determinatum: There’s the determinatum and
there’s the indeeterminatum – “And then there’s ‘indeterminacy.”” “A
determinatum is like a definitum, in that a ‘term’ is like the ‘end’ – “Thus, I
am a Mercian, from Harborne.” “The Mericans were thus called because the lived
at the end of England.” “Popper, who doesn’t know the first thing about this,
prefers, ‘demarcatum’, which is cognate with “mercian.’” Grice was always
cautious and self-apologetic. “I’m not expecting that you’ll find this to be a
complete theory of implication, but that was not my goal, and the endeavour
should be left for another day, etc.” But consider the detail into which he,
like any other philosopher before, went when it came to what he called the
‘catalyst’ tests or ideas or tests or ideas for the implicaturum. In “Causal
Theory” there are FOUR ideas. It is good to revise the treatment in “Causal.”
He proposes two ideas with the first two examples and two further ideas with
the two further examples. Surely his goal is to apply the FOUR ideas to his own
example of the pillar box. Grice notes re: “You have not ceased eating iron” –
the cxample is “a stock case of what is sometimes called " prcsupposition
" and it is often held that here 1he truth of what is irnplicd is a
necessary condition of the original statement's beirrg cither true or false.”
So the first catalyst in the first published version concerns the value, or
satisfactory value. This will be retained and sub-grouped in Essay II. “It is
often held” Implicture: but often not, and trust me I won’t. “that here the
truth of what is implied [implicated in the negative, entailed in the
affirmative] is a necessary condition of the original statement's being either
true or false.” So the first catalyst in the first published version concerns
the value, or satisfactory value. This will be retained and sub-grouped in
Essay II. “This might be disputed, but it is at least arguable that it is so,
and its being arguable might be enough to distinguish this type of case from
others.” So he is working on a ‘distinctive feature’ model. And ‘feature’ is
exactly the expression he uses in Essay II. He is looking for ‘distinctive
features’ for this or that implication. When phonologists speak of ‘distinctive
feature’ they are being philosophical or semioticians.“I shall however for
convenience assume that the common view mentioned is correct.”“This
consideration clearly distinguishes “you have not ceased eating iron” from [a
case of a conventional implicaturum] “poor BUT honest.”“Even if the implied
proposition were false, i.e. if there were no reason in the world to contrast
poverty with honesty either in general or in her case, the original statement
COULD still be false.” “She [is] poor
but she [is] honest” would be false if for example she were rich and dishonest.”“One
might perhaps be less comfortable about assenting to its TRUTH if the implied
contrast did not in fact obtain; but the possibility of falsity is enough for
the immediate purpose.”“My next experiment [test, litmus idea – that he’ll
apply as one of the criteria to provide distinctive features for this or that implicaturum,
with a view to identify the nature of the animal that a conversational implicaturum
is] on these examples is to ask what it is in each case which could properly be
said to be the vehicle of implication (to do the implying).”In Essay II, since
he elaborates this at an earlier stage than when he is listing the distinctive
features, he does not deal much. It is understood that in Essay II by the time
he is listing the distinctive features, the vehicle is the UTTERER. But back in
“Causal,” he notes: “There are AT LEAST FOUR candidates, not necessarily
mutually exclusive.”“Supposing someone to have ‘uttered’ one or other of [the] sample
sentences, we may ask whether the vehicle of implication would be (FIRST) WHAT
the emissor communicated (or asserted or stated or explicitly conveyed), or
(SECOND) the emissor himself ("Surely you’re not implying that ….’ ) or (THIRD) the
utterance (FOURTH) his communicating, or
explicitly conveying that (or again his explicitly conveying that in that way);
or possibly some plurality of these items.”“As regards the first option for the
vehicle, ‘what the emissor has explicitly conveyed,’ Grice takes it that “You
have not ceased eating iron” and “Poor but honest” may differ.It seems correct
for Grice to say in the case of “eating iron” that indeed it is the case that
it is what he emissor explicitly conveys which implies that Smith has been
eating iron.On the other hand, Grice feels it would be ‘incorrect,’ or
improper, or bad, or unnatural or artificial, to say in the case of “poor but
honest” that it is the case. Rather it is NOT the case that it is WHAT the emissor explicitly conveys
which implies that there is a contrast between, e. g., honesty and poverty.”“A sub-test
on which Grice would rely is the following.If accepting that the conventional implicaturum
holds (contrast between honesty and poverty) involves the emissor in accepting
an hypothetical or conditional ‘if p, q,’ where 'p’ represents the original
statement (“She [is] poor and she [is] honest) and 'q' represents what is
implied (“There is a contrast between honesty and poverty”), it is the case
that it is what the emissor explicitly conveys which is a (or the) vehicle of
implication. If that chain of acceptances does not hold, it is not. To apply
this rule to the “eat iron” and “poor but honest”, if the emissor accepts the
implication alleged to hold in the case of “eat iron”, I should feel COMPELLED
(forced, by the force of entailment) to accept the conditional or hypothetical
"If you have not ceased eating iron, you may have never started.”[In
“Causal,” Grice has yet not stressed the asymmetry between the affirmative and
the negative in alleged cases of presupposition. When, due to the success of
his implicaturum, he defines the presuppositum as a form of implicaturum, he
does stress the asymmetry: the entailment holds for the affirmative, and the implicaturum
for the negative). On the other hand, when it comes to a CONVENTIONAL implicaturum
(“poor but honest”) if the emissor accepted the alleged implication in the case
of “poor but honest”, I should NOT feel compelled to accept the conditional or
hypothetical "If she was poor but honest, there is some contrast between
poverty and honesty, or between her poverty and her honesty." Which would
yield that in the presuppositum case, we have what is explicitly conveyed as a
vehicle, but not in the case of the conventional implicaturum.The rest of the
candidates (Grice lists four and allows for a combination) can be dealt with
more cursorily.As regards OPTION II (second):Grice should be inclined to say
with regard to both “eat iron” and “poor but honest” that the emissor could be
said to have implied whatever it is that is irnplied.As regards Option III
(third: the utterance): In the case of “poor but honest” it seems fairly clear
that the utterance could be said, if metabolically, and animistically, to
‘imply’ a contrast.It is much less clear whether in the case of “eat iron” the
utterance could be said to ‘imply’ that Smith has been eating iron.As for
option IV, in neither case would it be evidently appropriate (correct, natural)
to speak of the emissor’s explicitly conveying that, or of his explicitly
conveying that in that way, as ‘implying’ what is implied. A third catalyst
idea with which Grice wish to assail my two examples is really a TWIN idea, or
catalyst, or test [That’s interesting – two sides of the same coin] that of the
detachability or cancellability of the implication. Consider “eat iron.”One
cannot find an alternative utterance which could be used to assert explicitly
just what the utterance “Smith has not ceased from eating iron" might be
used to convey explicitly, such that when this alternative utterance is used
the implication that Smith never started eating iron is absent. Any way of (or
any utterance uttered with a view to) conveying explicitly what is explicitly
conveyed in (1) involves the implication in question. Grice expresses this fact
– which he mentioned in seminars, but this is the first ‘popularisation’ -- by
saying that in the case of (l) the implication is NOT detachable FROM what is
asserted (or simpliciter, is not detachable). Furthermore, and here comes the
twin of CANCELLABILITY: one cannot take any form of words for which both what
is asserted and what is implied is the same as for (l), AND THEN ADD a further
clause withholding commitment from what would otherwise be implied, with the
idea of ANNULLING THE IMPLICATURUM *without* ANNULLING annulling the
EXPLICITUM. One cannot intelligibly say
" Smith has left off beating his wife but I do not mean to imply that he
has been beating her." But one surely can intelligibly say, “You have not
ceased eating iron because you never started.”While Grice uses “Smith,” the
sophisma (or Griceisma) was meant in the second person, to test the tutee’s
intelligence (“Have you stopped beating your dog?”). The point is that the
tutee will be offended – whereas he shouldn’t, and answer, “I never started,
and I never will.”Grice expresses this fact by saying that in the case of ‘eat
iron’ the implication is not cancellable or annullable (without cancelling or
annulling the assertion). If we turn to “poor but honest” we find, Grice thinks,
that there is quite a strong case for saying that here the implication IS
detachable. Therc sccms quite a good case for maintaining that if, instead of
saying " She is poor but she is honcst " I were to say, alla Frege,
without any shade, " She is poor AND she is honcst", I would assert
just what I would havc asscrtcct ii I had used thc original senterrce; but
there would now be no irnplication of a contrast between e.g', povery and
honesty. Of course, this is not a philosophical example, and it would be good
to revise what Frege thought about ‘aber.’ By the time Grice is lecturing
“Causal Theory” he had lectured for the Logic Paper for Strawson before the
war, so Whitehead and Russell are in the air.Surely in Anglo-Saxon, the
contrast is maintained, since ‘and’ means ‘versus.’“She is poor contra her
being honest.”Oddly, the same contrariety is present in Deutsche, that Frege
speaks, with ‘UND.”It’s different with Roman “et.” While Grecian ‘kai,’ even
Plato thought barbaric!The etymology of ‘by-out’ yields ‘but.’So Grice is
thinking that he can have a NEUTRAL conjoining – but ‘and’ has this echo of
contrariety, which is still present in ‘an-swer, i. e. and-swear, to
contradict. Perhaps a better neutral version would be. Let’s start with the
past version and then the present tense version.“She was pooo-ooor, she was
honest, and her parents were the same, till she met a city feller, and she lost
her honest name.”In terms of the concepts CHOSEN, the emissor wants to start
the ditty with pointing to the fact that she is poor – this is followed by
stating that she is honest. There’s something suspicious about that.I’m sure a
lady may feel offended without the ‘and’ OR ‘but’ – just the mere ‘succession’
or conjoining of ‘poor’ as pre-ceding the immediate ‘honest’ ‘triggers’ an
element of contrast. The present tense seems similar: “She is poooor, she is
honest, and her parents are the same, but she’ll meet a city feller, and she’ll
lose her honest name.”The question whether, in thre case of ‘poor but honest,’
the implication is cancellable, is slightly more cornplex, which shouldn’t if the
catalysts are thought of as twins.There is a way in which we may say that it is
not cancellable, or annullable.Imagine a Tommy marching and screaming: “She is poor but she is
honest,”“HALT!” the sargent shouts.The Tommy catches the implicaturum:“though
of course, sir, I do not mean to imply, sir, that there is any contrast, sir,
between her poverty, sir, and her honesty, sir.”As Grice notes, this would be a
puzzling and eccentric thing for a Tommy to engage in.And though the sargent
might wish to quarrel with the tommy (Atkins – Tommy Atkins is the name”), an
Oxonian philosopher should NOT go so far as to say that the tommy’s utterance
is unintelligible – or as Vitters would say, ‘nunsense.’The sargent should
rather suppose, or his lieutenant, since he knows more, that private Tommy
Atkins has adopted a “most pecooliar” way of conveying the news that she was
poor and honest.The sargent’s argument to the lieu-tenant:“Atkins says he means
no disrespect, sir, but surely, sir, just conjoining poverty and honesty like
that makes one wonder.”“Vitters: this is a Cockney song! You’re reading too
much into it!”“Cockney? And why the citty feller, then – aren’t Cockneys citty
fellers. I would rather, sir, think it is what Sharp would call a ‘sharp’ folk,
sir, song, sir.’ The fourth and last test Grice imposes on his examples is to
ask whether we would be inclined to regard the fact that the appropriate (or
corresponding, since they are hardly appropriate – either of them! – Grice
changes the tune as many Oxford philosophers of ordinary language do when some
female joins the Union) implication is present as being a matter of the, if we
may be metabolic and animistic, ‘meaning’ of some particular word or phrase
occurring in the sentences in question. Grice is aware and thus grants that
this may not be always a very clear or easy question to answer.Nevertheless,
Grice risks the assertion that we would be fairly happy and contented to say
that, as regards ‘poor but honest,’ the fact that the implication obtains is a
matter of the ‘meaning’ of 'but ' – i. e. what Oxonians usually mean when they
‘but.’So far as “he has not ceased from…’ is concerned we should have at least
some inclination to say that the presence of the implication is a matter of
the, metabolically, ‘meaning’ of some of the words in the sentence, but we
should be in some difficulty when it came to specifying precisely which this
word, or words are, of which this is true. Well, it’s semantics. Why did Roman
think that it was a good thing to create a lexeme, ‘cease.’“Cease” means
“stop,” or ‘leave off.”It is not a natural verb, like ‘eat.’A rational creature
felt the need to have this concept: ‘stop,’ ‘leave off,’ ‘cease.’The
communication-function it serves is to indicate that SOMETHING has been taken
place, and then this is no longer the case.“The fire ceased,” one caveman said
to his wife.The wife snaps back – this is the Iron Age:“Have you ceased eating
iron, by the way, daa:ling?”“I never started!”So it’s the ‘cease’ locution that
does the trick – or equivalents, i.e. communication devices by which this or
that emissor explicitly convey more or less the same thing: a halting of some
activity.Surely the implication has nothing to do with the ‘beat’ and the
‘wife.’After third example (‘beautiful handwriting) introduced, Grice goes back
to IDEA OR TEST No. 1 (the truth-value thing). Grice notes that it is plain
that there is no case at all for regarding the truth of what is implied here (“Strawson
is hopeless at philosophy”) as a pre-condition of the truth or falsity of what
the tutor has asserted.A denial of the truth of what is implied would have no
bearing at all on whether what I have asserted is true or false. So ‘beautiful
handwring’ is much closer to ‘poor but honest’ than ‘cease eating iron’ in this
respect. Next, as for the vehicle we have the at least four options and
possible combinations.The emissor, the tutor, could certainly be said to have
implied that Strawson is hopeless (provided that this is what the tutor
intended to ‘get across’) and the emissor’s, the tutor’s explicitly saying that
(at any rate the emissor’s saying that and no more) is also certainly a vehicle
of implication. On the other hand the emissor’s words and what the emissor
explicitly conveys are, Grice thinks, not naturally here characterised as the
‘vehicle’ of implication. “Beautiful handwriting” thus differs from BOTH “don’t
cease eating iron” and “poor but honest” – so the idea is to have a table alla
distinctive features, with YES/NO questions answered for each of the four
implication, and the answers they get.As for the third twin, the result is as
expected: The implication is cancellable but not detachable. And it looks as if
Grice created the examples JUST to exemplify those criteria.If the tutor adds, 'I
do not of course mean to imply that Strawson is no good at philosophy” the
whole utterance is intelligible and linguistically impeccable, even though it
may be extraordinary tutorial behaviour – at the other place, not Oxford --.The
tutor can no longer be said to have, or be made responsible for having implied
that Strawson was no good, even though perhaps that is what Grice’s colleagues
might conclude to be the case if Grice had nothing else to say. The implication
is not however, detachable.Any other way of making, in the same context of
utterance, just the assertion I have made would involve the same implication.“His
calligraphy is splendid and he is on time.”“Calligraphy splendid,” Ryle
objected. “That’s slightly oxymoronic, Grice – ‘kallos agathos’”Finally, for
TEST No. 4, ‘meaning’ of expression? The fact that the implication holds is surely
NOT a matter of any particular word or phrase within the sentence which I have
uttered.It is just the whole sentence. Had he gone tacit and say,“Beautiful
handwriting!”Rather than“He has beautiful handwriting.”The implication SEEMS to
be a matter of two particular words: the handwriting word, viz. ‘handwriting.’
And the ‘beautiful’ word, i. e. ‘beautiful.’Any lexeme expressing same concept,
‘Calligraphy unique!’would do the trick because this is damn by faint praise,
or suggestio falsi, suppressio veri. So in this respect “Beautiful handwring”
is certainly different from “Poor but honest” and, possibly different from
“Don’t cease to eat iron!”One obvious fact should be mentioned before one
passes to the fourth example (“kitchen or bedroom”).This case of implication is
unlike the others in that the utterance of the sentence "Strawson has
beautiful handwriting" does not really STANDARDLY involve the implication
here attributed to it (but cf. “We should have lunch together sometime” meaning
“Get lost” – as Grice said, “At Oxford, that’s the standard – that’s what the
‘expression’ “means”); it requires a special context (that it should be uttered
at Collections) to attach the implication to its utterance. More generally: it
requires a special scenario (one should avoid the structuralist Derrideian
‘context’ cf. Grice, “The general theory of context”). If back in the house,
Mrs. Grice asks, “He has beautiful handwriting,” while not at Collections, the implicaturum
would hold. Similarly at the “Lamb and Flag,” or “Bird and Baby.”But one gets
Grice’s point. The scenario is one where Strawson is being assessed or
evaluated AS A PHILOSOPHER. Spinoza’s handwriting was, Stuart Hampshire said,
“terrible – which made me wonder at first whether I should actually waste my
time with him.”After fourth and last example is introduced (“kitchen or
bedroom”): in the case of the Test No. I (at least four possible vehicles) one can
produce a strong argument in favour of holding that the fulfllment of the
implication of the speaker's ignorance (or that he is introducing “or” on
grounds other than Whitehead’s and Russell’s truth-functional ones) is not a
precaution (or precondition) of the truth or falsity of the disjunctive
statement. Suppose that the emissor KNOWS that his wife IS in the KITCHEN, that
the house has only two rooms, and no passages. Even though the utterer knows
that his wife is in the kitchen (as per given), the utterer can certainly still
say truly (or rather truthfully) "She is IN THE HOUSE.”SCENARIOA: Where is
your wife? ii. Where in your house is your wife?B: i. In the kitchen. ii. In
the bedroom. iiia. She’s in the house, don’t worry – she’s in the house, last
time I checked. iii. In the HOUSE (but inappropriate if mentioned in the
question – unless answered: She’s not. iv. In the kitchen or in the bedroom (if
it is common ground that the house only has two rooms there are more options)
vi. v. I’m a bachelor. vi. If she’s not
in the bedroom, she is in the kitchen. vii. If she’s not in the kitchen, she’s
in the bedroom. viii. Verbose but informative: “If she’s not in the bedroom
she’s in the kitchen, and she’s not in the kitchen” Or consider By uttering
“She is in the house,” the utterer is answering in a way that he is merely not
being as informative as he could bc if need arose. But the true proposition [cf. ‘propositional
complex’] that his wife is IN THE HOUSE together with the true proposition that
‘THE HOUSE’ consists entirely of a ‘kitchen’ and a ‘bedroom,’ ENTAIL or yield
the proposition that his wife is in the kitchen or in the bedroom. But IF to express
the proposition p (“My wife is in the house, that much I can tell”) in certain
circumstances (a house consisting entirely of a kitchen and a bedroom – an
outback bathroom which actually belongs to the neighbour – cf. Blenheim) would
be to speak truly, and p (“My wife is, do not worry, in the house”) togelher with
another true proposition – assumed to be common ground, that the house consists
entirely of a kitchen and a bedroom -- entails q (“My wife is in the kitchen OR
in the bedroom”), surely to express what is entailed (“My wife is in the
kitchen or in the bedroom”) in the same circvmstances must be, has to be to
speak truly. So we have to take it that
the disjunctive statement – “kitchen or bedroom” -- does not fail to be TRUE or
FALSE if the implied ignorance (or the implied consideration that the utterer
is uttering ‘or’ on grounds other than the truth-functional ones that
‘introduce’ “or” for Gentzen) is in fact not realized, i. e. it is false. Secondly,
as for Test No. 2 (the four or combo vehicles), Grice thinks it is fairly clear
that in this case, as in the case of “beautiful handwriting”, we could say that
the emissor had implies that he did not know (or that his ground is other than
truth-functional – assuming that he takes the questioner to be interested in
the specific location – i. e. to mean, “where IN THE HOUSE is your wife?”) and
also that his conveying explicilty that (or his conveying explicitly that
rather than something else, viz, in which room or where in the house she is, or
‘upstairs,’ or ‘downstairs,’ or ‘in the basement,’ or ‘in the attic,’ ‘went
shopping,’ ‘at the greengrocer’ – ‘she’s been missing for three weeks’) implied
that he did not know in which one of the two selected rooms his wife is
‘resident’ (and that he has grounds other than Gentzen’s truth-functional ones for
the introduction of ‘or.’). Thirdly, the implication (‘kitchen or bedroom’) is
in a way non-detachable, in that if in a given context the utterance of the
disjunctive sentence would involve the implication that the emissor did not
know in which room his his wife was (or strictly, that the emissor is
proceeding along non-truth-functional grounds for the introduction of ‘or,’ or
even more strictly still, that the emissor has grounds other than
truth-functional for the uttering of the disjunction), this implication would
also be involved in the utterance of any other form of words which would make
the same disjunctive assertion (e.g., "Look, knowing her, the alternatives
are she is either preparing some meal in the kitchen or snoozing in the
bedroom;” “One of the following things is the case, I’m pretty confident. First
thing: she is in the kitchen, since she enjoys watching the birds from the
kitchen window. Second thing: she is in the bedroom, since she enjoys watching birds
from the bedroom window.” Etymologically, “or” is short for ‘other,’ meaning
second. So a third possibility: “I will be Anglo-Saxon: First, she is the
kitchen. Second, she is in the bedroom.” “She is in the kitchen UNLESS she is
in the bedroom”“She is in the kitchen IF SHE IS NOT in the bedroom.”“Well, it
is not the case that she is in the KITCHEN *AND* in the bedroom, De Morgan!” She
is in the kitchen, provided she is not in the bedroom” “If she is not in the kitchen,
she is in the bedroom” “Bedroom, kitchen; one of the two.” “Kitchen, bedroom;
check both just in case.”“Sleeping; alternatively, cooking – you do the maths.”“The
choices are: bedroom and kitchen.”“My choices would be: bedroom and kitchen.”“I
would think: bedroom? … kitchen?”“Disjunctively, bedroom – kitchen – kitchen –
bedroom.”“In alternation: kitchen, bedroom, bedroom, kitchen – who cares?”“Exclusively,
bedroom, kitchen.”ln another possible way, however, the implication could
perhaps bc said to BE indeed detachable: for there will be some contexts of
utterance (as Firth calls them) in which the ‘normal’ implication (that the
utterer has grounds other than truth-functional for the utterance of a
disjunction) will not hold.Here, for the first time, Grice brings a different
scenario for ‘or’:“Thc Secretary of the Aristotelian Society, announcing ‘Our
coming symposium will be in Oxford OR not take place at all” perhaps does not
imply that he is has grounds other than truth-functional for the utterance of
the disjunction. He is just being wicked, and making a bad-taste joke. This totally
extraneous scenario points to the fact that the implication of a disjunction is
cancellable.Once we re-apply it to the ‘Where in the hell in your house your
wife is? I hear the noise, but can’t figure!’ Mutatis mutandi with the
Secretary to The Aristotelian Socieety, a man could say, “My wife is in the
kitchen or in the bedroorn.”in circumstances in which the implication (that the
man has grounds other than truth-functional for the uttering of the
disjunction) would normally be present, but he is not being co-operative –
since one doesn’t HAVE to be co-operative (This may be odd, that one appeals to
helpfulness everywhere but when it comes to the annulation!).So the man goes
on, “Mind you, I am not saying that I do not know which.”This is why we love
Grice. Why I love Grice. One would never think of finding that sort of wicked
English humour in, say Strawson. Strawson yet says that Grice should ‘let go.’
But to many, Grice is ALWAYS humorous, and making philosophy fun, into the
bargain, if that’s not the same thing. Everybody else at the Play Group
(notably the ones Grice opposed to: Strawson, Austin, Hare, Hampshire, and
Hart) would never play with him. Pears, Warnock, and Thomson would!“Mind you, I
am not saying that I do not know which.”A: Where in the house is your wife? I
need to talk to her.B: She is in the kitchen – or in the bedroom. I know where
she is – but since you usually bring trouble, I will make you decide so that
perhaps like Buridan’s ass, you find the choice impossible and refrain from
‘talking’ (i. e. bringing bad news) to her.A: Where is your wife? B: In the
kitchen or in the bedroom. I know where she is. But I also know you are always
saying that you know my wife so well. So, calculate, by the time of the day –
it’s 4 a.m – where she could be. A: Where is your wife? B: In the bedroom or in
the kitchen. I know where she is – but remember we were reading Heidegger
yesterday? He says that a kitchen is where one cooks, and a bedroom is where
one sleeps. So I’ll let you decide if Heidegger has been refuted, should you
find her sleeping in the kitchen, or cooking in the bedroom.A: Where is your
wife? B: In the kitchen or the bedroom. I know where she is. What you may NOT
know, is that we demolished the separating wall. We have a loft now. So all
I’ll say is that she may be in both! All
this might be unfriendly, unocooperative, and perhaps ungrammatical for Austen
[Grice pronounced the surname so that the Aristotelian Society members might
have a doubt] – if not Vitters, but, on the other hand, it would be a perfectly
intelligible thing for a (married) man to say. We may not even GO to bachelors.
Finally, the fact that the utterance of the disjunctive sentence normally or
standardly or caeteris paribus involves the implication of the emissor's
ignorance of the truth-values of the disjuncts (or more strictly, the
implication of the emissor’s having grounds other than truth-functional for the
uttering of the disjunctive) is, I should like to say, to be ‘explained’ – and
Grice is being serious here, since Austin never cared to ‘explain,’ even if he
could -- by reference to a general principle governing – or if that’s not too
strong, guiding – conversation, at least of the cooperative kind the virtues of
which we are supposed to be exulting to our tuttees. Exactly what this
principle we should not go there. To explain why the implicaturum that the
emissor is having grounds other than truth-functional ones for the utterance of
a disjunction one may appeal to the emissor being rational, assuming his
emissee to be rational, and abiding by something that Grice does NOT state in
the imperative form, but using what he calls a Hampshire modal (Grice divides
the modals as Hampshire: ‘should,’ the weakest, ‘ought’ the Hare modal, the
medium, and ‘must,’ Grice, the stronges)"One, a man, a rational man, should
not make conversational move communicating ‘p’ which may be characterised (in
strict terms of entailment) as weaker (i.e. poor at conversational fortitude)
rather than a stronger (better at conversational fortitude) one unless there is
a good reason for so doing." So Gentzen is being crazey-basey if he thinks:p;
therefore, p or q.For who will proceed like that?“Or” is complicated, but so is
‘if.’ The Gentzen differs from the evaluation assignemt:‘p or q’ is 1 iff p is
1 or q is 1. When we speak of ‘truth-functional’ grounds it is this assignment
above we are referring to.Of courseif p, p or q [a formulation of the Gentzen
introduction]is a TAUTOLOGY [which is what makes the introduction a rule of
inference].In terms of entailment P Or Q (independently) Is stronger than ‘p v q’ In that either p or q
entail ‘p or q’ but the reverse is not true. Grice says that he first thought
of the pragmatic rule in terms of the theory of perception, and Strawson hints
at this when he says in the footnote to “Introduction to Logical theory” that
the rule was pointed out by his tutor in the Logic Paper, Grice, “in a
different connection.” The logic paper took place before the war, so this is
early enough in Grice’s career – so the ghosts of Whitehead and Russell were
there! We can call the above ‘the principle of conversational fortitude.’ This
is certainly not an adequate formulation but will perhaps be good enough for
Grice’s purpose in “Causal.” On the assumption that such a principle as this is
of general application, one can DRAW or infer or explain the conclusion that the
utterance of a disjunctive sentence would imply that the emissor has grounds
other than truth-functional for the uttering of a disjunctum, given that,
first, the obvious reason for not making a statemcnt which there is some call
on one to make VALIDLY is that one is not in a position (or entitled) to make
it, and given, second, the logical ‘fact’ that each disjunct entails the
disjunctive, but not vice versa; which being so, each disjunct is stronger (bears
more conversational ‘fortitude’) than the disjunctive. If the outline just
given is on the right lines, Grice would wish to say, we have a reason for
REFUSING (as Strawson would not!) in the case of “kitchen or bedroom” to regard
the implication of the emissor having grounds other than truth-functional for
the uttering of the disjunctive as being part of the ‘meaning’ (whatever that
‘means’) of 'or' – but I should doublecheck with O. P. Wood – he’s our man in
‘or’ – A man who knows about the logical relation between a disjunction and
each disjunct, i. e. a man who has at least BROWSED Whitehead and Russell – and
diregards Bradley’s exclusivist account -- and who also ‘knew,’ qua Kantian
rational agent, about the alleged general principle or guiding conversational,
could work out for hirnself, surely, that a disjunctive utterance would involve
the implication which it does in fact involve. Grice insists, however, that his
aim in discussing this last point – about the principle of conversational
fortitude EXPLAING the generation of the implicaturum -- has been merelyto
indicate the position I would wish to take up, and not to argue scriously in
favour of it. Grice’s main purpose in the excursus on implication was to
introduce four ideas or catalysts, or tesets – TEST No. I: truth-value; TEST
No. 2: Vehicle out of four; Test No. 3/Twin Test: Annulation and Non-Detachment
(is there a positive way to express this – non-detached twins as opposed to
CONJOINT twins), and Test No. 4 – ‘Meaning’ of expression? -- of which Grice
then goes to make some use re: the pillar box seeming red.; and to provide some
conception of the ways in which each of the four tests apply or fail to apply
to various types of implication. By the numbering of it, it seems that by the
time of Essay II he has, typically, added an extra. It’s FIVE catalysts now,
but actually, since he has two of the previous tests all rolled up in one, it
is SIX CATALSTS. He’ll go back to them in Essay IV (“Indicative conditionals”
with regard to ‘if’), and in Presupposition and Conversational (with regard to
Example I here: “You have not ceased eating iron”). Implicaturum.He needs those
catalysts. Why? It seems like he is always thinking that someone will challenge
him! This is Grice: “We can now show that, it having been stipulated as being
what it is, a conversational implicaturum must possess certain distinctive
features, they are six. By using distinctive feature Grice is serious. He wants
each of the six catalysts to apply to each type of ‘implicaturum’, so that a
table can be constructed. With answers yes/no. Or rather here are some catalyst
ideas which will help us to determine or individuate. Six tests for implicaturum
as it were. SO THESE FEATURES – six of them – apply to three of the examples –
not the ‘poor but honest’ – but the “you have not ceased eating iron,”
“Beautiful handwriting,” and “Kitchen or bedroom.”First test – nothing about
the ‘twin’ – it’s ANNULATION or CANCELLABILITY – as noted in “Causal Theory” –
for two of the examples (‘beautiful handwriting’ and ‘kitchen or bedroom’ and
NEGATIVE version of “You don’t cease to eat iron”) and the one of the pillar
box – He adds a qualifier now: the annulation should best be IMPLICIT. But for
the fastidious philosopher, he allows for an EXPLICITATION which may not sound
grammatical enough to Austen (pronounced to rhyme with the playgroup master, or
the kindergarten’s master). To assume the presence of a conversational implicaturum,
the philosopher (and emissee) has to assume that the principle of
conversational co-operation (and not just conversational fortitude) is being
observed.However, it is mighty possible to opt out of this and most things at
Oxford, i. e. the observation of this principle of conversational cooperation
(or the earlier principle of conversational fortitude).It follows then that now
we CAN EXPLAIN WHY CANCELLABILITY IS A DISTINCTIVE FEATURE. He left it to be
understood in “Causal.”It follows then, deductively, that an implicaturum can
be canceled (or annulled) in a particular case. The conversational implicaturum
may be, drearily – but if that’s what the fastidious philosopher axes -- explicitly
canceled, if need there be, by the addition of a clause by which the utterer
states or implies that he opts out (e. g. “The pillar box seems red but it is.”
“Where is your wife?” “My lips are sealed”). Then again the conversational implicaturum
may be contextually (or implicitly) canceled, as Grice prefers (e. g. to a very
honest person, who knows I disbelieve the examiner exists, “The loyalty
examiner won’t be summoning you at any rate”). The utterance that usually would
carry an implicaturum is used on an occasion that makes it clear or obvious
that the utterer IS opting out without having to bore his addressee by making
this obviousness explicit. SECOND DISTINCTIVE FEATURE: CONJOINING, i.e. non-detachability.There
is a second litmus test or catalyst idea.Insofar as the calculation that a implicaturum
is present requires, besides contextual and background information only an
intuitive rational knowledge or understanding or processing of what has been explicitly
conveyed (‘are you playing squash? B shows bandaged leg) (or the, shall we say,
‘conventional’ ‘arbitrary’ ‘commitment’ of the utterance), and insofar as the
manner or style, of FORM, rather than MATTER, of expression should play at best
absolutely no role in the calculation, it is NOT possible to find another way
of explicitly conveying or putting forward the same thing, the same so-and-so
(say that q follows from p) which simply ‘lacks’ the unnecessary implicaturum
in question -- except [will his excluders never end?] where some special
feature of the substituted version [this other way which he says is not
conceivable] is itself relevant to the determination of the implicaturum (in
virtue of this or that conversational maxims pertaining to the category of
conversational mode. THIS BIG CAVEAT makes you wonder that Grice regretted
making fun of Kant. By adopting jocularly the four conversational categories,
he now finds himself in having to give an excuse or exception for those implicatura
generated by a flout to what he earlier referred to as the ‘desideratum of
conversational clarity,’ and which he jocularly rephrased as a self-defeating
maxim, ‘be perspicuous [sic], never mind perspicacious!’If we call this
feature, as Grice does in “Causal Theory,” ‘non-detachability’ (or conjoining)–
in that the implicaturum cannot be detached or disjointed from any alternative
expression that makes the same point -- one may expect the implicaturum carried
by this or that locution to have a high degree of non-detachability.
ALTERNATIVES FOR “NOT” Not, it is not the case, it is false that. There’s
nothing unique about ‘not’.ALTERNATIVES FOR “AND” and, nothing, furthermore,
but. There isnothing unique about ‘and’ALTERNATIVES FOR “OR”: One of the
following is true. There is nothing unique about ‘or’ALTERNATIVES FOR “IF”
Provided. ‘There is nothing unique about ‘if’ALTERNATIVES FOR “THE” – There is
at least one and at most one. And it exists. (existence and uniqueness). There
is nothing unique about ‘the’.THIS COVERS STRAWSON’S first problem.What about
the other English philosophers?AUSTIN – on ‘voluntarily’ ALTERNATIVES to
‘voluntarily,’ with the will, willingly, intentionally. Nothing unique about
‘voluntarily.’STRAWSON on ‘true’ – it is the case, redundance theory, nothing.
Nothing unique about ‘true’HART ON good. To say that ‘x is commendable’ is to
recommend x. Nothing unique about ‘good.’HART on ‘carefully.’ Da Vinci painted
Mona Lisa carefully, with caution, with precaution. Nothing unique about ‘carefully.’THIRD
LITMUS TEST or idea and ATTENDING THIRD DISTINCTIVE
FEATURE. THIRD DISTINCTIVE FEATURE is in the protasis of the conditional.The implicaturum
depends on the explicatum or explicitum, and a fortiori, the implicaturum
cannot INVOLVE anything that the explicatum involves – There is nothing about
what an emissor explicitly conveys about “or” or a disjunctum in general, which
has to do with the emissor having grounds other than truth-functional for the
utterance of a disjunctum.The calculation of the presence of an implicaturum
presupposes an initial knowledge, or grasping, or understanding, or taking into
account of the ‘conventional’ force (not in Austin’s sense, but translating
Latin ‘vis’) of the expression the utterance of which carries the implicaturum.A
conversational implicaturum will be a condition (but not a truth-condition), i.
e. a condition that is NOT, be definition, on risk of circularity of otiosity,
included in what the emissor explicitly conveys, i. e. the original
specification of the expression's ‘conventional’ or arbitrary forceIf I’m
saying that ‘seems’ INVOLVES, as per conventional force, ‘doubt or
denial,’what’s my point? If Strawson is right that ‘if’ has the conventional
force of conventionally committing the utterer with the belief that q follows
from p, why bother? And if that were so, how come the implicaturum is still
cancellable?Though it may not be impossible for what starts life, so to speak,
as a conversational implicaturum to become conventionalized, to suppose that
this is so in a given case would require special justification. (Asking Lewis).
So, initially at least, a conversational implicaturum is, by definition and
stipulation, not part of the sense, truth-condition, conventional force, or
part of what is explicitly conveyed or put forward, or ‘meaning’ of the
expression to the employment of which the impicatum attaches. FOURTH LITMUS
TEST or catalyst idea. Mentioned in “Causal theory” YIELDS THE FOUTH DISICTINVE
FEATURE and the FIFTH distinctive feature.FOURTH DISTINCTIVE FEATURE: in the
protasis of the conditional – truth value.The alethic value – conjoined with
the test about the VEHICLE --. He has these as two different tests – and
correspondingly two distinctive features in “Causal”. The truth of a
conversational implicaturum is not required by (is not a condition for) the
truth of what is said or explicitly conveyed (what is said or explicated – the
explicatum or explicitum, or what is explicitly conveyed or communicated) may
be true -- what is implicated may be false – that he has beautiful handwriting,
that q follows from p, that the utterer is ENDORSING what someone else said,
that the utterer is recommending x, that the person who is said to act
carefully has taken precaution), FIFTH DISTINCTIVE FEATURE: vehicle – this is
the FOURTH vehicle of the four he mentions in “Causal”: ‘what the emissor
explicitly conveys,’ ‘the emissor himself,’ the emissor’s utterance, and
fourth, the emissor’s explicitly conveying, or explicitly conveying it that way
--. The apodosis of the conditional – or inferrability schema, since he uses
‘since,’ rather than ‘if,’ i. e. ‘GIVEN THAT p, q. Or ‘p; therefore, q’. The implicaturum
is NOT carried by what is said or the EXPLICATUM or EXPLICITUM, or is
explicitly conveyed, but only by the ‘saying’ or EXPLICATING or EXPLICITING of
what is said or of the explicatum or explicitum, or by 'putting it that way.’The
fifth and last litmus test or catalyst idea YIELDS A SIXTH DISTINCTIVE FEATURE:Note
that he never uses ‘first, second, etc.’ just the numerals, which in a lecture
format, are not visible!SIXTH DISTINCTIVE FEATURE: INDETERMINACY. Due to the
open character of the reasoning – and the choices available to fill the gap of
the content of the propositional attitude that makes the conversational rational:“He
is potentially dishonest.” “His colleagues are treacherous”Both implicatura
possible for “He hasn’t been to prison at his new job at the bank – yet.”Since,
to calculate a conversational implicaturum is to calculate what has to be
supposed in order to preserve the supposition that the utterer is a rational,
benevolent, altruist agent, and that the principle of conversational
cooperation is being observed, and since there may be various possible specific
explanations or alternatives that fill the gap here – as to what is the content
of the psychological attitude to be ascribed to the utterer, a list of which
may be open, or open-ended, the conversational implicaturum in such cases will
technically be an open-ended disjunction of all such specific explanations,
which may well be infinitely non-numerable. Since the list of these IS open,
the implicaturum will have just the kind of INDETERMINACY or lack of
determinacy that an implicaturum appears in most cases to possess.
indeterminacy of translation, a pair of theses derived, originally, from a
thought experiment regarding radical translation first propounded by Quine in
Word and Object (1960) and developed in his Ontological Relativity (1969),
Theories and Things (1981), and Pursuit of Truth (1990). Radical translation is
an imaginary context in which a field linguist is faced with the challenge of
translating a hitherto unknown language. Furthermore, it is stipulated that the
linguist has no access to bilinguals and that the language to be translated is
historically unrelated to that of the linguist. Presumably, the only data the
linguist has to go on are the observable behaviors of incompleteness
indeterminacy of translation 422 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 422 native
speakers amid the publicly observable objects of their environment. (1) The
strong thesis of indeterminacy, indeterminacy of translation of theoretical
sentences as wholes, is the claim that in the context of radical translation a
linguist (or linguists) could construct a number of manuals for translating the
(natives’) source language into the (linguists’) target language such that each
manual could be consistent with all possible behavior data and yet the manuals
could diverge with one another in countless places in assigning different
target-language sentences (holophrastically construed) as translations of the
same source-language sentences (holophrastically construed), diverge even to
the point where the sentences assigned have conflicting truth-values; and no
further data, physical or mental, could single out one such translation manual
as being the uniquely correct one. All such manuals, which are consistent with
all the possible behavioral data, are correct. (2) The weak thesis of
indeterminacy, indeterminacy of reference (or inscrutability of reference), is
the claim that given all possible behavior data, divergent target-language
interpretations of words within a source-language sentence could offset one
another so as to sustain different targetlanguage translations of the same
source-language sentence; and no further data, physical or mental, could single
out one such interpretation as the uniquely correct one. All such
interpretations, which are consistent with all the possible behavioral data,
are correct. This weaker sort of indeterminacy takes two forms: an ontic form
and a syntactic form. Quine’s famous example where the source-language term
‘gavagai’ could be construed either as ‘rabbit’, ‘undetached rabbit part’,
‘rabbithood’, etc. (see Word and Object), and his proxy function argument where
different ontologies could be mapped onto one another (see Ontological
Relativity, Theories and Things, and Pursuit of Truth), both exemplify the
ontic form of indeterminacy of reference. On the other hand, his example of the
Japanese classifier, where a particular three-word construction of Japanese can
be translated into English such that the third word of the construction can be
construed with equal justification either as a term of divided reference or as
a mass term (see Ontological Relativity and Pursuit of Truth), exemplifies the
syntactic form of indeterminacy of reference.
indexical: Bradley’s
thisness, and whatness – “Grice is improving on Scotus: Aristotle’s tode ti is
exactly Bradley’s thisness whatness – and more familiar to the English ear than
Scotus feminine ‘haecceitas.’” “Russell, being pretentious, call Bradley’s
“thisness” and “thatness,” but not “whatness” – as a class of the ‘egocentric
particular’ -- a type of expression
whose semantic value is in part determined by features of the context of
utterance, and hence may vary with that context. Among indexicals are the
personal pronouns, such as ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘he’, ‘she’, and ‘it’; demonstratives,
such as ‘this’ and ‘that’; temporal expressions, such as ‘now’, ‘today’,
‘yesterday’; and locative expressions, such as ‘here’, ‘there’, etc. Although
classical logic ignored indexicality, many recent practitioners, following
Richard Montague, have provided rigorous theories of indexicals in the context
of formal semantics. Perhaps the most plausible and thorough treatment of
indexicals is by David Kaplan, a prominent philosopher of language and logic
whose long-unpublished “Demonstratives” was especially influential; it
eventually appeared in J. Almog, J. Perry, and H. Wettstein, eds., Themes from
Kaplan. Kaplan argues persuasively that indexical singular terms are directly
referential and a species of rigid designator. He also forcefully brings out a
crucial lesson to be learned from indexicals, namely, that there are two types
of meaning, which Kaplan calls “content” and “character.” A sentence containing
an indexical, such as ‘I am hungry’, can be used to say different things in
different contexts, in part because of the different semantic contributions
made by ‘I’ in these contexts. Kaplan calls a term’s contribution to what is
said in a context the term’s content. Though the content of an indexical like
‘I’ varies with its context, it will nevertheless have a single meaning in the
language, which Kaplan calls the indexical’s character. This character may be
conceived as a rule of function that assigns different contents to the
indexical in different contexts.
implicaturum:
in his Oxford seminars. Grice: “I distinguish between the ‘implicaturum’ and
the ‘implicaturum.’” “The ‘implicaturum’ corresponds to Moore’s entailment.”
“For the ‘pragmatic-type’ of thing, one should use ‘implicaturum.’” “The
–aturum’ form is what at Clifton I learned as the future, and a ‘future’ twist
it has, since it refers to the future.” “ ‘Implicaturum esse’ is, strictly, the
infinitivum futurum, made out of the ‘esse’ plus the ‘indicaturum.’ We loved
these things at Clifton!”
indicatum. “oριστική,”
“oristike,” – The Roman ‘indicatum’ is a composite of ‘in’ plus ‘dicatum.’ The
Romans were never sure about this. Literally for the Greeks it’s the
‘definitive’ – ‘horistike’ klesis, inclinatio or modus animae affectationem
demonstrans indefinitivus – While indefinitivus is the transliteration, the
Romans also used ‘finitivus’ ‘finitus,’ and ‘indicativus’ and ‘pronuntiativus’.
‘Grice distinguishes between the indicative mode and the informational mode.
One can hardly inform oneself. Yet one can utter an utterance in the indicative
mode without it being in what he calls the informational sub-mode. It’s
interesting that Grice thinks he has to distinguish between the ‘informational’
and the mere ‘indicative.’ Oddly when he sets the goal to which ‘co-operation’
leads, it’s the informing/being informed, influencing/being influenced. Surely
he could have simplified that by, as he later will, psi-transmission, whatever.
So the emissor INDICATES, even in an imperative utterance, what his will is.
All moves are primarily ‘exhibitive,’ (and the function of the mode is to
EXPRESS the corresponding attitude). Only some moves are ‘protreptic.’ Grice
was well aware, if perhaps not TOO aware, since Austin was so secretive, about
Austin on the ‘perlocution.’ Because Austin wanted to deprieve the act from the
cause of the act. Thus, Austin’s communicative act may have a causal intention,
leading to this or that effect – but that would NOT be part of the
philosopher’s interest. Suppose !p; whether the order is successful and Smith
does get a job he is promised, it hardly matters to Kant, Austin, or Grice. Interestingly,
‘indicatum’ has the same root as ‘dic-‘, to say – but surely you don’t need to
say to indicate, as in Grice’s favourite indicative mood: a hand wave signaling
that the emissor knows the route or is about to leave the emissee.
directum.
“Searle
thought he was being witty when adapting my implicaturum to what he called an
Indirect Austinian thing. Holdcroft was less obvious!” – Grice. – indirectum --
indirect discourse, also called oratio obliqua, the use of words to report what
others say, but without direct quotation. When one says “John said, ‘Not every
doctor is honest,’ “ one uses the words in one’s quotation directly – one uses
direct discourseto make an assertion about what John said. Accurate direct
discourse must get the exact words. But in indirect discourse one can use other
words than John does to report what he said, e.g., “John said that some
physicians are not honest.” The words quoted here capture the sense of John’s
assertion (the proposition he asserted). By extension, ‘indirect discourse’
designates the use of words in reporting beliefs. One uses words to
characterize the proposition believed rather than to make a direct assertion.
When Alice says, “John believes that some doctors are not honest,” she uses the
words ‘some doctors are not honest’ to present the proposition that John
believes. She does not assert the proposition. By contrast, direct discourse,
also called oratio recta, is the ordinary use of words to make assertions. Grice
struggled for years as to what the ‘fundamentum distinctionis’ is between the
central and the peripheric communicatum. He played with first-ground versus
second-ground. He played with two different crtieria: formal/material, and
dictive-non-dictive. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Holdcroft on direct and indirect communication.”
discernibile –
“There’s the discernible and the indiscernible, and Leibniz was a bit of a
genius in focusing on the second!” – Grice. indiscernibility: of identicals,
the principle that if A and B are identical, there is no difference between A
and B: everything true of A is true of B, and everything true of B is true of
A; A and B have just the same properties; there is no property such that A has
it while B lacks it, or B has it while A lacks it. A tempting formulation of
this principle, ‘Any two things that are identical have all their properties in
common’, verges on nonsense; for two things are never identical. ‘A is
numerically identical with B’ means that A and B are one and the same. A and B
have just the same properties because A, that is, B, has just the properties
that it has. This principle is sometimes called Leibniz’s law. It should be
distinguished from its converse, Leibniz’s more controversial principle of the
identity of indiscernibles. A contraposed form of the indiscernibility of
identicals – call it the distinctness of discernibles – reveals its point in
philosophic dialectic. If something is true of A that is not true of B, or (to
say the same thing differently) if something is true of B that is not true of
A, then A and B are not identical; they are distinct. One uses this principle
to attack identity claims. Classical arguments for dualism attempt to find
something true of the mind that is not true of anything physical. For example,
the mind, unlike everything physical, is indivisible. Also, the existence of
the mind, unlike the existence of everything physical, cannot be doubted. This
last argument shows that the distinctness of discernibles requires great care
of application in intentional contexts. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Definite
descriptions in Leibniz and in the vernacular.”
individuum:
versus the dividuum – or divisum. Cicero’s attempt to translate ‘a-tomon.’ In
metaphysics, a process whereby a universal, e.g., cat, becomes instantiated in
an individual – also called a particular e.g., Minina; (2) in epistemology, a
process whereby a knower discerns an individual, e.g., someone discerns Minina.
The double understanding of individuation raises two distinct problems:
identifying the causes of metaphysical individuation, and of epistemological
individuation. In both cases the causes are referred to as the principle of
individuation. Attempts to settle the metaphysical and epistemological problems
of individuation presuppose an understanding of the nature of individuality.
Individuality has been variously interpreted as involving one or more of the
following: indivisibility, difference, division within a species, identity
through time, impredicability, and non-instantiability. In general, theories of
individuation try to account variously for one or more of these. Individuation
may apply to both substances (e.g., Minina) and their features (e.g., Minina’s
fur color), generating two different sorts of theories. The theories of the
metaphysical individuation of substances most often proposed identify six types
of principles: a bundle of features (Russell); space and/or time (Boethius);
matter (Aristotle); form (Averroes); a decharacterized, sui generis component
called bare particular (Bergmann) or haecceity (Duns Scotus); and existence
(Avicenna). Sometimes several principles are combined. For example, for Aquinas
the principle of individuation is matter under dimensions (materia signata).
Two sorts of objections are often brought against these views of the
metaphysical individuation of substances. One points out that some of these
theories violate the principle of acquaintance,since they identify as
individuators entities for which there is no empirical evidence. The second
argues that some of these theories explain the individuation of substances in
terms of accidents, thus contradicting the ontological precedence of substance
over accident. The two most common theories of the epistemological
individuation of substances identify spatiotemporal location and/or the
features of substances as their individuators; we know a thing as an individual
by its location in space and time or by its features. The objections that are
brought to bear against these theories are generally based on the
ineffectiveness of those principles in all situations to account for the
discernment of all types of individuals. The theories of the metaphysical
individuation of the features of substances fall into two groups. Some identify
the substance itself as the principle of individuation; others identify some
feature(s) of the substance as individuator(s). Most accounts of the
epistemological individuation of the features of substances are similar to
these views. The most common objections to the metaphysical theories of the
individuation of features attempt to show that these theories are either
incomplete or circular. It is argued, e.g., that an account of the
individuation of features in terms of substance is incomplete because the
individuation of the substance must also be accounted for: How would one know
what tree one sees, apart from its features? However, if the substance is
individuated by its features, one falls into a vicious circle. Similar points
are made with respect to the epistemological theories of the individuation of
features. Apart from the views mentioned, some philosophers hold that
individuals are individual essentially (per se), and therefore that they do not
undergo individuation. Under those conditions either there is no need for a
metaphysical principle of individuation (Ockham), or else the principle of
individuation is identified as the individual entity itself (Suárez).
inductum: in
the narrow sense, inference to a generalization from its instances; (2) in the
broad sense, any ampliative inference – i.e., any inference where the claim
made by the conclusion goes beyond the claim jointly made by the premises.
Induction in the broad sense includes, as cases of particular interest:
argument by analogy, predictive inference, inference to causes from signs and
symptoms, and confirmation of scientific laws and theories. The narrow sense
covers one extreme case that is not ampliative. That is the case of
mathematical induction, where the premises of the argument necessarily imply
the generalization that is its conclusion. Inductive logic can be conceived
most generally as the theory of the evaluation of ampliative inference. In this
sense, much of probability theory, theoretical statistics, and the theory of
computability are parts of inductive logic. In addition, studies of scientific
method can be seen as addressing in a less formal way the question of the logic
of inductive inference. The name ‘inductive logic’ has also, however, become
associated with a specific approach to these issues deriving from the work of
Bayes, Laplace, De Morgan, and Carnap. On this approach, one’s prior
probabilities in a state of ignorance are determined or constrained by some
principle for the quantification of ignorance and one learns by conditioning on
the evidence. A recurrent difficulty with this line of attack is that the way
in which ignorance is quantified depends on how the problem is described, with
different logically equivalent descriptions leading to different prior
probabilities. Carnap laid down as a postulate for the application of his
inductive logic that one should always condition on one’s total evidence. This
rule of total evidence is usually taken for granted, but what justification is
there for it? Good pointed out that the standard Bayesian analysis of the
expected value of new information provides such a justification. Pure cost-free
information always has non-negative expected value, and if there is positive
probability that it will affect a decision, its expected value is positive.
Ramsey made the same point in an unpublished manuscript. The proof generalizes
to various models of learning uncertain evidence. A deductive account is
sometimes presented indubitability induction 425 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM
Page 425 where induction proceeds by elimination of possibilities that would
make the conclusion false. Thus Mill’s methods of experimental inquiry are
sometimes analyzed as proceeding by elimination of alternative possibilities.
In a more general setting, the hypothetico-deductive account of science holds
that theories are confirmed by their observational consequences – i.e., by
elimination of the possibilities that this experiment or that observation
falsifies the theory. Induction by elimination is sometimes put forth as an
alternative to probabilistic accounts of induction, but at least one version of
it is consistent with – and indeed a consequence of – probabilistic accounts.
It is an elementary fact of probability that if F, the potential falsifier, is
inconsistent with T and both have probability strictly between 0 and 1, then
the probability of T conditional on not-F is higher than the unconditional
probability of T. In a certain sense, inductive support of a universal
generalization by its instances may be a special case of the foregoing, but
this point must be treated with some care. In the first place, the universal
generalization must have positive prior probability. (It is worth noting that
Carnap’s systems of inductive logic do not satisfy this condition, although
systems of Hintikka and Niiniluoto do.) In the second place, the notion of
instance must be construed so the “instances” of a universal generalization are
in fact logical consequences of it. Thus ‘If A is a swan then A is white’ is an
instance of ‘All swans are white’ in the appropriate sense, but ‘A is a white
swan’ is not. The latter statement is logically stronger than ‘If A is a swan
then A is white’ and a complete report on species, weight, color, sex, etc., of
individual A would be stronger still. Such statements are not logical
consequences of the universal generalization, and the theorem does not hold for
them. For example, the report of a man 7 feet 11¾ inches tall might actually
reduce the probability of the generalization that all men are under 8 feet
tall. Residual queasiness about the foregoing may be dispelled by a point made
by Carnap apropos of Hempel’s discussion of paradoxes of confirmation.
‘Confirmation’ is ambiguous. ‘E confirms H’ may mean that the probability of H
conditional on E is greater than the unconditional probability of H, in which
case deductive consequences of H confirm H under the conditions set forth
above. Or ‘E confirms H’ may mean that the probability of H conditional on E is
high (e.g., greater than .95), in which case if E confirms H, then E confirms
every logical consequence of H. Conflation of the two senses can lead one to
the paradoxical conclusion that E confirms E & P and thus P for any
statement, P.
inductivism: “A philosophy
of science invented by Popper and P. K. Feyerabend as a foil for their own
views. Why, I must just have well invented ‘sensism’ as a foil for my theory of
implicaturum!” -- According to inductivism, a unique a priori inductive logic
enables one to construct an algorithm that will compute from any input of data
the best scientific theory accounting for that data.
inductum:
Not deductum, -- nor abductum -- epapoge, Grecian term for ‘induction’.
Especially in the logic of Aristotle, epagoge is opposed to argument by
syllogism. Aristotle describes it as “a move from particulars to the
universal.” E.g., premises that the skilled navigator is the best navigator,
the skilled charioteer the best charioteer, and the skilled philosopher the
best philosopher may support the conclusion by epagoge that those skilled in
something are usually the best at it. Aristotle thought it more persuasive and
clearer than the syllogistic method, since it relies on the senses and is
available to all humans. The term was later applied to dialectical arguments
intended to trap opponents. R.C. epicheirema, a polysyllogism in which each
premise represents an enthymematic argument; e.g., ‘A lie creates disbelief,
because it is an assertion that does not correspond to truth; flattery is a
lie, because it is a conscious distortion of truth; therefore, flattery creates
disbelief’. Each premise constitutes an enthymematic syllogism. Thus, the first
premise could be expanded into the following full-fledged syllogism: ‘Every
assertion that does not correspond to truth creates disbelief; a lie is an
assertion that does not correspond to truth; therefore a lie creates
disbelief’. We could likewise expand the second premise and offer a complete
argument for it. Epicheirema can thus be a powerful tool in oral polemics,
especially when one argues regressively, first stating the conclusion with a
sketch of support in terms of enthymemes, and then if challenged to do so expanding any or all of these enthymemes into
standard categorical syllogisms.
illatum: A form of the conjugation Grice
enjoyed was “inferentia,” cf essentia,
sententia, prudentia, etc.. – see illatum -- Cf. illatio. Consequentia.
Implicatio. Grice’s implicaturum and what the emissor implicates as a variation
on the logical usage.
infima species (Latin,
‘lowest species’), a species that is not a genus of any other species.
According to the theory of classification, division, and definition that is
part of traditional or Aristotelian logic, every individual is a specimen of
some infima species. An infima species is a member of a genus that may in turn
be a species of a more inclusive genus, and so on, until one reaches a summum
genus, a genus that is not a species of a more inclusive genus. Socrates and
Plato are specimens of the infima specis human being (mortal rational animal),
which is a species of the genus rational animal, which is a species of the
genus animal, and so on, up to the summum genus substance. Whereas two
specimens of animal – e.g., an individual human and an individual horse – can
differ partly in their essential characteristics, no two specimens of the
infima species human being can differ in essence.
infinite-off
predicament, or ∞-off predicament.
infinitum:
“What is not finite.” “I know that there are infinitely many stars” – an
example of a stupid thing to say by the man in the street. apeiron,
Grecian term meaning ‘the boundless’ or ‘the unlimited’, which evolved to
signify ‘the infinite’. Anaximander introduced the term to philosophy by saying
that the source of all things was apeiron. There is some disagreement about
whether he meant by this the spatially antinomy apeiron unbounded, the
temporally unbounded, or the qualitatively indeterminate. It seems likely that
he intended the term to convey the first meaning, but the other two senses also
happen to apply to the spatially unbounded. After Anaximander, Anaximenes
declared as his first principle that air is boundless, and Xenophanes made his
flat earth extend downward without bounds, and probably outward horizontally
without limit as well. Rejecting the tradition of boundless principles,
Parmenides argued that “what-is” must be held within determinate boundaries.
But his follower Melissus again argued that what-is must be boundless in both time and space for it can have no beginning or end. Another
follower of Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, argued that if there are many substances,
antinomies arise, including the consequences that substances are both limited
and unlimited apeira in number, and that they are so small as not to have size
and so large as to be unlimited in size. Rejecting monism, Anaxagoras argued
for an indefinite number of elements that are each unlimited in size, and the
Pythagorean Philolaus made limiters perainonta and unlimiteds apeira the
principles from which all things are composed. The atomists Leucippus and
Democritus conceived of a boundless universe, partly full of an infinite number
of atoms and partly void; and in the universe are countless apeiroi worlds.
Finally Aristotle arrived at an abstract understanding of the apeiron as “the
infinite,” claiming to settle paradoxes about the boundless by allowing for
real quantities to be infinitely divisible potentially, but not actually
Physics III.48. The development of the notion of the apeiron shows how Grecian
philosophers evolved ever more abstract philosophical ideas from relatively
concrete conceptions. Infinity -- Grice
thougth that “There are infinitely many stars” was a stupid thing to say --
diagonal procedure, a method, originated by Cantor, for showing that there are
infinite sets that cannot be put in one-to-one correspondence with the set of
natural numbers i.e., enumerated. For example, the method can be used to show
that the set of real numbers x in the interval 0 ‹ x m 1 is not enumerable.
Suppose x0, x1, x2, . . . were such an enumeration x0 is the real correlated
with 0; x1, the real correlated with 1; and so on. Then consider the list
formed by replacing each real in the enumeration with the unique
non-terminating decimal fraction representing it: The first decimal fraction
represents x0; the second, x1; and so on. By diagonalization we select the
decimal fraction shown by the arrows: and change each digit xnn, taking care to
avoid a terminating decimal. This fraction is not on our list. For it differs
from the first in the tenths place, from the second in the hundredths place,
and from the third in the thousandths place, and so on. Thus the real it
represents is not in the supposed enumeration. This contradicts the original
assumption. The idea can be put more elegantly. Let f be any function such
that, for each natural number n, fn is a set of natural numbers. Then there is
a set S of natural numbers such that n 1 S S n 2 fn. It is obvious that, for
each n, fn & S. Infinity -- eternal
return, the doctrine that the same events, occurring in the same sequence and
involving the same things, have occurred infinitely many times in the past and
will occur infinitely many times in the future. Attributed most notably to the
Stoics and Nietzsche, the doctrine is antithetical to philosophical and
religious viewpoints that claim that the world order is unique, contingent in
part, and directed toward some goal. The Stoics interpret eternal return as the
consequence of perpetual divine activity imposing exceptionless causal
principles on the world in a supremely rational, providential way. The world,
being the best possible, can only be repeated endlessly. The Stoics do not
explain why the best world cannot be everlasting, making repetition
unnecessary. It is not clear whether Nietzsche asserted eternal return as a
cosmological doctrine or only as a thought experiment designed to confront one
with the authenticity of one’s life: would one affirm that life even if one
were consigned to live it over again without end? On either interpretation,
Nietzsche’s version, like the Stoic version, stresses the inexorability and
necessary interconnectedness of all things and events, although unlike the
Stoic version, it rejects divine providence.
infinitary logic, the logic of expressions of infinite length. Quine has
advanced the claim that firstorder logic (FOL) is the language of science, a
position accepted by many of his followers. Howinferential justification
infinitary logic 428 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 428 ever, many
important notions of mathematics and science are not expressible in FOL. The
notion of finiteness, e.g., is central in mathematics but cannot be expressed
within FOL. There is no way to express such a simple, precise claim as ‘There
are only finitely many stars’ in FOL. This and related expressive limitations
in FOL seriously hamper its applicability to the study of mathematics and have
led to the study of stronger logics. There have been various approaches to
getting around the limitations by the study of so-called strong logics,
including second-order logic (where one quantifies over sets or properties, not
just individuals), generalized quantifiers (where one adds quantifiers in
addition to the usual ‘for all’ and ‘there exists’), and branching quantifiers
(where notions of independence of variables is introduced). One of the most
fruitful methods has been the introduction of idealized “infinitely long”
statements. For example, the above statement about the stars would be
formalized as an infinite disjunction: there is at most one star, or there are
at most two stars, or there are at most three stars, etc. Each of these
disjuncts is expressible in FOL. The expressive limitations in FOL are closely
linked with Gödel’s famous completeness and incompleteness theorems. These
results show, among other things, that any attempt to systematize the laws of
logic is going to be inadequate, one way or another. Either it will be confined
to a language with expressive limitations, so that these notions cannot even be
expressed, or else, if they can be expressed, then an attempt at giving an
effective listing of axioms and rules of inference for the language will fall
short. In infinitary logic, the rules of inference can have infinitely many
premises, and so are not effectively presentable. Early work in infinitary
logic used cardinality as a guide: whether or not a disjunction, conjunction,
or quantifier string was permitted had to do only with the cardinality of the
set in question. It turned out that the most fruitful of these logics was the
language with countable conjunctions and finite strings of first-order
quantifiers. This language had further refinements to socalled admissible
languages, where more refined set-theoretic considerations play a role in
determining what counts as a formula. Infinitary languages are also connected
with strong axioms of infinity, statements that do not follow from the usual axioms
of set theory but for which one has other evidence that they might well be
true, or at least consistent. In particular, compact cardinals are infinite
cardinal numbers where the analogue of the compactness theorem of FOL
generalizes to the associated infinitary language. These cardinals have proven
to be very important in modern set theory. During the 1990s, some infinitary
logics played a surprising role in computer science. By allowing arbitrarily
long conjunctions and disjunctions, but only finitely many variables (free or
bound) in any formula, languages with attractive closure properties were found
that allowed the kinds of inductive procedures of computer science, procedures
not expressible in FOL. -- infinite regress argument, a distinctively philosophical
kind of argument purporting to show that a thesis is defective because it
generates an infinite series when either (form A) no such series exists or
(form B) were it to exist, the thesis would lack the role (e.g., of
justification) that it is supposed to play. The mere generation of an infinite
series is not objectionable. It is misleading therefore to use ‘infinite
regress’ (or ‘regress’) and ‘infinite series’ equivalently. For instance, both
of the following claims generate an infinite series: (1) every natural number
has a successor that itself is a natural number, and (2) every event has a
causal predecessor that itself is an event. Yet (1) is true (arguably,
necessarily true), and (2) may be true for all that logic can say about the
matter. Likewise, there is nothing contrary to logic about any of the infinite
series generated by the suppositions that (3) every free act is the consequence
of a free act of choice; (4) every intelligent operation is the result of an
intelligent mental operation; (5) whenever individuals x and y share a property
F there exists a third individual z which paradigmatically has F and to which x
and y are somehow related (as copies, by participation, or whatnot); or (6)
every generalization from experience is inductively inferable from experience
by appeal to some other generalization from experience. What Locke (in the
Essay concerning Human Understanding) objects to about the theory of free will
embodied in (3) and Ryle (in The Concept of Mind) objects to about the “intellectualist
leginfinite, actual infinite regress argument 429 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39
AM Page 429 end” embodied in (4) can therefore be only that it is just plain
false as a matter of fact that we perform an infinite number of acts of choice
or operations of the requisite kinds. In effect their infinite regress
arguments are of form A: they argue that the theories concerned must be
rejected because they falsely imply that such infinite series exist. Arguably
the infinite regress arguments employed by Plato (in the Parmenides) regarding
his own theory of Forms and by Popper (in the Logic of Scientific Discovery)
regarding the principle of induction proposed by Mill, are best construed as
having form B, their objections being less to (5) or (6) than to their
epistemic versions: (5*) that we can understand how x and y can share a
property F only if we understand that there exists a third individual (the
“Form” z) which paradigmatically has F and to which x and y are related; and
(6*) that since the principle of induction must itself be a generalization from
experience, we are justified in accepting it only if it can be inferred from
experience by appeal to a higherorder, and justified, inductive principle. They
are arguing that because the series generated by (5) and (6) are infinite, the
epistemic enlightenment promised by (5*) and (6*) will forever elude us. When
successful, infinite regress arguments can show us that certain sorts of
explanation, understanding, or justification are will-o’-thewisps. As Passmore
has observed (in Philosophical Reasoning) there is an important sense of
‘explain’ in which it is impossible to explain predication. We cannot explain
x’s and y’s possession of the common property F by saying that they are called
by the same name (nominalism) or fall under the same concept (conceptualism)
any more than we can by saying that they are related to the same form (Platonic
realism), since each of these is itself a property that x and y are supposed to
have in common. Likewise, it makes no sense to try to explain why anything at
all exists by invoking the existence of something else (such as the theist’s
God). The general truths that things exist, and that things may have properties
in common, are “brute facts” about the way the world is. Some infinite regress
objections fail because they are directed at “straw men.” Bradley’s regress
argument against the pluralist’s “arrangement of given facts into relations and
qualities,” from which he concludes that monism is true, is a case in point. He
correctly argues that if one posits the existence of two or more things, then
there must be relations of some sort between them, and then (given his covert
assumption that these relations are things) concludes that there must be
further relations between these relations ad infinitum. Bradley’s regress
misfires because a pluralist would reject his assumption. Again, some regress
arguments fail because they presume that any infinite series is vicious.
Aquinas’s regress objection to an infinite series of movers, from which he
concludes that there must be a prime mover, involves this sort of confusion. --
infinity, in set theory, the property of a set whereby it has a proper subset
whose members can be placed in one-to-one correspondence with all the members of
the set, as the even integers can be so arranged in respect to the natural
numbers by the function f(x) = x/2, namely: Devised by Richard Dedekind in
defiance of the age-old intuition that no part of a thing can be as large as
the thing, this set-theoretical definition of ‘infinity’, having been much
acclaimed by philosophers like Russell as a model of conceptual analysis that
philosophers were urged to emulate, can elucidate the putative infinity of
space, time, and even God, his power, wisdom, etc. If a set’s being denumerable
– i.e., capable of having its members placed in one-to-one correspondence with
the natural numbers – can well appear to define much more simply what the
infinity of an infinite set is, Cantor exhibited the real numbers (as expressed
by unending decimal expansions) as a counterexample, showing them to be
indenumerable by means of his famous diagonal argument. Suppose all the real
numbers between 0 and 1 are placed in one-to-one correspondence with the
natural numbers, thus: Going down the principal diagonal, we can construct a
new real number, e.g., .954 . . . , not found in the infinite “square array.”
The most important result in set theory, Cantor’s theorem, is denied its full
force by the maverick followers infinity infinity 430 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999
7:39 AM Page 430 of Skolem, who appeal to the fact that, though the real
numbers constructible in any standard axiomatic system will be indenumerable
relative to the resources of the system, they can be seen to be denumerable
when viewed from outside it. Refusing to accept the absolute indenumerability
of any set, the Skolemites, in relativizing the notion to some system, provide
one further instance of the allure of relativism. More radical still are the
nominalists who, rejecting all abstract entities and sets in particular, might
be supposed to have no use for Cantor’s theorem. Not so. Assume with Democritus
that there are infinitely many of his atoms, made of adamant. Corresponding to
each infinite subset of these atoms will be their mereological sum or “fusion,”
namely a certain quantity of adamant. Concrete entities acceptable to the
nominalist, these quantities can be readily shown to be indenumerable. Whether
Cantor’s still higher infinities beyond F1 admit of any such nominalistic
realization remains a largely unexplored area. Aleph-zero or F0 being taken to
be the transfinite number of the natural numbers, there are then F1 real
numbers (assuming the continuum hypothesis), while the power set of the reals
has F2 members, and the power set of that F3 members, etc. In general, K2 will
be said to have a greater number (finite or transfinite) of members than K1
provided the members of K1 can be put in one-to-one correspondence with some
proper subset of K2 but not vice versa. Skepticism regarding the higher
infinities can trickle down even to F0, and if both Aristotle and Kant, the
former in his critique of Zeno’s paradoxes, the latter in his treatment of
cosmological antinomies, reject any actual, i.e. completed, infinite, in our time
Dummett’s return to verificationism, as associated with the mathematical
intuitionism of Brouwer, poses the keenest challenge. Recognition-transcendent
sentences like ‘The total number of stars is infinite’ are charged with
violating the intersubjective conditions required for a speaker of a language
to manifest a grasp of their meaning.
Strawson, or Grice’s
favourite informalist: THE INFORMALISTS – A Group under which Grice situated
his post-generational Strawson and his pre-generational Ryle. informal fallacy,
an error of reasoning or tactic of argument that can be used to persuade
someone with whom you are reasoning that your argument is correct when really
it is not. The standard treatment of the informal fallacies in logic textbooks
draws heavily on Aristotle’s list, but there are many variants, and new
fallacies have often been added, some of which have gained strong footholds in
the textbooks. The word ‘informal’ indicates that these fallacies are not
simply localized faults or failures in the given propositions (premises and
conclusion) of an argument to conform to a standard of semantic correctness
(like that of deductive logic), but are misuses of the argument in relation to
a context of reasoning or type of dialogue that an arguer is supposed to be
engaged in. Informal logic is the subfield of logical inquiry that deals with
these fallacies. Typically, informal fallacies have a pragmatic (practical)
aspect relating to how an argument is being used, and also a dialectical
aspect, pertaining to a context of dialogue – normally an exchange between two
participants in a discussion. Both aspects are major concerns of informal
logic. Logic textbooks classify informal fallacies in various ways, but no
clear and widely accepted system of classification has yet become established.
Some textbooks are very inventive and prolific, citing many different
fallacies, including novel and exotic ones. Others are more conservative,
sticking with the twenty or so mainly featured in or derived from Aristotle’s
original treatment, with a few widely accepted additions. The paragraphs below
cover most of these “major” or widely featured fallacies, the ones most likely
to be encountered by name in the language of everyday educated conversation.
The genetic fallacy is the error of drawing an inappropriate conclusion about
the goodness or badness of some property of a thing from the goodness or
badness of some property of the origin of that thing. For example, ‘This
medication was derived from a plant that is poisonous; therefore, even though
my physician advises me to take it, I conclude that it would be very bad for me
if I took it.’ The error is inappropriately arguing from the origin of the
medication to the conclusion that it must be poisonous in any form or
situation. The genetic fallacy is often construed very broadly making it
coextensive with the personal attack type of argument (see the description of
argumentum ad hominem below) that condemns a prior argument by condemning its
source or proponent. Argumentum ad populum (argument to the people) is a kind
of argument that uses appeal to popular sentiments to support a conclusion.
Sometimes called “appeal to the gallery” or “appeal to popular pieties” or even
“mob appeal,” this kind of argument has traditionally been portrayed as
fallacious. However, there infinity, axiom of informal fallacy 431 4065h-l.qxd
08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 431 need be nothing wrong with appealing to popular
sentiments in argument, so long as their evidential value is not exaggerated.
Even so, such a tactic can be fallacious when the attempt to arouse mass
enthusiasms is used as a substitute to cover for a failure to bring forward the
kind of evidence that is properly required to support one’s conclusion.
Argumentum ad misericordiam (argument to pity) is a kind of argument that uses
an appeal to pity, sympathy, or compassion to support its conclusion. Such
arguments can have a legitimate place in some discussions – e.g., in appeals
for charitable donations. But they can also put emotional pressure on a
respondent in argument to try to cover up a weak case. For example, a student
who does not have a legitimate reason for a late assignment might argue that if
he doesn’t get a high grade, his disappointed mother might have a heart attack.
The fallacy of composition is the error of arguing from a property of parts of
a whole to a property of the whole – e.g., ‘The important parts of this machine
are light; therefore this machine is light.’ But a property of the parts cannot
always be transferred to the whole. In some cases, examples of the fallacy of
composition are arguments from all the parts to a whole, e.g. ‘Everybody in the
country pays her debts. Therefore the country pays its debts.’ The fallacy of
division is the converse of that of composition: the error of arguing from a
property of the whole to a property of its parts – e.g., ‘This machine is
heavy; therefore all the parts of this machine are heavy.’ The problem is that
the property possessed by the whole need not transfer to the parts. The fallacy
of false cause, sometimes called post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after this,
therefore because of this), is the error of arguing that because two events are
correlated with one another, especially when they vary together, the one is the
cause of the other. For example, there might be a genuine correlation between
the stork population in certain areas of Europe and the human birth rate. But
it would be an error to conclude, on that basis alone, that the presence of
storks causes babies to be born. In general, however, correlation is good, if
sometimes weak, evidence for causation. The problem comes in when the
evidential strength of the correlation is exaggerated as causal evidence. The
apparent connection could just be coincidence, or due to other factors that have
not been taken into account, e.g., some third factor that causes both the
events that are correlated with each other. The fallacy of secundum quid
(neglecting qualifications) occurs where someone is arguing from a general rule
to a particular case, or vice versa. One version of it is arguing from a
general rule while overlooking or suppressing legitimate exceptions. This kind
of error has also often been called the fallacy of accident. An example would
be the argument ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of speech; therefore it is
my right to shout “Fire” in this crowded theater if I want to.’ The other
version of secundum quid, sometimes also called the fallacy of converse
accident, or the fallacy of hasty generalization, is the error of trying to
argue from a particular case to a general rule that does not properly fit that
case. An example would be the argument ‘Tweetie [an ostrich] is a bird that
does not fly; therefore birds do not fly’. The fault is the failure to
recognize or acknowledge that Tweetie is not a typical bird with respect to
flying. Argumentum consensus gentium (argument from the consensus of the
nations) is a kind that appeals to the common consent of mankind to support a
conclusion. Numerous philosophers and theologians in the past have appealed to
this kind of argument to support conclusions like the existence of God and the
binding character of moral principles. For example, ‘Belief in God is
practically universal among human beings past and present; therefore there is a
practical weight of presumption in favor of the truth of the proposition that
God exists’. A version of the consensus gentium argument represented by this
example has sometimes been put forward in logic textbooks as an instance of the
argumentum ad populum (described above) called the argument from popularity:
‘Everybody believes (accepts) P as true; therefore P is true’. If interpreted
as applicable in all cases, the argument from popularity is not generally
sound, and may be regarded as a fallacy. However, if regarded as a presumptive
inference that only applies in some cases, and as subject to withdrawal where
evidence to the contrary exists, it can sometimes be regarded as a weak but
plausible argument, useful to serve as a provisional guide to prudent action or
reasoned commitment. Argumentum ad hominem (literally, argument against the
man) is a kind of argument that uses a personal attack against an arguer to
refute her argument. In the abusive or personal variant, the character of the
arguer (especially character for veracity) is attacked; e.g., ‘You can’t
believe what Smith says – he is a liar’. In evaluating testimony (e.g., in
legal cross-examination), attacking an arguer’s character can be legitimate in
some cases. Also in political debate, character can be a legitimate issue.
However, ad hominem arguinformal fallacy informal fallacy 432 4065h-l.qxd
08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 432 ments are commonly used fallaciously in attacking
an opponent unfairly – e.g., where the attack is not merited, or where it is
used to distract an audience from more relevant lines of argument. In the
circumstantial variant, an arguer’s personal circumstances are claimed to be in
conflict with his argument, implying that the arguer is either confused or
insincere; e.g., ‘You don’t practice what you preach’. For example, a
politician who has once advocated not raising taxes may be accused of
“flip-flopping” if he himself subsequently favors legislation to raise taxes.
This type of argument is not inherently fallacious, but it can go badly wrong,
or be used in a fallacious way, for example if circumstances changed, or if the
alleged conflict was less serious than the attacker claimed. Another variant is
the “poisoning the well” type of ad hominem argument, where an arguer is said
to have shown no regard for the truth, the implication being that nothing he
says henceforth can ever be trusted as reliable. Yet another variant of the ad
hominem argument often cited in logic textbooks is the tu quoque (you-too
reply), where the arguer attacked by an ad hominem argument turns around and
says, “What about you? Haven’t you ever lied before? You’re just as bad.” Still
another variant is the bias type of ad hominem argument, where one party in an
argument charges the other with not being honest or impartial or with having
hidden motivations or personal interests at stake. Argumentum ad baculum
(argument to the club) is a kind of argument that appeals to a threat or to
fear in order to support a conclusion, or to intimidate a respondent into
accepting it. Ad baculum arguments often take an indirect form; e.g., ‘If you
don’t do this, harmful consequences to you might follow’. In such cases the
utterance can often be taken as a threat. Ad baculum arguments are not
inherently fallacious, because appeals to threatening or fearsome sanctions –
e.g., harsh penalties for drunken driving – are not necessarily failures of
critical argumentation. But because ad baculum arguments are powerful in
eliciting emotions, they are often used persuasively as sophistical tactics in
argumentation to avoid fulfilling the proper requirements of a burden of proof.
Argument from authority is a kind of argument that uses expert opinion (de
facto authority) or the pronouncement of someone invested with an institutional
office or title (de jure authority) to support a conclusion. As a practical but
fallible method of steering discussion toward a presumptive conclusion, the
argument from authority can be a reasonable way of shifting a burden of proof.
However, if pressed too hard in a discussion or portrayed as a better
justification for a conclusion than the evidence warrants, it can become a
fallacious argumentum ad verecundiam (see below). It should be noted, however,
that arguments based on expert opinions are widely accepted both in artificial
intelligence and everyday argumentation as legitimate and sound under the right
conditions. Although arguments from authority have been strongly condemned
during some historical periods as inherently fallacious, the current climate of
opinion is to think of them as acceptable in some cases, even if they are
fallible arguments that can easily go wrong or be misused by sophistical
persuaders. Argumentum ad judicium represents a kind of knowledge-based
argumentation that is empirical, as opposed to being based on an arguer’s
personal opinion or viewpoint. In modern terminology, it apparently refers to
an argument based on objective evidence, as opposed to somebody’s subjective
opinion. The term appears to have been invented by Locke to contrast three commonly
used kinds of arguments and a fourth special type of argument. The first three
types of argument are based on premises that the respondent of the argument is
taken to have already accepted. Thus these can all be called “personal” in
nature. The fourth kind of argument – argumentum ad judicium – does not have to
be based on what some person accepts, and so could perhaps be called
“impersonal.” Locke writes that the first three kinds of arguments can dispose
a person for the reception of truth, but cannot help that person to the truth.
Only the argumentum ad judicium can do that. The first three types of arguments
come from “my shamefacedness, ignorance or error,” whereas the argumentum ad
judicium “comes from proofs and arguments and light arising from the nature of
things themselves.” The first three types of arguments have only a preparatory
function in finding the truth of a matter, whereas the argumentum ad judicium
is more directly instrumental in helping us to find the truth. Argumentum ad
verecundiam (argument to reverence or respect) is the fallacious use of expert
opinion in argumentation to try to persuade someone to accept a conclusion. In
the Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690) Locke describes such arguments
as tactics of trying to prevail on the assent of someone by portraying him as
irreverent or immodest if he does not readily yield to the authority of some
learned informal fallacy informal fallacy 433 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM
Page 433 opinion cited. Locke does not claim, however, that all appeals to
expert authority in argument are fallacious. They can be reasonable if used
judiciously. Argumentum ad ignorantiam (argument to ignorance) takes the
following form: a proposition a is not known or proved to be true (false);
therefore A is false (true). It is a negative type of knowledge-based or
presumptive reasoning, generally not conclusive, but it is nevertheless often
non-fallacious in balance-of-consideration cases where the evidence is
inconclusive to resolve a disputed question. In such cases it is a kind of
presumption-based argumentation used to advocate adopting a conclusion
provisionally, in the absence of hard knowledge that would determine whether
the conclusion is true or false. An example would be: Smith has not been heard
from for over seven years, and there is no evidence that he is alive; therefore
it may be presumed (for the purpose of settling Smith’s estate) that he is
dead. Arguments from ignorance ought not to be pressed too hard or used with
too strong a degree of confidence. An example comes from the U.S. Senate
hearings in 1950, in which Senator Joseph McCarthy used case histories to argue
that certain persons in the State Department should be considered Communists.
Of one case he said, “I do not have much information on this except the general
statement of the agency that there is nothing in the files to disprove his
Communist connections.” The strength of any argument from ignorance depends on
the thoroughness of the search made. The argument from ignorance can be used to
shift a burden of proof merely on the basis of rumor, innuendo, or false
accusations, instead of real evidence. Ignoratio elenchi (ignorance of
refutation) is the traditional name, following Aristotle, for the fault of
failing to keep to the point in an argument. The fallacy is also called
irrelevant conclusion or missing the point. Such a failure of relevance is
essentially a failure to keep closely enough to the issue under discussion.
Suppose that during a criminal trial, the prosecutor displays the victim’s
bloody shirt and argues at length that murder is a horrible crime. The
digression may be ruled irrelevant to the question at issue of whether the
defendant is guilty of murder. Alleged failures of this type in argumentation
are sometimes quite difficult to judge fairly, and a ruling should depend on
the type of discussion the participants are supposed to be engaged in. In some
cases, conventions or institutional rules of procedure – e.g. in a criminal
trial – are aids to determining whether a line of argumentation should be
judged relevant or not. Petitio principii (asking to be granted the “principle”
or issue of the discussion to be proved), also called begging the question, is
the fallacy of improperly arguing in a circle. Circular reasoning should not be
presumed to be inherently fallacious, but can be fallacious where the circular
argument has been used to disguise or cover up a failure to fulfill a burden of
proof. The problem arises where the conclusion that was supposed to be proved is
presumed within the premises to be granted by the respondent of the argument.
Suppose I ask you to prove that this bicycle (the ownership of which is subject
to dispute) belongs to Hector, and you reply, “All the bicycles around here
belong to Hector.” The problem is that without independent evidence that shows
otherwise, the premise that all the bicycles belong to Hector takes for granted
that this bicycle belongs to Hector, instead of proving it by properly
fulfilling the burden of proof. The fallacy of many questions (also called the
fallacy of complex question) is the tactic of packing unwarranted
presuppositions into a question so that any direct answer given by the
respondent will trap her into conceding these presuppositions. The classical
case is the question, “Have you stopped beating your spouse?” No matter how the
respondent answers, yes or no, she concedes the presuppositions that (a) she
has a spouse, and (b) she has beaten that spouse at some time. Where one or
both of these presumptions are unwarranted in the given case, the use of this
question is an instance of the fallacy of many questions. The fallacy of
equivocation occurs where an ambiguous word has been used more than once in an
argument in such a way that it is plausible to interpret it in one way in one
instance of its use and in another way in another instance. Such an argument
may seem persuasive if the shift in the context of use of the word makes these
differing interpretations plausible. Equivocation, however, is generally seriously
deceptive only in longer sequences of argument where the meaning of a word or
phrase shifts subtly but significantly. A simplistic example will illustrate
the gist of the fallacy: ‘The news media should present all the facts on
anything that is in the public interest; the public interest in lives of movie
stars is intense; therefore the news media should present all the facts on the
private lives of movie stars’. This argument goes from plausible premises to an
implausible conclusion by trading on the ambiguity of ‘public interest’. In one
sense informal fallacy informal fallacy 434 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page
434 it means ‘public benefit’ while in another sense it refers to something
more akin to curiosity. Amphiboly (double arrangement) is a type of traditional
fallacy (derived from Aristotle’s list of fallacies) that refers to the use of
syntactically ambiguous sentences like ‘Save soap and waste paper’. Although
the logic textbooks often cite examples of such sentences as fallacies, they
have never made clear how they could be used to deceive in a serious
discussion. Indeed, the example cited is not even an argument, but simply an
ambiguous sentence. In cases of some advertisements like ‘Two pizzas for one
special price’, however, one can see how the amphiboly seriously misleads
readers into thinking they are being offered two pizzas for the regular price
of one. Accent is the use of shifting stress or emphasis in speech as a means
of deception. For example, if a speaker puts stress on the word ‘created’ in
‘All men were created equal’ it suggests (by implicaturum) the opposite
proposition to ‘All men are equal’, namely ‘Not all men are (now) equal’. The
oral stress allows the speaker to covertly suggest an inference the hearer is
likely to draw, and to escape commitment to the conclusion suggested by later
denying he said it. The slippery slope argument, in one form, counsels against
some contemplated action (or inaction) on the ground that, once taken, it will
be a first step in a sequence of events that will be difficult to resist and
will (or may or must) lead to some dangerous (or undesirable or disastrous)
outcome in the end. It is often argued, e.g., that once you allow euthanasia in
any form, such as the withdrawal of heroic treatments of dying patients in
hospitals, then (through erosion of respect for human life), you will
eventually wind up with a totalitarian state where old, feeble, or politically
troublesome individuals are routinely eliminated. Some slippery slope arguments
can be reasonable, but they should not be put forward in an exaggerated way,
supported with insufficient evidence, or used as a scare tactic.
informal logic: Grice
preferred ‘material’ logic – “What Strawson means by ‘informal logic’ is best
expressed by ‘ordinary-language logic,’ drawing on Bergmann’s distinction
between the ordinary and the ideal.” Also called practical logic, the use of
logic to identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments as they occur in contexts of
discourse in everyday conversations. In informal logic, arguments are assessed
on a case-by-case basis, relative to how the argument was used in a given
context to persuade someone to accept the conclusion, or at least to give some
reason relevant to accepting the conclusion.
informatum –
“What has ‘forma’ to do with ‘inform’?” – Grice. While etymologically it means
‘to mould,’ Lewis and Short render ‘informare’ as “to
inform, instruct, educate (syn.: “instruere, instituere): artes quibus aetas
puerilis ad humanitatem informari solet,” Cic. Arch. 3, 4: “animus a natura
bene informatus,” formed, id. Off. 1, 4, 13. I. e. “the soul is well informed
by nature.” Informativus – informational. Grice distinguishes between
the indicative and the informational. “Surely it is stupid to inform myself,
but not Strawson, that it is raining. Grammarians don’t care, but I do!”
information theory, also called communication theory, a primarily mathematical
theory of communication. Prime movers in its development include Claude
Shannon, H. Nyquist, R. V. L. Hartley, Norbert Wiener, Boltzmann, and Szilard.
Original interests in the theory were largely theoretical or applied to
telegraphy and telephony, and early development clustered around engineering
problems in such domains. Philosophers (Bar-Hillel, Dretske, and Sayre, among
others) are mainly interested in information theory as a source for developing
a semantic theory of information and meaning. The mathematical theory has been
less concerned with the details of how a message acquires meaning and more
concerned with what Shannon called the “fundamental problem of communication” –
reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message (that
already has a meaning) selected at another point. Therefore, the two interests
in information – the mathematical and the philosophical – have remained largely
orthogonal. Information is an objective (mind-independent) entity. It can be
generated or carried by messages (words, sentences) or other products of
cognizers (interpreters). Indeed, communication theory focuses primarily on
conditions involved in the generation and transmission of coded (linguistic)
messages. However, almost any event can (and usually does) generate information
capable of being encoded or transmitted. For example, Colleen’s acquiring red
spots can contain information about Colleen’s having the measles and graying
hair can carry information about her grandfather’s aging. This information can
be encoded into messages about measles or aging (respectively) and transmitted,
but the information would exist independently of its encoding or transmission.
That is, this information would be generated (under the right conditions) by
occurrence of the measles-induced spots and the age-induced graying themselves
– regardless of anyone’s actually noticing. This objective feature of
information explains its potential for epistemic and semantic development by
philosophers and cognitive scientists. For example, in its epistemic dimension,
a single (event, message, or Colleen’s spots) that contains informal logic
information theory 435 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 435 (carries) the
information that Colleen has the measles is something from which one (mom,
doctor) can come to know that Colleen has the measles. Generally, an event
(signal) that contains the information that p is something from which one can
come to know that p is the case – provided that one’s knowledge is indeed based
on the information that p. Since information is objective, it can generate what
we want from knowledge – a fix on the way the world objectively is configured.
In its semantic dimension, information can have intentionality or aboutness.
What is happening at one place (thermometer reading rising in Colleen’s mouth)
can carry information about what is happening at another place (Colleen’s body
temperature rising). The fact that messages (or mental states, for that matter)
can contain information about what is happening elsewhere, suggests an exciting
prospect of tracing the meaning of a message (or of a thought) to its
informational origins in the environment. To do this in detail is what a
semantic theory of information is about. The mathematical theory of information
is purely concerned with information in its quantitative dimension. It deals
with how to measure and transmit amounts of information and leaves to others
the work of saying what (how) meaning or content comes to be associated with a
signal or message. In regard to amounts of information, we need a way to
measure how much information is generated by an event (or message) and how to
represent that amount. Information theory provides the answer. Since
information is an objective entity, the amount of information associated with
an event is related to the objective probability (likelihood) of the event.
Events that are less likely to occur generate more information than those more
likely to occur. Thus, to discover that the toss of a fair coin came up heads
contains more information than to discover this about the toss of a coin biased
(.8) toward heads. Or, to discover that a lie was knowingly broadcast by a
censored, state-run radio station, contains less information than that a lie
was knowingly broadcast by a non-censored, free radio station (say, the BBC). A
(perhaps surprising) consequence of associating amounts of information with
objective likelihoods of events is that some events generate no information at
all. That is, that 55 % 3125 or that water freezes at 0oC. (on a specific
occasion) generates no information at all – since these things cannot be
otherwise (their probability of being otherwise is zero). Thus, their
occurrence generates zero information. Shannon was seeking to measure the
amount of information generated by a message and the amount transmitted by its
reception (or about average amounts transmissible over a channel). Since his
work, it has become standard to think of the measure of information in terms of
reductions of uncertainty. Information is identified with the reduction of
uncertainty or elimination of possibilities represented by the occurrence of an
event or state of affairs. The amount of information is identified with how
many possibilities are eliminated. Although other measures are possible, the
most convenient and intuitive way that this quantity is standardly represented
is as a logarithm (to the base 2) and measured in bits (short for how many
binary digits) needed to represent binary decisions involved in the reduction
or elimination of possibilities. If person A chooses a message to send to
person B, from among 16 equally likely alternative messages (say, which number
came up in a fair drawing from 16 numbers), the choice of one message would
represent 4 bits of information (16 % 24 or log2 16 % 4). Thus, to calculate
the amount of information generated by a selection from equally likely messages
(signals, events), the amount of information I of the message s is calculated
I(s) % logn. If there is a range of messages (s1 . . . sN) not all of which are
equally likely (letting (p (si) % the probability of any si’s occurrence), the
amount of information generated by the selection of any message si is
calculated I(si) % log 1/p(si) % –log p(si) [log 1/x % –log x] While each of
these formulas says how much information is generated by the selection of a
specific message, communication theory is seldom primarily interested in these
measures. Philosophers are interested, however. For if knowledge that p
requires receiving the information that p occurred, and if p’s occurrence
represents 4 bits of information, then S would know that p occurred only if S
received information equal to (at least) 4 bits. This may not be sufficient for
S to know p – for S must receive the right amount of information in a
non-deviant causal way and S must be able to extract the content of the
information – but this seems clearly necessary. Other measures of information
of interest in communication theory include the average information, or
entropy, of a source, information theory information theory 436 4065h-l.qxd
08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 436 I(s) % 9p(si) $ I(si), a measure for noise (the
amount of information that person B receives that was not sent by person A),
and for equivocation (the amount of information A wanted or tried to send to B
that B did not receive). These concepts from information theory and the
formulas for measuring these quantities of information (and others) provide a
rich source of tools for communication applications as well as philosophical
applications. informed consent, voluntary agreement in the light of relevant
information, especially by a patient to a medical procedure. An example would
be consent to a specific medical procedure by a competent adult patient who has
an adequate understanding of all the relevant treatment options and their
risks. It is widely held that both morality and law require that no medical
procedures be performed on competent adults without their informed consent.
This doctrine of informed consent has been featured in case laws since the
1950s, and has been a focus of much discussion in medical ethics. Underwritten
by a concern to protect patients’ rights to self-determination and also by a
concern with patients’ well-being, the doctrine was introduced in an attempt to
delineate physicians’ duties to inform patients of the risks and benefits of
medical alternatives and to obtain their consent to a particular course of
treatment or diagnosis. Interpretation of the legitimate scope of the doctrine
has focused on a variety of issues concerning what range of patients is
competent to give consent and hence from which ones informed consent must be
required; concerning how much, how detailed, and what sort of information must
be given to patients to yield informed consent; and concerning what sorts of
conditions are required to ensure both that there is proper understanding of
the information and that consent is truly voluntary rather than unduly
influenced by the institutional authority of the physician.
ingarden:
a leading phenomenologist, who taught in Lvov and Cracow and became prominent
in the English-speaking world above all through his work in aesthetics and
philosophy of literature. His Literary Work of Art (German 1931, English 1973)
presents an ontological account of the literary work as a stratified structure,
including word sounds and meanings, represented objects and aspects, and associated
metaphysical and aesthetic qualities. The work forms part of a larger
ontological project of combating the transcendental idealism of his teacher
Husserl, and seeks to establish the essential difference in structure between
minddependent ‘intentional’ objects and objects in reality. Ingarden’s
ontological investigations are set out in his The Controversy over the
Existence of the World (Polish 1947/48, German 1964–74, partial English
translation as Time and Modes of Being, 1964). The work rests on a tripartite
division of formal, material, and existential ontology and contains extensive
analyses of the ontological structures of individual things, events, processes,
states of affairs, properties and relations. It culminates in an attempted
refutation of idealism on the basis of an exhaustive account of the possible
relations between consciousness and reality.
inscriptum -- inscriptionalism -- nominalism. While Grice pours scorn
on the American School of Latter-Day
Nominalists, nominalism, as used by Grice is possibly a misnomer. He
doesn’t mean Occam, and Occam did not use ‘nominalismus.’ “Terminimus’ at most.
So one has to be careful. The implicaturum is that the nominalist calls a
‘name’ what others shouldn’t. Mind,
Grice had two nominalist friends: S. N. Hamphsire (Scepticism and meaning”) and
A. M. Quinton, of the play group! In “Properties and classes,” for the
Aristotelian Society. And the best Oxford philosophical stylist, Bradley, is
also a nominalist. There are other, more specific arguments against universals.
One is that postulating such things leads to a vicious infinite regress. For
suppose there are universals, both monadic and relational, and that when an
entity instantiates a universal, or a group of entities instantiate a
relational universal, they are linked by an instantiation relation. Suppose now
that a instantiates
the universal F. Since
there are many things that instantiate many universals, it is plausible to
suppose that instantiation is a relational universal. But if instantiation is a
relational universal, when a instantiates F, a, F and
the instantiation relation are linked by an instantiation relation. Call this
instantiation relation i2 (and suppose it, as is plausible, to be
distinct from the instantiation relation (i1) that links a and F). Then
since i2 is
also a universal, it looks as if a, F, i1 and i2 will have to
be linked by another instantiation relation i3, and so on ad infinitum.
(This argument has its source in Bradley 1893, 27–8.)
insinuatum: Cf. ‘indirectum’ Oddly, Ryle found an ‘insinuation’
abusive, which Russell found abusive. When McGuinness listed the abusive terms
by Gellner, ‘insinuation’ was one of them, so perhaps Grice should take note! insinuation
insinuate. The etymology is abscure. Certainly not Ciceronian. A bit of
linguistic botany, “E implicates that p” – implicate to do duty for, in
alphabetic order: mean, suggest, hint, insinuate, indicate, implicitly convey,
indirectly convey, imply. Intransitive meaning "hint obliquely" is from
1560s. The problem is that Grice possibly used it transitively, with a
‘that’-clause. “Emissor E communicates that p, via insinuation,” i.e. E
insinuates that p.” In fact, there’s nothing odd with the ‘that’-clause
following ‘insinuate.’ Obviosuly, Grice will be saying that what is a mere
insinuation it is taken by Austin, Strawson, Hart or Hare or Hampshire – as he
criticizes him in the “Mind” article on intention and certainty -- (to restrict
to mistakes by the play group) as part of the ‘analysans.’ `Refs. D. Holdcroft,
“Forms of indirect communication,” Journal of Rhetoric, H. P. Grice,
“Communicatum: directum-indirectum.”
Swinehead: “I like
Swinehead – it sounds almost like Grice!” – Grice.
solubile
-- insolubile: “As opposed to the ‘piece-of-cake’ solubilia” – Grice. A
solubile is a piece of a cake. An insolubile is a sentences embodying a
semantic antinomy such as the liar paradox. The insolubile is used by philosophers
to analyze a self-nullifying sentences, the possibility that every sentence
implies that they are true, and the relation between a communicatum and an
animatum (psi). At first, Grice focuses on nullification to explicate a
sentence like ‘I am lying’ (“Mento.” “Mendax”) which, when spoken, entails that
the utterer “says nothing.” Grice: “Bradwardine suggests that such a sentence
as “Mento” signifies that it is at once true and false, prompting Burleigh to
argue that every sentences implies that it is true.” “Swineshead uses the
insolubile to distinguish between truth and correspondence to reality.” While
‘This sentence is false’ is itself false, it corresponds to reality, while its
contradiction, ‘This sentence is not false,’ does not, although the latter is
also false. “Wyclif uses the insolubile to describe the senses (or implicatura)
in which a sentence can be true, which led to his belief in the reality of
logical beings or entities of reason, a central tenet of his realism.” “d’Ailly
uses the insolubile to explain how the animatum (or soul) differs from the
communicatum, holding that there is no insoluble in the soul, but that communication
lends itself to the phenomenon by admitting a single sentence corresponding to
two distinct states of the soul. Grice: “Of course that was Swine’s unEnglish
overstatement, ‘unsolvable;’ everything is solvable!” Refs.: H. P. Grice,
“Liars at Oxford.”
institutum –
Grice speaks of the institution of decision as the goal of conversation --
institution. (1) An organization such as a corporation or college. (2) A social
practice such as marriage or making promises. (3) A system of rules defining a
possible form of social organization, such as capitalist versus Communist
principles of economic exchange. In light of the power of institutions to shape
societies and individual lives, writers in professional ethics have explored
four main issues. First, what political and legal institutions are feasible,
just, and otherwise desirable (Plato, Republic; Rawls, A Theory of Justice)?
Second, how are values embedded in institutions through the constitutive rules
that define them (for example, “To promise is to undertake an obligation”), as
well as through regulatory rules imposed on them from outside, such that to
participate in institutions is a value-laden activity (Searle, Speech Acts,
1969)? Third, do institutions have collective responsibilities or are the only
responsibilities those of individuals, and in general how are the
responsibilities of individuals, institutions, and communities related? Fourth,
at a more practical level, how can we prevent institutions from becoming corrupted
by undue regard for money and power (MacIntyre, After Virtue, 1981) and by
patriarchal prejudices (Susan Moller Okin, Justice, Gender, and the Family,
1989)? -- institutional theory of art, the view that something becomes an
artwork by virtue of occupying a certain position within the context of a set
of institutions. George Dickie originated this theory of art (Art and the
Aesthetic, 1974), which was derived loosely from Arthur Danto’s “The Artworld”
(Journal of Philosophy, 1964). In its original form it was the view that a work
of art is an artifact that has the status of candidate for appreciation
conferred upon it by some person acting on behalf of the art world. That is,
there are institutions – such as museums, galleries, and journals and newspapers
that publish reviews and criticism – and there are individuals who work within
those institutions – curators, directors, dealers, performers, critics – who
decide, by accepting objects or events for discussion and display, what is art
and what is not. The concept of artifactuality may be extended to include found
art, conceptual art, and other works that do not involve altering some
preexisting material, by holding that a use, or context for display, is
sufficient to make something into an artifact. This definition of art raises
certain questions. What determines – independently of such notions as a concern
with art – whether an institution is a member of the art world? That is, is the
definition ultimately circular? What is it to accept something as a candidate
for appreciation? Might not this concept also threaten circularity, since there
could be not only artistic but also other kinds of appreciation?
instrumentum:
is
Grice an instrumentalist? According to C. Lord (“Griceian instrumentalism”) he
is – but he is not! Lord takes ‘tool’ literally. In Grice’s analysandum of the
act of the communicatum, Lord takes ‘x’ to be a ‘tool’ or instrument for the
production of a response in the emisor’s sendee. But is this the original Roman
meaning of ‘instrumentum’? Griceian aesthetic instrumetalism according to
Catherine Lord. instrumentalism, in its most common meaning, a kind of
anti-realistic view of scientific theories wherein theories are construed as
calculating devices or instruments for conveniently moving from a given set of
observations to a predicted set of observations. As such the theoretical
statements are not candidates for truth or reference, and the theories have no
ontological import. This view of theories is grounded in a positive distinction
between observation statements and theoretical statements, and the according of
privileged epistemic status to the former. The view was fashionable during the
era of positivism but then faded; it was recently revived, in large measure
owing to the genuinely perplexing character of quantum theories in physics.
’Instrumentalism’ has a different and much more general meaning associated with
the pragmatic epistemology of Dewey. Deweyan instrumentalism is a general
functional account of all concepts (scientific ones included) wherein the
epistemic status of concepts and the rationality status of actions are seen as
a function of their role in integrating, predicting, and controlling our
concrete interactions with our experienced world. There is no positivistic distinction
instantiation instrumentalism 438 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 438
between observation and theory, and truth and reference give way to “warranted
assertability.”
intellectum: hile the ‘dianoia’ is the
intellectus, the ‘intellectum’ is the Griceian diaphanous ‘what is understood.’
(dianoia): Grice was fascinated by Cicero. “The way he managed to translate the
Grecian ‘dia’ by the ‘inter is genial!” As Short and Lewis have it, it’s from “inter-legere,” to see into, perceive, understand. “intelligere,” originally meaning to
comprehend, appeared frequently in Cicero, then underwent a slippage in its
passive form, “intelligetur,” toward to understand, to communicate, to mean,
‘to give it to be understood.’ What is understood – INTELLECTUM -- by an expression
can be not only its obvious sense but also something that is connoted, implied,
insinuated, IMPLICATED, as Grice would prefer. Verstand, corresponding to Greek
dianoia and Latin intellectio] Kant distinguished understanding from
sensibility and reason. While sensibility is receptive, understanding is
spontaneous. While understanding is concerned with the range of phenomena and
is empty without intuition, reason, which moves from judgment to judgment
concerning phenomena, is tempted to extend beyond the limits of experience to
generate fallacious inferences. Kant claimed that the main act of understanding
is judgment and called it a faculty of judgment. He claimed that there is an a
priori concept or category corresponding to each kind of judgment as its
logical function and that understanding is constituted by twelve categories.
Hence understanding is also a faculty of concepts. Understanding gives the
synthetic unity of appearance through the categories. It thus brings together
intuitions and concepts and makes experience possible. It is a lawgiver of
nature. Herder criticized Kant for separating sensibility and understanding.
Fichte and Hegel criticized him for separating understanding and reason. Some
neo-Kantians criticized him for deriving the structure of understanding from
the act of judgment. “Now we can reduce all acts of the understanding to
judgements, and the understanding may therefore be represented as a faculty of
judgement.” Kant, Critique of Pure Reason Intellectus -- dianoia,
Grecian term for the faculty of thought, specifically of drawing conclusions
from assumptions and of constructing and following arguments. The term may also
designate the thought that results from using this faculty. We would use
dianoia to construct a mathematical proof; in contrast, a being if there is such a being it would be a
god that could simply intuit the truth
of the theorem would use the faculty of intellectual intuition, noûs. In
contrast with noûs, dianoia is the distinctly human faculty of reason. Plato
uses noûs and dianoia to designate, respectively, the highest and second levels
of the faculties represented on the divided line Republic 511de. PLATO. E.C.H. dialectical argument dianoia
233 233 dichotomy paradox. Refs: Grice,
“The criteria of intelligence.”
intensionalism: Grice finds a way to relieve a
predicate that is vacuous from the embarrassing consequence of denoting or
being satisfied by the empty set. Grice exploits the nonvoidness of a
predicate which is part of the definition of the void predicate. Consider
the vacuous predicate:‘... is married to a daughter of an English queen and a
pope.'The class '... is a daugther of an English queen and a pope.'is
co-extensive with the predicate '... stands in relation to a sequence
composed of the class married to, daughters, English queens, and popes.'We
correlate the void predicate with the sequence composed of relation R, the
set ‘married to,’ the set ‘daughters,’ the set ‘English queens,’ and the set
‘popes.'Grice uses this sequence, rather than the empty set, to determine the
explanatory potentiality of a void predicate. The admissibility of a
nonvoid predicate in an explanation of a possible phenomenon (why it would
happen if it did happen) may depends on the availability of a generalisation whithin
which the predicate specifies the antecedent condition. A non-trivial
generalisations of this sort is certainly available if derivable from some
further generalisation involving a less specific antecedent condition,
supported by an antecedent condition that is specified by means a nonvoid
predicate. intension, the meaning or connotation of
an expression, as opposed to its extension or denotation, which consists of
those things signified by the expression. The intension of a declarative
sentence is often taken to be a proposition and the intension of a predicate
expression (common noun, adjective) is often taken to be a concept. For Frege,
a predicate expression refers to a concept and the intension or Sinn (“sense”)
of a predicate expression is a mode of presentation distinct from the concept.
Objects like propositions or concepts that can be the intension of terms are
called intensional objects. (Note that ‘intensional’ is not the same word as
‘intentional’, although the two are related.) The extension of a declarative
sentence is often taken to be a state of affairs and that of a predicate
expression to be the set of objects that fall under the concept which is the
intension of the term. Extension is not the same as reference. For example, the
term ‘red’ may be said to refer to the property redness but to have as its
extension the set of all red things. Alternatively properties and relations are
sometimes taken to be intensional objects, but the property redness is never
taken to be part of the extension of the adjective ‘red’. intensionality,
failure of extensionality. A linguistic context is extensional if and only if
the extension of the expression obtained by placing any subexpression in that
context is the same as the extension of the expression obtained by placing in
that context any subexpression with the same extension as the first
subexpression. Modal, intentional, and direct quotational contexts are main
instances of intensional contexts. Take, e.g., sentential contexts. The
extension of a sentence is its truth or falsity (truth-value). The extension of
a definite description is what it is true of: ‘the husband of Xanthippe’ and
‘the teacher of Plato’ have the same extension, for they are true of the same
man, Socrates. Given this, it is easy to see that ‘Necessarily, . . . was
married to Xanthippe’ is intensional, for ‘Necessarily, the husband of
Xanthippe was married to Xanthippe’ is true, but ‘Necessarily, the teacher of
Plato was married to Xanthippe’ is not. Other modal terms that generate intensional
contexts include ‘possibly’, ‘impossibly’, ‘essentially’, ‘contingently’, etc.
Assume that Smith has heard of Xanthippe but not Plato. ‘Smith believes that .
. . was married to Xanthippe’ is intensional, for ‘Smith believes that the
husband of Xanthippe was married to Xanthippe’ is true, but ‘Smith believes
that the teacher of Plato was married to Xanthippe’ is not. Other intentional
verbs that generate intensional contexts include ‘know’, ‘doubt’, ‘wonder’,
‘fear’, ‘intend’, ‘state’, and ‘want’. ‘The fourth word in “. . . “ has nine
letters’ is intensional, for ‘The fourth word in “the husband of Xanthippe” has
nine letters’ is true but ‘the fourth word in “the teacher of Plato” has nine
letters’ is not. intensional logic, that part of deductive logic which treats
arguments whose validity or invalidity depends on strict difference, or
identity, of meaning. The denotation of a singular term (i.e., a proper name or
definite description), the class of things of which a predicate is true, and
the truth or falsity (the truth-value) of a sentence may be called the
extensions of these respective linguistic expressions. Their intensions are
their meanings strictly so called: the (individual) concept conveyed by the
singular term, the property expressed by the predicate, and the proposition
asserted by the sentence. The most extensively studied part of formal logic
deals largely with inferences turning only on extensions. One principle of
extensional logic is that if two singular terms have identical denotations, the
truth-values of corresponding sentences containing the terms are identical.
Thus the inference from ‘Bern is the capital of Switzerland’ to ‘You are in
Bern if and only if you are in the capital of Switzerland’ is valid. But this
is invalid: ‘Bern is the capital of Switzerland. Therefore, you believe that
you are in Bern if and only if you believe that you are in the capital of
Switzerland.’ For one may lack the belief instrumental rationality intensional
logic 439 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 439 that Bern is the capital of
Switzerland. It seems that we should distinguish between the intensional
meanings of ‘Bern’ and of ‘the capital of Switzerland’. One supposes that only
a strict identity of intension would license interchange in such a context, in
which they are in the scope of a propositional attitude. It has been questioned
whether the idea of an intension really applies to proper names, but parallel
examples are easily constructed that make similar use of the differences in the
meanings of predicates or of whole sentences. Quite generally, then, the
principle that expressions with the same extension may be interchanged with
preservation of extension of the containing expression, seems to fail for such
“intensional contexts.” The range of expressions producing such sensitive
contexts includes psychological verbs like ‘know’, ‘believe’, ‘suppose’,
‘assert’, ‘desire’, ‘allege’, ‘wonders whether’; expressions conveying modal
ideas such as necessity, possibility, and impossibility; some adverbs, e.g.
‘intentionally’; and a large number of other expressions – ’prove’, ‘imply’,
‘make probable’, etc. Although reasoning involving some of these is well
understood, there is not yet general agreement on the best methods for dealing
with arguments involving many of these notions.
intentionalism: Grice analyses ‘intend’ in two prongs; the first is a
willing-clause, and the second is a causal clause about the willing causing the
action. It’s a simplified account that he calls Prichardian because he relies
on ‘willin that.’ The intender intends that some action takes place. It does
not have to be an action by the intender. Cf. Suppes’s specific section. when
Anscombe comes out with her “Intention,” Grice’s Play Group does not know what
to do. Hampshire is almost finished with his “Thought and action” that came out
the following year. Grice is lecturing on how a “dispositional” reductive
analysis of ‘intention’ falls short of his favoured instrospectionalism. Had he
not fallen for an intention-based semantics (or strictly, an analysis of
"U means that p" in terms of U intends that p"), Grice
would be obsessed with an analysis of ‘intending that …’ James makes an
observation about the that-clause. I will that the distant table slides over
the floor toward me. It does not. The Anscombe Society. Irish-born Anscombe’s
views are often discussed by Oxonian philosophers. She brings Witters to the
Dreaming Spires, as it were. Grice is especially connected with Anscombes
reflections on intention. While he favoures an approach such as that of
Hampshire in Thought and Action, Grice borrows a few points from Anscombe, notably
that of direction of fit, originally Austin’s. Grice explicitly refers to
Anscombe in “Uncertainty,” and in his reminiscences he hastens to add that
Anscombe would never attend any of the Saturday mornings of the play group, as
neither does Dummett. The view of Ryle is standardly characterised as a
weaker or softer version of behaviourism According to this standard
interpretation, the view by Ryle is that a statements containin this or that
term relating to the ‘soul’ can be translated, without loss of meaning, into an
‘if’ utterance about what an agent does. So Ryle, on this account, is to be
construed as offering a dispositional analysis of a statement about the soul
into a statement about behaviour. It is conceded that Ryle does not confine a
description of what the agent does to purely physical behaviour—in terms, e. g.
of a skeletal or a muscular description. Ryle is happy to speak of a full-bodied
action like scoring a goal or paying a debt. But the soft behaviourism
attributed to Ryle still attempts an analysis or translation of statement about
the soul into this or that dispositional statement which is itself construed as
subjunctive if describing what the agent does. Even this soft behaviourism fails.
A description of the soul is not analysable or translatable into a statement
about behaviour or praxis even if this is allowed to include a
non-physical descriptions of action. The list of conditions and possible
behaviour is infinite since any one proffered translation may be ‘defeated,’ as
Hart and Hall would say, by a slight alteration of the circumstances. The
defeating condition in any particular case may involve a reference to a fact
about the agent’s soul, thereby rendering the analysis circular. In sum, the
standard interpretation of Ryle construes him as offering a somewhat weakened
form of reductive behaviourism whose reductivist ambition, however weakened, is
nonetheless futile. This characterisation of Ryle’s programme is wrong. Although
it is true that he is keen to point out the disposition behind this or that
concept about the soul, it would be wrong to construe Ryle as offering a
programme of analysis of a ‘soul’ predicate in terms of an ‘if’ utterance. The
relationship between a ‘soul’ predicate and the ‘if’ utterance with which he
unpack it is other than that required by this kind of analysis. It is helpful
to keep in mind that Ryle’s target is the official doctrine with its eschatological
commitment. Ryle’s argument serves to remind one that we have in a large number
of cases ways of telling or settling disputes, e. g., about someone’s character
or intellect. If A disputes a characterisation of Smith as willing that p, or
judging that p, B may point to what Smith says and does in defending the
attribution, as well as to features of the circumstances. But the practice of
giving a reason of this kind to defend or to challenge an ascription of a
‘soul’ predicates would be put under substantial pressure if the official
doctrine is correct. For Ryle to remind us that we do, as a matter of
fact, have a way of settling disputes about whether Smith wills that he eat an
apple is much weaker than saying that the concept of willing is meaningless unless
it is observable or verifiable; or even that the successful application of a
soul predicate requires that we have a way of settling a dispute in every case.
Showing that a concept is one for which, in a large number of cases, we have an
agreement-reaching procedure, even if it do not always guarantee success, captures
an important point, however: it counts against any theory of, e. g., willing
that would render it unknowable in principle or in practice whether
or not the concept is correctly applied in every case. And this is precisely
the problem with the official doctrine (and is still a problem, with some of
its progeny. Ryle points out that there is a form of dilemma that pits
the reductionist against the dualist: those whose battle-cry is
‘nothing but…’ and those who insist on ‘something else as well.’ Ryle attempts a
dissolution of the dilemma by rejecting the two horns; not by taking sides with
either one, though part of what dissolution requires in this case, as in others,
is a description of how each side is to be commended for seeing what the other
side does not, and criticised for failing to see what the other side
does. The attraction of behaviourism, Ryle reminds us, is simply that it
does not insist on an occult happening as the basis upon which a ‘soul’ term is
given meaning, and points to a perfectly observable criterion that is by and
large employed when we are called upon to defend or correct our employment of a
‘soul’ term. The problem with behaviourism is that it has a too-narrow view
both of what counts as behaviour and of what counts as observable. Then comes Grice
to play with meaning and intending, and allowing for deeming an avowal of this
or that souly state as, in some fashion, incorrigible. For Grice, while U does
have, ceteris paribus privileged access to each state of his soul, only his or
that avowal of this or that souly state is deemed incorrigible. This concerns
communication as involving intending. Grice goes back to this at Brighton. He
plays with G judges that it is raining, G judges that G judges that it is
raining. Again, Grice uses a subscript: “G judges2 that it is
raining.” If now G expresses that it is raining, G judges2 that
it is raining. A second-order avowal is deemed incorrigible. It is not
surprising the the contemporary progeny of the official doctrine sees a
behaviourist in Grice. Yet a dualist is badly off the mark in his critique of
Grice. While Grice does appeal to a practice and a habif, and even the more
technical ‘procedure’ in the ordinary way as ‘procedure’ is used in ordinary
discussion. Grice does not make a technical concept out of them as one expect of
some behavioural psychologist, which he is not. He is at most a philosophical
psychologist, and a functionalist one, rather than a reductionist one. There is
nothing in any way that is ‘behaviourist’ or reductionist or physicalist about
Grice’s talk. It is just ordinary talk about behaviour. There is nothing
exceptional in talking about a practice, a customs, or a habit regarding
communication. Grice certainly does not intend that this or that notion, as he
uses it, gives anything like a detailed account of the creative open-endedness
of a communication-system. What this or that anti-Griceian has to say IS
essentially a diatribe first against empiricism (alla Quine), secondarily
against a Ryle-type of behaviourism, and in the third place, Grice. In more
reasoned and dispassionate terms, one would hardly think of Grice as a
behaviourist (he in fact rejects such a label in “Method”), but as an
intentionalist. When we call Grice an intentionalist, we are being serious. As
a modista, Grice’s keyword is intentionalism, as per the good old scholastic
‘intentio.’ We hope so. This is Aunt Matilda’s conversational knack. Grice keeps
a useful correspondence with Suppes which was helpful. Suppes takes Chomsky
more seriously than an Oxonian philosopher would. An Oxonian philosopher never
takes Chomsky too seriously. Granted, Austin loves to quote “Syntactic
Structures” sentence by sentence for fun, knowing that it would never count as
tutorial material. Surely “Syntactic Structures” would not be a pamphlet a
member of the play group would use to educate his tutee. It is amusing that
when he gives the Locke lectures, Chomsky cannot not think of anything better
to do but to criticise Grice, and citing him from just one reprint in the collection
edited by, of all people, Searle. Some gratitude. The references are very
specific to Grice. Grice feels he needs to provide, he thinks, an analysis
‘mean’ as metabolically applied to an expression. Why? Because of the implicaturum.
By uttering x (thereby explicitly conveying that p), U implicitly conveys that
q iff U relies on some procedure in his and A’s repertoire of procedures of U’s
and A’s communication-system. It is this talk of U’s being ‘ready,’ and ‘having
a procedure in his repertoire’ that sounds to New-World Chomsky too Morrisian,
as it does not to an Oxonian. Suppes, a New-Worlder, puts himself in
Old-Worlder Grice’s shoes about this. Chomsky should never mind. When an
Oxonian philosopher, not a psychologist, uses ‘procedure’ and ‘readiness,’ and
having a procedure in a repertoire, he is being Oxonian and not to be taken
seriously, appealing to ordinary language, and so on. Chomsky apparently does get
it. Incidentally, Suppess has defended Grice against two other targets, less
influential. One is Hungarian-born J. I. Biro, who does not distinguish between
reductive analysis and reductionist analysis, as Grice does in his response to Somervillian
Rountree-Jack. The other target is perhaps even less influential: P. Yu in a
rather simplistic survey of the Griceian programme for a journal that Grice finds
too specialized to count, “Linguistics and Philosophy.” Grice is always ashamed
and avoided of being described as “our man in the philosophy of language.”
Something that could only have happened in the Old World in a red-brick
university, as Grice calls it. Suppes
contributes to PGRICE with an excellent ‘The primacy of utterers meaning,’
where he addresses what he rightly sees as an unfair characterisations of Grice
as a behaviourist. Suppes’s use of “primacy” is genial, since its metabole which
is all about. Biro actually responds to Suppes’s commentary on Grice as
proposing a reductive but not reductionist analysis of meaning. Suppes
rightly characterises Grice as an Oxonian ‘intentionalist’ (alla Ogden), as one
would characterize Hampshire, with philosophical empiricist, and slightly idealist,
or better ideationalist, tendencies, rather. Suppes rightly observes that Grice’
use of such jargon is meant to impress. Surely there are more casual ways of
referring to this or that utterer having a basic procedure in his repertoire.
It is informal and colloquial, enough, though, rather than behaviouristically,
as Ryle would have it. Grice is very happy that in the New World Suppes teaches
him how to use ‘primacy’ with a straight face! Intentionalism is also all
the vogue in Collingwood reading Croce, and Gardiner reading Marty via Ogden, and
relates to expression. In his analysis of intending Grice is being very
Oxonian, and pre-Austinian: relying, just to tease leader Austin, on Stout,
Wilson, Bosanquet, MacMurray, and Pritchard. Refs.: There are two sets of
essays. An early one on ‘disposition and intention,’ and the essay for The
British Academy (henceforth, BA). Also his reply to Anscombe and his reply to
Davidson. There is an essay on the subjective condition on intention.
Obviously, his account of communication has been labeled the ‘intention-based
semantic’ programme, so references under ‘communication’ above are useful.
BANC.Grice's
reductIOn, or partial reduction anyway, of meamng to intention places a heavy
load on the theory of intentions. But in the articles he has written about
these matters he has not been very explicit about the structure of intentIOns.
As I understand his position on these matters, it is his view that the defence
of the primacy of utterer's meaning does not depend on having worked out any
detailed theory of intention. It IS enough to show how the reduction should be
thought of in a schematic fashion in order to make a convincing argument. I do
think there is a fairly straightforward extenSIOn of Grice's ideas that
provides the right way of developing a theory of intentIOns appropnate for Ius
theory of utterer's meaning. Slightly changing around some of the words m Grice
we have the following The Primacy of Utterer's Meaning 125 example. U utters
'''Fido is shaggy", if "U wants A to think that U thinks that Jones's
dog is hairy-coated.'" Put another way, U's intention is to want A to
think U thinks that Jones's dog is hairy-coated. Such intentions clearly have a
generative structure similar but different from the generated syntactic
structure we think of verbal utterances' having. But we can even say that the
deep structures talked about by grammarians of Chomsky's ilk could best be
thought of as intentions. This is not a suggestion I intend to pursue
seriously. The important point is that it is a mistake to think about
classifications of intentions; rather, we should think in terms of mechanisms
for generating intentions. Moreover, it seems to me that such mechanisms in the
case of animals are evident enough as expressed in purposeful pursuit of prey
or other kinds of food, and yet are not expressed in language. In that sense
once again there is an argument in defence of Grice's theory. The primacy of
utterer's meaning has primacy because of the primacy of intention. We can have
intentions without words, but we cannot have words of any interest without intentions.
In this general context, I now turn to Biro's (1979) interesting criticisms of
intentionalism in the theory of meaning. Biro deals from his own standpoint
with some of the issues I have raised already, but his central thesis about
intention I have not previously discussed. It goes to the heart of
controversies about the use of the concept of intention to explain the meaning
of utterances. Biro puts his point in a general way by insisting that utterance
meaning must be separate from and independent of speaker's meaning or, in the
terminology used here, utterer's meaning. The central part of his argument is
his objection to the possibility of explaining meaning in terms of intentions.
Biro's argument goes like this: 1. A central purpose of speech is to enable
others to learn about the speaker's intentions. 2. It will be impossible to
discover or understand the intentions of the speaker unless there are
independent means for understanding what he says, since what he says will be
primary evidence about his intentions. 3. Thus the meaning of an utterance must
be conceptually independent of the intentions of the speaker. This is an
appealing positivistic line. The data relevant to a theory or hypothesis must
be known independently of the hypothesis. Biro is quick to state that he is not
against theoretical entities, but the way in which he separates theoretical
entities and observable facts makes clear the limited role he wants them to
play, in this case the theoretical entities being intentions. The central idea
is to be found in the following passage: The point I am insisting on here is
merely that the ascription of an intention to an agent has the character of an
hypothesis, something invoked to explain phenomena which may be described
independently of that explanation (though not necessarily independently of the
fact that they fall into a class for which the hypothesis in question generally
or normally provides an explanation). (pp. 250-1.) [The italics are Biro's.]
Biro's aim is clear from this quotation. The central point is that the data
about intentions, namely, the utterance, must be describable independently of
hypotheses about the intentions. He says a little later to reinforce this: 'The
central pointis this: it is the intention-hypothesis that is revisable, not the
act-description' (p. 251). Biro's central mistake, and a large one too, is to
think that data can be described independently of hypotheses and that somehow
there is a clean and simple version of data that makes such description a
natural and inevitable thing to have. It would be easy enough to wander off
into a description of such problems in physics, where experiments provide a
veritable wonderland of seemingly arbitrary choices about what to include and
what to exclude from the experimental experience as 'relevant data', and where
the arbitrariness can only be even partly understood on the basis of
understanding the theories bemg tested. Real data do not come in simple linear
strips like letters on the page. Real experiments are blooming confusions that
never get sorted out completely but only partially and schematically, as
appropriate to the theory or theories being tested, and in accordance with the
traditions and conventions of past similar experiments. makes a point about the
importance of convention that I agree but it is irrelevant to my central of
controversy with What I say about
experiments is even more true of undisciplined and unregulated human
interactiono Experiments, especially in physics, are presumably among the best
examples of disciplined and structured action. Most conversations, in contrast,
are really examples of situations of confusion that are only straightened out
under strong hypotheses of intentions on the of speakers and listeners as well.
There is more than one level at which the takes The Primacy of Utterer's
Meaning 127 place through the beneficent use of hypotheses about intentions. I
shall not try to deal with all of them here but only mention some salient
aspects. At an earlier point, Biro says:The main reason for introducing
intentions into some of these analyses is precisely that the public (broadly
speaking) features of utterances -the sounds made, the circumstances in which
they are made and the syntactic and semantic properties of these noises
considered as linguistic items-are thought to be insufficient for the
specification of that aspect of the utterance which we call its meaning. [po
244.] If we were to take this line of thought seriously and literally, we would
begin with the sound pressure waves that reach our ears and that are given the
subtle and intricate interpretation required to accept them as speech. There is
a great variety of evidence that purely acoustical concepts are inadequate for
the analysis of speech. To determine the speech content of a sound pressure
wave we need extensive hypotheses about the intentions that speakers have in
order to convert the public physical features of utterances into intentional
linguistic items. Biro might object at where I am drawing the line between
public and intentional, namely, at the difference between physical and
linguistic, but it would be part of my thesis that it is just because of
perceived and hypothesized intentions that we are mentally able to convert
sound pressure waves into meaningful speech. In fact, I can envisage a kind of
transcendental argument for the existence of intentions based on the
impossibility from the standpoint of physics alone of interpreting sound
pressure waves as speech. Biro seems to have in mind the nice printed sentences
of science and philosophy that can be found on the printed pages of treatises
around the world. But this is not the right place to begin to think about
meaning, only the end point. Grice, and everybody else who holds an intentional
thesis about meaning, recognizes the requirement to reach an account of such
timeless sentence meaning or linguistic meaning.In fact, Grice is perhaps more
ready than I am to concede that such a theory can be developed in a relatively
straightforward manner. One purpose of my detailed discussion of congruence of
meaning in the previous section is to point out some of the difficulties of
having an adequate detailed theory of these matters, certainly an adequate
detailed theory of the linguistic meaning or the sentence meaning. Even if I
were willing to grant the feasibility of such a theory, I would not grant the
use of it that Biro has made. For the purposes of this discussion printed text
may be accepted as well-defined, theoryindependent data. (There are even issues
to be raised about the printed page, but ones that I will set aside in the
present context. I have in mind the psychological difference between perception
of printed letters, words, phrases, or sentences, and that of related but
different nonlinguistic marks on paper.) But no such data assumptions can be
made about spoken speech. Still another point of attack on Biro's positivistic
line about data concerns the data of stress and prosody and their role in
fixing the meaning of an utterance. Stress and prosody are critical to the
interpretation of the intentions of speakers, but the data on stress and
prosody are fleeting and hard to catch on the fly_ Hypotheses about speakers'
intentions are needed even in the most humdrum interpret atins of what a given
prosodic contour or a given point of stress has contributed to the meaning of
the utterance spoken. The prosodic contour and the points of stress of an
utterance are linguistic data, but they do not have the independent physical
description Biro vainly hopes for. Let me put my point still another way. I do
not deny for a second that conventions and traditions of speech play a role in
fixing the meaning of a particular utterance on a particular occasion. It is
not a matter of interpretmg afresh, as if the universe had just begun, a
particular utterance in terms of particular intentions at that time and place
without dependence upon past prior mtentions and the traditions of spoken
speech that have evolved in the community of which the speaker and listener are
a part. It is rather that hypotheses about intentions are operating continually
and centrally in the interpretation of what is said. Loose, live speech depends
upon such active 'on-line' interpretation of intention to make sense of what
has been said. If there were some absolutely agreed-upon concept of firm and
definite linguistlc meaning that Biro and others could appeal to, then it might
be harder to make the case I am arguing for. But I have already argued in the
discussion of congruence of meaning that this is precisely what is not the
case. The absence of any definite and satisfactory theory of linguistic meaning
argues also for movmg back to the more concrete and psychologically richer
concept of utterer's meaning. This is the place to begin the theory of meaning,
and this Itself rests to a very large extent on the concept of intention --
intention, (1) a characteristic of action, as when one acts intentionally or
with a certain intention; (2) a feature of one’s mind, as when one intends (has
an intention) to act in a certain way now or in the future. Betty, e.g.,
intentionally walks across the room, does so with the intention of getting a
drink, and now intends to leave the party later that night. An important
question is: how are (1) and (2) related? (See Anscombe, Intention, 1963, for a
groundbreaking treatment of these and other basic problems concerning
intention.) Some philosophers see acting with an intention as basic and as
subject to a three-part analysis. For Betty to walk across the room with the
intention of getting a drink is for Betty’s walking across the room to be
explainable (in the appropriate way) by her desire or (as is sometimes said)
pro-attitude in favor of getting a drink and her belief that walking across the
room is a way of getting one. On this desire-belief model (or wantbelief model)
the main elements of acting with an intention are (a) the action, (b)
appropriate desires (pro-attitudes) and beliefs, and (c) an appropriate
explanatory relation between (a) and (b). (See Davidson, “Actions, Reasons, and
Causes” in Essays on Actions and Events, 1980.) In explaining (a) in terms of
(b) we give an explanation of the action in terms of the agent’s purposes or
reasons for so acting. This raises the fundamental question of what kind of
explanation this is, and how it is related to explanation of Betty’s movements
by appeal to their physical causes. What about intentions to act in the future?
Consider Betty’s intention to leave the party later. Though the intended action
is later, this intention may nevertheless help explain some of Betty’s planning
and acting between now and then. Some philosophers try to fit such
futuredirected intentions directly into the desire-belief model. John Austin,
e.g., would identify Betty’s intention with her belief that she will leave
later because of her desire to leave (Lectures on Jurisprudence, vol. I, 1873).
Others see futuredirected intentions as distinctive attitudes, not to be
reduced to desires and/or beliefs. How is belief related to intention? One
question here is whether an intention to A requires a belief that one will A. A
second question is whether a belief that one will A in executing some intention
ensures that one intends to A. Suppose that Betty believes that by walking
across the room she will interrupt Bob’s conversation. Though she has no desire
to interrupt, she still proceeds across the room. Does she intend to interrupt
the conversation? Or is there a coherent distinction between what one intends
and what one merely expects to bring about as a result of doing what one
intends? One way of talking about such cases, due to Bentham (An Introduction
to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1789), is to say that Betty’s
walking across the room is “directly intentional,” whereas her interrupting the
conversation is only “obliquely intentional” (or indirectly intentional). --
intentional fallacy, the (purported) fallacy of holding that the meaning of a
work of art is fixed by the artist’s intentions. (Wimsatt and Beardsintensive
magnitude intentional fallacy 440 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 440 ley,
who introduced the term, also used it to name the [purported] fallacy that the
artist’s aims are relevant to determining the success of a work of art;
however, this distinct usage has not gained general currency.) Wimsatt and
Beardsley were formalists; they held that interpretation should focus purely on
the work of art itself and should exclude appeal to biographical information
about the artist, other than information concerning the private meanings the
artist attached to his words. Whether the intentional fallacy is in fact a
fallacy is a much discussed issue within aesthetics. Intentionalists deny that
it is: they hold that the meaning of a work of art is fixed by some set of the
artist’s intentions. For instance, Richard Wollheim (Painting as an Art) holds
that the meaning of a painting is fixed by the artist’s fulfilled intentions in
making it. Other intentionalists appeal not to the actual artist’s intentions,
but to the intentions of the implied or postulated artist, a construct of
criticism, rather than a real person. See also AESTHETIC FORMALISM, AESTHETICS,
INTENTION. B.Ga. intentionality, aboutness. Things that are about other things
exhibit intentionality. Beliefs and other mental states exhibit intentionality,
but so, in a derived way, do sentences and books, maps and pictures, and other
representations. The adjective ‘intentional’ in this philosophical sense is a
technical term not to be confused with the more familiar sense, characterizing
something done on purpose. Hopes and fears, for instance, are not things we do,
not intentional acts in the latter, familiar sense, but they are intentional
phenomena in the technical sense: hopes and fears are about various things. The
term was coined by the Scholastics in the Middle Ages, and derives from the
Latin verb intendo, ‘to point (at)’ or ‘aim (at)’ or ‘extend (toward)’.
Phenomena with intentionality thus point outside of themselves to something
else: whatever they are of or about. The term was revived by the
nineteenth-century philosopher and psychologist Franz Brentano, who claimed
that intentionality defines the distinction between the mental and the
physical; all and only mental phenomena exhibit intentionality. Since
intentionality is an irreducible feature of mental phenomena, and since no
physical phenomena could exhibit it, mental phenomena could not be a species of
physical phenomena. This claim, often called the Brentano thesis or Brentano’s
irreducibility thesis, has often been cited to support the view that the mind
cannot be the brain, but this is by no means generally accepted today. There
was a second revival of the term in the 1960s and 1970s by analytic
philosophers, in particular Chisholm, Sellars, and Quine. Chisholm attempted to
clarify the concept by shifting to a logical definition of intentional idioms,
the terms used to speak of mental states and events, rather than attempting to
define the intentionality of the states and events themselves. Intentional
idioms include the familiar “mentalistic” terms of folk psychology, but also
their technical counterparts in theories and discussions in cognitive science,
‘X believes that p,’ and ‘X desires that q’ are paradigmatic intentional
idioms, but according to Chisholm’s logical definition, in terms of referential
opacity (the failure of substitutivity of coextensive terms salva veritate), so
are such less familiar idioms as ‘X stores the information that p’ and ‘X gives
high priority to achieving the state of affairs that q’. Although there continue
to be deep divisions among philosophers about the proper definition or
treatment of the concept of intentionality, there is fairly widespread
agreement that it marks a feature – aboutness or content – that is central to
mental phenomena, and hence a central, and difficult, problem that any theory
of mind must solve.
intersubjective –
Grice: “Who was the first Grecian philosopher to philosophise on conversational
intersubjectivity? Surely Plato! Socrates is just his alter ego – and after
Aeschylus, there is always a ‘deuterogonist’”! conversational
intersubjectivity. Philosophical sociology – While Grice saw himself as a
philosophical psychologist, he would rather be seen dead than as a
philosophical sociologist – ‘intersubjective at most’! -- Comte: A. philosopher
and sociologist, the founder of positivism. He was educated in Paris at l’École
Polytechnique, where he briefly taught mathematics. He suffered from a mental
illness that occasionally interrupted his work. In conformity with empiricism,
Comte held that knowledge of the world arises from observation. He went beyond
many empiricists, however, in denying the possibility of knowledge of
unobservable physical objects. He conceived of positivism as a method of study
based on observation and restricted to the observable. He applied positivism
chiefly to science. He claimed that the goal of science is prediction, to be
accomplished using laws of succession. Explanation insofar as attainable has
the same structure as prediction. It subsumes events under laws of succession;
it is not causal. Influenced by Kant, he held that the causes of phenomena and
the nature of things-in-themselves are not knowable. He criticized metaphysics
for ungrounded speculation about such matters; he accused it of not keeping imagination
subordinate to observation. He advanced positivism for all the sciences but
held that each science has additional special methods, and has laws not
derivable by human intelligence from laws of other sciences. He corresponded
extensively with J. S. Mill, who Comte, Auguste Comte, Auguste 168 168 encouraged his work and discussed it in
Auguste Comte and Positivism 1865. Twentieth-century logical positivism was
inspired by Comte’s ideas. Comte was a founder of sociology, which he also
called social physics. He divided the science into two branches statics and dynamics dealing respectively
with social organization and social development. He advocated a historical
method of study for both branches. As a law of social development, he proposed
that all societies pass through three intellectual stages, first interpreting
phenomena theologically, then metaphysically, and finally positivistically. The
general idea that societies develop according to laws of nature was adopted by
Marx. Comte’s most important work is his six-volume Cours de philosophie
positive Course in Positive Philosophy, 183042. It is an encyclopedic treatment
of the sciences that expounds positivism and culminates in the introduction of
sociology.
intervention -- intervening
variable, in Grice’s philosophical psychology, a state of an organism, person or,
as Grice prefers, a ‘pirot,’ (vide his ‘pirotology’) or ‘creature,’ postulated
to explain the pirot’s behaviour and defined in ‘functioanlist,’ Aristotelian
terms of its cause (perceptual input) and effect (the behavioural output to be
explained by attribution of a state of the ‘soul’) rather than its intrinsic
properties. A food drive or need for nuts, in a squarrel (as Grice calls his
‘Toby’) conceived as an intervening variable, is defined in terms of the number
of hours without food (the cause) and the strength or robustness of efforts to
secure it (effect).. The squarrel’s feeling hungry (‘needing a nut), is no
longer an intrinsic property – the theoretical term ‘need’ is introduced in a
ramseyified sentence by describing – and it need not be co-related to a state
in the brain – since there is room for variable realisability. Grice sees at least
three reasons for postulating an intervening variable (like the hours without
nut-hobbling). First, time lapse between stimulus (perceptual input) and
behavioural output may be large, as when an animal – even a squirrel -- eats
food found hours earlier. Why did not the animal hobble the nut when it first
found it? Perhaps at the time of discovery, the squarrel had already eaten, so
food drive (the squarrel’s need) is reduced. Second, Toby may act differently
in the same sort of situation, as when Toby hobbles a nut at noon one day but
delay until sunset the next. Again, this may be because of variation in food
drive or the squarrel’s need. Third, behaviour may occur in the absence of
external stimulation or perceptual input, as when Toby forages for nut for the
winter. This, too, may be explained by the strength of the food drive or
squarrel’s need. An intervening variables has been viewed, as Grice notes
reviewing Oxonian philosophical psychology from Stout to Ryle via Prichard) depending
on the background theory, as a convenient ‘fiction’ (as Ramsey, qua theoretical
construct) or as a psychologically real state, or as a physically real state
with multiple realisability conditions. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Method in
philosophical psychology: from the banal to the bizarre,” in “The Conception of
value.”
intuitum: Grice: “At
Oxford, the tutor teaches to trust your ‘intuition’ – and will point to the
cognateness of ‘tutor’ and ‘in-tuition’!” – tŭĕor , tuĭtus, 2
( I.perf. only post-Aug., Quint. 5, 13, 35; Plin. Ep. 6, 29, 10; collat.
form tūtus, in the part., rare, Sall. J. 74, 3; Front. Strat. 2, 12, 13; but
constantly in the P. a.; inf. parag. tuerier, Plaut. Rud. 1, 4, 35; collat.
form acc. to the 3d conj. tŭor , Cat. 20, 5; Stat. Th. 3, 151: “tuĕris,” Plaut.
Trin. 3, 2, 82: “tuimur,” Lucr. 1, 300; 4, 224; 4, 449; “6, 934: tuamur,” id.
4, 361: “tuantur,” id. 4, 1004; imper. tuĕre, id. 5, 318), v. dep. a. [etym.
dub.], orig., to see, to look or gaze upon, to watch, view; hence, pregn., to
see or look to, to defend, protect, etc.: tueri duo significat; unum ab
aspectu, unde est Ennii illud: tueor te senex? pro Juppiter! (Trag. v. 225
Vahl.); “alterum a curando ac tutela, ut cum dicimus bellum tueor et tueri
villam,” Varr. L. L. 7, § 12 Müll. sq.—Accordingly, I. To look at, gaze at,
behold, watch, view, regard, consider, examine, etc. (only poet.; syn.: specto,
adspicio, intueor): quam te post multis tueor tempestatibus, Pac. ap. Non. 407,
32; 414, 3: “e tenebris, quae sunt in luce, tuemur,” Lucr. 4, 312: “ubi nil
aliud nisi aquam caelumque tuentur,” id. 4, 434: “caeli templa,” id. 6, 1228
al.: “tuendo Terribiles oculos, vultum, etc.,” Verg. A. 8, 265; cf. id. ib. 1,
713: “talia dicentem jam dudum aversa tuetur,” id. ib. 4, 362: “transversa
tuentibus hircis,” id. E. 3, 8: “acerba tuens,” looking fiercely, Lucr. 5, 33;
cf. Verg. A. 9, 794: “torva,” id. ib. 6, 467.— (β). With object-clause: “quod
multa in terris fieri caeloque tuentur (homines), etc.,” Lucr. 1, 152; 6, 50;
6, 1163.— II. Pregn., to look to, care for, keep up, uphold, maintain, support,
guard, preserve, defend, protect, etc. (the predom. class. signif. of the word;
cf.: “curo, conservo, tutor, protego, defendo): videte, ne ... vobis
turpissimum sit, id, quod accepistis, tueri et conservare non posse,” Cic. Imp.
Pomp. 5, 12: “ut quisque eis rebus tuendis conservandisque praefuerat,” Cic.
Verr. 2, 4, 63, 140: “omnia,” id. N. D. 2, 23, 60: “mores et instituta vitae
resque domesticas ac familiares,” id. Tusc. 1, 1, 2: “societatem conjunctionis
humanae munifice et aeque,” id. Fin. 5, 23, 65: “concordiam,” id. Att. 1, 17,
10: rem et gratiam et auctoritatem suam, id. Fam. 13, 49, 1: “dignitatem,” id.
Tusc. 2, 21, 48: “L. Paulus personam principis civis facile dicendo tuebatur,”
id. Brut. 20, 80: “personam in re publicā,” id. Phil. 8, 10, 29; cf.: tuum
munus, Planc. ap. Cic. Fam. 10, 11, 1: “tueri et sustinere simulacrum pristinae
dignitatis,” Cic. Rab. Post. 15, 41: “aedem Castoris P. Junius habuit tuendam,”
to keep in good order, Cic. Verr. 2, 1, 50, § 130; cf. Plin. Pan. 51, 1:
“Bassum ut incustoditum nimis et incautum,” id. Ep. 6, 29, 10: “libertatem,” Tac.
A. 3, 27; 14, 60: “se, vitam corpusque tueri,” to keep, preserve, Cic. Off. 1,
4, 11: “antea majores copias alere poterat, nunc exiguas vix tueri potest,” id.
Deiot. 8, 22: “se ac suos tueri,” Liv. 5, 4, 5: “sex legiones (re suā),” Cic.
Par. 6, 1, 45: “armentum paleis,” Col. 6, 3, 3: “se ceteris armis prudentiae
tueri atque defendere,” to guard, protect, Cic. de Or. 1, 38, 172; cf.:
“tuemini castra et defendite diligenter,” Caes. B. C. 3, 94: “suos fines,” id.
B. G. 4, 8: “portus,” id. ib. 5, 8: “oppidum unius legionis praesidio,” id. B.
C. 2, 23: “oram maritimam,” id. ib. 3, 34: “impedimenta,” to cover, protect,
Hirt. B. G. 8, 2.—With ab and abl.: “fines suos ab excursionibus et
latrociniis,” Cic. Deiot. 8, 22: “domum a furibus,” Phaedr. 3, 7, 10: mare ab
hostibus, Auct. B. Afr. 8, 2.—With contra: “quos non parsimoniā tueri potuit
contra illius audaciam,” Cic. Prov. Cons. 5, 11: “liberūm nostrorum pueritiam
contra inprobitatem magistratuum,” Cic. Verr. 2, 1, 58, § 153; Quint. 5, 13,
35; Plin. 20, 14, 54, § 152; Tac. A. 6, 47 (41).—With adversus: “tueri se
adversus Romanos,” Liv. 25, 11, 7: “nostra adversus vim atque injuriam,” id. 7,
31, 3: “adversus Philippum tueri Athenas,” id. 31, 9, 3; 42, 46, 9; 42, 23, 6:
“arcem adversus tres cohortes tueri,” Tac. H. 3, 78; Just. 17, 3, 22; 43, 3,
4.—In part. perf.: “Verres fortiter et industrie tuitus contra piratas Siciliam
dicitur,” Quint. 5, 13, 35 (al. tutatus): “Numidas in omnibus proeliis magis
pedes quam arma tuta sunt,” Sall. J. 74, 3.!*? 1. Act. form tŭĕo , ēre:
“censores vectigalia tuento,” Cic. Leg. 3, 3, 7: “ROGO PER SVPEROS, QVI ESTIS,
OSSA MEA TVEATIS,” Inscr. Orell. 4788.— 2. tŭĕor , ēri, in pass. signif.:
“majores nostri in pace a rusticis Romanis alebantur et in bello ab his
tuebantur,” Varr. R. R. 3, 1, 4; Lucr. 4, 361: “consilio et operā curatoris
tueri debet non solum patrimonium, sed et corpus et salus furiosi,” Dig. 27,
10, 7: “voluntas testatoris ex bono et aequo tuebitur,” ib. 28, 3, 17.—Hence,
tūtus , a, um, P. a. (prop. well seen to or guarded; hence), safe, secure, out
of danger (cf. securus, free from fear). A. Lit. (α). Absol.: “nullius res
tuta, nullius domus clausa, nullius vita saepta ... contra tuam cupiditatem,”
Cic. Verr. 2, 5, 15, § 39: “cum victis nihil tutum arbitrarentur,” Caes. B. G.
2, 28: “nec se satis tutum fore arbitratur,” Hirt. B. G. 8, 27; cf.: “me
biremis praesidio scaphae Tutum per Aegaeos tumultus Aura feret,” Hor. C. 3,
29, 63; Ov. M. 8, 368: “tutus bos rura perambulat,” Hor. C. 4, 5, 17: “quis
locus tam firmum habuit praesidium, ut tutus esset?” Cic. Imp. Pomp. 11, 31:
“mare tutum praestare,” id. Fl. 13, 31: “sic existimabat tutissimam fore
Galliam,” Hirt. B. G. 8, 54: “nemus,” Hor. C. 1, 17, 5: “via fugae,” Cic.
Caecin. 15, 44; cf.: “commodior ac tutior receptus,” Caes. B. C. 1, 46:
“perfugium,” Cic. Rep. 1, 4, 8: “tutum iter et patens,” Hor. C. 3, 16, 7:
“tutissima custodia,” Liv. 31, 23, 9: “praesidio nostro pasci genus esseque tutum,”
Lucr. 5, 874: “vitam consistere tutam,” id. 6, 11: “tutiorem et opulentiorem
vitam hominum reddere,” Cic. Rep. 1, 2, 3: est et fideli tuta silentio Merces,
secure, sure (diff. from certa, definite, certain), Hor. C. 3, 2, 25: “tutior
at quanto merx est in classe secundā!” id. S. 1, 2, 47: “non est tua tuta
voluntas,” not without danger, Ov. M. 2, 53: “in audaces non est audacia tuta,”
id. ib. 10, 544: “externā vi non tutus modo rex, sed invictus,” Curt. 6, 7, 1:
“vel tutioris audentiae est,” Quint. 12, prooem. § 4: “ cogitatio tutior,” id.
10, 7, 19: “fuit brevitas illa tutissima,” id. 10, 1, 39: “regnum et diadema
tutum Deferens uni,” i. e. that cannot be taken away, Hor. C. 2, 2, 21: male
tutae mentis Orestes, i. e. unsound, = male sanae, id. S. 2, 3, 137: quicquid
habes, age, Depone tutis auribus, qs. carefully guarded, i. e. safe, faithful,
id. C. 1, 27, 18 (cf. the opp.: auris rimosa, id. S. 2, 6, 46).—Poet., with
gen.: “(pars ratium) tuta fugae,” Luc. 9, 346.— (β). With ab and abl.: tutus ab
insidiis inimici, Asin. ap. Cic. Fam. 10, 31, 2: “ab insidiis,” Hor. S. 2, 6,
117: “a periculo,” Caes. B. G. 7, 14: “ab hoste,” Ov. H. 11, 44: “ab hospite,”
id. M. 1, 144: “a conjuge,” id. ib. 8, 316: “a ferro,” id. ib. 13, 498: “a
bello, id. H. (15) 16, 344: ab omni injuriā,” Phaedr. 1, 31, 9.— (γ). With ad
and acc.: “turrim tuendam ad omnis repentinos casus tradidit,” Caes. B. C. 3,
39: “ad id, quod ne timeatur fortuna facit, minime tuti sunt homines,” Liv. 25,
38, 14: “testudinem tutam ad omnes ictus video esse,” id. 36, 32, 6.— (δ). With
adversus: “adversus venenorum pericula tutum corpus suum reddere,” Cels. 5, 23,
3: “quo tutiores essent adversus ictus sagittarum,” Curt. 7, 9, 2: “loci
beneficio adversus intemperiem anni tutus est,” Sen. Ira, 2, 12, 1: “per quem
tutior adversus casus steti,” Val. Max. 4, 7, ext. 2: “quorum praesidio tutus
adversus hostes esse debuerat,” Just. 10, 1, 7.—(ε)
With abl.: incendio fere tuta est Alexandria, Auct. B. Alex. 1, 3.— b. Tutum
est, with a subj. -clause, it is prudent or safe, it is the part of a prudent
man: “si dicere palam parum tutum est,” Quint. 9, 2, 66; 8, 3, 47; 10, 3, 33:
“o nullis tutum credere blanditiis,” Prop. 1, 15, 42: “tutius esse
arbitrabantur, obsessis viis, commeatu intercluso sine ullo vulnere victoriā
potiri,” Caes. B. G. 3, 24; Quint. 7, 1, 36; 11, 2, 48: “nobis tutissimum est,
auctores plurimos sequi,” id. 3, 4, 11; 3, 6, 63.— 2. As subst.: tūtum , i, n.,
a place of safety, a shelter, safety, security: Tr. Circumspice dum, numquis
est, Sermonem nostrum qui aucupet. Th. Tutum probe est, Plaut. Most. 2, 2, 42:
“tuta et parvula laudo,” Hor. Ep. 1, 15, 42: “trepidum et tuta petentem Trux
aper insequitur,” Ov. M. 10, 714: “in tuto ut collocetur,” Ter. Heaut. 4, 3,
11: “esse in tuto,” id. ib. 4, 3, 30: “ut sitis in tuto,” Cic. Fam. 12, 2, 3:
“in tutum eduxi manipulares meos,” Plaut. Most. 5, 1, 7: “in tutum receptus
est,” Liv. 2, 19, 6.— B. Transf., watchful, careful, cautious, prudent (rare
and not ante-Aug.; “syn.: cautus, prudens): serpit humi tutus nimium timidusque
procellae,” Hor. A. P. 28: “tutus et intra Spem veniae cautus,” id. ib. 266:
“non nisi vicinas tutus ararit aquas,” Ov. Tr. 3, 12, 36: “id suā sponte,
apparebat, tuta celeribus consiliis praepositurum,” Liv. 22, 38, 13: “celeriora
quam tutiora consilia magis placuere ducibus,” id. 9, 32, 3.—Hence, adv. in two
forms, tūtē and tūtō , safely, securely, in safety, without danger. a. Posit.
(α). Form tute (very rare): “crede huic tute,” Plaut. Trin. 1, 2, 102: “eum
tute vivere, qui honeste vivat,” Auct. Her. 3, 5, 9: “tute cauteque agere,” id.
ib. 3, 7, 13.— (β). Form tuto (class. in prose and poetry): “pervenire,” Plaut.
Mil. 2, 2, 70; Lucr. 1, 179: “dimicare,” Caes. B. G. 3, 24: “tuto et libere
decernere,” id. B. C. 1, 2: “ut tuto sim,” in security, Cic. Fam. 14, 3, 3: “ut
tuto ab repentino hostium incursu etiam singuli commeare possent,” Caes. B. G.
7, 36. — b. Comp.: “ut in vadis consisterent tutius,” Caes. B. G. 3, 13:
“tutius et facilius receptus daretur,” id. B. C. 2, 30: “tutius ac facilius id
tractatur,” Quint. 5, 5, 1: “usitatis tutius utimur,” id. 1, 5, 71: “ut ubivis
tutius quam in meo regno essem,” Sall. J. 14, 11.— c. Sup. (α). Form tutissime:
nam te hic tutissime puto fore, Pomp. ap. Cic. Att. 8, 11, A.— (β). Form
tutissimo: “quaerere, ubi tutissimo essem,” Cic. Att. 8, 1, 2; cf. Charis. p.
173 P.: “tutissimo infunduntur oboli quattuor,” Plin. 20, 3, 8, § 14. Grice was
especially interested in the misuses of intuition. He found that J. L. Austin
(born in Lancaster) had “Northern intuitions.” “I myself have proper
heart-of-England intuitions.” “Strawson has Cockney intuitions.” “I wonder how
we conducted those conversations on Saturday mornings!” “Strictly,
an intuition is a non-inferential knowledge or grasp, as of a proposition,
concept, or entity, that is not based on perception, memory, or introspection;
also, the capacity in virtue of which such cognition is possible. A person
might know that 1 ! 1 % 2 intuitively, i.e., not on the basis of inferring it
from other propositions. And one might know intuitively what yellow is, i.e.,
might understand the concept, even though ‘yellow’ is not definable. Or one
might have intuitive awareness of God or some other entity. Certain mystics
hold that there can be intuitive, or immediate, apprehension of God. Ethical
intuitionists hold both that we can have intuitive knowledge of certain moral
concepts that are indefinable, and that certain propositions, such as that
pleasure is intrinsically good, are knowable through intuition. Self-evident
propositions are those that can be seen (non-inferentially) to be true once one
fully understands them. It is often held that all and only self-evident
propositions are knowable through intuition, which is here identified with a
certain kind of intellectual or rational insight. Intuitive knowledge of moral
or other philosophical propositions or concepts has been compared to the
intuitive knowledge of grammaticality possessed by competent users of a
language. Such language users can know immediately whether certain sentences
are grammatical or not without recourse to any conscious reasoning. Refs.: H.
P. Grice, “My intutions.” BANC.
Ionian-sea-coast philosophy:
Grice, “Or mar ionio, as the Italians have it!” -- the characteristically
naturalist and rationalist thought of Grecian philosophers of the sixth and
fifth centuries B.C. who were active in Ionia, the region of ancient Greek
colonies on the coast of Asia Minor and adjacent islands. First of the Ionian
philosophers were the three Milesians. Grice: “It always amused me that they
called themselves Ionians, but then Williams, who founded Providence in the New
World, called himself an Englishman!”. Refs.: H. P. Grice: “The relevance of
Ionian philosophy today.”
Irigaray: philosopher and
psychoanalyst. Her earliest work was in psychoanalysis and linguistics,
focusing on the role of negation in the language of schizophrenics (Languages,
1966). A trained analyst with a private practice, she attended Lacan’s seminars
at the École Normale Supérieure and for several years taught a course in the
psychoanalysis department at Vincennes. With the publication of Speculum, De
l’autre femme(Speculum of the Other Woman) in 1974 she was dismissed from
Vincennes. She argues that psychoanalysis, specifically its attitude toward women,
is historically and culturally determined and that its phallocentric bias is
treated as universal truth. With the publication of Speculum and Ce Sexe qui
n’en est pas un (This Sex Which Is Not One) in 1977, her work extends beyond
psychoanalysis and begins a critical examination of philosophy. Influenced
primarily by Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, her work is a critique of the
fundamental categories of philosophical thought: one/many, identity/difference,
being/non-being, rational/irrational, mind/body, form/matter,
transcendental/sensible. She sets out to show the concealed aspect of
metaphysical constructions and what they depend on, namely, the unacknowledged
mother. In Speculum, the mirror figures as interpretation and criticism of the
enclosure of the Western subject within the mirror’s frame, constituted solely
through the masculine imaginary. Her project is one of constituting the world –
and not only the specular world – of the other as woman. This engagement with
the history of philosophy emphasizes the historical and sexual determinants of
philosophical discourse, and insists on bringing the transcendental back to the
elements of the earth and embodiment. Her major contribution to philosophy is
the notion of sexual difference. An Ethics of Sexual Difference (1984) claims
that the central contemporary philosophical task is to think through sexual
difference. Although her notion of sexual difference is sometimes taken to be
an essentialist view of the feminine, in fact it is an articulation of the difference
between the sexes that calls into question an understanding of either the
feminine or masculine as possessing a rigid gender identity. Instead, sexual
difference is the erotic desire for otherness. Insofar as it is an origin that
is continuously differentiating itself from itself, it challenges Aristotle’s
understanding of the arche as solid ground or hypokeimenon. As aition or first
cause, sexual difference is responsible for something coming into being and is
that to which things are indebted for their being. This indebtedness allows
Irigaray to formulate an ethics of sexual difference. Her latest work continues
to rethink the foundations of ethics. Both Towards a Culture of Difference
(1990) and I Love To You (1995) claim that there is no civil identity proper to
women and therefore no possibility of equivalent social and political status
for men and women. She argues for a legal basis to ground the reciprocity
between the sexes; that there is no living universal, that is, a universal that
reflects sexual difference; and that this lack of a living universal leads to
an absence of rights and responsibilities which reflects both men and women.
She claims, therefore, that it is necessary to “sexuate” rights. These latest
works continue to make explicit the erotic and ethical project that informs all
her work: to think through the dimension of sexual difference that opens up
access to the alliances between living beings who are engendered and not
fabricated, and who refuse to sacrifice desire for death, power, or money.
iron-age
metaphysics: Euclidean geometry, the version of geometry that
includes among its axioms the parallel axiom, which asserts that, given a line
L in a plane, there exists just one line in the plane that passes through a
point not on L but never meets L. The phrase ‘Euclidean geometry’ refers both
to the doctrine of geometry to be found in Euclid’s Elements fourth century
B.C. and to the mathematical discipline that was built on this basis afterward.
In order to present properties of rectilinear and curvilinear curves in the
plane and solids in space, Euclid sought definitions, axioms, ethics, divine
command Euclidean geometry 290 290 and
postulates to ground the reasoning. Some of his assumptions belonged more to
the underlying logic than to the geometry itself. Of the specifically
geometrical axioms, the least self-evident stated that only one line passes
through a point in a plane parallel to a non-coincident line within it, and
many efforts were made to prove it from the other axioms. Notable forays were
made by G. Saccheri, J. Playfair, and A. M. Legendre, among others, to put
forward results logically contradictory to the parallel axiom e.g., that the
sum of the angles between the sides of a triangle is greater than 180° and thus
standing as candidates for falsehood; however, none of them led to paradox. Nor
did logically equivalent axioms such as that the angle sum equals 180° seem to
be more or less evident than the axiom itself. The next stages of this line of
reasoning led to non-Euclidean geometry. From the point of view of logic and
rigor, Euclid was thought to be an apotheosis of certainty in human knowledge;
indeed, ‘Euclidean’ was also used to suggest certainty, without any particular
concern with geometry. Ironically, investigations undertaken in the late
nineteenth century showed that, quite apart from the question of the parallel
axiom, Euclid’s system actually depended on more axioms than he had realized,
and that filling all the gaps would be a formidable task. Pioneering work done
especially by M. Pasch and G. Peano was brought to a climax in 9 by Hilbert,
who produced what was hoped to be a complete axiom system. Even then the axiom
of continuity had to wait for the second edition! The endeavor had consequences
beyond the Euclidean remit; it was an important example of the growth of
axiomatization in mathematics as a whole, and it led Hilbert himself to see
that questions like the consistency and completeness of a mathematical theory
must be asked at another level, which he called metamathematics. It also gave
his work a formalist character; he said that his axiomatic talk of points,
lines, and planes could be of other objects. Within the Euclidean realm,
attention has fallen in recent decades upon “neo-Euclidean” geometries, in
which the parallel axiom is upheld but a different metric is proposed. For
example, given a planar triangle ABC, the Euclidean distance between A and B is
the hypotenuse AB; but the “rectangular distance” AC ! CB also satisfies the
properties of a metric, and a geometry working with it is very useful in, e.g.,
economic geography, as anyone who drives around a city will readily
understand. Grice:
"Much the most significant opposition to my type of philosophising comes
from those like Baron Russell who feel that ‘ “ordinary-language” philosophy’
is an affront to science and to intellectual progress, and who regard exponents
like me as wantonly dedicating themselves to what the Baron calls 'stone-age
metaphysics', "The Baron claims that 'stone-age metaphysics' is the best
that can be dredged up from a ‘philosophical’ study of an ‘ordinary’ language,
such as Oxonian, as it ain't. "The use made of Russell’s phrase
‘stone-age metaphysics’ has more rhetorical appeal than argumentative force."“Certainly
‘stone-age’ *physics*, if by that we mean a 'primitive' (as the Baron
puts it -- in contrast to 'iron-age physics') set of hypotheses about how the
world goes which might conceivably be embedded somehow or other in an
‘ordinary’ language such as Oxonian, does not seem to be a proper object for
first-order devotion -- I'll grant the Baron that!"“But this fact should *not* prevent
something derivable or extractable from ‘stone-age’ (if not 'iron-age') *physics*,
perhaps some very general characterization of the nature of reality, from being
a proper target for serious research.”"I would not be surprised if an
extractable characterization of this may not be the same as that which is
extractable from, or that which underlies, the Baron's favoured iron-age physics!"
non
sequitur --: irrationality, unreasonableness. Whatever it
entails, irrationality can characterize belief, desire, intention, and action.
intuitions irrationality 443 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 443
Irrationality is often explained in instrumental, or goal-oriented, terms. You
are irrational if you (knowingly) fail to do your best, or at least to do what
you appropriately think adequate, to achieve your goals. If ultimate goals are
rationally assessable, as Aristotelian and Kantian traditions hold, then
rationality and irrationality are not purely instrumental. The latter
traditions regard certain specific (kinds of) goals, such as human well-being,
as essential to rationality. This substantialist approach lost popularity with
the rise of modern decision theory, which implies that, in satisfying certain
consistency and completeness requirements, one’s preferences toward the
possible outcomes of available actions determine what actions are rational and
irrational for one by determining the personal utility of their outcomes.
Various theorists have faulted modern decision theory on two grounds: human
beings typically lack the consistent preferences and reasoning power required
by standard decision theory but are not thereby irrational, and rationality
requires goods exceeding maximally efficient goal satisfaction. When relevant
goals concern the acquisition of truth and the avoidance of falsehood,
epistemic rationality and irrationality are at issue. Otherwise, some species
of non-epistemic rationality or irrationality is under consideration. Species
of non-epistemic rationality and irrationality correspond to the kind of
relevant goal: moral, prudential, political, economic, aesthetic, or some
other. A comprehensive account of irrationality will elucidate epistemic and
non-epistemic irrationality as well as such sources of irrationality as
weakness of will and ungrounded belief.
esse:“est”
(“Homo animale rationalis est” – Aristotle, cited by Grice in “Aristotle on the
multiplicity of being”) – “is” is the third person singular form of the verb
‘be’, with at least three fundamental usages that philosophers distinguish
according to the resources required for a proper semantic representation. First,
there is the ‘is’ of existence, which Grice finds otiose – “Marmaduke Bloggs is
a journalist who climbed Mt Everest on hands and knees – a typical invention by
journalists”. (There is a unicorn in the garden: Dx (Ux8Gx)) uses the
existential quantifier. Bellerophon’s dad: “There is a flying horse in the stable.”
“That’s mine, dad.” – Then, second, there is the ‘is’ of identity (Hesperus is
Phosphorus: j % k) employs the predicate of identity, or dyadic relation of
“=,” as per Leibniz’s problem – “The king of France” – Kx = Ky. Then third
there is the ‘is’ of predication, which can be essential (izzing) or
accidentail (hazzing). (Samson is strong: Sj) merely juxtaposes predicate
symbol and proper name. Some controversy attends the first usage. Some (notably
that eccentric philosopher that went by the name of Meinong) maintain that ‘is’
applies more broadly than ‘exists.’ “Is” produces truths when combined with
‘deer’ and ‘unicorn.’ ‘Exists,’ rather than ‘is’, produces a truth when
combined with ‘deer’ -- but not ‘unicorn’. Aquinas takes “esse” to denote some
special activity that every existing thing necessarily performs, which would seem
to imply that with ‘est’ they attribute more to an object than we do with
‘exists’. Other issues arise in connection with the second usage. Does, e.g. “Hesperus
is Phosphorus,” attribute anything more to the heavenly body than its identity
with itself? Consideration of such a question leads Frege, wrongly to conclude,
in what Ryle calls the “Fido”-Fido theory of meaning that names (and other
meaningful expressions) of ordinary language have a “sense” or “mode of
presenting” the thing to which they refer that representations within our
standard, extensional logical systems fail to expose. The distinction between
the ‘is’ of identity and the ‘is’ of predication parallels Frege’s distinction
between ‘objekt” and concept: words signifying objects stand to the right of
the ‘is’ of identity and those signifying concepts stand to the right of the
‘is’ of predication. Although it seems remarkable that so many deep and
difficult philosophical concepts should link to a single short and commonplace
word, we should perhaps not read too much into that observation. Grecian and
Roman indeed divide the various roles played by English’s compact copula among
several constructions, but there are dialects, even within Oxford, that use the
expression “is” for other purposes. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Aristotle on the
multiplicity of being.”
-ism: used by Grice
derogatorily. In his ascent to the City of the Eternal Truth, he meets twelve
–isms, which he orders alphabetically. These are: Empiricism. Extensionalism.
Functionalism. MaterialismMechanism. Naturalism. Nominalism. Phenomenalism.
Positivism. Physicalism. Reductionism. Scepticism. Grice’s implicaturum is that
each is a form of, er, minimalism, as opposed to maximalism. He also seems to
implicate that, while embracing one of those –isms is a reductionist vice,
embracing their opposites is a Christian virtue – He explicitly refers to the
name of Bunyan’s protagonist, “Christian” – “in a much more publicized journey,
I grant.” So let’s see how we can correlate each vicious heathen ism with the
Griceian Christian virtuous ism. Empiricism. “Surely not all is experience. My
bones are not.” Opposite: Rationalism. Extensionalism. Surely the empty set
cannot end up being the fullest! Opposite Intensionalism. Functionalism. What
is the function of love? We have to extend functionalism to cover one’s concern
for the other – And also there’s otiosity. Opposite: Mentalism. Materialism –
My bones are ‘hyle,’ but my eternal soul isn’t. Opposite Spiritualism. Mechanism – Surely there is finality in
nature, and God designed it. Opposite Vitalism. Naturalism – Surely Aristotle
meant something by ‘ta meta ta physica,’ There is a transnatural realm.
Opposite: Transnaturalism. Nominalism.
Occam was good, except with his ‘sermo mentalis.’ Opposite: Realism.
Phenomenalism – Austin and Grice soon realised that Berlin was wrong. Opposite
‘thing’-language-ism. Positivism – And then there’s not. Opposite: Negativism. Physicalism – Surely my soul is not a brain
state. Opposite: Transnaturalism, since Physicalismm and Naturalism mean the
same thing, ony in Greek, the other in Latin. Reductionism – Julie is wrong when she thinks
I’m a reductionist. Opposite: Reductivism. Scepticism: Surely there’s common sense.
Opposite: Common-Sensism. Refs: H. P. Grice, “Prejudices and predilections;
which become, the life and opinions of H. P. Grice,” The Grice Papers, BANC.
isocrates –
Grice: “the chief rival of Plato.” A pupil of Socrates and also of Gorgias,
Isocrates founds a play group or club in Athens – vide H. P. Grice, “Athenian
dialectic” -- that attracts many aristocrats. Many of Isocrates’s philosophy
touches on ‘dialectic.’ “Against the Sophists and On the Antidosis are most
important in this respect. “On the antidosis” stands to Isocrates as the “Apology”
of Plato stands to Socrates, a defense of Socrates against an attack not on his
life, but on his property. The aim of Isocrates’s philosophy is good judgment
in practical affairs, and he believes his contribution to Greece through
education more valuable than legislation could possibly be. Isocrates
repudiates instruction in theoretical (what he called ‘otiose’) philosophy, and
insisted on distinguishing his teaching of rhetoric from the sophistry that
gives clever speakers an unfair advantage. In politics Isocrates is a
Panhellenic patriot, and urges the warring Greek city-states to unite under
strong leadership and take arms against the Persian Empire. His most famous
work, and the one in which he took the greatest pride, is the “Panegyricus,” a
speech in praise of Athens. In general, Isocrates supports democracy in Athens,
but toward the end of his life complained bitterly of abuses of the system.
descriptum
– definite
(“the”) and “indefinite” (“some at least one”). Analysed by Grice in terms of
/\x. “The king of France is bald” There is at least a king of France, there is
at most a king of France, and anything that is a king of France is bald. For
indefinite descriptum he holds the equivalence with \/x, “some (at least one).
– Grice follows Peano in finding the ‘iota’ operator a good abbreviatory device
to avoid the boring ‘Russellian expansion.” “We should forgive Russell – his
background was mathematics not the belles letters as with Bradley and me, and
anyone at Oxford, really.” – Grice. iota
– iota operator used by Grice. Peano uses iota as short for “isos,” Grecian for
‘Same”. Peano defines “ix” as “the class of whatever is the same as x”. Peano
then looked for a symbol for the inverse for this. He first uses a negated
iota, and then an inverted iota, so that inverted iota x reads “the sole
[unique] member of x” “ι” read as “the” -- s the inverted iota or description
operator and is used in expressions for definite descriptions, such as “(ιx)ϕx(ιx)ϕx,”
which is read: the x such that ϕxϕx). [(ιx)ϕx(ιx)ϕx] -- a definite description
in brackets. This is a scope indicator for definite descriptions. The topic of
‘description’ is crucial for Grice, and he regrets Russell focused on the
definite rather than the indefinite descriptor. As a matter of fact, while
Grice follows the custom of referring to the “Russellian expansion” of iota, he
knows it’s ultimately the “Peanoian” expansion. Indeed, Peano uses the
non-inverted iota “i” for the unit class. For the ONLY or UNIQUE member of this
class, i. e. the definite article “the,” Peano uses the inverted iota (cf.
*THE* Twelve Apostles). (On occasion Peano uses the denied iota for that). Peano’s approach to ‘the’ evolve in at least
three stages towards a greater precision in the treatment of the description,
both definite and indefinite. Peano introducesin 1897 the fundamental definition of the unit class
as the class such that ALL of its members are IDENTICAL. In Peanoian symbols, ix
= ye (y = x). Peano approaches the UNIQUE OR ONLY member of such a class, by
way of an indirect definition: “x = ia • = • a = ix.” Regarding the analysis of
the definite article “the,” Peano makes the crucial point that every ‘proposition’
or ‘sentence’ containing “the” (“The apostles were twelve”) can be offered a
reductive AND REDUCTIONIST analysis, first, to. the for,? ia E b, and, second, to
the inclusion of the class in the class (a b), which already supposes the
elimination of “i.” Peano notes he can avoid an identity whose first member
contains “I” (1897:215). One difference between Peano’s and Russell's treatment
of classes in the context of the theory of description is that, while, for
Peano, a description combines a class abstract with the inverse of the unit
class operator, Russell restricts the free use of a class abstract due the risk
of paradox generation. For Peano, it is necessary that there EXIST the class
(‘apostle’), and he uses for this the symbol ‘I,’ which indicates that the
class is not vacuous, void, or empty, and that it have a unique member, the set
of twelve apostles. If either of these two conditions – existence and uniqueness
-- are not met, the symbol is meaningless, or pointless. Peano offers various
instances for handling the symbol of the inverted iota, and the way in which --
starting from that ‘indirect’ or implicit definition, it can be eliminated
altogether. One example is of particular interest, as it states a link between
the reductionist analysis of the inverted iota and the problem of what Peano
calls ‘doubtful’ existence (rather than vacuous, void, or empty). Peano starts
by defining the superlative ‘THE greatEST number of a class of real numbers’ as
‘THE number n such that there is no number of this class being greater than n.’
Peano warns that one should not infer from this definition the ‘existence’ of the
aforementioned greatEST number. Grice does not quite consider this in the
‘definite description’ section of “Vacuous name” but gives a similar example:
“The climber on hands and knees of Mt. Everest does not exist. He was invented
by the journalists.” And in other cases where there is a NON-IDENTIFICATORY use
of ‘the’, which Grice symbolises as ‘the,’ rather than ‘THE’: “The butler
certainly made a mess with our hats and coats – whoever he is --.” As it
happens Strawson mistook the haberdasher to be the butler. So that Strawson is
MIS-IDENTIFYING the denotatum as being ‘the butler’ when it is ‘the
haberdasher.’ The butler doesn’t really exist. Smith dressed the haberdasher as
a butler and made him act as one just to impress. Similarly, as per Russell’s
‘Prince George soon found out that ‘the author of Waverley’ did not exist,”
(variant of his example). Similarly, Peano proves that we can speak
legitimately of “THE GREATEST real number” even if we have doubts it ‘exists.
He just tweaks the original definition to obtain a different expression where
“I” is dropped out. For Peano, then, the reductionist analysis of the definite
article “the” is feasible and indeed advisable for a case of ‘doubtful’ existence.
Grice does not consider ‘doubtful’ but he may. “The climber on hands and knees
of Mt Everest may, but then again may not, attend the party the Merseyside
Geographical Society is giving in his honour. He will attend if he exists; he
will not attend if he doesn’t.” Initially, Peano thinks “I” need not be
equivalent to, in the sense of systematically replaced by, the two clauses
(indeed three) in the expansion which are supposed to give the import of ‘the,’
viz. existence and uniqueness (subdivided in ‘at least’ and ‘at most’). His
reductionism proves later to be absolute. He starts from the definition in terms
of the unit class. He goes on to add a series of "possible"
definitions -- allowing for alternative logical orders. One of this alternative
definitions is stipulated to be a strict equivalence, about which he had
previously been sceptical. Peano asserts that the only unque individual belongs
to a unit. Peano does not put it in so
many words that this expression is meaningless. In the French translation, what
he said is Gallic: “Nous ne donnons pas de signification a ce symbole si la
classe a est nulle, ou si elle contient plusieurs individus.” “We don’t give
signification to this symbol IF the class is void, or if the class contains
more than one individual.” – where we can see that he used ‘iota’ to represent
‘individus,’ from Latin ‘individuum,’ translating Greek ‘a-tomos.’ So it is not
meant to stand for Greek ‘idion,’ as in ‘idiosyncratic.’ But why did he choose
the iota, which is a Grecian letter. Idion is in the air (if not ‘idiot.’).
Thus, one may take the equivalence in practice, given that if the three conditions
in the expansion are met, the symbol cannot be used at all. There are other ways
of providing a reductionist analysis of the same symbols according to Peano, e.
g., laE b. = : a = tx. :Jx • Xc b class (a) such that it belongs to another class
(b) is equal to the EXISTENCE of exactly one (at least one and at most one)
idiosyncratic individual or element such that this idiosyncratic individual is
a member of that class (b), i. e. "the only or unique (the one member)
member of a belongs to b" is to be held equivalent to ‘There is at least
one x such that, first, the unit class a is equal to the class constituted by
x, and, second, x belongs to b.’ Or, ‘The class of x such that a is the class
constituted by x, and that x belongs to b, is not an empty class, and that it
have a unique member.” This is exactly Russell's tri-partite expansion referred
to Russell (‘on whom Grice heaped all the praise,’ to echo Quine). Grice was
not interested in history, only in rebutting Strawson. Of course, Peano
provides his conceptualisations in terms of ‘class’ rather than, as Russell,
Sluga [or ‘Shuga,’ as Cole reprints him] and Grice do, in terms of the ‘propositional
function,’ i. e. Peano reduces ‘the’ in
terms of a property or a predicate, which defins a class. Peano reads the
membership symbol as "is,” which opens a new can of worms for Grice:
“izzing” – and flies out of the fly bottle. Peano is well aware of the
importance of his device to eliminate the definite article “the” to more
‘primitive’ terms. That is why Peano qualifies his definition as an "expriment
la P[proposition] 1 a E b sous une autre forme, OU ne figure plus le signe i;
puisque toute P contenant le signe i a est REDUCTIBLE ala forme ia E b, OU best
une CIs, on pourra ELIMINER le signe i dans toute P.” The once received view that
the symbol "i" is for Peano undefinable and primitive has now been
corrected. Before making more explicit
the parallelism with Whitehead’s and Russell's and Grice’s theory of
description (vide Quine, “Reply to H. P. Grice”) we may consider a few
potential problems. First, while it is true that the symbol ‘i’ has been given
a ‘reductionist analysis’, in the definiens we still see the symbol of the unit
class, which would refer somehow to the idea that is symbolized by ''ix’. Is
this a sign of circularity, and evidence that the descriptor has not been
eliminated? For Peano, there are at least two ways of defining a symbol of the
unit class without using ‘iota’ – straight, inverted, or negated. One way is
directly replacing ix by its value: y 3(y = x). We have: la E b • =: 3x 3{a =y
3(y =x) • X E b}, which expresses the
same idea in a way where a reference to iota has disappeared. We can read now
"the only member of a belongs to b" as "there is at least one x
such that (i) the unit class a is equal to all the y such that y =x, and (ii) x
belongs to b" (or "the class of x such that they constitute the class
of y, and that they constitute the class a, and that in addition they belong to
the class b, is not an empty class"). The complete elimination underlies
the mentioned definition. Peano is just not interested in making the point
explicit. A second way is subtler. By pointing out that, in the
"hypothesis" preceding the quoted definition, it is clearly stated
that the class "a" is defined as the unit class in terms of the
existence and identity of all of their members (i.e. uniqueness): a E Cis. 3a:
x, yEa. X = y: bE CIs • : This is why "a" is equal to the expression
''tx'' (in the second member). One may still object that since "a"
can be read as "the unit class", Peano does not quite provide a
‘reductionist’ analysis as it is shown through the occurrence of these words in
some of the readings proposed above. However, the hypothesis preceding the
definition only states that the meaning of the symbols which are used in the
second member is to be. Thus, "a" is stated as "an existing unit
class", which has to be understood in the following way: 'a' stands for a
non-empty class that all of its members are identical. We can thus can "a",
wherever it occurs, by its meaning, given that this interpretation works as
only a purely ‘nominal’ definition, i.e. a convenient abbreviation. However,
the actual substitution would lead us to rather complicated prolixic expressions
that would infringe Grice’s desideratum of conversational clarity. Peano's
usual way of working can be odd. Starting from this idea, we can interpret the
definition as stating that "ia Eb" is an abbreviation of the
definiens and dispensing with the conditions stating existence and uniqueness
in the hypothesis, which have been incorporated to their new place. The
hypothesis contains only the statement
of "a" and" b" as being classes, and the definition amounts
to: a, bECls.::J :. ME b. =:3XE([{3aE[w, zEa. ::Jw•z' w= z]} ={ye (y= x)}] • XE
b). Peano’s way is characterized as the constant search for SHORTER, briefer,
and more conveniente expressions – which is Grice’s solution to Strawson’s
misconception – there is a principle of conversational tailoring. It is quite
understandable that Peano prefers to avoid long expansions. The important thing
is not the intuitive and superficial similarity between the symbols
"ia" and ''ix'', caused simply by the appearance of the Greek letter iota
in both cases, or the intuitive meaning of
"the unit class.” What is key are the conditions under which these
expressions have been introduced in Peano’s system, which are completely clear
and quite explicit in the first definition. It may still be objected that
Peano’s elimination of ‘the’ is a failure in that it derives from Peano's confusion
between class membership and class inclusion -- a singleton class would be its
sole member – but these are not clearly distinct notions. It follows that (iii)
"a" is both a class and, according to the interpretation of the
definition, an individual (iv), as is shown by joining the hypothesis preceding
the definition and the definition itself. The objection derives from the received
view on Peano, according to which his logic is, compared to Whitehead’s and
Russell’s, not strict or formal enough, but also contains some important confusions
here and there. And certainly Russell
would be more than happy to correct a minor point. Russell always thinks of
Peano and his school as being strangely free of confusions or mistakes. It may
be said that Peano indeed ‘confuses’ membership with inclusion (cf. Grice ‘not
confused, but mistaken’) given that it was he himself who, predating Frege, introduces
the distinction with the symbol "e.” If the objection amounts to Peano admitting
that the symbol for membership holds between class A and class B, it is true
that this is the case when Peano uses it to indicate the meaning of some
symbols, but only through the reading of "is,” which could be" 'a and
b being classes, "the only member of a belongs to b,” to be the same as
"there is at least one x such that (i) 'there is at least one a such that
for ,': and z belonging to a,. w = z' is equal to y such that y =. x' , and
(ii) x belongs to b ,where both the iota and the unit class are eliminated in
the definiens. There is a similar apparent vicious circularity in Frege's definition
of number. "k e K" as "k is a class"; see also the
hypothesis from above for another example). This by no means involves confusion, and is shown
by the fact that Peano soon adds four definite properties distinguishing precisely
both class inclusion and class membership,, which has Russell himself
preserving the useful and convenient reading. "ia" does not stand for the
singleton class. Peano states pretty clearly that" 1" (T) makes sense only when applied to this or that
individual, and ''t'' as applied to this or that class, no matter what symbols
is used for these notions. Thus, ''ta'', like "tx" have to be read as
"the class constituted by ...", and" la" as "the only
member of a". Thus, although Peano never uses "ix" (because he
is thinking in terms of this or that class), had he done so its meaning, of
course, would have been exactly the same as "la", with no confusion
at all. "a" stands for a class because it is so stated in the
hypothesis, although it can represent an individual when preceded by the
descriptor, and together with it, i.e. when both constitute a new symbol as a. Peano's
habit is better understood by interpreting what he is saying it in terms of a
propositional function, and then by seeing" la" as being somewhat
similar to x, no matter what reasons of convenience led him to prefer symbols
generally used for classes ("a" instead of"x"). There is
little doubt that this makes the world of a difference for Russell and Sluga (or
Shuga) but not Strawson or Grice, or Quine (“I’m sad all the praise was heaped
by Grice on Russell, not Peano”). For Peano the inverted iota is the symbol for
an operator on a class, it leads us to a different ‘concept’ when it flanks a
term, and this is precisely the point Shuga (or Sluga) makes to Grice –
‘Presupposition and conversational implicaturum” – the reference to Shuga was
omitted in the reprint in Way of Words). In contrast, for Russell, the iota
operator is only a part of what Whitehead and Russell call an ‘incomplete’
symbol. In fact, Grice borrows the complete-incomplete distinction from
Whitehead and Russell. For Peano, the descriptor can obviously be given a
reductionist eliminationist analysis only in conjunction with the rest of the
‘complete’ symbol, "ia e b.’ Whitehead’s and Russell’s point, again, seems
drawn from Peano. And there is no problem when we join the original hypothesis
with the definition, “a eCis. 3a: x, yea. -::Jx,y. x =y: be CIs • :. . la e b.
=: 3x 3(a =tx. x e b). If it falls within the scope of the quantifier in the
hypothesis, “a” is a variable which occurs both free and bound in the formula –
And it has to be a variable, since qua constant, no quantifier is needed. It is
not clear what Peano’s position would have been. Admittedly, Peano – living
always in a rush in Paris -- does not always display the highest standards of Oxonian
clarity between the several uses of, say, "existence" involved in his
various uses of this or that quantifier. In principle, there would be no problem
when a variable appears both bound and free in the same expression. And this is
so because the variable appears bound in one occurrence and free in another.
And one cannot see how this could affect the main claim. The point Grice is
making here (which he owes to ‘Shuga’) is to recognise the fundamental
similarities in the reductionist analysis of “the” in Peano and Russell. It is
true that Russell objects to an ‘implicit’ or indirect definition under a
hypothesis. He would thus have rejected the Peanoian reductionist analysis of
“the.” However, Whitehead and Russell rejects an ‘implicit’ definition under a
hypothesis in the specific context of the “unrestricted’ variable of “Principia.”
Indeed, Russell had been using, before Whitehead’s warning, this type of
‘implicit’ definition under a hypothesis for a long period the minute he
mastered Peano's system. It is because Russell interprets a definition under a
hypothesis as Peano does, i.e. merely as a device for fixing the denotatum of
this or that symbol in an interpreted formula. When one reads after some symbolic
definition, things like "'x' being ... " or" 'y' being ...
", this counts as a definition under a hypothesis, if only because the
denotatum of the symbol has to be determined. Even if Peano's reductionist
analysis of “the” fails because it within the framework of a merely conditional
definition, the implicaturum of his original insight (“the” is not primitive)
surely influences Whitehead and Russell. Peano is the first who introduces the
the distinction between a free (or ‘real’) and a bound (or ‘apparent’)
variable, and, predating, Frege -- existential and universal quantification,
with an attempt at a substitutional theory based the concept of a ‘proposition,’
without relying on the concepts of ‘class’ or ‘propositional function.’ It may
be argued that Peano could hardly may have thought that he eliminated “the.” Peano
continues to use “the” and his whole system depends on it. Here, a Griceian
practica reason can easily explain Peano’s retaining “the” in a system in cases
where the symbol is merely the abbreviation of something that is in principle
totally eliminable.In the same vein, Whitehead and Russell do continue to use
“the” after the tripartite expansion. Peano, like Whitehead and Russell after
him, undoubtedly thinks, and rightly, too, that the descriptor IS eliminable.If
he does not flourish this elimination with by full atomistic philosophic
paraphernalia which makes Russell's theory of description one of the most
important logical successes of Cambridge philosopher – that was admired even at
Oxford, if by Grice if not by Strawson, that is another thing. Peano somewhat understated
the importance of his reductionist analysis, but then again, his goal is very
different from Whitehead’s and Russell's logicism. And different goals for
different strokes. In any case, the reductionist analysis of “the” is worked
out by Peano with essentially the same symbolic resources that Whitehead
and Russell employ. In a pretty clear
fashion, coming from him, Peano states two of the three conditions -- existence
and uniqueness – subdivided into ‘at least and at most --, as being what it is
explicitly conveyed by “the.” That is why in a negation of a vacuous
description, being true, the existence claim, within the scope of the negation,
is an annullable implicaturum, while in an affirmation, the existence claim is
an entailment rendering the affirmation that predicates a feature of a vacuous definite
description is FALSE. Peano has enough symbolic techniques for dispensing with
‘the’, including those required for constructing a definition in use. If he once
rather cursorily noted that for Peano, “i” (‘the’) is primitive and indefinable,
Quine later recognised Peano’s achievement, and he was “happy to get straight
on Peano” on descriptions, having checked all the relevant references and I
fully realising that he was wrong when he previously stated that the iota
descriptor was for Peano primitive and indefinable. Peano deserves all the
credit for the reductionist analysis that has been heaped on Whitehead and Russell,
except perhaps for Whitehead’s and Russell’s elaboration on the philosophical
lesson of a ‘contextual’ definition.For Peano, “the” cannot be defined in
isolation; only in the context of the class (a) from which it is the UNIQUE member
(la), and also in the context of the (b) from which that class is a member, at
least to the extent that the class a is included in the class b. This carries no
conflation of membership and inclusion. It is just a reasonable reading of "
1a Eb". "Ta" is just meaningless if the conditions of existence
and uniqueness (at least and at most) are not fulfilled. Surely it may be
argued that Peano’s reductionist analysis of “the” is not exactly the same as
Whitehead’s and Russell's. Still, in his own version, it surely influenced
Whitehead and Russell. In his "On Fundamentals,” Russell includes a
definition in terms analogous to Peano's, and with almost the same symbols. The
alleged improvement of Whitehead’s and Russell’s definition is in clarity. The
concept of a ‘propositional function’ is indeed preferable to that of class
membership. Other than that, the symbolic expression of the the three-prong
expansive conditions -- existence and uniqueness (at least and at most) -- is preserved.
Russell develops Peano’s claim to the effect that “ia” cannot be defined alone,
but always in the context of a class, which Russell translates as ‘the context
of a propositional function.’ His version in "On Denoting” is well known.
In an earlier letter to Jourdain, dated,
Jan. 3, 1906 we read: “'JI( lX) (x) • =•(:3b) : x. =x. X = b: 'JIb.” (They
never corresponded about the things Strawson corresponded with Grice –
cricket). As G. Landini has pointed out, there is even an earlier occurrence of
this definition in Russell’s "On Substitution" with only very slight
symbolic differences. We can see the heritage from Peano in a clear way if we
compare the definition with the version for classes in the letter to Jourdain:
'JI(t'u) • = : (:3b) : xEU. =x. X = b: 'JIb. Russell can hardly be accused of
plagiarizing Peano; yet all the ideas and the formal devices which are
important for the reductionist analysis of “the” were developed by in Peano,
complete with conceptual and symbolic resources, and which Russell acknowledged
that he studied in detail before formulating his own theory in “On denoting.”
Regarding Meinong’s ontological jungle, for Russell, the principle of
‘subsistence disappears as a consequence of the reductionist analysis of “the,”
which is an outcome of Russell’s semantic monism. Russell's later attitude to
Meinong as his main enemy is a comfortable recourse (Griffin I977a). As for Bocher, Russell himself admits some
influence from his nominalism. Bacher describes mathematical objects as
"mere symbols" and advises
Russell to follow this line of work in a letter, two months before Russell's
key idea. The 'class as one' is merely a symbol or name which we choose at
pleasure.” It is important to mention MacColl who he speaks of "symbolic
universes", with things like a ‘round square.’MacColl also speaks of
"symbolic ‘existence’". Indeed, Russell publishes “On denoting” as a
direct response to MacColl. Refs.: P. Benacerraf and H. Putnam, “Philosophy of Mathematics,
2nd ed.Cambridge.; M. Bocher, 1904a. "The Fundamental Conceptions and
Methods of Mathematics", Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society; M.
A. E. Dummett, The Interpretation of Frege's Philosophy; Duckworth), G. Frege,
G., Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Breslau: Koebner), tr. J. L. Austin, The Foundations of Arithmetic,
Blackwell, Partial English trans. (§§55-91, 106-1O7) by M. S. Mahoney in
Benacerraf and Putnam; "Uber Sinn und Bedeutung". Trans. as "On
Sense and Reference" in Frege 1952a, pp. 56-78. --, I892b. "Uber
Begriff und Gegenstand". Trans. as "On Concept and Object" in
Frege I952a, pp. 42-55. --, I893a. Grungesetze der Arithmetik, Vol. I Gena:
Pohle). Partial English trans. by M. Furth, The Basic Laws ofArithmetic
(Berkeley: U. California P., 1964). --, I906a. "Uber die Grundlagen der
Geometrie", Jahresbericht der deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung, 15
(1906): 293-309, 377-403, 423-30. English trans. by Eike-Henner WKluge as
"On the Foundations of Geometry", in On the Foundations of Geometry
and Formal Theories of Arithmetic (New Haven and London, Yale U. P., 1971). --,
I952a. Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, tr. by P.
T. Geach and M. Black (Oxford: Blackwell). Grattan-Guinness, L, I977a. Dear
Russell-Dear Jourdain (London: Duckworth). Griffin, N., I977a. "Russell's
'Horrible Travesty' of Meinong", Russell, nos. 25- 28: 39-51. E. D.
Klemke, ed., I970a. Essays on Bertrand Russell (Urbana: U. Illinois P.).
Largeault, ]., I97oa. Logique et philosophie chez Frege (Paris: Nauwelaerts).
MacColl, H., I905a. "Symbolic Reasoning". Repr. in Russell I973a, pp.
308-16. Mosterfn, ]., I968a. "Teoria de las descripciones"
(unpublished PH.D. thesis, U. of Barcelona). Peano, G., as. Opere Scelte, ed.
U. Cassina, 3 vols. (Roma: Cremonese, 1957- 59)· --, I897a. "Studii di
logica matematica". Repr. in 05,2: 201-17. --, I897b. "Logique
mathematique". Repr. in 05,2: 218-81. --, I898a. "Analisi della
teoria dei vettori". Repr. in 05,3: 187-2°7. --, I90oa. "Formules de
logique mathematique". Repr. in 05,2: 304-61. W. V. O. Quine, 1966a.
"Russell's Ontological Development", Journal of Philosophy, 63:
657-67. Repr. in R. Schoenman, ed., Bertrand Russell: Philosopher of the
Century (London: Allen and Unwin,1967). Resnik, M., I965a. "Frege's Theory
of Incomplete Entities", Philosophy of Science, 32: 329-41. E. A.
Rodriguez-Consuegra, 1987a. "Russell's Logicist Definitions of Numbers
1899-1913: Chronology and Significance", History and Philosophy of Logic,
8:141- 69. --, I988a. "Elementos logicistas en la obra de Peano y su
escuela", Mathesis, 4: 221-99· --, I989a. "Russell's Theory ofTypes,
1901-1910: Its Complex Origins in the Unpublished Manuscripts", History
and Philosophy ofLogic, 10: 131-64. --, I990a. "The Origins of Russell's
Theory of Descriptions according to the Unpublished Manuscripts", Russell,
n.s. 9: 99-132. --, I99Ia. The Mathematical Philosophy of BertrandRussell:
Origins and Development (Basel, Boston and Berlin: Birkhauser). --, I992a.
"A New Angle on Russell's 'Inextricable Tangle' over Meaning and
Denotation", Russell, n.s. 12 (1992): 197-207. Russell, B., I903a.
"On the Meaning and Denotation ofPhrases", Papers 4: 283- 96. --,
I905a. "The Existential Import of Propositions", Mind, 14: 398-401.
Repr. in I973a, pp. 98-103. --, I905b. "On Fundamentals", Papers 4:
359....,.413. --, I905c. "On Denoting", Mind, 14: 479-93. Repr. in
LK, pp. 41-56; Papers 4: 415-27. --, I905d "On Substitution".
Unpublished ms. (McMaster U., RAl 220.010940b). --, I906a. "On the
Substitutional Theory of Classes and Relations". In I973a, PP· 165-89· --,
I908a. "Mathematical Logic as Based on the Theory ofTypes", American
Journal of Mathematics, 30: 222-62. Repr. in LK, pp. 59-102. --, I973a. Essays
in Analysis, ed. D. Lackey (London: Allen & Unwin). Skosnik, 1972a.
"Russell's Unpublished Writings on Truth and Denoting", Russell, no.
7: 12-13. P. F. Strawson, 1950a. "On Referring". Repr. in Klemke
I970a, pp. 147-72. Tichy, P., I988a. The Foundations of Frege's Logic (Berlin:
de Gruyter). J. Walker, A Study o fFrege (Blackwell).
izzing: Athenian and Oxonian
dialectic.As Grice puts it, "Socrates, like us, was really trying to solve
linguistic puzzles."This is especially true in the longer dialogues of
Plato — the 'Republic' and the Laws'— where we learn quite a lot about
Socrates' method and philosophy, filtered, of course, through his devoted
pupil's mind.Some of the Pre-Socratics, who provide Plato and his master with
many of their problems, were in difficulties about how one thing could be two
things at once — say, a white horse. How could you say 'This is a horse
and this is white' without saying 'This one thing is two things'? Socrates
and Plato together solved this puzzle by saying that what was meant by
saying 'The horse is white' is that the horse partakes of the
eternal, and perfect, Form horseness, which was invisible but really more
horselike than any worldly Dobbin; and ditto about the Form whiteness: it was
whiter than any earthly white. The theory of Form covers our whole world
of ships and shoes and humpty-dumptys, which, taken all in all, are shadows —
approximations of those invisible, perfect Forms. Using the sharp tools in
our new linguistic chest, we can whittle Plato down to size and say that he
invented his metaphysical world of Forms to solve the problem of different
kinds of 'is'es -- what Grice calls the 'izz' proper and the 'izz' improper
('strictly, a 'hazz').You see how Grice, an Oxford counterpart of Plato, uses a
very simple grammatical tool in solving problems like this. Instead of
conjuring up an imaginary edifice of Forms, he simply says there are two
different types of 'is'es — one of predication and one of identity -- 'the izz'
and the 'hazz not.' The first, the 'izz' (which is really a 'hazz' -- it
is a 'hizz' for Socrates being 'rational') asserts a quality: this is
white.' The second 'hazz' points to the object named: 'This is a
horse.' By this simple grammatical analysis we clear away the rubble of
what were Plato's Forms. That's why an Oxford philosopher loves Aristotle
-- and his Athenian dialectic -- (Plato worked in suburbia, The Academy) -- who
often, when defining a thing — for example, 'virtue' — asked himself, 'Does the
definition square with the ordinary views (ta legomena) of men?' But while
Grice does have this or that antecedent, he is surely an innovator in
concentrating MOST (if not all) of his attention on what he calls 'the
conversational implicaturum.'Grice has little patience with past
philosophers.Why bother listening to men whose problems arose from bad grammar?
(He excludes Ariskant here). At present, we are mostly preoccupied with
language and grammar. Grice would never dream of telling his tutee what he
ought to do, the kind of life he ought to lead.That was no longer an aim of
philosophy, he explained, but even though philosophy has changed in its aims
and methods, people have not, and that was the reason for the complaining
tutees -- the few of them -- , for the bitter attacks of Times' correspondents,
and even, perhaps, for his turning his back on philosophy. Grice came to
feel that Oxford philosophy was a minor revolutionary movement — at least when
it is seen through the eyes of past philosophers. I asked him about the
fathers of the revolution. Again he was evasive. Strictly speaking,
the minor revolution is fatherless, except that Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore,
and Vitters — all of them, as it happened, Cambridge University figures —
"are responsible for the present state of things at Oxford." under
‘conjunctum,’ we see that there is an alternative vocabulary, of ‘copulatum.’
But Grice prefers to narrow the use of ‘copula’ to izzing’ and ‘hazzing.’ Oddly,
Grice sees izzing as a ‘predicate,’ and symbolises it as Ixy. While he prefers
‘x izzes y,’ he also uses ‘x izz y.’ Under izzing comes Grice’s discussion of
essential predicate, essence, and substance qua predicabilia (secondary
substance). As opposed to ‘hazzing,’ which covers all the ‘ta sumbebeka,’ or
‘accidentia.’ Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Aristotle on the multiplicity of ‘being.’”
jacobi: man
of letters, popular novelist, and author of several influential philosophical
works. His “Ueber die Lehre des Spinoza” precipitates a dispute with
Mendelssohn on Lessing’s alleged pantheism. The ensuing Pantheismusstreit
(pantheism controversy) focused attention on the apparent conflict between
human freedom and any systematic, philosophical interpretation of reality. In
the appendix to his David Hume über den Glauben, oder Idealismus und Realismus
(“David Hume on Belief, or Idealism and Realism,” 1787), Jacobi scrutinized the
new transcendental philosophy of Kant, and subjected Kant’s remarks concerning
“things-in-themselves” to devastating criticism, observing that, though one
could not enter the critical philosophy without presupposing the existence of
things-in-themselves, such a belief is incompatible with the tenets of that
philosophy. This criticism deeply influenced the efforts of post-Kantians
(e.g., Fichte) to improve transcendental idealism. In 1799, in an “open letter”
to Fichte, Jacobi criticized philosophy in general and transcendental idealism
in particular as “nihilism.” Jacobi espoused a fideistic variety of direct
realism and characterized his own standpoint as one of “nonknowing.” Employing
the arguments of “Humean skepticism,” he defended the necessity of a “leap of
faith,” not merely in morality and religion, but in every area of human life.
Jacobi’s criticisms of reason and of science profoundly influenced German
Romanticism. Near the end of his career he entered bitter public controversies
with Hegel and Schelling concerning the relationship between faith and
knowledge.
james:
w. New-World philosopher, psychologist, and one of the founders of pragmatism.
He was born in New York, the oldest of five children and elder brother of the
novelist Henry James and diarist Alice James. Their father, Henry James, Sr.,
was an unorthodox religious philosopher, deeply influenced by the thought of
Swedenborg, some of which seeped into William’s later fascination with
psychical research. The James family relocated to Cambridge, Massachusetts, but
the father insisted on his children obtaining an Old-World education, and
prolonged trips to England and the Continent were routine, a procedure that
made William multilingual and extraordinarily cosmopolitan. In fact, a pervasive
theme in James’s personal and creative life was his deep split between things New-World
and Old-World Europe: he felt like a bigamist “coquetting with too many countries.”
As a person, James is extraordinarily sensitive to psychological and bodily
experiences. He could be described as “neurasthenic” – afflicted with constant
psychosomatic symptoms such as dyspepsia, vision problems, and clinical
depression. In 1868 he recorded a profound personal experience, a “horrible
fear of my own existence.” In two 1870 diary entries, James first contemplates
suicide and then pronounces his belief in free will and his resolve to act on
that belief in “doing, suffering and creating.” Under the influence of the then
burgeoning work in experimental psychology, James attempted to sustain, on
empirical grounds, his belief in the self as Promethean, as self-making rather
than as a playing out of inheritance or the influence of social context. This
bold and extreme doctrine of individuality is bolstered by his attack on both
the neo-Hegelian and associationist doctrines. He held that both approaches
miss the empirical reality of relations as affectively experienced and the
reality of consciousness as a “stream,” rather than an aspect of an Absolute or
simply a box holding a chain of concepts corresponding to single sense
impressions. In 1890, James published his masterpiece, The Principles of
Psychology, which established him as the premier psychologist of the
Euro-American world. It was a massive compendium and critique of virtually all
of the psychology literature then extant, but it also claimed that the
discipline was in its infancy. James believed that the problems he had
unearthed could only be understood by a philosophical approach. James held only
one academic degree, an M.D. from Harvard, and his early teaching at Harvard
was in anatomy and physiology. He subsequently became a professor of
psychology, but during the writing of the Principles, he began to teach
philosophy as a colleague of Royce and Santayana. From 1890 forward James saw
the fundamental issues as at bottom philosophical and he undertook an intense
inquiry into matters epistemological and metaphysical; in particular, “the
religious question” absorbed him. The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular
Philosophy was published in 1897. The lead essay, “The Will to Believe,” had
been widely misunderstood, partly because it rested on unpublished metaphysical
assumptions and partly because it ran aggressively counter to the reigning
dogmas of social Darwinism and neo-Hegelian absolutism, both of which
denigrated the personal power of the individual. For James, one cannot draw a
conclusion, fix a belief, or hold to a moral or religious maxim unless all
suggestions of an alternative position are explored. Further, some alternatives
will be revealed only if one steps beyond one’s frame of reference, seeks
novelty, and “wills to believe” in possibilities beyond present sight. The risk
taking in such an approach to human living is further detailed in James’s essays
“The Dilemma of Determinism” and “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life,”
both of which stress the irreducibility of ambiguity, the presence of chance,
and the desirability of tentativeness in our judgments. After presenting the
Gifford Lectures in 1901– 02, James published his classic work, The Varieties
of Religious Experience, which coalesced his interest in psychic states both
healthy and sick and afforded him the opportunity to present again his firm
belief that human life is characterized by a vast array of personal, cultural,
and religious approaches that cannot and should not be reduced one to the
other. For James, the “actual peculiarities of the world” must be central to
any philosophical discussion of truth. In his Hibbert Lectures of 1909,
published as A Pluralistic Universe, James was to represent this sense of
plurality, openness, and the variety of human experience on a wider canvas, the
vast reach of consciousness, cosmologically understood. Unknown to all but a
few philosophical correspondents, James had been assiduously filling notebooks
with reflections on the mind–body problem and the relationship between meaning
and truth and with a philosophical exploration and extension of his doctrine of
relations as found earlier in the Principles. In 1904–05 James published a
series of essays, gathered posthumously in 1912, on the meaning of experience
and the problem of knowledge. In a letter to François Pillon in 1904, he
writes: “My philosophy is what I call a radical empiricism, a pluralism, a
‘tychism,’ which represents order as being gradually won and always in the
making.” Following his 1889 essay “On Some Omissions of Introspective
Psychology” and his chapter on “The Stream of Thought” in the Principles, James
takes as given that relations between things are equivalently experienced as
the things themselves. Consequently, “the only meaning of essence is
teleological, and that classification and conception are purely teleological
weapons of the mind.” The description of consciousness as a stream having a
fringe as well as a focus, and being selective all the while, enables him to
take the next step, the formulation of his pragmatic epistemology, one that was
influenced by, but is different from, that of Peirce. Published in 1907,
Pragmatism generated a transatlantic furor, for in it James unabashedly states
that “Truth happens to be an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events.” He
also introduces the philosophically notorious claim that “theories” must be
found that will “work.” Actually, he means that a proposition cannot be judged
as true independently of its consequences as judged by experience. James’s
prose, especially in Pragmatism, alternates between scintillating and limpid.
This quality led to both obfuscation of his intention and a lulling of his
reader into a false sense of simplicity. He does not deny the standard
definition of truth as a propositional claim about an existent, for he writes
“woe to him whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities
follow in his experience; they will lead him nowhere or else make false
connexions.” Yet he regards this structure as but a prologue to the creative
activity of the human mind. Also in Pragmatism, speaking of the world as
“really malleable,” he argues that man engenders truths upon reality. This
tension between James as a radical empiricist with the affirmation of the
blunt, obdurate relational manifold given to us in our experience and James as
a pragmatic idealist holding to the constructing, engendering power of the
Promethean self to create its own personal world, courses throughout all of his
work. James was chagrined and irritated by the quantity, quality, and ferocity
of the criticism leveled at Pragmatism. He attempted to answer those critics in
a book of disparate essays, The Meaning of Truth (1909). The book did little to
persuade his critics; since most of them were unaware of his radically
empirical metaphysics and certainly of his unpublished papers, James’s
pragmatism remained misunderstood until the publication of Perry’s magisterial
two-volume study, The Thought and Character of William James (1935). By 1910,
James’s heart disease had worsened; he traveled to Europe in search of some
remedy, knowing full well that it was a farewell journey. Shortly after
returning to his summer home in Chocorua, New Hampshire, he died. One month
earlier he had said of a manuscript (posthumously published in 1911 as Some
Problems in Philosophy), “say that by it I hoped to round out my system, which
is now too much like an arch only on one side.” Even if he had lived much
longer, it is arguable that the other side of the arch would not have appeared,
for his philosophy was ineluctably geared to seeking out the novel, the
surprise, the tychistic, and the plural, and to denying the finality of all
conclusions. He warned us that “experience itself, taken at large, can grow by
its edges” and no matter how laudable or seductive our personal goal, “life is
in the transitions.” The Works of William James, including his unpublished manuscripts,
have been collected in a massive nineteen-volume critical edition by Harvard
University Press (1975–88). His work can be seen as an imaginative vestibule
into the twentieth century. His ideas resonate in the work of Royce, Unamuno,
Niels Bohr, Husserl, M. Montessori, Dewey, and Wittgenstein. Refs.: H. P.
Grice, “William James’s England and what he learned there!”
James-Lange theory, the
theory, put forward by James and independently by Lange, an anatomist, that an
emotion is the felt awareness of bodily reactions to something perceived or
thought (James) or just the bodily reactions themselves (Lange). According to
the more influential version (James, “What Is an Emotion?” Mind, 1884), “our
natural way of thinking” mistakenly supposes that the perception or thought
causes the emotion, e.g., fear or anger, which in turn causes the bodily
reactions, e.g., rapid heartbeat, weeping, trembling, grimacing, and actions
such as running and striking. In reality, however, the fear or anger consists
in the bodily sensations caused by these reactions. In support of this theory,
James proposed a thought experiment: Imagine feeling some “strong” emotion, one
with a pronounced “wave of bodily disturbance,” and then subtract in
imagination the felt awareness of this disturbance. All that remains, James
found, is “a cold and neutral state of intellectual perception,” a cognition
lacking in emotional coloration. Consequently, it is our bodily feelings that
emotionalize consciousness, imbuing our perceptions and thoughts with emotional
qualities and endowing each type of emotion, such as fear, anger, and joy, with
its special feeling quality. But this does not warrant James’s radical
conclusion that emotions or emotional states are effects rather than causes of
bodily reactions. That conclusion requires the further assumption, which James
shared with many of his contemporaries, that the various emotions are nothing
but particular feeling qualities. Historically, the James-Lange theory led to
further inquiries into the physiological and cognitive causes of emotional
feelings and helped transform the psychology of emotions from a descriptive
study relying on introspection to a broader naturalistic inquiry.
Jansenism, a set of
doctrines advanced by philosophers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
characterized by a predestinarianism that emphasized Adam’s fall (“il pecato
originale di Adamo”) irresistible efficacious grace (“grice”), limited
atonement, election, and reprobation. Addressing the issue of free will and
grace left open by the Council of Trent, Cornelius Jansen crystallized the
seventeenth-century Augustinian revival, producing a compilation of Augustine’s
anti-Pelagian teachings (Augustinus). Propagated by Saint Cyran and Antoine
Arnauld (On Frequent Communion, 1643), adopted by the nuns of Port-Royal, and
defended against Jesuit attacks by Pascal (Provincial Letters, 1656–57),
Jansenism pervaded Roman Catholicism from Utrecht to Rome for over 150 years.
Condemned by Pope Innocent X (Cum Occasione, 1653) and crushed by Louis XIV and
the French clergy (the 1661 formulary), it survived outside France and rearmed
for a counteroffensive. Pasquier Quesnel’s (1634–1719) “second Jansenism,”
condemned by Pope Clement XI (Unigenitus, 1713), was less Augustinian, more
rigorist, and advocated Presbyterianism and Gallicanism.
jaspers: philosopher,
one of the main representatives of the existentialist movement (although he
rejected ‘existentialism’ as a distortion of the philosophy of existence). Jaspers
studied law and medicine at Heidelberg, Munich, Berlin, and Göttingen. He
concluded his studies with an M.D. (Homesickness and Crime) from Heidelberg. From
1908 until 1915 he worked as a voluntary assistant in the psychiatric clinic,
and published his first major work (Allgemeine Psychopathologie, 1913; General
Psychopathology, 1965). After his habilitation in psychology (1913) Jaspers
lectured as Privatdocent. In 1919 he published Psychologie der Weltanschauung
(“Psychology of Worldviews”). Two years later he became professor in
philosophy. Because of his personal convictions and marriage with Gertrud Mayer
(who was Jewish) the Nazi government took away his professorship in 1937 and
suppressed all publications. He and his wife were saved from deportation
because the American army liberated Heidelberg a few days before the fixed date
of April 14, 1945. In 1948 he accepted a professorship from the University of
Basel. As a student, Jaspers felt a strong aversion to academic philosophy.
However, as he gained insights in the fields of psychiatry and psychology, he
realized that both the study of human beings and the meaning of scientific
research pointed to questions and problems that demanded their own thoughts and
reflections. Jaspers gave a systematic account of them in his three-volume
Philosophie (1931; with postscript, 1956; Philosophy, 1969–71), and in the
1,100 pages of Von der Wahrheit (On Truth, 1947). In the first volume
(“Philosophical World-orientation”) he discusses the place and meaning of
philosophy with regard to the human situation in general and scientific
disciplines in particular. In the second (“Clarification of Existence”), he
contrasts the compelling modes of objective (scientific) knowledge with the
possible (and in essence non-objective) awareness of being in self-relation,
communication, and historicity, both as being oneself presents itself in
freedom, necessity, and transcendence, and as existence encounters its
unconditionality in limit situations (of death, suffering, struggle, guilt) and
the polar intertwining of subjectivity and objectivity. In the third volume
(“Metaphysics”) he concentrates on the meaning of transcendence as it becomes
translucent in appealing ciphers (of nature, history, consciousness, art, etc.)
to possible existence under and against the impact of stranding. His Von der
Wahrheit is the first volume of a projected work on philosophical logic (cf.
Nachlaß zur philosophischen Logik, ed. H. Saner and M. Hänggi, 1991) in which
he develops the more formal aspects of his philosophy as “periechontology”
(ontology of the encompassing, des Umgreifenden, with its modes of being there,
consciousness, mind, existence, world, transcendence, reason) and clarification
of origins. In both works Jaspers focuses on “existential philosophy” as “that
kind of thinking through which man tries to become himself both as thinking
makes use of all real knowledge and as it transcends this knowledge. This
thinking does not recognize objects, but clarifies and enacts at once the being
of the one who thinks in this way” (Philosophische Autobiographie, 1953). In
his search for authentic existence in connection with the elaboration of
“philosophical faith” in reason and truth, Jaspers had to achieve a thorough
understanding of philosophical, political, and religious history as well as an
adequate assessment of the present situation. His aim became a world philosophy
as a possible contribution to universal peace out of the spirit of free and
limitless communication, unrestricted open-mindedness, and unrelenting truthfulness.
Besides a comprehensive history of philosophy (Die groben Philosophen I, 1957;
II and III, 1981; The Great Philosophers, 2 vols., 1962, 1966) and numerous
monographs (on Cusanus, Descartes, Leonardo da Vinci, Schelling, Nietzsche,
Strindberg, van Gogh, Weber) he wrote on subjects such as the university (Die
Idee der Universität, 1946; The Idea of the University, 1959), the spiritual
situation of the age (Die geistige Situation der Zeit, 1931; Man in the Modern
Age, 1933), the meaning of history (Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte, 1949;
The Origin and Goal of History, in which he developed the idea of an “axial
period”), the guilt question (Die Schuldfrage, 1946; The Question of German
Guilt, 1947), the atomic bomb (Die Atombombe und die Zukunft des Menschen,
1958; The Future of Mankind, 1961), German politics (Wohin treibt die
Bundesrepublik? 1966; The Future of Germany, 1967). He also wrote on theology
and religious issues (Die Frage der Entymythologisierung. Eine Diskussion mit
Rudolf Bultmann, 1954; Myth and Christianity, 1958; Der philosophische Glaube
angesichts der Offenbarung, 1962; Philosophical Faith and Revelation, 1967).
jevons:
w. s., philosopher of science. In economics, he clarified the idea of value,
arguing that it is a function of utility. Later theorists imitated his use of
the calculus and other mathematical tools to reach theoretical results. His
approach anticipated the idea of marginal utility, a notion basic in modern
economics. Jevons regarded J. S. Mill’s logic as inadequate, preferring the new
symbolic logic of Boole. One permanent contribution was his introduction of the
concept of inclusive ‘or’, with ‘or’ meaning ‘either or, or both’. To aid in
teaching the new logic of classes and propositions, Jevons invented his “logical
piano.” In opposition to the confidence in induction of Mill and Whewell, both
of whom thought, for different reasons, that induction can arrive at exact and
necessary truths, Jevons argued that science yields only approximations, and
that any perfect fit between theory and observation must be grounds for
suspicion that we are wrong, not for confidence that we are right. Jevons
introduced probability theory to show how rival hypotheses are evaluated. He
was a subjectivist, holding that probability is a measure of what a perfectly
rational person would believe given the available evidence. H. P. Grice:
“Jevons’s Aristotle.”
da Floris: Italian
philosopher, the founder the order of Ciscercian order of San Giovanni in Fiore
(vide, Grice, “St. John’s and the Cistercians”). He devoted the rest of his
life to meditation and the recording of his prophetic visions. In his major
works Liber concordiae Novi ac Veteri Testamenti (“Book of the Concordances
between the New and the Old Testament,” 1519), Expositio in Apocalypsim (1527),
and Psalterium decem chordarum (1527), Joachim illustrates the deep meaning of
history as he perceived it in his visions. History develops in coexisting
patterns of twos and threes. The two testaments represent history as divided in
two phases ending in the First and Second Advent, respectively. History
progresses also through stages corresponding to the Holy Trinity. The age of
the Father is that of the law; the age of the Son is that of grace, ending
approximately in 1260; the age of the Spirit will produce a spiritualized
church. Some monastic orders like the Franciscans and Dominicans saw themselves
as already belonging to this final era of spirituality and interpreted
Joachim’s prophecies as suggesting the overthrow of the contemporary
ecclesiastical institutions. Some of his views were condemned by the Lateran
Council in 1215.
philoponus: Grecian
philosopher and theologian, who worked in Alexandria (“philoponus,”
‘workaholic’, just a nickname). A Christian from birth, he was a pupil of the
Platonist Ammonius, and is the first Christian Aristotelian. As such, he
challenged Aristotle on many points where he conflicted with Christian
doctrine, e.g. the eternity of the world, the need for an infinite force, the
definition of place, the impossibility of a vacuum, and the necessity for a
fifth element to be the substance of the heavens. Johannes composed
commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories, Prior and Posterior Analytics,
Meteorologics, and On the Soul; and a treatise Against Proclus: On the Eternity
of the World. There is dispute as to whether the commentaries exhibit a change
of mind (away from orthodox Aristotelianism) on these questions.
Damascenus Chrysorrhoas:
Greican theologian and Eastern church doctor. Born of a well-to-do family in
Damascus, he was educated in Greek. He attained a high position in government
but resigned under the antiChristian Caliph Abdul Malek and became a monk about
700, living outside Jerusalem. He left extensive writings, most little more
than compilations of older texts. The Iconoclastic Synod of 754 condemned his
arguments in support of the veneration of images in the three Discourses
against the Iconoclasts (726–30), but his orthodoxy was confirmed in 787 at the
Second Council of Nicaea. His Sources of Knowledge consists of a Dialectic, a
history of heresies, and an exposition of orthodoxy. Considered a saint from
the end of the eighth century, he was much respected in the East and was
regarded as an important witness to Eastern Orthodox thought by the West in the
Middle Ages.
Poinsot: philosopher, studied
at Louvain, entered the Dominican order (1610), and taught at Piacenza. His
most important works are the Cursus philosophicus, a work on logic and natural
philosophy; and the Cursus theologicus (“Course of Theology,” 1637–44), a
commentary on Aquinas’s Summa theologiae. John considered himself a Thomist,
but he modified Aquinas’s views in important ways. The “Ars Logica,” the first
part of the Cursus philosophicus, is the source of much subsequent Catholic
teaching in logic. It is divided into two parts: the first deals with formal
logic and presents a comprehensive theory of terms, propositions, and
reasoning; the second discusses topics in material logic, such as predicables,
categories, and demonstration. An important contribution in the first is a
comprehensive theory of signs that has attracted considerable attention in the
twentieth century among such philosophers as Maritain, Yves Simon, John Wild,
and others. An important contribution in the second part is the division of
knowledge according to physical, mathematical, and metaphysical degrees, which
was later adopted by Maritain. John dealt with metaphysical problems in the
second part of the Cursus philosophicus and in the Cursus theologicus. His
views are modifications of Aquinas’s. For example, Aquinas held that the
principle of individuation is matter designated by quantity; John interpreted
this as matter radically determined by dimensions, where the dimensions are
indeterminate. In contrast to other major figures of the Spanish Scholasticism
of the times, John did not write much in political and legal theory. He
considered ethics and political philosophy to be speculative rather than
practical sciences, and adopted a form of probabilism. Moreover, when in doubt
about a course of action, one may simply adopt any pertinent view proposed by a
prudent moralist.
salisbury:
Grice: “One should not confuse Salisbury with Salisbury.” English philosopher,
tutored by Abelard and Gilbert of Poitiers in Paris. It is possible that during
this time he also studied grammar, rhetoric, and part of the quadrivium with Conches
at Chartres. After 1147 he was for a time a member of the Roman Curia,
secretary to Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, and friend of Thomas Becket.
For his role in Becket’s canonization, Louis VII of France rewarded him with
the bishopric of Chartres. Salisbury is a dedicated student of philosophy. In
his letters, biographies of Anselm and Becket, and Memoirs of the Papal Court,
Salisbury provides, in perhaps the best medieval imitation of classical Latin
style, an account of some of the most important ideas, events, and
personalities of his time. Neither these works nor his Polycraticus and “Metalogicon,”
for which he is most celebrated, are systematic philosophical treatises. The “Polycraticus”
is, however, considered one of the first medieval treatises to take up
political theory in any extended way. Salisbury maintains that if a ruler does
not legislate in accordance with natural moral law, legitimate resistance to
him can include his assassination. In the “Metalogicon,” on the other hand,
Salisbury discusses, in a humanist spirit, the benefits for a civilized world
of philosophical training based on Aristotle’s logic. He also presents current
views on the nature of the universale and, not surprisingly, endorses an
Aristotelian view of them as neither extramental entities nor mere expressum,
but a conceptus that nevertheless has a basis in reality insofar as they are
the result of the mind’s abstracting from extramental entities what those entities
have in common.
johnson: Grice,
“Not to be confused with Dr. Johnson – this one was as a philosopher should
just be, an MA, like me!” -- w. e., very English philosopher who lectured on
psychology and logic at Cambridge University. His Logic was published in three
parts: Part I (1921); Part II, Demonstrative Inference: Deductive and Inductive
(1922); and Part III, The Logical Foundations of Science (1924). He did not
complete Part IV on probability, but in 1932 Mind published three of its
intended chapters. Johnson’s other philosophical publications, all in Mind,
were not abundant. The discussion note “On Feeling as Indifference” (1888)
deals with problems of classification. “The Logical Calculus” (three parts,
1892) anticipates the “Cambridge” style of logic while continuing the tradition
of Jevons and Venn; the same is true of treatments of formal logic in Logic.
“Analysis of Thinking” (two parts, 1918) advances an adverbial theory of
experience. Johnson’s philosophic influence at Cambridge exceeded the influence
of these publications, as one can see from the references to him by John
Neville Keynes in Studies and Exercises in Formal Logic and by his son John
Maynard Keynes in A Treatise on Probability. Logic contains original and
distinctive treatments of induction, metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, and
philosophical logic. Johnson’s theory of inference proposes a treatment of
implication that is an alternative to the view of Russell and Whitehead in
Principia Mathematica. He coined the term ‘ostensive definition’ and introduced
the distinction between determinates and determinables.
jung: founder
of analytical psychology, a form of psychoanalysis that differs from Freud’s
chiefly by an emphasis on the collective character of the unconscious and on
archetypes as its privileged contents. Jung, like Freud, was deeply influenced
by philosophy in his early years. Before his immersion in psychiatry, he wrote
several essays of explicitly philosophical purport. Kant was doubtless the
philosopher who mattered most to Jung, for whom archetypes were conceived as a
priori structures of the human psyche. Plato and Neoplatonists, Schopenhauer
and especially Nietzsche (to whose Zarathustra he devoted a seminar of several
years’ duration) were also of critical importance. Oddly, Jung was a close
reader of James (in German translation, of course), and his Psychological Types
(1921) – in addition to an extended discussion of nominalism versus realism –
contains a detailed treatment of Jamesian typologies of the self. Jung
considered the self to be an amalgamation of an “ectopsyche” – consisting of
four functions (intuition, sensation, feeling, and thinking) that surround an
ego construed not as a singular entity but as a “complex” of ideas and emotions
– and an “endosphere” (i.e., consciousness turned inward in memory, affect,
etc.). The personal unconscious, which preoccupied Freud, underlies the
endosphere and its “invasions,” but it is in turn grounded in the collective
unconscious shared by all humankind. The collective unconscious was induced by
Jung from his analysis of dream symbols and psychopathological symptoms. It is
an inherited archive of archaic-mythic forms and figures that appear repeatedly
in the most diverse cultures and historical epochs. Such forms and figures –
also called archetypes – are considered “primordial images” preceding the
“ideas” that articulate rational thought. As a consequence, the self, rather
than being autonomous, is embedded in a prepersonal and prehistoric background
from which there is no effective escape. However, through prolonged
psychotherapeutically guided “individuation,” a slow assimilation of the
collective unconscious into daily living can occur, leading to an enriched and
expanded sense of experience and selfhood.
Hart,
Grice’s favourite prudens, iurisprudens: jurisprudence, the
science or “knowledge” of law; thus, in its widest usage, the study of the
legal doctrines, rules, and principles of any legal system, especially that
which is valid at Oxford. More commonly, however, ‘prudens,’ or ‘iurisprudens’
designates the study not of the actual laws of particular legal systems, but of
the general concepts and principles that underlie a legal system or that are
common to every such system (general jurisprudence). Jurisprudence in this
usage, sometimes also called the philosophy of law – but Grice preferred,
“philosophical jurisprudence”) may be further subdivided according to the major
focus of a particular study. Examples include Roman and English historical
jurisprudence (a study of the development of legal principles over time, often
emphasizing the origin of law in custom or tradition rather than in enacted
rules), sociological jurisprudence (an examination of the relationship between
legal rules and the behavior of individuals, groups, or institutions),
functional jurisprudence (an inquiry into the relationship between legal norms
and underlying social interests or needs), and analytical jurisprudence (an
investigation into the connections among legal concepts). Within analytical
jurisprudence the most substantial body of thought focuses on the meaning of
the concept of law itself (legal theory) and the relationship between that
concept and the concept of the moral. Legal positivism, the view that there is
no necessary connection between legal (a legal right) and the moral (a moral
right), opposes the natural law view that no sharp distinction between these
concepts can be drawn. Legal positivism is sometimes thought to be a
consequence of positivism’s insistence that legal validity is determined
ultimately by reference to certain basic social facts: “the command of the
sovereign” (Austin – “the other Austin, the benevolent one!” -- Grice), the
Grundnorm (Kelsen), or “the rule of re-cognition” (Hart). These different
positivist characterizations of the basic, law-determining FACT yield different
claims about the normative character of law, with classical positivists (e.g.,
John Austin) insisting that legal systems are essentially coercive, whereas
modern positivists (e.g., Hans Kelsen) maintain that they are normative.
Disputes within legal theory often generate or arise out of disputes about
theories of adjudication, or how a judge does or should decide a case.
Mechanical jurisprudence, or formalism, the theory that all cases can be
decided solely by analyzing a legal concept, is thought by many to have
characterized judicial decisions and legal reasoning in the nineteenth century;
that theory became an easy target in the twentieth century for various forms of
legal ‘realism,’ the view (which Grice found pretentious) that law is better
determined by observing what a court and a citizen actually does than by
analyzing stated legal rules and concepts. Recent developments in the natural
law tradition also focus on the process of adjudication and the normative claim
that accompany the judicial declaration of legal rights and obligations. These
normative claim, the natural law theorist argues, show a legal right is a
species of a political right or a moral right. In consequence, one must either
revise prevailing theories of adjudication and abandon the social-fact theory
of law (New-World Dworkin), or explore the connection between legal theory and
the classical question of political theory. Under what condition does a legal
obligation, even if determined by an inter-subjetctive fact, create a genuine
political obligation (e.g., the meta-obligation to obey the law)? Other
jurisprudential notions that overlap topics in political theory include rule of
law, legal moralism, and civil disobedience. The disputes within legal theory
about the connection between law and morality should not be confused with
discussions of “natural law” within moral theory. In Grice’s meta-ethics,
so-called “natural law” denotes a particular view about the objective status of
a moral norm that has produced a considerable literature, extending from
ancient Grecian and Roman thought, through medieval theological writings, to
contemporary Oxonian ethical thought. Though the claim that one cannot sharply
separate law and morality is often made as part of a general natural law moral
theory, the referents of ‘natural law’ in legal and moral theory do not share
any obvious logical relationship. A moral theorist may conclude that there is
NO necessary connection between law and morality, thus endorsing a positivist
view of law, while consistently advocating a natural law view of morality
itself. Conversely, as Grice notes, a natural law legal theorist, in accepting
the view that there IS a connection (or priority) between law and morality (a
moral right being evaluational prior than a legal right, even if not
epistemically prior), might nonetheless endorse a substantive moral theory
different from that implied by a natural law moral theory. Refs.: G. P. Baker,
“Meaning and defeasibility,” in Festschrift for H. L. A. Hart, G. P. Baker, “Alternative mind styles,” in
Festschrift for H. P. Grice, H. L. A. Hart, “Grice” in “The nightmare,” H. P.
Grice, “Moral right and legal right: three types of conceptual priority.”
jury nullification, a
jury’s ability, or the exercise of that ability, to acquit a criminal defendant
despite finding facts that leave no reasonable doubt about violation of a
criminal statute. This ability is not a right, but an artifact of criminal
procedure. In the common law, the jury has sole authority to determine the
facts, and the judge to determine the law. The jury’s findings of fact cannot
be reviewed. The term ‘nullification’ suggests that jury nullification is
opposed to the rule of law. This thought would be sound only if an extreme
legal positivism were true – that the law is nothing but the written law and
the written law covers every possible fact situation. Jury nullification is
better conceived as a form of equity, a rectification of the inherent limits of
written law. In nullifying, juries make law. To make jury nullification a
right, then, raises problems of democratic legitimacy, such as whether a small,
randomly chosen group of citizens has authority to make law.
de
jure:
Or titular, as opposed to ‘de facto.’ Each getting what he is due. Formal
justice is the impartial and consistent application of a Kantian principle,
whether or not the principle itself is just. Substantive justice is closely associated
with rights, i.e., with what individuals can legitimately demand of one another
or what they can legitimately demand of their government (e.g., with respect to
the protection of liberty or the promotion of equality). Retributive justice
concerns when and why punishment is justified. Debate continues over whether
punishment is justified as retribution for past wrongdoing or because it deters
future wrongdoing. Those who stress retribution as the justification for
punishment usually believe human beings have libertarian free will, while those
who stress deterrence usually accept determinism. At least since Aristotle,
justice has commonly been identified both with obeying law and with treating
everyone with fairness. But if law is, and justice is not, entirely a matter of
convention, then justice cannot be identified with obeying law. The literature
on legal positivism and natural law theory contains much debate about jury
nullification justice 456 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 456 whether there
are moral limits on what conventions could count as law. Corrective justice
concerns the fairness of demands for civil damages. Commutative justice
concerns the fairness of wages, prices, and exchanges. Distributive justice
concerns the fairness of the distribution of resources. Commutative justice and
distributive justice are related, since people’s wages influence how much
resources they have. But the distinction is important because it may be just to
pay A more than B (because A is more productive than B) but just that B is left
with more after-tax resources (because B has more children to feed than A
does). In modern philosophy, however, the debate about just wages and prices
has been overshadowed by the larger question of what constitutes a just distribution
of resources. Some (e.g., Marx) have advocated distributing resources in
accordance with needs. Others have advocated their distribution in whatever way
maximizes utility in the long run. Others have argued that the fair
distribution is one that, in some sense, is to everyone’s advantage. Still
others have maintained that a just distribution is whatever results from the
free market. Some theorists combine these and other approaches.
iustificatum: “Late
Latin; apparently neither the Grecians nor Cicero saw the need for it!”– Grice.
justification, a concept of broad scope that spans epistemology and ethics and
has as special cases the concepts of apt belief and right action. The concept
has, however, highly varied application. Many things, of many different sorts,
can be justified. Prominent among them are beliefs and actions. To say that X
is justified is to say something positive about X. Other things being equal, it
is better that X be justified than otherwise. However, not all good entities
are justified. The storm’s abating may be good since it spares some lives, but
it is not thereby justified. What we can view as justified or unjustified is
what we can relate appropriately to someone’s faculties or choice. (Believers
might hence view the storm’s abating as justified after all, if they were
inclined to judge divine providence.) Just as in epistemology we need to
distinguish justification from truth, since either of these might apply to a
belief in the absence of the other, so in ethics we must distinguish
justification from utility: an action might be optimific but not justified, and
justified but not optimific. What is distinctive of justification is then the
implied evaluation of an agent (thus the connection, however remote, with
faculties of choice). To say that a belief is (epistemically) justified (apt)
or to say that an action is (ethically) justified (“right” – in one sense) is
to make or imply a judgment on the subject and how he or she has arrived at
that action or belief. Often a much narrower concept of justification is used,
one according to which X is justified only if X has been or at least can be
justified through adducing reasons. Such adducing of reasons can be viewed as
the giving of an argument of any of several sorts: e.g., conclusive, prima
facie, inductive, or deductive. A conclusive justification or argument adduces
conclusive reasons for the possible (object of) action or belief that figures
in the conclusion. In turn, such reasons are conclusive if and only if they
raise the status of the conclusion action or belief so high that the subject
concerned would be well advised to conclude deliberation or inquiry. A prima
facie justification or argument adduces a prima facie reason R (or more than
one) in favor of the possible (object of) action or belief O that figures in
the conclusion. In turn, R is a prima facie reason for O if and only if R
specifies an advantage or positive consideration in favor of O, one that puts O
in a better light than otherwise. Even if R is a prima facie reason for O,
however, R can be outweighed, overridden, or defeated by contrary
considerations RH. Thus my returning a knife that I promised to return to its
rightful owner has in its favor the prima facie reason that it is my legal
obligation and the fulfillment of a promise, but if the owner has gone raving
mad, then there may be reasons against returning the knife that override,
outweigh, or defeat. (And there may also be reasons that defeat a positive
prima facie reason without amounting to reasons for the opposite course. Thus
it may emerge that the promise to return the knife was extracted under duress.)
A (valid) deductive argument for a certain conclusion C is a sequence of
thoughts or statements whose last member is C (not necessarily last temporally,
but last in the sequence) and each member of which is either an assumption or
premise of the argument or is based on earlier members of the sequence in
accordance with a sound principle of necessary inference, such as
simplification: from (P & Q) to P; or addition: from P to (P or Q); or
modus ponens: from P and (P only if Q) to Q. Whereas the premises of a
deductive argument necessarily entail the conclusion, which cannot possibly
fail to be true when the justice as fairness justification 457 4065h-l.qxd
08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 457 premises are all true, the premises of an inductive
argument do not thus entail its conclusion but offer considerations that only
make the conclusion in some sense more probable than it would be otherwise.
From the premises that it rains and that if it rains the streets are wet, one
may deductively derive the conclusion that the streets are wet. However, the
premise that I have tried to start my car on many, many winter mornings during
the two years since I bought it and that it has always started, right up to and
including yesterday, does not deductively imply that it will start when I try
today. Here the conclusion does not follow deductively. Though here the reason
provided by the premise is only an inductive reason for believing the
conclusion, and indeed a prima facie and defeasible reason, nevertheless it
might well be in our sense a conclusive reason. For it might enable us
rightfully to conclude inquiry and/or deliberation and proceed to (action or,
in this case) belief, while turning our attention to other matters (such as
driving to our destination).
Fides: -- justification
by faith, the characteristic doctrine of the Protestant Reformation that sinful
human beings can be justified before God through faith in Jesus Christ. ‘Being
justified’ is understood in forensic terms: before the court of divine justice
humans are not considered guilty because of their sins, but rather are declared
by God to be holy and righteous in virtue of the righteousness of Christ, which
God counts on their behalf. Justification is received by faith, which is not
merely belief in Christian doctrine but includes a sincere and heartfelt trust
and commitment to God in Christ for one’s salvation. Such faith, if genuine,
leads to the reception of the transforming influences of God’s grace and to a
life of love, obedience, and service to God. These consequences of faith,
however, are considered under the heading of sanctification rather than
justification. The rival Roman Catholic doctrine of justification – often
mislabeled by Protestants as “justification by works” – understands key terms
differently. ‘Being just’ is understood not primarily in forensic terms but
rather as a comprehensive state of being rightly related to God, including the
forgiveness of sins, the reception of divine grace, and inner transformation.
Justification is a work of God initially accomplished at baptism; among the
human “predispositions” for justification are faith (understood as believing
the truths God has revealed), awareness of one’s sinfulness, hope in God’s
mercy, and a resolve to do what God requires. Salvation is a gift of God that
is not deserved by human beings, but the measure of grace bestowed depends to
some extent on the sincere efforts of the sinner who is seeking salvation. The
Protestant and Catholic doctrines are not fully consistent with each other, but
neither are they the polar opposites they are often made to appear by the
caricatures each side offers of the other.
Jus ad bellum, jus in
bello: a set of conditions justifying the resort to war (jus ad bellum) and
prescribing how war may permissibly be conducted (jus in bello). The theory is
a Western approach to the moral assessment of war that grew out of the
Christian tradition beginning with Augustine, later taking both religious and
secular (including legalist) forms. Proposed conditions for a just war vary in
both number and interpretation. Accounts of jus ad bellum typically require:
(1) just cause: an actual or imminent wrong against the state, usually a
violation of rights, but sometimes provided by the need to protect innocents,
defend human rights, or safeguard the way of life of one’s own or other
peoples; (2) competent authority: limiting the undertaking of war to a state’s
legitimate rulers; (3) right intention: aiming only at peace and the ends of
the just cause (and not war’s attendant suffering, death, and destruction); (4)
proportionality: ensuring that anticipated good not be outweighed by bad; (5)
last resort: exhausting peaceful alternatives before going to war; and (6)
probability of success: a reasonable prospect that war will succeed. Jus in
bellorequires: (7) proportionality: ensuring that the means used in war befit
the ends of the just cause and that their resultant good and bad, when individuated,
be proportionate in the sense of (4); and (8) discrimination: prohibiting the
killing of noncombatants and/or innocents. Sometimes conditions (4), (5), and
(6) are included in (1). The conditions are usually considered individually
necessary and jointly sufficient for a fully just war. But sometimes strength
of just cause is taken to offset some lack of proportion in means, and
sometimes absence of right intention is taken to render a war evil though not
necessarily unjust. Most just war theorists take jus ad bellum to warrant only
defensive wars. But some follow earlier literature and allow for just offensive
wars. Early theorists deal primarily with jus ad bellum, later writers with
both jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Recent writers stress jus in bello, with
particular attention to deterrence: the attempt, by instilling fear of
retaliation, to induce an adversary to refrain from attack. Some believe that
even though large-scale use of nuclear weapons would violate requirements of
proportionality and discrimination, the threatened use of such weapons can
maintain peace, and hence justify a system of nuclear deterrence.
kabala
ariskant:
“Today I’ll lecture on Aristkant, or rather his second part,” – Grice. Kant
(which Grice spelt ‘cant,’ seeing that it was Scots) Immanuel, preeminent Scots
philosopher whose distinctive concern was to vindicate the authority of reason.
He believed that by a critical examination of its own powers, reason can
distinguish unjustifiable traditional metaphysical claims from the principles
that are required by our theoretical need to determine ourselves within
spatiotemporal experience and by our practical need to legislate consistently
with all other rational wills. Because these principles are necessary and
discoverable, they defeat empiricism and skepticism, and because they are
disclosed as simply the conditions of orienting ourselves coherently within
experience, they contrast with traditional rationalism and dogmatism. Kant was
born and raised in the eastern Prussian university town of Königsberg (today
Kaliningrad), where, except for a short period during which he worked as a
tutor in the nearby countryside, he spent his life as student and teacher. He
was trained by Pietists and followers of Leibniz and Wolff, but he was also
heavily influenced by Newton and Rousseau. In the 1750s his theoretical
philosophy began attempting to show how metaphysics must accommodate as certain
the fundamental principles underlying modern science; in the 1760s his 460 K
4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 460 practical philosophy began attempting
to show (in unpublished form) how our moral life must be based on a rational
and universally accessible self-legislation analogous to Rousseau’s political
principles. The breakthrough to his own distinctive philosophy came in the
1770s, when he insisted on treating epistemology as first philosophy. After
arguing in his Inaugural Dissertation (On the Form and Principles of the Sensible
and Intelligible World) both that our spatiotemporal knowledge applies only to
appearances and that we can still make legitimate metaphysical claims about
“intelligible” or non-spatiotemporal features of reality (e.g., that there is
one world of substances interconnected by the action of God), there followed a
“silent decade” of preparation for his major work, the epoch-making Critique of
Pure Reason (first or “A” edition, 1781; second or “B” edition, with many
revisions, 1787; Kant’s initial reaction to objections to the first edition
dominate his short review, Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, 1783; the
full title of which means ‘preliminary investigations for any future
metaphysics that will be able to present itself as a science’, i.e., as a body
of certain truths). This work resulted in his mature doctrine of transcendental
idealism, namely, that all our theoretical knowledge is restricted to the
systematization of what are mere spatiotemporal appearances. This position is
also called formal or Critical idealism, because it criticizes theories and
claims beyond the realm of experience, while it also insists that although the
form of experience is ideal, or relative to us, this is not to deny the reality
of something independent of this form. Kant’s earlier works are usually called
pre-Critical not just because they precede his Critique but also because they
do not include a full commitment to this idealism. Kant supplemented his “first
Critique” (often cited just as “the” Critique) with several equally influential
works in practical philosophy – Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Critique
of Practical Reason (the “second Critique,” 1788), and Metaphysics of Morals
(consisting of “Doctrine of Justice” and “Doctrine of Virtue,” 1797). Kant’s
philosophy culminated in arguments advancing a purely moral foundation for
traditional theological claims (the existence of God, immortality, and a
transcendent reward or penalty proportionate to our goodness), and thus was
characterized as “denying knowledge in order to make room for faith.” To be
more precise, Kant’s Critical project was to restrict theoretical knowledge in
such a way as to make it possible for practical knowledge to reveal how pure
rational faith has an absolute claim on us. This position was reiterated in the
Critique of Judgment (the “third Critique,” 1790), which also extended Kant’s
philosophy to aesthetics and scientific methodology by arguing for a priori but
limited principles in each of these domains. Kant was followed by radical
idealists (Fichte, Schelling), but he regarded himself as a philosopher of the
Enlightenment, and in numerous shorter works he elaborated his belief that
everything must submit to the “test of criticism,” that human reason must face
the responsibility of determining the sources, extent, and bounds of its own
principles. The Critique concerns pure reason because Kant believes all these
determinations can be made a priori, i.e., such that their justification does
not depend on any particular course of experience (‘pure’ and ‘a priori’ are
thus usually interchangeable). For Kant ‘pure reason’ often signifies just pure
theoretical reason, which determines the realm of nature and of what is, but
Kant also believes there is pure practical reason (or Wille), which determines
a priori and independently of sensibility the realm of freedom and of what
ought to be. Practical reason in general is defined as that which determines
rules for the faculty of desire and will, as opposed to the faculties of
cognition and of feeling. On Kant’s mature view, however, the practical realm
is necessarily understood in relation to moral considerations, and these in
turn in terms of laws taken to have an unconditional imperative force whose
validity requires presuming that they are addressed to a being with absolute
freedom, the faculty to choose (Willkür) to will or not to will to act for
their sake. Kant also argues that no evidence of human freedom is forthcoming
from empirical knowledge of the self as part of spatiotemporal nature, and that
the belief in our freedom, and thus the moral laws that presuppose it, would
have to be given up if we thought that our reality is determined by the laws of
spatiotemporal appearances alone. Hence, to maintain the crucial practical
component of his philosophy it was necessary for Kant first to employ his
theoretical philosophy to show that it is at least possible that the
spatiotemporal realm does not exhaust reality, so that there can be a
non-empirical and free side to the self. Therefore Kant’s first Critique is a
theoretical foundation for his entire system, which is devoted to establishing
not just (i) what the most general necessary principles for the spatio-temporal
domain are – a project that has been called his “metaphysics of experience” –
but also (ii) that this domain cannot without contradiction define ultimate
reality (hence his transcendental idealism). The first of these claims involves
Kant’s primary use of the term ‘transcendental’, namely in the context of what
he calls a transcendental deduction, which is an argument or “exposition” that
establishes a necessary role for an a priori principle in our experience. As
Kant explains, while mathematical principles are a priori and are necessary for
experience, the mathematical proof of these principles is not itself
transcendental; what is transcendental is rather the philosophical argument
that these principles necessarily apply in experience. While in this way some
transcendental arguments may presume propositions from an established science
(e.g., geometry), others can begin with more modest assumptions – typically the
proposition that there is experience or empirical knowledge at all – and then
move on from there to uncover a priori principles that appear required for
specific features of that knowledge. Kant begins by connecting metaphysics with
the problem of synthetic a priori judgment. As necessary, metaphysical claims
must have an a priori status, for we cannot determine that they are necessary
by mere a posteriori means. As objective rather than merely formal,
metaphysical judgments (unlike those of logic) are also said to be synthetic.
This synthetic a priori character is claimed by Kant to be mysterious and yet
shared by a large number of propositions that were undisputed in his time. The
mystery is how a proposition can be known as necessary and yet be objective or
“ampliative” or not merely “analytic.” For Kant an analytic proposition is one
whose predicate is “contained in the subject.” He does not mean this
“containment” relation to be understood psychologically, for he stresses that
we can be psychologically and even epistemically bound to affirm non-analytic
propositions. The containment is rather determined simply by what is contained
in the concepts of the subject term and the predicate term. However, Kant also
denies that we have ready real definitions for empirical or a priori concepts,
so it is unclear how one determines what is really contained in a subject or
predicate term. He seems to rely on intuitive procedures for saying when it is
that one necessarily connects a subject and predicate without relying on a
hidden conceptual relation. Thus he proposes that mathematical constructions,
and not mere conceptual elucidations, are what warrant necessary judgments
about triangles. In calling such judgments ampliative, Kant does not mean that
they merely add to what we may have explicitly seen or implicitly known about
the subject, for he also grants that complex analytic judgments may be quite
informative, and thus “new” in a psychological or epistemic sense. While Kant
stresses that non-analytic or synthetic judgments rest on “intuition”
(Anschauung), this is not part of their definition. If a proposition could be
known through its concepts alone, it must be analytic, but if it is not
knowable in this way it follows only that we need something other than
concepts. Kant presumed that this something must be intuition, but others have
suggested other possibilities, such as postulation. Intuition is a technical
notion of Kant, meant for those representations that have an immediate relation
to their object. Human intuitions are also all sensible (or sensuous) or
passive, and have a singular rather than general object, but these are less
basic features of intuition, since Kant stresses the possibility of (nonhuman)
non-sensible or “intellectual” intuition, and he implies that singularity of
reference can be achieved by non-intuitive means (e.g., in the definition of
God). The immediacy of intuition is crucial because it is what sets them off
from concepts, which are essentially representations of representations, i.e.,
rules expressing what is common to a set of representations. Kant claims that
mathematics, and metaphysical expositions of our notions of space and time, can
reveal several evident synthetic a priori propositions, e.g., that there is one
infinite space. In asking what could underlie the belief that propositions like
this are certain, Kant came to his Copernican revolution. This consists in
considering not how our representations may necessarily conform to objects as
such, but rather how objects may necessarily conform to our representations. On
a “pre-Copernican” view, objects are considered just by themselves, i.e., as
“things-in-themselves” (Dinge an sich) totally apart from any intrinsic
cognitive relation to our representations, and thus it is mysterious how we
could ever determine them a priori. If we begin, however, with our own
faculties of representation we might find something in them that determines how
objects must be – at least when considered just as phenomena (singular: phenomenon),
i.e., as objects of experience rather than as noumena (singular: noumenon),
i.e., things-inthemselves specified negatively as unknown and beyond our
experience, or positively as knowable in some absolute non-sensible way – which
Kant insists is theoretically impossible for sensible beings like us. For
example, Kant claims that when we consider our faculty for receiving
impressions, or sensibility, we can find not only contingent contents but also
two necessary forms or “pure forms of intuition”: space, which structures all
outer representations given us, and time, which structures all inner
representations. These forms can explain how the synthetic a priori
propositions of mathematics will apply with certainty to all the objects of our
experience. That is, if we suppose that in intuiting these propositions we are
gaining a priori insight into the forms of our representation that must govern
all that can come to our sensible awareness, it becomes understandable that all
objects in our experience will have to conform with these propositions. Kant
presented his transcendental idealism as preferable to all the alternative
explanations that he knew for the possibility of mathematical knowledge and the
metaphysical status of space and time. Unlike empiricism, it allowed necessary
claims in this domain; unlike rationalism, it freed the development of this
knowledge from the procedures of mere conceptual analysis; and unlike the
Newtonians it did all this without giving space and time a mysterious status as
an absolute thing or predicate of God. With proper qualifications, Kant’s
doctrine of the transcendental ideality of space and time can be understood as
a radicalization of the modern idea of primary and secondary qualities. Just as
others had contended that sensible color and sound qualities, e.g., can be
intersubjectively valid and even objectively based while existing only as
relative to our sensibility and not as ascribable to objects in themselves, so
Kant proposed that the same should be said of spatiotemporal predicates. Kant’s
doctrine, however, is distinctive in that it is not an empirical hypothesis
that leaves accessible to us other theoretical and non-ideal predicates for
explaining particular experiences. It is rather a metaphysical thesis that enriches
empirical explanations with an a priori framework, but begs off any explanation
for that framework itself other than the statement that it lies in the
“constitution” of human sensibility as such. This “Copernican” hypothesis is
not a clear proof that spatiotemporal features could not apply to objects apart
from our forms of intuition, but more support for this stronger claim is given
in Kant’s discussion of the “antinomies” of rational cosmology. An antinomy is
a conflict between two a priori arguments arising from reason when, in its
distinctive work as a higher logical faculty connecting strings of judgments,
it posits a real unconditioned item at the origin of various hypothetical
syllogisms. There are antinomies of quantity, quality, relation, and modality,
and they each proceed by pairs of dogmatic arguments which suppose that since
one kind of unconditioned item cannot be found, e.g., an absolutely first
event, another kind must be posited, e.g., a complete infinite series of past
events. For most of the other antinomies, Kant indicates that contradiction can
be avoided by allowing endless series in experience (e.g., of chains of
causality, of series of dependent beings), series that are compatible with –
but apparently do not require – unconditioned items (uncaused causes, necessary
beings) outside experience. For the antinomy of quantity, however, he argues
that the only solution is to drop the common dogmatic assumption that the set
of spatiotemporal objects constitutes a determinate whole, either absolutely
finite or infinite. He takes this to show that spatiotemporality must be
transcendentally ideal, only an indeterminate feature of our experience and not
a characteristic of things-in-themselves. Even when structured by the pure
forms of space and time, sensible representations do not yield knowledge until
they are grasped in concepts and these concepts are combined in a judgment.
Otherwise, we are left with mere impressions, scattered in an unintelligible
“multiplicity” or manifold; in Kant’s words, “thoughts without content are
empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.” Judgment requires both concepts
and intuitions; it is not just any relation of concepts, but a bringing
together of them in a particular way, an “objective” unity, so that one concept
is predicated of another – e.g., “all bodies are divisible” – and the latter
“applies to certain appearances that present themselves to us,” i.e., are
intuited. Because any judgment involves a unity of thought that can be prefixed
by the phrase ‘I think’, Kant speaks of all representations, to the extent that
they can be judged by us, as subject to a necessary unity of apperception. This
term originally signified self-consciousness in contrast to direct
consciousness or perception, but Kant uses it primarily to contrast with ‘inner
sense’, the precognitive manifold of temporal representations as they are
merely given in the mind. Kant also contrasts the empirical ego, i.e., the self
as it is known contingently in experience, with the transcendental ego, i.e.,
the self thought of as the subject of structures of intuiting and thinking that
are necessary throughout experience. The fundamental need for concepts and
judgments suggests that our “constitution” may require not just intuitive but
also conceptual forms, i.e., “pure concepts of the understanding,” or
“categories.” The proof that our experience does require such forms comes in
the “deduction of the objective validity of the pure concepts of the
understanding,” also called the transcendental deduction of the categories, or
just the deduction. This most notorious of all Kantian arguments appears to be
in one way harder and in one way easier than the transcendental argument for
pure intuitions. Those intuitions were held to be necessary for our experience
because as structures of our sensibility nothing could even be imagined to be
given to us without them. Yet, as Kant notes, it might seem that once
representations are given in this way we can still imagine that they need not
then be combined in terms of such pure concepts as causality. On the other
hand, Kant proposed that a list of putative categories could be derived from a
list of the necessary forms of the logical table of judgments, and since these
forms would be required for any finite understanding, whatever its mode of
sensibility is like, it can seem that the validity of pure concepts is even
more inescapable than that of pure intuitions. That there is nonetheless a
special difficulty in the transcendental argument for the categories becomes evident
as soon as one considers the specifics of Kant’s list. The logical table of
judgments is an a priori collection of all possible judgment forms organized
under four headings, with three subforms each: quantity (universal, particular,
singular), quality (affirmative, negative, infinite), relation (categorical,
hypothetical, disjunctive), and modality (problematic, assertoric, apodictic).
This list does not map exactly onto any one of the logic textbooks of Kant’s
day, but it has many similarities with them; thus problematic judgments are
simply those that express logical possibility, and apodictic ones are those
that express logical necessity. The table serves Kant as a clue to the
“metaphysical deduction” of the categories, which claims to show that there is
an origin for these concepts that is genuinely a priori, and, on the premise
that the table is proper, that the derived concepts can be claimed to be
fundamental and complete. But by itself the list does not show exactly what
categories follow from, i.e., are necessarily used with, the various forms of
judgment, let alone what their specific meaning is for our mode of experience.
Above all, even when it is argued that each experience and every judgment
requires at least one of the four general forms, and that the use of any form
of judgment does involve a matching pure concept (listed in the table of
categories: reality, negation, limitation; unity, plurality, totality;
inherence and subsistence, causality and dependence, community; possibility –
impossibility, existence –non-existence, and necessity–contingency) applying to
the objects judged about, this does not show that the complex relational forms
and their corresponding categories of causality and community are necessary
unless it is shown that these specific forms of judgment are each necessary for
our experience. Precisely because this is initially not evident, it can appear,
as Kant himself noted, that the validity of controversial categories such as
causality cannot be established as easily as that of the forms of intuition.
Moreover, Kant does not even try to prove the objectivity of the traditional
modal categories but treats the principles that use them as mere definitions
relative to experience. Thus a problematic judgment, i.e., one in which
“affirmation or negation is taken as merely possible,” is used when something
is said to be possible in the sense that it “agrees with the formal conditions
of experience, i.e., with the conditions of intuition and of concepts.” A clue
for rescuing the relational categories is given near the end of the
Transcendental Deduction (B version), where Kant notes that the a priori
all-inclusiveness and unity of space and time that is claimed in the treatment
of sensibility must, like all cognitive unity, ultimately have a foundation in
judgment. Kant expands on this point by devoting a key section called the
analogies of experience to arguing that the possibility of our judging objects
to be determined in an objective position in the unity of time (and, indirectly,
space) requires three a priori principles (each called an “Analogy”) that
employ precisely the relational categories that seemed especially questionable.
Since these categories are established as needed just for the determination of
time and space, which themselves have already been argued to be
transcendentally ideal, Kant can conclude that for us even a priori claims
using pure concepts of the understanding provide what are only transcendentally
ideal claims. Thus we cannot make determinate theoretical claims about
categories such as substance, cause, and community in an absolute sense that
goes beyond our experience, but we can establish principles for their
spatiotemporal specifications, called schemata, namely, the three Analogies:
“in all change of appearance substance is permanent,” “all alterations take
place in conformity with the law of the connection of cause and effect,” and
“all substances, insofar as they can be perceived to coexist in space, are in
thoroughgoing reciprocity.” Kant initially calls these regulative principles of
experience, since they are required for organizing all objects of our empirical
knowledge within a unity, and, unlike the constitutive principles for the
categories of quantity and quality (namely: “all intuitions [for us] are
extensive magnitudes,” and “in all appearances the real that is an object of
sensation has intensive magnitude, that is, a degree”), they do not
characterize any individual item by itself but rather only by its real relation
to other objects of experience. Nonetheless, in comparison to mere heuristic or
methodological principles (e.g., seek simple or teleological explanations),
these Analogies are held by Kant to be objectively necessary for experience,
and for this reason can also be called constitutive in a broader sense. The
remainder of the Critique exposes the “original” or “transcendental” ideas of
pure reason that pretend to be constitutive or theoretically warranted but
involve unconditional components that wholly transcend the realm of experience.
These include not just the antinomic cosmological ideas noted above (of these
Kant stresses the idea of transcendental freedom, i.e., of uncaused causing),
but also the rational psychological ideas of the soul as an immortal substance
and the rational theological idea of God as a necessary and perfect being. Just
as the pure concepts of the understanding have an origin in the necessary forms
of judgments, these ideas are said to originate in the various syllogistic
forms of reason: the idea of a soul-substance is the correlate of an
unconditioned first term of a categorical syllogism (i.e., a subject that can
never be the predicate of something else), and the idea of God is the correlate
of the complete sum of possible predicates that underlies the unconditioned
first term of the disjunctive syllogism used to give a complete determination
of a thing’s properties. Despite the a priori origin of these notions, Kant
claims we cannot theoretically establish their validity, even though they do
have regulative value in organizing our notion of a human or divine spiritual
substance. Thus, even if, as Kant argues, traditional proofs of immortality,
and the teleological, cosmological, and ontological arguments for God’s
existence, are invalid, the notions they involve can be affirmed as long as
there is, as he believes, a sufficient non-theoretical, i.e., moral argument
for them. When interpreted on the basis of such an argument, they are
transformed into ideas of practical reason, ideas that, like perfect virtue,
may not be verified or realized in sensible experience, but have a rational
warrant in pure practical considerations. Although Kant’s pure practical
philosophy culminates in religious hope, it is primarily a doctrine of
obligation. Moral value is determined ultimately by the nature of the intention
of the agent, which in turn is determined by the nature of what Kant calls the
general maxim or subjective principle underlying a person’s action. One follows
a hypothetical imperative when one’s maxim does not presume an unconditional
end, a goal (like the fulfillment of duty) that one should have irrespective of
all sensible desires, but rather a “material end” dependent on contingent
inclinations (e.g., the directive “get this food,” in order to feel happy). In
contrast, a categorical imperative is a directive saying what ought to be done
from the perspective of pure reason alone; it is categorical because what this
perspective commands is not contingent on sensible circumstances and it always
carries overriding value. The general formula of the categorical imperative is
to act only according to those maxims that can be consistently willed as a
universal law – something said to be impossible for maxims aimed merely at
material ends. In accepting this imperative, we are doubly self-determined, for
we are not only determining our action freely, as Kant believes humans do in
all exercises of the faculty of choice; we are also accepting a principle whose
content is determined by that which is absolutely essential to us as agents,
namely our pure practical reason. We thus are following our own law and so have
autonomy when we accept the categorical imperative; otherwise we fall into
heteronomy, or the (free) acceptance of principles whose content is determined
independently of the essential nature of our own ultimate being, which is
rational. Given the metaphysics of his transcendental idealism, Kant can say
that the categorical imperative reveals a supersensible power of freedom in us
such that we must regard ourselves as part of an intelligible world, i.e., a
domain determined ultimately not by natural laws but rather by laws of reason.
As such a rational being, an agent is an end in itself, i.e., something whose
value is not dependent on external material ends, which are contingent and
valued only as means to the end of happiness – which is itself only a
conditional value (since the satisfaction of an evil will would be improper).
Kant regards accepting the categorical imperative as tantamount to respecting
rational nature as an end in itself, and to willing as if we were legislating a
kingdom of ends. This is to will that the world become a “systematic Kant,
Immanuel Kant, Immanuel 465 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 465 union of
different rational beings through common laws,” i.e., laws that respect and
fulfill the freedom of all rational beings. Although there is only one
fundamental principle of morality, there are still different types of specific
duties. One basic distinction is between strict duty and imperfect duty. Duties
of justice, of respecting in action the rights of others, or the duty not to
violate the dignity of persons as rational agents, are strict because they
allow no exception for one’s inclination. A perfect duty is one that requires a
specific action (e.g. keeping a promise), whereas an imperfect duty, such as
the duty to perfect oneself or to help others, cannot be completely discharged
or demanded by right by someone else, and so one has considerable latitude in
deciding when and how it is to be respected. A meritorious duty involves going
beyond what is strictly demanded and thereby generating an obligation in
others, as when one is extraordinarily helpful to others and “merits” their
gratitude.
kennyism: “His surname means ‘white,’ as in penguin, kennedy.” –
Grice. Cited by Grice in his British Academy lecture – Grice was pleased that
Kenny translated Vitters’s “Philosophical Grammar” – “He turned it into more of
a philosophical thing than I would have thought one could!”
kepler: philosopher, born
in Weil der Stadt, near Stuttgart. He studied astronomy with Michael Maestlin
at the University of Tübingen, and then began the regular course of theological
studies that prepared him to become a Lutheran pastor. Shortly before
completing these studies he accepted the post of mathematician at Graz.
“Mathematics” was still construed as including astronomy and astrology. There
he published the Mysterium cosmographicum (1596), the first mjaor astronomical
work to utilize the Copernican system since Copernicus’s own De revolutionibus
half a century before. The Copernican shift of the sun to the center allowed
Kepler to propose an explanation for the spacing of the planets (the Creator
inscribed the successive planetary orbits in the five regular polyhedra) and
for their motions (a sun-centered driving force diminishing with disKao Tzu
Kepler, Johannes 466 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 466 tance from the
sun). In this way, he could claim to have overcome the traditional prohibition
against the mathematical astronomer’s claiming reality for the motion he
postulates. Ability to explain had always been the mark of the philosopher.
Kepler, a staunch Lutheran, was forced to leave Catholic Graz as bitter
religious and political disputes engulfed much of northern Europe. He took
refuge in the imperial capital, Prague, where Tycho Brahe, the greatest
observational astronomer of the day, had established an observatory. Tycho
asked Kepler to compose a defense of Tycho’s astronomy against a critic,
Nicolaus Ursus, who had charged that it was “mere hypothesis.” The resulting
Apologia (1600) remained unpublished; it contains a perceptive analysis of the
nature of astronomical hypothesis. Merely saving the phenomena, Kepler argues,
is in general not sufficient to separate two mathematical systems like those of
Ptolemy and Copernicus. Other more properly explanatory “physical” criteria
will be needed. Kepler was allowed to begin work on the orbit of Mars, using
the mass of data Tycho had accumulated. But shortly afterward, Tycho died
suddenly (1601). Kepler succeeded to Tycho’s post as Imperial Mathematician;
more important, he was entrusted with Tycho’s precious data. Years of labor led
to the publication of the Astronomia nova (1609), which announced the discovery
of the elliptical orbit of Mars. One distinctive feature of Kepler’s long quest
for the true shape of the orbit was his emphasis on finding a possible physical
evaluation for any planetary motion he postulated before concluding that it was
the true motion. Making the sun’s force magnetic allowed him to suppose that
its effect on the earth would vary as the earth’s magnetic axis altered its
orientation to the sun, thus perhaps explaining the varying distances and
speeds of the earth in its elliptical orbit. The full title of his book makes
his ambition clear: A New Astronomy Based on Causes, or A Physics of the Sky.
Trouble in Prague once more forced Kepler to move. He eventually found a place
in Linz (1612), where he continued his exploration of cosmic harmonies, drawing
on theology and philosophy as well as on music and mathematics. The “Harmonia
mundi” was his favorite among his books: “It can wait a century for a reader,
as God himself has waited six thousand years for a witness.” The discovery of
what later became known as his third law, relating the periodic times of any
two planets as the ratio of the 3 /2 power of their mean distances, served to
confirm his long-standing conviction that the universe is fashioned according
to ideal harmonic relationships. In the Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae
(1612), he continued his search for causes “either natural or archetypal,” not
only for the planetary motions, but for such details as the size of the sun and
the densities of the planets. He was more convinced than ever that a physics of
the heavens had to rest upon its ability to explain (and not just to predict)
the peculiarities of the planetary and lunar motions. What prevented him from
moving even further than he did toward a new physics was that he had not grasped
what later came to be called the principle of inertia. Thus he was compelled to
postulate not only an attractive force between planet and sun but also a second
force to urge the planet onward. It was Newton who showed that the second force
is unnecessary, and who finally constructed the “physics of the sky” that had
been Kepler’s ambition. But he could not have done it without Kepler’s notion
of a quantifiable force operating between planet and sun, an unorthodox notion
shaped in the first place by an imagination steeped in Neoplatonic metaphysics
and the theology of the Holy Spirit.
Keynes, j. Neville – “the
father of the better known Keynes, but the more interesting of the pair.” –
Grice. Keynes, j. k., philosopher, author of “The General Theory of Employment,
Interest and Money” and “A Treatise on Probability,” cited by Grice for the
importance of the ontological status of properties. Keynes was also active in
English Oxbridge philosophical life, being well acquainted with such
philosophers as G. E. Moore and F. P. Ramsey. In the philosophy of probability,
Keynes pioneers the treatment of the proposition as the bearers of a
probability assignment. Unlike classical subjectivists, Keynes treats
probability as objective evidential relations among at least two proposition in
‘if’ connection. These relations are to be directly epistemically accessible to
an intuitive ‘faculty.’ An idiosyncratic feature of Keynes’s system is that
different probability assignments cannot always be compared (ordered as equal, less
than, or greater than one another). Keynesianism permanently affected philosophy.
Keynes’s philosophy has a number of important dimensions. While Keynes’s
theorizing is in the capitalistic tradition, he rejects Sctos Smith’s notion of
an invisible hand that would optimize the performance of an economy without any
intentional direction by an individual or by the government. This involved
rejection of the economic policy of “laissez-faire,” according to which
government intervention in the economy’s operation is useless, or worse. Keynes
argues that the natural force could deflect an economy from a course of optimal
growth and keep it permanently out of equilibrium. Keynes proposes a number of
mechanisms for adjusting its performance. Keynes advocates programs of
government taxation and spending, not primarily as a means of providing public
goods, but as a means of increasing prosperity. The philosopher is thereby
provided with another means for justifying the existence of a strong government.
One of the important ways that Keynes’s philosophy still directs much theorizing
is its deep division between microeconomics and macroeconomics. Keynes argues,
in effect, that micro-oeconomic analysis with its emphasis on ideal individual
rationality and perfect intersubjective game-theoretical two-player competition
is inadequate as a tool for understanding a macrophenomenon such as interest,
and money. Keynes tries to show how human psychological foibles and market
frictions require a qualitatively different kind of analysis at the macro
level. Much theorizing is concerned with understanding the connections between
micro- and macrophenomena and micro- and macroeconomics in an attempt to
dissolve or blur the division. This issue is a philosophically important
instance of a potential theoretical reduction. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Keynes’s
ontology in the “Treatise on Probability,” H. P. Grice, “Credibility and
Probability.”
kierkegaard: “Literally,
churchyard, fancy that!” – Grice. Philosopher born to a well-to-do family, he
consumed his inheritance while writing a large corpus of essays in a remarkably
short time. His life was marked by an intense relationship with a devout but
melancholy father, from whom he inherited his own bent to melancholy, with
which he constantly struggled. A decisive event was his broken engagement from
Regina Olsen, which precipitated the beginning of his authorship; his first
essays are partly an attempt to explain, in a covert and symbolic way, the
reasons why he felt he could not marry. Later Kierkegaard was involved in a
controversy in which he was mercilessly attacked by a popular satirical
periodical; this experience deepened his understanding of the significance of
suffering and the necessity for an authentic individual to stand alone if necessary
against “the crowd.” This caused him to abandon his plans to take a pastorate,
a post for which his education had prepared him. At the end of his life, he
waged a lonely, public campaign in the popular press and in a magazine he
founded himself, against the Danish state church. He collapsed on the street
with the final issue of this magazine, The Instant, ready for the printer, and
was carried to a hospital. He died a few weeks later, affirming a strong
Christian faith, but refusing to take communion from the hands of a priest of
the official church. Though some writers have questioned whether Kierkegaard’s
writings admit of a unified interpretation, Kierkegaard himself sees his oeuvre
as serving Christianity; he saw himself as a “missionary” whose task was to
“reintroduce Christianity into Christendom.” However, much of this literature
does not address Christianity directly, but rather concerns itself with an
analysis of human existence. Kierkegaard see this as necessary, because
Christianity is first and foremost a way of existing. He saw much of the
confusion about Christian faith as rooted in confusion about the nature of
existence. Hence to clear up the former, the latter must be carefully analyzed.
The great misfortune of “Christendom” and “the present age” is that people
“have forgotten what it means ‘to exist,’” and Kierkegaard sees himself as a
modern Socrates sent to “remind” others of what they know but have forgotten.
It is not surprising that the analyses of human existence he provides have been
of great interest to many philosophers. Kierkegaard frequently uses the verb
‘to exist’ (at existere) idiosyncratically, to refer to human existence. In
this sense God is said NOT to exist, even though God has eternal reality.
Kierkegaard describes human existence as an unfinished process, in which “the
individual” (a key concept in his thought) must take responsibility for
achieving an identity as a self through a free choice. Such a choice is
described as a leap, to highlight Kierkegaard’s view that intellectual
reflection alone can never motivate action. A decision to end the process of
reflection is necessary and such a decision must be generated by a passion. The
passions that shape a person’s self are referred to by Kierkegaard as the
individual’s “inwardness” or “subjectivity.” The most significant passion, love
or faith, does not merely happen; they must be cultivated and formed. The
process by which the individual becomes a self is described by Kierkegaard as
ideally moving through three stages, termed the “stages on life’s way.” Since
human development occurs by freedom and not automatically, however, the
individual can become fixated in any of these stages. Thus the stages also
confront each other as rival views of life, or “spheres of existence.” The
three stages or spheres are the “aesthetic,” (or sensual), the ethical, and the
religious. A distinctive feature of Kierkegaard’s philosophy is that these
three lifeviews are represented by pseudonymous “characters” who actually
“author” some of the oeuvre; this leads to interpretive difficulties, since it
is not always clear what to attribute to Kierkegaard himself and what to the
pseudonymous character. Fortunately, he also wrote many devotional and
religious works under his own name, where this problem does not arise. The “aesthetic”
life is described by Kierkegaard as lived for and in “the moment.” It is a life
governed by “immediacy,” or the satisfaction of one’s immediate desire, though
it is capable of a kind of development in which one learns to enjoy life
reflectively. What the aesthetic person lacks is a commitment (except to
sensation itself) which is the key to the ethical life, a life that attempts to
achieve a unified self through commitment to ideals with enduring validity,
rather than simply sensual appeal. The religious life emerges from the ethical
life when the individual realizes both the transcendent character of the true
ideals and also how far short of realizing those ideals the person is. In
Concluding Unscientific Postscript two forms of the religious life are
distinguished: a “natural” religiosity (religiousness “A”) in which the person
attempts to relate to the divine and resolve the problem of guilt, relying
solely on one’s natural “immanent” idea of the divine; and Christianity
(religiousness “B”), in which God becomes incarnate as a human being in order
to establish a relation with humans. Christianity can be accepted only through
the “leap of faith.” It is a religion not of “immanence” but of
“transcendence,” since it is based on a revelation. This revelation cannot be
rationally demonstrated, since the incarnation is a paradox that transcends
human reason. Reason can, however, when the passion of faith is present, come
to understand the appropriateness of recognizing its own limits and accepting
the paradoxical incarnation of God in the form of Jesus Christ. The true
Christian is not merely an admirer of Jesus, but one who believes by becoming a
follower. The irreducibility of the religious life to the ethical life is illustrated
for Kierkegaard in the biblical story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his
son Isaac to obey the command of God. In Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard
(through his pseudonym “de Silentio”) analyzes this act of Abraham’s as
involving a “teleological suspension of the ethical.” Abraham’s act cannot be
understood merely in ethical terms as a conflict of duties in which one
rationally comprehensible duty is superseded by a higher one. Rather, Abraham
seems to be willing to “suspend” the ethical as a whole in favor of a higher
religious duty. Thus, if one admires Abraham as “the father of faith,” one
admires a quality that cannot be reduced to simply moral virtue. Some (like J.
L. Mackie) have read this as a claim that religious faith may require immoral
behavior; others (like P. F. Strawson) argue that what is relativized by the
teleological suspension of the ethical is not an eternally valid set of moral
requirements, but rather ethical obligations as these are embedded in human
social institutions. Thus, in arguing that “the ethical” is not the highest
element in existence, Kierkegaard leaves open the possibility that our social
institutions, and the ethical ideals that they embody, do not deserve our
absolute and unqualified allegiance, an idea with important political
implications. In accord with his claim that existence cannot be reduced to
intellectual thought, Kierkegaard devotes much attention to emotions and
passions. Anxiety is particularly important, since it reflects human freedom.
Anxiety involves a “sympathetic antipathy and an antipathetic sympathy”; it is
the psychological state that precedes the basic human fall into sin, but it
does not explain this “leap,” since no final explanation of a free choice can
be given. Such negative emotions as despair and guilt are also important for
Kierkegaard; they reveal the emptiness of the aesthetic and the ultimately
unsatisfactory character of the ethical, driving individuals on toward the
religious life. Irony and humor are also seen as important “boundary zones” for
the stages of existence. The person who has discovered his or her own “eternal
validity” can look ironically at the relative values that capture most people,
who live their lives aesthetically. Similarly, the “existential humorist” who
has seen the incongruities that necessarily pervade our ethical human projects
is on the border of the religious life. Kierkegaard also analyzes the passions
of faith Kierkegaard, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, Søren Aabye 469 4065h-l.qxd
08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 469 and love. Faith is ultimately understood as a
“willing to be oneself” that is made possible by a transparent, trusting
relationship to the “power that created the self.” Kierkegaard distinguishes
various forms of love, stressing that Christian love must be understood as
neighbor love, a love that is combined and is not rooted in any natural
relationship to the self, such as friendship or kinship, but ultimately is
grounded in the fact that all humans share a relationship to their creator.
Kierkegaard is well known for his critique of Hegel’s absolute idealism.
Hegel’s claim to have written “the system” is ridiculed for its pretensions of
finality. From the Dane’s perspective, though reality may be a system for God,
it cannot be so for any existing thinker, since both reality and the thinker
are incomplete and system implies completeness. Hegelians are also criticized
for pretending to have found a presuppositionless or absolute starting point;
for Kierkegaard, philosophy begins not with doubt but with wonder. Reflection
is potentially infinite; the doubt that leads to skepticism cannot be ended by
thought alone but only by a resolution of the will. Kierkegaard also defends
traditional Aristotelian logic and the principle of non-contradiction against
the Hegelian introduction of “movement” into logic. Kierkegaard is particularly
disturbed by the Hegelian tendency to see God as immanent in society; he
thought it important to understand God as “wholly other,” the “absolutely
different” who can never be exhaustively embodied in human achievement or
institutions. To stand before God one must stand as an individual, in “fear and
trembling,” conscious that this may require a break with the given social
order. Kierkegaard is often characterized as the father of existentialism.
There are reasons for this; he does indeed philosophize existentially, and he
undoubtedly exercised a deep influence on many twentieth-century
existentialists such as Sartre and Camus. But the characterization is
anachronistic, since existentialism as a movement is a twentieth-century
phenomenon, and the differences between Kierkegaard and those existentialists
are also profound. If existentialism is defined as the denial that there is
such a thing as a human essence or nature, it is unlikely that Kierkegaard is
an existentialist. More recently, the Dane has also been seen as a precursor of
postmodernism. His rejection of classical foundationalist epistemologies and
employment of elusive literary techniques such as his pseudonyms again make
such associations somewhat plausible. However, despite his rejection of the
system and criticism of human claims to finality and certitude, Kierkegaard
does not appear to espouse any form of relativism or have much sympathy for
“anti-realism.” He has the kind of passion for clarity and delight in making
sharp distinctions that are usually associated with contemporary “analytic”
philosophy. In the end he must be seen as his own person, a unique Christian
presence with sensibilities that are in many ways Greek and premodern rather
than postmodern. He has been joyfully embraced and fervently criticized by
thinkers of all stripes. He remains “the individual” he wrote about, and to
whom he dedicated many of his works.
kilvington:
Oriel, Oxford. Yorks. Grice, “The English Place Name Society told me.” “I tried
to teach Sophismata at Oxford, but my tutees complained that Chillington’s
Latin chilled them!” – Grice. English philosopher. He was a scholar associated
with the household of Richard de Bury and an early member of “The Oxford
Calculators,” as Grice calls them, important in the early development of
physics. Kilvington’s “Sophismata” is the only work of his studied extensively
to date. It is an investigation of puzzles regarding ceasing, doubting, the
liar, change, velocity and acceleration, motive power, beginning and ceasing,
the continuum, infinity, knowing and doubting, and the liar and related
paradoxes. Kilvington’s “Sophismata” is peculiar insofar as all these are
treated in a conceptual way, in contrast to the more artificial “calculations”
used by Bradwardine, Heytesbury, and other Oxford Calculators to handle this or
that problem. Kilvington also wrote a commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences
and questions on Aristotle’s On Generation and Corruption, Physics, and
Nicomachean Ethics. Refs.: H. P. Grice: “Chillington chills: “Sophismata” – on
beginning and ceasing and knowing and doubting – implicatura.”
kilwardby of rufina: English philosopher, he taught
at Paris, joins the Dominicans and teaches at Oxford. He becomes archbishop of
Canterbury and condemns thirty propositions, among them Aquinas’s position that
there is a single substantial form in a human being. Kilwardby resigns his
archbishopric and is appointed to the bishopric of Santa Rufina, Italy, where
he dies. Kilwardby writes extensively and had considerable medieval influence,
especially in philosophy of language; but it is now unusually difficult to
determine which works are authentically his. “De Ortu Scientiarum advances a
sophisticated account of how a name is imposed and a detailed account of the
nature and role of conceptual analysis. In metaphysics Kilwardby of Rufina
insisted that things are individual and that universality arises from operations
of the soul. He writes extensively on happiness and was concerned to show that
some happiness is possible in this life. In psychology he argued that freedom
of decision is a disposition arising from the cooperation of the intellect and
the will.
cognitum: KK-thesis:
the thesis that knowing entails knowing that one knows, symbolized in propositional
epistemic logic as Kp > KKp, where ‘K’ stands for knowing. According to the
KK-thesis, proposed by Grice in “Method in philosophical psychology: from the
banal to the bizarre,” the (propositional) logic of knowledge resembles the
modal system S4. The KK-thesis was introduced into epistemological discussion
by Hintikka in Knowledge and Belief. He calls the KKthesis a “virtual
implication,” a conditional whose negation is “indefensible.” A tacit or an
explicit acceptance of the thesis has been part of many philosophers’ views
about knowledge since Plato and Aristotle. If the thesis is formalized as Kap P
KaKap, where ‘Ka’ is read as ‘a knows that’, it holds only if the person a
knows that he is referred to by ‘a’; this qualification is automatically
satisfied for the first-person case. The validity of the thesis seems sensitive
to variations in the sense of ‘know’; it has sometimes been thought to
characterize a strong concept of knowledge, e.g., knowledge based on (factually)
conclusive reasons, or active as opposed to implicit knowledge. If knowledge is
regarded as true belief based on conclusive evidence, the KKthesis entails that
a person knows that p only if his evidence for p is also sufficient to justify
the claim that he knows that p; the epistemic claim should not require
additional evidence. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Method in philosophical psychology:
from the banal to the bizarre,” in “The Conception of Value.”
Shaftesbury: “One of my
favourite rationalist philosophers” – Grice.
Kleist: philosopher whose
oeuvre is based on the antinomy of reason and sentiment, one as impotent as the
other, and reflects the Aufklärung crisis at the turn of the century. He resigned
from the Prussian army. Following a reading of Kant, he lost faith in a “life’s
plan” as inspired by Leibniz’s, Wolff’s, and Shaftesbury’s rationalism. Kleist
looks for salvation in Rousseau but concluded that sentiment revealed itself
just as untrustworthy as reason as soon as man left the state of original grace
(“or grice, his spelling is doubtful” – Grice) and realized himself to be
neither a puppet nor a god (see Essay on the Puppet Theater, 1810). The
Schroffenstein Family repeats the Shakespearian theme of two young people who
love each other but belong to warring families. One already finds in it the
major elements of Kleist’s universe: the incapacity of the individual to master
his fate, the theme of the tragic error, and the importance of the juridical.
In 1803, Kleist returned to philosophy and literature and realized in
Amphitryon (1806) the impossibility of the individual knowing himself and the
world and acting deliberately in it. The divine order that is the norm of
tragic art collapses, and with it, the principle of identity. Kleistian characters,
“modern” individuals, illustrate this normative chaos. The Broken Jug (a
comedy) shows Kleist’s interest in law. In his two parallel plays, Penthesilea
and The Young Catherine of Heilbronn, Kleist presents an alternative: either
“the marvelous order of the world” and the theodicy that carries Catherine’s
fate, or the sublime and apocryphal mission of the Christlike individual who
must redeem the corrupt order. Before his suicide, Kleist looked toward the
renaissance of the German nation for a historical way out of this metaphysical
conflict.
knowledge
by acquaintance: knowledge of objects by means of direct
awareness of them. The notion of knowledge by acquaintance is primarily
associated with Russell (The Problems of Philosophy). Russell first distinguishes
knowledge of truths from knowledge of things. He then distinguishes two kinds
of knowledge of things: knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description.
Ordinary speech suggests that we are acquainted with the people and the
physical objects in our immediate environments. On Russell’s view, however, our
contact with these things is indirect, being mediated by our mental
representations of them. He holds that the only things we know by acquaintance
are the content of our minds, abstract universals, and, perhaps, ourselves.
Russell says that knowledge by description is indirect knowledge of objects,
our knowledge being mediated by other objects and truths. He suggests that we
know external objects, such as tables and other people, only by description
(e.g., the cause of my present experience). Russell’s discussion of this topic
is quite puzzling. The considerations that lead him to say that we lack
acquaintance with external objects also lead him to say that, strictly
speaking, we lack knowledge of such things. This seems to amount to the claim
that what he has called “knowledge by description” is not, strictly speaking, a
kind of knowledge at all. Russell also holds that every proposition that a
person understands must be composed entirely of elements with which the person
is acquainted. This leads him to propose analyses of familiar propositions in
terms of mental objects with which we are acquainted.
de
re/de sensu:, knowledge de re, with respect to some
object, that it has a particular property, or knowledge, of a group of objects,
that they stand in some relation. Knowledge de re is typically contrasted with
knowledge de dicto, which is knowledge of facts or propositions. If persons A
and B know that a winner has been declared in an election, but only B knows
which candidate has won, then both have de dicto knowledge that someone has
won, but only B has de re knowledge about some candidate that she is the
winner. Person B can knowingly attribute the property of being the winner to
one of the candidates. It is generally held that to have de re knowledge about
an object one must at least be in some sense familiar with or causally
connected to the object. A related concept is knowledge de se. This is
self-knowledge, of the sort expressed by ‘I am —— ’. Knowledge de se is not
simply de re knowledge about oneself. A person might see a group of people in a
mirror and notice that one of the people has a red spot on his nose. He then
has de dicto knowledge that someone in the group has a red spot on his nose. On
most accounts, he also has de re knowledge with respect to that individual that
he has a spot. But if he has failed to recognize that he himself is the one
with the spot, then he lacks de se knowledge. He doesn’t know (or believe) what
he would express by saying “I have a red spot.” So, according to this view,
knowledge de se is not merely knowledge de re about oneself.
köhler:
philosophical psychologist who, with Wertheimer and Koffka, founded Gestalt
psychologie. Köhler makestwo distinctive contributions to Gestalt doctrine, one
empirical, one theoretical. The empirical contribution was his study of animal
thinking, performed on Tenerife (The Mentality of Apes). The then dominant
theory of problem solving was E. L. Thorndike’s associationist trial-and-error
learning theory, maintaining that animals attack problems by trying out a
series of behaviors, one of which is gradually “stamped in” by success. Köhler
argues that trial-and-error behavior occurred only when, as in Thorndike’s
experiments, part of the problem situation was hidden. He arranged more open
puzzles, such as getting bananas hanging from a ceiling, requiring the ape to
get a (visible) box to stand on. His apes showed insight – suddenly arriving at
the correct solution. Although he demonstrated the existence of insight, its
nature remains elusive, and trial-and-error learning remains the focus of
research. Köhler’s theoretical contribution was the concept of isomorphism,
Gestalt psychology’s theory of psychological representation. He held an
identity theory of mind and body, and isomorphism claims that a topological
mapping exists between the behavioral field in which an organism is acting (cf.
Lewin) and fields of electrical currents in the brain (not the “mind”). Such
currents have not been discovered. Important works by Köhler include Gestalt
Psychology, The Place of Value in a World of Facts, Dynamics in Psychology, and
Selected Papers (ed. M. Henle).
Kotarbigski: philosopher,
cofounder, with Lukasiewicz and Lesniewski, of the Warsaw Centre of Logical
Research. His broad philosophical interests and humanistic concerns, probity,
scholarship, and clarity in argument, consequent persuasiveness, and steadfast
championship of human rights made him heir to their common mentor Kasimir
Twardowski, father of modern Polish philosophy. In philosophical, historical,
and methodological works like his influential Elements of Theory of Knowledge,
Formal Logic, and Scientific Methodology (1929; mistitled Gnosiology in English
translation), he popularized the more technical contributions of his
colleagues, and carried on Twardowski’s objectivist and “anti-irrationalist”
critical tradition, insisting on accuracy and clarity, holding that philosophy
has no distinctive method beyond the logical and analytical methods of the
empirical and deductive sciences. As a free-thinking liberal humanist
socialist, resolved to be “a true compass, not a weathervane,” he defended
autonomous ethics against authoritarianism, left or right. His lifelong concern
with community and social practice led him to develop praxiology as a theory of
efficacious action. Following Lesniewsi’s “refutation” of Twardowski’s
Platonism, Kotarbigski insisted on translating abstractions into more concrete
terms. The principal tenets of his “reist, radical realist, and imitationist”
rejection of Platonism, phenomenalism, and introspectionism are (1) pansomatism
or ontological reism as modernized monistic materialism: whatever is anything
at all (even a soul) is a body – i.e., a concrete individual object, resistant
and spatiotemporally extended, enduring at least a while; (2) consequent
radical realism: no object is a “property,” “relation,” “event,” “fact,” or
“abstract entity” of any other kind, nor “sense-datum,” “phenomenon,” or
essentially “private mental act” or “fact” accessible only to “introspection”;
(3) concretism or semantic reism and imitationism as a concomitant “nominalist”
program – thus, abstract terms that, hypostatized, might appear to name
“abstract entities” are pseudo-names or onomatoids to be eliminated by
philosophical analysis and elucidatory paraphrase. Hypostatizations that might
appear to imply existence of such Platonic universals are translatable into
equivalent generalizations characterizing only bodies. Psychological propositions
are likewise reducible, ultimately to the basic form: Individual So-and-so
experiences thus; Such-and-such is so. Only as thus reduced can such
potentially misleading expressions be rightly understood and judged true or
false.
krause: philosopher
representative of a tendency to develop Kant’s views in the direction of
pantheism and mysticism. Educated at Jena, he came under the influence of
Fichte and Schelling. Taking his philosophical starting point as Fichte’s
analysis of self-consciousness, and adopting as his project a “spiritualized”
systematic elaboration of the philosophy of Spinoza (somewhat like the young
Schelling), he arrived at a position that he called panentheism. According to
this, although nature and human consciousness are part of God or Absolute
Being, the Absolute is neither exhausted in nor identical with them. To some
extent, he anticipated Hegel in invoking an “end of history” in which the
finite realm of human affairs would reunite with the infinite essence in a
universal moral and “spiritual” order.
Kripke: philosopher cited
by H. P. Grice, he formulated a semantics for modal logic (the logic of
necessity and possibility) based on Leibniz’s notion of a possible world, and,
using the apparatus, proved completeness for a variety of systems. Possible
world semantics (due in part also to Carnap and others) has proved to be pretty
fruitful.. Kripke’s Princeton lectures, Naming and Necessity are a watershed.
The work primarily concerns proper names of individuals (e.g., ‘H. P. Grice is
called ‘H. P. Grice’’) and, by extension, terms for natural kinds (‘Oxonian’)
and similar expressions. Kripke uses his thesis that any such term is a “rigid
designator,”– i.e., designates the same thing with respect to every possible
world in which that thing exists (and does not designate anything else with
respect to worlds in which it does not exist) – to argue, contrary to the
received Fregeian view, that the designation of a proper name is not
semantically secured by means of a description that gives the sense of the
name. On the contrary, the description associated with a particular use of a
name will frequently designate something else entirely. Kripke derives putative
examples of necessary a posteriori truths, as well as contingent a priori truths.
In addition, he defends essentialism – the doctrine that some properties of
things are properties that those things could not fail to have (except by not
existing) – and uses it, together with his account of natural-kind terms, to
argue against the identification of mental entities with their physical
manifestations (e.g., sensations with specific neural events). In a sequel, “A
Puzzle about Belief,” Kripke addresses the problem of substitution failure in
sentential contexts attributing belief or other propositional attitudes.
Kripke’s interpretation of the later Wittgenstein as a semantic skeptic has
also had a profound impact (Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language). His
semantic theory of truth (“Outline of a Theory of Truth”) has sparked renewed
interest in the liar paradox (‘This statement is false’) and related paradoxes,
and in the development of non-classical languages containing their own truth
predicates as possible models for ordinary language. He is also known for his
work in intuitionism and on his theory of transfinite recursion on admissible
ordinals. Kripke, McCosh Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, frequently
lectures on numerous further significant results in philosophy. A Kripke
semantics, a type of formal semantics for languages with operators A and B for
necessity and possibility (‘possible worlds semantics’ and ‘relational
semantics’ are sometimes used for the same notion); also, a similar semantics
for intuitionistic logic. In a basic version a framefor a sentential language with
A and B is a pair (W, R) where W is a non-empty set (the “possible worlds”) and
R is a binary relation on W – the relation of “relative possibility” or
“accessibility.” A model on the frame (W, R) is a triple (W, R, V), where V is
a function (the “valuation function”) that assigns truth-values to sentence
letters at worlds. If w 1 W then a sentence AA is true at world w in the model
(W, R, V) if A is true at all worlds v 1 W for which wRv. Informally, AA is
true at world w if A is true at all the worlds that would be possible if w were
actual. This is a generalization of the doctrine commonly attributed to Leibniz
that necessity is truth in all possible worlds. A is valid in the model (W, R, V)
if it is true at all worlds w 1 W in that model. It is valid in the frame (W, R)
if it is valid in all models on that frame. It is valid if it is valid in all
frames. In predicate logic versions, a frame may include another component D,
that assigns a non-empty set Dw of objects (the existents at w) to each possible
world w. Terms and quantifiers may be treated either as objectual (denoting and
ranging over individuals) or conceptual (denoting and ranging over functions
from possible worlds to individuals) and either as actualist or
possibilist(denoting and ranging over either existents or possible existents).
On some of these treatments there may arise further choices about whether and
how truth-values should be assigned to sentences that assert relations among
non-existents. The development of Kripke semantics marks a watershed in the
modern study of modal systems. A number of axiomatizations for necessity and
possibility were proposed and investigated. Carnap showed that for the simplest
of these systems, C. I. Lewis’s S5, AA can be interpreted as saying that A is
true in all “state descriptions.” Answering even the most basic questions about
the other systems, however, required effort and ingenuity. Stig Kanger, Richard
Montague, Kripke, and Hintikka each formulated interpretations for such systems
that generalized Carnap’s semantics by using something like the accessibility
relation described above. Kripke’s semantics was more natural than the others
in that accessibility was taken to be a relation among mathematically primitive
“possible worlds,” and, in a series of papers, Kripke demonstrated that
versions of it provide characteristic interpretations for a number of modal
systems. For these reasons Kripke’s formulation has become standard. Relational
semantics provided simple solutions to some older problems about the
distinctness and relative strength of the various systems. It also opened new
areas of investigation, facilitating general results (establishing decidability
and other properties for infinite classes of modal systems), incompleteness
results (exhibiting systems not determined by any class of frames), and
correspondence results (showing that the frames verifying certain modal
formulas were exactly the frames meeting certain conditions on R). It suggested
parallel interpretations for notions whose patterns of inference were known to
be similar to that of necessity and possibility, including obligation and
permission, epistemic necessity and possibility, provability and consistency,
and, more recently, the notion of a computation’s inevitably or possibly terminating
in a particular state. It inspired similar semantics for nonclassical
conditionals and the more general neighborhood or functional variety of
possible worlds semantics. The philosophical utility of Kripke semantics is
more difficult to assess. Since the accessibility relation is often explained
in terms of the modal operators, it is difficult to maintain that the semantics
provides an explicit analysis of the modalities it interprets. Furthermore,
questions about which version of the semantics is correct (particularly for
quantified modal systems) are themselves tied to substantive questions about
the nature of things and worlds. The semantics does impose important
constraints on the meaning of modalities, and it provides a means for many
philosophical questions to be posed more clearly and starkly.
Kristeva: The centerpiece
of Kristeva’s semiotic theory has two correlative moments: a focus on the
speaking subject as embodying unconscious motivations (and not simply the
conscious intentionality of a Husserlian transcendental ego) and an
articulation of the signifying phenomenon as a dynamic, productive process (not
a static sign-system). Kristeva’s most systematic philosophical work, La
Révolution du langage poétique brings her semiotics to mature expression
through an effective integration of psychoanalysis (Freud and Lacan), elements
of linguistic models (from Roman Jakobson to Chomskyan generative grammar) and
semiology (from Saussure to Peirce and Louis Hjelmslev), and a literary
approach to text (influenced by Bakhtin). Together the symbolic and the
semiotic, two dialectical and irreconcilable modalities of meaning, constitute
the signifying process. The symbolic designates the systematic rules governing
denotative and propositional speech, while the semiotic isolates an archaic
layer of meaning that is neither representational nor based on relations among
signs. The concept of the chora combines the semiotic, translinguistic layer of
meaning (genotext) with a psychoanalytic, drive-based model of unconscious
sound production, dream logic, and fantasy life that defy full symbolic
articulation. Drawing on Plato’s non-unified notion of the maternal receptacle
(Timaeus), the chora constitutes the space where subjectivity is generated.
Drives become “ordered” in rhythmic patterns during the pre-Oedipal phase
before the infant achieves reflexive capacity, develops spatial intuition and
time consciousness, and posits itself as an enunciating subject. Ordered, but
not according to symbolic laws, semiotic functions arise when the infant forms
associations between its vocal gesticulations and sensorimotor development, and
patterns these associations after the mother’s corporeal modulations. The
semiotic chora, while partly repressed in identity formation, links the
subject’s preverbal yet functional affective life to signification. All
literary forms – epic narrative, metalanguage, contemplation or theoria and
text-practice – combine two different registers of meaning, phenotext and
genotext. Yet they do so in different ways and none encompasses both registers
in totality. The phenotext refers to language in its function “to communicate”
and can be analyzed in terms of syntax and semantics. Though not itself
linguistic, the genotext reveals itself in the way that “phonematic” and
“melodic devices” and “syntactic and logical” features establish “semantic”
fields. The genotext isolates the specific mode in which a text sublimates
drives; it denotes the “process” by which a literary form generates a
particular type of subjectivity. Poetic language is unique in that it largely
reveals the genotext. This linkage between semiotic processes, genotext, and
poetic language fulfills the early linguistic project (1967–73) and engenders a
novel post-Hegelian social theory. Synthesizing semiotics and the destructive
death drive’s attack against stasis artfully restores permanence to Hegelian
negativity. Poetic mimesis, because it transgresses grammatical rules while
sustaining signification, reactivates the irreducible negativity and
heterogeneity of drive processes. So effectuating anamnesis, poetry reveals the
subject’s constitution within language and, by holding open rather than
normalizing its repressed desire, promotes critical analysis of symbolic and
institutionalized values. Later works like Pouvoirs de l’horreur (1980),
Etrangers à nous-mêmes (1989), Histoires d’amour, and Les Nouvelles maladies de
l’âme shift away from collective political agency to a localized, culturally
therapeutic focus. Examining xenophobic social formations, abjection and
societal violence, romantic love, grief, women’s melancholic poison in
patriarchy, and a crisis of moral values in the postmetaphysical age, they
harbor forceful implications for ethics and social theory.
Kropotkin: philosopher,
best remembered for his anarchism and his defense of mutual aid as a factor of
evolution. Traveling extensively in Siberia on scientific expeditions
(1862–67), he was stimulated by Darwin’s newly published theory of evolution
and sought, in the Siberian landscape, confirmation of Darwin’s Malthusian
principle of the struggle for survival. Instead Kropotkin found that
underpopulation was the rule, that climate was the main obstacle to survival,
and that mutual aid was a far more common phenomenon than Darwin recognized. He
soon generalized these findings to social theory, opposing social Darwinism,
and also began to espouse anarchist theory.
Kuhn: Grice: “I would
hardly look for inspiration in ‘philosophical minor revolutions’ in Kuhn, who
wasn’t really a philosopher – MA physics, PhD philosophy of science” --
philosopher, studied at Harvard, where he received degrees in physics and a
doctorate in the history of science. He then taught history of science or
philosophy of science at Harvard (1951–56), Berkeley (1956–64), Princeton
(1964–79), and M.I.T. (1979–91). Kuhn traced his shift from physics to the
history and philosophy of science to a moment in 1947 when he was Kropotkin,
Petr Alekseevich Kuhn, Thomas S(amuel) 478 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 478
asked to teach some science to humanities majors. Searching for a case study to
illuminate the development of Newtonian mechanics, Kuhn opened Aristotle’s
Physics and was astonished at how “simply wrong” it was. After a while, Kuhn
came to “think like an Aristotelian physicist” and to realize that Aristotle’s
basic concepts were totally unlike Newton’s, and that, understood on its own
terms, Aristotle’s Physics was not bad Newtonian mechanics. This new
perspective resulted in The Copernican Revolution (1957), a study of the
transformation of the Aristotelian geocentric image of the world to the modern
heliocentric one. Pondering the structure of these changes, Kuhn produced his
immensely influential second book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962).
He argued that scientific thought is defined by “paradigms,” variously
describing these as disciplinary matrixes or exemplars, i.e., conceptual
world-views consisting of beliefs, values, and techniques shared by members of
a given community, or an element in that constellation: concrete achievements
used as models for research. According to Kuhn, scientists accept a prevailing
paradigm in “normal science” and attempt to articulate it by refining its
theories and laws, solving various puzzles, and establishing more accurate
measurements of constants. Eventually, however, their efforts may generate
anomalies; these emerge only with difficulty, against a background of
expectations provided by the paradigm. The accumulation of anomalies triggers a
crisis that is sometimes resolved by a revolution that replaces the old
paradigm with a new one. One need only look to the displacement of Aristotelian
physics and geocentric astronomy by Newtonian mechanics and heliocentrism for
instances of such paradigm shifts. In this way, Kuhn challenged the traditional
conception of scientific progress as gradual, cumulative acquisition of
knowledge. He elaborated upon these themes and extended his historical
inquiries in his later works, The Essential Tension (1977) and Black-Body
Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity (1978). H. P. Grice, “A minor revolution
in philosophy.”
Labriola: born in Genova,
Liguria, Italia, philosopher who studied Hegel and corresponded with Engels for
years (Lettere a Engels, 1949). Labriola’s essays on Marxism appeared first in
French in the collection Essais sur la conception matérialiste de l’histoire. Another
influential work, Discorrendo di socialismo e di filosofia collects ten letters
to Georges Sorel on Marxism. Labriola did not intend to develop an original
Marxist theory but only to give an accurate exposition of Marx’s thought. He
believed that socialism would inevitably ensue from the inner contradictions of
capitalist society and defended Marx’s views as objective scientific truths. He
criticized revisionism and defended the need to maintain the orthodoxy of
Marxist thought. His views and works were publicized by two of his students,
Sorel in France and Croce in Italy. Gramsci brought new attention to Labriola
as an example of pure and independent Marxism.
labours:
the twelve labours of Grice. They are twelve. The first is Extensionalism. The
second is Nominalism. The third is Positivism. The fourth is Naturalism. The
fifth is Mechanism. The sixth is Phenomenalism. The seventh is Reductionism.
The eighth is physicalism. The ninth is materialism. The tenth is Empiricism.
The eleventh is Scepticism, and the twelfth is functionalism. “As I thread my way unsteadily along the tortuous mountain
path which is supposed to lead, in the long distance, to the City of Eternal
Truth, I find myself beset by a multitude of demons and perilous places,
bearing names like Extensionalism, Nominalism, Positivism, Naturalism,
Mechanism, Phenomenalism, Reductionism, Physicalism, Materialism, Empiricism,
Scepticism, and Functionalism; menaces which are, indeed, almost as numerous as
those encountered by a traveller called Christian on another well-publicized
journey.”“The items named in this catalogue are obviously, in many cases, not
to be identified with one another; and it is perfectly possible to maintain a
friendly attitude towards some of them while viewing others with hostility.” “There are many persons, for example, who view Naturalism
with favour while firmly rejecting Nominalism.”“And it is not easy to see how
anyone could couple support for Phenomenalism with support for
Physicalism.”“After a more tolerant (permissive) middle age, I have come to
entertain strong opposition to all of them, perhaps partly as a result of the
strong connection between a number of them and the philosophical technologies
which used to appeal to me a good deal more than they do now.“But how would I
justify the hardening of my heart?” “The
first question is, perhaps, what gives the list of items a unity, so that I can
think of myself as entertaining one twelve-fold antipathy, rather than twelve
discrete antipathies.”
“To this question my answer is that
all the items are forms of what I shall call Minimalism, a propensity which
seeks to keep to a minimum (which may in some cases be zero) the scope
allocated to some advertised philosophical commodity, such as abstract
entities, knowledge, absolute value, and so forth.”“In weighing the case for
and the case against a trend of so high a degree of generality as Minimalism,
kinds of consideration may legitimately enter which would be out of place were
the issue more specific in character; in particular, appeal may be made to
aesthetic considerations.”“In favour of Minimalism, for example, we might hear
an appeal, echoing Quine, to the beauty of ‘desert landscapes.’”“But such an
appeal I would regard as inappropriate.”“We are not being asked by a Minimalist
to give our vote to a special, and no doubt very fine, type of landscape.”“We
are being asked to express our preference for an ordinary sort of landscape at
a recognizably lean time; to rosebushes and cherry-trees in mid-winter, rather
than in spring or summer.”“To change the image somewhat, what bothers me about
whatI am being offered is not that it is bare, but that it has been systematically
and relentlessly undressed.”“I am also adversely influenced by a different kind
of unattractive feature which some, or perhaps even all of these betes noires
seem to possess.”“Many of them are guilty of restrictive practices which,
perhaps, ought to invite the attention of a Philosophical Trade
Commission.”“They limit in advance the range and resources of philosophical
explanation.”“They limit its range by limiting the kinds of phenomena whose
presence calls for explanation.”“Some prima-facie candidates are watered down,
others are washed away.”“And they limit its resources by forbidding the use of
initially tempting apparatus, such as the concepts expressed by psychological,
or more generally intensional, verbs.”“My own instincts operate in a reverse direction
from this.”“I am inclined to look first at how useful such and such explanatory
ideas might prove to be if admitted, and to waive or postpone enquiry into
their certificates of legitimacy.”“I am conscious that all I have so far said
against Minimalsim has been very general in character, and also perhaps a
little tinged with rhetoric.”“This is not surprising in view of the generality
of the topic.”“But all the same I should like to try to make some provision for
those in search of harder tack.”“I can hardly, in the present context, attempt
to provide fully elaborated arguments against all, or even against any one, of
the diverse items which fall under my label 'Minimalism.’”“The best I can do is
to try to give a preliminary sketch of what I would regard as the case against
just one of the possible forms of minimalism, choosing one which I should
regard it as particularly important to be in a position to reject.”“My
selection is Extensionalism, a position imbued with the spirit of Nominalism,
and dear both to those who feel that 'Because it is red' is no more informative
as an answer to the question 'Why is a pillar-box called ‘red’?' than would be
'Because he is Grice' as an answer to the question 'Why is that
distinguished-looking person called "Grice"?', and also to those who
are particularly impressed by the power of Set-theory.”“The picture which, I
suspect, is liable to go along with Extensionalism is that of the world of
particulars as a domain stocked with innumerable tiny pellets, internally indistinguishable
from one another, butdistinguished by the groups within which they fall, by the
'clubs' to which they belong; and since the clubs are distinguished only by
their memberships, there can only be one club to which nothing belongs.”“As one
might have predicted from the outset, this leads to trouble when it comes to
the accommodation of explanation within such a system.”“Explanation of the
actual presence of a particular feature in a particular subject depends
crucially on the possibility of saying what would be the consequence of the
presence of such and such features in that subject, regardless of whether the
features in question even do appear in that subject, or indeed in any
subject.”“On the face of it, if one adopts an extensionalist view-point, the
presence of a feature in some particular will have to be re-expressed in terms
of that particular's membership of a certain set.”“But if we proceed along
those lines, since there is only one empty set, the potential consequences of
the possession of in fact unexemplified features would be invariably the same,
no matter how different in meaning the expressions used to specify such
features would ordinarily be judged to be.”“This is certainly not a conclusion
which one would care to accept.”“I can think of two ways of trying to avoid its
acceptance, both of which seem to me to suffer from serious drawbacks.” H. P.
Grice, “Grice’s seven labours.”
Lacan: he developed and
transformed Freudian theory and practice on the basis of the structuralist semiotics
originated by Saussure. According to Lacan, the unconscious is not a congeries
of biological instincts and drives, but rather a system of signifiers. Lacan
construes, e.g., the fundamental Freudian processes of condensation and
displacement as instances of metaphor and metonymy. Lacan proposea a
Freudianism in which any traces of the substantial Cartesian self are replaced
by a system of this or that symbolic function. Contrary to standard views, the
ego is an imaginary projection, not our access to the real (which, for Lacan,
is the unattainable and inexpressible limit of language). In accord with his
theoretical position, Lacan develops a new form of psychoanalytic practice that
tries to avoid rather than achieve the “transference” whereby the analysand
identifies with the ego of the analyst. Lacan’s writings (e.g., Écrits and the
numerous volumes of his Séminaires) are of legendary difficulty, offering
idiosyncratic networks of allusion, word play, and paradox, which Grice finds
rich and stimulating and Strawson irresponsibly obscure. Beyond psychoanalysis,
Lacan has been particularly influential on literary theorists and on
poststructuralist philosophers such as Foucault, Derrida, and Deleuze.
Laffitte: positivist
philosopher, a disciple of Comte and founder of the Revue Occidentale. Laffitte
spread positivism by adopting Comte’s format of “popular” courses. He
faithfully acknowledged Comte’s objective method and religion of humanity.
Laffitte wrote Great Types of Humanity. In Positive Ethics, he distinguishes
between theoretical and practical ethics. His Lectures on First Philosophy sets
forth a metaphysics, or a body of general and abstract laws, that attempts to
complete positivism, to resolve the conflict between the subjective and the
objective, and to avert materialism.
La Forge: philosopher, a member
of the Cartesian school. La Forge seems to have become passionately interested
in Descartes’s philosophy and grew to become one of its most visible and
energetic advocates. La Forge (together with Gérard van Gutschoven) illustrated
an edition of Descartes’s L’homme and provided an extensive commentary; both
illustrations and commentary were often reprinted with the text. His main work,
though, is the Traité de l’esprit de l’homme: though not a commentary on
Descartes, it is “in accordance with the principles of René Descartes,”
according to its subtitle. It attempts to continue Descartes’s program in
L’homme, left incomplete at his death, by discussing the mind and its union
with the body. In many ways La Forge’s work is quite orthodox; he carefully
follows Descartes’s opinions on the nature of body, the nature of soul, etc.,
as they appear in the extant writings to which he had access. But with others
in the Cartesian school, La Forge’s work contributed to the establishment of
the doctrine of occasionalism as Cartesian orthodoxy, a doctrine not explicitly
found in Descartes’s writings.
Future and general duty: I think it is clear that
whatever I imply, suggest, mean, etc., is distinct from what I explicitly
convey.
I wish to introduce, as
terms of art, one verb "implicate" and two related nouns,
"implicature" (cf. "implying") and "implicatum"
(cf. "what is implied"). The point of my maneuvre
is to free you from having to choose (a) between this or that member of
the family of verbs (imply, etc.) for which the verb "implicate" is
to do general duty. (b) between this or that member of the family of nouns
(the implying, etc.) for which the noun "implicature" is to do
general duty.(c) between this or that member of the the family of nouns or
nominal consstructions ('what is implied,' etc.) for which 'implicatum' is to
do general duty. I will add: implicaturum –
implicatura. "Implicaturum"
(sing.) becomes, of course, "implicatura." So, strictly, while the
verb to use do do general duty is 'implicate,' the NOUN is 'implicaturum'
(plural: implicatura). I think it is clear that whatever I imply or
keep implicit (suggest, mean, etc.)is distinct from what I explicitly convey,
or make explicit. I wish to introduce, as a term of art the Latinate verb
'implicate,' from the Latin 'implicare' -- with its derivative, 'implicaturum.' The point of my maneuvre
is for my tutee's delight: he won't have to choose between this or that member
of the family of verbs ('suggest,' 'mean') for which the Latinate verb
'implicate' (from 'implicaare' with its derivative form, 'implicaturum,') is to
do general duty. If we compare it with ‘amare’: Grice: “As Cicero knows,
there is a world of difference between ‘amatum’ and ‘amaturum’ – so with
‘implicatum’ and ‘implicaturum’!” – IMPLICATURUM: about to imply, about to be
under obligation to imply, about to be obliged to imply. Refs. H. P. Grice,
“Implicaturum.”
lambda
implicaturum -- Church: a., philosopher, known in pure
logic for his discovery and application of the Church lambda operator, one of
the central ideas of the Church lambda calculus, and for his rigorous
formalizations of the theory of types, a higher-order underlying logic
originally formulated in a flawed form by Whitehead and Russell. The lambda
operator enables direct, unambiguous, symbolic representation of a range of
philosophically and mathematically important expressions previously
representable only ambiguously or after elaborate paraphrasing. In philosophy,
Church advocated rigorous analytic methods based on symbolic logic. His
philosophy was characterized by his own version of logicism, the view that
mathematics is reducible to logic, and by his unhesitating acceptance of
higherorder logics. Higher-order logics, including second-order, are
ontologically rich systems that involve quantification of higher-order
variables, variables that range over properties, relations, and so on.
Higher-order logics were routinely used in foundational work by Frege, Peano,
Hilbert, Gödel, Tarski, and others until around World War II, when they
suddenly lost favor. In regard to both his logicism and his acceptance of
higher-order logics, Church countered trends, increasingly dominant in the
third quarter of the twentieth century, against reduction of mathematics to
logic and against the so-called “ontological excesses” of higher-order logic.
In the 0s, although admired for his high standards of rigor and for his
achievements, Church was regarded as conservative or perhaps even reactionary.
Opinions have softened in recent years. On the computational and
epistemological sides of logic Church made two major contributions. He was the
first to articulate the now widely accepted principle known as Church’s thesis,
that every effectively calculable arithmetic function is recursive. At first
highly controversial, this principle connects intuitive, epistemic, extrinsic,
and operational aspects of arithmetic with its formal, ontic, intrinsic, and
abstract aspects. Church’s thesis sets a purely arithmetic outer limit on what
is computationally achievable. Church’s further work on Hilbert’s “decision
problem” led to the discovery and proof of Church’s theorem basically that there is no computational
procedure for determining, of a finite-premised first-order argument, whether
it is valid or invalid. This result contrasts sharply with the previously known
result that the computational truth-table method suffices to determine the
validity of a finite-premised truthfunctional argument. Church’s thesis at once
highlights the vast difference between propositional logic and first-order
logic and sets an outer limit on what is achievable by “automated reasoning.”
Church’s mathematical and philosophical writings are influenced by Frege,
especially by Frege’s semantic distinction between sense and reference, his
emphasis on purely syntactical treatment of proof, and his doctrine that
sentences denote are names of their truth-values. lambda-calculus, also
l-calculus, a theory of mathematical functions that is (a) “logic-free,” i.e.
contains no logical constants (formula-connectives or quantifier-expressions),
and (b) equational, i.e. ‘%’ is its sole predicate (though its metatheory
refers to relations of reducibility between terms). There are two species,
untyped and typed, each with various subspecies. Termhood is always inductively
defined (as is being a type-expression, if the calculus is typed). A definition
of being a term will contain at least these clauses: take infinitely many
variables (of each type if the calculus is typed) to be terms; for any terms t
and s (of appropriate type if the calculus is typed), (ts) is a term (of type
determined by that of t and s if the calculus is typed); for any term t and a
variable u (perhaps meeting certain conditions), (lut) is a term (“of” type
determined by that of t and u if the calculus is typed). (ts) is an
application-term; (lut) is a l-term, the labstraction of t, and its l-prefix
binds all free occurrences of u in t. Relative to any assignment a of values
(of appropriate type if the calculus is typed) to its free variables, each term
denotes a unique entity. Given a term (ts), t denotes a function and (ts)
denotes the output of that function when it is applied to the denotatum of s,
all relative to a. (lut) denotes relative to a that function which when applied
to any entity x (of appropriate type if the calculus is typed) outputs the
denotatum of t relative to the variant of a obtained by assigning u to the
given x. Alonzo Church introduced the untyped l-calculus around 1932 as the
basis for a foundation for mathematics that took all mathematical objects to be
functions. It characterizes a universe of functions, each with that universe as
its domain and each yielding values in that universe. It turned out to be
almost a notational variant of combinatory logic, first presented by Moses
Schonfinkel (1920, written up and published by Behmann in 1924). Church
presented the simplest typed l calculus in 1940. Such a calculus characterizes
a domain of objects and functions, each “of” a unique type, so that the type of
any given function determines two further types, one being the type of all and
only those entities in the domain of that function, the other being the type of
all those entities output by that function. In 1972 Jean-Yves Girard presented
the first second-order (or polymorphic) typed l-calculus. It uses additional
type-expressions themselves constructed by second-order l-abstraction, and also
more complicated terms constructed by labstracting with respect to certain type-variables,
and by applying such terms to type-expressions. The study of l-calculi has
deepened our understanding of constructivity in mathematics. They are of
interest in proof theory, in category theory, and in computer science.
Lambert: German natural philosopher,
logician, mathematician, and astronomer. Born in Mulhouse (Alsace), he was an
autodidact who became a prominent member of the Munich Academy (1759) and the
Berlin Academy (1764). He made significant discoveries in physics and
mathematics. His most important philosophical works were Neues Organon, or
Thoughts on the Investigation and Induction of Truth and the Distinction
Between Error and Appearances,” 1764) and Anlage zur Architectonic, or Theory
of the Simple and Primary Elements in Philosophical and Mathematical
Knowledge.” Lambert attempted to revise metaphysics. Arguing against both
German rationalism and British empiricism, he opted for a form of phenomenalism
similar to that of Kant and Tetens. Like his two contemporaries, he believed
that the mind contains a number of basic concepts and principles that make
knowledge possible. The philosopher’s task is twofold: first, these fundamental
concepts and principles have to be analyzed; second, the truths of science have
to be derived from them. In his own attempt at accomplishing this, Lambert
tended more toward Leibniz than Locke.
mettrie,
Julien Offroy de la: philosopher who was his generation’s most notorious
materialist, atheist, and hedonist. Raised in Brittany, he was trained at
Leiden by Hermann Boerhaave, an iatromechanist, whose works he translated into
French. As a Lockean sensationalist who read Gassendi and followed the Swiss
physiologist Haller, La Mettrie took nature to be life’s dynamic and ultimate
principle. He published Natural History of the Soul, which attacked Cartesian
dualism and dispensed with God. Drawing from Descartes’s animal-machine, his
masterpiece, Man the Machine(1747), argued that the organization of matter
alone explains man’s physical and intellectual faculties. Assimilating
psychology to mechanistic physiology, La Mettrie integrates man into nature and
proposed a materialistic monism. An Epicurean and a libertine, he denies any
religious or rational morality in Anti-Seneca and instead accommodated human
behavior to natural laws. Anticipating Sade’s nihilism, his Art of Enjoying
Pleasures and Metaphysical Venus eulogized physical passions. Helvétius,
d’Holbach, Marx, Plekhanov, and Lenin all acknowledged a debt to his belief
that “to write as a philosopher is to teach materialism.”
Lange, philosopher, born at
Wald near Solingen, he became a university instructor at Bonn, professor of
inductive logic at Zürich in 1870, and professor at Marburg in 1873,
establishing neo-Kantian studies there. He published three books in 1865: Die
Arbeiterfrage (The Problem of the Worker), Die Grundlegung der mathematischen
Psychologie (The Foundation of Mathematical Psychology), and J. S. Mills
Ansichten über die sociale Frage und die angebliche Umwälzung der
Socialwissenschaftlichen durch Carey (J. S. Mill’s Views of the Social Question
and Carey’s Supposed Social-Scientific Revolution). Lange’s most important
work, however, Geschichte des Materialismus (History of Materialism), was
published in 1866. An expanded second edition in two volumes appeared in
1873–75 and in three later editions. The History of Materialism is a rich,
detailed study not only of the development of materialism but of then-recent
work in physical theory, biological theory, and political economy; it includes
a commentary on Kant’s analysis of knowledge. Lange adopts a restricted
positivistic approach to scientific interpretations of man and the natural
world and a conventionalism in regard to scientific theory, and also encourages
the projection of aesthetic interpretations of “the All” from “the standpoint
of the ideal.” Rejecting reductive materialism, Lange argues that a strict
analysis of materialism leads to ineliminable idealist theoretical issues, and
he adopts a form of materio-idealism. In his Geschichte are anticipations of
instrumental fictionalism, pragmatism, conventionalism, and psychological
egoism. Following the skepticism of the scientists he discusses, Lange adopts
an agnosticism about the ultimate constituents of actuality and a radical phenomenalism.
His major work was much admired by Russell and significantly influenced the
thought of Nietzsche. History of Materialism predicted coming sociopolitical
“earthquakes” because of the rise of science, the decline of religion, and the
increasing tensions of “the social problem.” Die Arbeiterfrage explores the
impact of industrialization and technology on the “social problem” and predicts
a coming social “struggle for survival” in terms already recognizable as Social
Darwinism. Both theoretically and practically, Lange was a champion of workers
and favored a form of democratic socialism. His study of J. S. Mill and the
economist Henry Carey was a valuable contribution to social science and
political economic theory.
Peyrère, Isaac La: a
Calvinist of probable Marrano extraction and a Catholic convert whose messianic
and anthropological work (Men Before Adam, 1656) scandalized Jews, Catholics,
and Protestants alike. Anticipating both ecumenism and Zionism, The Recall of
the Jews (1643) claims that, together, converted Jews and Christians will usher
in universal redemption. A threefold “salvation history” undergirds La
Peyrère’s “Marrano theology”: (1) election of the Jews; (2) their rejection and
the election of the Christians; (3) the recall of the Jews.
laplace: he produced the
definitive formulation of the classical theory of probability. He taught at
various schools in Paris, including the École Militaire; one of his students
was Napoleon, to whom he dedicated his work on probability. According to Laplace,
probabilities arise from our ignorance. The world is deterministic, so the
probability of a possible event depends on our limited information about it
rather than on the causal forces that determine whether it shall occur. Our
chief means of calculating probabilities is the principle of insufficient
reason, or the principle of indifference. It says that if there is no reason to
believe that one of n mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive possible cases
will obtain rather than some other, so that the cases are equally possible,
then the probability of each case is 1/n. In addition, the probability of a
possible event equivalent to a disjunction of cases is the number of cases
favorable to the event divided by the total number of cases. For instance, the
probability that the top card of a well-shuffled deck is a diamond is
13/52.Laplace’s chief work on probability is Théorie analytique des
probabilités(Analytic Theory of Probabilities, 1812).
law -- H. P. Grice was
obsessed with ‘laws’ to introduce ‘psychological concepts.’ covering law model,
the view of scientific explanation as a deductive argument which contains
non-vacuously at least one universal law among its premises. The names of this
view include ‘Hempel’s model’, ‘Hempel-Oppenheim HO model’, ‘Popper-Hempel
model’, ‘deductivenomological D-N model’, and the ‘subsumption theory’ of
explanation. The term ‘covering law model of explanation’ was proposed by
William Dray. The theory of scientific explanation was first developed by
Aristotle. He suggested that science proceeds from mere knowing that to deeper
knowing why by giving understanding of different things by the four types of
causes. Answers to why-questions are given by scientific syllogisms, i.e., by
deductive arguments with premises that are necessarily true and causes of their
consequences. Typical examples are the “subsumptive” arguments that can be
expressed by the Barbara syllogism: All ravens are black. Jack is a raven.
Therefore, Jack is black. Plants containing chlorophyll are green. Grass
contains chlorophyll. Therefore, grass is green. In modern logical notation, An
explanatory argument was later called in Grecian synthesis, in Latin compositio
or demonstratio propter quid. After the seventeenth century, the terms
‘explication’ and ‘explanation’ became commonly used. The nineteenth-century
empiricists accepted Hume’s criticism of Aristotelian essences and necessities:
a law of nature is an extensional statement that expresses a uniformity, i.e.,
a constant conjunction between properties ‘All swans are white’ or types of
events ‘Lightning is always followed by thunder’. Still, they accepted the
subsumption theory of explanation: “An individual fact is said to be explained
by pointing out its cause, that is, by stating the law or laws of causation, of
which its production is an instance,” and “a law or uniformity in nature is
said to be explained when another law or laws are pointed out, of which that
law itself is but a case, and from which it could be deduced” J. S. Mill. A
general model of probabilistic explanation, with deductive explanation as a
specific case, was given by Peirce in 3. A modern formulation of the
subsumption theory was given by Hempel and Paul Oppenheim in 8 by the following
schema of D-N explanation: Explanandum E is here a sentence that describes a
known particular event or fact singular explanation or uniformity explanation
of laws. Explanation is an argument that answers an explanation-seeking
why-question ‘Why E?’ by showing that E is nomically expectable on the basis of
general laws r M 1 and antecedent conditions. The relation between the
explanans and the explanandum is logical deduction. Explanation is
distinguished from other kinds of scientific systematization prediction,
postdiction that share its logical characteristics a view often called the symmetry thesis
regarding explanation and prediction by
the presupposition that the phenomenon E is already known. This also separates
explanations from reason-seeking arguments that answer questions of the form
‘What reasons are there for believing that E?’ Hempel and Oppenheim required
that the explanans have empirical content, i.e., be testable by experiment or
observation, and it must be true. If the strong condition of truth is dropped,
we speak of potential explanation. Dispositional explanations, for
non-probabilistic dispositions, can be formulated in the D-N model. For
example, let Hx % ‘x is hit by hammer’, Bx % ‘x breaks’, and Dx % ‘x is
fragile’. Then the explanation why a piece of glass was broken may refer to its
fragility and its being hit: It is easy to find examples of HO explanations
that are not satisfactory: self-explanations ‘Grass is green, because grass is
green’, explanations with too weak premises ‘John died, because he had a heart
attack or his plane crashed’, and explanations with irrelevant information
‘This stuff dissolves in water, because it is sugar produced in Finland’.
Attempts at finding necessary and sufficient conditions in syntactic and
semantic terms for acceptable explanations have not led to any agreement. The
HO model also needs the additional Aristotelian condition that causal
explanation is directed from causes to effects. This is shown by Sylvain
Bromberger’s flagpole example: the length of a flagpole explains the length of
its shadow, but not vice versa. Michael Scriven has argued against Hempel that
eaplanations of particular events should be given by singular causal statements
‘E because C’. However, a regularity theory Humean or stronger than Humean of
causality implies that the truth of such a singular causal statement
presupposes a universal law of the form ‘Events of type C are universally
followed by events of type E’. The HO version of the covering law model can be
generalized in several directions. The explanans may contain probabilistic or
statistical laws. The explanans-explanandum relation may be inductive in this
case the explanation itself is inductive. This gives us four types of
explanations: deductive-universal i.e., D-N, deductiveprobabilistic,
inductive-universal, and inductiveprobabilistic I-P. Hempel’s 2 model for I-P
explanation contains a probabilistic covering law PG/F % r, where r is the
statistical probability of G given F, and r in brackets is the inductive
probability of the explanandum given the explanans: The explanation-seeking
question may be weakened from ‘Why necessarily E?’ to ‘How possibly E?’. In a
corrective explanation, the explanatory answer points out that the explanandum
sentence E is not strictly true. This is the case in approximate explanation
e.g., Newton’s theory entails a corrected form of Galileo’s and Kepler’s
laws.
Law-like generalisation,
also called nomological (or nomic), a generalization that, unlike an accidental
generalization, possesses nomic necessity or counterfactual force. Compare (1)
‘All specimens of gold have a melting point of 1,063o C’ with (2) ‘All the
rocks in my garden are sedimentary’. (2) may be true, but its generality is
restricted to rocks in my garden. Its truth is accidental; it does not state
what must be the case. (1) is true without restriction. If we write (1) as the
conditional ‘For any x and for any time t, if x is a specimen of gold subjected
to a temperature of 1,063o C, then x will melt’, we see that the generalization
states what must be the case. (1) supports the hypothetical counterfactual
assertion ‘For any specimen of gold x and for any time t, if x were subjected
to a temperature of 1,063o C, then x would melt’, which means that we accept
(1) as nomically necessary: it remains true even if no further specimens of
gold are subjected to the required temperature. This is not true of (2), for we
know that at some future time an igneous rock might appear in my garden.
Statements like (2) are not lawlike; they do not possess the unrestricted
necessity we require of lawlike statements. Ernest Nagel has claimed that a
nomological statement must satisfy two other conditions: it must deductively
entail or be deductively entailed by other laws, and its scope of prediction
must exceed the known evidence for it.
law of thought: a law by
which or in accordance with which valid thought proceeds, or that justify valid
inference, or to which all valid deduction is reducible. Laws of thought are
rules that apply without exception to any subject matter of thought, etc.;
sometimes they are said to be the object of logic. The term, rarely used in
exactly the same sense by different authors, has long been associated with
three equally ambiguous expressions: the law of identity (ID), the law of
contradiction (or non-contradiction; NC), and the law of excluded middle (EM).
Sometimes these three expressions are taken as propositions of formal ontology
having the widest possible subject matter, propositions that apply to entities
per se: (ID) every thing is (i.e., is identical to) itself; (NC) no thing
having a given quality also has the negative of that quality (e.g., no even
number is non-even); (EM) every thing either has a given quality or has the
negative of that quality (e.g., every number is either even or non-even). Equally
common in older works is use of these expressions for principles of metalogic
about propositions: (ID) every proposition implies itself; (NC) no proposition
is both true and false; (EM) every proposition is either true or false.
Beginning in the middle to late 1800s these expressions have been used to
denote propositions of Boolean Algebra about classes: (ID) every class includes
itself; (NC) every class is such that its intersection (“product”) with its own
complement is the null class; (EM) every class is such that its union (“sum”)
with its own complement is the universal class. More recently the last two of
the three expressions have been used in connection with the classical
propositional logic and with the socalled protothetic or quantified propositional
logic; in both cases the law of non-contradiction involves the negation of the
conjunction (‘and’) of something with its own negation and the law of excluded
middle involves the disjunction (‘or’) of something with its own negation. In
the case of propositional logic the “something” is a schematic letter serving
as a place-holder, whereas in the case of protothetic logic the “something” is
a genuine variable. The expressions ‘law of non-contradiction’ and ‘law of
excluded middle’ are also used for semantic principles of model theory
concerning sentences and interpretations: (NC) under no interpretation is a
given sentence both true and false; (EM) under any interpretation, a given
sentence is either true or false. The expressions mentioned above all have been
used in many other ways. Many other propositions have also been mentioned as
laws of thought, including the dictum de omni et nullo attributed to Aristotle,
the substitutivity of identicals (or equals) attributed to Euclid, the socalled
identity of indiscernibles attributed to Leibniz, and other “logical truths.”
The expression “law of thought” gains added prominence through its use by Boole
to denote theorems of his “algebra of logic”; in fact, he named his second
logic book An Investigation of the Laws of Thought. Modern logicians, in almost
unanimous disagreement with Boole, take this expression to be a misnomer; none
of the above propositions classed under ‘laws of thought’ are explicitly about
thought per se, a mental phenomenon studied by psychology, nor do they involve
explicit reference to a thinker or knower as would be the case in pragmatics or
in epistemology. The distinction between psychology (as a study of mental
phenomena) and semantics (as a study of valid inference) is widely accepted.
Lebensphilosophie, German
term, translated as ‘philosophy of life’, that became current in a variety of
popular and philosophical inflections during the second half of the nineteenth
century. Such philosophers as Dilthey and Eucken frequently applied it to a
general philosophical approach or attitude that distinguished itself, on the
one hand, from the construction of comprehensive systems by Hegel and his
followers and, on the other, from the tendency of empiricism and early
positivism to reduce human experience to epistemological questions about
sensations or impressions. Rather, a Lebensphilosophie should begin from a
recognition of the variety and complexity of concrete and already meaningful
human experience as it is “lived”; it should acknowledge that all human beings,
including the philosopher, are always immersed in historical processes and
forms of organization; and it should seek to understand, describe, and
sometimes even alter these and their various patterns of interrelation without
abstraction or reduction. Such “philosophies of life” as those of Dilthey and
Eucken provided much of the philosophical background for the conception of the
social sciences as interpretive rather than explanatory disciplines. They also
anticipated some central ideas of phenomenology, in particular the notion of
the Life-World in Husserl, and certain closely related themes in Heidegger’s
version of existentialism.
legal moralism, the view
(defended in this century by, e.g., Lord Patrick Devlin) that law may properly
be used to enforce morality, including notably “sexual morality.” Contemporary
critics of the view (e.g., Hart) expand on the argument of Mill that law should
only be used to prevent harm to others.
legal positivism, a
theory about the nature of law, commonly thought to be characterized by two
major tenets: (1) that there is no necessary connection between law and
morality; and (2) that legal validity is determined ultimately by reference to
certain basic social facts, e.g., the command of the sovereign (John Austin),
the Grundnorm (Hans Kelsen), or the rule of recognition (Hart). These different
descriptions of the basic law-determining facts lead to different claims about
the normative character of law, with classical positivists (e.g., John Austin)
insisting that law is essentially coercive, and modern positivists (e.g., Hans
Kelsen) maintaining that it is normative. The traditional opponent of the legal
positivist is the natural law theorist, who holds that no sharp distinction can
be drawn between law and morality, thus challenging positivism’s first tenet.
Whether that tenet follows from positivism’s second tenet is a question of
current interest and leads inevitably to the classical question of political
theory: Under what conditions might legal obligations, even if determined by
social facts, create genuine political obligations (e.g., the obligation to
obey the law)?
legal realism, a theory
in philosophy of law or jurisprudence broadly characterized by the claim that
the nature of law is better understood by observing what courts and citizens
actually do than by analyzing stated legal rules and legal concepts. The theory
is also associated with the thoughts that legal rules are disguised predictions
of what courts will do, and that only the actual decisions of courts constitute
law. There are two important traditions of legal realism, in Scandinavia and in
the United States. Both began in the early part of the century, and both focus
on the reality (hence the name ‘legal realism’) of the actual legal system,
rather than on law’s official image of itself. The Scandinavian tradition is
more theoretical and presents its views as philosophical accounts of the
normativity of law based on skeptical methodology – the normative force of law
consists in nothing but the feelings of citizens or officials or both about or
their beliefs in that normative force. The older, U.S. tradition is more
empirical or sociological or instrumentalist, focusing on how legislation is
actually enacted, how rules are actually applied, how courts’ decisions are
actually taken, and so forth. U.S. legal realism in its contemporary form is
known as critical legal studies. Its argumentation is both empirical (law as
experienced to be and as being oppressive by gender) and theoretical (law as
essentially indeterminate, or interpretative – properties that prime law for
its role in political manipulation).
Leibniz: German
rationalist philosopher who made seminal contributions in geology, linguistics,
historiography, mathematics, and physics, as well as philosophy. He was born in
Leipzig and died in Hanover. Trained in the law, he earned a living as a
councilor, diplomat, librarian, and historian, primarily in the court of
Hanover. His contributions in mathematics, physics, and philosophy were known
and appreciated among his educated contemporaries in virtue of his publication
in Europe’s leading scholarly journals and his vast correspondence with
intellectuals in a variety of fields. He was best known in his lifetime for his
contributions to mathematics, especially to the development of the calculus,
where a debate raged over whether Newton or Leibniz should be credited with
priority for its discovery. Current scholarly opinion seems to have settled on
this: each discovered the basic foundations of the calculus independently;
Newton’s discovery preceded that of Leibniz; Leibniz’s publication of the basic
theory of the calculus preceded that of Newton. Leibniz’s contributions to
philosophy were known to his contemporaries through articles published in
learned journals, correspondence, and one book published in his lifetime, the
Theodicy (1710). He wrote a book-length study of Locke’s philosophy, New Essays
on Human Understanding, but decided not to publish it when he learned of
Locke’s death. Examination of Leibniz’s papers after his own death revealed
that what he published during his lifetime was but the tip of the iceberg.
Perhaps the most complete formulation of Leibniz’s mature metaphysics occurs in
his correspondence (1698–1706) with Burcher De Volder, a professor of
philosophy at the University of Leyden. Leibniz therein formulated his basic
ontological thesis: Considering matters accurately, it must be said that there
is nothing in things except simple substances, and, in them, nothing but
perception and appetite. Moreover, matter and motion are not so much substances
or things as they are the phenomena of percipient beings, the reality of which
is located in the harmony of each percipient with itself (with respect to
different times) and with other percipients. In this passage Leibniz asserts
that the basic individuals of an acceptable ontology are all monads, i.e.,
immaterial entities lacking spatial parts, whose basic properties are a
function of their perceptions and appetites. He held that each monad perceives
all the other monads with varying degrees of clarity, except for God, who
perceives all monads with utter clarity. Leibniz’s main theses concerning
causality among the created monads are these: God creates, conserves, and concurs
in the actions of each created monad. Each state of a created monad is a causal
consequence of its preceding state, except for its state at creation and any of
its states due to miraculous divine causality. Intrasubstantial causality is
the rule with respect to created monads, which are precluded from
intersubstantial causality, a mode of operation of which God alone is capable.
Leibniz was aware that elements of this monadology may seem counterintuitive,
that, e.g., there appear to be extended entities composed of parts, existing in
space and time, causally interacting with each other. In the second sentence of
the quoted passage Leibniz set out some of the ingredients of his theory of the
preestablished harmony, one point of which is to save those appearances that
are sufficiently well-founded to deserve saving. In the case of material
objects, Leibniz formulated a version of phenomenalism, based on harmony among
the perceptions of the monads. In the case of apparent intersubstantial causal
relations among created monads, Leibniz proposed an analysis according to which
the underlying reality is an increase in the clarity of relevant perceptions of
the apparent causal agent, combined with a corresponding decrease in the
clarity of the relevant perceptions of the apparent patient. Leibniz treated
material objects and intersubstantial causal relations among created entities
as well-founded phenomena. By contrast, he treated space and time as ideal
entities. Leibniz’s mature metaphysics includes a threefold classification of
entities that must be accorded some degree of reality: ideal entities,
well-founded phenomena, and actual existents, i.e., the monads with their
perceptions and appetites. In the passage quoted above Leibniz set out to
distinguish the actual entities, the monads, from material entities, which he
regarded as well-founded phenomena. In the following passage from another
letter to De Volder he formulated the distinction between actual and ideal
entities: In actual entities there is nothing but discrete quantity, namely,
the multitude of monads, i.e., simple substances. . . . But continuous quantity
is something ideal, which pertains to possibles, and to actuals, insofar as
they are possible. Indeed, a continuum involves indeterminate parts, whereas,
by contrast, there is nothing indefinite in actual entities, in which every
division that can be made, is made. Actual things are composed in the manner
that a number is composed of unities, ideal things are composed in the manner
that a number is composed of fractions. The parts are actual in the real whole,
but not in the ideal. By confusing ideal things with real substances when we
seek actual parts in the order of possibles and indeterminate parts in the
aggregate of actual things, we entangle ourselves in the labyrinth of the
continuum and in inexplicable contradictions. The labyrinth of the continuum
was one of two labyrinths that, according to Leibniz, vex the philosophical
mind. His views about the proper course to take in unraveling the labyrinth of
the continuum are one source of his monadology. Ultimately, he concluded that
whatever may be infinitely divided without reaching indivisible entities is not
something that belongs in the basic ontological category. His investigations of
the nature of individuation and identity over time provided premises from which
he concluded that only indivisible entities are ultimately real, and that an
individual persists over time only if its subsequent states are causal
consequences of its preceding states. In refining the metaphysical insights
that yielded the monadology, Leibniz formulated and defended various important
metaphysical theses, e.g.: the identity of indiscernibles – that individual
substances differ with respect to their intrinsic, non-relational properties;
and the doctrine of minute perceptions – that each created substance has some
perceptions of which it lacks awareness. In the process of providing what he
took to be an acceptable account of well-founded phenomena, Leibniz formulated
various theses counter to the then prevailing Cartesian orthodoxy, concerning
the nature of material objects. In particular, Leibniz argued that a correct
application of Galileo’s discoveries concerning acceleration of freely falling
bodies of the phenomena of impact indicates that force is not to be identified
with quantity of motion, i.e., mass times velocity, as Descartes held, but is
to be measured by mass times the square of the velocity. Moreover, Leibniz
argued that it is force, measured as mass times the square of the velocity,
that is conserved in nature, not quantity of motion. From these results Leibniz
drew some important metaphysical conclusions. He argued that force, unlike
quantity of motion, cannot be reduced to a conjunction of modifications of
extension. But force is a central property of material objects. Hence, he
concluded that Descartes was mistaken in attempting to reduce matter to
extension and its modifications. Leibniz concluded that each material substance
must have a substantial form that accounts for its active force. These
conclusions have to do with entities that Leibniz viewed as phenomenal. He drew
analogous conclusions concerning the entities he regarded as ultimately real,
i.e., the monads. Thus, although Leibniz held that each monad is absolutely
simple, i.e., without parts, he also held that the matter–form distinction has
an application to each created monad. In a letter to De Volder he wrote:
Therefore, I distinguish (1) the primitive entelechy or soul, (2) primary
matter, i.e., primitive passive power, (3) monads completed from these two, (4)
mass, i.e., second matter . . . in which innumerable subordinate monads come
together, (5) the animal, i.e., corporeal substance, which a dominating monad
makes into one machine. The second labyrinth vexing the philosophical mind,
according to Leibniz, is the labyrinth of freedom. It is fair to say that for
Leibniz the labyrinth of freedom is fundamentally a matter of how it is
possible that some states of affairs obtain contingently, i.e., how it is
possible that some propositions are true that might have been false. There are
two distinct sources of the problem of contingency in Leibniz’s philosophy, one
theological, and the other metaphysical. Each source may be grasped by
considering an argument that appears to have premises to which Leibniz was
predisposed and the conclusion that every state of affairs that obtains,
obtains necessarily, and hence that there are no contingent propositions. The
metaphysical argument is centered on some of Leibniz’s theses about the nature
of truth. He held that the truth-value of all propositions is settled once
truth-values have been assigned to the elementary propositions, i.e., those
expressed by sentences in subject-predicate form. And he held that a sentence
in subject-predicate form expresses a true proposition if and only if the
concept of its predicate is included in the concept of its subject. But this
makes it sound as if Leibniz were committed to the view that an elementary
proposition is true if and only if it is conceptually true, from which it seems
to follow that an elementary proposition is true if and only if it is
necessarily true. Leibniz’s views concerning the relation of the truthvalue of
non-elementary propositions to the truth-value of elementary propositions,
then, seem to entail that there are no contingent propositions. He rejected
this conclusion in virtue of rejecting the thesis that if an elementary
proposition is conceptually true then it is necessarily true. The materials for
his rejection of this thesis are located in theses connected with his program
for a universal science (scientia universalis). This program had two parts: a
universal notation (characteristica universalis), whose purpose was to provide
a method for recording scientific facts as perspicuous as algebraic notation,
and a formal system of reasoning (calculus ratiocinator) for reasoning about
the facts recorded. Supporting Leibniz’s belief in the possibility and utility
of the characteristica universalis and the calculus ratiocinator is his thesis
that all concepts arise from simple primitive concepts via concept conjunction
and concept complementation. In virtue of this thesis, he held that all
concepts may be analyzed into their simple, primitive components, with this proviso:
in some cases there is no finite analysis of a concept into its primitive
components; but there is an analysis that converges on the primitive components
without ever reaching them. This is the doctrine of infinite analysis, which
Leibniz applied to ward off the threat to contingency apparently posed by his
account of truth. He held that an elementary proposition is necessarily true if
and only if there is a finite analysis that reveals that its predicate concept
is included in its subject concept. By contrast, an elementary proposition is
contingently true if and only if there is no such finite analysis, but there is
an analysis of its predicate concept that converges on a component of its
subject concept. The theological argument may be put this way. There would be
no world were God not to choose to create a world. As with every choice, as,
indeed, with every state of affairs that obtains, there must be a sufficient
reason for that choice, for the obtaining of that state of affairs – this is
what the principle of sufficient reason amounts to, according to Leibniz. The
reason for God’s choice of a world to create must be located in God’s power and
his moral character. But God is allpowerful and morally perfect, both of which
attributes he has of necessity. Hence, of necessity, God chose to create the
best possible world. Whatever possible world is the best possible world, is so
of necessity. Hence, whatever possible world is actual, is so of necessity. A
possible world is defined with respect to the states of affairs that obtain in
it. Hence, whatever states of affairs obtain, do so of necessity. Therefore,
there are no contingent propositions. Leibniz’s options here were limited. He
was committed to the thesis that the principle of sufficient reason, when
applied to God’s choice of a world to create, given God’s attributes, yields
the conclusion that this is the best possible world – a fundamental component
of his solution to the problem of evil. He considered two ways of avoiding the
conclusion of the argument noted above. The first consists in claiming that
although God is metaphysically perfect of necessity, i.e., has every simple,
positive perfection of necessity, and although God is morally perfect,
nonetheless he is not morally perfect of necessity, but rather by choice. The
second consists in denying that whatever possible world is the best, is so of
necessity, relying on the idea that the claim that a given possible world is
the best involves a comparison with infinitely many other possible worlds, and
hence, if true, is only contingently true. Once again the doctrine of infinite
analysis served as the centerpiece of Leibniz’s efforts to establish that,
contrary to appearances, his views do not lead to necessitarianism, i.e., to
the thesis that there is no genuine contingency. Much of Leibniz’s work in
philosophical theology had as a central motivation an effort to formulate a
sound philosophical and theological basis for various church reunion projects –
especially reunion between Lutherans and Calvinists on the Protestant side, and
ultimately, reunion between Protestants and Catholics. He thought that most of
the classical arguments for the existence of God, if formulated with care,
i.e., in the way in which Leibniz formulated them, succeeded in proving what
they set out to prove. For example, Leibniz thought that Descartes’s version of
the ontological argument established the existence of a perfect being, with one
crucial proviso: that an absolutely perfect being is possible. Leibniz believed
that none of his predecessors had established this premise, so he set out to do
so. The basic idea of his purported proof is this. A perfection is a simple,
positive property. Hence, there can be no demonstration that there is a formal
inconsistency in asserting that various collections of them are instantiated by
the same being. But if there is no such demonstration, then it is possible that
something has them all. Hence, a perfect being is possible. Leibniz did not
consider in detail many of the fundamental epistemological issues that so moved
Descartes and the British empiricists. Nonetheless, Leibniz made significant
contributions to the theory of knowledge. His account of our knowledge of
contingent truths is much like what we would expect of an empiricist’s epistemology.
He claimed that our knowledge of particular contingent truths has its basis in
sense perception. He argued that simple enumerative induction cannot account
for all our knowledge of universal contingent truths; it must be supplemented
by what he called the a priori conjectural method, a precursor of the
hypothetico-deductive method. He made contributions to developing a formal
theory of probability, which he regarded as essential for an adequate account
of our knowledge of contingent truths. Leibniz’s rationalism is evident in his
account of our a priori knowledge, which for him amounted to our knowledge of
necessary truths. Leibniz thought that Locke’s empiricism did not provide an
acceptable account of a priori knowledge, because it attempted to locate all
the materials of justification as deriving from sensory experience, thus
overlooking what Leibniz took to be the primary source of our a priori
knowledge, i.e., what is innate in the mind. He summarized his debate with
Locke on these matters thus: Our differences are on matters of some importance.
It is a matter of knowing if the soul in itself is entirely empty like a
writing tablet on which nothing has as yet been written (tabula rasa), . . .
and if everything inscribed there comes solely from the senses and experience,
or if the soul contains originally the sources of various concepts and
doctrines that external objects merely reveal on occasion. The idea that some
concepts and doctrines are innate in the mind is central not only to Leibniz’s
theory of knowledge, but also to his metaphysics, because he held that the most
basic metaphysical concepts, e.g., the concepts of the self, substance, and
causation, are innate. Leibniz utilized the ideas behind the characteristica
universalis in order to formulate a system of formal logic that is a genuine
alternative to Aristotelian syllogistic logic and to contemporary
quantification theory. Assuming that propositions are, in some fashion,
composed of concepts and that all composite concepts are, in some fashion,
composed of primitive simple concepts, Leibniz formulated a logic based on the
idea of assigning numbers to concepts according to certain rules. The entire
program turns on his concept containment account of truth previously mentioned.
In connection with the metatheory of this logic Leibniz formulated the
principle: “eadem sunt quorum unum alteri substitui potest salva veritate”
(“Those things are the same of which one may be substituted for the other
preserving truth-value”). The proper interpretation of this principle turns in
part on exactly what “things” he had in mind. It is likely that he intended to
formulate a criterion of concept identity. Hence, it is likely that this
principle is distinct from the identity of indiscernibles, previously
mentioned, and also from what has come to be called Leibniz’s law, i.e., the
thesis that if x and y are the same individual then whatever is true of x is
true of y and vice versa. The account outlined above concentrates on Leibniz’s
mature views in metaphysics, epistemology, and logic. The evolution of his
thought in these areas is worthy of close study, which cannot be brought to a
definitive state until all of his philosophical work has been published in the
edition of the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin.
lekton
(Grecian, ‘what can be said’), a Stoic term sometimes translated as ‘the
meaning of an utterance’. A lekton differs from an utterance in being what the
utterance (or its emisor) signifies: A lekton is said to be what the Grecian grasps
and the non-Grecian does not when Gricese is spoken. Moreover, a lekton is
incorporeal, which for the Stoics means it does not, strictly speaking, exist,
but only “sub-sists,” and so cannot act or be acted upon. A lekton constitutes
the content of a state of Grice’s soul:. A lekton is what we assent to and
endeavor toward and they “correspond” to the presentations given to rational
animals. The Stoics acknowledged a lekton for a predicate as well as for a
sentence (including questions, oaths, and imperatives). An axioma or a
propositions is a lekton that can be assented to and may be true or false
(although being essentially tensed, its truth-value may change). The Stoics’
theory of reference suggests that they also acknowledged singular propositions,
which “perish” when the referent ceases to exist. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Benson
Mates and the stoics.”
lenin: a Marxist philosopher,
principal creator of Soviet dialectical materialism. In Materialism and
Empirio-Criticism, he attacked his contemporaries who sought to interpret
Marx’s philosophy in the spirit of the phenomenalistic positivism of Avenarius
and Mach. Rejecting their position as idealist, Lenin argues that matter is not
a construct from sensations but an objective reality independent of consciousness;
because a sensation directly copies this reality, objective truth is possible.
The dialectical dimension of Lenin’s outlook is best elaborated in his
posthumous Philosophical Notebooks (written 1914–16), a collection of reading
notes and fragments in which he gives close attention to the Hegelian dialectic
and displays warm sympathy toward it, though he argues that the dialectic
should be interpreted materialistically rather than idealistically. Some of
Lenin’s most original theorizing, presented in Imperialism as the Highest Stage
of Capitalism (1916) and State and Revolution (1918), is devoted to analyzing
the connection between monopoly capitalism and imperialism and to describing
the coming violent replacement of bourgeois rule by, first, the “dictatorship
of the proletariat” and, later, stateless communism. Lenin regarded all
philosophy as a partisan weapon in the class struggle, and he wielded his own
philosophy polemically in the interests of Communist revolution. As a result of
the victory of the Bolsheviks in November 1917, Lenin’s ideas were enshrined as
the cornerstone of Soviet intellectual culture and were considered above
criticism until the advent of glasnost.
lequier: philosopher,
educated in Paris. He influenced Renouvier, who regarded Lequier as his “master
in philosophy.” Through Renouvier, he came to the attention of James, who
called Lequier a “philosopher of genius.” Central to Lequier’s philosophy is
the idea of freedom understood as the power to “create,” or add novelty to the
world. Such freedom involves an element of arbitrariness and is incompatible
with determinism. Anticipating James, Lequier argued that determinism,
consistently affirmed, leads to skepticism about truth and values. Though a
devout Roman Catholic, his theological views were unorthodox for his time. God
cannot know future free actions until they occur and therefore cannot be wholly
immutable and eternal. Lequier’s views anticipate in striking ways some views
of James, Bergson, Alexander, and Peirce, and the process philosophies and
process theologies of Whitehead and Hartshorne.
leroux: philosopher reputed
to have introduced “socialism” in France – “the word, not the doctrine!” –
Grice). He claimed to be the first to use solidarité (conversational
solidarity) as a sociological concept (in his memoirs, La Grève de Samarez. The
son of a Parisian café owner, Leroux centered his life work on journalism, both
as a printer (patenting an advanced procedure for typesetting) and as founder
of a number of significant serial publications. The Encyclopédie Nouvelle, which
he launched with Jean Reynaud is conceived and written in the spirit of
Diderot’s magnum opus. It aspired to be the platform for republican and
democratic thought during the July Monarchy. The reformer’s influence on
contemporaries such as Hugo, Belinsky, J. Michelet, and Heine was considerable.
Leroux fervently believed in Progress, unlimited and divinely inspired. This
doctrine he took to be eighteenth-century France’s particular contribution to
the Enlightenment. Progress must make its way between twin perils: the “follies
of illuminism” or “foolish spiritualism” and the “abject orgies of
materialism.” Accordingly, Leroux blamed Condillac for having “drawn up the
code of materialism” by excluding an innate Subject from his sensationalism
(“Condillac,” Encyclopédie Nouvelle). Cousin’s eclecticism, state doctrine
under the July Monarchy and synonym for immobility (“Philosophy requires no
further development; it is complete as is,” Leroux wrote sarcastically in 1838,
echoing Cousin), was a constant target of his polemics. Having abandoned
traditional Christian beliefs, Leroux viewed immortality as an infinite
succession of rebirths on earth, our sense of personal identity being preserved
throughout by Platonic “reminiscences” (De l’Humanité).
lesniewski: philosopher-logician,
co-founder, with Lukasiewicz and Kotarbigski, of the Warsaw Center of Logical
Research. He perfected the logical reconstruction of classical mathematics by
Frege, Schröder, Whitehead, and Russell in his synthesis of mathematical with
modernized Aristotelian logic. A pioneer in scientific semantics whose insights
inspired Tarski, Les’niewski distinguished genuine antinomies of belief, in
theories intended as true mathematical sciences, from mere formal
inconsistencies in uninterpreted calculi. Like Frege an acute critic of
formalism, he sought to perfect one comprehensive, logically true instrument of
scientific investigation. Demonstrably consistent, relative to classical
elementary logic, and distinguished by its philosophical motivation and logical
economy, his system integrates his central achievements. Other contributions
include his ideographic notation, his method of natural deduction from
suppositions and his demonstrations of inconsistency of other systems, even
Frege’s revised foundations of arithmetic. Fundamental were (1) his 1913
refutation of Twardowski’s Platonistic theory of abstraction, which motivated
his “constructive nominalism”; and (2) his deep analyses of Russell’s paradox,
which led him to distinguish distributive from collective predication and (as
generalized to subsume Grelling and Nelson’s paradox of self-reference) logical
from semantic paradoxes, and so (years before Ramsey and Gödel) to
differentiate, not just the correlatives object language and metalanguage, but
any such correlative linguistic stages, and thus to relativize semantic
concepts to successive hierarchical strata in metalinguistic stratification.
His system of logic and foundations of mathematics comprise a hierarchy of
three axiomatic deductive theories: protothetic, ontology, and mereology. Each
can be variously based on just one axiom introducing a single undefined term.
His prototheses are basic to any further theory. Ontology, applying them,
complements protothetic to form his logic. Les’niewski’s ontology develops his
logic of predication, beginning (e.g.) with singular predication characterizing
the individual so-and-so as being one (of the one or more) such-and-such,
without needing classabstraction operators, dispensable here as in Russell’s
“no-class theory of classes.” But this, his logic of nouns, nominal or
predicational functions, etc., synthesizing formulations by Aristotle, Leibniz,
Boole, Schröder, and Whitehead, also represents a universal theory of being and
beings, beginning with related individuals and their characteristics, kinds, or
classes distributively understood to include individuals as singletons or
“one-member classes.” Les’niewski’s directives of definition and logical
grammar for his systems of protothetic and ontology provide for the unbounded
hierarchies of “open,” functional expressions. Systematic conventions of
contextual determinacy, exploiting dependence of meaning on context, permit
unequivocal use of the same forms of expression to bring out systematic
analogies between homonyms as analogues in Aristotle’s and Russell’s sense,
systematically ambiguous, differing in semantic category and hence
significance. Simple distinctions of semantic category within the object
language of the system itself, together with the metalinguistic stratification
to relativize semantic concepts, prevent logical and semantic paradoxes as
effectively as Russell’s ramified theory of types. Lesniewski’s system of
logic, though expressively rich enough to permit Platonist interpretation in
terms of universals, is yet “metaphysically neutral” in being free from ontic
commitments. It neither postulates, presupposes, nor implies existence of
either individuals or abstractions, but relies instead on equivalences without
existential import that merely introduce and explicate new terms. In his
“nominalist” construction of the endless Platonic ladder of abstraction,
logical principles can be elevated step by step, from any level to the next, by
definitions making abstractions eliminable, translatable by definition into
generalizations characterizing related individuals. In this sense it is
“constructively nominalist,” as a developing language always open to
introduction of new terms and categories, without appeal to “convenient
fictions.” Les’niewski’s system, completely designed by 1922, was logically and
chronologically in advance of Russell’s 1925 revision of Principia Mathematica
to accommodate Ramsey’s simplification of Russell’s theory of types. Yet
Les’niewski’s premature death, the ensuing disruption of war, which destroyed
his manuscripts and dispersed survivors such as Sobocigski and Lejewski, and
the relative inaccessibility of publications delayed by Les’niewski’s own
perfectionism have retarded understanding of his work.
Lessing: philosopher whose
oeuvre aimed to replace the so-called possession of truth by a search for truth
through public debate. The son of a Protestant minister, he studied theology
but gave it up to take part in the literary debate between Gottsched and the
Swiss Bodmer and Breitinger, which dealt with French classicism (Boileau) and
English influences (Shakespeare for theater and Milton for poetry). His
literary criticism (Briefe, die neueste Literatur betreffend), his own dramatic
works, and his theological-philosophical reflections were united in his
conception of a practical Aufklärung, which opposed all philosophical or
religious dogmatism. Lessing’s creation and direction of the National German
Theater of Hamburg (1767–70) helped to form a sense of German national
identity. In 1750 Lessing published Thoughts on the Moravian Brothers, which
contrasted religion as lived by this pietist community with the ecclesiastical
institution. In 1753–54 he wrote a series of “rehabilitations” (Rettugen) to
show that the opposition between dogmas and heresies, between “truth” and
“error,” was incompatible with living religious thought. This position had the
seeds of a historical conception of religion that Lessing developed during his
last years. In 1754 he again attempted a deductive formulation, inspired by
Spinoza, of the fundamental truths of Christianity. Lessing rejected this
rationalism, as substituting a dogma of reason for one of religion. To provoke
public debate on the issue, be published H. S. Reimarus’s Fragments of an
Anonymous Author (1774–78), which the Protestant hierarchy considered
atheistic. The relativism and soft deism to which his arguments seemed to lead
were transformed in his Education of Mankind (1780) into a historical theory of
truth. In Lessing’s view, all religions have an equal dignity, for none
possesses “the” truth; they represent only ethical and practical moments in the
history of mankind. Revelation is assimilated into an education of mankind and
God is compared to a teacher who reveals to man only what he is able to
assimilate. This secularization of the history of salvation, in which God
becomes immanent in the world, is called pantheism (“the quarrel of
pantheism”). For Lessing, Judaism and Christianity are the preliminary stages
of a third gospel, the “Gospel of Reason.” The Masonic Dialogues (1778)
introduced this historical and practical conception of truth as a progress from
“thinking by oneself” to dialogue (“thinking aloud with a friend”). In the
literary domain Lessing broke with the culture of the baroque: against the
giants and martyrs of baroque tragedy, he offered the tragedy of the bourgeois,
with whom any spectator must be able to identify. After a poor first play in
1755 – Miss Sara Sampson – which only reflected the sentimentalism of the time,
Lessing produced a model of the genre with Emilia Galotti (1781). The Hamburg
Dramaturgy (1767– 68) was supposed to be influenced by Aristotle, but its union
of fear and pity was greatly influenced by Moses Mendelssohn’s theory of “mixed
sensations.” Lessing’s entire aesthetics was based not on permanent
ontological, religious, or moral rules, but on the spectator’s interest. In
Laokoon (1766) he associated this aesthetics of reception with one of artistic
production, i.e., a reflection on the means through which poetry and the
plastic arts create this interest: the plastic arts by natural signs and poetry
through the arbitrary signs that overcome their artificiality through the
imitation not of nature but of action. Much like Winckelmann’s aesthetics,
which influenced German classicism for a considerable time, Lessing’s
aesthetics opposed the baroque, but for a theory of ideal beauty inspired by
Plato it substituted a foundation of the beautiful in the agreement between
producer and receptor.
Leucippus: Grecian pre-Socratic
philosopher credited with founding atomism, expounded in a work titled The
Great World-system. Positing the existence of atoms and the void, he answered
Eleatic arguments against change by allowing change of place. The arrangements
and rearrangements of groups of atoms could account for macroscopic changes in
the world, and indeed for the world itself. Little else is known of Leucippus.
It is difficult to distinguish his contributions from those of his prolific
follower Democritus.
Levinas: philosopher.
Educated as an orthodox Jew and a Russian citizen, he studied philosophy at
Strasbourg and Freiburg, introduced the work of Husserl and Heidegger in
France, taught philosophy at Paris, spent years in a German labor camp and was
a professor at the universities of Poitiers, Nanterre, and the Sorbonne. To the
impersonal totality of being reduced to “the same” by the Western tradition
(including Hegel’s and Husserl’s idealism and Heidegger’s ontology), Levinas
opposes the irreducible otherness of the human other, death, time, God, etc. In
Totalité et Infini: Essai sur l’extériorité (1961), he shows how the other’s
facing and speaking urge philosophy to transcend the horizons of comprehension,
while Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence (1974) concentrates on the self
of “me” as one-for-the-other. Appealing to Plato’s form of the Good and
Descartes’s idea of the infinite, Levinas describes the asymmetrical relation
between the other’s “highness” or “infinity” and me, whose self-enjoyment is
thus interrupted by a basic imperative: Do not kill me, but help me to live!
The fact of the other’s existence immediately reveals the basic “ought” of
ethics; it awakens me to a responsibility that I have never been able to choose
or to refuse. My radical “passivity,” thus revealed, shows the anachronic
character of human temporality. It also refers to the immemorial past of “Him”
whose “illeity” is still otherwise other than the human other: God, or the Good
itself, who is neither an object nor a you. Religion and ethics coincide
because the only way to meet with God is to practice one’s responsibility for
the human other, who is “in the trace of God.” Comprehensive thematization and
systematic objectification, though always in danger of reducing all otherness,
have their own relative and subordinate truth, especially with regard to the
economic and political conditions of universal justice toward all individuals
whom I cannot encounter personally. With and through the other I meet all
humans. In this experience lies the origin of equality and human rights.
Similarly, theoretical thematization has a positive role if it remains aware of
its ancillary or angelic role with regard to concern for the other. What is
said in philosophy betrays the saying by which it is communicated. It must
therefore be unsaid in a return to the saying. More than desire for theoretical
wisdom, philosophy is the wisdom of love.
Lewin: German philosophical
psychologist, perhaps the most influential of the Gestalt psychologists. Believing
traditional psychology was stuck in an “Aristotelian” class-logic stage of
theorizing, Lewin proposed advancing to a “Galilean” stage of field theory. His
central field concept was the “life space, containing the person and his
psychological environment.” Primarily concerned with motivation (or
goal-oriented behaviour), he explained locomotion as caused by life-space
objects’ valences, psychological vectors of force acting on people as physical
vectors of force act on physical objects. A thing with positive valence exert
attractive force; A thing with negative valence exert repulsive force; an
ambivalent thing exerts both. To attain theoretical rigor, Lewin borrows from
mathematical topology, mapping life spaces as diagrams. One represented the
motivational conflict involved in choosing between pizza and hamburger: Life
spaces frequently contain psychological barriers (e.g., no money) blocking
movement toward or away from a valenced object. Lewin also created the important
field of group dynamics in 1939, carrying out innovative studies on children
and adults, focusing on group cohesion and effects of leadership style. His
main works are A Dynamic Theory of Personality (1935), Principles of
Topological Psychology (1936), and Field Theory in Social Science (1951). H. P.
Grice, “Lewin and aspects of reason.”
Lewis: philosopher who
advocated a version of pragmatism and empiricism, but was nonetheless strongly
influenced by Kant. Lewis was born in Massachusetts, New England (his ancestors
were from Lincolnshire), educated at Harvard, and taught at the University of
California and Harvard. He wrote in logic (A Survey of Symbolic Logic; Symbolic
Logic, coauthored with C. H. Langford), in epistemology (Mind and the World Order;
An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation), and in ethical theory (The Ground and
Nature of the Right, 1965; Our Social Inheritance, 1957). General views. Use of
the senses involves “presentations” of sense experiences that signalize
external objects. Reflection upon the relations of sense experiences to
psychological “intensions” permits our thoughts to refer to aspects of
objective reality. Consequently, we can experience those non-presented
objective conditions. Intensions, which include the mind’s categories, are
meanings in one ordinary sense, and concepts in a philosophical sense. When
judging counts as knowing, it has the future-oriented function and sole value
of guiding action in pursuit of what one evaluates as good. Intensions do not
fundamentally depend upon being formulated in those linguistic phrases that may
express them and thereby acquire meaning. Pace Kant, our categories are
replaceable when pragmatically unsuccessful, and are sometimes invented,
although typically socially instilled. Kant also failed to realize that any a
priori knowledge concerns only what is expressed by an “analytic truth,” i.e.,
what is knowable with certainty via reflection upon intensions and permits
reference to the necessary inclusion (and exclusion) relations between
objective properties. Such inclusion/exclusion relationships are “entailments”
expressible by a use of “if” different from material implication. The degree of
justification of an empirical judgment about objective reality (e.g., that
there is a doorknob before one) and of any beliefs in consequences that are
probable given the judgment, approximates to certainty when the judgment stands
in a relationship of “congruence” to a collection of justified judgments (e.g.,
a collection including the judgments that one remembers seeing a doorknob a
moment before, and that one has not just turned around). Lewis’s empiricism
involves one type of phenomenalism. Although he treats external conditions as
metaphysically distinct from passages of sense experience, he maintains that
the process of learning about the former does not involve more than learning
about the latter. Accordingly, he speaks of the “sense meaning” of an
intension, referring to an objective condition. It concerns what one intends to
count as a process that verifies that the particular intension applies to the
objective world. Sense meanings of a statement may be conceived as additional
“entailments” of it, and are expressible by conjunctions of an infinite number
of statements each of which is “the general form of a specific terminating
judgment” (as defined below). Lewis wants his treatment of sense meaning to
rule out Berkeley’s view that objects exist only when perceived. Verification
of an objective judgment, as Kant realized, is largely specified by a
non-social process expressed by a rule to act in imaginable ways in response to
imaginable present sense experiences (e.g. seeing a doorknob) and thereupon to
have imaginable future sense experiences (e.g. feeling a doorknob). Actual
instances of such passages of sense experience raise the probability of an
objective judgment, whose verification is always partial. Apprehensions of
sense experiences are judgments that are not reached by basing them on grounds
in a way that might conceivably produce errors. Such apprehensions are
“certain.” The latter term may be employed by Lewis in more than one sense, but
here it at least implies that the judgment is rationally credible and in the
above sense not capable of being in error. So such an apprehension is “datal,”
i.e., rationally employed in judging other matters, and “immediate,” i.e.,
formed noninferentially in response to a presentation. These presentations make
up “the (sensory) given.” Sense experience is what remains after everything
that is less than certain in one’s experience of an objective condition is set
aside. Lewis thought some version of the epistemic regress argument to be
correct, and defended the Cartesian view that without something certain as a
foundation no judgment has any degree of justification. Technical terminology.
Presentation: something involved in experience, e.g. a visual impression, in
virtue of which one possesses a non-inferential judgment that it is involved.
The given: those presentations that have the content that they do independently
of one’s intending or deciding that they have it. Terminating: decisively and
completely verifiable or falsifiable in principle. (E.g., where S affirms a
present sense experience, A affirms an experience of seeming to initiate an
action, and E affirms a future instance of sense experience, the judgment ‘S
and if A then E’ is terminating.) The general form of the terminating judgment
that S and if A then E: the conditional that if S then (in all probability) E,
if A. (An actual judgment expressed by this conditional is based on remembering
passages of sense experience of type S/A/E and is justified thanks to the
principle of induction and the principle that seeming to remember an event
makes the judgment that the event occurred justified at least to some degree.
These statements concern a connection that holds independently of whether
anyone is thinking and underlies the rationality of relying to any degree upon
what is not part of one’s self.) Congruence: the relationship among statements
in a collection when the following conditional is true: If each had some degree
of justification independently of the remaining ones, then each would be made
more justified by the conjoint truth of the remaining ones. (When the
antecedent of this conditional is true, and a statement in the collection is
such that it is highly improbable that the remaining ones all be true unless it
is true, then it is made very highly justified.) Pragmatic a priori: those
judgments that are not based on the use of the senses but on employing a set of
intensions, and yet are susceptible of being reasonably set aside because of a
shift to a different set of intensions whose employment is pragmatically more
useful (roughly, more useful for the attainment of what has intrinsic value).
Valuation: the appraising of something as having value or being morally right.
(What has some value that is not due to its consequences is what has intrinsic
value, e.g., enjoyable experiences of self-realization in living rationally.
Other evaluations of what is good are empirical judgments concerning what may
be involved in actions leading to what is intrinsically good. Rational
reflection permits awareness of various moral principles.)
Lewis: very Irish
literary critic, novelist, and Christian apologist, whom Grice would
occasionally see at the Bird and Baby. (“I don’t like him” – Grice). Born in
Belfast, Lewis took three first-class degrees at Oxford, became a tutor at
Magdalen, and assumed the chair of medieval and Renaissance studies at
Cambridge. While his tremendous output includes important works on medieval
literature and literary criticism, he is best known for his fiction and
Christian apologetics. Lewis combined a poetic sense and appreciation of
argument that allowed him to communicate complex philosophical and theological
material to lay audiences. His popular writings in the philosophy of religion
range over a variety of topics, including the nature and existence of God (Mere
Christianity, 1952), miracles (Miracles, 1947), hell (The Great Divorce, 1945),
and the problem of evil (The Problem of Pain, 1940). His own conversion to
Christianity as an adult is chronicled in his autobiography (Surprised by Joy,
1955). In defending theism Lewis employed arguments from natural theology (most
notably versions of the moral and teleological arguments) and arguments from
religious experience. Also of philosophical interest is his defense of moral
absolutism in The Abolition of Man.
Lewis: philosopher
influential in many areas. Lewis received the B.A. in philosophy from
Swarthmore and the Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard when Grice was giving the
William James lectures on the implicaturum He has been a member of the
philosophy department at U.C.L.A. and Princeton . In philosophy of mind, Lewis
is known principally for “An Argument for the Identity Theory” (1966),
“Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications” (1972), and “Mad Pain and
Martian Pain” (1980). He argues for the functionalist thesis that mental states
are defined by their typical causal roles, and the materialist thesis that the
causal roles definitive of mental states are occupied by physical states. Lewis
develops the view that theoretical definitions in general are functionally
defined, applying the formal concept of a Ramsey sentence. And he suggests that
the platitudes of commonsense or folk psychology constitute the theory
implicitly defining psychological concepts. In philosophy of language and
linguistics, Lewis is known principally for Convention (1969), “General
Semantics” (1970), and “Languages and Language” (1975). His theory of
convention had its source in the theory of games of pure coordination developed
by von Neumann and Morgenstern. Roughly, conventions are arbitrary solutions to
coordination problems that perpetuate themselves once a precedent is set
because they serve a common interest. Lewis requires it to be common knowledge
that people prefer to conform to a conventional regularity given that others
do. He treats linguistic meanings as compositional intensions. The basic intensions
for lexical constituents are functions assigning extensions to indices, which
include contextual factors and a possible world. An analytic sentence is one
true at every index. Languages are functions from sentences to meanings, and
the language of a population is the one in which they have a convention of
truthfulness and trust. In metaphysics and modal logic, Lewis is known
principally for “Counterpart Theory and Quantified Modal Logic” (1968) and On
the Plurality of Worlds (1986). Based on its theoretical benefits, Lewis argues
for modal realism: other possible worlds and the objects in them are just as
real as the actual world and its inhabitants. Lewis develops a non-standard
form of modal logic in which objects exist in at most one possible world, and
for which the necessity of identity fails. Properties are identified with the
set of objects that have them in any possible world, and propositions as the
set of worlds in which they are true. He also develops a finergrained concept
of structured properties and propositions. In philosophical logic and
philosophy of science, Lewis is best known for Counterfactuals (1973),
“Causation” (1973), and “Probabilities of Conditionals and Conditional
Probabilities” (1976). He developed a formal semantics for counterfactual
conditionals that matches their truth conditions and logic much more adequately
than the previously available material or strict conditional analyses. Roughly,
a counterfactual is true if its consequent is true in every possible world in which
its antecedent is true that is as similar overall to the actual world as the
truth of the antecedent will allow. Lewis then defended an analysis of
causation in terms of counterfactuals: c caused e if e would not have occurred
if c had not occurred or if there is a chain of events leading from e to c each
member of which is counterfactually dependent on the next. He presents a
reductio ad absurdum argument to show that conditional probabilities could not
be identified with the probabilities of any sort of conditional. Lewis has also
written on visual experience, events, holes, parts of classes, time travel,
survival and identity, subjective and objective probability, desire as belief,
attitudes de se, deontic logic, decision theory, the prisoner’s dilemma and the
Newcomb problem, utilitarianism, dispositional theories of value, nuclear
deterrence, punishment, and academic ethics. H. P. Grice, “Lewis at Harvard.”
lexical ordering, also
called lexicographic ordering, a method, given a finite ordered set of symbols,
such as the letters of the alphabet, of ordering all finite sequences of those
symbols. All finite sequences of letters, e.g., can be ordered as follows:
first list all single letters in alphabetical order; then list all pairs of
letters in the order aa, ab, . . . az; ba . . . bz; . . . ; za . . . zz. Here
pairs are first grouped and alphabetized according to the first letter of the
pair, and then within these groups are alphabetized according to the second
letter of the pair. All sequences of three letters, four letters, etc., are
then listed in order by an analogous process. In this way every sequence of n
letters, for any n, is listed. Lexical ordering differs from alphabetical
ordering, although it makes use of it, because all sequences with n letters
come before any sequence with n ! 1 letters; thus, zzt will come before aaab.
One use of lexical ordering is to show that the set of all finite sequences of
symbols, and thus the set of all words, is at most denumerably infinite.
Liber vitae -- Arbitrium
– liber vitae -- book of life, expression found in Hebrew and Christian
scriptures signifying a record kept by the Lord of those destined for eternal
happiness Exodus 32:32; Psalms 68; Malachi 3:16; Daniel 12:1; Philippians 4:3;
Revelation 3:5, 17:8, 20:12, 21:27. Medieval philosophers often referred to the
book of life when discussing issues of predestination, divine omniscience,
foreknowledge, and free will. Figures like Augustine and Aquinas asked whether
it represented God’s unerring foreknowledge or predestination, or whether some
names could be added or deleted from it. The term is used by some contemporary
philosophers to mean a record of all the events in a person’s life.
liberalism – alla Locke –
“meaning liberalism” – “Every man has the liberty to make his words for any
idea he pleases.” “every Man has so
inviolable a Liberty, to make Words stand for what Ideas
he pleases.” Bennett on Locke: An utterer has all the freedom he has to
make any of his expressions for any idea he pleases. Constant, Benjamin – Grice
was a sort of a liberal – at least he was familiar with “pinko Oxford” -- in full, Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque,
defender of liberalism and passionate analyst of and European politics. He welcomed the Revolution but not the Reign of Terror, the
violence of which he avoided by accepting a lowly diplomatic post in
Braunschweig 1787 94. In 1795 he returned to Paris with Madame de Staël and
intervened in parliamentary debates. His pamphlets opposed both extremes, the
Jacobin and the Bonapartist. Impressed by Rousseau’s Social Contract, he came
to fear that like Napoleon’s dictatorship, the “general will” could threaten
civil rights. He had first welcomed Napoleon, but turned against his autocracy.
He favored parliamentary democracy, separation of church and state, and a bill
of rights. The high point of his political career came with membership in the
Tribunat 180002, a consultative chamber appointed by the Senate. His centrist
position is evident in the Principes de politique 180610. Had not republican
terror been as destructive as the Empire? In chapters 1617, Constant opposes
the liberty of the ancients and that of the moderns. He assumes that the
Grecian world was given to war, and therefore strengthened “political liberty”
that favors the state over the individual the liberty of the ancients.
Fundamentally optimistic, he believed that war was a thing of the past, and
that the modern world needs to protect “civil liberty,” i.e. the liberty of the
individual the liberty of the moderns. The great merit of Constant’s comparison
is the analysis of historical forces, the theory that governments must support
current needs and do not depend on deterministic factors such as the size of
the state, its form of government, geography, climate, and race. Here he
contradicts Montesquieu. The opposition between ancient and modern liberty
expresses a radical liberalism that did not seem to fit politics. However, it was the beginning of
the liberal tradition, contrasting political liberty in the service of the
state with the civil liberty of the citizen cf. Mill’s On Liberty, 1859, and
Berlin’s Two Concepts of Liberty, 8. Principes remained in manuscript until
1861; the scholarly editions of Étienne Hofmann 0 are far more recent. Hofmann
calls Principes the essential text between Montesquieu and Tocqueville. It was
tr. into English as Constant, Political Writings ed. Biancamaria Fontana, 8 and
7. Forced into retirement by Napoleon, Constant wrote his literary
masterpieces, Adolphe and the diaries. He completed the Principes, then turned
to De la religion 6 vols., which he considered his supreme achievement. liberalism, a political philosophy first
formulated during the Enlightenment in response to the growth of modern
nation-states, which centralize governmental functions and claim sole authority
to exercise coercive power within their boundaries. One of its central theses
has long been that a government’s claim to this authority is justified only if
the government can show those who live under it that it secures their liberty.
A central thesis of contemporary liberalism is that government must be neutral
in debates about the good human life. John Locke, one of the founders of
liberalism, tried to show that constitutional monarchy secures liberty by arguing
that free and equal persons in a state of nature, concerned to protect their
freedom and property, would agree with one another to live under such a regime.
Classical liberalism, which attaches great value to economic liberty, traces
its ancestry to Locke’s argument that government must safeguard property.
Locke’s use of an agreement or social contract laid the basis for the form of
liberalism championed by Rousseau and most deeply indebted to Kant. According
to Kant, the sort of liberty that should be most highly valued is autonomy.
Agents enjoy autonomy, Kant said, when they live according to laws they would
give to themselves. Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971) set the main themes of
the chapter of liberal thought now being written. Rawls asked what principles
of justice citizens would agree to in a contract situation he called “the
original position.” He argued that they would agree to principles guaranteeing
adequate basic liberties and fair equality of opportunity, and requiring that
economic inequalities benefit the least advantaged. A government that respects
these principles secures the autonomy of its citizens by operating in accord
with principles citizens would give themselves in the original position.
Because of the conditions of the original position, citizens would not choose
principles based on a controversial conception of the good life. Neutrality
among such conceptions is therefore built into the foundations of Rawls’s
theory. Some critics argue that liberalism’s emphasis on autonomy and
neutrality leaves it unable to account for the values of tradition, community,
or political participation, and unable to limit individual liberty when limits
are needed. Others argue that autonomy is not the notion of freedom needed to
explain why common forms of oppression like sexism are wrong. Still others
argue that liberalism’s focus on Western democracies leaves it unable to
address the most pressing problems of contemporary politics. Recent work in
liberal theory has therefore asked whether liberalism can accommodate the
political demands of religious and ethnic communities, ground an adequate
conception of democracy, capture feminist critiques of extant power structures,
or guide nation-building in the face of secessionist, nationalist, and fundamentalist
claims. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Impenetrability: Humpty-Dumpty’s
meaning-liberalism,” H. P. Grice, “Davidson and Humpty Dumpty’s glory.”
liberum arbitrium, Latin
expression meaning ‘free judgment’, often used to refer to medieval doctrines
of free choice or free will. It appears in the title of Augustine’s seminal
work De libero arbitrio voluntatis (usually translated ‘On the Free Choice of
the Will’) and in many other medieval writings (e.g., Aquinas, in Summa
theologiae I, asks “whether man has free choice [liberum arbitrium]”). For
medieval thinkers, a judgment (arbitrium) “of the will” was a conclusion of
practical reasoning – “I will do this” (hence, a choice or decision) – in
contrast to a judgment “of the intellect” (“This is the case”), which concludes
theoretical reasoning.
delimitatum: limiting
case, an individual or subclass of a given background class that is maximally
remote from “typical” or “paradigm” members of the class with respect to some
ordering that is not always explicitly mentioned. The number zero is a limiting
case of cardinal number. A triangle is a limiting case of polygon. A square is
a limiting case of rectangle when rectangles are ordered by the ratio of length
to width. Certainty is a limiting case of belief when beliefs are ordered
according to “strength of subjective conviction.” Knowledge is a limiting case
of belief when beliefs are ordered according “adequacy of objective grounds.” A
limiting case is necessarily a case (member) of the background class; in
contrast a li-ch’i limiting case 504 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 504
borderline case need not be a case and a degenerate case may clearly fail to be
a case at all.
linguistic botany: Ryle preferred to call himself a ‘geographer,’ or
cartographer – cf. Grice on conceptual latitude and conceptual longitude. But
then there are plants. Pretentious Austin, mocking continental philosophy
called this ‘linguistic phenomenology,’ meaning literally, the ‘language
phenomena’ out there. Feeling Byzanthine. Possibly the only occasion when Grice
engaged in systematic botany. Like Hare, he would just rather ramble around. It
was said of Hare that he was ‘of a different world.’ In the West Country, he
would go with his mother to identify wild flowers, and they identied “more than
a hundred.” Austin is not clear about ‘botanising.’ Grice helps. Grice was a
meta-linguistic botanist. His point was to criticise ordinary-language
philosophers criticising philosophers. Say: Plato and Ayer say that episteme is
a kind of doxa. The contemporary, if dated, ordinary-language philosopher
detects a nuance, and embarks risking collision with the conversational facts
or data: rushes ahead to exploit the nuance without clarifying it, with wrong
dicta like: What I known to be the case I dont believe to be the case. Surely,
a cancellable implicaturum generated by the rational principle of
conversational helpfulness is all there is to the nuance. Grice knew that
unlike the ordinary-language philosopher, he was not providing a taxonomy or
description, but a theoretical explanation. To not all philosophers analysis
fits them to a T. It did to Grice. It did not even fit Strawson. Grice had a
natural talent for analysis. He could not see philosophy as other than
conceptual analysis. “No more, no less.” Obviously, there is an evaluative side
to the claim that the province of philosophy is to be identified with
conceptual analysis. Listen to a theoretical physicist, and hell keep talking
about concepts, and even analysing them! The man in the street may not! So
Grice finds himself fighting with at least three enemies: the man in the street
(and trying to reconcile with him: What
I do is to help you), the scientists (My conceptual analysis is
meta-conceptual), and synthetic philosophers who disagree with Grice that
analysis plays a key role in philosophical methodology. Grice sees this as an
update to his post-war Oxford philosophy. But we have to remember that back
when he read that paper, post-war Oxford philosophy, was just around the corner
and very fashionable. By the time he composed the piece on conceptual analysis
as overlapping with the province of philosophy, he was aware that, in The New
World, anaytic had become, thanks to Quine, a bit of an abusive term, and that
Grices natural talent for linguistic botanising (at which post-war Oxford
philosophy excelled) was not something he could trust to encounter outside
Oxford, and his Play Group! Since his Negation and Personal identity Grice is
concerned with reductive analysis. How many angels can dance on a needles
point? A needless point? This is Grices update to his Post-war Oxford
philosophy. More generally concerned with the province of philosophy in general
and conceptual analysis beyond ordinary language. It can become pretty
technical. Note the Roman overtone of province. Grice is implicating that the
other province is perhaps science, even folk science, and the claims and ta
legomena of the man in the street. He also likes to play with the idea that a
conceptual enquiry need not be philosophical. Witness the very opening to Logic
and conversation, Prolegomena. Surely not all inquiries need be philosophical.
In fact, a claim to infame of Grice at the Play Group is having once raised the
infamous, most subtle, question: what is it that makes a conceptual enquiry
philosophically interesting or important? As a result, Austin and his
kindergarten spend three weeks analysing the distinct inappropriate implicatura
of adverbial collocations of intensifiers like highly depressed, versus very
depressed, or very red, but not highly red, to no avail. Actually the logical
form of very is pretty complicated, and Grice seems to minimise the point.
Grices moralising implicaturum, by retelling the story, is that he has since
realised (as he hoped Austin knew) that there is no way he or any philosopher
can dictate to any other philosopher, or himself, what is it that makes a
conceptual enquiry philosophically interesting or important. Whether it is fun
is all that matters. Refs.: The main references are meta-philosophical, i. e.
Grice talking about linguistic botany, rather than practicing it. “Reply to
Richards,” and the references under “Oxonianism” below are helpful. For actual
practice, under ‘rationality.’ There is a specific essay on linguistic
botanising, too. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
linguistic relativity,
the thesis that at least some distinctions found in one language are found in
no other language (a version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, by Benjamin Lee
Whorf, of New England, from the river Wharf, in Yorkshire – he died in
Hartford, Conn., New England); more generally, the thesis that different
languages utilize different representational systems that are at least in some
degree informationally incommensurable and hence non-equivalent. The
differences arise from the arbitrary features of languages resulting in each
language encoding lexically or grammatically some distinctions not found in
other languages. The thesis of linguistic determinism holds that the ways
people perceive or think about the world, especially with respect to their
classificatory systems, are causally determined or influenced by their
linguistic systems or by the structures common to all human languages.
Specifically, implicit or explicit linguistic categorization determines or
influences aspects of nonlinguistic categorization, memory, perception, or
cognition in general. Its strongest form (probably a straw-man position) holds
that linguistically unencoded concepts are unthinkable. Weaker forms hold that
concepts that are linguistically encoded are more accessible to thought and
easier to remember than those that are not. This thesis is independent of that
of linguistic relativity. Linguistic determinism plus linguistic relativity as
defined here implies the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
literary theory, a
reasoned account of the nature of the literary artifact, its causes, effects,
and distinguishing features. So understood, literary theory is part of the
systematic study of literature covered by the term ‘criticism’, which also
includes interpretation of literary works, philology, literary history, and the
evaluation of particular works or bodies of work. Because it attempts to
provide the conceptual foundations for practical criticism, literary theory has
also been called “critical theory.” However, since the latter term has been
appropriated by neo-Marxists affiliated with the Frankfurt School to designate
their own kind of social critique, ‘literary theory’ is less open to
misunderstanding. Because of its concern with the ways in which literary
productions differ from other verbal artifacts and from other works of art,
literary theory overlaps extensively with philosophy, psychology, linguistics,
and the other human sciences. The first ex professo theory of literature in the
West, for centuries taken as normative, was Aristotle’s Poetics. On Aristotle’s
view, poetry is a verbal imitation of the forms of human life and action in
language made vivid by metaphor. It stimulates its audience to reflect on the
human condition, enriches their understanding, and thereby occasions the
pleasure that comes from the exercise of the cognitive faculty. The first real
paradigm shift in literary theory was introduced by the Romantics of the
nineteenth century. The Biographia Literaria of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
recounting the author’s conversion from Humean empiricism to a form of German
idealism, defines poetry not as a representation of objective structures, but
as the imaginative self-expression of the creative subject. Its emphasis is not
on the poem as a source of pleasure but on poetry as a heightened form of
spiritual activity. The standard work on the transition from classical
(imitation) theory to Romantic (expression) theory is M. H. Abrams’s The Mirror
and the Lamp. In the present century theory has assumed a place of prominence
in literary studies. In the first half of the century the works of I. A.
Richards – from his early positivist account of linear order poetry in books
like Science and Poetry to his later idealist views in books like The Philosophy
of Rhetoric – sponsored the practice of the American New Critics. The most
influential theorist of the period is Northrop Frye, whose formalist manifesto,
Anatomy of Criticism, proposed to make criticism the “science of literature.”
The introduction of Continental thought to the English-speaking critical
establishment in the 1960s and after spawned a bewildering variety of competing
theories of literature: e.g., Russian formalism, structuralism, deconstruction,
new historicism, Marxism, Freudianism, feminism, and even the anti-theoretical
movement called the “new pragmatism.” The best summary account of these
developments is Frank Lentricchia’s After the New Criticism (1980). Given the
present near-chaos in criticism, the future of literary theory is unpredictable.
But the chaos itself offers ample opportunities for philosophical analysis and
calls for the kind of conceptual discrimination such analysis can offer.
Conversely, the study of literary theory can provide philosophers with a better
understanding of the textuality of philosophy and of the ways in which
philosophical content is determined by the literary form of philosophical
texts.
lit. hum. (philos.): While Grice would take tutees under different curricula, he
preferred Lit. Hum. So how much philosophy did this include. Plato, Aristotle,
Locke, Kant, and Mill. And that was mainly it. We are referring to the
‘philosophy’ component. Ayer used to say that he would rather have been a
judge. But at Oxford of that generation, having a Lit. Hum. perfectly qualified
you as a philosopher. And people like Ayer, who would rather be a juddge, end
up being a philosopher after going through the Lit. Hum. Grice himself comes as
a “Midlands scholarship boy” straight from Clifton on a classics scholarship,
and being from the Midlands, straight to Corpus. The fact that he got on so
well with Hardie helped. The fact that his interim at Merton worked was good.
The fact that the thing at Rossall did NOT work was good. The fact that he
becamse a fellow at St. John’s OBVIOUSLY helped. The fact that he had Strawson
as a tutee ALSO helped helped. H. P. Grice, Literae Humaniores (Philosophy),
Oxon.
locke.
Grice cites Locke in “Personal identity,” and many more places. He has a
premium for Locke. Acceptance, acceptance and
certeris paribus condition, acceptance and modals, j-acceptance, moral
acceptance, prudential acceptance, v-acceptance, ackrill,
Aristotle, Austin, botvinnik ,
categorical imperative, chicken soul, immortality of,
Davidson, descriptivism, descriptivism and
ends, aequi-vocality thesis, final cause, frege, happiness, happiness and H-desirables, happiness and I-desirables,
happiness as a system of ends, happiness as an end, hardie, hypothetical imperative , hypothetical imperative -- see technical imperatives,
isaacson, incontinence,
inferential principles, judging, judging and acceptance, Kant, logical theory, meaning,
meaning and speech procedures, sentence meaning, what a speaker means, modes,
modes and moods, moods, modes and embedding of mode-markers , judicative operator, volitive operator, mood operators,
moods morality, myro, nagel, necessity, necessity and provability, necessity and
relativized and absolute modalities, principle of total evidence, principles of
inference, principles of inference, reasons, and necessity, provability,
radical, rationality : as faculty manifested in reasoning, flat and variable,
proto-rationality, rational being, and value
as value-paradigmatic concept, rationality operator, reasonable, reasoning,
reasoning and defeasibility, reasoning defined, rasoning and explanation,
reasoning -- first account of, reasoning and good reasoning, reasoning, special
status of, reasoning the hard way of, reasoning and incomplete reasoning,
reasoning and indeterminacy of, reasoning and intention, reasoning and
misreasoning, reasoning, practical, reasoning, probabilistic, reasoning as
purposive activity, reasoning, the quick way of , reasoning -- too good to be reasoning, reasons, reasons
altheic, reasons: division into practical and alethic, reasons: explanatory,
reasons justificatory, reasons: justificatory-explanatory, reasoning and
modals, reasoning and necessity, personal, practical and non-practical
(alethic) reasons compared, systematizing hypothesis: types of, Russell,
satisfactoriness, technical imperatives, value, value paradigmatic concepts,
Wright, willing and acceptance, Vitters.
Index acceptance 71-2 , 80-7 and certeris paribus condition 77 and modals 91-2
J-acceptance 51 moral 61 , 63 , 87 prudential 97-111 V-acceptance 51 Ackrill,
J. L. 119-20 Aristotle 4-5 , 19 , 24-5 , 31 , 32 , 43 , 98-9 , 112-15 , 120 ,
125 Austin, J. L. 99 Botvinnik 11 , 12 , 18 Categorical Imperative 4 , 70
chicken soul, immortality of 11-12 Davidson, Donald 45-8 , 68 descriptivism 92
ends 100-10 Equivocality thesis x-xv , 58 , 62 , 66 , 70 , 71 , 80 , 90 final
cause 43-4 , 66 , 111 Frege, Gottlob 50 happiness 97-134 and H-desirables
114-18 , 120 and I-desirables 114-18 , 120 , 122 , 128 as a system of ends
131-4 as an end 97 , 113-15 , 119-20 , 123-8 Hardie, W. F. R. 119 hypothetical
imperative 97 , see technical imperatives Isaacson, Dan 30n. incontinence 25 ,
47 inferential principles 35 judging 51 , see acceptance Kant 4 , 21 , 25 , 31
, 43 , 44-5 , 70 , 77-8 , 86-7 , 90-8 logical theory 61 meaning ix-x and speech
procedures 57-8 sentence meaning 68-9 what a speaker means 57-8 , 68 modes 68 ,
see moods moods xxii-xxiii , 50-6 , 59 , 69 , 71-2 embedding of mode-markers
87-9 judicative operator 50 , 72-3 , 90 volative operator 50 , 73 , 90 mood
operators , see moods morality 63 , 98 Myro, George 40 Nagel, Thomas 64n.
necessity xii-xiii , xvii-xxiii , 45 , 58-9 and provability 59 , 60-2 and
relativized and absolute modalities 56-66 principle of total evidence 47 , 80-7
principles of inference 5 , 7 , 9 , 22-3 , 26 , 35 see also reasons, and
necessity provability 59 , 60-2 radical
50-3 , 58-9 , 72 , 88 rationality : as faculty manifested in reasoning 5 flat
and variable 28-36 proto-rationality 33 rational being 4 , 25 , 28-30 and value
as value-paradigmatic concept 35 rationality operator xiv-xv , 50-1 reasonable
23-5 reasoning 4-28 and defeasibility 47 , 79 , 92 defined 13-14 , 87-8 and
explanation xxix-xxxv , 8 first account of 5-6 , 13-14 , 26-8 good reasoning 6
, 14-16 , 26-7 special status of 35 the hard way of 17 end p.135 incomplete
reasoning 8-14 indeterminacy of 12-13 and intention 7 , 16 , 18-25 , 35-6 ,
48-9 misreasoning 6-8 , 26 practical 46-50 probabilistic 46-50 as purposive
activity 16-19 , 27-8 , 35 the quick way of 17 too good to be reasoning 14-18
reasons 37-66 altheic 44-5 , 49 division into practical and alethic 44 , 68
explanatory 37-9 justificatory 39-40 , 67-8 justificatory-explanatory 40-1 , 67
and modals 45 and necessity 44-5 personal 67 practical and non-practical
(alethic) reasons compared xiixiii , 44-50 , 65 , 68 , 73-80 systematizing
hypothesis 41-4 types of 37-44 Russell, Bertrand 50 satisfactoriness 60 , 87-9
, 95 technical imperatives 70 , 78 , 90 , 93-6 , 97 value 20 , 35 , 83 , 87-8
value paradigmatic concepts 35-6 von Wright 44 willing 50 , see acceptance
Wittengenstein, Ludwig 50 -- English philosopher and proponent of empiricism,
famous especially for his Essay concerning Human Understanding (1689) and for
his Second Treatise of Government, also published in 1689, though anonymously.
He came from a middle-class Puritan family in Somerset, and became acquainted
with Scholastic philosophy in his studies at Oxford. Not finding a career in
church or university attractive, he trained for a while as a physician, and
developed contacts with many members of the newly formed Royal Society; the
chemist Robert Boyle and the physicist Isaac Newton were close acquaintances.
In 1667 he joined the London households of the then Lord Ashley, later first
Earl of Shaftesbury; there he became intimately involved in discussions
surrounding the politics of resistance to the Catholic king, Charles II. In
1683 he fled England for the Netherlands, where he wrote out the final draft of
his Essay. He returned to England in 1689, a year after the accession to the
English throne of the Protestant William of Orange. In his last years he was
the most famous intellectual in England, perhaps in Europe generally. Locke was
not a university professor immersed in the discussions of the philosophy of
“the schools” but was instead intensely engaged in the social and cultural
issues of his day; his writings were addressed not to professional philosophers
but to the educated public in general. The Essay. The initial impulse for the
line of thought that culminated in the Essay occurred early in 1671, in a
discussion Locke had with some friends in Lord Shaftesbury’s apartments in
London on matters of morality and revealed religion. In his Epistle to the
Reader at the beginning of the Essay Locke says that the discussants found
themselves quickly at a stand by the difficulties that arose on every side.
After we had awhile puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a resolution
of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my thoughts that we took a
wrong course, and that before we set ourselves upon enquiries of that nature it
was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our
understandings were or were not fitted to deal with. Locke was well aware that
for a thousand years European humanity had consulted its textual inheritance
for the resolution of its moral and religious quandaries; elaborate strategies
of interpretation, distinction, etc., had been developed for extracting from
those disparate sources a unified, highly complex, body of truth. He was equally
well aware that by his time, more than a hundred years after the beginning of
the Reformation, the moral and religious tradition of Europe had broken up into
warring and contradictory fragments. Accordingly he warns his readers over and
over against basing their convictions merely on say-so, on unexamined
tradition. As he puts it in a short late book of his, The Conduct of the
Understanding, “We should not judge of things by men’s opinions, but of
opinions by things.” We should look to “the things themselves,” as he sometimes
puts it. But to know how to get at the things themselves it is necessary, so
Locke thought, “to examine our own abilities.” Hence the project of the Essay.
The Essay comes in four books, Book IV being the culmination. Fundamental to
understanding Locke’s thought in Book IV is the realization that knowledge, as
he thinks of it, is a fundamentally different phenomenon from belief. Locke
holds, indeed, that knowledge is typically accompanied by belief; it is not,
though, to be identified with it. Knowledge, as he thinks of it, is direct
awareness of some fact – in his own words, perception of some agreement or
disagreement among things. Belief, by contrast, consists of taking some
proposition to be true – whether or not one is directly aware of the
corresponding fact. The question then arises: Of what sorts of facts do we
human beings have direct awareness? Locke’s answer is: Only of facts that
consist of relationships among our “ideas.” Exactly what Locke had in mind when
he spoke of ideas is a vexed topic; the traditional view, for which there is a
great deal to be said, is that he regarded ideas as mental objects.
Furthermore, he clearly regarded some ideas as being representations of other
entities; his own view was that we can think about nonmental entities only by
being aware of mental entities that represent those non-mental realities. Locke
argued that knowledge, thus understood, is “short and scanty” – much too short
and scanty for the living of life. Life requires the formation of beliefs on
matters where knowledge is not available. Now what strikes anyone who surveys
human beliefs is that many of them are false. What also strikes any perceptive
observer of the scene is that often we can – or could have – done something
about this. We can, to use Locke’s language, “regulate” and “govern” our
belief-forming capacities with the goal in mind of getting things right. Locke
was persuaded that not only can we thus regulate and govern our belief-forming
capacities; we ought to do so. It is a God-given obligation that rests upon all
of us. Specifically, for each human being there are some matters of such
“concernment,” as Locke calls it, as to place the person under obligation to
try his or her best to get things right. For all of us there will be many
issues that are not of such concernment; for those cases, it will be acceptable
to form our beliefs in whatever way nature or custom has taught us to form
them. But for each of us there will be certain practical matters concerning
which we are obligated to try our best – these differing from person to person.
And certain matters of ethics and religion are of such concern to everybody
that we are all obligated to try our best, on these matters, to get in touch
with reality. What does trying our best consist of, when knowledge –
perception, awareness, insight – is not available? One can think of the
practice Locke recommends as having three steps. First one collects whatever
evidence one can find for and against the proposition in question. This evidence
must consist of things that one knows; otherwise we are just wandering in
darkness. And the totality of the evidence must be a reliable indicator of the
probability of the proposition that one is considering. Second, one analyzes
the evidence to determine the probability of the proposition in question, on
that evidence. And last, one places a level of confidence in the proposition
that is proportioned to its probability on that satisfactory evidence. If the
proposition is highly probable on that evidence, one believes it very firmly;
if it only is quite probable, one believes it rather weakly; etc. The main
thrust of the latter half of Book IV of the Essay is Locke’s exhortation to his
readers to adopt this practice in the forming of beliefs on matters of high
concernment – and in particular, on matters of morality and religion. It was
his view that the new science being developed by his friends Boyle and Newton
and others was using exactly this method. Though Book IV was clearly seen by
Locke as the culmination of the Essay, it by no means constitutes the bulk of
it. Book I launches a famous attack on innate ideas and innate knowledge; he
argues that all our ideas and knowledge can be accounted for by tracing the way
in which the mind uses its innate capacities to work on material presented to
it by sensation and reflection (i.e., self-awareness). Book II then undertakes
to account for all our ideas, on the assumption that the only “input” is ideas
of sensation and reflection, and that the mind, which at birth is a tabula rasa
(or blank tablet), works on these by such operations as combination, division,
generalization, and abstraction. And then in Book III Locke discusses the
various ways in which words hinder us in our attempt to get to the things themselves.
Along with many other thinkers of the time, Locke distinguished between what he
called natural theology and what he called revealed theology. It was his view
that a compelling, demonstrative argument could be given for the existence of
God, and thus that we could have knowledge of God’s existence; the existence of
God is a condition of our own existence. In addition, he believed firmly that
God had revealed things to human beings. As he saw the situation, however, we
can at most have beliefs, not knowledge, concerning what God has revealed. For
we can never just “see” that a certain episode in human affairs is a case of
divine revelation. Accordingly, we must apply the practice outlined above,
beginning by assembling satisfactory evidence for the conclusion that a certain
episode really is a case of divine revelation. In Locke’s view, the occurrence
of miracles provides the required evidence. An implication of these theses
concerning natural and revealed religion is that it is never right for a human
being to believe something about God without having evidence for its truth,
with the evidence consisting ultimately of things that one “sees” immediately
to be true. Locke held to a divine command theory of moral obligation; to be
morally obligated to do something is for God to require of one that one do
that. And since a great deal of what Jesus taught, as Locke saw it, was a code
of moral obligation, it follows that once we have evidence for the revelatory
status of what Jesus said, we automatically have evidence that what Jesus
taught as our moral obligation really is that. Locke was firmly persuaded,
however, that revelation is not our only mode of access to moral obligation.
Most if not all of our moral obligations can also be arrived at by the use of
our natural capacities, unaided by revelation. To that part of our moral
obligations which can in principle be arrived at by the use of our natural
capacities, Locke (in traditional fashion) gave the title of natural law.
Locke’s own view was that morality could in principle be established as a
deductive science, on analogy to mathematics: one would first argue for God’s
existence and for our status as creatures of God; one would then argue that God
was good, and cared for the happiness of God’s creatures. Then one would argue
that such a good God would lay down commands to his creatures, aimed at their
overall happiness. From there, one would proceed to reflect on what does in
fact conduce to human happiness. And so forth. Locke never worked out the details
of such a deductive system of ethics; late in his life he concluded that it was
beyond his capacities. But he never gave up on the ideal. The Second Treatise
and other writings. Locke’s theory of natural law entered intimately into the
theory of civil obedience that he developed in the Second Treatise of
Government. Imagine, he said, a group of human beings living in what he called
a state of nature – i.e., a condition in which there is no governmental
authority and no private property. They would still be under divine obligation;
and much (if not all) of that obligation would be accessible to them by the use
of their natural capacities. There would be for them a natural law. In this
state of nature they would have title to their own persons and labor; natural
law tells us that these are inherently our “possessions.” But there would be no
possessions beyond that. The physical world would be like a gigantic English
commons, given by God to humanity as a whole. Locke then addresses himself to
two questions: How can we account for the emergence of political obligation
from such a situation, and how can we account for the emergence of private
property? As to the former, his answer is that we in effect make a contract
with one another to institute a government for the Locke, John Locke, John 508
4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 508 elimination of certain deficiencies in
the state of nature, and then to obey that government, provided it does what we
have contracted with one another it should do and does not exceed that. Among
the deficiencies of the state of nature that a government can be expected to
correct is the sinful tendency of human beings to transgress on other persons’
properties, and the equally sinful tendency to punish such transgressions more
severely than the law of nature allows. As to the emergence of private
property, something from the world at large becomes a given person’s property
when that person “mixes” his or her labor with it. For though God gave the
world as a whole to all of us together, natural law tells us that each person’s
labor belongs to that person himself or herself – unless he or she freely
contracts it to someone else. Locke’s Second Treatise is thus an articulate
statement of the so-called liberal theory of the state; it remains one of the
greatest of such, and proved enormously influential. It should be seen as
supplemented by the Letters concerning Toleration (1689, 1690, 1692) that Locke
wrote on religious toleration, in which he argued that all theists who have not
pledged civil allegiance to some foreign power should be granted equal
toleration. Some letters that Locke wrote to a friend concerning the education
of the friend’s son should also be seen as supplementing the grand vision. If
we survey the way in which beliefs are actually formed in human beings, we see
that passion, the partisanship of distinct traditions, early training, etc.,
play important obstructive roles. It is impossible to weed out entirely from
one’s life the influence of such factors. When it comes to matters of high
“concernment,” however, it is our obligation to do so; it is our obligation to
implement the three-step practice outlined above, which Locke defends as doing
one’s best. But Locke did not think that the cultural reform he had in mind,
represented by the appropriate use of this new practice, could be expected to
come about as the result just of writing books and delivering exhortations.
Training in the new practice was required; in particular, training of small
children, before bad habits had been ingrained. Accordingly, Locke proposes in
Some Thoughts concerning Education (1693) an educational program aimed at
training children in when and how to collect satisfactory evidence, appraise
the probabilities of propositions on such evidence, and place levels of
confidence in those propositions proportioned to their probability on that
evidence. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “To Locke,” C. McGinn, “Grice and Locke as
telementationalists.”
Implicaturum: logical consequence, a
proposition, sentence, or other piece of information that follows logically
from one or more other propositions, sentences, or pieces of information. A
proposition C is said to follow logically from, or to be a logical consequence
of, propositions P1, P2, . . . , if it must be the case that, on the assumption
that P1, P2, . . . , Pn are all true, the proposition C is true as well. For
example, the proposition ‘Smith is corrupt’ is a logical consequence of the two
propositions ‘All politicians are corrupt’ and ‘Smith is a politician’, since
it must be the case that on the assumption that ‘All politicians are corrupt’
and ‘Smith is a politician’ are both true, ‘Smith is corrupt’ is also true.
Notice that proposition C can be a logical consequence of propositions P1, P2,
. . . , Pn, even if P1, P2, . . . , Pn are not actually all true. Indeed this
is the case in our example. ‘All politicians are corrupt’ is not, in fact,
true: there are some honest politicians. But if it were true, and if Smith were
a politician, then ‘Smith is corrupt’ would have to be true. Because of this,
it is said to be a logical consequence of those two propositions. The logical
consequence relation is often written using the symbol X, called the double
turnstile. Thus to indicate that C is a logical consequence of P1, P2, . . . ,
Pn, we would write: P1, P2, . . . , Pn X C or: P X C where P stands for the set
containing the propositions p1, P2, . . . , Pn. The term ‘logical consequence’
is sometimes reserved for cases in which C follows from P1, P2, . . . , Pn
solely in virtue of the meanings of the socalled logical expressions (e.g.,
‘some’, ‘all’, ‘or’, ‘and’, ‘not’) contained by these propositions. In this
more restricted sense, ‘Smith is not a politician’ is not a logical consequence
of the proposition ‘All politicians are corrupt’ and ‘Smith is honest’, since
to recognize the consequence relation here we must also understand the specific
meanings of the non-logical expressions ‘corrupt’ and ‘honest’.
Constant – in system G --
a symbol, such as the connectives -, 8, /, or S or the quantifiers D or E of
elementary quantification theory, that represents logical form. The contrast
here is with expressions such as terms, predicates, and function symbols, which
are supposed to represent the “content” of a sentence or proposition. Beyond
this, there is little consensus on how to understand logical constancy. It is
sometimes said, e.g., that a symbol is a logical constant if its interpretation
is fixed across admissible valuations, though there is disagreement over
exactly how to construe this “fixity” constraint. This account seems to make
logical form a mere artifact of one’s choice of a model theory. More generally,
it has been questioned whether there are any objective grounds for classifying
some expressions as logical and others not, or whether such a distinction is
(wholly or in part) conventional. Other philosophers have suggested that
logical constancy is less a semantic notion than an epistemic one: roughly,
that a is a logical constant if the semantic behavior of certain other
expressions together with the semantic contribution of a determine a priori (or
in some other epistemically privileged fashion) the extensions of complex
expressions in which a occurs. There is also considerable debate over whether
particular symbols, such as the identity sign, modal operators, and quantifiers
other than D and E, are, or should be treated as, logical constants.
Grice’s “logical
construction” – a phrase he borrowed from Broad via Russell -- something built
by logical operations from certain elements. Suppose that any sentence, S,
containing terms apparently referring to objects of type F can be paraphrased
without any essential loss of content into some (possibly much more
complicated) sentence, Sp, containing only terms referring to objects of type G
(distinct from F): in this case, objects of type F may be said to be logical
constructions out of objects of type G. The notion originates with Russell’s
concept of an “incomplete symbol,” which he introduced in connection with his
theory of descriptions. According to Russell, a definite description – i.e., a
descriptive phrase, such as ‘the present king of France’, apparently picking
out a unique object – cannot be taken at face value as a genuinely referential
term. One reason for this is that the existence of the objects seemingly
referred to by such phrases can be meaningfully denied. We can say, “The
present king of France does not exist,” and it is hard to see how this could be
if ‘the present king of France’, to be meaningful, has to refer to the present
king of France. One solution, advocated by Meinong, is to claim that the
referents required by what ordinary grammar suggests are singular terms must
have some kind of “being,” even though this need not amount to actual
existence; but this solution offended Russell’s “robust sense of reality.”
According to Peano, Whitehead and Russell, then, ‘The F is G’ is to be
understood as equivalent to (something like) ‘One and only one thing Fs and
that thing is G’. (The phrase ‘one and only one’ can itself be paraphrased away
in terms of quantifiers and identity.) The crucial feature of this analysis is
that it does not define the problematic phrases by providing synonyms: rather,
it provides a rule, which Russell called “a definition in use,” for
paraphrasing whole sentences in which they occur into whole sentences in which
they do not. This is why definite descriptions are “incomplete symbols”: we do
not specify objects that are their meanings; we lay down a rule that explains
the meaning of whole sentences in which they occur. Thus definite descriptions
disappear under analysis, and with them the shadowy occupants of Meinong’s
realm of being. Russell thought that the kind of analysis represented by the
theory of descriptions gives the clue to the proper method for philosophy:
solve metaphysical and epistemological problems by reducing ontological
commitments. The task of philosophy is to substitute, wherever possible,
logical constructions for inferred entities. Thus in the philosophy of mathematics,
Russell attempted to eliminate numbers, as a distinct category of objects, by
showing how mathematical statements can be translated into (what he took to be)
purely logical statements. But what really gave Russell’s program its bite was
his thought that we can refer only to objects with which we are directly
acquainted. This committed him to holding that all terms apparently referring
to objects that cannot be regarded as objects of acquaintance should be given
contextual definitions along the lines of the theory of descriptions: i.e., to
treating everything beyond the scope of acquaintance as a logical construction
(or a “logical fiction”). Most notably, Russell regarded physical objects as
logical constructions out of sense-data, taking this to resolve the skeptical
problem about our knowledge of the external world. The project of showing how
physical objects can be treated as logical constructions out of sense-data was
a major concern of analytical philosophers in the interwar period, Carnap’s Der
Logische Aufbau der Welt, standing as perhaps its major monument. However, the
project was not a success. Even Carnap’s construction involves a system of
space-time coordinates that is not analyzed in sense-datum terms and today few,
if any, philosophers believe that such ambitious projects can be carried
through..
informatum -- forma: “To
inform was originally to mould, to shape,” and so quite different from Grecian
‘eidos.’ But the ‘forma-materia’ distinction stuck. Whhat is obtained from a
proposition, a set of propositions, or an argument by abstracting from the
matter of its content terms or by regarding the content terms as mere place-holders
or blanks in a form. In what Grice (after Bergmann) calls an ideal (versus an
ordinary) language the form of a proposition, a set of propositions, or an
argument is determined by the ‘matter’ of the sentence, the set of sentences,
or the argument-text expressing it. Two sentences, sets of sentences, or
argument-texts are said to have the same form, in this way, if a uniform
one-toone substitution of content words transforms the one exactly into the other.
‘Abe properly respects every agent who respects himself’ may be regarded as
having the same form as the sentence ‘Ben generously assists every patient who
assists himself’. Substitutions used to determine sameness of form
(isomorphism) cannot involve change of form words such as ‘every’, ‘no’,
‘some’, ‘is’, etc., and they must be category-preserving, i.e., they must put a
proper name for a proper name, an adverb for an adverb, a transitive verb for a
transitive verb, and so on. Two sentences having the same grammatical form have
exactly the same form words distributed in exactly the same pattern; and
although they of course need not, and usually do not, have the same content
words, they do have logical dependence logical form exactly the same number of
content words. The most distinctive feature of form words, which are also
called syncategorematic terms or logical terms, is their topic neutrality; the
form words in a sentence are entirely independent of and are in no way
indicative of its content or topic. Modern formal languages used in formal
axiomatizations of mathematical sciences are often taken as examples of
logically perfect languages. Pioneering work on logically perfect languages was
done by George Boole, Frege, Giuseppe Peano, Russell, and Church. According to
the principle of form, an argument is valid or invalid in virtue of form. More
explicitly, every two arguments in the same form are both valid or both
invalid. Thus, every argument in the same form as a valid argument is valid and
every argument in the same form as an invalid argument is invalid. The argument
form that a given argument fits (or has) is not determined solely by the
logical forms of its constituent propositions; the arrangement of those
propositions is critical because the process of interchanging a premise with
the conclusion of a valid argument can result in an invalid argument. The
principle of logical form, from which formal logic gets its name, is commonly
used in establishing invalidity of arguments and consistency of sets of
propositions. In order to show that a given argument is invalid it is
sufficient to exhibit another argument as being in the same logical form and as
having all true premises and a false conclusion. In order to show that a given
set of propositions is consistent it is sufficient to exhibit another set of
propositions as being in the same logical form and as being composed
exclusively of true propositions. The history of these methods traces back
through non-Cantorian set theory, non-Euclidean geometry, and medieval
logicians (especially Anselm) to Aristotle. These methods must be used with
extreme caution in an ordinary languages that fails to be logically perfect as
a result of ellipsis, amphiboly, ambiguity, etc. E.g. ‘This is a male dog’
implies ‘This is a dog.’ But ‘This is a brass monkey’ does not strictly imply –
but implicate -- ‘This is a monkey’, as would be required in a what Bergmann
calls an ideal (or perfect, rather than ordinary or imperfect) language.
Likewise, of two propositions commonly expressed by the ambiguous sentence ‘Ann
and Ben are married’ one does and one does not imply (but at most ‘implicate’) the
proposition that Ann is married to Ben. (cf. We are married, but not to each
other – a New-World ditty.). Grice, Quine and other philosophers – not
Strawson! -- are careful to distinguish, in effect, the unique form of a
proposition from this or that ‘schematic’ form it may display. The proposition
(A) ‘If Abe is Ben, if Ben is wise Abe is wise’ has exactly one form, which it
shares with ‘If Carl is Dan, if Dan is kind Carl is kind’, whereas it has all
of the following schematic forms: ‘If P, if Q then R;’ ‘If P, Q;’ and ‘P.’ The
principle of form for propositions is that every two propositions in the same form
are both tautological (logically necessary) or both non-tautological. Thus,
although the propositions above are tautological, there are non-tautological propositions
that fit this or that the schematic form just mentioned. Failure to distinguish
form proper from ‘schematic form’ has led to fallacies. According to the
principle of logical form quoted above every argument in the same logical form
as an invalid argument is invalid, but it is not the case that every argument
sharing a schematic form with an invalid argument is invalid. Contrary to what
would be fallaciously thought, the conclusion ‘Abe is Ben’ is logically implied
by the following two propositions taken together, ‘If Abe is Ben, Ben is Abe’
and ‘Ben is Abe’, even though the argument shares a schematic form with invalid
arguments “committing” the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Refs.: Grice,
“Leibniz on ‘lingua perfecta.’”
indicatum -- indicator: an expression that provides some
help in identifying the conclusion of an argument or the premises offered in
support of a conclusion. Common premise indicators include ‘for’, ‘because’,
and ‘since’. Common conclusion indicators include ‘so’, ‘it follows that’,
‘hence’, ‘thus’, and ‘therefore’. Since Tom sat in the back of the room, he
could not hear the performance clearly. Therefore, he could not write a proper
review. ’Since’ makes clear that Tom’s seat location is offered as a reason to
explain his inability to hear the performance. ‘Therefore’ indicates that the proposition
that Tom could not write a proper review is the conclusion of the argument.
Notatum: symbol or
communication device designed to achieve unambiguous formulation of principles
and inferences in deductive logic. A notation involves some regimentation of
words, word order, etc., of language. Some schematization was attempted even in
ancient times by Aristotle, the Megarians, the Stoics, Boethius, and the
medievals. But Leibniz’s vision of a universal logical language began to be
realized only in the past 150 years. The notation is not yet standardized, but
the following varieties of logical operators in propositional and predicate
calculus may be noted. Given that ‘p’, ‘q’, ‘r’, etc., are propositional
variables, or propositions, we find, in the contexts of their application, the
following variety of operators (called truth-functional connectives). Negation:
‘-p’, ‘Ýp’, ‘p - ’, ‘p’ ’. Conjunction: ‘p • q’, ‘p & q’, ‘p 8 q’. Weak or
inclusive disjunction: ‘p 7 q’. Strong or exclusive disjunction: ‘p V q’, ‘p !
q’, ‘p W q’. Material conditional (sometimes called material implication): ‘p /
q’, ‘p P q’. Material biconditional (sometimes called material equivalence): ‘p
S q’, ‘p Q q’. And, given that ‘x’, ‘y’, ‘z’, etc., are individual variables
and ‘F’, ‘G’, ‘H’, etc., are predicate letters, we find in the predicate
calculus two quantifiers, a universal and an existential quantifier: Universal
quantification: ‘(x)Fx’, ‘(Ex)Fx’, ‘8xFx’. Existential quantification: ‘(Ex)Fx’,
‘(Dx)Fx’, ‘7xFx’. The formation principle in all the schemata involving dyadic
or binary operators (connectives) is that the logical operator is placed
between the propositional variables (or propositional constants) connected by
it. But there exists a notation, the so-called Polish notation, based on the
formation rule stipulating that all operators, and not only negation and
quantifiers, be placed in front of the schemata over which they are ranging.
The following representations are the result of application of that rule:
Negation: ‘Np’. Conjunction: ‘Kpq’. Weak or inclusive disjunction: ‘Apq’.
Strong or exclusive disjunction: ‘Jpq’. Conditional: ‘Cpq’. Biconditional:
‘Epq’. Sheffer stroke: ‘Dpq’. Universal quantification: ‘PxFx’. Existential
quantifications: ‘9xFx’. Remembering that ‘K’, ‘A’, ‘J’, ‘C’, ‘E’, and ‘D’ are
dyadic functors, we expect them to be followed by two propositional signs, each
of which may itself be simple or compound, but no parentheses are needed to
prevent ambiguity. Moreover, this notation makes it very perspicuous as to what
kind of proposition a given compound proposition is: all we need to do is to
look at the leftmost operator. To illustrate, ‘p7 (q & r) is a disjunction
of ‘p’ with the conjunction ‘Kqr’, i.e., ‘ApKqr’, while ‘(p 7 q) & r’ is a
conjunction of a disjunction ‘Apq’ with ‘r’, i.e., ‘KApqr’. ‘- p P q’ is
written as ‘CNpq’, i.e., ‘if Np, then q’, while negation of the whole
conditional, ‘-(p P q)’, becomes ‘NCpq’. A logical thesis such as ‘((p & q)
P r) P ((s P p) P (s & q) P r))’ is written concisely as ‘CCKpqrCCspCKsqr’.
The general proposition ‘(Ex) (Fx P Gx)’ is written as ‘PxCFxGx’, while a
truth-function of quantified propositions ‘(Ex)Fx P (Dy)Gy’ is written as
‘CPxFx9yGy’. An equivalence such as ‘(Ex) Fx Q - (Dx) - Fx’ becomes
‘EPxFxN9xNFx’, etc. Dot notation is way of using dots to construct well-formed
formulas that is more thrifty with punctuation marks than the use of
parentheses with their progressive strengths of scope. But dot notation is less
thrifty than the parenthesis-free Polish notation, which secures well-formed
expressions entirely on the basis of the order of logical operators relative to
truth-functional compounds. Various dot notations have been devised. The
convention most commonly adopted is that punctuation dots always operate away
from the connective symbol that they flank. It is best to explain dot
punctuation by examples: (1) ‘p 7 (q - r)’ becomes ‘p 7 .q P - r’; (2) ‘(p 7 q)
P - r’ becomes ‘p 7 q. P - r’; (3) ‘(p P (q Q r)) 7 (p 7 r)’ becomes ‘p P. q Q
r: 7. p 7r’; (4) ‘(- pQq)•(rPs)’ becomes ‘-p Q q . r Q s’. logically perfect
language logical notation 513 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 513 Note that
here the dot is used as conjunction dot and is not flanked by punctuation dots,
although in some contexts additional punctuation dots may have to be added,
e.g., ‘p.((q . r) P s), which is rewritten as ‘p : q.r. P s’. The scope of a
group of n dots extends to the group of n or more dots. (5) ‘- p Q (q.(r P s))’
becomes ‘- p. Q : q.r P s’; (6)‘- pQ((q . r) Ps)’ becomes ‘~p. Q: q.r.Ps’; (7)
‘(- p Q (q . r)) P s’ becomes ‘- p Q. q.r: P s’. The notation for modal
propositions made popular by C. I. Lewis consisted of the use of ‘B’ to express
the idea of possibility, in terms of which other alethic modal notions were
defined. Thus, starting with ‘B p’ for ‘It is possiblethat p’ we get ‘- B p’
for ‘It is not possible that p’ (i.e., ‘It is impossible that p’), ‘- B - p’
for ‘It is not possible that not p’ (i.e., ‘It is necessary that p’), and ‘B - p’
for ‘It is possible that not p’ (i.e., ‘It is contingent that p’ in the sense
of ‘It is not necessary that p’, i.e., ‘It is possible that not p’). Given this
primitive or undefined notion of possibility, Lewis proceeded to introduce the
notion of strict implication, represented by ‘ ’ and defined as follows: ‘p q
.% . - B (p. -q)’. More recent tradition finds it convenient to use ‘A’, either
as a defined or as a primitive symbol of necessity. In the parenthesis-free
Polish notation the letter ‘M’ is usually added as the sign of possibility and
sometimes the letter ‘L’ is used as the sign of necessity. No inconvenience
results from adopting these letters, as long as they do not coincide with any
of the existing truthfunctional operators ‘N’, ‘K’, ‘A’, ‘J’, ‘C’, ‘E’, ‘D’.
Thus we can express symbolically the sentences ‘If p is necessary, then p is
possible’ as ‘CNMNpMp’ or as ‘CLpMp’; ‘It is necessary that whatever is F is G’
as ‘NMNPxCFxGx’ or as ‘LPxCFxGx’; and ‘Whatever is F is necessarily G’ as
‘PxCFxNMNGx’ or as PxCFxLGx; etc.
logical positivism, also
called positivism, a philosophical movement inspired by empiricism and
verificationism. While there are still philosophers who would identify
themselves with some of the logical positivists’ theses, many of the central
docrines of the theory have come under considerable attack in the last half of
this century. In some ways logical positivism can be seen as a natural
outgrowth of radical or British empiricism and logical atomism. The driving
force of positivism may well have been adherence to the verifiability criterion
for the meaningfulness of cognitive statements. Acceptance of this principle
led positivists to reject as problematic many assertions of religion, morality,
and the kind of philosophy they described as metaphysics. The verifiability
criterion of meaning. The radical empiricists took genuine ideas to be composed
of simple ideas traceable to elements in experience. If this is true and if
thoughts about the empirical world are “made up” out of ideas, it would seem to
follow that all genuine thoughts about the world must have as constituents
thoughts that denote items of experience. While not all positivists tied
meaning so clearly to the sort of experiences the empiricists had in mind, they
were convinced that a genuine contingent assertion about the world must be
verifiable through experience or observation. Questions immediately arose
concerning the relevant sense of ‘verify’. Extreme versions of the theory
interpret verification in terms of experiences or observations that entail the
truth of the proposition in question. Thus for my assertion that there is a
table before me to be meaningful, it must be in principle possible for me to
accumulate evidence or justification that would guarantee the existence of the
table, which would make it impossible for the table not to exist. Even this
statement of the view is ambiguous, however, for the impossibility of error
could be interpreted as logical or conceptual, or something much weaker, say,
causal. Either way, extreme verificationism seems vulnerable to objections.
Universal statements, such as ‘All metal expands when heated’, are meaningful,
but it is doubtful that any observations could ever conclusively verify them.
One might modify the criterion to include as meaningful only statements that
can be either conclusively confirmed or conclusively disconfirmed. It is
doubtful, however, that even ordinary statements about the physical world
satisfy the extreme positivist insistence that they admit of conclusive
verification or falsification. If the evidence we have for believing what we do
about the physical world consists of knowledge of fleeting and subjective
sensation, the possibility of hallucination or deception by a malevolent,
powerful being seems to preclude the possibility of any finite sequence of
sensations conclusively establishing the existence or absence of a physical
object. Faced with these difficulties, at least some positivists retreated to a
more modest form of verificationism which insisted only that if a proposition
is to be meaningful it must be possible to find evidence or justification that
bears on the likelihood of the proposition’s being true. It is, of course, much
more difficult to find counterexamples to this weaker form of verificationism,
but by the same token it is more difficult to see how the principle will do the
work the positivists hoped it would do of weeding out allegedly problematic
assertions. Necessary truth. Another central tenet of logical positivism is
that all meaningful statements fall into two categories: necessary truths that
are analytic and knowable a priori, and contingent truths that are synthetic
and knowable only a posteriori. If a meaningful statement is not a contingent,
empirical statement verifiable through experience, then it is either a formal
tautology or is analytic, i.e., reducible to a formal tautology through
substitution of synonymous expressions. According to the positivist,
tautologies and analytic truths that do not describe the world are made true
(if true) or false (if false) by some fact about the rules of language. ‘P or
not-P’ is made true by rules we have for the use of the connectives ‘or’ and
‘not’ and for the assignments of the predicates ‘true’ and ‘false’. Again there
are notorious problems for logical positivism. It is difficult to reduce the
following apparently necessary truths to formal tautologies through the
substitution of synonymous expressions: (1) Everything that is blue (all over)
is not red (all over). (2) All equilateral triangles are equiangular triangles.
(3) No proposition is both true and false. Ironically, the positivists had a
great deal of trouble categorizing the very theses that defined their view,
such as the claims about meaningfulness and verifiability and the claims about
the analytic–synthetic distinction. Reductionism. Most of the logical
positivists were committed to a foundationalist epistemology according to which
all justified belief rests ultimately on beliefs that are non-inferentially
justified. These non-inferentially justified beliefs were sometimes described
as basic, and the truths known in such manner were often referred to as
self-evident, or as protocol statements. Partly because the positivists
disagreed as to how to understand the notion of a basic belief or a protocol
statement, and even disagreed as to what would be good examples, positivism was
by no means a monolithic movement. Still, the verifiability criterion of
meaning, together with certain beliefs about where the foundations of justification
lie and beliefs about what constitutes legitimate reasoning, drove many
positivists to embrace extreme forms of reductionism. Briefly, most of them
implicitly recognized only deduction and (reluctantly) induction as legitimate
modes of reasoning. Given such a view, difficult epistemological gaps arise
between available evidence and the commonsense conclusions we want to reach
about the world around us. The problem was particularly acute for empiricists
who recognized as genuine empirical foundations only propositions describing
perceptions or subjective sensations. Such philosophers faced an enormous
difficulty explaining how what we know about sensations could confirm for us
assertions about an objective physical world. Clearly we cannot deduce any
truths about the physical world from what we know about sensations (remember
the possibility of hallucination). Nor does it seem that we could inductively
establish sensation as evidence for the existence of the physical world when
all we have to rely on ultimately is our awareness of sensations. Faced with
the possibility that all of our commonplace assertions about the physical world
might fail the verifiability test for meaningfulness, many of the positivists
took the bold step of arguing that statements about the physical world could
really be viewed as reducible to (equivalent in meaning to) very complicated
statements about sensations. Phenomenalists, as these philosophers were called,
thought that asserting that a given table exists is equivalent in meaning to a
complex assertion about what sensations or sequences of sensations a subject
would have were he to have certain other sensations. The gap between sensation
and the physical world is just one of the epistemic gaps threatening the
meaningfulness of commonplace assertions about the world. If all we know about
the mental states of others is inferred from their physical behavior, we must
still explain how such inference is justified. Thus logical positivists who
took protocol statements to include ordinary assertions about the physical
world were comfortable reducing talk about the mental states of others to talk
about their behavior; this is logical behaviorism. Even some of those
positivists who thought empirical propositions had to be reduced ultimately to
talk about sensations were prepared to translate talk about the mental states
of others into talk about their behavior, which, ironically, would in turn get
translated right back into talk about sensation. Many of the positivists were
primarily concerned with the hypotheses of theoretical physics, which seemed to
go far beyond anything that could be observed. In the context of philosophy of
science, some positivists seemed to take as unproblematic ordinary statements
about the macrophysical world but were still determined either to reduce
theoretical statements in science to complex statements about the observable
world, or to view theoretical entities as a kind of convenient fiction,
description of which lacks any literal truth-value. The limits of a
positivist’s willingness to embrace reductionism are tested, however, when he
comes to grips with knowledge of the past. It seems that propositions
describing memory experiences (if such “experiences” really exist) do not
entail any truths about the past, nor does it seem possible to establish memory
inductively as a reliable indicator of the past. (How could one establish the
past correlations without relying on memory?) The truly hard-core reductionists
actually toyed with the possibility of reducing talk about the past to talk
about the present and future, but it is perhaps an understatement to suggest
that at this point the plausibility of the reductionist program was severely
strained.
logical product, a
conjunction of propositions or predicates. The term ‘product’ derives from an
analogy that conjunction bears to arithmetic multiplication, and that appears
very explicitly in an algebraic logic such as a Boolean algebra. In the same
way, ‘logical sum’ usually means the disjunction of propositions or predicates,
and the term ‘sum’ derives from an analogy that disjunction bears with
arithmetic addition. In the logical literature of the nineteenth century, e.g.
in the works of Peirce, ‘logical product’ and ‘logical sum’ often refer to the
relative product and relative sum, respectively. In the work of George Boole,
‘logical sum’ indicates an operation that corresponds not to disjunction but
rather to the exclusive ‘or’. The use of ‘logical sum’ in its contemporary
sense was introduced by John Venn and then adopted and promulgated by Peirce.
‘Relative product’ was introduced by Augustus De Morgan and also adopted and
promulgated by Peirce.
Subjectum – The
subjectum-praedicatum distinction -- in Aristotelian and traditional (and what
Grice calls NEO-traditionalism of Strawson) logic, the common noun, or
sometimes the intension or the extension of the common noun, that follows the
initial quantifier word (‘every’, ‘some’, ‘no’, etc.) of a sentence, as opposed
to the material subject, which is the entire noun phrase including the
quantifier and the noun, and in some usages, any modifiers that may apply. The
material subject of ‘Every number exceeding zero is positive’ is ‘every
number’, or in some usages, ‘every number exceeding zero’, whereas the
conceptual or formal subject is ‘number’, or the intension or the extension of
‘number’. Similar distinctions are made between the logical predicate and the
grammatical predicate: in the above example, ‘is positive’ is the material
predicate, whereas the formal predicate is the adjective ‘positive’, or
sometimes the property of being positive or even the extension of ‘positive’.
In standard first-order predicate calculus with identity, the formal subject of
a sentence under a given interpretation is the entire universe of discourse of
the interpretation.
Grice on syntactics,
semantics, and pramatics – syntactics -- description of the forms of the
expressions of a language in virtue of which the expressions stand in logical
relations to one another. Implicit in the idea of logical syntax is the
assumption that all – or at least most – logical relations hold in virtue of
form: e.g., that ‘If snow is white, then snow has color’ and ‘Snow is white’
jointly entail ‘Snow has color’ in virtue of their respective forms, ‘If P, then
Q’, ‘P’, and ‘Q’. The form assigned to an expression in logical syntax is its
logical form. Logical form may not be immediately apparent from the surface
form of an expression. Both (1) ‘Every individual is physical’ and (2) ‘Some
individual is physical’ apparently share the subjectpredicate form. But this
surface form is not the form in virtue of which these sentences (or the
propositions they might be said to express) stand in logical relations to other
sentences (or propositions), for if it were, (1) and (2) would have the same
logical relations to all sentences (or propositions), but they do not; (1) and
(3) ‘Aristotle is an individual’ jointly entail (4) ‘Aristotle is physical’,
whereas (2) and (3) do not jointly entail (4). So (1) and (2) differ in logical
form. The contemporary logical syntax, devised largely by Frege, assigns very
different logical forms to (1) and (2), namely: ‘For every x, if x is an
individual, then x is physical’ and ‘For some x, x is an individual and x is
physical’, respectively. Another example: (5) ‘The satellite of the moon has
water’ seems to entail ‘There is at least one thing that orbits the moon’ and
‘There is no more than one thing that orbits the moon’. In view of this,
Russell assigned to (5) the logical form ‘For some x, x orbits the moon, and
for every y, if y orbits the moon, then y is identical with x, and for every y,
if y orbits the moon, then y has water’. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Peirce, Mead, and
Morris on the semiotic triad – and why we don’t study them at Oxford.”
logicism, the thesis that
mathematics, or at least some significant portion thereof, is part of logic.
Modifying Carnap’s suggestion (in “The Logicist Foundation for Mathematics,”
first published in Erkenntnis), this thesis is the conjunction of two theses:
expressibility logicism: mathematical propositions are (or are alternative
expressions of) purely logical propositions; and derivational logicism: the
axioms and theorems of mathematics can be derived from pure logic. Here is a
motivating example from the arithmetic of the natural numbers. Let the
cardinality-quantifiers be those expressible in the form ‘there are exactly . .
. many xs such that’, which we abbreviate ¢(. . . x),Ü with ‘. . .’ replaced by
an Arabic numeral. These quantifiers are expressible with the resources of
first-order logic with identity; e.g. ‘(2x)Px’ is equivalent to ‘DxDy(x&y
& Ez[Pz S (z%x 7 z%y)])’, the latter involving no numerals or other
specifically mathematical vocabulary. Now 2 ! 3 % 5 is surely a mathematical
truth. We might take it to express the following: if we take two things and
then another three things we have five things, which is a validity of
second-order logic involving no mathematical vocabulary: EXEY ([(2x) Xx &
(3x)Yx & ÝDx(Xx & Yx)] / (5x) (Xx 7 Yx)). Furthermore, this is provable
in any formalized fragment of second-order logic that includes all of
first-order logic with identity and secondorder ‘E’-introduction. But what
counts as logic? As a derivation? As a derivation from pure logic? Such
unclarities keep alive the issue of whether some version or modification of
logicism is true. The “classical” presentations of logicism were Frege’s
Grundgesetze der Arithmetik and Russell and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica.
Frege took logic to be a formalized fragment of secondorder logic supplemented
by an operator forming singular terms from “incomplete” expressions, such a
term standing for an extension of the “incomplete” expression standing for a
concept of level 1 (i.e. type 1). Axiom 5 of Grundgesetze served as a
comprehension-axiom implying the existence of extensions for arbitrary Fregean
concepts of level 1. In his famous letter of 1901 Russell showed that axiom to
be inconsistent, thus derailing Frege’s original program. Russell and Whitehead
took logic to be a formalized fragment of a ramified full finite-order (i.e.
type w) logic, with higher-order variables ranging over appropriate
propositional functions. The Principia and their other writings left the latter
notion somewhat obscure. As a defense of expressibility logicism, Principia had
this peculiarity: it postulated typical ambiguity where naive mathematics
seemed unambiguous; e.g., each type had its own system of natural numbers two
types up. As a defense of derivational logicism, Principia was flawed by virtue
of its reliance on three axioms, a version of the Axiom of Choice, and the
axioms of Reducibility and Infinity, whose truth was controversial.
Reducibility could be avoided by eliminating the ramification of the logic (as
suggested by Ramsey). But even then, even the arithmetic of the natural numbers
required use of Infinity, which in effect asserted that there are infinitely
many individuals (i.e., entities of type 0). Though Infinity was “purely
logical,” i.e., contained only logical expressions, in his Introduction to
Mathematical Philosophy (p. 141) Russell admits that it “cannot be asserted by
logic to be true.” Russell then (pp. 194–95) forgets this: “If there are still
those who do not admit the identity of logic and mathematics, we may challenge
them to indicate at what point in the successive definitions and deductions of
Principia Mathematica they consider that logic ends and mathematics begins. It
will then be obvious that any answer is arbitrary.” The answer, “Section 120,
in which Infinity is first assumed!,” is not arbitrary. In Principia Whitehead and
Russell jocularly say of Infinity that they “prefer to keep it as a
hypothesis.” Perhaps then they did not really take logicism to assert the above
identity, but rather a correspondence: to each sentence f of mathematics there
corresponds a conditional sentence of logic whose antecedent is the Axiom of
Infinity and whose consequent is a purely logical reformulation of f. In spite
of the problems with the “classical” versions of logicism, if we count
so-called higherorder (at least second-order) logic as logic, and if we
reformulate the thesis to read ‘Each area of mathematics is, or is part of, a
logic’, logicism remains alive and well.
logistic system, a formal
language together with a set of axioms and rules of inference, or what many
today would call a “logic.” The original idea behind the notion of a logistic
system was that the language, axioms, rules, and attendant concepts of proof
and theorem were to be specified in a mathematically precise fashion, thus
enabling one to make the study of deductive reasoning an exact science. One was
to begin with an effective specification of the primitive symbols of the
language and of which (finite) sequences of symbols were to count as sentences
or wellformed formulas. Next, certain sentences were to be singled out
effectively as axioms. The rules of inference were also to be given in such a
manner that there would be an effective procedure for telling which rules are
rules of the system and what inferences they license. A proof was then defined
as any finite sequence of sentences, each of which is either an axiom or
follows from some earlier line(s) by one of the rules, with a theorem being the
last line of a proof. With the subsequent development of logic, the requirement
of effectiveness has sometimes been dropped, as has the requirement that
sentences and proofs be finite in length.
Logos (plural: logoi)
(Grecian, ‘word’, ‘speech’, ‘reason’), term with the following main
philosophical senses. (1) Rule, principle, law. E.g., in Stoicism the logos is
the divine order and in Neoplatonism the intelligible regulating forces
displayed in the sensible world. The term came thus to refer, in Christianity,
to the Word of God, to the instantiation of his agency in creation, and, in the
New Testament, to the person of Christ. (2) Proposition, account, explanation,
thesis, argument. E.g., Aristotle presents a logos from first principles. (3)
Reason, reasoning, the rational faculty, abstract theory (as opposed to
experience), discursive reasoning (as opposed to intuition). E.g., Plato’s
Republic uses the term to refer to the intellectual part of the soul. (4)
Measure, relation, proportion, ratio. E.g., Aristotle speaks of the logoi of
the musical scales. (5) Value, worth. E.g., Heraclitus speaks of the man whose
logos is greater than that of others.
Longinus (late first
century A.D.), Greek literary critic, author of a treatise On the Sublime (Peri
hypsous). The work is ascribed to “Dionysius or Longinus” in the manuscript and
is now tentatively dated to the end of the first century A.D. The author argues
for five sources of sublimity in literature: (a) grandeur of thought and (b)
deep emotion, both products of the writer’s “nature”; (c) figures of speech, (d)
nobility and originality in word use, and (e) rhythm and euphony in diction,
products of technical artistry. The passage on emotion is missing from the
text. The treatise, with Aristotelian but enthusiastic spirit, throws light on
the emotional effect of many great passages of Greek literature; noteworthy are
its comments on Homer (ch. 9). Its nostalgic plea for an almost romantic
independence and greatness of character and imagination in the poet and orator
in an age of dictatorial government and somnolent peace is unique and
memorable.
lottery paradox, a
paradox involving two plausible assumptions about justification which yield the
conclusion that a fully rational thinker may justifiably believe a pair of
contradictory propositions. The unattractiveness of this conclusion has led
philosophers to deny one or the other of the assumptions in question. The
paradox, which is due to Henry Kyburg, is generated as follows. Suppose I am contemplating
a fair lottery involving n tickets (for some suitably large n), and I
justifiably believe that exactly one ticket will win. Assume that if the
probability of p, relative to one’s evidence, meets some given high threshold
less than 1, then one has justification for believing that p (and not merely
justification for believing that p is highly probable). This is sometimes
called a rule of detachment for inductive hypotheses. Then supposing that the
number n of tickets is large enough, the rule implies that I have justification
for believing (T1) that the first ticket will lose (since the probability of T1
(% (n † 1)/n) will exceed the given high threshold if n is large enough). By
similar reasoning, I will also have justification for believing (T2) that the
second ticket will lose, and similarly for each remaining ticket. Assume that
if one has justification for believing that p and justification for believing
that q, then one has justification for believing that p and q. This is a
consequence of what is sometimes called “deductive closure for justification,”
according to which one has justification for believing the deductive
consequences of what one justifiably believes. Closure, then, implies that I
have justification for believing that T1 and T2 and . . . Tn. But this
conjunctive proposition is equivalent to the proposition that no ticket will
win, and we began with the assumption that I have justification for believing
that exactly one ticket will win.
Lotze, philosopher and
influential representative of post-Hegelian German metaphysics. Lotze was born
in Bautzen and studied medicine, mathematics, physics, and philosophy at
Leipzig, where he became instructor, first in medicine and later in philosophy.
His early views, expressed in his Metaphysik and Logik, were influenced by C.
H. Weisse, a former student of Hegel’s. He succeeded Herbart as professor of
philosophy at Göttingen. His best-known work, Mikrocosmus. “Logik” and “Metaphysik”
were published as two parts of his “System der Philosophie. While Lotze shared
the metaphysical and systematic appetites of his German idealist predecessors,
he rejected their intellectualism, favoring an emphasis on the primacy of
feeling; believed that metaphysics must fully respect the methods, results, and
“mechanistic” assumptions of the empirical sciences; and saw philosophy as the never
completed attempt to raise and resolve questions arising from the inevitable
pluralism of methods and interests involved in science, ethics, and the arts. A
strong personalism is manifested in his assertion that feeling discloses to us
a relation to a personal deity and its teleological workings in nature. His
most enduring influences can be traced, in America, through Royce, B. P. Bowne,
and James, and, in England, through Bosanquet and Bradley.
Löwenheim-Skolem theorem,
the result that for any set of sentences of standard predicate logic, if there
is any interpretation in which they are all true, there there is also an
interpretation whose domain consists of natural numbers and in which they are
all true. Leopold Löwenheim proved in 1915 that for finite sets of sentences of
standard predicate logic, if there is any interpretation in which they are
true, there is also an interpretation that makes them true and where the domain
is a subset of the domain of the first interpretation, and the new domain can
be mapped one-to-one onto a set of natural numbers. Löwenheim’s proof contained
some gaps and made essential but implicit use of the axiom of choice, a
principle of set theory whose truth was, and is, a matter of debate. In fact,
the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem is equivalent to the axiom of choice. Thoralf
Skolem, in 1920, gave a more detailed proof that made explicit the appeal to
the axiom of choice and that extended the scope of the theorem to include
infinite sets of sentences. In 1922 he gave an essentially different proof that
did not depend on the axiom of choice and in which the domain consisted of
natural numbers rather than being of the same size as a set of natural numbers.
In most contemporary texts, Skolem’s result is proved by methods later devised
by Gödel, Herbrand, or Henkin for proving other results. If the language does
not include an identity predicate, then Skolem’s result is that the second
domain consists of the entire set of natural numbers; if the language includes
an identity predicate, then the second domain may be a proper subset of the
natural numbers. (v. van Heijenoort, From Frege to Gödel: A Source Book in
Mathematical Logic). The original results were of interest because they showed
that in many cases unexpected interpretations with smaller infinite domains
than those of the initially given interpretation could be constructed. It was
later shown – and this is the Upward Löwenheim-Skolem theorem – that
interpretations with larger domains could also be constructed that rendered true
the same set of sentences. Hence the theorem as stated initially is sometimes
referred to as the Downward Löwenheim-Skolem theorem. The theorem was
surprising because it was believed that certain sets of axioms characterized
domains, such as the continuum of real numbers, that were larger than the set
of natural numbers. This surprise is called Skolem’s paradox, but it is to be
emphasized that this is a philosophical puzzle rather than a formal
contradiction. Two main lines of response to the paradox developed early. The
realist, who believes that the continuum exists independently of our knowledge
or description of it, takes the theorem to show either that the full truth
about the structure of the continuum is ineffable or at least that means other
than standard first-order predicate logic are required. The constructivist, who
believes that the continuum is in some sense our creation, takes the theorem to
show that size comparisons among infinite sets is not an absolute matter, but
relative to the particular descriptions given. Both positions have received
various more sophisticated formulations that differ in details, but they remain
the two main lines of development.
Lucretius: Roman poet,
author of “De rerum natura,” an epic poem in six books. Lucretius’s emphasis,
as an orthodox Epicurean, is on the role of even the most technical aspects of
physics and philosophy in helping to attain emotional peace and dismiss the
terrors of popular religion. Each book studies some aspect of the school’s
theories, while purporting to offer elementary instruction to its addressee,
Memmius. Each begins with an ornamental proem and ends with a passage of
heightened emotional impact; the argumentation is adorned with illustrations
from personal observation, frequently of the contemporary Roman and Italian
scene. Book 1 demonstrates that nothing exists but an infinity of atoms moving
in an infinity of void. Opening with a proem on the love of Venus and Mars (an
allegory of the Roman peace), it ends with an image of Epicurus as conqueror,
throwing the javelin of war outside the finite universe of the geocentric
astronomers. Book 2 proves the mortality of all finite worlds; Book 3, after
proving the mortality of the human soul, ends with a hymn on the theme that
there is nothing to feel or fear in death. The discussion of sensation and
thought in Book 4 leads to a diatribe against the torments of sexual desire.
The shape and contents of the visible world are discussed in Book 5, which ends
with an account of the origins of civilization. Book 6, about the forces that
govern meteorological, seismic, and related phenomena, ends with a frightening
picture of the plague of 429 B.C. at Athens. The unexpectedly gloomy end
suggests the poem is incomplete (also the absence of two great Epicurean
themes, friendship and the gods).
Lukács: philosopher best
known for his History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics
(1923). In 1918 he joined the Communist Party and for much of the remainder of
his career had a controversial relationship with it. For several months in 1919
he was People’s Commissar for Education in Béla Kun’s government, until he fled
to Vienna and later moved to Berlin. In 1933 he fled Hitler and moved to
Moscow, remaining there until the end of World War II, when he returned to
Budapest as a university professor. In 1956 he was Minister of Culture in Imre
Nagy’s short-lived government. This led to a brief exile in Rumania. In his
later years he returned to teaching in Budapest and was much celebrated by the
Hungarian government. His Collected Works are forthcoming in both German and
Hungarian. He is equally celebrated for his literary criticism and his
reconstruction of the young Marx’s thought. For convenience his work is often
divided into three periods: the pre-Marxist, the Stalinist, and the
post-Stalinist. What unifies these periods and remains constant in his work are
the problems of dialectics and the concept of totality. He stressed the Marxist
claim of the possibility of a dialectical unity of subject and object. This was
to be obtained through the proletariat’s realization of itself and the
concomitant destruction of economic alienation in society, with the
understanding that truth was a still-to-be-realized totality. (In the
post–World War II period this theme was taken up by the Yugoslavian praxis
theorists.) The young neo-Kantian Lukács presented an aesthetics stressing the
subjectivity of human experience and the emptiness of social experience. This
led several French philosophers to claim that he was the first major
existentialist of the twentieth century; he strongly denied it. Later he
asserted that realism is the only correct way to understand literary criticism,
arguing that since humanity is at the core of any social discussion, form
depends on content and the content of politics is central to all historical
social interpretations of literature. Historically Lukács’s greatest claim to
fame within Marxist circles came from his realization that Marx’s materialist
theory of history and the resultant domination of the economic could be fully
understood only if it allowed for both necessity and species freedom. In
History and Class Consciousness he stressed Marx’s debt to Hegelian dialectics
years before the discovery of Marx’s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of
1844. Lukács stresses his Hegelian Marxism as the correct orthodox version over
and against the established Engels-inspired Soviet version of a dialectics of
nature. His claim to be returning to Marx’s methodology emphasizes the primacy of
the concept of totality. It is through Marx’s use of the dialectic that
capitalist society can be seen as essentially reified and the proletariat
viewed as the true subject of history and the only possible salvation of
humanity. All truth is to be seen in relation to the proletariat’s historical
mission. Marx’s materialist conception of history itself must be examined in
light of proletarian knowledge. Truth is no longer given but must be understood
in terms of relative moments in the process of the unfolding of the real union
of theory and praxis: the totality of social relations. This union is not to be
realized as some statistical understanding, but rather grasped through
proletarian consciousness and directed party action in which subject and object
are one. (Karl Mannheim included a modified version of this theory of
social-historical relativism in his work on the sociology of knowledge.) In
Europe and America this led to Western Marxism. In Eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union it led to condemnation. If both the known and the knower are
moments of the same thing, then there is a two-directional dialectical
relationship, and Marxism cannot be understood from Engels’s one-way movement
of the dialectic of nature. The Communist attack on Lukács was so extreme that
he felt it necessary to write an apologetic essay on Lenin’s established views.
In The Young Hegel: Studies in the Relations between Dialectics and Economics
(1938), Lukács modified his views but still stressed the dialectical
commonality of Hegel and Marx. In Lukács’s last years he unsuccessfully tried
to develop a comprehensive ethical theory. The positive result was over two
thousand pages of a preliminary study on social ontology.
Lukasiewicz: philosopher
and logician, the most renowned member of the Warsaw School. The work for which
he is best known is the discovery of many-valued logics, but he also invented
bracket-free Polish notation; obtained original consistency, completeness,
independence, and axiom-shortening results for sentential calculi; rescued
Stoic logic from the misinterpretation and incomprehension of earlier
historians and restored it to its rightful place as the first formulation of
the theory of deduction; and finally incorporated Aristotle’s syllogisms, both
assertoric and modal, into a deductive system in his work Aristotle’s
Syllogistic from the Standpoint of Modern Formal Logic. Reflection on
Aristotle’s discussion of future contingency in On Interpretation led
Lukasiewicz in 1918 to posit a third truth-value, possible, in addition to true
and false, and to construct a formal three-valued logic. Where in his notation
Cpq denotes ‘if p then q’, Np ‘not p’, Apq ‘either p or q’, and Kpq ‘both p and
q’, the system is defined by the following matrices (½ is the third truthvalue):
Apq is defined as CCpqq, and Kpq as NANpNq. The system was axiomatized by
Wajsberg in 1931. Lukasiewicz’s motivation in constructing a formal system of
three-valued logic was to break the grip of the idea of universal determinism
on the imagination of philosophers and scientists. For him, there was causal
determinism (shortly to be undermined by quantum theory), but there was also
logical determinism, which in accordance with the principle of bivalence
decreed that the statement that J.L. would be in Warsaw at noon on December 21
next year was either true or false now, and indeed had been either true or
false for all time. In three-valued logic this statement would take the value
½, thus avoiding any apparent threat to free will posed by the law of bivalence.
Lull, Raymond, also spelled
Raymond Lully, Ramon Llull, mystic and missionary. A polemicist against Islam,
a social novelist, and a constructor of schemes for international unification,
Lull is best known in the history of philosophy for his quasialgebraic or
combinatorial treatment of metaphysical principles. His logic of divine and
creaturely attributes is set forth first in an Ars compendiosa inveniendi
veritatem (1274), next in an Ars demonstrativa (1283–89), then in reworkings of
both of these and in the Tree of Knowledge, and finally in the Ars brevis and
the Ars generalis ultima (1309–16). Each of these contains tables and diagrams
that permit the reader to calculate the interactions of the various principles.
Although his dates place him in the period of mature Scholasticism, the
vernacular language and the Islamic or Judaic construction of Lull’s works
relegate him to the margin of Scholastic debates. His influence is to be sought
rather in late medieval and Renaissance cabalistic or hermetic traditions.
Luther: German religious
reformer and leader of the Protestant Reformation. He was an Augustinian friar
and unsystematic theologian from Saxony, schooled in nominalism (Ockham, Biel,
Staupitz) and trained in biblical languages. Luther initially taught philosophy
and subsequently Scripture (Romans, Galatians, Hebrews) at Wittenberg
University. His career as a church reformer began with his public denunciation,
in the 95 theses, of the sale of indulgences in October 1517. Luther produced
three incendiary tracts: Appeal to the Nobility, The Babylonian Captivity of
the Church, and The Freedom of a Christian Man (1520), which prompted his
excommunication. At the 1521 Diet of Worms he claimed: “I am bound by the
Scripture I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I
cannot and will not retract anything since it is neither safe nor right to go
against my conscience. Here I stand, may God help me.” Despite his modernist
stance on the primacy of conscience over tradition, the reformer broke with
Erasmus over free will (De servo Arbitrio, 1525), championing an Augustinian,
antihumanist position. His crowning achievement, the translation of the Bible
into German (1534/45), shaped the modern German language. On the strength of a
biblical-Christocentric, anti-philosophical theology, he proclaimed
justification by faith alone and the priesthood of all believers. He unfolded a
theologia crucis, reformed the Mass, acknowledged only two sacraments (baptism
and the Eucharist), advocated consubstantiation instead of transubstantiation,
and propounded the Two Kingdoms theory in church–state relations.
lycæum: an extensive sanctuary
of Apollo just east off Athens (“so my “Athenian dialectic” has to be taken
with a pinch of salt!”) -- the site of public athletic (or gymnastic) facilities
where Aristotle teaches, a center for philosophy and systematic research in
science and history organized there by Aristotle and his associates; it begins
as an informal play group, lacking any legal status until Theophrastus,
Aristotle’s colleague and principal heir, acquires land and buildings there. By
a principle of metonymy common in philosophy (cf. ‘Academy’, ‘Oxford’,
‘Vienna’),‘Lycæum’ comes to refer collectively to members of the school and
their methods and ideas, although the school remained relatively
non-doctrinaire. Another ancient label for adherents of the school and their
ideas, apparently derived from Aristotle’s habit of lecturing in a portico
(peripatos) at the Lycæum, is ‘Peripatetic’. The school had its heyday in its
first decades, when members include Eudemus, author of lost histories of
mathematics; Aristoxenus, a prolific writer, principally on music (large parts
of two treatises survive); Dicaearchus, a polymath who ranged from ethics and
politics to psychology and geography; Meno, who compiled a history of medicine;
and Demetrius of Phaleron, a dashing intellect who writes extensively and ruled
Athens on behalf of dynasts. Under Theophrastus and his successor Strato, the
Lycæum produces original work,
especially in natural science. But by the midthird century B.C., the Lycæum had
lost its initial vigor. To judge from meager evidence, it offered sound
education but few new ideas. Some members enjoyed political influence, but for
nearly two centuries, rigorous theorizing is displaced by intellectual history
and popular moralizing. In the first century B.C., the school enjoyed a modest
renaissance when Andronicus oversaw the first methodical edition of Aristotle’s
works and began the exegetical tradition that culminated in the monumental
commentaries of Alexander of Aphrodisias. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Oxonian
dialectic and Athenian dialectic.”
Lyotard: philosopher, a
leading representative of post-structuralism. Among major post-structuralist
theorists (Gilles Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault), Lyotard is most closely
associated with post-modernism. With roots in phenomenology (a student of
Merleau-Ponty, his first book, Phenomenology [1954], engages phenomenology’s
history and engages phenomenology with history) and Marxism (in the 1960s
Lyotard was associated with the Marxist group Socialisme ou Barbarie, founded
by Cornelius Castoriadis [1922–97] and Claude Lefort [b.1924]), Lyotard’s work
has centered on questions of art, language, and politics. His first major work,
Discours, figure (1971), expressed dissatisfaction with structuralism and, more
generally, any theoretical approach that sought to escape history through
appeal to a timeless, universal structure of language divorced from our
experiences. Libidinal Economy (1974) reflects the passion and enthusiasm of
the events of May 1968 along with a disappointment with the Marxist response to
those events. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979), an
occasional text written at the request of the Quebec government, catapulted
Lyotard to the forefront of critical debate. Here he introduced his definition
of the postmodern as “incredulity toward metanarratives”: the postmodern names
not a specific epoch but an antifoundationalist attitude that exceeds the
legitimating orthodoxy of the moment. Postmodernity, then, resides constantly
at the heart of the modern, challenging those totalizing and comprehensive
master narratives (e.g., the Enlightenment narrative of the emancipation of the
rational subject) that serve to legitimate its practices. Lyotard suggests we
replace these narratives by less ambitious, “little narratives” that refrain
from totalizing claims in favor of recognizing the specificity and singularity
of events. Many, including Lyotard, regard The Differend (1983) as his most
original and important work. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s Philosophical
Investigations and Kant’s Critique of Judgment, it reflects on how to make
judgments (political as well as aesthetic) where there is no rule of judgment
to which one can appeal. This is the différend, a dispute between (at least)
two parties in which the parties operate within radically heterogeneous
language games so incommensurate that no consensus can be reached on principles
or rules that could govern how their dispute might be settled. In contrast to
litigations, where disputing parties share a language with rules of judgment to
consult to resolve their dispute, différends defy resolution (an example might
be the conflicting claims to land rights by aboriginal peoples and current
residents). At best, we can express différends by posing the dispute in a way
that avoids delegitimating either party’s claim. In other words, our political
task, if we are to be just, is to phrase the dispute in a way that respects the
difference between the competing claims. In the years following The Differend,
Lyotard published several works on aesthetics, politics, and postmodernism; the
most important may well be his reading of Kant’s third Critique in Lessons on
the Analytic of the Sublime (1991).
Mach: philosopher, born
in Turas, Moravia, and studied at Vienna. Appointed professor of mathematics at
Graz in 1864, he moved in 1867 to the chair of physics at Prague, where he came
to be recognized as one of the leading scientists in Europe, contributing not
only to a variety of fields of physics (optics, electricity, mechanics,
acoustics) but also to the new field of psychophysics, particularly in the
field of perception. He returned to Vienna in 1895 to a chair in philosophy,
designated for a new academic discipline, the history and theory of inductive
science. His writings on the philosophy of science profoundly affected the
founders of the Vienna Circle, leading Mach to be regarded as a progenitor of
logical positivism. His best-known work, The Science of Mechanics (1883),
epitomized the main themes of his philosophy. He set out to extract the logical
structure of mechanics from an examination of its history and procedures.
Mechanics fulfills the human need to abridge the facts about motion in the most
economical way. It rests on “sensations” (akin to the “ideas” or “sense
impressions” of classical empiricism); indeed, the world may be said to consist
of sensations (a thesis that later led Lenin in a famous polemic to accuse Mach
of idealism). Mechanics is inductive, not demonstrative; it has no a priori
element of any sort. The divisions between the sciences must be recognized to
be arbitrary, a matter of convenience only. The sciences must be regarded as
descriptive, not as explanatory. Theories may appear to explain, but the
underlying entities they postulate, like atoms, for example, are no more than
aids to prediction. To suppose them to represent reality would be metaphysical
and therefore idle. Mach’s most enduring legacy to philosophy is his enduring
suspicion of anything “metaphysical.”
Machiavelli, Niccolò --
the Italian political theorist commonly considered the most influential
political thinker of the Renaissance. Born in Florence, he was educated in the
civic humanist tradition. From 1498 to 1512, he was secretary to the second
chancery of the republic of Florence, with responsibilities for foreign affairs
and the revival of the domestic civic militia. His duties involved numerous
diplomatic missions both in and outside Italy. With the fall of the republic in
1512, he was dismissed by the returning Medici regime. From 1513 to 1527 he
lived in enforced retirement, relieved by writing and occasional appointment to
minor posts. Machaivelli’s writings fall into two genetically connected
categories: chancery writings (reports, memoranda, diplomatic writings) and
formal books, the chief among them The Prince (1513), the Discourses (1517),
the Art of War (1520), Florentine Histories (1525), and the comic drama
Mandragola (1518). With Machiavelli a new vision emerges of politics as
autonomous activity leading to the creation of free and powerful states. This
vision derives its norms from what humans do rather than from what they ought
to do. As a result, the problem of evil arises as a central issue: the
political actor reserves the right “to enter into evil when necessitated.” The
requirement of classical, medieval, and civic humanist political philosophies
that politics must be practiced within the bounds of virtue is met by
redefining the meaning of virtue itself. Machiavellian virtù is the ability to
achieve “effective truth” regardless of moral, philosophical, and theological
restraints. He recognizes two limits on virtù: (1) fortuna, understood as
either chance or as a goddess symbolizing the alleged causal powers of the
heavenly bodies; and (2) the agent’s own temperament, bodily humors, and the
quality of the times. Thus, a premodern astrological cosmology and the
anthropology and cyclical theory of history derived from it underlie his
political philosophy. History is seen as the conjoint product of human activity
and the alleged activity of the heavens, understood as the “general cause” of
all human motions in the sublunar world. There is no room here for the sovereignty
of the Good, nor the ruling Mind, nor Providence. Kingdoms, republics, and
religions follow a naturalistic pattern of birth, growth, and decline. But,
depending on the outcome of the struggle between virtù and fortuna, there is
the possibility of political renewal; and Machiavelli saw himself as the
philosopher of political renewal. Historically, Machiavelli’s philosophy came
to be identified with Machiavellianism (also spelled Machiavellism), the
doctrine that the reason of state recognizes no moral superior and that, in its
pursuit, everything is permitted. Although Machiavelli himself does not use the
phrase ‘reason of state’, his principles have been and continue to be invoked
in its defense.
MacIntyre: Like Kant, Scots
philosopher and eminent contemporary representative of Aristotelian ethics. He
was born in Scotland, educated in England, and has taught at universities in
both England and (mainly) the United States. His early work included perceptive
critical discussions of Marx and Freud as well as his influential A Short
History of Ethics. His most discussed work, however, has been After Virtue
(1981), an analysis and critique of modern ethical views from the standpoint of
an Aristotelian virtue ethics. MacIntyre begins with the striking unresolvability
of modern ethical disagreements, which he diagnoses as due to a lack of any
shared substantive conception of the ethical good. This lack is itself due to
the modern denial of a human nature that would provide a meaning and goal for
human life. In the wake of the Enlightenment, MacIntyre maintains, human beings
are regarded as merely atomistic individuals, employing a purely formal reason
to seek fulfillment of their contingent desires. Modern moral theory tries to
derive moral values from this conception of human reality. Utilitarians start
from desires, arguing that they must be fulfilled in such a way as to provide
the greatest happiness (utility). Kantians start from reason, arguing that our
commitment to rationality requires recognizing the rights of others to the same
goods that we desire for ourselves. MacIntyre, however, maintains that the
modern notions of utility and of rights are fictions: there is no way to argue
from individual desires to an interest in making others happy or to inviolable
rights of all persons. He concludes that Enlightenment liberalism cannot
construct a coherent ethics and that therefore our only alternatives are to
accept a Nietzschean reduction of morality to will-to-power or to return to an
Aristotelian ethics grounded in a substantive conception of human nature.
MacIntyre’s positive philosophical project is to formulate and defend an
Aristotelian ethics of the virtues (based particularly on the thought of
Aquinas), where virtues are understood as the moral qualities needed to fulfill
the potential of human nature. His aim is not the mere revival of Aristotelian
thought but a reformulation and, in some cases, revision of that thought in
light of its history over the last 2,500 years. MacIntyre pays particular
attention to formulating concepts of practice (communal action directed toward
a intrinsic good), virtue (a habit needed to engage successfully in a
practice), and tradition (a historically extended community in which practices
relevant to the fulfillment of human nature can be carried out). His conception
of tradition is particularly noteworthy. His an effort to provide
Aristotelianism with a historical orientation that Aristotle himself never
countenanced; and, in contrast to Burke, it makes tradition the locus of rational
reflection on and revision of past practices, rather than a merely emotional
attachment to them. MacIntyre has also devoted considerable attention to the
problem of rationally adjudicating the claims of rival traditions (especially
in Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, 1988) and to making the case for the
Aristotelian tradition as opposed to that of the Enlightenment and that of
Nietzscheanism (especially in Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry, 1990).
McTaggart: Irish philosopher,
the leading British personal idealist. Aside from his childhood and two
extended visits to New Zealand, McTaggart lived in Cambridge as a student and
fellow of Trinity College. His influence on others at Trinity, including
Russell and Moore, was at times great, but he had no permanent disciples. He
began formulating and defending his views by critically examining Hegel. In
Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic (1896) he argued that Hegel’s dialectic is
valid but subjective, since the Absolute Idea Hegel used it to derive contains
nothing corresponding to the dialectic. In Studies in Hegelian Cosmology (1901)
he applied the dialectic to such topics as sin, punishment, God, and
immortality. In his Commentary on Hegel’s Logic (1910) he concluded that the
task of philosophy is to rethink the nature of reality using a method
resembling Hegel’s dialectic. McTaggart attempted to do this in his major work,
The Nature of Existence (two volumes, 1921 and 1927). In the first volume he
tried to deduce the nature of reality from self-evident truths using only two
empirical premises, that something exists and that it has parts. He argued that
substances exist, that they are related to each other, that they have an
infinite number of substances as parts, and that each substance has a sufficient
description, one that applies only to it and not to any other substance. He
then claimed that these conclusions are inconsistent unless the sufficient
descriptions of substances entail the descriptions of their parts, a situation
that requires substances to stand to their parts in the relation he called
determining correspondence. In the second volume he applied these results to
the empirical world, arguing that matter is unreal, since its parts cannot be
determined by determining correspondence. In the most celebrated part of his
philosophy, he argued that time is unreal by claiming that time presupposes a
series of positions, each having the incompatible qualities of past, present,
and future. He thought that attempts to remove the incompatibility generate a
vicious infinite regress. From these and other considerations he concluded that
selves are real, since their parts can be determined by determining
correspondence, and that reality is a community of eternal, perceiving selves.
He denied that there is an inclusive self or God in this community, but he
affirmed that love between the selves unites the community producing a
satisfaction beyond human understanding.
magnitude, extent or size
of a thing with respect to some attribute; technically, a quantity or
dimension. A quantity is an attribute that admits of several or an infinite
number of degrees, in contrast to a quality (e.g., triangularity), which an
object either has or does not have. Measurement is assignment of numbers to
objects in such a way that these numbers correspond to the degree or amount of
some quantity possessed by their objects. The theory of measurement
investigates the conditions for, and uniqueness of, such numerical assignments.
Let D be a domain of objects (e.g., a set of physical bodies) and L be a
relation on this domain; i.e., Lab may mean that if a and b are put on opposite
pans of a balance, the pan with a does not rest lower than the other pan. Let ;
be the operation of weighing two objects together in the same pan of a balance.
We then have an empirical relational system E % ‹ D, L, ; (. One can prove
that, if E satisfies specified conditions, then there exists a measurement
function mapping D to a set Num of real numbers, in such a way that the L and ;
relations between objects in D correspond to the m and ! relations between
their numerical values. Such an existence theorem for a measurement function
from an empirical relational system E to a numerical relational system, N % ‹
Num, m ! (, is called a representation theorem. Measurement functions are not
unique, but a uniqueness theorem characterizes all such functions for a
specified kind of empirical relational system and specified type of numerical
image. For example, suppose that for any measurement functions f, g for E there
exists real number a ( 0 such that for any x in D, f(x) % ag(x). Then it is
said that the measurement is on a ratio scale, and the function s(x) % ax, for
x in the real numbers, is the scale transformation. For some empirical systems,
one can prove that any two measurement functions are related by f % ag ! b,
where a ( 0 and b are real numbers. Then the measurement is on an interval
scale, with the scale transformation s(x) % ax ! b; e.g., measurement of
temperature without an absolute zero is on an interval scale. In addition to
ratio and interval scales, other scale types are defined in terms of various
scale transformations; many relational systems have been mathematically
analyzed for possible applications in the behavioral sciences. Measurement with
weak scale types may provide only an ordering of the objects, so quantitative
measurement and comparative orderings can be treated by the same general
methods. The older literature on measurement often distinguishes extensive from
intensive magnitudes. In the former case, there is supposed to be an empirical
operation (like ; above) that in some sense directly corresponds to addition on
numbers. An intensive magnitude supposedly has no such empirical operation. It
is sometimes claimed that genuine quantities must be extensive, whereas an
intensive magnitude is a quality. This extensive versus intensive distinction
(and its use in distinguishing quantities from qualities) is imprecise and has
been supplanted by the theory of scale types sketched above.
Maimon: philosopher who
became the friend and protégé of Moses Mendelssohn and was an acute early
critic and follower of Kant. His most important works were the Versuch über die
Transzendentalphilosophie. Mit einem Anhang über die symbolische Erkenntnis, the
Philosophisches Wörterbuch and the Versuch einer neuen Logik oder Theorie des
Denkens. Maimon argued against the “thing-in-itself” as it was conceived by
Karl Leonhard Reinhold and Gottlieb Ernst Schulze. For Maimon, the
thing-in-itself was merely a limiting concept, not a real object “behind” the
phenomena. While he thought that Kant’s system was sufficient as a refutation
of rationalism or “dogmatism,” he did not think that it had – or could –
successfully dispose of skepticism. Indeed, he advanced what can be called a
skeptical interpretation of Kant. On the other hand, he also argued against
Kant’s sharp distinction between sensibility and understanding and for the
necessity of assuming the idea of an “infinite mind.” In this way, he prepared
the way for Fichte and Hegel. However, in many ways his own theory is more
similar to that of the neoKantian Hermann Cohen.
Maimonides: philosopher,
physician, and jurist. Born in Córdova, Maimonides and his family fled the
forced conversions of the Almohad invasion in 1148, living anonymously in Fez
before finding refuge in 1165 in Cairo. There Maimonides served as physician to
the vizier of Saladin, who overthrew the Fatimid dynasty in 1171. He wrote ten
medical treatises, but three works secured his position among the greatest
rabbinic jurists: his Book of the Commandments, cataloguing the 613 biblical
laws; his Commentary on the Mishnah, expounding the rational purposes of the
ancient rabbinic code; and the fourteen-volume Mishneh Torah, a codification of
Talmudic law that retains almost canonical authority. His Arabic philosophic
masterpiece The Guide to the Perplexed mediates between the Scriptural and
philosophic idioms, deriving a sophisticated negative theology by subtly
decoding biblical anthropomorphisms. It defends divine creation against
al-Farabi’s and Avicenna’s eternalism, while rejecting efforts to demonstrate
creation apodictically. The radical occasionalism of Arabic dialectical
theology (kalam) that results from such attempts, Maimonides argues, renders nature
unintelligible and divine governance irrational: if God creates each particular
event, natural causes are otiose, and much of creation is in vain. But
Aristotle, who taught us the very principles of demonstration, well understood,
as his resort to persuasive language reveals, that his arguments for eternity
were not demonstrative. They project, metaphysically, an analysis of time,
matter, and potentiality as they are now and ignore the possibility that at its
origin a thing had a very different nature. We could allegorize biblical
creation if it were demonstrated to be false. But since it is not, we argue
that creation is more plausible conceptually and preferable theologically to
its alternative: more plausible, because a free creative act allows differentiation
of the world’s multiplicity from divine simplicity, as the seemingly mechanical
necessitation of emanation, strictly construed, cannot do; preferable, because
Avicennan claims that God is author of the world and determiner of its
contingency are undercut by the assertion that at no time was nature other than
it is now. Maimonides read the biblical commandments thematically, as serving
to inform human character and understanding. He followed al-Farabi’s
Platonizing reading of Scripture as a symbolic elaboration of themes best known
to the philosopher. Thus he argued that prophets learn nothing new from
revelation; the ignorant remain ignorant, but the gift of imagination in the
wise, if they are disciplined by the moral virtues, especially courage and
contentment, gives wing to ideas, rendering them accessible to the masses and
setting them into practice. In principle, any philosopher of character and
imagination might be a prophet; but in practice the legislative, ethical, and
mythopoeic imagination that serves philosophy finds fullest articulation in one
tradition. Its highest phase, where imagination yields to pure intellectual
communion, was unique to Moses, elaborated in Judaism and its daughter
religions. Maimonides’ philosophy was pivotal for later Jewish thinkers, highly
valued by Aquinas and other Scholastics, studied by Spinoza in Hebrew
translation, and annotated by Leibniz in Buxtorf’s 1629 rendering, Doctor
Perplexorum.
Malcolm: cited by Grice,
profusely -- philosopher who was a prominent figure in post– World War II
analytic philosophy and perhaps the foremost American interpreter and advocate
of Wittgenstein. His association with Wittgenstein (vividly described in his
Ludwig Wittgenstein, A Memoir) began when he was at Cambridge. Other influences
were Bouwsma, Malcolm’s tutor at Nebraska, and Moore, whom he knew at
Cambridge. Malcolm taught at Cornell, and was associated with King’s, London.
Malcolm’s earliest papers (e.g., “The Verification Argument,” and “Knowledge
and Belief”) dealt with issues of knowledge and skepticism, and two dealt with
Moore (The ones Grice is interested in). “Moore and Ordinary Language”
infamously interprets Moore’s defense of common sense as a defense of ordinary
(rather than ideal) language, but “Defending Common Sense” argued, -- “even
more infamously” – Grice -- that Moore’s “two hands” proof of the external
world involves a misuse of ‘know’ (“For surely it would be stupid of Moore to
doubt that he has two hands.”). Moore’s proof is the topic of extended discussions
between Malcolm and Vitters during the latter’s visit in Ithaca, and these
provided the stimulus for Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. Malcolm’s
“Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations” was a highly influential
discussion of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, and especially of his “private
language argument.” Two other works of that period were Malcolm’s Dreaming
which argued that dreams do not have genuine duration or temporal location, and
do not entail having genuine experiences, and “Anselm’s Ontological Arguments,”
which defended a version of the ontological argument. Malcolm, inspired by
Grice, wrote extensively on memory, first in his “Three Lectures on Memory,”
published in his Knowledge and Certainty, and then in his Memory and Mind. In the
latter he criticized both Grice’s philosophical and psychological theories of
memory, and argues that the notion of a memory trace “is not a scientific
discovery . . . [but] a product of philosophical thinking, of a sort that is
natural and enormously tempting, yet thoroughly muddled.” A recurrent theme in
Malcolm’s thought was that philosophical understanding requires getting to the
root of the temptations to advance some philosophical doctrine, and that once
we do so we will see the philosophical doctrines as confused or nonsensical.
Although he was convinced that dualism and other Cartesian views about the mind
were thoroughly confused, he thought no better of contemporary materialist and
Grice’s functionalist views – “One never knows what Malcolm thinks – he doesn’t
show, he doesn’t tell!” – Grice -- and of current theorizing in psychology and
linguistics (one essay is entitled “The Myth of Cognitive Processes and
Structures”). He shared with Wittgenstein both an antipathy to scientism and a
respect for religion. He shared with Moore an antipathy to obscurantism and a
respect for common sense. Malcolm’s “Nothing Is Hidden” (or implicit) examines
the relations between Wittgenstein’s earlier and later philosophies. His other
essays include Problems of Mind, Thought and Knowledge, and Consciousness and Causality,
the latter coauthored with Armstrong. “Malcolm’s writings are marked by an
exceptionally lucid, direct, and vivid style, if I may myself say so.” – Grice.
Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Malcolm on Moore: the implicaturum.”
Malebranche: philosopher,
an important but unorthodox proponent of Cartesian philosophy. Malebranche was
a priest of the Oratory, a religious order founded in 1611 by Cardinal Bérulle,
who was favorably inclined toward Descartes. Malebranche himself became a
Cartesian after reading Descartes’s physiological Treatise on Man in 1664,
although he ultimately introduced crucial modifications into Cartesian
ontology, epistemology, and physics. Malebranche’s most important philosophical
work is The Search After Truth (1674), in which he presents his two most famous
doctrines: the vision in God and occasionalism. He agrees with Descartes and
other philosophers that ideas, or immaterial representations present to the
mind, play an essential role in knowledge and perception. But whereas
Descartes’s ideas are mental entities, or modifications of the soul,
Malebranche argues that the ideas that function in human cognition are in God –
they just are the essences and ideal archetypes that exist in the divine understanding.
As such, they are eternal and independent of finite minds, and make possible
the clear and distinct apprehension of objective, neccessary truth. Malebranche
presents the vision in God as the proper Augustinian view, albeit modified in
the light of Descartes’s epistemological distinction between understanding and
sensation. The theory explains both our apprehension of universals and
mathematical and moral principles, as well as the conceptual element that, he
argues, necessarily informs our perceptual acquaintance with the world. Like
Descartes’s theory of ideas, Malebranche’s doctrine is at least partly
motivated by an antiskepticism, since God’s ideas cannot fail to reveal either
eternal truths or the essences of things in the world created by God. The
vision in God, however, quickly became the object of criticism by Locke,
Arnauld, Foucher, and others, who thought it led to a visionary and skeptical
idealism, with the mind forever enclosed by a veil of divine ideas. Malebranche
is also the best-known proponent of occasionalism, the doctrine that finite
created beings have no causal efficacy and that God alone is a true causal
agent. Starting from Cartesian premises about matter, motion, and causation –
according to which the essence of body consists in extension alone, motion is a
mode of body, and a causal relation is a logically necessary relation between
cause and effect – Malebranche argues that bodies and minds cannot be genuine
causes of either physical events or mental states. Extended bodies, he claims,
are essentially inert and passive, and thus cannot possess any motive force or
power to cause and sustain motion. Moreover, there is no necessary connection
between any mental state (e.g. a volition) or physical event and the bodily motions
that usually follow it. Such necessity is found only between the will of an
omnipotent being and its effects. Thus, all phenomena are directly and
immediately brought about by God, although he always acts in a lawlike way and
on the proper occasion. Malebranche’s theory of ideas and his occasionalism, as
presented in the Search and the later Dialogues on Metaphysics (1688), were
influential in the development of Berkeley’s thought; and his arguments for the
causal theory foreshadow many of the considerations regarding causation and
induction later presented by Hume. In addition to these innovations in
Cartesian metaphysics and epistemology, Malebranche also modified elements of
Descartes’s physics, most notably in his account of the hardness of bodies and
of the laws of motion. In his other major work, the Treatise on Nature and
Grace (1680), Malebranche presents a theodicy, an explanation of how God’s
wisdom, goodness, and power are to be reconciled with the apparent
imperfections and evils in the world. In his account, elements of which Leibniz
borrows, Malebranche claims that God could have created a more perfect world,
one without the defects that plague this world, but that this would have
involved greater complexity in the divine ways. God always acts in the simplest
way possible, and only by means of lawlike general volitions; God never acts by
“particular” or ad hoc volitions. But this means that while on any particular
occasion God could intervene and forestall an apparent evil that is about to occur
by the ordinary courses of the laws of nature (e.g. a drought), God would not
do so, for this would compromise the simplicity of God’s means. The perfection
or goodness of the world per se is thus relativized to the simplicity of the
laws of that world (or, which is the same thing, to the generality of the
divine volitions that, on the occasionalist view, govern it). Taken together,
the laws and the phenomena of the world form a whole that is most worthy of
God’s nature – in fact, the best combination possible. Malebranche then extends
this analysis to explain the apparent injustice in the distribution of grace
among humankind. It is just this extension that initiated Arnauld’s attack and
drew Malebranche into a long philosophical and theological debate that would
last until the end of the century.
Manichaeanism, also
Manichaeism, a syncretistic religion founded by the Babylonian prophet Mani, who
claimed a revelation from God and saw himself as a member of a line that
included the Buddha, Zoroaster, and Jesus. In dramatic myths, Manichaeanism
posited the good kingdom of God, associated with light, and the evil kingdom of
Satan, associated with darkness. Awareness of light caused greed, hate, and
envy in the darkness; this provoked an attack of darkness on light. In response
the Father sent Primal Man, who lost the fight so that light and darkness were
mixed. The Primal Man appealed for help, and the Living Spirit came to win a
battle, making heaven and earth out of the corpses of darkness and freeing some
capured light. A Third Messenger was sent; in response the power of darkness
created Adam and Eve, who contained the light that still remained under his
sway. Then Jesus was sent to a still innocent Adam who nonetheless sinned,
setting in motion the reproductive series that yields humanity. This is the
mythological background to the Manichaean account of the basic religious
problem: the human soul is a bit of captured light, and the problem is to free
the soul from darkness through asceticism and esoteric knowledge. Manichaeanism
denies that Jesus was crucified, and Augustine, himself a sometime Manichaean,
viewed the religion as a Docetic heresy that denies the incarnation of the
second person of the Trinity in a real human body. The religion exhibits the pattern
of escape from embodiment as a condition of salvation, also seen in Hinduism
and Buddhism.
Mannheim, Karl
(1893–1947), Hungarian-born German social scientist best known for his
sociology of knowledge. Born in Budapest, where he took a university degree in
philosophy, he settled in Heidelberg in 1919 as a private scholar until his
call to Frankfurt as professor of sociology in 1928. Suspended as a Jew and as
foreign-born by the Nazis in 1933, he accepted an invitation from the London
School of Economics, where he was a lecturer for a decade. In 1943, Mannheim
became the first professor of sociology of education at the University of
London, a position he held until his death. Trained in the Hegelian tradition,
Mannheim defies easy categorization: his mature politics became those of a
liberal committed to social planning; with his many studies in the sociology of
culture, of political ideologies, of social organization, of education, and of
knowledge, among others, he founded several subdisciplines in sociology and
political science. While his Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction (1940)
expressed his own commitment to social planning, his most famous work, Ideology
and Utopia (original German edition, 1929; revised English edition, 1936),
established sociology of knowledge as a scientific enterprise and
simultaneously cast doubt on the possibility of the very scientific knowledge
on which social planning was to proceed. As developed by Mannheim, sociology of
knowledge attempts to find the social causes of beliefs as contrasted with the
reasons people have for them. Mannheim seemed to believe that this
investigation both presupposes and demonstrates the impossibility of
“objective” knowledge of society, a theme that relates sociology of knowledge
to its roots in German philosophy and social theory (especially Marxism) and
earlier in the thought of the idéologues of the immediate post–French
Revolution decades.
Mansel: philosopher, a
prominent defender of Scottish common sense philosophy. Mansel was the
Waynflete professor of metaphysical philosophy and ecclesiastical history at
Oxford, and the dean of St. Paul’s. Much of his philosophy was derived from
Kant as interpreted by Hamilton. In “Prolegomena Logica,” Mansel defines logic
as the science of the laws of thought, while in “Metaphysics,” he argues that
human faculties are not suited to know the ultimate nature of things. He drew
the religious implications of these views in his most influential work, The
Limits of Religious Thought, by arguing that God is rationally inconceivable
and that the only available conception of God is an analogical one derived from
revelation. From this he concluded that religious dogma is immune from rational
criticism. In the ensuing controversy Mansel was criticized by Spenser, Thomas
Henry Huxley, and J. S. Mill.
many-valued logic, a
logic that rejects the principle of bivalence: every proposition is true or
false. However, there are two forms of rejection: the truth-functional mode
(many-valued logic proper), where propositions may take many values beyond
simple truth and falsity, values functionally determined by the values of their
components; and the truth-value gap mode, in which the only values are truth
and falsity, but propositions may have neither. What value they do or do not
have is not determined by the values or lack of values of their constituents.
Many-valued logic has its origins in the work of Lukasiewicz and
(independently) Post around 1920, in the first development of truth tables and
semantic methods. Lukasiewicz’s philosophical motivation for his three-valued
calculus was to deal with propositions whose truth-value was open or “possible”
– e.g., propositions about the future. He proposed they might take a third
value. Let 1 represent truth, 0 falsity, and the third value be, say, ½. We
take Ý (not) and P (implication) as primitive, letting v(ÝA) % 1 † v(A) and v(A
P B) % min(1,1 † v(A)!v(B)). These valuations may be displayed: Lukasiewicz
generalized the idea in 1922, to allow first any finite number of values, and
finally infinitely, even continuum-many values (between 0 and 1). One can then
no longer represent the functionality by a matrix; however, the formulas given
above can still be applied. Wajsberg axiomatized Lukasiewicz’s calculus in
1931. In 1953 Lukasiewicz published a four-valued extensional modal logic. In
1921, Post presented an m-valued calculus, with values 0 (truth), . . . , m † 1
(falsity), and matrices defined on Ý and v (or): v(ÝA) % 1 ! v(A) (modulo m)
and v(AvB) % min (v(A),v(B)). Translating this for comparison into the same
framework as above, we obtain the matrices (with 1 for truth and 0 for
falsity): The strange cyclic character of Ý makes Post’s system difficult to
interpret – though he did give one in terms of sequences of classical
propositions. A different motivation led to a system with three values
developed by Bochvar in 1939, namely, to find a solution to the logical
paradoxes. (Lukasiewicz had noted that his three-valued system was free of
antinomies.) The third value is indeterminate (so arguably Bochvar’s system is
actually one of gaps), and any combination of values one of which is
indeterminate is indeterminate; otherwise, on the determinate values, the
matrices are classical. Thus we obtain for Ý and P, using 1, ½, and 0 as above:
In order to develop a logic of many values, one needs to characterize the
notion of a thesis, or logical truth. The standard way to do this in manyvalued
logic is to separate the values into designated and undesignated. Effectively,
this is to reintroduce bivalence, now in the form: Every proposition is either
designated or undesignated. Thus in Lukasiewicz’s scheme, 1 (truth) is the only
designated value; in Post’s, any initial segment 0, . . . , n † 1, where n‹m (0
as truth). In general, one can think of the various designated values as types
of truth, or ways a proposition may be true, and the undesignated ones as ways
it can be false. Then a proposition is a thesis if and only if it takes only
designated values. For example, p P p is, but p 7 Ýp is not, a Lukasiewicz
thesis. However, certain matrices may generate no logical truths by this
method, e.g., the Bochvar matrices give ½ for every formula any of whose
variables is indeterminate. If both 1 and ½ were designated, all theses of
classical logic would be theses; if only 1, no theses result. So the
distinction from classical logic is lost. Bochvar’s solution was to add an
external assertion and negation. But this in turn runs the risk of undercutting
the whole philosophical motivation, if the external negation is used in a
Russell-type paradox. One alternative is to concentrate on consequence: A is a
consequence of a set of formulas X if for every assignment of values either no
member of X is designated or A is. Bochvar’s consequence relation (with only 1
designated) results from restricting classical consequence so that every
variable in A occurs in some member of X. There is little technical difficulty
in extending many-valued logic to the logic of predicates and quantifiers. For
example, in Lukasiewicz’s logic, v(E xA) % min {v(A(a/x)): a 1. D}, where D is,
say, some set of constants whose assignments exhaust the domain. This
interprets the universal quantifier as an “infinite” conjunction. In 1965,
Zadeh introduced the idea of fuzzy sets, whose membership relation allows
indeterminacies: it is a function into the unit interval [0,1], where 1 means
definitely in, 0 definitely out. One philosophical application is to the
sorites paradox, that of the heap. Instead of insisting that there be a sharp
cutoff in number of grains between a heap and a non-heap, or between red and,
say, yellow, one can introduce a spectrum of indeterminacy, as definite
applications of a concept shade off into less clear ones. Nonetheless, many
have found the idea of assigning further definite values, beyond truth and
falsity, unintuitive, and have instead looked to develop a scheme that
encompasses truthvalue gaps. One application of this idea is found in Kleene’s
strong and weak matrices of 1938. Kleene’s motivation was to develop a logic of
partial functions. For certain arguments, these give no definite value; but the
function may later be extended so that in such cases a definite value is given.
Kleene’s constraint, therefore, was that the matrices be regular: no combination
is given a definite value that might later be changed; moreover, on the
definite values the matrices must be classical. The weak matrices are as for
Bochvar. The strong matrices yield (1 for truth, 0 for falsity, and u for
indeterminacy): An alternative approach to truth-value gaps was presented by
Bas van Fraassen in the 1960s. Suppose v(A) is undefined if v(B) is undefined
for any subformula B of A. Let a classical extension of a truth-value
assignment v be any assignment that matches v on 0 and 1 and assigns either 0
or 1 whenever v assigns no value. Then we can define a supervaluation w over v:
w(A) % 1 if the value of A on all classical extensions of v is 1, 0 if it is 0
and undefined otherwise. A is valid if w(A) % 1 for all supervaluations w (over
arbitrary valuations). By this method, excluded middle, e.g., comes out valid,
since it takes 1 in all classical extensions of any partial valuation. Van
Fraassen presented several applications of the supervaluation technique. One is
to free logic, logic in which empty terms are admitted.
Mao Tse-tung (1893–1976),
Chinese Communist leader, founder of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. He
believed that Marxist ideas must be adapted to China. Contrary to the Marxist
orthodoxy, which emphasized workers, Mao organized peasants in the countryside.
His philosophical writings include On Practice (1937) and On Contradiction
(1937), synthesizing dialectical materialism and traditional Chinese
philosophy. In his later years he departed from the gradual strategy of his On
New Democracy (1940) and adopted increasingly radical means to change China.
Finally he started the Cultural Revolution in 1967 and plunged China into
disaster.
Marcel, Gabriel
(1889–1973), French philosopher and playwright, a major representative of
French existential thought. He was a member of the Academy of Political and
Social Science of the Institute of France. Musician, drama critic, and lecturer
of international renown, he authored thirty plays and as many philosophic
essays. He considered his principal contribution to be that of a
philosopher-dramatist. Together, his dramatic and philosophic works cut a path
for Mao Tse-tung Marcel, Gabriel 534 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 534
the reasoned exercise of freedom to enhance the dignity of human life. The
conflicts and challenges of his own life he brought to the light of the
theater; his philosophic works followed as efforts to discern critically
through rigorous, reasoned analyses the alternative options life offers. His
dramatic masterpiece, The Broken World, compassionately portrayed the
devastating sense of emptiness, superficial activities, and fractured
relationships that plague the modern era. This play cleared a way for Marcel to
transcend nineteenth-century British and German idealism, articulate his
distinction between problem and mystery, and evolve an existential approach
that reflectively clarified mysteries that can provide depth and meaningfulness
to human life. In the essay “On the Ontological Mystery,” a philosophic sequel
to The Broken World, Marcel confronted the questions “Who am I? – Is Being
empty or full?” He explored the regions of body or incarnate being,
intersubjectivity, and transcendence. His research focused principally on
intersubjectivity clarifying the requisite attitudes and essential
characteristics of I-Thou encounters, interpersonal relations, commitment and
creative fidelity – notions he also developed in Homo Viator (1945) and
Creative Fidelity (1940). Marcel’s thought balanced despair and hope, infidelity
and fidelity, self-deception and a spirit of truth. He recognized both the role
of freedom and the role of fundamental attitudes or prephilosophic
dispositions, as these influence one’s way of being and the interpretation of
life’s meaning. Concern for the presence of loved ones who have died appears in
both Marcel’s dramatic and philosophic works, notably in Presence and
Immortality. This concern, coupled with his reflections on intersubjectivity,
led him to explore how a human subject can experience the presence of God or
the presence of loved ones from beyond death. Through personal experience,
dramatic imagination, and philosophic investigation, he discovered that such
presence can be experienced principally by way of inwardness and depth. “Presence”
is a spiritual influx that profoundly affects one’s being, uplifting it and
enriching one’s personal resources. While it does depend on a person’s being
open and permeable, presence is not something that the person can summon forth.
A conferral or presence is always a gratuitous gift, coauthored and marked by
its signal benefit, an incitement to create. So Marcel’s reflection on
interpersonal communion enabled him to conceive philosophically how God can be
present to a person as a life-giving and personalizing force whose benefit is
always an incitement to create.
Marcus Aurelius, Roman
emperor (from 161) and philosopher. Author of twelve books of Meditations
(Greek title, To Himself), Marcus Aurelius is principally interesting in the
history of Stoic philosophy (of which he was a diligent student) for his
ethical self-portrait. Except for the first book, detailing his gratitude to
his family, friends, and teachers, the aphorisms are arranged in no order; many
were written in camp during military campaigns. They reflect both the Old Stoa
and the more eclectic views of Posidonius, with whom he holds that involvement
in public affairs is a moral duty. Marcus, in accord with Stoicism, considers
immortality doubtful; happiness lies in patient acceptance of the will of the
panentheistic Stoic God, the material soul of a material universe. Anger, like
all emotions, is forbidden the Stoic emperor: he exhorts himself to compassion
for the weak and evil among his subjects. “Do not be turned into ‘Caesar,’ or dyed
by the purple: for that happens” (6.30). “It is the privilege of a human being
to love even those who stumble” (7.22). Sayings like these, rather than
technical arguments, give the book its place in literary history.
Marcuse: philosopher who
reinterpreted the ideas of Marx and Freud. Marcuse’s work is among the most
systematic and philosophical of the Frankfurt School theorists. After an
initial attempt to unify Hegel, Marx, and Heidegger in an ontology of
historicity in his habilitation on Hegel’s Ontology and the Theory of
Historicity (1932), Marcuse was occupied during the 1930s with the problem of
truth in a critical historical social theory, defending a contextindependent
notion of truth against relativizing tendencies of the sociology of knowledge.
Marcuse thought Hegel’s “dialectics” provided an alternative to relativism,
empiricism, and positivism and even developed a revolutionary interpretation of
the Hegelian legacy in Reason and Revolution (1941) opposed to Popper’s
totalitarian one. After World War II, Marcuse appropriated Freud in the same
way that he had appropriated Hegel before the war, using his basic concepts for
a critical theory of the repressive character of civilization in Eros and
Civilization (1955). In many respects, this book comes closer to presenting a
positive conception of reason and Enlightenment than any other work of the
Frankfurt School. Marcuse argued that civilization has been antagonistic to
happiness and freedom through its constant struggle against basic human instincts.
According to Marcuse, human existence is grounded in Eros, but these impulses
depend upon and are shaped by labor. By synthesizing Marx and Freud, Marcuse
holds out the utopian possibility of happiness and freedom in the unity of Eros
and labor, which at the very least points toward the reduction of “surplus
repression” as the goal of a rational economy and emancipatory social
criticism. This was also the goal of his aesthetic theory as developed in The
Aesthetic Dimension (1978). In One Dimensional Man (1964) and other writings,
Marcuse provides an analysis of why the potential for a free and rational
society has never been realized: in the irrationality of the current social
totality, its creation and manipulation of false needs (or “repressive desublimation”),
and hostility toward nature. Perhaps no other Frankfurt School philosopher has
had as much popular influence as Marcuse, as evidenced by his reception in the
student and ecology movements.
Mariana: Jesuit historian
and political philosopher. Born in Talavera de la Reina, he studied at Alcalá
de Henares and taught at Rome, Sicily, and Paris. His political ideas are
contained in De rege et regis institutione and De monetae mutatione. Mariana
held that political power rests on the community of citizens, and the power of
the monarch derives from the people. The natural state of humanity did not
include, as Vitoria held, government and other political institutions. The
state of nature was one of justice in which all possessions were held in
common, and cooperation characterized human relations. Private property is the
result of technological advances that produced jealousy and strife. Antedating
both Hobbes and Rousseau, Mariana argued that humans made a contract and
delegated their political power to leaders in order to eliminate injustice and
strife. However, only the people have the right to change the law. A monarch
who does not follow the law and ceases to act for the citizens’ welfare may be
forcibly removed. Tyrannicide is thus justifiable under some circumstances.
Maritain: philosopher
whose innovative interpretation of Aquinas’s philosophy made him a central
figure in Neo-Thomism. Bergson’s teaching saved him from metaphysical despair
and a suicide pact with his fiancée. After his discovery of Aquinas, he
rejected Bergsonism for a realistic account of the concept and a unified theory
of knowledge, aligning the empirical sciences with the philosophy of nature,
metaphysics, theology, and mysticism in Distinguish to Unite or The Degrees of
Knowledge (1932). Maritain opposed the skepticism and idealism that severed the
mind from sensibility, typified by the “angelism” of Descartes’s intuitionism.
Maritain traced the practical effects of angelism in art, politics, and
religion. His Art and Scholasticism (1920) employs ancient and medieval notions
of art as a virtue and beauty as a transcendental aspect of being. In politics,
especially Man and the State (1961), Maritain stressed the distinction between
the person and the individual, the ontological foundation of natural rights,
the religious origins of the democratic ideal, and the importance of the common
good. He also argued for the possibility of philosophy informed by the data of
revelation without compromising its integrity, and an Integral Humanism (1936)
that affirms the political order while upholding the eternal destiny of the
human person.
Marsilius of Inghen,
philosopher, born near Nijmegen, Marsilius studied under Buridan, taught at
Paris, then moved to the newly founded ‘studium generale’ at Heidelberg, where
he and Albert of Saxony established nominalism in Germany. In logic, he
produced an Ockhamist revision of the Tractatus of Peter of Spain, often
published as Textus dialectices in early sixteenthcentury Germany, and a
commentary on Aristotle’s Prior Analytics. He developed Buridan’s theory of
impetus in his own way, accepted Bradwardine’s account of the proportions of
velocities, and adopted Nicholas of Oresme’s doctrine of intension and
remission of forms, applying the new physics in his commentaries on Aristotle’s
physical works. In theology he followed Ockham’s skeptical emphasis on faith,
allowing that one might prove the existence of God along Scotistic lines, but
insisting that, since natural philosophy could not accommodate the creation of
the universe ex nihilo, God’s omnipotence was known only through faith.
Mainardini -- Marsilius
of Padua, in Italian, Marsilio dei Mainardini (1275/80–1342), Italian political
theorist. He served as rector of the University of Paris between 1312 and 1313;
his anti-papal views forced him to flee Paris (1326) for Nuremberg, where he
was political and ecclesiastic adviser of Louis of Bavaria. His major work,
Defensor pacis (“Defender of Peace,” 1324), attacks the doctrine of the
supremacy of the pope and argues that the authority of a secular ruler elected
to represent the people is superior to the authority of the papacy and
priesthood in both temporal and spiritual affairs. Three basic claims of
Marsilius’s theory are that reason, not instinct or God, allows us to know what
is just and conduces to the flourishing of human society; that governments need
to enforce obedience to the laws by coercive measures; and that political power
ultimately resides in the people. He was influenced by Aristotle’s ideal of the
state as necessary to foster human flourishing. His thought is regarded as a
major step in the history of political philosophy and one of the first defenses
of republicanism.
martineau: English
philosopher of religion and ethical intuitionist. As a minister and a
professor, Martineau defended Unitarianism and opposed pantheism. In A Study of
Religion (1888) Martineau agreed with Kant that reality as we experience it is
the work of the mind, but he saw no reason to doubt his intuitive conviction that
the phenomenal world corresponds to a real world of enduring, causally related
objects. He believed that the only intelligible notion of causation is given by
willing and concluded that reality is the expression of a divine will that is
also the source of moral authority. In Types of Ethical Theory he claimed that
the fundamental fact of ethics is the human tendency to approve and disapprove
of the motives leading to voluntary actions, actions in which there are two
motives present to consciousness. After freely choosing one of the motives, the
agent can determine which action best expresses it. Since Martineau thought
that agents intuitively know through conscience which motive is higher, the
core of his ethical theory is a ranking of the thirteen principal motives, the
highest of which is reverence.
Marx: cf. Grice,
“Ontological marxism.” German social philosopher, economic theorist, and
revolutionary. He lived and worked as a journalist in Cologne, Paris, and
Brussels. After the unsuccessful 1848 revolutions in Europe, he settled in
London, doing research and writing and earning some money as correspondent for
the New York Tribune. In early writings, he articulated his critique of the
religiously and politically conservative implications of the then-reigning
philosophy of Hegel, finding there an acceptance of existing private property
relationships and of the alienation generated by them. Marx understood
alienation as a state of radical disharmony (1) among individuals, (2) between
them and their own life activity, or labor, and (3) between individuals and
their system of production. Later, in his masterwork Capital (1867, 1885,
1894), Marx employed Hegel’s method of dialectic to generate an internal
critique of the theory and practice of capitalism, showing that, under
assumptions (notably that human labor is the source of economic value) found in
such earlier theorists as Adam Smith, this system must undergo increasingly
severe crises, resulting in the eventual seizure of control of the increasingly
centralized means of production (factories, large farms, etc.) from the
relatively small class of capitalist proprietors by the previously impoverished
non-owners (the proletariat) in the interest of a thenceforth classless
society. Marx’s early writings, somewhat utopian in tone, most never published
during his lifetime, emphasize social ethics and ontology. In them, he
characterizes his position as a “humanism” and a “naturalism.” In the Theses on
Feuerbach, he charts a middle path between Hegel’s idealist account of the
nature of history as the selfunfolding of spirit and what Marx regards as the
ahistorical, mechanistic, and passive materialist philosophy of Feuerbach; Marx
proposes a conception of history as forged by human activity, or praxis, within
determinate material conditions that vary by time and place. In later Marxism,
this general position is often labeled dialectical materialism. Marx began
radically to question the nature of philosophy, coming to view it as ideology,
i.e., a thought system parading as autonomous but in fact dependent on the
material conditions of the society in which it is produced. The tone of Capital
is therefore on the whole less philosophical and moralistic, more social
scientific and tending toward historical determinism, than that of the earlier
writings, but punctuated by bursts of indignation against the baneful effects
of capitalism’s profit orientation and references to the “society of associated
producers” (socialism or communism) that would, or could, replace capitalist
society. His enthusiastic predictions of immanent worldwide revolutionary
changes, in various letters, articles, and the famous Communist Manifesto
(1848; jointly authored with his close collaborator, Friedrich Engels), depart
from the generally more hypothetical character of the text of Capital itself.
The linchpin that perhaps best connects Marx’s earlier and later thought and
guarantees his enduring relevance as a social philosopher is his analysis of
the role of human labor power as a peculiar type of commodity within a system
of commodity exchange (his theory of surplus value). Labor’s peculiarity,
according to him, lies in its capacity actively to generate more exchange value
than it itself costs employers as subsistence wages. But to treat human beings
as profit-generating commodities risks neglecting to treat them as human
beings. Marxism, the philosophy of Karl Marx, or any of several systems of
thought or approaches to social criticism derived from Marx. The term is also
applied, incorrectly, to certain sociopolitical structures created by dominant
Communist parties during the mid-twentieth century. Karl Marx himself, apprised
of the ideas of certain French critics who invoked his name, remarked that he
knew at least that he was not a Marxist. The fact that his collaborator,
Friedrich Engels, a popularizer with a greater interest than Marx in the
natural sciences, outlived him and wrote, among other things, a “dialectics of
nature” that purported to discover certain universal natural laws, added to the
confusion. Lenin, the leading Russian Communist revolutionary, near the end of
his life discovered previously unacknowledged connections between Marx’s
Capital (1867) and Hegel’s Science of Logic (1812–16) and concluded (in his
Philosophical Notebooks) that Marxists for a half-century had not understood
Marx. Specific political agendas of, among others, the Marxist faction within
the turn-of-the-century German Social Democratic Party, the Bolshevik faction
of Russian socialists led by Lenin, and later governments and parties claiming
allegiance to “Marxist-Leninist principles” have contributed to
reinterpretations. For several decades in the Soviet Union and countries allied
with it, a broad agreement concerning fundamental Marxist doctrines was established
and politically enforced, resulting in a doctrinaire version labeled “orthodox
Marxism” and virtually ensuring the widespread, wholesale rejection of Marxism
as such when dissidents taught to accept this version as authentic Marxism came
to power. Marx never wrote a systematic exposition of his thought, which in any
case drastically changed emphases across time and included elements of history,
economics, and sociology as well as more traditional philosophical concerns. In
one letter he specifically warns against regarding his historical account of
Western capitalism as a transcendental analysis of the supposedly necessary
historical development of any and all societies at a certain time. It is thus
somewhat paradoxical that Marxism is often identified as a “totalizing” if not
“totalitarian” system by postmodernist philosophers who reject global theories
or “grand narratives” as inherently invalid. However, the evolution of Marxism
since Marx’s time helps explain this identification. That “orthodox” Marxism
would place heavy emphasis on historical determinism – the inevitability of a
certain general sequence of events leading to the replacement of capitalism by
a socialist economic system (in which, according to a formula in Marx’s
Critique of the Gotha Program, each person would be remunerated according to
his/her work) and eventually by a communist one (remuneration in accordance
with individual needs) – was foreshadowed by Plekhanov. In The Role of the
Individual in History, he portrayed individual idiosyncrasies as accidental:
e.g., had Napoleon not existed the general course of history would not have
turned out differently. In Materialism and Empiriocriticism, Lenin offered
epistemological reinforcement for the notion that Marxism is the uniquely true
worldview by defending a “copy” or “reflection” theory of knowledge according
to which true concepts simply mirror objective reality, like photographs.
Elsewhere, however, he argued against “economism,” the inference that the
historical inevitability of communism’s victory obviated political activism.
Lenin instead maintained that, at least under the repressive political
conditions of czarist Russia, only a clandestine party of professional
revolutionaries, acting as the vanguard of the working class and in its
interests, could produce fundamental change. Later, during the long political
reign of Josef Stalin, the hegemonic Communist Party of the USSR was identified
as the supreme interpreter of these interests, thus justifying totalitarian
rule. So-called Western Marxism opposed this “orthodox” version, although the
writings of one of its foremost early representatives, Georg Lukacs, who
brilliantly perceived the close connection between Hegel’s philosophy and the
early thought of Marx before the unpublished manuscripts proving this
connection had been retrieved from archives, actually tended to reinforce both
the view that the party incarnated the ideal interests of the proletariat (see
his History and Class Consciousness) and an aesthetics favoring the art of
“socialist realism” over more experimental forms. His contemporary, Karl
Korsch, in Marxism as Philosophy, instead saw Marxism as above all a heuristic
method, pointing to salient phenomena (e.g., social class, material
conditioning) generally neglected by other philosophies. His counsel was in
effect followed by the Frankfurt School of critical theory, including Walter
Benjamin in the area of aesthetics, Theodor Adorno in social criticism, and
Wilhelm Reich in psychology. A spate of “new Marxisms” – the relative degrees
of their fidelity to Marx’s original thought cannot be weighed here –
developed, especially in the wake of the gradual rediscovery of Marx’s more
ethically oriented, less deterministic early writings. Among the names meriting
special mention in this context are Ernst Bloch, who explored Marxism’s
connection with utopian thinking; Herbert Marcuse, critic of the
“one-dimensionality” of industrial society; the Praxis school (after the name
of their journal and in view of their concern with analyzing social practices)
of Yugoslav philosophers; and the later Jean-Paul Sartre. Also worthy of note
are the writings, many of them composed in prison under Mussolini’s Italian
Fascist rule, of Antonio Gramsci, who stressed the role of cultural factors in
determining what is dominant politically and ideologically at any given time.
Simultaneous with the decline and fall of regimes in which “orthodox Marxism”
was officially privileged has been the recent development of new approaches,
loosely connected by virtue of their utilization of techniques favored by
British and American philosophers, collectively known as analytic Marxism.
Problems of justice, theories of history, and the questionable nature of Marx’s
theory of surplus value have been special concerns to these writers. This
development suggests that the current unfashionableness of Marxism in many
circles, due largely to its understandable but misleading identification with
the aforementioned regimes, is itself only a temporary phenomenon, even if future
Marxisms are likely to range even further from Marx’s own specific concerns
while still sharing his commitment to identifying, explaining, and criticizing
hierarchies of dominance and subordination, particularly those of an economic
order, in human society. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Ontological marxim.”
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