aquinas: --a
strange genitive for “Aquino,” the little village where the saint was born. while
Grice, being C. of E., would avoid Aquinas like the rats, he was aware of
Aquinas’s clever ‘intention-based semantics’ in his commentary of Aristotle’s
De Interpretatione. Saint Thomas 122574,
philosopher-theologian, the most influential thinker of the medieval
period. He produced a powerful philosophical synthesis that combined
Aristotelian and Neoplatonic elements within a Christian context in an original
and ingenious way. Life and works. Thomas was born at Aquino castle in
Roccasecca, Italy, and took early schooling at the Benedictine Abbey of Monte
Cassino. He then studied liberal arts and philosophy at the of Naples 123944 and joined the Dominican
order. While going to Paris for further studies as a Dominican, he was detained
by his family for about a year. Upon being released, he studied with the
Dominicans at Paris, perhaps privately, until 1248, when he journeyed to a
priori argument Aquinas, Saint Thomas 36
36 Cologne to work under Albertus Magnus. Thomas’s own report reportatio
of Albertus’s lectures on the Divine Names of Dionysius and his notes on
Albertus’s lectures on Aristotle’s Ethics date from this period. In 1252 Thomas
returned to Paris to lecture there as a bachelor in theology. His resulting
commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard dates from this period, as do two
philosophical treatises, On Being and Essence De ente et essentia and On the
Principles of Nature De principiis naturae. In 1256 he began lecturing as
master of theology at Paris. From this period 125659 date a series of
scriptural commentaries, the disputations On Truth De veritate, Quodlibetal
Questions VIIXI, and earlier parts of the Summa against the Gentiles Summa
contra gentiles; hereafter SCG. At different locations in Italy from 1259 to
1269, Thomas continued to write prodigiously, including, among other works, the
completion of the SCG; a commentary on the Divine Names; disputations On the
Power of God De potentia Dei and On Evil De malo; and Summa of Theology Summa
theologiae; hereafter ST, Part I. In January 1269, he resumed teaching in Paris
as regent master and wrote extensively until returning to Italy in 1272. From
this second Parisian regency date the disputations On the Soul De anima and On
Virtues De virtutibus; continuation of ST; Quodlibets IVI and XII; On the Unity
of the Intellect against the Averroists De unitate intellectus contra
Averroistas; most if not all of his commentaries on Aristotle; a commentary on
the Book of Causes Liber de causis; and On the Eternity of the World De
aeternitate mundi. In 1272 Thomas returned to Italy where he lectured on
theology at Naples and continued to write until December 6, 1273, when his
scholarly work ceased. He died three months later en route to the Second
Council of Lyons. Doctrine. Aquinas was both a philosopher and a theologian.
The greater part of his writings are theological, but there are many strictly
philosophical works within his corpus, such as On Being and Essence, On the
Principles of Nature, On the Eternity of the World, and the commentaries on Aristotle
and on the Book of Causes. Also important are large sections of strictly
philosophical writing incorporated into theological works such as the SCG, ST,
and various disputations. Aquinas clearly distinguishes between strictly
philosophical investigation and theological investigation. If philosophy is
based on the light of natural reason, theology sacra doctrina presupposes faith
in divine revelation. While the natural light of reason is insufficient to
discover things that can be made known to human beings only through revelation,
e.g., belief in the Trinity, Thomas holds that it is impossible for those
things revealed to us by God through faith to be opposed to those we can
discover by using human reason. For then one or the other would have to be false;
and since both come to us from God, God himself would be the author of falsity,
something Thomas rejects as abhorrent. Hence it is appropriate for the
theologian to use philosophical reasoning in theologizing. Aquinas also
distinguishes between the orders to be followed by the theologian and by the
philosopher. In theology one reasons from belief in God and his revelation to
the implications of this for created reality. In philosophy one begins with an
investigation of created reality insofar as this can be understood by human
reason and then seeks to arrive at some knowledge of divine reality viewed as
the cause of created reality and the end or goal of one’s philosophical inquiry
SCG II, c. 4. This means that the order Aquinas follows in his theological
Summae SCG and ST is not the same as that which he prescribes for the
philosopher cf. Prooemium to Commentary on the Metaphysics. Also underlying
much of Aquinas’s thought is his acceptance of the difference between
theoretical or speculative philosophy including natural philosophy,
mathematics, and metaphysics and practical philosophy. Being and analogy. For
Aquinas the highest part of philosophy is metaphysics, the science of being as
being. The subject of this science is not God, but being, viewed without
restriction to any given kind of being, or simply as being Prooemium to
Commentary on Metaphysics; In de trinitate, qu. 5, a. 4. The metaphysician does
not enjoy a direct vision of God in this life, but can reason to knowledge of
him by moving from created effects to awareness of him as their uncreated
cause. God is therefore not the subject of metaphysics, nor is he included in
its subject. God can be studied by the metaphysician only indirectly, as the
cause of the finite beings that fall under being as being, the subject of the
science. In order to account for the human intellect’s discovery of being as
being, in contrast with being as mobile studied by natural philosophy or being
as quantified studied by mathematics, Thomas appeals to a special kind of
intellectual operation, a negative judgment, technically named by him
“separation.” Through this operation one discovers that being, in order to be
realized as such, need not be material and changAquinas, Saint Thomas Aquinas,
Saint Thomas 37 37 ing. Only as a
result of this judgment is one justified in studying being as being. Following
Aristotle and Averroes, Thomas is convinced that the term ‘being’ is used in
various ways and with different meanings. Yet these different usages are not
unrelated and do enjoy an underlying unity sufficient for being as being to be
the subject of a single science. On the level of finite being Thomas adopts and
adapts Aristotle’s theory of unity by reference to a first order of being. For
Thomas as for Aristotle this unity is guaranteed by the primary referent in our
predication of being substance. Other
things are named being only because they are in some way ordered to and
dependent on substance, the primary instance of being. Hence being is
analogous. Since Thomas’s application of analogy to the divine names
presupposes the existence of God, we shall first examine his discussion of that
issue. The existence of God and the “five ways.” Thomas holds that unaided
human reason, i.e., philosophical reason, can demonstrate that God exists, that
he is one, etc., by reasoning from effect to cause De trinitate, qu. 2, a. 3;
SCG I, c. 4. Best-known among his many presentations of argumentation for God’s
existence are the “five ways.” Perhaps even more interesting for today’s student
of his metaphysics is a brief argument developed in one of his first writings,
On Being and Essence c.4. There he wishes to determine how essence is realized
in what he terms “separate substances,” i.e., the soul, intelligences angels of
the Christian tradition, and the first cause God. After criticizing the view
that created separate substances are composed of matter and form, Aquinas
counters that they are not entirely free from composition. They are composed of
a form or essence and an act of existing esse. He immediately develops a
complex argument: 1 We can think of an essence or quiddity without knowing
whether or not it actually exists. Therefore in such entities essence and act
of existing differ unless 2 there is a thing whose quiddity and act of existing
are identical. At best there can be only one such being, he continues, by
eliminating multiplication of such an entity either through the addition of
some difference or through the reception of its form in different instances of
matter. Hence, any such being can only be separate and unreceived esse, whereas
esse in all else is received in something else, i.e., essence. 3 Since esse in
all other entities is therefore distinct from essence or quiddity, existence is
communicated to such beings by something else, i.e., they are caused. Since
that which exists through something else must be traced back to that which
exists of itself, there must be some thing that causes the existence of
everything else and that is identical with its act of existing. Otherwise one
would regress to infinity in caused causes of existence, which Thomas here
dismisses as unacceptable. In qu. 2, a. 1 of ST I Thomas rejects the claim that
God’s existence is self-evident to us in this life, and in a. 2 maintains that
God’s existence can be demonstrated by reasoning from knowledge of an existing
effect to knowledge of God as the cause required for that effect to exist. The
first way or argument art. 3 rests upon the fact that various things in our
world of sense experience are moved. But whatever is moved is moved by
something else. To justify this, Thomas reasons that to be moved is to be
reduced from potentiality to actuality, and that nothing can reduce itself from
potency to act; for it would then have to be in potency if it is to be moved
and in act at the same time and in the same respect. This does not mean that a
mover must formally possess the act it is to communicate to something else if
it is to move the latter; it must at least possess it virtually, i.e., have the
power to communicate it. Whatever is moved, therefore, must be moved by
something else. One cannot regress to infinity with moved movers, for then
there would be no first mover and, consequently, no other mover; for second
movers do not move unless they are moved by a first mover. One must, therefore,
conclude to the existence of a first mover which is moved by nothing else, and
this “everyone understands to be God.” The second way takes as its point of
departure an ordering of efficient causes as indicated to us by our
investigation of sensible things. By this Thomas means that we perceive in the
world of sensible things that certain efficient causes cannot exercise their
causal activity unless they are also caused by something else. But nothing can
be the efficient cause of itself, since it would then have to be prior to
itself. One cannot regress to infinity in ordered efficient causes. In ordered
efficient causes, the first is the cause of the intermediary, and the
intermediary is the cause of the last whether the intermediary is one or many.
Hence if there were no first efficient cause, there would be no intermediary
and no last cause. Thomas concludes from this that one must acknowledge the
existence of a first efficient cause, “which everyone names God.” The third way
consists of two major parts. Some Aquinas, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Thomas
38 38 textual variants have complicated
the proper interpretation of the first part. In brief, Aquinas appeals to the
fact that certain things are subject to generation and corruption to show that
they are “possible,” i.e., capable of existing and not existing. Not all things
can be of this kind revised text, for that which has the possibility of not
existing at some time does not exist. If, therefore, all things are capable of
not existing, at some time there was nothing whatsoever. If that were so, even
now there would be nothing, since what does not exist can only begin to exist
through something else that exists. Therefore not all beings are capable of
existing and not existing. There must be some necessary being. Since such a
necessary, i.e., incorruptible, being might still be caused by something else,
Thomas adds a second part to the argument. Every necessary being either depends
on something else for its necessity or it does not. One cannot regress to
infinity in necessary beings that depend on something else for their necessity.
Therefore there must be some being that is necessary of itself and that does
not depend on another cause for its necessity, i.e., God. The statement in the
first part to the effect that what has the possibility of not existing at some
point does not exist has been subject to considerable dispute among
commentators. Moreover, even if one grants this and supposes that every
individual being is a “possible” and therefore has not existed at some point in
the past, it does not easily follow from this that the totality of existing
things will also have been nonexistent at some point in the past. Given this,
some interpreters prefer to substitute for the third way the more satisfactory
versions found in SCG I ch. 15 and SCG II ch. 15. Thomas’s fourth way is based
on the varying degrees of perfection we discover among the beings we
experience. Some are more or less good, more or less true, more or less noble,
etc., than others. But the more and less are said of different things insofar
as they approach in varying degrees something that is such to a maximum degree.
Therefore there is something that is truest and best and noblest and hence that
is also being to the maximum degree. To support this Thomas comments that those
things that are true to the maximum degree also enjoy being to the maximum
degree; in other words he appeals to the convertibility between being and truth
of being. In the second part of this argument Thomas argues that what is
supremely such in a given genus is the cause of all other things in that genus.
Therefore there is something that is the cause of being, goodness, etc., for
all other beings, and this we call God. Much discussion has centered on
Thomas’s claim that the more and less are said of different things insofar as
they approach something that is such to the maximum degree. Some find this
insufficient to justify the conclusion that a maximum must exist, and would here
insert an appeal to efficient causality and his theory of participation. If
certan entities share or participate in such a perfection only to a limited
degree, they must receive that perfection from something else. While more
satisfactory from a philosophical perspective, such an insertion seems to
change the argument of the fourth way significantly. The fifth way is based on
the way things in the universe are governed. Thomas observes that certain
things that lack the ability to know, i.e., natural bodies, act for an end.
This follows from the fact that they always or at least usually act in the same
way to attain that which is best. For Thomas this indicates that they reach
their ends by “intention” and not merely from chance. And this in turn implies
that they are directed to their ends by some knowing and intelligent being.
Hence some intelligent being exists that orders natural things to their ends.
This argument rests on final causality and should not be confused with any
based on order and design. Aquinas’s frequently repeated denial that in this
life we can know what God is should here be recalled. If we can know that God
exists and what he is not, we cannot know what he is see, e.g., SCG I, c. 30.
Even when we apply the names of pure perfections to God, we first discover such
perfections in limited fashion in creatures. What the names of such perfections
are intended to signify may indeed be free from all imperfection, but every
such name carries with it some deficiency in the way in which it signifies.
When a name such as ‘goodness’, for instance, is signified abstractly e.g.,
‘God is goodness’, this abstract way of signifying suggests that goodness does
not subsist in itself. When such a name is signified concretely e.g., ‘God is
good’, this concrete way of signifying implies some kind of composition between
God and his goodness. Hence while such names are to be affirmed of God as
regards that which they signify, the way in which they signify is to be denied
of him. This final point sets the stage for Thomas to apply his theory of
analogy to the divine names. Names of pure perfections such as ‘good’, ‘true’,
‘being’, etc., cannot be applied to God with Aquinas, Saint Thomas Aquinas,
Saint Thomas 39 39 exactly the same
meaning they have when affirmed of creatures univocally, nor with entirely
different meanings equivocally. Hence they are affirmed of God and of creatures
by an analogy based on the relationship that obtains between a creature viewed
as an effect and God its uncaused cause. Because some minimum degree of
similarity must obtain between any effect and its cause, Thomas is convinced
that in some way a caused perfection imitates and participates in God, its
uncaused and unparticipated source. Because no caused effect can ever be equal
to its uncreated cause, every perfection that we affirm of God is realized in
him in a way different from the way we discover it in creatures. This
dissimilarity is so great that we can never have quidditative knowledge of God
in this life know what God is. But the similarity is sufficient for us to
conclude that what we understand by a perfection such as goodness in creatures
is present in God in unrestricted fashion. Even though Thomas’s identification
of the kind of analogy to be used in predicating divine names underwent some
development, in mature works such as On the Power of God qu. 7, a. 7, SCG I
c.34, and ST I qu. 13, a. 5, he identifies this as the analogy of “one to
another,” rather than as the analogy of “many to one.” In none of these works
does he propose using the analogy of “proportionality” that he had previously
defended in On Truth qu. 2, a. 11. Theological virtues. While Aquinas is
convinced that human reason can arrive at knowledge that God exists and at
meaningful predication of the divine names, he does not think the majority of
human beings will actually succeed in such an effort SCG I, c. 4; ST IIIIae,
qu. 2, a. 4. Hence he concludes that it was fitting for God to reveal such
truths to mankind along with others that purely philosophical inquiry could
never discover even in principle. Acceptance of the truth of divine revelation
presupposes the gift of the theological virtue of faith in the believer. Faith
is an infused virtue by reason of which we accept on God’s authority what he
has revealed to us. To believe is an act of the intellect that assents to
divine truth as a result of a command on the part of the human will, a will
that itself is moved by God through grace ST II IIae, qu. 2, a. 9. For Thomas
the theological virtues, having God the ultimate end as their object, are prior
to all other virtues whether natural or infused. Because the ultimate end must
be present in the intellect before it is present to the will, and because the
ultimate end is present in the will by reason of hope and charity the other two
theological virtues, in this respect faith is prior to hope and charity. Hope
is the theological virtue through which we trust that with divine assistance we
will attain the infinite good eternal
enjoyment of God ST IIIIae, qu. 17, aa. 12. In the order of generation, hope is
prior to charity; but in the order of perfection charity is prior both to hope
and faith. While neither faith nor hope will remain in those who reach the
eternal vision of God in the life to come, charity will endure in the blessed.
It is a virtue or habitual form that is infused into the soul by God and that
inclines us to love him for his own sake. If charity is more excellent than
faith or hope ST II IIae, qu. 23, a. 6, through charity the acts of all other
virtues are ordered to God, their ultimate end qu. 23, a. 8.
arbitrium:
arminius, Jacobus 15601609, Dutch theologian who, as a Dutch Reformed pastor
and later professor at the of Leiden,
challenged Calvinist orthodoxy on predestination and free will. After his
death, followers codified Arminius’s views in a document asserting that God’s
grace is necessary for salvation, but not irresistible: the divine decree
depends on human free choice. This became the basis for Arminianism, which was
condemned by the Dutch ReAristotle, commentaries on Arminius, Jacobus 51 51 formed synod but vigorously debated for
centuries among Protestant theologians of different denominations. The term
‘Arminian’ is still occasionally applied to theologians who defend a free human
response to divine grace against predestinationism.
arcesilaus:
Grecian, pre-Griceian, sceptic philosopher, founder of the Middle Academy.
Influenced by Socratic elenchus, he claimed that, unlike Socrates, he was not
even certain that he was certain of nothing. He shows the influence of Pyrrho
in attacking the Stoic doctrine that the subjective certainty of the wise is
the criterion of truth. At the theoretical level he advocated epoche,
suspension of rational judgment; at the practical, he argued that eulogon,
probability, can justify action an early
version of coherentism. His ethical views were not extreme; he held, e.g., that
one should attend to one’s own life rather than external objects. Though he
wrote nothing except verse, he led the Academy into two hundred years of
Skepticism.
archytas: Grecian,
pre-Griceian, Pythagorean philosopher from Tarentum in southern Italy. He was
elected general seven times and sent a ship to rescue Plato from Dionysius II
of Syracuse in 361. He is famous for solutions to specific mathematical
problems, such as the doubling of the cube, but little is known about his
general philosophical principles. His proof that the numbers in a
superparticular ratio have no mean proportional has relevance to music theory,
as does his work with the arithmetic, geometric, and harmonic means. He gave
mathematical accounts of the diatonic, enharmonic, and chromatic scales and
developed a theory of acoustics. Fragments 1 and 2 and perhaps 3 are authentic,
but most material preserved in his name is spurious.
aretaic: sometimes used by Grice for
‘virtuosum’. arete, ancient Grecian term meaning ‘virtue’ or
‘excellence’. In philosophical contexts, the term was used mainly of virtues of
human character; in broader contexts, arete was applicable to many different
sorts of excellence. The cardinal virtues in the classical period were courage,
wisdom, temperance sophrosune, piety, and justice. Sophists such as Protagoras
claimed to teach such virtues, and Socrates challenged their credentials for
doing so. Several early Platonic dialogues show Socrates asking after definitions
of virtues, and Socrates investigates arete in other dialogues as well.
Conventional views allowed that a person can have one virtue such as courage
but lack another such as wisdom, but Plato’s Protagoras shows Socrates
defending his thesis of the unity of arete, which implies that a person who has
one arete has them all. Platonic accounts of the cardinal virtues with the
exception of piety are given in Book IV of the Republic. Substantial parts of
the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle are given over to discussions of arete,
which he divides into virtues of character and virtues of intellect. This
discussion is the ancestor of most modern theories of virtue ethics.
argumentum: “I thought I saw an argument, it turned to be some soap”
(Dodgson). Term that Grice borrows from (but “never returned” to) Boethius, the
Roman philosopher. Strictly, Grice is interested in the ‘arguer.’ Say Blackburn
goes to Grice and, not knowing Grice speaks English, writes a skull. Blackburn
intends Grice to think that there is danger, somewhere, even deadly danger. So
there is arguing on Blackburn’s part. And there is INTENDED arguing on
Blackburn’s recipient, Grice, as it happens. For Grice, the truth-value of
“Blackburn communicates (to Grice) that there is danger” does not REQUIRE the
uptake.” “Why, one must just as well require that Jones GETS his job to deem
Smith having GIVEN it to him if that’s what he’s promised. The arguer is
invoked in a self-psi-transmission. For he must think P, and he must think C,
and he must think that P yields C. And this thought that C must be CAUSED by
the fact that he thinks that P yields C. -- f. argŭo , ŭi, ūtum (ŭĭtum, hence
arguiturus, Sall. Fragm. ap. Prisc. p. 882 P.), 3, v. a. cf. ἀργής, white; ἀργός,
bright; Sanscr. árgunas, bright; ragatas, white; and rag, to shine (v. argentum
and argilla); after the same analogy we have clarus, bright; and claro, to make
bright, to make evident; and the Engl. clear, adj., and to clear = to make
clear; v. Georg Curtius p. 171. I. A.. In gen., to make clear, to show,
prove, make known, declare, assert, μηνύειν: “arguo Eam me vidisse intus,”
Plaut. Mil. 2, 3, 66: “non ex auditu arguo,” id. Bacch. 3, 3, 65: “M. Valerius
Laevinus ... speculatores, non legatos, venisse arguebat,” Liv. 30, 23: “degeneres
animos timor arguit,” Verg. A. 4, 13: “amantem et languor et silentium Arguit,”
Hor. Epod. 11, 9; id. C. 1, 13, 7.—Pass., in a mid. signif.: “apparet virtus
arguiturque malis,” makes itself known, Ov. Tr. 4, 3, 80: “laudibus arguitur
vini vinosus Homerus,” betrays himself, Hor. Ep. 1, 19, 6.— B. Esp. a. With
aliquem, to attempt to show something, in one's case, against him, to accuse,
reprove, censure, charge with: Indicāsse est detulisse; “arguisse accusāsse et
convicisse,” Dig. 50, 16, 197 (cf. Fest. p. 22: Argutum iri in discrimen
vocari): tu delinquis, ego arguar pro malefactis? Enn. (as transl. of Eurip.
Iphig. Aul. 384: Εἶτ̓ ἐγὼ δίκην δῶ σῶν κακῶν ὁ μὴ σφαλείς) ap. Rufin. § “37:
servos ipsos neque accuso neque arguo neque purgo,” Cic. Rosc. Am. 41, 120:
“Pergin, sceleste, intendere hanc arguere?” Plaut. Mil. 2, 4, 27; 2, 2, 32:
“hae tabellae te arguunt,” id. Bacch. 4, 6, 10: “an hunc porro tactum sapor
arguet oris?” Lucr. 4, 487: “quod adjeci, non ut arguerem, sed ne arguerer,”
Vell. 2, 53, 4: “coram aliquem arguere,” Liv. 43, 5: “apud praefectum,” Tac. A.
14, 41: “(Deus) arguit te heri,” Vulg. Gen. 31, 42; ib. Lev. 19, 17; ib. 2 Tim.
4, 2; ib. Apoc. 3, 19 al.— b. With the cause of complaint in the gen.; abl.
with or without de; with in with abl.; with acc.; with a clause as object; or
with ut (cf. Ramsh. p. 326; Zumpt, § 446). (α). With gen.: “malorum facinorum,”
Plaut. Ps. 2, 4, 56 (cf. infra, argutus, B. 2.): “aliquem probri, Stupri,
dedecoris,” id. Am. 3, 2, 2: “viros mortuos summi sceleris,” Cic. Rab. Perd. 9,
26: “aliquem tanti facinoris,” id. Cael. 1: “criminis,” Tac. H. 1, 48: “furti
me arguent,” Vulg. Gen. 30, 33; ib. Eccl. 11, 8: “repetundarum,” Tac. A. 3, 33:
“occupandae rei publicae,” id. ib. 6, 10: “neglegentiae,” Suet. Caes. 53:
“noxae,” id. Aug. 67: “veneni in se comparati,” id. Tib. 49: “socordiae,” id.
Claud. 3: “mendacii,” id. Oth. 10: “timoris,” Verg. A. 11, 384: “sceleris
arguemur,” Vulg. 4 Reg. 7, 9; ib. Act. 19, 40 al.— (β). With abl.: “te hoc
crimine non arguo,” Cic. Verr. 2, 5, 18; Nep. Paus. 3 fin.— (γ). With de: “de
eo crimine, quo de arguatur,” Cic. Inv 2, 11, 37: “de quibus quoniam verbo
arguit, etc.,” id. Rosc. Am. 29 fin.: “Quis arguet me de peccato?” Vulg. Joan.
8, 46; 16, 8.— (δ). With in with abl. (eccl. Lat.): “non in sacrificiis tuis
arguam te,” Vulg. Psa. 49, 8.—（ε) With acc.: quid undas Arguit et
liquidam molem camposque natantīs? of what does he impeach the waves? etc.,
quid being here equivalent to cujus or de quo, Lucr. 6, 405 Munro.—（ζ) With an
inf.-clause as object: “quae (mulier) me arguit Hanc domo ab se subripuisse,”
Plaut. Men. 5, 2, 62; id. Mil. 2, 4, 36: “occidisse patrem Sex. Roscius
arguitur,” Cic. Rosc. Am. 13, 37: “auctor illius injuriae fuisse arguebatur?”
Cic. Verr. 2, 1, 33: “qui sibimet vim ferro intulisse arguebatur,” Suet. Claud.
16; id. Ner. 33; id. Galb. 7: “me Arguit incepto rerum accessisse labori,” Ov.
M. 13, 297; 15, 504.—（η) With ut, as in Gr. ὡς (post-Aug. and
rare), Suet. Ner. 7: “hunc ut dominum et tyrannum, illum ut proditorem
arguentes,” as being master and tyrant, Just. 22, 3.— II. Transf. to the thing.
1. To accuse, censure, blame: “ea culpa, quam arguo,” Liv. 1, 28: “peccata
coram omnibus argue,” Vulg. 1 Tim. 5, 20: “tribuni plebis dum arguunt in C.
Caesare regni voluntatem,” Vell. 2, 68; Suet. Tit. 5 fin.: “taciturnitatem
pudoremque quorumdam pro tristitiā et malignitate arguens,” id. Ner. 23; id.
Caes. 75: “arguebat et perperam editos census,” he accused of giving a false
statement of property, census, id. Calig. 38: “primusque animalia mensis Arguit
imponi,” censured, taught that it was wrong, Ov. M. 15, 73: “ut non arguantur
opera ejus,” Vulg. Joan. 3, 20.— 2. Trop., to denounce as false: “quod et ipsum
Fenestella arguit,” Suet. Vit. Ter. p. 292 Roth.—With reference to the person,
to refute, confute: “aliquem,” Suet. Calig. 8.—Hence, argūtus , a, um, P. a. A.
Of physical objects, clear. 1. To the sight, bright, glancing, lively: “manus
autem minus arguta, digitis subsequens verba, non exprimens,” not too much in
motion, Cic. de Or. 3, 59, 220 (cf. id. Or. 18, 59: nullae argutiae digitorum,
and Quint. 11, 3, 119-123): “manus inter agendum argutae admodum et gestuosae,”
Gell. 1, 5, 2: “et oculi nimis arguti, quem ad modum animo affecti sumus,
loquuntur,” Cic. Leg. 1, 9, 27: “ocelli,” Ov. Am. 3, 3, 9; 3, 2, 83: “argutum
caput,” a head graceful in motion, Verg. G. 3, 80 (breve, Servius, but this
idea is too prosaic): aures breves et argutae, ears that move quickly (not
stiff, rigid), Pall. 4, 13, 2: “argutā in soleā,” in the neat sandal, Cat. 68,
72.— 2. a.. To the hearing, clear, penetrating, piercing, both of pleasant and
disagreeable sounds, clear-sounding, sharp, noisy, rustling, whizzing,
rattling, clashing, etc. (mostly poet.): linguae, Naev. ap. Non. p. 9, 24:
“aves,” Prop. 1, 18, 30: “hirundo,” chirping, Verg. G. 1, 377: “olores,”
tuneful, id. E. 9, 36: ilex, murmuring, rustling (as moved by the wind), id.
ib. 7, 1: “nemus,” id. ib. 8, 22 al.—Hence, a poet. epithet of the musician and
poet, clear-sounding, melodious: “Neaera,” Hor. C. 3, 14, 21: “poëtae,” id. Ep.
2, 2, 90: “fama est arguti Nemesis formosa Tibullus,” Mart. 8, 73, 7: forum,
full of bustle or din, noisy, Ov. A.A. 1, 80: “serra,” grating, Verg. G. 1,
143: “pecten,” rattling, id. ib. 1, 294; id. A. 7, 14 (cf. in Gr. κερκὶς ἀοιδός,
Aristoph. Ranae, v. 1316) al.—Hence, of rattling, prating, verbose discourse:
“sine virtute argutum civem mihi habeam pro preaeficā, etc.,” Plaut. Truc. 2,
6, 14: “[Neque mendaciloquom neque adeo argutum magis],” id. Trin. 1, 2, 163
Ritschl.— b. Trop., of written communications, rattling, wordy, verbose:
“obviam mihi litteras quam argutissimas de omnibus rebus crebro mittas,” Cic.
Att. 6, 5: vereor, ne tibi nimium arguta haec sedulitas videatur, Cael. ap.
Cic. Fam. 8, 1. —Transf. to omens, clear, distinct, conclusive, clearly
indicative, etc.: “sunt qui vel argutissima haec exta esse dicant,” Cic. Div.
2, 12 fin.: “non tibi candidus argutum sternuit omen Amor?” Prop. 2, 3, 24.— 3.
To the smell; sharp, pungent: “odor argutior,” Plin. 15, 3, 4, § 18.— 4. To the
taste; sharp, keen, pungent: “sapor,” Pall. 3, 25, 4; 4, 10, 26.— B. Of mental
qualities. 1. In a good sense, bright, acute, sagacious, witty: “quis illo (sc.
Catone) acerbior in vituperando? in sententiis argutior?” Cic. Brut. 17, 65:
“orator,” id. ib. 70, 247: “poëma facit ita festivum, ita concinnum, ita
elegans, nihil ut fieri possit argutius,” id. Pis. 29; so, “dicta argutissima,”
id. de Or. 2, 61, 250: “sententiae,” id. Opt. Gen. 2: “acumen,” Hor. A. P. 364:
“arguto ficta dolore queri,” dexterously-feigned pain, Prop. 1, 18, 26 al.— 2.
In a bad sense, sly, artful, cunning: “meretrix,” Hor. S. 1, 10, 40: calo. id.
Ep. 1, 14, 42: “milites,” Veg. Mil. 3, 6.—As a pun: ecquid argutus est? is he
cunning? Ch. Malorum facinorum saepissime (i.e. has been accused of), Plaut.
Ps. 2, 4, 56 (v. supra, I. B. a.).—Hence, adv.: argūtē (only in the signif. of
B.). a. Subtly, acutely: “respondere,” Cic. Cael. 8: “conicere,” id. Brut. 14,
53: “dicere,” id. Or. 28, 98.—Comp.: “dicere,” Cic. Brut. 11, 42.— Sup.: “de re
argutissime disputare,” Cic. de Or. 2, 4, 18.— b. Craftily: “obrepere,” Plaut. Trin.
4, 2, 132; Arn. 5, p. 181. For Grice, an argumentum is a sequence of statements
such that some of them the premises purport to give reason to accept another of
them, the conclusion. Since we speak of bad arguments and weak arguments, the
premises of an argument need not really support the conclusion, but they must
give some appearance of doing so or the term ‘argument’ is misapplied. Logic is
mainly concerned with the question of validity: whether if the premises are
true we would have reason to accept the conclusion. A valid argument with true
premises is called sound. A valid deductive argument is one such that if we
accept the premises we are logically bound to accept the conclusion and if we
reject the conclusion we are logically bound to reject one or more of the
premises. Alternatively, the premises logically entail the conclusion. A good
inductive argument some would reserve ‘valid’
for deductive arguments is one such that
if we accept the premises we are logically bound to regard the conclusion as
probable, and, in addition, as more probable than it would be if the premises
should be false. A few arguments have only one premise and/or more than one
conclusion.
ariskant: Two of Grice’s
main tutees were respectively Aristotelian and Kantian scholars: Ackrill and
Strawson. Grice, of course, read Ariskant in the vernacular. Critique of Pure Reason.
Translated by Francis Haywood.
William Pickering. 1838. critick of pure reason. (first
English translation) Critique
of Pure Reason. Translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn.
1855 – via Project Gutenberg.Critique
of Pure Reason. Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott. 1873.Critique of Pure Reason.
Translated by Friedrich Max Müller.
The Macmillan Company. 1881. (Introduction by Ludwig Noiré)Critique of Pure Reason.
Translated by Norman Kemp Smith.
Palgrave Macmillan. 1929. ISBN 1-4039-1194-0.
Archived from the
original on 2009-04-27.Critique
of Pure Reason. Translated by Wolfgang Schwartz.
Scientia Verlag und Antiquariat. 1982. ISBN 978-3-5110-9260-3.Critique of Pure Reason.
Translated by Werner S. Pluhar. Hackett Publishing. 1996. ISBN 978-0-87220-257-3.Critique of Pure Reason, Abridged.
Translated by Werner S. Pluhar. Hackett Publishing. 1999. ISBN 978-1-6246-6605-6.Critique
of Pure Reason. Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood.
Cambridge University Press. 1999. ISBN 978-0-5216-5729-7.Critique
of Pure Reason. Translated by Marcus Weigelt. Penguin Books. 2007. ISBN 978-0-1404-4747-7.
Grice’s favourite philosopher is Ariskant. One way to approach Grice’s
meta-philosophy is by combining teleology with deontology. Eventually, Grice
embraces a hedonistic eudaimonism, if rationally approved. Grice knows how to
tutor in philosophy: he tutor on Kant as if he is tutoring on Aristotle, and
vice versa. His tutees would say, Here come [sic] Kantotle. Grice is obsessed
with Kantotle. He would teach one or the other as an ethics requirement. Back
at Oxford, the emphasis is of course Aristotle, but he is aware of some trends
to introduce Kant in the Lit.Hum. curriculum, not with much success. Strawson
does his share with the pure reason in Kant in The bounds of sense, but White
professors of moral philosophy are usually not too keen on the critique by Kant
of practical reason. Grice is fascinated that an Irishman, back in 1873, cares
to translate (“for me”) all that Kant has to say about the eudaimonism and
hedonism of Aristotle. An Oxonian philosopher is expected to be a utilitarian,
as Hare is, or a Hegelian, and that is why Grice prefers, heterodoxical as he is,
to be a Kantian rationalist instead. But Grice cannot help being Aristotelian,
Hardie having instilled the “Eth. Nich.” on him at Corpus. While he can’t read
Kant in German, Grice uses Abbott’s Irish vernacular. Note the archaic
metaphysic sic in singular. More Kant. Since Baker can read the
vernacular even less than Grice, it may be good to review the editions. It all
starts when Abbott thinks that his fellow Irishmen are unable to tackle Kant in
the vernacular. Abbott’s thing comes out in 1873: Kant’s critique of practical
reason and other works on the theory of tthics, with Grice quipping. Oddly, I
prefer his other work! Grice collaborates with Baker mainly on work on meta-ethics
seen as an offspring, alla Kant, of philosophical psychology. Akrasia or
egkrateia is one such topic. Baker contributes to PGRICE, a festschrift for
Grice, with an essay on the purity, and alleged lack thereof, of this or that
morally evaluable motive – rhetorically put: do ones motives have to
be pure? For Grice morality cashes out in self-love, self-interest, and desire.
Baker also contributes to a volume on Grice’s honour published by
Palgrave, Meaning and analysis: essays on Grice. Baker organises of a
symposium on the thought of Grice for the APA, the proceedings of which published
in The Journal of Philosophy, with Bennett as chair, contributions by Baker and
Grandy, commented by Stalnaker andWarner. Grice explores with Baker
problems of egcrateia and the reduction of duty to self-love and interest. Aristotle: preeminent Grecian philosopher born
in Stagira, hence sometimes called the Stagirite. Aristotle came to Athens as a
teenager and remained for two decades in Plato’s Academy. Following Plato’s
death in 347, Aristotle traveled to Assos and to Lesbos, where he associated
with Theophrastus and collected a wealth of biological data, and later to
Macedonia, where he tutored Alexander the Great. In 335 he returned to Athens
and founded his own philosophical school in the Lyceum. The site’s colonnaded
walk peripatos conferred on Aristotle and his group the name ‘the
Peripatetics’. Alexander’s death in 323 unleashed antiMacedonian forces in
Athens. Charged with impiety, and mindful of the fate of Socrates, Aristotle
withdrew to Chalcis, where he died. Chiefly influenced by his association with
Plato, Aristotle also makes wide use of the preSocratics. A number of works
begin by criticizing and, ultimately, building on their views. The direction of
Plato’s influence is debated. Some scholars see Aristotle’s career as a
measured retreat from his teacher’s doctrines. For others he began as a
confirmed anti-Platonist but returned to the fold as he matured. More likely,
Aristotle early on developed a keenly independent voice that expressed enduring
puzzlement over such Platonic doctrines as the separate existence of Ideas and
the construction of physical reality from two-dimensional triangles. Such
unease was no doubt heightened by Aristotle’s appreciation for the evidential
value of observation as well as by his conviction that long-received and
well-entrenched opinion is likely to contain at least part of the truth.
Aristotle reportedly wrote a few popular works for publication, some of which
are dialogues. Of these we have only fragments and reports. Notably lost are
also his lectures on the good and on the Ideas. Ancient cataloguers also list
under Aristotle’s name some 158 constitutions of Grecian states. Of these, only
the Constitution of Athens has survived, on a papyrus discovered in 0. What
remains is an enormous body of writing on virtually every topic of
philosophical significance. Much of it consists of detailed lecture notes,
working drafts, and accounts of his lectures written by others. Although
efforts may have been under way in Aristotle’s lifetime, Andronicus of Rhodes,
in the first century B.C., is credited with giving the Aristotelian corpus its
present organization. Virtually no extant manuscripts predate the ninth century
A.D., so the corpus has been transmitted by a complex history of manuscript
transcription. In 1831 the Berlin Academy published the first critical edition
of Aristotle’s work. Scholars still cite Aristotle by , column, and line of
this edition. Logic and language. The writings on logic and language are
concentrated in six early works: Categories, On Interpretation, Prior
Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics, and Sophistical Refutations. Known
since late antiquity as the Organon, these works share a concern with what is
now called semantics. The Categories focuses on the relation between uncombined
terms, such as ‘white’ or ‘man’, and the items they signify; On Interpretation
offers an account of how terms combine to yield simple statements; Prior
Analytics provides a systematic account of how three terms must be distributed
in two categorical statements so as to yield logically a third such statement;
Posterior Analytics specifies the conditions that categorical statements must
meet to play a role in scientific explanation. The Topics, sometimes said to
include Sophistical Refutations, is a handbook of “topics” and techniques for
dialectical arguments concerning, principally, the four predicables: accident
what may or may not belong to a subject, as sitting belongs to Socrates;
definition what signifies a subject’s essence, as rational animal is the
essence of man; proprium what is not in the essence of a subject but is unique
to or counterpredicable of it, as all and only persons are risible; and genus
what is in the essence of subjects differing in species, as animal is in the
essence of both men and oxen. Categories treats the basic kinds of things that
exist and their interrelations. Every uncombined term, says Aristotle,
signifies essentially something in one of ten categories a substance, a quantity, a quality, a
relative, a place, a time, a position, a having, a doing, or a being affected.
This doctrine underlies Aristotle’s admonition that there are as many proper or
per se senses of ‘being’ as there are categories. In order to isolate the
things that exist primarily, namely, primary substances, from all other things
and to give an account of their nature, two asymmetric relations of ontological
dependence are employed. First, substance ousia is distinguished from the
accidental categories by the fact that every accident is present in a substance
and, therefore, cannot exist without a substance in which to inhere. Second,
the category of substance itself is divided into ordinary individuals or
primary substances, such as Socrates, and secondary substances, such as the
species man and the genus animal. Secondary substances are said of primary
substances and indicate what kind of thing the subject is. A mark of this is
that both the name and the definition of the secondary substance can be
predicated of the primary substance, as both man and rational animal can be
predicated of Socrates. Universals in non-substance categories are also said of
subjects, as color is said of white. Therefore, directly or indirectly,
everything else is either present in or said of primary substances and without
them nothing would exist. And because they are neither present in a subject nor
said of a subject, primary substances depend on nothing else for their
existence. So, in the Categories, the ordinary individual is ontologically
basic. On Interpretation offers an account of those meaningful expressions that
are true or false, namely, statements or assertions. Following Plato’s Sophist,
a simple statement is composed of the semantically heterogeneous parts, name
onoma and verb rhema. In ‘Socrates runs’ the name has the strictly referential
function of signifying the subject of attribution. The verb, on the other hand,
is essentially predicative, signifying something holding of the subject. Verbs
also indicate when something is asserted to hold and so make precise the
statement’s truth conditions. Simple statements also include general
categorical statements. Since medieval times it has become customary to refer
to the basic categoricals by letters: A Every man is white, E No man is white,
I Some man is white, and O Not every man is white. On Interpretation outlines
their logical relations in what is now called the square of opposition: A &
E are contraries, A & O and E & I are contradictories, and A & I
and E & O are superimplications. That A implies I reflects the no longer
current view that Aristotle Aristotle 45
45 all affirmative statements carry existential import. One ambition of On
Interpretation is a theory of the truth conditions for all statements that
affirm or deny one thing or another. However, statements involving future
contingencies pose a special problem. Consider Aristotle’s notorious sea
battle. Either it will or it will not happen tomorrow. If the first, then the
statement ‘There will be a sea battle tomorrow’ is now true. Hence, it is now
fixed that the sea battle occur tomorrow. If the second, then it is now fixed
that the sea battle not occur tomorrow. Either way there can be no future
contingencies. Although some hold that Aristotle would embrace the determinism
they find implicit in this consequence, most argue either that he suspends the
law of excluded middle for future contingencies or that he denies the principle
of bivalence for future contingent statements. On the first option Aristotle
gives up the claim that either the sea battle will happen tomorrow or not. On
the second he keeps the claim but allows that future contingent statements are
neither true nor false. Aristotle’s evident attachment to the law of excluded
middle, perhaps, favors the second option. Prior Analytics marks the invention
of logic as a formal discipline in that the work contains the first virtually
complete system of logical inference, sometimes called syllogistic. The fact
that the first chapter of the Prior Analytics reports that there is a syllogism
whenever, certain things being stated, something else follows of necessity,
might suggest that Aristotle intended to capture a general notion of logical
consequence. However, the syllogisms that constitute the system of the Prior
Analytics are restricted to the basic categorical statements introduced in On
Interpretation. A syllogism consists of three different categorical statements:
two premises and a conclusion. The Prior Analytics tells us which pairs of
categoricals logically yield a third. The fourteen basic valid forms are
divided into three figures and, within each figure, into moods. The system is
foundational because second- and third-figure syllogisms are reducible to
first-figure syllogisms, whose validity is self-evident. Although syllogisms
are conveniently written as conditional sentences, the syllogistic proper is,
perhaps, best seen as a system of valid deductive inferences rather than as a
system of valid conditional sentences or sentence forms. Posterior Analytics
extends syllogistic to science and scientific explanation. A science is a
deductively ordered body of knowledge about a definite genus or domain of
nature. Scientific knowledge episteme consists not in knowing that, e.g., there
is thunder in the clouds, but rather in knowing why there is thunder. So the
theory of scientific knowledge is a theory of explanation and the vehicle of
explanation is the first-figure syllogism Barbara: If 1 P belongs to all M and
2 M belongs to all S, then 3 P belongs to all S. To explain, e.g., why there is
thunder, i.e., why there is noise in the clouds, we say: 3H Noise P belongs to
the clouds S because 2H Quenching of fire M belongs to the clouds S and 1H
Noise P belongs to quenching of fire M. Because what is explained in science is
invariant and holds of necessity, the premises of a scientific or demonstrative
syllogism must be necessary. In requiring that the premises be prior to and more
knowable than the conclusion, Aristotle embraces the view that explanation is
asymmetrical: knowledge of the conclusion depends on knowledge of each premise,
but each premise can be known independently of the conclusion. The premises
must also give the causes of the conclusion. To inquire why P belongs to S is,
in effect, to seek the middle term that gives the cause. Finally, the premises
must be immediate and non-demonstrable. A premise is immediate just in case
there is no middle term connecting its subject and predicate terms. Were P to
belong to M because of a new middle, M1, then there would be a new, more basic
premise, that is essential to the full explanation. Ultimately, explanation of
a received fact will consist in a chain of syllogisms terminating in primary
premises that are immediate. These serve as axioms that define the science in
question because they reflect the essential nature of the fact to be
explained as in 1H the essence of
thunder lies in the quenching of fire. Because they are immediate, primary
premises are not capable of syllogistic demonstration, yet they must be known
if syllogisms containing them are to constitute knowledge of the conclusion.
Moreover, were it necessary to know the primary premises syllogistically,
demonstration would proceed infinitely or in a circle. The first alternative
defeats the very possibility of explanation and the second undermines its
asymmetric character. Thus, the primary premises must be known by the direct
grasp of the mind noûs. This just signals the appropriate way for the highest
principles of a science to be known even
demonstrable propositions can be known directly, but they are explained only
when located within the structure of the relevant science, i.e., only when
demonstrated syllogistically. Although all sciences exhibit the same formal
structure and use Aristotle Aristotle 46
46 certain common principles, different sciences have different primary
premises and, hence, different subject matters. This “one genus to one science”
rule legislates that each science and its explanations be autonomous. Aristotle
recognizes three kinds of intellectual discipline. Productive disciplines, such
as house building, concern the making of something external to the agent.
Practical disciplines, such as ethics, concern the doing of something not
separate from the agent, namely, action and choice. Theoretical disciplines are
concerned with truth for its own sake. As such, they alone are sciences in the
special sense of the Posterior Analytics. The three main kinds of special
science are individuated by their objects
natural science by objects that are separate but not changeless,
mathematics by objects that are changeless but not separate, and theology by
separate and changeless objects. The mathematician studies the same objects as
the natural scientist but in a quite different way. He takes an actual object,
e.g. a chalk figure used in demonstration, and abstracts from or “thinks away”
those of its properties, such as definiteness of size and imperfection of
shape, that are irrelevant to its standing as a perfect exemplar of the purely
mathematical properties under investigation. Mathematicians simply treat this
abstracted circle, which is not separate from matter, as if it were separate.
In this way the theorems they prove about the object can be taken as universal
and necessary. Physics. As the science of nature physis, physics studies those
things whose principles and causes of change and rest are internal. Aristotle’s
central treatise on nature, the Physics, analyzes the most general features of
natural phenomena: cause, change, time, place, infinity, and continuity. The
doctrine of the four causes is especially important in Aristotle’s work. A
cause aitia is something like an explanatory factor. The material cause of a
house, for instance, is the matter hyle from which it is built; the moving or
efficient cause is the builder, more exactly, the form in the builder’s soul;
the formal cause is its plan or form eidos; and the final cause is its purpose or
end telos: provision of shelter. The complete explanation of the coming to be
of a house will factor in all of these causes. In natural phenomena efficient,
formal, and final causes often coincide. The form transmitted by the father is
both the efficient cause and the form of the child, and the latter is glossed
in terms of the child’s end or complete development. This explains why
Aristotle often simply contrasts matter and form. Although its objects are
compounds of both, physics gives priority to the study of natural form. This
accords with the Posterior Analytics’ insistence that explanation proceed
through causes that give the essence and reflects Aristotle’s commitment to
teleology. A natural process counts essentially as the development of, say, an
oak or a man because its very identity depends on the complete form realized at
its end. As with all things natural, the end is an internal governing principle
of the process rather than an external goal. All natural things are subject to
change kinesis. Defined as the actualization of the potential qua potential, a
change is not an ontologically basic item. There is no category for changes.
Rather, they are reductively explained in terms of more basic things substances, properties, and potentialities. A
pale man, e.g., has the potentiality to be or become tanned. If this
potentiality is utterly unactualized, no change will ensue; if completely
actualized, the change will have ended. So the potentiality must be actualized
but not, so to speak, exhausted; i.e., it must be actualized qua potentiality.
Designed for the ongoing operations of the natural world, the Physics’
definition of change does not cover the generation and corruption of
substantial items themselves. This sort of change, which involves matter and
elemental change, receives extensive treatment in On Generation and Corruption.
Aristotle rejects the atomists’ contention that the world consists of an
infinite totality of indivisible atoms in various arrangements. Rather, his
basic stuff is uniform elemental matter, any part of which is divisible into
smaller such parts. Because nothing that is actually infinite can exist, it is
only in principle that matter is always further dividable. So while
countenancing the potential infinite, Aristotle squarely denies the actual
infinite. This holds for the motions of the sublunary elemental bodies earth,
air, fire, and water as well as for the circular motions of the heavenly bodies
composed of a fifth element, aether, whose natural motion is circular. These are
discussed in On the Heavens. The four sublunary elements are further discussed
in Meteorology, the fourth book of which might be described as an early
treatise on chemical combination. Psychology. Because the soul psyche is
officially defined as the form of a body with the potentiality for life,
psychology is a subfield of natural science. In effect, Aristotle applies the
Aristotle Aristotle 47 47 apparatus of
form and matter to the traditional Grecian view of the soul as the principle
and cause of life. Although even the nutritive and reproductive powers of
plants are effects of the soul, most of his attention is focused on topics that
are psychological in the modern sense. On the Soul gives a general account of
the nature and number of the soul’s principal cognitive faculties. Subsequent
works, chiefly those collected as the Parva naturalia, apply the general theory
to a broad range of psychological phenomena from memory and recollection to
dreaming, sleeping, and waking. The soul is a complex of faculties. Faculties,
at least those distinctive of persons, are capacities for cognitively grasping
objects. Sight grasps colors, smell odors, hearing sounds, and the mind grasps
universals. An organism’s form is the particular organization of its material parts
that enable it to exercise these characteristic functions. Because an infant,
e.g., has the capacity to do geometry, Aristotle distinguishes two varieties of
capacity or potentiality dynamis and actuality entelecheia. The infant is a
geometer only in potentiality. This first potentiality comes to him simply by
belonging to the appropriate species, i.e., by coming into the world endowed
with the potential to develop into a competent geometer. By actualizing,
through experience and training, this first potentiality, he acquires a first
actualization. This actualization is also a second potentiality, since it
renders him a competent geometer able to exercise his knowledge at will. The
exercise itself is a second actualization and amounts to active contemplation
of a particular item of knowledge, e.g. the Pythagorean theorem. So the soul is
further defined as the first actualization of a complex natural body.
Faculties, like sciences, are individuated by their objects. Objects of
perception aisthesis fall into three general kinds. Special proper sensibles,
such as colors and sounds, are directly perceived by one and only one sense and
are immune to error. They demarcate the five special senses: sight, hearing,
smell, taste, and touch. Common sensibles, such as movement and shape, are
directly perceived by more than one special sense. Both special and common
sensibles are proper objects of perception because they have a direct causal
effect on the perceptual system. By contrast, the son of Diares is an incidental
sensible because he is perceived not directly but as a consequence of directly
perceiving something else that happens to be the son of Diares e.g., a white thing. Aristotle calls the mind
noûs the place of forms because it is able to grasp objects apart from matter.
These objects are nothing like Plato’s separately existing Forms. As
Aristotelian universals, their existence is entailed by and depends on their
having instances. Thus, On the Soul’s remark that universals are “somehow in
the soul” only reflects their role in assuring the autonomy of thought. The
mind has no organ because it is not the form or first actualization of any
physical structure. So, unlike perceptual faculties, it is not strongly
dependent on the body. However, the mind thinks its objects by way of images,
which are something like internal representations, and these are physically
based. Insofar as it thus depends on imagination phantasia, the mind is weakly
dependent on the body. This would be sufficient to establish the naturalized
nature of Aristotle’s mind were it not for what some consider an incurably
dualist intrusion. In distinguishing something in the mind that makes all
things from something that becomes all things, Aristotle introduces the
notorious distinction between the active and passive intellects and may even
suggest that the first is separable from the body. Opinion on the nature of the
active intellect diverges widely, some even discounting it as an irrelevant
insertion. But unlike perception, which depends on external objects, thinking
is up to us. Therefore, it cannot simply be a matter of the mind’s being
affected. So Aristotle needs a mechanism that enables us to produce thoughts
autonomously. In light of this functional role, the question of active
intellect’s ontological status is less pressing. Biology. Aristotle’s
biological writings, which constitute about a quarter of the corpus, bring
biological phenomena under the general framework of natural science: the four
causes, form and matter, actuality and potentiality, and especially the
teleological character of natural processes. If the Physics proceeds in an a
priori style, the History of Animals, Parts of Animals, and Generation of
Animals achieve an extraordinary synthesis of observation, theory, and general
scientific principle. History of Animals is a comparative study of generic
features of animals, including analogous parts, activities, and dispositions.
Although its morphological and physiological descriptions show surprisingly
little interest in teleology, Parts of Animals is squarely teleological. Animal
parts, especially organs, are ultimately differentiated by function rather than
morphology. The composition of, e.g., teeth and flesh is determined by their
role in the overall functioning of the organism and, hence, requires Aristotle
Aristotle 48 48 teleology. Generation
of Animals applies the formmatter and actualitypotentiality distinctions to
animal reproduction, inheritance, and the development of accidental characteristics.
The species form governs the development of an organism and determines what the
organism is essentially. Although in the Metaphysics and elsewhere accidental
characteristics, including inherited ones, are excluded from science, in the
biological writings form has an expanded role and explains the inheritance of
non-essential characteristics, such as eye color. The more fully the father’s
form is imposed on the minimally formed matter of the mother, the more
completely the father’s traits are passed on to the offspring. The extent to
which matter resists imposition of form determines the extent to which traits
of the mother emerge, or even those of more distant ancestors. Aristotle shared
the Platonists’ interest in animal classification. Recent scholarship suggests
that this is less an interest in elaborating a Linnean-style taxonomy of the
animal kingdom than an interest in establishing the complex differentiae and
genera central to definitions of living things. The biological works argue,
moreover, that no single differentia could give the whole essence of a species
and that the differentiae that do give the essence will fall into more than one
division. If the second point rejects the method of dichotomous division
favored by Plato and the Academy, the first counters Aristotle’s own standard
view that essence can be reduced to a single final differentia. The biological
sciences are not, then, automatically accommodated by the Posterior Analytics
model of explanation, where the essence or explanatory middle is conceived as a
single causal property. A number of themes discussed in this section are
brought together in a relatively late work, Motion of Animals. Its
psychophysical account of the mechanisms of animal movement stands at the
juncture of physics, psychology, and biology. Metaphysics. In Andronicus’s
edition, the fourteen books now known as the Metaphysics were placed after the
Physics, whence comes the word ‘metaphysics’, whose literal meaning is ‘what
comes after the physics’. Aristotle himself prefers ‘first philosophy’ or
‘wisdom’ sophia. The subject is defined as the theoretical science of the
causes and principles of what is most knowable. This makes metaphysics a
limiting case of Aristotle’s broadly used distinction between what is better
known to us and what is better known by nature. The genus animal, e.g., is
better known by nature than the species man because it is further removed from
the senses and because it can be known independently of the species. The first
condition suggests that the most knowable objects would be the separately
existing and thoroughly non-sensible objects of theology and, hence, that
metaphysics is a special science. The second condition suggests that the most
knowable objects are simply the most general notions that apply to things in
general. This favors identifying metaphysics as the general science of being
qua being. Special sciences study restricted modes of being. Physics, for
instance, studies being qua having an internal principle of change and rest. A
general science of being studies the principles and causes of things that are,
simply insofar as they are. A good deal of the Metaphysics supports this
conception of metaphysics. For example, Book IV, on the principle of
non-contradiction, and Book X, on unity, similarity, and difference, treat
notions that apply to anything whatever. So, too, for the discussion of form
and actuality in the central books VII, VIII, and IX. Book XII, on the other
hand, appears to regard metaphysics as the special science of theology.
Aristotle himself attempts to reconcile these two conceptions of metaphysics.
Because it studies immovable substance, theology counts as first philosophy.
However, it is also general precisely because it is first, and so it will
include the study of being qua being. Scholars have found this solution as
perplexing as the problem. Although Book XII proves the causal necessity for
motion of an eternal substance that is an unmoved mover, this establishes no
conceptual connection between the forms of sensible compounds and the pure form
that is the unmoved mover. Yet such a connection is required, if a single
science is to encompass both. Problems of reconciliation aside, Aristotle had
to face a prior difficulty concerning the very possibility of a general science
of being. For the Posterior Analytics requires the existence of a genus for
each science but the Metaphysics twice argues that being is not a genus. The
latter claim, which Aristotle never relinquishes, is implicit in the
Categories, where being falls directly into kinds, namely, the categories.
Because these highest genera do not result from differentiation of a single
genus, no univocal sense of being covers them. Although being is, therefore,
ambiguous in as many ways as there are categories, a thread connects them. The
ontological priority accorded primary substance in the Categories is made part
of the very definition of non-substantial entities Aristotle Aristotle 49 49 in the Metaphysics: to be an accident is
by definition to be an accident of some substance. Thus, the different senses
of being all refer to the primary kind of being, substance, in the way that
exercise, diet, medicine, and climate are healthy by standing in some relation
to the single thing health. The discovery of focal meaning, as this is
sometimes called, introduces a new way of providing a subject matter with the
internal unity required for science. Accordingly, the Metaphysics modifies the
strict “one genus to one science” rule of the Posterior Analytics. A single
science may also include objects whose definitions are different so long as
these definitions are related focally to one thing. So focal meaning makes
possible the science of being qua being. Focal meaning also makes substance the
central object of investigation. The principles and causes of being in general
can be illuminated by studying the principles and causes of the primary
instance of being. Although the Categories distinguishes primary substances
from other things that are and indicates their salient characteristics e.g.,
their ability to remain one and the same while taking contrary properties, it
does not explain why it is that primary substances have such characteristics.
The difficult central books of the Metaphysics
VII, VIII, and IX investigate
precisely this. In effect, they ask what, primarily, about the Categories’
primary substances explains their nature. Their target, in short, is the
substance of the primary substances of the Categories. As concrete empirical
particulars, the latter are compounds of form and matter the distinction is not
explicit in the Categories and so their substance must be sought among these
internal structural features. Thus, Metaphysics VII considers form, matter, and
the compound of form and matter, and quickly turns to form as the best
candidate. In developing a conception of form that can play the required
explanatory role, the notion of essence to ti en einai assumes center stage.
The essence of a man, e.g., is the cause of certain matter constituting a man,
namely, the soul. So form in the sense of essence is the primary substance of
the Metaphysics. This is obviously not the primary substance of the Categories
and, although the same word eidos is used, neither is this form the species of
the Categories. The latter is treated in the Metaphysics as a kind of universal
compound abstracted from particular compounds and appears to be denied
substantial status. While there is broad, though not universal, agreement that
in the Metaphysics form is primary substance, there is equally broad
disagreement over whether this is particular form, the form belonging to a
single individual, or species form, the form common to all individuals in the
species. There is also lively discussion concerning the relation of the
Metaphysics doctrine of primary substance to the earlier doctrine of the
Categories. Although a few scholars see an outright contradiction here, most
take the divergence as evidence of the development of Aristotle’s views on
substance. Finally, the role of the central books in the Metaphysics as a whole
continues to be debated. Some see them as an entirely selfcontained analysis of
form, others as preparatory to Book XII’s discussion of non-sensible form and
the role of the unmoved mover as the final cause of motion. Practical
philosophy. Two of Aristotle’s most heralded works, the Nicomachean Ethics and
the Politics, are treatises in practical philosophy. Their aim is effective
action in matters of conduct. So they deal with what is up to us and can be
otherwise because in this domain lie choice and action. The practical nature of
ethics lies mainly in the development of a certain kind of agent. The
Nicomachean Ethics was written, Aristotle reminds us, “not in order to know
what virtue is, but in order to become good.” One becomes good by becoming a
good chooser and doer. This is not simply a matter of choosing and doing right
actions but of choosing or doing them in the right way. Aristotle assumes that,
for the most part, agents know what ought to be done the evil or vicious person
is an exception. The akratic or morally weak agent desires to do other than
what he knows ought to be done and acts on this desire against his better
judgment. The enkratic or morally strong person shares the akratic agent’s
desire but acts in accordance with his better judgment. In neither kind of
choice are desire and judgment in harmony. In the virtuous, on the other hand,
desire and judgment agree. So their choices and actions will be free of the
conflict and pain that inevitably accompany those of the akratic and enkratic agent.
This is because the part of their soul that governs choice and action is so
disposed that desire and right judgment coincide. Acquiring a stable
disposition hexis of this sort amounts to acquiring moral virtue ethike arete.
The disposition is concerned with choices as would be determined by the person
of practical wisdom phronesis; these will be actions lying between extreme
alternatives. They will lie in a mean
popularly called the “golden mean”
relative to the talents and stores of the agent. Choosing in this way is
not easily done. It involves, for instance, feeling anger or extending
Aristotle Aristotle 50 50 generosity at
the right time, toward the right people, in the right way, and for the right
reasons. Intellectual virtues, such as excellence at mathematics, can be
acquired by teaching, but moral virtue cannot. I may know what ought to be done
and even perform virtuous acts without being able to act virtuously.
Nonetheless, because moral virtue is a disposition concerning choice, deliberate
performance of virtuous acts can, ultimately, instill a disposition to choose
them in harmony and with pleasure and, hence, to act virtuously. Aristotle
rejected Plato’s transcendental Form of the Good as irrelevant to the affairs
of persons and, in general, had little sympathy with the notion of an absolute
good. The goal of choice and action is the human good, namely, living well.
This, however, is not simply a matter of possessing the requisite practical
disposition. Practical wisdom, which is necessary for living well, involves
skill at calculating the best means to achieve one’s ends and this is an
intellectual virtue. But the ends that are presupposed by deliberation are
established by moral virtue. The end of all action, the good for man, is happiness
eudaimonia. Most things, such as wealth, are valued only as a means to a worthy
end. Honor, pleasure, reason, and individual virtues, such as courage and
generosity, are deemed worthy in their own right but they can also be sought
for the sake of eudaimonia. Eudaimonia alone can be sought only for its own
sake. Eudaimonia is not a static state of the soul but a kind of activity
energeia of the soul something like
human flourishing. The happy person’s life will be selfsufficient and complete
in the highest measure. The good for man, then, is activity in accordance with
virtue or the highest virtue, should there be one. Here ‘virtue’ means
something like excellence and applies to much besides man. The excellence of an
ax lies in its cutting, that of a horse in its equestrian qualities. In short,
a thing’s excellence is a matter of how well it performs its characteristic
functions or, we might say, how well it realizes its nature. The natural
functions of persons reside in the exercise of their natural cognitive
faculties, most importantly, the faculty of reason. So human happiness consists
in activity in accordance with reason. However, persons can exercise reason in
practical or in purely theoretical matters. The first suggests that happiness
consists in the practical life of moral virtue, the second that it consists in
the life of theoretical activity. Most of the Nicomachean Ethics is devoted to
the moral virtues but the final book appears to favor theoretical activity
theoria as the highest and most choiceworthy end. It is man’s closest approach
to divine activity. Much recent scholarship is devoted to the relation between
these two conceptions of the good, particularly, to whether they are of equal
value and whether they exclude or include one another. Ethics and politics are
closely connected. Aristotle conceives of the state as a natural entity arising
among persons to serve a natural function. This is not merely, e.g., provision
for the common defense or promotion of trade. Rather, the state of the Politics
also has eudaimonia as its goal, namely, fostering the complete and
selfsufficient lives of its citizens. Aristotle produced a complex taxonomy of
constitutions but reduced them, in effect, to three kinds: monarchy,
aristocracy, and democracy. Which best serves the natural end of a state was,
to some extent, a relative matter for Aristotle. Although he appears to have
favored democracy, in some circumstances monarchy might be appropriate. The
standard ordering of Aristotle’s works ends with the Rhetoric and the Poetics.
The Rhetoric’s extensive discussion of oratory or the art of persuasion locates
it between politics and literary theory. The relatively short Poetics is
devoted chiefly to the analysis of tragedy. It has had an enormous historical
influence on aesthetic theory in general as well as on the writing of
drama. Refs.: The obvious keyword is
“Kant,” – especially in the Series III on the doctrines, in collaboration with
Baker. There are essays on the Grundlegung, too. The keyword for “Kantotle,”
and the keywords for ‘free,’ and ‘freedom,’ and ‘practical reason,’ and
‘autonomy, are also helpful. Some of this material in “Actions and events,” “The
influence of Kant on Aristotle,” by H. P. Grice, John Locke Scholar (failed),
etc., Oxford (Advisor: J. Dempsey). The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
arbor griceiana: When Kant
introduces the categoric imperative in terms of the ‘maxim’ he does not specify which. He just goes,
irritatingly, “Make the maxim of your conduct a law of nature.” This gave free
rein to Grice to multiply maxims as much as he wished. If he was an occamist
about senses, he certainly was an anti-occamist about maxims. The expression
Strawson and Wiggins use (p. 520) is “ramification.”So Grice needs just ONE
principle – indeed the idea of principles, in plural, is self-contradictory.
For whch ‘first’ is ‘first’? Eventually, he sticks with the principle of
conversational co-operation. And the principle of conversational co-operation,
being Ariskantian, and categoric, even if not ‘moral,’ “ramifies into” the
maxims. This is important. While an ‘ought’ cannot be derived from an ‘is,’ an
‘ought’ can yield a sub-ought. So whatever obligation the principle brings, the
maxim inherit. The maxim is also stated categoric. But it isn’t. It is a
‘counsel of prudence,’ and hypothetical in nature – So, Grice is just ‘playing
Kant,’ but not ‘being’ Kant. The principle states the GOAL (not happiness,
unless we call it ‘conversational eudaemonia’). In any case, as Hare would
agree, there is ‘deontic derivability.’ So if the principle ramifies into the
maxims, the maxims are ‘deductible’ from the principle. This deductibility is
obvious in terms of from generic to specific. The principle merely enjoins to
make the conversational move as is appropriate. Then, playing with Kant, Grice
chooses FOUR dimensions. Two correspond to the material: the quale and the
quantum. The quale relates to affirmation and negation, and Grice uses ‘false,’
which while hardly conceptually linked to ‘negation,’ it relates in common
parlance. So you have things like a prohibition to say the ‘false’ (But “it is
raining” can be false, and it’s affirmative). The quantum relates to what Grice
calls ‘informative CONTENT.’ He grants that the verb ‘inform’ already ENTAILS
the candour that quality brings. So ‘fortitude’ seems a better way to qualify this
dimension. Make the strongest conversational move. The clash with the quality
is obvious – “provided it’s not false.” The third dimension relates two two
materials. Notably the one by the previous conversationalist and your own. If A
said, “She is an old bag.” B says, “The weather’s been delightful.” By NOT
relating the ‘proposition’ “The weather has been delightful” to “She is an old
bag.” He ‘exploits’ the maxim. This is not a concept in Kant. It mocks Kant.
But yet, ‘relate!’ does follow from the principle of cooperation. So, there is
an UNDERLYING relation, as Hobbes noted, when he discussed a very distantly
related proposition concerning the history of Rome, and expecting the recipient
to “only connect.” So the ‘exploitation’ is ‘superficial,’ and applies to the
explicatum. Yet, the emissor does communicate that the weather has been
delightful. Only there is no point in informing the recipient about it, unless
he is communicating that the co-conversationalist has made a gaffe. Finally,
the category of ‘modus’ Grice restricts to the ‘forma,’ not the ‘materia.’ “Be
perspicuous” is denotically entailed by “Make your move appropriate.” This is
the desideratum of clarity. The point must be ‘explicit.’ This is Strawson and Wiggins way of putting
this. It’s a difficult issue. What the connection is between Grice’s principle
of conversational helpfulness and the attending conversational maxims. Strawson
and Wiggins state that Grice should not feel the burden to make the maxims
‘necessarily independent.’
The
image of the ramification is a good one – Grice called it ‘arbor griceiana.’
arisktant:
Grice’s composite for Kant and Aristotle -- Grice as an Aristotelian
commentator – in “Aristotle on the multiplicity of being,” – Grice would
comment on Aristotle profusely at Oxford. One of his favourite tutees was J. L.
Ackrill – but he regretted that, of all things Ackrill could do, he decided “to
translate Aristotle into the vernacular!” -- commentaries on Aristotle, the
term commonly used for the Grecian commentaries on Aristotle that take up about
15,000 s in the Berlin Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca 29, still the basic
edition of them. Only in the 0s did a project begin, under the editorship of
Richard Sorabji, of King’s , London, to translate at least the most significant
portions of them into English. They had remained the largest corpus of Grecian
philosophy not tr. into any modern language. Most of these works, especially
the later, Neoplatonic ones, are much more than simple commentaries on
Aristotle. They are also a mode of doing philosophy, the favored one at this
stage of intellectual history. They are therefore important not only for the
understanding of Aristotle, but also for both the study of the pre-Socratics
and the Hellenistic philosophers, particularly the Stoics, of whom they
preserve many fragments, and lastly for the study of Neoplatonism itself and, in the case of John Philoponus, for
studying the innovations he introduces in the process of trying to reconcile
Platonism with Christianity. The commentaries may be divided into three main
groups. 1 The first group of commentaries are those by Peripatetic scholars of
the second to fourth centuries A.D., most notably Alexander of Aphrodisias fl.
c.200, but also the paraphraser Themistius fl. c.360. We must not omit,
however, to note Alexander’s predecessor Aspasius, author of the earliest
surviving commentary, one on the Nicomachean Ethics a work not commented on again until the late
Byzantine period. Commentaries by Alexander survive on the Prior Analytics,
Topics, Metaphysics IV, On the Senses, and Meteorologics, and his now lost ones
on the Categories, On the Soul, and Physics had enormous influence in later
times, particularly on Simplicius. 2 By far the largest group is that of the
Neoplatonists up to the sixth century A.D. Most important of the earlier
commentators is Porphyry 232c.309, of whom only a short commentary on the
Categories survives, together with an introduction Isagoge to Aristotle’s
logical works, which provoked many commentaries itself, and proved most
influential in both the East and through Boethius in the Latin West. The
reconciling of Plato and Aristotle is largely his work. His big commentary on
the Categories was of great importance in later times, and many fragments are
preserved in that of Simplicius. His follower Iamblichus was also influential,
but his commentaries are likewise lost. The Athenian School of Syrianus
c.375437 and Proclus 41085 also commented on Aristotle, but all that survives
is a commentary of Syrianus on Books III, IV, XIII, and XIV of the Metaphysics.
It is the early sixth century, however, that produces the bulk of our surviving
commentaries, originating from the Alexandrian school of Ammonius, son of
Hermeias c.435520, but composed both in Alexandria, by the Christian John
Philoponus c.490575, and in or at least from Athens by Simplicius writing after
532. Main commentaries of Philoponus are on Categories, Prior Analytics,
Posterior Analytics, On Generation and Corruption, On the Soul III, and
Physics; of Simplicius on Categories, Physics, On the Heavens, and perhaps On
the Soul. The tradition is carried on in Alexandria by Olympiodorus c.495565
and the Christians Elias fl. c.540 and David an Armenian, nicknamed the
Invincible, fl. c.575, and finally by Stephanus, who was brought by the emperor
to take the chair of philosophy in Constantinople in about 610. These scholars
comment chiefly on the Categories and other introductory material, but
Olympiodorus produced a commentary on the Meteorologics. Characteristic of the
Neoplatonists is a desire to reconcile Aristotle with Platonism arguing, e.g.,
that Aristotle was not dismissing the Platonic theory of Forms, and to
systematize his thought, thus reconciling him with himself. They are responding
to a long tradition of criticism, during which difficulties were raised about
incoherences and contradictions in Aristotle’s thought, and they are concerned
to solve these, drawing on their comprehensive knowledge of his writings. Only
Philoponus, as a Christian, dares to criticize him, in particular on the
eternity of the world, but also on the concept of infinity on which he produces
an ingenious argument, picked up, via the Arabs, by Bonaventure in the
thirteenth century. The Categories proves a particularly fruitful battleground,
and much of the later debate between realism and nominalism stems from
arguments about the proper subject matter of that work. The format of these
commentaries is mostly that adopted by scholars ever since, that of taking
command theory of law commentaries on Aristotle 159 159 one passage, or lemma, after another of
the source work and discussing it from every angle, but there are variations.
Sometimes the general subject matter is discussed first, and then details of
the text are examined; alternatively, the lemma is taken in subdivisions
without any such distinction. The commentary can also proceed explicitly by
answering problems, or aporiai, which have been raised by previous authorities.
Some commentaries, such as the short one of Porphyry on the Categories, and
that of Iamblichus’s pupil Dexippus on the same work, have a “catechetical”
form, proceeding by question and answer. In some cases as with Vitters in
modern times the commentaries are simply transcriptions by pupils of the lectures
of a teacher. This is the case, for example, with the surviving “commentaries”
of Ammonius. One may also indulge in simple paraphrase, as does Themistius on
Posterior Analysis, Physics, On the Soul, and On the Heavens, but even here a
good deal of interpretation is involved, and his works remain interesting. An
important offshoot of all this activity in the Latin West is the figure of
Boethius c.480524. It is he who first transmitted a knowledge of Aristotelian
logic to the West, to become an integral part of medieval Scholasticism. He tr.
Porphyry’s Isagoge, and the whole of Aristotle’s logical works. He wrote a
double commentary on the Isagoge, and commentaries on the Categories and On
Interpretation. He is dependent ultimately on Porphyry, but more immediately,
it would seem, on a source in the school of Proclus. 3 The third major group of
commentaries dates from the late Byzantine period, and seems mainly to emanate
from a circle of scholars grouped around the princess Anna Comnena in the
twelfth century. The most important figures here are Eustratius c.10501120 and
Michael of Ephesus originally dated c.1040, but now fixed at c.1130. Michael in
particular seems concerned to comment on areas of Aristotle’s works that had
hitherto escaped commentary. He therefore comments widely, for example, on the
biological works, but also on the Sophistical Refutations. He and Eustratius,
and perhaps others, seem to have cooperated also on a composite commentary on
the Nicomachean Ethics, neglected since Aspasius. There is also evidence of
lost commentaries on the Politics and the Rhetoric. The composite commentary on
the Ethics was tr. into Latin in the next century, in England, by Robert
Grosseteste, but earlier than this translations of the various logical commentaries
had been made by James of Venice fl. c.1130, who may have even made the
acquaintance of Michael of Ephesus in Constantinople. Later in that century
other commentaries were being tr. from Arabic versions by Gerard of Cremona
d.1187. The influence of the Grecian commentary tradition in the West thus
resumed after the long break since Boethius in the sixth century, but only now,
it seems fair to say, is the full significance of this enormous body of work
becoming properly appreciated.
armstrong:
d. m. “Meaning and communication,” on H. P. Grice -- philosopher of mind and
metaphysician, and until his retirement Challis Professor of Philosophy at
Sydney, noted for his allegiance to a physicalist account of consciousness and
to a realist view of properties conceived as universals. A Materialist Theory
of the Mind 8 develops a scientifically motivated version of the view that
mental states are identical with physical states of the central nervous system.
Universals and Scientific Realism 8 and What Is a Law of Nature? argue that a
scientifically adequate ontology must include universals in order to explain
the status of natural laws. Armstrong contends that laws must be construed as
expressing relations of necessitation between universals rather than mere regularities
among particulars. However, he is only prepared to acknowledge the existence of
such universals as are required for the purposes of scientific explanation.
Moreover, he adopts an “immanent” or “Aristotelian” as opposed to a
“transcendent” or “Platonic” realism, refusing to accept the existence of
uninstantiated universals and denying that universals somehow exist “outside”
space and time. More recently, Armstrong has integrated his scientifically
inspired physicalism and property realism within the overall framework of an
ontology of states of affairs, notably in A World of States of Affairs. Here he
advocates the truthmaker principle that every truth must be made true by some
existing state of affairs and contends that states of affairs, rather than the
universals and particulars that he regards as their constituents, are the basic
building blocks of reality. Within this ontology, which in some ways resembles
that of Vitters’s Tractatus, necessity and possibility are accommodated by
appeal to combinatorial principles. As Armstrong explains in A Combinatorial
Theory of Possibility, this approach offers an ontologically economical
alternative to the realist conception of possible worlds defended by David
Lewis.
arnauld: “Have
you ever been to Port Royale? I haven’t!” – Grice. Grice enjoyed the “Logique
de Port-Royal.” Antoine: philosopher, perhaps the most important and best-known
intellectual associated with the Jansenist community at Port-Royal, as well as
a staunch and orthodox champion of Cartesian philosophy. His theological
writings defend the Augustinian doctrine of efficacious grace, according to
which salvation is not earned by one’s own acts, but granted by the
irresistible grace of God. He also argues in favor of a strict contritionism,
whereby one’s absolution must be based on a true, heartfelt repentance, a love
of God, rather than a selfish fear of God’s punishment. These views brought him
and Port-Royal to the center of religious controversy in seventeenth-century
France, as Jansenism came to be perceived as a subversive extension of
Protestant reform. Arnauld was also constantly engaged in philosophical
disputation, and was regarded as one of the sharpest and most philosophically
acute thinkers of his time. His influence on several major philosophers of the
period resulted mainly from his penetrating criticism of their systems. In
1641, Arnauld was asked to comment on Descartes’s Meditations. The objections
he sent regarding, among other topics,
the representational nature of ideas, the circularity of Descartes’s proofs for
the existence of God, and the apparent irreconcilability of Descartes’s
conception of material substance with the Catholic doctrine of Eucharistic
transubstantiation were considered by
Descartes to be the most intelligent and serious of all. Arnauld offered his
objections in a constructive spirit, and soon became an enthusiastic defender
of Descartes’s philosophy, regarding it as beneficial both to the advancement
of human learning and to Christian piety. He insists, for example, that the
immortality of the soul is well grounded in Cartesian mind body dualism. In
1662, Arnauld composed with Pierre Nicole the Port-Royal Logic, an influential
treatise on language and reasoning. After several decades of theological
polemic, during which he fled France to the Netherlands, Arnauld resumed his
public philosophical activities with the publication in 1683 of On True and
False Ideas and in 1685 of Philosophical and Theological Reflections on the New
System of Nature and Grace. These two works, opening salvos in what would
become a long debate, constitute a detailed attack on Malebranche’s theology
and its philosophical foundations. In the first, mainly philosophical treatise,
Arnauld insists that ideas, or the mental representations that mediate human
knowledge, are nothing but acts of the mind that put us in direct cognitive and
perceptual contact with things in the world. Malebranche, as Arnauld reads him,
argues that ideas are immaterial but nonmental objects in God’s understanding
that we know and perceive instead of physical things. Thus, the debate is often
characterized as between Arnauld’s direct realism and Malebranche’s
representative theory. Such mental acts also have representational content, or
what Arnauld following Descartes calls “objective reality.” This content
explains the act’s intentionality, or directedness toward an object. Arnauld
would later argue with Pierre Bayle, who came to Malebranche’s defense, over
whether all mental phenomena have intentionality, as Arnauld believes, or, as
Bayle asserts, certain events in the soul e.g., pleasures and pains are
non-intentional. This initial critique of Malebranche’s epistemology and
philosophy of mind, however, was intended by Arnauld only as a prolegomenon to
the more important attack on his theology; in particular, on Malebranche’s
claim that God always acts by general volitions and never by particular
volitions. This view, Arnauld argues, undermines the true Catholic system of
divine providence and threatens the efficacy of God’s will by removing God from
direct governance of the world. In 1686, Arnauld also entered into discussions
with Leibniz regarding the latter’s Discourse on Metaphysics. In the ensuing
correspondence, Arnauld focuses his critique on Leibniz’s concept of substance
and on his causal theory, the preestablished harmony. In this exchange, like
the one with Malebranche, Arnauld is concerned to preserve what he takes to be
the proper way to conceive of God’s freedom and providence; although his
remarks on substance in which he objects to Leibniz’s reintroduction of
“substantial forms” is also clearly motivated by his commitment to a strict
Cartesian ontology bodies are nothing
more than extension, devoid of any spiritual element. Most of his philosophical
activity in the latter half of the century, in fact, is a vigorous defense of
Cartesianism, particularly on theological grounds e.g., demonstrating the
consistency between Cartesian metaphysics and the Catholic dogma of real
presence in the Eucharist, as it became the object of condemnation in both
Catholic and Protestant circles.
atomism: the
theory, originated by Leucippus and elaborated by Democritus, that the ultimate
realities are atoms and the void. The theory was later used by Epicurus as the
foundation for a philosophy stressing ethical concerns, Epicureanism.
arrow’s
paradox – discussed by Grice in “Conversational reason.” Also
called Arrow’s impossibility theorem, a major result in social choice theory,
named for its discoverer, economist Kenneth Arrow. It is intuitive to suppose
that the preferences of individuals in a society can be expressed formally, and
then aggregated into an expression of social preferences, a social choice
function. Arrow’s paradox is that individual preferences having certain
well-behaved formalizations demonstrably cannot be aggregated into a similarly
well-behaved social choice function satisfying four plausible formal
conditions: 1 collective rationality any
set of individual orderings and alternatives must yield a social ordering; 2
Pareto optimality if all individuals
prefer one ordering to another, the social ordering must also agree; 3
non-dictatorship the social ordering
must not be identical to a particular individual’s ordering; and 4 independence
of irrelevant alternatives the social
ordering depends on no properties of the individual orderings other than the
orders themselves, and for a given set of alternatives it depends only on the
orderings of those particular alternatives. Most attempts to resolve the
paradox have focused on aspects of 1 and 4. Some argue that preferences can be
rational even if they are intransitive. Others argue that cardinal orderings,
and hence, interpersonal comparisons of preference intensity, are
relevant.
ascriptum: ascriptivism,
the theory that to call an action voluntary is not to describe it as caused in
a certain way by the agent who did it, but to express a commitment to hold the
agent responsible for the action. Ascriptivism is thus a kind of noncognitivism
as applied to judgments about the voluntariness of acts. Introduced by Hart in
“Ascription of Rights and Responsibilities,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society 9, ascriptivism was given its name and attacked in Geach’s
“Ascriptivism,” Philosophical Review 0. Hart recanted in the Preface to his
Punishment and Responsibility 8.
associatum
-- associationism: discussed by Grice as an example of a propositional
complexum -- the psychological doctrine that association is the sole or primary
basis of learning as well as of intelligent thought and behavior. Association
occurs when one type of thought, idea, or behavior follows, or is contingent
upon, another thought, idea, or behavior or external event, and the second
somehow bonds with the first. If the idea of eggs is paired with the idea of
ham, then the two ideas may become associated. Associationists argue that
complex states of mind and mental processes can be analyzed into associated
elements. The complex may be novel, but the elements are products of past
associations. Associationism often is combined with hedonism. Hedonism explains
why events associate or bond: bonds are forged by pleasant experiences. If the
pleasantness of eating eggs is combined with the pleasantness of eating ham,
then ideas of ham and eggs associate. Bonding may also be explained by various
non-hedonistic principles of association, as in Hume’s theory of the
association of ideas. One of these principles is contiguity in place or time.
Associationism contributes to the componential analysis of intelligent,
rational activity into non-intelligent, non-rational, mechanical processes.
People believe as they do, not because of rational connections among beliefs,
but because beliefs associatively bond. Thus one may think of London when
thinking of England, not because one possesses an inner logic of geographic
beliefs from which one infers that London is in England. The two thoughts may
co-occur because of contiguity or other principles. Kinds of associationism
occur in behaviorist models of classical and operant conditioning. Certain
associationist ideas, if not associationism itself, appear in connectionist
models of cognition, especially the principle that contiguities breed bonding.
Several philosophers and psychologists, including Hume, Hartley, and J. S. Mill
among philosophers and E. L. Thorndike 18749 and B. F. Skinner 490 among
psychologists, are associationists.
attenuatum –
attenuated cases of communication -- Borderline – case -- degenerate case, an
expression used more or less loosely to indicate an individual or class that
falls outside of a given background class to which it is otherwise very closely
related, often in virtue of an ordering of a more comprehensive class. A
degenerate case of one class is often a limiting case of a more comprehensive
class. Rest zero velocity is a degenerate case of motion positive velocity
while being a limiting case of velocity. The circle is a degenerate case of an
equilateral and equiangular polygon. In technical or scientific contexts, the
conventional term for the background class is often “stretched” to cover
otherwise degenerate cases. A figure composed of two intersecting lines is a
degenerate case of hyperbola in the sense of synthetic geometry, but it is a
limiting case of hyperbola in the sense of analytic geometry. The null set is a
degenerate case of set in an older sense but a limiting case of set in a modern
sense. A line segment is a degenerate case of rectangle when rectangles are
ordered by ratio of length to width, but it is not a limiting case under these
conditions.
attributum: attribution
theory, a theory in social psychology concerned with how and why ordinary
people explain events. People explain by attributing causal powers to certain
events rather than others. The theory attempts to describe and clarify everyday
commonsense explanation, to identify criteria of explanatory success
presupposed by common sense, and to compare and contrast commonsense
explanation with scientific explanation. The heart of attribution theory is the
thesis that people tend to attribute causal power to factors personally
important to them, which they believe covary with alleged effects. For example,
a woman may designate sexual discrimination as the cause of her not being
promoted in a corporation. Being female is important to her and she believes
that promotion and failure covary with gender. Males get promoted; females
don’t. Causal attributions tend to preserve self-esteem, reduce cognitive
dissonance, and diminish the attributor’s personal responsibility for misdeeds.
When attributional styles or habits contribute to emotional ill-being, e.g. to
chronic, inappropriate feelings of depression or guilt, attribution theory
offers the following therapeutic recommendation: change attributions so as to
reduce emotional ill-being and increase well-being. Hence if the woman blames
herself for the failure, and if self-blame is part of her depressive
attributional style, she would be encouraged to look outside herself, perhaps
to sexual discrimination, for the explanation.
augustinus
-- ugustinian semiotics -- Augustine, Saint, known as Augustine of Hippo
354430, Christian philosopher and church father, one of the chief sources of
Christian thought in the West; his importance for medieval and modern European
philosophy is impossible to describe briefly or ever to circumscribe. Matters
are made more difficult because Augustine wrote voluminously and dialectically
as a Christian theologian, treating philosophical topics for the most part only
as they were helpful to theology or as
corrected by it. Augustine fashioned the narrative of the Confessions 397400
out of the events of the first half of his life. He thus supplied later
biographers with both a seductive selection of biographical detail and a
compelling story of his successive conversions from adolescent sensuality, to
the image-laden religion of the Manichaeans, to a version of Neoplatonism, and
then to Christianity. The story is an unexcelled introduction to Augustine’s
views of philosophy. It shows, for instance, that Augustine received very
little formal education in philosophy. He was trained as a rhetorician, and the
only philosophical work that he mentions among his early reading is Cicero’s
lost Hortensius, an exercise in persuasion to the study of philosophy. Again,
the narrative makes plain that Augustine finally rejected Manichaeanism because
he came to see it as bad philosophy: a set of sophistical fantasies without
rational coherence or explanatory force. More importantly, Augustine’s final
conversion to Christianity was prepared by his reading in “certain books of the
Platonists” Confessions 7.9.13. These Latin translations, which seem to have
been anthologies or manuals of philosophic teaching, taught Augustine a form of
Neoplatonism that enabled him to conceive of a cosmic hierarchy descending from
an immaterial, eternal, and intelligible God. On Augustine’s judgment,
philosophy could do no more than that; it could not give him the power to order
his own life so as to live happily and in a stable relation with the
now-discovered God. Yet in his first years as a Christian, Augustine took time
to write a number of works in philosophical genres. Best known among them are a
refutation of Academic Skepticism Contra academicos, 386, a theodicy De ordine,
386, and a dialogue on the place of human choice within the providentially
ordered hierarchy created by God De libero arbitrio, 388/39. Within the decade
of his conversion, Augustine was drafted into the priesthood 391 and then
consecrated bishop 395. The thirty-five years of his life after that
consecration were consumed by labors on behalf of the church in northern Africa
and through the Latin-speaking portions of the increasingly fragmented empire.
Most of Augustine’s episcopal writing was polemical both in origin and in form;
he composed against authors or movements he judged heretical, especially the
Donatists and Pelagians. But Augustine’s sense of his authorship also led him
to write works of fundamental theology conceived on a grand scale. The most
famous of these works, beyond the Confessions, are On the Trinity 399412, 420,
On Genesis according to the Letter 40115, and On the City of God 41326. On the
Trinity elaborates in subtle detail the distinguishable “traces” of Father,
Son, and Spirit in the created world and particularly in the human soul’s triad
of memory, intellect, and will. The commentary on Genesis 13, which is meant to
be much more than a “literal” commentary in the modern sense, treats many
topics in philosophical psychology and anthropology. It also teaches such
cosmological doctrines as the “seed-reasons” rationes seminales by which
creatures are given intelligible form. The City of God begins with a critique
of the bankruptcy of pagan civic religion and its attendant philosophies, but
it ends with the depiction of human history as a combat between forces of
self-love, conceived as a diabolic city of earth, and the graced love of God,
which founds that heavenly city within which alone peace is possible.
attributive pluralism Augustine 60 60 A
number of other, discrete doctrines have been attached to Augustine, usually without
the dialectical nuances he would have considered indispensable. One such
doctrine concerns divine “illumination” of the human intellect, i.e., some
active intervention by God in ordinary processes of human understanding.
Another doctrine typically attributed to Augustine is the inability of the
human will to do morally good actions without grace. A more authentically
Augustinian teaching is that introspection or inwardness is the way of
discovering the created hierarchies by which to ascend to God. Another
authentic teaching would be that time, which is a distension of the divine
“now,” serves as the medium or narrative structure for the creation’s return to
God. But no list of doctrines or positions, however authentic or inauthentic,
can serve as a faithful representation of Augustine’s thought, which gives
itself only through the carefully wrought rhetorical forms of his texts.
austinian: J.:
discussed by Grice in his explorations on moral versus legal right. English
legal philosopher known especially for his command theory of law. His career as
a lawyer was unsuccessful but his reputation as a scholar was such that on the
founding of , London, he was offered the
chair of jurisprudence. In 1832 he published the first ten of his lectures,
compressed into six as The Province of Jurisprudence Determined. Although he
published a few papers, and his somewhat fragmentary Lectures on Jurisprudence
1863 was published posthumously, it is on the Province that his reputation
rests. He and Bentham his friend, London neighbor, and fellow utilitarian were
the foremost English legal philosophers of their time, and their influence on
the course of legal philosophy endures. Austin held that the first task of
legal philosophy, one to which he bends most of his energy, is to make clear
what laws are, and if possible to explain why they are what they are: their
rationale. Until those matters are clear, legislative proposals and legal
arguments can never be clear, since irrelevant considerations will inevitably
creep in. The proper place for moral or theological considerations is in
discussion of what the positive law ought to be, not of what it is. Theological
considerations reduce to moral ones, since God can be assumed to be a good
utilitarian. It is positive laws, “that is to say the laws which are simply and
strictly so called, . . . which form the appropriate matter of general and
particular jurisprudence.” They must also be distinguished from “laws
metaphorical or figurative.” A law in its most general senseis “a rule laid
down for the guidance of an intelligent being by an intelligent being having
power over him.” It is a command, however phrased. It is the commands of men to
men, of political superiors, that form the body of positive law. General or
comparative jurisprudence, the source of the rationale, if any, of particular
laws, is possible because there are commands nearly universal that may be
attributed to God or Nature, but they become positive law only when laid down
by a ruler. The general model of an Austinian analytic jurisprudence built upon
a framework of definitions has been widely followed, but cogent objections,
especially by Hart, have undermined the command theory of law.
austin: Grice referred to him as “Austin the younger,”
in opposition to “Austin the elder” – (Austin never enjoyed the joke). j. l. H.
P. Grice, “The Austinian Code.” English philosopher, a leading exponent of
postwar “linguistic” philosophy. Educated primarily as a classicist at
Shrewsbury and Balliol , Oxford, he taught philosophy at Magdalen . During
World War II he served at a high level in military intelligence, which earned
him the O.B.E., Croix de Guerre, and Legion of Merit. In 2 he became White’s
Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford, and in 5 and 8 he held visiting
appointments at Harvard and Berkeley, respectively. In his relatively brief
career, Austin published only a few invited papers; his influence was exerted
mainly through discussion with his colleagues, whom he dominated more by
critical intelligence than by any preconceived view of what philosophy should
be. Unlike some others, Austin did not believe that philosophical problems all
arise out of aberrations from “ordinary language,” nor did he necessarily find
solutions there; he dwelt, rather, on the authority of the vernacular as a
source of nice and pregnant distinctions, and held that it deserves much closer
attention than it commonly receives from philosophers. It is useless, he
thought, to pontificate at large about knowledge, reality, or existence, for
example, without first examining in detail how, and when, the words ‘know’,
‘real’, and ‘exist’ are employed in daily life. In Sense and Sensibilia 2;
compiled from lecture notes, the sense-datum theory comes under withering fire
for its failings in this respect. Austin also provoked controversy with his
well-known distinction between “performative” and “constative” utterances ‘I
promise’ makes a promise, whereas ‘he promised’ merely reports one; he later
recast this as a threefold differentiation of locutionary, illocutionary, and
perlocutionary “forces” in utterance, corresponding roughly to the meaning,
intention, and consequences of saying a thing, in one context or another.
Though never very stable or fully worked out, these ideas have since found a
place in the still-evolving study of speech acts.
austinian code, The: The jocular
way by Grice to refer to ‘The Master,’ whom he saw wobble on more than one
occasion. Grice has mixed feelings (“or fixed meelings, if you prefer”) about
Austin. Unlike Austin, Grice is a Midlands scholarship boy, and ends up in
Corpus. One outcome of this, as he later reminisced is that Austin never cared
to invite him to the Thursday-evenings at All Souls – “which was alright, I
suppose, in that the number was appropriately restricted to seven.” But Grice
confessed that he thought it was because “he had been born on the wrong side of
the tracks.” After the war, Grice would join what Grice, in fun, called “the Playgroup,”
which was anything BUT. Austin played the School Master, and let the
kindergarten relax in the sun! One reason Grice avoided publication was the
idea that Austin would criticise him. Austin never cared to recognise Grice’s
“Personal Identity,” or less so, “Meaning.” He never mentioned his
“Metaphysics” third programme lecture – but Austin never made it to the
programme. Grice socialized very well with who will be Austin’s custodians, in
alphabetical order, Urmson and Warnock – “two charmers.” Unlike Austin, Urmson
and Warnock were the type of person Austin would philosophise with – and he
would spend hours talking about visa with Warnock. Upon Austin’s demise, Grice
kept with the ‘play group’, which really became one! Grice makes immense
references to Austin. Austin fits Grice to a T, because of the ‘mistakes’ he
engages in. So, it is fair to say that Grice’s motivation for the coinage of implicaturum
was Austin (“He would too often ignore the distinction between what a
‘communicator’ communicates and what his expression, if anything, does.”). So
Grice attempts an intention-based account of the communicator’s message. Within
this message, there is ONE aspect that can usually be regarded as being of
‘philosophical interest.’ The ‘unnecessary implicaturum’ is bound to be taken
Austin as part of the ‘philosophical interesting’ bit when it isn’t. So Grice
is criticizing Austin for providing the wrong analysis for the wrong
analysandum. Grice refers specifically to the essays in “Philosophical Papers,”
notably “Other Minds” and “A Plea for Excuses.” But he makes a passing
reference to “Sense and Sensibilia,” whose tone Grice dislikes, and makes a
borrowing or two from the ‘illocution,’ never calling it by that name. At most,
Grice would adapt Austin’s use of ‘act.’ But his rephrase is ‘conversational
move.’ So Grice would say that by making a conversational ‘move,’ the
conversationalist may be communicating TWO things. He spent some type finding a
way to conceptualise this. He later came with the metaphor of the FIRST-FLOOR
act, the MEZZANINE act, and the SECOND-FLOOR act. This applies to Fregeianisms
like ‘aber,’ but it may well apply to Austinian-code type of utterances.
austinianism: Grice felt sorry
for Nowell-Smith, whom he calls the ‘straight-man’ for the comedy double act
with Austin at the Play Groups. “I would say ‘on principle’” – “I would say,
‘no, thanks.” “I don’t understand Donne.” “It’s perfectly clear to me.” By
using Nowell-Sith, Grice is implicating that Austin had little manners in the
‘play group,’ “And I wasn’t surprised when Nowell-Smith left Oxford for good,
almost.” Not quite, of course. After some time in the extremely fashionable
Canterbury, Nowell-Smith returns to Oxford. Vide: nowell-smithianism.
autarkia:
Grecian for ‘self-sufficiency,’ from ‘auto-‘, self, and ‘arkhe,’ principium. Autarkia
was widely regarded as a mark of the human good, happiness eudaimonia. A life
is self-sufficient when it is worthy of choice and lacks nothing. What makes a
life self-sufficient and thereby
happy was a matter of controversy.
Stoics maintained that the mere possession of virtue would suffice; Aristotle
and the Peripatetics insisted that virtue must be exercised and even, perhaps,
accompanied by material goods. There was also a debate among later Grecian
thinkers over whether a self-sufficient life is solitary or whether only life
in a community can be self-sufficient.
avenarius,
R. philosopher: an influence on Ayer, who thinks he is following British
empiricism! Avenarius was born in Paris and educated at the of Leipzig. He became a professor at Leipzig
and succeeded Windelband at the of
Zürich in 1877. For a time he was editor of the Zeitschrift für
wissenschaftliche Philosophie. His earliest work was Über die beiden ersten
Phasen des Spinozischen Pantheismus 1868. His major work, Kritik der reinen
Erfahrung Critique of Pure Experience, 2 vols., 890, was followed by his last
study, Der menschliche Weltbegriffe 1. In his post-Kantian Kritik Avenarius
presented a radical positivism that sought to base philosophy on scientific
principles. This “empirio-criticism” emphasized “pure experience” and
descriptive and general definitions of experience. Metaphysical claims to transcend
experience were rejected as mere creations of the mind. Like Hume, Avenarius
denied the ontological validity of substance and causality. Seeking a
scientific empiricism, he endeavored to delineate a descriptive determination
of the form and content of pure experience. He thought that the subject-object
dichotomy, the separation of inner and outer experiences, falsified reality. If
we could avoid “introjecting” feeling, thought, and will into experience and
thereby splitting it into subject and object, we could attain the original
“natural” view of the world. Although Avenarius, in his Critique of Pure
Experience, thought that changes in brain states parallel states of
consciousness, he did not reduce sensations or states of consciousness to
physiological changes in the brain. Because his theory of pure experience
undermined dogmatic materialism, Lenin attacked his philosophy in Materialism
and Empirio-Criticism 2. His epistemology influenced Mach and his emphasis upon
pure experience had considerable influence on James.
awareness:
an Anglo-Saxon, “sort of,” term Grice liked – for Grice, awareness means the
doxastic attitude prefixed to any other state -- consciousness, a central
feature of our lives that is notoriously difficult to characterize. You
experience goings-on in the world, and, turning inward “introspecting”, you
experience your experiencing. Objects of awareness can be external or internal.
Pressing your finger on the edge of a table, you can be aware of the table’s
edge, and aware of the feeling of pressure though perhaps not simultaneously.
Philosophers from Locke to Nagel have insisted that our experiences have
distinctive qualities: there is “something it is like” to have them. It would
seem important, then, to distinguish qualities of objects of which you are
aware from qualities of your awareness. Suppose you are aware of a round, red
tomato. The tomato, but not your awareness, is round and red. What then are the
qualities of your awareness? Here we encounter a deep puzzle that divides
theorists into intransigent camps. Some materialists, like Dennett, insist that
awareness lacks qualities or lacks qualities distinct from its objects: the qualities
we attribute to experiences are really those of experienced objects. This opens
the way to a dismissal of “phenomenal” qualities qualia, qualities that seem to
have no place in the material world. Others T. Nagel, Ned Block regard such
qualities as patently genuine, preferring to dismiss any theory unable to
accommodate them. Convinced that the qualities of awareness are ineliminable
and irreducible to respectable material properties, some philosophers,
following Frank Jackson, contend they are “epiphenomenal”: real but causally
inefficacious. Still others, including Searle, point to what they regard as a
fundamental distinction between the “intrinsically subjective” character of
awareness and the “objective,” “public” character of material objects, but deny
that this yields epiphenomenalism.
axioma –
Porphyry translated this as ‘principium,’ but Grice was not too happy about it!
Referred to by Grice in his portrayal of the formalists in their account of an
‘ideal’ language. He is thinking Peano, Whitehead, and Russell. – the axiomatic
method, originally, a method for reorganizing the accepted propositions and
concepts of an existent science in order to increase certainty in the
propositions and clarity in the concepts. Application of this method was
thought to require the identification of 1 the “universe of discourse” domain,
genus of entities constituting the primary subject matter of the science, 2 the
“primitive concepts” that can be grasped immediately without the use of
definition, 3 the “primitive propositions” or “axioms”, whose truth is knowable
immediately, without the use of deduction, 4 an immediately acceptable
“primitive definition” in terms of primitive concepts for each non-primitive
concept, and 5 a deduction constructed by chaining immediate, logically cogent
inferences ultimately from primitive propositions and definitions for each
nonprimitive accepted proposition. Prominent proponents of more or less
modernized versions of the axiomatic method, e.g. Pascal, Nicod 34, and Tarski,
emphasizing the critical and regulatory function of the axiomatic method,
explicitly open the possibility that axiomatization of an existent,
preaxiomatic science may lead to rejection or modification of propositions,
concepts, and argumentations that had previously been accepted. In many cases
attempts to realize the ideal of an axiomatic science have resulted in
discovery of “smuggled premises” and other previously unnoted presuppositions,
leading in turn to recognition of the need for new axioms. Modern axiomatizations
of geometry are much richer in detail than those produced in ancient Greece.
The earliest extant axiomatic text is based on an axiomatization of geometry
due to Euclid fl. 300 B.C., which itself was based on earlier, nolonger-extant
texts. Archimedes 287212 B.C. was one of the earliest of a succession of
postEuclidean geometers, including Hilbert, Oswald Veblen 00, and Tarski, to
propose modifications of axiomatizations of classical geometry. The traditional
axiomatic method, often called the geometric method, made several
presuppositions no longer widely accepted. The advent of non-Euclidean geometry
was particularly important in this connection. For some workers, the goal of
reorganizing an existent science was joined to or replaced by a new goal:
characterizing or giving implicit definition to the structure of the subject
matter of the science. Moreover, subsequent innovations in logic and
foundations of mathematics, especially development of syntactically precise
formalized languages and effective systems of formal deductions, have
substantially increased the degree of rigor attainable. In particular, critical
axiomatic exposition of a body of scientific knowledge is now not thought to be
fully adequate, however successful it may be in realizing the goals of the
original axiomatic method, so long as it does not present the underlying logic
including language, semantics, and deduction system. For these and other
reasons the expression ‘axiomatic method’ has undergone many “redefinitions,”
some of which have only the most tenuous connection with the original
meaning. The term ‘axiom’ has been
associated to different items by philosophers. There’s the axiom of
comprehension, also called axiom of abstraction, the axiom that for every
property, there is a corresponding set of things having that property; i.e., f
DA x x 1 A È f x, where f is a property and A is a set. The axiom was used in
Frege’s formulation of set theory and is the axiom that yields Russell’s
paradox, discovered in 1. If fx is instantiated as x 2 x, then the result that
A 1 A È A 2 A is easily obtained, which yields, in classical logic, the
explicit contradiction A 1 A & A 2 A. The paradox can be avoided by
modifying the comprehension axiom and using instead the separation axiom, f DA
x x 1 A Èfx & x 1 B. This yields only the result that A 1 A ÈA 2 A & A
1 B, which is not a contradiction. The paradox can also be avoided by retaining
the comprehension axiom but restricting the symbolic language, so that ‘x 1 x’
is not a meaningful formula. Russell’s type theory, presented in Principia Mathematica,
uses this approach. Then there’s the axiom
of consistency, an axiom stating that a given set of sentences is consistent.
Let L be a formal language, D a deductive system for L, S any set of sentences
of L, and C the statement ‘S is consistent’ i.e., ‘No contradiction is
derivable from S via D’. For certain sets S e.g., the theorems of D it is
interesting to ask: Can C be expressed in L? If so, can C be proved in D? If C
can be expressed in L but not proved in D, can C be added consistently to D as
a new axiom? Example from Gödel: Let L and D be adequate for elementary number
theory, and S be the axioms of D; then C can be expressed in L but not proved
in D, but can be added as a new axiom to form a stronger system D’. Sometimes
we can express in L an axiom of consistency in the semantic sense i.e., ‘There
is a universe in which all the sentences in S are true’. Trivial example:
suppose the only non-logical axiom in D is ‘For any two sets B and B’, there
exists the union of B and B’ ’. Then C might be ‘There is a set U such that,
for any sets B and B’ in U, there exists in U the union of B and B’ ’.
ayerianism: a. j. , philosopher of Swiss ancestry, one of
the most important of the Oxford logical positivists. He continued to occupy a
dominant place in analytic philosophy as he gradually modified his adherence to
central tenets of the view. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, and, after a
brief period at the of Vienna, became a
lecturer in philosophy at Christ Church in 3. After the war he returned to
Oxford as fellow and dean of Wadham . He was Grote Professor of the Philosophy
of Mind and Logic at the of London 659,
Wykeham Professor of Logic in the of
Oxford and a fellow of New 978, and a fellow
of Wolfson , Oxford 883. Ayer was knighted in 3 and was a Chevalier de la
Légion d’Honneur. His early work clearly and forcefully developed the
implications of the positivists’ doctrines that all cognitive statements are
either analytic and a priori, or synthetic, contingent, and a posteriori, and
that empirically meaningful statements must be verifiable must admit of
confirmation or disconfirmation. In doing so he defended reductionist analyses
of the self, the external world, and other minds. Value statements that fail
the empiricist’s criterion of meaning but defy naturalistic analysis were
denied truth-value and assigned emotive meaning. Throughout his writings he
maintained a foundationalist perspective in epistemology in which sense-data
later more neutrally described occupied not only a privileged epistemic
position but constituted the subject matter of the most basic statements to be
used in reductive analyses. Although in later works he significantly modified
many of his early views and abandoned much of their strict reductionism, he
remained faithful to an empiricist’s version of foundationalism and the basic
idea behind the verifiability criterion of meaning. His books include Language,
Truth and Logic; The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge; The Problems of
Knowledge; Philosophical Essays; The Concept of a Person; The Origins of
Pragmatism; Metaphysics and Common Sense; Russell and Moore: The Analytical
Heritage; The Central Questions of Philosophy; Probability and Evidence;
Philosophy in the Twentieth Century; Russell; Hume; Freedom and Morality, Ludwig
Vitters; and Voltaire. Born of Swiss parentage in London, “Freddie” got an
Oxford educated, and though he wanted to be a judge, he read Lit. Hum (Phil.).
He spent three months in Vienna, and when he returned, Grice called him ‘enfant
terrible.’ Ayer would later cite Grice in the Aristotelian symposium on the
Causal Theory of Perception. But the type of subtlety in conversational implicaturum
that Grice is interested goes over Freddie’s head. (“That,” or he was not
interested.” Grice was glad that Oxford was ready to attack Ayer on
philosophical grounds, and he later lists Positivism as a ‘monster’ on his way
to the City of Eternal Truth. “Verificationism” was anti-Oxonian, in being
mainly anti-Bradleyian, who is recognised by every Oxonian philosopher as “one
of the clearest and subtlest prosists in English, and particularly Oxonian,
philosophy.” Ayer later became the logic professor at Oxford – which is now
taught no longer at the Sub-Faculty of Philosophy, but the Department of
Mathematics!
babbage:
discussed by Grice in his functionalist approach to philosophical psychology.
English applied mathematician, inventor, and expert on machinery and
manufacturing. His chief interest was in developing mechanical “engines” to
compute tables of functions. Until the invention of the electronic computer,
printed tables of functions were important aids to calculation. Babbage
invented the difference engine, a machine that consisted of a series of
accumulators each of which, in turn, transmitted its contents to its successor,
which added to them to its own contents. He built only a model, but George and
Edvard Scheutz built difference engines that were actually used. Though tables
of squares and cubes could be calculated by a difference engine, the more
commonly used tables of logarithms and of trigonometric functions could not. To
calculate these and other useful functions, Babbage conceived of the analytical
engine, a machine for numerical analysis. The analytical engine was to have a
store memory and a mill arithmetic unit. The store was to hold decimal numbers
on toothed wheels, and to transmit them to the mill and back by means of wheels
and toothed bars. The mill was to carry out the arithmetic operations of
addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division mechanically, greatly
extending the technology of small calculators. The operations of the mill were
to be governed by pegged drums, derived from the music box. A desired sequence
of operations would be punched on cards, which would be strung together like
the cards of a Jacquard loom and read by the machine. The control mechanisms
could branch and execute a different sequence of cards when a designated
quantity changed sign. Numbers would be entered from punched cards and the
answers punched on cards. The answers might also be imprinted on metal sheets
from which the calculated tables would be printed, thus avoiding the errors of
proofreading. Although Babbage formulated various partial plans for the
analytical engine and built a few pieces of it, the machine was never realized.
Given the limitations of mechanical computing technology, building an
analytical engine would probably not have been an economical way to produce
numerical tables. The modern electronic computer was invented and developed
completely independently of Babbage’s pioneering work. Yet because of it,
Babbage’s work has been publicized and he has become famous.
bachelard:
g., philosopher of applied rationalism, enjoyed by Grice. philosopher of
science and literary analyst. His philosophy of science developed, e.g., in The
New Scientific Spirit, 4, and Rational Materialism, 3 began from reflections on
the relativistic and quantum revolutions in twentieth-century physics.
Bachelard viewed science as developing through a series of discontinuous
changes epistemological breaks. Such breaks overcome epistemological obstacles:
methodological and conceptual features of commonsense or outdated science that
block the path of inquiry. Bachelard’s emphasis on the discontinuity of
scientific change strikingly anticipated Thomas Kuhn’s focus, many years later,
on revolutionary paradigm change. However, unlike Kuhn, Bachelard held to a
strong notion of scientific progress across revolutionary discontinuities.
Although each scientific framework rejects its predecessors as fundamentally
erroneous, earlier frameworks may embody permanent achievements that will be
preserved as special cases within subsequent frameworks. Newton’s laws of
motion, e.g., are special limit-cases of relativity theory. Bachelard based his
philosophy of science on a “non-Cartesian epistemology” that rejects
Descartes’s claim that knowledge must be founded on incorrigible intuitions of
first truths. All knowledge claims are subject to revision in the light of
further evidence. Similarly, he rejected a naive realism that defines reality
in terms of givens of ordinary sense experience and ignores the ontological
constructions of scientific concepts and instrumentation. He maintained,
however, that denying this sort of realism did not entail accepting idealism,
which makes only the mental ultimately real. Instead he argued for an “applied
rationalism,” which recognizes the active role of reason in constituting
objects of knowledge while admitting that any constituting act of reason must
be directed toward an antecedently given object. Although Bachelard denied the
objective reality of the perceptual and imaginative worlds, he emphasized their
subjective and poetic significance. Complementing his writings on science are a
series of books on imagination and poetic imagery e.g., The Psychoanalysis of
Fire, 8; The Poetics of Space, 7 which subtly unpack the meaning of archetypal
in Jung’s sense images. He put forward a “law of the four elements,” according
to which all images can be related to the earth, air, fire, and water posited
by Empedocles as the fundamental forms of matter. Together with Georges
Canguilhem, his successor at the Sorbonne, Bachelard had an immense impact on
several generations of students of
philosophy. He and Canguilhem offered an important alternative to the more
fashionable and widely known phenomenology and existentialism and were major
influences on among others Althusser and Foucault.
baconian –
“You can tell when a contitnental philosopher knows about insular philosopher
when they can tell one bacon from the other.” – H. P. Grice. Francis: English
philosopher, essayist, and scientific methodologist. In politics Bacon rose to
the position of lord chancellor. In 1621 he retired to private life after
conviction for taking bribes in his official capacity as judge. Bacon
championed the new empiricism resulting from the achievements of early modern
science. He opposed alleged knowledge based on appeals to authority, and on the
barrenness of Scholasticism. He thought that what is needed is a new attitude
and methodology based strictly on scientific practices. The goal of acquiring
knowledge is the good of mankind: knowledge is power. The social order that
should result from applied science is portrayed in his New Atlantis1627. The
method of induction to be employed is worked out in detail in his Novum Organum
1620. This new logic is to replace that of Aristotle’s syllogism, as well as
induction by simple enumeration of instances. Neither of these older logics can
produce knowledge of actual natural laws. Bacon thought that we must intervene
in nature, manipulating it by means of experimental control leading to the invention
of new technology. There are well-known hindrances to acquisition of knowledge
of causal laws. Such hindrances false opinions, prejudices, which “anticipate”
nature rather than explain it, Bacon calls idols idola. Idols of the tribe
idola tribus are natural mental tendencies, among which are the idle search for
purposes in nature, and the impulse to read our own desires and needs into
nature. Idols of the cave idola specus are predispositions of particular
individuals. The individual is inclined to form opinions based on
idiosyncrasies of education, social intercourse, reading, and favored
authorities. Idols of the marketplace idola fori Bacon regards as the most
potentially dangerous of all dispositions, because they arise from common uses
of language that often result in verbal disputes. Many words, though thought to
be meaningful, stand for nonexistent things; others, although they name actual
things, are poorly defined or used in confused ways. Idols of the theater idola
theatri depend upon the influence of received theories. The only authority
possessed by such theories is that they are ingenious verbal constructions. The
aim of acquiring genuine knowledge does not depend on superior skill in the use
of words, but rather on the discovery of natural laws. Once the idols are
eliminated, the mind is free to seek knowledge of natural laws based on
experimentation. Bacon held that nothing exists in nature except bodies
material objects acting in conformity with fixed laws. These laws are “forms.”
For example, Bacon thought that the form or cause of heat is the motion of the
tiny particles making up a body. This form is that on which the existence of
heat depends. What induction seeks to show is that certain laws are perfectly
general, universal in application. In every case of heat, there is a measurable
change in the motion of the particles constituting the moving body. Bacon
thought that scientific induction proceeds as follows. First, we look for those
cases where, given certain changes, certain others invariably follow. In his
example, if certain changes in the form motion of particles take place, heat
always follows. We seek to find all of the “positive instances” of the form
that give rise to the effect of that form. Next, we investigate the “negative
instances,” cases where in the absence of the form, the qualitative change does
not take place. In the operation of these methods it is important to try to
produce experimentally “prerogative instances,” particularly striking or
typical examples of the phenomenon under investigation. Finally, in cases where
the object under study is present to some greater or lesser degree, we must be
able to take into account why these changes occur. In the example, quantitative
changes in degrees of heat will be correlated to quantitative changes in the
speed of the motion of the particles. This method implies that backward
causation Bacon, Francis 68 68 in many
cases we can invent instruments to measure changes in degree. Such inventions
are of course the hoped-for outcome of scientific inquiry, because their
possession improves the lot of human beings. Bacon’s strikingly modern but not
entirely novel empiricist methodology influenced nineteenth-century figures
e.g., Sir John Herschel and J. S. Mill who generalized his results and used
them as the basis for displaying new insights into scientific methodology.
baconian:
“You can tell when a continental philosopher knows the first thing about
insular philosophy when they can tell one bacon from the other” – H. P. Grice. R.,
English philosopher who earned the honorific title of Doctor Mirabilis. He was
one of the first medievals in the Latin West to lecture and comment on newly
recovered work by Aristotle in natural philosophy, physics, and metaphysics.
Born in Somerset and educated at both Oxford
and the of Paris, he became by
1273 a master of arts at Paris, where he taught for about ten years. In 1247 he
resigned his teaching post to devote his energies to investigating and
promoting topics he considered neglected but important insofar as they would
lead to knowledge of God. The English “experimentalist” Grosseteste, the man
Peter of Maricourt, who did pioneering work on magnetism, and the author of the
pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum influenced Roger’s new perspective. By
1257, however, partly from fatigue, Roger had put this work aside and entered
the Franciscan order in England. To his dismay, he did not receive within the
order the respect and freedom to write and teach he had expected. During the
early 1260s Roger’s views about reforming the
curriculum reached Cardinal Guy le Gos de Foulques, who, upon becoming
Pope Clement IV in 1265, demanded to see Roger’s writings. In response, Roger
produced the Opus maius 1267 an
encyclopedic work that argues, among other things, that 1 the study of Hebrew
and Grecian is indispensable for understanding the Bible, 2 the study of
mathematics encompassing geometry, astronomy, and astrology is, with
experimentation, the key to all the sciences and instrumental in theology, and
3 philosophy can serve theology by helping in the conversion of non-believers.
Roger believed that although the Bible is the basis for human knowledge, we can
use reason in the service of knowledge. It is not that rational argument can,
on his view, provide fullblown proof of anything, but rather that with the aid
of reason one can formulate hypotheses about nature that can be confirmed by
experience. According to Roger, knowledge arrived at in this way will lead to
knowledge of nature’s creator. All philosophical, scientific, and linguistic
endeavors are valuable ultimately for the service they can render to theology.
Roger summarizes and develops his views on these matters in the Opus minus and
the Opus tertium, produced within a year of the Opus maius. Roger was
altogether serious in advocating curricular change. He took every opportunity
to rail against many of his celebrated contemporaries e.g., Alexander of Hales,
Bonaventure, Albertus Magnus, and Aquinas for not being properly trained in
philosophy and for contributing to the demise of theology by lecturing on Peter
Lombard’s Sentences instead of the Bible. He also wrote both Grecian and Hebrew
grammars, did important work in optics, and argued for calendar reform on the
basis of his admittedly derivative astronomical research. One should not,
however, think that Roger was a good mathematician or natural scientist. He
apparently never produced a single theorem or proof in mathematics, he was not
always a good judge of astronomical competence he preferred al-Bitruji to
Ptolemy, and he held alchemy in high regard, believing that base metals could
be turned into silver and gold. Some have gone so far as to claim that Roger’s
renown in the history of science is vastly overrated, based in part on his being
confusedly linked with the fourteenthcentury Oxford Calculators, who do deserve
credit for paving the way for certain developments in seventeenth-century
science. Roger’s devotion to curricular reform eventually led to his
imprisonment by Jerome of Ascoli the future Pope Nicholas IV, probably between
1277 and 1279. Roger’s teachings were said to have contained “suspect
novelties.” Judging from the date of his imprisonment, these novelties may have
been any number of propositions condemned by the bishop of Paris, Étienne
Tempier, in 1277. But his imprisonment may also have had something to do with
the anger he undoubtedly provoked by constantly abusing the members of his
order regarding their approach to education, or with his controversial
Joachimite views about the apocalypse and the imminent coming of the
Antichrist. Given Roger’s interest in educational reform and his knack for
systematization, it is not unlikely that he was abreast of and had something to
say about most of the central philosophical issues of the day. If so, his
writings could be an important source of information about thirteenth-century
Scholastic philosophy generally. In this connection, recent investigations have
revealed, e.g., that he may well have played an important role in the development
of logic and philosophy of language during the thirteenth and early fourteenth
centuries. In the course of challenging the views of certain people some of
whom have been tentatively identified as Richard of Cornwall, Lambert of
Auxerre, Siger of Brabant, Henry of Ghent, Boethius of Dacia, William Sherwood,
and the Magister Abstractionum on the nature of signs and how words function as
signs, Roger develops and defends views that appear to be original. The
pertinent texts include the Sumule dialectices c.1250, the De signis part of
Part III of the Opus maius, and the Compendium studii theologiae 1292. E.g., in
connection with the question whether Jesus could be called a man during the
three-day entombment and, thus, in connection with the related question whether
man can be said to be animal when no man exists, and with the sophism ‘This is
a dead man, therefore this is a man’, Roger was not content to distinguish
words from all other signs as had been the tradition. He distinguished between
signs originating from nature and from the soul, and between natural
signification and conventional ad placitum signification which results
expressly or tacitly from the imposition of meaning by one or more individuals.
He maintained that words signify existing and non-existing entities only
equivocally, because words conventionally signify only presently existing
things. On this view, therefore, ‘man’ is not used univocally when applied to
an existing man and to a dead man.
bona
fides:
good faith (bona fides) vs. bad faith (mala fides) 1 dishonest and blameworthy
instances of self-deception; 2 inauthentic and self-deceptive refusal to admit
to ourselves and others our full freedom, thereby avoiding anxiety in making
decisions and evading responsibility for actions and attitudes Sartre, Being
and Nothingness, 3; 3 hypocrisy or dishonesty in speech and conduct, as in
making a promise without intending to keep it. One self-deceiving strategy
identified by Sartre is to embrace other people’s views in order to avoid having
to form one’s own; another is to disregard options so that one’s life appears
predetermined to move in a fixed direction. Occasionally Sartre used a
narrower, fourth sense: self-deceptive beliefs held on the basis of insincere
and unreasonable interpretations of evidence, as contrasted with the dishonesty
of “sincerely” acknowledging one truth “I am disposed to be a thief” in order
to deny a deeper truth “I am free to change”.
bain:
a., philosopher and reformer, biographer of James Mill 2 and J. S. Mill 2 and
founder of the first psychological journal, Mind 1876, to which Grice submitted
his “Personal identity.” In the development of psychology, Bain represents in
England alongside Continental thinkers such as Taine and Lotze the final step
toward the founding of psychology as a science. His significance stems from his
wish to “unite psychology and physiology,” fulfilled in The Senses and the
Intellect 1855 and The Emotions and the Will 1859, abridged in one volume,
Mental and Moral Science 1868. Neither Bain’s psychology nor his physiology
were particularly original. His psychology came from English empiricism and
associationism, his physiology from Johannes Muller’s 180158 Elements of
Physiology 1842. Muller was an early advocate of the reflex, or sensorimotor,
conception of the nervous system, holding that neurons conduct sensory
information to the brain or motor commands from the brain, the brain connecting
sensation with appropriate motor response. Like Hartley before him, Bain
grounded the laws of mental association in the laws of neural connection. In
opposition to faculty psychology, Bain rejected the existence of mental powers
located in different parts of the brain On the Study of Character, 1861. By
combining associationism with modern physiology, he virtually completed the
movement of philosophical psychology toward science. In philosophy, his most
important concept was his analysis of belief as “a preparation to act.” By thus
entwining conception and action, he laid the foundation for pragmatism, and for
the focus on adaptive behavior central to modern psychology.
banez, D. philosopher known
for his disputes with Molina concerning divine grace, or grice. Against Molina
he held physical predetermination, the view that God physically determines the
secondary causes of human action. This renders grace intrinsically efficacious
and independent of human will and merits. He is also known for his
understanding of the centrality of the act of existence esse in Thomistic
metaphysics. Bañez’s most important works are his commentaries on Aquinas’s
Summa theologiae and Aristotle’s On Generation and Corruption.
barthesian: semiotic:
r. post-structuralist literary critic
and essayist. Born in Cherbourg, he suffered from numerous ailments as a child
and spent much of his early life as a semiinvalid. After leaving the military,
he took up several positions teaching subjects like classics, grammar, and
philology. His interest in linguistics finally drew him to literature, and by
the mid-0s he had already published what would become a classic in structural
analysis, The Elements of Semiology. Its principal message is that words are
merely one kind of sign whose meaning lies in relations of difference between
them. This concept was later amended to include the reading subject, and the
structuring effect that the subject has on the literary work a concept expressed later in his S/Z and The
Pleasure of the Text. Barthes’s most mature contributions to the
post-structuralist movement were brilliant and witty interpretations of visual,
tactile, and aural sign systems, culminating in the publication of several
books and essays on photography, advertising, film, and cuisine.
bite off more
than you can chew: To bite is the function of the FRONT teeth (incisors and
canines); the back teeth (molars) CHEW, crush, or grind. So the relation is Russellian. 1916 G. B. Shaw Pygmalion 195 The mistake we describe metaphorically as
‘biting off more than they can chew’. a1960 J.
L. Austin Sense & Sensibilia (1962) i. 1 They [sc. doctrines] all bite off more than they can chew. While the NED would not DARE define this obviousness,
the OED does not. to undertake too
much, to be too ambitious – “irrational” simpliciter for Grice (WoW).
basilides: philosopher,
he improved on Valentinus’s doctrine of emanations, positing 365 the number of
days in a year levels of existence in the Pleroma the fullness of the Godhead,
all descending from the ineffable Father. He taught that the rival God was the
God of the Jews the God of the Old Testament, who created the material world.
Redemption consists in the coming of the first begotten of the Father, Noûs
Mind, in human form in order to release the spiritual element imprisoned within
human bodies. Like other gnostics he taught that we are saved by knowledge, not
faith. He apparently held to the idea of reincarnation before the restoration
of all things to the Pleroma.
basis: basing
relation, also called basis relation, the relation between a belief or item of
knowledge and a second belief or item of knowledge when the latter is the
ground basis of the first. It is clear that some knowledge is indirect, i.e.,
had or gained on the basis of some evidence, as opposed to direct knowledge,
which assuming there is any is not so gained, or based. The same holds for
justified belief. In one broad sense of the term, the basing relation is just
the one connecting indirect knowledge or indirectly justified belief to the
evidence: to give an account of either of the latter is to give an account of
the basing relation. There is a narrower view of the basing relation, perhaps
implicit in the first. A person knows some proposition P on the basis of
evidence or reasons only if her belief that P is based on the evidence or
reasons, or perhaps on the possession of the evidence or reasons. The narrow
basing relation is indicated by this question: where a belief that P
constitutes indirect knowledge or justification, what is it for that belief to
be based on the evidence or reasons that support the knowledge or
justification? The most widely favored view is that the relevant belief is
based on evidence or reasons only if the belief is causally related to the
belief or reasons. Proponents of this causal view differ concerning what, beyond
this causal relationship, is needed by an account of the narrow basing
relation.
batailleian communicatum:
g., philosopher and novelist with enormous influence on post-structuralist
thought. By locating value in expenditure as opposed to accumulation, Bataille
inaugurates the era of the death of the subject. He insists that individuals
must transgress the limits imposed by subjectivity to escape isolation and
communicate. Bataille’s prewar philosophical contributions consist mainly of
short essays, the most significant of which have been collected in Visions of
Excess. These essays introduce the central idea that base matter disrupts
rational subjectivity by attesting to the continuity in which individuals lose
themselves. Inner Experience, Bataille’s first lengthy philosophical treatise,
was followed by Guilty 4 and On Nietzsche 5. Together, these three works
constitute Bataille’s Summa Atheologica, which explores the play of the
isolation and the dissolution of beings in terms of the experience of excess
laughter, tears, eroticism, death, sacrifice, poetry. The Accursed Share 9,
which he considered his most important work, is his most systematic account of
the social and economic implications of expenditure. In Erotism 7 and The Tears
of Eros 1, he focuses on the excesses of sex and death. Throughout his life,
Bataille was concerned with the question of value. He located it in the excess
that lacerates individuals and opens channels of communication.
bath:
Grice never referred to William of Occam as “William” (“that would be rude”).
Similarlly, his Adelard of Bath is referred to as “Bath.” (“Sometimes I wish
people would refer to me as “Harborne” but that was the day!”). “Of course, it
is amusing to refer to adelard as “Bath” since he was only there for twelve
years! But surely to call him “Oxford” would be supernumerary!”. Grice found
inspiration on Adelard’s “On the same and the different,” and he was pleased
that he had been educated not far from Bath, at Clifton! Adelard is Benedictine
monk notable for his contributions to the introduction of Arabic science in the
West. After studying at Tours, he taught at Laon, then spent seven years
traveling in Italy, possibly Spain, and Cilicia and Syria, before returning to
England. In his dialogue On the Same and the Different, he remarks, concerning
universals, that the names of individuals, species, and genera are imposed on
the same essence regarded in different respects. He also wrote Seventy-six
Questions on Nature, based on Arabic learning; works on the use of the abacus
and the astrolabe; a work on falconry; and translations of Abu Ma’shar’s Arabic
active euthanasia Adelard of Bath 9 4065A-
9 Shorter Introduction to Astronomy, al-Khwarizmi’s fl. c.830
astronomical tables, and Euclid’s Elements.
baumgarten:
a. g. – Grice loved his coinage of ‘aesthetics’-- Alexander Gottlieb 171462, G.
philosopher. Born in Berlin, he was educated in Halle and taught at Halle
173840 and Frankfurt an der Oder 174062. Baumgarten was brought up in the
Pietist circle of A. H. Francke but adopted the anti-Pietist rationalism of
Wolff. He wrote textbooks in metabasic particular Baumgarten, Alexander
Gottlieb 73 73 physics Metaphysica,
1739 and ethics Ethica Philosophica, 1740; Initia Philosophiae Practicae Prima
[“First Elements of Practical Philosophy”], 1760 on which Kant lectured. For
the most part, Baumgarten did not significantly depart from Wolff, although in
metaphysics he was both further and yet closer to Leibniz than was Wolff:
unlike Leibniz, he argued for real physical influx, but, unlike Wolff, he did
not restrict preestablished harmony to the mindbody relationship alone, but
paradoxically reextended it to include all relations of substances.
Baumgarten’s claim to fame, however, rests on his introduction of the discipline
of aesthetics into G. philosophy, and indeed on his introduction of the term
‘aesthetics’ as well. Wolff had explained pleasure as the response to the
perception of perfection by means of the senses, in turn understood as clear
but confused perception. Baumgarten subtly but significantly departed from
Wolff by redefining our response to beauty as pleasure in the perfection of
sensory perception, i.e., in the unique potential of sensory as opposed to
merely conceptual representation. This concept was first introduced in his
dissertation Meditationes Philosophicae de Nonnullis ad Poema Pertinentibus
“Philosophical Meditations on some Matters pertaining to Poetry,” 1735, which
defined a poem as a “perfect sensate discourse,” and then generalized in his twovolume
but still incomplete Aesthetica 1750 58. One might describe Baumgarten’s
aesthetics as cognitivist but no longer rationalist: while in science or logic
we must always prefer discursive clarity, in art we respond with pleasure to
the maximally dense or “confused” intimation of ideas. Baumgarten’s theory had
great influence on Lessing and Mendelssohn, on Kant’s theory of aesthetic
ideas, and even on the aesthetics of Hegel.
bayle:
p., Grice on longitudinal history of philosophy. philosopher who also pioneered
in disinterested, critical history. A Calvinist forced into exile in 1681,
Bayle nevertheless rejected the prevailing use of history as an instrument of
partisan or sectarian interest. He achieved fame and notoriety with his
multivolume Dictionnaire historique et critique 1695. For each subject covered,
Bayle provided a biographical sketch and a dispassionate examination of the
historical record and interpretive controversies. He also repeatedly probed the
troubled and troubling boundary between reason and faith philosophy and
religion. In the article “David,” the seemingly illicit conduct of God’s
purported agent yielded reflections on the morals of the elect and the autonomy
of ethics. In “Pyrrho,” Bayle argued that self-evidence, the most plausible
candidate for the criterion of truth, is discredited by Christianity because
some self-evident principles contradict essential Christian truths and are
therefore false. Finally, provoking Leibniz’s Theodicy, Bayle argued, most
relentlessly in “Manichaeans” and “Paulicians,” that there is no defensible
rational solution to the problem of evil. Bayle portrayed himself as a
Christian skeptic, but others have seen instead an ironic critic of
religion a precursor of the Enlightenment. Bayle’s purely philosophical
reflections support his self-assessment, since he consistently maintains that
philosophy achieves not comprehension and contentment, but paradox and
puzzlement. In making this case he proved to be a superb critic of
philosophical systems. Some examples are “Zeno of Elea” on space, time, and motion; “Rorarius” on mind and body and animal mechanism; and
“Spinoza” on the perils of monism.
Bayle’s skepticism concerning philosophy significantly influenced Berkeley and
Hume. His other important works include Pensées diverses de la comète de 1683
1683; Commentaire philosophique sur ces paroles de Jesus Christ: contrain les
d’entrer 1686; and Réponse aux questions d’un provincial1704; and an early
learned periodical, the Nouvelles de la République des Lettres 1684 87.
beattie,
j. Common-sense – H. P. Grice, “The so-called English common-sense,” Beattie:
j. philosopher and poet who, in criticizing Hume, widened the latter’s
audience. A member of the Scottish school of common sense philosophy along with
Oswald and Reid, Beattie’s major work was An Essay on the Nature and
Immutability of Truth 1771, in which he criticizes Hume for fostering
skepticism and infidelity. His positive view was that the mind possesses a
common sense, i.e., a power for perceiving self-evident truths. Common sense is
instinctive, unalterable by education; truth is what common sense determines
the mind to believe. Beattie cited Hume and then claimed that his views led to
moral and religious evils. When Beattie’s Essay was tr. into G. 1772, Kant
could read Hume’s discussions of personal identity and causation. Since these
topics were not covered in Hume’s Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding,
Beattie provided Kant access to two issues in the Treatises of Human Nature
critical to the development of transcendental idealism.
beccaria,
c. philosopher – Referred to by H. P.
Grice in his explorations on moral versus legal right, studied in Parma and
Pavia and taught political economy in Milan. Here, he met Pietro and Alessandro
Verri and other Milanese intellectuals attempting to promote political,
economical, and judiciary reforms. His major work, Dei delitti e delle pene “On
Crimes and Punishments,” 1764, denounces the contemporary methods in the
administration of justice and the treatment of criminals. Beccaria argues that
the highest good is the greatest happiness shared by the greatest number of
people; hence, actions against the state are the most serious crimes. Crimes
against individuals and property are less serious, and crimes endangering
public harmony are the least serious. The purposes of punishment are deterrence
and the protection of society. However, the employment of torture to obtain
confessions is unjust and useless: it results in acquittal of the strong and
the ruthless and conviction of the weak and the innocent. Beccaria also rejects
the death penalty as a war of the state against the individual. He claims that
the duration and certainty of the punishment, not its intensity, most strongly
affect criminals. Beccaria was influenced by Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Condillac.
His major work was tr. into many languages and set guidelines for revising the
criminal and judicial systems of several European countries.
actum:
-- behaviourism.
Grice was amused that what Ryle thought was behaviouristic was already pervaded
wiith mentalistic talk! Referred to by H. P. Grice in his criticism of Gilbert
Ryle. Ironically, Chomsky misjudged Grice as a behaviourist, but Chomsky’s
critique was demolished by P. Suppes, broadly, the view that behavior is
fundamental in understanding mental phenomena. The term applies both to a
scientific research Beauvoir, Simone de behaviorism 76 76 program in psychology and to a
philosophical doctrine. Accordingly, we distinguish between scientific
psychological, methodological behaviorism and philosophical logical, analytical
behaviorism. Scientific behaviorism. First propounded by the psychologist J. B. Watson who introduced the
term in 3 and further developed especially by C. L. Hull, E. C. Tolman, and B.
F. Skinner, it departed from the introspectionist tradition by redefining the
proper task of psychology as the explanation and prediction of behavior where to explain behavior is to provide a
“functional analysis” of it, i.e., to specify the independent variables stimuli
of which the behavior response is lawfully a function. It insisted that all
variables including behavior as the
dependent variable must be specifiable
by the experimental procedures of the natural sciences: merely introspectible,
internal states of consciousness are thus excluded from the proper domain of
psychology. Although some behaviorists were prepared to admit internal
neurophysiological conditions among the variables “intervening variables”,
others of more radical bent e.g. Skinner insisted on environmental variables
alone, arguing that any relevant variations in the hypothetical inner states
would themselves in general be a function of variations in past and present
environmental conditions as, e.g., thirst is a function of water deprivation.
Although some basic responses are inherited reflexes, most are learned and
integrated into complex patterns by a process of conditioning. In classical
respondent conditioning, a response already under the control of a given
stimulus will be elicited by new stimuli if these are repeatedly paired with
the old stimulus: this is how we learn to respond to new situations. In operant
conditioning, a response that has repeatedly been followed by a reinforcing
stimulus reward will occur with greater frequency and will thus be “selected”
over other possible responses: this is how we learn new responses. Conditioned
responses can also be unlearned or “extinguished” by prolonged dissociation
from the old eliciting stimuli or by repeated withholding of the reinforcing
stimuli. To show how all human behavior, including “cognitive” or intelligent
behavior, can be “shaped” by such processes of selective reinforcement and
extinction of responses was the ultimate objective of scientific behaviorism.
Grave difficulties in the way of the realization of this objective led to
increasingly radical liberalization of the distinctive features of behaviorist
methodology and eventually to its displacement by more cognitively oriented
approaches e.g. those inspired by information theory and by Chomsky’s work in
linguistics. Philosophical behaviorism. A semantic thesis about the meaning of
mentalistic expressions, it received its most sanguine formulation by the
logical positivists particularly Carnap, Hempel, and Ayer, who asserted that
statements containing mentalistic expressions have the same meaning as, and are
thus translatable into, some set of publicly verifiable confirmable, testable
statements describing behavioral and bodily processes and dispositions
including verbalbehavioral dispositions. Because of the reductivist concerns
expressed by the logical positivist thesis of physicalism and the unity of
science, logical behaviorism as some positivists preferred to call it was a
corollary of the thesis that psychology is ultimately via a behavioristic
analysis reducible to physics, and that all of its statements, like those of
physics, are expressible in a strictly extensional language. Another
influential formulation of philosophical behaviorism is due to Ryle The Concept
of Mind, 9, whose classic critique of Cartesian dualism rests on the view that
mental predicates are often used to ascribe dispositions to behave in
characteristic ways: but such ascriptions, for Ryle, have the form of
conditional, lawlike statements whose function is not to report the occurrence
of inner states, physical or non-physical, of which behavior is the causal
manifestation, but to license inferences about how the agent would behave if
certain conditions obtained. To suppose that all declarative uses of mental
language have a fact-stating or -reporting role at all is, for Ryle, to make a
series of “category mistakes” of which
both Descartes and the logical positivists were equally guilty. Unlike the
behaviorism of the positivists, Ryle’s behaviorism required no physicalistic
reduction of mental language, and relied instead on ordinary language
descriptions of human behavior. A further version of philosophical behaviorism
can be traced to Vitters Philosophical Investigations, 3, who argues that the
epistemic criteria for the applicability of mentalistic terms cannot be
private, introspectively accessible inner states but must instead be
intersubjectively observable behavior. Unlike the previously mentioned versions
of philosophical behaviorism, Vitters’s behaviorism seems to be consistent with
metaphysical mindbody dualism, and is thus also non-reductivist. behaviorism
behaviorism 77 77 Philosophical
behaviorism underwent severe criticism in the 0s and 0s, especially by
Chisholm, Charles Taylor, Putnam, and Fodor. Nonetheless it still lives on in
more or less attenuated forms in the work of such diverse philosophers as
Quine, Dennett, Armstrong, David Lewis, U. T. Place, and Dummett. Though
current “functionalism” is often referred to as the natural heir to
behaviorism, functionalism especially of the Armstrong-Lewis variety crucially
differs from behaviorism in insisting that mental predicates, while definable
in terms of behavior and behavioral dispositions, nonetheless designate inner
causal states states that are apt to
cause certain characteristic behaviors.
-- behavior therapy, a spectrum of behavior modification techniques
applied as therapy, such as aversion therapy, extinction, modeling,
redintegration, operant conditioning, and desensitization. Unlike
psychotherapy, which probes a client’s recollected history, behavior therapy
focuses on immediate behavior, and aims to eliminate undesired behavior and
produce desired behavior through methods derived from the experimental analysis
of behavior and from reinforcement theory. A chronic problem with psychotherapy
is that the client’s past is filtered through limited and biased recollection.
Behavior therapy is more mechanical, creating systems of reinforcement and
conditioning that may work independently of the client’s long-term memory. Collectively,
behavior-therapeutic techniques compose a motley set. Some behavior therapists
adapt techniques from psychotherapy, as in covert desensitization, where
verbally induced mental images are employed as reinforcers. A persistent
problem with behavior therapy is that it may require repeated application.
Consider aversion therapy. It consists of pairing painful or punishing stimuli
with unwelcome behavior. In the absence, after therapy, of the painful
stimulus, the behavior may recur because association between behavior and
punishment is broken. Critics charge that behavior therapy deals with immediate
disturbances and overt behavior, to the neglect of underlying problems and
irrationalities. Behaviourism. Chomsky,
a. n. – cites H. P. Grice as “A. P. Grice” -- preeminent philosopher, and political activist who has
spent his professional career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Chomsky’s best-known scientific achievement is the establishment of a rigorous
and philosophically compelling foundation for the scientific study of the
grammar of natural language. With the use of tools from the study of formal
languages, he gave a far more precise and explanatory account of natural
language grammar than had previously been given Syntactic Structures, 7. He has
since developed a number of highly influential frameworks for the study of
natural language grammar e.g., Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, 5; Lectures on
Government and Binding, 1; The Minimalist Program, 5. Though there are
significant differences in detail, there are also common themes that underlie
these approaches. Perhaps the most central is that there is an innate set of
linguistic principles shared by all humans, and the purpose of linguistic
inquiry is to describe the initial state of the language learner, and account
for linguistic variation via the most general possible mechanisms. On Chomsky’s
conception of linguistics, languages are structures in the brains of individual
speakers, described at a certain level of abstraction within the theory. These
structures occur within the language faculty, a hypothesized module of the
human brain. Universal Grammar is the set of principles hard-wired into the
language faculty that determine the class of possible human languages. This
conception of linguistics involves several influential and controversial
theses. First, the hypothesis of a Universal Grammar entails the existence of
innate linguistic principles. Secondly, the hypothesis of a language faculty
entails that our linguistic abilities, at least so far as grammar is concerned,
are not a product of general reasoning processes. Finally, and perhaps most
controversially, since having one of these structures is an intrinsic property
of a speaker, properties of languages so conceived are determined solely by
states of the speaker. On this individualistic conception of language, there is
no room in scientific linguistics for the social entities determined by
linguistic communities that are languages according to previous anthropological
conceptions of the discipline. Many of Chomsky’s most significant contributions
to philosophy, such as his influential rejection of behaviorism “Review of
Skinner’s Verbal Behavior,” Language, 9, stem from his elaborations and
defenses of the above consequences cf. also Cartesian Linguistics, 6;
Reflections on Language, 5; Rules and Representations, 0; Knowledge of
Language, 6. Chomsky’s philosophical writings are characterized by an adherence
to methodological naturalism, the view that the mind should be studied like any
other natural phenomenon. In recent years, he has also argued that reference,
in the sense in which it is used in the philosophy of language, plays no role
in a scientific theory of language “Language and Nature,” Mind, 5.
beneke:
a Kantian commentator beloved by Grice (“if only because he could read Kant in
the vernacular!”)-- philosopher who was influenced by Herbart and English
empiricism and criticized rationalistic metaphysics. He taught at Berlin and
published some eighteen books in philosophy. His major work was Lehrbuch der
Psychologie als Naturwissenschaft 1833. He wrote a critical study of Kant’s
Critique of Pure Reason and another on his moral theory; other works included
Psychologie Skizzen 1825, Metaphysik und Religionphilosophie 1840, and Die neue
Psychologie 1845. The “new psychology” developed by Beneke held that the
hypostatization of “faculties” led to a mythical psychology. He proposed a
method that would yield a natural science of the soul or, in effect, an associationist
psychology. Influenced by the British empiricists, he conceived the elements of
mental life as dynamic, active processes or impulses Trieben. These “elementary
faculties,” originally activated by stimuli, generate the substantial unity of
the nature of the psychic by their persistence as traces, as well as by their
reciprocal adjustment in relation to the continuous production of new forces.
In what Beneke called “pragmatic psychology,” the psyche is a bundle of
impulses, forces, and functions. Psychological theory should rest on inductive
analyses of the facts of inner perception. This, in turn, is the foundation of
the philosophical disciplines of logic, ethics, metaphysics, and philosophy of
religion. In this regard, Beneke held a psychologism. He agreed with Herbart
that psychology must be based on inner experience and must eschew metaphysical
speculation, but rejected Hebart’s mathematical reductionism. Beneke sought to
create a “pragmatic philosophy” based on his psychology. In his last years he contributed
to pedagogic theory.
benthamian:
-- semiotics -- j. Engish philosopher of ethics and political-legal theory.
Born in London, he entered Queen’s, Oxford, at age 12, and after graduation
entered Lincoln’s Inn to study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1767 but
never practiced. He spent his life writing, advocating changes along
utilitarian lines maximal happiness for everyone affected of the whole legal
system, especially the criminal law. He was a strong influence in changes of
the British law of evidence; in abolition of laws permitting imprisonment for
indebtedness; in the belief, basic Bentham, Jeremy 79 79 reform of Parliamentary representation;
in the formation of a civil service recruited by examination; and in much else.
His major work published during his lifetime was An Introduction to the
Principles of Morals and Legislation 1789. He became head of a “radical” group
including James Mill and J. S. Mill, and founded the Westminster Review
and , London where his embalmed body
still reposes in a closet. He was a friend of Catherine of Russia and John
Quincy Adams, and was made a citizen of France in 1792. Pleasure, he said, is
the only good, and pain the only evil: “else the words good and evil have no
meaning.” He gives a list of examples of what he means by ‘pleasure’: pleasures
of taste, smell, or touch; of acquiring property; of learning that one has the
goodwill of others; of power; of a view of the pleasures of those one cares
about. Bentham was also a psychological hedonist: pleasures and pains determine
what we do. Take pain. Your state of mind may be painful now at the time just
prior to action because it includes the expectation of the pain say of being
burned; the present pain or the expectation of later pain Bentham is undecided which motivates action
to prevent being burned. One of a person’s pleasures, however, may be
sympathetic enjoyment of the well-being of another. So it seems one can be
motivated by the prospect of the happiness of another. His psychology here is
not incompatible with altruistic motivation. Bentham’s critical utilitarianism
lies in his claim that any action, or measure of government, ought to be taken
if and only if it tends to augment the happiness of everyone affected not at all a novel principle, historically.
When “thus interpreted, the words ought, and right and wrong . . . have a
meaning: when otherwise, they have none.” Bentham evidently did not mean this
statement as a purely linguistic point about the actual meaning of moral terms.
Neither can this principle be proved; it is a first principle from which all
proofs proceed. What kind of reason, then, can he offer in its support? At one
point he says that the principle of utility, at least unconsciously, governs
the judgment of “every thinking man . . . unavoidably.” But his chief answer is
his critique of a widely held principle that a person properly calls an act
wrong if when informed of the facts he disapproves of it. Bentham cites other
language as coming to the same thesis: talk of a “moral sense,” or common
sense, or the understanding, or the law of nature, or right reason, or the
“fitness of things.” He says that this is no principle at all, since a
“principle is something that points out some external consideration, as a means
of warranting and guiding the internal sentiments of approbation. . . .” The
alleged principle also allows for widespread disagreement about what is moral.
So far, Bentham’s proposal has not told us exactly how to determine whether an
action or social measure is right or wrong. Bentham suggests a hedonic
calculus: in comparing two actions under consideration, we count up the
pleasures or pains each will probably produce
how intense, how long-lasting, whether near or remote, including any
derivative later pleasures or pains that may be caused, and sum them up for all
persons who will be affected. Evidently these directions can provide at best
only approximate results. We are in no position to decide whether one pleasure
for one hour is greater than another pleasure for half an hour, even when they
are both pleasures of one person who can compare them. How much more when the
pleasures are of different persons? Still, we can make judgments important for
the theory of punishment: whether a blow in the face with no lasting damage for
one person is more or less painful than fifty lashes for his assailant! Bentham
has been much criticized because he thought that two pleasures are equal in
value, if they are equally intense, enduring, etc. As he said, “Quantity of
pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry.” It has been thought e.g.,
by J. S. Mill that some pleasures, especially intellectual ones, are higher and
deserve to count more. But it may be replied that the so-called higher
pleasures are more enduring, are less likely to be followed by satiety, and
open up new horizons of enjoyment; and when these facts are taken into account,
it is not clear that there is need to accord higher status to intellectual
pleasures as such. A major goal of Bentham’s was to apply to the criminal law
his principle of maximizing the general utility. Bentham thought there should
be no punishment of an offense if it is not injurious to someone. So how much
punishment should there be? The least amount the effect of which will result in
a greater degree of happiness, overall. The benefit of punishment is primarily
deterrence, by attaching to the thought of a given act the thought of the
painful sanction which will deter both
the past and prospective lawbreakers. The punishment, then, must be severe
enough to outweigh the benefit of the offense to the agent, making allowance,
by addition, for the uncertainty that the punishment will actually occur. There
are some harmful acts, however, that it is Bentham, Jeremy Bentham, Jeremy 80 80 not beneficial to punish. One is an act
needful to produce a greater benefit, or avoid a serious evil, for the agent.
Others are those which a penal prohibition could not deter: when the law is
unpublished or the agent is insane or an infant. In some cases society need feel
no alarm about the future actions of the agent. Thus, an act is criminal only
if intentional, and the agent is excused if he acted on the basis of beliefs
such that, were they true, the act would have caused no harm, unless these
beliefs were culpable in the sense that they would not have been held by a
person of ordinary prudence or benevolence. The propriety of punishing an act
also depends somewhat on its motive, although no motive e.g., sexual desire,
curiosity, wanting money, love of reputation
is bad in itself. Yet the propriety of punishment is affected by the
presence of some motivations that enhance public security because it is
unlikely that they e.g., sympathetic
concern or concern for reputation will
lead to bad intentional acts. When a given motive leads to a bad intention, it
is usually because of the weakness of motives like sympathy, concern for
avoiding punishment, or respect for law. In general, the sanction of moral
criticism should take lines roughly similar to those of the ideal law. But
there are some forms of behavior, e.g., imprudence or fornication, which the
law is hardly suited to punish, that can be sanctioned by morality. The
business of the moral philosopher is censorial: to say what the law, or
morality, ought to be. To say what is the law is a different matter: what it is
is the commands of the sovereign, defined as one whom the public, in general,
habitually obeys. As consisting of commands, it is imperatival. The imperatives
may be addressed to the public, as in “Let no one steal,” or to judges: “Let a
judge sentence anyone who steals to be hanged.” It may be thought that there is
a third part, an explanation, say, of what is a person’s property; but this can
be absorbed in the imperatival part, since the designations of property are
just imperatives about who is to be free to do what. Why should anyone obey the
actual laws? Bentham’s answer is that one should do so if and only if it
promises to maximize the general happiness. He eschews contract theories of
political obligation: individuals now alive never contracted, and so how are
they bound? He also opposes appeal to natural rights. If what are often
mentioned as natural rights were taken seriously, no government could survive:
it could not tax, require military service, etc. Nor does he accept appeal to
“natural law,” as if, once some law is shown to be immoral, it can be said to
be not really law. That would be absurd.
berdyaevian:
n., philosopher studied by H. P. Grice for his ‘ontological Marxism,’ he began
as a “Kantian Marxist” in epistemology, ethical theory, and philosophy of
history, but soon turned away from Marxism although he continued to accept
Marx’s critique of capitalism toward a theistic philosophy of existence
stressing the values of creativity and “meonic” freedom a freedom allegedly prior to all being,
including that of God. In exile after 2, Berdyaev appears to have been the
first to grasp clearly in the early 0s that the Marxist view of historical time
involves a morally unacceptable devaluing and instrumentalizing of the
historical present including living persons for the sake of the remote future
end of a perfected communist society. Berdyaev rejects the Marxist position on
both Christian and Kantian grounds, as a violation of the intrinsic value of
human persons. He sees the historical order as marked by inescapable tragedy,
and welcomes the “end of history” as an “overcoming” of objective historical
time by subjective “existential” time with its free, unobjectified creativity.
For Berdyaev the “world of objects”
physical things, laws of nature, social institutions, and human roles
and relationships is a pervasive threat
to “free spiritual creativity.” Yet such creativity appears to be subject to
inevitable frustration, since its outward embodiments are always “partial and
fragmentary” and no “outward action” can escape ultimate “tragic failure.”
Russian Orthodox traditionalists condemned Berdyaev for claiming that all
creation is a “divine-human process” and for denying God’s omnipotence, but such
Western process theologians as Hartshorne find Berdyaev’s position highly
congenial.
bergmann:
g. infamous for calling H. P. Grice “one of them English futilitarians” --
philosopher, the youngest member of the Vienna Circle. Born in Vienna, he
received his doctorate in mathematics in 8 from the of Vienna. Originally influenced by logical
positivism, he became a phenomenalist who also posited mental acts irreducible
to sense-data see his The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism, 4. Although he
eventually rejected phenomenalism, his ontology of material objects remained
structurally phenomenalistic. Bergmann’s world is one of momentary bare i.e.
natureless particulars exemplifying phenomenally simple Berdyaev, Nicolas
Bergmann, Gustav 81 81 universals, relational
as well as non-relational. Some of these universals are non-mental, such as
color properties and spatial relations, while others, such as the “intentional
characters” in virtue of which some particulars mental acts intend or represent
the facts that are their “objects,” are mental. Bergmann insisted that the
world is independent of both our experience of it and our thought and discourse
about it: he claimed that the connection of exemplification and even the
propositional connectives and quantifiers are mind-independent. See Meaning and
Existence, 9; Logic and Reality, 4; and Realism: A Critique of Brentano and
Meinong, 7. Such extreme realism produced many criticisms of his philosophy
that are only finally addressed in Bergmann’s recently, and posthumously,
published book, New Foundations of Ontology 2, in which he concedes that his
atomistic approach to ontology has inevitable limitations and proposes a way of
squaring this insight with his thoroughgoing realism.
bergson:
Philosopher of central European ancestry born in Paris. The surname literally
means, ‘the son of the mountain,’ -- cited by H. P. Grice in “Personal
identity,” philosopher, the most influential of the first half of the twentieth
century. Born in Paris and educated at the prestigious École Normale
Supérieure, he began his teaching career at Clermont-Ferrand in 4 and was
called in 0 to the Collège de France, where his lectures enjoyed unparalleled
success until his retirement in 1. Ideally placed in la belle époque of prewar
Paris, his ideas influenced a broad spectrum of artistic, literary, social, and
political movements. In 8 he received the Légion d’honneur and was admitted
into the Academy. From 2 through 5 he
participated in the League of Nations, presiding over the creation of what was
later to become UNESCO. Forced by crippling arthritis into virtual seclusion
during his later years, Bergson was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in
8. Initially a disciple of Spencer, Bergson broke with him after a careful
examination of Spencer’s concept of time and mechanistic positivism. Following
a deeply entrenched tradition in Western thought, Spencer treats time on an
analogy with space as a series of discrete numerical units: instants, seconds,
minutes. When confronted with experience, however especially with that of our own psychological
states such concepts are, Bergson
concludes, patently inadequate. Real duration, unlike clock time, is
qualitative, dynamic, irreversible. It cannot be “spatialized” without being
deformed. It gives rise in us, moreover, to free acts, which, being qualitative
and spontaneous, cannot be predicted. Bergson’s dramatic contrast of real
duration and geometrical space, first developed in Time and Free Will 0, was
followed in 6 by the mind body theory of Matter and Memory. He argues here that
the brain is not a locale for thought but a motor organ that, receiving stimuli
from its environment, may respond with adaptive behavior. To his psychological
and metaphysical distinction between duration and space Bergson adds, in An
Introduction to Metaphysics 3, an important epistemological distinction between
intuition and analysis. Intuition probes the flow of duration in its
concreteness; analysis breaks up duration into static, fragmentary concepts. In
Creative Evolution 7, his best-known work, Bergson argues against both Lamarck
and Darwin, urging that biological evolution is impelled by a vital impetus or
élan vital that drives life to overcome the downward entropic drift of matter.
Biological organisms, unlike dice, must compete and survive as they undergo
permutations. Hence the unresolved dilemma of Darwinism. Either mutations occur
one or a few at a time in which case how can they be “saved up” to constitute
new organs? or they occur all at once in which case one has a “miracle”.
Bergson’s vitalism, popular in literary circles, was not accepted by many
scientists or philosophers. His most general contention, however that biological evolution is not consistent
with or even well served by a mechanistic philosophy was broadly appreciated and to many seemed
convincing. This aspect of Bergson’s writings influenced thinkers as diverse as
Lloyd Morgan, Alexis Carrel, Sewall Wright, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and A.
N. Whitehead. The contrasts in terms of which Bergson developed his thought
duration/space, intuition/ analysis, life/entropy are replaced in The Two
Sources of Morality and Religion 2 by a new duality, that of the “open” and the
“closed.” The Judeo-Christian tradition, he contends, if it has embraced in its
history both the open society and the closed society, exhibits in its great
saints and mystics a profound opening out of the human spirit toward all
humanity. Bergson’s distinction between the open and the closed society was
popularized by Karl Popper in his The Open Society and Its Enemies. While it
has attracted serious criticism, Bergson’s philosophy has also significantly
affected subsequent thinkers. Novelists as diverse as Bergson, Henri Louis
Bergson, Henri Louis 82 82 Nikos
Kazantzakis, Marcel Proust, and William Faulkner; poets as unlike as Charles
Péguy, Robert Frost, and Antonio Machado; and psychologists as dissimilar as
Pierre Janet and Jean Piaget were to profit significantly from his explorations
of duration, conceptualization, and memory. Both existentialism and process philosophy bear the imprint of his
thought.
berkeleyianism:
g., -- H. P. Grice thought he had found in Berkeley a good test for the
Austinian code – If something sounds harsh to Berkeley it sounds harsh. Irish
philosopher and bishop in the Anglican Church of Ireland, one of the three
great British empiricists along with Locke and Hume. He developed novel and
influential views on the visual perception of distance and size, and an
idealist metaphysical system that he defended partly on the seemingly
paradoxical ground that it was the best defense of common sense and safeguard
against skepticism. Berkeley studied at Trinity , Dublin, from which he
graduated at nineteen. He was elected to a fellowship at Trinity in 1707, and
did the bulk of his philosophical writing between that year and 1713. He was
made dean of Derry in 1724, following extensive traveling on the Continent; he
spent the years 172832 in Rhode Island, waiting in vain for promised Crown
funds to establish a in Bermuda. He was
made bishop of Cloyne, Ireland, in 1734, and he remained there as a cleric for
nearly the remainder of his life. Berkeley’s first major publication, the Essay
Towards a New Theory of Vision 1709, is principally a work in the psychology of
vision, though it has important philosophical presuppositions and implications.
Berkeley’s theory of vision became something like the received view on the
topic for nearly two hundred years and is a landmark work in the history of
psychology. The work is devoted to three connected matters: how do we see, or
visually estimate, the distances of objects from ourselves, the situation or
place at which objects are located, and the magnitude of such objects? Earlier
views, such as those of Descartes, Malebranche, and Molyneux, are rejected on
the ground that their answers to the above questions allow that a person can
see the distance of an object without having first learned to correlate visual
and other cues. This was supposedly done by a kind of natural geometry, a
computation of the distance by determining the altitude of a triangle formed by
light rays from the object and the line extending from one retina to the other.
On the contrary, Berkeley holds that it is clear that seeing distance is
something one learns to do through trial and error, mainly by correlating cues
that suggest distance: the distinctness or confusion of the visual appearance;
the feelings received when the eyes turn; and the sensations attending the
straining of the eyes. None of these bears any necessary connection to
distance. Berkeley infers from this account that a person born blind and later
given sight would not be able to tell by sight alone the distances objects were
from her, nor tell the difference between a sphere and a cube. He also argues
that in visually estimating distance, one is really estimating which tangible
ideas one would likely experience if one were to take steps to approach the
object. Not that these tangible ideas are themselves necessarily connected to
the visual appearances. Instead, Berkeley holds that tangible and visual ideas
are entirely heterogeneous, i.e., they are numerically and specifically
distinct. The latter is a philosophical consequence of Berkeley’s theory of
vision, which is sharply at odds with a central doctrine of Locke’s Essay,
namely, that some ideas are common to both sight and touch. Locke’s doctrines
also receive a great deal of attention in the Principles of Human Knowledge
1710. Here Berkeley considers the doctrine of abstract general ideas, which he
finds in Book III of Locke’s Essay. He argues against such ideas partly on the
ground that we cannot engage in the process of abstraction, partly on the
ground that some abstract ideas are impossible objects, and also on the ground
that such ideas are not needed for either language learning or language use.
These arguments are of fundamental importance for Berkeley, since he thinks
that the doctrine of abstract ideas helps to support metaphysical realism,
absolute space, absolute motion, and absolute time Principles, 5, 100, 11011,
as well as the view that some ideas are common to sight and touch New Theory,
123. All of these doctrines Berkeley holds to be mistaken, and the first is in
direct conflict with his idealism. Hence, it is important for him to undermine
any support these doctrines might receive from the abstract ideas thesis.
Berkeleyan idealism is the view that the only existing entities are finite and
infinite perceivers each of which is a spirit or mental substance, and entities
that are perceived. Such a thesis implies that ordinary physical objects exist
if and only if they are perceived, something Berkeley encapsulates in the esse
est percipi principle: for all senBerkeley, George Berkeley, George 83 83 sible objects, i.e., objects capable of
being perceived, their being is to be perceived. He gives essentially two
arguments for this thesis. First, he holds that every physical object is just a
collection of sensible qualities, and that every sensible quality is an idea.
So, physical objects are just collections of sensible ideas. No idea can exist
unperceived, something everyone in the period would have granted. Hence, no
physical object can exist unperceived. The second argument is the socalled
master argument of Principles 2224. There Berkeley argues that one cannot
conceive a sensible object existing unperceived, because if one attempts to do
this one must thereby conceive that very object. He concludes from this that no
such object can exist “without the mind,” that is, wholly unperceived. Many of
Berkeley’s opponents would have held instead that a physical object is best
analyzed as a material substratum, in which some sensible qualities inhere. So
Berkeley spends some effort arguing against material substrata or what he sometimes
calls matter. His principal argument is that a sensible quality cannot inhere
in matter, because a sensible quality is an idea, and surely an idea cannot
exist except in a mind. This argument would be decisive if it were true that
each sensible quality is an idea. Unfortunately, Berkeley gives no argument
whatever for this contention in the Principles, and for that reason Berkeleyan
idealism is not there well founded. Nor does the master argument fare much
better, for there Berkeley seems to require a premise asserting that if an
object is conceived, then that object is perceived. Yet such a premise is
highly dubious. Probably Berkeley realized that his case for idealism had not
been successful, and certainly he was stung by the poor reception of the Principles.
His next book, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous 1713, is aimed at
rectifying these matters. There he argues at length for the thesis that each
sensible quality is an idea. The master argument is repeated, but it is
unnecessary if every sensible quality is an idea. In the Dialogues Berkeley is
also much concerned to combat skepticism and defend common sense. He argues
that representative realism as held by Locke leads to skepticism regarding the
external world and this, Berkeley thinks, helps to support atheism and free
thinking in religion. He also argues, more directly, that representative
realism is false. Such a thesis incorporates the claim that somesensible ideas
represent real qualities in objects, the so-called primary qualities. But
Berkeley argues that a sensible idea can be like nothing but another idea, and
so ideas cannot represent qualities in objects. In this way, Berkeley
eliminates one main support of skepticism, and to that extent helps to support
the commonsensical idea that we gain knowledge of the existence and nature of
ordinary physical objects by means of perception. Berkeley’s positive views in
epistemology are usually interpreted as a version of foundationalism. That is,
he is generally thought to have defended the view that beliefs about currently
perceived ideas are basic beliefs, beliefs that are immediately and
non-inferentially justified or that count as pieces of immediate knowledge, and
that all other justified beliefs in contingent propositions are justified by
being somehow based upon the basic beliefs. Indeed, such a foundationalist
doctrine is often taken to help define empiricism, held in common by Locke,
Berkeley, and Hume. But whatever the merits of such a view as an interpretation
of Locke or Hume, it is not Berkeley’s theory. This is because he allows that
perceivers often have immediate and noninferential justified beliefs, and
knowledge, about physical objects. Hence, Berkeley accepts a version of
foundationalism that allows for basic beliefs quite different from just beliefs
about one’s currently perceived ideas. Indeed, he goes so far as to maintain
that such physical object beliefs are often certain, something neither Locke
nor Hume would accept. In arguing against the existence of matter, Berkeley also
maintains that we literally have no coherent concept of such stuff because we
cannot have any sensible idea of it. Parity of reasoning would seem to dictate
that Berkeley should reject mental substance as well, thereby threatening his
idealism from another quarter. Berkeley is sensitive to this line of reasoning,
and replies that while we have no idea of the self, we do have some notion of
the self, that is, some lessthan-complete concept. He argues that a person
gains some immediate knowledge of the existence and nature of herself in a
reflex act; that is, when she is perceiving something she is also conscious
that something is engaging in this perception, and this is sufficient for
knowledge of that perceiving entity. To complement his idealism, Berkeley
worked out a version of scientific instrumentalism, both in the Principles and
in a later Latin work, De Motu 1721, a doctrine that anticipates the views of
Mach. In the Dialogues he tries to show how his idealism is consistent with the
biblical account of the creation, and consistent as well with common sense.
Berkeley, George Berkeley, George 84 84
Three later works of Berkeley’s gained him an enormous amount of attention.
Alciphron 1734 was written while Berkeley was in Rhode Island, and is a philosophical
defense of Christian doctrine. It also contains some additional comments on
perception, supplementing earlier work on that topic. The Analyst 1734 contains
trenchant criticism of the method of fluxions in differential calculus, and it
set off a flurry of pamphlet replies to Berkeley’s criticisms, to which
Berkeley responded in his A Defense of Free Thinking in Mathematics. Siris 1744
contains a detailed account of the medicinal values of tar-water, water boiled
with the bark of certain trees. This book also contains a defense of a sort of
corpuscularian philosophy that seems to be at odds with the idealism elaborated
in the earlier works for which Berkeley is now famous. In the years 170708, the
youthful Berkeley kept a series of notebooks in which he worked out his ideas
in philosophy and mathematics. These books, now known as the Philosophical
Commentaries, provide the student of Berkeley with the rare opportunity to see
a great philosopher’s thought in development.
H. P. Grice was a member of the Oxford Berkeley Society. The Bishop and
The Cricketer Agree: It Does Sound Harsh! When
"The Times" published a note on Grice, anonymous, as obituaries
should be, but some suspect P. F. S.) it went, "H. P. Grice, professional
philosopher and amateur cricketer."Surely P. F. S. may have been involved,
since some always preferred the commuted conjunction: "H. P. Grice, cricketer
-- and philosopher."At one time, to be a 'professional' cricketer was a
no-no.At one time, to be a 'professional' philosopher was a no-no -- witness
Socrates!But you never know.It's TOTALLY different when it comes to
BISHOPS!Grice loved that phrase, "sounds harsh." "The Austinian
in the Bishop."Bishop Berkeley and H. P. Grice -- Two Ways of
Representing: Likeness Or Not.Bishop Berkeley’s views on representation,
broadly construed, relate to H. P. Grice’s views on representation, broadly
construed.In essay, “Berkeley: An Interpretation,” Kenneth Winkler
argues that Bishop Berkeley sees representation as working in one of two
ways.Representation works either in the same way that an expression signifies
an idea (Grice’s non-iconic) or by means of resemblance (Grice’s iconic).But we
need to explore that distinction.This all relates to Bishop Berkeley’s and
Grice’s views on language, their theory of resemblance, and the role that
representation plays in their philosophiesmore widely.It is interesting to consider,
of course, Berkeley’s predecessors (e.g., Descartes, Locke, that Grice revered
in the choice of the title of his compilation of essays, “Studies in THE WAY OF
WORDS,” or WoW for short), Bishop Berkeley’s contemporaries (e.g., William
King, Anthony Collins), and subsequent thinkers (e.g. Hume, Shepherd, and of
course Grice) accepted this distinction – and their connection to the
development of both Bishoop Berkeley’s and Grice’s thought.Some philosophers
connect Bishop Berkeley and Grice to non-canonical figures or those which
defend novel interpretations of Berkeley’s or Grice’s own thought.Which ARE
Bishop Berkeley’s and Grice’s view on the connection between representation and
resemblance?Is Winkler right to attribute two types of representation to Berkeley?
Could Winkler’s observations have a bearing on Grice?Do Bishop Berkeley’s and
Grice’s contemporaries accept the distinction between signification and
representation? (Grice’s favourite example: “A cricket team may do for England
what England cannot do: engage in a game of cricket.”)Grice explores this in
the “Valediction” to his “Way of Words”:“We
might we well advised,” Grice says, “to consider more closely the nature of
representation and its connection with meaning, and to do so in the light of
three perhaps not implausible suppositions.”(1) that representation by means of
verbal formulation is an artificial and noniconic mode of representation.(2)
that to replace an iconic system by a noniconic system will be to introduce a
new and more powerful extension of the original system, one which can do
everything the former system can do and more besides.(3) that every
artificial or noniconic system is based on an antecedent NATURAL iconic
system.Descriptive representation must look back to and in part do the work of
prior iconic representation.That work will consist in the representation of
objects and situations in the world in something like the way in which a team
of North Oxfordshire cricketers may represent, say North Oxfordshire. The
cricketers do on behalf of North Oxfordshire something that North Oxfordshire
cannot do for itself, namely engage in a game of cricket.“Similarly, our
representations (initially iconic but also noniconic) enable objects and
situations in the world to do something which objects and situations cannot do
for themselves, namely govern our actions and behaviour.”Etc.Grice loved
to quote the Bishop on this or that ‘sounding harsh.’ “Surely, the Bishop would
agree with me that it sounds harsh to say that Smith’s brain’s s being in such and such a
state at noon is a case of judging something to be true on insufficient evidence."We
hope neither will agree THIS sounds harsh, either, as North-Oxfordshire
engaging in a game of cricket does not really, either.
berlin: “If Berlin and I have something in common is a tutor!” – H. P. Grice. Berlin:
I. Russian-born philosopher and historian of ideas. He is widely acclaimed for
his doctrine of radical objective pluralism; his writings on liberty; his
modification, refinement, and defense of traditional liberalism against the
totalitarian doctrines of the twentieth century not least Marxism-Leninism; and
his brilliant and illuminating studies in the history of ideas from Machiavelli
and Vico to Marx and Sorel. A founding father with Austin, Ayer, and others of
Oxford philosophy in the 0s, he published several influential papers in its
general spirit, but, without abandoning its empirical approach, he came
increasingly to dissent from what seemed to him its unduly barren, doctrinaire,
and truthdenying tendencies. From the 0s onward he broke away to devote himself
principally to social and political philosophy and to the study of general
ideas. His two most important contributions in social and political theory,
brought together with two other valuable essays in Four Essays on Liberty 9,
are “Historical Inevitability” 4 and his 8 inaugural lecture as Chichele
Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford, “Two Concepts of Liberty.”
The first is a bold and decisive attack on historical determinism and moral
relativism and subjectivism and a ringing endorsement of the role of free will
and responsibility in human history. The second contains Berlin’s enormously
influential attempt to distinguish clearly between “negative” and “positive”
liberty. Negative liberty, foreshadowed by such thinkers as J. S. Mill,
Constant, and above all Herzen, consists in making minimal assumptions about
the ultimate nature and needs of the subject, in ensuring a minimum of external
interference by authority of any provenance, and in leaving open as large a
field for free individual choice as is consonant with a minimum of social
organization and order. Positive liberty, associated with monist and
voluntarist thinkers of all kinds, not least Hegel, the G. Idealists, and their
historical progeny, begins with the notion of self-mastery and proceeds to make
dogmatic and far-reaching metaphysical assumptions about the essence of the
subject. It then deduces from these the proper paths to freedom, and, finally,
seeks to drive flesh-and-blood individuals down these preordained paths,
whether they wish it or not, within the framework of a tight-knit centralized
state under the irrefragable rule of rational experts, thus perverting what
begins as a legitimate human ideal, i.e. positive self-direction and
self-mastery, into a tyranny. “Two Concepts of Liberty” also sets out to
disentangle liberty in either of these senses from other ends, such as the
craving for recognition, the need to belong, or human solidarity, fraternity,
or equality. Berlin’s work in the history of ideas is of a piece with his other
writings. Vico and Herder 6 presents the emergence of that historicism and
pluralism which shook the two-thousand-yearold monist rationalist faith in a
unified body of truth regarding all questions of fact and principle in all
fields of human knowledge. From this profound intellectual overturn Berlin
traces in subsequent volumes of essays, such as Against the Current 9, The
Crooked Timber of Humanity 0, and The Sense of Reality 6, the growth of some of
the principal intellectual movements that mark our era, among them nationalism,
fascism, relativism, subjectivism, nihilism, voluntarism, and existentialism.
He also presents with persuasiveness and clarity that peculiar objective
pluralism which he identified and made his own. There is an irreducible
plurality of objective human values, many of which are incompatible with one
another; hence the ineluctable need for absolute choices by individuals and
groups, a need that confers supreme value upon, and forms one of the major
justifications of, his conception of negative liberty; Berlin, Isaiah Berlin,
Isaiah 85 85 hence, too, his insistence
that utopia, namely a world where all valid human ends and objective values are
simultaneously realized in an ultimate synthesis, is a conceptual
impossibility. While not himself founder of any definable school or movement,
Berlin’s influence as a philosopher and as a human being has been immense, not
least on a variety of distinguished thinkers such as Stuart Hampshire, Charles
Taylor, Bernard Williams, Richard Wollheim, Gerry Cohen, Steven Lukes, David
Pears, and many others. His general intellectual and moral impact on the life
of the twentieth century as writer, diplomat, patron of music and the arts,
international academic elder statesman, loved and trusted friend to the great
and the humble, and dazzling lecturer, conversationalist, and animateur des
idées, will furnish inexhaustible material to future historians.
bernardus:
chartrensis. of Chartres,, philosopher. He was first a teacher 111419 and later
chancellor 116 of the cathedral school at Chartres, which was then an active
center of learning in the liberal arts and philosophy. Bernard himself was
renowned as a grammarian, i.e., as an expositor of difficult texts, and as a
teacher of Plato. None of his works has survived whole, and only three
fragments are preserved in works by others. He is now best known for an image
recorded both by his student, John of Salisbury, and by William of Conches. In
Bernard’s image, he and all his medieval contemporaries were in relation to the
ancient authors like “dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants.” John of
Salisbury takes the image to mean both that the medievals could see more and
further than the ancients, and that they could do so only because they had been
lifted up by such powerful predecessors.
bernardus: of
Clairvaux, Saint – Grice’s personal saint, seeing that St. John’s was
originally a Cistercian monastery almost burned by Henry VIII. Cistercian monk,
mystic, and religious leader. He is most noted for his doctrine of Christian
humility and his depiction of the mystical experience, which exerted
considerable influence on later Christian mystics. Educated in France, he entered
the monastery at Cîteaux in 1112, and three years later founded a daughter
monastery at Clairvaux. According to Bernard, honest self-knowledge should
reveal the extent to which we fail to be what we should be in the eyes of God.
That selfknowledge should lead us to curb our pride and so become more humble.
Humility is necessary for spiritual purification, which in turn is necessary
for contemplation of God, the highest form of which is union with God.
Consistent with orthodox Christian doctrine, Bernard maintains that mystical
union does not entail identity. One does not become God; rather, one’s will and
God’s will come into complete conformity.
bernoulli’s
theorem: studied by Grice in his “Probability, Desirability,
Credibility” -- also called the weak law of large numbers, the principle that
if a series of trials is repeated n times where a there are two possible
outcomes, 0 and 1, on each trial, b the probability p of 0 is the same on each
trial, and c this probability is independent of the outcome of other trials,
then, for arbitrary positive e, as the number n of trials is increased, the
probability that the absolute value Kr/n
pK of the difference between the relative frequency r/n of 0’s in the n
trials and p is less than e approaches 1. The first proof of this theorem was
given by Jakob Bernoulli in Part IV of his posthumously published Ars
Conjectandi of 1713. Simplifications were later constructed and his result has
been generalized in a series of “weak laws of large numbers.” Although Bernoulli’s
theorem derives a conclusion about the probability of the relative frequency
r/n of 0’s for large n of trials given the value of p, in Ars Conjectandi and
correspondence with Leibniz, Bernoulli thought it could be used to reason from
information about r/n to the value of p when the latter is unknown. Speculation
persists as to whether Bernoulli anticipated the inverse inference of Bayes,
the confidence interval estimation of Peirce, J. Neyman, and E. S. Pearson, or
the fiducial argument of R. A. Fisher.
Bertrand’s
box paradox: studied by Grice in his “Probability, Desirability,
Credibility” -- a puzzle concerning conditional probability. Imagine three
boxes with two drawers apiece. Each drawer of the first box contains a gold
medal. Each drawer of the second contains a silver medal. One drawer of the
third contains a gold medal, and the other a silver medal. At random, a box is
selected and one of its drawers is opened. If a gold medal appears, what is the
probability that the third box was selected? The probability seems to be ½,
because the box is either the first or the third, and they seem equally
probable. But a gold medal is less probable from the third box than from the
first, Bernard of Chartres Bertrand’s box paradox 86 86 so the third box is actually less
probable than the first. By Bayes’s theorem its probability is 1 /3. Joseph
Bertrand, a mathematician, published the
paradox in Calcul des probabilités Calculus of Probabilities, 9.
Bertrand’s
paradox: an inconsistency arising from the classical
definition of an event’s probability as the number of favorable cases divided
by the number of possible cases. Given a circle, a chord is selected at random.
What is the probability that the chord is longer than a side of an equilateral
triangle inscribed in the circle? The event has these characterizations: 1 the
apex angle of an isosceles triangle inscribed in the circle and having the
chord as a leg is less than 60°, 2 the chord intersects the diameter
perpendicular to it less than ½ a radius from the circle’s center, and 3 the
chord’s midpoint lies within a circle concentric with the original and of ¼ its
area. The definition thus suggests that the event’s probability is 1 /3, 1 /2,
and also ¼. Joseph Bertrand, a
mathematician, published the paradox in Calcul des probabilités 9.
Beth’s
definability theorem: Grice loved an emplicit definition. a
theorem for first-order logic. A theory defines a term t implicitly if and only
if an explicit definition of the term, on the basis of the other primitive
concepts, is entailed by the theory. A theory defines a term implicitly if any
two models of the theory with the same domain and the same extension for the
other primitive terms are identical, i.e., also have the same extension for the
term. An explicit definition of a term is a sentence that states necessary and
sufficient conditions for the term’s applicability. Beth’s theorem was implicit
in a method to show independence of a term that was first used by the logician Alessandro Padoa. Padoa suggested, in
0, that independence of a primitive algebraic term from the other terms
occurring in a set of axioms can be established by two true interpretations of
the axioms that differ only in the interpretation of the term whose
independence has to be proven. He claimed, without proof, that the existence of
two such models is not only sufficient for, but also implied by, independence.
Tarski first gave a proof of Beth’s theorem in 6 for the logic of the Principia
Mathematica of Whitehead and Russell, but the result was only obtained for
first-order logic in 3 by E. Beth. In modern expositions Beth’s theorem is a
direct implication of Craig’s interpolation theorem. In a variation on Padoa’s
method, Karel de Bouvère described in 9 a one-model method to show indefinability:
if the set of logical consequences of a theory formulated in terms of the
remaining vocabulary cannot be extended to a model of the full theory, a term
is not explicitly definable in terms of the remaining vocabulary. In the
philosophy of science literature this is called a failure of
Ramsey-eliminability of the term.
bi-conditional: As
Grice notes, ‘if’ is the only non-commutative operator; so trust Mill to make
it commutative, “if p, q, then if q, p.” Cited by Strawson after ‘if,’ but
dismissed by Grice in his list of
‘formal devices’ as ‘too obvious.’ --
the logical operator, usually written with a triple-bar sign S or a
doubleheaded arrow Q, used to indicate that two propositions have the same
truth-value: that either both are true or else both are false. The term also
designates a proposition having this sign, or a natural language expression of
it, as its main connective; e.g., P if and only if Q. The truth table for the
biconditional is The biconditional is so called because its application is
logically equivalent to the conjunction
‘P-conditional-Q-and-Q-conditional-P’.
According to Pears, and rightly, too, ‘if’ conversationally implicates
‘iff.’
black
box
– used by Grice in his method in philosophical psychology -- a hypothetical
unit specified only by functional role, in order to explain some effect or
behavior. The term may refer to a single entity with an unknown structure, or
unknown internal organization, which realizes some known function, or to any
one of a system of such entities, whose organization and functions are inferred
from the behavior of an organism or entity of which they are constituents.
Within behaviorism and classical learning theory, the basic functions were
taken to be generalized mechanisms governing the relationship of stimulus to
response, including reinforcement, inhibition, extinction, and arousal. The
organism was treated as a black box realizing these functions. Within cybernetics,
though there are no simple inputoutput rules describing the organism, there is
an emphasis on functional organization and feedback in controlling behavior.
The components within a cybernetic system are treated as black boxes. In both
cases, the details of underlying structure, mechanism, and dynamics are either
unknown or regarded as unimportant.
Blackburn’s skull. Blackburn's
"one-off predicament" of communicating without a shared language
illustrates how Grice's theory can be applied to iconic signals such as the
drawing of a skull to wam of danger. See his Spreading the Word. III. 112.
blindsight: studied
by Grice and Warnock, “Visa.” -- a residual visual capacity resulting from
lesions in certain areas of the brain the striate cortex, area 17. Under
routine clinical testing, persons suffering such lesions appear to be densely
blind in particular regions of the visual field. Researchers have long
recognized that, in primates, comparable lesions do not result in similar
deficits. It has seemed unlikely that this disparity could be due to
differences in brain function, however. And, indeed, when human subjects are
tested in the way non-human subjects are tested, the disparity vanishes.
Although subjects report that they can detect nothing in the blind field, when
required to “guess” at properties of items situated there, they perform
remarkably well. They seem to “know” the contents of the blind field while
remaining unaware that they know, often expressing astonishment on being told
the results of testing in the blind field.
bloch:
e., philosopher studied by H. P. Grice for his “ontological marxism.” influenced
by Marxism, his views went beyond Marxism as he matured. He fled G.y in the 0s,
but returned after World War II to a professorship in East G.y, where his
increasingly unorthodox ideas were eventually censured by the Communist
authorities, forcing a move to West G.y in the 0s. His major work, The
Principle of Hope 459, is influenced by G. idealism, Jewish mysticism,
Neoplatonism, utopianism, and numerous other sources besides Marxism. Humans
are essentially unfinished, moved by a cosmic impulse, “hope,” a tendency in
them to strive for the as-yet-unrealized, which manifests itself as utopia, or
vision of future possibilities. Despite his atheism, Bloch wished to retrieve
the sense of self-transcending that he saw in the religious and mythical traditions
of humankind. His ideas have consequently influenced theology as well as
philosophy, e.g. the “theology of hope” of Jurgen Moltmann.
blondel:
m. cf. Hampshire, “Thought and action,” philosopher who discovered the deist
background of human action. In his main work, Action 3, 2d rev. ed. 0, Blondel
held that action is part of the very nature of human beings and as such becomes
an object of philosophy; through philosophy, action should find its meaning,
i.e. realize itself rationally. An appropriate phenomenology of action through
phenomenological description uncovers the phenomenal level of action but points
beyond it. Such a supraphenomenal sense of action provides it a metaphysical
status. This phenomenology of action rests on an immanent dialectics of action:
a gap between the aim of the action and its realization. This gap, while
dissatisfying to the actor, also drives him toward new activities. The only
immanent solution of this dialectics and its consequences is a transcendent
one. We have to realize that we, like other humans, cannot grasp our own
activities and must accept our limitations and our finitude as well as the
insufficiency of our philosophy, which is now understood as a philosophy of
insufficiency and points toward the existence of the supernatural element in
every human act, namely God. Human activity is the outcome of divine grace.
Through action bit Blondel, Maurice 90
90 one touches the existence of God, something not possible by logical
argumentation. In the later phase of his development Blondel deserted his early
“anti-intellectualism” and stressed the close relation between thought and
action, now understood as inseparable and mutually interrelated. He came to see
philosophy as a rational instrument of understanding one’s actions as well as
one’s insufficiency.
bodin:
j., Discussed by H. P. Grice in his exploration on legal versus moral right. --
philosopher whose philosophy centers on the concept of sovereignty. His Six
livres de la république 1577 defines a state as constituted by common public
interests, families, and the sovereign. The sovereign is the lawgiver, who
stands beyond the absolute rights he possesses; he must, however, follow the
law of God, natural law, and the constitution. The ideal state was for Bodin a
monarchy that uses aristocratic and democratic structures of government for the
sake of the common good. In order to achieve a broader empirical picture of
politics Bodin used historical comparisons. This is methodologically reflected
in his Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem 1566. Bodin was clearly a
theorist of absolutism. As a member of the Politique group he played a
practical role in emancipating the state from the church. His thinking was
influenced by his experience of civil war. In his Heptaplomeres posthumous he
pleaded for tolerance with respect to all religions, including Islam and
Judaism. As a public prosecutor, however, he wrote a manual for judges in
witchcraft trials De la démonomanie des sorciers, 1580. By stressing the
peacemaking role of a strong state Bodin was a forerunner of Hobbes.
boehme:
j. Cited by Grice in “From Genesis to Revelations” -- protestant speculative
mystic. Influenced especially by Paracelsus, Boehme received little formal
education, but was successful enough as a shoemaker to devote himself to his
writing, explicating his religious experiences. He published little in his
lifetime, though enough to attract charges of heresy from local clergy. He did
gather followers, and his works were published after his death. His writings
are elaborately symbolic rather than argumentative, but respond deeply to
fundamental problems in the Christian worldview. He holds that the Godhead,
omnipotent will, is as nothing to us, since we can in no way grasp it. The
Mysterium Magnum, the ideal world, is conceived in God’s mind through an impulse
to self-revelation. The actual world, separate from God, is created through His
will, and seeks to return to the peace of the Godhead. The world is good, as
God is, but its goodness falls away, and is restored at the end of history,
though not entirely, for some souls are damned eternally. Human beings enjoy
free will, and create themselves through rebirth in faith. The Fall is
necessary for the selfknowledge gained in recovery from it. Recognition of
one’s hidden, free self is a recognition of God manifested in the world, so
that human salvation completes God’s act of self-revelation. It is also a
recognition of evil rooted in the blind will underlying all individual
existence, without which there would be nothing except the Godhead. Boehme’s
works influenced Hegel and the later Schelling.
bœthius:
Grice loved Boethius – “He made Aristotle intelligible at Clifton!” -- Anicius
Manlius Severinus, Roman philosopher and Aristotelian translator and
commentator. He was born into a wealthy patrician family in Rome and had a
distinguished political career under the Ostrogothic king Theodoric before
being arrested and executed on charges of treason. His logic and philosophical
theology contain important contributions to the philosophy of the late
classical and early medieval periods, and his translations of and commentaries
on Aristotle profoundly influenced the history of philosophy, particularly in
the medieval Latin West. His most famous work, The Consolation of Philosophy,
composed during his imprisonment, is a moving reflection on the nature of human
happiness and the problem of evil and contains classic discussions of
providence, fate, chance, and the apparent incompatibility of divine
foreknowledge and human free choice. He was known during his own lifetime, however,
as a brilliant scholar whose knowledge of the Grecian language and ancient
Grecian philosophy set him apart from his Latin contemporaries. He conceived
his scholarly career as devoted to preserving and making accessible to the
Latin West the great philosophical achievement of ancient Greece. To this end
he announced an ambitious plan to translate into Latin and write commenbodily
continuity Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus 91 91 taries on all of Plato and Aristotle, but
it seems that he achieved this goal only for Aristotle’s Organon. His extant
translations include Porphyry’s Isagoge an introduction to Aristotle’s
Categories and Aristotle’s Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics,
Topics, and Sophistical Refutations. He wrote two commentaries on the Isagoge
and On Interpretation and one on the Categories, and we have what appear to be
his notes for a commentary on the Prior Analytics. His translation of the
Posterior Analytics and his commentary on the Topics are lost. He also
commented on Cicero’s Topica and wrote his own treatises on logic, including De
syllogismis hypotheticis, De syllogismis categoricis, Introductio in
categoricos syllogismos, De divisione, and De topicis differentiis, in which he
elaborates and supplements Aristotelian logic. Boethius shared the common
Neoplatonist view that the Platonist and Aristotelian systems could be
harmonized by following Aristotle in logic and natural philosophy and Plato in
metaphysics and theology. This plan for harmonization rests on a distinction
between two kinds of forms: 1 forms that are conjoined with matter to
constitute bodies these, which he calls
“images” imagines, correspond to the forms in Aristotle’s hylomorphic account
of corporeal substances; and 2 forms that are pure and entirely separate from
matter, corresponding to Plato’s ontologically separate Forms. He calls these
“true forms” and “the forms themselves.” He holds that the former, “enmattered”
forms depend for their being on the latter, pure forms. Boethius takes these three
sorts of entities bodies, enmattered
forms, and separate forms to be the
respective objects of three different cognitive activities, which constitute
the three branches of speculative philosophy. Natural philosophy is concerned
with enmattered forms as enmattered, mathematics with enmattered forms
considered apart from their matter though they cannot be separated from matter
in actuality, and theology with the pure and separate forms. He thinks that the
mental abstraction characteristic of mathematics is important for understanding
the Peripatetic account of universals: the enmattered, particular forms found
in sensible things can be considered as universal when they are considered
apart from the matter in which they inhere though they cannot actually exist
apart from matter. But he stops short of endorsing this moderately realist
Aristotelian account of universals. His commitment to an ontology that includes
not just Aristotelian natural forms but also Platonist Forms existing apart
from matter implies a strong realist view of universals. With the exception of
De fide catholica, which is a straightforward credal statement, Boethius’s
theological treatises De Trinitate, Utrum Pater et Filius, Quomodo substantiae,
and Contra Euthychen et Nestorium show his commitment to using logic and
metaphysics, particularly the Aristotelian doctrines of the categories and
predicables, to clarify and resolve issues in Christian theology. De Trinitate,
e.g., includes a historically influential discussion of the Aristotelian
categories and the applicability of various kinds of predicates to God. Running
through these treatises is his view that predicates in the category of relation
are unique by virtue of not always requiring for their applicability an
ontological ground in the subjects to which they apply, a doctrine that gave
rise to the common medieval distinction between so-called real and non-real
relations. Regardless of the intrinsic significance of Boethius’s philosophical
ideas, he stands as a monumental figure in the history of medieval philosophy
rivaled in importance only by Aristotle and Augustine. Until the recovery of
the works of Aristotle in the mid-twelfth century, medieval philosophers
depended almost entirely on Boethius’s translations and commentaries for their
knowledge of pagan ancient philosophy, and his treatises on logic continued to
be influential throughout the Middle Ages. The preoccupation of early medieval
philosophers with logic and with the problem of universals in particular is due
largely to their having been tutored by Boethius and Boethius’s Aristotle. The
theological treatises also received wide attention in the Middle Ages, giving
rise to a commentary tradition extending from the ninth century through the
Renaissance and shaping discussion of central theological doctrines such as the
Trinity and Incarnation.
boltzmann:
cited by Grice in his discussion of “Eddington’s Two Tables” -- physicist who
was a spirited advocate of the atomic theory and a pioneer in developing the
kinetic theory of gases and statistical mechanics. Boltzmann’s most famous
achievements were the transport equation, the H-theorem, and the probabilistic
interpretation of entropy. This work is summarized in his Vorlesungen über
Gastheorie “Lectures on the Theory of Gases,” 698. He held chairs in physics at
the universities of Graz, Vienna, Munich, and Leipzig before returning to
Vienna as professor of theoretical physics in 2. In 3 he succeeded Mach at
Boltzmann, Ludwig Boltzmann, Ludwig 92
92 Vienna and lectured on the philosophy of science. In the 0s the
atomic-kinetic theory was attacked by Mach and by the energeticists led by
Wilhelm Ostwald. Boltzmann’s counterattack can be found in his Populäre
Schriften “Popular Writings,” 5. Boltzmann agreed with his critics that many of
his mechanical models of gas molecules could not be true but, like Maxwell,
defended models as invaluable heuristic tools. Boltzmann also insisted that it
was futile to try to eliminate all metaphysical pictures from theories in favor
of bare equations. For Boltzmann, the goal of physics is not merely the
discovery of equations but the construction of a coherent picture of reality.
Boltzmann defended his H-theorem against the reversibility objection of
Loschmidt and the recurrence objection of Zermelo by conceding that a
spontaneous decrease in entropy was possible but extremely unlikely.
Boltzmann’s views that irreversibility depends on the probability of initial
conditions and that entropy increase determines the direction of time are
defended by Reichenbach in The Direction of Time 6.
bolzano:
b., an intentionalist philosopher considered by most as a pre-Griceian,
philosopher. He studied philosophy, mathematics, physics, and theology in
Prague; received the Ph.D.; was ordained a priest 1805; was appointed to a
chair in religion at Charles in 1806;
and, owing to his criticism of the Austrian constitution, was dismissed in
1819. He composed his two main works from 1823 through 1841: the
Wissenschaftslehre 4 vols., 1837 and the posthumous Grössenlehre. His ontology
and logical semantics influenced Husserl and, indirectly, Lukasiewicz, Tarski,
and others of the Warsaw School. His conception of ethics and social philosophy
affected both the cultural life of Bohemia and the Austrian system of education.
Bolzano recognized a profound distinction between the actual thoughts and
judgments Urteile of human beings, their linguistic expressions, and the
abstract propositions Sätze an sich and their parts which exist independently
of those thoughts, judgments, and expressions. A proposition in Bolzano’s sense
is a preexistent sequence of ideas-as-such Vorstellungen an sich. Only
propositions containing finite ideas-as-such are accessible to the mind. Real
things existing concretely in space and time have subsistence Dasein whereas
abstract objects such as propositions have only logical existence. Adherences,
i.e., forces, applied to certain concrete substances give rise to subjective
ideas, thoughts, or judgments. A subjective idea is a part of a judgment that is
not itself a judgment. The set of judgments is ordered by a causal relation.
Bolzano’s abstract world is constituted of sets, ideas-as-such, certain
properties Beschaffenheiten, and objects constructed from these. Thus, sentence
shapes are a kind of ideas-as-such, and certain complexes of ideas-as-such
constitute propositions. Ideas-as-such can be generated from expressions of a
language by postulates for the relation of being an object of something.
Analogously, properties can be generated by postulates for the relation of
something being applied to an object. Bolzano’s notion of religion is based on
his distinction between propositions and judgments. His Lehrbuch der
Religionswissenschaft 4 vols., 1834 distinguishes between religion in the
objective and subjective senses. The former is a set of religious propositions,
whereas the latter is the set of religious views of a single person. Hence, a
subjective religion can contain an objective one. By defining a religious
proposition as being moral and imperatives the rules of utilitarianism, Bolzano
integrated his notion of religion within his ontology. In the Grössenlehre
Bolzano intended to give a detailed, well-founded exposition of contemporary
mathematics and also to inaugurate new domains of research. Natural numbers are
defined, half a century before Frege, as properties of “bijective” sets the
members of which can be put in one-to-one correspondence, and real numbers are
conceived as properties of sets of certain infinite sequences of rational
numbers. The analysis of infinite sets brought him to reject the Euclidean
doctrine that the whole is always greater than any of its parts and, hence, to
the insight that a set is infinite if and only if it is bijective to a proper
subset of itself. This anticipates Peirce and Dedekind. Bolzano’s extension of
the linear continuum of finite numbers by infinitesimals implies a relatively
constructive approach to nonstandard analysis. In the development of standard
analysis the most remarkable result of the Grössenlehre is the anticipation of
Weirstrass’s discovery that there exist nowhere differentiable continuous
functions. The Wissenschaftslehre was intended to lay the logical and
epistemological foundations of Bolzano’s mathematics. A theory of science in
Bolzano’s sense is a collection of rules for delimiting the set of scientific
textbooks. Whether a Bolzano, Bernard Bolzano, Bernard 93 93 class of true propositions is a
worthwhile object of representation in a scientific textbook is an ethical
question decidable on utilitarian principles. Bolzano proceeded from an
expanded and standardized ordinary language through which he could describe
propositions and their parts. He defined the semantic notion of truth and
introduced the function corresponding to a “replacement” operation on
propositions. One of his major achievements was his definition of logical
derivability logische Ableitbarkeit between sets of propositions: B is
logically derivable from A if and only if all elements of the sum of A and B
are simultaneously true for some replacement of their non-logical ideas-as-such
and if all elements of B are true for any such replacement that makes all
elements of A true. In addition to this notion, which is similar to Tarski’s
concept of consequence of 6, Bolzano introduced a notion corresponding to
Gentzen’s concept of consequence. A proposition is universally valid
allgemeingültig if it is derivable from the null class. In his proof theory
Bolzano formulated counterparts to Gentzen’s cut rule. Bolzano introduced a notion
of inductive probability as a generalization of derivability in a limited
domain. This notion has the formal properties of conditional probability. These
features and Bolzano’s characterization of probability density by the technique
of variation are reminiscent of Vitters’s inductive logic and Carnap’s theory
of regular confirmation functions. The replacement of conceptual complexes in
propositions would, if applied to a formalized language, correspond closely to
a substitutionsemantic conception of quantification. His own philosophical
language was based on a kind of free logic. In essence, Bolzano characterized a
substitution-semantic notion of consequence with a finite number of
antecedents. His quantification over individual and general concepts amounts to
the introduction of a non-elementary logic of lowest order containing a
quantification theory of predicate variables but no set-theoretical principles
such as choice axioms. His conception of universal validity and of the semantic
superstructure of logic leads to a semantically adequate extension of the
predicate-logical version of Lewis’s system S5 of modal logic without
paradoxes. It is also possible to simulate Bolzano’s theory of probability in a
substitution-semantically constructed theory of probability functions. Hence,
by means of an ontologically parsimonious superstructure without
possible-worlds metaphysics, Bolzano was able to delimit essentially the realms
of classical logical truth and additive probability spaces. In geometry Bolzano
created a new foundation from a topological point of view. He defined the
notion of an isolated point of a set in a way reminiscent of the notion of a
point at which a set is well-dimensional in the sense of Urysohn and Menger. On
this basis he introduced his topological notion of a continuum and formulated a
recursive definition of the dimensionality of non-empty subsets of the
Euclidean 3-space, which is closely related to the inductive dimension concept
of Urysohn and Menger. In a remarkable paragraph of an unfinished late
manuscript on geometry he stated the celebrated curve theorem of Jordan.
bonaria –
a church on an Italian island – Grice sailed there during his Grand Tour to
Italy and Greece. He loved it! And he loved reading the Latin inscriptions and
practicing the Latin he had learned at Clifton.
bonaria:
H. P. Grice was going to visit the River Plate with Noel Coward, but he got
sick -- – or South American philosophy – “Bonaria” was settled by Italians
after the matron saint of sailors, “Bonaria,” – itself settled by Ligurians,
the first Italians to settle in Buenos Aires and the Argentine area of the
River Plate -- the philosophy of South America, which is European in origin and
constitutes a chapter in the history of Western philosophy (rather than say, Japanese – there was a strong emigration
of Japanese to Buenos Aires, but they remained mainly in the dry laundry
business). Pre-Columbian (“Indian”) indigenous cultures had developed ideas
about the world that have been interpreted by some scholars as philosophical,
but there is no evidence that any of those ideas were incorporated into the
philosophy later practiced in Latin America. It is difficult to characterize
Latin American philosophy in a way applicable to all of its 500-year history.
The most one can say is that, in contrast with European and Anglo-American
philosophy, it has maintained a strong human and social interest, has been
consistently affected by Scholastic and Catholic thought, and has significantly
affected the social and political institutions in the region. South American
philosophers (especially if NOT from Buenos Aires) tend to be active in the
educational, political, and social lives of their countries and deeply
concerned with their own cultural identity (except if they are from Buenos
Aires, who have their identity well settled in Europe, as European exiles or
expatriates that that they are) The history of philosophy in Latin America can
be divided into four periods: colonial, independentist, positivist, and
contemporary. Colonial period (c.1550–c.1750). This period was dominated by the
type of Scholasticism officially practiced in the Iberian peninsula. The texts
studied were those of medieval Scholastics, primarily Aquinas and Duns Scotus,
and of their Iberian commentators, Vitoria, Soto, Fonseca, and, above all,
Suárez. The university curriculum was modeled on that of major Iberian
universities (Salamanca, Alcalá, Coimbra), and instructors produced both
systematic treatises and commentaries on classical, medieval, and contemporary
texts. The philosophical concerns in the colonies were those prevalent in Spain
and Portugal and centered on logical and metaphysical issues inherited from the
Middle Ages and on political and legal questions raised by the discovery and
colonization of America. Among the former were issues involving the logic of
terms and propositions and the problems of universals and individuation; among
the latter were questions concerning the rights of Indians and the relations of
the natives with the conquerors. The main philosophical center during the early
colonial period was Mexico; Peru became important in the seventeenth century.
Between 1700 and 1750 other centers developed, but by that time Scholasticism
had begun to decline. The founding of the Royal and Pontifical University of
Mexico in 1553 inaugurated Scholastic instruction in the New World. The first
teacher of philosophy at the university was Alonso de la Vera Cruz (c.1504–84),
an Augustinian and disciple of Soto. He composed several didactic treatises on
La Peyrère, Isaac Latin American philosophy 483 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM
Page 483 logic, metaphysics, and science, including Recognitio summularum
(“Introductory Logic,” 1554), Dialectica resolutio (“Advanced Logic,” 1554),
and Physica speculatio (“Physics,” 1557). He also wrote a theologico-legal work,
the Speculum conjugiorum (“On Marriage,” 1572), concerned with the status of
precolonial Indian marriages. Alonso’s works are eclectic and didactic and show
the influence of Aristotle, Peter of Spain, and Vitoria in particular. Another
important Scholastic figure in Mexico was the Dominican Tomás de Mercado
(c.1530–75). He produced commentaries on the logical works of Peter of Spain
and Aristotle and a treatise on international commerce, Summa de tratos y
contratos (“On Contracts,” 1569). His other sources are Porphyry and Aquinas.
Perhaps the most important figure of the period was Antonio Rubio (1548–1615),
author of the most celebrated Scholastic book written in the New World, Logica
mexicana (“Mexican Logic,” 1605). It underwent seven editions in Europe and
became a logic textbook in Alcalá. Rubio’s sources are Aristotle, Porphyry, and
Aquinas, but he presents original treatments of several logical topics. Rubio
also commented on several of Aristotle’s other works. In Peru, two authors
merit mention. Juan Pérez Menacho (1565–1626) was a prolific writer, but only a
moral treatise, Theologia et moralis tractatus (“Treatise on Theology and
Morals”), and a commentary on Aquinas’s Summa theologiae remain. The
Chilean-born Franciscan, Alfonso Briceño (c.1587–1669), worked in Nicaragua and
Venezuela, but the center of his activities was Lima. In contrast with the
Aristotelian-Thomistic flavor of the philosophy of most of his contemporaries,
Briceño was a Scotistic Augustinian. This is evident in Celebriores controversias
in primum sententiarum Scoti (“On Scotus’s First Book of the Sentences,” 1638)
and Apologia de vita et doctrina Joannis Scotti (“Apology for John Scotus,”
1642). Although Scholasticism dominated the intellectual life of colonial Latin
America, some authors were also influenced by humanism. Among the most
important in Mexico were Juan de Zumárraga (c.1468–1548); the celebrated
defender of the Indians, Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474–1566); Carlos Sigüenza y
Góngora (1645–1700); and Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz (1651–95). The last one is a
famous poet, now considered a precursor of the feminist movement. In Peru,
Nicolás de Olea (1635–1705) stands out. Most of these authors were trained in
Scholasticism but incorporated the concerns and ideas of humanists into their
work. Independentist period (c.1750–c.1850). Just before and immediately after
independence, leading Latin American intellectuals lost interest in Scholastic
issues and became interested in social and political questions, although they
did not completely abandon Scholastic sources. Indeed, the theories of natural
law they inherited from Vitoria and Suárez played a significant role in forming
their ideas. But they also absorbed non-Scholastic European authors. The
rationalism of Descartes and other Continental philosophers, together with the
empiricism of Locke, the social ideas of Rousseau, the ethical views of
Bentham, the skepticism of Voltaire and other Encyclopedists, the political
views of Condorcet and Montesquieu, the eclecticism of Cousin, and the ideology
of Destutt de Tracy, all contributed to the development of liberal ideas that
were a background to the independentist movement. Most of the intellectual
leaders of this movement were men of action who used ideas for practical ends,
and their views have limited theoretical value. They made reason a measure of
legitimacy in social and governmental matters, and found the justification for
revolutionary ideas in natural law. Moreover, they criticized authority; some,
regarding religion as superstitious, opposed ecclesiastical power. These ideas
paved the way for the later development of positivism. The period begins with
the weakening hold of Scholasticism on Latin American intellectuals and the
growing influence of early modern philosophy, particularly Descartes. Among the
first authors to turn to modern philosophy was Juan Benito Díaz de Gamarra y
Dávalos (1745–83) in Mexico who wrote Errores del entendimiento humano (“Errors
of Human Understanding,” 1781) and Academias filosóficas (“Philosophical
Academies,” 1774). Also in Mexico was Francisco Javier Clavijero (1731–87),
author of a book on physics and a general history of Mexico. In Brazil the turn
away from Scholasticism took longer. One of the first authors to show the
influence of modern philosophy was Francisco de Mont’Alverne (1784– 1858) in
Compêndio de filosofia (1883). These first departures from Scholasticism were
followed by the more consistent efforts of those directly involved in the
independentist movement. Among these were Simón Bolívar (1783–1830), leader of
the rebellion against Spain in the Andean countries of South America, and the
Mexicans Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753– 1811), José María Morelos y Paván
(1765– 1815), and José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi Latin American philosophy
Latin American philosophy 484 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 484
(1776–1827). In Argentina, Mariano Moreno (1778–1811), Juan Crisóstomo Lafimur
(d. 1823), and Diego Alcorta (d. 1808), among others, spread the liberal ideas
that served as a background for independence. Positivist period
(c.1850–c.1910). During this time, positivism became not only the most popular
philosophy in Latin America but also the official philosophy of some countries.
After 1910, however, positivism declined drastically. Latin American positivism
was eclectic, influenced by a variety of thinkers, including Comte, Spencer,
and Haeckel. Positivists emphasized the explicative value of empirical science
while rejecting metaphysics. According to them, all knowledge is based on
experience rather than theoretical speculation, and its value lies in its
practical applications. Their motto, preserved on the Brazilian flag, was
“Order and Progress.” This positivism left little room for freedom and values;
the universe moved inexorably according to mechanistic laws. Positivism was a
natural extension of the ideas of the independentists. It was, in part, a
response to the needs of the newly liberated countries of Latin America. After
independence, the concerns of Latin American intellectuals shifted from
political liberation to order, justice, and progress. The beginning of
positivism can be traced to the time when Latin America, responding to these
concerns, turned to the views of French socialists such as Saint-Simon and
Fourier. The Argentinians Esteban Echevarría (1805–51) and Juan Bautista
Alberdi (1812–84) were influenced by them. Echevarría’s Dogma socialista
(“Socialist Dogma,” 1846) combines socialist ideas with eighteenth-century
rationalism and literary Romanticism, and Alberdi follows suit, although he
eventually turned toward Comte. Alberdi is, moreover, the first Latin American
philosopher to worry about developing a philosophy adequate to the needs of
Latin America. In Ideas (1842), he stated that philosophy in Latin America
should be compatible with the economic, political, and social requirements of
the region. Another transitional thinker, influenced by both Scottish
philosophy and British empiricism, was the Venezuelan Andrés Bello (1781–1865).
A prolific writer, he is the most important Latin American philosopher of the
nineteenth century. His Filosofía del entendimiento (“Philosophy of
Understanding,” 1881) reduces metaphysics to psychology. Bello also developed
original ideas about language and history. After 1829, he worked in Chile,
where his influence was strongly felt. The generation of Latin American
philosophers after Alberdi and Bello was mostly positivistic. Positivism’s
heyday was the second half of the nineteenth century, but two of its most
distinguished advocates, the Argentinian José Ingenieros (1877–1925) and the
Cuban Enrique José Varona (1849–1933), worked well into the twentieth century.
Both modified positivism in important ways. Ingenieros left room for
metaphysics, which, according to him, deals in the realm of the
“yet-to-be-experienced.” Among his most important books are Hacia una moral sin
dogmas (“Toward a Morality without Dogmas,” 1917), where the influence of
Emerson is evident, Principios de psicologia (“Principles of Psychology,”
1911), where he adopts a reductionist approach to psychology, and El hombre
mediocre (“The Mediocre Man,” 1913), an inspirational book popular among Latin
American youths. In Conferencias filosóficas (“Philosophical Lectures,”
1880–88), Varona went beyond the mechanistic explanations of behavior common
among positivists. In Mexico the first and leading positivist was Gabino
Barreda (1818–81), who reorganized Mexican education under President Juárez. An
ardent follower of Comte, Barreda made positivism the basis of his educational
reforms. He was followed by Justo Sierra (1848–1912), who turned toward Spencer
and Darwin and away from Comte, criticizing Barreda’s dogmatism. Positivism was
introduced in Brazil by Tobias Barreto (1839–89) and Silvio Romero (1851– 1914)
in Pernambuco, around 1869. In 1875 Benjamin Constant (1836–91) founded the
Positivist Society in Rio de Janeiro. The two most influential exponents of
positivism in the country were Miguel Lemos (1854–1916) and Raimundo Teixeira
Mendes (1855–1927), both orthodox followers of Comte. Positivism was more than
a technical philosophy in Brazil. Its ideas spread widely, as is evident from
the inclusion of positivist ideas in the first republican constitution. The
most prominent Chilean positivists were José Victorino Lastarria (1817–88) and
Valentín Letelier (1852–1919). More dogmatic adherents to the movement were the
Lagarrigue brothers, Jorge (d. 1894), Juan Enrique (d. 1927), and Luis (d.
1953), who promoted positivism in Chile well after it had died everywhere else
in Latin America. Contemporary period (c.1910–present). Contemporary Latin
American philosophy began Latin American philosophy Latin American philosophy
485 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 485 with the demise of positivism. The
first part of the period was dominated by thinkers who rebelled against
positivism. The principal figures, called the Founders by Francisco Romero,
were Alejandro Korn (1860–1936) in Argentina, Alejandro Octavio Deústua
(1849–1945) in Peru, José Vasconcelos (1882–1959) and Antonio Caso (1883–1946)
in Mexico, Enrique Molina (1871– 1964) in Chile, Carlos Vaz Ferreira
(1872–1958) in Uruguay, and Raimundo de Farias Brito (1862–1917) in Brazil. In
spite of little evidence of interaction among these philosophers, their aims
and concerns were similar. Trained as positivists, they became dissatisfied
with positivism’s dogmatic intransigence, mechanistic determinism, and emphasis
on pragmatic values. Deústua mounted a detailed criticism of positivistic
determinism in Las ideas de orden y de libertad en la historia del pensamiento
humano (“The Ideas of Order and Freedom in the History of Human Thought,”
1917–19). About the same time, Caso presented his view of man as a spiritual
reality that surpasses nature in La existencia como economía, como desinterés y
como caridad (“Existence as Economy, Disinterestedness, and Charity,” 1916).
Following in Caso’s footsteps and inspired by Pythagoras and the Neoplatonists,
Vasconcelos developed a metaphysical system with aesthetic roots in El monismo estético
(“Aesthetic Monism,” 1918). An even earlier criticism of positivism is found in
Vaz Ferreira’s Lógica viva (“Living Logic,” 1910), which contrasts the
abstract, scientific logic favored by positivists with a logic of life based on
experience, which captures reality’s dynamic character. The earliest attempt at
developing an alternative to positivism, however, is found in Farias Brito.
Between 1895 and 1905 he published a trilogy, Finalidade do mundo (“The World’s
Goal”), in which he conceived the world as an intellectual activity which he
identified with God’s thought, and thus as essentially spiritual. The intellect
unites and reflects reality but the will divides it. Positivism was superseded
by the Founders with the help of ideas imported first from France and later
from Germany. The process began with the influence of Étienne Boutroux
(1845–1921) and Bergson and of French vitalism and intuitionism, but it was
cemented when Ortega y Gasset introduced into Latin America the thought of
Scheler, Nicolai Hartmann, and other German philosophers during his visit to
Argentina in 1916. The influence of Bergson was present in most of the
founders, particularly Molina, who in 1916 wrote La filosofía de Bergson (“The
Philosophy of Bergson”). Korn was exceptional in turning to Kant in his search
for an alternative to positivism. In La libertad creadora (“Creative Freedom,”
1920–22), he defends a creative concept of freedom. In Axiología (“Axiology,”
1930), his most important work, he defends a subjectivist position. The impact
of German philosophy, including Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and the
neo-Kantians, and of Ortega’s philosophical perspectivism and historicism, were
strongly felt in the generation after the founders. The Mexican Samuel Ramos
(1897–1959), the Argentinians Francisco Romero (1891–1962) and Carlos Astrada
(1894–1970), the Brazilian Alceu Amoroso Lima (1893–1982), the Peruvian José
Carlos Mariátegui (1895–1930), and others followed the Founders’ course,
attacking positivism and favoring, in many instances, a philosophical style
that contrasted with its scientistic emphasis. The most important of these
figures was Romero, whose Theory of Man (1952) developed a systematic
philosophical anthropology in the context of a metaphysics of transcendence.
Reality is arranged according to degrees of transcendence, the lowest of which
is the physical and the highest the spiritual. The bases of Ramos’s thought are
found in Ortega as well as in Scheler and N. Hartmann. Ramos appropriated
Ortega’s perspectivism and set out to characterize the Mexican situation in
Profile of Man and Culture in Mexico (1962). Some precedent existed for the
interest in the culturally idiosyncratic in Vasconcelos’s Raza cósmica (“Cosmic
Race,” 1925), but Ramos opened the doors to a philosophical awareness of Latin
American culture that has been popular ever since. Ramos’s most traditional
work, Hacia un nuevo humanismo (“Toward a New Humanism,” 1940), presents a
philosophical anthropology of Orteguean inspiration. Astrada studied in Germany
and adopted existential and phenomenological ideas in El juego existential
(“The Existential Game,” 1933), while criticizing Scheler’s axiology. Later, he
turned toward Hegel and Marx in Existencialismo y crisis de la filosofía
(“Existentialism and the Crisis of Philosophy,” 1963). Amoroso Lima worked in
the Catholic tradition and his writings show the influence of Maritain. His O
espírito e o mundo (“Spirit and World,” 1936) and Idade, sexo e tempo (“Age,
Sex, and Time,” 1938) present a spiritual view of human beings, which he
contrasted with Marxist and existentialist views. Mariátegui is the most
distinguished representative of MarxLatin American phiism in Latin America. His
Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana (“Seven Essays on the
Interpretation of Peruvian Reality,” 1928) contains an important statement of
social philosophy, in which he uses Marxist ideas freely to analyze the
Peruvian sociopolitical situation. In the late 1930s and 1940s, as a
consequence of the political upheaval created by the Spanish Civil War, a
substantial group of peninsular philosophers settled in Latin America. Among
the most influential were Joaquín Xirau (1895– 1946), Eduardo Nicol (b.1907),
Luis Recaséns Siches (b.1903), Juan D. García Bacca (b.1901), and, perhaps most
of all, José Gaos (1900–69). Gaos, like Caso, was a consummate teacher,
inspiring many students. Apart from the European ideas they brought, these
immigrants introduced methodologically more sophisticated ways of doing philosophy,
including the practice of studying philosophical sources in the original
languages. Moreover, they helped to promote Pan-American communication. The
conception of hispanidad they had inherited from Unamuno and Ortega helped the
process. Their influence was felt particularly by the generation born around
1910. With this generation, Latin American philosophy established itself as a
professional and reputable discipline, and philosophical organizations,
research centers, and journals sprang up. The core of this generation worked in
the German tradition. Risieri Frondizi (Argentina, 1910–83), Eduardo García
Máynez (Mexico, b.1908), Juan Llambías de Azevedo (Uruguay, 1907–72), and
Miguel Reale (Brazil, b.1910) were all influenced by Scheler and N. Hartmann and
concerned themselves with axiology and philosophical anthropology. Frondizi,
who was also influenced by empiricist philosophy, defended a functional view of
the self in Substancia y función en el problema del yo (“The Nature of the
Self,” 1952) and of value as a Gestalt quality in Qué son los valores? (“What
is Value?” 1958). Apart from these thinkers, there were representatives of
other traditions in this generation. Following Ramos, Leopoldo Zea (Mexico,
b.1912) stimulated the study of the history of ideas in Mexico and initiated a
controversy that still rages concerning the identity and possibility of a truly
Latin American philosophy. Representing existentialism was Vicente Ferreira da
Silva (Brazil, b.1916), who did not write much but presented a vigorous
criticism of what he regarded as Hegelian and Marxist subjectivism in Ensaios
filosóficos (“Philosophical Essays,” 1948). Before he became interested in
existentialism, he had been interested in logic, publishing the first textbook
of mathematical logic written in South America – Elementos de lógica matemática
(“Elements of Mathematical Logic,” 1940). A philosopher whose interest in
mathematical logic moved him away from phenomenology is Francisco Miró Quesada
(Peru, b.1918). He explored rationality and eventually the perspective of
analytic philosophy. Owing to the influence of Maritain, several members of
this generation adopted a NeoThomistic or Scholastic approach. The main figures
to do so were Oswaldo Robles (b.1904) in Mexico, Octavio Nicolás Derisi
(b.1907) in Argentina, Alberto Wagner de Reyna (b.1915) in Peru, and Clarence
Finlayson (1913–54) in Chile and Colombia. Even those authors who worked in
this tradition addressed issues of axiology and philosophical anthropology.
There was, therefore, considerable thematic unity in South American philosophy.
The overall orientation was not drastically different from the preceding
period. The Founders vitalism against positivism, and the following generation,
with Ortega’s help, took over the process, incorporating spiritualism and the
new ideas introduced by phenomenology and existentialism to continue in a
similar direction. As a result, the phenomenology amd existentialism dominated
philosophy in South America. To this must be added the renewed impetus of
neoScholasticism. Few philosophers worked outside these philosophical currents,
and those who did had no institutional power. Among these were sympathizers of
philosophical analysis, and those who contributed to the continuing development
of Marxism. This situation has begun to change substantially as a result of a
renewed interest in Marxism, the progressive influence of Oxford analytic
philosophy (with a number of philosophers from Buenos Aires studying usually
under British-Council scholarships, under P. F. Strawson, D. F. Pears, H. L. A.
Hart, and others – these later founded the Buenos-Aires-based Argentine Society
for Philosophical Analysis --. In Buenos Aires, English philosophy and culture
in general is rated higher than others, due to the influence of the British
emigration to the River-Plate area – The pragmatics of H. P. Grice is
particularly influential in that it brings a breath of fresh area to the more
ritualistic approach as favoured by his nemesis, J. L. Austin --. American
philosophers are uually read provided they, too, had the proper Oxonian
education or background -- and the development of a new philosophical current
called the philosophy of liberation. Moreover, the question raised by Zea
concerning the identity and possibility of a South American philosophy remains
a focus of attention and controversy. And, more recently, there has been
interest in postmodernism, the theory of communicative action,
deconstructionism, neopragmatism, and feminism. Socialist thought is not new to
South America. In this century, Emilio Frugoni (1880–1969) in Uruguay and
Mariátegui in Peru, among others, adopted a Marxist perspective, although a
heterodox one. But only in the last three decades has Marxism been taken
seriously in Latin American academic circles. Indeed, until recently Marxism
was a marginal philosophical movement in Latin America. The popularity of the
Marxist perspective has made possible its increasing institutionalization.
Among its most important thinkers are Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez (Spain, b.1915),
Vicente Lombardo Toledano (b.1894) and Eli de Gortari (b.1918) in Mexico, and
Caio Prado Júnior (1909–86) in Brazil. In contrast to Marxism, philosophical
analysis arrived late in Latin America and, owing to its technical and academic
character, has not yet influenced more than a relatively small number of
philosophers – and also because in the milieu of Buenos Aires, the influence of
French culture is considered to have much more prestige in mainstream culture
than the more parochial empiricist brand coming from the British Isles – unless
it’s among the Friends of the Argentine Centre for English Culture. German
philosophy is considered rough in contrast to the pleasing to the ear sounds of
French philosophy, and Buenos Aires locals find the very sound of the long
German philosophical terms a source of amusement and mirth. Since Buenos Aires
habitants are Italians, it is logical that they do not have much affinity for
Italian philosophy, which they think it’s too local and less extravagant than the
French. There was a strong immigration of German philosophers to Buenos Aires
after the end of the Second World War, too. Colonials from New Zealand,
Australia, Canada, or the former colonies in North America are never as
welcomed in Buenos Aires as those from the very Old World. The reason is
obvious: as being New-Worlders, if they are going to be educated, it is by
Older-Worlders – Nobody in Buenos Aires would follow a New-World philosopher or
a colonial philosopher – but at most a school which originated in the Continent
of Europe. The British are regarded as by nature unphilosophical and to follow
a British philosopher in Buenos Aires is considered an English joke!
Nonetheless, and thanks in part to its high theoretical caliber, analysis has
become one of the most forceful philosophical currents in the region. The
publication of journals with an analytic bent such as Crítica in Mexico,
Análisis Filosófico in Argentina, and Manuscrito in Brazil, the foundation of
The Sociedad Argentina de Análisis Filosófico (SADAF) in Argentina and the
Sociedad Filosófica Iberoamericana (SOFIA) in Mexico, and the growth of
analytic publications in high-profile journals of neutral philosophical
orientation, such as Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofía, indicate that philosophical
analysis is well established in at least the most European bit of the
continent: the river Plate area of Buenos Aires. The main centers of analytic
activity are Buenos Aires, on the River Plate, and far afterwards, the much
less British-influenced centers like Mexico City, or the provincial varsity of
Campinas and São Paulo in Brazil. The interests of South American philosophical
analysts center on questions of pragmatics, rather than semantics, -- and are
generally sympathetic to Griceian developments -- ethical and legal philosophy,
the philosophy of science, and more recently cognitive science. Among its most
important proponents are Genaro R. Carrio (b.1922), Gregorio Klimovsky
(b.1922), and Tomas Moro Simpson (b.1929), E. A. Rabossi (b. Buenos Aires), O.
N. Guariglia (b. Buenos Aires), in Argentina – Strawson was a frequent lecturer
at the Argentine Society for Philosopohical Analysis, and many other Oxonian
philosophers on sabbatical leave. The Argentine Society for Philosophical
Analysis, usually in conjunction with the Belgravia-based Anglo-Argentine
Society organize seminars and symposia – when an Argentine philosopher
emigrates he ceases to be considered an Argentine philosopher – students who
earn their maximal degrees overseas are not counted either as Argentine
philosophers by Argentine (or specifically Buenos Aires) philosophers (They
called them braindrained, brainwashed!) Luis Villoro (Spain, b. 1922) in
Mexico; Francisco Miró Quesada in Peru; Roberto Torretti (Chile, b.1930) in
Puerto Rico; Mario Bunge (Argentina, b.1919), who emigrated to Canada; and
Héctor-Neri Castañeda (Guatemala, 1924–91). The philosophy of liberation is an
autochthonous Latin American movement that mixes an emphasis on Latin American
intellectual independence with Catholic and Marxist ideas. The historicist
perspective of Leopoldo Zea, the movement known as the theology of liberation,
and some elements from the national-popular Peronist ideology prepared the
ground for it. The movement started in the early 1970s with a group of
Argentinian philosophers, who, owing to the military repression of 1976–83 in
Argentina, went into exile in various countries of Latin America. This early
diaspora created permanent splits in the movement and spread its ideas
throughout the region. Although proponents of this viewpoint do not always
agree on their goals, they share the notion of liberation as a fundamental
concept: the liberation from the slavery imposed on Latin America by imported
ideologies and the development of a genuinely autochthonous thought resulting
from reflection on the South American reality. As such, their views are an
extension of the thought of Ramos and others who earlier in the century
initiated the discussion of the cultural identity of South America.
bonum: One of the four transcendentals, along with ‘unum,’
‘pulchrum,’ and ‘verum’. Grice makes fun of Hare n “Language of Morals.” To
what extent is Hare saying that to say ‘x is good’ means ‘I approve of x’? (Strictly:
“To say that something is good is to recommend it”). To say " I approve
of x " is in part to do the same thing as when we say
" x is good " a
statement of the form " X
is good" strictly designates " I approve of X " and
suggests " Do so as well". It should be in Part II to
“Language of Morals”. Old Romans did not have an article, so for them it is
unum, bonum, verum, and pulchrum. They were trying to translate the very
articled Grecian things, ‘to agathon,’ ‘to alethes,’ and ‘to kallon.’ The three
references given by Liddell and Scott are good ones. τὸ ἀ., the good,
Epich.171.5, cf. Pl.R.506b, 508e, Arist.Metaph.1091a31, etc. The Grecian Grice
is able to return to the ‘article’. Grice has an early essay on ‘the good,’ and
he uses the same expression at Oxford for the Locke lectures when looking for a
‘desiderative’ equivalent to ‘the true.’ Hare had dedicated the full part of
his “Language of Morals” to ‘good,’ so Grice is well aware of the centrality of
the topic. He was irritated by what he called a performatory approach to the
good, where ‘x is good’ =df. ‘I approve of x.’ Surely that’s a conversational implicaturum.
However, in his analysis of reasoning (the demonstratum – since he uses the
adverb ‘demonstrably’ as a marker of pretty much like ‘concusively,’ as applied
to both credibility and desirability, we may focus on what Grice sees as
‘bonum’ as one of the ‘absolutes,’ the absolute in the desirability realm, as
much as the ‘verum’ is the absolute in the credibility realm. Grice has an
excellent argument regarding ‘good.’ His example is ‘cabbage,’ but also
‘sentence.’ Grice’s argument is to turn the disimpicatum into an explicitum. To
know what a ‘cabbage,’ or a formula is, you need to know first what a ‘good’
cabbage is or a ‘well-formed formula,’ is. An ill-formed sentence is not deemed
by Grice a sentence. This means that we define ‘x’ as ‘optimum x.’ This is not
so strange, seeing that ‘optimum’ is actually the superlative of ‘bonum’ (via
the comparative). It does not require very
sharp eyes, but only the willingness to use the eyes one has, to see that our
speech and thought are permeated with the notion of purpose; to say what a
certain kind of thing is is only too frequently partly to say what it is for.
This feature applies to our talk and thought of, for example, ships, shoes,
sealing wax, and kings; and, possibly and perhaps most excitingly, it extends
even to cabbages.“There is a range of cases in which, so far from its
being the case that, typically, one first learns what it is to be a F and then,
at the next stage, learns what criteria distinguish a good F from a F which is
less good, or not good at all, one needs first to learn what it is to be a good
F, and then subsequently to learn what degree of approximation to being a good
F will qualify an item as a F; if the gap between some item x and good Fs is
sufficently horrendous, x is debarred from counting as a F at all, even as a
bad F.”“In the John Locke Lectures, I called a concept which exhibits this
feature as a ‘value-paradeigmatic’ concept. One example of a
value-paradeigmatic concept is the concept of reasoning; another, I now suggest,
is that of sentence. It may well be that the existence of value-oriented
concepts (¢b ¢ 2 . • • . ¢n) depends on the prior existence of pre-rational
concepts ( ¢~, ¢~ . . . . ¢~), such that an item x qualifies for the
application of the concept ¢ 2 if and only if x satisfies a rationally-approved
form or version of the corresponding pre-rational concept ¢'. We have a
(primary) example of a step in reasoning only if we have a transition of a certain
rationally approved kind from one thought or utterance to another. --- bonum
commune -- common good, a normative standard in Thomistic and Neo-Thomistic
ethics for evaluating the justice of social, legal, and political arrangements,
referring to those arrangements that promote the full flourishing of everyone
in the community. Every good can be regarded as both a goal to be sought and,
when achieved, a source of human fulfillment. A common good is any good sought
by and/or enjoyed by two or more persons as friendship is a good common to the
friends; the common good is the good of a “perfect” i.e., complete and
politically organized human community a
good that is the common goal of all who promote the justice of that community,
as well as the common source of fulfillment of all who share in those just
arrangements. ‘Common’ is an analogical term referring to kinds and degrees of
sharing ranging from mere similarity to a deep ontological communion. Thus, any
good that is a genuine perfection of our common human nature is a common good,
as opposed to merely idiosyncratic or illusory goods. But goods are common in a
deeper sense when the degree of sharing is more than merely coincidental: two
children engaged in parallel play enjoy a good in common, but they realize a
common good more fully by engaging each other in one game; similarly, if each
in a group watches the same good movie alone at home, they have enjoyed a good
in common but they realize this good at a deeper level when they watch the
movie together in a theater and discuss it afterward. In short, common good
includes aggregates of private, individual goods but transcends these
aggregates by the unique fulfillment afforded by mutuality, shared activity,
and communion of persons. As to the sources in Thomistic ethics for this
emphasis on what is deeply shared over what merely coincides, the first is
Aristotle’s understanding of us as social and political animals: many aspects
of human perfection, on this view, can be achieved only through shared activities
in communities, especially the political community. The second is Christian
Trinitarian theology, in which the single Godhead involves the mysterious
communion of three divine “persons,” the very exemplar of a common good; human
personhood, by analogy, is similarly perfected only in a relationship of social
communion. The achievement of such intimately shared goods requires very
complex and delicate arrangements of coordination to prevent the exploitation
and injustice that plague shared endeavors. The establishment and maintenance
of these social, legal, and political arrangements is “the” common good of a
political society, because the enjoyment of all goods is so dependent upon the
quality and the justice of those arrangements. The common good of the political
community includes, but is not limited to, public goods: goods characterized by
non-rivalry and non-excludability and which, therefore, must generally be
provided by public institutions. By the principle of subsidiarity, the common
good is best promoted by, in addition to the state, many lower-level non-public
societies, associations, and individuals. Thus, religiously affiliated schools
educating non-religious minority chilcommission common good 161 161 dren might promote the common good
without being public goods.
booleian:
algebra: Peirce was irritated by the spelling “Boolean” “Surely it is
Booleian.” 1 an ordered triple B,†,3, where B is a set containing at least two
elements and † and 3 are unary and binary operations in B such that i a 3 b % b
3 a, ii a 3 b 3 c % a 3 b 3 c, iii a 3 † a % b 3 † b, and iv a 3 b = a if and
only if a 3 † b % a 3 † a; 2 the theboo-hurrah theory Boolean algebra 95 95 ory of such algebras. Such structures are
modern descendants of algebras published by the mathematician G. Boole in 1847
and representing the first successful algebraic treatment of logic.
Interpreting † and 3 as negation and conjunction, respectively, makes Boolean
algebra a calculus of propositions. Likewise, if B % {T,F} and † and 3 are the
truth-functions for negation and conjunction, then B,†,3 the truth table for those two
connectives forms a two-element Boolean
algebra. Picturing a Boolean algebra is simple. B,†,3 is a full subset algebra
if B is the set of all subsets of a given set and † and 3 are set
complementation and intersection, respectively. Then every finite Boolean
algebra is isomorphic to a full subset algebra, while every infinite Boolean
algebra is isomorphic to a subalgebra of such an algebra. It is for this reason
that Boolean algebra is often characterized as the calculus of classes.
bootstrap:
Grice certainly didn’t have a problem with meta-langauge paradoxes. Two of his
maxims are self refuting and ‘sic’-ed: “be perspicuous [sic]” and “be brief
(avoid unnecessary prolixity) [sic].” The principle introduced by Grice in
“Prejudices and predilections; which become, the life and opinions of H. P.
Grice,” to limit the power of the meta-language. The weaker your metalanguage
the easier you’ll be able to pull yourself by your own bootstraps. He uses
bootlaces in “Metaphysics, Philosophical Eschatology, and Plato’s Republic.”
border-line: case,
in the logical sense, a case that falls within the “gray area” or “twilight
zone” associated with a vague concept; in the pragmatic sense, a doubtful,
disputed, or arguable case. These two senses are not mutually exclusive, of
course. A moment of time near sunrise or sunset may be a borderline case of
daytime or nighttime in the logical sense, but not in the pragmatic sense. A
sufficiently freshly fertilized ovum may be a borderline case of a person in
both senses. Fermat’s hypothesis, or any of a large number of other disputed
mathematical propositions, may be a borderline case in the pragmatic sense but
not in the logical sense. A borderline case per se in either sense need not be
a limiting case or a degenerate case.
bosanquet: b.: Cited by H. P. Grice. Very English
philosopher (almost like Austin or Grice), the most systematic Oxford absolute
idealist and, with F. H. Bradley, the leading Oxford defender of absolute
idealism. Although he derived his last name from Huguenot ancestors, Bosanquet
was thoroughly English. Born at Altwick and educated at Harrow and Balliol,
Oxford, he was for eleven years a fellow of
University College, Oxford. The death of his father in 0 and the
resulting inheritance enabled Bosanquet to leave Oxford for London and a career
as a writer and social activist. While writing, he taught courses for the
London Ethical Society’s Center for
Extension and donated time to the Charity Organization Society. In 5 he
married his coworker in the Charity Organization Society, Helen Dendy, who was
also the translator of Christoph Sigwart’s Logic. Bosanquet was professor of
moral philosophy at St. Andrews from 3 to 8. He gave the Gifford Lectures in 1
and 2. Otherwise he lived in London until his death. Bosanquet’s most
comprehensive work, his two-volume Gifford Lectures, The Principle of Individuality
and Value and The Value and Destiny of the Individual, covers most aspects of
his philosophy. In The Principle of Individuality and Value he argues that the
search for truth proceeds by eliminating contradictions in experience. For
Bosanquet a contradiction arises when there are incompatible interpretations of
the same fact. This involves making distinctions that harmonize the
incompatible interpretations in a larger body of knowledge. Bosanquet thought
there was no way to arrest this process short of recognizing that all human
experience forms a comprehensive whole which is reality. Bosanquet called this
totality “the Absolute.” Just as conflicting interpretations of the same fact
find harmonious places in the Absolute, so conflicting desires are also included.
The Absolute thus satisfies all desires and provides Bosanquet’s standard for
evaluating other objects. This is because in his view the value of an object is
determined by its ability to satisfy desires. From this Bosanquet concluded
that human beings, as fragments of the Absolute, acquire greater value as they
realize themselves by partaking more fully in the Absolute. In The Value and
Destiny of the Individual Bosanquet explained how human beings could do this.
As finite, human beings face obstacles they cannot overcome; yet they desire
the good i.e., the Absolute which for Bosanquet overcomes all obstacles and
satisfies all desires. Humans can best realize a desire for the good, Bosanquet
thinks, by surrendering their private desires for the sake of the good. This
attitude of surrender, which Bosanquet calls the religious consciousness,
relates human beings to what is permanently valuable in reality and increases
their own value and satisfaction accordingly. Bosanquet’s defense of this
metaphysical vision rests heavily on his first major work, Logic or the
Morphology of Knowledge 8; 2d ed., 1. As the subtitle indicates, Bosanquet took
the subject matter of Logic to be the structure of knowledge. Like Hegel, who
was in many ways his inspiration, Bosanquet thought that the nature of
knowledge was defined by structures repeated in different parts of knowledge.
He called these structures forms of judgment and tried to show that simple
judgments are dependent on increasingly complex ones and finally on an
all-inclusive judgment that defines reality. For example, the simplest element
of knowledge is a demonstrative judgment like “This is hot.” But making such a
judgment presupposes understanding the contrast between ‘this’ and ‘that’.
Demonstrative judgments thus depend on comparative judgments like “This is
hotter than that.” Since these judgments are less dependent on other judgments,
they more fully embody human knowledge. Bosanquet claimed that the series of
increasingly complex judgments are not arranged in a simple linear order but
develop along different branches finally uniting in disjunctive judgments that
attribute to reality an exhaustive set of mutually exclusive alternatives which
are themselves judgments. When one contained judgment is asserted on the basis
of another, a judgment containing both is an inference. For Bosanquet
inferences are mediated judgments that assert their conclusions based on
grounds. When these grounds are made fully explicit in a judgment containing
them, that judgment embodies the nature of inference: that one must accept the
conclusion or reject the whole of knowledge. Since for Bosanquet the difference
between any judgment and the reality it represents is that a judgment is
composed of ideas that abstract from reality, a fully comprehensive judgment
includes all aspects of reality. It is thus identical to reality. By locating
all judgments within this one, Bosanquet claimed to have described the
morphology of knowledge as well as to have shown that thought is identical to
reality. Bosanquet removed an objection to this identification in History of
Aesthetics 2, where he traces the development of the philosophy of the
beautiful from its inception through absolute idealism. According to Plato and
Aristotle beauty is found in imitations of reality, while in objective idealism
it is reality in sensuous form. Drawing heavily on Kant, Bosanquet saw this
process as an overcoming of the opposition between sense and reason by showing
how a pleasurable feeling can partake of reason. He thought that absolute
idealism explained this by showing that we experience objects as beautiful
because their sensible qualities exhibit the unifying activity of reason.
Bosanquet treated the political implications of absolute idealism in his Philosophical
Theory of the State 8; 3d ed., 0, where he argues that humans achieve their
ends only in communities. According to Bosanquet, all humans rationally will
their own ends. Because their ends differ from moment to moment, the ends they
rationally will are those that harmonize their desires at particular moments.
Similarly, because the ends of different individuals overlap and conflict, what
they rationally will are ends that harmonize their desires, which are the ends
of humans in communities. They are willed by the general will, the realization
of which is self-rule or liberty. This provides the rational ground of
political obligation, since the most comprehensive system of modern life is the
state, the end of which is the realization of the best life for its
citizens.
boscovich:
An example of minimalism, according to Grice. Roger Joseph, or Rudjer Josip Bos
v kovic’, philosopher. Born of Serbian and
parents, he was a Jesuit and polymath best known for his A Theory of
Natural Philosophy Reduced to a Single Law of the Actions Existing in Nature.
This work attempts to explain all physical phenomena in terms of the
attractions and repulsions of point particles puncta that are indistinguishable
in their intrinsic qualitative properties. According to Boscovich’s single law,
puncta at a certain distance attract, until upon approaching one another they
reach a point at which they repel, and eventually reach equilibrium. Thus,
Boscovich defends a form of dynamism, or the theory that nature is to be
understood in terms of force and not mass where forces are functions of time
and distance. By dispensing with extended substance, Boscovich avoided
epistemological difficulties facing Locke’s natural philosophy and anticipated
developments in modern physics. Among those influenced by Boscovich were Kant
who defended a version of dynamism, Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Lord
Kelvin. Boscovich’s theory has proved to be empirically inadequate to account
for phenomena such as light. A philosophical difficulty for Boscovich’s puncta,
which are physical substances, arises out of their zero-dimensionality. It is
plausible that any power must have a basis in an object’s intrinsic properties,
and puncta appear to lack such support for their powers. However, it is
extensional properties that puncta lack, and Boscovich could argue that the
categorial property of being an unextended spatial substance provides the
needed basis.
bouwsma:
o. k., philosopher, a practitioner of ordinary language philosophy and
celebrated teacher. Through work on Moore and contact with students such as
Norman Malcolm and Morris Lazerowitz, whom he sent from Nebraska to work with
Moore, Bouwsma discovered Vitters. He became known for conveying an
understanding of Vitters’s techniques of philosophical analysis through his own
often humorous grasp of sense and nonsense. Focusing on a particular pivotal
sentence in an argument, he provided imaginative surroundings for it, showing
how, in the philosopher’s mouth, the sentence lacked sense. He sometimes described
this as “the method of failure.” In connection with Descartes’s evil genius,
e.g., Bouwsma invents an elaborate story in which the evil genius tries but
fails to permanently deceive by means of a totally paper world. Our inability
to imagine such a deception undermines the sense of the evil genius argument.
His writings are replete with similar stories, analogies, and teases of sense
and nonsense for such philosophical standards as Berkeley’s idealism, Moore’s
theory of sensedata, and Anselm’s ontological argument. Bouwsma did not
advocate theories nor put forward refutations of other philosophers’ views. His
talent lay rather in exposing some central sentence in an argument as disguised
nonsense. In this, he went beyond Vitters, working out the details of the
latter’s insights into language. In addition to this appropriation of Vitters,
Bouwsma also appropriated Kierkegaard, understanding him too as one who
dispelled philosophical illusions those
arising from the attempt to understand Christianity. The ordinary language of
religious philosophy was that of scriptures. He drew upon this language in his
many essays on religious themes. His religious dimension made whole this person
who gave no quarter to traditional metaphysics. His papers are published under
the titles Philosophical Essays, Toward a New Sensibility, Without Proof or
Evidence, and Vitters Conversations 951. His philosophical notebooks are housed
at the Humanities Research Center in Austin, Texas.
boyle: r.:
Grice was a closet corpularianist. a major figure in seventeenthcentury natural
philosophy. To his contemporaries he was “the restorer” in England of the
mechanical philosophy. His program was to replace the vacuous explanations
characteristic of Peripateticism the “quality of whiteness” in snow explains
why it dazzles the eyes by explanations employing the “two grand and most
catholic principles of bodies, matter and motion,” matter being composed of
corpuscles, with motion “the grand agent of all that happens in nature.” Boyle
wrote influentially on scientific methodology, emphasizing experimentation a
Baconian influence, experimental precision, and the importance of devising
“good and excellent” hypotheses. The dispute with Spinoza on the validation of
explanatory hypotheses contrasted Boyle’s experimental way with Spinoza’s way
of rational analysis. The 1670s dispute with Henry More on the ontological
grounds of corporeal activity confronted More’s “Spirit of Nature” with the
“essential modifications” motion and the “seminal principle” of activity with
which Boyle claimed God had directly endowed matter. As a champion of the
corpuscularian philosophy, Boyle was an important link in the development
before Locke of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. A
leading advocate of natural theology, he provided in his will for the
establishment of the Boyle Lectures to defend Protestant Christianity against
atheism and materialism.
bradley: One
of the few English philosophers who saw philosophy, correctly, as a branch of
literature! (Essay-writing, strictly). f. h., Cited by H. P. Grice in
“Prolegomena,” now repr. in “Studies in the Way of Words.” Also in Grice,
“Metaphysics,” in D. F. Pears, “The nature of metaphysics,” -- the most
original and influential nineteenth-century British idealist. Born at Clapham,
he was the fourth son of an evangelical minister. His younger brother A. C.
Bradley was a well-known Shakespearean critic. From 1870 until his death
Bradley was a fellow of Merton , Oxford. A kidney ailment, which first occurred
in 1871, compelled him to lead a retiring life. This, combined with his
forceful literary style, his love of irony, the dedication of three of his
books to an unknown woman, and acclaim as the greatest British idealist since
Berkeley, has lent an aura of mystery to his personal life. The aim of
Bradley’s first important work, Ethical Studies 1876, is not to offer guidance
for dealing with practical moral problems Bradley condemned this as casuistry,
but rather to explain what makes morality as embodied in the consciousness of
individuals and in social institutions possible. Bradley thought it was the
fact that moral agents take morality as an end in itself which involves
identifying their wills with an ideal provided in part by their stations in
society and then transferring that ideal to reality through action. Bradley
called this process “selfrealization.” He thought that moral agents could
realize their good selves only by suppressing their bad selves, from which he
concluded that morality could never be completely realized, since realizing a
good self requires having a bad one. For this reason Bradley believed that the
moral consciousness would develop into religious consciousness which, in his
secularized version of Christianity, required dying to one’s natural self
through faith in the actual existence of the moral ideal. In Ethical Studies
Bradley admitted that a full defense of his ethics would require a metaphysical
system, something he did not then have. Much of Bradley’s remaining work was an
attempt to provide the outline of such a system by solving what he called “the
great problem of the relation between thought and reality.” He first confronted
this problem in The Principles of Logic3, which is his description of thought.
He took thought to be embodied in judgments, which are distinguished from other
mental activities by being true or false. This is made possible by the fact
that their contents, which Bradley called ideas, represent reality. A problem
arises because ideas are universals and so represent kinds of things, while the
things themselves are all individuals. Bradley solves this problem by
distinguishing between the logical and grammatical forms of a judgment and
arguing that all judgments have the logical form of conditionals. They assert
that universal connections between qualities obtain in reality. The qualities
are universals, the connections between them are conditional, while reality is
one individual whole that we have contact with in immediate experience. All
judgments, in his view, are abstractions from a diverse but non-relational
immediate experience. Since judgments are inescapably relational, they fail to
represent accurately non-relational reality and so fail to reach truth, which
is the goal of thought. From this Bradley concluded that, contrary to what some
of his more Hegelian contemporaries were saying, thought is not identical to
reality and is never more than partially true. Appearance and Reality 3 is
Bradley’s description of reality: it is experience, all of it, all at once,
blended in a harmonious way. Bradley defended this view by means of his
criterion for reality. Reality, he proclaimed, does not contradict itself;
anything that does is merely appearance. In Part I of Appearance and Reality
Bradley relied on an infinite regress argument, now called Bradley’s regress,
to contend that relations and all relational phenomena, including thought, are
contradictory. They are appearance, not reality. In Part II he claimed that
appearances are contradictory because they are abstracted by thought from the
immediate experience of which they are a part. Appearances constitute the
content of this whole, which in Bradley’s view is experience. In other words,
reality is experience in its totality. Bradley called this unified, consistent
all-inclusive reality “the Absolute.” Today Bradley is mainly remembered for
his argument against the reality of relations, and as the philosopher who
provoked Russell’s and Moore’s revolution in philosophy. He would be better
remembered as a founder of twentiethcentury philosophy who based metaphysical
conclusions on his account of the logical forms of judgments.
brandt: R. B.,-- read by Grice for his ‘ideal observer
theory” or creature construction in “Method” moral philosopher, most closely
associated with rule utilitarianism which term he coined, earned degrees from
Denison and Cambridge , and obtained a
Ph.D. from Yale in 6. He taught at Swarthmore
from 7 to 4 and at the of
Michigan from 4 to 1. His six books and nearly one hundred articles included
work on philosophy of religion, epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of
action, political philosophy, and philosophy of law. His greatest contributions
were in moral philosophy. He first defended rule utilitarianism in his textbook
Ethical Theory 9, but greatly refined his view in the 0s in a series of
articles, which were widely discussed and reprinted and eventually collected
together in Morality, Utilitarianism, and Rights 2. Further refinements appear
in his A Theory of the Good and the Right 9 and Facts, Values, and Morality 6.
Brandt famously argued for a “reforming definition” of ‘rational person’. He
proposed that we use it to designate someone whose desires would survive
exposure to all relevant empirical facts and to correct logical reasoning. He
also proposed a “reforming definition” of ‘morally right’ that assigns it the
descriptive meaning ‘would be permitted by any moral code that all or nearly
all rational people would publicly favor for the agent’s society if they
expected to spend a lifetime in that society’. In his view, rational choice
between moral codes is determined not by prior moral commitments but by
expected consequences. Brandt admitted that different rational people may favor
different codes, since different rational people may have different levels of
natural benevolence. But he also contended that most rational people would
favor a rule-utilitarian code.
brentano:
f., philosopher, one of the most intellectually influential and personally
charismatic of his time. He is known especially for his distinction between
psychological and physical phenomena on the basis of intentionality or internal
object-directedness of thought, his revival of Aristotelianism and empirical
methods in philosophy and psychology, and his value theory and ethics supported
by the concept of correct pro- and anti-emotions or love and hate attitudes.
Brentano made noted contributions to the theory of metaphysical categories,
phenomenology, epistemology, syllogistic logic, and philosophy of religion. His
teaching made a profound impact on his students in Würzburg and Vienna, many of
whom became internationally respected thinkers in their fields, including Meinong,
Husserl, Twardowski, Christian von Ehrenfels, Anton Marty, and Freud. Brentano
began his study of philosophy at the Aschaffenburg Royal Bavarian Gymnasium; in
185658 he attended the universities of Munich and Würzburg, and then enrolled
at the of Berlin, where he undertook his
first investigations of Aristotle’s metaphysics under the supervision of F. A.
Trendelenburg. In 1859 60, he attended the Academy in Münster, reading
intensively in the medieval Aristotelians; in 1862 he received the doctorate in
philosophy in absentia from the of
Tübingen. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1864, and was later involved in
a controversy over the doctrine of papal infallibility, eventually leaving the
church in 1873. He taught first as Privatdozent in the Philosophical Faculty of
the of Würzburg 186674, and then
accepted a professorship at the of
Vienna. In 0 he decided to marry, temporarily resigning his position to acquire
Saxon citizenship, in order to avoid legal difficulties in Austria, where
marriages of former priests were not officially recognized. Brentano was
promised restoration of his position after his circumvention of these
restrictions, but although he was later reinstated as lecturer, his appeals for
reappointment as professor were answered only with delay and equivocation. He
left Vienna in 5, retiring to Italy, his family’s country of origin. At last he
moved to Zürich, Switzerland, shortly before Italy entered World War I. Here he
remained active both in philosophy and psychology, despite his ensuing
blindness, writing and revising numerous books and articles, frequently meeting
with former students and colleagues, and maintaining an extensive
philosophical-literary correspondence, until his death. In Psychologie vom
empirischen Standpunkt “Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint,” 1874,
Brentano argued that intentionality is the mark of the mental, that every
psychological experience contains an intended object also called an intentional object which the thought is about or toward which
the thought is directed. Thus, in desire, something is desired. According to
the immanent intentionality thesis, this means that the desired object is
literally contained within the psychological experience of desire. Brentano
claims that this is uniquely true of mental as opposed to physical or
non-psychological phenomena, so that the intentionality of the psychological
distinguishes mental from physical states. The immanent intentionality thesis
proBrentano, Franz Brentano, Franz 100
100 vides a framework in which Brentano identifies three categories of
psychological phenomena: thoughts Vorstellungen, judgments, and emotive
phenomena. He further maintains that every thought is also self-consciously
reflected back onto itself as a secondary intended object in what he called the
eigentümliche Verfleckung. From 5 through 1, with the publication in that year
of Von der Klassifikation der psychischen Phänomene, Brentano gradually
abandoned the immanent intentionality thesis in favor of his later philosophy
of reism, according to which only individuals exist, excluding putative
nonexistent irrealia, such as lacks, absences, and mere possibilities. In the
meantime, his students Twardowski, Meinong, and Husserl, reacting negatively to
the idealism, psychologism, and related philosophical problems apparent in the
early immanent intentionality thesis, developed alternative non-immanence
approaches to intentionality, leading, in the case of Twardowski and Meinong
and his students in the Graz school of phenomenological psychology, to the
construction of Gegenstandstheorie, the theory of transcendent existent and
nonexistent intended objects, and to Husserl’s later transcendental
phenomenology. The intentionality of the mental in Brentano’s revival of the
medieval Aristotelian doctrine is one of his most important contributions to
contemporary non-mechanistic theories of mind, meaning, and expression.
Brentano’s immanent intentionality thesis was, however, rejected by
philosophers who otherwise agreed with his underlying claim that thought is
essentially object-directed. Brentano’s value theory Werttheorie offers a
pluralistic account of value, permitting many different kinds of things to be
valuable although, in keeping with his
later reism, he denies the existence of an abstract realm of values. Intrinsic
value is objective rather than subjective, in the sense that he believes the
pro- and anti-emotions we may have toward an act or situation are objectively
correct if they present themselves to emotional preference with the same
apodicity or unquestionable sense of rightness as other selfevident matters of
non-ethical judgment. Among the controversial consequences of Brentano’s value
theory is the conclusion that there can be no such thing as absolute evil. The
implication follows from Brentano’s observation, first, that evil requires evil
consciousness, and that consciousness of any kind, even the worst imaginable
malice or malevolent ill will, is considered merely as consciousness
intrinsically good. This means that necessarily there is always a mixture of
intrinsic good even in the most malicious possible states of mind, by virtue
alone of being consciously experienced, so that pure evil never obtains.
Brentano’s value theory admits of no defense against those who happen not to
share the same “correct” emotional attitudes toward the situations he
describes. If it is objected that to another person’s emotional preferences
only good consciousness is intrinsically good, while infinitely bad
consciousness despite being a state of consciousness appears instead to contain
no intrinsic good and is absolutely evil, there is no recourse within
Brentano’s ethics except to acknowledge that this contrary emotive attitude
toward infinitely bad consciousness may also be correct, even though it
contradicts his evaluations. Brentano’s empirical psychology and articulation
of the intentionality thesis, his moral philosophy and value theory, his
investigations of Aristotle’s metaphysics at a time when Aristotelian realism
was little appreciated in the prevailing climate of post-Kantian idealism, his
epistemic theory of evident judgment, his suggestions for the reform of
syllogistic logic, his treatment of the principle of sufficient reason and
existence of God, his interpretation of a fourstage cycle of successive trends
in the history of philosophy, together with his teaching and personal moral
example, continue to inspire a variety of divergent philosophical
traditions.
broad:
cited by H. P. Grice in “Personal identity” and “Prolegomena” (re: Benjamin on
Broad on remembering). Charlie Dunbar 71, English epistemologist,
metaphysician, moral philosopher, and philosopher of science. He was educated
at Trinity , Cambridge, taught at several universities in Scotland, and then
returned to Trinity, first as lecturer in moral science and eventually as
Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy. His philosophical views are in the
broadly realist tradition of Moore and Russell, though with substantial
influence also from his teachers at Cambridge, McTaggart and W. E. Johnson.
Broad wrote voluminously and incisively on an extremely wide range of
philosophical topics, including most prominently the nature of perception, a
priori knowledge and concepts, the problem of induction, the mind Brentano’s
thesis Broad, Charlie Dunbar 101 101
body problem, the free will problem, various topics in moral philosophy, the
nature and philosophical significance of psychical research, the nature of
philosophy itself, and various historical figures such as Leibniz, Kant, and
McTaggart. Broad’s work in the philosophy of perception centers on the nature
of sense-data or sensa, as he calls them and their relation to physical
objects. He defends a rather cautious, tentative version of the causal theory
of perception. With regard to a priori knowledge, Broad rejects the empiricist
view that all such knowledge is of analytic propositions, claiming instead that
reason can intuit necessary and universal connections between properties or
characteristics; his view of concept acquisition is that while most concepts
are abstracted from experience, some are a priori, though not necessarily
innate. Broad holds that the rationality of inductive inference depends on a
further general premise about the world, a more complicated version of the
thesis that nature is uniform, which is difficult to state precisely and even
more difficult to justify. Broad’s view of the mindbody problem is a version of
dualism, though one that places primary emphasis on individual mental events,
is much more uncertain about the existence and nature of the mind as a
substance, and is quite sympathetic to epiphenomenalism. His main contribution
to the free will problem consists in an elaborate analysis of the libertarian
conception of freedom, which he holds to be both impossible to realize and at
the same time quite possibly an essential precondition of the ordinary
conception of obligation. Broad’s work in ethics is diverse and difficult to
summarize, but much of it centers on the issue of whether ethical judgments are
genuinely cognitive in character. Broad was one of the few philosophers to take
psychical research seriously. He served as president of the Society for
Psychical Research and was an occasional observer of experiments in this area.
His philosophical writings on this subject, while not uncritical, are in the
main sympathetic and are largely concerned to defend concepts like precognition
against charges of incoherence and also to draw out their implications for more
familiar philosophical issues. As regards the nature of philosophy, Broad
distinguishes between “critical” and “speculative” philosophy. Critical
philosophy is analysis of the basic concepts of ordinary life and of science,
roughly in the tradition of Moore and Russell. A very high proportion of Broad’s
own work consists of such analyses, often amazingly detailed and meticulous in
character. But he is also sympathetic to the speculative attempt to arrive at
an overall conception of the nature of the universe and the position of human
beings therein, while at the same time expressing doubts that anything even
remotely approaching demonstration is possible in such endeavors. The foregoing
catalog of views reveals something of the range of Broad’s philosophical
thought, but it fails to bring out what is most strikingly valuable about it.
Broad’s positions on various issues do not form anything like a system he
himself is reported to have said that there is nothing that answers to the
description “Broad’s philosophy”. While his views are invariably subtle,
thoughtful, and critically penetrating, they rarely have the sort of one-sided
novelty that has come to be so highly valued in philosophy. What they do have
is exceptional clarity, dialectical insight, and even-handedness. Broad’s skill
at uncovering and displaying the precise shape of a philosophical issue,
clarifying the relevant arguments and objections, and cataloging in detail the
merits and demerits of the opposing positions has rarely been equaled. One who
seeks a clear-cut resolution of an issue is likely to be impatient and
disappointed with Broad’s careful, measured discussions, in which unusual
effort is made to accord all positions and arguments their due. But one who
seeks a comprehensive and balanced understanding of the issue in question is
unlikely to find a more trustworthy guide.
brouwer: L.
E. J: Discussed by H. P. Grice in connection with ‘intuititionist negation’ and
the elimination of negation -- philosopher and founder of the intuitionist
school in the philosophy of mathematics. Educated at the Municipal of Amsterdam, where he received his doctorate
in 7, he remained there for his entire professional career, as Privaat-Docent
912 and then professor 255. He was among the preeminent topologists of his
time, proving several important results. Philosophically, he was also unique in
his strongly held conviction that philosophical ideas and arguments concerning
the nature of mathematics ought to affect and be reflected in its practice. His
general orientation in the philosophy of mathematics was Kantian. This was
manifested in his radical critique of the role accorded to logical reasoning by
classical mathematics; a role that Brouwer, following Kant, believed to be
incompatible with the role that intuition must properly play in mathematical
reasoning. The bestknown, if not the most fundamental, part of his Brouwer,
Luitzgen Egbertus Jan Brouwer, Luitzgen Egbertus Jan 102 102 critique of the role accorded to logic
by classical mathematics was his attack on the principle of the excluded middle
and related principles of classical logic. He challenged their reliability,
arguing that their unrestricted use leads to results that, intuitionistically
speaking, are not true. However, in its fundaments, Brouwer’s critique was not
so much an attack on particular principles of classical logic as a criticism of
the general role that classical mathematics grants to logical reasoning. He
believed that logical structure and hence logical inference is a product of the
linguistic representation of mathematical thought and not a feature of that
thought itself. He stated this view in the so-called First Act of Intuitionism,
which contains not only the chief critical idea of Brouwer’s position, but also
its core positive element. This positive element says, with Kant, that
mathematics is an essentially languageless activity of the mind. Brouwer went
on to say something with which Kant would only have partially agreed: that this
activity has its origin in the perception of a move of time. The critical
element complements this by saying that mathematics is thus to be kept wholly
distinct from mathematical language and the phenomena of language described by
logic. The so-called Second Act of Intuitionism then extends the positive part
of the First Act by stating that the “self-unfolding” of the primordial
intuition of a move of time is the basis not only of the construction of the
natural numbers but also of the intuitionistic continuum. Together, these two
ideas form the basis of Brouwer’s philosophy of mathematics a philosophy that is radically at odds with
most of twentieth-century philosophy of mathematics.
bruno:
g., apeculative philosopher. He was born in Naples, where he entered the
Dominican order in 1565. In 1576 he was suspected of heresy and abandoned his
order. He studied and taught in Geneva, but left because of difficulties with
the Calvinists. Thereafter he studied and taught in Toulouse, Paris, England,
various G. universities, and Prague. In 1591 he rashly returned to Venice, and
was arrested by the Venetian Inquisition in 1592. In 1593 he was handed over to
the Roman Inquisition, which burned him to death as a heretic. Because of his
unhappy end, his support for the Copernican heliocentric hypothesis, and his
pronounced anti-Aristotelianism, Bruno has been mistakenly seen as the
proponent of a scientific worldview against medieval obscurantism. In fact, he
should be interpreted in the context of Renaissance hermetism. Indeed, Bruno
was so impressed by the hermetic corpus, a body of writings attributed to the
mythical Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus, that he called for a return to the
magical religion of the Egyptians. He was also strongly influenced by Lull,
Nicholas of Cusa, Ficino, and Agrippa von Nettesheim, an early
sixteenth-century author of an influential treatise on magic. Several of
Bruno’s works were devoted to magic, and it plays an important role in his
books on the art of memory. Techniques for improving the memory had long been a
subject of discussion, but he linked them with the notion that one could so
imprint images of the universe on the mind as to achieve special knowledge of
divine realities and the magic powers associated with such knowledge. He
emphasized the importance of the imagination as a cognitive power, since it
brings us into contact with the divine. Nonetheless, he also held that human
ideas are mere shadows of divine ideas, and that God is transcendent and hence
incomprehensible. Bruno’s best-known works are the dialogues he wrote while in England,
including the following, all published in 1584: The Ash Wednesday Supper; On Cause,
Principle and Unity; The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast; and On the Infinite
Universe and Worlds. He presents a vision of the universe as a living and
infinitely extended unity containing innumerable worlds, each of which is like
a great animal with a life of its own. He maintained the unity of matter with
universal form or the World-Soul, thus suggesting a kind of pantheism
attractive to later G. idealists, such as Schelling. However, he never
identified the World-Soul with God, who remained separate from matter and form.
He combined his speculative philosophy of nature with the recommendation of a
new naturalistic ethics. Bruno’s support of Copernicus in The Ash Wednesday
Supper was related to his belief that a living earth must move, and he specifically
rejected any appeal to mere mathematics to prove cosmological hypotheses. In
later work he described the monad as a living version of the Democritean atom.
Despite some obvious parallels with both Spinoza and Leibniz, he seems not to
have had much direct influence on seventeenth-century thinkers.
brunschvicg,
l.: H. P. Grice is very popular in France, and so is Brunschvicg, philosopher,
an influential professor at the Sorbonne and the École Normale Supérieure of
Paris, and a founder of the Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 3 and the
Société Française de Philosophie 1. In 0 he was forced by the Nazis to leave
Paris and sought refuge in the nonoccupied zone, where he died. A monistic
idealist, Brunschvicg unfolded a philosophy of mind Introduction to the Life of
the Mind, 0. His epistemology highlights judgment. Thinking is judging and
judging is acting. He defined philosophy as “the mind’s methodical
self-reflection.” Philosophy investigates man’s growing self-understanding. The
mind’s recesses, or metaphysical truth, are accessible through analysis of the
mind’s timely manifestations. His major works therefore describe the progress
of science as progress of consciousness: The Stages of Mathematical Philosophy
2, Human Experience and Physical Causality 2, The Progress of Conscience in
Western Philosophy 7, and Ages of Intelligence 4. An heir of Renouvier,
Cournot, and Revaisson, Brunschvicg advocated a moral and spiritual conception
of science and attempted to reconcile idealism and positivism.
buber: M. G.: H. P. Grice is all about ‘I’ and ‘thou,’
as Buber is. Jewish philosopher, theologian, and political leader. Buber’s
early influences include Hasidism and neo-Kantianism. Eventually he broke with
the latter and became known as a leading religious existentialist. His chief
philosophic works include his most famous book, Ich und du “I and Thou,” 3;
Moses 6; Between Man and Man 7; and Eclipse of God 2. The crux of Buber’s
thought is his conception of two primary relationships: I-Thou and I-It. IThou is
characterized by openness, reciprocity, and a deep sense of personal
involvement. The I confronts its Thou not as something to be studied, measured,
or manipulated, but as a unique presence that responds to the I in its
individuality. I-It is characterized by the tendency to treat something as an
impersonal object governed by causal, social, or economic forces. Buber rejects
the idea that people are isolated, autonomous agents operating according to
abstract rules. Instead, reality arises between agents as they encounter and
transform each other. In a word, reality is dialogical. Buber describes God as
the ultimate Thou, the Thou who can never become an It. Thus God is reached not
by inference but by a willingness to respond to the concrete reality of the divine
presence.
buchmanism: also
called the Moral Rearmament Movement, a non-creedal international movement that
sought to bring about universal brotherhood through a commitment to an
objectivist moral system derived largely from the Gospels. It was founded by
Frank Buchman 18781, an Lutheran
minister who resigned from his church in 8 in order to expand his ministry. To
promote the movement, Buchman founded the Oxford Group at Oxford. H. P. Grice
was a member.
bundle:
theory: Is Grice proposing a ‘bundle theory’ of “Personal identity”: He defines
“I” as an interlinked chain of mnemonic states, a view that accepts the idea
that concrete objects consist of properties but denies the need for introducing
substrata to account for their diversity. By contrast, one traditional view of
concrete particular objects is that they are complexes consisting of two more
fundamental kinds of entities: properties that can be exemplified by many
different objects and a substratum that exemplifies those properties belonging
to a particular object. Properties account for the qualitative identity of such
objects while substrata account for their numerical diversity. The bundle
theory is usually glossed as the view that a concrete object is nothing but a
bundle of properties. This gloss, however, is inadequate. For if a “bundle” of
properties is, e.g., a set of properties, then bundles of properties differ in
significant ways from concrete objects. For sets of properties are necessary
and eternal while concrete objects are contingent and perishing. A more
adequate statement of the theory holds that a concrete object is a complex of
properties which all stand in a fundamental contingent relation, call it
co-instantiation, to one another. On this account, complexes of properties are
neither necessary nor eternal. Critics of the theory, however, maintain that
such complexes have all their properties essentially and cannot change
properties, whereas concrete objects have some of their properties accidentally
and undergo change. This objection fails to recognize that there are two
distinct problems addressed by the bundle theory: a individuation and b
identity through time. The first problem arises for all objects, both momentary
and enduring. The second, however, arises only for enduring objects. The bundle
theory typically offers two different solutions to these problems. An enduring
concrete object is analyzed as a series of momentary objects which stand in
some contingent relation R. Different versions of the theory offer differing
accounts of the relation. For example, Hume holds that the self is a series of
co-instantiated impressions and ideas, whose members are related to one another
by causation and resemblance this is his bundle theory of the self. A momentary
object, however, is analyzed as a complex of properties all of which stand in
the relation of co-instantiation to one another. Consequently, even if one
grants that a momentary complex of properties has all of its members
essentially, it does not follow that an enduring object, which contains the
complex as a temporal part, has those properties essentially unless one
endorses the controversial thesis that an enduring object has its temporal
parts essentially. Similarly, even if one grants that a momentary complex of
properties cannot change in its properties, it does not follow that an enduring
object, which consists of such complexes, cannot change its properties. Critics
of the bundle theory argue that its analysis of momentary objects is also
problematic. For it appears possible that two different momentary objects have
all properties in common, yet there cannot be two different complexes with all
properties in common. There are two responses available to a proponent of the
theory. The first is to distinguish between a strong and a weak version of the
theory. On the strong version, the thesis that a momentary object is a complex
of co-instantiated properties is a necessary truth, while on the weak version
it is a contingent truth. The possibility of two momentary objects with all
properties in common impugns only the strong version of the theory. The second
is to challenge the basis of the claim that it is possible for two momentary
objects to have all their properties in common. Although critics allege that
such a state of affairs is conceivable, proponents argue that investigation
into the nature of conceivability does not underwrite this claim.
buridan –
and his ass – and the Griceian implicaturum -- j. philosopher. He was born in
Béthune and educated at the of Paris.
Unlike most philosophers of his time, Buridan spent his academic career as a
master in the faculty of arts, without seeking an advanced degree in theology.
He was also unusual in being a secular cleric rather than a member of a
religious order. Buridan wrote extensively on logic and natural philosophy,
although only a few of his works have appeared in modern editions. The most
important on logic are the Summulae de dialectica “Sum of Dialectic”, an
introduction to logic conceived as a revision of, and extended commentary on,
the Summulae logicales of Peter of Spain, a widely used logic textbook of the
period; and the Tractatus de consequentiis, a treatise on modes of inference.
Most of Buridan’s other writings are short literal commentaries expositiones
and longer critical studies quaestiones of Aristotle’s works. Like most
medieval nominalists, Buridan argued that universals have no real existence,
except as concepts by which the mind “conceives of many things indifferently.”
Likewise, he included only particular substances and qualities in his basic
ontology. But his nominalist program is distinctive in its implementation. He
differs, e.g., from Ockham in his accounts of motion, time, and quantity
appealing, in the latter case, to quantitative forms to explain the
impenetrability of bodies. In natural philosophy, Buridan is best known for
introducing to the West the non-Aristotelian concept of impetus, or impressed
force, to explain projectile motion. Although asses appear often in his
examples, the particular example that has come via Spinoza and others to be
known as “Buridan’s ass,” an ass starving to death between two equidistant and
equally tempting piles of hay, is unknown in Buridan’s writings. It may,
however, have originated as a caricature of Buridan’s theory of action, which
attempts to find a middle ground between Aristotelian intellectualism and
Franciscan voluntarism by arguing that the will’s freedom to act consists
primarily in its ability to defer choice in the absence of a compelling reason
to act one way or the other. Buridan’s intellectual legacy was considerable.
His works continued to be read and discussed in universities for centuries
after his death. Three of his students and disciples, Albert of Saxony, Marsilius
of Inghen, and Nicole Oresme, went on to become distinguished philosophers in
their own right.
burke:
e. discussed by H. P. Grice in his exploration on legal versus moral right,
statesman and one of the eighteenth century’s greatest political writers. Born
in Dublin, he moved to London to study law, then undertook a literary and
political career. He sat in the House of Commons from 1765 to 1794. In speeches
and pamphlets during these years he offered an ideological perspective on
politics that endures to this day as the fountain of conservative wisdom. The
philosophical stance that pervades Burke’s parliamentary career and writings is
skepticism, a profound distrust of political rationalism, i.e., the achievement
in the political realm of abstract and rational structures, ideals, and
objectives. Burkean skeptics are profoundly anti-ideological, detesting what
they consider the complex, mysterious, and existential givens of political life
distorted, criticized, or planned from a perspective of abstract, generalized,
and rational categories. The seminal expression of Burke’s skeptical
conservatism is found in the Reflections on the Revolution in France 1790. The
conservatism of the Reflections was earlier displayed, however, in Burke’s
response to radical demands in England for democratic reform of Parliament in
the early 1780s. The English radicals assumed that legislators could remake
governments, when all wise men knew that “a prescriptive government never was
made upon any foregone theory.” How ridiculous, then, to put governments on
Procrustean beds and make them fit “the theories which learned and speculative
men have made.” Such prideful presumption required much more rational capacity
than could be found among ordinary mortals. One victim of Burke’s skepticism is
the vaunted liberal idea of the social contract. Commonwealths were neither
constructed nor ought they to be renovated according to a priori principles.
The concept of an original act of contract is just such a principle. The only
contract in politics is the agreement that binds generations past, present, and
future, one that “is but a clause in the great primeval contract of an eternal
society.” Burke rejects the voluntaristic quality of rationalist liberal
contractualism. Individuals are not free to create their own political
institutions. Political society and law are not “subject to the will of those
who, by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to submit
their will to that law.” Men and groups “are not morally at liberty, at their
pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent improvement” to rip apart
their communities and dissolve them into an “unsocial, uncivil, unconnected
chaos.” Burke saw our stock of reason as small; despite this people still fled
their basic limitations in flights of ideological fancy. They recognized no
barrier to their powers and sought in politics to make reality match their
speculative visions. Burke devoutly wished that people would appreciate their
weakness, their “subordinate rank in the creation.” God has “subjected us to
act the part which belongs to the place assigned us.” And that place is to know
the limits of one’s rational and speculative faculties. Instead of relying on
their own meager supply of reason, politicians should avail themselves “of the
general bank and capital of nations and of ages.” Because people forget this
they weave rational schemes of reform far beyond their power to implement.
Buridan’s ass Burke, Edmund 108 108
Burke stands as the champion of political skepticism in revolt against
Enlightenment rationalism and its “smugness of adulterated metaphysics,” which
produced the “revolution of doctrine and theoretic dogma.” The sins of the were produced by the “clumsy subtlety of
their political metaphysics.” The “faith in the dogmatism of philosophers” led
them to rely on reason and abstract ideas, on speculation and a priori
principles of natural right, freedom, and equality as the basis for reforming
governments. Englishmen, like Burke, had no such illusions; they understood the
complexity and fragility of human nature and human institutions, they were not
“the converts of Rousseau . . . the disciples of Voltaire; Helvetius [had] made
no progress amongst [them].”
burleigh:
W.
H. P. Grice preferred the spelling “Burleigh,” or “Burleighensis” if you must –
“That’s how we called him at Oxford!” English philosopher who taught philosophy
at Oxford and theology at Paris. An orthodox Aristotelian and a realist, he
attacked Ockham’s logic and his interpretation of the Aristotelian categories.
Burley commented on almost of all of Aristotle’s works in logic, natural
philosophy, and moral philosophy. An early Oxford Calculator, Burley began his
work as a fellow of Merton in 1301. By
1310, he was at Paris. A student of Thomas Wilton, he probably incepted before
1322; by 1324 he was a fellow of the Sorbonne. His commentary on Peter
Lombard’s Sentences has been lost. After leaving Paris, Burley was associated
with the household of Richard of Bury and the court of Edward III, who sent him
as an envoy to the papal curia in 1327. De vita et moribus philosophorum “On
the Life and Manners of Philosophers”, an influential, popular account of the
lives of the philosophers, has often been attributed to Burley, but modern
scholarship suggests that the attribution is incorrect. Many of Burley’s
independent works dealt with problems in natural philosophy, notably De
intensione et remissione formarum “On the Intension and Remission of Forms”, De
potentiis animae “On the Faculties of the Soul”, and De substantia orbis. De
primo et ultimo instanti “On First and Last Instants” discusses which temporal
processes have intrinsic, which extrinsic limits. In his Tractatus de formis
Burley attacks Ockham’s theory of quantity. Similarly, Burley’s theory of
motion opposed Ockham’s views. Ockham restricts the account of motion to the thing
moving, and the quality, quantity, and place acquired by motion. By contrast,
Burley emphasizes the process of motion and the quantitative measurement of
that process. Burley attacks the view that the forms successively acquired in
motion are included in the form finally acquired. He ridicules the view that
contrary qualities hot and cold could simultaneously inhere in the same subject
producing intermediate qualities warmth. Burley emphasized the formal character
of logic in his De puritate artis logicae “On the Purity of the Art of Logic”,
one of the great medieval treatises on logic. Ockham attacked a preliminary
version of De puritate in his Summa logicae; Burley called Ockham a beginner in
logic. In De puritate artis logicae, Burley makes syllogistics a subdivision of
consequences. His treatment of negation is particularly interesting for his
views on double negation and the restrictions on the rule that notnot-p implies
p. Burley distinguished between analogous words and analogous concepts and natures.
His theory of analogy deserves detailed discussion. These views, like the views
expressed in most of Burley’s works, have seldom been carefully studied by
modern philosophers.
butlerianism: J.,
cited by H. P. Grice, principle of conversational benevolence. English
theologian and Anglican bishop who made important contributions to moral
philosophy, to the understanding of moral agency, and to the development of
deontological ethics. Better known in his own time for The Analogy of Religion
1736, a defense, along broadly empiricist lines, of orthodox, “revealed”
Christian doctrine against deist criticism, Butler’s main philosophical legacy
was a series of highly influential arguments and theses contained in a
collection of Sermons 1725 and in two “Dissertations” appended to The
Analogy one on virtue and the other on
personal identity. The analytical method of these essays “everything is what it
is and not another thing” provided a model for much of English-speaking moral
philosophy to follow. For example, Butler is often credited with refuting
psychological hedonism, the view that all motives can be reduced to the desire
for pleasure or happiness. The sources of human motivation are complex and
structurally various, he argued. Appetites and passions seek their own peculiar
objects, and pleasure must itself be understood as involving an intrinsic
positive regard for a particular object. Other philosophers had maintained,
like Butler, that we can desire, e.g., the happiness of others intrinsically,
and not just as a means to our own happiness. And others had argued that the
person who aims singlemindedly at his own happiness is unlikely to attain it.
Butler’s distinctive contribution was to demonstrate that happiness and
pleasure themselves require completion by specific objects for which we have an
intrinsic positive regard. Self-love, the desire for our own happiness, is a
reflective desire for, roughly, the satisfaction of our other desires. But
self-love is not our only reflective desire; we also have “a settled reasonable
principle of benevolence.” We can consider the goods of others and come on
reflection to desire their welfare more or less independently of particular
emotional involvement such as compassion. In morals, Butler equally opposed
attempts to reduce virtue to benevolence, even of the most universal and
impartial sort. Benevolence seeks the good or happiness of others, whereas the
regulative principle of virtue is conscience, the faculty of moral approval or
disapproval of conduct and character. Moral agency requires, he argued, the
capacities to reflect disinterestedly on action, motive, and character, to
judge these in distinctively moral terms and not just in terms of their
relation to the non-moral good of happiness, and to guide conduct by such
judgments. Butler’s views about the centrality of conscience in the moral life
were important in the development of deontological ethics as well as in the
working out of an associated account of moral agency. Along the first lines, he
argued in the “Dissertation” that what it is right for a person to do depends,
not just on the non-morally good or bad consequences of an action, but on such
other morally relevant features as the relationships the agent bears to
affected others e.g., friend or beneficiary, or whether fraud, injustice,
treachery, or violence is involved. Butler thus distinguished analytically
between distinctively moral evaluation of action and assessing an act’s
relation to such non-moral values as happiness. And he provided succeeding deontological
theorists with a litany of examples where the right thing to do is apparently
not what would have the best consequences. Butler believed God instills a
“principle of reflection” or conscience in us through which we intrinsically
disapprove of such actions as fraud and injustice. But he also believed that
God, being omniscient and benevolent, fitted us with these moral attitudes
because “He foresaw this constitution of our nature would produce more
happiness, than forming us with a temper of mere general benevolence.” This
points, however, toward a kind of anti-deontological or consequentialist view,
sometimes called indirect consequentialism, which readily acknowledges that
what it is right to do does not depend on which act will have the best consequences.
It is entirely appropriate, according to indirect consequentialism, that
conscience approve or disapprove of acts on grounds other than a calculation of
consequences precisely because its doing so has the best consequences. Here we
have a version of the sort of view later to be found, for example, in Mill’s
defense of utilitarianism against the objection that it conflicts with justice
and rights. Morality is a system of social control that demands allegiance to
considerations other than utility, e.g., justice and honesty. But it is
justifiable only to the extent that the system itself has utility. This sets up
something of a tension. From the conscientious perspective an agent must
distinguish between the question of which action would have the best
consequences and the question of what he should do. And from that perspective,
Butler thinks, one will necessarily regard one’s answer to the second question
as authoritative for conduct. Conscience necessarily implicitly asserts its own
authority, Butler famously claimed. Thus, insofar as agents come to regard
their conscience as simply a method of social control with good consequences,
they will come to be alienated from the inherent authority their conscience
implicitly claims. A similar issue arises concerning the relation between
conscience and self-love. Butler says that both self-love and conscience are
“superior principles in the nature of man” in that an action will be unsuitable
to a person’s nature if it is contrary to either. This makes conscience’s
authority conditional on its not conflicting with self-love and vice versa.
Some scholars, moreover, read other passages as implying that no agent could
reasonably follow conscience unless doing so was in the agent’s interest. But
again, it would seem that an agent who internalized such a view would be
alienated from the authority that, if Butler is right, conscience implicitly
claims. For Butler, conscience or the principle of reflection is uniquely the
faculty of practical judgment. Unlike either self-love or benevolence, even
when these are added to the powers of inference and empirical cognition, only
conscience makes moral agency possible. Only a creature with conscience can
accord with or violate his own judgment of what he ought to do, and thereby be
a “law to himself.” This suggests a view that, like Kant’s, seeks to link
deontology to a conception of autonomous moral agency.
byzantine. This
is important since it displays Grice’s disrespect for stupid traditions. There
is Austin trying to lecture what he derogatorily called ‘philosophical hack’
(“I expect he was being ironic”) into learning through the Little Oxford
Dictionary. HARDLY Grice’s cup of tea. Austiin, or the ‘master,’ as Grice
ironically calls him, could patronize less patrician play group members, but
not him! In any case, Austin grew so tiresome, that Grice grabbed the Little
Dictionary. Austin had gave him license to go and refute Ryle on ‘feeling’.
“So, go and check with the dictionary, to see howmany things you can feel.” Grice
started with the A and got as far as the last relevant item under the ‘B,” he
hoped. “And then I realised it was all hopeless. A waste. Language botany,
indeed!” At a later stage, he grew more affectionate, especially when seeing
that this was part of his armoury (as Gellner had noted): a temperament, surely
not shared by Strawson, for subtleties and nuances. How Byzantine can Grice
feel? Vide ‘agitation.’ Does feeling Byzantine entail a feeling of BEING
Byzantine? originally used of the style of art
and architecture developed there 4c.-5c. C.E.; later in reference to the
complex, devious, and intriguing character of the royal court of Constantinople
(1937). Bȳzantĭum ,
ii, n., = Βυζάντιον,I.a city in Thrace, on
the Bosphorus, opposite
the Asiatic Chalcedon, later Constantinopolis, now Constantinople; among the
Turks, Istamboul or Stamboul (i.e. εις τὴν πόλιν), Mel. 2, 2, 6; Plin. 4, 11, 18, § 46; 9, 15, 20, § 50 sq.; Nep. Paus. 2, 2; Liv. 38, 16, 3 sq.; Tac. A. 12, 63 sq.; id. H. 2. 83; 3, 47 al.—II. Derivv.A. Bȳzantĭus ,
a, um, adj., of Byzantium, Byzantine: “litora,” the Strait of
Constantinople, Ov. Tr. 1, 10, 31: “portus,” Plin. 9, 15, 20, § 51.—Subst.: Bȳ-zantĭi ,
ōrum, m., the inhabitants of
Byzantium, Cic. Prov. Cons. 3, 5; 4, 6 sq.; Cic. Verr. 2, 2, 31, § 76; Nep. Timoth. 1, 2; Liv. 32, 33, 7.—B. Bȳzantĭăcus ,
a, um, adj., of Byzantium:
“lacerti,” Stat. S. 4, 9, 13. — C. Bȳzantīnus ,
a, um, adj., the same (post-class.): “Lygos,” Aus.
Clar. Urb. 2: “frigora,” Sid.
Ep. 7, 17. Byzantine feeling -- Einfühlung G., ‘feeling into’,
empathy. In contrast to sympathy, where one’s identity is preserved in feeling
with or for the other, in empathy or Einfühlung one tends to lose oneself in
the other. The concept of Einfühlung received its classical formulation in the
work of Theodor Lipps, who characterized it as a process of involuntary, inner
imitation whereby a subject identifies through feeling with the movement of
another body, whether it be the real leap of a dancer or the illusory upward
lift of an architectural column. Complete empathy is considered to be
aesthetic, providing a non-representational access to beauty. Husserl used a
phenomenologically purified concept of Einfühlung to account for the way the
self directly recognizes the other. Husserl’s student Edith Stein described
Einfühlung as a blind egoism Einfühlung 255
255 mode of knowledge that reaches the experience of the other without
possessing it. Einfühlung is not to be equated with Verstehen or human
understanding, which, as Dilthey pointed out, requires the use of all one’s
mental powers, and cannot be reduced to a mere mode of feeling. To understand
is not to apprehend something empathetically as the projected locus of an
actual experience, but to apperceive the meaning of expressions of experience
in relation to their context. Whereas understanding is reflective, empathy is
prereflective.
kabala –
cited by Grice “Perhaps Moses brought more than the ten commandments from
Sinai.” from Hebrew qabbala, ‘tradition’, a system of Jewish mysticism and
theosophy practiced from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century; loosely, all
forms of Jewish mysticism. Believed by its adherents to be a tradition
communicated to Moses at Sinai, the main body of cabalistic writing, the Zohar,
is thought to be the work primarily of Moses de León of Guadalajara, in the
thirteenth century, though he attributed it to the second-century rabbi Simon
bar Yohai. The Zohar builds on earlier Jewish mysticism, and is replete with
gnostic and Neoplatonic themes. It offers the initiated access to the mysteries
of God’s being, human destiny, and the meaning of the commandments. The
transcendent and strictly unitary God of rabbinic Judaism here encounters ten
apparently real divine powers, called sefirot, which together represent God’s
being and appearance in the cosmos and include male and female principles. Evil
in the world is seen as a reflection of a cosmic rupture in this system, and
redemption on earth entails restoration of the divine order. Mankind can assist
in this task through knowledge, piety, and observance of the law. Isaac Luria
in the sixteenth century developed these themes with graphic descriptions of
the dramas of creation, cosmic rupture, and restoration, the latter process
requiring human assistance more than ever.
cæteris paribus: Strawson and
Wiggins: that the principle holds ceteris paribus is a necessary condition for
the very existence of the activity in question. Central. Grice technically
directs his attenetion to this in his “Method”. There, he tries to introduce
“WILLING” as a predicate, i.e. a theoretical concept which is implicitly
defined by the LAW in a THEORY that it occurs. This theory is ‘psychology,’ but
understood as a ‘folk science.’ So the conditionals are ‘ceteris paribus.’
Schiffer and Cartwright were aware of this. Especially Cartwright who attended
seminars on this with Grice on ‘as if.’ Schiffer was well aware of the topic
via Loar and others. Griceians who were trying to come up with a theory of
content without relying on semantic stuff would involve ‘caeteris paribus’
‘laws.’ Grice in discussion with Davidson comes to the same conclusion, hence
his “A T C,’ all things considered and prima facie. H. L. A. Hart, with his
concept of ‘defeasibility’ relates. Vide Baker. And obviously those who regard
‘implicaturum’ as nonmonotonic. Caeteris paribus -- Levinon “generalised implicaturum
as by default” default logic, a formal system for reasoning with defaults,
developed by Raymond Reiter in 0. Reiter’s defaults have the form ‘P:MQ1 , . .
. , MQn/R’, read ‘If P is believed and Q1 . . . Qn are consistent with one’s
beliefs, then R may be believed’. Whether a proposition is consistent with
one’s beliefs depends on what defaults have already been applied. Given the
defaults P:MQ/Q and R:M-Q/-Q, and the facts P and R, applying the first default
yields Q while applying the second default yields -Q. So applying either
default blocks the other. Consequently, a default theory may have several
default extensions. Normal defaults having the form P:MQ/Q, useful for
representing simple cases of nonmonotonic reasoning, are inadequate for more
complex cases. Reiter produces a reasonably clean proof theory for normal
default theories and proves that every normal default theory has an extension.
cairdianism: e. Oxford Hegelian of the type Grice saw
mostly every day! philosopher, a leading absolute idealist. Influential as both
a writer and a teacher, Caird was professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow and
master of Balliol , Oxford. His aim in philosophy was to overcome intellectual
oppositions. In his main work, The Critical Philosophy of Kant 9, he argued
that Kant had done this by using reason to synthesize rationalism and
empiricism while reconciling science and religion. In Caird’s view, Kant
unfortunately treated reason as subjective, thereby retaining an opposition
between self and world. Loosely following Hegel, Caird claimed that objective
reason, or the Absolute, was a larger whole in which both self and world were
fragments. In his Evolution of Religion 3 Caird argued that religion
progressively understands God as the Absolute and hence as what reconciles self
and world. This allowed him to defend Christianity as the highest evolutionary
stage of religion without defending the literal truth of Scripture.
cajetan,
original name, -- H. P. Grice thinks that Shropshire borrowed his proof for the
immortality of the soul from Cajetan -- Tommaso de Vio, prelate and theologian.
Born in Gaeta from which he took his name, he entered the Dominican order in
1484 and studied philosophy and theology at Naples, Bologna, and Padua. He
became a cardinal in 1517; during the following two years he traveled to G.y,
where he engaged in a theological controversy with Luther. His major work is a
Commentary on St. Thomas’ Summa of Theology 1508, which promoted a renewal of
interest in Scholastic and Thomistic philosophy during the sixteenth century.
In agreement with Aquinas, Cajetan places the origin of human knowledge in
sense perception. In contrast with Aquinas, he denies that the immortality of
the soul and the existence of God as our creator can be proved. Cajetan’s work
in logic was based on traditional Aristotelian syllogistic logic but is
original in its discussion of the notion of analogy. Cajetan distinguishes
three types: analogy of inequality, analogy of attribution, and analogy of
proportion. Whereas he rejected the first two types as improper, he regarded
the last as the basic type of analogy and appealed to it in explaining how
humans come to know God and how analogical reasoning applied to God and God’s
creatures avoids being equivocal.
calculus: --
Hobbes uses ‘calculation – How latin is that? calcŭlo , āre, v. a. id., I.to calculate, compute, reckon (late Lat.). from
diminutive of ‘calx,’ a stone usef for reckon --- I. Lit., Prud. στεφ. 3, 131.—
II. Trop., to consider as, to esteem, Sid. Ep. 7, 9.Grice uses ‘calculus’
slightly different, in the phrase “first-order predicate calculus with
time-relative identity” -- a central branch of mathematics, originally
conceived in connection with the determination of the tangent or normal to a
curve and of the area between it and some fixed axis; but it also embraced the
calculation of volumes and of areas of curved surfaces, the lengths of curved
lines, and so on. Mathematical analysis is a still broader branch that subsumed
the calculus under its rubric see below, together with the theories of
functions and of infinite series. Still more general and/or abstract versions
of analysis have been developed during the twentieth century, with applications
to other branches of mathematics, such as probability theory. The origins of
the calculus go back to Grecian mathematics, usually in problems of determining
the slope of a tangent to a curve and the area enclosed underneath it by some
fixed axes or by a closed curve; sometimes related questions such as the length
of an arc of a curve, or the area of a curved surface, were considered. The
subject flourished in the seventeenth century when the analytical geometry of
Descartes gave algebraic means to extend the procedures. It developed further
when the problems of slope and area were seen to require the finding of new
functions, and that the pertaining processes were seen to be inverse. Newton
and Leibniz had these insights in the late seventeenth century, independently
and in different forms. In the Leibnizian differential calculus the
differential dx was proposed as an infinitesimal increment on x, and of the
same dimension as x; the slope of the tangent to a curve with y as a function
of x was the ratio dy/dx. The integral, ex, was infinitely large and of the
dimension of x; thus for linear variables x and y the area ey dx was the sum of
the areas of rectangles y high and dx wide. All these quantities were variable,
and so could admit higher-order differentials and integrals ddx, eex, and so
on. This theory was extended during the eighteenth century, especially by
Euler, to functions of several independent variables, and with the creation of
the calculus of variations. The chief motivation was to solve differential
equations: they were motivated largely by problems in mechanics, which was then
the single largest branch of mathematics. Newton’s less successful fluxional
calculus used limits in its basic definitions, thereby changing dimensions for
the defined terms. The fluxion was the rate of change of a variable quantity
relative to “time”; conversely, that variable was the “fluent” of its fluxion.
These quantities were also variable; fluxions and fluents of higher orders
could be defined from them. A third tradition was developed during the late
eighteenth century by J. L. Lagrange. For him the “derived functions” of a
function fx were definable by purely algebraic means from its Taylorian
power-series expansion about any value of x. By these means it was hoped to
avoid the use of both infinitesimals and limits, which exhibited conceptual
difficulties, the former due to their unclear ontology as values greater than
zero but smaller than any orthodox quantity, the latter because of the naive
theories of their deployment. In the early nineteenth century the Newtonian
tradition died away, and Lagrange’s did not gain general conviction; however,
the LeibnizEuler line kept some of its health, for its utility in physical
applications. But all these theories gradually became eclipsed by the
mathematical analysis of A. L. Cauchy. As with Newton’s calculus, the theory of
limits was central, but they were handled in a much more sophisticated way. He replaced
the usual practice of defining the integral as more or less automatically the
inverse of the differential or fluxion or whatever by giving independent
definitions of the derivative and the integral; thus for the first time the
fundamental “theorem” of the calculus, stating their inverse relationship,
became a genuine theorem, requiring sufficient conditions upon the function to
ensure its truth. Indeed, Cauchy pioneered the routine specification of
necessary and/or sufficient conditions for truth of theorems in analysis. His
discipline also incorporated the theory of discontinuous functions and the
convergence or divergence of infinite series. Again, general definitions were
proffered and conditions sought for properties to hold. Cauchy’s discipline was
refined and extended in the second half of the nineteenth century by K.
Weierstrass and his followers at Berlin. The study of existence theorems as for
irrational numbers, and also technical questions largely concerned with
trigonometric series, led to the emergence of set topology. In addition,
special attention was given to processes involving several variables changing
in value together, and as a result the importance of quantifiers was
recognized for example, reversing their
order from ‘there is a y such that for all x . . .’ to ‘for all x, there is a y
. . .’. This developed later into general set theory, and then to mathematical
logic: Cantor was the major figure in the first aspect, while G. Peano
pioneered much for the second. Under this regime of “rigor,” infinitesimals
such as dx became unacceptable as mathematical objects. However, they always
kept an unofficial place because of their utility when applying the calculus,
and since World War II theories have been put forward in which the established
level of rigor and generality are preserved and even improved but in which
infinitesimals are reinstated. The best-known of these theories, the
non-standard analysis of A. Robinson, makes use of model theory by defining
infinitesimals as arithmetical inverses of the transfinite integers generated
by a “non-standard model” of Peano’s postulates for the natural numbers.
calvin:
j.: As C. of E., Grice was aware of the problems his father, a non-conformist,
brought to his High Anglican household, theologian and church reformer, a major
figure in the Protestant Reformation. He was especially important for the
so-called Reformed churches in France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, G.y,
Scotland, and England. Calvin was a theologian in the humanist tradition rather
than a philosopher. He valued philosophy as “a noble gift of God” and cited
philosophers especially Plato when it suited his purposes; but he rejected
philosophical speculation about “higher things” and despised though sometimes exploiting its resources the dominant Scholastic philosophy of his
time, to which he had been introduced at the
of Paris. His eclectic culture also included a variety of philosophical
ideas, of whose source he was often unaware, that inevitably helped to shape
his thought. His Christianae religionis institutio first ed. 1536 but
repeatedly enlarged; in English generally cited as Institutes, his theological
treatises, his massive biblical commentaries, and his letters, all of which
were tr. into most European languages, thus helped to transmit various
philosophical motifs and attitudes in an unsystematic form both to
contemporaries and to posterity. He passed on to his followers impulses derived
from both the antiqui and the moderni. From the former he inherited an
intellectualist anthropology that conceived of the personality as a hierarchy
of faculties properly subordinated to reason, which was at odds with his
evangelical theology; and, though he professed to scorn Stoicism, a moralism
often more Stoic than evangelical. He also relied occasionally on the
Scholastic quaestio, and regularly treated substantives, like the antiqui, as
real entities. These elements in his thought also found expression in
tendencies to a natural theology based on an innate and universal religious instinct
that can discern evidences of the existence and attributes of God everywhere in
nature, and a conception of the Diety as immutable and intelligible. This side
of Calvinism eventually found expression in Unitarianism and universalism. It
was, however, in uneasy tension with other tendencies in his thought that
reflect both his biblicism and a nominalist and Scotist sense of the extreme
transcendence of God. Like other humanists, therefore, he was also profoundly
skeptical about the capacity of the human mind to grasp ultimate truth, an
attitude that rested, for him, on both the consequences of original sin and the
merely conventional origins of language. Corollaries of this were his sense of
the contingency of all human intellectual constructions and a tendency to
emphasize the utility rather than the truth even of such major elements in his
theology as the doctrine of predestination. It may well be no accident,
therefore, that later skepticism and pragmatism have been conspicuous in
thinkers nurtured by later Calvinism, such as Bayle, Hume, and James.
cambridge
change, a non-genuine change: Grice loved the phrase seeing
that, “while at Oxford we had a minor revolution, at Cambridge, if the place
counts, they didn’t. “I went to Oxford. You went to Cambridge. He went to the
London School of Economics.” If I turn pale, I am changing, whereas your
turning pale is only a Cambridge change in me. When I acquire the property of
being such that you are pale, I do not change. In general, an object’s
acquiring a new property is not a sufficient condition for that object to
change although some other object may genuinely change. Thus also, my being
such that you are pale counts only as a Cambridge property of me, a property
such that my gaining or losing it is only a Cambridge change. Cambridge
properties are a proper subclass of extrinsic properties: being south of
Chicago is considered an extrinsic property of me, but since my moving to
Canada would be a genuine change, being south of Chicago cannot, for me, be a Cambridge
property. The concept of a Cambridge change reflects a way of thinking
entrenched in common sense, but it is difficult to clarify, and its
philosophical value is controversial. Neither science nor formal semantics,
e.g., supports this viewpoint. Perhaps calculus, fluxional Cambridge changes
and properties are, for better or worse, inseparable from a vague, intuitive
metaphysics.
Grice and the
Aristotelian Society – his “Causal Theory of perception” was an invited
contribution, a ‘popularisation’ for this Society, which was founded in London
back in the day. The Aristotelian Society’s first president was S. H. Hodgson,
of Christ Church, Oxford. He was succeeded by Bernard Bosanquet.
oxford
aristototelian, Cambridge Platonists: If Grice adored
Aristotle, it was perhaps he hated the Cambridge platonists so! a group of
seventeenth-century philosopher-theologians at the of Cambridge, principally including Benjamin
Whichcote 160983, often designated the father of the Cambridge Platonists;
Henry More; Ralph Cudworth 161788; and John Smith 161652. Whichcote, Cudworth,
and Smith received their education in or
were at some time fellows of Emmanuel , a stronghold of the Calvinism in which
they were nurtured and against which they rebelled under mainly Erasmian,
Arminian, and Neoplatonic influences. Other Cambridge men who shared their
ideas and attitudes to varying degrees were Nathanael Culverwel 1618?51, Peter
Sterry 161372, George Rust d.1670, John Worthington 161871, and Simon Patrick
1625 1707. As a generic label, ‘Cambridge Platonists’ is a handy umbrella term
rather than a dependable signal of doctrinal unity or affiliation. The
Cambridge Platonists were not a self-constituted group articled to an explicit manifesto;
no two of them shared quite the same set of doctrines or values. Their
Platonism was not exclusively the pristine teaching of Plato, but was formed
rather from Platonic ideas supposedly prefigured in Hermes Trismegistus, in the
Chaldean Oracles, and in Pythagoras, and which they found in Origen and other
church fathers, in the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Proclus, and in the
Florentine Neoplatonism of Ficino. They took contrasting and changing positions
on the important belief originating in Florence with Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola that Pythagoras and Plato derived their wisdom ultimately from Moses
and the cabala. They were not equally committed to philosophical pursuits, nor
were they equally versed in the new philosophies and scientific advances of the
time. The Cambridge Platonists’ concerns were ultimately religious and
theological rather than primarily philosophical. They philosophized as
theologians, making eclectic use of philosophical doctrines whether Platonic or
not for apologetic purposes. They wanted to defend “true religion,” namely,
their latitudinarian vision of Anglican Christianity, against a variety of
enemies: the Calvinist doctrine of predestination; sectarianism; religious
enthusiasm; fanaticism; the “hide-bound, strait-laced spirit” of Interregnum
Puritanism; the “narrow, persecuting spirit” that followed the Restoration;
atheism; and the impieties incipient in certain trends in contemporary science
and philosophy. Notable among the latter were the doctrines of the mechanical philosophers,
especially the materialism and mechanical determinism of Hobbes and the
mechanistic pretensions of the Cartesians. The existence of God, the existence,
immortality, and dignity of the human soul, the existence of spirit activating
the natural world, human free will, and the primacy of reason are among the
principal teachings of the Cambridge Platonists. They emphasized the positive
role of reason in all aspects of philosophy, religion, and ethics, insisting in
particular that it is irrationality that endangers the Christian life. Human
reason and understanding was “the Candle of the Lord” Whichcote’s phrase,
perhaps their most cherished image. In Whichcote’s words, “To go against
Reason, is to go against God . . . Reason is the Divine Governor of Man’s Life;
it is the very Voice of God.” Accordingly, “there is no real clashing at all
betwixt any genuine point of Christianity and what true Philosophy and right
Reason does determine or allow” More. Reason directs us to the self-evidence of
first principles, which “must be seen in their own light, and are perceived by
an inward power of nature.” Yet in keeping with the Plotinian mystical tenor of
their thought, they found within the human soul the “Divine Sagacity” More’s
term, which is the prime cause of human reason and therefore superior to it.
Denying the Calvinist doctrine that revelation is the only source of spiritual
light, they taught that the “natural light” enables us to know God and
interpret the Scriptures. Cambridge Platonism was uncompromisingly innatist.
Human reason has inherited immutable intellectual, moral, and religious
notions, “anticipations of the soul,” which negate the claims of empiricism.
The Cambridge Platonists were skeptical with regard to certain kinds of
knowledge, and recognized the role of skepticism as a critical instrument in
epistemology. But they were dismissive of the idea that Pyrrhonism be taken
seriously in the practical affairs of the philosopher at work, and especially
of the Christian soul in its quest for divine knowledge and understanding.
Truth is not compromised by our inability to devise apodictic demonstrations.
Indeed Whichcote passed a moral censure on those who pretend “the doubtfulness
and uncertainty of reason.” Innatism and the natural light of reason shaped the
Cambridge Platonists’ moral philosophy. The unchangeable and eternal ideas of
good and evil in the divine mind are the exemplars of ethical axioms or noemata
that enable the human mind to make moral judgments. More argued for a “boniform
faculty,” a faculty higher than reason by which the soul rejoices in reason’s
judgment of the good. The most philosophically committed and systematic of the
group were More, Cudworth, and Culverwel. Smith, perhaps the most
intellectually gifted and certainly the most promising note his dates, defended
Whichcote’s Christian teaching, insisting that theology is more “a Divine Life
than a Divine Science.” More exclusively theological in their leanings were
Whichcote, who wrote little of solid philosophical interest, Rust, who followed
Cudworth’s moral philosophy, and Sterry. Only Patrick, More, and Cudworth all
fellows of the Royal Society were sufficiently attracted to the new science
especially the work of Descartes to discuss it in any detail or to turn it to
philosophical and theological advantage. Though often described as a Platonist,
Culverwel was really a neo-Aristotelian with Platonic embellishments and, like
Sterry, a Calvinist. He denied innate ideas and supported the tabula rasa
doctrine, commending “the Platonists . . . that they lookt upon the spirit of a
man as the Candle of the Lord, though they were deceived in the time when ‘twas
lighted.” The Cambridge Platonists were influential as latitudinarians, as
advocates of rational theology, as severe critics of unbridled mechanism and
materialism, and as the initiators, in England, of the intuitionist ethical
tradition. In the England of Locke they are a striking counterinstance of
innatism and non-empirical philosophy.
camera
obscura: cited by H. P. Grice and G. J. Warnock on “Seeing” –
and the Causal Theory of Seeing – “visa” -- a darkened enclosure that focuses
light from an external object by a pinpoint hole instead of a lens, creating an
inverted, reversed image on the opposite wall. The adoption of the camera
obscura as a model for the eye revolutionized the study of visual perception by
rendering obsolete previous speculative philosophical theories, in particular
the emanation theory, which explained perception as due to emanated copy-images
of objects entering the eye, and theories that located the image of perception
in the lens rather than the retina. By shifting the location of sensation to a
projection on the retina, the camera obscura doctrine helped support the
distinction of primary and secondary sense qualities, undermining the medieval
realist view of perception and moving toward the idea that consciousness is
radically split off from the world.
campanella:
t. H. P. Grice enjoyed his philosophical poems.- 15681639,
theologian, philosopher, and poet. He joined the Dominican order in
1582. Most of the years between 1592 and 1634 he spent in prison for heresy and
for conspiring to replace rule in
southern Italy with a utopian republic. He fled to France in 1634 and spent his
last years in freedom. Some of his best poetry was written while he was chained
in a dungeon; and during less rigorous confinement he managed to write over a
hundred books, not all of which survive. His best-known work, The City of the
Sun 1602; published 1623, describes a community governed in accordance with
astrological principles, with a priest as head of state. In later political
writings, Campanella attacked Machiavelli and called for either a universal monarchy with the pope as spiritual head or a
universal theocracy with the pope as both spiritual and temporal leader. His
first publication was Philosophy Demonstrated by the Senses 1591, which
supported the theories of Telesio and initiated his lifelong attack on
Aristotelianism. He hoped to found a new Christian philosophy based on the two
books of nature and Scripture, both of which are manifestations of God. While
he appealed to sense experience, he was not a straightforward empiricist, for
he saw the natural world as alive and sentient, and he thought of magic as a
tool for utilizing natural processes. In this he was strongly influenced by
Ficino. Despite his own difficulties with Rome, he wrote in support of
Galileo.
campbell:
n. r. – H. P. Grice drew some ideas on scientific laws from Campbell -- British physicist and philosopher of science.
A successful experimental physicist, Campbell with A. Wood discovered the
radioactivity of potassium. His analysis of science depended on a sharp
distinction between experimental laws and theories. Experimental laws are
generalizations established by observations. A theory has the following
structure. First, it requires a largely arbitrary hypothesis, which in itself
is untestable. To render it testable, the theory requires a “dictionary” of
propositions linking the hypothesis to scientific laws, which can be
established experimentally. But theories are not merely logical relations
between hypotheses and experimental laws; they also require concrete analogies
or models. Indeed, the models suggest the nature of the propositions in the
dictionary. The analogies are essential components of the theory, and, for
Campbell, are nearly always mechanical. His theory of science greatly
influenced Nagel’s The Structure of Science 1.
camus,
A.: H. P. Grice said that Martin Heidegger is the greatest philosopher alive –
He was aware that he was contesting with Camus – but Grice saw Camus moer as a
‘novelist’ than a philosopher. --
philosophical novelist and essayist who was also a prose poet and the
conscience of his times. He was born and raised in Algeria, and his experiences
as a fatherless, tubercular youth, as a young playwright and journalist in
Algiers, and later in the anti-G. resistance in Paris during World War II
informed everything he wrote. His best-known writings are not overtly
political; his most famous works, the novel The Stranger written in 0,
published in 2 and his book-length essay The Myth of Sisyphus written in 1,
published in 3 explore the notion of “the absurd,” which Camus alternatively
describes as the human condition and as “a widespread sensitivity of our
times.” The absurd, briefly defined, is the confrontation between
ourselves with our demands for
rationality and justice and an
“indifferent universe.” Sisyphus, who was condemned by the gods to the endless,
futile task of rolling a rock up a mountain whence it would roll back down of
its own weight, thus becomes an exemplar of the human condition, struggling
hopelessly and pointlessly to achieve something. The odd antihero of The
Stranger, on the other hand, unconsciously accepts the absurdity of life. He
makes no judgments, accepts the most repulsive characters as his friends and
neighbors, and remains unmoved by the death of his mother and his own killing
of a man. Facing execution for his crime, he “opens his heart to the benign
indifference of the universe.” But such stoic acceptance is not the message of
Camus’s philosophy. Sisyphus thrives he is even “happy” by virtue of his scorn
and defiance of the gods, and by virtue of a “rebellion” that refuses to give
in to despair. This same theme motivates Camus’s later novel, The Plague7, and
his long essay The Rebel 1. In his last work, however, a novel called The Fall
published in 6, the year before he won the Nobel prize for literature, Camus
presents an unforgettably perverse character named Jean-Baptiste Clamence, who
exemplifies all the bitterness and despair rejected by his previous characters
and in his earlier essays. Clamence, like the character in The Stranger, refuses
to judge people, but whereas Meursault the “stranger” is incapable of judgment,
Clamence who was once a lawyer makes it a matter of philosophical principle,
“for who among us is innocent?” It is unclear where Camus’s thinking was
heading when he was killed in an automobile accident with his publisher,
Gallimard, who survived.
canguilhem:
g. H. P. Grice drew some ideas on scientific laws from Canguillhem -- historian
and philosopher of science. Canguilhem succeeded Gaston Bachelard as director
of the Institut d’Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques at the of Paris. He developed and sometimes revised
Bachelard’s view of science, extending it to issues in the biological and
medical sciences, where he focused particularly on the concepts of the normal and
the pathological The Normal and the Pathological, 6. On his account norms are
not objective in the sense of being derived from value-neutral scientific
inquiry, but are rooted in the biological reality of the organisms that they
regulate. Canguilhem also introduced an important methodological distinction
between concepts and theories. Rejecting the common view that scientific
concepts are simply functions of the theories in which they are embedded, he
argued that the use of concepts to interpret data is quite distinct from the
use of theories to explain the data. Consequently, the same concepts may occur
in very different theoretical contexts. Canguilhem made particularly effective
use of this distinction in tracing the origin of the concept of reflex action.
infinitum
-- cantor, G. Grice thought that “I know there are infinitely many stars” is a
stupid thing to say -- one of a number of late nineteenthcentury philosophers
including Frege, Dedekind, Peano, Russell, and Hilbert who transformed both
mathematics and the study of its philosophical foundations. The philosophical
import of Cantor’s work is threefold. First, it was primarily Cantor who turned
arbitrary collections into objects of mathematical study, sets. Second, he
created a coherent mathematical theory of the infinite, in particular a theory
of transfinite numbers. Third, linking these, he was the first to indicate that
it might be possible to present mathematics as nothing but the theory of sets,
thus making set theory foundational for mathematics. This contributed to the
Camus, Albert Cantor, Georg 116 116
view that the foundations of mathematics should itself become an object of
mathematical study. Cantor also held to a form of principle of plenitude, the
belief that all the infinities given in his theory of transfinite numbers are
represented not just in mathematical or “immanent” reality, but also in the
“transient” reality of God’s created world. Cantor’s main, direct achievement
is his theory of transfinite numbers and infinity. He characterized as did
Frege sameness of size in terms of one-to-one correspondence, thus accepting
the paradoxical results known to Galileo and others, e.g., that the collection
of all natural numbers has the same cardinality or size as that of all even
numbers. He added to these surprising results by showing 1874 that there is the
same number of algebraic and thus rational numbers as there are natural
numbers, but that there are more points on a continuous line than there are
natural or rational or algebraic numbers, thus revealing that there are at
least two different kinds of infinity present in ordinary mathematics, and
consequently demonstrating the need for a mathematical treatment of these
infinities. This latter result is often expressed by saying that the continuum
is uncountable. Cantor’s theorem of 2 is a generalization of part of this, for
it says that the set of all subsets the power-set of a given set must be
cardinally greater than that set, thus giving rise to the possibility of
indefinitely many different infinities. The collection of all real numbers has
the same size as the power-set of natural numbers. Cantor’s theory of
transfinite numbers 0 97 was his developed mathematical theory of infinity,
with the infinite cardinal numbers the F-, or aleph-, numbers based on the
infinite ordinal numbers that he introduced in 0 and 3. The F-numbers are in
effect the cardinalities of infinite well-ordered sets. The theory thus
generates two famous questions, whether all sets in particular the continuum
can be well ordered, and if so which of the F-numbers represents the
cardinality of the continuum. The former question was answered positively by
Zermelo in 4, though at the expense of postulating one of the most
controversial principles in the history of mathematics, the axiom of choice.
The latter question is the celebrated continuum problem. Cantor’s famous
continuum hypothesis CH is his conjecture that the cardinality of the continuum
is represented by F1, the second aleph. CH was shown to be independent of the
usual assumptions of set theory by Gödel 8 and Cohen 3. Extensions of Cohen’s
methods show that it is consistent to assume that the cardinality of the
continuum is given by almost any of the vast array of F-numbers. The continuum
problem is now widely considered insoluble. Cantor’s conception of set is often
taken to admit the whole universe of sets as a set, thus engendering
contradiction, in particular in the form of Cantor’s paradox. For Cantor’s
theorem would say that the power-set of the universe must be bigger than it,
while, since this powerset is a set of sets, it must be contained in the
universal set, and thus can be no bigger. However, it follows from Cantor’s
early 3 considerations of what he called the “absolute infinite” that none of
the collections discovered later to be at the base of the paradoxes can be
proper sets. Moreover, correspondence with Hilbert in 7 and Dedekind in 9 see
Cantor, Gesammelte Abhandlungen mathematischen und philosophischen Inhalts, 2
shows clearly that Cantor was well aware that contradictions will arise if such
collections are treated as ordinary sets.
captainship. Strawson calls Grice his captain. In the inaugural
lecture. . A struggle on what seems to be such a From Meaning and Truth
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970) TRUTH AND MEANING central issue in
philosophy should have something of a Homeric quality; and a Homeric struggle
calls for gods and heroes. I can at least, though tentatively, name some living
captains and benevolent shades: on the one side, say, Grice, Austin, and the
later Wittgenstein; on the other, Chomsky, Frege, and the earlier Wittgenstein.
cardinal
-- H. P. Grice and The cardinal virtues, prudence prudential (in ratione)
practical wisdom, courage (fortitude in irascibili), temperance (temperantia in
concuspicibili), and justice (iustitia in voluntate). Grice thought them
oxymoronic: “Virtue is entire, surely!” -- Medievals deemed them cardinal from
Latin cardo, ‘hinge’ because of their important or pivotal role in human
flourishing. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates explains them through a doctrine of
the three parts of the soul, suggesting that a person is prudent when knowledge
of how to live wisdom informs her reason, courageous when informed reason
governs her capacity for wrath, temperate when it also governs her appetites,
and just when each part performs its proper task with informed reason in
control. Development of thought on the cardinal virtues was closely tied to the
doctrine of the unity of the virtues, i.e., that a person possessing one virtue
will have them all.
carlyleianim:,
T.: When Grice was feeling that his mode operators made for poor prose he would
wonder, “what Carlyle might think of this!” -- Scottish-born essayist,
historian, and social critic, one of the most popular writers and lecturers in
nineteenth-century Britain. His works include literary criticism, history, and
cultural criticism. With respect to philosophy, his views on the theory of
history are his most significant contributions. According to Carlyle, great
personages are the most important causal factor in history. On Heroes,
Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History 1841 asserts, “Universal History, the
history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of
the Great Men who have worked here. They were the leaders of men, these great
ones; the modellers, patterns, and in a wide sense creators, of whatsoever the
general mass of men contrived to do or to attain; all things that we see
standing accomplished in the world are properly the outer material result, the
practical realisation and embodiment, of Thoughts that dwelt in the Great Men
sent into the world: the soul of the whole world’s history, it may justly be
considered, were the history of these.” Carlyle’s doctrine has been challenged
from many different directions. Hegelian and Marxist philosophers maintain that
the so-called great men of history are not really the engine of history, but
merely reflections of deeper forces, such as economic ones, while contemporary
historians emphasize the priority of “history from below” the social history of everyday people as far more representative of the historical
process.
carnapianism: r:
the inventor, with Russell, of the pirot. -- G.-born philosopher, one of the leaders of the Vienna
Circle, a movement loosely called logical positivism or logical empiricism. He
made fundamental contributions to semantics and the philosophy of science, as
well as to the foundations of probability and inductive logic. He was a staunch
advocate of, and active in, the unity of science movement. Carnap received his
Ph.D. in philosophy from the of Jena in
1. His first major work was Die Logische Aufbau der Welt 8, in which he sought
to apply the new logic recently developed by Frege and by Russell and Whitehead
to problems in the philosophy of science. Although influential, it was not tr.
until 7, when it appeared as The Logical Structure of the World. It was
important as one of the first clear and unambiguous statements that the
important work of philosophy concerned logical structure: that language and its
logic were to be the focus of attention. In 5 Carnap left his native G.y for
the United States, where he taught at the
of Chicago and then at UCLA. Die Logiche Syntax der Sprach 4 was rapidly
tr. into English, appearing as The Logical Syntax of Language 7. This was
followed in 1 by Introduction to Semantics, and in 2 by The Formalization of
Logic. In 7 Meaning and Necessity appeared; it provided the groundwork for a
modal logic that would mirror the meticulous semantic development of
first-order logic in the first two volumes. One of the most important concepts
introduced in these volumes was that of a state description. A state
description is the linguistic counterpart of a possible world: in a given language,
the most complete description of the world that can be given. Carnap then
turned to one of the most pervasive and important problems to arise in both the
philosophy of science and the theory of meaning. To say that the meaning of a
sentence is given by the conditions under which it would be verified as the
early positivists did or that a scientific theory is verified by predictions
that turn out to be true, is clearly to speak loosely. Absolute verification
does not occur. To carry out the program of scientific philosophy in a
realistic way, we must be able to speak of the support given by inconclusive
evidence, either in providing epistemological justification for scientific
knowledge, or in characterizing the meanings of many of the terms of our scientific
language. This calls for an understanding of probability, or as Carnap
preferred to call it, degree of confirmation. We must distinguish between two
senses of probability: what he called probability1, corresponding to
credibility, and probability2, corresponding to the frequency or empirical
conception of probability defended by Reichenbach and von Mises. ‘Degree of
confirmation’ was to be the formal concept corresponding to credibility. The
first book on this subject, written from the same point of view as the works on
semantics, was The Logical Foundations of Probability 0. The goal was a logical
definition of ‘ch,e’: the degree of confirmation of a hypothesis h, relative to
a body of evidence e, or the degree of rational belief that one whose total evidence
was e should commit to h. Of course we must first settle on a formal language
in which to express the hypothesis and the evidence; for this Carnap chooses a
first-order language based on a finite number of one-place predicates, and a
countable number of individual constants. Against this background, we perform
the following reductions: ‘ch,e’ represents a conditional probability; thus it
can be represented as the ratio of the absolute probabilCarlyle, Thomas Carnap,
Rudolf 118 118 ity of h & e to the
absolute probability of e. Absolute probabilities are represented by the value
of a measure function m, defined for sentences of the language. The problem is
to define m. But every sentence in Carnap’s languages is equivalent to a
disjunction of state descriptions; the measure to be assigned to it must,
according to the probability calculus, be the sum of the measures assigned to
its constituent state descriptions. Now the problem is to define m for state
descriptions. Recall that state descriptions were part of the machinery Carnap
developed earlier. The function c† is a confirmation function based on the
assignment of equal measures to each state description. It is inadequate,
because if h is not entailed by e, c†h,e % m†h, the a priori measure assigned
to h. We cannot “learn from experience.” A measure that does not have that
drawback is m*, which is based on the assignment of equal measures to each
structure description. A structure description is a set of state descriptions;
two state descriptions belong to the same structure description just in case
one can be obtained from the other by a permutation of individual constants.
Within the structure description, equal values are assigned to each state
description. In the next book, The Continuum of Inductive Methods, Carnap takes
the rate at which we learn from experience to be a fundamental parameter of his
assignments of probability. Like measures on state descriptions, the values of
the probability of the singular predictive inference determine all other
probabilities. The “singular predictive inference” is the inference from the
observation that individual 1 has one set of properties, individual 2 has
another set of properties, etc., to the conclusion: individual j will have
property k. Finally, in the last works Studies in Inductive Logic and
Probability, vols. I [1] and II [0], edited with Richard Jeffrey Carnap offered
two long articles constituting his Basic System of Inductive Logic. This system
is built around a language having families of attributes e.g., color or sound
that can be captured by predicates. The basic structure is still monadic, and
the logic still lacks identity, but there are more parameters. There is a
parameter l that reflects the “rate of learning from experience”; a parameter h
that reflects an inductive relation between values of attributes belonging to
families. With the introduction of arbitrary parameters, Carnap was edging
toward a subjective or personalistic view of probability. How far he was
willing to go down the subjectivist garden path is open to question; that he
discovered more to be relevant to inductive logic than the “language” of
science seems clear. Carnap’s work on probability measures on formal languages
is destined to live for a long time. So too is his work on formal semantics. He
was a staunch advocate of the fruitfulness of formal studies in philosophy, of
being clear and explicit, and of offering concrete examples. Beyond the
particular philosophical doctrines he advocated, these commitments characterize
his contribution to philosophy.
cartesianism:
The word ‘Cartesianism’ shows that the ‘de’ that the English adored (“How to
become a Brit” – Mykes) is mostly otiose! -- Descartes, R.: v. H. P. Grice,
“Descartes on clear and distinct perception,” -- philosopher, a founder of the
“modern age” and perhaps the most important figure in the intellectual
revolution of the seventeenth century in which the traditional systems of
understanding based on Aristotle were challenged and, ultimately, overthrown.
His conception of philosophy was all-embracing: it encompassed mathematics and
the physical sciences as well as psychology and ethics, and it was based on
what he claimed to be absolutely firm and reliable metaphysical foundations.
His approach to the problems of knowledge, certainty, and the nature of the human
mind played a major part in shaping the subsequent development of philosophy.
Life and works. Descartes was born in a small town near Tours that now bears
his name. He was brought up by his maternal grandmother his mother having died
soon after his birth, and at the age of ten he was sent to the recently founded
Jesuit of La Flèche in Anjou, where he
remained as a boarding pupil for nine years. At La Flèche he studied classical
literature and traditional classics-based subjects such as history and rhetoric
as well as natural philosophy based on the Aristotelian system and theology. He
later wrote of La Flèche that he considered it “one of the best schools in
Europe,” but that, as regards the philosophy he had learned there, he saw that
“despite being cultivated for many centuries by the best minds, it contained no
point which was not disputed and hence doubtful.” At age twenty-two having
taken a law degree de re Descartes, René 223
223 at Poitiers, Descartes set out on a series of travels in Europe,
“resolving,” as he later put it, “to seek no knowledge other than that which
could be found either in myself or the great book of the world.” The most
important influence of this early period was Descartes’s friendship with the
Dutchman Isaac Beeckman, who awakened his lifelong interest in mathematics a science in which he discerned precision and
certainty of the kind that truly merited the title of scientia Descartes’s term
for genuine systematic knowledge based on reliable principles. A considerable
portion of Descartes’s energies as a young man was devoted to pure mathematics:
his essay on Geometry published in 1637 incorporated results discovered during
the 1620s. But he also saw mathematics as the key to making progress in the
applied sciences; his earliest work, the Compendium Musicae, written in 1618
and dedicated to Beeckman, applied quantitative principles to the study of
musical harmony and dissonance. More generally, Descartes saw mathematics as a
kind of paradigm for all human understanding: “those long chains composed of
very simple and easy reasonings, which geometers customarily use to arrive at
their most difficult demonstrations, gave me occasion to suppose that all the
things which fall within the scope of human knowledge are interconnected in the
same way” Discourse on the Method, Part II. In the course of his travels,
Descartes found himself closeted, on November 10, 1619, in a “stove-heated
room” in a town in southern G.y, where after a day of intense meditation, he
had a series of vivid dreams that convinced him of his mission to found a new
scientific and philosophical system. After returning to Paris for a time, he
emigrated to Holland in 1628, where he was to live though with frequent changes
of address for most of the rest of his life. By 1633 he had ready a treatise on
cosmology and physics, Le Monde; but he cautiously withdrew the work from
publication when he heard of the condemnation of Galileo by the Inquisition for
rejecting as Descartes himself did the traditional geocentric theory of the
universe. But in 1637 Descartes released for publication, in , a sample of his
scientific work: three essays entitled the Optics, Meteorology, and Geometry.
Prefaced to that selection was an autobiographical introduction entitled
Discourse on the Method of rightly conducting one’s reason and reaching the
truth in the sciences. This work, which includes discussion of a number of
scientific issues such as the circulation of the blood, contains in Part IV a
summary of Descartes’s views on knowledge, certainty, and the metaphysical
foundations of science. Criticisms of his arguments here led Descartes to
compose his philosophical masterpiece, the Meditations on First Philosophy,
published in Latin in 1641 a dramatic
account of the voyage of discovery from universal doubt to certainty of one’s
own existence, and the subsequent struggle to establish the existence of God,
the nature and existence of the external world, and the relation between mind
and body. The Meditations aroused enormous interest among Descartes’s
contemporaries, and six sets of objections by celebrated philosophers and
theologians including Mersenne, Hobbes, Arnauld, and Gassendi were published in
the same volume as the first edition a seventh set, by the Jesuit Pierre
Bourdin, was included in the second edition of 1642. A few years later,
Descartes published, in Latin, a mammoth compendium of his metaphysical and
scientific views, the Principles of Philosophy, which he hoped would become
a textbook to rival the standard texts
based on Aristotle. In the later 1640s, Descartes became interested in
questions of ethics and psychology, partly as a result of acute questions about
the implications of his system raised by Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia in a
long and fruitful correspondence. The fruits of this interest were published in
1649 in a lengthy treatise entitled The
Passions of the Soul. The same year, Descartes accepted after much hesitation
an invitation to go to Stockholm to give philosophical instruction to Queen
Christina of Sweden. He was required to provide tutorials at the royal palace
at five o’clock in the morning, and the strain of this break in his habits he
had maintained the lifelong custom of lying in bed late into the morning led to
his catching pneumonia. He died just short of his fifty-fourth birthday. The
Cartesian system. In a celebrated simile, Descartes described the whole of
philosophy as like a tree: the roots are metaphysics, the trunk physics, and
the branches are the various particular sciences, including mechanics,
medicine, and morals. The analogy captures at least three important features of
the Cartesian system. The first is its insistence on the essential unity of
knowledge, which contrasts strongly with the Aristotelian conception of the
sciences as a series of separate disciplines, each with its own methods and
standards of precision. The sciences, as Descartes put it in an early notebook,
are all “linked together” in a sequence that is in principle as simple and
straightforward as the series of numbers. The second point conveyed by the tree
simile is the utility of philosophy for ordinary living: the tree is valued for
its fruits, and these are gathered, Descartes points out, “not from the roots
or the trunk but from the ends of the branches”
the practical sciences. Descartes frequently stresses that his principal
motivation is not abstract theorizing for its own sake: in place of the
“speculative philosophy taught in the Schools,” we can and should achieve
knowledge that is “useful in life” and that will one day make us “masters and
possessors of nature.” Third, the likening of metaphysics or “first philosophy”
to the roots of the tree nicely captures the Cartesian belief in what has come
to be known as foundationalism the view
that knowledge must be constructed from the bottom up, and that nothing can be
taken as established until we have gone back to first principles. Doubt and the
foundations of belief. In Descartes’s central work of metaphysics, the
Meditations, he begins his construction project by observing that many of the
preconceived opinions he has accepted since childhood have turned out to be
unreliable; so it is necessary, “once in a lifetime” to “demolish everything
and start again, right from the foundations.” Descartes proceeds, in other
words, by applying what is sometimes called his method of doubt, which is
explained in the earlier Discourse on the Method: “Since I now wished to devote
myself solely to the search for truth, I thought it necessary to . . . reject
as if absolutely false everything in which one could imagine the least doubt,
in order to see if I was left believing anything that was entirely
indubitable.” In the Meditations we find this method applied to produce a
systematic critique of previous beliefs, as follows. Anything based on the
senses is potentially suspect, since “I have found by experience that the
senses sometimes deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who
have deceived us even once.” Even such seemingly straightforward judgments as
“I am sitting here by the fire” may be false, since there is no guarantee that
my present experience is not a dream. The dream argument as it has come to be
called leaves intact the truths of mathematics, since “whether I am awake or
asleep two and three make five”; but Descartes now proceeds to introduce an
even more radical argument for doubt based on the following dilemma. If there
is an omnipotent God, he could presumably cause me to go wrong every time I
count two and three; if, on the other hand, there is no God, then I owe my
origins not to a powerful and intelligent creator, but to some random series of
imperfect causes, and in this case there is even less reason to suppose that my
basic intuitions about mathematics are reliable. By the end of the First
Meditation, Descartes finds himself in a morass of wholesale doubt, which he
dramatizes by introducing an imaginary demon “of the utmost power and cunning”
who is systematically deceiving him in every possible way. Everything I believe
in “the sky, the earth and all external
things” might be illusions that the
demon has devised in order to trick me. Yet this very extremity of doubt, when
pushed as far as it will go, yields the first indubitable truth in the
Cartesian quest for knowledge the
existence of the thinking subject. “Let the demon deceive me as much as he may,
he can never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I think I am
something. . . . I am, I exist, is certain, as often as it is put forward by me
or conceived in the mind.” Elsewhere, Descartes expresses this cogito argument
in the famous phrase “Cogito ergo sum” “I am thinking, therefore I exist”.
Having established his own existence, Descartes proceeds in the Third
Meditation to make an inventory of the ideas he finds within him, among which
he identifies the idea of a supremely perfect being. In a much criticized
causal argument he reasons that the representational content or “objective
reality” of this idea is so great that it cannot have originated from inside
his own imperfect mind, but must have been planted in him by an actual perfect
being God. The importance of God in the
Cartesian system can scarcely be overstressed. Once the deity’s existence is
established, Descartes can proceed to reinstate his belief in the world around
him: since God is perfect, and hence would not systematically deceive, the
strong propensity he has given us to believe that many of our ideas come from
external objects must, in general, be sound; and hence the external world
exists Sixth Meditation. More important still, Descartes uses the deity to set
up a reliable method for the pursuit of truth. Human beings, since they are
finite and imperfect, often go wrong; in particular, the data supplied by the
senses is often, as Descartes puts it, “obscure and confused.” But each of us
can nonetheless avoid error, provided we remember to withhold judgment in such
doubtful cases and confine ourselves to the “clear and distinct” perceptions of
the pure intellect. A reliable intellect was God’s gift to man, and if we use
it with the greatest posDescartes, René Descartes, René 225 225 sible care, we can be sure of avoiding
error Fourth Meditation. In this central part of his philosophy, Descartes
follows in a long tradition going back to Augustine with its ultimate roots in
Plato that in the first place is skeptical about the evidence of the senses as
against the more reliable abstract perceptions of the intellect, and in the
second place sees such intellectual knowledge as a kind of illumination derived
from a higher source than man’s own mind. Descartes frequently uses the ancient
metaphor of the “natural light” or “light of reason” to convey this notion that
the fundamental intuitions of the intellect are inherently reliable. The label
‘rationalist’, which is often applied to Descartes in this connection, can be
misleading, since he certainly does not rely on reason alone: in the
development of his scientific theories he allows a considerable role to
empirical observation in the testing of hypotheses and in the understanding of
the mechanisms of nature his “vortex theory” of planetary revolutions is based
on observations of the behavior of whirlpools. What is true, nonetheless, is
that the fundamental building blocks of Cartesian science are the innate ideas
chiefly those of mathematics whose reliability Descartes takes as guaranteed by
their having been implanted in the mind by God. But this in turn gives rise to
a major problem for the Cartesian system, which was first underlined by some of
Descartes’s contemporaries notably Mersenne and Arnauld, and which has come to
be known as the Cartesian circle. If the reliability of the clear and distinct
perceptions of the intellect depends on our knowledge of God, then how can that
knowledge be established in the first place? If the answer is that we can prove
God’s existence from premises that we clearly and distinctly perceive, then
this seems circular; for how are we entitled, at this stage, to assume that our
clear and distinct perceptions are reliable? Descartes’s attempts to deal with
this problem are not entirely satisfactory, but his general answer seems to be
that there are some propositions that are so simple and transparent that, so
long as we focus on them, we can be sure of their truth even without a divine
guarantee. Cartesian science and dualism. The scientific system that Descartes
had worked on before he wrote the Meditations and that he elaborated in his
later work, the Principles of Philosophy, attempts wherever possible to reduce
natural phenomena to the quantitative descriptions of arithmetic and geometry:
“my consideration of matter in corporeal things,” he says in the Principles,
“involves absolutely nothing apart from divisions, shapes and motions.” This
connects with his metaphysical commitment to relying only on clear and distinct
ideas. In place of the elaborate apparatus of the Scholastics, with its
plethora of “substantial forms” and “real qualities,” Descartes proposes to
mathematicize science. The material world is simply an indefinite series of
variations in the shape, size, and motion of the single, simple, homogeneous
matter that he terms res extensa “extended substance”. Under this category he
includes all physical and biological events, even complex animal behavior,
which he regards as simply the result of purely mechanical processes for
non-human animals as mechanical automata, see Discourse, Part V. But there is
one class of phenomena that cannot, on Descartes’s view, be handled in this
way, namely conscious experience. Thought, he frequently asserts, is completely
alien to, and incompatible with, extension: it occupies no space, is unextended
and indivisible. Hence Descartes puts forward a dualistic theory of substance:
in addition to the res extensa that makes up the material universe, there is
res cogitans, or thinking substance, which is entirely independent of matter.
And each conscious individual is a unique thinking substance: “This ‘I’ that is, the soul, by which I am what I am,
is entirely distinct from the body, and would not fail to be what it is even if
the body did not exist.” Descartes’s arguments for the incorporeality of the
soul were challenged by his contemporaries and have been heavily criticized by
subsequent commentators. In the Discourse and the Second Meditation, he lays
great stress on his ability to form a conception of himself as an existing
subject, while at the same time doubting the existence of any physical thing;
but this, as the critics pointed out, seems inadequate to establish the
conclusion that he is a res cogitans a
being whose whole essence consists simply in thought. I may be able to imagine
myself without a body, but this hardly proves that I could in reality exist
without one see further the Synopsis to the Meditations. A further problem is
that our everyday experience testifies to the fact that we are not incorporeal
beings, but very much creatures of flesh and blood. “Nature teaches me by the
sensations of pain, hunger, thirst and so on,” Descartes admits in the Sixth
Meditation, “that I am not merely present in my body as a sailor is present in
a ship, but that I am very closely Descartes, René Descartes, René 226 226 joined and as it were intermingled with
it.” Yet how can an incorporeal soul interact with the body in this way? In his
later writings, Descartes speaks of the “union of soul and body” as a
“primitive notion” see letters to Elizabeth of May 21 and June 28, 1643; by
this he seems to have meant that, just as there are properties such as length
that belong to body alone, and properties such as understanding that belong to mind alone, so there are items
such as sensations that are irreducibly psychophysical, and that belong to me
insofar as I am an embodied consciousness. The explanation of such
psychophysical events was the task Descartes set himself in his last work, The
Passions of the Soul; here he developed his theory that the pineal gland in the
brain was the “seat of the soul,” where data from the senses were received via
the nervous system, and where bodily movements were initiated. But despite the
wealth of physiological detail Descartes provides, the central philosophical
problems associated with his dualistic account of humans as hybrid entities
made up of physical body and immaterial soul are, by common consent, not
properly sorted out. Influence. Despite the philosophical difficulties that
beset the Cartesian system, Descartes’s vision of a unified understanding of
reality has retained a powerful hold on scientists and philosophers ever since.
His insistence that the path to progress in science lay in the direction of
quantitative explanations has been substantially vindicated. His attempt to
construct a system of knowledge by starting from the subjective awareness of
the conscious self has been equally important, if only because so much of the
epistemology of our own time has been a reaction against the autocentric
perspective from which Descartes starts out. As for the Cartesian theory of the
mind, it is probably fair to say that the dualistic approach is now widely
regarded as raising more problems than it solves. But Descartes’s insistence
that the phenomena of conscious experience are recalcitrant to explanation in
purely physical terms remains deeply influential, and the cluster of profound
problems that he raised about the nature of the human mind and its relation to
the material world are still very far from being adequately resolved. Cartesianism -- Elizabeth of Bohemia 160, G.
Princess whose philosophical reputation rests on her correspondence with
Descartes. The most heavily discussed portion of this correspondence focuses on
the relationship between the mind and the body and on Descartes’s claim that
the mind-body union is a simple notion. Her discussions of free will and of the
nature of the sovereign good also have philosophical interest.
cassirer: philosopher
and intellectual historian. He was born in the G. city of Breslau now Wroclaw,
Poland and educated at various G. universities. He completed his studies iat
Marburg under Hermann Cohen, founder of the Marburg School of neo-Kantianism.
Cassirer lectured at Berlin before accepting a professorship at the newly
founded of Hamburg. With the rise of
Nazism he left Germany, going first to a visiting appointment at (of all
places), All Souls, Oxford and then to a professorship at Göteborg, Sweden.
Seeing that Oxford didn’t care for him nor he for Oxford, he went to the New
World; he taught first at Yale in New Haven, on the Long Island Sound, and then
at Columbia. Cassirer’s oeuvre may be divided into those in the history of
philosophy and culture and those that present his own systematic thought. The
former include major editions of Leibniz and Kant; “The Problem of Knowledge,” which
traces the subject from Nicholas of Cusa to the twentieth century; and
individual works on Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Rousseau, Goethe, the
Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and English Platonism, of all movements. The
latter, systematic, oeuvre, include his masterpiece, “Symbolic Form,” which
presents culture based on types of symbolism and individual oeuvre concerned
with problems in philosophy. Two of his best-known essays are “An Essay on Man”
and “The Myth of the State.” Cassirer did not consider his systematic
philosophy and his historical studies as separate endeavors; each grounded the
other. Because of his involvement with the Marburg School, his philosophical
position is frequently but mistakenly typed as neo-Kantian. Kant is an
important influence on him, but so are Hegel, Herder, Wilhelm von Humboldt,
Goethe, Leibniz, and Vico. Cassirer derives his principal philosophical
concept, that of “symbolic form,” most directly from Heinrich Hertz’s
conception of notation in mechanics and the conception of the “symbol” in art
of the Hegelian aesthetician, Friedrich Theodor Vischer. In a wider sense his
conception of a “symbolic form” is a transformation of “idea” and “form” within
the whole tradition of philosophical idealism. Cassirer’s conception of the “symbolic
form” is NOT based, as Grice’s and Peirce’s isn’t, on a distinction between the
symbolic form and the literal form. In Cassirer’s view all human knowledge
depends on the power to form experience through some type of “symbol.”. The
forms of human knowledge are coextensive with forms of human culture. The form
Cassirer most often analyzes is language. Language as a symbolic form yields to
a total system of human knowledge and culture that is the subject matter of
philosophy. conception of the “symbol form” has influenced a few Griceian with
continental tendendies. His studies of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment
still stand as groundbreaking works in intellectual history.
griceian
casuistry: the case-analysis approach to the interpretation of
general moral rules. Casuistry starts with paradigm cases of how and when a
given general moral rule should be applied, and then reasons by analogy to
cases in which the proper application of the rule is less obvious e.g., a case in which lying is the only way
for a priest not to betray a secret revealed in confession. The point of
considering the series of cases is to ascertain the morally relevant
similarities and differences between cases. Casuistry’s heyday was the first
half of the seventeenth century. Reacting against casuistry’s popularity with
the Jesuits and against its tendency to qualify general moral rules, Pascal
penned a polemic against casuistry from which the term never recovered see his
Provincial Letters, 1656. But the kind of reasoning to which the term refers is
flourishing in contemporary practical ethics.
categorical
theory: H. P. Grice lectured at Oxford on Aristotle’s
Categories in joint seminars with J. L. Austin and P. F. Strawson, a theory all of whose models are isomorphic.
Because of its weak expressive power, in first-order logic with identity only
theories with a finite model can be categorical; without identity no theories
are categorical. A more interesting property, therefore, is being categorical
in power: a theory is categorical in power a when the theory has, up to
isomorphism, only one model with a domain of cardinality a. Categoricity in
power shows the capacity to characterize a structure completely, only limited
by cardinality. For example, the first-order theory of dense order without
endpoints is categorical in power w the cardinality of the natural numbers. The
first-order theory of simple discrete orderings with initial element, the
ordering of the natural numbers, is not categorical in power w. There are
countable discrete orders, not isomorphic to the natural numbers, that are
elementary equivalent to it, i.e., have the same elementary, first-order
theory. In first-order logic categorical theories are complete. This is not
necessarily true for extensions of first-order logic for which no completeness
theorem holds. In such a logic a set of axioms may be categorical without
providing an informative characterization of the theory of its unique model.
The term ‘elementary equivalence’ was introduced around 6 by Tarski for the
property of being indistinguishable by elementary means. According to Oswald
Veblen, who first used the term ‘categorical’ in 4, in a discussion of the
foundations of geometry, that term was suggested to him by the pragmatist John Dewey.
categoricity:
Grice distinguishes a meta-category, as categoricity, from category itself. He
gave seminars on Aristotle’s categories at Oxford in joint seminars with J. L.
Austin and P. F. Strawson. the semantic property belonging to a set of
sentences, a “postulate set,” that implicitly defines completely describes, or
characterizes up to isomorphism the structure of its intended interpretation or
standard model. The best-known categorical set of sentences is the postulate
set for number theory attributed to Peano, which completely characterizes the
structure of an arithmetic progression. This structure is exemplified by the
system of natural numbers with zero as distinguished element and successor
addition of one as distinguished function. Other exemplifications of this
structure are obtained by taking as distinguished element an arbitrary integer,
taking as distinguished function the process of adding an arbitrary positive or
negative integer and taking as universe of discourse or domain the result of
repeated application of the distinguished function to the distinguished
element. See, e.g., Russell’s Introduction to the Mathematical Philosophy, 8.
More precisely, a postulate set is defined to be categorical if every two of
its models satisfying interpretations or realizations are isomorphic to each
other, where, of course, two interpretations are isomorphic if between their
respective universes of discourse there exists a one-to-one correspondence by
which the distinguished elements, functions, relations, etc., of the one are
mapped exactly onto those of the other. The importance of the analytic geometry
of Descartes involves the fact that the system of points of a geometrical line
with the “left-of relation” distinguished is isomorphic to the system of real
numbers with the “less-than” relation distinguished. Categoricity, the ideal
limit of success for the axiomatic method considered as a method for
characterizing subject matter rather than for reorganizing a science, is known
to be impossible with respect to certain subject matters using certain formal
languages. The concept of categoricity can be traced back at least as far as
Dedekind; the word is due to Dewey.
category:
H. P. Grice and J. L. Austin, “Categories.” H. P. Grice and P. F. Strawson,
“Categories.” an ultimate class. Categories are the highest genera of entities
in the world. They may contain species but are not themselves species of any
higher genera. Aristotle, the first philosopher to discuss categories
systematically, listed ten, including substance, quality, quantity, relation,
place, and time. If a set of categories is complete, then each entity in the
world will belong to a category and no entity will belong to more than one
category. A prominent example of a set of categories is Descartes’s dualistic
classification of mind and matter. This example brings out clearly another
feature of categories: an attribute that can belong to entities in one category
cannot be an attribute of entities in any other category. Thus, entities in the
category of matter have extension and color while no entity in the category of
mind can have extension or color.
category
mistake. Grice’s example: You’re the cream in my coffee.
Usually a metaphor is a conversational implicaturum due to a category mistake –
But since obviously the mistake is intentional it is not really a mistake!
Grice prefers to speak of ‘categorial falsity.’ What Ryle has in mind is
different and he does mean ‘mistake.’ the placing of an entity in the wrong
category. In one of Ryle’s examples, to place the activity of exhibiting team
spirit in the same class with the activities of pitching, batting, and catching
is to make a category mistake; exhibiting team spirit is not a special function
like pitching or batting but instead a way those special functions are
performed. A second use of ‘category mistake’ is to refer to the attribution to
an entity of a property which that entity cannot have not merely does not
happen to have, as in ‘This memory is violet’ or, to use an example from
Carnap, ‘Caesar is a prime number’. These two kinds of category mistake may
seem different, but both involve misunderstandings of the natures of the things
being talked about. It is thought that they go beyond simple error or ordinary
mistakes, as when one attributes a property to a thing which that thing could
have but does not have, since category mistakes involve attributions of properties
e.g., being a special function to things e.g., team spirit that those things
cannot have. According to Ryle, the test for category differences depends on
whether replacement of one expression for another in the same sentence results
in a type of unintelligibility that he calls “absurdity.”
category
theory, H. P. Grice lectured on Aristotle’s categories in
joint seminars at Oxford with J. L. Austin and P. F. Strawson, a mathematical
theory that studies the universal properties of structures via their
relationships with one another. A category C consists of two collections Obc
and Morc , the objects and the morphisms of C, satisfying the following
conditions: i for each pair a, b of objects there is associated a collection
Morc a, b of morphisms such that each member of Morc belongs to one of these
collections; ii for each object a of Obc , there is a morphism ida , called the
identity on a; iii a composition law associating with each morphism f: a P b
and each morphism g: b P c a morphism gf:a P c, called the composite of f and
g; iv for morphisms f: a P b, g: b P c, and h: c P d, the equation hgf % hgf
holds; v for any morphism f: a P b, we have idbf % f and fida % f. Sets with
specific structures together with a collection of mappings preserving these
structures are categories. Examples: 1 sets with functions between them; 2
groups with group homomorphisms; 3 topological spaces with continuous
functions; 4 sets with surjections instead of arbitrary maps constitute a
different category. But a category need not be composed of sets and
set-theoretical maps. Examples: 5 a collection of propositions linked by the
relation of logical entailment is a category and so is any preordered set; 6 a
monoid taken as the unique object and its elements as the morphisms is a
category. The properties of an object of a category are determined by the
morphisms that are coming out of and going in this object. Objects with a
universal property occupy a key position. Thus, a terminal object a is
characterized by the following universal property: for any object b there is a
unique morphism from b to a. A singleton set is a terminal object in the
category of sets. The Cartesian product of sets, the product of groups, and the
conjunction of propositions are all terminal objects in appropriate categories.
Thus category theory unifies concepts and sheds a new light on the notion of
universality.
Grice’s four
conversational categories – the category of conversational mode: While Grice could be jocular, in an English way,
about the number of maxims within each category – he surely would not like to
joke as far as to be cavalier about the NUMBER of categories: Four was the
number of functions from which the twelve categories rramify, Kant, or
“Ariskant,” but Grice takes the function for the category -- four is for
Ariskantian Grice. This is Aristotle’s hexis. This category posed a special
conceptual problem to Grice. Recall that his categories are invoked only by
their power to generate conversational implciata. But a conversational implicaturum
is non-detachable. That is, being based on universalistic principles of general
rationality, it cannot attach to an EXPRESSION, less so to the ‘meaning’ of an
EXPRESSION: “if” and “provided” are REALISATIONS of the concept of the
conditionality. Now, the conversational supra-maxim, ‘be perspicuous’ [sic], is
supposed to apply NOT to the content, or matter, but to the FORM. (Strictly,
quantitas and qualitas applies to matter, RELATIO applies to the link between
at least two matters). Grice tweaks things in such a way that he is happy, and
so am I. This is a pun on Aristkant’s Kategorie (Ammonius, tropos, Boëthius, modus, Kant Modalitat). Gesichtspuncte
der Modalität in assertorische, apodiktische und problematische hat sich aus
der Aristotelischen Eintheilung hervorgebildet (Anal. Dr. 1, 2): 7@ợc gócois
atv n 100 incozy h kỹ kvayxns Úndozav û toù {VJÉZEo fai Úndozev: Doch geht
diese Aristotelische Stelle vielmehr auf die analogen objectiven Verhältnisse,
als auf den subjectiven Gewissheitsgrad. Der Zusatz Svvatóv, įvsezóuevov, és
åviyans, jedoch auch eine adverbiale Bestimmung wie taméws in dem Satze ý
σελήνη ταχέως αποκαθίσταται, heisst bei Ammonius τρόπος (zu περί ερμ. Cap. 12)
und bei Boëthius modus. Kant (Kritik der r. Vern. § 9-11; Prolegom. $ 21, Log.
§ 30) gründet die Eintheilung nach der Modalität auf die modalen Kategorien:
Möglichkeit und Unmöglichkeit, Dasein und Nichtsein, Nothwendigkeit und
Zufälligkeit, wobei jedoch die Zusammenstellung der Unmöglichkeit, die eine
negative Nothwendigkeit ist, mit der Möglichkeit, und ebenso der Zufälligkeit,
die das nicht als nothwendig erkannte Dasein bezeichnet, mit der Nothwendigkeit
eine Ungenauigkeit enthält: die Erkenntniss der Unmöglichkeit ist nicht ein
problematisches, sondern ein (negativ-) apodiktisches Urtheil (was Kant in der
Anwendung selbst anerkennt, indem er z. B. Krit. der r. V. S. 191 die Formel:
es ist unmöglich etc. als Ausdruck einer apodiktischen Gewissheit betrachtet),
und die Erkenntniss des Zufälligen ist nicht ein apodiktisches, sondern ein
assertorisches Urtheil. Ausserdem aber hat Kant das subjective und objective
Element in den Kategorien der Qualität und Modalität nicht bestimmt genug
unterschieden.
Grice’s four
conversational categories – the category of conversational quality: While Grice could be cavalier about the number of
maxims falling under the category of conversational quality, he surely would
not be cavalier about the number of categories themselves. Four were the
functions from which the twelve categories ramify for Ariskant, and four were
for Grice: he takes the function from Kant, but the spirit from Aristotle. This is Aristotle’s universal, poiotes. This
was originally the desideratum of conversational candour. At that point, there
was no Kantian scheme of categories in the horizon. Candour Grice arbitrarily
contrasts with clarity – and so the desideratum of conversational candour
sometimes clashes with the desideratum of conversational clarity. One may not
be able to provide a less convoluted utterance (“It is raining”) but use the
less clear, but more candid, “It might be raining, for all I know.” A pun on
Aristkan’s Kategorie, poiotes, qualitas, Qualitat. Expressions which are in no way composite
signify substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state,
action, or affection. To sketch my meaning roughly, examples of substance are
'man' or 'the horse', of quantity, such terms as 'two cubits long' or 'three
cubits long', of quality, such attributes as 'white', 'grammatical'.
Grice’s four
conversational categories – the category of conversational quantity: While Grice could be cavalier about the number of
maxims falling under quantity, he was not about the number of categories
itself. Four was the number of functions out of which the twelve categories
spring for Ariskant, and four was for Grice. He takes the function (the letter)
from Kant, but the spirit from Aristotle. This is Aristotle’s universal,
posotes. Grice would often use ‘a fortiori,’ and then it dawned on him. “All I
need is a principle of conversational fortitude. This will give the Oxonians
the Graeco-Roman pedigree they deserve.’
a pun on Ariskant’s Kategorie, posotes, quantitas, Quantitat. Grice
expands this as ‘quantity of information,’ or ‘informative content’ – which
then as he recognises overlaps with the category of conversational quality,
because ‘false information’ is a misnomer. Expressions which are in no way
composite signify substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time,
position, state, action, or affection. To sketch my meaning roughly, examples
of substance are 'man' or 'the horse', of quantity, such terms as 'two cubits
long' or 'three cubits long'
Grice’s four
conversational categories – the category of conversational relation: While Grice could be cavalier about the number of
maxims under the category of relation, he was not about the number of
categories: four were the number of functions out of which the twelve
categories spring for Ariskant and four were for Grice: he takes the letter
(function) from Kant, and the spirit from Aristotle. This is Aristotle’s ‘pros
ti.’ f there are categories of being, and categories of thought, and categories
of expression, surely there is room for the ‘conversational category.’ A pun on
Ariskant’s Kategorie (pros ti, ad aliquid, Relation). Surely a move has to
relate to the previous move, and should include a tag as to what move will
relate. Expressions which are in no way composite signify substance, quantity,
quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, or affection. To
sketch my meaning roughly, examples of substance are 'man' or 'the horse', of
quantity, such terms as 'two cubits long' or 'three cubits long', of quality,
such attributes as 'white', 'grammatical'. 'Double', 'half', 'greater', fall
under the category of relation.
causatum: Is the causatum involved in the communicatum. Grice
relies on this only in Meaning Revisited, where he presents a transcendental
argument for the justification. This is what is referred in the literature as
“H. P. Grice’s Triangle.” Borrowing from Aristotle in De Interpretatione, Grice
speaks of three corners of the triangle and correspondences obtaining between
them. There’s a psychophysical correspondence between the soul of the emissor,
the soul of the emissee, and the shared experience of the denotata of the
communication device the emissor employs. Then there’s the psychosemiotic
correspondence between the communication device and the state of the soul in
the emissor that is transferred, in a soul-to-soul transfer to the emissee. And
finally, there is a semiophyiscal correspondence between the communication
device and the world. When it comes to the causation, the belief that there is
fire is caused by there being fire. The emissor wants to transfer his belief,
and utters. “Smoke!”. The soul-to-soul transfer is effected. The fire that
caused the smoke that caused the belief in the the emissor now causes a belief
in the emissee. If that’s not a causal account of communication, I don’t know
what it is. Grice is no expressionist in that a solipsistic telementational
model is of no use if there is no ‘hookup’ as he puts it with the world that
causes this ‘shared experience’ that is improved by the existence of a
communication device. Grice’s idea of ‘cause’
is his ‘bite’ on reality. He chooses ‘Phenomenalism’ as an enemy. Causal realism
is at the heart of Grice’s programme. As an Oxonian, he was well aware that to
trust a cause is to be anti-Cambridge, where they follow Hume’s and Kant’s
scepticism. Grice uses ‘cause’ rather casually. His most serious joke is
“Charles I’s decapitation willed his death” – but it is not easy to trace a
philosopher who explicitly claim that ‘to cause’ is ‘to will.’ For in God the means and the end preexist in the cause as willed together. Causation
figures large in Grice, notably re: the perceptum. The agent perceives that the
pillar box is red. The cause is that the pillar box is red. Out of that, Grice
constructs a whole theory of conversation. Why would someone just report what a
THING SEEMS to him when he has no doubt that it was THE THING that caused the
thing to SEEM red to him? Applying some sort of helpfulness, it works: the
addressee is obviously more interested in what the thing IS, not what it seems.
A sense-datum is not something you can eat. An apple is. So, the assumption is
that a report of what a thing IS is more relevant than a report about what a
thing SEEMS. So, Grice needs to find a
rationale that justifies, ceteris paribus, the utterance of “The thing seems
phi.” Following helpfulness, U utters “The thing seems phi” when the U is not
in a position to say what the thing IS phi. The denial, “The thing is not phi”
is in the air, and also the doubt, “The thing may not be phi.” Most without a
philosophical background who do not take Grice’s joke of echoing Kant’s
categories (Kant had 12, not 4!) play with quantitas, qualitas, relatio and
modus. Grice in “Causal” uses ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ but grants he won’t
‘determine’ in what way ‘the thing seems phi’ is ‘weaker’ than ‘the thing is
phi.’ It might well be argued that it’s STRONGER: the thing SEEEMS TO BE phi.’
In the previous “Introduction to Logical Theory,” Strawson just refers to
Grice’s idea of a ‘pragmatic rule’ to the effect that one utter the LOGICALLY stronger
proposition. Let’s revise dates. Whereas Grice says that his confidence in the
success of “Causal,” he ventured with Strawson’s “Intro,” Strawson is citing
Grice already. Admittedly, Strawson adds, “in a different context.” But Grice
seems pretty sure that “The thing seems phi” is WEAKER than “The thing is phi.”
In 1961 he is VERY CLEAR that while what he may have said to Strawson that
Strawson reported in that footnote was in terms of LOGICAL STRENGTH (in terms
of entailment, for extensional contexts). In “Causal,” Grice is clear that he
does not think LOGICAL STRENGTH applies to intensional contexts. In later
revisions, it is not altogether clear how he deals with the ‘doubt or denial.’
He seems to have been more interested in refuting G. A. Paul (qua follower of
Witters) than anything else. In his latest reformulation of the principle, now
a conversational category, he is not specific about phenomenalist reports. A
causal law is a statement describing a regular and invariant connection between
types of events or states, where the connections involved are causal in some
sense. When one speaks of causal laws as distinguished from laws that are not
123 category mistake causal law 123
causal, the intended distinction may vary. Sometimes, a law is said to be
causal if it relates events or states occurring at successive times, also
called a law of succession: e.g., ‘Ingestion of strychnine leads to death.’ A
causal law in this sense contrasts with a law of coexistence, which connects
events or states occurring at the same time e.g., the Wiedemann-Franz law
relating thermal and electric conductivity in metals. One important kind of
causal law is the deterministic law. Causal laws of this kind state
exceptionless connections between events, while probabilistic or statistical
laws specify probability relationships between events. For any system governed
by a set of deterministic laws, given the state of a system at a time, as
characterized by a set of state variables, these laws will yield a unique state
of the system for any later time or, perhaps, at any time, earlier or later.
Probabilistic laws will yield, for a given antecedent state of a system, only a
probability value for the occurrence of a certain state at a later time. The
laws of classical mechanics are often thought to be paradigmatic examples of
causal laws in this sense, whereas the laws of quantum mechanics are claimed to
be essentially probabilistic. Causal laws are sometimes taken to be laws that
explicitly specify certain events as causes of certain other events. Simple
laws of this kind will have the form ‘Events of kind F cause events of kind G’;
e.g., ‘Heating causes metals to expand’. A weaker related concept is this: a
causal law is one that states a regularity between events which in fact are
related as cause to effect, although the statement of the law itself does not
say so laws of motion expressed by differential equations are perhaps causal
laws in this sense. These senses of ‘causal law’ presuppose a prior concept of
causation. Finally, causal laws may be contrasted with teleological laws, laws
that supposedly describe how certain systems, in particular biological
organisms, behave so as to achieve certain “goals” or “end states.” Such laws
are sometimes claimed to embody the idea that a future state that does not as
yet exist can exert an influence on the present behavior of a system. Just what
form such laws take and exactly how they differ from ordinary laws have not
been made wholly clear, however. Grice
was not too happy with the causal theory of proper names, the view that proper
names designate what they name by virtue of a kind of causal connection to it.
Perhaps his antipathy was due to the fact that he was Herbert Grice, and so was
his father. This led Grice to start using once at Clifton and Oxford, “H. P.”
and eventually, dropping the “Herbert” altogether and become “Paul Grice.” This
view is a special case, and in some instances an unwarranted interpretation, of
a direct reference view of names. On this approach, proper names, e.g.,
‘Machiavelli’, are, as J. S. Mill wrote, “purely denotative. . . . they denote
the individuals who are called by them; but they do not indicate or imply any
attributes as belonging to those individuals” A System of Logic, 1879. Proper
names may suggest certain properties to many competent speakers, but any such
associated information is no part of the definition of the name. Names, on this
view, have no definitions. What connects a name to what it names is not the
latter’s satisfying some condition specified in the name’s definition. Names,
instead, are simply attached to things, applied as labels, as it were. A proper
name, once attached, becomes a socially available device for making the
relevant name bearer a subject of discourse. On the other leading view, the
descriptivist view, a proper name is associated with something like a
definition. ‘Aristotle’, on this view, applies by definition to whoever
satisfies the relevant properties e.g.,
is ‘the teacher of Alexander the Great, who wrote the Nicomachean Ethics’.
Russell, e.g., maintained that ordinary proper names which he contrasted with
logically proper or genuine names have definitions, that they are abbreviated
definite descriptions. Frege held that names have sense, a view whose proper
interpretation remains in dispute, but is often supposed to be closely related
to Russell’s approach. Others, most notably Searle, have defended descendants
of the descriptivist view. An important variant, sometimes attributed to Frege,
denies that names have articulable definitions, but nevertheless associates
them with senses. And the bearer will still be, by definition as it were, the
unique thing to satisfy the relevant mode of presentation. causal
overdetermination causal theory of proper names 124 124 The direct reference approach is
sometimes misleadingly called the causal theory of names. But the key idea need
have nothing to do with causation: a proper name functions as a tag or label
for its bearer, not as a surrogate for a descriptive expression. Whence the
allegedly misleading term ‘causal theory of names’? Contemporary defenders of
Mill’s conception like Keith Donnellan and Kripke felt the need to expand upon
Mill’s brief remarks. What connects a present use of a name with a referent?
Here Donnellan and Kripke introduce the notion of a “historical chains of
communication.” As Kripke tells the story, a baby is baptized with a proper
name. The name is used, first by those present at the baptism, subsequently by
those who pick up the name in conversation, reading, and so on. The name is
thus propagated, spread by usage “from link to link as if by a chain” Naming
and Necessity, 0. There emerges a historical chain of uses of the name that,
according to Donnellan and Kripke, bridges the gap between a present use of the
name and the individual so named. This “historical chain of communication” is
occasionally referred to as a “casual chain of communication.” The idea is that
one’s use of the name can be thought of as a causal factor in one’s listener’s
ability to use the name to refer to the same individual. However, although
Kripke in Naming and Necessity does occasionally refer to the chain of
communication as causal, he more often simply speaks of the chain of
communication, or of the fact that the name has been passed “by tradition from
link to link” p. 106. The causal aspect is not one that Kripke underscores. In
more recent writings on the topic, as well as in lectures, Kripke never
mentions causation in this connection, and Donnellan questions whether the
chain of communication should be thought of as a causal chain. This is not to
suggest that there is no view properly called a “causal theory of names.” There
is such a view, but it is not the view of Kripke and Donnellan. The causal
theory of names is a view propounded by physicalistically minded philosophers
who desire to “reduce” the notion of “reference” to something more
physicalistically acceptable, such as the notion of a causal chain running from
“baptism” to later use. This is a view whose motivation is explicitly rejected
by Kripke, and should be sharply distinguished from the more popular anti-Fregean
approach sketched above. Causation is the relation between cause and effect, or
the act of bringing about an effect, which may be an event, a state, or an
object say, a statue. The concept of causation has long been recognized as one
of fundamental philosophical importance. Hume called it “the cement of the
universe”: causation is the relation that connects events and objects of this
world in significant relationships. The concept of causation seems pervasively
present in human discourse. It is expressed by not only ‘cause’ and its
cognates but by many other terms, such as ‘produce’, ‘bring about’, ‘issue’,
‘generate’, ‘result’, ‘effect’, ‘determine’, and countless others. Moreover,
many common transitive verbs “causatives”, such as ‘kill’, ‘break’, and ‘move’,
tacitly contain causal relations e.g., killing involves causing to die. The
concept of action, or doing, involves the idea that the agent intentionally
causes a change in some object or other; similarly, the concept of perception
involves the idea that the object perceived causes in the perceiver an
appropriate perceptual experience. The physical concept of force, too, appears
to involve causation as an essential ingredient: force is the causal agent of
changes in motion. Further, causation is intimately related to explanation: to
ask for an explanation of an event is, often, to ask for its cause. It is
sometimes thought that our ability to make predictions, and inductive inference
in general, depends on our knowledge of causal connections or the assumption
that such connections are present: the knowledge that water quenches thirst
warrants the predictive inference from ‘X is swallowing water’ to ‘X’s thirst
will be quenched’. More generally, the identification and systematic
description of causal relations that hold in the natural world have been
claimed to be the preeminent aim of science. Finally, causal concepts play a
crucial role in moral and legal reasoning, e.g., in the assessment of
responsibilities and liabilities. Event causation is the causation of one event
by another. A sequence of causally connected events is called a causal chain.
Agent causation refers to the act of an agent person, object in bringing about
a change; thus, my opening the window i.e., my causing the window to open is an
instance of agent causation. There is a controversy as to whether agent
causation is reducible to event causation. My opening the window seems reducible
to event causation since in reality a certain motion of my arms, an event,
causes the window to open. Some philosophers, however, have claimed that not
all cases of agent causation are so reducible. Substantival causation is the
creation of a genuinely new substance, or object, rather than causing changes
in preexisting substances, or merely rearranging them. The possibility of
substantival causation, at least in the natural world, has been disputed by
some philosophers. Event causation, however, has been the primary focus of
philosophical discussion in the modern and contemporary period. The analysis of
event causation has been controversial. The following four approaches have been
prominent: the regularity analysis, the counterfactual analysis, the manipulation
analysis, and the probabilistic analysis. The heart of the regularity or
nomological analysis, associated with Hume and J. S. Mill, is the idea that
causally connected events must instantiate a general regularity between like
kinds of events. More precisely: if c is a cause of e, there must be types or
kinds of events, F and G, such that c is of kind F, e is of kind G, and events
of kind F are regularly followed by events of kind G. Some take the regularity
involved to be merely de facto “constant conjunction” of the two event types
involved; a more popular view is that the regularity must hold as a matter of
“nomological necessity” i.e., it must be
a “law.” An even stronger view is that the regularity must represent a causal
law. A law that does this job of subsuming causally connected events is called
a “covering” or “subsumptive” law, and versions of the regularity analysis that
call for such laws are often referred to as the “covering-law” or
“nomic-subsumptive” model of causality. The regularity analysis appears to give
a satisfactory account of some aspects of our causal concepts: for example,
causal claims are often tested by re-creating the event or situation claimed to
be a cause and then observing whether a similar effect occurs. In other respects,
however, the regularity account does not seem to fare so well: e.g., it has
difficulty explaining the apparent fact that we can have knowledge of causal
relations without knowledge of general laws. It seems possible to know, for
instance, that someone’s contraction of the flu was caused by her exposure to a
patient with the disease, although we know of no regularity between such
exposures and contraction of the disease it may well be that only a very small
fraction of persons who have been exposed to flu patients contract the disease.
Do I need to know general regularities about itchings and scratchings to know
that the itchy sensation on my left elbow caused me to scratch it? Further, not
all regularities seem to represent causal connections e.g., Reid’s example of
the succession of day and night; two successive symptoms of a disease.
Distinguishing causal from non-causal regularities is one of the main problems
confronting the regularity theorist. According to the counterfactual analysis,
what makes an event a cause of another is the fact that if the cause event had
not occurred the effect event would not have. This accords with the idea that
cause is a condition that is sine qua non for the occurrence of the effect. The
view that a cause is a necessary condition for the effect is based on a similar
idea. The precise form of the counterfactual account depends on how
counterfactuals are understood e.g., if counterfactuals are explained in terms
of laws, the counterfactual analysis may turn into a form of the regularity
analysis. The counterfactual approach, too, seems to encounter various
difficulties. It is true that on the basis of the fact that if Larry had
watered my plants, as he had promised, my plants would not have died, I could
claim that Larry’s not watering my plants caused them to die. But it is also
true that if George Bush had watered my plants, they would not have died; but
does that license the claim that Bush’s not watering my plants caused them to
die? Also, there appear to be many cases of dependencies expressed by
counterfactuals that, however, are not cases of causal dependence: e.g., if
Socrates had not died, Xanthippe would not have become a widow; if I had not
raised my hand, I would not have signaled. The question, then, is whether these
non-causal counterfactuals can be distinguished from causal counterfactuals
without the use of causal concepts. There are also questions about how we could
verify counterfactuals in particular,
whether our knowledge of causal counterfactuals is ultimately dependent on
knowledge of causal laws and regularities. Some have attempted to explain
causation in terms of action, and this is the manipulation analysis: the cause
is an event or state that we can produce at will, or otherwise manipulate, to produce
a certain other event as an effect. Thus, an event is a cause of another
provided that by bringing about the first event we can bring about the second.
This account exploits the close connection noted earlier between the concepts
of action and cause, and highlights the important role that knowledge of causal
connections plays in our control of natural events. However, as an analysis of
the concept of cause, it may well have things backward: the concept of action
seems to be a richer and more complex concept that presupposes the concept of
cause, and an analysis of cause in terms of action could be accused of
circularity. The reason we think that someone’s exposure to a flu patient was
the cause of her catching the disease, notwithstanding the absence of an
appropriate regularity even one of high probability, may be this: exposure to
flu patients increases the probability of contracting the disease. Thus, an
event, X, may be said to be a probabilistic cause of an event, Y, provided that
the probability of the occurrence of Y, given that X has occurred, is greater
than the antecedent probability of Y. To meet certain obvious difficulties,
this rough definition must be further elaborated e.g., to eliminate the
possibility that X and Y are collateral effects of a common cause. There is
also the question whether probabilistic causation is to be taken as an analysis
of the general concept of causation, or as a special kind of causal relation,
or perhaps only as evidence indicating the presence of a causal relationship.
Probabilistic causation has of late been receiving increasing attention from
philosophers. When an effect is brought about by two independent causes either
of which alone would have sufficed, one speaks of causal overdetermination.
Thus, a house fire might have been caused by both a short circuit and a
simultaneous lightning strike; either event alone would have caused the fire,
and the fire, therefore, was causally overdetermined. Whether there are actual
instances of overdetermination has been questioned; one could argue that the
fire that would have been caused by the short circuit alone would not have been
the same fire, and similarly for the fire that would have been caused by the
lightning alone. The steady buildup of pressure in a boiler would have caused
it to explode but for the fact that a bomb was detonated seconds before,
leading to a similar effect. In such a case, one speaks of preemptive, or
superseding, cause. We are apt to speak of causes in regard to changes;
however, “unchanges,” e.g., this table’s standing here through some period of
time, can also have causes: the table continues to stand here because it is
supported by a rigid floor. The presence of the floor, therefore, can be called
a sustaining cause of the table’s continuing to stand. A cause is usually
thought to precede its effect in time; however, some have argued that we must
allow for the possibility of a cause that is temporally posterior to its
effect backward causation sometimes called
retrocausation. And there is no universal agreement as to whether a cause can
be simultaneous with its effect
concurrent causation. Nor is there a general agreement as to whether
cause and effect must, as a matter of conceptual necessity, be “contiguous” in
time and space, either directly or through a causal chain of contiguous
events contiguous causation. The attempt
to “analyze” causation seems to have reached an impasse; the proposals on hand
seem so widely divergent that one wonders whether they are all analyses of one
and the same concept. But each of them seems to address some important aspect
of the variegated notion that we express by the term ‘cause’, and it may be
doubted whether there is a unitary concept of causation that can be captured in
an enlightening philosophical analysis. On the other hand, the centrality of
the concept, both to ordinary practical discourse and to the scientific
description of the world, is difficult to deny. This has encouraged some
philosophers to view causation as a primitive, one that cannot be further
analyzed. There are others who advocate the extreme view causal nihilism that
causal concepts play no role whatever in the advanced sciences, such as
fundamental physical theories of space-time and matter, and that the very
notion of cause is an anthropocentric projection deriving from our confused
ideas of action and power. Causatum -- Dretske, Fred b.2, philosopher best known for his externalistic
representational naturalism about experience, belief, perception, and
knowledge. Educated at Purdue and
the of Minnesota, he has taught at
the of Wisconsin 088 and Stanford 898. In Seeing and Knowing 9 Dretske develops
an account of non-epistemic seeing, denying that seeing is believing that for a subject S to see a dog, say, S
must apply a concept to it dog, animal, furry. The dog must look some way to S
S must visually differentiate the dog, but need not conceptually categorize it.
This contrasts with epistemic seeing, where for S to see that a dog is before
him, S would have to believe that it is a dog. In Knowledge and the Flow of
Information 1, a mind-independent objective sense of ‘information’ is applied
to propositional knowledge and belief content. “Information” replaced Dretske’s
earlier notion of a “conclusive reason” 1. Knowing that p requires having a
true belief caused or causally sustained by an event that carries the
information that p. Also, the semantic content of a belief is identified with
the most specific digitally encoded piece of information to which it becomes
selectively sensitive during a period of learning. In Explaining Behavior 8,
Dretske’s account of representation and misrepresentation takes on a
teleological flavor. The semantic meaning of a structure is now identified with
its indicator function. A structure recruited for a causal role of indicating
F’s, and sustained in that causal role by this ability, comes to mean F thereby providing a causal role for the
content of cognitive states, and avoiding epiphenomenalism about semantic content.
In Naturalizing the Mind 5, Dretske’s theory of meaning is applied to the
problems of consciousness and qualia. He argues that the empirically
significant features of conscious experience are exhausted by their functional
and hence representational roles of indicating external sensible properties. He
rejects the views that consciousness is composed of a higher-order hierarchy of
mental states and that qualia are due to intrinsic, non-representational
features of the underlying physical systems. Dretske is also known for his
contributions on the nature of contrastive statements, laws of nature,
causation, and epistemic non-closure, among other topics. CAUSATUM -- Ducasse, C. J., philosopher of
mind and aesthetician. He arrived in the United States in 0, received his Ph.D.
from Harvard 2, and taught at the of
Washington 226 and Brown 658. His most
important work is Nature, Mind and Death 1. The key to his general theory is a
non-Humean view of causation: the relation of causing is triadic, involving i
an initial event, ii the set of conditions under which it occurs, and iii a
resulting event; the initial event is the cause, the resulting event is the
effect. On the basis of this view he constructed a theory of categories an explication of such concepts as those of
substance, property, mind, matter, and body. Among the theses he defended were
that minds are substances, that they causally interact with bodies, and that
human beings are free despite every event’s having a cause. In A Critical
Examination of the Belief in a Life after Death 1, he concluded that “the
balance of the evidence so far obtained is on the side of . . . survival.” Like
Schopenhauer, whom he admired, Ducasse was receptive to the religious and
philosophical writings of the Far East. He wrote with remarkable objectivity on
the philosophical problems associated with so-called paranormal phenomena.
Ducasse’s epistemological views are developed in Truth, Knowledge and Causation
8. He sets forth a realistic theory of perception he says, about
sense-qualities, “Berkeley is right and the realists are wrong” and, of
material things, “the realists are right and Berkeley is wrong”. He provides
the classical formulation of the “adverbial theory” or sense-qualities,
according to which such qualities are not objects of experience or awareness
but ways of experiencing or of being aware. One does not perceive a red
material object by sensing a red sense-datum; for then perceiving would involve
three entities i the perceiving subject,
ii the red sense-datum, and iii the red material object. But one may perceive a
red material object by sensing redly; then the only entities involved are i the
perceiving subject and ii the material object. Ducasse observes that,
analogously, although it may be natural to say “dancing a waltz,” it would be
more accurate to speak of “dancing waltzily.”
causa
sui:
an expression used by Grice’s mother, a High Church, as applied to God to mean
in part that God owes his existence to nothing other than himself. It does not
mean that God somehow brought himself into existence. The idea is that the very
nature of God logically requires that he exists. What accounts for the existence
of a being that is causa sui is its own nature.
cavellian
implicaturum: c. s.,
b.6, philosopher whose work has
explored skepticism and its consequences. He was Walter M. Cabot Professor of
Aesthetics and General Value Theory at Harvard from 3 until 7. Central to
Cavell’s thought is the view that skepticism is not a theoretical position to
be refuted by philosophical theory or dismissed as a mere misuse of ordinary
language; it is a reflection of the fundamental limits of human knowledge of
the self, of others, and of the external world, limits that must be
accepted in his term “acknowledged” because the refusal to do so results in
illusion and risks tragedy. Cavell’s work defends J. L. Austin from both
positivism and deconstructionism Must We Mean What We Say?, 9, and The Pitch of
Philosophy, 4, but not because Cavell is an “ordinary language” philosopher.
Rather, his defense of Austin has combined with his response to skepticism to
make him a philosopher of the ordinary: he explores the conditions of the
possibility and limits of ordinary language, ordinary knowledge, ordinary
action, and ordinary human relationships. He uses both the resources of
ordinary language and the discourse of philosophers, such as Vitters,
Heidegger, Thoreau, and Emerson, and of the arts. Cavell has explored the
ineliminability of skepticism in Must We Mean What We Say?, notably in its
essay on King Lear, and has developed his analysis in his 9 magnum opus, The
Claim of Reason. He has examined the benefits of acknowledging the limits of
human self-understanding, and the costs of refusing to do so, in a broad range
of contexts from film The World Viewed, 1; Pursuits of Happiness, 1; and
Contesting Tears, 6 to philosophy The
Senses of Walden, 2; and the chapters on Emerson in This New Yet Unapproachable
America, 9, and Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome, 0. A central argument in
The Claim of Reason develops Cavell’s approach by looking at Vitters’s notion
of criteria. Criteria are not rules for the use of our words that can guarantee
the correctness of the claims we make by them; rather, criteria bring out what
we claim by using the words we do. More generally, in making claims to
knowledge, undertaking actions, and forming interpersonal relationships, we
always risk failure, but it is also precisely in that room for risk that we
find the possibility of freedom. This argument is indebted not only to Vitters
but also to Kant, especially in the Critique of Judgment. Cavell has used his
view as a key to understanding classics of the theater and film. Regarding such
tragic figures as Lear, he argues that their tragedies result from their
refusal to accept the limits of human knowledge and human love, and their
insistence on an illusory absolute and pure love. The World Viewed argues for a
realistic approach to film, meaning that we should acknowledge that our
cognitive and emotional responses to films are responses to the realities of
the human condition portrayed in them. This “ontology of film” prepared the way
for Cavell’s treatment of the genre of comedies of remarriage in Pursuits of
Happiness. It also grounds his treatment of melodrama in Contesting Tears,
which argues that human beings must remain tragically unknown to each other if
the limits to our knowledge of each other are not acknowledged. In The Claim of
Reason and later works Cavell has also contributed to moral philosophy by his
defense against Rawls’s critique of
“moral perfectionism” of “Emersonian
perfectionism”: the view that no general principles of conduct, no matter how
well established, can ever be employed in practice without the ongoing but
never completed perfection of knowledge of oneself and of the others on and
with whom one acts. Cavell’s Emersonian perfectionism is thus another
application of his Vittersian and Kantian recognition that rules must always be
supplemented by the capacity for judgment.
cavendish:
m. duchess of Newcastle, English author of some dozen works in a variety of
forms. Her central philosophical interest was the developments in natural
science of her day. Her earliest works endorsed a kind of atomism, but her
settled view, in Philosophical Letters 1664, Observations upon Experimental
Philosophy 1666, and Grounds of Natural Philosophy 1668, was a kind of organic
materialism. Cavendish argues for a hierarchy of increasingly fine matter,
capable of self-motion. Philosophical Letters, among other matters, raises
problems for the notion of inert matter found in Descartes, and Observations
upon Experimental Philosophy criticizes microscopists such as Hooke for
committing a double error, first of preferring the distortions introduced by
instruments to unaided vision and second of preferring sense to reason.
celsus:
philosopher known only as the author of a work called “Alethes logos,” which is
quoted extensively by Origen of Alexandria in his response, Against Celsus.
“Alethes logos” is mainly important because it is the first anti-Christian
polemic of which we have significant knowledge. Origen considers Celsus to be
an Epicurean, but he is uncertain about this. There are no traces of
Epicureanism in Origen’s quotations from Celsus, which indicate instead that he
is a platonist, whose conception of an unnameable first deity transcending
being and knowable only by “synthesis, analysis, or analogy” is based on Plato’s
description of the Good in Rep. VI. In accordance with the Timaeus, Celsus
believes that God created “immortal things” and turned the creation of “mortal
things” over to them. According to him, the universe has a providential organization
in which humans hold no special place, and its history is one of eternally
repeating sequences of events separated by catastrophes.
certum: While Grice plays with ‘certum,’ he is happier with
UNcertum. To be certain is to have dis-cerned. Oddly, Grice ‘evolved’ from an
interest in the certainty and incorrigibility that ‘ordinary’ and the
first-person gives to situations of ‘conversational improbability’ and
indeterminate implicatura under conditions of ceteris paribus risk and
uncertainty in survival. “To be certain that p” is for Grice one of those
‘diaphanous’ verbs. While it is best to improve Descartes’s fuzzy lexicon – and
apply ‘certus’ to the emissor, if Grice is asked, “What are you certain of?,”
“I have to answer, ‘p’”. certum: certitude,
from ecclesiastical medieval Roman “certitudo,” designating in particular
Christian conviction, is heir to two meanings of “certum,” one objective and
the other subjective: beyond doubt, fixed, positive, real, regarding a thing or
knowledge, or firm in his resolutions, decided, sure, authentic, regarding an
individual. Although certitudo has no Grecian equivalent, the Roman verb
“cernere,” (cf. discern), from which “certum” is derived, has the concrete
meaning of pass through a sieve, discern, like the Grecian “ϰρίνειν,” select,
sieve, judge, which comes from the same root. Thus begins the relationship
between certitude, judgment, and truth, which since Descartes has been
connected with the problematics of the subject and of self-certainty. The whole
terminological system of truth is thus involved, from unveiling and adequation
to certitude and obviousness. Then there’s Certainty, Objectivity,
Subjectivity, and Linguistic Systems The
objective aspect manifests itself first, “certitudo” translating e. g. the determined nature of objects or known
properties as the commentaries on Aristotle’s Met. translated into Roman, or
the incontestably true nature of principles. With the revolution of the subject
inaugurated by Cartesian Phil. , the second aspect comes to the fore: some
reasons, ideas, or propositions are true and certain, or true and evident, but
the most certain and the most evident of all, and thus in a sense the truest,
is the certitude of my own existence, a certainty that the subject attributes
to itself: The thematics of certainty precedes that of consciousness both
historically and logically, but it ends up being incorporated and subordinated
by it. Certainty thus becomes a quality or disposition of the subject that
reproduces, in the field of rational knowledge, the security or assurance that
the believer finds in religious faith, and that shields him from the wavering
of the soul. It will be noted that Fr.
retains the possibility of reversing the perspective by exploiting the
Roman etymology, as Descartes does in the Principles of Phil. when he transforms the certitudo probabilis
of the Scholastics Aquinas into moral certainty. On the other hand, Eng. tends
to objectify “certainty” to the maximum in opposition to belief v. BELIEF,
whereas G. hears in “Gewissheit” the
root “wissen,” to know, to have learned and situates it in a series with
Bewusstsein and Gewissen, clearly marking the constitutive relationship to the
subject in opposition to Glaube on the one hand, and to Wahrheit and Wahrscheinlichkeit
lit., appearance of truth, i.e., probability on the other. Then there’s Knots
of Problems On the relations between
certainty and belief, the modalities of subjective experience. On the relation
between individual certainty and the wise man’s constancy. On the relations
between certainty and truth, the confrontation between subjectivity and
objectivity in the development of knowledge. On the relations between certainty
and probability, the modalities of objective knowledge insofar as it is related
to a subject’s experience. uncertainty.
This is Grice’s principle of uncertainty. One of Grice’s problem is with ‘know’
and ‘certainty.’ He grants that we only know that 2 + 2 = 4. He often
identifies ‘knowledge’ with ‘certainty.’ He does not explore a cancellation
like, “I am certain but I do not know.” The reason being that he defends common
sense against the sceptic, and so his attitude towards certainty has to be very
careful. The second problem is that he wants ‘certainty’ to deal within the desiderative
realm. To do that, he divides an act of intending into two: an act of accepting
and act of willing. The ‘certainty’ is found otiose if the intender is seen as
‘willing that p’ and accepting that the willing will be the cause for the
desideratum to obtain. n WoW:141, Grice
proposes that ‘A is certain that p’ ENTAILS either ‘A is certain that he is
certain that p, OR AT LEAST that it is not the case that A is UNCERTAIN that A
is certain that p.” ‘Certainly,’ appears to apply to utterances in the credibility
and the desirability realm. Grice sometimes uses ‘to be sure.’ He notoriously
wants to distinguish it from ‘know.’ Grice explores the topic of
incorrigibility and ends up with corrigibility which almost makes a Popperian
out of him. In the end, its all about the converational implciata and
conversation as rational co-operation. Why does P2 should judge that P1 is
being more or less certain about what he is talking? Theres a rationale for
that. Our conversation does not consist of idle remarks. Grices example:
"The Chairman of the British Academy has a corkscrew in his pocket.
Urmsons example: "The king is visiting Oxford tomorrow. Why? Oh, for no
reason at all. As a philosophical psychologist, and an empiricist with realist
tendencies, Grice was obsessed with what he called (in a nod to the Kiparskys)
the factivity of know. Surely, Grices preferred collocation, unlike surely
Ryles, is "Grice knows that p." Grice has no problem in seeing this
as involving three clauses: First, p. Second, Grice believes that p, and third,
p causes Grices belief. No mention of certainty. This is the neo-Prichardian in
Grice, from having been a neo-Stoutian (Stout was obsessed, as a few Oxonians
like Hampshire and Hart were, with certainty). If the three-prong analysis of know
applies to the doxastic, Grices two-prong analysis of intending in ‘Intention
and UNcertainty,’ again purposively avoiding certainty, covers the buletic
realm. This does not mean that Grice, however proud he was of his ignorance of
the history of philosophy (He held it as a badge of honour, his tuteee Strawson
recalls), had read some of the philosophical classics to realise that certainty
had been an obsession of what Ryle abusively (as he himself puts it) called
Descartes and the Establishments "official doctrine"! While ps true
in Grices analysis of know is harmless enough, there obviously is no correlate
for ps truth in the buletic case. Grices example is Grice intending to scratch
his head, via his willing that Grice scratches his head in t2. In this case, as
he notes, the doxastic eleent involves the uniformity of nature, and ones more
or less relying that if Grice had a head to be scratched in t1, he will have a
head to be sratched in t2, when his intention actually GETS satisfied, or
fulfilled. Grice was never worried about buletic satisfaction. As the
intentionalist that Suppes showed us Grice was, Grice is very much happy to say
that if Smith intends to give Joness a job, the facct as to whether Jones
actually gets the job is totally irrelevant for most philosophical purposes. He
gets more serious when he is happier with privileged access than
incorrigibility in “Method.” But he is less strict than Austin. For Austin,
"That is a finch implies that the utterer KNOWS its a finch. While Grice has
a maxim, do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence (Gettiers
analysandum) and a super-maxim, try to make your contribution one that is
true, the very phrasing highlights Grices cavalier to this! Imagine Kant
turning on his grave. "Try!?". Grice is very clever in having try in
the super-maxim, and a prohibition as the maxim, involving falsehood avoidance,
"Do not say what you believe to be false." Even here he is cavalier.
"Cf. "Do not say what you KNOW to be false." If Gettier were
wrong, the combo of maxims yields, "Say what you KNOW," say what you
are certain about! Enough for Sextus Empiricus having one single maxim:
"Either utter a phenomenalist utterance, a question or an order, or keep
your mouth shut!." (cf. Grice, "My lips are sealed," as cooperative
or helfpul in ways -- "At least he is not lying."). Hampshire,
in the course of some recent remarks,l advances the view that self-prediction
is (logically) impossible. When I say I know that I shall do X (as against,
e.g., X will happen to me, or You will do X), I am not contemplating myself, as
I might someone else, and giving tongue to a conjecture about myself and my
future acts, as I might be doing about someone else or about the behaviour ofan
animal -for that would be tantamount (if I understand him rightly) to looking
upon myself from outside, as it were, and treating my own acts as mere caused
events. In saying that I know that I shall do X, I am, on this view, saying
that I have decided to do X: for to predict that I shall in certain circumstances
in fact do X or decide to do X, with no reference to whether or not I have
already decided to do it - to say I can tell you now that I shall in fact act
in manner X, although I am, as a matter of fact, determined to do the very
opposite - does not make sense. Any man who says I know myself too well to
believe that, whatever I now decide, I shall do anything other than X when the
circumstances actually arise is in fact, if I interpret Hampshires views
correctly, saying that he does not really, i.e. seriously, propose to set
himself against doing X, that he does not propose even to try to act otherwise,
that he has in fact decided to let events take their course. For no man who has
truly decided to try to avoid X can, in good faith, predict his own failure to
act as he has decided. He may fail to avoid X, and he may predict this; but he
cannot both decide to try to avoid X and predict that he will not even try to
do this; for he can always try; and he knows this: he knows that this is what
distinguishes him from non-human creatures in nature. To say that he will fail
even to try is tantamount to saying that he has decided not to try. In this
sense I know means I have decided and (Murdoch, Hampshire, Gardiner and Pears,
Freedom and Knowledge, in Pears, Freedom and the Will) cannot in principle be
predictive. That, if I have understood it, is Hampshires position, and I have a
good deal of sympathy with it, for I can see that self-prediction is often an
evasive way of disclaiming responsibility for difficult decisions, while
deciding in fact to let events take their course, disguising this by
attributing responsibility for what occurs to my own allegedly unalterable
nature. But I agree with Hampshires critics in the debate, whom I take to be
maintaining that, although the situation he describes may often occur, yet
circumstances may exist in which it is possible for me both to say that I am,
at this moment, resolved not to do X, and at the same time to predict that I
shall do X, because I am not hopeful that, when the time comes, I shall in fact
even so much as try to resist doing X. I can, in effect, say I know myself
well. When the crisis comes, do not rely on me to help you. I may well run
away; although I am at this moment genuinely resolved not to be cowardly and to
do all I can to stay at your side. My prediction that my resolution will not in
fact hold up is based on knowledge of my own character, and not on my present
state of mind; my prophecy is not a symptom of bad faith (for I am not, at this
moment, vacillating) but, on the contrary, of good faith, of a wish to face the
facts. I assure you in all sincerity that my present intention is to be brave
and resist. Yet you would run a great risk if you relied too much on my present
decision; it would not be fair to conceal my past failures of nerve from you. I
can say this about others, despite the most sincere resolutions on their part,
for I can foretell how in fact they will behave; they can equally predict this
about me. Despite Hampshires plausible and tempting argument, I believe that
such objective self-knowledge is possible and occur. From Descartes to
Stout and back. Stout indeed uses both intention and certainty, and in the
same paragraph. Stout notes that, at the outset, performance falls far short of
intention. Only a certain s. of contractions of certain muscles, in proper
proportions and in a proper order, is capable of realising the end aimed at,
with the maximum of rapidity and certainty, and the minimum of obstruction and
failure, and corresponding effort. At the outset of the process of acquisition,
muscles are contracted which are superfluous, and which therefore operate as
disturbing conditions. Grices immediate trigger, however, is Ayer on sure
that, and having the right to be sure, as his immediate trigger later will be
Hampshire and Hart. Grice had high regard for Hampshires brilliant Thought and
action. He was also concerned with Stouts rather hasty UNphilosophical,
but more scientifically psychologically-oriented remarks about assurance in
practical concerns. He knew too that he was exploring an item of the
philosophers lexicon (certus) that had been brought to the forum when Anscombe
and von Wright translate Witters German expression Gewißheit in Über
Gewißheit as Certainty. The Grecians were never sure about being sure. But
the modernist turn brought by Descartes meant that Grice now had to deal with
incorrigibility and privileged access to this or that P, notably himself (When
I intend to go, I dont have to observe myself, Im on the stage, not in the
audience, or Only I can say I will to London, expressing my intention to do so.
If you say, you will go you are expressing yours! Grice found Descartes
very funny ‒ in a French way. Grice is interested in contesting Ayer and other Oxford
philosophers, on the topic of a criterion for certainty. In so doing,
Grice choses Descartess time-honoured criterion of clarity and distinction, as
applied to perception. Grice does NOT quote Descartes in
French! In the proceedings, Grice distinguishes between two kinds of
certainty apparently ignored by Descartes: (a) objective
certainty: Ordinary-language variant: It is certain that p, whatever
it refers to, cf. Grice, it is an illusion; what is it? (b) Subjective
certainty: Ordinary-language variant: I am certain that p. I
being, of course, Grice, in my bestest days, of course! There are further
items on Descartes in the Grice Collection, notably in the last s. of topics
arranged alphabetically. Grice never cared to publish his views on
Descartes until he found an opportunity to do so when compiling his WOW. Grice
is not interested in an exegesis of Descartess thought. He doesnt care to give
a reference to any edition of Descartess oeuvre. But he plays with certain. It
is certain that p is objective certainty, apparently. I am certain that p is
Subjectsive certainty, rather. Oddly, Grice will turn to UNcertainty as it
connects with intention in his BA lecture. Grices interest in Descartes
connects with Descartess search for a criterion of certainty in terms of
clarity and distinction of this or that perception. Having explored the
philosophy of perception with Warnock, its only natural he wanted to give
Descartess rambles a second and third look! Descartes on clear and distinct
perception, in WOW, II semantics and metaphysics, essay, Descartes on clear and
distinct perception and Malcom on dreaming, perception, Descartes, clear and
distinct perception, Malcolm, dreaming. Descartes meets Malcolm, and vice
versa. Descartes on clear and distinct perception, in WOW, Descartes
on clear and distinct perception, Descartes on clear and distinct perception,
in WOW, part II, semantics and metaphysics, essay. Grice gives a short overview
of Cartesian metaphysics for the BBC 3rd programme. The best example,
Grice thinks, of a metaphysical snob is provided by Descartes, about
whose idea of certainty Grice had philosophised quite a bit, since it is in
total contrast with Moore’s. Descartes is a very scientifically
minded philosopher, with very clear ideas about the proper direction for science. Descartes,
whose middle Names seems to have been Euclid, thinks that mathematics, and in
particular geometry, provides the model for a scientific procedure, or
method. And this determines all of Descartess thinking in two ways. First,
Descartes thinks that the fundamental method in science is the axiomatic
deductive method of geometry, and this Descartes conceives (as Spinoza morality
more geometrico) of as rigorous reasoning from a self-evident axiom (Cogito,
ergo sum.). Second, Descartes thinks that the Subjects matter of physical
science, from mechanics to medicine, must be fundamentally the same as the
Subjects matter of geometry! The only characteristics that the objects studied
by geometry poses are spatial characteristics. So from the point of view of
science in general, the only important features of things in the physical world
were also their spatial characteristics, what he called extensio, res extensa.
Physical science in general is a kind of dynamic, or kinetic, geometry.
Here we have an exclusive preference for a certain type of scientific
method, and a certain type of scientific explanation: the method is deductive,
the type of explanation mechanical. These beliefs about the right way to do
science are exactly reflected in Descartess ontology, one of the two branches
of metaphysics; the other is philosophical eschatology, or the study of
categories), and it is reflected in his doctrine, that is, about what really
exists. Apart from God, the divine substance, Descartes recognises just
two kinds of substance, two types of real entity. First, there is material
substance, or matter; and the belief that the only scientifically important
characteristics of things in the physical world are their spatial
characteristics goes over, in the language of metaphysics, into the doctrine
that these are their only characteristics. Second, and to Ryle’s horror,
Descartes recognizes the mind or soul, or the mental substance, of which the
essential characteristic is thinking; and thinking itself, in its pure form at
least, is conceived of as simply the intuitive grasping of this or
that self-evident axiom and this or that of its deductive consequence. These
restrictive doctrines about reality and knowledge naturally call for adjustments
elsewhere in our ordinary scheme of things. With the help of the divine
substance, these are duly provided. It is not always obvious that the
metaphysicians scheme involves this kind of ontological preference, or
favoritism, or prejudice, or snobbery this tendency, that is, to promote one or
two categories of entity to the rank of the real, or of the ultimately real, to
the exclusion of others, Descartess entia realissima. One is taught at Oxford
that epistemology begins with the Moderns such as Descartes, which is not true.
Grice was concerned with “certain,” which was applied in Old Roman times to
this or that utterer: the person who is made certain in reference to a thing,
certain, sure. Lewis and Short have a few quotes: “certi sumus periisse omnia;”
“num quid nunc es certior?,” “posteritatis, i. e. of posthumous fame,”
“sententiæ,” “judicii,” “certus de suā geniturā;” “damnationis;” “exitii,”
“spei,” “matrimonii,” “certi sumus;” in the phrase “certiorem facere aliquem;”
“de aliquā re, alicujus rei, with a foll, acc. and inf., with a rel.-clause or
absol.;” “to inform, apprise one of a thing: me certiorem face: “ut nos facias
certiores,” “uti Cæsarem de his rebus certiorem faciant;” “qui certiorem me sui
consilii fecit;” “Cæsarem certiorem faciunt, sese non facile ab oppidis vim
hostium prohibere;” “faciam te certiorem quid egerim;” with subj. only,
“milites certiores facit, paulisper intermitterent proelium,” pass., “quod
crebro certior per me fias de omnibus rebus,” “Cæsar certior factus est, tres
jam copiarum partes Helvetios id flumen transduxisse;” “factus certior, quæ res
gererentur,” “non consulibus certioribus factis,” also in posit., though
rarely; “fac me certum quid tibi est;” “lacrimæ suorum tam subitæ matrem certam
fecere ruinæ,” uncertainty, Grice loved the OED, and its entry for will
was his favourite. But he first had a look to shall. For Grice, "I shall
climb Mt. Everest," is surely a prediction. And then Grice turns to the
auxiliary he prefers, will. Davidson, Intending, R. Grandy and Warner,
PGRICE. “Uncertainty,” “Aspects.” “Conception,” Davidson on intending,
intending and trying, Brandeis.”Method,” in “Conception,” WOW . Hampshire and
Hart. Decision, intention, and certainty, Mind, Harman, Willing and intending
in PGRICE. Practical reasoning. Review of Met.
29. Thought, Princeton, for functionalist approach alla Grice’s
“Method.” Principles of reasoning. Rational action and the extent of intention.
Social theory and practice. Jeffrey, Probability kinematics, in The logic of
decision, cited by Harman in PGRICE. Kahneman and Tversky, Judgement under
uncertainty, Science, cited by Harman in PGRICE. Nisbet and Ross, Human
inference, cited by Harman in PGRICE. Pears, Predicting and deciding. Prichard,
Acting, willing, and desiring, in Moral obligations, Oxford ed. by Urmson Speranza, The Grice Circle Wants You. Stout,
Voluntary action. Mind 5, repr in Studies in philosophy and psychology,
Macmillan, cited by Grice, “Uncertainty.” Urmson, ‘Introduction’ to Prichard’s
‘Moral obligations.’ I shant but Im not certain I wont – Grice. How
uncertain can Grice be? This is the Henriette Herz BA lecture, and as such
published in The Proceedings of the BA. Grice calls himself a
neo-Prichardian (after the Oxford philosopher) and cares to quote from a few other
philosophers ‒ some of whom he was not necessarily associated with:
such as Kenny and Anscombe, and some of whom he was, notably Pears. Grices
motto: Where there is a neo-Prichardian willing, there is a palæo-Griceian way!
Grice quotes Pears, of Christ Church, as the philosopher he found especially
congenial to explore areas in what both called philosophical psychology,
notably the tricky use of intending as displayed by a few philosophers even in
their own circle, such as Hampshire and Hart in Intention, decision, and
certainty. The title of Grices lecture is meant to provoke that pair of
Oxonian philosophers Grice knew so well and who were too ready to bring in
certainty in an area that requires deep philosophical exploration. This is
the Henriette Herz Trust annual lecture. It means its delivered
annually by different philosophers, not always Grice! Grice had been appointed
a FBA earlier, but he took his time to deliver his lecture. With your
lecture, you implicate, Hi! Grice, and indeed Pears, were motivated by
Hampshires and Harts essay on intention and certainty in Mind. Grice knew
Hampshire well, and had actually enjoyed his Thought and Action. He preferred
Hampshires Thought and action to Anscombes Intention. Trust Oxford being what
it is that TWO volumes on intending are published in the same year! Which one
shall I read first? Eventually, neither ‒ immediately. Rather, Grice managed to
unearth some sketchy notes by Prichard (he calls himself a neo-Prichardian)
that Urmson had made available for the Clarendon Press ‒ notably Prichards
essay on willing that. Only a Corpus-Christi genius like Prichard will
distinguish will to, almost unnecessary, from will that, so crucial. For Grice,
wills that , unlike wills to, is
properly generic, in that p, that follows the that-clause, need NOT refer to
the Subjects of the sentence. Surely I can will that Smith wins the match! But
Grice also quotes Anscombe (whom otherwise would not count, although they did
share a discussion panel at the American Philosophical Association) and Kenny,
besides Pears. Of Anscombe, Grice borrows (but never returns) the
direction-of-fit term of art, actually Austinian. From Kenny, Grice borrows
(and returns) the concept of voliting. His most congenial approach was Pearss. Grice
had of course occasion to explore disposition and intention on earlier
occasions. Grice is especially concerned with a dispositional analysis to
intending. He will later reject it in “Uncertainty.” But that was
Grice for you! Grice is especially interested in distinguishing his views from
Ryles over-estimated dispositional account of intention, which Grice sees as
reductionist, and indeed eliminationist, if not boringly behaviourist, even in
analytic key. The logic of dispositions is tricky, as Grice will later explore
in connection with rationality, rational propension or propensity, and
metaphysics, the as if operator). While Grice focuses on uncertainty, he is
trying to be funny. He knew that Oxonians like Hart and Hampshire were obsessed
with certainty. I was so surprised that Hampshire and Hart were claiming
decision and intention are psychological states about which the agent is
certain, that I decided on the spot that that could certainly be a nice
topic for my BA lecture! Grice granted that in some cases, a declaration of an
intention can be authorative in a certain certain way, i. e. as implicating
certainty. But Grice wants us to consider: Marmaduke Bloggs intends to climb
Mt. Everest. Surely he cant be certain hell succeed. Grice used the
same example at the APA, of all places. To amuse Grice, Davidson, who was
present, said: Surely thats just an implicaturum! Just?! Grice was
almost furious in his British guarded sort of way. Surely not
just! Pears, who was also present, tried to reconcile: If I may, Davidson,
I think Grice would take it that, if certainty is implicated, the whole thing
becomes too social to be true. They kept discussing implicaturum versus
entailment. Is certainty entailed then? Cf. Urmson on certainly vs.
knowingly, and believably. Davidson asked. No, disimplicated! is Grices
curt reply. The next day, he explained to Davidson that he had invented
the concept of disimplicaturum just to tease him, and just one night before,
while musing in the hotel room! Talk of uncertainty was thus for Grice
intimately associated with his concern about the misuse of know to mean
certain, especially in the exegeses that Malcolm made popular about, of all
people, Moore! V. Scepticism and common sense and Moore and philosophers
paradoxes above, and Causal theory and Prolegomena for a summary of Malcoms
misunderstanding Moore! Grice manages to quote from Stouts Voluntary action and
Brecht. And he notes that not all speakers are as sensitive as they should be
(e.g. distinguishing modes, as realised by shall vs. will). He emphasizes the
fact that Prichard has to be given great credit for seeing that the accurate
specification of willing should be willing that and not willing to. Grice is
especially interested in proving Stoutians (like Hampshire and Hart) wrong by
drawing from Aristotles prohairesis-doxa distinction, or in his parlance, the
buletic-doxastic distinction. Grice quotes from Aristotle. Prohairesis cannot
be opinion/doxa. For opinion is thought to relate to all kinds of things, no
less to eternal things and impossible things than to things in our own power;
and it is distinguished by its falsity or truth, not by its badness or
goodness, while choice is distinguished rather by these. Now with opinion in
general perhaps no one even says it is identical. But it is not identical even
with any kind of opinion; for by choosing or deciding, or prohairesis, what is
good or bad we are men of a certain character, which we are not by holding this
or that opinion or doxa. And we choose to get or avoid something good or bad,
but we have opinions about what a thing is or whom it is good for or how it is
good for him; we can hardly be said to opine to get or avoid anything. And
choice is praised for being related to the right object rather than for being
rightly related to it, opinion for being truly related to its object. And we
choose what we best know to be good, but we opine what we do not quite know;
and it is not the same people that are thought to make the best choices and to
have the best opinions, but some are thought to have fairly good opinions, but
by reason of vice to choose what they should not. If opinion precedes choice or
accompanies it, that makes no difference; for it is not this that we are
considering, but whether it is identical with some kind of opinion. What, then,
or what kind of thing is it, since it is none of the things we have mentioned?
It seems to be voluntary, but not all that is voluntary to be an object of
choice. Is it, then, what has been decided on by previous deliberation? At any
rate choice involves a rational principle and thought. Even the Names seems to
suggest that it is what is chosen before other things. His final analysis of G
intends that p is in terms of, B1, a buletic condition, to the effect that G
wills that p, and D2, an attending doxastic condition, to the effect that G
judges that B1 causes p. Grice ends this essay with a nod to Pears and an open
point about the justifiability (other than evidential) for the acceptability of
the agents deciding and intending versus the evidential justifiability of the
agents predicting that what he intends will be satisfied. It is important to
note that in his earlier Disposition and intention, Grice dedicates the first
part to counterfactual if general. This is a logical point. Then as an account
for a psychological souly concept ψ. If G does A, sensory input, G does B,
behavioural output. No ψ without the behavioural output that ψ is meant to
explain. His problem is with the first person. The functionalist I does not
need a black box. The here would be both
incorrigibility and privileged access. Pology only explains their evolutionary
import. Certum -- Certainty: cf. H. P. Grice, “Intention and uncertainty.” the
property of being certain, which is either a psychological property of persons
or an epistemic feature of proposition-like objects e.g., beliefs, utterances,
statements. We can say that a person, S, is psychologically certain that p
where ‘p’ stands for a proposition provided S has no doubt whatsoever that p is
true. Thus, a person can be certain regardless of the degree of epistemic
warrant for a proposition. In general, philosophers have not found this an
interesting property to explore. The exception is Peter Unger, who argued for
skepticism, claiming that 1 psychological certainty is required for knowledge
and 2 no person is ever certain of anything or hardly anything. As applied to
propositions, ‘certain’ has no univocal use. For example, some authors e.g.,
Chisholm may hold that a proposition is epistemically certain provided no
proposition is more warranted than it. Given that account, it is possible that
a proposition is certain, yet there are legitimate reasons for doubting it just
as long as there are equally good grounds for doubting every equally warranted
proposition. Other philosophers have adopted a Cartesian account of certainty
in which a proposition is epistemically certain provided it is warranted and
there are no legitimate grounds whatsoever for doubting it. Both Chisholm’s and
the Cartesian characterizations of epistemic certainty can be employed to
provide a basis for skepticism. If knowledge entails certainty, then it can be
argued that very little, if anything, is known. For, the argument continues,
only tautologies or propositions like ‘I exist’ or ‘I have beliefs’ are such
that either nothing is more warranted or there are absolutely no grounds for
doubt. Thus, hardly anything is known. Most philosophers have responded either
by denying that ‘certainty’ is an absolute term, i.e., admitting of no degrees,
or by denying that knowledge requires certainty Dewey, Chisholm, Vitters, and
Lehrer. Others have agreed that knowledge does entail absolute certainty, but
have argued that absolute certainty is possible e.g., Moore. Sometimes
‘certain’ is modified by other expressions, as in ‘morally certain’ or
‘metaphysically certain’ or ‘logically certain’. Once again, there is no
universally accepted account of these terms. Typically, however, they are used
to indicate degrees of warrant for a proposition, and often that degree of
warrant is taken to be a function of the type of proposition under
consideration. For example, the proposition that smoking causes cancer is
morally certain provided its warrant is sufficient to justify acting as though
it were true. The evidence for such a proposition may, of necessity, depend
upon recognizing particular features of the world. On the other hand, in order
for a proposition, say that every event has a cause, to be metaphysically
certain, the evidence for it must not depend upon recognizing particular
features of the world but rather upon recognizing what must be true in order
for our world to be the kind of world it is
i.e., one having causal connections. Finally, a proposition, say that
every effect has a cause, may be logically certain if it is derivable from
“truths of logic” that do not depend in any way upon recognizing anything about
our world. Since other taxonomies for these terms are employed by philosophers,
it is crucial to examine the use of the terms in their contexts. Refs.: The main source is his BA lecture on
‘uncertainty,’ but using the keyword ‘certainty’ is useful too. His essay on
Descartes in WoW is important, and sources elsehere in the Grice Papers, such
as the predecessor to the “Uncertainty” lecture in “Disposition and intention,”
also his discussion of avowal (vide references above), incorrigibility and
privileged access in “Method,” repr. in “Conception,” BANC
character, mid-14c., carecter, "symbol marked or branded on the
body;" mid-15c., "symbol or drawing used in sorcery;" late 15c.,
"alphabetic letter, graphic symbol standing for a sound or syllable;"
from Old French caratere "feature, character" (13c., Modern French caractère),
from Latin character, from Greek kharaktēr "engraved mark," also
"symbol or imprint on the soul," properly "instrument for
marking," from kharassein "to engrave," from kharax
"pointed stake," a word of uncertain etymology which Beekes considers
"most probably Pre-Greek." The Latin ch- spelling was restored
from 1500s. The meaning of Greek kharaktēr was extended in Hellenistic
times by metaphor to "a defining quality, individual feature." In
English, the meaning "sum of qualities that define a person or thing and
distinguish it from another" is from 1640s. That of "moral qualities
assigned to a person by repute" is from 1712. You remember Eponina,
who kept her husband alive in an underground cavern so devotedly and heroically?
The force of character she showed in keeping up his spirits would have been
used to hide a lover from her husband if they had been living quietly in Rome.
Strong characters need strong nourishment. [Stendhal "de l'Amour,"
1822] Sense of "person in a play or novel" is first attested
1660s, in reference to the "defining qualities" he or she is given by
the author. Meaning "a person" in the abstract is from 1749;
especially "eccentric person" (1773). Colloquial sense of "chap,
fellow" is from 1931. Character-actor, one who specializes in characters
with marked peculiarities, is attested from 1861; character-assassination is
from 1888; character-building (n.) from 1886. -- the comprehensive set
of ethical and intellectual dispositions of a person. Intellectual virtues like carefulness in the evaluation of
evidence promote, for one, the practice
of seeking truth. Moral or ethical virtues
including traits like courage and generosity dispose persons not only to choices and
actions but also to attitudes and emotions. Such dispositions are generally
considered relatively stable and responsive to reasons. Appraisal of character
transcends direct evaluation of particular actions in favor of examination of
some set of virtues or the admirable human life as a whole. On some views this admirable
life grounds the goodness of particular actions. This suggests seeking guidance
from role models, and their practices, rather than relying exclusively on
rules. Role models will, at times, simply perceive the salient features of a
situation and act accordingly. Being guided by role models requires some
recognition of just who should be a role model. One may act out of character,
since dispositions do not automatically produce particular actions in specific
cases. One may also have a conflicted character if the virtues one’s character
comprises contain internal tensions between, say, tendencies to impartiality
and to friendship. The importance of formative education to the building of
character introduces some good fortune into the acquisition of character. One
can have a good character with a disagreeable personality or have a fine
personality with a bad character because personality is not typically a
normative notion, whereas character is.
charron:
p., H. P. Grice, “Do not multiply truths beyond necessity.” theologian who
became the principal expositor of Montaigne’s ideas, presenting them in
didactic form. His first work, The Three Truths 1595, presented a negative
argument for Catholicism by offering a skeptical challenge to atheism,
nonChristian religions, and Calvinism. He argued that we cannot know or
understand God because of His infinitude and the weakness of our faculties. We
can have no good reasons for rejecting Christianity or Catholicism. Therefore,
we should accept it on faith alone. His second work, On Wisdom 1603, is a
systematic presentation of Pyrrhonian skepticism coupled with a fideistic
defense of Catholicism. The skepticism of Montaigne and the Grecian skeptics is
used to show that we cannot know anything unless God reveals it to us. This is
followed by offering an ethics to live by, an undogmatic version of Stoicism.
This is the first modern presentation of a morality apart from any religious
considerations. Charron’s On Wisdom was extremely popular in France and
England. It was read and used by many philosophers and theologians during the
seventeenth century. Some claimed that his skepticism opened his defense of
Catholicism to question, and suggested that he was insincere in his fideism. He
was defended by important figures in the
Catholic church.
chiliagon: referred to by Grice in “Some remarks about the
senses.’ In geometry, a chiliagon, or 1000-gon is a polygon with 1,000 sides. Philosophers commonly refer to chiliagons
to illustrate ideas about the nature and workings of thought, meaning, and
mental representation. A chiliagon is a regular
chiliagon Polygon 1000.svg A regular chiliagon Type Regular polygon Edges and
vertices 1000 Schläfli symbol {1000}, t{500}, tt{250}, ttt{125} Coxeter diagram
CDel node 1.pngCDel 10.pngCDel 0x.pngCDel 0x.pngCDel node.png CDel node
1.pngCDel 5.pngCDel 0x.pngCDel 0x.pngCDel node 1.png Symmetry group Dihedral
(D1000), order 2×1000 Internal angle (degrees) 179.64° Dual polygon Self
Properties Convex, cyclic, equilateral, isogonal, isotoxal A whole
regular chiliagon is not visually discernible from a circle. The lower section
is a portion of a regular chiliagon, 200 times as large as the smaller one,
with the vertices highlighted. In geometry, a chiliagon (/ˈkɪliəɡɒn/) or
1000-gon is a polygon with 1,000 sides. Philosophers commonly refer to
chiliagons to illustrate ideas about the nature and workings of thought,
meaning, and mental representation. Contents 1 Regular chiliagon 2
Philosophical application 3 Symmetry 4 Chiliagram 5 See also 6 References
Regular chiliagon A regular chiliagon is represented by Schläfli symbol {1,000}
and can be constructed as a truncated 500-gon, t{500}, or a twice-truncated
250-gon, tt{250}, or a thrice-truncated 125-gon, ttt{125}. The measure of
each internal angle in a regular chiliagon is 179.64°. The area of a regular chiliagon
with sides of length a is given by {\displaystyle A=250a^{2}\cot {\frac
{\pi }{1000}}\simeq 79577.2\,a^{2}}A=250a^{2}\cot {\frac {\pi
}{1000}}\simeq 79577.2\,a^{2} This result differs from the area of its
circumscribed circle by less than 4 parts per million. Because 1,000 = 23
× 53, the number of sides is neither a product of distinct Fermat primes nor a
power of two. Thus the regular chiliagon is not a constructible polygon.
Indeed, it is not even constructible with the use of neusis or an angle trisector,
as the number of sides is neither a product of distinct Pierpont primes, nor a
product of powers of two and three. Philosophical application René
Descartes uses the chiliagon as an example in his Sixth Meditation to
demonstrate the difference between pure intellection and imagination. He says
that, when one thinks of a chiliagon, he "does not imagine the thousand
sides or see them as if they were present" before him – as he does when
one imagines a triangle, for example. The imagination constructs a "confused
representation," which is no different from that which it constructs of a
myriagon (a polygon with ten thousand sides). However, he does clearly
understand what a chiliagon is, just as he understands what a triangle is, and
he is able to distinguish it from a myriagon. Therefore, the intellect is not
dependent on imagination, Descartes claims, as it is able to entertain clear
and distinct ideas when imagination is unable to. Philosopher Pierre Gassendi,
a contemporary of Descartes, was critical of this interpretation, believing
that while Descartes could imagine a chiliagon, he could not understand it: one
could "perceive that the word 'chiliagon' signifies a figure with a
thousand angles [but] that is just the meaning of the term, and it does not follow
that you understand the thousand angles of the figure any better than you
imagine them." The example of a chiliagon is also referenced by other
philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant. David Hume points out that it is
"impossible for the eye to determine the angles of a chiliagon to be equal
to 1996 right angles, or make any conjecture, that approaches this
proportion."[4] Gottfried Leibniz comments on a use of the chiliagon by
John Locke, noting that one can have an idea of the polygon without having an
image of it, and thus distinguishing ideas from images. Henri Poincaré uses the
chiliagon as evidence that "intuition is not necessarily founded on the
evidence of the senses" because "we can not represent to ourselves a
chiliagon, and yet we reason by intuition on polygons in general, which include
the chiliagon as a particular case." Inspired by Descartes's chiliagon example,
Grice, R. M. Chisholm and other 20th-century philosophers have used similar
examples to make similar points. Chisholm's ‘speckled hen,’ which need not have
a determinate number of speckles to be successfully imagined, is perhaps the
most famous of these. Symmetry The symmetries of a regular chiliagon.
Light blue lines show subgroups of index 2. The 4 boxed subgraphs are
positionally related by index 5 subgroups. The regular chiliagon has Dih1000
dihedral symmetry, order 2000, represented by 1,000 lines of reflection. Dih100
has 15 dihedral subgroups: Dih500, Dih250, Dih125, Dih200, Dih100, Dih50,
Dih25, Dih40, Dih20, Dih10, Dih5, Dih8, Dih4, Dih2, and Dih1. It also has 16
more cyclic symmetries as subgroups: Z1000, Z500, Z250, Z125, Z200, Z100, Z50,
Z25, Z40, Z20, Z10, Z5, Z8, Z4, Z2, and Z1, with Zn representing π/n radian
rotational symmetry. John Conway labels these lower symmetries with a
letter and order of the symmetry follows the letter.[8] He gives d (diagonal)
with mirror lines through vertices, p with mirror lines through edges
(perpendicular), i with mirror lines through both vertices and edges, and g for
rotational symmetry. a1 labels no symmetry. These lower symmetries allow
degrees of freedom in defining irregular chiliagons. Only the g1000 subgroup
has no degrees of freedom but can be seen as directed edges. Chiliagram A
chiliagram is a 1,000-sided star polygon. There are 199 regular forms[9] given
by Schläfli symbols of the form {1000/n}, where n is an integer between 2 and
500 that is coprime to 1,000. There are also 300 regular star figures in the
remaining cases. For example, the regular {1000/499} star polygon is
constructed by 1000 nearly radial edges. Each star vertex has an internal angle
of 0.36 degrees.[10] {1000/499} Star polygon 1000-499.svg Star polygon
1000-499 center.png Central area with moiré patterns See also Myriagon Megagon
Philosophy of Mind Philosophy of Language References Meditation VI by
Descartes (English translation). Sepkoski, David (2005). "Nominalism
and constructivism in seventeenth-century mathematical philosophy".
Historia Mathematica. 32: 33–59. doi:10.1016/j.hm.2003.09.002. Immanuel
Kant, "On a Discovery," trans. Henry Allison, in Theoretical
Philosophy After 1791, ed. Henry Allison and Peter Heath, Cambridge UP, 2002
[Akademie 8:121]. Kant does not actually use a chiliagon as his example,
instead using a 96-sided figure, but he is responding to the same question
raised by Descartes. David Hume, The Philosophical Works of David Hume,
Volume 1, Black and Tait, 1826, p. 101. Jonathan Francis Bennett (2001),
Learning from Six Philosophers: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley,
Hume, Volume 2, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0198250924, p. 53. Henri
Poincaré (1900) "Intuition and Logic in Mathematics" in William Bragg
Ewald (ed) From Kant to Hilbert: A Source Book in the Foundations of
Mathematics, Volume 2, Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 0198505361, p.
1015. Roderick Chisholm, "The Problem of the Speckled Hen",
Mind 51 (1942): pp. 368–373. "These problems are all descendants of
Descartes's 'chiliagon' argument in the sixth of his Meditations" (Joseph
Heath, Following the Rules: Practical Reasoning and Deontic Constraint, Oxford:
OUP, 2008, p. 305, note 15). The Symmetries of Things, Chapter 20
199 = 500 cases − 1 (convex) − 100 (multiples of 5) − 250 (multiples of 2) + 50
(multiples of 2 and 5) 0.36 = 180 (1 - 2 /(1000 / 499) ) = 180 ( 1 – 998 /
1000 ) = 180 ( 2 / 1000 ) = 180 / 500 chiliagon vte Polygons (List) Triangles
Acute Equilateral Ideal IsoscelesObtuseRight Quadrilaterals Antiparallelogram Bicentric
CyclicEquidiagonalEx-tangentialHarmonic Isosceles trapezoidKiteLambertOrthodiagonal
Parallelogram Rectangle Right kite Rhombus Saccheri SquareTangentialTangential
trapezoidTrapezoid By number of sides Monogon (1) Digon (2) Triangle (3) Quadrilateral
(4) Pentagon (5) Hexagon (6) Heptagon (7) Octagon (8) Nonagon (Enneagon, 9) Decagon
(10) Hendecagon (11) Dodecagon (12) Tridecagon (13) Tetradecagon (14) Pentadecagon
(15) Hexadecagon (16) Heptadecagon (17) Octadecagon (18) Enneadecagon
(19)Icosagon (20)Icosihenagon [de] (21)Icosidigon (22) Icositetragon (24) Icosihexagon
(26) Icosioctagon (28) Triacontagon (30) Triacontadigon (32) Triacontatetragon
(34) Tetracontagon (40) Tetracontadigon (42)Tetracontaoctagon (48)Pentacontagon
(50) Pentacontahenagon [de] (51) Hexacontagon (60) Hexacontatetragon (64) Heptacontagon
(70)Octacontagon (80) Enneacontagon (90) Enneacontahexagon (96) Hectogon (100) 120-gon257-gon360-gonChiliagon
(1000) Myriagon (10000) 65537-gonMegagon (1000000) 4294967295-gon [ru;
de]Apeirogon (∞) Star polygons Pentagram Hexagram Heptagram Octagram Enneagram Decagram
Hendecagram Dodecagram Classes Concave Convex Cyclic Equiangular Equilateral Isogonal
Isotoxal Pseudotriangle Regular Simple SkewStar-shaped Tangential Categories:
Polygons1000 (number).
choice,
v. rational choice. choice sequence, a variety of infinite sequence introduced
by L. E. J. Brouwer to express the non-classical properties of the continuum
the set of real numbers within intuitionism. A choice sequence is determined by
a finite initial segment together with a “rule” for continuing the sequence.
The rule, however, may allow some freedom in choosing each subsequent element.
Thus the sequence might start with the rational numbers 0 and then ½, and the
rule might require the n ! 1st element to be some rational number within ½n of
the nth choice, without any further restriction. The sequence of rationals thus
generated must converge to a real number, r. But r’s definition leaves open its
exact location in the continuum. Speaking intuitionistically, r violates the
classical law of trichotomy: given any pair of real numbers e.g., r and ½, the
first is either less than, equal to, or greater than the second. From the 0s
Brouwer got this non-classical effect without appealing to the apparently
nonmathematical notion of free choice. Instead he used sequences generated by
the activity of an idealized mathematician the creating subject, together with
propositions that he took to be undecided. Given such a proposition, P e.g. Fermat’s last theorem that for n 2 there is no general method of finding
triplets of numbers with the property that the sum of each of the first two
raised to the nth power is equal to the result of raising the third to the nth
power or Goldbach’s conjecture that every even number is the sum of two prime
numbers we can modify the definition of
r: The n ! 1st element is ½ if at the nth stage of research P remains
undecided. That element and all its successors are ½ ! ½n if by that stage P is
proved; they are ½ † ½n if P is refuted. Since he held that there is an endless
supply of such propositions, Brouwer believed that we can always use this
method to refute classical laws. In the early 0s Stephen Kleene and Richard
Vesley reproduced some main parts of Brouwer’s theory of the continuum in a
formal system based on Kleene’s earlier recursion-theoretic interpretation of
intuitionism and of choice sequences. At about the same time but in a different and occasionally
incompatible vein Saul Kripke formally
captured the power of Brouwer’s counterexamples without recourse to recursive
functions and without invoking either the creating subject or the notion of
free choice. Subsequently Georg Kreisel, A. N. Troelstra, Dirk Van Dalen, and
others produced formal systems that analyze Brouwer’s basic assumptions about
open-futured objects like choice sequences.
Church’s
thesis, thesis, proposed by A. Church at a meeting of
the Mathematical Society “that the
notion of an effectively calculable function of positive integers should be
identified with that of a recursive function. . . .” This proposal has been
called Church’s thesis since Kleene uses that name in his Introduction to
Metamathematics. The informal notion of an effectively calculable function
effective procedure, or algorithm had been used in mathematics and logic to
indicate that a class of problems is solvable in a “mechanical fashion” by
following fixed elementary rules. Underlying epistemological concerns came to
the fore when modern logic moved in the late nineteenth century from axiomatic
to formal presentations of theories. Hilbert suggested in 4 that such formally
presented theories be taken as objects of mathematical study, and
metamathematics has been pursued vigorously and systematically since the 0s. In
its pursuit, concrete issues arose that required for their resolution a
delimitation of the class of effective procedures. Hilbert’s important
Entscheidungsproblem, the decision problem for predicate logic, was one such
issue. It was solved negatively by Church and Turing relative to the precise notion of
recursiveness; the result was obtained independently by Church and Turing, but
is usually called Church’s theorem. A second significant issue was the general
formulation of the incompleteness theorems as applying to all formal theories
satisfying the usual representability and derivability conditions, not just to
specific formal systems like that of Principia Mathematica. According to
Kleene, Church proposed in 3 the identification of effective calculability with
l-definability. That proposal was not published at the time, but in 4 Church
mentioned it in conversation to Gödel, who judged it to be “thoroughly
unsatisfactory.” In his Princeton Lectures of 4, Gödel defined the concept of a
recursive function, but he was not convinced that all effectively calculable
functions would fall under it. The proof of the equivalence between
l-definability and recursiveness by Church and Kleene led to Church’s first
published formulation of the thesis as quoted above. The thesis was reiterated
in Church’s “An Unsolvable Problem of Elementary Number Theory” 6. Turing
introduced, in “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the
Entscheidungsproblem” 6, a notion of computability by machines and maintained
that it captures effective calculability exactly. Post’s paper “Finite
Combinatory Processes, Formulation 1” 6 contains a model of computation that is
strikingly similar to Turing’s. However, Post did not provide any analysis; he
suggested considering the identification of effective calculability with his
concept as a working hypothesis that should be verified by investigating ever
wider formulations and reducing them to his basic formulation. The classic
papers of Gödel, Church, Turing, Post, and Kleene are all reprinted in Davis,
ed., The Undecidable, 5. In his 6 paper Church gave one central reason for the
proposed identification, namely that other plausible explications of the
informal notion lead to mathematical concepts weaker than or equivalent to
recursiveness. Two paradigmatic explications, calculability of a function via
algorithms or in a logic, were considered by Church. In either case, the steps
taken in determining function values have to be effective; and if the
effectiveness of steps is, as Church put it, interpreted to mean recursiveness,
then the function is recursive. The fundamental interpretative difficulty in
Church’s “step-by-step argument” which was turned into one of the
“recursiveness conditions” Hilbert and Bernays used in their 9 characterization
of functions that can be evaluated according to rules was bypassed by Turing.
Analyzing human mechanical computations, Turing was led to finiteness
conditions that are motivated by the human computer’s sensory limitations, but
are ultimately based on memory limitations. Then he showed that any function
calculable by a human computer satisfying these conditions is also computable
by one of his machines. Both Church and Gödel found Turing’s analysis
convincing; indeed, Church wrote in a 7 review of Turing’s paper that Turing’s
notion makes “the identification with effectiveness in the ordinary not
explicitly defined sense evident immediately.” This reflective work of partly
philosophical and partly mathematical character provides one of the fundamental
notions in mathematical logic. Indeed, its proper understanding is crucial for
judging the philosophical significance of central metamathematical results like Gödel’s incompleteness theorems or
Church’s theorem. The work is also crucial for computer science, artificial
intelligence, and cognitive psychology, providing in these fields a basic
theoretical notion. For example, Church’s thesis is the cornerstone for Newell
and Simon’s delimitation of the class of physical symbol systems, i.e.
universal machines with a particular architecture; see Newell’s Physical Symbol
Systems 0. Newell views the delimitation “as the most fundamental contribution
of artificial intelligence and computer science to the joint enterprise of
cognitive science.” In a turn that had been taken by Turing in “Intelligent
Machinery” 8 and “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” 0, Newell points out
the basic role physical symbol systems take on in the study of the human mind:
“the hypothesis is that humans are instances of physical symbol systems, and,
by virtue of this, mind enters into the physical universe. . . . this
hypothesis sets the terms on which we search for a scientific theory of
mind.”
Ciceronian
implicaturum: Marcus Tullius, Roman statesman, orator,
essayist, and letter writer. He was important not so much for formulating
individual philosophical arguments as for expositions of the doctrines of the
major schools of Hellenistic philosophy, and for, as he put it, “teaching
philosophy to speak Latin.” The significance of the latter can hardly be
overestimated. Cicero’s coinages helped shape the philosophical vocabulary of
the Latin-speaking West well into the early modern period. The most
characteristic feature of Cicero’s thought is his attempt to unify philosophy
and rhetoric. His first major trilogy, On the Orator, On the Republic, and On
the Laws, presents a vision of wise statesmen-philosophers whose greatest
achievement is guiding political affairs through rhetorical persuasion rather
than violence. Philosophy, Cicero argues, needs rhetoric to effect its most
important practical goals, while rhetoric is useless without the psychological,
moral, and logical justification provided by philosophy. This combination of
eloquence and philosophy constitutes what he calls humanitas a coinage whose enduring influence is
attested in later revivals of humanism
and it alone provides the foundation for constitutional governments; it
is acquired, moreover, only through broad training in those subjects worthy of
free citizens artes liberales. In philosophy of education, this Ciceronian
conception of a humane education encompassing poetry, rhetoric, history,
morals, and politics endured as an ideal, especially for those convinced that
instruction in the liberal disciplines is essential for citizens if their
rational autonomy is to be expressed in ways that are culturally and
politically beneficial. A major aim of Cicero’s earlier works is to appropriate
for Roman high culture one of Greece’s most distinctive products, philosophical
theory, and to demonstrate Roman superiority. He thus insists that Rome’s laws
and political institutions successfully embody the best in Grecian political
theory, whereas the Grecians themselves were inadequate to the crucial task of
putting their theories into practice. Taking over the Stoic conception of the
universe as a rational whole, governed by divine reason, he argues that human
societies must be grounded in natural law. For Cicero, nature’s law possesses
the characteristics of a legal code; in particular, it is formulable in a
comparatively extended set of rules against which existing societal
institutions can be measured. Indeed, since they so closely mirror the
requirements of nature, Roman laws and institutions furnish a nearly perfect
paradigm for human societies. Cicero’s overall theory, if not its particular
details, established a lasting framework for anti-positivist theories of law
and morality, including those of Aquinas, Grotius, Suárez, and Locke. The final
two years of his life saw the creation of a series of dialogue-treatises that
provide an encyclopedic survey of Hellenistic philosophy. Cicero himself
follows the moderate fallibilism of Philo of Larissa and the New Academy.
Holding that philosophy is a method and not a set of dogmas, he endorses an
attitude of systematic doubt. However, unlike Cartesian doubt, Cicero’s does
not extend to the real world behind phenomena, since he does not envision the
possibility of strict phenomenalism. Nor does he believe that systematic doubt
leads to radical skepticism about knowledge. Although no infallible criterion
for distinguishing true from false impressions is available, some impressions,
he argues, are more “persuasive” probabile and can be relied on to guide
action. In Academics he offers detailed accounts of Hellenistic epistemological
debates, steering a middle course between dogmatism and radical skepticism. A
similar strategy governs the rest of his later writings. Cicero presents the
views of the major schools, submits them to criticism, and tentatively supports
any positions he finds “persuasive.” Three connected works, On Divination, On
Fate, and On the Nature of the Gods, survey Epicurean, Stoic, and Academic
arguments about theology and natural philosophy. Much of the treatment of
religious thought and practice is cool, witty, and skeptically detached much in the manner of eighteenth-century
philosophes who, along with Hume, found much in Cicero to emulate. However, he
concedes that Stoic arguments for providence are “persuasive.” So too in
ethics, he criticizes Epicurean, Stoic, and Peripatetic doctrines in On Ends 45
and their views on death, pain, irrational emotions, and happiChurch-Turing
thesis Cicero, Marcus Tullius 143 143
ness in Tusculan Disputations 45. Yet, a final work, On Duties, offers a
practical ethical system based on Stoic principles. Although sometimes
dismissed as the eclecticism of an amateur, Cicero’s method of selectively
choosing from what had become authoritative professional systems often displays
considerable reflectiveness and originality.
circulus –
Grice’s circle -- Grice’s circle -- circular reasoning, reasoning that, when
traced backward from its conclusion, returns to that starting point, as one
returns to a starting point when tracing a circle. The discussion of this topic
by Richard Whatley in his Logic sets a high standard of clarity and
penetration. Logic textbooks often quote the following example from Whatley: To
allow every man an unbounded freedom of speech must always be, on the whole,
advantageous to the State; for it is highly conducive to the interests of the
Community, that each individual should enjoy a liberty perfectly unlimited, of
expressing his sentiments. This passage illustrates how circular reasoning is
less obvious in a language, such as English, that, in Whatley’s words, is
“abounding in synonymous expressions, which have no resemblance in sound, and
no connection in etymology.” The premise and conclusion do not consist of just
the same words in the same order, nor can logical or grammatical principles
transform one into the other. Rather, they have the same propositional content:
they say the same thing in different words. That is why appealing to one of
them to provide reason for believing the other amounts to giving something as a
reason for itself. Circular reasoning is often said to beg the question. ‘Begging
the question’ and petitio principii are translations of a phrase in Aristotle
connected with a game of formal disputation played in antiquity but not in
recent times. The meanings of ‘question’ and ‘begging’ do not in any clear way
determine the meaning of ‘question begging’. There is no simple argument form
that all and only circular arguments have. It is not logic, in Whatley’s
example above, that determines the identity of content between the premise and
the conclusion. Some theorists propose rather more complicated formal or
syntactic accounts of circularity. Others believe that any account of circular
reasoning must refer to the beliefs of those who reason. Whether or not the
following argument about articles in this dictionary is circular depends on why
the first premise should be accepted: 1 The article on inference contains no
split infinitives. 2 The other articles contain no split infinitives.
Therefore, 3 No article contains split infinitives. Consider two cases. Case I:
Although 2 supports 1 inductively, both 1 and 2 have solid outside support
independent of any prior acceptance of 3. This reasoning is not circular. Case
II: Someone who advances the argument accepts 1 or 2 or both, only because he
believes 3. Such reasoning is circular, even though neither premise expresses
just the same proposition as the conclusion. The question remains controversial
whether, in explaining circularity, we should refer to the beliefs of
individual reasoners or only to the surrounding circumstances. One purpose of reasoning
is to increase the degree of reasonable confidence that one has in the truth of
a conclusion. Presuming the truth of a conclusion in support of a premise
thwarts this purpose, because the initial degree of reasonable confidence in
the premise cannot then exceed the initial degree of reasonable confidence in
the conclusion. Circulus -- diallelon from ancient Grecian di allelon, ‘through
one another’, a circular definition. A definition is circular provided either
the definiendum occurs in the definiens, as in ‘Law is a lawful command’, or a
first term is defined by means of a second term, which in turn is defined by
the first term, as in ‘Law is the expressed wish of a ruler, and a ruler is one
who establishes laws.’ A diallelus is a circular argument: an attempt to
establish a conclusion by a premise that cannot be known unless the conclusion
is known in the first place. Descartes, e.g., argued: I clearly and distinctly
perceive that God exists, and what I clearly and distinctly perceive is true. Therefore,
God exists. To justify the premise that clear and distinct perceptions are
true, however, he appealed to his knowledge of God’s existence.
civil
disobedience: explored by H. P. Grice in his analysis
of moral vs. legal right -- a deliberate violation of the law, committed in
order to draw attention to or rectify perceived injustices in the law or
policies of a state. Illustrative questions raised by the topic include: how
are such acts justified, how should the legal system respond to such acts when
justified, and must such acts be done publicly, nonviolently, and/or with a
willingness to accept attendant legal sanctions?
clarke:
s. Grice analyses Clark’s proof of the
existence of God in “Aspects of reasoning” -- English philosopher, preacher,
and theologian. Born in Norwich, he was educated at Cambridge, where he came
under the influence of Newton. Upon graduation Clarke entered the established
church, serving for a time as chaplain to Queen Anne. He spent the last twenty
years of his life as rector of St. James, Westminster. Clarke wrote extensively
on controversial theological and philosophical issues the nature of space and time, proofs of the
existence of God, the doctrine of the Trinity, the incorporeality and natural
immortality of the soul, freedom of the will, the nature of morality, etc. His
most philosophical works are his Boyle lectures of 1704 and 1705, in which he
developed a forceful version of the cosmological argument for the existence and
nature of God and attacked the views of Hobbes, Spinoza, and some proponents of
deism; his correspondence with Leibniz 171516, in which he defended Newton’s
views of space and time and charged Leibniz with holding views inconsistent
with free will; and his writings against Anthony Collins, in which he defended
a libertarian view of the agent as the undetermined cause of free actions and
attacked Collins’s arguments for a materialistic view of the mind. In these
works Clarke maintains a position of extreme rationalism, contending that the
existence and nature of God can be conclusively demonstrated, that the basic
principles of morality are necessarily true and immediately knowable, and that
the existence of a future state of rewards and punishments is assured by our
knowledge that God will reward the morally just and punish the morally
wicked.
class:
the class for those philosophers whose class have no members -- a term
sometimes used as a synonym for ‘set’. When the two are distinguished, a class
is understood as a collection in the logical sense, i.e., as the extension of a
concept e.g. the class of red objects. By contrast, sets, i.e., collections in
the mathematical sense, are understood as occurring in stages, where each stage
consists of the sets that can be formed from the non-sets and the sets already
formed at previous stages. When a set is formed at a given stage, only the
non-sets and the previously formed sets are even candidates for membership, but
absolutely anything can gain membership in a class simply by falling under the
appropriate concept. Thus, it is classes, not sets, that figure in the
inconsistent principle of unlimited comprehension. In set theory, proper classes
are collections of sets that are never formed at any stage, e.g., the class of
all sets since new sets are formed at each stage, there is no stage at which
all sets are available to be collected into a set.
republicanism: cf. Cato
-- Grice was a British subject and found classical republicanism false -- also
known as civic humanism, a political outlook developed by Machiavelli in
Renaissance Italy and by James Harrington in England, modified by
eighteenth-century British and Continental writers and important for the
thought of the founding fathers. Drawing
on Roman historians, Machiavelli argued that a state could hope for security
from the blows of fortune only if its male citizens were devoted to its
well-being. They should take turns ruling and being ruled, be always prepared
to fight for the republic, and limit their private possessions. Such men would
possess a wholly secular virtù appropriate to political beings. Corruption, in
the form of excessive attachment to private interest, would then be the most
serious threat to the republic. Harrington’s utopian Oceana 1656 portrayed
England governed under such a system. Opposing the authoritarian views of
Hobbes, it described a system in which the well-to-do male citizens would elect
some of their number to govern for limited terms. Those governing would propose
state policies; the others would vote on the acceptability of the proposals.
Agriculture was the basis of economics, civil rights classical republicanism
145 145 but the size of estates was to
be strictly controlled. Harringtonianism helped form the views of the political
party opposing the dominance of the king and court. Montesquieu in France drew
on classical sources in discussing the importance of civic virtue and devotion
to the republic. All these views were well known to Jefferson, Adams, and
other colonial and revolutionary
thinkers; and some contemporary communitarian critics of culture return to classical republican
ideas.
clemens: formative
teacher in the early Christian church who, as a “Christian gnostic,” combined
enthusiasm for Grecian philosophy with a defense of the church’s faith. He
espoused spiritual and intellectual ascent toward that complete but hidden
knowledge or gnosis reserved for the truly enlightened. Clement’s school did
not practice strict fidelity to the authorities, and possibly the teachings, of
the institutional church, drawing upon the Hellenistic traditions of
Alexandria, including Philo and Middle Platonism. As with the law among the
Jews, so, for Clement, philosophy among the pagans was a pedagogical
preparation for Christ, in whom logos, reason, had become enfleshed.
Philosophers now should rise above their inferior understanding to the perfect
knowledge revealed in Christ. Though hostile to gnosticism and its
speculations, Clement was thoroughly Hellenized in outlook and sometimes guilty
of Docetism, not least in his reluctance to concede the utter humanness of
Jesus.
Clifford:
W. K., -- H. P. Grice was attracted to Clifford’s idea of the ‘ethics of
belief,’ -- philosopher. Educated at King’s , London, and Trinity , Cambridge,
he began giving public lectures in 1868, when he was appointed a fellow of
Trinity, and in 1870 became professor of applied mathematics at , London. His academic career ended
prematurely when he died of tuberculosis. Clifford is best known for his
rigorous view on the relation between belief and evidence, which, in “The
Ethics of Belief,” he summarized thus: “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for
anyone, to believe anything on insufficient evidence.” He gives this example.
Imagine a shipowner who sends to sea an emigrant ship, although the evidence
raises strong suspicions as to the vessel’s seaworthiness. Ignoring this
evidence, he convinces himself that the ship’s condition is good enough and,
after it sinks and all the passengers die, collects his insurance money without
a trace of guilt. Clifford maintains that the owner had no right to believe in
the soundness of the ship. “He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning
it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts.” The right Clifford is
alluding to is moral, for what one believes is not a private but a public
affair and may have grave consequences for others. He regards us as morally
obliged to investigate the evidence thoroughly on any occasion, and to withhold
belief if evidential support is lacking. This obligation must be fulfilled
however trivial and insignificant a belief may seem, for a violation of it may
“leave its stamp upon our character forever.” Clifford thus rejected
Catholicism, to which he had subscribed originally, and became an agnostic.
James’s famous essay “The Will to Believe” criticizes Clifford’s view.
According to James, insufficient evidence need not stand in the way of
religious belief, for we have a right to hold beliefs that go beyond the
evidence provided they serve the pursuit of a legitimate goal.
Griceian anti-sneak
closure. A set of objects, O, is said to exhibit closure or to be closed under
a given operation, R, provided that for every object, x, if x is a member of O
and x is R-related to any object, y, then y is a member of O. For example, the
set of propositions is closed under deduction, for if p is a proposition and p
entails q, i.e., q is deducible from p, then q is a proposition simply because
only propositions can be entailed by propositions. In addition, many subsets of
the set of propositions are also closed under deduction. For example, the set
of true propositions is closed under deduction or entailment. Others are not.
Under most accounts of belief, we may fail to believe what is entailed by what
we do, in fact, believe. Thus, if knowledge is some form of true, justified
belief, knowledge is not closed under deduction, for we may fail to believe a
proposition entailed by a known proposition. Nevertheless, there is a related
issue that has been the subject of much debate, namely: Is the set of justified
propositions closed under deduction? Aside from the obvious importance of the
answer to that question in developing an account of justification, there are
two important issues in epistemology that also depend on the answer. Subtleties
aside, the so-called Gettier problem depends in large part upon an affirmative
answer to that question. For, assuming that a proposition can be justified and
false, it is possible to construct cases in which a proposition, say p, is
justified, false, but believed. Now, consider a true proposition, q, which is
believed and entailed by p. If justification is closed under deduction, then q
is justified, true, and believed. But if the only basis for believing q is p,
it is clear that q is not known. Thus, true, justified belief is not sufficient
for knowledge. What response is appropriate to this problem has been a central
issue in epistemology since E. Gettier’s publication of “Is Justified True
Belief Knowledge?” Analysis, 3. Whether justification is closed under deduction
is also crucial when evaluating a common, traditional argument for skepticism.
Consider any person, S, and let p be any proposition ordinarily thought to be
knowable, e.g., that there is a table before S. The argument for skepticism
goes like this: 1 If p is justified for S, then, since p entails q, where q is
‘there is no evil genius making S falsely believe that p’, q is justified for
S. 2 S is not justified in believing q. Therefore, S is not justified in
believing p. The first premise depends upon justification being closed under
deduction.
cockburn:
c. English philosopher and playwright who made a significant contribution to
the debates on ethical rationalism sparked by Clarke’s Boyle lectures 170405.
The major theme of her writings is the nature of moral obligation. Cockburn
displays a consistent, non-doctrinaire philosophical position, arguing that
moral duty is to be rationally deduced from the “nature and fitness of things”
Remarks, 1747 and is not founded primarily in externally imposed sanctions. Her
writings, published anonymously, take the form of philosophical debates with
others, including Samuel Rutherforth, William Warburton, Isaac Watts, Francis
Hutcheson, and Lord Shaftesbury. Her best-known intervention in contemporary
philosophical debate was her able defense of Locke’s Essay in 1702.
cogito
ergo sum – Example given by Grice of Descartes’s conventional implicaturum.
“What Descartes said was, “je pense; donc, j’existe.” The ‘donc’ implicaturum
is an interesting one to analyse. cited by Grice in “Descartes on clear and
distinct perception.” ‘I think, therefore I am’, the starting point of
Descartes’s system of knowledge. In his Discourse on the Method 1637, he
observes that the proposition ‘I am thinking, therefore I exist’ je pense, donc
je suis is “so firm and sure that the most extravagant suppositions of the
skeptics were incapable of shaking it.” The celebrated phrase, in its
better-known Latin version, also occurs in the Principles of Philosophy 1644,
but is not to be found in the Meditations 1641, though the latter contains the
fullest statement of the reasoning behind Descartes’s certainty of his own
existence.
potching
and cotching: Grice coined ‘cotching’ because he was
irritated to hear that Chomsky couldn’t stand ‘know’ and how to coin ‘cognise’
to do duty for it! cognition -- cognitive dissonance, mental discomfort arising
from conflicting beliefs or attitudes held simultaneously. Leon Festinger, who
originated the theory of cognitive dissonance in a book of that title 7,
suggested that cognitive dissonance has motivational characteristics. Suppose a
person is contemplating moving to a new city. She is considering both
Birmingham and Boston. She cannot move to both, so she must choose. Dissonance
is experienced by the person if in choosing, say, Birmingham, she acquires
knowledge of bad or unwelcome features of Birmingham and of good or welcome
aspects of Boston. The amount of dissonance depends on the relative intensities
of dissonant elements. Hence, if the only dissonant factor is her learning that
Boston is cooler than Birmingham, and she does not regard climate as important,
she will experience little dissonance. Dissonance may occur in several sorts of
psychological states or processes, although the bulk of research in cognitive
dissonance theory has been on dissonance in choice and on the justification and
psychological aftereffects of choice. Cognitive dissonance may be involved in
two phenomena of interest to philosophers, namely, self-deception and weakness
of will. Why do self-deceivers try to get themselves to believe something that,
in some sense, they know to be false? One may resort to self-deception when
knowledge causes dissonance. Why do the weak-willed perform actions they know
to be wrong? One may become weak-willed when dissonance arises from the expected
consequences of doing the right thing. -- cognitive psychotherapy, an
expression introduced by Brandt in A Theory of the Good and the Right to refer
to a process of assessing and adjusting one’s desires, aversions, or pleasures
henceforth, “attitudes”. This process is central to Brandt’s analysis of
rationality, and ultimately, to his view on the justification of morality.
Cognitive psychotherapy consists of the agent’s criticizing his attitudes by
repeatedly representing to himself, in an ideally vivid way and at appropriate
times, all relevant available information. Brandt characterizes the key
definiens as follows: 1 available information is “propositions accepted by the
science of the agent’s day, plus factual propositions justified by publicly accessible
evidence including testimony of others about themselves and the principles of
logic”; 2 information is relevant provided, if the agent were to reflect
repeatedly on it, “it would make a difference,” i.e., would affect the attitude
in question, and the effect would be a function of its content, not an
accidental byproduct; 3 relevant information is represented in an ideally vivid
way when the agent focuses on it with maximal clarity and detail and with no
hesitation or doubt about its truth; and 4 repeatedly and at appropriate times
refer, respectively, to the frequency and occasions that would result in the
information’s having the maximal attitudinal impact. Suppose Mary’s desire to
smoke were extinguished by her bringing to the focus of her attention, whenever
she was about to inhale smoke, some justified beliefs, say that smoking is
hazardous to one’s health and may cause lung cancer; Mary’s desire would have
been removed by cognitive psychotherapy. According to Brandt, an attitude is
rational for a person provided it is one that would survive, or be produced by,
cognitive psychotherapy; otherwise it is irrational. Rational attitudes, in
this sense, provide a basis for moral norms. Roughly, the correct moral norms
are those of a moral code that persons would opt for if i they were motivated
by attitudes that survive the process of cognitive psychotherapy; and ii at the
time of opting for a moral code, they were fully aware of, and vividly
attentive to, all available information relevant to choosing a moral code for a
society in which they are to live for the rest of their lives. In this way,
Brandt seeks a value-free justification for moral norms one that avoids the problems of other
theories such as those that make an appeal to intuitions. -- cognitive science, an interdisciplinary
research cluster that seeks to account for intelligent activity, whether
exhibited by living organisms especially adult humans or machines. Hence,
cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence constitute its core. A number
of other disciplines, including neuroscience, linguistics, anthropology, and
philosophy, as well as other fields of psychology e.g., developmental
psychology, are more peripheral contributors. The quintessential cognitive
scientist is someone who employs computer modeling techniques developing
computer programs for the purpose of simulating particular human cognitive
activities, but the broad range of disciplines that are at least peripherally
constitutive of cognitive science have lent a variety of research strategies to
the enterprise. While there are a few common institutions that seek to unify
cognitive science e.g., departments, journals, and societies, the problems
investigated and the methods of investigation often are limited to a single
contributing discipline. Thus, it is more appropriate to view cognitive science
as a cross-disciplinary enterprise than as itself a new discipline. While
interest in cognitive phenomena has historically played a central role in the
various disciplines contributing to cognitive science, the term properly
applies to cross-disciplinary activities that emerged in the 0s. During the
preceding two decades each of the disciplines that became part of cogntive
science gradually broke free of positivistic and behavioristic proscriptions
that barred systematic inquiry into the operation of the mind. One of the
primary factors that catalyzed new investigations of cognitive activities was
Chomsky’s generative grammar, which he advanced not only as an abstract theory
of the structure of language, but also as an account of language users’ mental
knowledge of language their linguistic competence. A more fundamental factor
was the development of approaches for theorizing about information in an
abstract manner, and the introduction of machines computers that could
manipulate information. This gave rise to the idea that one might program a
computer to process information so as to exhibit behavior that would, if
performed by a human, require intelligence. If one tried to formulate a unifying
question guiding cognitive science research, it would probably be: How does the
cognitive system work? But even this common question is interpreted quite
differently in different disciplines. We can appreciate these differences by
looking just at language. While psycholinguists generally psychologists seek to
identify the processing activities in the mind that underlie language use, most
linguists focus on the products of this internal processing, seeking to
articulate the abstract structure of language. A frequent goal of computer
scientists, in contrast, has been to develop computer programs to parse natural
language input and produce appropriate syntactic and semantic representations.
These differences in objectives among the cognitive science disciplines
correlate with different methodologies. The following represent some of the
major methodological approaches of the contributing disciplines and some of the
problems each encounters. Artificial intelligence. If the human cognition
system is viewed as computational, a natural goal is to simulate its
performance. This typically requires formats for representing information as
well as procedures for searching and manipulating it. Some of the earliest
AIprograms drew heavily on the resources of first-order predicate calculus,
representing information in propositional formats and manipulating it according
to logical principles. For many modeling endeavors, however, it proved
important to represent information in larger-scale structures, such as frames
Marvin Minsky, schemata David Rumelhart, or scripts Roger Schank, in which
different pieces of information associated with an object or activity would be
stored together. Such structures generally employed default values for specific
slots specifying, e.g., that deer live in forests that would be part of the
representation unless overridden by new information e.g., that a particular
deer lives in the San Diego Zoo. A very influential alternative approach,
developed by Allen Newell, replaces declarative representations of information
with procedural representations, known as productions. These productions take
the form of conditionals that specify actions to be performed e.g., copying an
expression into working memory if certain conditions are satisfied e.g., the
expression matches another expression. Psychology. While some psychologists
develop computer simulations, a more characteristic activity is to acquire
detailed data from human subjects that can reveal the cognitive system’s actual
operation. This is a challenging endeavor. While cognitive activities transpire
within us, they frequently do so in such a smooth and rapid fashion that we are
unaware of them. For example, we have little awareness of what occurs when we
recognize an object as a chair or remember the name of a client. Some cognitive
functions, though, seem to be transparent to consciousness. For example, we
might approach a logic problem systematically, enumerating possible solutions
and evaluating them serially. Allen Newell and Herbert Simon have refined
methods for exploiting verbal protocols obtained from subjects as they solve
such problems. These methods have been quite fruitful, but their limitations
must be respected. In many cases in which we think we know how we performed a
cognitive task, Richard Nisbett and Timothy Wilson have argued that we are
misled, relying on folk theories to describe how our minds work rather than
reporting directly on their operation. In most cases cognitive psychologists
cannot rely on conscious awareness of cognitive processes, but must proceed as
do physiologists trying to understand metabolism: they must devise experiments
that reveal the underlying processes operative in cognition. One approach is to
seek clues in the errors to which the cognitive system cognitive science
cognitive science is prone. Such errors might be more easily accounted for by
one kind of underlying process than by another. Speech errors, such as
substituting ‘bat cad’ for ‘bad cat’, may be diagnostic of the mechanisms used
to construct speech. This approach is often combined with strategies that seek
to overload or disrupt the system’s normal operation. A common technique is to
have a subject perform two tasks at once
e.g., read a passage while watching for a colored spot. Cognitive psychologists
may also rely on the ability to dissociate two phenomena e.g., obliterate one
while maintaining the other to establish their independence. Other types of
data widely used to make inferences about the cognitive system include patterns
of reaction times, error rates, and priming effects in which activation of one
item facilitates access to related items. Finally, developmental psychologists
have brought a variety of kinds of data to bear on cognitive science issues.
For example, patterns of acquisition times have been used in a manner similar
to reaction time patterns, and accounts of the origin and development of
systems constrain and elucidate mature systems. Linguistics. Since linguists
focus on a product of cognition rather than the processes that produce the
product, they tend to test their analyses directly against our shared knowledge
of that product. Generative linguists in the tradition of Chomsky, for
instance, develop grammars that they test by probing whether they generate the
sentences of the language and no others. While grammars are certainly G.e to
developing processing models, they do not directly determine the structure of
processing models. Hence, the central task of linguistics is not central to
cognitive science. However, Chomsky has augmented his work on grammatical
description with a number of controversial claims that are psycholinguistic in
nature e.g., his nativism and his notion of linguistic competence. Further, an
alternative approach to incorporating psycholinguistic concerns, the cognitive
linguistics of Lakoff and Langacker, has achieved prominence as a contributor
to cognitive science. Neuroscience. Cognitive scientists have generally assumed
that the processes they study are carried out, in humans, by the brain. Until recently,
however, neuroscience has been relatively peripheral to cognitive science. In
part this is because neuroscientists have been chiefly concerned with the
implementation of processes, rather than the processes themselves, and in part
because the techniques available to neuroscientists such as single-cell
recording have been most suitable for studying the neural implementation of
lower-order processes such as sensation. A prominent exception was the
classical studies of brain lesions initiated by Broca and Wernicke, which
seemed to show that the location of lesions correlated with deficits in
production versus comprehension of speech. More recent data suggest that
lesions in Broca’s area impair certain kinds of syntactic processing. However,
other developments in neuroscience promise to make its data more relevant to
cognitive modeling in the future. These include studies of simple nervous
systems, such as that of the aplysia a genus of marine mollusk by Eric Kandel,
and the development of a variety of techniques for determining the brain
activities involved in the performance of cognitive tasks e.g., recording of
evoked response potentials over larger brain structures, and imaging techniques
such as positron emission tomography. While in the future neuroscience is
likely to offer much richer information that will guide the development and
constrain the character of cognitive models, neuroscience will probably not
become central to cognitive science. It is itself a rich, multidisciplinary
research cluster whose contributing disciplines employ a host of complicated
research tools. Moreover, the focus of cognitive science can be expected to
remain on cognition, not on its implementation. So far cognitive science has
been characterized in terms of its modes of inquiry. One can also focus on the
domains of cognitive phenomena that have been explored. Language represents one
such domain. Syntax was one of the first domains to attract wide attention in
cognitive science. For example, shortly after Chomsky introduced his
transformational grammar, psychologists such as George Miller sought evidence
that transformations figured directly in human language processing. From this
beginning, a more complex but enduring relationship among linguists,
psychologists, and computer scientists has formed a leading edge for much
cognitive science research. Psycholinguistics has matured; sophisticated
computer models of natural language processing have been developed; and
cognitive linguists have offered a particular synthesis that emphasizes
semantics, pragmatics, and cognitive foundations of language. Thinking and
reasoning. These constitute an important domain of cognitive science that is
closely linked to philosophical interests. Problem cognitive science cognitive
science solving, such as that which figures in solving puzzles, playing games,
or serving as an expert in a domain, has provided a prototype for thinking.
Newell and Simon’s influential work construed problem solving as a search
through a problem space and introduced the idea of heuristics generally reliable but fallible simplifying
devices to facilitate the search. One arena for problem solving, scientific
reasoning and discovery, has particularly interested philosophers. Artificial
intelligence researchers such as Simon and Patrick Langley, as well as
philosophers such as Paul Thagard and Lindley Darden, have developed computer
programs that can utilize the same data as that available to historical
scientists to develop and evaluate theories and plan future experiments. Cognitive
scientists have also sought to study the cognitive processes underlying the
sorts of logical reasoning both deductive and inductive whose normative
dimensions have been a concern of philosophers. Philip JohnsonLaird, for
example, has sought to account for human performance in dealing with
syllogistic reasoning by describing a processing of constructing and
manipulating mental models. Finally, the process of constructing and using
analogies is another aspect of reasoning that has been extensively studied by
traditional philosophers as well as cognitive scientists. Memory, attention,
and learning. Cognitive scientists have differentiated a variety of types of
memory. The distinction between long- and short-term memory was very
influential in the information-processing models of the 0s. Short-term memory
was characterized by limited capacity, such as that exhibited by the ability to
retain a seven-digit telephone number for a short period. In much cognitive
science work, the notion of working memory has superseded short-term memory,
but many theorists are reluctant to construe this as a separate memory system
as opposed to a part of long-term memory that is activated at a given time.
Endel Tulving introduced a distinction between semantic memory general
knowledge that is not specific to a time or place and episodic memory memory
for particular episodes or occurrences. More recently, Daniel Schacter proposed
a related distinction that emphasizes consciousness: implicit memory access
without awareness versus explicit memory which does involve awareness and is
similar to episodic memory. One of the interesting results of cognitive
research is the dissociation between different kinds of memory: a person might
have severely impaired memory of recent events while having largely unimpaired
implicit memory. More generally, memory research has shown that human memory
does not simply store away information as in a file cabinet. Rather,
information is organized according to preexisting structures such as scripts, and
can be influenced by events subsequent to the initial storage. Exactly what
gets stored and retrieved is partly determined by attention, and psychologists
in the information-processing tradition have sought to construct general
cognitive models that emphasize memory and attention. Finally, the topic of
learning has once again become prominent. Extensively studied by the
behaviorists of the precognitive era, learning was superseded by memory and
attention as a research focus in the 0s. In the 0s, artificial intelligence
researchers developed a growing interest in designing systems that can learn;
machine learning is now a major problem area in AI. During the same period,
connectionism arose to offer an alternative kind of learning model. Perception
and motor control. Perceptual and motor systems provide the inputs and outputs
to cognitive systems. An important aspect of perception is the recognition of
something as a particular kind of object or event; this requires accessing
knowledge of objects and events. One of the central issues concerning
perception questions the extent to which perceptual processes are influenced by
higher-level cognitive information top-down processing versus how much they are
driven purely by incoming sensory information bottom-up processing. A related
issue concerns the claim that visual imagery is a distinct cognitive process
and is closely related to visual perception, perhaps relying on the same brain
processes. A number of cognitive science inquiries e.g., by Roger Shepard and Stephen
Kosslyn have focused on how people use images in problem solving and have
sought evidence that people solve problems by rotating images or scanning them.
This research has been extremely controversial, as other investigators have
argued against the use of images and have tried to account for the performance
data that have been generated in terms of the use of propositionally
represented information. Finally, a distinction recently has been proposed
between the What and Where systems. All of the foregoing issues concern the
What system which recognizes and represents objects as exemplars of categories.
The Where system, in contrast, concerns objects in their environment, and is
particularly adapted to the dynamics of movement. Gibson’s ecological psychology
is a long-standing inquiry into this aspect of perception, and work on the
neural substrates is now attracting the interest of cognitive scientists as
well. Recent developments. The breadth of cognitive science has been expanding
in recent years. In the 0s, cognitive science inquiries tended to focus on
processing activities of adult humans or on computer models of intelligent
performance; the best work often combined these approaches. Subsequently,
investigators examined in much greater detail how cognitive systems develop,
and developmental psychologists have increasingly contributed to cognitive
science. One of the surprising findings has been that, contrary to the claims
of William James, infants do not seem to confront the world as a “blooming, buzzing
confusion,” but rather recognize objects and events quite early in life.
Cognitive science has also expanded along a different dimension. Until recently
many cognitive studies focused on what humans could accomplish in laboratory
settings in which they performed tasks isolated from reallife contexts. The
motivation for this was the assumption that cognitive processes were generic
and not limited to specific contexts. However, a variety of influences,
including Gibsonian ecological psychology especially as interpreted and
developed by Ulric Neisser and Soviet activity theory, have advanced the view
that cognition is much more dynamic and situated in real-world tasks and
environmental contexts; hence, it is necessary to study cognitive activities in
an ecologically valid manner. Another form of expansion has resulted from a
challenge to what has been the dominant architecture for modeling cognition. An
architecture defines the basic processing capacities of the cognitive system.
The dominant cognitive architecture has assumed that the mind possesses a
capacity for storing and manipulating symbols. These symbols can be composed
into larger structures according to syntactic rules that can then be operated
upon by formal rules that recognize that structure. Jerry Fodor has referred to
this view of the cognitive system as the “language of thought hypothesis” and
clearly construes it as a modern heir of rationalism. One of the basic
arguments for it, due to Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn, is that thoughts, like
language, exhibit productivity the unlimited capacity to generate new thoughts
and systematicity exhibited by the inherent relation between thoughts such as
‘Joan loves the florist’ and ‘The florist loves Joan’. They argue that only if
the architecture of cognition has languagelike compositional structure would
productivity and systematicity be generic properties and hence not require
special case-by-case accounts. The challenge to this architecture has arisen
with the development of an alternative architecture, known as connectionism,
parallel distributed processing, or neural network modeling, which proposes
that the cognitive system consists of vast numbers of neuronlike units that
excite or inhibit each other. Knowledge is stored in these systems by the
adjustment of connection strengths between processing units; consequently,
connectionism is a modern descendant of associationism. Connectionist networks
provide a natural account of certain cognitive phenomena that have proven
challenging for the symbolic architecture, including pattern recognition,
reasoning with soft constraints, and learning. Whether they also can account
for productivity and systematicity has been the subject of debate.
Philosophical theorizing about the mind has often provided a starting point for
the modeling and empirical investigations of modern cognitive science. The
ascent of cognitive science has not meant that philosophers have ceased to play
a role in examining cognition. Indeed, a number of philosophers have pursued
their inquiries as contributors to cognitive science, focusing on such issues
as the possible reduction of cognitive theories to those of neuroscience, the
status of folk psychology relative to emerging scientific theories of mind, the
merits of rationalism versus empiricism, and strategies for accounting for the
intentionality of mental states. The interaction between philosophers and other
cognitive scientists, however, is bidirectional, and a number of developments
in cognitive science promise to challenge or modify traditional philosophical
views of cognition. For example, studies by cognitive and social psychologists
have challenged the assumption that human thinking tends to accord with the
norms of logic and decision theory. On a variety of tasks humans seem to follow
procedures heuristics that violate normative canons, raising questions about
how philosophers should characterize rationality. Another area of empirical
study that has challenged philosophical assumptions has been the study of
concepts and categorization. Philosophers since Plato have widely assumed that
concepts of ordinary language, such as red, bird, and justice, should be
definable by necessary and sufficient conditions. But celebrated studies by
Eleanor Rosch and her colleagues indicated that many ordinary-language concepts
had a prototype structure instead. On this view, the categories employed in
human thinking are characterized by prototypes the clearest exemplars and a
metric that grades exemplars according to their degree of typicality. Recent investigations
have also pointed to significant instability in conceptual structure and to the
role of theoretical beliefs in organizing categories. This alternative
conception of concepts has profound implications for philosophical
methodologies that portray philosophy’s task to be the analysis of
concepts.
palæo-Kantian, Kantian, neo-Kantian.
Cohen, Hermann – Grice liked to think of himself as a neo-Kantian (“rather than
a palaeo-Kantian, you see”) --
philosopher who originated and led, with Paul Natorp, the Marburg School
of neo-Kantianism. He taught at Marburg. Cohen wrote commentaries on Kant’s
Critiques prior to publishing System der Philosophie 212, which consisted of
parts on logic, ethics, and aesthetics. He developed a Kantian idealism of the
natural sciences, arguing that a transcendental analysis of these sciences
shows that “pure thought” his system of Kantian a priori principles
“constructs” their “reality.” He also developed Kant’s ethics as a democratic
socialist ethics. He ended his career at a rabbinical seminary in Berlin,
writing his influential Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentums
“Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism,” 9, which explicated Judaism
on the basis of his own Kantian ethical idealism. Cohen’s ethical-political
views were adopted by Kurt Eisner 18679, leader of the Munich revolution of 8,
and also had an impact on the revisionism of orthodox Marxism of the G. Social
Democratic Party, while his philosophical writings greatly influenced Cassirer.
coherence – since H. P.
Grice was a correspondentist, he hated Bradley. -- theory of truth, the view that either the
nature of truth or the sole criterion for determining truth is constituted by a
relation of coherence between the belief or judgment being assessed and other
beliefs or judgments. As a view of the nature of truth, the coherence theory
represents an alternative to the correspondence theory of truth. Whereas the
correspondence theory holds that a belief is true provided it corresponds to
independent reality, the coherence theory holds that it is true provided it
stands in a suitably strong relation of coherence to other beliefs, so that the
believer’s total system of beliefs forms a highly or perhaps perfectly coherent
system. Since, on such a characterization, truth depends entirely on the
internal relations within the system of beliefs, such a conception of truth
seems to lead at once to idealism as regards the nature of reality, and its
main advocates have been proponents of absolute idealism mainly Bradley,
Bosanquet, and Brand Blanshard. A less explicitly metaphysical version of the
coherence theory was also held by certain members of the school of logical
positivism mainly Otto Neurath and Carl Hempel. The nature of the intended
relation of coherence, often characterized metaphorically in terms of the
beliefs in question fitting together or dovetailing with each other, has been
and continues to be a matter of uncertainty and controversy. Despite occasional
misconceptions to the contrary, it is clear that coherence is intended to be a
substantially more demanding relation than mere consistency, involving such
things as inferential and explanatory relations within the system of beliefs.
Perfect or ideal coherence is sometimes described as requiring that every
belief in the system of beliefs entails all the others though it must be
remembered that those offering such a characterization do not restrict
entailments to those that are formal or analytic in character. Since actual
human systems of belief seem inevitably to fall short of perfect coherence,
however that is understood, their truth is usually held to be only approximate
at best, thus leading to the absolute idealist view that truth admits of
degrees. As a view of the criterion of truth, the coherence theory of truth
holds that the sole criterion or standard for determining whether a belief is
true is its coherence with other beliefs or judgments, with the degree of
justification varying with the degree of coherence. Such a view amounts to a
coherence theory of epistemic justification. It was held by most of the
proponents of the coherence theory of the nature of truth, though usually
without distinguishing the two views very clearly. For philosophers who hold
both of these views, the thesis that coherence is the sole criterion of truth
is usually logically prior, and the coherence theory of the nature of truth is
adopted as a consequence, the clearest argument being that only the view that
perfect or ideal coherence is the nature of truth can make sense of the appeal
to degrees of coherence as a criterion of truth. -- coherentism, in epistemology, a theory of
the structure of knowledge or justified beliefs according to which all beliefs
representing knowledge are known or justified in virtue of their relations to
other beliefs, specifically, in virtue of belonging to a coherent system of
beliefs. Assuming that the orthodox account of knowledge is correct at least in
maintaining that justified true belief is necessary for knowledge, we can
identify two kinds of coherence theories of knowledge: those that are
coherentist merely in virtue of incorporating a coherence theory of
justification, and those that are doubly coherentist because they account for
both justification and truth in terms of coherence. What follows will focus on
coherence theories of justification. Historically, coherentism is the most
significant alternative to foundationalism. The latter holds that some beliefs,
basic or foundational beliefs, are justified apart from their relations to
other beliefs, while all other beliefs derive their justification from that of
foundational beliefs. Foundationalism portrays justification as having a
structure like that of a building, with certain beliefs serving as the
foundations and all other beliefs supported by them. Coherentism rejects this
image and pictures justification as having the structure of a raft. Justified
beliefs, like the planks that make up a raft, mutually support one another.
This picture of the coherence theory is due to the positivist Otto Neurath.
Among the positivists, Hempel shared Neurath’s sympathy for coherentism. Other
defenders of coherentism from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
were idealists, e.g., Bradley, Bosanquet, and Brand Blanshard. Idealists often
held the sort of double coherence theory mentioned above. The contrast between
foundationalism and coherentism is commonly developed in terms of the regress
argument. If we are asked what justifies one of our beliefs, we
characteristically answer by citing some other belief that supports it, e.g.,
logically or probabilistically. If we are asked about this second belief, we
are likely to cite a third belief, and so on. There are three shapes such an
evidential chain might have: it could go on forever, if could eventually end in
some belief, or it could loop back upon itself, i.e., eventually contain again
a belief that had occurred “higher up” on the chain. Assuming that infinite
chains are not really possible, we are left with a choice between chains that
end and circular chains. According to foundationalists, evidential chains must
eventually end with a foundational belief that is justified, if the belief at
the beginning of the chain is to be justified. Coherentists are then portrayed
as holding that circular chains can yield justified beliefs. This portrayal is,
in a way, correct. But it is also misleading since it suggests that the
disagreement between coherentism and foundationalism is best understood as
concerning only the structure of evidential chains. Talk of evidential chains
in which beliefs that are further down on the chain are responsible for beliefs
that are higher up naturally suggests the idea that just as real chains
transfer forces, evidential chains transfer justification. Foundationalism then
sounds like a real possibility. Foundational beliefs already have
justification, and evidential chains serve to pass the justification along to
other beliefs. But coherentism seems to be a nonstarter, for if no belief in
the chain is justified to begin with, there is nothing to pass along. Altering
the metaphor, we might say that coherentism seems about as likely to succeed as
a bucket brigade that does not end at a well, but simply moves around in a
circle. The coherentist seeks to dispel this appearance by pointing out that
the primary function of evidential chains is not to transfer epistemic status,
such as justification, from belief to belief. Indeed, beliefs are not the
primary locus of justification. Rather, it is whole systems of belief that are
justified or not in the primary sense; individual beliefs are justified in
virtue of their membership in an appropriately structured system of beliefs.
Accordingly, what the coherentist claims is that the appropriate sorts of
evidential chains, which will be circular
indeed, will likely contain numerous circles constitute justified systems of belief. The
individual beliefs within such a system are themselves justified in virtue of
their place in the entire system and not because this status is passed on to
them from beliefs further down some evidential chain in which they figure. One
can, therefore, view coherentism with considerable accuracy as a version of
foundationalism that holds all beliefs to be foundational. From this
perspective, the difference between coherentism and traditional foundationalism
has to do with what accounts for the epistemic status of foundational beliefs,
with traditional foundationalism holding that such beliefs can be justified in
various ways, e.g., by perception or reason, while coherentism insists that the
only way such beliefs can be justified is by being a member of an appropriately
structured system of beliefs. One outstanding problem the coherentist faces is
to specify exactly what constitutes a coherent system of beliefs. Coherence
clearly must involve much more than mere absence of mutually contradictory
beliefs. One way in which beliefs can be logically consistent is by concerning
completely unrelated matters, but such a consistent system of beliefs would not
embody the sort of mutual support that constitutes the core idea of
coherentism. Moreover, one might question whether logical consistency is even
necessary for coherence, e.g., on the basis of the preface paradox. Similar
points can be made regarding efforts to begin an account of coherence with the
idea that beliefs and degrees of belief must correspond to the probability
calculus. So although it is difficult to avoid thinking that such formal
features as logical and probabilistic consistency are significantly involved in
coherence, it is not clear exactly how they are involved. An account of
coherence can be drawn more directly from the following intuitive idea: a
coherent system of belief is one in which each belief is epistemically
supported by the others, where various types of epistemic support are
recognized, e.g., deductive or inductive arguments, or inferences to the best
explanation. There are, however, at least two problems this suggestion does not
address. First, since very small sets of beliefs can be mutually supporting,
the coherentist needs to say something about the scope a system of beliefs must
have to exhibit the sort of coherence required for justification. Second, given
the possibility of small sets of mutually supportive beliefs, it is apparently
possible to build a system of very broad scope out of such small sets of
mutually supportive beliefs by mere conjunction, i.e., without forging any
significant support relations among them. Yet, since the interrelatedness of
all truths does not seem discoverable by analyzing the concept of
justification, the coherentist cannot rule out epistemically isolated
subsystems of belief entirely. So the coherentist must say what sorts of
isolated subsystems of belief are compatible with coherence. The difficulties
involved in specifying a more precise concept of coherence should not be
pressed too vigorously against the coherentist. For one thing, most
foundationalists have been forced to grant coherence a significant role within
their accounts of justification, so no dialectical advantage can be gained by
pressing them. Moreover, only a little reflection is needed to see that nearly
all the difficulties involved in specifying coherence are manifestations within
a specific context of quite general philosophical problems concerning such
matters as induction, explanation, theory choice, the nature of epistemic
support, etc. They are, then, problems that are faced by logicians,
philosophers of science, and epistemologists quite generally, regardless of
whether they are sympathetic to coherentism. Coherentism faces a number of
serious objections. Since according to coherentism justification is determined
solely by the relations among beliefs, it does not seem to be capable of taking
us outside the circle of our beliefs. This fact gives rise to complaints that
coherentism cannot allow for any input from external reality, e.g., via
perception, and that it can neither guarantee nor even claim that it is likely
that coherent systems of belief will make contact with such reality or contain
true beliefs. And while it is widely granted that justified false beliefs are
possible, it is just as widely accepted that there is an important connection
between justification and truth, a connection that rules out accounts according
to which justification is not truth-conducive. These abstractly formulated
complaints can be made more vivid, in the case of the former, by imagining a
person with a coherent system of beliefs that becomes frozen, and fails to
change in the face of ongoing sensory experience; and in the case of the
latter, by pointing out that, barring an unexpected account of coherence, it
seems that a wide variety of coherent systems of belief are possible, systems
that are largely disjoint or even incompatible.
collier:
a., Grice found the Clavis Universalis
quite fun (“to read”). -- English philosopher, a Wiltshire parish priest whose
Clavis Universalis 1713 defends a version of immaterialism closely akin to
Berkeley’s. Matter, Collier contends, “exists in, or in dependence on mind.” He
emphatically affirms the existence of bodies, and, like Berkeley, defends
immaterialCoimbra commentaries Collier, Arthur 155 155 ism as the only alternative to
skepticism. Collier grants that bodies seem to be external, but their
“quasi-externeity” is only the effect of God’s will. In Part I of the Clavis
Collier argues as Berkeley had in his New Theory of Vision, 1709 that the
visible world is not external. In Part II he argues as Berkeley had in the
Principles, 1710, and Three Dialogues, 1713 that the external world “is a being
utterly impossible.” Two of Collier’s arguments for the “intrinsic repugnancy”
of the external world resemble Kant’s first and second antinomies. Collier
argues, e.g., that the material world is both finite and infinite; the
contradiction can be avoided, he suggests, only by denying its external
existence. Some scholars suspect that Collier deliberately concealed his debt
to Berkeley; most accept his report that he arrived at his views ten years
before he published them. Collier first refers to Berkeley in letters written
in 171415. In A Specimen of True Philosophy 1730, where he offers an
immaterialist interpretation of the opening verse of Genesis, Collier writes
that “except a single passage or two” in Berkeley’s Dialogues, there is no
other book “which I ever heard of” on the same subject as the Clavis. This is a
puzzling remark on several counts, one being that in the Preface to the
Dialogues, Berkeley describes his earlier books. Collier’s biographer reports
seeing among his papers now lost an outline, dated 1708, on “the question of
the visible world being without us or not,” but he says no more about it. The
biographer concludes that Collier’s independence cannot reasonably be doubted;
perhaps the outline would, if unearthed, establish this.
collingwood:
r. g.—cited by H. P. Grice in “Metaphysics,” in D. F. Pears, “The nature of
metaphysics.” – Like Grice, Collingwood was influenced by J. C. Wilson’s
subordinate interrogation. English philosopher and historian. His father, W. G.
Collingwood, John Ruskin’s friend, secretary, and biographer, at first educated
him at home in Coniston and later sent him to Rugby School and then Oxford.
Immediately upon graduating in 2, he was elected to a fellowship at Pembroke ;
except for service with admiralty intelligence during World War I, he remained
at Oxford until 1, when illness compelled him to retire. Although his
Autobiography expresses strong disapproval of the lines on which, during his
lifetime, philosophy at Oxford developed, he was a varsity “insider.” He was
elected to the Waynflete Professorship, the first to become vacant after he had
done enough work to be a serious candidate. He was also a leading archaeologist
of Roman Britain. Although as a student Collingwood was deeply influenced by
the “realist” teaching of John Cook Wilson, he studied not only the British
idealists, but also Hegel and the contemporary
post-Hegelians. At twenty-three, he published a translation of Croce’s
book on Vico’s philosophy. Religion and Philosophy 6, the first of his attempts
to present orthodox Christianity as philosophically acceptable, has both
idealist and Cook Wilsonian elements. Thereafter the Cook Wilsonian element
steadily diminished. In Speculum Mentis4, he investigated the nature and
ultimate unity of the four special ‘forms of experience’ art, religion, natural science, and
history and their relation to a fifth
comprehensive form philosophy. While all
four, he contended, are necessary to a full human life now, each is a form of
error that is corrected by its less erroneous successor. Philosophy is
error-free but has no content of its own: “The truth is not some perfect system
of philosophy: it is simply the way in which all systems, however perfect,
collapse into nothingness on the discovery that they are only systems.” Some
critics dismissed this enterprise as idealist a description Collingwood
accepted when he wrote, but even those who favored it were disturbed by the
apparent skepticism of its result. A year later, he amplified his views about
art in Outlines of a Philosophy of Art. Since much of what Collingwood went on
to write about philosophy has never been published, and some of it has been
negligently destroyed, his thought after Speculum Mentis is hard to trace. It
will not be definitively established until the more than 3,000 s of his
surviving unpublished manuscripts deposited in the Bodleian Library in 8 have
been thoroughly studied. They were not available to the scholars who published
studies of his philosophy as a whole up to 0. Three trends in how his philosophy
developed, however, are discernible. The first is that as he continued to
investigate the four special forms of experience, he came to consider each
valid in its own right, and not a form of error. As early as 8, he abandoned
the conception of the historical past in Speculum Mentis as simply a spectacle,
alien to the historian’s mind; he now proposed a theory of it as thoughts
explaining past actions that, although occurring in the past, can be rethought
in the present. Not only can the identical thought “enacted” at a definite time
in the past be “reenacted” any number of times after, but it can be known to be
so reenacted if colligation physical evidence survives that can be shown to be
incompatible with other proposed reenactments. In 334 he wrote a series of
lectures posthumously published as The Idea of Nature in which he renounced his
skepticism about whether the quantitative material world can be known, and
inquired why the three constructive periods he recognized in European
scientific thought, the Grecian, the Renaissance, and the modern, could each
advance our knowledge of it as they did. Finally, in 7, returning to the
philosophy of art and taking full account of Croce’s later work, he showed that
imagination expresses emotion and becomes false when it counterfeits emotion
that is not felt; thus he transformed his earlier theory of art as purely
imaginative. His later theories of art and of history remain alive; and his
theory of nature, although corrected by research since his death, was an advance
when published. The second trend was that his conception of philosophy changed
as his treatment of the special forms of experience became less skeptical. In
his beautifully written Essay on Philosophical Method 3, he argued that
philosophy has an object the ens
realissimum as the one, the true, and the good
of which the objects of the special forms of experience are appearances;
but that implies what he had ceased to believe, that the special forms of
experience are forms of error. In his Principles of Art 8 and New Leviathan 2
he denounced the idealist principle of Speculum Mentis that to abstract is to
falsify. Then, in his Essay on Metaphysics 0, he denied that metaphysics is the
science of being qua being, and identified it with the investigation of the
“absolute presuppositions” of the special forms of experience at definite
historical periods. A third trend, which came to dominate his thought as World
War II approached, was to see serious philosophy as practical, and so as having
political implications. He had been, like Ruskin, a radical Tory, opposed less
to liberal or even some socialist measures than to the bourgeois ethos from
which they sprang. Recognizing European fascism as the barbarism it was, and
detesting anti-Semitism, he advocated an antifascist foreign policy and
intervention in the civil war in support
of the republic. His last major publication, The New Leviathan, impressively
defends what he called civilization against what he called barbarism; and
although it was neglected by political theorists after the war was won, the
collapse of Communism and the rise of Islamic states are winning it new
readers.
Grice’s
combinatory logic, a branch of logic that deals with formal
systems designed for the study of certain basic operations for constructing and
manipulating functions as rules, i.e. as rules of calculation expressed by
definitions. The notion of a function was fundamental in the development of
modern formal or mathematical logic that was initiated by Frege, Peano,
Russell, Hilbert, and others. Frege was the first to introduce a generalization
of the mathematical notion of a function to include propositional functions,
and he used the general notion for formally representing logical notions such
as those of a concept, object, relation, generality, and judgment. Frege’s
proposal to replace the traditional logical notions of subject and predicate by
argument and function, and thus to conceive predication as functional
application, marks a turning point in the history of formal logic. In most
modern logical systems, the notation used to express functions, including
propositional functions, is essentially that used in ordinary mathematics. As
in ordinary mathematics, certain basic notions are taken for granted, such as
the use of variables to indicate processes of substitution. Like the original
systems for modern formal logic, the systems of combinatory logic were designed
to give a foundation for mathematics. But combinatory logic arose as an effort
to carry the foundational aims further and deeper. It undertook an analysis of
notions taken for granted in the original systems, in particular of the notions
of substitution and of the use of variables. In this respect combinatory logic
was conceived by one of its founders, H. B. Curry, to be concerned with the
ultimate foundations and with notions that constitute a “prelogic.” It was
hoped that an analysis of this prelogic would disclose the true source of the
difficulties connected with the logical paradoxes. The operation of applying a
function to one of its arguments, called application, is a primitive operation
in all systems of combinatory logic. If f is a function and x a possible
argument, then the result of the application operation is denoted fx. In
mathematics this is usually written fx, but the notation fx is more convenient
in combinatory logic. The G. logician M. Schönfinkel, who started combinatory
logic in 4, observed that it is not necessary to introduce color realism
combinatory logic functions of more than one variable, provided that the idea
of a function is enlarged so that functions can be arguments as well as values
of other functions. A function Fx,y is represented with the function f, which
when applied to the argument x has, as a value, the function fx, which, when applied
to y, yields Fx,y, i.e. fxy % Fx,y. It is therefore convenient to omit
parentheses with association to the left so that fx1 . . . xn is used for . . . fx1 . . . xn. Schönfinkel’s main result
was to show how to make the class of functions studied closed under explicit
definition by introducing two specific primitive functions, the combinators S
and K, with the rules Kxy % x, and Sxyz % xzyz. To illustrate the effect of S
in ordinary mathematical notation, let f and g be functions of two and one arguments,
respectively; then Sfg is the function such that Sfgx % fx,gx. Generally, if
ax1, . . . ,xn is an expression built up from constants and the variables shown
by means of the application operation, then there is a function F constructed
out of constants including the combinators S and K, such that Fx1 . . . xn %
ax1, . . . , xn. This is essentially the meaning of the combinatory
completeness of the theory of combinators in the terminology of H. B. Curry and
R. Feys, Combinatory Logic 8; and H. B. Curry, J. R. Hindley, and J. P. Seldin,
Combinatory Logic, vol. II 2. The system of combinatory logic with S and K as
the only primitive functions is the simplest equation calculus that is
essentially undecidable. It is a type-free theory that allows the formation of
the term ff, i.e. self-application, which has given rise to problems of
interpretation. There are also type theories based on combinatory logic. The
systems obtained by extending the theory of combinators with functions
representing more familiar logical notions such as negation, implication, and
generality, or by adding a device for expressing inclusion in logical
categories, are studied in illative combinatory logic. The theory of
combinators exists in another, equivalent form, namely as the type-free
l-calculus created by Church in 2. Like the theory of combinators, it was
designed as a formalism for representing functions as rules of calculation, and
it was originally part of a more general system of functions intended as a
foundation for mathematics. The l-calculus has application as a primitive
operation, but instead of building up new functions from some primitive ones by
application, new functions are here obtained by functional abstraction. If ax
is an expression built up by means of application from constants and the
variable x, then ax is considered to define a function denoted lx.a x, whose
value for the argument b is ab, i.e. lx.a xb % ab. The function lx.ax is
obtained from ax by functional abstraction. The property of combinatory
completeness or closure under explicit definition is postulated in the form of
functional abstraction. The combinators can be defined using functional
abstraction i.e., K % lx.ly.x and S % lx.ly.lz.xzyz, and conversely, in the
theory of combinators, functional abstraction can be defined. A detailed
presentation of the l-calculus is found in H. Barendregt, The Lambda Calculus,
Its Syntax and Semantics 1. It is possible to represent the series of natural
numbers by a sequence of closed terms in the lcalculus. Certain expressions in
the l-calculus will then represent functions on the natural numbers, and these
l-definable functions are exactly the general recursive functions or the Turing
computable functions. The equivalence of l-definability and general
recursiveness was one of the arguments used by Church for what is known as
Church’s thesis, i.e., the identification of the effectively computable
functions and the recursive functions. The first problem about recursive
undecidability was expressed by Church as a problem about expressions in the l
calculus. The l-calculus thus played a historically important role in the
original development of recursion theory. Due to the emphasis in combinatory
logic on the computational aspect of functions, it is natural that its method
has been found useful in proof theory and in the development of systems of
constructive mathematics. For the same reason it has found several applications
in computer science in the construction and analysis of programming languages.
The techniques of combinatory logic have also been applied in theoretical
linguistics, e.g. in so-called Montague grammar. In recent decades combinatory
logic, like other domains of mathematical logic, has developed into a
specialized branch of mathematics, in which the original philosophical and
foundational aims and motives are of little and often no importance. One reason
for this is the discovery of the new technical applications, which were not
intended originally, and which have turned the interest toward several new mathematical
problems. Thus, the original motives are often felt to be less urgent and only
of historical significance. Another reason for the decline of the original
philosophical and foundational aims may be a growing awareness in the
philosophy of mathematics of the limitations of formal and mathematical methods
as tools for conceptual combinatory logic combinatory logic clarification, as
tools for reaching “ultimate foundations.”
commitment: Grice’s commitment to the 39
Articles. An utterer is committed to those and
only those entities to which the bound variables of his utterance must be
capable of referring in order that the utterance made be true.” Cf. Grice on
substitutional quantification for his feeling Byzantine, and ‘gap’ sign in the
analysis.
common-ground status assignment: While
Grice was invited to a symposium on ‘mutual knowledge,’ he never was for
‘regressive accounts’ of ‘know,’ perhaps because he had to be different, and
the idea of the mutual or common knowledge was the obvious way to deal with his
account of communication. He rejects it and opts for an anti-sneak clause. In
the common-ground he uses the phrase, “What the eye no longer sees, the heart
no longer grieves for.” What does he mean? He means that in the case of some
recognizable divergence between the function of a communication device in a
rational calculus and in the vernacular, one may have to assign ‘common ground
status’ to certain features, e. g. [The king of France is] bald. By using the
square brackets, or subscripts, in “Vacuous names and descriptions,” the
material within their scope is ‘immune’ to refutation. It has some sort of
conversational ‘inertia.’ So the divergence, for which Grice’s heart grieved,
is no more to be seen by Grice’s eye. Strwson and Wiggins view that this is
only tentative for Grice. the regulations for common-ground assignment have to
do with general rational constraints on conversation. Grice is clear in
“Causal,” and as Strawson lets us know, he was already clear in “Introduction”
when talking of a ‘pragmatic rule.’ Strawson states the rule in terms of making
your conversational contribution the logically strongest possible. If we abide by an
imperative of conversational helpfulness, enjoining the maximally giving and
receiving of information and the influencing and being influenced by others in
the institution of a decisions, the sub-imperative follows to the effect, ‘Thou
shalt NOT make a weak move compared to the stronger one that thou canst
truthfully make, and with equal or greater economy of means.’“Causal” provides a more difficult version, because it
deals with non-extensional contexts where ‘strong’ need not be interpreted as
‘logical strength’ in terms of entailment. Common ground status assignment
springs from the principle of conversational helpfulness or conversational
benevolence. What would be the benevolent point of ‘informing’ your addressee
what you KNOW your addressee already knows? It is not even CONCEPTUALLY
possible. You are not ‘informing’ him if you are aware that he knows it. So,
what Strawson later calls the principle of presumption of ignorance and the
principle of the presumption of knowledge are relevant. There is a balance
between the two. If Strawson asks Grice, “Is the king of France bald?” Grice is
entitled to assume that Strawson thinks two things Grice will perceive as
having been assigned a ‘common-ground’ status as uncontroversial topic not
worth conversing about. First, Strawson thinks that there is one king. (∃x)Fx. Second, Strawson thinks that there is at most one
king. (x)(y)((Fx.Fy)⊃ x=y).
That the king is bald is NOT assigned common-ground status, because Grice
cannot expect that Strawson thinks that Grice KNOWS that. Grice symbolises the
common-ground status by means of subscripts. He also uses square-bracekts, so
that anything within the scope of the square brackets is immune to controversy,
or as Grice also puts it, conversationally _inert_: things we don’t talk about.
communication device: Grice always has ‘or
communication devices’ at the tip of his tongue. “Language or communication
devices” (WoW: 284). A device is produced. A device can be misunderstood.
communicatum: With the linguistic turn, as Grice notes, it was all
about ‘language.’ But at Oxford they took a cavalier attitude to language, that
Grice felt like slightly rectifying, while keeping it cavalier as we like it at
Oxford. The colloquialism of ‘mean’ does not translate well in the Graeco-Roman
tradition Grice was educated via his Lit. Hum. (Philos.) and at Clifton.
‘Communicate’ might do. On top, Grice does use ‘communicate’ on various
occasions in WoW. By psi-transmission,
something that belonged in the emissor becomes ‘common property,’ ‘communion’
has been achived. Now the recipient KNOWS that it is raining (shares the belief
with the emissor) and IS GOING to bring that umbrella (has formed a desire). “Communication”
is cognate with ‘communion,’ while conversation is cognate with ‘sex’! When
Grice hightlights the ‘common ground’ in ‘communication’ he is being slightly
rhetorical, so it is good when he weakens the claim from ‘common ground’ to
‘non-trivial.’ A: I’m going to the concert. My uncle’s brother went to that
concert. The emissor cannot presume that his addressee KNEW that he had an
unlce let alone that his uncle had a brother (the emissor’s father). But any
expansion would trigger the wrong implicaturum. One who likes ‘communication’
is refined Strawson (I’m using refined as J. Barnes does it, “turn Plato into
refined Strawson”). Both in his rat-infested example and at the inaugural
lecture at Oxford. Grice, for one, has given us reason to think that, with
sufficient care, and far greater refinement than I have indicated, it is
possible to expound such a concept of communication-intention or, as he calls
it, utterer's meaning, which is proof against objection. it is a commonplace that Grice belongs, as
most philosophers of the twentieth century, to the movement of the linguistic
turn. Short and Lewis have “commūnĭcare,” earlier “conmunicare,” f. communis,
and thus sharing the prefix with “conversare.” Now “communis” is an interesting
lexeme that Grice uses quite centrally in his idea of the ‘common ground’ –
when a feature of discourse is deemed to have been assigned ‘common-ground
status.’ “Communis” features the “cum-” prefix, commūnis (comoinis); f. “con” and
root “mu-,” to bind; Sanscr. mav-; cf.: immunis, munus, moenia. The
‘communicatum’ (as used by Tammelo in
social philosophy) may well cover what Grice would call the total
‘significatio,’ or ‘significatum.’ Grice takes this seriously. Let us start
then by examining what we mean by ‘linguistic,’ or ‘communication.’ It is
curious that while most Griceians overuse ‘communicative’ as applied to
‘intention,’ Grice does not. Communicator’s intention, at most. This is the
Peirce in Grice’s soul. Meaning provides an excellent springboard for Grice to
centre his analysis on psychological or soul-y verbs as involving the agent and
the first person: smoke only figuratively means fire, and the expression smoke
only figuratively (or metabolically) means that there is fire. It is this or
that utterer (say, Grice) who means, say, by uttering Where theres smoke theres
fire, or ubi fumus, ibi ignis, that where theres smoke theres fire. A
means something by uttering x, an utterance-token is roughly equivalent to
utterer U intends the utterance of x to produce some effect in his addressee A
by means of the recognition of this intention; and we may add that to ask what
U means is to ask for a specification of the intended effect - though, of
course, it may not always be possible to get a straight answer involving a
that-clause, for example, a belief that
He does provide a more specific example involving the that-clause at a
later stage. By uttering x, U means that-ψb-dp ≡ (Ǝφ)(Ǝf)(Ǝc) U
utters x intending x to be such that anyone who
has φ think that x has f, f is correlated in way c
with ψ-ing that p, and (Ǝφ') U intends x to be such
that anyone who has φ' think, via thinking that x has
f and that f is correlated in way c with ψ-ing that p, that U ψ-s that
p, and in view of (Ǝφ') U intending x to be such
that anyone who has φ' think, via thinking that x has
f, and f is correlated in way c with ψ-ing that p, that U ψ-s that
p, U ψ-s that p, and, for some
substituends of ψb-d, U utters x
intending that, should there actually be anyone who
has φ, he will, via thinking in view of (Ǝφ') U
intending x to be such that anyone who has φ' think, via
thinking that x has f, and f is correlated in way c
with ψ-ing that p, that U ψ-s that p, U ψ-s that
p himself ψ that p, and it is not
the case that, for some inference element E, U intends x to be such
that anyone who has φ both rely on E in coming to ψ, or think that U ψ-s, that p and think that (Ǝφ) U intends x to be
such that anyone who has φ come to ψ (or think that U ψ-s) that
p without relying on E. Besides St. John The Baptist, and Salome, Grice
cites few Namess in Meaning. But he makes a point about Stevenson! For
Stevenson, smoke means fire. Meaning develops out of an interest by Grice on
the philosophy of Peirce. In his essays on Peirce, Grice quotes from many other
authors, including, besides Peirce himself (!), Ogden, Richards, and Ewing, or
A. C. Virtue is not a fire-shovel Ewing, as Grice calls him, and this or that
cricketer. In the characteristic Oxonian fashion of a Lit. Hum., Grice has no
intention to submit Meaning to publication. Publishing is vulgar. Bennett,
however, guesses that Grice decides to publish it just a year after his Defence
of a dogma. Bennett’s argument is that Defence of a dogma pre-supposes some
notion of meaning. However, a different story may be told, not necessarily
contradicting Bennetts. It is Strawson who submits the essay by Grice to The
Philosophical Review (henceforth, PR) Strawson attends Grices talk on Meaning
for The Oxford Philosophical Society, and likes it. Since In defence of a dogma
was co-written with Strawson, the intention Bennett ascribes to Grice is
Strawsons. Oddly, Strawson later provides a famous alleged counter-example to
Grice on meaning in Intention and convention in speech acts, following J. O.
Urmson’s earlier attack to the sufficiency of Grices analysans -- which has
Grice dedicating a full James lecture (No. 5) to it. there is Strawsons
rat-infested house for which it is insufficient. An interesting fact,
that confused a few, is that Hart quotes from Grices Meaning in his critical
review of Holloway for The Philosophical Quarterly. Hart quotes Grice
pre-dating the publication of Meaning. Harts point is that Holloway should have
gone to Oxford! In Meaning, Grice may be seen as a practitioner of ordinary-language
philosophy: witness his explorations of the factivity (alla know, remember, or
see) or lack thereof of various uses of to mean. The second part of the essay,
for which he became philosophically especially popular, takes up an
intention-based approach to semantic notions. The only authority Grice cites,
in typical Oxonian fashion, is, via Ogden and Barnes, Stevenson, who, from The
New World (and via Yale, too!) defends an emotivist theory of ethics, and
making a few remarks on how to mean is used, with scare quotes, in something
like a causal account (Smoke means fire.). After its publication Grices account
received almost as many alleged counterexamples as rule-utilitarianism (Harrison),
but mostly outside Oxford, and in The New World. New-World philosophers seem to
have seen Grices attempt as reductionist and as oversimplifying. At Oxford, the
sort of counterexample Grice received, before Strawson, was of the Urmson-type:
refined, and subtle. I think your account leaves bribery behind. On the other
hand, in the New World ‒ in what Grice calls the Latter-Day School of
Nominalism, Quine is having troubles with empiricism. Meaning was repr. in various
collections, notably in Philosophical Logic, ed. by Strawson. It should be
remembered that it is Strawson who has the thing typed and submitted for
publication. Why Meaning should be repr. in a collection on Philosophical Logic
only Strawson knows. But Grice does say that his account may help clarify the
meaning of entails! It may be Strawsons implicaturum that Parkinson should have
repr. (and not merely credited) Meaning by Grice in his series for Oxford on
The theory of meaning. The preferred quotation for Griceians is of course The
Oxford Philosophical Society quote, seeing that Grice recalled the exact year when
he gave the talk for the Philosophical Society at Oxford! It is however, the
publication in The Philosophi, rather than the quieter evening at the Oxford
Philosophical Society, that occasioned a tirade of alleged counter-examples by
New-World philosophers. Granted, one or two Oxonians ‒ Urmson and Strawson ‒
fell in! Urmson criticises the sufficiency of Grices account, by introducing an
alleged counter-example involving bribery. Grice will consider a way out of
Urmsons alleged counter-example in his fifth Wiliam James Lecture, rightly
crediting and thanking Urmson for this! Strawsons alleged counter-example was
perhaps slightly more serious, if regressive. It also involves the sufficiency
of Grices analysis. Strawsons rat-infested house alleged counter-example
started a chain which required Grice to avoid, ultimately, any sneaky intention
by way of a recursive clause to the effect that, for utterer U to have meant
that p, all meaning-constitutive intentions should be above board. But why this
obsession by Grice with mean? He is being funny. Spots surely dont mean, only
mean.They dont have a mind. Yet Grice opens with a specific sample. Those spots
mean, to the doctor, that you, dear, have measles. Mean? Yes, dear, mean,
doctors orders. Those spots mean measles. But how does the doctor know? Cannot
he be in the wrong? Not really, mean is factive, dear! Or so Peirce thought.
Grice is amazed that Peirce thought that some meaning is factive. The hole in
this piece of cloth means that a bullet went through is is one of Peirce’s
examples. Surely, as Grice notes, this is an unhappy example. The hole in the
cloth may well have caused by something else, or fabricated. (Or the postmark
means that the letter went through the post.) Yet, Grice was having Oxonian
tutees aware that Peirce was krypto-technical. Grice chose for one of his pre-Meaning
seminars on Peirce’s general theory of signs, with emphasis on general, and the
correspondence of Peirce and Welby. Peirce, rather than the Vienna circle,
becomes, in vein with Grices dissenting irreverent rationalism, important as a
source for Grices attempt to English Peirce. Grices implicaturum seems to be
that Peirce, rather than Ayer, cared for the subtleties of meaning and sign,
never mind a verificationist theory about them! Peirce ultra-Latinate-cum-Greek
taxonomies have Grice very nervous, though. He knew that his students were
proficient in the classics, but still. Grice thus proposes to reduce all of
Peirceian divisions and sub-divisions (one sub-division too many) to mean. In
the proceedings, he quotes from Ogden, Richards, and Ewing. In particular, Grice
was fascinated by the correspondence of Peirce with Lady Viola Welby, as repr.
by Ogden/Richards in, well, their study on the meaning of meaning. Grice
thought the science of symbolism pretentious, but then he almost thought Lady
Viola Welby slightly pretentious, too, if youve seen her; beautiful lady. It is
via Peirce that Grice explores examples such as those spots meaning measles.
Peirce’s obsession is with weathercocks almost as Ockham was with circles on
wine-barrels. Old-World Grices use of New-World Peirce is illustrative, thus,
of the Oxonian linguistic turn focused on ordinary language. While Peirce’s
background was not philosophical, Grice thought it comical enough. He would say
that Peirce is an amateur, but then he said the same thing about Mill, whom
Grice had to study by heart to get his B. A. Lit. Hum.! Plus, as Watson
commented, what is wrong with amateur? Give me an amateur philosopher ANY day,
if I have to choose from professional Hegel! In finding Peirce krypo-technical,
Grice is ensuing that his tutees, and indeed any Oxonian philosophy student (he
was university lecturer) be aware that to mean should be more of a priority
than this or that jargon by this or that (New World?) philosopher!? Partly!
Grice wanted his students to think on their own, and draw their own
conclusions! Grice cites Ewing, Ogden/Richards, and many others. Ewing, while
Oxford-educated, had ended up at Cambridge (Scruton almost had him as his
tutor) and written some points on Meaninglessness! Those spots mean measles.
Grice finds Peirce krypto-technical and proposes to English him into an
ordinary-language philosopher. Surely it is not important whether we consider a
measles spot a sign, a symbol, or an icon. One might just as well find a doctor
in London who thinks those spots symbolic. If Grice feels like Englishing
Peirce, he does not altogether fail! meaning, reprints, of Meaning and
other essays, a collection of reprints and offprints of Grices
essays. Meaning becomes a central topic of at least two strands in
Retrospective epilogue. The first strand concerns the idea of the centrality of
the utterer. What Grice there calls meaning BY (versus meaning TO), i.e. as he
also puts it, active or agents meaning. Surely he is right in defending an
agent-based account to meaning. Peirce need not, but Grice must, because he is
working with an English root, mean, that is only figurative applicable to
non-agentive items (Smoke means rain). On top, Grice wants to conclude that
only a rational creature (a person) can meanNN properly. Non-human animals may
have a correlate. This is a truly important point for Grice since he surely is
seen as promoting a NON-convention-based approach to meaning, and also
defending from the charge of circularity in the non-semantic account of
propositional attitudes. His final picture is a rationalist one. P1 G
wants to communicate about a danger to P2. This presupposes there IS
a danger (item of reality). Then P1 G believes there is a
danger, and communicates to P2 G2 that there is a danger. This
simple view of conversation as rational co-operation underlies Grices account
of meaning too, now seen as an offshoot of philosophical psychology, and indeed
biology, as he puts it. Meaning as yet another survival mechanism. While he
would never use a cognate like significance in his Oxford Philosophical Society
talk, Grice eventually starts to use such Latinate cognates at a later stage of
his development. In Meaning, Grice does not explain his goal. By sticking with
a root that the Oxford curriculum did not necessarily recognised as
philosophical (amateur Peirce did!), Grice is implicating that he is starting
an ordinary-language botanising on his own repertoire! Grice was amused by the
reliance by Ewing on very Oxonian examples contra Ayer: Surely Virtue aint a
fire-shovel is perfectly meaningful, and if fact true, if, Ill admit, somewhat
misleading and practically purposeless at Cambridge. Again, the dismissal by
Grice of natural meaning is due to the fact that natural meaning prohibits its
use in the first person and followed by a that-clause. ‘I mean-n that p’ sounds
absurd, no communication-function seems in the offing, there is no ‘sign for,’
as Woozley would have it. Grice found, with Suppes, all types of primacy
(ontological, axiological, psychological) in utterers meaning. In Retrospective
epilogue, he goes back to the topic, as he reminisces that it is his
suggestion that there are two allegedly distinguishable meaning concepts, even
if one is meta-bolical, which may be called natural meaning and non-natural
meaning. There is this or that test (notably factivity-entailment vs.
cancelation, but also scare quotes) which may be brought to bear to distinguish
one concept from the other. We may, for example, inquire whether a particular
occurrence of the predicate mean is factive or non-factive, i. e., whether for
it to be true that [so and so] means that p, it does or does not have to be the
case that it is true that p. Again, one may ask whether the use of quotation
marks to enclose the specification of what is meant would be inappropriate or
appropriate. If factivity, as in know, remember, and see, is present and
quotation marks, oratio recta, are be inappropriate, we have a case of natural
meaning. Otherwise the meaning involved is non-natural meaning. We may now ask
whether there is a single overarching idea which lies behind both members of
this dichotomy of uses to which the predicate meaning that seems to be
Subjects. If there is such a central idea it might help to indicate to us which
of the two concepts is in greater need of further analysis and elucidation and
in what direction such elucidation should proceed. Grice confesses that he has
only fairly recently come to believe that there is such an overarching idea and
that it is indeed of some service in the proposed inquiry. The idea behind both
uses of mean is that of consequence, or consequentia, as Hobbes has it. If x
means that p, something which includes p or the idea of p, is a consequence of
x. In the metabolic natural use of meaning that p, p, this or that consequence,
is this or that state of affairs. In the literal, non-metabolic, basic,
non-natural use of meaning that p, (as in Smith means that his neighbour’s
three-year child is an adult), p, this or that consequence is this or that
conception or complexus which involves some other conception. This perhaps
suggests that of the two concepts it is, as it should, non-natural meaning
which is more in need of further elucidation. It seems to be the more
specialised of the pair, and it also seems to be the less determinate. We may,
e. g., ask how this or that conception enters the picture. Or we may ask
whether what enters the picture is the conception itself or its justifiability.
On these counts Grice should look favorably on the idea that, if further
analysis should be required for one of the pair, the notion of non-natural
meaning would be first in line. There are factors which support the suitability
of further analysis for the concept of non-natural meaning. MeaningNN that
p (non-natural meaning) does not look as if it Namess an original feature of
items in the world, for two reasons which are possibly not mutually
independent. One reason is that, given suitable background conditions, meaning,
can be changed by fiat. The second reason is that the presence of meaningNN is
dependent on a framework provided by communication, if that is not too
circular. Communication is in the philosophical lexicon. Lewis and
Short have “commūnĭcātĭo,” f. communicare,"(several times in Cicero,
elsewhere rare), and as they did with negatio and they will with significatio,
Short and Lewis render, unhelpfully, as a making common, imparting,
communicating. largitio et communicatio civitatis;” “quaedam societas et
communicatio utilitatum,” “consilii communicatio, “communicatio sermonis,” criminis
cum pluribus; “communicatio nominum, i. e. the like appellation of several objects;
“juris; “damni; In rhetorics, communicatio, trading on the communis, a figure,
translating Grecian ἀνακοίνωσις, in accordance with which the utterer turns to
his addressee, and, as it were, allows him to take part in the inquiry. It
seems to Grice, then, at least reasonable and possibly even emphatically
mandatory, to treat the claim that a communication vehicle, such as this and
that expression means that p, in this transferred, metaphoric, or meta-bolic
use of means that as being reductively analysable in terms of this or that
feature of this or that utterer, communicator, or user of this or that expression.
The use of meaning that as applied to this or that expression is posterior
to and explicable through the utterer-oriented, or utterer-relativised use,
i.e. involving a reference to this or that communicator or user of this or that
expression. More specifically, one should license a metaphorical use of mean,
where one allows the claim that this or that expression means that p, provided
that this or that utterer, in this or that standard fashion, means that p, i.e.
in terms of this or that souly statee toward this or that propositional
complexus this or that utterer ntends, in a standardly fashion, to produce by
his uttering this or that utterance. That this or that expression means (in
this metaphorical use) that p is thus explicable either in terms of this
or that souly state which is standardly intended to produce in this or that
addressee A by this or that utterer of this or that expression, or in this or
that souly staken up by this or that utterer toward this or that activity or
action of this or that utterer of this or that expression. Meaning was in
the air in Oxfords linguistic turn. Everybody was talking meaning. Grice
manages to quote from Hares early “Mind” essay on the difference between
imperatives and indicatives, also Duncan-Jones on the fugitive
proposition, and of course his beloved Strawson. Grice was also concerned
by the fact that in the manoeuvre of the typical ordinary-language philosopher,
there is a constant abuse of mean. Surely Grice wants to stick with the
utterers meaning as the primary use. Expressions mean only derivatively. To do
that, he chose Peirce to see if he could clarify it with meaning that. Grice
knew that the polemic was even stronger in London, with Ogden and Lady Viola
Welby. In the more academic Oxford milieu, Grice knew that a proper examination
of meaning, would lead him, via Kneale and his researches on the history of
semantics, to the topic of signification that obsessed the modistae (and their
modus significandi). For what does L and S say about about this? This is
Grice’s reply to popular Ogden. They want to know what the meaning of meaning
is? Here is the Oxononian response by Grice, with a vengeance. Grice is not an
animist nor a mentalist, even modest. While he allows for natural
phenomena to mean (smoke means fire), meaning is best ascribed to some utterer,
where this meaning is nothing but the intentions behind his
utterance. This is the fifth James lecture. Grice was careful enough to
submit it to PR, since it is a strictly philosophical development of the views
expressed in Meaning which Strawson had submitted on Grice’s behalf to the same
Review and which had had a series of responses by various philosophers. Among
these philosophers is Strawson himself in Intention and convention in the the
theory of speech acts, also in PR. Grice quotes from very many other
philosophers in this essay, including: Urmson, Stampe,
Strawson, Schiffer, and Searle. Strawson is especially relevant since
he started a series of alleged counter-examples with his infamous example of
the rat-infested house. Grice particularly treasured Stampes alleged
counter-example involving his beloved bridge! Avramides earns a D. Phil Oxon.
on that, under Strawson! This is Grices occasion to address some of the
criticisms ‒ in the form of alleged counter-examples, typically, as his
later reflections on epagoge versus diagoge note ‒ by Urmson, Strawson,
and other philosophers associated with Oxford, such as Searle, Stampe, and
Schiffer. The final analysandum is pretty complex (of the type that he did find
his analysis of I am hearing a sound complex in Personal identity ‒
hardly an obstacle for adopting it), it became yet another target of attack by
especially New-World philosophers in the pages of Mind, Nous, and other
journals, This is officially the fifth James lecture. Grice takes up the
analysis of meaning he had presented way back at the Oxford Philosophical
Society. Motivated mainly by the attack by Urmson and by Strawson in Intention
and convention in speech acts, that offered an alleged counter-example to the
sufficiency of Grices analysis, Grice ends up introducing so many intention
that he almost trembled. He ends up seeing meaning as a value-paradeigmatic
concept, perhaps never realisable in a sublunary way. But it is the analysis in
this particular essay where he is at his formal best. He distinguishes between
protreptic and exhibitive utterances, and also modes of correlation (iconic,
conventional). He symbolises the utterer and the addressee, and generalises
over the type of psychological state, attitude, or stance, meaning seems to
range (notably indicative vs. imperative). He formalises the reflexive
intention, and more importantly, the overtness of communication in terms of a
self-referential recursive intention that disallows any sneaky intention to be
brought into the picture of meaning-constitutive intentions. Grice thought he
had dealt with Logic and conversation enough! So he feels of revising his
Meaning. After all, Strawson had had the cheek to publish Meaning by Grice and
then go on to criticize it in Intention and convention in speech acts. So this
is Grices revenge, and he wins! He ends with the most elaborate theory of mean
that an Oxonian could ever hope for. And to provoke the informalists such as
Strawson (and his disciples at Oxford – led by Strawson) he pours existential
quantifiers like the plague! He manages to quote from Urmson, whom he loved! No
word on Peirce, though, who had originated all this! His implicaturum: Im not
going to be reprimanted in informal discussion about my misreading Peirce at
Harvard! The concluding note is about artificial substitutes for iconic representation,
and meaning as a human institution. Very grand. This is Grices metabolical
projection of utterers meaning to apply to anything OTHER than utterers
meaning, notably a token of the utterers expression and a TYPE of the utterers
expression, wholly or in part. Its not like he WANTS to do it, he NEEDS it to
give an account of implicaturum. The phrase utterer is meant to provoke. Grice
thinks that speaker is too narrow. Surely you can mean by just uttering
stuff! This is the sixth James lecture, as published in “Foundations of
Language” (henceforth, “FL”), or “The foundations of language,” as he
preferred. As it happens, it became a popular lecture, seeing that Searle
selected this from the whole set for his Oxford reading in philosophy on the
philosophy of language. It is also the essay cited by Chomsky in his
influential Locke lectures. Chomsky takes Grice to be a behaviourist, even
along Skinners lines, which provoked a reply by Suppes, repr. in PGRICE. In The
New World, the H. P. is often given in a more simplified form. Grice wants to
keep on playing. In Meaning, he had said x means that p is surely reducible to
utterer U means that p. In this lecture, he lectures us as to how to proceed.
In so doing he invents this or that procedure: some basic, some resultant. When
Chomsky reads the reprint in Searles Philosophy of Language, he cries:
Behaviourist! Skinnerian! It was Suppes who comes to Grices defence. Surely the
way Grice uses expressions like resultant procedure are never meant in the strict
behaviourist way. Suppes concludes that it is much fairer to characterise Grice
as an intentionalist. Published in FL, ed. by Staal, Repr.in Searle, The
Philosophy of Language, Oxford, the sixth James Lecture, FL, resultant
procedure, basic procedure. Staal asked Grice to publish the sixth James
lecture for a newish periodical publication of whose editorial board he was a
member. The fun thing is Grice complied! This is Grices shaggy-dog story. He
does not seem too concerned about resultant procedures. As he will ll later
say, surely I can create Deutero-Esperanto and become its master! For Grice,
the primacy is the idiosyncratic, particularized utterer in this or that
occasion. He knows a philosopher craves for generality, so he provokes the
generality-searcher with divisions and sub-divisions of mean. But his heart
does not seem to be there, and he is just being overformalistic and technical
for the sake of it. I am glad that Putnam, of all people, told me in an aside,
you are being too formal, Grice. I stopped with symbolism since! Communication.
This is Grice’s clearest anti-animist attack by Grice. He had joins Hume in
mocking causing and willing: The decapitation of Charles I as willing Charles
Is death. Language semantics alla Tarski. Grice know sees his former self. If
he was obsessed, after Ayer, with mean, he now wants to see if his explanation
of it (then based on his pre-theoretic intuition) is theoretically advisable in
terms other than dealing with those pre-theoretical facts, i.e. how he deals
with a lexeme like mean. This is a bit like Grice: implicaturum, revisited. An
axiological approach to meaning. Strictly a reprint of Grice, which should be
the preferred citation. The date is given by Grice himself, and he knew! Grice
also composed some notes on Remnants on meaning, by Schiffer. This is a bit
like Grices meaning re-revisited. Schiffer had been Strawsons tutee at Oxford
as a Rhode Scholar in the completion of his D. Phil. on Meaning, Clarendon.
Eventually, Schiffer grew sceptic, and let Grice know about it! Grice did not
find Schiffers arguments totally destructive, but saw the positive side to
them. Schiffers arguments should remind any philosopher that the issues he is
dealing are profound and bound to involve much elucidation before they are
solved. This is a bit like Grice: implicaturum, revisited. Meaning revisited
(an ovious nod to Evelyn Waughs Yorkshire-set novel) is the title Grice chose
for a contribution to a symposium at Brighton organised by Smith. Meaning
revisited (although Grice has earlier drafts entitled Meaning and philosophical
psychology) comprises three sections. In the first section, Grice is concerned
with the application of his modified Occam’s razor now to the very lexeme,
mean. Cf. How many senses does sense have? Cohen: The Senses of Senses. In the
second part, Grice explores an evolutionary model of creature construction
reaching a stage of non-iconic representation. Finally, in the third section,
motivated to solve what he calls a major problem ‒ versus the minor problem
concerning the transition from the meaning by the utterer to the meaning
by the expression. Grice attempts to construct meaning as a value-paradeigmatic
notion. A version was indeed published in the proceedings of the Brighton
symposium, by Croom Helm, London. Grice has a couple of other drafts with
variants on this title: philosophical psychology and meaning, psychology and
meaning. He keeps, meaningfully, changing the order. It is not arbitrary that
the fascinating exploration by Grice is in three parts. In the first, where he
applies his Modified Occams razor to mean, he is revisiting Stevenson. Smoke
means fire and I mean love, dont need different senses of mean. Stevenson is
right when using scare quotes for smoke ‘meaning’ fire utterance. Grice is very
much aware that that, the rather obtuse terminology of senses, was exactly the
terminology he had adopted in both Meaning and the relevant James lectures (V
and VI) at Harvard! Now, its time to revisit and to echo Graves, say, goodbye
to all that! In the second part he applies Pology. While he knows his audience
is not philosophical ‒ it is not Oxford ‒ he thinks they still may get
some entertainment! We have a P feeling pain, simulating it, and finally
uttering, I am in pain. In the concluding section, Grice becomes Plato. He sees
meaning as an optimum, i.e. a value-paradeigmatic notion introducing value in
its guise of optimality. Much like Plato thought circle works in his idiolect.
Grice played with various titles, in the Grice Collection. Theres philosophical
psychology and meaning. The reason is obvious. The lecture is strictly divided
in sections, and it is only natural that Grice kept drafts of this or that section
in his collection. In WOW Grice notes that he re-visited his Meaning re-visited
at a later stage, too! And he meant it! Surely, there is no way to understand
the stages of Grice’s development of his ideas about meaning without Peirce! It
is obvious here that Grice thought that mean two figurative or metabolical
extensions of use. Smoke means fire and Smoke means smoke. The latter is a
transferred use in that impenetrability means lets change the topic if
Humpty-Dumpty m-intends that it and Alice are to change the topic. Why did
Grice feel the need to add a retrospective epilogue? He loved to say that what
the “way of words” contains is neither his first, nor his last word. So trust
him to have some intermediate words to drop. He is at his most casual in the
very last section of the epilogue. The first section is more of a very systematic
justification for any mistake the reader may identify in the offer. The words
in the epilogue are thus very guarded and qualificatory. Just one example about
our focus: conversational implicate and conversation as rational co-operation.
He goes back to Essay 2, but as he notes, this was hardly the first word on the
principle of conversational helpfulness, nor indeed the first occasion where he
actually used implicaturum. As regards co-operation, the retrospective epilogue
allows him to expand on a causal phrasing in Essay 2, “purposive, indeed
rational.” Seeing in retrospect how the idea of rationality was the one that
appealed philosophers most – since it provides a rationale and justification
for what is otherwise an arbitrary semantic proliferation. Grice then
distinguishes between the thesis that conversation is purposive, and the thesis
that conversation is rational. And, whats more, and in excellent Griceian
phrasing, there are two theses here, too. One thing is to see conversation as
rational, and another, to use his very phrasing, as rational co-operation!
Therefore, when one discusses the secondary literature, one should be attentive
to whether the author is referring to Grices qualifications in the
Retrospective epilogue. Grice is careful to date some items. However, since he
kept rewriting, one has to be careful. These seven folder contain the material
for the compilation. Grice takes the opportunity of the compilation by Harvard
of his WOW, representative of the mid-60s, i. e. past the heyday of
ordinary-language philosophy, to review the idea of philosophical progress in
terms of eight different strands which display, however, a consistent and
distinctive unity. Grice keeps playing with valediction, valedictory,
prospective and retrospective, and the different drafts are all kept in The
Grice Papers. The Retrospective epilogue, is divided into two sections. In the
first section, he provides input for his eight strands, which cover not just meaning,
and the assertion-implication distinction to which he alludes to in the
preface, but for more substantial philosophical issues like the philosophy of
perception, and the defense of common sense realism versus the sceptial
idealist. The concluding section tackles more directly a second theme he had
idenfitied in the preface, which is a methodological one, and his long-standing
defence of ordinary-language philosophy. The section involves a fine
distinction between the Athenian dialectic and the Oxonian dialectic, and tells
the tale about his fairy godmother, G*. As he notes, Grice had dropped a few
words in the preface explaining the ordering of essays in the compilation. He
mentions that he hesitated to follow a suggestion by Bennett that the ordering
of the essays be thematic and chronological. Rather, Grice chooses to
publish the whole set of seven James lectures, what he calls the centerpiece,
as part I. II, the explorations in semantics and metaphysics, is organised more
or less thematically, though. In the Retrospective epilogue, Grice takes up
this observation in the preface that two ideas or themes underlie his Studies:
that of meaning, and assertion vs. implication, and philosophical methodology.
The Retrospective epilogue is thus an exploration on eight strands he
identifies in his own philosophy. Grices choice of strand is careful. For
Grice, philosophy, like virtue, is entire. All the strands belong to the same
knit, and therefore display some latitudinal, and, he hopes, longitudinal unity,
the latter made evidence by his drawing on the Athenian dialectic as a
foreshadow of the Oxonian dialectic to come, in the heyday of the Oxford school
of analysis, when an interest in the serious study of ordinary language had
never been since and will never be seen again. By these two types of unity,
Grice means the obvious fact that all branches of philosophy (philosophy of
language, or semantics, philosophy of perception, philosophical psychology,
metaphysics, axiology, etc.) interact and overlap, and that a historical regard
for ones philosophical predecessors is a must, especially at Oxford. Why is
Grice obsessed with asserting? He is more interested, technically, in the
phrastic, or dictor. Grice sees a unity, indeed, equi-vocality, in the
buletic-doxastic continuum. Asserting is usually associated with the doxastic.
Since Grice is always ready to generalise his points to cover the buletic
(recall his Meaning, “theres by now no reason to stick to informative cases,”),
it is best to re-define his asserting in terms of the phrastic. This is enough
of a strong point. As Hare would agree, for emotivists like Barnes, say, an
utterance of buletic force may not have any content whatsoever. For Grice,
there is always a content, the proposition which becomes true when the action
is done and the desire is fulfilled or satisfied. Grice quotes from Bennett.
Importantly, Grice focuses on the assertion/non-assertion distinction. He
overlooks the fact that for this or that of his beloved imperative utterance,
asserting is out of the question, but explicitly conveying that p is not.
He needs a dummy to stand for a psychological or souly state, stance, or
attitude of either boule or doxa, to cover the field of the utterer
mode-neutrally conveying explicitly that his addressee A is to entertain that
p. The explicatum or explicitum sometimes does the trick, but sometimes it does
not. It is interesting to review the Names index to the volume, as well as the
Subjects index. This is a huge collection, comprising 14 folders. By contract,
Grice was engaged with Harvard, since it is the President of the College that
holds the copyrights for the James lectures. The title Grice eventually chooses
for his compilation of essays, which goes far beyond the James, although
keeping them as the centerpiece, is a tribute to Locke, who, although obsessed
with his idealist and empiricist new way of ideas, leaves room for both the
laymans and scientists realist way of things, and, more to the point, for this
or that philosophical semiotician to offer this or that study in the way of
words. Early in the linguistic turn minor revolution, the expression the new
way of words, had been used derogatorily. WOW is organised in two parts: Logic
and conversation and the somewhat pretentiously titled Explorations in
semantics and metaphysics, which offers commentary around the centerpiece. It
also includes a Preface and a very rich and inspired Retrospective epilogue.
From part I, the James lectures, only three had not been previously published.
The first unpublished lecture is Prolegomena, which really sets the scene, and
makes one wonder what the few philosophers who quote from The logic of grammar
could have made from the second James lecture taken in isolation. Grice
explores Aristotle’s “to alethes”: “For the true and the false exist with respect
to synthesis and division (peri gar synthesin kai diaireisin esti to pseudos
kai to alethes).” Aristotle insists upon the com-positional form of truth in
several texts: cf. De anima, 430b3 ff.: “in truth and falsity, there is a
certain composition (en hois de kai to pseudos kai to alethes, synthesis tis)”;
cf. also Met. 1027b19 ff.: the true and the false are with respect to (peri)
composition and decomposition (synthesis kai diaresis).” It also shows that
Grices style is meant for public delivery, rather than reading. The second
unpublished lecture is Indicative conditionals. This had been used by a few
philosophers, such as Gazdar, noting that there were many mistakes in the
typescript, for which Grice is not to be blamed. The third is on some models
for implicaturum. Since this Grice acknowledges is revised, a comparison with
the original handwritten version of the final James lecture retrieves a few
differences From Part II, a few essays had not been published before, but
Grice, nodding to the longitudinal unity of philosophy, is very careful and
proud to date them. Commentary on the individual essays is made under the
appropriate dates. Philosophical correspondence is quite a genre. Hare would
express in a letter to the Librarian for the Oxford Union, “Wiggins does not
want to be understood,” or in a letter to Bennett that Williams is the worse
offender of Kantianism! It was different with Grice. He did not type. And he
wrote only very occasionally! These are four folders with general
correspondence, mainly of the academic kind. At Oxford, Grice would hardly keep
a correspondence, but it was different with the New World, where academia turns
towards the bureaucracy. Grice is not precisely a good, or reliable, as The BA
puts it, correspondent. In the Oxford manner, Grice prefers a face-to-face
interaction, any day. He treasures his Saturday mornings under Austins
guidance, and he himself leads the Play Group after Austins demise, which, as
Owen reminisced, attained a kind of cult status. Oxford is different. As a
tutorial fellow in philosophy, Grice was meant to tutor his students; as a
University Lecturer he was supposed to lecture sometimes other fellowss tutees!
Nothing about this reads: publish or perish! This is just one f. containing
Grices own favourite Griceian references. To the historian of analytic
philosophy, it is of particular interest. It shows which philosophers Grice
respected the most, and which ones the least. As one might expect, even on the
cold shores of Oxford, as one of Grices tutees put it, Grice is cited by
various Oxford philosophers. Perhaps the first to cite Grice in print is his
tutee Strawson, in “Logical Theory.” Early on, Hart quotes Grice on meaning in
his review in The Philosophical Quarterly of Holloways Language and
Intelligence before Meaning had been published. Obviously, once Grice and
Strawson, In defense of a dogma and Grice, Meaning are published by The
Philosophical Review, Grice is discussed profusely. References to the implicaturum
start to appear in the literature at Oxford in the mid-1960s, within the playgroup,
as in Hare and Pears. It is particularly intriguing to explore those
philosophers Grice picks up for dialogue, too, and perhaps arrange them
alphabetically, from Austin to Warnock, say. And Griceian philosophical
references, Oxonian or other, as they should, keep counting! The way to search
the Grice Papers here is using alternate keywords, notably “meaning.” “Meaning”
s. II, “Utterer’s meaning and intentions,” s. II, “Utterer’s meaning,
sentence-meaning, and word meaning,” s. II, “Meaning revisited,” s. II. – but
also “Meaning and psychology,” s. V, c.7-ff.
24-25. While Grice uses “signification,” and lectured on Peirce’s
“signs,” “Peirce’s general theory of signs,” (s. V, c. 8-f. 29), he would avoid
such pretentiously sounding expressions. Searching under ‘semantic’ and
‘semantics’ (“Grammar and semantics,” c. 7-f. 5; “Language semantics,” c.
7-f.20, “Basic Pirotese, sentence semantics and syntax,” c. 8-f. 30, “Semantics
of children’s language,” c. 9-f. 10, “Sentence semantics” (c. 9-f. 11);
“Sentence semantics and propositional complexes,” c. 9-f.12, “Syntax and
semantics,” c. 9-ff. 17-18) may help, too. Folder on Schiffer (“Schiffer,” c.
9-f. 9), too.
Grice on the compactness
theorem, a theorem for first-order logic: if every finite subset of a given
infinite theory T is consistent, then the whole theory is consistent. The
result is an immediate consequence of the completeness theorem, for if the theory
were not consistent, a contradiction, say ‘P and not-P’, would be provable from
it. But the proof, being a finitary object, would use only finitely many axioms
from T, so this finite subset of T would be inconsistent. This proof of the
compactness theorem is very general, showing that any language that has a sound
and complete system of inference, where each rule allows only finitely many
premises, satisfies the theorem. This is important because the theorem
immediately implies that many familiar mathematical notions are not expressible
in the language in question, notions like those of a finite set or a
well-ordering relation. The compactness theorem is important for other reasons
as well. It is the most frequently applied result in the study of first-order
model theory and has inspired interesting developments within set theory and
its foundations by generating a search for infinitary languages that obey some
analog of the theorem.
Grice’s complementary
class, the class of all things not in a given class. For example, if C is the
class of all red things, then its complementary class is the class containing
everything that is not red. This latter class includes even non-colored things,
like numbers and the class C itself. Often, the context will determine a less
inclusive complementary class. If B 0 A, then the complement of B with respect
to A is A B. For example, if A is the
class of physical objects, and B is the class of red physical objects, then the
complement of B with respect to A is the class of non-red physical
objects.
Grice on completeness, a
property that something typically, a set
of axioms, a logic, a theory, a set of well-formed formulas, a language, or a
set of connectives has when it is strong
enough in some desirable respect. 1 A set of axioms is complete for the logic L
if every theorem of L is provable using those axioms. 2 A logic L has weak
semantical completeness if every valid sentence of the language of L is a
theorem of L. L has strong semantical completeness or is deductively complete
if for every set G of sentences, every logical consequence of G is deducible
from G using L. A propositional logic L is Halldén-complete if whenever A 7 B
is a theorem of L, where A and B share no variables, either A or B is a theorem
of L. And L is Post-complete if L is consistent but no stronger logic for the
same language is consistent. Reference to the “completeness” of a logic,
without further qualification, is almost invariably to either weak or strong
semantical completeness. One curious exception: second-order logic is often
said to be “incomplete,” where what is meant is that it is not axiomatizable. 3
A theory T is negation-complete often simply complete if for every sentence A
of the lancommon notions completeness 162
162 guage of T, either A or its negation is provable in T. And T is
omega-complete if whenever it is provable in T that a property f / holds of
each natural number 0, 1, . . . , it is also provable that every number has f.
Generalizing on this, any set G of well-formed formulas might be called omega
complete if vA[v] is deducible from G whenever A[t] is deducible from G for all
terms t, where A[t] is the result of replacing all free occurrences of v in
A[v] by t. 4 A language L is expressively complete if each of a given class of
items is expressible in L. Usually, the class in question is the class of
twovalued truth-functions. The propositional language whose sole connectives
are - and 7 is thus said to be expressively or functionally complete, while
that built up using 7 alone is not, since classical negation is not expressible
therein. Here one might also say that the set {-,7} is expressively or
functionally complete, while {7} is not.
completion: Grice speaks of ‘complete’ and ‘incomplete. Consider
“Fido is shaggy.” That’s complete. “Fido” is incomplete – like pig. “is shaggy”
is incomplete. This is Grice’s Platonism, hardly the nominalism that Bennett
abuses Grice with! For the rational pirot (not the parrot) has access to a
theory of complete --. When lecturing on Peirce, Grice referred to Russell’s
excellent idea of improving on Peirce. “Don’t ask for the meaning of ‘red,’ ask
for the meaning of ‘x is red.” Cf. Plato, “Don’t try to see horseness, try to
see ‘x is a horse. Don’t be stupid.” Now “x is red” is a bit incomplete. Surely
it can be rendered by the complete, “Something, je-ne-sais-quoi, to use Hume’s
vulgarism, is red.” So, to have an act of referring without an act of
predicating is incomplete. But still useful for philosophical analysis.
complexum: versus the ‘simplex.’ Grice starts with the simplex. All
he needs is a handwave to ascribe ‘the emissor communicates that he knows the
route.’ The proposition which is being transmitted HAS to be complex: Subject,
“The emissor”, copula, “is,” ‘predicate: “a knower of the route.”Grice allows
for the syntactically unstructured handwave to be ‘ambiguous’ so that the
intention on the emissor’s part involves his belief that the emissee will take
this rather than that proposition as being transmitted: Second complex: “Subject:
Emissor, copula: is, predicate: about to leave the emissee.”Vide the altogether
nice girl, and the one-at-a-time sailor. The topic is essential in seeing Grice
within the British empiricist tradition. Empiricists always loved a simplex,
like ‘red.’ In his notes on ‘Meaning’ and “Peirce,’ Grice notes that for a
‘simplex’ like “red,” the best way to deal with it is via a Russellian
function, ‘x is red.’ The opposite of ‘simplex’ is of course a ‘complexum.’ hile
Grice does have an essay on the ‘complexum,’ he is mostly being jocular. His
dissection of the proposition proceds by considering ‘the a,’ and its
denotatum, or reference, and ‘is the b,’ which involves then the predication.
This is Grice’s shaggy-dog story. Once we have ‘the dog is shaggy,’ we have a
‘complexum,’ and we can say that the utterer means, by uttering ‘Fido is
shaggy,’ that the dog is hairy-coated. Simple, right? It’s the jocular in
Grice. He is joking on philosophers who look at those representative of the
linguistic turn, and ask, “So what do you have to say about reference and
predication,’ and Grice comes up with an extra-ordinary analysis of what is to
believe that the dog is hairy-coat, and communicating it. In fact, the
‘communicating’ is secondary. Once Grice has gone to metabolitical extension of
‘mean’ to apply to the expression, communication becomes secondary in that it
has to be understood in what Grice calls the ‘atenuated’ usage involving this
or that ‘readiness’ to have this or that procedure, basic or resultant, in one’s
repertoire! Bealer is one of Grices most brilliant tutees in the New World. The
Grice collection contains a full f. of correspondence with Bealer. Bealer
refers to Grice in his influential Clarendon essay on content. Bealer is
concerned with how pragmatic inference may intrude in the ascription of a
psychological, or souly, state, attitude, or stance. Bealer loves to quote from
Grice on definite descriptions in Russell and in the vernacular, the implicaturum
being that Russell is impenetrable! Bealers mentor is Grices close collaborator
Myro, so he knows what he is talking about. Grice explored the matter of
subperception at Oxford only with G. J. Warnock.
Grice’s complexe
significabile plural: -- Grice used to say jocularly that he wasn’t commited to
propositions; only to propositional complexes -- complexe significabilia, also
called complexum significabile, in medieval philosophy, what is signified only
by a complexum a statement or declarative sentence, by a that-clause, or by a
dictum an accusative ! infinitive construction, as in: ‘I want him to go’. It
is analogous to the modern proposition. The doctrine seems to have originated
with Adam de Wodeham in the early fourteenth century, but is usually associated
with Gregory of Rimini slightly later. Complexe significabilia do not fall
under any of the Aristotelian categories, and so do not “exist” in the ordinary
way. Still, they are somehow real. For before creation nothing existed except
God, but even then God knew that the world was going to exist. The object of
this knowledge cannot have been God himself since God is necessary, but the
world’s existence is contingent, and yet did not “exist” before creation.
Nevertheless, it was real enough to be an object of knowledge. Some authors who
maintained such a view held that these entities were not only signifiable in a
complex way by a statement, but were themselves complex in their inner
structure; the term ‘complexum significabile’ is unique to their theories. The
theory of complexe significabilia was vehemently criticized by late medieval
nominalists. Refs.: The main reference is in
‘Reply to Richards.’ But there is “Sentence semantics and propositional
complexes,” c. 9-f. 12, BANC.
possibile –
“what is actual is not also possible – grave mistake!” – H. P. Grice.
compossible, capable of existing or occurring together. E.g., two individuals
are compossible provided the existence of one of them is compatible with the
existence of the other. In terms of possible worlds, things are compossible
provided there is some possible world to which all of them belong; otherwise
they are incompossible. Not all possibilities are compossible. E.g., the
extinction of life on earth by the year 3000 is possible; so is its
continuation until the year 10,000; but since it is impossible that both of
these things should happen, they are not compossible. Leibniz held that any
non-actualized possibility must be incompossible with what is actual.
intensio
-- comprehension, as applied to a term, the set of attributes implied by a
term. The comprehension of ‘square’, e.g., includes being four-sided, having
equal sides, and being a plane figure, among other attributes. The
comprehension of a term is contrasted with its extension, which is the set of
individuals to which the term applies. The distinction between the extension
and the comprehension of a term was introduced in the Port-Royal Logic by
Arnauld and Pierre Nicole in 1662. Current practice is to use the expression ‘intension’
rather than ‘comprehension’. Both expressions, however, are inherently somewhat
vague.
iron-age
physics: Grice on Russellian compresence, an unanalyzable
relation in terms of which Russell, in his later writings especially in Human
Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, 8, took concrete particular objects to be
analyzable. Concrete particular objects are analyzable in terms of complexes of
qualities all of whose members are compresent. Although this relation can be
defined only ostensively, Russell states that it appears in psychology as
“simultaneity in one experience” and in physics as “overlapping in space-time.”
Complete complexes of compresence are complexes of qualities having the
following two properties: 1 all members of the complex are compresent; 2 given
anything not a member of the complex, there is at least one member of the
complex with which it is not compresent. He argues that there is strong
empirical evidence that no two complete complexes have all their qualities in
common. Finally, space-time pointinstants are analyzed as complete complexes of
compresence. Concrete particulars, on the other hand, are analyzed as series of
incomplete complexes of compresence related by certain causal laws.
Grice’s
computatio sive logica -- computability, roughly, the
possibility of computation on a Turing machine. The first convincing general
definition, A. N. Turing’s 6, has been proved equivalent to the known plausible
alternatives, so that the concept of computability is generally recognized as an
absolute one. Turing’s definition referred to computations by imaginary
tape-processing machines that we now know to be capable of computing the same
functions whether simple sums and products or highly complex, esoteric
functions that modern digital computing machines could compute if provided with
sufficient storage capacity. In the form ‘Any function that is computable at
all is computable on a Turing machine’, this absoluteness claim is called
Turing’s thesis. A comparable claim for Alonzo Church’s 5 concept of
lcomputability is called Church’s thesis. Similar theses are enunciated for
Markov algorithms, for S. C. Kleene’s notion of general recursiveness, etc. It
has been proved that the same functions are computable in all of these ways.
There is no hope of proving any of those theses, for such a proof would require
a definition of ‘computable’ a
definition that would simply be a further item in the list, the subject of a
further thesis. But since computations of new kinds might be recognizable as
genuine in particular cases, Turing’s thesis and its equivalents, if false,
might be decisively refuted by discovery of a particular function, a way of
computing it, and a proof that no Turing machine can compute it. The halting
problem for say Turing machines is the problem of devising a Turing machine
that computes the function hm, n % 1 or 0 depending on whether or not Turing
machine number m ever halts, once started with the number n on its tape. This
problem is unsolvable, for a machine that computed h could be modified to
compute a function gn, which is undefined the machine goes into an endless loop
when hn, n % 1, and otherwise agrees with hn, n. But this modified machine Turing machine number k, say would have contradictory properties: started
with k on its tape, it would eventually halt if and only if it does not. Turing
proved unsolvability of the decision problem for logic the problem of devising
a Turing machine that, applied to argument number n in logical notation,
correctly classifies it as valid or invalid by reducing the halting problem to
the decision problem, i.e., showing how any solution to the latter could be
used to solve the former problem, which we know to be unsolvable. computer theory, the theory of the design,
uses, powers, and limits of modern electronic digital computers. It has
important bearings on philosophy, as may be seen from the many philosophical
references herein. Modern computers are a radically new kind of machine, for
they are active physical realizations of formal languages of logic and
arithmetic. Computers employ sophisticated languages, and they have reasoning
powers many orders of magnitude greater than those of any prior machines.
Because they are far superior to humans in many important tasks, they have
produced a revolution in society that is as profound as the industrial
revolution and is advancing much more rapidly. Furthermore, computers
themselves are evolving rapidly. When a computer is augmented with devices for
sensing and acting, it becomes a powerful control system, or a robot. To
understand the implications of computers for philosophy, one should imagine a
robot that has basic goals and volitions built into it, including conflicting
goals and competing desires. This concept first appeared in Karel C v apek’s
play Rossum’s Universal Robots 0, where the word ‘robot’ originated. A computer
has two aspects, hardware and programming languages. The theory of each is
relevant to philosophy. The software and hardware aspects of a computer are
somewhat analogous to the human mind and body. This analogy is especially
strong if we follow Peirce and consider all information processing in nature
and in human organisms, not just the conscious use of language. Evolution has
produced a succession of levels of sign usage and information processing:
self-copying chemicals, self-reproducing cells, genetic programs directing the
production of organic forms, chemical and neuronal signals in organisms,
unconscious human information processing, ordinary languages, and technical languages.
But each level evolved gradually from its predecessors, so that the line
between body and mind is vague. The hardware of a computer is typically
organized into three general blocks: memory, processor arithmetic unit and
control, and various inputoutput devices for communication between machine and
environment. The memory stores the data to be processed as well as the program
that directs the processing. The processor has an arithmetic-logic unit for
transforming data, and a control for executing the program. Memory, processor,
and input-output communicate to each other through a fast switching system. The
memory and processor are constructed from registers, adders, switches, cables,
and various other building blocks. These in turn are composed of electronic
components: transistors, resistors, and wires. The input and output devices
employ mechanical and electromechanical technologies as well as electronics.
Some input-output devices also serve as auxiliary memories; floppy disks and
magnetic tapes are examples. For theoretical purposes it is useful to imagine
that the computer has an indefinitely expandable storage tape. So imagined, a
computer is a physical realization of a Turing machine. The idea of an
indefinitely expandable memory is similar to the logician’s concept of an
axiomatic formal language that has an unlimited number of proofs and theorems.
The software of a modern electronic computer is written in a hierarchy of
programming languages. The higher-level languages are designed for use by human
programmers, operators, and maintenance personnel. The “machine language” is
the basic hardware language, interpreted and executed by the control. Its words
are sequences of binary digits or bits. Programs written in intermediate-level
languages are used by the computer to translate the languages employed by human
users into the machine language for execution. A programming language has
instructional means for carrying out three kinds of operations: data operations
and transfers, transfers of control from one part of the program to the other,
and program self-modification. Von Neumann designed the first modern
programming language. A programming language is general purpose, and an
electronic computer that executes it can in principle carry out any algorithm
or effective procedure, including the simulation of any other computer. Thus
the modern electronic computer is a practical realization of the abstract
concept of a universal Turing machine. What can actually be computed in
practice depends, of course, on the state of computer technology and its
resources. It is common for computers at many different spatial locations to be
interconnected into complex networks by telephone, radio, and satellite
communication systems. Insofar as users in one part of the network can control
other parts, either legitimately or illegitimately e.g., by means of a
“computer virus”, a global network of computers is really a global computer.
Such vast computers greatly increase societal interdependence, a fact of
importance for social philosophy. The theory of computers has two branches,
corresponding to the hardware and software aspects of computers. The
fundamental concept of hardware theory is that of a finite automaton, which may
be expressed either as an idealized logical network of simple computer
primitives, or as the corresponding temporal system of input, output, and
internal states. A finite automaton may be specified as a logical net of
truth-functional switches and simple memory elements, connected to one another
by computer theory computer theory idealized wires. These elements function
synchronously, each wire being in a binary state 0 or 1 at each moment of time
t % 0, 1, 2, . . . . Each switching element or “gate” executes a simple
truth-functional operation not, or, and, nor, not-and, etc. and is imagined to
operate instantaneously compare the notions of sentential connective and truth
table. A memory element flip-flop, binary counter, unit delay line preserves
its input bit for one or more time-steps. A well-formed net of switches and
memory elements may not have cycles through switches only, but it typically has
feedback cycles through memory elements. The wires of a logical net are of
three kinds: input, internal, and output. Correspondingly, at each moment of time
a logical net has an input state, an internal state, and an output state. A
logical net or automaton need not have any input wires, in which case it is a
closed system. The complete history of a logical net is described by a
deterministic law: at each moment of time t, the input and internal states of
the net determine its output state and its next internal state. This leads to
the second definition of ‘finite automaton’: it is a deterministic finite-state
system characterized by two tables. The transition table gives the next
internal state produced by each pair of input and internal states. The output
table gives the output state produced by each input state and internal state.
The state analysis approach to computer hardware is of practical value only for
systems with a few elements e.g., a binary-coded decimal counter, because the
number of states increases as a power of the number of elements. Such a rapid
rate of increase of complexity with size is called the combinatorial explosion,
and it applies to many discrete systems. However, the state approach to finite
automata does yield abstract models of law-governed systems that are of
interest to logic and philosophy. A correctly operating digital computer is a
finite automaton. Alan Turing defined the finite part of what we now call a
Turing machine in terms of states. It seems doubtful that a human organism has
more computing power than a finite automaton. A closed finite automaton
illustrates Nietzsche’s law of eternal return. Since a finite automaton has a
finite number of internal states, at least one of its internal states must
occur infinitely many times in any infinite state history. And since a closed
finite automaton is deterministic and has no inputs, a repeated state must be
followed by the same sequence of states each time it occurs. Hence the history
of a closed finite automaton is periodic, as in the law of eternal return.
Idealized neurons are sometimes used as the primitive elements of logical nets,
and it is plausible that for any brain and central nervous system there is a
logical network that behaves the same and performs the same functions. This
shows the close relation of finite automata to the brain and central nervous
system. The switches and memory elements of a finite automaton may be made
probabilistic, yielding a probabilistic automaton. These automata are models of
indeterministic systems. Von Neumann showed how to extend deterministic logical
nets to systems that contain selfreproducing automata. This is a very basic
logical design relevant to the nature of life. The part of computer programming
theory most relevant to philosophy contains the answer to Leibniz’s conjecture
concerning his characteristica universalis and calculus ratiocinator. He held
that “all our reasoning is nothing but the joining and substitution of
characters, whether these characters be words or symbols or pictures.” He
thought therefore that one could construct a universal, arithmetic language
with two properties of great philosophical importance. First, every atomic
concept would be represented by a prime number. Second, the truth-value of any
logically true-or-false statement expressed in the characteristica universalis
could be calculated arithmetically, and so any rational dispute could be
resolved by calculation. Leibniz expected to do the computation by hand with
the help of a calculating machine; today we would do it on an electronic
computer. However, we know now that Leibniz’s proposed language cannot exist,
for no computer or computer program can calculate the truth-value of every
logically true-orfalse statement given to it. This fact follows from a logical
theorem about the limits of what computer programs can do. Let E be a modern
electronic computer with an indefinitely expandable memory, so that E has the
power of a universal Turing machine. And let L be any formal language in which
every arithmetic statement can be expressed, and which is consistent. Leibniz’s
proposed characteristica universalis would be such a language. Now a computer
that is operating correctly is an active formal language, carrying out the
instructions of its program deductively. Accordingly, Gödel’s incompleteness
theorems for formal arithmetic apply to computer E. It follows from these
theorems that no program can enable computer E to decide of an arbitrary
statecomputer theory computer theory 166
166 ment of L whether or not that statement is true. More strongly,
there cannot even be a program that will enable E to enumerate the truths of
language L one after another. Therefore Leibniz’s characteristica universalis
cannot exist. Electronic computers are the first active or “live” mathematical
systems. They are the latest addition to a long historical series of
mathematical tools for inquiry: geometry, algebra, calculus and differential
equations, probability and statistics, and modern mathematics. The most
effective use of computer programs is to instruct computers in tasks for which
they are superior to humans. Computers are being designed and programmed to
cooperate with humans so that the calculation, storage, and judgment
capabilities of the two are synthesized. The powers of such humancomputer
combines will increase at an exponential rate as computers continue to become
faster, more powerful, and easier to use, while at the same time becoming
smaller and cheaper. The social implications of this are very important. The
modern electronic computer is a new tool for the logic of discovery Peirce’s
abduction. An inquirer or inquirers operating a computer interactively can use it
as a universal simulator, dynamically modeling systems that are too complex to
study by traditional mathematical methods, including non-linear systems.
Simulation is used to explain known empirical results, and also to develop new
hypotheses to be tested by observation. Computer models and simulations are
unique in several ways: complexity, dynamism, controllability, and visual
presentability. These properties make them important new tools for modeling and
thereby relevant to some important philosophical problems. A humancomputer
combine is especially suited for the study of complex holistic and hierarchical
systems with feedback cf. cybernetics, including adaptive goal-directed
systems. A hierarchical-feedback system is a dynamic structure organized into several
levels, with the compounds of one level being the atoms or building blocks of
the next higher level, and with cyclic paths of influence operating both on and
between levels. For example, a complex human institution has several levels,
and the people in it are themselves hierarchical organizations of selfcopying
chemicals, cells, organs, and such systems as the pulmonary and the central
nervous system. The behaviors of these systems are in general much more complex
than, e.g., the behaviors of traditional systems of mechanics. Contrast an
organism, society, or ecology with our planetary system as characterized by
Kepler and Newton. Simple formulas ellipses describe the orbits of the planets.
More basically, the planetary system is stable in the sense that a small
perturbation of it produces a relatively small variation in its subsequent
history. In contrast, a small change in the state of a holistic hierarchical
feedback system often amplifies into a very large difference in behavior, a
concern of chaos theory. For this reason it is helpful to model such systems on
a computer and run sample histories. The operator searches for representative
cases, interesting phenomena, and general principles of operation. The
humancomputer method of inquiry should be a useful tool for the study of
biological evolution, the actual historical development of complex adaptive
goal-directed systems. Evolution is a logical and communication process as well
as a physical and chemical process. But evolution is statistical rather than
deterministic, because a single temporal state of the system results in a
probabilistic distribution of histories, rather than in a single history. The
genetic operators of mutation and crossover, e.g., are probabilistic operators.
But though it is stochastic, evolution cannot be understood in terms of
limiting relative frequencies, for the important developments are the repeated
emergence of new phenomena, and there may be no evolutionary convergence toward
a final state or limit. Rather, to understand evolution the investigator must
simulate the statistical spectra of histories covering critical stages of the
process. Many important evolutionary phenomena should be studied by using
simulation along with observation and experiment. Evolution has produced a
succession of levels of organization: selfcopying chemicals, self-reproducing
cells, communities of cells, simple organisms, haploid sexual reproduction,
diploid sexuality with genetic dominance and recessiveness, organisms composed
of organs, societies of organisms, humans, and societies of humans. Most of
these systems are complex hierarchical feedback systems, and it is of interest
to understand how they emerged from earlier systems. Also, the interaction of
competition and cooperation at all stages of evolution is an important subject,
of relevance to social philosophy and ethics. Some basic epistemological and
metaphysical concepts enter into computer modeling. A model is a well-developed
concept of its object, representing characteristics like structure and
funccomputer theory computer theory 167
167 tion. A model is similar to its object in important respects, but
simpler; in mathematical terminology, a model is homomorphic to its object but
not isomorphic to it. However, it is often useful to think of a model as
isomorphic to an embedded subsystem of the system it models. For example, a gas
is a complicated system of microstates of particles, but these microstates can
be grouped into macrostates, each with a pressure, volume, and temperature satisfying
the gas law PV % kT. The derivation of this law from the detailed mechanics of
the gas is a reduction of the embedded subsystem to the underlying system. In
many cases it is adequate to work with the simpler embedded subsystem, but in
other cases one must work with the more complex but complete underlying system.
The law of an embedded subsystem may be different in kind from the law of the
underlying system. Consider, e.g., a machine tossing a coin randomly. The
sequence of tosses obeys a simple probability law, while the complex underlying
mechanical system is deterministic. The random sequence of tosses is a
probabilistic system embedded in a deterministic system, and a mathematical
account of this embedding relation constitutes a reduction of the probabilistic
system to a deterministic system. Compare the compatibilist’s claim that free
choice can be embedded in a deterministic system. Compare also a pseudorandom
sequence, which is a deterministic sequence with adequate randomness for a
given finite simulation. Note finally that the probabilistic system of quantum
mechanics underlies the deterministic system of mechanics. The ways in which
models are used by goaldirected systems to solve problems and adapt to their
environments are currently being modeled by humancomputer combines. Since
computer software can be converted into hardware, successful simulations of
adaptive uses of models could be incorporated into the design of a robot. Human
intentionality involves the use of a model of oneself in relation to others and
the environment. A problem-solving robot using such a model would constitute an
important step toward a robot with full human powers. These considerations lead
to the central thesis of the philosophy of logical mechanism: a finite deterministic
automaton can perform all human functions. This seems plausible in principle
and is treated in detail in Merrilee Salmon, ed., The Philosophy of Logical
Mechanism: Essays in Honor of Arthur W. Burks,0. A digital computer has
reasoning and memory powers. Robots have sensory inputs for collecting
information from the environment, and they have moving and acting devices. To
obtain a robot with human powers, one would need to put these abilities under
the direction of a system of desires, purposes, and goals. Logical mechanism is
a form of mechanism or materialism, but differs from traditional forms of these
doctrines in its reliance on the logical powers of computers and the logical
nature of evolution and its products. The modern computer is a kind of complex
hierarchical physical system, a system with memory, processor, and control that
employs a hierarchy of programming languages. Humans are complex hierarchical
systems designed by evolution with
structural levels of chemicals, cells, organs, and systems e.g., circulatory,
neural, immune and linguistic levels of genes, enzymes, neural signals, and
immune recognition. Traditional materialists did not have this model of a
computer nor the contemporary understanding of evolution, and never gave an adequate
account of logic and reasoning and such phenomena as goaldirectedness and
self-modeling.
conatum: Aristotle
distinguishes three types of living beings: vegetables, φυτά, which possess
only the ability to nourish themselves τὸ θϱεπτιϰόν; animals, ζαῷ, which
possess the faculty of sensing τὸ αἰσθητιϰόν, which opens onto that of
desiring, τὸ ὀϱεϰτιϰόν, to orektikon, (desdideratum); and man and — he says—any
other similar or superior being, who possess in addition the ability to think,
“τὸ διανοητιϰόν τε ϰαὶ νοῦς.” -- De An., 414a 29-b.orme, the technical Stoic
definition of πάθος, viz. as a particular kind of conation, or impulse (ορμή). ...
4 ' This definition (amorem ipsum conatum amicitiae faeiendae ex ... emotion and moral
self-management in Galen's philosophical
psychology', ..cōnātum ,
i, usu. in plur.: cōnāta ,
ōrum, n., v. conor.. The term is used by an the
Wilde Reader at Oxford, that Grice once followed – until he became a
neo-Prichardian instead.(philosophy) The power or act which directs or
impels to effort of any kind, whether muscular or psychical. quotations 1899, George Frederick Stout, A
Manual of Psychology, page 234:Any pleasing sense-experience, when it has once taken
place, will, on subsequent occasions, give rise to a conation, when its conditions are only
partially repeated...
conceptus: Grice obviously uses Frege’s
notion of a ‘concept.’ One of Grice’s metaphysical routines is meant to produce
a logical construction of a concept or generate a new concept. Aware of the
act/product distinction, Grice distinguishes between the conceptum, or concept,
and the conception, or conceptio. Grice allows that ‘not’ may be a ‘concept,’
so he is not tied to the ‘equine’ idea by Frege of the ‘horse.’ Since an agent
can fail to conceive that his neighbour’s three-year old is an adult, Grice
accepts that ‘conceives’ may take a ‘that’-clause. In ‘ordinary’ language, one
does not seem to refer, say, to the concept that e = mc2, but that may be a
failure or ‘ordinary’ language. In the canonical cat-on-the-mat, we have Grice
conceiving that the cat is on the mat, and also having at least four concepts:
the concept of ‘cat,’ the concept of ‘mat,’ the concept of ‘being on,’ and the
concept of the cat being on the mat. Griceian Meinongianism --
conceivability, capability of being conceived or imagined. Thus, golden
mountains are conceivable; round squares, inconceivable. As Descartes pointed
out, the sort of imaginability required is not the ability to form mental
images. Chiliagons, Cartesian minds, and God are all conceivable, though none
of these can be pictured “in the mind’s eye.” Historical references include
Anselm’s definition of God as “a being than which none greater can be
conceived” and Descartes’s argument for dualism from the conceivability of
disembodied existence. Several of Hume’s arguments rest upon the maxim that
whatever is conceivable is possible. He argued, e.g., that an event can occur
without a cause, since this is conceivable, and his critique of induction relies
on the inference from the conceivability of a change in the course of nature to
its possibility. In response, Reid maintained that to conceive is merely to
understand the meaning of a proposition. Reid argued that impossibilities are
conceivable, since we must be able to understand falsehoods. Many simply equate
conceivability with possibility, so that to say something is conceivable or
inconceivable just is to say that it is possible or impossible. Such usage is
controversial, since conceivability is broadly an epistemological notion
concerning what can be thought, whereas possibility is a metaphysical notion
concerning how things can be. The same controversy can arise regarding the
compossible, or co-possible, where two states of affairs are compossible provided
it is possible that they both obtain, and two propositions are compossible
provided their conjunction is possible. Alternatively, two things are
compossible if and only if there is a possible world containing both. Leibniz
held that two things are compossible provided they can be ascribed to the same
possible world without contradiction. “There are many possible universes, each
collection of compossibles making one of them.” Others have argued that
non-contradiction is sufficient for neither possibility nor compossibility. The
claim that something is inconceivable is usually meant to suggest more than
merely an inability to conceive. It is to say that trying to conceive results
in a phenomenally distinctive mental repugnance, e.g. when one attempts to
conceive of an object that is red and green all over at once. On this usage the
inconceivable might be equated with what one can “just see” to be impossible.
There are two related usages of ‘conceivable’: 1 not inconceivable in the sense
just described; and 2 such that one can “just see” that the thing in question
is possible. Goldbach’s conjecture would seem a clear example of something
conceivable in the first sense, but not the second. Grice was also interested
in conceptualism as an answer to the problem of the universale. conceptualism,
the view that there are no universals and that the supposed classificatory
function of universals is actually served by particular concepts in the mind. A
universal is a property that can be instantiated by more than one individual
thing or particular at the same time; e.g., the shape of this , if identical
with the shape of the next , will be one property instantiated by two distinct
individual things at the same time. If viewed as located where the s are, then
it would be immanent. If viewed as not having spatiotemporal location itself,
but only bearing a connection, usually called instantiation or exemplification,
to things that have such location, then the shape of this would be transcendent and presumably would exist
even if exemplified by nothing, as Plato seems to have held. The conceptualist
rejects both views by holding that universals are merely concepts. Most
generally, a concept may be understood as a principle of classification,
something that can guide us in determining whether an entity belongs in a given
class or does not. Of course, properties understood as universals satisfy,
trivially, this definition and thus may be called concepts, as indeed they were
by Frege. But the conceptualistic substantive views of concepts are that
concepts are 1 mental representations, often called ideas, serving their
classificatory function presumably by resembling the entities to be classified;
or 2 brain states that serve the same function but presumably not by resemblance;
or 3 general words adjectives, common nouns, verbs or uses of such words, an
entity’s belonging to a certain class being determined by the applicability to
the entity of the appropriate word; or 4 abilities to classify correctly,
whether or not with the aid of an item belonging under 1, 2, or 3. The
traditional conceptualist holds 1. Defenders of 3 would be more properly called
nominalists. In whichever way concepts are understood, and regardless of
whether conceptualism is true, they are obviously essential to our
understanding and knowledge of anything, even at the most basic level of
cognition, namely, recognition. The classic work on the topic is Thinking and
Experience 4 by H. H. Price, who held 4.
conditionalis: The conditional is of special interest to Grice because
his ‘impilcature’ has a conditional form. In other words, ‘implicaturum’ is a
variant on ‘implication,’ and the conditionalis has been called ‘implication’ –
‘even a material one, versus a formal one by Whitehead and Russell. So it is of
special philosophical interest. Since Grice’s overarching interest is
rationality, ‘conditionalis’ features in the passage from premise to
conclusion, deemed tautological: the ‘associated conditional” of a valid piece
of reasoning. “This is an interesting Latinism,” as Grice puts it. For those in
the know, it’s supposed to translate ‘hypothetical,’ that Grice also uses. But
literally, the transliteration of ‘hypothetica’ is ‘sub-positio,’ i.e.
‘suppositio,’ so infamous in the Dark Ages! So one has to be careful. For some
reason, Boethius disliked ‘suppositio,’ and preferred to add to the Latinate
philosophical vocabulary, with ‘conditionalis,’ the hypothetical, versus the
categoric, become the ‘conditionale.’ And the standard was not the Diodoran, but
the Philonian, also known, after Whitehead, as the ‘implicatio materialis.’
While this sounds scholastic, it isn’t. Cicero may have used ‘implicatio
materialis.’ But Whitehead’s and Russell’s motivation is a different one. They
start with the ‘material’, by which they mean a proposition WITH A TRUTH VALUE.
For implication that does not have this restriction, they introduce ‘implicatio
formalis,’ or ‘formal implication.’ In their adverbial ways, it goes p formally
implies q. trictly, propositio conditionalis:
vel substitutive, versus propositio praedicativa in Apuleius. Classical Latin condicio was
confused in Late Latin with conditio "a making," from conditus,
past participle of condere "to put together." The sense
evolution in Latin apparently was from "stipulation" to
"situation, mode of being."
Grice lists ‘if’ as the third binary functor in his response to Strawson. The
relations between “if” and “⊃” have already, but only in part,
been discussed. 1 The sign “⊃” is called the Material Implication
sign a name I shall consider later. Its meaning is given by the rule that any
statement of the form ‘p⊃q’ is false in the case in which the first of its
constituent statements is true and the second false, and is true in every other
case considered in the system; i. e., the falsity of the first constituent
statement or the truth of the second are, equally, sufficient conditions of the
truth of a statement of material implication ; the combination of truth in the
first with falsity in the second is the single, necessary and sufficient,
condition (1 Ch. 2, S. 7) of its falsity. The standard or primary -- the
importance of this qualifying phrase can scarcely be overemphasized. There are
uses of “if … then … ” which do not
answer to the description given here,, or to any other descriptions given in
this chapter -- use of an “if …
then …” sentence, on the other hand, we saw to be in circumstances where, not
knowing whether some statement which could be made by the use of a sentence
corresponding in a certain way to the first clause of the hypothetical is true
or not, or believing it to be false, we nevertheless consider that a step in
reasoning from that statement to a statement related in a similar way to the
second clause would be a sound or reasonable step ; the second statement also
being one of whose truth we are in doubt, or which we believe to be false. Even
in such circumstances as these we may sometimes hesitate to apply the word
‘true’ to hypothetical statements (i.e., statements which could be made by the
use of “if ... then …,” in its standard significance), preferring to call them
reasonable or well-founded ; but if we apply ‘true’ to them at all, it will be
in such circumstances as these. Now one of the sufficient conditions of the
truth of a statement of material implication may very well be fulfilled without
the conditions for the truth, or reasonableness, of the corresponding
hypothetical statement being fulfilled ; i.e., a statement of the form ‘p⊃q’ does not entail the corresponding statement of the form
“if p then q.” But if we are prepared to accept the hypothetical statement, we
must in consistency be prepared to deny the conjunction of the statement
corresponding to the first clause of the sentence used to make the hypothetical
statement with the negation of the statement corresponding to its second clause
; i.e., a statement of the form “if p then q” does entail the corresponding statement
of the form ‘p⊃q.’ The force of “corresponding” needs elucidation. Consider
the three following very ordinary specimens of hypothetical sentences. If the
Germans had invaded England in 1940, they would have won the war. If Jones were
in charge, half the staff would have been dismissed. If it rains, the match
will be cancelled. The sentences which could be used to make statements
corresponding in the required sense to the subordinate clauses can be
ascertained by considering what it is that the speaker of each hypothetical
sentence must (in general) be assumed either to be in doubt about or to believe
to be not the case. Thus, for (1) to (8), the corresponding pairs of sentences
are as follows. The Germans invaded England in 1940; they won the war. Jones is
in charge; half the staff has been dismissed. It will rain; the match will be
cancelled. Sentences which could be used to make the statements of material
implication corresponding to the hypothetical statements made by these
sentences can now be framed from these pairs of sentences as follows. The Germans
invaded England in 1940 ⊃ they won the war. Jones is in charge ⊃ half the staff has been, dismissed. It will rain ⊃ the match will be cancelled. The very fact that these
verbal modifications are necessary, in order to obtain from the clauses of the
hypothetical sentence the clauses of the corresponding material implication
sentence is itself a symptom of the radical difference between hypothetical
statements and truth-functional statements. Some detailed differences are also
evident from these examples. The falsity of a statement made by the use of ‘The
Germans invaded England in 1940’ or ‘Jones is in charge’ is a sufficient
condition of the truth of the corresponding statements made by the use of (Ml)
and (M2) ; but not, of course, of the corresponding statements made by the use
of (1) and (2). Otherwise, there would normally be no point in using sentences
like (1) and (2) at all; for these sentences would normally carry – but not
necessarily: one may use the pluperfect or the imperfect subjunctive when one
is simply working out the consequences of an hypothesis which one may be
prepared eventually to accept -- in the tense or mood of the verb, an
implication of the utterer's belief in the falsity of the statements
corresponding to the clauses of the hypothetical. It is not raining is
sufficient to verify a statement made by the use of (MS), but not a
statement made by the use of (3). Its not raining Is also sufficient to verify
a statement made by the use of “It will rain ⊃
the match will not be cancelled.” The formulae ‘p revise ⊃q’ and ‘q revise⊃
q' are consistent with one another, and the joint assertion of corresponding
statements of these forms is equivalent to the assertion of the corresponding
statement of the form * *-~p. But “If it rains, the match will be cancelled” is
inconsistent with “If it rains, the match will not be cancelled,” and their
joint assertion in the same context is self-contradictory. Suppose we call the
statement corresponding to the first clause of a sentence used to make a
hypothetical statement the antecedent of the hypothetical statement; and the
statement corresponding to the second clause, its consequent. It is sometimes
fancied that whereas the futility of identifying conditional statements with
material implications is obvious in those cases where the implication of the
falsity of the antecedent is normally carried by the mood or tense of the verb
(e.g., (I) or (2)), there is something to be said for at least a partial
identification in cases where no such implication is involved, i.e., where the
possibility of the truth of both antecedent and consequent is left open (e.g.,
(3). In cases of the first kind (‘unfulfilled’ or ‘subjunctive’ conditionals)
our attention is directed only to the last two lines of the truth-tables for *
p ⊃ q ', where the antecedent has the truth-value, falsity; and
the suggestion that ‘~p’ entails ‘if p, then q’ is felt to be obviously wrong.
But in cases of the second kind we may inspect also the first two lines, for
the possibility of the antecedent's being fulfilled is left open; and the
suggestion that ‘p . q’ entails ‘if p, then q’ is not felt to be obviously
wrong. This is an illusion, though engendered by a reality. The fulfilment of
both antecedent and consequent of a hypothetical statement does not show that
the man who made the hypothetical statement was right; for the consequent might
be fulfilled as a result of factors unconnected with, or in spite of, rather
than because of, the fulfilment of the antecedent. We should be prepared to say
that the man who made the hypothetical statement was right only if we were also
prepared to say that the fulfilment of the antecedent was, at least in part,
the explanation of the fulfilment of the consequent. The reality behind the
illusion is complex : en. 3 it is, partly, the fact that, in many cases, the
fulfilment of both antecedent and consequent may provide confirmation for the
view that the existence of states of affairs like those described by the
antecedent is a good reason for expecting states of affairs like those
described by the consequent ; and it is, partly, the fact that a man whosays,
for example, 4 If it rains, the match will be cancelled * makes a prediction
(viz.. that the match will be cancelled) under a proviso (viz., that it rains),
and that the cancellation of the match because of the rain therefore leads us
to say, not only that the reasonableness of the prediction was confirmed, but
also that the prediction itself was confirmed. Because a statement of the form
“p⊃q” does not entail the corresponding statement of the form '
if p, then q ' (in its standard employment), we shall expect to find, and have
found, a divergence between the rules for '⊃'
and the rules for ' if J (in its standard employment). Because ‘if p, then q’
does entail ‘p⊃q,’ we shall also expect to find some degree of parallelism
between the rules; for whatever is entailed by ‘p "3 q’ will be entailed
by ‘if p, then q,’ though not everything which entails ‘p⊃q’ will entail ‘if p, then q.’ Indeed, we find further
parallels than those which follow simply from the facts that ‘if p, then q’
entails ‘p⊃q’ and that entailment is transitive. To laws (19)-(23)
inclusive we find no parallels for ‘if.’ But for (15) (p⊃j).JJ⊃? (16) (P ⊃q).~qZ)~p (17) p'⊃q s ~q1)~p (18) (?⊃j).(?
⊃r) ⊃ (p⊃r) we find that, with certain reservations, 1 the following
parallel laws hold good : (1 The reservations are important. It is, e. g.,
often impossible to apply entailment-rule (iii) directly without obtaining
incorrect or absurd results. Some modification of the structure of the clauses
of the hypothetical is commonly necessary. But formal logic gives us no guide
as to which modifications are required. If we apply rule (iii) to our specimen
hypothetical sentences, without modifying at all the tenses or moods of the
individual clauses, we obtain expressions which are scarcely English. If we
preserve as nearly as possible the tense-mood structure, in the simplest way
consistent with grammatical requirements, we obtain the sentences : If the
Germans had not won the war, they would not have invaded England in
1940.) If half the staff had not been dismissed, Jones would not be in
charge. If the match is not cancelled, it will not rain. But these sentences,
so far from being logically equivalent to the originals, have in each case a
quite different sense. It is possible, at least in some such cases, to frame
sentences of more or less the appropriate pattern for which one can imagine a
use and which do stand in the required logical relationship to the original
sentences (e.g., ‘If it is not the case that half the staff has been dismissed,
then Jones can't be in charge;’ or ‘If the Germans did not win the war, it's
only because they did not invade England in 1940;’ or even (should historical
evidence become improbably scanty), ‘If the Germans did not win the war, it
can't be true that they invaded England in 1940’). These changes reflect
differences in the circumstances in which one might use these, as opposed to
the original, sentences. Thus the sentence beginning ‘If Jones were in charge
…’ would normally, though not necessarily, be used by a man who antecedently
knows that Jones is not in charge : the sentence beginning ‘If it's not the
case that half the staff has been dismissed …’ by a man who is working towards
the conclusion that Jones is not in charge. To say that the sentences are
nevertheless logically equivalent is to point to the fact that the grounds for
accepting either, would, in different circumstances, have been grounds for
accepting the soundness of the move from ‘Jones is in charge’ to ‘Half the
staff has been dismissed.’) (i) (if p,
then q; and p)^q (ii) (if p, then qt and not-g) Dnot-j? (iii) (if p, then f) ⊃ (if not-0, then not-j?) (iv) (if p, then f ; and iff, then
r) ⊃(if j>, then r) (One must remember that calling the
formulae (i)-(iv) is the same as saying that, e.g., in the case of (iii), c if
p, then q ' entails 4 if not-g, then not-j> '.) And similarly we find that,
for some steps which would be invalid for 4 if ', there are corresponding steps
that would be invalid for “⊃,” e. g. (p^q).q :. p are invalid inference-patterns,
and so are if p, then q ; and q /. p if p, then ; and not-j? /. not-f .The
formal analogy here may be described by saying that neither * p 13 q ' nor * if
j?, then q * is a simply convertible formula. We have found many laws (e.g.,
(19)-(23)) which hold for “⊃” and not for “if.” As an example of
a law which holds for “if,” but not for
“⊃,” we may give the analytic formula “ ~[(if p, then q) * (if
p, then not-g)]’. The corresponding formula 4 ~[(P 3 ?) * (j? 3 ~?}]’ is not
analytic, but (el (28)) is equivalent to the contingent formula ‘~~p.’ The
rules to the effect that formulae such as (19)-{23) are analytic are sometimes
referred to as ‘paradoxes of implication.’ This is a misnomer. If ‘⊃’ is taken as identical either with ‘entails’ or, more
widely, with ‘if ... then …’ in its
standard use, the rules are not paradoxical, but simply incorrect. If ‘⊃’ is given the meaning it has in the system of truth functions,
the rules are not paradoxical, but simple and platitudinous consequences of the
meaning given to the symbol. Throughout this section, I have spoken of a
‘primary or standard’ use of “if … then …,” or “if,” of which the main
characteristics were: that for each hypothetical statement made by this use of
“if,” there could be made just one statement which would be the antecedent of
the hypothetical and just one statement which would be its consequent; that the
hypothetical statement is acceptable (true, reasonable) if the antecedent
statement, if made or accepted, would, in the circumstances, be a good ground
or reason for accepting the consequent statement; and that the making of the
hypothetical statement carries the implication either of uncertainty about, or
of disbelief in, the fulfilment of both antecedent and consequent. (1 Not all
uses of * if ', however, exhibit all these characteristics. In particular,
there is a use which has an equal claim to rank as standard and which is
closely connected with the use described, but which does not exhibit the first
characteristic and for which the description of the remainder must consequently
be modified. I have in mind what are sometimes called 'variable' or 'general’
hypothetical : e.g., ‘lf ice is left in the sun, it melts,’ ‘If the side of a
triangle is produced, the exterior angle is equal to the sum of the two
interior and opposite angles ' ; ' If a child is very strictly disciplined in
the nursery, it will develop aggressive tendencies in adult life,’ and so on.
To a statement made by the use of a sentence such as these there corresponds no
single pair of statements which are, respectively, its antecedent and
consequent. On the other 1 There is much more than this to be said about this
way of using ‘if;’ in particular, about the meaning of the question whether the
antecedent would be a good ground or reason for accepting the consequent and
about the exact way in which this question is related to the question of
whether the hypothetical is true {acceptable, reasonable) or not hand, for
every such statement there is an indefinite number of non-general hypothetical
statements which might be called exemplifications, applications, of the
variable hypothetical; e.g., a statement made by the use of the sentence ‘If
this piece of ice is left in the sun, it will melt.’ To the subject of variable
hypothetical I may return later. 1 Two relatively uncommon uses of ‘if’ may be
illustrated respectively by the sentences ‘If he felt embarrassed, he showed no
signs of it’ and ‘If he has passed his exam, I’m a Dutchman (I'll eat my hat,
&c.)’ The sufficient and necessary condition of the truth of a statement
made by the first is that the man referred to showed no sign of embarrassment.
Consequently, such a statement cannot be treated either as a standard
hypothetical or as a material implication. Examples of the second kind are
sometimes erroneously treated as evidence that ‘if’ does, after all, behave
somewhat as ‘⊃’ behaves. The evidence for this is, presumably, the facts
(i) that there is no connexion between antecedent and consequent; (ii) that the
consequent is obviously not (or not to be) fulfilled ; (iii) that the intention
of the speaker is plainly to give emphatic expression to the conviction that
the antecedent is not fulfilled either ; and (iv) the fact that “(p ⊃ q) . ~q” entails “~p.” But this is a strange piece of
logic. For, on any possible interpretation, “if p then q” has, in respect of
(iv), the same logical powers as ‘p⊃q;’
and it is just these logical powers that we are jokingly (or fantastically)
exploiting. It is the absence of connexion referred to in (i) that makes it a
quirk, a verbal flourish, an odd use of ‘if.’ If hypothetical statements were
material implications, the statements would be not a quirkish oddity, but a
linguistic sobriety and a simple truth. Finally, we may note that ‘if’ can be employed not simply in making
statements, but in, e.g., making provisional announcements of intention (e.g.,
‘If it rains, I shall stay at home’) which, like unconditional announcements of
intention, we do not call true or false but describe in some other way. If the
man who utters the quoted sentence leaves home in spite of the rain, we do not
say that what he said was false, though we might say that he lied (never really
intended to stay in) ; or that he changed his mind. There are further uses of
‘if’ which I shall not discuss. 1 v. ch. 7, I. The safest way to read the
material implication sign is, perhaps, ‘not both … and not …’ The material
equivalence sign ‘≡’ has the meaning given by the
following definition : p q =df=⊃/'(p⊃ff).(sOj)'
and the phrase with which it is sometimes identified, viz., ‘if and only if,’
has the meaning given by the following definition: ‘p if and only if q’ =df ‘if
p then g, and if q then p.’ Consequently, the objections which hold against the
identification of ‘p⊃q” with ‘if p then q’ hold with double force against the
identification of “p≡q’ with ‘p if and only if q.’ ‘If’
is of particular interest to Grice. The interest in the ‘if’ is double in
Grice. In doxastic contexts, he needs it for his analysis of ‘intending’
against an ‘if’-based dispositional (i.e. subjective-conditional) analysis. He
is of course, later interested in how Strawson misinterpreted the ‘indicative’
conditional! It is later when he starts to focus on the ‘buletic’ mode marker,
that he wants to reach to Paton’s categorical (i.e. non-hypothetical)
imperative. And in so doing, he has to face the criticism of those Oxonian
philosophers who were sceptical about the very idea of a conditional buletic
(‘conditional command – what kind of a command is that?’. Grice would refere to
the protasis, or antecedent, as a relativiser – where we go again to the
‘absolutum’-‘relativum’ distinction. The conditional is also paramount in
Grice’s criticism of Ryle, where the keyword would rather be ‘disposition.’
Then ther eis the conditional and disposition. Grice is a philosophical
psychologist. Does that make sense? So are Austin (Other Minds), Hampshire
(Dispositions), Pears (Problems in philosophical psychology) and Urmson
(Parentheticals). They are ALL against Ryle’s silly analysis in terms of
single-track disposition" vs. "many-track disposition," and
"semi-disposition." If I hum and walk, I can either hum or walk. But
if I heed mindfully, while an IN-direct sensing may guide me to YOUR soul, a
DIRECT sensing guides me to MY soul. When Ogden consider attacks to meaning,
theres what he calls the psychological, which he ascribes to Locke Grices
attitude towards Ryle is difficult to assess. His most favourable assessment
comes from Retrospective epilogue, but then he is referring to Ryle’s fairy
godmother. Initially, he mentions Ryle as a philosopher engaged in, and
possibly dedicated to the practice of the prevailing Oxonian methodology, i.e.
ordinary-language philosophy. Initially, then, Grice enlists Ryle in
the regiment of ordinary-language philosophers. After introducing Athenian
dialectic and Oxonian dialectic, Grice traces some parallelisms, which should
not surprise. It is tempting to suppose that Oxonian dialectic reproduces some
ideas of Athenian dialectic. It would actually be surprising if there
were no parallels. Ryle was, after all, a skilled and enthusiastic student of
Grecian philosophy. Interestingly, Grice then has Ryles fairy godmother as
proposing the idea that, far from being a basis for rejecting the
analytic-synthetic distinction, opposition that there are initially two
distinct bundles of statements, bearing the labels analytic and synthetic,
lying around in the world of thought waiting to be noticed, provides us with the
key to making the analytic-synthetic distinction acceptable. The essay has
a verificationist ring to it. Recall Ayer and the verificationists trying to
hold water with concepts like fragile and the problem of counterfactual
conditionals vis-a-vis observational and theoretical concepts. Grices
essay has two parts: one on disposition as such, and the second,
the application to a type of psychological disposition, which
would be phenomenalist in a way, or verificationist, in that it derives from
introspection of, shall we say, empirical phenomena. Grice is going to
analyse, I want a sandwich. One person wrote in his manuscript, there is
something with the way Grice goes to work. Still. Grice says that I want a
sandwich (or I will that I eat a sandwich) is problematic, for analysis, in
that it seems to refer to experience that is essentially private and
unverifiable. An analysis of intending that p in terms of being disposed that p
is satisfied solves this. Smith wants a sandwich, or he wills that he eats a sandwich,
much as Toby needs nuts, if Smith opens the fridge and gets one. Smith is
disposed to act such that p is satisfied. This Grice opposes to the
‘special-episode’ analysis of intending that p. An utterance like I want a
sandwich iff by uttering the utterance, the utterer is describing this or that
private experience, this or that private sensation. This or that sensation
may take the form of a highly specific souly sate, like what Grice
calls a sandwich-wanting-feeling. But then, if he is not happy with the privacy
special-episode analysis, Grice is also dismissive of
Ryles behaviourism in The concept of mind, fresh from the press, which
would describe the utterance in terms purely of this or that observable
response, or behavioural output, provided this or that sensory input. Grice
became friendlier with functionalism after Lewis taught him how. The
problem or crunch is with the first person. Surely, Grice claims, one does not
need to wait to observe oneself heading for the fridge before one is in a position
to know that he is hungry. Grice poses a problem for the
protocol-reporter. You see or observe someone else, Smith, that Smith wants a
sandwich, or wills that he eats a sandwich. You ask for evidence. But when it
is the agent himself who wants the sandwich, or wills that he eats a
sandwich, Grice melodramatically puts it, I am not in the
audience, not even in the front row of the stalls; I am on the
stage. Genial, as you will agree. Grice then goes on to offer an
analysis of intend, his basic and target attitude, which he has just used to
analyse and rephrase Peirces mean and which does relies on this or that piece
of dispositional evidence, without divorcing itself completely from the
privileged status or access of first-person introspective knowledge. In
“Uncertainty,” Grice weakens his reductive analysis of intending that, from
neo-Stoutian, based on certainty, or assurance, to neo-Prichardian, based on
predicting. All very Oxonian: Stout was the sometime Wilde reader in mental
philosophy (a post usually held by a psychologist, rather than a philosopher ‒
Stouts favourite philosopher is psychologist James! ‒ and Prichard was
Cliftonian and the proper White chair of moral philosophy. And while in
“Uncertainty” he allows that willing that may receive a physicalist treatment,
qua state, hell later turn a functionalist, discussed under ‘soul, below, in
his “Method in philosophical psychology (from the banal to the bizarre”
(henceforth, “Method”), in the Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical
Association, repr. in “Conception.” Grice can easily relate to Hamsphires
"Thought and Action," a most influential essay in the Oxonian scene.
Rather than Ryle! And Grice actually addresses further topics on intention
drawing on Hampshire, Hart, and his joint collaboration with Pears. Refs.:
The main reference is Grice’s early essay on disposition and intention, The H.
P. Grice. Refs.: The main published source is Essay 4 in WOW, but there are
essays on ‘ifs and cans,’ so ‘if’ is a good keyword, on ‘entailment,’ and for
the connection with ‘intending,’ ‘disposition and intention,’ BANC.
confirmatum –
disconfirmatum -- confirmation, an evidential relation between evidence and any
statement especially a scientific hypothesis that this evidence supports. It is
essential to distinguish two distinct, and fundamentally different, meanings of
the term: 1 the incremental sense, in which a piece of evidence contributes at
least some degree of support to the hypothesis in question e.g., finding a fingerprint of the suspect at
the scene of the crime lends some weight to the hypothesis that the suspect is
guilty; and 2 the absolute sense, in which a body of evidence provides strong
support for the hypothesis in question
e.g., a case presented by a prosecutor making it practically certain
that the suspect is guilty. If one thinks of confirmation in terms of probability,
then evidence that increases the probability of a hypothesis confirms it
incrementally, whereas evidence that renders a hypothesis highly probable
confirms it absolutely. In each of the two foregoing senses one can distinguish
three types of confirmation: i qualitative, ii quantitative, and iii
comparative. i Both examples in the preceding paragraph illustrate qualitative
confirmation, for no numerical values of the degree of confirmation were
mentioned. ii If a gambler, upon learning that an opponent holds a certain
card, asserts that her chance of winning has increased from 2 /3 to ¾, the
claim is an instance of quantitative incremental confirmation. If a physician
states that, on the basis of an X-ray, the probability that the patient has
tuberculosis is .95, that claim exemplifies quantitative absolute confirmation.
In the incremental sense, any case of quantitative confirmation involves a
difference between two probability values; in the absolute sense, any case of
quantitative confirmation involves only one probability value. iii Comparative
confirmation in the incremental sense would be illustrated if an investigator
said that possession of the murder weapon weighs more heavily against the
suspect than does the fingerprint found at the scene of the crime. Comparative
confirmation in the absolute sense would occur if a prosecutor claimed to have
strong cases against two suspects thought to be involved in a crime, but that
the case against one is stronger than that against the other. Even given recognition
of the foregoing six varieties of confirmation, there is still considerable
controversy regarding its analysis. Some authors claim that quantitative
confirmation does not exist; only qualitative and/or comparative confirmation
are possible. Some authors maintain that confirmation has nothing to do with
probability, whereas others known as
Bayesians analyze confirmation
explicitly in terms of Bayes’s theorem in the mathematical calculus of
probability. Among those who offer probabilistic analyses there are differences
as to which interpretation of probability is suitable in this context. Popper
advocates a concept of corroboration that differs fundamentally from
confirmation. Many real or apparent paradoxes of confirmation have been posed;
the most famous is the paradox of the ravens. It is plausible to suppose that
‘All ravens are black’ can be incrementally confirmed by the observation of one
of its instances, namely, a black crow. However, ‘All ravens are black’ is
logically equivalent to ‘All non-black things are non-ravens.’ By parity of
reasoning, an instance of this statement, namely, any nonblack non-raven e.g.,
a white shoe, should incrementally confirm it. Moreover, the equivalence
condition whatever confirms a hypothesis
must equally confirm any statement logically equivalent to it seems eminently reasonable. The result
appears to facilitate indoor ornithology, for the observation of a white shoe
would seem to confirm incrementally the hypothesis that all ravens are black.
Many attempted resolutions of this paradox can be found in the literature.
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