objective
time of the world, the inner time of the flow of our experiences (such as acts
of perception, judgments, and memories), and a third, still deeper level that
he calls “the consciousness of inner time.” It is this third, deepest level,
the consciousness of inner time, that permits even our mental acts to be
experienced as temporal. This deepest level also provides the ultimate context
in which the identity of the ego is constituted. In one way, we achieve our
conscious identity through the memories that we store and recall, but these
memories themselves have to be stitched together by the deepest level of
temporality in order to be recoverable as belonging to one and the same self.
Husserl observes that on this deepest level of the consciousness of inner time,
we never have a simple atomic present: what we come to as ultimate is a moving
form Husserl, Edmund Husserl, Edmund 406 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page
406 that has a retention of the immediate past, a protention of that which is
coming, and a central core. This form of inner time-consciousness, the form of
what Husserl calls “the living present,” is prior even to the ego and is a kind
of apex reached by his philosophical analysis. One of the important themes that
Husserl developed in the last decade of his work is that of the life-world or
Lebenswelt. He claims that scientific and mathematical abstraction has roots in
the prescientific world, the world in which we live. This world has its own
structures of appearance, identification, evidence, and truth, and the
scientific world is established on its basis. One of the tasks of phenomenology
is to show how the idealized entities of science draw their sense from the
life-world. Husserl claims, e.g., that geometrical forms have their roots in
the activity of measuring and in the idealization of the volumes, surfaces,
edges, and intersections we experience in the life-world. The sense of the
scientific world and its entities should not be placed in opposition to the
life-world, but should be shown, by phenomenological analysis, to be a
development of appearances found in it. In addition, the structures and
evidences of the lifeworld itself must be philosophically described. Husserl’s
influence in philosophy has been very great during the entire twentieth
century, especially in Continental Europe. His concept of intentionality is
understood as a way of overcoming the Cartesian dualism between mind and world,
and his study of signs, formal systems, and parts and wholes has been valuable
in structuralism and literary theory. His concept of the life-world has been
used as a way of integrating science with wider forms of human activity, and
his concepts of time and personal identity have been useful in psychoanalytic
theory and existentialism. He has inspired work in the social sciences and
recently his ideas have proved helpful to scholars in cognitive science and
artificial intelligence.
hutcheson: philosopher
who was the chief exponent of the early modern moral sense theory and of a
similar theory postulating a sense of beauty. He was born in Drumalig, Ireland,
and completed his theological training in 1717 at the University of Glasgow,
where he later taught moral philosophy. He was a Presbyterian minister and
founded an academy for Presbyterian youth in Dublin. Sparked by Hobbes’s
thesis, in Leviathan (1651), that human beings always act out of selfinterest,
moral debate in the eighteenth century was preoccupied with the possibility of
a genuine benevolence. Hutcheson characterized his first work, An Inquiry into
the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), as a defense of the
nonegoistic moral sense theory of his more immediate predecessor, Shaftesbury,
against the egoism of Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733). His second work, An Essay
on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections with Illustrations on
the Moral Sense (1728), explores the psychology of human action, apparently
influenced by Butler’s classification of the passions (in his Sermons, 1726).
Hutcheson asserts the existence of several “internal” senses – i.e., capacities
for perceptual responses to concepts (such as one’s idea of Nero’s character),
as opposed to perceptions of physical objects. Among these internal senses are
those of honor, sympathy, morality, and beauty. Only the latter two, however,
are discussed in detail by Hutcheson, who develops his account of each within
the framework of Locke’s empiricist epistemology. For Hutcheson, the idea of
beauty is produced in us when we experience pleasure upon thinking of certain
natural objects or artifacts, just as our idea of moral goodness is occasioned
by the approval we feel toward an agent when we think of her actions, even if
they in no way benefit us. Beauty and goodness (and their opposites) are
analogous to Lockean secondary qualities, such as colors, tastes, smells, and
sounds, in that their existence depends somehow on the minds of perceivers. The
quality the sense of beauty consistently finds pleasurable is a pattern of
“uniformity amidst variety,” while the quality the moral sense invariably
approves is benevolence. A principal reason for thinking we possess a moral
sense, according to Hutcheson, is that we approve of many actions unrelated or
even contrary to our interests – a fact that suggests not all approval is
reason-based. Further, he argues that attempts to explain our feelings of
approval or disapproval without referring to a moral sense are futile: our
reasons are ultimately grounded in the fact that we simply are constituted to
care about others and take pleasure in benevolence (the quality of being
concerned about others for their own sakes). For instance, we approve of
temperance because overindulgence signifies selfishness, and selfishness is
contrary to benevolence. Hutcheson also finds that the ends promoted by the
benevolent person have a tendency to produce the greatest happiness for the
greatest number. Thus, since he regards being motivated by benevolence as what
makes actions morally good, Hutcheson’s theory is a version of motive
utilitarianism. On Hutcheson’s moral psychology, we are motivated, ultimately,
not by reason alone, but by desires that arise in us at the prospect of our own
or others’ pleasure. Hutcheson formulates several quantitative maxims that
purport to relate the strength of motivating desires to the degrees of good, or
benefit, projected for different actions – an analysis that anticipates
Bentham’s hedonic calculus. Hutcheson was also one of the first philosophers to
recognize and make use of the distinction between exciting, or motivating,
reasons and justifying reasons. Exciting reasons are affections, or desires,
ascribed to an agent as motives that explain particular actions. Justifying
reasons derive from the approval of the moral sense and serve to indicate why a
certain action is morally good. The connection between these two kinds of
reasons has been a source of considerable debate. Contemporary critics included
John Balguy (1686–1748), who charged that Hutcheson’s moral theory renders
virtue arbitrary, since it depends on whatever human nature God happened to
give us, which could just as well have been such as to make us delight in
malice. Hutcheson discussed his views in correspondence with Hume, who later
sent Hutcheson the unpublished manuscript of his own account of moral sentiment
(Book III of A Treatise of Human Nature). As a teacher of Adam Smith, Hutcheson
helped shape Smith’s widely influential economic and moral theories.
Hutcheson’s major works also include A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy
(originally published in Latin in 1742) and A System of Moral Philosophy (1755).
huygens:
c., physicist and astronomer who ranked among the leading experimental
scientists of his time and influenced many other thinkers, including Leibniz.
He wrote on physics and astronomy in Latin (Horologium Oscillatorium, 1673; De
Vi Centrifuga, 1703) and in French for the Journal des Scavans. He became a
founding member of the French Academy of Sciences. Huygens ground lenses, built
telescopes, discovered the rings of Saturn, and invented the pendulum clock.
His most popular composition, Cosmotheoros (1699), inspired by Fontenelle,
praises a divine architect and conjectures the possible existence of rational
beings on other planets.
materia:
One
of Grice’s twelve labours is against Materialism -- Cicero’s translation of
hyle, ancient Greek term for matter. Aristotle brought the word into use in
philosophy by contrast with the term for form, and as designating one of the
four causes. By hyle Aristotle usually means ‘that out of which something has
been made’, but he can also mean by it ‘that which has form’. In Aristotelian
philosophy hyle is sometimes also identified with potentiality and with
substrate. Neoplatonists identified hyle with the receptacle of Plato.
forma:
Grice always found ‘logical form’ redundant (“Surely we are not into ‘matter’ –
that would be cheap!”) – “‘materia-forma’ is the unity, as the Grecians well
knew.”- hylomorphism, the doctrine, first taught by Aristotle, that concrete
substance consists of form in matter (hyle). The details of this theory are
explored in the central books of Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Zeta, Eta, and
Theta).
hylozoism:
from Greek hyle, ‘matter’, and zoe, ‘life’), the doctrine that matter is
intrinsically alive, or that all bodies, from the world as a whole down to the
smallest corpuscle, have some degree or some kind of life. It differs from
panpsychism though the distinction is sometimes blurred – in upholding the
universal presence of life per se, rather than of soul or of psychic
attributes. Inasmuch as it may also hold that there are no living entities not
constituted of matter, hylozoism is often criticized by theistic philosophers
as a form of atheism. The term was introduced polemically by Ralph Cudworth,
the seventeenth-century Cambridge Platonist, to help define a position that is
significantly in contrast to soul–body dualism (Pythagoras, Plato, Descartes),
reductive materialism (Democritus, Hobbes), and Aristotelian hylomorphism. So
understood, hylozoism had many advocates in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, among both scientists and naturalistically minded philosophers. In
the twentieth century, the term has come to be used, rather unhelpfully, to
characterize the animistic and naive-vitalist views of the early Greek
philosophers, especially Thales, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, and Empedocles – who
could hardly count as hylozoists in Cudworth’s sophisticated sense.
substantia –
hypostasis, the process of regarding a concept or abstraction as an independent
or real entity. The verb forms ‘hypostatize’ and ‘reify’ designate the acts of
positing objects of a certain sort for the purposes of one’s theory. It is
sometimes implied that a fallacy is involved in so describing these processes
or acts, as in ‘Plato was guilty of the reification of universals’. The issue
turns largely on criteria of ontological commitment.
Hypostasis: Arianism,
diverse but related teachings in early Christianity that subordinated the Son
to God the Father. In reaction the church developed its doctrine of the
Trinity, whereby the Son and Holy Spirit, though distinct persons hypostases,
share with the Father, as his ontological equals, the one being or substance
ousia of God. Arius taught in Alexandria, where, on the hierarchical model of
Middle Platonism, he sharply distinguished Scripture’s transcendent God from
the Logos or Son incarnate in Jesus. The latter, subject to suffering and
humanly obedient to God, is inferior to the immutable Creator, the object of
that obedience. God alone is eternal and ungenerated; the Son, divine not by
nature but by God’s choosing, is generated, with a beginning: the unique
creature, through whom all else is made. The Council of Nicea, in 325,
condemned Arius and favored his enemy Athanasius, affirming the Son’s
creatorhood and full deity, having the same being or substance homoousios as the
Father. Arianism still flourished, evolving into the extreme view that the
Son’s being was neither the same as the Father’s nor like it homoiousios, but
unlike it anomoios. This too was anathematized, by the Council of 381 at
Constantinople, which, ratifying what is commonly called the Nicene Creed,
sealed orthodox Trinitarianism and the equality of the three persons against
Arian subordinationism.
suppositum –
Cicero for ‘hypothesis’, as in ‘hypothetico-deductive’ – a hypothetico-deductive
method, a method of testing hypotheses. Thought to be preferable to the method
of enumerative induction, whose limitations had been decisively demonstrated by
Hume, the hypothetico-deductive (H-D) method has been viewed by many as the
ideal scientific method. It is applied by introducing an explanatory hypothesis
resulting from earlier inductions, a guess, or an act of creative imagination.
The hypothesis is logically conjoined with a statement of initial conditions.
The purely deductive consequences of this conjunction are derived as
predictions, and the statements asserting them are subjected to experimental or
observational test. More formally, given (H • A) P O, H is the hypothesis, A a
statement of initial conditions, and O one of the testable consequences of (H •
A). If the hypothesis is ‘all lead is malleable’, and ‘this piece of lead is
now being hammered’ states the initial conditions, it follows deductively that
‘this piece of lead will change shape’. In deductive logic the schema is
formally invalid, committing the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent.
But repeated occurrences of O can be said to confirm the conjunction of H and
A, or to render it more probable. On the other hand, the schema is deductively
valid (the argument form modus tollens). For this reason, Karl Popper and his
followers think that the H-D method is best employed in seeking falsifications
of theoretical hypotheses. Criticisms of the method point out that infinitely
many hypotheses can explain, in the H-D mode, a given body of data, so that
successful predictions are not probative, and that (following Duhem) it is
impossible to test isolated singular hypotheses because they are always
contained in complex theories any one of whose parts is eliminable in the face
of negative evidence.
I: particularis dedicativa.. See Grice, “Circling the Square
of Opposition.
ichthyological necessity: topic-neutral:
Originally, Ryle’s term for logical constants, such as “of ” “not,” “every.”
They are not endowed with special meanings, and are applicable to discourse
about any subject-matter. They do not refer to any external object but function
to organize meaningful discourse. J. J. C. Smart calls a term topic-neutral if
it is noncommittal about designating something mental or something physical.
Instead, it simply describes an event without judging the question of its
intrinsic nature. In his central-state theory of mind, Smart develops a
topic-neutral analysis of mental expressions and argues that it is possible to
account for the situations described by mental concepts in purely physical and
topic-neutral terms. “In this respect, statements like ‘I am thinking now’ are,
as J. J. C. Smart puts it, topic-neutral. They say that something is going on
within us, something apt for the causing of certain sorts of behaviour, but
they say nothing of the nature of this process.” D. Armstrong, A Materialist
Theory of the Mind
icon
-- Would Ciero prefer the spelling ‘eiconicus’ or ‘iconicus’? We know Pliny
preferred ‘icon.’īcon ,
ŏnis, f., = εἰκών,I.an image, figure:
“fictae ceră icones,” Plin. 8, 54, 80, § 215.Iconicity -- depiction,
pictorial representation, also sometimes called “iconic representation.”
Linguistic representation is conventional: it is only by virtue of a convention
that the word ‘cats’ refers to cats. A picture of a cat, however, seems to
refer to cats by other than conventional means; for viewers can correctly
interpret pictures without special training, whereas people need special
training to learn languages. Though some philosophers, such as Goodman
Languages of Art, deny that depiction involves a non-conventional element, most
are concerned to give an account of what this non-conventional element consists
in. Some hold that it consists in resemblance: pictures refer to their objects
partly by resembling them. Objections to this are that anything resembles
anything else to some degree; and that resemblance is a symmetric and reflexive
relation, whereas depiction is not. Other philosophers avoid direct appeal to
resemblance: Richard Wollheim Painting as an Art argues that depiction holds by
virtue of the intentional deployment of the natural human capacity to see
objects in marked surfaces; and dependence, causal depiction Kendall Walton
Mimesis as Make-Believe argues that depiction holds by virtue of objects
serving as props in reasonably rich and vivid visual games of
make-believe.
forma:
ideatum
– Cicero was a bit at a loss when trying to translate the Greek eidos or idea.
For ‘eidos’ he had forma, but the Romans seemed to have liked the sound of
‘idea,’ and Martianus Capella even coined ‘ideal,’ which Kant and Grice later
used. idea, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whatever is
immediately before the mind when one thinks. The notion of thinking was taken
in a very broad sense; it included perception, memory, and imagination, in
addition to thinking narrowly construed. In connection with perception, ideas
were often (though not always – Berkeley is the exception) held to be
representational images, i.e., images of something. In other contexts, ideas
were taken to be concepts, such as the concept of a horse or of an infinite quantity,
though concepts of these sorts certainly do not appear to be images. An innate
idea was either a concept or a general truth, such as ‘Equals added to equals
yield equals’, that was allegedly not learned but was in some sense always in
the mind. Sometimes, as in Descartes, innate ideas were taken to be cognitive
capacities rather than concepts or general truths, but these capacities, too,
were held to be inborn. An adventitious idea, either an image or a concept, was
an idea accompanied by a judgment concerning the non-mental cause of that idea.
So, a visual image was an adventitious idea provided one judged of that idea
that it was caused by something outside one’s mind, presumably by the object
being seen. From Idea Alston coined ‘ideationalism’ to refer to Grice’s theory.
“Grice’s is an ideationalist theory of meaning, drawn from Locke.”Alston calls Grice an ideationalist,
and Grice takes it as a term of abuse. Grice would occasionally use ‘mental.’
Short and Lewis have "mens.” “terra corpus est, at mentis ignis est;” so
too, “istic est de sole sumptus; isque totus mentis est;” f. from the root ‘men,’ whence ‘memini,’ and ‘comminiscor.’ Lewis and Short render
‘mens’ as ‘the mind, disposition; the heart, soul.’ Lewis and Short have
‘commĭniscor,’ originally conminiscor ), mentus, from ‘miniscor,’ whence also ‘reminiscor,’
stem ‘men,’ whence ‘mens’ and ‘memini,’
cf. Varro, Lingua Latina 6, § 44. Lewis and Short render the verb as,
literally, ‘to ponder carefully, to reflect upon;’ ‘hence, as a result of
reflection; cf. 1. commentor, II.), to devise something by careful thought, to
contrive, invent, feign. Myro is perhaps unaware of the implicatura of ‘mental’
when he qualifies his -ism with ‘modest.’ Grice would seldom use mind (Grecian
nous) or mental (Grecian noetikos vs. æsthetikos). His sympathies go for more
over-arching Grecian terms like the very Aristotelian soul, the anima, i. e.
the psyche and the psychological. Grice discusses G. Myro’s essay, ‘In defence
of a modal mentalism,’ with attending commentary by R. Albritton and S. Cavell.
Grice himself would hardly use mental, mentalist, or mentalism himself, but
perhaps psychologism. Grice would use mental, on occasion, but his Grecianism
was deeply rooted, unlike Myro’s. At Clifton and under Hardie (let us recall he
came up to Oxford under a classics scholarship to enrol in the Lit. Hum.) he
knows that mental translates mentalis translates nous, only ONE part, one
third, actually, of the soul, and even then it may not include the ‘practical
rational’ one! Cf. below on ‘telementational.’
formalism:
Cicero’s translation for ‘idealism,’ or ideism -- the philosophical doctrine
that reality is somehow mind-correlative or mind-coordinated – that the real
objects constituting the “external world” are not independent of cognizing
minds, but exist only as in some way correlative to mental operations. The
doctrine centers on the conception that reality as we understand it reflects
the workings of mind. Perhaps its most radical version is the ancient Oriental
spiritualistic or panpsychistic idea, renewed in Christian Science, that minds
and their thoughts are all there is – that reality is simply the sum total of
the visions (or dreams?) of one or more minds. A dispute has long raged within
the idealist camp over whether “the mind” at issue in such idealistic formulas
was a mind emplaced outside of or behind nature (absolute idealism), or a
nature-pervasive power of rationality of some sort (cosmic idealism), or the
collective impersonal social mind of people in general (social idealism), or
simply the distributive collection of individual minds (personal idealism).
Over the years, the less grandiose versions of the theory came increasingly to
the fore, and in recent times virtually all idealists have construed “the
minds” at issue in their theory as separate individual minds equipped with
socially engendered resources. There are certainly versions of idealism short
of the spiritualistic position of an ontological idealism that (as Kant puts it
at Prolegomena, section 13, n. 2) holds that “there are none but thinking
beings.” Idealism need certainly not go so far as to affirm that mind makes or
constitutes matter; it is quite enough to maintain (e.g.) that all of the
characterizing properties of physical existents resemble phenomenal sensory
properties in representing dispositions to affect mind-endowed creatures in a
certain sort of way, so that these properties have no standing without
reference to minds. Weaker still is an explanatory idealism which merely holds
that an adequate explanation of the real always requires some recourse to the
operations of mind. Historically, positions of the generally idealistic type
have been espoused by numerous thinkers. For example, Berkeley maintained that
“to be [real] is to be perceived” (esse est percipi). And while this does not
seem particularly plausible because of its inherent commitment to omniscience,
it seems more sensible to adopt “to be is to be perceivable” (esse est
percipile esse). For Berkeley, of course, this was a distinction without a
difference: if something is perceivable at all, then God perceives it. But if
we forgo philosophical reliance on God, the matter looks different, and pivots
on the question of what is perceivable for perceivers who are physically
realizable in “the real world,” so that physical existence could be seen – not
so implausibly – as tantamount to observability-in-principle. The three
positions to the effect that real things just exactly are things as philosophy
or as science or as “common sense” takes them to be – positions generally
designated as Scholastic, scientific, and naive realism, respectively – are in
fact versions of epistemic idealism exactly because they see reals as
inherently knowable and do not contemplate mind-transcendence for the real.
Thus, the thesis of naive (“commonsense”) realism that ‘External things exist
exactly as we know them’ sounds realistic or idealistic according as one
stresses the first three words of the dictum or the last four. Any theory of
natural teleology that regards the real as explicable in terms of value could
to this extent be counted as idealistic, in that valuing is by nature a mental
process. To be sure, the good of a creature or species of creatures (e.g.,
their well-being or survival) need not be something mind-represented. But
nevertheless, goods count as such precisely because if the creatures at issue
could think about it, they would adopt them as purposes. It is this
circumstance that renders any sort of teleological explanation at least
conceptually idealistic in nature. Doctrines of this sort have been the
stock-in-trade of philosophy from the days of Plato (think of the Socrates of
the Phaedo) to those of Leibniz, with his insistence that the real world must
be the best possible. And this line of thought has recently surfaced once more
in the controversial “anthropic principle” espoused by some theoretical
physicists. Then too it is possible to contemplate a position along the lines
envisioned in Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre (The Science of Knowledge), which
sees the ideal as providing the determining factor for the real. On such a
view, the real is not characterized by the science we actually have but by the
ideal science that is the telos of our scientific efforts. On this approach,
which Wilhelm Wundt characterized as “ideal-realism” (Idealrealismus; see his
Logik, vol. 1, 2d ed., 1895), the knowledge that achieves adequation to the
real idea, clear and distinct idealism (adaequatio ad rem) by adequately
characterizing the true facts in scientific matters is not the knowledge
actually afforded by present-day science, but only that of an ideal or
perfected science. Over the years, many objections to idealism have been
advanced. Samuel Johnson thought to refute Berkeley’s phenomenalism by kicking
a stone. He conveniently forgot that Berkeley goes to great lengths to provide
for stones – even to the point of invoking the aid of God on their behalf.
Moore pointed to the human hand as an undeniably mind-external material object.
He overlooked that, gesticulate as he would, he would do no more than induce
people to accept the presence of a hand on the basis of the handorientation of
their experience. Peirce’s “Harvard Experiment” of letting go of a stone held
aloft was supposed to establish Scholastic realism because his audience could
not control their expectation of the stone’s falling to earth. But an
uncontrollable expectation is still an expectation, and the realism at issue is
no more than a realistic thought-exposure. Kant’s famous “Refutation of
Idealism” argues that our conception of ourselves as mindendowed beings
presupposes material objects because we view our mind-endowed selves as
existing in an objective temporal order, and such an order requires the
existence of periodic physical processes (clocks, pendula, planetary
regularities) for its establishment. At most, however, this argument succeeds
in showing that such physical processes have to be assumed by minds, the issue
of their actual mind-independent existence remaining unaddressed. (Kantian
realism is an intraexperiential “empirical” realism.) It is sometimes said that
idealism confuses objects with our knowledge of them and conflates the real
with our thought about it. But this charge misses the point. The only reality
with which we inquirers can have any cognitive commerce is reality as we
conceive it to be. Our only information about reality is via the operation of
mind – our only cognitive access to reality is through the mediation of
mind-devised models of it. Perhaps the most common objection to idealism turns
on the supposed mind-independence of the real: “Surely things in nature would
remain substantially unchanged if there were no minds.” This is perfectly
plausible in one sense, namely the causal one – which is why causal idealism
has its problems. But it is certainly not true conceptually. The objector has
to specify just exactly what would remain the same. “Surely roses would smell
just as sweet in a minddenuded world!” Well . . . yes and no. To be sure, the
absence of minds would not change roses. But roses and rose fragrance and
sweetness – and even the size of roses – are all factors whose determination
hinges on such mental operations as smelling, scanning, measuring, and the
like. Mind-requiring processes are needed for something in the world to be
discriminated as a rose and determined to bear certain features.
Identification, classification, property attribution are all required and by
their very nature are all mental operations. To be sure, the role of mind is
here hypothetical. (“If certain interactions with duly constituted observers
took place, then certain outcomes would be noted.”) But the fact remains that
nothing could be discriminated or characterized as a rose in a context where
the prospect of performing suitable mental operations (measuring, smelling,
etc.) is not presupposed. Perhaps the strongest argument favoring idealism is
that any characterization of the real that we can devise is bound to be a
mind-constructed one: our only access to information about what the real is is
through the mediation of mind. What seems right about idealism is inherent in
the fact that in investigating the real we are clearly constrained to use our
own concepts to address our own issues – that we can learn about the real only
in our own terms of reference. But what seems right about realism is that the
answers to the questions we put to the real are provided by reality itself –
whatever the answers may be, they are substantially what they are because it is
reality itself that determines them to be that way. -- idealism, Critical.
ordinary
language – opposed to ‘ideal’ language -- ideal language, a
system of notation that would correct perceived deficiencies of ordinary
language by requiring the structure of expressions to mirror the structure of
that which they represent. The notion that conceptual errors can be corrected
and philosophical problems solved (or dissolved) by properly representing them
in some such system figured prominently in the writings of Leibniz, Carnap,
Russell, Wittgenstein, and Frege, among others. For Russell, the ideal, or
“logically perfect,” language is one in which grammatical form coincides with
logical form, there are no vague or ambiguous expres sions, and no proper names
that fail to denote. Frege’s Begriffsschrift is perhaps the most thorough and
successful execution of the ideal language project. Deductions represented
within this system (or its modern descendants) can be effectively checked for
correctness.
Oxford
idealism: Grice is a member of “The F. H. Bradley Society,” at
Mansfield. -- ideal market, a hypothetical market, used as a tool of economic
analysis, in which all relevant agents are perfectly informed of the price of
the good in question and the cost of its production, and all economic
transactions can be undertaken with no cost. A specific case is a market
exemplifying perfect competition. The term is sometimes extended to apply to an
entire economy consisting of ideal markets for every good. -- ideal observer, a hypothetical being,
possessed of various qualities and traits, whose moral reactions (judgments or
attitudes) to actions, persons, and states of affairs figure centrally in
certain theories of ethics. There are two main versions of ideal observer theory:
(a) those that take the reactions of ideal observers as a standard of the
correctness of moral judgments, and (b) those that analyze the meanings of
moral judgments in terms of the reactions of ideal observers. Theories of the
first sort – ideal observer theories of correctness – hold, e.g., that
judgments like ‘John’s lying to Brenda about her father’s death was wrong
(bad)’ are correct provided any ideal observer would have a negative attitude
toward John’s action. Similarly, ‘Alison’s refusal to divulge confidential
information about her patient was right (good)’ is correct provided any ideal
observer would have a positive attitude toward that action. This version of the
theory can be traced to Adam Smith, who is usually credited with introducing
the concept of an ideal observer into philosophy, though he used the expression
‘impartial spectator’ to refer to the concept. Regarding the correctness of
moral judgments, Smith wrote: “That precise and distinct measure can be found
nowhere but in the sympathetic feelings of the impartial and well-informed
spectator” (A Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759). Theories of a second sort –
ideal observer theories of meaning – take the concept of an ideal observer as
part of the very meaning of ordinary moral judgments. Thus, according to
Roderick Firth (“Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer,” Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, 1952), moral judgments of the form ‘x is good
(bad)’, on this view, mean ‘All ideal observers would feel moral approval
(disapproval) toward x’, and similarly for other moral judgments (where such
approvals and disapprovals are characterized as felt desires having a “demand
quality”). Different conceptions of an ideal observer result from variously
specifying those qualities and traits that characterize such beings. Smith’s
characterization includes being well informed and impartial. However, according
to Firth, an ideal observer must be omniscient; omnipercipient, i.e., having
the ability to imagine vividly any possible events or states of affairs,
including the experiences and subjective states of others; disinterested, i.e.,
having no interests or desires that involve essential reference to any
particular individuals or things; dispassionate; consistent; and otherwise a
“normal” human being. Both versions of the theory face a dilemma: on the one
hand, if ideal observers are richly characterized as impartial, disinterested,
and normal, then since these terms appear to be moral-evaluative terms, appeal
to the reactions of ideal observers (either as a standard of correctness or as
an analysis of meaning) is circular. On the other hand, if ideal observers
receive an impoverished characterization in purely non-evaluative terms, then
since there is no reason to suppose that such ideal observers will often all
agree in their reactions to actions, people, and states of affairs, most moral
judgments will turn out to be incorrect. Grice: “We have to distinguish between
idealism and hegelianism; but the English being as they are, they don’t! And
being English, I shouldn’t, either!” – “There is so-called ‘idealist’ logic; if
so, there is so called ‘idealist implicaturum’” “My favourite idealist
philosopher is Bosanquet.” “I like Bradley because Russell was once a
Bradleyian, when it was fashionable to be so! But surely Russell lacked the
spirit to understand, even, Bradley! It is so much easier to mock him!” --. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Pre-war Oxford
philosophy.” The reference to mentalism in the essay on ‘modest mentalism,’
after Myro, in The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
ideatum. Quite used by Grice. Cf. Conceptum. Sub-perceptual. Cognate
with ‘eidos,’ that Grice translates as ‘forma.’ Why is an ‘eidos’ an ‘idea’ and
in what sense is an idea a ‘form’? These are deep questions!
idem: a
key philosophical notion that encompasses linguistic, logic, and metaphysical
issues, and also epistemology. Possibly the central question in philosophy.
Vide the principle of ‘identity.’ amicus est tamquam alter idem,” a second self, Identicum. Grecian ‘tautotes.’ late L. identitās (Martianus
Capella, c425), peculiarly formed from ident(i)-, for L. idem ‘same’ + -tās,
-tātem: see -ty. Various suggestions have been offered as to the
formation. Need was evidently felt of a noun of condition or quality from
idem to express the notion of ‘sameness’, side by side with those of ‘likeness’
and ‘oneness’ expressed by similitās and ūnitās: hence the form of the
suffix. But idem had no combining stem. Some have thought that
ident(i)- was taken from the L. adv. "identidem" ‘over and over
again, repeatedly’, connexion with which appears to be suggested by Du Cange's
explanation of identitās as ‘quævis actio repetita’. Meyer-Lübke suggests
that in the formation there was present some association between idem and id
ens ‘that being’, whence "identitās" like "entitās." But
assimilation to "entitās" may have been merely to avoid the solecism
of *idemitās or *idemtās. sameness. However originated,
"ident(i)-" (either from adverb "identidem" or an
assimilation of "id ens," "id ens," that being, "id
entitas" "that entity") became the combining stem of idem, and
the series ūnitās, ūnicus, ūnificus, ūnificāre, was paralleled by identitās,
identicus, identificus, identificāre: see identic, identific, identify above.]
to OED 3rd: identity, n. Pronunciation: Brit./ʌɪˈdɛntᵻti/ , U.S.
/aɪˈdɛn(t)ədi/ Forms: 15 idemptitie, 15 ydemptyte, 15–16 identitie, 15–
identity, 16 idemptity. Etymology: < Middle French identité, ydemtité,
ydemptité, ydentité (French identité) quality or condition of being the same
(a1310; 1756 in sense ‘individuality, personality’, 1801 in sense ‘distinct
impression of a single person or thing presented to or perceived by others’)
and its etymon post-classical Latin identitat-, identitas quality of
being the same (4th cent.), condition or fact that a person or thing is itself
and not something else (8th cent. in a British source), fact of being the same
(from 12th cent. in British sources), continual sameness, lack of variety,
monotony (from 12th cent. in British sources; 14th cent. in a continental
source) < classical Latin idem same (see idem n.) + -tās (see -ty
suffix1) [sameness], after post-classical Latin essentitas ‘being’ (4th
cent.).The Latin word was formed to provide a translation equivalent for
ancient Greek ταὐτότης (tautotes) identity. identity: identity was a key
concept for Grice. Under identity, he views both identity simpliciter and
personal identity. Grice advocates psychological or soul criterianism.
Psychological or soul criterianism has been advocated, in one form or another,
by philosophers such as Locke, Butler, Duncan-Jones, Berkeley, Gallie, Grice,
Flew, Haugeland, Jones, Perry, Shoemaker and Parfit, and Quinton. What all
of these theories have in common is the idea that, even if it is the case that
some kind of physical states are necessary for being a person, it is the unity
of consciousness which is of decisive importance for personal identity over
time. In this sense, person is a term which picks out a psychological, or
mental, "thing". In claiming this, all Psychological Criterianists
entail the view that personal identity consists in the continuity of
psychological features. It is interesting that Flew has an earlier
"Selves," earlier than his essay on Locke on personal identity. The
first, for Mind, criticising Jones, "The self in sensory cognition";
the second for Philosophy. Surely under the tutelage of Grice. Cf. Jones,
Selves: A reply to Flew, Philosophy. The stronger thesis asserts
that there is no conceivable situation in which bodily identity would be
necessary, some other conditions being always both necessary and sufficient.
Grice takes it that Locke’s theory (II, 27) is an example of this latter
type. To say "Grice remembers that he heard a noise",
without irony or inverted commas, is to imply that Grice did hear a noise. In
this respect remember is like, know, a factive. It does not follow from this,
nor is it true, that each claim to remember, any more than each claim to know,
is alethic or veridical; or, not everything one seems to remember is something
one really remembers. So much is obvious, although Locke --
although admittedly referring only to the memory of actions, section 13
-- is forced to invoke the providence of God to deny the latter. These
points have been emphasised by Flew in his discussion of Locke’s views on
personal identity. In formulating Locke’ thesis, however, Flew makes a mistake;
for he offers Lockes thesis in the form if Grice can remember Hardies doing
such-and-such, Grice and Hardie are the same person. But this obviously will
not do, even for Locke, for we constantly say things like I remember my brother
Derek joining the army without implying that I and my brother are the same
person. So if we are to formulate such a criterion, it looks as though we have
to say something like the following. If Derek Grice remembers joining my, he is
the person who did that thing. But since remembers doing means remembers
himself doing, this is trivially tautologous, and moreover lends colour to
Butlers famous objection that memory, so far from constituting personal
identity, presupposes it. As Butler puts it, one should really think
it self-evident that consciousness of personal identity presupposes, and
therefore cannot constitute, personal identity; any more than knowledge, in any
other case, can constitute truth, which it presupposes. Butler then asserts
that Locke’s misstep stems from his methodology. This wonderful mistake may
possibly have arisen from hence; that to be endued with consciousness is
inseparable from the idea of a person, or intelligent being. For this might be
expressed inaccurately thus, that consciousness makes personality: and from
hence it might be concluded to make personal identity. One of the points that
Locke emphasizes—that persistence conditions are determined via defining kind
terms—is what, according to Butler, leads Locke astray. Butler
additionally makes the point that memory is not required for personal
persistence. But though present consciousness of what we at present do and feel
is necessary to our being the persons we now are; yet present consciousness of
past actions or feelings is not necessary to our being the same persons who
performed those actions, or had those feelings. This is a point that others
develop when they assert that Lockes view results in contradiction. Hence
the criterion should rather run as follows. If Derek Grice claims to remember
joining the army. We must then ask how such a criterion might be
used. Grices example is: I remember I smelled a smell. He needs two
experiences to use same. I heard a noise and I smelled a smell.The singular
defines the hearing of a noise is the object of some consciousness. The pair
defines, "The hearing of a noise and the smelling of a smell are objects
of the same -- cognate with self as in I hurt me self, -- consciousness. The
standard form of an identity question is Is this x the same x as that x
which E and in the simpler situation we are at least presented with just
the materials for constructing such a question; but in the more complicated
situation we are baffled even in asking the question, since both the
transformed persons are equally good candidates for being its Subjects, and the
question Are these two xs the same (x?) as the x which E is not a recognizable
form of identity question. Thus, it might be argued, the fact that we could not
speak of identity in the latter situation is no kind of proof that we could not
do so in the former. Certainly it is not a proof, as Strawson points out to
Grice. This is not to say that they are identical at all. The only case in
which identity and exact similarity could be distinguished, as we have just
seen, is that of the body, same body and exactly similar body really do mark a
difference. Thus one may claim that the omission of the body takes away all
content from the idea of personal identity, as Pears pointed out to
Grice. Leaving aside memory, which only partially applies to the case,
character and attainments are quite clearly general things. Joness character
is, in a sense, a particular; just because Jones’s character refers to the
instantiation of certain properties by a particular (and bodily) man, as
Strawson points out to Grice (Particular and general). If in ‘Negation and
privation,’ Grice tackles Aristotle, he now tackles Locke. Indeed, seeing that
Grice went years later to the topic as motivated by, of all people, Haugeland,
rather than perhaps the more academic milieu that Perry offers, Grice became
obsessed with Hume’s sceptical doubts! Hume writes in the Appendix that when he
turns his reflection on himself, Hume never can perceive this self without
some one or more perceptions. Nor can Hume ever perceive any
thing but the perceptions. It is the composition of these, therefore,
which forms the self, Hume thinks. Hume grants that one can conceive a thinking
being to have either many or few perceptions. Suppose, says Hume, the mind to
be reduced even below the life of an oyster. Suppose the oyster to have only
one perception, as of thirst or hunger. Consider the oyster in that situation.
Does the oyster conceive any thing but merely that perception? Has the oyster
any notion of, to use Gallies pretentious Aristotelian jargon, self or
substance? If not, the addition of this or other perception can never give
the oyster that notion. The annihilation, which this or that philosopher,
including Grices first post-war tutee, Flew, supposes to follow upon
death, and which entirely destroys the oysters self, is nothing but
an extinction of all particular perceptions; love and
hatred, pain and pleasure, thought and sensation. These therefore
must be the same with self; since the one cannot survive the other.
Is self the same with substance? If it be, how can that question have
place, concerning the subsistence of self, under a change of substance?
If they be distinct, what is the difference betwixt them? For his part, Hume
claims, he has a notion of neither, when conceived distinct from this or
that particular perception. However extraordinary Hume’s conclusion may
seem, it need not surprise us. Most philosophers, such as
Locke, seems inclined to think, that personal identity arises
from consciousness. But consciousness is nothing but a reflected
thought or perception, Hume suggests. This is Grices quandary about personal identity
and its implicatura. Some philosophers have taken Grice as trying to provide an
exegesis of Locke. However, their approaches surely differ. What works for
Grice may not work for Locke. For Grice it is analytically true that it is not
the case that Person1 and Person may have the same
experience. Grice explicitly states that he thinks that his
logical-construction theory is a modification of Locke’s theory. Grice does not
seem terribly interested to find why it may not, even if the York-based Locke
Society might! Rather than introjecting into Lockes shoes, Grices strategy
seems to dismiss Locke, shoes and all. Specifically, it not clear to Grice what
Lockes answer in the Essay would be to Grices question about this or that I
utterance that he sets his analysis with. Admittedly, Grice does quote, albeit
briefly, directly from Lockes Essay. As far as any intelligent being can repeat
the idea of any past action with the same consciousness it had of it at first,
and with the same consciousness it has of any present action, Locke claims, so
far the being is the same personal self. Grice tackles Lockes claim with four
objections. These are important to consider since Grice sees as improving on
Locke. A first objection concerns icircularity, with which Grice easily
disposes by following Hume and appealing to the experience of memory or
introspection. A second objection is Reid’s alleged counterexample about the
long-term memory of the admiral who cannot remember that he was flogged as a
boy. Grice dismisses this as involving too long-term of a memory. A third
objection concerns Locke’s vagueness about the aboutness of consciousness,
a point made by Hume in the Appendix. A fourth objection concerns again
circularity, this time in Locke’s use of same in the definiens ‒ cf. Wiggins,
Sameness and substance. It’s extraordinary that Wiggins is philosophising on
anything Griceian. Grice is concerned with the implicaturum involved in the use
of the first person singular. I will be fighting soon. Grice means in body and
soul. The utterance also indicates that this is Grices pre-war days at Oxford.
No wonder his choice of an example. What else could he have in his soul? The
topic of personal identity, which label Hume and Austin found pretentious, and
preferred to talk about the illocutionary force of I, has a special Oxonian
pedigree, perhaps as motivated by Humes challenge, that Grice has occasion to
study and explore for his M. A. Lit. Hum. with Locke’s Essay as mandatory
reading. Locke, a philosopher with whom Oxford identifies most, infamously
defends this memory-based account of I. Up in Scotland, Reid reads it and
concocts this alleged counter-example. Hume, or Home, if you must, enjoys it.
In fact, while in the Mind essay he is not too specific about Hume, Grice will,
due mainly to his joint investigations with Haugeland, approach, introjecting
into the shoes of Hume ‒ who is idolised in The New World ‒ in ways he does not
introject into Lockes. But Grices quandary is Hume’s quandary, too. In his own
approach to I, the Cartesian ego, made transcendental and apperceptive by Kant,
Grice updates the time-honoured empiricist mnemonic analysis by Locke. The
first update is in style. Grice embraces, as he does with negation, a logical
construction, alla Russell, via Broad, of this or that “I” (first-person) utterance,
ending up with an analysis of a “someone,” third-person, less informative, utterance.
Grices immediate source is Gallie’s essay on self and substance in Mind. Mind
is still a review of psychology and philosophy, so poor Grice has not much
choice. In fact, Grice is being heterodoxical or heretic enough to use Broad’s
taxonomy, straight from the other place of I utterances. The
logical-construction theory is a third proposal, next to the Bradleyian
idealist pure-ego theory and the misleading covert-description theory.
Grice deals with the Reids alleged counterexample of the brave officer. Suppose,
Reid says, and Grice quotes verbatim, a brave officer to have been flogged when
a boy at school, for robbing an orchard, to have taken a standard from the
enemy in his first campaign, and to have been made a general in advanced life.
Suppose also, which must be admitted to be possible, that when he2 took
the standard, he2 was conscious of his having been flogged at
school, and that, when made a general, he3 was conscious of his2 taking
the standard, but had absolutely lost the consciousness of his1 flogging. These
things being supposed, it follows, from Lockes doctrine, that he1 who is
flogged at school is the same person as him2 who later takes
the standard, and that he2 who later takes the standard is the
same person as him3 who is still later made a general. When it
follows, if there be any truth in logic, that the general is the same person
with him1 who is flogged at school. But the general’s
consciousness does emphatically not reach so far back as his1 flogging.
Therefore, according to Locke’s doctrine, he3 is emphatically
not the same person as him1 who is flogged. Therefore, we can say about the
general that he3 is, and at the same time, that he3 is
not the same person as him1 who was flogged at
school. Grice, wholl later add a temporal suffix to =t yielding, by
transitivity. The flogged boy =t1 the brave officer. And the
brave officer =t2 the admiral. But the admiral ≠t3 the
flogged boy. In Mind, Grice tackles the basic analysans, and comes up with a
rather elaborate analysans for a simple I or Someone statement. Grice just
turns to a generic affirmative variant of the utterance he had used in
Negation. It is now someone, viz. I, who hears that the bell tolls. It is the
affirmative counterpart of the focus of his earlier essay on negation, I do not
hear that the bell tolls. Grice dismisses what, in the other place, was
referred to as privileged-access, and the indexicality of I, an approach that
will be made popular by Perry, who however reprints Grices essay in his
influential collection for the University of California Press. By allowing for
someone, viz. I, Grice seems to be relying on a piece of reasoning which hell
later, in his first Locke lecture, refer to as too good. I hear that the bell
tolls; therefore, someone hears that the bell tolls. Grice attempts to reduce
this or that I utterance (Someone, viz. I, hears that the bell tolls) is in
terms of a chain or sequence of mnemonic states. It poses a few quandaries
itself. While quoting from this or that recent philosopher such as Gallie and
Broad, it is a good thing that Grice has occasion to go back to, or revisit,
Locke and contest this or that infamous and alleged counterexample presented by
Reid and Hume. Grice adds a methodological note to his proposed
logical-construction theory of personal identity. There is some intricacy of
his reductive analysis, indeed logical construction, for an apparently simple
and harmless utterance (cf. his earlier essay on I do not hear that the bell
tolls). But this intricacy does not prove the analysis wrong. Only that Grice
is too subtle. If the reductive analysis of not is in terms of each state which
I am experiencing is incompatible with phi), that should not be a minus, or
drawback, but a plus, and an advantage in terms of philosophical progress. The
same holds here in terms of the concept of a temporary state. Much later,
Grice reconsiders, or revisits, indeed, Broads remark and re-titles his
approach as the (or a) logical-construction theory of personal identity. And,
with Haugeland, Grice re-considers Humes own vagaries, or quandary, with
personal identity. Unlike the more conservative Locke that Grice favours in the
pages of Mind, eliminationist Hume sees ‘I’ as a conceptual muddle, indeed a
metaphysical chimæra. Hume presses the point for an empiricist verificationist
account of I. For, as Russell would rhetorically ask, ‘What can be more direct
that the experience of myself?’ The Hume Society should take notice of Grices
simplification of Hume’s implicaturum on I, if The Locke Society won’t. As a
matter of fact, Grice calls one of his metaphysical construction routines the
Humeian projection, so it is not too adventurous to think that Grice considers
I as an intuitive concept that needs to be metaphysically re-constructed
and be given a legitimate Fregeian sense. Why that label for a construction
routine? Grice calls this metaphysical construction routine Humeian projection,
since the mind (or soul) as it were, spreads over its objects. But, by mind,
Hume does not necessarily mean the I. Cf. The minds I. Grice is especially
concerned with the poverty and weaknesses of Humes criticism to Lockes account
of personal identity. Grice opts to revisit the Lockeian memory-based of this
or that someone, viz. I utterance that Hume rather regards as vague, and
confusing. Unlike Humes, neither Lockes nor Grices reductive analysis of
personal identity is reductionist and eliminationist. The
reductive-reductionist distinction Grice draws in Retrospective epilogue as he
responds to Rountree-Jack on this or that alleged wrong on meaning that. It is
only natural that Grice would be sympathetic to Locke. Grice explores these
issues with Haugeland mainly at seminars. One may wonder why Grice spends so
much time in a philosopher such as Hume, with whom he agreed almost on nothing!
The answer is Humes influence in the Third World that forced Grice to focus on
this or that philosopher. Surely Locke is less popular in the New World than
Hume is. One supposes Grice is trying to save Hume at the implicaturum level,
at least. The phrase or term of art, logical construction is Russells and
Broads, but Grice loved it. Rational reconstruction is not too dissimilar.
Grice prefers Russells and Broads more conservative label. This is more than a
terminological point. If Hume is right and there is NO intuitive concept behind
I, one cannot strictly re-construct it, only construct it. Ultimately, Grice
shows that, if only at the implicaturum level, we are able to provide an
analysandum for this or that someone, viz. I utterance without using I, by
implicating only this or that mnemonic concept, which belongs, naturally, as
his theory of negation does, in a theory of philosophical psychology, and again
a lower branch of it, dealing with memory. The topic of personal identity
unites various interests of Grice. The first is identity “=” simpliciter.
Instead of talking of the meaning of I, as, say, Anscombe would, Grice sticks
to the traditional category, or keyword, for this, i. e. the theory-laden,
personal identity, or even personal sameness. Personal identity is a type of
identity, but personal adds something to it. Surely Hume was stretching person
a bit when using the example of a soul with a life lower than an oyster. Since
Grice follows Aristotles De Anima, he enjoys Hume’s choice, though. It may be
argued that personal adds Locke’s consciousness, and rational agency. Grice
plays with the body-soul distinction. I, viz someone or somebody, fell from the
stairs, perhaps differs from I will be fighting soon. This or that someone,
viz. I utterance may be purely bodily. Grice would think that the idea that his
soul fell from the stairs sounds, as it would to Berkeley, harsh. But then
theres this or that one may be mixed utterance. Someone, viz. I, plays cricket,
where surely your bodily mechanisms require some sort of control by the soul.
Finally, this or that may be purely souly ‒ the one Grice ends up analysing,
Someone, viz. I, hear that the bell tolls. At the time of his Mind essay, Grice
may have been unaware of the complications that the concept of a person may
bring as attached in adjective form to identity. Ayer did, and Strawson and
Wiggins will, and Grice learns much from Strawson. Since Parfit, this has
become a common-place topic for analysis at Oxford. A person as a complexum of a
body-soul spatio-temporal continuant substance. Ultimately, Grice finds a
theoretical counterpart here. A P may become a human, which Grice understands
physiologically. That is not enough. A P must aspire, via meteousis, to become
a person. Thus, person becomes a technical term in Grices grand metaphysical
scheme of things. Someone, viz. I, hear that the bell is tolls is analysed
as ≡df, or if and only if, a hearing that the bell tolls is a
part of a total temporary tn souly state S1 which is
one in a s. such that any state Sn, given this or that
condition, contains as a part a memory Mn of the
experience of hearing that the bell tolls, which is a component in some
pre-sequent t1n item, or contains an experience of hearing
that the bell tolls a memory M of which would, given this or that
condition, occur as a component in some sub-sequent t2>tn item,
there being no sub-set of items which is independent of the rest. Grice
simplifies the reductive analysans. Someone, viz. I, hears that the bell tolls
iff a hearing that the bell tolls is a component in an item of an interlocking
s. with emphasis on lock, s. of this or that memorable and memorative
total temporary tn state S1. Is Grice’s Personal
identity ever referred to in the Oxonian philosophical literature? Indeeed.
Parfit mentions, which makes it especially memorable and memorative. P. Edwards
includes a reference to Grices Mind essay in the entry for Personal identity,
as a reference to Grice et al on Met. , is referenced in Edwardss encyclopædia
entry for metaphysics. Grice does not attribute privileged access or
incorrigibility to I or the first person. He always hastens to add that I can
always be substituted, salva veritate (if baffling your addressee A) by someone
or other, if not some-body or other, a colloquialism Grice especially detested.
Grices agency-based approach requires that. I am rational provided thou art,
too. If, by explicitly saying he is a Lockeian, Grice surely does not wish us
to see him as trying to be original, or the first to consider this or that
problem about I; i.e. someone. Still, Grice is the philosopher who explores
most deeply the reductive analysis of I, i.e. someone. Grice needs the
reductive analysis because human agency (philosophically, rather than
psychologically interpreted) is key for his approach to things. By uttering The
bell tolls, U means that someone, viz. himself, hears that the bell tolls, or
even, by uttering I, hear, viz. someone hears, that the bell tolls, U means
that the experience of a hearing that the bell tolls is a component in a
total temporary state which is a member of a s. such that each member
would, given certain conditions, contain as an component one
memory of an experience which is a component in a pre-sequent member, or
contains as a component some experience a memory of which would,
given certain conditions, occur as a component in a post-sequent member;
there being no sub-set of members which is independent of the rest.
Thanks, the addressee might reply. I didnt know that! The reductive bit to
Grices analysis needs to be emphasised. For Grice, a person, and consequently,
a someone, viz. I utterance, is, simpliciter, a logical construction out of
this or that Humeian experience. Whereas in Russell, as Broad notes, a
logical construction of this or that philosophical concept, in this case
personal identity, or cf. Grices earlier reductive analysis of not, is thought
of as an improved, rationally reconstructed conception. Neither Russell nor
Broad need maintain that the logical construction preserves the original
meaning of the analysandum someone, viz. I, hears that the bell tolls, or I do
not hear that the bell tolls ‒ hence their paradox of reductionist analysis.
This change of Subjects does not apply to Grice. Grice emphatically intends to be make
explicit, if rationally reconstructed (if that is not an improvement) through
reductive (if not reductionist) analysis, the concept Grice already claims to
have. One particular development to consider is within Grices play group, that
of Quinton. Grice and Quinton seem to have been the only two philosophers in
Austins play group who showed any interest on someone, viz. I. Or not. The fact
that Quinton entitles his thing “The soul” did not help. Note that Woozley was at
the time editing Reid on “Identity,” Cf. Duncan-Jones on mans mortality. Note
that Quintons immediate trigger is Shoemaker. Grice writes that he is not
“merely a series of perceptions,” for he is “conscious of a permanent self, an
I who experiences these perceptions and who is now identical with the I
who experienced perceptions yesterday.” So, leaving aside that he is using I
with the third person verb, but surely this is no use-mention fallacy, it is
this puzzle that provoked his thoughts on temporal-relative “=” later on. As
Grice notes, Butler argued that consciousness of experience can contribute to
identity but not define it. Grice will use Butler in his elaboration of
conversational benevolence versus conversational self-interest. Better than
Quinton, it is better to consider Flew in Philosophy, 96, on Locke and the
problem of personal identity, obviously suggested as a term paper by Grice!
Wiggins cites Flew. Flew actually notes that Berkeley saw Lockes problem
earlier than Reid, which concerns the transitiveness of =. Recall that Wigginss
tutor at Oxford was a tutee by Grice, Ackrill. identity, the relation each thing
bears just to itself. Formally, a % b Q EF(Fa P Fb); informally, the identity
of a and b implies and is implied by their sharing of all their properties.
Read from left to right, this biconditional asserts the indiscernibility of
identicals; from right to left, the identity of indiscernibles. The
indiscernibility of identicals is not to be confused with a metalinguistic
principle to the effect that if a and b are names of the same object, then each
may be substituted for the other in a sentence without change of truth-value:
that may be false, depending on the semantics of the language under discussion.
Similarly, the identity of indiscernibles is not the claim that if a and b can
be exchanged in all sentential contexts without affecting truth-value, then
they name the same object. For such intersubstitutability may arise when the
language in question simply lacks predicates that could discriminate between
the referents of a and b. In short, the identity of things is not a relation
among names. Identity proper is numerical identity, to be distinguished from
exact similarity (qualitative identity). Intuitively, two exactly similar
objects are “copies” of each other; still they are two, hence not identical.
One way to express this is via the notions of extrinsic and intrinsic
properties: exactly similar objects differ in respect of the former only. But
we can best explain ‘instrinsic property’ by saying that a thing’s intrinsic
properties are those it shares with its copies. These notions appear virtually
interdefinable. (Note that the concept of an extrinsic property must be
relativized to a class or kind of things. Not being in San Francisco is an
extrinsic property of persons but arguably an intrinsic property of cities.)
While qualitative identity is a familiar notion, its theoretical utility is
unclear. The absolute notion of qualitative identity should, however, be
distinguished from an unproblematic relative notion: if some list of salient
properties is fixed in a given context (say, in mechanics or normative ethics),
then the exactly similar things, relative to that context, are those that agree
on the properties listed. Both the identity of indiscernibles and (less frequently)
the indiscernibility of identicals are sometimes called Leibniz’s law. Neither
attribution is apt. Although Leibniz would have accepted the former principle,
his distinctive claim was the impossibility of exactly similar objects:
numerically distinct individuals cannot even share all intrinsic properties.
Moreover, this was not, for him, simply a law of identity but rather an
application of his principle of sufficient reason. And the indiscernibility of
identicals is part of a universal understanding of identity. What distinguishes
Leibniz is the prominence of identity statements in his metaphysics and logical
theory. Although identity remains a clear and basic logical notion, identity
questions about problematic kinds of objects raise difficulties. One example is
the identification of properties, particularly in contexts involving reduction.
Although we know what identity is, the notion of a property is unclear enough
to pose systematic obstacles to the evaluation of theoretically significant
identity statements involving properties. Other difficulties involve personal
identity or the possible identification of numbers and sets in the foundations
of mathematics. In these cases, the identity questions simply inherit – and
provide vivid ways of formulating – the difficulties pertaining to such
concepts as person, property, or number; no rethinking of the identity concept
itself is indicated. But puzzles about the relation of an ordinary material
body to its constituent matter may suggest that the logician’s analysis of
identity does not cleanly capture our everyday notion(s). Consider a bronze
statue. Although the statue may seem to be nothing besides its matter,
reflection on change over time suggests a distinction. The statue may be melted
down, hence destroyed, while the bronze persists, perhaps simply as a mass or
perhaps as a new statue formed from the same bronze. Alternatively, the statue
may persist even as some of its bronze is dissolved in acid. So the statue
seems to be one thing and the bronze another. Yet what is the bronze besides a
statue? Surely we do not have two statues (or statuelike objects) in one place?
Some authors feel that variants of the identity relation may permit a
perspicuous description of the relation of statue and bronze: (1) tensed
identity: Assume a class of timebound properties – roughly, properties an
object can have at a time regardless of what properties it has at other times.
(E.g., a statue’s shape, location, or elegance.) Then a % t b provided a and b
share all timebound properties at time t. Thus, the statue and the bronze may
be identical at time t 1 but not at t 2. (2) relative identity: a and b may be
identical relative to one concept (or predicate) but not to another. Thus, the
statue may be held to be the same lump of matter as the bronze but not the same
object of art. identity identity 415 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 415 In
each case, only detailed study will show whether the variant notion can at once
offer a natural description of change and qualify as a viable identity concept.
(Strong doubts arise about (2).) But it seems likely that our everyday talk of
identity has a richness and ambiguity that escapes formal
characterization. identity, ‘is’ of. See
IS. identity, psychophysical. See PHYSICALISM. identity, theoretical. See
PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. identity of indiscernibles, any of a family of principles,
important members of which include the following: (1) If objects a and b have
all properties in common, then a and b are identical. (2) If objects a and b
have all their qualitative properties in common, then a and b are identical.
(3) If objects a and b have all their non-relational qualitative properties in
common, then a and b are identical. Two questions regarding these principles
are raised: Which, if any, are true? If any are true, are they necessarily
true? Discussions of the identity of indiscernibles typically restrict the
scope of the principle to concrete objects. Although the notions of qualitative
and non-relational properties play a prominent role in these discussions, they
are notoriously difficult to define. Intuitively, a qualitative property is one
that can be instantiated by more than one object and does not involve being
related to another particular object. It does not follow that all qualitative
properties are non-relational, since some relational properties, such as being
on top of a brown desk, do not involve being related to some particular object.
(1) is generally regarded as necessarily true but trivial, since if a and b
have all properties in common then a has the property of being identical with b
and b has the property of being identical with a. Hence, most discussions focus
on (2) and (3). (3) is generally regarded as, at best, a contingent truth since
it appears possible to conceive of two distinct red balls of the same size,
shade of color, and composition. Some have argued that elementary scientific
particles, such as electrons, are counterexamples to even the contingent truth
of (3). (2) appears defensible as a contingent truth since, in the actual
world, objects such as the red balls and the electrons differ in their
relational qualitative properties. It has been argued, however, that (2) is not
a necessary truth since it is possible to conceive of a world consisting of only
the two red balls. In such a world, any qualitative relational property
possessed by one ball is also possessed by the other. Defenders of the
necessary truth of (2) have argued that a careful examination of such
counterexamples reveals hidden qualitative properties that differentiate the
objects. Grice learned about idem, ipsum and simile via his High Church
maternal grandfather. “What an iota can do!” -- Refs.:
The main references covering identity simpliciter are in “Vacuous Names,” and
his joint work on metaphysics with G. Myro. The main references relating to the
second group, of personal identity, are his “Mind” essay, an essay on ‘the
logical-construction theory of personal identity,’ and a second set of essays
on Hume’s quandary, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
Griceian
ideology: a term used by Ernest Gellner to refer to Grice’s
Clifton/Corpus Christi background. generally a disparaging term used to
describe someone else’s political views which one regards as unsound. This use
derives from Marx’s employment of the term to signify a false consciousness
shared by the members of a particular social class. For example, according to
Marx, members of the capitalist class share the ideology that the laws of the
competitive market are natural and impersonal, that workers in a competitive
market are paid all that they can be paid, and that the institutions of private
property in the means of production are natural and justified.
ideo-motor
action, a theory of the will according to which “every
representation of a movement awakens in some degree the actual movement which
is its object” (William James). Proposed by physiologist W. B. Carpenter, and
taught by Lotze and Renouvier, ideo-motor action was developed by James. He
rejected the regnant analysis of voluntary behavior, which held that will
operates by reinstating “feelings of innervation” (Wundt) in the efferent
nerves. Deploying introspection and physiology, James showed that feelings of
innervation do not exist. James advanced ideo-motor action as the psychological
basis of volition: actions tend to occur automatically when thought, unless
inhibited by a contrary idea. Will consists in fixing attention on a desired
idea until it dominates consciousness, the execution of movement following
automatically. James also rejected Bain’s associationist thesis that pleasure
or pain is the necessary spring of action, since according to ideo-motor theory
thought of an action by itself produces it. James’s analysis became dogma, but
was effectively attacked by psychologist E. L. Thorndike (1874– 1949), who
proposed in its place the behavioristic doctrine that ideas have no power to
cause behavior, and argued that belief in ideo-motor action amounted to belief
in sympathetic magic. Thus did will leave the vocabulary of psychology.
macaulay: Grice: “Unlike
Whitehead, I care for style; so when it
comes to ‘if,’ we have to please Macaulay – the verbs change, for each mode –
and sub-mode!” -- Grice: A curious phenomenon
comes to light. I began by assuming (or stipulating) that the verbs 'judge' and
'will' (acceptance-verbs) are to be 'completed' by radicals (phrastics). Yet
when the machinery developed above has been applied, we find that the verb
'accept' (or 'think') is to be completed by something of the form 'Op + p', that
is, by a sentence. Perhaps we might tolerate this syntactical ambivalence; but
if we cannot, the remedy is not clear. It would, for example, not be
satisfactory to suppose that 'that', when placed before a sentence, acts as a
'radicalizer' (is a functor expressing a function which takes that sentence on
to its radical); for that way we should lose the differentiations effected by
varying mode-markers, and this would be fatal to the scheme. This phenomenon
certainly suggests that the attempt to distinguish radicals from sentences may
be misguided; that if radicals are to be admitted at all, they should be
identified with indicative sentences.
The operator '⊢' would then be a
'semantically vanishing' operator. But this does not wholly satisfy me; for, if
'⊢' is semantically vacuous, what happens to the subordinate
distinction made by 'A' and 'B' markers, which seems genuine enough? We might
find these markers 'hanging in the air', like two smiles left behind by the
Cheshire Cat. Whatever the outcome of this debate, however, I feel fairly
confident that I could accommodate the formulation of my discussion to it.
Fuller Exposition of the 'Initial Idea' First, some preliminary points. To
provide at least a modicum of intelligibility for my discourse, I shall
pronounce the judicative end p.72 operator '⊢' as 'it is the case
that', and the volitive operator '!' as 'let it be that'; and I shall pronounce
the sequence 'φ, ψ' as 'given that φ, ψ'. These vocal mannerisms will result in
the production of some pretty barbarous 'English sentences'; but we must remember
that what I shall be trying to do, in uttering such sentences, will be to
represent supposedly underlying structure; if that is one's aim, one can hardly
expect that one's speech-forms will be such as to excite the approval of, let
us say, Jane Austen or Lord Macaulay. In any case, less horrendous, though (for
my purposes) less perspicuous, alternatives will, I think, be available.
Further, I am going to be almost exclusively concerned with alethic and
practical arguments, the proximate conclusions of which will be, respectively,
of the forms 'Acc (⊢ p)' and 'Acc (! p)';
for example, 'acceptable (it is the case that it snows)' and 'acceptable (let
it be that I go home)'. There will be two possible ways of reading the latter
sentence. We might regard 'acceptable' as a sentential adverb (modifier) like
'demonstrably'; in that case to say or think 'acceptable (let it be that I go
home)' will be to say or think 'let it be that I go home', together with the
qualification that what I say or think is acceptable; as one might say,
'acceptably, let it be that I go home'. To adopt this reading would seem to
commit us to the impossibility of incontinence; for since 'accept that let it
be that I go home' is to be my rewrite for 'Vaccept (will) that I go home', anyone
x who concluded, by practical argument, that 'acceptable let it be that x go
home' would ipso facto will to go home. Similarly (though less paradoxically)
any one who concluded, by alethic argument, 'acceptable it is the case that it
snows', would ipso facto judge that it snows. So an alternative reading 'it is
acceptable that let it be that I go home', which does not commit the speaker or
thinker to 'let it be that I go home', seems preferable. We can, of course,
retain the distinct form 'acceptably, let it be that (it is the case that) p'
for renderings of 'desirably' and 'probably'. Let us now tackle the judicative
cases. I start with the assumption that arguments of the form 'A, so probably
B' are sometimes (informally) valid; 'he has an exceptionally red face, so
probably he has high blood pressure' might be informally valid, whereas 'he has
an exceptionally red face, so probably he has musical talent' is unlikely to be
allowed informal validity. end p.73 We might re-express this assumption by saying
that it is sometimes the case that A informally yields-with-probability that B
(where 'yields' is the converse of 'is inferable from'). If we wish to
construct a form of argument the acceptability of which does not depend on
choice of substituends for 'A' and 'B', we may, so to speak, allow into the
object-language forms of sentence which correspond to metastatements of the
form: 'A yields-with-probability that B'; we may allow ourselves, for example,
such a sentence as "it is probable, given that he has a very red face,
that he has high blood pressure". This will provide us with the
argument-patterns: “Probable, given A, that B A So, probably, B” or “Probable,
given A, that B A So probably that B” To take the second pattern, the legitimacy of such an inferential
transition will not depend on the identity of 'A' or of 'B', though it will
depend (as was stated in the previous chapter) on a licence from a suitably
formulated 'Principle of Total Evidence'. The proposal which I am considering
(in pursuit of the 'initial idea') would (roughly) involve rewriting the second
pattern of argument so that it reads: It is acceptable, given that it is the
case that A, that it is the case that B. It is the case that A. To apply this
schema to a particular case, we generated the particular argument: It is
acceptable, given that it is the case that Snodgrass has a red face, that it is
the case that Snodgrass has high blood pressure. It is the case that Snodgrass
has a red face. So, it is acceptable that it is the case that Snodgrass has
high blood pressure. end p.74 If we make the further assumption that the
singular 'conditional' acceptability statement which is the first premiss of
the above argument may be (and perhaps has to be) reached by an analogue of the
rule of universal instantiation from a general acceptability statement, we make
room for such general acceptability sentences as: It is acceptable, given that
it is the case that x has a red face, that it is the case that x has high blood
pressure. which are of the form "It is acceptable, given that it is the
case that Fx, that it is the case that Gx'; 'x' here is, you will note, an
unbound variable; and the form might also (loosely) be read (pronounced) as:
"It is acceptable, given that it is the case that one (something) is F,
that it is the case that one (it) is G." All of this is (I think) pretty
platitudinous; which is just as well, since it is to serve as a model for the
treatment of practical argument. To turn from the alethic to the practical
dimension. Here (the proposal goes) we may proceed, in a fashion almost exactly
parallel to that adopted on the alethic side, through the following sequence of
stages: (1) Arguments (in thought or speech) of the form: Let it be that A It
is the case that B so, with some degree of desirability, let it be that C are
sometimes (and sometimes not) informally valid (or acceptable). (2) Arguments
of the form: It is desirable, given that let it be that A and that it is the
case that B, that let it be that C Let it be that A It is the case that B so,
it is desirable that let it be that C should, therefore, be allowed to be
formally acceptable, subject to licence from a Principle of Total Evidence. (3)
In accordance with our proposal such arguments will be rewritten: end p.75 It
is acceptable, given that let it be A and that it is the case that B, that let
it be that C Let it be that A It is the case that B so, it is desirable that
let it be that C (4) The first premisses of such arguments may be (and perhaps
have to be) reached by instantiation from general acceptability statements of
the form: "It is acceptable, given that let one be E and that it is the
case that one is F, that let it be that one is G." We may note that
sentences like "it is snowing" can be trivially recast so as (in effect)
to appear as third premisses in such arguments (with 'open' counterparts inside
the acceptability sentence; they can be rewritten as, for example,
"Snodgrass is such that it is snowing"). We are now in possession of
such exciting general acceptability sentences as: "It is acceptable, given
that let it be that one keeps dry and that it is the case that one is such that
it is raining, that let one take with one one's umbrella." (5) A special subclass of general acceptability
sentences (and of practical arguments) can be generated by 'trivializing' the
predicate in the judicative premiss (making it a 'universal predicate'). If,
for example, I take 'x is F' to represent 'x is identical with x' the
judicative subclause may be omitted from the general acceptability sentence,
with a corresponding 'reduction' in the shape of the related practical
argument. We have therefore such argument sequences as the following: (P i ) It
is acceptable, given that let it be that one survives, that let it be that one
eats So (by U i ) It is acceptable, given that let it be that Snodgrass
survives, that let it be that Snodgrass eats (P 2 ) Let it be that Snodgrass
survives So (by Det) It is acceptable that let it be that Snodgrass eats. We
should also, at some point, consider further transitions to: (a) Acceptably,
let it be that Snodgrass eats, and to: (b) Let it be that Snodgrass eats. end
p.76 And we may also note that, as a more colloquial substitute for "Let
it be that one (Snodgrass) survives (eats)" the form "one (Snodgrass)
is to survive (eat)" is available; we thus obtain prettier inhabitants of
antecedent clauses, for example, "given that Snodgrass is to
survive". We must now pay some attention to the varieties of acceptability
statement to be found within each of the alethic and practical dimensions; it
will, of course, be essential to the large-scale success of the proposal which
I am exploring that one should be able to show that for every such variant
within one dimension there is a corresponding variant within the other. Within
the area of defeasible generalizations, there is another variant which, in my
view, extends across the board in the way just indicated, namely, the
unweighted acceptability generalization (with associated singular
conditionals), or, as I shall also call it, the ceteris paribus generalization.
Such generalization I take to be of the form "It is acceptable (ceteris
paribus), given that φX, that ψX" and I think we find both practical and
alethic examples of the form; for example, "It is ceteris paribus
acceptable, given that it is the case that one likes a person, that it is the
case that one wants his company", which is not incompatible with "It
is ceteris paribus acceptable, given that it is the case that one likes a
person and that one is feeling ill, that one does not want his company".
We also find "It is ceteris paribus acceptable, given that let it be that
one leaves the country and given that it is the case that one is an alien, that
let it be that one obtains a sailing permit from Internal Revenue", which
is compatible with "It is ceteris paribus acceptable, given that let it be
that one leaves the country and given that it is the case that one is an alien
and that one is a close friend of the President, that let it be that one does
not obtain a sailing permit, and that one arranges to travel in Air Force
I". I discussed this kind of generalization, or 'law', briefly in
"Method in Philosophical Psychology"1 and shall not dilate on its
features here. I will just remark that it can be adapted to handle 'functional
laws' (in the way suggested in that address), and that end p.77 it is different
from the closely related use of universal generalizations in 'artificially
closed systems', where some relevant parameter is deliberately ignored, to be taken
care of by an extension to the system; for in that case, when the extension is
made, the original law has to be modified or corrected, whereas my ceteris
paribus generalization can survive in an extended system; and I regard this as
a particular advantage to philosophical psychology. In addition to these two
defeasible types of acceptability generalization (each with alethic and
practical sub-types), we have non-defeasible acceptability generalizations,
with associated singular conditionals, exemplifying what I might call
'unqualified', 'unreserved', or 'full' acceptability claims. To express these I
shall employ the (constructed) modal 'it is fully acceptable that . . .'; and
again there will be occasion for its use in the representation both of alethic
and of practical discourse. We have, in all, then, three varieties of
acceptability statement (each with alethic and practical sub-types), associated
with the modals "It is fully acceptable that . . . "
(non-defeasible), 'it is ceteris paribus acceptable that . . . ', and 'it is to
such-and-such a degree acceptable that . . . ', both of the latter pair being
subject to defeasibility. (I should re-emphasize that, on the practical side, I
am so far concerned to represent only statements which are analogous with
Kant's Technical Imperatives ('Rules of Skill').)
“if” – Grice: “Whitehead
lists ‘and,’ ‘or,’ and ‘if,’ but had he known some classical languages, he
would have noted, as J. C. Wilson does, that ‘if’ is totally subordinating, and
thus totally non-commutative!” -- German “ob,” Latin, “si,” Grecian, “ei” --
conditional, a compound sentence, such as ‘if Abe calls, then Ben answers,’ in
which one sentence, the antecedent, is connected to a second, the consequent,
by the connective ‘if . . . then’. Propositions statements, etc. expressed by
conditionals are called conditional propositions statements, etc. and, by
ellipsis, simply conditionals. The ambiguity of the expression ‘if . . . then’
gives rise to a semantic classification of conditionals into material
conditionals, causal conditionals, counterfactual conditionals, and so on. In
traditional logic, conditionals are called hypotheticals, and in some areas of
mathematical logic conditionals are called implications. Faithful analysis of
the meanings of conditionals continues to be investigated and intensely
disputed. conditional proof. 1 The
argument form ‘B follows from A; therefore, if A then B’ and arguments of this
form. 2 The rule of inference that permits one to infer a conditional given a
derivation of its consequent from its antecedent. This is also known as the
rule of conditional proof or /- introduction. conditioning, a form of
associative learning that occurs when changes in thought or behavior are
produced by temporal relations among events. It is common to distinguish
between two types of conditioning; one, classical or Pavlovian, in which
behavior change results from events that occur before behavior; the other,
operant or instrumental, in which behavior change occurs because of events after
behavior. Roughly, classically and operantly conditioned behavior correspond to
the everyday, folk-psychological distinction between involuntary and voluntary
or goaldirected behavior. In classical conditioning, stimuli or events elicit a
response e.g., salivation; neutral stimuli e.g., a dinner bell gain control
over behavior when paired with stimuli that already elicit behavior e.g., the
appearance of dinner. The behavior is involuntary. In operant conditioning,
stimuli or events reinforce behavior after behavior occurs; neutral stimuli
gain power to reinforce by being paired with actual reinforcers. Here,
occasions in which behavior is reinforced serve as discriminative
stimuli-evoking behavior. Operant behavior is goal-directed, if not consciously
or deliberately, then through the bond between behavior and reinforcement.
Thus, the arrangement of condiments at dinner may serve as the discriminative
stimulus evoking the request “Please pass the salt,” whereas saying “Thank you”
may reinforce the behavior of passing the salt. It is not easy to integrate
conditioning phenomena into a unified theory of conditioning. Some theorists
contend that operant conditioning is really classical conditioning veiled by
subtle temporal relations among events. Other theorists contend that operant
conditioning requires mental representations of reinforcers and discriminative
stimuli. B. F. Skinner 4 90 argued in Walden Two 8 that astute, benevolent
behavioral engineers can and should use conditioning to create a social utopia.
conditio sine qua non Latin, ‘a
condition without which not’, a necessary condition; something without which
something else could not be or could not occur. For example, being a plane
figure is a conditio sine qua non for being a triangle. Sometimes the phrase is
used emphatically as a synonym for an unconditioned presupposition, be it for
an action to start or an argument to get going. I.Bo. Condorcet, Marquis de,
title of Marie-JeanAntoine-Nicolas de Caritat 174394, philosopher and political theorist who
contributed to the Encyclopedia and pioneered the mathematical analysis of
social institutions. Although prominent in the Revolutionary government, he was
denounced for his political views and died in prison. Condorcet discovered the
voting paradox, which shows that majoritarian voting can produce cyclical group
preferences. Suppose, for instance, that voters A, B, and C rank proposals x,
y, and z as follows: A: xyz, B: yzx, and C: zxy. Then in majoritarian voting x
beats y and y beats z, but z in turn beats x. So the resulting group
preferences are cyclical. The discovery of this problem helped initiate social
choice theory, which evaluates voting systems. Condorcet argued that any
satisfactory voting system must guarantee selection of a proposal that beats
all rivals in majoritarian competition. Such a proposal is called a Condorcet
winner. His jury theorem says that if voters register their opinions about some
matter, such as whether a defendant is guilty, and the probabilities that
individual voters are right are greater than ½, equal, and independent, then
the majority vote is more likely to be correct than any individual’s or
minority’s vote. Condorcet’s main works are Essai sur l’application de
l’analyse à la probabilité des décisions rendues à la pluralité des voix Essay
on the Application of Analysis to the Probability of Decisions Reached by a
Majority of Votes, 1785; and a posthumous treatise on social issues, Esquisse
d’un tableau historique des progrès de l’esprit humain Sketch for a Historical
Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, 1795. “if” corresponding conditional of a given
argument, any conditional whose antecedent is a logical conjunction of all of
the premises of the argument and whose consequent is the conclusion. The two
conditionals, ‘if Abe is Ben and Ben is wise, then Abe is wise’ and ‘if Ben is
wise and Abe is Ben, then Abe is wise’, are the two corresponding conditionals
of the argument whose premises are ‘Abe is Ben’ and ‘Ben is wise’ and whose
conclusion is ‘Abe is wise’. For a one-premise argument, the corresponding
conditional is the conditional whose antecedent is the premise and whose
consequent is the conclusion. The limiting cases of the empty and infinite
premise sets are treated in different ways by different logicians; one simple
treatment considers such arguments as lacking corresponding conditionals. The
principle of corresponding conditionals is that in order for an argument to be
valid it is necessary and sufficient for all its corresponding conditionals to
be tautological. The commonly used expression ‘the corresponding conditional of
an argument’ is also used when two further stipulations are in force: first,
that an argument is construed as having an ordered sequence of premises rather
than an unordered set of premises; second, that conjunction is construed as a
polyadic operation that produces in a unique way a single premise from a
sequence of premises rather than as a dyadic operation that combines premises
two by two. Under these stipulations the principle of the corresponding
conditional is that in order for an argument to be valid it is necessary and
sufficient for its corresponding conditional to be valid. These principles are
closely related to modus ponens, to conditional proof, and to the so-called
deduction theorem. “if” counterfactuals,
also called contrary-to-fact conditionals, subjunctive conditionals that
presupcorner quotes counterfactuals pose the falsity of their antecedents, such
as ‘If Hitler had invaded England, G.y would have won’ and ‘If I were you, I’d
run’. Conditionals or hypothetical statements are compound statements of the
form ‘If p, then q’, or equivalently ‘q if p’. Component p is described as the
antecedent protasis and q as the consequent apodosis. A conditional like ‘If
Oswald did not kill Kennedy, then someone else did’ is called indicative,
because both the antecedent and consequent are in the indicative mood. One like
‘If Oswald had not killed Kennedy, then someone else would have’ is
subjunctive. Many subjunctive and all indicative conditionals are open,
presupposing nothing about the antecedent. Unlike ‘If Bob had won, he’d be
rich’, neither ‘If Bob should have won, he would be rich’ nor ‘If Bob won, he
is rich’ implies that Bob did not win. Counterfactuals presuppose, rather than
assert, the falsity of their antecedents. ‘If Reagan had been president, he
would have been famous’ seems inappropriate and out of place, but not false,
given that Reagan was president. The difference between counterfactual and open
subjunctives is less important logically than that between subjunctives and
indicatives. Whereas the indicative conditional about Kennedy is true, the
subjunctive is probably false. Replace ‘someone’ with ‘no one’ and the
truth-values reverse. The most interesting logical feature of counterfactuals
is that they are not truth-functional. A truth-functional compound is one whose
truth-value is completely determined in every possible case by the truth-values
of its components. For example, the falsity of ‘The President is a grandmother’
and ‘The President is childless’ logically entails the falsity of ‘The
President is a grandmother and childless’: all conjunctions with false
conjuncts are false. But whereas ‘If the President were a grandmother, the
President would be childless’ is false, other counterfactuals with equally
false components are true, such as ‘If the President were a grandmother, the
President would be a mother’. The truth-value of a counterfactual is determined
in part by the specific content of its components. This property is shared by
indicative and subjunctive conditionals generally, as can be seen by varying
the wording of the example. In marked contrast, the material conditional, p /
q, of modern logic, defined as meaning that either p is false or q is true, is
completely truth-functional. ‘The President is a grandmother / The President is
childless’ is just as true as ‘The President is a grandmother / The President
is a mother’. While stronger than the material conditional, the counterfactual
is weaker than the strict conditional, p U q, of modern modal logic, which says
that p / q is necessarily true. ‘If the switch had been flipped, the light
would be on’ may in fact be true even though it is possible for the switch to
have been flipped without the light’s being on because the bulb could have
burned out. The fact that counterfactuals are neither strict nor material
conditionals generated the problem of counterfactual conditionals raised by
Chisholm and Goodman: What are the truth conditions of a counterfactual, and
how are they determined by its components? According to the “metalinguistic”
approach, which resembles the deductive-nomological model of explanation, a
counterfactual is true when its antecedent conjoined with laws of nature and
statements of background conditions logically entails its consequent. On this
account, ‘If the switch had been flipped the light would be on’ is true because
the statement that the switch was flipped, plus the laws of electricity and
statements describing the condition and arrangement of the circuitry, entail
that the light is on. The main problem is to specify which facts are “fixed”
for any given counterfactual and context. The background conditions cannot
include the denials of the antecedent or the consequent, even though they are
true, nor anything else that would not be true if the antecedent were.
Counteridenticals, whose antecedents assert identities, highlight the
difficulty: the background for ‘If I were you, I’d run’ must include facts
about my character and your situation, but not vice versa. Counterlegals like
‘Newton’s laws would fail if planets had rectangular orbits’, whose antecedents
deny laws of nature, show that even the set of laws cannot be all-inclusive.
Another leading approach pioneered by Robert C. Stalnaker and David K. Lewis
extends the possible worlds semantics developed for modal logic, saying that a
counterfactual is true when its consequent is true in the nearest possible
world in which the antecedent is true. The counterfactual about the switch is true
on this account provided a world in which the switch was flipped and the light
is on is closer to the actual world than one in which the switch was flipped
but the light is not on. The main problem is to specify which world is nearest
for any given counterfactual and context. The difference between indicative and
subjunctive conditionals can be accounted for in terms of either a different
set of background conditions or a different measure of nearness.
counterfactuals counterfactuals
Counterfactuals turn up in a variety of philosophical contexts. To
distinguish laws like ‘All copper conducts’ from equally true generalizations
like ‘Everything in my pocket conducts’, some have observed that while anything
would conduct if it were copper, not everything would conduct if it were in my
pocket. And to have a disposition like solubility, it does not suffice to be
either dissolving or not in water: it must in addition be true that the object
would dissolve if it were in water. It has similarly been suggested that one
event is the cause of another only if the latter would not have occurred if the
former had not; that an action is free only if the agent could or would have
done otherwise if he had wanted to; that a person is in a particular mental
state only if he would behave in certain ways given certain stimuli; and that
an action is right only if a completely rational and fully informed agent would
choose it. “If the cat is on the mat, she is purring.” INDICATIVE PLUS
INDICATIVE – “Subjective ‘if’ is a different animal as Julius Caesar well
knew!” -- Refs: “If and Macaulay.”
iff:
Grice: “a silly abbreviation for ‘if and only if’” -- that is used as if it
were a single propositional operator (connective). Another synonym for ‘iff’ is
‘just in case’. The justification for treating ‘iff’ as if it were a single
propositional connective is that ‘P if and only if Q’ is elliptical for ‘P if
Q, and P only if Q’, and this assertion is logically equivalent to ‘P biconditional
Q’.
Il’in, Ivan
Aleksandrovich, philosopher and conservative legal and political theorist. He
authored an important two-volume commentary on Hegel (1918), plus extensive
writings in ethics, political theory, aesthetics, and spirituality. Exiled in
1922, he was known for his passionate opposition to Bolshevism, his extensive
proposals for rebuilding a radically reformed Russian state, church, and
society in a post-Communist future, and his devout Russian Orthodox
spirituality. He is widely regarded as a master of Russian language and a
penetrating interpreter of the history of Russian culture. His collected works
are currently being published in Moscow.
illatum, f. illātĭo (inl- ), ōnis,
f. in-fero, a logical
inference, conclusion: “vel illativum rogamentum. quod ex acceptionibus colligitur et infertur,” App.
Dogm. Plat. 3, pp. 34, 15. – infero: to conclude, infer, draw an inference, Cic. Inv. 1, 47, 87; Quint. 5, 11, 27. ILLATUM -- inference, the
process of drawing a conclusion from premises or assumptions, or, loosely, the
conclusion so drawn. An argument can be merely a number of statements of which
one is designated the conclusion and the rest are designated premises. Whether
the premises imply the conclusion is thus independent of anyone’s actual
beliefs in either of them. Belief, however, is essential to inference.
Inference occurs only if someone, owing to believing the premises, begins to
believe the conclusion or continues to believe the conclusion with greater
confidence than before. Because inference requires a subject who has beliefs,
some requirements of (an ideally) acceptable inference do not apply to abstract
arguments: one must believe the premises; one must believe that the premises
support the conclusion; neither of these beliefs induction, eliminative
inference 426 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 426 may be based on one’s
prior belief in the conclusion. W. E. Johnson called these the epistemic
conditions of inference. In a reductio ad absurdum argument that deduces a
self-contradiction from certain premises, not all steps of the argument will
correspond to steps of inference. No one deliberately infers a contradiction.
What one infers, in such an argument, is that certain premises are
inconsistent. Acceptable inferences can fall short of being ideally acceptable
according to the above requirements. Relevant beliefs are sometimes indefinite.
Infants and children infer despite having no grasp of the sophisticated notion
of support. One function of idealization is to set standards for that which
falls short. It is possible to judge how nearly inexplicit, automatic,
unreflective, lessthan-ideal inferences meet ideal requirements. In ordinary
speech, ‘infer’ often functions as a synonym of ‘imply’, as in ‘The new tax law
infers that we have to calculate the value of our shrubbery’. Careful
philosophical writing avoids this usage. Implication is, and inference is not,
a relation between statements. Valid deductive inference corresponds to a valid
deductive argument: it is logically impossible for all the premises to be true
when the conclusion is false. That is, the conjunction of all the premises and
the negation of the conclusion is inconsistent. Whenever a conjunction is
inconsistent, there is a valid argument for the negation of any conjunct from
the other conjuncts. (Relevance logic imposes restrictions on validity to avoid
this.) Whenever one argument is deductively valid, so is another argument that
goes in a different direction. (1) ‘Stacy left her slippers in the kitchen’
implies (2) ‘Stacy had some slippers’. Should one acquainted with Stacy and the
kitchen infer (2) from (1), or infer not-(1) from not-(2), or make neither
inference? Formal logic tells us about implication and deductive validity, but
it cannot tell us when or what to infer. Reasonable inference depends on
comparative degrees of reasonable belief. An inference in which every premise and
every step is beyond question is a demonstrative inference. (Similarly,
reasoning for which this condition holds is demonstrative reasoning.) Just as
what is beyond question can vary from one situation to another, so can what
counts as demonstrative. The term presumably derives from Aristotle’s Posterior
Analytics. Understanding Aristotle’s views on demonstration requires
understanding his general scheme for classifying inferences. Not all inferences
are deductive. In an inductive inference, one infers from an observed
combination of characteristics to some similar unobserved combination.
‘Reasoning’ like ‘painting’, and ‘frosting’, and many other words, has a
process–product ambiguity. Reasoning can be a process that occurs in time or it
can be a result or product. A letter to the editor can both contain reasoning
and be the result of reasoning. It is often unclear whether a word such as
‘statistical’ that modifies the words ‘inference’ or ‘reasoning’ applies
primarily to stages in the process or to the content of the product. One view,
attractive for its simplicity, is that the stages of the process of reasoning
correspond closely to the parts of the product. Examples that confirm this view
are scarce. Testing alternatives, discarding and reviving, revising and
transposing, and so on, are as common to the process of reasoning as to other
creative activities. A product seldom reflects the exact history of its
production. In An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, J. S. Mill
says that reasoning is a source from which we derive new truths (Chapter 14).
This is a useful saying so long as we remember that not all reasoning is
inference. -- inference to the best explanation, an inference by which one
concludes that something is the case on the grounds that this best explains
something else one believes to be the case. Paradigm examples of this kind of
inference are found in the natural sciences, where a hypothesis is accepted on
the grounds that it best explains relevant observations. For example, the
hypothesis that material substances have atomic structures best explains a
range of observations concerning how such substances interact. Inferences to
the best explanation occur in everyday life as well. Upon walking into your
house you observe that a lamp is lying broken on the floor, and on the basis of
this you infer that the cat has knocked it over. This is plausibly analyzed as
an inference to the best explanation; you believe that the cat has knocked over
the lamp because this is the best explanation for the lamp’s lying broken on
the floor. The nature of inference to the best explanation and the extent of
its use are both controversial. Positions that have been taken include: (a)
that it is a distinctive kind of inductive reasoning; (b) inference rule
inference to the best explanation 427 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 427
that all good inductive inferences involve inference to the best explanation;
and (c) that it is not a distinctive kind of inference at all, but is rather a
special case of enumerative induction. Another controversy concerns the
criteria for what makes an explanation best. Simplicity, cognitive fit, and
explanatory power have all been suggested as relevant merits, but none of these
notions is well understood. Finally, a skeptical problem arises: inference to
the best explanation is plausibly involved in both scientific and commonsense
knowledge, but it is not clear why the best explanation that occurs to a person
is likely to be true. -- inferential knowledge, a kind of “indirect” knowledge,
namely, knowledge based on or resulting from inference. Assuming that knowledge
is at least true, justified belief, inferential knowledge is constituted by a
belief that is justified because it is inferred from certain other beliefs. The
knowledge that 7 equals 7 seems non-inferential. We do not infer from anything
that 7 equals 7 – it is obvious and self-evident. The knowledge that 7 is the
cube root of 343, in contrast, seems inferential. We cannot know this without
inferring it from something else, such as the result obtained when multiplying
7 times 7 times 7. Two sorts of inferential relations may be distinguished. ‘I
inferred that someone died because the flag is at half-mast’ may be true
because yesterday I acquired the belief about the flag, which caused me to
acquire the further belief that someone died. ‘I inferentially believe that
someone died because the flag is at halfmast’ may be true now because I retain
the belief that someone died and it remains based on my belief about the flag.
My belief that someone died is thus either episodically or structurally
inferential. The episodic process is an occurrent, causal relation among belief
acquisitions. The structural basing relation may involve the retention of
beliefs, and need not be occurrent. (Some reserve ‘inference’ for the episodic
relation.) An inferential belief acquired on one basis may later be held on a
different basis, as when I forget I saw a flag at half-mast but continue to
believe someone died because of news reports. That “How do you know?” and
“Prove it!” always seem pertinent suggests that all knowledge is inferential, a
version of the coherence theory. The well-known regress argument seems to show,
however, that not all knowledge can be inferential, which is a version of
foundationalism. For if S knows something inferentially, S must infer it
correctly from premises S knows to be true. The question whether those premises
are also known inferentially begins either an infinite regress of inferences
(which is humanly impossible) or a circle of justification (which could not
constitute good reasoning). Which sources of knowledge are non-inferential
remains an issue even assuming foundationalism. When we see that an apple is
red, e.g., our knowledge is based in some manner on the way the apple looks.
“How do you know it is red?” can be answered: “By the way it looks.” This
answer seems correct, moreover, only if an inference from the way the apple
looks to its being red would be warranted. Nevertheless, perceptual beliefs are
formed so automatically that talk of inference seems inappropriate. In
addition, inference as a process whereby beliefs are acquired as a result of
holding other beliefs may be distinguished from inference as a state in which
one belief is sustained on the basis of others. Knowledge that is inferential
in one way need not be inferential in the other.
illuminism: d’Alembert,
Jean Le Rond, philosopher, and Encyclopedist. According to Grimm, d’Alembert
was the prime luminary of the philosophic party. Cf. the French ideologues that
influenced Humboldt. An abandoned, illegitimate child, he nonetheless received
an outstanding education at the Jansenist Collège des Quatre-Nations in Paris.
He read law for a while, tried medicine, and settled on mathematics. In 1743,
he published an acclaimed Treatise of Dynamics. Subsequently, he joined the
Paris Academy of Sciences and contributed decisive works on mathematics and
physics. In 1754, he was elected to the
Academy, of which he later became permanent secretary. In association
with Diderot, he launched the Encyclopedia, for which he wrote the epoch-making
Discours préliminaire 1751 and numerous entries on science. Unwilling to
compromise with the censorship, he resigned as coeditor in 1758. In the
Discours préliminaire, d’Alembert specified the divisions of the philosophical
discourse on man: pneumatology, logic, and ethics. Contrary to Christian
philosophies, he limited pneumatology to the investigation of the human soul.
Prefiguring positivism, his Essay on the Elements of Philosophy 1759 defines
philosophy as a comparative examination of physical phenomena. Influenced by
Bacon, Locke, and Newton, d’Alembert’s epistemology associates Cartesian
psychology with the sensory origin of ideas. Though assuming the universe to be
rationally ordered, he discarded metaphysical questions as inconclusive. The
substance, or the essence, of soul and matter, is unknowable. Agnosticism
ineluctably arises from his empirically based naturalism. D’Alembert is
prominently featured in D’Alembert’s Dream 1769, Diderot’s dialogical apology
for materialism. Grice’s illuminism –
“reason enlightens us” Enlightenment, a late eighteenth-century international
movement in thought, with important social and political ramifications. The
Enlightenment is at once a style, an attitude, a temper critical, secular, skeptical, empirical, and
practical. It is also characterized by core beliefs in human rationality, in
what it took to be “nature,” and in the “natural feelings” of mankind. Four of
its most prominent exemplars are Hume, Thomas Jefferson, Kant, and Voltaire.
The Enlightenment belief in human rationality had several aspects. 1 Human
beings are free to the extent that their actions are carried out for a reason.
Actions prompted by traditional authority, whether religious or political, are
therefore not free; liberation requires weakening if not also overthrow of this
authority. 2 Human rationality is universal, requiring only education for its
development. In virtue of their common rationality, all human beings have
certain rights, among them the right to choose and shape their individual
destinies. 3 A final aspect of the belief in human rationality was that the
true forms of all things could be discovered, whether of the universe Newton’s
laws, of the mind associationist psychology, of good government the U.S.
Constitution, of a happy life which, like good government, was “balanced”, or
of beautiful architecture Palladio’s principles. The Enlightenment was
preeminently a “formalist” age, and prose, not poetry, was its primary means of
expression. The Enlightenment thought of itself as a return to the classical
ideas of the Grecians and more especially the Romans. But in fact it provided
one source of the revolutions that shook Europe and America at the end of the
eighteenth century, and it laid the intellectual foundations for both the
generally scientific worldview and the liberal democratic society, which,
despite the many attacks made on them, continue to function as cultural ideals.
illusion: cf. veridical memories, who needs them? hallucination
is Grice’s topic.Malcolm argues in Dreaming and Skepticism and in his Dreaming
that the notion of a dream qua conscious experience that occurs at a definite
time and has definite duration during sleep, is unintelligible. This
contradicts the views of philosophers like Descartes (and indeed Moore!), who,
Malcolm holds, assume that a human being may have a conscious thought and a
conscious experience during sleep. Descartes claims that he had been deceived during
sleep. Malcolms point is that ordinary language contrasts consciousness and
sleep. The claim that one is conscious while one is sleep-walking is stretching
the use of the term. Malcolm rejects the alleged counter-examples based on
sleepwalking or sleep-talking, e.g. dreaming that one is climbing stairs while
one is actually doing so is not a counter-example because, in such a case, the
individual is not sound asleep after all. If a person is in any state of
consciousness, it logically follows that he is not sound asleep. The concept of
dreaming is based on our descriptions of dreams after we have awakened in
telling a dream. Thus, to have dreamt that one has a thought during sleep is
not to have a thought any more than to have dreamt that one has climbed Everest
is to have climbed Everest. Since one cannot have an experience during sleep,
one cannot have a mistaken experience during sleep, thereby undermining the
sort of scepticism based on the idea that our experience might be wrong because
we might be dreaming. Malcolm further argues that a report of a conscious state
during sleep is unverifiable. If Grice claims that he and Strawson saw a
big-foot in charge of the reserve desk at the Bodleian library, one can verify
that this took place by talking to Strawson and gathering forensic evidence
from the library. However, there is no way to verify Grices claim that he
dreamed that he and Strawson saw a big-foot working at the Bodleian. Grices
only basis for his claim that he dreamt this is that Grice says so after he
wakes up. How does one distinguish the case where Grice dreamed that he saw a
big-foot working at The Bodleian and the case in which he dreamed that he saw a
person in a big-foot suit working at the library but, after awakening,
mis-remembered that person in a big-foot suit as a big-foot proper? If Grice
should admit that he had earlier mis-reported his dream and that he had
actually dreamed he saw a person in a big-foot suit at The Bodleian, there is
no more independent verification for this new claim than there was for the
original one. Thus, there is, for Malcolm, no sense to the idea of
mis-remembering ones dreams. Malcolm here applies one of Witters ideas from his
private language argument. One would like to say: whatever is going to seem right
to me is right. And that only means that here we cannot talk about right. For a
similar reason, Malcolm challenges the idea that one can assign a definite
duration or time of occurrence to a dream. If Grice claims that he ran the mile
in 3.4 minutes, one could verify this in the usual ways. If, however, Grice
says he dreamt that he ran the mile in 3.4 minutes, how is one to measure the
duration of his dreamt run? If Grice says he was wearing a stopwatch in the
dream and clocked his run at 3.4 minutes, how can one know that the dreamt
stopwatch is not running at half speed (so that he really dreamt that he ran
the mile in 6.8 minutes)? Grice might argue that a dream report does not carry
such a conversational implicatura. But Malcolm would say that just admits the
point. The ordinary criteria one uses for determining temporal duration do not
apply to dreamt events. The problem in both these cases (Grice dreaming one saw
a bigfoot working at The Bodleian and dreaming that he ran the mile in 3.4
minutes) is that there is no way to verify the truth of these dreamt events —
no direct way to access that dreamt inner experience, that mysterious glow of
consciousness inside the mind of Grice lying comatose on the couch, in order to
determine the facts of the matter. This is because, for Malcolm, there are no
facts of the matter apart from the report by the dreamer of the dream upon
awakening. Malcolm claims that the empirical evidence does not enable one to
decide between the view that a dream experience occurs during sleep and the
view that they are generated upon the moment of waking up. Dennett agrees with
Malcolm that nothing supports the received view that a dream involves a
conscious experience while one is asleep but holds that such issues might be
settled empirically. Malcolm also argues against the attempt to provide a
physiological mark of the duration of a dream, for example, the view that the
dream lasted as long as the rapid eye movements. Malcolm replies that there can
only be as much precision in that common concept of dreaming as is provided by
the common criterion of dreaming. These scientific researchers are misled by
the assumption that the provision for the duration of a dream is already there,
only somewhat obscured and in need of being made more precise. However, Malcolm
claims, it is not already there (in the ordinary concept of dreaming). These
scientific views are making radical conceptual changes in the concept of
dreaming, not further explaining our ordinary concept of dreaming. Malcolm admits,
however, that it might be natural to adopt such scientific views about REM
sleep as a convention. Malcolm points out, however, that if REM sleep is
adopted as a criterion for the occurrence of a dream, people would have to
be informed upon waking up that they had dreamed or not. As Pears observes,
Malcolm does not mean to deny that people have dreams in favour of the view
that they only have waking dream-behaviour. Of course it is no misuse of
language to speak of remembering a dream. His point is that since the concept
of dreaming is so closely tied to our concept of waking report of a dreams, one
cannot form a coherent concept of this alleged inner (private) something that
occurs with a definite duration during sleep. Malcolm rejects a certain philosophical
conception of dreaming, not the ordinary concept of dreaming, which, he holds,
is neither a hidden private something nor mere outward behaviour.The account of
dreaming by Malcolm has come in for considerable criticism. Some argue that
Malcolms claim that occurrences in dreams cannot be verified by others does not
require the strict criteria that Malcolm proposes but can be justified by
appeal to the simplicity, plausibility, and predictive adequacy of an
explanatory system as a whole. Some argue that Malcolms account of the sentence
I am awake is inconsistent. A comprehensive programme in considerable detail
has been offered for an empirical scientific investigation of dreaming of the
sort that Malcolm rejects. Others have proposed various counterexamples and counter
arguments against dreaming by Malcolm. Grices emphasis is in Malcolms easy way
out with statements to the effect that implicatura do or do not operate in
dream reports. They do in mine! Grice considers, I may be dreaming in the two
essays opening the Part II: Explorations on semantics and metaphysics in WOW. Cf.
Urmson on ‘delusion’ in ‘Parentheticals’ as ‘conceptually impossible.’ Refs.: The
main reference is Grice’s essay on ‘Dreaming,’ but there are scattered
references in his treatment of Descartes, and “The causal theory of perception”
(henceforth, “Causal theory”), The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
imagination:
referred to by Grice in “Prolegomena” – the rabbit that looks like a duck --
the mental faculty sometimes thought to encompass all acts of thinking about
something novel, contrary to fact, or not currently perceived; thus: “Imagine
that Lincoln had not been assassinated,” or “Use your imagination to create a
new design for roller skates.” ‘Imagination’ also denotes an important perception-like
aspect of some such thoughts, so that to imagine something is to bring to mind
what it would be like to perceive it. Philosophical theories of imagination
must explain its apparent intentionality: when we imagine, we always imagine
something. Imagination is always directed toward an object, even though the
object may not exist. Moreover, imagination, like perception, is often seen as
involving qualia, or special subjective properties that are sometimes thought
to discredit materialist, especially functionalist, theories of mind. The
intentionality of imagination and its perceptual character lead some theories
to equate imagination with “imaging”: being conscious of or perceiving a mental
image. However, because the ontological status of such images and the nature of
their properties are obscure, many philosophers have rejected mental images in
favor of an adverbial theory on which to imagine something red is best analyzed
as imagining “redly.” Such theories avoid the difficulties associated with mental
images, but must offer some other way to account for the apparent
intentionality of imagination as well as its perceptual character. Imagination,
in the hands of Husserl and Sartre, becomes a particularly apt subject for
phenomenology. It is also cited as a faculty that idols of the cave imagination
417 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 417 separates human thought from any
form of artificial intelligence. Finally, imagination often figures prominently
in debates about possibility, in that what is imaginable is often taken to be
coextensive with what is possible.
inmanens,
a term most often used in contrast to ‘transcendence’ to express the way in
which God is thought to be present in the world. The most extreme form of
immanence is expressed in pantheism, which identifies God’s substance either
partly or wholly with the world. In contrast to pantheism, Judaism and
Christianity hold God to be a totally separate substance from the world. In
Christianity, the separateness of God’s substance from that of the world is
guaranteed by the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Aquinas held that God is in
the world as an efficient cause is present to that on which it acts. Thus, God
is present in the world by continuously acting on it to preserve it in
existence. Perhaps the weakest notion of immanence is expressed in eighteenth-
and nineteenthcentury deism, in which God initially creates the world and
institutes its universal laws, but is basically an absentee landlord,
exercising no providential activity over its continuing history.
immaterialism, Oneo
of Grice’s twelve labours is with Materialism. Immaterialism is the view that
objects are best characterized as mere collections of qualities: “a certain
colour, taste, smell, figure and consistence having been observed to go
together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified by the name apple”
(Berkeley, Principles, 1). So construed, immaterialism anticipates by some two
hundred years a doctrine defended in the early twentieth century by Russell.
The negative side of the doctrine comes in the denial of material substance or
matter. Some philosophers had held that ordinary objects are individual
material substances in which qualities inhere. The account is mistaken because,
according to immaterialism, there is no such thing as material substance, and
so qualities do not inhere in it. Immaterialism should not be confused with
Berkeley’s idealism. The latter, but not the former, implies that objects and
their qualities exist if and only if they are perceived.
mediatum:
Grice is all about the mediatum. This he call a ‘soul-to-soul’ transfer.
Imagine you pick up a rose, the thorn hurts you. You are in pain. You say
“Ouch.” You transmit this to the fellow gardener. The mediacy means, “Beware of
the thorn. It may hurt you.” “I am amazed that in The New World, it’s all about
immediacy (Chisholm) when there’s so much which is mediately of immediate
philosophical importance!”
immediatum:
Grice: “Here the ‘in-’ is negative!” – the presence to the mind without intermediaries.
The term ‘immediatum’ and its cognates have been used extensively throughout
the history of philosophy, generally without much explanation. Descartes, e.g.,
explains his notion of thought thus: “I use this term to include everything
that is within us in a way that we are IMMEDIATELY aware of it” (Second
Replies). Descartes offers no explanation of immediate awareness, but the implicaturum
is “contextually cancellable.” “Only an idiot would not realise that he is
opposing it to mediated experience.” – Grice. Grice is well aware of this.
“Check with Lewis and Short.” “mĕdĭo , 1, v. a.
medius, I.to halve, divide in the middle (post-class.), Apic. 3, 9. — B.
Neutr., to be in the middle: “melius Juno mediante,” Pall. Mart. 10, 32.” “So
you see, ‘mediare’ can be transitive, but surely Descartes means it in the
intransitive way – something mediates or something doesn’t – Clear as water!” However,
when used as a primitive in this way, ‘immediatum’ may simply mean that
thoughts are the immediate objects of perception because thoughts are the only
things perceived in the strict and proper sense that no perception of an
intermediary is required for the person’s awareness of them. Sometimes
‘immediate’ means ‘not mediated’. (1) An inference from a premise to a
conclusion can exhibit logical immediacy because it does not depend on other
premises. This is a technical usage of proof theory to describe the form of a
certain class of inference rules. (2) A concept can exhibit conceptual
immediacy because it is definitionally primitive, as in the Berkeleian doctrine
that perception of qualities is immediate, and perception of objects is defined
by the perception of their qualities, which is directly understood. (3) Our
perception of something can exhibit causal immediacy because it is not caused
by intervening acts of perception or cognition, as with seeing someone
immediately in the flesh rather than through images on a movie screen. (4) A
belief-formation process can possess psychological immediacy because it
contains no subprocess of reasoning and in that sense has no psychological
mediator. (5) Our knowledge of something can exhibit epistemic immediacy
because it is justified without inference from another proposition, as in
intuitive knowledge of the existence of the self, which has no epistemic
mediator. A noteworthy special application of immediacy is to be found in
Russell’s notion of knowledge by acquaintance. This notion is a development of
the venerable doctrine originating with Plato, and also found in Augustine,
that understanding the nature of some object requires that we can gain
immediate cognitive access to that object. Thus, for Plato, to understand the
nature of beauty requires acquaintance with beauty itself. This view contrasts
with one in which understanding the nature of beauty requires linguistic
competence in the use of the word ‘beauty’ or, alternatively, with one that
requires having a mental representation of beauty. Russell offers sense-data
and universals as examples of things known by acquaintance. To these senses of
immediacy we may add another category whose members have acquired special
meanings within certain philosophical traditions. For example, in Hegel’s
philosophy if (per impossibile) an object were encountered “as existing in
simple immediacy” it would be encountered as it is in itself, unchanged by
conceptualization. In phenomenology “immediate” experience is, roughly,
bracketed experience.
partiale.
impartialis –
impartiality: Grice found this amusing. “Surely conversational maxims,
constituting the conversational immanuel, are impartial – i.e. they are not
part of any other part!” – “However, it’s only because they can be partial
that’s the only way they can have a bite on us!” -- a state or disposition
achieved to the degree that one’s actions or attitudes are not influenced in a
relevant respect by which members of a relevant group are benefited or harmed
by one’s actions or by the object of one’s attitudes. For example, a basketball
referee and that referee’s calls are impartial when the referee’s applications
of the rules are not affected by whether the calls help one team or the other.
A fan’s approval of a call lacks impartiality if that attitude results from the
fan’s preference for one team over the other. Impartiality in this general sense
does not exclude arbitrariness or guarantee fairness; nor does it require
neutrality among values, for a judge can be impartial between parties while
favoring liberty and equality for all. Different situations might call for
impartiality in different respects toward different groups, so disagreements
arise, for example, about when morality requires or allows partiality toward
friends or family or country. Moral philosophers have proposed various tests of
the kind of impartiality required by morality, including role reversibility
(Kurt Baier), universalizability (Hare), a veil of ignorance (Rawls), and a
restriction to beliefs shared by all rational people (Bernard Gert).
imperatum – While of course there is a verb
in the infinitive for this, Grice prefers the past participle – “It’s so
diaphanous!” -- This starts with the Greeks, who had the klesis porstktike,
modus imperativus. But then, under the modus subjunctives, the Romans added the
modus prohibitivus. So this is interesting, because it seems that most of
Grice’s maxims are ‘prohibitions’: “Do not say what you believe to be false.”
“Do not that for which you lack adequate evidence.” And some while formally in
the ‘affirmative,’ look prohibitive with ‘negative-loaded’ verbs like ‘avoid
ambiguity,’ etc. hile an imperatus, m. is a command, ‘imperatum’ refers,
diaphanously, to what is commanded. “Impero” is actually a derivation from the
intensive “in-“ and the “paro,” as in “prepare,” “Paratum” would thus reflect
the ssame cognateness with ‘imperatum.” Modus imperativus -- imperative mode: At one
point, Grice loved the “psi,” Actions are alright, but we need to stop at the
psi level. The emissor communicates that the addressee thinks that the emissor
has propositional attitude psi. No need to get into the logical form of action.
One can just do with the logical form of a ‘that’-clause in the ascription of a
state of the soul. This should usually INVOLVE an action, as in Hare, “The door
is shut, please.” like Hare, Grice loves an imperative. In this essay, Grice
attempts an exploration of the logical form of Kant’s concoction. Grice is
especially irritated by the ‘the.’ ‘They speak of Kant’s categorical
imperative, when he cared to formulate a few versions of it!” Grice lists them
all in Abbott’s version. There are nine of them! Grice is interested in the conceptual
connection of the categorical imperative with the hypothetical or suppositional
imperative, in terms of the type of connection between the protasis and the
apodosis. Grice spends the full second Carus lecture on the conception of
value on this. Grice is aware that the topic is central to Oxonian
philosophers such as Hare, a member of Austin’s Play Group, too, who regard the
universability of an imperative as a mark of its categoricity, and indeed, moral
status. Grice chose some of the Kantian terminology on purpose.Grice would
refer to this or that ‘conversational maxim.’A ‘conversational maxim’
contributes to what Grice jocularly refers to as the ‘conversational
immanuel.’But there is an admission test.The ‘conversational maxim’ has to be
shown that, qua items under an overarching principle of conversational
helpfulness, the maxim displays a quality associated with conceptual, formal,
and applicational generality. Grice never understood what Kant meant by the
categoric imperative. But for Grice, from the acceptability of the the immanuel
you can deduce the acceptability of this or that maxim, and from the
acceptability of the conversational immanuel, be conversationally helpful, you
can deduce the acceptability of this or that convesational maxim. Grice hardly
considered Kants approach to the categoric imperative other than via the
universability of this or that maxim. This or that conversational maxim,
provided by Grice, may be said to be universalisable if and only if it displays
what Grice sees as these three types of generality: conceptual, formal, and
applicational. He does the same for general maxims of conduct. The results are
compiled in a manual of universalisable maxims, the conversational immanuel, an
appendix to the general immanuel. The other justification by Kant of the
categoric imperative involve an approach other than the genitorial
justification, and an invocation of autonomy and freedom. It is the use by
Plato of imperative as per categoric imperative that has Grice expanding on
modes other than the doxastic, to bring in the buletic, where the categoric
imperative resides. Note that in the end Kant DOES formulate the categoric
imperative, as Grice notes, as a real imperative, rather than a command, etc.
Grice loved Kant, but he loved Kantotle best. In the last Kant lecture, he
proposes to define the categorical imperative as a counsel of prudence, with a
protasis Let Grice be happy. The derivation involves eight stages! Grice found
out that out of his play-group activities with this or that linguistic nuance
he had arrived at the principle, or imperative of conversational helpfulness,
indeed formulated as an imperative: Make your contribution such as is required,
at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose of the conversation in
which you are engaged. He notes that the rationality behind the idea of
conversation as rational co-operation does not preclude seeing rationality in
conversation as other than cooperation. The fact that he chooses maxim, and
explicitly echoes Kant, indicates where Grice is leading! An exploration on
Paton on the categorical imperative. Grice had previously explored the
logical form of hypothetical or suppositional imperatives in the Kant
(and later Locke) lectures, notably in Lecture IV, Further remarks on
practical and alethic reasons. Here he considers topics related to Hares
tropic-clistic neustic-phrastic quartet. What does it mean to say that
a command is conditional? The two successors of Grices post as
Tutorial Fellow at St. Johns, Baker Hacker, will tackle the same issue with
humour, in Sense and nonsense, published by Blackwell (too irreverent to be
published by the Clarendon). Is the logical form of a maxim, .p⊃!q, or !(.p ⊃.q), etc. Kant thought that there is a special sub-class of
hypothetical or suppositional imperative (which he called a counsels
of prudence) which is like his class of technical imperative, except in that
the end specified in a full specfication of the imperative is the special end
of eudæmonia (the agents eudæmonia). For Grice, understanding Kant’s
first version of the categorical imperative involves understanding what a maxim
is supposed to be. Grice explores at some length four alternative interpretations of an
iffy buletic (as opposed to a non-iffy buletic): three formal, one material.
The first interpretation is the horseshoe interpretation. A blind logical
nose might lead us or be led to the assumption of a link between a
buletically iffy utterance and a doxastically iffy utterance. Such a link
no doubt exists, but the most obvious version of it is plainly
inadequate. At least one other philosopher besides Grice has noticed that If he
torments the cat, have him arrested! is unlikely to express an
buletically iffy utterance, and that even if one restricts oneself to
this or that case in which the protasis specifies a will, we find pairs of
examples like If you will to go to Oxford, travel by AA via Richmond! or
If you will to go to Cambridge, see a psychiatrist! where it is plain that one
is, and the other is not, the expression of a buletically iffy utterance. For
fun, Grice does not tell which! A less easily eliminable suggestion, yet one
which would still interprets the notion of a buletically iffy utterance in
terms of that particular logical form to which if, hypothetical or
suppositional and conditional attach,
would be the following. Let us assume that it is established, or conceded, as
legitimate to formulate an if utterance in which not only the apodosis is
couched in some mode other than the doxastic, as in this or that conditional
command. If you see the whites of their eyes, shoot fire! but also the protasis
or some part (clause) of them. In which case all of the following might be
admissible conditionals. Thus, we might have a doxastic protasis (If the cat is
sick, take it to the vet), or a mixed (buletic-cum-doxastic protasis (If you
are to take the cat to the vet and theres no cage available, put it on Marthas
lap!), and buletic protasis (If you are to take the cat to the vet, put it in a
cage!). If this suggestion seems rebarbative, think of this or that quaint if
utterance (when it is quaint) as conditionalised versions of this or that
therefore-sequence, such as: buletic-cum-doxastic premises (Take the cat
to the vet! There isnt a cage. Therefore; Put the cat on Marthas lap!), buletic
premise (Take the cat to the vet! Put it in a cage!). And then, maybe, the
discomfort is reduced. Grice next considers a second formal interpretation or
approach to the buletically iffy/non-iffy utterance. Among if utterances with a
buletic apodosis some will have, then, a mixed doxastic-cum buletic protasis
(partly doxastic, partly buletic), and some will have a purely doxastic
protasis (If the cat is sick, take him to the vet!). Grice proposes a
definition of the iffy/non-iffy distinction. A buletically iffy utterance is an
iffy utterance the apodosis of which is buletic and the protasis of which is
buletic or mixed (buletic-cum-dxastic) or it is an elliptical version of such
an iffy utterance. A buletically non-iffy utterance is a buletic utterance
which is not iffy or else, if it is iffy, has a purely doxastic protasis. Grice
makes three quick comments on this second interpretation. First, re: a real
imperative. The structures which are being offered as a way of interpreting an
iffy and a non-iffy imperative do not, as they stand, offer any room for
the appearance this or that buletic modality like ought and should which are so
prominently visible in the standard examples of those kinds of imperatives. The
imperatives suggested by Grice are explicit imperatives. An explicit buletic
utterance is Do such-and-such! and not You ought to do such and such or, worse,
One ought to do such and such. Grice thinks, however, that one can modify this
suggestion to meet the demand for the appearance or occurrence of ought (etc)
if such occurrence is needed. Second, it would remain to be decided how close
the preferred reading of Grices deviant conditional imperatives would be to the
accepted interpretation of standard hypothetical or
suppositional imperatives. But even if there were some divergence that
might be acceptable if the new interpretation turns out to embody a more
precise notion than the standard conception. Then theres the neustical versus
tropical protases. There are, Grice thinks, serious doubts of the admissibility
of conditionals with a NON-doxastic protasis, which are for Grice connected
with the very difficult question whether the doxastic and the buletic modes are
co-ordinate or whether the doxastic mode is in some crucial fashion (but
not in other) prior (to use Suppess qualification) to the buletic. Grice
confesses he does not know the answer to that question. A third formal interpretation links
the iffy/non-iffy distinction to the absolute-relative value distinction. An
iffy imperatives would be end-relative and might be analogous
to an evidence-relative probability. A non-iffy imperatives would not
be end-relative. Finally, a fourth Interpretation is not formal, but
material. This is close to part of what Kant says on the topic. It is a
distinction between an imperative being escapable (iffy), through the
absence of a particular will and its not being escapable (non-iffy). If
we understand the idea of escabability sufficiently widely, the
following imperatives are all escapable, even though their logical form is
not in every case the same: Give up popcorn!, To get slim, give up
popcorn!, If you will to get slim, give up popcorn! Suppose Grice has no
will to get slim. One might say that the first imperative (Give up
popcorn!) is escaped, provided giving up popcorn has nothing else
to recommend it, by falsifying You should give up popcorn. The
second and the third imperatives (To get slim, give up pocorn! and If
you will to get slim, give up popcorn!) would not, perhaps, involve
falsification but they would, in the circumstances, be inapplicable
to Grice – and inapplicability, too, counts, as escape. A non-iffy
imperative however, is in no way escapable. Re: the Dynamics of
Imperatives in Discourse, Grice then gives three examples which he had
discussed in “Aspects,” which concern arguments (or therefore-chains). This we
may see as an elucidation to grasp the logical form of buletically iffy
utterance (elided by the therefore, which is an if in the metalanguage)
in its dynamics in argumentation. We should, Grice suggests,
consider not merely imperatives of each sort, together with the range
of possible characterisations, but also the possible forms of argument into
which_particular_ hypothetical or suppositional imperatives might enter.
Consider: Defend the Philosophy Department! If you are to defend the
philosophy department, learn to use bows and arrows! Therefore, learn to
use bows and arrows! Grice says he is using the dichotomy of original-derived
value. In this example, in the first premise, it is not specified whether the
will is original or derived, the second premise specifies conducive to (means),
and the conclusion would involve a derived will, provided the second premise is
doxastically satisfactory. Another example would be: Fight for your country! If
you are to fight for your country, join up one of the services! Therefore, join
up! Here, the first premise and the conclusion do not specify the protasis. If
the conclusion did, it would repeat the second premise. Then theres Increase
your holdings in oil shares! If you visit your father, hell give you some oil
shares. Therefore, visit your father! This argument (purportedly) transmits
value. Let us explore these characterisations by Grice with the aid of
Hares distinctions. For Hare in a hypothetical or suppositional imperative, the
protasis contains a neustic-cum-tropic. A distinction may be made between this
or that hypothetical or suppositional imperative and a term used by Grice
in his first interpretation of the hypothetical or suppositional
imperative, that of conditional command (If you see the whites of their
eyes, shoot fire!). A hypothetical or suppositional imperative can
be distinguished from a conditional imperative (If you want to make bread,
use yeast! If you see anything suspicious, telephone the police!) by the
fact that modus ponens is not valid for it. One may use hypothetical,
suppositional or conditional imperative for a buletic utterance which features
if, and reserve conditional command for a command which is expressed by an
imperative, and which is conditional on the satisfaction of the protasis.
Thus, on this view, treating the major premise of an argument as a
hypothetical or suppositional imperative turns the therefore-chain invalid.
Consider the sequence with the major premise as a hypothetical or suppositional
imperative. If you will to make someone mad, give him drug D! You
will to make Peter mad; therefore, give Peter drug D! By uttering this
hypothetical or suppositional imperative, the utterer tells his addressee A
only what means to adopt to achieve a given end in a way which
does not necessarily endorse the adoption of that end, and hence of
the means to it. Someone might similarly say, if you will to make
someone mad, give him drug D! But, of course, even if you will to do
that, you must not try to do so. On the other hand, the
following is arguably valid because the major premise is a
conditional imperative and not a mere hypothetical or suppositional
one. We have a case of major premise as a conditional imperative: You will to
make someone mad, give him drug D! Make Peter mad! Therefore, give
Peter drug D!. We can explain this in terms of the presence of the neustic
in the antecedent of the imperative working as the major premise.
The supposition that the protasis of a hypothetical or suppositional
imperative contains a clause in the buletic mode neatly explains why the
argument with the major premise as a hypothetical or suppositional
imperative is not valid. But the argument with the major premise as a
conditional imperative is, as well as helping to differentiate a
suppositional or hypothetical or suppositional iffy imperative from a
conditional iffy imperative. For, if the protasis of the major premise in the
hypothetical or suppositional imperative is volitival, the mere fact that
you will to make Peter mad does not license the inference of the
imperative to give him the drug; but this _can_ be inferred from the
major premise of the hypothetical or suppositional imperative
together with an imperative, the minor premise in the conditional
imperative, to make Peter mad. Whether the subordinate
clause contains a neustic thus does have have a consequence as
to the validity of inferences into which the complex sentence
enters. Then theres an alleged principle of mode constancy in buletic and
and doxastic inference. One may tries to elucidate Grices ideas on the
logical form of the hypothetical or suppositional imperative proper.
His suggestion is, admittedly, rather tentative. But it might be
argued, in the spirit of it, that an iffy imperative is of the
form ((!p⊃!q) Λ
.p)) ∴ !q
But this violates a principle of mode constancy. A phrastic must
remain in the same mode (within the scope of the same tropic) throughout
an argument. A conditional imperative does not violate the principle of
Modal Constancy, since it is of the form ((p⊃!q) Λ !p)) ∴ !q The question of the logical
form of the hypothetical or suppositional imperative is
too obscure to base much on arguments concerning it. There is an
alternative to Grices account of the validity of an argument featuring a conditional
imperative. This is to treat the major premise of a conditional
imperative, as some have urged it should be as a doxastic utterance tantamount
to In order to make someone mad, you have to give him drug D. Then an
utterer who explicitly conveys or asserts the major premise of a conditional
imperative and commands the second premise is in consistency committed to
commanding the conclusion. If does not always connect phrastic with
phrastic but sometimes connects two expressions consisting of a phrastic
and a tropic. Consider: If you walk past the post office, post the
letter! The antecedent of this imperative states, it seems, the
condition under which the imperative expressed becomes operative,
and so can not be construed buletically, since by uttering a buletic
utterance, an utterer cannot explicitly convey or assert that a condition
obtains. Hence, the protasis ought not be within the scope of the
buletic !, and whatever we take to represent the form of the
utterance above we must not take !(if p, q) to do so. One way out. On
certain interpretation of the isomorphism or æqui-vocality Thesis between
Indicative and Imperative Inference the utterance has to be construed
as an imperative (in the generic reading) to make the doxasatic
conditional If you will walk past the post office, you will post
the letter satisfactory. Leaving aside issues of the implicaturum of if,
that the utterance can not be so construed seems to be shown by
the fact that the imperative to make the associated doxastically iffy
utterance satisfactory is conformed with by one who does not walk past the
post office. But it seems strange at best to say that the utterance
is conformed with in the same circumstances. This strangeness or
bafflingliness, as Grice prefers, is aptly explained away in terms of the implicaturum.
At Oxford, Dummett is endorsing this idea that a
conditional imperative be construed as an imperative to make an
indicative if utterance true. Dummett urges to divide conditional
imperatives into those whose antecedent is within the power of
the addressee, like the utterance in question, and those in which it
is not. Consider: If you go out, wear your coat! One may be not so much
concerned with how to escape this, as Grice is, but how to conform it. A child
may choose not to go out in order to comply with the imperative. For an
imperative whose protasis is_not_ within the power of the addressee (If anyone
tries to escape, shoot him!) it is indifferent whether we treat it as a
conditional imperative or not, so why bother. A small
caveat here. If no one tries to escape, the imperative is *not violated*.
One might ask, might there not be an important practical difference
bewteen saying that an imperative has not been violated and that
it has been complied with? Dummett ignores this distinction. One may
feel think there is much of a practical difference there. Is Grice
an intuitionist? Suppose that you are a frontier guard and
the antecedent has remained unfulfilled. Then, whether we say that you
complied with it, or simply did not *violate* it will make a great
deal of difference if you appear before a war crimes tribunal.
For Dummett, the fact that in the case of an imperative expressed by a
conditional imperative in which the antecedent is not within the agents power,
we should *not* say that the agent had obeyed just on the ground that the
protassi is false, is no ground for construing an imperative as expressing a
conditional command: for there is no question of fixing what shall
constitute obedience independently of the determination of what shall
constitute disobedience. This complicates the issues. One may with Grice (and
Hare, and Edgley) defend imperative inference against other Oxonian
philosophers, such as Kenny or Williams. What is questioned by the sceptics about imperative
inference is whether if each one of a set of imperatives is used with
the force of a command, one can infer a _further_ imperative with that
force from them. Cf. Wiggins on Aristotle on the practical syllogism. One
may be more conservative than Hare, if not Grice. Consider If you stand by
Jane, dont look at her! You stand by Jane; therefore, dont look at her! This is
valid. However, the following, obtained by anti-logism, is not: If you stand by
Jane, dont look at her! Look at her! Therefore, you dont stand by Jane. It may
seem more reasonable to some to deny Kants thesis, and maintain that
anti-logism is valid in imperative inference than it is to hold onto Kants
thesis and deny that antilogism is valid in the case in question. Then theres the
question of the implicatura involved in the ordering of modes. Consider:
Varnish every piece of furniture you make! You are going to make a table;
therefore, varnish it! This is prima facie valid. The following, however,
switching the order of the modes in the premises is not. You are going to
varnish every piece of furniture that you make. Make a table! Therefore;
varnish it! The connection between the if and the therefore is metalinguistic,
obviously – the validity of the therefore chain is proved by the associated if
that takes the premise as, literally, the protasis and the consequence as the
apodosis. Conversational Implicaturum at the Rescue. Problems with
or: Consider Rosss infamous example: Post the letter! Therefore, post the
letter or burn it! as invalid, Ross – and endorsed at Oxford by Williams.
To permit to do p or q is to permit to do p and to permit to do q.
Similarly, to give permission to do something is to lift a prohibition
against doing it. Admittedly, Williams does not need this so we are
stating his claim more strongly than he does. One may review Grices way
out (defense of the validity of the utterance above in terms of the implicaturum.
Grice claims that in Rosss infamous example (valid, for Grice), whilst (to
state it roughly) the premises permissive presupposition (to use the
rather clumsy term introduced by Williams) is entailed by it, the
conclusions is only conversationally implicated. Typically for an
isomorphist, Grice says this is something shared by
indicative inferences. If, being absent-minded, Grice asks his wife, What
have I done with the letter? And she replies, You have posted it or burnt it,
she conversationally implicates that she is not in a position to say which
Grice has done. She also conversationally implicates that Grice may not have
post it, so long as he has burnt it. Similarly, the future tense indicative, You
are going to post the letter has the conversational implicaturum You may be not
going to post the letter so long as you are going to burn it. But this surely
does not validate the introduction rule for OR, to wit: p; therefore, p
or q. One can similarly, say: Eclipse will win. He may not, of course, if it
rains. And I *know* it will *not* rain. Problems with and. Consider: Put on
your parachute AND jump out! Therefore, jump out! Someone who _only_ jumps out
of an æroplane does not fulfil Put on your parachute and jump out!
He has done only what is necessary, but not sufficient to fulfil it.
Imperatives do not differ from indicatives in this respect, except that
fulfilment takes the place of belief or doxa, which is the form of acceptance
apprpriate to a doxasatic utterance, as the Names implies. Someone who is
told Smith put on his parachute AND jumped out is entitled to believe
that Smith jumped out. But if he believes that this is _all_ Smith did he
is in error (Cf. Edgley). One may discuss Grices test of cancellability in the
case of the transport officer who says: Go via Coldstream or Berwick! It seems
the transport officers way of expressing himself is extremely eccentric,
or conversationally baffling, as Grice prefers – yet validly. If the transport
officer is not sure if a storm may block one of the routes, what he
should say is _Prepare_ to go via Coldstream or Berwick! As for the application
of Grices test of explicit cancellation here, it yield, in the circumstances,
the transport officer uttering Go either via Coldstream or
Berwick! But you may not go via Coldstream if you do not go via
Berwick, and you may not go via Berwick if you do not go via Coldstream. Such
qualifications ‒ what Grice calls explicit cancellation of the implicaturum ‒
seem to the addressee to empty the buletic mode of utterance of all content and
is thus reminiscent of Henry Fords utterance to the effect that people can choose
what colour car they like provided it is black. But then Grice doesnt think
Ford is being illogical, only Griceian and implicatural! Grice was fascinated
by “if” clauses in mode other than the indicative: “if the cat is on the mat,
she is purring.” “If the cat had been, make her purr!” etc. He spent years at
Clifton mastering this – only to have Ayer telling him at Oxford he didn’t need
it! “I won’t take that!” -- Refs.: There is at least one essay just about the
categorical imperative, but there are scattered references wherever Grice
considers the mood markers, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
implicaturum: or, Grice’s implication. Grice makes an important
distinction which he thinks Austin doesn’t make because what a philosopher
EXPLICITLY conveys and what he IMPLICITLY conveys. It was only a few years
Grice was interacting philosophically with Austin and was reading some material
by Witters, when Grice comes with this criticism and complaint. Austin ignores
“all too frequently” a distinction that Witters apparently dnies. This is a
distinction between what an emissor communicates (e. g. that p), which can be
either explicitly (that p1) or implicitly (that p2) and what, metabolically,
and derivatively, the emissum ‘communictates’ (explicitly or implicitly). At
the Oxford Philosophical Society, he is considering Moore’s ‘entailment.’ This
is not a vernacular expression, but a borrowing from a Romance language. But
basically, Moore’s idea is that ‘p’ may be said to ‘entail’ q iff at least two
conditions follow. Surely ‘entail’ has only one sense. In this metabolically
usage where it is a ‘p’ that ‘entails’ the conditions are that there is a
property and that there is a limitation. Now suppose Grice is discussing with
Austin or reading Witters. Grice wants to distinguish various things: what the
emissor communicates (explicitly or implicitly) and the attending diaphanous
but metabolical, what WHAT THE EMSSOR COMMUNICATES (explicitly or implicitly)
ENTAILS, AND the purely metabolical what the emissum ‘entails’ (explicitly or
implicitly). This is Grice’s wording:“If we can elucidate the meaning of
"A meantNN by x that p (on a particular occasion)," this might
reasonably be expected to help us with the explication of "entails.”The
second important occasion is in the interlude or excursus of his Aristotelian
Society talk. How does he introduce the topic of ‘implication’? At that time
there was a lot being written about ‘contextual’ or ‘pragmatic’ implication –
even within Grice’s circle – as in D. K. Grant’s essay on pragmatic implication
for Philosophy, and even earlier Nowell-Smith’s on ‘contextual implication’ in
“Ethics,” and even earlier, and this is perhaps Grice’s main trigger, P. F.
Strawson’s criticism of Whitehead and Russell, with Strawson having that, by uttering
‘The king of France is not bald,’ the emissor IMPLIES that there is a king of
France (Strawson later changes the idiom from ‘imply,’ and the attending
‘implication, to ‘presuppose,’ but he keeps ‘imply’ in all the reprints of his
earlier essays). In “Causal Theory,” Grice surely cannot
just ‘break’ the narrative and start with ‘implication’ in an excursus. So the
first stage is to explore the use of ‘implication’ or related concepts in the
first part of “Causal Theory” LEADING to the excursus for which need he felt. The
first use appears in section 2. The use is the noun, ‘implication.’ And
Grice is reporting the view of an objector, so does not care to be to careful
himself.“the OBJECTION MIGHT run as follows.” “… When someone makes a remark
such as “The pillar box seems red” A CERTAIN IMPLICATION IS CARRIED.” He goes
on “This implication is “DISJUNCTIVE IN FORM,” which should not concerns us
here. Since we are considering the status of the implication, as seen by the
objector as reported by Grice. He does not give a source, so we may assume G.
A. Paul reading Witters, and trying to indoctrinate a few Oxonians into
Wittgensteinianism (Grice notes that besides the playgroup there was Ryle’s
group at Oxford and a THIRD, “perhaps more disciplined” group, that tended
towards Witters.Grice goes on:“It IS implied that…” p. Again, he expands it,
and obviously shows that he doesn’t care to be careful. And he is being ironic,
because the implication is pretty lengthy! Yet he says, typically:“This may not
be an absolutely EXACT or complete characterisation of the implication, but it
is, perhaps, good ENOUGH to be going with!” Grice goes on to have his objector
a Strawsonian, i. e. as REFUSING TO ASSIGN A TRUTH-VALUE to the utterance,
while Grice would have that it is ‘uninterestingly true. In view of this it may
to explore the affirmative and negative versions. Because the truth-values may
change:In Grice’s view: “The pillar box seems red to me” IS “UNINTERESTINGLY
TRUE,” in spite of the implication.As for “It is not the case that the pillar
box seems red,” this is more of a trick. In “Negation,” Grice has a similar
example. “That pillar box is red; therefore, it is not blue.”He is concerned
with “The pillar box is not blue,” or “It is not the case that the pillar box
is blue.”What about the truth-value now of the utterance in connection with the
implication attached to it?Surely, Grice would like, unless accepting
‘illogical’ conversationalists (who want to make that something is UNASSERTIBLE
or MISLEADING by adding ‘not’), the utterance ‘It is not the case that the
pillar box seems red to me’ is FALSE in the scenario where the emissor would be
truthful in uttering ‘The pillar box seems red to me.” Since Grice allows that
the affirmative is ‘uninterestingly true,’ he is committed to having ‘It is not
the case that the pillar box seems red’ as FALSE.For the Strawsonian
Wittgensteinian, or truth-value gap theorist, the situation is easier to
characterise. Both ‘The pillar box seems red to me” and its negation, “The pillar
box does not seem red to me” lack a truth value, or in Grice’s word, as applied
to the affirmative, “far from being uninterestingly true, is neither true nor
false,” i. e. ‘neuter.’ It wold not be true but it would not be false either –
breakdown of bivalence. Grice’s case is a complicated one because he
distinguishes between the sub-perceptual “The pillar box seems red” from the
perceptual ‘vision’ statement, “Grice sees that the pillar box is red.” So the
truth of “The pillar box seems red” is a necessary condition for the statement
about ‘seeing.’ This is itself controversial. Some philosophers have claimed
that “Grice knows that p” does NOT entail “Grice believes that p,” for example.
But for the causal theory Grice is thinking of an analysis of “Grice sees that
the pillar box is red” in terms of three conditions: First, the pillar box
seems red to Grice. Second, the pillar box is red. And third, it is the pillar
box being red that causes it seeming red to Grice. Grice goes to reformulate
the idea that “The pillar box seems red” being true. But now not
“uninterestingly true,” but “true (under certain conditions),” or as he puts it
“(subject to certain qualifications) true.” He may be having in mind a clown in
a circus confronted with the blue pillar box and making a joke about it. Those
‘certain qualifications’ would not apply to the circus case. Grice goes on to
change the adverb, it’s ‘boringly true,’ or ‘highly boringly true.’ He adds
‘suggestio falsi,’ which seems alright but which would not please the
Wittgensteinian who would also reject the ‘false.’ We need a ‘suggestio
neutri.’ In this second section, he gives the theoretical explanation. The “implication”
arises “in virtue of a GENERAL FEATURE OR PRINCIPLE” of conversation, or
pertaining to a system put in ‘communication,’ or a general feature or
principle governing an emissor communicating that p. Note that ‘feature’ and
‘principle’ are appropriately ‘vague.’ “Feature” can be descriptive.
“Principle” is Aristotelian. Boethius’s translation for Aristotle’s ‘arche.’ It
can be descriptive. The first use of ‘principle’ in a ‘moral’ or ‘practical’
context seems to post-date its use in, say, geometry – Euclid’s axioms as
‘principia mathematica,’ or Newton’s “Principia.” Grice may be having in mind
Moore’s ‘paradox’ (true, surely) when Grice adds ‘it is raining.’Grice’s
careful wording is worth exploring.
“The
mistake [incorrectness, falsehood] of supposing the implication to constitute a
"part of the meaning [sense]” of "The Alpha seems Beta" is somewhat
similar to, though MORE INSIDUOUS …”[moral implication here: 1540s, from Middle French insidieux "insidious"
(15c.) or directly from Latin insidiosus "deceitful, cunning, artful,
treacherous," from insidiae (plural) "plot, snare, ambush,"
from insidere "sit
on, occupy," from in- "in" (from PIE root *en "in")
+ sedere "to
sit," from PIE root *sed- (1) "to
sit." Figurative, usually with a suggestion of lying in wait and the
intent to entrap. Related: Insidiously; insidiousness]“than,
the mistake which one IF one supposes that the SO-CALLED [‘pragmatic’ or
‘contextual – implicaturum, “as I would not,” and indeed he does not – he
prefers “expresses” here, not the weak ‘imply’] “implication” that one believes
it to be raining is "a part of the meaning [or sense]" of the
expression [or emissum] "It is raining.”Grice allows that no philosopher
may have made this mistake. He will later reject the view that one
conversationally implicates that one believes that it is raining by uttering
‘It is raining.’ But again he does not give sources. In these case, while
without the paraphernalia about the ‘a part of the ‘sense’” bit, can be
ascribed at Oxford to Nowell-Smith and Grant (but not, we hope to Strawson).
Nowell-Smith is clear that it is a contextual implication, but one would not
think he would make the mistake of bringing in ‘sense’ into the bargain. Grice
goes on:“The short and literally inaccurate reply to such a supposition [mistake]
might be that the so-called “implication” attaches because the expression (or emissum)
is a PROPOSITIONAL one [expressable by a ‘that so-and-so’ clause] not because
it is the particular propositional expression which it happens to be.”By
‘long,’ Grice implicates: “And it is part of the function of the informative
mode that you utter an utterance in the informative mode if you express your
belief in the content of the propositonal expression.”Grice goes on to analyse
‘implication’ in terms of ‘petitio principii.’ This is very interesting and
requires exploration. Grice claims that his success the implicaturum in the
field of the philosophy of perception led his efforts against Strawson on the
syncategoremata.But here we see Grice dealing what will be his success.One
might, for example, suggest that it is open to the champion of sense_data to
lay down that the sense-datum sentence " I have a pink sense-datum "
should express truth if and only if the facts are as they would have to be for
it to be true, if it were in order, to say .. Something looks pink to me
", even though it may not actually be in ordei to say this (because the
D-or-D condition is unfulfilled). But this attempt to by-pass the objector's
position would be met by the reply that it begs the question; for it assumes
that there is some way of specifying the facts in isolation from the
implication standardly carried by such a specification; and this is precisely
what the objector is denying.Rephrasing that:“One might, for example, suggest
that it is open to the champion of sense_data to lay down that the sense-datum
sentence "The pillar box seems red” is TRUE if and only if the facts are
as the facts WOULD HAVE to be for “The pillar box seems red” to be true, IF (or
provided that) it were IN ORDER [i. e. conversationally appropriate], to utter
or ‘state’ or explicitly convey that the pillar box seems red, even though it
may NOT actually be in order [conversationally appropriate] to explicitly
convey that the pillar box seems red (because the condition specified in the
implication is unfulfilled).”“But this attempt to by-pass the objector's
position would be met by a charge of ‘petitio principia,’ i. e. the reply that
it begs the question.”“Such a manoeuvre
is invalid in that it assumes that there IS some way of providing a
SPECIFICATION of the facts of the matter in isolation from, or without recourse
to, the implication that is standardly carried by such a specification.”“This
is precisely what the objector is denying, i. e. the objector believes it is
NOT the case that there is a way of giving a specification of the scenario without
bringing in the implication.”Grice refers to the above as one of the
“frustrations,” implicating that the above, the ‘petitio principia,’ is just
one of the trials Grice underwent before coming with the explanation in terms
of the general feature of communication, or as he will late express, in terms
of ‘what the hell’ the ‘communication-function’ of “The pillar seems red to me”
might be when the implicaturum is not meant – and you have to go on and cancel
it (“That pillar box seems red; mind, I’m not suggesting that it’s not – I’m
practicing my sub-perceptual proficiency.”).Grice goes on to note the
generality he saw in the idea of the ‘implication.’ Even if “The pillar box
seems red” was his FIRST attack, the reason he was willing to do the attacking
was that the neo-Wittgensteinian was saying things that went against THE TENOR
OF THE THINGS GRICE would say with regard to other ‘linguistic philosophical’
cases OTHER than in the philosophy of perception, notably his explorations were
against Malcolm reading of Moore, about Moore ‘misusing’ “know.”Grice:“I was
inclined to rule against my objector, partly because his opponent's position
was more in line with the kind of thing I was inclined to say about other
linguistic phenomena which are in some degree comparable.”Rephrase:“My natural
inclination was to oppose the objector.”“And that was because his opponent's
position is more “in line” with the kind of thing Grice is inclined to say – or
thesis he is willing to put forward-- about OTHER phenomena involving this or
that ‘communication-function’ of this or that philosophical adage, which are in
some degree comparable to “The pillar box seems red.””So just before the
‘excursus,’ or ‘discursus,’ as he has it – which is then not numbered – but
subtitlted (‘Implication’), he embark on a discursus about “certain ASPECTS of
the concept OR CONCEPTS of implication.”He interestingly adds: “using some more
or less well-worn examples.” This is not just a reference to Strawson, Grant,
Moore, Hungerland and Nowell-Smith, but to the scholastics and the idea of the
‘suppositio’ as an ‘implicatio,’: “Tu non cessas edere ferrum.” Grice says he
will consider only four aspects or FOUR IDEAS (used each as a ‘catalyst’) in
particular illustrations.“Smith has not ceased beating his wife.”“Smith’s girlfriend
is poor, but honest.”“Smith’s handwriting is beautiful”“Smith’s wife is in the
kitchen or in the bathroom.”Each is a case, as Grice puts it, “in which in
ordinary parlance, or at least in Oxonian philosophical parlance, something
might be said to be ‘implied’ (hopefully by the emissor) -- as distinct from
being ‘stated,’ or ‘explicitly put.’One first illustrationEXPLICITLY CONVEYED:
“Smith has not ceased beating his wife.” IMPLICITLY CONVEYED, but cancellable:
“Smith has been beating his wife.”CANCELLATION: “Smith has not ceased beating
his wife; he never started.”APPLY THREE OTHER IDEAS.A second
illustrationEXPLICITLY CONVEYED:“Smith’s girlfriend is poor, but honest.”IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “There is some contrast between Smith’s girlfriend’s honesty and her
poverty; and possibly between Smith and the utterer.”CANCELLATION: “I’m sorry,
I cannot cancel that.”TRY OTHER THREE IDEAS.A third illustrationEXPLICITLY
CONVEYED “Smith’s handwriting is beautiful” – “Or “If only his outbursts were
more angelic.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “He possibly cannot read Hegel in German.”CANCELLATION:
“Smith’s handwriting is beautiful; on top, he reads Hegel in German.”TRY
THREEOTHER IDEASA fourth illustration:EXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “Smith’s wife is in
the kitchen or in the bathroom.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “It is not the case that I
have truth-functional grounds to express disjunct D1, and it is not the case
that I have truth-functional grounds to express disjunct D2; therefore, I am
introducting the disjunction EITHER than by the way favoured by Gentzen.”
(Grice actually focuses on the specific ‘doxastic’ condition: emissor believes
…CANCELLATION: “I know perfectly well where she is, but I want you to find out
for yourself.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEAS.Within the discursus he gives SIX (a
sextet) other examples, of the philosophical type, because he is implicating
the above are NOT of the really of philosophical type, hence his reference to
‘ordinary parlance.’ He points out that he has no doubt there are other
candidates besides his sextet.FIRST IN THE SEXTETEXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “You
cannot see a knife as a knife, though you may see what is not a knife as a
knife.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “”AS” REQUIRES A GESTALT.”CANCELLATION: “I see the
horse as a horse, because my gestalt is mine.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEASSECOND IN
THE SEXTET:EXPLICITLY CONVEYED:“When Moore said he knew that the objects before
him were human hands, he was guilty of misusing the word "know".”IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “You can only use ‘know’ for ‘difficult cases.’CANCELLATION: “If I
know that p iff I believe that p, p, and p causes my belief in p, I know that
the objects before me are human hands.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEAS.THIRD IN THE
SEXTETEXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “For an occurrence to be properly said to have a
‘cause,’ the occurrence must be something abnormal or unusual.”IMPLICILTY
CONVEYED: “Refrain from using ‘cause’ when the thing is normal and usual.”CANCELLATION:
“If I see that the pillar box is red iff the pillar box seems red, the pillar
box is red, and the pillar box being red causes the pillar box seeming red, the
cause of the pillar box seeming red is that the pillar box is red.”TRY OTHER
THREE IDEAS.FOURTH IN THE SEXTET: EXPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “For an action to be properly described as one for which the agent is
responsible, it must be the sort of action for which people are condemned.”IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “Refrain ascribing ‘responsibility’ to Timmy having cleaned up his
bedroom.”CANCELLATION: “Timmy is very responsible. He engages in an action for
which people are not condemned.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEAS.FIFTH IN THE SEXTET:EXPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “What is actual is not also possible.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “There is
a realm of possibilities which does not overlap with the realm of
actualities.”CANCELLATION: “If p is actual iff p obtains in world w1, and p is
possible iff p obtains in any world wn which includes w1, p is possible.”TRY
THREE OTHER IDEAS.SIXTH IN THE SEXTETEXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “What is known by me
to be the case is not also believed by me to be the case.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED:
“To know is magical!”CANCELLATION: “If I know that p iff I believe that p, p,
and p causes my believing that p, then what is known by me to be the case is
also believed by me to be the case.”TRY THREE OTHER IDEAS.CASE IN QUESTION:EXPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “The pillar box seems red.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “One will doubt it
is.”CANCELLATION: “The pillar box seems red and I hope no one doubt it is.”TRY
THREE OTHER IDEAS. THAT LISTING became commonplace for Grice. In
ProlegomenaGROUP A: EXAMPLE I: RYLE on ‘voluntarily’ and “involuntarily” in
“The Concept of Mind.” RYLE WAS LISTENING! BUT GRICE WAS without reach! Grice
would nothavecriticised Ryle at a shorter distance.EXAMPLE II: MALCOLM IN
“Defending common sense” in the Philosophical Review, on Moore’s misuse of
‘know’ – also in Causal, above, as second in the sextet.EXPLICITLY CONVEYED:“When
Moore said he knew that the objects before him were human hands, he was guilty
of misusing the word "know".REPHRASE IN “PROLEGOMENA.”IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “You can only use ‘know’ for ‘difficult cases.’CANCELLATION: “If I
know that p iff I believe that p, p, and p causes my belief in p, I know that
the objects before me are human hands.”EXAMPLE III: BENJAMIN ON BROAD ON THE
“SENSE” OF “REMEMBERING”EXPLICITLY CONVEYED;IMPLICITLY CONVEYEDCANCELLATIONEXAMPLES,
GROUP A, CLASS IV: philosophy of perception FIRST EXAMPLE: Witters on ‘seeing
as’ in Philosophical InvestigationsEXPLICITLY CONVEYEDIMPLICITLY
CONVEYEDCANCELLATION.Previously used in Causal as first in the sextet: FIRST IN
THE SEXTETEXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “You cannot see a knife as a knife, though you
may see what is not a knife as a knife.”Rephrased in Prolegomena. IMPLICITLY
CONVEYED: “”AS” REQUIRES A GESTALT.”CANCELLATION: “I see the horse as a horse,
because my gestalt is mine.”GROUP A – CLASS IV – PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTIONEXAMPLE
II – “The pillar box seems red to me.”Used in“Causal”EXPLICITLY CONVEYED: “The
pillar box seems red.”IMPLICITLY CONVEYED: “One will doubt it is.”CANCELLATION:
“The pillar box seems red and I hope no one doubt it is.”GROUP A – CLASS V –
PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION – Here unlike Class IV, he uses (a), etc.EXAMPLE A: WITTERS
AND OTHERS on ‘trying’ EXPLICITLY CONVEYEDIMPLICITLY CONVEYED:CANCELLATIONGROUP
A – CLASS V – “ACTION,” not ‘philosophy of action’ – cf. ‘ordinary
parlance.’EXAMPLE B: Hart on ‘carefully.’EXPLICITLY CONVEYEDIMPLICITLY CONVEYEDCANCELLATION
GROUP A – CLASS V – ACTIONEXAMPLE C:
Austin in “A plea for excuses” on ‘voluntarily’ and ‘involuntarily’ – a
refinement on Ryle above – using variable “Mly” – Grice would not have
criticised Austin in the play group. He rather took it against his tutee,
Strawson.EXPLICITLY CONVEYED
IMPLICITLY CONVEYEDCANCELLATIONGROUP B:
syncategorema – not lettered butFIRST EXAMPLE: “AND” (not ‘not’)SECOND EXAMPLE:
“OR”THIRD EXAMPLE: “IF” – particularly relevant under ‘implication.’ STRAWSON, Introduction
to logical theory.GRICE’S PHRASING: “if p, q” ENTAILS ‘p horseshoe q.’ The
reverse does not hold: it is not the case that ‘p horseshoe q’ ENTAILS ‘if p,
q’. Odd way of putting it, but it was all from Strawson. It may be argued that
‘entail’ belongs in a system, and ‘p horseshoe q’ and ‘if p, q’ are DISPARATE. Grice
quotes verbatim from Strawson:a ‘primary
or standard’ use of “if … then …,” or “if,” of which the main characteristics
were: that for each hypothetical statement made by this use of “if,” there
could be made just one statement which would be the antecedent of the
hypothetical and just onestatement which would be its consequent; that the
hypothetical statement is acceptable (true, reasonable) if the antecedent
statement, if made or accepted, would, in the circumstances, be a good ground
or reason for accepting the consequent statement; and that the making of the
hypothetical statement carries the implicationeither of uncertainty about, or
of disbelief in, the fulfilment of both antecedent and consequent.Grice
rephrases that by stating that for Grice “a primary or standard use of ‘if,
then’” is characterised as follows:“for each hypothetical statement made by
this use of “if,” there could be made just one statement which would be the
antecedent of the hypothetical and just one statement which would be its
consequent; that the hypothetical statement is acceptable (true, reasonable) if
the antecedent statement, if made or accepted, would, in the circumstances, be
a good ground or reason for accepting the consequent statement; and that the
making of the hypothetical statement carries the implication either of
uncertainty about, or of disbelief in, the fulfilment of both antecedent and
consequent.”Grice rephrases the characterisation as from “each” and eliding a
middle part, but Grice does not care to add the fastidious “[…],” or quote,
unquote.“each hypothetical ‘statement’ made by this use of “if” is acceptable
(TRUE, reasonable) if the antecedent ‘statement,’ IF made or accepted, would,
in the circumstances, be a good ground or reason for accepting the consequent
‘statement;’ and that the making of thehypothetical statement carries the
implication either of uncertainty about, or of disbelief in, the fulfilment of
both antecedent and consequent. “A
hypothetical, or conditional ‘statement’ or composite proposition such as “If
it is day, I talk”is acceptable (or TRUE, or ‘reasonable’) if (but not only
if), first, the antecedent ‘statement,’ ‘It is day,’ IF made on its own, or
accepted on its own, i. e. simpliciter, would, in the circumstances, be a good
ground or ‘reason’ for accepting the consequent ‘statement,’ to wit: “I talk;”
and, second, that the making of the conditional proposition or hypothetical ‘statement’
carries the implication, or rather the emissor of the emissum IMPLIES, either it
is not the case that the emissor is CERTAIN about or that it is day and CERTAIN
about or that he talks, or BELIEVES that it is day and BELIEVES that he
talks.”More or less Grice’s denial or doubt. Or rather ‘doubt’ (Strawson’s
‘uncertainty about’) or denial (‘disbelief in’). But it will do at this point
to explore the argument by Strawson to which Grice is responding. First two
comments. Strawson has occasion to respond to Grice’s response in more than one
opportunity. But Grice never took up the issue again in a detailed fashion –
after dedicating a full lecture to it. One occasion was Strawson’s review of
the reprint of Grice in 1989. Another is in the BA memorial. The crucial one is
repr. by Strawson (in a rather otiose way) in his compilation, straight from
PGRICE. This is an essay which Strawson composed soon after the delivery by
Grice of the lecture without consulting. Once Stawson is aware of Grice’s
terminology, he is ready to frame his view in Grice’s terms: for Strawson,
there IS an implicaturum, but it is a conventional one. His analogy is with the
‘asserted’ “therefore” or “so.” Since this for Grice was at least the second
exemplar of his manoeuvre, it will do to revise the argument from which Grice
extracts the passage in “Prolegomena.” In the body of the full lecture IV,
Grice does not care to mention Strawson at all; in fact, he makes rather hasty
commentaries generalising on both parties of the debate: the formalists, who
are now ‘blue-collared practitioners of the sciences,” i. e. not philosophers
like Grice and Strawson; and the informalists or ‘traditionalists’ like
Strawson who feel offended by the interlopers to the tranquil Elysium of
philosophy. Grice confesses a sympathy for the latter, of course. So here is
straight from the tranquil Elysium of philosophy. For Strawson, the relations
between “if” and “⊃” have already, but only in part, been discussed (Ch. 2, S.
7).” So one may need to review those passages. But now he has a special section
that finishes up the discussion which has been so far only partial. So Strawson
resumes the points of the previous partial discussion and comes up with the
‘traditionalist’ tenet. The sign “⊃” is called the material implication sign. Only by Whitehead
and Russell, that is, ‘blue-collared practitioners of the sciences,’ in Grice’s
wording. Whitehead and Russell think that ‘material’ is a nice opposite to
‘formal,’ and ‘formal implication’ is something pretty complex that only they
know to which it refers! Strawson goes on to explain, and this is a reminder of
his “Introduction” to his “Philosophical Logic” where he reprints Grice’s
Meaning (for some reason). There Strawson has a footnote quoting from Quine’s
“Methods of Logic,” where the phrasing is indeed about the rough phrase, ‘the
meaning of ‘if’’ – cf. Grice’s laughter at philosophers talking of ‘the sense
of ‘or’’ – “Why, one must should as well talk of the ‘sense’ of ‘to,’ or ‘of’!’
– Grice’s implicaturum is to O. P. Wood, whose claim to fame is for having
turned Oxford into the place where ‘the sense of ‘or’’ was the key issue with
which philosophers were engaged. Strawson goes on to say that its meaning is
given by the ‘rule’ that any statement of the form ‘p⊃q’ is FALSE in the case in which the first of its
constituent statements is true and the second false, and is true in every other
case considered in the system; i. e., the falsity of the first constituent
statement or the truth of the second are, equally, sufficient conditions of the
truth of a statement of material implication. The combination of truth in the
first with falsity in the second is the single, NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT,
condition of its falsity. The standard or primary -- the importance of this
qualifying phrase, ‘primary,’ can scarcely be overemphasized – Grice omits this
bracket when he expolates the quote. The bracket continues. The place where
Strawson opens the bracket is a curious one: it is obvious he is talking about
the primary use of ‘if’. So here he continues the bracket with the observation
that there are uses of “if” which do not
answer to the description given here, or to any other descriptions given in
this [essay] -- use of “if” sentence, on the other hand [these are
Strawson’s two hands], are seen to be in circumstances where, not knowing
whether some statement which could be made by the use of a sentence
corresponding in a certain way to the sub-ordinated clause of the utterance is
true or not, or believing it to be false, the emissor nevertheless considers that
a step in reasoning from THAT statement to a statement related in a similar way
to the main clause would be a sound or reasonable step [a reasonable reasoning,
that is]; this statement related to the main clause also being one of whose
truth the emissor is in doubt, or which the emissor believes to be false. Even
in such circumstances as these a philosopher may sometimes hesitate to apply
‘true’ to a conditional or hypothetical statement, i.e., a statement which
could be made by the use of “if ”(Philo’s ‘ei,’ Cicero’s ‘si’) in its standard significance, preferring to
call a conditional statement reasonable or well-founded. But if the philosopher
does apply ‘true’ to an ‘if’ utterance at all, it will be in such circumstances
as these. Now one of the sufficient conditions of the truth of a ‘statement’ or
formula of material implication may very well be fulfilled without the
conditions for the truth, or reasonableness, of the corresponding hypothetical
or conditional statement being fulfilled. A statement of the form ‘p ⊃ q’ (where the horseshoe is meant to represent an inverted
‘c’ for ‘contentum’ or ‘consequutum’ -- does not entail the corresponding statement
of the ‘form’ “if p, q.” But if the emissor is prepared to accept the hypothetical
statement, he must in consistency be prepared to deny the conjunction of the
statement corresponding to the sub-ordinated clause of the sentence used to
make the hypothetical statement with the negation of the statement
corresponding to its main or super-ordinated clause. A statement of the ‘form’
“if p, q” does entail the corresponding statement of the form ‘p ⊃ q.’ The force of “corresponding” may need some elucidation.
Consider the following very ‘ordinary’ or ‘natural’ specimens of a hypothetical
sentence. Strawson starts with a totally unordinary subjective counterfactual
‘if,’ an abyss with Philo, “If it’s day, I talk.” Strawson surely involves The
Hun. ‘If the Germans had invaded England in 1940, they, viz. the Germans, would
have won the war.’ Because for the Germans, invading England MEANT winning the
war. They never cared much for Wales or Scotland, never mind Northern Ireland.
Possibly ‘invaded London’ would suffice. Strawson’s second instantiation again
is the odd subjective counter-factual ‘if,’ an abyss or chasm from Philo, ‘If
it’s day, I talk.’ “If Smith were in charge, half the staff would have been
dismissed.’ Strawson is thinking Noel Coward, who used to make fun of the
music-hall artist Wade. “If you WERE the only girl in the world, and I WAS the
only boy…’. The use of ‘were’ is Oxonian. A Cockney is forbidden to use it,
using ‘was’ instead. The rationale is Philonian. ‘was’ is indicative. “If Smith were in charge, half the staff
would have been dismissed.’ Strawson’s third instantiation is, at last, more or
less Philonian, a plain indicative ‘weather’ protasis, etc. “If it rains, the
match will be cancelled.” The only reservation Philo would have is ‘will’.
Matches do not have ‘will,’ and the sea battle may never take place – the world
may be destroyed by then. “If it rains, the match will be cancelled.” Or “If it
rains, the match is cancelled – but there is a ‘rain date.’” The sentence which
could be used to make a statement corresponding in the required ‘sense’ to the
sub-ordinate clause can be ascertained by considering what it is that the
emissor of each hypothetical sentence must (in general) be assumed either to be
in doubt about or to believe to be not the case. Thus, the corresponding
sentences. ‘The Germans invaded England in 1940.’ Or ‘The Germans invade
England’ – historical present -- ‘The Germans won the war.’ Or ‘The Germans win
the war’ – historical present. ‘Smith is in charge.’ ‘Half the staff has been
dismissed.’ Or ‘Half the staff is dismissed.’ ‘It will rain.’ Or ‘It
rains.’‘The match will be cancelled.’ Or ‘The match is cancelled.’ A sentence could
be used to make a statement of material implication corresponding to the
hypothetical statement made by the
sentence is framed, in each case, from these pairs of sentences as
follows. ‘The Germans invaded England in 1940 ⊃
they won the war.’ Or in the historical present,’The Germans invade London ⊃ The Germans win the war. ‘ ‘Smith is in charge ⊃ half the staff has been, dismissed.’ Or in the present
tense, ‘Smith is in charge ⊃ half the staff is dismissed.’ ‘ It
will rain ⊃ the match will be cancelled.’ Or in the present ‘It rains ⊃ the match is cancelled.’ The very fact that a few verbal modifications
are necessary to please the Oxonian ear, in order to obtain from the clauses of
the hypothetical sentence the clauses of the corresponding material implication
sentence is itself a symptom of the radical difference between a hypothetical
statement and a truth-functional statement. Some detailed differences are also
evident from these instantiations. The falsity of a statement made by the use
of ‘The Germans invade London in 1940’ or ‘Smith is in charge’ is a sufficient
condition of the truth of the corresponding statements made by the use of the ⊃-utterances. But not, of course, of the corresponding
statement made by the use of the ‘if’ utterance. Otherwise, there would
normally be no point in using an ‘if’ sentence at all.An ‘if’ sentence would
normally carry – but not necessarily: one may use the pluperfect or the
imperfect subjunctive when one is simply working out the consequences of an
hypothesis which one may be prepared eventually to accept -- in the tense or
mode of the verb, an implication (or implicaturum) of the emissor’s belief in
the FALSITY of the statements corresponding to the clauses of the hypothetical.That
it is not the case that it rains is sufficient to verify (or truth-functionally
confirm) a statement made by the use of “⊃,”
but not a statement made by the use of ‘if.’ That it is not the case that it
rains is also sufficient to verify (or truth-functionally confirm) a statement
made by the use of ‘It will rain ⊃
the match will not be cancelled.’ Or ‘It rains ⊃
the match is cancelled.’ The formulae ‘p ⊃
q’ and ‘p ⊃ ~ q' are consistent with one another.The joint assertion of
corresponding statements of these forms is equivalent to the assertion of the
corresponding statement of the form ‘~ p.’ But, and here is one of Philo’s
‘paradoxes’: “If it rains, the match will be cancelled” (or ‘If it rains, the
match is cancelled’) seems (or sounds) inconsistent with “If it rains, the match
will not be cancelled,’ or ‘If it rains, it is not the case that the match is
cancelled.’But here we add ‘not,’ so Philo explains the paradox away by noting
that his account is meant for ‘pure’ uses of “ei,” or “si.”Their joint assertion
in the same context sounds self-contradictory. But cf. Philo, who wisely said
of ‘If it is day, it is night’ “is true only at night.”
(Diog. Laert. Repr. in Long, The Hellenistic Philosophers). Suppose we call the statement corresponding to the
sub-ordinated clause of a sentence used to make a hypothetical statement the
antecedent of the hypothetical statement; and the statement corresponding to
the super-ordinated clause, its consequent. It is sometimes fancied that, whereas
the futility of identifying a conditional ‘if’ statement with material
implication is obvious in those cases where the implication of the falsity of
the antecedent is normally carried by the mode or tense of the verb – as in “If
the Germans invade London in 1940, they, viz. the Germans, win the war’ and ‘If
Smith is in charge, half the staff is dismissed’ -- there is something to be
said for at least a PARTIAL identification in cases where no such implication
is involved, i.e., where the possibility of the truth of both antecedent and
consequent is left open – as in ‘If it rains, the match is cancelled.’ In cases
of the first kind (an ‘unfulfilled,’ counterfactual, or ‘subjunctive’
conditional) the intended addressee’s attention is directed, as Grice taught J.
L. Mackie, in terms of the principle of conversational helpfulness, ONLY TO THE
LAST TWO ROWS of the truth-tables for ‘ p ⊃
q,’ where the antecedent has the truth-value, falsity. Th suggestion that ‘~p’ ‘entails’
‘if p, q’ is felt or to be or ‘sounds’ – if not to Philo’s or Grice’s ears -- obviously
wrong. But in cases of the second kind
one inspects also the first two ROWS. The possibility of the antecedent's being
fulfilled is left open. It is claimed that it is NOT the case that the
suggestion that ‘p ⊃ q’ ‘entails’ ‘if p, q’ is felt to be or sound obviously
wrong, to ANYBODY, not just the bodies of Grice and Philo. This Strawson calls,
to infuriate Grice, ‘an illusion,’ ‘engendered by a reality.’The fulfilment of
both antecedent and consequent of a hypothetical statement does not show that
the man who made the hypothetical statement is right. It is not the case that
the man would be right, Strawson claims, if the consequent is made true as a
result of this or that factor unconnected with, or in spite of, rather than ‘because’
of, the fulfilment of the antecedent. E.
g. if Grice’s unmissable match is missed because the Germans invade – and not
because of the ‘weather.’ – but cf. “The weather in the streets.” Strawson is prepared
to say that the man (e. g., Grice, or Philo) who makes the hypothetical
statement is right only if Strawson is also prepared to say that the antecedent
being true is, at least in part, the ‘explanation’ of the consequent being
true. The reality behind the illusion Strawson naturally finds ‘complex,’ for
surely there ain’t one! Strawson thinks that this is due to two phenomena. First,
Strawson claims, in many cases, the fulfilment of both antecedent and
consequent provides confirmation for the view that the existence of states of
affairs like those described by the antecedent IS a good ‘reason’ for expecting
(alla Hume, assuming the uniformity of nature, etc.) a states of affair like
that described by the consequent. Second, Starwson claims, a man (e. g. Philo,
or Grice) who (with a straight Grecian or Griceian face) says, e. g. ‘If it
rains, the match is cancelled’ makes a bit of a prediction, assuming the
‘consequent’ to be referring to t2>t1 – but cf. if he is reporting an event
taking place at THE OTHER PLACE. The prediction Strawson takes it to be ‘The
match is cancelled.’And the man is making the prediction ONLY under what
Strawson aptly calls a “proviso,” or “caveat,” – first used by Boethius to
translate Aristotle -- “It rains.” Boethius’s terminology later taken up by the
lawyers in Genoa. mid-15c., from Medieval Latin proviso (quod) "provided
(that)," phrase at the beginning of clauses in legal documents (mid-14c.),
from Latin proviso "it
being provided," ablative neuter of provisus, past participle
of providere (see provide).
Related: Provisory. And that the cancellation of the match because of the rain
therefore leads us to say, not only that the reasonableness of the prediction
was confirmed, but also that the prediction itself was confirmed. Because it is not the case that a statement of
the form ‘ p ⊃ q’ entails the corresponding statement of the form ' if p, q
' (in its standard employment), Strawson thinks he can find a divergence
between this or that ‘rule’ for '⊃'
and this or that ‘rule’ for '’if ,’ in its standard employment. Because ‘if p, q’
does entail ‘p ⊃ q,’ we shall also expect to find some degree of parallelism
between the rules. For whatever is entailed by ‘p ⊃ q’ is entailed by ‘if p, q,’ though not everything which
entails ‘p ⊃ q’ does Strawson claims, entail ‘if p, q.’ Indeed, we find further parallels than those
which follow simply from the facts that ‘if p, q’ entails ‘p ⊃ q’ and that entailment is transitive. To some laws for ‘⊃,’ Strawson finds no parallels for ‘if.’ Strawson notes that
for at least four laws for ‘⊃,’ we find that parallel laws ‘hold’
good for ‘if. The first law is mentioned by Grice, modus ponendo ponens, as
elimination of ‘⊃.’ Strawson does not consider the introduction of the
horseshoe, where p an q forms a collection of all active
assumptions previously introduced which could have been used in the deduction
of ‘if p, q.’ When inferring ‘if p, q’ one is allowed to discharge
assumptions of the form p. The fact that after deduction of ‘if p, q’
this assumption is discharged (not active is pointed out by using [ ] in
vertical notation, and by deletion from the set of assumptions in horizontal
notation. The latter notation shows better the character of the rule; one
deduction is transformed into the other. It shows also that the rule for
the introduction of ‘if’ corresponds to an important metatheorem, the
Deduction Theorem, which has to be proved in axiomatic formalizations of logic. But back to the elimination of ‘if’. Modus ponendo ponens.
‘‘((p ⊃ q).p) ⊃ q.’ For some reason, Strawson here mixes horseshoes and ifs
as if Boethius is alive! Grice calls these “half-natural, half-artificial.’ Chomsky
prefers ‘semi-native.’ ‘(If p, q, and p) ⊃q.’
Surely what Strawson wants is a purely ‘if’ one, such as ‘If, if p, q, and p,
q.’ Some conversational implicaturum! As
Grice notes: “Strawson thinks that one can converse using his converses, but we
hardly.’ The second law. Modus tollendo tollens. ‘((p⊃q). ~ q)) ⊃ (~ p).’ Again, Strawson uses a
‘mixed’ formula: (if p, q, and it is not the case that q) ⊃ it is not the case that p. Purely unartificial: If, if p,
q, and it is not the case that q, it is not the case that p. The third law,
which Strawson finds problematic, and involves an operator that Grice does not even
consider. ‘(p ⊃ q) ≡ (~ q ⊃
~ p). Mixed version, Strawson simplifies ‘iff’ to ‘if’ (in any case, as Pears
notes, ‘if’ IMPLICATES ‘iff.’). (If p, q) ⊃
if it is not the case that q, it is not the case that p. Unartificial: If, if
p, q, it is not the case that if q, it is not the case that p. The fourth law. ((p
⊃ q).(q ⊃ r)) ⊃ (p ⊃ r). Mixed: (if p, q, and if q, r) ⊃ (if p, r). Unartificial: ‘If, if p, q, and if q, r, if p,
r.’ Try to say that to Mrs. Grice! (Grice: “It’s VERY SURPRISING that Strawson
think we can converse in his lingo!”). Now Strawson displays this or that
‘reservation.’ Mainly it is an appeal to J. Austen and J. Austin. Strawson’s implicaturum
is that Philo, in Megara, has hardly a right to unquiet the tranquil Elysium.
This or that ‘reservation’ by Strawson takes TWO pages of his essay. Strawson
claims that the reservations are important. It is, e. g., often impossible to
apply entailment-rule (iii) directly without obtaining incorrect or absurd
results. Some modification of the structure of the clauses of the hypothetical
is commonly necessary. Alas, Whitehead and Russell give us little guide as to
which modifications are required. If we
apply rule (iii) to our specimen hypothetical sentences, without modifying at
all the tenses or moods of the individual clauses, we obtain expressions which
Austin would not call ‘ordinary language,’ or Austen, for that matter, if not
Macaulay. If we preserve as nearly as
possible the tense-mode structure, in the simplest way consistent with
grammatical requirements, we obtain this or that sentence. TOLLENDO TOLLENS. ‘If
it is not the case that the Germans win the war, it is not the case that they,
viz. the Germans, invade England in 1940.’ ‘If it is not the case that half the
staff is dismissed, it is not the case that Smith is in charge.’ ‘If it is not
the case that the match is cancelled, it is not the case that it rains.’ But,
Strawson claims, these sentences, so far from SOUNDING or seeming logically
equivalent to the originals, have in each case a quite different ‘sense.’ It is
possible, at least in some cases, to frame, via tollendo tollens a target
setence of more or less the appropriate pattern for which one can imagine a use
and which DOES stand in the required relationship to the source sentence. ‘If it
is not the case that the Germans win the war, (trust) it is not the case that
they, viz. the Germans, invade England in 1940,’ with the attending imlicatum:
“only because they did not invade England in 1940.’ or even, should historical
evidence be scanty). ‘If it is not the case that the Germans win the war, it
SURELY is not the case that they, viz. the Germans, invade London in 1940.’ ‘If
it is not the case that half the staff is dismissed, it surely is not the case
that Smith is in charge.’ These changes reflect differences in the
circumstances in which one might use these, as opposed to the original,
sentences. The sentence beginning ‘If
Smith is in charge …’ is normally, though not necessarily, used by a man who
antecedently knows that it is not the case that Smith is in charge. The
sentence beginning ‘If it is not the case that half the staff is dismissed …’ is normally, though not necessarily, used by
by a man who is, as Cook Wilson would put it, ‘working’ towards the ‘consequent’
conclusion that Smith is not in charge. To
say that the sentences are nevertheless truth-functionally equivalent seems to
point to the fact that, given the introduction rule for ‘if,’ the grounds for
accepting the original ‘if’-utterance AND the ‘tollendo tollens’ correlatum, would,
in two different scenarios, have been grounds for accepting the soundness or
validity of the passage or move from a premise ‘Smith is in charge’ to its
‘consequentia’ ‘consequutum,’ or ‘conclusion,’ ‘Half the staff is dismissed.’ One
must remember that calling each formula (i)-(iv) a LAW or a THEOREM is the same
as saying that, e.g., in the case of (iii), ‘If p, q’ ‘ENTAILS’ ‘If it is not
the case that q, it is not the case that p.’ Similarly, Strawson thinks, for
some steps which would be invalid for ‘if,’ there are corresponding steps that
would be invalid for ‘⊃.’ He gives two example using a symbol Grice does not
consider, for ‘therefore,’ or ‘ergo,’ and lists a fallacy. First example. ‘(p ⊃ q).q ∴ p.’ Second example of a fallacy:‘(p ⊃ q). ~p ∴
~q.’ These are invalid
inference-patterns, and so are the correlative patterns with ‘if’: ‘If p, q; and
q ∴ p’ ‘If p, q; and it is not the case
that p ∴
it is not the case that q. The formal analogy here may be described
by saying that neither ‘p ⊃ q’ nor ‘if p, q’ is
a simply convertible (“nor hardly conversable” – Grice) formula. Strawson
thinks, and we are getting closer to Philo’s paradoxes, revisied, that there
may be this or that laws which holds for ‘p ⊃
q’ and not for ‘If p, q.’ As an example
of a law which holds for ‘if’ but not for ‘⊃,’
one may give an analytic formula. ~[(if p, q) . (if p, it is not the case that
q)]’. The corresponding formula with the horseshoe is not analytic. ‘~[(p ⊃ q) . (p ⊃ ~q)]’ is not analytic, and is
equivalent to the contingent formula ‘~ ~p.’ The rules to the effect that this
or that formula is analytic is referred to by Johnson, in the other place, as
the ‘paradox of implication.’ This Strawson finds a Cantabrigian misnomer. If Whitehead’s
and Russell’s ‘⊃’ is taken as identical either with Moore’s ‘entails’ or, more
widely, with Aelfric’s‘if’ – as in his
“Poem to the If,” MSS Northumberland – “If” meant trouble in Anglo-Saxon -- in
its standard use, the rules that yield this or that so-called ‘paradox’ -- are
not, for Strawson, “just paradoxical.” With an attitude, he adds. “They are
simply incorrect.”This is slightly illogical.“That’s not paradoxical; that’s
incorrect.”Cf. Grice, “What is paradoxical is not also incorrect.” And cf. Grice:
“Philo defines a ‘paradox’ as something that surprises _his father_.’ He is
‘using’ “father,” metaphorically, to refer to his tutor. His father was unknown
(to him). On the other hand (vide Strawson’s Two Hands), with signs you can
introduce alla Peirce and Johnson by way of ostensive definition any way you
wish! If ‘⊃’ is given the meaning it is given by what Grice calls the
‘truth-table definition,’ or ‘stipulation’ in the system of truth functions,
the rules and the statements they represent, may be informally dubbed
‘paradoxical,’ in that they don’t agree with the ‘man in the street,’ or ‘the
man on High.’ The so-called ‘paradox’ would be a simple and platitudinous
consequence of the meaning given to the symbol. Strawson had expanded on the
paradoxes in an essay he compiled while away from Oxford. On his return to
Oxford, he submitted it to “Mind,” under the editorship by G. Ryle, where it
was published. The essay concerns the ‘paradoxes’ of ‘entailment’ in detail,
and mentions Moore and C. I. Lewis. He makes use of modal operators, nec. and
poss. to render the ‘necessity’ behind ‘entail.’ He thinks the paradoxes of
‘entailment’ arise from inattention to this modality. At the time, Grice and
Strawson were pretty sure that nobody then accepted, if indeed anyone ever did
and did make, the identification of the relation symbolised by the horseshoe, ⊃, with the relation which Moore calls ‘entailment,’ p⊃q, i. e. The mere truth-functional ‘if,’ as in ‘p ⊃ q,’ ‘~(pΛ~q)’ is rejected as an analysis of the
meta-linguistic ‘p entails q.’ Strawson thinks that the identification is
rejected because ‘p ⊃ q’ involves this or that allegedly paradoxical implicaturum.Starwson
explicitly mentions ‘ex falso quodlibeet.’ Any FALSE proposition entails any
proposition, true or false. And any TRUE proposition is entailed by any
proposition, true or falso (consequentia mirabilis). It is a commonplace that
Lewis, whom Grice calls a ‘blue-collared practioner of the sciences,’
Strawson thinks, hardly solved the thing. The amendment by Lewis, for Strawson,
has consequences scarcely less paradoxical in terms of the implicatura. For if
p is impossible, i.e. self-contradictory, it is impossible that p and ~q.
And if q is necessary, ~q is impossible and it is impossible that p and ~q; i.
e., if p entails q means it is impossible that p and ~q any necessary
proposition is entailed by any proposition and any self-contradictory
proposition entails any proposition. On the other hand, the definition by Lewis
of ‘strict’ implication or entailment (i.e. of the relation which holds from p
to q whenever q is deducible from p), Strawson thinks, obviously commends
itself in some respects. Now, it is clear that the emphasis laid on the
expression-mentioning character of the intensional contingent statement by
writing ‘ ‘pΛ~q’ is impossible instead’ of ‘It is impossible that p and ~q’
does not avoid the alleged paradoxes of entailment. But, Starwson
optimistically thinks, it is equally clear that the addition of some provision
does avoid them. Strawson proposes that one should use “p entails q” such that
no necessary statement and no negation of a necessary statement can
significantly be said to “entail” or be entailed by any statement; i. e. the
function “p entails q” cannot take necessary or self-contradictory statements
as arguments. The expression “p entails q” is to be used to mean “ ‘p ⊃ q’ is necessary, and neither ‘p’ nor ‘q’ is either necessary
or self-contradictory.” Alternatively, “p entails q” should be used only to
mean “ ‘pΛ~q’ is impossible and neither ‘p’ nor ‘q,’ nor either of their
contradictories, is necessary. In this way, Strawson thinks the paradoxes are
avoided. Strawson’s proof. Let us assume that p1 expresses a contingent, and q1
a necessary, proposition. p1 and ~q1 is now impossible because ~q1 is
impossible. But q1 is necessary. So, by that provision, p1 does not entail q1.
We may avoid the paradoxical assertion “p1 entails q2” as merely falling into
the equally paradoxical assertion “ “p1 entails q1” is necessary.” For: If ‘q’ is
necessary, ‘q is necessary’ is, though true, not necessary, but a CONTINGENT
INTENSIONAL (Latinate) statement. This
becomes part of the philosophers lexicon: intensĭo, f. intendo, which L and S
render as a stretching out, straining, effort. E. g. oculorum, Scrib.
Comp. 255. Also an intensifying, increase. Calorem suum (sol) intensionibus ac
remissionibus temperando fovet,” Sen. Q. N. 7, 1, 3. The tune: “gravis, media,
acuta,” Censor. 12. Hence: ‘~ (‘q’ is necessary)’ is, though false,
possible. Hence “p1 Λ ~ (q1 is necessary)” is, though false, possible. Hence ‘p1’ does NOT entail ‘q1 is necessary.’ Thus,
by adopting the view that an entailment statement, and other intensional
statements, are contingent, viz. non-necessary, and that no necessary statement
or its contradictory can entail or be entailed by any statement, Strawson
thinks he can avoid the paradox that a necessary proposition is entailed by any
proposition, and indeed all the other associated paradoxes of entailment. Grice objects that the alleged cure by
Strawson is worse than disease of Moore! The denial that a necessary proposition can
entail or be entailed by any proposition, and, therefore, that necessary
propositions can be related to each other by the entailment relation, is too
high a price to pay for the solution of the paradoxes, which are perfectly true
utterances with only this or that attending cancellable implicaturum. Strawson’s
introduction of ‘acc.’ makes sense. Which makes sense in that Philo first
supplied his truth-functional account of ‘if’ to criticise his tutor Diodorus
on modality. Philo reported to Diodorus something he had heard from Neptune. In
dreams, Neptune appeared to Philo and told him: “I saw down deep in the waters
a wooden trunk of a plant that only grows under weather – algae -- The trunk
can burn!” Neptune said.Awakening, Philo ran to Diodorus: “A wooden trunk deep
down in the ocean can burn.” Throughout this section, Strawson refers to a
‘primary or standard’ use of ‘if,’ of which the main characteristics are
various. First, that for each hypothetical statement made by this use of ‘if,’ there
could be made just one statement which would be the antecedent of the
hypothetical and just one statement which would be its consequent. Second, that
the hypothetical statement is acceptable (true, reasonable) if the antecedent
statement, if made or accepted, would, in the circumstances, be a good ground
or reason for accepting the consequent statement. Third, the making of the
hypothetical statement carries the implication either of uncertainty about, or
of disbelief in, the fulfilment of both antecedent and consequent.’ This above
is the passage extrapolated by Grice. Grice does not care to report the
platitudionous ‘first’ ‘characteristic’ as Strawson rather verbosely puts it.
The way Grice reports it, it is not clear Strawson is listing THREE
characteristics. Notably, from the extrapolated quote, it would seem as if
Grice wishes his addressee to believe that Strawson thinks that characteristic
2 and characteristic 3 mix. On top, Grice omits a caveat immediately after the
passage he extrapolates. Strawso notes: “There is much more than this to be
said about this way of using ‘if;’ in particular, about the meaning of the
question whether the antecedent would be a GOOD ground or reason for accepting
the consequent, and about the exact way in which THIS question is related to
the question of whether the hypothetical is TRUE {acceptable, reasonable) or
not.’ Grice does not care to include a caveat by Strawson: “Not all uses of ‘if
,’ however, exhibit all these three characteristics.” In particular, there is a
use which has an equal claim to rank as standard ‘if’ and which is closely
connected with the use described, but which does not exhibit the first
characteristic and for which the description of the remainder must consequently
be modified. Strawson has in mind what
is sometimes called a ‘formal’ (by Whitehead and Russell) or 'variable' or
'general’ or ‘generic’ hypothetical. Strawson gives three examples. The first
example is ‘lf ice is left in the sun, it melts.’ This is Kantian. Cf. Grice on
indicative conditionals in the last Immanuel Kant Lecture. Grice: "It should
be, given that it is the case that one smears one's skin with peanut butter
before retiring and that it is the case that one has a relatively insensitive
skin, that it is the case that one preserves a youthful complexion." More
generally, there is some plausibility to the idea that an exemplar of the form
'Should (! E, ⊢F;
! G)' is true just in case a corresponding examplar of the form 'Should (⊢ F, ⊢G; ⊢E)' is true. Before
proceeding further, I will attempt to deal briefly with a possible objection
which might be raised at this point. I can end imagine an ardent descriptivist,
who first complains, in the face of someone who wishes to allow a legitimate
autonomous status to practical acceptability generalizations, that
truth-conditions for such generalizations are not available, and perhaps are in
principle not available; so such generalizations are not to be taken seriously.
We then point out to him that, at least for a class of such cases,
truth-conditions are available, and that they are to be found in related
alethic generalizations, a kind of generalization he accepts. He then complains
that, if finding truth-conditions involves representing the practical
acceptability generalizations as being true just in case related alethic
generalizations are true, then practical acceptability generalizations are
simply reducible to alethic generalizations, and so are not to be taken
seriously for another reason, namely, that they are simply transformations of
alethic generalizations, and we could perfectly well get on without them. Maybe
some of you have heard some ardent descriptivists arguing in a style not so
very different from this. Now a deep reply to such an objection would involve
(I think) a display of the need for a system of reasoning in which the value to
be transmitted by acceptable inference is not truth but practical value,
together with a demonstration of the role of practical acceptability
generalizations in such a system. I suspect that such a reply could be
constructed, but I do not have it at my fingertips (or tongue-tip), so I shall
not try to produce it. An interim reply, however, might take the following
form: even though it may be true (which is by no means certain) that certain
practical acceptability generalizations have the same truth-conditions as
certain corresponding alethic generalizations, it is not to be supposed that
the former generalizations are simply reducible to the latter (in some
disrespectful sense of 'reducible'). For though both kinds of generalization are defeasible, they are not defeasible in the same
way; more exactly, what is a defeating condition for a given practical
generalization is not a defeating condition for its alethic counterpart. A
generalization of the form 'should (! E, ⊢F; ! G)' may have, as a defeating condition, 'E*'; that is
to say, consistently with the truth of this generalization, it may be true that
'should (! E & ! E*, ⊢F;
! G*)' where 'G*' is
inconsistent with 'G'. But since, in the
alethic counterpart generalization 'should (⊢ F, ⊢G; ⊢E)', 'E' does not occur
in the antecedent, 'E*' cannot be a defeating end p.92 condition for this
generalization. And, since liability to defeat by a certain range of defeating
conditions is essential to the role which acceptability generalizations play in
reasoning, this difference between a practical generalization and its alethic
counterpart is sufficient to eliminate the reducibility of the former to the
latter. To return to the main theme of this section. If, without further ado,
we were to accept at this point the suggestion that 'should (! E, ⊢F; ! G)' is true just
in case 'should (⊢
F, ⊢G;
⊢E)'
is true, we should be accepting it simply on the basis of intuition (including,
of course, linguistic or logical intuition under the head of 'intuition'). If
the suggestion is correct then we should attain, at the same time, a stronger
assurance that it is correct and a better theoretical understanding of the
alethic and practical acceptability, if we could show why it is correct by
deriving it from some general principle(s). Kant, in fact, for reasons not
unlike these, sought to show the validity of a different but fairly closely
related Technical Imperative by just such a method. The form which he selects
is one which, in my terms, would be represented by "It is fully
acceptable, given let it be that B, that let it be that A" or "It is
necessary, given let it be that B, that let it be that A". Applying this
to the one fully stated technical imperative given in Grundlegung, we get
Kant’s hypothetical which is of the type Strawson calls ‘variable,’ formal,
‘generic,’ or ‘generic.’ Kant: “It is necessary, given let it be that one
bisect a line on an unerring principle, that let it be that I draw from its
extremities two intersecting arcs". Call this statement, (α). Though he
does not express himself very clearly, I am certain that his claim is that this
imperative is validated in virtue of the fact that it is, analytically, a
consequence of an indicative statement which is true and, in the present
context, unproblematic, namely, the statement vouched for by geometry, that if
one bisects a line on an unerring principle, then one does so only as a result
of having drawn from its extremities two intersecting arcs. Call this
statement, (β). His argument seems to be expressible as follows. (1) It is
analytic that he who wills the end (so far as reason decides his conduct),
wills the indispensable means thereto. (2) So it is analytic that (so far as
one is rational) if one wills that A, and judges that if A, then A as a result
of B, then one wills that B. end p.93 (3) So it is analytic that (so far as one
is rational) if one judges that if A, then A as a result of B, then if one
wills that A then one wills that B. (4) So it is analytic that, if it is true
that if A, then A as a result of B, then if let it be that A, then it must be
that let it be that B. From which, by substitution, we derive (5): it is
analytic that if β then α. Now it seems to me to be meritorious, on Kant's
part, first that he saw a need to justify hypothetical imperatives of this
sort, which it is only too easy to take for granted, and second that he invoked
the principle that "he who wills the end, wills the means";
intuitively, this invocation seems right. Unfortunately, however, the step from
(3) to (4) seems open to dispute on two different counts. (1) It looks as if an
unwarranted 'must' has appeared in the consequent of the conditional which is
claimed, in (4), as analytic; the most that, to all appearances, could be
claimed as being true of the antecedent is that 'if let it be that A then let
it be that B'. (2) (Perhaps more serious.) It is by no means clear by what
right the psychological verbs 'judge' and 'will', which appear in (3), are
omitted in (4); how does an (alleged) analytic connection between (i) judging
that if A, A as a result of B and (ii) its being the case that if one wills
that A then one wills that B yield an analytic connection between (i) it's
being the case that if A, A as a result of B and (ii) the 'proposition' that if
let it be that A then let it be that B? Can the presence in (3) of the phrase
"in so far as one is rational" legitimize this step? I do not know
what remedy to propose for the first of these two difficulties; but I will
attempt a reconstruction of Kant's line of argument which might provide relief
from the second. It might, indeed, even be an expansion of Kant's actual
thinking; but whether or not this is so, I am a very long way from being
confident in its adequacy. Back to
Strawson. First example: ‘lf ice is left
in the sun, it melts.’Or “If apple goes up, apple goes down.” – Newton,
“Principia Mathematica.” “If ice is left in the sun, it, viz. ice, melts.” Strawson’s
second example of a formal, variable, generic, or general ‘if’ ‘If the side of
a triangle is produced, the exterior angle is equal to the sum of the two interior
and opposite angles.’ Cf. Kant: “If a line on an unerring principle
is bisected, two intersecting arcs are drawn from its extremities.” Synthetical
propositions must no doubt be employed in defining the means to a proposed end;
but they do not concern the principle, the act of the will, but the object and
its realization. E.g., that in order to bisect a line on an unerring principle
I must draw from its extremities two intersecting arcs; this no doubt is taught
by mathematics only in synthetical propositions; but if I know that it is only
by this process that the intended operation can be performed, then to say that,
if I fully will the operation, I also will the action required for it, is an
analytical proposition; for it is one and the same thing to conceive something
as an effect which I can produce in a certain way, and to conceive myself as
acting in this way. Strawson’s third example: ‘If a child is very strictly disciplined
in the nursery, it, viz. the child, that should be seen but not heard, will
develop aggressive tendencies in adult life.’ To a statement made by the use of
a sentence such as these there corresponds no single pair of statements which
are, respectively, its antecedent and consequent. On the other hand, for every such statement
there is an indefinite number of NON-general, or not generic, hypothetical
statements which might be called exemplifications, applications, of the
variable hypothetical; e.g., a statement made by the use of the sentence ‘If
THIS piece of ice is left in the sun, it, viz. this piece, melts.’Strawson,
about to finish his section on “ ‘⊃’
and ‘if’,” – the expression, ‘’ ⊃’ and ‘if’” only occurs in the
“Table of Contents,” on p. viii, not in the body of the essay, as found
redundant – it is also the same title Strawson used for his essay which
circulated (or ‘made the rounds’) soon after Grice delivered his attack on
Strawson, and which Strawson had, first, the cheek to present it to PGRICE, and
then, voiding the idea of a festschrift, reprint it in his own compilation of
essays. -- from which Grice extracted the quote for “Prolegomena,” notes that
there are two ‘relatively uncommon uses of ‘if.’‘If he felt embarrassed, he
showed no signs of it.’It is this example that Grice is having in mind in the
fourth lecture on ‘indicative conditionals.’ “he didn’t show it.”Grice is giving an
instantiation of an IMPLICIT, or as he prefers, ‘contextual,’ cancellation of
the implicaturum of ‘if.’ He does this
to show that even if the implicaturum of ‘if’ is a ‘generalised,’ not
‘generic,’ or ‘general,’ one, it need not obtain or be present in every
PARTICULAR case. “That is why I use the weakened form ‘generalISED, not
general. It’s all ceteris paribus always with me).” The example Grice gives
corresponds to the one Strawson listed as one of the two ‘relatively uncommon’
uses of ‘if.’ By sticking with the biscuit conditional, Grice is showing
Strawson that this use is ‘relatively uncommon’ because it is absolutely
otiose! “If he was surprised, he didn’t
show it.”Or cf. AustinIf you are hungry, there are. Variants by Grice on his
own example:“If Strawson was surprised, he did not show it.”“If he was
surprised, it is not the case that Strawson showed it, viz. that he was
surprised.”Grice (on the phone with Strawson’s friend) in front of Strawson –
present tense version:“If he IS surprised, it is not th case that he, Strawson,
is showing it, viz. the clause that he is surprised. Are you implicating he
SHOULD?”and a second group:‘If Rembrandt
passes the exam at the Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, I am a Dutchman.’‘If the Mad Hatter is not mad, I'll eat
my hat.’(as opposed to ‘If the Mad Hatter IS mad, I’ll eat HIS hat.’)Hats were
made at Oxford in a previous generation, by mad ‘hatters.’ “To eat one’s hat,”
at Oxford, became synonymous with ‘I’ll poison myself and die.’ The reason of
the prevalence of Oxonian ‘lunatic’ hatters is chemical. Strawson is referring
to what he calls an ‘old wives’ tale’As every grandmother at Oxford knows, the
chemicals used in hat-making include mercurious nitrate, which is used in ‘curing’
felt. Now exposure to the mercury vapours cause mercury poisoning. Or, to use
an ‘if’: “If Kant is exposed to mercury vapour, Kant gets poisoned. A poisoned
victim develops a severe and
uncontrollable muscular tremors and twitching limbs, distorted vision and
confused speech, hallucinations and psychosis, if not death. For a time, it was
at Oxford believed that a wearer of a hat could similarly die, especially by
eating the felt containing the mercurial nitrate. The sufficient and necessary condition of the truth of a
statement made by “If he was surprised, it is not the case that Strawson showed
it, viz. that he was surprised” is that it is not the case that Strawson showed
that he was surprised. The antecedent is otiose. Cf. “If you are hungry, there
are biscuits in the cupboard.’ Austin used to expand the otiose antecedent
further, ‘If you are hungry – AND EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT – there are biscuits in
the cupboard,” just in case someone was ignorant of Grice’s principle of
conversational helpfulness. Consequently, Strawson claims that such a statement
cannot be treated either as a standard hypothetical or as a material implication.
This is funny because by the time Grice is criticizing Strawson he does take
“If Strawson is surprised, it is not the case that he is showing it, viz. that
he is surprised.” But when it comes to “Touch the beast and it will bite you”
he is ready to say that here we do not have a case of ‘conjunction.’Why?
Stanford.Stanford is the answer.Grice had prepared the text to deliver at
Stanford, of all places. Surely, AT STANFORD, you don’t want to treat your
addressee idiotically. What Grice means is:“Now let us consider ‘Touch the
beast and it will bite you.’ Symbolise it: !p et !q. Turn it into the
indicative: You tell your love and love bites you (variant on William Blake).”
Grice: “One may object to the use of
‘p.q’ on Whiteheadian grounds. Blue-collared practitioners of the sciences will
usually proclaim that they do not care about the ‘realisability’ of this or
that operator. In fact, the very noun, ‘realisability,’ irritated me so that I
coined non-detachability as a balance. The blue-collared scientist will say
that ‘and’ is really Polish, and should be PRE-FIXED as an “if,” or condition,
or proviso. So that the conjunction becomes “Provided you tell your love, love
bites you.”Strawson gives his reason about the ‘implicaturum’ of what P. L.
Gardiner called the ‘dutchman’ ‘if,’ after G. F. Stout’s “ ‘hat-eating’ if.” Examples of the second kind are sometimes
erroneously treated as evidence that Philo was not crazy, and that ‘if’ does,
after all, behave somewhat as ‘⊃’ behaves. Boethius appropriately comments: “Philo had
two drawbacks against his favour. He had no drawing board, and he couldn’t
write. Therefore he never symbolized, other than ‘via verba,’ his ‘ei’ utterance, “If it is day, it is
night,” which he held to be true “at night only.”” Strawson echoes Grice. The
evidence for this conversational explanation of the oddity of the ‘dutcham’ if,
as called by Gardiner, and the ‘hat-eating’ if, as called by Stout, is,
presumably, the facts, first, that the relation between antecedent and
consequent is non-Kantian. Recall that Kant has a ‘Funktion’ which, after
Aristotle’s ‘pros ti,’ and Boethius’s ‘relatio,’ he called ‘Relation’ where he
considers the HYPOTHETICAL. Kant expands in section 8.5. “In the hypothetical,
‘If God exists, I’ll eat my hat,’ existence is no predicate.”Strawson appeals
to a second, “more convincing,” fact, viz. that the consequent is obviously not
– in the Dutchman ‘if,’ or not to be, in the ‘hat-eating’ if, fulfilled, or
true.Grice’s passing for a Dutchman and sitting for an exam at the Koninklijke
Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, hardly makes him a Dutchman.Dickens was well
aware of the idiocy of people blaming hatters for the increases of deaths at
Oxford. He would often expand the consequent in a way that turned it “almost a
Wittgensteinian ‘contradiction’” (“The Cricket in the House, vii). “If the
Hatter is not mad, I will eat my hat, with my head in it.”Grice comments:
“While it is analytic that you see with your eyes, it is not analytic that you
eat with your mouth. And one can imagine Dickens’s mouth to be situated in his
right hand. Therefore, on realizing that the mad hatter is not mad, Dickens is
allowing for it to be the case that he shall eat his hat, with his head in it.
Since not everybody may be aware of the position of Dickens’s mouth, I shall
not allot this common-ground status.”Strawson
gives a third Griciean fact.“The intention of the emissor, by uttering a
‘consequens falsum’ that renders the ‘conditionalis’ ‘verum’ only if the
‘antecedens’ is ‘falsum, is an emphatic, indeed, rude, gesture, with a
gratuitious nod to Philo, to the conviction that the antecedens is not
fulfilled either. The emissor is further abiding by what Grice calls the
‘principle of truth,’ for the emissor would rather see himself dead than
uttering a falsehood, even if he has to fill the conversational space with
idiocies like ‘dutchman-being’ and ‘hat-eating.’ The fourth Griceian fact is
obviously Modus Tollendo Tollens, viz. that “(p ⊃
q) . ~q” entails “~p,” or rather, to avoid the metalanguage (Grice’s Bootlace:
Don’t use a metalanguage: you can only implicate that your object-language is
not objectual.”), “[(p ⊃ q) . ~ q] ⊃ ~ p.”At this point, Strawson
reminisces: “I was slightly surprised that on my first tutorial with Grice, he
gave me “What the Tortoise Said To Achilles,” with the hint, which I later took
as a defeasible implicaturum, “See if you can resolve this!” ACHILLEs had
overtaken the Tortoise, and had seated himself comfortably on its back.
"So you've got to the end of our race-course?" said the Tortoise.
"Even though it does consist of an infinite series of distances ? I
thought some wiseacre or other had proved that the thing couldnl't be doiie ?
" " It can be done," said Achilles. " It has been done!
Solvitur ambulando. You see the distances were constaiitly diminishing; and
so-" "But if they had beenl constantly increasing?" the Tortoise
interrupted. "How then?" "Then I shouldn't be here,"
Achilles modestly replied; "and you would have got several times round the
world, by this time! " "You flatter me-flatten, I mean," said
the Tortoise; "for you are a heavy weight, and no mistake! Well now, would
you like to hear of a race-course, that most people fancy they can get to the
end of in two or three steps, while it really consists of an infinite number of
distances, each one longer than the previous one? " "Very much indeed
!" said the Grecian warrior, as he drew from his helmet (few Grecian
warriors possessed pockets in those days) an enormous note-book and a pencil.
"Proceed! And speak slowly, please! Shorthand isn't invented yet !"
"That beautiful First Proposition of Euclid! " the Tortoise miurmured
dreamily. "You admire Euclid?" "Passionately! So far, at least,
as one can admire a treatise that wo'n't be published for some centuries to
come ! " "Well, now, let's take a little bit of the argument in that
First Proposition-just two steps, and the conclusion drawn from them. Kindly
enter them in your note-book. And in order to refer to them conveniently, let's
call them A, B, and Z:- (A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each
other. (B) The two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the
same. (Z) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to each other. Readers of
Euclid will grant, I suppose, that Z follows logically from A and B, so that
any one who accepts A and B as true, must accept Z as true?" "
Undoubtedly! The youngest child in a High School-as. soon as High Schools are
invented, which will not be till some two thousand years later-will grant
that." " And if some reader had not yet accepted A and B as true, he
might still accept the sequence as a valid one, I suppose?" NOTES. 279
"No doubt such a reader might exist. He might say 'I accept as true the
Hypothetical Proposition that, if A and B be true, Z must be true; but, I don't
accept A and B as true.' Such a reader would do wisely in abandoning Euclid,
and taking to football." " And might there not also be some reader
who would say ' I accept A anld B as true, but I don't accept the
Hypothetical'?" "Certainly there might. He, also, had better take to
football." "And neither of these readers," the Tortoise
continued, "is as yet under any logical necessity to accept Z as
true?" "Quite so," Achilles assented. "Well, now, I want
you to consider me as a reader of the second kind, and to force me, logically,
to accept Z as true." " A tortoise playing football would be--"
Achilles was beginning " -an anomaly, of course," the Tortoise
hastily interrupted. "Don't wander from the point. Let's have Z first, and
football afterwards !" " I'm to force you to accept Z, am I?"
Achilles said musingly. "And your present position is that you accept A
and B, but you don't accept the Hypothetical-" " Let's call it
C," said the Tortoise. "-but you don't accept (C) If A and B are
true, Z must be true." "That is my present position," said the
Tortoise. "Then I must ask you to accept C." - "I'll do
so," said the Tortoise, "as soon as you've entered it in that
note-book of yours. What else have you got in it?" " Only a few
memoranda," said Achilles, nervously fluttering the leaves: "a few
memoranda of-of the battles in which I have distinguished myself!"
"Plenty of blank leaves, I see !" the Tortoise cheerily remarked.
"We shall need them all !" (Achilles shuddered.) "Now write as I
dictate: (A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other. (B) The
two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the same. (C) If A and
B are true, Z must be true. (Z) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to
each other." " You should call it D, not Z," said Achilles.
" It comes next to the other three. If you accept A and B and C, you must
accept Z." "And why must I?" "Because it follows logically
from them. If A and B and C are true, Z must be true. You don't dispute that, I
imagine ?" "If A and B and C are true, Z must be true," the
Tortoise thoughtfully repeated. " That's another Hypothetical, isn't it?
And, if I failed to see its truth, I might accept A and B and C, and still not
accept Z, mightn't I?" "You might," the candid hero admitted;
"though such obtuseness would certainly be phenomenal. Still, the event is
possible. So I must ask you to grant one more Hypothetical." " Very
good. I'm quite willing to grant it, as soon as you've written it down. We will
call it (D) If A and B and C are true, Z must be true. Have you entered that in
your note-book ? " " I have! " Achilles joyfully exclaimed, as
he ran the pencil into its sheath. "And at last we've got to the end of
this ideal race-course! Now that you accept A and B and C and D, of course you
accept Z." " Do I ? " said the Tortoise innocently. " Let's
make that quite clear. I accept A and B and C and D. Suppose I still refused to
accept Z? " 280 NOTES. " Then Logic would take you by the throat, and
force you to do it !" Achilles triumphantly replied. "Logic would
tell you 'You ca'n't help yourself. Now that you've accepted A and B and C and
D, you mvust accept Z!' So you've no choice, you see." "Whatever
Logic is good enough to tell me is worth writing down," said the Tortoise.
" So enter it in your book, please. We will call it (E) If A and B and C
and Dare true, Zmust be true. Until I've granted that, of course I needn't
grant Z. So it's quite a necessary step, you see?" "I see," said
Achilles; and there was a touch of sadness in his tone. Here the narrator,
having pressing business at the Bank, was obliged to leave the happy pair, and
did not again pass the spot until some months afterwards. When he did so,
Achilles was still seated on the back of the much-enduring Tortoise, and was
writing in his note-book, which appeared to be nearly full. The Tortoise was
saying " Have you got that last step written down ? Unless I've lost
count, that makes a thousand and one. There are several millions more to come.
And would you mind, as a personal favour, considering what a lot of instruction
this colloquy of ours will provide for the Logicians of the Nineteenth
Century-would you mnind adopting a pun that my cousin the Mock-Turtle will then
make, and allowing yourself to be re-named Taught- Us ?" "As you
please !" replied the weary warrior, in the hollow tones of despair, as he
buried his face in his hands. " Provided that you, for your part, will
adopt a pun the Mock-Turtle never made, and allow yourself to be re-named A
Kill-Ease !"Strawon protests:“But this is a
strange piece of logic.”Grice corrects: “Piece – you mean ‘piece’ simpliciter.”“But
what do you protest that much!?”“Well, it seems that, on any possible
interpretation, “if p, q” has, in respect of modus tollendo tollens the same powers
as ‘p ⊃ q.’“And it is just these
powers that you, and Cook Wilson before you, are jokingly (or
fantastically) exploiting!”“Fantastically?” “You call Cook Wilson
‘fantastical’? You can call me exploitative.’Strawson: “It is the absence of
Kantian ‘Relation,’ Boethius’s ‘relatio,’ Aristotle’s ‘pros ti,’ referred to in
that makes both Stout’s hat-eating if and Gardiner’s dutchman if quirks (as per
Sir Randolph Quirk, another Manx, like Quine), a verbal or conversational
flourish, an otiosity, alla Albritton, an odd, call it Philonian, use of ‘if.’
If a hypothetical statement IS, as Grice, after Philo, claims, is what
Whitehead and Russell have as a ‘material’ implication, the statements would be
not a quirkish oddity, but a linguistic sobriety and a simple truth. Or rather
they are each, the dutchman if and the
hat-eating if, each a ‘quirkish oddity’ BECAUSE each is a simple, sober, truth.
“Recall my adage,” Grice reminded Strawson, “Obscurely baffling, but Hegelianly
true!”Strawson notes, as a final commentary on the relevant section, that
‘if’ can be employed PERFORMATORILY,
which will have Grice finding his topic for the Kant lectures at Stanford:
“must” is univocal in “Apples must fall,” and “You must not lie.”An ‘if’ is
used ‘performatorily’ when it is used not simply in making this or that
statement, but in, e.g., making a provisional announcement of an intention.
Strawson’s example:“If it rains, I shall stay at home.”Grice corrected:“*I*
*will* stay at home. *YOU* *shall.*”“His quadruple implicatura never ceased to
amaze me.”Grice will take this up later in ‘Ifs and cans.’“If I can, I intend
to climb Mt Everest on hands and knees, if I may disimplicate that to
Davidson.”This hich, like an unconditional announcement of intention, Strawson
“would rather not” call ‘truly true’ or ‘falsely false.’ “I would rather
describe it in some other way – Griceian perhaps.” “A quessertion, not to be
iterated.”“If the man who utters the quoted sentence leaves home in spite of
the rain, we do not say that what he said was false, though we might say that
he lied (never really intended to stay in) ; or that he changed his mind –
which, Strawson adds, “is a form of lying to your former self.” “I agreed with
you!” Grice screamed from the other side of the Quadrangle!Strawson notes: “There
are further uses of ‘if’ which I shall not discuss.”This is a pantomime for
Austin (Strawson’s letter to Grice, “Austin wants me to go through the
dictionary with ‘if.’ Can you believe it, Grice, that the OED has NINE big
pages on it?! And the sad thing is that Austin has already did ‘if’ in “Ifs and
cans.” Why is he always telling OTHERS what to do?”Strawson’s Q. E. D.: “The
safest way to read the material implication sign is, perhaps, ‘not both … and
not …,” and avoid the ‘doubt’ altogether. (NB: “Mr. H. P. Grice, from whom I
never ceased to learn about logic since he was my tutor for my Logic paper in
my PPE at St. John’s back in the day, illustrates me that ‘if’ in Frisian means
‘doubt.’ And he adds, “Bread, butter, green cheese; very good English, very
good Friese!”. GROUP C – “Performatory” theories – descriptive,
quasi-descriptive, prescriptive – examples not lettered.EXAMPLE I: Strawson on
‘true’ in Analysis.EXAMPLE II: Austin on ‘know’ EXAMPLE III: Hare on ‘good.’EXPLICITLY
CONVEYED: if p, qIMPLICITLY CONVEYED: p is the consequensCANCELLATION: “I know
perfectly well where your wife is, but all I’ll say is that if she is not in kitchen
she is in the bedroom.”Next would be to consider uses of ‘implication’ in the
essay on the ‘indicative conditional.’ We should remember that the titling came
out in 1987. The lecture circulated without a title for twenty years. And in
fact, it is about ‘indicative conditional’ AND MORE BESIDES, including Cook
Wilson, if that’s a plus. Grice states the indirectness condition in two terms:One
in the obviously false terms “q is INFERRABLE, that’s the word Grice uses, from
p”The other one is in terms of truth-value assignment:The emissor has
NON-TRUTH-FUNCTIONAL GROUNDS for the emissum, ‘if p, q’. In Grice’s parlance:
“Grounds for ACCEPTING “p ⊃ q.”This way Grice chooses is
controversial in that usually he holds ‘accept’ as followed by the
‘that’-clause. So ‘accepting ‘p ⊃ q’” is not clear
in that respect. A rephrase would be, accepting that the emissor is in a
position to emit, ‘if p, q’ provided that what he EXPLICITLY CONVEYS by that is
what is explicitly conveyed by the Philonian ‘if,’ in other words, that the
emissor is explicitly conveying that it is the case of p or it is not the case
of q, or that it is not the case that a situation obtains such that it is the
case that p and it is not the case that q.“p ⊃ q” is F only in
the third row. It is no wonder that Grice says that the use-mention was only
used correctly ONCE.For Grice freely uses ‘the proposition that p ⊃
q.’ But this may be licensed because it was meant as for ‘oral delivery.’ THE
FIRST INSTANTIATION GRICE GIVES (WoW:58) is“If Smith is in London, he, viz. Smith,
is attending the meeting.”Grice goes on (WoW:59) to give FIVE alternatives to
the ‘if’ utterance, NOT using ‘if.’ For the first four, he notes that he fells
the ‘implicaturum’ of ‘indirectness’ seems ‘persistent.’On WoW:59, Grice refers
to Strawson as a ‘strong theorist,’ and himself as a ‘weak theorist,’ i. e. an
Occamist. Grice gives a truth-table or the ‘appropriate truth table,’ and its
formulation, and notes that he can still detect the indirectness condition
implication. Grice challenges Strawson. How is one to learn that what one
conveys by the scenario formulated in the truth-table for the pair “Smith is in
London” and “Smith is attending the meeting” – without using ‘if’ because this
is Grice’s exercise in detachment – is WEAKER than what one would convey by “If
Smith is in London, he, viz. Smith, is attending the meeting”?This sort of
rhetorical questions – “Of course he can’t” are a bit insidious. Grice failed
to give Strawson a copy of the thing. And Strawson is then invited to
collaborate with P. G. R. I. C. E., so he submits a rather vague “If and ⊃,”
getting the rebuke by Grice’s friend Bennett – “Strawson could at least say
that Grice’s views were published in three different loci.” BUT: Strawson
compiled that essay in 1968. And Strawson was NOT relying on a specific essay
by Grice, but on his memory of the general manoeuvre. Grice had been lecturing
on ‘if’ before at Oxford, in seminars entitled “Logic and Convesation.” But surely
at Oxford you are not supposed to ‘air’ your seminar views. Outside Oxford it
might be different. It shoud not!And surely knowing Grice, why would *GRICE*
provide the input to Strawson. For Grice, philosophy is very personal, and
while Grice might have thought that Sir Peter was slightly interested in what
his former tutor would say about ‘if,’ it would be inappropriate of the tutor
to overwhelm the tutee, or keep informing the tutee how wrong he is. For a
tutor, once a tutee, always a tutee. On WoW:59, Grice provides the FIRST
CANCELLATION of an ‘if,’ and changes it slightly from the one on p. 58. The
‘if’ now becomesIf Smith is in the library, he, viz. Smith, is working.’In
Wiltshire:“If Smith is in the swimming-pool library, he, viz. Smith, is swimming.”THE
CANCELLATION GOES by ‘opting out’:“I know just where Smith is and what he, viz.
Smith, is doing, but all I will tell you is that if he is in the library he is
working.”Grice had to keep adding his ‘vizes’ – viz. Smith – because of the
insidious contextualists – some of them philosophical!“What do you mean ‘he,’ –
are you sure you are keeping the denotatum constant?”Grice is challenging
Strawson’s ‘uncertainty and disbelief.’No one would be surprised if Grice’s
basis for his saying “I know just where Smith is and what he, viz. Smith, is
doing, but all I will tell you is that if he is in the library, he is working”
is that Grice has just looked in the library and found Smith working. So, Grice
IS uttering “If Smith is in the library, he is working” WHEN THE INDIRECT
(strong) condition ceteris-paribus carried by what Grice ceteris paribus
IMPLIES by uttering “If Smith is in the library, Smith is working.”The
situation is a bit of the blue, because Grice presents it on purpose as
UNVOLUNTEERED. The ‘communication-function’ does the trick. GRICE THEN GIVES
(between pages WoW: 59 and 60) TWO IMPLICIT cancellations of an implicaturum,
or, to avoid the alliteration, ‘contextual’ cancellation. Note incidentally
that Grice is aware of the explicit/implicit when he calls the cancellation,
first, EXPLICIT, and then contextual. By ‘explicit,’ he means, ‘conveying
explicitly’ in a way that commits you. THE THIRD INSTANTIATION refers to this
in what he calls a ‘logical’ puzzle, which may be a bit question-begging, cf. ‘appropriate
truth-table.’ For Strawson would say that Grice is using ‘if’ as a conscript,
when it’s a civil. “If Smith has black, Mrs. Smith has black.”Grice refers to
‘truth-table definition’ OR STIPULATION. Note that the horseshoe is an inverted
“C” for ‘contentum.’F. Cajori, “A history of mathematical notations,” SYMBOLS
IN MATHEMATICAL LOGIC, §667-on : [§674] “A theory of the ‘meccanisme du
raisonnement’ is offered by J. D. Gergonne in his “Essai de dialectique
rationnelle.”In Gergonne’s “Essai,” “H” stands for complete logical
disjunction, X” for logical product, “I” for "identity," [cf. Grize
on izzing] “C” for "contains," and "Ɔ (inverted C)" for
"is contained in." [§685] Gergonne
is using the Latinate, contineoIn rhet., the neuter substantive “contĭnens”
is rendered as “that on which something rests or depends, the chief point, hinge: “causae,” Cic. Part. Or. 29, 103; id. Top. 25, 95: “intuendum videtur, quid sit quaestio, ratio, judicatio, continens, vel ut alii vocant, firmamentum,” Quint. 3, 11, 1; cf. id. ib. § 18 sqq.—Adv.: contĭnen-ter .
So it is a natural evolution in matters of implication. while Giusberti
(“Materiale per studio,” 31) always reads “pro constanti,” the MSS occasionally
has the pretty Griciean “precontenti,” from “prae” and “contenti.” Cf. Quine,
“If my father was a bachelor, he was male. And I can say that, because ‘male’
is CONTAINED in ‘bachelor.’”E. Schröder, in his “Vorlesungen über die Algebra
der Logik,” [§690] Leipzig, uses “⊂”
for "untergeordnet”, roughly, “is included in,” and the inverted “⊃”
for the passive voice, "übergeordnet,” or includes. Some additional symbols are introduced by
Peano into Number 2 of Volume II of his influential “Formulaire.” Thus "ɔ"
becomes ⊃. By “p.⊃ x ... z. q” is
expressed “from p one DEDUCES, whatever x ... z may be, and q." In “Il calcolo geometrico,” – “according to
the Ausdehnungslehre of H. Grassmann, preceded by the operations of deductive
logic,” Peano stresses the duality of interpretations of “p.⊃
x ... z. q” in terms of classes and propositions. “We shall indicate [the
universal affirmative proposition] by the expression A < B, or B > A, which can be read "every A is a B,"
or "the class B CONTAINS A." [...]
Hence, if a,b,... are CONDITIONAL propositions, we have: a < b, or b > a, ‘says’ that "the
class defined by the condition a is part of that defined by b," or [...]
"b is a CONSEQUENCE of a," "if a is true, b is true." In Peano’s “Arithmetices principia: nova
methodo exposita,” we have: “II.
Propositions.” “The sign “C” means is a consequence of [“est consequentia.” Thus
b C a is read b is a consequence of the proposition a.” “The sign “Ɔ” means one
deduces [DEDUCITUR]; thus “a Ɔ b” ‘means’ the same as b C a. [...] IV. Classes “The sign Ɔ ‘means’ is contained
in. Thus a Ɔ b means class a is contained in class b. a, b ∈ K Ɔ (a Ɔ b) :=: (x)(x
∈ a Ɔ x ∈ b). In his “Formulaire,” Peano writes: “Soient a et b des Cls. a ⊃
b signifie "tout a est b".
Soient p et q des propositions contenant une variable x; p ⊃x
q, signifie "de p on déduit, quel que soit x, la q", c'est-à-dire:
"les x qui satisfont à la condition p satisferont aussi à la q". Russell criticizes Peano’s dualism in “The
Principles of mathematics,” §13. “The subject of Symbolic Logic consists of
three parts, the calculus of propositions, the calculus of classes and the
calculus of relations. Between the first two, there is, within limits, a
certain parallelism, which arises as follows: In any symbolic expression, the
letters may be interpreted as classes or as propositions, and the relation of
inclusion in the one case may be replaced by that of formal implication in the
other. A great deal has been made of
this duality, and in the later editions of his “Formulaire,” Peano appears to
have sacrificed logical precision to its preservation. But, as a matter of
fact, there are many ways in which the calculus of propositions differs from
that of classes.” Whiehead and Russell borrow the basic logical symbolism from
Peano, but they freed it from the "dual" interpretation. Thus, Whitehead and Russell adopt Schröder's ⊂
for class inclusion: a ⊂
b :=: (x)(x ∈ a Ɔ x ∈ b) Df. and restricted the use of the
"horseshoe" ⊃ to the connective "if’: “p⊃q.’
Whitehead’s and Russell’s decision isobvious, if we consider the following
example from Cesare Burali-Forti, “Logica Matematica,” a Ɔ b . b Ɔ c : Ɔ : a Ɔ
c [...] The first, second and fourth
[occurrences] of the sign Ɔ mean is contained, the third one means one deduces.So
the horseshoe is actually an inverted “C” meant to read “contentum” or
“consequens” (“consequutum”). Active Nominal Forms Infinitive: implicā́re
Present participle: implicāns; implicántis Future participle: implicītúrus;
implicātúrus Gerund: implicándum Gerundive: implicándus Passive Nominal Forms Infinitive: implicā́re
Perfect participle: implicī́tum; implicā́tumGRICE’s second implicit or
contextual cancellation does not involve a ‘logical puzzle’ but bridge – and
it’s his fourth instantiation:“If I have a red king, I also have a black king.”
– to announce to your competititve opponents upon inquiry a bid of five no
trumps. Cf. Alice, “The red Queen” which is a chess queen, as opposed to the
white queen. After a precis, he gives a FIFTH instantiation to prove that ‘if’
is always EXPLICITLY cancellable.WoW:60“If you put that bit of sugar in water, it
will dissolve, though so far as I know there can be no way of knowing in
advance that this will happen.”This is complex. The cancellation turns the ‘if
p, q’ into a ‘guess,’ in which case it is odd that the emissor would be
guessing and yet be being so fortunate as to make such a good guess. At the end
of page 60, Grice gives THREE FURTHER instantations which are both of
philosophical importance and a pose a problem to such a strong theorist as
Strawson.The first of the trio is:“If the Australians win the first Test, they
will win the series, you mark my words.”The second of the trio is:“Perhaps if
he comes, he will be in a good mood.”The third in the trio is:“See that, if he
comes, he gets his money.”Grice’s point is that in the three, the implicaturum
is cancelled. So the strong theorist has to modify the thesis ‘a sub-primary
case of a sub-primary use of ‘if’ is…” which seems like a heavy penalty for the
strong theorist. For Grice, the strong theorist is attaching the implicaturum
to the ‘meaning’ of ‘if,’ where, if attached at all, should attach to some
mode-marker, such as ‘probably,’ which may be contextual. On p. 61 he is
finding play and using ‘logically weaker’ for the first time, i. e. in terms of
entailment. If it is logically weaker, it is less informative. “To deny that p,
or to assert that q.”Grice notes it’s ceteris paribus.“Provided it would be
worth contributing with the ‘more informative’ move (“why deny p? Why assert
q?) While the presumption that one is interested in the truth-values of at
least p or q, this is ceteris paribus. A philosopher may just be interested in
“if p, q” for the sake of exploring the range of the relation between p and q,
or the powers of p and q. On p. 62 he uses the phrase “non-truth functional” as
applied not to grounds but to ‘evidence’: “non-truth-functional evidence.”Grice
wants to say that emissor has implicated, in a cancellable way, that he has
non-truth-functional evidence for “if p, q,” i. e. evidence that proceeds by
his inability to utter “if p, q” on truth-functional grounds. The emissor is
signaling that he is uttering “if p, q” because he cannot deny p, or that he
cannot assert q(p ⊃ q) ≡
((~p) v q)Back to the first instantiation“If Smith is in London, he, viz. Smith
is attending the meeting there, viz. in London”I IMPLICATE, in a cancellable
way, that I have no evidence for “Smith is not in London”I IMPLICATE, in a
cancellable way, that I have no evidence for “Smith is attending the lecture.On
p. 61 he gives an example of an contextual cancellation to show that even if
the implicaturum is a generalised one, it need not be present in every PARTICULAR
case (hence the weakned form ‘generalISED, not general). “If he was surprised,
he didn’t show it.”Or cf. AustinIf you are hungry, there are biscuits in the
cupboard. Traditionalist Grice on the tranquil Elysium of philosophyĒlysĭum ,
ii, n., = Ἠλύσιον, the abode of the blest, I.Elysium, Verg. A. 5, 735 Serv.; 6,
542; 744 al.; cf. Heyne Verg. A. 6, 675 sq.; and ejusd. libri Exc. VIII. p.
1019 Wagn.—Hence, II. Ēlysĭus , a, um, adj., Elysian: “campi,” Verg. G. 1, 38;
Tib. 1, 3, 58; Ov. Ib. 175; cf. “ager,” Mart. 10, 101: “plagae,” id. 6, 58:
“domus,” Ov. M. 14, 111; cf. “sedes,” Luc. 3, 12: “Chaos,” Stat. Th. 4, 520:
“rosae,” Prop. 4 (5), 7, 60. “puella,” i. e. Proserpine, Mart. 10, 24.—On p.
63, Grice uses ‘sense’ for the first time to apply to a Philonian ‘if p, q.’He
is exploring that what Strawson would have as a ‘natural’ if, not an artificial
‘if’ like Philo’s, may have a sense that descends from the sense of the
Philonian ‘if,’ as in Darwin’s descent of man. Grice then explores the ‘then’
in some formulations, ‘if p, then q’, and notes that Philo never used it, “ei”
simpliciter – or the Romans, “si.”Grice plays with the otiosity of “if p, in
that case q.”And then there’s one that Grice dismisses as ultra-otiose:“if p,
then, in that case, viz. p., q.”Grice then explores ‘truth-functional’ now
applied not to ‘evidence’ but to ‘confirmation.’“p or q” is said to be
truth-functionally confirmable.While “p horseshoe q’ is of course truth-functionally
confirmable.Grice has doubts that ‘if p, q’ may be regarded by Strawson as NOT
being ‘truth-functionally confirmable.’ If would involve what he previously
called a ‘metaphysical excrescence.’Grice then reverts to his bridge example“If
I have a red king, I have a black king.”And provides three scenarios for a
post-mortem truth-functional confirmability.For each of the three rowsNo red,
no blackRed, no blackRed, blackWhich goes ditto for the ‘logical’ puzzleIf Jones has black, Mrs.
Jones has black. The next crop of instantiations come from PM, and begins on p.
64.He kept revising these notes. And by the time he was submitting the essay to
the publisher, he gives up and kept the last (but not least, never latter)
version. Grice uses the second-floor ‘disagree,’ and not an explicit ‘not.’ So
is partially agreeing a form of disagreeing? In 1970, Conservative Heath won to
Labour Wilson.He uses ‘validate’ – for ‘confirm’. ‘p v q’ is validated iff
proved factually satisfactory.On p. 66 he expands“if p, q”as a triple
disjunction of the three rows when ‘if p, q’ is true:“(not-p and not-q) or
(not-p and q) or (p and q)”The only left out is “(p and not-q).”Grice gives an
instantiation for [p et]q“The innings closed at 3:15, Smith no batting.”as
opposed to“The inning close at 3:15, and Smith did not bat.”as displayed byp.qAfter
using ‘or’ for elections he gives the first instantation with ‘if’:“If Wilson
will not be prime minister, it will be Heath.”“If Wilson loses, he loses to
Heath.”‘if’ is noncommutative – the only noncommutative of the three dyadic
truth-functors he considers (‘and,’ ‘or’ and ‘if’).This means that there is a
‘semantic’ emphasis here.There is a distinction between ‘p’ and ‘q’. In the
case of ‘and’ and ‘or’ there is not, since ‘p and q’ iff ‘q and p’ and ‘p or q’
iff ‘q or p.’The distinction is expressed in terms of truth-sufficiency and
false-sufficiency.The antecedent or protasis, ‘p’ is FALSE-SUFFICIENT for the
TRUTH of ‘if p, q.’The apodosis is TRUE-sufficient for the truth of ‘if p, q.’On
p. 67 he raises three questions.FIRST QUESTIONHe is trying to see ‘if’ as
simpler:The three instantiations areIf Smith rings, the butler will let Smith
inIt is not the case that Smith rings, or the butler will let Smith in.It is
not the case both Smith rings and it is not the the butler will let Smith in. (Grice
changes the tense, since the apodosis sometimes requires the future tense)
(“Either Smith WILL RING…”)SECOND QUESTIONWhy did the Anglo-Saxons feel the
need for ‘if’ – German ‘ob’? After all, if Whitehead and Russell are right, the
Anglo-Saxons could have done with ‘not’ and ‘and,’ or indeed with
‘incompatible.’The reason is that ‘if’ is cognate with ‘doubt,’ but The
Anglo-Saxons left the doubt across the North Sea. it
originally from an oblique case of the substantive which may be rendered as
"doubt,” and cognate with archaic German “iba,” which may be rendered as
“condition, stipulation, doubt," Old Norse if "doubt,
hesitation," modern Swedish jäf "exception,
challenge")It’s all different with ‘ei’ and ‘si.’For sisī (orig.
and ante-class. form seī ),I.conj. [from a pronominal stem = Gr. ἑ; Sanscr.
sva-, self; cf. Corss. Ausspr. 1, 778; Georg Curtius Gr. Etym. 396],
a conditional particle, if.As for “ei”εἰ ,
Att.-Ion. and Arc. (for εἰκ, v.
infr. 11 ad
init.), = Dor. and Aeol. αἰ, αἰκ (q.
v.), Cypr.A.“ἤ” Inscr.Cypr.135.10 H.,
both εἰ and αἰ in
Ep.:— Particle used interjectionally with imper. and to express a wish, but
usu. either in conditions, if,
or in indirect questions, whether. In
the former use its regular negative is μή; in the
latter, οὐ.THIRD
QUESTION. Forgetting Grecian neutral apodosis and protasis, why did the Romans
think that while ‘antecedens’ is a good Humeian rendition of ‘protasis,’ yet
instead they chose for the Grecian Humeian ‘apodosis,’ the not necessarily
Humeian ‘con-sequens,’ rather than mere ‘post-sequens’?The Latin terminology is antecedens and consequens, the
ancestors and ... tothem the way the Greek grammatical termsή πρότασιs and
ήαπόδοσιsBRADWARDINE: Note that a consequence is an argumentation made up of an
antecedent and a consequent. He starts with the métiers.For ‘or’ he speaks of
‘semiotic economy’ (p. 69). Grice’s Unitarianism – unitary particle.If,
like iff, is subordinating, but only if is
non-commutative. Gazdar considers how many dyadic particles are possible and
why such a small bunch is chosen. Grice did not even care, as Strawson did, to take
care of ‘if and only if.’ Grice tells us the history behind the ‘nursery rhyme’
about Cock Robin. He learned it from his mother,
Mabel Fenton, at Harborne. Clifton almost made it forget it! But he recovered
in the New World, after reading from Colin Sharp that many of those nursery
rhymes travelled “with the Mayflower.” "Who Killed Cock Robin" is an
English nursery rhyme, which has been much used as a murder archetype[citation
needed] in world culture. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 494. Contents 1 Lyrics
2Origin and meaning 3Notes 4 External
links Lyrics[edit] The earliest record of the rhyme is in Tommy Thumb's Pretty
Song Book, published c. 1744, which noted only the first four verses. The
extended version given below was not printed until c. 1770.[1] Who killed Cock Robin? I, said the Sparrow,
with my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin. Who saw him die? I, said the Fly,
with my little eye, I saw him die. Who caught his blood? I, said the Fish, with
my little dish, I caught his blood. Who'll make the shroud? I, said the Beetle,
with my thread and needle, I'll make the shroud. Who'll dig his grave? I, said
the Owl, with my little trowel, I'll dig his grave. Who'll be the parson? I,
said the Rook, with my little book, I'll be the parson. Who'll be the clerk? I,
said the Lark, if it's not in the dark, I'll be the clerk. Who'll carry the
link? I, said the Linnet, I'll fetch it in a minute, I'll carry the link.
Who'll be chief mourner? I, said the Dove, I mourn for my love, I'll be chief
mourner. Who'll carry the coffin? I, said the Kite, if it's not through the
night, I'll carry the coffin. Who'll bear the pall? We, said the Wren, both the
cock and the hen, We'll bear the pall. Who'll sing a psalm? I, said the Thrush,
as she sat on a bush, I'll sing a psalm. Who'll toll the bell? I, said the
Bull, because I can pull, I'll toll the bell. All the birds of the air fell
a-sighing and a-sobbing, when they heard the bell toll for poor Cock Robin. The
rhyme has often been reprinted with illustrations, as suitable reading material
for small children.[citation needed] The rhyme also has an alternative ending,
in which the sparrow who killed Cock Robin is hanged for his crime.[2] Several
early versions picture a stocky, strong-billed bullfinch tolling the bell,
which may have been the original intention of the rhyme.[3] Origin and meaning[edit] Although the song
was not recorded until the mid-eighteenth century,[4] there is some evidence
that it is much older. The death of a robin by an arrow is depicted in a
15th-century stained glass window at Buckland Rectory, Gloucestershire,[5] and
the rhyme is similar to a story, Phyllyp Sparowe, written by John Skelton about
1508.[1] The use of the rhyme 'owl' with 'shovel', could suggest that it was
originally used in older middle English pronunciation.[1] Versions of the story
appear to exist in other countries, including Germany.[1] A number of the stories have been advanced to
explain the meaning of the rhyme: The
rhyme records a mythological event, such as the death of the god Balder from
Norse mythology,[1] or the ritual sacrifice of a king figure, as proposed by
early folklorists as in the 'Cutty Wren' theory of a 'pagan survival'.[6][7] It
is a parody of the death of King William II, who was killed by an arrow while
hunting in the New Forest (Hampshire) in 1100, and who was known as William
Rufus, meaning "red".[8] The rhyme is connected with the fall of
Robert Walpole's government in 1742, since Robin is a diminutive form of Robert
and the first printing is close to the time of the events mentioned.[1] All of
these theories are based on perceived similarities in the text to legendary or
historical events, or on the similarities of names. Peter Opie pointed out that
an existing rhyme could have been adapted to fit the circumstances of political
events in the eighteenth century.[1] The
theme of Cock Robin's death as well as the poem's distinctive cadence have
become archetypes, much used in literary fiction and other works of art, from
poems, to murder mysteries, to cartoons.[1]
Notes[edit] ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford
Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997),
pp. 130–3. ^ * Cock Robin at Project Gutenberg ^ M. C. Maloney, ed., English
illustrated books for children: a descriptive companion to a selection from the
Osborne Collection (Bodley Head, 1981), p. 31. ^ Lockwood, W. B. "The
Marriage of the Robin and the Wren." Folklore 100.2 (1989): 237–239. ^ The
gentry house that became the old rectory at Buckland has an impressive timbered
hall that dates from the fifteenth century with two lights of contemporary
stained glass in the west wall with the rebus of William Grafton and arms of
Gloucester Abbey in one and the rising sun of Edward IV in the other light;
birds in various attitudes hold scrolls "In Nomine Jesu"; none is
reported transfixed by an arrow in Anthony Emery, Greater Medieval Houses of England
and Wales, 1300–1500: Southern England, s.v. "Buckland Old Rectory,
Gloucestershire", (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 80. ^ R. J.
Stewart, Where is St. George? Pagan Imagery in English Folksong (1976). ^ B.
Forbes, Make Merry in Step and Song: A Seasonal Treasury of Music, Mummer's
Plays & Celebrations in the English Folk Tradition (Llewellyn Worldwide,
2009), p. 5. ^ J. Harrowven, The origins of rhymes, songs and sayings (Kaye
& Ward, 1977), p. 92. External links[edit] Children's literature portal
Death and Burial of Poor Cock Robin, by H. L. Stephens, from Project Gutenberg
Death and Burial of Poor Cock Robin From the Collections at the Library of
Congress Categories: Robert Walpole1744 songsFictional passerine birdsEnglish
nursery rhymesSongwriter unknownEnglish folk songsEnglish children's
songsTraditional children's songsSongs about birdsSongs about deathMurder
balladsThe train from Oakland to
Berkeley.Grice's aunt once visited him, and he picked her up at the Oakland
Railway Station. On
p. 74, Grice in terms of his aunt, mentions for the first time ‘premise’ and
‘conclusion.’On same p. for the record he uses ‘quality’ for affirmative,
negative or infinite. On p. 74 he uses for the first time, with a point, the
expression ‘conditional’ as attached to ‘if.’Oddly on the first line of p. 75,
he uses ‘material conditional,’ which almost nobody does – except for a
blue-collared practitioner of the sciences. ‘Material’ was first introduced by
blue-collared Whitehead and Russell, practictioners of the sciences. They used
‘material’ as applied to ‘implication,’ to distinguish it, oddly, and
unclassily, from ‘formal’ implication. It is only then he quotes Wilson
verbatim in quotes“The question whether so and so is a case of a question
whether such and such” This actually influenced Collingwood, and Grice is
trying to tutor Strawson here once more!For the
logic of question and
answer has roots in the very philosophy that it was ... is John Cook Wilson,
whose Statement
and Inference can be regarded as the STATEMENT AND ITS
RELATION TO THINKING AND APREHENSIOTHE DISTINCTION OF SUBJECT AND PREDICATE IN
LOGIC AND GRAMMAR The influence of Strawson on Cook Wilson.“The building is the
Bodleian.”As answer to“What is that building?”“Which building is the
Bodleian”If the proposition is answer to first question, ‘that building’ is the
subject, if the proposition is answer to second question, ‘the bodleian’ is the
subject. Cf. “The exhibition was not visited by a bald king – of France, as it doesn’t
happen.SUBJECT AS TOPICPREDICATE AS COMMENT.Cf. Grice, “The dog is a shaggy
thig”What is shaggy?What is the dog?THIS DOG – Subject – TopicTHAT SHAGGY THING
– Subject – occasionally, but usually Predicate, Comment.In fact, Wilson bases
on StoutI am hungryWho is hungry?: subject IIs there anything amiss with you?
‘hungry’ is the subjectAre you really hungry? ‘am’ is the subject.Grice used to
be a neo-Stoutian before he turned a neo-Prichardian so he knew. But perhaps
Grice thought better of Cook Wilson. More of a philosopher. Stout seemed to
have been seen as a blue-collared practioner of the SCIENCE of psychology, not
philosophical psychology! Cf. Leicester-born B. Mayo, e: Magdalen, Lit. Hum.
(Philosophy) under? on ‘if’ and Cook Wilson in Analysis.Other example by
Wilson:“Glass is elastic.”Grice is motivated to defend Cook Wilson because
Chomsky was criticizing him (via a student who had been at Oxford). [S]uppose
instruction was being given in the properties of glass, and the instructor said
‘glass is elastic’, it would be natural to say that what was being talkedabout
and thought about was ‘glass’, and that what was said of it was that it was
elastic. Thus glass would be the subject and that it is elastic would be the
predicate. (Cook Wilson 1926/1969, Vol. 1:117f.) What Cook Wilson discusses
here is a categorical sentence. The next two quotes are concerned with an
identificational sentence. [I]n the statement ‘glass is elastic’, if the matter
of inquiry was elasticity and the question was what substances possessed the
property of elasticity, glass, in accordance with the principle of the
definition, would no longer be subject, and the kind of stress which fell upon
‘elastic’ when glass was the subject, would now be transferred to ‘glass’. [. .
.] Thus the same form of words should be analyzed differently according as the
words are the answer to one question or another. (Cook Wilson 1926/1969, Vol.
1:119f.) When the stress falls upon ‘glass’, in ‘glass is elastic’, there is no
word in the sentence which denotes the actual subject elasticity; the word
‘elastic’ refers to what is already known of the subject, and glass, which has
the stress, is the only word which refers to the supposed new fact in the
nature of elasticity, that it is found in glass. Thus, according to the
proposed formula, ‘glass’ would have to be the predicate. [. . .] Introduction
and overview But the ordinary analysis would never admit that ‘glass’ was the
predicate in the given sentence and elasticity the subject. (Cook Wilson
1926/1969, Vol. 1:121)H. P. Grice knew that P. F. Strawson knew of J. C.
Wilson on “That building is the
Bodleian” via Sellars’s criticism.There is a strong
suggestion in Sellars' paper that I would have done
better if I had stuck to Cook Wilson. This suggestion I want equally strongly
to repudiate. Certainly Cook Wilson draws
attention to an interesting difference in ways in which items
may appear in discourse. It may be roughly expressed as follows.
When we say Glass is elastic we may be talking about glass or we
may be talking about elasticity (and we may, in the relevant sense of
'about' be doing neither). We are talking about glass if we are citing
elasticity as one of the properties of glass, we
are talking about elasticity if we are citing
glass as one of the substances which are elastic. Similarly
when we say Socrates is wise, we may be citing Socrates as an
instance of wisdom or wisdom as one of the proper- ties
of Socrates. And of course we may be doing
neither but, e.g., just imparting miscellaneous
information. Now how, if at all, could this
difference help me with my question? Would it help at all, for example,
if it were plausible (which it is not) to say that we were
inevitably more interested in determining what properties a given
particular had,than in determining what particular had a given property?
Wouldn't this at least suggest that particulars were the natural
subjects, in the sense of subjects of &erest? Let
me answer this question by the reminder that what I have
to do is to establish a connexion between some
formal linguistic difference and a category
difference; and a formal linguistic difference is
one which logic can take cognizance of, in abstraction from pragmatic
considerations, like the direction of interest. Such
a formal ditference exists in the difference between appearing in
discourse directly designated and appearing in discourse
under the cloak of quantification. ““But the difference in the
use of unquantified statements to which Cook Wilson draws
attention is not a formal difference at all.”Both glass and elasticity,
Socrates and wisdom appear named in such statements,
whichever, in Cook Wilson's sense, we are talking
about. An appeal to pragmatic considerations is,
certainly, an essential part of my own
account at a certain point: but this is the point at which
such considerations are in- voked to explain why a certain formal
difference should be particularly closely linked, in common speech, with
a certain category difference. The difference of which Cook
Wilson speaks is, then, though interesting in itself, irrelevant to my
question. Cook Wilson is, and I am not, concerned with what Sellars
calls dialectical distinctions.”
On p.76 Grice mentions
for the first time the “ROLE” of if in an indefinite series of ‘interrogative
subordination.”For
Cook Wilson,as Price knew (he quotes him in Belief), the function of ‘if’ is to
LINK TWO QUESTIONS. You’re the cream in my coffee as ‘absurd’ if literally (p.
83). STATEMENT
In this entry we will explore how Grice sees the ‘implicaturum’
that he regards as ‘conversational’ as applied to the emissor and in reference
to the Graeco-Roman classical tradition. Wht is implicated may not be the
result of any maxim, and yet not conventional – depending on a feature of
context. But nothing like a maxim – Strawson Wiggins p. 523. Only a
CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURUM is the result of a CONVERSATIONAL MAXIM and the
principle of conversational helpfulness. In a ‘one-off’ predicament, there may
be an ‘implicaturum’ that springs from the interaction itself. If E draws a
skull, he communicates that there is danger. If addressee runs away, this is
not part of the implicaturum. This Grice considers in “Meaning.” “What is
meant” should cover the immediate effect, and not any effect that transpires
out of the addressee’s own will. Cf. Patton on Kripke. One thief to another:
“The cops are coming!” The expressiom “IMPLICATION” is figures,
qua entry, in a philosophical dictionary that Grice consulted at Oxford. In the
vernacular, there are two prominent relata: entailment and implicaturum, the FRENCH
have their “implication.” When it comes to the Germans, it’s more of a trick.
There’s the “nachsichziehen,” the “zurfolgehaben,” the “Folge(-rung),” the
“Schluß,” the “Konsequenz,” and of course the “Implikation” and the “Implikatur,”
inter alia. In Grecian, which Grice
learned at Clifton, we have the “sumpeplegmenon,” or “συμπεπλεγμένον,” if you
must, i. e. the “sum-peplegmenon,” but there’s also the “sumperasma,” or “συμπέϱασμα,”
if you must, “sum-perasma;” and then there’s the “sunêmmenon,” or “συνημμένον,”
“sun-emmenon,” not to mention (then why does Grice?) the “akolouthia,” or “ἀϰολουθία,”
if you must, “akolouthia,” and the “antakolouthia,” ἀνταϰολουθία,” “ana-kolouthia.”
Trust clever Cicero to regard anything ‘Grecian’ as not displaying enough
gravitas, and thus rendering everything into Roman. There’s the “illatio,” from
‘in-fero.’ The Romans adopted two different roots for this, and saw them as
having the same ‘sense’ – cf. referro, relatum, proferro, prolatum; and then
there’s the “inferentia,”– in-fero; and then there’s the “consequentia,” --
con-sequentia. The seq- root is present in ‘sequitur,’ non sequitur. The ‘con-‘
is transliterating Greek ‘syn-’ in the three expressions with ‘syn’:
sympleplegmenon, symperasma, and synemmenon. The Germans, avoiding the
Latinate, have a ‘follow’ root: in “Folge,” “Folgerung,” and the verb
“zur-folge-haben. And perhaps ‘implicatio,’
which is the root Grice is playing with. In Italian and French it
underwent changes, making ‘to imply’ a doublet with Grice’s ‘to implicate’ (the
form already present, “She was implicated in the crime.”). The strict opposite
is ‘ex-plicatio,’ as in ‘explicate.’ ‘implico’ gives both ‘implicaturum’ and
‘implicitum.’ Consequently, ‘explico’ gives both ‘explicatum’ and ‘explicitum.’
In English Grice often uses ‘impicit,’ and ‘explicit,’ as they relate to communication,
as his ‘implicaturum’ does. His ‘implicaturum’ has more to do with the contrast
with what is ‘explicit’ than with ‘what follows’ from a premise. Although in
his formulation, both readings are valid: “by uttering x, implicitly conveying
that q, the emissor CONVERSATIONALY implicates that p’ if he has explicitly
conveyed that p, and ‘q’ is what is required to ‘rationalise’ his
conversational behavioiur. In terms of the emissor, the distinction is between
what the emissor has explicitly conveyed and what he has conversationally
implicated. This in turn contrasts what some philosophers refer metabolically
as an ‘expression,’ the ‘x’ ‘implying’ that p – Grice does not bother with this
because, as Strawson and Wiggins point out, while an emissor cannot be true,
it’s only what he has either explicitly or implicitly conveyed that can be
true. As Austin says, it’s always a FIELD where you do the linguistic botany.
So, you’ll have to vide and explore: ANALOGY, PROPOSITION, SENSE, SUPPOSITION,
and TRUTH. Implication denotes a relation between propositions and statements
such that, from the truth-value of the protasis or antecedent (true or false),
one can derive the truth of the apodosis or consequent. More broadly, we can
say that one idea ‘implies’ another if the first idea cannot be thought without
the second one -- RT: Lalande, Vocabulaire technique et critique de la
philosophie. Common usage makes no strict differentiation between “to imply,”
“to infer,” and “to lead to.” Against Dorothy Parker. She noted that those of
her friends who used ‘imply’ for ‘infer’ were not invited at the Algonquin. The
verb “to infer,” (from Latin, ‘infero,’ that gives both ‘inferentia,’
inference, and ‘illatio,’ ‘illatum’) meaning “to draw a consequence, to deduce”
(a use dating to 1372), and the noun “inference,” meaning “consequence” (from
1606), do not on the face of it seem to be manifestly different from “to imply”
and “implication.” But in Oxonian usage, Dodgson avoided a confusion. “There
are two ways of confusing ‘imply’ with ‘infer’: to use ‘imply’ to mean ‘infer,’
and vice versa. Alice usually does the latter; the Dodo the former.” Indeed,
nothing originally distinguishes “implication” as Lalande defines it — “a
relation by which one thing ‘implies’ another”— from “inference” as it is
defined in Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie (1765): “An operation by which
one ACCEPTS (to use a Griceism) a proposition because of its connection to
other propositions held to be true.” The same phenomenon can be seen in the
German language, in which the terms corresponding to “implication,” “Nach-sich-ziehen,”
“Zur-folge-haben,” “inference,” “Schluß”-“Folgerung,” “Schluß,” “to infer,”
“schließen,” “consequence,” “Folge” “-rung,” “Schluß,” “Konsequenz,”
“reasoning,” “”Schluß-“ “Folgerung,” and “to reason,” “schließen,” “Schluß-folger-ung-en
ziehen,” intersect or overlap to a large extent. In the French language, the
expression “impliquer” reveals several characteristics that the expression does
not seem to share with “to infer” or “to lead to.” First of all, “impliquer” is
originally (1663) connected to the notion of contradiction, as shown in the use
of impliquer in “impliquer contradiction,” in the sense of “to be
contradictory.” The connection between ‘impliquer’ and ‘contradiction’ does
not, however, explain how “impliquer” has passed into its most commonly
accepted meaning — “implicitly entail” — viz. to lead to a consequence. Indeed,
the two usages (“impliquer” connected with contradiction” and otherwise)
constantly interfere with one another, which certainly poses a number of
difficult problems. An analogous phenomenon can be found in the case of
“import,” commonly given used as “MEAN” or “imply,” but often wavering instead,
in certain cases, between “ENTAIL” and “imply.” In French, the noun “import” itself
is generally left as it I (“import existentiel,” v. SENSE, Box 4, and cf.
that’s unimportant, meaningless). “Importer,”
as used by Rabelais, 1536, “to necessitate, to entail,” forms via It.“importare,” as used by Dante), from the
Fr. “emporter,” “to entail, to have as a consequence,” dropped out of usage,
and was brought back through Engl. “import.” The nature of the connection
between the two primary usages of L. ‘implicare,’ It. ‘implicare,’ and Fr.
‘impliquer,’ “to entail IMPLICITitly” and “to lead to a consequence,”
nonetheless remains obscure, but not to a Griceian, or Grecian. Another
difficulty is understanding how the transition occurs from Fr. “impliquer,” “to
lead to a consequence,” to “implication,” “a logical relation in which one
statement necessarily supposes another one,” and how we can determine what in
this precise case distinguishes “implication” from “PRAE-suppositio.” We
therefore need to be attentive to what is implicit in Fr. “impliquer” and
“implication,” to the dimension of Fr. “pli,” a pleat or fold, of Fr. “re-pli,”
folding back, and of the Fr. “pliure,” folding, in order to separate out
“imply,” “infer,” “lead to,” or “implication,” “inference,” “consequence”—which
requires us to go back to Latin, and especially to medieval Latin. Once we
clarify the relationship between the usage of “implication” and the medieval
usage of “implicatio,” we will be able to examine certain derivations (as in
Sidonius’s ‘implicatura,” and H. P. Grice’s “implicaturum,” after
‘temperature,’ from ‘temperare,’) or substitutes (“entailment”) of terms
related to the generic field (for linguistic botanising) of “implicatio,”
assuming that it is difficulties with the concept of implication (e. g., the
‘paradoxes,’ true but misleading, of material versus formal implication –
‘paradox of implication’ first used by Johnson 1921) that have given rise to
this or that newly coined expression corresponding to this or that original
attempt. This whole set of difficulties certainly becomes clearer as we leave
Roman and go further upstream to Grecian, using the same vocabulary of
implication, through the conflation of several heterogeneous gestures that come
from the systematics in Aristotle and the Stoics. The Roman Vocabulary of
Implication and the Implicatio has the necessary ‘gravitas,’ but Grice, being a
Grecian at heart, found it had ‘too much gravitas,’ hence his ‘implicaturum,’
“which is like the old Roman ‘implicare,’ but for fun!” A number of different
expressions in medieval Latin can express in a more or less equivalent manner
the relationship between propositions and statements such that, from the
truth-value of the antecedent (true or false), one can derive the truth-value
of the consequent. There is “illatio,” and of course “illatum,” which Varro
thought fell under ‘inferre.’ Then there’s the feminine noun, ‘inferentia,’
from the ‘participium praesens’ of ‘inferre,’ cf. ‘inferens’ and ‘ilatum.’
There is also ‘consequentia,’ which is a complex transliterating the Greek
‘syn-,’ in this case with ‘’sequentia,’ from the deponent verb. “I follow you.”
Peter Abelard (Petrus Abelardus, v. Abelardus) makes no distinction in using
the expression “consequentia” for the ‘propositio conditionalis,’ hypothetical.
Si est homo, est animal. If Grice is a man, Grice is an animal (Dialectica, 473
– Abelardus uses ‘Greek man,’ not Grice.’ His implicaturum is ‘if a Greek man
is a man, he is therefore also some sort of an animal’). But Abelardus also
uses the expression “inferentia” for ‘same old same old’ (cf. “Implicaturum
happens.”). Si non est iustus homo, est non iustus homo. Grice to Strawson on
the examiner having given him a second. “If it is not the case that your
examiner was a fair man, it follows thereby that your examiner was not a fair
man, if that helps.” (Dialectica., 414).
For some reason, which Grice found obscure, ‘illatio” appears “almost
always” in the context of commenting on Aristotle’s “Topics,” – “why people
found the topic commenting escapes me” -- aand denotes more specifically a
reasoning, or “argumentum,” in Boethius, allowing for a “consequentia” to be
drawn from a given place. So Abelardus distinguishes: “illatio a causa.” But
there is also “illatio a simili.” And there is “iillatio a pari.” And there is
“illatio a partibus.” “Con-sequentia” sometimes has a very generic usage, even
if not as generic as ‘sequentia.” “Consequentia est quaedam habitudo inter
antecedens et consequens,” “Logica modernorum,” 2.1:38 – Cfr. Grice on
Whitehead as a ‘modernist’! Grice draws his ‘habit’ from the scholastic
‘habitudo.’ Noe that ‘antededens’ and ‘consequens.’ The point is a tautological
formula, in terms of formation. Surely ‘consequentia’ relates to a
‘consequens,’ where the ‘consequens’ is the ‘participium praesens’ of the verb
from which ‘consequentia’ derives. It’s like deving ‘love’ by ‘to have a
beloved.’ “Consequentia” is in any case present, in some way, without the
intensifier ‘syn,’ which the Roman gravitas added to transliterate the Greek
‘syn,’ i. e. ‘cum.’ -- in the expression “sequitur” and in the expression
“con-sequitur,” literally, ‘to follow,’ ‘to ensue,’ ‘to result in’). Keenan
told Grice that this irritated him. “If there is an order between a premise and
a conclusion, I will stop using ‘follow,’ because that reverts the order. I’ll
use ‘… yields …’ and write that ‘p yields q.’” “Inferentia,” which is cognate
(in the Roman way of using this expression broadly) with ‘illatio,’ and
‘illatum,’ -- frequently appears, by contrast, and “for another Grecian
reason,” as Grice would put it -- in the context of the Aristotle’s “De
Interpretatione,” on which Grice lectures only with J. L. Austin (Grice
lectured with Strawson on “Categoriae,” only – but with Austin, from whom Grice
learned – Grice lectured on both “Categoriae’ AND “De Interpretatione.” -- whether it is as part of a commentarium on Apuleius’s
Isagoge and the Square of Oppositions (‘figura quadrata spectare”), in order to
explain this or that “law” underlying any of the four sides of the square. So,
between A and E we have ‘propositio opposita.’ Between A and I, and between E
and O, we have propositio sub-alterna. Between A and O, and between E and I, we
have propositio contradictoria. And between I and O, we have “propositio
sub-alterna.” -- Logica modernorum, 2.1:115. This was irritatingly explored by
P. F. Strawson and brought to H. P. Grice’s attention, who refused to accept
Strawson’s changes and restrictions of the ‘classical’ validities (or “laws”)
because Strawson felt that the ‘implication’ violated some ‘pragmatic rule,’
while still yielding a true statement. Then there’s the odd use of “inferentia”
to apply to the different ‘laws’ of ‘conversio’ -- from ‘convertire,’
converting one proposition into another (Logica modernorum 131–39). Nevertheless,
“inferentia” is used for the dyadic (or triadic, alla Peirce) relationship of ‘implicatio,’
which for some reason, the grave Romans were using for less entertaining
things, and not this or that expressions from the “implication” family, or
sub-field. Surprisingly, a philosopher
without a classical Graeco-Roman background could well be mislead into thinking
that “implicatio” and “implication” are disparate! A number of treatises,
usually written by monks – St. John’s, were Grice teaches, is a Cicercian
monastery -- explore the “implicits.” Such a “tractatus” is not called
‘logico-philosophicus,’ but a “tractatus implicitarum,” literally a treatise on
this or that ‘semantic’ property of the
proposition said to be an ‘implicaturum’ or an ‘implication,’ or ‘propositio re-lativa.’
This is Grice’s reference to the conversational category of ‘re-lation.’
“Re-latio” and “Il-latio” are surely cognate. The ‘referre’ is a bring back;
while the ‘inferre’ is the bring in. The propositio is not just ‘brought’
(latum, or lata) it is brought back. Proposition Q is brought back (relata) to
Proposition P. P and Q become ‘co-relative.’ This is the terminology behind the
idea of a ‘relative clause,’ or ‘oratio relativa.’ E.g. “Si Plato tutee
Socrates est, Socratos tutor Platonis est,” translated by Grice, “If Strawson was
my tutee, it didn’t show!”. Now, closer to Grice “implicitus,” with an “i”
following the ‘implic-‘ rather than the expected ‘a’ (implica), “implicita,”
and “implicitum,” is an alternative “participium passatum” from “im-plic-are,”
in Roman is used for “to be joined, mixed, enveloped.” implĭco (inpl- ), āvi,
ātum, or (twice in Cic., and freq. since the Aug. per.) ŭi, ĭtum (v. Neue,
Formenl. 2, 550 sq.), 1, v. a. in-plico, to fold into; hence, I.to infold,
involve, entangle, entwine, inwrap, envelop, encircle, embrace, clasp, grasp
(freq. and class.; cf.: irretio, impedio). I. Lit.: “involvulus in pampini
folio se,” Plaut. Cist. 4, 2, 64: “ut tenax hedera huc et illuc Arborem
implicat errans,” Cat. 61, 35; cf. id. ib. 107 sq.: “et nunc huc inde huc
incertos implicat orbes,” Verg. A. 12, 743: “dextrae se parvus Iulus
Implicuit,” id. ib. 2, 724; cf.: “implicuit materno bracchia collo,” Ov. M. 1,
762: “implicuitque suos circum mea colla lacertos,” id. Am. 2, 18, 9:
“implicuitque comam laevā,” grasped, Verg. A. 2, 552: “sertis comas,” Tib. 3,
6, 64: “crinem auro,” Verg. A. 4, 148: “frondenti tempora ramo,” id. ib. 7,
136; cf. Ov. F. 5, 220: in parte inferiore hic implicabatur caput, Afran. ap.
Non. 123, 16 (implicare positum pro ornare, Non.): “aquila implicuit pedes
atque unguibus haesit,” Verg. A. 11, 752: “effusumque equitem super ipse
(equus) secutus Implicat,” id. ib. 10, 894: “congressi in proelia totas
Implicuere inter se acies,” id. ib. 11, 632: “implicare ac perturbare aciem,” Sall.
J. 59, 3: “(lues) ossibus implicat ignem,” Verg. A. 7, 355.—In part. perf.:
“quini erant ordines conjuncti inter se atque implicati,” Caes. B. G. 7, 73, 4:
“Canidia brevibus implicatura viperis Crines,” Hor. Epod. 5, 15: “folium implicaturum,”
Plin. 21, 17, 65, § 105: “intestinum implicaturum,” id. 11, 4, 3, § 9:
“impliciti laqueis,” Ov. A. A. 2, 580: “Cerberos implicitis angue minante
comis,” id. H. 9, 94: “implicitamque sinu absstulit,” id. A. A. 1, 561:
“impliciti Peleus rapit oscula nati,” held in his arms, Val. Fl. 1, 264. II.
Trop. A. In gen., to entangle, implicate, involve, envelop, engage: “di
immortales vim suam ... tum terrae cavernis includunt, tum hominum naturis
implicant,” Cic. Div. 1, 36, 79: “contrahendis negotiis implicari,” id. Off. 2,
11, 40: “alienis (rebus) nimis implicari molestum esse,” id. Lael. 13, 45:
“implicari aliquo certo genere cursuque vivendi,” id. Off. 1, 32, 117:
“implicari negotio,” id. Leg. 1, 3: “ipse te impedies, ipse tua defensione
implicabere,” Cic. Verr. 2, 2, 18, § 44; cf.: multis implicari erroribus, id.
Tusc. 4, 27, 58: “bello,” Verg. A. 11, 109: “eum primo incertis implicantes
responsis,” Liv. 27, 43, 3: “nisi forte implacabiles irae vestrae implicaverint
animos vestros,” perplexed, confounded, id. 40, 46, 6: “paucitas in partitione
servatur, si genera ipsa rerum ponuntur, neque permixte cum partibus
implicantur,” are mingled, mixed up, Cic. Inv. 1, 22, 32: ut omnibus copiis
conductis te implicet, ne ad me iter tibi expeditum sit, Pompei. ap. Cic. Att.
8, 12, D, 1: “tanti errores implicant temporum, ut nec qui consules nec quid
quoque anno actum sit digerere possis,” Liv. 2, 21, 4.—In part. perf.: “dum rei
publicae quaedam procuratio multis officiis implicaturum et constrictum
tenebat,” Cic. Ac. 1, 3, 11: “Deus nullis occupationibus est implicatus,” id.
N. D. 1, 19, 51; cf.: “implicatus molestis negotiis et operosis,” id. ib. 1,
20, 52: “animos dederit suis angoribus et molestiis implicatos,” id. Tusc. 5,
1, 3: “Agrippina morbo corporis implicatura,” Tac. A. 4, 53: “inconstantia tua
cum levitate, tum etiam perjurio implicatura,” Cic. Vatin. 1, 3; cf. id. Phil.
2, 32, 81: “intervalla, quibus implicatura atque permixta oratio est,” id. Or.
56, 187: “(voluptas) penitus in omni sensu implicatura insidet,” id. Leg. 1, 17,
47: “quae quatuor inter se colligata atque implicatura,” id. Off. 1, 5, 15:
“natura non tam propensus ad misericordiam quam implicatus ad severitatem
videbatur,” id. Rosc. Am. 30, 85; “and in the form implicitus, esp. with morbo
(in morbum): quies necessaria morbo implicitum exercitum tenuit,” Liv. 3, 2, 1;
7, 23, 2; 23, 40, 1: “ubi se quisque videbat Implicitum morbo,” Lucr. 6, 1232:
“graviore morbo implicitus,” Caes. B. C. 3, 18, 1; cf.: “implicitus in morbum,”
Nep. Ages. 8, 6; Liv. 23, 34, 11: “implicitus suspicionibus,” Plin. Ep. 3, 9,
19; cf.: “implicitus terrore,” Luc. 3, 432: “litibus implicitus,” Hor. A. P.
424: “implicitam sinu abstulit,” Ov. A. A. 1, 562: “(vinum) jam sanos
implicitos facit,” Cael. Aur. Acut. 3, 8, 87.— B. In partic., to attach closely,
connect intimately, to unite, join; in pass., to be intimately connected,
associated, or related: “(homo) profectus a caritate domesticorum ac suorum
serpat longius et se implicet primum civium, deinde mortalium omnium
societate,” Cic. Fin. 2, 14, 45: “omnes qui nostris familiaritatibus
implicantur,” id. Balb. 27, 60: “(L. Gellius) ita diu vixit, ut multarum
aetatum oratoribus implicaretur,” id. Brut. 47, 174: “quibus applicari
expediet, non implicari,” Sen. Ep. 105, 5.— In part. perf.: “aliquos habere
implicatos consuetudine et benevolentia,” Cic. Fam. 6, 12, 2: “implicatus
amicitiis,” id. Att. 1, 19, 8: “familiaritate,” id. Pis. 29, 70: “implicati
ultro et citro vel usu diuturno vel etiam officiis,” id. Lael. 22, 85. —Hence,
1. implĭcātus (inpl- ), a, um, P. a., entangled, perplexed, confused,
intricate: “nec in Torquati sermone quicquam implicaturum aut tortuosum fuit,”
Cic. Fin. 3, 1, 3: “reliquae (partes orationis) sunt magnae, implicaturae,
variae, graves, etc.,” id. de Or. 3, 14, 52: vox rauca et implicatura, Sen.
Apocol. med. — Comp.: “implicatior ad loquendum,” Amm. 26, 6, 18. — Sup.:
“obscurissima et implicatissima quaestio,” Gell. 6, 2, 15: “ista tortuosissima
et implicatissima nodositas,” Aug. Conf. 2, 10 init.— 2. im-plĭcĭtē (inpl- ),
adv., intricately (rare): “non implicite et abscondite, sed patentius et
expeditius,” Cic. Inv. 2, 23, 69. -- “Implicare” adds to these usages the idea
of an unforeseen difficulty, i. e. a hint of “impedire,” and even of deceit, i.
e. a hint of “fallere.” Why imply what you can exply? Cf. subreptitious. subreption (n.)"act
of obtaining a favor by fraudulent suppression of facts," c. 1600, from
Latin subreptionem (nominative subreptio),
noun of action from past-participle stem of subripere, surripere (see surreptitious).
Related: Subreptitious.
surreptitious (adj.)mid-15c., from Latin surrepticius "stolen,
furtive, clandestine," from surreptus, past participle
of surripere "seize
secretly, take away, steal, plagiarize," from assimilated form of sub "from
under" (hence, "secretly;" see sub-) + rapere "to
snatch" (see rapid). Related: Surreptitiously.
The source of the philosophers’s usage of ‘implicare’ is a passage from
Aristotle’s “De Int.” on the contrariety of proposition A and E (14.23b25–27),
in which “implicita” (that sould be ‘com-plicita,’ and ‘the emissor complicates
that p”) renders Gk. “sum-pepleg-menê,” “συμ-πεπλεγμένη,” f. “sum-plek-ein,”
“συμ-πλέϰein,” “to bind together,” as in ‘com-plicatio,’ complication, and
Sidonius’s ‘complicature,’ and Grice’s ‘complicature,’ as in ‘temperature,’
from ‘temperare.’ “One problem with P. F. Strawson’s exegesis of J. L. Austin
is the complicature is brings.” This is from the same family or field as
“sum-plokê,” “συμ-πλοϰή,” which Plato (Pol. 278b; Soph. 262c) uses for the
‘second articulation,’ the “com-bination” of sounds (phone) that make up a word
(logos), and, more philosophically interesting, for ‘praedicatio,’ viz., the
interrelation within a ‘logos’ or ‘oratio’ of a noun, or onoma or nomen, as in
“the dog,” and a verb, or rhema, or verbum, -- as in ‘shaggisising’ -- that
makes up a propositional complex, as “The dog is shaggy,” or “The dog
shaggisises.” (H. P. Grice, “Verbing from adjectiving.”). In De Int. 23b25-27,
referring to the contrariety of A and O, Aristotle, “let’s grant it” – as Grice
puts it – “is hardly clear.” Aristotle writes: “hê de tou hoti kakon to agathon
SUM-PEPLEG-MENÊ estin.” “Kai gar hoti ouk agathon anagkê isôs hupolambanein ton
auton.”“ἡ δὲ τοῦ ὅτι ϰαϰὸν τὸ ἀγαθὸν συμπεπλεγμένη ἐστίν.”“ϰαὶ γὰϱ ὅτι οὐϰ ἀγαθὸν
ἀνάγϰη ἴσως ὑπολαμϐάνειν τὸν αὐτόν.” Back in Rome, Boethius thought of bring
some gravitas to this. “Illa vero quae est,” Boethius goes,” Quoniam malum est
quod est bonum, IMPLICATURA est. Et enim: “Quoniam non bonum est.” necesse est
idem ipsum opinari (repr. in Aristoteles latinus, 2.1–2.4–6. In a later vulgar
Romance, we have J. Tricot). “Quant au jugement, “Le bon est mal” ce n’est en
réalité qu’une COMBINAISON de jugements, cars sans doute est-il nécessaire de
sous-entendre en même temps “le bon n’est pas le bon.” Cf. Mill on ‘sous-entendu’
of conversation. This was discussed by H. P. Grice in a tutorial with
Reading-born English philosopher J. L. Ackrill at St. John’s. With the help of H. P. Grice, J. L. Ackrill
tries to render Boethius into the vernacular (just to please Austin) as
follows. “Hê de tou hoti kakon to agathon SUM-PEPLEG-MENÊ estin, kai gar hoti
OUK agathon ANAGKê isôs hupo-lambanein ton auton” “Illa vero quae est, ‘Quoniam
malum est quod est bonum,’ IMPLICATURA est, et enim, ‘Quoniam non bonum est,’ necesse
est idem ipsum OPINARI. In the vernacular: “The belief expressed by the
proposition, ‘The good is bad,’ is COM-PLICATED or com-plex, for the same
person MUST, perhaps, suppose also the proposition, ‘The good it is not good.’”
Aristotle goes on, “For what kind of utterance is “The good is not good,” or as
they say in Sparta, “The good is no good”? Surely otiose. “The good” is a
Platonic ideal, a universal, separate from this or that good thing. So surely,
‘the good,’ qua idea ain’t good in the sense that playing cricket is good. But
playing cricket is NOT “THE” good: philosophising is.” H. P. Grice found
Boethius’s commentary “perfectly elucidatory,” but Ackrill was perplexed, and
Grice intended Ackrill’s perplexity to go ‘unnoticed’ (“He is trying to
communicate his perplexity, but I keep ignoring it.” For Ackrill was
surreptitiously trying to ‘correct’ his tutor. Aristotle, Acrkill thought, is
wishing to define the ‘contrariety’ between two statements or opinions, or not
to use a metalanguage second order, that what is expressed by ‘The good is bad’
is a contrarium of what is expressed by ‘The good is no good.’” Aristotle starts,
surely, from a principle. The principle states that a maximally false
proposition, set in opposition to a maximally true proposition (such as “The
good is good”), deserves the name “contraria” – and ‘contrarium’ to what is
expressed by it. In a second phase, Aristotle then tries to demonstrate, in a
succession of this or that stage, that ‘The good is good’ understood as a
propositio universalis dedicativa – for all x, if x is (the) good, x is good (To
agathon agathon estin,’ “Bonum est bonum”) is a maximally true proposition.” And
the reason for this is that “To agathon agathon estin,” or “Bonum bonum est,”
applies to the essence (essentia) of “good,” and ‘predicates’ “the same of the
same,” tautologically. Now consider Aristotle’s other proposition “The good is
the not-bad,” the correlative E form, For all x, if x is good, x is not bad. This
does not do. This is not a maximally true proposition. Unlike “The good is
good,” The good is not bad” does not apply to the essence of ‘the good,’ and it
does not predicate ‘the same of the same’ tautologically. Rather, ‘The good is
not bad,’ unless you bring one of those ‘meaning postulates’ that Grice rightly
defends against Quine in “In defense of a dogma,” – in this case, (x)(Bx iff
~Gx) – we stipulate something ‘bad’ if it ain’t good -- is only true notably
NOT by virtue of a necessary logical implication, but, to echo my tutor, by implicaturum,
viz. by accident, and not by essence (or essential) involved in the ‘sense’ of
either ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ or ‘not’ for that matter. Surely Aristotle equivocates slightly
when he convinced Grice that an allegedly maximally false proposition (‘the
good is bad’) entails or yields the negation of the same attribute, viz., ‘The
good is not good,’ or more correctly, ‘It is not the case that the good is
good,’ for this is axiomatically contradictory, or tautologically and
necessarily false without appeal to any meaning postulate. For any predicate,
Fx and ~Fx. The question then is one of knowing whether ‘The good is bad’
deserves to be called the contrary proposition (propositio contraria) of ‘The
good is good.’ Aristotle notes that the proposition, ‘The good is bad,’ “To
agathon kakon estin,” “Bonum malum est,” is NOT the maximally false proposition
opposed to the maximally true, tautological, and empty, proposition, “The good
is good,” ‘To agathon agathon estin,’ “Bonum bonum est.” “Indeed, “the good is
bad” is sumpeplegmenê, or COMPLICATA. What the emissor means is a complicatum,
or as Grice preferred, a ‘complicature. Grice’s complicature (roughly rendered
as ‘complification’) condenses all of the moments of the transition from the
simple idea of a container (cum-tainer) to the “modern” ideas of implication,
Grice’s implicaturum, and prae-suppositio. The ‘propositio complicate,’ is, as
Boethius puts it, duplex, or equivocal. The proposition has a double meaning – one explicit, the
other implicit. “A ‘propositio complicata’ contains within itself [“continet in
se, intra se”]: bonum non est.” Boethius then goes rightly to conclude (or
infer), or stipulate, that only a “simplex” proposition, not a propositio
complicata, involving some ‘relative clause,’ can be said to be contrary to
another -- Commentarii in librum Aristotelis Peri hermêneais, 219. Boethius’s
exegesis thesis is faithful to Aristotle. For Aristotle, nothing like “the good
is not bad,” but only the tautologically false “the good is not good,” or it is
not the case that the good is good, (to agathon agathon esti, bonum bonum est),
a propositio simplex, and not a propositio complicate, is the opposite (oppositum,
-- as per the ‘figura quadrata’ of ‘oppoista’ -- of “the good is good,” another
propositio simplex. Boethius’s analysis of “the good is bad,” a proposition
that Boethius calls ‘propositio complicate or ‘propositio implicita’ are
manifestly NOT the same as Aristotle’s. For Aristotle, the “doxa hoti kakon to
agathon [δόξα ὅτι ϰαϰὸν τὸ ἀγαθόν],” the opinion according to which the good is
bad, is only ‘contrary’ to “the good is good” to the extent that it “con-tains”
(in Boethius’s jargon) the tautologically false ‘The good is not good.’ For
Boethius, ‘The good is bad’ is contrary to ‘the good is good’ is to the extent
that ‘the good is bad’ contains, implicitly, the belief which Boethius
expresses as ‘Bonum NON est —“ cf. Grice on ‘love that never told can be” –
Featuring “it is not the case that,” the proposition ‘bonum non est’ is a
remarkably complicated expression in Latin, a proposition complicata indeed.
‘Bonum non est’ can mean, in the vernacular, “the good is not.” “Bonum non est”
can only be rendered as “there is nothing good.’ “Bonum non est’ may also be
rendered, when expanded with a repeated property, the tautologically false ‘The
good is not good” (Bonum non bonum est). Strangely, Abelard goes in the same
direction as Aristotle, contra Boethius. “The good is bad” (Bonum malum est) is “implicit” (propositio implicita or
complicate) with respect to the tautologically false ‘Bonum bonum non est’ “the
good is not good.”Abelardus, having read Grice – vide Strawson, “The influence
of Grice on Abelardus” -- explains clearly the meaning of “propositio
implicita”: “IMPLYING implicitly ‘bonum non bonum est,’ ‘the good is not good’
within itself, and in a certain wa containing it [“IM-PLICANS eam in se, et
quodammodo continens.” Glossa super Periermeneias, 99–100. But Abelard expands
on Aristotle. “Whoever thinks ‘bonum malum est,’ ‘the good is bad’ also thinks
‘bonum non bonum est,’ ‘the good is not good,’ whereas the reverse does not
hold true, i. e. it is not the case that whoever thinks the tautologically
false ‘the good is not good’ (“bonum bonum non est”) also think ‘the good is
bad’ (‘bonum malum est’). He may refuse to even ‘pronounce’ ‘malum’ (‘malum
malum est’) -- “sed non convertitur.” Abelard’s explanation is decisive for the
natural history of Grice’s implication. One can certainly express in terms of
“implication” what Abelard expresses when he notes the non-reciprocity or
non-convertibility of the two propositions. ‘The good is bad,’ or ‘Bonum malum
est’ implies or presupposes the tautologically true “the good is not good;’It
is not the case that the tautologically false “the good is not good” (‘Bonum
bonum non est’) implies ridiculous “the good is bad.” Followers of Aristotle
inherit these difficulties. Boethius and
Abelard bequeath to posterity an interpretation of the passage in Aristotle’s
“De Interpretatione” according to which “bonum malum est” “the good is bad” can
only be considered the ‘propositio opposita’ of the tautologically true ‘bonum
bonum est’ (“the good is good”) insofar as, a ‘propositio implicita’ or
‘relativa’ or ‘complicata,’ it contains the ‘propositio contradictoria, viz.
‘the good is not good,’ the tautologically false ‘Bonum non bonum est,’ of the
tautologically true ‘Bonum bonum est’ “the good is good.” It is this meaning of
“to contain a contradiction” that, in a still rather obscure way, takes up this
analysis by specifying a usage of “impliquer.” The first attested use in French
of the verb “impliquer” is in 1377 in Oresme, in the syntagm “impliquer
contradiction” (RT: DHLF, 1793). These same texts give rise to another
analysis. A propositio implicita or pregnant, or complicate, is a proposition
that “implies,” that is, that in fact contains two propositions, one
principalis, and the other relative, each a ‘propositio explicita,’ and that
are equivalent or equipollent to the ‘propositio complicata’ when paraphrased.
Consider. “Homo qui est albus est animal quod currit,” “A man who is white is
an animal who runs.” This ‘propositio complicate contains the the propositio
implicita, “homo est albus” (“a man is white”) and the propositio implicita,
“animal currit” (“an animal runs.”). Only
by “exposing” or “resolving” (via ex-positio, or via re-solutio) such an ‘propositio
complicata’ can one assign it a truth-value. “Omnis proposition implicita habet
duas propositiones explicitas.” “A proposition implicita “P-im” has (at least)
a proposition implicita P-im-1 and a different proposition implicita P-im-2.”
“Verbi gratia.” “Socrates est id quod est homo.” “Haec propositio IMplicita
aequivalet huic copulativae constanti ex duis propositionis explicitis. Socrates
est aliquid est illud est homo. Haec proposition est vera, quare et propositio
implicita vera. Every “implicit proposition” has two explicit propositions.”
“Socrates is something (aliquid) which is a man.” This implicit proposition,
“Socrates is something shich is a man,” is equivalent or equipoent to the
following conjunctive proposition made up of two now EXplicit propositions, to
wit, “Socrates is something,” and “That something is a man.” This latter
conjunctive proposition of the two explicit propositions is true. Therefore,
the “implicit” proposition is also true” (Tractatus implicitarum, in Giusberti –
Materiale per studum, 43). The two “contained” propositions are usually relative
propositions. Each is called an ‘implicatio.’ ‘Implicatio’ (rather than
‘implicitio’) becomes shorthand for “PROPOSITIO implicita.” An ‘implicatio’
becomes one type of ‘propositio
exponibilis,’ i. e. a proposition that is to be “exposed” or paraphrased for its
form or structure to be understood. In
the treatises of Terminist logic, one chapter is by custom devoted to the
phenomenon of “restrictio,” viz. a restriction in the denotation or the
suppositio of the noun (v. SUPPOSITION). A relative expression (an implication),
along with others, has a restrictive function (viz., “officium implicandi”),
just like a sub-propositional expression like an adjective or a participle.
Consider. “A man, Grice, who argues,
runs to the second base.” “Man,” because
of the relative expression or clause “who runs,” is restricted to denoting the
present time (it is not Grice, who argues NOW but ran YESTERDAY). Moreover there
is an equivalence or equipolence between the relative expression “qui currit”
and the present participle “currens.” Running Grice argues. Grice who runs
argues. Summe metenses, Logica modernorum, 2.1:464. In the case in which a
relative expression is restrictive, its function is to “leave something that is
constant,” “aliquid pro constanti relinquere,” viz., to produce a pre-assertion
that conditions the truth of the main super-ordinate assertion without being
its primary object or topic or signification or intentio. “Implicare est pro
constanti et involute aliquid significare.” “Ut cum dicitur homo qui est albus
currit.” “Pro constanti” dico, quia
praeter hoc quod assertitur ibi cursus de homine, aliquid datur intelligi,
scilicet hominem album; “involute” dico quia praeter hoc quod ibi proprie et
principaliter significatur hominem currere, aliquid intus intelligitur,
scilicet hominem esse album. Per hoc patet quod implicare est intus plicare. Id
enim quod intus “plicamus” sive “ponimus,” pro constanti relinquimus. Unde
implicare nil aliud est quam subiectum sub aliqua dispositione pro constanti
relinquere et de illo sic disposito aliquid affirmare. Ackrill translates to
Grice: “To imply” is to signify something by stating it as constant, and in a pretty
‘hidden’ manner – “involute.” When I state that the man
runs, I state, stating it as constant, because, beyond (“praeter”) the main
supra-ordinate assertion or proposition that predicates the running of the man,
my addressee is given to understand something else (“aliquid intus
intelligitur”), viz. that the man is white; This is communicated in a hidden
manner (“involute”) because, beyond (“praeter”) what is communicated (“significatur”)
primarily, principally (“principaliter”) properly (“proprie”), literally, and
explicitly, viz. that the man is running, we are given to understand something
else (“aliquid intus intelligutur”) within (“intus”), viz. that the man is white. It follows from this that implicare is
nothing other than what the form of the expression literally conveys, intus
plicare (“folded within”). What we fold
or state within, we leave as a constant.
It follows from this that “to imply” is nothing other than leaving
something as a constant in the subject (‘subjectum’), such that the subject (subjectum,
‘homo qui est albus”) is under a certain disposition, and that it is only under
this disposition that something about the subjectum is affirmed” -- De
implicationibus, Nota, 100) For the record: while Giusberti (“Materiale per
studio,” 31) always reads “pro constanti,” the MSS occasionally has the pretty
Griciean “precontenti.” This is a case of what the “Logique du Port-Royal”
describes as an “in-cidental” assertion. The situation is even more complex,
however, insofar as this operation only relates to one usage of a relative
proposition, viz. when the proposition is restrictive. A restriction can
sometimes be blocked, or cancelled, and the reinscriptions are then different
for a nonrestrictive and a restrictive
relative proposition. One such case of a blockage is that of “false
implication” (Johnson’s ‘paradox of ‘implicatio’) as in “a [or the] man who is
a donkey runs,” (but cf. the centaur, the man who is a horse, runs) where there
is a conflict (“repugnantia”) between what the determinate term itself denotes
(homo, man) and the determination (ansinus, donkey). The truth-values of a proposition
containing a relative clause or propositio thus varies according to whether it
is restrictive, and of composite meaning, as in “homo, qui est albus, currit”
(A man, who is white, runs), or non-restrictive, and of divided meaning, as in
“Homo currit qui est albus” (Rendered in the vernacular in the same way, the
Germanic languages not having the syntactic freedom the classical languages do:
A man, who is white, is running. When the relative is restrictive, as in “Homo,
qui est albus, curris”, the propositio implicits only produces one single
assertion, since the relative corresponds to a pre-assertion. Thus, it is the
equivalent, at the level of the underlying form, to a proposition conditionalis
or hypothetical. Only in the second case can there be a “resolution” of the proposition
implicita into the pair of this and that ‘propositio explicita, to wit, “homo
currit,” “homo est albus.”—and an equipolence
between the complex proposition implicita and the conjunction of the first
proposition explicita and the second proposition explicitta. Homo currit et
ille est albus. So it is only in this second case of proposition irrestrictiva that one can say that “Homo currit, qui est
albus implies “Homo currit,” and “Homo est albus” and therefore, “Homo qui est
albus currit.” The poor grave Romans are having trouble with Grecisms. The
Grecist vocabulary of implication is both disparate and systematic, in a
Griceian oxymoronic way. The grave Latin “implicare” covers and translates an
extremely varied Grecian field of expressions ready to be botanized, that bears
the mark of heterogeneous rather than systematic operations, whether one is
dealing Aristotle or the Stoics. The passage through grave Roman allows us to
understand retrospectively the connection in Aristotle’s jargon between the “implicatio”
of the “propositio implicita,” sum-pepleg-menê, as an interweaving or
interlacing, and conclusive or con-sequential implicatio, sumperasma, “συμπέϱασμα,”
or “sumpeperasmenon,” “συμπεπεϱασμένον,” “sumpeperasmenê,” “συμπεπεϱασμένη,” f.
perainein, “πεϱαίνein, “to limit,” which is the jargon Aristotle uses in the
Organon to denote the conclusion of a syllogism (Pr. Anal. 1.15.34a21–24). If
one designates as A the premise, tas protaseis, “τὰς πϱοτάσεις,” and as B the
con-clusion, “to sumperasma,” συμπέϱασμα.” Cf. the Germanic puns with
‘closure,’ etc. When translating
Aristotle’s definition of the syllogism at Prior Analytics 1.1.24b18–21, Tricot
chooses to render as the “con-sequence” Aristotle’s verb “sum-bainei,” “συμ-ϐαίνει,”
that which “goes with” the premise and results from it. A syllogism is a
discourse, “logos,” “λόγος,” in which, certain things being stated, something
other than what is stated necessarily results simply from the fact of what is
stated. Simply from the fact of what is stated, I mean that it is because of
this that the consequence is obtained, “legô de tôi tauta einai to dia tauta
sumbainei,” “λέγω δὲ τῷ ταῦτα εἶναι τὸ διὰ ταῦτα συμϐαίνει.” (Pr. Anal. 1.1,
24b18–21). To make the connection with “implication,” though, we also have to
take into account, as is most often the case, the Stoics’ own jargon. What the
Stoics call “sumpeplegmenon,” “συμπεπλεγμένον,” is a “conjunctive” proposition;
e. g. “It is daytime, and it is light” (it is true both that A and that B). The
conjunctive is a type of molecular proposition, along with the “conditional”
(sunêmmenon [συνημμένον] -- “If it is daytime, it is light”) and the
“subconditional” (para-sunêmmenon [παϱασυνημμένον]; “SINCE it is daytime, it is
light”), and the “disjunctive” (diezeugmenon [διεζευγμένον] -- “It is daytime, or it is night.” Diog. Laert.
7.71–72; cf. RT: Long and Sedley, A35, 2:209 and 1:208). One can see that there
is no ‘implicatio’ in the conjunctive, whereas there is one in the ‘sunêmmenon’
(“if p, q”), which constitutes the Stoic expression par excellence, as distinct
from the Aristotelian categoric syllogism.Indeed, it is around the propositio conditionalis
that the question and the vocabulary of ‘implicatio’ re-opens. The Aristotelian
sumbainein [συμϐαίνειν], which denotes the accidental nature of a result,
however clearly it has been demonstrated (and we should not forget that
sumbebêkos [συμϐεϐηϰός] denotes accident; see SUBJECT, I), is replaced by “akolouthein”
[ἀϰολουθεῖν] (from the copulative a- and keleuthos [ϰέλευθος], “path” [RT:
Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, s.v. ἀϰόλουθος]),
which denotes instead being accompanied by a consequent conformity. This
connector, i. e. the “if” (ei, si) indicates that the second proposition, the
con-sequens (“it is light”) follows (akolouthei [ἀϰολουθεῖ]) from the first
(“it is daytime”) (Diog. Laert, 7.71). Attempts, beginning with Philo or
Diodorus Cronus up to Grice and Strawson to determine the criteria of a “valid”
conditional (to hugies sunêmmenon [τὸ ὑγιὲς συνημμένον] offer, among other
possibilities, the notion of emphasis [ἔμφασις], which Long and Sedley
translate as “G. E. Moore’s entailment” and Brunschwig and Pellegrin as
“implication” (Sextus Empiricus, The Skeptic Way, in RT: Long and Sedley, The
Hellenistic Philosophers, 35B, 2:211 and 1:209), a term that is normally used
to refer to a reflected image and to the force, including rhetorical force, of
an impression. Elsewhere, this “emphasis” is explained in terms of dunamis [δύναμις],
of “virtual” content (“When we have the premise which results in a certain
conclusion, we also have this conclusion virtually [dunamei (δυνάμει)] in the
premise, even if it is not explicitly indicated [kan kat’ ekphoran mê legetai (ϰἂν
ϰατ̕ ἐϰφοϱὰν μὴ λέγεται)], Sextus Empiricus, Against the Grammarians 8.229ff., D.
L. Blank, 49 = RT: Long and Sedley, G36 (4), 2:219 and 1:209)—where connecting
the different usages of “implication” creates new problems. One has to understand
that the type of implicatio represented by the proposition conditionalis
implies, in the double usage of “contains implicitly” and “has as its
consequence,” the entire Stoic system. It is a matter of to akolouthon en zôêi
[τὸ ἀϰόλουθον ἐν ζωῇ], “consequentiality in life,” or ‘rational life, as Grice
prefers, as Long and Sedley translate it (Stobeus 2.85.13 = RT: Long and Sedley,
59B, 2:356; Cicero prefers “congruere,” (congruential) De finibus 3.17 = RT:
Long and Sedley, 59D, 2:356). It is akolouthia [ἀϰολουθία] that refers to the
conduct con-sequent upon itself that is the conduct of the wise man, the chain
of causes defining will or fate, and finally the relationship that joins the
antecedent to the con-sequent in a true proposition. Goldschmidt, having cited
Bréhier (Le système stoïcien), puts the emphasis on antakolouthia [ἀνταϰολουθία],
a Stoic neologism that may be translated as “reciprocal” implicatio,” and that
refers specifically to the solidarity of virtues (antakolouthia tôn aretôn [ἀνταϰολουθία
τῶν ἀϱετῶν], Diog. Laert. 7.125; Goldschmidt, as a group that would be
encompassed by dialectical virtue, immobilizing akolouthia in the absolute
present of the wise man. “Implicatio” is, in the final analysis, from then on,
the most literal name of the Stoic system. Refs.: Aristotle. Anal. Pr.. ed. H. Tredennick, in Organon, Harvard; Goldschmidt, Le système
stoïcien et l’idée de temps. Paris: Vrin, Sextus Empiricus. Against the
Grammarians, ed. D. L. Blank. Oxford: Oxford. END OF INTERLUDE. Now for
“Implication”/“Implicaturum.” Implicatura was used by Sidonius in a letter
(that Grice found funny) and used by Grice in seminars on conversational
helpfulness at Oxford. Grice sets out the basis of a systematic approach to
communication, viz, concerning the relation between a proposition p and a
proposition q in a conversational context. The need is felt by Sidonius and
Grice for ‘implicaturum,’ tdistinct from “implication,” insofar as
“implication” is used for a relation between a proposition p and a proposition
q, whereas an “implicaturum” is a relation between this or that statement,
within a given context, that results from an EMISSOR having utterered an
utterance (thereby explicitly conveying that p) and thereby implicitly
conveying and implicating that q. Grice thought the distinction was ‘frequently
ignored by Austin,’ and Grice thought it solved a few problems, initially in G.
A. Paul’s neo-Wttigensteinian objections to Price’s causal theory of perception
(“The pillar box seems red to me; which does not surprise me, seeing that it is
red”). An “implication” is a relation
bearing on the truth or falsity of this or that proposition (e. g. “The pillar
box seems red” and, say, “The pillar box MAY NOT be red”) whereas an “implicaturum”
brings an extra meaning to this or that statement it governs (By uttering “The
pillar box seems red” thereby explicitly conveying that the pillar box seems
red, the emissor implicates in a cancellable way that the pillar box MAY NOT be
red.”). Whenever “implicaturum” is determined according to its context (as at
Collections, “Strawson has beautiful handwriting; a mark of his character. And
he learned quite a bit in spite of the not precisely angelic temperament of his
tutor Mabbott”) it enters the field of pragmatics, and therefore has to be
distinguished from a presupposition. Implicatio simpliciter is a relation
between two propositions, one of which is the consequence of the other (Quine’s
example: “My father is a bachelor; therefore, he is male”). An equivalent of “implication”
is “entailment,” as used by Moore. Now, Moore was being witty. ‘Entail’ is
derived from “tail” (Fr. taille; ME entaill or entailen = en + tail), and prior
to its logical use, the meaning of “entailment” is “restriction,” “tail” having
the sense of “limitation.” As Moore explains in his lecture: “An entailment is
a limitation on the transfer or handing down of a property or an inheritance.
*My* use of ‘entailment’ has two features in common with the Legalese that
Father used to use; to wit: the handing down of a property; and; the limitation
on one of the poles of this transfer. As I stipulate we should use “entailment”
(at Cambridge, but also at Oxford), a PROPERTY is transferred from the
antecedent to the con-sequent. And also, normally in semantics, some LIMITATION
(or restriction, or ‘stricting,’ or ‘relevancing’) on the antecedent is
stressed.” The mutation from the legalese to Moore’s usage explicitly occurs by
analogy on the basis of these two shared common elements. Now, Whitehead had
made a distinction between a material (involving a truth-value) implication and
formal (empty) implication. A material implication (“if,” symbolized by the
horseshoe “ ⊃,”
because “it resembles an arrow,” Whitehead said – “Some arrow!” was Russell’s
response) is a Philonian implication as defined semantically in terms of a
truth-table by Philo of Megara. “If p, q” is false only when the antecedent is
true and the con-sequent false. In terms of a formalization of communication,
this has the flaw of bringing with it a counter-intuitive feeling of
‘baffleness’ (cf. “The pillar box seems red, because it is”), since a false
proposition implies materially any proposition: If the moon is made of green
cheese, 2 + 2 = 4. This “ex falso quodlibet sequitur” has a pedigreed history.
For the Stoics and the Megarian philosophers, “ex falso quodlibet sequitur” is
what distinguishes Philonian implication and Diodorean implication. It traverses
the theory of consequence and is ONE of the paradoxes of material implication
that is perfectly summed up in these two rules of Buridan: First, if P is
false, Q follows from P; Second, if P is true, P follows from Q (Bochenski,
History of Formal Logic). A formal (empty) implication (see Russell, Principles
of Mathematics, 36–41) is a universal conditional implication: Ɐx (Ax ⊃ Bx), for any x, if Ax,
then Bx. Different means of resolving the paradoxes of implication have been
proposed. All failed except Grice’s. An American, C. I. Lewis’s “strict”
implication (Lewis and Langford, Symbolic Logic) is defined as an implication
that is ‘reinforced’ such that it is impossible for the antecedent to be true
and the con-sequent false. Unfortunately, as Grice tells Lewis in a
correspondence, “your strict implication, I regret to prove, has the same
alleged flaw as the ‘material’ implication that your strict implication was
meant to improve on. (an impossible—viz., necessarily false—proposition strictly
implies any proposition). The relation of entailment introduced by Moore in
1923 is a relation that seems to avoid this or that paradox (but cf. Grice,
“Paradoxes of entailment, followed by paradoxes of implication – all
conversationally resolved”) by requiring a derivation of the antecedent from
the con-sequent. In this case, “If 2 + 2 = 5, 2 + 3 = 5” is false, since the
con-sequent is stipulated not be derivable from the antecedent. Occasionally,
one has to call upon the pair “entailment”/“implication” in order to
distinguish between an implication in qua material implication and an
implication in Moore’s usage (metalinguistic – the associated material
implication is a theorem), which is also sometimes called “relevant” if not
strictc implication (Anderson and Belnap, Entailment), to ensure that the
entire network of expressions is covered. Along with this first series of
expressions in which “entailment” and “implication” alternate with one another,
there is a second series of expressions that contrasts two kinds of “implicaturum,”
or ‘implicatura.’ “Implicaturum” (Fr. implicaturum, G. Implikatur) is formed
from “implicatio” and the suffix –ture, which expresses, as Grice knew since
his Clifton days, a ‘resultant aspect,’ ‘aspectum resultativus’ (as in
“signature”; cf. L. temperatura, from temperare). “Implicatio” may be thought as derived from
“to imply” (if not ‘employ’) and “implicaturum” may be thought as deriving from
“imply”’s doulet, “to implicate” (from L. “in-“ + “plicare,” from plex; cf. the
IE. plek), which has the same meaning. Some mistakenly see Grice’s “implicaturum”
as an extension and modification of the concept of presupposition, which
differs from ‘material’ implication in that the negation of the antecedent
implies the consequent (the question “Have you stopped beating your wife?”
presupposes the existence of a wife in both cases). An implicaturum escapes the
paradoxes of material implication from the outset. In fact, Grice, the ever
Oxonian, distinguishes “at least” two kinds of implicaturum, conventional and
non-conventional, the latter sub-divided into non-conventional
non-converastional, and non-conventional conversational. A non-conventional
non-conversational implicaturum may occur in a one-off predicament. A Conventional
implicaturum and a conventional implicaturum is practically equivalent,
Strawson wrongly thought, to presupposition prae-suppositum, since it refers to
the presuppositions attached by linguistic convention to a lexical item or
expression. E. g. “Mary EVEN loves
Peter” has a relation of conventional implicaturum to “Mary loves other
entities than Peter.” This is equivalent to: “ ‘Mary EVEN loves Peter’
presupposes ‘Mary loves other entities than Peter.’ With this kind of implicaturum,
we remain within the expression, and thus the semantic, field. A conventional implicaturum,
however, is surely different from a material implicatio. It does not concern
the truth-values. With conversational implicaturum, we are no longer dependent
on this or that emissum, but move into pragmatics (the area that covers the
relation between statements and contexts. Grice gives the following example:
If, in answer to A’s question about how C is getting on in his new job at a
bank, B utters, “Well, he likes his colleagues, and he hasn’t been to in prison
yet,” what B implicates by the proposition that it is not the case that C has
been to prison yet depends on the context. It compatible with two very different
contexts: one in which C, naïve as he is, is expected to be entrapped by
unscrupulous colleagues in some shady deal, or, more likely, C is well-known by
A and B to tend towards dishonesty (hence the initial question). References: Abelard,
Peter. Dialectica. Edited by L. M. De Rijk. Assen, Neth.: Van Gorcum, 1956. 2nd
rev. ed., 1970. Glossae super Periermeneias. Edited by Lorenzo Minio-Paluello.
In TwelfthCentury Logic: Texts and Studies, vol. 2, Abelaerdiana inedita. Rome:
Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1958. Anderson, Allan Ross, and Nuel Belnap.
Entailment: The Logic of Relevance and Necessity. Vol. 1. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1975. Aristotle. De interpretatione. English translation by
J. L. Ackrill: Aristotle’s Categories and De interpretatione. Notes by J. L.
Ackrill. Oxford: Clarendon, 1963. French translation by J. Tricot: Organon.
Paris: Vrin, 1966. Auroux, Sylvain, and Irène Rosier. “Les sources historiques
de la conception des deux types de relatives.” Langages 88 (1987): 9–29. Bochenski,
Joseph M. A History of Formal Logic. Translated by Ivo Thomas. New York:
Chelsea, 1961. Boethius. Aristoteles latinus. Edited by Lorenzo Minio-Paluello.
Paris: Descleé de Brouwer, 1965. Translation by Lorenzo Minio-Paluello: The
Latin Aristotle. Toronto: Hakkert, 1972. Commentarii in librum Aristotelis Peri
hermêneias. Edited by K. Meiser. Leipzig: Teubner, 1877. 2nd ed., 1880. De
Rijk, Lambertus Marie. Logica modernorum: A Contribution to the History of
Early Terminist Logic. 2 vols. Assen, Neth.: Van Gorcum, 1962–67. “Some Notes on the Mediaeval Tract De
insolubilibus, with the Edition of a Tract Dating from the End of the
Twelfth-Century.” Vivarium 4 (1966): 100–103. Giusberti, Franco. Materials for
a Study on Twelfth-Century Scholasticism. Naples, It.: Bibliopolis, 1982.
Grice, H. P. “Logic and Conversation.” In Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts,
edited by P. Cole and J. Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press, 1975. (Also
in The Logic of Grammar, edited by D. Davidson and G. Harman, 64–74. Encino,
CA: Dickenson, 1975.) Lewis, Clarence Irving, and Cooper Harold Langford.
Symbolic Logic. New York: New York Century, 1932. Meggle, Georg. Grundbegriffe
der Kommunikation. 2nd ed. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1997. Meggle, Georg, and
Christian Plunze, eds. Saying, Meaning, Implicating. Leipzig: Leipziger
Universitätsverlag, 2003. Moore, G. E.. Philosophical Studies. London: Kegan
Paul, 1923. Rosier, I. “Relatifs et relatives dans les traits terministes des
XIIe et XIIIe siècles: (2) Propositions relatives (implicationes), distinction
entre restrictives et non restrictives.” Vivarium 24: 1 (1986): 1–21. Russell,
Bertrand. The Principles of Mathematics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1903. implication, a relation that holds between two statements when the truth
of the first ensures the truth of the second. A number of statements together
imply Q if their joint truth ensures the truth of Q. An argument is deductively
valid exactly when its premises imply its conclusion. Expressions of the
following forms are often interchanged one for the other: ‘P implies Q’, ‘Q
follows from P’, and ‘P entails Q’. (‘Entailment’ also has a more restricted
meaning.) In ordinary discourse, ‘implication’ has wider meanings that are
important for understanding reasoning and communication of all kinds. The
sentence ‘Last Tuesday, the editor remained sober throughout lunch’ does not
imply that the editor is not always sober. But one who asserted the sentence
typically would imply this. The theory of conversational implicaturum explains
how speakers often imply more than their sentences imply. The term
‘implication’ also applies to conditional statements. A material implication of
the form ‘if P, then Q’ (often symbolized ‘P P Q’ or ‘P / Q’) is true so long
as either the if-clause P is false or the main clause Q is true; it is false
only if P is true and Q is false. A strict implication of the form ‘if P, then
Q’ (often symbolized ‘P Q’) is true exactly when the corresponding material
implication is necessarily true; i.e., when it is impossible for P to be true
when Q is false. The following valid forms of argument are called paradoxes of
material implication: Q. Therefore, P / Q. Not-P. Therefore, P / Q. The
appearance of paradox here is due to using ‘implication’ as a name both for a
relation between statements and for statements of conditional form. A
conditional statement can be true even though there is no relation between its
components. Consider the following valid inference: Butter floats in milk.
Therefore, fish sleep at night / butter floats in milk. Since the simple
premise is true, the conditional conclusion is also true despite the fact that
the nocturnal activities of fish and the comparative densities of milk and
butter are completely unreimmediate inference implication 419 4065h-l.qxd
08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 419 lated. The statement ‘Fish sleep at night’ does not
imply that butter floats in milk. It is better to call a conditional statement
that is true just so long as it does not have a true if-clause and a false main
clause a material conditional rather than a material implication. Strict
conditional is similarly preferable to ‘strict implication’. Respecting this
distinction, however, does not dissolve all the puzzlement of the so-called
paradoxes of strict implication: Necessarily Q. Therefore, P Q. Impossible that
P. Therefore, P Q. Here is an example of the first pattern: Necessarily, all
rectangles are rectangles. Therefore, fish sleep at night all rectangles are
rectangles. ‘All rectangles are rectangles’ is an example of a vacuous truth,
so called because it is devoid of content. ‘All squares are rectangles’ and ‘5
is greater than 3’ are not so obviously vacuous truths, although they are
necessary truths. Vacuity is not a sharply defined notion. Here is an example
of the second pattern: It is impossible that butter always floats in milk yet
sometimes does not float in milk. Therefore, butter always floats in milk yet
sometimes does not float in milk fish sleep at night. Does the if-clause of the
conclusion imply (or entail) the main clause? On one hand, what butter does in
milk is, as before, irrelevant to whether fish sleep at night. On this ground,
relevance logic denies there is a relation of implication or entailment. On the
other hand, it is impossible for the if-clause to be true when the main clause
is false, because it is impossible for the if-clause to be true in any
circumstances whatever. Speranza, Luigi. Join the Grice Club! Strawson, P. F..
“On Referring.” Mind 59 (1950): 320–44.
implicaturum:
a pragmatic relation different from, but easily confused with, the semantic
relation of entailment. This concept was first identified, explained, and used by
H. P. Grice (Studies in the Way of Words, 1989). Grice identified two main
types of implicaturum, conventional and non-conventional (including
conversational). An emisor is said to conversationally implicate that p in
uttering x, provided that, although p is NOT logically implied by what the
emisor explicitly communicates, the assumption that the emisor is attempting
cooperative communication warrants inferring that the emisor is communicating
that p. If Grice utters “There is a garage around the corner” in response to
Strawson’s saying, “I am out of gas,” Grice conversationally implicates that
the garage is open and has gas to sell. Grice identifies several conversational
maxims to which cooperative conversationalists may be expected to conform, and
which justify inferences about what the emisor implicates. In the above
example, the implicaturums are due to the maxim of conversational relevance.
Another important maxim is the maxim of conversational fortitude (“Make your contribution as informatively strong
as is required”). Among implicatura due to the Maxim of conversational
fortitude is the scalar implicaturum, wherein the utterance contains an element
that is part of a quantitative scale. Utterance of such a sentence
conversationally implicates that the emisor does not believe related
propositions higher on the scale of conversational fortitude or
informativeness. E. g. an emisor who says, “Some of the zoo animals escaped,”
implies that he does not believe that that most of the zoo animals escaped, or that
every animal of the zoo animals escaped. Unlike a conversational implicaturum, a
conventional implicaturum is due solely to the semantics of the expression. An
emisor is said by Grice to conventionally imply that p, if the semantics of the
expression commits the emisor to p, even though what the emisor explicitly
communicates does not entail that p. Thus, uttering, as the Tommies did during
the Great War, “She was poor but she was honest” a Tommy implicates, but does
not explicitly convey, that there is a contrast between her poverty and her honesty.
impositum: a
property of terms resulting from a convention to designate something. A term is
not a mere noise but a significant sound. A term designating extralinguistic
entities, such as ‘tree’, ‘stone’, ‘blue’, and the like, are classified by the
tradition since Boethius as terms of “prima impositio,” first imposition. A
term designating another term or other communicative items, such as ‘noun’, ‘declension’,
and the like, is classified as terms of ‘secunda imposition,’ second
imposition. The distinction between a terms of ‘prima impositio’ and ‘secunda
impositio’ belongs to the realm of written and spoken language, while the
parallel distinction between terms of first and second ‘intentio’ belongs to
the realm of the soul. A ‘prima intentio’ (intentio re re), frst intention is,
broadly, thoughts about trees, stones, colours, etc. A ‘seconda intention’
(intention de sensu), second intention, is a thought about a first intention.
Refs.: H. P. Grice, “De sensu implicaturum.”
prædicatum:
Grice
on the praedicatum/impraedicatum distinction – an impredicative definition is
the definition of a concept in terms of the totality to which it belongs. Whitehead
and Russell, in their “Principia Mathematica” introduce ‘im-predicative’
(earlier, ‘non-predicative,’ which Grice prefers) prohibiting an impredicative definition
from conceptual analysis, on the grounds that an impredicative definition
entails (to use Moore’s jargon) a paradox – which Grice loves. An impredicative
definition of the set R of all sets that are not members of themselves leads to
the self-contradictory conclusion that R is a member of itself if and only if
it is not a member of itself. In Grice’s rewrite: “Austin’s paradoxical dream
was to create a ‘class’ each of whose member was such that his class had no
other member.” To avoid an antinomy of this kind in the formalization of logic,
Whitehead and Russell first implement in their ramified type theory the vicious
circle principle, that no whole (totum) may contain parts (pars) that are
definable only in terms of that whole (totum). The limitation of ramified type
theory is that without use of an impredicative definition it is impossible to
quantify over every item, but only over every item of a certain order or type.
Without being able to quantify over every item generally, many of the most
important definitions and theorems of classical philosophy cannot be
formulated. Whitehead and Russell for this reason later abandoned ramified in
favour of simple type theory, which avoids a logical paradox without outlawing an
impredicative definition by forbidding the predication of terms of any type
(object, property and relation, higher-order propertiy and relations of
properties and relations, etc.) to terms of the same type.
correctum: there’s‘corrigibility’ (=
correctum) and ‘incorrigibility’ – “The implicaturum is that something
is incorrigibile it cannot be corrected – but Chisholm never explies ‘by
whom’”! (Grice uses ‘exply’ as opposite of ‘imply’). Who is corrigible? The emissor. “I am sorry I
have to tell you you are wrong.” On WoW: 142, Grice refers to the ‘authority’
of the utterer as a ‘rational being’ to DEEM that an M-intention is an
antecedent condition for his act of meaning. Grice uses ‘privilege’ as synonym
for ‘authority’ here. But not in the phrase ‘privileged access.’ His point is
not so much about the TRUTH (which ‘incorrigibility’ suggests), but about the
DEEMING. It is part of the authority or privilege of the utterer as rational to
provide an ACCEPTABLE assignment of an M-intention behind his utterance.
commensuratum:
There’s commensurability and there’s
incommensurability – “But Protagoras never explies what makes man commensurable
– only implies it!” In the philosophy of science, the property exhibited by two
scientific theories provided that, even though they may not logically
contradict one another, they have reference to no common body of data.
Positivist and logical empiricist philosophers of science like Carnap had long
sought an adequate account of a theoryneutral language to serve as the basis
for testing competing theories. The predicates of this language were thought to
refer to observables; the observation language described the observable world
or (in the case of theoretical terms) could do so in principle. This view is
alleged to suffer from two major defects. First, observation is infected with
theory – what else could specify the meanings of observation terms except the
relevant theory? Even to perceive is to interpret, to conceptualize, what is
perceived. And what about observations made by instruments? Are these not
completely constrained by theory? Second, studies by Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, and
others argued that in periods of revolutionary change in science the adoption of
a new theory includes acceptance of a completely new conceptual scheme that is
incommensurable with the older, now rejected, theory. The two theories are
incommensurable because their constituent terms cannot have reference to a
theory-neutral set of observations; there is no overlap of observational
meaning between the competitor theories; even the data to be explained are
different. Thus, when Galileo overthrew the physics of Aristotle he replaced
his conceptual scheme – his “paradigm” – with one that is not logically
incompatible with Aristotle’s, but is incommensurable with it because in a
sense it is about a different world (or the world conceived entirely
differently). Aristotle’s account of the motion of bodies relied upon occult
qualities like natural tendencies; Galileo’s relied heavily upon contrived
experimental situations in which variable factors could be mathematically
calculated. Feyerabend’s even more radical view is that unless scientists
introduce new theories incommensurable with older ones, science cannot possibly
progress, because falsehoods will never be uncovered. It is an important
implication of these views about incommensurability that acceptance of theories
has to do not only with observable evidence, but also with subjective factors,
social pressures, and expectations of the scientific community. Such acceptance
appears to threaten the very possibility of developing a coherent methodology
for science.
consistens:
“There’s
consistens, and there’s inconsistens.” – H. P. Grice. The inconsistent triad, most
generally, any three propositions such that it cannot be the case that all
three of them are true. More narrowly, any three categorical propositions such
that it cannot be the case that all three of them are true. A categorical syllogism
is valid provided the three propositions that are its two premises and the
negation (contradiction) of its conclusion are an inconsistent triad; this fact
underlies a test for the validity of categorical syllogisms, which test are
thus called by Grice the “method of” the inconsistent triad.
dependens – independens
-- independence results, proofs of non-deducibility. Any of the following
equivalent conditions may be called independence: (1) A is not deducible from
B; (2) its negation - A is consistent with B; (3) there is a model of B that is
not a model of A; e.g., the question of the non-deducibility of the parallel
axiom from the other Euclidean axioms is equivalent to that of the consistency
of its negation with them, i.e. of non-Euclidean geometry. Independence results
may be not absolute but relative, of the form: if B is consistent (or has a
model), then B together with - A is (or does); e.g. models of non-Euclidean
geometry are built within Euclidean geometry. In another sense, a set B is said
to be independent if it is irredundant, i.e., each hypothesis in B is
independent of the others; in yet another sense, A is said to be independent of
B if it is undecidable by B, i.e., both independent of and consistent with B.
The incompleteness theorems of Gödel are independence results, prototypes for
many further proofs of undecidability by subsystems of classical mathematics,
or by classical mathematics as a whole, as formalized in ZermeloFraenkel set
theory with the axiom of choice (ZF ! AC or ZFC). Most famous is the
undecidability of the continuum hypothesis, proved consistent relative to ZFC
by Gödel, using his method of constructible sets, and independent relative to
ZFC by Paul J. Cohen, using his method of forcing. Rather than build models
from scratch by such methods, independence (consistency) for A can also be
established by showing A implies (is implied by ) some A* already known
independent (consistent). Many suitable A* (Jensen’s Diamond, Martin’s Axiom,
etc.) are now available. Philosophically, formalism takes A’s undecidability by
ZFC to show the question of A’s truth meaningless; Platonism takes it to
establish the need for new axioms, such as those of large cardinals.
(Considerations related to the incompleteness theorems show that there is no
hope even of a relative consistency proof for these axioms, yet they imply, by
way of determinacy axioms, many important consequences about real numbers that
are independent of ZFC.) With non-classical logics, e.g. second-order logic,
(1)–(3) above may not be equivalent, so several senses of independence become
distinguishable. The question of independence of one axiom from others may be
raised also for formalizations of logic itself, where many-valued logics
provide models.
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