subjectivism: When Grice
speaks of the subjective condition on intention, he is using ‘subject,’ in a
way a philosophical psychologist would. He does not mean Kant’s transcendental
subject or ego. Grice means the simpler empiricist subject, personal identity,
or self. The choice is unfelicitious in that ‘subject’ contrasts with ‘object.’
So when he speaks of a ‘subjective’ person he means an ‘ego-centric’ condition,
or a self-oriented condition, or an agent-oriented condition, or an
‘utterer-oriented’ or ‘utterer-relative’ condition. But this is tricky. His
example: “Nixon should get that chair of theology.” The utterer may have to put
into Nixon’s shoes. He has to perceive Nixon as a PERSON, a rational agent, with
views of his own. So, the philosophical psychologist that Grice is has to think
of a conception of the self by the self, and the conception of the other by the
self. Wisdom used to talk of ‘other minds;’ Grice might speak of other souls. Grice
was concerned with intending folloed by a that-clause. Jeffrey defines
desirability as doxastically modified. It is entirely possible for someone to
desire the love that he already has. It is what he thinks that matters. Cf. his
dispositional account to intending. A Subjectsive condition takes into
account the intenders, rather than the ascribers, point of view: Marmaduke
Bloggs intends to climb Mt. Everest on hands and knees. Bloggs might
reason: Given my present state, I should do what is fun. Given my
present state, the best thing for me to do would be to do what is fun. For
me in my present state it would make for my well-being, to have
fun. Having fun is good, or, a good. Climbing a mountain would be fun.
Climbing the Everest would be/make for climbing fun. So, I shall climb the
Everest. Even if a critic insisted that a practical syllogism is the way
to represent Bloggs finding something to be appealing, and that it should be
regarded as a respectable evaluation, the assembled propositions dont do the
work of a standard argument. The premises do not support or yield the
conclusion as in a standard argument. The premises may be said to yield the
conclusion, or directive, for the particular agent whose reasoning process it
is, only on the basis of a Subjectsive condition: that the agent is in a
certain Subjectsive state, e.g. feels like going out for dinner-fun. Rational
beings (the agent at some other time, or other individuals) who do not have
that feeling, will not accept the conclusion. They may well accept as true. It
is fun to climb Everest, but will not accept it as a directive unless they feel
like it now. Someone wondering what to do for the summer might think that if he
were to climb Everest he would find it fun or pleasant, but right now she does
not feel like it. That is in general the end of the matter. The alleged
argument lacks normativity. It is not authoritative or directive unless there
is a supportive argument that he needs/ought to do something diverting/pleasant
in the summer. A practical argument is different. Even if an agent did not feel
like going to the doctor, an agent would think I ought to have a medical check
up yearly, now is the time, so I should see my doctor to be a directive with
some force. It articulates a practical argument. Perhaps the strongest
attempt to reconstruct an (acceptable or rational) thought
transition as a standard arguments is to treat the Subjectsive
condition, I feel like having climbing fun in the summer, as a premise, for
then the premises would support the conclusion. But the individual, whose
thought transition we are examining, does not regard a description of his
psychological state as a consideration that supports the conclusion. It
will be useful to look more closely at a variant of the example to note when it
is appropriate to reconstruct thinking in the form of argument. Bloggs,
now hiking with a friend in the Everest, comes to a difficult spot and
says: I dont like the look of that, I am frightened. I am going back. That
is usually enough for Bloggs to return, and for the friend to turn back with
him. Bloggss action of turning back, admittedly motivated by fear, is, while
not acting on reasons, nonetheless rational unless we judge his fear to be
irrational. Bloggss Subjectsive condition can serve as a
premise, but only in a very different situation. Bloggs resorts to reasons.
Suppose that, while his friend does not think Bloggss fear irrational, the
friend still attempts to dissuade Bloggs from going back. After listening and
reflecting, Bloggs may say I am so frightened it is not worth it. I am not
enjoying this climbing anymore. Or I am too frightened to be able to safely go
on. Or I often climb the Everest and dont usually get frightened. The fact that
I am now is a good indication that this is a dangerous trail and I should turn
back. These are reasons, considerations implicitly backed by principles, and
they could be the initial motivations of someone. But in Bloggss case they
emerged when he was challenged by his friend. They do not express his initial
practical reasoning. Bloggs was frightened by the trail ahead, wanted to go
back, and didnt have any reason not to. Note that there is no general
rational requirement to always act on reasons, and no general truth that a
rational individual would be better off the more often he acted on
reasons. Faced with his friends objections, however, Bloggs needed
justification for acting on his fear. He reflected and found reason(s) to act
on his fear. Grice plays with Subjectsivity already in Prolegomena. Consider the
use of carefully. Surely we must include the agents own idea of this. Or
consider the use of phi and phi – surely we dont want the addressee to regard
himself under the same guise with which the utterer regards him. Or consider “Aspects”:
Nixon must be appointed professor of theology at Oxford. Does he feel the need?
Grice raises the topic of Subjectsivity again in the Kant lectures just after
his discussion of mode, in a sub-section entitled, Modalities: relative and
absolute. He finds the topic central for his æqui-vocality thesis: Subjectsive
conditions seem necessary to both practical and alethic considerations. Refs.:
The source is his essay on intentions and the subjective condition, The H. P. Grice
Papers, BANC.
subjectum. When Frege
turned from ‘term logic’ to ‘predicate logic’ “he didn’t know what he was
doing.” Cf. Oxonian nominalization. Grice plays a lot on that. His presentation
at the Oxford Philosophical Society he entitled, in a very English way, as
“Meaning” (echoing Ogden and Richards). With his “Meaning, Revisited,” it seems
more clearly that he is nominalizing. Unless he means, “The essay “Meaning,”
revisited,” – alla Putnam making a bad joke on Ogden: “The meaning of
‘meaning’” – “ ‘Meaning,’ revisited” -- Grice is very familiar with this since it’s
the literal transliteration of Aristotle’s hypokeimenon, opp. in a specific
context, to the ‘prae-dicatum,’ or categoroumenon. And with the same sort of
‘ambiguity,’ qua opposite a category of expression, thought, or reality. In
philosophical circles, one has to be especially aware of the subject-object
distinction (which belong in philosophical psychology) and the thing which
belongs in ontology. Of course there’s the substance (hypousia, substantia),
the essence, and the sumbebekon, accidens. So one has to be careful. Grice
expands on Strawson’s explorations here. Philosophy, to underlie, as the
foundation in which something else inheres, to be implied or presupposed by
something else, “ἑκάστῳ τῶν ὀνομάτων . . ὑ. τις ἴδιος οὐσία” Pl.Prt.349b, cf.
Cra.422d, R.581c, Ti.Locr.97e: τὸ ὑποκείμενον has three main applications: (1)
to the matter which underlies the form, opp. εἶδος, ἐντελέχεια,
Arist.Metaph.983a30; (2) to the substance (matter + form) which underlies the
accidents, opp. πάθη, συμβεβηκότα, Id.Cat.1a20,27, Metaph.1037b16, 983b16; (3)
to the logical subject to which attributes are ascribed, opp. τὸ
κατηγορούμενον, Id.Cat.1b10,21, Ph.189a31: applications (1) and (2) are
distinguished in Id.Metaph.1038b5, 1029a1-5, 1042a26-31: τὸ ὑ. is occasionally
used of what underlies or is presupposed in some other way, e. g. of the
positive termini presupposed by change, Id.Ph.225a3-7. b. exist, τὸ ἐκτὸς
ὑποκείμενον the external reality, Stoic.2.48, cf. Epicur.Ep.1pp.12,24 U.; “φῶς
εἶναι τὸ χρῶμα τοῖς ὑ. ἐπιπῖπτον” Aristarch. Sam. ap. Placit.1.15.5; “τὸ κρῖνον
τί τε φαίνεται μόνον καὶ τί σὺν τῷ φαίνεσθαι ἔτι καὶ κατ᾽ ἀλήθειαν ὑπόκειται”
S.E.M.7.143, cf. 83,90,91, 10.240; = ὑπάρχω, τὰ ὑποκείμενα πράγματα the
existing state of affairs, Plb.11.28.2, cf. 11.29.1, 15.8.11,13, 3.31.6,
Eun.VSp.474 B.; “Τίτος ἐξ ὑποκειμένων ἐνίκα, χρώμενος ὁπλις μοῖς καὶ τάξεσιν
αἷς παρέλαβε” Plu.Comp.Phil.Flam.2; “τῆς αὐτῆς δυνάμεως ὑποκειμένης” Id.2.336b;
“ἐχομένου τοῦ προσιόντος λόγου ὡς πρὸς τὸν ὑποκείμενον” A.D.Synt.122.17. c. ὁ
ὑ. ἐνιαυτός the year in question, D.S.11.75; οἱ ὑ. καιροί the time in question,
Id.16.40, Plb.2.63.6, cf. Plu.Comp.Sol.Publ.4; τοῦ ὑ. μηνός the current month,
PTeb.14.14 (ii B. C.), al.; ἐκ τοῦ ὑ. φόρου in return for a reduction from the
said rent, PCair.Zen.649.18 (iii B. C.); πρὸς τὸ ὑ. νόει according to the
context, Gp.6.11.7. Note that both Grice and Strawson oppose Quine’s Humeian
dogma that, since the subjectum is beyond comprehension, we can do with a
‘predicate’ calculus, only. Vide Strawson, “Subject and predicate in logic and
grammar.” Refs: H. P. Grice, Work on the categories with P. F. Strawson, The H.
P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c.
sub-ordination. Grice
must be the only Oxonian philosopher in postwar Oxford that realised the
relevance of subordination. Following J. C. Wilson, Grice notes that ‘if’ is a
subordinating connective, and the only one of the connectives which is not
commutative. This gives Grice the idea to consult Cook Wilson and develop his
view of ‘interrogative subordination.’ Who killed Cock Robin. If it was not the
Hawk, it was the Sparrow. It was not the Hawk. It was the Sparrow. What Grecian
idiom is Romanesque sub-ordinatio translating. The opposite is co-ordination.
“And” and “or” are coordinative particles. Interrogative coordination is
provided by ‘or,’ but it relates to yes/no questions. Interrogative
subordination involves x-question. WHO killed Cock Robin. The Grecians were
syntactic and hypotactic. Varro uses jungendi. is the same and wherefrom it is
different, in relation to what &c." It may well be doubted whether he
has thus improved upon his predecessors. Surely the discernment of sameness and
difference is a function necessarily belonging to soul and necessarily included
in the catalogue of her functions : yet Stallbaum's rendering excludes it from
that catalogue. The fact that we have ory hv $, not orcp ecri, does not really
favour his view—" with whatsoever a thing may be the same, she declares it
the same.' I coincide then with the other interpreters in regarding the whole
sentence from orw t' hv as indirect INTERROGATION SUBORDINATE interrogation
subordinateto \iyeiThis mistake in logic carries with it serious mistakes in
trans lation. The clause otw t av ti tovtov rj kcu otov hv erepov is made an
indirect INTERROGATIVE COORDINATE with itpbs o tC re pu£Aio-ra xai ottt? [ 39 ]
k.t.\., which is impossible. Stallbaum rightly makes the clause a substantive
clause and subject of elvai or £vp.f}aivei elvai. (3) eKao-ra is of course
predicate with elvai to this sthe question, ‘How many sugars would Tom like in
his tea?’ is not ‘satisfied’ by the answer ‘Tom loves sugar’. It may well be
true that Tom loves sugar, but the question is not satisfied by that form of
answer. Conversely the answer ‘one spoonful’ satisfies the question, even
though it might be the wrong answer and leave the tea insufficiently sugary for
the satisfaction of Tom’s sweet tooth.
subperceptum. This
relates to Stich and his sub-doxastic. For Aristotle, “De An.,” the anima leads
to the desideratum. Unlike in ‘phuta,’ or vegetables, which are still ‘alive,’
(‘zoa’ – he had a problem with ‘sponges’ which were IN-animate, to him, most
likely) In WoW:139, Grice refers to “the pillar box seems red” as
“SUB-PERCEPTUAL,” the first of a trio. The second is the perceptual, “A
perceives that the pillar box is red,” and the third, “The pillar box is red.”
He wishes to explore the truth-conditons of the subperceptum, and although
first in the list, is last in the analsysis. Grice proposes: ‘The pillar box
seems red” iff (1) the pillar box is red; (2) A perceives that the pillar box
is red; and (3) (1) causes (2). In this there is a parallelism with his
quasi-causal account of ‘know’ (and his caveat that ‘literally,’ we may just
know that 2 + 2 = 4 (and such) (“Meaning Revisited). In what he calls ‘accented
sub-perceptum,’ the idea is that the U is choosing the superceptum (“seems”) as
opposed to his other obvious choices (“The pillar box IS red,”) and the
passive-voice version of the ‘perceptum’: “The pillar box IS PERCEIVED red.”
The ‘accent’ generates the D-or-D implicatum: By uttering “The pillar box seems
red,” U IMPLICATES that it is denied that or doubted that the pillar box is
perceived red by U or that the pillar box is red. In this, the accented version
contrasts with the unaccented version where the implicatum is NOT generated, and
the U remains uncommitted re: this doubt or denial implicatum. It is this
uncommitment that will allow to disimplicate or cancel the implicatum should
occasion arise. The reference Grice makes between the sub-perceptum and the
perceptum is grammatical, not psychological. Or else he may be meaning that in
uttering, “I perceive that the pillar box is red,” one needs to appeal to
Kant’s apperception of the ego. Refs.: Pecocke, Sense and content, Grice, BANC.
subscriptum:
Quine thought that Grice’s subscript device was otiose, and that he would
rather use brackets, or nothing, any day. Grice plays with various roots of ‘scriptum.’
He was bound to. Moore had showed that ‘good’ was not ‘descriptive.’ Grice
thinks it’s pseudo-descriptive. So here we have the first, ‘descriptum,’ where
what is meant is Griceian: By uttering the “The cat is on the mat” U means, by
his act of describing, that the cat is on the mat. Then there’s the
‘prae-scriptum.’ Oddly, Grice, when criticizing the ‘descriptive’ fallacy,
seldom mentions the co-relative ‘prescriptum.’ “Good” would be understood in
terms of a ‘prae-scriptum’ that appeals to his utterer’s intentions. Then
there’s the subscriptum. This may have various use, both in Grice. “I
subscribe,” and in the case of “Pegasus flies.” Where the utterer subscribes to
his ontological commitment. subscript device. Why does Grice think we NEED a
subscript device? Obviously, his wife would not use it. I mean, you cannot
pronounce a subscript device or a square-bracket device. So his point is
ironic. “Ordinary” language does not need it. But if Strawson and Quine are
going to be picky about stuff – ontological commitment, ‘existential
presupposition,’ let’s subscribe and bracket! Note that Quine’s response to
Grice is perfunctory: “Brackets would have done!” Grice considers a quartet of
utterances: Jack wants someone to marry him; Jack wants someone or
other to marry him; Jack wants a particular person to marry him,
and There is someone whom Jack wants to marry him.Grice notes that
there are clearly at least two possible readings of an utterance
like our (i): a first reading in which, as Grice puts it, (i) might be
paraphrased by (ii). A second reading is one in which it might be
paraphrased by (iii) or by (iv). Grice goes on to symbolize the
phenomenon in his own version of a first-order predicate calculus. Ja wants
that p becomes Wjap where ja stands for the individual constant Jack
as a super-script attached to the predicate standing for Jacks psychological
state or attitude. Grice writes: Using the apparatus of classical predicate
logic, we might hope to represent, respectively, the external reading and the
internal reading (involving an intentio secunda or intentio
obliqua) as (Ǝx)WjaFxja and Wja(Ǝx)Fxja. Grice then
goes on to discuss a slightly more complex, or oblique, scenario involving this
second internal reading, which is the one that interests us, as it involves an
intentio seconda.Grice notes: But suppose that Jack wants a specific
individual, Jill, to marry him, and this because Jack has been deceived
into thinking that his friend Joe has a highly delectable sister called Jill,
though in fact Joe is an only child. The Jill Jack eventually goes up the hill
with is, coincidentally, another Jill, possibly existent. Let us
recall that Grices main focus of the whole essay is, as the title goes,
emptiness! In these circumstances, one is inclined to say that (i)
is true only on reading (vii), where the existential quantifier
occurs within the scope of the psychological-state or -attitude verb,
but we cannot now represent (ii) or (iii), with Jill being vacuous,
by (vi), where the existential quantifier (Ǝx) occurs outside the
scope of the psychological-attitude verb, want, since [well,] Jill does
not really exist, except as a figment of Jacks imagination. In a manoeuver that
I interpret as purely intentionalist, and thus favouring by far Suppess over
Chomskys characterisation of Grice as a mere behaviourist, Grice hopes that
we should be provided with distinct representations
for two familiar readings of, now: Jack wants Jill to marry him and
Jack wants Jill to marry him. It is at this point that Grice applies a
syntactic scope notation involving sub-scripted numerals, (ix) and (x),
where the numeric values merely indicate the order of introduction of the
symbol to which it is attached in a deductive schema for the predicate calculus
in question. Only the first formulation represents the internal reading (where
ji stands for Jill): W2ja4F1ji3ja4 and
W3ja4F2ji1ja4. Note
that in the second formulation, the individual constant for Jill, ji, is
introduced prior to want, – jis sub-script is 1, while Ws sub-script is the
higher numerical value 3. Grice notes: Given that Jill does not exist, only the
internal reading can be true, or alethically satisfactory. Grice sums up
his reflections on the representation of the opaqueness of a verb standing for
a psychological state or attitude like that expressed by wanting with one
observation that further marks him as an intentionalist, almost of a Meinongian
type. He is willing to allow for existential phrases in cases of vacuous
designata, provided they occur within opaque psychological-state or attitude
verbs, and he thinks that by doing this, he is being faithful to the richness
and exuberance of ordinary discourse, while keeping Quine happy. As Grice
puts it, we should also have available to us also three neutral, yet distinct,
(Ǝx)-quantificational forms (together with their isomorphs), as a philosopher
who thinks that Wittgenstein denies a distinction, craves for a generality!
Jill now becomes x. W4ja5Ǝx3F1x2ja5, Ǝx5W2ja5F1x4ja3, Ǝx5W3ja4F1x2ja4. As Grice
notes, since in (xii) the individual variable x (ranging over Jill) does not
dominate the segment following the (Ǝx) quantifier, the formulation does not
display any existential or de re, force, and is suitable therefore for
representing the internal readings (ii) or (iii), if we have to allow, as we do
have, if we want to faithfully represent ordinary discourse, for the
possibility of expressing the fact that a particular person, Jill, does not
actually exist.
sous-entendu: used by, of
all people, Mill. An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's
Philosophybooks.google.com › books ... and speak with any approach to
precision, and adopting into [the necessary sufficient clauses of a piece of
philosophical conceptual analysis] a mere sous-entendu of common conversation
in its most unprecise form. If I say to any one, Cf. understatement, as opposed
to overstatement. The ‘statement’ thing complicates things, ‘underunderstanding’
seems better, or ‘sub-understanding,’ strictly. Trust Grice to bring more Grice
to the Mill and provide a full essay, indeed theory, and base his own
philosophy, on the sous-tentendu! Cf. Pears, Pears Cyclopaedia. “The English
love meiosis, litotes, and understatement. The French don’t.” Note all the
figures of rhetoric cited by Grice, and why they have philosophical import.
Many entries here: hyperbole, meiosis, litotes, etc. Grice took ‘sous-entendu’
etymologically serious. It is UNDERSTOOD. Nobody taught you, but it understood.
It is understood is like It is known. So “The pillar box seems red” is
understood to mean, “It may not be.” Now a sous-entendu may be cancellable, in
which case it was MIS-understood, or the emissor has changed his mind. Grice
considers the paradoxes the understanding under ‘uptake,’ just to make fun of
Austin’s informalism. The ‘endendu’ is what the French understand by
‘understand,’ the root being Latin intellectus, or intendo.
Stoicism -- Neo-stoicism
-- du Vair, Guillaume 15561621,
philosopher, bishop, and political figure. Du Vair and Justus Lipsius
were the two most influential propagators of neo-Stoicism in early modern
Europe. Du Vair’s Sainte Philosophie “Holy Philosophy,” 1584 and his shorter
Philosophie morale des Stoïques “Moral Philosophy of the Stoics,” 1585, were
tr. and frequently reprinted. The latter presents Epictetus in a form usable by
ordinary people in troubled times. We are to follow nature and live according
to reason; we are not to be upset by what we cannot control; virtue is the
good. Du Vair inserts, moreover, a distinctly religious note. We must be pious,
accept our lot as God’s will, and consider morality obedience to his command.
Du Vair thus Christianized Stoicism, making it widely acceptable. By teaching
that reason alone enables us to know how we ought to live, he became a founder
of modern rationalism in ethics.
Stupid. Grice loved
Plato. They are considering ‘horseness.’ “I cannot see horeseness; I can see
horses.” “You are the epitome of stupidity.” “I cannot see stupidity. I see
stupid.”
suggestio falsi – suggest.
To suggest is like to ‘insinuate,’ only different. The root involves a
favourite with Grice, ‘a gesture.’ That gesture is very suggesture. Grice
explores hint versus suggest in Retrospective epilogue. Also cited by Strawson
and Wiggins. The emissor’s implication is exactly this suggestio, for which
suggestum. To suggest, advise, prompt, offer, bring to mind: “quoties aequitas restitutionem suggerit,” Dig. 4,
6, 26 fin.; cf.: “quae (res) suggerit, ut Italicarum rerum esse credantur eae res,” reminds, admonishes, ib. 28, 5, 35 fin.: “quaedam de republicā,” Aur. Vict. Vir. Ill. 66, 2. — Absol.: “suggerente conjuge,” at the instigation of, Aur. Vict. Epit. 41, 11; cf.: “suggerente irā,” id. ib. 12, 10 suggestio falsi. Pl. suggestiones
falsi. [mod.L., = suggestion of what is false.] A misrepresentation
of the truth whereby something incorrect is implied to be true; an indirect
lie. Often in contexts with suppressio veri. QUOTES: 1815 H.
Maddock Princ. & Pract. Chancery I. 208 Whenever Suppressio veri or
Suggestio falsi occur..they afford a sufficient ground for setting aside any
Release or Conveyance. 1855 Newspaper & Gen. Reader's Pocket
Compan. i.4 He was bound to say that the suppressio veri on that occasion
approached very nearly to a positive suggestio falsi. 1898 Kipling
Stalky & Co. (1899) 36 It seems..that they had held back material
facts; that they were guilty both of suppressio veri and suggestio falsi.
1907 W. de Morgan Alice-for-Short xxxvi. 389 That's suppressio veri
and suggestio falsi! Besides, it's fibs! 1962 J. Wilson Public
Schools & Private Practice i. 19 It is rare to find a positively
verifiable untruth in a school brochure: but it is equally rare not to find a
great many suggestiones falsi, particularly as regards the material comfort and
facilities available. 1980 D. Newsome On Edge of Paradise 7
There are undoubted cases of suppressio veri; on the other hand, he appears to
eschew suggestio falsi. --- Fibs indeed. Suppress, suggest.
Write: "Griceland, Inc." "Yes, I agree to
become a Doctor in Gricean Studies" EXAM QUESTION: 1.
Discuss suggestio falsi in terms of detachability. 2. Compare suppresio
veri and suggestion falsi in connection with "The king of France is
bald" uttered during Napoleon's time. 3. Invent things for
'suppressio falsi' and 'suggestio veri'. 4. No. You cannot go to the
bathroom.
suggestum: not
necesarilyy ‘falsi.’ The verb is ‘to suggest that…’ which is diaphanous. Note
that the ‘su-‘ stands for ‘sub-‘ which conveys the implicitness or covertness
of the impicatum. Indirectness. It’s ‘under,’ not ‘above’ board.’ To suggest,
advise, prompt, offer, bring to mind: “quoties aequitas restitutionem
suggerit,” Dig. 4, 6, 26 fin.; cf.: “quae (res) suggerit, ut Italicarum rerum
esse credantur eae res,” reminds, admonishes, ib. 28, 5, 35 fin.: “quaedam de
republicā,” Aur. Vict. Vir. Ill. 66, 2. — Absol.: “suggerente conjuge,” at the
instigation of, Aur. Vict. Epit. 41, 11; cf.: “suggerente irā,” id. ib. 12,
10.— The implicatum is a suggestum – ALWAYS cancellable. Or not? Sometimes not,
if ‘reasonable,’ but not ‘rational.’ Jill suggests that Jack is brave when she
says, “He is an Englishman, he is; therefore, brave.” The tommy suggests that
her povery contrasts with her honesty (“’Tis the same the whole world over.”)
So the ‘suggestum’ is like the implicatum. A particular suggesta are
‘conversational suggestum.’ For Grice this is philosophically important,
because many philosophical adages cover ‘suggesta’ which are not part of the
philosopher’s import! Vide Holdcroft, “Some forms of indirect communication.”
suppresum veri:
This is a bit like an act of omission – about which Urmson once asked, “Is that
‘to do,’ Grice?” – Strictly, it is implicatural. “Smith has a beautiful
handwriting.” Grice’s abductum: “He must be suppressing some ‘veri,’ but surely
the ‘suggestio falsi’ is cancellable. On the other hand, my abent-minded uncle,
who ‘suppresses,’ is not ‘implicating.’ The ‘suppressio’ has to be
‘intentional,’ as an ‘omission’ is. Since for the Romans, the ‘verum’ applied
to a unity (alethic/practical) this was good. No multiplication, but unity –
cf. untranslatable (think) – modality ‘the ‘must’, neutral – desideratum-doxa –
think – Yes, when Untranslatable discuss ‘vero’ they do say it applies to
‘factual’ and sincerity, I think. At Collections, the expectation is that Grice
gives a report on the philosopher’s ability – not on his handwriting. It is different when Grice
applied to St. John’s. “He doesn’t return library books.” G. Richardson. Why
did he use this on two occasions? In “Prolegomena,” he uses it for his
desideratum of conversational fortitude (“make a strong conversational move”). To
suppress. suggestio falsi. Pl. suggestiones falsi. [mod.L., = suggestion
of what is false.] A misrepresentation of the truth whereby something
incorrect is implied to be true; an indirect lie. Often in contexts with
suppressio veri. QUOTES: 1815 H. Maddock Princ. & Pract.
Chancery I. 208 Whenever Suppressio veri or Suggestio falsi occur..they afford
a sufficient ground for setting aside any Release or Conveyance.
1855 Newspaper & Gen. Reader's Pocket Compan. i.4 He was bound
to say that the suppressio veri on that occasion approached very nearly to a
positive suggestio falsi. 1898 Kipling Stalky & Co. (1899) 36
It seems..that they had held back material facts; that they were guilty both of
suppressio veri and suggestio falsi. 1907 W. de Morgan Alice-for-Short
xxxvi. 389 That's suppressio veri and suggestio falsi! Besides,
it's fibs! 1962 J. Wilson Public Schools & Private Practice i.
19 It is rare to find a positively verifiable untruth in a school
brochure: but it is equally rare not to find a great many suggestiones falsi,
particularly as regards the material comfort and facilities available.
1980 D. Newsome On Edge of Paradise 7 There are undoubted cases of
suppressio veri; on the other hand, he appears to eschew suggestio falsi.
--- Fibs indeed. Suppress, suggest. Write: "Griceland,
Inc." "Yes, I agree to become a Doctor in Gricean
Studies" EXAM QUESTION: 1. Discuss suggestio falsi in
terms of detachability. 2. Compare suppresio veri and suggestion falsi in
connection with "The king of France is bald" uttered during
Napoleon's time. 3. Invent things for 'suppressio falsi' and 'suggestio
veri'. 4. No. You cannot go to the bathroom.
summum genus. What
adjective is the ‘sumum’ translating, Grice wondered. And he soon found out. We
know that the Romans were unoriginally enough with their ‘genus’ (cf. ‘gens’)
translating Grecian ‘genos.’ The highest category in the ‘arbor griceiana’ -- The
categories. There is infimum genus, or sub-summum. Talk of categories becomes
informal in Grice when he ‘echoes’ Kant in the mention of four ‘functions’ that
generate for Kant twelve categories. Grice however uses the functions
themselves, echoing Ariskant, rather, as ‘caegory’. We have then a category of
conversational quantity (involved in a principle of maximization of
conversational informativeness). We have a category of conversational quality
(or a desideratum of conversational candour). We have a category of
conversational relation (cf. Strawson’s principle of relevance along with
Strawson’s principles of the presumption of knowledge and the presumption of
ignorance). Lastly, we have a category of conversational mode. For some reason,
Grice uses ‘manner’ sometimes in lieu of Meiklejohn’s apt translation of Kant’s
modality into the shorter ‘mode.’ The four have Aristotelian pedigree, indeed
Grecian and Graeco-Roman: The quantity is Kant’s quantitat which is Aristotle’s
posotes (sic abstract) rendered in Roman as ‘quantitas.’ Of course, Aristotle
derives ‘posotes,’ from ‘poson,’ the quantum. No quantity without quantum. The
quality is Kant’s qualitat, which again has Grecian and Graeco-Roman pediegree.
It is Aristotel’s poiotes (sic in abstract), rendered in Roman as qualitas.
Again, derived from the more basic ‘poion,’ or ‘quale.’ Aristotle was unable to
find a ‘-tes’ ending form for what Kant has as ‘relation.’ ‘pros it’ is used,
and first translated into Roman as ‘relatio.’ We see here that we are talking
of a ‘summum genus.’ For who other but a philosopher is going to lecture on the
‘pros it’? What Aristotle means is that Socrates is to the right of Plato.
Finally, for Grice’s mode, there is Kant’s wrong ‘modalitat,’ since this refers
to Aristotle ‘te’ and translated in Roman as ‘modus,’ which Meiklejohn, being a
better classicist than Kant, renders as ‘mode,’ and not the pretentious
sounding ‘modality.’ Now for Kant, 12 categories are involved here. Why? Because
he subdivides each summum genus into three sub-summum or ‘inferiore’ genus.
This is complex. Kant would DISAGREE with Grice’s idea that a subject can JUDGE
in generic terms, say, about the quantum. The subject has THREE scenarios. It’s
best to reverse the order, for surely unity comes before totality. One
scenario, he utters a SINGULAR or individual utterance (Grice on ‘the’). The
CATEGORY is the first category, THE UNUM or UNITAS. The one. The unity. Second
scenario, he utters a PARTICULAR utterance (Grice’s “some (at least one). Here
we encounter the SECOND category, that of PLURALITAS, the plurum, plurality.
It’s a good thing Kant forgot that the Greeks had a dual number, and that
Urquhart has fourth number, a re-dual. A third scenario: the nirvana. He utters
a UNIVERSAL (totum) utterance (Grice on “all”). The category is that of TOTUM,
TOTALITAS, totality. Kant does not deign to specify if he means substitutional
or non-substitutional. For the quale, there are again three scenarios for Kant,
and he would deny that the subject is confronted with the FUNCTION quale and be
able to formulate a judgement. The first scenario involves the subject uttering
a PROPOSITIO DEDICATIVA (Grice elaborates on this before introducing ‘not’ in
“Indicative conditionals” – “Let’s start with some unstructured amorophous
proposition.” Here the category is NOT AFFIRMATION, but the nirvana “REALITAS,”
Reality, reale.Second scenario, subject utters a PROPOSITIO ABDICATIVA (Grice
on ‘not’). While Kant does not consider affirmatio a category (why should he?),
he does consider NEGATIO a category. Negation. See abdicatum. Third scenario,
subject utters an PROPOSITIO INFINITA. Here the category is that of LIMITATION,
which is quite like NEGATIO (cf. privatio, stelesis, versus habitus or hexis),
but not quite. Possibly LIMITATUM. Regarding the ‘pros ti.’ The first scenario
involves a categorema, PROPOSITIO CATEGORICA. Here Kant seems to think that
there is ONE category called “INHERENCE AND SUBSTISTENCE or substance and
accident. There seem rather two. He will go to this ‘pair’ formulation in one
more case in the relation, and for the three under modus. If we count the
‘categorical pairs’ as being two categories. The total would not be 12
categories but 17, which is a rather ugly number for a list of categories,
unles it is not. Kant is being VERY serious here, because if he has
SUBSTISTENCE or SUBSTANCE as a category, this is SECUNDA SUBSTANTIA or
‘deutero-ousia.’ It is a no-no to count the prote ousia or PRIMA SUBSTANTIA as
a category. It is defined as THE THING which cannot be predicated of anything!
“SUMBEBEKOS” is a trick of Kant, for surely EVERYTHING BUT THE SUBSTANCE can be
seen as an ‘accidens’ (In fact, those who deny categories, reduce them to
‘attribute’, or ‘property.’ The second scenario involves an ‘if’ Grice on ‘if’
– PROPOSITIO CONDITIONALIS – hypothetike protasis -- this involves for the
first time a MOLECULAR proposition. As in the previous case, we have a
‘category pair’, which is formulated either as CAUSALITY (CAUSALITAS) and
DEPENDENCE (Dependentia), or “cause’ (CAUSA) and ‘effect’ (Effectum). Kant is
having in mind Strawson’s account of ‘if’ (The influence of P. F. Strawson on
Kant). For since this is the hypothetical, Kant is suggeseting that in ‘if p,
q’ q depends on p, or q is an effect of its cause, p. As in “If it rains, the
boots are in the closet.” (J). The third scenario also involves a molectural proposition, A
DISJUNCTUM. PROPOSITIO DISJUNCTIVA. Note that in Kant, ‘if’ before ‘or’! His
implicature: subordination before coordination, which makes sense. Grice on
‘or.’ FOR SOME REASON, the category here for Kant is that of COMMUNITAS
(community) or RECIPROCITAS, reciprocity. He seems to be suggesting that if you
turn to the right or to the left, you are reciprocally forbidden to keep on
going straight. For the modus, similar. Here Kant is into modality. Again, it
is best to re-order the scenarios in terms of priority. Here it’s the middle
which is basic. The first scenario, subject utters an ASSERTORIC. The category
is a pair: EXISTENCE (how is this different from REALITY) and NON-EXISTENCE
(how is this different from negation?). He has in mind: ‘the cat is in the
room,’ ‘the room is empty.’ Second scenario, the subject doubts. subject utters
a problematical. (“The pillar box may be red”). Here we have a category pair:
POSSIBILITIAS (possibility) and, yes, IMPOSSIBILITAS – IMPOSSIBILITY. This is
odd, because ‘impossibility’ goes rather with the negation of necessity. The
third and last scenario, subject utters an APODEICTIC. Here again there is a
category pair – yielding 17 as the final number --: NECESSITAS, necessity, and
guess what, CONTINGENTIA, or contingency. Surely, possibilitas and contingentia
are almost the same thing. It may be what Grice has in mind when he blames a
philosopher to state that ‘what is actual is not also possible.’ Or not.
superknowing. In WoW
syntactics: Being
the gentleman he was, Grice takes a cavlier attitude to ‘syntax’ as something
that someone else must give to him, and right he is. The philosopher should
concern with more important issues. Usually Grice uses ‘unstructured’ to mean
‘syntactically unstructured,’ such as a
handwave. With a handwave, an emissor can rationally explicate and
implicate. vide compositum – Strictly, compositum translates Grecian synthesis,
rather than syntax – which is better phrased as Latin ‘contactum. Or better
combinatum – syntaxis , is, f., = σύνταξις, I.the connection of words, Prisc. 17, 1, 1. When Grice uses ‘unsructured’ he
sometimes expands this into ‘syntactically unstructured.’ Since syntax need not
be linguistic, this is an interesting semiotic perspective by Grice. He is
allowing for compositionality in a semotic system with a comibinatory other
than the first, second, and third articulation. The Latinate is ‘contactum.’ Morris
thought he was being bright when he proposed ‘syntactics,’ “long for syntax,”
he wrote. syntax, περὶ τῆς ς. τῶν λεγομένων, title of work by Chrysipp., Stoic.2.6, cf. Plu.2.731f (pl.);
“τὴν ς. τῶν ὀνομάτων” Gal.16.736, cf. 720; περὶ συντάξεως, title of work by A.D.; but also, compound forms, Id.Conj.214.7; ποιεῖσθαι μετά τινος τὴν ς. ib.221.19; also, rule
for combination of sounds or letters, τὸ χ (in δέγμενος)“ εἰς γ μετεβλήθη, τῆς ς. οὕτως ἀπαιτούσης” EM252.45, cf. Luc.Jud. Voc.3; also, connected speech, ἐν τῇ ς. ἐγκλιτέον Sch.Il.16.85.Grice’s presupposition is that a
‘syntactics’ is not enough for a system to be a ‘communication-system’. Nothing
is communicated. With the syntagma, there is no communicatum. Grice loved two
devices of the syntactic kind: subscripts and square brackets (for the
assignment of common-ground status). Grice is a conservative
(dissenting rationalist) when it comes to syntax and semantics. He hardly uses
pragmatics albeit in a loose way (pragmatic import, pragmatic inference), but
was aware of Morriss triangle. Syntax is presented along the lines of
Gentzen, i.e. a system of natural deduction in terms of inference rules of
introduction and elimination for each formal device. Semantics pertains
rather to Witterss truth-values, i.e. the assignment of a satisfactory-valuation:
the true and the good. A syntactic approach to Grice’s System does not require
value-assignment. The system is constructed alla Gentzen with introduction and
elimination rules which are regarded as syntactic in nature. One can easily
check that the rules statedabove adequately characterise the meaning of
classical conjunction which is true iff both conjuncts are true. Hence the
syntactic deducibility relation coincides with the semantic relation of /=
or logical consequence (or entailment).
Refs.: The most direct source is
“Vacuous names,” but the keyword ‘syntax’ is helpful. The H. P. Grice Papers,
BANC.
Subjectum --
subjectivism, any philosophical view that attempts to understand in a
subjective manner what at first glance would seem to be a class of judgments
that are objectively either true or false
i.e., true or false independently of what we believe, want, or hope.
There are two ways of being a subjectivist. In the first way, one can say that
the judgments in question, despite first appearances, are really judgments
about our own attitudes, beliefs, emotions, etc. In the second way, one can
deny that the judgments are true or false at all, arguing instead that they are
disguised commands or expressions of attitudes. In ethics, for example, a
subjective view of the second sort is that moral judgments are simply
expressions of our positive and negative attitudes. This is emotivism.
Prescriptivism is also a subjective view of the second sort; it is the view
that moral judgments are really commands
to say “X is good” is to say, details aside, “Do X.” Views that make
morality ultimately a matter of conventions or what we or most people agree to
can also be construed as subjective theories, albeit of the first type.
Subjectivism is not limited to ethics, however. According to a subjective view
of epistemic rationality, the standards of rational belief are the standards
that the individual or perhaps most members in the individual’s community would
approve of insofar as they are interested in believing those propositions that
are true and not believing those propositions that are false. Similarly,
phenomenalists can be regarded as proposing a subjective account of material
object statements, since according to them, such statements are best understood
as complex statements about the course of our experiences.
subject-object dichotomy,
the distinction between thinkers and what they think about. The distinction is
not exclusive, since subjects can also be objects, as in reflexive
self-conscious thought, which takes the subject as its intended object. The
dichotomy also need not be an exhaustive distinction in the strong sense that
everything is either a subject or an object, since in a logically possible
world in which there are no thinkers, there may yet be mind-independent
subaltern subjectobject dichotomy 885
885 things that are neither subjects nor objects. Whether there are
non-thinking things that are not objects of thought in the actual world depends
on whether or not it is sufficient in logic to intend every individual thing by
such thoughts and expressions as ‘We can think of everything that exists’. The
dichotomy is an interimplicative distinction between thinkers and what they
think about, in which each presupposes the other. If there are no subjects,
then neither are there objects in the true sense, and conversely. A
subjectobject dichotomy is acknowledged in most Western philosophical
traditions, but emphasized especially in Continental philosophy, beginning with
Kant, and carrying through idealist thought in Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and
Schopenhauer. It is also prominent in intentionalist philosophy, in the
empirical psychology of Brentano, the object theory of Meinong, Ernst Mally
18794, and Twardowski, and the transcendental phenomenology of Husserl.
Subjectobject dichotomy is denied by certain mysticisms, renounced as the
philosophical fiction of duality, of which Cartesian mindbody dualism is a
particular instance, and criticized by mystics as a confusion that prevents
mind from recognizing its essential oneness with the world, thereby
contributing to unnecessary intellectual and moral dilemmas.
sublime, -- Grice’s
favoured translation of Grecian ‘hypsos’ -- a feeling brought about by objects
that are infinitely large or vast such as the heavens or the ocean or
overwhelmingly powerful such as a raging torrent, huge mountains, or
precipices. The former in Kant’s terminology is the mathematically sublime and
the latter the dynamically sublime. Though the experience of the sublime is to
an important extent unpleasant, it is also accompanied by a certain pleasure:
we enjoy the feeling of being overwhelmed. On Kant’s view, this pleasure
results from an awareness that we have powers of reason that are not dependent
on sensation, but that legislate over sense. The sublime thus displays both the
limitations of sense experience and hence our feeling of displeasure and the
power of our own mind and hence the feeling of pleasure. The sublime was an
especially important concept in the aesthetic theory of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. Reflection on it was stimulated by the appearance of a
translation of Longinus’s Peri hypsous On the Sublime in 1674. The “postmodern
sublime” has in addition emerged in late twentieth century thought as a basis
for raising questions about art. Whereas beauty is associated with that whose
form can be apprehended, the sublime is associated with the formless, that
which is “unpresentable” in sensation. Thus, it is connected with critiques of
“the aesthetic” understood as that which
is sensuously present as a way of
understanding what is important about art. It has also been given a political
reading, where the sublime connects with resistance to rule, and beauty
connects with conservative acceptance of existing forms or structures of
society.
subsidiarity, a basic
principle of social order and the common good governing the relations between
the higher and lower associations in a political community. Positively, the
principle of subsidiarity holds that the common good, i.e., the ensemble of
social resources and institutions that facilitate human self-realization,
depends on fostering the free, creative initiatives of individuals and of their
voluntary associations; thus, the state, in addition to its direct role in
maintaining public good which comprises justice, public peace, and public
morality also has an indirect role in promoting other aspects of the common
good by rendering assistance subsidium to those individuals and associations
whose activities facilitate cooperative human self-realization in work, play,
the arts, sciences, and religion. Negatively, the principle of subsidiarity
holds that higher-level i.e., more comprehensive associations while they must monitor, regulate, and
coordinate ought not to absorb, replace,
or undermine the free initiatives and activities of lower-level associations
and individuals insofar as these are not contrary to the common good. This
presumption favoring free individual and social initiative has been defended on
various grounds, such as the inefficiency of burdening the state with myriad
local concerns, as well as the corresponding efficiency of unleashing the free,
creative potential of subordinate groups and individuals who build up the
shared economic, scientific, and artistic resources of society. But the deeper
ground for this presumption is the view subjunctive conditional subsidiarity
886 886 that human flourishing depends
crucially on freedom for individual self-direction and for the self-government
of voluntary associations and that human beings flourish best through their own
personal and cooperative initiatives rather than as the passive consumers or
beneficiaries of the initiatives of others.
subsistence translation
of G. Bestand, in current philosophy, especially Meinong’s system, the kind of
being that belongs to “ideal” objects such as mathematical objects, states of
affairs, and abstractions like similarity and difference. By contrast, the kind
of being that belongs to “real” wirklich objects, things of the sorts
investigated by the sciences other than psychology and pure mathematics, is
called existence Existenz. Existence and subsistence together exhaust the realm
of being Sein. So, e.g., the subsistent ideal figures whose properties are
investigated by geometers do not exist
they are nowhere to be found in the real world but it is no less true of them that they have
being than it is of an existent physical object: there are such figures. Being
does not, however, exhaust the realm of objects or things. The psychological
phenomenon of intentionality shows that there are in some sense of ‘there are’
objects that neither exist nor subsist. Every intentional state is directed
toward an object. Although one may covet the Hope Diamond or desire the unification
of Europe, one may also covet a non-existent material object or desire a
non-subsistent state of affairs. If one covets a non-existent diamond, there is
in some sense of ‘there is’ something that one covets one’s state of mind has an object and it has certain properties: it is, e.g., a
diamond. It may therefore be said to inhabit the realm of Sosein ‘being thus’
or ‘predication’ or ‘having properties’, which is the category comprising the
totality of objects. Objects that do not have any sort of being, either
existence or subsistence, belong to non-being Nichtsein. In general, the
properties of an object do not determine whether it has being or non-being. But
there are special cases: the round square, by its very nature, cannot subsist.
Meinong thus maintains that objecthood is ausserseiend, i.e., independent of
both existence and subsistence.
Substantia – Grice: “The
Romans never felt the need for the word ‘substantia’ but trust Cicero to force
them to use it!” -- Grice lectured on this with J. L. Austin and P. F.
Strawson. hypousia -- as defined by Aristotle in the Categories, that which is
neither predicable “sayable” of anything nor present in anything as an aspect
or property of it. The examples he gives are an individual man and an
individual horse. We can predicate being a horse of something but not a horse;
nor is a horse in something else. He also held that only substances can remain
self-identical through change. All other things are accidents of substances and
exist only as aspects, properties, or relations of substances, or kinds of
substances, which Aristotle called secondary substances. An example of an
accident would be the color of an individual man, and an example of a secondary
substance would be his being a man. For Locke, a substance is that part of an
individual thing in which its properties inhere. Since we can observe, indeed
know, only a thing’s properties, its substance is unknowable. Locke’s sense is
obviously rooted in Aristotle’s but the latter carries no skeptical implications.
In fact, Locke’s sense is closer in meaning to what Aristotle calls matter, and
would be better regarded as a synonym of ‘substratum’, as indeed it is by
Locke. Substance may also be conceived as that which is capable of existing
independently of anything else. This sense is also rooted in Aristotle’s, but,
understood quite strictly, leads to Spinoza’s view that there can be only one
substance, namely, the totality of reality or God. A fourth sense of
‘substance’ is the common, ordinary sense, ‘what a thing is made of’. This
sense is related to Locke’s, but lacks the latter’s skeptical implications. It
also corresponds to what Aristotle meant by matter, at least proximate matter,
e.g., the bronze of a bronze statue Aristotle analyzes individual things as composites
of matter and form. This notion of matter, or stuff, has great philosophical
importance, because it expresses an idea crucial to both our ordinary and our
scientific understandings of the world. Philosophers such as Hume who deny the
existence of substances hold that individual things are mere bundles of
properties, namely, the properties ordinarily attributed to them, and usually
hold that they are incapable of change; they are series of momentary events,
rather than things enduring through time.
substantialism, the view
that the primary, most fundamental entities are substances, everything else
being dependent for its existence on them, either as a property of them or a
relation between them. Different versions of the view would correspond to the
different senses of the word ‘substance’.
substitutivity salva
veritate, a condition met by two expressions when one is substitutable for the
other at a certain occurrence in a sentence and the truth-value truth or
falsity of the sentence is necessarily unchanged when the substitution is made.
In such a case the two expressions are said to exhibit substitutivity or
substitutability salva veritate literally, ‘with truth saved’ with respect to
one another in that context. The expressions are also said to be
interchangeable or intersubstitutable salva veritate in that context. Where it
is obvious from a given discussion that it is the truth-value that is to be
preserved, it may be said that the one expression is substitutable for the
other or exhibits substitutability with respect to the other at that place.
Leibniz proposed to use the universal interchangeability salva veritate of two
terms in every “proposition” in which they occur as a necessary and sufficient
condition for identity presumably for
the identity of the things denoted by the terms. There are apparent exceptions
to this criterion, as Leibniz himself noted. If a sentence occurs in a context
governed by a psychological verb such as ‘believe’ or ‘desire’, by an
expression conveying modality e.g., ‘necessarily’, ‘possibly’, or by certain
temporal expressions such as ‘it will soon be the case that’, then two terms
may denote the same thing but not be interchangeable within such a sentence.
Occurrences of expressions within quotation marks or where the expressions are
both mentioned and used cf. Quine’s example, “Giorgione was so-called because
of his size” also exhibit failure of substitutivity. Frege urged that such
failures are to be explained by the fact that within such contexts an expression
does not have its ordinary denotation but denotes instead either its usual sense
or the expression itself.
summum bonum Latin,
‘highest good’, that in relation to which all other things have at most
instrumental value value only insofar as they are productive of what is the
highest good. Philosophical conceptions of the summum bonum have for the most
part been teleological in character. That is, they have identified the highest
good in terms of some goal or goals that human beings, it is supposed, pursue by
their very nature. These natural goals or ends have differed considerably. For
the theist, this end is God; for the rationalist, it is the rational
comprehension of what is real; for hedonism, it is pleasure; etc. The highest
good, however, need not be teleologically construed. It may simply be posited,
or supposed, that it is known, through some intuitive process, that a certain
type of thing is “intrinsically good.” On such a view, the relevant contrast is
not so much between what is good as an end and what is good as a means to this
end, as between what is good purely in itself and what is good only in
combination with certain other elements the “extrinsically good”. Perhaps the
best example of such a view of the highest good would be the position of Moore.
Must the summum bonum be just one thing, or one kind of thing? Yes, to this
extent: although one could certainly combine pluralism the view that there are
many, irreducibly different goods with an assertion that the summum bonum is
“complex,” the notion of the highest good has typically been the province of
monists believers in a single good, not pluralists. J.A.M. summum genus.
Supererogation: Grice got
interested in this thanks to J. O. Urmson who discussed his ‘saints and heroes’
with the Saturday morning kindergarten held by Austin -- the property of going
beyond the call of duty. Supererogatory actions are sometimes equated with
actions that are morally good in the sense that they are encouraged by morality
but not required by it. Sometimes they are equated with morally commendable
actions, i.e., actions that indicate a superior moral character. It is quite
common for morally good actions to be morally commendable and vice versa, so
that it is not surprising that these two kinds of supererogatory actions are
not clearly distinguished even though they are quite distinct. Certain kinds of
actions are not normally considered to be morally required, e.g., giving to
charity, though morality certainly encourages doing them. However, if one is
wealthy and gives only a small amount to charity, then, although one’s act is
supererogatory in the sense of being morally good, it is not supererogatory in
the sense of being morally commendable, for it does not indicate a superior
moral character. Certain kinds of actions are normally morally required, e.g.,
keeping one’s promises. However, when the harm or risk of harm of keeping one’s
promise is sufficiently great compared to the harm caused by breaking the
promise to excuse breaking the promise, then keeping one’s promise counts as a
supererogatory act in the sense of being morally commendable. Some versions of
consequentialism claim that everyone is always morally required to act so as to
bring about the best consequences. On such a theory there are no actions that
are morally encouraged but not required; thus, for those holding such theories,
if there are supererogatory acts, they must be morally commendable. Many
versions of non-consequentialism also fail to provide for acts that are morally
encouraged but not morally required; thus, if they allow for supererogatory
acts, they must regard them as morally required acts done at such significant
personal cost that one might be excused for not doing them. The view that all
actions are either morally required, morally prohibited, or morally indifferent
makes it impossible to secure a place for supererogatory acts in the sense of
morally good acts. This view that there are no acts that are morally encouraged
but not morally required may be the result of misleading terminology. Both Kant
and Mill distinguish between duties of perfect obligation and duties of
imperfect obligation, acknowledging that a duty of imperfect obligation does
not specify any particular act that one is morally required to do. However,
since they use the term ‘duty’ it is very easy to view all acts falling under
these “duties” as being morally required. One way of avoiding the view that all
morally encouraged acts are morally required is to avoid the common
philosophical misuse of the term ‘duty’. One can replace ‘duties of perfect
obligation’ with ‘actions required by moral rules’ and ‘duties of imperfect
obligation’ with ‘actions encouraged by moral ideals’. However, a theory that
includes the kinds of acts that are supererogatory in the sense of being
morally good has to distinguish between that sense of ‘supererogatory’ and the
sense meaning ‘morally commendable’, i.e., indicating a superior moral
character in the agent. For as pointed out above, not all morally good acts are
morally commendable, nor are all morally commendable acts morally good, even
though a particular act may be supererogatory in both senses.
supervenience, a
dependence relation between properties or facts of one type, and properties or
facts of another type. Moore, for instance, held that the property intrinsic
value is dependent in the relevant way on certain non-moral properties although
he did not employ the word ‘supervenience’. As he put it, “if a given thing
possesses any kind of intrinsic value in a certain degree, then not only must
that same thing possess it, under all circumstances, in the same degree, but
also anything exactly like it, must, under all circumstances, possess it in
exactly the same degree” Philosophical Studies, 2. The concept of
supervenience, as a relation between properties, is essentially this:
Properties of type A are supervenient on properties of type B if and only if
two objects cannot differ with respect to their A-properties without also
differing with respect to their B-properties. Properties that allegedly are
supervenient on others are often called consequential properties, especially in
ethics; the idea is that if something instantiates a moral property, then it
does so in virtue of, i.e., as a non-causal consequence of, instantiating some
lower-level property on which the moral property supervenes. In another,
related sense, supervenience is a feature of discourse of one type, vis-à-vis
discourse of another type. The term was so used, again in connection with
morals, by Hare, who wrote: First, let us take that characteristic of “good”
which has been called its supervenience. Suppose that we say, “St. Francis was
a good man.” It is logically impossible to say this and to maintain at the same
time that there might have been another man placed exactly in the same
circumstances as St. Francis, and who behaved in exactly the same way, but who
differed from St. Francis in this respect only, that he was not a good man. The
Language of Morals, 2 Here the idea is that it would be a misuse of moral language,
a violation of the “logic of moral discourse,” to apply ‘good’ to one thing but
not to something else exactly similar in all pertinent non-moral respects. Hare
is a metaethical irrealist: he denies that there are moral properties or facts.
So for him, moral supervenience is a feature of moral discourse and judgment,
not a relation between properties or facts of two types. The notion of
supervenience has come to be used quite widely in metaphysics and philosophy of
mind, usually in the first sense explained above. This use was heralded by
Davidson in articulating a position about the relation between physical and
mental properties, or statetypes, that eschews the reducibility of mental
properties to physical ones. He wrote: Although the position I describe denies
there are psychophysical laws, it is consistent with the view that mental
characteristics are in some sense dependent, or supervenient, on physical
characteristics. Such supervenience might be taken to mean that there cannot be
two events alike in all physical respects but differing in some mental
respects, or that an object cannot alter in some mental respects without
altering in some physical respects. Dependence or supervenience of this kind
does not entail reducibility through law or definition. “Mental Events,” 0 A
variety of supervenience theses have been propounded in metaphysics and
philosophy of mind, usually although not always in conjunction with attempts to
formulate metaphysical positions that are naturalistic, in some sense, without being
strongly reductionistic. For instance, it is often asserted that mental
properties and facts are supervenient on neurobiological properties, and/or on
physicochemical properties and facts. And it is often claimed, more generally,
that all properties and facts are supervenient on the properties and facts of
the kind described by physics. Much attention has been directed at how to
formulate the desired supervenience theses, and thus how to characterize
supervenience itself. A distinction has been drawn between weak supervenience,
asserting that in any single possible world w, any two individuals in w that
differ in their A-properties also differ in their B-properties; and strong
supervenience, asserting that for any two individuals i and j, either within a
single possible world or in two distinct ones, if i and j differ in
A-properties then they also differ in Bproperties. It is sometimes alleged that
traditional formulations of supervenience, like Moore’s or Hare’s, articulate
only weak supervenience, whereas strong supervenience is needed to express the
relevant kind of determination or dependence. It is sometimes replied, however,
superset supervenience 891 891 that the
traditional natural-language formulations do in fact express strong
supervenience and that formalizations
expressing mere weak supervenience are mistranslations. Questions about how
best to formulate supervenience theses also arise in connection with intrinsic
and non-intrinsic properties. For instance, the property being a bank, instantiated
by the brick building on Main Street, is not supervenient on intrinsic physical
properties of the building itself; rather, the building’s having this
social-institutional property depends on a considerably broader range of facts
and features, some of which are involved in subserving the social practice of
banking. The term ‘supervenience base’ is frequently used to denote the range
of entities and happenings whose lowerlevel properties and relations jointly
underlie the instantiation of some higher-level property like being a bank by
some individual like the brick building on Main Street. Supervenience theses
are sometimes formulated so as to smoothly accommodate properties and facts
with broad supervenience bases. For instance, the idea that the physical facts
determine all the facts is sometimes expressed as global supervenience, which
asserts that any two physically possible worlds differing in some respect also
differ in some physical respect. Or, sometimes this idea is expressed as the
stronger thesis of regional supervenience, which asserts that for any two
spatiotemporal regions r and s, either within a single physically possible
world or in two distinct ones, if r and s differ in some intrinsic respect then
they also differ in some intrinsic physical respect.
Suppositum – cf.
presuppositum -- in the Middle Ages, reference. The theory of supposition, the
central notion in the theory of proprietates terminorum, was developed in the
twelfth century, and was refined and discussed into early modern times. It has
two parts their names are a modern convenience. 1 The theory of supposition
proper. This typically divided suppositio into “personal” reference to
individuals not necessarily to persons, despite the name, “simple” reference to
species or genera, and “material” reference to spoken or written expressions.
Thus ‘man’ in ‘Every man is an animal’ has personal supposition, in ‘Man is a
species’ simple supposition, and in ‘Man is a monosyllable’ material
supposition. The theory also included an account of how the range of a term’s
reference is affected by tense and by modal factors. 2 The theory of “modes” of
personal supposition. This part of supposition theory divided personal
supposition typically into “discrete” ‘Socrates’ in ‘Socrates is a man’, “determinate”
‘man’ in ‘Some man is a Grecian’, “confused and distributive” ‘man’ in ‘Every
man is an animal’, and “merely confused” ‘animal’ in ‘Every man is an animal’.
The purpose of this second part of the theory is a matter of some dispute. By
the late fourteenth century, it had in some authors become a theory of
quantification. The term ‘suppositio’ was also used in the Middle Ages in the
ordinary sense, to mean ‘assumption’, ‘hypothesis’.
Survival: discussed by
Grice in what he calls the ‘genoritorial programme, where the philosopher
posits himself as a creature-constructor. It’s an expository device that allows
to ask questions in the third person, “seeing that we can thus avoid the
so-called ‘first-person bias’” -- continued existence after one’s biological
death. So understood, survival can pertain only to beings that are organisms at
some time or other, not to beings that are disembodied at all times as angels
are said to be or to beings that are embodied but never as organisms as might
be said of computers. Theories that maintain that one’s individual
consciousness is absorbed into a universal consciousness after death or that
one continues to exist only through one’s descendants, insofar as they deny
one’s own continued existence as an individual, are not theories of survival.
Although survival does not entail immortality or anything about reward or
punishment in an afterlife, many theories of survival incorporate these
features. Theories about survival have expressed differing attitudes about the importance
of the body. supervenient behaviorism survival 892 892 Some philosophers have maintained that
persons cannot survive without their own bodies, typically espousing a doctrine
of resurrection; such a view was held by Aquinas. Others, including the
Pythagoreans, have believed that one can survive in other bodies, allowing for
reincarnation into a body of the same species or even for transmigration into a
body of another species. Some, including Plato and perhaps the Pythagoreans,
have claimed that no body is necessary, and that survival is fully achieved by
one’s escaping embodiment. There is a similar spectrum of opinion about the
importance of one’s mental life. Some, such as Locke, have supposed that
survival of the same person would require memory of one’s having experienced
specific past events. Plato’s doctrine of recollection, in contrast, supposes
that one can survive without any experiential memory; all that one typically is
capable of recollecting are impersonal necessary truths. Philosophers have
tested the relative importance of bodily versus mental factors by means of
various thought experiments, of which the following is typical. Suppose that a
person’s whole mental life memories,
skills, and character traits were
somehow duplicated into a data bank and erased from the person, leaving a
living radical amnesiac. Suppose further that the person’s mental life were
transcribed into another radically amnesiac body. Has the person survived, and
if so, as whom?
Swedenborgianism, the
theosophy professed by a worldwide movement established as the New Jerusalem
Church in London in 1788 by the followers of Emanuel Swedenborg 16881772, a
Swedish natural philosopher, visionary, and biblical exegete. Author of
geological and cosmological works, he fused the rationalist Cartesian and
empiricist Lockean legacies into a natural philosophy Principia Rerum
Naturalium, 1734 that propounded the harmony of the mechanistic universe with
biblical revelation. Inspired by Liebniz, Malebranche, Platonism, and Neoplatonism,
he unfolded a doctrine of correspondence A Hieroglyphic Key, 1741 to account
for the relation between body and soul and between the natural and spiritual
worlds, and applied it to biblical exegesis. What attracted the wide following
of the “Spirit-Seer” were his theosophic speculations in the line of Boehme and
the mystical, prophetic tradition in which he excelled Heavenly Arcana, 174956.
J.-L.S.
swinburne: r. English
philosopher of religion and of science. In philosophy of science, he has contributed
to confirmation theory and to the philosophy of space and time. His work in
philosophy of religion is the most ambitious project in philosophical theology
undertaken by a British philosopher in the twentieth century. Its first part is
a trilogy on the coherence and justification of theistic belief and the
rationality of living by that belief: The Coherence of Theism 7, The Existence
of God 9, and Faith and Reason 1. Since 5, when Swinburne became Nolloth
Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the of Oxford, he has written a tetralogy about
some of the most central of the distinctively Christian religious doctrines:
Responsibility and Atonement 9, Revelation 2, The Christian God 4, and Providence
and the Problem of Evil 8. The most interesting feature of the trilogy is its
contribution to natural theology. Using Bayesian reasoning, Swinburne builds a
cumulative case for theism by arguing that its probability is raised sustaining
cause Swinburne, Richard 893 893 by
such things as the existence of the universe, its order, the existence of
consciousness, human opportunities to do good, the pattern of history, evidence
of miracles, and religious experience. The existence of evil does not count
against the existence of God. On our total evidence theism is more probable
than not. In the tetralogy he explicates and defends such Christian doctrines
as original sin, the Atonement, Heaven, Hell, the Trinity, the Incarnation, and
Providence. He also analyzes the grounds for supposing that some Christian
doctrines are revealed truths, and argues for a Christian theodicy in response
to the problem of evil.
Argumentum – cited by
Grice in “Aspects of reason.” Grice was Strawson’s tutor for the Logic Paper,
and he had to go with him over the ‘boring theory of the syllogism – Barbara,
Celarent, and the reset of them!” -- syllogism, in Aristotle’s words, “a
discourse in which, a certain thing being stated, something other than what is
stated follows of necessity from being so” Prior Analytics, 24b 18. Three types
of syllogism were usually distinguished: categorical, hypothetical, and
disjunctive. Each will be treated in that order. The categorical syllogism.
This is an argument consisting of three categorical propositions, two serving
as premises and one serving as conclusion. E.g., ‘Some students are happy; all students are high school graduates;
therefore, some high school graduates are happy’. If a syllogism is valid, the
premises must be so related to the conclusion that it is impossible for both
premises to be true and the conclusion false. There are four types of
categorical propositions: universal affirmative or A-propositions ‘All S are P’, or ‘SaP’; universal negative
or E-propositions ‘No S are P’, or
‘SeP’; particular affirmative or I-propositions
‘Some S are P’, or ‘SiP’; and particular negative or O-propositions:
‘Some S are not P’, or ‘SoP’. The mediate basic components of categorical
syllogism are terms serving as subjects or predicates in the premises and the
conclusion. There must be three and only three terms in any categorical
syllogism, the major term, the minor term, and the middle term. Violation of
this basic rule of structure is called the fallacy of four terms quaternio
terminorum; e.g., ‘Whatever is right is useful; only one of my hands is right;
therefore only one of my hands is useful’. Here ‘right’ does not have the same
meaning in its two occurrences; we therefore have more than three terms and
hence no genuine categorical syllogism. The syllogistic terms are identifiable
and definable with reference to the position they have in a given syllogism.
The predicate of the conclusion is the major term; the subject of the
conclusion is the minor term; the term that appears once in each premise but
not in the conclusion is the middle term. As it is used in various types of
categorical propositions, a term is either distributed stands for each and
every member of its extension or undistributed. There is a simple rule
regarding the distribution: universal propositions SaP and SeP distribute their
subject terms; negative propositions SeP and SoP distribute their predicate
terms. No terms are distributed in an I-proposition. Various sets of rules
governing validity of categorical syllogisms have been offered. The following
is a “traditional” set from the popular Port-Royal Logic 1662. R1: The middle
term must be distributed at least once. Violation: ‘All cats are animals; some
animals do not eat liver; therefore some cats do not eat liver’. The middle
term ‘animals’ is not distributed either in the first or minor premise, being
the predicate of an affirmative proposition, nor in the second or major
premise, being the subject of a particular proposition; hence, the fallacy of
undistributed middle. R2: A term cannot be distributed in the conclusion if it
is undistributed in the premises. Violation: ‘All dogs are carnivorous; no
flowers are dogs; therefore, no flowers are carnivorous’. Here the major,
‘carnivorous’, is distributed in the conclusion, being the predicate of a
negative proposition, but not in the premise, serving there as predicate of an
affirmative proposition; hence, the fallacy of illicit major term. Another
violation of R2: ‘All students are happy individuals; no criminals are
students; therefore, no happy individuals are criminals’. Here the minor,
‘happy individuals’, is distributed in the conclusion, but not distributed in
the minor premise; hence the fallacy of illicit minor term. R3: No conclusion
may be drawn from two negative premises. Violation: ‘No dogs are cats; some
dogs do not like liver; therefore, some cats do not like liver’. Here R1 is
satisfied, since the middle term ‘dogs’ is distributed in the minor premise; R2
is satisfied, since both the minor term ‘cats’ as well as the major term
‘things that like liver’ are distributed in the premises and thus no violation
of distribution of terms occurs. It is only by virtue of R3 that we can
proclaim this syllogism to be invalid. R4: A negative conclusion cannot be
drawn where both premises are affirmative. Violation: ‘All educated people take
good care of their children; all syllogism syllogism 894 894 who take good care of their children are
poor; therefore, some poor people are not educated’. Here, it is only by virtue
of the rule of quality, R4, that we can proclaim this syllogism invalid. R5:
The conclusion must follow the weaker premise; i.e., if one of the premises is
negative, the conclusion must be negative, and if one of them is particular,
the conclusion must be particular. R6: From two particular premises nothing
follows. Let us offer an indirect proof for this rule. If both particular
premises are affirmative, no term is distributed and therefore the fallacy of
undistributed middle is inevitable. To avoid it, we have to make one of the
premises negative, which will result in a distributed predicate as middle term.
But by R5, the conclusion must then be negative; thus, the major term will be
distributed in the conclusion. To avoid violating R2, we must distribute that
term in the major premise. It could not be in the position of subject term,
since only universal propositions distribute their subject term and, by
hypothesis, both premises are particular. But we could not use the same
negative premise used to distribute the middle term; we must make the other particular
premise negative. But then we violate R3. Thus, any attempt to make a syllogism
with two particular premises valid will violate one or more basic rules of
syllogism. This set of rules assumes that A- and Epropositions have existential
import and hence that an I- or an O-proposition may legitimately be drawn from
a set of exclusively universal premises. Categorical syllogisms are classified
according to figure and mood. The figure of a categorical syllogism refers to
the schema determined by the possible position of the middle term in relation
to the major and minor terms. In “modern logic,” four syllogistic figures are
recognized. Using ‘M’ for middle term, ‘P’ for major term, and ‘S’ for minor
term, they can be depicted as follows: Aristotle recognized only three
syllogistic figures. He seems to have taken into account just the two premises
and the extension of the three terms occurring in them, and then asked what
conclusion, if any, can be derived from those premises. It turns out, then,
that his procedure leaves room for three figures only: one in which the M term
is the subject of one and predicate of the other premise; another in which the
M term is predicated in both premises; and a third one in which the M term is
the subject in both premises. Medievals followed him, although all considered
the so-called inverted first i.e., moods of the first figure with their
conclusion converted either simply or per accidens to be legitimate also. Some
medievals e.g., Albalag and most moderns since Leibniz recognize a fourth
figure as a distinct figure, considering syllogistic terms on the basis not of
their extension but of their position in the conclusion, the S term of the
conclusion being defined as the minor term and the P term being defined as the
major term. The mood of a categorical syllogism refers to the configuration of
types of categorical propositions determined on the basis of the quality and
quantity of the propositions serving as premises and conclusion of any given
syllogism; e.g., ‘No animals are plants; all cats are animals; therefore no
cats are plants’, ‘MeP, SaM /, SeP’, is a syllogism in the mood EAE in the
first figure. ‘All metals conduct electricity; no stones conduct electricity;
therefore no stones are metals’, ‘PaM, SeM /, SeP’, is the mood AEE in the
second figure. In the four syllogistic figures there are 256 possible moods,
but only 24 are valid only 19 in modern logic, on the ground of a
non-existential treatment of A- and E-propositions. As a mnemonic device and to
facilitate reference, names have been assigned to the valid moods, with each
vowel representing the type of categorical proposition. William Sherwood and
Peter of Spain offered the famous list designed to help students to remember
which moods in any given figure are valid and how the “inevident” moods in the
second and third figures are provable by reduction to those in the first
figure: barbara, celarent, darii, ferio direct Fig. 1; baralipton, celantes,
dabitis, fapesmo, frisesomorum indirect Fig. 1; cesare, camestres, festino,
baroco Fig. 2; darapti, felapton, disamis, datisi, bocardo, ferison Fig. 3. The
hypothetical syllogism. The pure hypothetical syllogism is an argument in which
both the premises and the conclusion are hypothetical, i.e. conditional,
propositions; e.g., ‘If the sun is shining, it is warm; if it is warm, the
plants will grow; therefore if the sun is shining, the plants will grow’.
Symbolically, this argument form can be represented by ‘A P B, B P C /, A P C’.
It was not recognized as such by Aristotle, but Aristotle’s pupil Theophrastus
foreshadowed it, even syllogism syllogism 895
895 though it is not clear from his example of it ‘If man is, animal is; if animal is, then
substance is; if therefore man is, substance is’ whether this was seen to be a principle of
term logic or a principle of propositional logic. It was the MegaricStoic
philosophers and Boethius who fully recognized hypothetical propositions and
syllogisms as principles of the most general theory of deduction. Mixed
hypothetical syllogisms are arguments consisting of a hypothetical premise and
a categorical premise, and inferring a categorical proposition; e.g., ‘If the
sun is shining, the plants will grow; the sun is shining; therefore the plants
will grow’. Symbolically, this is represented by ‘P P Q, P /, Q’. This argument
form was explicitly formulated in ancient times by the Stoics as one of the
“indemonstrables” and is now known as modus ponens. Another equally basic form
of mixed hypothetical syllogism is ‘P P Q, -Q /, ~P’, known as modus tollens.
The disjunctive syllogism. This is an argument in which the leading premise is
a disjunction, the other premise being a denial of one of the alternatives,
concluding to the remaining alternative; e.g., ‘It is raining or I will go for a
walk; but it is not raining; therefore I will go for a walk’. It is not always
clear whether the ‘or’ of the disjunctive premise is inclusive or exclusive.
Symbolic logic removes the ambiguity by using two different symbols and thus
clearly distinguishes between inclusive or weak disjunction, ‘P 7 Q’, which is
true provided not both alternatives are false, and exclusive or strong
disjunction, ‘P W Q’, which is true provided exactly one alternative is true
and exactly one false. The definition of ‘disjunctive syllogism’ presupposes
that the lead premise is an inclusive or weak disjunction, on the basis of
which two forms are valid: ‘P 7 Q, -P /, Q’ and ‘P 7 Q, -Q /, P’. If the
disjunctive premise is exclusive, we have four valid argument forms, and we should
speak here of an exclusive disjunctive syllogism. This is defined as an
argument in which either from an exclusive disjunction and the denial of one of
its disjuncts we infer the remaining disjunct
’P W Q, -P /,Q’, and ‘P W Q, -Q /, P’ modus tollendo ponens; or else,
from an exclusive disjunction and one of its disjuncts we infer the denial of
the remaining disjunct ’P W Q, P /, -Q’,
and ‘P W Q, Q /,-P’ modus ponendo tollens.
synaesthesia, a conscious
experience in which qualities normally associated with one sensory modality are
or seem to be sensed in another. Examples include auditory and tactile visions
such as “loud sunlight” and “soft moonlight” as well as visual bodily
sensations such as “dark thoughts” and “bright smiles.” Two features of synaesthesia
are of philosophic interest. First, the experience may be used to judge the
appropriateness of sensory metaphors and similes, such as Baudelaire’s “sweet
as oboes.” The metaphor is appropriate just when oboes sound sweet. Second,
synaesthesia challenges the manner in which common sense distinguishes among
the external senses. It is commonly acknowledged that taste, e.g., is not only
unlike hearing, smell, or any other sense, but differs from them because taste
involves gustatory rather than auditory experiences. In synaesthesia, however,
one might taste sounds sweet-sounding oboes. G.A.G. syncategoremata, 1 in
grammar, words that cannot serve by themselves as subjects or predicates of
categorical propositions. The opposite is categoremata, words that can do this.
For example, ‘and’, ‘if’, ‘every’, ‘because’, ‘insofar’, and ‘under’ are
syncategorematic terms, whereas ‘dog’, ‘smooth’, and ‘sings’ are categorematic
ones. This usage comes from the fifth-century Latin grammarian Priscian. It
seems to have been the original way of drawing the distinction, and to have
persisted through later periods along syllogism, demonstrative syncategoremata
896 896 with other usages described
below. 2 In medieval logic from the twelfth century on, the distinction was drawn
semantically. Categoremata are words that have a definite independent
signification. Syncategoremata do not have any independent signification or,
according to some authors, not a definite one anyway, but acquire a
signification only when used in a proposition together with categoremata. The
examples used above work here as well. 3 Medieval logic distinguished not only
categorematic and syncategorematic words, but also categorematic and
syncategorematic uses of a single word. The most important is the word ‘is’,
which can be used both categorematically to make an existence claim ‘Socrates
is’ in the sense ‘Socrates exists’ or syncategorematically as a copula
‘Socrates is a philosopher’. But other words were treated this way too. Thus
‘whole’ was said to be used syncategorematically as a kind of quantifier in
‘The whole surface is white’ from which it follows that each part of the
surface is white, but categorematically in ‘The whole surface is two square
feet in area’ from which it does not follow that each part of the surface is
two square feet in area. 4 In medieval logic, again, syncategoremata were
sometimes taken to include words that can serve by themselves as subjects or
predicates of categorical propositions, but may interfere with standard logical
inference patterns when they do. The most notorious example is the word
‘nothing’. If nothing is better than eternal bliss and tepid tea is better than
nothing, still it does not follow by the transitivity of ‘better than’ that
tepid tea is better than eternal bliss. Again, consider the verb ‘begins’.
Everything red is colored, but not everything that begins to be red begins to
be colored it might have been some other color earlier. Such words were
classified as syncategorematic because an analysis called an expositio of
propositions containing them reveals implicit syncategoremata in sense 1 or
perhaps 2. Thus an analysis of ‘The apple begins to be red’ would include the
claim that it was not red earlier, and ‘not’ is syncategorematic in both senses
1 and 2. 5 In modern logic, sense 2 is extended to apply to all logical
symbols, not just to words in natural languages. In this usage, categoremata
are also called “proper symbols” or “complete symbols,” while syncategoremata
are called “improper symbols” or “incomplete symbols.” In the terminology of
modern formal semantics, the meaning of categoremata is fixed by the models for
the language, whereas the meaning of syncategoremata is fixed by specifying
truth conditions for the various formulas of the language in terms of the
models.
synderesis, in medieval
moral theology, conscience. St. Jerome used the term, and it became a fixture
because of Peter Lombard’s inclusion of it in his Sentences. Despite this
origin, ‘synderesis’ is distinguished from ‘conscience’ by Aquinas, for whom
synderesis is the quasi-habitual grasp of the most common principles of the
moral order i.e., natural law, whereas conscience is the application of such
knowledge to fleeting and unrepeatable circumstances. ’Conscience’ is ambiguous
in the way in which ‘knowledge’ is: knowledge can be the mental state of the
knower or what the knower knows. But ‘conscience’, like ‘synderesis’, is
typically used for the mental state. Sometimes, however, conscience is taken to
include general moral knowledge as well as its application here and now; but
the content of synderesis is the most general precepts, whereas the content of
conscience, if general knowledge, will be less general precepts. Since
conscience can be erroneous, the question arises as to whether synderesis and
its object, natural law precepts, can be obscured and forgotten because of bad
behavior or upbringing. Aquinas held that while great attrition can take place,
such common moral knowledge cannot be wholly expunged from the human mind. This
is a version of the Aristotelian doctrine that there are starting points of
knowledge so easily grasped that the grasping of them is a defining mark of the
human being. However perversely the human agent behaves there will remain not
only the comprehensive realization that good is to be done and evil avoided,
but also the recognition of some substantive human goods.
synergism, in Christian
soteriology, the cooperation within human consciousness of free will and divine
grace in the processes of conversion and regeneration. Synergism became an
issue in sixteenth-century Lutheranism during a controversy prompted by Philip
Melanchthon 1497 syncategorematic synergism 897 897 1569. Under the influence of Erasmus, Melanchthon
mentioned, in the 1533 edition of his Common Places, three causes of good
actions: “the Word, the Holy Spirit, and the will.” Advocated by Pfeffinger, a
Philipist, synergism was attacked by the orthodox, predestinarian, and
monergist party, Amsdorf and Flacius, who retorted with Gnesio-Lutheranism. The
ensuing Formula of Concord 1577 officialized monergism. Synergism occupies a
middle position between uncritical trust in human noetic and salvific capacity
Pelagianism and deism and exclusive trust in divine agency Calvinist and Lutheran
fideism. Catholicism, Arminianism, Anglicanism, Methodism, and nineteenth- and
twentieth-century liberal Protestantism have professed versions of
synergism.
systems theory, the
transdisciplinary study of the abstract organization of phenomena, independent
of their substance, type, or spatial or temporal scale of existence. It
investigates both the principles common to all complex entities and the usually
mathematical models that can be used to describe them. Systems theory was
proposed in the 0s by the biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy and furthered by
Ross Ashby Introduction to Cybernetics, 6. Von Bertalanffy was both reacting
against reductionism and attempting to revive the unity of science. He
emphasized that real systems are open to, and interact with, their
environments, and that they can acquire qualitatively new properties through
emergence, resulting in continual evolution. Rather than reduce an entity e.g.
the human body to the properties of its parts or elements e.g. organs or cells,
systems theory focuses on the arrangement of and relations among the parts that
connect them into a whole cf. holism. This particular organization determines a
system, which is independent of the concrete substance of the elements e.g.
particles, cells, transistors, people. Thus, the same concepts and principles
of organization underlie the different disciplines physics, biology,
technology, sociology, etc., providing a basis for their unification. Systems
concepts include: system environment boundary, input, output, process, state,
hierarchy, goal-directedness, and information. The developments of systems
theory are diverse Klir, Facets of Systems Science, 1, including conceptual
foundations and philosophy e.g. the philosophies of Bunge, Bahm, and Laszlo;
mathematical modeling and information theory e.g. the work of Mesarovic and
Klir; and practical applications. Mathematical systems theory arose from the
development of isomorphies between the models of electrical circuits and other
systems. Applications include engineering, computing, ecology, management, and
family psychotherapy. Systems analysis, developed independently of systems
theory, applies systems principles to aid a decision maker with problems of
identifying, reconstructing, optimizing, and controlling a system usually a
socio-technical organization, while taking into account multiple objectives,
constraints, and resources. It aims to specify possible courses of action,
together with their risks, costs, and benefits. Systems theory is closely
connected to cybernetics, and also to system dynamics, which models changes in
a network of synergy systems theory 898
898 coupled variables e.g. the “world dynamics” models of Jay Forrester
and the Club of Rome. Related ideas are used in the emerging “sciences of
complexity,” studying self-organization and heterogeneous networks of
interacting actors, and associated domains such as far-from-equilibrium
thermodynamics, chaotic dynamics, artificial life, artificial intelligence,
neural networks, and computer modeling and simulation.
tautologum: The
difference between a truth and a tautological truth is part of the dogma Grice
defends. “A three-year old cannot understand Russell’s theory of types” is
possibly true. “It is not the case that a three-year old is an adult” is TAUTOLOGICALLY
true. As Strawson and Wiggins note, by coining implicature Grice is mainly
interested in having the MAN implying this or that, as opposed to what the man
implies implying this or that. So, in Strawson and Wiggins’s rephrasing, the
implicature is to be distinguished with the logical and necessary implication,
i. e., the ‘tautological’ implication. Grice uses ‘tautological’ variously. It
is tautological that we smell smells, for example. This is an extension of
‘paradigm-case,’ re: analyticity. Without ‘analytic’ there is no
‘tautologicum.’ tautŏlŏgĭa , ae, f., = ταυτολογία,I.a repetition of the same
meaning in different words, tautology, Mart. Cap. 5, § 535; Charis,
p. 242 P. ταὐτολογ-έω ,A.repeat what has been said, “περί τινος” Plb.1.1.3; “ὑπέρ τινος” Id.1.79.7; “τ. τὸν λόγον” Str.12.3.27:—abs., Plb.36.12.2, Phld. Po.Herc.994.30, Hermog.Inv.3.15.
Oddly why Witters restricts tautology to truth-table propositional logic,
Grice’s two examples are predicate calculus: Women are women and war is war.
4.46 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Unter den möglichen Gruppen von Wahrheitsbedingungen
gibt es zwei extreme Fälle. In dem einen Fall ist der Satz für sämtliche
Wahrheitsmöglichkeiten der Elementarsätze wahr. Wir sagen, die Wahrheitsbedingungen
sind t a u t o l o g i s c h. Im zweiten Fall ist der Satz für sämtliche
Wahrheitsmöglichkeiten falsch: Die Wahrheitsbedingungen sind k o n t r a d i k
t o r i s c h. Im ersten Fall nennen wir den Satz eine Tautologie, im zweiten
Fall eine Kontradiktion. 4.461 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Der Satz zeigt was er sagt,
die Tautologie und die Kontradiktion, dass sie nichts sagen. Die Tautologie hat
keine Wahrheitsbedingungen, denn sie ist bedingungslos wahr; und die
Kontradiktion ist unter keiner Bedingung wahr. Tautologie und Kontradiktion
sind sinnlos. (Wie der Punkt, von dem zwei Pfeile in entgegengesetzter Richtung
auseinandergehen.) (Ich weiß z. B. nichts über das Wetter, wenn ich weiß, dass
es regnet oder nicht regnet.) 4.4611 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Tautologie und
Kontradiktion sind aber nicht unsinnig; sie gehören zum Symbolismus, und zwar
ähnlich wie die „0“ zum Symbolismus der Arithmetik. 4.462 GER [→OGD | →P/M]
Tautologie und Kontradiktion sind nicht Bilder der Wirklichkeit. Sie stellen
keine mögliche Sachlage dar. Denn jene lässt j e d e mögliche Sachlage zu,
diese k e i n e. In der Tautologie heben die Bedingungen der Übereinstimmung
mit der Welt—die darstellenden Beziehungen—einander auf, so dass sie in keiner
darstellenden Beziehung zur Wirklichkeit steht. 4.463 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Die
Wahrheitsbedingungen bestimmen den Spielraum, der den Tatsachen durch den Satz
gelassen wird. (Der Satz, das Bild, das Modell, sind im negativen Sinne wie ein
fester Körper, der die Bewegungsfreiheit der anderen beschränkt; im positiven
Sinne, wie der von fester Substanz begrenzte Raum, worin ein Körper Platz hat.)
Die Tautologie lässt der Wirklichkeit den ganzen—unendlichen—logischen Raum;
die Kontradiktion erfüllt den ganzen logischen Raum und lässt der Wirklichkeit
keinen Punkt. Keine von beiden kann daher die Wirklichkeit irgendwie bestimmen.
4.464 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Die Wahrheit der Tautologie ist gewiss, des Satzes
möglich, der Kontradiktion unmöglich. (Gewiss, möglich, unmöglich: Hier haben
wir das Anzeichen jener Gradation, die wir in der Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre
brauchen.) 4.465 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Das logische Produkt einer Tautologie und
eines Satzes sagt dasselbe, wie der Satz. Also ist jenes Produkt identisch mit
dem Satz. Denn man kann das Wesentliche des Symbols nicht ändern, ohne seinen
Sinn zu ändern. 4.466 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Einer bestimmten logischen Verbindung
von Zeichen entspricht eine bestimmte logische Verbindung ihrer Bedeutungen; j
e d e b e l i e - b i g e Verbindung entspricht nur den unverbundenen Zeichen.
Das heißt, Sätze, die für jede Sachlage wahr sind, können überhaupt keine
Zeichenverbindungen sein, denn sonst könnten ihnen nur bestimmte Verbindungen
von Gegenständen entsprechen. (Und keiner logischen Verbindung entspricht k e i
n e Verbindung der Gegenstände.) Tautologie und Kontradiktion sind die
Grenzfälle der Zeichenverbindung, nämlich ihre Auflösung. 4.4661 GER [→OGD |
→P/M] Freilich sind auch in der Tautologie und Kontradiktion die Zeichen noch
mit einander verbunden, d. h. sie stehen in Beziehungen zu einander, aber diese
Beziehungen sind bedeu- tungslos, dem S y m b o l unwesentlich. 4.46 OGD [→GER
| →P/M] Among the possible groups of truthconditions there are two extreme
cases. In the one case the proposition is true for all the truth-possibilities
of the elementary propositions. We say that the truth-conditions are
tautological. In the second case the proposition is false for all the
truth-possibilities. The truth-conditions are self-contradictory. In the first
case we call the proposition a tautology, in the second case a contradiction.
4.461 OGD [→GER | →P/M] The proposition shows what it says, the tautology and
the contradiction that they say nothing. The tautology has no truth-conditions,
for it is unconditionally true; and the contradiction is on no condition true.
Tautology and contradiction are without sense. (Like the point from which two
arrows go out in opposite directions.) (I know, e.g. nothing about the weather,
when I know that it rains or does not rain.) 4.4611 OGD [→GER | →P/M] Tautology
and contradiction are, however, not nonsensical; they are part of the symbol-
ism, in the same way that “0” is part of the symbolism of Arithmetic. 4.462 OGD
[→GER | →P/M] Tautology and contradiction are not pictures of the reality. They
present no possible state of affairs. For the one allows every possible state
of affairs, the other none. In the tautology the conditions of agreement with
the world—the presenting relations— cancel one another, so that it stands in no
presenting relation to reality. 4.463 OGD [→GER | →P/M] The truth-conditions
determine the range, which is left to the facts by the proposition. (The
proposition, the picture, the model, are in a negative sense like a solid body,
which restricts the free movement of another: in a positive sense, like the
space limited by solid substance, in which a body may be placed.) Tautology
leaves to reality the whole infinite logical space; contradiction fills the
whole logi- cal space and leaves no point to reality. Neither of them,
therefore, can in any way determine reality. 4.464 OGD [→GER | →P/M] The truth
of tautology is certain, of propositions possible, of contradiction impossible.
(Certain, possible, impossible: here we have an indication of that gradation
which we need in the theory of probability.) 4.465 OGD [→GER | →P/M] The
logical product of a tautology and a proposition says the same as the
proposition. Therefore that product is identical with the proposition. For the
essence of the symbol cannot be altered without altering its sense. 4.466 OGD
[→GER | →P/M] To a definite logical combination of signs corresponds a definite
logical combination of their meanings; every arbitrary combination only
corresponds to the unconnected signs. That is, propositions which are true for
ev- ery state of affairs cannot be combinations of signs at all, for otherwise
there could only correspond to them definite combinations of objects. (And to
no logical combination corresponds no combination of the objects.) Tautology
and contradiction are the limiting cases of the combination of symbols, namely
their dissolution. 4.4661 OGD [→GER | →P/M] Of course the signs are also
combined with one another in the tautology and contradiction, i.e. they stand
in relations to one another, but these relations are meaningless, unessential
to the symbol. 4.46 P/M [→GER | →OGD] Among the possible groups of
truthconditions there are two extreme cases. In one of these cases the
proposition is true for all the truth-possibilities of the elementary
propositions. We say that the truth-conditions are tautological. In the second
case the proposition is false for all the truth-possibilities: the
truth-conditions are contradictory. In the first case we call the proposition a
tautology; in the second, a contradiction. 4.461 P/M [→GER | →OGD] Propositions
show what they say: tautolo- gies and contradictions show that they say
nothing. A tautology has no truth-conditions, since it is unconditionally true:
and a contradiction is true on no condition. Tautologies and contradictions
lack sense. (Like a point from which two arrows go out in opposite directions
to one another.) (For example, I know nothing about the weather when I know
that it is either raining or not raining.) 4.4611 P/M [→GER | →OGD] Tautologies
and contradictions are not, however, nonsensical. They are part of the
symbolism, much as ‘0’ is part of the symbolism of arithmetic. 4.462 P/M [→GER
| →OGD] Tautologies and contradictions are not pictures of reality. They do not
represent any possible situations. For the former admit all possible
situations, and latter none. In a tautology the conditions of agreement with
the world—the representational relations—cancel one another, so that it does
not stand in any representational relation to reality. 4.463 P/M [→GER | →OGD]
The truth-conditions of a proposition determine the range that it leaves open
to the facts. (A proposition, a picture, or a model is, in the negative sense,
like a solid body that restricts the freedom of movement of others, and, in the
positive sense, like a space bounded by solid substance in which there is room
for a body.) A tautology leaves open to reality the whole—the infinite whole—of
logical space: a contradiction fills the whole of logical space leaving no
point of it for reality. Thus neither of them can determine reality in any way.
4.464 P/M [→GER | →OGD] A tautology’s truth is certain, a proposition’s
possible, a contradiction’s impossible. (Certain, possible, impossible: here we
have the first indication of the scale that we need in the theory of probability.)
4.465 P/M [→GER | →OGD] The logical product of a tautology and a proposition
says the same thing as the proposition. This product, therefore, is identical
with the proposition. For it is impossible to alter what is essential to a
symbol without altering its sense. 4.466 P/M [→GER | →OGD] What corresponds to
a determinate logical combination of signs is a determinate logical combination
of their meanings. It is only to the uncombined signs that absolutely any
combination corresponds. In other words, propositions that are true for every
situation cannot be combinations of signs at all, since, if they were, only
determinate combinations of objects could correspond to them. (And what is not
a logical combination has no combination of objects corresponding to it.)
Tautology and contradiction are the limiting cases—indeed the disintegration—of
the combination of signs. 4.4661 P/M [→GER | →OGD] Admittedly the signs are
still combined with one another even in tautologies and contradictions—i.e.
they stand in certain relations to one another: but these relations have no
meaning, they are not essential to the symbol. Grice would often use
‘tautological,’ and ‘self-contradiction’ presupposes ‘analyticity,’ or rather
the analytic-synthetic distinction. Is it contradictory, or a
self-contradiction, to say that one’s neighbour’s three-year-old child is an
adult? Is there an implicatum for ‘War is not war’? Grice refers to Bayes in
WOW re Grices paradox, and to crazy Bayesy, as Peter Achinstein does (Newton
was crazy, but not Bayesy). We can now, in principle, characterize
the desirability of the action a 1 , relative to each end (E1 and E2), and to
each combination of ends (here just E1 and E2), as a function of the
desirability of the end and the probability that the action a 1 will realize
that end, or combination of ends. If we envisage a range of possible actions,
which includes a 1 together with other actions, we can imagine that each such
action has a certain degree of desirability relative to each end (E1 and (or) E2)
and to their combination. If we suppose that, for each possible action, these
desirabilities can be compounded (perhaps added), then we can suppose that one
particular possible action scored higher (in actiondesirability relative to
these ends) than any alternative possible action; and that this is the action
which wins out; that is, is the action which is, or at least should, end p.105
be performed. (The computation would in fact be more complex than I have
described, once account is taken of the fact that the ends involved are often
not definite (determinate) states of affairs (like becoming President),
but are variable in respect of the degree to which they might be realized (if
ones end is to make a profit from a deal, that profit might be of a varying
magnitude); so one would have to consider not merely the likelihood of a
particular actions realizing the end of making a profit, but also the
likelihood of its realizing that end to this or that degree; and this would
considerably complicate the computational problem.) No doubt most readers are
far too sensible ever to have entertained any picture even remotely resembling
the "Crazy-Bayesy" one I have just described. Grice was
fascinated by the fact that paradox translates the Grecian neuter paradoxon. Some
of the paradoxes of entailment, entailment and paradoxes. This is not the first
time Grice uses paradox. As a classicist, he was aware of the nuances between
paradox (or paradoxon, as he preferred, via Latin paradoxum, and aporia,
for example. He was interested in Strawsons treatment of this or that paradox
of entailment. He even called his own paradox involving if and probablility
Grices paradox.
telementationalism: see
psi-transmission. The coinage is interesting. Since Grice has an essay on
‘modest mentalism,’ and would often use ‘mental’ for ‘psychological,’ it does
make sense. ‘Ideationalism’ is analogous. this is a special note, or rather, a
very moving proem, on Grices occasion of delivering his lectures on ‘Aspects of
reason and reasoning’ at Oxford as the Locke Lectures at Merton. Particularly
apt in mentioning, with humility, his having failed, *thrice* [sic] to obtain
the Locke lectureship, Strawson did, at once, but feeling safe under the ægis
of that great English philosopher (viz. Locke! always implicated, never
explicited) now. Grice starts the proem in a very moving, shall we say,
emotional, way: I find it difficult to convey to you just how happy I am, and
how honoured I feel, in being invited to give these lectures. Difficult, but
not impossible. I think of this university and this city, it has a cathedral,
which were my home for thirty-six years, as my spiritual and intellectual
parents. The almost majestic plural is Grices implicature to the town and gown!
Whatever I am was originally fashioned here; I never left Oxford, Oxford made
me, and I find it a moving experience to be, within these splendid and none too
ancient walls, once more engaged in my old occupation of rendering what is
clear obscure, by flouting the desideratum of conversational clarity and the
conversational maxim, avoid obscurity of expression, under be perspicuous
[sic]!. Grices implicature on none too ancient seems to be addressed to the
truly ancient walls that saw Athenian dialectic! On the other hand, Grices
funny variant on the obscurum per obscurius ‒ what Baker found as Grices skill
in rendering an orthodoxy into a heterodoxy! Almost! By clear Grice implicates
Lewis and his clarity is not enough! I am, at the same time, proud of my
mid-Atlantic [two-world] status, and am, therefore, delighted that the Old
World should have called me in, or rather recalled me, to redress, for once,
the balance of my having left her for the New. His implicature seems to be:
Strictly, I never left? Grice concludes his proem: I am, finally, greatly
heartened by my consciousness of the fact that that great English philosopher,
under whose ægis I am now speaking, has in the late afternoon of my days
extended to me his Lectureship as a gracious consolation for a record threefold
denied to me, in my early morning, of his Prize. I pray that my present
offerings may find greater favour in his sight than did those of long ago. They
did! Even if Locke surely might have found favour to Grices former offerings,
too, Im sure. Refs.: The allusions to Locke are in “Aspects.” Good references
under ‘ideationalism,’ above, especially in connection with Myro’s ‘modest
mentalism,’ The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
‘that’: a demonstrative. Since Grice would make so many
references to the ‘that’-clause, he is aware that ‘that’ is etymologically a
demonstrative, that has lost its efficacy there. But the important etymological
lesson is that what follows a ‘that’-clause (cf. the classical languages Grice
learned at Clifton, Greek and Latin) is a ‘propositio’ just because the ‘that’
POINTS at the proposition. Sometimes he refers to ‘obliquus casus,’ and ‘oratio
obliqua,’ but he is more at home with things like ‘verba percipienda,’ verba
volendi, etc.
‘that’-clause: Grice’s priority for the ‘that’-clause is multiple. He
dislikes what he calls an ‘amorphous’ propositional complex. His idea is to
have at least ‘The S is P,’ one act involving a subjectum or denotatum, and one
involving the praedicatum. There is also what he calls sub-perceptual
utterances. They do look like structured (“That red pillar seems red”) but they
are not perceptual reports like “I perceive that the pillar box is red.” At
points he wanst to restrict utterer’s communucatum to a ‘that’-clause; but
ignoring Austin’s remark that to wonder about what a ‘word’ ‘means’ is
senseless, Grice sometimes allows for things like ‘The cat sat on the mat’ to
‘mean’ that the cat sat on the mat. Grice thinks that his account of ‘the
red-seeming pillar box’ succeeded, and that it was this success that prompted
him to apply the thing to other areas, notably Strawson, but one hopes, all the
theses he presents in “Causal” and “Prolegomena.” But he does not go back to
the is/seems example, other than perhaps the tie is/seems blue. The reason is
that the sense-datum theory is very complex. Note “seems.” “It seems to me
that…” but the ‘that’-clause not as a content of a state of the agent. If the
pillar box seems red to Grice because it is red, what ‘that’-clause are we
talking about to involve in the implicatum? And what generates the implicatum.
“By uttering “The pillar box seems red,” U conversationally implicates that
there is a denial or doubt, somewhere as to whether the pillar box IS red.” Grice
thought of Staal as particularly good at this type of formalistic philosophy,
which was still adequate to reflect the subtleties of ordinary
language. How do we define a Griceian action? How do we define a
Griceian event? This is Grices examination and criticism of Davidson, as a
scientific realist, followed by a Kantian approach to freedom and causation.
Grice is especially interested in the logical form, or explicitum, so that he
can play with the implicatum. One of his favourite examples: He fell on his
sword, having tripped as he crossed the Galliæ. Grice manages to quote from
many and varied authors (some of which you would not expect him to quote) such
as Reichenbach, but also Robinson, of Oriel, of You Names it fame (for any x,
if you can Names it, x exists). Robinson has a brilliant essay on parts of Cook
Wilsons Statement and inference, so he certainly knows what he is talking
about. Grice also quotes from von Wright and Eddington. Grice offers a
linguistic botanic survey of autonomy and free (sugar-free, free fall,
implicature-free) which some have found inspirational. His favourite is
Finnegans alcohol-free. Finnegans obvious implicature is that everything is
alcohol-laden. Grice kept a copy of Davidsons The logical form of action
sentences, since surely Davidson, Grice thought, is making a primary
philosophical point. Horses run fast; therefore, horses run. A Davidsonian
problem, and there are more to come! Smith went fishing. Grices category shift
allows us to take Smiths fishing as the grammatical Subjects of an action
sentence. Cf. indeed the way to cope with entailment in The horse runs fast;
therefore, the horse runs. Grices Actions and events is Davidsonian in
motivation, but Kantian in method, one of those actions by Grice to promote a
Griceian event! Davidson had published, Grice thought, some pretty influential
(and provocative, anti-Quineian) stuff on actions and events, or events and
actions, actually, and, worse, he was being discussed at Oxford, too, over
which Grice always keeps an eye! Davidsons point, tersely put, is that while
p.q (e.g. It is raining, and it is pouring) denotes a concatenation of events.
Smith is fishing denotes an action, which is a kind of event, if you are
following him (Davidson, not Smith). However, Davidson is fighting against the
intuition, if you are a follower of Whitehead and Russell, to symbolise the
Smith is fishing as Fs, where s stands for Smith and F for fishing. The logical
form of a report of an event or an action seems to be slightly more
complicated. Davidsons point specifically involves adverbs, or adverbial
modifiers, and how to play with them in terms of entailment. The horse runs
fast; therefore, the horse runs. Symbolise that! as Davidson told Benson Mates!
But Mates had gone to the restroom. Grice explores all these and other topics
and submits the thing for publication. Grice quotes, as isnt his wont, from
many and various philosophers, not just Davidson, whom he saw every Wednesday,
but others he didnt, like Reichenbach, Robinson, Kant, and, again even a
physicist like Eddington. Grice remarks that Davidson is into hypothesis,
suppositio, while he is, as he should, into hypostasis, substantia. Grice then
expands on the apparent otiosity of uttering, It is a fact that grass is green.
Grice goes on to summarise what he ironically dubs an ingenious argument.
Let σ abbreviate the operator
consists in the fact that , which, when prefixed to a sentence,
produces a predicate or epithet. Let S abbreviate Snow is white,
and let G abbreviate Grass is green. In that case, xσS is 1 just
in case xσ(y(y=y and S) = y(y=y) is 1, since the first part of the
sub-sentence which follows σ in the main sentence is logically equivalent
logically equivalent to the second part. And xσ(y(y=y and S) =
y(y=y) is 1 just in case xσ(y(if y=y, G) = y(y=y) is 1,
since y(if y=y, S) and y(if y=y, G) are each a singular term, which, if
S and G are both true, each refers to y(y=y), and are therefore
co-referential and inter-substitutable. And xσ(y(if y=y, G) =
y(y=y) is true just in case xσG is 1, since G is logically equivalent
to the sub-sentence which follows σ. So, this fallacy goes, provided that
S and G are both 1, regardless of what an utterer explicitly conveys by
uttering a token of it, any event which consists of the otiose fact that S also
consists of the otiose fact that G, and vice versa, i. e. this randomly
chosen event is identical to any other randomly chosen event. Grice hastens to
criticise this slingshot fallacy licensing the inter-substitution of this or
that co-referential singular term and this or that logically equivalent
sub-sentence as officially demanded because it is needed to license a
patently valid, if baffling, inference. But, if in addition to providing
this benefit, the fallacy saddles the philosopher with a commitment to a
hideous consequence, the rational course is to endeavour to find a way of
retaining the benefit while eliminating the disastrous accompaniment, much
as in set theory it seems rational to seek as generous a comprehension
axiom as the need to escape this or that paradox permits. Grice proposes to retain
the principle of co-reference, but prohibit is use after the
principle of logical equivalence has been used. Grice finds such a
measure to have some intuitive appeal. In the fallacy, the initial
deployment of the principle of logical equivalence seems tailored to
the production of a sentence which provides opportunity for
trouble-raising application of the principle of
co-referentiality. And if that is what the game is, why not stop
it? On the assumption that this or that problem which originally prompts
this or that analysis is at least on their way towards independent
solution, Grice turns his attention to the possibility of providing a
constructivist treatment of things which might perhaps have more intuitive
appeal than a naïve realist approach. Grice begins with a class of
happenstance attributions, which is divided into this or that basic
happenstance attribution, i.e. ascriptions to a Subjects-item of an
attribute which is metabolically expressible, and this or that non-basic
resultant happenstance attribution, in which the attribute ascribed,
though not itself metabolically expressible, is such that its possession
by a Subjects item is suitably related to the possession by that or by some
other Subjects item, of this or that attribute which is metabolically
expressible. Any member of the class of happenstance attributions may be
used to say what happens, or happens to be the case, without talking about
any special entity belonging to a class of a happening or a happenstance. A
next stage involves the introduction of the operator consists of the fact that This
operator, when prefixed to a sentence S that makes a happen-stance
attribution to a Subjects-item, yields a predicate which is satisfied by an
entity which is a happenstance, provided that sentence S is doxastically
satisfactory, i. e., 1, and that some further metaphysical condition obtains,
which ensures the metaphysical necessity of the introduction into reality of
the category of a happenstance, thereby ensuring that this new category is
not just a class of this or that fiction. As far as the slingshot fallacy,
and the hideous consequence that all facts become identical to one Great Big
Fact, in the light of a defence of Reichenbach against the realist attack,
Grice is reasonably confident that a metaphysical extension of reality will not
saddle him with an intolerable paradox, pace the caveat that, to some, the
slingshot is not contradictory in the way a paradox is, but merely an
unexpected consequence ‒ not seriously hideous, at that. What this metaphysical
condition would be which would justify the metaphysical extension remains,
alas, to be determined. It is tempting to think that the metaphysical
condition is connected with a theoretical need to have this or that
happenstance as this or that item in, say, a causal relation. Grice goes on to
provide a progression of linguistic botanising including free. Grice
distinguishes four elements or stages in the step-by-step development of
freedom. A first stage is the transeunt causation one finds in inanimate
objects, as when we experience a stone in free fall. This is Hume’s realm, the
atomistss realm. This is external or transeunt casuation, when an object is
affected by processes in other objects. A second stage is internal or immanent
causation, where a process in an object is the outcome of previous stages in
that process, as in a freely moving body. A third stage is the internal
causation of a living being, in which changes are generated in a creature by
internal features of the creature which are not earlier stages of the same
change, but independent items, the function or finality of which is to provide
for the good of the creature in question. A fourth stage is a culminating stage
at which the conception of a certain mode by a human of something as being for
that creatures good is sufficient to initiate the doing of that thing. Grice
expands on this interesting last stage. At this stage, it is the case that the
creature is liberated from every factive cause. There is also a discussion of
von Wrights table of adverbial modifiers, or Grices pentagram. Also an
exploration of specificity: Jack buttering a parsnip in the bathroom in the
presence of Jill. Grice revisits some of his earlier concerns, and these are
discussed in the appropriate places, such as his exploration on the Grecian
etymology of aition. “That”-clause should be preferred to ‘oratio obliqua,’
since the latter is a misnomer when you ascribe a psychological state rather
than an utterance. Refs.: The main sources are given under ‘oratio obliqua’
above, The BANC.
Theism – as an
Aristotelian scholar, H. P. Grice is aware of the centrality of God, nous
nouseos, in Aristotle’s philosophy -- atheism from Grecian a-, ‘not’, and
theos, ‘god’, the view that there are no gods. A widely used sense denotes
merely not believing in God and is consistent with agnosticism. A stricter
sense denotes a belief that there is no God; this use has become the standard
one. In the Apology Socrates is accused of atheism for not believing in the
official Athenian gods. Some distinguish between theoretical atheism and
practical atheism. A theoretical atheist is one who self-consciously denies the
existence of a supreme being, whereas a practical atheist may believe that a
supreme being exists but lives as though there were no god.
Theology -- Grice’s
philosophical theology -- concursus dei, God’s concurrence. The notion derives
from a theory from medieval philosophical theology, according to which any case
of causation involving created substances requires both the exercise of genuine
causal powers inherent in creatures and the exercise of God’s causal activity.
In particular, a person’s actions are the result of the person’s causal powers,
often including the powers of deliberation and choice, and God’s causal endorsement.
Divine concurrence maintains that the nature of God’s activity is more
determinate than simply conserving the created world in existence. Although
divine concurrence agrees with occasionalism in holding God’s power to be
necessary for any event to occur, it diverges from occasionalism insofar as it
regards creatures as causally active.
theory-theory, v. Grice’s theory-theory.
theseus’s
ship. Grice sails on Theseus’s ship. Theseus’ ship: Example used by Grice to relativise
‘identity.’ After the hero Theseus accomplished his mission to sail to Crete to
kill the Minotaur, his ship (Ship 1) was put on display in Athens. As the time
went by, its original planks and other parts were replaced one by one with new
materials until one day all of its parts were new, with none of its original
parts remaining. Do we want to say that the completely rebuilt ship (Ship 2) is
the same as the original or that it is
a different ship? The case is further complicated. If all the original
materials were kept and eventually used to construct a ship (Ship 3), would
this ship be the same as the original? This example has inspired much
discussion concerning the problems of identity and individuation. “To be
something later is to be its closest continuer. Let us apply this view to one
traditional puzzle about identity over time: the puzzle of the ship of
Theseus.” Nozick, Philosophical Explanation. Grice basically formalized this
with G. Myro. Refs.: Collingwood, translation of Benedetto Croce, “Il paradosso
della nave di Teseo,” H. P. Grice, “Relative identity,” The Grice Papers, BANC.
thomson: Grice did not collaborate with that many friends. He did
with his tutee Strawson. He later did it with G. J. Warnock only on the theory
of perception (notably the ‘visum’). He collaborated with two more Oxonian
philosophers, and with both on the philosophy of action: D. F. Pears and J. F.
Thomson. J. F. Scots London-born philosopher
who would often give seminars with H. P. Grice. They also explored ‘philosophy
of action.’ Thomson presented his views on public occasons on the topic,
usually under the guidance of D. F. Pears – on topics such as ‘freedom of the
will.’ Thomson has assocations with University, and is a Fellow of Corpus,
Grice’s alma.
thomsonianism: Grice explored philosophy of action with J. F. Thomson.
Thomson would socialize mainly with Grice and D. F. Pears. Oddly, Thomson was
also interested in ‘if’ and reached more or less the same Philonian
consequences that Grice does.
three-year-old’s
guide to Russell’s theory of types, the
– by H. P. Grice, with an appendix by P. F. Strawson, “Advice to parents,” v.
Grice’s three-year-old’s guide.
Transcendental argument: Transcendental argument
-- Davidson, D.: H. P. Grice, “Reply to Davidson,” philosopher of mind and
language. His views on the relationship between our conceptions of ourselves as
persons and as complex physical objects have had an enormous impact on
contemporary philosophy. Davidson regards the mindbody problem as the problem
of the relation between mental and physical events; his discussions of
explanation assume that the entities explained are events; causation is a
relation between events; and action is a species of events, so that events are
the very subject matter of action theory. His central claim concerning events
is that they are concrete particulars
unrepeatable entities located in space and time. He does not take for
granted that events exist, but argues for their existence and for specific
claims as to their nature. In “The Individuation of Events” in Essays on
Actions and Events, 0, Davidson argues that a satisfactory theory of action
must recognize that we talk of the same action under different descriptions. We
must therefore assume the existence of actions. His strongest argument for the
existence of events derives from his most original contribution to metaphysics,
the semantic method of truth Essays on Actions and Events, pp. 10580; Essays on
Truth and Interpretation, 4, pp. 214. The argument is based on a distinctive
trait of the English language one not obviously shared by signal systems in
lower animals, namely, its productivity of combinations. We learn modes of
composition as well as words and are thus prepared to produce and respond to
complex expressions never before encountered. Davidson argues, from such
considerations, that our very understanding of English requires assuming the
existence of events. To understand Davidson’s rather complicated views about
the relationships between mind and body, consider the following claims: 1 The
mental and the physical are distinct. 2 The mental and the physical causally
interact. 3 The physical is causally closed. Darwinism, social Davidson, Donald
206 206 1 says that no mental event is
a physical event; 2, that some mental events cause physical events and vice
versa; and 3, that all the causes of physical events are physical events. If
mental events are distinct from physical events and sometimes cause them, then
the physical is not causally closed. The dilemma posed by the plausibility of
each of these claims and by their apparent incompatibility just is the
traditional mind body problem. Davidson’s resolution consists of three theses:
4 There are no strict psychological or psychophysical laws; in fact, all strict
laws are expressible in purely physical vocabulary. 5 Mental events causally
interact with physical events. 6 Event c causes event e only if some strict
causal law subsumes c and e. It is commonly held that a property expressed by M
is reducible to a property expressed by P where M and P are not logically
connected only if some exceptionless law links them. So, given 4, mental and
physical properties are distinct. 6 says that c causes e only if there are
singular descriptions, D of c and DH of e, and a “strict” causal law, L, such
that L and ‘D occurred’ entail ‘D caused D'’. 6 and the second part of 4 entail
that physical events have only physical causes and that all event causation is
physically grounded. Given the parallel between 13 and 4 6, it may seem that
the latter, too, are incompatible. But Davidson shows that they all can be true
if and only if mental events are identical to physical events. Let us say that
an event e is a physical event if and only if e satisfies a basic physical
predicate that is, a physical predicate appearing in a “strict” law. Since only
physical predicates or predicates expressing properties reducible to basic
physical properties appear in “strict” laws, every event that enters into
causal relations satisfies a basic physical predicate. So, those mental events
which enter into causal relations are also physical events. Still, the
anomalous monist is committed only to a partial endorsement of 1. The mental
and physical are distinct insofar as they are not linked by strict law but they are not distinct insofar as mental events
are in fact physical events.
transcendental
club. “A club I created to discuss what
I call a ‘metaphysical argument,’ but Kant calls ‘transcendental.’ Strawson
objected to my calling it “The Metaphysical Club.” transcendentalism: Also called “New England transcendentalism,” an
early nineteenth-century spiritual and philosophical movement in the United
States, represented by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. It was
centered in the so-called The Transcendental Club in Boston, and published a
quarterly journal The Dial. Influenced by German idealism and Romanticism, it
claimed that there is a spirit of the whole, the over-soul, which is beyond the
space and time of the everyday world but at the same time immanent in it, and
which forms a higher spiritual reality. It advocated an ascetic lifestyle,
emphasized selfreliance and communal living, and rejected contemporary
civilization. The eventual goal of life is to achieve a mystical unity with
this spiritual reality, that is, with nature. Transcendentalism is viewed as a
mixture of speculative philosophy and semi-religious faith. This philosophical
movement had a deep influence upon existentialism, James’s pragmatism, and
contemporary environmental philosophy. In a broad sense, transcendentalism is
any doctrine that emphasizes the transcendental, and is taken as a synonym of
transcendental philosophy. In this sense, all types of absolute philosophy,
especially those idealist systems that emphasize the transcendence of the
Absolute over the finite world, are considered examples of transcendentalism.
Thus, transcendentalists had aims differing from those of Kant’s transcendental
philosophy, which criticized those who wished to extend knowledge beyond
experience and instead sought to use a transcendental argument to establish the
conditions for the possibility of experience. “The transcendentalists believed
in man’s ability to apprehend absolute Truth, absolute Justice, absolute
Rectitude, absolute goodness. They spoke of the Right, the True, the Beautiful
as eternal realities which man can discover in the world and which he can
incorporate into his life. And they were convinced of the unlimited
perfectibility of man.” Werkmeister, A History of Philosophical Ideas in
America.
Grice’s triangle. He uses the word in “Meaning Revisited,”
(WoW: 286). It’s the semiotic triange between what he calls the ‘communication
device,’ the denotatum, and the soul. While often referred to as H.
P. Grice’s triangle, or H. P. Grice’s semiotic triangle, or
"Ogden/Richards triangle" the idea is also expressed in 1810, by
Bernard Bolzano, in his rather obscure, Grice grants, “Beiträge zu einer
begründeteren Darstellung der Mathematik.” However, the triangle can be traced
back to the 4th century BC, in Aristotle's Peri Hermeneias (often referred to
in its Latin translation De Interpretatione, second book of his Organon, on
which Grice gave seminars as University Lecturer at Oxford with J. L. Austin).
H. P. Grice’s semiotic Triangle relates to the problem of universals, a philosophical
debate which split ancient and medieval philosophers (mainly realists and
nominalists). The triangle describes a simplified form of relationship
between the emissor as subject, a concept as object or referent or denotatum,
and its designation (sign, signans, or as Grice prefers ‘communication
device’). For more elaborated research see Semiotics. Ogden semiotic
triangle.png Contents 1Interlocutory applications 1.1Other triangles
1.2The communicative stand 1.3Direction of fit 2See also 3References 4External
links Interlocutory applications Other triangles The relations between the
triangular corners may be phrased more precisely in causal terms as
follows[citation needed][original research?]. The matter evokes the emissor's
soul. The emissor refers the matter to the symbol. The symbol evokes the
emissee’s soul. The emissee refers the symbol back to the matter. The
communicative stand Such a triangle represents ONE agent, the emissor, whereas
communication takes place between TWO (objects, not necessarily agents). So
imagine another triangle and consider that for the two to understand each
other, the content that the "triangles" represent must fit or be
aligned. Clearly, this calls for synchronisation and an interface as well as
scale among other things. Notice also, that we perceive the world mostly
through our eyes and in alternative phases of seeing and not seeing with change
in the environment as the most important information to look for. Our eyes are
lenses and we see a surface (2D) in ONE direction (focusing) if we are
stationary and the object is not moving either. This is why you may position
yourself in one corner of the triangle and by replicating (mirroring) it, you
will be able to see the whole picture, your cognitive epistemological and the
ontological existential or physical model of life, the universe, existence,
etc. combined.[citation needed][original research?] Direction of fit Main
article: Direction of fit This section has multiple issues. Please help
improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to
remove these template messages) This section does not cite any sources.
(December 2012) This section is written like a personal reflection, personal
essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal
feelings or presents an original argument about a topic. (December 2012) Grice
uses the notion of "direction of fit" (in “Intention and
Uncertainty”) to create a taxonomy of acts. [3] [4] This table
possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims
made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original
research should be removed. (December 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this
template message) World or Referentintended →Writer's Thought decoded
↑ ↓ encoded Thought Emissee's← extendedSymbol or Word
Emissor's THOUGHT retrieves SYMBOL suited to REFERENT, Word suited to
World. Reader's THOUGHT retrieves REFERENT suited to SYMBOL, World
suited to Word. Actually the arrows indicate that there is something exchanged
between the two parties and it is a feedback cycle. Especially, if you imagine
that the world is represented in the soul of both the emissor and the emissee
and used for reality check. If you look at the triangle above again, remember that
reality check is not what is indicated there between the sign and the referent
and marked as "true', because a term or a sign is allocated
"arbitrarily'. What you check for is the observance of the law of identity
which requires you and your partner to sort out that you are on the same page,
that the emissor is communicating and the emissee is understanding about the
same thing. So the chunk of reality and the term are
replaceable/interchangeable within limits and your concepts in the soul as
presented in some appropriate way are all related and mean the same thing.
Usually the check does not stop there, your ideas must also be tested for
feasibility and doability to make sure that they are "real" and not
"phantasy". Reality check comes from consolidating your experience
with other people's experience to avoid solipsism and/or by putting your ideas
(projection) in practice (production) and see the reaction. Notice, however how
vague the verbs used and how the concept of a fit itself is left unexplained in
details.[editorializing] See also The Delta Factor De dicto De se De re
References Colin Cherry (1957) On Human Communication C. K. Ogden
and I. A. Richards (1923) The Meaning of Meaning John Searle (1975)
"A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts", in: Gunderson, K. (ed.),
Language, Mind, and Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press) pp.
344-369. John Searle (1976) "A Classification of Illocutionary
Acts", Language in Society, Vol.5, pp. 1-24. External links Jessica
Erickstad (1998) Richards' Meaning of Meaning Theory. University of Colorado at
Boulder. Allie Cahill (1998) "Proper Meaning Superstition" (I. A.
Richards). University of Colorado at Boulder. Categories:
SemioticsSemanticsPragmaticsPhilosophy of languagePhilosophy of mind. Semiotisches Dreieck Zur Navigation springen. Zur Suche springen. Das semiotische Dreieck
stellt die Relation zwischen dem Symbol, dem dadurch hervorgerufenen Begriff
und dem damit gemeinten realen Ding dar. Das semiotische Dreieck ist ein in der
Sprachwissenschaft und Semiotik verwendetes Modell. Es soll veranschaulichen, dass ein Zeichenträger
(Graphem, Syntagma, Symbol) sich nicht direkt und unmittelbar auf einen
außersprachlichen Gegenstand bezieht, sondern dieser Bezug nur mittelbar durch
eine Vorstellung/einen Begriff erfolgt. Das semiotische Dreieck publizierten erstmals
Charles Kay Ogden und Ivor Armstrong Richards in dem Werk The Meaning of
Meaning. Das semiotische Dreieck in vereinfachter Beschreibung. Die Welt besteht aus Gegenständen,
Sachverhalten, Ereignissen und Ähnlichem. Diese sind wirklich und bestimmen alles, was
geschieht. Das Symbol für ein
Einzelnes davon steht in den folgenden Dreiecken rechts und bedeutet
vereinfacht: Ding oder „was Sache
ist“. Wenn der Mensch ein Ding
bemerkt oder sich vorstellt, macht er sich ein gedachtes Bild davon. Das Symbol
dafür steht in den folgenden Dreiecken oben und bedeutet: Begriff oder „was man meint“. Wenn Menschen mit
diesen Begriffen von Dingen reden, so verwenden sie Zeichen (meist hörbar,
gelegentlich auch sichtbar oder anders wahrnehmbar). Das sind Wörter (auch Bezeichnungen,
Benennungen, Symbole oder Ähnliches). Das Symbol dafür steht in den folgenden
DREIECKEN links und bedeutet: Wort oder „was man dazu sagt“. Ding, Begriff und Wort sollen eindeutig zusammengehören. Das gelingt nicht immer, vielmehr muss man
immerzu aufpassen, ob der eben verwendete Begriff das betrachtete Ding richtig
erfasst, ob das eben verwendete Wort den gemeinten Begriff trifft, und sogar ob
das eben betrachtete Ding überhaupt eins ist und nicht etwa einige oder gar
keins. Passen die drei Ecken
nicht zueinander, „So entstehen leicht die fundamentalsten Verwechslungen
(deren die ganze Philosophie voll ist).“ Vitters: Tractatus 3.324. Das semiotische Dreieck als bildliche
Darstellung der Mehrdimensionalität der Zeichen Begriff /\
/ \ / \
/ \ / \ Zeichen
...... Gegenstand (Wort) (Ding). Das semiotische Dreieck ist zunächst nur ein
bildliches Hilfsmittel, um sich Beziehungen „im“ bzw. „des“ Zeichens zu
veranschaulichen. Seine Interpretation und nähere Ausgestaltung hängt daher von
der zugrunde gelegten Erkenntnistheorie ab. In entscheidender Weise wird
durch das semiotische Dreieck veranschaulicht, dass zwischen dem Wort (der
Zeichenform, d. h. dem Schriftbild oder dem Lautbild) und dem Bezeichneten
(Ding, Gegenstand) keine direkte Beziehung, sondern nur durch (mindestens) eine
hier so genannte Vermittlungsinstanz vermittelte Beziehung besteht. Graphisch
wird dies durch eine unterschiedliche Linie dargestellt. Gebräuchlich ist
ein Dreieck. Entscheidend ist die nicht-direkte Beziehung zwischen Zeichen
(Wort) und Gegenstand (Ding). Je nach Anzahl der zu veranschaulichenden (nicht auszublendenden)
Bezugspunkte und Vermittlungsinstanzen und der Art der betonten Beziehungen
kann man auch ein Quadrat, ein sonstiges Vieleck bzw. einen mehrdimensionalen
Körper benutzen. Darauf hinzuweisen ist,
dass die Vermittlungsinstanz – hier mit dem mehrdeutigen Ausdruck „Begriff“
bezeichnet – sehr unterschiedlich gesehen wird, was aus dem Terminologiebefund
unten deutlich wird. Das semiotische Dreieck ist Veranschaulichung eines
Zeichenverständnisses, das dem Zeichenbegriff von Ferdinand de Saussure, wonach
ein Zeichen eine „psychische Einheit“ zwischen einem „akustischen Bild“ (Signifikanten)
und einem „Begriff“ (Signifikat) (bei ihm im Sinne einer psychischen
Vorstellung)[2] sein soll, widersprechen dürfte:[3] statt der
„Papierblattmetapher“ für das Verhältnis von Signifikant/Signifikat (von de
Saussure) wird im semiotischen Dreieck eine optische Trennung und Distanzierung
von Zeichenkörper und Begriff (Sinn) vorgenommen. Das semiotische Dreieck
blendet auch pragmatische Bedingungen und Bezüge aus bzw. reduziert sie auf die
semantische Dimension und wird daher von pragmatischen Bedeutungstheorien
kritisiert (vgl. Semiotik). Das Fehlen einer unmittelbaren Beziehung
zwischen Zeichen und Gegenstand wird zugleich als Ausdruck der (von de Saussure
betonten) Arbitrarität und Konventionalität von Zeichen interpretiert.
Geschichte Man muss unterscheiden zwischen dem semiotischen Dreieck als Bild
und einem dreiseitigen (triadischen) Zeichenbegriff, dessen Veranschaulichung
es dient. Verbreitet wird die sprachwissenschaftliche Entwicklung so
dargestellt, als gäbe es ein semiotisches Dreieck erst seit Ogden/Richards, die
damit einen nur zweigliedrigen Zeichenbegriff von de Saussure
modifiziert/überwunden hätten.[4] Es heißt, bis ins 19. Jahrhundert sei der
Zeichenbegriff im Wesentlichen hinsichtlich seines Sachbezugs als „zweistellige
Relation“ diskutiert worden.[5] Andere betonen den zugrunde liegenden
dreiseitigen („triadischen“) Zeichenbegriff, der meist bei Aristoteles,
mitunter auch schon bei Platon angesetzt wird. Schon bei Platon findet
sich ein gedankliches Wort-Gegenstand-Modell zwischen Namen (Zeichen) – Idee
(Begriff) und Ding. Bei Aristoteles ist ein
Zeichen (semeion, damit meint er ein Wort) ein Symptom für eine Seelenregung,
d. h. für etwas, das der Sprecher sich vorstellt. Diese Vorstellung des
Sprechers ist dann ein Ikon für ein Ding. Dies sind für ihn die primären
Zeichenrelationen (rot in der untenstehenden Figur). Davon abgeleitet ist die sekundäre
Zeichenrelation (schwarz in der Figur). Das Semiotische Dreieck bei
Aristoteles Seit Aristoteles wird vertreten, dass Zeichen Dinge der Welt nicht
unvermittelt, sondern vermittelt über einen „Begriff“, „Vorstellung“ etc.
bezeichnen. Dies bedeutet eine Differenzierung gegenüber der einfachen
aliquid-stat-pro-aliquo-Konzeption und ist „für die ganze Geschichte der
Semiotik entscheidend“. Bei Aristoteles stehen
„Zeichen […] für Sachen, welche von den Bewußtseinsinhalten abgebildet worden
sind“. „Die Sachen werden von
den Zeichen nicht präsentiert, sondern repräsentiert.“. Die Interpretation von De interpretatione ist
dabei seit Jahrtausenden kontrovers. Die oben wiedergegebene Interpretation
entspricht einer psychologischen Deutung, die einen Psychologismus nahelegt.
Dies erscheint fraglich, da Aristoteles eher einen erkenntnistheoretischen
Realismus vertreten haben dürfte. Scholastik In der Sprachphilosophie der
Scholastik finden sich Überlegungen zum Dreierschema res (Sache, Ding),
intellectus (Verstand, Gedanken, Begriff), vox (Wortzeichen). Logik von
Port-Royal. In der Grammatik von
Port-Royal (Mitte des 17. Jh.) soll das semiotische Dreieck eingeführt worden
sein.[10] In der Logik von Port-Royal sind die Gegenstände und die
Sprachzeichen nicht unmittelbar, sondern über Universalien miteinander
verknüpft. Nach KANT ist das zwischen Begrifflichkeit und Sinnlichkeit bzw.
Gegenstand vermittelnde Element das Schema als ein bildhaftes und anschauliches
Zeichen. Das Verfahren des Verstandes, mit Hilfe der ‚Einbildungskraft‘ die
reinen Verstandesbegriffe zu versinnlichen, heißt Schematismus. Auch Arthur
Schopenhauer, ein deutscher Philosoph des 19. Jahrhunderts, unterscheidet in
seinem Hauptwerk Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung strikt zwischen Wort,
Begriff und Anschauung. Ausblendung des
Referenzbezugs im Zeichenmodell von de Saussure Nach verbreiteter Auffassung
haben die moderne Sprachwissenschaft und der moderne Zeichenbegriff erst mit de
Saussure eingesetzt. Nach de Saussure ist ein Zeichen die Verbindung eines
Ausdrucks (signifiant) mit einem Inhalt (signifié), wobei das Zeichen als
„psychische Einheit mit zwei Seiten“[14] aufgefasst wurde. In diesem
zweigliedrigen (dyadischen) Zeichenmodell „hat die reale Welt keine
Bedeutung“:[15] „Hier Bezeichnetes als geistige Vorstellung, dort Bezeichnendes
als dessen Materialisation in der Sprache, aber kein Platz für das Objekt
selbst“. Triadisches Zeichenmodells bei Peirce. Charles S. Peirce entwickelte eine pragmatische
Semiotik[16] und die Pragmatik soll auf dem triadischen Zeichenmodell von
Peirce beruhen.[17] Statt eines dyadischen entwickelte Peirce ein
kommunikativ-pragmatisches, triadisches Zeichenmodell: das Zeichen ist eine
„triadische Relation (semiotisches Dreieck)“. Dies, indem er zu Zeichenmittel und Objekt den
„Interpretanten“ ergänzte, d. h. die Bedeutung, die durch Interpretation der
Zeichenbenutzer (Sprecher bzw. Hörer) in einem Handlungszusammenhang zustande
kommt. „Das, was als Bewusstseinsinhalt erscheint, der Interpretant, ist
der individuell erkannte Sinn, der seinerseits kulturell vor- oder mitgeprägt
sein kann. Daher wird in diesem Konzept die Zeichenbedeutung (…) auch als „kulturelle
Einheit“ (Eco, 1972) postuliert.“Peirce-Interpreten wie Floyd Merrell oder
Gerhard Schönrich wenden sich gegen die Dreiecksdarstellung peircescher
Zeichentriaden, da sie suggerieren könnte, dass sich die irreduzible triadische
Relation zerlegen lasse in einzelne zweistellige Relationen. Stattdessen schlagen sie eine Y-förmige
Darstellung vor, bei der die drei Relate jeweils durch eine Linie mit dem
Mittelpunkt verbunden sind, aber entlang der Seiten des „Dreiecks“ keine Linien
verlaufen. Charles Kay Ogden / Ivor Armstrong Richards Als „die“
Vertreter eines dreiseitigen Zeichenmodells bzw. eines semiotischen Dreiecks
(unter Ausblendung ihrer Vorläufer) werden verbreitet Charles Kay Ogden und
Ivor Armstrong Richards angeführt. Diese erkannten eine Welt außerhalb des
menschlichen Bewusstseins ausdrücklich an und wandten sich gegen „idealistische
Konzepte“. Nach Charles Kay Ogden
und Ivor Armstrong Richards symbolisiert das Zeichen (symbol) etwas und ruft
einen entsprechenden Bewusstseinsinhalt (reference) hervor, der sich auf das
Objekt (referent) bezieht.[6] Das semiotische Dreieck wird wie folgt erklärt:
„Umweltsachverhalte werden im Gedächtnis begrifflich bzw. konzeptuell
repräsentiert und mit Sprachzeichen assoziiert. So ist z. B. das Wort „Baum“ ein
Sprachzeichen, das mit dem Begriff bzw. Konzept von „BAUM“ assoziiert ist und
über diesen auf reale Bäume (Buchen, Birken, Eichen usw.) verweisen kann.“. Siehe auch Organon-Modell (von Karl Bühler)
Literatur Metamorphosen des semiotischen Dreieck. In: Zeitschrift für Semiotik.
Band 10, Nr. 3, 1988, S. 185–327 (darin 8 einzelne Artikel). Umberto Eco:
Semiotik – Entwurf einer Theorie der Zeichen. 2. Auflage. Wilhelm Fink Verlag,
München 1991, ISBN 3-7705-2323-7. Umberto Eco: Einführung in die Semiotik. Wilhelm
Fink Verlag, München 1994, ISBN 3-7705-0633-2. Einzelnachweise C. K.
Ogden, I. A. Richards: The Meaning of Meaning. 1923 Kassai: Sinn. In:
Martinet (Hrsg.): Linguistik. 1973, S. 251 Ohne Problematisierung trotz
der Nähe zu Saussure hingegen bei Kassai: Sinn. In: Martinet (Hrsg.):
Linguistik. 1973, S. 251 (S. 254 f.) referiert So wohl Fischer Kolleg
Abiturwissen, Deutsch (2002), S. 27 So z. B. Schülerduden, Philosophie
(2002), Semiotik Triadische Zeichenrelation. In: Homberger: Sachwörterbuch
zur Sprachwissenschaft. 2000 Trabant: Semiotik. 1996, S. 25
Trabant: Semiotik. 1996, S. 24 So auch Triadische Zeichenrelation. In:
Homberger: Sachwörterbuch zur Sprachwissenschaft. 2000, wonach Aristoteles das
Platonische Modell „psychologisiert“ haben soll So Schülerduden,
Philosophie (2002), Sprachphilosophie Schülerduden, Philosophie (2002),
Sprachphilosophie Baumgartner: Kants „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“,
Anleitung zur Lektüre. [1988], neu ersch. 5. Auflage. ALBER, Freiburg 2002,
ISBN 978-3-495-47638-3, S. 81 Hierzu vor allem das Kapitel: „Zur Lehre
von der abstrakten, oder Vernunft-Erkenntnis“ (Zweiter Band) Fischer
Kolleg Abiturwissen, Deutsch (2002), S. 26 Ernst: Pragmalinguistik. 2002,
S. 66 Schülerduden, Philosophie (2002), Peirce So Pelz: Linguistik.
1996, S. 242 Zeichenprozess. In: Homberger: Sachwörterbuch zur
Sprachwissenschaft. 2000 Bedeutung. In: Homberger: Sachwörterbuch zur
Sprachwissenschaft. 2000 Kategorien: SemiotikSemantik. For Grice, the triangle
represents the three correspondences. First, psychophysical, second
psychosemiotic, and third semio-physical.
Tukey’s bit: from binary
digit, a unit or measure of information. Suggested by John W. Tukey, a bit is
both an amount of information a reduction of eight equally likely possibilities
to one generates three bits [% log2 8] of information and a system of
representing that quantity. The binary system uses 1’s and 0’s.
type: v. Grice’s
three-year-old’s guide to Russell’s theory of type
Tarski: a., cited by
Grice. Grice liked Tarski because unlike Strawson, he was an Aristotelian
correspondenntist at heart, philosopher of logic famous for his investigations
of the concepts of truth and consequence conducted in the 0s. His analysis of
the concept of truth in syntactically precise, fully interpreted languages
resulted in a definition of truth and an articulate defense of the
correspondence theory of truth. Sentences of the following kind are now known
as Tarskian biconditionals: ‘The sentence “Every perfect number is even” is
true if and only if every perfect number is even.’ One of Tarski’s major
philosophical insights is that each Tarskian biconditional is, in his words, a
partial definition of truth and, consequently, all Tarskian biconditionals
whose right-hand sides exhaust the sentences of a given formal language
together constitute an implicit definition of ‘true’ as applicable to sentences
of that given formal language. This insight, because of its penetrating depth
and disarming simplicity, has become a staple of modern analytic philosophy.
Moreover, it in effect reduced the philosophical problem of defining truth to
the logical problem of constructing a single sentence having the form of a
definition and having as consequences each of the Tarskian biconditionals.
Tarski’s solution to this problem is the famous Tarski truth definition,
versions of which appear in virtually every mathematical logic text. Tarski’s
second most widely recognized philosophical achievement was his analysis and
explication of the concept of consequence. Consequence is interdefinable with
validity as applied to arguments: a given conclusion is a consequence of a
given premise-set if and only if the argument composed of the given conclusion
and the given premise-set is valid; conversely, a given argument is valid if
and only if its conclusion is a consequence of its premise-set. Shortly after
discovering the truth definition, Tarski presented his “no-countermodels”
definition of consequence: a given sentence is a consequence of a given set of
sentences if and only if every model of the set is a model of the sentence in
other words, if and only if there is no way to reinterpret the non-logical
terms in such a way as to render the sentence false while rendering all
sentences in the set true. As Quine has emphasized, this definition reduces the
modal notion of logical necessity to a combination of syntactic and semantic
concepts, thus avoiding reference to modalities and/or to “possible worlds.”
After Tarski’s definitive work on truth and on consequence he devoted his
energies largely to more purely mathematical work. For example, in answer to
Gödel’s proof that arithmetic is incomplete and undecidable, Tarski showed that
algebra and geometry are both complete and decidable. Tarski’s truth definition
and his consequence definition are found in his 6 collection Logic, Semantics,
Metamathematics 2d ed., 3: article VIII, pp. 152278, contains the truth
definition; article XVI, pp. 40920, contains the consequence definition. His
published articles, nearly 3,000 s in all, have been available together since 6
in the four-volume Alfred Tarski, Collected Papers, edited by S. Givant and R.
McKenzie.
tautologicum – Grice
gives two examples: War is war, and Women are women – “Note that “Men are men”
sounds contingent.” tautology, a proposition whose negation is inconsistent, or
self- contradictory, e.g. ‘Socrates is Socrates’, ‘Every human is either male
or nonmale’, ‘No human is both male and non-male’, ‘Every human is identical to
itself’, ‘If Socrates is human then Socrates is human’. A proposition that is
or is logically equivalent to the negation of a tautology is called a
self-contradiction. According to classical logic, the property of being Tao Te
Ching tautology 902 902 implied by its
own negation is a necessary and sufficient condition for being a tautology and
the property of implying its own negation is a necessary and sufficient
condition for being a contradiction. Tautologies are logically necessary and
contradictions are logically impossible. Epistemically, every proposition that
can be known to be true by purely logical reasoning is a tautology and every
proposition that can be known to be false by purely logical reasoning is a
contradiction. The converses of these two statements are both controversial
among classical logicians. Every proposition in the same logical form as a
tautology is a tautology and every proposition in the same logical form as a
contradiction is a contradiction. For this reason sometimes a tautology is said
to be true in virtue of form and a contradiction is said to be false in virtue
of form; being a tautology and being a contradiction tautologousness and
contradictoriness are formal properties. Since the logical form of a
proposition is determined by its logical terms ‘every’, ‘some’, ‘is’, etc., a
tautology is sometimes said to be true in virtue of its logical terms and
likewise mutatis mutandis for a contradiction. Since tautologies do not exclude
any logical possibilities they are sometimes said to be “empty” or
“uninformative”; and there is a tendency even to deny that they are genuine
propositions and that knowledge of them is genuine knowledge. Since each
contradiction “includes” implies all logical possibilities which of course are
jointly inconsistent, contradictions are sometimes said to be
“overinformative.” Tautologies and contradictions are sometimes said to be
“useless,” but for opposite reasons. More precisely, according to classical
logic, being implied by each and every proposition is necessary and sufficient
for being a tautology and, coordinately, implying each and every proposition is
necessary and sufficient for being a contradiction. Certain developments in
mathematical logic, especially model theory and modal logic, seem to support
use of Leibniz’s expression ‘true in all possible worlds’ in connection with
tautologies. There is a special subclass of tautologies called truth-functional
tautologies that are true in virtue of a special subclass of logical terms
called truthfunctional connectives ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘not’, ‘if’, etc.. Some logical
writings use ‘tautology’ exclusively for truth-functional tautologies and thus
replace “tautology” in its broad sense by another expression, e.g. ‘logical
truth’. Tarski, Gödel, Russell, and many other logicians have used the word in
its broad sense, but use of it in its narrow sense is widespread and entirely
acceptable. Propositions known to be tautologies are often given as examples of
a priori knowledge. In philosophy of mathematics, the logistic hypothesis of
logicism is the proposition that every true proposition of pure mathematics is
a tautology. Some writers make a sharp distinction between the formal property
of being a tautology and the non-formal metalogical property of being a law of
logic. For example, ‘One is one’ is not metalogical but it is a tautology,
whereas ‘No tautology is a contradiction’ is metalogical but is not a
tautology.
taylor, C. b.1, philosopher and historian of modernity.
Taylor was educated at McGill and Oxford and has taught primarily at these
universities. His work has a broadly analytic character, although he has
consistently opposed the naturalistic and reductionist tendencies that were
associated with the positivist domination of analytic philosophy during the 0s
and 0s. He was, for example, a strong opponent of behaviorism and defended the
essentially interpretive nature of the social sciences against efforts to
reduce their methodology to that of the natural sciences. Taylor has also done
important work on the histiory of philosophy, particularly on Hegel, and has
connected his work with that of Continental philosophers such as Heidegger and
Merleau-Ponty. He has contributed to political theory and written on
contemporary political issues such as multiculturalism in, e.g., The Ethics of
Authenticity, 1, often with specific reference to politics. He has also taken an active
political role in Quebec. Taylor’s most important work, Sources of the Self 9,
is a historical and critical study of the emergence of the modern concept of
the self. Like many other critics of modernity, Taylor rejects modern
tendencies to construe personal identity in entirely scientific or naturalistic
terms, arguing that these construals lead to a view of the self that can make
no sense of our undeniable experience of ourselves as moral agents. He develops
this critique in a historical mode through discussion of the radical
Enlightenment’s e.g., Locke’s reduction of the self to an atomic individual,
essentially disengaged from everything except its own ideas and desires. But
unlike many critics, Taylor also finds in modernity other, richer sources for a
conception of the self. These include the idea of the self’s inwardness,
traceable as far back as Augustine Taylor, Charles Taylor, Charles 903 903 but developed in a distinctively modern
way by Montaigne and Descartes; the affirmation of ordinary life and of
ourselves as participants in it, particularly associated with the Reformation;
and the expressivism of, e.g., the Romantics for which the self fulfills itself
by embracing and articulating the voice of nature present in its depths. Taylor
thinks that these sources constitute a modern self that, unlike the “punctual
self” of the radical Enlightenment, is a meaningful ethical agent. He suggests,
nonetheless, that an adequate conception of the modern self will further
require a relation of human inwardness to God. This suggestion so far remains
undeveloped.
taylor: h. English
feminist and writer. She was the wife of J. S. Mill, who called her the “most
admirable person” he had ever met; but according to her critics, Taylor was “a
stupid woman” with “a knack for repeating prettily what J.S.M. said.” Although
Mill may have exaggerated her moral and intellectual virtues, her writings on
marriage, the enfranchisement of women, and toleration did influence his
Subjection of Women and On Liberty. In The Enfranchisement of Women, Taylor
rejected the reigning “angel in the house” ideal of woman. She argued that
confining women to the house impeded both sexes’ development. Taylor was a
feminist philosopher in her own right, who argued even more strongly than Mill
that women are entitled to the same educational, legal, and economic
opportunities that men enjoy. R.T. te, Chin. term meaning ‘moral charisma’ or
‘virtue’. In its earliest use, te is the quality bestowed on a ruler by Heaven
t’ien which makes his subjects willingly follow him. Rule by te is
traditionally thought to be not just ethically preferable to rule by force but
also more effective instrumentally. It is a necessary condition for having te
that one be ethically exemplary, but traditional thinkers differ over whether
being virtuous is also sufficient for the bestowal of te, and whether the
bestowal of te makes one even more virtuous. Te soon came also to refer to
virtue, in the sense of either a disposition that contributes to human
flourishing benevolence, courage, etc. or the specific excellence of any kind
of thing. B.W.V.N. techne Grecian, ‘art’, ‘craft’, a human skill based on
general principles and capable of being taught. In this sense, a manual craft
such as carpentry is a techne, but so are sciences such as medicine and
arithmetic. According to Plato Gorgias 501a, a genuine techne understands its
subject matter and can give a rational account of its activity. Aristotle
Metaphysics I.1 distinguishes technefrom experience on the grounds that techne
involves knowledge of universals and causes, and can be taught. Sometimes
‘techne’ is restricted to the productive as opposed to theoretical and
practical arts, as at Nicomachean Ethics VI.4. Techne and its products are
often contrasted with physis, nature Physics II.1.
teichmüller:
G. G. philosopher who contributed to the history of philosophy and developed a
theory of knowledge and a metaphysical conception based on these historical studies.
Born in Braunschweig, he taught at Göttingen and Basel and was influenced by
Lotze and Leibniz. His major works are Aristotelische Forschungen Aristotelian
Investigations, 186773 and Die wirkliche und scheinbar Welt The Actual and the
Apparent World, 2. His other works are Ueber die Unsterblichkeit der Seele
1874, Studien zur Geschichte der Begriffe 1874, Darwinismus und Philosophie
1877, Ueber das Wesen der Liebe 1879, Religionsphilosophie 6, and the
posthumously published Neue Grundlegung der Psychologie und Logik 9.
Teichmüller maintained that the self of immediate experience, the “I,” is the
most fundamental reality and that the conceptual world is a projection of its
constituting activity. On the basis of his studies in the history of metaphysics
and his sympathies with Leibniz’s monadology, he held that each metaphysical
system contained partial truths and construed each metaphysical standpoint as a
perspective on a complex reality. Thinking of both metaphysical interpretations
of reality and the subjectivity of individual immediate experience, Teichmüller
christened his own philosophical position “perspectivism.” His work influenced
later European thought through its impact on the philosophical reflections of
Nietzsche, who was probably influenced by him in the development of his
perspectival theory of knowledge.
Teilhard de Chardin: p.
philosopher. His philosophical work, while published only posthumously, was
vigorously discussed throughout his career. His writings generated considerable
controversy within the church, since one of his principal concerns was to bring
about a forceful yet generous reconciliation between the traditional Christian
dogma and the dramatic advances yielded by modern science. His philosophy
consisted of systematic reflections on cosmology, biology, physics,
anthropology, social theory, and theology
reflections guided, he maintained, by his fascination with the nature of
life, energy, and matter, and by his profound respect for human spirituality.
Teilhard was educated in philosophy and mathematics at the Jesuit of Mongré, near Lyons. He entered the Jesuit
order at the age of eighteen and was ordained a priest in 1. He went on to
study at Aix-en-Provence, Laval, and Caen, as well as on the Isle of Jersey and
at Hastings, England. Returning to Paris after the war, he studied biology,
geology, and paleontology at the Museum of Natural History and at the Institut
Catholique, receiving a doctoral degree in geology in 2. In 3, shortly after
appointment to the faculty of geology at the Institut Catholique, he took leave
to pursue field research in China. His research resulted in the discovery, in
9, of Peking man Sinanthropus pekinensis
which he saw as “perhaps the next to the last step traceable between the
anthropoids and man.” It was during this period that Teilhard began to compose
one of his major theoretical works, The Phenomenon of Man 5, in which he
stressed the deep continuity of evolutionary development and the emergence of
humanity from the animal realm. He argued that received evolutionary theory was
fully compatible with Christian doctrine. Indeed, it is the synthesis of
evolutionary theory with his own Christian theology that perhaps best
characterizes the broad tenor of his thought. Starting with the very inception
of the evolutionary trajectory, i.e., with what he termed the “Alpha point” of
creation, Teilhard’s general theory resists any absolute disjunction between
the inorganic and organic. Indeed, matter and spirit are two “stages” or
“aspects” of the same cosmic stuff. These transitions from one state to another
may be said to correspond to those between the somatic and psychic, the
exterior and interior, according to the state of relative development,
organization, and complexity. Hence, for Teilhard, much as for Bergson whose
work greatly influenced him, evolutionary development is characterized by a
progression from the simplest components of matter and energy what he termed
the lithosphere, through the organization of flora and fauna the biosphere, to
the complex formations of sentient and cognitive human life the noosphere. In
this sense, evolution is a “progressive spiritualization of matter.” He held
this to be an orthogenetic process, one of “directed evolution” or “Genesis,”
by which matter would irreversibly metamorphose itself, in a process of
involution and complexification, toward the psychic. Specifically, Teilhard’s
account sought to overcome what he saw as a prescientific worldview, one based
on a largely antiquated and indefensible metaphysical dualism. By accomplishing
this, he hoped to realize a productive convergence of science and religion. The
end of evolution, what he termed “the Omega point,” would be the full presence
of Christ, embodied in a universal human society. Many have tended to see a
Christian pantheism expressed in such views. Teilhard himself stressed a
profoundly personalist, spiritual perspective, drawn not only from the
theological tradition of Thomism, but from that of Pauline Neoplatonism and
Christian mysticism as well especially
that tradition extending from Meister Eckhart through Cardinal Bérulle and
Malebranche.
Finitum -- teleology, the
philosophical doctrine that all of nature, or at least intentional agents, are
goaldirected or functionally organized. Plato first suggested that the
organization of the natural world can be understood by comparing it to the
behavior of an intentional agent
external teleology. For example, human beings can anticipate the future
and behave in ways calculated to realize their telekinesis teleology 905 905 intentions. Aristotle invested nature
itself with goals internal teleology.
Each kind has its own final cause, and entities are so constructed that they tend
to realize this goal. Heavenly bodies travel as nearly as they are able in perfect
circles because that is their nature, while horses give rise to other horses
because that is their nature. Natural theologians combined these two
teleological perspectives to explain all phenomena by reference to the
intentions of a beneficent, omniscient, all-powerful God. God so constructed
the world that each entity is invested with the tendency to fulfill its own
God-given nature. Darwin explained the teleological character of the living
world non-teleologically. The evolutionary process is not itself teleological,
but it gives rise to functionally organized systems and intentional agents.
Present-day philosophers acknowledge intentional behavior and functional
organization but attempt to explain both without reference to a supernatural
agent or internal natures of the more metaphysical sort. Instead, they define
‘function’ cybernetically, in terms of persistence toward a goal state under
varying conditions, or etiologically, in terms of the contribution that a
structure or action makes to the realization of a goal state. These definitions
confront a battery of counterexamples designed to show that the condition
mentioned is either not necessary, not sufficient, or both; e.g., missing goal
objects, too many goals, or functional equivalents. The trend has been to
decrease the scope of teleological explanations from all of nature, to the
organization of those entities that arise through natural selection, to their
final refuge in the behavior of human beings. Behaviorists have attempted to
eliminate this last vestige of teleology. Just as natural selection makes the
attribution of goals for biological species redundant, the selection of
behavior in terms of its consequences is designed to make any reference to
intentions on the part of human beings unnecessary.
Telesio: b., philosopher
whose early scientific empiricism influenced Francis Bacon and Galileo. He
studied in Padua, where he completed his doctorate in 1535, and practiced
philosophy in Naples and Cosenza without holding any academic position. His
major work, the nine volumes of De rerum natura iuxta propria principia “On the
Nature of Things According to Their Principles,” 1586, contains an attempt to
interpret nature on the basis of its own principles, which Telesio identifies
with the two incorporeal active forces of heat and cold, and the corporeal and
passive physical substratum. As the two active forces permeate all of nature
and are endowed with sensation, Telesio argues that all of nature possesses
some degree of sensation. Human beings share with animals a material substance
produced by heat and coming into existence with the body, called spirit. They
are also given a mind by God. Telesio knew both the Averroistic and the
Alexandrist interpretations of Aristotle. However, he broke with both,
criticizing Aristotle’s Physics and claiming that nature is investigated better
by the senses than by the intellect. P.Gar. telishment, punishment of one
suspected of wrongdoing, but whom the authorities know to be innocent, imposed
as a deterrent to future wrongdoers. Telishment is thus not punishment insofar
as punishment requires that the recipient’s harsh treatment be deserved.
Telishment is classically given as one of the thought experiments challenging
utilitarianism and more broadly, consequentialism as a theory of ethics, for
such a theory seems to justify telishment on some occasions.
Finitum -- telos, ancient
Grecian term meaning ‘end’ or ‘purpose’. Telos is a key concept not only in
Grecian ethics but also in Grecian science. The purpose of a human being is a
good life, and human activities are evaluated according to whether they lead to
or manifest this telos. Plants, animals, and even inanimate objects were also
thought to have a telos through which their activities and relations could be
understood and evaluated. Though a telos could be something that transcends
human activities and sensible things, as Plato thought, it need not be anything
apart from nature. Aristotle, e.g., identified the telos of a sensible thing
with its immanent form. It follows that the purpose of the thing is simply to
be what it is and that, in general, a thing pursues its purpose when it
endeavors to preserve itself. Aristotle’s view shows that ‘purpose in nature’
need not mean a higher purpose beyond nature. Yet, his immanent purpose does
not exclude “higher” purposes, and Aristotelian teleology was pressed into
service by medieval thinkers as a framework for understanding God’s agency
through nature. Thinkers in the modern period argued against the prominent role
accorded to telos by ancient telepathy telos 906 906 and medieval thinkers, and they replaced
it with analyses in terms of mechanism and law.
Tempus – cited by Grice
and Myro in the Grice-Myro theory of identity. tense logic, an extension of
classical logic introduced by Arthur Prior Past, Present, and Future, 7,
involving operators P and F for the past and future tenses, or ‘it was the case
that . . .’ and ‘it will be the case that . . .’. Classical or mathematical
logic was developed as a logic of unchanging mathematical truth, and can be
applied to tensed discourse only by artificial regimentation inspired by
mathematical physics, introducing quantification over “times” or “instants.”
Thus ‘It will have been the case that p,’ which Prior represents simply as FPp,
classical logic represents as ‘There [exists] an instant t and there [exists]
an instant tH such that t [is] later than the present and tH [is] earlier than
t, and at tH it [is] the case that pH, or DtDtH t o‹t8tH ‹t8ptH, where the
brackets indicate that the verbs are to be understood as tenseless. Prior’s
motives were in part linguistic to produce a formalization less removed from
natural language than the classical and in part metaphysical to avoid
ontological commitment to such entities as instants. Much effort was devoted to
finding tense-logical principles equivalent to various classical assertions
about the structure of the earlierlater order among instants; e.g., ‘Between
any two instants there is another instant’ corresponds to the validity of the
axioms Pp P PPp and Fp P FFp. Less is expressible using P and F than is
expressible with explicit quantification over instants, and further operators
for ‘since’ and ‘until’ or ‘now’ and ‘then’ have been introduced by Hans Kamp
and others. These are especially important in combination with quantification,
as in ‘When he was in power, all who now condemn him then praised him.’ As
tense is closely related to mood, so tense logic is closely related to modal
logic. As Kripke models for modal logic consist each of a set X of “worlds” and
a relation R of ‘x is an alternative to y’, so for tense logic they consist
each of a set X of “instants” and a relation R of ‘x is earlier than y’: Thus
instants, banished from the syntax or proof theory, reappear in the semantics
or model theory. Modality and tense are both involved in the issue of future
contingents, and one of Prior’s motives was a desire to produce a formalism in
which the views on this topic of ancient, medieval, and early modern logicians
from Aristotle with his “sea fight tomorrow” and Diodorus Cronos with his
“Master Argument” through Ockham to Peirce could be represented. The most
important precursor to Prior’s work on tense logic was that on many-valued
logics by Lukasiewicz, which was motivated largely by the problem of future
contingents. Also related to tense and mood is aspect, and modifications to
represent this grammatical category evaluating formulas at periods rather than
instants of time have also been introduced. Like modal logic, tense logic has
been the object of intensive study in theoretical computer science, especially
in connection with attempts to develop languages in which properties of
programs can be expressed and proved; variants of tense logic under such labels
as “dynamic logic” or “process logic” have thus been extensively developed for
technological rather than philosophical motives.
Teresa of Ávila, Saint
151582, religious, mystic, and author of
spiritual treatises. Having entered the Carmelite order at Ávila at twenty-two,
Teresa spent the next twenty-five years seeking guidance in the practice of
prayer. Despite variously inept spiritual advisers, she seems to have undergone
a number of mystical experiences and to have made increasingly important
discoveries about interior life. After 1560 Teresa took on a public role by
attaching herself to the reforming party within the Carmelites. Her remaining years were occupied
with the reform, in which she was associated most famously with John of the
Cross. She also composed several works, including a spiritual autobiography the
Vida and two masterpieces of spirituality, the Way of Perfection and the
Interior Castle. The latter two, but especially the Castle, offer philosophical
suggestions about the soul’s passions, activities, faculties, and ground. Their
principal motive is to teach the reader how to progress, by successive
surrender, toward the divine Trinity dwelling at the soul’s center.
Terminus – horos –
Cicero’s transliteration of the Greianism --. terminist logic, a school of
logic originating in twelfth-century Europe and dominant in the universities
until its demise in the humanistic reforms. Its chief goal was the elucidation
of the logical form the “exposition” of propositions advanced in the context of
Scholastic disputation. Its central theory concerned the properties of terms,
especially supposition, and did the work of modern quantification theory.
Important logicians in the school include Peter of Spain, William Sherwood,
Walter Burley, William Heytesbury, and Paul of Venice.
terminus a quo Latin,
‘term from which’, the starting point of some process. The terminus ad quem is
the ending point. For example, change is a process that begins from some state
the terminus a quo and proceeds to some state at which it ends the terminus ad
quem. In particular, in the ripening of an apple, the green apple is the
terminus a quo and the red apple is the terminus ad quem.
Tertullian Roman – Adored
by Grice because he believed what he thought was absurd. theologian, an early father of the Christian
church. A layman from Carthage, he laid the conceptual and linguistic basis for
the doctrine of the Trinity. Though appearing hostile to philosophy “What has
Athens to do with Jerusalem?” and to rationality “It is certain because it is
impossible”, Tertullian was steeped in Stoicism. He denounced all eclecticism
not governed by the normative tradition of Christian doctrine, yet commonly
used philosophical argument and Stoic concepts e.g., the corporeality of God
and the soul. Despite insisting on the sole authority of the New Testament
apostles, he joined with Montanism, which taught that the Holy Spirit was still
inspiring prophecy concerning moral discipline. Reflecting this interest in the
Spirit, Tertullian pondered the distinctions to which he gave the neologism
trinitas within God. God is one “substance” but three “persons”: a plurality
without division. The Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct, but share equally
in the one Godhead. This threeness is manifest only in the “economy” of God’s
temporal action toward the world; later orthodoxy e.g. Athanasius, Basil the
Great, Augustine, would postulate a Triunity that is eternal and “immanent,”
i.e., internal to God’s being.
testability, in the
sciences, capacity of a theory to undergo experimental testing. Theories in the
natural sciences are regularly subjected to experimental tests involving
detailed and rigorous control of variable factors. Not naive observation of the
workings of nature, but disciplined, designed intervention in such workings, is
the hallmark of testability. Logically regarded, testing takes the form of
seeking confirmation of theories by obtaining positive test results. We can
represent a theory as a conjunction of a hypothesis and a statement of initial
conditions, H • A. This conjunction deductively entails testable or
observational consequences O. Hence, H • A P O. If O obtains, H • A is said to
be confirmed, or rendered probable. But such confirmation is not decisive; O
may be entailed by, and hence explained by, many other theories. For this
reason, Popper insisted that the testability of theories should seek
disconfirmations or falsifications. The logical schema H • A P O not-O not-H •
A is deductively valid, hence apparently decisive. On this view, science
progresses, not by finding the truth, but by discarding the false. Testability
becomes falsifiability. This deductive schema modus tollens is also employed in
the analysis of crucial tests. Consider two hypotheses H1 and H2, both
introduced to explain some phenomenon. H1 predicts that for some test condition
C, we have the test result ‘if C then e1’, and H2, the result ‘if C then e2’,
where e1 and e2 are logically incompatible. If experiment falsifies ‘if C then
e1’ e1 does not actually occur as a test result, the hypothesis H1 is false,
which implies that H2 is true. It was originally supposed that the experiments
of J. B. L. Foucault constituted a decisive falsifcation of the corpuscular
theory of the nature of light, and thus provided a decisive establishment of
the truth of its rival, the wave theory of light. This account of crucial
experiments neglects certain points in logic and also the role of auxiliary
hypotheses in science. As Duhem pointed term, minor testability 908 908 out, rarely, if ever, does a hypothesis
face the facts in isolation from other supporting assumptions. Furthermore, it
is a fact of logic that the falsification of a conjunction of a hypothesis and
its auxiliary assumptions and initial conditions not-H • A is logically equivalent
to not-H or not-A, and the test result itself provides no warrant for choosing
which alternative to reject. Duhem further suggested that rejection of any
component part of a complex theory is based on extra-evidential considerations
factors like simplicity and fruitfulness and cannot be forced by negative test
results. Acceptance of Duhem’s view led Quine to suggest that a theory must
face the tribunal of experience en bloc; no single hypothesis can be tested in
isolation. Original conceptions of testability and falsifiability construed
scientific method as hypothetico-deductive. Difficulties with these
reconstructions of the logic of experiment have led philosophers of science to
favor an explication of empirical support based on the logic of probability.
testimony – as Grice
notes, “it is etymologically related to ‘testicles,’” -- an act of telling, including all assertions
apparently intended to impart information, regardless of social setting. In an
extended sense personal letters and messages, books, and other published
material purporting to contain factual information also constitute testimony.
Testimony may be sincere or insincere, and may express knowledge or baseless
prejudice. When it expresses knowledge, and it is rightly believed, this knowledge
is disseminated to its recipients, near or remote. Secondhand knowledge can be
passed on further, producing long chains of testimony; but these chains always
begin with the report of an eyewitness or expert. In any social group with a
common language there is potential for the sharing, through testimony, of the
fruits of individuals’ idiosyncratic acquisition of knowledge through
perception and inference. In advanced societies specialization in the gathering
and production of knowledge and its wider dissemination through spoken and
written testimony is a fundamental socioepistemic fact, and a very large part
of each person’s body of knowledge and belief stems from testimony. Thus the
question when a person may properly believe what another tells her, and what
grounds her epistemic entitlement to do so, is a crucial one in epistemology.
Reductionists about testimony insist that this entitlement must derive from our
entitlement to believe what we perceive to be so, and to draw inferences from
this according to familiar general principles. See e.g., Hume’s classic
discussion, in his Enquiry into Human Understanding, section X. On this view, I
can perceive that someone has told me that p, but can thereby come to know that
p only by means of an inference one that
goes via additional, empirically grounded knowledge of the trustworthiness of
that person. Anti-reductionists insist, by contrast, that there is a general
entitlement to believe what one is told just as such defeated by knowledge of one’s informant’s
lack of trustworthiness her mendacity or incompetence, but not needing to be
bolstered positively by empirically based knowledge of her trustworthiness.
Anti-reductionists thus see testimony as an autonomous source of knowledge on a
par with perception, inference, and memory. One argument adduced for
anti-reductionism is transcendental: We have many beliefs acquired from
testimony, and these beliefs are knowledge; their status as knowledge cannot be
accounted for in the way required by the reductionist that is, the reliability of testimony cannot
be independently confirmed; therefore the reductionist’s insistence on this is
mistaken. However, while it is perhaps true that the reliability of all the
beliefs one has that depend on past testimony cannot be simultaneously
confirmed, one can certainly sometimes ascertain, without circularity, that a
specific assertion by a particular person is likely to be correct if, e.g.,one’s own experience has established
that that person has a good track record of reliability about that kind of
thing.
Tetens: j. n. -- G.
philosopher and psychologist, sometimes called the G. Locke. After his studies
in Rostock and Copenhagen, he taught at Bützow and Kiel until 1789. He had a
second successful career as a public servant in Denmark 17901807 that did not
leave him time for philosophical work. Tetens was one of the most important G.
philosophers between Wolff and Kant. Like Kant, whom he significantly
influenced, Tetens attempted to find a middle way between empiricism and rationalism.
His most important work, the Philosophische Versuche über die menschliche Natur
und ihre Entwicklung “Philosophical Essays on Human Nature and its
Development,” 1777, is indicative of the state of philosophical discustestimony
Tetens, Johann Nicolas 909 909 sion in
G.y before Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Tetens, who followed the
“psychological method” of Locke, tended toward a naturalism, like that of Hume.
However, Tetens made a more radical distinction between reason and sensation
than Hume allowed and attempted to show how basic rational principles guarantee
the objectivity of human knowledge. M.K. Tetractys.
Thales of Miletus –
called by Grice the first Grecian philosopher – who poisted a ‘philosophical’
why-explanation. Grecian philosopher who
was regarded as one of the Seven Sages of Greece. He was also considered the
first philosopher, founder of the Milesians. Thales is also reputed to have
been an engineer, astronomer, mathematician, and statesman. His doctrines even
early Grecian sources know only by hearsay: he said that water is the arche,
and that the earth floats on water like a raft. The magnet has a soul, and all
things are full of the gods. Thales’ attempt to explain natural phenomena in
natural rather than exclusively supernatural terms bore fruit in his follower
Anaximander.
thema: a term Grice
borrowed from Stoic logic, after attending a seminar on the topic by Benson
Mates – a ‘thema’ is a ground rule used to reduce argument forms to basic
forms. The Stoics analyzed arguments by their form schema, or tropos. They
represented forms using numbers to represent claims; for example, ‘if the
first, the second; but the first; therefore the second’. Grice uses “so-and-so”
for ‘the first’ and ‘such and such’ for the ‘second’. “If so and so, such and
such, but so and so; therefore, such and such.” Some forms were undemonstrable;
others were reduced to the undemonstrable argument forms by ground rules
themata; e.g., if R follows from P & Q, -Q follows from P & -R. The
five undemonstrable arguments are: 1 modus ponendo ponens; 2 modus tollendo
tollens; 3 not both P and Q, P, so not-Q; 4 P or Q but not both, P, so not-Q;
and 5 disjunctive syllogism. The evidence about the four ground rules is
incomplete, but a sound and consistent system for propositional logic can be
developed that is consistent with the evidence we have. See Diogenes Laertius,
Lives of the Philosophers, for an introduction to the Stoic theory of
arguments; other evidence is more scattered.
Philosophical theology --
theodicy from Grecian theos, ‘God’, and dike, ‘justice’, a defense of the
justice or goodness of God in the face of doubts or objections arising from the
phenomena of evil in the world ‘evil’ refers here to bad states of affairs of
any sort. Many types of theodicy have been proposed and vigorously debated;
only a few can be sketched here. 1 It has been argued that evils are logically
necessary for greater goods e.g., hardships for the full exemplification of
certain virtues, so that even an omnipotent being roughly, one whose power has
no logically contingent limits would have a morally sufficient reason to cause
or permit the evils in order to obtain the goods. Leibniz, in his Theodicy
1710, proposed a particularly comprehensive theodicy of this type. On his view,
God had adequate reason to bring into existence the actual world, despite all
its evils, because it is the best of all possible worlds, and all actual evils
are essential ingredients in it, so that omitting any of them would spoil the
design of the whole. Aside from issues about whether actual evils are in fact
necessary for greater goods, this approach faces the question whether it
assumes wrongly that the end justifies the means. 2 An important type of
theodicy traces some or all evils to sinful free actions of humans or other
beings such as angels created by God. Proponents of this approach assume that
free action in creatures is of great value and is logically incompatible with
divine causal control of the creatures’ actions. It follows that God’s not
intervening to prevent sins is necessary, though the sins themselves are not,
to the good of created freedom. This is proposed as a morally sufficient reason
for God’s not preventing them. It is a major task for this type of theodicy to
explain why God would permit those evils that are not themselves free choices
of creatures but are at most consequences of such choices. 3 Another type of
theodicy, both ancient and currently influential among theologians, though less
congenial to orthodox traditions in the major theistic religions, proposes to
defend God’s goodness by abandoning the doctrine that God is omnipotent. On
this view, God is causally, rather than logically, unable to prevent many evils
while pursuing sufficiently great goods. A principal sponsor of this approach
at present is the movement known as process theology, inspired by Whitehead; it
depends on a complex metaphysical theory about the nature of causal
relationships. 4 Other theodicies focus more on outcomes than on origins. Some
religious beliefs suggest that God will turn out to have been very good to
created persons by virtue of gifts especially religious gifts, such as
communion with God as supreme Good that may be bestowed in a life Tetractys
theodicy 910 910 after death or in
religious experience in the present life. This approach may be combined with
one of the other types of theodicy, or adopted by people who think that God’s
reasons for permitting evils are beyond our finding out.
Philosophical theology --
theologia naturalis Latin, ‘natural theology’, theology that uses the methods
of investigation and standards of rationality of any other area of philosophy.
Traditionally, the central problems of natural theology are proofs for the
existence of God and the problem of evil. In contrast with natural theology,
supernatural theology uses methods that are supposedly revealed by God and
accepts as fact beliefs that are similarly outside the realm of rational
acceptability. Relying on a prophet or a pope to settle factual questions would
be acceptable to supernatural, but not to natural, theology. Nothing prevents a
natural theologian from analyzing concepts that can be used sanguinely by
supernatural theologians, e.g., revelation, miracles, infallibility, and the
doctrine of the Trinity. Theologians often work in both areas, as did, e.g.,
Anselm and Aquinas. For his brilliant critiques of traditional theology, Hume
deserves the title of “natural anti-theologian.”
Philosophical theology –
Grice was totally against “the philosophy of X” – never the philosophy of god –
but philosophical theology -- theological naturalism, the attempt to develop a
naturalistic conception of God. As a philosophical position, naturalism holds 1
that the only reliable methods of knowing what there is are methods continuous
with those of the developed sciences, and 2 that the application of those
methods supports the view that the constituents of reality are either physical
or are causally dependent on physical things and their modifications. Since
supernaturalism affirms that God is purely spiritual and causally independent
of physical things, naturalists hold that either belief in God must be
abandoned as rationally unsupported or the concept of God must be reconstituted
consistently with naturalism. Earlier attempts to do the latter include the
work of Feuerbach and Comte. In twentieth-century naturalism the most significant attempts to
develop a naturalistic conception of God are due to Dewey and Henry Nelson
Wieman 45. In A Common Faith Dewey proposed a view of God as the unity of ideal
ends resulting from human imagination, ends arousing us to desire and action.
Supernaturalism, he argued, was the product of a primitive need to convert the
objects of desire, the greatest ideals, into an already existing reality. In
contrast to Dewey, Wieman insisted on viewing God as a process in the natural
world that leads to the best that humans can achieve if they but submit to its
working in their lives. In his earlier work he viewed God as a cosmic process
that not only works for human good but is what actually produced human life.
Later he identified God with creative interchange, a process that occurs only
within already existing human communities. While Wieman’s God is not a human
creation, as are Dewey’s ideal ends, it is difficult to see how love and
devotion are appropriate to a natural process that works as it does without
thought or purpose. Thus, while Dewey’s God ideal ends lacks creative power but
may well qualify as an object of love and devotion, Wieman’s God a process in
nature is capable of creative power but, while worthy of our care and
attention, does not seem to qualify as an object of love and devotion. Neither
view, then, satisfies the two fundamental features associated with the
traditional idea of God: possessing creative power and being an appropriate
object of supreme love and devotion.
Rationality – Grice was
especially irritated by the adjective ‘theoretical’ as applied to ‘reason’.
“Kant was cleverer when he used the metaphorical ‘pure’!” -- theoretical reason
– Grice preferred ‘conversational reason.’ “There’s no need to divide reason
into pure and impure!’ -- in its traditional sense, a faculty or capacity whose
province is theoretical knowledge or inquiry; more broadly, the faculty
concerned with ascertaining truth of any kind also sometimes called speculative
reason. In Book 6 of his Metaphysics, Aristotle identifies mathematics,
physics, and theology as the subject matter of theoretical reason. Theoretical
reason is traditionally distinguished from practical reason, a faculty
exercised in determining guides to good conduct and in deliberating about
proper courses of action. Aristotle contrasts it, as well, with productive
reason, which is concerned with “making”: shipbuilding, sculpting, healing, and
the like. Kant distinguishes theoretical reason not only from practical reason
but also sometimes from the faculty of understanding, in which the categories
originate. Theoretical reason, possessed of its own a priori concepts “ideas of
reason”, regulates the activities of the understanding. It presupposes a
systematic unity in nature, sets the goal for scientific inquiry, and
determines the “criterion of empirical truth” Critique of Pure Reason.
Theoretical reason, on Kant’s conception, seeks an explanatory “completeness”
and an “unconditionedness” of being that transcend what is possible in
experience. Reason, as a faculty or capacity, may be regarded as a hybrid
composed of theoretical and practical reason broadly construed or as a unity
having both theoretical and practical functions. Some commentators take
Aristotle to embrace the former conception and Kant the latter. Reason is
contrasted sometimes with experience, sometimes with emotion and desire,
sometimes with faith. Its presence in human beings has often been regarded as
constituting the primary difference between human and non-human animals; and
reason is sometimes represented as a divine element in human nature. Socrates,
in Plato’s Philebus, portrays reason as “the king of heaven and earth.” Hobbes,
in his Leviathan, paints a more sobering picture, contending that reason, “when
we reckon it among the faculties of the mind, . . . is nothing but
reckoning that is, adding and
subtracting of the consequences of
general names agreed upon for the marking and signifying of our thoughts.”
Theory – Grice couldn’t
quite stand some type of attitude he found in people like J. M. Rountree –
Rountree was claiming that one needs a ‘theory’ of meaning. Grice responded: “
Rountree is wrong: if meaning is a matter of theory, it cannot be a matter of
intuition; and I’m sure it should be a matter of intuition for Rountree!” theoretical
term – Grice was once attracted to Ramsey’s essay on “Theories,” but later came
to see it as ‘pretentious’. “Surely the way *I* use ‘theory’ is not Ramsey’s!”
– If something is an object of an intuition by Grice, it cannot be a
theoretical term – theory and intuition don’t go together. They repel each
other! a term occurring in a scientific theory that purports to make reference
to an unobservable entity e.g., ‘electron’, property e.g., ‘the monatomicity of
a molecule’, or relation ‘greater electrical resistance’. The qualification
‘purports to’ is required because instrumentalists deny that any such
unobservables exist; nevertheless, they acknowledge that a scientific theory,
such as the atomic theory of matter, may be a useful tool for organizing our
knowledge of observables and predicting future experiences. Scientific
realists, in contrast, maintain that at least some of the theoretical terms
e.g., ‘quark’ or ‘neutrino’ actually denote entities that are not directly
observable they hold, i.e., that such
things exist. For either group, theoretical terms are contrasted with such
observational terms as ‘rope’, ‘smooth’, and ‘louder than’, which refer to
observable entities, properties, or relations. Much philosophical controversy
has centered on how to draw the distinction between the observable and the
unobservable. Did Galileo observe the moons of Jupiter with his telescope? Do
we observe bacteria under a microscope? Do physicists observe electrons in
bubble chambers? Do astronomers observe the supernova explosions with neutrino
counters? Do we observe ordinary material objects, or are sense-data the only
observables? Are there any observational terms at all, or are all terms
theory-laden? Another important meaning of ‘theoretical term’ occurs if one
regards a scientific theory as a semiformal axiomatic system. It is then
natural to think of its vocabulary as divided into three parts, i terms of
logic and mathematics, ii terms drawn from ordinary language or from other
theories, and iii theoretical terms that constitute the special vocabulary of
that particular theory. Thermodynamics, e.g., employs i terms for numbers and
mathematical operations, ii such terms as ‘pressure’ and ‘volume’ that are
common to many branches of physics, and iii such special thermodynamical terms
as ‘temperature’, ‘heat’, and ‘entropy’. In this second sense, a theoretical
term need not even purport to refer to unobservables. For example, although
special equipment is necessary for its precise quantitatheoretical entity
theoretical term 912 912 tive
measurement, temperature is an observable property. Even if theories are not
regarded as axiomatic systems, their technical terms can be considered
theoretical. Such terms need not purport to refer to unobservables, nor be the
exclusive property of one particular theory. In some cases, e.g., ‘work’ in
physics, an ordinary word is used in the theory with a meaning that departs
significantly from its ordinary use. Serious questions have been raised about
the meaning of theoretical terms. Some philosophers have insisted that, to be
meaningful, they must be given operational definitions. Others have appealed to
coordinative definitions to secure at least partial interpretation of axiomatic
theories. The verifiability criterion has been invoked to secure the
meaningfulness of scientific theories containing such terms. A theoretical
concept or construct is a concept expressed by a theoretical term in any of the
foregoing senses. The term ‘theoretical entity’ has often been used to refer to
unobservables, but this usage is confusing, in part because, without
introducing any special vocabulary, we can talk about objects too small to be
perceived directly e.g., spheres of
gamboge a yellow resin less than 106 meters in diameter, which figured in a
historically important experiment by Jean Perrin.
Theory – Grice uses
Ramsey’s concept of ‘theory’ – “granting that Ramsey overrated theory, as all
Cambridge men do!” -- theory-laden, dependent on theory; specifically,
involving a theoretical interpretation of what is perceived or recorded. In the
heyday of logical empiricism it was thought, by Carnap and others, that a rigid
distinction could be drawn between observational and theoretical terms. Later,
N. R. Hanson, Paul Feyerabend, and others questioned this distinction, arguing
that perhaps all observations are theory-laden either because our perception of
the world is colored by perceptual, linguistic, and cultural differences or
because no attempt to distinguish sharply between observation and theory has
been successful. This shift brings a host of philosophical problems. If we
accept the idea of radical theoryladenness, relativism of theory choice becomes
possible, for, given rival theories each of which conditions its own
observational evidence, the choice between them would seem to have to be made
on extra-evidential grounds, since no theory-neutral observations are available.
In its most perplexing form, relativism holds that, theory-ladenness being
granted, one theory is as good as any other, so far as the relationship of
theory to evidence is concerned. Relativists couple the thesis of
theory-ladenness with the alleged fact of the underdetermination of a theory by
its observational evidence, which yields the idea that any number of
alternative theories can be supported by the same evidence. The question
becomes one of what it is that constrains choices between theories. If
theory-laden observations cannot constrain such choices, the individual
subjective preferences of scientists, or rules of fraternal behavior agreed
upon by groups of scientists, become the operative constraints. The logic of
confirmation seems to be intrinsically contaminated by both idiosyncratic and
social factors, posing a threat to the very idea of scientific
rationality.
Apparitio – Latin for
‘appear’ – ADPARITUM -- theory of appearing, the theory that to perceive an
object is simply for that object to appear present itself to one as being a
certain way, e.g., looking round or like a rock, smelling vinegary, sounding
raucous, or tasting bitter. Nearly everyone would accept this formulation on
some interpretation. But the theory takes this to be a rock-bottom
characterization of perception, and not further analyzable. It takes “appearing
to subject S as so-and-so” as a basic, irreducible relation, one readily
identifiable in experience but not subject to definition in other terms. The
theory preserves the idea that in normal perception we are directly aware of
objects in the physical environment, not aware of them through non-physical
sense-data, sensory impressions, or other intermediaries. When a tree looks to
me a certain way, it is the tree and nothing else of which I am directly aware.
That involves “having” a sensory experience, but that experience just consists
of the tree’s looking a certain way to me. After enjoying a certain currency
early in this century the theory was largely abandoned under the impact of
criticisms by Price, Broad, and Chisholm. The most widely advertised difficulty
theoretical underdetermination is this. What is it that appears to the subject
in completely hallucinatory experience? Perhaps the greatest strength of the
theory is its fidelity to what perceptual experience seems to be. ap-pārĕo
(adp- , Ritschl, Fleck., B. and K.; app- , Lachm., Merk., Weissenb., Halm,
Rib.), ui, itum, 2, v. n., I.to come in
sight, to appear, become visible, make one's appearance (class. in prose and
poetry). I. A.. Lit.: “ego adparebo domi,” Plaut. Capt. 2, 3, 97: “ille bonus
vir nusquam adparet,” Ter. Eun. 4, 3, 18; Lucr. 3, 25; so id. 3, 989: “rem
contra speculum ponas, apparet imago,” id. 4, 157: unde tandem adpares, Cic.
Fragm. ap. Prisc. p. 706 P.; id. Fl. 12 fin.: “equus mecum una demersus rursus
adparuit,” id. Div. 2, 68; so id. Sull. 2, 5: “cum lux appareret (Dinter,
adpeteret),” Caes. B. G. 7, 82: “de sulcis acies apparuit hastae,” Ov. M. 3,
107: “apparent rari nantes,” Verg. A. 1, 118, Hor. C. S. 59 al.—With dat.:
“anguis ille, qui Sullae adparuit immolanti,” Cic. Div. 2, 30 fin.; id. Clu.
53: “Quís numquam candente dies adparuit ortu,” Tib. 4, 1, 65.—Once in Varro
with ad: quod adparet ad agricolas, R. R. 1, 40.— B. In gen., to be seen, to
show one's self, be in public, appear: “pro pretio facio, ut opera adpareat
Mea,” Plaut. Ps. 3, 2, 60: “fac sis nunc promissa adpareant,” Ter. Eun. 2, 3,
20; cf. id. Ad. 5, 9, 7: “illud apparere unum,” that this only is apparent,
Lucr. 1, 877; Cato, R. R. 2, 2: “ubi merces apparet? i. e. illud quod pro tantā
mercede didiceris,” Cic. Phil. 2, 34: “quo studiosius opprimitur et
absconditur, eo magis eminet et apparet,” id. Rosc. Am. 41 fin.: “Galbae
orationes evanuerunt, vix jam ut appareant,” id. Brut. 21, 82: “apparet adhuc
vetus mde cicatrix,” Ov. M. 12, 444; 2, 734: “rebus angustis animosus atque
fortis appare,” Hor. C. 2, 10, 22: “cum lamentamur, non apparere labores
Nostros,” are not noticed, considered, id. Ep. 2, 1, 224, so id. ib. 2, 1, 250
al.; Plaut. Men. 2, 1, 14; cf. id. Am. 2, 2, 161 and 162.—Hence, apparens (opp.
latens), visible, evident: “tympana non apparentia Obstrepuere,” Ov. M. 4, 391:
“apparentia vitia curanda sunt,” Quint. 12, 8, 10; so id. 9, 2, 46.— II. Trop.:
res apparet, and far more freq. impers. apparet with acc. and inf. or rel.-clause,
the thing (or it) is evident, clear, manifest, certain, δῆλόν ἐστι, φαίνεται
(objective certainty, while videtur. δοκεῖ, designates subjective belief, Web.
Uebungssch. 258): “ratio adparet,” Plaut. Trin. 2, 4, 17: “res adparet, Ter Ad.
5, 9, 7: apparet id etiam caeco, Liv 32, 34. cui non id apparere, id actum
esse. etc.,” id. 22, 34; 2, 31 fin.: “ex quo adparet antiquior origo,” Plin.
36, 26, 67, § 197 al.: “adparet servom nunc esse domini pauperis,” Ter. Eun. 3,
2, 33: “non dissimulat, apparet esse commotum,” Cic. Phil. 2, 34: apparet atque
exstat, utrum simus earum (artium) rudes, id. de Or. 1, 16, 72: “quid rectum
sit, adparet,” id. Fam. 5, 19; 4, 7: “sive confictum est, ut apparet, sive,
etc.,” id. Fl. 16 fin.; Nep. Att. 4, 1; Liv. 42, 43: “quo adparet antiquiorem
hanc fuisse scientiam,” Plin. 35, 12, 44, § 153 al.—Also with dat. pers.: “quas
impendere jam apparebat omnibus,” Nep. Eum. 10, 3; and, by attraction, with
nom. and inf., as in Gr. δῆλός ἐστι, Varr. R. R. 1, 6, 2: “membra nobis ita data
sunt, ut ad quandam rationem vivendi data esse adpareant,” Cic. Fin. 3, 7, 23,
ubi v. Otto: “apparet ita degenerāsse Nero,” Suet. Ner. 1; or without the inf.,
with an adj. as predicate: “apparebat atrox cum plebe certamen (sc. fore,
imminere, etc.),” Liv. 2, 28; Suet. Rhet. 1.— III. To appear as servant or aid
(a lictor, scribe, etc.), to attend, wait upon, serve; cf. apparitor (rare):
“sacerdotes diis adparento,” Cic. Leg. 2, 8, 21: “cum septem annos Philippo
apparuisset,” Nep. Eum. 13, 1: “cum appareret aedilibus,” Liv. 9, 46 Drak.:
“lictores apparent consulibus,” id. 2, 55: “collegis accensi,” id. 3, 33: tibi
appareo atque aeditumor in templo tuo, Pompon. ap. Gell. 12, 10: “Jovis ad
solium Apparent,” Verg. A. 12, 850 (= praestant ad obsequium, Serv.). Refs.: H.
P. Grice, “Bradley and the misuses of ‘appearance.’”
descriptum – Discussed at
large by Grice just because his tutee, P. F. Strawson, showed an interst in it.
theory of descriptions, an analysis, initially developed by Peano, and borrowed
from (but never returned to) Peano by Russell, of sentences containing
descriptions. In Peano’s view, it’s about the ‘article,’ definite (‘the’) and
‘indefinite’ (‘some (at least one).’ Descriptions include indefinite
descriptions such as ‘an elephant’ and definite descriptions such as ‘the
positive square root of four’. On Russell’s analysis, descriptions are
“incomplete symbols” that are meaningful only in the context of other symbols,
i.e., only in the context of the sentences containing them. Although the words
‘the first president of the United States’ appear to constitute a singular term
that picks out a particular individual, much as the name ‘George Washington’
does, Russell held that descriptions are not referring expressions, and that
they are “analyzed out” in a proper specification of the logical form of the
sentences in which they occur. The grammatical form of ‘The first president of
the United States is tall’ is simply misleading as to its logical form.
According to Russell’s analysis of indefinite descriptions, the sentence ‘I saw
a man’ asserts that there is at least one thing that is a man, and I saw that
thing symbolically, Ex Mx & Sx. The
role of the apparent singular term ‘a man’ is taken over by the existential
quantifier ‘Ex’ and the variables it binds, and the apparent singular term
disappears on analysis. A sentence containing a definite description, such as
‘The present king of France is bald’, is taken to make three claims: that at
least one thing is a present king of France, that at most one thing is a
present king of France, and that that thing is bald symbolically, Ex {[Fx & y Fy / y % x]
& Bx}. Again, the apparent referring expression ‘the present king of
France’ is analyzed away, with its role carried out by the quantifiers and
variables in the symbolic representation of the logical form of the sentence in
which it occurs. No element in that representation is a singular referring
expression. Russell held that this analysis solves at least three difficult
puzzles posed by descriptions. The first is how it could be true that George IV
wished to know whether Scott was the author of Waverly, but false that George
IV wished to know whether Scott was Scott. Since Scott is the author of
Waverly, we should apparently be able to substitute ‘Scott’ for ‘the author of
Waverly’ and infer the second sentence from the first, but we cannot. On
Russell’s analysis, ‘George IV wished to know whether Scott was the author of
Waverly’ does not, when properly understood, contain an expression ‘the author
of Waverly’ for which the name ‘Scott’ can be substituted. The second puzzle
concerns the law of excluded middle, which rules that either ‘The present king
of France is bald’ or ‘The present king of France is not bald’ must be true;
the problem is that neither the list of bald men nor that of non-bald men
contains an entry for the present king of France. Russell’s solution is that
‘The present king of France is not bald’ is indeed true if it is understood as
‘It is not the case that there is exactly one thing that is now King of France
and is bald’, i.e., as -Ex {Fx & y {[Fy / y % x] & Bx}. The final
puzzle is how ‘There is no present king of France’ or ‘The present king of
France does not exist’ can be true if ‘the
present king of France’ is a referring expression that picks out something, how
can we truly deny that that thing exists? Since descriptions are not referring
expressions on Russell’s theory, it is easy for him to show that the negation
of the claim that there is at least and at most i.e., exactly one present king
of France, -Ex [Fx & y Fy / y % x], is true. Strawson offered the first
real challenge to Russell’s theory, arguing that ‘The present king of France is
bald’ does not entail but instead presupposes ‘There is a present king of
France’, so that the former is not falsified by the falsity of the latter, but
is instead deprived of a truth-value. Strawson argued for the natural view that
definite descriptions are indeed referring expressions, used to single
something out for predication. More recently, Keith Donnellan argued that both
Russell and Strawson ignored the fact that definite descriptions have two uses.
Used attributively, a definite description is intended to say something about
whatever it is true of, and when a sentence is so used it conforms to Russell’s
analysis. Used referentially, a definite description is intended to single
something out, but may not correctly describe it. For example, seeing an
inebriated man in a policeman’s uniform, one might say, “The cop on the corner
is drunk!” Donnellan would say that even if the person were a drunken actor
dressed as a policeman, the speaker would have referred to him and truly said
of him that he was drunk. If it is for some reason crucial that the description
be correct, as it might be if one said, “The cop on the corner has the
authority to issue speeding tickets,” the use is attributive; and because ‘the
cop on the corner’ does not describe anyone correctly, no one has been said to
have the authority to issue speeding tickets. Donnellan criticized Russell for
overlooking referential uses of theory of descriptions theory of descriptions
914 914 descriptions, and Strawson for
both failing to acknowledge attributive uses and maintaining that with referential
uses one can refer to something with a definite description only if the
description is true of it. Discussion of Strawson’s and Donnellan’s criticisms
is ongoing, and has provoked very useful work in both semantics and speech act
theory, and on the distinctions between semantics and pragmatics and between
semantic reference and speaker’s reference, among others. .
signum -- theory of
signs, the philosophical and scientific theory of information-carrying
entities, communication, and information transmission. The term ‘semiotic’ was
introduced by Locke for the science of signs and signification. The term became
more widely used as a result of the influential work of Peirce and Charles
Morris. With regard to linguistic signs, three areas of semiotic were
distinguished: pragmatics the study of
the way people, animals, or machines such as computers use signs;
semantics the study of the relations
between signs and their meanings, abstracting from their use; and syntax the study of the relations among signs
themselves, abstracting both from use and from meaning. In Europe, the
near-equivalent term ‘semiology’ was introduced by Ferdinand de Saussure, the
Swiss linguist. Broadly, a sign is any information-carrying entity, including
linguistic and animal signaling tokens, maps, road signs, diagrams, pictures,
models, etc. Examples include smoke as a sign of fire, and a red light at a
highway intersection as a sign to stop. Linguistically, vocal aspects of speech
such as prosodic features intonation, stress and paralinguistic features
loudness and tone, gestures, facial expressions, etc., as well as words and
sentences, are signs in the most general sense. Peirce defined a sign as
“something that stands for something in some respect or capacity.” Among signs,
he distinguished symbols, icons, and indices. A symbol, or conventional sign,
is a sign, typical of natural language forms, that lacks any significant
relevant physical correspondence with or resemblance to the entities to which
the form refers manifested by the fact that quite different forms may refer to
the same class of objects, and for which there is no correlation between the
occurrence of the sign and its referent. An index, or natural sign, is a sign
whose occurrence is causally or statistically correlated with occurrences of
its referent, and whose production is not intentional. Thus, yawning is a
natural sign of sleepiness; a bird call may be a natural sign of alarm.
Linguistically, loudness with a rising pitch is a sign of anger. An icon is a
sign whose form corresponds to or resembles its referent or a characteristic of
its referent. For instance, a tailor’s swatch is an icon by being a sign that
resembles a fabric in color, pattern, and texture. A linguistic example is
onomatopoeia as with ‘buzz’. In general,
there are conventional and cultural aspects to a sign being an icon.
theosophy, any
philosophical mysticism, especially those that purport to be mathematically or
scientifically based, such as Pythagoreanism, Neoplatonism, or gnosticism.
Vedic Hinduism, and certain aspects of Buddhism, Taoism, and Islamic Sufism,
can also be considered theosophical. In narrower senses, ‘theosophy’ may refer
to the philosophy of Swedenborg, Steiner, or Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
183. Swedenborg’s theosophy originally consisted of a rationalistic cosmology,
inspired by certain elements of Cartesian and Leibnizian philosophy, and a
Christian mysticism. Swedenborg labored to explain the interconnections between
soul and body. Steiner’s theosophy is a reaction to standard scientific theory.
It purports to be as rigorous as ordinary science, but superior to it by
incorporating spiritual truths about reality. According to his theosophy,
reality is organic and evolving by its own resource. Genuine knowledge is
intuitive, not discursive. Madame Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society in
1875. Her views were eclectic, but were strongly influenced by mystical
elements of philosophy.
thomism, the theology and
philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. The term is applied broadly to various thinkers
from different periods who were heavily influenced by Aquinas’s thought in
their own philosophizing and theologizing. Here three different eras and three
different groups of thinkers will be distinguished: those who supported
Aquinas’s thought in the fifty years or so following his death in 1274; certain
highly skilled interpreters and commentators who flourished during the period
of “Second Thomism” sixteenthseventeenth centuries; and various late
nineteenth- and twentieth-century thinkers who have been deeply influenced in
their own work by Aquinas. Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Thomism. Although
Aquinas’s genius was recognized by many during his own lifetime, a number of
his views were immediately contested by other Scholastic thinkers.
Controversies ranged, e.g., over his defense of only one substantial form in
human beings; his claim that prime matter is purely potential and cannot,
therefore, be kept in existence without some substantial form, even by divine
power; his emphasis on the role of the human intellect in the act of choice;
his espousal of a real distinction betweeen the soul and its powers; and his
defense of some kind of objective or “real” rather than a merely mind-dependent
composition of essence and act of existing esse in creatures. Some of Aquinas’s
positions were included directly or indirectly in the 219 propositions
condemned by Bishop Stephen Tempier of Paris in 1277, and his defense of one
single substantial form in man was condemned by Archbishop Robert Kilwardby at
Oxford in 1277, with renewed prohibitions by his successor as archbishop of
Canterbury, John Peckham, in 1284 and 1286. Only after Aquinas’s canonization
in 1323 were the Paris prohibitions revoked insofar as they touched on his
teaching in 1325. Even within his own Dominican order, disagreement about some
of his views developed within the first decades after his death,
notwithstanding the order’s highly sympathetic espousal of his cause. Early
English Dominican defenders of his general views included William Hothum
d.1298, Richard Knapwell d.c.1288, Robert Orford b. after 1250, fl.129095,
Thomas Sutton d. c.1315?, and William Macclesfield d.1303. Dominican Thomists included Bernard of Trilia
d.1292, Giles of Lessines in present-day Belgium d.c.1304?, John Quidort of
Paris d. 1306, Bernard of Auvergne d. after 1307, Hervé Nédélec d.1323, Armand
of Bellevue fl. 131634, and William Peter Godin d.1336. The secular master at
Paris, Peter of Auvergne d. 1304, while remaining very independent in his own
views, knew Aquinas’s thought well and completed some of his commentaries on
Aristotle. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Thomism. Sometimes known as the
period of Second Thomism, this revival gained impetus from the early
fifteenth-century writer John Capreolus 13801444 in his Defenses of Thomas’s
Theology Defensiones theologiae Divi Thomae, a commentary on the Sentences. A
number of fifteenth-century Dominican and secular teachers in G. universities
also contributed: Kaspar Grunwald Freiburg; Cornelius Sneek and John Stoppe in
Rostock; Leonard of Brixental Vienna; Gerard of Heerenberg, Lambert of
Heerenberg, and John Versor all at Cologne; Gerhard of Elten; and in Belgium
Denis the Carthusian. Outstanding among various sixteenth-century commentators
on Thomas were Tommaso de Vio Cardinal Cajetan, Francis Sylvester of Ferrara,
Francisco de Vitoria Salamanca, and Francisco’s disciples Domingo de Soto and
Melchior Cano. Most important among early seventeenth-century Thomists was John
of St. Thomas, who lectured at Piacenza, Madrid, and Alcalá, and is best known
for his Cursus philosophicus and his Cursus theologicus. Theravada Buddhism
Thomism 916 916 The nineteenth- and
twentieth-century revival. By the early to mid-nineteenth century the study of
Aquinas had been largely abandoned outside Dominican circles, and in most Roman
Catholic s and seminaries a kind of Cartesian and Suarezian Scholasticism was
taught. Long before he became Pope Leo XIII, Joachim Pecci and his brother
Joseph had taken steps to introduce the teaching of Thomistic philosophy at the
diocesan seminary at Perugia in 1846. Earlier efforts in this direction had
been made by Vincenzo Buzzetti, by Buzzetti’s students Serafino and Domenico
Sordi, and by Taparelli d’Aglezio, who became director of the Collegio Romano
Gregorian in 1824. Leo’s encyclical
Aeterni Patris1879 marked an official effort on the part of the Roman Catholic
church to foster the study of the philosophy and theology of Thomas Aquinas.
The intent was to draw upon Aquinas’s original writings in order to prepare
students of philosophy and theology to deal with problems raised by
contemporary thought. The Leonine Commission was established to publish a
critical edition of all of Aquinas’s writings; this effort continues today.
Important centers of Thomistic studies developed, such as the Higher Institute
of Philosophy at Louvain founded by Cardinal Mercier, the Dominican School of
Saulchoir in France, and the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in
Toronto. Different groups of Roman, Belgian, and Jesuits acknowledged a deep indebtedness to
Aquinas for their personal philosophical reflections. There was also a
concentration of effort in the United States at universities such as The
Catholic of America, St. Louis , Notre Dame,
Fordham, Marquette, and Boston , to mention but a few, and by the Dominicans at
River Forest. A great weakness of many of the nineteenthand twentieth-century
Latin manuals produced during this effort was a lack of historical sensitivity
and expertise, which resulted in an unreal and highly abstract presentation of
an “Aristotelian-Thomistic” philosophy. This weakness was largely offset by the
development of solid historical research both in the thought of Aquinas and in
medieval philosophy and theology in general, championed by scholars such as H.
Denifle, M. De Wulf, M. Grabmann, P. Mandonnet, F. Van Steenberghen, E. Gilson
and many of his students at Toronto, and by a host of more recent and
contemporary scholars. Much of this historical work continues today both within
and without Catholic scholarly circles. At the same time, remarkable diversity
in interpreting Aquinas’s thought has emerged on the part of many
twentieth-century scholars. Witness, e.g., the heavy influence of Cajetan and
John of St. Thomas on the Thomism of Maritain; the much more historically
grounded approaches developed in quite different ways by Gilson and F. Van
Steenberghen; the emphasis on the metaphysics of participation in Aquinas in
the very different presentations by L. Geiger and C. Fabro; the emphasis on
existence esse promoted by Gilson and many others but resisted by still other
interpreters; the movement known as Transcendental Thomism, originally inspired
by P. Rousselot and by J. Marechal in dialogue with Kant; and the long
controversy about the appropriateness of describing Thomas’s philosophy and
that of other medievals as a Christian philosophy. An increasing number of
non-Catholic thinkers are currently directing considerable attention to
Aquinas, and the varying backgrounds they bring to his texts will undoubtedly
result in still other interesting interpretations and applications of his
thought to contemporary concerns.
Jarvis, j.
Grice collaborated with Jarvis’s husband at Oxford. analytic philosopher
best known for her contribution to moral philosophy and for her paper “A
Defense of Abortion” 1. Thomson has taught at M.I.T. since 4. Her work is
centrally concerned with issues in moral philosophy, most notably questions
regarding rights, and with issues in metaphysics such as the identity across time
of people and the ontology of events. Her Acts and Other Events 7 is a study of
human action and provides an analysis of the part whole relation among events.
“A Defense of Abortion” has not only influenced much later work on this topic
but is one of the most widely discussed papers in contemporary philosophy. By
appeal to imaginative scenarios analogous to pregnancy, Thomson argues that
even if the fetus is assumed to be a person, its rights are in many
circumstances outweighed by the rights of the pregnant woman. Thus the paper
advances an argument for a right to abortion that does not turn upon the
question of whether the fetus is a person. Several of Thomson’s essays,
including “Preferential Hiring” 3, “The Right to Privacy” 5, and “Killing,
Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem” 6, address the questions of what
constitutes Thomson, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Judith Jarvis 917 917 an infringement of rights and when it is
morally permissible to infringe a right. These are collected in Rights,
Restitution, and Risk: Essays in Moral Theory 6. Thomson’s The Realm of Rights
0 offers a systematic account of human rights, addressing first what it is to
have a right and second which rights we have. Thomson’s work is distinguished
by its exceptionally lucid style and its reliance on highly inventive examples.
The centrality of examples to her work reflects a methodological conviction
that our views about actual and imagined cases provide the data for moral
theorizing.
Thoreau: h. d. born in
Concord, Massachusetts, he attended Harvard 183337 and then returned to Concord
to study nature and write, making a frugal living as a schoolteacher, land
surveyor, and pencil maker. Commentators have emphasized three aspects of his
life: his love and penetrating study of the flora and fauna of the Concord
area, recorded with philosophical reflections in Walden 1854; his continuous
pursuit of simplicity in the externals of life, thus avoiding a life of “quiet
desperation”; and his acts of civil disobedience. The last item has been somewhat
overemphasized; not paying a poll tax by way of protest was not original with
Thoreau. However, his essay “Resistance to Civil Government” immortalized his
protest and influenced people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., in later
years. Thoreau eventually helped runaway slaves at considerable risk; still, he
considered himself a student of nature and not a reformer.
Gedanke experiment – used
by Grice, first, in his “Some remarks about the senses.” His Gedanke experiment
involves a Martian who comes and conquers the earth. He has four eyes in his
face, with two of them he x-s, with the other tow he y-s. Tthought experiment,
a technique for testing a hypothesis by imagining a situation and what would be
said about it or more rarely, happen in it. This technique is often used by
philosophers to argue for or against a hypothesis about the meaning or
applicability of a concept. For example, Locke imagined a switch of minds
between a prince and a cobbler as a way to argue that personal identity is based
on continuity of memory, not continuity of the body. To argue for the
relativity of simultaneity, Einstein imagined two observers one on a train, the other beside it who observed lightning bolts. And according
to some scholars, Galileo only imagined the experiment of tying two five-pound
weights together with a fine string in order to argue that heavier bodies do
not fall faster. Thought experiments of this last type are rare because they
can be used only when one is thoroughly familiar with the outcome of the
imagined situation. J.A.K. Thrasymachus fl. 427 B.C., Grecian Sophist from
Bithynia who is known mainly as a character in Book I of Plato’s Republic. He
traveled and taught extensively throughout the Grecian world, and was well
known in Athens as a teacher and as the author of treatises on rhetoric.
Innovative in his style, he was credited with inventing the “middle style” of
rhetoric. The only surviving fragment of a speech by Thrasymachus was written
for delivery by an Athenian citizen in the assembly, at a time when Athens was
not faring well in the Peloponnesian War; it shows him concerned with the
efficiency of government, pleading with the Athenians to recognize their common
interests and give up their factionalism. Our only other source for his views
on political matters is Plato’s Republic, which most scholars accept as
presenting at least a half-truth about Thrasymachus. There, Thrasymachus is
represented as a foil to Socrates, claiming that justice is only what benefits
the stronger, i.e., the rulers. From the point of view of those who are ruled,
then, justice always serves the interest of someone else, and rulers who seek
their own advantage are unjust.
tillich: p. philosopher
and theologian. Born in Starzeddel, eastern G.y, he was educated in philosophy
and theology and ordained in the Prussian Evangelical Church in 2. He served as
an army chaplain during World War I and later taught at Berlin, Marburg,
Dresden, Leipzig, and Frankfurt. In November 3, following suspension from his
teaching post by the Nazis, he emigrated to the United States, where he taught
at Columbia and Union Theological Seminary until 5, and then at Harvard and
Chicago until his death. A popular preacher and speaker, he developed a wide
audience in the United States through such writings as The Protestant Era 8,
Systematic Theology three volumes: 1, 7, 3, The Courage to Be 2, and Dynamics
of Faith 7. His sometimes unconventional lifestyle, as well as his syncretic
yet original thought, moved “on the boundary” between theology and other
elements of culture especially art,
literature, political thought, and depth psychology in the belief that religion should relate to
the whole extent, and the very depths, of human existence. Tillich’s thought,
despite its distinctive “ontological” vocabulary, was greatly influenced by the
voluntaristic tradition from Augustine through Schelling, Schopenhauer, Marx,
Nietzsche, and Freud. It was a systematic theology that sought to state fresh
Christian answers to deep existential questions raised by individuals and
cultures his method of correlation.
Every age has its distinctive kairos, “crisis” or “fullness of time,” the right
time for creative thought and action. In Weimar G.y, Tillich found the times
ripe for religious socialism. In postWorld War II America, he focused more on
psychological themes: in the midst of anxiety over death, meaninglessness, and
guilt, everyone seeks the courage to be, which comes only by avoiding the abyss
of non-being welling up in the demonic and by placing one’s unconditional
faith ultit’ien Tillich, Paul 919 919 mate concern not in any particular being e.g. God but in
Being-Itself “the God above God,” the ground of being. This is essentially the
Protestant principle, which prohibits lodging ultimate concern in any finite
and limited reality including state, race, and religious institutions and
symbols. Tillich was especially influential after World War II. He represented
for many a welcome critical openness to the spiritual depths of modern culture,
opposing both demonic idolatry of this world as in National Socialism and
sectarian denial of cultural resources for faith as in Barthian
neo-orthodoxy.
tempus – applied by H. P.
Grice and G. Myro in the so-called “Grice-Myro theory of identity,” a time-relative
identity, drawing from A. N. Prior, of Oxford, D. Wiggins, Wykeham professor of
logic at Oxford, and Geach (married to an Oxonian donna), time, “a moving image of eternity” Plato;
“the number of movements in respect of the before and after” Aristotle; “the
Life of the Soul in movement as it passes from one stage of act or experience
to another” Plotinus; “a present of things past, memory, a present of things
present, sight, and a present of things future, expectation” Augustine. These
definitions, like all attempts to encapsulate the essence of time in some neat
formula, are unhelpfully circular because they employ temporal notions.
Although time might be too basic to admit of definition, there still are many
questions about time that philosophers have made some progress in answering by
analysis both of how we ordinarily experience and talk about time, and of the
deliverances of science, thereby clarifying and deepening our understanding of
what time is. What follows gives a sample of some of the more important of
these issues. Temporal becoming and the A- and B-theories of time. According to
the B-theory, time consists in nothing but a fixed “B-series” of events running
from earlier to later. The A-theory requires that these events also form an “A-series”
going from the future through the present into the past and, moreover, shift in
respect to these determinations. The latter sort of change, commonly referred
to as “temporal becoming,” gives rise to well-known perplexities concerning
both what does the shifting and the sort of shift involved. Often it is said
that it is the present or now that shifts to ever-later times. This quickly
leads to absurdity. ‘The present’ and ‘now’, like ‘this time’, are used to
refer to a moment of time. Thus, to say that the present shifts to later times
entails that this very moment of time
the present will become some
other moment of time and thus cease to be identical with itself! Sometimes the
entity that shifts is the property of nowness or presentness. The problem is
that every event has this property at some time, namely when it occurs. Thus,
what must qualify some event as being now simpliciter is its having the
property of nowness now; and this is the start of an infinite regress that is
vicious because at each stage we are left with an unexpurgated use of ‘now’,
the very term that was supposed to be analyzed in terms of the property of
nowness. If events are to change from being future to present and from present
to past, as is required by temporal becoming, they must do so in relation to
some mysterious transcendent entity, since temporal relations between events
and/or times cannot change. The nature of the shift is equally perplexing, for
it must occur at a particular rate; but a rate of change involves a comparison
between one kind of change and a change of time. Herein, it is change of time
that is compared to change of time, resulting in the seeming tautology that
time passes or shifts at the rate of one second per second, surely an absurdity
since this is not a rate of change at all. Broad attempted to skirt these
perplexities by saying that becoming is sui generis and thereby defies
analysis, which puts him on the side of the mystically inclined Bergson who
thought that it could be known only through an act of ineffable intuition. To
escape the clutches of both perplexity and mysticism, as well as to satisfy the
demand of science to view the world non-perspectivally, the B-theory attempted
to reduce the A-series to the B-series via a linguistic reduction in which a
temporal indexical proposition reporting an event as past, present, or future
is shown to be identical with a non-indexical proposition reporting a relation
of precedence or simultaneity between it and another event or time. It is
generally conceded that such a reduction fails, since, in general, no indexical
proposition is identical with any non-indexical one, this being due to the fact
that one can have a propositional attitude toward one of them that is not had
to the other; e.g., I can believe that it is now raining without believing that
it rains tenselessly at t 7. The friends of becoming have drawn the wrong moral
from this failure that there is a
mysterious Mr. X out there doing “The Shift.” They have overlooked the fact
that two sentences can express different propositions and yet report one and
the same event or state of affairs; e.g., ‘This is water’ and ‘this is a
collection of H2O molecules’, though differing in sense, report the same state
of affairs this being water is nothing
but this being a collection of H2O molecules. It could be claimed that the same
holds for the appropriate use of indexical and non-indexical sentences; the
tokening at t 7 of ‘Georgie flies at this time at present’ is coreporting with
the non-synonymous ‘Georgie flies tenselessly at t 7’, since Georgie’s flying
at this time is the same event as Georgie’s flying at t 7, given that this time
is t 7. This effects the same ontological reduction of the becoming of events
to their bearing temporal relations to each other as does the linguistic
reduction. The “coreporting reduction” also shows the absurdity of the
“psychological reduction” according to which an event’s being present, etc.,
requires a relation to a perceiver, whereas an event’s having a temporal relation
to another event or time does not require a relation to a perceiver. Given that
Georgie’s flying at this time is identical with Georgie’s flying at t 7, it
follows that one and the same event both does and does not have the property of
requiring relation to a perceiver, thereby violating Leibniz’s law that
identicals are indiscernible. Continuous versus discrete time. Assume that the
instants of time are linearly ordered by the relation R of ‘earlier than’. To
say that this order is continuous is, first, to imply the property of density
or infinite divisibility: for any instants i 1 and i 2 such that Ri1i 2, there
is a third instant i 3, such that Ri1i 3 and Ri3i 2. But continuity implies
something more since density allows for “gaps” between the instants, as with
the rational numbers. Think of R as the ‘less than’ relation and the i n as
rationals. To rule out gaps and thereby assure genuine continuity it is
necessary to require in addition to density that every convergent sequence of
instants has a limit. To make this precise one needs a distance measure d
, on pairs of instants, where di m, i n
is interpreted as the lapse of time between i m and i n. The requirement of
continuity proper is then that for any sequence i l , i 2, i 3, . . . , of
instants, if di m i n P 0 as m, n P C, there is a limit instant i ø such that
di n, iø P 0 as n P C. The analogous
property obviously fails for the rationals. But taking the completion of the
rationals by adding in the limit points of convergent sequences yields the real
number line, a genuine continuum. Numerous objections have been raised to the
idea of time as a continuum and to the very notion of the continuum itself.
Thus, it was objected that time cannot be composed of durationless instants
since a stack of such instants cannot produce a non-zero duration. Modern
measure theory resolves this objection. Leibniz held that a continuum cannot be
composed of points since the points in any finite closed interval can be put in
one-to-one correspondence with a smaller subinterval, contradicting the axiom
that the whole is greater than any proper part. What Leibniz took to be a
contradictory feature is now taken to be a defining feature of infinite
collections or totalities. Modern-day Zenoians, while granting the viability of
the mathematical doctrine of the continuum and even the usefulness of its
employment in physical theory, will deny the possibility of its applying to
real-life changes. Whitehead gave an analogue of Zeno’s paradox of the
dichotomy to show that a thing cannot endure in a continuous manner. For if i
1, i 2 is the interval over which the thing is supposed to endure, then the
thing would first have to endure until the instant i 3, halfway between i 1 and
i 2; but before it can endure until i 3, it must first endure until the instant
i 4 halfway between i 1 and i 3, etc. The seductiveness of this paradox rests
upon an implicit anthropomorphic demand that the operations of nature must be
understood in terms of concepts of human agency. Herein it is the demand that
the physicist’s description of a continuous change, such as a runner traversing
a unit spatial distance by performing an infinity of runs of ever-decreasing
distance, could be used as an action-guiding recipe for performing this feat,
which, of course, is impossible since it does not specify any initial or final
doing, as recipes that guide human actions must. But to make this
anthropomorphic demand explicit renders this deployment of the dichotomy, as
well as the arguments against the possibility of performing a “supertask,”
dubious. Anti-realists might deny that we are committed to real-life change
being continuous by our acceptance of a physical theory that employs principles
of mathematical continuity, but this is quite different from the Zenoian claim
that it is impossible for such change to be continuous. To maintain that time
is discrete would require not only abandoning the continuum but also the
density property as well. Giving up either conflicts with the intuition that
time is one-dimensional. For an explanation of how the topological analysis of
dimensionality entails that the dimension of a discrete space is 0, see W.
Hurewicz, Dimension Theory, 1. The philosophical and physics literatures
contain speculations about a discrete time built of “chronons” or temporal
atoms, but thus far such hypothetical entities have not been incorporated into
a satisfactory theory. Absolute versus relative and relational time. In a
scholium to the Principia, Newton declared that “Absolute, true and mathematical
time, of itself and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to
anything external.” There are at least five interrelated senses in which time
was absolute for Newton. First, he thought that there was a frame-independent
relation of simultaneity for events. Second, he thought that there was a
frame-independent measure of duration for non-simultaneous events. He used
‘flows equably’ not to refer to the above sort of mysterious “temporal
becoming,” but instead to connote the second sense of absoluteness and partly
to indicate two further kinds of absoluteness. To appreciate the latter, note
that ‘flows equably’ is modified by ‘without relation to anything external’.
Here Newton was asserting third sense of ‘absolute’ that the lapse of time
between two events would be what it is even if the distribution and motions of
material bodies were different. He was also presupposing a related form of
absoluteness fourth sense according to which the metric of time is intrinsic to
the temporal interval. Leibniz’s philosophy of time placed him in agreement
with Newton as regards the first two senses of ‘absolute’, which assert the
non-relative or frame-independent nature of time. However, Leibniz was very
much opposed to Newton on the fourth sense of ‘absolute’. According to
Leibniz’s relational conception of time, any talk about the length of a
temporal interval must be unpacked in terms of talk about the relation of the
interval to an extrinsic metric standard. Furthermore, Leibniz used his
principles of sufficient reason and identity of indiscernibles to argue against
a fifth sense of ‘absolute’, implicit in Newton’s philosophy of time, according
to which time is a substratum in which physical events are situated. On the
contrary, the relational view holds that time is nothing over and above the
structure of relations of events. Einstein’s special and general theories of
relativity have direct bearing on parts of these controversies. The special
theory necessitates the abandonment of frame-independent notions of simultaneity
and duration. For any pair of spacelike related events in Minkowski space-time
there is an inertial frame in which the events are simultaneous, another frame
in which the first event is temporally prior, and still a third in which the
second event is temporally prior. And the temporal interval between two
timelike related events depends on the worldline connecting them. In fact, for
any e 0, no matter how small, there is a
worldline connecting the events whose proper length is less than e. This is the
essence of the so-called twin paradox. The general theory of relativity
abandons the third sense of absoluteness since it entails that the metrical
structure of space-time covaries with the distribution of mass-energy in a
manner specified by Einstein’s field equations. But the heart of the
absoluterelational controversy as
focused by the fourth and fifth senses of ‘absolute’ is not settled by relativistic considerations.
Indeed, opponents from both sides of the debate claim to find support for their
positions in the special and general theories.
tempus -- time slice:
used by Grice in two different contexts: personal identity, and identity in
general. In identity in general, Grice draws from Geach and Wiggins, and with
the formal aid of Myro, construct a system of a first-order predicate calculus
with time-relative identity -- a temporal part or stage of any concrete
particular that exists for some interval of time; a three-dimensional cross
section of a fourdimensional object. To think of an object as consisting of
time slices or temporal stages is to think of it as related to time in much the
way that it is related to space: as extending through time as well as space,
rather than as enduring through it. Just as an object made up of spatial parts is
thought of as a whole made up of parts that exist at different locations, so an
object made up of time slices is thought of as a whole made up of parts or
stages that exist at successive times; hence, just as a spatial whole is only
partly present in any space that does not include all its spatial parts, so a
whole made up of time slices is only partly present in any stretch of time that
does not include all its temporal parts. A continuant, by contrast, is most
commonly understood to be a particular that endures through time, i.e., that is
wholly present at each moment at which it exists. To conceive of an object as a
continuant is to conceive of it as related to time in a very different way from
that in which it is related to space. A continuant does not extend through time
as well as space; it does not exist at different times by virtue of the
existence of successive parts of it at those times; it is the continuant itself
that is wholly present at each such time. To conceive an object as a
continuant, therefore, is to conceive it as not made up of temporal stages, or
time slices, at all. There is another, less common, use of ‘continuant’ in
which a continuant is understood to be any particular that exists for some
stretch of time, regardless of whether it is the whole of the particular or
only some part of it that is present at each moment of the particular’s
existence. According to this usage, an entity that is made up of time slices
would be a kind of continuant rather than some other kind of particular.
Philosophers have disputed whether ordinary objects such as cabbages and kings
endure through time are continuants or only extend through time are sequences
of time slices. Some argue that to understand the possibility of change one
must think of such objects as sequences of time slices; others argue that for
the same reason one must think of such objects as continuants. If an object
changes, it comes to be different from itself. Some argue that this would be
possible only if an object consisted of distinct, successive stages; so that
change would simply consist in the differences among the successive temporal
parts of an object. Others argue that this view would make change impossible;
that differences among the successive temporal parts of a thing would no more
imply the thing had changed than differences among its spatial parts
would.
token-reflexive, an
expression that refers to itself in an act of speech or writing, such as ‘this
token’. The term was coined by Reichenbach, who conjectured that all indexicals,
all expressions whose semantic value depends partly on features of the context
of utterance, are tokenreflexive and definable in terms of the phrase ‘this
token’. He suggested that ‘I’ means the same as ‘the person who utters this
token’, ‘now’ means the same as ‘the time at which this token is uttered’,
‘this table’ means the same as ‘the table pointed to by a gesture accompanying
this token’, and so forth. Russell made a somewhat similar suggestion in his
discussion of egocentric particulars. Reichenbach’s conjecture is widely
regarded as false; although ‘I’ does pick out the person using it, it is not
synonymous with ‘the person who utters this token’. If it were, as David Kaplan
observes, ‘If no one were to utter this token, I would not exist’ would be
true.
Toletus, F. Jesuit
theologian and philosopher. Born in Córdoba, he studied at Valencia, Salamanca,
and Rome, and became the first Jesuit cardinal in 1594. He composed
commentaries on several of Aristotle’s works and a commentary on Aquinas’s
Summa theologiae. Toletus followed a Thomistic line, but departed from Thomism
in some details. He held that individuals are directly apprehended by the
intellect and that the agent intellect is the same power as the possible
intellect. He rejected the Thomistic doctrines of the real distinction between
essence and existence and of individuation by designated matter; for Toletus
individuation results from form.
tonk, a sentential
connective whose meaning and logic are completely characterized by the two
rules or axioms 1 [P P P tonk Q] and 2 [P tonk Q P Q]. If 1 and 2 are added to
any normal system, then every Q can be derived from any P. Arthur Prior
invented ‘tonk’ to show that deductive validity must not be conceived as
depending solely on arbitrary syntactically defined rules or axioms. We may
prohibit ‘tonk’ on the ground that it is not a natural, independently
meaningful notion, but we may also prohibit it on purely syntactical grounds.
E.g., we may require that, for every connective C, the C-introduction rule [xxx
P . . . C . . .] and the C-elimination rule [ - - - C - - - P yyy] be such that
the yyy is part of xxx or is related to xxx in some other syntactical way.
topic-neutral,
noncommittal between two or more ontological interpretations of a term. J. J.
C. Smart suggested that introspective reports can be taken as topic-neutral:
composed of terms neutral between “dualistic metaphysics” and “materialistic
metaphysics.” When one asserts, e.g., that one has a yellowish-orange
afterimage, this is tantamount to saying ‘There is something going on that is
like what is going on when I have my eyes open, am awake, and there is an
orange illuminated in good light in front of me, i.e., when I really see an
orange’. The italicized phrase is, in Smart’s terms, topic-neutral; it refers
to an event, while remaining noncommittal about whether it is material or
immaterial. The term has not always been restricted to neutrality regarding
dualism and materialism. Smart suggests that topic-neutral descriptions are composed
of “quasi-logical” words, and hence would be suitable for any occasion where a
relatively noncommittal expression of a view is required.
topic, the analysis of
common strategies of argumentation, later a genre of literature analyzing
syllogistic reasoning. Aristotle considered the analysis of types of argument,
or “topics,” the best means of describing the art of dialectical reasoning; he
also used the term to refer to the principle underlying the strategy’s
production of an argument. Later classical commentators on Aristotle,
particularly Latin rhetoricians like Cicero, developed Aristotle’s discussions
of the theory of dialectical reasoning into a philosophical form. Boethius’s
work on topics exemplifies the later classical expansion of the scope of topics
literature. For him, a topic is either a self-evidently true universal
generalization, also called a “maximal proposition,” or a differentia, a member
of the set of a maximal proposition’s characteristics that determine its genus
and species. Man is a rational animal is a maximal proposition, and like from
genus, the differentia that characterizes the maximal proposition as concerning
genera, it is a topic. Because he believed dialectical reasoning leads to
categorical, not conditional, conclusions, Boethius felt that the discovery of
an argument entailed discovering a middle term uniting the two, previously
unjoined terms of the conclusion. Differentiae are the genera of these middle
terms, and one constructs arguments by choosing differentiae, thereby
determining the middle term leading to the conclusion. In the eleventh century,
Boethius’s logical structure of maximal propositions and differentiae was used
to study hypothetical syllogisms, while twelfth-century theorists like Abelard
extended the applicability of topics structure to the categorical syllogism. By
the thirteenth century, Peter of Spain, Robert Kilwardby, and Boethius of Dacia
applied topics structure exclusively to the categorical syllogism, principally
those with non-necessary, probable premises. Within a century, discussion of
topics structure to evaluate syllogistic reasoning was subsumed by consequences
literature, which described implication, entailment, and inference relations
between propositions. While the theory of consequences as an approach to
understanding relations between propositions is grounded in Boethian, and
perhaps Stoic, logic, it became prominent only in the later thirteenth century
with Burley’s recognition of the logical significance of propositional logic.
toxin puzzle, a puzzle
about intention and practical rationality: trustworthy billionaire, call him
Paul, offers you, Peter, a million pounds for intending tonight to drink a
certain toxin tomorrow. Peter is convinced that Paul can tell what Peter intends
independently of what Peter does. The toxin would make Peter painfully ill for
a day. But Peter needs to drink it to get the money. Constraints on the
formation of a prize-winning intention include prohibitions against “gimmicks,”
“external incentives,” and forgetting relevant details; e. g. Peter will not
receive the money if Peter has a hypnotist “implant the intention” or hire a
hit man to kill Peter should Peter not drink the toxin. If, by midnight
tonight, without violating any rules, Peter forms an intention to drink the
toxin tomorrow, Peter will find a million pounds in his bank account when he
awakes tomorrow morning. Peter probably would drink the toxin for a million
dollars. But can you, without violating the rules, intend tonight to drink it
tomorrow? Apparently, you have no reason to drink it and an excellent reason
not to drink it. Seemingly, you will infer from this that you will eschew
drinking the toxin, and believing that you will top-down eschew drinking it
seems inconsistent with intending to drink it. Even so, there are several
reports in the philosophical literature of possible people who struck it rich
when offered the toxin deal!
transcendence, broadly,
the property of rising out of or above other things virtually always understood
figuratively; in philosophy, the property of being, in some way, of a higher
order. A being, such as God, may be said to be transcendent in the sense of
being not merely superior, but incomparably superior, to other things, in any
sort of perfection. God’s transcendence, or being outside or beyond the world,
is also contrasted, and by some thinkers combined, with God’s immanence, or
existence within the world. In medieval philosophy of logic, terms such as
‘being’ and ‘one’, which did not belong uniquely to any one of the Aristotelian
categories or types of predication such as substance, quality, and relation,
but could be predicated of things belonging to any or to none of them, were
called transcendental. In Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, principles that profess
wrongly to take us beyond the limits of any possible experience are called
transcendent; whereas anything belonging to non-empirical thought that
establishes, and draws consequences from, the possibility and limits of
experience may be called transcendental. Thus a transcendental argument in a
sense still current is one that proceeds from premises about the way in which
experience is possible to conclusions about what must be true of any
experienced world. Transcendentalism was a philosophical or religious movement
in mid-nineteenth-century New England, characterized, in the thought of its
leading representative, Ralph Waldo Emerson, by belief in a transcendent
spiritual and divine principle in human nature.
transcendental argument,
an argument that elucidates the conditions for the possibility of some
fundamental phenomenon whose existence is unchallenged or uncontroversial in
the philosophical context in which the argument is propounded. Such an argument
proceeds deductively, from a premise asserting the existence of some basic
phenomenon such as meaningful discourse, conceptualization of objective states
of affairs, or the practice of making promises, to a conclusion asserting the
existence of some interesting, substantive enabling conditions for that
phenomenon. The term derives from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, which gives
several such arguments. The paradigmatic Kantian transcendental argument is the
“Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of Understanding.” Kant argued
there that the objective validity of certain pure, or a priori, concepts the
“categories” is a condition for the possibility of experience. Among the
concepts allegedly required for having experience are those of substance and
cause. Their apriority consists in the fact that instances of these concepts
are not directly given in sense experience in the manner of instances of
empirical concepts such as red. This fact gave rise to the skepticism of Hume
concerning the very coherence of such alleged a priori concepts. Now if these
concepts do have objective validity, as Kant endeavored to prove in opposition
to Hume, then the world contains genuine instances of the concepts. In a
transcendental argument concerning the conditions for the possibility of
experience, it is crucial that some feature entailed by the having of
experience is identified. Then it is argued that experience could not have this
feature without satisfying some substantive conditions. In the Transcendental
Deduction, the feature of experience on which Kant concentrates is the ability
of a subject of experience to be aware of several distinct inner states as all
belonging to a single consciousness. There is no general agreement on how
Kant’s argument actually unfolded, though it seems clear to most that he focused
on the role of the categories in the synthesis or combination of one’s inner
states in judgments, where such synthesis is said to be required for one’s
awareness of the states as being all equally one’s own states. Another famous
Kantian transcendental argument the
“Refutation of Idealism” in the CriToynbee, Arnold transcendental argument
925 925 tique of Pure Reason shares a noteworthy trait with the
Transcendental Deduction. The Refutation proceeds from the premise that one is
conscious of one’s own existence as determined in time, i.e., knows the
temporal order of some of one’s inner states. According to the Refutation, a
condition for the possibility of such knowledge is one’s consciousness of the
existence of objects located outside oneself in space. If one is indeed so
conscious, that would refute the skeptical view, formulated by Descartes, that
one lacks knowledge of the existence of a spatial world distinct from one’s
mind and its inner states. Both of the Kantian transcendental arguments we have
considered, then, conclude that the falsity of some skeptical view is a
condition for the possibility of some phenomenon whose existence is
acknowledged even by the skeptic the having of experience; knowledge of
temporal facts about one’s own inner states. Thus, we can isolate an
interesting subclass of transcendental arguments: those which are
anti-skeptical in nature. Barry Stroud has raised the question whether such
arguments depend on some sort of suppressed verificationism according to which
the existence of language or conceptualization requires the availability of the
knowledge that the skeptic questions since verificationism has it that
meaningful sentences expressing coherent concepts, e.g., ‘There are tables’,
must be verifiable by what is given in sense experience. Dependence on a highly
controversial premise is undesirable in itself. Further, Stroud argued, such a
dependence would render superfluous whatever other content the anti-skeptical
transcendental argument might embody since the suppressed premise alone would
refute the skeptic. There is no general agreement on whether Stroud’s doubts
about anti-skeptical transcendental arguments are well founded. It is not
obvious whether the doubts apply to arguments that do not proceed from a premise
asserting the existence of language or conceptualization, but instead conform
more closely to the Kantian model. Even so, no anti-skeptical transcendental
argument has been widely accepted. This is evidently due to the difficulty of
uncovering substantive enabling conditions for phenomena that even a skeptic
will countenance.
transcendentalism, a
religious-philosophical viewpoint held by a group of New England intellectuals,
of whom Emerson, Thoreau, and Theodore Parker were the most important. A
distinction taken over from Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the only bond that
universally united the members of the Transcendental Club, founded in 1836: the
distinction between the understanding and reason, the former providing
uncertain knowledge of appearances, the latter a priori knowledge of necessary
truths gained through intuition. The transcendentalists insisted that
philosophical truth could be reached only by reason, a capacity common to all
people unless destroyed by living a life of externals and accepting as true
only secondhand traditional beliefs. On almost every other point there were
disagreements. Emerson was an idealist, while Parker was a natural realist they simply had conflicting a priori
intuitions. Emerson, Thoreau, and Parker rejected the supernatural aspects of
Christianity, pointing out its unmistakable parochial nature and sociological
development; while James Marsh, Frederick Henry Hedge, and Caleb Henry remained
in the Christian fold. The influences on the transcendentalists differed widely
and explain the diversity of opinion. For example, Emerson was influenced by
the Platonic tradition, G. Romanticism, Eastern religions, and nature poets,
while Parker was influenced by modern science, the Scottish realism of Reid and
Cousin which also emphasized a priori intuitions, and the G. Higher Critics.
Emerson, Thoreau, and Parker were also bonded by negative beliefs. They not
only rejected Calvinism but Unitarianism as well; they rejected the ordinary
concept of material success and put in its place an Aristotelian type of
selfrealization that emphasized the rational and moral self as the essence of
humanity and decried idiosyncratic self-realization that admires what is unique
in people as constituting their real value.
transcendentals, also called
transcendentalia, terms or concepts that apply to all things regardless of the
things’ ontological kind or category. transcendental deduction transcendentals
926 926 Terms or concepts of this sort
are transcendental in the sense that they transcend or are superordinate to all
classificatory categories. The classical doctrine of the transcendentals,
developed in detail in the later Middle Ages, presupposes an Aristotelian
ontology according to which all beings are substances or accidents classifiable
within one of the ten highest genera, the ten Aristotelian categories. In this
scheme being Grecian on, Latin ens is not itself one of the categories since
all categories mark out kinds of being. But neither is it a category above the
ten categories of substance and accidents, an ultimate genus of which the ten
categories are species. This is because being is homonymous or equivocal, i.e.,
there is no single generic property or nature shared by members of each
category in virtue of which they are beings. The ten categories identify ten
irreducible, most basic ways of being. Being, then, transcends the categorial
structure of the world: anything at all that is ontologically classifiable is a
being, and to say of anything that it is a being is not to identify it as a
member of some kind distinct from other kinds of things. According to this
classical doctrine, being is the primary transcendental, but there are other
terms or concepts that transcend the categories in a similar way. The most
commonly recognized transcendentals other than being are one unum, true verum,
and good bonum, though some medieval philosophers also recognized thing res,
something aliquid, and beautiful pulchrum. These other terms or concepts are
transcendental because the ontological ground of their application to a given
thing is precisely the same as the ontological ground in virtue of which that
thing can be called a being. For example, for a thing with a certain nature to
be good is for it to perform well the activity that specifies it as a thing of
that nature, and to perform this activity well is to have actualized that
nature to a certain extent. But for a thing to have actualized its nature to
some extent is just what it is for the thing to have being. So the actualities
or properties in virtue of which a thing is good are precisely those in virtue
of which it has being. Given this account, medieval philosophers held that
transcendental terms are convertible convertuntur or extensionally equivalent
idem secundum supposita. They are not synonymous, however, since they are
intensionally distinct differunt secundum rationem. These secondary
transcendentals are sometimes characterized as attributes passiones of being
that are necessarily concomitant with it. In the modern period, the notion of
the transcendental is associated primarily with Kant, who made ‘transcendental’
a central technical term in his philosophy. For Kant the term no longer
signifies that which transcends categorial classification but that which
transcends our experience in the sense of providing its ground or structure.
Kant allows, e.g., that the pure forms of intuition space and time and the pure
concepts of understanding categories such as substance and cause are
transcendental in this sense. Forms and concepts of this sort constitute the
conditions of the possibility of experience.
transfinite number, in
set theory, an infinite cardinal or ordinal number.
transformation rule, an
axiom-schema or rule of inference. A transformation rule is thus a rule for
transforming a possibly empty set of wellformed formulas into a formula, where
that rule operates only upon syntactic information. It was this conception of
an axiom-schema and rule of inference that was one of the keys to creating a
genuinely rigorous science of deductive reasoning. In the 0s, the idea was
imported into linguistics, giving rise to the notion of a transformational
rule. Such a rule transforms tree structures into tree structures, taking one
from the deep structure of a sentence, which determines its semantic
interpretation, to the surface structure of that sentence, which determines its
phonetic interpretation.
Metaosiosis – cited by
Grice, one of his metaphysical routines. transubstantiation, change of one
substance into another. Aristotelian metaphysics distinguishes between
substances and the accidents that inhere in them; thus, Socrates is a substance
and being snub-nosed is one of his accidents. The Roman Catholic and Eastern
Orthodox churches appeal to transubstantiation to explain how Jesus Christ
becomes really present in the Eucharist when the consecration takes place: the
whole substances of the bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood
of Christ, but the accidents of the bread and wine such as their shape, color,
and taste persist after the transformation. This seems to commit its adherents
to holding that these persisting accidents subsequently either inhere in Christ
or do not inhere in any substance. Luther proposed an alternative explanation
in terms of consubstantiation that avoids this hard choice: the substances of
the bread and wine coexist in the Eucharist with the body and blood of Christ
after the consecration; they are united but each remains unchanged. P.L.Q.
transvaluation of values.
Transversality – a term
Grice borrowed from Heidegger – ‘the greatest philosopher that ever lived.” -- transcendence of the sovereignty of identity
or self-sameness by recognizing the alterity of the Other as Unterschied to use Heidegger’s term which signifies the sense of relatedness by
way of difference. An innovative idea employed and appropriated by such diverse
philosophers as Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Gilles Deleuze, and Félix Guattari,
transversality is meant to replace the Eurocentric formulation of truth as
universal in an age when the world is said to be rushing toward the global
village. Universality has been a Eurocentric idea because what is particular in
the West is universalized, whereas what is particular elsewhere remains
particularized. Since its center is everywhere and its circumference nowhere,
truth is polycentric and correlative. Particularly noteworthy is the phenomenologist Calvin O. Schrag’s attempt to
appropriate transversality by splitting the difference between the two extremes
of absolutism and relativism on the one hand and modernity’s totalizing
practices and postmodernity’s fragmentary tendencies on the other.
arbor porphyriana: a structure generated from the logical and
metaphysical apparatus of Aristotle’s Categories, as systematized by Porphyry
and later writers. A tree in the category of substance begins with substance as
its highest genus and divides that genus into mutually exclusive and
collectively exhaustive subordinate genera by means of a pair of opposites,
called differentiae, yielding, e.g., corporeal substance and incorporeal
substance. The process of division by differentiae continues until a lowest
species is reached, a species that cannot be divided further. The species
“human being” is said to be a lowest species whose derivation can be recaptured
from the formula “mortal, rational, sensitive, animate, corporeal
substance.”
Trinitarianism, the
theological doctrine that God consists of three persons, “in Strawson’s usage
of the expression” – Vide Grice, “Personal identity,” -- The persons who
constitute the Holy Trinity are the Father; the Son, who is Jesus Christ; and
the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost. The doctrine states that each of these three
persons is God and yet they are not three Gods but one God. According to a
traditional formulation, the three persons are but one substance. In the
opinion of Aquinas, the existence of God can be proved by human reason, but the
existence of the three persons cannot be proved and is known only by
revelation. According to Christian tradition, revelation contains information
about the relations among the three persons, and these relations ground proper
attributes of each that distinguish them from one another. Thus, since the
Father begets the Son, a proper attribute of the Father is paternity and a
proper attribute of the Son is filiation. Procession transparent Trinitarianism
928 928 or spiration is a proper
attribute of the Holy Spirit. A disagreement about procession has contributed
to dividing Eastern and Western Christianity. The Eastern Orthodox church
teaches that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. A theory
of double procession according to which the Holy Spirit proceeds from the
Father and the Son has been widely accepted in the West. This disagreement is
known as the filioque ‘and the Son’ controversy because it arose from the fact
that adding this Latin phrase to the Nicene Creed became acceptable in the West
but not in the East. Unitarianism denies that God consists of three persons and
so is committed to denying the divinity of Jesus. The monotheistic faiths of
Judaism and Islam are unitarian, but there are unitarians who consider
themselves Christians.
Troeltsch, E.:
philosopher and historian whose primary aim was to provide a scientific
foundation for theology. Educated at Erlangen, Göttingen under Ritschl and
Lagarde, and Berlin, he initially taught theology at Heidelberg and later
philosophy in Berlin. He launched the school of history of religion with his
epoch-making “On Historical and Dogmatical Method in Theology” 6. His
contributions to theology The Religious Apriori, 4, philosophy, sociology, and
history Historicism and Its Problems, 2 were vastly influential. Troeltsch
claimed that only a philosophy of religion drawn from the history and
development of religious consciousness could strengthen the standing of the
science of religion among the sciences and advance the Christian strategy
against materialism, naturalism, skepticism, aestheticism, and pantheism. His
historical masterpiece, Protestantism and Progress 6, argues that early
Protestantism was a modified medieval Catholicism that delayed the development
of modern culture. As a sociologist, he addressed, in The Social Teachings of
the Christian Churches 2, the twofold issue of whether religious beliefs and movements
are conditioned by external factors and whether, in turn, they affect society
and culture. From Christian social history he inferred three types of
“sociological self-formation of the Christian idea”: the church, the sect, and
the mystic
Tropic – used by R. M.
Hare and H. P. Grice – Hare introduced the ‘tropic’ to contrast with the
‘phrastic,’ the ‘neustic,’ and the ‘clistic’ – “I often wondered if Hare was
not distinguishing too narrowly” – H. P. Grice --trope, in recent philosophical
usage, an “abstract particular”; an instance of a property occurring at a
particular place and time, such as the color of the cover of this book or this
. The whiteness of this and the
whiteness of the previous are two
distinct tropes, identical neither with the universal whiteness that is
instantiated in both s, nor with the
itself; although the whiteness of this
cannot exist independently of this , this could be dyed some other color. A number of
writers, perhaps beginning with D. C. Williams, have argued that tropes must be
included in our ontology if we are to achieve an adequate metaphysics. More
generally, a trope is a figure of speech, or the use of an expression in a
figurative or nonliteral sense. Metaphor and irony, e.g., fall under the
category of tropes. If you are helping someone move a glass table but drop your
end, and your companion says, “Well, you’ve certainly been a big help,” her
utterance is probably ironical, with the intended meaning that you have been no
help. One important question is whether, in order to account for the ironical
use of this sentence, we must suppose that it has an ironical meaning in
addition to its literal meaning. Quite generally, does a sentence usable to
express two different metaphors have, in addition to its literal meaning, two
metaphorical meanings and another if it
can be hyperbolic, and so forth? Many philosophers and other theorists from
Aristotle on have answered yes, and postulated such figurative meanings in
addition to literal sentence meaning. Recently, philosophers loath to multiply
sentence meanings have denied that sentences have any non-literal
meanings.Their burden is to explain how, e.g., a sentence can be used
ironically if it does not have an ironical sense or meaning. Such philosophers
disagree on whether tropes are to be explained semantically or pragmatically. A
semantic account might hypothesize that tropes are generated by violations of
semantical rules. An important pragmatic approach is Grice’s suggestion that
tropes can be subsumed under the more general phenomenon of conversational
implicature.
Verum -- truth, the
quality of those propositions that accord with reality, specifying what is in
fact the case. Whereas the aim of a science is to discover which of the
propositions in its domain are true i.e., which propositions possess the
property of Trinity truth 929 929
truth the central philosophical concern
with truth is to discover the nature of that property. Thus the philosophical
question is not What is true? but rather, What is truth? What is one saying about a proposition in
saying that it is true? The importance of this question stems from the variety
and depth of the principles in which the concept of truth is deployed. We are
tempted to think, e.g., that truth is the proper aim and natural result of
scientific inquiry, that true beliefs are useful, that the meaning of a
sentence is given by the conditions that would render it true, and that valid
reasoning preserves truth. Therefore insofar as we wish to understand, assess,
and refine these epistemological, ethical, semantic, and logical views, some
account of the nature of truth would seem to be required. Such a thing,
however, has been notoriously elusive. The belief that snow is white owes its
truth to a certain feature of the external world: the fact that snow is white.
Similarly, the belief that dogs bark is true because of the fact that dogs
bark. Such trivial observations lead to what is perhaps the most natural and
widely held account of truth, the correspondence theory, according to which a
belief statement, sentence, proposition, etc. is true provided there exists a
fact corresponding to it. This Aristotelian thesis is unexceptionable in
itself. However, if it is to provide a complete theory of truth and if it is to be more than merely a
picturesque way of asserting all instances of ‘the belief that p is true if and
only if p’ then it must be supplemented
with accounts of what facts are, and what it is for a belief to correspond to a
fact; and these are the problems on which the correspondence theory of truth
has foundered. A popular alternative to the correspondence theory has been to
identify truth with verifiability. This idea can take on various forms. One
version involves the further assumption that verification is holistic i.e., that a belief is verified when it is
part of an entire system of beliefs that is consistent and “harmonious.” This
is known as the coherence theory of truth and was developed by Bradley and
Brand Blanchard. Another version, due to Dummett and Putnam, involves the
assumption that there is, for each proposition, some specific procedure for
finding out whether one should believe it or not. On this account, to say that
a proposition is true is to say that it would be verified by the appropriate
procedure. In mathematics this amounts to the identification of truth with
provability and is sometimes referred to as intuitionistic truth. Such theories
aim to avoid obscure metaphysical notions and explain the close relation
between knowability and truth. They appear, however, to overstate the intimacy
of that link: for we can easily imagine a statement that, though true, is
beyond our power to establish as true. A third major account of truth is
James’s pragmatic theory. As we have just seen, the verificationist selects a
prominent property of truth and considers it to be the essence of truth.
Similarly the pragmatist focuses on another important characteristic namely, that true beliefs are a good basis
for action and takes this to be the very
nature of truth. True assumptions are said to be, by definition, those that
provoke actions with desirable results. Again we have an account with a single
attractive explanatory feature. But again the central objection is that the
relationship it postulates between truth and its alleged analysans in this case, utility is implausibly close. Granted, true beliefs
tend to foster success. But often actions based on true beliefs lead to
disaster, while false assumptions, by pure chance, produce wonderful results.
One of the few fairly uncontroversial facts about truth is that the proposition
that snow is white is true if and only if snow is white, the proposition that
lying is wrong is true if and only if lying is wrong, and so on. Traditional
theories of truth acknowledge this fact but regard it as insufficient and, as
we have seen, inflate it with some further principle of the form ‘X is true if
and only if X has property P’ such as corresponding to reality, verifiability,
or being suitable as a basis for action, which is supposed to specify what
truth is. A collection of radical alternatives to the traditional theories
results from denying the need for any such further specification. For example,
one might suppose with Ramsey, Ayer, and Strawson that the basic theory of
truth contains nothing more than equivalences of the form, ‘The proposition
that p is true if and only if p’ excluding instantiation by sentences such as
‘This proposition is not true’ that generate contradiction. This so-called
deflationary theory is best presented following Quine in conjunction with an
account of the raison d’être of our notion of truth: namely, that its function
is not to describe propositions, as one might naively infer from its syntactic
form, but rather to enable us to construct a certain type of generalization.
For example, ‘What Einstein said is true’ is intuitively equivalent to the
infinite conjunction ‘If Einstein said that nothing goes faster than light,
then nothing goes faster than light; and if Einstein said truth truth 930 930 that nuclear weapons should never be
built, then nuclear weapons should never be built; . . . and so on.’ But
without a truth predicate we could not capture this statement. The deflationist
argues, moreover, that all legitimate uses of the truth predicate including those in science, logic, semantics,
and metaphysics are simply displays of
this generalizing function, and that the equivalence schema is just what is
needed to explain that function. Within the deflationary camp there are various
competing proposals. According to Frege’s socalled redundancy theory,
corresponding instances of ‘It is true that p’ and ‘p’ have exactly the same
meaning, whereas the minimalist theory assumes merely that such propositions
are necessarily equivalent. Other deflationists are skeptical about the
existence of propositions and therefore take sentences to be the basic vehicles
of truth. Thus the disquotation theory supposes that truth is captured by the
disquotation principle, ‘p’ is true if and only if p’. More ambitiously, Tarski
does not regard the disquotation principle, also known as Tarski’s T schema, as
an adequate theory in itself, but as a specification of what any adequate
definition must imply. His own account shows how to give an explicit definition
of truth for all the sentences of certain formal languages in terms of the
referents of their primitive names and predicates. This is known as the
semantic theory of truth. .
verisimilitude -- truthlikeness,
a term introduced by Karl Popper to explicate the idea that one theory may have
a better correspondence with reality, or be closer to the truth, or have more
verisimilitude, than another theory. Truthlikeness, which combines truth with
information content, has to be distinguished from probability, which increases
with lack of content. Let T and F be the classes of all true and false
sentences, respectively, and A and B deductively closed sets of sentences.
According to Popper’s qualitative definition, A is more truthlike than B if and
only if B 3 T 0 A 3 T and A 3 F 0 B 3 F, where one of these setinclusions is
strict. In particular, when A and B are non-equivalent and both true, A is more
truthlike than B if and only if A logically entails B. David Miller and Pavel
Tichý proved in 4 that Popper’s definition is not applicable to the comparison
of false theories: if A is more truthlike than B, then A must be true. Since
the mid-0s, a new approach to truthlikeness has been based upon the concept of
similarity: the degree of truthlikeness of a statement A depends on the distances
from the states of affairs allowed by A to the true state. In Graham Oddie’s
Likeness to Truth 6, this dependence is expressed by the average function; in
Ilkka Niiniluoto’s Truthlikeness 7, by the weighted average of the minimum
distance and the sum of all distances. The concept of verisimilitude is also
used in the epistemic sense to express a rational evaluation of how close to
the truth a theory appears to be on available evidence.
Verum -- truth table, a
tabular display of one or more truth-functions, truth-functional operators, or
representatives of truth-functions or truth-functional operators such as
well-formed formulas of propositional logic. In the tabular display, each row
displays a possible assignment of truthvalues to the arguments of the
truth-functions or truth-functional operators. Thus, the collection of all rows
in the table displays all possible assignments of truth-values to these
arguments. The following simple truth table represents the truth-functional
operators negation and conjunction: truth, coherence theory of truth table
931 931 Because a truth table displays
all possible assignments of truth-values to the arguments of a truth-function,
truth tables are useful devices for quickly ascertaining logical properties of
propositions. If, e.g., all entries in the column of a truth table representing
a proposition are T, then the proposition is true for all possible assignments
of truth-values to its ultimate constituent propositions; in this sort of case,
the proposition is said to be logically or tautologically true: a tautology. If
all entries in the column of a truth table representing a proposition are F,
then the proposition is false for all possible assignments of truth-values to
its ultimate constituent propositions, and the proposition is said to be
logically or tautologically false: a contradiction. If a proposition is neither
a tautology nor a contradiction, then it is said to be a contingency. The truth
table above shows that both Not-P and Pand-Q are contingencies. For the same
reason that truth tables are useful devices for ascertaining the logical
qualities of single propositions, truth tables are also useful for ascertaining
whether arguments are valid or invalid. A valid argument is one such that there
is no possibility no row in the relevant truth table in which all its premises
are true and its conclusion false. Thus the above truth table shows that the
argument ‘P-and-Q; therefore, P’ is valid.
Verum -- truth-value,
most narrowly, one of the values T for ‘true’ or F for ‘false’ that a
proposition may be considered to have or take on when it is regarded as true or
false, respectively. More broadly, a truth-value is any one of a range of
values that a proposition may be considered to have when taken to have one of a
range of different cognitive or epistemic statuses. For example, some
philosophers speak of the truth-value I for ‘indeterminate’ and regard a
proposition as having the value I when it is indeterminate whether the
proposition is true or false. Logical systems employing a specific number n of
truthvalues are said to be n-valued logical systems; the simplest sort of
useful logical system has two truth-values, T and F, and accordingly is said to
be two-valued. Truth-functions are functions that take truth-values as
arguments and that yield truth-values as resultant values. The truthtable
method in propositional logic exploits the idea of truth-functions by using
tabular displays.
Verum -- truth-value
semantics, interpretations of formal systems in which the truth-value of a
formula rests ultimately only on truth-values that are assigned to its atomic
subformulas where ‘subformula’ is suitably defined. The label is due to Hugues
Leblanc. On a truth-value interpretation for first-order predicate logic, for
example, the formula atomic ExFx is true in a model if and only if all its
instances Fm, Fn, . . . are true, where the truth-value of these formulas is
simply assigned by the model. On the standard Tarskian or objectual
interpretation, by contrast, ExFx is true in a model if and only if every
object in the domain of the model is an element of the set that interprets F in
the model. Thus a truth-value semantics for predicate logic comprises a
substitutional interpretation of the quantifiers and a “non-denotational”
interpretation of terms and predicates. If t 1, t 2, . . . are all the terms of
some first-order language, then there are objectual models that satisfy the set
{Dx-Fx, Ft1, Ft2 . . . .}, but no truth-value interpretations that do. One can
ensure that truth-value semantics delivers the standard logic, however, by
suitable modifications in the definitions of consistency and consequence. A set
G of formulas of language L is said to be consistent, for example, if there is
some G' obtained from G by relettering terms such that G' is satisfied by some
truth-value assignment, or, alternatively, if there is some language L+
obtained by adding terms to L such that G is satisfied by some truth-value
assignment to the atoms of L+. Truth-value semantics is of both technical and
philosophical interest. Technically, it allows the completeness of first-order
predicate logic and a variety of other formal systems to be obtained in a
natural way from that of propositional logic. Philosophically, it dramatizes
the fact that the formulas in one’s theories about the world do not, in
themselves, determine one’s ontological commitments. It is at least possible to
interpret first-order formulas without reference to special truth-table method
truth-value semantics 932 932 domains
of objects, and higher-order formulas without reference to special domains of
relations and properties. The idea of truth-value semantics dates at least to
the writings of E. W. Beth on first-order predicate logic in 9 and of K.
Schütte on simple type theory in 0. In more recent years similar semantics have
been suggested for secondorder logics, modal and tense logics, intuitionistic
logic, and set theory.
Turing:
similar to a Griceian machine -- a machine,
an abstract automaton or imagined computer consisting of a finite automaton
operating an indefinitely long storage tape. The finite automaton provides the
computing power of the machine. The tape is used for input, output, and
calculation workspace; in the case of the universal Turing machine, it also
specifies another Turing machine. Initially, only a finite number of squares of
the tape are marked with symbols, while the rest are blank. The finite
automaton part of the machine has a finite number of internal states and
operates discretely, at times t % 0, 1, 2, . . . . At each time-step the
automaton examines the tape square under its tape head, possibly changes what
is there, moves the tape left or right, and then changes its internal state.
The law governing this sequence of actions is deterministic and is defined in a
state table. For each internal state and each tape symbol or blank under the
tape head, the state table describes the tape action performed by the machine
and gives the next internal state of the machine. Since a machine has only a finite
number of internal states and of tape symbols, the state table of a machine is
finite in length and can be stored on a tape. There is a universal Turing
machine Mu that can simulate every Turing machine including itself: when the
state table of any machine M is written on the tape of Mu, the universal
machine Mu will perform the same input-output computation that M performs. Mu
does this by using the state table of M to calculate M’s complete history for
any given input. Turing machines may be thought of as conceptual devices for
enumerating the elements of an infinite set e.g., the theorems of a formal
language, or as decision machines e.g., deciding of any truth-functional
formula whether it is a tautology. A. M. Turing showed that there are welldefined
logical tasks that cannot be carried out by any machine; in particular, no
machine can solve the halting problem. Turing’s definition of a machine was
theoretical; it was not a practical specification for a machine. After the
modern electronic computer was invented, he proposed a test for judging whether
there is a computer that is behaviorally equivalent to a human in reasoning and
intellectual creative power. The Turing test is a “black box” type of
experiment that Turing proposed as a way of deciding whether a computer can
think. Two rooms are fitted with the same input-output equipment going to an
outside experimenter. A person is placed in one room and a programmed
electronic computer in the other, each in communication with the experimenter.
By issuing instructions and asking questions, the experimenter tries to decide
which room has the computer and which the human. If the experimenter cannot
tell, that outcome is strong evidence that the computer can think as well as
the person. More directly, it shows that the computer and the human are
equivalent for all the behaviors tested. Since the computer is a finite
automaton, perhaps the most significant test task is that of doing creative
mathematics about the non-enumerable infinite.
turnbull,
G.: moral sense philosopher and educational theorist. He was briefly a
philosophy regent at Aberdeen and a teacher of Reid. His Principles of Moral
and Christian Philosophy 1740 and Discourse upon the Nature and Origin of Moral
and Civil Laws 1741 show him as the most systematic of those who aimed to
recast moral philosophy on a Newtonian model, deriving moral laws
“experimentally” from human psychology. In A Treatise on Ancient Painting 1740,
Observations Upon Liberal Education 1742, and some smaller works, he extolled
history and the arts as propaedeutic to the teaching of virtue and natural
religion.
Grice’s
Martian Chronicles -- Twin-Earth – as opposed to Mars -- a
fictitious planet first visited by Hilary Putnam in a thought experiment
inspired by H. P. Grice in “Some remarks about the senses” -- designed to show,
among other things, that “ ‘meanings’ just ain’t in the head” “The Meaning of
‘Meaning’,” 5. Twin-Earth is exactly like Earth with one notable exception:
ponds, rivers, and ice trays on Twin-Earth contain, not H2O, but XYZ, a liquid
superficially indistinguishable from water but with a different chemical
constitution. According to Putnam, although some inhabitants of Twin-Earth
closely resemble inhabitants of Earth, ‘water’, when uttered by a Twin-Earthling,
does not mean water. Water is H2O, and, on Twin-Earth, the word ‘water’
designates a different substance, XYZ, Twin-water. The moral drawn by Putnam is
that the meanings of at least some of our words, and the significance of some
of our thoughts, depend, in part, on how things stand outside our heads. Two
“molecular duplicates,” two agents with qualitatively similar mental lives,
might mean very different things by their utterances and think very different
thoughts. Although Twin-Earth has become a popular stopping-off place for
philosophers en route to theories of meaning and mental content, others regard
Twin-Earth as hopelessly remote, doubting that useful conclusions can be drawn
about our Earthly circumstances from research conducted there. Suppose that long-awaited invasion of the
Martians takes place, that they turn out to be friendly creatures and teach us
their language. We get on all right, except that we find no verb in their
language which unquestionably corresponds to our verb “see.” Instead we find
two verbs which we decide to render as “x” and “y”: we find that (in their
tongue) they speak of themselves as x-ing, and also as y-ing, things to be of
this and that color, size, and shape. Further, in physical appearance they are
more or less like ourselves, except that in their heads they have, one above
the other, two pairs of organs, not perhaps exactly like one another, but each
pair more or less like our eyes: each pair of organs is found to be sensitive
to light waves. It turns out that for them x-ing is dependent on the operation
of the upper organs, and y-ing on that of the lower organs. The question which
it seems natural to ask is this: Are x-ing and y-ing both cases of seeing, the
difference between them being that x-ing is seeing with the upper organs, and
y-ing is seeing with the lower organs? Or alternatively, do one or both of
these accomplishments constitute the exercise of a new sense, other than that
of sight? If we adopt, to distinguish the senses, a combination of suggestion (I)
with one or both of suggestions (III) or (IV), the answer seems clear: both
x-ing and y-ing are seeing, with different pairs of organs. But is the question
really to be settled so easily? Would we not in fact want to ask whether x-ing
something to be round was like y-ing it to be round, or whether when something
x-ed blue to them this was like or unlike its y-ing blue to them? If in answer
to such questions as these they said, “Oh no, there’s all the difference in the
world!” then I think we should be inclined to say that either x-ing or y-ing
(if not both) must be something other than seeing: we might of course be quite
unable to decide which (if either) was seeing. (I am aware that here those
whose approach is more Wittgensteinian than my own might complain that unless
something more can be said about how the difference between x-ing and y-ing
might “come out” or show itself in publicly observable phenomena, then the
claim by the supposed Martians that x-ing and y-ing are different would be one
of which nothing could be made, which would leave one at a loss how to
understand it. First, I am not convinced of the need for “introspectible”
differences to show themselves in the way this approach demands (I shall not
discuss this point further); second, I think that if I have to meet this
demand, I can. One can suppose that one or more of these Martians acquired the
use of the lower y-ing organs at some comparatively late date in their careers,
and that at the same time (perhaps for experimental purposes) the operation of
the upper x-ing organs was inhibited. One might now be ready to allow that a
difference between Some Remarks about the Senses 47 x-ing and y-ing would have
shown itself if in such a situation the creatures using their y-ing organs for
the first time were unable straightaway, without any learning process, to use
their “color”-words fluently and correctly to describe what they detected
through the use of those organs.) It might be argued at this point that we have
not yet disposed of the idea that the senses can be distinguished by an amalgam
of suggestions (I), (III), and (IV); for it is not clear that in the example of
the Martians the condition imposed by suggestion (I) is fulfilled. The thesis,
it might be said, is only upset if x-ing and y-ing are accepted as being the
exercise of different senses; and if they are, then the Martians’ color-words
could be said to have a concealed ambiguity. Much as “sweet” in English may
mean “sweet-smelling” or “sweet-tasting,” so “blue” in Martian may mean “blue-x-ing”
or “blue-y-ing.” But if this is so, then the Martians after all do not detect
by x-ing just those properties of things which they detect by y-ing. To this
line of argument there are two replies: (1) The defender of the thesis is in no
position to use this argument; for he cannot start by making the question
whether x-ing and y-ing are exercises of the same sense turn on the question
(inter alia) whether or not a single group of characteristics is detected by
both, and then make the question of individuation of the group turn on the
question whether putative members of the group are detected by one, or by more
than one, sense. He would be saying in effect, “Whether, in x-ing and y-ing,
different senses are exercised depends (inter alia) on whether the same
properties are detected by x-ing as by y-ing; but whether a certain x-ed
property is the same as a certain y-ed property depends on whether x-ing and
y-ing are or are not the exercise of a single sense.” This reply seems fatal.
For the circularity could only be avoided by making the question whether “blue”
in Martian names a single property depend either on whether the kinds of
experience involved in x-ing and y-ing are different, which would be to
reintroduce suggestion (II), or on whether the mechanisms involved in x-ing and
y-ing are different (in this case whether the upper organs are importantly
unlike the lower organs): and to adopt this alternative would, I think, lead to
treating the differentiation of the senses as being solely a matter of their
mechanisms, thereby making suggestion (I) otiose. (2) Independently of its
legitimacy or illegitimacy in the present context, we must reject the idea that
if it is accepted that in x-ing and y-ing different senses are being exercised,
then Martian color-words will be ambiguous. For ex hypothesi there will be a
very close correlation between things x-ing blue and their y-ing blue, far
closer 48 H. P. Grice than that between things smelling sweet and their tasting
sweet. This being so, it is only to be expected that x-ing and y-ing should
share the position of arbiters concerning the color of things: that is, “blue”
would be the name of a single property, determinable equally by x-ing and
y-ing. After all, is this not just like the actual position with regard to
shape, which is doubly determinable, by sight and by touch? While I would not
wish to quarrel with the main terms of this second reply, I should like briefly
to indicate why I think that this final quite natural comparison with the case
of shape will not do. It is quite conceivable that the correlation between
x-ing and y-ing , in the case supposed, might be close enough to ensure that
Martian color-words designated doubly determinable properties, and yet that
this correlation should break down in a limited class of cases: for instance,
owing to some differences between the two pairs of organs, objects which
transmitted light of a particular wavelength might (in standard conditions) x
blue but y black. I suggest, then, that given the existence of an object which,
for the Martians, standardly x-ed blue but y-ed black (its real color being
undecidable), no conclusion could be drawn to the effect that other objects do,
or could as a matter of practiSome Remarks about the Senses 51 cal possibility
be made to, x one way and y another way either in respect of color or in
respect of some other feature within the joint province of x-ing and y-ing.
tychism: from
Grecian tyche, ‘chance’, Peirce’s doctrine that there is absolute chance in the
universe and its fundamental laws are probabilistic and inexact. Peirce’s
tychism is part of his evolutionary cosmology, according to which all
regularities of nature are products of growth and development, i.e., results of
evolution. The laws of nature develop over time and become increasingly rigid
and exact; the apparently deterministic laws of physics are limiting cases of
the basic, probabilistic laws. Underlying all other laws is “the tendency of
all things to take habits”; Peirce calls this the Law of Habit. In his cosmology
his tychism is associated with synechism, the doctrine of the continuity of
nature. His synechism involves the doctrine of the continuity of mind and
matter; Peirce sometimes expressed this view by saying that “matter is effete
mind.”
Grice’s
“The Three-Year-Old’s Guide to Russell’s Theory of Types,” with an advice to
parents by P. F. Starwson -- type theory, broadly, any theory
according to which the things that exist fall into natural, perhaps mutually
exclusive, categories or types. In most modern discussions, ‘type theory’
refers to the theory of logical types first sketched by Russell in The
Principles of Mathematics 3. It is a theory of logical types insofar as it
purports only to classify things into the most general categories that must be presupposed
by an adequate logical theory. Russell proposed his theory in response to his
discovery of the now-famous paradox that bears his name. The paradox is this.
Common sense suggests that some classes are members of themselves e.g., the
class of all classes, while others are not e.g., the class of philosophers. Let
R be the class whose membership consists of exactly those classes of the latter
sort, i.e., those that are not members of themselves. Is R a member of itself?
If so, then it is a member of the class of all classes that are not members of
themselves, and hence is not a member of itself. If, on the other hand, it is
not a member of itself, then it satisfies its own membership conditions, and
hence is a member of itself after all. Either way there is a contradiction. The
source of the paradox, Russell suggested, is the assumption that classes and
their members form a single, homogeneous logical type. To the contrary, he
proposed that the logical universe is stratified into a regimented hierarchy of
types. Individuals constitute the lowest type in the hierarchy, type 0. For
purposes of exposition, individuals can be taken to be ordinary objects like
chairs and persons. Type 1 consists of classes of individuals, type 2 of
classes of classes of individuals, type 3 classes of classes of classes of
individuals, and so on. Unlike the homogeneous universe, then, in the type
hierarchy the members of a given class must all be drawn from a single logical
type n, and the class itself must reside in the next higher type n ! 1.
Russell’s sketch in the Principles differs from this account in certain
details. Russell’s paradox cannot arise in this conception of the universe of
classes. Because the members of a class must all be of the same logical type,
there is no such class as R, whose definition cuts across all types. Rather,
there is only, for each type n, the class Rn of all non-self-membered classes
of that type. Since Rn itself is of type n ! 1, the paradox breaks down: from
the assumption that Rn is not a member of itself as in fact it is not in the
type hierarchy, it no longer follows that it satisfies its own membership
conditions, since those conditions apply only to objects of type n. Most formal
type theories, including Russell’s own, enforce the class membership
restrictions of simple type theory syntactically such that a can be asserted to
be a member of b only if b is of the next higher type than a. In such theories,
the definition of R, hence the paradox itself, cannot even be expressed.
Numerous paradoxes remain unscathed by the simple type hierarchy. Of these, the
most prominent are the semantic paradoxes, so called because they explicitly
involve semantic notions like truth, as in the following version of the liar
paradox. Suppose Epimenides asserts that all the propositions he asserts today
are false; suppose also that that is the only proposition he asserts today. It
follows immediately that, under those conditions, the proposition he asserts is
true if and only if it is false. To address such paradoxes, Russell was led to
the more refined and substantially more complicated system known as ramified
type theory, developed in detail in his 8 paper “Mathematical Logic as Based on
the Theory of Types.” In the ramified theory, propositions and properties or
propositional functions, in Russell’s jargon come to play the central roles in
the type-theoretic universe. Propositions are best construed as the
metaphysical and semantical counterparts of sentences what sentences express and properties as the counterparts of “open
sentences” like ‘x is a philosopher’ that contain a variable ‘x’ in place of a
noun phrase. To distinguish linguistic expressions from their semantic
counterparts, the property expressed by, say, ‘x is a philosopher’, will be
denoted by ‘x ^ is a philosopher’, and the proposition expressed by ‘Aristotle
is a philosopher’ will be denoted by ‘Aristotle is a philosopher’. A property .
. .x ^ . . . is said to be true of an individual a if . . . a . . . is a true
proposition, and false of a if . . . a . . . is a false proposition where ‘. .
. a . . .’ is the result of replacing ‘x ^ ’ with ‘a’ in ‘. . . x ^ . . .’. So,
e.g., x ^ is a philosopher is true of Aristotle. The range of significance of a
property P is the collection of objects of which P is true or false. a is a
possible argument for P if it is in P’s range of significance. In the ramified
theory, the hierarchy of classes is supplanted by a hierarchy of properties:
first, properties of individuals i.e., properties whose range of significance
is restricted to individuals, then properties of properties of individuals, and
so on. Parallel to the simple theory, then, the type of a property must exceed
the type of its possible arguments by one. Thus, Russell’s paradox with R now
in the guise of the property x ^ is a property that is not true of itself is avoided along analogous lines. Following
the mathematician Henri Poincaré,
Russell traced the type theory type theory 935
935 source of the semantic paradoxes to a kind of illicit self-reference.
So, for example, in the liar paradox, Epimenides ostensibly asserts a
proposition p about all propositions, p itself among them, namely that they are
false if asserted by him today. p thus refers to itself in the sense that it or more exactly, the sentence that expresses
it quantifies over i.e., refers
generally to all or some of the elements of a collection of entities among
which p itself is included. The source of semantic paradox thus isolated,
Russell formulated the vicious circle principle VCP, which proscribes all such
self-reference in properties and propositions generally. The liar proposition p
and its ilk were thus effectively banished from the realm of legitimate
propositions and so the semantic paradoxes could not arise. Wedded to the
restrictions of simple type theory, the VCP generates a ramified hierarchy
based on a more complicated form of typing. The key notion is that of an
object’s order. The order of an individual, like its type, is 0. However, the
order of a property must exceed the order not only of its possible arguments,
as in simple type theory, but also the orders of the things it quantifies over.
Thus, type 1 properties like x ^ is a philosopher and x ^ is as wise as all
other philosophers are first-order properties, since they are true of and, in
the second instance, quantify over, individuals only. Properties like these
whose order exceeds the order of their possible arguments by one are called
predicative, and are of the lowest possible order relative to their range of significance.
Consider, by contrast, the property call it Q x ^ has all the first-order
properties of a great philosopher. Like those above, Q also is a property of
individuals. However, since Q quantifies over first-order properties, by the
VDP, it cannot be counted among them. Accordingly, in the ramified hierarchy, Q
is a second-order property of individuals, and hence non-predicative or
impredicative. Like Q, the property x ^ is a first-order property of all great
philosophers is also second-order, since its range of significance consists of
objects of order 1 and it quantifies only over objects of order 0; but since it
is a property of first-order properties, it is predicative. In like manner it
is possible to define third-order properties of individuals, third-order
properties of first-order properties, third-order properties of second-order
properties of individuals, third-order properties of secondorder properties of
first-order properties, and then, in the same fashion, fourth-order properties,
fifth-order properties, and so on ad infinitum. A serious shortcoming of
ramified type theory, from Russell’s perspective, is that it is an inadequate
foundation for classical mathematics. The most prominent difficulty is that
many classical theorems appeal to definitions that, though consistent, violate
the VCP. For instance, a wellknown theorem of real analysis asserts that every
bounded set of real numbers has a least upper bound. In the ramified theory,
real numbers are identified with certain predicative properties of rationals.
Under such an identification, the usual procedure is to define the least upper
bound of a bounded set S of reals to be the property call it b some real number
in S is true of x ^ , and then prove that this property is itself a real number
with the requisite characteristics. However, b quantifies over the real
numbers. Hence, by the VCP, b cannot itself be taken to be a real number:
although of the same type as the reals, and although true of the right things,
b must be assigned a higher order than the reals. So, contrary to the classical
theorem, S fails to have a least upper bound. Russell introduced a special
axiom to obviate this difficulty: the axiom of reducibility. Reducibility says,
in effect, that for any property P, there is a predicative property Q that is
true of exactly the same things as P. Reducibility thus assures that there is a
predicative property bH true of the same rational numbers as b. Since the reals
are predicative, hence of the same order as bH, it turns out that bH is a real
number, and hence that S has a least upper bound after all, as required by the
classical theorem. The general role of reducibility is thus to undo the
draconian mathematical effects of ramification without undermining its capacity
to fend off the semantic paradoxes.
token-type
distinction – first the token, then the type – if necessary;
“After all a type is a set of tokens” -- used by Grice: there’s a type of an
utterer, but there’s the individual utterer: In symbols, “u” is an individual utterer,
say, Grice. “U” is a type of utterer, say Oxonian philosophy dons. Aas drawn by
Peirce, the contrast between a category and a member of that category. An
individual or token is said to exemplify a type; it possesses the property that
characterizes that type. In philosophy this distinction is often applied to
linguistic expressions and to mental states, but it can be applied also to
objects, events, properties, and states of affairs. Related to it are the
distinctions between type and token individuation and between qualitative and
numerical identity. Distinct tokens of the same type, such as two ants, may be
qualitatively identical but cannot be numerically identical. Irrespective of
the controversial metaphysical view that every individual has an essence, a
type to which it belongs essentially, every individual belongs to many types,
although for a certain theoretical or practical purpose it may belong to one
particularly salient type e.g., the entomologist’s Formicidae or the
picnicker’s buttinsky. The typetoken distinction as applied in the philosophy
of language marks the difference between linguistic expressions, such as words
and sentences, which are the subject of linguistics, and the products of acts
of writing or speaking the subject of speech act theory. Confusing the two can
lead to conflating matters of speaker meaning withmatters of word or sentence
meaning as noted by Grice. An expression is a linguistic type and can be used
over and over, whereas a token of a type can be produced only once, though of
course it may be reproduced copied. A writer composes an essay a type and
produces a manuscript a token, of which there might be many copies more tokens.
A token of a type is not the same as an occurrence of a type. In the previous
sentence there are two occurrences of the word ‘type’; in each inscription of
that sentence, there are two tokens of that word. In philosophy of mind the
typetoken distinction underlies the contrast between two forms of physicalism,
the typetype identity theory or type physicalism and the tokentoken identity
theory or token physicalism.
uncertainty: one of those negativisims by Grice – cfr. ‘non-certainty’
-- v. certum. It may be held that ‘uncertain’ is wrong. Grice is certain that
p. It is not the case that Grice is certain that p.
universale: Like ‘qualia,’ which is the plural for ‘quale,’
‘universalia’ is the plural for ‘universale.’ The totum for Grice on “all” -- This
is a Gricism. It all started with arbor porphyriana. It is supposed to
translate Aristotle’s “to kath’olou” (which happens to be one of the categories
in Kant, “alleheit,” and which Aristotle contrasts with “to kath’ekastou,”
(which Kant has as a category, SINGULARITAS. For a nominalist, any predicate is
a ‘name,’ hence ‘nominalism.’ Opposite ‘realism.’ “Nominalism” is actually a
misnomer. The opposite of realism is anti-realism. We need something like
‘universalism,’ (he who believes in the existence, not necessary ‘reality’ of a
universal) and a ‘particularist,’ or ‘singularist,’ who does not. Note that the
opposite of ‘particularism,’ is ‘totalism.’ (Totum et pars). Grice holds a
set-theoretical approach to the universalium. Grice is willing to provide
always a set-theoretical extensionalist (in terms of predicate) and an
intensionalist variant in terms of property and category. Grice explicitly uses
‘X’ for utterance-type (WOW:118), implying a distinction with the
utterance-token. Grice gets engaged in a metabolical debate concerning the
reductive analysis of what an utterance-type means in terms of a claim to
the effect that, by uttering x, an utterance-token of utterance-type X, the
utterer means that p. The implicature is x (utterance-token). Grice is not
enamoured with the type/token or token/type distinction. His thoughts on
logical form are provocative. f you cannot put it in logical form, it is not
worth saying. Strawson infamously reacted with a smile. Oh, no: if you CAN
put it in logical form, it is not worth saying. Grice refers to the type-token
distinction when he uses x for token and X for type. Since Bennett cares to
call Grice a meaning-nominalist we should not care about the type X anyway. He
expands on this in Retrospective Epilogue. Grice should have payed more
attention to the distinction seeing that it was Ogdenian. A common mode of
estimating the amount of matter in a printed book is to count the number of
words. There will ordinarily be about twenty thes on a page, and, of course,
they count as twenty words. In another use of the word word, however, there is
but one word the in the English language; and it is impossible that this word
should lie visibly on a page, or be heard in any voice. Such a Form, Peirce, as
cited by Ogden and Richards, proposes to term a type. A single object such as
this or that word on a single line of a single page of a single copy of a book,
Peirce ventures to call a token. In order that a type may be used, it has to be
embodied in a token which shall be a sign of the type, and thereby of the
object the type signifies, and Grice followed suit. Refs.: Some of the sources
are given under ‘abstractum.’ Also under ‘grecianism,’ since Grice was keen on
exploring what Aristotle has to say about this in Categoriae, due to his joint
research with Austin, Code, Friedman, and Strawson. Grice also has a specific Peirceian
essay on the type-token distinction. BANC.
universalis: (‘the altogether nice girl’) dictum
de omni et nullo, also dici de omni et nullo Latin, ‘said of all and none’, two
principles that were supposed by medieval logicians to underlie all valid syllogisms.
Dictum de omni applies most naturally to universal affirmative propositions,
maintaining that in such a proposition, whatever falls under the subject term
also falls under the predicate term. Thus, in ‘Every whale is a mammal’,
whatever is included under ‘whale’ is included under ‘mammal’. Dictum de nullo
applies to universal negative propositions, such as ‘No whale is a lizard’,
maintaining that whatever falls under the subject term does not fall under the
predicate term. SYLLOGISM. W.E.M. Diderot,
Denis 171384, philosopher,
Encyclopedist, dramatist, novelist, and art critic, a champion of Enlightenment
values. He is known primarily as general editor of the Encyclopedia 174773, an
analytical and interpretive compendium of eighteenth-century science and
technology. A friend of Rousseau and Condillac, Diderot tr. Shaftesbury’s
Inquiry Concerning Virtue 1745 into . Revealing Lucretian affinities
Philosophical Thoughts, 1746, he assailed Christianity in The Skeptics’ Walk
1747 and argued for a materialistic and evolutionary universe Letter on the
Blind, 1749; this led to a short imprisonment. Diderot wrote mediocre bourgeois
comedies; some bleak fiction The Nun, 1760; and two satirical dialogues,
Rameau’s Nephew 1767 and Jacques the Fatalist 176584, his masterpieces. He
innovatively theorized on drama Discourse on Dramatic Poetry, 1758 and elevated
art criticism to a literary genre Salons in Grimm’s Literary Correspondence. At
Catherine II’s invitation, Diderot visited Saint Petersburg in 1773 and planned
the creation of a Russian . Promoting science, especially biology and
chemistry, Diderot unfolded a philosophy of nature inclined toward monism. His
works include physiological investigations, Letter on the Deaf and Dumb 1751
and Elements of Physiology 177480; a sensationalistic epistemology, On the
Interpretation of Nature 1745; an aesthetic, Essays on Painting 1765; a
materialistic philosophy of science, D’Alembert’s Dream 1769; an anthropology,
Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville 1772; and an anti-behavioristic
Refutation of Helvétius’ Work “On Man” 177380.
universalisierung: While Gric uses ‘univesal,’ he means like
Russell, the unnecessary implication of ‘every.’ Oddly, Kant does not relate
this –ung with the first of his three categories under ‘quantitas,’ the
universal. But surely they are related. Problem is that Kant wasn’t aware
because he kept moving from the Graeco-Roman classical vocabulary to the Hun. Thus,
Kant has “Allheit,” which he renders in Latinate as “Universitas,” and “Totalität,”
gehört in der Kategorienlehre des Philosophen Immanuel Kant zu den reinen
Verstandesbegriffen, d. h. zu den Elementen des Verstandes, welche dem Menschen
bereits a priori, also unabhängig von der sinnlichen Erfahrung gegeben sind.
“Allheit” wird wie Einheit und Vielheit den Kategorien der “Quantität”
zugeordnet und entspricht den Einzelnen Urteilen (Urteil hier im Sinn von
'Aussage über die Wirklichkeit') in der Form „Ein S ist P“, also z. B.
„Immanuel Kant ist ein Philosoph“. Sie wird von Kant definiert als „die
Vielheit als Einheit betrachtet“ (KrV, B 497 f.)[3]. Siehe auch Transzendentale
Analytik Weblinks. Allheit – Bedeutungserklärungen, Wortherkunft, Synonyme,
Übersetzungen Einzelnachweise Immanuel
Kant: Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Reclam, Stuttgart 1966, ISBN
3-15-006461-9. Peter Kunzmann,
Franz-Peter Burkard, Franz Wiedmann: dtv-Atlas zur Philosophie. dtv, München
1991, ISBN 3-423-03229-4, S. 136 ff.
Zitiert nach Arnim Regenbogen, Uwe Meyer (Hrsg.): Wörterbuch der
Philosophischen Begriffe. Meiner, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-7873-1738-4: Allheit
Kategorie: Ontologie. Referred to by Grice in his “Method,” – “A requisite for
a maxim to enter my manual, which I call the Immanuel, is that it should be
universalizable. Die Untersuchung zur »Universalisierung in der Ethik« greift
eine Problematik auf, die für eine Reihe der prominentesten Ethikentwürfe der
Gegenwart sowohl des deutschsprachigen wie des angelsächsischen Raumes zentral
ist, nämlich ob der normative Rationalitätsanspruch, den ethische Argumentationen
erheben, auf eine dem wissenschaftlichen Anspruch der deskriptiven
Gesetzeswissenschaften vergleichbare Weise eingelöst werden kann, nämlich durch
Verallgemeinerungs- oder Universalisierungsprinzipien. universalizability Ethics The idea that
moral judgments should be universalizable can be traced to the Golden Rule and
Kant’s ethics. In the twentieth century it was elaborated by Hare and became a
major thesis of his prescriptivism. The principle states that all moral
judgments are universalizable in the sense that if it is right for a particular
person A to do an action X, then it must likewise be right to do X for any
person exactly like A, or like A in the relevant respects. Furthermore, if A is
right in doing X in this situation, then it must be right for A to do X in
other relevantly similar situations. Hare takes this feature to be an essential
feature of moral judgments. An ethical statement is the issuance of a universal
prescription. Universalizability is not the same as generality, for a moral
judgment can be highly specific and detailed and need not be general or simple.
The universalizability principle enables Hare to avoid the charge of
irrationality that is usually lodged against non-cognitivism, to which his
prescriptivism belongs, and his theory is thus a great improvement on
emotivism. “I have been maintaining that the meaning of the word ‘ought’ and
other moral words is such that a person who uses them commits himself thereby
to a universal rule. This is the thesis of universalizability.” Hare, Freedom
and Reason.
unstructured: one of those
negativisms of Grice (cfr. ‘non-structured’). Surely Grice cared a hoot for
French anthropological structuralism! So he has the ‘unstructured’ followed by
the structured. A handwave is unstructured, meaning syntactically unstructured,
and in it you have all the enigma of reason resolved. By waving his hand, U
means that SUBJECT: the emissor, copula IS, predicate: A KNOWER OF THE ROUTE,
or ABOUT TO LEAVE the emissor.There is a lot of structure in the soul of the
emissor. So apply this to what Grice calls a ‘soul-to-soul transfer’ to which
he rightly reduces communication. Even if it is n unstructured communication
device, and maybe a ‘one-off’ one, to use Blackburn’s vulgarism, we would have
the three types of correspondence of Grice’s Semantic Triangle obtaining.
First, the psychophysical. The emissor knows the route, and he shows it. And he
wants the emissee to ‘catch’ or get the emissor’s drift. It is THAT route which
he knows. So the TWO psychophysical correspondences obtain. Then there are the
two psychosemiotic correspondences. The emissor intends that the emissor will
recognise the handwave as a signal that he, the emissor, knows the route. As
for the emissee’s psychosemiotic correspondence: he better realise it is THAT
route – to Banbury, surely, with bells in his shoes, as Grice’s mother would
sing to him. And then we have the two semio-physical correspondences. If the
emissor DOES know the route (and he is not lying, or rather, he is not mistaken
about it), then that’s okay. Many people say or signal that they know because
they feel ashamed to admit their ignorance. So it is very expectable, outside
Oxford, to have someone waving meaning that he knows the route, when he
doesn’t. This is surely non-natural, because it’s Kiparsky-non-factive. Waving
the hand thereby communicating that he knows the route does not entail that he
knows the route (as ‘spots’ do entail measles). From the emissee’s point of
view, provided the emissor knows the route and shows it, the emissee will
understand, hopefully, and feel assured that the emissor will hopefully reach
the destination, Banbury, surely, safely enough.
uptake: used by Grice
slightly different from Austin. Austin: “The performance of an illocutionary
act involves the securing of uptake.” “I distinguish some senses of
consequences and effects, especially three senses in which effects can come in
even with illocutionary acts, viz. securing uptake, taking effect, and inviting
a response.” “Comparing stating to what we have said about the illocu-
tionary act, it is an act to which, just as much as to other
illocutionary acts, it is essential to ‘secure uptake’ : the doubt about
whether I stated something if it was not heard or understood is just the
same as the doubt about whether I warned sotto voce or protested if
someone did not take it as a protest, &c. And statements do
‘take effect’ just as much as ‘namings’, say: if I have stated
something, then that commits me to other statements: other statements
made by me will be in order or out of order.”
urmsonianism. Who other than
Urmson would come up with a counter-example to the sufficiency of Grice’s
analysis of an act of communication. In a case of bribery, the response or
effect in the emittee is NOT meant to be recognised. So we need a further
restriction unless we want to say that the briber means that his emittee
recognise the ‘gift’ as a meta-bribe.
urmson’s
bribe: Urmson’s use of the bribe is
‘accidental.’ What Urmson is getting at is that if the briber intends the bribe
acts as a cause to effect a response, even a cognitive one, in the bribe, the
propositional complexum, “This is a bribe,” should not necessarily be
communicated. It is amazing how Grice changed the example into one about
physical action. They seem different. On the other hand, Grice would not have
cared to credit Urmson had it not believed it worth knowing that the criticism
arose within the Play Group (Grice admired Urmson). In his earlier “Meaning,”
Grice presents his own self-criticisms to arrive at a more refined analysis.
But in “Utterer’s meaning and intention,” when it comes to the SUFFICIENCY,
it’s all about other people: notably Urmson and Strawson. Grice cites Stampe
before Strawson, but many ignore Stampe on the basis that Strawson does not
credit him, and there is no reason why he should have been aware of it. But
Stampe was at Oxford at the time so this is worth noting. It has to be
emphasised that the author list is under ‘sufficiency.’ Under necessity, Grice
does not credit the source of the objections, so we can assume it is Grice
himself, as he had presented criticisms to his own view within the same
‘Meaning.’ It is curious that Grice loved Stampe. Grice CHANGED Urmon’s
example, and was unable to provide a specific scenario to Strawson’s alleged
counterexample, because Strawson is vague himself. But Stampe’s, Grice left
unchanged. It seems few Oxonian philosohpers of Grice’s playgroup had his
analytic acumen. Consider his sophisticated account of ‘meaning.’ It’s different
if you are a graduate student from the New World, and you have to prove
yourself intelligent. But for Grice’s playgroup companion, only three or four
joined in the analysis. The first is Urmson. The second is Strawson. The case
by Urmson involved a tutee offering to buy Gardiner an expensive dinner, hoping
that Gardiner will give him permission for an over-night visit to London.
Gardiner knows that his tutee wants his permission. The appropriate
analysans for "By offering to buy Gardiner an expensive dinner, the tuttee
means that Gardiner should give him permission for an overnight stay in
London" are fulfilled: (1) The tutee offers to buy Gardiner an expensive
dinner with the intention of producing a certain response on the part of
Gardiner (2) The tutee intends that Gardiner should recognize (know, think)
that the tutee is offering to buy him an expensive dinner with the intention of
producing this response; (3) The tutee intends that Gardiners recognition
(thought) that the tutee has the intention mentioned in (2) should be at least
part of Gardiners reason for producing the response mentioned. If in general to
specify in (i) the nature of an intended response is to specify what was meant,
it should be correct not only to say that by offering to buy Gardiner an
expensive dinner, the tutee means that Gardiner is to give him permission for
an overnight stay in London, but also to say that he meas that Gardiner should
(is to) give him permission for an over-night visit to London. But in fact one
would not wish to say either of these things; only that the tutee meant
Gardiner to give him permission. A restriction seems to be required, and one
which might serve to eliminate this range of counterexamples can be identified
from a comparison of two scenarios. Grice goes into a tobacconists shop, ask
for a packet of my favorite cigarettes, and when the unusually suspicious
tobacconist shows that he wants to see the color of my money before he hands
over the goods, I put down the price of the cigarettes on the counter. Here
nothing has been meant. Alternatively, Grice goes to his regular tobacconist
(from whom I also purchase other goods) for a packet of my regular brand of
Players Navy Cuts, the price of which is distinctive, say 43p. Grice says
nothing, but puts down 43p. The tobacconist recognizes my need, and hands over
the packet. Here, I think, by putting down 43p I meant something-Namesly, that
I wanted a packet of Players Navy Cuts. I have at the same time provided an
inducement. The distinguishing feature of the second example seems to be that
here the tobacconist recognized, and was intended to recognize, what he was
intended to do from my "utterance" (my putting down the money),
whereas in the first example this was not the case. Nor is it the case with respect
to Urmson’s case of the tutees attempt to bribe Gardiner. So one might propose
that the analysis of meaning be amended accordingly. U means something by
uttering x is true if: (i) U intends, by uttering x, to induce a certain
response in A (2) U intends A to recognize, at least in part from the utterance
of x, that U intends to produce that response (3) U intends the fulfillment of
the intention mentioned in (2) to be at least in part As reason for fulfilling
the intention mentioned in (i). This copes with Urmsons counterexample to
Grices proposal in the Oxford Philosophical Society talk involving the tutee
attempting to bribe Gardiner.
use: while Grice uses
‘use,’ as Ryle once told him, ‘you should use ‘usage, too.’ Parkinson was
nearby. When Warnock commissioned Parkinson to compile a couple of Oxonian
essays on meaning and communication, Parkinson unearthed the old symposium by
Ryle and Findlay on the matter. Typically, when Ryle reprinted it, he left
Findlay out!
emissor: utterer: cf. emissum, emissor. Usually Homo sapiens sapiens – and usually
Oxonian, the Homo sapiens sapiens Grice interactes with. Sometimes tutees,
sometimes tutor. There is something dualistic about the ‘utterer.’ It is a
vernacularism from English ‘out.’ So the French impressionists were into
IM-pressing, out to in; the German expressionists were into EX-pressing, in to
out. Or ‘man’. The important thing is for Grice to avoid ‘speaker.’ He notes
that ‘utterance’ has a nice fuzziness about it. He still notes that he is using
‘utter’ in a ‘perhaps artificial’ way. He was already wedded to ‘utter’ in his talk for the Oxford Philosopical Society.
Grice does not elaborate much on general gestures or signals. His main example
is a sort of handwave by which the emissor communicates that either he knows
the route or that he is about to leave the addressee. Even this is complex.
Let’s try to apply his final version of communication to the hand-wave. The
question of “Homo sapiens sapiens” is an interesting one. Grice is all for
ascribing predicates regarding the soul to what he calls the ‘lower animals’.
He is not ready to ascribe emissor’s meaning to them. Why? Because of Schiffer!
I mean, when it comes to the conditions of necessity of the reductive analysis,
he seems okay. When it comes to the sufficiency, there are two types of
objection. One by Urmson, easily dismissed. The second, first by Stampe and
Strawson, not so easily. But Grice agrees to add a clause limiting intentions
to be ‘in the open.’ Those who do not have a philosophical background usually
wonder about this. So for their sake, it may be worth considering Grice’s
synthetic a posteriori argument to refuse an emissor other than a Homo sapiens
sapiens to be able to ‘mean,’ if not ‘communicate,’ or ‘signify.’ There is an objection which is not mentioned by his editors,
which seems to Grice to be one to which Grice must respond. The objection may
be stated thus. One of the leading strands in Grice’s reductive analysis of an
emissor communicating that p is that communication is not to be regarded
exclusively, or even primarily, as a ‘feature’ of emissors who use what
philosophers of language call ‘language’ (Sprache, Taal, Langage, Linguaggio –
to restrict to the philosophical lexicon, cf. Plato’s Cratylus), and a fortiori
of an emissor who emits this or that “linguistic” ‘utterance.’ There are many
instances of NOTABLY NON-“linguistic” vehicles or devices of communication, within
a communication-system, which fulfil this or that communication-function; these
vehicles or devices are mostly syntactically un-structured or amorphous.
Sometimes, a device may exhibit at least some rudimentary syntactic structure,
in that we may distinguish a totum from a pars and identify a ‘simplex’ within
a ‘complexum.’ Grice’s intention-based reductive analysis of a communicatum,
based on Aristotle, Locke, and Peirce, is designed to allow for the possibility
that a non-“linguistic,” and, further, indeed a non-“conventional” 'utterance'
token, perhaps even manifesting some degree of syntactic structure, and not
just a block of an amorphous signal, may be within the ‘repertoire’ of
‘procedures’ of this or that organism, or creature, or agent, which, even if
not relying on any apparatus for communication of the kind that that we may
label ‘linguistic’ or otherwise ‘conventional,’
‘do’ this or that ‘thing’ thereby ‘communicating’ that p, or q. To
provide for this possibility, it is plainly necessary that the key ingredient in
any representation of ‘communicating,’ viz. intending that p, should be a ‘state’
of the emissor’s soul the capacity for which does not require what we may label
the ‘possession’ of, shall we say, a ‘faculty,’ of what philosophers call ‘a’
‘language’ (Sprache, Taal, langue, lingua – note that in German we do not
distinguish between ‘die Deutsche Sprache’ and ‘Sprache’ as ‘ein Facultat.’).
Now a philosopher, relying on this or that neo-Prichardian reductive analysis
of ‘intending that p,’ may not be willing to allow the possibility of such,
shall we call it, pre-linguistic intending that p, or non-linguistic intending
that p. Surely if the emissor realizes that his addressee does not share what
the Germans call ‘die Deutsche Sprache,” the emissor may still communicate with
his addresse this or that by doing this or that. E. g. he may simulate that he
wants to smoke a cigarette and wonders if his addressee has one to spare.
Against that objection, Grice surely wins the day. But Grice grants that
winning the day on THAT front may not be enough. And that is because, as far as
Grice’s Oxonian explorations on communication go, in a succession of
increasingly elaborate moves – ending with a ‘closure’ clause which cut this
succession of increasingly elaborate moves -- designed to thwart this or that
scenario, later deemed illegitimate, involving two rational agents where the
emissor relies on an ‘inference-element’ that it is not the case that he
intends his addressee will recogise – Grice is led to restrict the ‘intending’
which is to constitute a case of an emissor communicating that p to C-intending.
Grice suspects that whatever may be the case in general with regard to ‘intending,’
C-intending seems for some reason to Grice to be unsophisticatedly, viz.
plainly, too sophisticated a ‘state’ of a soul to be found in an organism,
‘pirot,’ creature, that we may not want to deem ‘rational,’ or as the Germans
would say, a creature that is destitute of “Die Deutsche Sprache.” We need the
pirot to be “very intelligent, indeed rational.”Grice regrets that some may
think that what he thought were unavoidable rear-guard actions (ending with a
complex reductive analysis of C-intending) seem to have undermined the raison
d'etre of the Griciean campaign.”Unfortunately, Grice provides what he
admittedly labels “a brief reply” which “will have to suffice.” Why? Because “a
full treatment would require delving deep into crucial problems concerning the
boundaries between vicious and virtuous circularity.” Which is promising. It is
not something totally UNATTAINABLE. It reduces to the philosopher being
virtuously circular, only! Why is the ‘virtuous circle’ so crucial – vide
‘circulus virtuosus.’ virtŭōsus , a, um, adj.
virtus, I.virtuous, good (late Lat.), Aug. c. Sec.
Man. 10. A circle is virtuous if it is not that bad. In this case, we need the
‘virtuous circle’ because we are dealing with ‘a loop.’ This is exactly
Schiffer’s way of putting it in his ‘Introduction’ to Meaning (second edition).
There is a ‘conceptual loop.’ Schiffer is not interested in ‘communicating;’
only ‘meaning.’ But his point can be transferred. He is saying that ‘U means
that p,’ may rely on ‘U intends that p,’ where ‘U intends that p’ relies on ‘U
means that p.’ There is a loop. In more generic terms:We have a creature, call
it a pirot P1 that, by doing thing T, communicates that p. Are we talking of
the OBSERVER? I hope so, because Grice’s favourite pirot is the parrot. So we
have Prince Maurice’s Parrot. Locke: Since
I think I may be confident, that, whoever should see a CREATURE of his own
shape or make, though it had no more reason all its life than a cat or a
PARROT, would call him still A MAN; or whoever should hear a cat or a parrot
discourse, reason, and philosophize, would call or think it nothing but a cat
or a PARROT; and say, the one was A DULL IRRATIONAL MAN, and the other A VERY
INTELLIGENT RATIONAL PARROT. A relation we have in an author of great note, is
sufficient to countenance the supposition of A RATIONAL PARROT. The author’s
words are: I had a mind to know, from Prince Maurice's own mouth, the account
of a common, but much credited story, that I had heard so often from many
others, of an old parrot he has, that speaks, and asks, and answers common
questions, like A REASONABLE CREATURE. So that those of his train there
generally conclude it to be witchery or possession; and one of his chaplains,
would never from that time endure A PARROT, but says all PARROTS have a devil
in them. I had heard many particulars of this story, and as severed by people
hard to be discredited, which made me ask Prince Maurice what there is of it.
Prince Maurice says, with his usual plainness and dryness in talk, there is
something true, but a great deal false of what is reported. I desired to know
of him what there was of the first. Prince Maurice tells me short and coldly,
that he had HEARD of such A PARROT; and though he believes nothing of it, and
it was a good way off, yet he had so much curiosity as to send for the parrot:
that it was a very great parrot; and when the parrot comes first into the room
where Prince Maurice is, with a great many men about him, the parrot says
presently, What a nice company is here. One of the men asks the parrot, ‘What
thinkest thou that man is?,’ ostending his finger, and pointing to Prince
Maurice. The parrot answers, ‘Some general -- or other.’ When the man brings
the parrot close to Prince Maurice, Prince Maurice asks the parrot., “D'ou
venez-vous?” The parrot answers, “De Marinnan.” Then Prince Maurice goes on,
and poses a second question to the parrot. “A qui estes-vous?” The Parrot
answers: “A un Portugais.” Prince Maurice asks a third question. “Que fais-tu
la?” The parrot answers: “Je garde les poulles.”Prince Maurice smiles, which
pleases the Parrot. Prince Maurice, violating a Griceian maxim, and being just
informed that p, asks whether p. This is his fourth question. “Vous gardez les
poulles?” The Parrot answers, “Oui, moi; et je scai bien faire.” The Parrott
appeals to Peirce’s iconic system and makes the chuck four or five times that a
man uses to make to chickens when a man calls them. I set down the words of
this worthy dialogue in French, just as Prince Maurice said them to me. I ask
Prince Maurice in what ‘language’ the parrot speaks. Prince Maurice says that
the parrot speaks in Brazilian. I ask Prince William whether he understands the
Brazilian language. Prince Maurice says: No, but he has taken care to have TWO
interpreters by him, the one a Dutchman that spoke Brazilian, and the other a
Brazilian that spoke Dutch; that Prince Maurice asked them separatelyand privately,
and both of them AGREED in telling Prince Maurice just the same thing that the
parrot had said. I could not but tell this ODD story, because it is so much out
of the way, and from the first hand, and what may pass for a good one; for I
dare say Prince Maurice at least believed himself in all he told me, having
ever passed for a very honest and pious man. I leave it to naturalists to
reason, and to other men to believe, as they please upon it. However, it is
not, perhaps, amiss to relieve or enliven a busy scene sometimes with such
digressions, whether to the purpose or no.Locke takes care that the reader
should have the story at large in the author's own words, because he seems to
me not to have thought it incredible.For it cannot be imagined that so able a
man as he, who had sufficiency enough to warrant all the testimonies he gives
of himself, should take so much pains, in a place where it had nothing to do,
to pin so close, not only on a man whom he mentions as his friend, but on a prince
in whom he acknowledges very great honesty and piety, a story which, if he
himself thought incredible, he could not but also think RIDICULOUS. Prince
Maurice, it is plain, who vouches this story, and our author, who relates it
from him, both of them call this talker A PARROT. And Locke asks any one else
who thinks such a story fit to be told, whether, if this PARROT, and all of its
kind, had always talked, as we have a prince's word for it this one did,-
whether, I say, they would not have passed for a race of RATIONAL ANIMALS; but
yet, whether, for all that, they would have been allowed to be MEN, and not
PARROTS? For I presume it is not the idea of A THINKING OR RATIONAL BEING alone
that makes the idea of A MAN in most people's sense: but of A BODY, so and so
shaped, joined to it: and if that be the idea of a MAN, the same successive
body not shifted all at once, must, as well as THE SAME IMMATERIAL SPIRIT, go to the
making of the same MAN. So back to
Grice’s pirotology.But first a precis of the conversation, or
languaging:PARROT: What a nice company is here.MAN (pointing to Prince
Maurice): What thinkest thou that man is?PARROT: Some general -- or other. (i.
e. the parrot displays what Grice calls ‘up-take.’ The parrot recognizes the
man’s c-intention. So far is ability to display uptake.PRINCE MAURICE: D'ou
venez-vous?PARROT: De Marinnan.PRINCE MAURICE: A qui estes-vous?PARROT: A un
Portugais.PRINCE MAURICE: Que fais-tu la?PARROT: Je garde les poulles.PRINCE
MAURICE SMILES and flouts a Griceian maxim: Vous gardez les poulles?PARROT
(losing patience, and grasping the Prince’s implicature that he doubts it):
Oui, moi. Et je scai bien faire.(The Parrott then appeals to Peirce’s iconic
system and makes the chuck five times that a man uses to make to chickens when
a man calls them.)So back to Grice:“According to my most recent speculations
about communication, one should distinguish between what I call the ‘factual’
or ‘de facto’ character of behind the state of affairs that one might describe
as ‘rational agent A communicates that p,’ for those communication-relevant
features which obtain or are present in the circumstances) the ‘titular’ or ‘de
jure’ character, viz. the nested C-intending which is only deemed to be
present. And the reason Grice calls it ‘nested’ is that it involves three
sub-intentions:(C) Emissor E communicates that (psi*) p iff Emissor E c-intends
that A recognises that E psi-s that p iffC1: Emissor E intends A to recognise that
A psi-s that p.C2: Emissor intends that A recognise C1 by A recognising C2C3:
There is no inference-element which is C-constitutive such that Emissor relies
on it and yet does not intend A to recognise.Grice:“The titular or de jure character
of the state of affairs that is described as “Emissor communicates that p,”
involves self-reference in the closure clause regarding the third intention,
C3, may be thought as being ‘regressive,’ or involving what mathematicians mean
when they use “, …;” and the translators of Aristotle, ‘eis apeiron,’
translated as ‘ad infinitum.’There may be ways of UNDEEMING this, i. e. of
stating that self-reference and closure are meant to BLOCK an infinite regress.
Hence the circle, if there is one – one feature of a virtuous circle is that it
doesn’t look like a circle simpliciter --
would be virtuous. The ‘de jure’ character stands for a situation which,
in Grice’s words, is “infinitely complex,” and so cannot be actually present in
toto – only DEEMED to be.”“In which case,” Grice concludes pointing to the
otiosity or rendering inoperative, “to point out that THE INCONCEIVABLE actual
presence of the ‘de jure’ character of ‘Emissor communicates that p’ WOULD,
still, be possible, or would be detectable, only via the ‘use’ of something
like ‘die Deutsche Sprache’ seem to serve little, if any, purpose.”“At its most
meagre, the factual or ‘de facto’ character consists merely in the pre-rational
‘counterpart’ of the state of affairs describable by “Emissor E communicates
that p,” which might amount to no more than making a certain sort of utterance
in order thereby to get some creature to think or want some particular
thing.This meagre condition does not involve a reference to any expertise
regarding anything like ‘die Deutsche Sprache.’Let’s reformulate the
condition.It’s just a pirot, at a ‘pre-rational’ level. The pirot does a thing
T IN ORDER THEREBY to get some other pirot to think or do some particular
thing. To echo Hare,Die Tur ist geschlossen, ja.Die Tur ist geschlossen, bitte.Grice
continues as a corollary: “Maybe in a less straightforward instance of “Emissor
E communicates that p” there is actually present the C-intention whose
feasibility as an ‘intention’ suggests some ability to use ‘die Deutsche
Sprache.’But vide “non-verbal communication,” pre-verbal communication,
languaging, pre-conventional communication, gestural communication – as in What
Grice has as “a gesture (a signal).” Not necessary ‘conventional,’ and MAYBE
‘established’ – is one-off sufficient for ‘established’? I think so. By waving
his hand in a particular way (“a particular sort of hand wave”), the emissor
communicates that he knows the route (or is about to leave the addressee). Grice concludes about the less straightforward
instances, that there can be no advance guarantee when this will be so, i. e.
that there is actually present the C-intention whose feasibility as an
intention points to some capacity to use ‘die Deutsche Sprache.’Grice adds: “It
is in any case arguable that the use of ‘die Deutsche Sprache’ would here be an
indispensable aid to philosophising about communication, rather than it being an
element in the PHILOSOPHISING about communication! Philosophers
of Grice’s generation use ‘man’ on purpose to mean ‘mankind’. What a man means.
What a man utters. The utterer is the man. In semiotics one can use something
more Latinate, like gesturer, or emitter – or profferer. The distinction is
between what an utterer means and what the logical and necessary implication.
He doesn’t need to say this since ‘imply’ in the logical usage does not take
utterer as subject. It’s what the utterer SAYS that implies this or that. (Strawson
and Wiggins, p. 519). The utterer is possibly the ‘expresser.’
unamuno: m. d. b. Born in Bilbao, he studied in
Bilbao and Madrid and taught Grecian and philosophy in Salamanca. His open
criticism of the government led to
dismissal from the and exile 430 and,
again, to dismissal from the rectorship in 6. Unamuno is an important figure
in letters. Like Ortega y Gasset, his
aim was to capture life in its complex emotional and intellectual dimensions
rather than to describe the world scientifically. Thus, he favored fiction as a
medium for his ideas and may be considered a precursor of existentialism. He
wrote several philosophically significant novels, a commentary on Don Quijote
5, and some poetry and drama; his philosophical ideas are most explicitly
stated in Del sentimiento trágico de la vida “The Tragic Sense of Life,” 3.
Unamuno perceived a tragic sense permeating human life, a sense arising from
our desire for immortality and from the certainty of death. In this predicament
man must abandon all pretense of rationalism and embrace faith. Faith
characterizes the authentic life, while reason leads to despair, but faith can
never completely displace reason. Torn between the two, we can find hope only
in faith; for reason deals only with abstractions, while we are “flesh and
bones” and can find fulfillment only through commitment to an ideal.
unexpected
examination paradox, a paradox about belief and prediction.
One version is as follows: It seems that a teacher could both make, and act on,
the following announcement to his class: “Sometime during the next week I will
set you an examination, but at breakfast time on the day it will occur, you
will have no good reason to expect that it will occur on that day.” If he
announces this on Friday, could he not do what he said he would by, say,
setting the examination on the following Wednesday? The paradox is that there
is an argument purporting to show that there could not be an unexpected
examination of this kind. For let us suppose that the teacher will carry out
his threat, in both its parts; i.e., he will set an examination, and it will be
unexpected. Then he cannot set the examination on Friday assuming this to be
the last possible day of the week. For, by the time Friday breakfast arrives,
and we know that all the previous days have been examination-free, we would
have every reason to expect the examination to occur on Friday. So leaving the
examination until Friday is inconsistent with setting an unexpected
examination. For similar reasons, the examination cannot be held on Thursday.
Given our previous conclusion that it cannot be delayed until Friday, we would
know, when Thursday morning came, and the previous days had been
examination-free, that it would have to be held on Thursday. So if it were held
on Thursday it would not be unexpected. So it cannot be held on Thursday.
Similar reasoning sup938 U 938 posedly
shows that there is no day of the week on which it can be held, and so
supposedly shows that the supposition that the teacher can carry out his threat
must be rejected. This is paradoxical, for it seems plain that the teacher can
carry out his threat.
uniformity
of nature, a state of affairs thought to be required if
induction is to be justified. For example, inductively strong arguments, such
as ‘The sun has risen every day in the past; therefore, the sun will rise
tomorrow’, are thought to presuppose that nature is uniform in the sense that
the future will resemble the past, in this case with respect to the diurnal
cycle. The Scottish empiricist Hume was the first to make explicit that the
uniformity of nature is a substantial assumption in inductive reasoning. Hume
argued that, because the belief that the future will resemble the past cannot
be grounded in experience for the future
is as yet unobserved induction cannot be
rationally justified; appeal to it in defense of induction is either
question-begging or illicitly metaphysical. Francis Bacon’s “induction by
enumeration” and J. S. Mill’s “five methods of experimental inquiry” presuppose
that nature is uniform. Whewell appealed to the uniformity of nature in order
to account for the “consilience of inductions,” the tendency of a hypothesis to
explain data different from those it was originally introduced to explain. For
reasons similar to Hume’s, Popper holds that our belief in the uniformity of
nature is a matter of faith. Reichenbach held that although this belief cannot
be justified in advance of any instance of inductive reasoning, its
presupposition is vindicated by successful inductions. It has proved difficult
to formulate a philosophical statement of the uniformity of nature that is both
coherent and informative. It appears contradictory to say that nature is
uniform in all respects, because inductive inferences always mark differences
of some sort e.g., from present to future, from observed to unobserved, etc.,
and it seems trivial to say that nature is uniform in some respects, because
any two states of nature, no matter how different, will be similar in some
respect. Not all observed regularities in the world or in data are taken to
support successful inductive reasoning; not all uniformities are, to use Goodman’s
term, “projectible.” Philosophers of science have therefore proposed various
rules of projectibility, involving such notions as simplicity and explanatory
power, in an attempt to distinguish those observed patterns that support
successful inductions and thus are taken to represent genuine causal relations
from those that are accidental or spurious.
unity
in diversity, in aesthetics, the principle that the
parts of the aesthetic object must cohere or hang together while at the same
time being different enough to allow for the object to be complex. This
principle defines an important formal requirement used in judging aesthetic
objects. If an object has insufficient unity e.g., a collection of color
patches with no recognizable patterns of any sort, it is chaotic or lacks
harmony; it is more a collection than one object. But if it has insufficient
diversity e.g., a canvas consisting entirely of one color with no internal
differentiations, it is monotonous. Thus, the formal pattern desired in an
aesthetic object is that of complex parts that differ significantly from each
other but fit together to form one interdependent whole such that the character
or meaning of the whole would be changed by the change of any part.
einheit –
H. P. Grice, “Unity of science and teleology.” unity of science, a situation in
which all branches of empirical science form a coherent system called unified
science. Unified science is sometimes extended to include formal sciences e.g.,
branches of logic and mathematics. ‘Unity of science’ is also used to refer to
a research program aimed at unified science. Interest in the unity of science
has a long history with many roots, including ancient atomism and the work of
the Encyclopedists. In the twentieth
century this interest was prominent in logical empiricism see Otto Neurath et
al., International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, vol. I, 8. Logical
empiricists originally conceived of unified science in terms of a unified
language of science, in particular, a universal observation language. All laws
and theoretical statements in any branch of science were to be translatable
into such an observation language, or else be appropriately related to
sentences of this language. In unified science unity of science 939 939 addition to encountering technical
difficulties with the observationaltheoretical distinction, this conception of
unified science also leaves open the possibility that phenomena of one branch
may require special concepts and hypotheses that are explanatorily independent of
other branches. Another concept of unity of science requires that all branches
of science be combined by the intertheoretic reduction of the theories of all
non-basic branches to one basic theory usually assumed to be some future
physics. These reductions may proceed stepwise; an oversimplified example would
be reduction of psychology to biology, together with reductions of biology to
chemistry and chemistry to physics. The conditions for reducing theory T2 to
theory T1 are complex, but include identification of the ontology of T2 with
that of T1, along with explanation of the laws of T2 by laws of T1 together
with appropriate connecting sentences. These conditions for reduction can be
supplemented with conditions for the unity of the basic theory, to produce a
general research program for the unification of science see Robert L. Causey,
Unity of Science, 7. Adopting this research program does not commit one to the
proposition that complete unification will ever be achieved; the latter is
primarily an empirical proposition. This program has been criticized, and some
have argued that reductions are impossible for particular pairs of theories, or
that some branches of science are autonomous. For example, some writers have
defended a view of autonomous biology, according to which biological science is
not reducible to the physical sciences. Vitalism postulated non-physical
attributes or vital forces that were supposed to be present in living
organisms. More recent neovitalistic positions avoid these postulates, but
attempt to give empirical reasons against the feasibility of reducing biology.
Other, sometimes a priori, arguments have been given against the reducibility
of psychology to physiology and of the social sciences to psychology. These
disputes indicate the continuing intellectual significance of the idea of unity
of science and the broad range of issues it encompasses.
universal
instantiation: discussed by Grice in his System G --
also called universal quantifier elimination. 1 The argument form ‘Everything
is f; therefore a is f’, and arguments of this form. 2 The rule of inference
that permits one to infer that any given thing is f from the premise that
everything is f. In classical logic, where all terms are taken to denote things
in the domain of discourse, the rule says simply that from vA[v] one may infer
A[t], the result of replacing all free occurrences of v in A[v] by the term t.
If non-denoting terms are allowed, however, as in free logic, then the rule
would require an auxiliary premise of the form Duu % t to ensure that t denotes
something in the range of the variable v. Likewise in modal logic, which is
sometimes held to contain terms that do not denote “genuine individuals” the
things over which variables range, an auxiliary premise may be required. 3 In
higher-order logic, the rule of inference that says that from XA[X] one may
infer A[F], where F is any expression of the grammatical category e.g., n-ary
predicate appropriate to that of X e.g., n-ary predicate variable. G.F.S.
universalisability:
discussed along three dimension by Grice: applicational conceptual, and formal.
-- 1 Since the 0s, the moral criterion implicit in Kant’s first formulation of
the categorical imperative: “Act only on that maxim that you can at the same
time will to be a universal law,” often called the principle of universality. A
maxim or principle of action that satisfies this test is said to be
universalizable, hence morally acceptable; one that does not is said to be not
universalizable, hence contrary to duty. 2 A second sense developed in
connection with the work of Hare in the 0s. For Hare, universalizability is
“common to all judgments which carry descriptive meaning”; so not only
normative claims moral and evaluative judgments but also empirical statements
are universalizable. Although Hare describes how such universalizuniversal
universalizability 940 940 ability can
figure in moral argument, for Hare “offenses against . . . universalizability
are logical, not moral.” Consequently, whereas for Kant not all maxims are
universalizable, on Hare’s view they all are, since they all have descriptive
meaning. 3 In a third sense, one that also appears in Hare,
‘universalizability’ refers to the principle of universalizability: “What is
right or wrong for one person is right or wrong for any similar person in
similar circumstances.” This principle is identical with what Sidgwick The
Methods of Ethics called the Principle of Justice. In Generalization in Ethics
1 by M. G. Singer b.6, it is called the Generalization Principle and is said to
be the formal principle presupposed in all moral reasoning and consequently the
explanation for the feature alleged to hold of all moral judgments, that of
being generalizable. A particular judgment of the form ‘A is right in doing x’ is
said to imply that anyone relevantly similar to A would be right in doing any
act of the kind x in relevantly similar circumstances. The characteristic of
generalizability, of presupposing a general rule, was said to be true of
normative claims, but not of all empirical or descriptive statements. The
Generalization Principle GP was said to be involved in the Generalization
Argument GA: “If the consequences of everyone’s doing x would be undesirable,
while the consequences of no one’s doing x would not be, then no one ought to
do x without a justifying reason,” a form of moral reasoning resembling, though
not identical with, the categorical imperative CI. One alleged resemblance is
that if the GP is involved in the GP, then it is involved in the CI, and this
would help explain the moral relevance of Kant’s universalizability test. 4 A
further extension of the term ‘universalizability’ appears in Alan Gewirth’s
Reason and Morality 8. Gewirth formulates “the logical principle of
universalizability”: “if some predicate P belongs to some subject S because S
has the property Q . . . then P must also belong to all other subjects S1, S2,
. . . , Sn that have Q.” The principle of universalizability “in its moral
application” is then deduced from the logical principle of universalizability,
and is presupposed in Gewirth’s Principle of Generic Consistency, “Act in
accord with the generic rights of your recipients as well as yourself,” which
is taken to provide an a priori determinate way of determining relevant similarities
and differences, hence of applying the principle of universalizability. The
principle of universalizability is a formal principle; universalizability in
sense 1, however, is intended to be a substantive principle of morality.
universe
of discourse: the usually limited class of individuals
under discussion, whose existence is presupposed by the discussants, and which
in some sense constitutes the ultimate subject matter of the discussion. Once
the universe of a discourse has been established, expressions such as ‘every
object’ and ‘some object’ refer respectively to every object or to some object
in the universe of discourse. The concept of universe of discourse is due to De
Morgan in 1846, but the expression was coined by Boole eight years later. When a
discussion is formalized in an interpreted standard first-order language, the
universe of discourse is taken as the “universe” of the interpretation, i.e.,
as the range of values of the variables. Quine and others have emphasized that
the universe of discourse represents an ontological commitment of the
discussants. In a discussion in a particular science, the universe of discourse
is often wider than the domain of the science, although economies of expression
can be achieved by limiting the universe of discourse to the domain.
use-mention
distinction: discussed by Grice in “Retrospective epilogue” – the
only use of a vehicle of communication is to communicate. two ways in which
terms enter into discourse used when
they refer to or assert something, mentioned when they are exhibited for
consideration of their properties as terms. If I say, “Mary is sad,” I use the
name ‘Mary’ to refer to Mary so that I can predicate of her the property of
being sad. But if I say, “ ‘Mary’ contains four letters,” I am mentioning
Mary’s name, exhibiting it in writing or speech to predicate of that term the
property of being spelled with four letters. In the first case, the sentence
occurs in what Carnap refers to as the material mode; in the second, it occurs
in the formal mode, and hence in a metalanguage a language used to talk about
another language. Single quotation marks or similar orthographic devices are
conventionally used to disambiguate mentioned from used terms. The distinction
is important because there are fallacies of reasoning based on usemention
confusions in the failure to observe the use mention distinction, especially
when the referents of terms are themselves linguistic entities. Consider the
inference: 1 Some sentences are written in English. 2 Some sentences are
written in English. Here it looks as though the argument offers a
counterexample to the claim that all arguments of the form ‘P, therefore P’ are
circular. But either 1 asserts that some sentences are written in English, or
it provides evidence in support of the conclusion in 2 by exhibiting a sentence
written in English. In the first case, the sentence is used to assert the same
truth in the premise as expressed in the conclusion, so that the argument
remains circular. In the second case, the sentence is mentioned, and although
the argument so interpreted is not circular, it is no longer strictly of the
form ‘P, therefore P’, but has the significantly different form, ‘ “P” is a
sentence written in English, therefore P’.
English
futilitarians: utilitarianism, the moral theory that an
action is morally right if and only if it produces at least as much good
utility for all people affected by the action as any alternative action the
person could do instead. Its best-known proponent is J. S. Mill, who formulated
the greatest happiness principle also called the principle of utility: always
act so as to produce the greatest happiness. Two kinds of issues have been
central in debates about whether utilitarianism is an adequate or true moral
theory: first, whether and how utilitarianism can be clearly and precisely
formulated and applied; second, whether the moral implications of
utilitarianism in particular cases are acceptable, or instead constitute
objections to it. Issues of formulation. A central issue of formulation is how
utility is to be defined and whether it can be measured in the way
utilitarianism requires. Early utilitarians often held some form of hedonism,
according to which only pleasure and the absence of pain have utility or
intrinsic value. For something to have intrinsic value is for it to be valuable
for its own sake and apart from its consequences or its relations to other
things. Something has instrumental value, on the other hand, provided it brings
about what has intrinsic value. Most utilitarians have held that hedonism is
too narrow an account of utility because there are many things that people
value intrinsically besides pleasure. Some nonhedonists define utility as
happiness, and among them there is considerable debate about the proper account
of happiness. Happiness has also been criticized as too narrow to exhaust
utility or intrinsic value; e.g., many people value accomplishments, not just
the happiness that may accompany them. Sometimes utilitarianism is understood
as the view that either pleasure or happiness has utility, while
consequentialism is understood as the broader view that morally right action is
action that maximizes the good, however the good is understood. Here, we take
utilitarianism in this broader interpretation that some philosophers reserve
for consequentialism. Most utilitarians who believe hedonism gives too narrow
an account of utility have held that utility is the satisfaction of people’s
informed preferences or desires. This view is neutral about what people desire,
and so can account for the full variety of things and experiences that
different people in fact desire or value. Finally, ideal utilitarians have held
that some things or experiences, e.g. knowledge or being autonomous, are
intrinsically valuable or good whether or not people value or prefer them or
are happier with them. Whatever account of utility a utilitarian adopts, it
must be possible to quantify or measure the good effects or consequences of
actions in order to apply the utilitarian standard of moral rightness.
Happiness utilitarianism, e.g., must calculate whether a particular action, or
instead some possible alternative, would produce more happiness for a given
person; this is called the intrapersonal utility comparison. The method of measurement
may allow cardinal utility measurements, in which numerical units of happiness
may be assigned to different actions e.g., 30 units for Jones expected from
action a, 25 units for Jones from alternative action b, or only ordinal utility
measurements may be possible, in which actions are ranked only as producing
more or less happiness than alternative actions. Since nearly all interesting
and difficult moral problems involve the happiness of more than one person,
utilitarianism requires calculating which among alternative actions produces
the greatest happiness for all people affected; this is called the
interpersonal utility comparison. Many ordinary judgments about personal action
or public policy implicitly rely on interpersonal utility comparisons; e.g.,
would a family whose members disagree be happiest overall taking its vacation
at the seashore or in the mountains? Some critics of utilitarianism doubt that
it is possible to make interpersonal utility comparisons. Another issue of
formulation is whether the utilitarian principle should be applied to
individual actions or to some form of moral rule. According to act
utilitarianism, each action’s rightness or wrongness depends on the utility it
produces in comparison with possible alternatives. Even act utilitarians agree,
however, that rules of thumb like ‘keep your promises’ can be used for the most
part in practice because following them tends to maximize utility. According to
rule utilitarianism, on the other hand, individual actions are evaluated, in
theory not just in practice, by whether they conform to a justified moral rule,
and the utilitarian standard is applied only to general rules. Some rule
utilitarians hold that actions are right provided they are permitted by rules
the general acceptance of which would maximize utility in the agent’s society,
and wrong only if they would be prohibited by such rules. There are a number of
forms of rule utilitarianism, and utilitarians disagree about whether act or
rule utilitarianism is correct. Moral implications. Most debate about
utilitarianism has focused on its moral implications. Critics have argued that
its implications sharply conflict with most people’s considered moral
judgments, and that this is a strong reason to reject utilitarianism. Proponents
have argued both that many of these conflicts disappear on a proper
understanding of utilitarianism and that the remaining conflicts should throw
the particular judgments, not utilitarianism, into doubt. One important
controversy concerns utilitarianism’s implications for distributive justice.
Utilitarianism requires, in individual actions and in public policy, maximizing
utility without regard to its distribution between different persons. Thus, it
seems to ignore individual rights, whether specific individuals morally deserve
particular benefits or burdens, and potentially to endorse great inequalities
between persons; e.g., some critics have charged that according to
utilitarianism slavery would be morally justified if its benefits to the
slaveowners sufficiently outweighed the burdens to the slaves and if it
produced more overall utility than alternative practices possible in that
society. Defenders of utilitarianism typically argue that in the real world
there is virtually always a better alternative than the action or practice that
the critic charges utilitarianism wrongly supports; e.g., no system of slavery
that has ever existed is plausibly thought to have maximized utility for the
society in question. Defenders of utilitarianism also typically try to show
that it does take account of the moral consideration the critic claims it
wrongly ignores; for instance, utilitarians commonly appeal to the declining
marginal utility of money equal marginal
increments of money tend to produce less utility e.g. happiness for persons,
the more money they already utilitarianism utilitarianism have as giving some support to equality in income
distribution. Another source of controversy concerns whether moral principles
should be agent-neutral or, in at least some cases, agent-relative.
Utilitarianism is agent-neutral in that it gives all people the same moral
aim act so as to maximize utility for
everyone whereas agent-relative
principles give different moral aims to different individuals. Defenders of
agent-relative principles note that a commonly accepted moral rule like the
prohibition of killing the innocent is understood as telling each agent that he
or she must not kill, even if doing so is the only way to prevent a still
greater number of killings by others. In this way, a non-utilitarian,
agent-relative prohibition reflects the common moral view that each person
bears special moral responsibility for what he or she does, which is greater
than his or her responsibility to prevent similar wrong actions by others.
Common moral beliefs also permit people to give special weight to their own
projects and commitments and, e.g., to favor to some extent their own children
at the expense of other children in greater need; agent-relative
responsibilities to one’s own family reflect these moral views in a way that
agent-neutral utilitarian responsibilities apparently do not. The debate over
neutrality and relativity is related to a final area of controversy about
utilitarianism. Critics charge that utilitarianism makes morality far too
demanding by requiring that one always act to maximize utility. If, e.g., one
reads a book or goes to a movie, one could nearly always be using one’s time
and resources to do more good by aiding famine relief. The critics believe that
this wrongly makes morally required what should be only supererogatory action that is good, but goes beyond “the
call of duty” and is not morally required. Here, utilitarians have often argued
that ordinary moral views are seriously mistaken and that morality can demand
greater sacrifices of one’s own interests for the benefit of others than is
commonly believed. There is little doubt that here, and in many other cases,
utilitarianism’s moral implications significantly conflict with commonsense
moral beliefs the dispute is whether
this should count against commonsense moral beliefs or against utilitarianism.
vagum: Oddly, A. C.
Ewing has a very early thing on ‘vagueness.’ Grice liked Ewing. There is an
essay on “Clarity” which relates. Cf. Price, “Clarity is not enough” Which
implicates it IS a necessity, though. Cf. “Clarity – who cares?” Some days,
Grice did not feel ‘Grecian,’ and would use very vernacular expressions. He
thought that what Cicero calls ‘vagum’ is best rendered in Oxfordshire dialect
as ‘fuzzy.’ It is not clear which of Grice’s maxim controls this. The opposite
of ‘vague’ is ‘specific.’ Grice was more concerned about this in the earlier
lectures where he has under the desideratum of conversational candour and the
principle of conversational benevolence, and the desideratum of conversational
clarity that one should be explicit, and make one’s point explicit. But under
the submaxims of the conversational category of modus (‘be perspicuous [sic]),
none seem to prohibit ‘vagueness’ as such: Avoid obscurity of expression.Avoid
ambiguity.Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).Be
orderly The one he later calls a ‘tailoring principle’ ‘frame your contribution
in way that facilitates a reply’, the ‘vagueness’ avoidance seems implicit. Cf.
fuzzy. The indeterminacy
of the field of application of an expression, in contrast to precision. For
instance, the expression “young man” is vague since the point at which its
appropriate application to a person begins and ends cannot be precisely
defined. Vagueness should be distinguished from ambiguity, by which a term has more than one
meaning. The vagueness of an expression is due to a semantic feature of the
term itself, rather than to the subjective condition of its user. Vagueness
gives rise to borderline cases, and propositions with vague terms lack a
definite truth-value. For this reason, Frege rejected the possibility of vague
concepts, although they are tolerated in recent work in vague or fuzzy logic.
Various paradoxes arise due to the vagueness of words, including the ancient
sorites paradox. It is because of its intrinsic vagueness that some
philosophers seek to replace ordinary language with an ideal language. But
ordinary language philosophers hold that this proposal creates a false promise
of eliminating vagueness. Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblance in part
is a model of meaning that tolerates vagueness. As a property of expressions,
vagueness extends to all sorts of cognitive representations. Some philosophers
hold that there can be vagueness in things as well as in the representation of
things. “A representation is vague when the relation of the representing system
to the represented system is not one–one, but one–many.” Russell, Collected
Papers of Bertrand Russell, vol. IX. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Fuzzy
impicatures, and how to unfuzz them.”
valitum: Oddly Vitters has a couple of lectures on ‘value,’ that
Grice ‘ignored.’ Valitum should be contrasted from‘validum.’ ‘Valid,’ which is
cognate with ‘value,’ a noun Grice loved, is used by logicians. In Grice’s
generalised alethic-cum-deontic logic, ‘valid’ applies, too. ‘Valid’ is
contrasted to the ‘satisfactoriness’ value that attaches directly to the
utterance. ‘Valid’ applies to the reasoning, i.e. the sequence of psychological
states from the premise to the conclusion. How common and insidious was the
talk of a realm of ‘values’ at Oxford in the early 1930s to have Barnes attack
it, and Grice defend it? ‘The realm of values’ sounds like an ordinary man’s
expression, and surely Oxford never had a Wilson Chair of Metaphysical
Axiology. validum is the correct form
out of Roman ‘valeor.’ Grice finds the need for the English equivalent, and
plays with constructing the ‘concept’ “to be of value”! There’s also the
axiologicum. The root for ‘value’ as ‘axis’ is found in Grice’s favourite book
of the Republic, the First! Grice sometimes enjoys sounding pretentious and
uses the definite article ‘the’ indiscriminately, just to tease Flew, his tutee,
who said that talking of ‘the self’ is just ‘rubbish’. It is different with
Grice’s ‘the good’ (to agathon), ‘the rational,’ (to logikon), ‘the valuable’
(valitum), and ‘the axiological’. Of course, whilesticking with ‘value,’ Grice
plays with Grecian “τιμή.” Lewis and Short have ‘vălor,’ f.
‘valeo,’ which they render as ‘value,’ adding that it is supposed to translate
in Gloss. Lab, Grecian ‘τιμή.’ ‘valor, τιμή, Gloss. Lab.’ ‘Valere,’ which of course algo gives English
‘valid,’ that Grice overuses, is said by Lewis and Short to be cognate with
“vis,” “robur,” “fortissimus,” cf. debilis” and they render as “to be strong.”
So one has to be careful here. “Axiology” is a German thing, and not used at
Clifton or Oxford, where they stick with ‘virtus’ or ‘arete.’ This or that
Graeco-Roman philosopher may have explored a generic approach to ‘value.’ Grice
somewhat dismisses Hare who in Language of Morals very clearly distinguishes
between deontic ‘ought’ and teleological, value-judgemental ‘good.’ For ‘good’
may have an aesthetic use: ‘that painting is good,’ the food is good). The
sexist ‘virtus’ of the Romans perhaps did a disservice to Grecian ‘arete,’ but
Grice hardly uses ‘arete,’ himself. It is etymologically unrelated to
‘agathon,’ yet rumour has it that ‘arete,’ qua ‘excellence,’ is ‘aristos,’ the
superlative of ‘agathon.’ Since Aristotle is into the ‘mesotes,’ Grice worries
not. Liddell and Scott have “ἀρετή” and render it simpliciter as “goodness,
excellence, of any kind,” adding that “in Hom. esp. of manly qualities”: “ποδῶν
ἀρετὴν ἀναφαίνων;” “ἀμείνων παντοίας ἀρετὰς ἠμὲν πόδας ἠδὲ μάχεσθαι καὶ νόον;”
so of the gods, “τῶν περ καὶ μείζων ἀ. τιμή τε βίη τε;” also of women, “ἀ. εἵνεκα
for valour,” “ἀ. ἀπεδείκνυντο,” “displayed brave deeds.” But when Liddell and Scott give the
philosophical references (Plathegel and Ariskant), they do render “ἀρετή,” as
‘value,’ generally,
excellence, “ἡ ἀ. τελείωσίς τις” Arist. Met. 1021b20, cf. EN1106a15, etc.; of
persons, “ἄνδρα πὺξ ἀρετὰν εὑρόντα,” “τὸ φρονεῖν ἀ. μεγίστη,” “forms of
excellence, “μυρίαι ἀνδρῶν ἀ.;” “δικαστοῦ αὕτη ἀ.;” esp. moral virtue, opp.
“κακία,” good nature, kindness, etc. We should not be so concerned about this,
were not for the fact that Grice explored Foot, not just on meta-ethics as a
‘suppositional’ imperratives, but on
‘virtue’ and ‘vice,’ by Foot, who had edited a reader in meta-ethics for the
series of Grice’s friend, Warnock. Grice
knows that when he hears the phrases value system, or belief system, he is
conversing with a relativist. So he plays jocular here. If a value is not a
concept, a value system at least is not what Davidson calls a conceptual
scheme. However, in “The conception of value” (henceforth, “Conception”) Grice
does argue that value IS a concept, and thus part of the conceptual scheme by
Quine. Hilary Putnam congratulates Grice on this in “Fact and value,” crediting
Baker – i. e. Judy – into the bargain. While utilitarianism, as exemplified by
Bentham, denies that a moral intuition need be taken literally, Bentham assumes
the axiological conceptual scheme of hedonistic eudaemonism, with eudaemonia as
the maximal value (summum bonum) understood as hedone. The idea of a system of values (cf.
system of ends) is meant to unify the goals of the agent in terms of the
pursuit of eudæmonia. Grice wants to disgress from naturalism, and the distinction between a description and anything
else. Consider the use of ‘rational’ as applied to ‘value.’ A naturalist holds
that ‘rational’ can be legitimately apply to the ‘doxastic’ realm, not to the
‘buletic’ realm. A desire (or a ‘value’) a naturalist would say is not
something of which ‘rational’ is predicable. Suppose, Grice says, I meet a
philosopher who is in the habit of pushing pins into other philosophers. Grice
asks the philosopher why he does this. The philosopher says that it gives him
pleasure. Grice asks him whether it is the fact that he causes pain that gives
him pleasure. The philosopher replies that he does not mind whether he causes
pain. What gives him pleasure is the physical sensation of driving a pin into a
philosopher’s body. Grice asks him whether he is aware that his actions cause
pain. The philosopher says that he is. Grice asks him whether he would not feel
pain if others did this to him. The philosopher agrees that he would. I ask him
whether he would allow this to happen. He says that he guesses he would seek to
prevent it. Grice asks him whether he does not think that others must feel pain
when he drives pins into them, and whether he should not do to others what he would
try to prevent them from doing to him. The philosopher says that pins driven
into him cause him pain and he wishes to prevent this. Pins driven by him into
others do not cause him pain, but pleasure, and he therefore wishes to do it.
Grice asks him whether the fact that he causes pain to other philosophers does
not seem to him to be relevant to the issue of whether it is rationally
undesirable to drive pins into people. He says that he does not see what
possible difference can pain caused to others, or the absence of it, make to
the desirability of deriving pleasure in the way that he does. Grice asks him what
it is that gives him pleasure in this particular activity. The philosopher
replies that he likes driving pins into a philosopher’s resilient body. Grice
asks whether he would derive equal pleasure from driving pins into a tennis
ball. The philosopher says that he would derive equal pleasure, that into what
he drives his pins, a philosopher or a tennis ball, makes no difference to him
– the pleasure is similar, and he is quite prepared to have a tennis ball
substituted, but what possible difference can it make whether his pins
perforate living men or tennis balls? At this point, Grice begins to suspect
that the philosopher is evil. Grice does not feel like agreeing with a
naturalist, who reasons that the pin-pushing philosopher is a philosopher with
a very different scale of moral values from Grice, that a value not being
susceptible to argument, Grice may disagree but not reason with the pin-pushing
philosopher. Grice rather sees the pin-pushing philosopher beyond the reach of
communication from the world occupied by him. Communication is as unattainable
as it is with a philosopher who that he is a doorknob, as in the story by
Hoffman. A value enters into the essence of what constitutes a person. The
pursuit of a rational end is part of the essence of a person. Grice does not
claim any originality for his position (which much to Ariskant), only validity.
The implicatum by Grice is that rationalism and axiology are incompatible, and
he wants to cancel that. So the keyword here is rationalistic axiology, in the
neo-Kantian continental vein, with a vengeance. Grice arrives at value
(validitum, optimum, deeming) via Peirce on meaning. And then there is the truth
“value,” a German loan-translation (as value judgment, Werturteil). The sorry
story of deontic logic, Grice says, faces Jørgensens dilemma. The
dilemma by Jørgensens is best seen as a trilemma, Grice says; viz. Reasoning
requires that premise and conclusion have what Boole, Peirce, and Frege call a
“truth” value. An imperative dos not have a “truth” value. There may be a
reasoning with an imperative as premise or conclusion. A philosopher can reject
the first horn and provide an inference mechanism on elements – the input of
the premise and the output of the conclusion -- which are not presupposed to
have a “truth” value. A philosopher can reject the second horn and restrict
‘satisfactory’ value to a doxastic embedding a buletic (“He judges he wills…”).
A philosopher can reject the third horn, and refuse to explore the desideratum.
Grice generalizes over value as the mode-neutral ‘satisfactory.’ Both ‘p’ and
“!p” may be satisfactory. ‘.p’ has doxastic value (0/1); ‘!p’ has buletic
value (0/1). The mode marker of the
utterance guides the addresse you as to how to read ‘satisfactory.’ Grice’s
‘satisfactory’ is a variation on a theme by Hofstadter and McKinsey, who
elaborate a syntax for the imperative mode, using satisfaction. They refer to
what they call the ‘satisfaction-function’ of a fiat. A fiat is ‘satisfied’ (as
The door is closed may also be said to be satisfied iff the door is closed) iff
what is commanded is the case. The fiat ‘Let the door be closed’ is satisfied
if the door is closed. An unary or dyadic operator becomes a
satisfaction-functor. As Grice puts it,
an inferential rule, which flat rationality is the capacity to apply,
is not arbitrary. The inferential rule picks out a transition of
acceptance in which transmission of ‘satisfactory’ is guaranteed or
expected. As Grice notes, since mode marker indicate the species ‘satisfactory’
does. He imports into the object-language ‘It
is satisfactory-d/p that’ just in case psi-d/b-p is satisfactory. Alla
Tarski, Grice introduces ‘It is acceptable that’: It is acceptable that
psi-d/b-p is satisfactory-b/d just in case ‘psi-d/b-p is satisfactory-d/b’ is
satisfactory-b/d. Grice goes on to provide a generic
value-assignment for satisfactoriness-functors. For coordinators: “φ Λ ψ” is 1-b/d just in case φ is
1-b/d and ψ is 1-b/d. “φ ν ψ” is 1-b/d just in
case one of the pair, φ and ψ, is 1-b/d. For subordinator: “φ⊃ψ” is 1-b/d just in case either
φ is 0-b/d or ψ is 0-b/d. There are, however, a number of points to
be made. It is not fully clear to Grice just how strong the motivation is for
assigning a value to a mode-neutral, generic functor. Also he is assuming
symmetry, leaving room for a functor is introduced if a restriction is imposed.
Consider a bi-modal utterance. “The beast is filthy and do not touch it” and
“The beast is filthy and I shall not touch it” seem all right. The commutated
“Do not touch the beast and it is filthy” is dubious. “Touch the beast and it
will bite you,” while idiomatic is hardly an imperative, since ‘and’ is hardly
a conjunction. “Smith is taking a bath or leave the bath-room door open” is
intelligible. The commutated “Leave the bath-room door open or Smith is taking
a bath” is less so. In a bi-modal utterance, Grice makes a case for the buletic
to be dominant over the doxastic. The crunch comes, however, with one of the
four possible unary satisfactoriness-functors, especially with regard to the
equivalence of “~psi-b/d-p” and
“psi-b/d-~p). Consider “Let it be that I now put my hand on my head” or “Let it be that my bicycle faces north” in
which neither seems to be either satisfactory or unsatisfactory. And it is a
trick to assign a satisfactory value to “~psi-b/d-p” and “~psi-b/d~p.” Do we
proscribe this or that form altogether, for every cases? But that would seem to
be a pity, since ~!~p seems to be quite promising as a representation for you
may (permissive) do alpha that satisfies p; i.e., the utterer explicitly
conveys his refusal to prohibit his addressee A doing alpha. Do we disallow
embedding of (or iterating) this or that form? But that (again if we use ~!p
and ~!~p to represent may) seems too restrictive. Again, if !p is neither
buletically satisfactory nor buletically unsatisfactory (U could care less) do
we assign a value other than 1 or 0 to !p (desideratively neuter, 0.5). Or do
we say, echoing Quine, that we have a buletically satisfactoriness value gap?
These and other such problems would require careful consideration. Yet Grice
cannot see that those problems would prove insoluble, any more than this or
that analogous problem connected with Strawsons presupposition (Dont arrest the
intruder!) are insoluble. In Strawsons case, the difficulty is not so much to
find a solution as to select the best solution from those which present
themselves. Grice takes up the topic of a calculus in connection with the
introduction rule and the elimination rule of a modal such as must. We
might hope to find, for each member of a certain family of modalities, an
introduction rule and an elimination rule which would be analogous to the rules
available for classical logical constants. Suggestions are not hard to come by.
Let us suppose that we are seeking to provide such a pair of rules for the
particular modality of necessity □. For (□,+) Grice considers the following (Grice thinks equivalent)
forms: if φ is demonstrable, □φ is
demonstrable. Provided φ is dependent on no assumptions, derive φ from □φ. For (□,-), Grice considers From □φ derive φ. It is
to be understood, of course, that the values of the syntactical variable φ
would contain either a buletic or a doxastic mode markers. Both !p and .p would
be proper substitutes for φ but p would not. Grice wonders: [W]hat should be
said of Takeuti’s conjecture (roughly) that the nature of the introduction rule
determines the character of the elimination rule? There seems to be no
particular problem about allowing an introduction rule which tells us that, if
it is established in P’s personalised system that φ, it is necessary, with
respect to P, that φ is doxastically satisfactory/establishable. The
accompanying elimination rule is, however, slightly less promising. If we
suppose such a rule to tell us that, if one is committed to the idea that it is
necessary, with respect to P, that φ, one is also committed to whatever is
expressed by φ, we shall be in trouble. For such a rule is not acceptable. φ
will be a buletic expression such as Let it be that Smith eats his hat. And my
commitment to the idea that Smiths system requires him to eat his hat does not
ipso facto involve me in accepting volitively Let Smith eat his hat. But if we
take the elimination rule rather as telling us that, if it is necessary, with
respect to X, that let X eat his hat, then let X eat his hat possesses
satisfactoriness-with-respect-to-X, the situation is easier. For this
person-relativised version of the rule seems inoffensive, even for Takeuti, we
hope. Grice, following Mackie, uses absolutism, as opposed to relativism, which denies the
rational basis to attitude ascriptions (but cf. Hare on Subjectsivism). Grice
is concerned with the absence of a thorough discussion of value by English
philosophers, other than Hare (and he is only responding to Mackie!).
Continental philosophers, by comparison, have a special discipline, axiology,
for it! Similarly, a continental-oriented tradition Grice finds in The New
World in philosophers of a pragmatist bent, such as Carus. Grice wants to
say that rationality is a value, because it is a faculty that a creature
(human) displays to adapt and survive to his changing environments. The
implicature of the title is that values have been considered in the English
philosophical tradition, almost alla Nietzsche, to belong to the realm
irrational. Grice grants that axiological implicatum rests on a PRE-rational
propension. While Grice could play with “the
good” in the New World, as a Lit. Hum. he knew he had to be slightly more
serious. The good is one of the values, but what is valuing? Would the New
Worlders understand valuing unattached to the pragmatism that defines them?
Grice starts by invoking Hume on his bright side: the concept of value, versus
the conception of value. Or rather, how the concept of value derives from the
conception of value. A distinction that would even please Aquinas
(conceptum/conceptio), and the Humeian routine. Some background for his third
Carus lecture. He tries to find out what Mackie means when he says that a value
is ultimately Subjectsive. What about inter-Subjectsive, and constructively
objective? Grice constructs absolute value out of relative value. But once a
rational pirot P (henceforth, P – Grice liked how it sounded like Locke’s
parrot) constructs value, the P assigns absolute status to rationality qua
value. The P cannot then choose not to be rational at the risk of ceasing to
exist (qua person, or essentially rationally human agent). A human, as opposed
to a person, assigns relative value to his rationality. A human is accidentally
rational. A person is necessarily so. A distinction seldom made by Aristotle
and some of his dumbest followers obsessed with the modal-free adage, Homo
rationale animal. Short and Lewis have “hūmānus” (old form: hemona humana
et hemonem hominem dicebant, Paul. ex Fest. p. 100 Müll.; cf. homo I.init.),
adj., f. “homo,” and which they render as “of or belonging to man, human.”
Grice also considers the etymology of ‘person.’ Lewis and Short have
‘persōna,’ according to Gabius Bassus
ap. Gell. 5, 7, 1 sq., f. ‘persŏno,’ “to sound through, with the second
syllable lengthened.’ Falsa est (finitio), si dicas, Equus est animal rationale:
nam est equus animal, sed irrationale, Quint.7,3,24:homo est animal rationale;
“nec si mutis finis voluptas, rationalibus quoque: quin immo ex contrario, quia
mutis, ideo non rationalibus;” “a rationali ad rationale;” “τὸ λογικόν ζῷον,”
ChrysiStoic.3.95; ἀρεταὶ λ., = διανοητικαί, oἠθικαί, Arist. EN1108b9; “λογικός,
ή, όν, (λόγος), ζῶον λόγον ἔχον NE, 1098a3-5. λόγον δὲ μόνον ἄνθρωπος ἔχει τῶν
ζῴων, man alone of all animals possesses speech, from the Politics. Grice takes
the stratification of values by Hartmann much more seriously than Barnes. Grice
plays with rational motivation. He means it seriously. The motivation is the
psychological bite, but since it is qualified by rational, it corresponds to
the higher more powerful bit of the soul, the rational soul. There are, for
Grice, the Grecians, Kantotle and Plathegel, three souls: the vegetal, the
animal, and the rational. As a matter of history, Grice reaches value (in its
guises of optimum and deeming) via his analysis of meaning by Peirce. Many notions
are value-paradeigmatic. The most important of all philosophical notions
that of rationality, presupposes objective value as one of its
motivations. For Grice, ratio can be understood cognoscendi but also
essendi, indeed volendi and fiendi, too. Rational motivation involves a ratio
cognoscendi and a ratio volendi; objective, “objectum,” and “objectus,” ūs, m.
f. “obicio,” rendered as “a casting before, a putting against, in the way, or
opposite, an opposing; or, neutr., a lying before or opposite (mostly poet. and
in postAug. prose): dare objectum parmaï, the opposing of the shield” “vestis;”
“insula portum efficit objectu laterum,” “by the opposition,” “cum terga
flumine, latera objectu paludis tegerentur;” “molis;” “regiones, quæ Tauri
montis objectu separantur;” “solem interventu lunæ occultari, lunamque terræ
objectu, the interposition,” “eademque terra objectu suo umbram noctemque
efficiat;” “al. objecta soli: hi molium objectus (i. e. moles objectas)
scandere, the projection,” transf., that which presents itself to the sight, an
object, appearance, sight, spectacle;” al. objecto; and if not categoric. This is analogous to
the overuse by Grice of psychoLOGICAL when he just means souly. It is
perhaps his use of psychological for souly that leads to take any souly concept
as a theoretical concept within a folksy psychoLOGICAL theory. Grice
considered the stratification of values, alla Hartmann, unlike Barnes, who
dismissed him in five minutes. “Some like Philippa Foot, but Hare is MY man,”
Grice would say. “Virtue” ethics was becoming all the fashion, especially
around Somerville. Hare was getting irritated by the worse offender, his
Anglo-Welsh tutee, originally with a degree from the other place, Williams.
Enough for Grice to want to lecture on value, and using Carus as an excuse!
Mackie was what Oxonians called a colonial, and a clever one! In fact, Grice
quotes from Hares contribution to a volume on Mackie. Hares and Mackies
backgrounds could not be more different. Like Grice, Hare was a Lit. Hum., and
like Grice, Hare loves the Grundlegung. But unlike Grice and Barnes, Hare would
have nothing to say about Stevenson. Philosophers in the play group of Grice
never took the critique by Ayer of emotivism seriously. Stevenson is the thing.
V. Urmson on the emotive theory of ethics, tracing it to English philosphers
like Ogden, Barnes, and Duncan-Jones. Barnes was opposing both Prichard (who
was the Whites professor of moral philosophy – and more of an interest than
Moore is, seeing that Prichard is Barness tutor at Corpus) and Hartmann. Ryle
would have nothing to do with Hartmann, but these were the days before Ryle
took over Oxford, and forbade any reference to a continental philosopher, even
worse if a “Hun.” Grice reaches the notion of value through that of meaning. If
Peirce is simplistic, Grice is not. But his ultra-sophisticated analysis ends
up being deemed to hold in this or that utterer. And deeming is valuing, as is
optimum. While Grice rarely used axiology, he should! A set of three
lectures, which are individually identified below. I love Carus! Grice was
undecided as to what his Carus lectures were be on. Grice explores meaning
under its value optimality guise in Meaning revisited. Grice thinks that a
value-paradeigmatic notion allows him to respond in a more apt way to what some
critics were raising as a possible vicious circle in his approach to semantic
and psychological notions. The Carus lectures are then dedicated to the
construction, alla Hume, of a value-paradeigmatic notion in general, and value
itself. Grice starts by quoting Austin, Hare, and Mackie, of
Oxford. The lectures are intended to a general audience, provided it is a
philosophical general audience. Most of the second lecture is a subtle
exploration by Grice of the categorical imperative of Kant, with which he had
struggled in the last Locke lecture in “Aspects,” notably the reduction of the
categorical imperative to this or that counsel of prudence with an implicated
protasis to the effect that the agent is aiming at eudæmonia. The Carus
Lectures are three: on objectivity and value, on relative and absolute value,
and on metaphysics and value. The first lecture, on objectivity and value,
is a review Inventing right and wrong by Mackie, quoting Hare’s
antipathy for a value being ‘objective’. The second lecture, on relative and
absolute value, is an exploration on the categorical imperative, and its
connection with a prior hypothetical or suppositional imperative. The
third lecture, on metaphycis and value, is an eschatological defence of
absolute value. The collective citation should be identified by each lecture
separately. This is a metaphysical defence by Grice of absolute value. The
topic fascinates Grice, and he invents a few routines to cope with it.
Humeian projection rationally reconstructs the intuitive concept being of
value. Category shift allows to put a value such as the disinterestedness
by Smith in grammatical subject position, thus avoiding to answer that the
disinterestedness of Smith is in the next room, since it is not the
spatio-temporal continuan prote ousia that Smith is. But the
most important routine is that of trans-substantatio, or metousiosis. A
human reconstructs as a rational personal being, and alla Kantotle,
whatever he judges is therefore of absolute value. The issue involves for
Grice the introduction of a telos qua aition, causa finalis (final cause),
role, or métier. The final cause of a tiger is to tigerise, the
final cause of a reasoner is to reason, the final cause of a person is to
personise. And this entails absolute value, now metaphysically defended. The
justification involves the ideas of end-setting, unweighed rationality,
autonomy, and freedom. In something like a shopping list that Grice
provides for issues on free. Attention to freedom calls for formidably
difficult undertakings including the search for a justification for the
adoption or abandonment of an ultimate end. The point is to secure that freedom
does not dissolve into compulsion or chance. Grice proposes four items for this
shopping list. A first point is that full action calls for strong freedom. Here
one has to be careful that since Grice abides by what he calls the Modified
Occams Razor in the third James lecture on Some remarks about logic and
conversation, he would not like to think of this two (strong freedom and weak
freedom) as being different senses of free. Again, his calls for is best
understood as presupposes. It may connect with, say, Kanes full-blown examples
of decisions in practical settings that call for or presuppose libertarianism. A
second point is that the buletic-doxastic justification of action has to
accomodate for the fact that we need freedom which is strong. Strong or serious
autonomy or freedom ensures that this or that action is represented as directed
to this or that end E which are is not merely the agents, but which is also
freely or autonomously adopted or pursued by the agent. Grice discusses the
case of the gym instructor commanding, Raise your left arm! The serious point
then involves this free adoption or free pursuit. Note Grices use of this or
that personal-identity pronoun: not merely mine, i.e. not merely the agents,
but in privileged-access position. This connects with what Aristotle says of
action as being up to me, and Kant’s idea of the transcendental ego. An
end is the agents in that the agent adopts it with liberum arbitrium. This
or that ground-level desire may be circumstantial. A weak autonomy or freedom
satisfactorily accounts for this or that action as directed to an end which is
mine. However, a strong autonomy or freedom, and a strong autonomy or freedom
only, accounts for this or that action as directed to an end which is mine,
but, unlike, say, some ground-level circumstantial desire which may have sprung
out of some circumstantial adaptability to a given scenario, is, first,
autonomously or freely adopted by the agent, and, second, autonomously or
freely pursued by the agent. The use of the disjunctive particle or in the
above is of some interest. An agent may autonomously or freely adopt an end,
yet not care to pursue it autonomously or freely, even in this strong
connotation that autonomous or free sometimes has. A further point relates to
causal indeterminacy. Any attempt to remedy this situation by resorting to
causal indeterminacy or chance will only infuriate the scientist without aiding
the philosopher. This remark by Grice has to be understood casually. For, as it
can be shown, this or that scientist may well have resorted to precisely that
introduction and in any case have not self-infuriated. The professional tag
that is connoted by philosopher should also be seen as best implicated than
entailed. A scientist who does resort to the introduction of causal
indeterminacy may be eo ipso be putting forward a serious consideration regarding
ethics or meta-ethics. In other words, a cursory examination of the views of a
scientist like Eddington, beloved by Grice, or this or that moral philosopher
like Kane should be born in mind when considering this third point by Grice.
The reference by Grice to chance, random, and causal indeterminacy, should best
be understood vis-à-vis Aristotles emphasis on tykhe, fatum, to the effect that
this or that event may just happen just by accident, which may well open a can
of worms for the naive Griceian, but surely not the sophisticated one (cf. his
remarks on accidentally, in Prolegomena). A further item in Grices shopping
list involves the idea of autonomous or free as a value, or optimum. The
specific character of what Grice has as strong autonomy or freedom may
well turn out to consist, Grice hopes, in the idea of this or that action as
the outcome of a certain kind of strong valuation ‒ where this would
include the rational selection, as per e.g. rational-decision theory, of this
or that ultimate end. What Grice elsewhere calls out-weighed or extrinsically
weighed rationality, where rational includes the buletic, of the end and not
the means to it. This or that full human action calls for the presence of this
or that reason, which require that this or that full human action for which
this or that reason accounts should be the outcome of a strong rational
valuation. Like a more constructivist approach, this line suggests that this or
that action may require, besides strong autonomy or freedom, now also strong
valuation. Grice sets to consider how to adapt the buletic-doxastic soul
progression to reach these goals. In the case of this or that ultimate end E,
justification should be thought of as lying, directly, at least, in this or
that outcome, not on the actual phenomenal fulfilment of this or that end, but
rather of the, perhaps noumenal, presence qua end. Grice relates to Kants views
on the benevolentia or goodwill and malevolentia, or evil will, or illwill.
Considers Smiths action of giving Jones a job. Smith may be deemed to have
given Jones a job, whether or not Jones actually gets the job. It is Smiths
benevolentia, or goodwill, not his beneficentia, that matters. Hence in Short
and Lewis, we have “bĕnĕfĭcentĭa,” f. “beneficus,” like “magnificentia” f.
magnificus, and “munificentia” f. munificus; Cicero, Off. 1, 7, 20, and which
they thus render as “the quality of beneficus, kindness, beneficence, an
honorable and kind treatment of others” (omaleficentia, Lact. Ira Dei, 1, 1;
several times in the philos. writings of Cicero. Elsewhere rare: quid
praestantius bonitate et beneficentiā?” “beneficentia, quam eandem vel
benignitatem vel liberalitatem appellari licet,” “comitas ac beneficentia,”
“uti beneficentiā adversus supplices,”“beneficentia augebat ornabatque
subjectsos.” In a more general fashion then, it is the mere presence of an end
qua end of a given action that provides the justification of the end, and not
its phenomenal satisfaction or fulfilment. Furthermore, the agents having
such and such an end, E1, or such and such a combination of ends, E1 and E2,
would be justified by showing that the agents having this end exhibits some
desirable feature, such as this or that combo being harmonious. For how can one
combine ones desire to smoke with ones desire to lead a healthy life? Harmony
is one of the six requirements by Grice for an application of happy to the life
of Smith. The buletic-doxastic souly ascription is back in business at a higher
level. The suggestion would involve an appeal, in the justification of this or
that end, to this or that higher-order end which would be realised by having
this or that lower, or first-order end of a certain sort. Such valuation of
this or that lower-order end lies within reach of a buletic-doxastic souly ascription.
Grice has an important caveat at this point. This or that higher-order end
involved in the defense would itself stand in need of justification, and the
regress might well turn out to be vicious. One is reminded of Watson’s
requirement for a thing like freedom or personal identity to overcome this or
that alleged counterexample to freewill provided by H. Frankfurt. It is
after the laying of a shopping list, as it were, and considerations such as
those above that Grice concludes his reflection with a defense of a noumenon,
complete with the inner conflict that it brings. Attention to the idea of
autonomous and free leads the philosopher to the need to resolve if not
dissolve the most important unsolved problem of philosophy, viz. how an agent
can be, at the same time, a member of both the phenomenal world and the
noumenal world, or, to settle the internal conflict between one part of our
rational nature, the doxastic, even scientific, part which seems to call for
the universal reign of a deterministic law and the other buletic part which
insists that not merely moral responsibility but every variety of rational
belief demands exemption from just such a reign. In this lecture, Grice
explores freedom and value from a privileged-access incorrigible perspective
rather than the creature construction genitorial justification. Axiology – v.
axiological. Valitum
-- Fact-value distinction, the apparently fundamental difference between how
things are and how they should be. That people obey the law or act honestly or
desire money is one thing; that they should is quite another. The first is a
matter of fact, the second a matter of value. Hume is usually credited with
drawing the distinction when he noticed that one cannot uncontroversially infer
an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ the isought gap. From the fact, say, that an action
would maximize overall happiness, we cannot legitimately infer that it ought to
be done without the introduction of some
so far suppressed evaluative premise. We could secure the inference by assuming
that one ought always to do what maximizes overall happiness. But that
assumption is evidently evaluative. And any other premise that might link the
non-evaluative premises to an evaluative conclusion would look equally
evaluative. No matter how detailed and extensive the non-evaluative premises,
it seems no evaluative conclusion follows directly and as a matter of logic.
Some have replied that at least a few non-evaluative claims do entail
evaluative ones. To take one popular example, from the fact that some promise
was made, we might it appears legitimately infer that it ought to be kept,
other things equal and this without the
introduction of an evaluative premise. Yet many argue that the inference fails,
or that the premise is actually evaluative, or that the conclusion is not. Hume
himself was both bold and brief about the gap’s significance, claiming simply
that paying attention to it “wou’d subvert all the vulgar systems of morality,
and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely
on the relations of objects, nor is perceiv’d by reason” Treatise of Human
Nature. Others have been more expansive. Moore, for instance, in effect relied
upon the gap to establish via the open question argument that any attempt to
define evaluative terms using non-evaluative ones would commit the naturalistic
fallacy. Moore’s main target was the suggestion that ‘good’ means “pleasant”
and the fallacy, in this context, is supposed to be misidentifying an
evaluative property, being good, with a natural property, being pleasant.
Assuming that evaluative terms have meaning, Moore held that some could be
defined using others he thought, e.g., that ‘right’ could be defined as
“productive of the greatest possible good” and that the rest, though meaningful,
must be indefinable terms denoting simple, non-natural, properties. Accepting
Moore’s use of the open question argument but rejecting both his non-naturalism
and his assumption that evaluative terms must have descriptive meaning,
emotivists and prescriptivists e.g. Ayer, C. L. Stevenson, and Hare argued that
evaluative terms have a role in language other than to denote properties.
According to them, the primary role of evaluative language is not to describe,
but to prescribe. The logical gap between ‘is’ and ‘ought’, they argue,
establishes both the difference between fact and value and the difference
between describing how things are and recommending how they might be. Some
naturalists, though, acknowledge the gap and yet maintain that the evaluative claims
nonetheless do refer to natural properties. In the process they deny the
ontological force of the open question argument and 302 F 302 treat evaluative claims as describing a
special class of facts. Refs.: The main source is The construction of value, the
Carus lectures, Clarendon. But there are scattered essays on value and valuing
in the Grice Papers. H. P. Grice, “Objectivity and value,” s. V, c. 8-f. 18,
“The rational motivation for objective value,” s. V, c. 8-f. 19, “Value,” s. V,
c. 9-f. 20; “Value, metaphysics, and teleology,” s. V, c. 9-f. 23, “Values,
morals, absolutes, and the metaphysical,” s. V., c. 9-f. 24; “Value sub-systems and the Kantian
problem,” s. V. c. 9-ff. 25-27; “Values and rationalism,” s. V, c. 9-f. 28;
while the Carus are in the second series, in five folders, s. II, c-2, ff.
12-16, the H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
velia -- Velia -- Grice as
Eleatic -- School, strictly, two fifth-century B.C. Grecian philosophers,
Parmenides and Zeno of Elea. The Ionian Grecian colony of Elea or Hyele in
southern Italy became Velia in Roman times and retains that name today. A
playful remark by Plato in Sophist 242d gave rise to the notion that Xenophanes
of Colophon, who was active in southern Italy and Sicily, was Parmenides’
teacher, had anticipated Parmenides’ views, and founded the Eleatic School.
Moreover, Melissus of Samos and according to some ancient sources even the
atomist philosopher Leucippus of Abdera came to be regarded as “Eleatics,” in
the sense of sharing fundamental views with Parmenides and Zeno. In the broad
and traditional use of the term, the Eleatic School characteristically holds
that “all is one” and that change and plurality are unreal. So stated, the
School’s position is represented best by Melissus.
verificatum: see ayerism. Grice would possibly NOT be
interested in verificationism had not been for Ayer ‘breaking tradition’ “and
other things” with it --. Oppoiste Christian virtuous –ism: falsificationism.
Verificationism is one of the twelve temptations Grice finds on his way to the
City of Eternal Truth. (Each one has its own entry). Oddly, Boethius was the
first verificationist. He use ‘verifico’ performatively. “When I say,
‘verifico’, I verify that what I say is true.” He didn’t mean it as a sophisma
(or Griceisma, but it was (mis-)understood as such! “When I was listing the
temptations, I thought of calling this ‘Ayerism,’ but then I changed my mind. verification
theory of meaning The theory of meaning advocated by the logical positivists
and associated with the criterion of verifiability. The latter provides a
criterion of meaningfulness for sentences, while the verification theory of
meaning specifies the nature of meaning. According to the criterion, a sentence
is cognitively meaningful if and only if it is logically possible for it to be
verified. The meaning of a sentence is its method of verification, that is, the
way in which it can be verified or falsified, particularly by experience. The
theory has been challenged because the best formulations still exclude
meaningful sentences and allow meaningless sentences. Critics also claim that
the theory is a test for meaningfulness rather than a theory of meaning proper.
Further, they claim that it fails to recognize that the interconnectedness of
language might allow a sentence that cannot itself be verified to be
meaningful. “The verification theory of meaning, which dominated the Vienna
Circle, was concerned with the meaning and meaningfulness of sentences rather
than words.” Quine, Theories and Things verificationism Philosophical method,
philosophy of science, philosophy of language A position fundamental to logical
positivism, claiming that the meaning of a statement is its method of
verification. Accordingly, apparent statements lacking a method of verification,
such as those of religion and metaphysics, are meaningless. Theoretical
expressions can be defined in terms of the experiences by means of which
assertions employing them can be verified. In the philosophy of mind,
behaviorism, which tries to reduce unobserved inner states to patterns of
behavior, turns out to be a version of verificationism. Some philosophers
require conclusive verification for a statement to be meaningful, while others
allow any positive evidence to confer meaning. There are disputes whether every
statement must be verified separately or theories can be verified as a whole
even if some of their statements cannot be individually verified. Attempts to
offer a rigorous account of verification have run into difficulties because
statements that should be excluded as meaningless nevertheless pass the test of verification and
statements that should be allowed as meaningful are excluded. “For over a
hundred years, one of the dominant tendencies in the philosophy of science has
been verificationism, that is, the doctrine that to know the meaning of a
scientific proposition . . . is to know what would be evidence for that
proposition.” Putnam, Mind, Language and Reality verisimilitude Philosophy of
science [from Latin verisimilar, like the truth] The degree of approximation or
closeness to truth of a statement or a theory. Popper defined it in terms of
the difference resulting from truth-content minus falsity-content. The
truthcontent of a statement is all of its true consequences, while the falsity-content
of a statement is all of its false consequences. The aim of science is to find
better verisimilitude. One theory has a better verisimilitude than competing
theories if it can explain the success of competing theories and can also
explain cases where the other theories fail. Popper emphasized that
verisimilitude is different from probability. Probability is the degree of
logical certainty abstracted from content, while verisimilitude is degree of
likeness to truth and combines truth and content. “This suggests that we
combine here the ideas of truth and content into one – the idea of a degree of
better (or worse) correspondence to truth or of greater (or less) likeness or
similarity to truth; or to use a term already mentioned above (in contradistinction
to probability) the idea of (degrees of ) verisimilitude.” Popper, Conjectures
and Refutations.
verum: Porphyry called the verum one of
the four transcendental, along with unum, pulchrum and bonum – Grice agreed. Grice’s
concern with the ‘verum’ is serious. If Quine is right, and logical truth
should go, so truth should go. Grice needs ‘true’ to correct a few
philosophical mistakes. It is true that Grice sees a horse as a horse, for
example. The nuances of the implicatum are of a lesser concern for Grice than
the taming of the true. The root of
Latin ‘vero’ is cognate with an idea Grice loved: that of ‘sincerity.’ The
point is more obviously realised lexically in the negative: the fallax versus
the mendax. But ‘verum’ had to do with candidum – and thus very much cognate
with the English that Grice avoided, ‘truth,’ cognate with ‘trust.’ quod
non possit ab honestate sejungi The true and simple Good which cannot be
separated from honesty, Cicero, Academica, I, 2, but also for the ontological
which one can find in Cicero’s tr. Topica, 35 of etumologia ἐτυμολογία by
veriloquium. Most contemporary hypotheses propose that verus —and the words
signifying true, vrai, vérité, G. wahr, G. Wahrheit — derive from an
Indo-European root, *wer, which would retain meanings of to please, pleasing,
manifesting benevolence, gifts, services rendered, fidelity, pact. Chantraine
Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque links it to the Homeric
expression êra pherein ἦϱα φέϱειν, to please, as well as to ἐπίηϱα, ἐπίηϱος, and
ἐπιήϱανος, agreeable Odyssey, 19, 343, just like the Roman verus cf. se-vere,
without benevolence, the G. war, and the
Russian vera, faith, or verit’ верить, to believe. Pokorny adds to this same
theme the Grecian ἑοϱτή, religious feast, cult. And from the same basis have
come terms signifying guarantee, protect: Fr.
garir and later garant, G.
Gewähren, Eng. warrant, to grant. According to Chantraine, this root
*wer should be distinguished from another root ver-, whence eirô εἴϱω in
Grecian , verbum in Roman word in English, etc., and words from the family of
vereor, revereor, to fear, to respect, verecundia respectful fear. According to
Chantraine, this root *wer should be distinguished from another root ver-,
whence eirô εἴϱω in Grecian , verbum in Roman word in English, etc., and words
from the family of vereor, revereor, to fear, to respect, verecundia respectful
fear. Alfred Ernout does not support this separation. We should recall that
plays on the words verum and verbum were common, as Augustine mentions verbum =
verum boare, proclaiming the truth, Dialectics 1. P. Florensky, following G.
Curtius, “Grundzüge der griechischen Etymologie,” also claims a single root for
the ensemble of these derivations, including the Sanskrit vratum, sacred act,
vow, promise, the Grecian bretas βϱέτας, cult object, wooden idol Aeschylus,
Eumenides, v. 258, and the Roman “ver-bum.” The signification of verus must be
considered as belonging first to the field of religious ritual and subsequently
of juridical formulas: strictly speaking, verus means protected or grounded in
the sense of that which is the object of a taboo or consecration Pillar and
Ground. Then there’s from the juridical to the philosophical. “Verum” implies a
rectification of an adversarial allegation considered to be fraudulent, as is
indicated by the original opposition verax/fallax-mendax. It thus signifies the
properly founded in fact or in the rules of law: crimen verissimum a
well-founded accusation Cicero, In Verrem, 5, 15. In texts of grammar and rhetoric,
but also in juridical texts as well, verus and veritas signify the veracity of
the rule, inasmuch as it can be distinguished from usage. “Quid verum sit
intellego; sed alias ita loquor ut concessum est I know what is correct, but
sometimes I avail myself of the variation in usage, Cicero, De oratore, Loeb
Classical Library; Consule veritatem: reprehendet; refer ad auris: probabunt If
you consult the strict rule of analogy, it will say this practice is wrong, but
if you consult the ear, it will approve 1586. The juridical connotation of the
word verus and thus of veritas is retained and subsequently reinforced. In the
glosses of the Middle Ages, verus signifies legitimate and the Roman sense of
the word, legal and authentic or conforming to existing law. One normally finds
“verum est” in legal texts to certify that a new rule conforms to preexisting
ones Digest, 8, 4, 1. It is this juridical dimension that produces the meaning
of verus as authenticated, authentic in contrast to false, imitative, deceiving
and thus real as in real cream or a genuine Rolex watch. The juridical here provides a foundation not
only for the moral Verum et simplex bonum. The paradigm of “verum” is not easy
to separate from any epistemological dimensions, as is evident in the varied
fates of the Indo-European root *wer, from which derives, in addition to vera
in Russian, belief, the old Fr. garir,
in the sense of certifying as true, designating as true, whence the participle
garant. The evolution of these derived words inscribes G. “wahr,” and “Wahrheit”
in a semantic network from which emerge two directions, belief and salvation.
Belief. “Wahr” is often linked back, in composite words, to the idea of belief,
in the sense of true belief, to take as true. “Wahrsagen,” to predict, “wahr
haben,” to admit, agree upon, “für wahr halten,” to hold as true, to believe.
This is the term that Kant employs in the Critique of Pure Reason,
Transcendental theory of method, ch.2, 3 On Opinion, Science, and Belief: “das
Fürwahrhalten” is a belief, as a modality of subjectivity, that can be divided
into conviction Überzeugung or persuasion Überredung and that is capable of
three degrees: opinion Meinung, belief Glaube, and science Wissenschaft.
Safeguarding, conservation. Similarly “wahren,” “bewahren” in the sense of to
guard, to conserve is linked to “Wahrung” in the sense of defending one’s
interests or safeguarding. One might refer to Heidegger’s use of this
etymological and semantic relation in reference to Nietzsche. It remains to be
said that many common or colloquial expressions, in Fr. as well as in English, play on the semantic
slippages of vrai and real, between the ontological sense and linguistic
meanings. Thus in Fr. , c’est pas vrai! does not mean it is false, but rather
that it is not reality. In English, the opposite is the case: get real! means
come back down to earth, accept the truth. Grice’s main manoeuvre may be seen as intended to crack the
crib of reality. For he wants to say some philosophers engaged in conceptual
analysis are misled if they think an inappropriate usage reveals a
truth-condition. By coining ‘implicature,’ his point is to give room for
“Emissor E communicates that p,” as opposed to ‘emissum x ‘means’ ‘p.’
Therefore, Grice can claim that an utterance may very well totally baffling and
misleading YET TRUE (or otherwise ‘good’), and that in no way that reveals
anything about the emissum itself. This is due to the fact that ‘Emissor E
communicates that p’ is diaphanous. And one can conjoin what the emissor E communicates
to what he explicitly conveys and NOT HAVE the emissor contradicting himself or
uttering a falsehood. And that is what in philosophy should count. H. P. Grice
was always happy with a ‘correspondence’ theory of truth. It was what Aristotle
thought. So why change? The fact that Austin agreed helped. The fact that
Strawson applied Austin’s shining new tool of the performatory had him fashion
a new shining skid, and that helped, because, once Grice has identified a
philosophical mistake, that justifies his role as methodologist in trying to
‘correct’ the mistake. The Old Romans did not have an article. For them it is
the unum, the verum, the bonum, and the pulchrum. They were trying to translate
the very articled Grecian ‘to alethes,’ ‘to agathon,’ and ‘to kallon.’ Grecian
Grice is able to restore the articles. He would use ‘the alethic’ for the
‘verum,’ after von Wright. But occasionally uses the ‘verum’ root. E. g. when
his account of ‘personal identity’ was seen to fail to distinguish between a
‘veridical’ memory and a non-veridical one. If it had not been for Strawson’s
‘ditto’ theory to the ‘verum,’ Grice would not have minded much. Like Austin,
his inclination was for a ‘correspondence’ theory of truth alla Aristotle and
Tarski, applied to the utterance, or ‘expressum.’ So, while we cannot say that
an utterer is TRUE, we can say that he is TRUTHFUL, and trustworthy
(Anglo-Saxon ‘trust,’ being cognate with ‘true,’ and covering both the
credibility and desirability realms. Grice approaches the ‘verum’ in terms of
predicate calculus. So we need at least an utterance of the form, ‘the dog is
shaggy.’ An utterance of ‘The dog is shaggy’ is true iff the denotatum of ‘the
dog’ is a member of the class ‘shaggy.’ So, when it comes to ‘verum,’ Grice
feels like ‘solving’ a problem rather than looking for new ones. He thought
that Strawson’s controversial ‘ditto’ was enough of a problem ‘to get rid of.’ VERUM.
Along with verum, comes the falsum. fallibilism, the doctrine, relative to some
significant class of beliefs or propositions, that they are inherently
uncertain and possibly mistaken. The most extreme form of the doctrine
attributes uncertainty to every belief; more restricted forms attribute it to
all empirical beliefs or to beliefs concerning the past, the future, other
minds, or the external world. Most contemporary philosophers reject the
doctrine in its extreme form, holding that beliefs about such things as
elementary logical principles and the character of one’s current feelings
cannot possibly be mistaken. Philosophers who reject fallibilism in some form
generally insist that certain beliefs are analytically true, self-evident, or
intuitively obvious. These means of supporting the infallibility of faculty
psychology fallibilism 303 303 some
beliefs are now generally discredited. W. V. Quine has cast serious doubt on
the very notion of analytic truth, and the appeal to self-evidence or intuitive
obviousness is open to the charge that those who officially accept it do not
always agree on what is thus evident or obvious there is no objective way of
identifying it, and that beliefs said to be self-evident have sometimes been
proved false, the causal principle and the axiom of abstraction in set theory
being striking examples. In addition to emphasizing the evolution of logical
and mathematical principles, fallibilists have supported their position mainly
by arguing that the existence and nature of mind-independent objects can
legitimately be ascertained only be experimental methods and that such methods
can yield conclusions that are, at best, probable rather than certain. false
consciousness, 1 lack of clear awareness of the source and significance of
one’s beliefs and attitudes concerning society, religion, or values; 2
objectionable forms of ignorance and false belief; 3 dishonest forms of
self-deception. Marxists if not Marx use the expression to explain and condemn
illusions generated by unfair economic relationships. Thus, workers who are
unaware of their alienation, and “happy homemakers” who only dimly sense their
dependency and quiet desperation, are molded in their attitudes by economic
power relationships that make the status quo seem natural, thereby eclipsing
their long-term best interests. Again, religion is construed as an economically
driven ideology that functions as an “opiate” blocking clear awareness of human
needs. Collingwood interprets false consciousness as self-corrupting
untruthfulness in disowning one’s emotions and ideas The Principles of Art,
8. . false pleasure, pleasure taken in something
false. If it is false that Jones is honest, but Smith believes Jones is honest
and is pleased that Jones is honest, then Smith’s pleasure is false. If
pleasure is construed as an intentional attitude, then the truth or falsity of
a pleasure is a function of whether its intentional object obtains. On this
view, S’s being pleased that p is a true pleasure if an only if S is pleased
that p and p is true. S’s being pleased that p is a false pleasure if and only
if S is pleased that p and p is false. Alternatively, Plato uses the expression
‘false pleasure’ to refer to things such as the cessation of pain or neutral
states that are neither pleasant nor painful that a subject confuses with
genuine or true pleasures. Thus, being released from tight shackles might
mistakenly be thought pleasant when it is merely the cessation of a pain. Refs: Grice, “Rationality and
Trust,” Grice, “The alethic.” “P. F. Strawson and the performatory account of
‘true’”, The Grice Papers.
vico -- Danesi,
Marcel. Vico, Metaphor, and the
Origin of Language. Bloomington: Indiana. Serious scholars of Vico as well as
glottogeneticists will find much of value in this excellent monograph. Vico
Studies. A provocative, well-researched argument which might find reapplication
in philosophy." —Theological Book Review. Danesi returns to Vico to create a
persuasive, original account of the evolution and development of language, one
of the deep mysteries of human existence. The Vico’s reconstruction of the
origin of language is described at length, then evaluated in light of Grice’s
philosophical conversational pragmatics. Glottogenesis Vico’s Reconstruction. The
New Science Basic Notions. Language and the Imagination: Vito’s Glottogenetic
Scenario Vico’s Approach Reconstructing the Primal Scene After the Primal
Scence. The Dawn of Communication: Iconicity and Mimesis Hypotheses The Nature
of Iconicity. Imagery, Iconicity, and Gesture. Iconic Representation. Osmosis Hypothesis
Ontogenesis From Percepts to Concepts The Metaphoricity Metaphor Metaphor and
Concept-Formation Mentation, Narrativity, and Myth The Sociobiological-Computationist Viewpoint:A
Vichian Critique The Vichian Scenario Revisited Revisting the Genetic
Perspective computationism.
vis: When in a Latinate mood, Grice would refer to a ‘vis’ of
an expression. Apparently, ‘vis’ is cognate with ‘validum,’ transf.,
of abstr. things, force, notion, meaning, sense, import, nature, essence (cf.
significatio): “id, in quo est omnis vis amicitiae,” Cic. Lael. 4, 15: “eloquentiae vis et natura,” id. Or. 31, 112: “vis honesti (with natura),” id. Off. 1, 6, 18; cf. id. Fin. 1, 16, 50: “virtutis,” id. Fam. 9, 16, 5: “quae est alia vis legis?” id. Dom. 20, 53: “vis, natura, genera verborum et simplicium et copulatorum,” i.e. the sense, signification, id. Or. 32, 115: “vis verbi,” id. Inv. 1, 13, 17; id. Balb. 8, 21: “quae vis insit in his paucis verbis, si attendes, si attendes, intelleges,” id. Fam. 6, 2, 3: “quae vis subjecta sit vocibus,” id. Fin. 2, 2, 6: “nominis,” id. Top. 8, 35: μετωνυμία,
cujus vis est, pro eo, quod dicitur, causam, propter quam dicitur,
ponere, Quint. 8, 6, 23.
vagum –
Oddly, Grice does not have a conversational, ‘be precise,’; but he did. In his
earlier desideratum of conversational clarity, the point was to make your point
precise – rather than fuzzy -- vagueness, a property of an expression in virtue
of which it can give rise to a “borderline case.” A borderline case is a
situation in which the application of a particular expression to a name of a
particular object does not generate an expression with a definite truth-value;
i.e., the piece of language in question neither unequivocally applies to the object
nor fails to apply. Although such a formulation leaves it open what the pieces
of language might be whole sentences, individual words, names or singular
terms, predicates or general terms, most discussions have focused on vague
general terms and have considered other types of terms to be nonvague.
Exceptions to this have called attention to the possibility of vague objects,
thereby rendering vague the designation relation for singular terms. The
formulation also leaves open the possible causes for the expression’s lacking a
definite truth-value. If this indeterminacy is due to there being insufficient
information available to determine applicability or non-applicability of the
term i.e., we are convinced the term either does or does not apply, but we just
do not have enough information to determine which, then this is sometimes
called epistemic vagueness. It is somewhat misleading to call this vagueness,
for unlike true vagueness, this epistemic vagueness disappears if more
information is brought into the situation. ‘There are between 1.89 $ 106 and
1.9 $ 106 stars in the sky’ is epistemically vague but is not vague in the
generally accepted sense of the term. ’Vagueness’ may also be used to
characterize non-linguistic items such as concepts, memories, and objects, as
well as such semilinguistic items as statements and propositions. Many of the
issues involved in discussing the topic of vagueness impinge upon other
philosophical topics, such as the existence of truth-value gaps declarative sentences that are neither true
nor false and the plausibility of
many-valued logic. There are other related issues such as the nature of
propositions and whether they must be either true or false. We focus here on
linguistic vagueness, as it manifests itself with general terms; for it is this
sort of indeterminacy that defines what most researchers call vagueness, and
which has led the push in some schools of thought to “eliminate vagueness” or
to construct languages that do not manifest vagueness. Linguistic vagueness is
sometimes confused with other linguistic phenomena: generality, ambiguity, and
open texture. Statements can be general ‘Some wheelbarrows are red’, ‘All
insects have antennae’ and if there is no other vagueness infecting them, they
are true or false and not borderline or
vague. Terms can be general ‘person’, ‘dog’ without being vague. Those general
terms apply to many different objects but are not therefore vague; and
furthermore, the fact that they apply to different kinds of objects ‘person’
applies to both men and women also does not show them to be vague or ambiguous.
A vague term admits of borderline cases
a completely determinate situation in which there just is no correct
answer as to whether the term applies to a certain object or not and this is not the case with generality.
Ambiguous linguistic items, including structurally ambiguous sentences, also do
not have this feature unless they also contain vague terms. Rather, an
ambiguous sentence allows there to be a completely determinate situation in
which one can simultaneously correctly affirm the sentence and also deny the
sentence, depending on which of the claims allowed by the ambiguities is being
affirmed or denied. Terms are considered open-textured if they are precise
along some dimensions of their meaning but where other possible dimensions
simply have not been considered. It would therefore not be clear what the
applicability of the term would be were objects to vary along these other
dimensions. Although related to vagueness, open texture is a different notion.
Friedrich Waismann, who coined the term, put it this way: “Open texture . . .
is something like the possibility of vagueness.” Vagueness has long been an
irritant to philosophers of logic and language. Among the oldest of the puzzles
associated with vagueness is the sorites ‘heap’ paradox reported by Cicero
Academica 93: One grain of sand does not make a heap, and adding a grain of
sand to something that is not a heap will not create a heap; there945 V 945 fore there are no heaps. This type of
paradox is traditionally attributed to Zeno of Elea, who said that a single
millet seed makes no sound when it falls, so a basket of millet seeds cannot
make a sound when it is dumped. The term ‘sorites’ is also applied to the
entire series of paradoxes that have this form, such as the falakros ‘bald
man’, Diogenes Laertius, Grammatica II, 1, 45: A man with no hairs is bald, and
adding one hair to a bald man results in a bald man; therefore all men are
bald. The original version of these sorites paradoxes is attributed to
Eubulides Diogenes Laertius II, 108: “Isn’t it true that two are few? and also
three, and also four, and so on until ten? But since two are few, ten are also
few.” The linchpin in all these paradoxes is the analysis of vagueness in terms
of some underlying continuum along which an imperceptible or unimportant change
occurs. Almost all modern accounts of the logic of vagueness have assumed this
to be the correct analysis of vagueness, and have geared their logics to deal
with such vagueness. But we will see below that there are other kinds of
vagueness too. The search for a solution to the sorites-type paradoxes has been
the stimulus for much research into alternative semantics. Some philosophers,
e.g. Frege, view vagueness as a pervasive defect of natural language and urge
the adoption of an artificial language in which each predicate is completely
precise, without borderline cases. Russell too thought vagueness thoroughly
infected natural language, but thought it unavoidable and indeed beneficial for ordinary usage and discourse. Despite the
occasional argument that vagueness is pragmatic rather than a semantic
phenomenon, the attitude that vagueness is inextricably bound to natural language
together with the philosophical logician’s self-ascribed task of formalizing
natural language semantics has led modern writers to the exploration of
alternative logics that might adequately characterize vagueness i.e., that would account for our pretheoretic
beliefs concerning truth, falsity, necessary truth, validity, etc., of
sentences containing vague predicates. Some recent writers have also argued
that vague language undermines realism, and that it shows our concepts to be
“incoherent.” Long ago it was seen that the attempt to introduce a third
truth-value, indeterminate, solved nothing
replacing, as it were, the sharp cutoff between a predicate’s applying
and not applying with two sharp cutoffs. Similar remarks could be made against
the adoption of any finitely manyvalued logic as a characterization of
vagueness. In the late 0s and early 0s, fuzzy logic was introduced into the
philosophic world. Actually a restatement of the Tarski-Lukasiewicz
infinitevalued logics of the 0s, one of the side benefits of fuzzy logics was
claimed to be an adequate logic for vagueness. In contrast to classical logic,
in which there are two truth-values true and false, in fuzzy logic a sentence
is allowed to take any real number between 0 and 1 as a truthvalue.
Intuitively, the closer to 1 the value is, the “more true” the sentence is. The
value of a negated sentence is 1 minus the value of the unnegated sentence;
conjuction is viewed as a minimum function and disjunction as a maximum
function. Thus, a conjunction takes the value of the “least true” conjunct,
while a disjunction takes the value of the “most true” disjunct. Since vague
sentences are maximally neither true nor false, they will be valued at
approximately 0.5. It follows that if F is maximally vague, so is the negation
-F; and so are the conjunction F & -F and the disjunction ~F 7 -F. Some
theorists object to these results, but defenders of fuzzy logic have argued in
favor of them. Other theorists have attempted to capture the elusive logic of
vagueness by employing modal logic, having the operators AF meaning ‘F is
definite’ and B F meaning ‘F is vague’. The logic generated in this way is
peculiar in that A F & YPAF & AY is not a theorem. E.g., p & -p is
definitely false, hence definite; hence A p & -p. Yet neither p nor -p need
be definite. Technically, it is a non-Kripke-normal modal logic. Some other
peculiarities are that AF Q A -F is a theorem, and that AFPBF is not. There are
also puzzles about whether B FP ABF should be a theorem, and about iterated
modalities in general. Modal logic treatments of vagueness have not attracted
many advocates, except as a portion of a general epistemic logic i.e., modal
logics might be seen as an account of so-called epistemic vagueness. A third
direction that has been advocated as a logical account of vagueness has been
the method of supervaluations sometimes called “supertruth”. The underlying
idea here is to allow the vague predicate in a sentence to be “precisified” in
an arbitrary manner. Thus, for the sentence ‘Friar Tuck is bald’, we
arbitrarily choose a precise number of hairs on the head that will demarcate
the bald/not-bald border. In this valuation Friar Tuck is either definitely
bald or definitely not bald, and the sentence either is true or is false. Next,
we alter the valuation so that there is some other bald/not-bald
bordervagueness vagueness 946 946 line,
etc. A sentence true in all such valuations is deemed “really true” or
“supertrue”; one false in all such valuations is “really false” or
“superfalse.” All others are vague. Note that, in this conception of vagueness,
if F is vague, so is -F. However, unlike fuzzy logic ‘F & -F’ is not
evaluated as vague it is false in every
valuation and hence is superfalse. And ‘F 7 -F’ is supertrue. These are seen by
some as positive features of the method of supervaluations, and as an argument
against the whole fuzzy logic enterprise. In fact there seem to be at least two
distinct types of linguistic vagueness, and it is not at all clear that any of
the previously mentioned logic approaches can deal with both. Without going
into the details, we can just point out that the “sorites vagueness” discussed
above presumes an ordering on a continuous underlying scale; and it is the
indistinguishability of adjacent points on this scale that gives rise to
borderline cases. But there are examples of vague terms for which there is no
such scale. A classic example is ‘religion’: there are a number of factors
relevant to determining whether a social practice is a religion. Having none of
these properties guarantees failing to be a religion, and having all of them
guarantees being one. However, there is no continuum of the sorites variety
here; for example, it is easy to distinguish possessing four from possessing
five of the properties, unlike the sorites case where such a change is
imperceptible. In the present type of vagueness, although we can tell these
different cases apart, we just do not know whether to call the practice a
religion or not. Furthermore, some of the properties or combinations of
properties are more important or salient in determining whether the practice is
a religion than are other properties or combinations. We might call this family
resemblance vagueness: there are a number of clearly distinguishable conditions
of varying degrees of importance, and family resemblance vagueness is
attributed to there being no definite answer to the question, How many of which
conditions are necessary for the term to apply? Other examples of family
resemblance vagueness are ‘schizophrenia sufferer’, ‘sexual perversion’, and
the venerable ‘game’. A special subclass of family resemblance vagueness occurs
when there are pairs of underlying properties that normally co-occur, but
occasionally apply to different objects. Consider, e.g., ‘tributary’. When two
rivers meet, one is usually considered a tributary of the other. Among the
properties relevant to being a tributary rather than the main river are:
relative volume of water and relative length. Normally, the shorter of the two
rivers has a lesser volume, and in that case it is the tributary of the other.
But occasionally the two properties do not co-occur and then there is a
conflict, giving rise to a kind of vagueness we might call conflict vagueness.
The term ‘tributary’ is vague because its background conditions admit of such
conflicts: there are borderline cases when these two properties apply to
different objects. To conclude: the fundamental philosophical problems
involving vagueness are 1 to give an adequate characterization of what the
phenomenon is, and 2 to characterize our ability to reason with these terms.
These were the problems for the ancient philosophers, and they remain the
problems for modern philosophers.
vaihinger:
Grice once gave a seminar on Vaihinger – “but thinking it would not attract
that many, I titled it ‘As if.’” – H. P. Grice. philosopher best known for Die
Philosophie des Als Ob; tr. by C. K. Ogden as The Philosophy of “As If” in 4. A
neo-Kantian, he was also influenced by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. His
commentary on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason 2 vols., 1 is still a standard
work. Vaihinger was a cofounder of both the Kant Society and Kant-Studien. The
“philosophy of the as if” involves the claim that values and ideals amount only
to “fictions” that serve “life” even if they are irrational. We must act “as
if” they were true because they have biological utility.
valentinianism:
a form of Christian gnosticism of Alexandrian origin, founded by Valentinus in
the second century and propagated by Theodotus in Eastern, and Heracleon in
Western, Christianity. To every gnostic, pagan or Christian, knowledge leads to
salvation from the perishable, material world. Valentinianism therefore
prompted famous refutations by Tertullian Adversus Valentinianos and Irenaeus
Adversus haereses. The latter accused the Valentinians of maintaining “creatio
ex nihilo.” Valentinus is believed to have authored the Peri trion phuseon, the
Evangelium veritatis, and the Treatise on the Resurrection. Since only a few
fragments of these remain, his Neoplatonic cosmogony is accessible mainly
through his opponents and critics Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria and in the
Nag Hammadi codices. To explain the origins of creation and of evil, Valentinus
separated God primal Father from the Creator Demiurge and attributed the cruVaihinger,
Hans Valentinianism 947 947 cial role
in the processes of emanation and redemption to Sophia.
valentinus: gnostic
teacher. He was born in Alexandria, where he taught until he moved to Rome in
135. A dualist, he constructed an elaborate cosmology in which God the Father
Bythos, or Deep Unknown unites the the feminine Silence Sige and in the
overflow of love produces thirty successive divine emanations or aeons
constituting the Pleroma fullness of the Godhead. Each emanation is arranged
hierarchically with a graded existence, becoming progressively further removed
from the Father and hence less divine. The lowest emanation, Sophia wisdom,
yields to passion and seeks to reach, beyond her ability, to the Father, which
causes her fall. In the process, she causes the creation of the material
universe wherein resides evil and the loss of divine sparks from the Pleroma.
The divine elements are embodied in those humans who are the elect. Jesus
Christ is an aeon close to the Father and is sent to retrieve the souls into
the heavenly Pleroma. Valentinus wrote a gospel. His sect stood out in the
early church for ordaining women priests and prophetesses.
valla:
l. humanist and historian who taught rhetoric in Pavia and was later secretary
of King Alfonso I of Aragona in Naples, and apostolic secretary in Rome under
Pope Nicholas V. In his dialogue On Pleasure or On the True Good 143134, Stoic
and Epicurean interlocutors present their ethical views, which Valla proceeds
to criticize from a Christian point of view. This work is often regarded as a
defense of Epicurean hedonism, because Valla equates the good with pleasure;
but he claims that Christians can find pleasure only in heaven. His description
of the Christian pleasures reflects the contemporary Renaissance attitude
toward the joys of life and might have contributed to Valla’s reputation for
hedonism. In the later work, On Free Will between 1435 and 1448, Valla
discusses the conflict between divine foreknowledge and human freedom and
rejects Boethius’s then predominantly accepted solution. Valla distinguishes
between God’s knowledge and God’s will, but denies that there is a rational
solution of the apparent conflict between God’s will and human freedom. As a
historian, he is famous for The Donation of Constantine 1440, which denounces
as spurious the famous document on which medieval jurists and theologians based
the papal rights to secular power.
valitum: value,
the worth of something. Philosophers have discerned these main forms:
intrinsic, instrumental, inherent, and relational value. Intrinsic value may be
taken as basic and many of the others defined in terms of it. Among the many
attempts to explicate the concept of intrinsic value, some deal primarily with
the source of value, while others employ the concept of the “fittingness” or
“appropriateness” to it of certain kinds of emotions and desires. The first is
favored by Moore and the second by Brentano. Proponents of the first view hold
that the intrinsic value of X is the value that X has solely in virtue of its
intrinsic nature. Thus, the state of affairs, Smith’s experiencing pleasure,
has intrinsic value provided it has value solely in virtue of its intrinsic
nature. Followers of the second approach explicate intrinsic value in terms of
the sorts of emotions and desires appropriate to a thing “in and for itself” or
“for its own sake”. Thus, one might say X has intrinsic value or is
intrinsically good if and only if X is worthy of desire in and for itself, or,
alternatively, it is fitting or appropriate for anyone to favor X in and for
itself. Thus, the state of affairs of Smith’s experiencing pleasure is
intrinsically valuable provided that state of affairs is worthy of desire for
its own sake, or it is fitting for anyone to favor that state of affairs in and
for itself. Concerning the other forms of value, we may say that X has
instrumental value if and only if it is a means to, or causally contributes to,
something that is intrinsically valuable. If Smith’s experiencing pleasure is
intrinsically valuable and his taking a warm bath is a means to, or Valentinus
value 948 948 causally contributes to,
his being pleased, then his taking a warm bath is instrumentally valuable or
“valuable as a means.” Similarly, if health is intrinsically valuable and exercise
is a means to health, then exercise is instrumentally valuable. X has inherent
value if and only if the experience, awareness, or contemplation of X is
intrinsically valuable. If the experience of a beautiful sunset is
intrinsically valuable, then the beautiful sunset has inherent value. X has
contributory value if and only if X contributes to the value of some whole, W,
of which it is a part. If W is a whole that consists of the facts that Smith is
pleased and Brown is pleased, then the fact that Smith is pleased contributes
to the value of W, and Smith’s being pleased has contributory value. Our
example illustrates that something can have contributory value without having
instrumental value, for the fact that Smith is pleased is not a means to W and,
strictly speaking, it does not bring about or causally contribute to W. Given
the distinction between instrumental and contributory value, we may say that
certain sorts of experiences and activities can have contributory value if they
are part of an intrinsically valuable life and contribute to its value, even
though they are not means to it. Finally, we may say that X has relational
value if and only if X has value in virtue of bearing some relation to
something else. Instrumental, inherent, and contributory value may be construed
as forms of relational value. But there are other forms of relational value one
might accept, e.g. one might hold that X is valuable for S in virtue of being
desired by S or being such that S would desire X were S “fully informed” and
“rational.” Some philosophers defend the organicity of intrinsic value. Moore,
for example, held that the intrinsic value of a whole is not necessarily equal
to the sum of the intrinsic values of its parts. According to this view, the
presence of an intrinsically good part might lower the intrinsic value of a
whole of which it is a part and the presence of an intrinsically bad part might
raise the intrinsic value of a whole to which it belongs. Defenders of
organicity sometimes point to examples of Mitfreude taking joy or pleasure in
another’s joy and Schadenfreude taking joy or pleasure in another’s suffering
to illustrate their view. Suppose Jones believes incorrectly that Smith is
happy and Brown believes incorrectly that Gray is suffering, but Jones is
pleased that Smith is happy and Brown is pleased that Gray is suffering. The
former instance of Mitfreude seems intrinsically better than the latter
instance of Schadenfreude even though they are both instances of pleasure and
neither whole has an intrinsically bad part. The value of each whole is not a
“mere sum” of the values of its parts. Valitum
-- axiology: value theory, also called axiology, the branch of philosophy
concerned with the nature of value and with what kinds of things have value.
Construed very broadly, value theory is concerned with all forms of value, such
as the aesthetic values of beauty and ugliness, the ethical values of right,
wrong, obligation, virtue, and vice, and the epistemic values of justification
and lack of justification. Understood more narrowly, value theory is concerned
with what is intrinsically valuable or ultimately worthwhile and desirable for
its own sake and with the related concepts of instrumental, inherent, and
contributive value. When construed very broadly, the study of ethics may be
taken as a branch of value theory, but understood more narrowly value theory
may be taken as a branch of ethics. In its more narrow form, one of the chief
questions of the theory of value is, What is desirable for its own sake? One
traditional sort of answer is hedonism. Hedonism is roughly the view that i the
only intrinsically good experiences or states of affairs are those containing
pleasure, and the only instrinsically bad experiences or states of affairs are
those containing pain; ii all experiences or states of affairs that contain
more pleasure than pain are intrinsically good and all experiences or states of
affairs that contain more pain than pleasure are intrinsically bad; and iii any
experience or state of affairs that is intrinsically good is so in virtue of
being pleasant or containing pleasure and any experience or state of affairs
that is intrinsically bad is so in virtue of being painful or involving pain.
Hedonism has been defended by philosophers such as Epicurus, Bentham, Sidgwick,
and, with significant qualifications, J. S. Mill. Other philosophers, such as
C. I. Lewis, and, perhaps, Brand Blanshard, have held that what is
intrinsically or ultimately desirable are experiences that exhibit
“satisfactoriness,” where being pleasant is but one form of being satisfying.
Other philosophers have recognized a plurality of things other than pleasure or
satisfaction as having intrinsic value. Among the value pluralists are Moore,
Rashdall, Ross, Brentano, Hartmann, and Scheler. In addition to certain kinds
of pleasures, these thinkers count some or all of the following as
intrinsically good: consciousness and the flourishing of life, knowledge and
insight, moral virtue and virtuous actions, friendship and mutual affection,
beauty and aesthetic experience, a just distribution of goods, and
self-expression. Many, if not all, of the philosophers mentioned above
distinguish between what has value or is desirable for its own sake and what is
instrumentally valuable. Furthermore, they hold that what is desirable for its
own sake or intrinsically good has a value not dependent on anyone’s having an
interest in it. Both of these claims have been challenged by other value
theorists. Dewey, for example, criticizes any sharp distinction between what is
intrinsically good or good as an end and what is good as a means on the ground
that we adopt and abandon ends to the extent that they serve as means to the
resolution of conflicting impulses and desires. Perry denies that anything can
have value without being an object of interest. Indeed, Perry claims that ‘X is
valuable’ means ‘Interest is taken in X’ and that it is a subject’s interest in
a thing that confers value on it. Insofar as he holds that the value of a thing
is dependent upon a subject’s interest in that thing, Perry’s value theory is a
subjective theory and contrasts sharply with objective theories holding that
some things have value not dependent on a subject’s interests or attitudes.
Some philosophers, dissatisfied with the view that value depends on a subject’s
actual interests and theories, have proposed various alternatives, including
theories holding that the value of a thing depends on what a subject would
desire or have an interest in if he were fully rational or if desires were
based on full information. Such theories may be called “counterfactual” desire
theories since they take value to be dependent, not upon a subject’s actual
interests, but upon what a subject would desire if certain conditions, which do
not obtain, were to obtain. Value theory is also concerned with the nature of
value. Some philosophers have denied that sentences of the forms ‘X is good’ or
‘X is intrinsically good’ are, strictly speaking, either true or false. As with
other forms of ethical discourse, they claim that anyone who utters these
sentences is either expressing his emotional attitudes or else prescribing or
commending something. Other philosophers hold that such sentences can express
what is true or false, but disagree about the nature of value and the meaning
of value terms like ‘good’, ‘bad’, and ‘better’. Some philosophers, such as
Moore, hold that in a truth of the form ‘X is intrinsically good’, ‘good’
refers to a simple, unanalyzable, non-natural property, a property not
identical with or analyzable by any “natural” property such as being pleasant
or being desired. Moore’s view is one form of non-naturalism. Other
philosophers, such as Brentano, hold that ‘good’ is a syncategorematic
expression; as such it does not refer to a property or relation at all, though
it contributes to the meaning of the sentence. Still other philosophers have
held that ‘X is good’ and ‘X is intrinsically good’ can be analyzed in natural
or non-ethical terms. This sort of naturalism about value is illustrated by
Perry, who holds that ‘X is valuable’ means ‘X is an object of interest’. The
history of value theory is full of other attempted naturalistic analyses, some
of which identify or analyze ‘good’ in terms of pleasure or being the object of
rational desire. Many philosophers argue that naturalism is preferable on
epistemic grounds. If, e.g., ‘X is valuable’ just means ‘X is an object of
interest’, then in order to know whether something is valuable, one need only
know whether it is the object of someone’s interest. Our knowledge of value is
fundamentally no different in kind from our knowledge of any other empirical
fact. This argument, however, is not decisive against non-naturalism, since it
is not obvious that there is no synthetic a priori knowledge of the sort Moore
takes as the fundamental value cognition. Furthermore, it is not clear that one
cannot combine non-naturalism about value with a broadly empirical
epistemology, one that takes certain kinds of experience as epistemic grounds
for beliefs about value. Valitum --
valid, having the property that a well-formed formula, argument, argument form,
or rule of inference has when it is logically correct in a certain respect. A
well-formed formula is valid if it is true under every admissible reinterpretation
of its non-logical symbols. If truth-value gaps or multiple truth-values are
allowed, ‘true’ here might be replaced by ‘non-false’ or takes a “designated”
truth-value. An argument is valid if it is impossible for the premises all to
be true and, at the same time, the conclusion false. An argument form schema is
valid if every argument of that form is valid. A rule of inference is valid if
it cannot lead from all true premises to a false conclusion.
vanini: philosopher, a Renaissance Aristotelian who studied
law and theology. He became a monk and traveled all over Europe. After
abjuring, he taught and practiced medicine. He was burned at the stake by the
Inquisition. His major work is four volumes of dialogues, De admirandis naturae
reginae deaeque mortalium arcanis “On the Secrets of Nature, Queen and Goddess
of Mortal Beings,” 1616. He was influenced by Averroes and Pietro Pomponazzi,
whom he regarded as his teacher. Vanini rejects revealed religion and claims
that God is immanent in nature. The world is ruled by a necessary natural order
and is eternal. Like Averroes, he denies the immortality and the immateriality
of the human soul. Like Pomponazzi, he denies the existence of miracles and
claims that all apparently extraordinary phenomena can be shown to have natural
causes and to be predetermined. Despite the absence of any original
contribution, from the second half of the seventeenth century Vanini was
popular as a symbol of free and atheist thought.
variable:
in logic and mathematics, a symbol interpreted so as to be associated with a
range of values, a set of entities any one of which may be temporarily assigned
as a value of the variable. Grice uses more specifically for a variable for a
‘grice,’ a type of extinct pig that existed (‘in the past’) in Northern England
– “There is a variable number of grices in the backyard, Paul.” An occurrence
of a variable in a mathematical or logical expression is a free occurrence if
assigning a value is necessary in order for the containing expression to acquire
a semantic value a denotation,
truth-value, or other meaning. Suppose a semantic value is assigned to a
variable and the same value is attached to a constant as meaning of the same
kind; if an expression contains free occurrences of just that variable, the
value of the expression for that assignment of value to the variable is
standardly taken to be the same as the value of the expression obtained by
substituting the constant for all the free occurrences of the variable. A bound
occurrence of a variable is one that is not free.
vauvenargues:
luc de Clapiers de, army officer and secular moralist. Discovering Plutarch at
an early age, he critically adopted Stoic idealism. Poverty-stricken, obscure,
and solitary, he was ambitious for glory. Though eventful, his military career
brought little reward. In poor health, he resigned in 1744 to write. In 1747,
he published Introduction to the Knowledge of the Human Mind, followed by
Reflections and Maxims. Voltaire and Mirabeau praised his vigorous and eclectic
thought, which aimed at teaching people how to live. Vauvenargues was a deist
and an optimist who equally rejected Bossuet’s Christian pessimism and La
Rochefoucauld’s secular pessimism. He asserted human freedom and natural
goodness, but denied social and political equality. A lover of martial virtues
and noble passions, Vauvenargues crafted memVardhamana Jnatrputra Vauvenargues,
Luc de Clapiers de 951 951 orable
maxims and excelled in character depiction. His complete works were published
in 1862.
vazquez:
g. Jesuit theologian and philosopher. Born in Villaescusa de Haro, he studied
at Alcalá de Henares and taught at Ocaña, Madrid, Alcalá, and Rome. He was a
prolific writer; his philosophically most important work is a commentary on
Aquinas’s Summa theologiae. Vázquez was strongly influenced by Aquinas, but he
differed from him in important ways and showed marked leanings toward
Augustine. He rejected the Thomistic doctrine of the real distinction between
essence and existence and the position that matter designated by quantity
materia signata quantitate is the principle of individuation. Instead of
Aquinas’s five ways for proving the existence of God, he favored a version of
the moral argument similar to the one later used by Kant and also favored the teleological
argument. Following Augustine, he described the union of body and soul as a
union of two parts. Finally, Vázquez modified the doctrine of formal and
objective concepts present in Toletus and Suárez in a way that facilitated the
development of idealism in early modern philosophy. He accomplished this by
identifying the actual being esse of the thing that is known conceptus
objectivus with the act conceptus formalis whereby it is known.
venn
diagram, a logic diagram invented by the English philosopher
J. Venn in which standard form statements the four kinds listed below are
represented by two appropriately marked overlapping circles, as follows:
Syllogisms are represented by three overlapping circles, as in the examples
below. If a few simple rules are followed, e.g. “diagram universal premises
first,” then in a valid syllogism diagramming the premises automatically gives
a diagram in which the conclusion is represented. In an invalid syllogism
diagramming the premises does not automatically give a diagram in which the
conclusion is represented, as below. Venn diagrams are less perspicuous for the
beginner than Euler diagrams.
verificatum
-- verificationism, a metaphysical theory about what determines meaning: the
meaning of a statement consists in its methods of verification. Verificationism
thus differs radically from the account that identifies meaning with truth
conditions, as is implicit in Frege’s work and explicit in Vitters’s Tractatus
and throughout the writings of Davidson. On Davidson’s theory, e.g., the
crucial notions for a theory of meaning are truth and falsity. Contemporary
verificationists, under the influence of the Oxford philosopher Michael
Dummett, propose what they see as a constraint on the concept of truth rather
than a criterion of meaningfulness. No foundational place is generally assigned
in modern verificationist semantics to corroboration by observation statements;
and modern verificationism is not reductionist. Thus, many philosophers read
Quine’s “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” as rejecting verificationism. This is
because they fail to notice an important distinction. What Quine rejects is not
verificationism but “reductionism,” namely, the theory that there is, for each
statement, a corresponding range of verifying conditions determinable a priori.
Reductionism is inherently localist with regard to verification; whereas
verificationism, as such, is neutral on whether verification is holistic. And,
lastly, modern verificationism is, veil of ignorance verificationism 953 953 whereas traditional verificationism
never was, connected with revisionism in the philosophy of logic and
mathematics e.g., rejecting the principle of bivalence.
verstehen
G., ‘understanding’ (literally, for-standing), ‘interpretation’, a method in
the human sciences that aims at reconstructing meanings from the “agent’s point
of view.” Such a method makes primary how agents understand themselves, as,
e.g., when cultural anthropologists try to understand symbols and practices
from the “native’s point of view.” Understanding in this sense is often
contrasted with explanation, or Erklärung. Whereas explanations discover causes
in light of general laws and take an external perspective, understanding aims
at explicating the meaning that, from an internal perspective, an action or
expression has for the actor. This distinction often is the basis for a further
methodological and ontological distinction between the natural and the human
sciences, the Natur- and the Geisteswissenschaften. Whereas the data of the natural
sciences may be theory-dependent and in that sense interpretive, the human
sciences are “doubly” interpretive; they try to interpret the interpretations
that human subjects give to their actions and practices. The human sciences do
not aim at explaining events but at understanding meanings, texts, and text
analogues. Actions, artifacts, and social relations are all like texts in that
they have a significance for and by human subjects. The method of Verstehen
thus denies the “unity of science” thesis typical of accounts of explanation
given by empiricists and positivists. However, other philosophers such as Weber
argue against such a dichotomy and assert that the social sciences in
particular must incorporate features of both explanation and understanding, and
psychoanalysis and theories of ideology unify both approaches. Even among
proponents of this method, the precise nature of interpretation remains
controversial. While Dilthey and other neo-Kantians proposed that Verstehen is
the imaginative reexperiencing of the subjective point of view of the actor,
Vitters and his following propose a sharp distinction between reasons and
causes and understand reasons in terms of relating an action to the relevant
rules or norms that it follows. In both cases, the aim of the human sciences is
to understand what the text or text analogue really means for the agent.
Following Heidegger, recent G. hermeneutics argues that Verstehen does not
refer to special disciplinary techniques nor to merely cognitive and theoretical
achievements, but to the practical mode of all human existence, its
situatedness in a world that projects various possibilities. All understanding
then becomes interpretation, itself a universal feature of all human activity,
including the natural sciences. The criteria of success in Verstehen also
remain disputed, particularly since many philosophers deny that it constitutes
a method. If all understanding is interpretation, then there are no
presuppositionless, neutral data that can put them to an empirical test.
Verstehen is therefore not a method but an event, in which there is a “fusion
of horizons” between text and interpreter. Whether criteria such as coherence,
the capacity to engage in a tradition, or increasing dialogue apply depends on
the type, purpose, and context of various interpretations.
vicious
regress – Grice preferred ‘vicious circle’ versus ‘virtuous
circle’ – “Whether virtuous regress sounds oxymoronic” -- regress that is in
some way unacceptable, where a regress is an infinite series of items each of
which is in some sense dependent on a prior item of a similar sort, e.g. an
infinite series of events each of which is caused by the next prior event in
the series. Reasons for holding a regress to be vicious might be that it is
either impossible or that its existence is inconsistent with things known to be
true. The claim that something would lead to a vicious regress is often made as
part of a reductio ad absurdum argument strategy. An example of this can be
found in Aquinas’s argument for the existence of an uncaused cause on the
ground that an infinite regress of causes is vicious. Those responding to the
argument have sometimes contended that this regress is not in fact vicious and
hence that the argument fails. A more convincing example of a regress is
generated by the principle that one’s coming to know the meaning of a word must
always be based on a prior understanding of other words. If this principle is
correct, then one can know the meaning of a word w1 only on the basis of previously
understanding the meanings of other words w2 and w3. But a further application
of the principle yields the result that one can understand these words w2 and
w3 only on the basis of understanding still other words. This leads to an
infinite regress. Since no one understands any words at birth, the regress
implies that no one ever comes to understand any words. But this is clearly
false. Since the existence of this regress is inconsistent with an obvious
truth, we may conclude that the regress is vicious and consequently that the
principle that generates it is false.
vico:
cited by H. P. Grice, “Vico and the origin of language.” Philosopher who
founded modern philosophy of history, philosophy of culture, and philosophy of
mythology. He was born and lived all his life in or near Naples, where he
taught eloquence. The Inquisition was a force in Naples throughout Vico’s
lifetime. A turning point in his career was his loss of the concourse for a
chair of civil law 1723. Although a disappointment and an injustice, it enabled
him to produce his major philosophical work. He was appointed royal
historiographer by Charles of Bourbon. Vico’s major work is “La scienza
nuova” completely revised in a second,
definitive version in 1730. In the 1720s, he published three connected works in
Latin on jurisprudence, under the title Universal Law; one contains a sketch of
his conception of a “new science” of the historical life of nations. Vico’s
principal works preceding this are On the Study Methods of Our Time 1709, comparing
the ancients with the moderns regarding human education, and On the Most
Ancient Wisdom of the s 1710, attacking the Cartesian conception of
metaphysics. His Autobiography inaugurates the conception of modern
intellectual autobiography. Basic to Vico’s philosophy is his principle that
“the true is the made” “verum ipsum factum”, that what is true is convertible
with what is made. This principle is central in his conception of “science”
scientia, scienza. A science is possible only for those subjects in which such
a conversion is possible. There can be a science of mathematics, since
mathematical truths are such because we make them. Analogously, there can be a
science of the civil world of the historical life of nations. Since we make the
things of the civil world, it is possible for us to have a science of them. As
the makers of our own world, like God as the maker who makes by knowing and
knows by making, we can have knowledge per caussas through causes, from within.
In the natural sciences we can have only conscientia a kind of “consciousness”,
not scientia, because things in nature are not made by the knower. Vico’s “new
science” is a science of the principles whereby “men make history”; it is also
a demonstration of “what providence has wrought in history.” All nations rise
and fall in cycles within history corsi e ricorsi in a pattern governed by
providence. The world of nations or, in the Augustinian phrase Vico uses, “the
great city of the human race,” exhibits a pattern of three ages of “ideal eternal
history” storia ideale eterna. Every nation passes through an age of gods when
people think in terms of gods, an age of heroes when all virtues and
institutions are formed through the personalities of heroes, and an age of
humans when all sense of the divine is lost, life becomes luxurious and false,
and thought becomes abstract and ineffective; then the cycle must begin again.
In the first two ages all life and thought are governed by the primordial power
of “imagination” fantasia and the world is ordered through the power of humans
to form experience in terms of “imaginative universals” universali fantastici.
These two ages are governed by “poetic wisdom” sapienza poetica. At the basis
of Vico’s conception of history, society, and knowledge is a conception of
mythical thought as the origin of the human world. Fantasia is the original
power of the human mind through which the true and the made are converted to
create the myths and gods that are at the basis of any cycle of history.
Michelet was the primary supporter of Vico’s ideas in the nineteenth century;
he made them the basis of his own philosophy of history. Coleridge is the
principal disseminator of Vico’s views in England. James Joyce used the New
Science as a substructure for Finnegans Wake, making plays on Vico’s name,
beginning with one in Latin in the first sentence: “by a commodius vicus of
recirculation.” Croce revives Vico’s philosophical thought, wishing to conceive
Vico as the Hegel. Vico’s ideas have
been the subject of analysis by such prominent philosophical thinkers as
Horkheimer and Berlin, by anthropologists such as Edmund Leach, and by literary
critics such as René Wellek and Herbert Read.
weiner
kraus
-- Vienna Circle vide ayerism -- a group
of philosophers and scientists who met periodically for discussions in Vienna
from 2 to 8 and who proposed a self-consciously revolutionary conception of
scientific knowledge. The Circle was initiated by the mathematician Hans Hahn
to continue a prewar forum with the physicist Philip Frank and the social
scientist Otto Neurath after the arrival in Vienna of Moritz Schlick, a
philosopher who had studied with Max Planck. Carnap joined in 6 from 1 in
Prague; other members included Herbert Feigl from 0 in Iowa, Friedrich
Waismann, Bergmann, Viktor Kraft, and Bela von Juhos. Viennese associates of
the Circle included Kurt Gödel, Karl Menger, Felix Kaufmann, and Edgar Zilsel.
Popper was not a member or associate. During its formative period the Circle’s
activities were confined to discussion meetings many on Vitters’s Tractatus. In
9 the Circle entered its public period with the formation of the Verein Ernst
Mach, the publication of its manifesto Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung: Der
Wiener Kreis by Carnap, Hahn, and Neurath tr. in Neurath, Empiricism and
Sociology, 3, and the first of a series of philosophical monographs edited by
Frank and Schlick. It also began collaboration with the independent but broadly
like-minded Berlin “Society of Empirical Philosophy,” including Reichenbach,
Kurt Grelling, Kurt Lewin, Friedrich Kraus, Walter Dubislav, Hempel, and
Richard von Mises: the groups together organized their first public conferences
in Prague and Königsberg, acquired editorship of a philosophical journal
renamed Erkenntnis, and later organized the international Unity of Science
congresses. The death and dispersion of key members from 4 onward Hahn died in
4, Neurath left for Holland in 4, Carnap left for the United States in 5,
Schlick died in 6 did not mean the extinction of Vienna Circle philosophy.
Through the subsequent work of earlier visitors Ayer, Ernest Nagel, Quine and
members and collaborators who emigrated to the United States Carnap, Feigl,
Frank, Hempel, and Reichenbach, the logical positivism of the Circle
Reichenbach and Neurath independently preferred “logical empiricism” strongly
influenced the development of analytic philosophy. The Circle’s discussions
concerned the philosophy of formal and physical science, and even though their
individual publications ranged much wider, it is the attitude toward science
that defines the Circle within the philosophical movements of central Europe at
the time. The Circle rejected the need for a specifically philosophical
epistemology that bestowed justification on knowledge claims from beyond science
itself. In this, the Circle may also have drawn on a distinct Austrian
tradition a thesis of its historian Neurath: in most of G.y, science and
philosophy had parted ways during the nineteenth century. Starting with
Helmholtz, of course, there also arose a movement that sought to distinguish
the scientific respectability of the Kantian tradition from the speculations of
G. idealism, yet after 0 neo-Kantians insisted on the autonomy of epistemology,
disparaging earlier fellow travelers as “positivist.” Yet the program of
reducing the knowledge claim of science and providing legitimations to what’s
left found wide favor with the more empirical-minded like Mach. Comprehensive
description, not explanation, of natural phenomena became the task for
theorists who no longer looked to philosophy for foundations, but found them in
the utility of their preferred empirical procedures. Along with the
positivists, the Vienna Circle thought uneconomical the Kantian answer to the
question of the possibility of objectivity, the synthetic a priori. Moreover,
the Vienna Circle and its conventionalist precursors Poincaré and Duhem saw
them contradicted by the results of formal science. Riemann’s geometries showed
that questions about the geometry of physical space were open to more than one
answer: Was physical space Euclidean or non-Euclidean? It fell to Einstein and
the pre-Circle Schlick Space and Time in Contemporary Physics, 7 to argue that
relativity theory showed the untenability of Kant’s conception of space and
time as forever fixed synthetic a priori forms of intuition. Yet Frege’s
anti-psychologistic critique had also shown empiricism unable to account for
knowledge of arithmetic and the conventionalists had ended the positivist dream
of a theory of experiential elements that bridged the gap between descriptions
of fact and general principles of science. How, then, could the Vienna Circle
defend the claim under attack as just
one worldview among others that science
provides knowledge? The Circle confronted the problem of constitutive
conventions. As befitted their self-image beyond Kant and Mach, they found
their paradigmatic answer in the theory of relativity: they thought that
irreducible conventions of measurement with wide-ranging implications were
sharply separable from pure facts like point coincidences. Empirical theories
were viewed as logical structures of statements freely created, yet accountable
to experiential input via their predictive consequences identifiable by
observation. The Vienna Circle defended empiricism by the reconceptualization
of the relation between a priori and a posteriori inquiries. First, in a manner
sympathetic to Frege’s and Russell’s doctrine of logicism and guided by
Vitters’s notion of tautology, arithmetic was considered a part of logic and
treated as entirely analytical, without any empirical content; its truth was
held to be exhausted by what is provable from the premises and rules of a
formal symbolic system. Carnap’s Logical Syntax of Language, 4, assimilated
Gödel’s incompleteness result by claiming that not every such proof could be
demonstrated in those systems themselves which are powerful enough to represent
classical arithmetic. The synthetic a priori was not needed for formal science
because all of its results were non-synthetic. Second, the Circle adopted
verificationism: supposedly empirical concepts whose applicability was
indiscernible were excluded from science. The terms for unobservables were to
be reconstructed by logical operations from the observational terms. Only if
such reconstructions were provided did the more theoretical parts of science
retain their empirical character. Just what kind of reduction was aimed for was
not always clear and earlier radical positions were gradually weakened;
Reichenbach instead considered the relation between observational and
theoretical statements to be probabilistic. Empirical science needed no
synthetic a priori either; all of its statements were a posteriori. Combined
with the view that the analysis of the logical form of expressions allowed for
the exact determination of their combinatorial value, verificationism was to
exhibit the knowledge claims of science and eliminate metaphysics. Whatever
meaning did not survive identification with the scientific was deemed
irrelevant to knowledge claims Reichenbach did not share this view either.
Since the Circle also observed the then long-discussed ban on issuing
unconditional value statements in science, its metaethical positions may be
broadly characterized as endorsing noncognitivism. Its members were not simply
emotivists, however, holding that value judgments were mere expressions of
feeling, but sought to distinguish the factual and evaluative contents of value
judgments. Those who, like Schlick Questions of Ethics, 0, engaged in metaethics,
distinguished the expressive component x desires y of value judgments from
their implied descriptive component doing zfurthers aim y and held that the
demand inherent in moral principles possessed validity if the implied
description was true and the expressed desire was endorsed. This analysis of
normative concepts did not render them meaningless but allowed for
psychological and sociological studies of ethical systems; Menger’s formal
variant Morality, Decision and Social Organization, 4 proved influential for
decision theory. The semiotic view that knowledge required structured
representations was developed in close contact with foundational research in
mathematics and depended on the “new” logic of Frege, Russell, and Vitters, out
of which quantification theory was emerging. Major new results were quickly
integrated albeit controversially and Carnap’s works reflect the development of
the conception of logic itself. In his Logical Syntax he adopted the “Principle
of Tolerance” vis-à-vis the question of the foundation of the formal sciences:
the choice of logics and languages was conventional and constrained, apart from
the demand for consistency, only by pragmatic considerations. The proposed
language form and its difference from alternatives simply had to be stated as
exactly as possible: whether a logico-linguistic framework as a whole correctly
represented reality was a cognitively meaningless question. Yet what was the
status of the verifiability principle? Carnap’s suggestion that it represents
not a discovery but a proposal for future scientific language use deserves to
be taken seriously, for it not only characterizes his own conventionalism, but
also amplifies the Circle’s linguistic turn, according to which all philosophy
concerned ways of representing, rather than the nature of the represented. What
the Vienna Circle “discovered” was how much of science was conventional: its
verificationism was a proposal for accommodating the creativity of scientific
theorizing without accommodating idealism. Whether an empirical claim in order
to be meaningful needed to be actually verified or only potentially verifiable,
or fallible or only potentially testable, and whether so by current or only by
future means, became matters of discussion during the 0s. Equally important for
the question whether the Circle’s conventionalism avoided idealism and
metaphysics were the issues of the status of theoretical discourse about
unobservables and the nature of science’s empirical foundation. The view
suggested in Schlick’s early General Theory of Knowledge 8, 2d. ed. 5 and
Frank’s The Causal Law and its Limitations 2 and elaborated in Carnap’s
“Logical Foundations of the Unity of Science” in Foundations of the Unity of
Science I.1, 8 characterized the theoretical language as an uninterpreted
calculus that is related to the fully interpreted observational language only
by partial definitions. Did such an instrumentalism require for its empirical
anchor the sharp separation of observational from theoretical terms? Could such
a separation even be maintained? Consider the unity of science thesis.
According to the methodological version, endorsed by all members, all of
science abides by the same criteria: no basic methodological differences
separate the natural from the social or cultural sciences Geisteswissenschaften
as claimed by those who distinguish between ‘explanation’ and ‘understanding’.
According to the metalinguistic version, all objects of scientific knowledge
could in principle be comprehended by the same “universal” language.
Physicalism asserts that this is the language that speaks of physical objects.
While everybody in the Circle endorsed physicalism in this sense, the
understanding of its importance varied, as became clear in the socalled
protocol sentence debate. The nomological version of the unity thesis was only
later clearly distinguished: whether all scientific laws could be reduced to
those of physics was another matter on which Neurath came to differ.
Ostensively, this debate concerned the question of the form, content, and
epistemological status of scientific evidence statements. Schlick’s unrevisable
“affirmations” talked about phenomenal states in statements not themselves part
of the language of science “The Foundation of Knowledge,” 4, tr. in Ayer, ed.,
Logical Positivism. Carnap’s preference changed from unrevisable statements in
a primitive methodologically solipsistic protocol language that were fallibly
translatable into the physicalistic system language 1; see Unity of Science, 4,
via arbitrary revisable statements of that system language that are taken as
temporary resting points in testing 2, to revisable statements in the
scientific observation language 5; see “Testability and Meaning,” Philosophy of
Science, 637. These changes were partly prompted by Neurath, whose own
revisable “protocol statements” spoke, amongst other matters, of the relation
between observers and the observed in a “universal slang” that mixed
expressions of the physicalistically cleansed colloquial and the high scientific
languages “Protocol Statements,” tr. in
Ayer, ed., Logical Positivism. Ultimately, these proposals answered to
different projects. Since all agreed that all statements of science were
hypothetical, the questions of their “foundation” concerned rather the very
nature of Vienna Circle philosophy. For Schlick philosophy became the activity
of meaning determination inspired by Vitters; Carnap pursued it as the rational
reconstruction of knowledge claims concerned only with what Reichenbach called
the “context of justification” its logical aspects, not the “context of
discovery”; and Neurath replaced philosophy altogether with a naturalistic,
interdisciplinary, empirical inquiry into science as a distinctive discursive
practice, precluding the orthodox conception of the unity of science. The
Vienna Circle was neither a monolithic nor a necessarily reductionist
philosophical movement, and quick assimilation to the tradition of British
empiricism mistakes its struggles with the formcontent dichotomy for foundationalism,
when instead sophisticated responses to the question of the presuppositions of
their own theories of knowledge were being developed. In its time and place,
the Circle was a minority voice; the sociopolitical dimension of its theories stressed more by some Neurath than others
Schlick as a renewal of Enlightenment
thought, ultimately against the rising tide of Blutund-Boden metaphysics, is
gaining recognition. After the celebrated “death” of reductionist logical
positivism in the 0s the historical Vienna Circle is reemerging as a
multifaceted object of the history of analytical philosophy itself, revealing
in nuce different strands of reasoning still significant for postpositivist
theory of science. .
violence:
1 the use of force to cause physical harm, death, or destruction physical
violence; 2 the causing of severe mental or emotional harm, as through
humiliation, deprivation, or brainwashing, whether using force or not
psychological violence; 3 more broadly, profaning, desecrating, defiling, or showing
disrespect for i.e., “doing violence” to something valued, sacred, or
cherished; 4 extreme physical force in the natural world, as in tornados,
hurricanes, and earthquakes. Physical violence may be directed against persons,
animals, or property. In the first two cases, harm, pain, suffering, and death
figure prominently; in the third, illegality or illegitimacy the forceful
destruction of property is typically considered violence when it lacks
authorization. Psychological violence applies principally to persons. It may be
understood as the violation of beings worthy of respect. But it can apply to
higher animals as well as in the damaging mental effects of some
experimentation, e.g., involving isolation and deprivation. Environmentalists
sometimes speak of violence against the environment, implying both destruction
and disrespect for the natural world. Sometimes the concept of violence is used
to characterize acts or practices of which one morally disapproves. To this
extent it has a normative force. But this prejudges whether violence is wrong.
One may, on the other hand, regard inflicting harm or death as only prima facie
wrong i.e., wrong all other things being equal. This gives violence a normative
character, establishing its prima facie wrongness. But it leaves open the
ultimate moral justifiability of its use. Established practices of physical or
psychological violence e.g., war,
capital punishment constitute
institutionalized violence. So do illegal or extralegal practices like
vigilantism, torture, and state terrorism e.g., death squads. Anarchists
sometimes regard the courts, prisons, and police essential to maintaining the
state as violence. Racism and sexism may be considered institutional violence
owing to their associated psychological as well as physical violence.
virtue –
“virtue is entire” – “Do not multiply virtues beyond necessity” -- virtue
ethics, also called virtue-based ethics and agent-based ethics, conceptions or
theories of morality in which virtues play a central or independent role. Thus,
it is more than simply the account of the virtues offered by a given theory.
Some take the principal claim of virtue ethics to be about the moral
subject that, in living her life, she
should focus her attention on the cultivation of her or others’ virtues. Others
take the principal claim to be about the moral theorist that, in mapping the structure of our moral
thought, she should concentrate on the virtues. This latter view can be
construed weakly as holding that the moral virtues are no less basic than other
moral concepts. In this type of virtue ethics, virtues are independent of other
moral concepts in that claims about morally virtuous character or action are,
in the main, neither reducible to nor justified on the basis of underlying claims
about moral duty or rights, or about what is impersonally valuable. It can also
be construed strongly as holding that the moral virtues are more basic than
other moral concepts. In such a virtue ethics, virtues are fundamental, i.e.,
claims about other moral concepts are either reducible to underlying claims
about moral virtues or justified on their basis. Forms of virtue ethics
predominated in Western philosophy before the Renaissance, most notably in
Aristotle, but also in Plato and Aquinas. Several ancient and medieval
philosophers endorsed strong versions of virtue ethics. These views focused on
character rather than on discrete behavior, identifying illicit behavior with
vicious behavior, i.e., conduct that would be seriously out of character for a virtuous
person. A virtuous person, in turn, was defined as one with dispositions
relevantly linked to human flourishing. On these views, while a person of good
character, or someone who carefully observes her, may be able to articulate
certain principles or rules by which she guides her conduct or to which, at
least, it outwardly conforms, the principles are not an ultimate source of
moral justification. On the contrary, they are justified only insofar as the
conduct they endorse would be in character for a virtuous person. For
Aristotle, the connection between flourishing and virtue seems conceptual. He
conceived moral virtues as dispositions to choose under the proper guidance of
reason, and defined a flourishing life as one lived in accordance with these virtues.
While most accounts of the virtues link them to the flourishing of the virtuous
person, there are other possibilities. In principle, the flourishing to which
virtue is tied whether causally or conceptually may be either that of the
virtuous subject herself, or that of some patient who is a recipient of her
virtuous behavior, or that of some larger affected group the agent’s community, perhaps, or all
humanity, or even sentient life in general. For the philosophers of ancient
Greece, it was human nature, usually conceived teleologically, that fixed the
content of this flourishing. Medieval Christian writers reinterpreted this,
stipulating both that the flourishing life to which the virtues lead extends
past death, and that human flourishing is not merely the fulfillment of
capacities and tendencies inherent in human nature, but is the realization of a
divine plan. In late twentieth-century versions of virtue ethics, some
theorists have suggested that it is neither to a teleology inherent in human nature
nor to the divine will that we should look in determining the content of that
flourishing to which the virtues lead. They understand flourishing more as a
matter of a person’s living a life that meets the standards of her cultural,
historical tradition. In his most general characterization, Aristotle called a
thing’s virtues those features of it that made it and its operation good. The
moral virtues were what made people live well. This use of ‘making’ is
ambiguous. Where he and other premodern thinkers thought the connection between
virtues and living well to be conceptual, moral theorists of the modernist era
have usually virtue ethics virtue ethics understood it causally. They commonly
maintain that a virtue is a character trait that disposes a person to do what
can be independently identified as morally required or to effect what is best
best for herself, according to some theories; best for others, according to
different ones. Benjamin Franklin, e.g., deemed it virtuous for a person to be
frugal, because he thought frugality was likely to result in her having a less
troubled life. On views of this sort, a lively concern for the welfare of
others has moral importance only inasmuch as it tends to motivate people
actually to perform helpful actions. In short, benevolence is a virtue because
it conduces to beneficent conduct; veracity, because it conduces to truth
telling; fidelity, because it conduces to promise keeping; and so on. Reacting
to this aspect of modernist philosophy, recent proponents of virtue ethics deny
that moral virtues derive from prior determinations of what actions are right
or of what states of affairs are best. Some, especially certain theorists of
liberalism, assign virtues to what they see as one compartment of moral thought
and duties to a separate, and only loosely connected compartment. For them, the
life and theory of virtue is autonomous. They hold that virtues and duties have
independent sources of justification, with virtues chiefly concerned with the
individual’s personal “ideals,” self-image, or conception of her life goals,
while duties and rights are thought to derive from social rules regulating
interpersonal dealings. Proponents of virtue ethics maintain that it has
certain advantages over more modern alternatives. They argue that virtue ethics
is properly concrete, because it grounds morality in facts about human nature
or about the concrete development of particular cultural traditions, in
contrast with modernist attempts to ground morality in subjective preference or
in abstract principles of reason. They also claim that virtue ethics is truer
to human psychology in concentrating on the less conscious aspects of
motivation on relatively stable
dispositions, habits, and long-term goals, for example where modern ethics focuses on decision
making directed by principles and rules. Virtue ethics, some say, offers a more
unified and comprehensive conception of moral life, one that extends beyond
actions to comprise wants, goals, likes and dislikes, and, in general, what sort
of person one is and aims to be. Proponents of virtue ethics also contend that,
without the sensitivity and appreciation of their situation and its
opportunities that only virtues consistently make available, agents cannot
properly apply the rules that modernist ethical theories offer to guide their
actions. Nor, in their view, will the agent follow those rules unless her
virtues offer her sufficient clarity of purpose and perseverance against
temptation. Several objections have been raised against virtue ethics in its
most recent forms. Critics contend that it is antiquarian, because it relies on
conceptions of human nature whose teleology renders them obsolete; circular,
because it allegedly defines right action in terms of virtues while defining
virtues in terms of right action; arbitrary and irrelevant to modern society,
since there is today no accepted standard either of what constitutes human
flourishing or of which dispositions lead to it; of no practical use, because
it offers no guidance when virtues seem to conflict; egoistic, in that it
ultimately directs the subject’s moral attention to herself rather than to
others; and fatalistic, in allowing the morality of one’s behavior to hinge
finally on luck in one’s constitution, upbringing, and opportunities. There may
be versions of virtue ethics that escape the force of all or most of the
objections, but not every form of virtue ethics can claim for itself all the
advantages mentioned above. virtue
epistemology, the subfield of epistemology that takes epistemic virtue to be
central to understanding justification or knowledge or both. An epistemic
virtue is a personal quality conducive to the discovery of truth, the avoidance
of error, or some other intellectually valuable goal. Following Aristotle, we should
distinguish these virtues from such qualities as wisdom or good judgment, which
are the intellectual basis of practical
but not necessarily intellectual
success. The importance, and to an extent, the very definition, of this
notion depends, however, on larger issues of epistemology. For those who favor
a naturalist conception of knowledge say, as belief formed in a “reliable” way,
there is reason to call any truth-conducive quality or properly working
cognitive mechanism an epistemic virtue. There is no particular reason to limit
the epistemic virtues to recognizable personal qualities: a high mathematical
aptitude may count as an epistemic virtue. For those who favor a more
“normative” conception of knowledge, the corresponding notion of an epistemic
virtue or vice will be narrower: it will be tied to personal qualities like
impartiality or carelessness whose exercise one would associate with an ethics
of belief.
vital
lie:
an instance of self-deception or lying to oneself when it fosters hope, confidence,
self-esteem, mental health, or creativity; 2 any false belief or unjustified
attitude that helps people cope with difficulties; 3 a lie to other people
designed to promote their wellbeing. For example, self-deceiving optimism about
one’s prospects for success in work or personal relationships may generate
hope, mobilize energy, enrich life’s meaning, and increase chances for success.
Henrik Ibsen dramatized “life-lies” as essential for happiness The Wild Duck,
4, and Eugene O’Neill portrayed “pipe dreams” as necessary crutches The Iceman
Cometh, 9. Nietzsche endorsed “pious illusions” or “holy fictions” about the
past that liberate individuals and societies from shame and guilt On the
Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, 1874. Schiller praised normal
degrees of vanity and self-conceit because they support selfesteem Problems of
Belief, 4.
vitoria:
dominican jurist, political philosopher, and theologian who is regarded as the
founder of modern international law. Born in Vitoria or Burgos, he studied and
taught at the of SaintJacques in Paris,
where he met Erasmus and Vives. He also taught at the of San Gregorio in Valladolid and at
Salamanca. His most famous works are the notes relectiones for twelve public
addresses he delivered at Salamanca, published posthumously in 1557. Two
relectiones stand out: De Indis and De jure belli. They were responses to the
legal and political issues raised by the discovery and colonization of America.
In contrast with Mariana’s contract Arianism, Vitoria held that political
society is our natural state. The aim of the state is to promote the common
good and preserve the rights of citizens. Citizenship is the result of
birthplace jus solis rather than blood jus sanguini. The authority of the state
resides in the body politic but is transferred to rulers for its proper
exercise. The best form of government is monarchy because it preserves the
unity necessary for social action while safeguarding individual freedoms. Apart
from the societies of individual states, humans belong to an international
society. This society has its own authority and laws that establish the rights
and duties of the states. These laws constitute the law of nations jus gentium.
vives:
j. l.. humanist and teacher. Born in Valencia, he attended the of Paris 150914 and lived most of his life in
Flanders. With his friend Erasmus he prepared a widely used commentary 1522 of
Augustine’s De civitate Dei. From 1523 to 1528 Vives visited England, taught at
Oxford, befriended More, and became Catherine of Aragon’s confidant. While in
Paris, Vives repudiated medieval logic as useless Adversus pseudodialecticos,
1520 and proposed instead a dialectic emphasizing resourceful reasoning and
clear and persuasive exposition De tradendis disciplinis, 1532. His method was
partially inspired by Rudolph Agricola and probably influential upon Peter
Ramus. Less interested in theology than Erasmus or More, he surpassed both in
philosophical depth. As one of the great pedagogues of his age, Vives proposed
a plan of education that substituted the Aristotelian ideal of speculative
certainty for a pragmatic probability capable of guiding action. Vives enlarged
the scope of women’s education De institutione feminae Christianae, 1524 and
contributed to the teaching of classical Latin Exercitatio linguae latinae,
1538. A champion of EuroVisistadvaita Vedanta Vives, Juan Luis 962 962 pean unity against the Turks, he
professed the belief that international order De concordia, 1526 depended upon
the control of passion De anima et vita, 1538. As a social reformer, Vives
pioneered the secularization of welfare De subventione pauperum, 1526 and
opposed the abuse of legal jargon Aedes legum, 1520. Although his Jewish
parents were victimized by the Inquisition, Vives remained a Catholic and
managed to write an apology of Christianity without taking sides in
controversial theological matters De veritate fidei.
volition: cf.
desideratum. a mental event involved with the initiation of action. ‘To will’
is sometimes taken to be the corresponding verb form of ‘volition’. The concept
of volition is rooted in modern philosophy; contemporary philosophers have
transformed it by identifying volitions with ordinary mental events, such as
intentions, or beliefs plus desires. Volitions, especially in contemporary
guises, are often taken to be complex mental events consisting of cognitive,
affective, and conative elements. The conative element is the impetus the underlying motivation for the action. A velleity is a conative
element insufficient by itself to initiate action. The will is a faculty, or
set of abilities, that yields the mental events involved in initiating action.
There are three primary theories about the role of volitions in action. The
first is a reductive account in which action is identified with the entire
causal sequence of the mental event the volition causing the bodily behavior.
J. S. Mill, for example, says: “Now what is action? Not one thing, but a series
of two things: the state of mind called a volition, followed by an effect. . .
. [T]he two together constitute the action” Logic. Mary’s raising her arm is
Mary’s mental state causing her arm to rise. Neither Mary’s volitional state
nor her arm’s rising are themselves actions; rather, the entire causal sequence
the “causing” is the action. The primary difficulty for this account is
maintaining its reductive status. There is no way to delineate volition and the
resultant bodily behavior without referring to action. There are two
non-reductive accounts, one that identifies the action with the initiating
volition and another that identifies the action with the effect of the
volition. In the former, a volition is the action, and bodily movements are
mere causal consequences. Berkeley advocates this view: “The Mind . . . is to be
accounted active in . . . so far forth as volition is included. . . . In
plucking this flower I am active, because I do it by the motion of my hand,
which was consequent upon my volition” Three Dialogues. In this century,
Prichard is associated with this theory: “to act is really to will something”
Moral Obligation, 9, where willing is sui generis though at other places
Prichard equates willing with the action of mentally setting oneself to do
something. In this sense, a volition is an act of will. This account has come
under attack by Ryle Concept of Mind. Ryle argues that it leads to a vicious
regress, in that to will to do something, one must will to will to do it, and
so on. It has been countered that the regress collapses; there is nothing
beyond willing that one must do in order to will. Another criticism of Ryle’s,
which is more telling, is that ‘volition’ is an obscurantic term of art;
“[volition] is an artificial concept. We have to study certain specialist
theories in order to find out how it is to be manipulated. . . . [It is like]
‘phlogiston’ and ‘animal spirits’ . . . [which] have now no utility” Concept of
Mind. Another approach, the causal theory of action, identifies an action with
the causal consequences of volition. Locke, e.g., says: “Volition or willing is
an act of the mind directing its thought to the production of any action, and
thereby exerting its power to produce it. . . . [V]olition is nothing but that
particular determination of the mind, whereby . . . the mind endeavors to give rise,
continuation, or stop, to any action which it takes to be in its power” Essay
concerning Human Understanding. This is a functional account, since an event is
an action in virtue of its causal role. Mary’s arm rising is Mary’s action of
raising her arm in virtue of being caused by her willing to raise it. If her
arm’s rising had been caused by a nervous twitch, it would not be action, even
if the bodily movements were photographically the same. In response to Ryle’s
charge of obscurantism, contemporary causal theorists tend to identify
volitions with ordinary mental events. For example, Davidson takes the cause of
actions to be beliefs plus desires and Wilfrid Sellars takes volitions to be
intentions to do something here and now. Despite its plausibility, however, the
causal theory faces two difficult problems: the first is purported
counterexamples based on wayward causal chains connecting the antecedent mental
event and the bodily movements; the second is provision of an enlightening
account of these mental events, e.g. intending, that does justice to the
conative element.
voltaire: pen
name of François-Marie Arouet -- philosopher and writer who won early fame as a
playwright and poet and later was an influential popularizer of Newtonian
natural philosophy. His enduring reputation rests on his acerbically witty
essays on religious and moral topics especially the Philosophical Letters,
1734, and the Philosophical Dictionary, 1764, his brilliant stories, and his
passionate polemics against the injustices of the ancien régime. In Whitehead’s
phrase, he was more “a philosophe than a philosopher” in the current
specialized disciplinary sense. He borrowed most of his views on metaphysics
and epistemology from Locke, whose work, along with Newton’s, he came to know
and extravagantly admire during his stay 172628 in England. His is best placed
in the line of great literary moralists
that includes Montaigne, Pascal, Diderot, and Camus. Voltaire’s position is
skeptical, empirical, and humanistic. His skepticism is not of the radical sort
that concerned Descartes. But he denies that we can find adequate support for
the grand metaphysical claims of systematic philosophers, such as Leibniz, or
for the dogmatic theology of institutional religions. Voltaire’s empiricism
urges us to be content with the limited and fallible knowledge of our everyday
experience and its development through the methods of empirical science. His
humanism makes a plea, based on his empiricist skepticism, for religious and
social tolerance: none of us can know enough to be justified in persecuting
those who disagree with us on fundamental philosophical and theological
matters. Voltaire’s positive view is that our human condition, for all its
flaws and perils, is meaningful and livable strictly in its own terms, quite
apart from any connection to the threats and promises of dubious transcendental
realms. Voltaire’s position is well illustrated by his views on religion.
Although complex doctrines about the Trinity or the Incarnation strike him as gratuitous
nonsense, he nonetheless is firmly convinced of the reality of a good God who
enjoins us through our moral sense to love one another as brothers and sisters.
Indeed, it is precisely this moral sense that he finds outraged by the
intolerance of institutional Christianity. His deepest religious thinking
concerns the problem of evil, which he treated in his “Poem of the Lisbon
Earthquake” and the classic tales Zadig 1747 and Candide 1759. He rejects the
Panglossian view held by Candide’s Dr. Pangloss, a caricature of Leibniz that
we can see the hand of providence in our daily life but is prepared to
acknowledge that an all-good God does not as an extreme deism would hold let
his universe just blindly run. Whatever metaphysical truth there may be in the
thought that “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds,” Voltaire
insists that this idea is ludicrous as a practical response to evil and
recommends instead concrete action to solve specific local problems: “We must
cultivate our garden.” Voltaire was and remains an immensely controversial
figure. Will Durant regarded him as “the greatest man who ever lived,” while
Joseph de Maistre maintained that “admiration for Voltaire is an infallible
sign of a corrupt soul.” Perhaps it is enough to say that he wrote with
unequaled charm and wit and stood for values that are essential to, if perhaps
not the very core of, our humanity.
voluntarism:
-- cf. Grice on the volitive – desiderative -- any philosophical view that
makes our ability to control the phenomena in question an essential part of the
correct understanding of those phenomena. Thus, ethical voluntarism is the
doctrine that the standards that define right and wrong conduct are in some
sense chosen by us. Doxastic voluntarism is the doctrine that we have extensive
control over what we believe; we choose what to believe. A special case of
doxastic voluntarism is theological voluntarism, which implies that religious
belief requires a substantial element of choice; the evidence alone cannot decide
the issue. This is a view that is closely associated with Pascal, Kierkegaard,
and James. Historical voluntarism is the doctrine that the human will is a
major factor in history. Such views contrast with Marxist views of history.
Metaphysical voluntarism is the doctrine, linked with Schopenhauer, that the
fundamental organizing principle of the world is not the incarnation of a
rational or a moral order but rather the will, which for Schopenhauer is an
ultimately meaningless striving for survival, to be found in all of
nature.
neumann:
J. philosopher. Born in Budapest and trained in Hungary, Switzerland, and G.y,
he visited Princeton in 0 and became a
professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 3. His most
outstanding work in pure mathematics was on rings of operators in Hilbert
spaces. In quantum mechanics he showed the equivalence of matrix mechanics to
wave mechanics, and argued that quantum mechanics could not be embedded in an
underlying deterministic system. He established important results in set theory
and mathematical logic, and worked on Hilbert’s Program to prove the
consistency of mathematics within mathematics until he was shocked by Gödel’s
incompleteness theorems. He established the mathematical theory of games and
later showed its application to economics. In these many different areas, von
Neumann demonstrated a remarkable ability to analyze a subject matter and
develop a mathematical formalism that answered basic questions about that
subject matter; formalization in logic is the special case of this process
where the subject matter is language and reasoning. With the advent of World
War II von Neumann turned his great analytical ability to more applied areas of
hydrodynamics, ballistics, and nuclear explosives. In 5 he began to work on the
design, use, and theory of electronic computers. He later became a leading
scientist in government. Von Neumann contributed to the hardware architecture
of the modern electronic computer, and he invented the first modern program
language. A program in this language could change the addresses of its own
instructions, so that it became possible to use the same subroutine on
different data structures and to write programs to process programs. Von
Neumann proposed to use a computer as a research tool for exploring very
complex phenomena, such as the discontinuous nature of shock waves. He began
the development of a theory of automata that would cover computing,
communication, and control systems, as well as natural organisms, biological
evolution, and societies. To this end, he initiated the study of probabilistic
automata and of selfreproducing and cellular automata.
wright: G.
H., Finnish philosopher, one of the most influential analytic philosophers of
the twentieth century. His early work, influenced by logical empiricism, is on
logic, probability, and induction, including contributions in modal and deontic
logic, the logic of norms and action, preference logic, tense logic, causality,
and determinism. In the 0s his ideas about the explanation of action helped to
link the analytic tradition to Continental hermeneutics. His most important
contribution is A Treatise on Induction and Probability 1, which develops a
system of eliminative induction using the concepts of necessary and sufficient
condition. In 9 von Wright went to Cambridge to meet Broad, and he attended
Vitters’s lectures. Regular discussions with Moore also had an impact on him.
In 8 von Wright succeeded Vitters as professor at Cambridge . After Vitters’s
death in 1, von Wright returned to Helsinki. Together with Anscombe and Rush
Rhees, he became executor and editor of Vitters’s Nachlass. The study,
organization, systematization, and publication of this exceptionally rich work
became a lifelong task for him. In his Cambridge years von Wright became
interested in the logical properties of various modalities: alethic, deontic,
epistemic. An Essay in Modal Logic 1 studies, syntactically, various deductive
systems of modal logic. That year he published his famous article “Deontic Logic”
in Mind. It made him the founder of modern deontic logic. These logical works
profoundly influenced analytic philosophy, especially action theory. Von Wright
distinguishes technical oughts means-ends relationships from norms issued by a
norm-authority. His Norm and Action 3 discusses philosophical problems
concerning the existence of norms and the truth of normative statements. His
main work on metaethics is The Varieties of Goodness 3. In Explanation and
Understanding 1 he turned to philosophical problems concerning the human
sciences. He defends a manipulation view of causality, where the concept of
action is basic for that of cause: human action cannot be explained causally by
laws, but must be understood intentionally. The basic model of intentionality
is the practical syllogism, which explains action by a logical connection with
wants and beliefs. This work, sometimes characterized as anti-positivist
analytical hermeneutics, bridges analytic and Continental philosophy. His
studies in truth, knowledge, modality, lawlikeness, causality, determinism,
norms, and practical inference were published in 384 in his Philosophical
Papers. von Neumann, John von Wright, G. H. 965 965 In 1 von Wright became a member of the
Academy of Finland, the highest honor Finland gives to its scientists. Over
many years he has written, in Swedish and Finnish, eloquent essays in the
history of ideas and the philosophy of culture. He has become increasingly
critical of the modern scientific-technological civilization, its narrowly
instrumental concept of rationality, and its myth of progress. His public pleas
for peace, human rights, and a more harmonious coexistence of human beings and
nature have made him the most esteemed intellectual in the Scandinavian
countries.
voting
paradox: the possibility that if there are three candidates,
A, B, and C, for democratic choice, with at least three choosers, and the
choosers are asked to make sequential choices among pairs of candidates, A
could defeat B by a majority vote, B could defeat C, and C could defeat A. This
would be the outcome if the choosers’ preferences were ABC, BCA, and CAB.
Hence, although each individual voter may have a clear preference ordering over
the candidates, the collective may have cyclic preferences, so that individual
and majoritarian collective preference orderings are not analogous. While this
fact is not a logical paradox, it is perplexing to many analysts of social
choice. It may also be morally perplexing in that it suggests majority rule can
be quite capricious. For example, suppose we vote sequentially over various
pairs of candidates, with the winner at each step facing a new candidate. If
the candidates are favored by cyclic majorities, the last candidate to enter
the fray will win the final vote. Hence, control over the sequence of votes may
determine the outcome. It is easy to find cyclic preferences over such
candidates as movies and other matters of taste. Hence, the problem of the
voting paradox is clearly real and not merely a logical contrivance. But is it
important? Institutions may block the generation of evidence for cyclic
majorities by making choices pairwise and sequentially, as above. And some
issues over which we vote provoke preference patterns that cannot produce
cycles. For example, if our issue is one of unidimensional liberalism versus
conservatism on some major political issue such as welfare programs, there may
be no one who would prefer to spend both more and less money than what is spent
in the status quo. Hence, everyone may display single-peaked preferences with
preferences falling as we move in either direction toward more money or toward
less from the peak. If all important issues and combinations of issues had this
preference structure, the voting paradox would be unimportant. It is widely
supposed by many public choice scholars that collective preferences are not
single-peaked for many issues or, therefore, for combinations of issues. Hence,
collective choices may be quite chaotic. What order they display may result
from institutional manipulation. If this is correct, we may wonder whether
democracy in the sense of the sovereignty of the electorate is a coherent
notion.
ward:
j. English philosopher and psychologist. Influenced by Lotze, Herbart, and
Brentano, Ward sharply criticized Bain’s associationism and its allied
nineteenth-century reductive naturalism. His psychology rejected the
associationists’ sensationism, which regarded mind as passive, capable only of
sensory receptivity and composed solely of cognitive presentations. Ward
emphasized the mind’s inherent activity, asserting, like Kant, the prior
existence of an inferred but necessarily existing ego or subject capable of
feeling and, most importantly, of conation, shaping both experience and
behavior by the willful exercise of attention. Ward’s psychology stresses
attention and will. In his metaphysics, Ward resisted the naturalists’
mechanistic materialism, proposing instead a teleological spiritualistic
monism. While his criticisms of associationism and naturalism were telling,
Ward was a transitional figure whose positive influence is limited, if we
except H. P. Grice who follows him to a T. Although sympathetic to scientific
psychology – he founded scientific psychology in Britain by establishing a
psychology laboratory – he, with his
student Stout, represented the beginning of armchair psychology at Oxford,
which Grice adored. Through Stout he influenced the hormic psychology of
McDougall, and Grice who calls himself a Stoutian (“until Prichard converted
me”). Ward’s major work is “Psychology” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed.,
1886), reworked as Psychological Principles (1918). See also ASSOCIATIONISM,
JAMES, KANT.
wayward
causal chain: a causal chain, referred to in a
proposed causal analysis of a key concept, that goes awry. Causal analyses have
been proposed for key concepts – e.g., reference, action, explanation,
knowledge, artwork. There are two main cases of wayward (or deviant) causal
chains that defeat a causal analysis: (1) those in which the prescribed causal
route is followed, but the expected event does not occur; and (2) those in
which the expected event occurs, but the prescribed causal route is not
followed. Consider action. One proposed analysis is that a person’s doing
something is an action if and only if what he does is caused by his beliefs and
desires. The possibility of wayward causal chains defeats this analysis. For
case (1), suppose, while climbing, John finds he is supporting another man on a
rope. John wants to rid himself of this danger, and he believes that he can do
so by loosening his grip. His belief and desire unnerve him, causing him to
loosen his hold. The prescribed causal route was followed, but the ensuing
event, his grip loosening, is not an action. For case (2), suppose Harry wants
to kill his rich uncle, and he believes that he can find him at home. His
beliefs and desires so agitate him that he drives recklessly. He hits and kills
a pedestrian, who, by chance, is his uncle. The killing occurs, but without
following the prescribed causal route; the killing was an accidental
consequence of what Harry did. See also ACTION THEORY.
warnock: “One of my most intelligent collaborators.” Unlike any
other of the collaborators, Warnock had what Grice calls “the gift for
botanising.” They would spend hours on the philosophy of perception. His other
English collaborators were, in alphabetic order: Pears, Strawson, and Thomson.
And you can see the difference. Thomson was pretty obscure. Pears was a closet
Vittersian. And Strawson was ‘to the point.’ With Warnock, Grice could ramble
at ease. Warnock became the custodian of Austin’s heritage which somehow
annoyed Grice. But the Warnock that Grice enjoyed most was the
Warnock-while-the-SchoolMaster-Austin-was-around. Because they could play. And
NOT in the play group, which was “anything but.” But Grice would philosophise
on ‘perception,’ and especially ‘see’ – with Warnock. Their idiolects differed.
Warnock, being Irish, was more creative, and less conservative. So it was good
for Warnock to have Grice to harness him! Through Warnock, Grice got to discuss
a few things with Urmson, the co-custodian of Austin’s legacy. But again, most
of the discussions with Urmson were before Austin’s demise. Urmson and Warnock
are the co-editors of Austin’s “Philosophical Papers.” Would Austin have
accepted? Who knows. The essays were more or less easily available. Still.
weapon: Grice’s shining new tool. The funny thing is that his
tutee Strawson didn’t allow him to play with it ONCE! Or weapon. Grice refers
to the implicatum as a philosopher’s tool, and that the fun comes in the
application. Strawson and Wiggins p. 522, reminds us of Austin. Austin used to
say that when a philosopher “forges a new weapon, he is also fshioning new
skids to put under his feet.” It is perhaps inappropriate that a memorial
should mention this, but here they were, the memorialists. They were suggesting
that Grice forged a shining new tool, the implicature, or implicatum – rather,
he proposed a rational explanation for the distinction between what an emissor
means (e. g., that p) and what anything else may be said, ‘metabolically,’ to
“mean.” Suggesting an analogy with J. L. Austin and his infelicitious notion of
infelicity, which found him fashioning a shining new skid, the memorialists
suggest the same for Grice – but of course the analogy does not apply.
what the eye no longer sees the
heart no longer grieves for. Grice.
Vide sytactics.
whistle. If you can’t say it you can’t whistle it either – But you
can implicate it. “To say” takes a ‘that’-clause. “To implicate” takes a
‘that’-clause. Grice: “ ‘To whisle’ takes a ‘that’-clause, “By whistling, E
communicates that he intends his emissee to be there.” “Whistle and I’ll be
there” – Houseman to a Shropshire farmer.
willkür,
v. Hobson’s choice.
wilson – this is the way to quote J. C.
Wilson. Grice loved him, and thanked Farquarhson for editing his papers.
wilson’s
ultimate counterexample to Grice -- Grice’s
counterexample – “the ultimate counter-example” -- counterinstance, also called
counterexample. 1 A particular instance of an argument form that has all true
premises but a false conclusion, thereby showing that the form is not
universally valid. The argument form ‘p 7 q, - p / , ~q’, for example, is shown
to be invalid by the counterinstance ‘Grass is either red or green; Grass is
not red; Therefore, grass is not green’. 2 A particular false instance of a
statement form, which demonstrates that the form is not a logical truth. A
counterinstance to the form ‘p 7 q / p’, for example, would be the statement
‘If grass is either red or green, then grass is red’. 3 A particular example
that demonstrates that a universal generalization is false. The universal
statement ‘All large cities in the United States are east of the Mississippi’
is shown to be false by the counterinstance of San Francisco, which is a large
city in the United States that is not east of the Mississippi. V.K. counterpart
theory, a theory that analyzes statements about what is possible and impossible
for individuals statements of de re modality in terms of what holds of
counterparts of those individuals in other possible worlds, a thing’s
counterparts being individuals that resemble it without being identical with
it. The name ‘counterpart theory’ was coined by David Lewis, the theory’s
principal exponent. Whereas some theories analyze ‘Mrs. Simpson might have been
queen of England’ as ‘In some possible world, Mrs. Simpson is queen of
England’, counterpart theory analyzes it as ‘In some possible world, a
counterpart of Mrs. Simpson is queen of a counterpart of England’. The chief
motivation for counterpart theory is a combination of two views: a de re
modality should be given a possible worlds analysis, and b each actual
individual exists only in the actual world, and hence cannot exist with
different properties in other possible worlds. Counterpart theory provides an
analysis that allows ‘Mrs. Simpson might have been queen’ to be true compatibly
with a and b. For Mrs. Simpson’s counterparts in other possible worlds, in those
worlds where she herself does not exist, may have regal properties that the
actual Mrs. Simpson lacks. Counterpart theory is perhaps prefigured in
Leibniz’s theory of possibility.
winchism: After P. Winch, P. London-born philosopher. He quotes Grice in a Royal Philosophy talk: “Grice’s
point is that we should distinguish the truth of one’s remark form the point of
one’s remarks – Grice’s example is: “Surely I have neither any doubt nor any
desire to deny that the pillar box in front of me is red, and yet I won’t
hesitate to say that it seems red to me” – Surely pointless, but an incredible
truth meant to refute G. A. Paul!” Winch translated Vitters’s “little essay on
value” which Grice “did not use for [his] essay on the conception of value.”
(“Kultur und Wert.”)
wisdom: see metaphysical wisdom.
wodeham:
Oxonian philosopher, like Grice. Adam de (c. 1295–1358), English Franciscan
philosopher- who lectured on Peter Lombard’s Sentences at Oxford. His oeuvre
includes a “Tractatus de indivisibilibus, divisum in cinque partibus”; his “Lectura
secunda” and “Lecturae Oxonienses” as
transcribed by Henry Totting of Oyta, and published by John Major. Wodeham’s
main work, like Grice’s, the Oxford lectures, themselves remain only partially published.
A brilliant interpreter of Duns Scotus, whose original manuscripts he consulted
in his main unpublication, Wodeham deems Duns Scotus the greatest Franciscan
doctor. Occam, Wodeham’s teacher, is the other great influence on Wodeham (“I
treasure the razor he gave me for my birthday.”) Wodeham defends his tutor
Ockham’s views against attacks mounted by Walter Chatton. Grice was familiar
with Wodeham (“from Wodeham, as it happens”) because he wrote the prologue to
Ockham’s Summa logicae. Wodeham’s own influence rivals that of Ockham. Among
the authors he strongly influenced are Gregory of Rimini, John of Mirecourt,
Nicholas of Autrecourt, Pierre d’Ailly, Peter Ceffons, Alfonso Vargas, Peter of
Candia (Alexander V), Henry Totting of Oyta, John Major, and lastly, but certainly
not leastly, H. P. Grice. Wodeham’s lectures were composed for tutees with a
very sophisticated understanding of current issues in semantics, logic, and mathematical
physics. Contrary to Duns Scotus and Occam, Wodeham argues – and this is
borrowed by Grice -- that the sensitive and intellective souls are not distinct
(vide Grice, “The power structure of the soul”). Wodeham further develops the
theory of intuitive cognition, distinguishing intellectual intuition of our own
acts of intellect, will, and memory from sensory intuition of external objects.
This is developed by Grice in his contrast of “I am not hearing a noise,” and
“That is not blue.” Thus, knowledge based on experience can be based on intuition,
according to Wodeham. Wodeham goes on to distinguishs different grades (or
degrees, as Grice prefers, which Grice symbolises as ‘d’) of evidence (for
credibility and desirability) and allows that this or that sensory perception
may be mistaken (“but if all were, we are in trouble’). Nonetheless, they can
form the basis for knowledge, since they are, caeteris paribus, reliable. “A
mistake can always be corrected by reason and experience. In semantic and
pragmatic theories, Wodeham defends the view that the immediate object of knowledge
is what he calls the “complexum significabile,” that which the conclusion is
designed to signify.
wolff:
“Who’s afraid of the rationalist wolff,” Grice would chant. Grice borrowed
(“but I was never able to return”) from Wolff the idea of ‘psychologia
rationalis,’ that Grice uses profusely. philosopher and the most powerful
advocate for secular rationalism in early eighteenth-century Germany. Although
he was a Lutheran, his early education in Catholic Breslau made him familiar
with both the Scholasticism of Aquinas and Suárez and more modern sources. His
later studies at Leipzig were completed with a dissertation on the application
of mathematical methods to ethics (1703), which brought him to the attention of
Leibniz. He remained in correspondence with Leibniz until the latter’s death
(1716), and became known as the popularizer of Leibniz’s philosophy, although
his views did not derive from that source alone. Appointed to teach mathematics
in Halle in 1706 (he published mathematical textbooks and compendia that
dominated German universities for decades), Wolff began lecturing on philosophy
as well by 1709. His rectoral address On the Practical Philosophy of the
Chinese (1721) argued that revelation and even belief in God were unnecessary
for arriving at sound principles of moral and political reasoning; this brought
his uneasy relations with the Halle Pietists to a head, and in 1723 they
secured his dismissal and indeed banishment. Wolff was immediately welcomed in
Marburg, where he became a hero for freedom of thought, and did not return to
Prussia until the ascension of Frederick the Great in 1740, when he resumed his
post at Halle. Wolff published an immense series of texts on logic,
metaphysics, ethics, politics, natural theology, and teleology (1713–24), in
which he created the philosophical terminology of modern German; he then
published an even more extensive series of works in Latin for the rest of his
life, expanding and modifying his German works but also adding works on natural
and positive law and economics (1723–55). He accepted the traWodeham, Adam de
Wolff, Christian 980 980 ditional
division of logic into the doctrines of concepts, judgment, and inference,
which influenced the organization of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781–87)
and even Hegel’s Science of Logic(1816). In metaphysics, he included general
ontology and then the special disciplines of rational cosmology, rational
psychology, and rational theology (Kant replaced Wolff’s general ontology with
his transcendental aesthetic and analytic, and then demolished Wolff’s special
metaphysics in his transcendental dialectic). Wolff’s metaphysics drew heavily
on Leibniz, but also on Descartes and even empiricists like Locke.
Methodologically, he attempted to derive the principle of sufficient reason
from the logical law of identity (like the unpublished Leibniz of the 1680s
rather than the published Leibniz of the 1700s); substantively, he began his
German metaphysics with a reconstruction of Descartes’s cogito argument, then
argued for a simple, immaterial soul, all of its faculties reducible to forms
of representation and related to body by preestablished harmony. Although
rejected by Crusius and then Kant, Wolff’s attempt to found philosophy on a
single principle continued to influence German idealism as late as Reinhold,
Fichte, and Hegel, and his example of beginning metaphysics from the unique
representative power of the soul continued to influence not only later writers
such as Reinhold and Fichte but also Kant’s own conception of the
transcendental unity of apperception. In spite of the academic influence of his
metaphysics, Wolff’s importance for German culture lay in his rationalist
rather than theological ethics. He argued that moral worth lies in the
perfection of the objective essence of mankind; as the essence of a human is to
be an intellect and a will (with the latter dependent on the former), which are
physically embodied and dependent for their well-being on the well-being of
their physical body, morality requires perfection of the intellect and will,
physical body, and external conditions for the well-being of that combination.
Each person is obliged to perfect all instantiations of this essence, but in
practice does so most effectively in his own case; duties to oneself therefore
precede duties to others and to God. Because pleasure is the sensible sign of
perfection, Wolff’s perfectionism resembles contemporary utilitarianism. Since
he held that human perfection can be understood by human reason independently
of any revelation, Wolff joined contemporary British enlighteners such as
Shaftesbury and Hutcheson in arguing that morality does not depend on divine
commands, indeed the recognition of divine commands depends on an antecedent
comprehension of morality (although morality does require respect for God, and
thus the atheistic morality of the Chinese, even though sound as far as it
went, was not complete). This was the doctrine that put Wolff’s life in danger,
but it had tremendous repercussions for the remainder of his century, and
certainly in Kant.
wollaston: when Grice is in a humorous mood, or
mode, as he prefers, he cites Wollaston at large! Wollaston
is notorious for arguing that the immorality of this or that action lies in an
utterer who describes it implicating a false proposition. Wollaston maintains
that there is harmony between reason (or truth) and happiness. Therefore, any
ction that contradict truth through misrepresentation thereby frustrates human
happiness and is thus “plain evil.” Wollaston gives the example of Willard
[Quine] who, to pay Paul [Grice], robs Peter [Strawspm] stealing his
watch. Grice comments: “In falsely epresenting
Strawson’s watch as his own, Willard makes the act wrong, even if he did it to
pay me what he owed me.” Wollaston’s views, particularly his taking morality to
consist in universal and necessary truths, were influenced by the rationalists
Ralph Cudworth and Clarke. Among his many critics the most famous is, as Grice
would expect, Hume, who contends that Wollaston’s theory implies an absurdity
(“unless you disimplicate it in the bud.”). For Hume, any action concealed from
public view (e.g., adultery) conveys (or ‘explicates’) no false proposition and
therefore is not immoral, since one can annul it, to use Grice’s jargon.
wollheim: R. A. London-born philosopher, BPhil Oxon, Balliol (under
D. Marcus) and All Souls. Examined by H.
P. Grice. “What’s two times two?” Wollheim treasured that examination. It was
in the context of a discussion of J. S. Mill and I. Kant, for whom addition and
multiplication are ‘synthetic’ – a priori for Kant, a posteriori for Mill.
Grice was trying to provide a counterexample to Mill’s thesis that all comes
via deduction or induction.
woodianism: Grice loved O. P. Wood, as anyone at Oxford did – even
those who disliked Ryle!
woozleyianism: R. M. Harnish discussed H. P. Grice’s implicatum with A.
D. Woozley. Woozley would know because he had been in contact with Grice since
for ever. Woozley had a closer contact with Austin, since, unlike Grice, ‘being
from the right side of the tracks,’ he socialized with Austin in what Berlin
pretentiously calls the ‘early beginnings of Oxford philosophy,’ as if the
Middle Ages never happened. Woozley edited Reid, that Grice read, or reed. Since
the first way to approach Grice’s philosophy is with his colleagues at his Play
Group, Woozley plays a crucial role.
ward:
“one of the most philosophical psychologists England (if not Oxford) ever
produced!” – H. P. Grice -- cited by H. P. Grice. -- English philosopher.
Influenced by Lotze, Herbart, and Brentano, Ward sharply criticized Bain’s
associationism and its allied nineteenth-century reductive naturalism. His
psychology rejected the associationists’ sensationism, which regarded mind as
passive, capable only of sensory receptivity and composed solely of cognitive
presentations. Ward emphasized the mind’s inherent activity, asserting, like
Kant, the prior existence of an inferred but necessarily existing ego or
subject capable of feeling and, most importantly, of conation, shaping both
experience and behavior by the willful exercise of attention. Ward’s psychology
stresses attention and will. In his metaphysics, Ward resisted the naturalists’
mechanistic materialism, proposing instead a teleological spiritualistic
monism. While his criticisms of associationism and naturalism were telling,
Ward was a transitional figure whose positive influence is limited, if we
except H. P. Grice who follows him to a T. Although sympathetic to scientific
psychology he founded scientific
psychology in Britain by establishing a psychology laboratory he, with his student Stout, represented the
beginning of armchair psychology at Oxford, which Grice adored. Through Stout
he influenced the hormic psychology of McDougall, and Grice who calls himself a
Stoutian “until Prichard converted me”. Ward’s major work is “Psychology”
Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed., 6, reworked as Psychological Principles
8.
wayward
causal chain: a causal chain, referred to in a
proposed causal analysis of a key concept, that goes awry. Causal analyses have
been proposed for key concepts e.g.,
reference, action, explanation, knowledge, artwork. There are two main cases of
wayward or deviant causal chains that defeat a causal analysis: 1 those in
which the prescribed causal route is followed, but the expected event does not
occur; and 2 those in which the expected event occurs, but the prescribed
causal route is not followed. Consider action. One proposed analysis is that a
person’s doing something is an action if and only if what he does is caused by
his beliefs and desires. The possibility of wayward causal chains defeats this
analysis. For case 1, suppose, while climbing, John finds he is supporting
another man on a rope. John wants to rid himself of this danger, and he
believes that he can do so by loosening his grip. His belief and desire unnerve
him, causing him to loosen his hold. The prescribed causal route was followed,
but the ensuing event, his grip loosening, is not an action. For case 2,
suppose Harry wants to kill his rich uncle, and he believes that he can find
him at home. His beliefs and desires so agitate him that he drives recklessly.
He hits and kills a pedestrian, who, by chance, is his uncle. The killing
occurs, but without following the prescribed causal route; the killing was an
accidental consequence of what Harry did.
weber:
philosopher born in Berlin. Grice liked him “because he invented, or thought he
invented, more or less, ‘zweckrationalitaet’ – which he refused to translate!”
– H. P. Grice.-- born in a liberal and intellectual household, he taught
economics in Heidelberg, where his circle included leading sociologists and
philosophers such as Simmel and Lukacs. Although Weber gave up his
professorship after a nervous breakdown in 9, he remained important in public life,
an adviser to the commissions that drafted the peace treaty at Versailles and
the Weimar constitution. Weber’s social theory was influenced philosophically
by both neo-Kantianism and Nietzsche, creating tensions in a theorist who
focused much of his attention on Occidental rationalism and yet was a
noncognitivist in ethics. He wrote many comparative studies on topics such as
law and urbanization and a celebrated study of the cultural factors responsible
for the rise of capitalism, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
4. But his major, synthetic work in social theory is Economy and Society 4; it
includes a methodological introduction to the basic concepts of sociology that
has been treated by many philosophers of social science. One of the main
theoretical goals of Weber’s work is to understand how social processes become
“rationalized,” taking up certain themes want-belief model Weber, Max 968 of the G. philosophy of history since
Hegel as part of social theory. Culture, e.g., became rationalized in the
process of the “disenchantment of worldviews” in the West, a process that Weber
thought had “universal significance.” But because of his goal-oriented theory
of action and his noncognitivism in ethics, Weber saw rationalization
exclusively in terms of the spread of purposive, or meansends rationality
Zweckrationalität. Rational action means choosing the most effective means of
achieving one’s goals and implies judging the consequences of one’s actions and
choices. In contrast, value rationality Wertrationalität consists of actions
oriented to ultimate ends, where considerations of consequences are irrelevant.
Although such action is rational insofar as it directs and organizes human
conduct, the choice of such ends or values themselves cannot be a matter for
rational or scientific judgment. Indeed, for Weber this meant that politics was
the sphere for the struggle between irreducibly competing ultimate ends, where
“gods and demons fight it out” and charismatic leaders invent new gods and
values. Professional politicians, however, should act according to an “ethics
of responsibility” Verantwortungsethik aimed at consequences, and not an
“ethics of conviction” Gesinnungsethik aimed at abstract principles or ultimate
ends. Weber also believed that rationalization brought the separation of “value
spheres” that can never again be unified by reason: art, science, and morality
have their own “logics.” Weber’s influential methodological writings reject
positivist philosophy of science, yet call for “value neutrality.” He accepts
the neo-Kantian distinction, common in his day under the influence of Rickert,
between the natural and the human sciences, between the Natur- and the
Geisteswissenschaften. Because human social action is purposive and meaningful,
the explanations of social sciences must be related to the values Wertbezogen
and ideals of the actors it studies. Against positivism, Weber saw an
ineliminable element of Verstehen, or understanding of meanings, in the
methodology of the human sciences. For example, he criticized the legal
positivist notion of behavioral conformity for failing to refer to actors’
beliefs in legitimacy. But for Weber Verstehen is not intuition or empathy and
does not exclude causal analysis; reasons can be causes. Thus, explanations in
social science must have both causal and subjective adequacy. Weber also
thought that adequate explanations of large-scale, macrosocial phenomena
require the construction of ideal types, which abstract and summarize the
common features of complex, empirical phenomena such as “sects,” “authority,”
or even “the Protestant ethic.” Weberian ideal types are neither merely
descriptive nor simply heuristic, but come at the end of inquiry through the
successful theoretical analysis of diverse phenomena in various historical and
cultural contexts. Weber’s analysis of rationality as the disenchantment of the
world and the spread of purposive reason led him to argue that reason and
progress could turn into their opposites, a notion that enormously influenced
critical theory. Weber had a critical “diagnosis of the times” and a
pessimistic philosophy of history. At the end of The Protestant Ethic Weber
warns that rationalism is desiccating sources of value and constructing an
“iron cage” of increasing bureaucratization, resulting in a loss of meaning and
freedom in social life. According to Weber, these basic tensions of modern
rationality cannot be resolved.
weil: philosopher
and writer. Born in Paris – “Oddly, if her surname were translated to English
she would be “Madame Because”!” – H. P. Grice. Weil was one of the first women
to graduate from the École Normale Supérieure, having earlier studied under the
philosopher Alain. While teaching in various
lycées Weil became involved in radical leftist politics, and her early
works concern social problems and labor. They also show an attempt to work out
a theory of action as fundamental to human knowing. This is seen first in her
diploma essay, “Science and Perception in Descartes,” and later in her critique
of Marx, capitalism, and technocracy in “Reflections concerning the Causes of
Social Oppression and Liberty.” Believing that humans cannot escape certain
basic harsh necessities of embodied life, Weil sought to find a way by which
freedom and dignity could be achieved by organizing labor in such a way that
the mind could understand that necessity and thereby come to consent to it.
After a year of testing her theories by working in three factories in 435,
Weil’s early optimism was shattered by the discovery of what she called
“affliction” malheur, a destruction of the human person to which one cannot
consent. Three important religious experiences, however, caused her to attempt
to put the problem into a Weber’s law Weil, Simone 969 969 larger context. By arguing that
necessity obeys a transcendent goodness and then by using a kenotic model of
Christ’s incarnation and crucifixion, she tried to show that affliction can
have a purpose and be morally enlightening. The key is the renunciation of any
ultimate possession of power as well as the social personality constituted by
that power. This is a process of “attention” and “decreation” by which one
sheds the veil that otherwise separates one from appreciating goodness in
anything but oneself, but most especially from God. She understands God as a
goodness that is revealed in self-emptying and in incarnation, and creation as
an act of renunciation and not power. During her last months, while working for
the Free in London, Weil’s social and
religious interests came together, especially in The Need for Roots. Beginning
with a critique of social rights and replacing it with obligations, Weil sought
to show, on the one hand, how modern societies had illegitimately become the
focus of value, and on the other hand, how cultures could be reconstructed so
that they would root humans in something more ultimate than themselves.
Returning to her earlier themes, Weil argued that in order for this rootedness
to occur, physical labor must become the spiritual core of culture. Weil died
of tuberculosis while this book was in progress. Often regarded as mystical and
syncretistic, Weil’s philosophy owes much to an original reading of Plato e.g.,
in Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Grecians as well as to Marx,
Alain, and Christianity. Recent studies, however, have also seen her as
significantly contributing to social, moral, and religious philosophy. Her
concern with problems of action and persons is not dissimilar to
Vitters’s.
well-formed
formula: For Grice, an otiosity – surely an ill-formed
formula is an oxymoron -- a grammatically wellformed sentence or structured
predicate of an artificial language of the sort studied by logicians. A
well-formed formula is sometimes known as a wff pronounced ‘woof’ or simply a
formula. Delineating the formulas of a language involves providing it with a
syntax or grammar, composed of both a vocabulary a specification of the symbols
from which the language is to be built, sorted into grammatical categories and
formation rules a purely formal or syntactical specification of which strings
of symbols are grammatically well-formed and which are not. Formulas are
classified as either open or closed, depending on whether or not they contain
free variables variables not bound by quantifiers. Closed formulas, such as x
Fx / Gx, are sentences, the potential bearers of truth-values. Open formulas,
such as Fx / Gx, are handled in any of three ways. On some accounts, these
formulas are on a par with closed ones, the free variables being treated as names.
On others, open formulas are structured predicates, the free variables being
treated as place holders for terms. And on still other accounts, the free
variables are regarded as implicitly bound by universal quantifiers, again
making open formulas sentences.
westermarck: “philosopher
who spent his life studying all the mores and morals of cultures – except his
own – because he claimed he didn’t have one!” – H. P. Grice. His main works,
The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas and Ethical Relativity, attack the
idea that moral principles express objective value. In defending ethical
relativism, he argued that moral judgments are based not on intellectual but on
emotional grounds. He admitted that cultural variability in itself does not
prove ethical relativism, but contended that the fundamental differences are so
comprehensive and deep as to constitute a strong presumption in favor of
relativism.
whewell:
w. English philosopher of science. He was a master of Trinity , Cambridge
184166. Francis Bacon’s early work on induction was furthered by Whewell, J. F.
W. Herschel, and J. S. Mill, who attempted to create a logic of welfare
economics Whewell, William 970 970
induction, a methodology that can both discover generalizations about
experience and prove them to be necessary. Whewell’s theory of scientific
method is based on his reading of the history of the inductive sciences. He
thought that induction began with a non-inferential act, the superimposition of
an idea on data, a “colligation,” a way of seeing facts in a “new light.”
Colligations generalize over data, and must satisfy three “tests of truth.”
First, colligations must be empirically adequate; they must account for the
given data. Any number of ideas may be adequate to explain given data, so a more
severe test is required. Second, because colligations introduce
generalizations, they must apply to events or properties of objects not yet
given: they must provide successful predictions, thereby enlarging the evidence
in favor of the colligation. Third, the best inductions are those where
evidence for various hypotheses originally thought to cover unrelated kinds of
data “jumps together,” providing a consilience of inductions. Consilience
characterizes those theories achieving large measures of simplicity,
generality, unification, and deductive strength. Furthermore, consilience is a
test of the necessary truth of theories, which implies that what many regard as
merely pragmatic virtues of theories like simplicity and unifying force have an
epistemic status. Whewell thus provides a strong argument for scientific
realism. Whewell’s examples of consilient theories are Newton’s theory of
universal gravitation, which covers phenomena as seemingly diverse as the
motions of the heavenly bodies and the motions of the tides, and the undulatory
theory of light, which explains both the polarization of light by crystals and
the colors of fringes. There is evidence that Whewell’s methodology was
employed by Maxwell, who designed the influential Cavendish Laboratories at
Cambridge. Peirce and Mach favored Whewell’s account of method over Mill’s
empiricist theory of induction.
whitehead:
cited by H. P. Grice, a. n., philosopher of science, educated first at the
Sherborne School in Dorsetshire and then at Trinity , Cambridge, Whitehead
emerged as a first-class mathematician with a rich general background. In 5 he
became a fellow of Trinity and remained
there in a teaching role until 0. In the early 0s Bertrand Russell entered Trinity as a student in mathematics; by the beginning
of the new century Russell had become not only a student and friend but a
colleague of Whitehead’s at Trinity . Each had written a first book on algebra
Whitehead’s A Treatise on Universal Algebra won him election to the Royal
Society in 3. When they discovered that their projected second books largely
overlapped, they undertook a collaboration on a volume that they estimated
would take about a year to write; in fact, it was a decade later that the three
volumes of their ground-breaking Principia Mathematica appeared, launching
symbolic logic in its modern form. In the second decade of this century
Whitehead and Russell drifted apart; their responses to World War I differed
radically, and their intellectual interests and orientations diverged. Whitehead’s
London period 024 is often viewed as the second phase of a three-phase career.
His association with the of London
involved him in practical issues affecting the character of working-class
education. For a decade Whitehead held a professorship at the Imperial of Science and Technology and also served as
dean of the Faculty of Science in the , chair of the Academic Council which
managed educational affairs in London, and chair of the council that managed Goldsmith’s
. His book The Aims of Education 8 is a collection of essays largely growing
out of reflections on the experiences of these years. Intellectually,
Whitehead’s interests were moving toward issues in the philosophy of science.
In the years 922 he published An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural
Knowledge, The Concept of Nature, and The Principle of Relativity the third led to his later 1 election as a
fellow of the British Academy. In 4, at the age of sixty-three, Whitehead made
a dramatic move, both geographically and intellectually, to launch phase three
of his career: never having formally studied philosophy in his life, he agreed
to become professor of philosophy at Harvard , a position he held until
retirement in 7. The accompanying intellectual shift was a move from philosophy
of science to metaphysics. The earlier investigations had assumed the
self-containedness of nature: “nature is closed to mind.” The philosophy of
nature examined nature at the level of abstraction entailed by this assumption.
Whitehead had come to regard philosophy as “the critic of abstractions,” a
notion introduced in Science and the Modern World 5. This book traced the
intertwined emergence of Newtonian science and its philosophical
presuppositions. It noted that with the development of the theory of relativity
in the twentieth century, scientific understanding had left behind the
Newtonian conceptuality that had generated the still-dominant philosophical
assumptions, and that those philosophical assumptions considered in themselves
had become inadequate to explicate our full concrete experience. Philosophy as
the critic of abstractions must recognize the limitations of a stance that
assumes that nature is closed to mind, and must push deeper, beyond such an
abstraction, to create a scheme of ideas more in harmony with scientific
developments and able to do justice to human beings as part of nature. Science
and the Modern World merely outlines what such a philosophy might be; in 9
Whitehead published his magnum opus, titled Process and Reality. In this volume,
subtitled “An Essay in Cosmology,” his metaphysical understanding is given its
final form. It is customary to regard this book as the central document of what
has become known as process philosophy, though Whitehead himself frequently
spoke of his system of ideas as the philosophy of organism. Process and Reality
begins with a sentence that sheds a great deal of light upon Whitehead’s
metaphysical orientation: “These lectures are based upon a recurrence to that
phase of philosophic thought which began with Descartes and ended with Hume.”
Descartes, adapting the classical notion of substance to his own purposes,
begins a “phase of philosophic thought” by assuming there are two distinct,
utterly different kinds of substance, mind and matter, each requiring nothing
but itself in order to exist. This assumption launches the reign of
epistemology within philosophy: if knowing begins with the experiencing of a
mental substance capable of existing by itself and cut off from everything
external to it, then the philosophical challenge is to try to justify the claim
to establish contact with a reality external to it. The phrase “and ended with
Hume” expresses Whitehead’s conviction that Hume and more elegantly, he notes,
Santayana showed that if one begins with Descartes’s metaphysical assumptions,
skepticism is inevitable. Contemporary philosophers have talked about the end
of philosophy. From Whitehead’s perspective such talk presupposes a far too
narrow view of the nature of philosophy. It is true that a phase of philosophy
has ended, a phase dominated by epistemology. Whitehead’s response is to offer
the dictum that all epistemological difficulties are at bottom only camouflaged
metaphysical difficulties. One must return to that moment of Cartesian
beginning and replace the substance metaphysics with an orientation that avoids
the epistemological trap, meshes harmoniously with the scientific
understandings that have displaced the much simpler physics of Descartes’s day,
and is consonant with the facts of evolution. These are the considerations that
generate Whitehead’s fundamental metaphysical category, the category of an
actual occasion. An actual occasion is not an enduring, substantial entity.
Rather, it is a process of becoming, a process of weaving together the
“prehensions” a primitive form of ‘apprehension’ meant to indicate a “taking
account of,” or “feeling,” devoid of conscious awareness of the actual
occasions that are in the immediate past. Whitehead calls this process of
weaving together the inheritances of the past “concrescence.” An actual entity
is its process of concrescence, its process of growing together into a unified
perspective on its immediate past. The seeds of Whitehead’s epistemological
realism are planted in these fundamental first moves: “The philosophy of
organism is the inversion of Kant’s philosophy. . . . For Kant, the world
emerges from the subject; for the philosophy of organism, the subject emerges
from the world.” It is customary to compare an actual occasion with a
Leibnizian monad, with the caveat that whereas a monad is windowless, an actual
occasion is “all window.” It is as though one were to take Aristotle’s system
of categories and ask what would result if the category of substance were
displaced from its position of preeminence by the category of relation the result would, mutatis mutandis, be an
understanding of being somewhat on the model of a Whiteheadian actual occasion.
In moving from Descartes’s dualism of mental substance and material substance
to his own notion of an actual entity, Whitehead has been doing philosophy
conceived of as the critique of abstractions. He holds that both mind and
matter are abstractions from the concretely real. They are important
abstractions, necessary for everyday thought and, of supreme importance,
absolutely essential in enabling the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries
to accomplish their magnificent advances in scientific thinking. Indeed,
Whitehead, in his philosophy of science phase, by proceeding as though “nature
is closed to mind,” was operating with those selfsame abstractions. He came to
see that while these abstractions were indispensable for certain kinds of
investigations, they were, at the philosophical level, as Hume had
demonstrated, a disaster. In considering mind and matter to be ontological
ultimates, Descartes had committed what Whitehead termed the fallacy of
misplaced concreteness. The category of an actual occasion designates the fully
real, the fully concrete. The challenge for such an orientation, the challenge
that Process and Reality is designed to meet, is so to describe actual
occasions that it is intelligible how collections of actual occasions, termed
“nexus” or societies, emerge, exhibiting the characteristics we find associated
with “minds” and “material structures.” Perhaps most significantly, if this
challenge is met successfully, biology will be placed, in the eyes of
philosophy, on an even footing with physics; metaphysics will do justice both
to human beings and to human beings as a part of nature; and such vexing
contemporary problem areas as animal rights and environmental ethics will
appear in a new light. Whitehead’s last two books, Adventures of Ideas 3 and
Modes of Thought 8, are less technical and more lyrical than is Process and
Reality. Adventures of Ideas is clearly the more significant of these two. It
presents a philosophical study of the notion of civilization. It holds that the
social changes in a civilization are driven by two sorts of forces: brute,
senseless agencies of compulsion on the one hand, and formulated aspirations
and articulated beliefs on the other. These two sorts of forces are epitomized
by barbarians and Christianity in the ancient Roman world and by steam and
democracy in the world of the industrial revolution. Whitehead’s focal point in
Adventures of Ideas is aspirations, beliefs, and ideals as instruments of
change. In particular, he is concerned to articulate the ideals and aspirations
appropriate to our own era. The character of such ideals and aspirations at any
moment is limited by the philosophical understandings available at that moment,
because in their struggle for release and efficacy such ideals and aspirations
can appear only in the forms permitted by the available philosophical
discourse. In the final section of Adventures of Ideas Whitehead presents a
statement of ideals and aspirations fit for our era as his own philosophy of
organism allows them to take shape and be articulated. The notions of beauty,
truth, adventure, zest, Eros, and peace are given a content drawn from the
technical understandings elaborated in Process and Reality. But in Adventures
of Ideas a less technical language is used, a language reminiscent of the
poetic imagery found in the style of Plato’s Republic, a language making the
ideas accessible to readers who have not mastered Process and Reality, but at
the same time far richer and more meaningful to those who have. Whitehead notes
in Adventures of Ideas that Plato’s later thought “circles round the
interweaving of seven main notions, namely, The Ideas, The Physical Elements,
The Psyche, The Eros, The Harmony, The Mathematical Relations, The Receptacle.
These notions are as important for us now, as they were then at the dawn of the
modern world, when civilizations of the old type were dying.” Whitehead uses
these notions in quite novel and modern ways; one who is unfamiliar with his
metaphysics can get something of what he means as he speaks of the Eros of the
Universe, but if one is familiar from Process and Reality with the notions of
the Primordial Nature of God and the Consequent Nature of God then one sees
much deeper into the meanings present in Adventures of Ideas. Whitehead was not
religious in any narrow, doctrinal, sectarian sense. He explicitly likened his
stance to that of Aristotle, dispassionately considering the requirements of
his metaphysical system as they refer to the question of the existence and
nature of God. Whitehead’s thoughts on these matters are most fully developed
in Chapter 11 of Science and the Modern World, in the final chapter of Process
and Reality, and in Religion in the Making 6. These thoughts are expressed at a
high level of generality. Perhaps because of this, a large part of the interest
generated by Whitehead’s thought has been within the community of theologians.
His ideas fairly beg for elaboration and development in the context of
particular modes of religious understanding. It is as though many modern
theologians, recalling the relation between the theology of Aquinas and the
metaphysics of Aristotle, cannot resist the temptation to play Aquinas to
Whitehead’s Aristotle. Process theology, or Neo-Classical Theology as it is
referred to by Hartshorne, one of its leading practitioners, has been the arena
within which a great deal of clarification and development of Whitehead’s ideas
has occurred. Whitehead was a gentle man, soft-spoken, never overbearing or
threatening. He constantly encouraged students to step out on their own, to
develop their creative capacities. His concern not to inhibit students made him
a notoriously easy grader; it was said that an A-minus in one of his courses
was equivalent to failure. Lucien Price’s Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead
chronicles many evenings of discussion in the Whitehead household. He there
described Whitehead as follows: his face, serene, luminous, often smiling, the
complexion pink and white, the eyes brilliant blue, clear and candid as a
child’s yet with the depth of the sage, often laughing or twinkling with
humour. And there was his figure, slender, frail, and bent with its lifetime of
a scholar’s toil. Always benign, there was not a grain of ill will anywhere in
him; for all his formidable armament, never a wounding word.
alnwick: English
Franciscan theologian. William studied under Duns Scotus at Paris, and wrote
the Reportatio Parisiensia, a central source for Duns Scotus’s teaching. In his
own works, William opposed Scotus on the univocity of being and haecceitas.
Some of his views were attacked by Ockham.
auvergne:
g. c.11249, philosopher who was born in
Aurillac, taught at Paris, and became bishop of Paris in 1228. Critical of the
new Aristotelianism of his time, he insisted that the soul is an individual,
immortal form of intellectual activity alone, so that a second form was needed
for the body and sensation. Though he rejected the notion of an agent
intellect, he described the soul as a mirror that reflects both exemplary ideas
in God’s mind and sensible singulars. He conceived being as something common to
everything that is, after the manner of Duns Scotus, but rejected the Avicennan
doctrine that God necessarily produces the universe, arguing that His creative
activity is free of all determination. He is the first example of the complex
of ideas we call Augustinianism, which would pass on through Alexander of Hales
to Bonaventure and other Franciscans, forming a point of departure for the
philosophy of Duns Scotus.
auxerre,
g. theologian and renowned teacher of grammar, arts, and theology at the of Paris. In 1231 he was appointed by Pope Gregory
IX to a commission charged with editing Aristotle’s writings for doctrinal
purity. The commission never submitted a report, perhaps partly due to
William’s death later that same year. William’s major work, the Summa aurea
121520, represents one of the earliest systematic attempts to reconcile the
Augustinian and Aristotelian traditions in medieval philosophy. William
tempers, e.g., the Aristotelian concession that human cognition begins with the
reception in the material intellect of a species or sensible representation
from a corporeal thing, with the Augustinian idea that it is not possible to
understand the principles of any discipline without an interior, supernatural
illumination. He also originated the theological distinction between perfect happiness,
which is uncreated and proper to God, and imperfect happiness, which pertains
to human beings. William was also one of the first to express what became, in
later centuries, the important distinction between God’s absolute and ordained
powers, taking, with Gilbert of Poitiers, the view that God could, absolutely
speaking, change the past. The Summa aurea helped shape the thought of several
important philosophers and theologians who were active later in the century,
including Albertus Magnus, Bonaventure, and Aquinas. William remained an
authority in theological discussions throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries.
moerbeke.:
w. philosopher who tr. from Grecian into Latin of works in philosophy and
natural science. Having joined the Dominicans and spent some time in
Grecian-speaking territories, William served at the papal court and then as
Catholic archbishop of Corinth 1278c.1286. But he worked from the 1260s on as a
careful and literal-minded translator. William was the first to render into
Latin some of the most important works by Aristotle, including the Politics,
Poetics, and History of Animals. He retr. or revised earlier translations of
several other Aristotelian works. William also provided the first Latin
versions of commentaries on Aristotle by Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius,
Ammonius, John Philoponus, and Simplicius, not to mention his efforts on behalf
of Grecian optics, mathematics, and medicine. When William provided the first
Latin translation of Proclus’s Elements of Theology, Western readers could at
last recognize the Liber de causis as an Arabic compilation from Proclus rather
than as a work by Aristotle.
williams: “There
are many Williams in Oxford, but only one “B. A. O., “ as he pretentiously went
by!” – H. P. Grice. B. A. O. London-born Welsh philosopher who has made major
contributions to many fields but is primarily known as a moral philosopher. His
approach to ethics, set out in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy 5, is
characterized by a wide-ranging skepticism, directed mainly at the capacity of
academic moral philosophy to further the aim of reflectively living an ethical
life. One line of skeptical argument attacks the very idea of practical reason.
Attributions of practical reasons to a particular agent must, in Williams’s
view, be attributions of states that can potentially explain the agent’s
action. Therefore such reasons must be either within the agent’s existing set
of motivations or within the revised set of motivations that the agent would
acquire upon sound reasoning. Williams argues from these minimal assumptions
that this view of reasons as internal reasons undermines the idea of reason
itself being a source of authority over practice. Williams’s connected
skepticism about the claims of moral realism is based both on his general
stance toward realism and on his view of the nature of modern societies. In
opposition to internal realism, Williams has consistently argued that
reflection on our conception of the world allows one to develop a conception of
the world maximally independent of our peculiar ways of conceptualizing
reality an absolute conception of the
world. Such absoluteness is, he argues, an inappropriate aspiration for ethical
thought. Our ethical thinking is better viewed as one way of structuring a form
of ethical life than as the ethical truth about how life is best lived. The
pervasive reflectiveness and radical pluralism of modern societies makes them
inhospitable contexts for viewing ethical concepts as making knowledge
available to groups of concept users. Modernity has produced at the level of
theory a distortion of our ethical practice, namely a conception of the
morality system. This view is reductionist, is focused centrally on
obligations, and rests on various fictions about responsibility and blame that
Williams challenges in such works as Shame and Necessity 3. Much academic moral
philosophy, in his view, is shaped by the covert influence of the morality
system, and such distinctively modern outlooks as Kantianism and utilitarianism
monopolize the terms of contemporary debate with insufficient attention to
their origin in a distorted view of the ethical. Williams’s views are not
skeptical through and through; he retains a commitment to the values of truth,
truthfulness in a life, and individualism. His most recent work, which
thematizes the long-implicit influence of Nietzsche on his ethical philosophy,
explicitly offers a vindicatory “genealogical” narrative for these ideals.
wilson:
J. C. – not to be confused with Neil Wilson, author of “Grice: The ultimate
counterexample” -- Oxonian philosopher, like Grice. Cook Wilson studied with T.
H. Green before becoming Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford and leading the
Oxford reaction against the then entrenched absolute idealism. More influential
as a tutor than as a writer, his major oeuvre, Statement and Inference, was
posthumously reconstructed from drafts of papers, philosophical correspondence,
and an extensive set of often inconsistent lectures for his logic courses. A
staunch critic of Whitehead’s mathematical logic, Wilson conceived of logic as
the study of thinking, an activity unified by the fact that thinking either is
knowledge or depends on knowledge “What we know we kow”. Wilson claims that
knowledge involves apprehending an object that in most cases is independent of
the act of apprehension and that knowledge is indefinable without circularity,
views he defended by appealing to common usage. Many of Wilson’s ideas are
disseminated by H. W. B. Joseph, especially in his “Logic.” Rejecting “symbolic
logic,” Joseph attempts to reinvigorate traditional logic conceived along
Wilsonian lines. To do so Joseph combined a careful exposition of Aristotle
with insights drawn from idealistic logicians. Besides Joseph, Wilson decisively
influenced a generation of Oxford philosophers including Prichard and Ross, and
Grice who explores the ‘interrogative subordination’ in the account of ‘if.’
“Who killed Cock Robin”.
windelband: philosopher
and originator of Baden neoKantianism. He studied under Kuno Fischer 18247 and
Lotze, and was professor at Zürich, Freiburg, Strasbourg, and Heidelberg.
Windelband gave Baden neo-Kantianism its distinctive mark of Kantian axiology
as the core of critical philosophy. He is widely recognized for innovative work
in the history of philosophy, in which problems rather than individual
philosophers are the focus and organizing principle of exposition. He is also
known for his distinction, first drawn in “Geschichte und Naturwissenschaft”
“History and Natural Science,” 4, between the nomothetic knowledge that most
natural sciences seek the discovery of general laws in order to master nature
and the idiographic knowledge that the historical sciences pursue description
of individual and unique aspects of reality with the aim of self-affirmation.
His most important student, and successor at Heidelberg, was Heinrich Rickert
1863 6, who made lasting contributions to the methodology of the historical
sciences.
sapientia:
wisdom, an understanding of the highest principles of things that functions as
a guide for living a truly exemplary human life. From the preSocratics through
Plato this was a unified notion. But Aristotle introduced a distinction between
theoretical wisdom sophia and practical wisdom phronesis, the former being the
intellectual virtue that disposed one to grasp the nature of reality in terms
of its ultimate causes metaphysics, the latter being the ultimate practical
virtue that disposed one to make sound judgments bearing on the conduct of
life. The former invoked a contrast between deep understanding versus wide
information, whereas the latter invoked a contrast between sound judgment and
mere technical facility. This distinction between theoretical and practical
wisdom persisted through the Middle Ages and continues to our own day, as is
evident in our use of the term ‘wisdom’ to designate both knowledge of the
highest kind and the capacity for sound judgment in matters of conduct.
vitters:
L. – cited by H. P. Grice, “Some like Vitters, but Moore’s MY man.” Vienna-born
philosopher trained as an enginner at Manchester. Typically referred to
Wittgenstein in the style of English schoolboy slang of the time as, “Witters,”
pronounced “Vitters.”“I
heard Austin said once: ‘Some like Witters, but Moore’s MY man.’ Austin would
open the “Philosophical Investigations,” and say, “Let’s see what Witters has
to say about this.” Everybody ended up loving Witters at the playgroup.”
Witters’s oeuvre was translated first into English by C. K. Ogden. There are
interesting twists. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Vitters.” Grice was sadly discomforted
when one of his best friends at Oxford, D. F. Pears, dedicated so much effort
to the unveiling of the mysteries of ‘Vitters.’ ‘Vitters’ was all in the air in
Grice’s inner circle. Strawson had written a review of Philosophical
Investigations. Austin was always mocking ‘Vitters,’ and there are other
connections. For Grice, the most important is that remark in “Philosohpical
Investigations,” which he never cared to check ‘in the Hun,’ about a horse not
being seen ‘as a horse.’ But in “Prolegomena” he mentions Vitters in other
contexts, too, and in “Causal Theory,” almost anonymously – but usually with
regard to the ‘seeing as’ puzzle. Grice would also rely on Witters’s now
knowing how to use ‘know’ or vice versa. In “Method” Grice quotes verbatim: ‘No
psyche without the manifestation the ascription of psyche is meant to explain,”
and also to the effect that most ‘-etic’ talk of behaviour is already ‘-emic,’
via internal perspective, or just pervaded with intentionalism. One
of the most original and challenging philosophical writers of the twentieth
century. Born in Vienna into an assimilated family of Jewish extraction, he
went to England as a student and eventually became a protégé of Russell’s at
Cambridge. He returned to Austria at the beginning of The Great War I, but went
back to Cambridge in 8 and taught there as a fellow and professor. Despite
spending much of his professional life in England, Vitters never lost contact
with his Austrian background, and his writings combine in a unique way ideas
derived from both the insular and the continental European tradition. His
thought is strongly marked by a deep skepticism about philosophy, but he
retained the conviction that there was something important to be rescued from
the traditional enterprise. In his Blue Book 8 he referred to his own work as
“one of the heirs of the subject that used to be called philosophy.” What
strikes readers first when they look at Vitters’s writings is the peculiar form
of their composition. They are generally made up of short individual notes that
are most often numbered in sequence and, in the more finished writings,
evidently selected and arranged with the greatest care. Those notes range from
fairly technical discussions on matters of logic, the mind, meaning,
understanding, acting, seeing, mathematics, and knowledge, to aphoristic
observations about ethics, culture, art, and the meaning of life. Because of
their wide-ranging character, their unusual perspective on things, and their
often intriguing style, Vitters’s writings have proved to appeal to both
professional philosophers and those interested in philosophy in a more general
way. The writings as well as his unusual life and personality have already
produced a large body of interpretive literature. But given his uncompromising
stand, it is questionable whether his thought will ever be fully integrated
into academic philosophy. It is more likely that, like Pascal and Nietzsche, he
will remain an uneasy presence in philosophy. From an early date onward Vitters
was greatly influenced by the idea that philosophical problems can be resolved
by paying attention to the working of language
a thought he may have gained from Fritz Mauthner’s Beiträge zu einer
Kritik der Sprache 102. Vitters’s affinity to Mauthner is, indeed, evident in
all phases of his philosophical development, though it is particularly
noticeable in his later thinking.Until recently it has been common to divide
Vitters’s work into two sharply distinct phases, separated by a prolonged
period of dormancy. According to this schema the early “Tractarian” period is
that of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 1, which Vitters wrote in the
trenches of World War I, and the later period that of the Philosophical Investigations
3, which he composed between 6 and 8. But the division of his work into these
two periods has proved misleading. First, in spite of obvious changes in his
thinking, Vitters remained throughout skeptical toward traditional philosophy
and persisted in channeling philosophical questioning in a new direction.
Second, the common view fails to account for the fact that even between 0 and
8, when Vitters abstained from actual work in philosophy, he read widely in
philosophical and semiphilosophical authors, and between 8 and 6 he renewed his
interest in philosophical work and wrote copiously on philosophical matters.
The posthumous publication of texts such as The Blue and Brown Books,
Philosophical Grammar, Philosophical Remarks, and Conversations with the Vienna
Circle has led to acknowledgment of a middle period in Vitters’s development,
in which he explored a large number of philosophical issues and viewpoints a period that served as a transition between
the early and the late work. Early period. As the son of a greatly successful
industrialist and engineer, Vitters first studied engineering in Berlin and
Manchester, and traces of that early training are evident throughout his
writing. But his interest shifted soon to pure mathematics and the foundations
of mathematics, and in pursuing questions about them he became acquainted with
Russell and Frege and their work. The two men had a profound and lasting effect
on Vitters even when he later came to criticize and reject their ideas. That
influence is particularly noticeable in the Tractatus, which can be read as an
attempt to reconcile Russell’s atomism with Frege’s apriorism. But the book is
at the same time moved by quite different and non-technical concerns. For even
before turning to systematic philosophy Vitters had been profoundly moved by
Schopenhauer’s thought as it is spelled out in The World as Will and
Representation, and while he was serving as a soldier in World War I, he
renewed his interest in Schopenhauer’s metaphysical, ethical, aesthetic, and
mystical outlook. The resulting confluence of ideas is evident in the Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus and gives the book its peculiar character. Composed in a
dauntingly severe and compressed style, the book attempts to show that
traditional philosophy rests entirely on a misunderstanding of “the logic of
our language.” Following in Frege’s and Russell’s footsteps, Vitters argued
that every meaningful sentence must have a precise logical structure. That
structure may, however, be hidden beneath the clothing of the grammatical
appearance of the sentence and may therefore require the most detailed analysis
in order to be made evident. Such analysis, Vitters was convinced, would
establish that every meaningful sentence is either a truth-functional composite
of another simpler sentence or an atomic sentence consisting of a concatenation
of simple names. He argued further that every atomic sentence is a logical
picture of a possible state of affairs, which must, as a result, have exactly
the same formal structure as the atomic sentence that depicts it. He employed
this “picture theory of meaning” as it
is usually called to derive conclusions
about the nature of the world from his observations about the structure of the
atomic sentences. He postulated, in particular, that the world must itself have
a precise logical structure, even though we may not be able to determine it
completely. He also held that the world consists primarily of facts,
corresponding to the true atomic sentences, rather than of things, and that
those facts, in turn, are concatenations of simple objects, corresponding to
the simple names of which the atomic sentences are composed. Because he derived
these metaphysical conclusions from his view of the nature of language, Vitters
did not consider it essential to describe what those simple objects, their
concatenations, and the facts consisting of them are actually like. As a
result, there has been a great deal of uncertainty and disagreement among
interpreters about their character. The propositions of the Tractatus are for
the most part concerned with spelling out Vitters’s account of the logical
structure of language and the world and these parts of the book have
understandably been of most interest to philosophers who are primarily concerned
with questions of symbolic logic and its applications. But for Vitters himself
the most important part of the book consisted of the negative conclusions about
philosophy that he reaches at the end of his text: in particular, that all
sentences that are not atomic pictures of concatenations of objects or
truth-functional composites of such are strictly speaking meaningless. Among
these he included all the propositions of ethics and aesthetics, all
propositions dealing with the meaning of life, all propositions of logic,
indeed all philosophical propositions, and finally all the propositions of the
Tractatus itself. These are all strictly meaningless; they aim at saying
something important, but what they try to express in words can only show
itself. As a result Vitters concluded that anyone who understood what the
Tractatus was saying would finally discard its propositions as senseless, that
she would throw away the ladder after climbing up on it. Someone who reached
such a state would have no more temptation to pronounce philosophical
propositions. She would see the world rightly and would then also recognize
that the only strictly meaningful propositions are those of natural science;
but those could never touch what was really important in human life, the mystical.
That would have to be contemplated in silence. For “whereof one cannot speak,
thereof one must be silent,” as the last proposition of the Tractatus declared.
Middle period. It was only natural that Vitters should not embark on an
academic career after he had completed that work. Instead he trained to be a
school teacher and taught primary school for a number of years in the mountains
of lower Austria. In the mid-0s he also built a house for his sister; this can
be seen as an attempt to give visual expression to the logical, aesthetic, and
ethical ideas of the Tractatus. In those years he developed a number of
interests seminal for his later development. His school experience drew his
attention to the way in which children learn language and to the whole process
of enculturation. He also developed an interest in psychology and read Freud
and others. Though he remained hostile to Freud’s theoretical explanations of
his psychoanalytic work, he was fascinated with the analytic practice itself
and later came to speak of his own work as therapeutic in character. In this
period of dormancy Vitters also became acquainted with the members of the
Vienna Circle, who had adopted his Tractatus as one of their key texts. For a
while he even accepted the positivist principle of meaning advocated by the
members of that Circle, according to which the meaning of a sentence is the
method of its verification. This he would later modify into the more generous
claim that the meaning of a sentence is its use. Vitters’s most decisive step
in his middle period was to abandon the belief of the Tractatus that meaningful
sentences must have a precise hidden logical structure and the accompanying
belief that this structure corresponds to the logical structure of the facts
depicted by those sentences. The Tractatus had, indeed, proceeded on the
assumption that all the different symbolic devices that can describe the world
must be constructed according to the same underlying logic. In a sense, there
was then only one meaningful language in the Tractatus, and from it one was
supposed to be able to read off the logical structure of the world. In the
middle period Vitters concluded that this doctrine constituted a piece of
unwarranted metaphysics and that the Tractatus was itself flawed by what it had
tried to combat, i.e., the misunderstanding of the logic of language. Where he
had previously held it possible to ground metaphysics on logic, he now argued
that metaphysics leads the philosopher into complete darkness. Turning his
attention back to language he concluded that almost everything he had said
about it in the Tractatus had been in error. There were, in fact, many
different languages with many different structures that could meet quite
different specific needs. Language was not strictly held together by logical
structure, but consisted, in fact, of a multiplicity of simpler substructures
or language games. Sentences could not be taken to be logical pictures of facts
and the simple components of sentences did not all function as names of simple
objects. These new reflections on language served Vitters, in the first place,
as an aid to thinking about the nature of the human mind, and specifically
about the relation between private experience and the physical world. Against
the existence of a Cartesian mental substance, he argued that the word ‘I’ did
not serve as a name of anything, but occurred in expressions meant to draw
attention to a particular body. For a while, at least, he also thought he could
explain the difference between private experience and the physical world in
terms of the existence of two languages, a primary language of experience and a
secondary language of physics. This duallanguage view, which is evident in both
the Philosophical Remarks and The Blue Book, Vitters was to give up later in
favor of the assumption that our grasp of inner phenomena is dependent on the
existence of outer criteria. From the mid-0s onward he also renewed his
interest in the philosophy of mathematics. In contrast to Frege and Russell, he
argued strenuously that no part of mathematics is reducible purely to logic.
Instead he set out to describe mathematics as part of our natural history and
as consisting of a number of diverse language games. He also insisted that the
meaning of those games depended on the uses to which the mathematical formulas
were put. Applying the principle of verification to mathematics, he held that
the meaning of a mathematical formula lies in its proof. These remarks on the
philosophy of mathematics have remained among Vitters’s most controversial and
least explored writings. Later period. Vitters’s middle period was
characterized by intensive philosophical work on a broad but quickly changing
front. By 6, however, his thinking was finally ready to settle down once again
into a steadier pattern, and he now began to elaborate the views for which he
became most famous. Where he had constructed his earlier work around the logic
devised by Frege and Russell, he now concerned himself mainly with the actual
working of ordinary language. This brought him close to the tradition of
British common sense philosophy that Moore had revived and made him one of the
godfathers of the ordinary language philosophy that was to flourish in Oxford
in the 0s. In the Philosophical Investigations Vitters emphasized that there
are countless different uses of what we call “symbols,” “words,” and
“sentences.” The task of philosophy is to gain a perspicuous view of those
multiple uses and thereby to dissolve philosophical and metaphysical puzzles.
These puzzles were the result of insufficient attention to the working of
language and could be resolved only by carefully retracing the linguistic steps
by which they had been reached. Vitters thus came to think of philosophy as a
descriptive, analytic, and ultimately therapeutic practice. In the
Investigations he set out to show how common philosophical views about meaning
including the logical atomism of the Tractatus, about the nature of concepts,
about logical necessity, about rule-following, and about the mindbody problem
were all the product of an insufficient grasp of how language works. In one of
the most influential passages of the book he argued that concept words do not
denote sharply circumscribed concepts, but are meant to mark family
resemblances between the things labeled with the concept. He also held that
logical necessity results from linguistic convention and that rules cannot
determine their own applications, that rule-following presupposes the existence
of regular practices. Furthermore, the words of our language have meaning only
insofar as there exist public criteria for their correct application. As a
consequence, he argued, there cannot be a completely private language, i.e., a
language that in principle can be used only to speak about one’s own inner
experience. This private language argument has caused much discussion.
Interpreters have disagreed not only over the structure of the argument and
where it occurs in Vitters’s text, but also over the question whether he meant
to say that language is necessarily social. Because he said that to speak of
inner experiences there must be external and publicly available criteria, he
has often been taken to be advocating a logical behaviorism, but nowhere does
he, in fact, deny the existence of inner states. What he says is merely that
our understanding of someone’s pain is connected to the existence of natural
and linguistic expressions of pain. In the Philosophical Investigations Vitters
repeatedly draws attention to the fact that language must be learned. This
learning, he says, is fundamentally a process of inculcation and drill. In
learning a language the child is initiated in a form of life. In Vitters’s
later work the notion of form of life serves to identify the whole complex of
natural and cultural circumstances presupposed by our language and by a
particular understanding of the world. He elaborated those ideas in notes on
which he worked between 8 and his death in 1 and which are now published under
the title On Certainty. He insisted in them that every belief is always part of
a system of beliefs that together constitute a worldview. All confirmation and
disconfirmation of a belief presuppose such a system and are internal to the
system. For all this he was not advocating a relativism, but a naturalism that
assumes that the world ultimately determines which language games can be
played. Vitters’s final notes vividly illustrate the continuity of his basic
concerns throughout all the changes his thinking went through. For they reveal
once more how he remained skeptical about all philosophical theories and how he
understood his own undertaking as the attempt to undermine the need for any
such theorizing. The considerations of On Certainty are evidently directed
against both philosophical skeptics and those philosophers who want to refute
skepticism. Against the philosophical skeptics Vitters insisted that there is
real knowledge, but this knowledge is always dispersed and not necessarily
reliable; it consists of things we have heard and read, of what has been
drilled into us, and of our modifications of this inheritance. We have no
general reason to doubt this inherited body of knowledge, we do not generally
doubt it, and we are, in fact, not in a position to do so. But On Certainty
also argues that it is impossible to refute skepticism by pointing to
propositions that are absolutely certain, as Descartes did when he declared ‘I
think, therefore I am’ indubitable, or as Moore did when he said, “I know for
certain that this is a hand here.” The fact that such propositions are
considered certain, Vitters argued, indicates only that they play an
indispensable, normative role in our language game; they are the riverbed
through which the thought of our language game flows. Such propositions cannot
be taken to express metaphysical truths. Here, too, the conclusion is that all
philosophical argumentation must come to an end, but that the end of such
argumentation is not an absolute, self-evident truth, but a certain kind of
natural human practice.
wodeham: “If
Adam of Wodeham was called Wodeham, I should, by the same token, be called
“Harborne”” – H. P. Grice. Oxonian philosopher, like Grice. Adam de English
Franciscan philosopher-theologian who lectured on Peter Lombard’s Sentences at
London, Norwich, and Oxford. His published works include the Tractatus de
indivisibilibus; his Lectura secunda Norwich lectures; and an abbreviation of
his Oxford lectures by Henry Totting of Oyta, published by John Major in 1512.
Wodeham’s main work, the Oxford lectures, themselves remain unpublished. A
brilliant interpreter of Duns Scotus, whose original manuscripts he consulted,
Wodeham deemed Duns Scotus the greatest Franciscan doctor. William Ockham,
Wodeham’s teacher, was the other great influence on Wodeham’s philosophical
theology. Wodeham defended Ockham’s views against attacks mounted by Walter
Chatton; he also wrote the prologue to Ockham’s Summa logicae. Wodeham’s own
influence rivaled that of Ockham. Among the authors he strongly influenced are
Gregory of Rimini, John of Mirecourt, Nicholas of Autrecourt, Pierre d’Ailly,
Peter Ceffons, Alfonso Vargas, Peter of Candia Alexander V, Henry Totting of
Oyta, and John Major. Wodeham’s theological works were written for an audience
with a very sophisticated understanding of current issues in semantics, logic,
and medieval mathematical physics. Contrary to Duns Scotus and Ockham, Wodeham
argued that the sensitive and intellective souls were not distinct. He further
develops the theory of intuitive cognition, distinguishing intellectual
intuition of our own acts of intellect, will, and memory from sensory intuition
of external objects. Scientific knowledge based on experience can be based on
intuition, according to Wodeham. He distinguishes different grades of evidence,
and allows that sensory perceptions may be mistaken. Nonetheless, they can form
the basis for scientific knowledge, since they are reliable; mistakes can be
corrected by reason and experience. In semantic theory, Wodeham defends the
view that the immediate object of scientific knowledge is the complexe
significabile, that which the conclusion is designed to signify.
wolff:
cited by H. P. Grice, c. philosopher and the most powerful advocate for secular
rationalism in early eighteenth-century G.y. Although he was a Lutheran, his
early education in Catholic Breslau made him familiar with both the
Scholasticism of Aquinas and Suárez and more modern sources. His later studies
at Leipzig were completed with a dissertation on the application of
mathematical methods to ethics 1703, which brought him to the attention of
Leibniz. He remained in correspondence with Leibniz until the latter’s death
1716, and became known as the popularizer of Leibniz’s philosophy, although his
views did not derive from that source alone. Appointed to teach mathematics in
Halle in 1706 he published mathematical textbooks and compendia that dominated
G. universities for decades, Wolff began lecturing on philosophy as well by
1709. His rectoral address On the Practical Philosophy of the Chin. argued that
revelation and even belief in God were unnecessary for arriving at sound
principles of moral and political reasoning; this brought his uneasy relations
with the Halle Pietists to a head, and in 1723 they secured his dismissal and
indeed banishment. Wolff was immediately welcomed in Marburg, where he became a
hero for freedom of thought, and did not return to Prussia until the ascension
of Frederick the Great in 1740, when he resumed his post at Halle. Wolff
published an immense series of texts on logic, metaphysics, ethics, politics,
natural theology, and teleology, in which he created the philosophical
terminology of modern G.; he then published an even more extensive series of
works in Latin for the rest of his life, expanding and modifying his G. works
but also adding works on natural and positive law and economics. He accepted
the traditional division of logic into the doctrines of concepts, judgment, and
inference, which influenced the organization of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
and even Hegel’s Science of Logic1816. In metaphysics, he included general
ontology and then the special disciplines of rational cosmology, rational
psychology, and rational theology Kant replaced Wolff’s general ontology with
his transcendental aesthetic and analytic, and then demolished Wolff’s special
metaphysics in his transcendental dialectic. Wolff’s metaphysics drew heavily
on Leibniz, but also on Descartes and even empiricists like Locke.
Methodologically, he attempted to derive the principle of sufficient reason from
the logical law of identity like the unpublished Leibniz of the 1680s rather
than the published Leibniz of the 1700s; substantively, he began his G.
metaphysics with a reconstruction of Descartes’s cogito argument, then argued
for a simple, immaterial soul, all of its faculties reducible to forms of
representation and related to body by preestablished harmony. Although rejected
by Crusius and then Kant, Wolff’s attempt to found philosophy on a single
principle continued to influence G. idealism as late as Reinhold, Fichte, and
Hegel, and his example of beginning metaphysics from the unique representative
power of the soul continued to influence not only later writers such as
Reinhold and Fichte but also Kant’s own conception of the transcendental unity
of apperception. In spite of the academic influence of his metaphysics, Wolff’s
importance for G. culture lay in his rationalist rather than theological
ethics. He argued that moral worth lies in the perfection of the objective
essence of mankind; as the essence of a human is to be an intellect and a will
with the latter dependent on the former, which are physically embodied and
dependent for their well-being on the well-being of their physical body,
morality requires perfection of the intellect and will, physical body, and
external conditions for the well-being of that combination. Each person is
obliged to perfect all instantiations of this essence, but in practice does so
most effectively in his own case; duties to oneself therefore precede duties to
others and to God. Because pleasure is the sensible sign of perfection, Wolff’s
perfectionism resembles contemporary utilitarianism. Since he held that human
perfection can be understood by human reason independently of any revelation,
Wolff joined contemporary British enlighteners such as Shaftesbury and
Hutcheson in arguing that morality does not depend on divine commands, indeed
the recognition of divine commands depends on an antecedent comprehension of
morality although morality does require respect for God, and thus the atheistic
morality of the Chin., even though sound as far as it went, was not complete.
This was the doctrine that put Wolff’s life in danger, but it had tremendous
repercussions for the remainder of his century, and certainly in Kant.
wollaston:
w. cited by H. P. Grice. English moralist notorious for arguing that the
immorality of actions lies in their implying false propositions. An assistant
headmaster who later took priestly orders, Wollaston maintains in his one
published work, The Religion of Nature Delineated 1722, that the foundations of
religion and morality are mutually dependent. God has preestablished a harmony
between reason or truth and happiness, so that actions that contradict truth
through misrepresentation thereby frustrate human happiness and are thus evil.
For instance, if a person steals another’s watch, her falsely representing the
watch as her own makes the act wrong. Wollaston’s views, particularly his
taking morality to consist in universal and necessary truths, were influenced
by the rationalists Ralph Cudworth and Clarke. Among his many critics the most
famous was Hume, who contends that Wollaston’s theory implies an absurdity: any
action concealed from public view e.g., adultery conveys no false proposition
and therefore is not immoral.
Wollstonecraft, M.
English author and feminist whose A Vindication of the Rights of Women 1792 is
a central text of feminist philosophy. Her chief target is Rousseau: her goal
is to argue against the separate and different education Rousseau provided for
girls and to extend his recommendations to girls as well as boys.
Wollstonecraft saw such an improved education for women as necessary to their
asserting their right as “human creatures” to develop their faculties in a way
conducive to human virtue. She also wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Men
1790, an attack on Edmund Burke’s pamphlet on the Revolution, as well as novels, essays, an
account of her travels, and books for children.
wright, C: philosopher.
His philosophical discussions are stimulating and attracted many, including
Peirce, James, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who thinks of him as their
“intellectual boxing master.” Wright eventually accepted empiricism, especially
that of J. S. Mill, though under Darwinian influence he modified Mill’s view
considerably by rejecting the empiricist claim that general propositions merely
summarize particulars. Wright claims instead that scientific theories are
hypotheses to be further developed, and insisted that a moral rule is irreducible
and needs no utilitarian “proof.” Though he denied the “summary” view of
universals, he is not strictly a pragmatist, since for him a low-level
empirical proposition like Peirce’s ‘this diamond is hard’ is not a hypothesis
but a self-contained irreducible statement.
wundt: proto-Griceian
philosophical psychologist. philosopher that Grice, who calls himself a
‘philosophical psychologist,’ often quotes. “As the founder of scientific
psychology, Wundt was influential in my embracing ‘philosophical psychology,’
as a revenge.” Although trained as a physician (“like Vitters”), Wundt turns to
philosophy and in Leipzig’s downtown established the first recognized
psychology laboratory. For Wundt, psychology deals with conscious experience, a
definition soon overtaken by Ryle’s behaviourism. Wundt’s psychology has two
departments: the so-called physiological psychology (Grundzuge der
physiologischen Psychologie, Grice preferred ‘philosophical physiology’),
primarily the experimental study of immediate experience broadly modeled on
Fechner’s psycho-physics; and the Volkerpsychologie (Volkerpsychologie, -- or
‘folkpsychology,’ as Grice prefers – ‘philosohical psychology is a
folk-science’ -- which circulated at Oxford as “The Language of Gestures,” the
non-experimental study of the higher mental processes via their products,
conversation, language, myth, and custom. Although Wundt is a prodigious
investigator and author, and was revered as psychology’s founder, his theories,
unlike his methods, exerted little influence, except on Grice and a few
intelligent Griceians. A typical scholar of his time, Wundt, like Grice, also
explored across the whole of philosophy, including logic and ethics. W. M.
philosopher and psychologist, a founder of scientific psychology. Although
trained as a physician, he turned to philosophy and in 1879, at the of Leipzig, established the first recognized
psychology laboratory. For Wundt, psychology was the science of conscious
experience, a definition soon overtaken by behaviorism. Wundt’s psychology had
two departments: the so-called physiological psychology Grundzuge der
physiologischen Psychologie, 3 vols., 1873 74; only vol. 1 of the fifth
edition, 0, was tr. into English, primarily the experimental study of immediate
experience broadly modeled on Fechner’s psychophysics; and the
Volkerpsychologie Volkerpsychologie, 10 vols., 020; fragment tr. as The
Language of Gestures, 3, the non-experimental study of the higher mental
processes via their products, language, myth, and custom. Although Wundt was a
prodigious investigator and author, and was revered as psychology’s founder,
his theories, unlike his methods, exerted little influence. A typical G.
scholar of his time, he also wrote across the whole of philosophy, including
logic and ethics. .
wyclif: “It
never ceased to amaze me how Wyclif was able to find Anglo-Saxon terms for all
the “Biblia Vulgata”!” – H. P. Grice. English Griceian philosophical theologian
and religious reformer. He worked for most of his life in Oxford as a secular clerk,
teaching philosophy and later theology and writing extensively in both fields.
The mode of thought expressed in his surviving works is one of extreme realism,
and in this his thought fostered the split of Bohemian, later Hussite,
philosophy from that of the G. masters teaching in Prague. His worldline
Wyclif, John 982 982 philosophical
summa was most influential for his teaching on universals, but also dealt
extensively with the question of determinism; these issues underlay his later
handling of the questions of the Eucharist and of the identity of the church
respectively. His influence on English philosophy was severely curtailed by the
growing hostility of the church to his ideas, the condemnation of many of his
tenets, the persecution of his followers, and the destruction of his writings.
x-question: Grice borrowed the erotetic from Cook Wilson, who in fact
was influenced by Stout and will also influence Collingwood.
xenophanes: Grecian
philosopher, a proponent of an idealized conception of the divine, and the
first of the pre-Socratics to propound epistemological views. Born in Colophon,
an Ionian Grecian city on the coast of Asia Minor, he emigrated as a young man
to the Grecian West Sicily and southern Italy. The formative influence of the Milesians
is evident in his rationalism. He is the first of the pre-Socratics for whom we
have not only ancient reports but also quite a few verbatim quotations fragments from his “Lampoons” Silloi and from
other didactic poetry. Xenophanes attacks the worldview of Homer, Hesiod, and
traditional Grecian piety: it is an outrage that the poets attribute moral
failings to the gods. Traditional religion reflects regional biases blond gods
for the Northerners; black gods for the Africans. Indeed, anthropomorphic gods
reflect the ultimate bias, that of the human viewpoint “If cattle, or horses,
or lions . . . could draw pictures of the gods . . . ,” frg. 15. There is a
single “greatest” god, who is not at all like a human being, either in body or
in mind; he perceives without the aid of organs, he effects changes without
“moving,” through the sheer power of his thought. The rainbow is no sign from
Zeus; it is simply a special cloud formation. Nor are the sun or the moon gods.
All phenomena in the skies, from the elusive “Twin Sons of Zeus” St. Elmo’s
fire to sun, moon, and stars, are varieties of cloud formation. There are no
mysterious infernal regions; the familiar strata of earth stretch down ad
infinitum. The only cosmic limit is the one visible at our feet: the horizontal
border between earth and air. Remarkably, Xenophanes tempers his theological
and cosmological pronouncements with an epistemological caveat: what he offers
is only a “conjecture.” In later antiquity Xenophanes came to be regarded as
the founder of the Eleatic School, and his teachings were assimilated to those
of Parmenides and Melissus. This appears to be based on nothing more than
Xenophanes’ emphasis on the oneness and utter immobility of God. X
xenophon: Grecian
soldier and historian, author of several Socratic dialogues, along with
important works on history, education, political theory, and other topics. He
was interested in philosophy, and he was a penetrating and intelligent “social
thinker” whose views on morality and society have been influential over many
centuries. His perspective on Socrates’ character and moral significance
provides a valuable supplement and corrective to the better-known views of
Plato. Xenophon’s Socratic dialogues, the only ones besides Plato’s to survive
intact, help us obtain a broader picture of the Socratic dialogue as a literary
genre. They also provide precious evidence concerning the thoughts and
personalities of other followers of Socrates, such as Antisthenes and
Alcibiades. Xenophon’s longest and richest Socratic work is the Memorabilia, or
“Memoirs of Socrates,” which stresses Socrates’ self-sufficiency and his
beneficial effect on his companions. Xenophon’s Apology of Socrates and his
Symposium were probably intended as responses to Plato’s Apology and Symposium.
Xenophon’s Socratic dialogue on estate management, the Oeconomicus, is valuable
for its underlying social theory and its evidence concerning the role and
status of women in classical Athens.
yes/no question: For Grice, tertium non datur. Grice’s example is “Have you
stopped beating your wife, Smith?”
“Smith is tricked into having to say ‘yes,’ which makes him a criminal, or
“no,” which doesn’t but *implicates* him in a crime.” “The explicit
cancellation would be, “No, because I never started it.” – “But usually Smith
is never so intelligently Griceian like *that*!”
yog and zog: “If” was a problem for Grice. According to Strawson and
Wiggins, this was Grice having forged his shining new tool – the distinction
between ‘By emitting x, An emissor coomunicates that p” and “The emissum x
‘means’ ‘p.’ Apply that to ‘if.’ In Strawson and Wiggins’s precis, for Grice,
‘p yields q’ is part of the conversational implicatum – for Strawson and
Wiggins it is part of the conventional implicatum. They agree on ‘p horseshoe q’ being the explicit emissum or
explicatum in “Emissor explicitly conveys and communicates that p horseshoe q.”
For Grice, the implicatum, which, being conversational is cancellable, is
calculated on the assumption that the addressee can work out that the emissor
has non-truth-functional grounds for the making of any stronger claim. For
Strawson, that non-truth-functional reason is precisely ‘p yields q,’ which
leads Strawson to think that the thing is not cancellable and conventionally
implicated. If Strawson were right that this is Grice forging a new shining
tool to crack the crib of reality and fashioning thereby a new shining skid
under his metaphysical feet, it would be almost the second use of the
tool! This is an expansion by Grice on the
implicatum of a ‘propositio conditionalis.’ Grice, feeling paradoxical, invites
us to suppose a scenario involving ‘if.’ He takes it as a proof that his
account of the conversational implicatum of ‘if’ is, as Strawson did not agree,
correct, and that what an utterer explicitly conveys by ‘if p, q’ is ‘p >
q.’ that two chess players, Yog and Zog,
play 100 games under the following conditions. Yog is white nine of ten times.
There are no draws. And the results are: Yog, when white, won 80 of
90 games. Yog, when black, won zero of ten games. This implies
that: 8/9 times, if Yog was white, Yog won. 1/2 of the time, if Yog lost,
Yog was black. 9/10 that either Yog
wasnt white or he won. From these statements, it might appear one could
make these deductions by contraposition and conditional disjunction: If
Yog was white, then 1/2 of the time Yog won. 9/10 times, if Yog was white, then
he won. But both propositions are untrue. They contradict the assumption.
In fact, they do not provide enough information to use Bayesian reasoning to
reach those conclusions. That might be clearer if the propositions had instead
been stated differently. When Yog was white, Yog won 8/9 times. No information
is given about when Yog was black. When Yog lost, Yog was black 1/2 the time.
No information is given about when Yog won. (9/10 times, either Yog was black
and won, Yog was black and lost, or Yog was white and won. No information is
provided on how the 9/10 is divided among those three situations. The paradox
by Grice shows that the exact meaning of statements involving conditionals and
probabilities is more complicated than may be obvious on casual examination. Refs.:
Grice’s interest with ‘if’ surely started after he carefully read the section
on ‘if’ and the horseshoe in Strawson’s Introduction to Logical Theory. He was
later to review his attack on Strawson in view of Strawson’s defense in ‘If and
the horseshoe.’ The polemic was pretty much solved as a matter of different
intuitions: what Grice sees as a conversational implicatum, Strawson does see
as an ‘implicatum,’ but a non-defeasible one – what Grice would qualify as
‘conventional.’ Grice leaves room for an implicatum to be nonconversational and
yet nonconventional, but it is not worth trying to fit Strawson’s suggestion in
this slot, since Strawson, unlike Grice, has nothing against a convention.
Grice was motivated to formulate his ‘paradox,’ seeing that Strawson was saying
that the so-called ‘paradoxes’ of ‘entailment’ and ‘implication’ are a
misnomer. “They are not paradoxical; they are false!” Grice has specific essays
on both the paradoxes of entailment and the paradoxes of implication. The H. P.
Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The University of California, Berkeley.
zabarella:
a proto-Griceain. Grice was often called the English Zabarella, after
philosopher Jacopo Zabarella, of Padova. Zabarella produces extensive
commentaries on Grice’s favourite tract by Aristotle, “De Anima,” and Physica
and also discussed some Aristotelian interpreters. However, Zabarella’s most
original contribution is his work in semantics, “Opera logica.” Zabarella
regards semantics as a preliminary study that provides the tools necessary for
philosophical analysis. Two such tools are what Zabarella calls “order” (cf.
Grice, ‘be orderly’). Another tool is what Zabarella calls “ method.” Order
teaches us how to organize the content of a discipline to apprehend it more
easily. Method teaches us how to draw a syllogistic inference. Zabarella
reduces the varieties of orders and methods classified by other interpreters to
compositive order, and resolutive order, and composite method and and
resolutive method. The compositive order from a principle to this or that
corollary applies to this or that speculative, alethic or theoretical
discipline. The ‘resolutive’ order, from a desired end to the means appropriate
to its achievement applies to this or that practical discipline, such as
‘pragmatics’ understood as a manual of rules of etiquette. This much is already
in Aristotle. However, Zabarella offers an original analysis of ‘method.’ The
compositive method infers a particular consequence or corollary from a
‘generic’ principle. The ‘resolutive’ method INFERS an originating gneric
principle from this or that particular consequence, corollary, or instantiantion,
as in inductive reasoning or in reasoning from effect to cause. Zabarella’s
terminology influenced Galileo’s mechanics, and has been applied to Grice’s
inference of the principle of conversational co-operation out from the only
evidence which Grice has, which is this or that ‘dyadic’ exchange, as he calls
it. In Grice’s case, his corpus is intentionally limited to conversations
between two philosophers: A: What’s that? B: A pillar box? A: What colour is
it? B: Seems red to me. From such an exchange, Grice infers the principle of
conversational co-operation. It clashes when a cancellation (or as Grice
prefers, an annulation) is on sight: “I surely don’t mean to imply that it
MIGHT actually be red.” “Then why be so guarded? I thought you were cooperating.”H.
P. Grice. Jacopo 153289, Aristotelian
philosopher who taught at the of Padua.
He wrote extensive commentaries on Aristotle’s Physics and On the Soul and also
discussed other interpreters such as Averroes. However, his most original
contribution was his work in logic, Opera logica 1578. Zabarella regards logic
as a preliminary study that provides the tools necessary for philosophical
analysis. Two such tools are order and method: order teaches us how to organize
the content of a discipline to apprehend it more easily; method teaches us how
to draw syllogistic inferences. Zabarella reduces the varieties of orders and
methods classified by other interpreters to compositive and resolutive orders
and methods. The compositive order from first principles to their consequences
applies to theoretical disciplines. The resolutive order from a desired end to
means appropriate to its achievement applies to practical disciplines. This
much was already in Aristotle. Zabarella offers an original analysis of method.
The compositive method infers particular consequences from general principles.
The resolutive method infers originating principles from particular
consequences, as in inductive reasoning or in reasoning from effect to cause.
It has been suggested that Zabarella’s terminology might have influenced
Galileo’s mechanics.
zeigarnik
effect: ‘Conversation as a compete task and the Zeigmaik
effect’ H. P. Grice. the selective
recall of uncompleted tasks in comparison to completed tasks. The effect was
named for Bluma Zeigarnik, a student of K. Lewin, who discovered it and
described it in a paper published in the Psychologische Forschung in 7.
Subjects received an array of short tasks, such as counting backward and
stringing beads, for rapid completion. Performance on half of these was
interrupted. Subsequent recall for the tasks favored the interrupted tasks.
Zeigarnik concluded that recall is influenced by motivation and not merely
associational strength. The effect was thought relevant to Freud’s claim that unfulfilled
wishes are persistent. Lewin attempted to derive the effect from field theory,
suggesting that an attempt to reach a goal creates a tension released only when
that goal is reached; interruption of the attempt produces a tension favoring
recall. Conditions affecting the Zeigarnik effect are incompletely understood,
as is its significance.
zeno’s
paradoxes. “Since Elea is in Italy, we can say Zeno is
Italian.” – H. P. Grice. “Linguistic puzzles, in nature.” H. P. Grice. four paradoxes relating to space
and motion attributed to Zeno of Elea fifth century B.C.: the racetrack,
Achilles and the tortoise, the stadium, and the arrow. Zeno’s work is known to
us through secondary sources, in particular Aristotle. The racetrack paradox.
If a runner is to reach the end of the track, he must first complete an
infinite number of different journeys: getting to the midpoint, then to the
point midway between the midpoint and the end, then to the point midway between
this one and the end, and so on. But it is logically impossible for someone to
complete an infinite series of journeys. Therefore the runner cannot reach the
end of the track. Since it is irrelevant to the argument how far the end of the
track is it could be a foot or an inch
or a micron away this argument, if
sound, shows that all motion is impossible. Moving to any point will involve an
infinite number of journeys, and an infinite number of journeys cannot be
completed. The paradox of Achilles and the tortoise. Achilles can run much
faster than the tortoise, so when a race is arranged between them the tortoise
is given a lead. Zeno argued that Achilles can never catch up with the tortoise
no matter how fast he runs and no matter how long the race goes on. For the
first thing Achilles has to do is to get to the place from which the tortoise
started. But the tortoise, though slow, is unflag987 Z 987 ging: while Achilles was occupied in
making up his handicap, the tortoise has advanced a little farther. So the next
thing Achilles has to do is to get to the new place the tortoise occupies.
While he is doing this, the tortoise will have gone a little farther still.
However small the gap that remains, it will take Achilles some time to cross
it, and in that time the tortoise will have created another gap. So however
fast Achilles runs, all that the tortoise has to do, in order not to be beaten,
is not to stop. The stadium paradox. Imagine three equal cubes, A, B, and C,
with sides all of length l, arranged in a line stretching away from one. A is
moved perpendicularly out of line to the right by a distance equal to l. At the
same time, and at the same rate, C is moved perpendicularly out of line to the
left by a distance equal to l. The time it takes A to travel l/2 relative to B
equals the time it takes A to travel to l relative to C. So, in Aristotle’s
words, “it follows, he [Zeno] thinks, that half the time equals its double”
Physics 259b35. The arrow paradox. At any instant of time, the flying arrow
“occupies a space equal to itself.” That is, the arrow at an instant cannot be
moving, for motion takes a period of time, and a temporal instant is conceived
as a point, not itself having duration. It follows that the arrow is at rest at
every instant, and so does not move. What goes for arrows goes for everything:
nothing moves. Scholars disagree about what Zeno himself took his paradoxes to
show. There is no evidence that he offered any “solutions” to them. One view is
that they were part of a program to establish that multiplicity is an illusion,
and that reality is a seamless whole. The argument could be reconstructed like
this: if you allow that reality can be successively divided into parts, you
find yourself with these insupportable paradoxes; so you must think of reality
as a single indivisible One. Refs.: H.
P. Grice, “Zeno.”
zettel: Grice entitled his further notes on logic and
conversation, “zettel” – “What’s good enough for Vitters is good enough for
me.”
zoroastrianism:
H. P. Grice wrote, “Thus Implicated Zarahustra,” the national religion of ancient
Iran. Zoroastrianism suffered a steep decline after the seventh century A.D.
because of conversion to Islam. Of a remnant of roughly 100,000 adherents
today, three-fourths are Parsis “Persians” in or from western India; the others
are Iranian Zoroastrians. The tradition is identified with its prophet; his
name in Persian, Zarathushtra, is preserved in G. and Griceian, but the ancient
Grecian rendering of that name, Zoroaster, is the form used in most other
modern European languages. Zoroaster’s hymns to Ahura Mazda “the Wise Lord”,
called the Gathas, are interspersed among ritual hymns to other divine powers
in the collection known as the Avesta. In them, Zoroaster seeks reassurance
that good will ultimately triumph over evil and that Ahura Mazda will be a
protector to him in his prophetic mission. The Gathas expect that humans, by
aligning themselves with the force of righteousness and against evil, will
receive bliss and benefit in the next existence. The dating of the texts and of
the prophet himself is an elusive matter for scholars, but it is clear that
Zoroaster lived somewhere in Iran sometime prior to the emergence of the
Achaemenid empire in the sixth century B.C. His own faith in Ahura Mazda,
reflected in the Gathas, came to be integrated with other strains of old
Indo-Iranian religion. We see these in the Avesta’s hymns and the religion’s
ritual practices. They venerate an array of Iranian divine powers that resemble
in function the deities found in the Vedas of India. A common Indo-Iranian
heritage is indicated conclusively by similarities of language and of content
between the Avesta and the Vedas. Classical Zoroastrian orthodoxy does not
replace the Indo-Iranian divinities with Ahura Mazda, but instead incorporates
them into its thinking more or less as Ahura Mazda’s agents. The Achaemenid
kings from the sixth through the fourth centuries B.C. mention Ahura Mazda in
their inscriptions, but not Zoroaster. The Parthians, from the third century
B.C. to the third century A.D., highlighted Mithra among the Indo-Iranian
pantheon. But it was under the Sasanians, who ruled Iran from the third to the
seventh centuries, that Zoroastrianism became the established religion. A
salient doctrine is the teaching concerning the struggle between good and evil.
The time frame from the world’s creation to the final resolution or judgment
finds the Wise Lord, Ahura Mazda or Ohrmazd, in the Pahlavi language of
Sasanian times, locked in a struggle with the evil spirit, Angra Mainyu in
Pahlavi, Ahriman. The teaching expands on an implication in the text of the
Gathas, particularly Yasna 30, that the good and evil spirits, coming together
in the beginning and establishing the living and inanimate realms, determined
that at the end benefit would accrue to the righteous but not the wicked. In
Sasanian times, there was speculative concern to assert Ahura Mazda’s infinity,
omnipotence, and omniscience, qualities that may indicate an impact of
Mediterranean philosophy. For example, the Bundahishn, a Pahlavi cosmological
and eschatological narrative, portrays Ahura Mazda as infinite in all four compass
directions but the evil spirit as limited in one and therefore doomed to
ultimate defeat. Such doctrine has been termed by some dualistic, in that it
has at least in Sasanian times seen the power of God rivaled by that of an evil
spirit. Zoroastrians today assert that they are monotheists, and do not worship
the evil spirit. But to the extent that the characterization may hold
historically, Zoroastrianism has manifested an “ethical” dualism, of good and
evil forces. Although capable of ritual pollution through waste products and
decay, the physical world, God’s creation, remains potentially morally good.
Contrast “ontological” dualism, as in gnostic and Manichaean teaching, where
the physical world itself is the result of the fall or entrapment of spirit in
matter. In the nineteenth century, Zoroastrian texts newly accessible to Europe
produced an awareness of the prophet’s concern for ethical matters. Nietzsche’s
values in his work Thus Spake Zarathustra, however, are his own, not those of
the ancient prophet. The title is arresting, but the connection of Nietzsche
with historical Zoroastrianism is a connection in theme only, in that the work
advances ideas about good and evil in an oracular style.
zweckrationalität:
H. P. Grice used the vernacular here, since he found it tricky to look for the
Oxonian for ‘Zweck.’ As he was reading Weber, Grice realises that one of the main
theoretical goals of Weber’s work is to understand how a social process (such
as a conversation, seen as a two-player game) become “rationalized,” taking up
certain themes of philosophy of history since Hegel as part of social theory.
Conversation, as part of culture, e.g., becomes ‘rationalised’ in the process
of the “disenchantment of a world views” in the West, a process that Weber thinks
has “universal significance.” But because of his goal-oriented theory of action
and his non-cognitivism in ethics, Weber sees rationalization, like Grice, and
unlike, say, Habermas, exclusively in terms of the spread of purposive, or
MEANS–ends rationality (“Zweckrationalität”). Rational action means choosing
the most effective MEANS of achieving one’s goals and implies judging the
consequences of one’s actions and choices. In contrast, value rationality (“Wertrationalität,”
that Grice translates as ‘worth-rationality’) consists of any action oriented
to this or that ultimate END, where considerations of consequences are
irrelevant. Although such action is rational insofar as it directs and organises
human conduct, the choice of this or that end, or this or that value itself
cannot be, for Weber, unlike Grice, a matter for rational or scientific judgment.
Indeed, for Weber this means that politics is the sphere for the struggle
between at least two of this or that irreducibly competing ultimate end, where
“gods and demons fight it out” and charismatic leaders invent new gods and
values.
References
Austin,
J. L. Philosophical papers.
Austin,
J. L. Sense and sensibilia.
Austin,
J. L. How to do things with words.
Blackburn,
S. W. Spreading the word.
Bostock,
D. Logic.
Grice,
H. P. Studies in the Way of Words
Grice,
H. P. The conception of value.
Grice,
H. P. Aspects of reason.
Hampshire,
S. N. Thought and action
Hare,
R. M. The language of morals.
Hart,
H. L. A. Review of Holloway, The Philosophical Quarterly
Strawson,
P. F. Introduction to Logical Theory.
Strawson,
P. F. Logico-Linguistic Papers.
Urmson,
J. O. Philosophical Analysis: its development between the two wars.
Warnock,
G. J. Language and Morals
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