IMPLICATVRA -- in twelve volumes, vol. XII

All fallacies – argumentum ad:

ship of Theseus: the ship of the Grecian hero Theseus, which, according to Plutarch “Life of Theseus,” 23, the Athenians preserved by gradually replacing its timbers. A classic debate ensued concerning identity over time. Suppose a ship’s timbers are replaced one by one over a period of time; at what point, if any, does it cease to be the same ship? What if the ship’s timbers, on removal, are used to build a new ship, identical in structure with the first: which ship has the best claim to be the original ship?

shpet: phenomenologist and highly regarded friend of Husserl. Shpet plays a major role in the development of phenomenology. Graduating from Kiev  in 6, Shpet accompanied his mentor Chelpanov to Moscow, ommencing graduate studies at Moscow  M.A., 0; Ph.D., 6. He attends Husserl’s seminars at Göttingen during 213, out of which developed a continuing friendship between the two, recorded in correspondence extending through 8. In 4 Shpet published a meditation, “Iavlenie i smysl,” nspired by Husserl’s Logical Investigations and, especially, Ideas I, which had appeared in 3. Between 4 and 7 he published six additional books on such disparate topics as the concept of history, Herzen, philosophy, aesthetics, ethnic psychology, and language. He founds and edited the philosophical yearbook Mysl’ i slovo Thought and Word between 8 and 1, publishing an important article on skepticism in it. He was arrested and sentenced to internal exile. Under these conditions he made a running commentary of Hegel’s Phenomenology. He was executed.

sidgwick:  English philosopher. Best known for “The Methods of Ethics,” he also wrote “Outlines of the History of Ethics.” In the “Methods,” Sidgwick tries to assess the rationality of the main ways in which ordinary people go about making this or that moral decision. Sidgwick thinks that our common “methods of ethics” fall into three main patterns. The first pattern is articulated by the philosophical theory known as intuitionism. This is the view that we can just see straight off either what particular act is right or what binding rule or general principle we ought to follow. A second pattern is spelled out by what self-love or egoism, the view that we ought in each act to get as much good as we can for ourselves. – vide: H. P. Grice, “The principle of conversational self-love and the principle of conversational benevolence,” H. P.  Grice, “Conversational benevolence, not conversational self-love.” The third widely used method is represented by utilitarianism, the view that we ought in each case to bring about as much good as possible for everyone affected. Can any or all of the methods prescribed by these views be rationally defended? And how are they related to one another? By framing his philosophical questions in these terms, Sidgwick makes it centrally important to examine the chief philosophical theories of morality in the light of the common-sense morals of his time. Sidgwick thinks that no theory wildly at odds with common-sense morality would be acceptable. Intuitionism, a theory originating with Butler (of ‘self-love and benevolence’ fame), transmitted by Reid, and most systematically expounded during the Victorian era by Whewell, is widely held to be the best available defense of Christian morals. Egoism (Self-love) was thought by many to be the clearest pattern of practical (or means-end) rationality and is frequently said to be compatible with Christianity. And J. S. Mill had argues that utilitarianism is both rational and in accord with common sense. But whatever their relation to ordinary morality, the three methods or patterns seem to be seriously at odds with one another. Examining all the chief commonsense precepts and rules of morality, such as that promises ought to be kept, Sidgwick argues that none is truly self-evident or intuitively certain. Each fails to guide us at certain points where we expect it to answer our practical questions. Utilitarianism, he found, could provide a complicated method for filling these gaps. But what ultimately justifies utilitarianism is certain very general axioms seen intuitively to be true. Among them are the principles that what is right in one case must be right in any similar case, and that we ought to aim at good generally, not just at some particular part of it. Thus intuitionism and utilitarianism can be reconciled. When taken together they yield a complete and justifiable method of ethics that is in accord with common sense. What then of egoism and self-love? Self love and egoirm can provide as complete a method as utilitarianism, and it also involves a self-evident axiom. But  the results of egoism and self-love often contradict those of utilitarianism. Hence there is a serious problem. The method that instructs us to act always for the good generally and the method that tells one to act solely for one’s own good are equally rational. Since the two methods give contradictory directions, while each method rests on self-evident axioms, it seems that practical reason is fundamentally incoherent. Sidgwick could see no way to solve the problem. Sidgwick’s bleak conclusion is not generally accepted (especially at Oxford), but his Methods is widely viewed as one of the best works of moral philosophy ever written in what Grice calls ‘insular’ philosophy (as opposed to mainland philosophy).  Sidgwick’s account of classical utilitarianism is unsurpassed. Sidwick’s discussions of the general status of morality and of particular moral concepts are enduring models of clarity and acumen. His insights about the relations between egoism (self-love) and utilitarianism have stimulated much valuable research. And his way of framing moral problems, by asking about the relations between commonsense beliefs and the best available theories, has set much of the agenda for ethics. 

sì/no -- “sic” et “ne” – modus interrogativus. Grice: “Oddly that the Italians call themselves as speaking the ‘lingua del si,’ contra the Gallics, who speak the ‘lingua del’oc,” or worse, the ‘lingua d’oil”!! -- Grice: Or yes/no question. “Cicero has this as ‘sic’ and ‘non.’ For Grice, tertium non datur. Grice’s example is “Have you stopped beating  your wife, Smith?” “Smith is tricked into having to say ‘yes,’ which makes him a criminal, or “no,” which doesn’t but *implicates* him in a crime.” “The explicit cancellation would be, “No, because I never started it.” – “But usually Smith is never so intelligently Griceian like *that*! Vide: modus interrogatives.  Grice finds the formalisation of a yes-no question more complicated than that of an x-question. Like Carnap, he concludes that the distinction is otiose, because a yes/no question also is after a variable to be filled by a definite value, regarding the truth-value of the proposition as a whole rather than a part thereof. Grice: “While I’ll casually use ‘yes,’ I’m well aware that the ‘s,’ as every German schoolboy knows, is otiose – it’s ‘yeah’ which is the correct form!” -- Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Cicero on ‘sic’ and ‘ne’.” BANC, Speranza, “First time in Corpus?”

signatum: Cf. “to sign” as a verb – from French. Grice uses designatum, too – but more specifically within the ‘propositio’ as a compound of a subjectum and a predicatum. The subject-item indicates a thing; and the predicate-item designates a property. As Grice notes, there is a distinction between Aristotle’s use, in De Int., of ‘sumbolon,’ for which Aristotle sometimes means ‘semeion,’ and their Roman counterparts, ‘signum’ sounds otiose enough. But ‘significo’ does not. There is this –fico thing that sounds obtrusive. The Romans, however, were able to distinguish between ‘make a sign,’ and just ‘signal.’ The point is important when Grice tries to apply the Graeco-Roman philosophical terminology to a lexeme which does not belong in there: “mean.” His example is someone in pain, uttering “Oh.” If he later gains voluntary control, by uttering “Oh” he means that he is in pain, and even at a later stage, provided he learns ‘lupe,’ he may utter the expression which is somewhat correlated in a non-iconic fashion with something which iconically is a vehicle for U to mean that he is in pain. In this way, in a communication-system, a communication-device, such as “Oh” does for the state of affairs something that the state of affairs cannot do for itself, govern the addresee’s thoughts and behaviour (very much as the Oxfordshire cricket team does for Oxfordshire what Oxfordshire cannot do for herself, viz. to engage in a game of cricket. There’s rae-presentatum, for you! Short and Lewis have ‘signare,’ from ‘signum,’ and which they render as ‘to set a mark upon, to mark, mark out, designate (syn.: noto, designo),’ Lit. A. In gen. (mostly poet. and in post-Aug. prose): discrimen non facit neque signat linea alba, Lucil. ap. Non. 405, 17: “signata sanguine pluma est,” Ov. M. 6, 670: “ne signare quidem aut partiri limite campum Fas erat,” Verg. G. 1, 126: “humum limite mensor,” Ov. M. 1, 136; id. Am. 3, 8, 42: “moenia aratro,” id. F. 4, 819: “pede certo humum,” to print, press, Hor. A. P. 159; cf.: “vestigia summo pulvere,” to mark, imprint, Verg. G. 3, 171: auratā cyclade humum, Prop. 4 (5), 7, 40. “haec nostro signabitur area curru,” Ov. A. A. 1, 39: “locum, ubi ea (cistella) excidit,” Plaut. Cist. 4, 2, 28: “caeli regionem in cortice signant,” mark, cut, Verg. G. 2, 269: “nomina saxo,” Ov. M. 8, 539: “rem stilo,” Vell. 1, 16, 1: “rem carmine,” Verg. A. 3, 287; “for which: carmine saxum,” Ov. M. 2, 326: “cubitum longis litteris,” Plaut. Rud. 5, 2, 7: “ceram figuris,” to imprint, Ov. M. 15, 169: “cruor signaverat herbam,” had stained, id. ib. 10, 210; cf. id. ib. 12, 125: “signatum sanguine pectus,” id. A. A. 2, 384: “dubiā lanugine malas,” id. M. 13, 754: “signata in stirpe cicatrix,” Verg. G. 2, 379: “manibus Procne pectus signata cruentis,” id. ib. 4, 15: “vocis infinitios sonos paucis notis,” Cic. Rep. 3, 2, 3: “visum objectum imprimet et quasi signabit in animo suam speciem,” id. Fat. 19, 43.— B. In partic. 1. To mark with a seal; to seal, seal up, affix a seal to a thing (usually obsignare): “accepi a te signatum libellum,” Cic. Att. 11, 1, 1: “volumina,” Hor. Ep. 1, 13, 2: locellum tibi signatum remisi, Caes. ap. Charis. p. 60 P.: “epistula,” Nep. Pel. 3, 2: “arcanas tabellas,” Ov. Am. 2, 15, 15: “signatis quicquam mandare tabellis,” Tib. 4, 7, 7: “lagenam (anulus),” Mart. 9, 88, 7: “testamentum,” Plin. Ep. 2, 20, 8 sq.; cf. Mart. 5, 39, 2: “nec nisi signata venumdabatur (terra),” Plin. 35, 4, 14, § 33.—Absol., Mart. 10, 70, 7; Quint. 5, 7, 32; Suet. Ner. 17.— 2. To mark with a stamp; hence, a. Of money, to stamp, to coin: “aes argentum aurumve publice signanto,” Cic. Leg. 3, 3, 6; cf.: “qui primus ex auro denarium signavit ... Servius rex primus signavit aes ... Signatum est nota pecudum, unde et pecunia appellata ... Argentum signatum est anno, etc.,” Plin. 33, 3, 13, § 44: “argentum signatum,” Cic. Verr. 2, 5, 25, § 63; Quint. 5, 10, 62; 5, 14, 26: “pecunia signata Illyriorum signo,” Liv. 44, 27, 9: “denarius signatus Victoriā,” Plin. 33, 3, 13, § 46: “sed cur navalis in aere Altera signata est,” Ov. F. 1, 230: “milia talentūm argenti non signati formā, sed rudi pondere,” Curt. 5, 2, 11.— Hence, b. Poet.: “signatum memori pectore nomen habe,” imprinted, impressed, Ov. H. 13, 66: “(filia) quae patriā signatur imagine vultus,” i. e. closely resembles her father, Mart. 6, 27, 3.— c. To stamp, i. e. to license, invest with official authority (late Lat.): “quidam per ampla spatia urbis ... equos velut publicos signatis, quod dicitur, calceis agitant,” Amm. 14, 6, 16.— 3. Pregn., to distinguish, adorn, decorate (poet.): “pater ipse suo superūm jam signat honore,” Verg. A. 6, 781 Heyne: caelum corona, Claud. Nupt. Hon. et Mar. 273. to point out, signify, indicate, designate, express (rare; more usually significo, designo; in Cic. only Or. 19, 64, where dignata is given by Non. 281, 10; “v. Meyer ad loc.): translatio plerumque signandis rebus ac sub oculos subiciendis reperta est,” Quint. 8, 6, 19: “quotiens suis verbis signare nostra voluerunt (Graeci),” id. 2, 14, 1; cf.: “appellatione signare,” id. 4, 1, 2: “utrius differentiam,” id. 6, 2, 20; cf. id. 9, 1, 4; 12, 10, 16: “nomen (Caieta) ossa signat,” Verg. A. 7, 4: “fama signata loco est,” Ov. M. 14, 433: “miratrixque sui signavit nomine terras,” designated, Luc. 4, 655; cf.: “(Earinus) Nomine qui signat tempora verna suo,” Mart. 9, 17, 4: “Turnus ut videt ... So signari oculis,” singled out, looked to, Verg. A. 12, 3: signare responsum, to give a definite or distinct answer, Sen. Ben. 7, 16, 1.—With rel.-clause: “memoria signat in quā regione quali adjutore legatoque fratre meo usus sit,” Vell. 2, 115.— B. To distinguish, recognize: “primi clipeos mentitaque tela Adgnoscunt, atque ora sono discordia signant,” Verg. A. 2, 423; cf.: “sonis homines dignoscere,” Quint. 11, 3, 31: “animo signa quodcumque in corpore mendum est,” Ov. R. Am. 417.— C. To seal, settle, establish, confirm, prescribe (mostly poet.): “signanda sunt jura,” Prop. 3 (4), 20, 15. “signata jura,” Luc. 3, 302: jura Suevis, Claud. ap. Eutr. 1, 380; cf.: “precati deos ut velint ea (vota) semper solvi semperque signari,” Plin. Ep. 10, 35 (44). To close, end: “qui prima novo signat quinquennia lustro,” Mart. 4, 45, 3.—Hence, A. signan-ter , adv. (acc. to II. A.), expressly, clearly, distinctly (late Lat. for the class. significanter): “signanter et breviter omnia indicare,” Aus. Grat. Act. 4: “signanter et proprie dixerat,” Hier. adv. Jovin. 1, 13 fin. signātus, a, um, P. a. 1. (Acc. to I. B. 1. sealed; hence) Shut up, guarded, preserved (mostly ante- and post-class.): signata sacra, Varr. ap. Non. 397, 32: limina. Prop. 4 (5), 1, 145. Chrysidem negat signatam reddere, i. e. unharmed, intact, pure, Lucil. ap. Non. 171, 6; cf.: “assume de viduis fide pulchram, aetate signatam,” Tert. Exhort. 12.— 2. (Acc. to II. A.) Plain, clear, manifest (post-class. for “significans” – a back formation!): “quid expressius atque signatius in hanc causam?” Tert. Res. Carn.Adv.: signātē , clearly, distinctly (post-class.): “qui (veteres) proprie atque signate locuti sunt,” Gell. 2, 6, 6; Macr. S. 6, 7 Comp.: “signatius explicare aliquid,” Amm. 23, 6, 1. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Sign and sign-making – the Roman signi-ficare, and beyond.”

significatum: or better ‘signatum.’ Grice knew that in old Roman, signatum was intransitive, as originally ‘significatum’ was – “He is signifying,” i. e. making signs. In the Middle Ages it was applied to ‘utens’ of this or that expression, as was an actum, ‘agitur,’ Thus an expression was not said to ‘signify’ in the same way. Grice plays with the expression-communication distinction. When dealing with a lexeme that does NOT belong in the Graeco-Roman tradition, that of “mean,” he is never sure. His doubts were hightlighted in essays on “Grice without an audience.” While Grice explicitly says that a ‘word’ is not a sign, he would use ‘signify’ at a later stage, including the implicaturum as part of the significatum. There is indeed an entry for signĭfĭcātĭo, f. significare. L and S render it, unhelpfully, as “a pointing out, indicating, denoting, signifying; an expression, indication, mark, sign, token, = indicium, signum, ἐπισημασία, etc., freq. and class. As with Stevenson’s ‘communico,’ Grice goes sraight to ‘signĭfĭco,’ also dep. “signĭfĭcor,” f. ‘significare,’ from signum-facere, to make sign, signum-facio, I make sign, which L and S render as to signify, which is perhaps not too helpful. Grice, if not the Grecians, knew that. Strictly, L and S render significare as to show by signs; to show, point out, express, publish, make known, indicate; to intimate, notify, signify, etc. Note that the cognate signify almost comes last, but not least, if not first. Enough to want to coin a word to do duty for them all. Which is what Grice (and the Grecians) can, but the old Romans cannot, with mean. If that above were not enough, L and S go on, also, to betoken, prognosticate, foreshow, portend, mean (syn. praedico), as in to betoken a change of weather (post-Aug.): “ventus Africus tempestatem significat, etc.,”cf. Grice on those dark clouds mean a storm is coming.  Short and Lewis go on, to say that significare may be rendered as to call, name; to mean, import, signify. Hence, ‘signĭfĭcans,’ in rhet. lang., of speech, full of meaning, expressive, significant; graphic, distinct, clear: adv.: signĭfĭcanter, clearly, distinctly, expressly, significantly, graphically: “breviter ac significanter ordinem rei protulisse;” “rem indicare (with proprie),”  “dicere (with ornate),”  “apertius, significantius dignitatem alicujus defendere,” “narrare,”“disponere,” “appellare aliquid (with consignatius);” “dicere (with probabilius).” -- signifier, a vocal sound or a written symbol. The concept owes its modern formulation to the Swiss linguist Saussure. Rather than using the older conception of sign and referent, he divided the sign itself into two interrelated parts, a signifier and a signified. The signified is the concept and the signifier is either a vocal sound or writing. The relation between the two, according to Saussure, is entirely arbitrary, in that signifiers tend to vary with different languages. We can utter or write ‘vache’, ‘cow’, or ‘vaca’, depending on our native language, and still come up with the same signified i.e., concept. H. P. Grice, “Significatum and English ‘meaning.’”

signum – Grice: “I prefer token, so Anglo-Saxon! Plus I’m a ‘teacher’ – “to teach philosophy” --” whose explorations on the Nicomachean Ethics, in one of their earlier incarnations, as a set of lecture notes, sees me through terms of teaching Aristotle's moral theory.” “My own philosophical life in this period involves two especially important aspects.” ROBBING PETER TO PAY PAUL.. “The first is my prolonged collaboration with my tutee at St. John’s, P. F. Strawson.”“Strawson’s and my efforts are partly directed towards the giving of joint seminars.”“Strawson and I stage a number of joint seminars on topics related to the notions of meaning, categories, and logical form.” “But my association with P. F. Strawson is much more than an alliance for the purpose of teaching.” -- theory of signs, the philosophical and scientific theory of information-carrying entities, communication, and information transmission. The term ‘semiotic’ was introduced by Locke for the science of signs and signification. The term became more widely used as a result of the influential work of Peirce and Charles Morris. With regard to linguistic signs, three areas of semiotic were distinguished: pragmatics  the study of the way people, animals, or machines such as computers use signs; semantics  the study of the relations between signs and their meanings, abstracting from their use; and syntax  the study of the relations among signs themselves, abstracting both from use and from meaning. In Europe, the near-equivalent term ‘semiology’ was introduced by Ferdinand de Saussure, the Swiss linguist. Broadly, a sign is any information-carrying entity, including linguistic and animal signaling tokens, maps, road signs, diagrams, pictures, models, etc. Examples include smoke as a sign of fire, and a red light at a highway intersection as a sign to stop. Linguistically, vocal aspects of speech such as prosodic features intonation, stress and paralinguistic features loudness and tone, gestures, facial expressions, etc., as well as words and sentences, are signs in the most general sense. Peirce defined a sign as “something that stands for something in some respect or capacity.” Among signs, he distinguished symbols, icons, and indices. A symbol, or conventional sign, is a sign, typical of natural language forms, that lacks any significant relevant physical correspondence with or resemblance to the entities to which the form refers manifested by the fact that quite different forms may refer to the same class of objects, and for which there is no correlation between the occurrence of the sign and its referent. An index, or natural sign, is a sign whose occurrence is causally or statistically correlated with occurrences of its referent, and whose production is not intentional. Thus, yawning is a natural sign of sleepiness; a bird call may be a natural sign of alarm. Linguistically, loudness with a rising pitch is a sign of anger. An icon is a sign whose form corresponds to or resembles its referent or a characteristic of its referent. For instance, a tailor’s swatch is an icon by being a sign that resembles a fabric in color, pattern, and texture. A linguistic example is onomatopoeia  as with ‘buzz’. In general, there are conventional and cultural aspects to a sign being an icon. 

simmel: Grice, “As Simmel would say, information is like money – the giver hardly knows to what use the recipient is going to to put it.” philosopher and one of the founders of sociology as a distinct discipline. Born and educated in Berlin, he was a popular lecturer at its university. But the unorthodoxy of his interests and unprofessional writing style probably kept him from being offered a regular professorship until late in his career, and then only at ‘provincial’ Strasbourg. He died four years later.Simmel’s  writings range from conventional philosophical topics  with essays on ethics, philosophy of history, education, religion, and the philosophers Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche  to essays on Rembrandt, Goethe, and the philosophy of money. He wrote numerous essays on various artists and poets, on different cities, and on such themes as love, adventure, shame, and on being a stranger, as well as on many specifically sociological topics. Simmel is regarded as a Kulturphilosoph who meditates on his themes in an insightful and digressive rather than scholarly and systematic style. Though late in life he sketches a unifying Lebensphilosophie that considers all works and structures of culture as products of different forms of human experience, Simmel has remained of interest primarily for a multiplicity of insights into specific topics. Anyone who uses a sentence of the form X is meeting a woman this evening would normally implicate that the person to be met was someone other than X' s wife, mother, sister, or perhaps even close platonic friend. Similarly, if I were to say X went into a house yesterday and found a tortoise inside the front door, my hearer would normally be surprised if some time later I revealed that the house was X's own. I could produce similar linguistic phenomena involving the expressions a garden, a car, a college, and so on. Sometimes, however, there would normally be no such implicature ('I have been sitting in a car all morning'), and sometimes a reverse implicature ('I broke a finger yesterday'). I am inclined to think that one would not lend a sympathetic ear to a philosopher who suggested that there are three senses of the form of expression an X: one in which it means roughly 'something that satisfies the conditions defining the word X,' another in which it means approximately 'an X (in the first sense) that is only remotely related in a certain way to some person indicated by the context,' and yet another in which it means 'an X (in the first sense) that is closely related in a certain way to some person indicated by the context.' Would we not much prefer an account on the following lines (which, of course, may be incorrect in detail): I I ; .. ' Logic and Conversation 57 When someone, by using the form of expression an X, implicates that the X does not belong to or is not otherwise closely connected with some identifiable person, the implicature is present l >ecause the speaker has failed to be specific in a way in which he might have been expected to be specific, with the consequence that it is likely to be assumed that he is not in a position to be specific. This is a familiar implicature situation and is classifiable as a failure, for one reason or another, to fulfill the first maxim of Quantity. The only difficult question is why it should, in certain cases, be presumed, independently of information about particular contexts of utterance, that specification of the closeness or remoteness of the connection between a particular person or object and a further person who is mentioned or indicated by the utterance should be likely to be of interest. The answer must lie in the following region: Transactions between a person and other persons or things closely connected witl1 him are liable to be very different as regards their concomitants and results from the same sort of transactions involving only remotely connected persons or things; the concomitants and results, for instance, of my finding a hole in MY roof are likely to be very different from the concomitants and results of my finding a hole in someone else's roof. Information, like money, is often given without the giver's knowing to just what use the recipient will want to put it. If someone to whom a transaction is mentioned gives it further consideration, he is likely to find himself wanting the answers to further questions that the speaker may not be able to identify in advance; if the appropriate specification will be likely to enable the hearer to answer a considerable variety of such questions for himself, then there is a presumption that the speaker should include it in his remark; if not, then there is no such presumption. 

simplicius: Grecian Neoplatonist philosopher. His surviving works are extensive commentaries on Aristotle’s On the Heavens, Physics, and Categories, and on the Encheiridion of Epictetus. The authenticity of the commentary on Aristotle’s “De anima”  attributed to Simplicius has been disputed. He studied with Ammonius in Alexandria, and with Damascius, the last known head of the Platonist school in Athens. Justinian closed the school in 529. Two or three years later a group of philosophers, including Damascius and Simplicius, visited the court of the Sassanian king Khosrow I Chosroes but soon returned to the Byzantine Empire under a guarantee of their right to maintain their own beliefs. It is generally agreed that most, if not all, of Simplicius’s extant works date from the period after his stay with Khosrow. But there is no consensus about where Simplicius spent his last years both Athens and Harran have been proposed recently, or whether he resumed teaching philosophy; his commentaries, unlike most of the others that survive from that period, are scholarly treatises rather than classroom expositions. Simplicius’s Aristotle commentaries are the most valuable extant works in the genre. He is our source for many of the fragments of the preSocratic philosophers, and he frequently invokes material from now-lost commentaries and philosophical works. He is a deeply committed Neoplatonist, convinced that there is no serious conflict between the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. The view of earlier scholars that his Encheiridion commentary embodies a more moderate Platonism associated with Alexandria is now generally rejected. Simplicius’s virulent defense of the eternity of the world in response to the attack of the Christian John Philoponus illustrates the intellectual vitality of paganism at a time when the Mediterranean world had been officially Christian for about three centuries.  H. P. Grice, “Why we should study Simplicius;” Luigi Speranza, “The history of philosophical psychology, from the Grecians to the Griceians,” J. O. Urmson, “Grice and Simplicius on the soul,” for The Grice Club.

simulatum: Grice: “If x simulates y, x is not y – or is this an implicature – if x is x, is x LIKE x?” -- simulation theory: Grice: “How does one simulate an implicature? I challenge AI, so-called, to do it!” --  the view that one represents the mental activities and processes of others by mentally simulating them, i.e., generating similar activities and processes in oneself. By simulating them, one can anticipate their product or outcome; or, where this is already known, test hypotheses about their starting point. For example, one anticipates the product of another’s theoretical or practical inferences from given premises by making inferences from the same premises oneself; or, knowing what the product is, one retroduces the premises. In the case of practical reasoning, to reason from the same premises would typically require indexical adjustments, such as shifts in spatial, temporal, and personal “point of view,” to place oneself in the other’s physical and epistemic situation insofar as it differs from one’s own. One may also compensate for the other’s reasoning capacity and level of expertise, if possible, or modify one’s character and outlook as an actor might, to fit the other’s background. Such adjustments, even when insufficient for making decisions in the role of the other, allow one to discriminate between action options likely to be attractive or unattractive to the agent. One would be prepared for the former actions and surprised by the latter. The simulation theory is usually considered an alternative to an assumption sometimes called the “theory theory” that underlies much recent philosophy of mind: that our commonsense understanding of people rests on a speculative theory, a “folk psychology” that posits mental states, events, and processes as unobservables that explain behavior. Some hold that the simulation theory undercuts the debate between philosophers who consider folk psychology a respectable theory and those the eliminative materialists who reject it. Unlike earlier writing on empathic understanding and historical reenactment, discussions of the simulation theory often appeal to empirical findings, particularly experimental results in developmental psychology. They also theorize about the mechanism that would accomplish simulation: presumably one that calls up computational resources ordinarily used for engagement with the world, but runs them off-line, so that their output is not “endorsed” or acted upon and their inputs are not limited to those that would regulate one’s own behavior. Although simulation theorists agree that the ascription of mental states to others relies chiefly on simulation, they differ on the nature of selfascription. Some especially Robert Gordon and simple supposition simulation theory 845   845 Jane Heal, who independently proposed the theory give a non-introspectionist account, while others especially Goldman lean toward a more traditional introspectionist account. The simulation theory has affected developmental psychology as well as branches of philosophy outside the philosophy of mind, especially aesthetics and philosophy of the social sciences. Some philosophers believe it sheds light on traditional topics such as the problem of other minds, referential opacity, broad and narrow content, and the peculiarities of self-knowledge. 

singulare: Grice: “I use ‘singular’ in triadic opposition to plural and singular, and reject Urquart’s bi-dual -- singular term -- singŭlāris , e, adj. singuli. I. Lit. A. In gen., one by one, one at a time, alone, single, solitary; alone of its kind, singular (class.; “syn.: unus, unicus): non singulare nec solivagum genus (sc. homines),” i. e. solitary, Cic. Rep. 1, 25, 39: “hostes ubi ex litore aliquos singulares ex navi egredientes conspexerant,” Caes. B. G. 4, 26: “homo,” id. ib. 7, 8, 3; so, “homo (with privatus, and opp. isti conquisiti coloni),” Cic. Agr. 2, 35, 97: “singularis mundus atque unigena,” id. Univ. 4 med.: “praeconium Dei singularis facere,” Lact. 4, 4, 8; cf. Cic. Ac. 1, 7, 26: “natus,” Plin. 28, 10, 42, § 153: “herba (opp. fruticosa),” id. 27, 9, 55, § 78: singularis ferus, a wild boar (hence, Fr. sanglier), Vulg. Psa. 79, 14: “hominem dominandi cupidum aut imperii singularis,” sole command, exclusive dominion, Cic. Rep. 1, 33, 50; so, “singulare imperium et potestas regia,” id. ib. 2, 9, 15: “sunt quaedam in te singularia ... quaedam tibi cum multis communia,” Cic. Verr. 2, 3, 88, § 206: “singulare beneficium (opp. commune officium civium),” id. Fam. 1, 9, 4: “odium (opp. communis invidia),” id. Sull. 1, 1: “quam invisa sit singularis potentia et miseranda vita,” Nep. Dion, 9, 5: “pugna,” Macr. S. 5, 2: “si quando quid secreto agere proposuisset, erat illi locus in edito singularis,” particular, separate, Suet. Aug. 72.— B. In partic. 1. In gram., of or belonging to unity, singular: “singularis casus,” Varr. L. L. 7, § 33 Müll.; “10, § 54 ib.: numerus,” Quint. 1, 5, 42; 1, 6, 25; 8, 3, 20; Gell. 19, 8, 13: “nominativus,” Quint. 1, 6, 14: “genitivus,” id. 1, 6, 26 et saep. —Also absol., the singular number: “alii dicunt in singulari hac ovi et avi, alii hac ove et ave,” Varr. L. L. 8, § 66 Müll.; Quint. 8, 6, 28; 4, 5, 25 al.— 2. In milit lang., subst.: singŭlāris , is, m. a. In gen., an orderly man (ordonance), assigned to officers of all kinds and ranks for executing their orders (called apparitor, Lampr. Alex. Sev. 52): “SINGVLARIS COS (consulis),” Inscr. Orell. 2003; cf. ib. 3529 sq.; 3591; 6771 al.— b. Esp., under the emperors, equites singulares Augusti, or only equites singulares, a select horse body-guard (selected from barbarous nations, as Bessi, Thraces, Bæti, etc.), Tac. H. 4, 70; Hyg. m. c. §§ 23 and 30; Inscr. Grut. 1041, 12 al.; cf. on the Singulares, Henzen, Sugli Equiti Singolari, Roma, 1850; Becker, Antiq. tom. 3, pass. 2, p. 387 sq.— 3. In the time of the later emperors, singulares, a kind of imperial clerks, sent into the provinces, Cod. Just. 1, 27, 1, § 8; cf. Lyd. Meg. 3, 7.— II. Trop., singular, unique, matchless, unparalleled, extraordinary, remarkable (syn.: unicus, eximius, praestans; “very freq. both in a good and in a bad sense): Aristoteles meo judicio in philosophiā prope singularis,” Cic. Ac. 2, 43, 132: “Cato, summus et singularis vir,” id. Brut. 85, 293: “vir ingenii naturā praestans, singularis perfectusque undique,” Quint. 12, 1, 25; so, “homines ingenio atque animo,” Cic. Div. 2, 47, 97: “adulescens,” Plin. Ep. 7, 24, 2.—Of things: “Antonii incredibilis quaedam et prope singularis et divina vis ingenii videtur,” Cic. de Or. 1, 38, 172: “singularis eximiaque virtus,” id. Imp. Pomp. 1, 3; so, “singularis et incredibilis virtus,” id. Att. 14, 15, 3; cf. id. Fam. 1, 9, 4: “integritas atque innocentia singularis,” id. Div. in Caecil. 9, 27: “Treviri, quorum inter Gallos virtutis opinio est singularis,” Caes. B. G. 2, 24: “Pompeius gratias tibi agit singulares,” Cic. Fam. 13, 41, 1; cf.: “mihi gratias egistis singularibus verbis,” id. Cat. 4, 3: “fides,” Nep. Att. 4: “singulare omnium saeculorum exemplum,” Just. 2, 4, 6.—In a bad sense: “nequitia ac turpitudo singularis,” Cic. Verr. 2, 3, 44, § 106; so, “nequitia,” id. ib. 2, 2, 54, § 134; id. Fin. 5, 20, 56: “impudentia,” Cic. Verr. 2, 2, 7, § 18: audacia (with scelus incredibile), id. Fragm. ap. Quint. 4, 2, 105: “singularis et nefaria crudelitas,” Caes. B. G. 7, 77.— Hence, adv.: singŭlārĭter (singlā-rĭter , Lucr. 6, 1067). 1. One by one, singly, separately. a. In gen. (ante- and post-class.): “quae memorare queam inter se singlariter apta, Lucr. l. l. Munro (Lachm. singillariter): a juventā singulariter sedens,” apart, separately, Paul. Nol. Carm. 21, 727.— b. In partic. (acc. to I. B. 1.), in the singular number: “quod pluralia singulariter et singularia pluraliter efferuntur,” Quint. 1, 5, 16; 1, 7, 18; 9, 3, 20: “dici,” Gell. 19, 8, 12; Dig. 27, 6, 1 al.— 2. (Acc. to II.) Particularly, exceedingly: “aliquem diligere,” Cic. Verr. 2, 2, 47, § 117: “et miror et diligo,” Plin. Ep. 1, 22, 1: “amo,” id. ib. 4, 15, 1. Grice: “I would define a ‘singular implicaturum’ as any vehicle of communicatum such as an expression, like ‘Zeus’, ‘Pegasus,’ ‘the President’, ‘Strawson’s dog,’ ‘Fido,’ or ‘my favorite chair’, that can be the grammatical subject of what is semantically a subject-predicate sentence.” Grice: “By contrast, what one might call a ‘general,’ or ‘non-singular term, such as ‘horse,’ ‘dog,’‘table’ or ‘swam’ is one that can serve in predicative position.” It is also often said that a singular term (‘nomen singularis,’ ‘expressio singularis’) is a word or phrase that could refer or ostensibly refer, on a given occasion of use, only to a single (or ‘singular’) object – unless you show me a ‘general’ object --, whereas a general term is predicable of *more than one* singular object, if not a ‘general’ object, which does not exist. A singular term is thus the expression that replace, or are replaced by, an individual variable (x, y, z, …) in applications of such quantifier rules as universal instantiation and existential generalization or flank ‘%’ in identity statements.” H. P. Grice, “System G: the rudiments.”

situation ethics: what Grice calls the ‘particularised’ – prior obviously to the ‘generalised.’ --  a kind of anti-theoretical, case-by-case applied ethics in vogue largely in some European and  religious circles for twenty years or so following World War II. It is characterized by the insistence that each moral choice must be determined by one’s particular context or situation  i.e., by a consideration of the outcomes that various possible courses of action might have, given one’s situation. To that degree, situation ethics has affinities to both act utilitarianism and traditional casuistry. But in contrast to utilitarianism, situation ethics rejects the idea that there are universal or even fixed moral principles beyond various indeterminate commitments or ideals e.g., to Christian love or humanism. In contrast to traditional casuistry, it rejects the effort to construct general guidelines from a case or to classify the salient features of a case so that it can be used as a precedent. The anti-theoretical stance of situation ethics is so thoroughgoing that writers identified with the position have not carefully described its connections to consequentialism, existentialism, intuitionism, personalism, pragmatism, relativism, or any other developed philosophical view to which it appears to have some affinity. 

st. john’s: st. john’s keeps a record of all of H. P. Grice’s tutees. It is fascinating that Strawson’s closest collaboration, as Plato with Socrates, and Aristotle with Plato, was with his tutee Strawson – whom Grice calls a ‘pupil,’ finding ‘tutee’ too French to his taste. G. J. Warnock recalls that, of all the venues that the play group held, their favourite one was the room overlooking the garden at st. john’s. “It’s one of the best gardens in England, you know. Very peripathetic.” In alphabetical order, some of his English ‘gentlemanly’ tutees include: London-born J. L. Ackrill, London-born David Bostock, London-born A. G. N. Flew, Leeds-born T. C. Potts, London-born P. F. Strawson. They were happy to have Grice as a tutorial fellow, since he, unlike Mabbot, was English, and did not instill on the tutees a vernacular furrin to the area.

skolem: semanticist, he made fundamental contributions to recursion theory (Grice: “which I need for my account of communication”), set theory in particular, the proposal and formulation of the axiom of replacement, and model theory. The first work devoted exclusively to recursive definability was Skolem’s (1923) paper  The foundations of elementary arithmetic established by the recursive mode of thought, without the use of apparent variables ranging over infinite domains.  This work is significant with respect to the subsequent development of computability theory for at least three reasons. First, it contains a informal description of what we now call the primitive recursive functions. Second, it can be regarded as the first place where recursive definability is linked to effective computability (see also Skolem 1946). And third, it demonstrates that a wide range of functions and relations are primitive recursive in a manner which anticipates Gödel’s (1931) use of primitive recursion for the arithmetization of syntax.  One of Skolem’s stated goals was to present a logical foundation for number theory which avoids the use of unrestricted quantifiers. He was inspired in this regard by the observation that it is possible to develop much of elementary arithmetic without the use of the expressions “always” (i.e. for all) and “sometimes” (i.e. there exists) which figure in the formalization of number theory given by Russell and Whitehead in Principia Mathematica (1910–1913). This was to be accomplished by formulating arithmetical theorems as what he referred to as functional assertions. These took the form of identities between terms defined by primitive recursive operations which Skolem referred to as descriptive functions. For instance, the commutativity of addition is expressed in this form by an equation with free variables  x+y=y+x  In cases where such statements are provable in the system Skolem describes, the intended interpretation is that the claim holds universally for all natural numbers—e.g., ∀x∀y(x+y=y+x). But in Skolem’s system there is no means of negating such a statement to express a bare existential assertion without producing a witness.  Statements like (5) would later be referred to by Hilbert & Bernays (1934) (who provided the first textbook treatment of recursion) as verifiable in the sense that their individual instances can be verified computationally by replacing variables with concrete numerals. This is accomplished by what Skolem referred to as the “recursive mode of thought”. The sense of this phrase is clarified by the following properties of the system he describes:  the natural numbers are taken as basic objects together with the successor function x+1; it is assumed that descriptive functions proven to be equal may be substituted for one another in other expressions; all definitions of functions and relations on natural numbers are given by recursion; functional assertions such as (5) must be proven by induction. Taking these principles as a foundation, Skolem showed how to obtain recursive definitions of the predecessor and subtraction functions, the less than, divisibility, and primality relations, greatest common divisors, least common multiples, and bounded sums and products which are similar to those given in Section 2.1.2 below.  Overall Skolem considered instances of what we would now refer to as primitive recursion, course of values recursion, double recursion, and recursion on functions of type N→N. He did not, however, introduce general schemas so as to systematically distinguish these modes of definition. Nonetheless, properties i–iv of Skolem’s treatment provide a means of assimilating calculations like (2) to derivations in quantifier-free first-order logic. It is thus not difficult to discern in (Skolem 1923) the kernel of the system we now know as Primitive Recursive Arithmetic (as later formally introduced by Hilbert & Bernays 1934, ch. 7). Skolem’s most important results for philosophical semantics are the Downward Löwenheim-Skolem theorem, whose first proof involved putting formulas into Skolem normal form; and a demonstration of the existence of models of first-order arithmetic not isomorphic to the standard model. Both results exhibit the extreme non-categoricity that can occur with formulations of mathematical theories in first-order logic, and causes Skolem to be sceptical about the use of a formal systems such as System G (after Grice), particularly for set theory, as a foundation for semantics. The existence of non-standard models is actually a consequence of the completeness and first incompleteness theorems by Gödel, for these together show that there must be sentences of arithmetic if consistent that are true in the standard model, but false in some other, nonisomorphic model. However, Skolem’s result describes a general technique for constructing such models. Skolem’s theorem is now more easily proved using the compactness theorem, an easy consequence of the completeness theorem. The Löwenheim-Skolem theorem produces a similar problem of characterization, Skolem’s paradox. Roughly, Skolem’s paradox says that if first-order set theory has a model, it must also have a countable model whose continuum is a countable set, and thus apparently non-standard. This does not contradict Cantor’s theorem, which merely demands that the countable model contain as an element no function that maps its natural numbers one-toone onto its continuum, although there must be such a function outside the model. Although usually seen as limiting first-order logic, this result is extremely fruitful technically, providing one basis of the proof of the independence of the continuum hypothesis from the usual axioms of set theory given by Gödel and Cohen. This connection between independence results and the existence of countable models was partially foreseen by Skolem. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Skolem’s recursive implicatura.” Skolem, Thoralf, 1923, “Begründung Der Elementaren Arithmetik Durch Die Rekurrierende Denkweise Ohne Anwendung Scheinbarer Veranderlichen Mit Unendlichem Ausdehnungsbereich”, Videnskapsselskapets Skrifter, I. Matematisk-Naturvidenskabelig Klasse, 6: 1–38. –––, 1946, “The development of recursive arithmetic” In Dixíeme Congrés des Mathimaticiens Scandinaves, Copenhagen, 1–16. Reprinted in Skolem 1970, pp. 499–415. –––, 1970, Selected Works in Logic Olso: Universitetsforlaget. Edited by J.E. Fenstad.

Grice, “philosophical semanticist.”

smart and place: Cambridge-born Australian philosopher whose name is associated with three very non-Oxonian doctrines in particular: the mind-body identity theory, scientific realism, and utilitarianism. A student of Ryle’s at Oxford, from the other place, he rejected logical behaviorism in favor of what came to be known as Australian or ‘colonial’ or “Dominion” materialism. This is the view that mental processes  and, as, -- “the other colonial,” – Grice -- Armstrong brought Smart to see, mental states  cannot be explained simply in terms of behavioristic dispositions. In order to make good sense of how the ordinary person talks of them we have to see them as brain processes  and states  under other names. Smart developed this identity theory of mind and brain, under the stimulus of his colleague, Yorkshire-born, Rugby and Corpus-Christi (via Open Scholarship), tutee of Ryle, U. T. Place, in “Sensations and Brain Processes” Philosophical Review. It became a mainstay of twentieth-century philosophy. Smart endorsed the materialist analysis of mind on the grounds that it gave a simple picture that was consistent with the findings of science. He took a realist view of the claims of science, rejecting phenomenalism, instrumentalism, and the like, and he argued that commonsense beliefs should be maintained only so far as they are plausible in the light of total science. Philosophy and Scientific Realism 3 gave forceful expression to this physicalist picture of the world, as did some later works. He attracted attention in particular for his argument that if we take science seriously then we have to endorse the four-dimensional picture of the universe and recognize as an illusion the experience of the passing of time. He published a number of defenses of utilitarianism, the best known being his contribution to J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism, For and Against 3. He gave new life to act utilitarianism at a time when utilitarians were few and most were attached to rule utilitarianism or other restricted forms of the doctrine. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Ryle and the devil of scientism,” H. P. Grice, “What Smart learned from Ryle.”

smith: Scots philosopher, a founder of modern political economy and a major contributor to ethics and the psychology of morals. His first published work is “The Theory of Moral Sentiments.” This book immediately made him famous, and earned the praise of thinkers of the stature of Hume, Burke, and Kant. It sought to answer two questions: Wherein does virtue consist, and by means of what psychological principles do we determine this or that to be virtuous or the contrary? His answer to the first combined ancient Stoic and Aristotelian views of virtue with modern views derived from Hutcheson and others. His answer to the second built on Hume’s theory of sympathy  our ability to put ourselves imaginatively in the situation of another  as well as on the notion of the “impartial spectator.” Smith throughout is skeptical about metaphysical and theological views of virtue and of the psychology of morals. The self-understanding of reasonable moral actors ought to serve as the moral philosopher’s guide. Smith’s discussion ranges from the motivation of wealth to the psychological causes of religious and political fanaticism. Smith’s second published work, the immensely influential An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations 1776, attempts to explain why free economic, political, and religious markets are not only more efficient, when properly regulated, but also more in keeping with nature, more likely to win the approval of an impartial spectator, than monopolistic alternatives. Taken together, Smith’s two books attempt to show how virtue and liberty can complement each other. He shows full awareness of the potentially dehumanizing force of what was later called “capitalism,” and sought remedies in schemes for liberal education and properly organized religion. Smith did not live to complete his system, which was to include an analysis of “natural jurisprudence.” We possess student notes of his lectures on jurisprudence and on rhetoric, as well as several impressive essays on the evolution of the history of science and on the fine arts. 

saggio: philosophical essay: ‘saggio filosofico.’ – a subgenre of the prose genre of ‘essay.’ Grice seems to prefer ‘study’ (“Studies in the way of words”) but surely each piece is an essay. Austin preferred “papers” (vide his “Philosophical Papers.”). “The implicature,” Grice says, “seems to be that an essay is too sketchy!” --. “Storia del saggio filosofico in Italia” --. Grice: “It is strictly not true that a philosopher needs to engage in the subgenre of the ‘philosophical essay;’ after all, at Oxford, we always thought Jowett’s dialogues were the epitome of philosophy – and they are!”

società italiana per lo studio del pensiero medievale: Grice: “It always amazed me that the mediaevals at Bologna and Oxford ‘knew’ that they were in the middle of it!” -- the title of this Society is telling. For the Italians, they do not want to distinguish Politics, Economics, Theology, and Philosophy – It is all covered under ‘thought,’ ‘pensiero.’ This is in accordance with de Sanctis’s view of philosophy as one of the belles lettres (“if perhaps less ‘belle’ than the rest). The subgenre of the essay – ‘philosophical essay.’ Grice: “While it is easy to take ‘mediaeval’ in a boring chronological fashion, the mediaevals themselves saw themselves to be in the ‘middle’ of it, of the ‘aevus,’ that is.”

sozzini: -- Socinianism, NELLA PRIMA METÀ DEL SEDICESIMO SECOLO NACQUERO IN QUESTA CASA LELIO E FAUSTO SOZZINI LETTERATI INSIGNI FILOSOFI SOMMI DELLA LIBERTÀ DI PENSIERO STRENUI PROPUGNATORI ______ CONTRO IL SOPRANNATURALE VINDICI DELLA UMANA RAGIONE FONDARONO LA CELEBRE SCUOLA SOCINIANA PRECORRENDO DI TRE SECOLI LE DOTTRINE DEL MODERNO RAZIONALISMO ______  I LIBERALI SENESI AMMIRATORI REVERENTI QUESTA MEMORIA POSERO 1879 a movement originating in the sixteenth century from the work of  reformer Laelius Socinus “Sozzini” and his nephew Faustus Socinus.  Born in Siena of a patrician family, Sozzini is widely read. Influenced by the evangelical movement, Sozzini makes contact with noted Protestant reformers, including Calvin and Melanchthon, some of whom questioned his orthodoxy. In response, Sozzini writes a confession of faith, one of a small number of his writings to have survived. After his death, Sozzini’s oeuvre was carried on by his nephew, Faustus, whose writings including “On the Authority of Scripture,” “On the Savior Jesus Christ,”  and “On Predestination,” expressed heterodox views. Sozzini believed that Christ’s nature is entirely human, that the souls does not possess immortality by nature though there is selective resurrection for believers, that invocation of Christ in prayer is permissible but not required, and he argues, like Grice, Pears, and Thomson, against predestination. After publication of his  writings, Sozzini is invited to Transylvania and Poland to engage in a dispute within the Reformed churches there. He decides to make his permanent residence in Poland, which, through his tireless efforts, became the center of the Socinian movement. The most important document of this movement was the Racovian Catechism, published shortly after Faustus’s death. The Minor church of Poland, centered at Racov, became the focal point of the movement. Its academy attracted hundreds of students and its publishing house produced books in many languages defending Socinian ideas. Socinianism, as represented by the Racovian Catechism and other writings collected by Faustus’s disciples, involves the views of Laelius and especially Faustus Socinus, aligned with the anti-Trinitarian views of the Polish Minor church.. It accepts Christ’s message as the definitive revelation of God, but regards Christ as human, not divine; rejects the natural immortality of the soul, but argues for the selective resurrection of the faithful; rejects the doctrine of the Trinity; emphasizes human free will against predestinationism; defends pacifism and the separation of church and state; and argues that reason  not creeds, dogmatic tradition, or church authority  must be the final interpreter of Scripture. Its view of God is temporalistic: God’s eternity is existence at all times, not timelessness, and God knows future free actions only when they occur. In these respects, the Socinian view of God anticipates aspects of modern process theology. Socinianism was suppressed in Poland in 1658, but it had already spread to other European countries, including Holland where it appealed to followers of Arminius and England, where it influenced the Cambridge Platonists, Locke, and other philosophers, as well as scientists like Newton. In England, it also influenced and was closely associated with the development of Unitarianism.  H. P. Grice, “Sozzini, rationalism, and moi.”

solus ipse, solipsism: Grice: “If my theory of conversation has any value, is the refutation of solipsism!” -- the doctrine that there exists a firstperson perspective possessing privileged and irreducible characteristics, in virtue of which we stand in various kinds of isolation from any other persons or external things that may exist. This doctrine is associated with but distinct from egocentricism. On one variant of solipsism Thomas Nagel’s we are isolated from other sentient beings because we can never adequately understand their experience empathic solipsism. Another variant depends on the thesis that the meanings or referents of all words are mental entities uniquely accessible only to the language user semantic solipsism. A restricted variant, due to Vitters, asserts that first-person ascriptions of psychological states have a meaning fundamentally different from that of second- or thirdperson ascriptions psychological solipsism. In extreme forms semantic solipsism can lead to the view that the only things that can be meaningfully said to exist are ourselves or our mental states ontological solipsism. Skepticism about the existence of the world external to our minds is sometimes considered a form of epistemological solipsism, since it asserts that we stand in epistemological isolation from that world, partly as a result of the epistemic priority possessed by firstperson access to mental states. In addition to these substantive versions of solipsism, several variants go under the rubric methodological solipsism. The idea is that when we seek to explain why sentient beings behave in certain ways by looking to what they believe, desire, hope, and fear, we should identify these psychological states only with events that occur inside the mind or brain, not with external events, since the former alone are the proximate and sufficient causal explanations of bodily behavior.

solovyov: philosopher, author of major treatises and dialogues in speculative philosophy,  The mystical image of the “Divine Sophia,” which Solovyov articulated in theoretical concepts as well as poetic symbols, powerfully influenced the Russian symbolist poets of the early twentieth century. His stress on the human role in the “divine-human process” that creates both cosmic and historical being led to charges of heresy from Russian Orthodox traditionalists. Solovyov’s rationalistic “justification of the good” in history, society, and individual life was inspired by Plato, Spinoza, and especially Hegel. However, at the end of his life Solovyov offered in Three Conversations on War, Progress, and the End of History, 0 a contrasting apocalyptic vision of historical and cosmic disaster, including the appearance, in the twenty-first century, of the Antichrist. In ethics, social philosophy, philosophy of history, and theory of culture, Solovyov was both a vigorous ecumenist and a “good European” who affirmed the intrinsic value of both the “individual human person” Russian lichnost’ and the “individual nation or people” narodnost’, but he decisively repudiated the perversions of these values in egoism and nationalism, respectively. He contrasted the fruits of English narodnost’  the works of Shakespeare and Byron, Berkeley and Newton  with the fruits of English nationalism  the repressive and destructive expansion of the British Empire. In opposing ethnic, national, and religious exclusiveness and self-centeredness, Solovyov also, and quite consistently, opposed the growing xenophobia and antiSemitism of his own time. Since 8 long-suppressed works by and about Solovyov have been widely republished in Russia, and fresh interpretations of his philosophy and theology have begun to appear. 

sophisma: Grice’s favourite for a time was “Have you stopped beating your wife.” In “Presupposition and conversational implicature,” he does admit that he has grown tired of it, what he calls his having had his eyes glued to “the inquiry whether you have left off beating your wife” --. an utterance illustrating a semantic or logical issue associated with the analysis of a syncategorematic term, or a term lacking independent signification. Typically a sophisma was used from the thirteenth century into the sixteenth century to analyze relations holding between logic or semantics and broader philosophical issues. For example, the syncategorematic term ‘besides’ praeter in ‘Socrates twice sees every man besides Plato’ is ambiguous, because it could mean ‘On two occasions Socrates sees every-man-but-Plato’ and also ‘Except for overlooking Plato once, on two occasions Socrates sees every man’. Roger Bacon used this sophisma to discuss the ambiguity of distribution, in this case, of the scope of the reference of ‘twice’ and ‘besides’. Sherwood used the sophisma to illustrate the applicability of his rule of the distribution of ambiguous syncategoremata, while Pseudo-Peter of Spain uses it to establish the truth of the rule, ‘If a proposition is in part false, it can be made true by means of an exception, but not if it is completely false’. In each case, the philosopher uses the ambiguous signification of the syncategorematic term to analyze broader logical problems. The sophisma ‘Every man is of necessity an animal’ has ambiguity through the syncategorematic ‘every’ that leads to broader philosophical problems. In the 1270s, Boethius of Dacia analyzed this sophisma in terms of its applicability when no man exists. Is the knowledge derived from understanding the proposition destroyed when the object known is destroyed? Does ‘man’ signify anything when there are no men? If we can correctly predicate a genus of a species, is the nature of the genus in that species something other than, or distinct from, what finally differentiates the species? In this case, the sophisma proves a useful approach to addressing metaphysical and epistemological problems central to Scholastic discourse.   sophisma: Grice: “Literally, a wisecrack.” “’Sophisma’ is a very Griceian and Grecian pun on ‘sophos,’ the wise men of Gotham -- any of a number of ancient Grecians, roughly contemporaneous with Socrates, who professed to teach, for a fee, rhetoric, philosophy, and how to succeed in life. They typically were itinerants, visiting much of the Grecian world, and gave public exhibitions at Olympia and Delphi. They were part of the general expansion of Grecian learning and of the changing culture in which the previous informal educational methods were inadequate. For example, the growing litigiousness of Athenian society demanded Solovyov, Vladimir Sophists 862   862 instruction in the art of speaking well, which the Sophists helped fulfill. The Sophists have been portrayed as intellectual charlatans hence the pejorative use of ‘sophism’, teaching their sophistical reasoning for money, and at the other extreme as Victorian moralists and educators. The truth is more complex. They were not a school, and shared no body of opinions. They were typically concerned with ethics unlike many earlier philosophers, who emphasized physical inquiries and about the relationship between laws and customs nomos and nature phusis. Protagoras of Abdera c.490c.420 B.C. was the most famous and perhaps the first Sophist. He visited Athens frequently, and became a friend of its leader, Pericles; he therefore was invited to draw up a legal code for the colony of Thurii 444. According to some late reports, he died in a shipwreck as he was leaving Athens, having been tried for and found guilty of impiety. He claimed that he knew nothing about the gods, because of human limitations and the difficulty of the question. We have only a few short quotations from his works. His “Truth” also known as the “Throws,” i.e., how to overthrow an opponent’s arguments begins with his most famous claim: “Humans are the measure of all things  of things that are, that they are, of things that are not, that they are not.” That is, there is no objective truth; the world is for each person as it appears to that person. Of what use, then, are skills? Skilled people can change others’ perceptions in useful ways. For example, a doctor can change a sick person’s perceptions so that she is healthy. Protagoras taught his students to “make the weaker argument the stronger,” i.e., to alter people’s perceptions about the value of arguments. Aristophanes satirizes Protagoras as one who would make unjust arguments defeat just arguments. This is true for ethical judgments, too: laws and customs are simply products of human agreement. But because laws and customs result from experiences of what is most useful, they should be followed rather than nature. No perception or judgment is more true than another, but some are more useful, and those that are more useful should be followed. Gorgias c.483376 was a student of Empedocles. His town, Leontini in Sicily, sent him as an ambassador to Athens in 427; his visit was a great success, and the Athenians were amazed at his rhetorical ability. Like other Sophists, he charged for instruction and gave speeches at religious festivals. Gorgias denied that he taught virtue; instead, he produced clever speakers. He insisted that different people have different virtues: for example, women’s virtue differs from men’s. Since there is no truth and if there were we couldn’t know it, we must rely on opinion, and so speakers who can change people’s opinions have great power  greater than the power produced by any other skill. In his “Encomium on Helen” he argues that if she left Menelaus and went with Paris because she was convinced by speech, she wasn’t responsible for her actions. Two paraphrases of Gorgias’s “About What Doesn’t Exist” survive; in this he argues that nothing exists, that even if something did, we couldn’t know it, and that even if we could know anything we couldn’t explain it to anyone. We can’t know anything, because some things we think of do not exist, and so we have no way of judging whether the things we think of exist. And we can’t express any knowledge we may have, because no two people can think of the same thing, since the same thing can’t be in two places, and because we use words in speech, not colors or shapes or objects. This may be merely a parody of Parmenides’ argument that only one thing exists. Antiphon the Sophist fifth century is probably although not certainly to be distinguished from Antiphon the orator d. 411, some of whose speeches we possess. We know nothing about his life if he is distinct from the orator. In addition to brief quotations in later authors, we have two papyrus fragments of his “On Truth.” In these he argues that we should follow laws and customs only if there are witnesses and so our action will affect our reputation; otherwise, we should follow nature, which is often inconsistent with following custom. Custom is established by human agreement, and so disobeying it is detrimental only if others know it is disobeyed, whereas nature’s demands unlike those of custom can’t be ignored with impunity. Antiphon assumes that rational actions are selfinterested, and that justice demands actions contrary to self-interest  a position Plato attacks in the Republic. Antiphon was also a materialist: the nature of a bed is wood, since if a buried bed could grow it would grow wood, not a bed. His view is one of Aristotle’s main concerns in the Physics, since Aristotle admits in the Categories that persistence through change is the best test for substance, but won’t admit that matter is substance. Hippias fifth century was from Elis, in the Peloponnesus, which used him as an ambasSophists Sophists 863   863 sador. He competed at the festival of Olympus with both prepared and extemporaneous speeches. He had a phenomenal memory. Since Plato repeatedly makes fun of him in the two dialogues that bear his name, he probably was selfimportant and serious. He was a polymath who claimed he could do anything, including making speeches and clothes; he wrote a work collecting what he regarded as the best things said by others. According to one report, he made a mathematical discovery the quadratrix, the first curve other than the circle known to the Grecians. In the Protagoras, Plato has Hippias contrast nature and custom, which often does violence to nature. Prodicus fifth century was from Ceos, in the Cyclades, which frequently employed him on diplomatic missions. He apparently demanded high fees, but had two versions of his lecture  one cost fifty drachmas, the other one drachma. Socrates jokes that if he could have afforded the fifty-drachma lecture, he would have learned the truth about the correctness of words, and Aristotle says that when Prodicus added something exciting to keep his audience’s attention he called it “slipping in the fifty-drachma lecture for them.” We have at least the content of one lecture of his, the “Choice of Heracles,” which consists of banal moralizing. Prodicus was praised by Socrates for his emphasis on the right use of words and on distinguishing between synonyms. He also had a naturalistic view of the origin of theology: useful things were regarded as gods.

sorel: sphilosopher best known for his “Reflections on Violence,” which develops the notion of revolutionary syndicalism as seen through proletarian violence and the interpretation of myth. An early proponent of the quasiMarxist position of gradual democratic reformism, Sorel eventually developed a highly subjective interpretation of historical materialism that, while retaining a conception of proletarian revolution, now understood it through myth rather than reason. He was in large part reacting to the empiricism of the  Enlightenment and the statistical structuring of sociological studies. In contrast to Marx and Engels, who held that revolution would occur when the proletariat attained its own class consciousness through an understanding of its true relationship to the means of production in capitalist society, Sorel introduced myth rather than reason as the correct way to interpret social totality. Myth allows for the necessary reaction to bourgeois rationalism and permits the social theorist to negate the status quo through the authenticity of revolutionary violence. By acknowledging the irrationality of the status quo, myth permits the possibility of social understanding and its necessary reaction, human emancipation through proletarian revolution. Marxism is myth because it juxtaposes the irreducibility of capitalist organization to its negation  violent proletarian revolution. The intermediary stage in this development is radical syndicalism, which organizes workers into groups opposed to bourgeois authority, instills the myth of proletarian revolution in the workers, and allows them in postrevolutionary times to work toward a social arrangement of worker and peasant governance and collaboration. The vehicle through which all this is accomplished is the general strike, whose aim, through the justified violence of its ends, is to facilitate the downfall and ultimate elimination of the bourgeoisie. In doing so the proletariat will lead society to a classless and harmonious stage in history. By stressing the notion of spontaneity Sorel thought he had solved the vexing problems of party and future bureaucracy found in much of the revolutionary literature of his day. In his later years he was interested in the writings of both Lenin and Mussolini. 

sort: Grice, “One of the few technicisms introduced by an English philosopher, in this case Locke.” – a sortal predicate, roughly, a predicate whose application to an object says what kind of object it is and implies conditions for objects of that kind to be identical. Person, green apple, regular hexagon, and pile of coal would generally be regarded as sortal predicates, whereas tall, green thing, and coal would generally be regarded as non-sortal predicates. An explicit and precise definition of the distinction is hard to come by. Sortal predicates are sometimes said to be distinguished by the fact that they provide a criterion of counting or that they do not apply to the parts of the objects to which they apply, but there are difficulties with each of these characterizations. The notion figures in recent philosophical discussions on various topics. Robert Ackermann and others have suggested that any scientific law confirmable by observation might require the use of sortal predicates. Thus ‘all non-black things are non-ravens’, while logically equivalent to the putative scientific law ‘all ravens are black’, is not itself confirmable by observation because ‘non-black’ is not a sortal predicate. David Wiggins and others have discussed the sortal sortal predicate 865   865 idea that all identity claims are sortal-relative in the sense that an appropriate response to the claim a % b is always “the same what as b?” John Wallace has argued that there would be advantages in relativizing the quantifiers of predicate logic to sortals. ‘All humans are mortal’ would be rendered Ex[m]Dx, rather than ExMxPDx. Crispin Wright has suggested that the view that natural number is a sortal concept is central to Frege’s or any other number-theoretic platonism. The word ‘sortal’ as a technical term in philosophy apparently first occurs in Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Locke argues that the so-called essence of a genus or sort unlike the real essence of a thing is merely the abstract idea that the general or sortal name stands for. But ‘sortal’ has only one occurrence in Locke’s Essay. Its currency in contemporary philosophical idiom probably should be credited to P. F. Strawson’s Individuals. The general idea may be traced at least to the notion of second substance in Aristotle’s Categories.

Sotione, teacher of Seneca. In glossary to Roman philosophers, in “Roman philosophers.”

soul: -- cf. Grice on “soul-to-soul transfer” -- also called spirit, an entity supposed to be present only in living things, corresponding to the Grecian psyche and Latin anima. Since there seems to be no material difference between an organism in the last moments of its life and the organism’s newly dead body, many philosophers since the time of Plato have claimed that the soul is an immaterial component of an organism. Because only material things are observed to be subject to dissolution, Plato took the soul’s immateriality as grounds for its immortality. Neither Plato nor Aristotle thought that only persons had souls: Aristotle ascribed souls to animals and plants since they all exhibited some living functions. Unlike Plato, Aristotle denied the transmigration of souls from one species to another or from one body to another after death; he was also more skeptical about the soul’s capacity for disembodiment  roughly, survival and functioning without a body. Descartes argued that only persons had souls and that the soul’s immaterial nature made freedom possible even if the human body is subject to deterministic physical laws. As the subject of thought, memory, emotion, desire, and action, the soul has been supposed to be an entity that makes self-consciousness possible, that differentiates simultaneous experiences into experiences either of the same person or of different persons, and that accounts for personal identity or a person’s continued identity through time. Dualists argue that soul and body must be distinct in order to explain consciousness and the possibility of immortality. Materialists argue that consciousness is entirely the result of complex physical processes. 

soundness: Grice: “The etymology if fascinating.” The English Grice. "Most of the terms I use are Latinate." "I implicate: a few are not." "I say that System G should be sound." "free from special defect or injury," c. 1200, from Old English gesund "sound, safe, having the organs and faculties complete and in perfect action," from Proto-Germanic *sunda-, from Germanic root *swen-to- "healthy, strong" (source also of Old Saxon gisund, Old Frisian sund, Dutch gezond, Old High German gisunt, German gesund "healthy," as in the post-sneezing interjection gesundheit; also Old English swið "strong," Gothic swinþs "strong," German geschwind "fast, quick"), with connections in Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic. Meaning "right, correct, free from error" is from mid-15c. Meaning "financially solid or safe" is attested from c. 1600; of sleep, "undisturbed," from 1540s. Sense of "holding accepted opinions" is from 1520s Grice: “’sound’ is not polysemous, but it has different usages: of an argument the property of being valid and having all true premises; of a system, like Sytem G,  the property of being not too strong in a certain respect. A System G  has weak soundness provided every theorem of G  is valid. And G has strong soundness if for every set S of sentences, every sentence deducible from S using system G is a logical consequence of S.

spatium: space, an extended manifold of several dimensions, where the number of dimensions corresponds to the number of variable magnitudes Soto, Domingo de space 866   866 needed to specify a location in the manifold; in particular, the three-dimensional manifold in which physical objects are situated and with respect to which their mutual positions and distances are defined. Ancient Grecian atomism defined space as the infinite void in which atoms move; but whether space is finite or infinite, and whether void spaces exist, have remained in question. Aristotle described the universe as a finite plenum and reduced space to the aggregate of all places of physical things. His view was preeminent until Renaissance Neoplatonism, the Copernican revolution, and the revival of atomism reintroduced infinite, homogeneous space as a fundamental cosmological assumption. Further controversy concerned whether the space assumed by early modern astronomy should be thought of as an independently existing thing or as an abstraction from the spatial relations of physical bodies. Interest in the relativity of motion encouraged the latter view, but Newton pointed out that mechanics presupposes absolute distinctions among motions, and he concluded that absolute space must be postulated along with the basic laws of motion Principia, 1687. Leibniz argued for the relational view from the identity of indiscernibles: the parts of space are indistinguishable from one another and therefore cannot be independently existing things. Relativistic physics has defused the original controversy by revealing both space and spatial relations as merely observer-dependent manifestations of the structure of spacetime. Meanwhile, Kant shifted the metaphysical controversy to epistemological grounds by claiming that space, with its Euclidean structure, is neither a “thing-in-itself” nor a relation of thingsin-themselves, but the a priori form of outer intuition. His view was challenged by the elaboration of non-Euclidean geometries in the nineteenth century, by Helmholtz’s arguments that both intuitive and physical space are known through empirical investigation, and finally by the use of non-Euclidean geometry in the theory of relativity. Precisely what geometrical presuppositions are inherent in human spatial perception, and what must be learned from experience, remain subjects of psychological investigation. 

space-time: a four-dimensional continuum combining the three dimensions of space with time in order to represent motion geometrically. Each point is the location of an event, all of which together represent “the world” through time; paths in the continuum worldlines represent the dynamical histories of moving particles, so that straight worldlines correspond to uniform motions; three-dimensional sections of constant time value “spacelike hypersurfaces” or “simultaneity slices” represent all of space at a given time. The idea was foreshadowed when Kant represented “the phenomenal world” as a plane defined by space and time as perpendicular axes Inaugural Dissertation, 1770, and when Joseph Louis Lagrange 17361814 referred to mechanics as “the analytic geometry of four dimensions.” But classical mechanics assumes a universal standard of simultaneity, and so it can treat space and time separately. The concept of space-time was explicitly developed only when Einstein criticized absolute simultaneity and made the velocity of light a universal constant. The mathematician Hermann Minkowski showed in 8 that the observer-independent structure of special relativity could be represented by a metric space of four dimensions: observers in relative motion would disagree on intervals of length and time, but agree on a fourdimensional interval combining spatial and temporal measurements. Minkowski’s model then made possible the general theory of relativity, which describes gravity as a curvature of spacetime in the presence of mass and the paths of falling bodies as the straightest worldlines in curved space-time. 

spatio-temporal continuancy: or continunity, a property of the careers, or space-time paths, of well-behaved objects. Let a space-time path be a series of possible spatiotemporal positions, each represented in a selected coordinate system by an ordered pair consisting of a time its temporal component and a volume of space its spatial component. Such a path will be spatiotemporally continuous provided it is such that, relative to any inertial frame selected as coordinate system, space, absolute spatiotemporal continuity 867   867 1 for every segment of the series, the temporal components of the members of that segment form a continuous temporal interval; and 2 for any two members ‹ti, Vi and ‹tj, Vj of the series that differ in their temporal components ti and tj, if Vi and Vj the spatial components differ in either shape, size, or location, then between these members of the series there will be a member whose spatial component is more similar to Vi and Vj in these respects than these are to each other. This notion is of philosophical interest partly because of its connections with the notions of identity over time and causality. Putting aside such qualifications as quantum considerations may require, material objects at least macroscopic objects of familiar kinds apparently cannot undergo discontinuous change of place, and cannot have temporal gaps in their histories, and therefore the path through space-time traced by such an object must apparently be spatiotemporally continuous. More controversial is the claim that spatiotemporal continuity, together with some continuity with respect to other properties, is sufficient as well as necessary for the identity of such objects  e.g., that if a spatiotemporally continuous path is such that the spatial component of each member of the series is occupied by a table of a certain description at the time that is the temporal component of that member, then there is a single table of that description that traces that path. Those who deny this claim sometimes maintain that it is further required for the identity of material objects that there be causal and counterfactual dependence of later states on earlier ones ceteris paribus, if the table had been different yesterday, it would be correspondingly different now. Since it appears that chains of causality must trace spatiotemporally continuous paths, it may be that insofar as spatiotemporal continuity is required for transtemporal identity, this is because it is required for transtemporal causality. Refs.: H. P. Grice and P. F. Strawson, “Categories,” in The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley.

specious present: the supposed time between past and future. The phrase was first offered by  Clay in “The Alternative: A Study in Psychology,”  and is cited by James in his Principles of Psychology  Clay challenges the assumption that the “present” as a “datum” is given as “present” to us in our experience. “The present to which the datum refers is really a part of the *past*, a recent past  delusively given as benign time that intervenes between the past and the future. Let it be named ‘the specious present,’ and let the past that is given as being the past be known as ‘the obvious past.’” For James, this position is supportive of his contention that consciousness (conscientia) is a stream and can be divided into parts only by conceptual addition, i.e., only by our ascribing past, present, and future to what is, in our actual experience, a seamless flow. James holds that the “practically cognized present is no knife-edge but a saddleback,” a sort of “ducatum” which we experience as a whole, and only upon reflective attention do we “distinguish its beginning from its end.” Whereas Clay refers to the datum of the present as “delusive,” one might rather say that it is perpetually *elusive*, for as we have our experience, now, it is always bathed retrospectively and prospectively. Contrary to common wisdom, no single experience ever is had by our consciousness utterly alone, single and without relations, fore and aft. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “The logical-construction theory of personal identity.”

speculatum: Grice: “Philosophy may broadly be divided into ‘philosophia speculativa” and “philosophia practica.”” -- speculative philosophy, a form of theorizing that goes beyond verifiable observation; specifically, a philosophical approach informed by the impulse to construct a grand narrative of a worldview that encompasses the whole of reality. Speculative philosophy purports to bind together reflections on the existence and nature of the cosmos, the psyche, and God. It sets for its goal a unifying matrix and an overarching system whereswith to comprehend the considered judgments of cosmology, psychology, and theology. Hegel’s absolute idealism, particularly as developed in his later thought, paradigmatically illustrates the requirements for speculative philosophizing. His system of idealism offered a vision of the unity of the categories of human thought as they come to realization in and through their opposition to each other. Speculative thought tends to place a premium on universality, totality, and unity; and it tends to marginalize the concrete particularities of the natural and social world. In its aggressive use of the systematic principle, geared to a unification of human experience, speculative philosophy aspires to a comprehensive understanding and explanation of the structural interrelations of the culture spheres of science, morality, art, and religion. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Practical and doxastic attitudes: why I need exhibitive clauses.”

spencer: English philosopher, social reformer, and editor of The Economist. In epistemology, Spencer adopted the ninespeculative reason Spencer, Herbert 869   869 teenth-century trend toward positivism: the only reliable knowledge of the universe is to be found in the sciences. His ethics were utilitarian, following Bentham and J. S. Mill: pleasure and pain are the criteria of value as signs of happiness or unhappiness in the individual. His Synthetic Philosophy, expounded in books written over many years, assumed both in biology and psychology the existence of Lamarckian evolution: given a characteristic environment, every animal possesses a disposition to make itself into what it will, failing maladaptive interventions, eventually become. The dispositions gain expression as inherited acquired habits. Spencer could not accept that species originate by chance variations and natural selection alone: direct adaptation to environmental constraints is mainly responsible for biological changes. Evolution also includes the progression of societies in the direction of a dynamical equilibrium of individuals: the human condition is perfectible because human faculties are completely adapted to life in society, implying that evil and immorality will eventually disappear. His ideas on evolution predated publication of the major works of Darwin; A. R. Wallace was influenced by his writings. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Evolutionary pirotology,” in “Method in philosophical psychology: from the banal to the bizarre.”

speranza: luigi della --. Italian philosopher, attracted, for some reason, to H. P. Grice. Speranza knows St. John’s very well. He is the author of “Dorothea Oxoniensis.” He is a member of a number of cultivated Anglo-Italian societies, like H. P. Grice’s Playgroup. He is the custodian of Villa Grice, not far from Villa Speranza. He works at the Swimming-Pool Library. Cuisine is one of his hobbies – grisottoa alla ligure, his specialty. He can be reached via H. P. Grice. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Vita ed opinion di Luigi Speranza,” par Luigi Speranza. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley.

Speranza, villa – The Swimming-Pool Library – H. P. Grice’s Play Group, Liguria, Italia.

spinoza: Jewish metaphysician, born in the Netherlanads -- epistemologist, psychologist, moral philosopher, political theorist, and philosopher of religion, generally regarded as one of the most important figures of seventeenth-century rationalism. Life and works. Born and educated in the Jewish ‘community’ of Amsterdam, he forsook his given name ‘Baruch’ in favor of the Latin ‘Benedict’ at the age of twenty-two. Between 1652 and 1656 he studied the philosophy of Descartes in the school of Francis van den Enden. Having developed unorthodox views of the divine nature and having ceased to be fully observant of Jewish practice, he was excommunicated by the Jewish community in 1656. He spent his entire life in Holland; after leaving Amsterdam in 1660, he resided successively in Rijnsburg, Voorburg, and the Hague. He supported himself at least partly through grinding lenses, and his knowledge of optics involved him in an area of inquiry of great importance to seventeenth-century science. Acquainted with such leading intellectual figures as Leibniz, Huygens, and Henry Oldenberg, he declined a professorship at the  of Heidelberg partly on the grounds that it might interfere with his intellectual freedom. His premature death at the age of fortyfour was due to consumption. The only work published under Spinoza’s name during his lifetime was his Principles of Descartes’s Philosophy Renati Des Cartes Principiorum Philosophiae, Pars I et II, 1663, an attempt to recast and present Parts I and II of Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy in the manner that Spinoza called geometrical order or geometrical method. Modeled on the Elements of Euclid and on what Descartes called the method of synthesis, Spinoza’s “geometrical order” involves an initial set of definitions and axioms, from which various propositions are demonstrated, with notes or scholia attached where necessary. This work, which established his credentials as an expositor of Cartesian philosophy, had its origins in his endeavor to teach Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy to a private student. Spinoza’s TheologicalPolitical Treatise Tractatus Theologico-Politicus was published anonymously in 1670. After his death, his close circle of friends published his Posthumous Works Opera Postuma, 1677, which included his masterpieces, Ethic, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order Ethica, Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata. The Posthumous Works also included his early unfinished Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione, his later unfinished Political Treatise Tractatus Politicus, a Hebrew Grammar, and Correspondence. An unpublished early work entitled Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being Korte Vorhandelung van God, de Mensch en deszelvs Welstand, in many ways a forerunner of the Ethics, was rediscovered in copied manuscript and published in the nineteenth century. Spinoza’s authorship of two brief scientific treatises, On the Rainbow and On the Calculation of Chances, is still disputed. Metaphysics. Spinoza often uses the term ‘God, or Nature’ “Deus, sive Natura“, and this identification of God with Nature is at the heart of his metaphysics. Because of this identification, his philosophy is often regarded as a version of pantheism and/or naturalism. But although philosophy begins with metaphysics for Spinoza, his metaphysics is ultimately in the service of his ethics. Because his naturalized God has no desires or purposes, human ethics cannot properly be derived from divine command. Rather, Spinozistic ethics seeks to demonstrate, from an adequate understanding of the divine nature and its expression in human nature, the way in which human beings can maximize their advantage. Central to the successful pursuit of this advantage is adequate knowledge, which leads to increasing control of the passions and to cooperative action. Spinoza’s ontology, like that of Descartes, consists of substances, their attributes which Descartes called principal attributes, and their modes. In the Ethics, Spinoza defines ‘substance’ as what is “in itself, and is conceived through itself”; ‘attribute’ as that which “the intellect perceives of a substance as constituting its essence”; and ‘mode’ as “the affections of a substance, or that which is in another through which also it is conceived.” While Descartes had recognized a strict sense in which only God is a substance, he also recognized a second sense in which there are two kinds of created substances, each with its own principal attribute: extended substances, whose only principal attribute is extension; and minds, whose only principal attribute is thought. Spinoza, in contrast, consistently maintains that there is only one substance. His metaphysics is thus a form of substantial monism. This one substance is God, which Spinoza defines as “a being absolutely infinite, i.e., a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, of which each expresses an eternal and infinite essence.” Thus, whereas Descartes limited each created substance to one principal attribute, Spinoza claims that the one substance has infinite attributes, each expressing the divine nature without limitation in its own way. Of these infinite attributes, however, humans can comprehend only two: extension and thought. Within each attribute, the modes of God are of two kinds: infinite modes, which are pervasive features of each attribute, such as the laws of nature; and finite modes, which are local and limited modifications of substance. There is an infinite sequence of finite modes. Descartes regarded a human being as a substantial union of two different substances, the thinking soul and the extended body, in causal interaction with each other. Spinoza, in contrast, regards a human being as a finite mode of God, existing simultaneously in God as a mode of thought and as a mode of extension. He holds that every mode of extension is literally identical with the mode of thought that is the “idea of” that mode of extension. Since the human mind is the idea of the human body, it follows that the human mind and the human body are literally the same thing, conceived under two different attributes. Because they are actually identical, there is no causal interaction between the mind and the body; but there is a complete parallelism between what occurs in the mind and what occurs in the body. Since every mode of extension has a corresponding and identical mode of thought however rudimentary that might be, Spinoza allows that every mode of extension is “animated to some degree”; his view is thus a form of panpsychism. Another central feature of Spinoza’s metaphysics is his necessitarianism, expressed in his claim that “things could have been produced . . . in no other way, and in no other order” than that in which they have been produced. He derives this necessitarianism from his doctrine that God exists necessarily for which he offers several arguments, including a version of the ontological argument and his doctrine that everything that can follow from the divine nature must necessarily do so. Thus, although he does not use the term, he accepts a very strong version of the principle of sufficient reason. At the outset of the Ethics, he defines a thing as free when its actions are determined by its own nature alone. Only God  whose actions are determined entirely by the necessity of his own nature, and for whom nothing is external  is completely free in this sense. Nevertheless, human beings can achieve a relative freedom to the extent that they live the kind of life described in the later parts of the Ethics. Hence, Spinoza is a compatibilist concerning the relation between freedom and determinism. “Freedom of the will” in any sense that implies a lack of causal determination, however, is simply an illusion based on ignorance of the true causes of a being’s actions. The recognition that all occurrences are causally determined, Spinoza holds, has a positive consolatory power that aids one in controlling the passions. Epistemology and psychology. Like other rationalists, Spinoza distinguishes two representational faculties: the imagination and the intellect. The imagination is a faculty of forming imagistic representations of things, derived ultimately from the mechanisms of the senses; the intellect is a faculty of forming adequate, nonimagistic conceptions of things. He also distinguishes three “kinds of knowledge.” The first or lowest kind he calls opinion or imagination opinio, imaginatio. It includes “random or indeterminate experience” experientia vaga and also “hearsay, or knowledge from mere signs”; it thus depends on the confused and mutilated deliverances of the senses, and is inadequate. The second kind of knowledge he calls reason ratio; it depends on common notions i.e., features of things that are “common to all, and equally in the part and in the whole” or on adequate knowledge of the properties as opposed to the essences of things. The third kind of knowledge he calls intuitive knowledge scientia intuitiva; it proceeds from adequate knowledge of the essence or attributes of God to knowledge of the essence of things, and hence proceeds in the proper order, from causes to effects. Both the second and third kinds of knowledge are adequate. The third kind is preferable, however, as involving not only certain knowledge that something is so, but also knowledge of how and why it is so. Because there is only one substance  God  the individual things of the world are not distinguished from one another by any difference of substance. Rather, among the internal qualitative modifications and differentiations of each divine attribute, there are patterns that have a tendency to endure; these constitute individual things. As they occur within the attribute of extension, Spinoza calls these patterns fixed proportions of motion and rest. Although these individual things are thus modes of the one substance, rather than substances in their own right, each has a nature or essence describable in terms of the thing’s particular pattern and its mechanisms for the preservation of its own being. This tendency toward self-preservation Spinoza calls conatus sometimes tr. as ‘endeavor’. Every individual thing has some conatus. An individual thing acts, or is active, to the extent that what occurs can be explained or understood through its own nature i.e., its selfpreservatory mechanism alone; it is passive to the extent that what happens must be explained through the nature of other forces impinging on it. Thus, every thing, to whatever extent it can, actively strives to persevere in its existence; and whatever aids this self-preservation constitutes that individual’s advantage. Spinoza’s specifically human psychology is an application of this more general doctrine of conatus. That application is made through appeal to several specific characteristics of human beings: they form imagistic representations of other individuals by means of their senses; they are sufficiently complex to undergo increases and decreases in their capacity for action; and they are capable of engaging in reason. The fundamental concepts of his psychology are desire, which is conatus itself, especially as one is conscious of it as directed toward attaining a particular object; pleasure, which is an increase in capacity for action; and pain, which is a decrease in capacity for action. He defines other emotions in terms of these basic emotions, as they occur in particular combinations, in particular kinds of circumstances, with particular kinds of causes, and/or with particular kinds of objects. When a person is the adequate cause of his or her own emotions, these emotions are active emotions; otherwise, they are passions. Desire and pleasure can be either active emotions or passions, depending on the circumstances; pain, however, can only be a passion. Spinoza does not deny the phenomenon of altruism: one’s self-preservatory mechanism, and hence one’s desire, can become focused on a wide variety of objects, including the well-being of a loved person or object  even to one’s own detriment. However, because he reduces all human motivation, including altruistic motivation, to permutations of the endeavor to seek one’s own advantage, his theory is arguably a form of psychological egoism. Ethics. Spinoza’s ethical theory does not take the form of a set of moral commands. Rather, he seeks to demonstrate, by considering human actions and appetites objectively  “just as if it were a Question of lines, planes, and bodies”  wherein a person’s true advantage lies. Readers who genuinely grasp the demonstrated truths will, he holds, ipso facto be motivated, to at least some extent, to live their lives accordingly. Thus, Spinozistic ethics seeks to show how a person acts when “guided by reason“; to act in this way is at the same time to act with virtue, or power. All actions that result from understanding  i.e., all virtuous actions  may be attributed to strength of character fortitudo. Such virtuous actions may be further divided into two classes: those due to tenacity animositas, or “the Desire by which each one strives, solely from the dictate of reason, to preserve his being”; and those due to nobility generositas, or “the Desire by which each one strives, solely from the dictate of reason, to aid other men and join them to him in friendship.” Thus, the virtuous person does not merely pursue private advantage, but seeks to cooperate with others; returns love for hatred; always acts honestly, not deceptively; and seeks to join himself with others in a political state. Nevertheless, the ultimate reason for aiding others and joining them to oneself in friendship is that “nothing is more useful to man than man”  i.e., because doing so is conducive to one’s own advantage, and particularly to one’s pursuit of knowledge, which is a good that can be shared without loss. Although Spinoza holds that we generally use the terms ‘good’ and ‘evil’ simply to report subjective appearances  so that we call “good” whatever we desire, and “evil” whatever we seek to avoid  he proposes that we define ‘good’ philosophically as ‘what we certainly know to be useful to us’, and ‘evil’ as ‘what we certainly know prevents us from being masters of some good’. Since God is perfect and has no needs, it follows that nothing is either good or evil for God. Spinoza’s ultimate appeal to the agent’s advantage arguably renders his ethical theory a form of ethical egoism, even though he emphasizes the existence of common shareable goods and the instrumental ethical importance of cooperation with others. However, it is not a form of hedonism; for despite the prominence he gives to pleasure, the ultimate aim of human action is a higher state of perfection or capacity for action, of whose increasing attainment pleasure is only an indicator. A human being whose self-preservatory mechanism is driven or distorted by external forces is said to be in bondage to the passions; in contrast, one who successfully pursues only what is truly advantageous, in consequence of genuine understanding of where that advantage properly lies, is free. Accordingly, Spinoza also expresses his conception of a virtuous life guided by reason in terms of an ideal “free man.” Above all, the free man seeks understanding of himself and of Nature. Adequate knowledge, and particularly knowledge of the third kind, leads to blessedness, to peace of mind, and to the intellectual love of God. Blessedness is not a reward for virtue, however, but rather an integral aspect of the virtuous life. The human mind is itself a part of the infinite intellect of God, and adequate knowledge is an eternal aspect of that infinite intellect. Hence, as one gains knowledge, a greater part of one’s own mind comes to be identified with something that is eternal, and one becomes less dependent on  and less disturbed by  the local forces of one’s immediate environment. Accordingly, the free man “thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is a meditation on life, not on death.” Moreover, just as one’s adequate knowledge is literally an eternal part of the infinite intellect of God, the resulting blessedness, peace of mind, and intellectual love are literally aspects of what might be considered God’s own eternal “emotional” life. Although this endows the free man with a kind of blessed immortality, it is not a personal immortality, since the sensation and memory that are essential to personal individuality are not eternal. Rather, the free man achieves during his lifetime an increasing participation in a body of adequate knowledge that has itself always been eternal, so that, at death, a large part of the free man’s mind has become identified with the eternal. It is thus a kind of “immortality” in which one can participate while one lives, not merely when one dies. Politics and philosophical theology. Spinoza’s political theory, like that of Hobbes, treats rights and power as equivalent. Citizens give up rights to the state for the sake of the protection that the state can provide. Hobbes, however, regards this social contract as nearly absolute, one in which citizens give up all of their rights except the right to resist death. Spinoza, in contrast, emphasizes that citizens cannot give up the right to pursue their own advantage as they see it, in its full generality; and hence that the power, and right, of any actual state is always limited by the state’s practical ability to enforce its dictates so as to alter the citizens’ continuing perception of their own advantage. Furthermore, he has a more extensive conception of the nature of an individual’s own advantage than Hobbes, since for him one’s own true advantage lies not merely in fending off death and pursuing pleasure, but in achieving the adequate knowledge that brings blessedness and allows one to participate in that which is eternal. In consequence, Spinoza, unlike Hobbes, recommends a limited, constitutional state that encourages freedom of expression and religious toleration. Such a state  itself a kind of individual  best preserves its own being, and provides both the most stable and the most beneficial form of government for its citizens. In his Theological-Political Treatise, Spinoza also takes up popular religion, the interpretation of Scripture, and their bearing on the well-being of the state. He characterizes the Old Testament prophets as individuals whose vivid imaginations produced messages of political value for the ancient Hebrew state. Using a naturalistic outlook and historical hermeneutic methods that anticipate the later “higher criticism” of the Bible, he seeks to show that Scriptural writers themselves consistently treat only justice and charity as essential to salvation, and hence that dogmatic doxastic requirements are not justified by Scripture. Popular religion should thus propound only these two requirements, which it may imaginatively represent, to the minds of the many, as the requirements for rewards granted by a divine Lawgiver. The few, who are more philosophical, and who thus rely on intellect, will recognize that the natural laws of human psychology require charity and justice as conditions of happiness, and that what the vulgar construe as rewards granted by personal divine intervention are in fact the natural consequences of a virtuous life. Because of his identificaton of God with Nature and his treatment of popular religion, Spinoza’s contemporaries often regarded his philosophy as a thinly disguised atheism. Paradoxically, however, nineteenth-century Romanticism embraced him for his pantheism; Novalis, e.g., famously characterized him as “the God-intoxicated man.” In fact, Spinoza ascribes to Nature most of the characteristics that Western theologians have ascribed to God: Spinozistic Nature is infinite, eternal, necessarily existing, the object of an ontological argument, the first cause of all things, all-knowing, and the being whose contemplation produces blessedness, intellectual love, and participation in a kind of immortality or eternal life. Spinoza’s claim to affirm the existence of God is therefore no mere evasion. However, he emphatically denies that God is a person or acts for purposes; that anything is good or evil from the divine perspective; or that there is a personal immortality involving memory. In addition to his influence on the history of biblical criticism and on literature including not only Novalis but such writers as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Heine, Shelley, George Eliot, George Sand, Somerset Maugham, Jorge Luis Borges, and Bernard Malamud, Spinoza has affected the philosophical outlooks of such diverse twentieth-century thinkers as Freud and Einstein. Contemporary physicists have seen in his monistic metaphysics an anticipation of twentieth-century field metaphysics. More generally, he is a leading intellectual forebear of twentieth-century determinism and naturalism, and of the mindbody identity theory. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Hampshire’s Spinoza.”

spir: philosopher. He served in the Crimean War as a Russian officer. His major works are “Forschung nach der Gewissheit in der Erkenntnis der Wirklichkeit,” and “Denken und Wirklichkeit: Versuch einer Erneuerung der kritischen Philosophie..” The latter essay presents a metaphysics based on the radical separation of the apparent world and an absolute reality. All we can know about the “unconditioned” is that it must conform with the principle of identity. While retaining the unknowable thing-in-itself of Kant, Spir argues for the empirical reality of time, which is given to us in immediate experience and depends on our experience of a succession of differential states (cf. Grice, “Personal identity”). The aim of philosophy is to reach fundamental and immediate certainties. Of the works included in his “Gesammelte Schriften,” the essay “Right and Wrong,” was tr.There are a number of references to Spir in the writings of Nietzsche, which indicate that some of Nietzsche’s central notions were influenced, both positively and negatively, by Spir’s analyses of becoming and temporality, as well as by his concept of the separation of the world of appearance and the “true world.” Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Bradley’s absolute: a relative account.”

split-brain effect: one of a wide array of behavioral effects consequent upon the severing of the cerebral commisures, and generally interpreted as indicating asymmetry in cerebral functions. The human brain has considerable leftright functional differentiation, or asymmetry, that affects behavior. The most obvious example is handedness. By the 1860s Bouillaud, Dax, and Broca had observed that the effects of unilateral damage indicated that the left hemisphere was preferentially involved in language. Since the 0s, this commitment to functional asymmetry has been reinforced by studies of patients in whom communication between the hemispheres has been surgically disrupted. Split brain effects depend on severing the cerebral commisures, and especially the corpus callosum, which are neural structures mediating communication between the cerebral hemispheres. Commisurotomies have been performed since the 0s to control severe epilepsy. This is intended to leave both hemispheres intact and functioning independently. Beginning in the 0s, J. E. Bogen, M. S. Gazzaniga, and R. W. Sperry conducted an array of psychological tests to evaluate the distinctive abilities of the different hemispheres. Ascertaining the degree of cerebral asymmetry depends on a carefully controlled experimental design in which access of the disassociated hemispheres to peripheral cues is limited. The result has been a wide array of striking results. For example, patients are unable to match an object such as a key felt in one hand with a similar object felt in the other; patients are unable to name an object Spir, Afrikan split brain effects 874   874 held in the left hand, though they can name an object held in the right. Researchers have concluded that these results confirm a clear lateralization of speech, writing, and calculation in the left hemisphere for righthanded patients, leaving the right hemisphere largely unable to respond in speech or writing, and typically unable to perform even simple calculations. It is often concluded that the left hemisphere is specialized for verbal and analytic modes of thinking, while the right hemisphere is specialized for more spatial and synthetic modes of thinking. The precise character and extent of these differences in normal subjects are less clear.

sraffa: an Italian noble -- vitters, and Grice --  L. – cited by H. P. Grice, “Some like Vitters, but Moore’s MY man.” Vienna-born philosopher trained as an enginner at Manchester. Typically referred to Wittgenstein in the style of English schoolboy slang of the time as, “Witters,” pronounced “Vitters.”“I heard Austin said once: ‘Some like Witters, but Moore’s MY man.’ Austin would open the “Philosophical Investigations,” and say, “Let’s see what Witters has to say about this.” Everybody ended up loving Witters at the playgroup.” Witters’s oeuvre was translated first into English by C. K. Ogden. There are interesting twists. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Vitters.” Grice was sadly discomforted when one of his best friends at Oxford, D. F. Pears, dedicated so much effort to the unveiling of the mysteries of ‘Vitters.’ ‘Vitters’ was all in the air in Grice’s inner circle. Strawson had written a review of Philosophical Investigations. Austin was always mocking ‘Vitters,’ and there are other connections. For Grice, the most important is that remark in “Philosohpical Investigations,” which he never cared to check ‘in the Hun,’ about a horse not being seen ‘as a horse.’ But in “Prolegomena” he mentions Vitters in other contexts, too, and in “Causal Theory,” almost anonymously – but usually with regard to the ‘seeing as’ puzzle. Grice would also rely on Witters’s now knowing how to use ‘know’ or vice versa. In “Method” Grice quotes verbatim: ‘No psyche without the manifestation the ascription of psyche is meant to explain,” and also to the effect that most ‘-etic’ talk of behaviour is already ‘-emic,’ via internal perspective, or just pervaded with intentionalism. One of the most original and challenging philosophical writers of the twentieth century. Born in Vienna into an assimilated family of Jewish extraction, he went to England as a student and eventually became a protégé of Russell’s at Cambridge. He returned to Austria at the beginning of The Great War I, but went back to Cambridge in 8 and taught there as a fellow and professor. Despite spending much of his professional life in England, Vitters never lost contact with his Austrian background, and his writings combine in a unique way ideas derived from both the insular and the continental European tradition. His thought is strongly marked by a deep skepticism about philosophy, but he retained the conviction that there was something important to be rescued from the traditional enterprise. In his Blue Book 8 he referred to his own work as “one of the heirs of the subject that used to be called philosophy.” What strikes readers first when they look at Vitters’s writings is the peculiar form of their composition. They are generally made up of short individual notes that are most often numbered in sequence and, in the more finished writings, evidently selected and arranged with the greatest care. Those notes range from fairly technical discussions on matters of logic, the mind, meaning, understanding, acting, seeing, mathematics, and knowledge, to aphoristic observations about ethics, culture, art, and the meaning of life. Because of their wide-ranging character, their unusual perspective on things, and their often intriguing style, Vitters’s writings have proved to appeal to both professional philosophers and those interested in philosophy in a more general way. The writings as well as his unusual life and personality have already produced a large body of interpretive literature. But given his uncompromising stand, it is questionable whether his thought will ever be fully integrated into academic philosophy. It is more likely that, like Pascal and Nietzsche, he will remain an uneasy presence in philosophy. From an early date onward Vitters was greatly influenced by the idea that philosophical problems can be resolved by paying attention to the working of language  a thought he may have gained from Fritz Mauthner’s Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache 102. Vitters’s affinity to Mauthner is, indeed, evident in all phases of his philosophical development, though it is particularly noticeable in his later thinking.Until recently it has been common to divide Vitters’s work into two sharply distinct phases, separated by a prolonged period of dormancy. According to this schema the early “Tractarian” period is that of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 1, which Vitters wrote in the trenches of World War I, and the later period that of the Philosophical Investigations 3, which he composed between 6 and 8. But the division of his work into these two periods has proved misleading. First, in spite of obvious changes in his thinking, Vitters remained throughout skeptical toward traditional philosophy and persisted in channeling philosophical questioning in a new direction. Second, the common view fails to account for the fact that even between 0 and 8, when Vitters abstained from actual work in philosophy, he read widely in philosophical and semiphilosophical authors, and between 8 and 6 he renewed his interest in philosophical work and wrote copiously on philosophical matters. The posthumous publication of texts such as The Blue and Brown Books, Philosophical Grammar, Philosophical Remarks, and Conversations with the Vienna Circle has led to acknowledgment of a middle period in Vitters’s development, in which he explored a large number of philosophical issues and viewpoints  a period that served as a transition between the early and the late work. Early period. As the son of a greatly successful industrialist and engineer, Vitters first studied engineering in Berlin and Manchester, and traces of that early training are evident throughout his writing. But his interest shifted soon to pure mathematics and the foundations of mathematics, and in pursuing questions about them he became acquainted with Russell and Frege and their work. The two men had a profound and lasting effect on Vitters even when he later came to criticize and reject their ideas. That influence is particularly noticeable in the Tractatus, which can be read as an attempt to reconcile Russell’s atomism with Frege’s apriorism. But the book is at the same time moved by quite different and non-technical concerns. For even before turning to systematic philosophy Vitters had been profoundly moved by Schopenhauer’s thought as it is spelled out in The World as Will and Representation, and while he was serving as a soldier in World War I, he renewed his interest in Schopenhauer’s metaphysical, ethical, aesthetic, and mystical outlook. The resulting confluence of ideas is evident in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and gives the book its peculiar character. Composed in a dauntingly severe and compressed style, the book attempts to show that traditional philosophy rests entirely on a misunderstanding of “the logic of our language.” Following in Frege’s and Russell’s footsteps, Vitters argued that every meaningful sentence must have a precise logical structure. That structure may, however, be hidden beneath the clothing of the grammatical appearance of the sentence and may therefore require the most detailed analysis in order to be made evident. Such analysis, Vitters was convinced, would establish that every meaningful sentence is either a truth-functional composite of another simpler sentence or an atomic sentence consisting of a concatenation of simple names. He argued further that every atomic sentence is a logical picture of a possible state of affairs, which must, as a result, have exactly the same formal structure as the atomic sentence that depicts it. He employed this “picture theory of meaning”  as it is usually called  to derive conclusions about the nature of the world from his observations about the structure of the atomic sentences. He postulated, in particular, that the world must itself have a precise logical structure, even though we may not be able to determine it completely. He also held that the world consists primarily of facts, corresponding to the true atomic sentences, rather than of things, and that those facts, in turn, are concatenations of simple objects, corresponding to the simple names of which the atomic sentences are composed. Because he derived these metaphysical conclusions from his view of the nature of language, Vitters did not consider it essential to describe what those simple objects, their concatenations, and the facts consisting of them are actually like. As a result, there has been a great deal of uncertainty and disagreement among interpreters about their character. The propositions of the Tractatus are for the most part concerned with spelling out Vitters’s account of the logical structure of language and the world and these parts of the book have understandably been of most interest to philosophers who are primarily concerned with questions of symbolic logic and its applications. But for Vitters himself the most important part of the book consisted of the negative conclusions about philosophy that he reaches at the end of his text: in particular, that all sentences that are not atomic pictures of concatenations of objects or truth-functional composites of such are strictly speaking meaningless. Among these he included all the propositions of ethics and aesthetics, all propositions dealing with the meaning of life, all propositions of logic, indeed all philosophical propositions, and finally all the propositions of the Tractatus itself. These are all strictly meaningless; they aim at saying something important, but what they try to express in words can only show itself. As a result Vitters concluded that anyone who understood what the Tractatus was saying would finally discard its propositions as senseless, that she would throw away the ladder after climbing up on it. Someone who reached such a state would have no more temptation to pronounce philosophical propositions. She would see the world rightly and would then also recognize that the only strictly meaningful propositions are those of natural science; but those could never touch what was really important in human life, the mystical. That would have to be contemplated in silence. For “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent,” as the last proposition of the Tractatus declared. Middle period. It was only natural that Vitters should not embark on an academic career after he had completed that work. Instead he trained to be a school teacher and taught primary school for a number of years in the mountains of lower Austria. In the mid-0s he also built a house for his sister; this can be seen as an attempt to give visual expression to the logical, aesthetic, and ethical ideas of the Tractatus. In those years he developed a number of interests seminal for his later development. His school experience drew his attention to the way in which children learn language and to the whole process of enculturation. He also developed an interest in psychology and read Freud and others. Though he remained hostile to Freud’s theoretical explanations of his psychoanalytic work, he was fascinated with the analytic practice itself and later came to speak of his own work as therapeutic in character. In this period of dormancy Vitters also became acquainted with the members of the Vienna Circle, who had adopted his Tractatus as one of their key texts. For a while he even accepted the positivist principle of meaning advocated by the members of that Circle, according to which the meaning of a sentence is the method of its verification. This he would later modify into the more generous claim that the meaning of a sentence is its use. Vitters’s most decisive step in his middle period was to abandon the belief of the Tractatus that meaningful sentences must have a precise hidden logical structure and the accompanying belief that this structure corresponds to the logical structure of the facts depicted by those sentences. The Tractatus had, indeed, proceeded on the assumption that all the different symbolic devices that can describe the world must be constructed according to the same underlying logic. In a sense, there was then only one meaningful language in the Tractatus, and from it one was supposed to be able to read off the logical structure of the world. In the middle period Vitters concluded that this doctrine constituted a piece of unwarranted metaphysics and that the Tractatus was itself flawed by what it had tried to combat, i.e., the misunderstanding of the logic of language. Where he had previously held it possible to ground metaphysics on logic, he now argued that metaphysics leads the philosopher into complete darkness. Turning his attention back to language he concluded that almost everything he had said about it in the Tractatus had been in error. There were, in fact, many different languages with many different structures that could meet quite different specific needs. Language was not strictly held together by logical structure, but consisted, in fact, of a multiplicity of simpler substructures or language games. Sentences could not be taken to be logical pictures of facts and the simple components of sentences did not all function as names of simple objects. These new reflections on language served Vitters, in the first place, as an aid to thinking about the nature of the human mind, and specifically about the relation between private experience and the physical world. Against the existence of a Cartesian mental substance, he argued that the word ‘I’ did not serve as a name of anything, but occurred in expressions meant to draw attention to a particular body. For a while, at least, he also thought he could explain the difference between private experience and the physical world in terms of the existence of two languages, a primary language of experience and a secondary language of physics. This duallanguage view, which is evident in both the Philosophical Remarks and The Blue Book, Vitters was to give up later in favor of the assumption that our grasp of inner phenomena is dependent on the existence of outer criteria. From the mid-0s onward he also renewed his interest in the philosophy of mathematics. In contrast to Frege and Russell, he argued strenuously that no part of mathematics is reducible purely to logic. Instead he set out to describe mathematics as part of our natural history and as consisting of a number of diverse language games. He also insisted that the meaning of those games depended on the uses to which the mathematical formulas were put. Applying the principle of verification to mathematics, he held that the meaning of a mathematical formula lies in its proof. These remarks on the philosophy of mathematics have remained among Vitters’s most controversial and least explored writings. Later period. Vitters’s middle period was characterized by intensive philosophical work on a broad but quickly changing front. By 6, however, his thinking was finally ready to settle down once again into a steadier pattern, and he now began to elaborate the views for which he became most famous. Where he had constructed his earlier work around the logic devised by Frege and Russell, he now concerned himself mainly with the actual working of ordinary language. This brought him close to the tradition of British common sense philosophy that Moore had revived and made him one of the godfathers of the ordinary language philosophy that was to flourish in Oxford in the 0s. In the Philosophical Investigations Vitters emphasized that there are countless different uses of what we call “symbols,” “words,” and “sentences.” The task of philosophy is to gain a perspicuous view of those multiple uses and thereby to dissolve philosophical and metaphysical puzzles. These puzzles were the result of insufficient attention to the working of language and could be resolved only by carefully retracing the linguistic steps by which they had been reached. Vitters thus came to think of philosophy as a descriptive, analytic, and ultimately therapeutic practice. In the Investigations he set out to show how common philosophical views about meaning including the logical atomism of the Tractatus, about the nature of concepts, about logical necessity, about rule-following, and about the mindbody problem were all the product of an insufficient grasp of how language works. In one of the most influential passages of the book he argued that concept words do not denote sharply circumscribed concepts, but are meant to mark family resemblances between the things labeled with the concept. He also held that logical necessity results from linguistic convention and that rules cannot determine their own applications, that rule-following presupposes the existence of regular practices. Furthermore, the words of our language have meaning only insofar as there exist public criteria for their correct application. As a consequence, he argued, there cannot be a completely private language, i.e., a language that in principle can be used only to speak about one’s own inner experience. This private language argument has caused much discussion. Interpreters have disagreed not only over the structure of the argument and where it occurs in Vitters’s text, but also over the question whether he meant to say that language is necessarily social. Because he said that to speak of inner experiences there must be external and publicly available criteria, he has often been taken to be advocating a logical behaviorism, but nowhere does he, in fact, deny the existence of inner states. What he says is merely that our understanding of someone’s pain is connected to the existence of natural and linguistic expressions of pain. In the Philosophical Investigations Vitters repeatedly draws attention to the fact that language must be learned. This learning, he says, is fundamentally a process of inculcation and drill. In learning a language the child is initiated in a form of life. In Vitters’s later work the notion of form of life serves to identify the whole complex of natural and cultural circumstances presupposed by our language and by a particular understanding of the world. He elaborated those ideas in notes on which he worked between 8 and his death in 1 and which are now published under the title On Certainty. He insisted in them that every belief is always part of a system of beliefs that together constitute a worldview. All confirmation and disconfirmation of a belief presuppose such a system and are internal to the system. For all this he was not advocating a relativism, but a naturalism that assumes that the world ultimately determines which language games can be played. Vitters’s final notes vividly illustrate the continuity of his basic concerns throughout all the changes his thinking went through. For they reveal once more how he remained skeptical about all philosophical theories and how he understood his own undertaking as the attempt to undermine the need for any such theorizing. The considerations of On Certainty are evidently directed against both philosophical skeptics and those philosophers who want to refute skepticism. Against the philosophical skeptics Vitters insisted that there is real knowledge, but this knowledge is always dispersed and not necessarily reliable; it consists of things we have heard and read, of what has been drilled into us, and of our modifications of this inheritance. We have no general reason to doubt this inherited body of knowledge, we do not generally doubt it, and we are, in fact, not in a position to do so. But On Certainty also argues that it is impossible to refute skepticism by pointing to propositions that are absolutely certain, as Descartes did when he declared ‘I think, therefore I am’ indubitable, or as Moore did when he said, “I know for certain that this is a hand here.” The fact that such propositions are considered certain, Vitters argued, indicates only that they play an indispensable, normative role in our language game; they are the riverbed through which the thought of our language game flows. Such propositions cannot be taken to express metaphysical truths. Here, too, the conclusion is that all philosophical argumentation must come to an end, but that the end of such argumentation is not an absolute, self-evident truth, but a certain kind of natural human practice. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Il gesto della mano di Sraffa.” Speranza, “Sraffa’s handwave, and his impicaturum.” Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “L’implicatura di Sraffa,” per il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

standard:  Grice: “People, philosophers included, misuse ‘standard’ – in Italian, it just means ‘flag’!” -- model, a term that, like ‘non-standard model’, is used with regard to theories that systematize part of our knowledge of some mathematical structure, for instance the structure of natural numbers with addition, multiplication, and the successor function, or the structure of real numbers with ordering, addition, and multiplication. Models isomorphic to this intended mathematical structure are the “standard models” of the theory, while any other, non-isomorphic, model of the theory is a ‘non-standard’ model. Since Peano arithmetic is incomplete, it has consistent extensions that have no standard model. But there are also non-standard, countable models of complete number theory, the set of all true first-order sentences about natural numbers, as was first shown by Skolem in 4. Categorical theories do not have a non-standard model. It is less clear whether there is a standard model of set theory, although a countable model would certainly count as non-standard. The Skolem paradox is that any first-order formulation of set theory, like ZF, due to Zermelo and Fraenkel, has a countable model, while it seems to assert the existence of non-countable sets. Many other important mathematical structures cannot be characterized by a categorical set of first-order axioms, and thus allow non-standard models. The  philosopher Putnam has argued that this fact has important implications for the debate about realism in the philosophy of language. If axioms cannot capture the spontaneity, liberty of standard model 875   875 “intuitive” notion of a set, what could? Some of his detractors have pointed out that within second-order logic categorical characterizations are often possible. But Putnam has objected that the intended interpretation of second-order logic itself is not fixed by the use of the formalism of second-order logic, where “use” is determined by the rules of inference for second-order logic we know about. Moreover, categorical theories are sometimes uninformative. 

state, Grice: “I will use the phrase ‘state of the soul’ – This may sound pedantic, and it is!” – “I will use ‘psychological state,’ where the more correct phrase would be ‘state’ of the ‘soul,’ since theory – as in ‘-logical,’ has nothing to do with it. Now you’ll wonder if the soul has states. A state of the soul – or a ‘frame of mind,’ as Strawson wrongly puts it – is a physical state on which a ‘state’ of the soul supervenes, alla Funcionalism” – “Note that a ’state’ of the soul may be quite specific and involving other states, like the belief that Strawson’s dog is shaggy.” – “A state is anything that follows a ‘that’-clause; the way an object or system basically is; the fundamental, intrinsic properties of an object or system, and the basis of its other properties. An instantaneous state is a state at a given time. State variables are constituents of a state whose values may vary with time. In classical or Newtonian mechanics the instantaneous state of an n-particle system consists of the positions and momenta masses multiplied by velocities of the n particles at a given time. Other mechanical properties are functions of those in states. Fundamental and derived properties are often, though possibly misleadingly, called observables. The set of a system’s possible states can be represented as an abstract phase space or state space, with dimensions or coordinates for the components of each state variable. In quantum theory, states do not fix the particular values of observables, only the probabilities of observables assuming particular values in particular measurement situations. For positivism or instrumentalism, specifying a quantum state does nothing more than provide a means for calculating such probabilities. For realism, it does more  e.g., it refers to the basis of a quantum system’s probabilistic dispositions or propensities. Vectors in Hilbert spaces represent possible states, and Hermitian operators on vectors represent observables. 

state of affairs: Grice: “My poor friend D. F. Pears got himself into a lot of trouble by offering to correct C. K. Ogden’s passe translation of Vitters’s Tractatus!” a possibility, actuality, or impossibility of the kind expressed by a nominalization of a declarative sentence. The declarative sentence ‘This die comes up six’ can be nominalized either through the construction ‘that this die comes up six’ or through the likes of ‘this die’s coming up six’. The resulting nominalizations might be interpreted as naming corresponding propositions or states of affairs. States of affairs come in several varieties. Some are possible states of affairs, or possibilities. Consider the possibility of a certain die coming up six when rolled next. This possibility is a state of affairs, as is its “complement”  the die’s not coming up six when rolled next. There is in addition the state of affairs which conjoins that die’s coming up six with its not coming up six. And this contradictory state of affairs is of course not a possibility, not a possible state of affairs. Moreover, for every actual state of affairs there is a non-actual one, its complement. For every proposition there is hence a state of affairs: possible or impossible, actual or not. Indeed some consider propositions to be states of affairs. Some take facts to be actual states of affairs, while others prefer to define them as true propositions. If propositions are states of affairs, then facts are of course both actual states of affairs and true propositions. In a very broad sense, events are just possible states of affairs; in a narrower sense they are contingent states of affairs; and in a still narrower sense they are contingent and particular states of affairs, involving just the exemplification of an nadic property by a sequence of individuals of length n. In a yet narrower sense events are only those particular and contingent states of affairs that entail change. A baseball’s remaining round throughout a certain period does not count as an event in this narrower sense but only as a state of that baseball, unlike the event of its being hit by a certain bat. 

statistics: Grice: “I shall use the singular, ‘statistic’”  -- statistical explanation. Grice: “Jill says, “Jack is an Englishman; he is, therefore, brave.” Is the validty of her reasoning based on statistics?” -- an explanation expressed in an explanatory argument containing premises and conclusions making claims about statistical probabilities. These arguments include deductions of less general from more general laws and differ from other such explanations only insofar as the contents of the laws imply claims about statistical probability. Most philosophical discussion in the latter half of the twentieth century has focused on statistical explanation of events rather than laws. This type of argument was discussed by Ernest Nagel The Structure of Science, 1 under the rubric “probabilistic explanation,” and by Hempel Aspects of Scientific Explanation, 5 as “inductive statistical” explanation. The explanans contains a statement asserting that a given system responds in one of several ways specified by a sample space of possible outcomes on a trial or experiment of some type, and that the statistical probability of an event represented by a set of points in the sample space on the given kind of trial is also given for each such event. Thus, the statement might assert that the statistical probability is near 1 of the relative frequency r/n of heads in n tosses being close to the statistical probability p of heads on a single toss, where the sample space consists of the 2n possible sequences of heads and tails in n tosses. Nagel and Hempel understood such statistical probability statements to be covering laws, so that inductive-statistical explanation and deductivenomological explanation of events are two species of covering law explanation. The explanans also contains a claim that an experiment of the kind mentioned in the statistical assumption has taken place e.g., the coin has been tossed n times. The explanandum asserts that an event of some kind has occurred e.g., the coin has landed heads approximately r times in the n tosses. In many cases, the kind of experiment can be described equivalently as an n-fold repetition of some other kind of experiment as a thousandfold repetition of the tossing of a given coin or as the implementation of the kind of trial thousand-fold tossing of the coin one time. Hence, statistical explanation of events can always be construed as deriving conclusions about “single cases” from assumptions about statistical probabilities even when the concern is to explain mass phenomena. Yet, many authors controversially contrast statistical explanation in quantum mechanics, which is alleged to require a singlecase propensity interpretation of statistical probability, with statistical explanation in statistical mechanics, genetics, and the social sciences, which allegedly calls for a frequency interpretation. The structure of the explanatory argument of such statistical explanation has the form of a direct inference from assumptions about statistical probabilities and the kind of experiment trial which has taken place to the outcome. One controversial aspect of direct inference is the problem of the reference class. Since the early nineteenth century, statistical probability has been understood to be relative to the way the experiment or trial is described. Authors like J. Venn, Peirce, R. A. Fisher, and Reichenbach, among many others, have been concerned with how to decide on which kind of trial to base a direct inference when the trial under investigation is correctly describable in several ways and the statistical probabilities of possible outcomes may differ relative to the different sorts of descriptions. The most comprehensive discussion of this problem of the reference class is found in the work of H. E. Kyburg e.g., Probability and the Logic of Rational Belief, 1. Hempel acknowledged its importance as an “epistemic ambiguity” in inductive statistical explanation. Controversy also arises concerning inductive acceptance. May the conclusion of an explanatory direct inference be a judgment as to the subjective probability that the outcome event occurred? May a judgment that the outcome event occurred is inductively “accepted” be made? Is some other mode of assessing the claim about the outcome appropriate? Hempel’s discussion of the “nonconjunctiveness of inductivestatistical” explanation derives from Kyburg’s earlier account of direct inference where high probability is assumed to be sufficient for acceptance. Non-conjunctiveness has been avoided by abandoning the sufficiency of high probability I. Levi, Gambling with Truth, 7 or by denying that direct inference in inductive-statistical explanation involves inductive acceptance at all R. C. Jeffrey, “Statistical Explanation vs. Statistical Inference,” in Essays in Honor of C. G. Hempel. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Jack and Jill.”

steiner: Austrian spiritualist and founder of anthroposophy. Trained as a scientist, he edited Goethe’s scientific writings and prepared the standard edition of his complete works from 9 to 6. Steiner’s major work, Die Philosophie der Freiheit, was published in 4. His Friedrich Nietzsche: Ein Kämpfer gegen seine Zeit 5 was tr. in 0 by Margaret deRis as Friedrich Nietzsche: Fighter for Freedom. Steiner taught at a workingmen’s  and edited a literary journal, Magazin für Literatur, in Berlin. In 1 he embraced a spiritualism which emphasized a form of knowledge that transcended sensory experience and was attained by the “higher self.” He held that man had previously been attuned to spiritual processes by virtue of a dreamlike state of consciousness, but was diverted from this consciousness by preoccupation with material entities. Through training, individuals could retrieve their innate capacity to perceive a spiritual realm. Steiner’s writings on this theme are The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity 4, Occult Science: An Outline 3, On the Riddle of Man 6, and On the Riddles of the Soul 7. His last work was his autobiography 4. To advance his teachings, he founded the Anthroposophical Society 2 and a school of “spiritual science” called the Goetheanum near Basel, Switzerland. His work inspired the Waldorf School movement, which comprises some eighty schools for children. The anthroposophy movement he established remains active in Europe and the United States. G.J.S. Stephen, Sir Leslie 18324, English literary critic, editor, intellectual historian, and philosopher. He was the first chief editor of the great Dictionary of National Biography, writing hundreds of the entries himself. Brought up in an intensely religious household, he lost his faith and spent much of his time trying to construct a moral and intellectual outlook to replace it. His main works in intellectual history, the two-volume History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century 1876 and the three-volume English Utilitarians 0, were undertaken as part of this project. So was his one purely philosophical work, the Science of Ethics 2, in which he tried to develop an evolutionary theory of morality. Stephen was impatient of philosophical technicalities. Hence his treatise on ethics does very little to resolve the problems  some of them pointed out to him by his friend Henry Sidgwick  with evolutionary ethics, and does not get beyond the several other works on the subject published during this period. His histories of thought are sometimes superficial, and their focus of interest is not ours; but they are still useful because of their scope and the massive scholarship they put to use.  Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Steiner and moi.”

stillingfleet: English divine and controversialist who first made his name with “Irenicum,” using natural-law doctrines to oppose religious sectarianism. His “Origines Sacrae” ostensibly on the superiority of the Scriptural record over other forms of ancient history, was for its day a learned study in the moral certainty of historical evidence, the authority of testimony, and the credibility of miracles. In drawing eclectically on philosophy from antiquity to the Cambridge Platonists, he was much influenced by the Cartesian theory of ideas, but later repudiated Cartesianism for its mechanist tendency. For three decades he pamphleteered on behalf of the moral certainty of orthodox Protestant belief against what he considered the beliefs “contrary to reason” of Roman Catholicism. This led to controversy with Unitarian and deist writers who argued that mysteries like the Trinity were equally contrary to “clear and distinct” ideas. He was alarmed at the use made of Locke’s “new,” i.e. nonCartesian, way of ideas by John Toland in Christianity not Mysterious, and devoted his last years to challenging Locke to prove his orthodoxy. The debate was largely over the concepts of substance, essence, and person, and of faith and certainty. Locke gave no quarter in the public controversy, but in the fourth edition of his Essay he silently amended some passages that had provoked Stillingfleet. 

schmidt: stirner, Max, pseudonym of Kasper Schmidt, philosopher who proposed a theory of radical individualism. Born in Bayreuth, he taught in Gymnasiums and later at a Berlin academy for women. He tr. what became a standard G. version of Smith’s Wealth of Nations and contributed articles to the Rhenische Zeitung. His most important work was statistical probability, “Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum,” tr. by Steven T. Byington as The Ego and His Own, and Grice as “The idiot and his idiocy.” -- His second book was “Die Geschichte der Reaktion.” Schmidt is in reaction to Hegel and was for a time associated with the left Hegelians. He stressed the priority of will and instinct over reason and proposed a radical anarchic individualism. Each individual is unique, and the independent ego is the fundamental value and reality. Stirner attacks the state, religious ideas, and abstractions such as “humanity” as “spectres” that are deceptive illusions, remnants of erroneous hypostatizations. His defense of egoism is such that the individual is considered to have no obligations or duties, and especially not to the state. Encouraging an individual “rebellion” against state domination and control, Stirner attracted a following among nineteenthand twentieth-century anarchists. The sole goal of life is the cultivation of “uniqueness” or “ownness.” Engels and Marx attack his ideas at length under the rubric “Saint Marx” in The G. Ideology. Insofar as his theory of radical individualism offers no clearly stated ethical requirements, it has been characterized as a form of nihilistic egoism. Refs.: H. P. Grice: “Schmidt, or the idiot and his idiocy.”

sttochasis: stochastic process –“"pertaining to conjecture," from Greek stokhastikos "able to guess, conjecturing," from stokhazesthai "to guess, aim at, conjecture," from stokhos "a guess, aim, fixed target, erected pillar for archers to shoot at," perhaps from PIE *stogh-, variant of root *stegh- "to stick, prick, sting." The sense of "randomly determined" is from 1934, from German stochastik (1917). a process that evolves, as time goes by, according to a probabilistic principle rather than a deterministic principle. Such processes are also called random processes, but ‘stochastic’ does not imply complete disorderliness. The principle of evolution governing a stochastic or random process is precise, though probabilistic, in form. For example, suppose some process unfolds in discrete successive stages. And suppose that given any initial sequence of stages, S1, S2, . . . , Sn, there is a precise probability that the next stage Sn+1 will be state S, a precise probability that it will be SH, and so on for all possible continuations of the sequence of states. These probabilities are called transition probabilities. An evolving sequence of this kind is called a discrete-time stochastic process, or discrete-time random process. A theoretically important special case occurs when transition probabilities depend only on the latest stage in the sequence of stages. When an evolving process has this property it is called a discrete-time Markov process. A simple example of a discrete-time Markov process is the behavior of a person who keeps taking either a step forward or a step back according to whether a coin falls heads or tails; the probabilistic principle of movement is always applied to the person’s most recent position. The successive stages of a stochastic process need not be discrete. If they are continuous, they constitute a “continuous-time” stochastic or random process. The mathematical theory of stochastic processes has many applications in science and technology. The evolution of epidemics, the process of soil erosion, and the spread of cracks in metals have all been given plausible models as stochastic processes, to mention just a few areas of research.  H. P. Grice, “Stochastic implicatum.”

stoa – stoa -- Stoicus: stoicism -- Neo-stoicism -- du Vair, Guillaume, philosopher, bishop, and political figure. Du Vair and Justus Lipsius were the two most influential propagators of neo-Stoicism in early modern Europe. Du Vair’s Sainte Philosophie “Holy Philosophy,” 1584 and his shorter Philosophie morale des Stoïques “Moral Philosophy of the Stoics,” 1585, were tr. and frequently reprinted. The latter presents Epictetus in a form usable by ordinary people in troubled times. We are to follow nature and live according to reason; we are not to be upset by what we cannot control; virtue is the good. Du Vair inserts, moreover, a distinctly religious note. We must be pious, accept our lot as God’s will, and consider morality obedience to his command. Du Vair thus Christianized Stoicism, making it widely acceptable. By teaching that reason alone enables us to know how we ought to live, he became a founder of modern rationalism in ethics. Stōĭcus , a, um, adj., = Στωϊκός, I.of or belonging to the Stoic philosophy or to the Stoics, Stoic: “schola,” Cic. Fam. 9, 22 fin.: “secta,” Sen. Ep. 123, 14: “sententia,” id. ib. 22, 7: “libelli,” Hor. Epod. 8, 15: “turba,” Mart. 7, 69, 4: “dogmata,” Juv. 13, 121: “disciplina,” Gell. 19, 1, 1: “Stoicum est,” it is a saying of the Stoics, Cic. Ac. 2, 26, 85: “non loquor tecum Stoicā linguā, sed hac submissiore,” Sen. Ep. 13, 4: “est aliquid in illo Stoici dei: nec cor nec caput habet,” Sen. Apoc. 8.— Subst.: Stōĭcus , i, m., a Stoic philosopher, a Stoic, Cic. Par. praef. § 2; Hor. S. 2, 3, 160; 2, 3, 300; plur., Cic. Mur. 29, 61; and in philosophical writings saepissime.— 2. Stōĭca , ōrum, n. plur., the Stoic philosophy, Cic. N. D. 1, 6, 15.—Adv.: Stōĭcē , like a Stoic, Stoically: “agere austere et Stoice,” Cic. Mur. 35, 74: dicere, id. Par. praef. § 3.H. P. Grice, “The Stoa: from Athenian to Oxonian dialectic,” H. P. Grice, “The Stoa and Athenian dialectic.”  H. P. Grice: “The Stoa and Athenian dialectic.” -- stoicism, one of the three leading movements constituting Hellenistic philosophy. Its founder was Zeno of Citium, who was succeeded as school head by Cleanthes. But the third head, Chrysippus, was its greatest exponent and most voluminous writer. These three are the leading representatives of Early Stoicism. No work by any early Stoic survives intact, except Cleanthes’ short “Hymn to Zeus.” Otherwise we are dependent on doxography, on isolated quotations, and on secondary sources, most of them hostile. Nevertheless, a remarkably coherent account of the system can be assembled. The Stoic world is an ideally good organism, all of whose parts interact for the benefit of the whole. It is imbued with divine reason logos, its entire development providentially ordained by fate and repeated identically from one world phase to the next in a never-ending cycle, each phase ending with a conflagration ekpyrosis. Only bodies strictly “exist” and can interact. Body is infinitely divisible, and contains no void. At the lowest level, the world is analyzed into an active principle, god, and a passive principle, matter, both probably corporeal. Out of these are generated, at a higher level, the four elements air, fire, earth, and water, whose own interaction is analogous to that of god and matter: air and fire, severally or conjointly, are an active rational force called breath Grecian pneuma, Latin spiritus, while earth and water constitute the passive substrate on which these act, totally interpenetrating each other thanks to the non-particulate structure of body and its capacity to be mixed “through and through.” Most physical analysis is conducted at this higher level, and pneuma becomes a key concept in physics and biology. A thing’s qualities are constituted by its pneuma, which has the additional role of giving it cohestochastic process Stoicism 879   879 sion and thus an essential identity. In inanimate objects this unifying pneuma is called a hexis state; in plants it is called physis nature; and in animals “soul.” Even qualities of soul, e.g. justice, are portions of pneuma, and they too are therefore bodies: only thus could they have their evident causal efficacy. Four incorporeals are admitted: place, void which surrounds the world, time, and lekta see below; these do not strictly “exist”  they lack the corporeal power of interaction  but as items with some objective standing in the world they are, at least, “somethings.” Universals, identified with Plato’s Forms, are treated as concepts ennoemata, convenient fictions that do not even earn the status of “somethings.” Stoic ethics is founded on the principle that only virtue is good, only vice bad. Other things conventionally assigned a value are “indifferent” adiaphora, although some, e.g., health, wealth, and honor, are naturally “preferred” proegmena, while their opposites are “dispreferred” apoproegmena. Even though their possession is irrelevant to happiness, from birth these indifferents serve as the appropriate subject matter of our choices, each correct choice being a “proper function” kathekon  not yet a morally good act, but a step toward our eventual end telos of “living in accordance with nature.” As we develop our rationality, the appropriate choices become more complex, less intuitive. For example, it may sometimes be more in accordance with nature’s plan to sacrifice your wealth or health, in which case it becomes your “proper function” to do so. You have a specific role to play in the world plan, and moral progress prokope consists in learning it. This progress involves widening your natural “affinity” oikeiosis: an initial concern for yourself and your parts is later extended to those close to you, and eventually to all mankind. That is the Stoic route toward justice. However, justice and the other virtues are actually found only in the sage, an idealized perfectly rational person totally in tune with the divine cosmic plan. The Stoics doubted whether any sages existed, although there was a tendency to treat at least Socrates as having been one. The sage is totally good, everyone else totally bad, on the paradoxical Stoic principle that all sins are equal. The sage’s actions, however similar externally to mere “proper functions,” have an entirely distinct character: they are renamed ‘right actions’ katorthomata. Acting purely from “right reason,” he is distinguished by his “freedom from passion” apatheia: morally wrong impulses, or passions, are at root intellectual errors of mistaking what is indifferent for good or bad, whereas the sage’s evaluations are always correct. The sage alone is happy and truly free, living in perfect harmony with the divine plan. All human lives are predetermined by the providentially designed, all-embracing causal nexus of fate; yet being the principal causes of their actions, the good and the bad alike are responsible for them: determinism and morality are fully compatible. Stoic epistemology defends the existence of cognitive certainty against the attacks of the New Academy. Belief is described as assent synkatathesis to an impression phantasia, i.e. taking as true the propositional content of some perceptual or reflective impression. Certainty comes through the “cognitive impression” phantasia kataleptike, a self-certifying perceptual representation of external fact, claimed to be commonplace. Out of sets of such impressions we acquire generic conceptions prolepseis and become rational. The highest intellectual state, knowledge episteme, in which all cognitions become mutually supporting and hence “unshakable by reason,” is the prerogative of the wise. Everyone else is in a state of mere opinion doxa or of ignorance. Nevertheless, the cognitive impression serves as a “criterion of truth” for all. A further important criterion is prolepseis, also called common conceptions and common notions koinai ennoiai, often appealed to in philosophical argument. Although officially dependent on experience, they often sound more like innate intuitions, purportedly indubitable. Stoic logic is propositional, by contrast with Aristotle’s logic of terms. The basic unit is the simple proposition axioma, the primary bearer of truth and falsehood. Syllogistic also employs complex propositions  conditional, conjunctive, and disjunctive  and rests on five “indemonstrable” inference schemata to which others can be reduced with the aid of four rules called themata. All these items belong to the class of lekta  “sayables” or “expressibles.” Words are bodies vibrating portions of air, as are external objects, but predicates like that expressed by ‘ . . . walks’, and the meanings of whole sentences, e.g., ‘Socrates walks’, are incorporeal lekta. The structure and content of both thoughts and sentences are analyzed by mapping them onto lekta, but the lekta are themselves causally inert. Conventionally, a second phase of the school is distinguished as Middle Stoicism. It developed largely at Rhodes under Panaetius and Posidonius, both of whom influenced the presentation of Stoicism in Cicero’s influential philosophical treatises mid-first century B.C.. Panaetius Stoicism Stoicism 880   880 c.185c.110 softened some classical Stoic positions, his ethics being more pragmatic and less concerned with the idealized sage. Posidonius c.135c.50 made Stoicism more open to Platonic and Aristotelian ideas, reviving Plato’s inclusion of irrational components in the soul. A third phase, Roman Stoicism, is the only Stoic era whose writings have survived in quantity. It is represented especially by the younger Seneca A.D. c.165, Epictetus A.D. c.55c.135, and Marcus Aurelius A.D. 12180. It continued the trend set by Panaetius, with a strong primary focus on practical and personal ethics. Many prominent Roman political figures were Stoics. After the second century A.D. Stoicism as a system fell from prominence, but its terminology and concepts had by then become an ineradicable part of ancient thought. Through the writings of Cicero and Seneca, its impact on the moral and political thought of the Renaissance was immense. 

stoutianism: philosophical psychologist, astudent of Ward, he was influenced by Herbart and especially Brentano. He influenced Grice to the point that Grice called himself “a true Stoutian.”  He was editor of Mind 20. He followed Ward in rejecting associationism and sensationism, and proposing analysis of mind as activity rather than passivity, consisting of acts of cognition, feeling, and conation. Stout stressed attention as the essential function of mind, and argued for the goal-directedness of all mental activity and behavior, greatly influencing McDougall’s hormic psychology. He reinterpreted traditional associationist ideas to emphasize primacy of mental activity; e.g., association by contiguity  a passive mechanical process imposed on mind  became association by continuity of attentional interest. With Brentano, he argued that mental representation involves “thought reference” to a real object known through the representation that is itself the object of thought, like Locke’s “idea.” In philosophy he was influenced by Moore and Russell. His major works are Analytic Psychology 6 and Manual of Psychology 9.

strato: Grecian philosopher and polymath nicknamed “the Physicist” for his innovative ideas in natural science. He succeeded Theophrastus as head of the Lyceum. Earlier he served as royal tutor in Alexandria, where his students included Aristarchus, who devised the first heliocentric model. Of Strato’s many writings only fragments and summaries survive. These show him criticizing the abstract conceptual analysis of earlier theorists and paying closer attention to empirical evidence. Among his targets were atomist arguments that motion is impossible unless there is void, and also Aristotle’s thesis that matter is fully continuous. Strato argued that no large void occurs in nature, but that matter is naturally porous, laced with tiny pockets of void. His investigations of compression and suction were influential in ancient physiology. In dynamics, he proposed that bodies have no property of lightness but only more or less weight. 

strawson: Grice’s tutee. b.9, London-born, Oxford-educated philosopher who has made major contributions to logic, metaphysics, and the study of Kant. His career has been mainly at Oxford (he spent a term in Wales and visited the New World a lot), where he was the leading philosopher of his generation, due to that famous tutor he had for his ‘logic paper’: H. P. Grice, at St. John’s. His first important work, “On Referring” argues that Baron Russell’s theory of descriptions fails to deal properly with the role of descriptions as “referring expressions” because Russell assumed the “bogus trichotomy” that sentences are true, false, or meaningless: for Strawson, sentences with empty descriptions are meaningful but “neither true nor false” because the general presuppositions governing the use of referring expressions are not fulfilled. One aspect of this argument was Russell’s alleged insensitivity to the ordinary use of definite descriptions. The contrast between the abstract schemata of formal logic and the manifold richness of the inferences inherent in ordinary language is the central theme of Strawson’s “ Introduction to Logical Theory,” where he credits H. P. Grice for making him aware of ‘pragmatic rules’ of conversation – Grice was amused that Baron Russell cared to respond to Strawson in “Mind” – where Russell’s original “On denoting” had been published. Together, after a joint seminar with Quine, Strawson submitted “In defense of a dogma,” co-written with Grice – A year later Strawson submitted on Grice’s behalf “Meaning” to the same journal – They participated with Pears in a Third programme lecture, published by Pears in “The nature of metaphysics” (London, Macmillan”). In Individuals, provocatively entitled “an essay in DESCRIPTIVE (never revisionary) metaphysics,” Strawson, drawing “without crediting” on joint seminars with Grice on Categories and De Interpretatione, Strawson  reintroduced metaphysics as a respectable philosophical discipline after decades of positivist rhetoric. But his project is only “descriptive” metaphysics  elucidation of the basic features of our own conceptual scheme  and his arguments are based on the philosophy of language: “basic” particulars are those like “Grice” or his “cricket bat”, which are basic objects of reference, and it is the spatiotemporal and sortal conditions for their identification and reidentification by speakers that constitute the basic categories. Three arguments are especially famous. First, even in a purely auditory world objective reference on the basis of experience requires at least an analogue of space. Second, because self-reference presupposes reference to others, persons, conceived as bearers of both physical and psychological properties, are a type of basic particular – cfr. Grice on “Personal identity.” Third, “feature-placing” discourse, such as ‘it is snowing here now’, is “the ultimate propositional level” through which reference to particulars enters discourse. Strawson’s next book, The Bounds of Sense 6, provides a critical reading of Kant’s theoretical philosophy. His aim is to extricate what he sees as the profound truths concerning the presuppositions of objective experience and judgment that Kant’s transcendental arguments establish from the mysterious metaphysics of Kant’s transcendental idealism. Strawson’s critics have argued, however, that the resulting position is unstable: transcendental arguments can tell us only what we must suppose to be the case. So if Kant’s idealism, which restricts such suppositions to things as they appear to us, is abandoned, we can draw conclusions concerning the way the world itself must be only if we add the verificationist thesis that ability to make sense of such suppositions requires ability to verify them. In his next book, Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties 5, Strawson conceded this: transcendental arguments belong within descriptive metaphysics and should not be regarded as attempts to provide an external justification of our conceptual scheme. In truth no such external justification is either possible or needed: instead  and here Strawson invokes Hume rather than Kant  our reasonings come to an end in natural propensities for belief that are beyond question because they alone make it possible to raise questions. In a famous earlier paper Strawson had urged much the same point concerning the free will debate: defenders of our ordinary attitudes of reproach and gratitude should not seek to ground them in the “panicky metaphysics” of a supra-causal free will; instead they can and need do no more than point to our unshakable commitment to these “reactive” attitudes through which we manifest our attachment to that fundamental category of our conceptual scheme  persons. 

strawsonise: verb invented by A. M. Kemmerling. To adopt Strawson’s manoever in the analysis of ‘meaning.’ “A form of ‘disgricing,’” – Kemmerling adds.

strawsonism – Grice’s favourite Strawsonisms were too many to count. His first was Strawson on ‘true’ for ‘Analysis.’ Grice was amazed by the rate of publishing in Strawson’s case. Strawson kept publishing and Grice kept criticizing. In “Analysis,’ Strawson gives Grice his first ‘strawsonism’ “To say ‘true’ is ditto.’ The second strawsonism is that there is such a thing as ‘ordinary language’ which is not Russellian. As Grice shows, ordinary language IS Russellian. Strawson said that composing “In defence of a dogma” was torture and that it is up to Strawson to finish the thing off.  So there are a few strawonisms there, too. Strawson had the courtesy never to reprint ‘In defence’ in any of his compilations, and of course to have Grice as fist author. There are ‘strawsonisms’ in Grice’s second collaboration with Strawson – that Grice intentionally ignores in “Life and opinions.” This is a transcript of the talk of the dynamic trio: Grice, Pears, and Strawson, published three years later by Pears in “The nature of metaphysics.” Strawson collaborated with “If and the horseshoe” to PGRICE, but did not really write it for the occasion. It was an essay he had drafted ages ago, and now saw fit to publish. He expands on this in his note on Grice for the British Academy, and in his review of Grice’s compilation. Grice makes an explicit mention of Strawson in a footnote in “Presupposition and conversational implicaturum,” the euphemism he uses is ‘tribute’: the refutation of Strawson’s truth-value gap as a metaphysical excrescence and unnecessary is called a ‘tribute,’ coming from the tutor – “in this and other fields,” implicating, “there may be mistakes all over the place.” Kemmerling somewhat ignores Urmson when he says, “Don’t disgrice if you can grice.” To strawsonise, for Kemmerling is to avoid Grice’s direct approach and ask for a higher-level intention. To strawsonise is the first level of disgrice. But Grice first quotes Urmson and refers to Stampe’s briddge example before he does to Strawson’s rat-infested house example.

strawson’s rat-infested house. Few in Grice’s playgroup had Grice’s analytic skills. Only a few cared to join him in his analysis of ‘mean.’ The first was Urmson with the ‘bribe.’ The second was Strawson, with his rat-infested house. Grice re-writes Strawson’s alleged counterexample. To deal with his own rat-infested house example, Strawson proposes that the analysans of "U means that p" might be restricted by the addition of a further condition, namely that the utterer U should utter x not only, as already provided, with the intention that his addressee should think that U intends to obtain a certain response from his addressee, but also with the intention that his addressee should think (recognize) that U has the intention just mentioned. In Strawson's example, in The Philosohical Review (that Grice cites on WOW:x) repr. in his "Logico-Linguistic Papers," the potential home buyer is intended to think that the realtor wants him to think that the house is rat-infested. However, the potential house-buyer is not intended by the realtor to think that he is intended to think that the realtor wants him to think that the house is rat infested. The addressee is intended to think that it is only as a result of being too clever for the realtor that he has learned that the potential home buyer wants him to think that the house is rat-infested; the potential home-buyer is to think that he is supposed to take the artificially displayed dead rat  as a evidence that the house is rat infested. U wants to get A to believe that the house A is thinking of buying is rat-infested. S decides to· bring about this belief in A by taking into the house and letting loose a big fat sewer rat. For S has the following scheme. He knows that A is watching him and knows that A believes that S is unaware that he, A, is watching him. It isS's intention that A should (wrongly) infer from the fact that S let the rat loose that S did so with the intention that A should arrive at the house, see the rat, and, taking the rat as "natural evidence", infer therefrom that the house is rat-infested. S further intends A to realize that given the nature of the rat's arrival, the existence of the rat cannot be taken as genuine or natural evidence that the house is rat-infested; but S kilows that A will believe that S would not so contrive to get A to believe the house is rat-infested unless Shad very good reasons for thinking that it was, and so S expects and intends A to infer that the house is rat-infested from the fact that Sis letting the rat loose with the intention of getting A to believe that the house is rat-infested. Thus S satisfies the conditions purported to be necessary and sufficient for his meaning something by letting the rat loose: S lets the rat loose intending (4) A to think that the house is rat-infested, intending (1)-(3) A to infer from the fact that S let the rat loose that S did so intending A to think that the house is rat-infested, and intending (5) A's recognition of S's . intention (4) to function as his reason for thinking that the house is rat-infested. But even though S's action meets these conditions, Strawson feels that his scenario fits Grice's conditions in Grice's reductive analysis and not yet Strawson's intuition about his own use of 'communicate.' To minimise Strawson's discomfort, Grice brings an anti-sneaky clause. ("Although I never shared Strawson's intuition about his use of 'communicate;' in fact, I very rarely use 'communicate that...' To exterminate the rats in Strawson's rat-infested house, Grice uses, as he should, a general "anti-deception" clause. It may be that the use of this exterminating procedure is possible. It may be that any 'backward-looking' clauses can be exterminated, and replaced by a general prohibitive, or closure clause, forbidding an intention by the utterer to be sneaky. It is a conceptual point that if you intend your addressee NOT TO REALISE that p, you are not COMMUNICATING that p. (3A) (if) (3r) (ic): (a) U utters x intending (I) A to think x possesses f (2) A to thinkf correlated in way c with the type to which r belongs (3) A to think, on the basis of the fulfillment of (I) and (3) that U intends A to produce r (4) A, on the basis of the fulfillment of (3) to produce r, and (b) There is no inference-element E such that U intends both (I') A in his determination of r to rely on E (2') A to think Uto intend (I') to be false. In the final version Grice reaches after considering alleged counterexamples to the NECESSITY of some of the conditions in the analysans, Grice reformulates. It is not the case that, for some inference element E, U intends x to be such that anyone who has φ both rely on E in coming to ψ, or think that U ψ-s, that p and  think that (Ǝφ) U intends x to be such that anyone who has φ come to ψ (or think that U ψ-s) that p without relying on E. Embedded in the general definition. By uttering x, U means that-ψ­_b-dp ≡ (Ǝφ)(Ǝf)(Ǝc) U utters x  intending x to be such that anyone who has φ think that x has f, f is correlated in way c with ψ-ing that p, and (Ǝφ') U intends x to be such that anyone who has φ' think, via thinking that x has f and that f is correlated in way c with ψ-ing that p, that U ψ-s that p, and in view of (Ǝφ') U intending x to be such that anyone who has φ' think, via thinking that x has f, and f is correlated in way c with ψ-ing that p, that U ψ-s that p, U ψ-s that p, and, for some substituends of ψ_b-d, U utters x intending that, should there actually be anyone who has φ, he will, via thinking in view of (Ǝφ') U intending x to be such that anyone who has φ' think, via thinking that x has f, and  f is correlated in way c with ψ-ing that p, that U ψ-s that p, U ψ-s that p himself ψ that p, and it is not the case that, for some inference element E, U intends x to be such that anyone who has φ both rely on E in coming to ψ, or think that U ψ-s, that p and  think that (Ǝφ) U intends x to be such that anyone who has φ come to ψ (or think that U ψ-s) that p without relying on E,

strozzi: Important Italian philosopher, especially influential at what Grice called Italy’s Oxford, i. e. Firenze – “Palla Strozzi was more a mentor than a philosopher, but I would consider him both a Grecian and Griceian in spirit.”  -- Luigi Speranza, "Grice e Strozzi -- Grecian, Griceian," per il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

structuratum: mid-15c., "action or process of building or construction;" 1610s, "that which is constructed, a building or edifice;" from Latin structura "a fitting together, adjustment; a building, mode of building;" figuratively, "arrangement, order," from structus, past participle of struere "to pile, place together, heap up; build, assemble, arrange, make by joining together," related to strues "heap," from PIE *streu-, extended form of root *stere- "to spread.” structuralism, a distinctive yet extremely wide range of productive research conducted in the social and human sciences from the 0s through the 0s, principally in France. It is difficult to describe structuralism as a movement, because of the methodological constraints exercised by the various disciplines that came to be influenced by structuralism  e.g., anthropology, philosophy, literary theory, psychoanalysis, political theory, even mathematics. Nonetheless, structuralism is generally held to derive its organizing principles from the early twentieth-century work of Saussure, the founder of structural linguistics. Arguing against the prevailing historicist and philological approaches to linguistics, he proposed a “scientific” model of language, one understood as a closed system of elements and rules that account for the production and the social communication of meaning. Inspired by Durkheim’s notion of a “social fact”  that domain of objectivity wherein the psychological and the social orders converge  Saussure viewed language as the repository of discursive signs shared by a given linguistic community. The particular sign is composed of two elements, a phonemic signifier, or distinctive sound element, and a corresponding meaning, or signified element. The defining relation between the sign’s sound and meaning components is held to be arbitrary, i.e., based on conventional association, and not due to any function of the speaking subject’s personal inclination, or to any external consideration of reference. What lends specificity or identity to each particular signifier is its differential relation to the other signifiers in the greater set; hence, each basic unit of language is itself the product of differences between other elements within the system. This principle of differential  and structural  relation was extended by Troubetzkoy to the order of phonemes, whereby a defining set of vocalic differences underlies the constitution of all linguistic phonemes. Finally, for Saussure, the closed set of signs is governed by a system of grammatical, phonemic, and syntactic rules. Language thus derives its significance from its own autonomous organization, and this serves to guarantee its communicative function. Since language is the foremost instance of social sign systems in general, the structural account might serve as an exemplary model for understanding the very intelligibility of social systems as such  hence, its obvious relevance to the broader concerns of the social and human sciences. This implication was raised by Saussure himself, in his Course on General Linguistics6, but it was advanced dramatically by the  anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss  who is generally acknowledged to be the founder of modern structuralism  in his extensive analyses in the area of social anthropology, beginning with his Elementary Structures of Kinship 9. Lévi-Strauss argued that society is itself organized according to one form or another of significant communication and exchange  whether this be of information, knowledge, or myths, or even of its members themselves. The organization of social phenomena could thus be clarified through a detailed elaboration of their subtending structures, which, collectively, testify to a deeper and all-inclusive, social rationality. As with the analysis of language, these social structures would be disclosed, not by direct observation, but by inference and deduction from the observed empirical data. Furthermore, since these structures are models of specific relations, which in turn express the differential properties of the component elements under investigation, the structural analysis is both readily formalizable and susceptible to a broad variety of applications. In Britain, e.g., Edmund Leach pursued these analyses in the domain of social anthropology; in the United States, Chomsky applied insights of structuralism to linguistic theory and philosophy of mind; in Italy, Eco conducted extensive structuralist analyses in the fields of social and literary semiotics. With its acknowledgment that language is a rule-governed social system of signs, and that effective communication depends on the resources available to the speaker from within the codes of language itself, the structuralist approach tends to be less preoccupied with the more traditional considerations of “subjectivity” and “history” in its treatment of meaningful discourse. In the post-structuralism that grew out of this approach, the  philosopher Foucault, e.g., focused on the generation of the “subject” by the various epistemic discourses of imitation and representation, as well as on the institutional roles of knowledge and power in producing and conserving particular “disciplines” in the natural and social sciences. These disciplines, Foucault suggested, in turn govern our theoretical and practical notions of madness, criminality, punishment, sexuality, etc., notions that collectively serve to “normalize” the individual subject to their determinations. Likewise, in the domain of psychoanalysis, Lacan drew on the work of Saussure and Lévi-Strauss to emphasize Freud’s concern with language and to argue that, as a set of determining codes, language serves to structure the subject’s very unconscious. Problematically, however, it is the very dynamism of language, including metaphor, metonymy, condensation, displacement, etc., that introduces the social symbolic into the constitution of the subject. Althusser applied the principles of structuralist methodology to his analysis of Marxism, especially the role played by contradiction in understanding infrastructural and superstructural formation, i.e., for the constitution of the historical dialectic. His account followed Marx’s rejection of Feuerbach, at once denying the role of traditional subjectivity and humanism, and presenting a “scientific” analysis of “historical materialism,” one that would be anti-historicist in principle but attentive to the actual political state of affairs. For Althusser, such a philosophical analysis helped provide an “objective” discernment to the historical transformation of social reality. The restraint the structuralists extended toward the traditional views of subjectivity and history dramatically colored their treatment both of the individuals who are agents of meaningful discourse and of the linguistically articulable object field in general. This redirection of research interests particularly in France, due to the influential work of Barthes and Michel Serres in the fields of poetics, cultural semiotics, and communication theory has resulted in a series of original analyses and also provoked lively debates between the adherents of structuralist methodology and the more conventionally oriented schools of thought e.g., phenomenology, existentialism, Marxism, and empiricist and positivist philosophies of science. These debates served as an agency to open up subsequent discussions on deconstruction and postmodernist theory for the philosophical generation of the 0s and later. These post-structuralist thinkers were perhaps less concerned with the organization of social phenomena than with their initial constitution and subsequent dynamics. Hence, the problematics of the subject and history  or, in broader terms, temporality itself  were again engaged. The new discussions were abetted by a more critical appraisal of language and tended to be antiHegelian in their rejection of the totalizing tendency of systematic metaphysics. Heidegger’s critique of traditional metaphysics was one of the major influences in the discussions following structuralism, as was the reexamination of Nietzsche’s earlier accounts of “genealogy,” his antiessentialism, and his teaching of a dynamic “will to power.” Additionally, many poststructuralist philosophers stressed the Freudian notions of the libido and the unconscious as determining factors in understanding not only the subject, but the deep rhetorical and affective components of language use. An astonishing variety of philosophers and critics engaged in the debates initially framed by the structuralist thinkers of the period, and their extended responses and critical reappraisals formed the vibrant, poststructuralist period of  intellectual life. Such figures as Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, Kristeva, Maurice Blanchot, Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, Philippe LacoueLabarthe, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Irigaray inaugurated a series of contemporary reflections that have become international in scope. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “The structure of structure.” . 

sub-perceptual -- subdoxastic, pertaining to states of mind postulated to account for the production and character of certain apparently non-inferential beliefs. These were first discussed by Stephen P. Stich in “Beliefs and Subdoxastic States” 8. I may form the belief that you are depressed, e.g., on the basis of subtle cues that I am unable to articulate. The psychological mechanism responsible for this belief might be thought to harbor information concerning these cues subdoxastically. Although subdoxastic states resemble beliefs in certain respects  they incorporate intentional content, they guide behavior, they can bestow justification on beliefs  they differ from fullyfledged doxastic states or beliefs in at least two respects. First, as noted above, subdoxastic states may be largely inaccessible to introspection; I may be unable to describe, even on reflection, the basis of my belief that you are depressed. Second, subdoxastic states seem cut off inferentially from an agent’s corpus of beliefs; my subdoxastic appreciation that your forehead is creased may contribute to my believing that you are depressed, but, unlike the belief that your forehead is creased, it need not, in the presence of other beliefs, lead to further beliefs about your visage. 

subiectum: sub-iectum – sub-iectificatio -- subjectification: Grice is right in distinguishing this from nominalization, because not all nominalization takes the subject position. Grice plays with this. It is a derivation of the ‘subjectum,’ which Grice knows it is Aristotelian. Liddell and Scott have the verb first, and the neuter singular later. “τὸ ὑποκείμενον,” Liddell and Scott note “has three main applications.” The first is “to the matter (hyle) which underlies the form (eidos), as opp. To both “εἶδος” and “ἐντελέχεια” Met. 983a30; second, to the substantia (hyle + morphe) which underlies the accidents, and as opposed to “πάθη,” and “συμβεβηκότα,” as in Cat. 1a20,27 and Met.1037b16, 983b16; third, and this is the use that ‘linguistic’ turn Grice and Strawson are interested in, “to the logical subject to which attributes are ascribed,” and here opp. “τὸ κατηγορούμενον,” (which would be the ‘praedicatum’), as per Cat.1b10,21, Ph.189a31. If Grice uses Kiparsky’s factive, he is also using ‘nominalisation’ as grammarians use it. Refs.: Grice, “Reply to Richards,” in PGRICE, also BANC. subjectivism: When Grice speaks of the subjective condition on intention, he is using ‘subject,’ in a way a philosophical psychologist would. He does not mean Kant’s transcendental subject or ego. Grice means the simpler empiricist subject, personal identity, or self. The choice is unfelicitious in that ‘subject’ contrasts with ‘object.’ So when he speaks of a ‘subjective’ person he means an ‘ego-centric’ condition, or a self-oriented condition, or an agent-oriented condition, or an ‘utterer-oriented’ or ‘utterer-relative’ condition. But this is tricky. His example: “Nixon should get that chair of theology.” The utterer may have to put into Nixon’s shoes. He has to perceive Nixon as a PERSON, a rational agent, with views of his own. So, the philosophical psychologist that Grice is has to think of a conception of the self by the self, and the conception of the other by the self. Wisdom used to talk of ‘other minds;’ Grice might speak of other souls. Grice was concerned with intending folloed by a that-clause. Jeffrey defines desirability as doxastically modified. It is entirely possible for someone to desire the love that he already has. It is what he thinks that matters. Cf. his dispositional account to intending. A Subjectsive condition takes into account the intenders, rather than the ascribers, point of view: Marmaduke Bloggs intends to climb Mt. Everest on hands and knees. Bloggs might reason: Given my present state, I should do what is fun. Given my present state, the best thing for me to do would be to do what is fun. For me in my present state it would make for my well-being, to have fun. Having fun is good, or, a good. Climbing a mountain would be fun. Climbing the Everest would be/make for climbing fun. So, I shall climb the Everest. Even if a critic insisted that a practical syllogism is the way to represent Bloggs finding something to be appealing, and that it should be regarded as a respectable evaluation, the assembled propositions dont do the work of a standard argument. The premises do not support or yield the conclusion as in a standard argument. The premises may be said to yield the conclusion, or directive, for the particular agent whose reasoning process it is, only on the basis of a Subjectsive condition: that the agent is in a certain Subjectsive state, e.g. feels like going out for dinner-fun. Rational beings (the agent at some other time, or other individuals) who do not have that feeling, will not accept the conclusion. They may well accept as true. It is fun to climb Everest, but will not accept it as a directive unless they feel like it now. Someone wondering what to do for the summer might think that if he were to climb Everest he would find it fun or pleasant, but right now she does not feel like it. That is in general the end of the matter. The alleged argument lacks normativity. It is not authoritative or directive unless there is a supportive argument that he needs/ought to do something diverting/pleasant in the summer. A practical argument is different. Even if an agent did not feel like going to the doctor, an agent would think I ought to have a medical check up yearly, now is the time, so I should see my doctor to be a directive with some force. It articulates a practical argument. Perhaps the strongest attempt to reconstruct an (acceptable or rational) thought transition as a standard arguments is to treat the Subjectsive condition, I feel like having climbing fun in the summer, as a premise, for then the premises would support the conclusion. But the individual, whose thought transition we are examining, does not regard a description of his psychological state as a consideration that supports the conclusion. It will be useful to look more closely at a variant of the example to note when it is appropriate to reconstruct thinking in the form of argument. Bloggs, now hiking with a friend in the Everest, comes to a difficult spot and says: I dont like the look of that, I am frightened. I am going back. That is usually enough for Bloggs to return, and for the friend to turn back with him. Bloggss action of turning back, admittedly motivated by fear, is, while not acting on reasons, nonetheless rational unless we judge his fear to be irrational. Bloggss Subjectsive condition can serve as a premise, but only in a very different situation. Bloggs resorts to reasons. Suppose that, while his friend does not think Bloggss fear irrational, the friend still attempts to dissuade Bloggs from going back. After listening and reflecting, Bloggs may say I am so frightened it is not worth it. I am not enjoying this climbing anymore. Or I am too frightened to be able to safely go on. Or I often climb the Everest and dont usually get frightened. The fact that I am now is a good indication that this is a dangerous trail and I should turn back. These are reasons, considerations implicitly backed by principles, and they could be the initial motivations of someone. But in Bloggss case they emerged when he was challenged by his friend. They do not express his initial practical reasoning. Bloggs was frightened by the trail ahead, wanted to go back, and didnt have any reason not to. Note that there is no general rational requirement to always act on reasons, and no general truth that a rational individual would be better off the more often he acted on reasons. Faced with his friends objections, however, Bloggs needed justification for acting on his fear. He reflected and found reason(s) to act on his fear. Grice plays with Subjectsivity already in Prolegomena. Consider the use of carefully. Surely we must include the agents own idea of this. Or consider the use of phi and phi – surely we dont want the addressee to regard himself under the same guise with which the utterer regards him. Or consider “Aspects”: Nixon must be appointed professor of theology at Oxford. Does he feel the need? Grice raises the topic of Subjectsivity again in the Kant lectures just after his discussion of mode, in a sub-section entitled, Modalities: relative and absolute. He finds the topic central for his æqui-vocality thesis: Subjectsive conditions seem necessary to both practical and alethic considerations. Refs.: The source is his essay on intentions and the subjective condition, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC. The subject: hypokeimenon -- When Frege turned from ‘term logic’ to ‘predicate logic’ “he didn’t know what he was doing.” Cf. Oxonian nominalization. Grice plays a lot on that. His presentation at the Oxford Philosophical Society he entitled, in a very English way, as “Meaning” (echoing Ogden and Richards). With his “Meaning, Revisited,” it seems more clearly that he is nominalizing. Unless he means, “The essay “Meaning,” revisited,” – alla Putnam making a bad joke on Ogden: “The meaning of ‘meaning’” – “ ‘Meaning,’ revisited” --  Grice is very familiar with this since it’s the literal transliteration of Aristotle’s hypokeimenon, opp. in a specific context, to the ‘prae-dicatum,’ or categoroumenon. And with the same sort of ‘ambiguity,’ qua opposite a category of expression, thought, or reality. In philosophical circles, one has to be especially aware of the subject-object distinction (which belong in philosophical psychology) and the thing which belongs in ontology. Of course there’s the substance (hypousia, substantia), the essence, and the sumbebekon, accidens. So one has to be careful. Grice expands on Strawson’s explorations here. Philosophy, to underlie, as the foundation in which something else inheres, to be implied or presupposed by something else, “ἑκάστῳ τῶν ὀνομάτων . . ὑ. τις ἴδιος οὐσία” Pl.Prt.349b, cf. Cra.422d, R.581c, Ti.Locr.97e: τὸ ὑποκείμενον has three main applications: (1) to the matter which underlies the form, opp. εἶδος, ἐντελέχεια, Arist.Metaph.983a30; (2) to the substance (matter + form) which underlies the accidents, opp. πάθη, συμβεβηκότα, Id.Cat.1a20,27, Metaph.1037b16, 983b16; (3) to the logical subject to which attributes are ascribed, opp. τὸ κατηγορούμενον, Id.Cat.1b10,21, Ph.189a31: applications (1) and (2) are distinguished in Id.Metaph.1038b5, 1029a1-5, 1042a26-31: τὸ ὑ. is occasionally used of what underlies or is presupposed in some other way, e. g. of the positive termini presupposed by change, Id.Ph.225a3-7. b. exist, τὸ ἐκτὸς ὑποκείμενον the external reality, Stoic.2.48, cf. Epicur.Ep.1pp.12,24 U.; “φῶς εἶναι τὸ χρῶμα τοῖς ὑ. ἐπιπῖπτον” Aristarch. Sam. ap. Placit.1.15.5; “τὸ κρῖνον τί τε φαίνεται μόνον καὶ τί σὺν τῷ φαίνεσθαι ἔτι καὶ κατ᾽ ἀλήθειαν ὑπόκειται” S.E.M.7.143, cf. 83,90,91, 10.240; = ὑπάρχω, τὰ ὑποκείμενα πράγματα the existing state of affairs, Plb.11.28.2, cf. 11.29.1, 15.8.11,13, 3.31.6, Eun.VSp.474 B.; “Τίτος ἐξ ὑποκειμένων ἐνίκα, χρώμενος ὁπλις μοῖς καὶ τάξεσιν αἷς παρέλαβε” Plu.Comp.Phil.Flam.2; “τῆς αὐτῆς δυνάμεως ὑποκειμένης” Id.2.336b; “ἐχομένου τοῦ προσιόντος λόγου ὡς πρὸς τὸν ὑποκείμενον” A.D.Synt.122.17. c. ὁ ὑ. ἐνιαυτός the year in question, D.S.11.75; οἱ ὑ. καιροί the time in question, Id.16.40, Plb.2.63.6, cf. Plu.Comp.Sol.Publ.4; τοῦ ὑ. μηνός the current month, PTeb.14.14 (ii B. C.), al.; ἐκ τοῦ ὑ. φόρου in return for a reduction from the said rent, PCair.Zen.649.18 (iii B. C.); πρὸς τὸ ὑ. νόει according to the context, Gp.6.11.7. Note that both Grice and Strawson oppose Quine’s Humeian dogma that, since the subjectum is beyond comprehension, we can do with a ‘predicate’ calculus, only. Vide Strawson, “Subject and predicate in logic and grammar.” Refs: H. P. Grice, Work on the categories with P. F. Strawson, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c.

sub-ordination. Grice must be the only Oxonian philosopher in postwar Oxford that realised the relevance of subordination. Following J. C. Wilson, Grice notes that ‘if’ is a subordinating connective, and the only one of the connectives which is not commutative. This gives Grice the idea to consult Cook Wilson and develop his view of ‘interrogative subordination.’ Who killed Cock Robin. If it was not the Hawk, it was the Sparrow. It was not the Hawk. It was the Sparrow. What Grecian idiom is Romanesque sub-ordinatio translating. The opposite is co-ordination. “And” and “or” are coordinative particles. Interrogative coordination is provided by ‘or,’ but it relates to yes/no questions. Interrogative subordination involves x-question. WHO killed Cock Robin. The Grecians were syntactic and hypotactic. Varro uses jungendi. is the same and wherefrom it is different, in relation to what &c." It may well be doubted whether he has thus improved upon his predecessors. Surely the discernment of sameness and difference is a function necessarily belonging to soul and necessarily included in the catalogue of her functions : yet Stallbaum's rendering excludes it from that catalogue. The fact that we have ory hv $, not orcp ecri, does not really favour his view—" with whatsoever a thing may be the same, she declares it the same.' I coincide then with the other interpreters in regarding the whole sentence from orw t' hv as indirect INTERROGATION SUBORDINATE interrogation subordinateto \iyeiThis mistake in logic carries with it serious mistakes in trans lation. The clause otw t av ti tovtov rj kcu otov hv erepov is made an indirect INTERROGATIVE COORDINATE with itpbs o tC re pu£Aio-ra xai ottt? [ 39 ] k.t.\., which is impossible. Stallbaum rightly makes the clause a substantive clause and subject of elvai or £vp.f}aivei elvai. (3) eKao-ra is of course predicate with elvai to this sthe question, ‘How many sugars would Tom like in his tea?’ is not ‘satisfied’ by the answer ‘Tom loves sugar’. It may well be true that Tom loves sugar, but the question is not satisfied by that form of answer. Conversely the answer ‘one spoonful’ satisfies the question, even though it might be the wrong answer and leave the tea insufficiently sugary for the satisfaction of Tom’s sweet tooth.

sub-perceptum: This relates to Stich and his sub-doxastic. For Aristotle, “De An.,” the anima leads to the desideratum. Unlike in ‘phuta,’ or vegetables, which are still ‘alive,’ (‘zoa’ – he had a problem with ‘sponges’ which were IN-animate, to him, most likely) In WoW:139, Grice refers to “the pillar box seems red” as “SUB-PERCEPTUAL,” the first of a trio. The second is the perceptual, “A perceives that the pillar box is red,” and the third, “The pillar box is red.” He wishes to explore the truth-conditons of the subperceptum, and although first in the list, is last in the analsysis. Grice proposes: ‘The pillar box seems red” iff (1) the pillar box is red; (2) A perceives that the pillar box is red; and (3) (1) causes (2). In this there is a parallelism with his quasi-causal account of ‘know’ (and his caveat that ‘literally,’ we may just know that 2 + 2 = 4 (and such) (“Meaning Revisited). In what he calls ‘accented sub-perceptum,’ the idea is that the U is choosing the superceptum (“seems”) as opposed to his other obvious choices (“The pillar box IS red,”) and the passive-voice version of the ‘perceptum’: “The pillar box IS PERCEIVED red.” The ‘accent’ generates the D-or-D implicaturum: By uttering “The pillar box seems red,” U IMPLICATES that it is denied that or doubted that the pillar box is perceived red by U or that the pillar box is red. In this, the accented version contrasts with the unaccented version where the implicaturum is NOT generated, and the U remains uncommitted re: this doubt or denial implicaturum. It is this uncommitment that will allow to disimplicate or cancel the implicaturum should occasion arise. The reference Grice makes between the sub-perceptum and the perceptum is grammatical, not psychological. Or else he may be meaning that in uttering, “I perceive that the pillar box is red,” one needs to appeal to Kant’s apperception of the ego. Refs.: Pecocke, Sense and content, Grice, BANC.

subscriptum: Quine thought that Grice’s subscript device was otiose, and that he would rather use brackets, or nothing, any day.  Grice plays with various roots of ‘scriptum.’ He was bound to. Moore had showed that ‘good’ was not ‘descriptive.’ Grice thinks it’s pseudo-descriptive. So here we have the first, ‘descriptum,’ where what is meant is Griceian: By uttering the “The cat is on the mat” U means, by his act of describing, that the cat is on the mat. Then there’s the ‘prae-scriptum.’ Oddly, Grice, when criticizing the ‘descriptive’ fallacy, seldom mentions the co-relative ‘prescriptum.’ “Good” would be understood in terms of a ‘prae-scriptum’ that appeals to his utterer’s intentions. Then there’s the subscriptum. This may have various use, both in Grice. “I subscribe,” and in the case of “Pegasus flies.” Where the utterer subscribes to his ontological commitment. subscript device. Why does Grice think we NEED a subscript device? Obviously, his wife would not use it. I mean, you cannot pronounce a subscript device or a square-bracket device. So his point is ironic. “Ordinary” language does not need it. But if Strawson and Quine are going to be picky about stuff – ontological commitment, ‘existential presupposition,’ let’s subscribe and bracket! Note that Quine’s response to Grice is perfunctory: “Brackets would have done!” Grice considers a quartet of utterances: Jack wants someone to marry him; Jack wants someone or other to marry him; Jack wants a particular person to marry him, and There is someone whom Jack wants to marry him.Grice notes that there are clearly at least two possible readings of an utterance like our (i): a first reading in which, as Grice puts it, (i) might be paraphrased by (ii). A second reading is one in which it might be paraphrased by (iii) or by (iv). Grice goes on to symbolize the phenomenon in his own version of a first-order predicate calculus. Ja wants that p becomes W^jap where ja stands for the individual constant Jack as a super-script attached to the predicate standing for Jacks psychological state or attitude. Grice writes: Using the apparatus of classical predicate logic, we might hope to represent, respectively, the external reading and the internal reading (involving an intentio secunda or intentio obliqua) as (Ǝx)W^jaFxja and W^ja(Ǝx)Fxja. Grice then goes on to discuss a slightly more complex, or oblique, scenario involving this second internal reading, which is the one that interests us, as it involves an intentio seconda.Grice notes: But suppose that Jack wants a specific individual, Jill, to marry him, and this because Jack has been deceived into thinking that his friend Joe has a highly delectable sister called Jill, though in fact Joe is an only child. The Jill Jack eventually goes up the hill with is, coincidentally, another Jill, possibly existent. Let us recall that Grices main focus of the whole essay is, as the title goes, emptiness! In these circumstances, one is inclined to say that (i) is true only on reading (vii), where the existential quantifier occurs within the scope of the psychological-state or -attitude verb, but we cannot now represent (ii) or (iii), with Jill being vacuous, by (vi), where the existential quantifier (Ǝx) occurs outside the scope of the psychological-attitude verb, want, since [well,] Jill does not really exist, except as a figment of Jacks imagination. In a manoeuver that I interpret as purely intentionalist, and thus favouring by far Suppess over Chomskys characterisation of Grice as a mere behaviourist, Grice hopes that we should be provided with distinct representations for two familiar readings of, now: Jack wants Jill to marry him and Jack wants Jill to marry him. It is at this point that Grice applies a syntactic scope notation involving sub-scripted numerals, (ix) and (x), where the numeric values merely indicate the order of introduction of the symbol to which it is attached in a deductive schema for the predicate calculus in question. Only the first formulation represents the internal reading (where ji stands for Jill): W₂^ja4F₁ji₃ja₄ and W₃^ja4F₂ji₁ja_4. Note that in the second formulation, the individual constant for Jill, ji, is introduced prior to want, – jis sub-script is 1, while Ws sub-script is the higher numerical value 3. Grice notes: Given that Jill does not exist, only the internal reading can be true, or alethically satisfactory. Grice sums up his reflections on the representation of the opaqueness of a verb standing for a psychological state or attitude like that expressed by wanting with one observation that further marks him as an intentionalist, almost of a Meinongian type. He is willing to allow for existential phrases in cases of vacuous designata, provided they occur within opaque psychological-state or attitude verbs, and he thinks that by doing this, he is being faithful to the richness and exuberance of ordinary discourse, while keeping Quine happy. As Grice puts it, we should also have available to us also three neutral, yet distinct, (Ǝx)-quantificational forms (together with their isomorphs), as a philosopher who thinks that Wittgenstein denies a distinction, craves for a generality! Jill now becomes x. W4ja5Ǝx3F1x2ja5, Ǝx5W2ja5F1x4ja3, Ǝx5W3ja4F1x2ja4. As Grice notes, since in (xii) the individual variable x (ranging over Jill) does not dominate the segment following the (Ǝx) quantifier, the formulation does not display any existential or de re, force, and is suitable therefore for representing the internal readings (ii) or (iii), if we have to allow, as we do have, if we want to faithfully represent ordinary discourse, for the possibility of expressing the fact that a particular person, Jill, does not actually exist.

stupid. Grice loved Plato. They are considering ‘horseness.’ “I cannot see horeseness; I can see horses.” “You are the epitome of stupidity.” “I cannot see stupidity. I see stupid.”

sub-gestum -- suggestio falsi – suggest. To suggest is like to ‘insinuate,’ only different. The root involves a favourite with Grice, ‘a gesture.’ That gesture is very suggesture. Grice explores hint versus suggest in Retrospective epilogue. Also cited by Strawson and Wiggins. The emissor’s implication is exactly this suggestio, for which suggestum. To suggest, advise, prompt, offer, bring to mind: “quoties aequitas restitutionem suggerit,” Dig. 4, 6, 26 fin.; cf.: “quae (res) suggerit, ut Italicarum rerum esse credantur eae res,” reminds, admonishes, ib. 28, 5, 35 fin.: “quaedam de republicā,” Aur. Vict. Vir. Ill. 66, 2. — Absol.: “suggerente conjuge,” at the instigation of, Aur. Vict. Epit. 41, 11; cf.: “suggerente irā,” id. ib. 12, 10 suggestio falsi. Pl. suggestiones falsi.  [mod.L., = suggestion of what is false.]  A misrepresentation of the truth whereby something incorrect is implied to be true; an indirect lie. Often in contexts with suppressio veri.  QUOTES:  1815 H. Maddock Princ. & Pract. Chancery I. 208  Whenever Suppressio veri or Suggestio falsi occur..they afford a sufficient ground for setting aside any Release or Conveyance.   1855 Newspaper & Gen. Reader's Pocket Compan. i.4  He was bound to say that the suppressio veri on that occasion approached very nearly to a positive suggestio falsi.   1898 Kipling Stalky & Co. (1899) 36  It seems..that they had held back material facts; that they were guilty both of suppressio veri and suggestio falsi.  1907 W. de Morgan Alice-for-Short xxxvi. 389   That's suppressio veri and suggestio falsi! Besides, it's fibs!   1962 J. Wilson Public Schools & Private Practice i. 19  It is rare to find a positively verifiable untruth in a school brochure: but it is equally rare not to find a great many suggestiones falsi, particularly as regards the material comfort and facilities available.   1980 D. Newsome On Edge of Paradise 7  There are undoubted cases of suppressio veri; on the other hand, he appears to eschew suggestio falsi.  --- Fibs indeed. Suppress, suggest.   Write: "Griceland, Inc."   "Yes, I agree to become a Doctor in Gricean Studies"   EXAM QUESTION:  1. Discuss suggestio falsi in terms of detachability.  2. Compare suppresio veri and suggestion falsi in connection with "The king of France is bald" uttered during Napoleon's time.  3. Invent things for 'suppressio falsi' and 'suggestio veri'.  4. No. You cannot go to the bathroom.

sub-gestum -- suggestum: not necesarilyy ‘falsi.’ The verb is ‘to suggest that…’ which is diaphanous. Note that the ‘su-‘ stands for ‘sub-‘ which conveys the implicitness or covertness of the impicatum. Indirectness. It’s ‘under,’ not ‘above’ board.’ To suggest, advise, prompt, offer, bring to mind: “quoties aequitas restitutionem suggerit,” Dig. 4, 6, 26 fin.; cf.: “quae (res) suggerit, ut Italicarum rerum esse credantur eae res,” reminds, admonishes, ib. 28, 5, 35 fin.: “quaedam de republicā,” Aur. Vict. Vir. Ill. 66, 2. — Absol.: “suggerente conjuge,” at the instigation of, Aur. Vict. Epit. 41, 11; cf.: “suggerente irā,” id. ib. 12, 10.— The implicaturum is a suggestum – ALWAYS cancellable. Or not? Sometimes not, if ‘reasonable,’ but not ‘rational.’ Jill suggests that Jack is brave when she says, “He is an Englishman, he is; therefore, brave.” The tommy suggests that her povery contrasts with her honesty (“’Tis the same the whole world over.”) So the ‘suggestum’ is like the implicaturum. A particular suggesta are ‘conversational suggestum.’ For Grice this is philosophically important, because many philosophical adages cover ‘suggesta’ which are not part of the philosopher’s import! Vide Holdcroft, “Some forms of indirect communication.”

sub-pressum -- suppresum veri: This is a bit like an act of omission – about which Urmson once asked, “Is that ‘to do,’ Grice?” – Strictly, it is implicatural. “Smith has a beautiful handwriting.” Grice’s abductum: “He must be suppressing some ‘veri,’ but surely the ‘suggestio falsi’ is cancellable. On the other hand, my abent-minded uncle, who ‘suppresses,’ is not ‘implicating.’ The ‘suppressio’ has to be ‘intentional,’ as an ‘omission’ is. Since for the Romans, the ‘verum’ applied to a unity (alethic/practical) this was good. No multiplication, but unity – cf. untranslatable (think) – modality ‘the ‘must’, neutral – desideratum-doxa – think – Yes, when Untranslatable discuss ‘vero’ they do say it applies to ‘factual’ and sincerity, I think. At Collections, the expectation is that Grice gives a report on the philosopher’s ability – not on  his handwriting. It is different when Grice applied to St. John’s. “He doesn’t return library books.” G. Richardson. Why did he use this on two occasions? In “Prolegomena,” he uses it for his desideratum of conversational fortitude (“make a strong conversational move”). To suppress. suggestio falsi. Pl. suggestiones falsi.  [mod.L., = suggestion of what is false.]  A misrepresentation of the truth whereby something incorrect is implied to be true; an indirect lie. Often in contexts with suppressio veri.  QUOTES:  1815 H. Maddock Princ. & Pract. Chancery I. 208  Whenever Suppressio veri or Suggestio falsi occur..they afford a sufficient ground for setting aside any Release or Conveyance.   1855 Newspaper & Gen. Reader's Pocket Compan. i.4  He was bound to say that the suppressio veri on that occasion approached very nearly to a positive suggestio falsi.   1898 Kipling Stalky & Co. (1899) 36  It seems..that they had held back material facts; that they were guilty both of suppressio veri and suggestio falsi.  1907 W. de Morgan Alice-for-Short xxxvi. 389   That's suppressio veri and suggestio falsi! Besides, it's fibs!   1962 J. Wilson Public Schools & Private Practice i. 19  It is rare to find a positively verifiable untruth in a school brochure: but it is equally rare not to find a great many suggestiones falsi, particularly as regards the material comfort and facilities available.   1980 D. Newsome On Edge of Paradise 7  There are undoubted cases of suppressio veri; on the other hand, he appears to eschew suggestio falsi.  --- Fibs indeed. Suppress, suggest.   Write: "Griceland, Inc."   "Yes, I agree to become a Doctor in Gricean Studies"   EXAM QUESTION:  1. Discuss suggestio falsi in terms of detachability.  2. Compare suppresio veri and suggestion falsi in connection with "The king of France is bald" uttered during Napoleon's time.  3. Invent things for 'suppressio falsi' and 'suggestio veri'.  4. No. You cannot go to the bathroom.

super-knowing. In WoW. A notion Grice detested. Grice, “I detest superknowing.” “For that reason, I propose a closure clause – for a communicatum to count as one, there should not be any sneaky intention.” The use of ‘super’ is Plotinian. If God is super-good, he is not good. If someobody superknows, he doesn’t know. This is an implicaturum. Surely it is cancellable: “God is supergood; therefore, He is good.” “Smith superknows that p; therefore, Smith, as per a semantic entailment, knows that p.” Grice: “The implicature arise out of the postulate of conversational fortitude: why stop at knowing if you can claim that Smith superknows? Why say that God is love, when He is super-love?”

subjectum – Grecian hypokeimenon – Grice’s ‘implying,’ qua nominalization, is a category shift, a subjectification, or objectificiation. – We have ‘employ,’ ‘imply,’ and then ‘implication,’ ‘implicature, and ‘implying’ Using the participles, we have the active voice present implicans, the active voice future, implicaturum, and the passive perfect ‘impicatum.’ subjectivism, any philosophical view that attempts to understand in a subjective manner what at first glance would seem to be a class of judgments that are objectively either true or false  i.e., true or false independently of what we believe, want, or hope. There are two ways of being a subjectivist. In the first way, one can say that the judgments in question, despite first appearances, are really judgments about our own attitudes, beliefs, emotions, etc. In the second way, one can deny that the judgments are true or false at all, arguing instead that they are disguised commands or expressions of attitudes. In ethics, for example, a subjective view of the second sort is that moral judgments are simply expressions of our positive and negative attitudes. This is emotivism. Prescriptivism is also a subjective view of the second sort; it is the view that moral judgments are really commands  to say “X is good” is to say, details aside, “Do X.” Views that make morality ultimately a matter of conventions or what we or most people agree to can also be construed as subjective theories, albeit of the first type. Subjectivism is not limited to ethics, however. According to a subjective view of epistemic rationality, the standards of rational belief are the standards that the individual or perhaps most members in the individual’s community would approve of insofar as they are interested in believing those propositions that are true and not believing those propositions that are false. Similarly, phenomenalists can be regarded as proposing a subjective account of material object statements, since according to them, such statements are best understood as complex statements about the course of our experiences. 

subiectum-obiectum-abiectumm-exiectum quartet, the: Grice: subject-object dichotomy, the distinction between thinkers and what they think about. The distinction is not exclusive, since subjects can also be objects, as in reflexive self-conscious thought, which takes the subject as its intended object. The dichotomy also need not be an exhaustive distinction in the strong sense that everything is either a subject or an object, since in a logically possible world in which there are no thinkers, there may yet be mind-independent things that are neither subjects nor objects. Whether there are non-thinking things that are not objects of thought in the actual world depends on whether or not it is sufficient in logic to intend every individual thing by such thoughts and expressions as ‘We can think of everything that exists’. The dichotomy is an interimplicative distinction between thinkers and what they think about, in which each presupposes the other. If there are no subjects, then neither are there objects in the true sense, and conversely. A subjectobject dichotomy is acknowledged in most Western philosophical traditions, but emphasized especially in Continental philosophy, beginning with Kant, and carrying through idealist thought in Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer. It is also prominent in intentionalist philosophy, in the empirical psychology of Brentano, the object theory of Meinong, Ernst Mally, and Twardowski, and the transcendental phenomenology of Husserl. Subjectobject dichotomy is denied by certain mysticisms, renounced as the philosophical fiction of duality, of which Cartesian mindbody dualism is a particular instance, and criticized by mystics as a confusion that prevents mind from recognizing its essential oneness with the world, thereby contributing to unnecessary intellectual and moral dilemmas.

sublime: sub-lime, neuter.  sublīmie (collat. form sublīmus , a, um: ex sublimo vertice, Cic. poët. Tusc. 2, 7, 19; Enn. ap. Non. 169; Att. and Sall. ib. 489, 8 sq.; Lucr. 1, 340), adj. etym. dub.; perh. sub-limen, up to the lintel; cf. sublimen (sublimem est in altitudinem elatum, Fest. p. 306 Müll.), I.uplifted, high, lofty, exalted, elevated (mostly poet. and in postAug. prose; not in Cic. or Cæs.; syn.: editus, arduus, celsus, altus). I. Lit. A. In gen., high, lofty: “hic vertex nobis semper sublimis,” Verg. G. 1, 242; cf. Hor. C. 1, 1, 36: “montis cacumen,” Ov. M. 1, 666: “tectum,” id. ib. 14, 752: “columna,” id. ib. 2, 1: “atrium,” Hor. C. 3, 1, 46: “arcus (Iridis),” Plin. 2, 59, 60, § 151: “portae,” Verg. A. 12, 133: “nemus,” Luc. 3, 86 et saep.: os, directed upwards (opp. to pronus), Ov. M. 1, 85; cf. id. ib. 15, 673; Hor. A. P. 457: “flagellum,” uplifted, id. C. 3, 26, 11: “armenta,” Col. 3, 8: “currus,” Liv. 28, 9.—Comp.: “quanto sublimior Atlas Omnibus in Libyā sit montibus,” Juv. 11, 24.—Sup.: “triumphans in illo sublimissimo curru,” Tert. Apol. 33.— B. Esp., borne aloft, uplifted, elevated, raised: “rapite sublimem foras,” Plaut. Mil. 5, 1: “sublimem aliquem rapere (arripere, auferre, ferre),” id. As. 5, 2, 18; id. Men. 5, 7, 3; 5, 7, 6; 5, 7, 13; 5, 8, 3; Ter. And. 5, 2, 20; id. Ad. 3, 2, 18; Verg. A. 5, 255; 11, 722 (in all these passages others read sublimen, q. v.); Ov. M 4, 363 al.: “campi armis sublimibus ardent,” borne aloft, lofty, Verg. A. 11, 602: sublimes in equis redeunt, id. ib. 7, 285: “apparet liquido sublimis in aëre Nisus,” id. G. 1, 404; cf.: “ipsa (Venus) Paphum sublimis abit,” on high through the air, id. A. 1, 415: “sublimis abit,” Liv. 1, 16; 1, 34: “vehitur,” Ov. M. 5, 648 al.— C. On high, lofty, in a high position: “tenuem texens sublimis aranea telum,” Cat. 68, 49: “juvenem sublimem stramine ponunt,” Verg. A. 11, 67: “sedens solio sublimis avito,” Ov. M. 6, 650: “Tyrio jaceat sublimis in ostro,” id. H. 12, 179.— D. Subst.: sublīme , is, n., height; sometimes to be rendered the air: “piro per lusum in sublime jactato,” Suet. Claud. 27; so, in sublime, Auct. B. Afr. 84, 1; Plin. 10, 38, 54, § 112; 31, 6, 31, § 57: “per sublime volantes grues,” id. 18, 35, 87, § 362: “in sublimi posita facies Dianae,” id. 36, 5, 4, § 13: “ex sublimi devoluti,” id. 27, 12, 105, § 129.—Plur.: “antiquique memor metuit sublimia casus,” Ov. M. 8, 259: “per maria ac terras sublimaque caeli,” Lucr. 1, 340.— II. Trop., lofty, exalted, eminent, distinguished. A. In gen.: “antiqui reges ac sublimes viri,” Varr. R. R. 2, 4, 9; cf. Luc. 10, 378: “mens,” Ov. P. 3, 3, 103: “pectora,” id. F. 1, 301: “nomen,” id. Tr. 4, 10, 121: “sublimis, cupidusque et amata relinquere pernix,” aspiring, Hor. A. P. 165; cf.: “nil parvum sapias et adhuc sublimia cures,” id. Ep. 1, 12, 15.—Comp.: “quā claritate nihil in rebus humanis sublimius duco,” Plin. 22, 5, 5, § 10; Juv. 8, 232.—Sup.: “sancimus supponi duos sublimissimos judices,” Cod. Just. 7, 62, 39.— B. In partic., of language, lofty, elevated, sublime (freq. in Quint.): “sublimia carmina,” Juv. 7, 28: “verbum,” Quint. 8, 3, 18: “clara et sublimia verba,” id. ib.: “oratio,” id. 8, 3, 74: “genus dicendi,” id. 11, 1, 3: “actio (opp. causae summissae),” id. 11, 3, 153: “si quis sublimia humilibus misceat,” id. 8, 3, 60 et saep.—Transf., of orators, poets, etc.: “natura sublimis et acer,” Hor. Ep. 2, 1, 165: “sublimis et gravis et grandiloquus (Aeschylus),” Quint. 10, 1, 66: “Trachalus plerumque sublimis,” id. 10, 1, 119.—Comp.: “sublimior gravitas Sophoclis,” Quint. 10, 1, 68: “sublimius aliquid,” id. 8, 3, 14: “jam sublimius illud pro Archiā, Saxa atque solitudines voci respondent,” id. 8, 3, 75.—Hence, advv. 1. Lit., aloft, loftily, on high. (α). Form sub-līmĭter (rare ): “stare,” upright, Cato, R. R. 70, 2; so id. ib. 71: “volitare,” Col. 8, 11, 1: “munitur locus,” id. 8, 15, 1.— (β). Form sub-līme (class. ): “Theodori nihil interest, humine an sublime putescat,” Cic. Tusc. 1, 43, 102; cf.: “scuta, quae fuerant sublime fixa, sunt humi inventa,” id. Div. 2, 31, 67: “volare,” Lucr. 2, 206; 6, 97: “ferri,” Cic. Tusc. 1, 17, 40; id. N. D. 2, 39, 101; 2, 56, 141 Orell. N. cr.: “elati,” Liv. 21, 30: “expulsa,” Verg. G. 1, 320 et saep.— b. Comp.: “sublimius altum Attollit caput,” Ov. Hal. 69.— 2. Trop., of speech, in a lofty manner, loftily (very rare): “alia sublimius, alia gravius esse dicenda,” Quint. 9, 4, 130. Grice’s favoured translation of Grecian ‘hypsos’ -- a feeling brought about by objects that are infinitely large or vast such as the heavens or the ocean or overwhelmingly powerful such as a raging torrent, huge mountains, or precipices. The former in Kant’s terminology is the mathematically sublime and the latter the dynamically sublime. Though the experience of the sublime is to an important extent unpleasant, it is also accompanied by a certain pleasure: we enjoy the feeling of being overwhelmed. On Kant’s view, this pleasure results from an awareness that we have powers of reason that are not dependent on sensation, but that legislate over sense. The sublime thus displays both the limitations of sense experience and hence our feeling of displeasure and the power of our own mind and hence the feeling of pleasure. The sublime was an especially important concept in the aesthetic theory of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Reflection on it was stimulated by the appearance of a translation of Longinus’s Peri hypsous On the Sublime in 1674. The “postmodern sublime” has in addition emerged in late twentieth century thought as a basis for raising questions about art. Whereas beauty is associated with that whose form can be apprehended, the sublime is associated with the formless, that which is “unpresentable” in sensation. Thus, it is connected with critiques of “the aesthetic”  understood as that which is sensuously present  as a way of understanding what is important about art. It has also been given a political reading, where the sublime connects with resistance to rule, and beauty connects with conservative acceptance of existing forms or structures of society. 

subsidiarium: sub-sidiarium -- subsidiarity, a basic principle of social order and the common good governing the relations between the higher and lower associations in a political community. Positively, the principle of subsidiarity holds that the common good, i.e., the ensemble of social resources and institutions that facilitate human self-realization, depends on fostering the free, creative initiatives of individuals and of their voluntary associations; thus, the state, in addition to its direct role in maintaining public good which comprises justice, public peace, and public morality also has an indirect role in promoting other aspects of the common good by rendering assistance subsidium to those individuals and associations whose activities facilitate cooperative human self-realization in work, play, the arts, sciences, and religion. Negatively, the principle of subsidiarity holds that higher-level i.e., more comprehensive associations  while they must monitor, regulate, and coordinate  ought not to absorb, replace, or undermine the free initiatives and activities of lower-level associations and individuals insofar as these are not contrary to the common good. This presumption favoring free individual and social initiative has been defended on various grounds, such as the inefficiency of burdening the state with myriad local concerns, as well as the corresponding efficiency of unleashing the free, creative potential of subordinate groups and individuals who build up the shared economic, scientific, and artistic resources of society. But the deeper ground for this presumption is the view subjunctive conditional subsidiarity 886   886 that human flourishing depends crucially on freedom for individual self-direction and for the self-government of voluntary associations and that human beings flourish best through their own personal and cooperative initiatives rather than as the passive consumers or beneficiaries of the initiatives of others. 

subsistum: sub-sistum -- subsistence translation of G. Bestand, in current philosophy, especially Meinong’s system, the kind of being that belongs to “ideal” objects such as mathematical objects, states of affairs, and abstractions like similarity and difference. By contrast, the kind of being that belongs to “real” wirklich objects, things of the sorts investigated by the sciences other than psychology and pure mathematics, is called existence Existenz. Existence and subsistence together exhaust the realm of being Sein. So, e.g., the subsistent ideal figures whose properties are investigated by geometers do not exist  they are nowhere to be found in the real world  but it is no less true of them that they have being than it is of an existent physical object: there are such figures. Being does not, however, exhaust the realm of objects or things. The psychological phenomenon of intentionality shows that there are in some sense of ‘there are’ objects that neither exist nor subsist. Every intentional state is directed toward an object. Although one may covet the Hope Diamond or desire the unification of Europe, one may also covet a non-existent material object or desire a non-subsistent state of affairs. If one covets a non-existent diamond, there is in some sense of ‘there is’ something that one covets  one’s state of mind has an object  and it has certain properties: it is, e.g., a diamond. It may therefore be said to inhabit the realm of Sosein ‘being thus’ or ‘predication’ or ‘having properties’, which is the category comprising the totality of objects. Objects that do not have any sort of being, either existence or subsistence, belong to non-being Nichtsein. In general, the properties of an object do not determine whether it has being or non-being. But there are special cases: the round square, by its very nature, cannot subsist. Meinong thus maintains that objecthood is ausserseiend, i.e., independent of both existence and subsistence.

substratum: sub-statum: hypoeinai, hypostasis, hypokemeinon -- substantia – Grice: “The Romans never felt the need for the word ‘substantia’ but trust Cicero to force them to use it!” -- Grice lectured on this with J. L. Austin and P. F. Strawson. hypousia -- as defined by Aristotle in the Categories, that which is neither predicable “sayable” of anything nor present in anything as an aspect or property of it. The examples he gives are an individual man and an individual horse. We can predicate being a horse of something but not a horse; nor is a horse in something else. He also held that only substances can remain self-identical through change. All other things are accidents of substances and exist only as aspects, properties, or relations of substances, or kinds of substances, which Aristotle called secondary substances. An example of an accident would be the color of an individual man, and an example of a secondary substance would be his being a man. For Locke, a substance is that part of an individual thing in which its properties inhere. Since we can observe, indeed know, only a thing’s properties, its substance is unknowable. Locke’s sense is obviously rooted in Aristotle’s but the latter carries no skeptical implications. In fact, Locke’s sense is closer in meaning to what Aristotle calls matter, and would be better regarded as a synonym of ‘substratum’, as indeed it is by Locke. Substance may also be conceived as that which is capable of existing independently of anything else. This sense is also rooted in Aristotle’s, but, understood quite strictly, leads to Spinoza’s view that there can be only one substance, namely, the totality of reality or God. A fourth sense of ‘substance’ is the common, ordinary sense, ‘what a thing is made of’. This sense is related to Locke’s, but lacks the latter’s skeptical implications. It also corresponds to what Aristotle meant by matter, at least proximate matter, e.g., the bronze of a bronze statue Aristotle analyzes individual things as composites of matter and form. This notion of matter, or stuff, has great philosophical importance, because it expresses an idea crucial to both our ordinary and our scientific understandings of the world. Philosophers such as Hume who deny the existence of substances hold that individual things are mere bundles of properties, namely, the properties ordinarily attributed to them, and usually hold that they are incapable of change; they are series of momentary events, rather than things enduring through time. 

substantialism, the view that the primary, most fundamental entities are substances, everything else being dependent for its existence on them, either as a property of them or a relation between them. Different versions of the view would correspond to the different senses of the word ‘substance’. 

salva-veritate/salva-congruitate distinction, the The phrase occurs in two fragments from Gottfried Leibniz's General Science. Characteristics:  In Chapter 19, Definition 1, Leibniz writes: "Two terms are the same (eadem) if one can be substituted for the other without altering the truth of any statement (salva veritate)." In Chapter 20, Definition 1, Leibniz writes: "Terms which can be substituted for one another wherever we please without altering the truth of any statement (salva veritate), are the same (eadem) or coincident (coincidentia). For example, 'triangle' and 'trilateral', for in every proposition demonstrated by Euclid concerning 'triangle', 'trilateral' can be substituted without loss of truth (salva veritate)." ubstitutivity salva veritate: Grice: “The phrase ‘salva veritate’ has been used at Oxford for years, Kneale tells me!” -- a condition met by two expressions when one is substitutable for the other at a certain occurrence in a sentence and the truth-value truth or falsity of the sentence is necessarily unchanged when the substitution is made. In such a case the two expressions are said to exhibit substitutivity or substitutability salva veritate literally, ‘with truth saved’ with respect to one another in that context. The expressions are also said to be interchangeable or intersubstitutable salva veritate in that context. Where it is obvious from a given discussion that it is the truth-value that is to be preserved, it may be said that the one expression is substitutable for the other or exhibits substitutability with respect to the other at that place. Leibniz proposed to use the universal interchangeability salva veritate of two terms in every “proposition” in which they occur as a necessary and sufficient condition for identity  presumably for the identity of the things denoted by the terms. There are apparent exceptions to this criterion, as Leibniz himself noted. If a sentence occurs in a context governed by a psychological verb such as ‘believe’ or ‘desire’, by an expression conveying modality e.g., ‘necessarily’, ‘possibly’, or by certain temporal expressions such as ‘it will soon be the case that’, then two terms may denote the same thing but not be interchangeable within such a sentence. Occurrences of expressions within quotation marks or where the expressions are both mentioned and used cf. Quine’s example, “Giorgione was so-called because of his size” also exhibit failure of substitutivity. Frege urged that such failures are to be explained by the fact that within such contexts an expression does not have its ordinary denotation but denotes instead either its usual sense or the expression itself. Salva congruitate From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search Salva congruitate[1] is a Latin scholastic term in logic, which means "without becoming ill-formed",[2] salva meaning rescue, salvation, welfare and congruitate meaning combine, coincide, agree. Salva Congruitate is used in logic to mean that two terms may be substituted for each other while preserving grammaticality in all contexts.[3][4]   Contents 1 Remarks on salva congruitate 1.1 Timothy C. Potts 1.2 Bob Hale 2See also 3References Remarks on salva congruitate Timothy C. Potts Timothy C. Potts describes salva congruitate as a form of replacement in the context of meaning. It is a replacement which preserves semantic coherence and should be distinguished from a replacement which preserves syntactic coherence but may yield an expression to which no meaning has been given. This means that supposing an original expression is meaningful, the new expression obtained by the replacement will also be meaningful, though it will not necessarily have the same meaning as the original one, nor, if the expression in question happens to be a proposition, will the replacement necessarily preserve the truth value of the original.[5]  Bob Hale Bob Hale explains salva congruitate, as applied to singular terms, as substantival expressions in natural language, which are able to replace singular terms without destructive effect on the grammar of a sentence.[6] Thus the singular term 'Bob' may be replaced by the definite description 'the first man to swim the English Channel' salva congruitate. Such replacement may shift both meaning and reference, and so, if made in the context of a sentence, may cause a change in truth-value. Thus terms which may be interchanged salva congruitate may not be interchangeable salva veritate (preserving truth). More generally, expressions of any type are interchangeable salva congruitate if and only if they can replace one another preserving grammaticality or well-formedness.  See also Salva veritate Reference principle Referential opacity Crispin Wright Peter Geach References  W.V.O. Quine, Philosophy of logic  Dr. Benjamin Schnieder, Canonical Property Designators, P9  W.V.O. Quine, Quiddities, P204  W.V.O. Quine, Philosophy of Logic, P18  Timothy C. Potts, Structures and categories for the representation of meaning, p57  Bob Hale, Singular Terms, P34 Categories: Concepts in logicPhilosophical logicPhilosophy of languageLatin logical phrases. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Implicaturum salva veritate,” H. P. Grice, “What I learned from T. C. Potts.” – T. C. Potts, “My tutorials with Grice at St. John’s.”

summum bonum: Grice: “that in relation to which all other things have at most instrumental value value only insofar as they are productive of what is the highest good. Philosophical conceptions of the summum bonum have for the most part been teleological in character. That is, they have identified the highest good in terms of some goal or goals that human beings, it is supposed, pursue by their very nature. These natural goals or ends have differed considerably. For the theist, this end is God; for the rationalist, it is the rational comprehension of what is real; for hedonism, it is pleasure; etc. The highest good, however, need not be teleologically construed. It may simply be posited, or supposed, that it is known, through some intuitive process, that a certain type of thing is “intrinsically good.” On such a view, the relevant contrast is not so much between what is good as an end and what is good as a means to this end, as between what is good purely in itself and what is good only in combination with certain other elements the “extrinsically good”. Perhaps the best example of such a view of the highest good would be the position of Moore. Must the summum bonum be just one thing, or one kind of thing? Yes, to this extent: although one could certainly combine pluralism the view that there are many, irreducibly different goods with an assertion that the summum bonum is “complex,” the notion of the highest good has typically been the province of monists believers in a single good, not pluralists.

summum genus. What adjective is the ‘sumum’ translating, Grice wondered. And he soon found out. We know that the Romans were unoriginally enough with their ‘genus’ (cf. ‘gens’) translating Grecian ‘genos.’ The highest category in the ‘arbor griceiana’ -- The categories. There is infimum genus, or sub-summum. Talk of categories becomes informal in Grice when he ‘echoes’ Kant in the mention of four ‘functions’ that generate for Kant twelve categories. Grice however uses the functions themselves, echoing Ariskant, rather, as ‘caegory’. We have then a category of conversational quantity (involved in a principle of maximization of conversational informativeness). We have a category of conversational quality (or a desideratum of conversational candour). We have a category of conversational relation (cf. Strawson’s principle of relevance along with Strawson’s principles of the presumption of knowledge and the presumption of ignorance). Lastly, we have a category of conversational mode. For some reason, Grice uses ‘manner’ sometimes in lieu of Meiklejohn’s apt translation of Kant’s modality into the shorter ‘mode.’ The four have Aristotelian pedigree, indeed Grecian and Graeco-Roman: The quantity is Kant’s quantitat which is Aristotle’s posotes (sic abstract) rendered in Roman as ‘quantitas.’ Of course, Aristotle derives ‘posotes,’ from ‘poson,’ the quantum. No quantity without quantum. The quality is Kant’s qualitat, which again has Grecian and Graeco-Roman pediegree. It is Aristotel’s poiotes (sic in abstract), rendered in Roman as qualitas. Again, derived from the more basic ‘poion,’ or ‘quale.’ Aristotle was unable to find a ‘-tes’ ending form for what Kant has as ‘relation.’ ‘pros it’ is used, and first translated into Roman as ‘relatio.’ We see here that we are talking of a ‘summum genus.’ For who other but a philosopher is going to lecture on the ‘pros it’? What Aristotle means is that Socrates is to the right of Plato. Finally, for Grice’s mode, there is Kant’s wrong ‘modalitat,’ since this refers to Aristotle ‘te’ and translated in Roman as ‘modus,’ which Meiklejohn, being a better classicist than Kant, renders as ‘mode,’ and not the pretentious sounding ‘modality.’ Now for Kant, 12 categories are involved here. Why? Because he subdivides each summum genus into three sub-summum or ‘inferiore’ genus. This is complex. Kant would DISAGREE with Grice’s idea that a subject can JUDGE in generic terms, say, about the quantum. The subject has THREE scenarios. It’s best to reverse the order, for surely unity comes before totality. One scenario, he utters a SINGULAR or individual utterance (Grice on ‘the’). The CATEGORY is the first category, THE UNUM or UNITAS. The one. The unity. Second scenario, he utters a PARTICULAR utterance (Grice’s “some (at least one). Here we encounter the SECOND category, that of PLURALITAS, the plurum, plurality. It’s a good thing Kant forgot that the Greeks had a dual number, and that Urquhart has fourth number, a re-dual. A third scenario: the nirvana. He utters a UNIVERSAL (totum) utterance (Grice on “all”). The category is that of TOTUM, TOTALITAS, totality. Kant does not deign to specify if he means substitutional or non-substitutional. For the quale, there are again three scenarios for Kant, and he would deny that the subject is confronted with the FUNCTION quale and be able to formulate a judgement. The first scenario involves the subject uttering a PROPOSITIO DEDICATIVA (Grice elaborates on this before introducing ‘not’ in “Indicative conditionals” – “Let’s start with some unstructured amorophous proposition.” Here the category is NOT AFFIRMATION, but the nirvana “REALITAS,” Reality, reale.Second scenario, subject utters a PROPOSITIO ABDICATIVA (Grice on ‘not’). While Kant does not consider affirmatio a category (why should he?), he does consider NEGATIO a category. Negation. See abdicatum. Third scenario, subject utters an PROPOSITIO INFINITA. Here the category is that of LIMITATION, which is quite like NEGATIO (cf. privatio, stelesis, versus habitus or hexis), but not quite. Possibly LIMITATUM. Regarding the ‘pros ti.’ The first scenario involves a categorema, PROPOSITIO CATEGORICA. Here Kant seems to think that there is ONE category called “INHERENCE AND SUBSTISTENCE or substance and accident. There seem rather two. He will go to this ‘pair’ formulation in one more case in the relation, and for the three under modus. If we count the ‘categorical pairs’ as being two categories. The total would not be 12 categories but 17, which is a rather ugly number for a list of categories, unles it is not. Kant is being VERY serious here, because if he has SUBSTISTENCE or SUBSTANCE as a category, this is SECUNDA SUBSTANTIA or ‘deutero-ousia.’ It is a no-no to count the prote ousia or PRIMA SUBSTANTIA as a category. It is defined as THE THING which cannot be predicated of anything! “SUMBEBEKOS” is a trick of Kant, for surely EVERYTHING BUT THE SUBSTANCE can be seen as an ‘accidens’ (In fact, those who deny categories, reduce them to ‘attribute’, or ‘property.’ The second scenario involves an ‘if’ Grice on ‘if’ – PROPOSITIO CONDITIONALIS – hypothetike protasis -- this involves for the first time a MOLECULAR proposition. As in the previous case, we have a ‘category pair’, which is formulated either as CAUSALITY (CAUSALITAS) and DEPENDENCE (Dependentia), or “cause’ (CAUSA) and ‘effect’ (Effectum). Kant is having in mind Strawson’s account of ‘if’ (The influence of P. F. Strawson on Kant). For since this is the hypothetical, Kant is suggeseting that in ‘if p, q’ q depends on p, or q is an effect of its cause, p. As in “If it rains, the boots are in the closet.” (J). The third scenario also involves a molectural proposition, A DISJUNCTUM. PROPOSITIO DISJUNCTIVA. Note that in Kant, ‘if’ before ‘or’! His implicaturum: subordination before coordination, which makes sense. Grice on ‘or.’ FOR SOME REASON, the category here for Kant is that of COMMUNITAS (community) or RECIPROCITAS, reciprocity. He seems to be suggesting that if you turn to the right or to the left, you are reciprocally forbidden to keep on going straight. For the modus, similar. Here Kant is into modality. Again, it is best to re-order the scenarios in terms of priority. Here it’s the middle which is basic. The first scenario, subject utters an ASSERTORIC. The category is a pair: EXISTENCE (how is this different from REALITY) and NON-EXISTENCE (how is this different from negation?). He has in mind: ‘the cat is in the room,’ ‘the room is empty.’ Second scenario, the subject doubts. subject utters a problematical. (“The pillar box may be red”). Here we have a category pair: POSSIBILITIAS (possibility) and, yes, IMPOSSIBILITAS – IMPOSSIBILITY. This is odd, because ‘impossibility’ goes rather with the negation of necessity. The third and last scenario, subject utters an APODEICTIC. Here again there is a category pair – yielding 17 as the final number --: NECESSITAS, necessity, and guess what, CONTINGENTIA, or contingency. Surely, possibilitas and contingentia are almost the same thing. It may be what Grice has in mind when he blames a philosopher to state that ‘what is actual is not also possible.’ Or not. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Gilbert Ryle’s criticism of Ariskant’s categories,” Ryle, “Categories.” “The nisnamed categories.” Ryle notes that when it comes to ‘relatio,’ Kant just murders Aristotle’s idea of a ‘relation’ as in higher than, or smaller than. – “His idea of the molecular propositions has nothing to do with Aristotle’s ‘relation’ or ‘pros ti.’”

sub-positum, suppositum – (literally, ‘sub-positum,’) -- cf. presuppositum -- in the Middle Ages, reference. The theory of supposition, the central notion in the theory of proprietates terminorum, was developed in the twelfth century, and was refined and discussed into early modern times. It has two parts their names are a modern convenience. 1 The theory of supposition proper. This typically divided suppositio into “personal” reference to individuals not necessarily to persons, despite the name, “simple” reference to species or genera, and “material” reference to spoken or written expressions. Thus ‘man’ in ‘Every man is an animal’ has personal supposition, in ‘Man is a species’ simple supposition, and in ‘Man is a monosyllable’ material supposition. The theory also included an account of how the range of a term’s reference is affected by tense and by modal factors. 2 The theory of “modes” of personal supposition. This part of supposition theory divided personal supposition typically into “discrete” ‘Socrates’ in ‘Socrates is a man’, “determinate” ‘man’ in ‘Some man is a Grecian’, “confused and distributive” ‘man’ in ‘Every man is an animal’, and “merely confused” ‘animal’ in ‘Every man is an animal’. The purpose of this second part of the theory is a matter of some dispute. By the late fourteenth century, it had in some authors become a theory of quantification. The term ‘suppositio’ was also used in the Middle Ages in the ordinary sense, to mean ‘assumption’, ‘hypothesis’. H. P. Grice, “Implicaturum, implicatum, positum, subpositum;” H. P. Grice: “A communicational analogy: explicatum/expositum:implicatum/impositum,” H. P. Grice, “The positum: between the sub-positum and the supra-positum,” H. P. Grice, “The implicaturum, the sous-entendu, and the sub-positum.”

survival: discussed by Grice in what he calls the ‘genoritorial programme, where the philosopher posits himself as a creature-constructor. It’s an expository device that allows to ask questions in the third person, “seeing that we can thus avoid the so-called ‘first-person bias’” -- continued existence after one’s biological death. So understood, survival can pertain only to beings that are organisms at some time or other, not to beings that are disembodied at all times as angels are said to be or to beings that are embodied but never as organisms as might be said of computers. Theories that maintain that one’s individual consciousness is absorbed into a universal consciousness after death or that one continues to exist only through one’s descendants, insofar as they deny one’s own continued existence as an individual, are not theories of survival. Although survival does not entail immortality or anything about reward or punishment in an afterlife, many theories of survival incorporate these features. Theories about survival have expressed differing attitudes about the importance of the body. supervenient behaviorism survival 892   892 Some philosophers have maintained that persons cannot survive without their own bodies, typically espousing a doctrine of resurrection; such a view was held by Aquinas. Others, including the Pythagoreans, have believed that one can survive in other bodies, allowing for reincarnation into a body of the same species or even for transmigration into a body of another species. Some, including Plato and perhaps the Pythagoreans, have claimed that no body is necessary, and that survival is fully achieved by one’s escaping embodiment. There is a similar spectrum of opinion about the importance of one’s mental life. Some, such as Locke, have supposed that survival of the same person would require memory of one’s having experienced specific past events. Plato’s doctrine of recollection, in contrast, supposes that one can survive without any experiential memory; all that one typically is capable of recollecting are impersonal necessary truths. Philosophers have tested the relative importance of bodily versus mental factors by means of various thought experiments, of which the following is typical. Suppose that a person’s whole mental life  memories, skills, and character traits  were somehow duplicated into a data bank and erased from the person, leaving a living radical amnesiac. Suppose further that the person’s mental life were transcribed into another radically amnesiac body. Has the person survived, and if so, as whom? 

swedenborgianism: the theosophy professed by a worldwide movement established as the New Jerusalem Church in London by the followers of the philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg. Swedenborg fuses the rationalist Cartesian and empiricist Lockean legacies into a natural philosophy “Principia Rerum Naturalium,” that propounds the harmony of the mechanistic universe with biblical revelation. Inspired by Liebniz, Malebranche, Platonism, and Neoplatonism, Swedenborg unfolds a doctrine of correspondence, “A Hieroglyphic Key,” to account for the relation between body and soul and between the natural and spiritual worlds, and applied it to biblical exegesis. What attracts the wide following of the “Spirit-Seer” are his speculations in the line of Boehme and the mystical, prophetic tradition in which he excelled, as in Heavenly Arcana. Grice’s great uncle was a Swedenborgian.

swinburne: Grice: “Those Savoyards among us should never confuse Swinburne, parodied in “Patience,” and the Oxonian theologian – hardly an aesthete!” -- English philosopher of religion and of science. In philosophy of science, he has contributed to confirmation theory and to the philosophy of space and time. His work in philosophy of religion is the most ambitious project in philosophical theology undertaken by a British philosopher in the twentieth century. Its first part is a trilogy on the coherence and justification of theistic belief and the rationality of living by that belief: TheCoherence of Theism 7, The Existence of God 9, and Faith and Reason 1. Since 5, when Swinburne became Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the  of Oxford, he has written a tetralogy about some of the most central of the distinctively Christian religious doctrines: Responsibility and Atonement 9, Revelation 2, The Christian God 4, and Providence and the Problem of Evil 8. The most interesting feature of the trilogy is its contribution to natural theology. Using Bayesian reasoning, Swinburne builds a cumulative case for theism by arguing that its probability is raised sustaining cause Swinburne, Richard 893   893 by such things as the existence of the universe, its order, the existence of consciousness, human opportunities to do good, the pattern of history, evidence of miracles, and religious experience. The existence of evil does not count against the existence of God. On our total evidence theism is more probable than not. In the tetralogy he explicates and defends such Christian doctrines as original sin, the Atonement, Heaven, Hell, the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Providence. He also analyzes the grounds for supposing that some Christian doctrines are revealed truths, and argues for a Christian theodicy in response to the problem of evil. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Swinburne et moi.”

synæsthesia: cum-perceptum: co-sensibile – cum-sensibile – co-sensatio, co-sensation -- a conscious experience in which qualities normally associated with one sensory modality are or seem to be sensed in another. Examples include auditory and tactile visions such as “loud sunlight” and “soft moonlight” as well as visual bodily sensations such as “dark thoughts” and “bright smiles.” Two features of synaesthesia are of philosophic interest. First, the experience may be used to judge the appropriateness of sensory metaphors and similes, such as Baudelaire’s “sweet as oboes.” The metaphor is appropriate just when oboes sound sweet. Second, synaesthesia challenges the manner in which common sense distinguishes among the external senses. It is commonly acknowledged that taste, e.g., is not only unlike hearing, smell, or any other sense, but differs from them because taste involves gustatory rather than auditory experiences. In synaesthesia, however, one might taste sounds sweet-sounding oboes. G.A.G. syncategoremata, 1 in grammar, words that cannot serve by themselves as subjects or predicates of categorical propositions. The opposite is categoremata, words that can do this. For example, ‘and’, ‘if’, ‘every’, ‘because’, ‘insofar’, and ‘under’ are syncategorematic terms, whereas ‘dog’, ‘smooth’, and ‘sings’ are categorematic ones. This usage comes from the fifth-century Latin grammarian Priscian. It seems to have been the original way of drawing the distinction, and to have persisted through later periods along syllogism, demonstrative syncategoremata 896   896 with other usages described below. 2 In medieval logic from the twelfth century on, the distinction was drawn semantically. Categoremata are words that have a definite independent signification. Syncategoremata do not have any independent signification or, according to some authors, not a definite one anyway, but acquire a signification only when used in a proposition together with categoremata. The examples used above work here as well. 3 Medieval logic distinguished not only categorematic and syncategorematic words, but also categorematic and syncategorematic uses of a single word. The most important is the word ‘is’, which can be used both categorematically to make an existence claim ‘Socrates is’ in the sense ‘Socrates exists’ or syncategorematically as a copula ‘Socrates is a philosopher’. But other words were treated this way too. Thus ‘whole’ was said to be used syncategorematically as a kind of quantifier in ‘The whole surface is white’ from which it follows that each part of the surface is white, but categorematically in ‘The whole surface is two square feet in area’ from which it does not follow that each part of the surface is two square feet in area. 4 In medieval logic, again, syncategoremata were sometimes taken to include words that can serve by themselves as subjects or predicates of categorical propositions, but may interfere with standard logical inference patterns when they do. The most notorious example is the word ‘nothing’. If nothing is better than eternal bliss and tepid tea is better than nothing, still it does not follow by the transitivity of ‘better than’ that tepid tea is better than eternal bliss. Again, consider the verb ‘begins’. Everything red is colored, but not everything that begins to be red begins to be colored it might have been some other color earlier. Such words were classified as syncategorematic because an analysis called an expositio of propositions containing them reveals implicit syncategoremata in sense 1 or perhaps 2. Thus an analysis of ‘The apple begins to be red’ would include the claim that it was not red earlier, and ‘not’ is syncategorematic in both senses 1 and 2. 5 In modern logic, sense 2 is extended to apply to all logical symbols, not just to words in natural languages. In this usage, categoremata are also called “proper symbols” or “complete symbols,” while syncategoremata are called “improper symbols” or “incomplete symbols.” In the terminology of modern formal semantics, the meaning of categoremata is fixed by the models for the language, whereas the meaning of syncategoremata is fixed by specifying truth conditions for the various formulas of the language in terms of the models. H. P. Grice, “Implicatures of synaesthesia,” “Some remarks about the senses.”

syneidesis, conscientia -- synderesis: Grice disliked the word as a ‘barbarism.’ Grice: “synderesis was by most of us at the Playgroup reckoned to be a corruption of the Greician “συνείδησις” shared knowledge, literally ‘co-ideatio,’ formed from ‘syn’ and ‘eidesis,’ ‘co-vision,’ or conscience,  the corruption appearing in the medieval manuscripts of what Austin called ‘that ignorant saint,’ Jerome in his Commentary.” Douglas Kries in Traditio vol. 57: Origen, Plato, and Conscience (Synderesis) in Jerome's Ezekiel Commentary, p. 67. συνείδησις , εως, ἡ, A. Liddell and Scott render as “knowledge shared with another,” -- τῶν ἀλγημάτων (in a midwife) Sor.1.4. 2. communication, information, εὑρήσεις ς. PPar. p.422 (ii A.D.); “ς. εἰσήνεγκαν τοῖς κολλήγαις αὐτῶν” POxy. 123.13 (iii/iv A.D.). 3. knowledge, λῦε ταῦτα πάντα μὴ διαλείψας ἀγαθῇ ς. (v.l. ἀγαθῇ τύχῃ) Hp.Ep.1. 4. consciousness, awareness, [τῆς αὑτοῦ συστάσεως] Chrysipp.Stoic.3.43, cf. Phld.Rh.2.140 S., 2 Ep.Cor.4.2, 5.11, 1 Ep.Pet.2.19; “τῆς κακοπραγμοσύνης” Democr.297, cf. D.S.4.65, Ep.Hebr.10.2; “κατὰ συνείδησιν ἀτάραχοι διαμενοῦσι” Hero Bel.73; inner consciousness, “ἐν ς. σου βασιλέα μὴ καταράσῃ” LXX Ec. 10.20; in 1 Ep.Cor.8.7 συνειδήσει is f.l. for συνηθείᾳ. 5. consciousness of right or wrong doing, conscience, Periander and Bias ap. Stob.3.24.11,12, Luc.Am.49; ἐὰν ἐγκλήματός τινος ἔχῃ ς. Anon. Oxy.218 (a） ii 19; “βροτοῖς ἅπασιν ἡ ς. θεός” Men.Mon.654, cf. LXX Wi.17.11, D.H.Th.8 (but perh. interpol.); “ς. ἀγαθή” Act.Ap.23.1; ἀπρόσκοπος πρὸς τὸν θεόν ib.24.16; “καθαρά” 1 Ep.Ti.3.9, POsl.17.10 (ii A.D.); “κολαζομένους κατὰ συνείδησιν” Vett.Val.210.1; “θλειβομένη τῇ ς. περὶ ὧν ἐνοσφίσατο” PRyl.116.9 (ii A.D.); τὸν . . θεὸν κεχολωμένον ἔχοιτο καὶ τὴν ἰδίαν ς. Ath.Mitt.24.237 (Thyatira); conscientiousness, Arch.Pap.3.418.13 (vi A.D.).--Senses 4 and 5 sts. run one into the other, v. 1 Ep.Cor.8.7, 10.27 sq. 6. complicity, guilt, crime, “περὶ τοῦ πεφημίσθαι αὐτὴν ἐν ς. τοιαύτῃ” Supp.Epigr.4.648.13 (Lydia, ii A.D.). Grice: “The rough Romans could not do with the ‘cum-‘ of the ‘syn-‘ but few of us at Oxford think of Laurel and Hardy or Grice and Strawson when they say ‘conscientia’!” con-scĭo , īre, v. a. * I. To be conscious of wrong: nil sibi, * Hor. Ep. 1, 1, 61.— II. To know well (late Lat.): “consciens Christus, quid esset,” Tert. Carn. Chr. 3. moral theology, conscience. Jerome used ‘synderesis.’ ‘Synderesis’ becomes a fixture because of Peter Lombard’s inclusion of it in his Sentences. Despite this origin, Grecian ‘synderesis’ is distinguished from Roman ‘conscience’ (from cum-scire) --  by Aquinas. For Aquinas, Grecian ‘synderesis’ is the quasi-habitual grasp of the most common principles of the moral order i.e., natural law, whereas ‘conscienntia’ is the *application* of such knowledge to fleeting and unrepeatable circumstances. ’Conscientia,’ Aquinas misleadingly claims, is allegedly ambiguous in the way in which ‘knowledge’ is. Knowledge (Scientia) can be the mental state of the knower or what the knower knows (scitum, cognitum) – Grice: “In fact, Roman has four participles, active present, sciens, passive perfect, sctium, future active, sciendus, future passive, sciturus -- But ‘conscientia’  like ‘synderesis’, is typically used for the state of the soul. Sometimes, however, conscientia is taken to include general moral knowledge as well as its application here and now; but the content of synderesis is the most general precepts, whereas the content of conscience, if general knowledge, will be less general precepts. Since conscience can be erroneous, the question arises as to whether synderesis and its object, natural law precepts, can be obscured and forgotten because of bad behavior or upbringing. Aquinas holds that while great attrition can take place, such common moral knowledge cannot be wholly expunged from the soul. This is a version of the Aristotelian doctrine that there are starting points of knowledge so easily grasped that the grasping of them is a defining mark of the human being. However perversely the human agent behaves there will remain not only the comprehensive realization that good (bonum) is to be done and evil (malum) avoided, but also the recognition of some substantive human goods. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice ad Aquino,” Villa Grice --. H. P. Grice, “Kenny on Aquinas,” “Kenny uses barbaric Griceian and Grecian.”

synergism: in soteriology, the cooperation within human consciousness of free will and divine grace in the processes of conversion and regeneration. Synergism became an issue in sixteenth-century Lutheranism during a controversy prompted by Philip Melanchthon 1497 syncategorematic synergism 897   897 1569. Under the influence of Erasmus, Melanchthon mentioned, in the 1533 edition of his Common Places, three causes of good actions: “the Word, the Holy Spirit, and the will.” Advocated by Pfeffinger, a Philipist, synergism was attacked by the orthodox, predestinarian, and monergist party, Amsdorf and Flacius, who retorted with Gnesio-Lutheranism. The ensuing Formula of Concord 1577 officialized monergism. Synergism occupies a middle position between uncritical trust in human noetic and salvific capacity Pelagianism and deism and exclusive trust in divine agency Calvinist and Lutheran fideism. Catholicism, Arminianism, Anglicanism, Methodism, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century liberal Protestantism have professed versions of synergism. 

systems theory: the transdisciplinary study of the abstract organization of phenomena, independent of their substance, type, or spatial or temporal scale of existence. It investigates both the principles common to all complex entities and the usually mathematical models that can be used to describe them. Systems theory was proposed in the 0s by the biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy and furthered by Ross Ashby Introduction to Cybernetics, 6. Von Bertalanffy was both reacting against reductionism and attempting to revive the unity of science. He emphasized that real systems are open to, and interact with, their environments, and that they can acquire qualitatively new properties through emergence, resulting in continual evolution. Rather than reduce an entity e.g. the human body to the properties of its parts or elements e.g. organs or cells, systems theory focuses on the arrangement of and relations among the parts that connect them into a whole cf. holism. This particular organization determines a system, which is independent of the concrete substance of the elements e.g. particles, cells, transistors, people. Thus, the same concepts and principles of organization underlie the different disciplines physics, biology, technology, sociology, etc., providing a basis for their unification. Systems concepts include: system environment boundary, input, output, process, state, hierarchy, goal-directedness, and information. The developments of systems theory are diverse Klir, Facets of Systems Science, 1, including conceptual foundations and philosophy e.g. the philosophies of Bunge, Bahm, and Laszlo; mathematical modeling and information theory e.g. the work of Mesarovic and Klir; and practical applications. Mathematical systems theory arose from the development of isomorphies between the models of electrical circuits and other systems. Applications include engineering, computing, ecology, management, and family psychotherapy. Systems analysis, developed independently of systems theory, applies systems principles to aid a decision maker with problems of identifying, reconstructing, optimizing, and controlling a system usually a socio-technical organization, while taking into account multiple objectives, constraints, and resources. It aims to specify possible courses of action, together with their risks, costs, and benefits. Systems theory is closely connected to cybernetics, and also to system dynamics, which models changes in a network of synergy systems theory 898   898 coupled variables e.g. the “world dynamics” models of Jay Forrester and the Club of Rome. Related ideas are used in the emerging “sciences of complexity,” studying self-organization and heterogeneous networks of interacting actors, and associated domains such as far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics, chaotic dynamics, artificial life, artificial intelligence, neural networks, and computer modeling and simulation. 

T

tarski: a., cited by Grice. Grice liked Tarski because unlike Strawson, he was an Aristotelian correspondenntist at heart, philosopher of logic famous for his investigations of the concepts of truth and consequence conducted in the 0s. His analysis of the concept of truth in syntactically precise, fully interpreted languages resulted in a definition of truth and an articulate defense of the correspondence theory of truth. Sentences of the following kind are now known as Tarskian biconditionals: ‘The sentence “Every perfect number is even” is true if and only if every perfect number is even.’ One of Tarski’s major philosophical insights is that each Tarskian biconditional is, in his words, a partial definition of truth and, consequently, all Tarskian biconditionals whose right-hand sides exhaust the sentences of a given formal language together constitute an implicit definition of ‘true’ as applicable to sentences of that given formal language. This insight, because of its penetrating depth and disarming simplicity, has become a staple of modern analytic philosophy. Moreover, it in effect reduced the philosophical problem of defining truth to the logical problem of constructing a single sentence having the form of a definition and having as consequences each of the Tarskian biconditionals. Tarski’s solution to this problem is the famous Tarski truth definition, versions of which appear in virtually every mathematical logic text. Tarski’s second most widely recognized philosophical achievement was his analysis and explication of the concept of consequence. Consequence is interdefinable with validity as applied to arguments: a given conclusion is a consequence of a given premise-set if and only if the argument composed of the given conclusion and the given premise-set is valid; conversely, a given argument is valid if and only if its conclusion is a consequence of its premise-set. Shortly after discovering the truth definition, Tarski presented his “no-countermodels” definition of consequence: a given sentence is a consequence of a given set of sentences if and only if every model of the set is a model of the sentence in other words, if and only if there is no way to reinterpret the non-logical terms in such a way as to render the sentence false while rendering all sentences in the set true. As Quine has emphasized, this definition reduces the modal notion of logical necessity to a combination of syntactic and semantic concepts, thus avoiding reference to modalities and/or to “possible worlds.” After Tarski’s definitive work on truth and on consequence he devoted his energies largely to more purely mathematical work. For example, in answer to Gödel’s proof that arithmetic is incomplete and undecidable, Tarski showed that algebra and geometry are both complete and decidable. Tarski’s truth definition and his consequence definition are found in his 6 collection Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics 2d ed., 3: article VIII, pp. 152278, contains the truth definition; article XVI, pp. 40920, contains the consequence definition. His published articles, nearly 3,000 s in all, have been available together since 6 in the four-volume Alfred Tarski, Collected Papers, edited by S. Givant and R. McKenzie.

tautologicum: Grice gives two examples: War is war, and Women are women – “Note that “Men are men” sounds contingent.” tautology, a proposition whose negation is inconsistent, or self- contradictory, e.g. ‘Socrates is Socrates’, ‘Every human is either male or nonmale’, ‘No human is both male and non-male’, ‘Every human is identical to itself’, ‘If Socrates is human then Socrates is human’. A proposition that is or is logically equivalent to the negation of a tautology is called a self-contradiction. According to classical logic, the property of being Tao Te Ching tautology 902   902 implied by its own negation is a necessary and sufficient condition for being a tautology and the property of implying its own negation is a necessary and sufficient condition for being a contradiction. Tautologies are logically necessary and contradictions are logically impossible. Epistemically, every proposition that can be known to be true by purely logical reasoning is a tautology and every proposition that can be known to be false by purely logical reasoning is a contradiction. The converses of these two statements are both controversial among classical logicians. Every proposition in the same logical form as a tautology is a tautology and every proposition in the same logical form as a contradiction is a contradiction. For this reason sometimes a tautology is said to be true in virtue of form and a contradiction is said to be false in virtue of form; being a tautology and being a contradiction tautologousness and contradictoriness are formal properties. Since the logical form of a proposition is determined by its logical terms ‘every’, ‘some’, ‘is’, etc., a tautology is sometimes said to be true in virtue of its logical terms and likewise mutatis mutandis for a contradiction. Since tautologies do not exclude any logical possibilities they are sometimes said to be “empty” or “uninformative”; and there is a tendency even to deny that they are genuine propositions and that knowledge of them is genuine knowledge. Since each contradiction “includes” implies all logical possibilities which of course are jointly inconsistent, contradictions are sometimes said to be “overinformative.” Tautologies and contradictions are sometimes said to be “useless,” but for opposite reasons. More precisely, according to classical logic, being implied by each and every proposition is necessary and sufficient for being a tautology and, coordinately, implying each and every proposition is necessary and sufficient for being a contradiction. Certain developments in mathematical logic, especially model theory and modal logic, seem to support use of Leibniz’s expression ‘true in all possible worlds’ in connection with tautologies. There is a special subclass of tautologies called truth-functional tautologies that are true in virtue of a special subclass of logical terms called truthfunctional connectives ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘not’, ‘if’, etc.. Some logical writings use ‘tautology’ exclusively for truth-functional tautologies and thus replace “tautology” in its broad sense by another expression, e.g. ‘logical truth’. Tarski, Gödel, Russell, and many other logicians have used the word in its broad sense, but use of it in its narrow sense is widespread and entirely acceptable. Propositions known to be tautologies are often given as examples of a priori knowledge. In philosophy of mathematics, the logistic hypothesis of logicism is the proposition that every true proposition of pure mathematics is a tautology. Some writers make a sharp distinction between the formal property of being a tautology and the non-formal metalogical property of being a law of logic. For example, ‘One is one’ is not metalogical but it is a tautology, whereas ‘No tautology is a contradiction’ is metalogical but is not a tautology. 

tautologum: The difference between a truth and a tautological truth is part of the dogma Grice defends. “A three-year old cannot understand Russell’s theory of types” is possibly true. “It is not the case that a three-year old is an adult” is TAUTOLOGICALLY true. As Strawson and Wiggins note, by coining implicaturum Grice is mainly interested in having the MAN implying this or that, as opposed to what the man implies implying this or that. So, in Strawson and Wiggins’s rephrasing, the implicaturum is to be distinguished with the logical and necessary implication, i. e., the ‘tautological’ implication. Grice uses ‘tautological’ variously. It is tautological that we smell smells, for example. This is an extension of ‘paradigm-case,’ re: analyticity. Without ‘analytic’ there is no ‘tautologicum.’ tautŏlŏgĭa , ae, f., = ταυτολογία,I.a repetition of the same meaning in different words, tautology, Mart. Cap. 5, § 535; Charis, p. 242 P. ταὐτολογ-έω ,A.repeat what has been said, “περί τινος” Plb.1.1.3; “ὑπέρ τινος” Id.1.79.7; “τ. τὸν λόγον” Str.12.3.27:—abs., Plb.36.12.2, Phld. Po.Herc.994.30, Hermog.Inv.3.15. Oddly why Witters restricts tautology to truth-table propositional logic, Grice’s two examples are predicate calculus: Women are women and war is war. 4.46 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Unter den möglichen Gruppen von Wahrheitsbedingungen gibt es zwei extreme Fälle. In dem einen Fall ist der Satz für sämtliche Wahrheitsmöglichkeiten der Elementarsätze wahr. Wir sagen, die Wahrheitsbedingungen sind t a u t o l o g i s c h. Im zweiten Fall ist der Satz für sämtliche Wahrheitsmöglichkeiten falsch: Die Wahrheitsbedingungen sind k o n t r a d i k t o r i s c h. Im ersten Fall nennen wir den Satz eine Tautologie, im zweiten Fall eine Kontradiktion. 4.461 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Der Satz zeigt was er sagt, die Tautologie und die Kontradiktion, dass sie nichts sagen. Die Tautologie hat keine Wahrheitsbedingungen, denn sie ist bedingungslos wahr; und die Kontradiktion ist unter keiner Bedingung wahr. Tautologie und Kontradiktion sind sinnlos. (Wie der Punkt, von dem zwei Pfeile in entgegengesetzter Richtung auseinandergehen.) (Ich weiß z. B. nichts über das Wetter, wenn ich weiß, dass es regnet oder nicht regnet.) 4.4611 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Tautologie und Kontradiktion sind aber nicht unsinnig; sie gehören zum Symbolismus, und zwar ähnlich wie die „0“ zum Symbolismus der Arithmetik. 4.462 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Tautologie und Kontradiktion sind nicht Bilder der Wirklichkeit. Sie stellen keine mögliche Sachlage dar. Denn jene lässt j e d e mögliche Sachlage zu, diese k e i n e. In der Tautologie heben die Bedingungen der Übereinstimmung mit der Welt—die darstellenden Beziehungen—einander auf, so dass sie in keiner darstellenden Beziehung zur Wirklichkeit steht. 4.463 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Die Wahrheitsbedingungen bestimmen den Spielraum, der den Tatsachen durch den Satz gelassen wird. (Der Satz, das Bild, das Modell, sind im negativen Sinne wie ein fester Körper, der die Bewegungsfreiheit der anderen beschränkt; im positiven Sinne, wie der von fester Substanz begrenzte Raum, worin ein Körper Platz hat.) Die Tautologie lässt der Wirklichkeit den ganzen—unendlichen—logischen Raum; die Kontradiktion erfüllt den ganzen logischen Raum und lässt der Wirklichkeit keinen Punkt. Keine von beiden kann daher die Wirklichkeit irgendwie bestimmen. 4.464 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Die Wahrheit der Tautologie ist gewiss, des Satzes möglich, der Kontradiktion unmöglich. (Gewiss, möglich, unmöglich: Hier haben wir das Anzeichen jener Gradation, die wir in der Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre brauchen.) 4.465 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Das logische Produkt einer Tautologie und eines Satzes sagt dasselbe, wie der Satz. Also ist jenes Produkt identisch mit dem Satz. Denn man kann das Wesentliche des Symbols nicht ändern, ohne seinen Sinn zu ändern. 4.466 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Einer bestimmten logischen Verbindung von Zeichen entspricht eine bestimmte logische Verbindung ihrer Bedeutungen; j e d e b e l i e - b i g e Verbindung entspricht nur den unverbundenen Zeichen. Das heißt, Sätze, die für jede Sachlage wahr sind, können überhaupt keine Zeichenverbindungen sein, denn sonst könnten ihnen nur bestimmte Verbindungen von Gegenständen entsprechen. (Und keiner logischen Verbindung entspricht k e i n e Verbindung der Gegenstände.) Tautologie und Kontradiktion sind die Grenzfälle der Zeichenverbindung, nämlich ihre Auflösung. 4.4661 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Freilich sind auch in der Tautologie und Kontradiktion die Zeichen noch mit einander verbunden, d. h. sie stehen in Beziehungen zu einander, aber diese Beziehungen sind bedeu- tungslos, dem S y m b o l unwesentlich. 4.46 OGD [→GER | →P/M] Among the possible groups of truthconditions there are two extreme cases. In the one case the proposition is true for all the truth-possibilities of the elementary propositions. We say that the truth-conditions are tautological. In the second case the proposition is false for all the truth-possibilities. The truth-conditions are self-contradictory. In the first case we call the proposition a tautology, in the second case a contradiction. 4.461 OGD [→GER | →P/M] The proposition shows what it says, the tautology and the contradiction that they say nothing. The tautology has no truth-conditions, for it is unconditionally true; and the contradiction is on no condition true. Tautology and contradiction are without sense. (Like the point from which two arrows go out in opposite directions.) (I know, e.g. nothing about the weather, when I know that it rains or does not rain.) 4.4611 OGD [→GER | →P/M] Tautology and contradiction are, however, not nonsensical; they are part of the symbol- ism, in the same way that “0” is part of the symbolism of Arithmetic. 4.462 OGD [→GER | →P/M] Tautology and contradiction are not pictures of the reality. They present no possible state of affairs. For the one allows every possible state of affairs, the other none. In the tautology the conditions of agreement with the world—the presenting relations— cancel one another, so that it stands in no presenting relation to reality. 4.463 OGD [→GER | →P/M] The truth-conditions determine the range, which is left to the facts by the proposition. (The proposition, the picture, the model, are in a negative sense like a solid body, which restricts the free movement of another: in a positive sense, like the space limited by solid substance, in which a body may be placed.) Tautology leaves to reality the whole infinite logical space; contradiction fills the whole logi- cal space and leaves no point to reality. Neither of them, therefore, can in any way determine reality. 4.464 OGD [→GER | →P/M] The truth of tautology is certain, of propositions possible, of contradiction impossible. (Certain, possible, impossible: here we have an indication of that gradation which we need in the theory of probability.) 4.465 OGD [→GER | →P/M] The logical product of a tautology and a proposition says the same as the proposition. Therefore that product is identical with the proposition. For the essence of the symbol cannot be altered without altering its sense. 4.466 OGD [→GER | →P/M] To a definite logical combination of signs corresponds a definite logical combination of their meanings; every arbitrary combination only corresponds to the unconnected signs. That is, propositions which are true for ev- ery state of affairs cannot be combinations of signs at all, for otherwise there could only correspond to them definite combinations of objects. (And to no logical combination corresponds no combination of the objects.) Tautology and contradiction are the limiting cases of the combination of symbols, namely their dissolution. 4.4661 OGD [→GER | →P/M] Of course the signs are also combined with one another in the tautology and contradiction, i.e. they stand in relations to one another, but these relations are meaningless, unessential to the symbol. 4.46 P/M [→GER | →OGD] Among the possible groups of truthconditions there are two extreme cases. In one of these cases the proposition is true for all the truth-possibilities of the elementary propositions. We say that the truth-conditions are tautological. In the second case the proposition is false for all the truth-possibilities: the truth-conditions are contradictory. In the first case we call the proposition a tautology; in the second, a contradiction. 4.461 P/M [→GER | →OGD] Propositions show what they say: tautolo- gies and contradictions show that they say nothing. A tautology has no truth-conditions, since it is unconditionally true: and a contradiction is true on no condition. Tautologies and contradictions lack sense. (Like a point from which two arrows go out in opposite directions to one another.) (For example, I know nothing about the weather when I know that it is either raining or not raining.) 4.4611 P/M [→GER | →OGD] Tautologies and contradictions are not, however, nonsensical. They are part of the symbolism, much as ‘0’ is part of the symbolism of arithmetic. 4.462 P/M [→GER | →OGD] Tautologies and contradictions are not pictures of reality. They do not represent any possible situations. For the former admit all possible situations, and latter none. In a tautology the conditions of agreement with the world—the representational relations—cancel one another, so that it does not stand in any representational relation to reality. 4.463 P/M [→GER | →OGD] The truth-conditions of a proposition determine the range that it leaves open to the facts. (A proposition, a picture, or a model is, in the negative sense, like a solid body that restricts the freedom of movement of others, and, in the positive sense, like a space bounded by solid substance in which there is room for a body.) A tautology leaves open to reality the whole—the infinite whole—of logical space: a contradiction fills the whole of logical space leaving no point of it for reality. Thus neither of them can determine reality in any way. 4.464 P/M [→GER | →OGD] A tautology’s truth is certain, a proposition’s possible, a contradiction’s impossible. (Certain, possible, impossible: here we have the first indication of the scale that we need in the theory of probability.) 4.465 P/M [→GER | →OGD] The logical product of a tautology and a proposition says the same thing as the proposition. This product, therefore, is identical with the proposition. For it is impossible to alter what is essential to a symbol without altering its sense. 4.466 P/M [→GER | →OGD] What corresponds to a determinate logical combination of signs is a determinate logical combination of their meanings. It is only to the uncombined signs that absolutely any combination corresponds. In other words, propositions that are true for every situation cannot be combinations of signs at all, since, if they were, only determinate combinations of objects could correspond to them. (And what is not a logical combination has no combination of objects corresponding to it.) Tautology and contradiction are the limiting cases—indeed the disintegration—of the combination of signs. 4.4661 P/M [→GER | →OGD] Admittedly the signs are still combined with one another even in tautologies and contradictions—i.e. they stand in certain relations to one another: but these relations have no meaning, they are not essential to the symbol. Grice would often use ‘tautological,’ and ‘self-contradiction’ presupposes ‘analyticity,’ or rather the analytic-synthetic distinction. Is it contradictory, or a self-contradiction, to say that one’s neighbour’s three-year-old child is an adult? Is there an implicaturum for ‘War is not war’? Grice refers to Bayes in WOW re Grices paradox, and to crazy Bayesy, as Peter Achinstein does (Newton was crazy, but not Bayesy).  We can now, in principle, characterize the desirability of the action a 1 , relative to each end (E1 and E2), and to each combination of ends (here just E1 and E2), as a function of the desirability of the end and the probability that the action a 1 will realize that end, or combination of ends. If we envisage a range of possible actions, which includes a 1 together with other actions, we can imagine that each such action has a certain degree of desirability relative to each end (E1 and (or) E2) and to their combination. If we suppose that, for each possible action, these desirabilities can be compounded (perhaps added), then we can suppose that one particular possible action scored higher (in actiondesirability relative to these ends) than any alternative possible action; and that this is the action which wins out; that is, is the action which is, or at least should, end p.105 be performed. (The computation would in fact be more complex than I have described, once account is taken of the fact that the ends involved are often not definite (determinate) states of affairs  (like becoming President), but are variable in respect of the degree to which they might be realized (if ones end is to make a profit from a deal, that profit might be of a varying magnitude); so one would have to consider not merely the likelihood of a particular actions realizing the end of making a profit, but also the likelihood of its realizing that end to this or that degree; and this would considerably complicate the computational problem.) No doubt most readers are far too sensible ever to have entertained any picture even remotely resembling the "Crazy-Bayesy" one I have just described. Grice was fascinated by the fact that paradox translates the Grecian neuter paradoxon. Some of the paradoxes of entailment, entailment and paradoxes. This is not the first time Grice uses paradox. As a classicist, he was aware of the nuances between paradox (or paradoxon, as he preferred, via Latin paradoxum, and aporia, for example. He was interested in Strawsons treatment of this or that paradox of entailment. He even called his own paradox involving if and probablility Grices paradox.

teichmüller: philosopher who contributes to the history of philosophy and develops a theory of knowledge and a metaphysical conception based on these historical studies. Born in Braunschweig, Teichmüller teaches at Göttingen and Basel and is influenced by Lotze and Leibniz. Teichmüller’s major works are “Aristotelische Forschungen” and “Die wirkliche und scheinbar Welt.” His other works are “Ueber die Unsterblichkeit der Seele,”  vide H. P. Grice, “The immortality of Shropshire’s soul” Old English steorfan "to die" (past tense stearf, past participle storfen), literally "become stiff," from Proto-Germanic *sterbanan "be stiff, starve" (source also of Old Frisian sterva, Old Saxon sterban, Dutch sterven, Old High German sterban "to die," Old Norse stjarfi "tetanus"), from extended form of PIE root *ster- (1) "stiff."  The conjugation became weak in English by 16c. The sense narrowed to "die of cold" (14c.); transitive meaning "to kill with hunger" is first recorded 1520s (earlier to starve of hunger, early 12c.). Intransitive sense of "to die of hunger" dates from 1570s. German cognate sterben retains the original sense of the word, but the English has come so far from its origins that starve to death (1910) is now common. “Studien zur Geschichte der Begriffe,” “Darwinismus und Philosophie,” “Ueber das Wesen der Liebe,” “ Religionsphilosophie,” and “Neue Grundlegung der Psychologie und Logik.” Teichmüller maintains that the self of immediate experience, the “I,” is the most fundamental reality and that the conceptual world is a projection of its constituting activity. On the basis of his studies in the history of metaphysics and his sympathies with Leibniz’s monadology, he held that each metaphysical system contained partial truths and construed each metaphysical standpoint as a perspective on a complex reality. Thinking of both metaphysical interpretations of reality and the subjectivity of individual immediate experience, Teichmüller christened his own philosophical position “perspectivism.” His work influenced later thought through its impact on the philosophical reflections of Nietzsche, who was probably influenced by him in the development of his perspectival theory of knowledge. 

teilhard: philosopher whose oeuvre is vigorously discussed throughout his career. Teilhard de Chardin’s philosophy generates considerable controversy within the church, since one of his principal concerns is to bring about a forceful yet generous reconciliation between the traditional Christian dogma and the dramatic advances yielded by modern science. His philosophy consisted of systematic reflections on cosmology, biology, physics, anthropology, social theory, and theology  reflections guided, he maintains, by his fascination with the nature of life, energy, and matter, and by his profound respect for human spirituality. Teilhard is educated in philosophy at Mongré. He entered the Jesuit order at the age of eighteen and was ordained a priest.He went on to study at Aix-en-Provence, Laval, and Caen, as well as on the Isle of Jersey and at Hastings, England. Returning to Paris after the war, he studies biology, geology, and paleontology at the Museum of Natural History and at the Institut Catholique, receiving a doctoral degree in geology. Shortly after appointment to the faculty of geology at the Institut Catholique, he takes leave to pursue field research. His research resulted in the discovery of “Sinanthropus pekinensis,” which he saw as “perhaps the next to the last step traceable between the anthropoids and man.” It was during this period that Teilhard begins to compose one of his major theoretical works, “Le phenomene de l’homme,” in which he stressed the deep continuity of evolutionary development and the emergence of humanity from the animal realm. He argues that received evolutionary theory is fully compatible with Christian doctrine. Indeed, it is the synthesis of evolutionary theory with his own Christian theology that perhaps best characterizes the broad tenor of his thought. Starting with the very inception of the evolutionary trajectory, i.e., with what he termed the “alpha point” of creation, Teilhard’s general theory resists any absolute disjunction between the inorganic and organic. Indeed, matter and spirit are two “stages” or “aspects” of the same cosmic stuff. These transitions from one state to another may be said to correspond to those between the somatic and psychic, the exterior and interior, according to the state of relative development, organization, and complexity. Hence, for Teilhard, much as for Bergson whose work greatly influenced him, evolutionary development is characterized by a progression from the simplest components of matter and energy what he termed the lithosphere, through the organization of flora and fauna the biosphere, to the complex formations of sentient and cognitive human life the noosphere. In this sense, evolution is a “progressive spiritualization of matter.” He held this to be an orthogenetic process, one of “directed evolution” or “Genesis,” by which matter would irreversibly metamorphose itself, in a process of involution and complexification, toward the psychic. Specifically, Teilhard’s account sought to overcome what he saw as a prescientific worldview, one based on a largely antiquated and indefensible metaphysical dualism. By accomplishing this, he hoped to realize a productive convergence of science and religion. The end of evolution, what he termed “the Omega point,” would be the full presence of Christ, embodied in a universal human society. Many have tended to see a Christian pantheism expressed in such views. Teilhard himself stressed a profoundly personalist, spiritual perspective, drawn not only from the theological tradition of Thomism, but from that of Pauline Neoplatonism and Christian mysticism as well  especially that tradition extending from Meister Eckhart through Cardinal Bérulle and Malebranche. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Teilhard et moi,” – “Method in philosophical psychology: from the banal to the bizarre.”

telementationalism: see psi-transmission. The coinage is interesting. Since Grice has an essay on ‘modest mentalism,’ and would often use ‘mental’ for ‘psychological,’ it does make sense. ‘Ideationalism’ is analogous. this is a special note, or rather, a very moving proem, on Grices occasion of delivering his lectures on ‘Aspects of reason and reasoning’ at Oxford as the Locke Lectures at Merton. Particularly apt in mentioning, with humility, his having failed, *thrice* [sic] to obtain the Locke lectureship, Strawson did, at once, but feeling safe under the ægis of that great English philosopher (viz. Locke! always implicated, never explicited) now. Grice starts the proem in a very moving, shall we say, emotional, way: I find it difficult to convey to you just how happy I am, and how honoured I feel, in being invited to give these lectures. Difficult, but not impossible. I think of this university and this city, it has a cathedral, which were my home for thirty-six years, as my spiritual and intellectual parents. The almost majestic plural is Grices implicaturum to the town and gown! Whatever I am was originally fashioned here; I never left Oxford, Oxford made me, and I find it a moving experience to be, within these splendid and none too ancient walls, once more engaged in my old occupation of rendering what is clear obscure, by flouting the desideratum of conversational clarity and the conversational maxim, avoid obscurity of expression, under be perspicuous [sic]!. Grices implicaturum on none too ancient seems to be addressed to the truly ancient walls that saw Athenian dialectic! On the other hand, Grices funny variant on the obscurum per obscurius ‒ what Baker found as Grices skill in rendering an orthodoxy into a heterodoxy! Almost! By clear Grice implicates Lewis and his clarity is not enough! I am, at the same time, proud of my mid-Atlantic [two-world] status, and am, therefore, delighted that the Old World should have called me in, or rather recalled me, to redress, for once, the balance of my having left her for the New. His implicaturum seems to be: Strictly, I never left? Grice concludes his proem: I am, finally, greatly heartened by my consciousness of the fact that that great English philosopher, under whose ægis I am now speaking, has in the late afternoon of my days extended to me his Lectureship as a gracious consolation for a record threefold denied to me, in my early morning, of his Prize. I pray that my present offerings may find greater favour in his sight than did those of long ago. They did! Even if Locke surely might have found favour to Grices former offerings, too, Im sure. Refs.: The allusions to Locke are in “Aspects.” Good references under ‘ideationalism,’ above, especially in connection with Myro’s ‘modest mentalism,’ The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.

telesio: philosopher whose empiricism influences Francis Bacon and Galileo. Telesio studies in Padova, where he completed his doctorate,  and practiced philosophy in Naples and Cosenza without holding any academic position. His major oeuvre, “De rerum natura iuxta propria principia,” contains an attempt to interpret nature on the basis of its own principles, which Telesio identifies with the two incorporeal active forces of heat and cold, and the corporeal and passive physical substratum. As the two active forces permeate all of nature and are endowed with sensation, Telesio argues that all of nature possesses some degree of sensation. Human beings share with animals a material substance produced by heat and coming into existence with the body, called spirit. They are also given a mind by God. Telesio knew various interpretations of Aristotle. However, Telesio  broke with foreign exegeses, criticizing Aristotle’s Physics and claiming that nature is investigated better by the senses than by the intellect. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Telesio e Grice,” per il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

tempus: cited by Grice and Myro in the Grice-Myro theory of identity. tense logic, an extension of classical logic introduced by Arthur Prior Past, Present, and Future, 7, involving operators P and F for the past and future tenses, or ‘it was the case that . . .’ and ‘it will be the case that . . .’. Classical or mathematical logic was developed as a logic of unchanging mathematical truth, and can be applied to tensed discourse only by artificial regimentation inspired by mathematical physics, introducing quantification over “times” or “instants.” Thus ‘It will have been the case that p,’ which Prior represents simply as FPp, classical logic represents as ‘There [exists] an instant t and there [exists] an instant tH such that t [is] later than the present and tH [is] earlier than t, and at tH it [is] the case that pH, or DtDtH t o‹t8tH ‹t8ptH, where the brackets indicate that the verbs are to be understood as tenseless. Prior’s motives were in part linguistic to produce a formalization less removed from natural language than the classical and in part metaphysical to avoid ontological commitment to such entities as instants. Much effort was devoted to finding tense-logical principles equivalent to various classical assertions about the structure of the earlierlater order among instants; e.g., ‘Between any two instants there is another instant’ corresponds to the validity of the axioms Pp P PPp and Fp P FFp. Less is expressible using P and F than is expressible with explicit quantification over instants, and further operators for ‘since’ and ‘until’ or ‘now’ and ‘then’ have been introduced by Hans Kamp and others. These are especially important in combination with quantification, as in ‘When he was in power, all who now condemn him then praised him.’ As tense is closely related to mood, so tense logic is closely related to modal logic. As Kripke models for modal logic consist each of a set X of “worlds” and a relation R of ‘x is an alternative to y’, so for tense logic they consist each of a set X of “instants” and a relation R of ‘x is earlier than y’: Thus instants, banished from the syntax or proof theory, reappear in the semantics or model theory. Modality and tense are both involved in the issue of future contingents, and one of Prior’s motives was a desire to produce a formalism in which the views on this topic of ancient, medieval, and early modern logicians from Aristotle with his “sea fight tomorrow” and Diodorus Cronos with his “Master Argument” through Ockham to Peirce could be represented. The most important precursor to Prior’s work on tense logic was that on many-valued logics by Lukasiewicz, which was motivated largely by the problem of future contingents. Also related to tense and mood is aspect, and modifications to represent this grammatical category evaluating formulas at periods rather than instants of time have also been introduced. Like modal logic, tense logic has been the object of intensive study in theoretical computer science, especially in connection with attempts to develop languages in which properties of programs can be expressed and proved; variants of tense logic under such labels as “dynamic logic” or “process logic” have thus been extensively developed for technological rather than philosophical motives. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “D. H. Mellor on real and irreal time.” applied by H. P. Grice and G. Myro in the so-called “Grice-Myro theory of identity,” a time-relative identity, drawing from A. N. Prior, of Oxford, D. Wiggins, Wykeham professor of logic at Oxford, and Geach (married to an Oxonian donna),  time, “a moving image of eternity” Plato; “the number of movements in respect of the before and after” Aristotle; “the Life of the Soul in movement as it passes from one stage of act or experience to another” Plotinus; “a present of things past, memory, a present of things present, sight, and a present of things future, expectation” Augustine. These definitions, like all attempts to encapsulate the essence of time in some neat formula, are unhelpfully circular because they employ temporal notions. Although time might be too basic to admit of definition, there still are many questions about time that philosophers have made some progress in answering by analysis both of how we ordinarily experience and talk about time, and of the deliverances of science, thereby clarifying and deepening our understanding of what time is. What follows gives a sample of some of the more important of these issues. Temporal becoming and the A- and B-theories of time. According to the B-theory, time consists in nothing but a fixed “B-series” of events running from earlier to later. The A-theory requires that these events also form an “A-series” going from the future through the present into the past and, moreover, shift in respect to these determinations. The latter sort of change, commonly referred to as “temporal becoming,” gives rise to well-known perplexities concerning both what does the shifting and the sort of shift involved. Often it is said that it is the present or now that shifts to ever-later times. This quickly leads to absurdity. ‘The present’ and ‘now’, like ‘this time’, are used to refer to a moment of time. Thus, to say that the present shifts to later times entails that this very moment of time  the present  will become some other moment of time and thus cease to be identical with itself! Sometimes the entity that shifts is the property of nowness or presentness. The problem is that every event has this property at some time, namely when it occurs. Thus, what must qualify some event as being now simpliciter is its having the property of nowness now; and this is the start of an infinite regress that is vicious because at each stage we are left with an unexpurgated use of ‘now’, the very term that was supposed to be analyzed in terms of the property of nowness. If events are to change from being future to present and from present to past, as is required by temporal becoming, they must do so in relation to some mysterious transcendent entity, since temporal relations between events and/or times cannot change. The nature of the shift is equally perplexing, for it must occur at a particular rate; but a rate of change involves a comparison between one kind of change and a change of time. Herein, it is change of time that is compared to change of time, resulting in the seeming tautology that time passes or shifts at the rate of one second per second, surely an absurdity since this is not a rate of change at all. Broad attempted to skirt these perplexities by saying that becoming is sui generis and thereby defies analysis, which puts him on the side of the mystically inclined Bergson who thought that it could be known only through an act of ineffable intuition. To escape the clutches of both perplexity and mysticism, as well as to satisfy the demand of science to view the world non-perspectivally, the B-theory attempted to reduce the A-series to the B-series via a linguistic reduction in which a temporal indexical proposition reporting an event as past, present, or future is shown to be identical with a non-indexical proposition reporting a relation of precedence or simultaneity between it and another event or time. It is generally conceded that such a reduction fails, since, in general, no indexical proposition is identical with any non-indexical one, this being due to the fact that one can have a propositional attitude toward one of them that is not had to the other; e.g., I can believe that it is now raining without believing that it rains tenselessly at t 7. The friends of becoming have drawn the wrong moral from this failure  that there is a mysterious Mr. X out there doing “The Shift.” They have overlooked the fact that two sentences can express different propositions and yet report one and the same event or state of affairs; e.g., ‘This is water’ and ‘this is a collection of H2O molecules’, though differing in sense, report the same state of affairs  this being water is nothing but this being a collection of H2O molecules. It could be claimed that the same holds for the appropriate use of indexical and non-indexical sentences; the tokening at t 7 of ‘Georgie flies at this time at present’ is coreporting with the non-synonymous ‘Georgie flies tenselessly at t 7’, since Georgie’s flying at this time is the same event as Georgie’s flying at t 7, given that this time is t 7. This effects the same ontological reduction of the becoming of events to their bearing temporal relations to each other as does the linguistic reduction. The “coreporting reduction” also shows the absurdity of the “psychological reduction” according to which an event’s being present, etc., requires a relation to a perceiver, whereas an event’s having a temporal relation to another event or time does not require a relation to a perceiver. Given that Georgie’s flying at this time is identical with Georgie’s flying at t 7, it follows that one and the same event both does and does not have the property of requiring relation to a perceiver, thereby violating Leibniz’s law that identicals are indiscernible. Continuous versus discrete time. Assume that the instants of time are linearly ordered by the relation R of ‘earlier than’. To say that this order is continuous is, first, to imply the property of density or infinite divisibility: for any instants i 1 and i 2 such that Ri1i 2, there is a third instant i 3, such that Ri1i 3 and Ri3i 2. But continuity implies something more since density allows for “gaps” between the instants, as with the rational numbers. Think of R as the ‘less than’ relation and the i n as rationals. To rule out gaps and thereby assure genuine continuity it is necessary to require in addition to density that every convergent sequence of instants has a limit. To make this precise one needs a distance measure d ,  on pairs of instants, where di m, i n is interpreted as the lapse of time between i m and i n. The requirement of continuity proper is then that for any sequence i l , i 2, i 3, . . . , of instants, if di m i n P 0 as m, n P C, there is a limit instant i ø such that di n, iø  P 0 as n P C. The analogous property obviously fails for the rationals. But taking the completion of the rationals by adding in the limit points of convergent sequences yields the real number line, a genuine continuum. Numerous objections have been raised to the idea of time as a continuum and to the very notion of the continuum itself. Thus, it was objected that time cannot be composed of durationless instants since a stack of such instants cannot produce a non-zero duration. Modern measure theory resolves this objection. Leibniz held that a continuum cannot be composed of points since the points in any finite closed interval can be put in one-to-one correspondence with a smaller subinterval, contradicting the axiom that the whole is greater than any proper part. What Leibniz took to be a contradictory feature is now taken to be a defining feature of infinite collections or totalities. Modern-day Zenoians, while granting the viability of the mathematical doctrine of the continuum and even the usefulness of its employment in physical theory, will deny the possibility of its applying to real-life changes. Whitehead gave an analogue of Zeno’s paradox of the dichotomy to show that a thing cannot endure in a continuous manner. For if i 1, i 2 is the interval over which the thing is supposed to endure, then the thing would first have to endure until the instant i 3, halfway between i 1 and i 2; but before it can endure until i 3, it must first endure until the instant i 4 halfway between i 1 and i 3, etc. The seductiveness of this paradox rests upon an implicit anthropomorphic demand that the operations of nature must be understood in terms of concepts of human agency. Herein it is the demand that the physicist’s description of a continuous change, such as a runner traversing a unit spatial distance by performing an infinity of runs of ever-decreasing distance, could be used as an action-guiding recipe for performing this feat, which, of course, is impossible since it does not specify any initial or final doing, as recipes that guide human actions must. But to make this anthropomorphic demand explicit renders this deployment of the dichotomy, as well as the arguments against the possibility of performing a “supertask,” dubious. Anti-realists might deny that we are committed to real-life change being continuous by our acceptance of a physical theory that employs principles of mathematical continuity, but this is quite different from the Zenoian claim that it is impossible for such change to be continuous. To maintain that time is discrete would require not only abandoning the continuum but also the density property as well. Giving up either conflicts with the intuition that time is one-dimensional. For an explanation of how the topological analysis of dimensionality entails that the dimension of a discrete space is 0, see W. Hurewicz, Dimension Theory, 1. The philosophical and physics literatures contain speculations about a discrete time built of “chronons” or temporal atoms, but thus far such hypothetical entities have not been incorporated into a satisfactory theory. Absolute versus relative and relational time. In a scholium to the Principia, Newton declared that “Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external.” There are at least five interrelated senses in which time was absolute for Newton. First, he thought that there was a frame-independent relation of simultaneity for events. Second, he thought that there was a frame-independent measure of duration for non-simultaneous events. He used ‘flows equably’ not to refer to the above sort of mysterious “temporal becoming,” but instead to connote the second sense of absoluteness and partly to indicate two further kinds of absoluteness. To appreciate the latter, note that ‘flows equably’ is modified by ‘without relation to anything external’. Here Newton was asserting third sense of ‘absolute’ that the lapse of time between two events would be what it is even if the distribution and motions of material bodies were different. He was also presupposing a related form of absoluteness fourth sense according to which the metric of time is intrinsic to the temporal interval. Leibniz’s philosophy of time placed him in agreement with Newton as regards the first two senses of ‘absolute’, which assert the non-relative or frame-independent nature of time. However, Leibniz was very much opposed to Newton on the fourth sense of ‘absolute’. According to Leibniz’s relational conception of time, any talk about the length of a temporal interval must be unpacked in terms of talk about the relation of the interval to an extrinsic metric standard. Furthermore, Leibniz used his principles of sufficient reason and identity of indiscernibles to argue against a fifth sense of ‘absolute’, implicit in Newton’s philosophy of time, according to which time is a substratum in which physical events are situated. On the contrary, the relational view holds that time is nothing over and above the structure of relations of events. Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity have direct bearing on parts of these controversies. The special theory necessitates the abandonment of frame-independent notions of simultaneity and duration. For any pair of spacelike related events in Minkowski space-time there is an inertial frame in which the events are simultaneous, another frame in which the first event is temporally prior, and still a third in which the second event is temporally prior. And the temporal interval between two timelike related events depends on the worldline connecting them. In fact, for any e  0, no matter how small, there is a worldline connecting the events whose proper length is less than e. This is the essence of the so-called twin paradox. The general theory of relativity abandons the third sense of absoluteness since it entails that the metrical structure of space-time covaries with the distribution of mass-energy in a manner specified by Einstein’s field equations. But the heart of the absoluterelational controversy  as focused by the fourth and fifth senses of ‘absolute’  is not settled by relativistic considerations. Indeed, opponents from both sides of the debate claim to find support for their positions in the special and general theories. H. P. Grice, “D. H. Mellor on real and irreal time.” Tempus is ne of Arsitotle’s categories, along with space – cfr. Kant – and Grice on Strawson’s “Individuals” -- time slice: used by Grice in two different contexts: personal identity, and identity in general. In identity in general, Grice draws from Geach and Wiggins, and with the formal aid of Myro, construct a system of a first-order predicate calculus with time-relative identity -- a temporal part or stage of any concrete particular that exists for some interval of time; a three-dimensional cross section of a fourdimensional object. To think of an object as consisting of time slices or temporal stages is to think of it as related to time in much the way that it is related to space: as extending through time as well as space, rather than as enduring through it. Just as an object made up of spatial parts is thought of as a whole made up of parts that exist at different locations, so an object made up of time slices is thought of as a whole made up of parts or stages that exist at successive times; hence, just as a spatial whole is only partly present in any space that does not include all its spatial parts, so a whole made up of time slices is only partly present in any stretch of time that does not include all its temporal parts. A continuant, by contrast, is most commonly understood to be a particular that endures through time, i.e., that is wholly present at each moment at which it exists. To conceive of an object as a continuant is to conceive of it as related to time in a very different way from that in which it is related to space. A continuant does not extend through time as well as space; it does not exist at different times by virtue of the existence of successive parts of it at those times; it is the continuant itself that is wholly present at each such time. To conceive an object as a continuant, therefore, is to conceive it as not made up of temporal stages, or time slices, at all. There is another, less common, use of ‘continuant’ in which a continuant is understood to be any particular that exists for some stretch of time, regardless of whether it is the whole of the particular or only some part of it that is present at each moment of the particular’s existence. According to this usage, an entity that is made up of time slices would be a kind of continuant rather than some other kind of particular. Philosophers have disputed whether ordinary objects such as cabbages and kings endure through time are continuants or only extend through time are sequences of time slices. Some argue that to understand the possibility of change one must think of such objects as sequences of time slices; others argue that for the same reason one must think of such objects as continuants. If an object changes, it comes to be different from itself. Some argue that this would be possible only if an object consisted of distinct, successive stages; so that change would simply consist in the differences among the successive temporal parts of an object. Others argue that this view would make change impossible; that differences among the successive temporal parts of a thing would no more imply the thing had changed than differences among its spatial parts would.  H. P. Grice, “D. H. Mellor on real and irreal time.”

terminus – horos – Cicero’s transliteration of the Greianism --. terminist logic, a school of semantics until its demise in the humanistic reforms. The chief goal of ‘terminisim’ – or terministic semantics -- is the elucidation (or conceptual analysis) of the  form, the “exposition,” of a proposition advanced in the context of Scholastic disputation. The cntral theory of terminisitc semantics concerns this or that property of this or that term, especially the suppositum. Terminisic semantics does the work of modern quantification theory. Important semanticists in the school include Peter of Spain, Sherwood, Burleigh (Burlaeus), Heytesbury, and Paolo Veneto.

terminus a quo-terminus a quem distinction, the: used by Grice for the starting point of some process, as opposed to the terminus ad quem, the ending point. E. g., change is a process that begins from some state, the terminus a quo, and proceeds to some state at which it ends, the terminus ad quem. In particular, in the ripening of an apple, the green apple is the terminus a quo and the red apple is the terminus ad quem.

tertulliano: Roman – Grice says that ‘you’re the cream in my coffee’ is absurd – “Can you believe it?” -- Adored by Grice because he believed what he thought was absurd.  theologian, an early father of the Christian church. A layman from Carthage, he laid the conceptual and linguistic basis for the doctrine of the Trinity. Though appearing hostile to philosophy “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” and to rationality “It is certain because it is impossible”, Tertullian was steeped in Stoicism. He denounced all eclecticism not governed by the normative tradition of Christian doctrine, yet commonly used philosophical argument and Stoic concepts e.g., the corporeality of God and the soul. Despite insisting on the sole authority of the New Testament apostles, he joined with Montanism, which taught that the Holy Spirit was still inspiring prophecy concerning moral discipline. Reflecting this interest in the Spirit, Tertullian pondered the distinctions to which he gave the neologism trinitas within God. God is one “substance” but three “persons”: a plurality without division. The Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct, but share equally in the one Godhead. This threeness is manifest only in the “economy” of God’s temporal action toward the world; later orthodoxy e.g. Athanasius, Basil the Great, Augustine, would postulate a Triunity that is eternal and “immanent,” i.e., internal to God’s being. 

testing: Grice: “A token proving testability.” Grice: “We need a meta-test: a test for a test for implicatura.” late 14c., "small vessel used in assaying precious metals," from Old French test, from Latin testum "earthen pot," related to testa "piece of burned clay, earthen pot, shell" (see tete).  Sense of "trial or examination to determine the correctness of something" is recorded from 1590s. The connecting notion is "ascertaining the quality of a metal by melting it in a pot." Test Act was the name given to various laws in English history meant to exclude Catholics and Nonconformists from office, especially that of 1673, repealed 1828. Test drive (v.) is first recorded 1954. In the sciences, capacity of a theory to undergo experimental testing. Theories in the natural sciences are regularly subjected to experimental tests involving detailed and rigorous control of variable factors. Not naive observation of the workings of nature, but disciplined, designed intervention in such workings, is the hallmark of testability. Logically regarded, testing takes the form of seeking confirmation of theories by obtaining positive test results. We can represent a theory as a conjunction of a hypothesis and a statement of initial conditions, H • A. This conjunction deductively entails testable or observational consequences O. Hence, H • A P O. If O obtains, H • A is said to be confirmed, or rendered probable. But such confirmation is not decisive; O may be entailed by, and hence explained by, many other theories. For this reason, Popper insisted that the testability of theories should seek disconfirmations or falsifications. The logical schema H • A P O not-O not-H • A is deductively valid, hence apparently decisive. On this view, science progresses, not by finding the truth, but by discarding the false. Testability becomes falsifiability. This deductive schema modus tollens is also employed in the analysis of crucial tests. Consider two hypotheses H1 and H2, both introduced to explain some phenomenon. H1 predicts that for some test condition C, we have the test result ‘if C then e1’, and H2, the result ‘if C then e2’, where e1 and e2 are logically incompatible. If experiment falsifies ‘if C then e1’ e1 does not actually occur as a test result, the hypothesis H1 is false, which implies that H2 is true. It was originally supposed that the experiments of J. B. L. Foucault constituted a decisive falsifcation of the corpuscular theory of the nature of light, and thus provided a decisive establishment of the truth of its rival, the wave theory of light. This account of crucial experiments neglects certain points in logic and also the role of auxiliary hypotheses in science. As Duhem pointed term, minor testability 908   908 out, rarely, if ever, does a hypothesis face the facts in isolation from other supporting assumptions. Furthermore, it is a fact of logic that the falsification of a conjunction of a hypothesis and its auxiliary assumptions and initial conditions not-H • A is logically equivalent to not-H or not-A, and the test result itself provides no warrant for choosing which alternative to reject. Duhem further suggested that rejection of any component part of a complex theory is based on extra-evidential considerations factors like simplicity and fruitfulness and cannot be forced by negative test results. Acceptance of Duhem’s view led Quine to suggest that a theory must face the tribunal of experience en bloc; no single hypothesis can be tested in isolation. Original conceptions of testability and falsifiability construed scientific method as hypothetico-deductive. Difficulties with these reconstructions of the logic of experiment have led philosophers of science to favor an explication of empirical support based on the logic of probability. Grice: “Linguists never take ‘testability’ too conceptually, as one can witness in Saddock’s hasty proofs!” – Refs: H. P. Grice, “On testing for testing for conversational implicatura.”

testis: n., pl. testes; Latin testis "testicle," usually regarded as a special application of testis "witness" (see testament), presumably because it "bears witness to male virility" [Barnhart]. Stories that trace the use of the Latin word to some supposed swearing-in ceremony are modern and groundless.  Compare Greek parastatai "testicles," from parastates "one that stands by;" and French slang témoins, literally "witnesses." But Buck thinks Greek parastatai "testicles" has been wrongly associated with the legal sense of parastates "supporter, defender" and suggests instead parastatai in the sense of twin "supporting pillars, props of a mast," etc. Or it might be a euphemistic use of the word in the sense "comrades." OED, meanwhile, points to Walde's suggestion of a connection between testis and testa "pot, shell, etc." (see tete). testis "witness," from PIE *tri-st-i- "third person standing by," from root *tris- "three" (see three) on the notion of "third person, disinterested witness." -- as Grice notes, “it is etymologically  -- or etymythologically -- related to ‘testicles,’” --  Grice proposes an analysis of ‘testify’ in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, “t is a testimony iff t is an act of telling, including any assertion apparently intended to impart information, regardless of social setting.” In an extended use, personal letters and messages, books, and other published material purporting to contain factual information also constitute testimony. As Grice notes, “testimony may be sincere or insincere” -- and may express knowledge or baseless prejudice. When it expresses knowledge, and it is rightly believed, this knowledge is disseminated to its recipient, near or remote. Second-hand knowledge can be passed on further, producing long chains of testimony; but these chains always begin with the report of an eye-witness or expert. In any social group with a common language there is potential for the sharing, through testimony, of the fruits of individuals’ idiosyncratic acquisition of knowledge through perception and inference. In advanced societies specialization in the gathering and production of knowledge and its wider dissemination through spoken and written testimony is a fundamental socio-epistemic fact, and a very large part of each person’s body of knowledge and belief stems from testimony. Thus, the question when a person may properly believe what another tells her, and what grounds her epistemic entitlement to do so, is a crucial one in epistemology. Reductionists about testimony insist that this entitlement must derive from our entitlement to believe what we perceive to be so, and to draw inferences from this according to familiar general principles. See e.g., Hume’s classic discussion, in his “Enquiry into Human Understanding,” section X. On this view, I can perceive that someone has told me that p, but can thereby come to know that p only by means of an inference  one that goes via additional, empirically grounded knowledge of the trustworthiness of that person. Anti-reductionists insist, by contrast, that there is a general entitlement to believe what one is told just as such defeated by knowledge of one’s informant’s lack of trustworthiness her mendacity or incompetence, but not needing to be bolstered positively by empirically based knowledge of her trustworthiness. Anti-reductionists thus see testimony as an autonomous source of knowledge on a par with perception, inference, and memory. One argument adduced for anti-reductionism is transcendental: We have many beliefs acquired from testimony, and these beliefs are knowledge; their status as knowledge cannot be accounted for in the way required by the reductionist, i. e., the reliability of testimony cannot be independently confirmed; therefore, the reductionist’s insistence on this is mistaken. However, while it is perhaps true that the reliability of all the beliefs one has that depend on past testimony cannot be simultaneously confirmed, one can certainly sometimes ascertain, without circularity, that a specific assertion by a particular person is likely to be correct  if, e.g.,one’s own experience has established that that person has a good track record of reliability about that kind of thing. Grice: “Sometimes I use testimonium.” Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Trust and rationality.”

tetens: philosopher, referred to by Grice as “Dutch Locke.” After his studies in Rostock and Copenhagen, Tetens teaches at Bützow and Kiel. He had a second successful career as a public servant in Denmark  that did not leave him time for philosophical explorations. Tetens is one of the most important mainland philosophers between Wolff and Kant. Like Kant, whom he significantly influenced, Tetens attempts to find a middle way between Descartes’s rationalism and Locke’s empiricism. Tetens’s most important work, the “Philosophische Versuche über die menschliche Natur und ihre Entwicklung,” is indicative of the state of philosophical discussion  before Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Tetens, who follows the “psychological method” of Locke, tends toward a naturalism. Tetens makes a more radical distinction between sensation and reason than Hume allows and attempts to show how this or that basic rational principle – a prequel to Grice’s principle of conversational cooperation -- guarantee the objectivity of human knowledge.

thales: Grice: “We call him Greek, but he certainly weren’t [sic] born in Greece!” -- called by Grice the first Grecian philosopher (“Oddly, we call him a Ionian, but the Ionian is quite a way from where he was born!”) – who poisted a ‘philosophical’ why-explanation.  Grecian philosopher who was regarded as one of the Seven Sages of Greece. He was also considered the first philosopher, founder of the Milesians. Thales is also reputed to have been an engineer, astronomer, mathematician, and statesman. His doctrines even early Grecian sources know only by hearsay: he said that water is the arche, and that the earth floats on water like a raft. The magnet has a soul, and all things are full of the gods. Thales’ attempt to explain natural phenomena in natural rather than exclusively supernatural terms bore fruit in his follower Anaximander. 

‘that’: a demonstrative. Since Grice would make so many references to the ‘that’-clause, he is aware that ‘that’ is etymologically a demonstrative, that has lost its efficacy there. But the important etymological lesson is that what follows a ‘that’-clause (cf. the classical languages Grice learned at Clifton, Greek and Latin) is a ‘propositio’ just because the ‘that’ POINTS at the proposition. Sometimes he refers to ‘obliquus casus,’ and ‘oratio obliqua,’ but he is more at home with things like ‘verba percipienda,’ verba volendi, etc. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Bradley on this and that and thisnesss and thatness.’

‘that’-clause: Grice’s priority for the ‘that’-clause is multiple. He dislikes what he calls an ‘amorphous’ propositional complex. His idea is to have at least ‘The S is P,’ one act involving a subjectum or denotatum, and one involving the praedicatum. There is also what he calls sub-perceptual utterances. They do look like structured (“That red pillar seems red”) but they are not perceptual reports like “I perceive that the pillar box is red.” At points he wanst to restrict utterer’s communucatum to a ‘that’-clause; but ignoring Austin’s remark that to wonder about what a ‘word’ ‘means’ is senseless, Grice sometimes allows for things like ‘The cat sat on the mat’ to ‘mean’ that the cat sat on the mat. Grice thinks that his account of ‘the red-seeming pillar box’ succeeded, and that it was this success that prompted him to apply the thing to other areas, notably Strawson, but one hopes, all the theses he presents in “Causal” and “Prolegomena.” But he does not go back to the is/seems example, other than perhaps the tie is/seems blue. The reason is that the sense-datum theory is very complex. Note “seems.” “It seems to me that…” but the ‘that’-clause not as a content of a state of the agent. If the pillar box seems red to Grice because it is red, what ‘that’-clause are we talking about to involve in the implicaturum? And what generates the implicaturum. “By uttering “The pillar box seems red,” U conversationally implicates that there is a denial or doubt, somewhere as to whether the pillar box IS red.” Grice thought of Staal as particularly good at this type of formalistic philosophy, which was still adequate to reflect the subtleties of ordinary language.  How do we define a Griceian action? How do we define a Griceian event? This is Grices examination and criticism of Davidson, as a scientific realist, followed by a Kantian approach to freedom and causation. Grice is especially interested in the logical form, or explicitum, so that he can play with the implicaturum. One of his favourite examples: He fell on his sword, having tripped as he crossed the Galliæ. Grice manages to quote from many and varied authors (some of which you would not expect him to quote) such as Reichenbach, but also Robinson, of Oriel, of You Names it fame (for any x, if you can Names it, x exists). Robinson has a brilliant essay on parts of Cook Wilsons Statement and inference, so he certainly knows what he is talking about. Grice also quotes from von Wright and Eddington. Grice offers a linguistic botanic survey of autonomy and free (sugar-free, free fall, implicaturum-free) which some have found inspirational. His favourite is Finnegans alcohol-free. Finnegans obvious implicaturum is that everything is alcohol-laden. Grice kept a copy of Davidsons The logical form of action sentences, since surely Davidson, Grice thought, is making a primary philosophical point. Horses run fast; therefore, horses run. A Davidsonian problem, and there are more to come! Smith went fishing. Grices category shift allows us to take Smiths fishing as the grammatical Subjects of an action sentence. Cf. indeed the way to cope with entailment in The horse runs fast; therefore, the horse runs. Grices Actions and events is Davidsonian in motivation, but Kantian in method, one of those actions by Grice to promote a Griceian event! Davidson had published, Grice thought, some pretty influential (and provocative, anti-Quineian) stuff on actions and events, or events and actions, actually, and, worse, he was being discussed at Oxford, too, over which Grice always keeps an eye! Davidsons point, tersely put, is that while p.q (e.g. It is raining, and it is pouring) denotes a concatenation of events. Smith is fishing denotes an action, which is a kind of event, if you are following him (Davidson, not Smith). However, Davidson is fighting against the intuition, if you are a follower of Whitehead and Russell, to symbolise the Smith is fishing as Fs, where s stands for Smith and F for fishing. The logical form of a report of an event or an action seems to be slightly more complicated. Davidsons point specifically involves adverbs, or adverbial modifiers, and how to play with them in terms of entailment. The horse runs fast; therefore, the horse runs. Symbolise that! as Davidson told Benson Mates! But Mates had gone to the restroom. Grice explores all these and other topics and submits the thing for publication. Grice quotes, as isnt his wont, from many and various philosophers, not just Davidson, whom he saw every Wednesday, but others he didnt, like Reichenbach, Robinson, Kant, and, again even a physicist like Eddington. Grice remarks that Davidson is into hypothesis, suppositio, while he is, as he should, into hypostasis, substantia. Grice then expands on the apparent otiosity of uttering, It is a fact that grass is green. Grice goes on to summarise what he ironically dubs an ingenious argument. Let σ abbreviate the operator  consists in the fact that , which, when prefixed to a sentence, produces a predicate or epithet. Let S abbreviate Snow is white, and let G abbreviate Grass is green. In that case, xσS is 1 just in case xσ(y(y=y and S) = y(y=y) is 1, since the first part of the sub-sentence which follows σ in the main sentence is logically equivalent logically equivalent to the second part. And xσ(y(y=y and S) = y(y=y) is 1 just in case xσ(y(if y=y, G) = y(y=y) is 1, since y(if y=y, S) and y(if y=y, G) are each a singular term, which, if S and G are both true, each refers to y(y=y), and are therefore co-referential and inter-substitutable. And xσ(y(if y=y, G) = y(y=y) is true just in case xσG is 1, since G is logically equivalent to the sub-sentence which follows σ. So, this fallacy goes, provided that S and G are both 1, regardless of what an utterer explicitly conveys by uttering a token of it, any event which consists of the otiose fact that S also consists of the otiose fact that G, and vice versa, i. e. this randomly chosen event is identical to any other randomly chosen event. Grice hastens to criticise this slingshot fallacy licensing the inter-substitution of this or that co-referential singular term and this or that logically equivalent sub-sentence as officially demanded because it is needed to license a patently valid, if baffling, inference. But, if in addition to providing this benefit, the fallacy saddles the philosopher with a commitment to a hideous consequence, the rational course is to endeavour to find a way of retaining the benefit while eliminating the disastrous accompaniment, much as in set theory it seems rational to seek as generous a comprehension axiom as the need to escape this or that paradox permits. Grice proposes to retain the principle of co-reference, but prohibit is use after the principle of logical equivalence has been used. Grice finds such a measure to have some intuitive appeal. In the fallacy, the initial deployment of the principle of logical equivalence seems tailored to the production of a sentence which provides opportunity for trouble-raising application of the principle of co-referentiality. And if that is what the game is, why not stop it? On the assumption that this or that problem which originally prompts this or that analysis is at least on their way towards independent solution, Grice turns his attention to the possibility of providing a constructivist treatment of things which might perhaps have more intuitive appeal than a naïve realist approach. Grice begins with a class of happenstance attributions, which is divided into this or that basic happenstance attribution, i.e. ascriptions to a Subjects-item of an attribute which is metabolically expressible, and this or that non-basic resultant happenstance attribution, in which the attribute ascribed, though not itself metabolically expressible, is such that its possession by a Subjects item is suitably related to the possession by that or by some other Subjects item, of this or that attribute which is metabolically expressible. Any member of the class of happenstance attributions may be used to say what happens, or happens to be the case, without talking about any special entity belonging to a class of a happening or a happenstance. A next stage involves the introduction of the operator  consists of the fact that  This operator, when prefixed to a sentence S that makes a happen-stance attribution to a Subjects-item, yields a predicate which is satisfied by an entity which is a happenstance, provided that sentence S is doxastically satisfactory, i. e., 1, and that some further metaphysical condition obtains, which ensures the metaphysical necessity of the introduction into reality of the category of a happenstance, thereby ensuring that this new category is not just a class of this or that fiction. As far as the slingshot fallacy, and the hideous consequence that all facts become identical to one Great Big Fact, in the light of a defence of Reichenbach against the realist attack, Grice is reasonably confident that a metaphysical extension of reality will not saddle him with an intolerable paradox, pace the caveat that, to some, the slingshot is not contradictory in the way a paradox is, but merely an unexpected consequence ‒ not seriously hideous, at that. What this metaphysical condition would be which would justify the metaphysical extension remains, alas, to be determined. It is tempting to think that the metaphysical condition is connected with a theoretical need to have this or that happenstance as this or that item in, say, a causal relation. Grice goes on to provide a progression of linguistic botanising including free. Grice distinguishes four elements or stages in the step-by-step development of freedom. A first stage is the transeunt causation one finds in inanimate objects, as when we experience a stone in free fall. This is Hume’s realm, the atomistss realm. This is external or transeunt casuation, when an object is affected by processes in other objects. A second stage is internal or immanent causation, where a process in an object is the outcome of previous stages in that process, as in a freely moving body. A third stage is the internal causation of a living being, in which changes are generated in a creature by internal features of the creature which are not earlier stages of the same change, but independent items, the function or finality of which is to provide for the good of the creature in question. A fourth stage is a culminating stage at which the conception of a certain mode by a human of something as being for that creatures good is sufficient to initiate the doing of that thing. Grice expands on this interesting last stage. At this stage, it is the case that the creature is liberated from every factive cause. There is also a discussion of von Wrights table of adverbial modifiers, or Grices pentagram. Also an exploration of specificity: Jack buttering a parsnip in the bathroom in the presence of Jill. Grice revisits some of his earlier concerns, and these are discussed in the appropriate places, such as his exploration on the Grecian etymology of aition. “That”-clause should be preferred to ‘oratio obliqua,’ since the latter is a misnomer when you ascribe a psychological state rather than an utterance. Refs.: The main sources are given under ‘oratio obliqua’ above, The BANC.

theism:  as an Aristotelian scholar, H. P. Grice is aware of the centrality of God, nous nouseos, in Aristotle’s philosophy -- atheism from Grecian a-, ‘not’, and theos, ‘god’, the view that there are no gods. A widely used sense denotes merely not believing in God and is consistent with agnosticism. A stricter sense denotes a belief that there is no God; this use has become the standard one. In the Apology Socrates is accused of atheism for not believing in the official Athenian gods. Some distinguish between theoretical atheism and practical atheism. A theoretical atheist is one who self-consciously denies the existence of a supreme being, whereas a practical atheist may believe that a supreme being exists but lives as though there were no god.

theology -- Grice’s philosophical theology -- concursus dei, God’s concurrence. The notion derives from a theory from medieval philosophical theology, according to which any case of causation involving created substances requires both the exercise of genuine causal powers inherent in creatures and the exercise of God’s causal activity. In particular, a person’s actions are the result of the person’s causal powers, often including the powers of deliberation and choice, and God’s causal endorsement. Divine concurrence maintains that the nature of God’s activity is more determinate than simply conserving the created world in existence. Although divine concurrence agrees with occasionalism in holding God’s power to be necessary for any event to occur, it diverges from occasionalism insofar as it regards creatures as causally active. 

theosophia: any philosophical mysticism, especially those that purport to be mathematically or scientifically based, such as Pythagoreanism, Neoplatonism, or gnosticism. Vedic Hinduism, and certain aspects of Buddhism, Taoism, and Islamic Sufism, can also be considered theosophical. In narrower senses, ‘theosophy’ may refer to the philosophy of Swedenborg, Steiner, or Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky 183. Swedenborg’s theosophy originally consisted of a rationalistic cosmology, inspired by certain elements of Cartesian and Leibnizian philosophy, and a Christian mysticism. Swedenborg labored to explain the interconnections between soul and body. Steiner’s theosophy is a reaction to standard scientific theory. It purports to be as rigorous as ordinary science, but superior to it by incorporating spiritual truths about reality. According to his theosophy, reality is organic and evolving by its own resource. Genuine knowledge is intuitive, not discursive. Madame Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. Her views were eclectic, but were strongly influenced by mystical elements of  philosophy. 

thema: a term Grice borrows from Stoic logic, after attending a seminar on the topic by Benson Mates – a ‘thema’ is a ground rule used to reduce argument forms to basic forms. The Stoics analyzed arguments by their form schema, or tropos. They represented forms using numbers to represent claims; for example, ‘if the first, the second; but the first; therefore the second’. Grice uses “so-and-so” for ‘the first’ and ‘such and such’ for the ‘second’. “If so and so, such and such, but so and so; therefore, such and such.” Some forms were undemonstrable; others were reduced to the undemonstrable argument forms by ground rules themata; e.g., if R follows from P & Q, -Q follows from P & -R. The five undemonstrable arguments are: 1 modus ponendo ponens; 2 modus tollendo tollens; 3 not both P and Q, P, so not-Q; 4 P or Q but not both, P, so not-Q; and 5 disjunctive syllogism. The evidence about the four ground rules is incomplete, but a sound and consistent system for propositional logic can be developed that is consistent with the evidence we have. See Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, for an introduction to the Stoic theory of arguments; other evidence is more scattered. 

theseus’s ship. Grice sails on Theseus’s ship. Theseus’ ship: Example used by Grice to relativise ‘identity.’ After the hero Theseus accomplished his mission to sail to Crete to kill the Minotaur, his ship (Ship 1) was put on display in Athens. As the time went by, its original planks and other parts were replaced one by one with new materials until one day all of its parts were new, with none of its original parts remaining. Do we want to say that the completely rebuilt ship (Ship 2) is the same as the original or that it is a different ship? The case is further complicated. If all the original materials were kept and eventually used to construct a ship (Ship 3), would this ship be the same as the original? This example has inspired much discussion concerning the problems of identity and individuation. “To be something later is to be its closest continuer. Let us apply this view to one traditional puzzle about identity over time: the puzzle of the ship of Theseus.” Nozick, Philosophical Explanation. Grice basically formalized this with G. Myro. Refs.: Collingwood, translation of Benedetto Croce, “Il paradosso della nave di Teseo,” H. P. Grice, “Relative identity,” The Grice Papers, BANC.

θ: or theta -- Grice’s symbol for a theory. Grice uses small-case theta for a token of a theory, and capital theta for a type of theory.– Grice couldn’t quite stand some type of attitude he found in people like J. M. Rountree – Rountree was claiming that one needs a ‘theory’ of meaning. Grice responded: “ Rountree is wrong: if meaning is a matter of theory, it cannot be a matter of intuition; and I’m sure it should be a matter of intuition for Rountree!” theoretical term – Grice was once attracted to Ramsey’s essay on “Theories,” but later came to see it as ‘pretentious’. “Surely the way *I* use ‘theory’ is not Ramsey’s!” – If something is an object of an intuition by Grice, it cannot be a theoretical term – theory and intuition don’t go together. They repel each other! a term occurring in a scientific theory that purports to make reference to an unobservable entity e.g., ‘electron’, property e.g., ‘the monatomicity of a molecule’, or relation ‘greater electrical resistance’. The qualification ‘purports to’ is required because instrumentalists deny that any such unobservables exist; nevertheless, they acknowledge that a scientific theory, such as the atomic theory of matter, may be a useful tool for organizing our knowledge of observables and predicting future experiences. Scientific realists, in contrast, maintain that at least some of the theoretical terms e.g., ‘quark’ or ‘neutrino’ actually denote entities that are not directly observable  they hold, i.e., that such things exist. For either group, theoretical terms are contrasted with such observational terms as ‘rope’, ‘smooth’, and ‘louder than’, which refer to observable entities, properties, or relations. Much philosophical controversy has centered on how to draw the distinction between the observable and the unobservable. Did Galileo observe the moons of Jupiter with his telescope? Do we observe bacteria under a microscope? Do physicists observe electrons in bubble chambers? Do astronomers observe the supernova explosions with neutrino counters? Do we observe ordinary material objects, or are sense-data the only observables? Are there any observational terms at all, or are all terms theory-laden? Another important meaning of ‘theoretical term’ occurs if one regards a scientific theory as a semiformal axiomatic system. It is then natural to think of its vocabulary as divided into three parts, i terms of logic and mathematics, ii terms drawn from ordinary language or from other theories, and iii theoretical terms that constitute the special vocabulary of that particular theory. Thermodynamics, e.g., employs i terms for numbers and mathematical operations, ii such terms as ‘pressure’ and ‘volume’ that are common to many branches of physics, and iii such special thermodynamical terms as ‘temperature’, ‘heat’, and ‘entropy’. In this second sense, a theoretical term need not even purport to refer to unobservables. For example, although special equipment is necessary for its precise quantitatheoretical entity theoretical term 912   912 tive measurement, temperature is an observable property. Even if theories are not regarded as axiomatic systems, their technical terms can be considered theoretical. Such terms need not purport to refer to unobservables, nor be the exclusive property of one particular theory. In some cases, e.g., ‘work’ in physics, an ordinary word is used in the theory with a meaning that departs significantly from its ordinary use. Serious questions have been raised about the meaning of theoretical terms. Some philosophers have insisted that, to be meaningful, they must be given operational definitions. Others have appealed to coordinative definitions to secure at least partial interpretation of axiomatic theories. The verifiability criterion has been invoked to secure the meaningfulness of scientific theories containing such terms. A theoretical concept or construct is a concept expressed by a theoretical term in any of the foregoing senses. The term ‘theoretical entity’ has often been used to refer to unobservables, but this usage is confusing, in part because, without introducing any special vocabulary, we can talk about objects too small to be perceived directly  e.g., spheres of gamboge a yellow resin less than 106 meters in diameter, which figured in a historically important experiment by Jean Perrin.  Grice uses Ramsey’s concept of ‘theory’ – “granting that Ramsey overrated theory, as all Cambridge men do!” -- theory-laden, dependent on theory; specifically, involving a theoretical interpretation of what is perceived or recorded. In the heyday of logical empiricism it was thought, by Carnap and others, that a rigid distinction could be drawn between observational and theoretical terms. Later, N. R. Hanson, Paul Feyerabend, and others questioned this distinction, arguing that perhaps all observations are theory-laden either because our perception of the world is colored by perceptual, linguistic, and cultural differences or because no attempt to distinguish sharply between observation and theory has been successful. This shift brings a host of philosophical problems. If we accept the idea of radical theoryladenness, relativism of theory choice becomes possible, for, given rival theories each of which conditions its own observational evidence, the choice between them would seem to have to be made on extra-evidential grounds, since no theory-neutral observations are available. In its most perplexing form, relativism holds that, theory-ladenness being granted, one theory is as good as any other, so far as the relationship of theory to evidence is concerned. Relativists couple the thesis of theory-ladenness with the alleged fact of the underdetermination of a theory by its observational evidence, which yields the idea that any number of alternative theories can be supported by the same evidence. The question becomes one of what it is that constrains choices between theories. If theory-laden observations cannot constrain such choices, the individual subjective preferences of scientists, or rules of fraternal behavior agreed upon by groups of scientists, become the operative constraints. The logic of confirmation seems to be intrinsically contaminated by both idiosyncratic and social factors, posing a threat to the very idea of scientific rationality. 

thomson: Grice did not collaborate with that many friends. He did with his tutee Strawson. He later did it with G. J. Warnock only on the theory of perception (notably the ‘visum’). He collaborated with two more Oxonian philosophers, and with both on the philosophy of action: D. F. Pears and J. F. Thomson.  J. F. Scots London-born philosopher who would often give seminars with H. P. Grice. They also explored ‘philosophy of action.’ Thomson presented his views on public occasons on the topic, usually under the guidance of D. F. Pears – on topics such as ‘freedom of the will.’ Thomson has assocations with University, and is a Fellow of Corpus, Grice’s alma.

thomsonianism: Grice explored philosophy of action with J. F. Thomson. Thomson would socialize mainly with Grice and D. F. Pears. Oddly, Thomson was also interested in ‘if’ and reached more or less the same Philonian consequences that Grice does.

thoreau: h. d. born in Concord, Massachusetts, New England, he attended Harvard, and, rather than the usual Rhodes scholarship to Oxford, he returns to Concord to study nature and write, making a frugal living as a schoolteacher, land surveyor, and pencil maker. Commentators have emphasized three aspects of his life: his love and penetrating study of the flora and fauna of the Concord area, recorded with philosophical reflections in Walden 1854; his continuous pursuit of simplicity in the externals of life, thus avoiding a life of “quiet desperation”; and his acts of civil disobedience. The last item has been somewhat overemphasized; not paying a poll tax by way of protest was not original with Thoreau. However, his essay “Resistance to Civil Government” immortalized his protest and influenced people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., in later years. Thoreau eventually helped runaway slaves at considerable risk; still, he considered himself a student of nature and not a reformer. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “What Thoreau missed at Oxford.” 

three-year-old’s guide to Russell’s theory of types, the – by H. P. Grice, with an appendix by P. F. Strawson, “Advice to parents,” v. Grice’s three-year-old’s guide.

tillich:  philosopher, b. in Starzeddel, eastern Germany, he was educated in philosophy and theology and ordained in the Prussian Evangelical Church in 2. He served as an army chaplain during World War I and later taught at Berlin, Marburg, Dresden, Leipzig, and Frankfurt. In November 3, following suspension from his teaching post by the Nazis, he emigrated to the United States, where he taught at Columbia and Union Theological Seminary until 5, and then at Harvard and Chicago until his death. A popular preacher and speaker, he developed a wide audience in the United States through such writings as The Protestant Era 8, Systematic Theology three volumes: 1, 7, 3, The Courage to Be 2, and Dynamics of Faith 7. His sometimes unconventional lifestyle, as well as his syncretic yet original thought, moved “on the boundary” between theology and other elements of culture  especially art, literature, political thought, and depth psychology  in the belief that religion should relate to the whole extent, and the very depths, of human existence. Tillich’s thought, despite its distinctive “ontological” vocabulary, was greatly influenced by the voluntaristic tradition from Augustine through Schelling, Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. It was a systematic theology that sought to state fresh Christian answers to deep existential questions raised by individuals and cultures  his method of correlation. Every age has its distinctive kairos, “crisis” or “fullness of time,” the right time for creative thought and action. In Weimar G.y, Tillich found the times ripe for religious socialism. In postWorld War II America, he focused more on psychological themes: in the midst of anxiety over death, meaninglessness, and guilt, everyone seeks the courage to be, which comes only by avoiding the abyss of non-being welling up in the demonic and by placing one’s unconditional faith  ultit’ien Tillich, Paul 919   919 mate concern  not in any particular being e.g. God but in Being-Itself “the God above God,” the ground of being. This is essentially the Protestant principle, which prohibits lodging ultimate concern in any finite and limited reality including state, race, and religious institutions and symbols. Tillich was especially influential after World War II. He represented for many a welcome critical openness to the spiritual depths of modern culture, opposing both demonic idolatry of this world as in National Socialism and sectarian denial of cultural resources for faith as in Barthian neo-orthodoxy. 

tonk: a sentential connective whose meaning and logic are completely characterized by the two rules or axioms 1 [P P P tonk Q] and 2 [P tonk Q P Q]. If 1 and 2 are added to any normal system, then every Q can be derived from any P. A. N. Prior invented ‘tonk’ to show that deductive validity must not be conceived as depending solely on arbitrary syntactically defined rules or axioms. We may prohibit ‘tonk’ on the ground that it is not a natural, independently meaningful notion, but we may also prohibit it on purely syntactical grounds. E.g., we may require that, for every connective C, the C-introduction rule [xxx P . . . C . . .] and the C-elimination rule [ - - - C - - - P yyy] be such that the yyy is part of xxx or is related to xxx in some other syntactical way. 

token-reflexive, an expression that refers to itself in an act of speech or writing, such as ‘this token’. The term was coined by Reichenbach, who conjectured that all indexicals, all expressions whose semantic value depends partly on features of the context of utterance, are tokenreflexive and definable in terms of the phrase ‘this token’. He suggested that ‘I’ means the same as ‘the person who utters this token’, ‘now’ means the same as ‘the time at which this token is uttered’, ‘this table’ means the same as ‘the table pointed to by a gesture accompanying this token’, and so forth. Russell made a somewhat similar suggestion in his discussion of egocentric particulars. Reichenbach’s conjecture is widely regarded as false; although ‘I’ does pick out the person using it, it is not synonymous with ‘the person who utters this token’. If it were, as David Kaplan observes, ‘If no one were to utter this token, I would not exist’ would be true. 

token-type distinction – Grice: “Strictly, they are not antonyms – and token is too English!” Grice: “Token is cognate with ‘teach,’ a Graeco-Roman thing, cfr. insignum – insignare – to teach is to show, almost, with an m-intention behind.” -- first the token, then the type – if necessary; “After all a type is a set of tokens” -- used by Grice: there’s a type of an utterer, but there’s the individual utterer: In symbols, “u” is an individual utterer, say, Grice. “U” is a type of utterer, say Oxonian philosophy dons. Aas drawn by Peirce, the contrast between a category and a member of that category. An individual or token is said to exemplify a type; it possesses the property that characterizes that type. In philosophy this distinction is often applied to linguistic expressions and to mental states, but it can be applied also to objects, events, properties, and states of affairs. Related to it are the distinctions between type and token individuation and between qualitative and numerical identity. Distinct tokens of the same type, such as two ants, may be qualitatively identical but cannot be numerically identical. Irrespective of the controversial metaphysical view that every individual has an essence, a type to which it belongs essentially, every individual belongs to many types, although for a certain theoretical or practical purpose it may belong to one particularly salient type e.g., the entomologist’s Formicidae or the picnicker’s buttinsky. The typetoken distinction as applied in the philosophy of language marks the difference between linguistic expressions, such as words and sentences, which are the subject of linguistics, and the products of acts of writing or speaking the subject of speech act theory. Confusing the two can lead to conflating matters of speaker meaning withmatters of word or sentence meaning as noted by Grice. An expression is a linguistic type and can be used over and over, whereas a token of a type can be produced only once, though of course it may be reproduced copied. A writer composes an essay a type and produces a manuscript a token, of which there might be many copies more tokens. A token of a type is not the same as an occurrence of a type. In the previous sentence there are two occurrences of the word ‘type’; in each inscription of that sentence, there are two tokens of that word. In philosophy of mind the typetoken distinction underlies the contrast between two forms of physicalism, the typetype identity theory or type physicalism and the tokentoken identity theory or token physicalism. 

topic-neutral, noncommittal between two or more ontological interpretations of a term. J. J. C. Smart suggested that introspective reports can be taken as topic-neutral: composed of terms neutral between “dualistic metaphysics” and “materialistic metaphysics.” When one asserts, e.g., that one has a yellowish-orange afterimage, this is tantamount to saying ‘There is something going on that is like what is going on when I have my eyes open, am awake, and there is an orange illuminated in good light in front of me, i.e., when I really see an orange’. The italicized phrase is, in Smart’s terms, topic-neutral; it refers to an event, while remaining noncommittal about whether it is material or immaterial. The term has not always been restricted to neutrality regarding dualism and materialism. Smart suggests that topic-neutral descriptions are composed of “quasi-logical” words, and hence would be suitable for any occasion where a relatively noncommittal expression of a view is required. 

topos – Grice: “I will use the Latinate ‘commonplace’” – ‘locus communis’-- topic, the analysis of common strategies of argumentation, later a genre of literature analyzing syllogistic reasoning. Aristotle considered the analysis of types of argument, or “topics,” the best means of describing the art of dialectical reasoning; he also used the term to refer to the principle underlying the strategy’s production of an argument. Later classical commentators on Aristotle, particularly Latin rhetoricians like Cicero, developed Aristotle’s discussions of the theory of dialectical reasoning into a philosophical form. Boethius’s work on topics exemplifies the later classical expansion of the scope of topics literature. For him, a topic is either a self-evidently true universal generalization, also called a “maximal proposition,” or a differentia, a member of the set of a maximal proposition’s characteristics that determine its genus and species. Man is a rational animal is a maximal proposition, and like from genus, the differentia that characterizes the maximal proposition as concerning genera, it is a topic. Because he believed dialectical reasoning leads to categorical, not conditional, conclusions, Boethius felt that the discovery of an argument entailed discovering a middle term uniting the two, previously unjoined terms of the conclusion. Differentiae are the genera of these middle terms, and one constructs arguments by choosing differentiae, thereby determining the middle term leading to the conclusion. In the eleventh century, Boethius’s logical structure of maximal propositions and differentiae was used to study hypothetical syllogisms, while twelfth-century theorists like Abelard extended the applicability of topics structure to the categorical syllogism. By the thirteenth century, Peter of Spain, Robert Kilwardby, and Boethius of Dacia applied topics structure exclusively to the categorical syllogism, principally those with non-necessary, probable premises. Within a century, discussion of topics structure to evaluate syllogistic reasoning was subsumed by consequences literature, which described implication, entailment, and inference relations between propositions. While the theory of consequences as an approach to understanding relations between propositions is grounded in Boethian, and perhaps Stoic, logic, it became prominent only in the later thirteenth century with Burley’s recognition of the logical significance of propositional logic. 

toxin puzzle, a puzzle about intention and practical rationality: trustworthy billionaire, call him Paul, offers you, Peter, a million pounds for intending tonight to drink a certain toxin tomorrow. Peter is convinced that Paul can tell what Peter intends independently of what Peter does. The toxin would make Peter painfully ill for a day. But Peter needs to drink it to get the money. Constraints on the formation of a prize-winning intention include prohibitions against “gimmicks,” “external incentives,” and forgetting relevant details; e. g. Peter will not receive the money if Peter has a hypnotist “implant the intention” or hire a hit man to kill Peter should Peter not drink the toxin. If, by midnight tonight, without violating any rules, Peter forms an intention to drink the toxin tomorrow, Peter will find a million pounds in his bank account when he awakes tomorrow morning. Peter probably would drink the toxin for a million dollars. But can you, without violating the rules, intend tonight to drink it tomorrow? Apparently, you have no reason to drink it and an excellent reason not to drink it. Seemingly, you will infer from this that you will eschew drinking the toxin, and believing that you will top-down eschew drinking it seems inconsistent with intending to drink it. Even so, there are several reports in the philosophical literature of possible people who struck it rich when offered the toxin deal! Refs: H. P. Grice, “Grice’s book of paradoxes, with puzzling illustrations to  match!”  

transcendens -- transcendental argument: Transcendental argument -- Davidson, D.: H. P. Grice, “Reply to Davidson,” philosopher of mind and language. His views on the relationship between our conceptions of ourselves as persons and as complex physical objects have had an enormous impact on contemporary philosophy. Davidson regards the mindbody problem as the problem of the relation between mental and physical events; his discussions of explanation assume that the entities explained are events; causation is a relation between events; and action is a species of events, so that events are the very subject matter of action theory. His central claim concerning events is that they are concrete particulars  unrepeatable entities located in space and time. He does not take for granted that events exist, but argues for their existence and for specific claims as to their nature. In “The Individuation of Events” in Essays on Actions and Events, 0, Davidson argues that a satisfactory theory of action must recognize that we talk of the same action under different descriptions. We must therefore assume the existence of actions. His strongest argument for the existence of events derives from his most original contribution to metaphysics, the semantic method of truth Essays on Actions and Events, pp. 10580; Essays on Truth and Interpretation, 4, pp. 214. The argument is based on a distinctive trait of the English language one not obviously shared by signal systems in lower animals, namely, its productivity of combinations. We learn modes of composition as well as words and are thus prepared to produce and respond to complex expressions never before encountered. Davidson argues, from such considerations, that our very understanding of English requires assuming the existence of events. To understand Davidson’s rather complicated views about the relationships between mind and body, consider the following claims: 1 The mental and the physical are distinct. 2 The mental and the physical causally interact. 3 The physical is causally closed. Darwinism, social Davidson, Donald 206   206 1 says that no mental event is a physical event; 2, that some mental events cause physical events and vice versa; and 3, that all the causes of physical events are physical events. If mental events are distinct from physical events and sometimes cause them, then the physical is not causally closed. The dilemma posed by the plausibility of each of these claims and by their apparent incompatibility just is the traditional mind body problem. Davidson’s resolution consists of three theses: 4 There are no strict psychological or psychophysical laws; in fact, all strict laws are expressible in purely physical vocabulary. 5 Mental events causally interact with physical events. 6 Event c causes event e only if some strict causal law subsumes c and e. It is commonly held that a property expressed by M is reducible to a property expressed by P where M and P are not logically connected only if some exceptionless law links them. So, given 4, mental and physical properties are distinct. 6 says that c causes e only if there are singular descriptions, D of c and DH of e, and a “strict” causal law, L, such that L and ‘D occurred’ entail ‘D caused D'’. 6 and the second part of 4 entail that physical events have only physical causes and that all event causation is physically grounded. Given the parallel between 13 and 4 6, it may seem that the latter, too, are incompatible. But Davidson shows that they all can be true if and only if mental events are identical to physical events. Let us say that an event e is a physical event if and only if e satisfies a basic physical predicate that is, a physical predicate appearing in a “strict” law. Since only physical predicates or predicates expressing properties reducible to basic physical properties appear in “strict” laws, every event that enters into causal relations satisfies a basic physical predicate. So, those mental events which enter into causal relations are also physical events. Still, the anomalous monist is committed only to a partial endorsement of 1. The mental and physical are distinct insofar as they are not linked by strict law  but they are not distinct insofar as mental events are in fact physical events. 

transcendental club. “A club I created to discuss what I call a ‘metaphysical argument,’ but Kant calls ‘transcendental.’ Strawson objected to my calling it “The Metaphysical Club.” transcendentalism: Also called “New England transcendentalism,” an early nineteenth-century spiritual and philosophical movement in the United States, represented by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. It was centered in the so-called The Transcendental Club in Boston, and published a quarterly journal The Dial. Influenced by German idealism and Romanticism, it claimed that there is a spirit of the whole, the over-soul, which is beyond the space and time of the everyday world but at the same time immanent in it, and which forms a higher spiritual reality. It advocated an ascetic lifestyle, emphasized selfreliance and communal living, and rejected contemporary civilization. The eventual goal of life is to achieve a mystical unity with this spiritual reality, that is, with nature. Transcendentalism is viewed as a mixture of speculative philosophy and semi-religious faith. This philosophical movement had a deep influence upon existentialism, James’s pragmatism, and contemporary environmental philosophy. In a broad sense, transcendentalism is any doctrine that emphasizes the transcendental, and is taken as a synonym of transcendental philosophy. In this sense, all types of absolute philosophy, especially those idealist systems that emphasize the transcendence of the Absolute over the finite world, are considered examples of transcendentalism. Thus, transcendentalists had aims differing from those of Kant’s transcendental philosophy, which criticized those who wished to extend knowledge beyond experience and instead sought to use a transcendental argument to establish the conditions for the possibility of experience. “The transcendentalists believed in man’s ability to apprehend absolute Truth, absolute Justice, absolute Rectitude, absolute goodness. They spoke of the Right, the True, the Beautiful as eternal realities which man can discover in the world and which he can incorporate into his life. And they were convinced of the unlimited perfectibility of man.” Werkmeister, A History of Philosophical Ideas in America.

transcendental argument: Grice: “I prefer metaphysical argument.’ -- an argument that elucidates the conditions for the possibility of some fundamental phenomenon whose existence is unchallenged or uncontroversial in the philosophical context in which the argument is propounded. Such an argument proceeds deductively, from a premise asserting the existence of some basic phenomenon such as meaningful discourse, conceptualization of objective states of affairs, or the practice of making promises, to a conclusion asserting the existence of some interesting, substantive enabling conditions for that phenomenon. The term derives from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, which gives several such arguments. The paradigmatic Kantian transcendental argument is the “Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of Understanding.” Kant argued there that the objective validity of certain pure, or a priori, concepts the “categories” is a condition for the possibility of experience. Among the concepts allegedly required for having experience are those of substance and cause. Their apriority consists in the fact that instances of these concepts are not directly given in sense experience in the manner of instances of empirical concepts such as red. This fact gave rise to the skepticism of Hume concerning the very coherence of such alleged a priori concepts. Now if these concepts do have objective validity, as Kant endeavored to prove in opposition to Hume, then the world contains genuine instances of the concepts. In a transcendental argument concerning the conditions for the possibility of experience, it is crucial that some feature entailed by the having of experience is identified. Then it is argued that experience could not have this feature without satisfying some substantive conditions. In the Transcendental Deduction, the feature of experience on which Kant concentrates is the ability of a subject of experience to be aware of several distinct inner states as all belonging to a single consciousness. There is no general agreement on how Kant’s argument actually unfolded, though it seems clear to most that he focused on the role of the categories in the synthesis or combination of one’s inner states in judgments, where such synthesis is said to be required for one’s awareness of the states as being all equally one’s own states. Another famous Kantian transcendental argument  the “Refutation of Idealism” in the CriToynbee, Arnold transcendental argument 925   925 tique of Pure Reason  shares a noteworthy trait with the Transcendental Deduction. The Refutation proceeds from the premise that one is conscious of one’s own existence as determined in time, i.e., knows the temporal order of some of one’s inner states. According to the Refutation, a condition for the possibility of such knowledge is one’s consciousness of the existence of objects located outside oneself in space. If one is indeed so conscious, that would refute the skeptical view, formulated by Descartes, that one lacks knowledge of the existence of a spatial world distinct from one’s mind and its inner states. Both of the Kantian transcendental arguments we have considered, then, conclude that the falsity of some skeptical view is a condition for the possibility of some phenomenon whose existence is acknowledged even by the skeptic the having of experience; knowledge of temporal facts about one’s own inner states. Thus, we can isolate an interesting subclass of transcendental arguments: those which are anti-skeptical in nature. Barry Stroud has raised the question whether such arguments depend on some sort of suppressed verificationism according to which the existence of language or conceptualization requires the availability of the knowledge that the skeptic questions since verificationism has it that meaningful sentences expressing coherent concepts, e.g., ‘There are tables’, must be verifiable by what is given in sense experience. Dependence on a highly controversial premise is undesirable in itself. Further, Stroud argued, such a dependence would render superfluous whatever other content the anti-skeptical transcendental argument might embody since the suppressed premise alone would refute the skeptic. There is no general agreement on whether Stroud’s doubts about anti-skeptical transcendental arguments are well founded. It is not obvious whether the doubts apply to arguments that do not proceed from a premise asserting the existence of language or conceptualization, but instead conform more closely to the Kantian model. Even so, no anti-skeptical transcendental argument has been widely accepted. This is evidently due to the difficulty of uncovering substantive enabling conditions for phenomena that even a skeptic will countenance. 

transcendentale: Grice: “Trust Cicero to look for the abstract!” -- transcendentia, broadly, the property of rising out of or above other things virtually always understood figuratively; in philosophy, the property of being, in some way, of a higher order. A being, such as God, may be said to be transcendent in the sense of being not merely superior, but incomparably superior, to other things, in any sort of perfection. God’s transcendence, or being outside or beyond the world, is also contrasted, and by some thinkers combined, with God’s immanence, or existence within the world. In medieval philosophy of logic, terms such as ‘being’ and ‘one’, which did not belong uniquely to any one of the Aristotelian categories or types of predication such as substance, quality, and relation, but could be predicated of things belonging to any or to none of them, were called transcendental. In Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, principles that profess wrongly to take us beyond the limits of any possible experience are called transcendent; whereas anything belonging to non-empirical thought that establishes, and draws consequences from, the possibility and limits of experience may be called transcendental. Thus a transcendental argument in a sense still current is one that proceeds from premises about the way in which experience is possible to conclusions about what must be true of any experienced world. Transcendentalism was a philosophical or religious movement in mid-nineteenth-century New England, characterized, in the thought of its leading representative, Ralph Waldo Emerson, by belief in a transcendent spiritual and divine principle in human nature. Grice: “The formation of this Ciceronian expression is fascinating. There’s the descent of the lark, and the transcend of the lark!” -- transcendentals, also called transcendentalia, terms or concepts that apply to all things regardless of the things’ ontological kind or category. transcendental deduction transcendentals 926   926 Terms or concepts of this sort are transcendental in the sense that they transcend or are superordinate to all classificatory categories. The classical doctrine of the transcendentals, developed in detail in the later Middle Ages, presupposes an Aristotelian ontology according to which all beings are substances or accidents classifiable within one of the ten highest genera, the ten Aristotelian categories. In this scheme being Grecian on, Latin ens is not itself one of the categories since all categories mark out kinds of being. But neither is it a category above the ten categories of substance and accidents, an ultimate genus of which the ten categories are species. This is because being is homonymous or equivocal, i.e., there is no single generic property or nature shared by members of each category in virtue of which they are beings. The ten categories identify ten irreducible, most basic ways of being. Being, then, transcends the categorial structure of the world: anything at all that is ontologically classifiable is a being, and to say of anything that it is a being is not to identify it as a member of some kind distinct from other kinds of things. According to this classical doctrine, being is the primary transcendental, but there are other terms or concepts that transcend the categories in a similar way. The most commonly recognized transcendentals other than being are one unum, true verum, and good bonum, though some medieval philosophers also recognized thing res, something aliquid, and beautiful pulchrum. These other terms or concepts are transcendental because the ontological ground of their application to a given thing is precisely the same as the ontological ground in virtue of which that thing can be called a being. For example, for a thing with a certain nature to be good is for it to perform well the activity that specifies it as a thing of that nature, and to perform this activity well is to have actualized that nature to a certain extent. But for a thing to have actualized its nature to some extent is just what it is for the thing to have being. So the actualities or properties in virtue of which a thing is good are precisely those in virtue of which it has being. Given this account, medieval philosophers held that transcendental terms are convertible convertuntur or extensionally equivalent idem secundum supposita. They are not synonymous, however, since they are intensionally distinct differunt secundum rationem. These secondary transcendentals are sometimes characterized as attributes passiones of being that are necessarily concomitant with it. In the modern period, the notion of the transcendental is associated primarily with Kant, who made ‘transcendental’ a central technical term in his philosophy. For Kant the term no longer signifies that which transcends categorial classification but that which transcends our experience in the sense of providing its ground or structure. Kant allows, e.g., that the pure forms of intuition space and time and the pure concepts of understanding categories such as substance and cause are transcendental in this sense. Forms and concepts of this sort constitute the conditions of the possibility of experience. 

transcendentalism, a religious-philosophical viewpoint held by a group of New England intellectuals, of whom Emerson, Thoreau, and Theodore Parker were the most important. A distinction taken over from Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the only bond that universally united the members of the Transcendental Club, founded in 1836: the distinction between the understanding and reason, the former providing uncertain knowledge of appearances, the latter a priori knowledge of necessary truths gained through intuition. The transcendentalists insisted that philosophical truth could be reached only by reason, a capacity common to all people unless destroyed by living a life of externals and accepting as true only secondhand traditional beliefs. On almost every other point there were disagreements. Emerson was an idealist, while Parker was a natural realist  they simply had conflicting a priori intuitions. Emerson, Thoreau, and Parker rejected the supernatural aspects of Christianity, pointing out its unmistakable parochial nature and sociological development; while James Marsh, Frederick Henry Hedge, and Caleb Henry remained in the Christian fold. The influences on the transcendentalists differed widely and explain the diversity of opinion. For example, Emerson was influenced by the Platonic tradition, G. Romanticism, Eastern religions, and nature poets, while Parker was influenced by modern science, the Scottish realism of Reid and Cousin which also emphasized a priori intuitions, and the G. Higher Critics. Emerson, Thoreau, and Parker were also bonded by negative beliefs. They not only rejected Calvinism but Unitarianism as well; they rejected the ordinary concept of material success and put in its place an Aristotelian type of selfrealization that emphasized the rational and moral self as the essence of humanity and decried idiosyncratic self-realization that admires what is unique in people as constituting their real value. 

trans-finitum: definitum, infinitum: Trans-finite number, in set theory, an infinite cardinal or ordinal number.

transformation – Grice: “My system G makes minimal use of transformations” -- minimal transformation rule: an axiom-schema or rule of inference. Grice: “Strictly, an Ovidian metamorphose!” -- A transformation rule is thus a rule for transforming a possibly empty set of wellformed formulas into a formula, where that rule operates only upon syntactic information. It was this conception of an axiom-schema and rule of inference that was one of the keys to creating a genuinely rigorous science of deductive reasoning. In the 0s, the idea was imported into linguistics, giving rise to the notion of a transformational rule. Such a rule transforms tree structures into tree structures, taking one from the deep structure of a sentence, which determines its semantic interpretation, to the surface structure of that sentence, which determines its phonetic interpretation. Grice: “Chomsky misuses ‘transformation.’”

triangulus -- Grice’s triangle. He uses the word in “Meaning Revisited,” (WoW: 286). It’s the semiotic triange between what he calls the ‘communication device,’ the denotatum, and the soul. While often referred to as H. P. Grice’s triangle, or H. P. Grice’s semiotic triangle, or "Ogden/Richards triangle" the idea is also expressed in 1810, by Bernard Bolzano, in his rather obscure, Grice grants, “Beiträge zu einer begründeteren Darstellung der Mathematik.” However, the triangle can be traced back to the 4th century BC, in Aristotle's Peri Hermeneias (often referred to in its Latin translation De Interpretatione, second book of his Organon, on which Grice gave seminars as University Lecturer at Oxford with J. L. Austin). H. P. Grice’s semiotic Triangle relates to the problem of universals, a philosophical debate which split ancient and medieval philosophers (mainly realists and nominalists).  The triangle describes a simplified form of relationship between the emissor as subject, a concept as object or referent or denotatum, and its designation (sign, signans, or as Grice prefers ‘communication device’). For more elaborated research see Semiotics.  Ogden semiotic triangle.png  Contents 1Interlocutory applications 1.1Other triangles 1.2The communicative stand 1.3Direction of fit 2See also 3References 4External links Interlocutory applications Other triangles The relations between the triangular corners may be phrased more precisely in causal terms as follows[citation needed][original research?]. The matter evokes the emissor's soul. The emissor refers the matter to the symbol. The symbol evokes the emissee’s soul. The emissee refers the symbol back to the matter. The communicative stand Such a triangle represents ONE agent, the emissor, whereas communication takes place between TWO (objects, not necessarily agents). So imagine another triangle and consider that for the two to understand each other, the content that the "triangles" represent must fit or be aligned. Clearly, this calls for synchronisation and an interface as well as scale among other things. Notice also, that we perceive the world mostly through our eyes and in alternative phases of seeing and not seeing with change in the environment as the most important information to look for. Our eyes are lenses and we see a surface (2D) in ONE direction (focusing) if we are stationary and the object is not moving either. This is why you may position yourself in one corner of the triangle and by replicating (mirroring) it, you will be able to see the whole picture, your cognitive epistemological and the ontological existential or physical model of life, the universe, existence, etc. combined.[citation needed][original research?]  Direction of fit Main article: Direction of fit  This section has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This section does not cite any sources. (December 2012) This section is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic. (December 2012) Grice uses the notion of "direction of fit" (in “Intention and Uncertainty”) to create a taxonomy of acts. [3] [4]   This table possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (December 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) World or Referentintended →Writer's Thought   decoded ↑ ↓ encoded  Thought Emissee's← extendedSymbol or Word   Emissor's THOUGHT retrieves SYMBOL suited to REFERENT, Word suited to World.   Reader's THOUGHT retrieves REFERENT suited to SYMBOL, World suited to Word. Actually the arrows indicate that there is something exchanged between the two parties and it is a feedback cycle. Especially, if you imagine that the world is represented in the soul of both the emissor and the emissee and used for reality check. If you look at the triangle above again, remember that reality check is not what is indicated there between the sign and the referent and marked as "true', because a term or a sign is allocated "arbitrarily'. What you check for is the observance of the law of identity which requires you and your partner to sort out that you are on the same page, that the emissor is communicating and the emissee is understanding about the same thing. So the chunk of reality and the term are replaceable/interchangeable within limits and your concepts in the soul as presented in some appropriate way are all related and mean the same thing. Usually the check does not stop there, your ideas must also be tested for feasibility and doability to make sure that they are "real" and not "phantasy". Reality check comes from consolidating your experience with other people's experience to avoid solipsism and/or by putting your ideas (projection) in practice (production) and see the reaction. Notice, however how vague the verbs used and how the concept of a fit itself is left unexplained in details.[editorializing]  See also The Delta Factor De dicto De se De re References  Colin Cherry (1957) On Human Communication  C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards (1923) The Meaning of Meaning  John Searle (1975) "A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts", in: Gunderson, K. (ed.), Language, Mind, and Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press) pp. 344-369.  John Searle (1976) "A Classification of Illocutionary Acts", Language in Society, Vol.5, pp. 1-24. External links Jessica Erickstad (1998) Richards' Meaning of Meaning Theory. University of Colorado at Boulder. Allie Cahill (1998) "Proper Meaning Superstition" (I. A. Richards). University of Colorado at Boulder. Categories: SemioticsSemanticsPragmaticsPhilosophy of languagePhilosophy of mind. Semiotisches Dreieck Zur Navigation springen. Zur Suche springen. Das semiotische Dreieck stellt die Relation zwischen dem Symbol, dem dadurch hervorgerufenen Begriff und dem damit gemeinten realen Ding dar. Das semiotische Dreieck ist ein in der Sprachwissenschaft und Semiotik verwendetes Modell. Es soll veranschaulichen, dass ein Zeichenträger (Graphem, Syntagma, Symbol) sich nicht direkt und unmittelbar auf einen außersprachlichen Gegenstand bezieht, sondern dieser Bezug nur mittelbar durch eine Vorstellung/einen Begriff erfolgt. Das semiotische Dreieck publizierten erstmals Charles Kay Ogden und Ivor Armstrong Richards in dem Werk The Meaning of Meaning. Das semiotische Dreieck in vereinfachter Beschreibung. Die Welt besteht aus Gegenständen, Sachverhalten, Ereignissen und Ähnlichem. Diese sind wirklich und bestimmen alles, was geschieht. Das Symbol für ein Einzelnes davon steht in den folgenden Dreiecken rechts und bedeutet vereinfacht: Ding oder „was Sache ist“. Wenn der Mensch ein Ding bemerkt oder sich vorstellt, macht er sich ein gedachtes Bild davon. Das Symbol dafür steht in den folgenden Dreiecken oben und bedeutet: Begriff oder „was man meint“. Wenn Menschen mit diesen Begriffen von Dingen reden, so verwenden sie Zeichen (meist hörbar, gelegentlich auch sichtbar oder anders wahrnehmbar). Das sind Wörter (auch Bezeichnungen, Benennungen, Symbole oder Ähnliches). Das Symbol dafür steht in den folgenden DREIECKEN links und bedeutet: Wort oder „was man dazu sagt“. Ding, Begriff und Wort sollen eindeutig zusammengehören. Das gelingt nicht immer, vielmehr muss man immerzu aufpassen, ob der eben verwendete Begriff das betrachtete Ding richtig erfasst, ob das eben verwendete Wort den gemeinten Begriff trifft, und sogar ob das eben betrachtete Ding überhaupt eins ist und nicht etwa einige oder gar keins. Passen die drei Ecken nicht zueinander, „So entstehen leicht die fundamentalsten Verwechslungen (deren die ganze Philosophie voll ist).“  Vitters: Tractatus 3.324. Das semiotische Dreieck als bildliche Darstellung der Mehrdimensionalität der Zeichen  Begriff  /\  /  \    /    \    /      \     /   \ Zeichen ...... Gegenstand  (Wort)  (Ding). Das semiotische Dreieck ist zunächst nur ein bildliches Hilfsmittel, um sich Beziehungen „im“ bzw. „des“ Zeichens zu veranschaulichen. Seine Interpretation und nähere Ausgestaltung hängt daher von der zugrunde gelegten Erkenntnistheorie ab.  In entscheidender Weise wird durch das semiotische Dreieck veranschaulicht, dass zwischen dem Wort (der Zeichenform, d. h. dem Schriftbild oder dem Lautbild) und dem Bezeichneten (Ding, Gegenstand) keine direkte Beziehung, sondern nur durch (mindestens) eine hier so genannte Vermittlungsinstanz vermittelte Beziehung besteht. Graphisch wird dies durch eine unterschiedliche Linie dargestellt.  Gebräuchlich ist ein Dreieck. Entscheidend ist die nicht-direkte Beziehung zwischen Zeichen (Wort) und Gegenstand (Ding). Je nach Anzahl der zu veranschaulichenden (nicht auszublendenden) Bezugspunkte und Vermittlungsinstanzen und der Art der betonten Beziehungen kann man auch ein Quadrat, ein sonstiges Vieleck bzw. einen mehrdimensionalen Körper benutzen.  Darauf hinzuweisen ist, dass die Vermittlungsinstanz – hier mit dem mehrdeutigen Ausdruck „Begriff“ bezeichnet – sehr unterschiedlich gesehen wird, was aus dem Terminologiebefund unten deutlich wird.  Das semiotische Dreieck ist Veranschaulichung eines Zeichenverständnisses, das dem Zeichenbegriff von Ferdinand de Saussure, wonach ein Zeichen eine „psychische Einheit“ zwischen einem „akustischen Bild“ (Signifikanten) und einem „Begriff“ (Signifikat) (bei ihm im Sinne einer psychischen Vorstellung)[2] sein soll, widersprechen dürfte:[3] statt der „Papierblattmetapher“ für das Verhältnis von Signifikant/Signifikat (von de Saussure) wird im semiotischen Dreieck eine optische Trennung und Distanzierung von Zeichenkörper und Begriff (Sinn) vorgenommen.  Das semiotische Dreieck blendet auch pragmatische Bedingungen und Bezüge aus bzw. reduziert sie auf die semantische Dimension und wird daher von pragmatischen Bedeutungstheorien kritisiert (vgl. Semiotik).  Das Fehlen einer unmittelbaren Beziehung zwischen Zeichen und Gegenstand wird zugleich als Ausdruck der (von de Saussure betonten) Arbitrarität und Konventionalität von Zeichen interpretiert.  Geschichte Man muss unterscheiden zwischen dem semiotischen Dreieck als Bild und einem dreiseitigen (triadischen) Zeichenbegriff, dessen Veranschaulichung es dient.  Verbreitet wird die sprachwissenschaftliche Entwicklung so dargestellt, als gäbe es ein semiotisches Dreieck erst seit Ogden/Richards, die damit einen nur zweigliedrigen Zeichenbegriff von de Saussure modifiziert/überwunden hätten.[4] Es heißt, bis ins 19. Jahrhundert sei der Zeichenbegriff im Wesentlichen hinsichtlich seines Sachbezugs als „zweistellige Relation“ diskutiert worden.[5]  Andere betonen den zugrunde liegenden dreiseitigen („triadischen“) Zeichenbegriff, der meist bei Aristoteles, mitunter auch schon bei Platon angesetzt wird. Schon bei Platon findet sich ein gedankliches Wort-Gegenstand-Modell zwischen Namen (Zeichen) – Idee (Begriff) und Ding. Bei Aristoteles ist ein Zeichen (semeion, damit meint er ein Wort) ein Symptom für eine Seelenregung, d. h. für etwas, das der Sprecher sich vorstellt. Diese Vorstellung des Sprechers ist dann ein Ikon für ein Ding. Dies sind für ihn die primären Zeichenrelationen (rot in der untenstehenden Figur). Davon abgeleitet ist die sekundäre Zeichenrelation (schwarz in der Figur).   Das Semiotische Dreieck bei Aristoteles Seit Aristoteles wird vertreten, dass Zeichen Dinge der Welt nicht unvermittelt, sondern vermittelt über einen „Begriff“, „Vorstellung“ etc. bezeichnen. Dies bedeutet eine Differenzierung gegenüber der einfachen aliquid-stat-pro-aliquo-Konzeption und ist „für die ganze Geschichte der Semiotik entscheidend“. Bei Aristoteles stehen „Zeichen […] für Sachen, welche von den Bewußtseinsinhalten abgebildet worden sind“. „Die Sachen werden von den Zeichen nicht präsentiert, sondern repräsentiert.“. Die Interpretation von De interpretatione ist dabei seit Jahrtausenden kontrovers. Die oben wiedergegebene Interpretation entspricht einer psychologischen Deutung, die einen Psychologismus nahelegt. Dies erscheint fraglich, da Aristoteles eher einen erkenntnistheoretischen Realismus vertreten haben dürfte.  Scholastik In der Sprachphilosophie der Scholastik finden sich Überlegungen zum Dreierschema res (Sache, Ding), intellectus (Verstand, Gedanken, Begriff), vox (Wortzeichen). Logik von Port-Royal. In der Grammatik von Port-Royal (Mitte des 17. Jh.) soll das semiotische Dreieck eingeführt worden sein.[10] In der Logik von Port-Royal sind die Gegenstände und die Sprachzeichen nicht unmittelbar, sondern über Universalien miteinander verknüpft. Nach KANT ist das zwischen Begrifflichkeit und Sinnlichkeit bzw. Gegenstand vermittelnde Element das Schema als ein bildhaftes und anschauliches Zeichen. Das Verfahren des Verstandes, mit Hilfe der ‚Einbildungskraft‘ die reinen Verstandesbegriffe zu versinnlichen, heißt Schematismus. Auch Arthur Schopenhauer, ein deutscher Philosoph des 19. Jahrhunderts, unterscheidet in seinem Hauptwerk Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung strikt zwischen Wort, Begriff und Anschauung. Ausblendung des Referenzbezugs im Zeichenmodell von de Saussure Nach verbreiteter Auffassung haben die moderne Sprachwissenschaft und der moderne Zeichenbegriff erst mit de Saussure eingesetzt. Nach de Saussure ist ein Zeichen die Verbindung eines Ausdrucks (signifiant) mit einem Inhalt (signifié), wobei das Zeichen als „psychische Einheit mit zwei Seiten“[14] aufgefasst wurde. In diesem zweigliedrigen (dyadischen) Zeichenmodell „hat die reale Welt keine Bedeutung“:[15] „Hier Bezeichnetes als geistige Vorstellung, dort Bezeichnendes als dessen Materialisation in der Sprache, aber kein Platz für das Objekt selbst“. Triadisches Zeichenmodells bei Peirce. Charles S. Peirce entwickelte eine pragmatische Semiotik[16] und die Pragmatik soll auf dem triadischen Zeichenmodell von Peirce beruhen.[17] Statt eines dyadischen entwickelte Peirce ein kommunikativ-pragmatisches, triadisches Zeichenmodell: das Zeichen ist eine „triadische Relation (semiotisches Dreieck)“. Dies, indem er zu Zeichenmittel und Objekt den „Interpretanten“ ergänzte, d. h. die Bedeutung, die durch Interpretation der Zeichenbenutzer (Sprecher bzw. Hörer) in einem Handlungszusammenhang zustande kommt. „Das, was als Bewusstseinsinhalt erscheint, der Interpretant, ist der individuell erkannte Sinn, der seinerseits kulturell vor- oder mitgeprägt sein kann. Daher wird in diesem Konzept die Zeichenbedeutung (…) auch als „kulturelle Einheit“ (Eco, 1972) postuliert.“Peirce-Interpreten wie Floyd Merrell oder Gerhard Schönrich wenden sich gegen die Dreiecksdarstellung peircescher Zeichentriaden, da sie suggerieren könnte, dass sich die irreduzible triadische Relation zerlegen lasse in einzelne zweistellige Relationen. Stattdessen schlagen sie eine Y-förmige Darstellung vor, bei der die drei Relate jeweils durch eine Linie mit dem Mittelpunkt verbunden sind, aber entlang der Seiten des „Dreiecks“ keine Linien verlaufen.  Charles Kay Ogden / Ivor Armstrong Richards Als „die“ Vertreter eines dreiseitigen Zeichenmodells bzw. eines semiotischen Dreiecks (unter Ausblendung ihrer Vorläufer) werden verbreitet Charles Kay Ogden und Ivor Armstrong Richards angeführt. Diese erkannten eine Welt außerhalb des menschlichen Bewusstseins ausdrücklich an und wandten sich gegen „idealistische Konzepte“. Nach Charles Kay Ogden und Ivor Armstrong Richards symbolisiert das Zeichen (symbol) etwas und ruft einen entsprechenden Bewusstseinsinhalt (reference) hervor, der sich auf das Objekt (referent) bezieht.[6] Das semiotische Dreieck wird wie folgt erklärt: „Umweltsachverhalte werden im Gedächtnis begrifflich bzw. konzeptuell repräsentiert und mit Sprachzeichen assoziiert. So ist z. B. das Wort „Baum“ ein Sprachzeichen, das mit dem Begriff bzw. Konzept von „BAUM“ assoziiert ist und über diesen auf reale Bäume (Buchen, Birken, Eichen usw.) verweisen kann.“. Siehe auch Organon-Modell (von Karl Bühler) Literatur Metamorphosen des semiotischen Dreieck. In: Zeitschrift für Semiotik. Band 10, (darin 8 einzelne Artikel). Umberto Eco: Semiotik – Entwurf einer Theorie der Zeichen. 2. Auflage. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, München 1991, ISBN 3-7705-2323-7. Umberto Eco: Einführung in die Semiotik. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, München 1994, ISBN 3-7705-0633-2. Einzelnachweise  C. K. Ogden, I. A. Richards: The Meaning of Meaning. 1923  Kassai: Sinn. In: Martinet (Hrsg.): Linguistik. Ohne Problematisierung trotz der Nähe zu Saussure hingegen bei Kassai: Sinn. In: Martinet (Hrsg.): Linguistik. 1973, S. 251 (S. 254 f.) referiert  So wohl Fischer Kolleg Abiturwissen, Deutsch (2002), S. 27  So z. B. Schülerduden, Philosophie (2002), Semiotik  Triadische Zeichenrelation. In: Homberger: Sachwörterbuch zur Sprachwissenschaft. 2000  Trabant: Semiotik. Trabant: Semiotik. So auch Triadische Zeichenrelation. In: Homberger: Sachwörterbuch zur Sprachwissenschaft. 2000, wonach Aristoteles das Platonische Modell „psychologisiert“ haben soll  So Schülerduden, Philosophie (2002), Sprachphilosophie  Schülerduden, Philosophie (2002), Sprachphilosophie  Baumgartner: Kants „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“, Anleitung zur Lektüre. [1988], neu ersch. 5. Auflage. ALBER, Freiburg Hierzu vor allem das Kapitel: „Zur Lehre von der abstrakten, oder Vernunft-Erkenntnis“ (Zweiter Band)  Fischer Kolleg Abiturwissen, Deutsch (2002), S. 26  Ernst: Pragmalinguistik. 2002, S. 66  Schülerduden, Philosophie (2002), Peirce  So Pelz: Linguistik. 1996, S. 242  Zeichenprozess. In: Homberger: Sachwörterbuch zur Sprachwissenschaft. 2000  Bedeutung. In: Homberger: Sachwörterbuch zur Sprachwissenschaft. 2000 Kategorien: SemiotikSemantik. For Grice, the triangle represents the three correspondences. First, psychophysical, second psychosemiotic, and third semio-physical.

trinitarianism, -- “Raining, raining, raining.” -- the theological doctrine that God consists of three persons, “in Strawson’s usage of the expression” – Vide Grice, “Personal identity,” -- The persons who constitute the Holy Trinity are the Father; the Son, who is Jesus Christ; and the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost. The doctrine states that each of these three persons is God and yet they are not three Gods but one God. According to a traditional formulation, the three persons are but one substance. In the opinion of Aquinas, the existence of God can be proved by human reason, but the existence of the three persons cannot be proved and is known only by revelation. According to Christian tradition, revelation contains information about the relations among the three persons, and these relations ground proper attributes of each that distinguish them from one another. Thus, since the Father begets the Son, a proper attribute of the Father is paternity and a proper attribute of the Son is filiation. Procession transparent Trinitarianism 928   928 or spiration is a proper attribute of the Holy Spirit. A disagreement about procession has contributed to dividing Eastern and Western Christianity. The Eastern Orthodox church teaches that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. A theory of double procession according to which the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son has been widely accepted in the West. This disagreement is known as the filioque ‘and the Son’ controversy because it arose from the fact that adding this Latin phrase to the Nicene Creed became acceptable in the West but not in the East. Unitarianism denies that God consists of three persons and so is committed to denying the divinity of Jesus. The monotheistic faiths of Judaism and Islam are unitarian, but there are unitarians who consider themselves Christians. H. P. Grice, “Raining, raining, raining – my mother and the Trinitarians.”

troeltsch: philosopher whose primary aim was to provide a scientific foundation for theology. Educated at Erlangen, Göttingen under Ritschl and Lagarde, and Berlin, he initially taught theology at Heidelberg and later philosophy in Berlin. He launched the school of history of religion with his epoch-making “On Historical and Dogmatical Method in Theology” 6. His contributions to theology The Religious Apriori, 4, philosophy, sociology, and history Historicism and Its Problems, 2 were vastly influential. Troeltsch claimed that only a philosophy of religion drawn from the history and development of religious consciousness could strengthen the standing of the science of religion among the sciences and advance the Christian strategy against materialism, naturalism, skepticism, aestheticism, and pantheism. His historical masterpiece, Protestantism and Progress 6, argues that early Protestantism was a modified medieval Catholicism that delayed the development of modern culture. As a sociologist, he addressed, in The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches 2, the twofold issue of whether religious beliefs and movements are conditioned by external factors and whether, in turn, they affect society and culture. From Christian social history he inferred three types of “sociological self-formation of the Christian idea”: the church, the sect, and the mystic

transversum -- Transversality – a term Grice borrowed from Heidegger – ‘the greatest philosopher that ever lived.” --  transcendence of the sovereignty of identity or self-sameness by recognizing the alterity of the Other as Unterschied  to use Heidegger’s term  which signifies the sense of relatedness by way of difference. An innovative idea employed and appropriated by such diverse philosophers as Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Gilles Deleuze, and Félix Guattari, transversality is meant to replace the Eurocentric formulation of truth as universal in an age when the world is said to be rushing toward the global village. Universality has been a Eurocentric idea because what is particular in the West is universalized, whereas what is particular elsewhere remains particularized. Since its center is everywhere and its circumference nowhere, truth is polycentric and correlative. Particularly noteworthy is the  phenomenologist Calvin O. Schrag’s attempt to appropriate transversality by splitting the difference between the two extremes of absolutism and relativism on the one hand and modernity’s totalizing practices and postmodernity’s fragmentary tendencies on the other.

tropic: Grice: “Cf. Cicero, ‘Tropicus, and sub-tropicus’ –“ used by R. M. Hare and H. P. Grice – Hare introduced the ‘tropic’ to contrast with the ‘phrastic,’ the ‘neustic,’ and the ‘clistic’ – “I often wondered if Hare was not distinguishing too narrowly” – H. P. Grice --trope, in recent philosophical usage, an “abstract particular”; an instance of a property occurring at a particular place and time, such as the color of the cover of this book or this . The whiteness of this  and the whiteness of the previous  are two distinct tropes, identical neither with the universal whiteness that is instantiated in both s, nor with the  itself; although the whiteness of this  cannot exist independently of this , this  could be dyed some other color. A number of writers, perhaps beginning with D. C. Williams, have argued that tropes must be included in our ontology if we are to achieve an adequate metaphysics. More generally, a trope is a figure of speech, or the use of an expression in a figurative or nonliteral sense. Metaphor and irony, e.g., fall under the category of tropes. If you are helping someone move a glass table but drop your end, and your companion says, “Well, you’ve certainly been a big help,” her utterance is probably ironical, with the intended meaning that you have been no help. One important question is whether, in order to account for the ironical use of this sentence, we must suppose that it has an ironical meaning in addition to its literal meaning. Quite generally, does a sentence usable to express two different metaphors have, in addition to its literal meaning, two metaphorical meanings  and another if it can be hyperbolic, and so forth? Many philosophers and other theorists from Aristotle on have answered yes, and postulated such figurative meanings in addition to literal sentence meaning. Recently, philosophers loath to multiply sentence meanings have denied that sentences have any non-literal meanings.Their burden is to explain how, e.g., a sentence can be used ironically if it does not have an ironical sense or meaning. Such philosophers disagree on whether tropes are to be explained semantically or pragmatically. A semantic account might hypothesize that tropes are generated by violations of semantical rules. An important pragmatic approach is Grice’s suggestion that tropes can be subsumed under the more general phenomenon of conversational implicaturum.

tukey’s bit: from binary digit, a unit or measure of information. Suggested by John W. Tukey, a bit is both an amount of information a reduction of eight equally likely possibilities to one generates three bits [% log2 8] of information and a system of representing that quantity. The binary system uses 1’s and 0’s.

Turing: Grice: “While not a philosopher, Turing’s thought experiment is about the ‘conceptual analysis’ of ‘thought’” --similar to a Griceian machine -- a machine, an abstract automaton or imagined computer consisting of a finite automaton operating an indefinitely long storage tape. The finite automaton provides the computing power of the machine. The tape is used for input, output, and calculation workspace; in the case of the universal Turing machine, it also specifies another Turing machine. Initially, only a finite number of squares of the tape are marked with symbols, while the rest are blank. The finite automaton part of the machine has a finite number of internal states and operates discretely, at times t % 0, 1, 2, . . . . At each time-step the automaton examines the tape square under its tape head, possibly changes what is there, moves the tape left or right, and then changes its internal state. The law governing this sequence of actions is deterministic and is defined in a state table. For each internal state and each tape symbol or blank under the tape head, the state table describes the tape action performed by the machine and gives the next internal state of the machine. Since a machine has only a finite number of internal states and of tape symbols, the state table of a machine is finite in length and can be stored on a tape. There is a universal Turing machine Mu that can simulate every Turing machine including itself: when the state table of any machine M is written on the tape of Mu, the universal machine Mu will perform the same input-output computation that M performs. Mu does this by using the state table of M to calculate M’s complete history for any given input. Turing machines may be thought of as conceptual devices for enumerating the elements of an infinite set e.g., the theorems of a formal language, or as decision machines e.g., deciding of any truth-functional formula whether it is a tautology. A. M. Turing showed that there are welldefined logical tasks that cannot be carried out by any machine; in particular, no machine can solve the halting problem. Turing’s definition of a machine was theoretical; it was not a practical specification for a machine. After the modern electronic computer was invented, he proposed a test for judging whether there is a computer that is behaviorally equivalent to a human in reasoning and intellectual creative power. The Turing test is a “black box” type of experiment that Turing proposed as a way of deciding whether a computer can think. Two rooms are fitted with the same input-output equipment going to an outside experimenter. A person is placed in one room and a programmed electronic computer in the other, each in communication with the experimenter. By issuing instructions and asking questions, the experimenter tries to decide which room has the computer and which the human. If the experimenter cannot tell, that outcome is strong evidence that the computer can think as well as the person. More directly, it shows that the computer and the human are equivalent for all the behaviors tested. Since the computer is a finite automaton, perhaps the most significant test task is that of doing creative mathematics about the non-enumerable infinite.

Turnbull: philosopher, was briefly a philosophy regent at Aberdeen and a teacher of Reid. His Principles of Moral and Christian Philosophy 1740 and Discourse upon the Nature and Origin of Moral and Civil Laws 1741 show him as the most systematic of those who aimed to recast moral philosophy on a Newtonian model, deriving moral laws “experimentally” from human psychology. In A Treatise on Ancient Painting 1740, Observations Upon Liberal Education 1742, and some smaller works, he extolled history and the arts as propaedeutic to the teaching of virtue and natural religion. Grice calls him a “moral-sense philosopher”

tychism: from Grecian tyche, ‘chance’, Peirce’s doctrine that there is absolute chance in the universe and its fundamental laws are probabilistic and inexact. Peirce’s tychism is part of his evolutionary cosmology, according to which all regularities of nature are products of growth and development, i.e., results of evolution. The laws of nature develop over time and become increasingly rigid and exact; the apparently deterministic laws of physics are limiting cases of the basic, probabilistic laws. Underlying all other laws is “the tendency of all things to take habits”; Peirce calls this the Law of Habit. In his cosmology his tychism is associated with synechism, the doctrine of the continuity of nature. His synechism involves the doctrine of the continuity of mind and matter; Peirce sometimes expressed this view by saying that “matter is effete mind.”

type: v. Grice’s three-year-old’s guide to Russell’s theory of type

U

ubaldi: Italian philosopher. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Ubalid e Grice,” per il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

uncertainty: one of those negativisims by Grice – cfr. ‘non-certainty’ -- v. certum. It may be held that ‘uncertain’ is wrong. Grice is certain that p. It is not the case that Grice is certain that p.

unexpected examination paradox, a paradox about belief and prediction. One version is as follows: It seems that a teacher could both make, and act on, the following announcement to his class: “Sometime during the next week I will set you an examination, but at breakfast time on the day it will occur, you will have no good reason to expect that it will occur on that day.” If he announces this on Friday, could he not do what he said he would by, say, setting the examination on the following Wednesday? The paradox is that there is an argument purporting to show that there could not be an unexpected examination of this kind. For let us suppose that the teacher will carry out his threat, in both its parts; i.e., he will set an examination, and it will be unexpected. Then he cannot set the examination on Friday assuming this to be the last possible day of the week. For, by the time Friday breakfast arrives, and we know that all the previous days have been examination-free, we would have every reason to expect the examination to occur on Friday. So leaving the examination until Friday is inconsistent with setting an unexpected examination. For similar reasons, the examination cannot be held on Thursday. Given our previous conclusion that it cannot be delayed until Friday, we would know, when Thursday morning came, and the previous days had been examination-free, that it would have to be held on Thursday. So if it were held on Thursday it would not be unexpected. So it cannot be held on Thursday. Similar reasoning sup938 U   938 posedly shows that there is no day of the week on which it can be held, and so supposedly shows that the supposition that the teacher can carry out his threat must be rejected. This is paradoxical, for it seems plain that the teacher can carry out his threat. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Grice’s book of paradoxes, with pictures and illustrations to confuse you.”

uniformity of nature – Grice: “’uniformity’ has nothing to do with ‘form’ here!” – Grice: “I once used the phrase in a tutorial with Hardie: “What do you mean by ‘of’?’ he asked” --  a state of affairs thought to be required if induction is to be justified. For example, inductively strong arguments, such as ‘The sun has risen every day in the past; therefore, the sun will rise tomorrow’, are thought to presuppose that nature is uniform in the sense that the future will resemble the past, in this case with respect to the diurnal cycle. The Scottish empiricist Hume was the first to make explicit that the uniformity of nature is a substantial assumption in inductive reasoning. Hume argued that, because the belief that the future will resemble the past cannot be grounded in experience  for the future is as yet unobserved  induction cannot be rationally justified; appeal to it in defense of induction is either question-begging or illicitly metaphysical. Francis Bacon’s “induction by enumeration” and J. S. Mill’s “five methods of experimental inquiry” presuppose that nature is uniform. Whewell appealed to the uniformity of nature in order to account for the “consilience of inductions,” the tendency of a hypothesis to explain data different from those it was originally introduced to explain. For reasons similar to Hume’s, Popper holds that our belief in the uniformity of nature is a matter of faith. Reichenbach held that although this belief cannot be justified in advance of any instance of inductive reasoning, its presupposition is vindicated by successful inductions. It has proved difficult to formulate a philosophical statement of the uniformity of nature that is both coherent and informative. It appears contradictory to say that nature is uniform in all respects, because inductive inferences always mark differences of some sort e.g., from present to future, from observed to unobserved, etc., and it seems trivial to say that nature is uniform in some respects, because any two states of nature, no matter how different, will be similar in some respect. Not all observed regularities in the world or in data are taken to support successful inductive reasoning; not all uniformities are, to use Goodman’s term, “projectible.” Philosophers of science have therefore proposed various rules of projectibility, involving such notions as simplicity and explanatory power, in an attempt to distinguish those observed patterns that support successful inductions and thus are taken to represent genuine causal relations from those that are accidental or spurious. 

unity in diversity, in aesthetics, the principle that the parts of the aesthetic object must cohere or hang together while at the same time being different enough to allow for the object to be complex. This principle defines an important formal requirement used in judging aesthetic objects. If an object has insufficient unity e.g., a collection of color patches with no recognizable patterns of any sort, it is chaotic or lacks harmony; it is more a collection than one object. But if it has insufficient diversity e.g., a canvas consisting entirely of one color with no internal differentiations, it is monotonous. Thus, the formal pattern desired in an aesthetic object is that of complex parts that differ significantly from each other but fit together to form one interdependent whole such that the character or meaning of the whole would be changed by the change of any part. 

universal instantiation: Grice: “Slightly confusing in that the universe is not a pluri-verse.” -- discussed by Grice in his System G -- also called universal quantifier elimination. 1 The argument form ‘Everything is f; therefore a is f’, and arguments of this form. 2 The rule of inference that permits one to infer that any given thing is f from the premise that everything is f. In classical logic, where all terms are taken to denote things in the domain of discourse, the rule says simply that from vA[v] one may infer A[t], the result of replacing all free occurrences of v in A[v] by the term t. If non-denoting terms are allowed, however, as in free logic, then the rule would require an auxiliary premise of the form Duu % t to ensure that t denotes something in the range of the variable v. Likewise in modal logic, which is sometimes held to contain terms that do not denote “genuine individuals” the things over which variables range, an auxiliary premise may be required. 3 In higher-order logic, the rule of inference that says that from XA[X] one may infer A[F], where F is any expression of the grammatical category e.g., n-ary predicate appropriate to that of X e.g., n-ary predicate variable.

universale: Grice: “Very Ciceronian – not found in Aristotle.” -- Like ‘qualia,’ which is the plural for ‘quale,’ ‘universalia’ is the plural for ‘universale.’ The totum for Grice on “all” -- This is a Gricism. It all started with arbor porphyriana. It is supposed to translate Aristotle’s “to kath’olou” (which happens to be one of the categories in Kant, “alleheit,” and which Aristotle contrasts with “to kath’ekastou,” (which Kant has as a category, SINGULARITAS. For a nominalist, any predicate is a ‘name,’ hence ‘nominalism.’ Opposite ‘realism.’ “Nominalism” is actually a misnomer. The opposite of realism is anti-realism. We need something like ‘universalism,’ (he who believes in the existence, not necessary ‘reality’ of a universal) and a ‘particularist,’ or ‘singularist,’ who does not. Note that the opposite of ‘particularism,’ is ‘totalism.’ (Totum et pars). Grice holds a set-theoretical approach to the universalium. Grice is willing to provide always a set-theoretical extensionalist (in terms of predicate) and an intensionalist variant in terms of property and category. Grice explicitly uses ‘X’ for utterance-type (WOW:118), implying a distinction with the utterance-token. Grice gets engaged in a metabolical debate concerning the reductive analysis of what an utterance-type means in terms of a claim to the effect that, by uttering x, an utterance-token of utterance-type X, the utterer means that p. The implicaturum is x (utterance-token). Grice is not enamoured with the type/token or token/type distinction. His thoughts on logical form are provocative. f you cannot put it in logical form, it is not worth saying. Strawson infamously reacted with a smile. Oh, no: if you CAN put it in logical form, it is not worth saying. Grice refers to the type-token distinction when he uses x for token and X for type. Since Bennett cares to call Grice a meaning-nominalist we should not care about the type X anyway. He expands on this in Retrospective Epilogue. Grice should have payed more attention to the distinction seeing that it was Ogdenian. A common mode of estimating the amount of matter in a printed book is to count the number of words. There will ordinarily be about twenty thes on a page, and, of course, they count as twenty words. In another use of the word word, however, there is but one word the in the English language; and it is impossible that this word should lie visibly on a page, or be heard in any voice. Such a Form, Peirce, as cited by Ogden and Richards, proposes to term a type. A single object such as this or that word on a single line of a single page of a single copy of a book, Peirce ventures to call a token. In order that a type may be used, it has to be embodied in a token which shall be a sign of the type, and thereby of the object the type signifies, and Grice followed suit. Refs.: Some of the sources are given under ‘abstractum.’ Also under ‘grecianism,’ since Grice was keen on exploring what Aristotle has to say about this in Categoriae, due to his joint research with Austin, Code, Friedman, and Strawson. Grice also has a specific Peirceian essay on the type-token distinction. BANC. Grice – “A Ciceronian technicism, not found in Aristotle. -- (‘the altogether nice girl’) dictum de omni et nullo, also dici de omni et nullo Latin, ‘said of all and none’, two principles that were supposed by medieval logicians to underlie all valid syllogisms. Dictum de omni applies most naturally to universal affirmative propositions, maintaining that in such a proposition, whatever falls under the subject term also falls under the predicate term. Thus, in ‘Every whale is a mammal’, whatever is included under ‘whale’ is included under ‘mammal’. Dictum de nullo applies to universal negative propositions, such as ‘No whale is a lizard’, maintaining that whatever falls under the subject term does not fall under the predicate term.  SYLLOGISM. W.E.M. Diderot, Denis 171384,  philosopher, Encyclopedist, dramatist, novelist, and art critic, a champion of Enlightenment values. He is known primarily as general editor of the Encyclopedia 174773, an analytical and interpretive compendium of eighteenth-century science and technology. A friend of Rousseau and Condillac, Diderot tr. Shaftesbury’s Inquiry Concerning Virtue 1745 into . Revealing Lucretian affinities Philosophical Thoughts, 1746, he assailed Christianity in The Skeptics’ Walk 1747 and argued for a materialistic and evolutionary universe Letter on the Blind, 1749; this led to a short imprisonment. Diderot wrote mediocre bourgeois comedies; some bleak fiction The Nun, 1760; and two satirical dialogues, Rameau’s Nephew 1767 and Jacques the Fatalist 176584, his masterpieces. He innovatively theorized on drama Discourse on Dramatic Poetry, 1758 and elevated art criticism to a literary genre Salons in Grimm’s Literary Correspondence. At Catherine II’s invitation, Diderot visited Saint Petersburg in 1773 and planned the creation of a Russian . Promoting science, especially biology and chemistry, Diderot unfolded a philosophy of nature inclined toward monism. His works include physiological investigations, Letter on the Deaf and Dumb 1751 and Elements of Physiology 177480; a sensationalistic epistemology, On the Interpretation of Nature 1745; an aesthetic, Essays on Painting 1765; a materialistic philosophy of science, D’Alembert’s Dream 1769; an anthropology, Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville 1772; and an anti-behavioristic Refutation of Helvétius’ Work “On Man” 177380. 

universalisability: -- Grice: ‘Slightly confusing, in that the universe is not a pluri-verse” -- discussed along three dimension by Grice: applicational conceptual, and formal. -- 1 Since the 0s, the moral criterion implicit in Kant’s first formulation of the categorical imperative: “Act only on that maxim that you can at the same time will to be a universal law,” often called the principle of universality. A maxim or principle of action that satisfies this test is said to be universalizable, hence morally acceptable; one that does not is said to be not universalizable, hence contrary to duty. 2 A second sense developed in connection with the work of Hare in the 0s. For Hare, universalizability is “common to all judgments which carry descriptive meaning”; so not only normative claims moral and evaluative judgments but also empirical statements are universalizable. Although Hare describes how such universalizuniversal universalizability 940   940 ability can figure in moral argument, for Hare “offenses against . . . universalizability are logical, not moral.” Consequently, whereas for Kant not all maxims are universalizable, on Hare’s view they all are, since they all have descriptive meaning. 3 In a third sense, one that also appears in Hare, ‘universalizability’ refers to the principle of universalizability: “What is right or wrong for one person is right or wrong for any similar person in similar circumstances.” This principle is identical with what Sidgwick The Methods of Ethics called the Principle of Justice. In Generalization in Ethics 1 by M. G. Singer b.6, it is called the Generalization Principle and is said to be the formal principle presupposed in all moral reasoning and consequently the explanation for the feature alleged to hold of all moral judgments, that of being generalizable. A particular judgment of the form ‘A is right in doing x’ is said to imply that anyone relevantly similar to A would be right in doing any act of the kind x in relevantly similar circumstances. The characteristic of generalizability, of presupposing a general rule, was said to be true of normative claims, but not of all empirical or descriptive statements. The Generalization Principle GP was said to be involved in the Generalization Argument GA: “If the consequences of everyone’s doing x would be undesirable, while the consequences of no one’s doing x would not be, then no one ought to do x without a justifying reason,” a form of moral reasoning resembling, though not identical with, the categorical imperative CI. One alleged resemblance is that if the GP is involved in the GP, then it is involved in the CI, and this would help explain the moral relevance of Kant’s universalizability test. 4 A further extension of the term ‘universalizability’ appears in Alan Gewirth’s Reason and Morality 8. Gewirth formulates “the logical principle of universalizability”: “if some predicate P belongs to some subject S because S has the property Q . . . then P must also belong to all other subjects S1, S2, . . . , Sn that have Q.” The principle of universalizability “in its moral application” is then deduced from the logical principle of universalizability, and is presupposed in Gewirth’s Principle of Generic Consistency, “Act in accord with the generic rights of your recipients as well as yourself,” which is taken to provide an a priori determinate way of determining relevant similarities and differences, hence of applying the principle of universalizability. The principle of universalizability is a formal principle; universalizability in sense 1, however, is intended to be a substantive principle of morality. 

universalisierung:   Grice: “Ironically, the Dutch so careful with their lingo, this is vague, in that the universe is not a pluriverse.” -- While Grice uses ‘universal,’ he means like Russell, the unnecessary implication of ‘every.’ Oddly, Kant does not relate this –ung with the first of his three categories under ‘quantitas,’ the universal. But surely they are related. Problem is that Kant wasn’t aware because he kept moving from the Graeco-Roman classical vocabulary to the Hun. Thus, Kant has “Allheit,” which he renders in Latinate as “Universitas,” and “Totalität,” gehört in der Kategorienlehre des Philosophen Immanuel Kant zu den reinen Verstandesbegriffen, d. h. zu den Elementen des Verstandes, welche dem Menschen bereits a priori, also unabhängig von der sinnlichen Erfahrung gegeben sind. “Allheit” wird wie Einheit und Vielheit den Kategorien der “Quantität” zugeordnet und entspricht den Einzelnen Urteilen (Urteil hier im Sinn von 'Aussage über die Wirklichkeit') in der Form „Ein S ist P“, also z. B. „Immanuel Kant ist ein Philosoph“. Sie wird von Kant definiert als „die Vielheit als Einheit betrachtet“ (KrV, B 497 f.)[3]. Siehe auch Transzendentale Analytik Weblinks. Allheit – Bedeutungserklärungen, Wortherkunft, Synonyme, Übersetzungen Einzelnachweise  Immanuel Kant: Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Reclam, Stuttgart 1966, ISBN 3-15-006461-9.  Peter Kunzmann, Franz-Peter Burkard, Franz Wiedmann: dtv-Atlas zur Philosophie. dtv, München 1991, ISBN 3-423-03229-4, S. 136 ff.  Zitiert nach Arnim Regenbogen, Uwe Meyer (Hrsg.): Wörterbuch der Philosophischen Begriffe. Meiner, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-7873-1738-4: Allheit Kategorie: Ontologie. Referred to by Grice in his “Method,” – “A requisite for a maxim to enter my manual, which I call the Immanuel, is that it should be universalizable. Die Untersuchung zur »Universalisierung in der Ethik« greift eine Problematik auf, die für eine Reihe der prominentesten Ethikentwürfe der Gegenwart sowohl des deutschsprachigen wie des angelsächsischen Raumes zentral ist, nämlich ob der normative Rationalitätsanspruch, den ethische Argumentationen erheben, auf eine dem wissenschaftlichen Anspruch der deskriptiven Gesetzeswissenschaften vergleichbare Weise eingelöst werden kann, nämlich durch Verallgemeinerungs- oder Universalisierungsprinzipien. universalizability Ethics The idea that moral judgments should be universalizable can be traced to the Golden Rule and Kant’s ethics. In the twentieth century it was elaborated by Hare and became a major thesis of his prescriptivism. The principle states that all moral judgments are universalizable in the sense that if it is right for a particular person A to do an action X, then it must likewise be right to do X for any person exactly like A, or like A in the relevant respects. Furthermore, if A is right in doing X in this situation, then it must be right for A to do X in other relevantly similar situations. Hare takes this feature to be an essential feature of moral judgments. An ethical statement is the issuance of a universal prescription. Universalizability is not the same as generality, for a moral judgment can be highly specific and detailed and need not be general or simple. The universalizability principle enables Hare to avoid the charge of irrationality that is usually lodged against non-cognitivism, to which his prescriptivism belongs, and his theory is thus a great improvement on emotivism. “I have been maintaining that the meaning of the word ‘ought’ and other moral words is such that a person who uses them commits himself thereby to a universal rule. This is the thesis of universalizability.” Hare, Freedom and Reason.

universe of discourse: Grice: “The phrase is confusing, seeing the uni-verse, is not a pluri-verse.” Tthe usually limited class of individuals under discussion, whose existence is presupposed by the discussants, and which in some sense constitutes the ultimate subject matter of the discussion. Once the universe of a discourse has been established, expressions such as ‘every object’ and ‘some object’ refer respectively to every object or to some object in the universe of discourse. The concept of universe of discourse is due to De Morgan in 1846, but the expression was coined by Boole eight years later. When a discussion is formalized in an interpreted standard first-order language, the universe of discourse is taken as the “universe” of the interpretation, i.e., as the range of values of the variables. Quine and others have emphasized that the universe of discourse represents an ontological commitment of the discussants. In a discussion in a particular science, the universe of discourse is often wider than the domain of the science, although economies of expression can be achieved by limiting the universe of discourse to the domain.

unstructured: Typically, Grice is more interested in the negatives: the unstructured is prior to the structured, surely. Grice: “Paget was able to structure compositionality with his hands!” -- one of those negativisms of Grice (cfr. ‘non-structured’). Surely Grice cared a hoot for French anthropological structuralism! So he has the ‘unstructured’ followed by the structured. A handwave is unstructured, meaning syntactically unstructured, and in it you have all the enigma of reason resolved. By waving his hand, U means that SUBJECT: the emissor, copula IS, predicate: A KNOWER OF THE ROUTE, or ABOUT TO LEAVE the emissor.There is a lot of structure in the soul of the emissor. So apply this to what Grice calls a ‘soul-to-soul transfer’ to which he rightly reduces communication. Even if it is n unstructured communication device, and maybe a ‘one-off’ one, to use Blackburn’s vulgarism, we would have the three types of correspondence of Grice’s Semantic Triangle obtaining. First, the psychophysical. The emissor knows the route, and he shows it. And he wants the emissee to ‘catch’ or get the emissor’s drift. It is THAT route which he knows. So the TWO psychophysical correspondences obtain. Then there are the two psychosemiotic correspondences. The emissor intends that the emissor will recognise the handwave as a signal that he, the emissor, knows the route. As for the emissee’s psychosemiotic correspondence: he better realise it is THAT route – to Banbury, surely, with bells in his shoes, as Grice’s mother would sing to him. And then we have the two semio-physical correspondences. If the emissor DOES know the route (and he is not lying, or rather, he is not mistaken about it), then that’s okay. Many people say or signal that they know because they feel ashamed to admit their ignorance. So it is very expectable, outside Oxford, to have someone waving meaning that he knows the route, when he doesn’t. This is surely non-natural, because it’s Kiparsky-non-factive. Waving the hand thereby communicating that he knows the route does not entail that he knows the route (as ‘spots’ do entail measles). From the emissee’s point of view, provided the emissor knows the route and shows it, the emissee will understand, hopefully, and feel assured that the emissor will hopefully reach the destination, Banbury, surely, safely enough.

uptake: used by Grice slightly different from Austin. Austin: “The performance of an illocutionary act involves the securing of uptake.” “I distinguish some senses of consequences and effects, especially three senses in which effects can come in even with illocutionary acts, viz. securing uptake, taking effect, and inviting a response.” “Comparing stating to what we have said about the illocu-  tionary act, it is an act to which, just as much as to other  illocutionary acts, it is essential to ‘secure uptake’ : the  doubt about whether I stated something if it was not  heard or understood is just the same as the doubt about  whether I warned sotto voce or protested if someone did  not take it as a protest, &c. And statements do ‘take  effect’ just as much as ‘namings’, say: if I have stated  something, then that commits me to other statements:  other statements made by me will be in order or out of  order.” Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Verstehen and uptake.”

urmsonianism. Urmson is possibly more English than Grice, in that ‘gris’ is Nordic – but Urmson, with such a suffix, -son, HAS to be English English! Plus, he is a charmer! Who other than Urmson would come up with a counter-example to the sufficiency of Grice’s analysis of an act of communication. In a case of bribery, the response or effect in the emittee is NOT meant to be recognised. So we need a further restriction unless we want to say that the briber means that his emittee recognise the ‘gift’ as a meta-bribe. Refs.: Urmson, “Introduction” to Austin’s Philosophical Papers, cited by Grice. Urmson, Introduction to Austin’s How to do things with words, cited by Grice. Urmson on Grice, “The Independent.” Urmson on pragmatics.

urmson’s bribe: Urmson’s use of the bribe is ‘accidental.’ What Urmson is getting at is that if the briber intends the bribe acts as a cause to effect a response, even a cognitive one, in the bribe, the propositional complexum, “This is a bribe,” should not necessarily be communicated. It is amazing how Grice changed the example into one about physical action. They seem different. On the other hand, Grice would not have cared to credit Urmson had it not believed it worth knowing that the criticism arose within the Play Group (Grice admired Urmson). In his earlier “Meaning,” Grice presents his own self-criticisms to arrive at a more refined analysis. But in “Utterer’s meaning and intention,” when it comes to the SUFFICIENCY, it’s all about other people: notably Urmson and Strawson. Grice cites Stampe before Strawson, but many ignore Stampe on the basis that Strawson does not credit him, and there is no reason why he should have been aware of it. But Stampe was at Oxford at the time so this is worth noting. It has to be emphasised that the author list is under ‘sufficiency.’ Under necessity, Grice does not credit the source of the objections, so we can assume it is Grice himself, as he had presented criticisms to his own view within the same ‘Meaning.’ It is curious that Grice loved Stampe. Grice CHANGED Urmon’s example, and was unable to provide a specific scenario to Strawson’s alleged counterexample, because Strawson is vague himself. But Stampe’s, Grice left unchanged. It seems few Oxonian philosohpers of Grice’s playgroup had his analytic acumen. Consider his sophisticated account of ‘meaning.’ It’s different if you are a graduate student from the New World, and you have to prove yourself intelligent. But for Grice’s playgroup companion, only three or four joined in the analysis. The first is Urmson. The second is Strawson. The case by Urmson involved a tutee offering to buy Gardiner an expensive dinner, hoping that Gardiner will give him permission for an over-night visit to London. Gardiner knows that his tutee wants his permission. The appropriate analysans for "By offering to buy Gardiner an expensive dinner, the tuttee means that Gardiner should give him permission for an overnight stay in London" are fulfilled: (1) The tutee offers to buy Gardiner an expensive dinner with the intention of producing a certain response on the part of Gardiner (2) The tutee intends that Gardiner should recognize (know, think) that the tutee is offering to buy him an expensive dinner with the intention of producing this response; (3) The tutee intends that Gardiners recognition (thought) that the tutee has the intention mentioned in (2) should be at least part of Gardiners reason for producing the response mentioned. If in general to specify in (i) the nature of an intended response is to specify what was meant, it should be correct not only to say that by offering to buy Gardiner an expensive dinner, the tutee means that Gardiner is to give him permission for an overnight stay in London, but also to say that he meas that Gardiner should (is to) give him permission for an over-night visit to London. But in fact one would not wish to say either of these things; only that the tutee meant Gardiner to give him permission. A restriction seems to be required, and one which might serve to eliminate this range of counterexamples can be identified from a comparison of two scenarios. Grice goes into a tobacconists shop, ask for a packet of my favorite cigarettes, and when the unusually suspicious tobacconist shows that he wants to see the color of my money before he hands over the goods, I put down the price of the cigarettes on the counter. Here nothing has been meant. Alternatively, Grice goes to his regular tobacconist (from whom I also purchase other goods) for a packet of my regular brand of Players Navy Cuts, the price of which is distinctive, say 43p. Grice says nothing, but puts down 43p. The tobacconist recognizes my need, and hands over the packet. Here, I think, by putting down 43p I meant something-Namesly, that I wanted a packet of Players Navy Cuts. I have at the same time provided an inducement. The distinguishing feature of the second example seems to be that here the tobacconist recognized, and was intended to recognize, what he was intended to do from my "utterance" (my putting down the money), whereas in the first example this was not the case. Nor is it the case with respect to Urmson’s case of the tutees attempt to bribe Gardiner. So one might propose that the analysis of meaning be amended accordingly. U means something by uttering x is true if: (i) U intends, by uttering x, to induce a certain response in A (2) U intends A to recognize, at least in part from the utterance of x, that U intends to produce that response (3) U intends the fulfillment of the intention mentioned in (2) to be at least in part As reason for fulfilling the intention mentioned in (i). This copes with Urmsons counterexample to Grices proposal in the Oxford Philosophical Society talk involving the tutee attempting to bribe Gardiner.

Urmson’s super-erogation: ‘super-erogatum --. 1520s, "performance of more than duty requires," in Catholic theology, from Late Latin supererogationem (nominative supererogatio) "a payment in addition," noun of action from past participle stem of supererogare "pay or do additionally," from Latin super "above, over" (see super-) + erogare "pay out," from ex "out" (see ex-) + rogare "ask, request," apparently a figurative use of a PIE verb meaning literally "to stretch out (the hand)," from root *reg- "move in a straight line." Grice got interested in this thanks to J. O. Urmson who discussed his ‘saints and heroes’ with the Saturday morning kindergarten held by Austin -- the property of going beyond the call of duty. Supererogatory actions are sometimes equated with actions that are morally good in the sense that they are encouraged by morality but not required by it. Sometimes they are equated with morally commendable actions, i.e., actions that indicate a superior moral character. It is quite common for morally good actions to be morally commendable and vice versa, so that it is not surprising that these two kinds of supererogatory actions are not clearly distinguished even though they are quite distinct. Certain kinds of actions are not normally considered to be morally required, e.g., giving to charity, though morality certainly encourages doing them. However, if one is wealthy and gives only a small amount to charity, then, although one’s act is supererogatory in the sense of being morally good, it is not supererogatory in the sense of being morally commendable, for it does not indicate a superior moral character. Certain kinds of actions are normally morally required, e.g., keeping one’s promises. However, when the harm or risk of harm of keeping one’s promise is sufficiently great compared to the harm caused by breaking the promise to excuse breaking the promise, then keeping one’s promise counts as a supererogatory act in the sense of being morally commendable. Some versions of consequentialism claim that everyone is always morally required to act so as to bring about the best consequences. On such a theory there are no actions that are morally encouraged but not required; thus, for those holding such theories, if there are supererogatory acts, they must be morally commendable. Many versions of non-consequentialism also fail to provide for acts that are morally encouraged but not morally required; thus, if they allow for supererogatory acts, they must regard them as morally required acts done at such significant personal cost that one might be excused for not doing them. The view that all actions are either morally required, morally prohibited, or morally indifferent makes it impossible to secure a place for supererogatory acts in the sense of morally good acts. This view that there are no acts that are morally encouraged but not morally required may be the result of misleading terminology. Both Kant and Mill distinguish between duties of perfect obligation and duties of imperfect obligation, acknowledging that a duty of imperfect obligation does not specify any particular act that one is morally required to do. However, since they use the term ‘duty’ it is very easy to view all acts falling under these “duties” as being morally required. One way of avoiding the view that all morally encouraged acts are morally required is to avoid the common philosophical misuse of the term ‘duty’. One can replace ‘duties of perfect obligation’ with ‘actions required by moral rules’ and ‘duties of imperfect obligation’ with ‘actions encouraged by moral ideals’. However, a theory that includes the kinds of acts that are supererogatory in the sense of being morally good has to distinguish between that sense of ‘supererogatory’ and the sense meaning ‘morally commendable’, i.e., indicating a superior moral character in the agent. For as pointed out above, not all morally good acts are morally commendable, nor are all morally commendable acts morally good, even though a particular act may be supererogatory in both senses. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Urmson’s supererogation,” H. P. Grice, “Urmson no saint, hero perhaps –.” H. P. Grice, “Urmson, my hero.”

use-mention distinction: Grice: “I once used Jevons’s coinage in a tutorial with Hardie; he said, ‘What do you mean by ‘of’?’” -- Grice: “Strictly, if you mention, you are using!” -- discussed by Grice in “Retrospective epilogue” – the only use of a vehicle of communication is to communicate. two ways in which terms enter into discourse  used when they refer to or assert something, mentioned when they are exhibited for consideration of their properties as terms. If I say, “Mary is sad,” I use the name ‘Mary’ to refer to Mary so that I can predicate of her the property of being sad. But if I say, “ ‘Mary’ contains four letters,” I am mentioning Mary’s name, exhibiting it in writing or speech to predicate of that term the property of being spelled with four letters. In the first case, the sentence occurs in what Carnap refers to as the material mode; in the second, it occurs in the formal mode, and hence in a metalanguage a language used to talk about another language. Single quotation marks or similar orthographic devices are conventionally used to disambiguate mentioned from used terms. The distinction is important because there are fallacies of reasoning based on usemention confusions in the failure to observe the use mention distinction, especially when the referents of terms are themselves linguistic entities. Consider the inference: 1 Some sentences are written in English. 2 Some sentences are written in English. Here it looks as though the argument offers a counterexample to the claim that all arguments of the form ‘P, therefore P’ are circular. But either 1 asserts that some sentences are written in English, or it provides evidence in support of the conclusion in 2 by exhibiting a sentence written in English. In the first case, the sentence is used to assert the same truth in the premise as expressed in the conclusion, so that the argument remains circular. In the second case, the sentence is mentioned, and although the argument so interpreted is not circular, it is no longer strictly of the form ‘P, therefore P’, but has the significantly different form, ‘ “P” is a sentence written in English, therefore P’. 

usus: ad usum griceianum -- use: Grice: “I would rephrase Vitter’s adage, ‘Don’t ask for the expression meaning, as for the UTTERER’s meaning, if you have to axe at all!” -- while Grice uses ‘use,’ as Ryle once told him, ‘you should use ‘usage, too.’ Parkinson was nearby. When Warnock commissioned Parkinson to compile a couple of Oxonian essays on meaning and communication, Parkinson unearthed the old symposium by Ryle and Findlay on the matter. Typically, when Ryle reprinted it, he left Findlay out!

V

vagum: oddly, A. C. Ewing has a very early thing on ‘vagueness.’ Grice liked Ewing. There is an essay on “Clarity” which relates. Cf. Price, “Clarity is not enough” Which implicates it IS a necessity, though. Cf. “Clarity – who cares?” Some days, Grice did not feel ‘Grecian,’ and would use very vernacular expressions. He thought that what Cicero calls ‘vagum’ is best rendered in Oxfordshire dialect as ‘fuzzy.’ It is not clear which of Grice’s maxim controls this. The opposite of ‘vague’ is ‘specific.’ Grice was more concerned about this in the earlier lectures where he has under the desideratum of conversational candour and the principle of conversational benevolence, and the desideratum of conversational clarity that one should be explicit, and make one’s point explicit. But under the submaxims of the conversational category of modus (‘be perspicuous [sic]), none seem to prohibit ‘vagueness’ as such: Avoid obscurity of expression.Avoid ambiguity.Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).Be orderly The one he later calls a ‘tailoring principle’ ‘frame your contribution in way that facilitates a reply’, the ‘vagueness’ avoidance seems implicit. Cf. fuzzy. The indeterminacy of the field of application of an expression, in contrast to precision. For instance, the expression “young man” is vague since the point at which its appropriate application to a person begins and ends cannot be precisely defined. Vagueness should be distinguished from ambiguity, by which a term has more than one meaning. The vagueness of an expression is due to a semantic feature of the term itself, rather than to the subjective condition of its user. Vagueness gives rise to borderline cases, and propositions with vague terms lack a definite truth-value. For this reason, Frege rejected the possibility of vague concepts, although they are tolerated in recent work in vague or fuzzy logic. Various paradoxes arise due to the vagueness of words, including the ancient sorites paradox. It is because of its intrinsic vagueness that some philosophers seek to replace ordinary language with an ideal language. But ordinary language philosophers hold that this proposal creates a false promise of eliminating vagueness. Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblance in part is a model of meaning that tolerates vagueness. As a property of expressions, vagueness extends to all sorts of cognitive representations. Some philosophers hold that there can be vagueness in things as well as in the representation of things. “A representation is vague when the relation of the representing system to the represented system is not one–one, but one–many.” Russell, Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, vol. IX. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Fuzzy impicatures, and how to unfuzz them;” H. P. Grice, “The conversational maxim of vagueness avoidance.” Oddly, Grice does not have a conversational, ‘be precise,’; but he did. In his earlier desideratum of conversational clarity, the point was to make your point precise – rather than fuzzy -- vagueness, a property of an expression in virtue of which it can give rise to a “borderline case.” A borderline case is a situation in which the application of a particular expression to a name of a particular object does not generate an expression with a definite truth-value; i.e., the piece of language in question neither unequivocally applies to the object nor fails to apply. Although such a formulation leaves it open what the pieces of language might be whole sentences, individual words, names or singular terms, predicates or general terms, most discussions have focused on vague general terms and have considered other types of terms to be nonvague. Exceptions to this have called attention to the possibility of vague objects, thereby rendering vague the designation relation for singular terms. The formulation also leaves open the possible causes for the expression’s lacking a definite truth-value. If this indeterminacy is due to there being insufficient information available to determine applicability or non-applicability of the term i.e., we are convinced the term either does or does not apply, but we just do not have enough information to determine which, then this is sometimes called epistemic vagueness. It is somewhat misleading to call this vagueness, for unlike true vagueness, this epistemic vagueness disappears if more information is brought into the situation. ‘There are between 1.89 $ 106 and 1.9 $ 106 stars in the sky’ is epistemically vague but is not vague in the generally accepted sense of the term. ’Vagueness’ may also be used to characterize non-linguistic items such as concepts, memories, and objects, as well as such semilinguistic items as statements and propositions. Many of the issues involved in discussing the topic of vagueness impinge upon other philosophical topics, such as the existence of truth-value gaps  declarative sentences that are neither true nor false  and the plausibility of many-valued logic. There are other related issues such as the nature of propositions and whether they must be either true or false. We focus here on linguistic vagueness, as it manifests itself with general terms; for it is this sort of indeterminacy that defines what most researchers call vagueness, and which has led the push in some schools of thought to “eliminate vagueness” or to construct languages that do not manifest vagueness. Linguistic vagueness is sometimes confused with other linguistic phenomena: generality, ambiguity, and open texture. Statements can be general ‘Some wheelbarrows are red’, ‘All insects have antennae’ and if there is no other vagueness infecting them, they are true or false  and not borderline or vague. Terms can be general ‘person’, ‘dog’ without being vague. Those general terms apply to many different objects but are not therefore vague; and furthermore, the fact that they apply to different kinds of objects ‘person’ applies to both men and women also does not show them to be vague or ambiguous. A vague term admits of borderline cases  a completely determinate situation in which there just is no correct answer as to whether the term applies to a certain object or not  and this is not the case with generality. Ambiguous linguistic items, including structurally ambiguous sentences, also do not have this feature unless they also contain vague terms. Rather, an ambiguous sentence allows there to be a completely determinate situation in which one can simultaneously correctly affirm the sentence and also deny the sentence, depending on which of the claims allowed by the ambiguities is being affirmed or denied. Terms are considered open-textured if they are precise along some dimensions of their meaning but where other possible dimensions simply have not been considered. It would therefore not be clear what the applicability of the term would be were objects to vary along these other dimensions. Although related to vagueness, open texture is a different notion. Friedrich Waismann, who coined the term, put it this way: “Open texture . . . is something like the possibility of vagueness.” Vagueness has long been an irritant to philosophers of logic and language. Among the oldest of the puzzles associated with vagueness is the sorites ‘heap’ paradox reported by Cicero Academica 93: One grain of sand does not make a heap, and adding a grain of sand to something that is not a heap will not create a heap; there945 V   945 fore there are no heaps. This type of paradox is traditionally attributed to Zeno of Elea, who said that a single millet seed makes no sound when it falls, so a basket of millet seeds cannot make a sound when it is dumped. The term ‘sorites’ is also applied to the entire series of paradoxes that have this form, such as the falakros ‘bald man’, Diogenes Laertius, Grammatica II, 1, 45: A man with no hairs is bald, and adding one hair to a bald man results in a bald man; therefore all men are bald. The original version of these sorites paradoxes is attributed to Eubulides Diogenes Laertius II, 108: “Isn’t it true that two are few? and also three, and also four, and so on until ten? But since two are few, ten are also few.” The linchpin in all these paradoxes is the analysis of vagueness in terms of some underlying continuum along which an imperceptible or unimportant change occurs. Almost all modern accounts of the logic of vagueness have assumed this to be the correct analysis of vagueness, and have geared their logics to deal with such vagueness. But we will see below that there are other kinds of vagueness too. The search for a solution to the sorites-type paradoxes has been the stimulus for much research into alternative semantics. Some philosophers, e.g. Frege, view vagueness as a pervasive defect of natural language and urge the adoption of an artificial language in which each predicate is completely precise, without borderline cases. Russell too thought vagueness thoroughly infected natural language, but thought it unavoidable  and indeed beneficial  for ordinary usage and discourse. Despite the occasional argument that vagueness is pragmatic rather than a semantic phenomenon, the attitude that vagueness is inextricably bound to natural language together with the philosophical logician’s self-ascribed task of formalizing natural language semantics has led modern writers to the exploration of alternative logics that might adequately characterize vagueness  i.e., that would account for our pretheoretic beliefs concerning truth, falsity, necessary truth, validity, etc., of sentences containing vague predicates. Some recent writers have also argued that vague language undermines realism, and that it shows our concepts to be “incoherent.” Long ago it was seen that the attempt to introduce a third truth-value, indeterminate, solved nothing  replacing, as it were, the sharp cutoff between a predicate’s applying and not applying with two sharp cutoffs. Similar remarks could be made against the adoption of any finitely manyvalued logic as a characterization of vagueness. In the late 0s and early 0s, fuzzy logic was introduced into the philosophic world. Actually a restatement of the Tarski-Lukasiewicz infinitevalued logics of the 0s, one of the side benefits of fuzzy logics was claimed to be an adequate logic for vagueness. In contrast to classical logic, in which there are two truth-values true and false, in fuzzy logic a sentence is allowed to take any real number between 0 and 1 as a truthvalue. Intuitively, the closer to 1 the value is, the “more true” the sentence is. The value of a negated sentence is 1 minus the value of the unnegated sentence; conjuction is viewed as a minimum function and disjunction as a maximum function. Thus, a conjunction takes the value of the “least true” conjunct, while a disjunction takes the value of the “most true” disjunct. Since vague sentences are maximally neither true nor false, they will be valued at approximately 0.5. It follows that if F is maximally vague, so is the negation -F; and so are the conjunction F & -F and the disjunction ~F 7 -F. Some theorists object to these results, but defenders of fuzzy logic have argued in favor of them. Other theorists have attempted to capture the elusive logic of vagueness by employing modal logic, having the operators AF meaning ‘F is definite’ and B F meaning ‘F is vague’. The logic generated in this way is peculiar in that A F & YPAF & AY is not a theorem. E.g., p & -p is definitely false, hence definite; hence A p & -p. Yet neither p nor -p need be definite. Technically, it is a non-Kripke-normal modal logic. Some other peculiarities are that AF Q A -F is a theorem, and that AFPBF is not. There are also puzzles about whether B FP ABF should be a theorem, and about iterated modalities in general. Modal logic treatments of vagueness have not attracted many advocates, except as a portion of a general epistemic logic i.e., modal logics might be seen as an account of so-called epistemic vagueness. A third direction that has been advocated as a logical account of vagueness has been the method of supervaluations sometimes called “supertruth”. The underlying idea here is to allow the vague predicate in a sentence to be “precisified” in an arbitrary manner. Thus, for the sentence ‘Friar Tuck is bald’, we arbitrarily choose a precise number of hairs on the head that will demarcate the bald/not-bald border. In this valuation Friar Tuck is either definitely bald or definitely not bald, and the sentence either is true or is false. Next, we alter the valuation so that there is some other bald/not-bald bordervagueness vagueness 946   946 line, etc. A sentence true in all such valuations is deemed “really true” or “supertrue”; one false in all such valuations is “really false” or “superfalse.” All others are vague. Note that, in this conception of vagueness, if F is vague, so is -F. However, unlike fuzzy logic ‘F & -F’ is not evaluated as vague  it is false in every valuation and hence is superfalse. And ‘F 7 -F’ is supertrue. These are seen by some as positive features of the method of supervaluations, and as an argument against the whole fuzzy logic enterprise. In fact there seem to be at least two distinct types of linguistic vagueness, and it is not at all clear that any of the previously mentioned logic approaches can deal with both. Without going into the details, we can just point out that the “sorites vagueness” discussed above presumes an ordering on a continuous underlying scale; and it is the indistinguishability of adjacent points on this scale that gives rise to borderline cases. But there are examples of vague terms for which there is no such scale. A classic example is ‘religion’: there are a number of factors relevant to determining whether a social practice is a religion. Having none of these properties guarantees failing to be a religion, and having all of them guarantees being one. However, there is no continuum of the sorites variety here; for example, it is easy to distinguish possessing four from possessing five of the properties, unlike the sorites case where such a change is imperceptible. In the present type of vagueness, although we can tell these different cases apart, we just do not know whether to call the practice a religion or not. Furthermore, some of the properties or combinations of properties are more important or salient in determining whether the practice is a religion than are other properties or combinations. We might call this family resemblance vagueness: there are a number of clearly distinguishable conditions of varying degrees of importance, and family resemblance vagueness is attributed to there being no definite answer to the question, How many of which conditions are necessary for the term to apply? Other examples of family resemblance vagueness are ‘schizophrenia sufferer’, ‘sexual perversion’, and the venerable ‘game’. A special subclass of family resemblance vagueness occurs when there are pairs of underlying properties that normally co-occur, but occasionally apply to different objects. Consider, e.g., ‘tributary’. When two rivers meet, one is usually considered a tributary of the other. Among the properties relevant to being a tributary rather than the main river are: relative volume of water and relative length. Normally, the shorter of the two rivers has a lesser volume, and in that case it is the tributary of the other. But occasionally the two properties do not co-occur and then there is a conflict, giving rise to a kind of vagueness we might call conflict vagueness. The term ‘tributary’ is vague because its background conditions admit of such conflicts: there are borderline cases when these two properties apply to different objects. To conclude: the fundamental philosophical problems involving vagueness are 1 to give an adequate characterization of what the phenomenon is, and 2 to characterize our ability to reason with these terms. These were the problems for the ancient philosophers, and they remain the problems for modern philosophers. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “The conversational maxim for vagueness avoidance.”

vaihinger: Grice once gave a seminar on Vaihinger – “but thinking it would not attract that many, I titled it ‘As if.’” – H. P. Grice. philosopher best known for Die Philosophie des Als Ob; tr. by C. K. Ogden as The Philosophy of “As If” in 4. A neo-Kantian, he was also influenced by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. His commentary on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason 2 vols., 1 is still a standard work. Vaihinger was a cofounder of both the Kant Society and Kant-Studien. The “philosophy of the as if” involves the claim that values and ideals amount only to “fictions” that serve “life” even if they are irrational. We must act “as if” they were true because they have biological utility.

valentinianism: Grice: “I will only explore the actdivities of the so-called “Valentinians” in Rome.” -- a form of Christian gnosticism of Alexandrian origin, founded by Valentinus in the second century and propagated by Theodotus in Eastern, and Heracleon in Western, Christianity. To every gnostic, pagan or Christian, knowledge leads to salvation from the perishable, material world. Valentinianism therefore prompted famous refutations by Tertullian Adversus Valentinianos and Irenaeus Adversus haereses. The latter accused the Valentinians of maintaining “creatio ex nihilo.” Valentinus is believed to have authored the Peri trion phuseon, the Evangelium veritatis, and the Treatise on the Resurrection. Since only a few fragments of these remain, his Neoplatonic cosmogony is accessible mainly through his opponents and critics Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria and in the Nag Hammadi codices. To explain the origins of creation and of evil, Valentinus separated God primal Father from the Creator Demiurge and attributed the cruVaihinger, Hans Valentinianism 947   947 cial role in the processes of emanation and redemption to Sophia. 

valentino: -- or as Strawson would have it, ‘valentinus,’ gnostic teacher, b. in Alexandria, where he teaches until he moved to Rome. A dualist, he constructed an elaborate cosmology in which God the Father Bythos, or Deep Unknown unites the the feminine Silence Sige and in the overflow of love produces thirty successive divine emanations or aeons constituting the Pleroma fullness of the Godhead. Each emanation is arranged hierarchically with a graded existence, becoming progressively further removed from the Father and hence less divine. The lowest emanation, Sophia wisdom, yields to passion and seeks to reach, beyond her ability, to the Father, which causes her fall. In the process, she causes the creation of the material universe wherein resides evil and the loss of divine sparks from the Pleroma. The divine elements are embodied in those humans who are the elect. Jesus Christ is an aeon close to the Father and is sent to retrieve the souls into the heavenly Pleroma. Valentinus wrote a gospel. The sect of Valentino stood out in the early church for ordaining women priests and prophetesses. Grice: “Since he lived in Rome, he was almost a Roman.” – Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Valentinus e Grice,” Villa Grice.

vailati: n important figure in the history of formal semantics, influenced by Peano, who in turn influenced Whitehead and Russell, and thus Grice. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, "Grice e Vailati: la semantica filosofica," The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

valla: Rome-born philosopher, teaches rhetoric in Pav a and is later secretary of Alfonso I di Naoli, and apostolic secretary in Rome under papa Nichola V. In his dialogue On Pleasure or On the True Good, Stoic and Epicurean interlocutors present their ethical views, which Valla proceeds to criticize. This dialogue is often regarded as a defense of Epicurean hedonism, because Valla equates the good with pleasure; but he claims that Italians can find pleasure only in heaven. Valla’s description of pleasure reflects the contemporary Renaissance attitude toward the joys of life and might have contributed to Valla’s reputation for hedonism. In another work, On Free Will between, Valla discusses the conflict between divine foreknowledge and human freedom and rejects Boezio’’s then predominantly accepted solution. Valla distinguishes between God’s knowledge and God’s will – as in Grice’s phrase, “God willing,” “Deo volente,” -- but denies that there is a rational solution of the apparent conflict between God’s will and human freedom. As a historian, he is famous for The Donation of Constantine 1440, which denounces as spurious the famous document on which medieval jurists and theologians based the papal rights to secular power. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Valla e Grice,”per la Fondazione Lorenzo Valla, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

valitum: Oddly Vitters has a couple of lectures on ‘value,’ that Grice ‘ignored.’ Valitum should be contrasted from‘validum.’ ‘Valid,’ which is cognate with ‘value,’ a noun Grice loved, is used by logicians. In Grice’s generalised alethic-cum-deontic logic, ‘valid’ applies, too. ‘Valid’ is contrasted to the ‘satisfactoriness’ value that attaches directly to the utterance. ‘Valid’ applies to the reasoning, i.e. the sequence of psychological states from the premise to the conclusion. How common and insidious was the talk of a realm of ‘values’ at Oxford in the early 1930s to have Barnes attack it, and Grice defend it? ‘The realm of values’ sounds like an ordinary man’s expression, and surely Oxford never had a Wilson Chair of Metaphysical Axiology.  validum is the correct form out of Roman ‘valeor.’ Grice finds the need for the English equivalent, and plays with constructing the ‘concept’ “to be of value”! There’s also the axiologicum. The root for ‘value’ as ‘axis’ is found in Grice’s favourite book of the Republic, the First! Grice sometimes enjoys sounding pretentious and uses the definite article ‘the’ indiscriminately, just to tease Flew, his tutee, who said that talking of ‘the self’ is just ‘rubbish’. It is different with Grice’s ‘the good’ (to agathon), ‘the rational,’ (to logikon), ‘the valuable’ (valitum), and ‘the axiological’. Of course, whilesticking with ‘value,’ Grice plays with Grecian “τιμή.” Lewis and Short have ‘vălor,’ f. ‘valeo,’ which they render as ‘value,’ adding that it is supposed to translate in Gloss. Lab, Grecian ‘τιμή.’ ‘valor, τιμή, Gloss. Lab.’ ‘Valere,’ which of course algo gives English ‘valid,’ that Grice overuses, is said by Lewis and Short to be cognate with “vis,” “robur,” “fortissimus,” cf. debilis” and they render as “to be strong.” So one has to be careful here. “Axiology” is a German thing, and not used at Clifton or Oxford, where they stick with ‘virtus’ or ‘arete.’ This or that Graeco-Roman philosopher may have explored a generic approach to ‘value.’ Grice somewhat dismisses Hare who in Language of Morals very clearly distinguishes between deontic ‘ought’ and teleological, value-judgemental ‘good.’ For ‘good’ may have an aesthetic use: ‘that painting is good,’ the food is good). The sexist ‘virtus’ of the Romans perhaps did a disservice to Grecian ‘arete,’ but Grice hardly uses ‘arete,’ himself. It is etymologically unrelated to ‘agathon,’ yet rumour has it that ‘arete,’ qua ‘excellence,’ is ‘aristos,’ the superlative of ‘agathon.’ Since Aristotle is into the ‘mesotes,’ Grice worries not. Liddell and Scott have “ἀρετή” and render it simpliciter as “goodness, excellence, of any kind,” adding that “in Hom. esp. of manly qualities”: “ποδῶν ἀρετὴν ἀναφαίνων;” “ἀμείνων παντοίας ἀρετὰς ἠμὲν πόδας ἠδὲ μάχεσθαι καὶ νόον;” so of the gods, “τῶν περ καὶ μείζων ἀ. τιμή τε βίη τε;” also of women, “ἀ. εἵνεκα for valour,” “ἀ. ἀπεδείκνυντο,” “displayed brave deeds.”  But when Liddell and Scott give the philosophical references (Plathegel and Ariskant), they do render “ἀρετή,” as ‘value,’ generally, excellence, “ἡ ἀ. τελείωσίς τις” Arist. Met. 1021b20, cf. EN1106a15, etc.; of persons, “ἄνδρα πὺξ ἀρετὰν εὑρόντα,” “τὸ φρονεῖν ἀ. μεγίστη,” “forms of excellence, “μυρίαι ἀνδρῶν ἀ.;” “δικαστοῦ αὕτη ἀ.;” esp. moral virtue, opp. “κακία,” good nature, kindness, etc. We should not be so concerned about this, were not for the fact that Grice explored Foot, not just on meta-ethics as a ‘suppositional’ imperratives, but  on ‘virtue’ and ‘vice,’ by Foot, who had edited a reader in meta-ethics for the series of Grice’s friend, Warnock. Grice knows that when he hears the phrases value system, or belief system, he is conversing with a relativist. So he plays jocular here. If a value is not a concept, a value system at least is not what Davidson calls a conceptual scheme. However, in “The conception of value” (henceforth, “Conception”) Grice does argue that value IS a concept, and thus part of the conceptual scheme by Quine. Hilary Putnam congratulates Grice on this in “Fact and value,” crediting Baker – i. e. Judy – into the bargain. While utilitarianism, as exemplified by Bentham, denies that a moral intuition need be taken literally, Bentham assumes the axiological conceptual scheme of hedonistic eudaemonism, with eudaemonia as the maximal value (summum bonum) understood as hedone. The idea of a system of values (cf. system of ends) is meant to unify the goals of the agent in terms of the pursuit of eudæmonia. Grice wants to disgress from naturalism, and the distinction between a description and anything else. Consider the use of ‘rational’ as applied to ‘value.’ A naturalist holds that ‘rational’ can be legitimately apply to the ‘doxastic’ realm, not to the ‘buletic’ realm. A desire (or a ‘value’) a naturalist would say is not something of which ‘rational’ is predicable. Suppose, Grice says, I meet a philosopher who is in the habit of pushing pins into other philosophers. Grice asks the philosopher why he does this. The philosopher says that it gives him pleasure. Grice asks him whether it is the fact that he causes pain that gives him pleasure. The philosopher replies that he does not mind whether he causes pain. What gives him pleasure is the physical sensation of driving a pin into a philosopher’s body. Grice asks him whether he is aware that his actions cause pain. The philosopher says that he is. Grice asks him whether he would not feel pain if others did this to him. The philosopher agrees that he would. I ask him whether he would allow this to happen. He says that he guesses he would seek to prevent it. Grice asks him whether he does not think that others must feel pain when he drives pins into them, and whether he should not do to others what he would try to prevent them from doing to him. The philosopher says that pins driven into him cause him pain and he wishes to prevent this. Pins driven by him into others do not cause him pain, but pleasure, and he therefore wishes to do it. Grice asks him whether the fact that he causes pain to other philosophers does not seem to him to be relevant to the issue of whether it is rationally undesirable to drive pins into people. He says that he does not see what possible difference can pain caused to others, or the absence of it, make to the desirability of deriving pleasure in the way that he does. Grice asks him what it is that gives him pleasure in this particular activity. The philosopher replies that he likes driving pins into a philosopher’s resilient body. Grice asks whether he would derive equal pleasure from driving pins into a tennis ball. The philosopher says that he would derive equal pleasure, that into what he drives his pins, a philosopher or a tennis ball, makes no difference to him – the pleasure is similar, and he is quite prepared to have a tennis ball substituted, but what possible difference can it make whether his pins perforate living men or tennis balls? At this point, Grice begins to suspect that the philosopher is evil. Grice does not feel like agreeing with a naturalist, who reasons that the pin-pushing philosopher is a philosopher with a very different scale of moral values from Grice, that a value not being susceptible to argument, Grice may disagree but not reason with the pin-pushing philosopher. Grice rather sees the pin-pushing philosopher beyond the reach of communication from the world occupied by him. Communication is as unattainable as it is with a philosopher who that he is a doorknob, as in the story by Hoffman. A value enters into the essence of what constitutes a person. The pursuit of a rational end is part of the essence of a person. Grice does not claim any originality for his position (which much to Ariskant), only validity. The implicaturum by Grice is that rationalism and axiology are incompatible, and he wants to cancel that. So the keyword here is rationalistic axiology, in the neo-Kantian continental vein, with a vengeance. Grice arrives at value (validitum, optimum, deeming) via Peirce on meaning. And then there is the truth “value,” a German loan-translation (as value judgment, Werturteil). The sorry story of deontic logic, Grice says, faces Jørgensens dilemma. The dilemma by Jørgensens is best seen as a trilemma, Grice says; viz. Reasoning requires that premise and conclusion have what Boole, Peirce, and Frege call a “truth” value. An imperative dos not have a “truth” value. There may be a reasoning with an imperative as premise or conclusion. A philosopher can reject the first horn and provide an inference mechanism on elements – the input of the premise and the output of the conclusion -- which are not presupposed to have a “truth” value. A philosopher can reject the second horn and restrict ‘satisfactory’ value to a doxastic embedding a buletic (“He judges he wills…”). A philosopher can reject the third horn, and refuse to explore the desideratum. Grice generalizes over value as the mode-neutral ‘satisfactory.’ Both ‘p’ and “!p” may be satisfactory. ‘.p’ has doxastic value (0/1); ‘!p’ has buletic value  (0/1). The mode marker of the utterance guides the addresse you as to how to read ‘satisfactory.’ Grice’s ‘satisfactory’ is a variation on a theme by Hofstadter and McKinsey, who elaborate a syntax for the imperative mode, using satisfaction. They refer to what they call the ‘satisfaction-function’ of a fiat. A fiat is ‘satisfied’ (as The door is closed may also be said to be satisfied iff the door is closed) iff what is commanded is the case. The fiat ‘Let the door be closed’ is satisfied if the door is closed. An unary or dyadic operator becomes a satisfaction-functor. As Grice puts it, an inferential rule, which flat rationality is the capacity to apply, is not arbitrary. The inferential rule picks out a transition of acceptance in which transmission of ‘satisfactory’ is guaranteed or expected. As Grice notes, since mode marker indicate the species ‘satisfactory’ does. He imports into the object-language ‘It is satisfactory-d/p that’ just in case psi-d/b-p is satisfactory. Alla Tarski, Grice introduces ‘It is acceptable that’: It is acceptable that psi-d/b-p is satisfactory-b/d just in case ‘psi-d/b-p is satisfactory-d/b’ is satisfactory-b/d. Grice goes on to provide a generic value-assignment for satisfactoriness-functors. For coordinators: “φ Λ ψ” is 1-b/d just in case φ is 1-b/d and ψ is 1-b/d. “φ ν ψ”  is 1-b/d just in case one of the pair, φ and ψ, is 1-b/d. For subordinator: “φ⊃ψ” is 1-b/d just in case either φ is 0-b/d or ψ is 0-b/d. There are, however, a number of points to be made. It is not fully clear to Grice just how strong the motivation is for assigning a value to a mode-neutral, generic functor. Also he is assuming symmetry, leaving room for a functor is introduced if a restriction is imposed. Consider a bi-modal utterance. “The beast is filthy and do not touch it” and “The beast is filthy and I shall not touch it” seem all right. The commutated “Do not touch the beast and it is filthy” is dubious. “Touch the beast and it will bite you,” while idiomatic is hardly an imperative, since ‘and’ is hardly a conjunction. “Smith is taking a bath or leave the bath-room door open” is intelligible. The commutated “Leave the bath-room door open or Smith is taking a bath” is less so. In a bi-modal utterance, Grice makes a case for the buletic to be dominant over the doxastic. The crunch comes, however, with one of the four possible unary satisfactoriness-functors, especially with regard to the equivalence of  “~psi-b/d-p” and “psi-b/d-~p). Consider “Let it be that I now put my hand on my head” or  “Let it be that my bicycle faces north” in which neither seems to be either satisfactory or unsatisfactory. And it is a trick to assign a satisfactory value to “~psi-b/d-p” and “~psi-b/d~p.” Do we proscribe this or that form altogether, for every cases? But that would seem to be a pity, since ~!~p seems to be quite promising as a representation for you may (permissive) do alpha that satisfies p; i.e., the utterer explicitly conveys his refusal to prohibit his addressee A doing alpha. Do we disallow embedding of (or iterating) this or that form? But that (again if we use ~!p and ~!~p  to represent may) seems too restrictive. Again, if !p is neither buletically satisfactory nor buletically unsatisfactory (U could care less) do we assign a value other than 1 or 0 to !p (desideratively neuter, 0.5). Or do we say, echoing Quine, that we have a buletically satisfactoriness value gap? These and other such problems would require careful consideration. Yet Grice cannot see that those problems would prove insoluble, any more than this or that analogous problem connected with Strawsons presupposition (Dont arrest the intruder!) are insoluble. In Strawsons case, the difficulty is not so much to find a solution as to select the best solution from those which present themselves. Grice takes up the topic of a calculus in connection with the introduction rule and the elimination rule of a modal such as must. We might hope to find, for each member of a certain family of modalities, an introduction rule and an elimination rule which would be analogous to the rules available for classical logical constants. Suggestions are not hard to come by. Let us suppose that we are seeking to provide such a pair of rules for the particular modality of necessity □. For (□,+) Grice considers the following (Grice thinks equivalent) forms: if φ is demonstrable, □φ is demonstrable. Provided φ is dependent on no assumptions, derive φ from □φ. For  (□,-), Grice considers From □φ derive φ. It is to be understood, of course, that the values of the syntactical variable φ would contain either a buletic or a doxastic mode markers. Both !p and .p would be proper substitutes for φ but p would not. Grice wonders: [W]hat should be said of Takeuti’s conjecture (roughly) that the nature of the introduction rule determines the character of the elimination rule? There seems to be no particular problem about allowing an introduction rule which tells us that, if it is established in P’s personalised system that φ, it is necessary, with respect to P, that φ is doxastically satisfactory/establishable. The accompanying elimination rule is, however, slightly less promising. If we suppose such a rule to tell us that, if one is committed to the idea that it is necessary, with respect to P, that φ, one is also committed to whatever is expressed by φ, we shall be in trouble. For such a rule is not acceptable. φ will be a buletic expression such as Let it be that Smith eats his hat. And my commitment to the idea that Smiths system requires him to eat his hat does not ipso facto involve me in accepting volitively Let Smith eat his hat. But if we take the elimination rule rather as telling us that, if it is necessary, with respect to X, that let X eat his hat, then let X eat his hat possesses satisfactoriness-with-respect-to-X, the situation is easier. For this person-relativised version of the rule seems inoffensive, even for Takeuti, we hope.  Grice, following Mackie, uses absolutism, as opposed to relativism, which denies the rational basis to attitude ascriptions (but cf. Hare on Subjectsivism). Grice is concerned with the absence of a thorough discussion of value by English philosophers, other than Hare (and he is only responding to Mackie!). Continental philosophers, by comparison, have a special discipline, axiology, for it! Similarly, a continental-oriented tradition Grice finds in The New World in philosophers of a pragmatist bent, such as Carus. Grice wants to say that rationality is a value, because it is a faculty that a creature (human) displays to adapt and survive to his changing environments. The implicaturum of the title is that values have been considered in the English philosophical tradition, almost alla Nietzsche, to belong to the realm irrational. Grice grants that axiological implicaturum rests on a PRE-rational propension. While Grice could play with “the good” in the New World, as a Lit. Hum. he knew he had to be slightly more serious. The good is one of the values, but what is valuing? Would the New Worlders understand valuing unattached to the pragmatism that defines them? Grice starts by invoking Hume on his bright side: the concept of value, versus the conception of value. Or rather, how the concept of value derives from the conception of value. A distinction that would even please Aquinas (conceptum/conceptio), and the Humeian routine. Some background for his third Carus lecture. He tries to find out what Mackie means when he says that a value is ultimately Subjectsive. What about inter-Subjectsive, and constructively objective? Grice constructs absolute value out of relative value. But once a rational pirot P (henceforth, P – Grice liked how it sounded like Locke’s parrot) constructs value, the P assigns absolute status to rationality qua value. The P cannot then choose not to be rational at the risk of ceasing to exist (qua person, or essentially rationally human agent). A human, as opposed to a person, assigns relative value to his rationality. A human is accidentally rational. A person is necessarily so. A distinction seldom made by Aristotle and some of his dumbest followers obsessed with the modal-free adage, Homo rationale animal. Short and Lewis have “hūmānus” (old form: hemona humana et hemonem hominem dicebant, Paul. ex Fest. p. 100 Müll.; cf. homo I.init.), adj., f. “homo,” and which they render as “of or belonging to man, human.” Grice also considers the etymology of ‘person.’ Lewis and Short have ‘persōna,’  according to Gabius Bassus ap. Gell. 5, 7, 1 sq., f. ‘persŏno,’ “to sound through, with the second syllable lengthened.’ Falsa est (finitio), si dicas, Equus est animal rationale: nam est equus animal, sed irrationale, Quint.7,3,24:homo est animal rationale; “nec si mutis finis voluptas, rationalibus quoque: quin immo ex contrario, quia mutis, ideo non rationalibus;” “a rationali ad rationale;” “τὸ λογικόν ζῷον,” ChrysiStoic.3.95; ἀρεταὶ λ., = διανοητικαί, oἠθικαί, Arist. EN1108b9; “λογικός, ή, όν, (λόγος), ζῶον λόγον ἔχον NE, 1098a3-5. λόγον δὲ μόνον ἄνθρωπος ἔχει τῶν ζῴων, man alone of all animals possesses speech, from the Politics. Grice takes the stratification of values by Hartmann much more seriously than Barnes. Grice plays with rational motivation. He means it seriously. The motivation is the psychological bite, but since it is qualified by rational, it corresponds to the higher more powerful bit of the soul, the rational soul. There are, for Grice, the Grecians, Kantotle and Plathegel, three souls: the vegetal, the animal, and the rational. As a matter of history, Grice reaches value (in its guises of optimum and deeming) via his analysis of meaning by Peirce. Many notions are value-paradeigmatic. The most important of all philosophical notions that of rationality, presupposes objective value as one of its motivations. For Grice, ratio can be understood cognoscendi but also essendi, indeed volendi and fiendi, too. Rational motivation involves a ratio cognoscendi and a ratio volendi; objective, “objectum,” and “objectus,” ūs, m. f. “obicio,” rendered as “a casting before, a putting against, in the way, or opposite, an opposing; or, neutr., a lying before or opposite (mostly poet. and in postAug. prose): dare objectum parmaï, the opposing of the shield” “vestis;” “insula portum efficit objectu laterum,” “by the opposition,” “cum terga flumine, latera objectu paludis tegerentur;” “molis;” “regiones, quæ Tauri montis objectu separantur;” “solem interventu lunæ occultari, lunamque terræ objectu, the interposition,” “eademque terra objectu suo umbram noctemque efficiat;” “al. objecta soli: hi molium objectus (i. e. moles objectas) scandere, the projection,” transf., that which presents itself to the sight, an object, appearance, sight, spectacle;” al. objecto;  and if not categoric. This is analogous to the overuse by Grice of psychoLOGICAL when he just means souly. It is perhaps his use of psychological for souly that leads to take any souly concept as a theoretical concept within a folksy psychoLOGICAL theory. Grice considered the stratification of values, alla Hartmann, unlike Barnes, who dismissed him in five minutes. “Some like Philippa Foot, but Hare is MY man,” Grice would say. “Virtue” ethics was becoming all the fashion, especially around Somerville. Hare was getting irritated by the worse offender, his Anglo-Welsh tutee, originally with a degree from the other place, Williams. Enough for Grice to want to lecture on value, and using Carus as an excuse! Mackie was what Oxonians called a colonial, and a clever one! In fact, Grice quotes from Hares contribution to a volume on Mackie. Hares and Mackies backgrounds could not be more different. Like Grice, Hare was a Lit. Hum., and like Grice, Hare loves the Grundlegung. But unlike Grice and Barnes, Hare would have nothing to say about Stevenson. Philosophers in the play group of Grice never took the critique by Ayer of emotivism seriously. Stevenson is the thing. V. Urmson on the emotive theory of ethics, tracing it to English philosphers like Ogden, Barnes, and Duncan-Jones. Barnes was opposing both Prichard (who was the Whites professor of moral philosophy – and more of an interest than Moore is, seeing that Prichard is Barness tutor at Corpus) and Hartmann. Ryle would have nothing to do with Hartmann, but these were the days before Ryle took over Oxford, and forbade any reference to a continental philosopher, even worse if a “Hun.” Grice reaches the notion of value through that of meaning. If Peirce is simplistic, Grice is not. But his ultra-sophisticated analysis ends up being deemed to hold in this or that utterer. And deeming is valuing, as is optimum. While Grice rarely used axiology, he should! A set of three lectures, which are individually identified below. I love Carus! Grice was undecided as to what his Carus lectures were be on. Grice explores meaning under its value optimality guise in Meaning revisited. Grice thinks that a value-paradeigmatic notion allows him to respond in a more apt way to what some critics were raising as a possible vicious circle in his approach to semantic and psychological notions. The Carus lectures are then dedicated to the construction, alla Hume, of a value-paradeigmatic notion in general, and value itself. Grice starts by quoting Austin, Hare, and Mackie, of Oxford. The lectures are intended to a general audience, provided it is a philosophical general audience. Most of the second lecture is a subtle exploration by Grice of the categorical imperative of Kant, with which he had struggled in the last Locke lecture in “Aspects,” notably the reduction of the categorical imperative to this or that counsel of prudence with an implicated protasis to the effect that the agent is aiming at eudæmonia. The Carus Lectures are three: on objectivity and value, on relative and absolute value, and on metaphysics and value. The first lecture, on objectivity and value, is a review Inventing right and wrong by Mackie, quoting Hare’s antipathy for a value being ‘objective’. The second lecture, on relative and absolute value, is an exploration on the categorical imperative, and its connection with a prior hypothetical or suppositional imperative. The third lecture, on metaphycis and value, is an eschatological defence of absolute value. The collective citation should be identified by each lecture separately. This is a metaphysical defence by Grice of absolute value. The topic fascinates Grice, and he invents a few routines to cope with it. Humeian projection rationally reconstructs the intuitive concept being of value. Category shift allows to put a value such as the disinterestedness by Smith in grammatical subject position, thus avoiding to answer that the disinterestedness of Smith is in the next room, since it is not the spatio-temporal continuan prote ousia that Smith is. But the most important routine is that of trans-substantatio, or metousiosis. A human reconstructs as a rational personal being, and alla Kantotle, whatever he judges is therefore of absolute value. The issue involves for Grice the introduction of a telos qua aition, causa finalis (final cause), role, or métier. The final cause of a tiger is to tigerise, the final cause of a reasoner is to reason, the final cause of a person is to personise. And this entails absolute value, now metaphysically defended. The justification involves the ideas of end-setting, unweighed rationality, autonomy, and freedom. In something like a shopping list that Grice provides for issues on free. Attention to freedom calls for formidably difficult undertakings including the search for a justification for the adoption or abandonment of an ultimate end. The point is to secure that freedom does not dissolve into compulsion or chance. Grice proposes four items for this shopping list. A first point is that full action calls for strong freedom. Here one has to be careful that since Grice abides by what he calls the Modified Occams Razor in the third James lecture on Some remarks about logic and conversation, he would not like to think of this two (strong freedom and weak freedom) as being different senses of free. Again, his calls for is best understood as presupposes. It may connect with, say, Kanes full-blown examples of decisions in practical settings that call for or presuppose libertarianism. A second point is that the buletic-doxastic justification of action has to accomodate for the fact that we need freedom which is strong. Strong or serious autonomy or freedom ensures that this or that action is represented as directed to this or that end E which are is not merely the agents, but which is also freely or autonomously adopted or pursued by the agent. Grice discusses the case of the gym instructor commanding, Raise your left arm! The serious point then involves this free adoption or free pursuit. Note Grices use of this or that personal-identity pronoun: not merely mine, i.e. not merely the agents, but in privileged-access position. This connects with what Aristotle says of action as being up to me, and Kant’s idea of the transcendental ego. An end is the agents in that the agent adopts it with liberum arbitrium. This or that ground-level desire may be circumstantial. A weak autonomy or freedom satisfactorily accounts for this or that action as directed to an end which is mine. However, a strong autonomy or freedom, and a strong autonomy or freedom only, accounts for this or that action as directed to an end which is mine, but, unlike, say, some ground-level circumstantial desire which may have sprung out of some circumstantial adaptability to a given scenario, is, first, autonomously or freely adopted by the agent, and, second, autonomously or freely pursued by the agent. The use of the disjunctive particle or in the above is of some interest. An agent may autonomously or freely adopt an end, yet not care to pursue it autonomously or freely, even in this strong connotation that autonomous or free sometimes has. A further point relates to causal indeterminacy. Any attempt to remedy this situation by resorting to causal indeterminacy or chance will only infuriate the scientist without aiding the philosopher. This remark by Grice has to be understood casually. For, as it can be shown, this or that scientist may well have resorted to precisely that introduction and in any case have not self-infuriated. The professional tag that is connoted by philosopher should also be seen as best implicated than entailed. A scientist who does resort to the introduction of causal indeterminacy may be eo ipso be putting forward a serious consideration regarding ethics or meta-ethics. In other words, a cursory examination of the views of a scientist like Eddington, beloved by Grice, or this or that moral philosopher like Kane should be born in mind when considering this third point by Grice. The reference by Grice to chance, random, and causal indeterminacy, should best be understood vis-à-vis Aristotles emphasis on tykhe, fatum, to the effect that this or that event may just happen just by accident, which may well open a can of worms for the naive Griceian, but surely not the sophisticated one (cf. his remarks on accidentally, in Prolegomena). A further item in Grices shopping list involves the idea of autonomous or free as a value, or optimum. The specific character of what Grice has as  strong autonomy or freedom may well turn out to consist, Grice hopes, in the idea of this or that action as the outcome of a certain kind of strong valuation  ‒ where this would include the rational selection, as per e.g. rational-decision theory, of this or that ultimate end. What Grice elsewhere calls out-weighed or extrinsically weighed rationality, where rational includes the buletic, of the end and not the means to it. This or that full human action calls for the presence of this or that reason, which require that this or that full human action for which this or that reason accounts should be the outcome of a strong rational valuation. Like a more constructivist approach, this line suggests that this or that action may require, besides strong autonomy or freedom, now also strong valuation. Grice sets to consider how to adapt the buletic-doxastic soul progression to reach these goals. In the case of this or that ultimate end E, justification should be thought of as lying, directly, at least, in this or that outcome, not on the actual phenomenal fulfilment of this or that end, but rather of the, perhaps noumenal, presence qua end. Grice relates to Kants views on the benevolentia or goodwill and malevolentia, or evil will, or illwill. Considers Smiths action of giving Jones a job. Smith may be deemed to have given Jones a job, whether or not Jones actually gets the job. It is Smiths benevolentia, or goodwill, not his beneficentia, that matters. Hence in Short and Lewis, we have “bĕnĕfĭcentĭa,” f. “beneficus,” like “magnificentia” f. magnificus, and “munificentia” f. munificus; Cicero, Off. 1, 7, 20, and which they thus render as “the quality of beneficus, kindness, beneficence, an honorable and kind treatment of others” (omaleficentia, Lact. Ira Dei, 1, 1; several times in the philos. writings of Cicero. Elsewhere rare: quid praestantius bonitate et beneficentiā?” “beneficentia, quam eandem vel benignitatem vel liberalitatem appellari licet,” “comitas ac beneficentia,” “uti beneficentiā adversus supplices,”“beneficentia augebat ornabatque subjectsos.” In a more general fashion then, it is the mere presence of an end qua end of a given action that provides the justification of the end, and not its phenomenal satisfaction or fulfilment. Furthermore, the agents having such and such an end, E1, or such and such a combination of ends, E1 and E2, would be justified by showing that the agents having this end exhibits some desirable feature, such as this or that combo being harmonious. For how can one combine ones desire to smoke with ones desire to lead a healthy life? Harmony is one of the six requirements by Grice for an application of happy to the life of Smith. The buletic-doxastic souly ascription is back in business at a higher level. The suggestion would involve an appeal, in the justification of this or that end, to this or that higher-order end which would be realised by having this or that lower, or first-order end of a certain sort. Such valuation of this or that lower-order end lies within reach of a buletic-doxastic souly ascription. Grice has an important caveat at this point. This or that higher-order end involved in the defense would itself stand in need of justification, and the regress might well turn out to be vicious. One is reminded of Watson’s requirement for a thing like freedom or personal identity to overcome this or that alleged counterexample to freewill provided by H. Frankfurt. It is after the laying of a shopping list, as it were, and considerations such as those above that Grice concludes his reflection with a defense of a noumenon, complete with the inner conflict that it brings. Attention to the idea of autonomous and free leads the philosopher to the need to resolve if not dissolve the most important unsolved problem of philosophy, viz. how an agent can be, at the same time, a member of both the phenomenal world and the noumenal world, or, to settle the internal conflict between one part of our rational nature, the doxastic, even scientific, part which seems to call for the universal reign of a deterministic law and the other buletic part which insists that not merely moral responsibility but every variety of rational belief demands exemption from just such a reign. In this lecture, Grice explores freedom and value from a privileged-access incorrigible perspective rather than the creature construction genitorial justification. Axiology – v. axiological.  Valitum -- Fact-value distinction, the apparently fundamental difference between how things are and how they should be. That people obey the law or act honestly or desire money is one thing; that they should is quite another. The first is a matter of fact, the second a matter of value. Hume is usually credited with drawing the distinction when he noticed that one cannot uncontroversially infer an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ the isought gap. From the fact, say, that an action would maximize overall happiness, we cannot legitimately infer that it ought to be done  without the introduction of some so far suppressed evaluative premise. We could secure the inference by assuming that one ought always to do what maximizes overall happiness. But that assumption is evidently evaluative. And any other premise that might link the non-evaluative premises to an evaluative conclusion would look equally evaluative. No matter how detailed and extensive the non-evaluative premises, it seems no evaluative conclusion follows directly and as a matter of logic. Some have replied that at least a few non-evaluative claims do entail evaluative ones. To take one popular example, from the fact that some promise was made, we might it appears legitimately infer that it ought to be kept, other things equal  and this without the introduction of an evaluative premise. Yet many argue that the inference fails, or that the premise is actually evaluative, or that the conclusion is not. Hume himself was both bold and brief about the gap’s significance, claiming simply that paying attention to it “wou’d subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceiv’d by reason” Treatise of Human Nature. Others have been more expansive. Moore, for instance, in effect relied upon the gap to establish via the open question argument that any attempt to define evaluative terms using non-evaluative ones would commit the naturalistic fallacy. Moore’s main target was the suggestion that ‘good’ means “pleasant” and the fallacy, in this context, is supposed to be misidentifying an evaluative property, being good, with a natural property, being pleasant. Assuming that evaluative terms have meaning, Moore held that some could be defined using others he thought, e.g., that ‘right’ could be defined as “productive of the greatest possible good” and that the rest, though meaningful, must be indefinable terms denoting simple, non-natural, properties. Accepting Moore’s use of the open question argument but rejecting both his non-naturalism and his assumption that evaluative terms must have descriptive meaning, emotivists and prescriptivists e.g. Ayer, C. L. Stevenson, and Hare argued that evaluative terms have a role in language other than to denote properties. According to them, the primary role of evaluative language is not to describe, but to prescribe. The logical gap between ‘is’ and ‘ought’, they argue, establishes both the difference between fact and value and the difference between describing how things are and recommending how they might be. Some naturalists, though, acknowledge the gap and yet maintain that the evaluative claims nonetheless do refer to natural properties. In the process they deny the ontological force of the open question argument and 302 F   302 treat evaluative claims as describing a special class of facts.  Refs.: The main source is The construction of value, the Carus lectures, Clarendon. But there are scattered essays on value and valuing in the Grice Papers. H. P. Grice, “Objectivity and value,” s. V, c. 8-f. 18, “The rational motivation for objective value,” s. V, c. 8-f. 19, “Value,” s. V, c. 9-f. 20; “Value, metaphysics, and teleology,” s. V, c. 9-f. 23, “Values, morals, absolutes, and the metaphysical,” s. V., c. 9-f.  24; “Value sub-systems and the Kantian problem,” s. V. c. 9-ff. 25-27; “Values and rationalism,” s. V, c. 9-f. 28; while the Carus are in the second series, in five folders, s. II, c-2, ff. 12-16, the H. P. Grice Papers, BANC. value, the worth of something. Philosophers have discerned these main forms: intrinsic, instrumental, inherent, and relational value. Intrinsic value may be taken as basic and many of the others defined in terms of it. Among the many attempts to explicate the concept of intrinsic value, some deal primarily with the source of value, while others employ the concept of the “fittingness” or “appropriateness” to it of certain kinds of emotions and desires. The first is favored by Moore and the second by Brentano. Proponents of the first view hold that the intrinsic value of X is the value that X has solely in virtue of its intrinsic nature. Thus, the state of affairs, Smith’s experiencing pleasure, has intrinsic value provided it has value solely in virtue of its intrinsic nature. Followers of the second approach explicate intrinsic value in terms of the sorts of emotions and desires appropriate to a thing “in and for itself” or “for its own sake”. Thus, one might say X has intrinsic value or is intrinsically good if and only if X is worthy of desire in and for itself, or, alternatively, it is fitting or appropriate for anyone to favor X in and for itself. Thus, the state of affairs of Smith’s experiencing pleasure is intrinsically valuable provided that state of affairs is worthy of desire for its own sake, or it is fitting for anyone to favor that state of affairs in and for itself. Concerning the other forms of value, we may say that X has instrumental value if and only if it is a means to, or causally contributes to, something that is intrinsically valuable. If Smith’s experiencing pleasure is intrinsically valuable and his taking a warm bath is a means to, or Valentinus value 948   948 causally contributes to, his being pleased, then his taking a warm bath is instrumentally valuable or “valuable as a means.” Similarly, if health is intrinsically valuable and exercise is a means to health, then exercise is instrumentally valuable. X has inherent value if and only if the experience, awareness, or contemplation of X is intrinsically valuable. If the experience of a beautiful sunset is intrinsically valuable, then the beautiful sunset has inherent value. X has contributory value if and only if X contributes to the value of some whole, W, of which it is a part. If W is a whole that consists of the facts that Smith is pleased and Brown is pleased, then the fact that Smith is pleased contributes to the value of W, and Smith’s being pleased has contributory value. Our example illustrates that something can have contributory value without having instrumental value, for the fact that Smith is pleased is not a means to W and, strictly speaking, it does not bring about or causally contribute to W. Given the distinction between instrumental and contributory value, we may say that certain sorts of experiences and activities can have contributory value if they are part of an intrinsically valuable life and contribute to its value, even though they are not means to it. Finally, we may say that X has relational value if and only if X has value in virtue of bearing some relation to something else. Instrumental, inherent, and contributory value may be construed as forms of relational value. But there are other forms of relational value one might accept, e.g. one might hold that X is valuable for S in virtue of being desired by S or being such that S would desire X were S “fully informed” and “rational.” Some philosophers defend the organicity of intrinsic value. Moore, for example, held that the intrinsic value of a whole is not necessarily equal to the sum of the intrinsic values of its parts. According to this view, the presence of an intrinsically good part might lower the intrinsic value of a whole of which it is a part and the presence of an intrinsically bad part might raise the intrinsic value of a whole to which it belongs. Defenders of organicity sometimes point to examples of Mitfreude taking joy or pleasure in another’s joy and Schadenfreude taking joy or pleasure in another’s suffering to illustrate their view. Suppose Jones believes incorrectly that Smith is happy and Brown believes incorrectly that Gray is suffering, but Jones is pleased that Smith is happy and Brown is pleased that Gray is suffering. The former instance of Mitfreude seems intrinsically better than the latter instance of Schadenfreude even though they are both instances of pleasure and neither whole has an intrinsically bad part. The value of each whole is not a “mere sum” of the values of its parts.  Valitum -- axiology: value theory, also called axiology, the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of value and with what kinds of things have value. Construed very broadly, value theory is concerned with all forms of value, such as the aesthetic values of beauty and ugliness, the ethical values of right, wrong, obligation, virtue, and vice, and the epistemic values of justification and lack of justification. Understood more narrowly, value theory is concerned with what is intrinsically valuable or ultimately worthwhile and desirable for its own sake and with the related concepts of instrumental, inherent, and contributive value. When construed very broadly, the study of ethics may be taken as a branch of value theory, but understood more narrowly value theory may be taken as a branch of ethics. In its more narrow form, one of the chief questions of the theory of value is, What is desirable for its own sake? One traditional sort of answer is hedonism. Hedonism is roughly the view that i the only intrinsically good experiences or states of affairs are those containing pleasure, and the only instrinsically bad experiences or states of affairs are those containing pain; ii all experiences or states of affairs that contain more pleasure than pain are intrinsically good and all experiences or states of affairs that contain more pain than pleasure are intrinsically bad; and iii any experience or state of affairs that is intrinsically good is so in virtue of being pleasant or containing pleasure and any experience or state of affairs that is intrinsically bad is so in virtue of being painful or involving pain. Hedonism has been defended by philosophers such as Epicurus, Bentham, Sidgwick, and, with significant qualifications, J. S. Mill. Other philosophers, such as C. I. Lewis, and, perhaps, Brand Blanshard, have held that what is intrinsically or ultimately desirable are experiences that exhibit “satisfactoriness,” where being pleasant is but one form of being satisfying. Other philosophers have recognized a plurality of things other than pleasure or satisfaction as having intrinsic value. Among the value pluralists are Moore, Rashdall, Ross, Brentano, Hartmann, and Scheler. In addition to certain kinds of pleasures, these thinkers count some or all of the following as intrinsically good: consciousness and the flourishing of life, knowledge and insight, moral virtue and virtuous actions, friendship and mutual affection, beauty and aesthetic experience, a just distribution of goods, and self-expression. Many, if not all, of the philosophers mentioned above distinguish between what has value or is desirable for its own sake and what is instrumentally valuable. Furthermore, they hold that what is desirable for its own sake or intrinsically good has a value not dependent on anyone’s having an interest in it. Both of these claims have been challenged by other value theorists. Dewey, for example, criticizes any sharp distinction between what is intrinsically good or good as an end and what is good as a means on the ground that we adopt and abandon ends to the extent that they serve as means to the resolution of conflicting impulses and desires. Perry denies that anything can have value without being an object of interest. Indeed, Perry claims that ‘X is valuable’ means ‘Interest is taken in X’ and that it is a subject’s interest in a thing that confers value on it. Insofar as he holds that the value of a thing is dependent upon a subject’s interest in that thing, Perry’s value theory is a subjective theory and contrasts sharply with objective theories holding that some things have value not dependent on a subject’s interests or attitudes. Some philosophers, dissatisfied with the view that value depends on a subject’s actual interests and theories, have proposed various alternatives, including theories holding that the value of a thing depends on what a subject would desire or have an interest in if he were fully rational or if desires were based on full information. Such theories may be called “counterfactual” desire theories since they take value to be dependent, not upon a subject’s actual interests, but upon what a subject would desire if certain conditions, which do not obtain, were to obtain. Value theory is also concerned with the nature of value. Some philosophers have denied that sentences of the forms ‘X is good’ or ‘X is intrinsically good’ are, strictly speaking, either true or false. As with other forms of ethical discourse, they claim that anyone who utters these sentences is either expressing his emotional attitudes or else prescribing or commending something. Other philosophers hold that such sentences can express what is true or false, but disagree about the nature of value and the meaning of value terms like ‘good’, ‘bad’, and ‘better’. Some philosophers, such as Moore, hold that in a truth of the form ‘X is intrinsically good’, ‘good’ refers to a simple, unanalyzable, non-natural property, a property not identical with or analyzable by any “natural” property such as being pleasant or being desired. Moore’s view is one form of non-naturalism. Other philosophers, such as Brentano, hold that ‘good’ is a syncategorematic expression; as such it does not refer to a property or relation at all, though it contributes to the meaning of the sentence. Still other philosophers have held that ‘X is good’ and ‘X is intrinsically good’ can be analyzed in natural or non-ethical terms. This sort of naturalism about value is illustrated by Perry, who holds that ‘X is valuable’ means ‘X is an object of interest’. The history of value theory is full of other attempted naturalistic analyses, some of which identify or analyze ‘good’ in terms of pleasure or being the object of rational desire. Many philosophers argue that naturalism is preferable on epistemic grounds. If, e.g., ‘X is valuable’ just means ‘X is an object of interest’, then in order to know whether something is valuable, one need only know whether it is the object of someone’s interest. Our knowledge of value is fundamentally no different in kind from our knowledge of any other empirical fact. This argument, however, is not decisive against non-naturalism, since it is not obvious that there is no synthetic a priori knowledge of the sort Moore takes as the fundamental value cognition. Furthermore, it is not clear that one cannot combine non-naturalism about value with a broadly empirical epistemology, one that takes certain kinds of experience as epistemic grounds for beliefs about value.  Valitum -- valid, having the property that a well-formed formula, argument, argument form, or rule of inference has when it is logically correct in a certain respect. A well-formed formula is valid if it is true under every admissible reinterpretation of its non-logical symbols. If truth-value gaps or multiple truth-values are allowed, ‘true’ here might be replaced by ‘non-false’ or takes a “designated” truth-value. An argument is valid if it is impossible for the premises all to be true and, at the same time, the conclusion false. An argument form schema is valid if every argument of that form is valid. A rule of inference is valid if it cannot lead from all true premises to a false conclusion. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “The conception of value,” The Paul Carus Lectures for the American Philosophical Association, published by Oxford, at the Clarendon Press.

vanini: philosopher, a Renaissance Aristotelian who studied law and theology. He became a monk and traveled all over Europe. After abjuring, he taught and practiced medicine. He was burned at the stake by the Inquisition. His major work is four volumes of dialogues, De admirandis naturae reginae deaeque mortalium arcanis “On the Secrets of Nature, Queen and Goddess of Mortal Beings,” 1616. He was influenced by Averroes and Pietro Pomponazzi, whom he regarded as his teacher. Vanini rejects revealed religion and claims that God is immanent in nature. The world is ruled by a necessary natural order and is eternal. Like Averroes, he denies the immortality and the immateriality of the human soul. Like Pomponazzi, he denies the existence of miracles and claims that all apparently extraordinary phenomena can be shown to have natural causes and to be predetermined. Despite the absence of any original contribution, from the second half of the seventeenth century Vanini was popular as a symbol of free and atheist thought. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Vanini e Grice,” Villa Grice, Luigi Speranza, “La statua all’aperto di Vanini,” Luigi Speranza, “Il medaglione di Vanini a Roma.”

variable: in semantics, a symbol interpreted so as to be associated with a range of values, a set of entities any one of which may be temporarily assigned as a value of the variable. Grice uses more specifically for a variable for a ‘grice,’ a type of extinct pig that existed (‘in the past’) in Northern England – “There is a variable number of grices in the backyard, Paul.” An occurrence of a variable in a mathematical or logical expression is a free occurrence if assigning a value is necessary in order for the containing expression to acquire a semantic value  a denotation, truth-value, or other meaning. Suppose a semantic value is assigned to a variable and the same value is attached to a constant as meaning of the same kind; if an expression contains free occurrences of just that variable, the value of the expression for that assignment of value to the variable is standardly taken to be the same as the value of the expression obtained by substituting the constant for all the free occurrences of the variable. A bound occurrence of a variable is one that is not free. Grice: “Strictly, a variable is the opposite of a constant, but a constant varies – ain’t that paradoxical?” -- H. P. Grice, “The variable and the constant;” H. P. Grice, “Variable and meta-variable,” “Order and variable.”

varrone: Grice: “I know his Loeb edition by heart!” -- Academic,  Roman polymath, author of works on language, agriculture, history and  philosophy, as well as satires, and principal speaker in the later version of  Cicero’s "Academica"

varzi: essential Italian philosopher. Refs.:  Luigi Speranza, "Grice e Varzi: semantica filosofia," per il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia

vasto: essential Italian philosopher – Refs.: Luigi Speranza, "Grice e del Vasto," per Il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

vattimo: Italian philosopher – not one that provinicial Beaney would include in his handbooks and dictionaries – Vattimo’s philosophy shares quite a bit with Grice’s programme, as anyone familiar with both Vattimo and Grice may testify. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, "Grice e Vattimo," The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

vauvenargues: luc de Clapiers de, army officer and secular moralist. Discovering Plutarch at an early age, he critically adopted Stoic idealism. Poverty-stricken, obscure, and solitary, he was ambitious for glory. Though eventful, his military career brought little reward. In poor health, he resigned in 1744 to write. In 1747, he published Introduction to the Knowledge of the Human Mind, followed by Reflections and Maxims. Voltaire and Mirabeau praised his vigorous and eclectic thought, which aimed at teaching people how to live. Vauvenargues was a deist and an optimist who equally rejected Bossuet’s Christian pessimism and La Rochefoucauld’s secular pessimism. He asserted human freedom and natural goodness, but denied social and political equality. A lover of martial virtues and noble passions, Vauvenargues crafted memorable maxims and excelled in character depiction. His complete works were published in 1862. 

velia -- Velia -- Grice as Eleatic -- School, strictly, two fifth-century B.C. Grecian philosophers, Parmenides and Zeno of Elea. The Ionian Grecian colony of Elea or Hyele in southern Italy became Velia in Roman times and retains that name today. A playful remark by Plato in Sophist 242d gave rise to the notion that Xenophanes of Colophon, who was active in southern Italy and Sicily, was Parmenides’ teacher, had anticipated Parmenides’ views, and founded the Eleatic School. Moreover, Melissus of Samos and according to some ancient sources even the atomist philosopher Leucippus of Abdera came to be regarded as “Eleatics,” in the sense of sharing fundamental views with Parmenides and Zeno. In the broad and traditional use of the term, the Eleatic School characteristically holds that “all is one” and that change and plurality are unreal. So stated, the School’s position is represented best by Melissus. Grice: “Crotone and Velia are the origins of western philosophy, since Greece is eastern!” – Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice a Velia,” Villa Grice.

venn diagram, a logic diagram invented by the English philosopher J. Venn in which standard form statements the four kinds listed below are represented by two appropriately marked overlapping circles, as follows: Syllogisms are represented by three overlapping circles, as in the examples below. If a few simple rules are followed, e.g. “diagram universal premises first,” then in a valid syllogism diagramming the premises automatically gives a diagram in which the conclusion is represented. In an invalid syllogism diagramming the premises does not automatically give a diagram in which the conclusion is represented, as below. Venn diagrams are less perspicuous for the beginner than Euler diagrams. Grice: “I tried to teach Strawson some Euler first; but English as he is, he said, ‘Stick with Venn.’” – Refs.: H. P. Grice, “From Euler to Strawson via Venn: diagramme and impicaturum.”

verificatum: Grice: “Strictly, what is ‘verified’ is therefore ‘made true,’ analytically.” -- see ayerism. Grice would possibly NOT be interested in verificationism had not been for Ayer ‘breaking tradition’ “and other things” with it --. Oppoiste Christian virtuous –ism: falsificationism. Verificationism is one of the twelve temptations Grice finds on his way to the City of Eternal Truth. (Each one has its own entry). Oddly, Boethius was the first verificationist. He use ‘verifico’ performatively. “When I say, ‘verifico’, I verify that what I say is true.” He didn’t mean it as a sophisma (or Griceisma, but it was (mis-)understood as such! “When I was listing the temptations, I thought of calling this ‘Ayerism,’ but then I changed my mind. verification theory of meaning The theory of meaning advocated by the logical positivists and associated with the criterion of verifiability. The latter provides a criterion of meaningfulness for sentences, while the verification theory of meaning specifies the nature of meaning. According to the criterion, a sentence is cognitively meaningful if and only if it is logically possible for it to be verified. The meaning of a sentence is its method of verification, that is, the way in which it can be verified or falsified, particularly by experience. The theory has been challenged because the best formulations still exclude meaningful sentences and allow meaningless sentences. Critics also claim that the theory is a test for meaningfulness rather than a theory of meaning proper. Further, they claim that it fails to recognize that the interconnectedness of language might allow a sentence that cannot itself be verified to be meaningful. “The verification theory of meaning, which dominated the Vienna Circle, was concerned with the meaning and meaningfulness of sentences rather than words.” Quine, Theories and Things verificationism Philosophical method, philosophy of science, philosophy of language A position fundamental to logical positivism, claiming that the meaning of a statement is its method of verification. Accordingly, apparent statements lacking a method of verification, such as those of religion and metaphysics, are meaningless. Theoretical expressions can be defined in terms of the experiences by means of which assertions employing them can be verified. In the philosophy of mind, behaviorism, which tries to reduce unobserved inner states to patterns of behavior, turns out to be a version of verificationism. Some philosophers require conclusive verification for a statement to be meaningful, while others allow any positive evidence to confer meaning. There are disputes whether every statement must be verified separately or theories can be verified as a whole even if some of their statements cannot be individually verified. Attempts to offer a rigorous account of verification have run into difficulties because statements that should be excluded as meaningless nevertheless pass the test of verification and statements that should be allowed as meaningful are excluded. “For over a hundred years, one of the dominant tendencies in the philosophy of science has been verificationism, that is, the doctrine that to know the meaning of a scientific proposition . . . is to know what would be evidence for that proposition.” Putnam, Mind, Language and Reality verisimilitude Philosophy of science [from Latin verisimilar, like the truth] The degree of approximation or closeness to truth of a statement or a theory. Popper defined it in terms of the difference resulting from truth-content minus falsity-content. The truthcontent of a statement is all of its true consequences, while the falsity-content of a statement is all of its false consequences. The aim of science is to find better verisimilitude. One theory has a better verisimilitude than competing theories if it can explain the success of competing theories and can also explain cases where the other theories fail. Popper emphasized that verisimilitude is different from probability. Probability is the degree of logical certainty abstracted from content, while verisimilitude is degree of likeness to truth and combines truth and content. “This suggests that we combine here the ideas of truth and content into one – the idea of a degree of better (or worse) correspondence to truth or of greater (or less) likeness or similarity to truth; or to use a term already mentioned above (in contradistinction to probability) the idea of (degrees of ) verisimilitude.” Popper, Conjectures and Refutations.

verisimile -- verisimilitude -- truthlikeness, a term introduced by Karl Popper to explicate the idea that one theory may have a better correspondence with reality, or be closer to the truth, or have more verisimilitude, than another theory. Truthlikeness, which combines truth with information content, has to be distinguished from probability, which increases with lack of content. Let T and F be the classes of all true and false sentences, respectively, and A and B deductively closed sets of sentences. According to Popper’s qualitative definition, A is more truthlike than B if and only if B 3 T 0 A 3 T and A 3 F 0 B 3 F, where one of these setinclusions is strict. In particular, when A and B are non-equivalent and both true, A is more truthlike than B if and only if A logically entails B. David Miller and Pavel Tichý proved in 4 that Popper’s definition is not applicable to the comparison of false theories: if A is more truthlike than B, then A must be true. Since the mid-0s, a new approach to truthlikeness has been based upon the concept of similarity: the degree of truthlikeness of a statement A depends on the distances from the states of affairs allowed by A to the true state. In Graham Oddie’s Likeness to Truth 6, this dependence is expressed by the average function; in Ilkka Niiniluoto’s Truthlikeness 7, by the weighted average of the minimum distance and the sum of all distances. The concept of verisimilitude is also used in the epistemic sense to express a rational evaluation of how close to the truth a theory appears to be on available evidence.

verri: essential Italian philosopher. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, "Grice e Verri," per il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

verum – verum – Grice: “Cognate with German ‘wahr’” -- there’s the ‘truth table’ and the ‘truth’ -- truth table, a tabular display of one or more truth-functions, truth-functional operators, or representatives of truth-functions or truth-functional operators such as well-formed formulas of propositional logic. In the tabular display, each row displays a possible assignment of truthvalues to the arguments of the truth-functions or truth-functional operators. Thus, the collection of all rows in the table displays all possible assignments of truth-values to these arguments. The following simple truth table represents the truth-functional operators negation and conjunction: truth, coherence theory of truth table 931   931 Because a truth table displays all possible assignments of truth-values to the arguments of a truth-function, truth tables are useful devices for quickly ascertaining logical properties of propositions. If, e.g., all entries in the column of a truth table representing a proposition are T, then the proposition is true for all possible assignments of truth-values to its ultimate constituent propositions; in this sort of case, the proposition is said to be logically or tautologically true: a tautology. If all entries in the column of a truth table representing a proposition are F, then the proposition is false for all possible assignments of truth-values to its ultimate constituent propositions, and the proposition is said to be logically or tautologically false: a contradiction. If a proposition is neither a tautology nor a contradiction, then it is said to be a contingency. The truth table above shows that both Not-P and Pand-Q are contingencies. For the same reason that truth tables are useful devices for ascertaining the logical qualities of single propositions, truth tables are also useful for ascertaining whether arguments are valid or invalid. A valid argument is one such that there is no possibility no row in the relevant truth table in which all its premises are true and its conclusion false. Thus the above truth table shows that the argument ‘P-and-Q; therefore, P’ is valid.  Verum -- truth-value, most narrowly, one of the values T for ‘true’ or F for ‘false’ that a proposition may be considered to have or take on when it is regarded as true or false, respectively. More broadly, a truth-value is any one of a range of values that a proposition may be considered to have when taken to have one of a range of different cognitive or epistemic statuses. For example, some philosophers speak of the truth-value I for ‘indeterminate’ and regard a proposition as having the value I when it is indeterminate whether the proposition is true or false. Logical systems employing a specific number n of truthvalues are said to be n-valued logical systems; the simplest sort of useful logical system has two truth-values, T and F, and accordingly is said to be two-valued. Truth-functions are functions that take truth-values as arguments and that yield truth-values as resultant values. The truthtable method in propositional logic exploits the idea of truth-functions by using tabular displays. Verum -- truth-value semantics, interpretations of formal systems in which the truth-value of a formula rests ultimately only on truth-values that are assigned to its atomic subformulas where ‘subformula’ is suitably defined. The label is due to Hugues Leblanc. On a truth-value interpretation for first-order predicate logic, for example, the formula atomic ExFx is true in a model if and only if all its instances Fm, Fn, . . . are true, where the truth-value of these formulas is simply assigned by the model. On the standard Tarskian or objectual interpretation, by contrast, ExFx is true in a model if and only if every object in the domain of the model is an element of the set that interprets F in the model. Thus a truth-value semantics for predicate logic comprises a substitutional interpretation of the quantifiers and a “non-denotational” interpretation of terms and predicates. If t 1, t 2, . . . are all the terms of some first-order language, then there are objectual models that satisfy the set {Dx-Fx, Ft1, Ft2 . . . .}, but no truth-value interpretations that do. One can ensure that truth-value semantics delivers the standard logic, however, by suitable modifications in the definitions of consistency and consequence. A set G of formulas of language L is said to be consistent, for example, if there is some G' obtained from G by relettering terms such that G' is satisfied by some truth-value assignment, or, alternatively, if there is some language L+ obtained by adding terms to L such that G is satisfied by some truth-value assignment to the atoms of L+. Truth-value semantics is of both technical and philosophical interest. Technically, it allows the completeness of first-order predicate logic and a variety of other formal systems to be obtained in a natural way from that of propositional logic. Philosophically, it dramatizes the fact that the formulas in one’s theories about the world do not, in themselves, determine one’s ontological commitments. It is at least possible to interpret first-order formulas without reference to special truth-table method truth-value semantics 932   932 domains of objects, and higher-order formulas without reference to special domains of relations and properties. The idea of truth-value semantics dates at least to the writings of E. W. Beth on first-order predicate logic in 9 and of K. Schütte on simple type theory in 0. In more recent years similar semantics have been suggested for secondorder logics, modal and tense logics, intuitionistic logic, and set theory. Truth, the quality of those propositions that accord with reality, specifying what is in fact the case. Whereas the aim of a science is to discover which of the propositions in its domain are true i.e., which propositions possess the property of Trinity truth 929   929 truth  the central philosophical concern with truth is to discover the nature of that property. Thus the philosophical question is not What is true? but rather, What is truth?  What is one saying about a proposition in saying that it is true? The importance of this question stems from the variety and depth of the principles in which the concept of truth is deployed. We are tempted to think, e.g., that truth is the proper aim and natural result of scientific inquiry, that true beliefs are useful, that the meaning of a sentence is given by the conditions that would render it true, and that valid reasoning preserves truth. Therefore insofar as we wish to understand, assess, and refine these epistemological, ethical, semantic, and logical views, some account of the nature of truth would seem to be required. Such a thing, however, has been notoriously elusive. The belief that snow is white owes its truth to a certain feature of the external world: the fact that snow is white. Similarly, the belief that dogs bark is true because of the fact that dogs bark. Such trivial observations lead to what is perhaps the most natural and widely held account of truth, the correspondence theory, according to which a belief statement, sentence, proposition, etc. is true provided there exists a fact corresponding to it. This Aristotelian thesis is unexceptionable in itself. However, if it is to provide a complete theory of truth  and if it is to be more than merely a picturesque way of asserting all instances of ‘the belief that p is true if and only if p’  then it must be supplemented with accounts of what facts are, and what it is for a belief to correspond to a fact; and these are the problems on which the correspondence theory of truth has foundered. A popular alternative to the correspondence theory has been to identify truth with verifiability. This idea can take on various forms. One version involves the further assumption that verification is holistic  i.e., that a belief is verified when it is part of an entire system of beliefs that is consistent and “harmonious.” This is known as the coherence theory of truth and was developed by Bradley and Brand Blanchard. Another version, due to Dummett and Putnam, involves the assumption that there is, for each proposition, some specific procedure for finding out whether one should believe it or not. On this account, to say that a proposition is true is to say that it would be verified by the appropriate procedure. In mathematics this amounts to the identification of truth with provability and is sometimes referred to as intuitionistic truth. Such theories aim to avoid obscure metaphysical notions and explain the close relation between knowability and truth. They appear, however, to overstate the intimacy of that link: for we can easily imagine a statement that, though true, is beyond our power to establish as true. A third major account of truth is James’s pragmatic theory. As we have just seen, the verificationist selects a prominent property of truth and considers it to be the essence of truth. Similarly the pragmatist focuses on another important characteristic  namely, that true beliefs are a good basis for action  and takes this to be the very nature of truth. True assumptions are said to be, by definition, those that provoke actions with desirable results. Again we have an account with a single attractive explanatory feature. But again the central objection is that the relationship it postulates between truth and its alleged analysans  in this case, utility  is implausibly close. Granted, true beliefs tend to foster success. But often actions based on true beliefs lead to disaster, while false assumptions, by pure chance, produce wonderful results. One of the few fairly uncontroversial facts about truth is that the proposition that snow is white is true if and only if snow is white, the proposition that lying is wrong is true if and only if lying is wrong, and so on. Traditional theories of truth acknowledge this fact but regard it as insufficient and, as we have seen, inflate it with some further principle of the form ‘X is true if and only if X has property P’ such as corresponding to reality, verifiability, or being suitable as a basis for action, which is supposed to specify what truth is. A collection of radical alternatives to the traditional theories results from denying the need for any such further specification. For example, one might suppose with Ramsey, Ayer, and Strawson that the basic theory of truth contains nothing more than equivalences of the form, ‘The proposition that p is true if and only if p’ excluding instantiation by sentences such as ‘This proposition is not true’ that generate contradiction. This so-called deflationary theory is best presented following Quine in conjunction with an account of the raison d’être of our notion of truth: namely, that its function is not to describe propositions, as one might naively infer from its syntactic form, but rather to enable us to construct a certain type of generalization. For example, ‘What Einstein said is true’ is intuitively equivalent to the infinite conjunction ‘If Einstein said that nothing goes faster than light, then nothing goes faster than light; and if Einstein said truth truth 930   930 that nuclear weapons should never be built, then nuclear weapons should never be built; . . . and so on.’ But without a truth predicate we could not capture this statement. The deflationist argues, moreover, that all legitimate uses of the truth predicate  including those in science, logic, semantics, and metaphysics  are simply displays of this generalizing function, and that the equivalence schema is just what is needed to explain that function. Within the deflationary camp there are various competing proposals. According to Frege’s socalled redundancy theory, corresponding instances of ‘It is true that p’ and ‘p’ have exactly the same meaning, whereas the minimalist theory assumes merely that such propositions are necessarily equivalent. Other deflationists are skeptical about the existence of propositions and therefore take sentences to be the basic vehicles of truth. Thus the disquotation theory supposes that truth is captured by the disquotation principle, ‘p’ is true if and only if p’. More ambitiously, Tarski does not regard the disquotation principle, also known as Tarski’s T schema, as an adequate theory in itself, but as a specification of what any adequate definition must imply. His own account shows how to give an explicit definition of truth for all the sentences of certain formal languages in terms of the referents of their primitive names and predicates. This is known as the semantic theory of truth. Grice: “From ‘verum’ we have to ‘make’ true, as the Romans put it, ‘verificare’ -- verificatum -- verificationism, a metaphysical theory about what determines meaning: the meaning of a statement consists in its methods of verification. Verificationism thus differs radically from the account that identifies meaning with truth conditions, as is implicit in Frege’s work and explicit in Vitters’s Tractatus and throughout the writings of Davidson. On Davidson’s theory, e.g., the crucial notions for a theory of meaning are truth and falsity. Contemporary verificationists, under the influence of the Oxford philosopher Michael Dummett, propose what they see as a constraint on the concept of truth rather than a criterion of meaningfulness. No foundational place is generally assigned in modern verificationist semantics to corroboration by observation statements; and modern verificationism is not reductionist. Thus, many philosophers read Quine’s “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” as rejecting verificationism. This is because they fail to notice an important distinction. What Quine rejects is not verificationism but “reductionism,” namely, the theory that there is, for each statement, a corresponding range of verifying conditions determinable a priori. Reductionism is inherently localist with regard to verification; whereas verificationism, as such, is neutral on whether verification is holistic. And, lastly, modern verificationism is, veil of ignorance verificationism 953   953 whereas traditional verificationism never was, connected with revisionism in the philosophy of logic and mathematics e.g., rejecting the principle of bivalence. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “The taming of the true.” Porphyry called the verum one of the four transcendental, along with unum, pulchrum and bonum – Grice agreed. Grice’s concern with the ‘verum’ is serious. If Quine is right, and logical truth should go, so truth should go. Grice needs ‘true’ to correct a few philosophical mistakes. It is true that Grice sees a horse as a horse, for example. The nuances of the implicaturum are of a lesser concern for Grice than the taming of the true.  The root of Latin ‘vero’ is cognate with an idea Grice loved: that of ‘sincerity.’ The point is more obviously realised lexically in the negative: the fallax versus the mendax. But ‘verum’ had to do with candidum – and thus very much cognate with the English that Grice avoided, ‘truth,’ cognate with ‘trust.’ quod non possit ab honestate sejungi The true and simple Good which cannot be separated from honesty, Cicero, Academica, I, 2, but also for the ontological which one can find in Cicero’s tr. Topica, 35 of etumologia ἐτυμολογία by veriloquium. Most contemporary hypotheses propose that verus —and the words signifying true, vrai, vérité, G. wahr, G. Wahrheit — derive from an Indo-European root, *wer, which would retain meanings of to please, pleasing, manifesting benevolence, gifts, services rendered, fidelity, pact. Chantraine Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque links it to the Homeric expression êra pherein ἦϱα φέϱειν, to please, as well as to ἐπίηϱα, ἐπίηϱος, and ἐπιήϱανος, agreeable Odyssey, 19, 343, just like the Roman verus cf. se-vere, without benevolence, the G.  war, and the Russian vera, faith, or verit’ верить, to believe. Pokorny adds to this same theme the Grecian ἑοϱτή, religious feast, cult. And from the same basis have come terms signifying guarantee, protect: Fr.  garir and later garant, G.  Gewähren, Eng. warrant, to grant. According to Chantraine, this root *wer should be distinguished from another root ver-, whence eirô εἴϱω in Grecian , verbum in Roman word in English, etc., and words from the family of vereor, revereor, to fear, to respect, verecundia respectful fear. According to Chantraine, this root *wer should be distinguished from another root ver-, whence eirô εἴϱω in Grecian , verbum in Roman word in English, etc., and words from the family of vereor, revereor, to fear, to respect, verecundia respectful fear. Alfred Ernout does not support this separation. We should recall that plays on the words verum and verbum were common, as Augustine mentions verbum = verum boare, proclaiming the truth, Dialectics 1. P. Florensky, following G. Curtius, “Grundzüge der griechischen Etymologie,” also claims a single root for the ensemble of these derivations, including the Sanskrit vratum, sacred act, vow, promise, the Grecian bretas βϱέτας, cult object, wooden idol Aeschylus, Eumenides, v. 258, and the Roman “ver-bum.” The signification of verus must be considered as belonging first to the field of religious ritual and subsequently of juridical formulas: strictly speaking, verus means protected or grounded in the sense of that which is the object of a taboo or consecration Pillar and Ground. Then there’s from the juridical to the philosophical. “Verum” implies a rectification of an adversarial allegation considered to be fraudulent, as is indicated by the original opposition verax/fallax-mendax. It thus signifies the properly founded in fact or in the rules of law: crimen verissimum a well-founded accusation Cicero, In Verrem, 5, 15. In texts of grammar and rhetoric, but also in juridical texts as well, verus and veritas signify the veracity of the rule, inasmuch as it can be distinguished from usage. “Quid verum sit intellego; sed alias ita loquor ut concessum est I know what is correct, but sometimes I avail myself of the variation in usage, Cicero, De oratore, Loeb Classical Library; Consule veritatem: reprehendet; refer ad auris: probabunt If you consult the strict rule of analogy, it will say this practice is wrong, but if you consult the ear, it will approve 1586. The juridical connotation of the word verus and thus of veritas is retained and subsequently reinforced. In the glosses of the Middle Ages, verus signifies legitimate and the Roman sense of the word, legal and authentic or conforming to existing law. One normally finds “verum est” in legal texts to certify that a new rule conforms to preexisting ones Digest, 8, 4, 1. It is this juridical dimension that produces the meaning of verus as authenticated, authentic in contrast to false, imitative, deceiving and thus real as in real cream or a genuine Rolex watch.  The juridical here provides a foundation not only for the moral Verum et simplex bonum. The paradigm of “verum” is not easy to separate from any epistemological dimensions, as is evident in the varied fates of the Indo-European root *wer, from which derives, in addition to vera in Russian, belief, the old Fr.  garir, in the sense of certifying as true, designating as true, whence the participle garant. The evolution of these derived words inscribes G. “wahr,” and “Wahrheit” in a semantic network from which emerge two directions, belief and salvation. Belief. “Wahr” is often linked back, in composite words, to the idea of belief, in the sense of true belief, to take as true. “Wahrsagen,” to predict, “wahr haben,” to admit, agree upon, “für wahr halten,” to hold as true, to believe. This is the term that Kant employs in the Critique of Pure Reason, Transcendental theory of method, ch.2, 3 On Opinion, Science, and Belief: “das Fürwahrhalten” is a belief, as a modality of subjectivity, that can be divided into conviction Überzeugung or persuasion Überredung and that is capable of three degrees: opinion Meinung, belief Glaube, and science Wissenschaft. Safeguarding, conservation. Similarly “wahren,” “bewahren” in the sense of to guard, to conserve is linked to “Wahrung” in the sense of defending one’s interests or safeguarding. One might refer to Heidegger’s use of this etymological and semantic relation in reference to Nietzsche. It remains to be said that many common or colloquial expressions, in Fr.  as well as in English, play on the semantic slippages of vrai and real, between the ontological sense and linguistic meanings. Thus in Fr. , c’est pas vrai! does not mean it is false, but rather that it is not reality. In English, the opposite is the case: get real! means come back down to earth, accept the truth. Grice’s main manoeuvre may be seen as intended to crack the crib of reality. For he wants to say some philosophers engaged in conceptual analysis are misled if they think an inappropriate usage reveals a truth-condition. By coining ‘implicaturum,’ his point is to give room for “Emissor E communicates that p,” as opposed to ‘emissum x ‘means’ ‘p.’ Therefore, Grice can claim that an utterance may very well totally baffling and misleading YET TRUE (or otherwise ‘good’), and that in no way that reveals anything about the emissum itself. This is due to the fact that ‘Emissor E communicates that p’ is diaphanous. And one can conjoin what the emissor E communicates to what he explicitly conveys and NOT HAVE the emissor contradicting himself or uttering a falsehood. And that is what in philosophy should count. H. P. Grice was always happy with a ‘correspondence’ theory of truth. It was what Aristotle thought. So why change? The fact that Austin agreed helped. The fact that Strawson applied Austin’s shining new tool of the performatory had him fashion a new shining skid, and that helped, because, once Grice has identified a philosophical mistake, that justifies his role as methodologist in trying to ‘correct’ the mistake. The Old Romans did not have an article. For them it is the unum, the verum, the bonum, and the pulchrum. They were trying to translate the very articled Grecian ‘to alethes,’ ‘to agathon,’ and ‘to kallon.’ Grecian Grice is able to restore the articles. He would use ‘the alethic’ for the ‘verum,’ after von Wright. But occasionally uses the ‘verum’ root. E. g. when his account of ‘personal identity’ was seen to fail to distinguish between a ‘veridical’ memory and a non-veridical one. If it had not been for Strawson’s ‘ditto’ theory to the ‘verum,’ Grice would not have minded much. Like Austin, his inclination was for a ‘correspondence’ theory of truth alla Aristotle and Tarski, applied to the utterance, or ‘expressum.’ So, while we cannot say that an utterer is TRUE, we can say that he is TRUTHFUL, and trustworthy (Anglo-Saxon ‘trust,’ being cognate with ‘true,’ and covering both the credibility and desirability realms. Grice approaches the ‘verum’ in terms of predicate calculus. So we need at least an utterance of the form, ‘the dog is shaggy.’ An utterance of ‘The dog is shaggy’ is true iff the denotatum of ‘the dog’ is a member of the class ‘shaggy.’ So, when it comes to ‘verum,’ Grice feels like ‘solving’ a problem rather than looking for new ones. He thought that Strawson’s controversial ‘ditto’ was enough of a problem ‘to get rid of.’ VERUM. Along with verum, comes the falsum. fallibilism, the doctrine, relative to some significant class of beliefs or propositions, that they are inherently uncertain and possibly mistaken. The most extreme form of the doctrine attributes uncertainty to every belief; more restricted forms attribute it to all empirical beliefs or to beliefs concerning the past, the future, other minds, or the external world. Most contemporary philosophers reject the doctrine in its extreme form, holding that beliefs about such things as elementary logical principles and the character of one’s current feelings cannot possibly be mistaken. Philosophers who reject fallibilism in some form generally insist that certain beliefs are analytically true, self-evident, or intuitively obvious. These means of supporting the infallibility of faculty psychology fallibilism 303   303 some beliefs are now generally discredited. W. V. Quine has cast serious doubt on the very notion of analytic truth, and the appeal to self-evidence or intuitive obviousness is open to the charge that those who officially accept it do not always agree on what is thus evident or obvious there is no objective way of identifying it, and that beliefs said to be self-evident have sometimes been proved false, the causal principle and the axiom of abstraction in set theory being striking examples. In addition to emphasizing the evolution of logical and mathematical principles, fallibilists have supported their position mainly by arguing that the existence and nature of mind-independent objects can legitimately be ascertained only be experimental methods and that such methods can yield conclusions that are, at best, probable rather than certain. false consciousness, 1 lack of clear awareness of the source and significance of one’s beliefs and attitudes concerning society, religion, or values; 2 objectionable forms of ignorance and false belief; 3 dishonest forms of self-deception. Marxists if not Marx use the expression to explain and condemn illusions generated by unfair economic relationships. Thus, workers who are unaware of their alienation, and “happy homemakers” who only dimly sense their dependency and quiet desperation, are molded in their attitudes by economic power relationships that make the status quo seem natural, thereby eclipsing their long-term best interests. Again, religion is construed as an economically driven ideology that functions as an “opiate” blocking clear awareness of human needs. Collingwood interprets false consciousness as self-corrupting untruthfulness in disowning one’s emotions and ideas The Principles of Art, 8.  . false pleasure, pleasure taken in something false. If it is false that Jones is honest, but Smith believes Jones is honest and is pleased that Jones is honest, then Smith’s pleasure is false. If pleasure is construed as an intentional attitude, then the truth or falsity of a pleasure is a function of whether its intentional object obtains. On this view, S’s being pleased that p is a true pleasure if an only if S is pleased that p and p is true. S’s being pleased that p is a false pleasure if and only if S is pleased that p and p is false. Alternatively, Plato uses the expression ‘false pleasure’ to refer to things such as the cessation of pain or neutral states that are neither pleasant nor painful that a subject confuses with genuine or true pleasures. Thus, being released from tight shackles might mistakenly be thought pleasant when it is merely the cessation of a pain. Refs: Grice, “Rationality and Trust,” Grice, “The alethic.” “P. F. Strawson and the performatory account of ‘true’”, The Grice Papers.

verstehen G., ‘understanding’ (literally, for-standing), ‘interpretation’, a method in the human sciences that aims at reconstructing meanings from the “agent’s point of view.” Such a method makes primary how agents understand themselves, as, e.g., when cultural anthropologists try to understand symbols and practices from the “native’s point of view.” Understanding in this sense is often contrasted with explanation, or Erklärung. Whereas explanations discover causes in light of general laws and take an external perspective, understanding aims at explicating the meaning that, from an internal perspective, an action or expression has for the actor. This distinction often is the basis for a further methodological and ontological distinction between the natural and the human sciences, the Natur- and the Geisteswissenschaften. Whereas the data of the natural sciences may be theory-dependent and in that sense interpretive, the human sciences are “doubly” interpretive; they try to interpret the interpretations that human subjects give to their actions and practices. The human sciences do not aim at explaining events but at understanding meanings, texts, and text analogues. Actions, artifacts, and social relations are all like texts in that they have a significance for and by human subjects. The method of Verstehen thus denies the “unity of science” thesis typical of accounts of explanation given by empiricists and positivists. However, other philosophers such as Weber argue against such a dichotomy and assert that the social sciences in particular must incorporate features of both explanation and understanding, and psychoanalysis and theories of ideology unify both approaches. Even among proponents of this method, the precise nature of interpretation remains controversial. While Dilthey and other neo-Kantians proposed that Verstehen is the imaginative reexperiencing of the subjective point of view of the actor, Vitters and his following propose a sharp distinction between reasons and causes and understand reasons in terms of relating an action to the relevant rules or norms that it follows. In both cases, the aim of the human sciences is to understand what the text or text analogue really means for the agent. Following Heidegger, recent G. hermeneutics argues that Verstehen does not refer to special disciplinary techniques nor to merely cognitive and theoretical achievements, but to the practical mode of all human existence, its situatedness in a world that projects various possibilities. All understanding then becomes interpretation, itself a universal feature of all human activity, including the natural sciences. The criteria of success in Verstehen also remain disputed, particularly since many philosophers deny that it constitutes a method. If all understanding is interpretation, then there are no presuppositionless, neutral data that can put them to an empirical test. Verstehen is therefore not a method but an event, in which there is a “fusion of horizons” between text and interpreter. Whether criteria such as coherence, the capacity to engage in a tradition, or increasing dialogue apply depends on the type, purpose, and context of various interpretations. Grice: “If Austin coined a witticism, that’s ‘uptake,’ so much better than the verbose ‘understanding,’ which in Cockney means a leg!” --.

vico: He is so beloved by the Italians “that they made a stamp of him.” – Grice. cited by H. P. Grice, “Vico and the origin of language.” Philosopher who founded modern philosophy of history, philosophy of culture, and philosophy of mythology. He was born and lived all his life in or near Naples, where he taught eloquence. The Inquisition was a force in Naples throughout Vico’s lifetime. A turning point in his career was his loss of the concourse for a chair of civil law 1723. Although a disappointment and an injustice, it enabled him to produce his major philosophical work. He was appointed royal historiographer by Charles of Bourbon. Vico’s major work is “La scienza nuova”  completely revised in a second, definitive version in 1730. In the 1720s, he published three connected works in Latin on jurisprudence, under the title Universal Law; one contains a sketch of his conception of a “new science” of the historical life of nations. Vico’s principal works preceding this are On the Study Methods of Our Time 1709, comparing the ancients with the moderns regarding human education, and On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the s 1710, attacking the Cartesian conception of metaphysics. His Autobiography inaugurates the conception of modern intellectual autobiography. Basic to Vico’s philosophy is his principle that “the true is the made” “verum ipsum factum”, that what is true is convertible with what is made. This principle is central in his conception of “science” scientia, scienza. A science is possible only for those subjects in which such a conversion is possible. There can be a science of mathematics, since mathematical truths are such because we make them. Analogously, there can be a science of the civil world of the historical life of nations. Since we make the things of the civil world, it is possible for us to have a science of them. As the makers of our own world, like God as the maker who makes by knowing and knows by making, we can have knowledge per caussas through causes, from within. In the natural sciences we can have only conscientia a kind of “consciousness”, not scientia, because things in nature are not made by the knower. Vico’s “new science” is a science of the principles whereby “men make history”; it is also a demonstration of “what providence has wrought in history.” All nations rise and fall in cycles within history corsi e ricorsi in a pattern governed by providence. The world of nations or, in the Augustinian phrase Vico uses, “the great city of the human race,” exhibits a pattern of three ages of “ideal eternal history” storia ideale eterna. Every nation passes through an age of gods when people think in terms of gods, an age of heroes when all virtues and institutions are formed through the personalities of heroes, and an age of humans when all sense of the divine is lost, life becomes luxurious and false, and thought becomes abstract and ineffective; then the cycle must begin again. In the first two ages all life and thought are governed by the primordial power of “imagination” fantasia and the world is ordered through the power of humans to form experience in terms of “imaginative universals” universali fantastici. These two ages are governed by “poetic wisdom” sapienza poetica. At the basis of Vico’s conception of history, society, and knowledge is a conception of mythical thought as the origin of the human world. Fantasia is the original power of the human mind through which the true and the made are converted to create the myths and gods that are at the basis of any cycle of history. Michelet was the primary supporter of Vico’s ideas in the nineteenth century; he made them the basis of his own philosophy of history. Coleridge is the principal disseminator of Vico’s views in England. James Joyce used the New Science as a substructure for Finnegans Wake, making plays on Vico’s name, beginning with one in Latin in the first sentence: “by a commodius vicus of recirculation.” Croce revives Vico’s philosophical thought, wishing to conceive Vico as the  Hegel. Vico’s ideas have been the subject of analysis by such prominent philosophical thinkers as Horkheimer and Berlin, by anthropologists such as Edmund Leach, and by literary critics such as René Wellek and Herbert Read. Refs.: S. N. Hampshire, “Vico,” in The New Yorker. Luigi Speranza, “Vico alla Villa Grice.” H. P. Grice, “Vico and language.” vico --  Danesi, Marcel. Vico, Metaphor, and the Origin of Language. Bloomington: Indiana. Serious scholars of Vico as well as glottogeneticists will find much of value in this excellent monograph. Vico Studies. A provocative, well-researched argument which might find reapplication in philosophy." —Theological Book Review. Danesi returns to Vico to create a persuasive, original account of the evolution and development of language, one of the deep mysteries of human existence. The Vico’s reconstruction of the origin of language is described at length, then evaluated in light of Grice’s philosophical conversational pragmatics. Glottogenesis Vico’s Reconstruction. The New Science Basic Notions. Language and the Imagination: Vito’s Glottogenetic Scenario Vico’s Approach Reconstructing the Primal Scene After the Primal Scence. The Dawn of Communication: Iconicity and Mimesis Hypotheses The Nature of Iconicity. Imagery, Iconicity, and Gesture. Iconic Representation. Osmosis Hypothesis Ontogenesis From Percepts to Concepts The Metaphoricity Metaphor Metaphor and Concept-Formation Mentation, Narrativity, and Myth  The Sociobiological-Computationist Viewpoint:A Vichian Critique The Vichian Scenario Revisited Revisting the Genetic Perspective computationism. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Vico e Grice,” Villa Grice.

vio: essential Italian philosopher. Grice was irritated that when ‘vio’ became a saint, the Italians list them under ‘c’. He wrote extensively on freewill, and had a colourful dispute with, of all people, Calvin – well represented in a painting Grice adored. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e de Vio.” The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

violence: Grice: “I would define ‘violence’ as the use of force to cause physical harm, death, or destruction physical violence;  the causing of severe mental or emotional harm, as through humiliation, deprivation, or brainwashing, whether using force or not psychological violence; more broadly, profaning, desecrating, defiling, or showing disrespect for i.e., “doing violence” to something valued, sacred, or cherished; extreme physical force in the natural world, as in tornados, hurricanes, and earthquakes. Physical violence may be directed against persons, animals, or property.” Grice goes on: “In the first two cases, harm, pain, suffering, and death figure prominently; in the third, illegality or illegitimacy the forceful destruction of property is typically considered violence when it lacks authorization. Psychological violence applies principally to persons. It may be understood as the violation of beings worthy of respect. But it can apply to higher animals as well as in the damaging mental effects of some experimentation, e.g., involving isolation and deprivation. Environmentalists sometimes speak of violence against the environment, implying both destruction and disrespect for the natural world. Sometimes the concept of violence is used to characterize acts or practices of which one morally disapproves. To this extent it has a normative force. But this prejudges whether violence is wrong. One may, on the other hand, regard inflicting harm or death as only prima facie wrong i.e., wrong all other things being equal. This gives violence a normative character, establishing its prima facie wrongness. But it leaves open the ultimate moral justifiability of its use. Established practices of physical or psychological violence  e.g., war, capital punishment  constitute institutionalized violence. So do illegal or extralegal practices like vigilantism, torture, and state terrorism e.g., death squads. Anarchists sometimes regard the courts, prisons, and police essential to maintaining the state as violence. Racism and sexism may be considered institutional violence owing to their associated psychological as well as physical violence. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Causes and reasons.” 

virtuosum – Grice: “The etymology of ‘virtue’ is fantastic: it is strictly a bit like ‘manliness,’ only the Romans were never sure who was ‘vir’ and who wasn’t!” -- “virtue is entire” – “Do not multiply virtues beyond necessity” -- virtue ethics, also called virtue-based ethics and agent-based ethics, conceptions or theories of morality in which virtues play a central or independent role. Thus, it is more than simply the account of the virtues offered by a given theory. Some take the principal claim of virtue ethics to be about the moral subject  that, in living her life, she should focus her attention on the cultivation of her or others’ virtues. Others take the principal claim to be about the moral theorist  that, in mapping the structure of our moral thought, she should concentrate on the virtues. This latter view can be construed weakly as holding that the moral virtues are no less basic than other moral concepts. In this type of virtue ethics, virtues are independent of other moral concepts in that claims about morally virtuous character or action are, in the main, neither reducible to nor justified on the basis of underlying claims about moral duty or rights, or about what is impersonally valuable. It can also be construed strongly as holding that the moral virtues are more basic than other moral concepts. In such a virtue ethics, virtues are fundamental, i.e., claims about other moral concepts are either reducible to underlying claims about moral virtues or justified on their basis. Forms of virtue ethics predominated in Western philosophy before the Renaissance, most notably in Aristotle, but also in Plato and Aquinas. Several ancient and medieval philosophers endorsed strong versions of virtue ethics. These views focused on character rather than on discrete behavior, identifying illicit behavior with vicious behavior, i.e., conduct that would be seriously out of character for a virtuous person. A virtuous person, in turn, was defined as one with dispositions relevantly linked to human flourishing. On these views, while a person of good character, or someone who carefully observes her, may be able to articulate certain principles or rules by which she guides her conduct or to which, at least, it outwardly conforms, the principles are not an ultimate source of moral justification. On the contrary, they are justified only insofar as the conduct they endorse would be in character for a virtuous person. For Aristotle, the connection between flourishing and virtue seems conceptual. He conceived moral virtues as dispositions to choose under the proper guidance of reason, and defined a flourishing life as one lived in accordance with these virtues. While most accounts of the virtues link them to the flourishing of the virtuous person, there are other possibilities. In principle, the flourishing to which virtue is tied whether causally or conceptually may be either that of the virtuous subject herself, or that of some patient who is a recipient of her virtuous behavior, or that of some larger affected group  the agent’s community, perhaps, or all humanity, or even sentient life in general. For the philosophers of ancient Greece, it was human nature, usually conceived teleologically, that fixed the content of this flourishing. Medieval Christian writers reinterpreted this, stipulating both that the flourishing life to which the virtues lead extends past death, and that human flourishing is not merely the fulfillment of capacities and tendencies inherent in human nature, but is the realization of a divine plan. In late twentieth-century versions of virtue ethics, some theorists have suggested that it is neither to a teleology inherent in human nature nor to the divine will that we should look in determining the content of that flourishing to which the virtues lead. They understand flourishing more as a matter of a person’s living a life that meets the standards of her cultural, historical tradition. In his most general characterization, Aristotle called a thing’s virtues those features of it that made it and its operation good. The moral virtues were what made people live well. This use of ‘making’ is ambiguous. Where he and other premodern thinkers thought the connection between virtues and living well to be conceptual, moral theorists of the modernist era have usually virtue ethics virtue ethics understood it causally. They commonly maintain that a virtue is a character trait that disposes a person to do what can be independently identified as morally required or to effect what is best best for herself, according to some theories; best for others, according to different ones. Benjamin Franklin, e.g., deemed it virtuous for a person to be frugal, because he thought frugality was likely to result in her having a less troubled life. On views of this sort, a lively concern for the welfare of others has moral importance only inasmuch as it tends to motivate people actually to perform helpful actions. In short, benevolence is a virtue because it conduces to beneficent conduct; veracity, because it conduces to truth telling; fidelity, because it conduces to promise keeping; and so on. Reacting to this aspect of modernist philosophy, recent proponents of virtue ethics deny that moral virtues derive from prior determinations of what actions are right or of what states of affairs are best. Some, especially certain theorists of liberalism, assign virtues to what they see as one compartment of moral thought and duties to a separate, and only loosely connected compartment. For them, the life and theory of virtue is autonomous. They hold that virtues and duties have independent sources of justification, with virtues chiefly concerned with the individual’s personal “ideals,” self-image, or conception of her life goals, while duties and rights are thought to derive from social rules regulating interpersonal dealings. Proponents of virtue ethics maintain that it has certain advantages over more modern alternatives. They argue that virtue ethics is properly concrete, because it grounds morality in facts about human nature or about the concrete development of particular cultural traditions, in contrast with modernist attempts to ground morality in subjective preference or in abstract principles of reason. They also claim that virtue ethics is truer to human psychology in concentrating on the less conscious aspects of motivation  on relatively stable dispositions, habits, and long-term goals, for example  where modern ethics focuses on decision making directed by principles and rules. Virtue ethics, some say, offers a more unified and comprehensive conception of moral life, one that extends beyond actions to comprise wants, goals, likes and dislikes, and, in general, what sort of person one is and aims to be. Proponents of virtue ethics also contend that, without the sensitivity and appreciation of their situation and its opportunities that only virtues consistently make available, agents cannot properly apply the rules that modernist ethical theories offer to guide their actions. Nor, in their view, will the agent follow those rules unless her virtues offer her sufficient clarity of purpose and perseverance against temptation. Several objections have been raised against virtue ethics in its most recent forms. Critics contend that it is antiquarian, because it relies on conceptions of human nature whose teleology renders them obsolete; circular, because it allegedly defines right action in terms of virtues while defining virtues in terms of right action; arbitrary and irrelevant to modern society, since there is today no accepted standard either of what constitutes human flourishing or of which dispositions lead to it; of no practical use, because it offers no guidance when virtues seem to conflict; egoistic, in that it ultimately directs the subject’s moral attention to herself rather than to others; and fatalistic, in allowing the morality of one’s behavior to hinge finally on luck in one’s constitution, upbringing, and opportunities. There may be versions of virtue ethics that escape the force of all or most of the objections, but not every form of virtue ethics can claim for itself all the advantages mentioned above.  virtue epistemology, the subfield of epistemology that takes epistemic virtue to be central to understanding justification or knowledge or both. An epistemic virtue is a personal quality conducive to the discovery of truth, the avoidance of error, or some other intellectually valuable goal. Following Aristotle, we should distinguish these virtues from such qualities as wisdom or good judgment, which are the intellectual basis of practical  but not necessarily intellectual  success. The importance, and to an extent, the very definition, of this notion depends, however, on larger issues of epistemology. For those who favor a naturalist conception of knowledge say, as belief formed in a “reliable” way, there is reason to call any truth-conducive quality or properly working cognitive mechanism an epistemic virtue. There is no particular reason to limit the epistemic virtues to recognizable personal qualities: a high mathematical aptitude may count as an epistemic virtue. For those who favor a more “normative” conception of knowledge, the corresponding notion of an epistemic virtue or vice will be narrower: it will be tied to personal qualities like impartiality or carelessness whose exercise one would associate with an ethics of belief. H. P. Grice, “Philosophy, like virtue, is entire;” H. P. Grice, “Virtutes non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem,” H. P. Grice, “Aristotle’s mesotes – where virtue lies.”

vis: When in a Latinate mood, Grice would refer to a ‘vis’ of an expression. Apparently, ‘vis’ is cognate with ‘validum,’ transf., of abstr. things, force, notion, meaning, sense, import, nature, essence (cf. significatio): “id, in quo est omnis vis amicitiae,” Cic. Lael. 4, 15: “eloquentiae vis et natura,” id. Or. 31, 112: “vis honesti (with natura),” id. Off. 1, 6, 18; cf. id. Fin. 1, 16, 50: “virtutis,” id. Fam. 9, 16, 5: “quae est alia vis legis?” id. Dom. 20, 53: “vis, natura, genera verborum et simplicium et copulatorum,” i.e. the sense, signification, id. Or. 32, 115: “vis verbi,” id. Inv. 1, 13, 17; id. Balb. 8, 21: “quae vis insit in his paucis verbis, si attendes, si attendes, intelleges,” id. Fam. 6, 2, 3: “quae vis subjecta sit vocibus,” id. Fin. 2, 2, 6: “nominis,” id. Top. 8, 35: μετωνυμία, cujus vis est, pro eo, quod dicitur, causam, propter quam dicitur, ponere, Quint. 8, 6, 23.

vital lie: Grice: “I would define a vital life as an instance of self-deception or lying to oneself when it fosters hope, confidence, self-esteem, mental health, or creativity; or any false belief or unjustified attitude that helps people cope with difficulties; or  a lie to other people designed to promote their wellbeing; e.. g.: self-deceiving optimism about one’s prospects for success in work or personal relationships may generate hope, mobilize energy, enrich life’s meaning, and increase chances for success. Grice considers the optimism law as basic in folk-psychology. Ibsen dramatises “life-lies” as essential for happiness The Wild Duck, and O’Neill portrays “pipe dreams” as necessary crutches The Iceman Cometh. Nietzsche endorsed “pious illusions” or “holy fictions” about the past that liberate individuals and societies from shame and guilt On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life. In Problems of belief, Schiller praised normal degrees of vanity and self-conceit because they support selfesteem. Refs.: H. P. Grice: “Optimism,” in “Method in philosophical psychology: from the banal to the bizarre.”

vitoria: dominican jurist, political philosopher, and theologian who is regarded as the founder of modern international law. Born in Vitoria or Burgos, he studied and taught at the  of SaintJacques in Paris, where he met Erasmus and Vives. He also taught at the  of San Gregorio in Valladolid and at Salamanca. His most famous works are the notes relectiones for twelve public addresses he delivered at Salamanca, published posthumously in 1557. Two relectiones stand out: De Indis and De jure belli. They were responses to the legal and political issues raised by the discovery and colonization of America. In contrast with Mariana’s contract Arianism, Vitoria held that political society is our natural state. The aim of the state is to promote the common good and preserve the rights of citizens. Citizenship is the result of birthplace jus solis rather than blood jus sanguini. The authority of the state resides in the body politic but is transferred to rulers for its proper exercise. The best form of government is monarchy because it preserves the unity necessary for social action while safeguarding individual freedoms. Apart from the societies of individual states, humans belong to an international society. This society has its own authority and laws that establish the rights and duties of the states. These laws constitute the law of nations jus gentium.

vives: attended the  of Paris and lived most of his life in Flanders. With his friend Erasmus he prepared a widely used commentary of Augustine’s De civitate Dei. From 1523 to 1528 Vives visited England, taught at Oxford, befriended More, and became Catherine of Aragon’s confidant. While in Paris, Vives repudiated medieval logic as useless Adversus pseudodialecticos, 1520 and proposed instead a dialectic emphasizing resourceful reasoning and clear and persuasive exposition De tradendis disciplinis.  His method was partially inspired by Rudolph Agricola and probably influential upon Peter Ramus. Less interested in theology than Erasmus or More, he surpassed both in philosophical depth. As one of the great pedagogues of his age, Vives proposed a plan of education that substituted the Aristotelian ideal of speculative certainty for a pragmatic probability capable of guiding action. Vives enlarged the scope of women’s education De institutione feminae Christianae, 1524 and contributed to the teaching of classical Latin Exercitatio linguae latinae, 1538. A champion of EuroVisistadvaita Vedanta Vives, Juan Luis 962   962 pean unity against the Turks, he professed the belief that international order De concordia, 1526 depended upon the control of passion De anima et vita, 1538. As a social reformer, Vives pioneered the secularization of welfare De subventione pauperum, 1526 and opposed the abuse of legal jargon Aedes legum, 1520. Although his Jewish parents were victimized by the Inquisition, Vives remained a Catholic and managed to write an apology of Christianity without taking sides in controversial theological matters De veritate fidei.

volition: cf. desideratum. a mental event involved with the initiation of action. ‘To will’ is sometimes taken to be the corresponding verb form of ‘volition’. The concept of volition is rooted in modern philosophy; contemporary philosophers have transformed it by identifying volitions with ordinary mental events, such as intentions, or beliefs plus desires. Volitions, especially in contemporary guises, are often taken to be complex mental events consisting of cognitive, affective, and conative elements. The conative element is the impetus  the underlying motivation  for the action. A velleity is a conative element insufficient by itself to initiate action. The will is a faculty, or set of abilities, that yields the mental events involved in initiating action. There are three primary theories about the role of volitions in action. The first is a reductive account in which action is identified with the entire causal sequence of the mental event the volition causing the bodily behavior. J. S. Mill, for example, says: “Now what is action? Not one thing, but a series of two things: the state of mind called a volition, followed by an effect. . . . [T]he two together constitute the action” Logic. Mary’s raising her arm is Mary’s mental state causing her arm to rise. Neither Mary’s volitional state nor her arm’s rising are themselves actions; rather, the entire causal sequence the “causing” is the action. The primary difficulty for this account is maintaining its reductive status. There is no way to delineate volition and the resultant bodily behavior without referring to action. There are two non-reductive accounts, one that identifies the action with the initiating volition and another that identifies the action with the effect of the volition. In the former, a volition is the action, and bodily movements are mere causal consequences. Berkeley advocates this view: “The Mind . . . is to be accounted active in . . . so far forth as volition is included. . . . In plucking this flower I am active, because I do it by the motion of my hand, which was consequent upon my volition” Three Dialogues. In this century, Prichard is associated with this theory: “to act is really to will something” Moral Obligation, 9, where willing is sui generis though at other places Prichard equates willing with the action of mentally setting oneself to do something. In this sense, a volition is an act of will. This account has come under attack by Ryle Concept of Mind. Ryle argues that it leads to a vicious regress, in that to will to do something, one must will to will to do it, and so on. It has been countered that the regress collapses; there is nothing beyond willing that one must do in order to will. Another criticism of Ryle’s, which is more telling, is that ‘volition’ is an obscurantic term of art; “[volition] is an artificial concept. We have to study certain specialist theories in order to find out how it is to be manipulated. . . . [It is like] ‘phlogiston’ and ‘animal spirits’ . . . [which] have now no utility” Concept of Mind. Another approach, the causal theory of action, identifies an action with the causal consequences of volition. Locke, e.g., says: “Volition or willing is an act of the mind directing its thought to the production of any action, and thereby exerting its power to produce it. . . . [V]olition is nothing but that particular determination of the mind, whereby . . . the mind endeavors to give rise, continuation, or stop, to any action which it takes to be in its power” Essay concerning Human Understanding. This is a functional account, since an event is an action in virtue of its causal role. Mary’s arm rising is Mary’s action of raising her arm in virtue of being caused by her willing to raise it. If her arm’s rising had been caused by a nervous twitch, it would not be action, even if the bodily movements were photographically the same. In response to Ryle’s charge of obscurantism, contemporary causal theorists tend to identify volitions with ordinary mental events. For example, Davidson takes the cause of actions to be beliefs plus desires and Wilfrid Sellars takes volitions to be intentions to do something here and now. Despite its plausibility, however, the causal theory faces two difficult problems: the first is purported counterexamples based on wayward causal chains connecting the antecedent mental event and the bodily movements; the second is provision of an enlightening account of these mental events, e.g. intending, that does justice to the conative element. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “A. J. P. Kenny on voliting.”

voluntarism: -- W. James: “I will that the chair slides over the floor toward me. It doesn’t.” cf. Grice on the volitive – desiderative -- any philosophical view that makes our ability to control the phenomena in question an essential part of the correct understanding of those phenomena. Thus, ethical voluntarism is the doctrine that the standards that define right and wrong conduct are in some sense chosen by us. Doxastic voluntarism is the doctrine that we have extensive control over what we believe; we choose what to believe. A special case of doxastic voluntarism is theological voluntarism, which implies that religious belief requires a substantial element of choice; the evidence alone cannot decide the issue. This is a view that is closely associated with Pascal, Kierkegaard, and James. Historical voluntarism is the doctrine that the human will is a major factor in history. Such views contrast with Marxist views of history. Metaphysical voluntarism is the doctrine, linked with Schopenhauer, that the fundamental organizing principle of the world is not the incarnation of a rational or a moral order but rather the will, which for Schopenhauer is an ultimately meaningless striving for survival, to be found in all of nature.  Refs.: H. P. Grice, “The will”

voting paradox: the possibility that if there are three candidates, A, B, and C, for democratic choice, with at least three choosers, and the choosers are asked to make sequential choices among pairs of candidates, A could defeat B by a majority vote, B could defeat C, and C could defeat A. This would be the outcome if the choosers’ preferences were ABC, BCA, and CAB. Hence, although each individual voter may have a clear preference ordering over the candidates, the collective may have cyclic preferences, so that individual and majoritarian collective preference orderings are not analogous. While this fact is not a logical paradox, it is perplexing to many analysts of social choice. It may also be morally perplexing in that it suggests majority rule can be quite capricious. For example, suppose we vote sequentially over various pairs of candidates, with the winner at each step facing a new candidate. If the candidates are favored by cyclic majorities, the last candidate to enter the fray will win the final vote. Hence, control over the sequence of votes may determine the outcome. It is easy to find cyclic preferences over such candidates as movies and other matters of taste. Hence, the problem of the voting paradox is clearly real and not merely a logical contrivance. But is it important? Institutions may block the generation of evidence for cyclic majorities by making choices pairwise and sequentially, as above. And some issues over which we vote provoke preference patterns that cannot produce cycles. For example, if our issue is one of unidimensional liberalism versus conservatism on some major political issue such as welfare programs, there may be no one who would prefer to spend both more and less money than what is spent in the status quo. Hence, everyone may display single-peaked preferences with preferences falling as we move in either direction toward more money or toward less from the peak. If all important issues and combinations of issues had this preference structure, the voting paradox would be unimportant. It is widely supposed by many public choice scholars that collective preferences are not single-peaked for many issues or, therefore, for combinations of issues. Hence, collective choices may be quite chaotic. What order they display may result from institutional manipulation. If this is correct, we may wonder whether democracy in the sense of the sovereignty of the electorate is a coherent notion. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Grice’s Book of Paradoxes – with pictures and illustrations.”

vyse: an unfortunate example by Grice. He wants to give an ambiguous sentence, “Strawson is caught in the grip of a vice.” Oddly, in The New World, Webster noticed this, and favoured the spelling ‘vyse.’ “But what Webster fails,” Grice adds, “to note, is that ‘vice’ and ‘vyse’ ARE cognate, hence no need for double talk!” “They both can be traced to ‘violence.’” Sir Cecil Vyse happens to be a character in Forster’s “A room with a view,” which gives a triple ambiguity, to “Strawson was caught in the grip of a Vyse.” Vyse was wonderfully played by Daniel Day Lewis in the film. “What is your profession, Mister Vyse?” Vyse: “Must one have a profeesion?” – Vyse’s favourite motto applies to Grice, “Ingelese italianato, diavolo incarnate.” – Grice: “Stupidly, when this is reversed the implicature is lost.

W

ward: j. English philosopher and psychologist. Influenced by Lotze, Herbart, and Brentano, Ward sharply criticized Bain’s associationism and its allied nineteenth-century reductive naturalism. His psychology rejected the associationists’ sensationism, which regarded mind as passive, capable only of sensory receptivity and composed solely of cognitive presentations. Ward emphasized the mind’s inherent activity, asserting, like Kant, the prior existence of an inferred but necessarily existing ego or subject capable of feeling and, most importantly, of conation, shaping both experience and behavior by the willful exercise of attention. Ward’s psychology stresses attention and will. In his metaphysics, Ward resisted the naturalists’ mechanistic materialism, proposing instead a teleological spiritualistic monism. While his criticisms of associationism and naturalism were telling, Ward was a transitional figure whose positive influence is limited, if we except H. P. Grice who follows him to a T. Although sympathetic to scientific psychology – he founded scientific psychology in Britain by establishing a psychology laboratory  – he, with his student Stout, represented the beginning of armchair psychology at Oxford, which Grice adored. Through Stout he influenced the hormic psychology of McDougall, and Grice who calls himself a Stoutian (“until Prichard converted me”). Ward’s major work is “Psychology” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed., 1886), reworked as Psychological Principles (1918). “one of the most philosophical psychologists England (if not Oxford) ever produced!” – H. P. Grice -- cited by H. P. Grice. -- English philosopher. Influenced by Lotze, Herbart, and Brentano, Ward sharply criticized Bain’s associationism and its allied nineteenth-century reductive naturalism. His psychology rejected the associationists’ sensationism, which regarded mind as passive, capable only of sensory receptivity and composed solely of cognitive presentations. Ward emphasized the mind’s inherent activity, asserting, like Kant, the prior existence of an inferred but necessarily existing ego or subject capable of feeling and, most importantly, of conation, shaping both experience and behavior by the willful exercise of attention. Ward’s psychology stresses attention and will. In his metaphysics, Ward resisted the naturalists’ mechanistic materialism, proposing instead a teleological spiritualistic monism. While his criticisms of associationism and naturalism were telling, Ward was a transitional figure whose positive influence is limited, if we except H. P. Grice who follows him to a T. Although sympathetic to scientific psychology  he founded scientific psychology in Britain by establishing a psychology laboratory   he, with his student Stout, represented the beginning of armchair psychology at Oxford, which Grice adored. Through Stout he influenced the hormic psychology of McDougall, and Grice who calls himself a Stoutian “until Prichard converted me”. Ward’s major work is “Psychology” Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed., 6, reworked as Psychological Principles 8. 

warnock:  Irish philosopher, born in the north of England (“He was so Irish, I could sing ‘Danny Boy’ to him all day long – Dame Mary Warnock). “One of my most intelligent collaborators.” Unlike any other of the collaborators, Warnock had what Grice calls “the gift for botanising.” They would spend hours on the philosophy of perception. His other English collaborators were, in alphabetic order: Pears, Strawson, and Thomson. And you can see the difference. Thomson was pretty obscure. Pears was a closet Vittersian. And Strawson was ‘to the point.’ With Warnock, Grice could ramble at ease. Warnock became the custodian of Austin’s heritage which somehow annoyed Grice. But the Warnock that Grice enjoyed most was the Warnock-while-the-SchoolMaster-Austin-was-around. Because they could play. And NOT in the play group, which was “anything but.” But Grice would philosophise on ‘perception,’ and especially ‘see’ – with Warnock. Their idiolects differed. Warnock, being Irish, was more creative, and less conservative. So it was good for Warnock to have Grice to harness him! Through Warnock, Grice got to discuss a few things with Urmson, the co-custodian of Austin’s legacy. But again, most of the discussions with Urmson were before Austin’s demise. Urmson and Warnock are the co-editors of Austin’s “Philosophical Papers.” Would Austin have accepted? Who knows. The essays were more or less easily available. Still.

warnockianism: Grice: “I told Warnock, ‘How clever language is!” “He agreed, for we realised that language makes all the distinctions you need, and when you feel there is one missing, language allows you to introduce it!” --. Refs.: H. P. Grice and G. J. Warnock, The philosophy of perception – Folder – BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley.

weapon: Grice’s shining new tool. The funny thing is that his tutee Strawson didn’t allow him to play with it ONCE! Or weapon. Grice refers to the implicaturum as a philosopher’s tool, and that the fun comes in the application. Strawson and Wiggins p. 522, reminds us of Austin. Austin used to say that when a philosopher “forges a new weapon, he is also fshioning new skids to put under his feet.” It is perhaps inappropriate that a memorial should mention this, but here they were, the memorialists. They were suggesting that Grice forged a shining new tool, the implicaturum, or implicaturum – rather, he proposed a rational explanation for the distinction between what an emissor means (e. g., that p) and what anything else may be said, ‘metabolically,’ to “mean.” Suggesting an analogy with J. L. Austin and his infelicitious notion of infelicity, which found him fashioning a shining new skid, the memorialists suggest the same for Grice – but of course the analogy does not apply.

weber: philosopher, b. Berlin. Grice liked him “because he invented, or thought he invented, more or less, ‘zweckrationalitaet’ – which he refused to translate!” – H. P. Grice.-- born in a liberal and intellectual household, he taught economics in Heidelberg, where his circle included leading sociologists and philosophers such as Simmel and Lukacs. Although Weber gave up his professorship after a nervous breakdown in 9, he remained important in public life, an adviser to the commissions that drafted the peace treaty at Versailles and the Weimar constitution. Weber’s social theory was influenced philosophically by both neo-Kantianism and Nietzsche, creating tensions in a theorist who focused much of his attention on Occidental rationalism and yet was a noncognitivist in ethics. He wrote many comparative studies on topics such as law and urbanization and a celebrated study of the cultural factors responsible for the rise of capitalism, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 4. But his major, synthetic work in social theory is Economy and Society 4; it includes a methodological introduction to the basic concepts of sociology that has been treated by many philosophers of social science. One of the main theoretical goals of Weber’s work is to understand how social processes become “rationalized,” taking up certain themes want-belief model Weber, Max  968 of the G. philosophy of history since Hegel as part of social theory. Culture, e.g., became rationalized in the process of the “disenchantment of worldviews” in the West, a process that Weber thought had “universal significance.” But because of his goal-oriented theory of action and his noncognitivism in ethics, Weber saw rationalization exclusively in terms of the spread of purposive, or meansends rationality Zweckrationalität. Rational action means choosing the most effective means of achieving one’s goals and implies judging the consequences of one’s actions and choices. In contrast, value rationality Wertrationalität consists of actions oriented to ultimate ends, where considerations of consequences are irrelevant. Although such action is rational insofar as it directs and organizes human conduct, the choice of such ends or values themselves cannot be a matter for rational or scientific judgment. Indeed, for Weber this meant that politics was the sphere for the struggle between irreducibly competing ultimate ends, where “gods and demons fight it out” and charismatic leaders invent new gods and values. Professional politicians, however, should act according to an “ethics of responsibility” Verantwortungsethik aimed at consequences, and not an “ethics of conviction” Gesinnungsethik aimed at abstract principles or ultimate ends. Weber also believed that rationalization brought the separation of “value spheres” that can never again be unified by reason: art, science, and morality have their own “logics.” Weber’s influential methodological writings reject positivist philosophy of science, yet call for “value neutrality.” He accepts the neo-Kantian distinction, common in his day under the influence of Rickert, between the natural and the human sciences, between the Natur- and the Geisteswissenschaften. Because human social action is purposive and meaningful, the explanations of social sciences must be related to the values Wertbezogen and ideals of the actors it studies. Against positivism, Weber saw an ineliminable element of Verstehen, or understanding of meanings, in the methodology of the human sciences. For example, he criticized the legal positivist notion of behavioral conformity for failing to refer to actors’ beliefs in legitimacy. But for Weber Verstehen is not intuition or empathy and does not exclude causal analysis; reasons can be causes. Thus, explanations in social science must have both causal and subjective adequacy. Weber also thought that adequate explanations of large-scale, macrosocial phenomena require the construction of ideal types, which abstract and summarize the common features of complex, empirical phenomena such as “sects,” “authority,” or even “the Protestant ethic.” Weberian ideal types are neither merely descriptive nor simply heuristic, but come at the end of inquiry through the successful theoretical analysis of diverse phenomena in various historical and cultural contexts. Weber’s analysis of rationality as the disenchantment of the world and the spread of purposive reason led him to argue that reason and progress could turn into their opposites, a notion that enormously influenced critical theory. Weber had a critical “diagnosis of the times” and a pessimistic philosophy of history. At the end of The Protestant Ethic Weber warns that rationalism is desiccating sources of value and constructing an “iron cage” of increasing bureaucratization, resulting in a loss of meaning and freedom in social life. According to Weber, these basic tensions of modern rationality cannot be resolved. 

well-formed formula (Villa Grice: formula).  For Grice, an otiosity – surely an ill-formed formula is an oxymoron -- a grammatically wellformed sentence or structured predicate of an artificial language of the sort studied by logicians. A well-formed formula is sometimes known as a wff pronounced ‘woof’ or simply a formula. Delineating the formulas of a language involves providing it with a syntax or grammar, composed of both a vocabulary a specification of the symbols from which the language is to be built, sorted into grammatical categories and formation rules a purely formal or syntactical specification of which strings of symbols are grammatically well-formed and which are not. Formulas are classified as either open or closed, depending on whether or not they contain free variables variables not bound by quantifiers. Closed formulas, such as x Fx / Gx, are sentences, the potential bearers of truth-values. Open formulas, such as Fx / Gx, are handled in any of three ways. On some accounts, these formulas are on a par with closed ones, the free variables being treated as names. On others, open formulas are structured predicates, the free variables being treated as place holders for terms. And on still other accounts, the free variables are regarded as implicitly bound by universal quantifiers, again making open formulas sentences. 

westermarck: “philosopher who spent his life studying all the mores and morals of cultures – except his own – because he claimed he didn’t have one!” – H. P. Grice. His main works, The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas and Ethical Relativity, attack the idea that moral principles express objective value. In defending ethical relativism, he argued that moral judgments are based not on intellectual but on emotional grounds. He admitted that cultural variability in itself does not prove ethical relativism, but contended that the fundamental differences are so comprehensive and deep as to constitute a strong presumption in favor of relativism.  

what the eye no longer sees the heart no longer grieves for. Grice. Vide sytactics. Grice played with ‘elimination rules’ for his scope device. Once applied, Grice said: “What the eye no longer sees the heart no longer grieves for.” “As they say,” he added.

whewell: English philosopher of science. He was a master of Trinity , Cambridge. Francis Bacon’s early work on induction was furthered by Whewell, J. F. W. Herschel, and J. S. Mill, who attempted to create a logic of welfare economics Whewell, William 970   970 induction, a methodology that can both discover generalizations about experience and prove them to be necessary. Whewell’s theory of scientific method is based on his reading of the history of the inductive sciences. He thought that induction began with a non-inferential act, the superimposition of an idea on data, a “colligation,” a way of seeing facts in a “new light.” Colligations generalize over data, and must satisfy three “tests of truth.” First, colligations must be empirically adequate; they must account for the given data. Any number of ideas may be adequate to explain given data, so a more severe test is required. Second, because colligations introduce generalizations, they must apply to events or properties of objects not yet given: they must provide successful predictions, thereby enlarging the evidence in favor of the colligation. Third, the best inductions are those where evidence for various hypotheses originally thought to cover unrelated kinds of data “jumps together,” providing a consilience of inductions. Consilience characterizes those theories achieving large measures of simplicity, generality, unification, and deductive strength. Furthermore, consilience is a test of the necessary truth of theories, which implies that what many regard as merely pragmatic virtues of theories like simplicity and unifying force have an epistemic status. Whewell thus provides a strong argument for scientific realism. Whewell’s examples of consilient theories are Newton’s theory of universal gravitation, which covers phenomena as seemingly diverse as the motions of the heavenly bodies and the motions of the tides, and the undulatory theory of light, which explains both the polarization of light by crystals and the colors of fringes. There is evidence that Whewell’s methodology was employed by Maxwell, who designed the influential Cavendish Laboratories at Cambridge. Peirce and Mach favored Whewell’s account of method over Mill’s empiricist theory of induction. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “From induction to deduction, via abduction.”

what the eye no longer sees the heart no longer grieves for. Grice. Vide sytactics. Grice played with ‘elimination rules’ for his scope device. Once applied, Grice said: “What the eye no longer sees the heart no longer grieves for.” “As they say,” he added.

whistle. If you can’t say it you can’t whistle it either – But you can implicate it. “To say” takes a ‘that’-clause. “To implicate” takes a ‘that’-clause. Grice: “ ‘To whisle’ takes a ‘that’-clause, “By whistling, E communicates that he intends his emissee to be there.” “Whistle and I’ll be there” – Houseman to a Shropshire farmer.

whitehead: cited by H. P. Grice, a. n., philosopher of science, educated first at the Sherborne School in Dorsetshire and then at Trinity , Cambridge, Whitehead emerged as a first-class mathematician with a rich general background. In 5 he became a fellow of Trinity  and remained there in a teaching role until 0. In the early 0s Bertrand Russell entered Trinity  as a student in mathematics; by the beginning of the new century Russell had become not only a student and friend but a colleague of Whitehead’s at Trinity . Each had written a first book on algebra Whitehead’s A Treatise on Universal Algebra won him election to the Royal Society in 3. When they discovered that their projected second books largely overlapped, they undertook a collaboration on a volume that they estimated would take about a year to write; in fact, it was a decade later that the three volumes of their ground-breaking Principia Mathematica appeared, launching symbolic logic in its modern form. In the second decade of this century Whitehead and Russell drifted apart; their responses to World War I differed radically, and their intellectual interests and orientations diverged. Whitehead’s London period 024 is often viewed as the second phase of a three-phase career. His association with the  of London involved him in practical issues affecting the character of working-class education. For a decade Whitehead held a professorship at the Imperial  of Science and Technology and also served as dean of the Faculty of Science in the , chair of the Academic Council which managed educational affairs in London, and chair of the council that managed Goldsmith’s . His book The Aims of Education 8 is a collection of essays largely growing out of reflections on the experiences of these years. Intellectually, Whitehead’s interests were moving toward issues in the philosophy of science. In the years 922 he published An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge, The Concept of Nature, and The Principle of Relativity  the third led to his later 1 election as a fellow of the British Academy. In 4, at the age of sixty-three, Whitehead made a dramatic move, both geographically and intellectually, to launch phase three of his career: never having formally studied philosophy in his life, he agreed to become professor of philosophy at Harvard , a position he held until retirement in 7. The accompanying intellectual shift was a move from philosophy of science to metaphysics. The earlier investigations had assumed the self-containedness of nature: “nature is closed to mind.” The philosophy of nature examined nature at the level of abstraction entailed by this assumption. Whitehead had come to regard philosophy as “the critic of abstractions,” a notion introduced in Science and the Modern World 5. This book traced the intertwined emergence of Newtonian science and its philosophical presuppositions. It noted that with the development of the theory of relativity in the twentieth century, scientific understanding had left behind the Newtonian conceptuality that had generated the still-dominant philosophical assumptions, and that those philosophical assumptions considered in themselves had become inadequate to explicate our full concrete experience. Philosophy as the critic of abstractions must recognize the limitations of a stance that assumes that nature is closed to mind, and must push deeper, beyond such an abstraction, to create a scheme of ideas more in harmony with scientific developments and able to do justice to human beings as part of nature. Science and the Modern World merely outlines what such a philosophy might be; in 9 Whitehead published his magnum opus, titled Process and Reality. In this volume, subtitled “An Essay in Cosmology,” his metaphysical understanding is given its final form. It is customary to regard this book as the central document of what has become known as process philosophy, though Whitehead himself frequently spoke of his system of ideas as the philosophy of organism. Process and Reality begins with a sentence that sheds a great deal of light upon Whitehead’s metaphysical orientation: “These lectures are based upon a recurrence to that phase of philosophic thought which began with Descartes and ended with Hume.” Descartes, adapting the classical notion of substance to his own purposes, begins a “phase of philosophic thought” by assuming there are two distinct, utterly different kinds of substance, mind and matter, each requiring nothing but itself in order to exist. This assumption launches the reign of epistemology within philosophy: if knowing begins with the experiencing of a mental substance capable of existing by itself and cut off from everything external to it, then the philosophical challenge is to try to justify the claim to establish contact with a reality external to it. The phrase “and ended with Hume” expresses Whitehead’s conviction that Hume and more elegantly, he notes, Santayana showed that if one begins with Descartes’s metaphysical assumptions, skepticism is inevitable. Contemporary philosophers have talked about the end of philosophy. From Whitehead’s perspective such talk presupposes a far too narrow view of the nature of philosophy. It is true that a phase of philosophy has ended, a phase dominated by epistemology. Whitehead’s response is to offer the dictum that all epistemological difficulties are at bottom only camouflaged metaphysical difficulties. One must return to that moment of Cartesian beginning and replace the substance metaphysics with an orientation that avoids the epistemological trap, meshes harmoniously with the scientific understandings that have displaced the much simpler physics of Descartes’s day, and is consonant with the facts of evolution. These are the considerations that generate Whitehead’s fundamental metaphysical category, the category of an actual occasion. An actual occasion is not an enduring, substantial entity. Rather, it is a process of becoming, a process of weaving together the “prehensions” a primitive form of ‘apprehension’ meant to indicate a “taking account of,” or “feeling,” devoid of conscious awareness of the actual occasions that are in the immediate past. Whitehead calls this process of weaving together the inheritances of the past “concrescence.” An actual entity is its process of concrescence, its process of growing together into a unified perspective on its immediate past. The seeds of Whitehead’s epistemological realism are planted in these fundamental first moves: “The philosophy of organism is the inversion of Kant’s philosophy. . . . For Kant, the world emerges from the subject; for the philosophy of organism, the subject emerges from the world.” It is customary to compare an actual occasion with a Leibnizian monad, with the caveat that whereas a monad is windowless, an actual occasion is “all window.” It is as though one were to take Aristotle’s system of categories and ask what would result if the category of substance were displaced from its position of preeminence by the category of relation  the result would, mutatis mutandis, be an understanding of being somewhat on the model of a Whiteheadian actual occasion. In moving from Descartes’s dualism of mental substance and material substance to his own notion of an actual entity, Whitehead has been doing philosophy conceived of as the critique of abstractions. He holds that both mind and matter are abstractions from the concretely real. They are important abstractions, necessary for everyday thought and, of supreme importance, absolutely essential in enabling the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries to accomplish their magnificent advances in scientific thinking. Indeed, Whitehead, in his philosophy of science phase, by proceeding as though “nature is closed to mind,” was operating with those selfsame abstractions. He came to see that while these abstractions were indispensable for certain kinds of investigations, they were, at the philosophical level, as Hume had demonstrated, a disaster. In considering mind and matter to be ontological ultimates, Descartes had committed what Whitehead termed the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. The category of an actual occasion designates the fully real, the fully concrete. The challenge for such an orientation, the challenge that Process and Reality is designed to meet, is so to describe actual occasions that it is intelligible how collections of actual occasions, termed “nexus” or societies, emerge, exhibiting the characteristics we find associated with “minds” and “material structures.” Perhaps most significantly, if this challenge is met successfully, biology will be placed, in the eyes of philosophy, on an even footing with physics; metaphysics will do justice both to human beings and to human beings as a part of nature; and such vexing contemporary problem areas as animal rights and environmental ethics will appear in a new light. Whitehead’s last two books, Adventures of Ideas 3 and Modes of Thought 8, are less technical and more lyrical than is Process and Reality. Adventures of Ideas is clearly the more significant of these two. It presents a philosophical study of the notion of civilization. It holds that the social changes in a civilization are driven by two sorts of forces: brute, senseless agencies of compulsion on the one hand, and formulated aspirations and articulated beliefs on the other. These two sorts of forces are epitomized by barbarians and Christianity in the ancient Roman world and by steam and democracy in the world of the industrial revolution. Whitehead’s focal point in Adventures of Ideas is aspirations, beliefs, and ideals as instruments of change. In particular, he is concerned to articulate the ideals and aspirations appropriate to our own era. The character of such ideals and aspirations at any moment is limited by the philosophical understandings available at that moment, because in their struggle for release and efficacy such ideals and aspirations can appear only in the forms permitted by the available philosophical discourse. In the final section of Adventures of Ideas Whitehead presents a statement of ideals and aspirations fit for our era as his own philosophy of organism allows them to take shape and be articulated. The notions of beauty, truth, adventure, zest, Eros, and peace are given a content drawn from the technical understandings elaborated in Process and Reality. But in Adventures of Ideas a less technical language is used, a language reminiscent of the poetic imagery found in the style of Plato’s Republic, a language making the ideas accessible to readers who have not mastered Process and Reality, but at the same time far richer and more meaningful to those who have. Whitehead notes in Adventures of Ideas that Plato’s later thought “circles round the interweaving of seven main notions, namely, The Ideas, The Physical Elements, The Psyche, The Eros, The Harmony, The Mathematical Relations, The Receptacle. These notions are as important for us now, as they were then at the dawn of the modern world, when civilizations of the old type were dying.” Whitehead uses these notions in quite novel and modern ways; one who is unfamiliar with his metaphysics can get something of what he means as he speaks of the Eros of the Universe, but if one is familiar from Process and Reality with the notions of the Primordial Nature of God and the Consequent Nature of God then one sees much deeper into the meanings present in Adventures of Ideas. Whitehead was not religious in any narrow, doctrinal, sectarian sense. He explicitly likened his stance to that of Aristotle, dispassionately considering the requirements of his metaphysical system as they refer to the question of the existence and nature of God. Whitehead’s thoughts on these matters are most fully developed in Chapter 11 of Science and the Modern World, in the final chapter of Process and Reality, and in Religion in the Making 6. These thoughts are expressed at a high level of generality. Perhaps because of this, a large part of the interest generated by Whitehead’s thought has been within the community of theologians. His ideas fairly beg for elaboration and development in the context of particular modes of religious understanding. It is as though many modern theologians, recalling the relation between the theology of Aquinas and the metaphysics of Aristotle, cannot resist the temptation to play Aquinas to Whitehead’s Aristotle. Process theology, or Neo-Classical Theology as it is referred to by Hartshorne, one of its leading practitioners, has been the arena within which a great deal of clarification and development of Whitehead’s ideas has occurred. Whitehead was a gentle man, soft-spoken, never overbearing or threatening. He constantly encouraged students to step out on their own, to develop their creative capacities. His concern not to inhibit students made him a notoriously easy grader; it was said that an A-minus in one of his courses was equivalent to failure. Lucien Price’s Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead chronicles many evenings of discussion in the Whitehead household. He there described Whitehead as follows: his face, serene, luminous, often smiling, the complexion pink and white, the eyes brilliant blue, clear and candid as a child’s yet with the depth of the sage, often laughing or twinkling with humour. And there was his figure, slender, frail, and bent with its lifetime of a scholar’s toil. Always benign, there was not a grain of ill will anywhere in him; for all his formidable armament, never a wounding word.  Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Definite descriptions in Whitehead and Russell and in the vernacular,” “Definite descriptions in Whitethead’s and Russell’s formalese and in Strawson’s vernacular” -- BANC.

weiner kraus -- Vienna Circle  vide ayerism -- a group of philosophers and scientists who met periodically for discussions in Vienna from 2 to 8 and who proposed a self-consciously revolutionary conception of scientific knowledge. The Circle was initiated by the mathematician Hans Hahn to continue a prewar forum with the physicist Philip Frank and the social scientist Otto Neurath after the arrival in Vienna of Moritz Schlick, a philosopher who had studied with Max Planck. Carnap joined in 6 from 1 in Prague; other members included Herbert Feigl from 0 in Iowa, Friedrich Waismann, Bergmann, Viktor Kraft, and Bela von Juhos. Viennese associates of the Circle included Kurt Gödel, Karl Menger, Felix Kaufmann, and Edgar Zilsel. Popper was not a member or associate. During its formative period the Circle’s activities were confined to discussion meetings many on Vitters’s Tractatus. In 9 the Circle entered its public period with the formation of the Verein Ernst Mach, the publication of its manifesto Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung: Der Wiener Kreis by Carnap, Hahn, and Neurath tr. in Neurath, Empiricism and Sociology, 3, and the first of a series of philosophical monographs edited by Frank and Schlick. It also began collaboration with the independent but broadly like-minded Berlin “Society of Empirical Philosophy,” including Reichenbach, Kurt Grelling, Kurt Lewin, Friedrich Kraus, Walter Dubislav, Hempel, and Richard von Mises: the groups together organized their first public conferences in Prague and Königsberg, acquired editorship of a philosophical journal renamed Erkenntnis, and later organized the international Unity of Science congresses. The death and dispersion of key members from 4 onward Hahn died in 4, Neurath left for Holland in 4, Carnap left for the United States in 5, Schlick died in 6 did not mean the extinction of Vienna Circle philosophy. Through the subsequent work of earlier visitors Ayer, Ernest Nagel, Quine and members and collaborators who emigrated to the United States Carnap, Feigl, Frank, Hempel, and Reichenbach, the logical positivism of the Circle Reichenbach and Neurath independently preferred “logical empiricism” strongly influenced the development of analytic philosophy. The Circle’s discussions concerned the philosophy of formal and physical science, and even though their individual publications ranged much wider, it is the attitude toward science that defines the Circle within the philosophical movements of central Europe at the time. The Circle rejected the need for a specifically philosophical epistemology that bestowed justification on knowledge claims from beyond science itself. In this, the Circle may also have drawn on a distinct Austrian tradition a thesis of its historian Neurath: in most of G.y, science and philosophy had parted ways during the nineteenth century. Starting with Helmholtz, of course, there also arose a movement that sought to distinguish the scientific respectability of the Kantian tradition from the speculations of G. idealism, yet after 0 neo-Kantians insisted on the autonomy of epistemology, disparaging earlier fellow travelers as “positivist.” Yet the program of reducing the knowledge claim of science and providing legitimations to what’s left found wide favor with the more empirical-minded like Mach. Comprehensive description, not explanation, of natural phenomena became the task for theorists who no longer looked to philosophy for foundations, but found them in the utility of their preferred empirical procedures. Along with the positivists, the Vienna Circle thought uneconomical the Kantian answer to the question of the possibility of objectivity, the synthetic a priori. Moreover, the Vienna Circle and its conventionalist precursors Poincaré and Duhem saw them contradicted by the results of formal science. Riemann’s geometries showed that questions about the geometry of physical space were open to more than one answer: Was physical space Euclidean or non-Euclidean? It fell to Einstein and the pre-Circle Schlick Space and Time in Contemporary Physics, 7 to argue that relativity theory showed the untenability of Kant’s conception of space and time as forever fixed synthetic a priori forms of intuition. Yet Frege’s anti-psychologistic critique had also shown empiricism unable to account for knowledge of arithmetic and the conventionalists had ended the positivist dream of a theory of experiential elements that bridged the gap between descriptions of fact and general principles of science. How, then, could the Vienna Circle defend the claim  under attack as just one worldview among others  that science provides knowledge? The Circle confronted the problem of constitutive conventions. As befitted their self-image beyond Kant and Mach, they found their paradigmatic answer in the theory of relativity: they thought that irreducible conventions of measurement with wide-ranging implications were sharply separable from pure facts like point coincidences. Empirical theories were viewed as logical structures of statements freely created, yet accountable to experiential input via their predictive consequences identifiable by observation. The Vienna Circle defended empiricism by the reconceptualization of the relation between a priori and a posteriori inquiries. First, in a manner sympathetic to Frege’s and Russell’s doctrine of logicism and guided by Vitters’s notion of tautology, arithmetic was considered a part of logic and treated as entirely analytical, without any empirical content; its truth was held to be exhausted by what is provable from the premises and rules of a formal symbolic system. Carnap’s Logical Syntax of Language, 4, assimilated Gödel’s incompleteness result by claiming that not every such proof could be demonstrated in those systems themselves which are powerful enough to represent classical arithmetic. The synthetic a priori was not needed for formal science because all of its results were non-synthetic. Second, the Circle adopted verificationism: supposedly empirical concepts whose applicability was indiscernible were excluded from science. The terms for unobservables were to be reconstructed by logical operations from the observational terms. Only if such reconstructions were provided did the more theoretical parts of science retain their empirical character. Just what kind of reduction was aimed for was not always clear and earlier radical positions were gradually weakened; Reichenbach instead considered the relation between observational and theoretical statements to be probabilistic. Empirical science needed no synthetic a priori either; all of its statements were a posteriori. Combined with the view that the analysis of the logical form of expressions allowed for the exact determination of their combinatorial value, verificationism was to exhibit the knowledge claims of science and eliminate metaphysics. Whatever meaning did not survive identification with the scientific was deemed irrelevant to knowledge claims Reichenbach did not share this view either. Since the Circle also observed the then long-discussed ban on issuing unconditional value statements in science, its metaethical positions may be broadly characterized as endorsing noncognitivism. Its members were not simply emotivists, however, holding that value judgments were mere expressions of feeling, but sought to distinguish the factual and evaluative contents of value judgments. Those who, like Schlick Questions of Ethics, 0, engaged in metaethics, distinguished the expressive component x desires y of value judgments from their implied descriptive component doing zfurthers aim y and held that the demand inherent in moral principles possessed validity if the implied description was true and the expressed desire was endorsed. This analysis of normative concepts did not render them meaningless but allowed for psychological and sociological studies of ethical systems; Menger’s formal variant Morality, Decision and Social Organization, 4 proved influential for decision theory. The semiotic view that knowledge required structured representations was developed in close contact with foundational research in mathematics and depended on the “new” logic of Frege, Russell, and Vitters, out of which quantification theory was emerging. Major new results were quickly integrated albeit controversially and Carnap’s works reflect the development of the conception of logic itself. In his Logical Syntax he adopted the “Principle of Tolerance” vis-à-vis the question of the foundation of the formal sciences: the choice of logics and languages was conventional and constrained, apart from the demand for consistency, only by pragmatic considerations. The proposed language form and its difference from alternatives simply had to be stated as exactly as possible: whether a logico-linguistic framework as a whole correctly represented reality was a cognitively meaningless question. Yet what was the status of the verifiability principle? Carnap’s suggestion that it represents not a discovery but a proposal for future scientific language use deserves to be taken seriously, for it not only characterizes his own conventionalism, but also amplifies the Circle’s linguistic turn, according to which all philosophy concerned ways of representing, rather than the nature of the represented. What the Vienna Circle “discovered” was how much of science was conventional: its verificationism was a proposal for accommodating the creativity of scientific theorizing without accommodating idealism. Whether an empirical claim in order to be meaningful needed to be actually verified or only potentially verifiable, or fallible or only potentially testable, and whether so by current or only by future means, became matters of discussion during the 0s. Equally important for the question whether the Circle’s conventionalism avoided idealism and metaphysics were the issues of the status of theoretical discourse about unobservables and the nature of science’s empirical foundation. The view suggested in Schlick’s early General Theory of Knowledge 8, 2d. ed. 5 and Frank’s The Causal Law and its Limitations 2 and elaborated in Carnap’s “Logical Foundations of the Unity of Science” in Foundations of the Unity of Science I.1, 8 characterized the theoretical language as an uninterpreted calculus that is related to the fully interpreted observational language only by partial definitions. Did such an instrumentalism require for its empirical anchor the sharp separation of observational from theoretical terms? Could such a separation even be maintained? Consider the unity of science thesis. According to the methodological version, endorsed by all members, all of science abides by the same criteria: no basic methodological differences separate the natural from the social or cultural sciences Geisteswissenschaften as claimed by those who distinguish between ‘explanation’ and ‘understanding’. According to the metalinguistic version, all objects of scientific knowledge could in principle be comprehended by the same “universal” language. Physicalism asserts that this is the language that speaks of physical objects. While everybody in the Circle endorsed physicalism in this sense, the understanding of its importance varied, as became clear in the socalled protocol sentence debate. The nomological version of the unity thesis was only later clearly distinguished: whether all scientific laws could be reduced to those of physics was another matter on which Neurath came to differ. Ostensively, this debate concerned the question of the form, content, and epistemological status of scientific evidence statements. Schlick’s unrevisable “affirmations” talked about phenomenal states in statements not themselves part of the language of science “The Foundation of Knowledge,” 4, tr. in Ayer, ed., Logical Positivism. Carnap’s preference changed from unrevisable statements in a primitive methodologically solipsistic protocol language that were fallibly translatable into the physicalistic system language 1; see Unity of Science, 4, via arbitrary revisable statements of that system language that are taken as temporary resting points in testing 2, to revisable statements in the scientific observation language 5; see “Testability and Meaning,” Philosophy of Science, 637. These changes were partly prompted by Neurath, whose own revisable “protocol statements” spoke, amongst other matters, of the relation between observers and the observed in a “universal slang” that mixed expressions of the physicalistically cleansed colloquial and the high scientific languages “Protocol Statements,”  tr. in Ayer, ed., Logical Positivism. Ultimately, these proposals answered to different projects. Since all agreed that all statements of science were hypothetical, the questions of their “foundation” concerned rather the very nature of Vienna Circle philosophy. For Schlick philosophy became the activity of meaning determination inspired by Vitters; Carnap pursued it as the rational reconstruction of knowledge claims concerned only with what Reichenbach called the “context of justification” its logical aspects, not the “context of discovery”; and Neurath replaced philosophy altogether with a naturalistic, interdisciplinary, empirical inquiry into science as a distinctive discursive practice, precluding the orthodox conception of the unity of science. The Vienna Circle was neither a monolithic nor a necessarily reductionist philosophical movement, and quick assimilation to the tradition of British empiricism mistakes its struggles with the formcontent dichotomy for foundationalism, when instead sophisticated responses to the question of the presuppositions of their own theories of knowledge were being developed. In its time and place, the Circle was a minority voice; the sociopolitical dimension of its theories  stressed more by some Neurath than others Schlick  as a renewal of Enlightenment thought, ultimately against the rising tide of Blutund-Boden metaphysics, is gaining recognition. After the celebrated “death” of reductionist logical positivism in the 0s the historical Vienna Circle is reemerging as a multifaceted object of the history of analytical philosophy itself, revealing in nuce different strands of reasoning still significant for postpositivist theory of science. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “What Freddie brought us from Vienna.”

williams: “There are many Williams in Oxford, but only one “B. A. O., “ as he pretentiously went by!” – H. P. Grice. B. A. O. London-born Welsh philosopher who has made major contributions to many fields but is primarily known as a moral philosopher. His approach to ethics, set out in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy 5, is characterized by a wide-ranging skepticism, directed mainly at the capacity of academic moral philosophy to further the aim of reflectively living an ethical life. One line of skeptical argument attacks the very idea of practical reason. Attributions of practical reasons to a particular agent must, in Williams’s view, be attributions of states that can potentially explain the agent’s action. Therefore such reasons must be either within the agent’s existing set of motivations or within the revised set of motivations that the agent would acquire upon sound reasoning. Williams argues from these minimal assumptions that this view of reasons as internal reasons undermines the idea of reason itself being a source of authority over practice. Williams’s connected skepticism about the claims of moral realism is based both on his general stance toward realism and on his view of the nature of modern societies. In opposition to internal realism, Williams has consistently argued that reflection on our conception of the world allows one to develop a conception of the world maximally independent of our peculiar ways of conceptualizing reality  an absolute conception of the world. Such absoluteness is, he argues, an inappropriate aspiration for ethical thought. Our ethical thinking is better viewed as one way of structuring a form of ethical life than as the ethical truth about how life is best lived. The pervasive reflectiveness and radical pluralism of modern societies makes them inhospitable contexts for viewing ethical concepts as making knowledge available to groups of concept users. Modernity has produced at the level of theory a distortion of our ethical practice, namely a conception of the morality system. This view is reductionist, is focused centrally on obligations, and rests on various fictions about responsibility and blame that Williams challenges in such works as Shame and Necessity 3. Much academic moral philosophy, in his view, is shaped by the covert influence of the morality system, and such distinctively modern outlooks as Kantianism and utilitarianism monopolize the terms of contemporary debate with insufficient attention to their origin in a distorted view of the ethical. Williams’s views are not skeptical through and through; he retains a commitment to the values of truth, truthfulness in a life, and individualism. His most recent work, which thematizes the long-implicit influence of Nietzsche on his ethical philosophy, explicitly offers a vindicatory “genealogical” narrative for these ideals.

willkür, v.  Hobson’s choice. Grice: “‘will-kuer’ is a fascinating German expression, literally will-care’.”

wilson – this is the way to quote J. C. Wilson. Grice loved him, and thanked Farquarhson for editing his papers.

wilson’s ultimate counterexample to Grice -- Grice’s counterexample – “the ultimate counter-example” -- counterinstance, also called counterexample. 1 A particular instance of an argument form that has all true premises but a false conclusion, thereby showing that the form is not universally valid. The argument form ‘p 7 q, - p / , ~q’, for example, is shown to be invalid by the counterinstance ‘Grass is either red or green; Grass is not red; Therefore, grass is not green’. 2 A particular false instance of a statement form, which demonstrates that the form is not a logical truth. A counterinstance to the form ‘p 7 q / p’, for example, would be the statement ‘If grass is either red or green, then grass is red’. 3 A particular example that demonstrates that a universal generalization is false. The universal statement ‘All large cities in the United States are east of the Mississippi’ is shown to be false by the counterinstance of San Francisco, which is a large city in the United States that is not east of the Mississippi. V.K. counterpart theory, a theory that analyzes statements about what is possible and impossible for individuals statements of de re modality in terms of what holds of counterparts of those individuals in other possible worlds, a thing’s counterparts being individuals that resemble it without being identical with it. The name ‘counterpart theory’ was coined by David Lewis, the theory’s principal exponent. Whereas some theories analyze ‘Mrs. Simpson might have been queen of England’ as ‘In some possible world, Mrs. Simpson is queen of England’, counterpart theory analyzes it as ‘In some possible world, a counterpart of Mrs. Simpson is queen of a counterpart of England’. The chief motivation for counterpart theory is a combination of two views: a de re modality should be given a possible worlds analysis, and b each actual individual exists only in the actual world, and hence cannot exist with different properties in other possible worlds. Counterpart theory provides an analysis that allows ‘Mrs. Simpson might have been queen’ to be true compatibly with a and b. For Mrs. Simpson’s counterparts in other possible worlds, in those worlds where she herself does not exist, may have regal properties that the actual Mrs. Simpson lacks. Counterpart theory is perhaps prefigured in Leibniz’s theory of possibility. 

wilson: not to be confused with wilson, author of “Grice: The ultimate counterexample” -- Oxonian philosopher, like Grice. Cook Wilson studied with T. H. Green before becoming Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford and leading the Oxford reaction against the then entrenched absolute idealism. More influential as a tutor than as a writer, his major oeuvre, Statement and Inference, was posthumously reconstructed from drafts of papers, philosophical correspondence, and an extensive set of often inconsistent lectures for his logic courses. A staunch critic of Whitehead’s mathematical logic, Wilson conceived of logic as the study of thinking, an activity unified by the fact that thinking either is knowledge or depends on knowledge “What we know we kow”. Wilson claims that knowledge involves apprehending an object that in most cases is independent of the act of apprehension and that knowledge is indefinable without circularity, views he defended by appealing to common usage. Many of Wilson’s ideas are disseminated by H. W. B. Joseph, especially in his “Logic.” Rejecting “symbolic logic,” Joseph attempts to reinvigorate traditional logic conceived along Wilsonian lines. To do so Joseph combined a careful exposition of Aristotle with insights drawn from idealistic logicians. Besides Joseph, Wilson decisively influenced a generation of Oxford philosophers including Prichard and Ross, and Grice who explores the ‘interrogative subordination’ in the account of ‘if.’ “Who killed Cock Robin”.

winchism: After P. Winch, P. London-born philosopher. He quotes  Grice in a Royal Philosophy talk: “Grice’s point is that we should distinguish the truth of one’s remark form the point of one’s remarks – Grice’s example is: “Surely I have neither any doubt nor any desire to deny that the pillar box in front of me is red, and yet I won’t hesitate to say that it seems red to me” – Surely pointless, but an incredible truth meant to refute G. A. Paul!” Winch translated Vitters’s “little essay on value” which Grice “did not use for [his] essay on the conception of value.” (“Kultur und Wert.”). Grice: “Not contented with natural science, Winch wants a social one!”

windelband: philosopher and originator of Baden neoKantianism. He studied under Kuno Fischer 18247 and Lotze, and was professor at Zürich, Freiburg, Strasbourg, and Heidelberg. Windelband gave Baden neo-Kantianism its distinctive mark of Kantian axiology as the core of critical philosophy. He is widely recognized for innovative work in the history of philosophy, in which problems rather than individual philosophers are the focus and organizing principle of exposition. He is also known for his distinction, first drawn in “Geschichte und Naturwissenschaft” “History and Natural Science,” 4, between the nomothetic knowledge that most natural sciences seek the discovery of general laws in order to master nature and the idiographic knowledge that the historical sciences pursue description of individual and unique aspects of reality with the aim of self-affirmation. His most important student, and successor at Heidelberg, was Heinrich Rickert 1863 6, who made lasting contributions to the methodology of the historical sciences.

wodeham: “If Adam of Wodeham was called Wodeham, I should, by the same token, be called “Harborne”” – H. P. Grice. Oxonian philosopher, like Grice. Adam de English Franciscan philosopher-theologian who lectured on Peter Lombard’s Sentences at London, Norwich, and Oxford. His published works include the Tractatus de indivisibilibus; his Lectura secunda Norwich lectures; and an abbreviation of his Oxford lectures by Henry Totting of Oyta, published by John Major in 1512. Wodeham’s main work, the Oxford lectures, themselves remain unpublished. A brilliant interpreter of Duns Scotus, whose original manuscripts he consulted, Wodeham deemed Duns Scotus the greatest Franciscan doctor. William Ockham, Wodeham’s teacher, was the other great influence on Wodeham’s philosophical theology. Wodeham defended Ockham’s views against attacks mounted by Walter Chatton; he also wrote the prologue to Ockham’s Summa logicae. Wodeham’s own influence rivaled that of Ockham. Among the authors he strongly influenced are Gregory of Rimini, John of Mirecourt, Nicholas of Autrecourt, Pierre d’Ailly, Peter Ceffons, Alfonso Vargas, Peter of Candia Alexander V, Henry Totting of Oyta, and John Major. Wodeham’s theological works were written for an audience with a very sophisticated understanding of current issues in semantics, logic, and medieval mathematical physics. Contrary to Duns Scotus and Ockham, Wodeham argued that the sensitive and intellective souls were not distinct. He further develops the theory of intuitive cognition, distinguishing intellectual intuition of our own acts of intellect, will, and memory from sensory intuition of external objects. Scientific knowledge based on experience can be based on intuition, according to Wodeham. He distinguishes different grades of evidence, and allows that sensory perceptions may be mistaken. Nonetheless, they can form the basis for scientific knowledge, since they are reliable; mistakes can be corrected by reason and experience. In semantic theory, Wodeham defends the view that the immediate object of scientific knowledge is the complexe significabile, that which the conclusion is designed to signify. Oxonian philosopher, like Grice. Adam de (c. 1295–1358), English Franciscan philosopher- who lectured on Peter Lombard’s Sentences at Oxford. His oeuvre includes a “Tractatus de indivisibilibus, divisum in cinque partibus”; his “Lectura secunda”  and “Lecturae Oxonienses” as transcribed by Henry Totting of Oyta, and published by John Major. Wodeham’s main work, like Grice’s, the Oxford lectures, themselves remain only partially published. A brilliant interpreter of Duns Scotus, whose original manuscripts he consulted in his main unpublication, Wodeham deems Duns Scotus the greatest Franciscan doctor. Occam, Wodeham’s teacher, is the other great influence on Wodeham (“I treasure the razor he gave me for my birthday.”) Wodeham defends his tutor Ockham’s views against attacks mounted by Walter Chatton. Grice was familiar with Wodeham (“from Wodeham, as it happens”) because he wrote the prologue to Ockham’s Summa logicae. Wodeham’s own influence rivals that of Ockham. Among the authors he strongly influenced are Gregory of Rimini, John of Mirecourt, Nicholas of Autrecourt, Pierre d’Ailly, Peter Ceffons, Alfonso Vargas, Peter of Candia (Alexander V), Henry Totting of Oyta, John Major, and lastly, but certainly not leastly, H. P. Grice. Wodeham’s lectures were composed for tutees with a very sophisticated understanding of current issues in semantics, logic, and mathematical physics. Contrary to Duns Scotus and Occam, Wodeham argues – and this is borrowed by Grice -- that the sensitive and intellective souls are not distinct (vide Grice, “The power structure of the soul”). Wodeham further develops the theory of intuitive cognition, distinguishing intellectual intuition of our own acts of intellect, will, and memory from sensory intuition of external objects. This is developed by Grice in his contrast of “I am not hearing a noise,” and “That is not blue.” Thus, knowledge based on experience can be based on intuition, according to Wodeham. Wodeham goes on to distinguishs different grades (or degrees, as Grice prefers, which Grice symbolises as ‘d’) of evidence (for credibility and desirability) and allows that this or that sensory perception may be mistaken (“but if all were, we are in trouble’). Nonetheless, they can form the basis for knowledge, since they are, caeteris paribus, reliable. “A mistake can always be corrected by reason and experience. In semantic and pragmatic theories, Wodeham defends the view that the immediate object of knowledge is what he calls the “complexum significabile,” that which the conclusion is designed to signify.

wolff: cited by H. P. Grice, c. philosopher and the most powerful advocate for secular rationalism in early eighteenth-century G.y. Although he was a Lutheran, his early education in Catholic Breslau made him familiar with both the Scholasticism of Aquinas and Suárez and more modern sources. His later studies at Leipzig were completed with a dissertation on the application of mathematical methods to ethics 1703, which brought him to the attention of Leibniz. He remained in correspondence with Leibniz until the latter’s death 1716, and became known as the popularizer of Leibniz’s philosophy, although his views did not derive from that source alone. Appointed to teach mathematics in Halle in 1706 he published mathematical textbooks and compendia that dominated G. universities for decades, Wolff began lecturing on philosophy as well by 1709. His rectoral address On the Practical Philosophy of the Chin. argued that revelation and even belief in God were unnecessary for arriving at sound principles of moral and political reasoning; this brought his uneasy relations with the Halle Pietists to a head, and in 1723 they secured his dismissal and indeed banishment. Wolff was immediately welcomed in Marburg, where he became a hero for freedom of thought, and did not return to Prussia until the ascension of Frederick the Great in 1740, when he resumed his post at Halle. Wolff published an immense series of texts on logic, metaphysics, ethics, politics, natural theology, and teleology, in which he created the philosophical terminology of modern G.; he then published an even more extensive series of works in Latin for the rest of his life, expanding and modifying his G. works but also adding works on natural and positive law and economics. He accepted the traditional division of logic into the doctrines of concepts, judgment, and inference, which influenced the organization of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and even Hegel’s Science of Logic1816. In metaphysics, he included general ontology and then the special disciplines of rational cosmology, rational psychology, and rational theology Kant replaced Wolff’s general ontology with his transcendental aesthetic and analytic, and then demolished Wolff’s special metaphysics in his transcendental dialectic. Wolff’s metaphysics drew heavily on Leibniz, but also on Descartes and even empiricists like Locke. Methodologically, he attempted to derive the principle of sufficient reason from the logical law of identity like the unpublished Leibniz of the 1680s rather than the published Leibniz of the 1700s; substantively, he began his G. metaphysics with a reconstruction of Descartes’s cogito argument, then argued for a simple, immaterial soul, all of its faculties reducible to forms of representation and related to body by preestablished harmony. Although rejected by Crusius and then Kant, Wolff’s attempt to found philosophy on a single principle continued to influence G. idealism as late as Reinhold, Fichte, and Hegel, and his example of beginning metaphysics from the unique representative power of the soul continued to influence not only later writers such as Reinhold and Fichte but also Kant’s own conception of the transcendental unity of apperception. In spite of the academic influence of his metaphysics, Wolff’s importance for G. culture lay in his rationalist rather than theological ethics. He argued that moral worth lies in the perfection of the objective essence of mankind; as the essence of a human is to be an intellect and a will with the latter dependent on the former, which are physically embodied and dependent for their well-being on the well-being of their physical body, morality requires perfection of the intellect and will, physical body, and external conditions for the well-being of that combination. Each person is obliged to perfect all instantiations of this essence, but in practice does so most effectively in his own case; duties to oneself therefore precede duties to others and to God. Because pleasure is the sensible sign of perfection, Wolff’s perfectionism resembles contemporary utilitarianism. Since he held that human perfection can be understood by human reason independently of any revelation, Wolff joined contemporary British enlighteners such as Shaftesbury and Hutcheson in arguing that morality does not depend on divine commands, indeed the recognition of divine commands depends on an antecedent comprehension of morality although morality does require respect for God, and thus the atheistic morality of the Chin., even though sound as far as it went, was not complete. This was the doctrine that put Wolff’s life in danger, but it had tremendous repercussions for the remainder of his century, and certainly in Kant. H. P. Grice, “Psychologia ratioalis.”“Who’s afraid of the rationalist wolff,” Grice would chant. Grice borrowed (“but I was never able to return”) from Wolff the idea of ‘psychologia rationalis,’ that Grice uses profusely. philosopher and the most powerful advocate for secular rationalism in early eighteenth-century Germany. Although he was a Lutheran, his early education in Catholic Breslau made him familiar with both the Scholasticism of Aquinas and Suárez and more modern sources. His later studies at Leipzig were completed with a dissertation on the application of mathematical methods to ethics (1703), which brought him to the attention of Leibniz. He remained in correspondence with Leibniz until the latter’s death (1716), and became known as the popularizer of Leibniz’s philosophy, although his views did not derive from that source alone. Appointed to teach mathematics in Halle in 1706 (he published mathematical textbooks and compendia that dominated German universities for decades), Wolff began lecturing on philosophy as well by 1709. His rectoral address On the Practical Philosophy of the Chinese (1721) argued that revelation and even belief in God were unnecessary for arriving at sound principles of moral and political reasoning; this brought his uneasy relations with the Halle Pietists to a head, and in 1723 they secured his dismissal and indeed banishment. Wolff was immediately welcomed in Marburg, where he became a hero for freedom of thought, and did not return to Prussia until the ascension of Frederick the Great in 1740, when he resumed his post at Halle. Wolff published an immense series of texts on logic, metaphysics, ethics, politics, natural theology, and teleology (1713–24), in which he created the philosophical terminology of modern German; he then published an even more extensive series of works in Latin for the rest of his life, expanding and modifying his German works but also adding works on natural and positive law and economics (1723–55). He accepted the traWodeham, Adam de Wolff, Christian 980   980 ditional division of logic into the doctrines of concepts, judgment, and inference, which influenced the organization of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781–87) and even Hegel’s Science of Logic(1816). In metaphysics, he included general ontology and then the special disciplines of rational cosmology, rational psychology, and rational theology (Kant replaced Wolff’s general ontology with his transcendental aesthetic and analytic, and then demolished Wolff’s special metaphysics in his transcendental dialectic). Wolff’s metaphysics drew heavily on Leibniz, but also on Descartes and even empiricists like Locke. Methodologically, he attempted to derive the principle of sufficient reason from the logical law of identity (like the unpublished Leibniz of the 1680s rather than the published Leibniz of the 1700s); substantively, he began his German metaphysics with a reconstruction of Descartes’s cogito argument, then argued for a simple, immaterial soul, all of its faculties reducible to forms of representation and related to body by preestablished harmony. Although rejected by Crusius and then Kant, Wolff’s attempt to found philosophy on a single principle continued to influence German idealism as late as Reinhold, Fichte, and Hegel, and his example of beginning metaphysics from the unique representative power of the soul continued to influence not only later writers such as Reinhold and Fichte but also Kant’s own conception of the transcendental unity of apperception. In spite of the academic influence of his metaphysics, Wolff’s importance for German culture lay in his rationalist rather than theological ethics. He argued that moral worth lies in the perfection of the objective essence of mankind; as the essence of a human is to be an intellect and a will (with the latter dependent on the former), which are physically embodied and dependent for their well-being on the well-being of their physical body, morality requires perfection of the intellect and will, physical body, and external conditions for the well-being of that combination. Each person is obliged to perfect all instantiations of this essence, but in practice does so most effectively in his own case; duties to oneself therefore precede duties to others and to God. Because pleasure is the sensible sign of perfection, Wolff’s perfectionism resembles contemporary utilitarianism. Since he held that human perfection can be understood by human reason independently of any revelation, Wolff joined contemporary British enlighteners such as Shaftesbury and Hutcheson in arguing that morality does not depend on divine commands, indeed the recognition of divine commands depends on an antecedent comprehension of morality (although morality does require respect for God, and thus the atheistic morality of the Chinese, even though sound as far as it went, was not complete). This was the doctrine that put Wolff’s life in danger, but it had tremendous repercussions for the remainder of his century, and certainly in Kant.

wollaston: when Grice is in a humorous mood, or mode, as he prefers, he cites Wollaston at large! Wollaston is notorious for arguing that the immorality of this or that action lies in an utterer who describes it implicating a false proposition. Wollaston maintains that there is harmony between reason (or truth) and happiness. Therefore, any ction that contradict truth through misrepresentation thereby frustrates human happiness and is thus “plain evil.” Wollaston gives the example of Willard [Quine] who, to pay Paul [Grice], robs Peter [Strawspm] stealing his watch.  Grice comments: “In falsely epresenting Strawson’s watch as his own, Willard makes the act wrong, even if he did it to pay me what he owed me.” Wollaston’s views, particularly his taking morality to consist in universal and necessary truths, were influenced by the rationalists Ralph Cudworth and Clarke. Among his many critics the most famous is, as Grice would expect, Hume, who contends that Wollaston’s theory implies an absurdity (“unless you disimplicate it in the bud.”). For Hume, any action concealed from public view (e.g., adultery) conveys (or ‘explicates’) no false proposition and therefore is not immoral, since one can annul it, to use Grice’s jargon. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Wollaston and the longitudinal unity of philosophy.” cited by H. P. Grice. English moralist notorious for arguing that the immorality of actions lies in their implying false propositions. An assistant headmaster who later took priestly orders, Wollaston maintains in his one published work, The Religion of Nature Delineated 1722, that the foundations of religion and morality are mutually dependent. God has preestablished a harmony between reason or truth and happiness, so that actions that contradict truth through misrepresentation thereby frustrate human happiness and are thus evil. For instance, if a person steals another’s watch, her falsely representing the watch as her own makes the act wrong. Wollaston’s views, particularly his taking morality to consist in universal and necessary truths, were influenced by the rationalists Ralph Cudworth and Clarke. Among his many critics the most famous was Hume, who contends that Wollaston’s theory implies an absurdity: any action concealed from public view e.g., adultery conveys no false proposition and therefore is not immoral. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Why bother with Wollaston?” BANC.

wollheim: R. A. London-born philosopher of Eastern-European ancestry, BPhil Oxon, Balliol (under D. Marcus) and All Souls.  Examined by H. P. Grice. “What’s two times two?” Wollheim treasured that examination. It was in the context of a discussion of J. S. Mill and I. Kant, for whom addition and multiplication are ‘synthetic’ – a priori for Kant, a posteriori for Mill. Grice was trying to provide a counterexample to Mill’s thesis that all comes via deduction or induction. Refs.: I. C. Dengler and Luigi Speranza, “Wollheilm and Grice,” for the Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

woodianism: Roy Hudd: “Not to be confused with the woodianisms of Victoria Wood.” -- Grice loved O. P. Wood, as anyone at Oxford did – even those who disliked Ryle! Refs.: H. P. Grice, “O. P. Wood and some remarks about the senses,” --  O. P. Wood, “Implicatura in Hereford,” for The Swimming-Pool Library, custodian: Luigi Speranza – Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

woozleyianism: R. M. Harnish discussed H. P. Grice’s implicaturum with A. D. Woozley. Woozley would know because he had been in contact with Grice since for ever. Woozley had a closer contact with Austin, since, unlike Grice, ‘being from the right side of the tracks,’ he socialized with Austin in what Berlin pretentiously calls the ‘early beginnings of Oxford philosophy,’ as if the Middle Ages never happened. Woozley edited Reid, that Grice read, or reed. Since the first way to approach Grice’s philosophy is with his colleagues at his Play Group, Woozley plays a crucial role. Grice: “While Woozley would attend Austin’s Sat. morns., he wouldn’t say much – in fact, he seldom said much.” Refs.: R. M. Harnish and A. D. Woozley, “Implicatura,” for The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

wright: philosopher. His philosophical discussions are stimulating and attracted many, including Peirce, James, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who thinks of him as their “intellectual boxing master.” Wright eventually accepted empiricism, especially that of J. S. Mill, though under Darwinian influence he modified Mill’s view considerably by rejecting the empiricist claim that general propositions merely summarize particulars. Wright claims instead that scientific theories are hypotheses to be further developed, and insisted that a moral rule is irreducible and needs no utilitarian “proof.” Though he denied the “summary” view of universals, he is not strictly a pragmatist, since for him a low-level empirical proposition like Peirce’s ‘this diamond is hard’ is not a hypothesis but a self-contained irreducible statement. Then there is the furrin wright, pronounced /rixt/.

wright: pronounced /rixt/. Finnish philosopher, one of the most influential analytic philosophers of the twentieth century. His early work, influenced by logical empiricism, is on logic, probability, and induction, including contributions in modal and deontic logic, the logic of norms and action, preference logic, tense logic, causality, and determinism. In the 0s his ideas about the explanation of action helped to link the analytic tradition to Continental hermeneutics. His most important contribution is A Treatise on Induction and Probability 1, which develops a system of eliminative induction using the concepts of necessary and sufficient condition. In 9 von Wright went to Cambridge to meet Broad, and he attended Vitters’s lectures. Regular discussions with Moore also had an impact on him. In 8 von Wright succeeded Vitters as professor at Cambridge . After Vitters’s death in 1, von Wright returned to Helsinki. Together with Anscombe and Rush Rhees, he became executor and editor of Vitters’s Nachlass. The study, organization, systematization, and publication of this exceptionally rich work became a lifelong task for him. In his Cambridge years von Wright became interested in the logical properties of various modalities: alethic, deontic, epistemic. An Essay in Modal Logic 1 studies, syntactically, various deductive systems of modal logic. That year he published his famous article “Deontic Logic” in Mind. It made him the founder of modern deontic logic. These logical works profoundly influenced analytic philosophy, especially action theory. Von Wright distinguishes technical oughts means-ends relationships from norms issued by a norm-authority. His Norm and Action 3 discusses philosophical problems concerning the existence of norms and the truth of normative statements. His main work on metaethics is The Varieties of Goodness 3. In Explanation and Understanding 1 he turned to philosophical problems concerning the human sciences. He defends a manipulation view of causality, where the concept of action is basic for that of cause: human action cannot be explained causally by laws, but must be understood intentionally. The basic model of intentionality is the practical syllogism, which explains action by a logical connection with wants and beliefs. This work, sometimes characterized as anti-positivist analytical hermeneutics, bridges analytic and Continental philosophy. His studies in truth, knowledge, modality, lawlikeness, causality, determinism, norms, and practical inference were published in 384 in his Philosophical Papers. von Neumann, John von Wright, G. H. 965   965 In 1 von Wright became a member of the Academy of Finland, the highest honor Finland gives to its scientists. Over many years he has written, in Swedish and Finnish, eloquent essays in the history of ideas and the philosophy of culture. He has become increasingly critical of the modern scientific-technological civilization, its narrowly instrumental concept of rationality, and its myth of progress. His public pleas for peace, human rights, and a more harmonious coexistence of human beings and nature have made him the most esteemed intellectual in the Scandinavian countries. Refs.: H. P. Grice’s “von Wright’s ‘alethic’ and why I need it;” H. P. Grice, “von Wright on the eight state-of-affair connectors;” H. P. Grice, “von Wright and the sorry story of deontic logic.”

wundt: proto-Griceian philosophical psychologist. philosopher that Grice, who calls himself a ‘philosophical psychologist,’ often quotes. “As the founder of scientific psychology, Wundt was influential in my embracing ‘philosophical psychology,’ as a revenge.” Although trained as a physician (“like Vitters”), Wundt turns to philosophy and in Leipzig’s downtown established the first recognized psychology laboratory. For Wundt, psychology deals with conscious experience, a definition soon overtaken by Ryle’s behaviourism. Wundt’s psychology has two departments: the so-called physiological psychology (Grundzuge der physiologischen Psychologie, Grice preferred ‘philosophical physiology’), primarily the experimental study of immediate experience broadly modeled on Fechner’s psycho-physics; and the Volkerpsychologie (Volkerpsychologie, -- or ‘folkpsychology,’ as Grice prefers – ‘philosohical psychology is a folk-science’ -- which circulated at Oxford as “The Language of Gestures,” the non-experimental study of the higher mental processes via their products, conversation, language, myth, and custom. Although Wundt is a prodigious investigator and author, and was revered as psychology’s founder, his theories, unlike his methods, exerted little influence, except on Grice and a few intelligent Griceians. A typical scholar of his time, Wundt, like Grice, also explored across the whole of philosophy, including logic and ethics. W. M. philosopher and psychologist, a founder of scientific psychology. Although trained as a physician, he turned to philosophy and in 1879, at the  of Leipzig, established the first recognized psychology laboratory. For Wundt, psychology was the science of conscious experience, a definition soon overtaken by behaviorism. Wundt’s psychology had two departments: the so-called physiological psychology Grundzuge der physiologischen Psychologie, 3 vols., 1873 74; only vol. 1 of the fifth edition, 0, was tr. into English, primarily the experimental study of immediate experience broadly modeled on Fechner’s psychophysics; and the Volkerpsychologie Volkerpsychologie, 10 vols., 020; fragment tr. as The Language of Gestures, 3, the non-experimental study of the higher mental processes via their products, language, myth, and custom. Although Wundt was a prodigious investigator and author, and was revered as psychology’s founder, his theories, unlike his methods, exerted little influence. A typical G. scholar of his time, he also wrote across the whole of philosophy, including logic and ethics. .

wyclif: “It never ceased to amaze me how Wyclif was able to find Anglo-Saxon terms for all the “Biblia Vulgata”!” – H. P. Grice. English Griceian philosophical theologian and religious reformer. He worked for most of his life in Oxford as a secular clerk, teaching philosophy and later theology and writing extensively in both fields. The mode of thought expressed in his surviving works is one of extreme realism, and in this his thought fostered the split of Bohemian, later Hussite, philosophy from that of the G. masters teaching in Prague. His worldline Wyclif, John 982   982 philosophical summa was most influential for his teaching on universals, but also dealt extensively with the question of determinism; these issues underlay his later handling of the questions of the Eucharist and of the identity of the church respectively. His influence on English philosophy was severely curtailed by the growing hostility of the church to his ideas, the condemnation of many of his tenets, the persecution of his followers, and the destruction of his writings.

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xenophanes: Grice: “You have to be careful when you research for this in Italy – they spell it with an ‘s’!” --  Grecian philosopher, a proponent of an idealized conception of the divine, and the first of the pre-Socratics to propound epistemological views. Born in Colophon, an Ionian Grecian city on the coast of Asia Minor, he emigrated as a young man to the Grecian West Sicily and southern Italy. The formative influence of the Milesians is evident in his rationalism. He is the first of the pre-Socratics for whom we have not only ancient reports but also quite a few verbatim quotations  fragments from his “Lampoons” Silloi and from other didactic poetry. Xenophanes attacks the worldview of Homer, Hesiod, and traditional Grecian piety: it is an outrage that the poets attribute moral failings to the gods. Traditional religion reflects regional biases blond gods for the Northerners; black gods for the Africans. Indeed, anthropomorphic gods reflect the ultimate bias, that of the human viewpoint “If cattle, or horses, or lions . . . could draw pictures of the gods . . . ,” frg. 15. There is a single “greatest” god, who is not at all like a human being, either in body or in mind; he perceives without the aid of organs, he effects changes without “moving,” through the sheer power of his thought. The rainbow is no sign from Zeus; it is simply a special cloud formation. Nor are the sun or the moon gods. All phenomena in the skies, from the elusive “Twin Sons of Zeus” St. Elmo’s fire to sun, moon, and stars, are varieties of cloud formation. There are no mysterious infernal regions; the familiar strata of earth stretch down ad infinitum. The only cosmic limit is the one visible at our feet: the horizontal border between earth and air. Remarkably, Xenophanes tempers his theological and cosmological pronouncements with an epistemological caveat: what he offers is only a “conjecture.” In later antiquity Xenophanes came to be regarded as the founder of the Eleatic School, and his teachings were assimilated to those of Parmenides and Melissus. This appears to be based on nothing more than Xenophanes’ emphasis on the oneness and utter immobility of God.

xenophon: Grice: “You have to be carefully when researching for this philosopher in Italy – They spell it ‘Senofonte’ Grecian soldier and historian, author of several Socratic dialogues, along with important works on history, education, political theory, and other topics. He was interested in philosophy, and he was a penetrating and intelligent “social thinker” whose views on morality and society have been influential over many centuries. His perspective on Socrates’ character and moral significance provides a valuable supplement and corrective to the better-known views of Plato. Xenophon’s Socratic dialogues, the only ones besides Plato’s to survive intact, help us obtain a broader picture of the Socratic dialogue as a literary genre. They also provide precious evidence concerning the thoughts and personalities of other followers of Socrates, such as Antisthenes and Alcibiades. Xenophon’s longest and richest Socratic work is the Memorabilia, or “Memoirs of Socrates,” which stresses Socrates’ self-sufficiency and his beneficial effect on his companions. Xenophon’s Apology of Socrates and his Symposium were probably intended as responses to Plato’s Apology and Symposium. Xenophon’s Socratic dialogue on estate management, the Oeconomicus, is valuable for its underlying social theory and its evidence concerning the role and status of women in classical Athens. Refs.: Speranza, “All you need is Loeb,” Villa Grice.

Y

yog and zog: “My inspiration was Carroll’s “What the tortoise said to Achilles.” Trust me to go to the defense of the underdog, or undertortoise!” “Achilles had enough praise by the Romans!” -- “If” (Cicero’s ‘si’) is a problem for Grice. “Especially in it being the only subordinate particle I have seriously explored.” According to Strawson and Wiggins, this was Grice having forged his shining new tool – the distinction between ‘By emitting x, An emissor coomunicates that p” and “The emissum x ‘means’ ‘p.’ Apply that to ‘if.’ In Strawson and Wiggins’s precis, for Grice, ‘p yields q’ is part of the conversational implicaturum – for Strawson and Wiggins it is part of the conventional implicaturum. They agree on ‘p  horseshoe q’ being the explicit emissum or explicatum in “Emissor explicitly conveys and communicates that p horseshoe q.” For Grice, the implicaturum, which, being conversational is cancellable, is calculated on the assumption that the addressee can work out that the emissor has non-truth-functional grounds for the making of any stronger claim. For Strawson, that non-truth-functional reason is precisely ‘p yields q,’ which leads Strawson to think that the thing is not cancellable and conventionally implicated. If Strawson were right that this is Grice forging a new shining tool to crack the crib of reality and fashioning thereby a new shining skid under his metaphysical feet, it would be almost the second use of the tool!  This is an expansion by Grice on the implicaturum of a ‘propositio conditionalis.’ Grice, feeling paradoxical, invites us to suppose a scenario involving ‘if.’ He takes it as a proof that his account of the conversational implicaturum of ‘if’ is, as Strawson did not agree, correct, and that what an utterer explicitly conveys by ‘if p, q’ is ‘p > q.’  that two chess players, Yog and Zog, play 100 games under the following conditions. Yog is white nine of ten times. There are no draws.  And the results are:  Yog, when white, won 80 of 90 games. Yog, when black, won zero of ten games.  This implies that:  8/9 times, if Yog was white, Yog won. 1/2 of the time, if Yog lost, Yog was black.  9/10 that either Yog wasnt white or he won.  From these statements, it might appear one could make these deductions by contraposition and conditional disjunction: If Yog was white, then 1/2 of the time Yog won. 9/10 times, if Yog was white, then he won.  But both propositions are untrue. They contradict the assumption. In fact, they do not provide enough information to use Bayesian reasoning to reach those conclusions. That might be clearer if the propositions had instead been stated differently. When Yog was white, Yog won 8/9 times. No information is given about when Yog was black. When Yog lost, Yog was black 1/2 the time. No information is given about when Yog won. (9/10 times, either Yog was black and won, Yog was black and lost, or Yog was white and won. No information is provided on how the 9/10 is divided among those three situations. The paradox by Grice shows that the exact meaning of statements involving conditionals and probabilities is more complicated than may be obvious on casual examination. Refs.: Grice’s interest with ‘if’ surely started after he carefully read the section on ‘if’ and the horseshoe in Strawson’s Introduction to Logical Theory. He was later to review his attack on Strawson in view of Strawson’s defense in ‘If and the horseshoe.’ The polemic was pretty much solved as a matter of different intuitions: what Grice sees as a conversational implicaturum, Strawson does see as an ‘implicaturum,’ but a non-defeasible one – what Grice would qualify as ‘conventional.’ Grice leaves room for an implicaturum to be nonconversational and yet nonconventional, but it is not worth trying to fit Strawson’s suggestion in this slot, since Strawson, unlike Grice, has nothing against a convention. Grice was motivated to formulate his ‘paradox,’ seeing that Strawson was saying that the so-called ‘paradoxes’ of ‘entailment’ and ‘implication’ are a misnomer. “They are not paradoxical; they are false!” Grice has specific essays on both the paradoxes of entailment and the paradoxes of implication-. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The University of California, Berkeley.

Z

zabarella: Grice: “Zabarella is what I would call a proto-Griceain.” In fact, at Villa Grice, Grice was often called the English Zabarella, after philosopher Jacopo Zabarella, of Padova. Zabarella produces extensive commentaries on Grice’s favourite tract by Aristotle, “De Anima,” and Physica and also discussed some Aristotelian interpreters. However, Zabarella’s most original contribution is his work in semantics, “Opera logica.” Zabarella regards semantics as a preliminary study that provides the tools necessary for philosophical analysis. Two such tools are what Zabarella calls “order” (cf. Grice, ‘be orderly’). Another tool is what Zabarella calls “ method.” Order teaches us how to organize the content of a discipline to apprehend it more easily. Method teaches us how to draw a syllogistic inference. Zabarella reduces the varieties of orders and methods classified by other interpreters to compositive order, and resolutive order, and composite method and and resolutive method. The compositive order from a principle to this or that corollary applies to this or that speculative, alethic or theoretical discipline. The ‘resolutive’ order, from a desired end to the means appropriate to its achievement applies to this or that practical discipline, such as ‘pragmatics’ understood as a manual of rules of etiquette. This much is already in Aristotle. However, Zabarella offers an original analysis of ‘method.’ The compositive method infers a particular consequence or corollary from a ‘generic’ principle. The ‘resolutive’ method INFERS an originating gneric principle from this or that particular consequence, corollary, or instantiantion, as in inductive reasoning or in reasoning from effect to cause. Zabarella’s terminology influenced Galileo’s mechanics, and has been applied to Grice’s inference of the principle of conversational co-operation out from the only evidence which Grice has, which is this or that ‘dyadic’ exchange, as he calls it. In Grice’s case, his corpus is intentionally limited to conversations between two philosophers: A: What’s that? B: A pillar box? A: What colour is it? B: Seems red to me. From such an exchange, Grice infers the principle of conversational co-operation. It clashes when a cancellation (or as Grice prefers, an annulation) is on sight: “I surely don’t mean to imply that it MIGHT actually be red.” “Then why be so guarded? I thought you were cooperating.”H. P. Grice. “We can regard Jacopo as an Aristotelian philosopher who taught at the  of Padua. He wrote extensive commentaries on Aristotle’s Physics and On the Soul and also discussed other interpreters such as Averroes. However, his most original contribution was his work in logic, Opera logica 1578. Zabarella regards logic as a preliminary study that provides the tools necessary for philosophical analysis. Two such tools are order and method: order teaches us how to organize the content of a discipline to apprehend it more easily; method teaches us how to draw syllogistic inferences. Zabarella reduces the varieties of orders and methods classified by other interpreters to compositive and resolutive orders and methods. The compositive order from first principles to their consequences applies to theoretical disciplines. The resolutive order from a desired end to means appropriate to its achievement applies to practical disciplines. This much was already in Aristotle. Zabarella offers an original analysis of method. The compositive method infers particular consequences from general principles. The resolutive method infers originating principles from particular consequences, as in inductive reasoning or in reasoning from effect to cause. It has been suggested that Zabarella’s terminology might have influenced Galileo’s mechanics. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Zabarella,” Speranza, “Grice and Zabarella,” Villa Grice.

zeigarnik effect: ‘Conversation as a compete task and the Zeigmaik effect’ -- H. P. Grice. the selective recall of uncompleted tasks in comparison to completed tasks. The effect was named for Bluma Zeigarnik, a student of K. Lewin, who discovered it and described it in a paper published in the Psychologische Forschung in 7. Subjects received an array of short tasks, such as counting backward and stringing beads, for rapid completion. Performance on half of these was interrupted. Subsequent recall for the tasks favored the interrupted tasks. Zeigarnik concluded that recall is influenced by motivation and not merely associational strength. The effect was thought relevant to Freud’s claim that unfulfilled wishes are persistent. Lewin attempted to derive the effect from field theory, suggesting that an attempt to reach a goal creates a tension released only when that goal is reached; interruption of the attempt produces a tension favoring recall. Conditions affecting the Zeigarnik effect are incompletely understood, as is its significance. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Conversation as a complete task and the Zeigmarnik effect.” BANC

zettel: Grice entitled his further notes on logic and conversation, “zettel” – “What’s good enough for Vitters is good enough for me.” Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Conversation: Zettel,” BANC.

zoroastro: the founder of so-called ‘zoroastrianism.’ H. P. Grice wrote, “Thus Implicated Zarahustra,” the national religion of ancient Iran. Zoroastrianism suffered a steep decline after the seventh century A.D. because of conversion to Islam. Of a remnant of roughly 100,000 adherents today, three-fourths are Parsis “Persians” in or from western India; the others are Iranian Zoroastrians. The tradition is identified with its prophet; his name in Persian, Zarathushtra, is preserved in G. and Griceian, but the ancient Grecian rendering of that name, Zoroaster, is the form used in most other modern European languages. Zoroaster’s hymns to Ahura Mazda “the Wise Lord”, called the Gathas, are interspersed among ritual hymns to other divine powers in the collection known as the Avesta. In them, Zoroaster seeks reassurance that good will ultimately triumph over evil and that Ahura Mazda will be a protector to him in his prophetic mission. The Gathas expect that humans, by aligning themselves with the force of righteousness and against evil, will receive bliss and benefit in the next existence. The dating of the texts and of the prophet himself is an elusive matter for scholars, but it is clear that Zoroaster lived somewhere in Iran sometime prior to the emergence of the Achaemenid empire in the sixth century B.C. His own faith in Ahura Mazda, reflected in the Gathas, came to be integrated with other strains of old Indo-Iranian religion. We see these in the Avesta’s hymns and the religion’s ritual practices. They venerate an array of Iranian divine powers that resemble in function the deities found in the Vedas of India. A common Indo-Iranian heritage is indicated conclusively by similarities of language and of content between the Avesta and the Vedas. Classical Zoroastrian orthodoxy does not replace the Indo-Iranian divinities with Ahura Mazda, but instead incorporates them into its thinking more or less as Ahura Mazda’s agents. The Achaemenid kings from the sixth through the fourth centuries B.C. mention Ahura Mazda in their inscriptions, but not Zoroaster. The Parthians, from the third century B.C. to the third century A.D., highlighted Mithra among the Indo-Iranian pantheon. But it was under the Sasanians, who ruled Iran from the third to the seventh centuries, that Zoroastrianism became the established religion. A salient doctrine is the teaching concerning the struggle between good and evil. The time frame from the world’s creation to the final resolution or judgment finds the Wise Lord, Ahura Mazda or Ohrmazd, in the Pahlavi language of Sasanian times, locked in a struggle with the evil spirit, Angra Mainyu in Pahlavi, Ahriman. The teaching expands on an implication in the text of the Gathas, particularly Yasna 30, that the good and evil spirits, coming together in the beginning and establishing the living and inanimate realms, determined that at the end benefit would accrue to the righteous but not the wicked. In Sasanian times, there was speculative concern to assert Ahura Mazda’s infinity, omnipotence, and omniscience, qualities that may indicate an impact of Mediterranean philosophy. For example, the Bundahishn, a Pahlavi cosmological and eschatological narrative, portrays Ahura Mazda as infinite in all four compass directions but the evil spirit as limited in one and therefore doomed to ultimate defeat. Such doctrine has been termed by some dualistic, in that it has at least in Sasanian times seen the power of God rivaled by that of an evil spirit. Zoroastrians today assert that they are monotheists, and do not worship the evil spirit. But to the extent that the characterization may hold historically, Zoroastrianism has manifested an “ethical” dualism, of good and evil forces. Although capable of ritual pollution through waste products and decay, the physical world, God’s creation, remains potentially morally good. Contrast “ontological” dualism, as in gnostic and Manichaean teaching, where the physical world itself is the result of the fall or entrapment of spirit in matter. In the nineteenth century, Zoroastrian texts newly accessible to Europe produced an awareness of the prophet’s concern for ethical matters. Nietzsche’s values in his work Thus Spake Zarathustra, however, are his own, not those of the ancient prophet. The title is arresting, but the connection of Nietzsche with historical Zoroastrianism is a connection in theme only, in that the work advances ideas about good and evil in an oracular style. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Nietzsche’s implicatura,” BANC.

zweckrationalität: “I chose this to be one of the last entries in my dictionary!” -- Grice: “What I like about Weber’s ‘zweckrationalitaet’ is that it’s one of the latter items in my dictionary!” -- Grice: “I’m slightly confused by Weber, who was hardly a philosopher, and his use of ‘zweck,’ – which Kant would have disliked. H. P. Grice used the vernacular here, since he found it tricky to look for the Oxonian for ‘Zweck.’ As he was reading Weber, Grice realises that one of the main theoretical goals of Weber’s work is to understand how a social process (such as a conversation, seen as a two-player game) become “rationalized,” taking up certain themes of philosophy of history since Hegel as part of social theory. Conversation, as part of culture, e.g., becomes ‘rationalised’ in the process of the “disenchantment of a world views” in the West, a process that Weber thinks has “universal significance.” But because of his goal-oriented theory of action and his non-cognitivism in ethics, Weber sees rationalization, like Grice, and unlike, say, Habermas, exclusively in terms of the spread of purposive, or MEANS–ends rationality (“Zweckrationalität”). Rational action means choosing the most effective MEANS of achieving one’s goals and implies judging the consequences of one’s actions and choices. In contrast, value rationality (“Wertrationalität,” that Grice translates as ‘worth-rationality’) consists of any action oriented to this or that ultimate END, where considerations of consequences are irrelevant. Although such action is rational insofar as it directs and organises human conduct, the choice of this or that end, or this or that value itself cannot be, for Weber, unlike Grice, a matter for rational or scientific judgment. Indeed, for Weber this means that politics is the sphere for the struggle between at least two of this or that irreducibly competing ultimate end, where “gods and demons fight it out” and charismatic leaders invent new gods and values. Grice tries to look for a way to give a criterion of rationality other than the ‘common-or-garden’ means-end variety. When it comes to conversation, see, Speranza, “The feast of [conversational] reason – Grice’s Conversational immanuel – three steps towards a critique of conversational reason.” Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Conversational rationality,” in The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley.

References

Following the tradition of H. P. Grice’s Playgroup, only Oxonian English-born male philosophers of Grice’s generation listed)

Austin, J. L. Philosophical papers, edited by J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Austin, J. L. Sense and sensibilia, reconstructed from manuscript notes by G. J. Warnock. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Austin, J. L. How to do things with words, ed. by J. O. Urmson. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Blackburn, S. W. Spreading the word. Oxford.

Bostock, D. Logic.

Flew, A. G. N. Logic and language. Oxford: Blackwell.

Grice, H. P. Studies in the Way of Words

Grice, H. P. Negation and privation

Grice, H. P. The conception of value. Oxford, at the Clarendon Press.

Grice, H. P. Aspects of reason, Oxford, at the Clarendon Press.

Grice, H. P., D. F. Pears, and P. F. Strawson, ‘Metaphysics,’ in D. F. Pears, The nature of metaphysics. London: Macmillan.

Hampshire, S. N. Thought and action. London: Chatto and Windus.

Hampshire, S. N. and H. L. A. Hart, Intention, decision, and certainty. Mind.

Hare, R. M. The language of morals. Oxford, at the Clarendon Press.

Hart, H. L. A. Review of Holloway, The Philosophical Quarterly

Nowell-Smith, P. H. Ethics. Middlesex: Penguin

Pears, D. F. Philosophical psychology. London: Duckworth.

Pears, D. F. Motivated irrationality.

Pears, D. F. and H. P. Grice, The philosophy of action.

Speranza, Minutes of H. P. Grice’s Play-Group – The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

Strawson, P. F. Introduction to Logical Theory.

Strawson, P. F. Logico-Linguistic Papers.

Strawson, P. F. and H. P. Grice, In defense of a dogma.

Strawson, P. F. and H. P. Grice, Categories

Strawson, P. F. and H. P. Grice, Meaning.

Thomson, J. F. and H. P. Grice, The philosophy of action.

Urmson, J. O. Philosophical Analysis: its development between the two wars.

Warnock, G. J. The object of morality

Warnock, G. J. Language and Morals

Woozley, A. D. On H. P. Grice. – A. M. G. is Anna Maria Ghersi – Ghersi instilled and keeps instilling – never ceases to instill -- in Luigi Speranza a love for philosophy.