de sensu implicaturum: vide casus obliquus. The casus rectus/casus obliquus
distinction. Peter Abelard, Kneale, Grice, Aristotle. Aquinas. de sensu implicaturum.
Ariskantian quessertions on de sensu implicate. “My sometimes mischievous friend Richard Grandy once said, in
connection with some other occasion on which I was talking, that to represent
my remarks, it would be necessary to introduce a new form of speech act,
or a new operator, which
was to be called the operator of quessertion. It is to be read as “It is
perhaps possible that someone might assert that . . .” and is to be symbolized
“?├”; possibly it might even be iterable […].
Everything I shall suggest here is highly quessertable.” Grice 1989:297. If Grice had one thing, he had linguistic creativity.
Witness his ‘implicaturum,’ and his ‘implicaturum,’ not to mention his
‘pirotologia.’Sometime, somewhere, in the history of philosophy, a need was
felt by some Griceian philosopher, surely, for numbering intentions. The verb,
denoting the activity, out of which this ‘intention’ sprang was Latin
‘intendere,’ and somewhere, sometime, the need was felt to keep the Latinate
/t/ sound, and sometimes to make it sibilate, /s/. The source of it all seems to be Aristotle in
Soph.
Elen., 166a24–166a30, which was rendered twice om Grecian to Latin. In the
second Latinisation, ‘de sensu’ comes into view. Abelard proposes to use ‘de
rebus,’ or ‘de re,’ for what the previous translation had as ‘per divisionem.’
To make the distinction, he also proposes to use ‘de sensu’ for what the
previous translation has as ‘per compositionem,’ and ‘per conjunctionem.’ But
what did either mean? It was a subtle question, indeed. And trust Nicolai
Hartmann, in his mediaevalist revival, to add numbers and a further
distinction, now the ‘recte/’oblique’ distinction, and ‘intentio’ being
‘prima,’ ‘seconda,’ ‘tertia,’ and so on, ad infinitum. The proposal is clear.
We need a way to conceptualise first-order propositions. But we also need to
conceptualise ‘that’-clauses. The ‘that’-clause subordination is indeed
open-ended. ‘mean.’ Grice’s motivation in the presentation at the Oxford
Philosophical Society is to offer, as he calls it, a ‘proposal.’ In his words,
notice the emphasis on the Latinate ‘intend,’ – where it occurs, as applied to
an emissor, and as having as content, following that ‘that’-clause, an
‘intensional’ verb like ‘believe,’ which again, involves an ‘intentio tertia,’
now referring to a state back in the emissor expressed by yet another
intensional verb – all long for, ‘you communicate that p if you want your
addressee to realise that you hold this or that propositional attitude with
content p.’ "A meantNN something by x" is
(roughly) equivalent to "A intended the utterance of x to produce some
effect in an audience by means of the recognition of this intention"; and
we may add that to ask what A meant is to ask for a specification of the
intended effect (though, of course, it may not always be possible to get a
straight answer involving a "that" clause, for example, "a
belief that . . ."). (Grice 1989: 220). Grice’s motivation is to ‘reduce’ “mean”
to what has come to be known in the Griceian [sic] literature as a ‘Griceian’
[sic] ‘reflexive’ intention – he prefers M-intention -- which we will read as
involving an intentio seconda, and indeed intentio tertia, and beyond, which
makes its appearance explicitly in the second clause -- or ‘prong,’ as he’d
prefer -- of his ‘reductive’ analysis. Prong 1 then corresponds to the
intention prima or intention recta: Utterer U intends1 that
Addressee A believes that Utterer U holds psychological state or attitude ψ
with content “p.” Prong 2 corresponds to the intentio seconda or
intentio obliqua: Utterer
U intends2 that Addressee A believes (i) on the ‘rational,’ and not
just ‘causal,’ basis of (ii), i.e. of the addressee A’s recognition of the
utterer U’s intentio seconda or intentio obliqua i2, that Addressee
A comes to believe that Utterer U holds psychological state or attitude ψ with
content “p.” In Grice’s wording, “i2” acts as a ‘reason,’ and not
merely a ‘cause’ for Addressee A’s coming to believe that U holds psychological
state or attitude ψ with content “p”. Kemmerling has used “↝” to represent this
‘reason’ (i1 ↝ i2,
Kemmerling in Grandy/Warner, 1986, cf. Petrus in Petrus 2010). Prong 3 is a
closure prong, now involving a self-reflective third-order intention, there is
no ‘covert’ higher-order intention involved in (i)-(iii). Meaning-constitutive
intentions in utterer u’s meaning that p should be out there ‘in the open,’ or
‘above board,’ to count as having been ‘communicated.Grice quotes only one
author in ‘Meaning’: C. L. Stevenson, who started his career with a degree in
English from Yale. Willing to allow a ‘metabolical’ use of ‘mean’ he
recognises, he scare quotes it: “There is a
sense, to be sure, in which a groan “means“ something, just a reduced
temperature may at times ”mean” convalescence.” Stevenson 1944:38). This
remark will have Grice later attempting an ‘evolutionary’ model of how an ‘x’
causing ‘y’ may proceed from ‘natural’ to less natural ones. Consider ‘is in pain.’
A creature is physically hurt, and the expression of pain comes up naturally as
an effect. But if the creature attains rational control over his expressive
behaviour, and the creature is in pain (or expects his addressee A to think
that he is in pain), U can now imitate or replicate, in a something like a
Peirceian iconic mode, the natural behaviour manifested by a spontaneous
response to a hurtful stimulus. The ‘simulated’ pain will be an ‘icon’ of the
natural pain. Grice is getting Peirceian by the day, and he is not telling us!
There are, Grice says, as if to simplify Peirce the most he can, two modes of
representation. The primary one is now the explicitly Peirceian iconic one. The
‘risus naturaliter significat interiorem laetitiam’ of Occam. And then, there’s
the derivative *non*-iconic representation, in that order. The first is, shall
we say, ‘natural,’ and beyond the utterer U’s voluntary control (cf. Darwin on
the expression of emotions in man and animals); the second is not. Grice is
allowing for smoke representing fire, or if one must, alla Stevenson,
‘representing’ it. In Grice’s motivation to along the right lines, his
psychologist austere views of his 1948 ‘Meaning,’ when he rather artificially
disjoins a ‘natural’ “mean” and an ‘artificial’ “mean,” when merely different
‘uses’ stand for what he then thought were senses, he wants now to re-introduce
into philosophical discourse the iconic natural representation or meaning that
he had left aside.If this is part of what he calls a ‘myth,’ even if an
evolutionary one, to account for the emergence of ‘systems of communication,’
it does starts with an utterer U expressing (very much alla Croce or Marty) a
psychological state or attitude ψ by displaying some behavioural pattern in an
unintentional way. Grice is being Wittgensteinian here, and quotes almost
verbatim from Anscombe’s rendition, “No psychological concept except when
backed in behaviour that manifests it.”
If Ockham notes that “Risus naturaliter significat interiorem
laetitiam,” Grice shows this will allow to avoid, also alla Ockham, a polysemy
to ‘mean.’In Grice’s three clauses in his 1948 conceptual analysis of ‘meaning’
– the first clause of exhibitiveness, the second clause of intentio seconda or
reflexivity, and the third clause of communicative overtness, voluntary control
on the part of the utterer U is already in order. Since the utterer’s addressee
A is intended to recognise this, no longer is it required any prior ‘iconic’
association between a simulated behaviour and the behaviour naturally displayed
as a response to a stimulus. This amounts, for Grice to deeming the system of
expression as having become a full system now of intention-based
‘communication.’‘know’’ Intentio seconda or intentio obliqua comes up nicely
when Grice delivers the third William James Lecture, later reprinted as
“Further notes on logic and conversation.” There, Grice targets one type of
anti-Gettier scenario for the use of a factive psychological state or attitude
expressed by a verb like “know,” again followed by a “that”-clause. Grice is
criticisign Austin’s hasty attempt to analyse ‘know’ in terms of the
‘performatory’ ‘guarantee.’ As Grice puts it in “Prolegomena,” “to say ‘I know’
is to give a guarantee.” (Grice 1989:9) which can be traced back to Austin,
although since, as Grice witnessed it, Austin ‘all too frequently ignored’ the
real of emissor’s communicatum, one is never sure. In any case, Grice wants to overcome this
‘performatory’ fallacy, and he expands on the ‘suspect’ example of the Prolegomena
in the Third lecture. Grice’s troubles with ‘know’ were long-dated. In Causal
Theory he lists as the third philosophical mistake, “What is known by me to be
the case is not also believed by me to be the case.” (1989: 237). Uncredited,
but he may be having in mind Ryle’s odd characterisations with terms such as
‘occurrence,’ ‘episode,’ and so on. In
the section on ‘stress,’ Grice asks us to assume that Grice knows that p. The
question is whether this claim commits the philosopher to the further clause,
‘Grice knows that Grice knows that p, and so on, … to use the scholastic term
we started this with, ad infinitum. It is not that Grice is adverse to a
regressive analysis per se. This is, in effect, with what the third clause or
prong in his analysis of ‘meaning’ does – ‘let all meaning-constitutive
intentions be overt, including this one.
Indeed, when it comes to meaning or knowing, we are talking optimal, we
are talking ‘virtue.’ Both ‘meaning,’ ‘communicating, ‘and ‘knowing,’ represent
an ‘ideal,’ value-paradeigmatic concept – where value, a favourite with
Hartmann, appears under the guise of a noumenon in the topos ouranos that only
realises imperfectly in the sub-lunary world. In the third William James
lecture Grice cursorily dismisses these demanding or restrictive anti-Gettier
scenarios as too stipulatory for the colloquial, ordinary, use – and thus
‘sense’ -- of ‘know.’ The approach Gettier is cricising ends up being too
convoluted, seeing that conversationalists tend to make a rather loose use of
the verb. Grice’s example illustrates linguistic botanising. So we have Grice
bringing the examinee who does know that the battle of Waterloo was fought in
1815, with hardly conclusive evidence, or any ‘de sensu’ knowledge that the
evidence (which he does not have) is conclusive. Grice grants that, in a
specially emphatic utterance of ‘know,’ there might be a cancellable implicaturum
to the effect that the knower does have conclusive evidence for what he alleges
to know. Grice’s explicit reference to this ‘regressive nature’ (p. 59) touches
on the topic of intention de sensu. Grice is contesting the strong view, as
represented, according to Gettier, by philosophers ranging from Plato’s
Thaetetus to Ayer’s Problem of Empirical Knowledge (indeed the only two loci
Gettier cares to cite in his short essay) that a claim, “Grice knows that p”
entails a claim to the effect that there is conclusive evidence for p, and
which gives Grice a feeling of subjective certainty, and that Grice knows that
there is such conclusive evidence, and so on, ad infinitum. Grice casts doubts
on the intentio de sensu as applied to the colloquial or ‘ordinary’ uses of
‘know’. If I know that p, must I know that I know that p? Having just introduced his “Modified Occam’s
Razor” – ‘Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity’ --, Grice doesn’t
think so. At this point, however, he adds a characteristic bracket: “(cf.
causal theory).” With that bracket, Grice is allowing that the denotatum of
“p,” qua content of U’s psychological state or attitude of ‘knowing,’ the
state-of-affairs itself, as we may put it, should play something like a causal
role in U’s knowing that p. Grice is open-minded as to what type of link or
connection that is. It need not be strictly causal. He is merely suggesting the
open-endness of ‘know in terms of these “further conditions” as to how Grice
‘comes’ to know that p, and refers to the ‘causal theory,’ as later developed
by philosophers like E. F. Dretske and others. As a linguistic botanist, Grice
is well aware that ‘know,’ like ‘see,’ is what the Kiparskys (whom Grice refers
to) call a ‘factive.’An ascription of “Grice knows that p,” or, indeed, “Grice
sees that p,” (unless Grice hallucinates) entails “p.” The defeating
‘hallucination’ scenario is key. It involves what Grice calls a dis-implicaturum.
The utterer is using ‘know’ or‘see’ in a loose way (and meaning less, rather
than more than he explicitly conveys. Note incidentally, as Grice later noted
in later seminars, how his analysis proves the philosopher’s adage wrong.
Surely what is known by me to be the case is believed by me to be the case. Any
divergence to the contrary is a matter of ‘implicatural’ stress – by which he
means supra-segmentation.‘want’Soon after his delivering the William James
lectures, Grice got involved in a project concerning an evaluation of Quine’s
programme, where again he touches on issues of intentio seconda or intentio
obliqua, and brings us back to Russell and ‘the author of Waverley.’ Grice’s
presentation comes out in Words and Objections, edited by Davidson and
Hintikka, a pun on Quine’s Word and Object. Grice’s contribution, ‘Vacuous
Names,’ (later reprinted in part in Ostertag’s volume on Definite descriptions)
concludes with an exploration of “the” phrases, and further on, with some
intriguing remarks on the subtle issues surrounding the scope of an ascription
of a predicate standing for a psychological state or attitude. Grice’s choice
of an ascription now notably involves an ‘opaque’ (rather than ‘factive,’ like
‘know’) psychological state or attitude: ‘wanting,’ which he symbolizes as “W.”
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 Jack’s 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
Grice’s 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 Jack’s imagination. In a manoeuver that I interpret as
‘purely intentionalist,’ and thus favouring by far Suppes’s over Chomsky’s
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; 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 notation yields the internal
de sensu reading (where ‘ji’ stands for ‘Jill’): ‘W2ja4F1ji3ja4’
and ‘W3ja4F2ji1ja4.’
Note that in the alternative external notation, the individual constant for
“Jill,” ‘ji,’ is introduced prior to ‘want,’ – ‘ji’’s sub-script is 1, while
‘W’’s sub-script is the higher numerical value 3. If Russell could have avowed
of this he would have had that the Prince Regents, by issuing the invitation,
wants to confirm that ‘the author of Waverley’ isN Scott, already having
confirmed that the author of Waverley =M the author of Waverley. Grice warns
Quine. Given that Jill does not exist, only the internal reading “can be true,”
or alethically satisfactory. Similarly, we might imagine an alternative
scenario where the butler informs the Prince: ‘We are sorry to inform Your
Majesty that your invitation was returned: apparently the author of Waverley does
not SEEM to exist.’ 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. If he justified a loose use of
‘know,’ he is now is ready to allow for ‘existential’ phrases in cases of
‘vacuous’ designata, which however baffling, should not lead a philosopher to
the wrong characterisation of the linguistic phenomena (as it led Austin with
‘know’). Provided such a descriptors occur within an opaque, intensional, de
sensu, psychological-state or attitude verbs, Grice captures the nuances 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’,
and ‘Ǝx5W3ja4F1x2ja4
.’ 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.” At least Grice does not
write, “really,” for he knew that Austin detested a ‘trouser word.’ Grice
concludes that (xi) and (xiii) are derivable from each of (ix) and (x), while
(xii) will be “derivable only” from (ix).‘intend’By this time, Grice had been
made a Fellow of the British Academy and it was about time for the delivery of
the philosophical lecture that goes with it. It only took him six five years.
Grice choses “Intention and uncertainty” as its topic. He was provoked by two
members of his ‘playgroup’ at Oxford, Hart and Hampshire, who in an essay
published in Mind, what Grice finds, again, as he did with the anti-Gettier
cases of ‘know,’ as rather a too strong analysis of ‘intending.’ In his
British-Academy lecture, Grice plays now with the psychological state or
attitude, realised by the verbal form, ‘intend,’ when specifically followed by
a ‘that’-clause, “intends that…,” as an echo of his dealing with “meaning to”
as merely ‘natural.’ He calls himself a neo-Prichardian, reviving this ‘willing
that’ which Urmson had popularised at Oxford, bringing to publication
Prichard’s exploration of William James and his “I will that the distant chair
slides over the floor towards me. It does not.”Grice’s ‘intending that…’ is
notably a practical, boulemaic, or buletic, or desiderative, rather than
alethic or doxastic, psychological state or attitude. It involves not just an
itentum, but an intentum that involves both a desideratum AND a factum – for
the ‘future indicative’ is conceptually involved. Grice claims that, if the
conceptual analysis of “intending that…” is to represent ‘ordinary’ discourse,
shows that it contains, as one of its prongs, in the final ‘neo-Prichardian’
version that Grice gives, also a ‘doxastic’ (rather than ‘factive’ and ‘epistemic’)
psychological state or attitude, notably a belief on the part of the ‘intender’
that his willing that p has a probability greater than 0.5 to the effect that p
be realised. Contra Hart and Hampshire, Grice acknowledges the investigations
by the playgroup member Pears on this topic. Interestingly, a polemic arose
elsewhere with Davidson, who trying to be more Griceian thatn Grice, sees this
doxastic constraint as a mere cancellable implicaturum. Grice grants it may be
a dis-implicaturum at most, as in loose cases of ‘know,’ or ‘see.’ Grice is
adamant in regarding the doxastic component as a conceptual ‘entailment’ in the
‘ordinary’ use of ‘intend,’ unless the verb is used in a merely
‘disimplicatural,’ loose fashion. Grice’s example, ‘Jill intends to climb
Everest next week,’ when the prohibitive conditions are all to evident to
anyone concerned with such an utterance of (xv), perhaps Jill included, and
‘intends’ has to be read only ‘internally’ and hyperbolically. At this point,
if in “Vacuous Names, he fights with Meinong while enjoying engaging in
emptiness, it should be stressed that Grice gives as an illustration of a ‘disimplicaturum,’
along with a use of ‘see’ in a Shakespeareian context. ‘See,’ like ‘know,’ or ‘mean,’ exhibit what
Grice calls diaphaneity. So it’s only natural Grice turns his attention to
‘see.’ Grice’s examples are ‘Macbeth saw Banquo’ and ‘Hamlet saw his father on
the ramparts of Elsinore,’ and both involve hallucination! It is worth
comparing the fortune of ‘disimplicaturum’ with that of ‘implicaturum.’ Grice
coins ‘to dis-implicate’ as an active verb, for a case where the utterer does
NOT, as in the case of implicaturum, mean MORE than he says, but LESS. Grice’s
point is a subtle one. It involves his concession on something like an
explicatum, but alsoo on something like Moore’s entailment. If the ‘doxastic
condition’ is entailed by “intending that…,’ an utterer U may STILL use, in an
‘ordinary’ fashion, a strong ‘intending that…’ in a scenario where it is common
ground between the utterer U and his addressee A that the probability of ‘p’
being realised is lower than 0.5. The expression of the psychological state or
attitude is loose, since the utterer is, as it were, dropping an ‘entailment’
that applies in a use of ‘intending that’ where that ‘common-ground’ assumption
is absent. One reason may be echoic. Jill may think that she can succeed in
climbing Mt. Everest; she herself has used ‘intend.’ When that information is
transmitted, the strong psychological verb is kept when the doxastic constraint
is no longer shared by the utterer U and his addressee A (Like an implicaturum,
a disimplicaturum has to be recognised as such to count as one. No such thing as an ‘unwanted’ disimplicaturum.‘motivate’Sometimes,
it would seem that, for Grice, the English philosopher of English
‘ordinary-language’ philosophy, English is not enough! Grice would amuse at
Berkeley seminars, with things like, ‘A pirot potches o as fang, or potches o
and o’ as F-id,’ just to attract his addressee’s attention. The full passage,
in what Grice calls, after Carnap, pirotese, reads: “A pirot can be said to
potch of some obble x as fang or feng; also to cotch of x, or some obble o, as
fang or feng; or to cotch of one obble o and another obble o’ as being fid to one
another.” Grice’s deciphering, with ‘pirot,” a tribute to Carnap – and Locke --
as any agent, and an ‘obble’ as an object. Grice borrows, but does not return,
the ‘pirot’ from Carnap (for whom pirots karulise elatically – Carnap’s example
of a syntactically well-formed formula in Introduction to Semantics). Grice
uses ‘pirotese’ ‘to potch’ as a correlate for ‘perceive,’ such as the factive
‘see’ and ‘to cotch’ as a correlate for the similarly factive ‘know.’While
‘perceive’ strictly allows for a ‘that’-clause (as in Grice analysis of “I
perceive that the pillar box is red” in “The causal theory of perception”), for
simplificatory purposes, Grice is using ‘to potch’ as applying directly to an
object, which Grice rephrases as an ‘obble.’ Since some perceptual feature or
other is required in a predication of ‘perceiving’ and ‘potching,’ ‘feng’ is
introduced as a perceptual predicate. And since pirots should also be allowed
to perceive an ‘obble’ o in some relation with another ‘obble’ o2, Grice
introduces the dyadic ‘relational’ feature ‘fid.’ Grice’s exegesis reads: “‘To potch’ is
something like ‘to perceive,’ whereas ‘to cotch’ is something like ‘to think.’
‘Feng’ and ‘fang’ are possible descriptions, much like our adjectives; ‘fid’ is
a possible relation between ‘obbles.’”).
At this point, Grice has been made, trans-territorially, the President
of the American Philosophical Association, and is ready to give his
Presidential Address (now reprinted in his Conception of Value, for Clarendon.
He chooses ‘philosophical psychology’ It’s when Grice goes on to play now with
the neo-Wittgensteinian issues of incorrigibility and privileged access, that
issues of intentio seconda become prominent.
For any psychological attitude ψ1, if U holds it, U holds, as
a matter of what Grice calls ‘genitorial construction,’ a meta-psychological
attitude, ψ2, a seconda intentio if ever there was one, -- Grice
even uses the numeral ‘2’ -- that has, as its content followed the second
‘that’-clause, the very first psychological attitude ψ1. The general
schema being given below, with an instance of specification: ‘ψup ⊃ ψuψup,’
and ‘if U wills that p, U wills that U wills that p.’ The interesting bit, from
the perspective of our exploration of ‘intentio seconda,’ is that, if, alla Peano,
we apply this to itself, as in the anti-Gettier cases Grice discussed earlier,
we end with an ad-infinitum clause. It was Judith Baker, who earned her
doctorate under Grice at Berkeley who sees this clearlier than everyone (She
was a regular contributor to the Kant Society in Germany). Baker’s publications
are, like those of her tutor, scarce. But in a delightful contribution to the
Grice festschrift, “Do one’s motives have to be pure?” (in Grandy/Warner 1986),
Baker explores the crucial importance of that ad-infinitum chain of intentiones
secondæ as it applies to questions of not alethic but practical value or
satisfactoriness. Consider ‘ought’. Grice would say that ‘must’ is aequi-vocal,
i.e. it is not that ‘must’ has an alethic ‘sense’ and a practical ‘sense.’ Only
“one” must, if one must! (As Grice jokes, “Who needs ichthyological
necessity?”). Baker notes that the
ad-infinitum chain may explain how ‘duty’ ‘cashes out’ in ‘interest.’ Both
Grice and Baker are avowed Kantotelians. By allowing ‘duty’ to cash out in
interest they are merging Aristotle’s utilitarian teleology with Kant’s
deontology, and succeeding! It is possible to symbolize Grice’s and Baker’s
proposal. If there is a “p” SUCH AS, at some point in the iteration of willing
and intentiones secondæ, the agent is not willing to accept it, this blocks the
potential Kantian universalizability of the content of a teleological attitude
“p,” stripping “p” of any absolute value status that it may otherwise attain.In
Grice’s reductive analysis of ‘mean,’ ‘know,’ ‘want,’ ‘intend,’ and ‘motivate,’
we witness the subtlety of his approach that is only made possible from the
recognition of Aristotle’s insight back in “De Sophisticis Elenchis” to Kant’s
explorations on the purity of motives. It should not surprise us. It’s Grice’s
nod, no doubt, to an unjustly neglected philosopher, who should be neglected no
more.ReferencesBlackburn, S. W. 1984. Spreading the words: groundings in the
philosophy of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Darwin, Charles. 1872.
The expression of emotions in man and animals. London: Murray. Grandy, R. E.
and R. O. Warner 1986. Philosophical grounds of rationality: intentions,
categories, ends. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Grice, H. P. 1948. Meaning, The
Oxford Philosophical Society. Repr. in Grice 1989. Grice, H. P. 1961. The
causal theory of perception, The Aristotelian Society. Repr. in Grice 1989.
Grice, H. P. 1967. Logic and Conversation, The William James lectures. Repr. in
a revised 1987 form in Grice 1989. Grice, H. P. 1969. Vacuous Names, in
Davidson and Hintikka, Words and objections. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. Grice, H.
P. 1971. Intention and uncertainty, The British Academy. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. Grice, H. P. 1975. How pirots karulise elatically: some
simpler ways, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley. Grice, H. P. 1982. Meaning Revisited, in N.
V. Smith, Mutual knowledge. London: Croom Helm, repr. in Grice 1989. Grice,
H.P. 1987. Retrospective epilogue, in Studies in the Way of Words. Grice, H. P.
1989. Studies in the way of words. London and Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press. Hart, H. L. A. and S. N. Hampshire 1958. Intention, decision,
and certainty, Mind, 67:1-12.Kemmerling, A. M. 1986. Utterer’s meaning
revisited, in Grandy/Warner 1986. Kneale, W. C. and M. Kneale. 1966. The
development of logic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Pecocke, C. A. B. 1989. Transcendental Arguments in the Theory of Content: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered
Before the University of Oxford on 16 May 1989. Oxford University Press.
Prichard, H. A. 1968. Moral Obligation and Duty and Interest. Essays and
Lectures, edited by
W. D. Ross and J. O. Urmson. Oxford: Oxford University. Stevenson,
C. L. 1944. Ethics and language. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
Strawson, P. F. 1964 Intention and convention in speech acts, The Philosophical
Review, repr. in Logico-Linguistic Papers, London, Methuen, 1971, pp. 149-169 as Blackburn puts
it in his discussion of Grice in the intention-based chapter of his “Spreading
the word: groundings in the philosophy of language.” Intentio seconda or
obliqua bears heavily on Grice’s presentation for the Oxford Philosophical
Society. The motivation behind Grice’s analysis pertains to philosophical
methodology. Grice is legitimizing an ascription of ‘mean’ to a rational agent,
such as … a philosopher. This very ascription Grice finds to be ‘seemingly
denied by Wittgenstein’ (Grice 1986). As an exponent of what he would later and
in jest dub “The Post-War Oxonian School of ‘Ordinary-Language’ Philosophy,”
Grice engages in a bit of language botany, and dealing with the intricacies of
‘communicative’ uses of “mean.” Interestingly, and publicly – although a
provision is in order here – Grice acknowledges emotivist Stevenson, who
apparently taught Grice about ‘metabolic’ uses of “mean.” Stevenson, who read
English as a minor at Yale, would not venture to apply ‘mean’ to moans!
Realising it as a colloquial extension, he is allowed to use ‘mean,’ but in
scare quotes only! (“Smith’s reduced temperature ‘means’ that he is is
convalescent.” “There is a sense, to be sure, in
which a groan “means“ something, just a reduced temperature may at times ”mean”
convalescence.” Stevenson 1944:38). Close enough but no cigar. Stevenson
has ‘groan,’ which at least rhymes with ‘moan.’ (As for the proviso, Grice
never ‘meant’ to ‘publish’ his talk on ‘Meaning,’ but one of his tutees
submitted for publication, and on acceptance, Grice allowed the publication).
In “Meaning” Grice does not provide a conceptual analysis for, ‘by moaning, U
means [simpliciter] that p.’ He will in his “Meaning Revisited” – the
metabolical scare quotes are justified on two counts: ‘By moaning U means that
p’ is legitimized on the basis of the generic ‘x ‘means’ y iff x is a
consequence of y.’ But it is also justified on the basis that there is a
continuum between U’s involuntarily moaning thereby meaning that he is in pain,
and U’s voluntarily moaning, thereby ‘communicating’ that he is in pain.
However, and more importantly for our exploration of the ‘intentum,’ Grice
hastens to add that he does not agree with Stevenson’s purely ‘causal’ account.
The main reason is not ‘anti-naturalistic.’ It is just that Grice sees
Stevenson’s proposal as as involving a vicious circle. Typically, Grice
extrapolates the relevant quote from Stevenson, slightly out of context. Grice
refers to Stevenson’s appeal to "an elaborate process of conditioning
attending … communication."Grice: “If we have to take seriously the second
part of the qualifying phrase ("attending … communication"),
Stevenson’s account of meaning is obviously circular. We might just as well
say, "U means” if “U communicates,” which, though true, is not helpful. It
MIGHT be helpful for Cicero translating from Grecian to Roman: ‘com-municatio’
indeed translates a Grecian turn of phrase involving ‘what is common.’ f.
“con-” and root “mu-,” to bind; cf.: immunis, munus, moenia.’And the suggestion
would be helpful if we say that to ‘communicate,’ or ‘mean,’ is just to bring
some intentum to be allotted ‘common ground,’ because of the psi-transmission
it is shared between the emissor and his intended addressee. This one hopes is
both true AND ‘helpful.’ In any case, Grice’s tutee Strawson later
found Grice’s elucidation of utterer’s meaning to be ‘objection-proof’
(Starwson and Wiggins, 2001) in terms of a set of necessary and sufficient
conditions, of an utterer or emissor E meaning that p, by uttering ‘x,’ and appealing
to primary and secondary intentionality. But is Grice’s intentionalism a sort
of behaviourism? Grice denies that in “Method” calling ‘behaviourism’ ‘silly.
Grice further explores intentio obliqua as it pertains to his remarks towards a
general theory of “re-presentation.” The place where this excursus takes place
is crucial. It is his Valediction to his compilation of essays, Studies in the
Way of Words, posthumously published. At this stage, he must have felt that,
what he once regarded krypto-technic in Peirce, is no more! Grice has already
identified in that ‘Valediction’ many strands of his philosophical thought, and
concludes his re-assessment of his ‘philosophy of language’ and semiotics with
an attempt to provide some general remarks about ‘to represent’ in general,
perhaps to counter the allegations of vicious circularity which his approach
had received, seeing that “p” features, as a ‘gap-sign,’ as the content of both
an ‘expression’ and a ‘psychological’ attitude. In trying to reconcile his austere
views on “Meaning,” back in that evening at the Oxford Philosophical Society,
where he distinguished two senses of ‘mean’ (“Smoke ‘means’ fire,” and ““Smoke”
means ‘smoke’”). By focusing on the most general of verbs for a psychological
state or attitude, ‘to represent,’ that even allows for a non-psychological
reading, Grice wants to be seen as answering the challenge of an alleged
vicious circle with which his intention-based approach is usually associated.
The secondary-intentional non-iconic mode of representation rests on a prior
iconic mode and can be understood as ‘pre-conventional,’ without any explicit
recourse to the features we associate with a developed system of communication.
Grice needs no ‘language of thought’ or sermo mentalis alla Ockham there. Grice
allows that one can communicate fully without the need to use what more
conventional philosophers call ‘a language.’ Artists do it all the time! The passage from intentio prima to full
intentio seconda is, for Grice, gradual and complex. Grice means to adhere with
‘ordinary’ discourse, in its implicatura and dis-implicaata. The passage also
adhering to a functionalist approach qua ‘method in philosophical psychology,’
as he’d prefer, that needs not to postulate a full-blown ‘linguistic entity’ as
the object of intentional thought. In this respect, it is worth mentioning the
work of C. A. B. Peacocke, who knew Grice from his Oxford days and later joined
his seminars at Berkeley, and who has developed this line of thought in a
better fashion than less careful philosophers. Grice’s programme has
occasionally, and justly, been compared with phenomenological approaches to
expression and communication, such as Marty’s. It is hoped that the previous
notes have shed some light on those aspects where this interface can further be
elaborated. Even as we leave an intentio seconda to resume the discussion for a
longer day. In his explorations on the embedding of intensional concepts, Grice
should be inspirational to philosophers in more than one way, but especially in
the one that he favoured most: the problematicity of it all. As he put it in
another context, when defending absolute value. “Such
a defence of absolute value is of course, bristling with unsolved or
incompletely solved problems. I do not find this thought daunting. If
philosophy generated no new problems it would be dead, because it would be
finished; and if it recurrently regenerated the same old problems it would not
be alive because it could never begin. So those who still look to philosophy
for their bread-and-butter should pray that the supply of new problems never
dries up.” (Grice 1991). In the Graeco-Roman tradition, philosophers started to
use ‘intentio prima,’ ‘intentio secunda,’ ‘intentio tertia,’ and “… ad
infinitum,” as they would put it. In post-war Oxford, English philosopher H. P.
Grice felt the need. The formalist he was, he found subscribing numbers to
embedded intentions has a strong appeal for him. Grice’s main motivation is in
the philosophy of language, but as ancillary towards solving this or that
problem concerning the ‘linguistic’ methodology of his day. To appreciate
Grice’s contribution one need to abstract a little from his own historical
circumstances, or rather, place them in the proper context, and connect it with
the general history of philosophy. As a matter of history, ‘intentio prima,’
or ‘recta,’ as opposed to ‘obliqua,’ is part of Nicolai Hartmann’s ‘mediaeval
revival,’ as a reaction to mediaevalism having made scorn by the likes of
Rabelais that amused D. P. Henry. For the mediaeval philosopher, to use Grice’s
symbolism, was concerned with whether a chimaera could eat ‘I2,’ a
second intention. The mediaeval philosopher’s implicaturum seems to be that a
chimaera can easily eat ‘I1.’ Such a ‘quaestio subtilissima,’
Rabelais jokes. If ‘I1,’ or, better, for simplificatory purposes, ‘IR’
is a specific state, stance, or attitude of the ‘soul,’ ‘ψ1’ or ‘ψR’
directed towards its ‘de re’ ‘intentum,’ or ‘prae-sentatum,’ of the noumenon,
‘IO,’ ‘intentio obliqua,’ is a state, stance, or attitude of the
‘soul,’ of the same genus, ‘ψ2,’ or ‘ψS’ directed towards
‘ψR,’ its ‘de sensu’ ‘intentum’ now ‘re-prae-sentatum’ of the
phainomenon or ob-jectum (Abelard translates Aristotle’s ‘per divisionem’ as
‘de re’ and ‘per compositionem’ and ‘per conjunctionem’ by ‘de sensu,’ and ‘per
Soph. Elen., Kneale and Kneale, 1966). Grice’s intentionalism has been widely
discussed, but the defense he himself makes of intensionalism (versus
extensionalism) has proved inspiring, as when he assumes as an attending
commentary to his reductive analysis of the state of affairs by which the
emissor communicates that p, that he is putting forward “the legitimacy of
[the] application of [existential generalization] to a statement the expression
of which contains such [an] "intensional" verb[…] as
"intend" (Grice 1989: 116 ). The expression ‘de sensu’ is due to
Abelard, but Russell likes it. While serving as Prince Regent of England in
1815, George IV casually remarks his wish to meet ‘the author of Waverley’ in
the flesh. The Prince was being funny, you see. The prince would not know this,
but when his press becomes embroiled in pecuniary difficulties, Scotts set out
to write a cash-cow. The result is Waverley, a novel which did not name its
author. It is a tale of the last Jacobite rebellion in England, the
“Forty-Five.” The novel meets with considerable success. The next year, Scott.
There follows a sequel, the same general vein.
Mindful of his reputation, Scotts maintains the anonymous habit he displays
with Waverley, and publishes the sequel under “the Author of Waverley.” The
identity “Author of Waverley” = “Scott” is widely rumoured, and Scott is given the honour of dining with George,
Prince Regent, who had wished to meet “Author of Waverley” in the flesh for a
‘snug little dinner’ at Carleton, on hearing ‘the author of Waverley’ was in
town. The use of a descriptor may lead to the implicaturum that His Majesty is
p’rhaps not sure that ‘the author of Waverley’ has a name, and isR
Scott. Lack of certainty is one thing, yet, to quote from Russell, “an interest
in the law of identity can hardly be attributed to the first gentleman of
Europe.” Grice admired Russell profusely and one of his essays is wittily
entitled, “Definite descriptions in Russell and in the Vernacular,” so his
explorations of ‘intentio’ ‘de sensu’ have an intrinsic interest. Keywords: H. Paul Grice, intentio seconda, implicaturum,
intentionalism, intentum, intentum de sensu,
‘that’-clause, the recte-oblique distinction. Grice explored issues of intentum
de sensu in various areas. First, ‘meaning.’ Second, ‘knowing.’ Third,
‘wanting.’ Fourth, ‘intending,’ Fifth, pirots, with incorrigibility and
privileged access. Sixth, morality and the regressus. Seventh, the continuum
and the unity. With
Grice, it all starts, roughly, when Grice comes up with a topic for a talk at
The Oxford Philosophical Society.The Society is holding one of those meetings,
and Grice thinks of presenting a few conclusions he had reached at his seminars
on C. S. Peirce.What’s the good of an Oxford don of keeping tidy lecture notes
if you will not be able to lecture to a philosophical addressee? Peirce is the
philosopher on whom Grice choses to lecture. In part, for “not being
particularly popular on these shores,” and in part because Grice noted the
‘heretic’ in Peirce with which he could identify.Granted, at this stage, Grice
disliked the un-Englishness of some of Peirce’s over-Latinate jargon, what
Grice finds the ‘krypto-technic.’ ‘Sign,’ ‘symbol,’ ‘icon,’ and the rest of
them!Instead, Grice thinks, initially for the sake of his tutees and students –
he was university lecturer -- sticking with the simpler, ‘ordinary’, short
English lexeme ‘mean.’A. M. Kemmerling, of all people, who wrote the obituary
for Grice for Synthese, has precisely cast doubts on the ‘universal’ validity
of Grice’s proposed conceptual reductive analysis, notably in his Ph.D
dissertation on ‘Meinen.’ Note the irony
in Kemmerling’s title: Was Grice mit "Meinen" meint - Eine Rekonstruktion
der Griceschen Analyse rationaler
Kommunikation.” Nothing jocular in the subtitle, for this indeed is a
reconstruction of ‘rational’ communication. The funny bit is in “Was mit
“Meinen” Grice meint”! In that very phrase, which is rhetorical, and allows for
an answer, because ‘meinen’ is both mentioned and used, Kemmerling allows that
he is ‘buying’ Grice’s idea that his reductive analysis of ‘mean’ applies to
German ‘meinen.’ Kemmerling is also pointing to the ‘primacy’ (to use Suppes’s
phrase) of ‘utterer’s’ or ‘emissor’s “communicatum” or ‘Meinung.” Kemmerling
advertises his interest in exploring on what _Grice_ means – by uttering
‘meinen,’ almost! As Kemmerling notes, German ‘meinen,’ cognate via
common Germanic with English ‘mean,’ (cf. Frisian ‘mein,’ – and Hazzlitt,
“Bread, butter, and green cheese, very good English, very good cheese”) is none
other than ‘mean’ that Grice means. And ‘Grice means’ is the only literal, i.
e. non-metabolic use of the verb Grice allows – as applied to a rational agent,
which features in the subtitle to Kemmerling’s dissertation. Thus one reads in
Kluge, “Etymologische Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 1881, of “meinen,” rendered by J. F. Davis as ‘to think, opine, mean,’
from a MHG used to indicate, in
Davis’s rendition, ‘to direct one's thoughts to, have in view, aim at,
be affected towards a person, love,’ OHG meinen, meinan,
‘to mean, think, say, declare.’ = OS mênian, Du. meenen,
OE mœ̂nan, E mean (to this Anglo-Saxon mœ̂nan, cf. prob. moan – I know your meaning from your moaning),
all from WGmc. meinen, mainjan, ‘mênjan,’ and cognate with ‘man,’ ‘to think’ (cf. ‘mahnen,’ ‘Mann,’ and ‘Minne’). Kemmerling
is very apropos, because Grice engaged in philosophical discussion with him, as
testified by his perceptive contribution to P. G. R. I. C. E. (Kemmerling,
1986). On top, in his presentation for the Oxford Philosophical Society, Grice
wants to restrict the philosophical interest to ‘de sensu,’ the ‘that’-clause
(cf. the recte-oblique distinction), viz. not just ‘what Grice means,’ if this
is going to be expaned as ‘something wonderful.’ Not enough for Grice. It has
to be expanded, for the thing to have philosophical interest into a
‘propositional clause,’, an ‘intensional’ context, i. e., ‘Grice means that…’
Grice cavalierly dismisses other use of ‘mean,’ – notably the ubiquitous, ‘mean
to…’ – He will later explain his reason for this. It was after William James
provoked Prichard. For William James uttered: “I will that the distant table
slides on the floor toward me. It doesn’t’. Prichard turns this into the
conceptual priority of ‘will that…’ for which Grice gives him the credit he
deserved at a later lecture now on his being appointed a Fellow of The British
Academy (Grice, 1971). Strictly, what
Grice does in the Oxford Philosophical Socieety presentation is to distinguish
between various ‘mean’ and end up focusing on ‘mean’ as followed by a
‘that’-clause. In the typical Oxonian fashion, that Grice borrows (but never
returns) from J. C. Wilson, Grice has the IO as ‘meaning that
so-and-so’ (Grice, 1989: 217). Grice explicitly displays the primacy of a
reductive analysis of the conceptual circumstances involving an emissor
(Anglo-Saxon ‘utterer’) who ‘means’ that p. It will be a longer ‘shaggy-dog’
story Grice tells when he crosses the divide from ‘propositional’ (p) to
‘predicative’ ascriptions (“By uttering ‘Fido is shaggy,’ Grice means that the
dog is hairy-coated (Grice 1989). Grice notes that ‘metabolically,’ “mean,” at least
in English, can be applied to various other things, sometimes even involving a
‘that’-clause. “By delivering his budget, the major means that we will have a
hard year.’ Grice finds that ‘but we won’t’ turns him into a self-contradicter.
In Grice’s usage, ‘x ‘means’ y’ iff ‘y is a consequence [consequentia] of x’
--. Quite a departure from Old Frisian. If Hume’s objection to the use of the
verb ‘cause,’ is that it covers animistic beliefs (“Charles I’s decapitation
willed his death”), English allows for disimplicated or loose ‘metabolic’ uses
of ‘will’ (“It ‘will’ rain”) and ‘mean’ (Grice’s moaning means that he is in
pain).
desideratum: Qua volition,
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, 1949), 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, 1949). 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. See also ACTION THEORY, FREE WILL PROBLEM, PRACTICAL
REASONING, WAYWARD CAUSAL CHAIN. M.B. volition volition. Grice makes a double use of this. It should be thus two
entries. There’s the conversational desideratum, where a desideratum is like a
maxim or an imperative – and then there are two specific desiderata: the
desideratum of conversational clarity, and the desideratum of conversational
candour. Grice was never sure what adjective to use for the ‘desiderative.’ He
liked buletic. He liked desideratum because it has the co-relate
‘consideratum,’ for belief. He uses
‘deriderative’ and a few more! Of course what he means is a sub-psychological
modality, or rather a ‘soul.’ So he would apply it ‘primarily’ to the soul, as
Plato and Aristotle does. The ‘psyche’, or ‘anima’ is what is ‘desiderativa.’
The Grecians are pretty confused about this (but ‘boulemaic’ and ‘buletic’ are
used), and the Romans didn’t help. Grice is concerned with a
rational-desiderative, that takes a “that”-clause (or oratio obliqua), and qua
constructivist, he is also concerned with a pre-rational desiderative (he has
an essay on “Needs and Wants,” and his detailed example in “Method” is a
squarrel (sic) who needs a nut. On top, while Grice suggest s that it goes both
ways: the doxastic can be given a reductive analaysis in terms of the buletic,
and the buletic in terms of the doxastic, he only cares to provide the former.
Basically, an agent judges that p, if his willing that p correlates to a state
of affairs that satisfies his desires. Since he does not provide a reductive
analysis for Prichard’s willing-that, one is left wondering. Grice’s position
is that ‘willing that…’ attains its ‘sense’ via the specification, as a
theoretical concept, in some law in the folk-science that agents use to explain
their behaviour. Grice gets subtler when he deals with mode-markers for the
desiderative: for these are either utterer-oriented, or addressee-oriented, and
they may involve a buletic attitude itself, or a doxastic attitude. When
utterer-addressed, utterer wills that utterer wills that p. There is no closure
here, and indeed, a regressus ad infinitum is what Grice wants, since this
regressus allows him to get univeersabilisability, in terms of conceptual,
formal, and applicational kinds of generality. In this he is being Kantian, and
Hareian. While Grice praises Kantotle, Aristotle here would stay unashamedly
‘teleological,’ and giving priority to a will that may not be universalisable,
since it’s the communitarian ‘good’ that matters. what does Grice have to say
about our conversational practice? L and S have “πρᾶξις,” from “πράσσω,” and
which they render as ‘moral action,’ oποίησις, τέχνη;” “oποιότης,” “ἤθη καὶ
πάθη καὶ π.,” “oοἱ πολιτικοὶ λόγοι;” “ἔργῳ καὶ πράξεσιν, οὐχὶ λόγοις” Id.6.3;
ἐν ταῖς πράξεσι ὄντα τε καὶ πραττόμενα, “exhibited in actual life,” action in
drama, “oλόγος; “μία π. ὅλη καὶ τελεία.” With practical Grice means buletic.
Praxis involves acting, and surely Grice presupposes acting. By uttering, i. e.
by the act of uttering, expression x, U m-intends that p. Grice occasionally
refers to action and behaviour as the thing which an ascription of a
psychological state explains. Grice prefers the idiom of soul. Theres the
ratiocinative soul. Within the ratiocinative, theres the executive soul and the
merely administrative soul. Cicero had to translate Aristotle into prudentia,
every time Aristotle talked of phronesis. Grice was aware that the
terminology by Kant can be confusing. Kant used ‘pure’ reason for reason in the
doxastic realm. The critique by Kant of practical reason is hardly
symmetrical to his critique of doxastic reason. Grice, with his
æqui-vocality thesis of must (must crosses the buletic-boulomaic/doxastic
divide), Grice is being more of a symmetricalist. The buletic, boulomaic, or
volitive, is a part of the soul, as is the doxatic or judicative. And
judicative is a trick because there is such a thing as a value judgement, or an
evaluative judgement, which is hardly doxastic. Grice plays with two
co-relative operators: desirability versus probability. Grice invokes the exhibitive/protreptic
distinction he had introduced in the fifth James lecture, now applied to
psychological attitudes themselves. This Grice’s attempt is to tackle the
Kantian problem in the Grundlegung: how to derive the categorical imperative
from a counsel of prudence. Under the assumption that the protasis is Let the
agent be happy, Grice does not find it obtuse at all to construct a
universalisable imperative out of a mere motive-based counsel of prudence.
Grice has an earlier paper on pleasure which relates. The derivation involves
seven steps. Grice proposes seven steps in the derivation. 1. It is a
fundamental law of psychology that, ceteris paribus, for any creature R, for
any P and Q, if R wills P Λ judges if P, P as a result of Q, R wills
Q. 2. Place this law within the scope of a "willing" operator: R
wills for any P Λ Q, if R wills P Λ judges that if P, P as
a result of Q, R wills Q. 3. wills turns to should. If rational, R will have to
block unsatisfactory (literally) attitudes. R should (qua rational) judge for
any P Λ Q, if it is satisfactory to will that P Λ it is
satisfactory to judge that if P, P as a result of Q, it is sastisfactory to
will that Q. 4. Marking the mode: R should (qua rational) judge for any
P Λ Q, if it is satisfactory that !P Λ that if it .P, .P
only as a result of Q, it is satisfactory that !Q. 5. via (p & q
-> r) -> (p -> (q -> r)): R should (qua rational)
judge for any P Λ Q, if it is satisfactory that if .P, .P only
because Q, i is satisfactory that, if let it be that P, let it be that Q. 6. R
should (qua rational) judge for any P Λ Q, if P, P only because p
yields if let it be that P, let it be that Q. 7. For any P Λ Q if P,
P only because Q yields if let it be that P, let it be that Q. Grice was
well aware that a philosopher, at Oxford, needs to be a philosophical
psychologist. So, wanting and needing have to be related to willing. A plant
needs water. A floor needs sweeping. So need is too broad. So is want, a
non-Anglo-Saxon root for God knows what. With willing things get closer to the
rational soul. There is willing in the animal soul. But when it comes to
rational willing, there must be, to echo Pritchard, a conjecture, some doxastic
element. You cannot will to fly, or will that the distant chair slides over the
floor toward you. So not all wants and needs are rational willings, but then
nobody said they would. Grice is interested in emotion in his power structure
of the soul. A need and a want may count as an emotion. Grice was never too
interested in needing and wanting because they do not take a that-clause. He
congratulates Urmson for having introduced him to the brilliant willing that …
by Prichard. Why is it, Grice wonders, that many ascriptions of buletic states
take to-clause, rather than a that-clause? Even mean, as ‘intend.’ In this
Grice is quite different from Austin, who avoids the that-clause. The
explanation by Austin is very obscure, like those of all grammars on the
that’-clause, the ‘that’ of ‘oratio obliqua’ is not in every way similar to the
‘that’-clause in an explicit performative formula. Here the utterer is not
reporting his own ‘oratio’ in the first person singular present indicative
active. Incidentally, of course, it is not in the least necessary that an
explicit performative verb should be followed by a ‘that’-clause. In important
classes of cases it is followed by ‘to . . .,’ or by or nothing, e. g. ‘I
apologize for…,’ ‘I salute you.’ Now many of these verbs appear to be quite
satisfactory pure performatives. Irritating though it is to have them as such,
linked with clauses that look like statements, true or false, e. g., when I say
‘I prophesy that …,’ ‘I concede that …’,
‘I postulate that …,’ the clause following normally looks just like a
statement, but the verb itself seems to be pure performatives. One
may distinguish the performative opening part, ‘I state that …,’ which makes
clear how the utterance is to be taken, that it is a statement, as distinct
from a prediction, etc.), from the bit in the that-clause which is required to
be true or false. However, there are many cases which, as language stands at
present, we are not able to split into two parts in this way, even though the
utterance seems to have a sort of explicit performative in it. Thus, ‘I liken x
to y,’ or ‘I analyse x as y.’ Here we both do the likening and assert that
there is a likeness by means of one compendious phrase of at least a
quasi-performative character. Just to spur us on our way, we may also mention
‘I know that …’, ‘I believe that …’, etc. How complicated are these examples?
We cannot assume that they are purely descriptive, which has Grice talking of
the pseudo-descriptive. Want etymologically means absence; need should be
preferred. The squarrel (squirrel) Toby needs intake of nuts, and youll soon
see gobbling them! There is not much philosophical bibliography on these two
psychological states Grice is analysing. Their logic is interesting. Smith
wants to play cricket. Smith needs to play cricket. Grice is
concerned with the propositional content attached to the want and need
predicate. Wants that sounds harsh; so does need that. Still, there
are propositional attached to the pair above. Smith plays cricket. Grice
took a very cavalier attitude to what linguists spend their lives
analysing. He thought it was surely not the job of the philosopher,
especially from a prestigious university such as Oxford, to deal with the
arbitrariness of grammatical knots attached to this or that English verb. He
rarely used English, but stuck with ordinary language. Surely, he saw
himself in the tradition of Kantotle, and so, aiming at grand philosophical
truths: not conventions of usage, even his own! 1. Squarrel Toby has a
nut, N, in front of him. 2. Toby is short on squarrel food (observed or assumed),
so, 3. Toby wills squarrel food (by postulate of Folk Pyschological
Theory θ connecting willing with intake of N). 4. Toby prehends a nut
as in front (from (1) by Postulate of Folk Psychological Theory θ, if it
is assumed that nut and in front are familiar to Toby). 5. Toby joins squarrel
food with gobbling, nut, and in front (i.e. Toby judges gobbling, on nut in
front, for squarrel food (by Postulate of Folk Psychological
Theory θ with the aid of prior observation. So, from 3, 4 and 5, 6.
Tobby gobbles; and since a nut is in front of him, gobbles the nut in front of
him. The system of values of the society to which the agent belongs forms the
external standard for judging the relative importance of the commitments by the
agent. There are three dimensions of value: universally human, cultural that
vary with societies and times; and personal that vary with individuals. Each
dimension has a standard for judging the adequacy of the relevant values. Human
values are adequate if they satisfy basic needs; cultural values are adequate
if they provide a system of values that sustains the allegiance of the
inhabitants of a society; and personal values are adequate if the conceptions
of well‐being formed out of them enable individuals to live
satisfying lives. These values conflict and our well‐being requires some way of settling their conflicts, but
there is no universal principle for settling the conflicts; it can only be done
by attending to the concrete features of particular conflicts. These features
vary with circumstances and values. Grice reads Porter.The idea of the value
chain is based on the process view of organizations, the idea of seeing a
manufacturing (or service) organization as a system, made up of subsystems each
with inputs, transformation processes and outputs. Inputs, transformation
processes, and outputs involve the acquisition and consumption of resources –
money, labour, materials, equipment, buildings, land, administration and
management. How value chain activities are carried out determines costs and affects
profits.In his choice of value system and value sub-system, Grice is defending
objectivity, since it is usually the axiological relativist who uses such a
pretentious phrasing! More than a value may co-ordinate in a system. One such
is eudæmonia (cf. system of ends). The problem for Kant is the reduction of the
categorical imperative to the hypothetical or
suppositional imperative. For Kant, a value tends towards the
Subjectsive. Grice, rather, wants to offer a metaphysical defence of objective
value. Grice called the manual of conversational maxims the Conversational
Immanuel. The keyword to search the H. P. Grice is ‘will,’ and ‘volitional,’
even ‘ill-will,’ (“Metaphysics and ill-will,” s. V, c. 7-f. 28) and
‘benevolence’ (vide below under ‘conversational benevolence”). Also
‘desirability’: “Modality, desirability, and probability,” s. V, c. 8-ff.
14-15, and the conference lecture in a different series, “Probability,
desirability, and mood operators,” s. II, c. 2-f.11). Grice makes systematic use of ‘practical’ to
contrast with the ‘alethic,’ too (“Practical reason,” s. V, c. 9-f.1), The H.
P. Grice Papers, BANC.
desideratum of conversational
candour: The key for philosophical
attention here is ‘candour’ but the collocation is delightfully Griceian, “the
desideratum of conversational candour”
where only ‘candour,’ and just about, should be taken seriously. The term
‘desideratum’ has to be taken seriously. It involves freedom. This includes the
maximin. It should be noted that candour is DESIRABLE. There is a desirability
for candour. Candour is not a given. Ditto for clarity. See conversational
desideratum, simpliciter. A rational desideratum is a desideratum by a rational
agent and which he expects from another rational agent. One should make the
strongest move, and on the other hand try not to mislead.Grice's Oxford
"Conversation" Lectures, 1966Grice: Between Self-Love and Benevolence
As I was saying (somewhere), Grice uses "self-love", charmingly
qualified with capitals, as
"Conversational Self-Love", and, less charmingly, "Conversational Benevolence", in
lectures advertised at Oxford, as "Logic and Conversation" that he gave at Oxford in
1964 as "University Lecturer in
Philosophy". He also gave seminars on "Conversational
helpfulness." A number of the lectures by Grice include discussion of
thetypes of behaviour people in general exhibit, and thereforethe types of
expectations[cfr. owings]they might bring to a venture such as a
conversation.Grice suggests that people in general both exhibitand EXPECT a
certain degree of helpfulness [-- alla Rosenschein, epistemic/boulemaic:If A
cognizes that B wills p, then A wills p.]
"from OTHERS" [-- reciprocal vs. reflexive, etc.] usually on
the understanding that such helpfulness does NOT get in the way of particular
goals and does not involve undue effort cf. least effort? - cfr. Hobbes on self-love.
It two people, even complete strangers,are going through a gate, the
expectation isthat the FIRST ONE through will hold thegate open, or at least
leave it open, for thesecond. The expectation is such that todo OTHERWISE
without particular reasonwould be interpreted as RUDE. The type of helpfulness
exhibited andexpected in conversation is more specificbecause of a particular,
although not a unique feature of conversation.It is a COLLABORATIVE venture
betweenthe participants.There is a SHARED aimGrice wonders. His words, Does "helpfulness in something WE ARE
DOING TOGETHER” equate to 'cooperation'?He seems to have decided that it
does. By the later lectures in the series, 'the principle of conversational
helpfulness'has been rebranded the expectation of 'cooperation.' During the
Oxford lectures, Grice develops his account of the precise nature of this
cooperation. It can be seen as governed by certain regularities, or principles,
detailing expected behaviour. The expression'maxim' to describe these
regularities appears relatively late in the lectures.Grice's INITIAL choices of
terms are 'objectives' and 'desiderata'.He was particularly fond of the latter.
He was interested in detailing the desirable forms of behaviour for the purpose
of achieving a joint goal of the conversation. Initially, Grice posits TWO such
desiderata. Those relating to candour on the one hand and clarity on the other.
The desideratum of candour contains his general PRINCIPLE of making the
strongest (MAX) possible statement and, as a LIMITING (MAX) factor on this, the
suggestion that speakers should try not to mislead. (Do not mislead). cfr.
our"We are brothers"-- but not mutual."We are married to each
other". "You _are_ a boor".----The desideratum of conversational
clarity concerns the manner of expression. [His later reference to Modus or Mode
as used by Kant as one of the four
categories] for any conversational contribution. It includes the IMPORTANT
expectations of relevance to understanding and also insists that the main
import of an utterance be clear and explicit. (“Explicate!”) These two factors
are constantly to be WEIGHED against two
FUNDAMENTAL and SOMETIMES COMPETING DEMANDS. Contributions to a conversation
are aimed towards the agreed current purposes by the PRINCIPLE of Conversational
Benevolence. The principle of CONVERSATIONAL SELF-LOVE ensures the assumption
on the part of both participants that neither will go to unnecessary trouble
[LEAST EFFORT] in framing their contribution. This has been a topic of interest
to Noh end. In "Conversational Immanuel" Grice tries different ways
of making sense -- it is very easy to do so -- of Grice's distinctions that go
over the head of some linguists I know! Reasonable versus rational for example.
A Rawlsian distinction of sorts. Rational is too weak. We need 'reasonable'.
So, what sort of reasonableness is that which results from this harmonious, we
hope, clash of self-love and benevolence? Grice tried, wittily, to extend the
purposes of conversation to involve MUTUALLY INFLUENCING EACH OTHER -- a
reciprocal. (WoW, ii). And there's a mythical reconstruction of this in his
"Meaning Revisited" which he contributed to this symposium organised
by N. Smith on Mutua knowledge. But issues remains, we hope. The concept of
‘candour’is especially basic for Grice since it is constitutive of what it
means to identify the ‘significatum.’ As he notes, ‘false’ information is no
information. This is serious, because it has to do with the acceptum. A
contribution which is not trustworthy is not deemed a contribution. It is
conceptually impossible to intend to PROVIDE information if you are aware that
you are not being trustworthy and not conveying it. As for the degree of
explicitness, as Grice puts it. Since in communication in a certain fashion all
must be public, if an idea or thesis is heavily obscured, it can no longer be
regarded as having been propounded. This gives acceptum justification to the
correlative desideratum of conversational clarity. On top, if there is a level
of obscurity, the thing is not deemed to have been a communicatum or
significatum. It is all about confidence, you know. U expects A will find him
confident. Thus we find in Short and Lewis, “confīdo,” wich they render as
“to trust confidently in something,” and also, “confide in, rely firmly upon,
to believe, be assured of,” as an enhancing of “sperare,” in Cicero’s Att. 6,
9, 1. Trust and rationality are pre-requisites of conversation. Urmson develops
this. They phrase in Urmson is "implied claim." Whenever U makes a
conversational contribution in a standard context, there is an implied claim to
U being trustworthy and reasonable. What do Grice and Urmson mean by an
"implied claim"? It is obvious enough, but they both love to expand.
Whenever U utters an expression which can be used to convey truth or falsehood
there is an implied claim to trustworthiness by U, unless the situation shows
that this is not so. U may be acting or reciting or incredulously echoing the
remark of another, or flouting the expectation. This, Grice and Urmson think,
may need an explanation. Suppose that U utters, in an ordinary
circumstance, ‘It will rain tomorrow,’ or ‘It rained yesterday,’ or ‘It is
raining.’ This act carries with it the claim that U should be trusted and
licenses A to believe that it will rain tomorrow. By this is meant that
just as it is understood that no U will give an order unless he is entitled to
give orders, so it is understood that no U will utter a sentence of a kind
which can be used to make a statement unless U is willing to claim that that
statement is true, and hence one would be acting in a misleading manner if one
uttered the sentence if he was not willing to make that claim. Here, the
predicate “implies that …,” Grice, Grant, Moore, Nowell-Smith, and Urmson
hasten to add, is being used in such a way that, if there is a an expectation
that a thing is done in Circumstance C, U implies that C holds if he does the
thing. The point is often made if not always in the terms Grice uses, and it
is, Urmson and Grice believe, in substance uncontroversial. Grice and Urmson
wish to make the point that, when an utterer U deploys a hedge with an
indicative sentence, there is not merely an implied claim that the whole
statement is true but also that is true. The implied or expressed claim by
the utterer to trustworthiness need not be very strong. The whole point of
a hedge is to modify or weaken (if not, as Grice would have it, flout) the
claim by U to full trustworthiness which would be implied by the unhedged
assertion. But even if U utters “He is, I suppose, at home;” or “I
guess that the penny will come down heads," U expresses, or for
Urmson plainly implies, with however little reason, that this is what U accepts
as worth the trust by A. Now Grice and Urmson meet an objection which is made
by some philosophers to this comparison. Grice and Urmson intend to meet the
objection by a fairly detailed examination of the example which they themselves
would most likely choose. In doing this Grice and Urmson further explain
the use of a parenthetical verb. The adverb is "probably" and
the verb is “I believe.” To say, that something is probable, the imaginary
objector will say, is to imply that it is reasonable to believe, that the
evidence justifies a guarded claim for the trust or trustworthiness of U and
the truth of the statement. But to say that someone else, a third person,
believes something does not imply that it is reasonable for U or A to believe
it, nor that the evidence justifies the guarded or implied claim to factivity
or truth which U makes. Therefore, the objector continues, the difference
between the use of “I believe” and “probably” is not, as Grice and Urmson
suggest, merely one of nuance and degree of impersonality. In one case,
“probably,” reasonableness is implied; in the other, “believe,” it is not. This
objection is met by Grice and Urmson. They do so by making a general
point. To use the rational-reasonable distinction in “Conversational implicaturum”
and “Aspects,” there is an implied claim by U to reasonableness. Further
to an implied claim to trust whenever a sentence is uttered in a standard
context, now Grice and Urmson add, to meet the sceptical objection about the
contrast between “probably” and “I believe” that, whenever U makes a statement
in a standard context there is an implied claim to reasonableness. This
contention must be explained alla Kant. Cf. Strawson on the presumption of
conversational relevance, and Austin, Moore, Nowell-Smith, Grant, and
Warnock. To use Hart’s defeasibility, and Hall’s excluder, unless U is
acting or story-telling, or preface his remarks with some such phrase
as “I know Im being silly, but …” or, “I admit it is
unreasonable, but …” it is, Grice and Urmson think, a presupposition or
expectation of communication or conversation that a communicator will not make
a statement, thereby implying this trust, unless he has some ground,
however tenuous, for the statement. To utter “The King is visiting Oxford
tomorrow,” or “The President of the BA has a corkscrew in his pocket,” and
then, when asked why the utterer is uttering that, to answer “Oh, for
no reason at all,” would be to sin, theologically, against the basic
conventions governing the use of discourse. Grice goes on to provide a Kantian
justification for that, hence his amusing talk of maxims and stuff.
Therefore, Urmson and Grice think there is an implied or expressed claim
to reasonableness which goes with all our statements, i.e. there is
a mutual expectation that a communicator will not make a statement unless he is
prepared to claim and defend its reasonablenesss. Cf. Grice’s desideratum of
conversational candour, subsumed under the over-arching principle of
conversational helpfulness (formerly conversational
benevolence-cum-self-love). Grice thinks that the principle of
conversational benevolence has to be weighed against the principle of
conversational self-love. The result is the overarching principle of
conversational helpfulness. Clarity gets in the picture. The desideratum of
conversational clarity is a reasonable requirement for conversants to abide
by. Grice follows some observations by Warnock. The logical grammar
of “trust,” “candour,” “charity,” “sincerity,” “decency,” “honesty,” is subtle,
especially when we are considering the two sub-goals of conversation: giving
and receiving information/influencing and being influenced by others. In both
sub-goals, trust is paramount. The explorations of trust has become an Oxonian
hobby, with authors not such like Warnock, but Williams, and
others. Grice’s essay is entitled, “Trust, metaphysics, value.” Trust as a
corollary of the principle of conversational helpfulness. In a given
conversational setting, assuming the principle of conversational helpfulness is
operating, U is assumed by A to be trustworthy and candid. There are two
modes of trust, which relate to the buletic sub-goal and the doxastic sub-goal
which Grice assumes the principle of conversational helpfulness captures:
giving and receiving information, and influencing and being influenced by
others. In both sub-goals, trust is key. In the doxastic realm, trust
has to do, not so much or only, with truth (with which the expression is
cognate), or satisfactoriness-value, but evidence and probability. In the
buletic realm, there are the dimensions of satisfactoriness-value (‘good’
versus ‘true’), and ‘ground’ versus evidence, which becomes less crucial. But
note that one is trustworthy regarding BOTH the buletic attitude and the
doxastic attitude. Grice mentions this or that buletic attitudes which is not
usually judged in terms of evidential support (“I vow to thee my country.”)
However, in the buletic realm, U is be assumed as trustworthy if U has the
buletic attitude he is expressing. The cheater, the insincere, the dishonest,
the untrustworthy, for Grice is not irrational, just repugnant. How immoral is
the idea that honesty is the best policy? Is Kant right in thinking there is no
right to refrain from trust? Surely it is indecent. For Kant, there is no
motivation or ‘motive,’ pure or impure, behind telling the truth – it’s just a
right, and an obligation – an imperative. Being trustworthy for Kant is
associated with a pure motive. Grice agrees. Decency comes into the picture. An
indecent agent may still be rational, but in such a case, conversation may
still be seen as rational (if not reasonable) and surely not be seen as
rational helpfulness or co-operation, but rational adversarial competition,
rather, a zero-sum game. Grice found the etymology of ‘decent’ too obscure.
Short and Lewis have “dĕcet,” which they deem cognate with Sanscrit “dacas,”
‘fame,’ and Grecian “δοκέω,‘to seem,’ ‘to think,’ and with Latin ‘decus,’
‘dingus.’ As an impersonal verb, Short and Lewis render it as ‘it is seemly,
comely, becoming,; it beseems, behooves, is fitting, suitable, proper (for syn.
v. debeo init.): decere quasi aptum esse consentaneumque tempori et personae,
Cic. Or. 22, 74; cf. also nunc quid aptum sit, hoc est, quid maxime deceat in
oratione videamus, id. de Or. 3, 55, 210 (very freq. and class.; not in
Caesar). Grice’s idea of decency is connected to his explorations on rational
and reasonable. To cheat may be neither unreasonable nor rational. It is
just repulsive. Indecent, in other words. In all this, Grice is concerned
with ordinary language, and treasures Austin questioning Warnock, when Warnock
was pursuing a fellowship at Magdalen. “What would you say the difference is
between ‘Smith plays cricket rather properly’ and ‘Smith plays cricket rather
incorrectly’?” They spent the whole dinner over the subtlety. By desserts,
Warnock was in love with Austin. Cf. Grice on his prim and proper Aunt
Matilda. The exploration by Grice on trust is Warnockian in character, or vice
versa. In “Object of morality,” Warnock has trust as key, as indeed, the very
object of morality. Grice starts to focus on trust in an Oxford seminars on the
implicaturum. If there is a desideratum of conversational candour, and the goal
of the principle of conversational helpfulness is that of giving and receiving
information, and influencing and being influenced by others, ‘false’
‘information’ is just no information – Since exhibiteness trumps protrepsis,
this applies to the buletic, too. Grice loved that Latin dictum, “tuus candor.”
He makes an early defence of this in his fatal objection to Malcolm. A
philosopher cannot intentionally instill a falsehood in his tutee, such as
“Decapitation willed the death of Charles I” (the alleged paraphrase of the
paradoxical philosopher saying that ‘causing’ is ‘willing’ and rephrasing
“Decapitation was the cause of the death of Charles I.” There is, for both
Grice and Apel, a transcendental (if weak) justification, not just utilitarian
(honesty as the best policy), as Stalnaker notes in his contribution to the
Grice symposium for APA. Unlike Apel, the transcendental argument is a weak one
in that Grice aims to show that conversation that did not abide by trust would
be unreasonable, but surely still ‘possible.’ It is not a transcendental
justification for the ‘existence’ of conversation simpliciter, but for the
existence of ‘reasonable,’ decent conversation. If we approach charity in the
first person, we trust ourselves that some of our beliefs have to be true, and
that some of our desires have to be satisfactory valid, and we are equally
trusted by our conversational partners. This is Grice’s conversational golden
rule. What would otherwise be the point of holding that conversation is
rational co-operation? What would be the point of conversation simpliciter?
Urmson follows Austin, so Austin’s considerations on this, notably in “Other
minds,” deserve careful examination. Urmson was of course a member of Grice’s
play group, and these are the philosophers that we consider top priority.
Another one was P. H. Nowell-Smith. At least two of his three rules deserve
careful examination. Nowell-Smith notes that this or that ‘rule’ of contextual
implication is not meant to be taken as a ‘rigid rule’. Unlike this or that
rule of entailment, a conversational rule can be broken without the utterer
being involved in self-contradiction or absurdity. When U uses an expression to
make a statement, it is contextually implied that he believes it to be true.
Similarly, when he uses it to perform any of the other jobs for which sentences
are used, it is contextually implied that he is using it for one of the jobs
that it normally does. This rule is often in fact broken. Anti-Kantian lying,
Bernhard-type play-acting, Andersen-type story-telling, and Wildeian irony is
each a case in which U breaks the rule, or flouts the expectation, either
overtly or covertly. But each of these four cases is a secondary use, i.e. a
use to which an expression cannot logically or conceptually be put unless, as
Hart would have it, it has a primary use. There is no limit to the possible
uses to which an expression may be put. In many cases a man makes his point by
deliberately using an expression in a queer way or even using it in the ‘sense’
opposite to its unique normal one, as in irony (“He is a fine friend,” implying
that he is a scoundrel). The distinction between a primary and a secondary use
is important because many an argument used by a philosopher consists in
pointing out some typical example of the way in which some expression E is
used. Such an argument is always illegitimate if the example employed is an
example of a secondary use, however common such a use may be. U contextually
implies that he has what he himself believes to be good reasons for his
statement. Once again, we often break this rule and we have special devices for
indicating when we are breaking it. Phrases such as ‘speaking offhand …,’ 'I do
not really know but …,’ and ‘I should be inclined to say that …,’ are used by
scrupulous persons to warn his addressee that U has not got what seem to him
good reasons for his statement. But unless one of these guarding phrases is
used we are entitled to believe that U believes himself to have good reasons
for his statement and we soon learn to *mistrust* people who habitually
infringe this rule. It is, of course, a mistake to infer from what someone says
categorically that he has in fact good reasons for what he says. If I tell you,
or ‘inform’ to you, that the duck-billed platypus is a bird (because I '
remember ' reading this in a book) I am unreliable; but I am not using language
improperly. But if I tell you this without using one of the guarding phrases
and without having what I think good reasons, I am. What U says may be assumed
to be relevant to the interests of his addressee. This is the most important of
the three rules; unfortunately it is also the most frequently broken. Bores are
more common than liars or careless talkers. This rule is particularly obvious
in the case of answers to questions, since it is assumed that the answer is an
answer. Not all statements are answers to questions; information may be
volunteered. Nevertheless the publication of a text-book on trigonometry
implies that the author believes that there are people who want to learn about
trigonometry, and to give advice implies a belief that the advice is relevant
to one’s addressee's problem. This rule is of the greatest importance for
ethics. For the major problem of ethics is that of bridging the gap between a
decisions, an ought-sentence, an injunction, and a sentence used to give advice
on the one hand and the statements of *fact*, sometime regarding the U’s soul,
that constitute the reasons for these on the other. It is in order to bridge
these gaps that insight into necessary synthetic connexions is invoked. This
rule of contextual implication may help us to show that there is no gap to be
bridged because the reason-giving sentence must turn out to be also *practical*
from the start and not a statement of *fact*, even concerning the state of the
U’s soul, from which a practical sentence can somehow be deduced. This rule is,
therefore, more than a rule of good manners; or rather it shows how, in matters
of ordinary language, rules of good manners shade into logical rules. Unless we
assume that it is being observed we cannot understand the connexions between
decisions, advice, and appraisals and the reasons given in support of them. Refs.: The main reference is in the first set of ‘Logic and
conversation.’ Many keywords are useful, not just ‘candour,’ but notably ‘trust.’
(“Rationality and trust,” c. 9-f. 5, “Trust, metaphysics, and value,” c. 9-f.
20, and “Aristotle and friendship, rationality, trust, and decency,” c. 6-f.
18), BANC.
desideratum of conversational
clarity. There is some overlap here with
Grice’s category of conversational manner – of Grice’s maxim of conversational
perspicuity [sic] – and at least one of the maxims proper, ‘obscuirty
avoidance,’ or maxim of conversational obscurity avoidance. But at Oxford he
defined the philosopher as the one whose profession it is to makes clear things
obscure. The word desideratum has to be taken seriously. It involves freedom.
In what way is “The pillar box seems red to me” less perspicuous than “The
pillar box is red”? In all! If mutual expectation not to mislead and produce
the stronger contribution are characteristics of candour, expectation of mutual
relevance to interests, and being explicit and clear in your point are two
characteristics of this desideratum. “Candour” and “clarity’ are somewhat
co-relative for Grice. He is interested in identifying this or that
desideratum. By having two of them, he can play. So, how UNCLEAR can a
conversationalist be provided he WANTS to be candid? Candour trumps clarity.
But too much ‘unperspicuity’ may lead to something not being deemed an ‘implicaturum’
at all. Grice is especially concerned with philosopher’s paradoxes. Why would
Strawson say that the usage of ‘not,’ ‘and,’ ‘or,’ ‘if,’ ‘if and only if,’
‘all,’ ‘some (at least one), ‘the,’ do not correspond to the logician’s use?
Questions of candour and clarity interact. Grice’s first application, which he
grants is not original, relates to “The pillar box seems red” versus “The
pillar box is red.” “I would not like to give the false impression that the
pillar box is not red” seems less clear than “The pillar box is red” – Yet the
unperspicuous contributin is still ‘candid,’ in the sense that it expresses a
truth. So one has to be careful. On top, philosophers like Lewis were using
‘clarity is not enough’ as a battle cry! Grice’s favourite formulations of the
imperatives here are ‘self-contradictory,’ and for which he uses ‘[sic]’,
notably: “Be perspicuous [sic]’ and “Be brief. Avoid unnecessary prolixity
[sic].’
Desirabile, neuter, out of
‘desideratum’ – so by using ‘desirability,’ Grice is getting into the modals --
desirability: Correlative: credibility. For
Grice, credibility reduces to desirability (He suggests that the reverse may
also be possible but does not give a proposal). This Grice calls the Jeffrey
operator. If Urmson likes ‘probably,’ Grice likes ‘desirably.’ This theorem is
a corollary of the desirability axiom by Jeffrey, which is: "If prob XY =
0, for a prima facie PF(A V B) A (x E
w)] = PFA A (x E w)] + PfB A (x El+ w)]. This is the account by Grice of the adaptability
of a pirot to its changeable environs. Grice borrows the notion of
probability (henceforth, “pr”) from Davidson, whose early claim to fame was to
provide the logic of the notion. Grice abbreviates probability by Pr. and
compares it to a buletic operator ‘pf,’ ‘for prima facie,’ attached to ‘De’
for desirability. A rational agent must calculate both the probability and the
desirability of his action. For both probability and desirability, the
degree is crucial. Grice symbolises this by d: probability in degree d;
probability in degree d. The topic of life Grice relates to that of
adaptation and surival, and connects with his genitorial programme of creature
construction (Pology.): life as continued operancy. Grice was fascinated with
life (Aristotle, bios) because bios is what provides for Aristotle the definition
(not by genus) of psyche. The steps are as follows. Pf(p ⊃!q)/Pr(p ⊃ q); pf((p1 ^ p2) ⊃!q)/pr(p1
^ p2 ⊃q);
pf((p1 ^ p2 ^ p3) ⊃!q)/pr(p1 ^ p2 ^ p3 ^ p4 ⊃q);
pf (all things before me ⊃!q)/pr (all things before me ⊃
q); pf (all things considered ⊃ !q)/pr(all things considered ⊃ q); !q/|- q; G wills !q/G judges q. Strictly, Grice avoids
using the noun probability (other than for the title of this or that lecture).
One has to use the sentence-modifier ‘probably,’ and ‘desirably.’ So the
specific correlative to the buletic prima facie ‘desirably’ is the doxastic ‘probably.’
Grice liked the Roman sound to ‘prima facie,’ ‘at first sight’: “exceptio, quae prima facie justa videatur.” Refs.:
The two main sources are “Probability, desirability, and mood operators,” c.
2-f. 11, and “Modality, desirability and probability,” c. 8-ff. 14-15. But most
of the material is collected in “Aspects,” especially in the third and fourth
lectures. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
Non-detachability. A rather abstract notion. One thinks of ‘detach’ in
physical terms (‘semi-detached house’). Grice means it in an abstract way. To
detach – what is it that we detach? We detach an implicaturum. Grice is not so
much concerned with how to DETACH an implicaturum, but how sometimes you
cannot. It’s NON-detachability that is the criterion. And this should be a
matter of a prioricity. However, since style gets in the picture, he has to
allow for exceptions to this criterion. A conversational, even philosophically
interesting one, generated by the conversational category of modus (as the
maxim of orderliness: “he went to bed and took off his boots”) is detachable. How
to interpret this in an one-off predicament. Cf. non-detachability. And the
other features or tests or catalysts that Grice uses. In Causal Theory of
Perception, the ideas are FOUR, which he nicely summarises in WoW on the
occasion of eliminating the excursus. And then he expands on Essay II, as an
update. His tutees at Oxford are aware of the changes. Few care, though. Even
his colleagues don’t, they are into their own things. So let’s compare the two
versions of the catalysts in Causal and Essay II. Version of the four catalysts
up to the first two examples in “Causal”: The first cxample is a stock case of what
is sometimes called " prcsupposition " and it is often held that here
1he truth of what is irnplicd is a necessary condition of the original statement's
beirrg cither true or false. This might be disputed, but it is at lcast
arguable that it is so, and its being arguable might be enough to
distinguish-this type of case from others. I shall however for convenience
assume that the common view mentioned is correct. This consideration clearly
distinguishes (1) from (2); even if the implied proposition were false, i.e. if
there were no reason in the world to contrast poverty with honesty either in
general or in her case, the original statement could still be false; it would
be false if for example she were rich and dishonest. One might perhaps be less
comfortable about assenting to its truth if the implied contrast did not in
fact obtain; but the possibility of falsity is enough for the immediate purpose.
My next experiment on these examples is to ask what it is in each case which
could properly be said to be the vehicle of implication (to do the implying).
There are at least four candidates, not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Supposing someone to have uttered one or other of my sample sentences, we may
ask whether the vehicle of implication would be (a) what the speaker said (or
asserted), or (b) the speaker (" did he imply that . . . .':) or (c) the
words the speaker used, or (d) his saying that (or again his saying that in
that way); or possibly some plurality of these items. As regards (a) I think
(1) and (2) differ; I think it would be correct to say in the case of (l) that
what he speaker said (or asserted) implied that Smith had been beating this
wife, and incorrect to say in the case of (2) that what te said (or asserted)
implied that there was a contrast between e.g., honesty and poverty. A test on
which I would rely is the following : if accepting that the implication holds
involves one in r27 128 H. P. GRICE accepting an hypothetical' if p then q '
where 'p ' represents the original statement and ' q' represents what is
implied, then what the speaker said (or asserted) is a vehicle of implication,
otherwise not. To apply this rule to the given examples, if I accepted the
implication alleged to hold in the case of (1), I should feel compelled to
accept the hypothetical " If Smith has left off beating his wife, then he
has been beating her "; whereas if I accepted the alleged implication in
the case of (2), I should not feel compelled to accept the hypothetical "
If she was poor but honest, then there is some contrast between poverty and
honesty, or between her poverty and her honesty." The other candidates can
be dealt with more cursorily; I should be inclined to say with regard to both
(l) and (2) that the speaker could be said to have implied whatever it is that
is irnplied; that in the case of (2) it seems fairly clear that the speaker's
words could be said to imply a contrast, whereas it is much less clear whether
in the case of (1) the speaker's words could be said to imply that Smith had
been beating his wife; and that in neither case would it be evidently
appropriate to speak of his saying that, or of his saying that in that way, as
implying what is implied. The third idea with which I wish to assail my two
examples is really a twin idea, that of the detachability or cancellability of
the implication. (These terms will be explained.) Consider example (1): one
cannot fi.nd a form of words which could be used to state or assert just what
the sentence " Smith has left off beating his wife " might be used to
assert such that when it is used the implication that Smith has been beating
his wife is just absent. Any way of asserting what is asserted in (1) involves
the irnplication in question. I shall express this fact by saying that in the
case of (l) the implication is not detqchable from what is asserted (or
simpliciter, is not detachable). Furthermore, one cannot take a form of words
for which both what is asserted and what is implied is the same as for (l), and
then add a further clause withholding commitment from what would otherwise be
implied, with the idea of annulling the implication without annulling the
assertion. One cannot intelligibly say " Smith has left off beating his
wife but I do not mean to imply that he has been beating her." I shall
express this fact by saying that in the case of (1) the implication is not
cancellable (without THE CAUSAL THEORY OF PERCEPTION r29 cancelling the assertion).
If we turn to (2) we find, I think, that there is quite a strong case for
saying that here the implication ls detachable. Thcrc sccms quitc a good case
for maintaining that if, instead of sayirrg " She is poor but shc is
honcst " I were to say " She is poor and slre is honcst", I
would assert just what I would havc asscrtcct ii I had used thc original
senterrce; but there would now be no irnplication of a contrast between e.g',
povery and honesty. But the question whether, in tl-re case of (2), thc inrplication
is cancellable, is slightly more cornplex. Thcrc is a sonse in which we may say
that it is non-cancellable; if sorncone were to say " She is poor but she
is honest, though of course I do not mean to imply that there is any contrast
between poverty and honesty ", this would seem a puzzling and eccentric
thing to have said; but though we should wish to quarrel with the speaker, I do
not think we should go so far as to say that his utterance was unintelligible;
we should suppose that he had adopted a most peculiar way of conveying the the
news that she was poor and honesl. The fourth and last test that I wish to
impose on my exarnples is to ask whether we would be inclined to regard the
fact that the appropriate implication is present as being a matter of the
meaning of some particular word or phrase occurring in the sentences in
question. I am aware that this may not be always a very clear or easy question
to answer; nevertheless Iwill risk the assertion that we would be fairly happy
to say that, as regards (2), the factthat the implication obtains is a matter
of the meaning of the word ' but '; whereas so far as (l) is concerned we
should have at least some inclination to say that the presence of the
implication was a matter of the meaning of some of the words in the sentence,
but we should be in some difficulty when it came to specifying precisely which
this word, or words are, of which this is true. After third example
introduced:It is plain that there is no case at all for regarding the truth of what
is implied here as a pre-condition of the truth or falsity cf 130 H. P. GRICB
what I have asserted; a denial of the truth of what is implied would have no
bearing at all on whether what I have asserted is true or false. So (3) is much
closer to (2) than (1) in this respect. Next, I (the speaker) could certainly
be said to have implied that Jones is hopeless (provided that this is what I
intended to get across) and my saying that (at any rate my saying /s/ that and
no more) is also certainly a vehicle of implication. On the other hand my words
and what I say (assert) are, I think, not here vehicles of implication. (3)
thus differs from both (1) and (2). The implication is cancellable but not
detachable; if I add o'I do not of course mean to imply that he is no good at
philosophy " my whole utterance is intelligible and linguistically
impeccable, even though it may be extraordinary tutorial behaviour; and I can
no longer be said to have implied that he was no good, even though perhaps that
is what my colleagues might conclude to be the case if I had nothing else to
say. The implication is not however, detachable; any other way of making, in
the same context of utterance, just the assertion I have made would involve the
same implication. Finally, the fact that the implication holds is not a matter
of any particular word or phrase within the sentence which I have uttered; so
in this respect (3) is certainly different from (2) and, possibly different
from (1). One obvious fact should be mentioned before I pass to the last
example. This case of implication is unlike the others in that the utterance of
the sentence " Jones has beautiful handwriting etc." does not
standardly involve the implication here attributed to it; it requires a special
context (that it should be uttered at Collections) to attach the implication to
its uttgrance. After fourth and last example is introduced: in the case of (a)
I can produce a strong argument in favour of holding that the fulfllment of the
THE CAUSAL THEORY OF PERCEPTION implication of the speaker's ignorance is not a
precaution of the truth or falsity of the disjunctive statement. Suppose (c)
that the speaker knows that his wife is in the kitchen, (b) that the house has
only two rooms (and no passages etc.) Even though (a) is the casc, thc spcaker
can certainly say truly " My wife is in the housc "; he is merely not
being as informative as he could bc if nccd arose. But the true proposition
that his wife is in thc housc together with the true proposition that the house
consists entirely of a kitchen and a bedroom, entail the proposition that his
wife is either in the kitchen or in the bedroom. But il to cxpress the
proposition p in certain circumstances would bc to spcak truly, and p, togelher
with another true proposition, crrtails q, then surely to express 4 in the same
circvmstances must be to speak truly. So I shall take it that the disjunctive
statement in (4) does not fail to be true or false if the implied ignorance is
in fact not realized. Secondly, I think it is fairly clear that in this case,
as in the case of (3), we could say that the speaker had irnplied that he did
not know, and also that his saying that (or his saying that rather than
something else, v2., in which room she was) implied that he did not know.
Thirdly, the irnplication is in a sense non-detachable, in that if in a given
context the utterance of the disjunctive sentence would involve the implication
that the speaker did not know in which room his his wife was, this implication
would also be involved in the utterance of any other form of words which would
make the same assertion(e.g., "The alternatives are (1) .(2) " or
" One of the following things is the case: (a) (r) "). ln another
possible sense, however, the implication could perhaps bc said to be detachable:
for there will be some contexls of ruttcrance in Which the normal implication
will not hold; e.g., thc spokesman who announces, " The next conference
will be cither in Geneva or in New York " perhaps does not imply that lrc
does not know which; for he may well be just not saying which. This points to
the fact that the implication is cancellablg; :r nrarl could say, " My
wife is either in the kitchen or in the bctlroorn " in circumstances in
which the implication would rrornrally be present, and then go on, " Mind
you, I'm not saying tlrrrt I don't know which"; this might be unfriendly
(and grcr'lrrps ungrammatical) but would be perfectly intelligible, I2 131 132
H. P. GRICB Finally, the fact that the utterance of the disjunctive sentence normally
involves the implication of the speaker's ignorance of the truth-values of the
disjuncts is, I should like to say, to be explained by reference to a general
principle governing the use of language. Exactly what this principle is I am
uncertain, but L first sftol would be the following: "One should not make
a weaker statement rather than a stronger one unless there is a good reason for
so doing." This is certainly not an adequate formulation but will perhaps
be good enough for my present purpose. On the assumption that such a principle
as this is of general application, one can draw the conclusion that the
utterance of a disjunctive sentence would imply the speaker's ignorance of the
truth-values of the disjuncts, given that (a) the obvious reason for not making
a statemcnt which there is some call on one to make is that one is not in a
position to make it, and given (6) the logical fact that each disjunct entails
the disjunctive, but not vice versa; which being so, the disjuncts are stronger
than the disjunctive. lf the outline just given js on the right lines, then I
would wish to say, we have a reason for refusing in the case of (4) to regard
the implication of the speaker's ignorance as being part of the meaning of the
word'or'; someone who knows about the logical relation between a disjunction
and its disjuncts, and who also knew about the alleged general principle
governing discourse, could work out for hirnself that disjunctive utterances
would involve the implication which they do in fact involve. I must insist,
however, that my aim in discussing this last point has been merelyto indicate
the position I would wish to take up, and not to argue scriously in favour of
it. My main purpose in this sub-section has been to introduce four ideas of
which l intend to make some use; and to provide some conception of tlre ways in
which they apply or fail to apply to various types of implication. By the
numbering of it, it seems he has added an extra. It’s FIVE catalysts now. He’ll
go back to them in Essay IV, and in Presupposition and Conversational
Impicature. He needs those catalysts. Why? It seems like he is always thinking
that someone will challenge him! This is Grice: “We can now show that, it
having been stipulated as being what it is, a conversational implicaturum must
possess certain features. Or rather here are some catalyst ideas which will
help us to determine or individuate. Four tests for implicaturum as it were. First,
CANCELLABILITY – as noted in “Causal Theory” – for two of the examples
(‘beautiful handwriting’ and ‘kitchen or bedroom’ and NEGATIVE version of “You
don’t cease to eat iron”) and the one of the pillar box -- Since, to assume the
presence of a conversational implicum, we have to assume that the principle of
conversational co-operation is being observed, and since it is possible to opt
out of the observation of this principle, it follows that an implicaturum can
be canceled in a particular case. It may be explicitly canceled, if need there
be, by the addition of a clause by which the utterer states or implies that
he has opted out (e. g. “The pillar box
seems red but it is.”). Then again it may be contextually (or implicitly)
canceled (e. g. to a very honest person, who knows I disbelieve the examiner
exists, “The loyalty examiner won’t be summoning you at any rate”). The
utterance that usually would carry an implicaturum is used on an occasion that
makes it clear or obvious that the utterer IS opting out without having to bore
his addressee by making this obviousness explicit. There is a second litmus
test or catalyst idea. nsofar as the calculation that a implicaturum is present
requires, besides contextual and background information only a knowledge or
understanding or processing of what has been said or explicitly conveyed (‘are
you playing squash? B shows bandaged leg) (or the ‘conventional’ ‘commitment’ of
the utterance), and insofar as the manner or style, of FORM, rather than
MATTER, of expression plays no role in the calculation, it will NOT be possible
to find another way of explicitly conveying or putting forward the same thing, the
same so-and-so (say that q follows from p) which simply ‘lacks’ the unnecessary
implicaturum in question -- except [will his excluders never end?] where some
special feature of the substituted version [this other way which he says is not
conceivable] is itself relevant to the determination of the implicaturum (in
virtue of this or that conversational maxims pertaining to the category of
conversational mode. If we call this feature, as Grice does in “Causal Theory,”
‘non-detachability’ – in that the implicaturum cannot be detached from any
alternative expression that makes the same point -- one may expect the implicaturum
carried by this or that locution to have a high degree of non-detachability. ALTERNATIVES
FOR “NOT” Not, it is not the case, it is false that. There’s nothing unique
about ‘not’.ALTERNATIVES FOR “AND” and, nothing, furthermore, but. There isnothing
unique about ‘and’ALTERNATIVES FOR “OR”: One of the following is true. There is
nothing unique about ‘or’ALTERNATIVES FOR “IF” Provided. ‘There is nothing
unique about ‘if’ALTERNATIVES FOR “THE” – There is at least one and at most
one. And it exists. (existence and uniqueness). There is nothing unique about
‘the’.THIS COVERS STRAWSON’S first problem.What about the other English
philosophers?AUSTIN – on ‘voluntarily’ ALTERNATIVES to ‘voluntarily,’ with the
will, willingly, intentionally. Nothing unique about ‘voluntarily.’STRAWSON on
‘true’ – it is the case, redundance theory, nothing. Nothing unique about
‘true’HART ON good. To say that ‘x is commendable’ is to recommend x. Nothing
unique about ‘good.’HART on ‘carefully.’ Da Vinci painted Mona Lisa carefully,
with caution, with precaution. Nothing unique about ‘carefully.’THIRD LITMUS
TEST or idea. To speak approximately, since the calculation of the presence of
an implicaturum presupposes an initial knowledge, or grasping, or
understanding, or taking into account of the ‘conventional’ force (not in
Austin’s sense, but translating Latin ‘vis’) of the expression the utterance of
which carries the implicaturum, a conversational implicaturum will be a
condition that is NOT, be definition, on risk of circularity of otiosity,
included in the original specification of the expression's conventional force.
If I’m saying that ‘seems’ INVOLVES, as per conventional force, ‘doubt or
denial,’what’s my point? If Strawson is right that ‘if’ has the conventional
force of conventionally committing the utterer with the belief that q follows
from p, why bother? And if that were so, how come the implicaturum is still
cancellable?Though it may not be impossible for what starts life, so to speak,
as a conversational implicaturum to become conventionalized, to suppose that
this is so in a given case would require special justification. (Asking Lewis).
So, initially at least, a conversational implicaturum is, by definition and
stipulation, not part of the sense, truth-condition, conventional force, or
part of what is explicitly conveyed or put forward, or ‘meaning’ of the
expression to the employment of which the impicatum attaches. FOURTH LITMUS
TEST or catalyst idea.Mentioned in “Causal theory” The alethic value –
conjoined with the test about the VEHICLE --. He has these as two different
tests in “Causal”. Since the truth of a conversational implicaturum is not
required by (is not a condition for) the truth of what is said or explicitly
conveyed (what is said or explicated – the explicatum or explcitum, or what is
explicitly conveyed or communicated) may be true -- what is implicated may be
false – that he has beautiful handwriting, that q follows from p, that the
utterer is ENDORSING what someone else said, that the utterer is recommending
x, that the person who is said to act carefully has taken precaution), the implicaturum
is NOT carried by what is said or the EXPLICATUM or EXPLICITUM, or is
explicitly conveyed, but only by the ‘saying’ or EXPLICATING or EXPLICITING of
what is said or of the explicatum or explicitum, or by 'putting it that
way.’.The fifth and last litmus test or catalyst idea. Since, to calculate a
conversational implicaturum is to calculate what has to be supposed in order to
preserve the supposition that the utterer is a rational, benevolent, altruist
agent, and that the principle of conversational cooperation is being observed,
and since there may be various possible specific explanations or alternatives
that fill the gap here – as to what is the content of the psychological
attitude to be ascribed to the utterer, a list of which may be open, or
open-ended, the conversational implicaturum in such cases will technically be
an open-ended disjunction of all such specific explanations, which may well be
infinitely non-numerable. Since the list of these IS open, the implicaturum
will have just the kind of INDETERMINACY or lack of determinacy that an implicaturum
appears in most cases to possess.
determinatum: determinable, a
general characteristic or property analogous to a genus except that while a
property independent of a genus differentiates a species that falls under the
genus, no such independent property differentiates a determinate that falls
under the determinable. The color blue, e.g., is a determinate with respect of
the determinable color: there is no property F independent of color such that a
color is blue if and only if it is F. In contrast, there is a property, having
equal sides, such that a rectangle is a square if and only if it has this
property. Square is a properly differentiated species of the genus rectangle.
W. E. Johnson introduces the terms ‘determinate’ and ‘determinable’ in his
Logic, Part I, Chapter 11. His account of this distinction does not closely
resemble the current understanding sketched above. Johnson wants to explain the
differences between the superficially similar ‘Red is a color’ and ‘Plato is a
man’. He concludes that the latter really predicates something, humanity, of Plato;
while the former does not really predicate anything of red. Color is not really
a property or adjective, as Johnson puts it. The determinates red, blue, and
yellow are grouped together not because of a property they have in common but
because of the ways they differ from each other. Determinates under the same
determinable are related to each other and are thus comparable in ways in which
they are not related to determinates under other determinables. Determinates
belonging to different determinables, such as color and shape, are
incomparable. ’More determinate’ is often used interchangeably with ‘more
specific’. Many philosophers, including Johnson, hold that the characters of
things are absolutely determinate or specific. Spelling out what this claim means
leads to another problem in analyzing the relation between determinate and
determinable. By what principle can we exclude red and round as a determinate
of red and red as a determinate of red or round? determinism, the view that every event or
state of affairs is brought about by antecedent events or states of affairs in
accordance with universal causal laws that govern the world. Thus, the state of
the world at any instant determines a unique future, and that knowledge of all
the positions of things and the prevailing natural forces would permit an
intelligence to predict the future state of the world with absolute precision.
This view was advanced by Laplace in the early nineteenth century; he was
inspired by Newton’s success at integrating our physical knowledge of the
world. Contemporary determinists do not believe that Newtonian physics is the
supreme theory. Some do not even believe that all theories will someday be
integrated into a unified theory. They do believe that, for each event, no matter
how precisely described, there is some theory or system of laws such that the
occurrence of that event under that description is derivable from those laws
together with information about the prior state of the system. Some
determinists formulate the doctrine somewhat differently: a every event has a
sufficient cause; b at any given time, given the past, only one future is
possible; c given knowledge of all antecedent conditions and all laws of
nature, an agent could predict at any given time the precise subsequent history
of the universe. Thus, determinists deny the existence of chance, although they
concede that our ignorance of the laws or all relevant antecedent conditions
makes certain events unexpected and, therefore, apparently happen “by chance.”
The term ‘determinism’ is also used in a more general way as the name for any
metaphysical doctrine implying that there is only one possible history of the
world. The doctrine described above is really scientific or causal determinism,
for it grounds this implication on a general fact about the natural order,
namely, its governance by universal causal law. But there is also theological
determinism, which holds that God determines everything that happens or that,
since God has perfect knowledge about the universe, only the course of events
that he knows will happen can happen. And there is logical determinism, which
grounds the necessity of the historical order on the logical truth that all
propositions, including ones about the future, are either true or false.
Fatalism, the view that there are forces e.g., the stars or the fates that
determine all outcomes independently of human efforts or wishes, is claimed by
some to be a version of determinism. But others deny this on the ground that
determinists do not reject the efficacy of human effort or desire; they simply
believe that efforts and desires, which are sometimes effective, are themselves
determined by antecedent factors as in a causal chain of events. Since
determinism is a universal doctrine, it embraces human actions and choices. But
if actions and choices are determined, then some conclude that free will is an
illusion. For the action or choice is an inevitable product of antecedent
factors that rendered alternatives impossible, even if the agent had deliberated
about options. An omniscient agent could have predicted the action or choice
beforehand. This conflict generates the problem of free will and
determinism.
deutero-esperanto: Also Gricese – Pirotese. “Gricese” is best. Arbitrariness
need not be a two-party thing. E communicates to himself that there is danger
by drawing a skull. Grice genially opposed to the idea of a convention. He
hated a convention. A language is not conventional. Meaning is not
conventional. Communication is not conventional. He was even unhappy with the account
of convention by Lewis in terms of an arbitrary co-ordination. While the
co-ordination bit passes rational muster, the arbitrary element is deemed a
necessary condition, and Grice hated that. For Grice there is natural, and
iconic. When a representation ceases to be iconic and becomes, for lack of a
better expression, non-iconic, things get, we may assume conventional. One form
of correlation in his last definition of meaing allows for a conventional
correlation. “Pain!,” the P cries. There is nothing in /pein/ that minimally
resembles the pain the P is suffering. So from his involuntary “Ouch” to his
simulated “Ouch,” he thinks he can say “Pain.” Bennett explored the stages after
that. The dog is shaggy is Grices example. All sorts of resultant procedures
are needed for reference and predication, which may be deemed conventional. One
may refer nonconventionally, by ostension. It seems more difficult to predicate
non-conventionally. But there may be iconic predication. Urquhart promises
twelve parts of speech: each declinable in eleven cases, four numbers, eleven
genders (including god, goddess, man, woman, animal, etc.); and conjugable in
eleven tenses, seven moods, and four voices. The language will translate any
idiom in any other language, without any alteration of the literal sense, but
fully representing the intention. Later, one day, while lying in his bath,
Grice designed deutero-esperanto. The obble is fang may be current only
for Griceian members of the class of utterers. It is only this or that
philosophers practice to utter The obble is fang in such-and-such
circumstances. In this case, the utterer U does have a readiness to utter The
obble is feng in such-and-such circumstances. There is also the scenario in
which The obble is fang is may be conceived by the philosopher not to be deemed
current at all, but the utterance of The obble is feng in such-and-such
circumstances is part of some system of communication which the utterer U
(Lockwith,, Urquart, Wilkins, Edmonds, Grice) has devised but which has never
been put into operation, like the highway code which Grice invent another day
again while lying in his bath. In that case, U does this or that basic or
resultant procedure for the obble is feng in an attenuated but philosophically
legitimate fashion. U has envisaged a possible system of practices which
involve a readiness to utter Example by Grice that does NOT involve a
convention in this usage. Surely Grice can as he indeed did, invent a language, call
it Deutero-Esperanto, Griceish, or Pirotese, which nobody at Oxford ever uses
to communicat. That makes Grice the authority - cf. arkhe, authority,
government (in plural), "authorities" - and Grice can lay down, while
lying in the tub, no doubt - what is proper. A P can be said to potch of
some obble o as fang or as feng. Also to cotch of some obble o, as fang or
feng; or to cotch of one obble o and another obble o as being fid to one
another.” In symbols: (Ex)(Ey).Px ^ Oy ^ potch(x, y, fang) (Ex)(Ey).Px ^ Oy ^
potch(x, y, feng) (Ex)(Ey).Px ^ Oy ^ cotch(x, y, fang) (Ex)(Ey).Px ^ Ox ^ cotch(x,
y, feng) (Ex)(Ey).Px ^ Oz ^ Oy ^ cotch(x, fid(y,z)). Let’s say that Ps (as
Russell and Carnap conceived them) inhabit a world of obbles, material
objects, or things. To potch is something like to perceive; to cotch something
like to think. Feng and fang are possible descriptions, much like our
adjectives. Fid is a possible relation between obbles. Grice provides a
symbolisation for content internalisation. The perceiver or cognitive
Subjects perceives or cognises two objects, x, y, as holding a relation of some
type. There is a higher level that Ps can reach when the object of their
potchings and cotchings is not so much objects but states of affairs. Its
then that the truth-functional operators will be brought to existence “^”:
cotch(p ^ q) “V”: cotch(p v q) “)”: )-cotch(p ) q) A P will be able
to reject a content, refuse-thinking: ~. Cotch(~p). When P1 perceives P2, the
reciprocals get more complicated. P2 cotches that P1!-judges that
p. Grice uses ψ1 for potching and ψ2
for cotching. If P2 is co-operative, and abides by "The Ps Immanuel,"
P2 will honour, in a Kantian benevolent way, his partners goal by adopting
temporarily his partners goal potch(x (portch(y, !p)) ⊃ potch(x, !p). But by then, its hardly simpler
ways. Especially when the Ps outdo their progenitor Carnap as metaphysicians.
The details are under “eschatology,” but the expressions are here “α izzes α.” This
would be the principle of non-contradiction or identity. P1 applies it war, and
utters War is war which yields a most peculiar implicaturum. “if α izzes
β ∧ β izzes γ, α izz γ.” This is transitivity, which is
crucial for Ps to overcome Berkeley’s counterexample to Locke, and define their
identity over time. “if α hazzes β, α izzes β.” Or, what is accidental is not
essential. A P may allow that what is essential is accidental while misleading,
is boringly true. “α hazzes β iff α hazzes x ∧ x izzes β.” “If β is a katholou or universalium, β is
an eidos or forma.” For surely Ps need not be stupid to fail to see
squarrelhood. “if α hazzes β ∧ α
izzes a particular, γ≠α ∧ α izz β.” “α izzes predicable
of β iff ((β izzes α) ∨ (∃x)(β hazzes x ∧ x
izzes α). “α izzes essentially predicable of β ⊃⊂ β izzes α α
izzes non-essentially/accidentally predicable of β ⊃⊂ (∃x)(β hazzes x ∧ x
izzes α). α = β iff α izzes β ∧ β
izzes α. “α izzes an atomon, or individuum ⊃⊂ □(∀β)(β izzes α ⊃ α
izzes β). “α izzes a particular ⊃⊂ □(∀β)(α izzes predicable of β ⊃ (α izzes β ∧ β
izzes α)). α izzes a universalium ⊃⊂ ◊(∃β)(α izzes predicable of α ∧ ~(α izzes β ∧ β
izzes α). α izzes some-thing ⊃ α
izzes an individuum. α izzes an eidos or forma ⊃ (α izzes some-thing ∧ α izzes a universalium); α izzes predicable of β ⊃⊂ (β izzes α) ∨ (∃x)(β hazzes x ∧ x
izzes α). “ α izzes essentially predicable of α α izzes accidentally
predicable of β ⊃ α ≠ β. ~(α izzes accidentally predicable of
β) ⊃ α ≠ β. α izzes an kathekaston or particular ⊃ α izzes an individuum; α izz a particular ⊃ ~(∃x)(x ≠ α ∧ x izz α). ~(∃x).(x
izzes a particular ∧ x izzes a forma) ⊢ α
izzes a forma ⊃ ~(∃x)(x ≠ α ∧ x izzes α). x izzes a particular ⊃ ~(∃β)(α izzes β); α izzes a forma ⊃ ((α izzes predicable of β ∧ α ≠ β) ⊃ β
hazzes α); α izzes a forma ∧ β
izzes a particular ⊃ (α izzes predicable of β ⊃⊂ β hazzes A); (α izzes a particular ∧ β izzes a universalium ∧ β izzes predicable of α) ⊃ (∃γ)(α ≠ γ ∧ γ
izzes essentially predicable of α). (∃x)
(∃y)(x izzes a particular ∧ y
izzes a universalium ∧ y izzes predicable of x ⊃ ~(∀x)(x izzes a universalium ∧ x izzes some-thing). (∀β)(β izzes a universalium ⊃ β izzes some-thing). α izzes a particular) ⊃ ~∃β.(α ≠ β ∧ β
izzes essentially predicable of α). (α izzes predicable of β ∧ α ≠ β) ⊃ α
izzes non-essentially or accidentally predicable of β. Grice
is following a Leibnizian tradition. A philosophical language is any
constructed language that is constructed from first principles or certain
ideologies. It is considered a type of engineered language. Philosophical
languages were popular in Early Modern times, partly motivated by the goal of
recovering the lost Adamic or Divine language. The term “ideal language”
is sometimes used near-synonymously, though more modern philosophical languages
such as “Toki Pona” are less likely to involve such an exalted claim of
perfection. It may be known as a language of pure ideology. The
axioms and grammars of the languages together differ from commonly spoken
languages today. In most older philosophical languages, and some newer
ones, words are constructed from a limited set of morphemes that are treated as
"elemental" or fundamental. "Philosophical language" is
sometimes used synonymously with "taxonomic language", though more
recently there have been several conlangs constructed on philosophical
principles which are not taxonomic. Vocabularies of oligo-synthetic
communication-systems are made of compound expressions, which are coined from a
small (theoretically minimal) set of morphemes; oligo-isolating communication-systems,
such as Toki Pona, similarly use a limited set of root words but produce
phrases which remain s. of distinct words. Toki Pona is based on
minimalistic simplicity, incorporating elements of Taoism. Láadan is designed
to lexicalize and grammaticalise the concepts and distinctions important to
women, based on muted group theory. A priori languages are constructed
languages where the vocabulary is invented directly, rather than being derived
from other existing languages (as with Esperanto, or Grices Deutero-Esperanto,
or Pirotese or Ido). It all starts when Carnap claims to know that pritos
karulise elatically. Grice as engineer. Pirotese is the philosophers
engaging in Pology. Actually, Pirotese is the lingo the Ps parrot. Ps karulise
elatically. But not all of them. Grice finds that the Pological talk
allows to start from zero. He is constructing a language, (basic) Pirotese,
and the philosophical psychology and world that that language is supposed to
represent or denote. An obble is a Ps object. Grice introduces
potching and cotching. To potch, in Pirotese, is what a P does with an obble:
he perceives it. To cotch is Pirotese for what a P can further do with an
obble: know or cognise it. Cotching, unlike potching, is factive. Pirotese
would not be the first language invented by a philosopher. Deutero-Esperanto
-- Couturat, L., philosopher and logician who wrote on the history of
philosophy, logic, philosophy of mathematics, and the possibility of a
universal language. Couturat refuted Renouvier’s finitism and advocated an
actual infinite in The Mathematical Infinite 6. He argued that the assumption
of infinite numbers was indispensable to maintain the continuity of magnitudes.
He saw a precursor of modern logistic in Leibniz, basing his interpretation of
Leibniz on the Discourse on Metaphysics and Leibniz’s correspondence with
Arnauld. His epoch-making Leibniz’s Logic 1 describes Leibniz’s metaphysics as
panlogism. Couturat published a study on Kant’s mathematical philosophy Revue
de Métaphysique, 4, and defended Peano’s logic, Whitehead’s algebra, and
Russell’s logistic in The Algebra of Logic 5. He also contributed to André
Lalande’s Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie 6. Refs.: While the reference to “Deutero-Esperanto’ comes from
“Meaning revisited,” other keywords are useful, notably “Pirotese” and
“Symbolo.” Also keywords like “obble,” and “pirot.” The H. P. Grice Papers,
BANC.
diagoge: Grice makes a triad here: apagoge, diagoge, and epagoge. Cf.
Grice’s emphasis on the ‘argument’ involved in the conversational implciatum,
though. To work out an impilcatum is to reach it ‘by argument.’ No argument, no
conversational implicaturum. But cf. argument in Emissor draws skull and
communicates that there is danger. ARGUMENT involved in that Emissor intends
his addressee WILL REASON. Can the lady communicate to the pigeons that she is
selling ‘twopence a bag’ for their pleasure? Grice contrasted epagoge with
diagoge. Cooperation with competition. Cooperative game with competitive game. But
epagoge is induction, so here we’ll consider his views on probability and how
it contrastds with diagoge. The diagoge is easy to identity: Grice is a social
animal, with the BA, Philosophy, conferences, discussion, The American
Philosophical Association, transcripts by Randall Parker, from the audio-tapes
contained in c. 10 within the same s. IV miscellaneous, Beanfest, transcripts
and audio-cassettes, s. IV, c. 6-f. 8, and f. 10, and s. V, c. 8-f. 4-8 Unfortunately, Parker typed carulise
for karulise, or not. Re: probability, Grice loves to reminisce an anecdote
concerning his tutor Hardie at Corpus when Hardie invoked Mills principles
to prove that Hardie was not responsible for a traffic jam. In drafts on word
play, Grice would speak of not bringing more Grice to your Mill. Mills
System of Logic was part of the reading material for his degree in Lit.
Hum.at Oxford, so he was very familiar with it. Mill represents the best
of the English empiricist tradition. Grice kept an interest on inductive
methodology. In his Life and opinions he mentions some obscure essays by
Kneale and Keynes on the topic. Grice was interested in Kneales secondary
induction, since Grice saw this as an application of a construction routine.
He was also interested in Keyness notion of a generator property, which he
found metaphysically intriguing. Induction. Induction ‒ Mill’s
Induction, induction, deduction, abduction, Mill. More Grice to the Mill.
Grice loved Hardies playing with Mill’s method of difference with an Oxford
copper. He also quotes Kneale and Keynes on induction. Note that his seven-step
derivation of akrasia relies on an inductive step! Grice was fortunate to
associate with Davidson, whose initial work is on porbability. Grice borrows
from Davidson the idea that inductive probability, or probable, attaches to the
doxastic, while prima facie attaches to desirably, or
desirability. Jeffreys notion of desirability is partition-invariant
in that if a proposition, A, can be expressed as the disjoint disjunction of
both {B1, B2, B3} and {C1, C2, C3}, ∑ Bi ∈ AProb
(Bi ∣∣ A). Des (Bi) = ∑Ci ∈ A
Prob (Ci ∣∣ A). Des (Ci). It follows that applying the rule
of desirability maximization will always lead to the same recommendation,
irrespective of how the decision problem is framed, while an alternative theory
may recommend different courses of action, depending on how the decision
problem is formulated. Here, then, is the analogue of Jeffreys
desirability axiom (D), applied to sentences rather than propositions: (D)
(prob(s and t) = 0 and prob(s or t) "# 0, ⊃ d ( ) prob(s)des(s)+ prob(t)des(t) es s or t
=-"---- prob( s) + prob(t ) (Grice writes prob(s) for the Subjectsive
probability of sand des(s) for the desirability or utility of s.) B. Jeffrey admits
that "desirability" (his terms for evidential value) does not
directly correspond to any single pre-theoretical notion of desire. Instead, it
provides the best systematic explication of the decision theoretic idea, which
is itself our best effort to make precise the intuitive idea of weighing
options. As Jeffrey remarks, it is entirely possibly to desire someone’s love
when you already have it. Therefore, as Grice would follow, Jeffrey has the
desirability operator fall under the scope of the probability operator. The
agents desire that p provided he judges that p does not obtain.
Diagoge/epagoge, Grices audio-files, the audio-files, audio-files of various
lectures and conferences, some seminars with Warner and J. Baker, audio files
of various lectures and conferences. Subjects: epagoge, diagoge. A
previous folder in the collection contains the transcripts. These are the
audio-tapes themselves, obviously not in folder. The kind of metaphysical
argument which I have in mind might be said, perhaps, to exemplify a dia-gogic
or trans-ductive as opposed to epa-gogic or in-ductive approach to
philosophical argumentation. Hence Short and Lewis have, for ‘diagoge,’ the
cognates of ‘trādūco,’ f. transduco. Now, the more emphasis is placed on
justification by elimination of the rival, the greater is the impetus given to
refutation, whether of theses or of people. And perhaps a greater emphasis on a
diagogic procedure, if it could be shown to be justifiable, would have an
eirenic effect. Cf. Aristotle on diagoge, schole, otium. Liddell and Scott
have “διαγωγή,” which they render as “literally carrying across,” -- “τριήρων”
Polyaen.5.2.6, also as “carrying through,” and “hence fig.” “ἡ διὰ πάντων αὐτῶν
δ., “taking a person through a subject by instruction, Pl. Ep.343; so, course
of instruction, lectures, ἐν τῇ ἐνεστώσῃ δ. prob. in Phld. Piet.25; also
passing of life, way or course of life, “δ. βίου” Pl. R.344e: abs., Id.
Tht.177a, etc., way of passing time, amusement, “δ. μετὰ παιδιᾶς” Arist. EN
1127b34, cf. 1177a27; “δ. ἐλευθέριος” Id. Pol.1339b5; διαγωγαὶ τοῦ συζῆν public
pastimes, ib.1280b37, cf. Plu.126b (pl.). also delay, D.C. 57.3. management,
τῶν πραγμάτων δ. dispatch of business, Id.48.5. IV. station for ships, f. l. in
Hdn.4.2.8. And there are other entries to consider: διαγωγάν: διαίρεσιν,
διανομήν, διέλευσιν. Grice knew what he was talking about! Refs.: The main
sources listed under ‘desirability,’ above. There is a specific essay on
‘probability and life.’ Good keywords, too, are epagoge and induction The H. P.
Grice Papers, BANC.
dialogos
– the ‘dia’ means ‘trans-‘, not ‘two.’ Deuterologos δευτερο-λόγος , ὁ, A.second
speaker (though, not really conversationalist – cf. conversari) Teles p.5 H. --
is the exact opposite of monologos, cf. Aeschylus when he called on an Athenian
to play the second ‘fighter’ “deuteron-agonistes.” -- dialogical implicaturum – Grice seldom
uses ‘dialogue.’ It’s always conversational with him. He must have thought that
‘dialogue’ was too Buberian. In Roman, ‘she had a conversation with him’ means
‘she had sex with him.’ “She had a dialogue with him” does not. Classicists are
obsessed with the beginning of Greek theatre: it all started with ‘dialogue.’
It wasn’t like Aeschylus needed a partner. He wrote the parts for BOTH. Was he
reconstructing naturally-occurring Athenian dialogue? Who knows! The *two*-actor rule, which was indeed
preceded by a convention in which only a single actor would appear on stage,
along with the chorus. It was in 471 B. C. that Aeschylus introduces a second
actor, called Cleander. You see, Aeschylus
always cast himself as protagonist in his own plays. For the season of 471 B.
C., the Athenians were surprised when Aeschylus introduced Cleander as his
deuteragonist. “I can now conversationally implicate!” he said to a cheering
crowd! Dialogism -- Bakhtin: m. m., philosopher of dialogism -- and
cultural theorist whose influence is pervasive in a wide range of academic
disciplines from literary hermeneutics
to the epistemology of the human sciences, and cultural theory. He may
legitimately be called a philosophical anthropologist in the venerable
Continental tradition. Because of his seminal work on Rabelais and Dostoevsky’s
poetics, Baden School Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhailovich 70 70 his influence has been greatest in
literary hermeneutics. Without question dialogism, or the construal of
dialogue, is the hallmark of Bakhtin’s thought. Dialogue marks the existential
condition of humanity in which the self and the other are asymmetrical but
double-binding. In his words, to exist means to communicate dialogically, and
when the dialogue ends, everything else ends. Unlike Hegelian and Marxian
dialectics but like the Chin. correlative logic of yin and yang, Bakhtin’s
dialogism is infinitely polyphonic, open-ended, and indeterminate, i.e.,
“unfinalizable” to use his term.
Dialogue means that there are neither first nor last words. The past and the
future are interlocked and revolve around the axis of the present. Bakhtin’s
dialogism is paradigmatic in a threefold sense. First, dialogue is never
abstract but embodied. The lived body is the material condition of social existence
as ongoing dialogue. Not only does the word become enfleshed, but dialogue is
also the incorporation of the self and the other. Appropriately, therefore,
Bakhtin’s body politics may be called a Slavic version of Tantrism. Second, the
Rabelaisian carnivalesque that Bakhtin’s dialogism incorporates points to the
“jesterly” politics of resistance and protest against the “priestly”
establishment of officialdom. Third, the most distinguishing characteristic of
Bakhtin’s dialogism is the primacy of the other over the self, with a twofold
consequence: one concerns ethics and the other epistemology. In modern
philosophy, the discovery of “Thou” or the primacy of the other over the self
in asymmetrical reciprocity is credited to Feuerbach. It is hailed as the “Copernican
revolution” of mind, ethics, and social thought. Ethically, Bakhtin’s
dialogism, based on heteronomy, signals the birth of a new philosophy of
responsibility that challenges and transgresses the Anglo- tradition of “rights
talk.” Epistemologically, it lends our welcoming ears to the credence that the
other may be right the attitude that
Gadamer calls the soul of dialogical hermeneutics.
diaphaneity: Grice unique in his
subtlety. Strawson and Wiggins. 'the quality of being freely pervious to light;
transparency', OED. This is a
crucial concept for Grice. He applies it ‘see,’ which which, after joint
endeavours with G. J. Warnock, he was obsessed! Grice considers the ascription,
“Warnock sees that it is raining.” And then he adds, “And it is true, I see
that it is raining, too.” What’s the diference. Then comes Strawson. “Strawson,
you see that it is raining, right?” So we have an ascription in the first,
second, and third persons. When it comes to the identification of a sense (like
vision) via experience or qualia, we are at a problem, because ‘see,’ allowing
for what Ryle calls a ‘conversational avowal,’ that nobody has an authority to
distrust, is what Grice calls a ‘diaphanous’ predicate. More formally. That
means that “Grice sees that it is raining,” in terms of experience, cannot
really be expanded except by expanding into WHAT IS that Grice sees, viz. that
it is raining. The same with “communicating that p,” and “meaning that p.”
dictum: Grice was fascinated with these multiple vowel roots:
dictum, deictis. Cf. dictor, and dictivenss. Not necessarily involved with
‘say,’ but with ‘deixis,’ So a dictum is involved in Emissor E drawing a skull,
communicating that there is danger. It is Hare who introduced ‘dictum’ in the
Oxonian philosophical literature in his T. H. Green Essay. Hare distinguishes
between the ‘dictum,’ that the cat is on the mat, from the ‘dictor,’ ‘I state
that the cat is on the mat, yes.’ ‘Cat, on the mat, please.’ Grice often refers
to Hare’s play with words, which he obviously enjoys. In “Epilogue,” Grice
elaborates on the ‘dictum,’ and turns it into ‘dictivitas.’ How does he coin
that word? He starts with Cicero, who has ‘dictivm,’ and creates an abstract
noun to match. Grice needs a concept of a ‘dictum’ ambiguous as it is. Grice
distinguishes between what an Utterer explicitly conveys, e. g. that Strawson
took off his boots and went to bed. Then there’s what Grice implicitly conveys,
to wit: that Strawson took off his boots and went to bed – in that order. Surely
Grice has STATED that Strawson took off his boots and went to bed. Grice has
ASSERTED that Strawson took off his boots and went to bed. But if Grice were to
order Strawson: “Put on your parachute and jump!” the implicatura may differ.
By uttering that utterance, Grice has not asserted or stated anything. So Grice
needs a dummy that will do for indicatives and imperatives. ‘Convey’ usually
does – especially in the modality ‘explicitly’ convey. Because by uttering that
utterance Grice has explicitly conveyed that Strawson is to put on his
parachute and jump. Grice has implicitly conveyd that Strawson is to put on his
parachute and THEN jump, surely.
Griceian
dignitas:
a moral worth or status usually attributed to human persons. Persons are said
to have dignity as well as to express it. Persons are typically thought to have
1 “human dignity” an dichotomy paradox dignity 234 234 intrinsic moral worth, a basic moral
status, or both, which is had equally by all persons; and 2 a “sense of
dignity” an awareness of one’s dignity inclining toward the expression of one’s
dignity and the avoidance of humiliation. Persons can lack a sense of dignity
without consequent loss of their human dignity. In Kant’s influential account
of the equal dignity of all persons, human dignity is grounded in the capacity
for practical rationality, especially the capacity for autonomous
self-legislation under the categorical imperative. Kant holds that dignity
contrasts with price and that there is nothing
not pleasure nor communal welfare nor other good consequences for which it is morally acceptable to
sacrifice human dignity. Kant’s categorical rejection of the use of persons as
mere means suggests a now-common link between the possession of human dignity
and human rights see, e.g., the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. One now widespread discussion of dignity concerns “dying with dignity”
and the right to conditions conducive thereto.
Griceian
dilemma,
a trilemma, tetralemma, monolemma, lemma
– Grice thought that Ryle’s dilemmas
were overrated. Strictly, a ‘dilemma’ is a piece of reasoning or argument or
argument form in which one of the premises is a disjunction, featuring “or.” Constructive
dilemmas take the form ‘If A and B, if C, D, A or C; therefore, B or D’ and are
instances of modus ponendo ponens in the special case where A is C and B is D; A
so-called ‘destructive’ dilemma is of the form ‘If A, B, if C, D, not-B or
not-D; therefore, not-A or not-C’ and it is likewise an instance of modus tollendo tollens
in that special case. A dilemma in which the disjunctive premise is false is
commonly known as a “false” dilemma, which is one of Ryle’s dilemmas: “a
category mistake!”
diminutive: diminished capacity:
explored by Grice in his analysis of legal versus moral right -- a legal
defense to criminal liability that exists in two distinct forms: 1 the mens rea
variant, in which a defendant uses evidence of mental abnormality to cast doubt
on the prosecution’s assertion that, at the time of the crime, the defendant
possessed the mental state criteria, the mens rea, required by the legal
definition of the offense charged; and 2 the partial responsibility variant, in
which a defendant uses evidence of mental abnormality to support a claim that,
even if the defendant’s mental state satisfied the mens rea criteria for the
offense, the defendant’s responsibility for the crime is diminished and thus
the defendant should be convicted of a lesser crime and/or a lesser sentence
should be imposed. The mental abnormality may be produced by mental disorder,
intoxication, trauma, or other causes. The mens rea variant is not a distinct
excuse: a defendant is simply arguing that the prosecution cannot prove the
definitional, mental state criteria for the crime. Partial responsibility is an
excuse, but unlike the similar, complete excuse of legal insanity, partial
responsibility does not produce total acquittal; rather, a defendant’s claim is
for reduced punishment. A defendant may raise either or both variants of
diminished capacity and the insanity defense in the same case. For example, a
common definition of firstdegree murder requires the prosecution to prove that
a defendant intended to kill and did so after premeditation. A defendant
charged with this crime might raise both variants as follows. To deny the
allegation of premeditation, a defendant might claim that the killing occurred
instantaneously in response to a “command hallucination.” If believed, a
defendant cannot be convicted of premeditated homicide, but can be convicted of
the lesser crime of second-degree murder, which typically requires only intent.
And even a defendant who killed intentionally and premeditatedly might claim
partial responsibility because the psychotic mental state rendered the agent’s
reasons for action nonculpably irrational. In this case, either the degree of
crime might be reduced by operation of the partial excuse, rather than by
negation of definitional mens rea, or a defendant might be convicted of
first-degree murder but given a lesser penalty. In the United States the mens
rea variant exists in about half the jurisdictions, although its scope is
usually limited in various ways, primarily to avoid a defendant’s being
acquitted and freed if mental abnormality negated all the definitional mental
state criteria of the crime charged. In English law, the mens rea variant
exists but is limited by the type of evidence usable to support it. No jurisdiction has adopted a distinct,
straightforward partial responsibility variant, but various analogous doctrines
and procedures are widely accepted. For example, partial responsibility grounds
both the doctrine that intentional killing should be reduced from murder to
voluntary manslaughter if a defendant acted “in the heat of passion” upon
legally adequate provocation, and the sentencing judge’s discretion to award a
decreased sentence based on a defendant’s mental abnormality. In addition to
such partial responsibility analogues, England, Wales, and Scotland have
directly adopted the partial responsibility variant, termed “diminished
responsibility,” but it applies only to prosecutions for murder. “Diminished
responsibility” reduces a conviction to a lesser crime, such as manslaughter or
culpable homicide, for behavior that would otherwise constitute murder.
direction
of fit
– referred to by Grice in “Intention and uncertainty,” and symbolized by an
upward arrow and a downward arrow – there are only TWO directions (or senses)
of fit: expressum to ‘re’ and ‘re’ to expressum. The first is indicativus
modus; the second is imperativus modus -- according to his thesis of
aequivocality – the direction of fit is overrated -- a metaphor that derives
from a story in Anscombe’s Intention 7 about a detective who follows a shopper
around town making a list of the things that the shopper buys. As Anscombe
notes, whereas the detective’s list has to match the way the world is each of
the things the shopper buys must be on the detective’s list, the shopper’s list
is such that the world has to fit with it each of the things on the list are
things that he must buy. The metaphor is now standardly used to describe the
difference between kinds of speech act assertions versus commands and mental
states beliefs versus desires. For example, beliefs are said to have the
world-to-mind direction of fit because it is in the nature of beliefs that
their contents are supposed to match the world: false beliefs are to be
abandoned. Desires are said to have the opposite mind-to-world direction of fit
because it is in the nature of desires that the world is supposed to match
their contents. This is so at least to the extent that the role of an
unsatisfied desire that the world be a certain way is to prompt behavior aimed
at making the world that way.
disgrice: In PGRICE,
Kemmerling speaks of disgricing as the opposite of gricing. The first way to
disgrice Kemmerling calls ‘strawsonising.’For Strawson, even the resemblance
(for Grice, equivalence in terms of 'iff' -- cf. his account of what an
syntactically structured non-complete expression) between (G) There
is not a single volume in my uncle’s library which is not by an English
author,’and the negatively existential form (LFG) ~ (Ex)(Ax . ~ Bx)’
is deceptive, ‘It is not the case that there exists an x such that x is a book in Grice’s uncle’s
library and x is written by an
Englishman. FIRST, 'There is not a
single volume in uncle’s library which is not by an English author' -- as normally used, carries the
presupposition -- or entails, for Grice --
(G2) Some (at least one) book is in Grice’s uncle’s library. SECOND, 'There
is not a single volume in Grice’s uncle’s library which is not by an English
author,’ is far from being 'entailed' by (G3e) It is not the case that
there is some (at least one) book in my room. If we give ‘There not a single book in my room which is not by an English
author’ the modernist logical form ‘~
(Ex)(Ax .~ Bx),’ we see that this is ENTAILED
by the briefer, and indeed logicall stronger (in terms of entailments) ~ (Ex)Ax. So when Grice, with a solemn face, utters, ‘There
is not a single foreign volume in my uncle’s library, to reveal later that the library is empty, Grice should expect
his addressee to get some odd feeling. Surely not the feeling of having been lied
to -- or been confronted with an initial false utterance --, because we have
not. Strawson gets the feeling of having been made "the victim of a sort
of communicative outrage." "What you say is outrageous!" This
sounds stronger than it is. An outrage is believed to be an evil deed, offense,
crime; affront, indignity, act not within established or reasonable
limits," of food, drink, dress, speech, etc., from Old French outrage "harm, damage;
insult; criminal behavior; presumption, insolence, overweening" (12c.),
earlier oltrage (11c.),
From Vulgar Latin ‘ultraticum,’
excess," from Latin ultra,
beyond" (from suffixed form of PIE root *al- "beyond"). Etymologically, "the passing
beyond reasonable bounds" in any sense. The meaning narrowed in English
toward violent excesses because of folk etymology from out + rage. Of injuries to feelings,
principles, etc., from outrage, v. outragen,
"to go to excess, act immoderately," from outrage (n.) or from Old
French oultrager. From
1580s with meaning "do violence to, attack, maltreat." Related: Outraged; outraging. But Strawson gets the
feeling of having been made "the victim of a sort of communicative
outrage.” When Grice was only trying to tutor him in The Organon. Of
course it is not the case that Grice is explicitly conveying or expressing that
there there is some (at least one) book in his uncle's room. Grice has not said
anything false. Or rather, it is not the case that Grice utters an
utterance which is not alethically or doxastically satisfactory. Yet what Grice
gives Strawson the defeasible, cancellable, license to to assume that
Grice thinks there is at least one book. Unless he goes on to cancel the implicaturum,
Grice may be deemed to be misleading Strawson. What Grice explicitly conveys to
be true (or false) it is necessary (though not sufficient) that there should at
least one volume in his uncle’s library -- It is not the case that my uncle has
a library and in that library all the books are autochthonous to England, i.e.
it is not the case that Grice’s uncle has a library; for starters, it is not
the case that Grice has a literate uncle. Of this SUBTLE, nuantic, or cloudy or
foggy, "slight or delicate degree of difference in expression, feeling,
opinion, etc.," from Fr. nuance "slight difference, shade of colour,” from nuer "to
shade," from nue "cloud," from Gallo-Roman nuba, from
Latin nubes "a
cloud, mist, vapour," sneudh- "fog," source also of
Avestan snaoda "clouds,"
Latin obnubere "to
veil," Welsh nudd "fog," Greek nython, in
Hesychius "dark, dusky") According to Klein, the French usage is a
reference to "the different colours of the clouds,” in reference to color
or tone, "a slight variation in shade; of music, as a French term in
English -- 'sort' is the relation between ‘There is not a volume in my
uncle's library which is not by an English author,’ and ‘My uncle's
library is not empty. RE-ENTER GRICE. Grice suggested that Strawson see such a
fine point such as that, which Grice had the kindness to call an 'implicaturum',
the result of an act of an ‘implicatura’ (they were both attending Kneale’s
seminar on the growth and ungrowth of logic) is irrelevant to the issue of
‘entailment’. It is a 'merely pragmatic’ implicaturum, Grice would say,
bringing forward a couple of distinctions: logical/pragmatic point;
logical/pragmatic inference; entailment/implicaturum; conveying
explicitly/conveying implicitly; stating/implicating; asserting/implying; what
an utterer means/what the expression 'means' -- but cf. Nowell-Smith, who left
Oxford after being overwhelmed by Grice, "this is how the rules of
etiquette inform the rules of logic -- on the 'rule' of relevance in
"Ethics," 1955. If to call such a point, as Grice does, as
"irrelevant to logic" is vacuous in that it may be interpreted as
saying that that such a fine foggy point is not considered in a modernist
formal system of first-order predicate calculus with identity, this Strawson
wishes not to dispute, but to emphasise. Call it his battle cry! But to 'logic'
as concerned with this or that relation between this or that general class of
statement occurring in ordinary use, and the attending general condition under
which this or that statement is correctly called 'true' or 'false,' this fine
foggy nice point would hardly be irrelevant. GRICE'S FORMALIST (MODERNIST)
INTERPRETATION. Some 'pragmatic' consideration, or assumption, or expectation,
a desideratum of conversational conduct obviously underlies and in fact
'explains' the implicaturum, without having to change the ‘sense’ of Aristotle’s
syllogistics in terms of the logical forms of A, E, I, and O. If we abide by an
imperative of conversational helpfulness, enjoining the maximally giving and
receiving of information and the influencing and being influenced by others in
the institution of a decisions, the sub-imperative follows to the effect, ‘Thou
shalt NOT make a weak move compared to the stronger one that thou canst
truthfully make, and with equal or greater economy of means.’ Assume the
form ‘There is not a single … which is not . . .,’ or ‘It is not the case
that ... there is some (at least one) x that ... is not ... is introduced
in ‘ordinary’ language with the same SENSE as the expression in the
‘ideal’ language, ~(Ex)(Ax and ~Bx). Then prohibition inhibits the utterance of
the form where the utterer can truly and truthfully simply convey
explicitly ‘There is not a single ..., i. e. ~(Ex)(Fx). It is
defeasible prohibition which tends to confer on the overprolixic form ('it is
not the case that ... there is some (at least one) x that is not ...') just
that kind of an implicaturum which Strawson identifies. But having
detected a nuance in a conversational phenomenon is not the same thing as
rushing ahead to try to explain it BEFORE exploring in some detail what kind of
a nuance it is. The mistake is often commited by Austin, too (in "Other Minds,"
and "A Plea for Excuses"), and by Hart (on 'carefully'), and by Hare
(on "good"), and by Strawson on 'true,' (Analysis), ‘the,’ and 'if --
just to restrict to the play group. Grice tries to respond to anti-sense-datum
in "That pillar box seems red to me,” but Strawson was not listening. The overprolixic form in the ‘ordinary’
language, ‘It is not the case that there is some (at least one x) such that ...
x is not ...’ would tend, if it does not remain otiose, to develop or generate
just that baffling effect in one's addressee ('outrage!') that Strawson identifies,
as opposed to the formal-device in the ‘ideal’ language with which the the
‘ordinary’ language counterpart is co-related. What weakens our resistance
to the negatively existential analysis in this case more than in the case of
the corresponding "All '-sentence is the powerful attraction of the
negative opening phrase There is not …'. To avoid misunderstanding
one may add a point about the neo-traditionalist interpretation of the forms of
the traditional Aristotelian system. Strawson is not claiming that it
faithfully represents this or that intention of the principal exponent of the
Square of Opposition. Appuleius, who knows, was perhaps, more interested in
formulating this or that theorem governing this or that logical relation of
this or that more imposing general statement than this or that everyday general
statement that Strawson considers. Appuleius, who knows, might have
been interested, e. g., in the logical powers of this or that
generalisation, or this or that sentence which approximates more closely to the
desired conditions that if its utterance by anyone, at any time, at any place,
results in a true statement, so does its utterance by anyone else, at any other
time, at any other place. How far the account by the neo-traditionalist
of this or that general sentence of 'ordinary' langauge is adequate for every
generalization may well be under debate. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “In defence of
Appuleius,” BANC.
The explicaturum/implicaturum/disimplicaturum triad: Grice: “Strictly, it’s a dyad, since disimplicatum
is a derivative of one member of the dyad, the implicatum – so that the
opposition is binary (ex/in) with ‘dis-‘ as applied to the im-, cf.
disexplicaturum – (the annulation of an explicaturum). “We should not conclude
from this that an implication of the existence of thing said to be seen is NOT
part of the conventional meaning of ‘see’ nor even (as some philosophers have
done) that there is one sense of ‘see’ which lacks this implication!” (WoW:44).
If Oxonians are obsessed with ‘implication,’ do they NEED ‘disimplicaturum’?
Grice doesn’t think so! But sometimes you have to use it to correct a mistake.
Grice does not give names, but he says he has heard a philosopher claim that
there are two SENSES of ‘see,’ one which what one sees exists, and one in which
it doesn’t! It would be good to trace that! It relates, in any case to
‘remembers,’but not quite, and to ‘know.’ But not quite. The issue of ‘see’ is
not that central, since Grice realizes that it is just a modality of
perception, even if crucial. He coined ‘visum’ with Warnock to play with the
idea of ‘what is seen’ NOT being existent.
On another occasion, when he cannot name a ridiculous philosopher, he
invents him: “A philosopher will not be given much credit if he comes with an
account of the indefinite ‘one’ as having three senses: one proximate to the
emissor (“I broke a finger”), one distant (“He’s meeting a woman”) and one
where the link is not specified (“A flower”). he target is of course Davidson
having the cheek to quote Grice’s Henriette Herz Trust lecture for the BA!
Lewis and Short have ‘intendere’ under ‘in-tendo,’ which they render as ‘to
stretch out or forth, extend, also to turn ones attention to, exert one’s self
for, to purpose, endeavour,” and finaly as “intend”! “pergin, sceleste,
intendere hanc arguere?” Plaut. Mil. 2, 4, 27 Grices tends towards
claiming that you cannot extend what you dont intend. In the James lectures,
Grice mentions the use of is to mean seem (The tie is red in this light), and
see to mean hallucinate. Denying Existence: The Logic, Epistemology and Pragmatics of
...books.google.com › books ... then it seems unidiomatic if not ungrammatical
to speak of hallucinations as ... that fighting people and 156 APPEARING
UNREALS 4 Two Senses of "See"? A. Chakrabarti - 1997 - Language Arts
& Disciplines The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism,
Morality, and ...books.google.com › books sight, say sense-data; others will
then say that there are two senses of 'see'. ... wrong because I am dreaming or
hallucinating them, which of course could ... Stanley Cavell - 1999 -
Philosophy Wittgenstein and Perception - Page 37 - Google Books
Resultbooks.google.com › books For example, Gilbert Harman characterises the two
senses of see as follows: see† = 'the ... which is common to genuine cases of
seeing and to hallucinations. Michael Campbell, Michael O'Sullivan - 2015 -
Philosophy The Alleged Ambiguity of'See'www.jstor.org › stable
including dreams, hallucinations and the perception of physical objects. ...
existence of at least two senses of ' see' were his adherence to the doctrine
that 'see' ... by AR White - 1963 - Cited by 3 - Related articles
Seeing and Naming - jstorwww.jstor.org › stable there are or aren't two
senses of 'see'. If there are, I'm speaking of ... The third kind of case is
illustrated by Macbeth's dagger hallucination, at least if we assume ... by RJ
Hall - 1977 - Cited by 3 - Related articles Philosophy at
LaGuardia Community Collegewww.laguardia.edu › Philosophy › GADFLY-2011 PDF
Lastly, I will critically discuss Ayer's two senses of 'see', ... (e.g.,
hallucinations); it thus seems correct to say that ... Hallucinations are
hallucinations. There are. Talking about seeing: An examination of
some aspects of the ...etd.ohiolink.edu › ... I propose a distinction between
delusions and hallucinations,'and argue ... say that there are two senses of
.'see* in ordinary language or not, he does, as I will ... by KA Emmett - 1974
- Related articles Wittgenstein and
Perceptionciteseerx.ist.psu.edu › viewdoc › download PDF 2 Two senses of 'see'.
33 ... may see things that are not there, for example in hallucinations. ...
And so, hallucinations are not genuine perceptual experiences. by Y Arahata -
Related articles Allen Blur - University of
Yorkwww-users.york.ac.uk › Publications_files PDF of subjectively
indistinguishable hallucination (e.g. Crane 2006). ... and material objects of
sight, and correlatively for a distinction between two senses of 'see',. by K
Allen - Related articles Austin and sense-data - UBC Library Open
Collectionsopen.library.ubc.ca › ... › UBC Theses and Dissertations Sep 15,
2011 - (5) Illusions and Hallucinations It is not enough to reject Austin's way
of ... I will not deal with Austin and Ayer on "two senses of 'see'"
because I ... by DD Todd - 1967 - Cited by 1 - Related articles. Godfrey
Vesey (1965, p. 73) deposes, "if a person sees something at all it must
look like something to him, even if it only looks like 'somebody doing
something.' With Davidson, Grice was more cavalier, because he could
blame it on a different ‘New-World’ dialect or idiolect, about ‘intend.’ When
Grice uses ‘disimplicaturum’ to apply to ‘cream in coffee’ that is a bit tangential
– and refers more generally to his theory of communication. What would the
rationale of disimplicaturum be? In this case, if the emissee realizes the
obvious category mistake (“She’s not the cream in your coffee”) there may be a
need to disimplicate explicitly. To consider. There is an example that he gives
that compares with ‘see’ and it is even more philosophical but he doesn’t give
examples: to use ‘is’ when one means ‘seem’ (the tie example). The reductive analyses of being and seeing
hold. We have here two cases of loose use (or disimplicaturum). Same now with
his example in “Intention and Uncertainty” (henceforth, “Uncertainty”): Smith
intends to climb Mt. Everest + [common-ground status: this is difficult].
Grices response to Davidsons pretty unfair use of Grices notion of
conversational implicaturum in Davidsons analysis of intention caught a lot of
interest. Pears loved Grices reply. Implicaturum here is out of the question ‒
disimplicaturum may not. Grice just saw that his theory of conversation is too
social to be true when applied to intending. The doxastic condition is one of
the entailments in an ascription of an intending. It cannot be cancelled as an implicaturum
can. If it can be cancelled, it is best seen as a disimplicaturum, or a loose
use by an utterer meaning less than what he says or explicitly conveys to more
careful conversants. Grice and Davidson were members of The Grice and
Davidson Mutual Admiration Society. Davidson, not being Oxonian, was
perhaps not acquainted with Grices polemics at Oxford with Hart and Hampshire
(where Grice sided with Pears, rather). Grice and Pears hold a minimalist
approach to intending. On the other hand, Davidson makes what Grice sees
as the same mistake again of building certainty into the concept. Grice
finds that to apply the idea of a conversational implicaturum at this point is
too social to be true. Rather, Grice prefers to coin the conversational
disimplicaturum: Marmaduke Bloggs intends to climb Mt Everest on hands and
knees. The utterance above, if merely reporting what Bloggs thinks, may
involve a loose use of intends. The certainty on the agents part on the
success of his enterprise is thus cast with doubt. Davidson was claiming
that the agents belief in the probability of the object of the agents intention
was a mere conversational implicaturum on the utterers part. Grice
responds that the ascription of such a belief is an entailment of a strict use
of intend, even if, in cases where the utterer aims at a conversational disimplicaturum,
it can be dropped. The addressee will still regard the utterer as
abiding by the principle of conversational helpfulness. Pears was especially
interested in the Davidson-Grice polemic on intending, disimplicaturum, disimplicaturum.
Strictly, a section of his reply to Davidson. If Grices claim to fame is implicaturum,
he finds disimplicaturum an intriguing notion to capture those occasions when
an utterer means LESS than he says. His examples include: a loose use of
intending (without the entailment of the doxastic condition), the uses of see
in Shakespeareian contexts (Macbeth saw Banquo, Hamlet saw his father on the
ramparts of Elsinore) and the use of is to mean seems (That tie is blue under
this light, but green otherwise, when both conversants know that a change of
colour is out of the question. He plays with Youre the cream in my coffee being
an utterance where the disimplicaturum (i.e. entailment dropping) is total. Disimplicaturum
does not appeal to a new principle of conversational rationality. It is
perfectly accountable by the principle of conversational helpfulness, in
particular, the desideratum of conversational candour. In everyday explanation we exploit, as Grice notes,
an immense richness in the family of expressions that might be thought of as
the wanting family. This wanting family includes expressions like want, desire,
would like to, is eager to, is anxious to, would mind not…, the idea of appeals to me, is thinking of, etc. As Grice
remarks, The likeness and differences within this wanting family demand careful
attention. In commenting on Davidsons treatment of wanting in
Intending, Grice notes: It seems to Grice that the picture of the soul
suggested by Davidsons treatment of wanting is remarkably tranquil and, one might
almost say, computerized. It is the picture of an ideally decorous board
meeting, at which the various heads of sections advance, from the standpoint of
their particular provinces, the case for or against some proposed course of
action. In the end the chairman passes judgement, effective for action;
normally judiciously, though sometimes he is for one reason or another
over-impressed with the presentation made by some particular member. Grices
soul doesnt seem to him, a lot of the time, to be like that at all. It is more
like a particularly unpleasant department meeting, in which some members shout,
wont listen, and suborn other members to lie on their behalf; while the
chairman, who is often himself under suspicion of cheating, endeavours to
impose some kind of order; frequently to no effect, since sometimes the meeting
breaks up in disorder, sometimes, though it appears to end comfortably, in
reality all sorts of enduring lesions are set up, and sometimes, whatever the
outcome of the meeting, individual members go off and do things unilaterally.
Could it be that Davidson, of the New World, and Grice, of the Old World, have
different idiolects regarding intend? Could well be! It is said that the New
World is prone to hyperbole, so perhaps in Grices more cautious use, intend is
restricted to the conditions HE wants it to restrict it too! Odd that for all
the generosity he displays in Post-war Oxford philosophy (Surely I can help you
analyse you concept of this or that, even if my use of the corresponding expression
does not agree with yours), he goes to attack Davidson, and just for trying to
be nice and apply the conversational implicaturum to intend! Genial Grice! It
is natural Davidson, with his naturalistic tendencies, would like to see
intending as merely invoking in a weak fashion the idea of a strong
psychological state as belief. And its natural that Grice hated that! Refs.:
The source is Grice’s comment on Davidson on intending. The H. P. Grice Papers,
BANC.
disjunctum: Strangely enough
Ariskant thought disjunctum, but not conjunctum a categorial related to the
category of ‘community’!Aulus Gellius (The Attic Nights, XVI, 8) tells us about
this disjunction: “There also is ■ another type of a^twpa which the Greeks call
and we call disjunctum, disjunctive sentence. Gellius notes that ‘or’ is by
default ‘inclusive’: where one or several propositions may be simultaneously
true, without ex- cluding one another, although they may also all be false.
Gellius expands on the non-default reading of exclusive disjunction: pleasure
is either good or bad or it is neither good nor bad (“Aut malum est voluplas,
aut bonum, aul neque bonum, neque malum est”). All the elements of the
exclusive disjunctive exclude one another, and their contradictory elements,
Gr. avTtxs'-p.sva, are incompatible with one another”. “Ex omnibus quae
disjunguntiir, unum esse verum debet, falsa cetera.”Grice lists ‘or’ as the
second binary functor in his response to Strawson. But both Grice and Strawson
agreed that the Oxonian expert on ‘or’ is Wood. Mitchell is good, too, though. The
relations between “v” and “or” (or “either ... or …”) are, on the whole, less
intimate than those between “.” and “and,” but less distant than those between
“D” and “if.” Let us speak of a statement made by coupling two clauses by “or” as
an alternative statement ; and let us speak of the first and second alternatesof
such a statement, on analogy with our talk of the antecedent and consequent of
a hypothetical statement. At a bus-stop, someone might say: “Either we catch
this bus or we shall have to walk all the way home.” He might equally well have
said “If we don't catch this bus, we shall have to walk all the way home.” It
will be seen that the antecedent of the hypothetical statement he might have
made is the negation of the first alternate of the alternative statement he did
make. Obviously, we should not regard our catching the bus as a sufficient
condition of the 'truth' of either statement; if it turns out that the bus we
caught was not the last one, we should say that the man who had made the
statement had been wrong. The truth of one of the alternates is no more a
sufficient condition of the truth of the alternative statement than the falsity
of the antecedent is a sufficient condition of the truth of the hypothetical
statement. And since 'p"Dpyq' (and, equally, * q"3p v q ') is a law
of the truth-functional system, this fact sufficiently shows a difference
between at least one standard use of “or” and the meaning given to “v.” Now in
all, or almost all, the cases where we are prepared to say something of the
form “p or q,” we are also prepared to say something of the form 4 if not-p,
then q \ And this fact may us to exaggerate the difference between “v” and “or”
to think that, since in some cases, the fulfilment of one alternate is not a
sufficient condition of the truth of the alternative statement of which It is
an alternate, the fulfilment of one alternate is a sufficient condition of the
truth of an alternative statement. And this is certainly an exaggeration. If
someone says ; “Either it was John or it was Robert but I couldn't tell which,”
we are satisfied of the truth of the alternative statement if either of the
alternates turns out to be true; and we say that the speaker was wrong only if
neither turns out to be true. Here we seem to have a puzzle ; for we seem to be
saying that * Either it was John or it was Robert ' entails 4 If it wasn't
John, it was Robert * and, at the same time, that ‘It was John’ entails the
former, but not the latter. What we are suffering from here is perhaps a
crudity in our notion of entailraent, a difficulty In applying this too
undifferentiated concept to the facts of speech ; or, if we prefer it, an
ambiguity in the notion of a sufficient condition. The statement that it was John
entails the statement that it was either John or Robert in the sense thai it
confirms it; when It turns out to have been John, the man who said that either
It was John or it was Robert is shown to have been right. But the first
statement does not entail the second in the sense that the step ‘It was John,
so it was either John or Robert’ is a logically proper step, unless the person
saying this means by it simply that the alternative statement made previously
was correct, i.e., 'it was one of the two '. For the alternative statement
carries the implication of the speaker's uncertainty as to which of the two it
was, and this implication is inconsistent with the assertion that it was John.
So in this sense of * sufficient condition ', the statement that it was John is
no more a sufficient condition of (no more entails) the statement that it was
either John or Robert than it is a sufficient condition of (entails) the
statement that if it wasn't John, it was Robert. The further resemblance, which
we have already noticed, between the alternative statement and the hypothetical
statement, is that whatever knowledge or experience renders it reasonable to
assert the alternative statement, also renders it reasonable to make the
statement that (under the condition that it wasn't John) it was Robert. But we
are less happy about saying that the hypothetical statement is confirmed by the
discovery that it was John, than we are about saying that the alternative
statement is confirmed by this discovery. For we are inclined to say that the
question of confirmation of the hypothetical statement (as opposed to the
question of its reasonableness or acceptability) arises only if the condition
(that it wasn't John) turns out to be fulfilled. This shows an asymmetry, as regards
confirmation, though not as regards acceptability, between 4 if not p, then q '
and * if not qy then p ' which is not mirrored in the forms ‘either p or q’ and
‘either q or p.’ This asymmetry is ignored in the rule that * if not p, then q
' and ‘if not q, then p’ are logically equivalent, for this rule regards
acceptability rather than confirmation. And rightly. For we may often discuss
the l truth ' of a subjunctive conditional, where the possibility of
confirmation is suggested by the form of words employed to be not envisaged. It
is a not unrelated difference between * if ' sentences and ‘or’ sentences that
whereas, whenever we use one of the latter, we should also be prepared to use
one of the former, the converse does not hold. The cases in which it does not
generally hold are those of subjunctive conditionals. There is no ‘or’ sentence
which would serve as a paraphrase of ‘If the Germans had invaded England in
1940, they would have won the war’ as this sentence would most commonly be
used. And this is connected with the fact that c either . . . or . . .' is
associated with situations involving choice or decision. 4 Either of these
roads leads to Oxford ' does not mean the same as ' Either this road leads to
Oxford or that road does’ ; but both confront us with the necessity of making a
choice. This brings us to a feature of * or ' which, unlike those so far
discussed, is commonly mentioned in discussion of its relation to * v ' ; the
fact, namely, that in certain verbal contexts, ‘either … or …’ plainly carries
the implication ‘and not both . . . and . . .', whereas in other contexts, it
does not. These are sometimes spoken of as, respectively, the exclusive and
inclusive senses of ‘or;’ and, plainly, if we are to identify 4 v’ with either,
it must be the latter. The reason why, unlike others, this feature of the
ordinary use of “or” is commonly mentioned, is that the difference can readily
be accommodated (1 Cf. footnote to p. 86.In the symbolism of the
truth-functional system: It is the difference between “(p y q) .~ (p . q)”
(exclusive sense) and “p v q” (inclusive sense). “Or,” like “and,” is commonly
used to join words and phrases as well as clauses. The 4 mutuality difficulties
attending the general expansion of 4 x and y are/ 5 into * x is /and y is/' do
not attend the expansion of 4 x or y isf into c r Is/or y is/ ? (This is not to
say that the expansion can always correctly be made. We may call “v” the
disjunctive sign and, being warned against taking the reading too seriously,
may read it as ‘or.' While he never approached the topic separately, it’s easy
to find remarks about disjunction in his oeuvre. A veritable genealogy of
disjunction can be traced along Griceian lines. DISJUNCTUM -- disjunction
elimination. 1 The argument form ‘A or B, if A then C, if B then C; therefore,
C’ and arguments of this form. 2 The rule of inference that permits one to
infer C from a disjunction together with derivations of C from each of the
disjuncts separately. This is also known as the rule of disjunctive elimination
or V-elimination. disjunction
introduction. 1 The argument form ‘A or B; therefore, A or B’ and arguments of
this form. 2 The rule of inference that permits one to infer a disjunction from
either of its disjuncts. This is also known as the rule of addition or
Vintroduction. . disjunctive
proposition, a proposition whose main propositional operator main connective is
the disjunction operator, i.e., the logical operator that represents ‘and/or’.
Thus, ‘P-and/orQ-and-R’ is not a disjunctive proposition because its main
connective is the conjunction operation, but ‘P-and/or-Q-and-R’ is disjunctive.
Refs.: Grice uses an illustration involving ‘or’ in the ‘implication’ excursus
in “Causal Theory.” But the systematic account comes from WoW, especially essay
4.
dispositum. Grice: “The
–positum is a very formative Roman expression: there’s the suppositum, the
praepositum, and the dispositum. All very apposite!” -- H. P. Grice,
“Disposition and intention” – Grice inspired D. F. Pears on this, as they tried
to refute Austin’s rather dogmatic views in ‘ifs’ and ‘cans’ – where the ‘can’
relates to the disposition, and the ‘if’ to the conditional analysis for it.
Grice’s phrase is “if I can”. “I intend to climb Mt Everest on hands and
knees,” Marmaduke Bloggs says, “if a can.” A disposition, more generally is,
any tendency of an object or system to act or react in characteristic ways in
certain situations. Fragility, solubility, and radioactivity, and
intentionality, are typical dispositions. And so are generosity and
irritability. For Ryle’s brand of analytic behaviorism, functionalism, and some
forms of materialism, an event of the soul, such as the occurrence of an idea,
and states such as a belief, a will, or an intention, is also a disposition. A hypothetical or
conditional statement is alleged to be ‘implicated’ by dispositional claims.
What’s worse, this conditional is alleged to capture the basic meaning of the
ascription of a state of the soul. The glass would shatter if suitably struck.
Left undisturbed, a radium atom will probably decay in a certain time. An
ascription of a disposition is taken as subjunctive rather than material
conditionals to avoid problems like having to count as soluble anything not
immersed in water. The characteristic mode of action or reaction shattering, decaying, etc. is termed the disposition’s manifestation or
display. But it need not be observable. Fragility is a regular or universal
disposition. A suitably struck glass invariably shatters. Radio-activity on the
other hand is alleged to be a variable or probabilistic disposition. Radium may
(but then again may not) decay in a certain situation. A dispositions may be
what Grice calls “multi-track,” i. e. multiply
manifested, rather than “single-track,” or singly manifested. Hardness or
elasticity may have different manifestations in different situations. In his
very controversial (and only famous essay), “The Concept of Mind,” Ryle, who
held, no less, the chair of metaphysical philosophy at Oxford, argues – just to
provoke -- that there is nothing more to a dispositional claim than its
associated conditional. A dispositional property is not an occurrent property.
To possess a dispositional property is not to undergo any episode or
occurrence, or to be in a particular state. Grice surely refuted this when he
claims that the soul is in this or that a state. Consider reasoning. The soul
is in state premise; then the soul is in state conclusion. The episode or
occurrence is an event, when the state of the premise causes the state of the
conclusion. Coupled with a ‘positivist’ (or ultra-physicalist,
ultra-empiricist, and ultra-naturalist) rejection of any unobservable, and a
conception of an alleged episode or state of the soul as a dispositios, this
supports the view of behaviorism that such alleged episode or state is nothing
but a disposition TO observable behaviour – if Grice intends to climb Mt.
Everest on hands and knees if he can, there is no ascription without the
behaviour that manifests it – the ascription is meant to EXPLAIN (or explicate,
or provide the cause) for the behaviour. Grice reached this ‘functionalist’
approach later in his career, and presented it with full fanfare in “Method in
philosophoical psychology: from the banal to the bizarre.” By contrast, realism
holds that dispositional talk is also about an actual or occurrent property or a
state, possibly unknown or unobservable – the ‘black box’ of the functionalist,
a function from sensory input to behavioural output. In particular, it is about
the bases of dispositions in intrinsic properties or states. Thus, fragility is
based in molecular structure, radioactivity in nuclear structure. A
disposition’s basis is viewed as at least partly the cause of its manifestation
in behaviour. Some philosophers, for fear of an infinite regress, hold that the
basis is categorical, not dispositional D. M. Armstrong, A Materialist Theory
of Mind, 8. Others, notably Popper, Madden, and Harre (Causal powers) hold that
every property is dispositional. Grice’s essay has now historical interest –
but showed the relevance of these topics among two tightly closed groups in
post-war Oxford: the dispositionalists led by Ryle, and the
anti-dispositionalists, a one-member group led by Grice. Refs.: Grice,
“Intention and dispositions.”
distributum: distributio -- undistributed middle: a logical
fallacy in traditional syllogistic logic, resulting from the violation of the
rule that the middle term (the term that appears twice in premises) must be
distributed at least once in the premises. Any syllogism that commits this
error is invalid. Consider “All philosophers are persons,” and “Some persons
are bad.” No conclusion follows from these two premises because “persons” in
the first premise is the predicate of an affirmative proposition, and in the
second is the subject of a particular proposition. Neither of them is
distributed. “If in a syllogism the middle term is distributed in neither
premise, we are said to have a fallacy of undistributed middle.” Keynes, Formal
Logic. DISTRIBUTUM -- distribution, the property of standing for every
individual designated by a term. The Latin term distributio originated in the
twelfth century; it was applied to terms as part of a theory of reference, and
it may have simply indicated the property of a term prefixed by a universal
quantifier. The term ‘dog’ in ‘Every dog has his day’ is distributed, because
it supposedly refers to every dog. In contrast, the same term in ‘A dog bit the
mailman’ is not distributed because it refers to only one dog. In time, the
idea of distribution came to be used only as a heuristic device for determining
the validity of categorical syllogisms: 1 every term that is distributed in a
premise must be distributed in the conclusion; 2 the middle term must be distributed
at least once. Most explanations of distribution in logic textbooks are
perfunctory; and it is stipulated that the subject terms of universal
propositions and the predicate terms of negative propositions are distributed.
This is intuitive for A-propositions, e.g., ‘All humans are mortal’; the
property of being mortal is distributed over each human. The idea of
distribution is not intuitive for, say, the predicate term of O-propositions.
According to the doctrine, the sentence ‘Some humans are not selfish’ says in
effect that if all the selfish things are compared with some select human one
that is not selfish, the relation of identity does not hold between that human
and any of the selfish things. Notice that the idea of distribution is not
mentioned in this explanation. The idea of distribution is currently
disreputable, mostly because of the criticisms of Geach in Reference and
Generality 8 and its irrelevance to standard semantic theories. The related
term ‘distributively’ means ‘in a manner designating every item in a group
individually’, and is used in contrast with ‘collectively’. The sentence ‘The
rocks weighed 100 pounds’ is ambiguous. If ‘rocks’ is taken distributively,
then the sentence means that each rock weighed 100 pounds. If ‘rocks’ is taken
collectively, then the sentence means that the total weight of the rocks was
100 pounds. distributive laws, the
logical principles A 8 B 7 C S A 8 B 7 A 7 C and A 7 B 8 C S A 7 B 8 A 7 C.
Conjunction is thus said to distribute over disjunction and disjunction over
conjunction.
ditto: Or Strawson’s big mistake. Strawson quite didn’t
understand what “Analysis” was for, and submits this essay on the
perlocutionary effects of ‘true.’ Grice comes to the resuce of veritable
analysis. cf. verum. Grice disliked Strawson’s ditto theory in Analysis of
‘true’ as admittive performatory. 1620s, "in the month of the same
name," Tuscan dialectal ditto "(in) the said (month or year),"
literary Italian detto, past participle of dire "to say," from Latin
dicere "speak, tell, say" (from PIE root *deik- "to show,"
also "pronounce solemnly"). Italian used the word to avoid
repetition of month names in a series of dates, and in this sense it was picked
up in English. Its generalized meaning of "the aforesaid, the same thing,
same as above" is attested in English by 1670s. In early 19c. a suit of
men's clothes of the same color and material through was ditto or dittoes
(1755). Dittohead, self-description of followers of U.S. radio personality Rush
Limbaugh, attested by 1995. dittoship is from 1869.
dodgson: c. l. – Grice quotes Carroll often. Cabbages and
kings – Achilles and the Tortoise – Humpty Dumpty and his Deutero-Esperanto -- Carroll,
Lewis, pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson 183298, English writer and mathematician.
The eldest son of a large clerical family, he was educated at Rugby and Christ
Church, Oxford, where he remained for the rest of his uneventful life, as
mathematical lecturer until 1 and curator of the senior commonroom. His
mathematical writings under his own name are more numerous than important. He
was, however, the only Oxonian of his day to contribute to symbolic logic, and
is remembered for his syllogistic diagrams, for his methods for constructing
and solving elaborate sorites problems, for his early interest in logical
paradoxes, and for the many amusing examples that continue to reappear in
modern textbooks. Fame descended upon him almost by accident, as the author of
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 1865, Through the Looking Glass 1872, The Hunting
of the Snark 1876, and Sylvie and Bruno 9 93; saving the last, the only
children’s books to bring no blush of embarrassment to an adult reader’s cheek.
Dodgson took deacon’s orders in 1861, and though pastorally inactive, was in
many ways an archetype of the prim Victorian clergyman. His religious opinions
were carefully thought out, but not of great philosophic interest. The Oxford
movement passed him by; he worried about sin though rejecting the doctrine of
eternal punishment, abhorred profanity, and fussed over Sunday observance, but
was oddly tolerant of theatergoing, a lifelong habit of his own. Apart from the
sentimental messages later inserted in them, the Alice books and Snark are
blessedly devoid of religious or moral concern. Full of rudeness, aggression,
and quarrelsome, if fallacious, argument, they have, on the other hand, a
natural attraction for philosophers, who pillage Carneades Carroll, Lewis
119 119 them freely for illustrations.
Humpty-Dumpty, the various Kings and Queens, the Mad Hatter, the Caterpillar,
the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, the Unicorn, the Tweedle brothers, the
Bellman, the Baker, and the Snark make fleeting appearances in the s of
Russell, Moore, Broad, Quine, Nagel, Austin, Ayer, Ryle, Blanshard, and even
Vitters an unlikely admirer of the Mock Turtle. The first such allusion to the
March Hare is in Venn’s Symbolic Logic 1. The usual reasons for quotation are
to make some point about meaning, stipulative definition, the logic of
negation, time reversal, dream consciousness, the reification of fictions and
nonentities, or the absurdities that arise from taking “ordinary language” too
literally. For exponents of word processing, the effect of running Jabberwocky
through a spell-checker is to extinguish all hope for the future of Artificial
Intelligence. Though himself no philosopher, Carroll’s unique sense of
philosophic humor keeps him and his illustrator, Sir John Tenniel effortlessly
alive in the modern age. Alice has been tr. into seventy-five languages; new editions
and critical studies appear every year; imitations, parodies, cartoons,
quotations, and ephemera proliferate beyond number; and Carroll societies
flourish in several countries, notably Britain and the United States. Refs.:
Sutherland, “Grice, Dodgson, and Carroll. The Carrolian, the journal of the
Lewis Carroll Society – Jabberwocky: the newsletter of the Lewis Carroll
Society. A. M. Ghersi, “Turtles and mock-turtles,” from “Correspondence with
Derek Foster.” Alice’s adventures in Griceland.
dominium -- domain – used by Grice in his treatment of
Extensionalism -- of a science, the class of individuals that constitute its
subject matter. Zoology, number theory, and plane geometry have as their
respective domains the class of animals, the class of natural numbers, and the
class of plane figures. In Posterior Analytics 76b10, Aristotle observes that
each science presupposes its domain, its basic concepts, and its basic
principles. In modern formalizations of a science using a standard firstorder formal
language, the domain of the science is often, but not always, taken as the
universe of the intended interpretation or intended model, i.e. as the range of
values of the individual variables.
donkey – quantification – considered by Grice -- sentences,
sentences exemplified by ‘Every man who owns a donkey beats it’, ‘If a man owns
a donkey, he beats it’, and similar forms (“Every nice girl loves a sailor”),
which have posed logical puzzles since medieval times but were noted more
recently by Geach. At issue is the logical form of such sentences specifically, the correct construal of the
pronoun ‘it’ and the indefinite noun phrase ‘a donkey’. Translations into
predicate logic by the usual strategy of rendering the indefinite as
existential quantification and the pronoun as a bound variable cf. ‘John owns a
donkey and beats it’ P Dx x is a donkey & John owns x & John beats x
are either ill-formed or have the wrong truth conditions. With a universal
quantifier, the logical form carries the controversial implication that every
donkey-owning man beats every donkey he owns. Efforts to resolve these issues
have spawned much significant research in logic and linguistic semantics.
dossier: Grice is not clear about the status of this – but
some philosophers have been too mentalistic. How would a genitorial programme
proceed. Is there a dossier in a handwave by which the emissor communicates
that he knows the route or that he is about to leave his emissee. It does not
seem so, because the handwave is unstructured. Unlike “Fido is shaggy.” In the
case of “Fido is shaggy,” there must be some OVERLAP between the emissor’s soul
and the emissee’s soul – in terms of dossier. So perhaps there is overlap in
the handwave. There must be an overlap as to WHICH route he means. By making
the handwave the emissor communicates that HE, the emissor, subject IS (copula)
followed by predicate “knower of the route.” So here we have a definite ‘the
route.’ Which route? To heaven, to hell. Cf. The scots ‘high road,’ ‘low road.’
To Loch Lomond. If there is not this minimal common ground nothing can be
communicated. In the alternative meaning, “I (subject) am (copula) about to
leave you – where again there must be an overlap in the identification of the
denotata of the pronouns. In the case of Blackburn’s skull or the arrow at the
fork of a road, the common ground is instituted in situu in the one-off
predicament, and there still must be some overlap of dossier. In its most
technical usage, Grice wants to demystify Donnellan’s identificatory versus
non-identificatory uses of ‘the,’ as unnecessary implications to Russell’s
otherwise neat account. The topic interested Strawson (“Principle of assumption
of ignorance, knowledge and relevance”) and Urmson’s principle of aptitude. Grice’s
favourite vacuous name is ‘Bellerophon.’ ‘Vacuous names’ is an essay
commissioned by Davison and Hintikka for Words and objections: essays on the
work of W. V. Quine (henceforth, W and O) for Reidel, Dordrecht. “W and O” had
appeared (without Grices contribution) as a special issue of Synthese. Grices
contribution, along with Quines Reply to Grice, appeared only in the reprint of
that special issue for Reidel in Dordrecht. Grice cites from various
philosophers (and logicians ‒ this was the time when logic was starting to
be taught outside philosophy departments, or sub-faculties), such as Mitchell,
Myro, Mates, Donnellan, Strawson, Grice was particularly
proud to be able to quote Mates by mouth or book. Grice takes the
opportunity, in his tribute to Quine, to introduce one of two of his
syntactical devices to allow for conversational implicatura to be given maximal
scope. The device in Vacuous Namess is a subscription device to indicate
the ordering of introduction of this or that operation. Grice wants to
give room for utterances of a special existential kind be deemed
rational/reasonable, provided the principle of conversational helfpulness is
thought of by the addressee to be followed by the utterer. Someone isnt
attending the party organised by the Merseyside Geographical Society. That
is Marmaduke Bloggs, who climbed Mt. Everest on hands and knees. But who,
as it happened, turned out to be an invention of the journalists at the
Merseyside Newsletter, “W and O,” vacuous name, identificatory use, non-identificatory
use, subscript device. Davidson and Hintikka were well aware of the New-World
impact of the Old-World ideas displayed by Grice and Strawson in their
attack to Quine. Quine had indeed addressed Grices and Strawsons sophisticated
version of the paradigm-case argument in Word and Object. Davidson and
Hintikka arranged to publish a special issue for a periodical publication, to
which Strawson had already contributed. It was only natural, when Davidson and
Hintikka were informed by Reidel of their interest in turning the special issue
into a separate volume, that they would approach the other infamous member of
the dynamic duo! Commissioned by Davidson and Hintikka for “W and O.” Grice
introduces a subscript device to account for implicatura of utterances
like Marmaduke Bloggs won’t be attending the party; he was invented by the
journalists. In the later section, he explores identificatory and non
identificatory uses of the without involving himself in the problems
Donnellan did! Some philosophers, notably Ostertag, have found the latter
section the most intriguing bit, and thus Ostertag cared to reprint the section
on Descriptions for his edited MIT volume on the topic. The essay is structured
very systematically with an initial section on a calculus alla Gentzen,
followed by implicatura of vacuous Namess such as Marmaduke Bloggs, to end with
definite descriptions, repr. in Ostertag, and psychological predicates. It
is best to focus on a few things here. First his imaginary dialogues on
Marmaduke Bloggs, brilliant! Second, this as a preamble to his Presupposition
and conversational implicaturum. There is a quantifier phrase, the, and two
uses of it: one is an identificatory use (the haberdasher is clumsy, or THE
haberdasher is clumsy, as Grice prefers) and then theres a derived,
non-identificatory use: the haberdasher (whoever she was! to use Grices and
Mitchells addendum) shows her clumsiness. The use of the numeric subscripts
were complicated enough to delay the publication of this. The whole thing was a
special issue of a journal. Grices contribution came when Reidel turned that
into a volume. Grice later replaced his numeric subscript device by square
brackets. Perhaps the square brackets are not subtle enough,
though. Grices contribution, Vacuous Namess, later repr. in part “Definite
descriptions,” ed. Ostertag, concludes with an exploration of the phrases, and
further on, with some intriguing remarks on the subtle issues surrounding the
scope of an ascription of a predicate standing for a psychological state or
attitude. Grices choice of an ascription now notably involves an
opaque (rather than factive, like know) psychological state or attitude:
wanting, which he symbolizes as W. At least Grice does not write,
really, for he knew that Austin detested a trouser word! Grice concludes that
(xi) and (xiii) will be derivable from each of (ix) and (x), while (xii) will
be derivable only from (ix).Grice had been Strawsons logic tutor at St. Johns
(Mabbott was teaching the grand stuff!) and it shows! One topic that especially
concerned Grice relates to the introduction and elimination rules, as he later
searches for generic satisfactoriness. Grice
wonders [W]hat should be said of Takeutis 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 Xs personalized system that φ, then it is
necessary with respect to X that φ is true (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 X that φ, then 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 volitive
expression such as let it be that X eats his hat; and my commitment to the idea
that Xs system requires him to eat his hat does not ipso facto involve me in
accepting (buletically) let X 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 version of the rule seems inoffensive, even
for Takeuti, we hope. A very interesting concept Grice introduces in the
definite-descriptor section of Vacuous Namess is that of a conversational
dossier, for which he uses δ for a definite descriptor. The key concept is that
of conversational dossier overlap, common ground, or conversational pool. Let
us say that an utterer U has a dossier for a definite description δ if there is
a set of definite descriptions which include δ, all the members of which the
utterer supposes to be satisfied by one and the same item and the utterer U
intends his addressee A to think (via the recognition that A is so intended)
that the utterer U has a dossier for the definite description δ which the
utterer uses, and that the utterer U has specifically selected (or chosen, or
picked) this specific δ from this dossier at least partly in the hope that his
addressee A has his own dossier for δ which overlaps the utterers dossier for δ,
viz. shares a substantial, or in some way specially favoured, su-bset with the
utterers dossier. Its unfortunate that the idea of a dossier is not better
known amog Oxonian philosophers. Unlike approaches to the phenomenon by other
Oxonian philosophers like Grices tutee Strawson and his three principles
(conversational relevance, presumption of conversational knowledge, and
presumption of conversational ignorance) or Urmson and his, apter than
Strawsons, principle of conversational appositeness (Mrs.Smiths husband just delivered
a letter, You mean the postman!?), only Grice took to task the idea of
formalising this in terms of set-theory and philosophical
psychology ‒ note his charming reference to the utterers hope (never
mind intention) that his choice of d from his dossier will overlap with some d
in the dossier of his his addressee. The point of adding whoever he may be for
the non-identificatory is made by Mitchell, of Worcester, in his Griceian
textbook for Hutchinson. Refs.: The main reference is Grice’s “Vacuous names,”
in “W and O” and its attending notes, BANC.
doxastic – discussed by J. L. Austin in the myth of the cave.
Plato is doing some form of linguistic botany when he distinguishes between the
doxa and the episteme – Stich made it worse with his ‘sub-doxastic’! from
Grecian doxa, ‘belief’, of or pertaining to belief. A doxastic mental state,
for instance, is or incorporates a belief. Doxastic states of mind are to be
distinguished, on the one hand, from such non-doxastic states as desires,
sensations, and emotions, and, on the other hand, from subdoxastic states. By
extension, a doxastic principle is a principle governing belief. A doxastic
principle might set out conditions under which an agent’s forming or abandoning
a belief is justified epistemically or otherwise.
doxographia
griceiana -- Griceian doxographers. A
Griceian doxographer is a a compiler of andcommentators on the opinions of
Grice. “I am my first doxographer,” Grice said. Grice enjoyed the term coined
by H. Diels for the title of his work “Doxographi Graeci,” which Grice typed
“Doxographi Gricei”. In his “Doxographi,” Diels assembles a series of Grecian
texts in which the views of Grecian philosophers from the archaic to the
Hellenistic era are set out in a relatively schematic way. In the introduction,
Diels reconstructs the history of the writing of these opinions, viz. the
doxography strictly – the ‘writing’ (graphein) of the ‘opinion’ (“doxa”) – cfr.
the unwritten opinions; Diels’s ‘Doxographi’ is now a standard part of the
historiography of philosophy. Doxography is important both as a source of
information about a philosopher, and also because a later philosopher (later
than Grice, that is), ancient, medieval, and modern, should rely on it besides
what Diels calls the ‘primary’ material – “what Grice actually philosophised
on.” The crucial text for Diels’s reconstruction is the book Physical Opinions
of the Philosophers Placita Philosophorum, traditionally ascribed to Plutarch
but no longer thought to be by him. “Placita philosophorum” lists the views of
various philosophers and schools under subject headings such as “What Is
Nature?” and “On the Rainbow.” Out of this oeuvre and others Diels reconstructs
a Collection of Opinions that he ascribes to Aetius, a philosopher mentioned by
Theodoret as its author. Diels takes Aetius’s ultimate source to be
Theophrastus, who wrote a more discursive Physical Opinions. Because Aetius
mentions the views of Hellenistic philosophers writing after Theophrastus,
Diels postulates an intermediate source, which he calls the “Vetusta Placita.” The
most accessible doxographical material for Grice is in “The Life of Opinions of
the Eminent Philosopher H. P. Grice,” “Vita et sententiae H. P. Griceiani quo
in philosophia probatus fuit.” by H. P. Grice, après “Vitae et sententiae eorum qui in
philosophia probati fuerunt,”
by Diogenes Laertius, who is, however, mainly interested in gossip.
Laertius arranges philosophers by schools and treats each school
chronologically.
dummett – Dummett on ‘implicaturum’ in “Truth and other
enigmas” – Note the animosity by Dummett against
Grice’s playgroup for Grice never inviting him to a Saturday morning! “I will say this: conversational implicaturum, or as he
fastidiously would prefer, the ‘implicaturum,’ was, yes, ‘invented,’ by H. P.
Grice, of St. John’s, but University Lecturer, to boot, to replace an abstract
semantic concept such as Frege’s ‘Sinn,’ expelled in Grice’s original
Playgroup’s determination to pay attention, in the typical Oxonian manner, to
nothing but what an *emisor* (never mind his emission!) ‘communicates’ in a
‘particularised’ context — so that was a good thing -- for Grice!” “Truth and other enigmas.” Cited by Grice in Way of
Words -- dummett, m. a. e. – cited by H. P. Grice. philosopher of language,
logic, and mathematics, noted for his sympathy for metaphysical antirealism and
for his exposition of the philosophy of Frege. Dummett regards allegiance to
the principle of bivalence as the hallmark of a realist attitude toward any
field of discourse. This is the principle that any meaningful assertoric
sentence must be determinately either true or else false, independently of
anyone’s ability to ascertain its truth-value by recourse to appropriate
empirical evidence or methods of proof. According to Dummett, the sentences of
any learnable language cannot have verification-transcendent truth conditions
and consequently we should query the intelligibility of certain statements that
realists regard as meaningful. On these grounds, he calls into question realism
about the past and realism in the philosophy of mathematics in several of the
papers in two collections of his essays, Truth and Other Enigmas 8 and The Seas
of Language 3. In The Logical Basis of Metaphysics 1, Dummett makes clear his
view that the fundamental questions of metaphysics have to be approached
through the philosophy of language, and more specifically through the theory of
meaning. Here his philosophical debts to Frege and Vitters are manifest.
Dummett has been the world’s foremost expositor and champion of Frege’s
philosophy, above all in two highly influential books, Frege: Philosophy of
Language 3 and Frege: Philosophy of Mathematics 1. This is despite the fact
that Frege himself advocated a form of Platonism in semantics and the philosophy
of mathematics that is quite at odds with Dummett’s own anti-realist
inclinations. It would appear, however, from what Dummett says in Origins of
Analytical Philosophy 3, that he regards Frege’s great achievement as that of
having presaged the “linguistic turn” in philosophy that was to see its most
valuable fruit in the later work of Vitters. Vitters’s principle that grasp of
the meaning of a linguistic expression must be exhaustively manifested by the
use of that expression is one that underlies Dummett’s own approach to meaning
and his anti-realist leanings. In logic and the philosophy of mathematics this
is shown in Dummett’s sympathy for the intuitionistic approach of Brouwer and
Heyting, which involves a repudiation of the law of excluded middle, as set
forth in Dummett’s own book on the subject, Elements of Intuitionism 7.
.
dyad -- co-agency: social action: Grice: “My principle of
co-operation you can call the ‘conversational contract.’ In this respect, I
agree with Grice: Grice: “When I speak of conversation, I mean of a social
action – where one agent’s expectations influence his co-agent’s” -- a subclass
of human action involving the interaction among agents and their mutual
orientation, or the action of groups. While all intelligible actions are in
some sense social, social actions must be directed to others. Talcott Parsons
279 captured what is distinctive about social action in his concept of “double
contingency,” and similar concepts have been developed by other philosophers
and sociologists, including Weber, Mead, and Vitters. Whereas in monological
action the agents’ fulfilling their purposes depends only on contingent facts
about the world, the success of social action is also contingent on how other
agents react to what the agent does and how that agent reacts to other agents,
and so on. An agent successfully communicates, e.g., not merely by finding some
appropriate expression in an existing symbol system, but also by understanding
how other agents will understand him. Game theory describes and explains
another type of double contingency in its analysis of the interdependency of
choices and strategies among rational agents. Games are also significant in two
other respects. First, they exemplify the cognitive requirements for social
interaction, as in Mead’s analysis of agents’ perspective taking: as a subject
“I”, I am an object for others “me”, and can take a third-person perspective
along with others on the interaction itself “the generalized other”. Second,
games are regulated by shared rules and mediated through symbolic meanings;
Vitters’s private language argument establishes that rules cannot be followed
“privately.” Some philosophers, such as Peter Winch, conclude from this
argument that rule-following is a basic feature of distinctively social action.
Some actions are social in the sense that they can only be done in groups.
Individualists such as Weber, Jon Elster, and Raimo Tuomela believe that these
can be analyzed as the sum of the actions of each individual. But holists such
as Marx, Durkheim, and Margaret Gilbert reject this reduction and argue that in
social actions agents must see themselves as members of a collective agent.
Holism has stronger or weaker versions: strong holists, such as Durkheim and
Hegel, see the collective subject as singular, the collective consciousness of
a society. Weak holists, such as Gilbert and Habermas, believe that social
actions have plural, rather than singular, collective subjects. Holists
generally establish the plausibility of their view by referring to larger
contexts and sequences of action, such as shared symbol systems or social
institutions. Explanations of social actions thus refer not only to the mutual
expectations of agents, but also to these larger causal contexts, shared meanings,
and mechanisms of coordination. Theories of social action must then explain the
emergence of social order, and proposals range from Hobbes’s coercive authority
to Talcott Parsons’s value consensus about shared goals among the members of
groups. -- social biology, the
understanding of social behavior, especially human social behavior, from a
biological perspective; often connected with the political philosophy of social
Darwinism. Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species highlighted the significance of social
behavior in organic evolution, and in the Descent of Man, he showed how
significant such behavior is for humans. He argued that it is a product of
natural selection; but it was not until 4 that the English biologist William
Hamilton showed precisely how such behavior could evolve, namely through “kin
selection” as an aid to the biological wellbeing of close relatives. Since
then, other models of explanation have been proposed, extending the theory to
non-relatives. Best known is the self-describing “reciprocal altruism.” Social
biology became notorious in 5 when Edward O. Wilson published a major treatise
on the subject: Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Accusations of sexism and
racism were leveled because Wilson suggested that Western social systems are
biologically innate, and that in some respects males are stronger, more
aggressive, more naturally promiscuous than females. Critics argued that all
social biology is in fact a manifestation of social Darwinism, a
nineteenthcentury philosophy owing more to Herbert Spencer than to Charles
Darwin, supposedly legitimating extreme laissez-faire economics and an
unbridled societal struggle for existence. Such a charge is extremely serious,
for as Moore pointed out in his Principia Ethica 3, Spencer surely commits the
naturalistic fallacy, inasmuch as he is attempting to derive the way that the
world ought to be from the way that it is. Naturally enough, defenders of
social biology, or “sociobiology” as it is now better known, denied vehemently
that their science is mere right-wing ideology by another name. They pointed to
many who have drawn very different social conclusions on the basis of biology.
Best known is the Russian anarchist Kropotkin, who argued that societies are
properly based on a biological propensity to mutual aid. With respect to
contemporary debate, it is perhaps fairest to say that sociobiology,
particularly that pertaining to humans, did not always show sufficient
sensitivity toward all societal groups although
certainly there was never the crude racism of the fascist regimes of the 0s.
However, recent work is far more careful in these respects. Now, indeed, the
study of social behavior from a biological perspective is one of the most
exciting and forward-moving branches of the life sciences. -- social choice theory, the theory of the
rational action of a group of agents. Important social choices are typically
made over alternative means of collectively providing goods. These might be
goods for individual members of the group, or more characteristically, public
goods, goods such that no one can be excluded from enjoying their benefits once
they are available. Perhaps the most central aspect of social choice theory
concerns rational individual choice in a social context. Since what is rational
for one agent to do will often depend on what is rational for another to do and
vice versa, these choices take on a strategic dimension. The prisoner’s dilemma
illustrates how it can be very difficult to reconcile individual and
collectively rational decisions, especially in non-dynamic contexts. There are
many situations, particularly in the provision of public goods, however, where
simple prisoner’s dilemmas can be avoided and more manageable coordination
problems remain. In these cases, individuals may find it rational to
contractually or conventionally bind themselves to courses of action that lead
to the greater good of all even though they are not straightforwardly
utility-maximizing for particular individuals. Establishing the rationality of
these contracts or conventions is one of the leading problems of social choice
theory, because coordination can collapse if a rational agent first agrees to
cooperate and then reneges and becomes a free rider on the collective efforts
of others. Other forms of uncooperative behaviors such as violating rules
established by society or being deceptive about one’s preferences pose similar
difficulties. Hobbes attempted to solve these problems by proposing that people
would agree to submit to the authority of a sovereign whose punitive powers
would make uncooperative behavior an unattractive option. It has also been
argued that cooperation is rational if the concept of rationality is extended
beyond utility-maximizing in the right way. Other arguments stress benefits beyond
selfinterest that accrue to cooperators. Another major aspect of social choice
theory concerns the rational action of a powerful central authority, or social
planner, whose mission is to optimize the social good. Although the central
planner may be instituted by rational individual choice, this part of the
theory simply assumes the institution. The planner’s task of making a onetime
allocation of resources to the production of various commodities is tractable
if social good or social utility is known as a function of various commodities.
When the planner must take into account dynamical considerations, the technical
problems are more difficult. This economic growth theory raises important
ethical questions about intergenerational conflict. The assumption of a social
analogue of the individual utility functions is particularly worrisome. It can
be shown formally that taking the results of majority votes can lead to
intransitive social orderings of possible choices and it is, therefore, a
generally unsuitable procedure for the planner to follow. Moreover, under very
general conditions there is no way of aggregating individual preferences into a
consistent social choice function of the kind needed by the planner. -- social constructivism, also called social
constructionism, any of a variety of views which claim that knowledge in some
area is the product of our social practices and institutions, or of the
interactions and negotiations between relevant social groups. Mild versions
hold that social factors shape interpretations of the world. Stronger versions
maintain that the world, or some significant portion of it, is somehow
constituted by theories, practices, and institutions. Defenders often move from
mild to stronger versions by insisting that the world is accessible to us only
through our interpretations, and that the idea of an independent reality is at
best an irrelevant abstraction and at worst incoherent. This philosophical
position is distinct from, though distantly related to, a view of the same name
in social and developmental psychology, associated with such figures as Piaget
and Lev Vygotsky, which sees learning as a process in which subjects actively
construct knowledge. Social constructivism has roots in Kant’s idealism, which
claims that we cannot know things in themselves and that knowledge of the world
is possible only by imposing pre-given categories of thought on otherwise
inchoate experience. But where Kant believed that the categories with which we
interpret and thus construct the world are given a priori, contemporary
constructivists believe that the relevant concepts and associated practices
vary from one group or historical period to another. Since there are no
independent standards for evaluating conceptual schemes, social constructivism
leads naturally to relativism. These views are generally thought to be present
in Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which argues that
observation and methods in science are deeply theory-dependent and that
scientists with fundamentally different assumptions or paradigms effectively
live in different worlds. Kuhn thus offers a view of science in opposition to
both scientific realism which holds that theory-dependent methods can give us
knowledge of a theory-independent world and empiricism which draws a sharp line
between theory and observation. Kuhn was reluctant to accept the apparently
radical consequences of his views, but his work has influenced recent social
studies of science, whose proponents frequently embrace both relativism and
strong constructivism. Another influence is the principle of symmetry advocated
by David Bloor and Barry Barnes, which holds that sociologists should explain
the acceptance of scientific views in the same way whether they believe those
views to be true or to be false. This approach is elaborated in the work of
Harry Collins, Steve Woolgar, and others. Constructivist themes are also
prominent in the work of feminist critics of science such as Sandra Harding and
Donna Haraway, and in the complex views of Bruno Latour. Critics, such as
Richard Boyd and Philip Kitcher, while applauding the detailed case studies
produced by constructivists, claim that the positive arguments for
constructivism are fallacious, that it fails to account satisfactorily for
actual scientific practice, and that like other versions of idealism and
relativism it is only dubiously coherent.
Then there’s the idea of a ‘contract,’ or social contract, an agreement
either between the people and their ruler, or among the people in a community.
The idea of a social contract has been used in arguments that differ in what
they aim to justify or explain e.g., the state, conceptions of justice,
morality, what they take the problem of justification to be, and whether or not
they presuppose a moral theory or purport to be a moral theory. Traditionally
the term has been used in arguments that attempt to explain the nature of
political obligation and/or the kind of responsibility that rulers have to
their subjects. Philosophers such as Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant
argue that human beings would find life in a prepolitical “state of nature” a
state that some argue is also presocietal so difficult that they would
agree either with one another or with a
prospective ruler to the creation of
political institutions that each believes would improve his or her lot. Note
that because the argument explains political or social cohesion as the product
of an agreement among individuals, it makes these individuals conceptually
prior to political or social units. Marx and other socialist and communitarian
thinkers have argued against conceptualizing an individual’s relationship to
her political and social community in this way. Have social contracts in
political societies actually taken place? Hume ridicules the idea that they are
real, and questions what value makebelieve agreements can have as explanations
of actual political obligations. Although many social contract theorists admit
that there is almost never an explicit act of agreement in a community,
nonetheless they maintain that such an agreement is implicitly made when
members of the society engage in certain acts through which they give their
tacit consent to the ruling regime. It is controversial what actions constitute
giving tacit consent: Plato and Locke maintain that the acceptance of benefits
is sufficient to give such consent, but some have argued that it is wrong to
feel obliged to those who foist upon us benefits for which we have not asked.
It is also unclear how much of an obligation a person can be under if he gives
only tacit consent to a regime. How are we to understand the terms of a social
contract establishing a state? When the people agree to obey the ruler, do they
surrender their own power to him, as Hobbes tried to argue? Or do they merely lend
him that power, reserving the right to take it from him if and when they see
fit, as Locke maintained? If power is merely on loan to the ruler, rebellion
against him could be condoned if he violates the conditions of that loan. But
if the people’s grant of power is a surrender, there are no such conditions,
and the people could never be justified in taking back that power via
revolution. Despite controversies surrounding their interpretation, social
contract arguments have been important to the development of modern democratic
states: the idea of the government as the creation of the people, which they
can and should judge and which they have the right to overthrow if they find it
wanting, contributed to the development of democratic forms of polity in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
and revolutionaries explicitly
acknowledged their debts to social contract theorists such as Locke and
Rousseau. In the twentieth century, the social contract idea has been used as a
device for defining various moral conceptions e.g. theories of justice by those
who find its focus on individuals useful in the development of theories that
argue against views e.g. utilitarianism that allow individuals to be sacrificed
for the benefit of the group -- social epistemology, the study of the social
dimensions or determinants of knowledge, or the ways in which social factors
promote or perturb the quest for knowledge. Some writers use the term
‘knowledge’ loosely, as designating mere belief. On their view social epistemology
should simply describe how social factors influence beliefs, without concern
for the rationality or truth of these beliefs. Many historians and sociologists
of science, e.g., study scientific practices in the same spirit that
anthropologists study native cultures, remaining neutral about the referential
status of scientists’ constructs or the truth-values of their beliefs. Others
try to show that social factors like political or professional interests are
causally operative, and take such findings to debunk any objectivist
pretensions of science. Still other writers retain a normative, critical
dimension in social epistemology, but do not presume that social practices
necessarily undermine objectivity. Even if knowledge is construed as true or
rational belief, social practices might enhance knowledge acquisition. One
social practice is trusting the opinions of authorities, a practice that can
produce truth if the trusted authorities are genuinely authoritative. Such
trust may also be perfectly rational in a complex world, where division of
epistemic labor is required. Even a scientist’s pursuit of extra-epistemic
interests such as professional rewards may not be antithetical to truth in
favorable circumstances. Institutional provisions, e.g., judicial rules of
evidence, provide another example of social factors. Exclusionary rules might
actually serve the cause of truth or accuracy in judgment if the excluded
evidence would tend to mislead or prejudice jurors. -- social philosophy, broadly the philosophy
of socisocial Darwinism social philosophy 856
856 ety, including the philosophy of social science and many of its
components, e.g., economics and history, political philosophy, most of what we
now think of as ethics, and philosophy of law. But we may distinguish two
narrower senses. In one, it is the conceptual theory of society, including the
theory of the study of society the
common part of all the philosophical studies mentioned. In the other, it is a
normative study, the part of moral philosophy that concerns social action and
individual involvement with society in general. The central job of social
philosophy in the first of these narrower senses is to articulate the correct
notion or concept of society. This would include formulating a suitable definition
of ‘society’; the question is then which concepts are better for which
purposes, and how they are related. Thus we may distinguish “thin” and “thick”
conceptions of society. The former would identify the least that can be said
before we cease talking about society at all
say, a number of people who interact, whose actions affect the behavior
of their fellows. Thicker conceptions would then add such things as community
rules, goals, customs, and ideals. An important empirical question is whether
any interacting groups ever do lack such things and what if anything is common
to the rules, etc., that actual societies have. Descriptive social philosophy
will obviously border on, if not merge into, social science itself, e.g. into
sociology, social psychology, or economics. And some outlooks in social
philosophy will tend to ally with one social science as more distinctively
typical than others e.g., the
individualist view looks to economics, the holist to sociology. A major
methodological controversy concerns holism versus individualism. Holism
maintains that at least some social groups must be studied as units,
irreducible to their members: we cannot understand a society merely by
understanding the actions and motivations of its members. Individualism denies
that societies are “organisms,” and holds that we can understand society only
in that way. Classic G. sociologists e.g., Weber distinguished between
Gesellschaft, whose paradigm is the voluntary association, such as a chess
club, whose activities are the coordinated actions of a number of people who
intentionally join that group in order to pursue the purposes that identify it;
and Gemeinschaft, whose members find their identities in that group. Thus,
the are not a group whose members teamed
up with like-minded people to form
society. They were before they
had separate individual purposes. The holist views society as essentially a
Gemeinschaft. Individualists agree that there are such groupings but deny that
they require a separate kind of irreducibly collective explanation: to
understand the we must understand how
typical individuals behave compared, say, with the G.s, and so on. The
methods of Western economics typify the analytical tendencies of methodological
individualism, showing how we can understand large-scale economic phenomena in
terms of the rational actions of particular economic agents. Cf. Adam Smith’s
invisible hand thesis: each economic agent seeks only his own good, yet the
result is the macrophenomenal good of the whole. Another pervasive issue
concerns the role of intentional characterizations and explanations in these
fields. Ordinary people explain behavior by reference to its purposes, and they
formulate these in terms that rely on public rules of language and doubtless
many other rules. To understand society, we must hook onto the
selfunderstanding of the people in that society this view is termed Verstehen.
Recent work in philosophy of science raises the question whether intentional
concepts can really be fundamental in explaining anything, and whether we must
ultimately conceive people as in some sense material systems, e.g. as
computer-like. Major questions for the program of replicating human
intelligence in data-processing terms cf. artificial intelligence are raised by
the symbolic aspects of interaction. Additionally, we should note the emergence
of sociobiology as a potent source of explanations of social phenomena.
Normative social philosophy, in turn, tends inevitably to merge into either
politics or ethics, especially the part of ethics dealing with how people ought
to treat others, especially in large groups, in relation to social institutions
or social structures. This contrasts with ethics in the sense concerned with
how individual people may attain the good life for themselves. All such
theories allot major importance to social relations; but if one’s theory leaves
the individual wide freedom of choice, then a theory of individually chosen
goods will still have a distinctive subject matter. The normative involvements
of social philosophy have paralleled the foregoing in important ways.
Individualists have held that the good of a society must be analyzed in terms
of the goods of its individual members. Of special importance has been the view
that society must respect indisocial philosophy social philosophy 857 857 vidual rights, blocking certain actions
alleged to promote social good as a whole. Organicist philosophers such as
Hegel hold that it is the other way around: the state or nation is higher than
the individual, who is rightly subordinated to it, and individuals have
fundamental duties toward the groups of which they are members. Outrightly
fascist versions of such views are unpopular today, but more benign versions
continue in modified form, notably by communitarians. Socialism and especially
communism, though focused originally on economic aspects of society, have
characteristically been identified with the organicist outlook. Their extreme
opposite is to be found in the libertarians, who hold that the right to individual
liberty is fundamental in society, and that no institutions may override that
right. Libertarians hold that society ought to be treated strictly as an
association, a Gesellschaft, even though they might not deny that it is
ontogenetically Gemeinschaft. They might agree that religious groups, e.g.,
cannot be wholly understood as separate individuals. Nevertheless, the
libertarian holds that religious and cultural practices may not be interfered
with or even supported by society. Libertarians are strong supporters of
free-market economic methods, and opponents of any sort of state intervention
into the affairs of individuals. Social Darwinism, advocating the “survival of
the socially fittest,” has sometimes been associated with the libertarian view.
Insofar as there is any kind of standard view on these matters, it combines
elements of both individualism and holism. Typical social philosophers today
accept that society has duties, not voluntary for individual members, to
support education, health, and some degree of welfare for all. But they also
agree that individual rights are to be respected, especially civil rights, such
as freedom of speech and religion. How to combine these two apparently
disparate sets of ideas into a coherent whole is the problem. John Rawls’s
celebrated Theory of Justice, 1, is a contemporary classic that attempts to do
just that. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Grice and Grice on the conversational
contract.”
E
e: the
‘universalis abdicative.’ Cf. Grice on the Square of Opposition, or figura
quadrata -- Grice, “Circling the square of Opposition.”
Ǝ: Ǝx. The
existential quantifier. When Gentzen used /\ and \/ for ‘all’ and ‘some’ he is
being logical, since ‘all’ and ‘some’ behave like ‘and’ and ‘or.’ This is not
transparently shown at all by the use of the inverted A and the inverted E.
This Grice called Grice’s Proportion: “and:or::every:some”. Grice: “Surely there is a relation of
‘every’ to ‘and’ and ‘some’ to ‘or.’” “Given a
finite domain of discourse D = {a1, ... an} “every” is equivalent to an “and”
propositions “Pai /\, … Pan.””“Analogously, “some (at least one”) is equivalent
to an “or” proposition having the same structure as before:“Pai V, … Pan.”“For
an infinite domain of discourse the equivalences are pretty similar, and I
shouldn’t bother you with it for two long. But consider the statement, “1 + 1,
and 2 + 2, 3 + 3, ..., and 100 + 100, and ..., etc.” This is an infinite “and”
proposition. From the point of view of a system like System G, this may seem
a problem. Syntax
rules are expected to generate finite formulae. But my example above is
fortunate in that there is a procedure to generate every conjunct. Now, as
Austin once suggested to me, having translated Frege, an assertion were to be
made about every *irrational* number, it would seem that is no (Fregeian) way
to enumerate every conjunct, since irrational numbers cannot be enumerated.
However, a succinct equivalent formulation which avoids this problem with the
‘irrational’ number uses “every” quantification. For
each natural number n, n · 2 = n + n. An analogous analysis applies to the “or”
proposition: “1 is equal to 5 + 5,
2\/ is equal to 5 + 5, \/ 3 is
equal to 5 + 5, ... , \/ 100 is equal to 5 + 5, or ..., etc.” This is easily
rephrasable using “some (at least one)” quantification: “For SOME natural
number n, n is equal to 5+5. Aristotelian predicate calculus rescued from undue existential import
As ... universal quantifier
and conjunction and,
on the other, between the existential
quantifier and disjunction. This analogy has not passed unnoticed in logical circles. ... existential quantifiers correspond
to the conjunction and disjunction operators, ...analogous analysis applies
to propositional logic.
... symbol 'V'
for the existential quantifier in
the 'Californian' notation’
(so-called by H. P. Grice when briefly visiting Berkeley) which was ... In Grice’s system G, the quantifiers are symbolized with
larger versions of the symbols used for conjunction and disjunction. Although
quantified expressions cannot be translated into expressions without
quantifiers, there is a conceptual connection between the universal quantifier
and conjunction and between the existential quantifier and disjunction.
Consider the sentence ∃xPxxPx, for example. It means
that either the first member of the UD is a PP, or the second one is, or the
third one is, . . . . Such a system uses the symbol ‘⋁’ instead of ‘∃.’ Grice’s manoeuver to think of the quantifier versions of De
Morgan's laws is an interesting one. The statement ∀xP(x)∀xP(x) is very much like a
big conjunction. If the universe of discourse is the positive integers, for
example, then it is equivalent to the statement that “P(1)∧P(2)∧P(3)∧⋯P(1)∧P(2)∧P(3)∧⋯” or, more concisely, we might write “⋀x∈UP(x),⋀x∈UP(x),” using
notation similar to "sigma notation'' for sums. Of course, this is not
really a "statement'' in our official mathematical logic, because we don't
allow infinitely long formulas. In the same way, ∃xP(x)∃xP(x) can be thought of as “⋁x∈UP(x).⋁x∈UP(x). Now the first quantifier law can be
written “¬⋀x∈UP(x)⇔⋁x∈U(¬P(x)),¬⋀x∈UP(x)⇔⋁x∈U(¬P(x)),” which looks
very much like the law “¬(P∧Q)⇔(¬P∨¬Q),¬(P∧Q)⇔(¬P∨¬Q),” but with
an infinite conjunction and disjunction. Note that we can also rewrite De
Morgan's laws for ∧∧ and ∨∨ as “¬⋀i=12(Pi(x))¬⋁i=12(Pi(x))⇔⋁i=12(¬Pi(x))⇔⋀i=12(¬Pi(x)).¬⋀i=12(Pi(x))⇔⋁i=12(¬Pi(x))¬⋁i=12(Pi(x))⇔⋀i=12(¬Pi(x)).” As Grice says, “this may look initially cumbersome, but it reflects the close
relationship with the quantifier forms of De Morgan's laws.” Cited by Grice as translatable by “some (at least
one)”. Noting the divergence that Strawson identified but fails to identify as
a conversational implicaturum. It relates in the case of the square of
opposition to the ‘particularis’ but taking into account or NOT taking into
account the ‘unnecessary implication,’ as Russell calls it. “Take ‘every man is
mortal.’ Surely we don’t need the unnecessary implication that there is a man!”
eco: scuola bolognese-- possibly, after Speranza, one of
the most Griceian of Italian philosophers (Only Speranza calls himself an
Oxonian, rather! – “Surely alma mater trumps all!”). Econ provides a bridge
between Graeco-Roman philosophy and Grice! Eco is one of the few philosophers
who considers the very origins of philosophy in Bologna – and straight from
Rome – On top, Eco is one of the first to generalise most of Grice’s topics
under ‘communication,’ rather than using the Anglo-Saxon ‘mean’ that does not
really belong in the Graeco-Roman tradition. Eco cites H. P. Grice in “Cognitive
constraints of communication.” Umberto b.2,
philosopher, intellectual historian, and novelist. A leading figure in
the field of semiotics, the general theory of signs. Eco has devoted most of
his vast production to the notion of interpretation and its role in
communication. In the 0s, building on the idea that an active process of
interpretation is required to take any sign as a sign, he pioneered
reader-oriented criticism The Open Work, 2, 6; The Role of the Reader, 9 and
championed a holistic view of meaning, holding that all of the interpreter’s
beliefs, i.e., his encyclopedia, are potentially relevant to word meaning. In
the 0s, equally influenced by Peirce and the
structuralists, he offered a unified theory of signs A Theory of
Semiotics, 6, aiming at grounding the study of communication in general. He
opposed the idea of communication as a natural process, steering a middle way
between realism and idealism, particularly of the Sapir-Whorf variety. The
issue of realism looms large also in his recent work. In The Limits of
Interpretation 0 and Interpretation and Overinterpretation 2, he attacks
deconstructionism. Kant and the Platypus 7 defends a “contractarian” form of
realism, holding that the reader’s interpretation, driven by the Peircean regulative
idea of objectivity and collaborating with the speaker’s underdetermined
intentions, is needed to fix reference. In his historical essays, ranging from
medieval aesthetics The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, 6 to the attempts at
constructing artificial and “perfect” languages The Search for the Perfect
Language, 3 to medieval semiotics, he traces the origins of some central
notions in contemporary philosophy of language e.g., meaning, symbol,
denotation and such recent concerns as the language of mind and translation, to
larger issues in the history of philosophy. All his novels are pervaded by
philosophical queries, such as Is the world an ordered whole? The Name of the
Rose, 0, and How much interpretation can one tolerate without falling prey to some
conspiracy syndrome? Foucault’s Pendulum, 8. Everywhere, he engages the reader
in the game of controlled interpretations. “Il nome della rosa” is about the
dark ages in Northern Italy, where the monks were the only to find a slight
interest in philosophy, unlike the barbaric Lombards!” -- Refs.: Luigi
Speranza, "Grice ed Eco: semantica filosofica," per Il Club
Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.
oeconomia:
Cf. Grice on the principle of oeconomia of rational effort. The Greeks used
‘oeconomia’ to mean thrifty. Cf. effort. There were three branches of
philosophia practica: philosophia moralis, oeconomia and politica. Grice would often refer to ‘no undue effort,’
‘no unnecessary trouble,’ to go into the effort, ‘not worth the energy,’ and so
on. These utilitarian criteria suggest he is more of a futilitarian than the
avowed Kantian he says he is. This Grice also refers to as ‘maximum,’
‘maximal,’ optimal. It is part of his principle of economy of rational effort. Grice
leaves it open as how to formulate this. Notably in “Causal,” he allows that
‘The pillar box seems red” and “The pillar box is red” are difficult to
formalise in terms in which we legitimize the claim or intuition that ‘The
pillar box IS red” is ‘stronger’ than ‘The pillar box seems red.’ If this were
so, it would provide a rational justification for going into the effort of
uttering something STRONGER (and thus less economical, and more effortful)
under the circumstances. As in “My wife is
in the kitchen or in the bedroom, and the house has only two rooms (and no
passages, etc.)” the reason why the conversational implicaturum is standardly
carried is to be found in the operation of some such general principle as that
giving preference to the making of a STRONGER rather than a weaker statement in
the absence of a reason for not so doing. The implicaturum therefore is not of
a part of the meaning of the expression “seems.” There is however A VERY
IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE between the case of a ‘phenomenalist’ statement
(Bar-Hillel it does not count as a statement) and that of disjunctives, such as
“My wife is in the kitchen or ind the bedroom, and the house has only two rooms
(and no passages, etc.).” A disjunctive is weaker than either of its disjuncts
in a straightforward LOGICAL fashion, viz., a disjunctive is entailed (alla
Moore) by, but does not entail, each of its disjuncts. The statement “The
pillar box is red” is NOT STRONGER than the statement, if a statement it is,
“The pillar box seems red,” in this way. Neither statement entails the other.
Grice thinks that he has, neverthcless a strong inclination to regard the first
of these statements as STRONGER than the second. But Grice leaves it open the
‘determination’ of in what fashion this might obtain. He suggests that there
may be a way to provide a reductive analysis of ‘strength’ THAT YIELDS that
“The pillar box is red” is a stronger conversational contribution than “The
pillar box seems red.” Recourse to ‘informativeness’ may not do, since Grice is
willing to generalise over the acceptum to cover informative and
non-informative cases. While there is an element of ‘exhibition’ in his account
of the communicatum, he might not be happy with the idea that it is the
utterer’s INTENTION to INFORM his addressee that he, the utterer, INTENDS that
his addressee will believe that he, the utterer, believes that it is raining.
“Inform” seems to apply only to the content of the propositional complexum, and
not to the attending ‘animata.’
eddington: “Some like Einstein, but Eddington’s MY man.” – H. P.
Grice. Einstein – discussed by Grice in “Eddington’s Two Tables” -- Albert
18795, G.-born physicist, founder of the
special and general theories of relativity and a fundamental contributor to
several branches of physics and to the philosophical analysis and critique of
modern physics, notably of relativity and the quantum theory. Einstein was awarded
the Nobel Prize for physics in 2, “especially for his discovery of the law of
the photoelectric effect.” Born in Ulm in the G. state of Württemberg, Einstein
studied physics at the Polytechnic in Zürich, Switzerland. He was called to
Berlin as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics 4 at the peak of
the G. ultranationalism that surrounded World War I. His reaction was to
circulate an internationalist “Manifesto to Europeans” and to pursue Zionist
and pacifist programs. Following the dramatic confirmation of the general
theory of relativity 9 Einstein became an international celebrity. This fame
also made him the frequent target of G. anti-Semites, who, during one notable
episode, described the theory of relativity as “a Jewish fraud.” In 3 Einstein
left G.y for the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Although his life
was always centered on science, he was also engaged in the politics and culture
of his times. He carried on an extensive correspondence whose publication will
run to over forty volumes with both famous and ordinary people, including
significant philosophical correspondence with Cassirer, Reichenbach, Moritz
Schlick, and others. Despite reservations over logical positivism, he was
something of a patron of the movement, helping to secure academic positions for
several of its leading figures. In 9 Einstein signed a letter drafted by the
nuclear physicist Leo Szilard informing President Roosevelt about the prospects
for harnessing atomic energy and warning of the G. efforts to make a bomb.
Einstein did not further participate in the development of atomic weapons, and
later was influential in the movement against them. In 2 he was offered, and
declined, the presidency of Israel. He died still working on a unified field
theory, and just as the founders of the Pugwash movement for nuclear
disarmament adopted a manifesto he had cosigned with Russell. Einstein’s
philosophical thinking was influenced by early exposure to Kant and later study
of Hume and Mach, whose impact shows in the operationalism used to treat time
in his famous 5 paper on special relativity. That work also displays a passion
for unity in science characteristic of nearly all his physical thinking, and
that may relate to the monism of Spinoza, a philosopher whom he read and
reread. Einstein’s own understanding of relativity stressed the invariance of
the space-time interval and promoted realism with regard to the structure of
spacetime. Realism also shows up in Einstein’s work on Brownian motion 5, which
was explicitly motivated by his long-standing interest in demonstrating the
reality of molecules and atoms, and in the realist treatment of light quanta in
his analysis 5 of the photoelectric effect. While he pioneered the development
of statistical physics, especially in his seminal investigations of quantum
phenomena 525, he never broke with his belief in determinism as the only truly
fundamental approach to physical processes. Here again one sees an affinity
with Spinoza. Realism and determinism brought Einstein into conflict with the
new quantum theory 526, whose observer dependence and “flight into statistics”
convinced him that it could not constitute genuinely fundamental physics.
Although influential in its development, he became the theory’s foremost critic,
never contributing to its refinement but turning instead to the program of
unifying the electromagnetic and gravitational fields into one grand,
deterministic synthesis that would somehow make room for quantum effects as
limiting or singular cases. It is generally agreed that his unified field
program was not successful, although his vision continues to inspire other
unification programs, and his critical assessments of quantum mechanics still
challenge the instrumentalism associated with the theory. Einstein’s
philosophical reflections constitute an important chapter in twentieth-century
thought. He understood realism as less a metaphysical doctrine than a
motivational program, and he argued that determinism was a feature of theories
rather than an aspect of the world Einstein, Albert Einstein, Albert 256 256 directly. Along with the unity of
science, other central themes in his thinking include his rejection of
inductivism and his espousal of holism and constructivism or conventionalism,
emphasizing that meanings, concepts, and theories are free creations, not
logically derivable from experience but subject rather to overall criteria of
comprehensibility, empirical adequacy, and logical simplicity. Holism is also
apparent in his acute analysis of the testability of geometry and his rejection
of Poincaré’s geometric conventionalism.
eductum: eduction, the process of initial clarification, as of
a phenomenon, text, or argument, that normally takes place prior to logical
analysis. Out of the flux of vague and confused experiences certain
characteristics are drawn into some kind of order or intelligibility in order
that attention can be focused on them Aristotle, Physics I. These
characteristics often are latent, hidden, or implicit. The notion often is used
with reference to texts as well as experience. Thus it becomes closely related
to exegesis and hermeneutics, tending to be reserved for the sorts of
clarification that precede formal or logical analyses.
effectum: causa efficiencis -- effective procedure for the
generation of a conversational implicaturum --, a step-by-step recipe for
computing the values of a function. It determines what is to be done at each
step, without requiring any ingenuity of anyone or any machine executing it.
The input and output of the procedure consist of items that can be processed
mechanically. Idealizing a little, inputs and outputs are often taken to be
strings on a finite alphabet. It is customary to extend the notion to
procedures for manipulating natural numbers, via a canonical notation. Each
number is associated with a string, its numeral. Typical examples of effective
procedures are the standard grade school procedures for addition,
multiplication, etc. One can execute the procedures without knowing anything
about the natural numbers. The term ‘mechanical procedure’ or ‘algorithm’ is
sometimes also used. A function f is computable if there is an effective
procedure A that computes f. For every m in the domain of f, if A were given m
as input, it would produce fm as output. Turing machines are mathematical
models of effective procedures. Church’s thesis, or Turing’s thesis, is that a
function is computable provided there is a Turing machine that computes it. In
other words, for every effective procedure, there is a Turing machine that
computes the same function.
egcrateia:
or temperantia. This is a universal. Strictly, it’s the agent who has the power
– Or part of his soul – the rational soul has the power – hence Grice’s
metaphor of the ‘power structure of the soul.’ Grice is interested in the
linguistic side to it. What’s the use of “Don’t p!” if ‘p’ is out of the
emissee’s rational control? Cf. Pears on egcreateia as ‘irrationality,’ if
motivated. Cfr mesotes. the geniality of
Grice was to explore theoretical akrasia. Grice’s genius shows in seeing
egcrateia and lack thereof as marks of virtue. “C hasn’t been to prison yet” He
is potentially dishonest. But you cannot be HONEST if you are NOT potentially
DISHONEST. Of course, it does not paint a good picture of the philosopher why
he should be obsessed with ‘akrasia,’ when Aristotle actually opposed the
notion to that of ‘enkrateia,’ or ‘continence.’ Surely a philosopher needs to
provide a reductive analysis of ‘continence,’ first; and the reductive analysis
of ‘incontinence’ will follow. Aristotle, as Grice well knew, is being a
Platonist here, so by ‘continence,’ he meant a power structure of the soul,
with the ‘rational’ soul containing the pre-rational or non-rational soul
(animal soul, and vegetal soul). And right he was, too! So, Grice's twist is Έγκράτεια, sic in capitals!
Liddell and Scott has it as ‘ἐγκράτεια’ [ρα^], which they render as “mastery
over,” as used by Plato in The Republic: “ἐ. ἑαυτοῦ,” meaning ‘self-control’
(Pl. R.390b; ἐ. ἡδονῶν καὶ ἐπιθυμιῶν control
over them, ib.430e, cf. X.Mem.2.1.1, Isoc.1.21; “περί τι” Arist.EN1149a21, al. Liddell and Scott go on to give a reference to
Grice’s beloved “Eth. Nich.” (1145b8) II. abs., self-control, X. Mem.1.5.1, Isoc.3.44, Arist. EN. 1145b8, al., LXX Si.18.30, Act.Ap. 24.25, etc. Richards, an emotivist, as well as Collingwood
(in “Language”) had made a stereotype of the physicist drawing a formula on the
blackboard. “Full of emotion.” So the idea that there is an UN-emotional life
is a fallacy. Emotion pervades the rational life, as does akrasia. Grice was
particularly irritated by the fact that Davidson, who lacked a background in
the humanities and the classics, could think of akrasia as “impossible”! Grice
was never too interested in emotion (or feeling) because while we do say I feel
that the cat is hungry, we also say, Im feeling byzantine. The concept of
emotion needs a philosophical elucidation. Grice was curious about a linguistic
botany for that! Akrasia for Grice covers both buletic-boulomaic and doxastic
versions. The buletic-boulomaic version may be closer to the concept of an
emotion. Grice quotes from Kennys essay on emotion. But Grice is looking for
more of a linguistic botany. As it happens, Kennys essay has Griceian implicatura.
One problem Grice finds with emotion is that feel that sometimes behaves like thinks that Another is that there is no good Grecian word
for emotio. Kenny, of St. Benets, completed his essay on emotion under
Quinton (who would occasionally give seminars with Grice), and examined by two
members of Grices Play Group: Pears and Gardiner. Kenny connects an emotion to
a feeling, which brings us to Grice on feeling boringly byzantine! Grice
proposes a derivation of akrasia in conditional steps for both
buletic-boulomaic and doxastic akrasia. Liddell
and Scott have “ἐπιθυμία,” which they render as desire, yearning, “ἐ.
ἐκτελέσαι” Hdt.1.32; ἐπιθυμίᾳ by passion, oπρονοίᾳ, generally, appetite, αἱ
κατὰ τὸ σῶμα ἐ. esp. sexual desire, lust, αἱ πρὸς τοὺς παῖδας ἐ.; longing after
a thing, desire of or for it, ὕδατος, τοῦ πιεῖν;” “τοῦ πλέονος;” “τῆς
τιμωρίας;” “τῆς μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν πολιτείας;’ “τῆς παρθενίας;’ “εἰς ἐ. τινὸς ἐλθεῖν;’ ἐν
ἐ. “τινὸς εἶναι;’ “γεγονέναι;” “εἰς ἐ. τινὸς “ἀφικέσθαι θεάσασθαι;” “ἐ. τινὸς
ἐμβαλεῖν τινί;” “ἐ. ἐμποιεῖν ἔς τινα an inclination towards;” =ἐπιθύμημα, object
of desire, ἐπιθυμίας τυχεῖν;” “ἀνδρὸς ἐ., of woman, “πενήτων ἐ., of sleep. There
must be more to emotion, such as philia, than epithumia! cf. Grice on Aristotle
on philos. What is an emotion? Aristotle, Rhetoric II.1; Konstan “Pathos
and Passion” R. Roberts, “Emotion”; W. Fortenbaugh, Aristotle on Emotion; Simo
Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. Aristotle, Rhet.
II.2-12; De An., Eth.N., and Top.; Emotions in Plato and Aristotle; Philosophy
of Emotion; Aristotle and the Emotions, De An. II.12 and III 1-3; De Mem. 1;
Rhet. II.5; Scheiter, “Images, Imagination, and Appearances, V. Caston, Why Aristotle
Needs Imagination” M. Nussbaum, “Aristotle on Emotions and Rational Persuasion,
J. Cooper, “An Aristotelian Theory of Emotion, G. Striker, Emotions in Context:
Aristotles Treatment of the Passions in the Rhetoric and his Moral
Psychology." Essays on Aristotles Rhetoric (J. Dow, Aristotles Theory of
the Emotions, Moral Psychology and Human Action in Aristotle PLATO. Aristotle,
Rhetoric I.10-11; Plato Philebus 31b-50e and Republic IV, D. Frede, Mixed
feelings in Aristotles Rhetoric." Essays on Aristotles Rhetoric, J. Moss,
“Pictures and Passions in Plato”; Protagoras 352b-c, Phaedo 83b-84a, Timaeus 69c
STOICS The Hellenistic philosophers; “The Old Stoic Theory of Emotion” The
Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy, eEmotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation
to Christian Temptation, Sorabji, Chrysippus Posidonius Seneca: A High-Level
Debate on Emotion. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in
Hellenistic Ethics M. Graver, Preface and Introduction to Cicero on Emotion:
Tusculan Disputations 3 and 4 M. Graver, Stoicism and emotion. Tusculan
Disputations 3 Recommended: Graver, Margaret. "Philo of Alexandria and the
Origins of the Stoic Προπάθειαι." Phronesis. Tusculan Disputations; "The
Stoic doctrine of the affections of the soul; The Stoic life: Emotions, duties,
and fate”; Emotion and decision in stoic psychology, The stoics, individual
emotions: anger, friendly feeling, and hatred. Aristotle Rhetoric II.2-3;
Nicomachean Ethics IV.5; Topics 2.7 and 4.5; Konstan, Anger, Pearson, Aristotle
on Desire; Scheiter, Review of Pearsons Aristotle on Desire; S. Leighton,
Aristotles Account of Anger: Narcissism and Illusions of Self‐Sufficiency: The Complex
Evaluative World of Aristotles Angry Man,” Valuing emotions. Aristotle Rhetoric
II. 4; Konstan, “Hatred” Konstan "Aristotle on Anger and the
Emotions: the Strategies of Status." Ancient Anger: Perspectives from
Homer to Galen, C. Rapp, The emotional dimension of friendship: notes on
Aristotles account of philia in Rhetoric II 4” Grice endeavours to give an
answer to the question whether and to what extent philia (friendship), as it is
treated by Aristotle in Rhet. II.4, can be considered a genuine emotion as, for
example, fear and anger are. Three anomalies are identified in the definition
and the account of philia (and of the associated verb philein), which suggest a
negative response to the question. However, these anomalies are analysed and
explained in terms of the specific notes of philia in order to show that
Rhetoric II4 does allow for a consideration of friendship as a genuine
emotion. Seneca, On Anger (De Ira) Seneca, On Anger Seneca, On Anger
(62-96); K. Vogt, “Anger, Present Injustice, and Future Revenge in Senecas De
Ira” FEAR Aristotle, Rhet. II.5; Nicomachean Ethics III.6-9 Aristotles
Courageous Passions, Platos Laws; “Pleasure, Pain, and Anticipation in Platos
Laws, Book I” Konstan, “Fear” PITY Aristotle, Rhetoric II. 8-9; Poetics,
chs. 6, 9-19 ; Konstan, “Pity” E. Belfiore, Tragic pleasures: Aristotle
on plot and emotion, Konstan, Aristotle on the Tragic Emotions, The Soul of
Tragedy: Essays on Athenian Drama SHAME Aristotle, Rhet. II.6; Nicomachean
Ethics IV.9 Konstan, Shame J. Moss, Shame, Pleasure, and the Divided Soul, B.
Williams, Shame and Necessity. Aristotle investigates two character traits,
continence and incontinence, that are not as blameworthy as the vices but not
as praiseworthy as the virtues. The Grecian expressions are’enkrateia,’
continence, literally mastery, and krasia (“incontinence”; literally, lack of
mastery. An akratic person goes against reason as a result of some pathos
(emotion, feeling”). Like the akratic, an enkratic person experiences a feeling
that is contrary to reason; but unlike the akratic, he acts in accordance with
reason. His defect consists solely in the fact that, more than most people, he
experiences passions that conflict with his rational choice. The akratic person
has not only this defect, but has the further flaw that he gives in to feeling
rather than reason more often than the average person. Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of akrasia:
“propeteia,” or impetuosity and “astheneia, or weakness. The person who is weak
goes through a process of deliberation and makes a choice; but rather than act
in accordance with his reasoned choice, he acts under the influence of a
passion. By contrast, the impetuous person does not go through a process of
deliberation and does not make a reasoned choice; he simply acts under the
influence of a passion. At the time of action, the impetuous person experiences
no internal conflict. But once his act has been completed, he regrets what he
has done. One could say that he deliberates, if deliberation were something
that post-dated rather than preceded action; but the thought process he goes
through after he acts comes too late to save him from error. It is important to bear in mind that when
Aristotle talks about impetuosity and weakness, he is discussing chronic
conditions. The impetuous person is someone who acts emotionally and fails to
deliberate not just once or twice but with some frequency; he makes this error
more than most people do. Because of this pattern in his actions, we would be
justified in saying of the impetuous person that had his passions not prevented
him from doing so, he would have deliberated and chosen an action different
from the one he did perform. The two
kinds of passions that Aristotle focuses on, in his treatment of akrasia, are
the appetite for pleasure and anger. Either can lead to impetuosity and
weakness. But Aristotle gives pride of place to the appetite for pleasure as
the passion that undermines reason. He calls the kind of akrasia caused by an
appetite for pleasure (hedone) “unqualified akrasia”—or, as we might say,
akrasia simpliciter, “full stop.’ Akrasia caused by anger he considers a
qualified form of akrasia and calls it akrasia ‘with respect to anger.’ We thus
have these four forms of akrasia: impetuosity caused by pleasure, impetuosity
caused by anger, weakness caused by pleasure, weakness caused by anger. It
should be noticed that Aristotle’s treatment of akrasia is heavily influenced
by Plato’s tripartite division of the soul. Plato holds that either the
spirited part (which houses anger, as well as other emotions) or the appetitive
part (which houses the desire for physical pleasures) can disrupt the dictates
of reason and result in action contrary to reason. The same threefold division
of the soul can be seen in Aristotles approach to this topic. Although
Aristotle characterizes akrasia and enkrateia in terms of a conflict between
reason and feeling, his detailed analysis of these states of mind shows that
what takes place is best described in a more complicated way. For the feeling
that undermines reason contains some thought, which may be implicitly general.
As Aristotle says, anger “reasoning as it were that one must fight against such
a thing, is immediately provoked. And although in the next sentence he denies
that our appetite for pleasure works in this way, he earlier had said that
there can be a syllogism that favors pursuing enjoyment: “Everything sweet is
pleasant, and this is sweet” leads to the pursuit of a particular pleasure.
Perhaps what he has in mind is that pleasure can operate in either way: it can
prompt action unmediated by a general premise, or it can prompt us to act on
such a syllogism. By contrast, anger always moves us by presenting itself as a
bit of general, although hasty, reasoning.
But of course Aristotle does not mean that a conflicted person has more
than one faculty of reason. Rather his idea seems to be that in addition to our
full-fledged reasoning capacity, we also have psychological mechanisms that are
capable of a limited range of reasoning. When feeling conflicts with reason,
what occurs is better described as a fight between feeling-allied-with-limited-reasoning
and full-fledged reason. Part of us—reason—can remove itself from the
distorting influence of feeling and consider all relevant factors, positive and
negative. But another part of us—feeling or emotion—has a more limited field of
reasoning—and sometimes it does not even make use of it. Although “passion” is sometimes used as a
translation of Aristotles word pathos (other alternatives are emotion” and
feeling), it is important to bear in mind that his term does not necessarily
designate a strong psychological force. Anger is a pathos whether it is weak or
strong; so too is the appetite for bodily pleasures. And he clearly indicates
that it is possible for an akratic person to be defeated by a weak pathos—the
kind that most people would easily be able to control. So the general
explanation for the occurrence of akrasia cannot be that the strength of a
passion overwhelms reason. Aristotle should therefore be acquitted of an
accusation made against him by Austin in a well-known footnote to ‘A Plea For
Excuses.’ Plato and Aristotle, Austin says, collapsed all succumbing to
temptation into losing control of ourselves — a mistake illustrated by this
example. I am very partial to ice cream, and a bombe is served divided into
segments corresponding one to one with the persons at High Table. I am tempted
to help myself to two segments and do so, thus succumbing to temptation and
even conceivably (but why necessarily?) going against my principles. But do I
lose control of myself? Do I raven, do I snatch the morsels from the dish and
wolf them down, impervious to the consternation of my colleagues? Not a bit of
it. We often succumb to temptation with calm and even with finesse. With this,
Aristotle can agree. The pathos for the bombe can be a weak one, and in some
people that will be enough to get them to act in a way that is disapproved by
their reason at the very time of action.
What is most remarkable about Aristotle’s discussion of akrasia is that
he defends a position close to that of Socrates. When he first introduces the
topic of akrasia, and surveys some of the problems involved in understanding
this phenomenon, he says that Socrates held that there is no akrasia, and he
describes this as a thesis that clearly conflicts with the appearances
(phainomena). Since he says that his goal is to preserve as many of the
appearances as possible, it may come as a surprise that when he analyzes the
conflict between reason and feeling, he arrives at the conclusion that in a way
Socrates was right after all. For, he says, the person who acts against reason
does not have what is thought to be unqualified knowledge; in a way he has
knowledge, but in a way does not.
Aristotle explains what he has in mind by comparing akrasia to the
condition of other people who might be described as knowing in a way, but not
in an unqualified way. His examples are people who are asleep, mad, or drunk;
he also compares the akratic to a student who has just begun to learn a
Subjects, or an actor on the stage. All of these people, he says, can utter the
very words used by those who have knowledge; but their talk does not prove that
they really have knowledge, strictly speaking.
These analogies can be taken to mean that the form of akrasia that
Aristotle calls weakness rather than impetuosity always results from some
diminution of cognitive or intellectual acuity at the moment of action. The
akratic says, at the time of action, that he ought not to indulge in this
particular pleasure at this time. But does he know or even believe that he
should refrain? Aristotle might be taken to reply: yes and no. He has some
degree of recognition that he must not do this now, but not full recognition.
His feeling, even if it is weak, has to some degree prevented him from
completely grasping or affirming the point that he should not do this. And so
in a way Socrates was right. When reason remains unimpaired and unclouded, its
dictates will carry us all the way to action, so long as we are able to
act. But Aristotles agreement with
Socrates is only partial, because he insists on the power of the emotions to
rival, weaken or bypass reason. Emotion challenges reason in all three of these
ways. In both the akratic and the enkratic, it competes with reason for control
over action; even when reason wins, it faces the difficult task of having to
struggle with an internal rival. Second, in the akratic, it temporarily robs
reason of its full acuity, thus handicapping it as a competitor. It is not
merely a rival force, in these cases; it is a force that keeps reason from
fully exercising its power. And third, passion can make someone impetuous; here
its victory over reason is so powerful that the latter does not even enter into
the arena of conscious reflection until it is too late to influence action.
That, at any rate, is one way of interpreting Aristotle’s statements. But it
must be admitted that his remarks are obscure and leave room for alternative
readings. It is possible that when he denies that the akratic has knowledge in
the strict sense, he is simply insisting on the point that no one should be
classified as having practical knowledge unless he actually acts in accordance
with it. A practical knower is not someone who merely has knowledge of general
premises; he must also have knowledge of particulars, and he must actually draw
the conclusion of the syllogism. Perhaps drawing such a conclusion consists in
nothing less than performing the action called for by the major and minor
premises. Since this is something the akratic does not do, he lacks knowledge;
his ignorance is constituted by his error in action. On this reading, there is
no basis for attributing to Aristotle the thesis that the kind of akrasia he
calls weakness is caused by a diminution of intellectual acuity. His
explanation of akrasia is simply that pathos is sometimes a stronger
motivational force than full-fledged reason.
This is a difficult reading to defend, however, for Aristotle says that
after someone experiences a bout of akrasia his ignorance is dissolved and he
becomes a knower again. In context, that appears to be a remark about the form
of akrasia Aristotle calls weakness rather than impetuosity. If so, he is
saying that when an akratic person is Subjects to two conflicting
influences—full-fledged reason versus the minimal rationality of emotion—his
state of knowledge is somehow temporarily undone but is later restored. Here,
knowledge cannot be constituted by the performance of an act, because that is
not the sort of thing that can be restored at a later time. What can be
restored is ones full recognition or affirmation of the fact that this act has
a certain undesirable feature, or that it should not be performed. Aristotle’s
analysis seems to be that both forms of akrasia — weakness and impetuosity
—share a common structure: in each case, ones full affirmation or grasp of what
one should do comes too late. The difference is that in the case of weakness
but not impetuosity, the akratic act is preceded by a full-fledged rational
cognition of what one should do right now. That recognition is briefly and
temporarily diminished by the onset of a less than fully rational affect. There is one other way in which Aristotle’s
treatment of akrasia is close to the Socratic thesis that what people call
akrasia is really ignorance. Aristotle holds that if one is in the special
mental condition that he calls practical wisdom, then one cannot be, nor will
one ever become, an akratic person. For practical wisdom is present only in
those who also possess the ethical virtues, and these qualities require
complete emotional mastery. Anger and appetite are fully in harmony with
reason, if one is practically wise, and so this intellectual virtue is
incompatible with the sort of inner conflict experienced by the akratic person.
Furthermore, one is called practically wise not merely on the basis of what one
believes or knows, but also on the basis of what one does. Therefore, the sort
of knowledge that is lost and regained during a bout of akrasia cannot be
called practical wisdom. It is knowledge only in a loose sense. The low-level
grasp of the ordinary person of what to do is precisely the sort of thing that
can lose its acuity and motivating power, because it was never much of an
intellectual accomplishment to begin with. That is what Aristotle is getting at
when he compares it with the utterances of actors, students, sleepers, drunks,
and madmen. Grice had witnessed how Hare had suffere to try and deal with how
to combine the geniality that “The language of morals” is with his account of
akrasia. Most Oxonians were unhappy with Hares account of akrasia. Its like, in
deontic logic, you cannot actually deal with akrasia. You need buletics. You
need the desiderative, so that you can oppose what is desired with the duty,
even if both concepts are related. “Akrasia” has a nice Grecian touch about it,
and Grice and Hare, as Lit. Hum., rejoiced in being able to explore what
Aristotle had to say about it. They wouldnt go far beyond Aristotle. Plato and
Aristotle were the only Greek philosophers studied for the Lit. Hum. To venture
with the pre-socratics or the hellenistics (even if Aristotle is one) was not
classy enough! Like Pears in Motivated irrationality, Grice allows that
benevolentia may be deemed beneficentia. If Smith has the good will to give Jones
a job, he may be deemed to have given Jones the job, even if Jones never get
it. In buletic akrasia we must consider the conclusion to be desiring what is
not best for the agents own good, never mind if he refrains from doing what is
not best for his own good. Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor. We shouldnt
be saying this, but we are saying it! Grice prefers akrasia, but he is
happy to use the translation by Cicero, also negative, of this: incontinentia,
as if continentia were a virtue! For Grice, the alleged paradox of akrasia,
both alethic and practical, has to be accounted for by a theory of rationality
from the start, and not be deemed a stumbling block. Grice is interested in
both the common-or-garden buletic-boulomaic version of akrasia, involving the
volitive soul ‒ in term of desirability ‒ and doxastic akrasia,
involing the judicative soul proper ‒ in terms of probability. Grice
considers buletic akrasia and doxastic akrasia ‒ the latter yet distinct from
Moores paradox, p but I dont want to believe that p, in symbols p and ~ψb-dp. Akarsia, see egcrateia. egcrateia: also spelled
acrasia, or akrasia, Grecian term for weakness of will. Akrasia is a character
flaw, also called incontinence, exhibited primarily in intentional behavior
that conflicts with the agent’s own values or principles. Its contrary is
enkrateia strength of will, continence, self-control. Both akrasia and
enkrateia, Aristotle says, “are concerned with what is in excess of the state
characteristic of most people; for the continent abide by their resolutions
more, and the incontinent less, than most people can” Nicomachean Ethics
1152a2527. These resolutions may be viewed as judgments that it would be best
to perform an action of a certain sort, or better to do one thing than another.
Enkrateia, on that view, is the power kratos to act as one judges best in the
face of competing motivation. Akrasia is a want or deficiency of such power.
Aristotle himself limited the sphere of both states more strictly than is now
done, regarding both as concerned specifically with “pleasures and pains and
appetites and aversions arising through touch and taste” [1150a910].
Philosophers are generally more interested in incontinent and continent actions
than in the corresponding states of character. Various species of incontinent
or akratic behavior may be distinguished, including incontinent reasoning and
akratic belief formation. The species of akratic behavior that has attracted
most attention is uncompelled, intentional action that conflicts with a better
or best judgment consciously held by the agent at the time of action. If, e.g.,
while judging it best not to eat a second piece of pie, you intentionally eat
another piece, you act incontinently
provided that your so acting is uncompelled e.g., your desire for the
pie is not irresistible. Socrates denied that such action is possible, thereby
creating one of the Socratic paradoxes. In “unorthodox” instances of akratic
action, a deed manifests weakness of will even though it accords with the agent’s
better judgment. A boy who decides, against his better judgment, to participate
in a certain dangerous prank, might
owing to an avoidable failure of nerve
fail to execute his decision. In such a case, some would claim, his
failure to act on his decision manifests weakness of will or akrasia. If,
instead, he masters his fear, his participating in the prank might manifest
strength of will, even though his so acting conflicts with his better judgment.
The occurrence of akratic actions seems to be a fact of life. Unlike many such
apparent facts, this one has received considerable philosophical scrutiny for
nearly two and a half millennia. A major source of the interest is clear:
akratic action raises difficult questions about the connection between thought
and action, a connection of paramount importance for most philosophical
theories of the explanation of intentional behavior. Insofar as moral theory
does not float free of evidence about the etiology of human behavior, the tough
questions arise there as well. Ostensible akratic action, then, occupies a
philosophical space in the intersection of the philosophy of mind and moral
theory. Refs.: The main references here
are in three folders in two different series. H. P. Grice, “Akrasia,” The H. P.
Grice Papers, S. II, c. 2-ff. 22-23 and S. V, c. 6-f. 32, BANC.
Grice’s ego: “Oddly, while I and we, and thou and you are persons,
‘it’ is not – the “THIRD” person is a joke!” -- “I follow Buber in
distinguishing ‘ego’ from ‘tu.’ With conversation, there’s the ‘we,’ too.” “If you were the only girl in the world,
there would not be a need for the personal pronoun ‘ego’” – Grice to his wife,
on the day of their engagement. “I went to Oxford. You went to Cambridge. He
went to the London School of Economics.” egocentric particular, a word whose
denotation is determined by identity of the speaker and/or the time, place, and
audience of his utterance. Examples are generally thought to include ‘I,’
‘you’, ‘here’, ‘there’, ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘now’, ‘past’, ‘present’, and ‘future’.
The term ‘egocentric particular’ was introduced by Russell in An Inquiry into
Meaning and Truth 0. In an earlier work, “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism”
Monist, 819, Russell called such words “emphatic particulars.” Some important
questions arise regarding egocentric particulars. Are some egocentric
particulars more basic than others so that the rest can be correctly defined in
terms of them but they cannot be correctly defined in terms of the rest?
Russell thought all egocentric particulars can be defined by ‘this’; ‘I’, for
example, has the same meaning as ‘the biography to which this belongs’, where
‘this’ denotes a sense-datum experienced by the speaker. Yet, at the same time,
‘this’ can be defined by the combination ‘what I-now notice’. Must we use at
least some egocentric particulars to give a complete description of the world?
Our ability to describe the world from a speaker-neutral perspective, so that
the denotations of the terms in our description are independent of when, where,
and by whom they are used, depends on our ability to describe the world without
using egocentric particulars. Russell held that egocentric particulars are not
needed in any part of the description of the world. -- egocentric predicament, each person’s
apparently problematic position as an experiencing subject, assuming that all
our experiences are private in that no one else can have them. Two problems
concern our ability to gain empirical knowledge. First, it is hard to see how
we gain empirical knowledge of what others experience, if all experience is
private. We cannot have their experience to see what it is like, for any
experience we have is our experience and so not theirs. Second, it is hard to
see how we gain empirical knowledge of how the external world is, independently
of our experience. All our empirically justified beliefs seem to rest
ultimately on what is given in experience, and if the empirically given is
private, it seems it can only support justified beliefs about the world as we
experience it. A third major problem concerns our ability to communicate with
others. It is hard to see how we describe the world in a language others
understand. We give meaning to some of our words by defining them by other
words that already have meaning, and this process of definition appears to end
with words we define ostensively; i.e., we use them to name something given in
experience. If experiences are private, no one else can grasp the meaning of
our ostensively defined words or any words we use them to define. No one else
can understand our attempts to describe the world. Egoism: cf. H. P. Grice, “The principle of
conversational self-love and the principle of conversational benevolence,” any
view that, in a certain way, makes the self central. There are several different
versions of egoism, all of which have to do with how actions relate to the
self. Ethical egoism is the view that people ought to do what is in their own
selfinterest. Psychological egoism is a view about people’s motives,
inclinations, or dispositions. One statement of psychological egoism says that,
as a matter of fact, people always do what they believe is in their
self-interest and, human nature being what it is, they cannot do otherwise.
Another says that people never desire anything for its own sake except what
they believe is in their own self-interest. Altruism is the opposite of egoism.
Any ethical view that implies that people sometimes ought to do what is in the
interest of others and not in their self-interest can be considered a form of
ethical altruism. The view that, human nature being what it is, people can do
what they do not believe to be in their self-interest might be called
psychological altruism. Different species of ethical and psychological egoism
result from different interpretations of self-interest and of acting from
self-interest, respectively. Some people have a broad conception of acting from
self-interest such that people acting from a desire to help others can be said
to be acting out of self-interest, provided they think doing so will not, on
balance, take away from their own good. Others have a narrower conception of
acting from selfinterest such that one acts from self-interest only if one acts
from the desire to further one’s own happiness or good. Butler identified self-love
with the desire to further one’s own happiness or good and self-interested
action with action performed from that desire alone. Since we obviously have
other particular desires, such as the desires for honor, for power, for
revenge, and to promote the good of others, he concluded that psychological
egoism was false. People with a broader conception of acting from self-interest
would ask whether anyone with those particular desires would act on them if
they believed that, on balance, acting on them would result in a loss of
happiness or good for themselves. If some would, then psychological egoism is
false, but if, given human nature as it is, no one would, it is true even if
self-love is not the only source of motivation in human beings. Just as there are
broader and narrower conceptions of acting from self-interest, there are
broader and narrower conceptions of self-interest itself, as well as subjective
and objective conceptions of self-interest. Subjective conceptions relate a
person’s self-interest solely to the satisfaction of his desires or to what
that person believes will make his life go best for him. Objective conceptions
see self-interest, at least in part, as independent of the person’s desires and
beliefs. Some conceptions of self-interest are narrower than others, allowing
that the satisfaction of only certain desires is in a person’s self-interest,
e.g., desires whose satisfaction makes that person’s life go better for her.
And some conceptions of self-interest count only the satisfaction of idealized
desires, ones that someone would have after reflection about the nature of
those desires and what they typically lead to, as furthering a person’s
self-interest. See index to all Grice’s
books with index – the first three of them.
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.
Einheitswissenschaft: Used by
Grice ironically. While he was totally ANTI-Einheitwisseschaft, he was ALL for
einheitsphilosophie! The phrase is used by
Grice in a more causal way. He uses the expression ‘unity of science’ vis-à-vis
the topic of teleology. Note that ‘einheitswissenschaft,’ literally translates
as unity-science – there is nothing about ‘making’ if one, which is what –fied
implies. The reason why ‘einheitswissenschaft’ was transliterated as ‘unified
science’ was that Neurath thought that ‘unity-science’ would be a yes-yes in
New England, most New Englanders being Unitarians, but they would like to
include Theology there, ‘into the bargain.’ “Die
Einheit von Wissenschaft.” Die Einheit der Wissenschaft und die neopositivistische
Theorie der „Einheitswissenschaft”.
O. Neurath, „Einheit der
Wissenschaft als Aufgabe“,Einheitswissenschaft oder Einheit der Wissenschaft? | Frank
F Vierter Internationaler Kongress für Einheit der Wissenschaft, Cambridge 1938 ... Einheitswissenschaft als
Basis der Wissenschaftsgeschichte (pp.
positivists held that no essential
differences in aim and method exist between the various branches of science.
The scientists of all disciplines should collaborate closely with each other
and should unify the vocabulary of sciences by logical analysis. According to
this view, there is no sharp demarcation between
natural sciences and social sciences. In particular, to establish universal
laws in the social sciences may be difficult in practice, but it is not
impossible in principle. Through Otto Neurath, this ideal of scientific unity
became a program for logical positivists, who published a series of books in
Vienna under the heading Unified Science. After the dissolution of the Vienna
Circle, Neurath renamed the official journal Erkenntnis as The Journal of
Unified Science, and planned to continue publication of a series of works in the
United States under the general title The International Encyclopedia of Unified
Science. He thought that the work would be similar in historical importance to
the eighteenth-century French Encyclopédie under the direction of Diderot.
Unfortunately, this work was never completed, although Carnap and Morris
published some volumes originally prepared for it under the title Foundations
of the Unity of Science. “We have repeatedly pointed out that the formation of
the constructional system as a whole is the task of unified science.” Carnap,
The Logical Structure of the World.
Griceian
elenchus: a cross-examination or
refutation. Typically in Plato’s early dialogues, Socrates has a conversation
with someone who claims to have some sort of knowledge, and Socrates refutes
this claim by showing the interlocutor that what he thinks he knows is
inconsistent with his other opinions. This refutation Grice calls a
‘conversational elenchus.’ “It is not entirely negative, for awareness of his
own ignorance is supposed to spur one’s conversational interlocutor to further
inquiry, and the concepts and assumptions employed in the refutations serve as
the basis for positive Griceian, and implicatural, treatments of the same
topic.” “Now, in contrast, I’ll grant you that a type of “sophistic elenchi”
that one sometimes sees at Oxford, usually displayed by Rhode scholars from the New World or the
Colonies, under the tutelage of me or others in my group, may be merely
eristic.” “They aim simply at the refutation of an opponent by any means.”
“That is why, incidentally, why Aristotle calls a fallacy that only *appear* to
be a refutation a “sophistici elenchi.” Cf. ‘eristic.’ And Grice on the
epagoge/diagoge distinction.
Grice’s “sc.”:
as the elliptical disimplicaturum -- ellipsis
as implicaturum: an expression from which a ‘part’ has been deleted.. “I
distinguish between the expression-whole and the expression-part.” The term
Grice uses for ‘part’ is ‘incomplete’ versus ‘complete,’ and it’s always for
metabolical ascriptions primarily. Thus Grice has "x (utterance-type)
means '. . .' " which is a specification of timeless meaning for an
utterance-type ad which can be either (i a) “complete” or (i b) non-complete
(partial) or incomplete]. He also has "x (utterance-type) meant here
'...'", which is a specification of applied timeless meaning for an
utterance-type which again can be either (2a) complete or (2b) partial,
non-complete, or incomplete. So ellipsis can now be redefined in terms of the
complete-incomplete distinction. “Smith is” is incomplete. “Smith is clever” is
complete. “Uusually for conciseness.” As
Grice notes, “an elliptical or incomplete sentence is often used to answer a
questions without repeating material occurring in the question; e. g. ‘Grice’ may be the answer to the question of
the authorship of “The grounds of morality” or to the question of the
authorship of “Studies in the Way of Words.” ‘Grice’ can be seen as an ‘elliptical’
name when used as an ellipsis of ‘G. R. Grice’ or “H. P. Grice” and “Grice” can
be seen as an elliptical *sentence* when used as an ellipsis for ‘G. R. Grice
is the author of ‘The Grounds of Morality”” or “H. P. Grice is the author of
Studies in the Way of Words.’Other typical elliptical sentences are: ‘Grice is
a father of two [+> children]’, ‘Grice, or Godot, arrived for the tutorial
past twelve [+> midnight]’. A typical ellipsis that occurs in discussion of
ellipses involves citing the elliptical sentences with the deleted material
added in brackets often with ‘sc.’ or ‘scilicet’ – “Grice is a father of two
(sc. Children),” Grice, or Godot, as we tutees call him, arrived for the
tutorial past twelve (sc. midnight)” -- instead of also presenting the complete
sentence. As Grice notes, ellipsis can also occurs above the sentential level,
e.g. where well-known premises are omitted in the course of argumentation, as
in “Grice is an Englishman; he is, therefore, brave.” ‘Enthymeme,’ literally,
‘in-the-breast,’ designates an elliptical argument expression from which one or
more premise-expressions have been deleted, “or merely implicated.” -- ‘elliptic
ambiguity’ designates ambiguity arising from ellipsis, as does ‘elliptic implicaturum.’
“Sc.” Grice calls “elliptical disimplicaturum.”
sender and sendee: Emissee: this is crucial. There’s loads of references on this.
Apparently, some philosopher cannot think of communication without the emissee.
But surely Grice loved Virginia Woolf. “And when she was writing ‘The Hours,’
I’m pretty sure she cared a damn whether the rest of the world existed!” Let's explore the issue of the UTTERER'S
OCCASION-MEANING IN THE ABSENCE OF A (so-called) AUDIENCE -- or sender without sendee, as it were. There are various scenarios of utterances by which the utterer or
sender is correctly said to have communicated that so-and-so, such that there
is no actual person or set of persons (or sentient beings) whom the utterer or
sender is addressing and in whom the sender intends to induce a
response. The range of these scenarios includes, or might be thought to
include, such items as -- the posting of a notice, like "Keep
out" or "This bridge is dangerous," -- an entry in a
diary, -- the writing of a note to clarify one's thoughts when working on
some problem, -- soliloquizing, -- rehearsing a part in a projected
conversation, and -- silent thinking. At least some of these
scenarios are unprovided for in the reductive analysis so far
proposed. The examples which Grice's account should cover fall into three
groups: (a) Utterances for which the utterer or sender thinks there may
(now or later) be an audience or sendee (as when Grice's son sent a letter to
Santa). U may think that some particular person, e. g. himself at a future
date in the case of a diary entry, may (but also may not) encounter U's
utterance.Or U may think that there may or may not be some person or other who
is or will be an auditor or sendee or recipient of his utterance. (b) An
utterances which the utterer knows that it is not to be addressed to any actual
sendee, but which the utterer PRETENDS to address or send to some particular
person or type of person, OR which he thinks of as being addressed (or sent) to
some imagined sendee or type of sendee (as in the rehearsal of a speech or of
his part in a projected conversation, or Demosthenes or Noel Coward talking to
the gulls.(c) An utterances (including what Occam calls an "internal"
utterance) with respect to which the utterer NEITHER thinks it possible that
there may be an actual sendee nor imagines himself as addressing sending
so-and-so to a sendee, but nevertheless intends his utterance to be such that
it would induce a certain sort of response in a certain perhaps fairly
indefinite kind of sendee were it the case that such a sendee *were* present.In
the case of silent thinking the idea of the presence of a sendee will have to
be interpreted 'liberally,' as being the idea of there being a sendee for a
public counter-part of the utterer's internal, private speech, if there is
one. Austin refused to discuss Vitters's private-language argument.In this
connection it is perhaps worth noting that some cases of verbal thinking
(especially the type that Vitters engages in) do fall outside the scope of
Grice's account. When a verbal though merely passes through Vitters's
head (or brain) as distinct from being "framed" by Vitters, it is
utterly inappropriate (even in Viennese) to talk of Vitters as having
communicated so-and-so by "the very thought of you," to echo Noble. Vitters is, perhaps, in such a case, more like a sendee than a
sender -- and wondering who such an intelligent sender might (or then might
not) be. In any case, to calm the
neo-Wittgensteinians, Grice propose a reductive analysis which surely accounts
for the examples which need to be accounted for, and which will allow as
SPECIAL (if paradigmatic) cases (now) the range of examples in which there is,
and it is known by the utterer that there is, an actual sendee. A
soul-to-soul transfer. This redefinition is relatively informal. Surely Grice could present a more formal version which would gain
in precision at the cost of ease of comprehension. Let "p" (and
k') range over properties of persons (possible sendees); appropriate
substituends for "O" (and i') will include such diverse expressions as "is
a passer-by," "is a passer-by who sees this
notice," "understands the Viennese cant," "is
identical with Vitters." As will be seen, for Grice to communicate
that so-and-so it will have to be possible to identify the value of "/"
(which may be fairly indeterminate) which U has in mind; but we do not have to
determine the range from which U makes a selection. "U means by
uttering x that *iP" is true iff (30) (3f (3c): I. U utters x intending x to be such that anyone who has q would
think that (i) x has f (2) f is correlated in way c with M-ing that
p (3) (3 0'): U intends x to be such that anyone who has b' would think,
via thinking (i) and (2), that U4's that p (4) in view of (3), U O's that p;
and II. (operative only for certain substituends for "*4") U
utters x intending that, should there actually be anyone who has 0, he would
via thinking (4), himself a that p; ' and III. It is not the case that,
for some inference-element E, U intends x to be such that anyone who has 0 will
both (i') rely on E in coming to O+ that p and (2') think that (3k'): Uintends
x to be such that anyone who has O' will come to /+ that p without relying on
E. Notes: (1) "i+" is to be read as "p" if Clause
II is operative, and as "think that UO's" if Clause II is non-operative. (2)
We need to use both "i" and "i'," since we do not wish to
require that U should intend his possible audience to think of U's possible
audience under the same description as U does himself. Explanatory
comments: (i) It is essential that the intention which is specified in
Clause II should be specified as U's intention "that should there be
anyone who has 0, he would (will) . . ." rather than, analogously with
Clauses I and II, as U's intention "that x should be such that, should
anyone be 0, he would ... ." If we adopt the latter specification, we
shall be open to an objection, as can be shown with the aid of an
example.Suppose that, Vitters is married, and further, suppose he married an
Englishwoman. Infuriated by an afternoon with his mother-in-law, when he is
alone after her departure, Vitters relieves his feelings by saying, aloud and
passionately, in German:"Do not ye ever comest near me again!"It will
no doubt be essential to Vitters's momentary well-being that Vitters should
speak with the intention that his remark be such that were his mother-in-law
present, assuming as we say, that he married and does have one who, being an
Englishwoman, will most likely not catch the Viennese cant that Vitters is
purposively using, she should however, in a very Griceian sort of way, form the
intention not to come near Vitters again. It would, however, be pretty
unacceptable if it were represented as following from Vitters's having THIS
intention (that his remark be such that, were his mother-in-law be present, she
should form the intnetion to to come near Vitters again) that what Vitters is
communicating (who knows to who) that the denotatum of 'Sie' is never to come
near Vitters again.For it is false that, in the circumstances, Vitters is
communicating that by his remark. Grice's reductive analysis is formulated
to avoid that difficulty. (2) Suppose that in accordance with the
definiens o U intends x to be such that anyone who is f
will think ... , and suppose that the value of "O" which U has in
mind is the property of being identical with a particular person A. Then
it will follow that U intends A to think . . . ; and given the further
condition, fulfilled in any normal (paradigmatic, standard, typical, default)
case, that U intends the sendee to think that the sendee is the intended sendee,
we are assured of the truth of a statement from which the definiens is
inferrible by the rule of existential generalisation (assuming the legitimacy
of this application of existential generalisation to a statement the expression
of which contains such "intensional" verbs as "intend" and
"think"). It can also be shown that, for any case in which there
is an actual sendee who knows that he is the intended sendee, if the definiens
in the standard version is true then the definiens in the adapted version will be
true. If that is so, given the definition is correct, for any normal case
in which there IS an actual sendee the fulfillment of the definiens will
constitute a necessary and sufficient condition for U's having communicated
that *1p.
sendeeless:
‘audienceless’ “One good example of a sendeeless implicaturum is Sting’s
“Message in a bottle.” – Grice. Grice: “When Sting says, “I’m sending out an
‘s.o.s’ he is being Peirceian.”
emissum: emissor. A construction out of ex- and ‘missum,’ cf. Grice
on psi-trans-mis-sion. Grice’s utterer, but turned Griceian, To emit, to
translate some Gricism or other. Cf. proffer. emissum. emissor-emissum distinction.
Frequently ignored by Austin. Grice usually formulates it ‘roughly.’ Strawson
for some reason denied the reducibility of the emissum to the emissor. Vide his
footnote in his Inaugural lecture at Oxford. it is a truth implicitly
acknowledged by communication theorists themselves -- this acknowledgement is
is certainly implicit in Grice's distinction between what speakers actually
say, in a favored sense of 'say', and what they imply (see "Utterer's
Meaning, SentenceMeaning and Word-Meaning," in Foundations of Language,
1968) -- that in almost all the things we should count as sentences there is a
substantial central core of meaning which is explicable either in terms of
truth-conditions or in terms of some related notion quite simply derivable from
that of a truth-condition, for example the notion, as we might call it, of a
compliance condition in the case of an imperative sentence or a
fulfillment-condition in the case of an optative. If we suppose, therefore,
that an account can be given of the notion of a truthcondition itself, an
account which is indeed independent of reference to communicationintention,
then we may reasonably think that the greater part of the task of a general
theory of meaning has been accomplished without such reference. So let us see
if we can rephrase the distinction for a one-off predicament. By drawing a
skull, Blackburn communicates to his fellow Pembrokite that there is danger
around. The proposition is ‘There is danger around’. Of the claims, one is
literal; the other metabolical. Blackburn means that there is danger around.
Blackburn communicates that there is danger around, possibly leading to death.
The emissum, Blackburn’s drawing of the skull ‘means’ that there is danger
around. Since the fact that Blackburn communicates that p is diaphanous, we
have yet another way of posing the distinction: Blackburn communicates that
there is danger around. What is communicated by Blackburn – his emissum – is
true. Note that in this diaphanous change from ‘Blackburn communicates that
there is danger around’ and ‘What Blackburn communicates, viz. that there is
danger around, is true’ we have progressed quite a bit. There are ways of
involving ‘true’ in the first stage. Blackburn communicates that there is
danger around, and he communicates something true. In the classical languages,
this is done in the accusative case. emissum.
emit. V. emissor. A good verb used by Grice. It gives us ‘emitter, and it is
more Graeco-Roman than his ‘utterer,’ which Cicero would think a barbarism.
emotum: the emotum, the motum. Grice enjoyed a bit of history of
philosophy. Cf. conatum. And Urmson’s company helped. Urmson produced a
brilliant study of the ‘emotive’ theory of ethics, which is indeed linguistic
and based on Ogden. Diog. Laert. of Zeno of Citium. πρὸς τὸν εἰπόντα, "πολλοί
σου καταγελῶσιν," "ἀλλ ἐγώ," ἔφη, "οὐ κατα- γελῶμαι; to the
question, who is a friend?, Zeno’s answer is, ‘a second self (alter ego). One
direct way to approach friend is via emotion, as Aristotle did, and found it
aporetic as did Grice. Aristotle discusses philia in Eth. Nich. but it is in
Rhet. where he allows for phulia to be an emotion. Grice was very fortunate to
have Hardie as his tutor. He overused Hardies lectures on Aristotle, too, and
instilled them on his own tutees! Grice is concerned with the rather
cryptic view by Aristotle of the friend (philos, amicus) as the alter
ego. In Grices cooperative, concerted, view of things, a friend in need is
a friend indeed! Grice is interested in Aristotle finding himself in an aporia.
In Nicomachean Ethics IX.ix, Aristotle poses the question whether the happy man
will need friends or not. Kosman correctly identifies this question as asking
not whether friends are necessary in order to achieve eudæmonia, but why we
require friends even when we are happy. The question is not why we need friends
to become happy, but why we need friends when we are happy, since the eudæmon
must be self-sufficient. Philia is required for the flourishing of the life of
practical virtue. The solution by Aristotle to the aporia here, however, points
to the requirement of friendships even for the philosopher, in his life of theoretical
virtue. The olution by Aristotle to the aporia in Nicomachean Ethics IX.ix
is opaque, and the corresponding passage in Eudeiman Ethics VII.xii is scarcely
better. Aristotle thinks he has found the solution to this aporia. We must take
two things into consideration, that life is desirable and also that the good
is, and thence that it is desirable that such a nature should belong to oneself
as it belongs to them. If then, of such a pair of corresponding s. there is
always one s. of the desirable, and the known and the perceived are in general
constituted by their participation in the nature of the determined, so that to
wish to perceive ones self is to wish oneself to be of a certain definite
character,—since, then we are not in ourselves possessed of each such
characters, but only in participation in these qualities in perceiving and
knowing—for the perceiver becomes perceived in that way in respect in which he
first perceives, and according to the way in which and the object which he
perceives; and the knower becomes known in the same way— therefore it is for
this reason that one always desires to live, because one always desires to
know; and this is because he himself wishes to be the object known. emotion, as
conceived by philosophers and psychologists, any of several general types of
mental states, approximately those that had been called “passions” by earlier
philosophers, such as Descartes and Hume. Anger, e.g., is one emotion, fear a
second, and joy a third. An emotion may also be a content-specific type, e.g.,
fear of an earthquake, or a token of an emotion type, e.g., Mary’s present fear
that an earthquake is imminent. The various states typically classified as
emotions appear to be linked together only by overlapping family resemblances
rather than by a set of necessary and sufficient conditions. Thus an adequate
philosophical or psychological “theory of emotion” should probably be a family
of theories. Even to label these states “emotions” wrongly suggests that they
are all marked by emotion, in the older sense of mental agitation a
metaphorical extension of the original sense, agitated motion. A person who is,
e.g., pleased or sad about something is not typically agitated. To speak of
anger, fear, joy, sadness, etc., collectively as “the emotions” fosters the
assumption which James said he took for granted that these are just
qualitatively distinct feelings of mental agitation. This exaggerates the importance
of agitation and neglects the characteristic differences, noted by Aristotle,
Spinoza, and others, in the types of situations that evoke the various
emotions. One important feature of most emotions is captured by the older
category of passions, in the sense of ‘ways of being acted upon’. In many
lanemotion emotion 259 259 guages
nearly all emotion adjectives are derived from participles: e.g., the English
words ‘amused’, ‘annoyed’, ‘ashamed’, ‘astonished’, ‘delighted’, ‘embarrassed’,
‘excited’, ‘frightened’, ‘horrified’, ‘irritated’, ‘pleased’, ‘terrified’,
‘surprised’, ‘upset’, and ‘worried’. When we are, e.g., embarrassed, something
acts on us, i.e., embarrasses us: typically, some situation or fact of which we
are aware, such as our having on unmatched shoes. To call embarrassment a
passion in the sense of a way of being acted upon does not imply that we are
“passive” with respect to it, i.e., have no control over whether a given
situation embarrasses us and thus no responsibility for our embarrassment. Not
only situations and facts but also persons may “do” something to us, as in love
and hate, and mere possibilities may have an effect on us, as in fear and hope.
The possibility emotions are sometimes characterized as “forward-looking,” and emotions
that are responses to actual situations or facts are said to be
“backward-looking.” These temporal characterizations are inaccurate and
misleading. One may be fearful or hopeful that a certain event occurred in the
past, provided one is not certain as to whether it occurred; and one may be,
e.g., embarrassed about what is going to occur, provided one is certain it will
occur. In various passions the effect on us may include involuntary
physiological changes, feelings of agitation due to arousal of the autonomic
nervous system, characteristic facial expressions, and inclinations toward
intentional action or inaction that arise independently of any rational
warrant. Phenomenologically, however, these effects do not appear to us to be
alien and non-rational, like muscular spasms. Rather they seem an integral part
of our perception of the situation as, e.g., an embarrassing situation, or one
that warrants our embarrassment. emotive
conjugation: I went to Oxford; you went to Cambridge; he went to the London
School of Economics”: a humorous verbal conjugation, designed to expose and
mock first-person bias, in which ostensibly the same action is described in
successively more pejorative terms through the first, second, and third persons
e.g., “I am firm, You are stubborn, He is a pig-headed fool”. This example was
used by Russell in the course of a BBC Radio “Brains’ Trust” discussion. It was
popularized later that year when The New Statesman ran a competition for other
examples. An “unprecedented response” brought in 2,000 entries, including: “I
am well informed, You listen to gossip, He believes what he reads in the
paper”; and “I went to Oxford, You went to Cambridge, He went to the London
School of Economics” Russell was educated at Cambridge and later taught
there. -- emotivism, a noncognitivist
metaethical view opposed to cognitivism, which holds that moral judgments
should be construed as assertions about the moral properties of actions,
persons, policies, and other objects of moral assessment, that moral predicates
purport to refer to properties of such objects, that moral judgments or the
propositions that they express can be true or false, and that cognizers can
have the cognitive attitude of belief toward the propositions that moral
judgments express. Noncognitivism denies these claims; it holds that moral
judgments do not make assertions or express propositions. If moral judgments do
not express propositions, the former can be neither true nor false, and moral
belief and moral knowledge are not possible. The emotivist is a noncognitivist
who claims that moral judgments, in their primary sense, express the
appraiser’s attitudes approval or
disapproval toward the object of evaluation,
rather than make assertions about the properties of that object. Because
emotivism treats moral judgments as the expressions of the appraiser’s pro and
con attitudes, it is sometimes referred to as the boohurrah theory of ethics.
Emotivists distinguish their thesis that moral judgments express the
appraiser’s attitudes from the subjectivist claim that they state or report the
appraiser’s attitudes the latter view is a form of cognitivism. Some versions
of emotivism distinguish between this primary, emotive meaning of moral
judgments and a secondary, descriptive meaning. In its primary, emotive
meaning, a moral judgment expresses the appraiser’s attitudes toward the object
of evaluation rather than ascribing properties to that object. But secondarily,
moral judgments refer to those non-moral properties of the object of evaluation
in virtue of which the appraiser has and expresses her attitudes. So if I judge
that your act of torture is wrong, my judgment has two components. Its primary,
emotive sense is to express my disapproval of your act. Its secondary,
descriptive sense is to denote those non-moral properties of your act upon
which I base my disapproval. These are presumably the very properties that make
it an act of torture roughly, a causing
of intense pain in order to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure. By
making emotive meaning primary, emotivists claim to preserve the univocity of
moral language between speakers who employ different criteria of application
for their moral terms. Also, by stressing the intimate connection between moral
judgment and the agent’s non-cognitive attitudes, emotivists claim to capture
the motivational properties of moral judgment. Some emotivists have also
attempted to account for ascriptions of truth to moral judgments by accepting
the redundancy account of ascriptions of truth as expressions of agreement with
the original judgment. The emotivist must think that such ascriptions of truth
to moral judgments merely reflect the ascriber’s agreement in noncognitive
attitude with the attitude expressed by the original judgment. Critics of emotivism
challenge these alleged virtues. They claim that moral agreement need not track
agreement in attitude; there can be moral disagreement without disagreement in
attitude between moralists with different moral views, and disagreement in
attitude without moral disagreement between moralists and immoralists. By
distinguishing between the meaning of moral terms and speakers’ beliefs about
the extension of those terms, critics claim that we can account for the
univocity of moral terms in spite of moral disagreement without introducing a
primary emotive sense for moral terms. Critics also allege that the emotivist
analysis of moral judgments as the expression of the appraiser’s attitudes
precludes recognizing the possibility of moral judgments that do not engage or
reflect the attitudes of the appraiser. For instance, it is not clear how
emotivism can accommodate the amoralist
one who recognizes moral requirements but is indifferent to them.
Critics also charge emotivism with failure to capture the cognitive aspects of
moral discourse. Because emotivism is a theory about moral judgment or
assertion, it is difficult for the emotivist to give a semantic analysis of
moral predicates in unasserted contexts, such as in the antecedents of
conditional moral judgments e.g., “If he did wrong, then he ought to be
punished”. Finally, one might want to recognize the truth of some moral
judgments, perhaps in order to make room for the possibility of moral mistakes.
If so, then one may not be satisfied with the emotivist’s appeal to redundancy
or disquotational accounts of the ascription of truth. Emotivism was introduced
by Ayer in Language, Truth, and Logic 2d ed., 6 and refined by C. L. Stevenson
in Facts and Values 3 and Ethics and Language 4. Refs.:
There is an essay on “Emotions and akrasia,” but the topic is scattered in
various places, such as Grice’s reply to Davidson on intending. Grice has an
essay on ‘Kant and friendship,’ too, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
conversational empathy – principle of conversational empathy -- Principle of
Conversational Empathy – a term devised by Grice for the expectation a
conversationalist has that his co-partner will honour his conversational goal,
however transitory. imaginative projection into another person’s situation,
especially for vicarious capture of its emotional and motivational qualities.
The term is an English rendering by the Anglo psychologist E. G. Titchener,
1867 7 of the G. Einfühlung, made popular by Theodore Lipps 18514, which also
covered imaginative identification with inanimate objects of aesthetic
contemplation. Under ‘sympathy’, many aspects were earlier discussed by Hume,
Adam Smith, and other Scottish philosophers. Empathy has been considered a
precondition of ethical thinking and a major contributor to social bonding and
altruism, mental state attribution, language use, and translation. The relevant
spectrum of phenomena includes automatic and often subliminal motor mimicry of
the expressions or manifestations of another’s real or feigned emotion, pain,
or pleasure; emotional contagion, by which one “catches” another’s apparent
emotion, often unconsciously and without reference to its cause or “object”;
conscious and unconscious mimicry of direction of gaze, with consequent transfer
of attention from the other’s response to its cause; and conscious or
unconscious role-taking, which reconstructs in imagination with or without
imagery aspects of the other’s situation as the other “perceives” it.
empedocle:
one of the most important Italian philosophers. Grecian preSocratic
philosopher who created a physical theory in response to Parmenides while
incorporating Pythagorean ideas of the soul into his philosophy. Following
Parmenides in his rejection of coming-to-be and perishing, he accounted for
phenomenal change by positing four elements his “roots,” rizomata, earth, water,
air, and fire. When they mix together in set proportions they create compound
substances such as blood and bone. Two forces act on the elements, Love and Strife,
the former joining the different elements, the latter separating them. In his
cyclical cosmogony the four elements combine to form the Sphere, a completely
homogeneous spherical body permeated by Love, which, shattered by Strife, grows
into a cosmos with the elements forming distinct cosmic masses of earth, water
the seas, air, and fire. There is controversy over whether Empedocles posits
one or two periods when living things exist in the cycle. On one view there are
two periods, between which intervenes a stage of complete separation of the
elements. Empedocles accepts the Pythagorean view of reincarnation of souls,
seeing life as punishment for an original sin and requiring the expiation of a
pious and philosophical life. Thus the exile and return of the individual soul
reflects in the microcosm the cosmic movement from harmony to division to
harmony. Empedocles’ four elements became standard in natural philosophy down
to the early modern era, and Aristotle recognized his Love and Strife as an early
expression of the efficient cause. Vide
“Italic Griceians” – While in the New World, ‘Grecian philosophy’ is believed
to have happened ‘in Greece,’ Grice was amused that ‘most happened in Italy!’
Refs.: Luigi Speranza, "Grice ed
Empedocle," per Il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa
Grice, Liguria, Italia.
Experitum – ex-peri – In Roman, ex- preferred, in Grecian,
im-preferred, ex-pĕrĭor , pertus ( I.act. experiero, Varr. L. L. 8, 9, 24 dub.),
4, v. dep. a. [ex- and root per-; Sanscr. par-, pi-parmi, conduct; Gr. περάω,
pass through; πόρος, passage; πεῖρα, experience; Lat. porta, portus, peritus,
periculum; Germ. fahren, erfahren; Eng. fare, ferry], to try a thing; viz.,
either by way of testing or of attempting it. I. To try, prove, put to the
test. A. In tempp. praes. constr. with the acc., a rel. clause, or absol. (α).
With acc.: “habuisse aiunt domi (venenum), vimque ejus esse expertum in servo
quodam ad eam rem ipsam parato,” Cic. Cael. 24, 58: “taciturnitatem nostram,”
id. Brut. 65, 231: “amorem alicujus,” id. Att. 16, 16, C, 1: “his persuaserant,
uti eandem belli fortunam experirentur,” Caes. B. G. 2, 16, 3: “judicium
discipulorum,” Quint. 2, 5, 12: “in quo totas vires suas eloquentia
experiretur,” id. 10, 1, 109: “imperium,” Liv. 2, 59, 4: “cervi cornua ad
arbores subinde experientes,” Plin. 8, 32, 50, § 117 et saep.— “With a personal
object: vin' me experiri?” make trial of me, Plaut. Merc. 4, 4, 29: “hanc
experiamur,” Ter. Hec. 5, 2, 12 Ruhnk.: “tum se denique errasse sentiunt, cum
eos (amicos) gravis aliquis casus experiri cogit,” Cic. Lael. 22, 84: “in
periclitandis experiendisque pueris,” id. Div. 2, 46, 97.—So with se. reflex.,
to make trial of one's powers in any thing: “se heroo (versu),” Plin. Ep. 7, 4,
3 variis se studiorum generibus, id. ib. 9, 29, 1: “se in foro,” Quint. 12, 11,
16.— (β). With a rel.-clause, ut, etc.: vosne velit an me regnare era quidve
ferat Fors, Virtute experiamur, Enn. ap. Cic. Off. 1, 12, 38 (Ann. v. 204, ed.
Vahl.): “lubet experiri, quo evasuru'st denique,” Plaut. Trin. 4, 2, 93:
“experiri libet, quantum audeatis,” Liv. 25, 38, 11; cf. Nep. Alcib. 1, 1: “in
me ipso experior, ut exalbescam, etc.,” Cic. de Or. 1, 26, 121; cf. with si:
“expertique simul, si tela artusque sequantur,” Val. Fl. 5, 562.— (γ). Absol.:
“experiendo magis quam discendo cognovi,” Cic. Fam. 1, 7, 10: “judicare
difficile est sane nisi expertum: experiendum autem est in ipsa amicitia: ita
praecurrit amicitia judicium tollitque experiendi potestatem,” id. Lael. 17,
62.— B. In the tempp. perf., to have tried, tested, experienced, i. e. to find
or know by experience: “benignitatem tuam me experto praedicas,” Plaut. Merc.
2, 2, 18: “omnia quae dico de Plancio, dico expertus in nobis,” Cic. Planc. 9,
22: “experti scire debemus, etc.,” id. Mil. 26, 69: “illud tibi expertus
promitto,” id. Fam. 13, 9, 3: “dicam tibi, Catule, non tam doctus, quam, id
quod est majus, expertus,” id. de Or. 2, 17, 72: “puellae jam virum expertae,”
Hor. C. 3, 14, 11; 4, 4, 3; cf. Quint. 6, 5, 7: “mala captivitatis,” Sulp. Sev.
2, 22, 5: “id opera expertus sum esse ita,” Plaut. Bacch. 3, 2, 3: “expertus
sum prodesse,” Quint. 2, 4, 13: “expertus, juvenem praelongos habuisse
sermones,” id. 10, 3, 32: “ut frequenter experti sumus,” id. 1, 12, 11.—
“Rarely in other tenses: et exorabile numen Fortasse experiar,” may find, Juv.
13, 103.— C. To make trial of, in a hostile sense, to measure strength with, to
contend with: “ut interire quam Romanos non experiri mallet,” Nep. Ham. 4, 3:
“maritimis moribus mecum experitur,” Plaut. Cist. 2, 1, 11: “ipsi duces cominus
invicem experti,” Flor. 3, 21, 7; 4, 10, 1; cf.: “hos cum Suevi, multis saepe
bellis experti, finibus expellere non potuissent,” Caes. B. G. 4, 3, 4: “Turnum
in armis,” Verg. A. 7, 434. II. To undertake, to attempt, to make trial of,
undergo, experience a thing. A. In gen.: “qui desperatione debilitati experiri
id nolent, quod se assequi posse diffidant. Sed par est omnes omnia experiri,
qui, etc.,” Cic. Or. 1, 4; cf.: “istuc primum experiar,” Plaut. Truc. 2, 7, 47:
“omnia experiri certum est, priusquam pereo,” Ter. And. 2, 1, 11: “omnia prius
quam, etc.,” Caes. B. G. 7, 78, 1: “extrema omnia,” Sall. C. 26, 5; cf. “also:
sese omnia de pace expertum,” Caes. B. C. 3, 57, 2: “libertatem,” i. e. to make
use of, enjoy, Sall. J. 31, 5: “late fusum opus est et multiplex, etc. ...
dicere experiar,” Quint. 2, 13, 17: “quod quoniam me saepius rogas, aggrediar,
non tam perficiundi spe quam experiundi voluntate,” Cic. Or. 1, 2.—With ut and
subj.: “nunc si vel periculose experiundum erit, experiar certe, ut hinc
avolem,” Cic. Att. 9, 10, 3: “experiri, ut sine armis propinquum ad officium
reduceret,” Nep. Dat. 2, 3.— B. In partic., jurid. t. t., to try or test by
law, to go to law: “aut intra parietes aut summo jure experietur,” Cic. Quint.
11, 38; cf.: “in jus vocare est juris experiundi causa vocare,” Dig. 2, 4, 1;
47, 8, 4: “a me diem petivit: ego experiri non potui: latitavit,” Cic. Quint.
23, 75; Liv. 40, 29, 11: “sua propria bona malaque, cum causae dicendae data
facultas sit, tum se experturum,” Liv. 3, 56, 10: “postulare ut judicium populi
Romani experiri (liceat),” id. ib.—Hence, 1. expĕrĭens , entis, P. a. (acc. to
II.), experienced, enterprising, active, industrious (class.): “homo gnavus et
industrius, experientissimus ac diligentissimus arator,” Cic. Verr. 2, 3, 21, §
53: “promptus homo et experiens,” id. ib. 2, 4, 17, § “37: vir fortis et
experiens,” id. Clu. 8, 23: “vir acer et experiens,” Liv. 6, 34, 4: “comes
experientis Ulixei,” Ov. M. 14, 159: “ingenium,” id. Am. 1, 9, 32. —With gen.:
“genus experiens laborum,” inured to, patient of, Ov. M. 1, 414: “rei militaris
experientissimi duces,” Arn. 2, 38 init.; cf. Vulg. 2 Macc. 8, 9.—Comp. appears
not to occur.— 2. expertus , a, um, P. a. (acc. to I.), in pass. signif., tried,
proved, known by experience (freq. after the Aug. per.): “vir acer et pro causa
plebis expertae virtutis,” Liv. 3, 44, 3: “per omnia expertus,” id. 1, 34, 12:
“indignitates homines expertos,” id. 24, 22, 2: “dulcedo libertatis,” id. 1,
17, 3: “industria,” Suet. Vesp. 4: “artes,” Tac. A. 3, 17: saevitia, Prop. 1,
3, 18: “confidens ostento sibi expertissimo,” Suet. Tib. 19.—With gen.:
“expertos belli juvenes,” Verg. A. 10, 173; cf. Tac. H. 4, 76.—Comp. and adv.
appear not to occur. Empeireia –
experiential -- empiricism: One of Grice’s
twelve labours -- Condillac, Étienne Bonnot de, philosopher, an empiricist who
was considered the great analytical mind of his generation. Close to Rousseau
and Diderot, he stayed within the church. He is closely perhaps excessively
identified with the image of the statue that, in the Traité des sensations
Treatise on Sense Perception, 1754, he endows with the five senses to explain
how perceptions are assimilated and produce understanding cf. also his Treatise
on the Origins of Human Knowledge, 1746. He maintains a critical distance from
precursors: he adopts Locke’s tabula rasa but from his first work to Logique
Logic, 1780 insists on the creative role of the mind as it analyzes and
compares sense impressions. His Traité des animaux Treatise on Animals, 1755,
which includes a proof of the existence of God, considers sensate creatures
rather than Descartes’s animaux machines and sees God only as a final cause. He
reshapes Leibniz’s monads in the Monadologie Monadology, 1748, rediscovered in 0.
In the Langue des calculs Language of Numbers, 1798 he proposes mathematics as
a model of clear analysis. The origin of language and creation of symbols
eventually became his major concern. His break with metaphysics in the Traité
des systèmes Treatise on Systems, 1749 has been overemphasized, but Condillac
does replace rational constructs with sense experience and reflection. His
empiricism has been mistaken for materialism, his clear analysis for
simplicity. The “ideologues,” Destutt de Tracy and Laromiguière, found Locke in
his writings. Jefferson admired him. Maine de Biran, while critical, was
indebted to him for concepts of perception and the self; Cousin disliked him;
Saussure saw him as a forerunner in the study of the origins of language. Empiricism
– one of Grice’s twelve labours – This implicates he saw himself as a
Rationalist, rather -- Cordemoy, Géraud de, philosopher and member of the
Cartesian school. His most important work is his Le discernement du corps et de
l’âme en six discours, published in 1666 and reprinted under slightly different
titles a number of times thereafter. Also important are the Discours physique
de la parole 1668, a Cartesian theory of language and communication; and Une
lettre écrite à un sçavant religieux 1668, a defense of Descartes’s orthodoxy
on certain questions in natural philosophy. Cordemoy also wrote a history of
France, left incomplete at his death. Like Descartes, Cordemoy advocated a
mechanistic physics explaining physical phenomena in terms of size, shape, and
local motion, and converse Cordemoy, Géraud de 186 186 held that minds are incorporeal thinking
substances. Like most Cartesians, Cordemoy also advocated a version of
occasionalism. But unlike other Cartesians, he argued for atomism and admitted
the void. These innovations were not welcomed by other members of the Cartesian
school. But Cordemoy is often cited by later thinkers, such as Leibniz, as an
important seventeenth-century advocate of atomism. Empiricism: one of Grice’s twelve labours --
Cousin, V., philosopher who set out to merge the psychological tradition with the pragmatism
of Locke and Condillac and the inspiration of the Scottish Reid, Stewart and G.
idealists Kant, Hegel. His early courses at the Sorbonne 1815 18, on “absolute”
values that might overcome materialism and skepticism, aroused immense
enthusiasm. The course of 1818, Du Vrai, du Beau et du Bien Of the True, the
Beautiful, and the Good, is preserved in the Adolphe Garnier edition of student
notes 1836; other early texts appeared in the Fragments philosophiques
Philosophical Fragments, 1826. Dismissed from his teaching post as a liberal
1820, arrested in G.y at the request of the
police and detained in Berlin, he was released after Hegel intervened
1824; he was not reinstated until 1828. Under Louis-Philippe, he rose to
highest honors, became minister of education, and introduced philosophy into
the curriculum. His eclecticism, transformed into a spiritualism and cult of
the “juste milieu,” became the official philosophy. Cousin rewrote his work
accordingly and even succeeded in having Du Vrai third edition, 1853 removed
from the papal index. In 1848 he was forced to retire. He is noted for his
educational reforms, as a historian of philosophy, and for his translations
Proclus, Plato, editions Descartes, and portraits of ladies of
seventeenth-century society. Empiricism – one of Grice’s twelve labours --
empirical decision theory, the scientific study of human judgment and decision
making. A growing body of empirical research has described the actual
limitations on inductive reasoning. By contrast, traditional decision theory is
normative; the theory proposes ideal procedures for solving some class of
problems. The descriptive study of decision making was pioneered by figures including
Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman, Richard Nisbett, and Lee Ross, and their
empirical research has documented the limitations and biases of various
heuristics, or simple rules of thumb, routinely used in reasoning. The
representativeness heuristic is a rule of thumb used to judge probabilities
based on the degree to which one class represents or resembles another class.
For example, we assume that basketball players have a “hot hand” during a
particular game producing an
uninterrupted string of successful shots
because we underestimate the relative frequency with which such
successful runs occur in the entire population of that player’s record. The
availability heuristic is a rule of thumb that uses the ease with which an
instance comes to mind as an index of the probability of an event. Such a rule
is unreliable when salience in memory misleads; for example, most people
incorrectly rate death by shark attack as more probable than death by falling
airplane parts. For an overview, see D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, and A. Tversky,
eds., Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, 2. These biases, found
in laypeople and statistical experts alike, have a natural explanation on
accounts such as Herbert Simon’s 7 concept of “bounded rationality.” According
to this view, the limitations on our decision making are fixed in part by
specific features of our psychological architecture. This architecture places
constraints on such factors as processing speed and information capacity, and
this in turn produces predictable, systematic errors in performance. Thus,
rather than proposing highly idealized rules appropriate to an omniscient
Laplacean genius more characteristic of
traditional normative approaches to decision theory empirical decision theory attempts to formulate
a descriptively accurate, and thus psychologically realistic, account of
rationality. Even if certain simple rules can, in particular settings,
outperform other strategies, it is still important to understand the causes of
the systematic errors we make on tasks perfectly representative of routine
decision making. Once the context is specified, empirical decision-making
research allows us to study both descriptive decision rules that we follow
spontaneously and normative rules that we ought to follow upon reflection. empiricism from empiric, ‘doctor who relies
on practical experience’, ultimately from Grecian empeiria, ‘experience’, a
type of theory in epistemology, the basic idea behind all examples of the type
being that experience has primacy in human knowledge and justified belief.
Because empiricism is not a single view but a type of view with many different
examples, it is appropriate to speak not just of empiricism but of empiricisms.
Perhaps the most fundamental distinction to be drawn among the various
empiricisms is that between those consisting of some claim about concepts and
those consisting of some empirical empiricism 262 262 claim about beliefs call these, respectively, concept-empiricisms
and belief-empiricisms. Concept-empiricisms all begin by singling out those
concepts that apply to some experience or other; the concept of dizziness,
e.g., applies to the experience of dizziness. And what is then claimed is that
all concepts that human beings do and can possess either apply to some experience
that someone has had, or have been derived from such concepts by someone’s
performing on those concepts one or another such mental operation as
combination, distinction, and abstraction. How exactly my concepts are and must
be related to my experience and to my performance of those mental operations
are matters on which concept-empiricists differ; most if not all would grant we
each acquire many concepts by learning language, and it does not seem plausible
to hold that each concept thus acquired either applies to some experience that
one has oneself had or has been derived from such by oneself. But though
concept-empiricists disagree concerning the conditions for linguistic
acquisition or transmission of a concept, what unites them, to repeat, is the
claim that all human concepts either apply to some experience that someone has
actually had or they have been derived from such by someone’s actually
performing on those the mental operations of combination, distinction, and
abstraction. Most concept-empiricists will also say something more: that the
experience must have evoked the concept in the person having the experience, or
that the person having the experience must have recognized that the concept
applies to his or her experience, or something of that sort. What unites all
belief-empiricists is the claim that for one’s beliefs to possess one or
another truth-relevant merit, they must be related in one or another way to
someone’s experience. Beliefempiricisms differ from each other, for one thing,
with respect to the merit concerning which the claim is made. Some
belief-empiricists claim that a belief does not have the status of knowledge
unless it has the requisite relation to experience; some claim that a belief
lacks warrant unless it has that relation; others claim that a belief is not
permissibly held unless it stands in that relation; and yet others claim that
it is not a properly scientific belief unless it stands in that relation. And
not even this list exhausts the possibilities. Belief-empiricisms also differ
with respect to the specific relation to experience that is said to be
necessary for the merit in question to be present. Some belief-empiricists
hold, for example, that a belief is permissibly held only if its propositional
content is either a report of the person’s present or remembered experience, or
the belief is held on the basis of such beliefs and is probable with respect to
the beliefs on the basis of which it is held. Kant, by contrast, held the
rather different view that if a belief is to constitute empirical knowledge, it
must in some way be about experience. Third, belief-empiricisms differ from
each other with respect to the person to whose experience a belief must stand
in the relation specified if it is to possess the merit specified. It need not
always be an experience of the person whose belief is being considered. It
might be an experience of someone giving testimony about it. It should be
obvious that a philosopher might well accept one kind of empiricism while
rejecting others. Thus to ask philosophers whether they are empiricists is a
question void for vagueness. It is regularly said of Locke that he was an
empiricist; and indeed, he was a concept-empiricist of a certain sort. But he
embraced no version whatsoever of belief-empiricism. Up to this point,
‘experience’ has been used without explanation. But anyone acquainted with the
history of philosophy will be aware that different philosophers pick out
different phenomena with the word; and even when they pick out the same phenomenon,
they have different views as to the structure of the phenomenon that they call
‘experience.’ The differences on these matters reflect yet more distinctions
among empiricisms than have been delineated above.
enantiamorphs: “When Moore said
that he knew he had two hands, he implicated, ‘I have two enantiamorphic
hands,’ before they were able to cancel his talk and his implicaturum.” from
Grecian enantios, ‘opposite’, and morphe, ‘form’, objects whose shapes differ
as do those of a right and left hand. One of a pair of enantiamorphs can be
made to look identical in shape to the other by viewing it in a mirror but not
merely by changing its spatial orientation. Enantiamorphs figure prominently in
the work of Kant, who argued that the existence of enantiamorphic pairs
entailed that Leibnizian relational theories of space were to be rejected in
favor of Newtonian absolutist theories, that some facts about space could be
apprehended empiricism, constructive enantiamorphs 263 263 only by “pure intuition,” and that space
was mind-dependent.
ENCYCLOPÆDIA
GRICEIANA:
-- the way Grice is known in Italy, due to the efforts of Luigi Speranza, of
the Grice Club. Speranza saw that Grice connected, somehow, with philosophy in
general, and tried to pursue a way to make him accessible to anti-Oxonians. The
encyclopædia Griceiana. Grice went to Paris and became enamoured with
encyclopedia, or “encyclopédie,” “or a Descriptive Dictionary of the Sciences,
Arts and Trades,” launched by the Parisian publisher Le Breton, who had secured
d’Alembert’s and Diderot’s editorship, the Encyclopedia was gradually released despite
a temporary revocation of its royal privilege. Comprising seventeen folio
volumes of 17,818 articles and eleven folio volumes of 2,885 plates, the
ENCYCLOPAEDIA GRICEIANA required a staff of 272 Griceian engravers. “But the
good thing,” Grice says, “is that it incorporates the accumulated knowledge and
rationalist, secularist views of the
Enlightenment and prescribed economic, social, and political reforms.”
Strawson adds: “Enormously successful at Oxford, ENCYCLOPÆDIA GRICEIANA was
reprinted with revisions five times before Grice died.” “Contributions were
made by anyone we could bribe!” – As in the old encycloopaedia, the philosophes
Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, d’Holbach, Naigeon, and Saint-Lambert; the
writers Duclos and Marmontel; the theologians Morellet and Malet; enlightened
clerics, e.g. Raynal; explorers, e.g. La Condamine; natural scientists, e.g.
Daubenton; physicians, e.g. Bouillet; the economists Turgot and Quesnay;
engineers, e.g. Perronet; horologists, e.g. Berthoud; and scores of other
experts. “The purpose of the ENCYCLOPÆDIA GRICEIANA,” writes Grice in the
“Foreword”, “is to collect this or that bit of Griceian knowledge dispersed on
the surface of the earth, and to unfold its general system.” “The
Encyclopedia,” Strawson adds, “offers the educated Oxonian a comprehensive,
systematic, and descriptive repository of contemporary liberal and mechanical
arts, with an appendix on implicaturum by Grice hisself.” D’Alembert and
Diderot developed a sensationalist epistemology, “but I don’t.” “Preliminary
Discourse” under the influence of Locke and Condillac. Grice and Strawson (with
the occasional help from Austin, Warnock, Pears and Thomson) compiled and
rationally classified existing knowledge according to the noetic process
memory, imagination, and reason. Based on the assumption of the unity of theory
and praxis, the approach of the ENCYCLOOPÆDIA GRICEIANA is positivistic and ‘futilitarian.’
The ENCYCLOPÆDIA GRICEIANA vindicates experimental reason and the rule of
nature, fostered the practice of criticism, and stimulated the development of
both old and new sciences. In religious matters, the ENCYCLOPAEDIA GRICEIANA
cultivates ambiguity and implicaturum to escape censorship by Queen Elizabeth
II, an avid reader of the supplements. Whereas most contributors held either
conciliatory or orthodox positions, J. F. Thomson barely concealed his naturalistic
and atheistic opinions. Thomson’s radicalism was pervasive. Supernaturalism, obscurantism,
and fanaticism, and Heideggerianism are among the Encyclopedists’ favorite
targets. The Griceian Encyclopaedists identify Roman Catholicism (of the type
Dummett practiced) with superstition and theology with occult magic; assert the
superiority of natural morality over theological ethics; demand religious
toleration; and champion human rights and conventional implicaturum alike. They
innovatively retrace the historical conditions of the development of Oxford
(“and a little Cambridge”) philosophy. They furthermore pioneer ideas on trade
and industry and anticipate the relevance of historiography, sociology,
economics, and ‘conversational pragmatics.’ As the most ambitious and expansive
reference work Oxford ever saw, the ENCYCLOPÆDIA GRICEIANA crystallizes the
confidence of England’s midlands bourgeoisie in the capacity of reason to
dispel the shadows of ignorance and improve society – “at least Oxonian
society, if I can.”
enesidemo, or ‘aenesidemus,’ as Strawson would prefer. Although
Grecian, he is listed in the name glossay to the essay on “Roman philosophers,”
and that is because he influenced some Roman-born philosophers and nnobles. “Nothing
beats a Grecian don,” as Cicero remarked. Academic philosopher, founder of a
Pyrrhonist revival in Rome.
English
futilitarians, The: Bergmann’s pun on
H. P. Grice and J. L. Austin. from futile. Cf. conversational futilitarianism.
Can there be a futilitarian theory of communication? Grice’s! The issue is a
complex one. Some may interpret Grice’s theory as resting “on Kantian grounds.”
Not everybody was present at Grice’s seminars at Oxford on helpfulness, where
he discusses the kind of reasoning that a participant to a conversation will
display in assuming that his co-conversationalist is being conversationally
helpful, conversationally benevolent, conversationally ‘altruist,’ almost, and
conversationally, well, co-operative. So, as to the basis for this. We can
simplify the scenario by using the plural. A conversationalist assumes that his
co-conversationalist is being co-operative on Kantian grounds. What are the
alternatives, if any? One can re-describe “Kantian grounds” as “moral grounds.”
Conversationalists abide with the principle of conversational helpfulness on
Kantian, moral grounds. Kant wrote the “Critique of practical reason,” so Kant
would allow for a rephrase of this as follows. Conversationalists abide with
the principle of conversational helpfulness on practical, indeed moral, grounds
– which is the topic of Grice’s last Kant lecture at Stanford. How to turn a
‘counsel of prudence,’ which is ‘practical’ into something that covers Kant’s
“Kategorische Imperativ.” And then there’s the utilitarian. Utilitarianism IS a
moral theory, or a meta-ethical theory. So one would have to allow for the
possibility that conversationalists abide by the principle of conversational
helpfulness on “utilitarian grounds,” which would be “practical grounds,” AND
“moral grounds,” if not Kantian grounds. In any case, the topic WAS raised, and
indeed, for someone like Grice who wrote on ‘pleasure,’ and ‘happiness,’ it
does not seem futilitarian to see him as a futilitarian. Unfortunately, you
need a serious philosophical background to appreciate all this, since it
touches on the very serious, or ‘deep,’ as Grice would say, “and fascinating,”
suburbia or practicality. But surely the keyword ‘utilitarian’ as per
“conversationalists abide by the principle of conversational helpfulness on
utilitarian grounds” is a possibility. Cf. Grice’s reference to the ‘least
effort,’ and in the Oxford lectures on helpfulness to a conversationalist not
getting involved in “undue effort,” or getting into “unnecessary trouble.”
“Undue effort” is ‘forbidden’ by the desideratum of conversational candour; the
‘unnecessary trouble’ is balanced by the ‘principle of conversational
self-love.’ And I don’t think Kant would ever considered loving himself! Grice
being keen on neuter adjectives, he saw the ‘utile’ at the root of
utilitarianism. There is much ‘of value’ in the old Roman concept of ‘utile.’
Lewis and Short have it as Neutr. absol.: ūtĭle , is, n., what is useful, the
useful: omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci, Hor. A. P. 343: “bonus
atque fidus Judex honestum praetulit utili,” id. C. 4, 9, 41: “utilium tardus
provisor,” id. A. P. 164: “sententiae de utilibus honestisque,” Quint. 3, 8,
13; cf. id. 1, 2, 29. —Ultimately, Grice’s meta-ethics, like Hare’s,
Nowell-Smith’s, Austin’s, Hampshire’s, and Warnock’s derives into a qualified
utilitarianism, with notions of agreeableness and eudaemonia being crucial.
Grice well knows that for Aristotle pleasure is just one out of the three
sources for phulia; the others being profit, and virtue. As an English
utilitarian, or English futilitarian, Grice plays with Griceian
pleasures. Democritus, as Grice remarks, seems to be the earliest
philosopher to have categorically embraced a hedonistic philosophy. Democritus
claims that the supreme goal of life is contentment or cheerfulness, stating
that joy and sorrow are the distinguishing mark of things beneficial and
harmful. The Cyrenaics are an ultra-hedonist Grecoam school of philosophy
founded by Aristippus. Many of the principles of the school were set by his
grandson, Aristippus the Younger, and Theodorus. The Cyrenaic school is one of
the earliest Socratic schools. The Cyrenaics teach that the only intrinsic
‘agathon’ is pleasure ‘hedone,’ which means not just the absence of pain, but a
positively enjoyable momentary sensation. A physical pleasure is stronger than
a pleasure of anticipation or memory. The Cyrenaics do, however, recognize the
value of social obligation, and that pleasure may be gained from altruism. The
Cyrenaic school dies out within a century, and is replaced by
Epicureanism. The Cyrenaics are known for their sceptical epistemology.
The Cyrenaics reduce logic to a basic doctrine concerning the criterion of
truth. The Cyrenaics think that one can only know with certainty his immediate
sense-experience, e. g., that he is having a sweet sensation. But one can know
nothing about the nature of the object that causes this sensation, e.g., that
honey is sweet. The Cyrenaics also deny that we can have knowledge of what the
experience of others are like. All knowledge is immediate sensation. Sensation
is a motion which is purely subjective, and is painful, indifferent or pleasant,
according as it is violent, tranquil or gentle. Further, sensation is entirely
individual and can in no way be described as constituting absolute objective
knowledge. Feeling, therefore, is the only possible criterion of knowledge and
of conduct. The way of being affected is alone knowable. Thus the sole aim for
everyone should be pleasure. Cyrenaicism deduces a single, universal aim
for all which is pleasure. Furthermore, feeling is momentary and homogeneous.
It follows that past and future pleasure have no real existence for us, and
that in present pleasure there is no distinction of kind. Socrates speaks of
the higher pleasure of the intellect. The Cyrenaics denies the validity of this
distinction and say that bodily pleasure (hedone somatike), being more simple
and more intense, is preferable. Momentary pleasure, preferably of a physical
kind, is the only good for a human. However, an action which gives immediate
pleasure can create more than their equivalent of pain. The wise person should
be in control (egcrateia) of pleasure rather than be enslaved to it, otherwise
pain results, and this requires judgement to evaluate this or that pleasure of
life. Regard should be paid to law and custom, because even though neither law
nor custom have an intrinsic value on its own, violating law or custom leads to
an unpleasant penalty being imposed by others. Likewise, friendship and justice
are useful because of the pleasure they provide. Thus the Cyrenaics believe in
the hedonistic value of social obligation and altruistic behaviour.
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus, an
atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus and Leucippus.
Epicurus’s materialism leads him to a general stance against superstition or
the idea of divine intervention. Following Aristippus, Epicurus believes that
the greatest good is to seek modest, sustainable pleasure in the form of a
state of tranquility and freedom from fear (ataraxia) and absence of bodily
pain (aponia) through knowledge of the workings of the world and the limits of
desire. The combination of these two states, ataraxia and aponia, is supposed
to constitute happiness in its highest form. Although Epicureanism is a form of
hedonism, insofar as it declares pleasure as the sole intrinsic good, its
conception of absence of pain as the greatest pleasure and its advocacy of a
simple life make it different from hedonism as it is commonly understood. In
the Epicurean view, the highest pleasure (tranquility and freedom from fear) is
obtained by knowledge, friendship and living a virtuous and temperate life.
Epicurus lauds the enjoyment of a simple pleasure, by which he means abstaining
from the bodily desire, such as sex and the appetite, verging on asceticism.
Epicurus argues that when eating, one should not eat too richly, for it could
lead to dissatisfaction later, such as the grim realization that one could not
afford such delicacies in the future. Likewise, sex could lead to increased
lust and dissatisfaction with the sexual partner. Epicurus does not articulate
a broad system of social ethics that has survived but had a unique version of
the golden rule. It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living
wisely and well and justly, agreeing neither to harm nor be harmed, and it is
impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.
Epicureanism is originally a challenge to Platonism, though later it became the
main opponent of Stoicism. Epicurus and his followers shun politics. After the
death of Epicurus, his school is headed by Hermarchus. Later many Epicurean
societies flourish in the Late Hellenistic era and during the Roman era, such
as those in Antiochia, Alexandria, Rhodes and Ercolano. The poet Lucretius is
its most known Roman proponent. By the end of the Roman Empire, having
undergone attack and repression, Epicureanism has all but died out, and would
be resurrected in the seventeenth century by the atomist Pierre Gassendi. Some
writings by Epicurus have survived. Some scholars consider the epic poem “De
natura rerum” by Lucretius to present in one unified work the core arguments
and theories of Epicureanism. Many of the papyrus scrolls unearthed at the
Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum are Epicurean texts. At least some are
thought to have belonged to the Epicurean Philodemus. Cf. Barnes on
epicures and connoiseurs. Many a controversy arising out of this or that value
judgement is settled by saying, ‘I like it and you don’t, and that s the end of
the matter.’ I am content to adopt this solution of the difficulty on matters
such as food and drink. Even here, though, we admit the existence of epicures
and connoisseurs.Why are we not content to accept the same solution on every
matter where value is concerned? The reason I am not so content lies in the
fact that the action of one man dictated by his approval of something is
frequently incompatible with the action of another man dictated by his approval
of something. This is obviously philosophical, especially for the Grecian
hedonistic Epicureians made popular by Marius and Walter Pater at Oxford. L and
S have "ἡδονή,” also “ἁδονά,” or in a chorus in tragedy, “ἡδονά,”
ultimately from "ἥδομαι,” which they render it as “enjoyment, pleasure,”
“prop. of sensual pleasure.” αἱ τοῦ σώματος or περὶ τὸ σῶμα ἡ.; αἱ κατὰ τὸ σῶμα
ἡ. Plato, Republic, 328d; σωματικαὶ ἡ. Arist. Eth. Nich. 1151a13; αἱ περὶ
πότους καὶ περὶ ἐδωδὰς ἡ. Plato, Republic, 389e; but also ἀκοῆς ἡ; ἡ ἀπὸ τοῦ
εἰδέναι ἡ. Pl. R. 582b; of malicious pleasure, ἡ ἐπὶ τοῖς τῶν φίλων κακοῖς, ἐπὶ
ταῖς λοιδορίαις ἡ.; ἡδονῇ ἡσσᾶσθαι, ἡδοναῖς χαρίζεσθαι, to give way to
pleasure; Pl. Lg. 727c; κότερα ἀληθείη χρήσομαι ἢ ἡδονῆ; shall I speak truly or
so as to humour you? εἰ ὑμῖν ἡδονὴ τοῦ ἡγεμονεύειν; ἡ. εἰσέρχεταί τιϝι εἰ, “one
feels pleasure at the thought that …” ; ἡδονὴν ἔχειν τινός to be satisfied
with; ἡδονὴν ἔχει, φέρει; ἡδονὴ ἰδέσθαι (θαῦμα ἰδέσθαι), of a temple; δαίμοσιν
πρὸς ἡδονήν; ὃ μέν ἐστι πρὸς ἡ.; πρὸς ἡ.
Λέγειν, “to speak so as to please another”; δημηγορεῖν; οὐ πρὸς ἡ. οἱ ἦν τὰ
ἀγγελλόμενα; πάντα πρὸς ἡ. ἀκούοντας; later πρὸς ἡδονῆς εἶναί τινι; καθ᾽ ἡδονὴν
κλύειν; καθ᾽ ἡδονήν ἐστί μοι; καθ᾽ ἡ. τι δρᾶν, ποιεῖν; καθ᾽ ἡδονὰς τῷ δήμῳ τὰ
πράγματα ἐνδιδόναι; ἐν ἡδονῇ ἐστί τινι, it is a pleasure or delight to another;
ἐν ἡδονῇ ἔχειν τινάς, to take pleasure in them; ἐν ἡδονῇ ἄρχοντες, oοἱ λυπηροί;
μεθ᾽ ἡδονῆς; ὑφ᾽ ἡδονῆς; ὑπὸ τῆς ἡ; ἡδονᾷ with pleasure; a pleasure; ἡδοναὶ
τραγημάτων sweetmeats; plural., desires after pleasure, pleasant lusts. In
Ionic philosophers, taste, flavour, usually joined with χροιή. Note that
Aristotle uses somatike hedone. As a Lit. Hum. Oxon., and especially as a
tutee of Hardie at Corpus, Grice is almost too well aware of the centrality of
hedone in Aristotles system. Pleasure is sometimes rendered “placitum,” as in “ad
placitum,” in scholastic philosophy, but that is because scholastic philosophy
is not as Hellenic as it should be. Actually, Grice prefers “agreeable.” One of
Grices requisites for an ascription of eudaemonia (to have a fairy godmother)
precisely has the system of ends an agent chooses to realise to be an agreeable
one. One form or mode of agreeableness, Grice notes, is, unless counteracted,
automatically attached to the attainment of an object of desire, such
attainment being routinely a source of satisfaction. The generation of such a
satisfaction thus provides an independent ground for preferring one system of
ends to another. However, some other mode of agreeableness, such as e. g. being
a source of delight, which is not routinely associated with the fulfilment of
this or that desire, could discriminate, independently of other features
relevant to such a preference, between one system of ends and another. Further,
a system of ends the operation of which is especially agreeable is stable not
only vis-à-vis a rival system, but also against the somewhat weakening effect
of ‘egcrateia,’ incontinence, or akrasia, if you mustn’t. A disturbing
influence, as Aristotle knows from experience, is more surely met by a
principle in consort with a supporting attraction than by the principle alone.
Grices favourite hedonistic implicaturum was “please,” as in “please, please
me,” by The Beatles. While Grice claims to love
Kantotle, he cannot hide his greater reverence for Aristotle, instilled early
on at Corpus. An Oxonian need not recite Kant in what during the Second World
War was referred to as the Hun, and while Aristotle was a no-no at Clifton
(koine!), Hardie makes Grice love him. With eudaemonia, Grice finds a perfect
synthetic futilitarian concept to balance his innate analytic tendencies. There
is Grecian eudaemonism and there is Griceian eudaemonism. L and S are not too
helpful. They have “εὐδαιμονία” (Ion. –ιη), which they render not as happiness,
but as “prosperity, good fortune, opulence;” “χρημάτων προσόδῳ καὶ τῇ ἄλλῃ
εὐ.;” of countries; “μοῖρ᾽ εὐδαιμονίας.” In a second use, the expression
is indeed rendered as “true, full happiness;” “εὐ. οὐκ ἐν βοσκήμασιν οἰκεῖ οὐδ᾽
ἐν χρυσῷ; εὐ. ψυχῆς, oκακοδαιμονίη, cf. Pl. Def. 412d, Arist. EN 1095a18,
sometimes personified as a divinity. There is eudaemonia and there is
kakodaemonia. Of course, Grice’s locus classicus is EN 1095a18, which is
Grice’s fairy godmother, almost. Cf. Austin on agathon and eudaimonia in
Aristotle’s ethics, unearthed by Urmson and Warnock, a response to an essay by
Prichard in “Philosophy” on the meaning of agathon in Aristotle’s ethics.
Pritchard argues that Aristotle regards “agathon” to mean conducive to
“eudaemonia,” and, consequently, that Aristotle maintains that every deliberate
action stems, ultimately, from the desire for eudaemonia. Austin finds fault
with this. First, agathon in Aristotle does not have a single usage, and a
fortiori not the one Pritchard suggests. Second, if one has to summarise the
usage of “agathon” in one phrase, “being desired” cannot fulfil this function,
for there are other objects of desire besides “τό άγαθόν,” even if Davidson
would disagree. Prichard endeavours to specify what Aristotle means by αγαθον.
In some contexts, “agathon” seems to mean simply that being desired or an
ultimate or non‐ultimate end or aim of a person. In
other contexts, “αγαθον” takes on a normative quality. For his statements to
have content, argues Prichard, Aristotle must hold that when we pursue
something of a certain kind, such as an honour, we pursue it as “a good.”
Prichard argues that by "αγαθον" Aristotle actually means, except in
the Nicomachean Ethics, conducive to eudaemonia, and holds that when a man acts
deliberately, he does it from a desire to attain eudaemonia. Prichard attributes
this position to Plato as well, despite the fact that both thinkers make
statements inconsistent with this view of man’s ultimate aim. Grice takes life
seriously: philosophical biology. He even writes an essay entitled “Philosophy
of life,” listed is in PGRICE. Grice bases his thought on his tutee Ackrill’s
Dawes Hicks essay for the BA, who quotes extensively from Hardie. Grice also
reviews that “serious student of Greek philosophy,” Austin, in his response to
Prichard, Grice’s fairy godmother. Much the most plausible conjecture regarding
what Grecian eudaimonia means is that eudaemonia is to be understood as the
name for that state or condition which one’s good dæmon would, if he could,
ensure for one. One’s good dæmon is a being motivated, with respect to one,
solely by concern for one’s eudaemonia, well-being or happiness. To change the
idiom, eudæmonia is the general characterisation of what a full-time and
unhampered fairy godmother would secure for one. Grice is concerned with the
specific system of ends that eudaemonia consists for Ariskant. Grice borrows,
but never returns, some reflections by his fomer tuttee at St. Johns, Ackrill.
Ackrills point is about the etymological basis for eudaemonia, from eudaemon,
the good dæmon, as Grice prefers. Grice thinks the metaphor should be
disimplicated, and taken literally. Grice concludes with a set of ends that
justify our ascription of eudaemonia to the agent. For Grice, as for Kantotle,
telos and eudaemonia are related in subtle ways. For eudaemonia we cannot deal
with just one end, but a system of ends, although such a system may be a
singleton. Grice specifies a subtle way of characterising end so that a
particular ascription of an end may entail an ascription of eudaemonia. Grice
follows the textual criticism of his tutee Ackrill, in connection with the
Socratic point that eudaemonia is literally related to the eudaemon. In PGRICE
Warner explores Grice’s concept of eudaemonia. Warner is especially helpful
with the third difficult Carus lecture by Grice, a metaphysical defence of
absolute value. Warner connects with Grice in such topics as the philosophy of
perception seen in an evolutionary light and the Kantotelian idea of
eudaemonia. In response to Warner’s overview of the oeuvre of Grice for the festschrift
that Warner co-edited with Grandy, Grice refers to the editors collectively as
Richards. While he feels he has to use “happiness,” Grice is always having
Aristotle’s eudaemonia in mind. The implicaturum of Smith is ‘happy’ is more
complex than Kantotle thinks. Austen knew. For Emma, you decide if youre happy.
Ultimately, for Grice, the rational life is the happy life. Grice took life
seriously: philosophical biology! Grice is clear when reprinting the Descartes
essay in WOW, where he does quote from Descartes sources quite a bit, even if
he implicates he is no Cartesian scholar – what Oxonian would? It concerns
certainty. And certainty is originally Cantabrigian (Moore), but also Oxonian,
in parts. Ayer says that to know is to assure that one is certain or sure. So
he could connect. Grice will at various stages of his development play and
explore this authoritative voice of introspection: incorrigibility and
privileged access. He surely wants to say that a declaration of an intention is
authoritative. And Grice plays with meaning, too when provoking Malcolm in a
don recollection: Grice: I want you to bring me a paper tomorrow. Strawson: You
mean a newspaper? Grice: No, a philosophical essay. Strawson: How do you know?
Are you certain you mean that? Grice finds not being certain about what one
means Strawsonian and otiose. Tutees. Grice loved to place himself in the role
of the philosophical hack, dealing with his tutees inabilities, a whole week
long – until he could find refreshment in para-philosophy on the Saturday
morning. Now, the logical form of certain is a trick. Grice would symbolize it
as numbering of operators. If G ψs p, G ψs ψs p, and G ψs ψs ψs p, and so ad infinitum. This is a bit like certainty. But
not quite! When he explores trust, Grice considers something like a backing for
it. But does conclusive evidence yield certainty? He doesnt think so.
Certainty, for Grice should apply to any psychological attitude, state or
stance. And it is just clever of him that when he had to deliver his BA lecture
he chooses ‘intention and uncertainty’ as its topic, just to provoke. Not
surprisingly, the “Uncertainty” piece opens with the sceptics challenge. And he
will not conclude that the intender is certain. Only that theres some good
chance (p ˃0.5) that what he intends will get through! When there is a will,
there is a way, when there is a neo-Prichardian will-ing, there is a
palæo-Griceian way-ing! Perhaps by know Moore means certain. Grice was amused
by the fact that Moore thought that he knew that behind the curtains at the
lecture hall at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, there was a window,
when there wasnt. He uses Moores misuse of know – according to Malcolm – both
in Causal theory and Prolegomena. And of course this relates to the topic of
the sceptics implicaturum, above, with the two essays Scepticism and Common
sense and Moore and Philosophers Paradoxes repr. partially in WOW. With regard
to certainty, it is interesting to compare it, as Grice does, not so much with
privileged access, but with incorrigibility. Do we not
have privileged access to our own beliefs and desires? And, worse still,
may it not be true that at least some of our avowals of our beliefs and
desires are incorrigible? One of Grices problems is, as he puts it,
how to accommodate privileged access and,
maybe, incorrigibility. This or that a second-order state may be, in
some fashion, incorrigible. On the contrary, for Grice, this or that
lower-order, first-order judging is only a matter for privileged
access. Note that while he is happy to allow privileged access to
lower-order souly states, only those who are replicated at a higher-order or
second-order may, in some fashion, be said to count as an incorrigible avowal.
It rains. P judges it rains (privileged access). P judges that P judges that it
rains (incorrigible). The justification is conversational. It rains says the P,
or expresses the P. Grice wants to be able to say that if a P expresses that p,
the P judges2 that p. If the P expresses that it rains, the P
judges that he judges that it rains. In this fashion, his second-order,
higher-order judging is incorrigible, only. Although Grice may allow for it to
be corrected by a third-order judging. It is not required that we should stick
with judging here. Let Smith return the money that he owes to Jones. If P
expresses !p, P ψ-s2 that !p. His second-order, higher-order
buletic state is incorrigible (if ceteris paribus is not corrected by a
third-order buletic or doxastic state). His first-order buletic state is a
matter only of privileged access. For a study of conversation as rational
co-operation this utilitarian revival modifies the standard exegesis of Grice
as purely Kantian, and has him more in agreement with the general Oxonian
meta-ethical scene. Refs.: Under ‘futilitarianism,’ we cover Grice’s views on
‘pleasure’ (he has an essay on “Pleasure,”) and “eudaemonia” (He has an essay
on ‘happiness’); other leads are given under ‘grecianism,’ since this is the
Grecian side to Grice’s Ariskant; for specific essays on ‘pleasure,’ and
‘eudaimonia,’ the keywords ‘pleasure’ and ‘happiness’ are useful. A good source
is the essay on happiness in “Aspects,” which combines ‘eudaemonia’ and
‘agreebleness,’ his futilitarianism turned Kantotelian. BANC. 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.
Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Bergmann on Stephen
and the English utilitarians.”
esse: Grice: “Surely
the most important verb, philosophically speaking. It was good of Boezio to
turn Aristotle’s troublesome ‘belonging’ into a simple ‘est’.” ens a se: Grice defines an
‘ens a se’ as a being that is
completely independent and self-sufficient. Since every creature depends at
least upon God for its existence, only God could be ens a se. In fact, only God
is, and he must be. For if God depended on any other being, he would be
dependent and hence not self-sufficient. To the extent that the ontological
argument is plausible, it depends on conceiving of God as ens a se. In other
words, God as ens a se is the greatest conceivable being. The idea of ens a se
is very important in the Monologion and Proslogion of Anselm, in various works
of Duns Scotus, and later Scholastic thought. Ens a se should be distinguished
from ens ex se, according to Anselm in Monologion. Ens a se is from itself and
not “out of itself.” In other words, ens a se does not depend upon itself for
its own existence, because it is supposed to be dependent on absolutely
nothing. Further, if ens a se depended upon itself, it would cause itself to
exist, and that is impossible, according to medieval and Scholastic
philosophers, who took causality to be irreflexive. It is also transitive and
asymmetric. Hence, the medieval idea of ens a se should not be confused with
Spinoza’s idea of causa sui. Later Scholastics often coined abstract terms to
designate the property or entity that makes something to be what it is, in
analogy with forming, say, ‘rigidity’ from ‘rigid’. The Latin term ‘aseitas’ is
formed from the prepositional phrase in ‘ens a se’ in this way; ‘aseitas’ is
tr. into English as ‘aseity’. A better-known example of forming an abstract
noun from a concrete word is ‘haecceitas’ thisness from ‘haec’ this. -- ens rationis Latin, ‘a being of reason’, a
thing dependent for its existence upon reason or thought; sometimes known as an
intentional being. Ens rationis is the contrasting term for a real being res or
ens in re extra animam, such as an individual animal. Real beings exist
independently of thought and are the foundation for truth. A being of reason
depends upon thought or reason for its existence and is an invention of Enlightenment
ens rationis 266 266 the mind, even if
it has a foundation in some real being. This conception requires the idea that
there are degrees of being. Two kinds of entia rationis are distinguished:
those with a foundation in reality and those without one. The objects of logic,
which include genera and species, e.g., animal and human, respectively, are
entia rationis that have a foundation in reality, but are abstracted from it.
In contrast, mythic and fictional objects, such as a chimera or Pegasus, have
no foundation in reality. Blindness and deafness are also sometimes called
entia rationis. -- ens realissimum: used
by Grice. Latin, ‘most real being’, an informal term for God that occurs rarely
in Scholastic philosophers. Within Kant’s philosophy, it has a technical sense.
It is an extension of Baumgarten’s idea of ens perfectissimum most perfect
being, a being that has the greatest number of possible perfections to the
greatest degree. Since ens perfectissimum refers to God as the sum of all possibilities
and since actuality is greater than possibility, according to Kant, the idea of
God as the sum of all actualities, that is, ens realissimum, is a preferable
term for God. Kant thinks that human knowledge is “constrained” to posit the
idea of a necessary being. The necessary being that has the best claim to
necessity is one that is completely unconditioned, that is, dependent on
nothing; this is ens realissimum. He sometimes explicates it in three ways: as
the substratum of all realities, as the ground of all realities, and as the sum
of all realities. Ens realissimum is nonetheless empirically invalid, since it
cannot be experienced by humans. It is something ideal for reason, not real in
experience. According to Kant, the ontological argument begins with the concept
of ens realissimum and concludes that an existing object falls under that
concept Critique of Pure Reason, Book II, chapter 3.
entelecheia -- used by Grice in his philosophical psychology
-- from Grecian entelecheia, energeia, actuality. Aristotle, who coins both
terms, entelecheia and energeia, treats entelecheia as a near synonym of
Energeia (“which makes me often wonder why he felt the need to coin TWICE” – H.
P. Grice.). Entelecheia figures in Aristotle’s definition of the soul (psyche) as
the first actuality of the natural body (De Anima, II.1). This is explained by
analogy with knowledge: first actuality is to knowledge as second actuality is
to the active use of knowledge. ’Entelechia’ is also a technical term, but in
German, in Leibniz for the primitive active force in every monad, which is
combined with primary matter, and from which the active force, vis viva, is
somehow derived (“But I rather use ‘entelecheia’ in the original Grecian.” –
Grice). “The vitalist philosopher Hans Driesch used the Aristotelian term in
his account of biology, and I feel vitalistic on occasion.” “Life, Driesch
holds, is not a bowl of cherries, but an entelechy; and an entelechy is a
substantial entity, rather like a mind, that controls organic processes.” “To
me, life is rather a bowl of cherries, don’t make it serious! It’s just
mysterious!”
the implicaturum-explicaturum
distinction, the: – “I am aware that with ‘implicaturum,’
as opposed to ‘implicaturum,’ the distinction with ‘implicatio’ is lost – for
‘what is implied,’ in contrast, sounds vulgar.” And then there’s ‘entailment”
is not as figurative as it sounds: it inovolves property and limitation -- “Paradoxes
of entailment,” “Paradoxes of implication.” Philo and his teacher. Grice is not
sure about ‘implicaturum.’ The quote by Moore, 1919 being:"It might be
suggested that we should say "p ent q" 'means' "p ) q AND this
proposition is an instance of a formal implication, which is not merely true
but self-evident, like the laws of formal logic." This proposed
definitions would avoid the paradoxes involved in Strachey's definition, since
such true formal implications as 'All the persons in this room are more than
five years old' are certainly not self-evident; and, so far as I can see, it
may state something which is in fact true of p and q, whenever and only whenp
ent q. I do not myself think that it gives the meaning of 'p ent q,' since the
kind of relation which I see to hold between the premises and a conclusion of a
syllogism seems to me one which is purely 'objective' in the sense that no
psychological term, such as is involved in the meaning of 'self-evident' is
involved in its definition (it it has one). I am not, however, concerned to
dispute that some such definition of "p ent q" as this may be
true." --- and so on. So, it is apparently all Strachey's fault. This view as to
what φA . ent . ψA means has, for instance, if I understand him rightly, been
asserted by Mr. O. Strachey in Mind, N.S., 93; since he asserts that, in his
opinion, this is what Professor C. I. Lewis means by “φA strictly implies ψA,”
and undoubtedly what Professor Lewis means by this is what I mean by φA . ent .
ψA. And the same view has been frequently suggested (though I do not know that
he has actually asserted it) by Mr. Russell himself (e.g., Principia
Mathematica, p. 21). I 1903
B. Russell Princ. Math. ii.
14 How far formal implication is definable in terms of implication
simply, or material implication as it may be called, is a difficult
question. Source : Principles : Chapter III. Implication and Formal Implication.
– Source : Principia, page 7 : "When it is necessary explicitly to
discriminate "implication" [i.e. "if p, then q" ] from
"formal implication," it is called "material implication."
– Source : Principia, page 20 : "When an implication, say ϕx.⊃.ψx, is said to
hold always, i.e. when (x):ϕx.⊃.ψx, we shall say that ϕx formally implies ψx"Many logicians did use ‘implicaturum’ not necessarily to
mean ‘conversational implicaturum,’ but as the result of ‘implicatio’.
‘Implicatio’ was often identified with the Megarian or Philonian ‘if.’ Why? thought
that we probably did need an entailment. The symposium was held in New York
with Dana Scott and R. K. Meyer. The notion had been mis-introduced (according
to Strawson) in the philosophical literature by Moore. Grice is especially
interested in the entailment + implicaturum pair. A philosophical expression
may be said to be co-related to an entailment (which is rendered in terms of a
reductive analysis). However, the use of the expression may co-relate to
this or that implicaturum which is rendered reasonable in the light of the assumption
by the addressee that the utterer is ultimately abiding by a principle of
conversational helfpulness. Grice thinks many philosophers take an implicaturum
as an entailment when they surely shouldnt! Grice was more interested than
Strawson was in the coinage by Moore of entailment for logical consequence. As
an analyst, Grice knew that a true conceptual analysis needs to be reductive
(if not reductionist). The prongs the analyst lists are thus entailments of the
concept in question. Philosophers, however, may misidentify what is an
entailment for an implicaturum, or vice versa. Initially, Grice was interested
in the second family of cases. With his coinage of disimplicaturum, Grice
expands his interest to cover the first family of cases, too. Grice remains a
philosophical methodologist. He is not so much concerned with any area or
discipline or philosophical concept per se (unless its rationality), but with
the misuses of some tools in the philosophy of language as committed by some of
his colleagues at Oxford. While entailment, was, for Strawson mis-introduced in
the philosophical literature by Moore, entailment seems to be less involved in
paradoxes than if is. Grice connects the two, as indeed his tutee Strawson did!
As it happens, Strawsons Necessary propositions and entailment statements is
his very first published essay, with Mind, a re-write of an unpublication
unwritten elsewhere, and which Grice read. The relation of consequence may be
considered a meta-conditional, where paradoxes arise. Grices Bootstrap is
a principle designed to impoverish the metalanguage so that the philosopher can
succeed in the business of pulling himself up by his own! Grice then takes a
look at Strawsons very first publication (an unpublication he had written
elsewhere). Grice finds Strawson thought he could provide a simple solution to
the so-called paradoxes of entailment. At the time, Grice and Strawson were
pretty sure that nobody then accepted, if indeed anyone ever did and did make,
the identification of the relation symbolised by the horseshoe with the
relation which Moore calls entailment, p⊃q,
i. e. ~(pΛ~q) is rejected as an analysis of p entails q because it involves
this or that allegedly paradoxical implicaturum, as that any false proposition
entails any proposition and any true proposition is entailed by any
proposition. It is a commonplace that Lewiss amendment had consequences
scarcely less paradoxical in terms of the implicatura. For if p is impossible,
i.e. self-contradictory, it is impossible that p and ~q. And if q is
necessary, ~q is impossible and it is impossible that p and ~q; i. e., if p
entails q means it is impossible that p and ~q any necessary proposition is
entailed by any proposition and any self-contradictory proposition entails any
proposition. On the other hand, Lewiss definition of entailment (i.e. of the
relation which holds from p to q whenever q is deducible from p) obviously
commends itself in some respects. Now, it is clear that the emphasis laid on
the expression-mentioning character of the intensional contingent statement by
writing pΛ~q is impossible instead of It is impossible that p and ~q does not
avoid the alleged paradoxes of entailment. But it is equally clear that the
addition of some provision does avoid them. One may proposes that one
should use “entails” such that no necessary statement and no negation of a
necessary statement can significantly be said to entail or be entailed by any
statement; i. e. the function p entails q cannot take necessary or
self-contradictory statements as arguments. The expression p entails q is to be
used to mean p⊃q is necessary, and neither p nor q is either necessary or
self-contradictory, or pΛ~q is impossible and neither p nor q, nor either of
their contradictories, is necessary. Thus, the paradoxes are avoided. For let us
assume that p1 expresses a contingent, and q1 a necessary, proposition. p1 and
~q1 is now impossible because ~q1 is impossible. But q1 is necessary. So, by
that provision, p1 does not entail q1. We may avoid the paradoxical assertion
that p1 entails q2 as merely falling into the equally paradoxical assertion
that p1 entails q1 is necessary. For: If q is necessary, q is necessary is,
though true, not necessary, but a contingent intensional (Latinate) statement.
This becomes part of the philosophers lexicon: intensĭo, f. intendo, which L
and S render as a stretching out, straining, effort. E. g. oculorum,
Scrib. Comp. 255. Also an intensifying, increase. Calorem suum (sol)
intensionibus ac remissionibus temperando fovet,” Sen. Q. N. 7, 1, 3. The tune:
“gravis, media, acuta,” Censor. 12. Hence:~(q is necessary) is, though
false, possible. Hence “p1Λ~(q1 is necessary)” is, though false, possible.
Hence p1 does NOT entail q1 is necessary. Thus, by adopting the view that an
entailment statement, and other intensional statements, are non-necessary, and
that no necessary statement or its contradictory can entail or be entailed by
any statement, Strawson thinks he can avoid the paradox that a necessary
proposition is entailed by any proposition, and indeed all the other associated
paradoxes of entailment. Grice objected that Strawsons cure was worse than
Moores disease! The denial that a necessary proposition can entail or be
entailed by any proposition, and, therefore, that necessary propositions can be
related to each other by the entailment-relation, is too high a price to pay
for the solution of the paradoxes. And here is where Grices implicaturum is
meant to do the trick! Or not! When Levinson proposed + for conversationally implicaturum,
he is thinking of contrasting it with ⊢. But things aint that easy.
Even the grammar is more complicated: By uttering He is an adult, U explicitly
conveys that he is an adult. What U explicitly conveys entails that he is not a
child. What U implies is that he should be treated accordingly. Refs.: One
good reference is the essay on “Paradoxes of entailment,” in the Grice papers;
also his contribution to a symposium for the APA under a separate series, The
H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
enthymeme: an incompletely
stated syllogism, with one premise, or even the conclusion, omitted. The term
sometimes designates incompletely stated arguments of other kinds. We are
expected to supply the missing premise or draw the conclusion if it is not
stated. The result is supposed to be a syllogistic inference. For example: ‘He
will eventually get caught, for he is a thief’; or ‘He will eventually be
caught, for all habitual thieves get caught’. This notion of enthymeme as an
incompletely stated syllogism has a long tradition and does not seem
inconsistent with Aristotle’s own characterization of it. Thus, Peter of Spain
openly declares that an enthymeme is an argument with a single premise that
needs to be reduced to syllogism. But Peter also points out that Aristotle
spoke of enthymeme as “being of ycos and signum,” and he explains that ycos
here means ‘probable proposition’ while signum expresses the necessity of
inference. ‘P, therefore Q’ is an ycos in the sense of a proposition that
appears to be true to all or to many; but insofar as P has virtually a double
power, that of itself and of the proposition understood along with it, it is
both probable and demonstrative, albeit from a different point of view.
conversational entropy. -- Principle
of Conversational entropy, a measure of disorder or “information.” The number
of states accessible to the various elements of a large system of particles
such as a cabbage or the air in a room is represented as “W.” Accessible
microstates might be, e. g., energy levels the various particles can reach. One
can greatly simplify the statement of certain laws of nature by introducing a
logarithmic measure of these accessible microstates. This measure, called “entropy”
by H. P. Grice is defined by the formula: SEntropy % df. klnW, where “k” is
Grice’’s constant. When the conversational entropy of a conversational system
increases, the system becomes more random and disordered (“less dove-tailed,”
in Grice’s parlance) in that a larger number of microstates become available
for the system’s particles to enter. If a large system within which exchanges
of energy occur is isolated, exchanging no energy with its environment, the
entropy of the system tends to increase and never decreases. This result is
part of the second law of thermodynamics. In real, evolving physical systems
effectively isolated from their environments, entropy increases and thus
aspects of the system’s organization that depend upon there being only a
limited range of accessible microstates are altered. A cabbage totally isolated
in a container e. g. would decay as complicated organic molecules eventually
became unstructured in the course of ongoing exchanges of energy and attendant
entropy increases. In Grice’s information theory, a state or event (or
conversational move) is said to contain more information than a second state or
event if the former state is less probable and thus in a sense more surprising
(or “baffling,” in Grice’s term) than the latter. Other plausible constraints
suggest a logarithmic measure of information content. Suppose X is a set of
alternative possible states, xi , and pxi
is the probability of each xi 1 X. If state xi has occurred the
information content of that occurrence is taken to be -log2pxi . This function
increases as the probability of xi decreases. If it is unknown which xi will
occur, it is reasonable to represent the expected information content of X as
the sum of the information contents of the alternative states xi weighted in
each case by the probability of the state, giving: This is called the Shannon’s
or Grice’s entropy. Both Shannon’s and Grice’s entropy and physical entropy can
be thought of as logarithmic measures of disarray. But this statement trades on
a broad understanding of ‘disarray’. A close relationship between the two
concepts of entropy should not be assumed, not even by Grice, less so by
Shannon.
environmental
implicaturum:
For Grice, two pirots need to share an environment -- environmental philosophy,
the critical study of concepts defining relations between human beings and
their non-human environment. Environmental ethics, a major component of
environmental philosophy, addresses the normative significance of these
relations. The relevance of ecological relations to human affairs has been
recognized at least since Darwin, but the growing sense of human responsibility
for their deterioration, reflected in books such as Rachel Carson’s Silent
Spring 2 and Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation 5, has prompted the recent
upsurge of interest. Environmental philosophers have adduced a wide variety of
human attitudes and practices to account for the perceived deterioration,
including religious and scientific attitudes, social institutions, and
industrial technology. Proposed remedies typically urge a reorientation or new “ethic”
that recognizes “intrinsic value” in the natural world. Examples include the
“land ethic” of Aldo Leopold 78, which pictures humans as belonging to, rather
than owning, the biotic community “the land”; deep ecology, a stance
articulated by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess b.2, which advocates forms
of identification with the non-human world; and ecofeminism, which rejects
prevailing attitudes to the natural world that are perceived as patriarchal. At
the heart of environmental ethics lies the attempt to articulate the basis of
concern for the natural world. It encompasses global as well as local issues,
and considers the longer-term ecological, and even evolutionary, fate of the
human and non-human world. Many of its practitioners question the anthropocentric
claim that human beings are the exclusive or even central focus of envelope
paradox environmental philosophy 268
268 ethical concern. In thus extending both the scope and the grounds of
concern, it presents a challenge to the stance of conventional interhuman
ethics. It debates how to balance the claims of present and future, human and
non-human, sentient and non-sentient, individuals and wholes. It investigates
the prospects for a sustainable relationship between economic and ecological systems,
and pursues the implications of this relationship with respect to social
justice and political institutions. Besides also engaging metaethical questions
about, for example, the objectivity and commensurability of values,
environmental philosophers are led to consider the nature and significance of
environmental change and the ontological status of collective entities such as
species and ecosystems. In a more traditional vein, environmental philosophy
revives metaphysical debates surrounding the perennial question of “man’s place
in nature,” and finds both precedent and inspiration in earlier philosophies
and cultures.
epistemic
deontologism,
a duty-based view of the nature of epistemic justification. A central concern
of epistemology is to account for the distinction between justified and
unjustified beliefs. According to epistemic deontologism, the concept of
justification may be analyzed by using, in a specific sense relevant to the
pursuit of knowledge, terms such as ‘ought’, ‘obligatory’, ‘permissible’, and
‘forbidden’. A subject S is justified in believing that p provided S does not
violate any epistemic obligations those
that arise from the goal of believing what is true and not believing what is
false. Equivalently, S is justified in believing that p provided believing p
is from the point of view taken in the
pursuit of truth permissible for S.
Among contemporary epistemologists, this view is held by Chisholm, Laurence
BonJour, and Carl Ginet. Its significance is twofold. If justification is a
function of meeting obligations, then it is, contrary to some versions of
naturalistic epistemology, normative. Second, if the normativity of justification
is deontological, the factors that determine whether a belief is justified must
be internal to the subject’s mind. Critics of epistemic deontologism, most
conspicuously Alston, contend that belief is involuntary and thus cannot be a
proper object of obligations. If, e.g., one is looking out the window and
notices that it is raining, one is psychologically forced to believe that it is
raining. Deontologists can reply to this objection by rejecting its underlying
premise: epistemic obligations require that belief be voluntary. Alternatively,
they may insist that belief is voluntary after all, and thus subject to
epistemic obligations, for there is a means by which one can avoid believing
what one ought not to believe: weighing the evidence, or deliberation. -- epistemic logic, the logical investigation
of epistemic concepts and statements. Epistemic concepts include the concepts
of knowledge, reasonable belief, justification, evidence, certainty, and
related notions. Epistemic logic is usually taken to include the logic of
belief or doxastic logic. Much of the recent work on epistemic logic is based
on the view that it is a branch of modal logic. In the early 0s von Wright
observed that the epistemic notions verified known to be true, undecided, and
falsified are related to each other in the same way as the alethic modalities
necessary, contingent, and impossible, and behave logically in analogous ways.
This analogy is not surprising in view of the fact that the meaning of modal
concepts is often explained epistemically. For example, in the 0s Peirce
defined informational possibility as that “which in a given state of
information is not perfectly known not to be true,” and called informationally
necessary “that which is perfectly known to be true.” The modal logic of
epistemic and doxastic concepts was studied systematically by Hintikka in his
pioneering Knowledge and Belief2, which applied to the concepts of knowledge
and belief the semantical method the method of modal sets that he had used
earlier for the investigation of modal logic. In this approach, the truth of
the proposition that a knows that p briefly Kap in a possible world or
situation u is taken to mean that p holds in all epistemic alternatives of u;
these are understood as worlds compatible with what a knows at u. If the
relation of epistemic alternativeness is reflexive, the principle ‘KapPp’ only
what is the case can be known is valid, and the assumption that the
alternativeness relation is transitive validates the so-called KK-thesis, ‘Kap
P Ka Ka p’ if a knows that p, a knows that a knows that p; these two
assumptions together make the logic of knowledge similar to an S4-type modal
logic. If the knowledge operator Ka and the corresponding epistemic possibility
operator Pa are added to quantification theory with identity, it becomes
possible to study the interplay between quantifiers and epistemic operators and
the behavior of individual terms in epistemic contexts, and analyze such
locutions as ‘a knows who what b some F is’. The problems of epistemic logic in
this area are part of the general problem of giving a coherent semantical
account of propositional attitudes. If a proposition p is true in all epistemic
alternatives of a given world, so are all logical consequences of p; thus the
possible-worlds semantics of epistemic concepts outlined above leads to the
result that a person knows all logical consequences of what he knows. This is a
paradoxical conclusion; it is called the problem of logical omniscience. The
solution of this problem requires a distinction between different levels of
knowledge for example, between tacit and
explicit knowledge. A more realistic model of knowledge can be obtained by
supplementing the basic possible-worlds account by an analysis of the processes
by which the implicit knowledge can be activated and made explicit. Modal
epistemic logics have found fruitful applications in the recent work on
knowledge representation and in the logic and semantics of questions and
answers in which questions are interpreted as requests for knowledge or
“epistemic imperatives.” -- epistemic
principle, a principle of rationality applicable to such concepts as knowledge,
justification, and reasonable belief. Epistemic principles include the
principles of epistemic logic and principles that relate different epistemic
concepts to one another, or epistemic concepts to nonepistemic ones e.g.,
semantic concepts. Epistemic concepts include the concepts of knowledge,
reasonable belief, justification, epistemic probability, and other concepts
that are used for the purpose of assessing the reasonableness of beliefs and
knowledge claims. Epistemic principles can be formulated as principles
concerning belief systems or information systems, i.e., systems that
characterize a person’s possible doxastic state at a given time; a belief
system may be construed as a set of accepted propositions or as a system of
degrees of belief. It is possible to distinguish two kinds of epistemic
principles: a principles concerning the rationality of a single belief system,
and b principles concerning the rational changes of belief. The former include
the requirements of coherence and consistency for beliefs and for
probabilities; such principles may be said to concern the statics of belief
systems. The latter principles include various principles of belief revision
and adjustment, i.e., principles concerning the dynamics of belief
systems. -- epistemic privacy, the
relation a person has to a proposition when only that person can have direct or
non-inferential knowledge of the proposition. It is widely thought that people
have epistemic privacy with respect to propositions about certain of their own
mental states. According to this view, a person can know directly that he has
certain thoughts or feelings or sensory experiences. Perhaps others can also
know that the person has these thoughts, feelings, or experiences, but if they
can it is only as a result of inference from propositions about the person’s
behavior or physical condition. --
epistemic regress argument, an argument, originating in Aristotle’s Posterior
Analytics, aiming to show that knowledge and epistemic justification have a
two-tier structure as described by epistemic foundationalism. It lends itself
to the following outline regarding justification. If you have any justified
belief, this belief occurs in an evidential chain including at least two links:
the supporting link i.e., the evidence and the supported link i.e., the
justified belief. This does not mean, however, that all evidence consists of
beliefs. Evidential chains might come in any of four kinds: circular chains,
endless chains, chains ending in unjustified beliefs, and chains anchored in
foundational beliefs that do not derive their justification from other beliefs.
Only the fourth, foundationalist kind is defensible as grounding knowledge and
epistemic justification. Could all justification be inferential? A belief, B1,
is inferentially justified when it owes its justification, at least in part, to
some other belief, B2. Whence the justification for B2? If B2 owes its
justification to B1, we have a troublesome circle. How can B2 yield
justification or evidence for B1, if B2 owes its evidential status to B1? On
the other hand, if B2 owes its justification to another belief, B3, and B3 owes
its justification to yet another belief, B4, and so on ad infinitum, we have a
troublesome endless regress of justification. Such a regress seems to deliver
not actual justification, but at best merely potential justification, for the
belief at its head. Actual finite humans, furthermore, seem not to be able to
comprehend, or to possess, all the steps of an infinite regress of
justification. Finally, if B2 is itself unjustified, it evidently will be
unable to provide justification for B1. It seems, then, that the structure of
inferential justification does not consist of either circular justification,
endless regresses of justification, or unjustified starter-beliefs. We have
foundationalism, then, as the most viable account of evidential chains, so long
as we understand it as the structural view that some beliefs are justified
non-inferentially i.e., without deriving justification from other beliefs, but
can nonetheless provide justification for other beliefs. More precisely, if we
have any justified beliefs, we have some foundational, non-inferentially
justified beliefs. This regress argument needs some refinement before its full
force can be appreciated. With suitable refinement, however, it can seriously
challenge such alternatives to foundationalism as coherentism and
contextualism. The regress argument has been a key motivation for
foundationalism in the history of epistemology.
-- epistemology from Grecian episteme, ‘knowledge’, and logos,
‘explanation’, the study of the nature of knowledge and justification;
specifically, the study of a the defining features, b the substantive
conditions or sources, and c the limits of knowledge and justification. The
latter three categories are represented by traditional philosophical
controversy over the analysis of knowledge and justification, the sources of
knowledge and justification e.g., rationalism versus empiricism, and the
viability of skepticism about knowledge and justification. Kinds of knowledge.
Knowledge can be either explicit or tacit. Explicit knowledge is self-conscious
in that the knower is aware of the relevant state of knowledge, whereas tacit
knowledge is implicit, hidden from self-consciousness. Much of our knowledge is
tacit: it is genuine but we are unaware of the relevant states of knowledge, even
if we can achieve awareness upon suitable reflection. In this regard, knowledge
resembles many of our psychological states. The existence of a psychological
state in a person does not require the person’s awareness of that state,
although it may require the person’s awareness of an object of that state such
as what is sensed or perceived. Philosophers have identified various species of
knowledge: for example, propositional knowledge that something is so,
non-propositional knowledge of something e.g., knowledge by acquaintance, or by
direct awareness, empirical a posteriori propositional knowledge, nonempirical
a priori propositional knowledge, and knowledge of how to do something.
Philosophical controversy has arisen over distinctions between such species,
for example, over i the relations between some of these species e.g., does
knowing-how reduce to knowledge-that?, and ii the viability of some of these
species e.g., is there really such a thing as, or even a coherent notion of, a
priori knowledge?. A primary concern of classical modern philosophy, in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was the extent of our a priori knowledge
relative to the extent of our a posteriori knowledge. Such rationalists as
Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza contended that all genuine knowledge of the
real world is a priori, whereas such empiricists as Locke, Berkeley, and Hume
argued that all such knowledge is a posteriori. In his Critique of Pure Reason
1781, Kant sought a grand reconciliation, aiming to preserve the key lessons of
both rationalism and empiricism. Since the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, a posteriori knowledge has been widely regarded as knowledge that
depends for its supporting ground on some specific sensory or perceptual
experience; and a priori knowledge has been widely regarded as knowledge that
does not depend for its supporting ground on such experience. Kant and others
have held that the supporting ground for a priori knowledge comes solely from
purely intellectual processes called “pure reason” or “pure understanding.”
Knowledge of logical and mathematical truths typically serves as a standard
case of a priori knowledge, whereas knowledge of the existence or presence of
physical objects typically serves as a standard case of a posteriori knowledge.
A major task for an account of a priori knowledge is the explanation of what
the relevant purely intellectual processes are, and of how they contribute to
non-empirical knowledge. An analogous task for an account of a posteriori
knowledge is the explanation of what sensory or perceptual experience is and
how it contributes to empirical knowledge. More fundamentally, epistemologists
have sought an account of propositional knowledge in general, i.e., an account
of what is common to a priori and a posteriori knowledge. Ever since Plato’s
Meno and Theaetetus c.400 B.C., epistemologists have tried to identify the
essential, defining components of knowledge. Identifying these components will
yield an analysis of knowledge. A prominent traditional view, suggested by
Plato and Kant among others, is that propositional knowledge that something is
so has three individually necessary and jointly sufficient components:
justification, truth, and belief. On this view, propositional knowledge is, by
definition, justified true belief. This is the tripartite definition that has
come to be called the standard analysis. We can clarify it by attending briefly
to each of its three conditions. The belief condition. This requires that
anyone who knows that p where ‘p’ stands for any proposition or statement must
believe that p. If, therefore, you do not believe that minds are brains say,
because you have not considered the matter at all, then you do not know that
minds are brains. A knower must be psychologically related somehow to a
proposition that is an object of knowledge for that knower. Proponents of the
standard analysis hold that only belief can provide the needed psychological
relation. Philosophers do not share a uniform account of belief, but some
considerations supply common ground. Beliefs are not actions of assenting to a
proposition; they rather are dispositional psychological states that can exist
even when unmanifested. You do not cease believing that 2 ! 2 % 4, for example,
whenever your attention leaves arithmetic. Our believing that p seems to
require that we have a tendency to assent to p in certain situations, but it
seems also to be more than just such a tendency. What else believing requires
remains highly controversial among philosophers. Some philosophers have opposed
the belief condition of the standard analysis on the ground that we can accept,
or assent to, a known proposition without actually believing it. They contend
that we can accept a proposition even if we fail to acquire a tendency,
required by believing, to accept that proposition in certain situations. On
this view, acceptance is a psychological act that does not entail any
dispositional psychological state, and such acceptance is sufficient to relate
a knower psychologically to a known proposition. However this view fares, one
underlying assumption of the standard analysis seems correct: our concept of
knowledge requires that a knower be psychologically related somehow to a known
proposition. Barring that requirement, we shall be hard put to explain how
knowers psychologically possess their knowledge of known propositions. Even if
knowledge requires belief, belief that p does not require knowledge that p,
since belief can typically be false. This observation, familiar from Plato’s
Theaetetus, assumes that knowledge has a truth condition. On the standard
analysis, if you know that p, then it is true that p. If, therefore, it is
false that minds are brains, then you do not know that minds are brains. It is
thus misleading to say, e.g., that astronomers before Copernicus knew that the
earth is flat; at best, they justifiably believed that they knew this. The
truth condition. This condition of the standard analysis has not attracted any
serious challenge. Controversy over it has focused instead on Pilate’s vexing
question: What is truth? This question concerns what truth consists in, not our
ways of finding out what is true. Influential answers come from at least three
approaches: truth as correspondence i.e., agreement, of some specified sort,
between a proposition and an actual situation; truth as coherence i.e.,
interconnectedness of a proposition with a specified system of propositions;
and truth as pragmatic cognitive value i.e., usefulness of a proposition in
achieving certain intellectual goals. Without assessing these prominent
approaches, we should recognize, in accord with the standard analysis, that our
concept of knowledge seems to have a factual requirement: we epistemology
epistemology 274 274 genuinely know
that p only if it is the case that p. The pertinent notion of “its being the
case” seems equivalent to the notion of “how reality is” or “how things really
are.” The latter notion seems essential to our notion of knowledge, but is open
to controversy over its explication. The justification condition. Knowledge is
not simply true belief. Some true beliefs are supported only by lucky guesswork
and hence do not qualify as knowledge. Knowledge requires that the satisfaction
of its belief condition be “appropriately related” to the satisfaction of its
truth condition. This is one broad way of understanding the justification
condition of the standard analysis. More specifically, we might say that a
knower must have adequate indication that a known proposition is true. If we
understand such adequate indication as a sort of evidence indicating that a
proposition is true, we have reached the traditional general view of the
justification condition: justification as evidence. Questions about
justification attract the lion’s share of attention in contemporary
epistemology. Controversy focuses on the meaning of ‘justification’ as well as
on the substantive conditions for a belief’s being justified in a way
appropriate to knowledge. Current debates about the meaning of ‘justification’
revolve around the question whether, and if so how, the concept of epistemic
knowledge-relevant justification is normative. Since the 0s Chisholm has
defended the following deontological obligation-oriented notion of
justification: the claim that a proposition, p, is epistemically justified for
you means that it is false that you ought to refrain from accepting p. In other
terms, to say that p is epistemically justified is to say that accepting p is
epistemically permissible at least in
the sense that accepting p is consistent with a certain set of epistemic rules.
This deontological construal enjoys wide representation in contemporary
epistemology. A normative construal of justification need not be deontological;
it need not use the notions of obligation and permission. Alston, for instance,
has introduced a non-deontological normative concept of justification that
relies mainly on the notion of what is epistemically good from the viewpoint of
maximizing truth and minimizing falsity. Alston links epistemic goodness to a
belief’s being based on adequate grounds in the absence of overriding reasons
to the contrary. Some epistemologists shun normative construals of
justification as superfluous. One noteworthy view is that ‘epistemic
justification’ means simply ‘evidential support’ of a certain sort. To say that
p is epistemically justifiable to some extent for you is, on this view, just to
say that p is supportable to some extent by your overall evidential reasons.
This construal will be non-normative so long as the notions of supportability
and an evidential reason are nonnormative. Some philosophers have tried to
explicate the latter notions without relying on talk of epistemic
permissibility or epistemic goodness. We can understand the relevant notion of
“support” in terms of non-normative notions of entailment and explanation or,
answering why-questions. We can understand the notion of an “evidential reason”
via the notion of a psychological state that can stand in a certain
truth-indicating support relation to propositions. For instance, we might
regard nondoxastic states of “seeming to perceive” something e.g., seeming to
see a dictionary here as foundational truth indicators for certain
physical-object propositions e.g., the proposition that there is a dictionary
here, in virtue of those states being best explained by those propositions. If
anything resembling this approach succeeds, we can get by without the
aforementioned normative notions of epistemic justification. Foundationalism
versus coherentism. Talk of foundational truth indicators brings us to a key
controversy over justification: Does epistemic justification, and thus
knowledge, have foundations, and if so, in what sense? This question can be
clarified as the issue whether some beliefs can not only a have their epistemic
justification non-inferentially i.e., apart from evidential support from any
other beliefs, but also b provide epistemic justification for all justified
beliefs that lack such non-inferential justification. Foundationalism gives an
affirmative answer to this issue, and is represented in varying ways by, e.g.,
Aristotle, Descartes, Russell, C. I. Lewis, and Chisholm. Foundationalists do
not share a uniform account of non-inferential justification. Some construe
non-inferential justification as self-justification. Others reject literal
self-justification for beliefs, and argue that foundational beliefs have their
non-inferential justification in virtue of evidential support from the
deliverances of non-belief psychological states, e.g., perception “seem-ing-to-perceive”
states, sensation “seeming-to-sense” states, or memory “seeming-toremember”
states. Still others understand noninferential justification in terms of a
belief’s being “reliably produced,” i.e., caused and sustained by some
non-belief belief-producing process or source e.g., perception, memory,
introspection that tends to produce true rather than false beliefs. This last
view takes the causal source of a belief to be crucial to its justification.
Unlike Descartes, contemporary foundationalists clearly separate claims to
non-inferential, foundational justification from claims to certainty. They
typically settle for a modest foundationalism implying that foundational
beliefs need not be indubitable or infallible. This contrasts with the radical foundationalism
of Descartes. The traditional competitor to foundationalism is the coherence
theory of justification, i.e., epistemic coherentism. This is not the coherence
definition of truth; it rather is the view that the justification of any belief
depends on that belief’s having evidential support from some other belief via
coherence relations such as entailment or explanatory relations. Notable
proponents include Hegel, Bosanquet, and Sellars. A prominent contemporary
version of epistemic coherentism states that evidential coherence relations
among beliefs are typically explanatory relations. The rough idea is that a
belief is justified for you so long as it either best explains, or is best
explained by, some member of the system of beliefs that has maximal explanatory
power for you. Contemporary coherentism is uniformly systemic or holistic; it
finds the ultimate source of justification in a system of interconnected
beliefs or potential beliefs. One problem has troubled all versions of
coherentism that aim to explain empirical justification: the isolation
argument. According to this argument, coherentism entails that you can be
epistemically justified in accepting an empirical proposition that is
incompatible with, or at least improbable given, your total empirical evidence.
The key assumption of this argument is that your total empirical evidence
includes non-belief sensory and perceptual awareness-states, such as your
feeling pain or your seeming to see something. These are not belief-states.
Epistemic coherentism, by definition, makes justification a function solely of
coherence relations between propositions, such as propositions one believes or
accepts. Thus, such coherentism seems to isolate justification from the
evidential import of non-belief awareness-states. Coherentists have tried to
handle this problem, but no resolution enjoys wide acceptance. Causal and
contextualist theories. Some contemporary epistemologists endorse contextualism
regarding epistemic justification, a view suggested by Dewey, Vitters, and
Kuhn, among others. On this view, all justified beliefs depend for their
evidential support on some unjustified beliefs that need no justification. In
any context of inquiry, people simply assume the acceptability of some
propositions as starting points for inquiry, and these “contextually basic”
propositions, though lacking evidential support, can serve as evidential
support for other propositions. Contextualists stress that contextually basic
propositions can vary from context to context e.g., from theological inquiry to
biological inquiry and from social group to social group. The main problem for
contextualists comes from their view that unjustified assumptions can provide
epistemic justification for other propositions. We need a precise explanation
of how an unjustified assumption can yield evidential support, how a
non-probable belief can make another belief probable. Contextualists have not
given a uniform explanation here. Recently some epistemologists have
recommended that we give up the traditional evidence condition for knowledge.
They recommend that we construe the justification condition as a causal
condition. Roughly, the idea is that you know that p if and only if a you
believe that p, b p is true, and c your believing that p is causally produced
and sustained by the fact that makes p true. This is the basis of the causal
theory of knowing, which comes with varying details. Any such causal theory
faces serious problems from our knowledge of universal propositions. Evidently,
we know, for instance, that all dictionaries are produced by people, but our
believing that this is so seems not to be causally supported by the fact that
all dictionaries are humanly produced. It is not clear that the latter fact
causally produces any beliefs. Another problem is that causal theories
typically neglect what seems to be crucial to any account of the justification
condition: the requirement that justificational support for a belief be
accessible, in some sense, to the believer. The rough idea is that one must be
able to access, or bring to awareness, the justification underlying one’s
beliefs. The causal origins of a belief are, of course, often very complex and
inaccessible to a believer. Causal theories thus face problems from an
accessibility requirement on justification. Internalism regarding justification
preserves an accessibility requirement on what confers justification, whereas
epistemic externalism rejects this requirement. Debates over internalism and externalism
abound in current epistemology, but internalists do not yet share a uniform
detailed account of accessibility. The Gettier problem. The standard analysis
of knowledge, however elaborated, faces a devastating challenge that initially
gave rise to causal theories of knowledge: the Gettier problem. In 3 Edmund
Gettier published a highly influential challenge to the view that if you have a
justified true belief that p, then you know that p. Here is one of Gettier’s
counterexamples to this view: Smith is justified in believing the false proposition
that i Jones owns a Ford. On the basis of i, Smith infers, and thus is
justified in believing, that ii either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in
Barcelona. As it happens, Brown is in Barcelona, and so ii is true. So,
although Smith is justified in believing the true proposition ii, Smith does
not know ii. Gettier-style counterexamples are cases where a person has
justified true belief that p but lacks knowledge that p. The Gettier problem is
the problem of finding a modification of, or an alternative to, the standard
analysis that avoids difficulties from Gettier-style counterexamples. The
controversy over the Gettier problem is highly complex and still unsettled.
Many epistemologists take the lesson of Gettier-style counterexamples to be
that propositional knowledge requires a fourth condition, beyond the
justification, truth, and belief conditions. No specific fourth condition has
received overwhelming acceptance, but some proposals have become prominent. The
so-called defeasibility condition, e.g., requires that the justification
appropriate to knowledge be “undefeated” in the general sense that some
appropriate subjunctive conditional concerning defeaters of justification be
true of that justification. For instance, one simple defeasibility fourth condition
requires of Smith’s knowing that p that there be no true proposition, q, such
that if q became justified for Smith, p would no longer be justified for Smith.
So if Smith knows, on the basis of his visual perception, that Mary removed
books from the library, then Smith’s coming to believe the true proposition
that Mary’s identical twin removed books from the library would not undermine
the justification for Smith’s belief concerning Mary herself. A different
approach shuns subjunctive conditionals of that sort, and contends that
propositional knowledge requires justified true belief that is sustained by the
collective totality of actual truths. This approach requires a detailed account
of when justification is undermined and restored. The Gettier problem is
epistemologically important. One branch of epistemology seeks a precise
understanding of the nature e.g., the essential components of propositional
knowledge. Our having a precise understanding of propositional knowledge
requires our having a Gettier-proof analysis of such knowledge. Epistemologists
thus need a defensible solution to the Gettier problem, however complex that
solution is. Skepticism. Epistemologists debate the limits, or scope, of
knowledge. The more restricted we take the limits of knowledge to be, the more
skeptical we are. Two influential types of skepticism are knowledge skepticism
and justification skepticism. Unrestricted knowledge skepticism implies that no
one knows anything, whereas unrestricted justification skepticism implies the
more extreme view that no one is even justified in believing anything. Some
forms of skepticism are stronger than others. Knowledge skepticism in its
strongest form implies that it is impossible for anyone to know anything. A
weaker form would deny the actuality of our having knowledge, but leave open
its possibility. Many skeptics have restricted their skepticism to a particular
domain of supposed knowledge: e.g., knowledge of the external world, knowledge
of other minds, knowledge of the past or the future, or knowledge of
unperceived items. Such limited skepticism is more common than unrestricted
skepticism in the history of epistemology. Arguments supporting skepticism come
in many forms. One of the most difficult is the problem of the criterion, a
version of which has been stated by the sixteenth-century skeptic Montaigne:
“To adjudicate [between the true and the false] among the appearances of
things, we need to have a distinguishing method; to validate this method, we
need to have a justifying argument; but to validate this justifying argument,
we need the very method at issue. And there we are, going round on the wheel.”
This line of skeptical argument originated in ancient Greece, with epistemology
itself. It forces us to face this question: How can we specify what we know
without having specified how we know, and how can we specify how we know
without having specified what we know? Is there any reasonable way out of this
threatening circle? This is one of the most difficult epistemological problems,
and a cogent epistemology must offer a defensible solution to epistemology
epistemology 277 277 it. Contemporary
epistemology still lacks a widely accepted reply to this urgent problem
erfahrung: Grice used the
German, ‘since I find it difficult to translate.” G. term tr. into English,
especially since Kant, as ‘experience’. Kant does not use it as a technical
term; rather, it indicates that which requires explanation through more
precisely drawn technical distinctions such as those among ‘sensibility’,
‘understanding’, and ‘reason’. In the early twentieth century, Husserl
sometimes distinguishes between Erfahrung and Erlebnis, the former indicating
experience as capable of being thematized and methodically described or
analyzed, the latter experience as “lived through” and never fully available to
analysis. Such a distinction occasionally reappears in later texts of
phenomenology and existentialism.
erigena: j. s. – a
Mediaeval Griceian -- also called John the Scot, Eriugena, and Scottigena, Irish-born
scholar and theologian. He taught grammar and dialectics at the court of
Charles the Bald near Laon from 845 on. In a controversy in 851, John argued
that there was only one predestination, to good, since evil was strictly
nothing. Thus no one is compelled to evil by God’s foreknowledge, since,
strictly speaking, God has no foreknowledge of what is not. But his reliance on
dialectic, his Origenist conception of the world as a place of education
repairing the damage done by sin, his interest in cosmology, and his perceived
Pelagian tendencies excited opposition. Attacked by Prudentius of Troyes and
Flores of Lyons, he was condemned at the councils of Valencia 855 and Langres
859. Charles commissioned him to translate the works of Pseudo-Dionysius and
the Ambigua of Maximus the Confessor from the Grecian. These works opened up a
new world, and John followed his translations with commentaries on the Gospel
of John and Pseudo-Dionysius, and then his chief work, the Division of Nature
or Periphyseon 82666, in the Neoplatonic tradition. He treats the universe as a
procession from God, everything real in nature being a trace of God, and then a
return to God through the presence of nature in human reason and man’s union
with God. John held that the nature of man is not destroyed by union with God,
though it is deified. He was condemned for pantheism at Paris in 1210.
eristic, the art of controversy, often
involving fallacious but persuasive reasoning. The ancient Sophists brought
this art to a high level to achieve their personal goal. They may have found
their material in the “encounters” in the law courts as well as in daily life.
To enhance persuasion they endorsed the use of unsound principles such as hasty
generalizations, faulty analogies, illegitimate appeal to authority, the post
hoc ergo propter hoc i.e., “after this, therefore because of this” and other
presumed principles. Aristotle exposed eristic argumentation in his Sophistical
Refutations, which itself draws examples from Plato’s Euthydemus. From this
latter work comes the famous example: ‘That dog is a father and that dog is
his, therefore that dog is his father’. What is perhaps worse than its obvious
invalidity is that the argument is superficially similar to a sound argument
such as ‘This is a table and this is brown, therefore this is a brown table’.
In the Sophistical Refutations Aristotle undertakes to find procedures for
detection of bad arguments and to propose rules for constructing sound
arguments.
erlebnis: G. Grice used the
German term, “since I find it difficult to translate it” -- term for experience
used in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century G. philosophy. Erlebnis
denotes experience in all its direct immediacy and lived fullness. It contrasts
with the more typical G. word Erfahrung, denoting ordinary experience as
mediated through intellectual and constructive elements. As immediate, Erlebnis
eludes conceptualization, in both the lived present and the interiority of
experience. As direct, Erlebnis is also disclosive and extraordinary: it
reveals something real that otherwise escapes thinking. Typical examples
include art, religion, and love, all of which also show the anti-rationalist
and polemical uses of the concept. It is especially popular among the Romantic
mystics like Novalis and the anti-rationalists Nietzsche and Bergson, as well
as in phenomenology, Lebensphilosophie, and existentialism. As used in
post-Hegelian G. philosophy, the term describes two aspects of subjectivity.
The first concerns the epistemology of the human sciences and of phenomenology.
Against naturalism and objectivism, philosophers appeal to the ineliminable,
subjective qualities of experience to argue that interpreters must understand
“what it is like to be” some experiencing subject, from the inside. The second
use of the term is to denote extraordinary and interior experiences like art,
religion, freedom, and vital energy. In both cases, it is unclear how such
experience could be identified or known in its immediacy, and much recent G. thought,
such as Heidegger and hermeneutics, rejects the concept.
erotetic: in the strict
sense, pertaining to questions. Erotetic logic is the logic of questions.
Different conceptions of questions yield different kinds of erotetic logic. A
Platonistic approach holds that questions exist independently of
interrogatives. For P. Tichý, a question is a function on possible worlds, the
right answer being the value of the function at the actual world. Erotetic
logic is the logic of such functions. In the epistemic-imperative approach of
L. Bqvist, Hintikka, et al., one begins with a system for epistemic sentences
and embeds this in a system for imperative sentences, thus obtaining sentences
of the form ‘make it the case that I know . . .’ and complex compounds of such
sentences. Certain ones of these are defined to be interrogatives. Then
erotetic logic is the logic of epistemic imperatives and the conditions for
satisfaction of these imperatives. In the abstract interrogative approach of N.
Belnap, T. Kubigski, and many others, one chooses certain types of expression
to serve as interrogatives, and, for each type, specifies what expressions
count as answers of various kinds direct, partial, . . .. On this approach we
may say that interrogatives express questions, or we may identify questions
with interrogatives, in which case the only meaning that an interrogative has
is that it has the answers that it does. Either way, the emphasis is on
interrogatives, and erotetic logic is the logic of systems that provide interrogatives
and specify answers to them. In the broad sense, ‘erotetic’ designates what
pertains to utterance-and-response. In this sense erotetic logic is the logic
of the relations between 1 sentences of many kinds and 2 the expressions that
count as appropriate replies to them. This includes not only the relations
between question and answer but also, e.g., between assertion and agreement or
denial, command and report of compliance or refusal, and for many types of
sentence S between S and various corrective replies to S e.g., denial of the
presupposition of S. Erotetic logics may differ in the class of sentences
treated, the types of response counted as appropriate, the assignment of other
content presupposition, projection, etc., and other details.
eschatologicum: Possibly related to Latin ‘summum, ‘as in ‘summum genus,’
and ‘summun bonum. From Greek, 5. in the Logic of Arist., τὰ ἔ. are the last or
lowest species, Metaph.1059b26, or individuals, ib.998b16, cf. AP0.96b12, al.;
“τὸ ἔ. ἄτομον” Metaph.1058b10. b. ὁ ἔ. ὅρος the minor term of a syllogism,
EN1147b14. c. last step in geom. analysis or ultimate condition of action, “τὸ
ἔ. ἀρχὴ τῆς πράξεως” de An.433a16. II. Adv. -τως to the uttermost, exceedingly,
“πῦρ ἐ. καίει” Hp.de Arte8; “ἐ. διαμάχεσθαι” Arist.HA613a11 ; “ἐ. φιλοπόλεμος”
X.An.2.6.1 ; “φοβοῦμαί σ᾽ ἐ.” Men.912, cf. Epicur.Ep. 1p.31U. b. -τως
διακεῖσθαι to be at the last extremity, Plb.1.24.2, D.S.18.48 ; “ἔχειν”
Ev.Marc.5.23 ; “ἀπορεῖν” Phld.Oec.p.72J. 2. so ἐς τὸ ἔ.,=ἐσχάτως, Hdt.7.229; “εἰς
τὰ ἔ.” X.HG5.4.33 ; “εἰς τὰ ἔ. μάλα” Id.Lac.1.2 ; “τὸ ἔ.” finally, in the end,
Pl.Grg.473c ; but, τὸ ἔ. what is worst of all, ib.508d. Why ontology is not
enough. The philosopher needs to PLAY with cross-categorial barriers. He is an
eschatologist. Socrates was. being and good, for Aristotle and Grice cover all.
Good was a favourite of Moore and Hare, as Barnes was well aware! Like Barnes,
Grice dislikes Prichards analysis of good. He leans towards the emotion-based
approach by Ogden. If Grice, like Humpty Dumpty, opposes the Establishment with
his meaning liberalism (what a word means is what I mean by uttering it), he
certainly should be concerned with category shifts. Plus, Grice was a closet
Platonist. As Plato once remarked, having the ability to see horses but not
horsehood (ἱππότης) is a mark of stupidity – rendered by Liddell and Scott as
“horse-nature, the concept of horse” (Antisth. et Pl. ap. Simp.in
Cat.208.30,32, Sch.AristId.p.167F). Grice would endure the flinty experience of
giving joint seminars at Oxford with Austin on the first two books of
Aristotles Organon, Categoriae, and De Int. Grice finds the use of a
category, κατηγορία, by Aristotle a bit of a geniality. Aristotle is using
legalese, from kata, against, on, and agoreuô [ἀγορεύω], speak in public),
and uses it to designate both the prosecution in a trial and the
attribution in a logical proposition, i. e., the questions that must be asked
with regard to a Subjects, and the answers that can be given. As a
representative of the linguistic turn in philosophy, Grice is attracted to the
idea that a category can thus be understood variously, as applying to the realm
of reality (ontology), but also to the philosophy of language (category of
expression) and to philosophical psychology (category of
representation). Grice kept his explorations on categories under two very
separate, shall we say, categories: his explorations with Austin (very
serious), and those with Strawson (more congenial). Where is Smiths altruism?
Nowhere to be seen. Should we say it is idle (otiose) to speak of altruism? No,
it is just an attribute, which, via category shift, can be made the Subjects of
your sentence, Strawson. It is not spatio-temporal, though, right. Not
really. ‒ I do not particularly like your trouser words. The essay
is easy to date since Grice notes that Strawson reproduced some of the details in
his Individuals, which we can very well date. Grice thought Aristotle was the
best! Or at any rate almost as good as Kantotle! Aristotle saw Categoriæ, along
with De Int. as part of his Organon. However, philosophers of language
tend to explore these topics without a consideration of the later parts of the
Organon dealing with the syllogism, the tropes, and the topics ‒ the boring
bits! The reason Grice is attracted to the Aristotelian category (as Austin and
Strawson equally were) is that category allows for a linguistic-turn reading.
Plus, its a nice, pretentious (in the Oxonian way) piece of philosophical
jargon! Aristotle couldnt find category in the koine, so he had to coin it.
While meant by Aristotle in a primarily ontological way, Oxonian philosophers
hasten to add that a category of expression, as Grice puts it, is just as valid
a topic for philosophical exploration. His tutee Strawson will actually publish
a book on Subjects and predicate in grammar! (Trivial, Strawson!). Grice will
later add an intermediary category, which is the Subjects of his philosophical
psychology. As such, a category can be construed ontologically, or
representationally: the latter involving philosophical psychological concepts,
and expressions themselves. For Aristotle, as Grice and Austin, and Grice and
Strawson, were well aware as they educated some of the poor at Oxford (Only the
poor learn at Oxford ‒ Arnold), there are (at least ‒ at most?) ten
categories. Grice doesnt (really) care about the number. But the first are
important. Actually the very first: theres substantia prima, such as Grice. And
then theres substantia secunda, such as Grices rationality. The essentia. Then there
are various types of attributes. But, as Grice sharply notes, even substantia
secunda may be regarded as an attribute. Grices favourite game with Strawson
was indeed Category Shift, or Subjects-ification, as Strawson preferred.
Essence may be introduced as a sub-type of an attribute. We would have
substantia prima AND attribute, which in turn gets divided into essential, the
izzing, and non-essential, the hazzing. While Austin is not so fun to play
with, Strawson is. Smith is a very altruist person. Where is his altruism?
Nowhere to be seen, really. Yet we may sensically speak of Smiths altruism. It
is just a matter of a category shift. Grice scores. Grice is slightly
disappointed, but he perfectly understands, that Strawson, who footnotes Grice
as the tutor from whom I never ceased to learn about logic in Introduction to
logical lheory, fails to acknowledge that most of the research in Strawsons
Individuals: an essay in descriptive (not revisionary) metaphysics derives from
the conclusions reached at his joint philosophical investigations at joint
seminars with Grice. Grice later elaborates on this with Code, who is keen on
Grices other game, the hazz and the hazz not, the izz. But then tutor from whom
I never ceased to learn about metaphysics sounds slightlier clumsier, as far as
the implicaturum goes. Categories, the Grice-Myro theory of identity, Relative
identity, Grice on =, identity, notes, with Myro, metaphysics, philosophy, with
Code, Grice izz Grice – or izz he? The idea that = is unqualified requires
qualification. Whitehead and Russell ignored this. Grice and Myro didnt. Grice
wants to allow for It is the case that a = b /t1 and it is not the case that a
= b /t2. The idea is intuitive, but philosophers of a Leibnizian bent are too
accustomed to deal with = as an absolute. Grice applies this to human vs.
person. A human may be identical to a person, but cease to be so. Indeed,
Grices earlier attempt to produce a reductive analsysis of I may be seen as
remedying a circularity he detected in Locke about same. Cf. Wiggins, Sameness
and substance. Grice makes Peano feel deeply Griceian, as Grice lists his =
postulates, here for consideration. And if you wondered why Grice prefers
Latinate individuum to the Grecian. The Grecian is “ἄτομον,” in logic, rendered
by L and S as ‘individual, of terms,’ Pl. Sph. 229d; of the εἶδος or forma,
Arist. Metaph.1034a8, de An. 414b27.2. individual, Id. APo. 96b11, al.: as a
subst., τό ἄτομον, Id. Cat. 1b6, 3a38, Metaph.1058a18 (pl.), Plot. 6.2.2,
al. subst.; latinised from Grecian. Lewis and Short have “indīvĭdŭum,” an atom,
indivisible particle: ex illis individuis, unde omnia Democritus gigni
affirmat, Cic. Ac. 2, 17 fin.: ne individuum quidem, nec quod dirimi distrahive
non possit, id. N. D. 3, 12, 29. Note the use of individuum in alethic
modalities for necessity and possibility, starting with (11). ⊢ (α izzes α). This would be the principle of
non-contradiction or identity. Grice applies it to war: War is war, as yielding
a most peculiar implicaturum. (α izzes β ∧ β izzes γ) ⊃ α
izzes γ. This above is transitivity, which is crucial for Grices tackling of
Reids counterexample to Locke (and which according to Flew in Locke on personal
identity was predated by Berkeley. α hazzes β ⊃ ~(α izzes β). Or, what is accidental is not essential.
Grice allows that what is essential is accidental is, while misleading,
true. ⊢ α hazzes β ⊃⊂ (∃x)(α hazzes x ∧ x
izzes β) ⊢ (∀β)(β izzes a universalium ⊃ β izzes a forma). This above defines a universalium as
a forma, or eidos. (α hazzes β ∧ α
izzes a particular) ⊃ (∃γ).(γ≠α ∧ α izzes β) ⊢ α izzes predicable of β ⊃⊂ ((β izzes α) ∨ (∃x)(β hazzes x ∧ x
izzes α) ⊢ α izzes essentially predicable of β ⊃⊂ β izzes α ⊢ α
izzes non-essentially/accidentally predicable of β ⊃⊂ (∃x)(β hazzes x ∧ x
izzes α) α = β ⊃⊂ α izzes β ∧ β
izzes α ⊢ α izzes an individuum ⊃⊂ □(∀β)(β izzes α ⊃ α izzes β) ⊢ α
izzes a particular ⊃⊂ □(∀β)(α izzes predicable of β ⊃ (α izzes β ∧ β
izzes α)); α izzes a universalium ⊃⊂ ◊(∃β)(α izzes predicable of α ∧ ~(α izzes β ∧ β
izzes α) ⊢ α izzes some-thing ⊃ α
izzes an individuum. ⊢ α izzes a forma ⊃ (α izzes some-thing ∧ α izzes a universalium) 16. ⊢ α izzes predicable of β ⊃⊂ (β izzes α) ∨ (∃x)(β hazzes x ∧ x
izzes α) ⊢ α izzes essentially predicable of α ⊢ α izzes accidentally predicable of β ⊃ α ≠ β; ~(α izzes accidentally predicable of β) ⊃ α ≠ β 20. α izzes a particular ⊃ α izzes an individuum. ⊢ α izzes a particular ⊃ ~(∃x)(x ≠ α ∧ x izzes α) 22. ⊢~
(∃x).(x izzes a particular ∧ x
izzes a forma) α izzes a forma ⊃ ~(∃x)(x ≠ α ∧ x
izzes α) x izzes a particular ⊃ ~(∃β)(α izz β) ⊢ α izzes a forma ⊃ ((α
izzes predicable of β ∧ α ≠ β) ⊃ β hazz α); α izzes a forma ∧ β izzes a particular ⊃ (α izzes predicable of β ⊃⊂ β hazz A) ⊢ (α
izzes a particular ∧ β izzes a universalium ∧ β izzes predicable of α) ⊃ (∃γ)(α ≠ γ ∧ γ
izzes essentially predicable of α) ⊢ (∃x) (∃y)(x izzes a particular ∧ y
izzes a universalium ∧ y izzes predicable of x ⊃ ~(∀x)(x izzes a universalium ∧ x izzes some-thing); (∀β)(β
izzes a universalium ⊃ β izzes some-thing) ⊢ α
izzes a particular) ⊃ ~∃β.(α ≠ β ∧ β
izzes essentially predicable of α); (α izzes predicable of β ∧ α ≠ β)⊃ α izzes non-essentially or
accidentally predicable of β. The use of this or that doxastic modality,
necessity and possibility, starting above, make this a good place to consider
one philosophical mistake Grice mentions in “Causal theory.” What is actual is
not also possible. Cf. What is essential is also accidental. He is criticising
a contemporary, if possible considered dated in the New World, form of
ordinary-language philosophy, where the philosopher detects a nuance, and
embarks risking colliding with the facts, rushing ahead to exploit it before he
can clarify it! Grice liked to see his explorations on = as belonging to metaphysics,
as the s. on his Doctrines at the Grice
Collection testifies. While Grice presupposes the use of = in his treatment of
the king of France, he also explores a relativisation of =. His motivation was
an essay by Wiggins, almost Aristotelian in spirit, against Strawsons criterion
of space-time continuancy for the identification of the substantia prima. Grice
wants to apply = to cases were the time continuancy is made explicit. This
yields that a=b in scenario S, but that it may not be the case that a = b in a
second scenario S. Myro had an occasion to expand on Grices views in his
contribution on the topic for PGRICE. Myro mentions his System Ghp, a highly
powerful/hopefully plausible version of Grices System Q, in gratitude to to
Grice. Grice explored also the logic of izzing and hazzing with Code. Grice and
Myro developed a Geach-type of qualified identity. The formal aspects were
developed by Myro, and also by Code. Grice discussed Wigginss Sameness and
substance, rather than Geach. Cf. Wiggins and Strawson on Grice for the BA. At
Oxford, Grice was more or less given free rein to teach what he wanted. He
found the New World slightly disconcerting at first. At Oxford, he expected his
tutees to be willing to read the classics in the vernacular Greek. His approach
to teaching was diagogic, as Socratess! Even in his details of izzing and
hazzing. Greek enough to me!, as a student recalled! correspondence with Code,
Grice sees in Code an excellent Aristotelian. They collaborated on an
exploration of Aristotles underlying logic of essential and non-essential
predication, for which they would freely use such verbal forms as izzing and
hazing, izzing and hazzing, Code on the significance of the middle book in
Aristotles Met. , Aristotle, metaphysics, the middle book. Very middle.
Grice never knew what was middle for Aristotle, but admired Code too much to
air this! The organisation of Aristotle’s metaphysics was a topic of much
concern for Grice. With Code, Grice coined izzing and hazzing to refer to
essential and non-essential attribution. Izzing and hazzing, “Aristotle on the
multiplicity of being” (henceforth, “Aristotle”) PPQ, Aristotle on multiplicity, “The Pacific
Philosophical Quarterly” (henceforth, “PPQ,” posthumously ed. by Loar,
Aristotle, multiplicity, izzing, hazzing, being, good, Code. Grice offers a
thorough discussion of Owens treatment of Aristotle as leading us to the snares
of ontology. Grice distinguishes between izzing and hazzing, which he thinks
help in clarifying, more axiomatico, what Aristotle is getting at with his
remarks on essential versus non-essential predication. Surely, for Grice,
being, nor indeed good, should not be multiplied beyond necessity,
but izzing and hazzing are already multiplied. The Grice Papers contains
drafts of the essay eventually submitted for publication by Loar in memoriam
Grice. Note that the Grice Papers contains a typically Griceian un-publication,
entitled Aristotle and multiplicity simpliciter. Rather than Aristotle on,
as the title for the PPQ piece goes. Note also that, since its
multiplicity simpliciter, it refers to Aristotle on two key ideas: being and
the good. As Code notes in his contribution to PGRICE, Grice first
presents his thoughts on izzing and hazzing publicly at Vancouver. Jones has
developed the axiomatic treatment favoured by Grice. For Grice there is
multiplicity in both being and good (ton agathon), both accountable in terms of
conversational implicatura, of course. If in Prolegomena, Grice was interested
in criticising himself, in essays of historical nature like these, Grice is
seeing Aristotles Athenian dialectic as a foreshadow of the Oxonian dialectic,
and treating him as an equal. Grice is yielding his razor: senses are not to
be multiplied beyond necessity. But then Aristotle is talking about
the multiplicity of is and is good. Surely, there are ways to turn
Aristotle into the monoguist he has to be! There is a further item in
the Grice collection that combines Aristotle on being with Aristotle on good,
which is relevant in connection with this. Aristotle on being and good
(ἀγαθόν). Aristotle, being, good (agathon), ἀγαθός. As from this f.,
the essays are ordered alphabetically, starting with Aristotle, Grice will
explore Aristotle on being or is and good (ἀγαθός) in explorations with Code.
Grice comes up with izzing and hazzing as the two counterparts to Aristotles
views on, respectively, essential and non-essential predication. Grices views
on Aristotle on the good (strictly, there is no need to restrict Arisstotles
use to the neuter form, since he employs ἀγαθός) connect with Grices
Aristotelian idea of eudaemonia, that he explores elsewhere. Strictly:
Aristotle on being and the good. If that had been Grices case, he would have
used the definite article. Otherwise, good may well translate as masculine,
ἀγαθός ‒the agathetic implicaturum. He plays with Dodgson, cabbages and
kings. For what is a good cabbage as opposed to a cabbage? It does not
require very sharp eyes, but only our willingness to use the eyes one has, to
see that speech is permeated with the notion of purpose. To say what a
certain kind of thing is is only too frequently partly to say that it is
for. This feature applies to talk of, e. g., ships, shoes, sailing wax,
and kings; and, possibly and perhaps most excitingly, it extends even to
cabbages! Although Grice suspects Urmson might disagree. v. Grice on
Urmsons apples. Grice at his jocular best. If he is going to be a Kantian,
he will. He uses Kantian jargon to present his theory of conversation. This he
does only at Harvard. The implicaturum being that talking of vaguer assumptions
of helpfulness would not sound too convincing. So he has the maxim, the super-maxim,
and the sub-maxim. A principle and a maxim is Kantian enough. But when he
actually echoes Kant, is when he introduces what he later calls the
conversational categories – the keyword here is conversational category, as
categoria is used by Aristotle and Kant ‒ or Kantotle. Grice surely
knew that, say, his Category of Conversational Modality had nothing to do with
the Kantian Category of Modality. Still, he stuck with the idea of four
categories (versus Aristotles ten, eight or seven, as the text you consult may
tell you): category of conversational quantity (which at Oxford he had
formulated in much vaguer terms like strength and informativeness and
entailment), the category of conversational quality (keyword: principle of
conversational trust), and the category of conversational relation, where again
Kants relation has nothing to do with the maxim Grice associates with this
category. In any case, his Kantian joke may be helpful when considering the
centrality of the concept category simpliciter that Grice had to fight with
with his pupils at Oxford – he was lucky to have Austin and Strawson as
co-lecturers! Grice was irritated by L and S defining kategoria as category. I
guess I knew that. He agreed with their second shot, predicable. Ultimately, Grices
concern with category is his concern with person, or prote ousia, as used by
Aristotle, and as giving a rationale to Grices agency-based approach to the
philosophical enterprise. Aristotle used kategorein in the sense of
to predicate, assert something of something, and kategoria. The prote
ousia is exemplified by o tis anthropos. It is obvious that Grice wants to
approach Aristotles semantics and Aristotles metaphysics at one fell swoop.
Grice reads Aristotles Met. , and finds it understandable. Consider the
adjective French (which Aristotle does NOT consider) ‒ as it occurs in phrases
such as Michel Foucault is a French citizen. Grice is not a French
citizen. Michel Foucault once wrote a nice French poem. Urmson once wrote
a nice French essay on pragmatics. Michel Foucault was a French
professor. Michel Foucault is a French professor. Michel Foucault
is a French professor of philosophy. The following features are perhaps
significant. The appearance of the adjective French, or Byzantine, as the
case might be ‒ cf. I’m feeling French tonight. In these phrases is what
Grice has as adjunctive rather than conjunctive, or attributive. A French poem
is not necessarily something which combines the separate features of being a
poem and being French, as a tall philosopher would simply combine the features
of being tall and of being a philosopher. French in French poem,
occurs adverbially. French citizen standardly means citizen of
France. French poem standardly means poem in French. But it is a mistake to suppose
that this fact implies that there is this or that meaning, or, worse, this or
that Fregeian sense, of the expression French. In any case, only
metaphorically or metabolically can we say that French means this or that or
has sense. An utterer means. An utterer makes sense. Cf. R. Pauls doubts about
capitalizing major. French means, and figuratively at that, only one thing,
viz. of or pertaining to France. And English only means of or
pertaining to England. French may be what Grice (unfollowing his remarks
on The general theory of context) call context-sensitive. One might indeed
say, if you like, that while French means ‒ or means only this or that, or that
its only sense is this or that, French still means, again figuratively, a
variety of things. French means-in-context of or pertaining to
France. Symbolise that as expression E means-in-context that p.
Expression E means-in-context C2 that p2. Relative
to Context C1 French means of France; as in the phrase French
citizen. Relative to context C2, French means in the French language, as in the phrase,
French poem ‒ whereas history does not behave, like this. Whether the
focal item is a universal or a particular is, contra Aristotle, quite
irrelevant to the question of what this or that related adjective means, or
what its sense is. The medical art is no more what an utterer means when he
utters the adjective medical, as is France what an utterer means by the
adjective French. While the attachment of this or that context may suggest an
interpretation in context of this or that expression as uttered by the utterer
U, it need not be the case that such a suggestion is indefeasible. It
might be e.g. that French poem would have to mean, poem composed in French,
unless there were counter indications, that brings the utterer and the
addressee to a different context C3. In which case, perhaps
what the utterer means by French poem is poem composed by a French competitor
in this or that competition. For French professor there would be two
obvious things an utterer might mean. Disambiguation will depend on the
wider expression-context or in the situational context attaching to
the this or that circumstance of utterance. Eschatology. Some like Hegel, but
Collingwoods *my* man! ‒ Grice. Grice participated in two consecutive
evenings of the s. of programmes on metaphysics organised by Pears. Actually,
charming Pears felt pretentious enough to label the meetings to be about the
nature of metaphysics! Grice ends up discussing, as he should, Collingwood on
presupposition. Met. remained a
favourite topic for Grices philosophical explorations, as it is evident from
his essay on Met. , Philosophical Eschatology, and Platos Republic, repr. in
his WOW . Possibly Hardie is to blame, since he hardly tutored Grice on
metaphysics! Grices two BBC lectures are typically dated in tone. It was the
(good ole) days when philosophers thought they could educate the non-elite by
dropping Namess like Collingwood and stuff! The Third Programme was extremely
popular, especially among the uneducated ones at London, as Pears almost put
it, as it was a way for Londoners to get to know what is going on down at
Oxford, the only place an uneducated (or educated, for that matter) Londoner at
the time was interested in displaying some interest about! I mean, Johnson is
right: if a man is tired of the nature of metaphysics, he is tired of life!
Since the authorship is Grice, Strawson, and Pears, Met. , in Pears, The Nature
of Met., The BBC Third Programme, it is somewhat difficult to identify what paragraphs
were actually read by Grice (and which ones by Pears and which ones by
Strawson). But trust the sharp Griceian to detect the correct implicaturum!
There are many (too many) other items covered by these two lectures: Kant,
Aristotle, in no particular order. And in The Grice Collection, for that
matter, that cover the field of metaphysics. In the New World, as a sort of
tutor in the graduate programme, Grice was expected to cover the discipline at
various seminars. Only I dislike discipline! Perhaps his clearest exposition is
in the opening section of his Met. , philosophical eschatology, and Platos
Republic, repr. in his WOW , where he states, bluntly that all you need is metaphysics! metaphysics, Miscellaneous,
metaphysics notes, Grice would possible see metaphysics as a class – category
figuring large. He was concerned with the methodological aspects of the
metaphysical enterprise, since he was enough of a relativist to allow for one
metaphysical scheme to apply to one area of discourse (one of Eddingtons
tables) and another metaphysical scheme to apply to another (Eddingtons other
table). In the third programme for the BBC Grice especially enjoyed criticising
John Wisdoms innovative look at metaphysics as a bunch of self-evident
falsehoods (Were all alone). Grice focuses on Wisdom on the knowledge of other
minds. He also discusses Collingwoods presuppositions, and Bradley on the
reality-appearance distinction. Grices reference to Wisdom was due to Ewings
treatment of Wisdom on metaphysics. Grices main motivation here is defending
metaphysics against Ayer. Ayer thought to win more Oxonian philosophers than he
did at Oxford, but he was soon back in London. Post-war Oxford had become
conservative and would not stand to the nonsense of Ayers claiming that metaphysics
is nonsense, especially, as Ayers implicaturum also was, that philosophy is
nonsense! Perhaps the best summary of Griceian metaphysics is his From Genesis
to Revelations: a new discourse on metaphysics. It’s an ontological answer that
one must give to Grices metabolic operation from utterers meaning to expression
meaning, Grice had been interested in the methodology of metaphysics since his
Oxford days. He counts as one memorable experience in the area his
participation in two episodes for the BBC Third Programme on The nature of
metaphysics with the organiser, Pears, and his former tutee, Strawson on the
panel. Grice was particularly keen on Collingwoods views on metaphysical
presuppositions, both absolute and relative! Grice also considers John Wisdoms
view of the metaphysical proposition as a blatant falsehood. Grice considers
Bradleys Hegelian metaphysics of the absolute, in Appearance and reality.
Refs.: While Grice’s choice was ‘eschatology,’ as per WoW, Essay, other
keywords are useful, notably “metaphysics,” “ontology,” “theorizing,” and
“theory-theory,” in The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
esse, essentia: Grice:
“Perhaps the most important verb, philosophical speaking.” Grice: “It was
Boezio who had the witty occurrence of translating the Aristotelian ‘belong’ by
the much simpler ‘est’ – “S est P.” -- Explored byy Grice in “Aristotle on the
multiplicity of being”. To avoid equivocation, Grice distinguishes between the
‘izz’ of essentia, and the ‘hazz’ of accidentia. ssentialism, a metaphysical
theory that objects have essences and that there is a distinction between
essential and non-essential or accidental predications. Different issues have,
however, been central in debates about essences and essential predication in
different periods in the history of philosophy. In our own day, it is
commitment to the notion of de re modality that is generally taken to render a
theory essentialist; but in the essentialist tradition stemming from Aristotle,
discussions of essence and essential predication focus on the distinction
between what an object is and how it is. According to Aristotle, the universals
that an ordinary object instantiates include some that mark it out as what it
is and others that characterize it in some way but do not figure in an account
of what it is. In the Categories, he tells us that while the former are said of
the object, the latter are merely present in it; and in other writings, he
distinguishes between what he calls kath hauto or per se predications where
these include the predication of what-universals and kata sumbebekos or per
accidens predications where these include the predication of how-universals. He
concedes that universals predicated of an object kath hauto are necessary to
that object; but he construes the necessity here as derivative. It is because a
universal marks out an entity, x, as what x is and hence underlies its being
the thing that it is that the universal is necessarily predicated of x. The
concept of definition is critically involved in Aristotle’s essentialism.
First, it is the kind infima
species under which an object falls or
one of the items genus or differentia included in the definition of that kind
that is predicated of the object kath hauto. But, second, Aristotle’s notion of
an essence just is the notion of the ontological correlate of a definition. The
term in his writings we translate as ‘essence’ is the expression to ti ein
einai the what it is to be. Typically, the expression is followed by a
substantival expression in the dative case, so that the expressions denoting
essences are phrases like ‘the what it is to be for a horse’ and ‘the what it
is to be for an oak tree’; and Aristotle tells us that, for any kind, K, the
what it is to be for a K just is that which we identify when we provide a
complete and accurate definition of K. Now, Aristotle holds that there is
definition only of universals; and this commits him to the view that there are
no individual essences. Although he concedes that we can provide definitions of
universals from any of his list of ten categories, he gives pride of place to
the essences of universals from the category of substance. Substance-universals
can be identified without reference to essences from other categories, but the
essences of qualities, quantities, and other non-substances can be defined only
by reference to the essences of substances. In his early writings, Aristotle took
the familiar particulars of common sense things like the individual man and
horse of Categories V to be the primary substances; and in these writings it is
the essences we isolate by defining the kinds or species under which familiar
particulars fall that are construed as the basic or paradigmatic essences.
However, in later writings, where ordinary particulars are taken to be
complexes of matter and form, it is the substantial forms of familiar
particulars that are the primary substances, so their essences are the primary
or basic essences; and a central theme in Aristotle’s most mature writings is
the idea that the primary substances and their essences are necessarily one and
the same in number. error theory essentialism 281 281 The conception of essence as the
ontological correlate of a definition
often called quiddity persists
throughout the medieval tradition; and in early modern philosophy, the idea
that the identity of an object is constituted by what it is plays an important
role in Continental rationalist thinkers. Indeed, in the writings of Leibniz,
we find the most extreme version of traditional essentialism. Whereas Aristotle
had held that essences are invariably general, Leibniz insisted that each
individual has an essence peculiar to it. He called the essence associated with
an entity its complete individual concept; and he maintained that the
individual concept somehow entails all the properties exemplified by the
relevant individual. Accordingly, Leibniz believed that an omniscient being could,
for each possible world and each possible individual, infer from the individual
concept of that individual the whole range of properties exemplified by that
individual in that possible world. But, then, from the perspective of an
omniscient being, all of the propositions identifying the properties the
individual actually exhibits would express what Aristotle called kath hauto
predications. Leibniz, of course, denied that our perspective is that of an
omniscient being; we fail to grasp individual essences in their fullness, so
from our perspective, the distinction between essential and accidental
predications holds. While classical rationalists espoused a thoroughgoing
essentialism, the Aristotlelian conceptions of essence and definition were the
repeated targets of attacks by classical British empiricists. Hobbes, e.g.,
found the notion of essence philosophically useless and insisted that
definition merely displays the meanings conventionally associated with
linguistic expressions. Locke, on the other hand, continued to speak of
essences; but he distinguished between real and nominal essences. As he saw it,
the familiar objects of common sense are collections of copresent sensible
ideas to which we attach a single name like ‘man’ or ‘horse’. Identifying the
ideas constitutive of the relevant collection gives us the nominal essence of a
man or a horse. Locke did not deny that real essences might underlie such
collections, but he insisted that it is nominal rather than real essences to
which we have epistemic access. Hume, in turn, endorsed the idea that familiar
objects are collections of sensible ideas, but rejected the idea of some
underlying real essence to which we have no access; and he implicitly
reinforced the Hobbesian critique of Aristotelian essences with his attack on
the idea of de re necessities. So definition merely expresses the meanings we
conventionally associate with words, and the only necessity associated with
definition is linguistic or verbal necessity. From its origins, the twentieth-century
analytic tradition endorsed the classical empiricist critique of essences and
the Humean view that necessity is merely linguistic. Indeed, even the Humean
concession that there is a special class of statements true in virtue of their
meanings came into question in the forties and fifties, when philosophers like
Quine argued that it is impossible to provide a noncircular criterion for
distinguishing analytic and synthetic statements. So by the late 0s, it had
become the conventional wisdom of philosophers in the Anglo- tradition that
both the notion of a real essence and the derivative idea that some among the
properties true of an object are essential to that object are philosophical
dead ends. But over the past three decades, developments in the semantics of
modal logic have called into question traditional empiricist skepticism about
essence and modality and have given rise to a rebirth of essentialism. In the
late fifties and early sixties, logicians like Kripke, Hintikka, and Richard
Montague showed how formal techniques that have as their intuitive core the
Leibnizian idea that necessity is truth in all possible worlds enable us to
provide completeness proofs for a whole range of nonequivalent modal logics.
Metaphysicians seized on the intuitions underlying these formal methods. They
proposed that we take the picture of alternative possible worlds seriously and
claimed that attributions of de dicto modality necessity and possibility as
they apply to propositions can be understood to involve quantification over
possible worlds. Thus, to say that a proposition, p, is necessary is to say
that for every possible world, W, p is true in W; and to say that p is possible
is to say that there is at least one possible world, W, such that p is true in
W. These metaphysicians went on to claim that the framework of possible worlds
enables us to make sense of de re modality. Whereas de dicto modality attaches
to propositions taken as a whole, an ascription of de re modality identifies
the modal status of an object’s exemplification of an attribute. Thus, we speak
of Socrates as being necessarily or essentially rational, but only contingently
snub-nosed. Intuitively, the essential properties of an object are those it
could not have lacked; whereas its contingent properties are properties it
exemplifies but could have failed to exemplify. The “friends of possible
worlds” insisted that we can make perfectly good sense of this intuitive
distinction if we say that an object, x, exhibits a property, P, essentially
just in case x exhibits P in the actual world and in every possible world in
which x exists and that x exhibits P merely contingently just in case x
exhibits P in the actual world, but there is at least one possible world, W,
such that x exists in W and fails to exhibit P in W. Not only have these
neo-essentialists invoked the Leibnizian conception of alternative possible
worlds in characterizing the de re modalities, many have endorsed Leibniz’s
idea that each object has an individual essence or what is sometimes called a
haecceity. As we have seen, the intuitive idea of an individual essence is the
idea of a property an object exhibits essentially and that no other object
could possibly exhibit; and contemporary essentialists have fleshed out this
intuitive notion by saying that a property, P, is the haecceity or individual
essence of an object, x, just in case 1 x exhibits P in the actual world and in
all worlds in which x exists and 2 there is no possible world where an object
distinct from x exhibits P. And some defenders of individual essences like
Plantinga have followed Leibniz in holding that the haecceity of an object
provides a complete concept of that object, a property such that it entails,
for every possible world, W, and every property, P, either the proposition that
the object in question has P in W or the proposition that it fails to have P in
W. Accordingly, they agree that an omniscient being could infer from the
individual essence of an object a complete account of the history of that
object in each possible world in which it exists.
Mos,
ethos: ethos:
Grice: “I love Lorenz, and he loved his geese.” -- Grice: “In German, ‘deutsche’ means ‘tribal.’”
-- philosophical ethology – phrase used by Grice for his creature construction
routine. ethical constructivism, a form of anti-realism about ethics which
holds that there are moral facts and truths, but insists that these facts and
truths are in some way constituted by or dependent on our moral beliefs,
reactions, or attitudes. For instance, an ideal observer theory that represents
the moral rightness and wrongness of an act in terms of the moral approval and
disapproval that an appraiser would have under suitably idealized conditions
can be understood as a form of ethical constructivism. Another form of
constructivism identifies the truth of a moral belief with its being part of
the appropriate system of beliefs, e.g., of a system of moral and nonmoral
beliefs that is internally coherent. Such a view would maintain a coherence
theory of moral truth. Moral relativism is a constructivist view that allows
for a plurality of moral facts and truths. Thus, if the idealizing conditions
appealed to in an ideal observer theory allow that different appraisers can
have different reactions to the same actions under ideal conditions, then that
ideal observer theory will be a version of moral relativism as well as of
ethical constructivism. Or, if different systems of moral beliefs satisfy the
appropriate epistemic conditions e.g. are equally coherent, then the truth or
falsity of particular moral beliefs will have to be relativized to different
moral systems or codes. -- ethical objectivism, the view that the objects of
the most basic concepts of ethics which may be supposed to be values,
obligations, duties, oughts, rights, or what not exist, or that facts about
them hold, objectively and that similarly worded ethical statements by
different persons make the same factual claims and thus do not concern merely
the speaker’s feelings. To say that a fact is objective, or that something has
objective existence, is usually to say that its holding or existence is not
derivative from its being thought to hold or exist. In the Scholastic
terminology still current in the seventeenth century ‘objective’ had the more
or less contrary meaning of having status only as an object of thought. In
contrast, fact, or a thing’s existence, is subjective if it holds or exists
only in the sense that it is thought to hold or exist, or that it is merely a
convenient human posit for practical purposes. A fact holds, or an object
exists, intersubjectively if somehow its acknowledgment is binding on all
thinking subjects or all subjects in some specified group, although it does not
hold or exist independently of their thinking about it. Some thinkers suppose
that intersubjectivity is all that can ever properly be meant by objectivity.
Objectivism may be naturalist or non-naturalist. The naturalist objectivist
believes that values, duties, or whatever are natural phenomena detectable by
introspection, perception, or scientific inference. Thus values may be
identified with certain empirical qualities of anybody’s experience, or duties
with empirical facts about the effects of action, e.g. as promoting or
hindering social cohesion. The non-naturalist objectivist eschewing what Moore
called the naturalistic fallacy believes that values or obligations or whatever
items he thinks most basic in ethics exist independently of any belief about
them, but that their existence is not a matter of any ordinary fact detectable
in the above ways but can be revealed to ethical intuition as standing in a
necessary but not analytic relation to natural phenomena. ‘Ethical subjectivism’
usually means the doctrine that ethical statements are simply reports on the
speaker’s feelings though, confusingly enough, such statements may be
objectively true or false. Perhaps it ought to mean the doctrine that nothing
is good or bad but thinking makes it so. Attitude theories of morality, for
which such statements express, rather than report upon, the speaker’s feelings,
are also, despite the objections of their proponents, sometimes called
subjectivist. In a more popular usage an objective matter of fact is one on
which all reasonable persons can be expected to agree, while a matter is
subjective if various alternative opinions can be accepted as reasonable. What
is subjective in this sense may be quite objective in the more philosophical
sense in question above. -- ethics, the
philosophical study of morality. The word is also commonly used interchangeably
with ‘morality’ to mean the subject matter of this study; and sometimes it is
used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition,
group, or individual. Christian ethics and Albert Schweitzer’s ethics are
examples. In this article the word will be used exclusively to mean the
philosophical study. Ethics, along with logic, metaphysics, and epistemology,
is one of the main branches of philosophy. It corresponds, in the traditional
division of the field into formal, natural, and moral philosophy, to the last
of these disciplines. It can in turn be divided into the general study of
goodness, the general study of right action, applied ethics, metaethics, moral
psychology, and the metaphysics of moral responsibility. These divisions are
not sharp, and many important studies in ethics, particularly those that
examine or develop whole systems of ethics, are interdivisional. Nonetheless,
they facilitate the identification of different problems, movements, and
schools within the discipline. The first two, the general study of goodness and
the general study of right action, constitute the main business of ethics.
Correlatively, its principal substantive questions are what ends we ought, as
fully rational human beings, to choose and pursue and what moral principles
should govern our choices and pursuits. How these questions are related is the
discipline’s principal structural question, and structural differences among
systems of ethics reflect different answers to this question. In contemporary
ethics, the study of structure has come increasingly to the fore, especially as
a preliminary to the general study of right action. In the natural order of
exposition, however, the substantive questions come first. Goodness and the
question of ends. Philosophers have typically treated the question of the ends
we ought to pursue in one of two ways: either as a question about the
components of a good life or as a question about what sorts of things are good
in themselves. On the first way of treating the question, it is assumed that we
naturally seek a good life; hence, determining its components amounts to
determining, relative to our desire for such a life, what ends we ought to
pursue. On the second way, no such assumption about human nature is made;
rather it is assumed that whatever is good in itself is worth choosing or
pursuing. The first way of treating the question leads directly to the theory of
human well-being. The second way leads directly to the theory of intrinsic
value. The first theory originated in ancient ethics, and eudaimonia was the
Grecian word for its subject, a word usually tr. ‘happiness,’ but sometimes tr.
‘flourishing’ in order to make the question of human well-being seem more a
matter of how well a person is doing than how good he is feeling. These
alternatives reflect the different conceptions of human well-being that inform
the two major views within the theory: the view that feeling good or pleasure
is the essence of human well-being and the view that doing well or excelling at
things worth doing is its essence. The first view is hedonism in its classical
form. Its most famous exponent among the ancients was Epicurus. The second view
is perfectionism, a view that is common to several schools of ancient ethics.
Its adherents include Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. Among the moderns, the
best-known defenders of classical hedonism and perfectionism are respectively
J. S. Mill and Nietzsche. Although these two views differ on the question of
what human well-being essentially consists in, neither thereby denies that the
other’s answer has a place in a good human life. Indeed, mature statements of
each typically assign the other’s answer an ancillary place. Thus, hedonism, as
expounded by Epicurus, takes excelling at things worth doing exercising one’s intellectual powers and
moral virtues in exemplary and fruitful ways, e.g. as the tried and true means to experiencing
life’s most satisfying pleasures. And perfectionism, as developed in
Aristotle’s ethics, underscores the importance of pleasure the deep satisfaction that comes from doing
an important job well, e.g. as a natural
concomitant of achieving excellence in things that matter. The two views, as
expressed in these mature statements, differ not so much in the kinds of
activities they take to be central to a good life as in the ways they explain
the goodness of such a life. The chief difference between them, then, is philosophical
rather than prescriptive. The second theory, the theory of intrinsic value,
also has roots in ancient ethics, specifically, Plato’s theory of Forms. But
unlike Plato’s theory, the basic tenets of which include certain doctrines
about the reality and transcendence of value, the theory of intrinsic value
neither contains nor presupposes any metaphysical theses. At issue in the
theory is what things are good in themselves, and one can take a position on
this issue without committing oneself to any thesis about the reality or
unreality of goodness or about its transcendence or immanence. A list of the
different things philosophers have considered good in themselves would include
life, happiness, pleasure, knowledge, virtue, friendship, beauty, and harmony.
The list could easily be extended. An interest in what constitutes the goodness
of the various items on the list has brought philosophers to focus primarily on
the question of whether something unites them. The opposing views on this
question are monism and pluralism. Monists affirm the list’s unity; pluralists
deny it. Plato, for instance, was a monist. He held that the goodness of
everything good in itself consisted in harmony and therefore each such thing
owed its goodness to its being harmonious. Alternatively, some philosophers
have proposed pleasure as the sole constituent of goodness. Indeed, conceiving
of pleasure as a particular kind of experience or state of consciousness, they
have proposed this kind of experience as the only thing good in itself and
characterized all other good things as instrumentally good, as owing their
goodness to their being sources of pleasure. Thus, hedonism too can be a
species of monism. In this case, though, one must distinguish between the view
that it is one’s own experiences of pleasure that are intrinsically good and
the view that anyone’s experiences of pleasure, indeed, any sentient being’s
experiences of pleasure, are intrinsically good. The former is called by
Sidgwick egoistic hedonism, the latter universal hedonism. This distinction can
be made general, as a distinction between egoistic and universal views of what
is good in itself or, as philosophers now commonly say, between agent-relative
and agent-neutral value. As such, it indicates a significant point of disagreement
in the theory of intrinsic value, a disagreement in which the seeming
arbitrariness and blindness of egoism make it harder to defend. In drawing this
conclusion, however, one must be careful not to mistake these egoistic views
for views in the theory of human well-being, for each set of views represents a
set of alternative answers to a different question. One must be careful, in
other words, not to infer from the greater defensibility of universalism
vis-à-vis egoism that universalism is the predominant view in the general study
of goodness. Right action. The general study of right action concerns the
principles of right and wrong that govern our choices and pursuits. In modern
ethics these principles are typically given a jural conception. Accordingly,
they are understood to constitute a moral code that defines the duties of men
and women who live together in fellowship. This conception of moral principles
is chiefly due to the influence of Christianity in the West, though some of its
elements were already present in Stoic ethics. Its ascendancy in the general
study of right action puts the theory of duty at the center of that study. The
theory has two parts: the systematic exposition of the moral code that defines
our duties; and its justification. The first part, when fully developed,
presents complete formulations of the fundamental principles of right and wrong
and shows how they yield all moral duties. The standard model is an axiomatic
system in mathematics, though some philosophers have proposed a technical
system of an applied science, such as medicine or strategy, as an alternative.
The second part, if successful, establishes the authority of the principles and
so validates the code. Various methods and criteria of justification are commonly
used; no single one is canonical. Success in establishing the principles’
authority depends on the soundness of the argument that proceeds from whatever
method or criterion is used. One traditional criterion is implicit in the idea
of an axiomatic system. On this criterion, the fundamental principles of right
and wrong are authoritative in virtue of being self-evident truths. That is,
they are regarded as comparable to axioms not only in being the first
principles of a deductive system but also in being principles whose truth can
be seen immediately upon reflection. Use of this criterion to establish the
principles’ authority is the hallmark of intuitionism. Once one of the dominant
views in ethics, its position in the discipline has now been seriously eroded
by a strong, twentieth-century tide of skepticism about all claims of
self-evidence. Currently, the most influential method of justification
consistent with using the model of an axiomatic system to expound the morality
of right and wrong draws on the jural conception of its principles. On this
method, the principles are interpreted as expressions of a legislative will,
and accordingly their authority derives from the sovereignty of the person or
collective whose will they are taken to express. The oldest example of the
method’s use is the divine command theory. On this theory, moral principles are
taken to be laws issued by God to humanity, and their authority thus derives
from God’s supremacy. The theory is the original Christian source of the principles’
jural conception. The rise of secular thought since the Enlightenment has,
however, limited its appeal. Later examples, which continue to attract broad
interest and discussion, are formalism and contractarianism. Formalism is best
exemplified in Kant’s ethics. It takes a moral principle to be a precept that
satisfies the formal criteria of a universal law, and it takes formal criteria
to be the marks of pure reason. Consequently, moral principles are laws that
issue from reason. As Kant puts it, they are laws that we, as rational beings,
give to ourselves and that regulate our conduct insofar as we engage each
other’s rational nature. They are laws for a republic of reason or, as Kant
says, a kingdom of ends whose legislature comprises all rational beings.
Through this ideal, Kant makes intelligible and forceful the otherwise obscure
notion that moral principles derive their authority from the sovereignty of
reason. Contractarianism also draws inspiration from Kant’s ethics as well as
from the social contract theories of Locke and Rousseau. Its fullest and most
influential statement appears in the work of Rawls. On this view, moral
principles represent the ideal terms of social cooperation for people who live
together in fellowship and regard each other as equals. Specifically, they are
taken to be the conditions of an ideal agreement among such people, an
agreement that they would adopt if they met as an assembly of equals to decide
collectively on the social arrangements governing their relations and reached
their decision as a result of open debate and rational deliberation. The
authority of moral principles derives, then, from the fairness of the
procedures by which the terms of social cooperation would be arrived at in this
hypothetical constitutional convention and the assumption that any rational
individual who wanted to live peaceably with others and who imagined himself a
party to this convention would, in view of the fairness of its procedures,
assent to its results. It derives, that is, from the hypothetical consent of
the governed. Philosophers who think of a moral code on the model of a
technical system of an applied science use an entirely different method of
justification. In their view, just as the principles of medicine represent
knowledge about how best to promote health, so the principles of right and
wrong represent knowledge about how best to promote the ends of morality. These
philosophers, then, have a teleological conception of the code. Our fundamental
duty is to promote certain ends, and the principles of right and wrong organize
and direct our efforts in this regard. What justifies the principles, on this
view, is that the ends they serve are the right ones to promote and the actions
they prescribe are the best ways to promote them. The principles are
authoritative, in other words, in virtue of the wisdom of their prescriptions.
Different teleological views in the theory of duty correspond to different
answers to the question of what the right ends to promote are. The most common
answer is happiness; and the main division among the corresponding views
mirrors the distinction in the theory of intrinsic value between egoism and
universalism. Thus, egoism and universalism in the theory of duty hold,
respectively, that the fundamental duty of morality is to promote, as best as
one can, one’s own happiness and that it is to promote, as best as one can, the
happiness of humanity. The former is ethical egoism and is based on the ideal
of rational self-love. The latter is utilitarianism and is based on the ideal
of rational benevolence. Ethical egoism’s most famous exponents in modern
philosophy are Hobbes and Spinoza. It has had few distinguished defenders since
their time. Bentham and J. S. Mill head the list of distinguished defenders of
utilitarianism. The view continues to be enormously influential. On these
teleological views, answers to questions about the ends we ought to pursue
determine the principles of right and wrong. Put differently, the general study
of right action, on these views, is subordinate to the general study of
goodness. This is one of the two leading answers to the structural question
about how the two studies are related. The other is that the general study of
right action is to some extent independent of the general study of goodness. On
views that represent this answer, some principles of right and wrong, notably
principles of justice and honesty, prescribe actions even though more evil than
good would result from doing them. These views are deontological. Fiat justitia
ruat coelum captures their spirit. The opposition between teleology and
deontology in ethics underlies many of the disputes in the general study of
right action. The principal substantive and structural questions of ethics
arise not only with respect to the conduct of human life generally but also
with respect to specific walks of life such as medicine, law, journalism,
engineering, and business. The examination of these questions in relation to
the common practices and traditional codes of such professions and occupations
has resulted in the special studies of applied ethics. In these studies, ideas
and theories from the general studies of goodness and right action are applied
to particular circumstances and problems of some profession or occupation, and
standard philosophical techniques are used to define, clarify, and organize the
ethical issues found in its domain. In medicine, in particular, where rapid
advances in technology create, overnight, novel ethical problems on matters of
life and death, the study of biomedical ethics has generated substantial
interest among practitioners and scholars alike. Metaethics. To a large extent,
the general studies of goodness and right action and the special studies of
applied ethics consist in systematizing, deepening, and revising our beliefs
about how we ought to conduct our lives. At the same time, it is characteristic
of philosophers, when reflecting on such systems of belief, to examine the
nature and grounds of these beliefs. These questions, when asked about ethical
beliefs, define the field of metaethics. The relation of this field to the
other studies is commonly represented by taking the other studies to constitute
the field of ethics proper and then taking metaethics to be the study of the
concepts, methods of justification, and ontological assumptions of the field of
ethics proper. Accordingly, metaethics can proceed from either an interest in
the epistemology of ethics or an interest in its metaphysics. On the first
approach, the study focuses on questions about the character of ethical
knowledge. Typically, it concentrates on the simplest ethical beliefs, such as
‘Stealing is wrong’ and ‘It is better to give than to receive’, and proceeds by
analyzing the concepts in virtue of which these beliefs are ethical and
examining their logical basis. On the second approach, the study focuses on
questions about the existence and character of ethical properties. Typically,
it concentrates on the most general ethical predicates such as goodness and
wrongfulness and considers whether there truly are ethical properties
represented by these predicates and, if so, whether and how they are interwoven
into the natural world. The two approaches are complementary. Neither dominates
the other. The epistemological approach is comparative. It looks to the most
successful branches of knowledge, the natural sciences and pure mathematics,
for paradigms. The former supplies the paradigm of knowledge that is based on
observation of natural phenomena; the latter supplies the paradigm of knowledge
that seemingly results from the sheer exercise of reason. Under the influence
of these paradigms, three distinct views have emerged: naturalism, rationalism,
and noncognitivism. Naturalism takes ethical knowledge to be empirical and
accordingly models it on the paradigm of the natural sciences. Ethical
concepts, on this view, concern natural phenomena. Rationalism takes ethical
knowledge to be a priori and accordingly models it on the paradigm of pure
mathematics. Ethical concepts, on this view, concern morality understood as
something completely distinct from, though applicable to, natural phenomena,
something whose content and structure can be apprehended by reason
independently of sensory inputs. Noncognitivism, in opposition to these other
views, denies that ethics is a genuine branch of knowledge or takes it to be a
branch of knowledge only in a qualified sense. In either case, it denies that
ethics is properly modeled on science or mathematics. On the most extreme form
of noncognitivism, there are no genuine ethical concepts; words like ‘right’,
‘wrong’, ‘good’, and ‘evil’ have no cognitive meaning but rather serve to vent
feelings and emotions, to express decisions and commitments, or to influence
attitudes and dispositions. On less extreme forms, these words are taken to
have some cognitive meaning, but conveying that meaning is held to be decidedly
secondary to the purposes of venting feelings, expressing decisions, or
influencing attitudes. Naturalism is well represented in the work of Mill;
rationalism in the works of Kant and the intuitionists. And noncognitivism,
which did not emerge as a distinctive view until the twentieth century, is most
powerfully expounded in the works of C. L. Stevenson and Hare. Its central
tenets, however, were anticipated by Hume, whose skeptical attacks on
rationalism set the agenda for subsequent work in metaethics. The metaphysical
approach is centered on the question of objectivity, the question of whether
ethical predicates represent real properties of an external world or merely
apparent or invented properties, properties that owe their existence to the
perception, feeling, or thought of those who ascribe them. Two views dominate
this approach. The first, moral realism, affirms the real existence of ethical
properties. It takes them to inhere in the external world and thus to exist
independently of their being perceived. For moral realism, ethics is an
objective discipline, a discipline that promises discovery and confirmation of
objective truths. At the same time, moral realists differ fundamentally on the
question of the character of ethical properties. Some, such as Plato and Moore,
regard them as purely intellective and thus irreducibly distinct from empirical
properties. Others, such as Aristotle and Mill, regard them as empirical and
either reducible to or at least supervenient on other empirical properties. The
second view, moral subjectivism, denies the real existence of ethical
properties. On this view, to predicate, say, goodness of a person is to impose
some feeling, impulse, or other state of mind onto the world, much as one
projects an emotion onto one’s circumstances when one describes them as
delightful or sad. On the assumption of moral subjectivism, ethics is not a
source of objective truth. In ancient philosophy, moral subjectivism was
advanced by some of the Sophists, notably Protagoras. In modern philosophy,
Hume expounded it in the eighteenth century and Sartre in the twentieth
century. Regardless of approach, one and perhaps the central problem of
metaethics is how value is related to fact. On the epistemological approach,
this problem is commonly posed as the question of whether judgments of value
are derivable from statements of fact. Or, to be more exact, can there be a
logically valid argument whose conclusion is a judgment of value and all of
whose premises are statements of fact? On the metaphysical approach, the
problem is commonly posed as the question of whether moral predicates represent
properties that are explicable as complexes of empirical properties. At issue,
in either case, is whether ethics is an autonomous discipline, whether the
study of moral values and principles is to some degree independent of the study
of observable properties and events. A negative answer to these questions
affirms the autonomy of ethics; a positive answer denies ethics’ autonomy and
implies that it is a branch of the natural sciences. Moral psychology. Even
those who affirm the autonomy of ethics recognize that some facts, particularly
facts of human psychology, bear on the general studies of goodness and right
action. No one maintains that these studies float free of all conception of
human appetite and passion or that they presuppose no account of the human
capacity for voluntary action. It is generally recognized that an adequate
understanding of desire, emotion, deliberation, choice, volition, character,
and personality is indispensable to the theoretical treatment of human
well-being, intrinsic value, and duty. Investigations into the nature of these
psychological phenomena are therefore an essential, though auxiliary, part of
ethics. They constitute the adjunct field of moral psychology. One area of
particular interest within this field is the study of those capacities by
virtue of which men and women qualify as moral agents, beings who are
responsible for their actions. This study is especially important to the theory
of duty since that theory, in modern philosophy, characteristically assumes a
strong doctrine of individual responsibility. That is, it assumes principles of
culpability for wrongdoing that require, as conditions of justified blame, that
the act of wrongdoing be one’s own and that it not be done innocently. Only
moral agents are capable of meeting these conditions. And the presumption is
that normal, adult human beings qualify as moral agents whereas small children
and nonhuman animals do not. The study then focuses on those capacities that
distinguish the former from the latter as responsible beings. The main issue is
whether the power of reason alone accounts for these capacities. On one side of
the issue are philosophers like Kant who hold that it does. Reason, in their
view, is both the pilot and the engine of moral agency. It not only guides one
toward actions in conformity with one’s duty, but it also produces the desire
to do one’s duty and can invest that desire with enough strength to overrule
conflicting impulses of appetite and passion. On the other side are
philosophers, such as Hume and Mill, who take reason to be one of several
capacities that constitute moral agency. On their view, reason works strictly
in the service of natural and sublimated desires, fears, and aversions to
produce intelligent action, to guide its possessor toward the objects of those
desires and away from the objects of those fears. It cannot, however, by itself
originate any desire or fear. Thus, the desire to act rightly, the aversion to
acting wrongly, which are constituents of moral agency, are not products of
reason but are instead acquired through some mechanical process of
socialization by which their objects become associated with the objects of
natural desires and aversions. On one view, then, moral agency consists in the
power of reason to govern behavior, and being rational is thus sufficient for being
responsible for one’s actions. On the other view, moral agency consists in
several things including reason, but also including a desire to act rightly and
an aversion to acting wrongly that originate in natural desires and aversions.
On this view, to be responsible for one’s actions, one must not only be
rational but also have certain desires and aversions whose acquisition is not
guaranteed by the maturation of reason. Within moral psychology, one cardinal
test of these views is how well they can accommodate and explain such common
experiences of moral agency as conscience, weakness, and moral dilemma. At some
point, however, the views must be tested by questions about freedom. For one
cannot be responsible for one’s actions if one is incapable of acting freely,
which is to say, of one’s own free will. The capacity for free action is thus
essential to moral agency, and how this capacity is to be explained, whether it
fits within a deterministic universe, and if not, whether the notion of moral
responsibility should be jettisoned, are among the deepest questions that the
student of moral agency must face. What is more, they are not questions to
which moral psychology can furnish answers. At this point, ethics descends into
metaphysics. ethnography, an open-ended
family of techniques through which anthropologists investigate cultures; also,
the organized descriptions of other cultures that result from this method.
Cultural anthropology ethnology is based primarily on fieldwork through which
anthropologists immerse themselves in the life of a local culture village,
neighborhood and attempt to describe and interpret aspects of the culture.
Careful observation is one central tool of investigation. Through it the
anthropologist can observe and record various features of social life, e.g.
trading practices, farming techniques, or marriage arrangements. A second
central tool is the interview, through which the researcher explores the
beliefs and values of members of the local culture. Tools of historical research,
including particularly oral history, are also of use in ethnography, since the
cultural practices of interest often derive from a remote point in time. ethnology, the comparative and analytical
study of cultures; cultural anthroplogy. Anthropologists aim to describe and
interpret aspects of the culture of various social groups e.g., the hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari,
rice villages of the Chin. Canton Delta, or a community of physicists at
Livermore Laboratory. Topics of particular interest include religious beliefs,
linguistic practices, kinship arrangements, marriage patterns, farming
technology, dietary practices, gender relations, and power relations. Cultural
anthropology is generally conceived as an empirical science, and this raises
several methodological and conceptual difficulties. First is the role of the
observer. The injection of an alien observer into the local culture unavoidably
disturbs that culture. Second, there is the problem of intelligibility across
cultural systems radical translation.
One goal of ethnographic research is to arrive at an interpretation of a set of
beliefs and values that are thought to be radically different from the
researcher’s own beliefs and values; but if this is so, then it is questionable
whether they can be accurately tr. into the researcher’s conceptual scheme.
Third, there is the problem of empirical testing of ethnographic
interpretations. To what extent do empirical procedures constrain the
construction of an interpretation of a given cultural milieu? Finally, there is
the problem of generalizability. To what extent does fieldwork in one location
permit anthropologists to generalize to a larger context other villages, the dispersed ethnic group
represented by this village, or this village at other times? ethnomethodology, a phenomenological approach
to interpreting everyday action and speech in various social contexts. Derived
from phenomenological sociology and introduced by Harold Garfinkel, the method
aims to guide research into meaningful social practices as experienced by
participants. A major objective of the method is to interpret the rules that
underlie everyday activity and thus constitute part of the normative basis of a
given social order. Research from this perspective generally focuses on mundane
social activities e.g., psychiatrists
evaluating patients’ files, jurors deliberating on defendants’ culpability, or
coroners judging causes of death. The investigator then attempts to reconstruct
an underlying set of rules and ad hoc procedures that may be taken to have
guided the observed activity. The approach emphasizes the contextuality of
social practice the richness of unspoken
shared understandings that guide and orient participants’ actions in a given
practice or activity. H. P. Grice, “The Teutons, according to Tacitus.”
eudaemonia: from Grecian
eudaimonia, and then there’s eudaemonism --‘happiness’, ‘flourishing’, the
ethical doctrine that happiness is the ultimate justification for morality. The
ancient Grecian philosophers typically begin their ethical treatises with an
account of happiness, and then argue that the best way to achieve a happy life
is through the cultivation and exercise of virtue. Most of them make virtue or
virtuous activity a constituent of the happy life; the Epicureans, however,
construe happiness in terms of pleasure, and treat virtue as a means to the end
of pleasant living. Ethical eudaimonism is sometimes combined with
psychological eudaimonism i.e., the view
that all free, intentional action is aimed ultimately at the agent’s happiness.
A common feature of ancient discussions of ethics, and one distinguishing them
from most modern discussions, is the view that an agent would not be rationally
justified in a course of action that promised less happiness than some
alternative open to him. Hence it seems that most of the ancient theories are
forms of egosim. But the ancient theories differ from modern versions of egoism
since, according to the ancients, at least some of the virtues are dispositions
to act from primarily other-regarding motives: although the agent’s happiness
is the ultimate justification of virtuous action, it is not necessarily what
motivates such action. Since happiness is regarded by most of the ancients as
the ultimate end that justifies our actions, their ethical theories seem
teleological; i.e., right or virtuous action is construed as action that
contributes to or maximizes the good. But appearances are again misleading, for
the ancients typically regard virtuous action as also valuable for its own sake
and hence constitutive of the agent’s happiness.
event: used by Grice in
“Actions and Events,” -- anything that happens; an occurrence. Two fundamental
questions about events, which philosophers have usually treated together, are:
1 Are there events?, and 2 If so, what is their nature? Some philosophers
simply assume that there are events. Others argue for that, typically through
finding semantic theories for ordinary claims that apparently concern the fact
that some agent has done something or that some thing has changed. Most
philosophers presume that the events whose existence is proved by such
arguments are abstract particulars, “particulars” in the sense that they are
non-repeatable and spatially locatable, “abstract” in the sense that more than
one event can occur simultaneously in the same place. The theories of events
espoused by Davidson in his causal view, Kim though his view may be unstable in
this respect, Jonathan Bennett, and Lawrence Lombard take them to be abstract
particulars. However, Chisholm takes Euler diagram event 292 292 events to be abstract universals; and
Quine and Davidson in his later view take them to be concrete particulars. Some
philosophers who think of events as abstract particulars tend to associate the
concept of an event with the concept of change; an event is a change in some
object or other though some philosophers have doubts about this and others have
denied it outright. The time at which an event, construed as a particular,
occurs can be associated with the shortest time at which the object, which is
the subject of that event, changes from the having of one property to the
having of another, contrary property. Events inherit whatever spatial locations
they have from the spatial locations, if any, of the things that those events
are changes in. Thus, an event that is a change in an object, x, from being F to
being G, is located wherever x is at the time it changes from being F to being
G. Some events are those of which another event is composed e.g., the sinking
of a ship seems composed of the sinkings of its parts. However, it also seems
clear that not every group of events comprises another; there just is no event
composed of a certain explosion on Venus and my birth. Any adequate theory
about the nature of events must address the question of what properties, if
any, such things have essentially. One issue is whether the causes or effects
of events are essential to those events. A second is whether it is essential to
each event that it be a change in the entity it is in fact a change in. A third
is whether it is essential to each event that it occur at the time at which it
in fact occurs. A chief component of a theory of events is a criterion of
identity, a principle giving conditions necessary and sufficient for an event e
and an event eH to be one and the same event. Quine holds that events may be
identified with the temporal parts of physical objects, and that events and
physical objects would thus share the same condition of identity: sameness of
spatiotemporal location. Davidson once proposed that events are identical
provided they have the same causes and effects. More recently, Davidson
abandoned this position in favor of Quine’s. Kim takes an event to be the
exemplification of a property or relation by an object or objects at a time.
This idea has led to his view that an event e is the same as an event eH if and
only if e and eH are the exemplifications of the same property by the same
objects at the same time. Lombard’s view is a variation on this account, and is
derived from the idea of events as the changes that physical objects undergo
when they alter.
Evola: Italian
philosopher – Refs.: Luigi Speranza, "Grice ed Evola," per Il Club
Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.
The
involutum/evolutum distinction, the: evolutum: evolutionary Grice -- Darwinism,
the view that biological species evolve primarily by means of chance variation
and natural selection. Although several important scientists prior to Charles
Darwin 180982 had suggested that species evolve and had provided mechanisms for
that evolution, Darwin was the first to set out his mechanism in sufficient
detail and provide adequate empirical grounding. Even though Darwin preferred
to talk about descent with modification, the term that rapidly came to
characterize his theory was evolution. According to Darwin, organisms vary with
respect to their characteristics. In a litter of puppies, some will be bigger,
some will have longer hair, some will be more resistant to disease, etc. Darwin
termed these variations chance, not because he thought that they were in any
sense “uncaused,” but to reject any general correlation between the variations
that an organism might need and those it gets, as Lamarck had proposed.
Instead, successive generations of organisms become adapted to their
environments in a more roundabout way. Variations occur in all directions. The
organisms that happen to possess the characteristics necessary to survive and
reproduce proliferate. Those that do not either die or leave fewer offspring.
Before Darwin, an adaptation was any trait that fits an organism to its
environment. After Darwin, the term came to be limited to just those useful
traits that arose through natural selection. For example, the sutures in the
skulls of mammals make parturition easier, but they are not adaptations in an
evolutionary sense because Danto, Arthur Coleman Darwinism 204 204 they arose in ancestors that did not
give birth to live young, as is indicated by these same sutures appearing in the
skulls of egg-laying birds. Because organisms are integrated systems, Darwin
thought that adaptations had to arise through the accumulation of numerous,
small variations. As a result, evolution is gradual. Darwin himself was unsure
about how progressive biological evolution is. Organisms certainly become
better adapted to their environments through successive generations, but as
fast as organisms adapt to their environments, their environments are likely to
change. Thus, Darwinian evolution may be goal-directed, but different species
pursue different goals, and these goals keep changing. Because heredity was so
important to his theory of evolution, Darwin supplemented it with a theory of
heredity pangenesis. According to this
theory, the cells throughout the body of an organism produce numerous tiny
gemmules that find their way to the reproductive organs of the organism to be
transmitted in reproduction. An offspring receives variable numbers of gemmules
from each of its parents for each of its characteristics. For instance, the
male parent might contribute 214 gemmules for length of hair to one offspring,
121 to another, etc., while the female parent might contribute 54 gemmules for
length of hair to the first offspring and 89 to the second. As a result,
characters tend to blend. Darwin even thought that gemmules themselves might
merge, but he did not think that the merging of gemmules was an important
factor in the blending of characters. Numerous objections were raised to
Darwin’s theory in his day, and one of the most telling stemmed from his
adopting a blending theory of inheritance. As fast as natural selection biases
evolution in a particular direction, blending inheritance neutralizes its
effects. Darwin’s opponents argued that each species had its own range of
variation. Natural selection might bias the organisms belonging to a species in
a particular direction, but as a species approached its limits of variation,
additional change would become more difficult. Some special mechanism was
needed to leap over the deep, though possibly narrow, chasms that separate
species. Because a belief in biological evolution became widespread within a
decade or so after the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859, the
tendency is to think that it was Darwin’s view of evolution that became popular.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Darwin’s contemporaries found his
theory too materialistic and haphazard because no supernatural or teleological
force influenced evolutionary development. Darwin’s contemporaries were willing
to accept evolution, but not the sort advocated by Darwin. Although Darwin
viewed the evolution of species on the model of individual development, he did
not think that it was directed by some internal force or induced in a
Lamarckian fashion by the environment. Most Darwinians adopted just such a
position. They also argued that species arise in the space of a single
generation so that the boundaries between species remained as discrete as the
creationists had maintained. Ideal morphologists even eliminated any genuine
temporal dimension to evolution. Instead they viewed the evolution of species
in the same atemporal way that mathematicians view the transformation of an
ellipse into a circle. The revolution that Darwin instigated was in most
respects non-Darwinian. By the turn of the century, Darwinism had gone into a
decided eclipse. Darwin himself remained fairly open with respect to the
mechanisms of evolution. For example, he was willing to accept a minor role for
Lamarckian forms of inheritance, and he acknowledged that on occasion a new
species might arise quite rapidly on the model of the Ancon sheep. Several of
his followers were less flexible, rejecting all forms of Lamarckian inheritance
and insisting that evolutionary change is always gradual. Eventually Darwinism
became identified with the views of these neo-Darwinians. Thus, when Mendelian
genetics burst on the scene at the turn of the century, opponents of Darwinism
interpreted this new particulate theory of inheritance as being incompatible
with Darwin’s blending theory. The difference between Darwin’s theory of
pangenesis and Mendelian genetics, however, did not concern the existence of
hereditary particles. Gemmules were as particulate as genes. The difference lay
in numbers. According to early Mendelians, each character is controlled by a
single pair of genes. Instead of receiving a variable number of gemmules from
each parent for each character, each offspring gets a single gene from each
parent, and these genes do not in any sense blend with each other. Blue eyes
remain as blue as ever from generation to generation, even when the gene for
blue eyes resides opposite the gene for brown eyes. As the nature of heredity
was gradually worked out, biologists began to realize that a Darwinian view of
evolution could be combined with Mendelian genetics. Initially, the founders of
this later stage in the development of neoDarwinism exhibited considerable
variation in Darwinism Darwinism 205
205 their beliefs about the evolutionary process, but as they strove to
produce a single, synthetic theory, they tended to become more Darwinian than
Darwin had been. Although they acknowledged that other factors, such as the
effects of small numbers, might influence evolution, they emphasized that
natural selection is the sole directive force in evolution. It alone could
explain the complex adaptations exhibited by organisms. New species might arise
through the isolation of a few founder organisms, but from a populational
perspective, evolution was still gradual. New species do not arise in the space
of a single generation by means of “hopeful monsters” or any other
developmental means. Nor was evolution in any sense directional or progressive.
Certain lineages might become more complex for a while, but at this same time,
others would become simpler. Because biological evolution is so opportunistic,
the tree of life is highly irregular. But the united front presented by the
neo-Darwinians was in part an illusion. Differences of opinion persisted, for
instance over how heterogeneous species should be. No sooner did neo-Darwinism
become the dominant view among evolutionary biologists than voices of dissent
were raised. Currently, almost every aspect of the neo-Darwinian paradigm is
being challenged. No one proposes to reject naturalism, but those who view
themselves as opponents of neo-Darwinism urge more important roles for factors
treated as only minor by the neo-Darwinians. For example, neoDarwinians view
selection as being extremely sharp-sighted. Any inferior organism, no matter
how slightly inferior, is sure to be eliminated. Nearly all variations are
deleterious. Currently evolutionists, even those who consider themselves
Darwinians, acknowledge that a high percentage of changes at the molecular
level may be neutral with respect to survival or reproduction. On current
estimates, over 95 percent of an organism’s genes may have no function at all.
Disagreement also exists about the level of organization at which selection can
operate. Some evolutionary biologists insist that selection occurs primarily at
the level of single genes, while others think that it can have effects at
higher levels of organization, certainly at the organismic level, possibly at
the level of entire species. Some biologists emphasize the effects of
developmental constraints on the evolutionary process, while others have
discovered unexpected mechanisms such as molecular drive. How much of this
conceptual variation will become incorporated into Darwinism remains to be
seen. Evolutionary griceianism --
evolutionary epistemology, a theory of knowledge inspired by and derived from
the fact and processes of organic evolution the term was coined by the social
psychologist Donald Campbell. Most evolutionary epistemologists subscribe to
the theory of evolution through natural selection, as presented by Darwin in
the Origin of Species 1859. However, one does find variants, especially one
based on some kind of neoLamarckism, where the inheritance of acquired
characters is central Spencer endorsed this view and another based on some kind
of jerky or “saltationary” evolutionism Thomas Kuhn, at the end of The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions, accepts this idea. There are two
approaches to evolutionary epistemology. First, one can think of the
transformation of organisms and the processes driving such change as an analogy
for the growth of knowledge, particularly scientific knowledge. “Darwin’s
bulldog,” T. H. Huxley, was one of the first to propose this idea. He argued
that just as between organisms we have a struggle for existence, leading to the
selection of the fittest, so between scientific ideas we have a struggle
leading to a selection of the fittest. Notable exponents of this view today
include Stephen Toulmin, who has worked through the analogy in some detail, and
David Hull, who brings a sensitive sociological perspective to bear on the
position. Karl Popper identifies with this form of evolutionary epistemology,
arguing that the selection of ideas is his view of science as bold conjecture
and rigorous attempt at refutation by another name. The problem with this
analogical type of evolutionary epistemology lies in the disanalogy between the
raw variants of biology mutations, which are random, and the raw variants of
science new hypotheses, which are very rarely random. This difference probably
accounts for the fact that whereas Darwinian evolution is not genuinely
progressive, science is or seems to be the paradigm of a progressive
enterprise. Because of this problem, a second set of epistemologists inspired
by evolution insist that one must take the biology literally. This evidence of
the senses evolutionary epistemology 294
294 group, which includes Darwin, who speculated in this way even in his
earliest notebooks, claims that evolution predisposes us to think in certain fixed
adaptive patterns. The laws of logic, e.g., as well as mathematics and the
methodological dictates of science, have their foundations in the fact that
those of our would-be ancestors who took them seriously survived and
reproduced, and those that did not did not. No one claims that we have innate
knowledge of the kind demolished by Locke. Rather, our thinking is channeled in
certain directions by our biology. In an update of the biogenetic law,
therefore, one might say that whereas a claim like 5 ! 7 % 12 is
phylogenetically a posteriori, it is ontogenetically a priori. A major division
in this school is between the continental evolutionists, most notably the late
Konrad Lorenz, and the Anglo-Saxon supporters, e.g. Michael Ruse. The former
think that their evolutionary epistemology simply updates the critical
philosophy of Kant, and that biology both explains the necessity of the
synthetic a priori and makes reasonable belief in the thing-in-itself. The
latter deny that one can ever get that necessity, certainly not from biology,
or that evolution makes reasonable a belief in an objectively real world,
independent of our knowing. Historically, these epistemologists look to Hume
and in some respects to the pragmatists,
especially William James. Today, they acknowledge a strong family resemblance
to such naturalized epistemologists as Quine, who has endorsed a kind of
evolutionary epistemology. Critics of this position, e.g. Philip Kitcher,
usually strike at what they see as the soft scientific underbelly. They argue
that the belief that the mind is constructed according to various innate
adaptive channels is without warrant. It is but one more manifestation of
today’s Darwinians illicitly seeing adaptation everywhere. It is better and
more reasonable to think knowledge is rooted in culture, if it is
person-dependent at all. A mark of a good philosophy, like a good science, is
that it opens up new avenues for research. Although evolutionary epistemology
is not favored by conventional philosophers, who sneer at the crudities of its
frequently nonphilosophically trained proselytizers, its supporters feel
convinced that they are contributing to a forward-moving philosophical research
program. As evolutionists, they are used to things taking time to succeed. -- evolutionary
psychology, the subfield of psychology that explains human behavior and
cultural arrangements by employing evolutionary biology and cognitive
psychology to discover, catalog, and analyze psychological mechanisms. Human
minds allegedly possess many innate, special-purpose, domain-specific
psychological mechanisms modules whose development requires minimal input and
whose operations are context-sensitive, mostly automatic, and independent of
one another and of general intelligence. Disagreements persist about the
functional isolation and innateness of these modules. Some evolutionary
psychologists compare the mind with its
specialized modules to a Swiss army
knife. Different modules substantially constrain behavior and cognition
associated with language, sociality, face recognition, and so on. Evolutionary
psychologists emphasize that psychological phenomena reflect the influence of
biological evolution. These modules and associated behavior patterns assumed
their forms during the Pleistocene. An evolutionary perspective identifies
adaptive problems and features of the Pleistocene environment that constrained
possible solutions. Adaptive problems often have cognitive dimensions. For
example, an evolutionary imperative to aid kin presumes the ability to detect
kin. Evolutionary psychologists propose models to meet the requisite cognitive
demands. Plausible models should produce adaptive behaviors and avoid
maladaptive ones e.g., generating too
many false positives when identifying kin. Experimental psychological evidence
and social scientific field observations aid assessment of these proposals.
These modules have changed little. Modern humans manage with primitive
hunter-gatherers’ cognitive equipment amid the rapid cultural change that
equipment produces. The pace of that change outstrips the ability of biological
evolution to keep up. Evolutionary psychologists hold, consequently, that: 1
contrary to sociobiology, which appeals to biological evolution directly,
exclusively evolutionary explanations of human behavior will not suffice; 2
contrary to theories of cultural evolution, which appeal to biological
evolution analogically, it is at least possible that no cultural arrangement
has ever been adaptive; and 3 contrary to social scientists, who appeal to some
general conception of learning or socialization to explain cultural
transmission, specialized psychological evolutionary ethics evolutionary
psychology 295 295 mechanisms
contribute substantially to that process.
The
insistens/existens distinction, the: exsistentia: Grice: “A rather
complex Ciceronian construction!” – Grice: “The correct spelling, at Clifton,
was ‘ex-sistentia.’” -- ex-sisto or existo , stĭti,
stĭtum, 3, v. n. ( I.act. August. Civ. D. 14, 13), to step out or forth, to
come forth, emerge, appear (very freq. and class.). I. Prop. A. In gen.: “e
latebris,” Liv. 25, 21, 3: “ab inferis,” Cic. Verr. 2, 1, 37, § 94; Liv. 39,
37, 3: “anguem ab ara exstitisse,” Cic. Div. 2, 80 fin.; cf.: vocem ab aede
Junonis ex arce exstitisse (shortly before: voces ex occulto missae; and:
“exaudita vox est a luco Vestae),” id. ib. 1, 45, 101: “est bos cervi figura,
cujus a media fronte inter aures unum cornu exsistit excelsius,” Caes. B. G. 6,
26, 1: “submersus equus voraginibus non exstitit,” Cic. Div. 1, 33, 73; cf.
Cic. Verr. 2, 4, 48, § 107: “nympha gurgite medio,” Ov. M. 5, 413: “hoc vero
occultum, intestinum ac domesticum malum, non modo non exsistit, verum, etc.,”
does not come to light, Cic. Verr. 2, 1, 15, § 39.— B. In partic., with the
accessory notion of originating, to spring, proceed, arise, become: “vermes de
stercore,” Lucr. 2, 871: “quae a bruma sata sunt, quadragesimo die vix
exsistunt,” Varr. R. R. 1, 34, 1: “ut si qui dentes et pubertatem natura dicat
exsistere, ipsum autem hominem, cui ea exsistant, non constare natura, non
intelligat, etc.,” Cic. N. D. 2, 33 fin.: “ex hac nimia licentia ait ille, ut
ex stirpe quadam, exsistere et quasi nasci tyrannum,” id. Rep. 1, 44; id. Off.
2, 23, 80; cf.: “ex luxuria exsistat avaritia necesse est,” id. Rosc. Am. 27,
75; “ut exsistat ex rege dominus, ex optimatibus factio, ex populo turba et
confusio,” id. Rep. 1, 45: “ut plerumque in calamitate ex amicis inimici
exsistunt,” Caes. B. C. 3, 104, 1; “for which: videtisne igitur, ut de rege
dominus exstiterit? etc.,” Cic. Rep. 2, 26: “ex quo exsistit id civitatis
genus,” id. ib. 3, 14: “hujus ex uberrimis sermonibus exstiterunt doctissimi
viri,” id. Brut. 8, 31; cf. id. Or. 3, 12: “ex qua (disserendi ratione) summa
utilitas exsistit,” id. Tusc. 5, 25, 72: “sermo admirantium, unde hoc
philosophandi nobis subito studium exstitisset,” id. N. D. 1, 3, 6: “exsistit
hoc loco quaestio subdifficilis,” id. Lael. 19, 67: “magna inter eos exsistit
controversia,” Caes. B. G. 5, 28, 2: “poëtam bonum neminem sine inflammatione
animorum exsistere posse,” Cic. de Or. 2, 46 fin.: exsistit illud, ut, etc., it
ensues, follows, that, etc., id. Fin. 5, 23, 67; cf.: “ex quo exsistet, ut de
nihilo quippiam fiat,” id. Fat. 9, 18. II. Transf., to be visible or manifest
in any manner, to exist, to be: “ut in corporibus magnae dissimilitudines sunt,
sic in animis exsistunt majores etiam varietates,” Cic. Off. 1, 30, 107: “idque
in maximis ingeniis exstitit maxime et apparet facillime,” id. Tusc. 1, 15, 33:
“si exstitisset in rege fides,” id. Rab. Post. 1, 1: “cujus magnae exstiterunt
res bellicae,” id. Rep. 2, 17: “illa pars animi, in qua irarum exsistit ardor,”
id. Div. 1, 29, 61: “si quando aliquod officium exstitit amici in periculis
adeundis,” id. Lael. 7, 24 et saep.: “neque ullum ingenium tantum exstitisse
dicebat, ut, etc.,” Cic. Rep. 2, 1; cf.: “talem vero exsistere eloquentiam,
qualis fuit in Crasso, etc.,” id. de Or. 2, 2, 6; “nisi Ilias illa
exstitisset,” id. Arch. 10, 24: “cujus ego dignitatis ab adolescentia fautor,
in praetura autem et in consulatu adjutor etiam exstitissem,” id. Fam. 1, 9,
11; cf.: “his de causis ego huic causae patronus exstiti,” id. Rosc. Am. 2, 5:
“timeo, ne in eum exsistam crudelior,” id. Att. 10, 11, 3: “sic insulsi exstiterunt,
ut, etc.,” id. de Or. 2, 54, 217.Grice learned to use \/x for the
existential quantifier, since “it shows the analogy with ‘or’ and avoids you
fall into any ontological trap, of existential generalization, a rule of
inference admissible in classical quantification theory. It allows one to infer
an existentially quantified statement DxA from any instance A a/x of it.
Intuitively, it allows one to infer ‘There exists a liar’ from ‘Epimenides is a
liar’. It is equivalent to universal instantiation the rule that allows one to infer any
instance A a/x of a universally quantified statement ExA from ExA. Intuitively,
it allows one to infer ‘My car is valuable’ from ‘Everything is valuable’. Both
rules can also have equivalent formulations as axioms; then they are called
specification ExA / A a/x and particularization Aa/x / DxA. All of these
equivalent principles are denied by free logic, which only admits weakened
versions of them. In the case of existential generalization, the weakened
version is: infer DxA from Aa/x & E!a. Intuitively: infer ‘There exists a
liar’ from ‘Epimenides is a liar and Epimenides exists’. existential import, a commitment to the
existence of something implied by a sentence, statement, or proposition. For
example, in Aristotelian logic though not in modern quantification theory, any
sentence of the form ‘All F’s are G’s’ implies ‘There is an F that is a G’ and
is thus said to have as existential import a commitment to the existence of an
F that is a G. According to Russell’s theory of descriptions, sentences
containing definite descriptions can likewise have existential import since
‘The F is a G’ implies ‘There is an F’. The presence of singular terms is also
often claimed to give rise to existential commitment. Underlying this notion of
existential import is the idea long
stressed by W. V. Quine that ontological
commitment is measured by existential sentences statements, propositions of the
form Dv f. existential instantiation, a
rule of inference admissible in classical quantification theory. It allows one
to infer a statement A from an existentially quantified statement DxB if A can
be inferred from an instance Ba/x of DxB, provided that a does not occur in either
A or B or any other premise of the argument if there are any. Intuitively, it
allows one to infer a contradiction C from ‘There exists a highest prime’ if C
can be inferred from ‘a is a highest prime’ and a does not occur in C. Free
logic allows for a stronger form of this rule: with the same provisions as
above, A can be inferred from DxB if it can be inferred from Ba/x & E!a.
Intuitively, it is enough to infer ‘There is a highest natural number’ from ‘a
is a highest prime and a exists’.
existentialism, a philosophical and literary movement that came to
prominence in Europe, particularly in France, immediately after World War II,
and that focused on the uniqueness of each human individual as distinguished
from abstract universal human qualities. Historians differ as to antecedents.
Some see an existentialist precursor in Pascal, whose aphoristically expressed
Catholic fideism questioned the power of rationalist thought and preferred the
God of Scripture to the abstract “God of the philosophers.” Many agree that
Kierkegaard, whose fundamentally similar but Protestant fideism was based on a
profound unwillingness to situate either God or any individual’s relationship
with God within a systematic philosophy, as Hegel had done, should be exact
similarity existentialism 296 296
considered the first modern existentialist, though he too lived long before the
term emerged. Others find a proto-existentialist in Nietzsche, because of the
aphoristic and anti-systematic nature of his writings, and on the literary side,
in Dostoevsky. A number of twentiethcentury novelists, such as Franz Kafka,
have been labeled existentialists. A strong existentialist strain is to be
found in certain other theist philosophers who have written since Kierkegaard,
such as Lequier, Berdyaev, Marcel, Jaspers, and Buber, but Marcel later decided
to reject the label ‘existentialist’, which he had previously employed. This
reflects its increasing identification with the atheistic existentialism of
Sartre, whose successes, as in the novel Nausea, and the philosophical work
Being and Nothingness, did most to popularize the word. A mass-audience
lecture, “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” which Sartre to his later regret
allowed to be published, provided the occasion for Heidegger, whose early thought
had greatly influenced Sartre’s evolution, to take his distance from Sartre’s
existentialism, in particular for its self-conscious concentration on human
reality over Being. Heidegger’s Letter on Humanism, written in reply to a admirer, signals an important turn in his
thinking. Nevertheless, many historians continue to classify Heidegger as an
existentialist quite reasonably, given
his early emphasis on existential categories and ideas such as anxiety in the presence
of death, our sense of being “thrown” into existence, and our temptation to
choose anonymity over authenticity in our conduct. This illustrates the
difficulty of fixing the term ‘existentialism’. Other thinkers of the time, all acquaintances of Sartre’s,
who are often classified as existentialists, are Camus, Simone de Beauvoir,
and, though with less reason, Merleau-Ponty. Camus’s novels, such as The
Stranger and The Plague, are cited along with Nausea as epitomizing the
uniqueness of the existentialist antihero who acts out of authenticity, i.e.,
in freedom from any conventional expectations about what so-called human nature
a concept rejected by Sartre supposedly requires in a given situation, and with
a sense of personal responsibility and absolute lucidity that precludes the
“bad faith” or lying to oneself that characterizes most conventional human
behavior. Good scholarship prescribes caution, however, about superimposing too
many Sartrean categories on Camus. In fact the latter, in his brief
philosophical essays, notably The Myth of Sisyphus, distinguishes
existentialist writers and philosophers, such as Kierkegaard, from absurdist
thinkers and heroes, whom he regards more highly, and of whom the mythical
Sisyphus condemned eternally by the gods to roll a huge boulder up a hill before
being forced, just before reaching the summit, to start anew is the epitome.
Camus focuses on the concept of the absurd, which Kierkegaard had used to
characterize the object of his religious faith an incarnate God. But for Camus
existential absurdity lies in the fact, as he sees it, that there is always at
best an imperfect fit between human reasoning and its intended objects, hence
an impossibility of achieving certitude. Kierkegaard’s leap of faith is, for
Camus, one more pseudo-solution to this hard, absurdist reality. Almost alone
among those named besides Sartre who himself concentrated more on social and
political thought and became indebted to Marxism in his later years, Simone de
Beauvoir 886 unqualifiedly accepted the existentialist label. In The Ethics of
Ambiguity, she attempted, using categories familiar in Sartre, to produce an
existentialist ethics based on the recognition of radical human freedom as
“projected” toward an open future, the rejection of inauthenticity, and a
condemnation of the “spirit of seriousness” akin to the “spirit of gravity”
criticized by Nietzsche whereby individuals identify themselves wholly with
certain fixed qualities, values, tenets, or prejudices. Her feminist
masterpiece, The Second Sex, relies heavily on the distinction, part
existentialist and part Hegelian in inspiration, between a life of immanence,
or passive acceptance of the role into which one has been socialized, and one
of transcendence, actively and freely testing one’s possibilities with a view
to redefining one’s future. Historically, women have been consigned to the
sphere of immanence, says de Beauvoir, but in fact a woman in the traditional
sense is not something that one is made, without appeal, but rather something
that one becomes. The Sartrean ontology of Being and Nothingness, according to
which there are two fundamental asymmetrical “regions of being,”
being-in-itself and being-for-itself, the latter having no definable essence
and hence, as “nothing” in itself, serving as the ground for freedom,
creativity, and action, serves well as a theoretical framework for an
existentialist approach to human existence. Being and Nothingness also names a
third ontological region, being-for-others, but that may be disregarded here.
However, it would be a mistake to treat even Sartre’s existentialist insights,
much less those of others, as dependent on this ontology, to which he himself
made little direct existentialism existentialism 297 297 reference in his later works. Rather, it
is the implications of the common central claim that we human beings exist
without justification hence “absurdly” in a world into which we are “thrown,”
condemned to assume full responsibility for our free actions and for the very
values according to which we act, that make existentialism a continuing
philosophical challenge, particularly to ethicists who believe right choices to
be dictated by our alleged human essence or nature.
explanatum: cf. iustificatum –
That the distinction is not absolute shows in that explanatum cannot be
non-iustificatum or vice versa. To explain is in part to justify – but Grice
was in a hurry, and relying on an upublication not meant for publication! Grice
on explanatory versus justificatory reasons -- early 15c., explanen, "make (something)
clear in the mind, to make intelligible," from Latin explanare "to explain, make
clear, make plain," literally "make level, flatten," from ex "out" (see ex-) + planus "flat" (from PIE root *pele- (2) "flat; to
spread"). The spelling was altered by influence of plain. Also see plane (v.2). In 17c.,
occasionally used more literally, of the unfolding of material things: Evelyn
has buds that "explain into leaves" ["Sylva, or, A discourse of
forest-trees, and the propagation of timber in His Majesties dominions,"
1664]. Related: Explained; explaining; explains. To explain
(something) away "to deprive of significance by explanation,
nullify or get rid of the apparent import of," generally with an adverse
implication, is from 1709. I
think we may find, in our talk about reasons, three main kinds of case. (1) The
first is that class of cases exemplified by the use of such a sentence as
"The reason why the bridge collapsed was that the girders were made of
cellophane". Variant forms would be exemplified in "The (one) reason
for the collapse of the bridge was that . . ." and "The fact that the
girders were made of cellophane was the (one) reason for the collapse of the
bridge (why the bridge collapsed)", and so on. This type of case includes
cases in which that for which the (a) reason is being given is an action. We
can legitimately use such a sentence form as "The reason why he resigned
his office (for his resigning his office) was that p"; and, so far as I
can see, the same range of variant forms will be available. I shall take as
canonical (paradigmatic) for this type of case (type (1)) the form "The
(a) reason why A was (is) that B". The significant features of a type (1)
case seem to me to include the following. (a) The canonical form is 'factive'
both with respect to A and to B. If I use it, I imply both that it is true that
A and that it is true that B. (b) If the reason why A was that B, then B is the
explanation of its being the case that A; and if one reason why A was (that) B,
then B is one explanation of its being the case that A, and if there are other
explanations (as it is implicated that there are, or may be) then A is
overdetermined; and (finally) if a part of the reason why A was that B, then B
is a part of the explanation of A's being so. This feature is not unconnected
with the previous one; if B is the explanation of A, then both B and A must be
facts; and if one fact is a reason for another fact, then it looks as if the
connection between them must be that the first explains the second. (c) In
some, but not all, cases in which the reason why A was that B, we can speak of
B as causing, or being the cause of, A (A's being the case). If the reason why
the bridge collapsed was that the girders were made of cellophane, then we can
say that the girders' being made of cellophane caused the bridge to collapse
(or, at least, caused it to collapse when the bus drove onto it). But not end
p.37 in all cases; it might be true that the reason why X took offence was that
all Tibetans are specially sensitive to comments on their appearance, though it
is very dubious whether it would be proper to describe the fact, or
circumstance, that all Tibetans have this particular sensitivity as the cause
of, or as causing, X to take offence. However, it may well be true that if B
does cause A, then the (or a) reason why A is that B. (d) The canonical form
employs 'reason' as a count-noun; it allows us to speak (for example) of the
reason why A, of there being more than one reason why A, and so on. But for
type (1) cases we have, at best, restricted licence to use variants in which
'reason' is used as a massnoun. "There was considerable reason why the
bridge collapsed (for the bridge collapsing)" and "The weakness of
the girders was some reason why the bridge collapsed" are oddities; so is
"There was good reason why the bridge collapsed", though "There
was a good reason why the bridge collapsed" is better; but "There was
(a) bad reason why the bridge collapsed" is terrible. The discomforts
engendered by attempts to treat 'reason' as a mass-noun persist even when A specifies an
action; "There was considerable reason why he resigned his office" is
unhappy, though one would not object to, for example, "There was
considerable reason for him to resign his office", which is not a type (1)
case. (e) Relativization to a person is, I think, excluded, unless (say) the
relativizing 'for X' means "in X's opinion", as in "for me, the
reason why the bridge collapsed was . . .". Again, this feature persists
even when A specifies an action: "For him, the reason why he resigned was
. . ." and "The reason for him why he resigned was . . ." are
both unnatural (for different reasons). I shall call type (1) cases
"reasons why" or "explanatory reasons" – for
etymologically, they make something ‘plain’ – out of nothing, almost – vide
Latin explanare – but never IM-planare – and in any case, not to be confused
with what Carnap calls an ‘explication’! (2) The cases which I am allocating to
type (2) are a slightly less tidy family than those of type (1). Examples are:
"The fact that they were a day late was some (a)reason for thinking that
the bridge had collapsed." "The fact that they were a day late was a
reason for postponing the conference." We should particularly notice the
following variants and allied examples (among others): end p.38 That they were
a day late was reason to think that the bridge had collapsed. There was no
reason why the bridge should have collapsed. The fact that they were so late
was a (gave) good reason for us to think that . . . He had reason to think that
. . . (to postpone . . .) but he seemed unaware of the fact. The fact that they
were so late was a reason for wanting (for us to want) to postpone the meeting.
I shall take as the paradigmatic form for type (2) "That B was (a) reason
(for X) to A", where "A" may conceal a psychological verb like
"think", "want", or "decide", or may specify an
action. Salient features seem to me to include the following. (a) Unlike type
(1), where there is double factivity, the paradigmatic form is non-factive with
respect to A, but factive with respect to B; with regard to B, however,
modifications are available which will cancel factivity; for example, "If
it were (is) the case that B, that would be a reason to A." (b) In
consonance with the preceding feature, it is not claimed that B explains A
(since A may not be the case), nor even that if A were the case B would explain
it (since someone who actually does the action or thinks the thought specified
by A may not do so because of B). It is, however, in my view (though some might
question my view) claimed that B is a justification (final or provisional) for
doing, wanting, or thinking whatever is specified in A. The fact that B goes at
least some way towards making it the case that an appropriate person or persons
should (or should have) fulfil (fulfilled) A. (c) The word "cause" is
still appropriate, but in a different grammatical construction from that used
for type (1). In Example (1), the fact that they were so late is not claimed to
cause anyone to think that the bridge had collapsed, but it is claimed to be
(or to give) cause to think just that. (d) Within type (2), 'reason' may be
treated either as a count-noun or as a mass-noun. Indeed, the kinds of case
which form type (2) seem to be the natural habitat of 'reason' as a mass-noun.
A short version of an explanation of this fact (to which I was helped end p.39
by George Myro) seems to me to be that (i) there are no degrees of explanation:
there may be more than one explanation, and something may be a part (but only a
part) of the explanation, but a set of facts either does explain something or
it does not. There are, however, degrees of justification (justifiability); one
action or belief may be more justifiable, in a given situation, than another
(there may be a better case for it). (ii) Justifiability is not just a matter
of the number of supporting considerations, but rather of their combined weight
(together with their outweighing the considerations which favour a rival action
or belief). So a mass-term is needed, together with specifications of degree or
magnitude. (e) That B may plainly be a reason for a person or people to A;
indeed, when no person is mentioned or implicitly referred to, it is very
tempting to suppose that it is being claimed that the fact that B would be a
reason for anyone, or any normal person, to A. One might call type (2) cases "justificatory reasons" or
"reasons for (to)". (3) Examples: John's reason for thinking Samantha
to be a witch was that he had suddenly turned into a frog. John's reason for
wanting Samantha to be thrown into the pond was that (he thought that) she was
a witch. John's reason for denouncing Samantha was that she kept turning him
into a frog. John's reason for denouncing Samantha was to protect himself
against recurrent metamorphosis. If X's reason for doing (thinking) A was that
B, it follows that X A-ed because B (because X knew (thought) that B). If X's
reason for doing (wanting, etc.) A was to B, it follows that X A-ed in order to
(so as to) B. The sentence form "X had several reasons for A-ing, such as
that (to) B" falls, in my scheme, under type (3), unlike the seemingly
similar sentence "X had reason to A, since B", which I locate under
type (2). The paradigmatic form I take as being "X's reason(s) for A-ing
was that B (to B)". Salient features of type (3) cases should be fairly
obvious. end p.40 (a) In type (3) cases reasons may be either of the form that
B or of the form to B. If they are of the former sort, then the paradigmatic
form is doubly factive, factive with respect both to A and to B. It is always
factive with respect to A (A-ing). When it is factive with respect to B,
factivity may be cancelled by inserting "X thought that" before B.
(b) Type (3) reasons are "in effect explanatory". If X's reason for
A-ing was that (to) B, X's thinking that B (or wanting to B) explains his
A-ing. The connection between type (3) reasons being, in effect, explanatory,
and their factivity is no doubt parallel to the connection which obtains for
type (1) reasons. I reserve the question of the applicability of
"cause" to a special concluding comment. (c) So far as I can see,
"reason" cannot, in type (3) cases, be treated as a mass-noun. This
may be accounted for by the explanatory character of reasons of this type. We
can, however, here talk of reasons as being bad; X's reasons for A-ing may be
weak or appalling. In type (2) cases, we speak of there being little reason, or
even no reason, to A. But in type (3) cases, since X's reasons are explanatory
of his actions or thoughts, they have to exist. (I doubt if this is the full
story, but it will have to do for the moment.) (d) Of their very nature, type
(3) reasons are relative to persons. Because of their hybrid nature (they seem,
as will in a moment, I hope, emerge, in a way to partake of the character both
of type (1) and of type (2)) one might call them
"Justificatory-Explanatory" reasons. Strawson said my explanation
required an explanation. ex-plāno ,
āvi, ātum, 1, v. a. * I. Lit., to flatten or spread out: “suberi cortex in
denos pedes undique explanatus,” Plin. 16, 8, 13, § 34.— II. Trop., of speech,
to make plain or clear, to explain (class.: “syn.: explico, expono,
interpretor): qualis differentia sit honesti et decori, facilius intelligi quam
explanari potest,” Cic. Off. 1, 27, 94; cf. Quint. 5, 10, 4: “rem latentem
explicare definiendo, obscuram explanare interpretando, etc.,” Cic. Brut. 42,
152: “explanare apertiusque dicere aliquid,” id. Fin. 2, 19, 60: “docere et
explanare,” id. Off. 1, 28, 101: “aliquid conjecturā,” id. de Or. 2, 69, 280:
“rem,” id. Or. 24, 80: “quem amicum tuum ais fuisse istum, explana mihi,” Ter.
Ph. 2, 3, 33: “de cujus hominis moribus pauca prius explananda sunt, quam
initium narrandi faciam,” Sall. C. 4, 5.—Pass. impers.: “juxta quod flumen, aut
ubi fuerit, non satis explanatur,” Plin. 6, 23, 26, § 97.— 2. To utter
distinctly: “et ille juravit, expressit, explanavitque verba, quibus, etc.,”
Plin. Pan. 64, 3.—Hence, explānātus , a, um, P. a. (acc. to II.), plain,
distinct (rare): “claritas in voce, in lingua etiam explanata vocum impressio,”
i. e. an articulate pronunciation, Cic. Ac. 1, 5, 19: parum explanatis vocibus
sermo praeruptus, Sen. de Ira, 1, 1, 4.—Adv. ex-plānāte , plainly, clearly,
distinctly: “scriptum,” Gell. 16, 8, 3.—Comp.: “ut definire rem cum
explanatius, tum etiam uberius (opp. presse et anguste),” Cic. Or. 33, 117.
The
homoclitical/heteroclitical distinction, the: heteroclitical implicaturum:-- Greek κλιτικός (klitikós, “inflexional”, but transliterated
as ‘heterocliticum’) -- signifying a stem which alternates between more than
one form when declined for grammatical case. Examples of heteroclitic noun
stems in Proto-Indo-European include *wod-r/n- "water"
(nominoaccusative *wódr; genitive *udnés; locative *udén) and *yékw-r/n- "liver"
(nominoaccusative *yékwr, genitive *ikwnés). In Proto-Indo-European,
heteroclitic stems tend to be noun stems with grammatically inanimate gender.
Refs.: H. P. Grice, “The heteroclitical implicaturum: implicaturum, implicitum,
explicatum, explicitum: what I learned at Clifton, and why.”
Implicaturum/explicaturum
distinction, the: explicatum: Grice is
clear here. There is explicat- and explicit-. Both yield different fields. The
explicit- has to do with what is shown. The explicat- does not. But both are
cognate. And of course, the ambiguity replicates in implicit- and implicat- Short
and Lewis have both ‘explicatus’ and ‘explicitus’ as Part.
and P. a., from explico. “I wonder why they had to have TWO!” – Grice.He once asked this to his master at Clifton. And he said,
“because this is a participium heteroclitum.” Grice never forgot that! An
Heteroclite Participle. R E D U N D A N S abounding. Art'cipium the
Participle faepe o/?em redundat abounds, ut as Perfe&tum the perfe&?
ter/? [aid] priùs before ; ut as explico to unfold conduplicat doubles [its
Participle] explicitus explicatufque, making both explicitus and explicatus. Et
and fic /3 fevi I have plantea folet is wont dare to give fatus planted, &
and ferui I have put fertus placed. Cello to bcat vult will mittere produce
-celfus ab -ui from [the perfe&* tenfe in] -ui ; fed but -culfus ab -i
-cu!fus from [its perfr&7 in] -i. Compofitum à fto the Compound offlo to
/fand [ makes] - ftaturus, pariterque amd aff? -ftiturus [in the future
Participle.] Etiam alfo duplex two Participles fit are made à fimplice perfeéto
from one perfe&i tenfe ; tendo to/lretch habet hath tentus, and tenfus;
pando to opem takes fibi to itfejf paffus, and panfus : Item affo mifcui I have
mixed miftus, vel or mixtus ; alo to breed up, altus and alitus ; Poto to drink
makes potatus & and potus ; lavo to wa/h, lautus and lotus. A tundo from
[tundo] to knock down -tufus is made ; retundo to blunt [makes] both -tufus and
-tunfus. Pinfo to bake effert makes triplex three Participles piftus,
pinfufque, & pinfitus, piftus, and pinfus, and pinfitus. Civi, the perfe&?
tenfe à cieo ofcieo to provoke makes the participle citus [with the i. -- Vult
tendo tenfus, tentus , vult flectere pando - Panfus Panfus paffus 5 pinfo
vult piftus dare pinfus Pinfitus ; & fevi fatus, & ferui
dare fertus. Compofitum à fto-ftaturus meliufque-ftiturus.
* Conftaturus Lucan. Mart. Obftaturus Quint. _
Tundo in compofitis -tufus ; -tunfufque retundo Congeminat ; plico
& explicitus facit, éx-que-plicatus. Verba in-uo &-vo-ütus
tendunt ; ruo fed breve-ütus dat. A cieo pariter manat citus , à cio
citus. - Cello ab -ui celfus , fed ab-i vult mittere -culfus. At Oxford, nobody was interested in the explication. That’s
too explicit. It was, being English, all about the ‘innuendo,’ the
‘understatement,’ the implication. The first Oxonian was C. K. Grant, with his
‘pragmatic implication.’ Then came Nowell-Smith with his ‘contextual
implication.’ Urmson was there with his ‘implied’ claims. And Strawson was
saying that ‘the king of France is not bald’ implies that thereis a king of
France. So, it was enough, Grice thought! We have to analyse what we imply by
imply, or at least what _I_ do. He thought publishing was always vulgar. But
when he was invited for one of those popularisations, when he was invited to
contribute to a symposium on a topic of his choice – he chose “The causal
theory of perception” and dedicates an ‘extensum excursus’ on ‘implication.’
The conclusion is simple: “The pillar box seems red” implies. And implies a
LOT. So much so that neo-Wittgensteinians were saying that what Grice implies
is part of what Grice is committed in terms of ‘satisfactoriness’ of what he is
expressing. Not so! What Grice implies is, surely, that the pillar box may not
be red. But surely he can cancel that EXPLICITLY “The pillar box seems red and
is red.” So, what he implies is not part of what he explicitly commits in terms
of value satisfactoriness. In terms of value satisfactoriness, Grice
distinguishes between the subperceptual (“The pillar box seems red”) and the
perceptual proper (“Grice perceives that the pillar box is red”). The causal
theory merely states that “Grice perceives that the pillar box is red” (a
perceptum for the subperceptum, “the pillar box seems red”) if and only if,
first, the pillar box is red; second,
the subperceptum: the pillar box seems red; and third and last, the fact that
the pillar box is red CAUSES the pillar box seeming red. None of that is
explicit, but none of it is implicit. It is merely a philosophical reductive
analysis which has cleared away an unnecessary implication out of the picture.
The philosopher, involved in conceptual analysis, has freed from the ‘pragmatic
implication’ and can provide, for his clearly stated ‘analysans,’ three
different prongs which together constitute the necessary and sufficient
conditions – the analysandum. And his problem is resolved. Grice’s cavalier
attitude towards the explicit is obvious in the way he treats “Wilson is a
great man,” versus “the prime minister is a great man” “I don’t care if I’m not
sure if I want to say that an emissor of (i) and an emissor of (ii) have put
forward, in an explicit fashion, the same proposition. His account of
‘disambiguation’ is meant even more jocularly. He knows that in the New World,
they spell ‘vice’ as ‘vyse’ – So Wilson
being in the grip of a vyse is possibly the same thing put forward as the prime
minister being caught in the grip of either a carpenter’s tool or a sort of
something like a sin – if not both. (Etymologically, ‘vice’ and ‘vice’ are
cognate, since they are ‘violent’ things – cf. violence. While ‘implicare’
developed into vulgar Engish as ‘employ,’ “it’s funny explicature did not
develop into ‘exploy.’”A logical construction is an explication. A reductive
analysis is an explication. Cf. Grice on Reductionism as a bete noire,
sometimes misquoted as Reductivism. Grice used both ‘explanation’ and
‘explication’, so one has to be careful. When he said that he looked for a
theory that would explain conversation or the implicaturum, he did not mean
explication. What is the difference, etymologically, between explicate and explain? Well, explain is from
‘explanare,’ which gives ‘explanatum.’Trop., of speech, to make plain or clear,
to explain (class.:“syn.: explico, expono, interpretor): qualis differentia sit
honesti et decori, facilius intelligi quam explanari potest,” Cic.Off. 1, 27,
94; cf. Quint. 5, 10, 4: “rem latentem explicare definiendo, obscuram explanare
interpretando, etc.,” Cic. Brut. 42, 152: “explanare apertiusque dicere
aliquid,” id. Fin. 2, 19, 60: “docere et explanare,” id. Off. 1, 28, 101:
“aliquid conjecturā,” id. de Or. 2, 69, 280: “rem,” id. Or. 24, 80: “quem
amicum tuum ais fuisse istum, explana mihi,” Ter. Ph. 2, 3, 33: “de cujus
hominis moribus pauca prius explananda sunt, quam initium narrandi faciam,”
Sall. C. 4, 5.—Pass.impers.: “juxta quod flumen, aut ubi fuerit, non satis
explanatur,” Plin. 6, 23, 26, § 97.—2. To utter distinctly: “et ille juravit,
expressit, explanavitque verba, quibus, etc.,” Plin. Pan. 64, 3.Hence,
explānātus , a, um, P. a. (acc. to II.), plain, distinct (rare): “claritas in
voce, in lingua etiam explanata vocum impressio,” i. e. an articulate
pronunciation, Cic. Ac. 1, 5, 19: parum explanatis vocibus sermo praeruptus,
Sen. de Ira, 1, 1, 4. Adv. ex-plānāte , plainly, clearly, distinctly:
“scriptum,” Gell. 16, 8, 3.—Comp.: “ut definire rem cum explanatius, tum etiam
uberius (opp. presse et anguste),” Cic. Or. 33, 117.Cr. Occam. M. O. R. the
necessity is explanatory necessity. Senses or conventional implicaturata (not
reachable by ‘argument’) and Strawson do not explain. G. A. Paul does not
explain. Unlike Austin, who was in love with a taxonomy, Grice loved an
explanation. “Ἀρχὴν δὲ τῶν πάντων ὕδωρ ὑπεστήσατο, καὶ τὸν κόσμον ἔμψυχον καὶ
δαιμόνων πλήρη. “Arkhen de ton panton hudor hupestesato.” Thales’s doctrine is
that water is the universal primary substance, and that the world is animate
and full of divinities. “Ἀλλὰ Θαλῆς μὲν ὁ τῆς τοιαύτης ἀρχηγὸς φιλοσοφίας ὕδωρ
φησὶν εἶναι (διὸ καὶ τὴν γῆν ἐφ᾽ ὕδατος ἀπεφήνατο εἶναι), λαβὼν ἴσως τὴν
ὑπόληψιν ταύτην ἐκ τοῦ πάντων ὁρᾶν τὴν τροφὴν ὑγρὰν οὖσαν καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ θερμὸν ἐκ
τούτου γιγνόμενον καὶ τούτῳ ζῶν (τὸ δ᾽ ἐξ οὗ γίγνεται, τοῦτ᾽ ἐστὶν ἀρχὴ πάντων)
– διά τε δὴ τοῦτο τὴν ὑπόληψιν λαβὼν ταύτην καὶ διὰ τὸ πάντων τὰ σπέρματα τὴν
φύσιν ὑγρὰν ἔχειν, τὸ δ᾽ ὕδωρ ἀρχὴν τῆς φύσεως εἶναι τοῖς ὑγροῖς. εἰσὶ δέ τινες
οἳ καὶ τοὺς παμπαλαίους καὶ πολὺ πρὸ τῆς νῦν γενέσεως καὶ πρώτους θεολογήσαντας
οὕτως οἴονται περὶ τῆς φύσεως ὑπολαβεῖν‧ Ὠκεανόν τε γὰρ καὶ Τηθὺν ἐποίησαν τῆς γενέσεως πατέρας
[Hom. Ξ 201], καὶ τὸν ὅρκον τῶν θεῶν ὕδωρ, τὴν καλουμένην ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν Στύγα τῶν
ποιητῶν‧ τιμιώτατον μὲν γὰρ τὸ πρεσβύτατον,
ὅρκος δὲ τὸ τιμιώτατόν ἐστιν. εἰ μὲν οὖν [984a] ἀρχαία τις αὕτη καὶ παλαιὰ
τετύχηκεν οὖσα περὶ τῆς φύσεως ἡ δόξα, τάχ᾽ ἂν ἄδηλον εἴη, Θαλῆς μέντοι λέγεται
οὕτως ἀποφήνασθαι περὶ τῆς πρώτης αἰτίας. (Ἵππωνα γὰρ οὐκ ἄν τις ἀξιώσειε
θεῖναι μετὰ τούτων διὰ τὴν εὐτέλειαν αὐτοῦ τῆς διανοίας)‧ Ἀναξιμένης δὲ ἀέρα καὶ Διογένης πρότερον ὕδατος καὶ μάλιστ᾽
ἀρχὴν τιθέασι τῶν ἁπλῶν σωμάτων.” De caelo: “Οἱ δ᾽ ἐφ᾽ ὕδατος κεῖσθαι [sc. τὴν
γὴν]. τοῦτον γὰρ ἀρχαιότατον παρειλήφαμεν τὸν λόγον, ὅν φασιν εἰπεῖν Θαλῆν τὸν
Μιλήσιον, ὡς διὰ τὸ πλωτὴν εἶναι μένουσαν ὥσπερ ξύλον ἤ τι τοιοῦτον ἕτερον (καὶ
γὰρ τούτων ἐπ᾽ ἀέρος μὲν οὐθὲν πέφυκε μένειν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐφ᾽ ὕδατος), ὥσπερ οὐ τὸν
αὐτὸν λόγον ὄντα περὶ τῆς γῆς καὶ τοῦ ὕδατος τοῦ ὀχοῦντος τὴν γῆν‧ οὐδὲ γὰρ τὸ ὕδωρ πέφυκε μένειν μετέωρον, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπί τινός
[294b] ἐστιν. ἔτι δ᾽ ὥσπερ ἀὴρ ὕδατος κουφότερον, καὶ γῆς ὕδωρ‧ ὥστε πῶς οἷόν τε τὸ κουφότερον κατωτέρω κεῖσθαι τοῦ
βαρυτέρου τὴν φύσιν; ἔτι δ᾽ εἴπερ ὅλη πέφυκε μένειν ἐφ᾽ ὕδατος, δῆλον ὅτι καὶ
τῶν μορίων ἕκαστον [αὐτῆς]‧
νῦν δ᾽ οὐ φαίνεται τοῦτο γιγνόμενον, ἀλλὰ τὸ τυχὸν μόριον φέρεται εἰς βυθόν,
καὶ θᾶττον τὸ μεῖζον. The problem of the nature of matter, and its
transformation into the myriad things of which the universe is made, engaged
the natural philosophers, commencing with Thales. For his hypothesis to be
credible, it was essential that he could explain how all things could come into
being from water, and return ultimately to the originating material. It is
inherent in Thaless hypotheses that water had the potentiality to change to the
myriad things of which the universe is made, the botanical, physiological,
meteorological and geological states. In Timaeus, 49B-C, Plato had Timaeus
relate a cyclic process. The passage commences with that which we now call
“water” and describes a theory which was possibly that of Thales. Thales would
have recognized evaporation, and have been familiar with traditional views,
such as the nutritive capacity of mist and ancient theories about spontaneous
generation, phenomena which he may have observed, just as Aristotle believed
he, himself had, and about which Diodorus Siculus, Epicurus (ap. Censorinus, D.N.
IV.9), Lucretius (De Rerum Natura) and Ovid (Met. I.416-437) wrote. When
Aristotle reported Thales’s pronouncement that the primary principle is water,
he made a precise statement: Thales says that it [the nature of things] is
water, but he became tentative when he proposed reasons which might have
justified Thaless decision. Thales’s supposition may have arisen from
observation. It is Aristotle’s opinion that Thales may have observed, that the
nurture of all creatures is moist, and that warmth itself is generated from
moisture and lives by it; and that from which all things come to be is their
first principle. Then, Aristotles tone changed towards greater confidence. He
declared: Besides this, another reason for the supposition would be that the
semina of all things have a moist nature. In continuing the criticism of
Thales, Aristotle wrote: That from which all things come to be is their first
principle (Metaph. 983 b25). Simple
metallurgy had been practised long before Thales presented his hypotheses, so
Thales knew that heat could return metals to a liquid state. Water exhibits
sensible changes more obviously than any of the other so-called elements, and
can readily be observed in the three states of liquid, vapour and ice. The
understanding that water could generate into earth is basic to Thaless watery
thesis. At Miletus it could readily be observed that water had the capacity to
thicken into earth. Miletus stood on the Gulf of Lade through which the
Maeander river emptied its waters. Within living memory, older Milesians had
witnessed the island of Lade increasing in size within the Gulf, and the river
banks encroaching into the river to such an extent that at Priene, across the
gulf from Miletus the warehouses had to be rebuilt closer to the waters edge.
The ruins of the once prosperous city-port of Miletus are now ten kilometres
distant from the coast and the Island of Lade now forms part of a rich
agricultural plain. There would have been opportunity to observe other areas
where earth generated from water, for example, the deltas of the Halys, the
Ister, about which Hesiod wrote (Theogony, 341), now called the Danube, the
Tigris-Euphrates, and almost certainly the Nile. This coming-into-being of land
would have provided substantiation of Thaless doctrine. To Thales water held
the potentialities for the nourishment and generation of the entire cosmos.
Aëtius attributed to Thales the concept that even the very fire of the sun and
the stars, and indeed the cosmos itself is nourished by evaporation of the
waters (Aëtius, Placita). It is not
known how Thales explained his watery thesis, but Aristotle believed that the
reasons he proposed were probably the persuasive factors in Thaless
considerations. Thales gave no role to the Olympian gods. Belief in generation
of earth from water was not proven to be wrong until A.D. 1769 following
experiments of Antoine Lavoisier, and spontaneous generation was not disproved
until the nineteenth century as a result of the work of Louis Pasteur.The first
philosophical explanation of the world was speculative not practical. has its
intelligibility in being identified with one of its parts (the world is water).
First philosophical explanation for Universe human is rational and the world in
independent; He said the arché is water; Monist: He believed reality is
one Thales of Miletus, first
philosophical explanation of the origin and nature of justice (and Why after all, did a Thales is Water.” Without the millions of species
that make up the biosphere, and the billions of interactions between them that
go on day by day,.Oddly, Grice had spent some time on x-questions in the Kant
lectures. And why is an x-question. A philosophical explanation of
conversation. A philosophical explanation of implicaturum. Description vs.
explanation. Grice quotes from Fisher, Never contradict. Never explain.
Taxonomy, is worse than explanation, always. Grice is exploring the
taxonomy-description vs. explanation dichotomy. He would often criticise
ordinary-language philosopher Austin for spending too much valuable time on
linguistic botany, without an aim in his head. Instead, his inclination, a
dissenting one, is to look for the big picture of it all, and disregard a
piece-meal analysis. Conversation is a good example. While Austin would
Subjectsify Language (Linguistic Nature), Grice rather places rationality
squarely on the behaviour displayed by utterers as they make conversational
moves that their addressees will judge as rational along specific
lines. Observation of the principle of conversational helpfulness is
rational (reasonable) along the following lines: anyone who cares about the two
goals which are central to conversation, viz. giving and receiving information,
and influencing and being influenced by others, is expected to have an interest
in taking part in a conversation which will only be profitable (if not
possible) under the assumption that it is conducted along the lines of the
principle of conversational helpfulness. Grice is not interested in
conversation per se, but as a basis for a theory that explains the mistakes
ordinary-language philosophers are making. The case of What is known to be the
case is not believed to be the case. EXPLICATUM -- “to understand” – to explain
-- Dilthey, W. philosopher and historian whose main project was to establish
the conditions of historical knowledge, much as Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
had for our knowledge of nature. He studied theology, history, and philosophy
at Heidelberg and Berlin and in 2 accepted the chair earlier held by Hegel at the of Berlin. Dilthey’s first attempt at a
critique of historical reason is found in the Introduction to the Human
Sciences 3, the last in the Formation of the Historical World in the Human
Sciences 0. He is also a recognized contributor to hermeneutics, literary
criticism, and worldview theory. His Life of Schleiermacher and essays on the
Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Hegel are model works of Geistesgeschichte, in
which philosophical ideas are analyzed in relation to their social and cultural
milieu. Dilthey holds that life is the ultimate nexus of reality behind which
we cannot go. Life is viewed, not primarily in biological terms as in Nietzsche
and Bergson, but as the historical totality of human experience. The basic
categories whereby we reflect on life provide the background for the
epistemological categories of the sciences. According to Dilthey, Aristotle’s
category of acting and suffering is rooted in prescientific experience, which
is then explicated as the category of efficacy or influence Wirkung in the
human sciences and as the category of cause Ursache in the natural sciences.
Our understanding of influence in the human sciences is less removed from the
full reality of life than are the causal explanations arrived at in the natural
sciences. To this extent the human sciences can claim a priority over the
natural sciences. Whereas we have direct access to the real elements of the
historical world psychophysical human beings, the elements of the natural world
are merely hypothetical entities such as atoms. The natural sciences deal with
outer experiences, while the human sciences are based on inner experience.
Inner experience is reflexive and implicitly self-aware, but need not be
introspective or explicitly self-conscious. In fact, we often have inner
experiences of the same objects that outer experience is about. An outer
experience of an object focuses on its physical properties; an inner experience
of it on our felt responses to it. A lived experience Erlebnis of it includes
both. The distinction between the natural and the human sciences is also
related to the methodological difference between explanation and understanding.
The natural sciences seek causal explanations of nature connecting the discrete representations of
outer experience through hypothetical generalizations. The human sciences aim
at an understanding Verstehen that articulates the typical structures of life
given in lived experience. Finding lived experience to be inherently connected
and meaningful, Dilthey opposed traditional atomistic and associationist
psychologies and developed a descriptive psychology that Husserl recognized as
anticipating phenomenological psychology. In Ideas 4 Dilthey argued that
descriptive psychology could provide a neutral foundation for the other human
sciences, but in his later hermeneutical writings, which influenced Heidegger
and Hans-Georg Gadamer, he rejected the possibility of a foundational
discipline or method. In the Formation, he asserted that all the human sciences
are interpretive and mutually dependent. Hermeneutically conceived,
understanding is a process of interpreting the “objectifications of life,” the
external expressions of human experience and activity. The understanding of
others is mediated by these common objectifications and not immediately
available through empathy Einfühlung. Moreover, to fully understand myself I
must interpret the expressions of my life just as I interpret the expressions
of others. Whereas the natural sciences aim at ever broader generalizations,
the human sciences place equal weight on understanding individuality and
universality. Dilthey regarded individuals as points of intersection of the
social and cultural systems in which they participate. Any psychological
contribution to understanding human life must be integrated into this more
public framework. Although universal laws of history are rejected, particular
human sciences can establish uniformities limited to specific social and
cultural systems. In a set of sketches 1 supplementing the Formation, Dilthey
further developed the categories of life in relation to the human sciences.
After analyzing formal categories such as the partwhole relation shared by all
the sciences, he distinguished the real categories of the human sciences from
those of the natural sciences. The most important human science categories are
value, purpose, and meaning, but they by no means exhaust the concepts needed
to reflect on the ultimate sense of our existence. Such reflection receives its
fullest expression in a worldview Weltanschauung, such as the worldviews
developed in religion, art, and philosophy. A worldview constitutes an overall
perspective on life that sums up what we know about the world, how we evaluate
it emotionally, and how we respond to it volitionally. Since Dilthey
distinguished three exclusive and recurrent types of worldview naturalism e.g.,
Democritus, Hume, the idealism of freedom e.g., Socrates, Kant, and objective
idealism e.g., Parmenides, Hegel he is
often regarded as a relativist. But Dilthey thought that both the natural and
the human sciences could in their separate ways attain objective truth through
a proper sense of method. Metaphysical formulations of worldviews are relative
only because they attempt an impossible synthesis of all truth. Explicatum --
explanation, an act of making something intelligible or understandable, as when
we explain an event by showing why or how it occurred. Just about anything can
be the object of explanation: a concept, a rule, the meaning of a word, the
point of a chess move, the structure of a novel. However, there are two sorts
of things whose explanation has been intensively discussed in philosophy:
events and human actions. Individual events, say the collapse of a bridge, are
usually explained by specifying their cause: the bridge collapsed because of
the pressure of the flood water and its weakened structure. This is an example
of causal explanation. There usually are indefinitely many causal factors
responsible for the occurrence of an event, and the choice of a particular
factor as “the cause” appears to depend primarily on contextual considerations.
Thus, one explanation of an automobile accident may cite the icy road
condition; another the inexperienced driver; and still another the defective
brakes. Context may determine which of these and other possible explanations is
the appropriate one. These explanations of why an event occurred are sometimes
contrasted with explanations of how an event occurred. A “how” explanation of
an event consists in an informative description of the process that has led to
the occurrence of the event, and such descriptions are likely to involve
descriptions of causal processes. The covering law model is an influential
attempt to represent the general form of such explanations: an explanation of
an event consists in “subsuming,” or “covering,” it under a law. When the
covering law is deterministic, the explanation is thought to take the form of a
deductive argument: a statement the
explanandum describing the event to be
explained is logically derived from the explanans the law together with statements of
antecedent conditions. Thus, we might explain why a given rod expanded by
offering this argument: ‘All metals expand when heated; this rod is metallic
and it was heated; therefore, it expanded’. Such an explanation is called a
deductive-nomological explanation. On the other hand, probabilistic or
statistical laws are thought to yield statistical explanations of individual
events. Thus, the explanation of the contraction of a contagious disease on the
basis of exposure to a patient with the disease may take the form of a
statistical explanation. Details of the statistical model have been a matter of
much controversy. It is sometimes claimed that although explanations, whether
in ordinary life or in the sciences, seldom conform fully to the covering law
model, the model nevertheless represents an ideal that all explanations must
strive to attain. The covering law model, though influential, is not
universally accepted. Human actions are often explained by being
“rationalized’ i.e., by citing the
agent’s beliefs and desires and other “intentional” mental states such as
emotions, hopes, and expectations that constitute a reason for doing what was
done. You opened the window because you wanted some fresh air and believed that
by opening the window you could secure this result. It has been a controversial
issue whether such rationalizing explanations are causal; i.e., whether they
invoke beliefs and desires as a cause of the action. Another issue is whether
existential polarity explanation 298
298 these “rationalizing” explanations must conform to the covering law
model, and if so, what laws might underwrite such explanations. Refs.:
One good source is the “Prejudices and predilections.” Also the first set of
‘Logic and conversation.” There is also an essay on the ‘that’ versus the
‘why.’ The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
Importatum/exportatum
distinction, the: exportatum – exportation: in classical logic, the principle that
A 8 B / C is logically equivalent to A / B / C. 2 The principle A 8 B P C P A P
B P C, which relevance logicians hold to be fallacious when ‘P’ is read as
‘entails’. 3 In discussions of propositional attitude verbs, the principle that
from ‘a Vs that b is an f’ one may infer ‘a Vs f-hood of b’, where V has its
relational transparent sense. For example, exportation in sense 3 takes one
from ‘Ralph believes that Ortcutt is a spy’ to ‘Ralph believes spyhood of
Ortcutt’, wherein ‘Ortcutt’ can now be replaced by a bound variable to yield
‘Dx Ralph believes spyhood of x’.
inhibitium/exhibitum
distinction, the: exhibitum: Grice: “For one, I will introduce a pair of not
really antonyms: the exhibitive and not the inhibitive, but the protreptic.” Grice
contrasts this with the protrepticum – A piece of a communicatum is an
exhitibum if it is a communication-device for the emisor to display his
psychological attitude. It is protrepticum if the emisor intends the sendee to
entertain a state other than the uptake – i. e. form a volition to close the
door, for how else will he comply with the order in the imperative modeprotrepticum:
the opposite of the exhibitium.
impositum/expositum
distinction, the: expositum: Grice: “My preferred term for what Strawson calls
the exponible.’ In dialectica, an exponible proposition is that which needs to
be expounded, i.e., elaborated or explicated in order to make clear their true
‘form,’ as opposed to its mere ‘matter.’ ‘Giorgione is so called because of his
size.’ ‘Giorgione is so called because of his size’ has a misleading ‘matter’
(implicating at least two forms). It may suggestin a simple predication. In
fact, it means, ‘Giorgione is called ‘Giorgione’ because of his size’. Grice’s
examples: “An English pillar box is called ‘red’ because it is red,” “Grice is
called ‘Grice’ because he is Grice.” “Grice is called ‘Grice’ because his
Anglo-Norman ancestors had ‘grey’ in their coat of arms.” “Grice is called
‘Grice’ because his ancestor kept grice, i. e. pigs.” Another example by Grice:
‘Every man except Strawson is running’, expounded as ‘Strawson is not running
and every man other than Strawson is running (for Prime Minister)’; and ‘Only
Strawson says something true’, uttered by Grice. Grice claims ‘Only Strawson
says something true’ should be expounded (or explicated, or explciited, or
exposed, or provided ‘what is expositum, or the expositum provided: not only as
‘Strawson says something true and no one other than Strawson says something
true’, but needs an implicated third clause, ‘Grice says something false’ for
surely Grice is being self-referentially ironic. If only Strawson says
something true – that proposition can only be uttered by Strawson. Grice
borrowed it from Descartes: “Only Descarets says something ture.” This last
example brings out an important aspect of exponible propositions, viz., their
use in a sophisma. Sophismatic treatises are a common genre at Oxford in which
this or that semantic issue is approached dialectically (what Grice calls “the
Oxonian dialectic”) by its application in solving a puzzle case. Another
important ingredient of an exponible proposition is its containing a particular
term, sometimes called the exponible term (terminus exponibilis in Occam). Attention
on such a term is focused in the study of the implicaturum of a
syncategorematic expression, Note that such an exponible term could only be
expounded in context, not by an explicit definition. A syncategorematic term
that generates an exponible proposition is one such as: ‘twice’, ‘except’,
‘begins’ and ‘ceases [to eat iron, or ‘beat your wife,’ to use Grice’s example
in “Causal Theory of Perception”]’, and ‘insofar as’ e.g. ‘Strawson insofar as
he is rational is risible’. H. P. Grice,
“Implicaturum and explicaturum”
impressum-expressum distinction, the: expressum: At
one time, Oxford was all about the Croceans! It all changed! The oppositum is
the impressum, or sense-datum. In a functionalist model, you have perceptual
INPUT and behavioural OUTPUT, the expressum. In between, the black box of the
soul. Darwin, Eckman. Drawing a skull
meaning there is danger. cf. impressum. Inside out. Expression of Impressions. As
an empiricist, Grice was into ‘impress.’ But it’s always good to have a
correlatum. Grice liked an abbreviation, especially because he loved
subscripts. So, he starts to analyse the ‘ordinary-language’ philosohper’s
mistake by using a few symbols: there’s the phrase, or utterance, and there’s
the expression, for which Grice uses ‘e’ for a ‘token,’ and ‘E’ for a type. So,
suppose we are considering Hart’s use of ‘carefully.’ ‘Carefully’ would be the
‘expression,’ occurring within an utterance. Surely, since Grice uses
‘expression’ in that way, he also uses to say what Hart is doing, Hart is
expressing. Grice notes that ‘expressing’ may be too strong. Hart is expressing
the belief THAT if you utter an utterance containing the ‘expression’
‘carefully,’ there is an implicaturum to the effect that the agent referred to
is taking RATIONAL steps towards something. IRRATIONAL behaviour does not count
as ‘careful’ behaviour. Grice uses the same abbreviations in discussing
philosophy as the ‘conceptual analysis’ of this or that expression. It is all
different with Ogden, Collingwood, and Croce, that Collingwood loved! "Ideas, we may say generally, are
symbols, as serving to express some actual moment or phase of experience and
guiding towards fuller actualization of what is, or seems to be, involved in
its existence or MEANING . That no idea is ever wholly adequate MEANS that the
suggestiveness of experience is inexhaustible" Forsyth, English
Philosophy, 1910, . Thus the significance of sound, the meaning of an utterance
is here identical with the active response to surroundings and with the natural
expression of emotions According to Husserl, the function of expression is only
directly and immediately adapted to what is usually described as the meaning
(Bedeutung) or the sense (Sinn) of the speech or parts of speech. Only because
the meaning associated with a wordsowid expresses something, is that word-sound
called 'expres- sion' (Ideen, p. 256 f). "Between the ,nearnng and the
what is meant, or what it expresses, there exists an essential relation,
because the meaning is the expression of the meant through its own content
(Gehalt) What is meant (dieses Bedeutete) lies in the 'object' of the thought
or speech. We must therefore distinguish these three-Word, Meaning, Object
"1 Geyser, Gp cit p z8 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a
watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompresso These complexities are
mentioned here to show how vague are most of the terms which are commonly
thought satisfactory in this topic. Such a word as 'understand' is, unless
specially treated, far too vague to serve except provisionally or at levels of
discourse where a real understanding of the matter (in the reference sense) is
not possible. The multiple functions of speech will be classified and discussed
in the following chapter. There it will be seen that the expression of the
speaker's intention is one of the five regular language functions. Grice hated
Austin’s joke, the utteratum, “I use ‘utterance’ only as equivalent to
'utteratum;' for 'utteratio' I use ‘the issue of an utterance,’” so he needed
something for ‘what is said’ in general, not just linguistic, ‘what is
expressed,’ what is explicitly conveyed,’ ex-prĭmo , pressi, pressum, 3, v. a.
premo. express (mostly poet. and in postAug. prose; “freq. in the elder Pliny):
(faber) et ungues exprimet et molles imitabitur aere capillos,” Hor. A. P. 33;
cf.: “alicujus furorem ... verecundiae ruborem,” Plin. 34, 14, 40, § 140:
“expressa in cera ex anulo imago,” Plaut. Ps. 1, 1, 54: “imaginem hominis gypso
e facie ipsa,” Plin. 35, 12, 44, § 153; cf.: “effigiem de signis,” id. ib.:
“optime Herculem Delphis et Alexandrum, etc.,” id. 34, 8, 19, § 66 et saep.:
“vestis stricta et singulos artus exprimens,” exhibiting, showing, Tac. G. 17:
“pulcher aspectu sit athleta, cujus lacertos exercitatio expressit,” has well
developed, made muscular, Quint. 8, 3, 10.
extensum
-- extensionalism:
one of the twelve labours of H. P. Grice -- a family of ontologies and semantic
theories restricted to existent entities. Extensionalist ontology denies that
the domain of any true theory needs to include non-existents, such as
fictional, imaginary, and impossible objects like Pegasus the winged horse or
round squares. Extensionalist semantics reduces meaning and truth to
set-theoretical relations between terms in a language and the existent objects,
standardly spatiotemporal and abstract entities, that belong to the term’s
extension. The extension of a name is the particular existent denoted by the
name; the extension of a predicate is the set of existent objects that have the
property represented by the predicate. The sentence ‘All whales are mammals’ is
true in extensionalist semantics provided there are no whales that are not mammals,
no existent objects in the extension of the predicate ‘whale’ that are not also
in the extension of ‘mammal’. Linguistic contexts are extensional if: i they
make reference only to existent objects; ii they support substitution of
codesignative terms referring to the same thing, or of logically equivalent
propositions, salva veritate without loss of truthvalue; and iii it is
logically valid to existentially quantify conclude that There exists an object
such that . . . etc. objects referred to within the context. Contexts that do
not meet these requirements are intensional, non-extensional, or referentially
opaque. The implications of extensionalism, associated with the work of Frege,
Russell, Quine, and mainstream analytic philosophy, are to limit its explanations
of mind and meaning to existent objects and material-mechanical properties and
relations describable in an exclusively extensional idiom. Extensionalist
semantics must try to analyze away apparent references to nonexistent objects,
or, as in Russell’s extensionalist theory of definite descriptions, to classify
all such predications as false. Extensionalist ontology in the philosophy of
mind must eliminate or reduce propositional attitudes or de dicto mental
states, expressed in an intensional idiom, such as ‘believes that ————’, ‘fears
that ————’, and the like, usually in favor of extensional characterizations of
neurophysiological states. Whether extensionalist philosophy can satisfy these
explanatory obligations, as the thesis of extensionality maintains, is
controversial.
Eubulides’s
paradox -- sorites: an argument
consisting of categorical propositions that can be represented as or decomposed
into a sequence of categorical syllogisms such that the conclusion of each
syllogism except the last one in the sequence is a premise of the next
syllogism in the sequence. An example is ‘All cats are felines; all felines are
mammals; all mammals are warm-blooded animals; therefore, all cats are
warm-blooded animals’. This sorites may be viewed as composed of the two
syllogisms ‘All cats are felines; all felines are mammals; therefore, all cats
are mammals’ and ‘All cats are mammals; all mammals are warm-blooded animals;
therefore, all cats are warm-blooded animals’. A sorites is valid if and only
if each categorical syllogism into which it decomposes is valid. In the
example, the sorites decomposes into two syllogisms in the mood Barbara; since
any syllogism in Barbara is valid, the sorites is valid. Then there is the sorites
paradox from Grecian soros, ‘heap’, any of a number of paradoxes about heaps
and their Sorel, Georges sorites paradox 864
864 elements, and more broadly about gradations. A single grain of sand
cannot be arranged so as to form a heap. Moreover, it seems that given a number
of grains insufficient to form a heap, adding just one more grain still does
not make a heap. If a heap cannot be formed with one grain, it cannot be formed
with two; if a heap cannot be formed with two, it cannot be formed with three;
and so on. But this seems to lead to the absurdity that however large the
number of grains, it is not large enough to form a heap. A similar paradox can
be developed in the opposite direction. A million grains of sand can certainly
be arranged so as to form a heap, and it is always possible to remove a grain
from a heap in such a way that what is left is also a heap. This seems to lead
to the absurdity that a heap can be formed even from just a single grain. These
paradoxes about heaps were known in antiquity they are associated with Eubulides
of Miletus, fourth century B.C., and have since given their name to a number of
similar paradoxes. The loss of a single hair does not make a man bald, and a
man with a million hairs is certainly not bald. This seems to lead to the
absurd conclusion that even a man with no hairs at all is not bald. Or consider
a long painted wall hundreds of yards or hundreds of miles long. The left-hand
region is clearly painted red, but there is a subtle gradation of shades and
the right-hand region is clearly yellow. A small double window exposes a small
section of the wall at any one time. It is moved progressively rightward, in
such a way that at each move after the initial position the left-hand segment
of the window exposes just the area that was in the previous position exposed
by the right-hand segment. The window is so small relative to the wall that in
no position can you tell any difference in color between the exposed areas.
When the window is at the extreme left, both exposed areas are certainly red.
But as the window moves to the right, the area in the right segment looks just
the same color as the area in the left, which you have already pronounced to be
red. So it seems that one must call it red too. But then one is led to the
absurdity of calling a clearly yellow area red. As some of these cases suggest,
there is a connection with dynamic processes. A tadpole turns gradually into a
frog. Yet if you analyze a motion picture of the process, it seems that there
are no two adjacent frames of which you can say the earlier shows a tadpole,
the later a frog. So it seems that you could argue: if something is a tadpole
at a given moment, it must also be a tadpole and not a frog a millionth of a
second later, and this seems to lead to the absurd conclusion that a tadpole
can never turn into a frog. Most responses to this paradox attempt to deny the
“major premise,” the one corresponding to the claim that if you cannot make a
heap with n grains of sand then you cannot make a heap with n ! 1. The
difficulty is that the negation of this premise is equivalent, in classical
logic, to the proposition that there is a sharp cutoff: that, e.g., there is
some number n of grains that are not enough to make a heap, where n ! 1 are
enough to make a heap. The claim of a sharp cutoff may not be so very
implausible for heaps perhaps for things like grains of sand, four is the
smallest number which can be formed into a heap but is very implausible for
colors and tadpoles. There are two main kinds of response to sorites paradoxes.
One is to accept that there is in every such case a sharp cutoff, though
typically we do not, and perhaps cannot, know where it is. Another kind of
response is to evolve a non-classical logic within which one can refuse to
accept the major premise without being committed to a sharp cutoff. At present,
no such non-classical logic is entirely free of difficulties. So sorites
paradoxes are still taken very seriously by contemporary philosophers. The heap
was one of the four known paradoxes by Eubulides. Refs.: Grice, “Eubulides, and
solving his paradoxes.”
stabilitatum – stabilire -- Establishment
– Grice speaks of the Establishment twice. Once re: Gellner: non-Establishment
criticizing the English Establishment. Second: to refute Lewis. Something can
be ‘established’ and not be conventional. “Surely Lewis should know the
Graeco-Roman root of establish to figure that out!” stăbĭlĭo , īvi, ītum (sync.
I.imperf. stabilibat, Enn. Ann. 44), 4, v. a. stabilis, to make firm,
steadfast, or stable; to fix, stay, establish (class.; esp. in the trop.
sense). I. Lit.: semita nulla pedem stabilibat, Enn. ap. Cic. Div. 1, 20, 40
(Ann. v. 44 Vahl.): “eo stabilita magis sunt,” Lucr. 3, 202; cf.: confirmandi et
stabiliendi causā singuli ab infimo solo pedes terrā exculcabantur, * Caes. B.
G. 7, 73: “vineas,” Col. 4, 33, 1: “loligini pedes duo, quibus se velut ancoris
stabiliunt,” Plin. 9, 28, 44, § 83.— II. Trop.: regni stabilita scamna
solumque, Enn. ap. Cic. Div. 1, 48 fin. (Ann. v. 99 Vahl.): “alicui regnum
suom,” Plaut. Am. 1, 1, 39; cf.: libertatem civibus, Att. ap. Cic. Sest. 58,
123: “rem publicam (opp. evertere),” Cic. Fin. 4, 24, 65; so, “rem publicam,”
id. Sest. 68, 143: “leges,” id. Leg. 1, 23, 62: “nisi haec urbs stabilita tuis
consiliis erit,” id. Marcell. 9, 29: “matrimonia firmiter,” id. Rep. 6, 2, 2:
pacem, concordiam, Pseud.-Sall. Rep. Ordin. 1 fin. (p. 267 Gerl.): “res Capuae
stabilitas Romana disciplina,” Liv. 9, 20: “nomen equestre in consulatu
(Cicero),” Plin. 33, 2, 8, § 34: “(aegrum) ad retinendam patientiam,” to
strengthen, fortify him, Gell. 12, 5, 3. While Grice’s play with ‘estaablished’
is in the second metabolical stage of his programme – where ‘means’ applies to
things other than the emissor, surely metaphorically – he is allowing that
‘estabalish’ may be used in the one-off predicament. By drawing a skull, U is
establishing a procedure. Grice notably wants to make ‘established’ a weaker
variant of ‘conventional.’ So that x, whatever, may be ‘established’ but not
‘conventional.’ In fact, it can be argued that to establish you have to do it
at least once. Cfr. ‘settled. ‘Greenwich, Conn., settled in 1639.’
‘Established’ Surely it would be obtuse to say that Greenwich, Conn. Was
“conventionalized”.
F
farquharsonism – Grice enjoyed reading Cook Wilson, and was grateful to A
S L Farquharson for making that possible.
fechner: as a
philosophical psychologist, Grice had to read the boring Fechner! G. physicist
and philosopher whose Elemente der Psychophysik inaugurated experimental
psychology. Obsessed with the mind-body problem, Fechner advanced an identity
theory in which every object is both mental and physical, and in support
invented psychophysics the “exact
science of the functional relations . . . between mind and body.” Fechner began
with the concept of the limen, or sensory threshold. The absolute threshold is
the stimulus strength R, Reiz needed to create a conscious sensation S, and the
relative threshold is the strength that must be added to a stimulus for a just
noticeable difference jnd to be perceived. E. H. Weber 17951878 had shown that
a constant ratio held between relative threshold and false cause, fallacy of
Fechner, Gustav Theodor 304 304
stimulus magnitude, Weber’s law: DR/R % k. By experimentally determining jnd’s
for pairs of stimulus magnitudes such as weights, Fechner formulated his
“functional relation,” S % k log R, Fechner’s law, an identity equation of mind
and matter. Later psychophysicists replaced it with a power law, R % kSn, where
n depends on the kind of stimulus. The importance of psychophysics to
psychology consisted in its showing that quantification of experience was
possible, and its providing a general paradigm for psychological
experimentation in which controlled stimulus conditions are systematically
varied and effects observed. In his later years, Fechner brought the
experimental method to bear on aesthetics Vorschule der Aesthetik, 1876.
ferguson: a. philosopher. His
main theme was the rise and fall of virtue in individuals and societies. In his
most important work, An Essay on the History of Civil Society Ferguson argues
that human happiness of which virtue is a constituent is found in pursuing
social goods rather than private ends. Ferguson thought that ignoring social
goods not only prevented social progress but led to moral corruption and
political despotism. To support this he used classical texts and travelers’
writings to reconstruct the history of society from “rude nations” through barbarism
to civilization. This allowed him to express his concern for the danger of
corruption inherent in the increasing selfinterest manifested in the incipient
commercial civilization of his day. He attempted to systematize his moral
philosophy in The Principles of Moral and Social Science 1792. J.W.A. Fermat’s
last theorem.
ferrari: essential Italian philosopher.
Refs.: Luigi Speranza, "Grice e Ferrari," per Il Club Anglo-Italiano,
The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.
feuerbach: -- G. materialist
philosopher and critic of religion. He provided the major link between Hegel’s
absolute idealism and such later theories of historical materialism as those of
Marx and other “young or new Hegelians.” Feuerbach was born in Bavaria and
studied theology, first at Heidelberg and then Berlin, where he came under the
philosophical influence of Hegel. He received his doctorate in 1828 and, after
an early publication severely critical of Christianity, retired from official
G. academic life. In the years between 1836 and 1846, he produced some of his
most influential works, which include “Towards a Critique of Hegel’s
Philosophy” 1839, The Essence of Christianity 1841, Principles of the
Philosophy of the Future 1843, and The Essence of Religion 1846. After a brief
collaboration with Marx, he emerged as a popular champion of political
liberalism in the revolutionary period of 1848. During the reaction that
followed, he again left public life and died dependent upon the support of
friends. Feuerbach was pivotal in the intellectual history of the nineteenth
century in several respects. First, after a half-century of metaphysical system
construction by the G. idealists, Feuerbach revived, in a new form, the
original Kantian project of philosophical critique. However, whereas Kant had
tried “to limit reason in order to make room for faith,” Feuerbach sought to
demystify both faith and reason in favor of the concrete and situated existence
of embodied human consciousness. Second, his “method” of “transformatory criticism” directed, in the first instance, at Hegel’s
philosophical pronouncements was adopted
by Marx and has retained its philosophical appeal. Briefly, it suggested that
“Hegel be stood on his feet” by “inverting” the subject and predicate in
Hegel’s idealistic pronouncements. One should, e.g., rewrite “The individual is
a function of the Absolute” as “The Absolute is a function of the individual.”
Third, Feuerbach asserted that the philosophy of G. idealism was ultimately an
extenuation of theology, and that theology was merely religious consciousness
systematized. But since religion itself proves to be merely a “dream of the
human mind,” metaphysics, theology, and religion can be reduced to
“anthropology,” the study of concrete embodied human consciousness and its
cultural products. The philosophical influence of Feuerbach flows through Marx
into virtually all later historical materialist positions; anticipates the
existentialist concern with concrete embodied human existence; and serves as a
paradigm for all later approaches to religion on the part of the social
sciences.
fichte: G. philosopher.
He was a proponent of an uncompromising system of transcendental idealism, the
Wissenschaftslehre, which played a key role in the development of post-Kantian philosophy.
Born in Saxony, Fichte studied at Jena and Leipzig. The writings of Kant led
him to abandon metaphysical determinism and to embrace transcendental idealism
as “the first system of human freedom.” His first book, Versuch einer Kritik
aller Offenbarung “Attempt at a Critique of all Revelations,” 1792, earned him
a reputation as a brilliant exponent of Kantianism, while his early political
writings secured him a reputation as a Jacobin. Inspired by Reinhold, Jacobi,
Maimon, and Schulze, Fichte rejected the “letter” of Kantianism and, in the
lectures and writings he produced at Jena 179499, advanced a new, rigorously
systematic presentation of what he took to be its Ferguson, Adam Fichte, Johann
Gottlieb 307 307 “spirit.” He dispensed
with Kant’s things-inthemselves, the original duality of faculties, and the
distinction between the transcendental aesthetic and the transcendental
analytic. By emphasizing the unity of theoretical and practical reason in a way
consistent with “the primacy of practical reason,” Fichte sought to establish
the unity of the critical philosophy as well as of human experience. In Ueber
den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre “On the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre,”
1794 he explained his conception of philosophy as “the science of science,” to
be presented in a deductive system based on a self-evident first principle. The
basic “foundations” of this system, which Fichte called Wissenschaftslehre
theory of science, were outlined in his Grundlage der gesamten
Wissenschaftslehre “Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre,” 179495 and
Grundriß der Eigentümlichen der Wissenschaftslehre in Rücksicht auf das
theoretische Vermögen “Outline of the Distinctive Character of the
Wissenschaftslehre with respect to the Theoretical Faculty,” 1795 and then,
substantially revised, in his lectures on Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo
179699. The “foundational” portion of the Wissenschaftslehrelinks our
affirmation of freedom to our experience of natural necessity. Beginning with
the former “the I simply posits itself”, it then demonstrates how a freely
self-positing subject must be conscious not only of itself, but also of
“representations accompanied by a feeling of necessity” and hence of an
objective world. Fichte insisted that the essence of selfhood lies in an active
positing of its own self-identity and hence that self-consciousness is an
auto-productive activity: a Tathandlung or “fact/act.” However, the I can posit
itself only as limited; in order for the originally posited act of “sheer self-positing”
to occur, certain other mental acts must occur as well, acts through which the
I posits for itself an objective, spatiotemporal world, as well as a moral
realm of free, rational beings. The I first posits its own limited condition in
the form of “feeling” occasioned by an inexplicable Anstob or “check” upon its
own practical striving, then as a “sensation,” then as an “intuition” of a
thing, and finally as a “concept.” The distinction between the I and the not-I
arises only in these reiterated acts of self-positing, a complete description
of which thus amounts to a “genetic deduction” of the necessary conditions of
experience. Freedom is thereby shown to be possible only in the context of
natural necessity, where it is limited and finite. At the same time “our
freedom is a theoretical determining principle of our world.” Though it must
posit its freedom “absolutely” i.e.,
schlechthin or “for no reason” a
genuinely free agent can exist only as a finite individual endlessly striving
to overcome its own limits. After establishing its “foundations,” Fichte
extended his Wissenschaftslehre into social and political philosophy and
ethics. Subjectivity itself is essentially intersubjective, inasmuch as one can
be empirically conscious of oneself only as one individual among many and must
thus posit the freedom of others in order to posit one’s own freedom. But for
this to occur, the freedom of each individual must be limited; indeed, “the
concept of right or justice Recht is nothing other than the concept of the
coexistence of the freedom of several rational/sensuous beings.” The Grundlage
des Naturrechts “Foundations of Natural Right,” 179697 examines how individual
freedom must be externally limited if a community of free individuals is to be
possible, and demonstrates that a just political order is a demand of reason
itself, since “the concept of justice or right is a condition of
self-consciousness.” “Natural rights” are thus entirely independent of moral
duties. Unlike political philosophy, which purely concerns the public realm,
ethics, which is the subject of Das System der Sittenlehre “The System of
Ethical Theory,” 1798, concerns the inner realm of conscience. It views objects
not as given to consciousness but as produced by free action, and concerns not
what is, but what ought to be. The task of ethics is to indicate the particular
duties that follow from the general obligation to determine oneself freely the
categorical imperative. Before Fichte could extend the Wissenschaftslehre into
the philosophy of religion, he was accused of atheism and forced to leave Jena.
The celebrated controversy over his alleged atheism the Atheismusstreit was
provoked by “Ueber den Grund unseres Glaubens in einer göttliche Weltregierung”
“On the Basis of our Belief in a Divine Governance of the World,” 1798, in
which he sharply distinguished between philosophical and religious questions.
While defending our right to posit a “moral world order,” Fichte insisted that
this order does not require a personal deity or “moral lawgiver.” After moving
to Berlin, Fichte’s first concern was to rebut the charge of atheism and to
reply to the indictment of philosophy as “nihilism” advanced in Jacobi’s Open
Letter to Fichte 1799. This was the task of Die Bestimmung des Menschen “The Vocation
of Man,” 1800. During the occupation, he
delivered Reden an die deutsche Nation “Addresses to the G. Nation,” 1808,
which proposed a program of national education and attempted to kindle G.
patriotism. The other publications of his Berlin years include a foray into
political economy, Der geschlossene Handelstaat “The Closed Commercial State,”
1800; a speculative interpretation of human history, Die Grundzüge des
gegenwärtiges Zeitalters “The Characteristics of the Present Age,” 1806; and a
mystically tinged treatise on salvation, Die Anweisung zum seligen Leben “Guide
to the Blessed Life,” 1806. In unpublished private lectures he continued to
develop radically new versions of the Wissenschaftslehre. Fichte’s substantial
influence was not limited to his well-known influence on Schelling and Hegel
both of whom criticized the “subjectivism” of the early Wissenschaftslehre. He
is also important in the history of G. nationalism and profoundly influenced
the early Romantics, especially Novalis and Schlegel. Recent decades have seen
renewed interest in Fichte’s transcendental philosophy, expecially the later,
unpublished versions of the Wissenschaftslehre. This century’s most significant
contribution to Fichte studies, however, is the ongoing publication of the
first critical edition of his complete works.
Italian philosophy. Grice loved it and
could recite an Italian philosopher for each letter of the alphabet, including
the famous Alessandro Speranza, from Milano! Grice: “Of course there is a
longtitudinal unity between Graeco-Roman philosophy and Italian philosophy;
Italian after all IS Latin. I experienced the ‘inglese italianato, diavolo
incarnato’ at Oxford – especially with the ‘aesthetes.’!”
ficino: one of the most
important Italian philosophers, neoplatonic philosopher who played a leading
role in the cultural life of Florence. Ordained a priest in 1473, he hoped to
draw people to Christ by means of Platonism. It was through Ficino’s
translation and commentaries that the works of Plato first became accessible to
the Latin-speaking West, but the impact of Plato’s work was considerably
affected by Ficino’s other interests. He accepted Neoplatonic interpretations
of Plato, including those of Plotinus, whom he tr.; and he saw Plato as the
heir of Hermes Trismegistus, a mythical Egyptian sage and supposed author of
the hermetic corpus, which he tr. early in his career. He embraced the notion
of a prisca theologia, an ancient wisdom that encapsulated philosophic and
religious truth, was handed on to Plato, and was later validated by the
Christian revelation. The most popular of his original works was Three Books on
Life 1489, which contains the fullest Renaissance exposition of a theory of
magic, based mainly on Neoplatonic sources. He postulated a living cosmos in
which the World-Soul is linked to the world-body by spirit. This relationship
is mirrored in man, whose spirit or astral body links his body and soul, and
the resulting correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm allows both man’s
control of natural objects through magic and his ascent to knowledge of God.
Other popular works were his commentary on Plato’s Symposium 1469, which
presents a theory of Platonic love; and his Platonic Theology 1474, in which he
argues for the immortality of the soul. Refs.: Luigi
Speranza, "Grice e Ficino," per Il Club Anglo-Italiano, The
Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.
fictum: in the widest
usage, whatever contrasts with what is a matter of fact. As applied to works of
fiction, however, this is not the appropriate contrast. For a work of fiction,
such as a historical novel, might turn out to be true regarding its historical
subject, without ceasing to be fiction. The correct contrast of fiction is to
non-fiction. If a work of fiction might turn out to be true, how is ‘fiction’
best defined? According to some philosophers, such as Searle, the writer of
nonfiction performs illocutionary speech acts, such as asserting that
such-and-such occurred, whereas the writer of fiction characteristically only
pretends to perform these illocutionary acts. Others hold that the core idea to
which appeal should be made is that of making-believe or imagining certain
states of affairs. Kendall Walton Mimesis as Make-Believe, 0, for instance,
holds that a work of fiction is to be construed in terms of a prop whose
function is to serve in games of make-believe. Both kinds of theory allow for
the possibility that a work of fiction might turn out to be true.
Fidanza: essential Italian
philosopher, b. Bagnorea, Tuscany, he was educated at Paris, earning a master’s
degree in arts and a doctorate in theology. He joined the Franciscans about
1243, while still a student, and was elected minister general of the order in
1257. Made cardinal bishop of Albano by Pope Gregory X in 1274, Bonaventure
helped organize the Second Ecumenical Council of Lyons, during the course of
which he died, in July 1274. He was canonized in 1482 and named a doctor of the
church in 1587. Bonaventure wrote and preached extensively on the relation
between philosophy and theology, the role of reason in spiritual and religious
life, and the extent to which knowledge in God is obtainable by the “wayfarer.”
His basic position is nicely expressed in De reductione artium ad theologiam
“On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology”: “the manifold wisdom of God, which
is clearly revealed in sacred scripture, lies hidden in all knowledge and in
all nature.” He adds, “all divisions of knowledge are handmaids of theology.”
But he is critical of those theologians who wish to sever the connection
between faith and reason. As he argues in another famous work, Itinerarium
mentis ad deum “The Mind’s Journey unto God,” 1259, “since, relative to our
life on earth, the world is itself a ladder for ascending to God, we find here
certain traces, certain images” of the divine hand, in which God himself is
mirrored. Although Bonaventure’s own philosophical outlook is Augustinian, he
was also influenced by Aristotle, whose newly available works he both read and
appreciated. Thus, while upholdBonaventure, Saint Bonaventure, Saint 94 94 ing the Aristotelian ideas that knowledge
of the external world is based on the senses and that the mind comes into
existence as a tabula rasa, he also contends that divine illumination is
necessary to explain both the acquisition of universal concepts from sense
images, and the certainty of intellectual judgment. His own illuminationist
epistemology seeks a middle ground between, on the one hand, those who maintain
that the eternal light is the sole reason for human knowing, providing the
human intellect with its archetypal and intelligible objects, and, on the
other, those holding that the eternal light merely influences human knowing,
helping guide it toward truth. He holds that our intellect has certain
knowledge when stable; eternal archetypes are “contuited by us [a nobis
contuita],” together with intelligible species produced by its own fallible
powers. In metaphysics, Bonaventure defends exemplarism, the doctrine that all
creation is patterned after exemplar causes or ideas in the mind of God. Like
Aquinas, but unlike Duns Scotus, he argues that it is through such ideas that
God knows all creatures. He also adopts the emanationist principle that
creation proceeds from God’s goodness, which is self-diffusive, but differs
from other emanationists, such as al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, in arguing
that divine emanation is neither necessary nor indirect i.e., accomplished by
secondary agents or intelligences. Indeed, he sees the views of these Islamic
philosophers as typical of the errors bound to follow once Aristotelian
rationalism is taken to its extreme. He is also well known for his
anti-Aristotelian argument that the eternity of the world something even Aquinas following Maimonides
concedes as a theoretical possibility is
demonstrably false. Bonaventure also subscribes to several other doctrines
characteristic of medieval Augustinianism: universal hylomorphism, the thesis,
defended by Ibn Gabirol and Avicenna among others, that everything other than
God is composed of matter and form; the plurality of forms, the view that
subjects and predicates in the category of substance are ordered in terms of
their metaphysical priority; and the ontological view of truth, according to
which truth is a kind of rightness perceived by the mind. In a similar vein,
Bonaventure argues that knowledge ultimately consists in perceiving truth
directly, without argument or demonstration. Bonaventure also wrote several
classic works in the tradition of mystical theology. His bestknown and most
popular mystical work is the aforementioned Itinerarium, written in 1259 on a
pilgrimage to La Verna, during which he beheld the six-winged seraph that had
also appeared to Francis of Assisi when Francis received the stigmata.
Bonaventure outlines a seven-stage spiritual journey, in which our mind moves
from first considering God’s traces in the perfections of irrational creatures,
to a final state of peaceful repose, in which our affections are “transferred
and transformed into God.” Central to his writings on spiritual life is the
theme of the “three ways”: the purgative way, inspired by conscience, which
expels sin; the illuminative way, inspired by the intellect, which imitates
Christ; and the unitive way, inspired by wisdom, which unites us to God through
love. Bonaventure’s writings most immediately influenced the work of other
medieval Augustinians, such as Matthew of Aquasparta and John Peckham, and
later, followers of Duns Scotus. But his modern reputation rests on his
profound contributions to philosophical theology, Franciscan spirituality, and
mystical thought, in all three of which he remains an authoritative source.
Refs.: Luigi Speranza, "Grice e
Fidanza," per Il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa
Grice, Liguria, Italia.
campus -- field theory, a
theory that proceeds by assigning values of physical quantities to the points
of space, or of space-time, and then lays down laws relating these values. For
example, a field theory might suppose a value for matter density, or a
temperature for each space-time point, and then relate these values, usually in
terms of differential equations. In these examples there is at least the tacit
assumption of a physical substance that fills the relevant region of
space-time. But no such assumption need be made. For instance, in Ficino,
Marsilio field theory 309 309 Maxwell’s
theory of the electromagnetic field, each point of space-time carries a value
for an electric and a magnetic field, and these values are then governed by
Maxwell’s equations. In general relativity, the geometry e.g., the curvature of
space-time is itself treated as a field, with lawlike connections with the
distribution of energy and matter. Formulation in terms of a field theory
resolves the problem of action at a distance that so exercised Newton and his
contemporaries. We often take causal connection to require spatial contiguity.
That is, for one entity to act causally on another, the two entities need to be
contiguous. But in Newton’s description gravitational attraction acts across
spatial distances. Similarly, in electrostatics the mutual repulsion of
electric charges is described as acting across spatial distances. In the times
of both Newton and Maxwell numerous efforts to understand such action at a
distance in terms of some space-filling mediating substance produced no viable
theory. Field theories resolve the perplexity. By attributing values of
physical quantities directly to the space-time points one can describe
gravitation, electrical and magnetic forces, and other interactions without
action at a distance or any intervening physical medium. One describes the
values of physical quantities, attributed directly to the space-time points, as
influencing only the values at immediately neighboring points. In this way the
influences propagate through space-time, rather than act instantaneously across
distances or through a medium. Of course there is a metaphysical price: on such
a description the space-time points themselves take on the role of a kind of
dematerialized ether. Indeed, some have argued that the pervasive role of field
theory in contemporary physics and the need for space-time points for a
field-theoretic description constitute a strong argument for the existence of
the space-time points. This conclusion contradicts “relationalism,” which
claims that there are only spatiotemporal relations, but no space-time points
or regions thought of as particulars. Quantum field theory appears to take on a
particularly abstract form of field theory, since it associates a quantum mechanical
operator with each space-time point. However, since operators correspond to
physical magnitudes rather than to values of such magnitudes, it is better to
think of the field-theoretic aspect of quantum field theory in terms of the
quantum mechanical amplitudes that it also associates with the space-time
points.
figura: figure-ground, the discrimination of an object or
figure from the context or background against which it is set. Even when a
connected region is grouped together properly, as in the famous figure that can
be seen either as a pair of faces or as a vase, it is possible to interpret the
region alternately as figure and as ground. This fact was originally elaborated
in 1 by Edgar Rubin 6 1. Figureground effects and the existence of other
ambiguous figures such as the Necker cube and the duck-rabbit challenged the
prevailing assumption, Vitters thought, in classical theories of
perception maintained, e.g., by H. P.
Grice and J. S. Mill and H. von Helmholtz
that complex perceptions could be understood in terms of primitive
sensations constituting them. The underdetermination of perception by the
visual stimulus, noted by Berkeley in his Essay of 1709, takes account of the
fact that the retinal image is impoverished with respect to threedimensional
information. Identical stimulation at the retina can result from radically
different distal sources. Within Gestalt psychology, the Gestalt, or pattern,
was recognized to be underdetermined by constituent parts available in proximal
stimuli. M. Wertheimer 03 observed in 2 that apparent motion could be induced
by viewing a series of still pictures in rapid succession. He concluded that
perception of the whole, as involving movement, was fundamentally different
from the perception of the static images of which it is composed. W. Köhler An
example of visual reversal from Edgar Rubin: the object depicted can be seen
alternately as a vase or as a pair of faces. The reversal occurs whether there
is a black ground and white figure or white figure and black ground. figure
figure ground 310 310 77 observed that there was no figure
ground articulation in the retinal image, and concluded that inherently
ambiguous stimuli required some autonomous selective principles of perceptual
organization. As subsequently developed by Gestalt psychologists, form is taken
as the primitive unit of perception. In philosophical treatments, figureground
effects are used to enforce the conclusion that interpretation is central to
perception, and that perceptions are no more than hypotheses based on sensory
data. Refs.: Grice, “You can’t see a knife as a knife,” “The Causal Theory of
Perception,” Vitters on ‘seeing-as’”. figura -- schema (Latin ‘figura,’ as in Grice,
‘figure of speech’), also schema plural: schemata, a metalinguistic frame or
template used to specify an infinite set of sentences, its instances, by finite
means, often taken with a side condition on how its blanks or placeholders are
to be filled. The sentence ‘Either Abe argues or it is not the case that Abe argues’
is an instance of the excluded middle scheme for English: ‘Either . . . or it
is not the case that . . .’, where the two blanks are to be filled with one and
the same well-formed declarative English sentence. Since first-order number
theory cannot be finitely axiomatized, the mathematical induction scheme is
used to effectively specify an infinite set of axioms: ‘If zero is such that .
. . and the successor of every number such that . . . is also such that . . . ,
then every number is such that . . .’, where the four blanks are to be filled
with one and the same arithmetic open sentence, such as ‘it precedes its own
successor’ or ‘it is finite’. Among the best-known is Tarski’s scheme T: ‘. . .
is a true sentence if and only if . . .’, where the second blank is filled with
a sentence and the first blank by a name of the sentence. And then there’s the figura quadrata: square of opposition – figura
quadrata – Grice: “It is clear that the apparatus of Modernism does not give a
faithful account of the character of semantic phenomena. One such less than
faithful account, indeed, deviant account, appears in the treatment of the
square of opposition.” cited by Grice in “Retrospective epilogue.” Since
tutoring Strawson on this for Strawson’s ‘logic paper,’ Grice kept an interest,
if only to witness Strwson’s playing with the square – and ‘uselessly trying to
circle it’ -- a graphic representation of various logical relations among
categorical propositions. Relations among modal and even among hypothetical
propositions have also been represented on the square. Two propositions are
said to be each other’s 1 contradictories if exactly one of them must be true
and exactly one false; 2 contraries if they could not both be true although
they could both be false; and 3 subcontraries if at least one of them must be
true although both of them may be true. There is a relation of 4 subalternation
of one proposition, called subaltern, to another called superaltern, if the
truth of the latter implies the truth of the former, but not conversely.
Applying these definitions to the four types of categorical propositions, we
find that SaP and SoP are contradictories, and so are SeP and SiP. SaP and SeP
are contraries. SiP and SoP are subcontraries. SiP is subaltern to SaP, and SoP
is subaltern to SeP. These relations can be represented graphically in a square
of opposition: The four relations on the traditional square are expressed in
the following theses: Contradictories: SaP S -SoP, SeP S -SiP Contraries: -SaP
& SeP or SaP P -SeP Subcontraries: SiP 7 SoP Subalterns: SaP P SiP, SeP P
SoP For these relations to hold, an underlying existential assumption must be
satisfied: the terms serving as subjects of propositions must be satisfied, not
empty e.g., ‘man’ is satisfied and ‘elf’ empty. Only the contradictory
opposition remains without that assumption. Modern interpretations of
categorical propositions exclude the existential assumption; thus, only the
contradictory opposition remains in the square.
Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Apuleius on the square of opposition,” H. P. Grice,
“Boethius and the square of opposition.”
filmer: r. English
political writer who produced, most importantly, the posthumous Patriarcha It
is remembered because Locke attacked it in the first of his Two Treatises of
Government 1690. Filmer argued that God gave complete authority over the world
to Adam, and that from him it descended to his eldest son when he became the
head of the family. Thereafter only fathers directly descended from Adam could
properly be rulers. Just as Adam’s rule was not derived from the consent of his
family, so the king’s inherited authority is not dependent on popular consent.
He rightly makes laws and imposes taxes at his own good pleasure, though like a
good father he has the welfare of his subjects in view. Filmer’s
patriarchalism, intended to bolster the absolute power of the king, is the
classic English statement of the doctrine.
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