civil
disobedience: explored by H. P. Grice
in his analysis of moral vs. legal right -- a deliberate violation of the law,
committed in order to draw attention to or rectify perceived injustices in the
law or policies of a state. Illustrative questions raised by the topic include:
how are such acts justified, how should the legal system respond to such acts
when justified, and must such acts be done publicly, nonviolently, and/or with
a willingness to accept attendant legal sanctions?
clarke: s. Grice
analyses Clark’s proof of the existence of God in “Aspects of reasoning” --
English philosopher, preacher, and theologian. Born in Norwich, he was educated
at Cambridge, where he came under the influence of Newton. Upon graduation
Clarke entered the established church, serving for a time as chaplain to Queen
Anne. He spent the last twenty years of his life as rector of St. James,
Westminster. Clarke wrote extensively on controversial theological and
philosophical issues the nature of space
and time, proofs of the existence of God, the doctrine of the Trinity, the
incorporeality and natural immortality of the soul, freedom of the will, the
nature of morality, etc. His most philosophical works are his Boyle lectures of
1704 and 1705, in which he developed a forceful version of the cosmological
argument for the existence and nature of God and attacked the views of Hobbes,
Spinoza, and some proponents of deism; his correspondence with Leibniz 171516,
in which he defended Newton’s views of space and time and charged Leibniz with
holding views inconsistent with free will; and his writings against Anthony
Collins, in which he defended a libertarian view of the agent as the
undetermined cause of free actions and attacked Collins’s arguments for a
materialistic view of the mind. In these works Clarke maintains a position of
extreme rationalism, contending that the existence and nature of God can be
conclusively demonstrated, that the basic principles of morality are
necessarily true and immediately knowable, and that the existence of a future
state of rewards and punishments is assured by our knowledge that God will
reward the morally just and punish the morally wicked.
class: the class for those philosophers whose class have no
members -- a term sometimes used as a synonym for ‘set’. When the two are
distinguished, a class is understood as a collection in the logical sense,
i.e., as the extension of a concept e.g. the class of red objects. By contrast,
sets, i.e., collections in the mathematical sense, are understood as occurring
in stages, where each stage consists of the sets that can be formed from the
non-sets and the sets already formed at previous stages. When a set is formed
at a given stage, only the non-sets and the previously formed sets are even
candidates for membership, but absolutely anything can gain membership in a
class simply by falling under the appropriate concept. Thus, it is classes, not
sets, that figure in the inconsistent principle of unlimited comprehension. In
set theory, proper classes are collections of sets that are never formed at any
stage, e.g., the class of all sets since new sets are formed at each stage,
there is no stage at which all sets are available to be collected into a set.
clemens: formative teacher in the early Christian church who,
as a “Christian gnostic,” combined enthusiasm for Grecian philosophy with a
defense of the church’s faith. He espoused spiritual and intellectual ascent
toward that complete but hidden knowledge or gnosis reserved for the truly
enlightened. Clement’s school did not practice strict fidelity to the
authorities, and possibly the teachings, of the institutional church, drawing
upon the Hellenistic traditions of Alexandria, including Philo and Middle
Platonism. As with the law among the Jews, so, for Clement, philosophy among
the pagans was a pedagogical preparation for Christ, in whom logos, reason, had
become enfleshed. Philosophers now should rise above their inferior
understanding to the perfect knowledge revealed in Christ. Though hostile to gnosticism
and its speculations, Clement was thoroughly Hellenized in outlook and
sometimes guilty of Docetism, not least in his reluctance to concede the utter
humanness of Jesus.
Clifford: Grice was attracted to Clifford’s idea of the ‘ethics
of belief,’ -- philosopher. Educated at King’s , London, and Trinity ,
Cambridge, he began giving public lectures in 1868, when he was appointed a
fellow of Trinity, and in 1870 became professor of applied mathematics at , London. His academic career ended
prematurely when he died of tuberculosis. Clifford is best known for his
rigorous view on the relation between belief and evidence, which, in “The
Ethics of Belief,” he summarized thus: “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for
anyone, to believe anything on insufficient evidence.” He gives this example.
Imagine a shipowner who sends to sea an emigrant ship, although the evidence
raises strong suspicions as to the vessel’s seaworthiness. Ignoring this
evidence, he convinces himself that the ship’s condition is good enough and,
after it sinks and all the passengers die, collects his insurance money without
a trace of guilt. Clifford maintains that the owner had no right to believe in
the soundness of the ship. “He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning
it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts.” The right Clifford is
alluding to is moral, for what one believes is not a private but a public
affair and may have grave consequences for others. He regards us as morally
obliged to investigate the evidence thoroughly on any occasion, and to withhold
belief if evidential support is lacking. This obligation must be fulfilled
however trivial and insignificant a belief may seem, for a violation of it may
“leave its stamp upon our character forever.” Clifford thus rejected
Catholicism, to which he had subscribed originally, and became an agnostic.
James’s famous essay “The Will to Believe” criticizes Clifford’s view.
According to James, insufficient evidence need not stand in the way of
religious belief, for we have a right to hold beliefs that go beyond the
evidence provided they serve the pursuit of a legitimate goal.
closure – Grice:
The etymology is convoluted: claudere --- cfr. clausura. Griceian anti-sneak
closure: a set of objects, O, is said
to exhibit closure or to be closed under a given operation, R, provided that
for every object, x, if x is a member of O and x is R-related to any object, y,
then y is a member of O. For example, the set of propositions is closed under
deduction, for if p is a proposition and p entails q, i.e., q is deducible from
p, then q is a proposition simply because only propositions can be entailed by
propositions. In addition, many subsets of the set of propositions are also
closed under deduction. For example, the set of true propositions is closed
under deduction or entailment. Others are not. Under most accounts of belief,
we may fail to believe what is entailed by what we do, in fact, believe. Thus,
if knowledge is some form of true, justified belief, knowledge is not closed
under deduction, for we may fail to believe a proposition entailed by a known
proposition. Nevertheless, there is a related issue that has been the subject
of much debate, namely: Is the set of justified propositions closed under
deduction? Aside from the obvious importance of the answer to that question in
developing an account of justification, there are two important issues in
epistemology that also depend on the answer. Subtleties aside, the so-called
Gettier problem depends in large part upon an affirmative answer to that
question. For, assuming that a proposition can be justified and false, it is
possible to construct cases in which a proposition, say p, is justified, false,
but believed. Now, consider a true proposition, q, which is believed and entailed
by p. If justification is closed under deduction, then q is justified, true,
and believed. But if the only basis for believing q is p, it is clear that q is
not known. Thus, true, justified belief is not sufficient for knowledge. What
response is appropriate to this problem has been a central issue in
epistemology since E. Gettier’s publication of “Is Justified True Belief
Knowledge?” Analysis, 3. Whether justification is closed under deduction is
also crucial when evaluating a common, traditional argument for skepticism.
Consider any person, S, and let p be any proposition ordinarily thought to be
knowable, e.g., that there is a table before S. The argument for skepticism
goes like this: 1 If p is justified for S, then, since p entails q, where q is
‘there is no evil genius making S falsely believe that p’, q is justified for
S. 2 S is not justified in believing q. Therefore, S is not justified in
believing p. The first premise depends upon justification being closed under
deduction.
cockburn: c. English philosopher and playwright who made a
significant contribution to the debates on ethical rationalism sparked by Clarke’s
Boyle lectures. The major theme of her writings is the nature of moral
obligation. Cockburn displays a consistent, non-doctrinaire philosophical
position, arguing that moral duty is to be rationally deduced from the “nature
and fitness of things” Remarks, 1747 and is not founded primarily in externally
imposed sanctions. Her writings, published anonymously, take the form of philosophical
debates with others, including Samuel Rutherforth, William Warburton, Isaac
Watts, Francis Hutcheson, and Lord Shaftesbury. Her best-known intervention in
contemporary philosophical debate was her able defense of Locke’s Essay in
1702.
cogitatum -- cogito
ergo sum – Example given by Grice of
Descartes’s conventional implicaturum. “What Descartes said was, “je pense;
donc, j’existe.” The ‘donc’ implicaturum is an interesting one to analyse. cited
by Grice in “Descartes on clear and distinct perception.” ‘I think, therefore I
am’, the starting point of Descartes’s system of knowledge. In his Discourse on
the Method 1637, he observes that the proposition ‘I am thinking, therefore I
exist’ je pense, donc je suis is “so firm and sure that the most extravagant
suppositions of the skeptics were incapable of shaking it.” The celebrated
phrase, in its better-known Latin version, also occurs in the Principles of
Philosophy 1644, but is not to be found in the Meditations 1641, though the
latter contains the fullest statement of the reasoning behind Descartes’s
certainty of his own existence.
cognitum –
incognitum --
cohaesum- cohaerence – Grice: “All Roman words starting with co- are a
trick. haerĕo , haesi, haesum, 2, v. n. etym. dub.,
I.to hang or hold fast, to hang, stick, cleave, cling, adhere, be fixed, sit
fast, remain close to any thing or in any manner (class. and very freq., esp.
in the trop. sense; cf. pendeo); usually constr. with in, the simple abl. or
absol., less freq. with dat., with ad, sub, ex, etc. since H. P. Grice
was a correspondentist, he hated Bradley. --
theory of truth, the view that either the nature of truth or the sole
criterion for determining truth is constituted by a relation of coherence
between the belief or judgment being assessed and other beliefs or judgments.
As a view of the nature of truth, the coherence theory represents an
alternative to the correspondence theory of truth. Whereas the correspondence
theory holds that a belief is true provided it corresponds to independent
reality, the coherence theory holds that it is true provided it stands in a
suitably strong relation of coherence to other beliefs, so that the believer’s
total system of beliefs forms a highly or perhaps perfectly coherent system.
Since, on such a characterization, truth depends entirely on the internal
relations within the system of beliefs, such a conception of truth seems to
lead at once to idealism as regards the nature of reality, and its main
advocates have been proponents of absolute idealism mainly Bradley, Bosanquet,
and Brand Blanshard. A less explicitly metaphysical version of the coherence
theory was also held by certain members of the school of logical positivism
mainly Otto Neurath and Carl Hempel. The nature of the intended relation of
coherence, often characterized metaphorically in terms of the beliefs in
question fitting together or dovetailing with each other, has been and
continues to be a matter of uncertainty and controversy. Despite occasional
misconceptions to the contrary, it is clear that coherence is intended to be a
substantially more demanding relation than mere consistency, involving such
things as inferential and explanatory relations within the system of beliefs.
Perfect or ideal coherence is sometimes described as requiring that every
belief in the system of beliefs entails all the others though it must be
remembered that those offering such a characterization do not restrict
entailments to those that are formal or analytic in character. Since actual
human systems of belief seem inevitably to fall short of perfect coherence,
however that is understood, their truth is usually held to be only approximate
at best, thus leading to the absolute idealist view that truth admits of
degrees. As a view of the criterion of truth, the coherence theory of truth
holds that the sole criterion or standard for determining whether a belief is
true is its coherence with other beliefs or judgments, with the degree of
justification varying with the degree of coherence. Such a view amounts to a
coherence theory of epistemic justification. It was held by most of the
proponents of the coherence theory of the nature of truth, though usually
without distinguishing the two views very clearly. For philosophers who hold
both of these views, the thesis that coherence is the sole criterion of truth
is usually logically prior, and the coherence theory of the nature of truth is
adopted as a consequence, the clearest argument being that only the view that
perfect or ideal coherence is the nature of truth can make sense of the appeal
to degrees of coherence as a criterion of truth. -- coherentism, in epistemology, a theory of
the structure of knowledge or justified beliefs according to which all beliefs
representing knowledge are known or justified in virtue of their relations to
other beliefs, specifically, in virtue of belonging to a coherent system of
beliefs. Assuming that the orthodox account of knowledge is correct at least in
maintaining that justified true belief is necessary for knowledge, we can
identify two kinds of coherence theories of knowledge: those that are
coherentist merely in virtue of incorporating a coherence theory of
justification, and those that are doubly coherentist because they account for
both justification and truth in terms of coherence. What follows will focus on
coherence theories of justification. Historically, coherentism is the most
significant alternative to foundationalism. The latter holds that some beliefs,
basic or foundational beliefs, are justified apart from their relations to
other beliefs, while all other beliefs derive their justification from that of
foundational beliefs. Foundationalism portrays justification as having a
structure like that of a building, with certain beliefs serving as the
foundations and all other beliefs supported by them. Coherentism rejects this
image and pictures justification as having the structure of a raft. Justified
beliefs, like the planks that make up a raft, mutually support one another.
This picture of the coherence theory is due to the positivist Otto Neurath.
Among the positivists, Hempel shared Neurath’s sympathy for coherentism. Other
defenders of coherentism from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
were idealists, e.g., Bradley, Bosanquet, and Brand Blanshard. Idealists often
held the sort of double coherence theory mentioned above. The contrast between
foundationalism and coherentism is commonly developed in terms of the regress
argument. If we are asked what justifies one of our beliefs, we
characteristically answer by citing some other belief that supports it, e.g.,
logically or probabilistically. If we are asked about this second belief, we
are likely to cite a third belief, and so on. There are three shapes such an
evidential chain might have: it could go on forever, if could eventually end in
some belief, or it could loop back upon itself, i.e., eventually contain again
a belief that had occurred “higher up” on the chain. Assuming that infinite
chains are not really possible, we are left with a choice between chains that
end and circular chains. According to foundationalists, evidential chains must
eventually end with a foundational belief that is justified, if the belief at
the beginning of the chain is to be justified. Coherentists are then portrayed
as holding that circular chains can yield justified beliefs. This portrayal is,
in a way, correct. But it is also misleading since it suggests that the
disagreement between coherentism and foundationalism is best understood as
concerning only the structure of evidential chains. Talk of evidential chains
in which beliefs that are further down on the chain are responsible for beliefs
that are higher up naturally suggests the idea that just as real chains transfer
forces, evidential chains transfer justification. Foundationalism then sounds
like a real possibility. Foundational beliefs already have justification, and
evidential chains serve to pass the justification along to other beliefs. But
coherentism seems to be a nonstarter, for if no belief in the chain is
justified to begin with, there is nothing to pass along. Altering the metaphor,
we might say that coherentism seems about as likely to succeed as a bucket
brigade that does not end at a well, but simply moves around in a circle. The
coherentist seeks to dispel this appearance by pointing out that the primary
function of evidential chains is not to transfer epistemic status, such as
justification, from belief to belief. Indeed, beliefs are not the primary locus
of justification. Rather, it is whole systems of belief that are justified or
not in the primary sense; individual beliefs are justified in virtue of their
membership in an appropriately structured system of beliefs. Accordingly, what
the coherentist claims is that the appropriate sorts of evidential chains,
which will be circular indeed, will
likely contain numerous circles
constitute justified systems of belief. The individual beliefs within
such a system are themselves justified in virtue of their place in the entire
system and not because this status is passed on to them from beliefs further
down some evidential chain in which they figure. One can, therefore, view
coherentism with considerable accuracy as a version of foundationalism that
holds all beliefs to be foundational. From this perspective, the difference
between coherentism and traditional foundationalism has to do with what
accounts for the epistemic status of foundational beliefs, with traditional
foundationalism holding that such beliefs can be justified in various ways,
e.g., by perception or reason, while coherentism insists that the only way such
beliefs can be justified is by being a member of an appropriately structured
system of beliefs. One outstanding problem the coherentist faces is to specify
exactly what constitutes a coherent system of beliefs. Coherence clearly must
involve much more than mere absence of mutually contradictory beliefs. One way
in which beliefs can be logically consistent is by concerning completely
unrelated matters, but such a consistent system of beliefs would not embody the
sort of mutual support that constitutes the core idea of coherentism. Moreover,
one might question whether logical consistency is even necessary for coherence,
e.g., on the basis of the preface paradox. Similar points can be made regarding
efforts to begin an account of coherence with the idea that beliefs and degrees
of belief must correspond to the probability calculus. So although it is
difficult to avoid thinking that such formal features as logical and
probabilistic consistency are significantly involved in coherence, it is not
clear exactly how they are involved. An account of coherence can be drawn more
directly from the following intuitive idea: a coherent system of belief is one in
which each belief is epistemically supported by the others, where various types
of epistemic support are recognized, e.g., deductive or inductive arguments, or
inferences to the best explanation. There are, however, at least two problems
this suggestion does not address. First, since very small sets of beliefs can
be mutually supporting, the coherentist needs to say something about the scope
a system of beliefs must have to exhibit the sort of coherence required for
justification. Second, given the possibility of small sets of mutually
supportive beliefs, it is apparently possible to build a system of very broad
scope out of such small sets of mutually supportive beliefs by mere
conjunction, i.e., without forging any significant support relations among them.
Yet, since the interrelatedness of all truths does not seem discoverable by
analyzing the concept of justification, the coherentist cannot rule out
epistemically isolated subsystems of belief entirely. So the coherentist must
say what sorts of isolated subsystems of belief are compatible with coherence.
The difficulties involved in specifying a more precise concept of coherence
should not be pressed too vigorously against the coherentist. For one thing,
most foundationalists have been forced to grant coherence a significant role
within their accounts of justification, so no dialectical advantage can be
gained by pressing them. Moreover, only a little reflection is needed to see
that nearly all the difficulties involved in specifying coherence are manifestations
within a specific context of quite general philosophical problems concerning
such matters as induction, explanation, theory choice, the nature of epistemic
support, etc. They are, then, problems that are faced by logicians,
philosophers of science, and epistemologists quite generally, regardless of
whether they are sympathetic to coherentism. Coherentism faces a number of
serious objections. Since according to coherentism justification is determined
solely by the relations among beliefs, it does not seem to be capable of taking
us outside the circle of our beliefs. This fact gives rise to complaints that
coherentism cannot allow for any input from external reality, e.g., via
perception, and that it can neither guarantee nor even claim that it is likely
that coherent systems of belief will make contact with such reality or contain
true beliefs. And while it is widely granted that justified false beliefs are
possible, it is just as widely accepted that there is an important connection
between justification and truth, a connection that rules out accounts according
to which justification is not truth-conducive. These abstractly formulated
complaints can be made more vivid, in the case of the former, by imagining a
person with a coherent system of beliefs that becomes frozen, and fails to
change in the face of ongoing sensory experience; and in the case of the
latter, by pointing out that, barring an unexpected account of coherence, it
seems that a wide variety of coherent systems of belief are possible, systems
that are largely disjoint or even incompatible.
collier: Grice found the Clavis Universalis quite fun (“to
read”). -- English philosopher, a Wiltshire parish priest whose Clavis
Universalis defends a version of immaterialism closely akin to Berkeley’s.
Matter, Collier contends, “exists in, or in dependence on mind.” He
emphatically affirms the existence of bodies, and, like Berkeley, defends
immaterialCoimbra commentaries Collier, Arthur 155 155 ism as the only alternative to
skepticism. Collier grants that bodies seem to be external, but their
“quasi-externeity” is only the effect of God’s will. In Part I of the Clavis
Collier argues as Berkeley had in his New Theory of Vision, 1709 that the
visible world is not external. In Part II he argues as Berkeley had in the
Principles, 1710, and Three Dialogues, 1713 that the external world “is a being
utterly impossible.” Two of Collier’s arguments for the “intrinsic repugnancy”
of the external world resemble Kant’s first and second antinomies. Collier argues,
e.g., that the material world is both finite and infinite; the contradiction
can be avoided, he suggests, only by denying its external existence. Some
scholars suspect that Collier deliberately concealed his debt to Berkeley; most
accept his report that he arrived at his views ten years before he published
them. Collier first refers to Berkeley in letters written in 171415. In A
Specimen of True Philosophy 1730, where he offers an immaterialist
interpretation of the opening verse of Genesis, Collier writes that “except a
single passage or two” in Berkeley’s Dialogues, there is no other book “which I
ever heard of” on the same subject as the Clavis. This is a puzzling remark on
several counts, one being that in the Preface to the Dialogues, Berkeley describes
his earlier books. Collier’s biographer reports seeing among his papers now
lost an outline, dated 1708, on “the question of the visible world being
without us or not,” but he says no more about it. The biographer concludes that
Collier’s independence cannot reasonably be doubted; perhaps the outline would,
if unearthed, establish this.
collingwood: r. g.— Grice: “The most Italian of English Oxonians!
He loved Gentile, Croce, and de Ruggiero!” – Grice: “I would not count
Collingwood as a philosopher, really, since his tutor was Carritt!” -- cited by
H. P. Grice in “Metaphysics,” in D. F. Pears, “The nature of metaphysics.” –
Like Grice, Collingwood was influenced by J. C. Wilson’s subordinate
interrogation. English philosopher and historian. His father, W. G.
Collingwood, John Ruskin’s friend, secretary, and biographer, at first educated
him at home in Coniston and later sent him to Rugby School and then Oxford.
Immediately upon graduating in 2, he was elected to a fellowship at Pembroke ;
except for service with admiralty intelligence during World War I, he remained
at Oxford until 1, when illness compelled him to retire. Although his
Autobiography expresses strong disapproval of the lines on which, during his
lifetime, philosophy at Oxford developed, he was a varsity “insider.” He was
elected to the Waynflete Professorship, the first to become vacant after he had
done enough work to be a serious candidate. He was also a leading archaeologist
of Roman Britain. Although as a student Collingwood was deeply influenced by
the “realist” teaching of John Cook Wilson, he studied not only the British
idealists, but also Hegel and the contemporary
post-Hegelians. At twenty-three, he published a translation of Croce’s
book on Vico’s philosophy. Religion and Philosophy 6, the first of his attempts
to present orthodox Christianity as philosophically acceptable, has both
idealist and Cook Wilsonian elements. Thereafter the Cook Wilsonian element
steadily diminished. In Speculum Mentis4, he investigated the nature and
ultimate unity of the four special ‘forms of experience’ art, religion, natural science, and
history and their relation to a fifth
comprehensive form philosophy. While all
four, he contended, are necessary to a full human life now, each is a form of error
that is corrected by its less erroneous successor. Philosophy is error-free but
has no content of its own: “The truth is not some perfect system of philosophy:
it is simply the way in which all systems, however perfect, collapse into
nothingness on the discovery that they are only systems.” Some critics
dismissed this enterprise as idealist a description Collingwood accepted when
he wrote, but even those who favored it were disturbed by the apparent
skepticism of its result. A year later, he amplified his views about art in
Outlines of a Philosophy of Art. Since much of what Collingwood went on to
write about philosophy has never been published, and some of it has been
negligently destroyed, his thought after Speculum Mentis is hard to trace. It
will not be definitively established until the more than 3,000 s of his
surviving unpublished manuscripts deposited in the Bodleian Library in 8 have
been thoroughly studied. They were not available to the scholars who published
studies of his philosophy as a whole up to 0. Three trends in how his
philosophy developed, however, are discernible. The first is that as he
continued to investigate the four special forms of experience, he came to
consider each valid in its own right, and not a form of error. As early as 8,
he abandoned the conception of the historical past in Speculum Mentis as simply
a spectacle, alien to the historian’s mind; he now proposed a theory of it as
thoughts explaining past actions that, although occurring in the past, can be
rethought in the present. Not only can the identical thought “enacted” at a
definite time in the past be “reenacted” any number of times after, but it can
be known to be so reenacted if colligation physical evidence survives that can
be shown to be incompatible with other proposed reenactments. In 334 he wrote a
series of lectures posthumously published as The Idea of Nature in which he
renounced his skepticism about whether the quantitative material world can be
known, and inquired why the three constructive periods he recognized in
European scientific thought, the Grecian, the Renaissance, and the modern,
could each advance our knowledge of it as they did. Finally, in 7, returning to
the philosophy of art and taking full account of Croce’s later work, he showed
that imagination expresses emotion and becomes false when it counterfeits
emotion that is not felt; thus he transformed his earlier theory of art as
purely imaginative. His later theories of art and of history remain alive; and
his theory of nature, although corrected by research since his death, was an
advance when published. The second trend was that his conception of philosophy
changed as his treatment of the special forms of experience became less
skeptical. In his beautifully written Essay on Philosophical Method 3, he
argued that philosophy has an object the
ens realissimum as the one, the true, and the good of which the objects of the special forms of
experience are appearances; but that implies what he had ceased to believe,
that the special forms of experience are forms of error. In his Principles of
Art 8 and New Leviathan 2 he denounced the idealist principle of Speculum
Mentis that to abstract is to falsify. Then, in his Essay on Metaphysics 0, he
denied that metaphysics is the science of being qua being, and identified it
with the investigation of the “absolute presuppositions” of the special forms
of experience at definite historical periods. A third trend, which came to
dominate his thought as World War II approached, was to see serious philosophy
as practical, and so as having political implications. He had been, like
Ruskin, a radical Tory, opposed less to liberal or even some socialist measures
than to the bourgeois ethos from which they sprang. Recognizing European
fascism as the barbarism it was, and detesting anti-Semitism, he advocated an
antifascist foreign policy and intervention in the civil war in support of the republic. His
last major publication, The New Leviathan, impressively defends what he called
civilization against what he called barbarism; and although it was neglected by
political theorists after the war was won, the collapse of Communism and the
rise of Islamic states are winning it new readers. Grice: “Collingwood thought of language importantly enough
to dedicate a full seminar at Oxford to it. He entitled it “Language.” The
first section is on “symbol and expression.” Language comes into existence with
imagination, as a feature of experience at the conscious level. . . ‘. . . It
is an imaginative activity whose function is to express emotion. Intel- lectual
language is this same thing intellectualized, or modified so as to express
thought.’ A symbol is established by agreement; but this agreement is
established in a language that already exists. In this way, intellectualized
language ‘presupposes imaginative language or language proper. . . in the
traditional theory of language these relations are reversed, with disastrous
results.’ Children do not learn to speak by being shown things while their
names are uttered; or if they do, it is because (unlike, say, cats) they
already understand the language of pointing and naming. The child may be
accustomed to hearing ‘Hatty off!’ when its bonnet is removed; then the child
may exclaim ‘Hattiaw!’ when it removes its own bonnet and throws it out of the
perambulator. The exclamation is not a symbol, but an expression of
satisfaction at removing the bonnet. The second section is on “Psychical
Expression.” More primitive than linguistic expression is psychical expression:
‘the doing of involuntary and perhaps even wholly unconscious bodily acts [such
as grimac- ing], related in a peculiar way to the emotions [such as pain] they
are said to express.’ A single experience can be analyzed: -- sensum (as an
abdominal gripe), or the field of sensation containing this; ) the emotional
charge on the sensum (as visceral pain); -- the psychical expression (as the
grimace). We can observe and interpret psychical expressions intellectually.
But there is the possibility of emotional contagion, or sympathy, whereby
expressions can also be sensa for others, with their own emotional charges.
Examples are the spread of panic through a crowd, or a dog’s urge to attack the
person who is afraid of it (or the cat that runs from it). Psychical emotions
can be expressed only psychically. But there are emotions of consciousness (as
hatred, love, anger, shame): these are the emotional charges, not on sensa, but
on modes of consciousness, which can be expressed in language or psychically.
Expressed psychically, they have the same analysis as psychical emotions; for
example, -- ‘consciousness of our own
inferiority, ) ‘shame -- ) ‘blushing.’ Shame is not the emotional charge on
the sensa associated with blushing. ‘The common-sense view [that we blush
because we are ashamed] is right, and the James–Lange theory is wrong.’ Emotions
of consciousness can be expressed in two different ways because, more
generally, a ‘higher level [of experience] differs from the lower in having a
new principle of organization; this does not supersede the old, it is
superimposed on it. The lower type of experience is perpetuated in the higher
type’ somewhat as matter is perpetuated, even with a new form. ‘A mode of
consciousness like shame is thus, formally, a mode of consciousness and nothing
else; materially, it is a constellation or synthesis of psychical expe-
riences.’ But consciousness is ‘an activity by which those elements are
combined in this particular way.’ It is not just a new arrangement of those
elements— otherwise the sensa of which shame is the emotional charge would have
been obvious, and the James–Lange theory would not have needed to arise. ‘[E]ach
new level [of experience] must organize itself according to its own principles
before a transition can be made to the next’. Therefore, to move beyond
consciousness to intellect, ‘emotions of consciousness must be formally or
linguistically expressed, not only materially or psychically expressed’. The
third section is on “Imaginative Expression.” Psychical expression is
uncontrollable. At the level of awareness, expressions are experienced ‘as
activities belonging to ourselves and controlled in the same sense as the
emotions they express. ‘Bodily actions expressing certain emotions, insofar as
they come under our control and are conceived by us in our awareness of
controlling them, as our way of expressing these emotions, are language.’ ‘[A]ny
theory of language must begin here.’ The controlled act of expression is
materially the same as psychical expression; the difference is just that it is
done ‘on purpose’. ‘[T]he conversion of impression into idea by the work of
consciousness im- mensely multiplies the emotions that demand expression.’ ‘There
are no unexpressed emotions.’ What are so called are emotions, already
expressed at one level, of which somebody is trying to become conscious. 5From
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James-Lange_theory,
The theory states that within human beings, as a response to experiences in the
world, the autonomic nervous system creates physiological events such as
muscular tension, a rise in heart rate, perspiration, and dryness of the mouth.
Emotions, then, are feelings which come about as a result of these
physiological changes, rather than being their cause. Corresponding to the
series of sensum, emotional charge, psychical expression (as in red color,
fear, start), we have, say, -- ) bonnet removal, ) feeling of triumph, -- cry
of ‘Hattiaw!’ The child imitates the speech of others only when it realizes
that they are speaking. The fourth section is on “Language and Languages.” Language
need not be spoken by the tongue. ‘[T]here is no way of expressing the same
feeling in two different media.’ However, ‘each one of us, whenever he expresses
himself, is doing so with his whole body’, in the ‘original language of total
bodily gesture’—this is the ‘motor side’ of the ‘total imaginative experience’
identified as art proper in Book I. The sixth section is on “Speaker and Hearer.”
A child’s first utterances are not addressed to anybody. But a speaker is
always -- ness does not begin as a mere self-consciousness. . . the
consciousness of our own existence is also consciousness of the existence of’
other persons. These persons could be cats or trees or shadows: as a form of
thought, consciousness can make mistakes [§ .]. In speaking, we do not
exactly communicate an emotion to a listener. To do this would be to cause the
listener to have a similar emotion; but to compare the emotions, we would need
language. The single experience of expressing emotion has two parts: the
emotion, and the controlled bodily action expressing it. This union of idea
with expression can be considered from two points of view: -- ) we can express
what we feel only because we know it; -- ) we know what we feel because we can
express it. ‘The person to whom speech is addressed is already familiar with
this double situation’. He ‘takes what he hears exactly as if it were speech of
his own. . . and this constructs in himself the idea which those words
express.’ But he attributes the idea to the speaker. This does not presuppose
community of language; it is community of language. If the hearer is to
understand the speaker though, he must have enough expe- rience to have the impressions
from which the ideas of the speaker are derived. (Collingwood’s footnote to the
section title is ‘In this section, whatever is said of speech is meant of
language in general.’) conscious of himself as speaking, so he is a also a
listener. The origin of self-consciousness will not be discussed. However,
‘Conscious- However, misunderstanding may be the fault of the speaker, if his
consciousness is corrupt. The seventh section is on Language and Thought: Language
is an activity of thought; but if thought is taken in the narrower sense of
intellect, then language expresses not thought, but emotions. However, these
may be the emotions of a thinker. ‘Everything which imagination presents to
itself is a here, a now’. This might be the song of a thrush in May. One may
imagine, alongside this, the January song of the thrush; but at the level of
imagination, the two songs coalesce into one. By thinking, one may analyze the
song into parts—notes; or one may relate it to things not imagined, such as the
January thrush song that one remembers having heard four months ago at dawn
(though one may not remember the song -- to express any kind of thought (again,
in the narrower sense), language must be adapted. The eighth section is on “The
Grammatical Analysis of Language.” This adaptation of language to the
expression of thought is the function or business of the grammarian. ‘I do not
call it purpose, because he does not propose it to himself as a conscious aim’.
The grammarian analyzes, not the activity of language, but ‘speech’ or
‘discourse’, the supposed product of speech. But this product ‘is a
metaphysical fiction. It is supposed to exist only because the theory of
language is approached from the standpoint of the philosophy of craft. . . what
the grammarian is really doing is to think, not about a product of the activity
of speaking, but about the activity itself, distorted in his thoughts about it
by the assumption that it is not an activity, but a product or “thing”. ‘Next,
this “thing” must be scientifically studied; and this involves a double
process. The first stage of this process is to cut the “thing” up into parts.
Some readers will object to this phrase on the ground that I have used a verb
of acting when I ought to have used a verb of thinking. . . [but] philosophical
controversies are not to be settled by a sort of police-regulation governing
people’s choice of words. . . I meant cut. . àBird songs are wonderful to hear;
but I am not sufficiently familiar with them, or I live in the wrong place, to
be able to recognize seasonal variations in them. Looking for my own examples,
I can remember that, last summer, I became drenched in sweat from walking at
midday in the hills above the Aegean coast, before giving a mathematics
lecture; but I need not remember the feeling of the heat.) itself ). Analyzing
and relating are not the only kinds of thought. The point is that. -- ‘The
final process is to devise a scheme of relations between the parts thus
divided. . . a) ‘Lexicography. Every word, as it actually occurs in discourse,
occurs once and once only. . . Thus we get a new fiction: the recurring word’.
‘Meanings’ of words are established in words, so we get another fiction:
synonymity. b) Accidence. The rules whereby a single word is modified into
dominus, domine, dominum are also ‘palpable fictions; for it is notorious that
excep- tions to them occur’. c) Syntax. ‘A grammarian is not a kind of
scientist studying the actual structure of lan- guage; he is a kind of
butcher’. Idioms are another example of how language resists the grammarian’s
efforts. The ninth section is on The Logical Analysis of Language. Logical
technique aims ‘to make language into a perfect vehicle for the expression of
thought.’ It asssumes ‘that the grammatical transformation of language has been
successfully accomplished.’ It makes three further assumptions:) the
propositional assumption that some ‘sentences’ make statements; ) the
principle of homolingual translation whereby one sentence can mean exactly the
same as another (or group of others) in the same language;) logical
preferability: one sentence may be preferred to another that has the same
meaning. The criterion is not ease of understanding (this is the stylist’s
concern), but ease of manipulation by the logician’s technique to suit his
aims. The logician’s modification of language can to some extent be carried
out; but it tries to pull language apart into two things: language proper, and
symbolism. ‘No serious writer or speaker ever utters a thought unless he thinks
it worth uttering...Nor does he ever utter it except with a choice of words,
and in a tone of voice, that express his sense of this importance.’ The problem
is that written words do not show tone of voice. One is tempted to believe that
scientific discourse is what is written; what is spoken is this and something
else, emotional expression. Good logic would show that the logical structure of
a proposition is not clear from its written form. Good literature is written so
(8Collingwood imaginatively describes Dr. Richards, who writes of Tolstoy’s
view of art, ‘This is plainly untrue’, as if he were a cat shaking a drop of
water from its paw. Dr. Richards is Ivor Armstrong Richards, to whose
Principles of Literary Criticism Collingwood refers; ac- cording to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._A._Richards (accessed
December , ), ‘Richards is regularly considered one of the founders of the
contemporary study of literature in English’.) (In a footnote, Collingwood
mentions an example of Cook Wilson: ‘That building is the Bodleian’ could mean
‘That building is the Bodleian’ or ‘That building is the Bodleian.’ that the
reader cannot help but read it with the right tempo and tone. The proposition,
as a form of words expressing thought and not emotion, is a fictitious entity.
But ‘a second and more difficult thesis’ is that words do not express thought
at all directly; they express the emotional charge on a thought, allowing the
hearer to rediscover the thought ‘whose peculiar emotional tone the speaker has
expressed.’The tenth section is on “Language and Symbolism.” Symbols and
technical terms are invented for unemotional scientific purposes, but they
always acquire emotional expressiveness. ‘Every mathematician knows this.’
Intellectualized language, • as language, expresses emotion, • as symbolism,
has meaning; it points beyond emotion to a thought. ‘The progressive
intellectualization of language, its progressive conversion by the work of
grammar and logic into a scientific symbolism, thus represents not a
progressive drying-up of emotion, but its progressive articulation
and specializa- tion. We are not getting away from an emotional atmosphere into
a dry, rational atmosphere; we are acquiring new emotions and new means of
expressing them.’ Grice: “Collingwood improves on Croce – for one, he makes
Croce understandable at Oxford. Collingwood wants to distinguish between
emotion and expression of emotion. He also speaks of communication of emotion.
The keyword is ‘expression.’ Collingwood distinguishes between uncontrolled
manifestation and controlled manifestation. It is the latter that he dignifies
with the term ‘expression.’ He makes an interesting point about the recipient.
The recipient must be in some degree of familiarty with the emotion expressed
by the utterer that the utterer is ‘communicating.’ To communicate is not
really like ‘transfer.’ It is not THE SAME EMOTION that gets transferred. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Collingwood,” in
“Metaphysics,” in D. F. Pears, The nature of metaphysics. Luigi Speranza, “A
commentary on the language and conversation section of Collingwood’s “The idea
of language.”
colonna
–
e. giles di roma, Rome, original name, a member of the order of the Hermits of
St. Augustine, he studied arts at Augustinian house and theology at the varsity
in Paris but was censured by the theology faculty and denied a license to teach
as tutor. Owing to the intervention of Pope Honorius IV, he later returned from
Italy to Paris to teach theology, was appointed general of his order, and
became archbishop of Bourges. Colonna both defends and criticizes views of
Aquinas. He held that essence and existence are really distinct in creatures,
but described them as “things”; that prime matter cannot exist without some
substantial form; and, early in his career, that an eternally created world is
possible. He defended only one substantial form in composites, including man.
Grice adds: “Colonna supported Pope Boniface VIII in his quarrel with Philip IV
of France – and that was a bad choice.”
commitment: Grice’s commitment to the 39 Articles. An utterer is committed to those and only those
entities to which the bound variables of his utterance must be capable of
referring in order that the utterance made be true.” Cf. Grice on
substitutional quantification for his feeling Byzantine, and ‘gap’ sign in the
analysis.
common-ground status assignment: While Grice was invited to a symposium on ‘mutual
knowledge,’ he never was for ‘regressive accounts’ of ‘know,’ perhaps because
he had to be different, and the idea of the mutual or common knowledge was the
obvious way to deal with his account of communication. He rejects it and opts
for an anti-sneak clause. In the common-ground he uses the phrase, “What the
eye no longer sees, the heart no longer grieves for.” What does he mean? He
means that in the case of some recognizable divergence between the function of
a communication device in a rational calculus and in the vernacular, one may
have to assign ‘common ground status’ to certain features, e. g. [The king of
France is] bald. By using the square brackets, or subscripts, in “Vacuous names
and descriptions,” the material within their scope is ‘immune’ to refutation.
It has some sort of conversational ‘inertia.’ So the divergence, for which
Grice’s heart grieved, is no more to be seen by Grice’s eye. Strwson and
Wiggins view that this is only tentative for Grice. the regulations for
common-ground assignment have to do with general rational constraints on
conversation. Grice is clear in “Causal,” and as Strawson lets us know, he was
already clear in “Introduction” when talking of a ‘pragmatic rule.’ Strawson
states the rule in terms of making your conversational contribution the
logically strongest possible. If we abide
by an imperative of conversational helpfulness, enjoining the maximally giving
and receiving of information and the influencing and being influenced by others
in the institution of a decisions, the sub-imperative follows to the effect,
‘Thou shalt NOT make a weak move compared to the stronger one that thou canst
truthfully make, and with equal or greater economy of means.’“Causal” provides a more difficult version, because it
deals with non-extensional contexts where ‘strong’ need not be interpreted as
‘logical strength’ in terms of entailment. Common ground status assignment
springs from the principle of conversational helpfulness or conversational
benevolence. What would be the benevolent point of ‘informing’ your addressee
what you KNOW your addressee already knows? It is not even CONCEPTUALLY
possible. You are not ‘informing’ him if you are aware that he knows it. So,
what Strawson later calls the principle of presumption of ignorance and the
principle of the presumption of knowledge are relevant. There is a balance
between the two. If Strawson asks Grice, “Is the king of France bald?” Grice is
entitled to assume that Strawson thinks two things Grice will perceive as
having been assigned a ‘common-ground’ status as uncontroversial topic not
worth conversing about. First, Strawson thinks that there is one king. (∃x)Fx. Second, Strawson thinks that there is
at most one king. (x)(y)((Fx.Fy)⊃ x=y). That the king is bald is NOT assigned common-ground
status, because Grice cannot expect that Strawson thinks that Grice KNOWS that.
Grice symbolises the common-ground status by means of subscripts. He also uses
square-bracekts, so that anything within the scope of the square brackets is
immune to controversy, or as Grice also puts it, conversationally _inert_:
things we don’t talk about.
communication device: Grice: “I shall frequently speak of a ‘device,’ because its etymology
is fascinating.” divisare,
frequentative of Latin dividere –
Grice: “So, ultimately, it’s a Platonic notion, since he was into division. The
Romans did not quite need a frequentative for ‘dividere,’ but the Italians did,
and this was passed to the Gallics, and then to the Brits.”Grice always has ‘or
communication devices’ at the tip of his tongue. “Language or communication
devices” (WoW: 284). A device is produced. A device can be misunderstood.
communicatum: With the linguistic turn, as Grice notes, it was all
about ‘language.’ But at Oxford they took a cavalier attitude to language, that
Grice felt like slightly rectifying, while keeping it cavalier as we like it at
Oxford. The colloquialism of ‘mean’ does not translate well in the Graeco-Roman
tradition Grice was educated via his Lit. Hum. (Philos.) and at Clifton.
‘Communicate’ might do. On top, Grice does use ‘communicate’ on various occasions
in WoW. By psi-transmission, something
that belonged in the emissor becomes ‘common property,’ ‘communion’ has been
achived. Now the recipient KNOWS that it is raining (shares the belief with the
emissor) and IS GOING to bring that umbrella (has formed a desire). “Communication”
is cognate with ‘communion,’ while conversation is cognate with ‘sex’! When
Grice hightlights the ‘common ground’ in ‘communication’ he is being slightly
rhetorical, so it is good when he weakens the claim from ‘common ground’ to
‘non-trivial.’ A: I’m going to the concert. My uncle’s brother went to that
concert. The emissor cannot presume that his addressee KNEW that he had an
unlce let alone that his uncle had a brother (the emissor’s father). But any
expansion would trigger the wrong implicaturum. One who likes ‘communication’
is refined Strawson (I’m using refined as J. Barnes does it, “turn Plato into
refined Strawson”). Both in his rat-infested example and at the inaugural
lecture at Oxford. Grice, for one, has given us reason to think that, with
sufficient care, and far greater refinement than I have indicated, it is
possible to expound such a concept of communication-intention or, as he calls
it, utterer's meaning, which is proof against objection. it is a commonplace that Grice belongs, as
most philosophers of the twentieth century, to the movement of the linguistic
turn. Short and Lewis have “commūnĭcare,” earlier “conmunicare,” f. communis,
and thus sharing the prefix with “conversare.” Now “communis” is an interesting
lexeme that Grice uses quite centrally in his idea of the ‘common ground’ –
when a feature of discourse is deemed to have been assigned ‘common-ground
status.’ “Communis” features the “cum-” prefix, commūnis (comoinis); f. “con” and
root “mu-,” to bind; Sanscr. mav-; cf.: immunis, munus, moenia. The
‘communicatum’ (as used by Tammelo in
social philosophy) may well cover what Grice would call the total
‘significatio,’ or ‘significatum.’ Grice takes this seriously. Let us start
then by examining what we mean by ‘linguistic,’ or ‘communication.’ It is
curious that while most Griceians overuse ‘communicative’ as applied to
‘intention,’ Grice does not. Communicator’s intention, at most. This is the
Peirce in Grice’s soul. Meaning provides an excellent springboard for Grice to
centre his analysis on psychological or soul-y verbs as involving the agent and
the first person: smoke only figuratively means fire, and the expression smoke
only figuratively (or metabolically) means that there is fire. It is this or that
utterer (say, Grice) who means, say, by uttering Where theres smoke theres
fire, or ubi fumus, ibi ignis, that where theres smoke theres fire. A
means something by uttering x, an utterance-token is roughly equivalent to
utterer U intends the utterance of x to produce some effect in his addressee A
by means of the recognition of this intention; and we may add that to ask what
U means is to ask for a specification of the intended effect - though, of
course, it may not always be possible to get a straight answer involving a
that-clause, for example, a belief that
He does provide a more specific example involving the that-clause at a
later stage. By uttering x, U means that-ψb-dp ≡ (Ǝφ)(Ǝf)(Ǝc) U
utters x intending x to be such that anyone who
has φ think that x has f, f is correlated in way c
with ψ-ing that p, and (Ǝφ') U intends x to be such
that anyone who has φ' think, via thinking that x has
f and that f is correlated in way c with ψ-ing that p, that U ψ-s that
p, and in view of (Ǝφ') U intending x to be such
that anyone who has φ' think, via thinking that x has
f, and f is correlated in way c with ψ-ing that p, that U ψ-s that
p, U ψ-s that p, and, for some
substituends of ψb-d, U utters x
intending that, should there actually be anyone who
has φ, he will, via thinking in view of (Ǝφ') U
intending x to be such that anyone who has φ' think, via
thinking that x has f, and f is correlated in way c
with ψ-ing that p, that U ψ-s that p, U ψ-s that
p himself ψ that p, and it is not
the case that, for some inference element E, U intends x to be such
that anyone who has φ both rely on E in coming to ψ, or think that U ψ-s, that p and think that (Ǝφ) U intends x to be
such that anyone who has φ come to ψ (or think that U ψ-s) that
p without relying on E. Besides St. John The Baptist, and Salome, Grice
cites few Namess in Meaning. But he makes a point about Stevenson! For
Stevenson, smoke means fire. Meaning develops out of an interest by Grice on
the philosophy of Peirce. In his essays on Peirce, Grice quotes from many other
authors, including, besides Peirce himself (!), Ogden, Richards, and Ewing, or
A. C. Virtue is not a fire-shovel Ewing, as Grice calls him, and this or that
cricketer. In the characteristic Oxonian fashion of a Lit. Hum., Grice has no
intention to submit Meaning to publication. Publishing is vulgar. Bennett,
however, guesses that Grice decides to publish it just a year after his Defence
of a dogma. Bennett’s argument is that Defence of a dogma pre-supposes some
notion of meaning. However, a different story may be told, not necessarily
contradicting Bennetts. It is Strawson who submits the essay by Grice to The
Philosophical Review (henceforth, PR) Strawson attends Grices talk on Meaning
for The Oxford Philosophical Society, and likes it. Since In defence of a dogma
was co-written with Strawson, the intention Bennett ascribes to Grice is
Strawsons. Oddly, Strawson later provides a famous alleged counter-example to
Grice on meaning in Intention and convention in speech acts, following J. O.
Urmson’s earlier attack to the sufficiency of Grices analysans -- which has
Grice dedicating a full James lecture (No. 5) to it. there is Strawsons
rat-infested house for which it is insufficient. An interesting fact,
that confused a few, is that Hart quotes from Grices Meaning in his critical
review of Holloway for The Philosophical Quarterly. Hart quotes Grice
pre-dating the publication of Meaning. Harts point is that Holloway should have
gone to Oxford! In Meaning, Grice may be seen as a practitioner of
ordinary-language philosophy: witness his explorations of the factivity (alla
know, remember, or see) or lack thereof of various uses of to mean. The second
part of the essay, for which he became philosophically especially popular,
takes up an intention-based approach to semantic notions. The only authority
Grice cites, in typical Oxonian fashion, is, via Ogden and Barnes, Stevenson,
who, from The New World (and via Yale, too!) defends an emotivist theory of
ethics, and making a few remarks on how to mean is used, with scare quotes, in
something like a causal account (Smoke means fire.). After its publication
Grices account received almost as many alleged counterexamples as rule-utilitarianism
(Harrison), but mostly outside Oxford, and in The New World. New-World
philosophers seem to have seen Grices attempt as reductionist and as
oversimplifying. At Oxford, the sort of counterexample Grice received, before
Strawson, was of the Urmson-type: refined, and subtle. I think your account
leaves bribery behind. On the other hand, in the New World ‒ in what Grice
calls the Latter-Day School of Nominalism, Quine is having troubles with
empiricism. Meaning was repr. in various collections, notably in Philosophical
Logic, ed. by Strawson. It should be remembered that it is Strawson who has the
thing typed and submitted for publication. Why Meaning should be repr. in a
collection on Philosophical Logic only Strawson knows. But Grice does say that
his account may help clarify the meaning of entails! It may be Strawsons implicaturum
that Parkinson should have repr. (and not merely credited) Meaning by Grice in
his series for Oxford on The theory of meaning. The preferred quotation for Griceians
is of course The Oxford Philosophical Society quote, seeing that Grice recalled
the exact year when he gave the talk for the Philosophical Society at Oxford!
It is however, the publication in The Philosophi, rather than the quieter
evening at the Oxford Philosophical Society, that occasioned a tirade of
alleged counter-examples by New-World philosophers. Granted, one or two
Oxonians ‒ Urmson and Strawson ‒ fell in! Urmson criticises the sufficiency of
Grices account, by introducing an alleged counter-example involving bribery.
Grice will consider a way out of Urmsons alleged counter-example in his fifth
Wiliam James Lecture, rightly crediting and thanking Urmson for this! Strawsons
alleged counter-example was perhaps slightly more serious, if regressive. It also
involves the sufficiency of Grices analysis. Strawsons rat-infested house
alleged counter-example started a chain which required Grice to avoid,
ultimately, any sneaky intention by way of a recursive clause to the effect
that, for utterer U to have meant that p, all meaning-constitutive intentions
should be above board. But why this obsession by Grice with mean? He is being
funny. Spots surely dont mean, only mean.They dont have a mind. Yet Grice opens
with a specific sample. Those spots mean, to the doctor, that you, dear, have
measles. Mean? Yes, dear, mean, doctors orders. Those spots mean measles. But
how does the doctor know? Cannot he be in the wrong? Not really, mean is
factive, dear! Or so Peirce thought. Grice is amazed that Peirce thought that some
meaning is factive. The hole in this piece of cloth means that a bullet went
through is is one of Peirce’s examples. Surely, as Grice notes, this is an
unhappy example. The hole in the cloth may well have caused by something else,
or fabricated. (Or the postmark means that the letter went through the post.)
Yet, Grice was having Oxonian tutees aware that Peirce was krypto-technical.
Grice chose for one of his pre-Meaning seminars on Peirce’s general theory of
signs, with emphasis on general, and the correspondence of Peirce and Welby.
Peirce, rather than the Vienna circle, becomes, in vein with Grices dissenting
irreverent rationalism, important as a source for Grices attempt to English
Peirce. Grices implicaturum seems to be that Peirce, rather than Ayer, cared
for the subtleties of meaning and sign, never mind a verificationist theory
about them! Peirce ultra-Latinate-cum-Greek taxonomies have Grice very nervous,
though. He knew that his students were proficient in the classics, but still. Grice
thus proposes to reduce all of Peirceian divisions and sub-divisions (one
sub-division too many) to mean. In the proceedings, he quotes from Ogden,
Richards, and Ewing. In particular, Grice was fascinated by the correspondence of
Peirce with Lady Viola Welby, as repr. by Ogden/Richards in, well, their study
on the meaning of meaning. Grice thought the science of symbolism pretentious,
but then he almost thought Lady Viola Welby slightly pretentious, too, if youve
seen her; beautiful lady. It is via Peirce that Grice explores examples such as
those spots meaning measles. Peirce’s obsession is with weathercocks almost as
Ockham was with circles on wine-barrels. Old-World Grices use of New-World
Peirce is illustrative, thus, of the Oxonian linguistic turn focused on ordinary
language. While Peirce’s background was not philosophical, Grice thought it
comical enough. He would say that Peirce is an amateur, but then he said the
same thing about Mill, whom Grice had to study by heart to get his B. A. Lit.
Hum.! Plus, as Watson commented, what is wrong with amateur? Give me an amateur
philosopher ANY day, if I have to choose from professional Hegel! In finding
Peirce krypo-technical, Grice is ensuing that his tutees, and indeed any
Oxonian philosophy student (he was university lecturer) be aware that to mean
should be more of a priority than this or that jargon by this or that (New
World?) philosopher!? Partly! Grice wanted his students to think on their own,
and draw their own conclusions! Grice cites Ewing, Ogden/Richards, and many
others. Ewing, while Oxford-educated, had ended up at Cambridge (Scruton almost
had him as his tutor) and written some points on Meaninglessness! Those spots
mean measles. Grice finds Peirce krypto-technical and proposes to English him
into an ordinary-language philosopher. Surely it is not important whether we
consider a measles spot a sign, a symbol, or an icon. One might just as well
find a doctor in London who thinks those spots symbolic. If Grice feels like
Englishing Peirce, he does not altogether fail! meaning, reprints, of
Meaning and other essays, a collection of reprints and offprints of Grices
essays. Meaning becomes a central topic of at least two strands in
Retrospective epilogue. The first strand concerns the idea of the centrality of
the utterer. What Grice there calls meaning BY (versus meaning TO), i.e. as he
also puts it, active or agents meaning. Surely he is right in defending an
agent-based account to meaning. Peirce need not, but Grice must, because he is
working with an English root, mean, that is only figurative applicable to
non-agentive items (Smoke means rain). On top, Grice wants to conclude that
only a rational creature (a person) can meanNN properly. Non-human animals may
have a correlate. This is a truly important point for Grice since he surely is
seen as promoting a NON-convention-based approach to meaning, and also
defending from the charge of circularity in the non-semantic account of
propositional attitudes. His final picture is a rationalist one. P1 G
wants to communicate about a danger to P2. This presupposes there IS
a danger (item of reality). Then P1 G believes there is a
danger, and communicates to P2 G2 that there is a danger. This
simple view of conversation as rational co-operation underlies Grices account
of meaning too, now seen as an offshoot of philosophical psychology, and indeed
biology, as he puts it. Meaning as yet another survival mechanism. While he
would never use a cognate like significance in his Oxford Philosophical Society
talk, Grice eventually starts to use such Latinate cognates at a later stage of
his development. In Meaning, Grice does not explain his goal. By sticking with
a root that the Oxford curriculum did not necessarily recognised as
philosophical (amateur Peirce did!), Grice is implicating that he is starting
an ordinary-language botanising on his own repertoire! Grice was amused by the
reliance by Ewing on very Oxonian examples contra Ayer: Surely Virtue aint a
fire-shovel is perfectly meaningful, and if fact true, if, Ill admit, somewhat
misleading and practically purposeless at Cambridge. Again, the dismissal by
Grice of natural meaning is due to the fact that natural meaning prohibits its
use in the first person and followed by a that-clause. ‘I mean-n that p’ sounds
absurd, no communication-function seems in the offing, there is no ‘sign for,’
as Woozley would have it. Grice found, with Suppes, all types of primacy
(ontological, axiological, psychological) in utterers meaning. In Retrospective
epilogue, he goes back to the topic, as he reminisces that it is his
suggestion that there are two allegedly distinguishable meaning concepts, even
if one is meta-bolical, which may be called natural meaning and non-natural
meaning. There is this or that test (notably factivity-entailment vs. cancelation,
but also scare quotes) which may be brought to bear to distinguish one concept
from the other. We may, for example, inquire whether a particular occurrence of
the predicate mean is factive or non-factive, i. e., whether for it to be true
that [so and so] means that p, it does or does not have to be the case that it
is true that p. Again, one may ask whether the use of quotation marks to
enclose the specification of what is meant would be inappropriate or
appropriate. If factivity, as in know, remember, and see, is present and
quotation marks, oratio recta, are be inappropriate, we have a case of natural
meaning. Otherwise the meaning involved is non-natural meaning. We may now ask
whether there is a single overarching idea which lies behind both members of
this dichotomy of uses to which the predicate meaning that seems to be
Subjects. If there is such a central idea it might help to indicate to us which
of the two concepts is in greater need of further analysis and elucidation and
in what direction such elucidation should proceed. Grice confesses that he has
only fairly recently come to believe that there is such an overarching idea and
that it is indeed of some service in the proposed inquiry. The idea behind both
uses of mean is that of consequence, or consequentia, as Hobbes has it. If x
means that p, something which includes p or the idea of p, is a consequence of
x. In the metabolic natural use of meaning that p, p, this or that consequence,
is this or that state of affairs. In the literal, non-metabolic, basic,
non-natural use of meaning that p, (as in Smith means that his neighbour’s
three-year child is an adult), p, this or that consequence is this or that
conception or complexus which involves some other conception. This perhaps
suggests that of the two concepts it is, as it should, non-natural meaning
which is more in need of further elucidation. It seems to be the more
specialised of the pair, and it also seems to be the less determinate. We may,
e. g., ask how this or that conception enters the picture. Or we may ask
whether what enters the picture is the conception itself or its justifiability.
On these counts Grice should look favorably on the idea that, if further
analysis should be required for one of the pair, the notion of non-natural
meaning would be first in line. There are factors which support the suitability
of further analysis for the concept of non-natural meaning. MeaningNN that
p (non-natural meaning) does not look as if it Namess an original feature of
items in the world, for two reasons which are possibly not mutually
independent. One reason is that, given suitable background conditions, meaning,
can be changed by fiat. The second reason is that the presence of meaningNN is
dependent on a framework provided by communication, if that is not too
circular. Communication is in the philosophical lexicon. Lewis and
Short have “commūnĭcātĭo,” f. communicare,"(several times in Cicero,
elsewhere rare), and as they did with negatio and they will with significatio,
Short and Lewis render, unhelpfully, as a making common, imparting,
communicating. largitio et communicatio civitatis;” “quaedam societas et
communicatio utilitatum,” “consilii communicatio, “communicatio sermonis,” criminis
cum pluribus; “communicatio nominum, i. e. the like appellation of several objects;
“juris; “damni; In rhetorics, communicatio, trading on the communis, a figure,
translating Grecian ἀνακοίνωσις, in accordance with which the utterer turns to
his addressee, and, as it were, allows him to take part in the inquiry. It
seems to Grice, then, at least reasonable and possibly even emphatically
mandatory, to treat the claim that a communication vehicle, such as this and
that expression means that p, in this transferred, metaphoric, or meta-bolic
use of means that as being reductively analysable in terms of this or that
feature of this or that utterer, communicator, or user of this or that expression.
The use of meaning that as applied to this or that expression is posterior
to and explicable through the utterer-oriented, or utterer-relativised use,
i.e. involving a reference to this or that communicator or user of this or that
expression. More specifically, one should license a metaphorical use of mean,
where one allows the claim that this or that expression means that p, provided
that this or that utterer, in this or that standard fashion, means that p, i.e.
in terms of this or that souly statee toward this or that propositional
complexus this or that utterer ntends, in a standardly fashion, to produce by
his uttering this or that utterance. That this or that expression means (in
this metaphorical use) that p is thus explicable either in terms of this
or that souly state which is standardly intended to produce in this or that
addressee A by this or that utterer of this or that expression, or in this or
that souly staken up by this or that utterer toward this or that activity or
action of this or that utterer of this or that expression. Meaning was in
the air in Oxfords linguistic turn. Everybody was talking meaning. Grice
manages to quote from Hares early “Mind” essay on the difference between
imperatives and indicatives, also Duncan-Jones on the fugitive
proposition, and of course his beloved Strawson. Grice was also concerned
by the fact that in the manoeuvre of the typical ordinary-language philosopher,
there is a constant abuse of mean. Surely Grice wants to stick with the
utterers meaning as the primary use. Expressions mean only derivatively. To do
that, he chose Peirce to see if he could clarify it with meaning that. Grice
knew that the polemic was even stronger in London, with Ogden and Lady Viola
Welby. In the more academic Oxford milieu, Grice knew that a proper examination
of meaning, would lead him, via Kneale and his researches on the history of
semantics, to the topic of signification that obsessed the modistae (and their
modus significandi). For what does L and S say about about this? This is
Grice’s reply to popular Ogden. They want to know what the meaning of meaning
is? Here is the Oxononian response by Grice, with a vengeance. Grice is not an
animist nor a mentalist, even modest. While he allows for natural
phenomena to mean (smoke means fire), meaning is best ascribed to some utterer,
where this meaning is nothing but the intentions behind his
utterance. This is the fifth James lecture. Grice was careful enough to
submit it to PR, since it is a strictly philosophical development of the views
expressed in Meaning which Strawson had submitted on Grice’s behalf to the same
Review and which had had a series of responses by various philosophers. Among
these philosophers is Strawson himself in Intention and convention in the the
theory of speech acts, also in PR. Grice quotes from very many other
philosophers in this essay, including: Urmson, Stampe,
Strawson, Schiffer, and Searle. Strawson is especially relevant since
he started a series of alleged counter-examples with his infamous example of
the rat-infested house. Grice particularly treasured Stampes alleged
counter-example involving his beloved bridge! Avramides earns a D. Phil Oxon.
on that, under Strawson! This is Grices occasion to address some of the
criticisms ‒ in the form of alleged counter-examples, typically, as his
later reflections on epagoge versus diagoge note ‒ by Urmson,
Strawson, and other philosophers associated with Oxford, such as Searle,
Stampe, and Schiffer. The final analysandum is pretty complex (of the type that
he did find his analysis of I am hearing a sound complex in Personal
identity ‒ hardly an obstacle for adopting it), it became yet
another target of attack by especially New-World philosophers in the pages of
Mind, Nous, and other journals, This is officially the fifth James lecture.
Grice takes up the analysis of meaning he had presented way back at the Oxford
Philosophical Society. Motivated mainly by the attack by Urmson and by Strawson
in Intention and convention in speech acts, that offered an alleged
counter-example to the sufficiency of Grices analysis, Grice ends up
introducing so many intention that he almost trembled. He ends up seeing
meaning as a value-paradeigmatic concept, perhaps never realisable in a
sublunary way. But it is the analysis in this particular essay where he is at
his formal best. He distinguishes between protreptic and exhibitive utterances,
and also modes of correlation (iconic, conventional). He symbolises the utterer
and the addressee, and generalises over the type of psychological state,
attitude, or stance, meaning seems to range (notably indicative vs.
imperative). He formalises the reflexive intention, and more importantly, the
overtness of communication in terms of a self-referential recursive intention
that disallows any sneaky intention to be brought into the picture of
meaning-constitutive intentions. Grice thought he had dealt with Logic and
conversation enough! So he feels of revising his Meaning. After all, Strawson
had had the cheek to publish Meaning by Grice and then go on to criticize it in
Intention and convention in speech acts. So this is Grices revenge, and he
wins! He ends with the most elaborate theory of mean that an Oxonian could ever
hope for. And to provoke the informalists such as Strawson (and his disciples
at Oxford – led by Strawson) he pours existential quantifiers like the plague!
He manages to quote from Urmson, whom he loved! No word on Peirce, though, who
had originated all this! His implicaturum: Im not going to be reprimanted in
informal discussion about my misreading Peirce at Harvard! The concluding note
is about artificial substitutes for iconic representation, and meaning as a
human institution. Very grand. This is Grices metabolical projection of
utterers meaning to apply to anything OTHER than utterers meaning, notably a
token of the utterers expression and a TYPE of the utterers expression, wholly
or in part. Its not like he WANTS to do it, he NEEDS it to give an account of implicaturum.
The phrase utterer is meant to provoke. Grice thinks that speaker is too
narrow. Surely you can mean by just uttering stuff! This is the sixth James
lecture, as published in “Foundations of Language” (henceforth, “FL”), or “The
foundations of language,” as he preferred. As it happens, it became a popular
lecture, seeing that Searle selected this from the whole set for his Oxford
reading in philosophy on the philosophy of language. It is also the essay cited
by Chomsky in his influential Locke lectures. Chomsky takes Grice to be a
behaviourist, even along Skinners lines, which provoked a reply by Suppes, repr.
in PGRICE. In The New World, the H. P. is often given in a more simplified
form. Grice wants to keep on playing. In Meaning, he had said x means that p is
surely reducible to utterer U means that p. In this lecture, he lectures us as
to how to proceed. In so doing he invents this or that procedure: some basic,
some resultant. When Chomsky reads the reprint in Searles Philosophy of
Language, he cries: Behaviourist! Skinnerian! It was Suppes who comes to Grices
defence. Surely the way Grice uses expressions like resultant procedure are
never meant in the strict behaviourist way. Suppes concludes that it is much
fairer to characterise Grice as an intentionalist. Published in FL, ed. by
Staal, Repr.in Searle, The Philosophy of Language, Oxford, the sixth James
Lecture, FL, resultant procedure, basic procedure. Staal asked Grice to
publish the sixth James lecture for a newish periodical publication of whose
editorial board he was a member. The fun thing is Grice complied! This is
Grices shaggy-dog story. He does not seem too concerned about resultant
procedures. As he will ll later say, surely I can create Deutero-Esperanto and
become its master! For Grice, the primacy is the idiosyncratic, particularized
utterer in this or that occasion. He knows a philosopher craves for generality,
so he provokes the generality-searcher with divisions and sub-divisions of
mean. But his heart does not seem to be there, and he is just being
overformalistic and technical for the sake of it. I am glad that Putnam, of all
people, told me in an aside, you are being too formal, Grice. I stopped with
symbolism since! Communication. This is Grice’s clearest anti-animist attack by
Grice. He had joins Hume in mocking causing and willing: The decapitation of
Charles I as willing Charles Is death. Language semantics alla Tarski. Grice
know sees his former self. If he was obsessed, after Ayer, with mean, he now wants
to see if his explanation of it (then based on his pre-theoretic intuition) is
theoretically advisable in terms other than dealing with those pre-theoretical
facts, i.e. how he deals with a lexeme like mean. This is a bit like Grice: implicaturum,
revisited. An axiological approach to meaning. Strictly a reprint of Grice, which
should be the preferred citation. The date is given by Grice himself, and he
knew! Grice also composed some notes on Remnants on meaning, by Schiffer. This
is a bit like Grices meaning re-revisited. Schiffer had been Strawsons tutee at
Oxford as a Rhode Scholar in the completion of his D. Phil. on Meaning,
Clarendon. Eventually, Schiffer grew sceptic, and let Grice know about it!
Grice did not find Schiffers arguments totally destructive, but saw the
positive side to them. Schiffers arguments should remind any philosopher that
the issues he is dealing are profound and bound to involve much elucidation
before they are solved. This is a bit like Grice: implicaturum, revisited. Meaning
revisited (an ovious nod to Evelyn Waughs Yorkshire-set novel) is the title
Grice chose for a contribution to a symposium at Brighton organised by Smith.
Meaning revisited (although Grice has earlier drafts entitled Meaning and
philosophical psychology) comprises three sections. In the first section, Grice
is concerned with the application of his modified Occam’s razor now to the very
lexeme, mean. Cf. How many senses does sense have? Cohen: The Senses of Senses.
In the second part, Grice explores an evolutionary model of creature
construction reaching a stage of non-iconic representation. Finally, in the
third section, motivated to solve what he calls a major problem ‒ versus
the minor problem concerning the transition from the meaning by the
utterer to the meaning by the expression. Grice attempts to construct meaning
as a value-paradeigmatic notion. A version was indeed published in the
proceedings of the Brighton symposium, by Croom Helm, London. Grice has a
couple of other drafts with variants on this title: philosophical psychology
and meaning, psychology and meaning. He keeps, meaningfully, changing the order.
It is not arbitrary that the fascinating exploration by Grice is in three
parts. In the first, where he applies his Modified Occams razor to mean, he is
revisiting Stevenson. Smoke means fire and I mean love, dont need different senses
of mean. Stevenson is right when using scare quotes for smoke ‘meaning’ fire
utterance. Grice is very much aware that that, the rather obtuse terminology of
senses, was exactly the terminology he had adopted in both Meaning and the
relevant James lectures (V and VI) at Harvard! Now, its time to revisit and to
echo Graves, say, goodbye to all that! In the second part he applies Pology.
While he knows his audience is not philosophical ‒ it is not Oxford ‒ he
thinks they still may get some entertainment! We have a P feeling pain,
simulating it, and finally uttering, I am in pain. In the concluding section,
Grice becomes Plato. He sees meaning as an optimum, i.e. a value-paradeigmatic
notion introducing value in its guise of optimality. Much like Plato thought
circle works in his idiolect. Grice played with various titles, in the Grice
Collection. Theres philosophical psychology and meaning. The reason is obvious.
The lecture is strictly divided in sections, and it is only natural that Grice
kept drafts of this or that section in his collection. In WOW Grice notes that
he re-visited his Meaning re-visited at a later stage, too! And he meant it!
Surely, there is no way to understand the stages of Grice’s development of his
ideas about meaning without Peirce! It is obvious here that Grice thought that
mean two figurative or metabolical extensions of use. Smoke means fire and Smoke
means smoke. The latter is a transferred use in that impenetrability means lets
change the topic if Humpty-Dumpty m-intends that it and Alice are to change the
topic. Why did Grice feel the need to add a retrospective epilogue? He loved to
say that what the “way of words” contains is neither his first, nor his last
word. So trust him to have some intermediate words to drop. He is at his most
casual in the very last section of the epilogue. The first section is more of a
very systematic justification for any mistake the reader may identify in the
offer. The words in the epilogue are thus very guarded and qualificatory. Just
one example about our focus: conversational implicate and conversation as
rational co-operation. He goes back to Essay 2, but as he notes, this was
hardly the first word on the principle of conversational helpfulness, nor
indeed the first occasion where he actually used implicaturum. As regards
co-operation, the retrospective epilogue allows him to expand on a causal
phrasing in Essay 2, “purposive, indeed rational.” Seeing in retrospect how the
idea of rationality was the one that appealed philosophers most – since it
provides a rationale and justification for what is otherwise an arbitrary
semantic proliferation. Grice then distinguishes between the thesis that
conversation is purposive, and the thesis that conversation is rational. And,
whats more, and in excellent Griceian phrasing, there are two theses here, too.
One thing is to see conversation as rational, and another, to use his very
phrasing, as rational co-operation! Therefore, when one discusses the secondary
literature, one should be attentive to whether the author is referring to
Grices qualifications in the Retrospective epilogue. Grice is careful to date
some items. However, since he kept rewriting, one has to be careful. These
seven folder contain the material for the compilation. Grice takes the
opportunity of the compilation by Harvard of his WOW, representative of the
mid-60s, i. e. past the heyday of ordinary-language philosophy, to review the
idea of philosophical progress in terms of eight different strands which
display, however, a consistent and distinctive unity. Grice keeps playing with
valediction, valedictory, prospective and retrospective, and the different
drafts are all kept in The Grice Papers. The Retrospective epilogue, is divided
into two sections. In the first section, he provides input for his eight
strands, which cover not just meaning, and the assertion-implication
distinction to which he alludes to in the preface, but for more substantial
philosophical issues like the philosophy of perception, and the defense of
common sense realism versus the sceptial idealist. The concluding section
tackles more directly a second theme he had idenfitied in the preface, which is
a methodological one, and his long-standing defence of ordinary-language
philosophy. The section involves a fine distinction between the Athenian
dialectic and the Oxonian dialectic, and tells the tale about his fairy
godmother, G*. As he notes, Grice had dropped a few words in the preface explaining
the ordering of essays in the compilation. He mentions that he hesitated to
follow a suggestion by Bennett that the ordering of the essays be
thematic and chronological. Rather, Grice chooses to publish the whole set
of seven James lectures, what he calls the centerpiece, as part I. II, the
explorations in semantics and metaphysics, is organised more or less
thematically, though. In the Retrospective epilogue, Grice takes up this
observation in the preface that two ideas or themes underlie his Studies: that
of meaning, and assertion vs. implication, and philosophical methodology. The
Retrospective epilogue is thus an exploration on eight strands he identifies in
his own philosophy. Grices choice of strand is careful. For Grice, philosophy,
like virtue, is entire. All the strands belong to the same knit, and therefore
display some latitudinal, and, he hopes, longitudinal unity, the latter made
evidence by his drawing on the Athenian dialectic as a foreshadow of the
Oxonian dialectic to come, in the heyday of the Oxford school of analysis, when
an interest in the serious study of ordinary language had never been since and
will never be seen again. By these two types of unity, Grice means the obvious
fact that all branches of philosophy (philosophy of language, or semantics,
philosophy of perception, philosophical psychology, metaphysics, axiology,
etc.) interact and overlap, and that a historical regard for ones philosophical
predecessors is a must, especially at Oxford. Why is Grice obsessed with
asserting? He is more interested, technically, in the phrastic, or dictor.
Grice sees a unity, indeed, equi-vocality, in the buletic-doxastic continuum.
Asserting is usually associated with the doxastic. Since Grice is always ready
to generalise his points to cover the buletic (recall his Meaning, “theres by
now no reason to stick to informative cases,”), it is best to re-define his
asserting in terms of the phrastic. This is enough of a strong point. As Hare
would agree, for emotivists like Barnes, say, an utterance of buletic force may
not have any content whatsoever. For Grice, there is always a content, the
proposition which becomes true when the action is done and the desire is
fulfilled or satisfied. Grice quotes from Bennett. Importantly, Grice focuses
on the assertion/non-assertion distinction. He overlooks the fact that for this
or that of his beloved imperative utterance, asserting is out of the question,
but explicitly conveying that p is not. He needs a dummy to stand for a
psychological or souly state, stance, or attitude of either boule or doxa, to
cover the field of the utterer mode-neutrally conveying explicitly that his
addressee A is to entertain that p. The explicatum or explicitum sometimes does
the trick, but sometimes it does not. It is interesting to review the Names
index to the volume, as well as the Subjects index. This is a huge collection,
comprising 14 folders. By contract, Grice was engaged with Harvard, since it is
the President of the College that holds the copyrights for the James lectures.
The title Grice eventually chooses for his compilation of essays, which goes
far beyond the James, although keeping them as the centerpiece, is a tribute to
Locke, who, although obsessed with his idealist and empiricist new way of
ideas, leaves room for both the laymans and scientists realist way of things,
and, more to the point, for this or that philosophical semiotician to offer
this or that study in the way of words. Early in the linguistic turn minor
revolution, the expression the new way of words, had been used derogatorily.
WOW is organised in two parts: Logic and conversation and the somewhat
pretentiously titled Explorations in semantics and metaphysics, which offers
commentary around the centerpiece. It also includes a Preface and a very rich
and inspired Retrospective epilogue. From part I, the James lectures, only
three had not been previously published. The first unpublished lecture is
Prolegomena, which really sets the scene, and makes one wonder what the few
philosophers who quote from The logic of grammar could have made from the
second James lecture taken in isolation. Grice explores Aristotle’s “to
alethes”: “For the true and the false exist with respect to synthesis and
division (peri gar synthesin kai diaireisin esti to pseudos kai to alethes).”
Aristotle insists upon the com-positional form of truth in several texts: cf.
De anima, 430b3 ff.: “in truth and falsity, there is a certain composition (en
hois de kai to pseudos kai to alethes, synthesis tis)”; cf. also Met. 1027b19
ff.: the true and the false are with respect to (peri) composition and
decomposition (synthesis kai diaresis).” It also shows that Grices style is
meant for public delivery, rather than reading. The second unpublished lecture
is Indicative conditionals. This had been used by a few philosophers, such as
Gazdar, noting that there were many mistakes in the typescript, for which Grice
is not to be blamed. The third is on some models for implicaturum. Since this
Grice acknowledges is revised, a comparison with the original handwritten
version of the final James lecture retrieves a few differences From Part II, a
few essays had not been published before, but Grice, nodding to the
longitudinal unity of philosophy, is very careful and proud to date
them. Commentary on the individual essays is made under the appropriate
dates. Philosophical correspondence is quite a genre. Hare would express in a
letter to the Librarian for the Oxford Union, “Wiggins does not want to be
understood,” or in a letter to Bennett that Williams is the worse offender of
Kantianism! It was different with Grice. He did not type. And he wrote only
very occasionally! These are four folders with general correspondence, mainly
of the academic kind. At Oxford, Grice would hardly keep a correspondence, but
it was different with the New World, where academia turns towards the
bureaucracy. Grice is not precisely a good, or reliable, as The BA puts it,
correspondent. In the Oxford manner, Grice prefers a face-to-face interaction,
any day. He treasures his Saturday mornings under Austins guidance, and he
himself leads the Play Group after Austins demise, which, as Owen reminisced,
attained a kind of cult status. Oxford is different. As a tutorial fellow in
philosophy, Grice was meant to tutor his students; as a University Lecturer he
was supposed to lecture sometimes other fellowss tutees! Nothing about this
reads: publish or perish! This is just one f. containing Grices own favourite
Griceian references. To the historian of analytic philosophy, it is of
particular interest. It shows which philosophers Grice respected the most, and
which ones the least. As one might expect, even on the cold shores of Oxford,
as one of Grices tutees put it, Grice is cited by various Oxford philosophers.
Perhaps the first to cite Grice in print is his tutee Strawson, in “Logical
Theory.” Early on, Hart quotes Grice on meaning in his review in The
Philosophical Quarterly of Holloways Language and Intelligence before Meaning
had been published. Obviously, once Grice and Strawson, In defense of a dogma
and Grice, Meaning are published by The Philosophical Review, Grice is
discussed profusely. References to the implicaturum start to appear in the
literature at Oxford in the mid-1960s, within the playgroup, as in Hare and
Pears. It is particularly intriguing to explore those philosophers Grice picks
up for dialogue, too, and perhaps arrange them alphabetically, from Austin to
Warnock, say. And Griceian philosophical references, Oxonian or other, as they
should, keep counting! The way to search the Grice Papers here is using
alternate keywords, notably “meaning.” “Meaning” s. II, “Utterer’s meaning and
intentions,” s. II, “Utterer’s meaning, sentence-meaning, and word meaning,” s.
II, “Meaning revisited,” s. II. – but also “Meaning and psychology,” s. V,
c.7-ff. 24-25. While Grice uses
“signification,” and lectured on Peirce’s “signs,” “Peirce’s general theory of
signs,” (s. V, c. 8-f. 29), he would avoid such pretentiously sounding
expressions. Searching under ‘semantic’ and ‘semantics’ (“Grammar and
semantics,” c. 7-f. 5; “Language semantics,” c. 7-f.20, “Basic Pirotese,
sentence semantics and syntax,” c. 8-f. 30, “Semantics of children’s language,”
c. 9-f. 10, “Sentence semantics” (c. 9-f. 11); “Sentence semantics and
propositional complexes,” c. 9-f.12, “Syntax and semantics,” c. 9-ff. 17-18) may
help, too. Folder on Schiffer (“Schiffer,” c. 9-f. 9), too.
compactum: Grice: “One should distinguish between Grice’s
compact and the compact.” G. R. Grice, the Welsh philosopher, speaks of a
contract as a compact. Grice on the compactness theorem, a theorem for
first-order logic: if every finite subset of a given infinite theory T is
consistent, then the whole theory is consistent. The result is an immediate
consequence of the completeness theorem, for if the theory were not consistent,
a contradiction, say ‘P and not-P’, would be provable from it. But the proof,
being a finitary object, would use only finitely many axioms from T, so this
finite subset of T would be inconsistent. This proof of the compactness theorem
is very general, showing that any language that has a sound and complete system
of inference, where each rule allows only finitely many premises, satisfies the
theorem. This is important because the theorem immediately implies that many familiar
mathematical notions are not expressible in the language in question, notions
like those of a finite set or a well-ordering relation. The compactness theorem
is important for other reasons as well. It is the most frequently applied
result in the study of first-order model theory and has inspired interesting
developments within set theory and its foundations by generating a search for
infinitary languages that obey some analog of the theorem.
completum: incompletum: Grice on completeness, a property that
something typically, a set of axioms, a
logic, a theory, a set of well-formed formulas, a language, or a set of
connectives has when it is strong enough
in some desirable respect. 1 A set of axioms is complete for the logic L if
every theorem of L is provable using those axioms. 2 A logic L has weak
semantical completeness if every valid sentence of the language of L is a
theorem of L. L has strong semantical completeness or is deductively complete
if for every set G of sentences, every logical consequence of G is deducible
from G using L. A propositional logic L is Halldén-complete if whenever A 7 B
is a theorem of L, where A and B share no variables, either A or B is a theorem
of L. And L is Post-complete if L is consistent but no stronger logic for the
same language is consistent. Reference to the “completeness” of a logic,
without further qualification, is almost invariably to either weak or strong
semantical completeness. One curious exception: second-order logic is often
said to be “incomplete,” where what is meant is that it is not axiomatizable. 3
A theory T is negation-complete often simply complete if for every sentence A
of the lancommon notions completeness 162
162 guage of T, either A or its negation is provable in T. And T is
omega-complete if whenever it is provable in T that a property f / holds of
each natural number 0, 1, . . . , it is also provable that every number has f.
Generalizing on this, any set G of well-formed formulas might be called omega
complete if vA[v] is deducible from G whenever A[t] is deducible from G for all
terms t, where A[t] is the result of replacing all free occurrences of v in
A[v] by t. 4 A language L is expressively complete if each of a given class of
items is expressible in L. Usually, the class in question is the class of
twovalued truth-functions. The propositional language whose sole connectives
are - and 7 is thus said to be expressively or functionally complete, while
that built up using 7 alone is not, since classical negation is not expressible
therein. Here one might also say that the set {-,7} is expressively or
functionally complete, while {7} is not.
completum – “The idea of the
completum is transformational; i. e. that there are components in a meaningful
string – The unstructured utterance is complete – To speak of an incomplete
segment is quite a step in compositionality.” Grice: “All Roman words starting
with con- are a trick, since they mean togetherness. In this case, plere is to
fill. plĕo ,
ēre, v. n., I.to fill, to fulfil, the root of plenus,
q. v., compleo, expleo, suppleo: “plentur antiqui etiam sine praepositionibus dicebant,” Fest. p. 230 Müll. And then there’s completion. Grice
speaks of ‘complete’ and ‘incomplete. Consider “Fido is shaggy.” That’s
complete. “Fido” is incomplete – like pig. “is shaggy” is incomplete. This is
Grice’s Platonism, hardly the nominalism that Bennett abuses Grice with! For
the rational pirot (not the parrot) has access to a theory of complete --. When
lecturing on Peirce, Grice referred to Russell’s excellent idea of improving on
Peirce. “Don’t ask for the meaning of ‘red,’ ask for the meaning of ‘x is red.”
Cf. Plato, “Don’t try to see horseness, try to see ‘x is a horse. Don’t be
stupid.” Now “x is red” is a bit incomplete. Surely it can be rendered by the
complete, “Something, je-ne-sais-quoi, to use Hume’s vulgarism, is red.” So, to
have an act of referring without an act of predicating is incomplete. But still
useful for philosophical analysis.
complexum: Grive: “All Roman words starting with con- are a
trick, since they mean an agreement, in this case, the plexum. -- versus the
‘simplex.’ Grice starts with the simplex. All he needs is a handwave to ascribe
‘the emissor communicates that he knows the route.’ The proposition which is
being transmitted HAS to be complex: Subject, “The emissor”, copula, “is,”
‘predicate: “a knower of the route.”Grice allows for the syntactically
unstructured handwave to be ‘ambiguous’ so that the intention on the emissor’s
part involves his belief that the emissee will take this rather than that
proposition as being transmitted: Second complex: “Subject: Emissor, copula:
is, predicate: about to leave the emissee.”Vide the altogether nice girl, and
the one-at-a-time sailor. The topic is essential in seeing Grice within the
British empiricist tradition. Empiricists always loved a simplex, like ‘red.’
In his notes on ‘Meaning’ and “Peirce,’ Grice notes that for a ‘simplex’ like
“red,” the best way to deal with it is via a Russellian function, ‘x is red.’ The
opposite of ‘simplex’ is of course a ‘complexum.’ hile Grice does have an essay
on the ‘complexum,’ he is mostly being jocular. His dissection of the
proposition proceds by considering ‘the a,’ and its denotatum, or reference,
and ‘is the b,’ which involves then the predication. This is Grice’s shaggy-dog
story. Once we have ‘the dog is shaggy,’ we have a ‘complexum,’ and we can say
that the utterer means, by uttering ‘Fido is shaggy,’ that the dog is
hairy-coated. Simple, right? It’s the jocular in Grice. He is joking on
philosophers who look at those representative of the linguistic turn, and ask,
“So what do you have to say about reference and predication,’ and Grice comes
up with an extra-ordinary analysis of what is to believe that the dog is hairy-coat,
and communicating it. In fact, the ‘communicating’ is secondary. Once Grice has
gone to metabolitical extension of ‘mean’ to apply to the expression,
communication becomes secondary in that it has to be understood in what Grice
calls the ‘atenuated’ usage involving this or that ‘readiness’ to have this or
that procedure, basic or resultant, in one’s repertoire! Bealer is one of
Grices most brilliant tutees in the New World. The Grice collection contains a
full f. of correspondence with Bealer. Bealer refers to Grice in his
influential Clarendon essay on content. Bealer is concerned with how pragmatic
inference may intrude in the ascription of a psychological, or souly, state,
attitude, or stance. Bealer loves to quote from Grice on definite descriptions
in Russell and in the vernacular, the implicaturum being that Russell is
impenetrable! Bealers mentor is Grices close collaborator Myro, so he knows
what he is talking about. Grice explored the matter of subperception at Oxford
only with G. J. Warnock.
conceptus: Grice: “The etymology of ‘conceptus’ is a fascinating one.
For one, all Roman words staring with ‘cum-‘ mean a sort of agreement – In this
case it’s cum- plus capio, as in captus,
capture. Grice obviously uses Frege’s notion of a ‘concept.’ One of Grice’s
metaphysical routines is meant to produce a logical construction of a concept
or generate a new concept. Aware of the act/product distinction, Grice
distinguishes between the conceptum, or concept, and the conception, or
conceptio. Grice allows that ‘not’ may be a ‘concept,’ so he is not tied to the
‘equine’ idea by Frege of the ‘horse.’ Since an agent can fail to conceive that
his neighbour’s three-year old is an adult, Grice accepts that ‘conceives’ may
take a ‘that’-clause. In ‘ordinary’ language, one does not seem to refer, say,
to the concept that e = mc2, but that may be a failure or ‘ordinary’ language.
In the canonical cat-on-the-mat, we have Grice conceiving that the cat is on
the mat, and also having at least four concepts: the concept of ‘cat,’ the
concept of ‘mat,’ the concept of ‘being on,’ and the concept of the cat being
on the mat. Griceian
Meinongianism -- conceivability, capability of being conceived or imagined.
Thus, golden mountains are conceivable; round squares, inconceivable. As
Descartes pointed out, the sort of imaginability required is not the ability to
form mental images. Chiliagons, Cartesian minds, and God are all conceivable,
though none of these can be pictured “in the mind’s eye.” Historical references
include Anselm’s definition of God as “a being than which none greater can be
conceived” and Descartes’s argument for dualism from the conceivability of
disembodied existence. Several of Hume’s arguments rest upon the maxim that
whatever is conceivable is possible. He argued, e.g., that an event can occur
without a cause, since this is conceivable, and his critique of induction
relies on the inference from the conceivability of a change in the course of
nature to its possibility. In response, Reid maintained that to conceive is
merely to understand the meaning of a proposition. Reid argued that
impossibilities are conceivable, since we must be able to understand
falsehoods. Many simply equate conceivability with possibility, so that to say
something is conceivable or inconceivable just is to say that it is possible or
impossible. Such usage is controversial, since conceivability is broadly an
epistemological notion concerning what can be thought, whereas possibility is a
metaphysical notion concerning how things can be. The same controversy can
arise regarding the compossible, or co-possible, where two states of affairs
are compossible provided it is possible that they both obtain, and two
propositions are compossible provided their conjunction is possible.
Alternatively, two things are compossible if and only if there is a possible
world containing both. Leibniz held that two things are compossible provided
they can be ascribed to the same possible world without contradiction. “There
are many possible universes, each collection of compossibles making one of
them.” Others have argued that non-contradiction is sufficient for neither
possibility nor compossibility. The claim that something is inconceivable is
usually meant to suggest more than merely an inability to conceive. It is to
say that trying to conceive results in a phenomenally distinctive mental
repugnance, e.g. when one attempts to conceive of an object that is red and
green all over at once. On this usage the inconceivable might be equated with
what one can “just see” to be impossible. There are two related usages of
‘conceivable’: 1 not inconceivable in the sense just described; and 2 such that
one can “just see” that the thing in question is possible. Goldbach’s
conjecture would seem a clear example of something conceivable in the first
sense, but not the second. Grice was also interested in conceptualism as an
answer to the problem of the universale. conceptualism, the view that there are
no universals and that the supposed classificatory function of universals is
actually served by particular concepts in the mind. A universal is a property
that can be instantiated by more than one individual thing or particular at the
same time; e.g., the shape of this , if identical with the shape of the next ,
will be one property instantiated by two distinct individual things at the same
time. If viewed as located where the s are, then it would be immanent. If
viewed as not having spatiotemporal location itself, but only bearing a
connection, usually called instantiation or exemplification, to things that
have such location, then the shape of this
would be transcendent and presumably would exist even if exemplified by
nothing, as Plato seems to have held. The conceptualist rejects both views by
holding that universals are merely concepts. Most generally, a concept may be
understood as a principle of classification, something that can guide us in
determining whether an entity belongs in a given class or does not. Of course,
properties understood as universals satisfy, trivially, this definition and
thus may be called concepts, as indeed they were by Frege. But the
conceptualistic substantive views of concepts are that concepts are 1 mental
representations, often called ideas, serving their classificatory function
presumably by resembling the entities to be classified; or 2 brain states that
serve the same function but presumably not by resemblance; or 3 general words
adjectives, common nouns, verbs or uses of such words, an entity’s belonging to
a certain class being determined by the applicability to the entity of the
appropriate word; or 4 abilities to classify correctly, whether or not with the
aid of an item belonging under 1, 2, or 3. The traditional conceptualist holds
1. Defenders of 3 would be more properly called nominalists. In whichever way
concepts are understood, and regardless of whether conceptualism is true, they
are obviously essential to our understanding and knowledge of anything, even at
the most basic level of cognition, namely, recognition. The classic work on the
topic is Thinking and Experience 4 by H. H. Price, who held 4.
conditionalis: Grice: “The etymology of ‘conditionale’ is fascinating. I
wish I knew it.” – It is strictly from conditio "a
making," from conditus, past
participle of condere "to put
together,” i.e. cum- plus dare. dāre (do I.obsol., found only in the
compounds, abdo, “condo,” – which gives ‘conditio,” confused with ‘con-dicio,”
a putting together taken as a ‘speaking-together,” abscondo, indo, etc.), 1, v.
a. Sanscr. root dhā-, da-dhāmi, set, put, place; Gr. θε-, τίθημι; Ger. thun, thue, that; indeed cognate
with English “do,” “deed,” etc.. The root “dare” in “conditio” is distinct from
1. do, Sanscr. dā, in most of the Arian langg.; cf. Pott. Etym. Forsch. 2, 484;
Corss. Ausspr. 2, 410, “but in Italy the two *seem* to have been confounded – or lumped -- at least in compounds,” Georg Curtius Gr. Etym. p. 254 sq.; cf. Max Müller,
Science of Lang. Ser. 2, p. 220, N. Y. ed.; Fick, Vergl. Wört. p. 100. The conditional is of special interest to Grice because his
‘impilcature’ has a conditional form. In other words, ‘implicaturum’ is a
variant on ‘implication,’ and the conditionalis has been called ‘implication’ –
‘even a material one, versus a formal one by Whitehead and Russell. So it is of
special philosophical interest. Since Grice’s overarching interest is
rationality, ‘conditionalis’ features in the passage from premise to
conclusion, deemed tautological: the ‘associated conditional” of a valid piece
of reasoning. “This is an interesting Latinism,” as Grice puts it. For those in
the know, it’s supposed to translate ‘hypothetical,’ that Grice also uses. But
literally, the transliteration of ‘hypothetica’ is ‘sub-positio,’ i.e.
‘suppositio,’ so infamous in the Dark Ages! So one has to be careful. For some
reason, Boethius disliked ‘suppositio,’ and preferred to add to the Latinate
philosophical vocabulary, with ‘conditionalis,’ the hypothetical, versus the
categoric, become the ‘conditionale.’ And the standard was not the Diodoran,
but the Philonian, also known, after Whitehead, as the ‘implicatio materialis.’
While this sounds scholastic, it isn’t. Cicero may have used ‘implicatio
materialis.’ But Whitehead’s and Russell’s motivation is a different one. They
start with the ‘material’, by which they mean a proposition WITH A TRUTH VALUE.
For implication that does not have this restriction, they introduce ‘implicatio
formalis,’ or ‘formal implication.’ In their adverbial ways, it goes p formally
implies q. trictly, propositio conditionalis:
vel substitutive, versus propositio praedicativa in Apuleius. Classical Latin condicio was
confused in Late Latin with conditio "a making," from conditus,
past participle of condere "to put together." The sense
evolution in Latin apparently was from "stipulation" to
"situation, mode of being."
Grice lists ‘if’ as the third binary functor in his response to Strawson. The
relations between “if” and “⊃” have already, but only in part,
been discussed. 1 The sign “⊃” is called the Material Implication
sign a name I shall consider later. Its meaning is given by the rule that any
statement of the form ‘p⊃q’ is false in the case in which the first of its
constituent statements is true and the second false, and is true in every other
case considered in the system; i. e., the falsity of the first constituent
statement or the truth of the second are, equally, sufficient conditions of the
truth of a statement of material implication ; the combination of truth in the
first with falsity in the second is the single, necessary and sufficient,
condition (1 Ch. 2, S. 7) of its falsity. The standard or primary -- the
importance of this qualifying phrase can scarcely be overemphasized. There are
uses of “if … then … ” which do not
answer to the description given here,, or to any other descriptions given in
this chapter -- use of an “if …
then …” sentence, on the other hand, we saw to be in circumstances where, not
knowing whether some statement which could be made by the use of a sentence
corresponding in a certain way to the first clause of the hypothetical is true
or not, or believing it to be false, we nevertheless consider that a step in
reasoning from that statement to a statement related in a similar way to the
second clause would be a sound or reasonable step ; the second statement also
being one of whose truth we are in doubt, or which we believe to be false. Even
in such circumstances as these we may sometimes hesitate to apply the word
‘true’ to hypothetical statements (i.e., statements which could be made by the
use of “if ... then …,” in its standard significance), preferring to call them
reasonable or well-founded ; but if we apply ‘true’ to them at all, it will be
in such circumstances as these. Now one of the sufficient conditions of the
truth of a statement of material implication may very well be fulfilled without
the conditions for the truth, or reasonableness, of the corresponding
hypothetical statement being fulfilled ; i.e., a statement of the form ‘p⊃q’ does not entail the corresponding statement of the form
“if p then q.” But if we are prepared to accept the hypothetical statement, we
must in consistency be prepared to deny the conjunction of the statement
corresponding to the first clause of the sentence used to make the hypothetical
statement with the negation of the statement corresponding to its second clause
; i.e., a statement of the form “if p then q” does entail the corresponding statement
of the form ‘p⊃q.’ The force of “corresponding” needs elucidation. Consider
the three following very ordinary specimens of hypothetical sentences. If the
Germans had invaded England in 1940, they would have won the war. If Jones were
in charge, half the staff would have been dismissed. If it rains, the match will
be cancelled. The sentences which could be used to make statements
corresponding in the required sense to the subordinate clauses can be
ascertained by considering what it is that the speaker of each hypothetical
sentence must (in general) be assumed either to be in doubt about or to believe
to be not the case. Thus, for (1) to (8), the corresponding pairs of sentences
are as follows. The Germans invaded England in 1940; they won the war. Jones is
in charge; half the staff has been dismissed. It will rain; the match will be
cancelled. Sentences which could be used to make the statements of material
implication corresponding to the hypothetical statements made by these
sentences can now be framed from these pairs of sentences as follows. The Germans
invaded England in 1940 ⊃ they won the war. Jones is in charge ⊃ half the staff has been, dismissed. It will rain ⊃ the match will be cancelled. The very fact that these
verbal modifications are necessary, in order to obtain from the clauses of the
hypothetical sentence the clauses of the corresponding material implication
sentence is itself a symptom of the radical difference between hypothetical
statements and truth-functional statements. Some detailed differences are also
evident from these examples. The falsity of a statement made by the use of ‘The
Germans invaded England in 1940’ or ‘Jones is in charge’ is a sufficient
condition of the truth of the corresponding statements made by the use of (Ml)
and (M2) ; but not, of course, of the corresponding statements made by the use
of (1) and (2). Otherwise, there would normally be no point in using sentences
like (1) and (2) at all; for these sentences would normally carry – but not
necessarily: one may use the pluperfect or the imperfect subjunctive when one
is simply working out the consequences of an hypothesis which one may be
prepared eventually to accept -- in the tense or mood of the verb, an
implication of the utterer's belief in the falsity of the statements
corresponding to the clauses of the hypothetical. It is not raining is
sufficient to verify a statement made by the use of (MS), but not a
statementmade by the use of (3). Its not raining Is also sufficient to verify a
statement made by the use of “It will rain ⊃
the match will not be cancelled.” The formulae ‘p revise ⊃q’ and ‘q revise⊃
q' are consistent with one another, and the joint assertion of corresponding
statements of these forms is equivalent to the assertion of the corresponding
statement of the form * *-~p. But “If it rains, the match will be cancelled” is
inconsistent with “If it rains, the match will not be cancelled,” and their
joint assertion in the same context is self-contradictory. Suppose we call the
statement corresponding to the first clause of a sentence used to make a
hypothetical statement the antecedent of the hypothetical statement; and the
statement corresponding to the second clause, its consequent. It is sometimes
fancied that whereas the futility of identifying conditional statements with
material implications is obvious in those cases where the implication of the
falsity of the antecedent is normally carried by the mood or tense of the verb
(e.g., (I) or (2)), there is something to be said for at least a partial
identification in cases where no such implication is involved, i.e., where the
possibility of the truth of both antecedent and consequent is left open (e.g.,
(3). In cases of the first kind (‘unfulfilled’ or ‘subjunctive’ conditionals)
our attention is directed only to the last two lines of the truth-tables for *
p ⊃ q ', where the antecedent has the truth-value, falsity; and
the suggestion that ‘~p’ entails ‘if p, then q’ is felt to be obviously wrong.
But in cases of the second kind we may inspect also the first two lines, for
the possibility of the antecedent's being fulfilled is left open; and the
suggestion that ‘p . q’ entails ‘if p, then q’ is not felt to be obviously
wrong. This is an illusion, though engendered by a reality. The fulfilment of
both antecedent and consequent of a hypothetical statement does not show that
the man who made the hypothetical statement was right; for the consequent might
be fulfilled as a result of factors unconnected with, or in spite of, rather
than because of, the fulfilment of the antecedent. We should be prepared to say
that the man who made the hypothetical statement was right only if we were also
prepared to say that the fulfilment of the antecedent was, at least in part,
the explanation of the fulfilment of the consequent. The reality behind the
illusion is complex : en. 3 it is, partly, the fact that, in many cases, the
fulfilment of both antecedent and consequent may provide confirmation for the
view that the existence of states of affairs like those described by the
antecedent is a good reason for expecting states of affairs like those
described by the consequent ; and it is, partly, the fact that a man whosays,
for example, 4 If it rains, the match will be cancelled * makes a prediction
(viz.. that the match will be cancelled) under a proviso (viz., that it rains),
and that the cancellation of the match because of the rain therefore leads us
to say, not only that the reasonableness of the prediction was confirmed, but
also that the prediction itself was confirmed. Because a statement of the form
“p⊃q” does not entail the corresponding statement of the form '
if p, then q ' (in its standard employment), we shall expect to find, and have
found, a divergence between the rules for '⊃'
and the rules for ' if J (in its standard employment). Because ‘if p, then q’
does entail ‘p⊃q,’ we shall also expect to find some degree of parallelism
between the rules; for whatever is entailed by ‘p "3 q’ will be entailed
by ‘if p, then q,’ though not everything which entails ‘p⊃q’ will entail ‘if p, then q.’ Indeed, we find further
parallels than those which follow simply from the facts that ‘if p, then q’
entails ‘p⊃q’ and that entailment is transitive. To laws (19)-(23)
inclusive we find no parallels for ‘if.’ But for (15) (p⊃j).JJ⊃? (16) (P ⊃q).~qZ)~p (17) p'⊃q s ~q1)~p (18) (?⊃j).(?
⊃r) ⊃ (p⊃r) we find that, with certain reservations, 1 the following
parallel laws hold good : (1 The reservations are important. It is, e. g.,
often impossible to apply entailment-rule (iii) directly without obtaining
incorrect or absurd results. Some modification of the structure of the clauses
of the hypothetical is commonly necessary. But formal logic gives us no guide
as to which modifications are required. If we apply rule (iii) to our specimen
hypothetical sentences, without modifying at all the tenses or moods of the
individual clauses, we obtain expressions which are scarcely English. If we
preserve as nearly as possible the tense-mood structure, in the simplest way
consistent with grammatical requirements, we obtain the sentences : If the
Germans had not won the war, they would not have invaded England in
1940.) If half the staff had not been dismissed, Jones would not be in
charge. If the match is not cancelled, it will not rain. But these sentences,
so far from being logically equivalent to the originals, have in each case a
quite different sense. It is possible, at least in some such cases, to frame
sentences of more or less the appropriate pattern for which one can imagine a
use and which do stand in the required logical relationship to the original
sentences (e.g., ‘If it is not the case that half the staff has been dismissed,
then Jones can't be in charge;’ or ‘If the Germans did not win the war, it's
only because they did not invade England in 1940;’ or even (should historical
evidence become improbably scanty), ‘If the Germans did not win the war, it
can't be true that they invaded England in 1940’). These changes reflect
differences in the circumstances in which one might use these, as opposed to
the original, sentences. Thus the sentence beginning ‘If Jones were in charge
…’ would normally, though not necessarily, be used by a man who antecedently
knows that Jones is not in charge : the sentence beginning ‘If it's not the
case that half the staff has been dismissed …’ by a man who is working towards
the conclusion that Jones is not in charge. To say that the sentences are
nevertheless logically equivalent is to point to the fact that the grounds for
accepting either, would, in different circumstances, have been grounds for accepting
the soundness of the move from ‘Jones is in charge’ to ‘Half the staff has been
dismissed.’) (i) (if p, then q; and p)^q
(ii) (if p, then qt and not-g) Dnot-j? (iii) (if p, then f) ⊃ (if not-0, then not-j?) (iv) (if p, then f ; and iff, then
r) ⊃(if j>, then r) (One must remember that calling the
formulae (i)-(iv) is the same as saying that, e.g., in the case of (iii), c if
p, then q ' entails 4 if not-g, then not-j> '.) And similarly we find that,
for some steps which would be invalid for 4 if ', there are corresponding steps
that would be invalid for “⊃,” e. g. (p^q).q :. p are invalid inference-patterns,
and so are if p, then q ; and q /. p if p, then ; and not-j? /. not-f .The
formal analogy here may be described by saying that neither * p 13 q ' nor * if
j?, then q * is a simply convertible formula. We have found many laws (e.g.,
(19)-(23)) which hold for “⊃” and not for “if.” As an example of
a law which holds for “if,” but not for
“⊃,” we may give the analytic formula “ ~[(if p, then q) * (if
p, then not-g)]’. The corresponding formula 4 ~[(P 3 ?) * (j? 3 ~?}]’ is not
analytic, but (el (28)) is equivalent to the contingent formula ‘~~p.’ The
rules to the effect that formulae such as (19)-{23) are analytic are sometimes
referred to as ‘paradoxes of implication.’ This is a misnomer. If ‘⊃’ is taken as identical either with ‘entails’ or, more
widely, with ‘if ... then …’ in its
standard use, the rules are not paradoxical, but simply incorrect. If ‘⊃’ is given the meaning it has in the system of truth functions,
the rules are not paradoxical, but simple and platitudinous consequences of the
meaning given to the symbol. Throughout this section, I have spoken of a
‘primary or standard’ use of “if … then …,” or “if,” of which the main
characteristics were: that for each hypothetical statement made by this use of
“if,” there could be made just one statement which would be the antecedent of
the hypothetical and just one statement which would be its consequent; that the
hypothetical statement is acceptable (true, reasonable) if the antecedent
statement, if made or accepted, would, in the circumstances, be a good ground
or reason for accepting the consequent statement; and that the making of the
hypothetical statement carries the implication either of uncertainty about, or
of disbelief in, the fulfilment of both antecedent and consequent. (1 Not all
uses of * if ', however, exhibit all these characteristics. In particular,
there is a use which has an equal claim to rank as standard and which is
closely connected with the use described, but which does not exhibit the first
characteristic and for which the description of the remainder must consequently
be modified. I have in mind what are sometimes called 'variable' or 'general’
hypothetical : e.g., ‘lf ice is left in the sun, it melts,’ ‘If the side of a
triangle is produced, the exterior angle is equal to the sum of the two
interior and opposite angles ' ; ' If a child is very strictly disciplined in
the nursery, it will develop aggressive tendencies in adult life,’ and so on.
To a statement made by the use of a sentence such as these there corresponds no
single pair of statements which are, respectively, its antecedent and
consequent. On the other 1 There is much more than this to be said about this
way of using ‘if;’ in particular, about the meaning of the question whether the
antecedent would be a good ground or reason for accepting the consequent and
about the exact way in which this question is related to the question of
whether the hypothetical is true {acceptable, reasonable) or not hand, for
every such statement there is an indefinite number of non-general hypothetical
statements which might be called exemplifications, applications, of the
variable hypothetical; e.g., a statement made by the use of the sentence ‘If
this piece of ice is left in the sun, it will melt.’ To the subject of variable
hypothetical I may return later. 1 Two relatively uncommon uses of ‘if’ may be
illustrated respectively by the sentences ‘If he felt embarrassed, he showed no
signs of it’ and ‘If he has passed his exam, I’m a Dutchman (I'll eat my hat,
&c.)’ The sufficient and necessary condition of the truth of a statement
made by the first is that the man referred to showed no sign of embarrassment.
Consequently, such a statement cannot be treated either as a standard
hypothetical or as a material implication. Examples of the second kind are
sometimes erroneously treated as evidence that ‘if’ does, after all, behave
somewhat as ‘⊃’ behaves. The evidence for this is, presumably, the facts
(i) that there is no connexion between antecedent and consequent; (ii) that the
consequent is obviously not (or not to be) fulfilled ; (iii) that the intention
of the speaker is plainly to give emphatic expression to the conviction that
the antecedent is not fulfilled either ; and (iv) the fact that “(p ⊃ q) . ~q” entails “~p.” But this is a strange piece of
logic. For, on any possible interpretation, “if p then q” has, in respect of
(iv), the same logical powers as ‘p⊃q;’
and it is just these logical powers that we are jokingly (or fantastically)
exploiting. It is the absence of connexion referred to in (i) that makes it a
quirk, a verbal flourish, an odd use of ‘if.’ If hypothetical statements were
material implications, the statements would be not a quirkish oddity, but a
linguistic sobriety and a simple truth. Finally, we may note that ‘if’ can be employed not simply in making
statements, but in, e.g., making provisional announcements of intention (e.g.,
‘If it rains, I shall stay at home’) which, like unconditional announcements of
intention, we do not call true or false but describe in some other way. If the
man who utters the quoted sentence leaves home in spite of the rain, we do not
say that what he said was false, though we might say that he lied (never really
intended to stay in) ; or that he changed his mind. There are further uses of
‘if’ which I shall not discuss. 1 v. ch. 7, I. The safest way to read the
material implication sign is, perhaps, ‘not both … and not …’ The material
equivalence sign ‘≡’ has the meaning given by the
following definition : p q =df=⊃/'(p⊃ff).(sOj)'
and the phrase with which it is sometimes identified, viz., ‘if and only if,’
has the meaning given by the following definition: ‘p if and only if q’ =df ‘if
p then g, and if q then p.’ Consequently, the objections which hold against the
identification of ‘p⊃q” with ‘if p then q’ hold with double force against the
identification of “p≡q’ with ‘p if and only if q.’ ‘If’
is of particular interest to Grice. The interest in the ‘if’ is double in
Grice. In doxastic contexts, he needs it for his analysis of ‘intending’
against an ‘if’-based dispositional (i.e. subjective-conditional) analysis. He
is of course, later interested in how Strawson misinterpreted the ‘indicative’
conditional! It is later when he starts to focus on the ‘buletic’ mode marker,
that he wants to reach to Paton’s categorical (i.e. non-hypothetical)
imperative. And in so doing, he has to face the criticism of those Oxonian
philosophers who were sceptical about the very idea of a conditional buletic
(‘conditional command – what kind of a command is that?’. Grice would refere to
the protasis, or antecedent, as a relativiser – where we go again to the
‘absolutum’-‘relativum’ distinction. The conditional is also paramount in
Grice’s criticism of Ryle, where the keyword would rather be ‘disposition.’
Then ther eis the conditional and disposition. Grice is a philosophical
psychologist. Does that make sense? So are Austin (Other Minds), Hampshire
(Dispositions), Pears (Problems in philosophical psychology) and Urmson
(Parentheticals). They are ALL against Ryle’s silly analysis in terms of
single-track disposition" vs. "many-track disposition," and
"semi-disposition." If I hum and walk, I can either hum or walk. But
if I heed mindfully, while an IN-direct sensing may guide me to YOUR soul, a
DIRECT sensing guides me to MY soul. When Ogden consider attacks to meaning,
theres what he calls the psychological, which he ascribes to Locke Grices
attitude towards Ryle is difficult to assess. His most favourable assessment
comes from Retrospective epilogue, but then he is referring to Ryle’s fairy
godmother. Initially, he mentions Ryle as a philosopher engaged in, and
possibly dedicated to the practice of the prevailing Oxonian methodology, i.e.
ordinary-language philosophy. Initially, then, Grice enlists Ryle in
the regiment of ordinary-language philosophers. After introducing Athenian
dialectic and Oxonian dialectic, Grice traces some parallelisms, which should
not surprise. It is tempting to suppose that Oxonian dialectic reproduces some
ideas of Athenian dialectic. It would actually be surprising if there
were no parallels. Ryle was, after all, a skilled and enthusiastic student of
Grecian philosophy. Interestingly, Grice then has Ryles fairy godmother as
proposing the idea that, far from being a basis for rejecting the
analytic-synthetic distinction, opposition that there are initially two
distinct bundles of statements, bearing the labels analytic and synthetic,
lying around in the world of thought waiting to be noticed, provides us with
the key to making the analytic-synthetic distinction acceptable. The
essay has a verificationist ring to it. Recall Ayer and the
verificationists trying to hold water with concepts like fragile and the
problem of counterfactual conditionals vis-a-vis observational and
theoretical concepts. Grices essay has two parts: one on disposition as
such, and the second, the application to a type of psychological
disposition, which would be phenomenalist in a way, or verificationist, in
that it derives from introspection of, shall we say, empirical
phenomena. Grice is going to analyse, I want a sandwich. One person
wrote in his manuscript, there is something with the way Grice goes to work.
Still. Grice says that I want a sandwich (or I will that I eat a sandwich)
is problematic, for analysis, in that it seems to refer to experience that is
essentially private and unverifiable. An analysis of intending that p in terms
of being disposed that p is satisfied solves this. Smith wants a sandwich, or
he wills that he eats a sandwich, much as Toby needs nuts, if Smith opens the
fridge and gets one. Smith is disposed to act such that p is satisfied.
This Grice opposes to the ‘special-episode’ analysis of intending that p. An
utterance like I want a sandwich iff by uttering the utterance, the utterer is
describing this or that private experience, this or that private
sensation. This or that sensation may take the form of a highly specific
souly sate, like what Grice calls a sandwich-wanting-feeling. But then, if
he is not happy with the privacy special-episode analysis, Grice is also
dismissive of Ryles behaviourism in The concept of mind, fresh from
the press, which would describe the utterance in terms purely of this or that observable
response, or behavioural output, provided this or that sensory input. Grice
became friendlier with functionalism after Lewis taught him how. The
problem or crunch is with the first person. Surely, Grice claims, one does not
need to wait to observe oneself heading for the fridge before one is in a
position to know that he is hungry. Grice poses a problem for the
protocol-reporter. You see or observe someone else, Smith, that Smith wants a
sandwich, or wills that he eats a sandwich. You ask for evidence. But when it
is the agent himself who wants the sandwich, or wills that he eats a
sandwich, Grice melodramatically puts it, I am not in the
audience, not even in the front row of the stalls; I am on the
stage. Genial, as you will agree. Grice then goes on to offer an
analysis of intend, his basic and target attitude, which he has just used to
analyse and rephrase Peirces mean and which does relies on this or that piece
of dispositional evidence, without divorcing itself completely from the privileged
status or access of first-person introspective knowledge. In “Uncertainty,”
Grice weakens his reductive analysis of intending that, from neo-Stoutian,
based on certainty, or assurance, to neo-Prichardian, based on predicting. All
very Oxonian: Stout was the sometime Wilde reader in mental philosophy (a post
usually held by a psychologist, rather than a philosopher ‒ Stouts favourite
philosopher is psychologist James! ‒ and Prichard was Cliftonian and the proper
White chair of moral philosophy. And while in “Uncertainty” he allows that
willing that may receive a physicalist treatment, qua state, hell later turn a
functionalist, discussed under ‘soul, below, in his “Method in
philosophical psychology (from the banal to the bizarre” (henceforth, “Method”),
in the Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association,
repr. in “Conception.” Grice can easily relate to Hamsphires "Thought and
Action," a most influential essay in the Oxonian scene. Rather than Ryle!
And Grice actually addresses further topics on intention drawing on Hampshire,
Hart, and his joint collaboration with Pears. Refs.: The main reference is
Grice’s early essay on disposition and intention, The H. P. Grice. Refs.: The
main published source is Essay 4 in WOW, but there are essays on ‘ifs and
cans,’ so ‘if’ is a good keyword, on ‘entailment,’ and for the connection with
‘intending,’ ‘disposition and intention,’ BANC.
confirmatum – cf. infirmatum,
firmatum -- disconfirmatum -- confirmation, an evidential relation between evidence
and any statement especially a scientific hypothesis that this evidence
supports. It is essential to distinguish two distinct, and fundamentally
different, meanings of the term: 1 the incremental sense, in which a piece of
evidence contributes at least some degree of support to the hypothesis in
question e.g., finding a fingerprint of
the suspect at the scene of the crime lends some weight to the hypothesis that
the suspect is guilty; and 2 the absolute sense, in which a body of evidence
provides strong support for the hypothesis in question e.g., a case presented by a prosecutor making
it practically certain that the suspect is guilty. If one thinks of
confirmation in terms of probability, then evidence that increases the
probability of a hypothesis confirms it incrementally, whereas evidence that
renders a hypothesis highly probable confirms it absolutely. In each of the two
foregoing senses one can distinguish three types of confirmation: i
qualitative, ii quantitative, and iii comparative. i Both examples in the
preceding paragraph illustrate qualitative confirmation, for no numerical
values of the degree of confirmation were mentioned. ii If a gambler, upon
learning that an opponent holds a certain card, asserts that her chance of
winning has increased from 2 /3 to ¾, the claim is an instance of quantitative
incremental confirmation. If a physician states that, on the basis of an X-ray,
the probability that the patient has tuberculosis is .95, that claim
exemplifies quantitative absolute confirmation. In the incremental sense, any
case of quantitative confirmation involves a difference between two probability
values; in the absolute sense, any case of quantitative confirmation involves
only one probability value. iii Comparative confirmation in the incremental
sense would be illustrated if an investigator said that possession of the
murder weapon weighs more heavily against the suspect than does the fingerprint
found at the scene of the crime. Comparative confirmation in the absolute sense
would occur if a prosecutor claimed to have strong cases against two suspects
thought to be involved in a crime, but that the case against one is stronger
than that against the other. Even given recognition of the foregoing six
varieties of confirmation, there is still considerable controversy regarding
its analysis. Some authors claim that quantitative confirmation does not exist;
only qualitative and/or comparative confirmation are possible. Some authors
maintain that confirmation has nothing to do with probability, whereas
others known as Bayesians analyze confirmation explicitly in terms of
Bayes’s theorem in the mathematical calculus of probability. Among those who
offer probabilistic analyses there are differences as to which interpretation
of probability is suitable in this context. Popper advocates a concept of
corroboration that differs fundamentally from confirmation. Many real or
apparent paradoxes of confirmation have been posed; the most famous is the
paradox of the ravens. It is plausible to suppose that ‘All ravens are black’
can be incrementally confirmed by the observation of one of its instances,
namely, a black crow. However, ‘All ravens are black’ is logically equivalent
to ‘All non-black things are non-ravens.’ By parity of reasoning, an instance of
this statement, namely, any nonblack non-raven e.g., a white shoe, should
incrementally confirm it. Moreover, the equivalence condition whatever confirms a hypothesis must equally
confirm any statement logically equivalent to it seems eminently reasonable. The result
appears to facilitate indoor ornithology, for the observation of a white shoe
would seem to confirm incrementally the hypothesis that all ravens are black.
Many attempted resolutions of this paradox can be found in the literature.
conjunctum: There is the conjunctum, Grice notes, and the disjunctum,
and the adjunctum, as Myro was (adjunct professor). One has to be careful
because the scholastic vocabulary also misleadingly has ‘copulatum’ for this.
The ‘copulatum’ should be restricted to other usages, which Grice elaborates on
‘izzing’ and hazing. traditional parlance, one ‘pars orationis.’ Aulus Gellius writes; “What the Greeks call
“sympleplegmenon” we call conjunctum or copulatum, copulative sentence. For
example. The Stoic copulative sentence — sumpleplegmenon axioma — is translated
by “conjunctum” or “copulatum,” for example: „P. Scipio, son of Paulus, was a
consul twice and was given the honour of triumph and also performed the
function of censor and was the colleague of L. Mummius during his censorship”.
Here, Aulus Gellius made a noteworthy remark, referring to the value of truth
of the composing propositions ■ (a Stoic problem). In keeping with the Stoics,
he wrote: “If one element of the copulative sentence is false, even if all the
other elements are true, the copulative sentence is false” (“in omni aiitem
conjuncto si unum est mendacium etiamsi, caetera vera sunt, totum esse
mendacium dicitur”). In the identification of ‘and’ with ‘Λ’
there is already a considerable
distortion of the facts. ‘And’ can perform many jobs which ‘Λ’ cannot perform. It can, for instance, be used to couple
nouns (“Tom and William arrived”), or adjectives (“He was hungry and thirsty”),
or adverbs (“He walked slowly and painfully”); while ' . ' can be used only to
couple expressions which could appear as separate sentences. One might be
tempted to say that sentences in which “and” coupled words or phrases, were
short for sentences in which “and” couples clauses; e.g., that “He was hungry
and thirsty” was short for “He was hungry and he was thirsty.” But this is
simply false. We do not say, of anyone who uses sentences like “Tom and William
arrived,” that he is speaking elliptically, or using abbreviations. On the
contrary, it is one of the functions of “and,” to which there is no counterpart
In the case of “.,” to form plural subjects or compound predicates. Of course
it is true of many statements of the forms “x and y” are/* or ' x is /and g \
that they are logically equivalent to corresponding statements of the"
form * x Is /and yisf'oT^x is /and x is g \ But, first, this is a fact about
the use, in certain contexts, of “and,”
to which there corresponds no rule for the use of * . '. And, second, there are
countless contexts for which such an equivalence does not hold; e.g. “Tom and
Mary made friends” is not equivalent to “Tom made friends and Mary made
friends.” They mean, usually, quite different things. But notice that one could
say “Tom and Mary made friends; but not with one another.” The implication of mutuality
in the first phrase is not so strong but that it can be rejected without
self-contradiction; but it is strong enough to make the rejection a slight
shock, a literary effect. Nor does such an equivalence hold if we replace “made
friends” by “met yesterday,” “were conversing,” “got married,” or “were playing
chess.” Even “Tom and William arrived” does not mean the same as “Tom arrived
and William arrived;” for the first suggests “together” and the second an order
of arrival. It might be conceded that “and” has functions which “ .” has not
(e.g., may carry in certain contexts an implication of mutuality which ‘.’ does not), and yet claimed that the rules
which hold for “and,” where it is used to couple clauses, are the same as the
rules which hold for “.” Even this is not true. By law (11), " p , q ' is
logically equivalent to * q . p ' ; but “They got married and had a child” or
“He set to work and found a job” are by no means logically equivalent to “They
had a child and got married” or “He found a job and set to work.” One might try
to avoid these difficulties by regarding ‘.’ as having the function, not of '
and ', but of what it looks like, namely a full stop. We should then have to
desist from talking of statements of the forms ' p .q\ * p . J . r * &CM
and talk of sets-of-statements of these forms instead. But this would not
avoid all, though it would avoid some, of the difficulties. Even in a passage
of prose consisting of several indicative sentences, the order of the sentences
may be in general vital to the sense, and in particular, relevant (in a way
ruled out by law (II)) to the truth-conditions of a set-of-statements made by
such a passage. The fact is that, in general, in ordinary speech and writing,
clauses and sentences do not contribute to the truthconditions of things said
by the use of sentences and paragraphs in which they occur, in any such simple
way as that pictured by the truth-tables for the binary connectives (' D ' * .
', 4 v ', 35 ') of the system, but in far more subtle, various, and complex
ways. But it is precisely the simplicity of the way in which, by the definition
of a truth-function, clauses joined by these connectives contribute to the
truth-conditions of sentences resulting from the junctions, which makes
possible the stylized, mechanical neatness of the logical system. It will not
do to reproach the logician for his divorce from linguistic realities, any more
than it will do to reproach the abstract painter for not being a
representational artist; but one may justly reproach him if he claims to be a
representational artist. An abstract painting may be, recognizably, a painting
of something. And the identification of “.” with ‘and,’ or with a full stop, is
not a simple mistake. There is a great deal of point in comparing them. The
interpretation of, and rules for, “.”define a minimal linguistic operation,
which we might call ‘simple conjunction’ and roughly describe as the joining
together of two (or more) statements in the process of asserting them both (or
all). And this is a part of what we often do with ' and ', and with the full
stop. But we do not string together at random any assertions we consider true;
we bring them together, in spoken or written sentences or paragraphs, only when
there is some further reason for the rapprochement, e.g., when they record
successive episodes in a single narrative. And that for the sake of which we
conjoin may confer upon the sentences embodying the conjunction logical
features at variance with the rules for “.” Thus we have seen that a statement
of the form “p and q” may carry an implication of temporal order incompatible
with that carried by the corresponding statement of the form “q and p.” This is
not to deny that statements corresponding to these, but of the forms ‘pΛq’ and ‘qΛp’would
be, if made, logically equivalent; for such statements would carry no
implications, and therefore no incompatible implications, of temporal order.
Nor is it to deny the point, and merit, of the comparison; the statement of the
form ‘pΛq’ means at least a part of what is
meant by the corresponding statement of the form ‘p and q.’ We might say: the form ‘p q’ is an abstraction from the
different uses of the form ‘p and q.’ Simple conjunction is a minimal element in
colloquial conjunction. We may speak of ‘. ‘ as the conjunctive sign; and read
it, for simplicity's sake, as “and” or “both … and … “I have already remarked
that the divergence between the meanings given to the truth-functional
constants and the meanings of the ordinary conjunctions with which they are
commonly identified is at a minimum in the cases of ' ~ ' and ‘.’ We have seen,
as well, that the remaining constants of the system can be defined in terms of
these two. Other interdefinitions are equally possible. But since ^’ and ‘.’ are more nearly identifiable with ‘not’ and
‘and’ than any other constant with any other English word, I prefer to
emphasize the definability of the remaining constants in terms of ‘ .’ and ‘~.’
It is useful to remember that every rule or law of the system can be expressed
in terms of negation and simple conjunction. The system might, indeed, be
called the System of Negation and Conjunction. Grice lists ‘and’ as the first
binary functor in his response to Strawson. Grice’s conversationalist hypothesis
applies to this central ‘connective.’ Interestingly, in his essay on Aristotle,
and discussing, “French poet,” Grice distinguishes between conjunction and
adjunction. “French” is adjuncted to ‘poet,’ unlike ‘fat’ in ‘fat philosopher.’ And Grice:substructural logics,
metainference, implicaturum. Grice explores some of the issues regarding
pragmatic enrichment and substructural logics with a special focus on the first
dyadic truth-functor, ‘and.’ In particular, attention is given to a
sub-structural “rule” pertaining to the commutativeness of conjunction,
applying a framework that sees Grice as clarifying the extra material that must
be taken into account, and which will referred to as the ‘implicaturum.’ Grice
is thus presented as defending a “classical-logical” rule that assigns
commutativeness to conjunction while accounting for Strawson-type alleged
counterexamples to the effect that some utterances of the schema “p and q”
hardly allow for a ‘commutative’ “inference” (“Therefore, q and p”). How to
proceed conservatively while allowing room for pluralism? Embracing the
“classical-logical” syntactic introduction-cum-elimination and semantic
interpretation of “and,” the approach by Cook Wilson in “Statement and
inference” to the inferential métier of “and” is assessed. If Grice grants that
there is some degree of artificiality in speaking of the meaning or sense of
“and,” the polemic brings us to the realm of ‘pragmatic inference,’ now
contrasted to a ‘logical inference.’ The endorsement by Grice of an ‘impoverished’
reading of conjunction appears conservative vis-à-vis not just Strawson’s
‘informalist’ picture but indeed the formalist frameworks of relevant, linear,
and ordered logic. An external practical decision à la Carnap is in order, that
allows for an enriched, stronger, reading, if not in terms of a conventional implicaturum,
as Strawson suggests. A ‘classical-logic’ reading in terms of a conversational implicaturum
agrees with Grice’s ‘Bootstrap,’ a methodological principle constraining the
meta-language/object-language divide. Keywords:
conjunction, pragmatic enrichment, H. Paul Grice, Bootstrap. “[I]n recent
years, my disposition to resort to formalism has markedly diminished. This
retreat may well have been accelerated when, of all people, Hilary Putnam
remarked to me that I was too formal!”H.P. Grice, ‘Prejudices and
predilections; which become, the life and opinions of Paul Grice,’ in Grandy
& Warner, 1986:61 Keywords: metainference, substructural logics, classical
logic, conjunction, H. Paul Grice, pragmatic inference; Rudolf Carnap,
bootstrap, modernism, formalism, neotraditionalism, informalism, pragmatics,
inference, implicaturum, extensional conjunction, intensional conjunction,
multiplicative conjunction, additive conjunction. Grice’s approach consistent
with Rudolf Carnap’s logical pluralism that allows room for the account put
forward by H. Paul Grice in connection with a specific meta-inference (or
second-order “… yields …”) as it may help us take an ‘external’ practical
decision as to how to recapture a structural ‘rule’ of classical logic. The
attempt involves a reconsideration, with a special focus on the sub-structural
classical logic rules for conjunction of Grice’s ultimately metaphilosophical
motivation in the opening paragraphs to “Logic and Conversation.” Grice
explores stick the first dyadic
truth-functor Grice lists. In fact, it’s the first alleged divergence, between
“p and q” and “p. . q” that Grice had quotes in “Prolegomena” to motivate his
audience, and the example he brings up vis-à-vis an ‘alleged’ “linguistic
offence” (a paradox?) that an utterer may incur by uttering “He got into bed
and took his clothes off, but I don’t mean to suggest he did it in that order”
(Grice 1981:186). Implicatura
are cancellable. In the present scheme, which justifies substructural logics,
this amounts to any ‘intensional’ reading of a connective (e. g. ‘and’) being
susceptible of being turned or ‘trans-formed’
into
the correlative extensional one in light of the cancelling clause, which brings
new information to the addressee A. This is hardly problematic if we consider
that sub-structural logics do not aim to capture the ‘semantics’ of a
logical constant, and that the sub-structural logical ‘enrichment’ is relevant,
rather, for the constant’s ‘inferential role.’Neither is it problematic that
the fact that the ‘inferential role’ of a logical constant (such as ‘and’) may
change (allowing this ‘trans-formation’ from classical-logical extensional to
sub-structural logical intension, given new information which will be used by
the addressee A to ‘work out’ the utterer U’s meaning. The obvious, but worthemphasizing, entailment in Grice’s
assertion about the “mistake” shared by Formalism and Informalism is that
FORMALISM (as per the standard presentations of ‘classical logic’) does commit
a mistake! Re-capturing the FORMALISM of classical logic is hardly as direct in
the Griceian programme as one would assume. Grice’s ultimate meta-philosophical
motivation, though, seems to be more in agreement with FORMALISM. Formalism can
repair the mistake, Grice thinks, not by allowing a change in the assigning of
an ‘interpretation’ rule of an empoverished “and” (““p and q” is 1 iff both p
and q are 1, 0 otherwise.” (Cfr. Pap: “Obviously, I cannot prove that
“(p and q) ≡ (q and p)” is tautologous (and that
therefore “He got into bed and took off his clothes’ iff ‘he took of his
clothes and got into bed,’) unless I first
construct an adequate truth-table defining the use of “and.”
But surely one of the points of constructing such a table is to ‘reproduce’ or
capture’ the meaning of ‘and’ in a natural language! The proposal seems
circular!) and a deductive ‘syntactics’ rule,
involving the Gentzen-type elimination of ‘and’ (“ “p and q” yields “p”; and
its reciprocal, “ “p and q” yields “q”.” To avoid commiting the mistake,
formalism must recognise the conversational implicaturum ceteris paribus
derived from some constraint of rational co-operation (in particular, the
desideratum or conversational maxim, “be orderly!”) and allow for some
syntactical scope device to make the implicaturum obvious, an ‘explicatum,’
almost (without the need to reinforce “and” into “and then”). In Grice’s
examples, it may not even be a VIOLATION, but a FLOUT, of a conversational
maxim or desideratum, within the observance of an overarching co-operation
principle (A violation goes unnoticed; a flout is a rhetorical device. Cfr.
Quintilian’s observation that Homer would often use “p & q” with the implicaturum
“but not in that order” left to the bard’s audience to work out). Grice’s attempt
is to recapture “classical-logic” “and,” however pragmatically ‘enriched,’
shares some features with other sub-structural logics, since we have allowed
for a syntactical tweak of the ‘inference’ rules; which we do via the
pragmatist (rather than pragmatic) ‘implicatural’ approach to logic,
highlighting one pragmatic aspect of a logic without CUT. Grice grants that “p and q” should read “p .
q” “when [“p . q” is] interpreted in the classical two-valued way.” His wording
is thus consistent with OTHER ways (notably relevant logic, linear and ordered
logic). Grice seems to have as one of his ‘unspeakable truths’ things like “He
got into bed and took his clothes off,” “said of a man who proceeds otherwise.”
After mentioning “and” “interpreted in the classical
two-valued way,” Grice dedicates a full
paragraph to explore the classical logic’s manifesto. The idea is to
provide a SYSTEM that will give us an algorithm to decide which formulae are
theorems. The ‘logical consequence’ (or “… yields …”) relation is given a
precise definition.Grice
notes that “some logicians [whom he does not mention] may at some time have
wanted to claim that there are in fact no such divergences [between “p and q”
and “p . q”]; but such claims, if made at all, have been somewhat rashly made,
and those suspected of making them have been subjected to some pretty rough
handling.” “Those who concede that such
divergences [do] exist” are the formalists. “An outline of a not
uncharacteristic FORMALIST position may be given as follows,” Grice notes. We
proceed to number the thesis since it sheds light on what makes a
sub-structural logic sub-structural“Insofar as logicians are concerned with the
formulation of very general patterns of VALID INFERENCE (“… yields…”) the
formal device (“p . q”) possesses a decisive advantage over their natural
counterpart (“p and q.”) For it will be possible to construct in terms of the
formal device (“p . q”) a system of very general formulas, a considerable
number of which can be regarded as, or are closely related to, a pattern of
inferences the expression of which involves the device.”“Such a system may
consist of a certain set of simple formulas that MUST BE ACCEPTABLE if the
device has the MEANING (or sense) that has been ASSIGNED to it, and an
indefinite number of further formulas, many of them less obviously acceptable
(“q . p”), each of which can be shown to be acceptable if the members of the
original set are acceptable.”“We have, thus, a way of handling dubiously acceptable
patterns of inference (“q. p,” therefore, “p. q”) and if, as is sometimes
possible, we can apply A DECISION PROCEDURE, we have an even better
way.”“Furthermore, from a PHILOSOPHICAL point of view, the possession by the
natural counterpart (“p and q”) of that element in their meaning (or sense),
which they do NOT share with the corresponding formal device, is to be regarded
as an IMPERFECTION; the element in question is an undesirable excrescence. For
the presence of this element has the result that the CONCEPT within which it
appears cannot be precisely/clearly defined, and that at least SOME statements
involving it cannot, in some circumstances, be assigned a definite TRUTH VALUE;
and the indefiniteness of this concept is not only objectionable in itself but
leaves open the way to METAPHYSICS: we cannot be certain that the
natural-language expression (“p and q”) is METAPHYSICALLY ‘LOADED.’”“For these
reasons, the expression, as used in natural speech (“p and q”), CANNOT be
regarded as finally acceptable, and may tum out to be, finally, not fully
intelligible.” “The proper course is to conceive and begin to construct an
IDEAL language, incorporating the formal device (“p . q”), the sentences of
which will be clear, determinate in TRUTH-VALUE, and certifiably FREE FROM
METAPHYSICAL IMPLICATIONS.”“The foundations of SCIENCE will now be
PHILOSOPHICALLY SECURE, since the statements of the scientist will be
EXPRESSIBLE (though not necessarily actually expressed) within this ideal
language.”What kind of enrichment are we talking
about? It may be understood as a third conjunct ptn-l & qtn
& (tn > tn-l) FIRST
CONJUNCT + SECOND CONJUNCT + “TEMPORAL SUCCESSION” p AND THEN q To
buttress the buttressing of ‘and,’ Grice uses ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ for other
operators like ‘disjunction – and his rationale for the Modified Occam’s razor
would be: “A STRONGER SENSE for a truth-functional dyadic operator SHOULD NOT
BE POSTULATED when A WEAK (or minimal) SENSE does, provided we add the
CANCELLABLE IMPLICATURUM.” Grice SIMPLIFIES semantics, but there’s no free
lunch, since he now has to explain how the IMPLICATURUM arises. Let’s revise the way “and,” the first ‘dyadic’ device in
“Logic and Conversation,” is invoked by Grice in “Prolegomena.” “He got into
bed and took his clothes off,” “said of a someone who took his clothes off and
got into bed.” Cfr. theorems ∧I
= ` ∀ φ ψ• [φ; ψ] |= φ ∧
ψ ∧E = ` ∀
φ ψ• ([φ ∧ ψ] |= φ) ∧ ([φ ∧
ψ] |= ψ)We have: He got into bed and took his clothes off (Grice, 1989:9). He took his clothes off and got into bed (Grice, 1989:9). He got into bed and took his clothes off but I don’t want to
suggest that he did those things in that order (Grice, 1981:186). He first took his clothes off and then got into bed (Grice
1989:9). In invoking Strawson’s Introduction to Logical Theory, is Grice being
fair? Strawson had noted, provocatively: “[The formula] “p . q’ is
logically equivalent to ‘q . p’; but [the English] ‘They got married and had a
child’ or ‘He set to work and found a job’ are by no means logically equivalent
to ‘They had a child and got married’ or ‘He found a job and set to work.’”How
easier things would have gone should Strawson have used the adjective
‘pragmatic’ that he mentions later in his treatise in connection with Grice. Strawson
is sticking with the truth-functionality and thinking of ‘equivalence’ in terms
of ‘iff’ – but his remark may be rephrased as involving a notion of
‘inference.’ In terms of LOGICAL INFERENCE, the premise “He got into bed and
took his clothes off” YIELDS “He took off his clothes and got into bed,” even
if that does NOT ‘yield’ in terms of ceteris paribus PRAGMATIC inference. It
would have pleased Grice to read the
above as: “[The formula] “p . q’ is
equivalentL to ‘q . p’; but [the English] ‘They got married and had
a child’ or ‘He set to work and found a job’ are by no means equivalentP
to ‘They had a child and got married’ or ‘He found a job and set to work.’” By appealing to a desideratum of rational co-operative
discourse, “be orderly,” Grice thinks he can restore “and” to its
truth-functional sense, while granting that the re-inforced “then” (or an
alleged extra sense of “temporal succession,” as he has it in “Prolegomena”) is
merely and naturally (if cancellable on occasion) conversationally implicated
(even if under a generalised way) under the assumption that the addressee A
will recognise that the utterer U is observing the desideratum, and is being
orderly. But witness variants to the cancellation (3) above. There is an indifferent,
indeterminate form: He got into bed and took off his clothes, though I don’t
mean to imply that he did that in that order.versus the less indeterminate He
got into bed and took his clothes off, but not in that order. +> i.e. in the
reverse one.Postulating a pragmatic desideratum allows Grice to keep any
standard sub-structural classical rule for “and” and “&” (as s he does when
he goes more formalist in “Vacuous Names,” his tribute to Quine).How are to
interpret the Grice/Strawson ‘rivalry’ in meta-inference? Using Frege’s
assertion “⊦LK” as our operator to read “… yields…” we have:p & q ⊦LK q & p and q & p ⊦LK p & q. In
“Prolegomena,” then, Grice introduces:“B. Examples involve an area of special
interest to me [since he was appointed logic tutor at St. John’s], namely
that of expressions which are candidates for being natural analogues to logical
constants and which may, or may not, ‘diverge’ in meaning [not use] from the
related constants (considered as elements in a classical logic, standardly
interpreted). It has, for example, been suggested that because it would be
incorrect or inappropriate [or misleading, even false?] to say “He got into bed
and took off his clothes” of [someone] who first took off his clothes and then
got into bed, it is part of the meaning [or sense] or part of one meaning
[sub-sense] of “and” to convey temporal succession” (Grice 1989:8). The
explanation in terms of a reference to “be orderly” is mentioned in
“Presupposition and conversational implicaturum” (Grice 1981:186). Grice notes: “It
has been suggested by [an informalist like] Strawson, in [An] Introduction to
Logical Theory [by changing the title of Strawson’s essay, Grice seems to be
implicating that Strawson need not sound pretentious] that there is a
divergence between the ordinary use or meaning of ‘and’ and the conjunction
sign [“.”] of propositional or predicate calculus because “He took off his
clothes and got into to bed” does not seem to have the same meaning as “He got
into bed and took off his clothes.”” Grice goes on: “[Strawson’s] suggestion here is, of course, that, in order properly
to represent the ordinary use of [the
word] “and,” one would have to allow a special sense (or sub-sense) for [the word] “and” which contained
some reference to the idea that what was
mentioned before [the word] “and” was temporally prior to what was mentioned
after it, and that, on that supposition,
one could deal with this case.”Grice goes on: “[Contra Strawson,] I want to
suggest in reply that it is not necessary
[call him an Occamist, minimalist] if one operates on some general principle
[such as M. O. R., or Modified Occam’s Razor] of keeping down, as far as possible, the number of special sense
[sic] of words that one has to invoke, to give countenance to the
alleged divergence of meaning.” The
constraint is not an arbitrary assignation of sense, but a rational one derived
from the nature of conversation:“It is just that there is a general supposition
[which would be sub-sidiary to the general maxim of Manner or ‘Modus’ (‘be
perspicuous! [sic]’) that one presents one's material in an orderly manner and, if what one is engaged upon is a narration (if
one is talking about events), then the
most orderly manner for a narration of events is an order that corresponds to the order in which they took
place.”Grice concludes: “So, the meaning of the expression ‘He took off his
clothes and he got into bed” and the
corresponding expression with a [classical] logician's constant
"&" [when given a standard two-valued interpretation] (i.e. “He took his clothes off & he got into
bed") would be exactly the same.”Grice’s
indifference with what type of formalism to adopt is obvious: “And, indeed, if
anybody actually used in ordinary speech the "&" as a piece of vocabulary instead of as a formal(ist)
device, and used it to connect together sentences of this type, they would collect just the same
[generalised conversational] implicatura as the ordinary English sentences have without any extra explanation
of the meaning of the word ‘and’.” It is
then that Grice goes on to test the ‘cancellability,’ producing the
typical Gricean idiom, above:He took his
clothes off and got into bed but I don't mean to suggest that he did those
things in that order. Grice goes on: “I
should say that I did suggest, in [my essay] on implicaturum, two sorts of tests by which one might hope to identify a conversational implicaturum.
[...] I did not mean to suggest that these tests were final, only that they
were useful. One test was the possibility of cancellation; that is to say,
could one without [classical] logical absurdity [when we have a standard
two-valued interpretation], attach a cancellation clause. For instance, could I
say (9)?” Grice: “If that is not a linguistic offense [and ‘false’], or does
not seem to be, then, so far as it goes, it is an indication that what one has
here is a conversational implicaturum, and that the original [alleged meaning,
sense, or] suggestion of temporal succession [is] not part of the conventional
meaning of the sentence.” Grice (1981, p. 186). Formalising the temporal succession
is never enough but it may help, and (9) becomes (10):p & q and ptn-l &
qtn where “tn-l” is a temporal index
for a time prior to “tn”. It is interesting to note that Chomsky, of all
people, in 1966, a year before Grice’s William James lectures, in Aspects of
the theory of syntax refers to “A [sic] P. Grice” as propounding that temporal
succession be considered implicaturum (Since this pre-dates the William James
lectures by a year, it was via the seminars at Oxford that reached Chomsky at
MIT via some of Grice’s tutees).Let us revise Urmson’s wording in his treatment
of the ‘clothes’ example, to check if Grice is being influenced by Urmson’s
presentation of the problem to attack Strawson. Urmson notes: “In
formal[ist] logic, the connective[…] ‘and’ [is] always given a minimum
[empoverished] meaning, as [I] have done above, such that any complex
[molecular sentence] formed by the use of [it] alone is [always] a
truth-function of its constituents.”Urmson goes on to sound almost like
Strawson, whose Introduction to Logical Theory he credits. Urmson notes: “In
ordinary discourse the connective[… ‘and]] often [has] a *richer* meaning.”Urmson
must be credited, with this use of ‘richer’ as the father of pragmatic
enRICHment!Urmson goes on: “Thus ‘He took his clothes off and got into bed’
implies temporal succession and has a different meaning from [the impoverished,
unreinforced] ‘He got into bed and took off his clothes.’” Urmson does not play
with Grice’s reinforcement: “He first got into bed and then took his clothes
off.’ Urmson goes on, however, in his concluding remark, to side with Grice
versus Strawson, as he should! Urmson notes: “[Formal(ist) l]ogicians would
justify their use of the minimum [impoverished, unreinforced, weak] meaning by
pointing out that it is the common element in all our uses [or every use] of
‘and.’” (Urmson, 1956:9-10). The
commutativeness of ‘and’ in the examples he gives is rejected by Strawson. How
does Strawson reflect this in his sub-structural rule for ‘and’?
As Humberstone puts it, “It
is possible to define a version of the calculus, which defines most of the
syntax of the logical operators by means of axioms, and which uses only one
inference rule.”Axioms: Let φ, χ and ψ stand for
well-formed formulae. The wff's themselves would not contain any Greek letters,
but only capital Roman letters, connective operators, and parentheses. The
axioms include:ANDFIRST-CONJUNCT: φ ∧ χ → φ and ANDSECOND-CONJUNCT:
φ ∧ χ → χ. Our (13) and (14) correspond to
Gentzen’s “conjunction elimination” (or (& -), as Grice has it in “Vacuous
Names.”). The relation between (13) and
(14) reflects the commutativity of the conjunction operator. Cfr. Cohen 1971: “Another conversational maxim of Grice's,
“be orderly”, is intended to govern such matters as the
formalist can show that it was not appropriate to postulate a special non-commutative temporal
conjunction.”“The locus classicus for complaints of this nature being Strawson (1952).”
Note that the commutative “and” is derived from Grice’s elimination of
conjunction, “p & q ⊦
p” and “p & q ⊦ q
-- as used by Grice in his system Q.Also note that the truth-evaluation would
be for Grice ‘semantic,’ rather than ‘syntactic’ as the commutative (understood
as part of elimination). Grice has it as: If phi and psi are formulae, “φ and ”
is 1 iff both φ and ψ are true, 0 otherwise. Grice grants
that however “baffling” (or misleading) would be to utter or assert (7)
if no one has doubts about the
temporal order of the reported the events, due to the expectation that the
utterer is observing the conversational maxim “be orderly” subsumed under the
conversational category of ‘Modus’ (‘be perspicuous! [sic]” – cfr. his earlier
desideratum of conversational clarity). Relevant logic (which was emerging by
the time Grice was delivering his William James lectures) introduces two
different formal signs for ‘conjunction’: the truth-functional conjunction
relevant logicians call ‘extensional’ conjunction, and they represent by (13).
Non-truth-functional conjunction is represented by ‘X’ and termed fusion or
‘intensional’ conjunction:
p ^ q versus p X q.
The truth-table for Strawson’s enriched uses of
“and” is not the standard one, since we require the additional condition that
“p predates q,” or that one conjunct predates the other. Playing with structural and substructural logical rules is
something Carnap would love perhaps more than Grice, and why not, Strawson?
They liked to play with ‘deviant’ logics. For Carnap, the choice of a logic is
a pragmatic ‘external’ decision – vide his principle of tolerance and the
rather extensive bibliography on Carnap as a logic pluralist. For Grice,
classical logic is a choice guided by his respect for ordinary language, WHILE
attempting to PROVOKE the Oxonian establishment by rallying to the defense of
an under-dogma and play the ‘skilful heretic’ (turning a heterodoxy into
dogma). Strawson is usually more difficult to classify! In his contribution to
Grandy & Warner (1986), he grants that Grice’s theory may be ‘more
beautiful,’ and more importantly, seems to suggest that his view be seen as
endorsing Grice’s account of a CONVENTIONAL implicaturum (For Strawson, ‘if’
(used for unasserted antecedent and consequence) conventionally implicates the
same inferrability condition that ‘so’ does for asserted equivalents. The
aim is to allow for a logically pluralist thesis, almost alla Carnap about the
‘inferential role’ of a logical constant such as ‘and’, which embraces
‘classical,’ (or ‘formalist,’ or ‘modernist’), relevant, linear and ordered
logic. PLURALISM (versus MONISM) has it that, for any logical constant c (such as “and”), “c” has more
than one *correct* inferential “role.” The pluralist thesis depends on a
specific interpretation of the vocabulary of sub-structural logics. According
to this specific interpretation, a classical logic captures the literal, or
EXPLICIT, explicatum, or truth-functional or truth-conditonal meaning, or what
Grice would have as ‘dictiveness’ of a logical constant. A sub-structural logic
(relevant logic, linear and ordered logic), on the other hand, encodes a
pragmatically,” i.e. not SEMANTICALLY, “-enriched sense” of a logical constant
such as “and.” Is this against the spirit of Grice’s overall thesis as
formulated in his “M. O. R.,” Modified Occam’s Razor, “Senses [of ‘and’] are
not to be multiplied beyond necessity”? But it’s precisely Grice’s Occamism (as
Neale calls it) that is being put into question. At Oxford, at the time, EVERYBODY (except
Grice!) was an informalist. He is coming to the defense of Russell, Oxford’s
underdog! (underdogma!). Plus, it’s important to understand the INFORMALISM
that Grice is attacking – Oxford’s ORTHO-doxy – seriously. Grice is being the
‘skilful HERETIC,’ in the words of his successor as Tutorial Fellow at Oxford,
G. P. Baker. We may proceed by four stages.
First, introduce the philosophical motivation for the pluralist thesis.
It sounds good to be a PLURALIST. Strawson was not. He was an informalist.
Grice was not, he was a post-modernist. But surely we not assuming that one
would want to eat the cake and have it! Second, introduce the calculus for the
different (or ‘deviant,’ as Haack prefers) logics endorsed in the pluralist
thesis – classical itself, relevant, linear and ordered logic. Third, shows how
the different “behaviours” of an item of logical vocabulary (such as “and”) of
each of these logics (and they all have variants for ‘conjunction.’ In the case
of ‘relevant’ logic, beyond Grice’s “&,” or classical conjunction, there is
“extensional conjunction,” FORMALISED as “p X q”, or fusion, and “INTENSIONAL
conjunction,” formalized by “p O q”. These can be, not semantically
(truth-functionally, or truth-conditional, or at the level of the EXPLICATUM),
but pragmatically interpreted (at the level of the IMPLICATURUM). Fourth, shows
how the *different* (or ‘deviant,’ or pluralist), or alternative inferential
“roles” (that justifies PLURALISM) that *two* sub-structural logics (say,
Grice’s classical “&” the Strawson’s informalist “and”) attribute to a
logical constant “c” can co-exist – hence pluralism. A particular version of
logical “pluralism” can be argued from the plurality of at least *two*
alterative equally legitimate formalisations of the logical vocabulary, such as
the first dyadic truth-functor, or connective, “and,” which is symbolized by Grice
as “&,” NOT formalized by Strawson (he sticks with “and”) and FORMALISED by
relevant logicians as ‘extensional’ truth-functional conjunction (fision, p X
a) and intentional non-truth-functional conjunction (p O q). In particular, it can be argued that the
apparent “rivalry” between classical logic (what Grice has as Modernism, but he
himself is a post-modernist) and relevant logic (but consider Grice on
Strawson’s “Neo-Traditionalism,” first called INFORMALISM by Grice) can be
resolved, given that both logics capture and formalise normative and legitimate
alternative senses of ‘logical consequence.’ A revision of
the second paragraph to “Logic and Conversation” should do here. We can
distinguish between two operators for “… yields …”: ├ and ├: “A1, A2, … An├MODERNISM/FORMALISM-PAUL B” and “A1, A2, … An├NEO-TRADITIONALISM/INFORMALISM-PETER
B. As Paoli has it: “[U]pholding weakening amounts to failing to
take at face value the [slightly Griceian] expression ‘assertable on the basis
of’.’”Paoli goes on:“If I am in a
position to assert [the conclusion q, “He took his clothes off and got into
bed”] on the basis of the information provided by [the premise p, “He got into
bed and took his clothes off”], I need NOT be in a position to assert the
conclusion P [“He took his clothes off and got into bed”] on the basis of both
p (“He got into bed and took off his clothes” and an extra premise C - where C
is just an idle assumption (“The events took place in the order reported”) ,
irrelevant to my conclusion.”Can we regard Strawson as holding that
UNFORMALISED “and” is an INTENSIONAL CONJUNCTION? Another option is to see
Strawson as holding that the UNFORMALISED “and” can be BOTH truth-functional
and NON-truth-functional (for which case, the use of a different expression,
“and THEN,” is preferred). The Gricean theory of implicaturum is capable of
explaining this mismatch (bewtween “and” and “&”).Grice argues that the
[truth-conditional, truth-functional] semantics [DICTUM or EXPLICATUM, not IMPLICATURUM
– cfr. his retrospective epilogue for his view on DICTIVENESS] of “and”
corresponds [or is identical, hence the name of ‘identity’ thesis versus
‘divergence’ thesis] to the classical “∧,” & of Russell/Whitehead,
and Quine, and Suppes, and that the [truth-functional semantics of “if [p,]
[q]” corresponds to the classical p ⊃ q.” There is scope
for any theory capable of resolving or [as Grice would have it] denying the
apparent disagreement [or ‘rivalry’] among two or more logics.” What Grice does
is DENY THE APPARENT DISAGREEMENT. It’s
best to keep ‘rivalry’ for the fight of two ‘warring camps’ like FORMALISM and
INFORMALISM, and stick with ‘disagreement’ or ‘divergence’ with reference to
specific constants. For Strawson, being a thorough-bred Oxonian, who perhaps
never read the Iliad in Greek – he was Grice’s PPE student – the RIVALRY is not
between TWO different formalisations, but between the ‘brusque’ formalisation
of the FORMALISTS (that murder his English!) and NO FORMALISATION at all. Grice
calls this ‘neo-traditionalist,’ perhaps implicating that the
‘neo-traditionalists’ WOULD accept some level of formalisation (Aristotle did!)
ONLY ONE FORMALISATION, the Modernism. INFORMALISM or Neo-Traditionalism aims
to do WITHOUT formalisation, if that means using anything, but, say, “and” and
“and then”. Talk of SENSES helps. Strawson may say that “and” has a SENSE which
differs from “&,” seeing that he would find “He drank the poison and died,
though I do not mean to imply in that order” is a CONTRADICTION. That is why
Strawson is an ‘ordinary-LANGUAGE philosopher,” and not a logician! (Or should
we say, an ‘ordinary-language logician’? His “Introduction to Logical Theory”
was the mandatory reading vademecum for GENERATIONS of Oxonians that had to
undergo a logic course to get their M. A. Lit. Hum.Then there’s what we can
call “the Gricean picture,” only it’s not too clear who painted it!We may agree
that there is an apparent “mismatch,” as opposed to a perfect “match” that
Grice would love! Grice thought with Russell that grammar is a pretty good
guide to logical form. If the utterer says “and” and NOT “and then,” there is
no need to postulate a further SENSE to ‘and.’Russell would criticize
Strawson’s attempt to reject modernist “&” as a surrogate for “and” as
Strawson’s attempt to regress to a stone-age metaphysics. Grice actually at
this point, defended Strawson: “stone-age PHYSICS!” And this relates to “…
yields…” and Frege’s assertion “/-“ as ‘Conclusion follows from Premise’ where
‘Premise yields Conclusion’ seems more natural in that we preserve the order
from premise to conclusion. We shouldn’t underestimate one crucial feature of
an implicaturum: its cancellability, on which Grice expands quite a bit in
1981: “He got into bed and took his clothes off, although I don’t intend to
suggest, in any shape or form, that he proceed to do those things in the order
I’ve just reported!”The lack of any [fixed, rigid, intolerant] structural rule
implies that AN INSTANCE I1 of the a logical constant (such as “and”) that
*violate* any of Grice’s conversational maxim (here “be orderly!”) associated
with the relevant structural rule [here we may think of ADDITION AND
SIMPLIFICATION as two axioms derived from the Gentzen-type elimination of
“and”, or the ‘interpretation’ of ‘p & q’ as 1 iff both p and q are 1, but
0 otherwise] and for which the derived conversational implicaturum is false
[“He went to bed and took his clothes off, but not in that order!”] should be
distinguished from ANY INSTANCE I2 that does NOT violate the relevant maxim (“be
orderly”) and for which the conversational IMPLICATURUM (“tn > tn-l”) is
true.” We may nitpick here.Grice would rather prefer, ‘when the IMPLICATURUM
applies.” An implicaturum is by definition cancellable (This is clear when
Grice expands in the excursus “A causal theory of perception.” “I would hardly
be said to have IMPLIED that Smith is hopeless in philosophy should I utter,
“He has beautiful handwriting; I don’t mean to imply he is hopeless in
philosophy,” “even if that is precisely what my addressee ends up thinking!”When
it comes to “and,” we are on clearer ground. The kinds of “and”-implicaturums
may be captured by a distinction of two ‘uses’ of conjunctions in a single
substructural system S that does WITHOUT a ‘structural rule’ such as exchange,
contraction or both. Read, relies, very UNLIKE Strawson, on wo FORMALISATIONS
besides “and” (for surely English “and” does have a ‘form,’ too, pace Strawson)
in Relevant Logic: “p ^ q” and “p X q.” “p
^ q” and “p X q” have each a different inferential role. If the reason the
UTTERER has to assert it – via the DICTUM or EXPLICATUM [we avoid ‘assert’
seeing that we want logical constants to trade on ‘imperative contexts,’ too –
Grice, “touch the beast and it will bite you!” -- is the utterer’s belief that
Smith took his clothes AND THEN got into bed, it would be illegitimate,
unwarranted, stupid, otiose, incorrect, inappropriate, to infer that Smith did
not do these two things in that order upon discovering that he in fact DID
those things in the order reported. The
very discovery that Smith did the things in the order reported would “just
spoil” or unwarrant the derivation that would justify our use of “… yields …”
(¬A ¬(A u B) A ¬B”). As Read notes, we have ADJUNCTION
‘p and q’ follows from p and q – or p and q yields ‘p and q.’ And we have SIMPLIFICATION:
p and q follow from ‘p and q,’ or ‘p and q’ yields p, and ‘p and q’ yields q.”
Stephen Read: “From adjunction and simplification we can infer, by
transitivity, that q follows from p and q, and so by the Deduction Equivalence,
‘if p, q’ follows from q.’” “However, […] this has the unacceptable consequence
that ‘if’ is truth-functional.” “How can
this consequence be avoided?” “Many options are open.” “We can reject the
transitivity of entailment, the deduction equivalence, adjunction, or
simplification. Each has been tried; and each seems contrary to intuition.” “We
are again in the paradoxical situation that each of these conceptions seems
intuitively soundly based; yet their combination appears to lead to something
unacceptable.” “Are we nonetheless forced to reject one of these plausible
principles?” “Fortunately, there is a fifth option.” Read: “There is a familiar
truth-functional conjunction, expressed by ‘p and q’, which entails each of p
and q, and so for the falsity (Grice’s 0) of which the falsity of either
conjunct suffices, and the truth of both for the truth of the whole.” “But
there is also a NON-truth-functional conjunction, a SENSE of ‘p and q’ whose
falsity supports the inference from p to ‘~q’.” “These two SENSES of
‘conjunction’ cannot be the same, for, if the ground for asserting ‘not-(p and
q)’ (e.g. “It is not the case that he got into bed and took off his clothes”) is
simply that ‘p’ is false, to learn that p is true, far from enabling one to
proceed to ‘~q’, undercuts the warrant for asserting ‘~(p & q)’ in the
first place.” “In this sense, ‘~(p & q)’ is weaker than both ‘~p’ and ‘~q’,
and does not, even with the addition of p, entail ‘~q’, even though one
possible ground for asserting ‘~(p & q))’, viz ‘~q’, clearly does.” Stephen
Read: “The intensional sense of ‘and’ is often referred to as fusion; I will
use the symbol ‘×’ for it. Others write ‘◦.’”We add some relevant observations
by a palaeo-Griceian: Ryle. Ryle often felt
himself to be an outsider. His remarks on “and” are however illuminating in the
context of our discussion of meta-inference in substructural logic.Ryle writes:
“I have spoken as if our ordinary ‘and’ […] [is] identical with the logical
constant with which the formal logician operates.”“But this is not true.”“The
logician’s ‘and’ […] [is] not our familiar civilian term[…].”“It is [a]
conscript term, in uniform and under military discipline, with memories,
indeed, of [its] previous more free and easy civilian life, though it is not
leaving that life now.”“If you hear on good authority that she took arsenic and
fell ill you will reject the rumour that she fell ill and took arsenic.”“This
familiar use of ‘and’ carries with it the temporal notion expressed by ‘and
subsequently’ and even the causal notion expressed by ‘and in
consequence.’”“The logician’s conscript ‘and’ does only its appointed duty – a
duty in which ‘she took arsenic and fell ill’ is an absolute paraphrase of ‘she
fell ill and took arsenic.’ This might be call the minimal force of ‘and.’”
(Ryle,, 1954:118). When we speaks of PRAGMATIC enrichment, we obviously
don’t mean SEMANTIC enrichment. There is a distinction, obviously, between the ‘pragmatic
enrichment’ dimension, as to whether the ‘enriched’ content is IMPLICATED or,
to use a neologism, ‘EX-plicated.’ Or cf. as Kent Bach would prefer,
“IMPLICITATED” (vide his “Implciture.”) Commutative
law: p & q iff q & p. “Axiom AND-1” and “Axiom AND-2” correspond
to "conjunction elimination". The relation between “AND-1” and
“AND-2” reflects the commutativity of the conjunction operator. A VERY IMPORTANT POINT to consider is Grice’s
distinction between ‘logical inference’ and ‘pragmatic inference.’ He does so
in “Retrospective Epilogue” in 1987. “A few years after the appearance of […]
Introduction to Logical Theory, I was devoting much attention to what might be
loosely called the distinction between logical and pragmatic inferences. …
represented as being a matter not of logical but of pragmatic import.” (Grice
1987:374).Could he be jocular? He is emphasizing the historical role of his
research. He mentions FORMALISM and INFORMALISM and notes that his own interest
in maxims or desiderata of rational discourse arose from his interest to
distinguish between matters of “logical inference” from those of “pragmatic
inference.” Is Grice multiplying ‘inference’ beyond necessity? It would seem
so. So it’s best to try to reformulate his proposal, in agreement with logical
pluralism.By ‘logical inference’ Grice must mean ‘practical/alethic
satisfactoriness-based inference,’ notably the syntactics and semantics
(‘interpretative’) modules of his own System Q. By ‘pragmatic inference’ he
must mean a third module, the pragmatic module, with his desiderata. We may say
that for Grice ‘logical inference’ is deductive (and inductive), while
‘pragmatic inference’ is abductive. Let us apply this to the ‘clothes off’
exampleThe Utterer said: “Smith got into bed and took his clothes off, but I’m
reporting the events in no particular order.” The ‘logical inference’ allows to
treat ‘and’ as “&.” The ‘pragmatic inference’ allows the addressee to
wonder what the utterer is meaning! Cf. Terres on “⊢k” for “logical inference” and “⊢r,” “⊢l,” and “⊢o,” for pragmatic inference, and where the
subscripts “k,” “r,” “l” and “o” stand for ‘classical,’ ‘relevant,’ ‘linear’
and ‘ordered’ logic respectively, with each of the three sub-structural
notions of “follows from” or “… yields …”
require the pragmatic enrichment
of a logical constant, that ‘classical logical’ inference may retain the
‘impoverished’ version (Terres, 2019, Inquiry, p. 13). Grice himself
mentions this normative dimension: “I would like to be able to
think of the standard type of conversational practice not merely
as something that all or most do IN FACT follow but as something that it is REASONABLE
for us to follow, that we SHOULD NOT abandon.”Grice, 1989a, p.48]However, the
fact that we should observe the conversational maxims may not yet be a reason
for endorsing the allegedly ‘deviant’
inferential role of a logical constant in the three sub-structural logics under
examination.The legitimacy of the ‘deviant’ ‘inferential role’ of each constant
in each sub-structural logic emerges, rather from at least two sources.A first
source is a requirement for logic (or reasoning) to be normative: that its
truth-bearers [or satisfactoriness-bearers, to allow for ‘imperative’-mode
inferences) are related to what Grice calls ‘psychological attitudes’ of
‘belief’ (indicative-mode inference) and ‘desire’ (imperative-mode inference)
(Grice, 1975, cfr. Terres, Inquiry, 2019, p. 13). As Steinberg puts it:“Presumably,
if logic is normative for thinking or reasoning, its normative force will stem,
at least in part, from the fact that truth bearers which act as the relata of
our consequence relation and the bearers of other logical properties are
identical to (or at least are very closely related in some other way) to the
objects of thinking or reasoning: the contents of one’s mental states or acts
such as the content of one’s beliefs or inferences, for example.”[Steinberger,
2017a – and cf. Loar’s similar approach when construing Grice’s maxims as
‘empirical generalisations’ of ‘functional states’ for a less committed view of
the embedding of logical and pragmatic inference within the scope of psychological-attitude
ascriptions). A second source for the legitimacy of the ‘deviant’ inferential
role is the fact that the pragmatic enrichment of the logical vocabulary (both
a constant and ‘… yields …) is part, or a ‘rational-construction,’ of our
psychological representation of certain utterances involving the natural
counterparts of those constants. This may NOT involve a new sense of ‘and’ which is
with what Grice is fighting. While the relevant literature emphasizes “reasons
to assert” (vide Table on p. 9, Terres, 2019), it is worth pointing out that
the model should be applicable to what we might broadly construe as ‘deontic’
reasoning (e.g. Grice on “Arrest the intruder!” in Grice 1989, and more
generally his practical syllogisms in Grice 2001). We seem to associate
“assert” with ‘indicative-mode’ versions only of premise and conclusion.
“Reasons to express” or “reasons to make it explicit” may serve as a
generalization to cover both “indicative-mode” and “imperative-mode” versions
of the inferences to hand. When Grice says that, contra Strawson, he wants to
see things in terms of ‘pragmatic inference,’ not ‘logical inference,’ is he
pulling himself up by his own bootstraps? Let us clarify.When thinking of what META-language need be used to
formulate both Grice’s final account vis-à-vis Strawson’s, it is relevant to
mention that Grice once invoked what he called the “Bootstrap” principle. In
the course of considering a ‘fine distinction’ in various levels of conceptual
priority, slightly out of the blue, he adds – this is from “Prejudices and
predilections, which become, the life and opinions of Paul Grice,” so expect
some informality, and willingness to amuse: “It is perhaps reasonable to regard
such fine distinctions as indispensable if we are to succeed in the business of
pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps,” Grice writes. And then trust him
to add: “In this connection, it will be relevant for me to say that I once
invented (though I did not establish its validity) a principle which I labelled
as ‘Bootstrap.’” Trust him to call with a good title. “The principle,” Grice
goes on, “laid down that, when one is introducing some primitive concept [such
as conjunction] of a theory [or calculus or system] formulated in an
object-language [G1], one has freedom to use any concept from a
battery of concepts expressible in the meta-language [System G2],
subject to the condition that a *counterpart* of such a concept [say,
‘conjunction’] is sub-sequently definable, or otherwise derivable, in the
object-language [System G1].”Grice concludes by emphasizing the
point of the manoeuvre: “So, the more
economically one introduces a primitive object-language concept, the less of a
task one leaves oneself for the morrow.” [Grice 1986]. With
uncharacteristic humbleness, Grice notes that while he was able to formulate
and label “Bootstrap,” he never cared to establish its ‘validity.’ We hope we
have! “Q. E. D.,” as they say! Cf. Terres, 2019, Inquiry, p. 17: In conclusion,
the pragmatic interpretation of substructural logics may be a new and
interesting research field for the logical pluralist who wishes to endorse
classical and/or substructural logics, but also for the logical monist who aims
to interpret their divergence with a pluralist logician. The possibility is
also open of an interesting dialogue between philosophical logicians and
philosophers of language as they explore the pragmatic contributions of a logical
constant to the meaning of a complete utterance, given that a substructural
logic encodes what has been discussed by philosophers of language, the enriched
‘explicatum’ of the logical constant. And Grice. References: Werner Abraham, ‘A linguistic approach to metaphor.’ in
Abraham, Ut videam: contributions to an understanding of linguistics. Jeffrey C. Beall
and Greg Restall. ‘Logical consequence,’ in Edward N. Zalta, editor, The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Fall 2009 edition, 2009. Rudolf Carnap, 1942. Introduction to Semantics.
L.J. Cohen, 1971. Grice on the logical particles
of natural language, in Bar-Hillel, Pragmatics of Natural language, repr. in
Cohen, Language and knowledge.L.J. Cohen, 1977. ‘Can the conversationalist
hypothesis be defended?’ Philosophical Studies, repr. in Cohen, Logic and
knowledge. Davidson, Donald and J. Hintikka (1969). Words and objections:
essays on the work of W. V. Quine. Dordrecht: Reidel. Bart Geurts, Quantity implicaturums.Bart
Geurts and Nausicaa Pouscoulous. Embedded implicaturums?!? Semantics and
pragmatics, 2:4–1, 2009.Jean-Yves Girard. Linear logic: its syntax and
semantics. London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series, pp. 1–42, 1995.H.P.
Grice. 1967a. ‘Prolegomena,’ in Studies in the Way of Words.H.P. Grice. 1967b.
Logic and conversation. Studies in the Way of Words, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA, pages 22–40, 1989.H.P. Grice. 1967c. ‘Indicative conditionals.
Studies in the Way of Words, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pages
58–85, 1989.H.P. Grice. 1969. ‘Vacuous Names,’
in Words and objections: essays on the work of W. V. Quine, edited by Donald
Davidson and Jaako Hintikka, Dordrecht: Reidel. H.P. Grice, 1981.
‘Presupposition and conversational implicaturum,’ in Paul Cole, Radical Pragmatics,
New York, Academic Press. H.P.
Grice, 1986. ‘Reply to Richards,’ in Philosophical Grounds of Rationality:
Intentions, Categories, Ends, ed. by Richard Grandy and Richard Warner, Oxford:
The Clarendon Press.H.P. Grice. 2001. Aspects of reason, being the John Locke
Lectures delivered at Oxford, Oxford: Clarendon. H.P. Grice, n.d. ‘Entailment,’
The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley. Loar, B. F. Meaning and mind.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mates, Benson, Elementary Logic. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.George Myro, 1986. ‘Time and identity,’ in Richard Grandy and
Richard Warner, Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories,
Ends. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Francesco Paoli, Substructural logic. Arthur
Pap. 1949. ‘Are all necessary propositions analytic?’, repr. in The limits of
logical empiricism.Peacocke, Christopher A. B. (1976), What is a logical
constant? The Journal of Philosophy.Quine, W. V. O. 1969. ‘Reply to H. P. Grice,’
in Davidson and Hintikka, Words and objections: esssays on the work of W. V.
Quine. Dordrecht: Reidel. Stephen Read, A philosophical approach to inference. A.Rieger, A simple
theory of conditionals. Analysis, 2006.Robert
van Rooij. 2010. ‘Conversational implicaturums,’Gilbert Ryle. 1954.
‘Formal and Informal logic,’ in Dilemmas, The Tarner Lectures 1953. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, Chapter 8. Florian
Steinberger. The normative status of logic. In Edward N. Zalta, editor, The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford
University, spring 2017 edition, 2017.P.
F. Strawson (1952). Introduction to Logical Theory. London: Methuen.P. F.
Strawson (1986). ‘‘If’ and ‘⊃’’ R. Grandy and R. O. Warner, Philosophical Grounds of Rationality,
Intentions, Categories, Ends, repr. in his “Entity and Identity, and Other
Essays. Oxford: Clarendon PressJ.O. Urmson. Philosophical analysis: its
development between the two world wars. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956. R. C. S.
Walker. “Conversational implicaturum,” in S. W. Blackburn, Meaning, reference,
and necessity. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1975, pp. 133-81A. N.
Whitehead and B. A. W. Russell, 1913. Principia Mathematica. Cambridge
University Press. Conjunctum --
conjunction, the logical operation on a pair of propositions that is typically
indicated by the coordinating conjunction ‘and’. The truth table for
conjunction is Besides ‘and’, other coordinating conjunctions, including ‘but’,
‘however’, ‘moreover’, and ‘although’, can indicate logical conjunction, as can
the semicolon ‘;’ and the comma ‘,’.
conjunction elimination. 1 The argument form ‘A and B; therefore, A or
B’ and arguments of this form. 2 The rule of inference that permits one to
infer either conjunct from a conjunction. This is also known as the rule of
simplification or 8-elimination.
conjunction introduction. 1 The argument form ‘A, B; therefore, A and B’
and arguments of this form. 2 The rule of inference that permits one to infer a
conjunction from its two conjuncts. This is also known as the rule of
conjunction introduction, 8-introduction, or adjunction. Conjunctum -- Why
Grice used inverse V as symbol for “and” Conjunctum -- De Morgan, A. prolific
British mathematician, logician, and philosopher of mathematics and logic. He
is remembered chiefly for several lasting contributions to logic and philosophy
of logic, including discovery and deployment of the concept of universe of
discourse, the cofounding of relational logic, adaptation of what are now known
as De Morgan’s laws, and several terminological innovations including the
expression ‘mathematical induction’. His main logical works, the monograph
Formal Logic 1847 and the series of articles “On the Syllogism” 184662,
demonstrate wide historical and philosophical learning, synoptic vision,
penetrating originality, and disarming objectivity. His relational logic
treated a wide variety of inferences involving propositions whose logical forms
were significantly more complex than those treated in the traditional framework
stemming from Aristotle, e.g. ‘If every doctor is a teacher, then every
ancestor of a doctor is an ancestor of a teacher’. De Morgan’s conception of
the infinite variety of logical forms of propositions vastly widens that of his
predecessors and even that of his able contemporaries such as Boole, Hamilton,
Mill, and Whately. De Morgan did as much as any of his contemporaries toward
the creation of modern mathematical logic.
-- De Morgan’s laws, the logical principles - A 8 B S - A 7 - B, - A 7 B
S - A 8 - B, - -A 8 - B S A 7 B, and - - A 7 - B S A 8 B, though the term is
occasionally used to cover only the first two. Refs.The
main published source is “Studies in the Way of Words” (henceforth, “WOW”), I
(especially Essays 1 and 4), “Presupposition and conversational implicaturum,”
in P. Cole, and the two sets on ‘Logic and conversation,’ in The H. P. Grice
Papers, BANC.
connectum – from con-nexus –
nexus is the key – connection – syntagma –syncategoremata – categoremata -- connected,
said of a relation R where, for any two distinct elements x and y of the
domain, either xRy or yRx. R is said to be strongly connected if, for any two
elements x and y, either xRy or yRx, even if x and y are identical. Given the
domain of positive integers, for instance, the relation ‹ is connected, since
for any two distinct numbers a and b, either a ‹ b or b ‹ a. ‹ is not strongly
connected, however, since if a % b we do not have either a ‹ b or b ‹ a. The
relation o, however, is Confucius connected 174 174 strongly connected, since either a o b
or b o a for any two numbers, including the case where a % b. An example of a
relation that is not connected is the subset relation 0, since it is not true
that for any two sets A and B, either A 0 B or B 0 A. connectionism, an approach to modeling
cognitive systems which utilizes networks of simple processing units that are
inspired by the basic structure of the nervous system. Other names for this
approach are neural network modeling and parallel distributed processing. Connectionism
was pioneered in the period 065 by researchers such as Frank Rosenblatt and
Oliver Selfridge. Interest in using such networks diminished during the 0s
because of limitations encountered by existing networks and the growing
attractiveness of the computer model of the mind according to which the mind
stores symbols in memory and registers and performs computations upon them.
Connectionist models enjoyed a renaissance in the 0s, partly as the result of
the discovery of means of overcoming earlier limitations e.g., development of
the back-propagation learning algorithm by David Rumelhart, Geoffrey Hinton,
and Ronald Williams, and of the Boltzmann-machine learning algorithm by David
Ackley, Geoffrey Hinton, and Terrence Sejnowski, and partly as limitations
encountered with the computer model rekindled interest in alternatives.
Researchers employing connectionist-type nets are found in a variety of
disciplines including psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and
physics. There are often major differences in the endeavors of these
researchers: psychologists and artificial intelligence researchers are
interested in using these nets to model cognitive behavior, whereas
neuroscientists often use them to model processing in particular neural systems.
A connectionist system consists of a set of processing units that can take on
activation values. These units are connected so that particular units can
excite or inhibit others. The activation of any particular unit will be
determined by one or more of the following: inputs from outside the system, the
excitations or inhibitions supplied by other units, and the previous activation
of the unit. There are a variety of different architectures invoked in
connectionist systems. In feedforward nets units are clustered into layers and
connections pass activations in a unidirectional manner from a layer of input
units to a layer of output units, possibly passing through one or more layers
of hidden units along the way. In these systems processing requires one pass of
processing through the network. Interactive nets exhibit no directionality of
processing: a given unit may excite or inhibit another unit, and it, or another
unit influenced by it, might excite or inhibit the first unit. A number of
processing cycles will ensue after an input has been given to some or all of
the units until eventually the network settles into one state, or cycles
through a small set of such states. One of the most attractive features of
connectionist networks is their ability to learn. This is accomplished by
adjusting the weights connecting the various units of the system, thereby
altering the manner in which the network responds to inputs. To illustrate the
basic process of connectionist learning, consider a feedforward network with just
two layers of units and one layer of connections. One learning procedure
commonly referred to as the delta rule first requires the network to respond,
using current weights, to an input. The activations on the units of the second
layer are then compared to a set of target activations, and detected
differences are used to adjust the weights coming from active input units. Such
a procedure gradually reduces the difference between the actual response and
the target response. In order to construe such networks as cognitive models it
is necessary to interpret the input and output units. Localist interpretations
treat individual input and output units as representing concepts such as those
found in natural language. Distributed interpretations correlate only patterns
of activation of a number of units with ordinary language concepts. Sometimes
but not always distributed models will interpret individual units as
corresponding to microfeatures. In one interesting variation on distributed
representation, known as coarse coding, each symbol will be assigned to a
different subset of the units of the system, and the symbol will be viewed as
active only if a predefined number of the assigned units are active. A number
of features of connectionist nets make them particularly attractive for
modeling cognitive phenomena in addition to their ability to learn from
experience. They are extremely efficient at pattern-recognition tasks and often
generalize very well from training inputs to similar test inputs. They can
often recover complete patterns from partial inputs, making them good models
for content-addressable memory. Interactive networks are particularly useful in
modeling cognitive tasks in which multiple constraints must be satisfied
simultaneously, or in which the goal is to satisfy competing constraints as
well as possible. In a natural manner they can override some constraints on a
problem when it is not possible to satisfy all, thus treating the constraints
as soft. While the cognitive connectionist models are not intended to model
actual neural processing, they suggest how cognitive processes can be realized
in neural hardware. They also exhibit a feature demonstrated by the brain but
difficult to achieve in symbolic systems: their performance degrades gracefully
as units or connections are disabled or the capacity of the network is
exceeded, rather than crashing. Serious challenges have been raised to the
usefulness of connectionism as a tool for modeling cognition. Many of these
challenges have come from theorists who have focused on the complexities of
language, especially the systematicity exhibited in language. Jerry Fodor and
Zenon Pylyshyn, for example, have emphasized the manner in which the meaning of
complex sentences is built up compositionally from the meaning of components,
and argue both that compositionality applies to thought generally and that it
requires a symbolic system. Therefore, they maintain, while cognitive systems
might be implemented in connectionist nets, these nets do not characterize the
architecture of the cognitive system itself, which must have capacities for
symbol storage and manipulation. Connectionists have developed a variety of
responses to these objections, including emphasizing the importance of
cognitive functions such as pattern recognition, which have not been as
successfully modeled by symbolic systems; challenging the need for symbol
processing in accounting for linguistic behavior; and designing more complex
connectionist architectures, such as recurrent networks, capable of responding
to or producing systematic structures.
connotatum –a variation on
notatum, cf. denotatum -- adnotatum,
annotate -- intension -- connotation. 1 The ideas and associations brought to
mind by an expression used in contrast with ‘denotation’ and ‘meaning’. 2 In a
technical use, the properties jointly necessary and sufficient for the correct
application of the expression in question.
sequentia: consequentia – “In
‘consequentia,’ the ‘con’ is possibly otiose, as cons usually are.” -- consequentialism,
the doctrine that the moral rightness of an act is determined solely by the
goodness of the act’s consequences. Prominent consequentialists include J. S.
Mill, Moore, and Sidgwick. Maximizing versions of consequentialism the most common sort hold that an act is morally right if and only
if it produces the best consequences of those acts available to the agent.
Satisficing consequentialism holds that an act is morally right if and only if
it produces enough good consequences on balance. Consequentialist theories are
often contrasted with deontological ones, such as Kant’s, which hold that the
rightness of an act is determined at least in part by something other than the
goodness of the act’s consequences. A few versions of consequentialism are agentrelative:
that is, they give each agent different aims, so that different agents’ aims
may conflict. For instance, egoistic consequentialism holds that the moral
rightness of an act for an agent depends solely on the goodness of its
consequences for him or her. However, the vast majority of consequentialist
theories have been agent-neutral and consequentialism is often defined in a
more restrictive way so that agentrelative versions do not count as
consequentialist. A doctrine is agent-neutral when it gives to each agent the
same ultimate aims, so that different agents’ aims cannot conflict. For
instance, utilitarianism holds that an act is morally right if and only if it
produces more happiness for the sentient beings it affects than any other act
available to the agent. This gives each agent the same ultimate aim, and so is
agent-neutral. Consequentialist theories differ over what features of acts they
hold to determine their goodness. Utilitarian versions hold that the only
consequences of an act relevant to its goodness are its effects on the
happiness of sentient beings. But some consequentialists hold that the
promotion of other things matters too
achievement, autonomy, knowledge, or fairness, for instance. Thus
utilitarianism, as a maximizing, agent-neutral, happiness-based view is only
one of a broad range of consequentialist theories. consequentia mirabilis, the logical principle
that if a statement follows from its own negation it must be true. Strict
consequentia mirabilis is the principle that if a statement follows logically
from its own negation it is logically true. The principle is often connected
with the paradoxes of strict implication, according to which any statement
follows from a contradiction. Since the negation of a tautology is a contradiction,
every tautology follows from its own negation. However, if every expression of
the form ‘if p then q’ implies ‘not-p or q’ they need not be equivalent, then
from ‘if not-p then p’ we can derive ‘not-not-p or p’ and by the principles of
double negation and repetition derive p. Since all of these rules are
unexceptionable the principle of consequentia mirabilis is also
unexceptionable. It is, however, somewhat counterintuitive, hence the name ‘the
astonishing implication’, which goes back to its medieval discoverers or
rediscoverers.
consistens: in traditional
Aristotelian logic, a semantic notion: two or more statements are called
consistent if they are simultaneously true under some interpretation cf., e.g.,
W. S. Jevons, Elementary Lessons in Logic, 1870. In modern logic there is a
syntactic definition that also fits complex e.g., mathematical theories
developed since Frege’s Begriffsschrift 1879: a set of statements is called
consistent with respect to a certain logical calculus, if no formula ‘P &
P’ is derivable from those statements by the rules of the calculus; i.e., the
theory is free from contradictions. If these definitions are equivalent for a
logic, we have a significant fact, as the equivalence amounts to the
completeness of its system of rules. The first such completeness theorem was
obtained for sentential or propositional logic by Paul Bernays in 8 in his
Habilitationsschrift that was partially published as Axiomatische Untersuchung
des Aussagen-Kalküls der “Principia Mathematica,” 6 and, independently, by Emil
Post in Introduction to a General Theory of Elementary Propositions, 1; the
completeness of predicate logic was proved by Gödel in Die Vollständigkeit der
Axiome des logischen Funktionenkalküls, 0. The crucial step in such proofs
shows that syntactic consistency implies semantic consistency. Cantor applied
the notion of consistency to sets. In a well-known letter to Dedekind 9 he
distinguished between an inconsistent and a consistent multiplicity; the former
is such “that the assumption that all of its elements ‘are together’ leads to a
contradiction,” whereas the elements of the latter “can be thought of without
contradiction as ‘being together.’ “ Cantor had conveyed these distinctions and
their motivation by letter to Hilbert in 7 see W. Purkert and H. J. Ilgauds,
Georg Cantor, 7. Hilbert pointed out explicitly in 4 that Cantor had not given
a rigorous criterion for distinguishing between consistent and inconsistent
multiplicities. Already in his Über den Zahlbegriff 9 Hilbert had suggested a
remedy by giving consistency proofs for suitable axiomatic systems; e.g., to
give the proof of the “existence of the totality of real numbers or in the terminology of G. Cantor the proof of the fact that the system of real
numbers is a consistent complete set” by establishing the consistency of an
axiomatic characterization of the reals
in modern terminology, of the theory of complete, ordered fields. And he
claimed, somewhat indeterminately, that this could be done “by a suitable modification
of familiar methods.” After 4, Hilbert pursued a new way of giving consistency
proofs. This novel way of proceeding, still aiming for the same goal, was to
make use of the formalization of the theory at hand. However, in the
formulation of Hilbert’s Program during the 0s the point of consistency proofs
was no longer to guarantee the existence of suitable sets, but rather to
establish the instrumental usefulness of strong mathematical theories T, like
axiomatic set theory, relative to finitist mathematics. That focus rested on
the observation that the statement formulating the syntactic consistency of T
is equivalent to the reflection principle Pra, ‘s’ P s; here Pr is the finitist
proof predicate for T, s is a finitistically meaningful statement, and ‘s’ its
translation into the language of T. If one could establish finitistically the
consistency of T, one could be sure on
finitist grounds that T is a reliable
instrument for the proof of finitist statements. There are many examples of
significant relative consistency proofs: i non-Euclidean geometry relative to
Euclidean, Euclidean geometry relative to analysis; ii set theory with the
axiom of choice relative to set theory without the axiom of choice, set theory
with the negation of the axiom of choice relative to set theory; iii classical
arithmetic relative to intuitionistic arithmetic, subsystems of classical
analysis relative to intuitionistic theories of constructive ordinals. The
mathematical significance of relative consistency proofs is often brought out
by sharpening them to establish conservative extension results; the latter may
then ensure, e.g., that the theories have the same class of provably total
functions. The initial motivation for such arguments is, however, frequently
philosophical: one wants to guarantee the coherence of the original theory on
an epistemologically distinguished basis.
the english
constitution:
an example Grice gives of a ‘vacuous
name’ -- constitution, a relation between concrete particulars including
objects and events and their parts, according to which at some time t, a
concrete particular is said to be constituted by the sum of its parts without
necessarily being identical with that sum. For instance, at some specific time
t, Mt. Everest is constituted by the various chunks of rock and other matter
that form Everest at t, though at t Everest would still have been Everest even
if, contrary to fact, some particular rock that is part of the sum had been
absent. Hence, although Mt. Everest is not identical to the sum of its material
parts at t, it is constituted by them. The relation of constitution figures
importantly in recent attempts to articulate and defend metaphysical
physicalism naturalism. To capture the idea that all that exists is ultimately
physical, we may say that at the lowest level of reality, there are only
microphysical phenomena, governed by the laws of microphysics, and that all
other objects and events are ultimately constituted by objects and events at
the microphysical level.
contactum -- syntactics: cf. para-tactum – a paratactic construction the
Romans called a co-ordinatum, a sub-ordinatum would be hypotaxis. (From syn-
and tassein, from PIE, cognate with ‘tact,’ to touch) -- Being the gentleman he was, Grice takes a
cavlier attitude to ‘syntax’ as something that someone else must give to him,
and right he is. The philosopher should concern with more important issues.
Usually Grice uses ‘unstructured’ to mean ‘syntactically unstructured,’ such as
a handwave. With a handwave, an emissor can
rationally explicate and implicate. vide compositum – Strictly, compositum
translates Grecian synthesis, rather than syntax – which is better phrased as
Latin ‘contactum. Or better combinatum – syntaxis , is, f., = σύνταξις, I.the connection of words, Prisc. 17, 1, 1. When Grice
uses ‘unsructured’ he sometimes expands this into ‘syntactically unstructured.’
Since syntax need not be linguistic, this is an interesting semiotic
perspective by Grice. He is allowing for compositionality in a semotic system
with a comibinatory other than the first, second, and third articulation. The
Latinate is ‘contactum.’ Morris thought he was being bright when he proposed
‘syntactics,’ “long for syntax,” he wrote. syntax, περὶ τῆς ς. τῶν λεγομένων, title of work by Chrysipp., Stoic.2.6, cf. Plu.2.731f (pl.);
“τὴν ς. τῶν ὀνομάτων” Gal.16.736, cf. 720; περὶ συντάξεως, title of work by A.D.; but also, compound forms, Id.Conj.214.7; ποιεῖσθαι μετά τινος τὴν ς. ib.221.19; also, rule
for combination of sounds or letters, τὸ χ (in δέγμενος）“ εἰς γ μετεβλήθη, τῆς ς. οὕτως ἀπαιτούσης” EM252.45, cf. Luc.Jud. Voc.3;
also, connected speech, ἐν τῇ ς. ἐγκλιτέον Sch.Il.16.85.Grice’s presupposition is that a
‘syntactics’ is not enough for a system to be a ‘communication-system’. Nothing
is communicated. With the syntagma, there is no communicatum. Grice loved two
devices of the syntactic kind: subscripts and square brackets (for the
assignment of common-ground status). Grice is a conservative
(dissenting rationalist) when it comes to syntax and semantics. He hardly uses
pragmatics albeit in a loose way (pragmatic import, pragmatic inference), but
was aware of Morriss triangle. Syntax is presented along the lines of
Gentzen, i.e. a system of natural deduction in terms of inference rules of
introduction and elimination for each formal device. Semantics pertains
rather to Witterss truth-values, i.e. the assignment of a satisfactory-valuation:
the true and the good. A syntactic approach to Grice’s System does not require
value-assignment. The system is constructed alla Gentzen with introduction and
elimination rules which are regarded as syntactic in nature. One can easily
check that the rules statedabove adequately characterise the meaning of
classical conjunction which is true iff both conjuncts are true. Hence the
syntactic deducibility relation coincides with the semantic relation of /=
or logical consequence (or entailment). Refs.: The most direct source is “Vacuous
names,” but the keyword ‘syntax’ is helpful. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
context: ‘text’ provides a few nice Romanisms – Grice: text,
pre-text, con-text, sub-text --. while Grice jocularly echoes Firth with his
‘context of utterance,’ he thought the theory of context was ‘totally lacking
in context.’ H. P. Grice, “The general theory of context,” -- contextualism,
the view that inferential justification always takes place against a background
of beliefs that are themselves in no way evidentially supported. The view has
not often been defended by name, but Dewey, Popper, Austin, and Vitters are
arguably among its notable exponents. As this list perhaps suggests,
contextualism is closely related to the “relevant alternatives” conception of
justification, according to which claims to knowledge are justified not by
ruling out any and every logically possible way in which what is asserted might
be false or inadequately grounded, but by excluding certain especially relevant
alternatives or epistemic shortcomings, these varying from one context of
inquiry to another. Formally, contextualism resembles foundationalism. But it
differs from traditional, or substantive, foundationalism in two crucial
respects. First, foundationalism insists that basic beliefs be self-justifying
or intrinsically credible. True, for contemporary foundationalists, this
intrinsic credibility need not amount to incorrigibility, as earlier theorists
tended to suppose: but some degree of intrinsic credibility is indispensable
for basic beliefs. Second, substantive foundational theories confine intrinsic
credibility, hence the status of being epistemologically basic, to beliefs of
some fairly narrowly specified kinds. By contrast, contextualists reject all
forms of the doctrine of intrinsic credibility, and in consequence place no
restrictions on the kinds of beliefs that can, in appropriate circumstances,
function as contextually basic. They regard this as a strength of their
position, since explaining and defending attributions of intrinsic credibility
has always been the foundationalist’s main problem. Contextualism is also
distinct from the coherence theory of justification, foundationalism’s
traditional rival. Coherence theorists are as suspicious as contextualists of
the foundationalist’s specified kinds of basic beliefs. But coherentists react
by proposing a radically holistic model of inferential justification, according
to which a belief becomes justified through incorporation into a suitably coherent
overall system of beliefs or “total view.” There are many well-known problems
with this approach: the criteria of coherence have never been very clearly
articulated; it is not clear what satisfying such criteria has to do with
making our beliefs likely to be true; and since it is doubtful whether anyone
has a very clear picture of his system of beliefs as a whole, to insist that
justification involves comparing the merits of competing total views seems to
subject ordinary justificatory practices to severe idealization. Contextualism,
in virtue of its formal affinity with foundationalism, claims to avoid all such
problems. Foundationalists and coherentists are apt to respond that
contextualism reaps these benefits by failing to show how genuinely epistemic
justification is possible. Contextualism, they charge, is finally
indistinguishable from the skeptical view that “justification” depends on
unwarranted assumptions. Even if, in context, these are pragmatically
acceptable, epistemically speaking they are still just assumptions. This
objection raises the question whether contextualists mean to answer the same
questions as more traditional theorists, or answer them in the same way.
Traditional theories of justification are framed so as to respond to highly
general skeptical questions e.g., are we
justified in any of our beliefs about the external world? It may be that
contextualist theories are or should be advanced, not as direct answers to
skepticism, but in conjunction with attempts to diagnose or dissolve
traditional skeptical problems. Contextualists need to show how and why
traditional demands for “global” justification misfire, if they do. If
traditional skeptical problems are taken at face value, it is doubtful whether
contextualism can answer them.
Conti – Antonio schinella conti Antonio Schinella Conti
Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to search Antonio
Schinella Conti (Padova, 22 gennaio 1677 – Padova, 6 aprile 1749) è stato un
fisico, matematico, storico, filosofo e drammaturgo italiano. Indice 1 Biografia
2 Opere
3 Bibliografia
4 Altri
progetti 5 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Noto come Abate Conti e famoso per essere stato arbitro nella
controversia tra Leibniz e Newton, circa l'invenzione del calcolo infinitesimale,
nel 1715 in Inghilterra. Fu a lungo a
Parigi dove si legò in amicizia con Charles Francois Du Fay, noto per gli
esperimenti fisici che conduceva all'Accademia delle Scienze. Una volta tornato in Italia, si ritirò a vita
sedentaria tra Padova e Venezia. Morì nel 1749. Di lui esiste una statua in
Prato della Valle, opera dello scultore padovano Felice Chiereghin, che venne
eretta nel 1781 da Carolina de' Conti.
Scrisse trattati riguardanti la struttura della tragedia, e nel caso del
Trattato dei fantasmi poetici, discusse la funzione dei cori. Tra le sue
tragedie, la più significativa fu il Giulio Cesare. Ne scrisse altre tre, tutte
di soggetto romano: Marco Bruto (1742), Giunio Bruto (1743) e Druso
(1748). Nel 1751 apparvero a Firenze in
volume unico le quattro opere teatrali, accompagnate ciascuna da una prefazione
dell'autore. Opere Antonio Schinella
Conti, [Opere]. 1, In Venezia, presso Giambatista Pasquali, 1739. Antonio
Schinella Conti, [Opere]. 2, In Venezia, presso Giambatista Pasquali, 1756. Antonio
Schinella Conti, Versioni poetiche, Bari, Laterza, 1966. Bibliografia Giovanna
Scianatico, Il secolo neoclassico. Antonio Conti e la lezione di Gian Vincenzo
Gravina, in "Esperienze Letterarie", a. XXXVI, 2011, n. 2, pp. 3–21.
Altri progetti Collabora a Wikisource Wikisource contiene una pagina dedicata a
Antonio Schinella Conti Collabora a Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons
contiene immagini o altri file su Antonio Schinella Conti Collegamenti esterni
Antonio Schinella Conti, su Treccani.it – Enciclopedie on line, Istituto
dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata Giulio Natali, Antonio
Schinella Conti, in Enciclopedia Italiana, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
Modifica su Wikidata Giovanna Gronda, Antonio Schinella Conti, in Dizionario biografico
degli italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata Opere
di Antonio Schinella Conti, su openMLOL, Horizons Unlimited srl. Modifica su
Wikidata (EN) Opere di Antonio Schinella Conti, su Open Library, Internet
Archive. Modifica su Wikidata (EN) Spartiti o libretti di Antonio Schinella
Conti, su International Music Score Library Project, Project Petrucci LLC.
Modifica su Wikidata Le quattro tragedie composte dal signor abate Antonio
Conti patrizio veneto, Firenze, 1751, Appresso Andrea Bonducci, su
books.google.it. Controllo di autorità VIAF
(EN) 39448641 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0001 2278 5580 · SBN IT\ICCU\MILV\082625 · LCCN
(EN) no96007058 · GND (DE) 118941941 · BNF (FR) cb123283631 (data) · ULAN (EN)
500222596 · BAV (EN) 495/17148 · CERL cnp00402274 · WorldCat Identities (EN)
lccn-no96007058 Biografie Portale Biografie Letteratura Portale Letteratura
Matematica Portale Matematica Teatro Portale Teatro Categorie: Fisici italiani
del XVII secoloFisici italiani del XVIII secoloMatematici italiani del XVII
secoloMatematici italiani del XVIII secoloNati nel 1677Morti nel 1749Nati il 22
gennaioMorti il 6 aprileNati a PadovaMorti a Padova[altre]
Continens – temperans -- TEMPERANTIA, CONTINENTIA – INCONTINENTIA --
-- egcrateia: or
temperantia. This is a universal. Strictly, it’s the agent who has the power –
Or part of his soul – the rational soul has the power – hence Grice’s metaphor
of the ‘power structure of the soul.’ Grice is interested in the linguistic
side to it. What’s the use of “Don’t p!” if ‘p’ is out of the emissee’s
rational control? Cf. Pears on egcreateia as ‘irrationality,’ if motivated. Cfr
mesotes. the geniality of Grice was to
explore theoretical akrasia. Grice’s genius shows in seeing egcrateia and lack
thereof as marks of virtue. “C hasn’t been to prison yet” He is potentially
dishonest. But you cannot be HONEST if you are NOT potentially DISHONEST. Of
course, it does not paint a good picture of the philosopher why he should be
obsessed with ‘akrasia,’ when Aristotle actually opposed the notion to that of
‘enkrateia,’ or ‘continence.’ Surely a philosopher needs to provide a reductive
analysis of ‘continence,’ first; and the reductive analysis of ‘incontinence’
will follow. Aristotle, as Grice well knew, is being a Platonist here, so by
‘continence,’ he meant a power structure of the soul, with the ‘rational’ soul
containing the pre-rational or non-rational soul (animal soul, and vegetal
soul). And right he was, too! So, Grice's
twist is Έγκράτεια, sic in capitals! Liddell and Scott has it as ‘ἐγκράτεια’
[ρα^],
which they render as “mastery over,”
as used by Plato in The Republic: “ἐ. ἑαυτοῦ,”
meaning ‘self-control’ (Pl. R.390b; ἐ. ἡδονῶν καὶ ἐπιθυμιῶν control over them, ib.430e,
cf. X.Mem.2.1.1, Isoc.1.21;
“περί τι” Arist.EN1149a21,
al. Liddell and Scott go on to give a reference to Grice’s beloved “Eth. Nich.”
(1145b8) II. abs., self-control, X. Mem.1.5.1, Isoc.3.44, Arist. EN.
1145b8, al., LXX Si.18.30, Act.Ap. 24.25,
etc. Richards, an emotivist, as well as Collingwood (in “Language”) had made a
stereotype of the physicist drawing a formula on the blackboard. “Full of
emotion.” So the idea that there is an UN-emotional life is a fallacy. Emotion
pervades the rational life, as does akrasia. Grice was particularly irritated
by the fact that Davidson, who lacked a background in the humanities and the
classics, could think of akrasia as “impossible”! Grice was never too
interested in emotion (or feeling) because while we do say I feel that the cat
is hungry, we also say, Im feeling byzantine. The concept of emotion needs a
philosophical elucidation. Grice was curious about a linguistic botany for
that! Akrasia for Grice covers both buletic-boulomaic and doxastic versions.
The buletic-boulomaic version may be closer to the concept of an emotion. Grice
quotes from Kennys essay on emotion. But Grice is looking for more of a
linguistic botany. As it happens, Kennys essay has Griceian implicatura. One
problem Grice finds with emotion is that feel that sometimes behaves like thinks that Another is that there is no good Grecian word
for emotio. Kenny, of St. Benets, completed his essay on emotion under
Quinton (who would occasionally give seminars with Grice), and examined by two
members of Grices Play Group: Pears and Gardiner. Kenny connects an emotion to
a feeling, which brings us to Grice on feeling boringly byzantine! Grice
proposes a derivation of akrasia in conditional steps for both
buletic-boulomaic and doxastic akrasia.
Liddell and Scott have “ἐπιθυμία,” which they render as desire,
yearning, “ἐ. ἐκτελέσαι” Hdt.1.32; ἐπιθυμίᾳ by passion, oπρονοίᾳ, generally,
appetite, αἱ κατὰ τὸ σῶμα ἐ. esp. sexual desire, lust, αἱ πρὸς τοὺς παῖδας ἐ.;
longing after a thing, desire of or for it, ὕδατος, τοῦ πιεῖν;” “τοῦ πλέονος;”
“τῆς τιμωρίας;” “τῆς μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν πολιτείας;’ “τῆς παρθενίας;’ “εἰς ἐ. τινὸς
ἐλθεῖν;’ ἐν ἐ. “τινὸς εἶναι;’ “γεγονέναι;” “εἰς ἐ. τινὸς “ἀφικέσθαι θεάσασθαι;”
“ἐ. τινὸς ἐμβαλεῖν τινί;” “ἐ. ἐμποιεῖν ἔς τινα an inclination towards;”
=ἐπιθύμημα, object of desire, ἐπιθυμίας τυχεῖν;” “ἀνδρὸς ἐ., of woman, “πενήτων
ἐ., of sleep. There must be more to emotion, such as philia, than epithumia!
cf. Grice on Aristotle on philos. What is an emotion? Aristotle, Rhetoric
II.1; Konstan “Pathos and Passion” R. Roberts, “Emotion”; W. Fortenbaugh,
Aristotle on Emotion; Simo Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient and Medieval
Philosophy. Aristotle, Rhet. II.2-12; De An., Eth.N., and Top.; Emotions in
Plato and Aristotle; Philosophy of Emotion; Aristotle and the Emotions, De An.
II.12 and III 1-3; De Mem. 1; Rhet. II.5; Scheiter, “Images, Imagination, and
Appearances, V. Caston, Why Aristotle Needs Imagination” M. Nussbaum,
“Aristotle on Emotions and Rational Persuasion, J. Cooper, “An Aristotelian
Theory of Emotion, G. Striker, Emotions in Context: Aristotles Treatment of the
Passions in the Rhetoric and his Moral Psychology." Essays on Aristotles
Rhetoric (J. Dow, Aristotles Theory of the Emotions, Moral Psychology and Human
Action in Aristotle PLATO. Aristotle, Rhetoric I.10-11; Plato Philebus 31b-50e
and Republic IV, D. Frede, Mixed feelings in Aristotles Rhetoric." Essays
on Aristotles Rhetoric, J. Moss, “Pictures and Passions in Plato”; Protagoras
352b-c, Phaedo 83b-84a, Timaeus 69c STOICS The Hellenistic philosophers; “The
Old Stoic Theory of Emotion” The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy, eEmotion
and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation, Sorabji,
Chrysippus Posidonius Seneca: A High-Level Debate on Emotion. Nussbaum, The
Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics M. Graver, Preface
and Introduction to Cicero on Emotion: Tusculan Disputations 3 and 4 M. Graver,
Stoicism and emotion. Tusculan Disputations 3 Recommended: Graver, Margaret.
"Philo of Alexandria and the Origins of the Stoic Προπάθειαι."
Phronesis. Tusculan Disputations; "The Stoic doctrine of the affections of
the soul; The Stoic life: Emotions, duties, and fate”; Emotion and decision in
stoic psychology, The stoics, individual emotions: anger, friendly feeling, and
hatred. Aristotle Rhetoric II.2-3; Nicomachean Ethics IV.5; Topics 2.7
and 4.5; Konstan, Anger, Pearson, Aristotle on Desire; Scheiter, Review of
Pearsons Aristotle on Desire; S. Leighton, Aristotles Account of Anger:
Narcissism and Illusions of Self‐Sufficiency: The Complex Evaluative World of Aristotles
Angry Man,” Valuing emotions. Aristotle Rhetoric II. 4; Konstan, “Hatred”
Konstan "Aristotle on Anger and the Emotions: the Strategies of
Status." Ancient Anger: Perspectives from Homer to Galen, C. Rapp, The
emotional dimension of friendship: notes on Aristotles account of philia in
Rhetoric II 4” Grice endeavours to give an answer to the question whether
and to what extent philia (friendship), as it is treated by Aristotle in Rhet.
II.4, can be considered a genuine emotion as, for example, fear and anger are.
Three anomalies are identified in the definition and the account of philia (and
of the associated verb philein), which suggest a negative response to the
question. However, these anomalies are analysed and explained in terms of the
specific notes of philia in order to show that Rhetoric II4 does allow for a
consideration of friendship as a genuine emotion. Seneca, On Anger (De
Ira) Seneca, On Anger Seneca, On Anger (62-96); K. Vogt, “Anger, Present
Injustice, and Future Revenge in Senecas De Ira” FEAR Aristotle, Rhet. II.5;
Nicomachean Ethics III.6-9 Aristotles Courageous Passions, Platos Laws;
“Pleasure, Pain, and Anticipation in Platos Laws, Book I” Konstan, “Fear”
PITY Aristotle, Rhetoric II. 8-9; Poetics, chs. 6, 9-19 ; Konstan, “Pity”
E. Belfiore, Tragic pleasures: Aristotle on plot and emotion, Konstan,
Aristotle on the Tragic Emotions, The Soul of Tragedy: Essays on Athenian
Drama SHAME Aristotle, Rhet. II.6; Nicomachean Ethics IV.9 Konstan, Shame
J. Moss, Shame, Pleasure, and the Divided Soul, B. Williams, Shame and
Necessity. Aristotle investigates two character traits, continence and
incontinence, that are not as blameworthy as the vices but not as praiseworthy
as the virtues. The Grecian expressions are’enkrateia,’ continence, literally
mastery, and krasia (“incontinence”; literally, lack of mastery. An akratic
person goes against reason as a result of some pathos (emotion, feeling”). Like
the akratic, an enkratic person experiences a feeling that is contrary to
reason; but unlike the akratic, he acts in accordance with reason. His defect
consists solely in the fact that, more than most people, he experiences
passions that conflict with his rational choice. The akratic person has not only
this defect, but has the further flaw that he gives in to feeling rather than
reason more often than the average person.
Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of akrasia: “propeteia,” or
impetuosity and “astheneia, or weakness. The person who is weak goes through a
process of deliberation and makes a choice; but rather than act in accordance
with his reasoned choice, he acts under the influence of a passion. By
contrast, the impetuous person does not go through a process of deliberation
and does not make a reasoned choice; he simply acts under the influence of a
passion. At the time of action, the impetuous person experiences no internal
conflict. But once his act has been completed, he regrets what he has done. One
could say that he deliberates, if deliberation were something that post-dated
rather than preceded action; but the thought process he goes through after he
acts comes too late to save him from error.
It is important to bear in mind that when Aristotle talks about
impetuosity and weakness, he is discussing chronic conditions. The impetuous
person is someone who acts emotionally and fails to deliberate not just once or
twice but with some frequency; he makes this error more than most people do.
Because of this pattern in his actions, we would be justified in saying of the
impetuous person that had his passions not prevented him from doing so, he
would have deliberated and chosen an action different from the one he did
perform. The two kinds of passions that
Aristotle focuses on, in his treatment of akrasia, are the appetite for
pleasure and anger. Either can lead to impetuosity and weakness. But Aristotle
gives pride of place to the appetite for pleasure as the passion that
undermines reason. He calls the kind of akrasia caused by an appetite for pleasure
(hedone) “unqualified akrasia”—or, as we might say, akrasia simpliciter, “full
stop.’ Akrasia caused by anger he considers a qualified form of akrasia and
calls it akrasia ‘with respect to anger.’ We thus have these four forms of
akrasia: impetuosity caused by pleasure, impetuosity caused by anger, weakness
caused by pleasure, weakness caused by anger. It should be noticed that
Aristotle’s treatment of akrasia is heavily influenced by Plato’s tripartite
division of the soul. Plato holds that either the spirited part (which houses
anger, as well as other emotions) or the appetitive part (which houses the
desire for physical pleasures) can disrupt the dictates of reason and result in
action contrary to reason. The same threefold division of the soul can be seen
in Aristotles approach to this topic. Although Aristotle characterizes akrasia
and enkrateia in terms of a conflict between reason and feeling, his detailed
analysis of these states of mind shows that what takes place is best described
in a more complicated way. For the feeling that undermines reason contains some
thought, which may be implicitly general. As Aristotle says, anger “reasoning
as it were that one must fight against such a thing, is immediately provoked.
And although in the next sentence he denies that our appetite for pleasure
works in this way, he earlier had said that there can be a syllogism that
favors pursuing enjoyment: “Everything sweet is pleasant, and this is sweet”
leads to the pursuit of a particular pleasure. Perhaps what he has in mind is
that pleasure can operate in either way: it can prompt action unmediated by a
general premise, or it can prompt us to act on such a syllogism. By contrast,
anger always moves us by presenting itself as a bit of general, although hasty,
reasoning. But of course Aristotle does
not mean that a conflicted person has more than one faculty of reason. Rather
his idea seems to be that in addition to our full-fledged reasoning capacity,
we also have psychological mechanisms that are capable of a limited range of
reasoning. When feeling conflicts with reason, what occurs is better described
as a fight between feeling-allied-with-limited-reasoning and full-fledged
reason. Part of us—reason—can remove itself from the distorting influence of
feeling and consider all relevant factors, positive and negative. But another
part of us—feeling or emotion—has a more limited field of reasoning—and
sometimes it does not even make use of it.
Although “passion” is sometimes used as a translation of Aristotles word
pathos (other alternatives are emotion” and feeling), it is important to bear
in mind that his term does not necessarily designate a strong psychological
force. Anger is a pathos whether it is weak or strong; so too is the appetite
for bodily pleasures. And he clearly indicates that it is possible for an
akratic person to be defeated by a weak pathos—the kind that most people would
easily be able to control. So the general explanation for the occurrence of
akrasia cannot be that the strength of a passion overwhelms reason. Aristotle
should therefore be acquitted of an accusation made against him by Austin in a
well-known footnote to ‘A Plea For Excuses.’ Plato and Aristotle, Austin says,
collapsed all succumbing to temptation into losing control of ourselves — a
mistake illustrated by this example. I am very partial to ice cream, and a
bombe is served divided into segments corresponding one to one with the persons
at High Table. I am tempted to help myself to two segments and do so, thus
succumbing to temptation and even conceivably (but why necessarily?) going
against my principles. But do I lose control of myself? Do I raven, do I snatch
the morsels from the dish and wolf them down, impervious to the consternation
of my colleagues? Not a bit of it. We often succumb to temptation with calm and
even with finesse. With this, Aristotle can agree. The pathos for the bombe can
be a weak one, and in some people that will be enough to get them to act in a
way that is disapproved by their reason at the very time of action. What is most remarkable about Aristotle’s
discussion of akrasia is that he defends a position close to that of Socrates.
When he first introduces the topic of akrasia, and surveys some of the problems
involved in understanding this phenomenon, he says that Socrates held that
there is no akrasia, and he describes this as a thesis that clearly conflicts
with the appearances (phainomena). Since he says that his goal is to preserve
as many of the appearances as possible, it may come as a surprise that when he
analyzes the conflict between reason and feeling, he arrives at the conclusion
that in a way Socrates was right after all. For, he says, the person who acts
against reason does not have what is thought to be unqualified knowledge; in a
way he has knowledge, but in a way does not.
Aristotle explains what he has in mind by comparing akrasia to the
condition of other people who might be described as knowing in a way, but not
in an unqualified way. His examples are people who are asleep, mad, or drunk; he
also compares the akratic to a student who has just begun to learn a Subjects,
or an actor on the stage. All of these people, he says, can utter the very
words used by those who have knowledge; but their talk does not prove that they
really have knowledge, strictly speaking.
These analogies can be taken to mean that the form of akrasia that
Aristotle calls weakness rather than impetuosity always results from some
diminution of cognitive or intellectual acuity at the moment of action. The
akratic says, at the time of action, that he ought not to indulge in this
particular pleasure at this time. But does he know or even believe that he
should refrain? Aristotle might be taken to reply: yes and no. He has some
degree of recognition that he must not do this now, but not full recognition.
His feeling, even if it is weak, has to some degree prevented him from
completely grasping or affirming the point that he should not do this. And so
in a way Socrates was right. When reason remains unimpaired and unclouded, its
dictates will carry us all the way to action, so long as we are able to
act. But Aristotles agreement with
Socrates is only partial, because he insists on the power of the emotions to
rival, weaken or bypass reason. Emotion challenges reason in all three of these
ways. In both the akratic and the enkratic, it competes with reason for control
over action; even when reason wins, it faces the difficult task of having to
struggle with an internal rival. Second, in the akratic, it temporarily robs
reason of its full acuity, thus handicapping it as a competitor. It is not
merely a rival force, in these cases; it is a force that keeps reason from
fully exercising its power. And third, passion can make someone impetuous; here
its victory over reason is so powerful that the latter does not even enter into
the arena of conscious reflection until it is too late to influence action.
That, at any rate, is one way of interpreting Aristotle’s statements. But it
must be admitted that his remarks are obscure and leave room for alternative
readings. It is possible that when he denies that the akratic has knowledge in
the strict sense, he is simply insisting on the point that no one should be
classified as having practical knowledge unless he actually acts in accordance
with it. A practical knower is not someone who merely has knowledge of general
premises; he must also have knowledge of particulars, and he must actually draw
the conclusion of the syllogism. Perhaps drawing such a conclusion consists in
nothing less than performing the action called for by the major and minor
premises. Since this is something the akratic does not do, he lacks knowledge;
his ignorance is constituted by his error in action. On this reading, there is
no basis for attributing to Aristotle the thesis that the kind of akrasia he
calls weakness is caused by a diminution of intellectual acuity. His
explanation of akrasia is simply that pathos is sometimes a stronger
motivational force than full-fledged reason.
This is a difficult reading to defend, however, for Aristotle says that
after someone experiences a bout of akrasia his ignorance is dissolved and he
becomes a knower again. In context, that appears to be a remark about the form
of akrasia Aristotle calls weakness rather than impetuosity. If so, he is
saying that when an akratic person is Subjects to two conflicting
influences—full-fledged reason versus the minimal rationality of emotion—his
state of knowledge is somehow temporarily undone but is later restored. Here,
knowledge cannot be constituted by the performance of an act, because that is
not the sort of thing that can be restored at a later time. What can be
restored is ones full recognition or affirmation of the fact that this act has
a certain undesirable feature, or that it should not be performed. Aristotle’s
analysis seems to be that both forms of akrasia — weakness and impetuosity
—share a common structure: in each case, ones full affirmation or grasp of what
one should do comes too late. The difference is that in the case of weakness but
not impetuosity, the akratic act is preceded by a full-fledged rational
cognition of what one should do right now. That recognition is briefly and
temporarily diminished by the onset of a less than fully rational affect. There is one other way in which Aristotle’s
treatment of akrasia is close to the Socratic thesis that what people call
akrasia is really ignorance. Aristotle holds that if one is in the special
mental condition that he calls practical wisdom, then one cannot be, nor will
one ever become, an akratic person. For practical wisdom is present only in
those who also possess the ethical virtues, and these qualities require
complete emotional mastery. Anger and appetite are fully in harmony with
reason, if one is practically wise, and so this intellectual virtue is
incompatible with the sort of inner conflict experienced by the akratic person.
Furthermore, one is called practically wise not merely on the basis of what one
believes or knows, but also on the basis of what one does. Therefore, the sort
of knowledge that is lost and regained during a bout of akrasia cannot be
called practical wisdom. It is knowledge only in a loose sense. The low-level
grasp of the ordinary person of what to do is precisely the sort of thing that
can lose its acuity and motivating power, because it was never much of an
intellectual accomplishment to begin with. That is what Aristotle is getting at
when he compares it with the utterances of actors, students, sleepers, drunks,
and madmen. Grice had witnessed how Hare had suffere to try and deal with how
to combine the geniality that “The language of morals” is with his account of
akrasia. Most Oxonians were unhappy with Hares account of akrasia. Its like, in
deontic logic, you cannot actually deal with akrasia. You need buletics. You
need the desiderative, so that you can oppose what is desired with the duty,
even if both concepts are related. “Akrasia” has a nice Grecian touch about it,
and Grice and Hare, as Lit. Hum., rejoiced in being able to explore what
Aristotle had to say about it. They wouldnt go far beyond Aristotle. Plato and
Aristotle were the only Greek philosophers studied for the Lit. Hum. To venture
with the pre-socratics or the hellenistics (even if Aristotle is one) was not
classy enough! Like Pears in Motivated irrationality, Grice allows that
benevolentia may be deemed beneficentia. If Smith has the good will to give
Jones a job, he may be deemed to have given Jones the job, even if Jones never
get it. In buletic akrasia we must consider the conclusion to be desiring what
is not best for the agents own good, never mind if he refrains from doing what
is not best for his own good. Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor. We
shouldnt be saying this, but we are saying it! Grice prefers akrasia, but
he is happy to use the translation by Cicero, also negative, of this:
incontinentia, as if continentia were a virtue! For Grice, the alleged paradox
of akrasia, both alethic and practical, has to be accounted for by a theory of
rationality from the start, and not be deemed a stumbling block. Grice is
interested in both the common-or-garden buletic-boulomaic version of akrasia,
involving the volitive soul ‒ in term of desirability ‒ and doxastic
akrasia, involing the judicative soul proper ‒ in terms of
probability. Grice considers buletic akrasia and doxastic akrasia ‒ the latter
yet distinct from Moores paradox, p but I dont want to believe that p, in
symbols p and ~ψb-dp. Akarsia, see egcrateia. egcrateia: also spelled acrasia, or akrasia,
Grecian term for weakness of will. Akrasia is a character flaw, also called
incontinence, exhibited primarily in intentional behavior that conflicts with
the agent’s own values or principles. Its contrary is enkrateia strength of
will, continence, self-control. Both akrasia and enkrateia, Aristotle says,
“are concerned with what is in excess of the state characteristic of most
people; for the continent abide by their resolutions more, and the incontinent
less, than most people can” Nicomachean Ethics 1152a2527. These resolutions may
be viewed as judgments that it would be best to perform an action of a certain
sort, or better to do one thing than another. Enkrateia, on that view, is the
power kratos to act as one judges best in the face of competing motivation.
Akrasia is a want or deficiency of such power. Aristotle himself limited the
sphere of both states more strictly than is now done, regarding both as
concerned specifically with “pleasures and pains and appetites and aversions
arising through touch and taste” [1150a910]. Philosophers are generally more
interested in incontinent and continent actions than in the corresponding
states of character. Various species of incontinent or akratic behavior may be
distinguished, including incontinent reasoning and akratic belief formation. The
species of akratic behavior that has attracted most attention is uncompelled,
intentional action that conflicts with a better or best judgment consciously
held by the agent at the time of action. If, e.g., while judging it best not to
eat a second piece of pie, you intentionally eat another piece, you act
incontinently provided that your so
acting is uncompelled e.g., your desire for the pie is not irresistible.
Socrates denied that such action is possible, thereby creating one of the
Socratic paradoxes. In “unorthodox” instances of akratic action, a deed
manifests weakness of will even though it accords with the agent’s better
judgment. A boy who decides, against his better judgment, to participate in a
certain dangerous prank, might owing to
an avoidable failure of nerve fail to
execute his decision. In such a case, some would claim, his failure to act on
his decision manifests weakness of will or akrasia. If, instead, he masters his
fear, his participating in the prank might manifest strength of will, even
though his so acting conflicts with his better judgment. The occurrence of
akratic actions seems to be a fact of life. Unlike many such apparent facts,
this one has received considerable philosophical scrutiny for nearly two and a
half millennia. A major source of the interest is clear: akratic action raises
difficult questions about the connection between thought and action, a
connection of paramount importance for most philosophical theories of the
explanation of intentional behavior. Insofar as moral theory does not float
free of evidence about the etiology of human behavior, the tough questions
arise there as well. Ostensible akratic action, then, occupies a philosophical
space in the intersection of the philosophy of mind and moral theory. Refs.: The main references here are in three
folders in two different series. H. P. Grice, “Akrasia,” The H. P. Grice
Papers, S. II, c. 2-ff. 22-23 and S. V, c. 6-f. 32, BANC.
continental
breakfast:
Grice enjoyed a continental breakfast at Oxford, and an English breakfast in
Rome – As for ‘continental’ “philosophy,” Grice applied it to the gradually
changing spectrum of philosophical views that in the twentieth century
developed in Continental Europe and that are notably different from the various
forms of analytic philosophy that during the same period flourished at Oxford.
Immediately after World War II the expression “philosophie continentale” was
more or less synonymous with ‘phenomenology’. The latter term, already used
earlier in G. idealism, received a completely new meaning in the work of
Husserl. Later on “phainomenologie” was also applied, often with substantial
changes in meaning, to the thought of a great number of other Continental
philosophers such as Scheler, Alexander Pfander, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, and
Nicolai Hartmann. For Husserl the aim of philosophy is to prepare humankind for
a genuinely philosophical form of life, in and through which each human being
gives him- or herself a rule through reason. Since the Renaissance, many
philosophers have tried in vain to materialize this aim. In Husserl’s view, the
reason was that philosophers failed to use the proper philosophical method.
Husserl’s phenomenology was meant to provide philosophy with the method needed.
Among those deeply influenced by Husserl’s ideas the so-called existentialists
must be mentioned first. If ‘existentialism’ is construed strictly, it refers
mainly to the philosophy of Sartre and Beauvoir. In a very broad sense
‘existentialism’ refers to the ideas of an entire group of thinkers influenced
methodologically by Husserl and in content by Marcel, Heidegger, Sartre, or
Merleau-Ponty, and one may go and include S. N. Hampshire into the bargain. In
this case one often speaks of existential phenomenology. When Heidegger’s
philosophy became better known at Oxford, ‘continental philosophy’ received
again a new meaning. From Heidegger’s first publication, Being and Time 7, it
was clear that his conception of phenomenology differs from that of Husserl in
several important respects. That is why he qualified the term and spoke of
hermeneutic phenomenology and clarified the expression by examining the
“original” meaning of the Grecian words from which the term was formed. In his
view phenomenology must try “to let that which shows itself be seen from itself
in the very way in which it shows itself from itself.” Heidegger applied the
method first to the mode of being of man with the aim of approaching the
question concerning the meaning of being itself through this phenomenological
interpretation. Of those who took their point of departure from Heidegger, but
also tried to go beyond him, Gadamer and Ricoeur must be mentioned. The
structuralist movement in France added another connotation to ‘Continental
philosophy’. The term structuralism above all refers to an activity, a way of
knowing, speaking, and acting that extends over a number of distinguished
domains of human activity: linguistics, aesthetics, anthropology, psychology,
psychoanalysis, mathematics, philosophy of science, and philosophy itself.
Structuralism, which became a fashion in Paris and later in Western Europe
generally, reached its high point on the Continent between 0 and 0. It was
inspired by ideas first formulated by Russian formalism 626 and Czech
structuralism 640, but also by ideas derived from the works of Marx and Freud.
In France Foucault, Barthes, Althusser, and Derrida were the leading figures.
Structuralism is not a new philosophical movement; it must be characterized by
structuralist activity, which is meant to evoke ever new objects. This can be
done in a constructive and a reconstructive manner, but these two ways of
evoking objects can never be separated. One finds the constructive aspect
primarily in structuralist aesthetics and linguistics, whereas the reconstructive
aspect is more apparent in philosophical reflections upon the structuralist
activity. Influenced by Nietzschean ideas, structuralism later developed in a
number of directions, including poststructuralism; in this context the works of
Gilles Deleuze, Lyotard, Irigaray, and Kristeva must be mentioned. After 0
‘Continental philosophy’ received again a new connotation: deconstruction. At
first deconstruction presented itself as a reaction against philosophical
hermeneutics, even though both deconstruction and hermeneutics claim their
origin in Heidegger’s reinterpretation of Husserl’s phenomenology. The leading
philosopher of the movement is Derrida, who at first tried to think along
phenomenological and structuralist lines. Derrida formulated his “final” view
in a linguistic form that is both complex and suggestive. It is not easy in a
few sentences to state what deconstruction is. Generally speaking one can say
that what is being deconstructed is texts; they are deconstructed to show that
there are conflicting conceptions of meaning and implication in every text so
that it is never possible definitively to show what a text really means.
Derrida’s own deconstructive work is concerned mainly with philosophical texts,
whereas others apply the “method” predominantly to literary texts. What
according to Derrida distinguished philosophy is its reluctance to face the
fact that it, too, is a product of linguistic and rhetorical figures.
Deconstruction is here that process of close reading that focuses on those
elements where philosophers in their work try to erase all knowledge of its own
linguistic and rhetorical dimensions. It has been said that if construction
typifies modern thinking, then deconstruction is the mode of thinking that
radically tries to overcome modernity. Yet this view is simplistic, since one
also deconstructs Plato and many other thinkers and philosophers of the
premodern age. People concerned with social and political philosophy who have
sought affiliation with Continental philosophy often appeal to the so-called
critical theory of the Frankfurt School in general, and to Habermas’s theory of
communicative action in particular. Habermas’s view, like the position of the
Frankfurt School in general, is philosophically eclectic. It tries to bring
into harmony ideas derived from Kant, G. idealism, and Marx, as well as ideas
from the sociology of knowledge and the social sciences. Habermas believes that
his theory makes it possible to develop a communication community without
alienation that is guided by reason in such a way that the community can stand
freely in regard to the objectively given reality. Critics have pointed out
that in order to make this theory work Habermas must substantiate a number of
assumptions that until now he has not been able to justify.
Grice’s
contingency planning
– ‘contingens.’ “What is actual is not also possible” “What is necessary is not
also contingent” -- contingent, neither impossible nor necessary; i.e., both
possible and non-necessary. The modal property of being contingent is
attributable to a proposition, state of affairs, event, or more debatably an object. Muddles about the relationship
between this and other modal properties have abounded ever since Aristotle, who
initially conflated contingency with possibility but later realized that
something that is possible may also be necessary, whereas something that is
contingent cannot be necessary. Even today many philosophers are not clear
about the “opposition” between contingency and necessity, mistakenly supposing
them to be contradictory notions probably because within the domain of true
propositions the contingent and the necessary are indeed both exclusive and
exhaustive of one another. But the contradictory of ‘necessary’ is
‘non-necessary’; that of ‘contingent’ is ‘non-contingent’, as the following
extended modal square of opposition shows: These logico-syntactical
relationships are preserved through various semantical interpretations, such as
those involving: a the logical modalities proposition P is logically contingent
just when P is neither a logical truth nor a logical falsehood; b the causal or
physical modalities state of affairs or event E is physically contingent just
when E is neither physically necessary nor physically impossible; and c the
deontic modalities act A is morally indeterminate just when A is neither
morally obligatory nor morally forbidden. In none of these cases does
‘contingent’ mean ‘dependent,’ as in the phrase ‘is contingent upon’. Yet just
such a notion of contingency seems to feature prominently in certain
formulations of the cosmological argument, all created objects being said to be
contingent beings and God alone to be a necessary or non-contingent being.
Conceptual clarity is not furthered by assimilating this sense of ‘contingent’
to the others.
contrapositum: -- in Grecian,
‘antithesis’ – cfr. Hegel’s triad: thesis/antithesis,/synthesis. -- the immediate logical operation on any
categorical proposition that is accomplished by first forming the complements
of both the subject term and the predicate term of that proposition and then
interchanging these complemented terms. Thus, contraposition applied to the
categorical proposition ‘All cats are felines’ yields ‘All non-felines are
non-cats’, where ‘nonfeline’ and ‘non-cat’ are, respectively, the complements
or complementary terms of ‘feline’ and ‘cat’. The result of applying
contraposition to a categorical proposition is said to be the contrapositive of
that proposition. contraries, any pair
of propositions that cannot both be true but can both be false; derivatively,
any pair of properties that cannot both apply to a thing but that can both fail
to apply to a thing. Thus the propositions ‘This object is red all over’ and
‘This object is green all over’ are contraries, as are the properties of being
red all over and being green all over. Traditionally, it was considered that
the categorical A-proposition ‘All S’s are P’s’ and the categorical
E-proposition ‘No S’s are P’s’ were contraries; but according to De Morgan and
most subsequent logicians, these two propositions are both true when there are
no S’s at all, so that modern logicians do not usually regard the categorical
A- and E-propositions as being true contraries.
contravalid, designating a proposition P in a logical system such that
every proposition in the system is a consequence of P. In most of the typical
and familiar logical systems, contravalidity coincides with
self-contradictoriness.
voluntary
and rational control
– the power structure of the soul -- Grice’s intersubjective conversational
control, -- for Grice only what is under one’s control is communicated – spots
mean measles only metaphorically, the spots don’t communicate measles. An
involuntary cry does not ‘mean.’ Only a simulated cry of pain is a vehicle by which
an emissor may mean that he is in pain. an apparently causal phenomenon closely
akin to power and important for such topics as intentional action, freedom, and
moral responsibility. Depending upon the control you had over the event, your
finding a friend’s stolen car may or may not be an intentional action, a free
action, or an action for which you deserve moral credit. Control seems to be a
causal phenomenon. Try to imagine controlling a car, say, without causing
anything. If you cause nothing, you have no effect on the car, and one does not
control a thing on which one has no effect. But control need not be causally
deterministic. Even if a genuine randomizer in your car’s steering mechanism
gives you only a 99 percent chance of making turns you try to make, you still
have considerable control in that sphere. Some philosophers claim that we have
no control over anything if causal determinism is true. That claim is false.
When you drive your car, you normally are in control of its speed and direction,
even if our world happens to be deterministic.
conversational
avowal: The phrase is a Ryleism, but
Grice liked it. Grice’s point is with corrigibility or lack thereof. He recalls
his tutorials with Strawson. “I want you to bring me a paper on Friday.” “You
mean The Telegraph?” “You know what I mean.”
“But perhaps you don’t.” Grice’s favourite conversational avowal,
mentioned by Grice, is a declaration of an intention.. Grice starts using the
phrase ‘conversational avowal’ after exploring Ryle’s rather cursory
exploration of them in The Concept of Mind. This is interesting because in
general Grice is an anti-ryleist. The verb is of course ‘to avow,’ which
is ultimately a Latinate from ‘advocare.’ A processes or event of the soul is,
on the official view, supposed to be played out in a private theatre. Such an
event is known directly by the man who has them either through the faculty of
introspection or the ‘phosphorescence’ of consciousness. The subject is,
on this view, incorrigible—his avowals of the state of his soul cannot be
corrected by others—and he is infallible—he cannot be wrong about which states
he is in. The official doctrine mistakenly construes an avowals or a
report of such an episode as issuing from a special sort of observation or
perception of shadowy existents. We should consider some differences
between two sorts of 'conversational' avowals: (i) I feel a tickle and (ii) I
feel ill. If a man feels a tickle, he has a tickle, and if he has a tickle, he
feels it. But if he feels ill, he may not be ill, and if he is ill, he may
not feel ill. Doubtless a man’s feeling ill is some evidence for his being
ill. But feeling a tickle is not evidence for his having a tickle, any more
than striking a blow is evidence for the occurrence of a blow. In ‘feel a
tickle’ and ‘strike a blow’, ‘tickle’ and ‘blow’ are cognate accusatives to the
verbs ‘feel’ and ‘strike’. The verb and its accusative are two expressions
for the same thing, as are the verbs and their accusatives in ‘I dreamt a
dream’ and ‘I asked a question’. But ‘ill’ and ‘capable of climbing the tree’
are not cognate accusatives to the verb ‘to feel.' So they are not in grammar
bound to signify feelings, as ‘tickle’ is in grammar bound to signify a
feeling. Another purely grammatical point shows the same thing. It is
indifferent whether I say ‘I feel a tickle’ or ‘I have a tickle’; but ‘I have .
. .’ cannot be completed by ‘. . . ill’, (cf. ‘I have an illness’), ‘. . .
capable of climbing the tree’, (cf. I have a capability to climb that tree’) ‘.
. . happy’ (cf. ‘I have a feeling of happiness’ or ‘I have happiness in my
life’) or ‘. . . discontented’ (cf. ‘I have a feeling of strong discontent
towards behaviourism’). If we try to restore the verbal parallel by bringing in
the appropriate abstract nouns, we find a further incongruity; ‘I feel
happiness’(I feel as though I am experiencing happiness), ‘I feel illness’ (I
feel as though I do have an illness’) or ‘I feel ability to climb the tree’ (I
feel that I am endowed with the capability to climb that tree), if they mean
anything, they do not mean at all what a man means by uttering ‘I feel happy,’
or ‘I feel ill,’ or ‘I feel capable of climbing the tree’. On the other
hand, besides these differences between the different uses of ‘I feel . . .’
there are important CONVERSATIONAL analogies as well. If a man says that
he has a tickle, his co-conversationalist does not ask for his evidence, or
requires him to make quite sure. Announcing a tickle is not proclaiming the
results of an investigation. A tickle is not something established by
careful witnessing, or something inferred from a clue, nor do we praise for his
powers of observation or reasoning a man who let us know that he feels tickles,
tweaks and flutters. Just the same is true of avowals of moods. If a man
makes a conversational contribution, such as‘I feel bored’, or ‘I feel
depressed’, his co-conversationalist does not usually ask him for his evidence,
or request him to make sure. The co-conversationalist may accuse the man of
shamming to him or to himself, but the co-conversationalist does not accuse him
of having been careless in his observations or rash in his inferences, since a
co-conversationalist would not usually think that his conversational avowal is
a report of an observation or a conclusion. He has not been a good or a
bad detective; he has not been a detective at all. Nothing would surprise us
more than to hear him say ‘I feel depressed’ in the alert and judicious tone of
voice of a detective, a microscopist, or a diagnostician, though this tone of
voice is perfectly congruous with the NON-AVOWAL past-tense ‘I WAS feeling
depressed’ or the NON-AVOWAL third-person report, ‘HE feels depressed’. If the
avowal is to do its conversational job, it must be said in a depressed tone of
voice. The conversational avowal must be blurted out to a sympathizer, not
reported to an investigator. Avowing ‘I feel depressed’ is doing one of the
things, viz. one CONVERSATIONAL thing, that depression is the mood to do. It is
not a piece of scientific premiss-providing, but a piece of ‘conversational
moping.’That is why, if the co-conversationalist is suspicious, he does not ask
‘Fact or fiction?’, ‘True or false?’, ‘Reliable or unreliable?’, but ‘Sincere
or shammed?’ The CONVERSATIONAL avowal of moods requires not acumen, but
openness. It comes from the heart, not from the head. It is not
discovery, but voluntary non-concealment. Of course people have to learn how to
use avowal expressions appropriately and they may not learn these lessons very well.
They learn them from ordinary discussions of the moods of others and from such
more fruitful sources as novels and the theatre. They learn from the same
sources how to cheat both other people and themselves by making a sham
conversational avowal in the proper tone of voice and with the other proper
histrionic accompaniments. If we now raise the question ‘How does a man find
out what mood he is in?’ one can answer that if, as may not be the case, he
finds it out at all, he finds it out very much as we find it out. As we have
seen, he does not groan ‘I feel bored’ because he has found out that he is
bored, any more than the sleepy man yawns because he has found out that he is
sleepy. Rather, somewhat as the sleepy man finds out that he is sleepy by
finding, among other things, that he keeps on yawning, so the bored man finds
out that he is bored, if he does find this out, by finding that among other
things he glumly says to others and to himself ‘I feel bored’ and ‘How bored I
feel’. Such a blurted avowal is not merely one fairly reliable index among
others. It is the first and the best index, since being worded and voluntarily
uttered, it is meant to be heard and it is meant to be understood. It calls for
no sleuth-work.In some respects a conversational avowal of a moods, like ‘I
feel cheerful,’ more closely resemble announcements of sensations like ‘I feel
a tickle’ than they resemble utterances like ‘I feel better’ or ‘I feel capable
of climbing the tree’. Just as it would be absurd to say ‘I feel a tickle but
maybe I haven’t one’, so, in ordinary cases, it would be absurd to say ‘I feel
cheerful but maybe I am not’. But there would be no absurdity in saying ‘I FEEL
better but, to judge by the doctor’s attitude, perhaps I am WORSE’, or ‘I do
FEEL as if I am capable of climbing the tree but maybe I cannot climb it.’This
difference can be brought out in another way. Sometimes it is natural to say ‘I
feel AS IF I could eat a horse’, or ‘I feel AS IF my temperature has returned
to normal’. But, more more immediate conversational avowals, it would seldom if
ever be natural to say ‘I feel AS IF I were in the dumps’, or ‘I feel AS IF I
were bored’, any more than it would be natural to say ‘I feel AS IF I had a
pain’. Not much would be gained by discussing at length why we use ‘feel’ in
these different ways. There are hosts of other ways in which it is also used. I
can say ‘I felt a lump in the mattress’, ‘I felt cold’, ‘I felt queer’, ‘I felt
my jaw-muscles stiffen’, ‘I felt my gorge rise’, ‘I felt my chin with my
thumb’, ‘I felt in vain for the lever’, ‘I felt as if something important was
about to happen’, ‘I felt that there was a flaw somewhere in the argument’, ‘I
felt quite at home’, ‘I felt that he was angry’. A feature common to most
of these uses of ‘feel’ is that the utterer does not want further questions to
be put. They would be either unanswerable questions, or unaskable questions.
That he felt it is enough to settle some debates.That he merely felt it is
enough to show that debates should not even begin. Names of moods, then, are
not the names of feelings. But to be in a particular mood is to be in the mood,
among other things, to feel certain sorts of feelings in certain sorts of
situations. To be in a lazy mood, is, among other things, to tend to have
sensations of lassitude in the limbs when jobs have to be done, to have cosy
feelings of relaxation when the deck-chair is resumed, not to have electricity
feelings when the game begins, and so forth. But we are not thinking
primarily of these feelings when we say that we feel lazy; in fact, we seldom
pay much heed to sensations of these kinds, save when they are abnormally
acute. Is a name of a mood a name
of an emotion? The only tolerable reply is that of course they are, in that
some people some of the time use ‘emotion’. But then we must add that in this
usage an emotion is not something that can be segregated from thinking,
daydreaming, voluntarily doing things, grimacing or feeling pangs and itches.
To have the emotion, in this usage, which we ordinarily refer to as ‘being
bored’, is to be in the mood to think certain sorts of thoughts, and not to
think other sorts, to yawn and not to chuckle, to converse with stilted
politeness, and not to talk with animation, to feel flaccid and not to feel
resilient. Boredom is not some unique distinguishable ingredient, scene or
feature of all that its victim is doing and undergoing. Rather it is the
temporary complexion of that totality. It is not like a gust, a sunbeam, a
shower or the temperature; it is like the morning’s weather. An unstudied
conversational utterance may embody an explicit interest phrase, or a
conversational avowal, such as ‘I want it’, ‘I hope so’, ‘That’s what I
intend’, ‘I quite dislike it’, ‘Surely I am depressed’, ‘I do wonder, too’, ‘I
guess so’ and ‘I am feeling hungry.’The surface grammar (if not logical form)
makes it tempting to misconstrue all the utterances as a description. But in
its primary employment such a conversational avowal as ‘I want it’ is not used
to convey information.‘I want it’ is used to make a request or demand. ‘I want
it’ is no more meant as a contribution to general knowledge than ‘please’. For
a co-conversationalist to respond with the tag ‘Do you?’ or worse, as Grice’s
tutee, with ‘*how* do you *know* that you want it?’ is glaringly inappropriate.
Nor, in their primary employment, are conversational avowals such as ‘I hate
it’ or ‘That’s what I I intend’ used for the purpose of telling one’s addressee
facts about the utterer; or else we should not be surprised to hear them uttered
in the cool, informative tones of voice in which one says ‘HE hates it’ and
‘That’s what he intends’. We expect a conversational avowal, on the contrary,
to be spoken in a revolted and a resolute tone of voice respectively. It is an
utterances of a man in a revolted and resolute frame of mind. A conversational
avowal is a thing said in detestation and resolution and not a thing said in
order to advance biographical knowledge about detestations and
resolutions. A man who notices the unstudied utterances of the utterer,
who may or may not be himself, is, if his interest in the utterer has the
appropriate direction, especially well situated to pass comments upon the
qualities and frames of mind of its author.‘avowal’ as a philosophical lexeme
may not invite an immediate correlate in the Graeco-Roman, ultimately Grecian,
tradition. ‘Confessio’ springs to mind, but this is not what Grice is thinking
about. He is more concerned with issues of privileged access and
incorrigibility, or corrigibility, rather, as per the alleged immediacy of a
first-person report of the form, “I feel that …” . Grice does use ‘avowal’
often especially in the early stages, when the logical scepticism about
incorrigibility comes under attack. Just to be different, Grice is interested in
the corrigibility of the avowal. The issue is of some importance in his account
of the act of communication, and how one can disimplicate what one means. Grice
loves to play with his tutee doubting as to whether he means that p or q.
Except at Oxford, the whole thing has a ridiculous ring to it. I want you to
bring me a paper by Friday. You mean the newspaper? You very well know what I
mean. But perhaps you do not. Are you sure you mean a philosophy paper when you
utter, ‘I want you to bring a paper by Friday’? As Grice notes, in case of
self-deception and egcrateia, it may well be that the utterer does not know
what he desires, if not what he intends, if anything. Freud and Foucault run
galore. The topic will interest a collaborator of Grice’s, Pears, with his
concept of ‘motivated irrationality.’ Grice likes to discuss a category
mistake. I may be categorically mistaken but I am not categorically
confused. Now when it comes to avowal-avowal, it is only natural that if he is
interested in Aristotle on ‘hedone,’ Grice would be interested in
Aristotle on ‘lupe.’ This is very philosophical, as Urmson agrees. Can one
‘fake’ pain? Why would one fake pain? Oddly, this is for Grice the origin of
language. Is pleasure just the absence of pain? Liddell and Soctt have “λύπη”
and render it as pain of body, oἡδον; also, sad plight or condition, but also
pain of mind, grief; “ά; δῆγμα δὲ λύπης οὐδὲν ἐφ᾽ ἧπαρ προσικνεῖται; τί γὰρ
καλὸν ζῆν βίοτον, ὃς λύπας φέρει; ἐρωτικὴ λ.’ λύπας προσβάλλειν;” “λ. φέρειν
τινί; oχαρά.” Oddly, Grice goes back to pain in Princeton, since it is explored
by Smart in his identity thesis. Take pain. Surely, Grice tells the
Princetonians, it sounds harsh, to echo Berkeley, to say that it is the brain
of Smith being in this or that a state which is justified by insufficient
evidence; whereas it surely sounds less harsh that it is the C-fibres that
constitute his ‘pain,’ which he can thereby fake. Grice distinguishes between a
complete unstructured utterance token – “Ouch” – versus a complete syntactically
structured erotetic utterance of the type, “Are you in pain?”. At the Jowett,
Corpus Barnes has read Ogden and says ‘Ouch’ (‘Oh’) bears an ‘emotional’ or
‘emotive’ communicatum provided there is an intention there somewhere.
Otherwise, no communicatum occurs. But if there is an intention, the ‘Oh’ can
always be a fake. Grice distinguishes between a ‘fake’ and a ‘sneak.’ If U
intends A to perceive ‘Oh’ as a fake, U means that he is in pain. If there is a
sneaky intention behind the utterance, which U does NOT intend his A to
recognise, there is no communicatum. Grice criticises emotivism as rushing
ahead to analyse a nuance before exploring what sort of a nuance it is. Surely
there is more to the allegedly ‘pseudo-descriptive’ ‘x is good,’ than U meaning
that U emotionally approves of x. In his ‘myth,’ Grice uses pain magisterially
as an excellent example for a privileged-access allegedly incorrigible avowal,
and stage 0 in his creature progression. By uttering ‘Oh!,’ under voluntary
control, Barnes means, iconically, that he is in pain. Pain fall under the
broader keyword: emotion, as anger does. Cf. Aristotle on the emotion in De
An., Rhet., and Eth. Nich. Knowing that at Oxford, if you are a classicist, you
are not a philosopher, Grice never explores the Stoic, say, approach to pain,
or lack thereof (“Which is good, since Walter Pater did it for me!”). Refs.:
“Can I have a pain in my tail?” The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The
Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley.
conversational
game theory:
Grice: “It was Austin who made me see the philosophy of football!” -- Grice for
‘homo ludens’. In “Logic and conversation,” Grice uses the phrases, “the game
of conversation,” “conversational game,” “conversational move,” “the conversational
rules,” – so he knew he was echoing Neumann and Morgenstern. J. Hintikka,
“Grice and game theory.” the theory of the structure of, and the rational
procedures (or strategies) for performing in, games or game-like human
interactions. Although there are forerunners, game theory is virtually invented
by Neumann and Morgenstern. Its most striking feature is its compact
representation of interactions of at least two players; e. g. two players may
face two choices each, and in combination these choices produce four possible
outcomes. Actual choices are of strategies, not of outcomes, although it is
assessments of outcomes that recommend this or that procedure, maxim,
imperative, or strategy. To do well in a game, even for each player to do well,
as is often possible, generally requires taking the other player’s position,
interest, and goal, into account. Hence, to evaluate an imperative or rule or
strategiy directly, without reference to the outcomes they might produce in
interaction with others, is conspicuously perverse. It is not surprising,
therefore, that in meta-ethics, game theory has been preeminently applied to
utilitarianianism. As the numbers of players and rational procedure, guideline
or strategies rise, the complexity of the game of conversation increases
geometrically. If players have *2* strategies each and each ranks the four
possible outcomes without ties, there are already *78* strategically distinct
conversations. Even minor real-life interactions may have astronomically
greater complexity. Grice once complained to Hintikka that this makes game
theory ‘useless,’ or ‘otiose.’ Alternatively, one can note that this makes it
realistic and helps us understand why real-life choices are at least as complex
as they sometimes seem. To complicate matters further, conversationalists can
choose over probabilistic combinations of their pure rational guidelines or
strategies. Hence, the original 4 outcomes in a simple 2 $ 2 game define a
continuum of potential outcomes. After noting the structure of the game of
conversation, one might then be struck by an immediate implication of this mere
description. A rational agent may be supposed to attempt to maximize his
potential or expected outcome in the game of conversation. But as there are at
least two players in the game of conversation, in general conversationalists
cannot all maximize simultaneously over their expected outcomes while assuming
that all others are doing likewise. This is an analytical principle. In
general, we cannot maximize over two functions simultaneously. The general
notion of the greatest good of the greatest number, e. g., is incoherent.
Hence, in inter-active choice contexts, the simple notion of economic
rationality is incoherent. Virtually all of early game theory was dedicated to finding
an alternative principle for resolving conversational game interactions. There
are now many of what Grice calls a “solution theory,” most of which are about
this or that outcome rather than this or that rational guideline or strategy
they stipulate which outcomes or range of outcomes is game-theoretically
“rational.” There is little consensus on how to generalize from the ordinary
rationality of merely choosing more rather than less and of displaying
consistent preferences to the general choice of strategies in games. A pay-off
in early game theory is almost always represented in a cardinal, transferable
utility. A transferable utility is an odd notion that is evidently introduced
to avoid the disdain with which philosophers then treated interpersonal comparisons
of utility. It seems to be analogous to money. One could say that the theory is
one of wealth maximization. In the early theory, the “rationality” conditions
are as follows.In general, if the sums of the pay-offs to each players in
various outcomes differ, it is assumed that a rational player will manage to
divide the largest possible payoff with the other player. 2 No rational agent
will accept a payoff below the “security level” obtainable even if all the
other player or players really form a coalition against the individual.
Sometimes it is also assumed that no group of players will rationally accept
less than it could get as its group security level but in some games, no outcome can meet this
condition. This is an odd combination of elements. The collective elements are
plausibly thought of as merely predictive. If we individually wish to do well,
we should combine efforts to help us do best AS A CONVERSATIONAL DYAD. But what
we want is a theory that converts two individual preferences into one
collective result – Grice’s conversational shared goal of influencing and being
influenced by others. Unfortunately, to put a move doing just this in the
foundations of the theory is question-begging. Our fundamental burden is to
determine whether a theory of subjective rationality MAY produce an
inter-subjectively good result, not to stipulate that it must. In the theory
with cardinal, additive payoffs, we can divide games. There is the constant-sum
game, in which the sum of all players’ payoffs in each outcome is a constant,
and variable sum games. A zero-sum games is a special case of a constant sum
game. Two-player constant sum games are games of pure conversational
‘conflict.’ Each player’s gain is the other’s loss. In constant sum games with
more than two players and in all variable sum games, there is generally reason
for coalition formation to improve payoffs to members of the coalition. A game
without transferable utility, such as a games in which players have only
ordinal preferences, may be characterized as a game of pure conflict or of pure
co-ordination (or co-operation) when players’ preference orderings over
outcomes are, respectively, opposite or identical, or as games of mixed motive
when their orderings are partly the same and partly reversed. Grice’s nalysis
of such games is evidently less tractable than that of games with cardinal,
additive utility, and their theory is only beginning to be extensively
developed by Griceians. Despite the apparent circularity of the rationality
assumptions of early game theory, it is the game theorists’ prisoner’s dilemma
that makes clear that compelling subjectivistic principles of choice can
produce an inter-subjective deficient outcome. This game given its catchy but
inapt name. If they play it in isolation from any other interaction between
them, two players in this game can each do what seems individually best and
reach an outcome that both consider inferior to the outcome that results from
making opposite strategy choices. Even with the knowledge that this is the
problem they face, the players still have incentive to choose the strategies
that jointly produce the inferior outcome. The prisoner’s dilemma involves both
coordination (or co-operation) and conflict. It has played a central role in
discussions of Griceian conversational pragmatics. Games that predominantly
involve coordination (or cooperation), such as when we coordinate in all
driving on the right or all on the left, have a similarly central role. The
understanding of both classes of games has been read into the philosophy of
Hobbes and Hume and into “mutual advantage” theories of justice.
conversational benevolence: benevolentia, beneficentia, malevolentia, maleficentia --
. In Grice it’s not benevolence per se but as a force in a two-force model,
with self-love on the other side. The fact that he later subsumed everything
under ONE concept: that of co-operation (first helpfulness) testifies that he
is placing more conceptual strength on ‘benevolence’ than ‘self love.’ But the
self-love’ remains in all the caveats and provisos that Grice keeps guarding
his claims with: ‘ceteris paribus,’ ‘provided there’s not much effort
involved,’ ‘if no unnecessary trouble arises,’ and so on. It’s never
benevolence simpliciter or tout court. When it comes to co-operation, the
self-love remains: the mutual goal of that co-operation is in the active and
the passive voice – You expect me to be helpful as much as I expect you to be
helpful. We are in this together. The active/passive voice formulation is emphatic
in Grice: informing AND BEING INFORMED; influencing AND BEING INFLUENCED. The
self-love goes: I won’t inform you unless you’ll inform me. I won’t influence
you unless you influence me. The ‘influence’ bit does not seem to cooperative.
But the ‘inform’ side does. By ‘inform,’ the idea is that the psi-transmission
concerns a true belief. “I’ll be truthful if you will.” This is the sort of
thing that Nietzsche found repugnant and identified with the golden rule was
totally immoral. – It was felt by Russell to be immoral enough that he cared to
mention in a letter to The Times about how abusive Nietzsche can be – yet what
a gem “Beyond good and evil” still is! In the hypocritical milieu that Grice
expects his tuttees know they are engaged in, Grice does not find Nietzsche
pointing to a repugnant fact, but a practical, even jocular way of taking
meta-ethics in a light way. There is nothing other-oriented about benevolence.
What Grice needs is conversational ALTRUISM, or helpfulness – ‘cooperation’ has
the advantage, with the ‘co-’, of avoiding the ‘mutuality’ aspect, which is
crucial (“What’s the good of helping you – I’m not your servant! – if thou art
not going to help me!” It may be said that when Butler uses ‘benevolentia’ he
means others. “It is usually understood that one is benevolent towards oneself,
if that makes sense.” Grice writes. Then there’s Smith promising Jones a job –
and the problem that comes with it. For Grice, if Smith promised a job to
Jones, and Jones never gets it – “that’s Jones’s problem.” So we need to
distinguish beneficentia and benevolentia. The opposite is malevolentia and
maleficientia. Usually Grice states his maxims as PROHIBITIONS: “Do not say
what you believe to be false” being the wittiest! So, he might just as well
have appealed to or invoked a principle of absence of conversational ill-will. Grice
uses ‘conversational benevolence’ narrowly, to refer to the assumption that
conversationalists will agree to make a contribution appropriate to the shared
purposes of the exhcnage. It contrasts with the limiting conversational
self-love, which is again taken narrowly to indicate that conversationalists
are assumed to be conversationally ‘benevolent,’ in the interpretation above,
provided doing that does not get them into unnecessary trouble. The type of
rationality that Grice sees in conversational is one that sees conversation as
‘rational co-operation.’ So it is obvious that he has to invoke some level of
benevolence. When tutoring his rather egoistic tutees he had to be careful, so
he hastened to add a principle of conversational self-love. It was different
when lecturing outside a tutorial! In fact ‘benevolence’ here is best
understood as ‘altruism’. So, if there is a principle of conversational egoism,
there is a correlative principle of conversational altruism. If Grice uses
‘self-love,’ there is nothing about ‘love,’ in ‘benevolence.’ Butler may have
used ‘other-love’! Even if of course we must start with the Grecians! We must
not forget that Plato and Aristotle despised "autophilia", the
complacency and self-satisfaction making it into the opposite of "epimeleia
heautou” in Plato’s Alcibiades. Similarly, to criticize Socratic ethics as a
form of egoism in opposition to a selfless care of others is inappropriate.
Neither a self-interested seeker of wisdom nor a dangerous teacher of
self-love, Socrates, as the master of epimeleia heautou, is the hinge between
the care of self and others. One has to be careful here. A folk-etymological
connection between ‘foam’ may not be needed – when the Romans had to deal with
Grecian ‘aphrodite.’ This requires that we look for another linguistic botany
for Grecian ‘self-love’ that Grice opposes to ‘benevolentia.’ Hesiod derives
Aphrodite from “ἀφρός,” ‘sea-foam,’ interpreting the name as "risen from
the foam", but most modern scholars regard this as a spurious folk
etymology. Early modern scholars of classical mythology attempted to argue that
Aphrodite's name was of Griceain or Indo-European origin, but these efforts have
now been mostly abandoned. Aphrodite's name is generally accepted to be of
non-Greek, probably Semitic, origin, but its exact derivation cannot be
determined. Scholars in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, accepting
Hesiod's "foam" etymology as genuine, analyzed the second part of
Aphrodite's name as -odítē "wanderer" or -dítē "bright". Janda,
also accepting Hesiod's etymology, has argued in favor of the latter of these
interpretations and claims the story of a birth from the foam as an
Indo-European mytheme. Similarly, an Indo-European compound abʰor-, very"
and dʰei- "to shine" have been proposed, also referring to Eos. Other
have argued that these hypotheses are unlikely since Aphrodite's attributes are
entirely different from those of both Eos and the Vedic deity Ushas.A number of
improbable non-Greek etymologies have also been suggested. One Semitic
etymology compares Aphrodite to the Assyrian ‘barīrītu,’ the name of a female
demon that appears in Middle Babylonian and Late Babylonian texts. Hammarström
looks to Etruscan, comparing eprϑni "lord", an Etruscan honorific
loaned into Greek as πρύτανις.This would make the theonym in origin an
honorific, "the lady".Most scholars reject this etymology as
implausible, especially since Aphrodite actually appears in Etruscan in the
borrowed form Apru (from Greek Aphrō, clipped form of Aphrodite). The medieval
Etymologicum Magnum offers a highly contrived etymology, deriving Aphrodite
from the compound habrodíaitos (ἁβροδίαιτος), "she who lives
delicately", from habrós and díaita. The alteration from b to ph is explained
as a "familiar" characteristic of Greek "obvious from the
Macedonians". It is much easier with the Romans. Lewis and Short have ‘ămor,’ old form “ămŏs,”
“like honos, labos, colos, etc.’ obviously from ‘amare,’ and which they render
as ‘love,’ as in Grice’s “conversational self-love.” Your tutor will reprimand
you if you spend too much linguistic botany on ‘eros.’ “Go straight to
‘philos.’” But no. There are philosophical usages of ‘eros,’ especially when it
comes to the Grecian philosophers Grice is interested in: Aristotle reading
Plato, which becomes Ariskant reading Plathegel. So, Liddell and Scott have
“ἔρως” which of course is from a verb, or two: “ἕραμαι,” “ἐράω,” and which they
render as “love, mostly of the sexual passion, ““θηλυκρατὴς ἔ.,” “ἐρῶσ᾽ ἔρωτ᾽
ἔκδημον,” “ἔ. τινός love for one, S.Tr.433, “παίδων” E. Ion67, and “generally,
love of a thing, desire for it,” ““πατρῴας γῆς” “δεινὸς εὐκλείας ἔ.” “ἔχειν
ἔμφυτον ἔρωτα περί τι” Plato, Lg. 782e ; “πρὸς τοὺς λόγους” (love of law),
“ἔρωτα σχὼν τῆς Ἑλλάδος τύραννος γενέσθαι” Hdt.5.32 ; ἔ. ἔχει με c. inf.,
A.Supp.521 ; “θανόντι κείνῳ συνθανεῖν ἔρως μ᾽ ἔχει” S.Fr.953 ; “αὐτοῖς ἦν ἔρως
θρόνους ἐᾶσθαι” Id.OC367 ; ἔ. ἐμπίπτει μοι c. inf., A.Ag.341, cf. Th.6.24 ; εἰς
ἔρωτά τινος ἀφικέσθαι, ἐλθεῖν, Antiph.212.3,Anaxil.21.5 : pl., loves, amours,
“ἀλλοτρίων” Pi.N.3.30 ; “οὐχ ὅσιοι ἔ.” E.Hipp.765 (lyr.) ; “ἔρωτες ἐμᾶς πόλεως”
Ar.Av.1316 (lyr.), etc. ; of dolphins, “πρὸς παῖδας” Arist.HA631a10 :
generally, desires, S.Ant.617 (lyr.). 2. object of love or desire, “ἀπρόσικτοι
ἔρωτες” Pi.N.11.48, cf. Luc.Tim.14. 3. passionate joy, S.Aj.693 (lyr.); the god
of love, Anacr.65, Parm.13, E.Hipp.525 (lyr.), etc.“Έ. ἀνίκατε μάχαν” S.Ant.781
(lyr.) : in pl., Simon.184.3, etc. III. at Nicaea, a funeral wreath, EM379.54.
IV. name of the κλῆρος Ἀφροδίτης, Cat.Cod.Astr.1.168 ; = third κλῆρος,
Paul.Al.K.3; one of the τόποι, Vett.Val.69.16. And they’ll point to you that
the Romans had ‘amor’ AND ‘cupidus’ (which they meant as a transliteration of
epithumia). If for Kant and Grice it is the intention that matters, ill-will
counts. If Smith does not want Jones have a job, Smith has ill-will towards
Jones. This is all Kant and Grice need to call Smith a bad person. It means it
is the ill-will that causes Joness not having a job. A conceptual elucidation.
Interesting from a historical point of view seeing that Grice had introduced a
principle of conversational benevolence (i.e. conversational goodwill) pretty
early. Malevolentia was over-used by Cicero, translating the Grecian. Grice
judges that if Jones fails to get the job that benevolent Smith promised, Smith
may still be deemed, for Kant, if not Aristotle, to have given him the
job. A similar elucidation was carried by Urmson with his idea of
supererogation (heroism and sainthood). For a hero or saint, someones goodwill
but not be good enough! Which does not mean it is ill, either! Conversational
benevolence -- Self-love Philosophical theology -- Edwards, J., philosopher and
theologian. He was educated at Yale, preached in New York City, and in 1729
assumed a Congregational pastorate in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he
became a leader in the Great Awakening. Because of a dispute with his
parishioners over qualifications for communion, he was forced to leave in 1750.
In 1751, he took charge of congregations in Stockbridge, a frontier town sixty
miles to the west. He was elected third president of Princeton in 1757 but died
shortly after inauguration. Edwards deeply influenced Congregational and
Presbyterian theology in America for over a century, but had little impact on
philosophy. Interest in him revived in the middle of the twentieth century,
first among literary scholars and theologians and later among philosophers.
While most of Edwards’s published work defends the Puritan version of Calvinist
orthodoxy, his notebooks reveal an interest in philosophical problems for their
own sake. Although he was indebted to Continental rationalists like
Malebranche, to the Cambridge Platonists, and especially to Locke, his own
contributions are sophisticated and original. The doctrine of God’s absolute
sovereignty is explicated by occasionalism, a subjective idealism similar to
Berkeley’s, and phenomenalism. According to Edwards, what are “vulgarly” called
causal relations are mere constant conjunctions. True causes necessitate their
effects. Since God’s will alone meets this condition, God is the only true
cause. He is also the only true substance. Physical objects are collections of
ideas of color, shape, and other “corporeal” qualities. Finite minds are series
of “thoughts” or “perceptions.” Any substance underlying perceptions, thoughts,
and “corporeal ideas” must be something that “subsists by itself, stands
underneath, and keeps up” physical and mental qualities. As the only thing that
does so, God is the only real substance. As the only true cause and the only
real substance, God is “in effect being in general.” God creates to communicate
his glory. Since God’s internal glory is constituted by his infinite knowledge
of, love of, and delight in himself as the highest good, his “communication ad
extra” consists in the knowledge of, love of, and joy in himself which he
bestows upon creatures. The essence of God’s internal and external glory is
“holiness” or “true benevolence,” a disinterested love of being in general
i.e., of God and the beings dependent on him. Holiness constitutes “true
beauty,” a divine splendor or radiance of which “secondary” ordinary beauty is
an imperfect image. God is thus supremely beautiful and the world is suffused
with his loveliness. Vindications of Calvinist conceptions of sin and grace are
found in Freedom of the Will 1754 and Original Sin 1758. The former includes
sophisticated defenses of theological determinism and compatibilism. The latter
contains arguments for occasionalism and interesting discussions of identity.
Edwards thinks that natural laws determine kinds or species, and kinds or
species determine criteria of identity. Since the laws of nature depend on
God’s “arbitrary” decision, God establishes criteria of identity. He can thus,
e.g., constitute Adam and his posterity as “one thing.” Edwards’s religious
epistemology is developed in A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections 1746
and On the Nature of True Virtue 1765. The conversion experience involves the
acquisition of a “new sense of the heart.” Its core is the mind’s apprehension
of a “new simple idea,” the idea of “true beauty.” This idea is needed to
properly understand theological truths. True Virtue also provides the fullest
account of Edwards’s ethics a moral
sense theory that identifies virtue with benevolence. Although indebted to
contemporaries like Hutcheson, Edwards criticizes their attempts to construct
ethics on secular foundations. True benevolence embraces being in general.
Since God is, in effect, being in general, its essence is the love of God. A
love restricted to family, nation, humanity, or other “private systems” is a
form of self-love. Refs.: The source is Grice’s seminar in the first set on
‘Logic and conversation.’ The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
conversational
category:
-- Greek ‘categoria,’ Cicero couldn’t translate it and kept it as ‘categoria,’.
Cf Kant ‘categoric versus hypotheticum
or conditionale -- used jocularly by Grice. But can it be used non-jocularly?
How can the concept of ‘category,’ literally, apply to what Grice says it
applies, so that we have, assuming Kant is using ‘quantity,’ ‘quality,’
‘relation’ and ‘mode,’ as SUPRA-categories (functions, strictly) for his twelve
categories? Let’s revise, the quantity applies to the quantification (in
Frege’s terms) or what Boethius applied to Aristotle’s posotes – and there are
three categories involved, but the three deal with the ‘quantum: ‘every,’
‘some,’ and ‘one.’ ‘some’ Russell would call an indefinite. Strictly, if Grice
wants to have a category of conversational quantity – it should relate to the
‘form’ of the ‘conversational move.’ “Every nice girl loves a sailor” would be
the one with most ‘quantity.’ Grice sees a problem there, and would have that
rather translated as ‘The altogether nice girl loves the one-at-a-time sailor.’
But that would be the most conversational move displaying ‘most quantity.’ (It
can be argued it isn’t). When it comes to the category of conversational
quality, the three categories by Kant under the ‘function’ of qualitas involves
the well known trio, the affirmative, the negative, and the infinite. In terms
of the ‘quality’ of a conversational move, it may be argued that a move in
negative form (as in Grice, “I’m not hearing any noise,” “That pillar box is
not blue” seem to provide ‘less’ quality than the affirmative counterparts. But
as in quantity, it is not sure Kant has some ordering in mind. It seems he
does. It seems he ascribes more value to the first category in each of the four
functions. When it comes to the category of conversational relation, the
connection with Kant could be done. Since this involves the categoric, the
hypothetic, and the disjunctive. So here we may think that a conversational
move will be either a categoric response – A: Mrs Smith is a wind bag. B: The
weather has been delightful. Or a hypothetical. A: Mrs Smith is a wind bag. B:
If that’s what you think. Or a dijunctive: Mrs. Smith is a wind bag. B: Or she
is not. When it comes, lastly, to the category of conversational mode, we have
just three strict categories under this ‘function’ in Kant, which relate to the
strength of the copula: ‘must be,’ must not be’ and ‘may.’ A conversational
move that states a necessity would be the expected move. “You must do it.”
Impossibility involves negation, so it is more problematic. And ‘may be’ is an
open conversational move. So there IS a way to justify the use of
‘conversational category’ to apply to the four functions that Kant decides the
Aristotelian categories may subsumed into. He knows that Kant has TWELVE
categories, but he keeps lecturing the Harvardites about Kant having FOUR
categories. On top, he finds ‘modus’ boring, and, turned a manierist, changes
the idiom. This is what Austin called a ‘philosophical hack’ searching for some
para-philosophy! One has to be careful here. Grice does speak of this or that
‘conversational category.’ Seeing that he is ‘echoing,’ as he puts it,
Ariskant, we migt just as well have an entry for each of the four. These would
be the category of conversational quantity, the category of conversational
quality, the category of conversational relation, and the category of
conversational modality. Note that in this rephrasing Grice applies
‘conversational’ directly to the category. As Boethius pointed out (and Grice
loved to read Minio-Paullelo’s edition of Boethus’s commentary on the
Categories), the motivation by Aristotle to posit this or that category was
expository. A mind cannot know a multitude of things, so we have to ‘reduce’
things. It is important to note that while ‘quantitas,’ ‘qualitas’ ‘relatio’
and ‘modus’ are used by Kant, he actually augments the number of categories.
These four would be supra-categories. The sub-categories, or categories
themselves turn out to be twelve. Kant proposed 12 categories: unity,
plurality, and totality for concept of quantity; reality, negation, and
limitation, for the concept of quality; inherence and subsistence, cause and
effect, and community for the concept of relation; and
possibility-impossibility, existence-nonexistence, and necessity and
contingency. Kategorien sind nach Kant apriorisch und unmittelbar gegeben.
Sie sind Werkzeuge des Urteilens und Werkzeuge des Denkens. Als solche dienen
sie nur der Anwendung und haben keine Existenz. Sie bestehen somit nur im
menschlichen Verstand. Sie sind nicht an Erfahrung gebunden.[5] Durch
ihre Unmittelbarkeit sind sie auch nicht an Zeichen gebunden.[6] Kants
erkenntnistheoretisches Ziel ist es, über die Bedingungen der Geltungskraft von
Urteilen Auskunft zu geben. Ohne diese Auskunft können zwar vielerlei Urteile
gefällt werden, sie müssen dann allerdings als „systematische Doktrin(en)“
bezeichnet werden.[7] Kant
kritisiert damit das rein analytische Denken der Wissenschaft als falsch und
stellt ihm die Notwendigkeit des synthetisierenden Denkens gegenüber.[8] Kant
begründet die Geltungskraft mit dem Transzendentalen Subjekt.[9] Das
Transzendentalsubjekt ist dabei ein reiner Reflexionsbegriff, welcher das
synthetisierende Dritte darstellt (wie in späteren Philosophien Geist (Hegel),
Wille, Macht, Sprache und Wert (Marx)), das nicht durch die Sinne wahrnehmbar
ist. Kant sucht hier die Antwort auf die Frage, wie der Mensch als
vernunftbegabtes Wesen konstituiert werden kann, nicht in der Analyse, sondern
in einer Synthesis.[10]Bei Immanuel Kant, der somit als
bedeutender Erneuerer der bis dahin „vorkritischen“ Kategorienlehre gilt,
finden sich zwölf „Kategorien der reinen Vernunft“. Für Kant sind diese
Kategorien Verstandesbegriffe,
nicht aber Ausdruck des tatsächlichen Seins der Dinge an sich.
Damit wandelt sich die ontologische Sichtweise
der Tradition in eine erkenntnistheoretische Betrachtung,
weshalb Kants „kritische“ Philosophie (seit der Kritik der reinen Vernunft)
oft auch als „Kopernikanische Wende in
der Philosophie“ bezeichnet wird.Quantität, Qualität, Relation und Modalität sind die vier
grundlegenden Urteilsfunktionen des Verstandes, nach denen die Kategorien
gebildet werden. Demnach sind z. B. der Urteilsfunktion „Quantität“ die
Kategorien bzw. Urteile „Einheit“, „Vielheit“ und „Allheit“ untergeordnet, und
der Urteilsfunktion „Relation“ die Urteile der „Ursache“ und der „Wirkung“.Siehe auch: Kritik der reinen Vernunft und Transzendentale AnalytikBereits
bei Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg findet
man den Hinweis auf die verbreitete Kritik, dass Kant die den Kategorien
zugrunde liegenden Urteilsformen nicht systematisch hergeleitet und damit als
notwendig begründet hat. Einer der Kritikpunkte ist dabei, dass die Kategorien
sich teilweise auf Anschauungen (Einzelheit, Realität, Dasein), teilweise auf
Abstraktionen wie Zusammenfassen, Begrenzen oder Begründen (Vielheit, Allheit,
Negation, Limitation, Möglichkeit, Notwendigkeit) beziehen.
conversational
compact:
conversational pact in Grice’s conversational quasi-contractualism, contractarianism,
a family of moral and political theories that make use of the idea of a social
contract. Traditionally English philosophers such as Hobbes and Locke used the
social contract idea to justify certain conceptions of the state. In the
twentieth century philosophers such as G. R. Grice, H. P. Grice, and John Rawls
have used the social contract notion (‘quasi-contractualism’ in Grice’s sense) to
define and defend moral conceptions both conceptions of political justice and
individual morality, often but not always doing so in addition to developing
social contract theories of the state. The term ‘contractarian’ most often
applies to this second type of theory. There are two kinds of moral argument
that the contract image has spawned, the first rooted in Hobbes and the second
rooted in Kant. Hobbesians start by insisting that what is valuable is what a
person desires or prefers, not what he ought to desire or prefer for no such
prescriptively powerful object exists; and rational action is action that
achieves or maximizes the satisfaction of desires or preferences. They go on to
insist that moral action is rational for a person to perform if and only if
such action advances the satisfaction of his desires or preferences. And they
argue that because moral action leads to peaceful and harmonious living
conducive to the satisfaction of almost everyone’s desires or preferences,
moral actions are rational for almost everyone and thus “mutually agreeable.”
But Hobbesians believe that, to ensure that no cooperative person becomes the
prey of immoral aggressors, moral actions must be the conventional norms in a
community, so that each person can expect that if she behaves cooperatively,
others will do so too. These conventions constitute the institution of morality
in a society. So the Hobbesian moral theory is committed to the idea that
morality is a human-made institution, which is justified only to the extent
that it effectively furthers human interests. Hobbesians explain the existence
of morality in society by appealing to the convention-creating activities of
human beings, while arguing that the justification of morality in any human
society depends upon how well its moral conventions serve individuals’ desires
or preferences. By considering “what we could agree to” if we reappraised and
redid the cooperative conventions in our society, we can determine the extent
to which our present conventions are “mutually agreeable” and so rational for
us to accept and act on. Thus, Hobbesians invoke both actual agreements or
rather, conventions and hypothetical agreements which involve considering what
conventions would be “mutually agreeable” at different points in their theory;
the former are what they believe our moral life consists in; the latter are
what they believe our moral life should consist in i.e., what our actual moral life should
model. So the notion of the contract does not do justificational work by itself
in the Hobbesian moral theory: this term is used only metaphorically. What we
“could agree to” has moral force for the Hobbesians not because make-believe
promises in hypothetical worlds have any binding force but because this sort of
agreement is a device that merely reveals how the agreed-upon outcome is
rational for all of us. In particular, thinking about “what we could all agree
to” allows us to construct a deduction of practical reason to determine what
policies are mutually advantageous. The second kind of contractarian theory is
derived from the moral theorizing of Kant. In his later writings Kant proposed
that the “idea” of the “Original Contract” could be used to determine what
policies for a society would be just. When Kant asks “What could people agree
to?,” he is not trying to justify actions or policies by invoking, in any
literal sense, the consent of the people. Only the consent of real people can
be legitimating, and Kant talks about hypothetical agreements made by
hypothetical people. But he does believe these make-believe agreements have
moral force for us because the process by which these people reach agreement is
morally revealing. Kant’s contracting process has been further developed by
subsequent philosophers, such as Rawls, who concentrates on defining the
hypothetical people who are supposed to make this agreement so that their reasoning
will not be tarnished by immorality, injustice, or prejudice, thus ensuring
that the outcome of their joint deliberations will be morally sound. Those
contractarians who disagree with Rawls define the contracting parties in
different ways, thereby getting different results. The Kantians’ social
contract is therefore a device used in their theorizing to reveal what is just
or what is moral. So like Hobbesians, their contract talk is really just a way
of reasoning that allows us to work out conceptual answers to moral problems.
But whereas the Hobbesians’ use of contract language expresses the fact that,
on their view, morality is a human invention which if it is well invented ought
to be mutually advantageous, the Kantians’ use of the contract language is
meant to show that moral principles and conceptions are provable theorems
derived from a morally revealing and authoritative reasoning process or “moral
proof procedure” that makes use of the social contract idea. Both kinds of
contractarian theory are individualistic, in the sense that they assume that
moral and political policies must be justified with respect to, and answer the
needs of, individuals. Accordingly, these theories have been criticized by
communitarian philosophers, who argue that moral and political policies can and
should be decided on the basis of what is best for a community. They are also
attacked by utilitarian theorists, whose criterion of morality is the
maximization of the utility of the community, and not the mutual satisfaction
of the needs or preferences of individuals. Contractarians respond that whereas
utilitarianism fails to take seriously the distinction between persons,
contractarian theories make moral and political policies answerable to the
legitimate interests and needs of individuals, which, contra the
communitarians, they take to be the starting point of moral theorizing.
conversational co-öperation: Grice is perfectly right that ‘helpfulness’ does not
‘equate’ cooperation. His earlier principle of conversational helpfulness
becomes the principle of conversational co-operation.Tthere is a distinction
between mutual help and cooperation. First, the Romans never knew. Their
‘servants’ were ‘help’ – and this remains in the British usage of ‘civil
servant,’ one who helps. Some philosophical tutees by Hare were often reminded,
in the midst of their presenting their essays, “Excuse me for interrupting,
Smith, but have you considered a career in the civil service?” Then some Romans
found Christianism fashionable, and they were set to translate the Bible. So
when this Hebrew concept appeared, they turned it into ad-judicatum, which was
translated by Wycliff as ‘help.’ Now ‘operatio’ is quite a different animal.
It’s the ‘opus’ of the Romans, who also had ‘labor.’ Surely to ‘co-laborate’ is
to ‘co-operate.’ There is an idea that ‘operate,’ can be more otiose, in the
view of Rogers Albritton. “He is operating the violin,” was his favourite
utterance. “Possibly his opus 5.” The fact that English needs a hyphen and an
umlaut does not make it very ‘ordinary’ in Austin’s description. Grice is more
interested in the conceptualization of this, notably as it relates to
rationality. Can cooperation NOT be rational? For most libertarians,
cooperation IS “irrational,” rather. But Grice points is subtler. He is
concerned with an emissor communicating that p. The least thing he deserves is
a rational recipient. “Otherwise I might just as well scream to the walls!” Used
by Grice WOW:368 – previously, ‘rational cooperation’ – what cooperation is not
rational? Grice says that if Smith promised Jones a job; Jones doesn’t get it.
Smith must be DEEMED to have given the job to Jones. It’s the intention, as
Kant shows, the pure motive, that matters. Ditto for communication. If
Blackburn draws a skull, he communicates that there is danger. If his addressee
fails to recognise the emissor’s intention the emissor will still be deemed to
have communicated that there is danger. So communication does NOT require
co-operation. His analysis of “emissor communicates that p” is not one of
“emissor successfully communicates that p,” because “communicates” reduces to
“intends” not to ‘fulfilled intention.’ Cooperation enters when we go beyond
ONE act of communication. To communicate is to give information and to influence
another, and it is also to receive information and to be influenced by another.
When these communicative objectives are made explicit, helpfulness or
cooperation becomes essential. He uses ‘converational cooperation” and “supreme
principle of conversational cooperation” (369). He uses ‘supreme conversational
principle” of “cooperativeness” (369), to avoid seeing the conversational
imperatives as an unorganized heap of conversational obligations. Another
variant is Grice’s use of “principle of conversational co-operation.” He also
uses “principle of conversational rational co-operation.” Note that irrational
or non-rational co-operation is not an oxymoron. Another expression is
conversational cooperative rationality. So Grice was amused that you can just
as well refer to ‘cooperative rationality” or “rational cooperation,” “a
category shift if ever there was one.”
conversational explicaturum –
explicitirum – cf. the implicaturum and the impliciturm –
implicatura/implicitura – implicaturm-impliciturm -- To be explicit is bad
manners at Oxford if not in Paris or MIT. The thing is to imply! Englishmen are
best at implying – their love for understatement is unequalled in the world. Grice
needs the explicatio, or explicit. Because the mistake the philosopher makes is
at the level of the implicatio, as Nowell-Smith, and C. K. Grant had noted. It
is not OBVIOUSLY at the explicit level. Grice was never interested in the
explicit level, and takes a very cavalier attitude to it. “This brief
indication of my use of say leaves it open whether a man who says (today)
Harold Wilson is a great man and another who says (also today) The British
Prime Minister is a great man would, if each knew that the two singular terms
had the same reference, have said the same thing. But whatever decision is made
about this question, the apparatus that I am about to provide will be capable
of accounting for any implicaturums that might depend on the presence of one
rather than another of these singular terms in the sentence uttered. Such implicaturums
would merely be related to different maxims.”Rephrase: “A brief indication of
my use of ‘the explicit’ leaves it open whether a man who states (today),
‘Harold Wilson is a great man’ thereby stating that Wilson is a great man, and
another who states (also today),‘The British Prime Minister is a great man,’
viz. that the Prime Minister is a great mand, would, if each singular term,
‘the Prime Minister’ and ‘Wilson’ has the same denotatum (co-relata) have put
forward in an explicit fashion the same propositional complex, and have stated
the same thing. On the face of it, it would seem they have not. But cf. ‘Wilson
will be the prime minister’ versus ‘Wilson shall be the prime minister.’ Again,
a subtler question arises as to whether the first emissor who has stated that
Wilson will be the next prime minster and the other one who has stated that
Wilson *shall* be the next prime minster, have both but forward the same
proposition. If the futurm indicatum is ENTAILED by the futurum intentionale, the
question is easy to settle. Whatever methodological decision or stipulation I
end up making about the ‘explicitum,’ the apparatus that I rely on is capable
of accounting for any implicaturum that might depend on the presence of this or
that singular term in the utterance. Such an implicaturum would merely be
related to a different conversational maxims. Urmson has elaborated on this,
“Mrs. Smith’s husband just passed by.” “You mean the postman! Why did you use
such contrived ‘signular term’?” If the emissor draws a skull what he
explicitly conveys is that this is a skull. This is the EPLICITUM. If he
communicates that there is danger, that’s via some further reasoning. That
associates a skull with death. Grice’s example is Grice displaying his bandaged
leg. Strictly, he communicates that he has a bandaged leg. Second, that his leg
is bandaged (the bandage may be fake). And third, that he cannot play cricket. It
all started in Oxford when they started to use ‘imply’ in a sense other than
the ‘logical’ one. This got Grice immersed in a deep exploration of types of
‘implication.’ There is the implicaturum, and the implicitum, both from
‘implico.’ As correlative there is the explicatio, which yields both the
explicatum and the explicitum. Grice has under the desideratum of
conversational clarity that a conversationalist is assumed to make the point of
his conversational contribution ‘explicit.’ So in his polemic with G. A. Paul,
Grice knows that the ‘doubt-or-denial’ condition will be at the level NOT of
the explicitum or explicatum. Surely an implicaturum can be CANCELLED
explicitly. Grice uses ‘contextual’ or ‘explicit,’ here but grants that the
‘contextual’ may be subsumed under the ‘explicit.’ It is when the sub-perceptual utterance is
copulated with the formulation of the explicatum of the implicaturum that Grice
shows G. A. Paul that the statement is still ‘true,’ and which Grice sees as a
reivindication of the causal theory of perception. In the twenty or so examples
of philosophical mistakes, both in “Causal” and “Prolegomena,” all the mistakes
can be rendered back to the ‘explicatum’ versus ‘implicaturum’ distinction.
Unfortunately, each requires a philosophical background to draw all the
‘implications,’ and Grice has been read by people without a philosophical
background who go on to criticise him for ignoring things where he never had
focused his attention on. His priority is to deal with these philosophical
mistakes. He also expects the philosopher to come up with a general
methodological statement. Grice distinguishes between the conversational
explicitum and the conversational explicatum. Grice plays with ‘explicit’ and
‘implicit’ at various places. He often uses ‘explicit’and ‘implicit’
adverbially: the utterer explicitly conveys that p versus the utterer
implicitly conveys that p (hints that p, suggests that p, indicates that p,
implicates that p, implies that p). Grice regards that both dimensions form
part of the total act of signification, accepting as a neutral variant, that
the utterer has signified that p.
conversational game: In a conversational game, you don’t say “The pillar box
seems red” if you know it IS red. So, philosophers at Oxford (like Austin,
Strawson, Hare, Hampshire, and Hart) are all victims of ignoring the rules of
the game, and just not understanding that a game is being played. the expression is used by Grice
systematically. He speaks of players making the conversational move in the
conversational game following the conversational rule, v. rational choice
conversational
haggle
-- bargaining theory, the branch of game theory that treats agreements, e.g.,
wage agreements between labor and management. In the simplest bargaining
problems there are two bargainers. They can jointly realize various outcomes,
including the outcome that occurs if they fail to reach an agreement, i.e. if
they fail to help each other or co-operate. Each bargainer assigns a certain
amount of utility to each outcome. The question is, what outcome will they
realise if each conversationalist is rational? Methods of solving bargaining
problems are controversial. The best-known proposals are Grice’s and Nash’s and
Kalai and Smorodinsky’s. Grice proposes that if you want to get a true answer
to your question, you should give a true answer to you co-conversationalist’s
question (“ceteris paribus”). Nash proposes maximizing the product of utility
gains with respect to the disagreement point. Kalai and Smorodinsky propose
maximsiing utility gains with respect to the disagreement point, subject to the
constraint that the ratio of utility gains equals the ratio of greatest
possible gains. These three methods of selecting an outcome have been
axiomatically characterized. For each method, there are certain axioms of
outcome selection such that that method alone satisfies the axioms. The axioms
incorporate principles of rationality from cooperative game theory. They focus
on features of outcomes rather than bargaining strategies. For example, one
axiom requires that the outcome selected be Pareto-optimal, i.e., be an outcome
such that no alternative is better for one of the bargainers and not worse for
the other. A bargaining problem may become more complicated in several ways.
First, there may be more than two bargainers (“Suppose Austin joins in.”). If
unanimity is not required for beneficial agreements, splinter groups or co-alitions
may form. Second, the protocol for offers, counte-roffers (“Where does C live?”
“Why do you want to know?”) etc., may be relevant. Then principles of *non-cooperative*
but competitive game theory concerning war strategies (“l’art de la guerre”) are
needed to justify this or that solution. Third, the context of a bargaining
problem may be relevant. For instance, opportunities for side payments,
differences in bargaining power, and interpersonal comparisons of utility may
influence the solution. Fourth, simplifying assumptions, such as the assumption
that bargainers have complete information about their bargaining situation, may
be discarded. Bargaining theory is part of the philosophical study of
rationality. It is also important in ethics as a foundation for contractarian
theories of morality and for certain theories of distributive justice.
conversational helpfulness. It’s not clear if ‘helpfulness’ has a Graeco-Roman
counterpart! The Grecians and the Romans could be VERY individualistic! – adiuvare,
(adiuare, old for adiūverare), iūtus, āre,” which Lewis and Short render as “to
help, assist, aid, support, further, sustain. “fortīs fortuna adiuvat, T.:
maerorem orationis meae lacrimis suis: suā sponte eos, N.: pennis adiutus
amoris, O.: in his causis: alqm ad percipiendam virtutem: si quid te adiuero,
poet ap. C.: ut alqd consequamur, adiuvisti: multum eorum opinionem adiuvabat,
quod, etc., Cs.—With ellips. of obj, to be of assistance, help: ad verum
probandum: non multum, Cs.: quam ad rem humilitas adiuvat, is convenient,
Cs.—Supin. acc.: Nectanebin adiutum profectus, N.—P. pass.: adiutus a
Demosthene, N.—Fig.: clamore militem, cheer, L.: adiuvat hoc quoque, this too
is useful, H.: curā adiuvat illam (formam), sets off his beauty, O. Grice is right that ‘cooperation’ does NOT equate
‘helpfulness’ and he appropriately changes
his earlier principle of conversational helpfulness to a principle of
conversational co-operation. Was there a Graeco-Roman equivalent for
Anglo-Saxon ‘help’? helpmeet (n.) a ghost word from the 1611 translation of the
Bible, where it originally was a two-word noun-adjective phrase translating
Latin adjutorium simile sibi [Genesis ii.18] as "an help meet for
him," and meaning literally "a helper like himself." See help
(n.) + meet (adj.). By 1670s it was hyphenated help-meet and mistaken as a
modified noun. Compare helpmate. The original Hebrew is 'ezer keneghdo. Related
entries & more aid (v.) "to
assist, help," c. 1400, from Old French aidier "help, assist"
(Modern French aider), from Latin adiutare, frequentative of adiuvare (past
participle adiutus) "to give help to," from ad "to" (see
ad-) + iuvare "to help, assist, give strength, support, sustain,"
which is from a PIE source perhaps related to the root of iuvenis "young
person" (see young (adj.)). Related: Aided; aiding. Related entries &
more succor (n.) c. 1200, socour,
earlier socours "aid, help," from Anglo-French succors "help,
aid," Old French socors, sucurres "aid, help, assistance"
(Modern French secours), from Medieval Latin succursus "help,
assistance," from past participle of Latin succurrere "run to help,
hasten to the aid of," from assimilated form of sub "up to" (see
sub-) + currere "to run" (from PIE root *kers- "to run").
Final -s mistaken in English as a plural inflection and dropped late 13c.
Meaning "one who aids or helps" is from c. 1300. There is a fashion
in which to help is to cooperate, but co-operate, strictly, requires operation
by A and operation by B. We do use cooperate loosely. “She is very
cooperative.” “Help” seems less formal. One can help without ever engaging or
honouring the other’s goal. I can help you buy a house, say. So the principle
of conversational cooperation is stricter and narrower than the principle of
conversational helpfulness. Cooperation involves reciprocity and mutuality in a
way that helpfulness does not. That’s why Grice needs to emphasise that there
is an expectation of MUTUAL helpfulness. One is expected to be helpful, and one
expects the other to be helpful. Grice was doubtful about the implicaturum of
‘co-operative,’ – after all, who at Oxford wants a ‘co-operative.’ It sounds
anti-Oxonian. So Grice elaborates on ‘helping others’ and ‘assuming others will
help you’ in the event that we ‘are doing something together.’ Does this equate
cooperation, he wonders. Just in case, he uses ‘helpfulness’ as a variant.
There are other concepts he plays with, notably ‘altruism,’ and ‘benevolence,’
or other-love.’Helpfulness is Grice’s favourite virtue. Grice is clear that
reciprocity is essential here. One exhibits helpfulness and expects helpfulness
from his conversational partner. He dedicates a set of seven lectures to it,
entitled as follows. Lecture 1, Prolegomena; Lecture 2: Logic and Conversation;
Lecture 3: Further notes on logic and conversation; Lecture 4: Indicative
conditionals; Lecture 5: Us meaning and intentions; Lecture 6: Us meaning,
sentence-meaning, and word-meaning; and Lecture 7: Some models for implicaturum.
I hope they dont expect me to lecture on James! Grice admired James, but
not vice versa. Grice entitled the set as being Logic and Conversation.
That is the title, also, of the second lecture. Grice keeps those titles seeing
that it was way the whole set of lectures were frequently cited, and that the
second lecture had been published under that title in Davidson and
Harman, The Logic of Grammar. The content of each lecture is
indicated below. In the first, Grice manages to quote from Witters. In
the last, he didnt! The original set consisted of seven lectures. To
wit: Prolegomena, Logic and conversation, Further notes on logic and
conversation, Indicative Conditionals, Us meaning and intentions, Us meaning,
sentence-meaning, and word meaning, and Some models for implicaturum. They were
pretty successful at Oxford. While the notion of an implicaturum had been
introduced by Grice at Oxford, even in connection with a principle of
conversational helpfulness, he takes the occasion now to explore the type of
rationality involved. Observation of the principle of conversational
helpfulness is rational (reasonable) along the following lines: anyone who
cares about the two central goals to conversation (give/receive information,
influence/be influened) is expected to have an interest in participating in a
conversation that is only going to be profitable given that it is conducted
along the lines set by the principle of conversational helpfulness. In
Prolegomena he lists Austin, Strawson, Hare, Hart, and himself, as victims of a
disregard for the implicaturum. In the third lecture he introduces his razor,
Senses are not to be muliplied beyond necessity. In Indicative conditionals he
tackles Strawson on if as not representing the horse-shoe of Whitehead and Russell.
The next two lectures on the meaning by the utterer and intentions, and meaning
by the utterer, sentence-meaning, and word-meaning refine his earlier, more
austere, account of this particularly Peirceian phenomenon. He concludes the
lectures with an exploration on the relevance of the implicaturum to
philosophical psychology. Grice was well aware that many philosophers had
become enamoured with the s. and would love to give it a continuous perusal.
The set is indeed grandiose. It starts with a Prolegomena to set the scene: He
notably quotes himself in it, which helps, but also Strawson, which sort of
justifies the general title. In the second lecture, Logic and Conversation, he
expands on the principle of conversational helpfulness and the explicitum/implicaturum
distinction – all very rationalist! The third lecture is otiose in that he
makes fun of Ockham: Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. The
fourth lecture, on Indicative conditionals, is indeed on MOST of the formal
devices he had mentioned on Lecture II, notably the functors (rather than the
quantifiers and the iota operator, with which he deals in Presupposition and
conversational implicaturum, since, as he notes, they refer to reference). This
lecture is the centrepiece of the set. In the fifth lecture, he plays with
mean, and discovers that it is attached to the implicaturum or the implicitum.
In the sixth lecture, he becomes a nominalist, to use Bennetts phrase, as he
deals with dog and shaggy in terms of this or that resultant procedure. Dont
ask me what they are! Finally, in “Some models for implicaturum,” he attacks
the charge of circularity, and refers to nineteenth-century explorations on the
idea of thought without language alla Wundt. I dont think a set of James
lectures had even been so comprehensive! Conversational helpfulness. This is
Grice at his methodological best. He was aware that the type of philosophying
he was about to criticise wass a bit dated, but whats wrong with being
old-fashioned? While this may be seen as a development of his views on implicaturum
at that seminal Oxford seminar, it may also be seen as Grice popularising the
views for a New-World, non-Oxonian audience. A discussion of Oxonian
philosophers of the play group of Grice, notably Austin, Hare, Hart, and Strawson.
He adds himself for good measure (“Causal theory”). Philosophers, even at
Oxford, have to be careful with the attention that is due to general principles
of discourse. Grice quotes philosophers of an earlier generation, such as Ryle,
and some interpreters or practitioners of Oxonian analysis, such as Benjamin
and Searle. He even manages to quote from Witterss Philosophical
investigations, on seeing a banana as a banana. There are further items in the
Grice collection that address Austins manoeuvre, Austin on ifs and cans, Ifs
and cans, : conditional, power. Two of Grices favourites. He opposed
Strawsons view on if. Grice thought that if was the horseshoe of Whitehead and
Russell, provided we add an implicaturum to an entailment. The can is
merely dispositional, if not alla Ryle, alla Grice! Ifs and cans, intention,
disposition. Austin had brought the topic to the fore as an exploration of
free will. Pears had noted that conversational implicaturum may account for the
conditional perfection (if yields iff). Cf. Ayers on Austin on if and can.
Recall that for Grice the most idiomatic way to express a disposition is with
the Subjectsive mode, the if, and the can ‒ The ice can break. Cf. the mistake:
It is not the case that what you must do, you can do. The can-may distinction
is one Grice played with too. As with will and shall, the attachment of one
mode to one of the lexemes is pretty arbitrary and not etymologically justified
‒ pace Fowler on it being a privilege of this or that Southern Englishman as Fowler
is. If he calls it Prolegomena, he is being jocular. Philosophers Mistakes
would have been too provocative. Benjamin, or rather Broad, erred, and so did
Ryle, and Ludwig Witters, and my friends, Austin (the mater that wobbled), and
in order of seniority, Hart (I heard him defend this about carefully – stopping
at every door in case a dog comes out at breakneck speed), Hare (To say good is
to approve), and Strawson (“Logical theory”: To utter if p, q is to implicate
some inferrability, To say true! is to endorse – Analysis). If he ends with
Searle, he is being jocular. He quotes Searle from an essay in British
philosophy in Lecture I, and from an essay in Philosophy in America in Lecture
V. He loved Searle, and expands on the Texas oilmens club example! We may think
of Grice as a linguistic botanizer or a meta-linguistic botanizer: his hobby
was to collect philosophers mistakes, and he catalogued them. In Causal theory
he produces his first list of seven. The pillar box seems red to me. One cannot
see a dagger as a dagger. Moore didnt know that the objects before him were his
own hands. What is actual is not also possible. For someone to be called
responsible, his action should be condemnable. A cause must be given only of
something abnormal or unusual (cf. ætiology). If you know it, you dont believe
it. In the Prolegomena, the taxonomy is more complicated. Examples A (the use
of an expression, by Austin, Benjamin, Grice, Hart, Ryle, Wittgenstein),
Examples B (Strawson on and, or, and especially if), and Examples C (Strawson
on true and Hare on good – the performative theories). But even if his taxonomy
is more complicated, he makes it more SO by giving other examples as he goes on
to discuss how to assess the philosophical mistake. Cf. his elaboration on trying,
I saw Mrs. Smith cashing a cheque, Trying to cash a cheque, you mean. Or cf.
his remarks on remember, and There is an analogy here with a case by
Wittgenstein. In summary, he wants to say. Its the philosopher who makes his
big mistake. He has detected, as Grice has it, some conversational nuance. Now
he wants to exploit it. But before rushing ahead to exploit the conversational
nuance he has detected, or identified, or collected in his exercise of
linguistic botanising, the philosopher should let us know with clarity what
type of a nuance it is. For Grice wants to know that the nuance depends on a
general principle (of goal-directed behaviour in general, and most likely
rational) governing discourse – that participants in a conversation should be
aware of, and not on some minutiæ that has been identified by the philosopher
making the mistake, unsystematically, and merely descriptively, and
taxonomically, but without ONE drop of explanatory adequacy. The fact that he
directs this to his junior Strawson is the sad thing. The rest are all Grices
seniors! The point is of philosophical interest, rather than other. And he
keeps citing philosophers, Tarski or Ramsey, in the third James leture, to
elaborate the point about true in Prolegomena. He never seems interested in
anything but an item being of philosophical interest, even if that means HIS
and MINE! On top, he is being Oxonian: Only at Oxford my colleagues were so
obsessed, as it has never been seen anywhere else, about the nuances of
conversation. Only they were all making a big mistake in having no clue as to
what the underlying theory of conversation as rational co-operation would
simplify things for them – and how! If I introduce the explicatum as a
concession, I shall hope I will be pardoned! Is Grices intention epagogic, or
diagogic in Prolegomena? Is he trying to educate Strawson, or just delighting
in proving Strawson wrong? We think the former. The fact that he quotes himself
shows that Grice is concerned with something he still sees, and for the rest of
his life will see, as a valid philosophical problem. If philosophy generated no
problems it would be dead. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Whence I took helpfulness,’; the
main sources are the two sets on ‘logic and conversation.’ There are good
paraphrases in other essays when he summarises his own views, as he did at
Urbana. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
conversational imperative: Grice is loose in the use of ‘imperative.’ It obviously
has to do with the will in command mode! -- The problem with ‘command’ is that
for Habermas, it springs from ‘power,’ and we need to have it sprung from
‘auctoritas,’ rather – the voice of reason, that is – “Impero” gives also
pre-pare. “Imperare, prepare, etc. What was the Greek for ‘imperative mode’? προστακτική
prostaktike. προσ-τακτικός , ή, όν, A.of or for
commanding, imperative, imperious, τὸ π. [ἡ ψυχή], opp. τὸ ὑπηρετικόν (of the
body), Arist.Top.128b19; “π. τινῶν” Corn.ND16; “λόγος” Plu.2.1037f;
Προστακτικός (sc. λόγος), title of work by Protagoras, D.L.9.55; “βραχυλογία”
Plu.Phoc.5; also of persons, “ἄρχων” Max.Tyr.13.2 (Sup.). II. Gramm., ἡ -κὴ
ἔγκλισις the imperative mood, D.T.638.7, A.D.Synt.31.20; π. ἐκφορὰ τῶν ῥημάτων
ib.69.20; “τὸ π. σχῆμα” Anon.Fig.24; also “τὸ -κόν” D.L. 7.66,67, Ps.-Plu.Vit.Hom.53.
Adv. “-κῶς” in the imperative mood, D.H.4.18, Sch.Ar.Av.1163.Grice became
famous for his ‘maxims,’ which in Nowell-Smith’s view they are more like rules
of etiquette for sylish conversation. As such, many had been proposed. But
Grice proposes them AS A PHILOSOPHER would, and ONLY TO REBUFF the mistake made
by this or that philosopher who would rather EXPLAIN the phenomenon in terms
OTHER than involving as PART OF THE DATA, i. e. as a datum (as he says) or
assumption, that there are these ‘assumptions,’ which guide behaviour. Grice is
having in mind Kant’s “Imperativ.” He also uses ‘conversational objective.” In
most versions that Grice provides of the ‘general expectations’ of rational
discourse, he chooses the obvious imperative form. On occasion he does use
‘imperative.’ Grice is vague as to the term of choice for this or that
‘expectation.’ According to Strawson, Grice even once used ‘conversational
rule,’ and he does use ‘conversational rule of the conversational game of
making this or that conversational move.’ Notably, he also uses ‘conversational
principle,’ and ‘conversational desideratum.’ And ‘maxim’! And ‘conversational
directive (371), and ‘conversational obligation’ (369). By ‘conversational
maxim,’ he means ‘conversational maxim.’ He uses ‘conversational sub-maxim’
very occasionally. He rather uses ‘conversational super-maxim.’ He uses
‘immanuel,’ and he uses ‘conversational immanuel.’ It is worth noting that the
choice of word influences the exegesis. Loar takes these things to be ‘empirical
generalisations over functional states’! And Grice agrees that there is a dull,
empiricist way, in which these things can be seen as things people conform to.
There is a quasi-contractualist approach to: things people convene on. And
there is an Ariskantian approach: things people SHOULD abide by. Surely Grice
is not requiring that the conversationalists ARE explicitly or consciously
AWARE of these things. There is a principle of effort of economical reason to
cope with that!
Conversational entropia -- Entropia
-- conversational entropy. -- Principle of
Conversational entropy, a measure of disorder or “information.” The number of
states accessible to the various elements of a large system of particles such
as a cabbage or the air in a room is represented as “W.” Accessible microstates
might be, e. g., energy levels the various particles can reach. One can greatly
simplify the statement of certain laws of nature by introducing a logarithmic
measure of these accessible microstates. This measure, called “entropy” by H.
P. Grice is defined by the formula: SEntropy % df. klnW, where “k” is Grice’’s
constant. When the conversational entropy of a conversational system increases,
the system becomes more random and disordered (“less dove-tailed,” in Grice’s parlance)
in that a larger number of microstates become available for the system’s
particles to enter. If a large system within which exchanges of energy occur is
isolated, exchanging no energy with its environment, the entropy of the system
tends to increase and never decreases. This result is part of the second law of
thermodynamics. In real, evolving physical systems effectively isolated from
their environments, entropy increases and thus aspects of the system’s
organization that depend upon there being only a limited range of accessible
microstates are altered. A cabbage totally isolated in a container e. g. would
decay as complicated organic molecules eventually became unstructured in the
course of ongoing exchanges of energy and attendant entropy increases. In
Grice’s information theory, a state or event (or conversational move) is said
to contain more information than a second state or event if the former state is
less probable and thus in a sense more surprising (or “baffling,” in Grice’s
term) than the latter. Other plausible constraints suggest a logarithmic
measure of information content. Suppose X is a set of alternative possible
states, xi , and pxi is the probability
of each xi 1 X. If state xi has occurred the information content of that occurrence
is taken to be -log2pxi . This function increases as the probability of xi
decreases. If it is unknown which xi will occur, it is reasonable to represent
the expected information content of X as the sum of the information contents of
the alternative states xi weighted in each case by the probability of the
state, giving: This is called the Shannon’s or Grice’s entropy. Both Shannon’s
and Grice’s entropy and physical entropy can be thought of as logarithmic
measures of disarray. But this statement trades on a broad understanding of
‘disarray’. A close relationship between the two concepts of entropy should not
be assumed, not even by Grice, less so by Shannon.
conversational implicaturum. Grice plays with the ambiguity of ‘implication’ as a
logical term, and ‘implicitness’ as a rhetorical one. He wants to make a
distinction between ‘dicere,’ to convey explicitly that p, and to convey
implicitly, or ‘imply’ (always applied to the emissor) that q. A joke. Surely
if he is going to use ‘implicaturum’ in Roman, this would be ‘implicaturum
conversationale,’ if there were such thing. And there were! The Roman is formed
from cum- plus ‘verso.’ So there’s Roman ‘conversatio.’ And –alis, ale is a
productive suffix. Or implicitum. Grice
is being philosophical and sticking with ‘implicatio’ as used by logicians.
Implicitum does not have much of a philosophical pedigree. But even
‘implicatio’ was not THAT used, ‘consequentia’ was preferred, as in ‘non
sequitur, and seguitur, quod demonstrandumm erat. Strawson criticism of ‘the,’
only tentative by Grice, unlike ‘if,’ so forgivable! See common-ground status. Grice
loved an implicaturum. The use of ‘conversational’ by Grice is NEVER emphatic.
In his detailed, even fastidious, taxonomy of ‘implication,’ he decisively does
not want to have a mere conventional implicaturum (as in “She was poor but she
was honest”) as conversational. Not even a “Thank you”, generated by the maxim
“be polite.” That would be an implicaturum which is nonconventional and yet NOT
conversational, because ‘be polite’ is NOT a conversational maxim (moral,
aesthetic, and social maxims are not). And an implicaturum. An elaboration of
his Oxonian seminar on Logic and conversation. Theres a principle of
conversational helpfulness, which includes a desideratum of conversational
candour and a desideratum of conversational clarity, and the sub-principle of
conversational self-interest clashing with the sub-principle of conversational
benevolence. The whole point of the manoeuvre is to provide a rational basis
for a conversational implicaturum, as his term of art goes. Observation of the
principle of conversational helpfulness is rational/reasonable along the
following lines: anyone who is interested in the two goals conversation is
supposed to serve ‒ give/receive information, influence/be influenced ‒ should
only care to enter a conversation that will be only profitable under the
assumption that it is conducted in accordance with the principle of
conversational helfpulness, and attending desiderata and sub-principles. Grice
takes special care in listing tests for the proof that an implicaturum is
conversational in this rather technical usage: a conversational implicaturum is
rationally calculable (it is the content of a psychological state, attitude or
stance that the addressee assigns to the utterer on condition that he is being
helpful), non-detachable, indeterminate, and very cancellable, thus never part
of the sense and never an entailment of this or that piece of philosophical
vocabulary, in Davidson and Harman, the logic of Grammar, also in Cole and
Morgan, repr. in a revised form in Grice, logic and conversation, the second
James lecture, : principle of conversational helpfulness, implicaturum,
cancellability. While the essay was also repr. by Cole and Morgan. Grice
always cites it from the two-column reprint in The Logic of Grammar, ed. by
Davidson and Harman. Most people without a philosophical background first encounter
Grice through this essay. A philosopher usually gets first acquainted with his
In defence of a dogma, or Meaning. In Logic and Conversation, Grice
re-utilises the notion of an implicaturum and the principle of conversational helpfulness
that he introduced at Oxford to a more select audience. The idea Grice is that
the observation of the principle of conversational helfpulness is rational
(reasonable) along the following lines: anyone who is concerned with the
two goals which are central to conversation (to give/receive information,
to influence/be influenced) should be interested in participating in a
conversation that is only going to be profitable on the assumption that it
is conducted along the lines of the principle of conversational
helfpulness. Grices point is methodological. He is not at all interested
in conversational exchanges as such. Unfortunately, the essay starts in
media res, and skips Grices careful list of Oxonian examples of disregard
for the key idea of what a conversant implicates by the conversational
move he makes. His concession is that there is an explicatum or explicitum
(roughly, the logical form) which is beyond pragmatic constraints. This
concession is easily explained in terms of his overarching irreverent,
conservative, dissenting rationalism. This lecture alone had been read by
a few philosophers leaving them confused. I do not know what Davidson and
Harman were thinking when they reprinted just this in The logic of grammar. I mean:
it is obviously in media res. Grice starts with the logical devices, and never
again takes the topic up. Then he explores metaphor, irony, and hyperbole, and
surely the philosopher who bought The logic of grammar must be left puzzled. He
has to wait sometime to see the thing in full completion. Oxonian philosophers
would, out of etiquette, hardly quote from unpublished material! Cohen had to
rely on memory, and thats why he got all his Grice wrong! And so did Strawson
in If and the horseshoe. Even Walker responding to Cohen is relying on memory.
Few philosophers quote from The logic of grammar. At Oxford, everybody knew
what Grice was up to. Hare was talking implicaturum in Mind, and Pears was
talking conversational implicaturum in Ifs and cans. And Platts was dedicating
a full chapter to “Causal Theory”. It seems the Oxonian etiquette was to quote
from Causal Theory. It was obvious that Grices implication excursus had to read
implicaturum! In a few dictionaries of philosophy, such as Hamlyns, under implication,
a reference to Grices locus classicus Causal theory is made – Passmore quotes
from Causal theory in Hundred years of philosophy. Very few Oxonians would care
to buy a volume published in Encino. Not many Oxonian philosophers ever quoted
The logic of grammar, though. At Oxford, Grices implicatura remained part of
the unwritten doctrines of a few. And philosophers would not cite a cajoled
essay in the references. The implicaturum allows a display of truth-functional
Grice. For substitutional-quantificational Grice we have to wait for his
treatment of the. In Prolegomena, Grice had quoted verbatim from Strawsons
infamous idea that there is a sense of inferrability with if. While the lecture
covers much more than if (He only said if; Oh, no, he said a great deal more
than that! the title was never meant to be original. Grice in fact provides a
rational justification for the three connectives (and, or, and if) and before
that, the unary functor not. Embedding, Indicative conditionals: embedding, not
and If, Sinton on Grice on denials of indicative conditionals, not,
if. Strawson had elaborated on what he felt was a divergence between
Whiteheads and Russells horseshoe, and if. Grice thought Strawsons observations
could be understood in terms of entailment + implicaturum (Robbing Peter to Pay
Paul). But problems, as first noted to Grice, by Cohen, of Oxford, remain, when
it comes to the scope of the implicaturum within the operation of, say,
negation. Analogous problems arise with implicatura for the other earlier
dyadic functors, and and or, and Grice looks for a single explanation of the
phenomenon. The qualification indicative is modal. Ordinary language
allows for if utterances to be in modes other than the imperative.
Counter-factual, if you need to be philosophical krypto-technical, Subjectsive
is you are more of a classicist! Grice took a cavalier to the problem: Surely
it wont do to say You couldnt have done that, since you were in Seattle, to
someone who figuratively tells you hes spend the full summer cleaning the
Aegean stables. This, to philosophers, is the centerpiece of the lectures.
Grice takes good care of not, and, or, and concludes with the if of the title.
For each, he finds a métier, alla Cook Wilson in Statement and Inference. And
they all connect with rationality. So he is using material from his Oxford
seminars on the principle of conversational helpfulness. Plus Cook Wilson makes
more sense at Oxford than at Harvard! The last bit, citing Kripke and Dummett,
is meant as jocular. What is important is the teleological approach to the
operators, where a note should be made about dyadicity. In Prolegomena, when he
introduces the topic, he omits not (about which he was almost obsessed!). He
just gives an example for and (He went to bed and took off his dirty boots),
one for or (the garden becomes Oxford and the kitchen becomes London, and the implicaturum
is in terms, oddly, of ignorance: My wife is either in town or country,making
fun of Town and Country), and if. His favourite illustration for if is Cock
Robin: If the Sparrow did not kill him, the Lark did! This is because Grice is
serious about the erotetic, i.e. question/answer, format Cook Wilson gives to
things, but he manages to bring Philonian and Megarian into the picture, just
to impress! Most importantly, he introduces the square brackets! Hell use them
again in Presupposition and Conversational Implicaturum and turns them into
subscripts in Vacuous Namess. This is central. For he wants to impoverish the
idea of the implicaturum. The explicitum is minimal, and any divergence is
syntactic-cum-pragmatic import. The scope devices are syntactic and eliminable,
and as he knows: what the eye no longer sees, the heart no longer grieves
for! The modal implicaturum. Since Grice uses indicative, for the
title of his third James lecture (Indicative Conditionals) surely he implicates
subjunctive ‒ i.e. that someone might be thinking that he should
give an account of indicative-cum-subjective. This relates to an example Grice
gives in Causal theory, that he does not reproduce in Prolegomena. Grice states
the philosophical mistake as follows. What is actual is not also
possible. Grice seems to be suggesting that a subjective conditional would
involve one or other of the modalities, he is not interested in exploring. On
the other hand, Mackie has noted that Grices conversationalist hypothesis
(Mackie quotes verbatim from Grices principle of conversational helpfulness)
allows for an explanation of the Subjectsive if that does not involve
Kripke-type paradoxes involving possible worlds, or other. In Causal Theory,
Grice notes that the issue with which he has been mainly concerned may be
thought rather a fine point, but it is certainly not an isolated one. There are
several philosophical theses or dicta which would he thinks need to be examined
in order to see whether or not they are sufficiently parallel to the thesis
which Grice has been discussing to be amenable to treatment of the same general
kind. An examples which occurs to me is the following. What is actual is not
also possible. I must emphasise that I am not saying that this example is
importantly similar to the thesis which I have been criticizing, only that, for
all I know, it may be. To put the matter more generally, the position adopted
by Grices objector seems to Grice to involve a type of manoeuvre which is
characteristic of more than one contemporary mode of philosophizing. He is not
condemning that kind of manoeuvre. He is merely suggesting that to embark on it
without due caution is to risk collision with the facts. Before we rush ahead
to exploit the linguistic nuances which we have detected, we should make sure
that we are reasonably clear what sort of nuances they are. If was also of
special interest to Grice for many other reasons. He defends a dispositional
account of intending that in terms of ifs and cans. He considers akrasia
conditionally. He explored the hypothetical-categorical distinction in the
buletic mode. He was concerned with therefore as involved with the associated
if of entailment. Refs.: “Implicaturum” is introduced in Essay 2 in WoW –
but there are scattered references elsewhere. He often uses the plural ‘implicatura’
too, as in “Retrospective Epilogue,” The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC. An implicaturum
requires a complexum. Frege was the topic of the explorations by Dummett. A
tutee of Grices once brought Dummetts Frege to a tutorial and told Grice that
he intended to explore this. Have you read it? No I havent, Grice
answered. And after a pause, he went on: And I hope I will not. Hardly
promising, the tutee thought. Some authors, including Grice, but alas, not
Frege, have noted some similarities between Grices notion of a conventional implicaturum
and Freges schematic and genial rambles on colouring. Aber Farbung, as Frege
would state! Grice was more interested in the idea of a Fregeian sense, but he
felt that if he had to play with Freges aber he should! One of Grices
metaphysical construction-routines, the Humeian projection, is aimed at the
generation of concepts, in most cases the rational reconstruction of an
intuitive concept displayed in ordinary discourse. We arrive at something
like a Fregeian sense. Grice exclaimed, with an intonation of Eureka, almost.
And then he went back to Frege. Grices German was good, so he could read
Frege, in the vernacular. For fun, he read Frege to his children (Grices, not
Freges): In einem obliquen Kontext, Frege says, Grice says, kann ja z. B. die
Ersetzung eines „aber durch ein „und, die in einem direkten Kontext keinen
Unterschied des Wahrheitswerts ergibt, einen solchen Unterschied bewirken. Ill
make that easy for you, darlings: und is and, and aber is but. But surely,
Papa, aber is not cognate with but! Its not. That is Anglo-Saxon, for you. But
is strictly Anglo-Saxon short for by-out; we lost aber when we sailed the North
Sea. Grice went on: Damit wird eine Abgrenzung von Sinn und Färbung (oder
Konnotationen) eines Satzes fragwürdig. I. e. he is saying that She was poor
but she was honest only conventionally implicates that there is a contrast
between her poverty and her honesty. I guess he heard the ditty during the War?
Grice ignored that remark, and went on: Appell und Kundgabe wären ferner von
Sinn und Färbung genauer zu unterscheiden. Ich weiß so auf interessante
Bedeutungs Komponenten hin, bemüht sich aber nicht, sie genauer zu
differenzieren, da er letztlich nur betonen will, daß sie in der Sprache der
Logik keine Rolle spielen. They play a role in the lingo, that is! What do?
Stuff like but. But surely they are not rational conversational implicatura!?
No, dear, just conventional tricks you can ignore on a nice summer day! Grice
however was never interested in what he dismissively labels the conventional implicaturum.
He identifies it because he felt he must! Surely, the way some Oxonian
philosophers learn to use stuff like, on the one hand, and on the other, (or
how Grice learned how to use men and de in Grecian), or so, or therefore, or
but versus and, is just to allow that he would still use imply in such cases.
But surely he wants conversational to stick with rationality: conversational
maxim and converational implicaturum only apply to things which can be
justified transcendentally, and not idiosyncrasies of usage! Grice follows
Church in noting that Russell misreads Frege as being guilty of ignoring the
use-mention distinction, when he doesnt. One thing that Grice minimises is that
Freges assertion sign is composite. Tha is why Baker prefers to use the dot “.”
as the doxastic correlative for the buletic sign ! which is NOT composite. The
sign „├‟ is composite. Frege explains his Urteilstrich, the vertical component
of his sign ├ as conveying assertoric force. The principal role of the
horizontal component as such is to prevent the appearance of assertoric force
belonging to a token of what does not express a thought (e.g. the expression
22). ─p expresses a thought even if p does not.) cf. Hares four sub-atomic
particles: phrastic (dictum), neustic (dictor), tropic, and clistic. Cf. Grice
on the radix controversy: We do not want the “.” in p to become a vanishing
sign. Grices Frege, Frege, Words, and Sentences, Frege, Farbung, aber. Frege
was one of Grices obsessions. A Fregeian sense is an explicatum, or implicitum,
a concession to get his principle of conversational helpfulness working in the
generation of conversational implicatura, that can only mean progress for
philosophy! Fregeian senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. The
employment of the routine of Humeian projection may be expected to deliver for
us, as its result, a concept – the concept(ion) of value, say, in
something like a Fregeian sense, rather than an object. There is also a
strong affinity between Freges treatment of colouring (of the German particle
aber, say) and Grices idea of a convetional implicaturum (She was poor, but she
was honest,/and her parents were the same,/till she met a city feller,/and she
lost her honest Names, as the vulgar Great War ditty went). Grice does not seem
interested in providing a philosophical exploration of conventional implicatura,
and there is a reason for this. Conventional implicatura are not
essentially connected, as conversational implicatura are, with rationality.
Conventional implicatura cannot be calculable. They have less of a
philosophical interest, too, in that they are not cancellable. Grice sees
cancellability as a way to prove some (contemporary to him, if dated)
ordinary-language philosophers who analyse an expression in terms of sense and
entailment, where a cancellable conversational implicaturum is all there is (to
it). He mentions Benjamin in Prolegomena, and is very careful in noting
how Benjamin misuses a Fregeian sense. In his Causal theory, Grice lists
another mistake: What is known to be the case is not believed to be the
case. Grice gives pretty few example of a conventional implicaturum:
therefore, as in the utterance by Jill: Jack is an Englishman; he is,
therefore, brave. This is interesting because therefore compares to so
which Strawson, in PGRICE, claims is the asserted counterpart to if. But
Strawson is never associated with the type of linguistic botany that Grice is.
Grice also mentions the idiom, on the one hand/on the other hand, in some
detail in “Epilogue”: My aunt was a nurse in the Great War; my sister, on the
other hand, lives on a peak at Darien. Grice thinks that Frege misuses the
use-mention distinction but Russell corrects that. Grice bases this on Church.
And of course he is obsessed with the assertion sign by Frege, which Grice
thinks has one stroke tooo many. The main reference is give above for
‘complexum.’ Those without a philosophical background tend to ignore a joke by
Grice. His echoing Kant in the James is a joke, in the sense that he is using
Katns well-known to be pretty artificial quartet of ontological caegories to
apply to a totally different phenomenon: the taxonomy of the maxims! In his
earlier non-jocular attempts, he applied more philosophical concepts with a
more serious rationale. His key concept, conversation as rational co-operation,
underlies all his attempts. A pretty worked-out model is in terms then of this
central, or overarching principle of conversational helpfulness (where
conversation as cooperation need not be qualified as conversation as rational
co-operation) and being structured by two contrasting sub-principles: the
principle of conversational benevolence (which almost overlaps with the
principle of conversational helpfulness) and the slightly more jocular
principle of conversational self-love. There is something oxymoronic about
self-love being conversational, and this is what leads to replace the two
subprinciples by a principle of conversational helfpulness (as used in WoW:IV)
simpliciter. His desideratum of conversational candour is key. The clash
between the desideratum of conversational candour and the desideratum of
conversational clarity (call them supermaxims) explains why I believe that p
(less clear than p) shows the primacy of candour over clarity. The idea remains
of an overarching principle and a set of more specific guidelines. Non-Oxonian
philosophers would see Grices appeal to this or that guideline as ad hoc, but
not his tutees! Grice finds inspiration in Joseph Butler’s sermon on benevolence
and self-love, in his sermon 9, upon the love of our neighbour, preached on
advent Sunday. And if there be any other commandment, it is briefly
comprehended in this saying, Namesly, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,
Romans xiii. 9. It is commonly observed, that there is a disposition in
men to complain of the viciousness and corruption of the age in which they
live, as greater than that of former ones: which is usually followed with this
further observation, that mankind has been in that respect much the same in all
times. Now, to determine whether this last be not contradicted by the accounts
of history: thus much can scarce be doubted, that vice and folly takes
different turns, and some particular kinds of it are more open and avowed in
some ages than in others; and, I suppose, it may be spoken of as very much the
distinction of the present, to profess a contracted spirit, and greater regards
to self-interest, than appears to have been done formerly. Upon this account it
seems worth while to inquire, whether private interest is likely to be promoted
in proportion to the degree in which self-love engrosses us, and prevails over
all other principles; "or whether the contracted affection may not
possibly be so prevalent as to disappoint itself, and even contradict its own
end, private good?" Repr. in revised form as WOW, I. Grice felt
the need to go back to his explantion (cf. Fisher, Never contradict. Never
explain) of the nuances about seem and cause (“Causal theory”.). Grice uses ‘My
wife is in the kitchen or the bedroom,’ by Smith, as relying on a requirement
of discourse. But there must be more to it. Variations on a theme by Grice.
Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by
the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are
engaged. Variations on a theme by Grice. I wish to represent a certain
subclass of non-conventional implicaturcs, which I shall
call conversational implicaturcs, as being essentially connected with
certain general features of discourse; so my next step is to try to say what
these features are. The following may provide a first approximation to a
general principle. Our talk exchanges do not normally consist of a succession
of disconnected remarks, and would not be rational if they did. They are
characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts; and each participant
recognizes in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of purposes, or at
least a mutually accepted direction. This purpose or direction may be fixed
from the start (e.g., by an initial proposal of a question for discussion), or
it may evolve during the exchange; it may be fairly definite, or it may be so
indefinite as to leave very considerable latitude to the participants, as in a
casual conversation. But at each stage, some possible conversational moves
would be excluded as conversationally unsuitable. We might then formulate a
rough general principle which participants will be expected ceteris paribus to
observe, viz.: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at
the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk
exchange in which you are engaged. One might label this the co-operative
principle. We might then formulate a rough general principle which participants
will be expected ceteris paribus to observe,
viz.: Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at
which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in
which you are engaged. One might label this the Cooperative Principle.
Strictly, the principle itself is not co-operative: conversants are. Less
literary variant: Make your move such as is required by the accepted goal
of the conversation in which you are engaged. But why logic and
conversation? Logica had been part of the trivium for ages ‒ Although they
called it dialectica, then. Grice on the seven liberal arts. Moved by
Strawsons treatment of the formal devices in “Introduction to logical theory”
(henceforth, “Logical theory”), Grice targets these, in their ordinary-discourse
counterparts. Strawson indeed characterizes Grice as his logic tutor – Strawson
was following a PPE., and his approach to logic is practical. His philosophy
tutor was Mabbott. For Grice, with a M. A. Lit. Hum. the situation is
different. Grice knows that the Categoriae and De Int. of his beloved Aristotle
are part of the Logical Organon which had been so influential in the history of
philosophy. Grice attempts to reconcile Strawsons observations with the
idea that the formal devices reproduce some sort of explicatum, or explicitum,
as identified by Whitehead and Russell in Principia Mathematica. In the
proceedings, Grice has to rely on some general features of discourse, or
conversation as a rational co-operation. The alleged divergence between the
ordinary-language operators and their formal counterparts is explained in terms
of the conversational implicatura, then. I.e. the content of the
psychological attitude that the addressee A has to ascribe to the utterer U to
account for any divergence between the formal device and its alleged
ordinary-language counterpart, while still assuming that U is engaged in a
co-operative transaction. The utterer and his addressee are seen as
caring for the mutual goals of conversation ‒ the exchange of
information and the institution of decisions ‒ and judging that
conversation will only be profitable (and thus reasonable and rational) if
conducted under some form of principle of conversational helpfulness. The
observation of a principle of conversational helpfulness is
reasonable (rational) along the following lines: anyone who cares
about the goals that are central to conversation/communication (such as giving
and receiving information, influencing and being influenced by others) must be
expected to have an interest, given suitable circumstances, in participating in
a conversation that will be profitable ONLY on the assumption that it is
conducted in general accordance with a principle of conversational
helpfulness. In titling his seminar Logic and conversation, Grice is
thinking Strawson. After all, in the seminal “Logical theory,” that every
Oxonian student was reading, Strawson had the cheek to admit that he never
ceased to learn logic from his tutor, Grice. Yet he elaborates a totally anti
Griceian view of things. To be fair to Strawson, the only segment where he
acknwoledges Grices difference of opinion is a brief footnote, concerning the
strength or lack thereof, of this or that quantified utterance. Strawson uses
an adjective that Grice will seldom do, pragmatic. On top, Strawson attributes
the adjective to rule. For Grice, in Strawsons wording, there is this or that
pragmatic rule to the effect that one should make a stronger rather than a
weaker conversational move. Strawsons Introduction was published before Grice
aired his views for the Aristotelian Society. In this seminar then Grice takes
the opportunity to correct a few misunderstandings. Important in that it
is Grices occasion to introduce the principle of conversational helpfulness as
generating implicatura under the assumption of rationality. The lecture makes
it obvious that Grices interest is methodological, and not philological. He is
not interest in conversation per se, but only as the source for his principle
of conversational helpfulness and the notion of the conversational implicaturum,
which springs from the distinction between what an utterer implies and what his
expression does, a distinction apparently denied by Witters and all too
frequently ignored by Austin. Logic and conversation, an Oxford seminar, implicaturum,
principle of conversational helpfulness, eywords: conversational implicaturum,
conversational implicaturum. Conversational Implicaturum Grices main
invention, one which trades on the distinction between what an utterer implies
and what his expression does. A distinction apparently denied by Witters,
and all too frequently ignored by, of all people, Austin. Grice is
implicating that Austins sympathies were for the Subjectsification of
Linguistic Nature. Grice remains an obdurate individualist, and never
loses sight of the distinction that gives rise to the conversational implicaturum,
which can very well be hyper-contextualised, idiosyncratic, and perfectly
particularized. His gives an Oxonian example. I can very well mean that my tutee
is to bring me a philosophical essay next week by uttering It is raining.Grice
notes that since the object of the present exercise, is to provide
a bit of theory which will explain, for a certain family of
cases, why is it that a particular implicaturum is present, I
would suggest that the final test of the adequacy and utility of this
model should be: can it be used to construct an explanation of
the presence of such an implicaturum, and is it more comprehensive
and more economical than any rival? is the no
doubt pre-theoretical explanation which one would be prompted to give
of such an implicaturum consistent with, or better still a favourable pointer
towards the requirements involved in the model? cf. Sidonius: Far otherwise:
whoever disputes with you will find those protagonists of heresy, the Stoics,
Cynics, and Peripatetics, shattered with their own arms and their
own engines; for their heathen followers, if they resist the doctrine and
spirit of Christianity, will, under your teaching, be caught in their own
familiar entanglements, and fall headlong into their own toils; the barbed
syllogism of your arguments will hook the glib tongues of the
casuists, and it is you who will tie up their slippery
questions in categorical clews, after the manner of a clever
physician, who, when compelled by reasoned thought, prepares antidotes for
poison even from a serpent.qvin potivs experietvr qvisqve conflixerit stoicos
cynicos peripateticos hæresiarchas propriis armis propriis qvoqve concvti
machinamentis nam sectatores eorum Christiano dogmati ac sensvi si
repvgnaverint mox te magistro ligati vernaculis implicaturis in retia
sua præcipites implagabvntur syllogismis tuæ propositionis vncatis volvbilem
tergiversantvm lingvam inhamantibvs dum spiris categoricis lubricas qvæstiones
tv potivs innodas acrivm more medicorvm qui remedivm contra venena cum ratio
compellit et de serpente conficivnt. If he lectured on Logic and
Conversation on implicaturum, Grice must have thought that Strawsons area was
central. Yet, as he had done in Causal theory and as he will at Harvard, Grice
kept collecting philosophers mistakes. So its best to see Grice as a
methodologist, and as using logic and conversation as an illustration of his
favourite manoeuvre, indeed, central philosophical manoeuver that gave him a
place in the history of philosophy. Restricting this manoeuvre to just an area
minimises it. On the other hand, there has to be a balance: surely logic and
conversation is a topic of intrinsic interest, and we cannot expect all philosophers
– unless they are Griceians – to keep a broad unitarian view of philosophy
as a virtuous whole. Philosophy, like virtue, is entire. Destructive implicaturum
to it: Mr. Puddle is our man in æsthetics implicates that he is not good at it.
What is important to Grice is that the mistakes of these philosophers (notably
Strawson!) arise from some linguistic phenomena, or, since we must use singular
expressions this or that linguistic phenomenon. Or as Grice puts it, it is this
or that linguistic phenomenon which provides the material for the philosopher
to make his mistake! So, to solve it, his theory of conversation as rational
co-operation is posited – technically, as a way to explain (never merely
describe, which Grice found boring ‒ if English, cf. never explain, never
apologise ‒ Jacky Fisher: Never contradict. Never explain.) these phenomena –
his principle of conversational helpfulness and the idea of a conversational implicaturum.
The latter is based not so much on rationality per se, but on the
implicit-explicit distinction that he constantly plays with, since his earlier
semiotic-oriented explorations of Peirce. But back to this or that linguistic
phenomenon, while he would make fun of Searle for providing this or that
linguistic phenomenon that no philosopher would ever feel excited about, Grice
himself was a bit of a master in illustrating this a philosophical point with
this or that linguistic phenomenon that would not be necessarily connected with
philosophy. Grice rarely quotes authors, but surely the section in “Causal
theory,” where he lists seven philosophical theses (which are ripe for an implicaturum
treatment) would be familiar enough for anybody to be able to drop a names to
attach to each. At Harvard, almost every example Grice gives of this or that
linguistic phenomenon is UN-authored (and sometimes he expands on his own view
of them, just to amuse his audience – and show how committed to this or that
thesis he was), but some are not unauthored. And they all belong to the
linguistic turn: In his three groups of examples, Grice quotes from Ryle (who
thinks he knows about ordinary language), Witters, Austin (he quotes him in
great detail, from Pretending, Plea of excuses, and No modification without
aberration,), Strawson (in “Logical theory” and on Truth for Analysis), Hart
(as I have heard him expand on this), Grice, Searle, and Benjamin. Grice
implicates Hare on ‘good,’ etc. When we mention the explicit/implicit
distinction as source for the implicaturum, we are referring to Grices own
wording in Retrospective epilogue where he mentions an utterer as conveying in
some explicit fashion this or that, as opposed to a gentler, more (midland or
southern) English, way, via implicaturum, or implIciture, if you mustnt. Cf.
Fowler: As a southern Englishman, Ive stopped trying teaching a northern
Englishman the distinction between ought and shall. He seems to get it always
wrong. It may be worth exploring how this connects with rationality. His point
would be that that an assumption that the rational principle of conversational
helpfulness is in order allows P-1 not just to convey in a direct explicit
fashion that p, but in an implicit fashion that q, where q is the implicaturum.
The principle of conversational helpfulness as generator of this or that implicatura,
to use Grices word (generate). Surely, He took off his boots and went to bed; I
wont say in which order sounds hardly in the vein of conversational helpfulness
– but provided Grice does not see it as logically incoherent, it is still a
rational (if not reasonable) thing to say. The point may be difficult to
discern, but you never know. The utterer may be conveying, Viva Boole. Grices
point about rationality is mentioned in his later Prolegomena, on at least two
occasions. Rational behaviour is the phrase he uses (as applied first to
communication and then to discourse) and in stark opposition with a
convention-based approach he rightly associates with Austin. Grice is here less
interested here as he will be on rationality, but coooperation as such.
Helpfulness as a reasonable expecation (normative?), a mutual one between
decent chaps, as he puts it. His charming decent chap is so Oxonian. His tutee
would expect no less ‒ and indeed no more! A rather obscure exploration on the
connection of semiotics and philosophical psychology. Grice is aware that there
is an allegation in the air about a possible vicious circle in trying to define
category of expression in terms of a category of representation. He does not
provide a solution to the problem which hell take up in his Method in
philosophical psychology, in his role of President of the APA. It is the implicaturum
behind the lecture that matters, since Grice will go back to it, notably in the
Retrospective Epilogue. For Grice, its all rational enough. Theres a P, in a
situation, say of danger – a bull ‒. He perceives the bull. The bulls attack
causes this perception. Bull! the P1 G1 screams, and causes in
P2 G2 a rearguard movement. So where is the circularity? Some
pedants would have it that Bull cannot be understood in a belief about a bull
which is about a bull. Not Grice. It is nice that he brought back implicaturum,
which had become obliterated in the lectures, back to title position! But it is
also noteworthy, that these are not explicitly rationalist models for implicaturum.
He had played with a model, and an explanatory one at that, for implicaturum,
in his Oxford seminar, in terms of a principle of conversational helpfulness, a
desideratum of conversational clarity, a desideratum of conversational candour,
and two sub-principles: a principle of conversational benevolence, and a
principle of conversational self-interest! Surely Harvard could be spared of
the details! Implicaturum. Grice disliked a presupposition. BANC also contains
a folder for Odd ends: Urbana and non-Urbana. Grice continues with the
elaboration of a formal calculus. He originally baptised it System Q in honour
of Quine. At a later stage, Myro will re-Names it System G, in a special
version, System GHP, a highly powerful/hopefully plausible version of System G,
in gratitude to Grice. Odd Ends: Urbana and Not Urbana, Odds and ends: Urbana
and not Urbana, or not-Urbana, or Odds and ends: Urbana and non Urbana, or Oddents,
urbane and not urbane, semantics, Urbana lectures. The Urbana lectures are
on language and reality. Grice keeps revising them, as these items
show. Language and reality, The University of Illinois at Urbana, The
Urbana Lectures, Language and reference, language and reality, The Urbana
lectures, University of Illinois at Urbana, language, reference, reality. Grice
favours a transcendental approach to communication. A beliefs by a communicator
worth communicating has to be true. An order by a communicator worth
communicating has to be satisfactory. The fourth lecture is the one Grice dates
in WOW . Smith has not ceased from beating his wife, presupposition and
conversational implicaturum, in Radical pragmatics, ed. by R. Cole, repr. in a
revised form in Grice, WOW, II, Explorations in semantics and metaphysics,
essay, presupposition and implicaturum, presupposition, conversational implicaturum,
implicaturum, Strawson. Grice: The loyalty examiner will not summon you, do not
worry. The cancellation by Grice could be pretty subtle. Well, the loyalty
examiner will not be summoning you at any rate. Grice goes back to the issue of
negation and not. If, Grice notes, is is a matter of dispute whether the
government has a very undercover person who interrogates those whose loyalty is
suspect and who, if he existed, could be legitimately referred to as the
loyalty examiner; and if, further, I am known to be very sceptical about the
existence of such a person, I could perfectly well say to a plainly loyal
person, Well, the loyalty examiner will not be summoning you at any rate,
without, Grice would think, being taken to imply that such a person
exists. Further, if the utterer U is well known to disbelieve in the existence
of such a person, though others are inclined to believe in him, when U finds a
man who is apprised of Us position, but who is worried in case he is summoned,
U may try to reassure him by uttering, The loyalty examiner will not summon
you, do not worry. Then it would be clear that U uttered this because U is sure
there is no such person. The lecture was variously reprinted, but the Urbana
should remain the preferred citation. There are divergences in the various
drafts, though. The original source of this exploration was a seminar.
Grice is interested in re-conceptualising Strawsons manoeuvre regarding
presupposition as involving what Grice disregards as a metaphysical concoction:
the truth-value gap. In Grices view, based on a principle of conversational
tailoring that falls under his principle of conversational
helpfulness ‒ indeed under the desideratum of conversational clarity
(be perspicuous [sic]). The king of France is bald entails there is a king of
France; while The king of France aint bald merely implicates it. Grice
much preferred Collingwoods to Strawsons presuppositions! Grice thought, and
rightly, too, that if his notion of the conversational implicaturum was to gain
Oxonian currency, it should supersede Strawsons idea of the
præ-suppositum. Strawson, in his attack to Russell, had been playing with
Quines idea of a truth-value gap. Grice shows that neither the metaphysical
concoction of a truth-value gap nor the philosophical tool of the
præ-suppositum is needed. The king of France is bald entails that there is a
king of France. It is part of what U is logically committed to by what he
explicitly conveys. By uttering, The king of France is not bald on the other
hand, U merely implicitly conveys or implicates that there is a king of France.
A perfectly adequate, or impeccable, as Grice prefers, cancellation, abiding
with the principle of conversational helpfulness is in the offing. The king of
France ain’t bald. What made you think he is? For starters, he ain’t real!
Grice credits Sluga for having pointed out to him the way to deal with the
definite descriptor or definite article or the iota quantifier the formally.
One thing Russell discovered is that the variable denoting function is to be
deduced from the variable propositional function, and is not to be taken as an
indefinable. Russell tries to do without the iota i as an indefinable, but
fails. The success by Russell later, in On denoting, is the source of all his
subsequent progress. The iota quantifier consists of an inverted iota to be
read the individuum x, as in (℩x).F(x). Grice opts for the
Whiteheadian-Russellian standard rendition, in terms of the iota operator.
Grices take on Strawson is a strong one. The king of France is bald; entails
there is a king of France, and what the utterer explicitly conveys is
doxastically unsatisfactory. The king of France aint bald does not. By uttering
The king of France aint bald U only implicates that there is a king of France,
and what he explicitly conveys is doxastically satisfactory. Grice knew he was
not exactly robbing Peter to pay Paul, or did he? It is worth placing the
lecture in context. Soon after delivering in the New World his exploration on
the implicaturum, Grice has no better idea than to promote Strawsons philosophy
in the New World. Strawson will later reflect on the colder shores of the Old
World, so we know what Grice had in mind! Strawsons main claim to fame in the
New World (and at least Oxford in the Old World) was his On referring, where he
had had the cheek to say that by uttering, The king of France is not bald, the
utterer implies that there is a king of France (if not that, as Grice has it,
that what U explicitly conveys is doxastically satisfactory. Strawson later
changed that to the utterer presupposes that there is a king of France. So
Grice knows what and who he was dealing with. Grice and Strawson had
entertained Quine at Oxford, and Strawson was particularly keen on that turn of
phrase he learned from Quine, the truth-value gap. Grice, rather, found it
pretty repulsive: Tertium exclusum! So, Grice goes on to argue that by uttering
The king of France is bald, one entailment of what U explicitly conveys is
indeed There is a king of France. However, in its negative co-relate, things
change. By uttering The king of France aint bald, the utterer merely implicitly
conveys or implicates (in a pretty cancellable format) that there is a king of
France. The king of France aint bald: theres no king of France! The loyalty
examiner is like the King of France, in ways! The piece is crucial for Grices
re-introduction of the square-bracket device: [The king of France] is bald;
[The king of France] aint bald. Whatever falls within the scope of the square
brackets is to be read as having attained common-ground status and therefore,
out of the question, to use Collingwoods jargon! Grice was very familiar with
Collingwood on presupposition, meant as an attack on Ayer. Collingwoods
reflections on presuppositions being either relative or absolute may well lie
behind Grices metaphysical construction of absolute value! The earliest
exploration by Grice on this is his infamous, Smith has not ceased from beating
his wife, discussed by Ewing in Meaninglessness for Mind. Grice goes back to
the example in the excursus on implying that in Causal Theory, and it is best
to revisit this source. Note that in the reprint in WOW Grice does NOT go, one
example of presupposition, which eventually is a type of conversational implicaturum.
Grices antipathy to Strawsons presupposition is metaphysical: he dislikes the
idea of a satisfactory-value-gap, as he notes in the second paragraph to Logic
and conversation. And his antipathy crossed the buletic-doxastic divide! Using φ to represent a sentence in either mode,
he stipulate that ~φ is satisfactory just in case ⌈φ⌉ is unsatisfactory. A crunch,
as he puts it, becomes obvious: ~ ⊢The king of France is bald may perhaps be
treated as equivalent to ⊢~(The king of
France is bald). But what about ~!Arrest the intruder? What do we say in cases
like, perhaps, Let it be that I now put my hand on my head or Let it be that my
bicycle faces north, in which (at least on occasion) it seems to be that
neither !p nor !~p is either satisfactory or unsatisfactory? If !p is neither
satisfactory nor unsatisfactory (if that make sense, which doesnt to me), does
the philosopher assign a third buletically satisfactory value (0.5) to !p
(buletically neuter, or indifferent). Or does the philosopher say that we have
a buletically satisfactory value gap, as Strawson, following Quine, might
prefer? This may require careful consideration; but I cannot see that the
problem proves insoluble, any more than the analogous problem connected with
Strawsons doxastic presupposition is insoluble. The difficulty is not so much
to find a solution as to select the best solution from those which present
themselves. The main reference is Essay 2 in WoW, but there are scattered
references elsewhere. Refs.: The main sources are the two
sets of ‘logic and conversation,’ in BANC, but there are scattered essays on ‘implicaturum’
simpliciter, too -- “Presupposition and
conversational implicaturum,” c. 2-f. 25; and “Convesational implicaturum,” c.
4-f. 9, “Happiness, discipline, and implicaturums,” c. 7-f. 6; “Presupposition
and implicaturum,” c. 9-f. 3, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
conversational manual: -- Grice was fascinated by the etymology of ‘etiquette’ – from
Frankish *stikkan, cognate with Old English stician "to pierce," from
Proto-Germanic *stikken "to be stuck," stative form from PIE *steig-
"to stick; pointed" (It.
etichetta) -- of conversational rational etiquette -- conversational iimmanuel,
cnversational manual. Before playing with ‘immanuel,’ Grice does use ‘manual’
more technically. A know-how. “Surely, I can have a manual, but don’t know how
to play bridge.” “That’s not how I’m using ‘manual.’” It should be pointed out
that it’s the visual thing that influenced. When people (especially
non-philosophers) saw the list of maxims, they thought: “Washington!” “A
manual!”. In the Oxford seminrs, Grice was never so ‘additive.’ His desideratum
of conversational clarity, his desideratum of conversational candour, his
principle of conversational self-love and his principle of conversational
benevolence, plus his principle of conversational helpfulness, were meant as
‘philosophical’ leads to explain this or that philosophical mistake. The
seminars were given for philosophy tutees. And Grice is playing on the ‘manuals
of etiquette’ – conversational etiquette. If you do not BELONG to this targeted
audience, it is likely that you’ll misconstrue Grice’s point, and you will!
Especially R. T. L.!The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness
Being a Complete Guide for a Gentleman's Conduct in All His Relations Towards
Society by Cecil B. Hartley. Wit and vivacity are two highly important
ingredients in the conversation of a man in polite society, yet a straining for
effect, or forced wit, is in excessively bad taste. There is no one more
insupportable in society than the everlasting talkers who scatter puns,
witticisms, and jokes with so profuse a hand that they become as tiresome as a
comic newspaper, and whose loud laugh at their own wit drowns other voices which
might speak matter more interesting. The really witty man does not shower forth
his wit so indiscriminately; his charm consists in wielding his powerful weapon
delicately and easily, and making each highly polished witticism come in the
right place and moment to be effectual. While real wit is a most delightful
gift, and its use a most charming accomplishment, it is, like many other bright
weapons, dangerous to use too often. You may wound where you meant only to
amuse, and remarks which you mean only in for general applications, may be
construed into personal affronts, so, if you have the gift, use it wisely, and
not too freely. The most important requisite for a good conversational power is
education, and, by this is meant, not merely the matter you may store in your
memory from observation or books, though this is of vast importance, but it
also includes the developing of the mental powers, and, above all, the
comprehension. An English writer says, “A man should be able, in order to enter
into conversation, to catch rapidly the meaning of anything that is advanced;
for instance, though you know nothing of science, you should not be obliged to
stare and be silent, when a man who does understand it is explaining a new
discovery or a new theory; though you have not read a word of Blackstone, your
comprehensive powers should be sufficiently acute to enable you to take in the
statement that may be made of a recent cause; though you may not have read some
particular book, you should be capable of appreciating the criticism which you
hear of it. Without such power—simple enough, and easily attained by attention
and practice, yet too seldom met with in general society—a conversation which
departs from the most ordinary topics cannot be maintained without the risk of
lapsing into a lecture; with such power, society becomes instructive as well as
amusing, and you have no remorse at an evening’s end at having wasted three or
four hours in profitless banter, or simpering platitudes. This facility of
comprehension often startles us in some women, whose education we know to have
been poor, and whose reading is limited. If they did not rapidly receive your
ideas, they could not, therefore, be fit companions for intellectual men, and
it is, perhaps, their consciousness of a deficiency which leads them to pay the
more attention to what you say. It is this which makes married women so much
more agreeable to men of thought than young ladies, as a rule, can be, for they
are accustomed to the society of a husband, and the effort to be a companion to
his mind has engrafted the habit of attention and ready reply.” Refs.: H. P.
Grice, “Paget’s conversational manual.”
conversational maxim. The idea of a maxim implies freewill and freedom in
general. A beautiful thing about Grice’s conversational maxims is that surely
they do not ‘need to be necessarily’ independent, as Strawson and Wiggins emphatically
put it (p.520). The important thing is other. A conversational maxim is
UNIVERSALISABLE (v. universalierung) into a ‘manual,’ the “Immanuel,” strictly,
the “Conversational Immanuel.” Grice is making fun of those ‘conversational
manuals’ for the learning of some European language in the Grand Tour (as in
“Learn Swiss in five easy lessons”). Grice is echoing Kant. Maximen (subjektive
Grundsätze): selbstgesetzte Handlungsregeln, die ein Wollen ausdrücken, vs.
Imperative (objektive Grundsätze): durch praktische Vernunft bestimmt;
Ratschläge, moralisch relevante Grundsätze. („das Gesetz aber ist das objektive
Prinzip, gültig für jedes vernünftige Wesen, und der Grundsatz, nach dem es
handeln soll, d. i. ein Imperativ.“) das Problem ist jedoch die Subjektivität
der Maxime. When considering Grice’s concept of a ‘conversational maxim,’ one
has to be careful. First, he hesitated as to the choice of the label. He used
‘objective’ and ‘desideratum’ before. And while few cite this, in WoW:PandCI he
adds one – leading the number of maxims to ten, what he called the
‘conversational catalogue.’ So when exploring the maxims, it is not necessary
to see their dependence on the four functions that Kant tabulated: quantitas,
qualitas, relatio, and modus, or quantity, quality, relation, and mode (Grice
follows Meiklejohn’s translation), but in terms of their own formulation, one
by one. Grice
formulates the overarching principle: “We might then formulate a rough general
principle which participants will be expected (ceteris paribus) to observe,
namely: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage
at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange
in which you are engaged. One might label this the COOPEHATIVE PIUNCIPLE.”He
then goes on to introduce the concept of a ‘conversational maxim.’“On the
assumption that some such general principle as this is acceptable, one may
perhaps distinguish four categories under one or another of which will fall
certain more specific MAXIMS maxims and
submaxims, the following of which will, in general, yield results in accordance
with the Cooperative Principle.” Note that in his
comparative “more specific maxims,” he is implicating that, in terms of the
force, the principle is a MAXIM. Had he not wanted this implicaturum, he could
have expressed it as: “On the assumption that some such general principle as
this is acceptable, one may perhaps distinguish four categories under one or
another of which will fall certain MAXIMS.”
He is
comparing the principle with the maxims in terms of ‘specificity.’ I.e. the
principle is the ‘summun genus,’ as it were, the category is the ‘inferior
genus,’ and the maxim is the ‘species infima.’He is having in mind something
like arbor porphyriana. For why otherwise care to distinguish in the
introductory passage, between ‘maxims and submaxims.’ This use of ‘submaxim’ is
very interesting. Because it is unique. He would rather call the four maxims as
SUPRA-maxims, supermaxim, or supramaxim. And leaving ‘maxim’ for what here he
is calling the submaxim.Note that if one challenges the ‘species infima,’ one
may proceed to distinguish this or that sub-sub-maxim falling under the maxim.
Take “Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.” Since this, as he
grants, applies mainly to informative cases, one may consider that it is
actually a subsubmaxim. The submaxim would be: “Do not say that for which you
are not entitled” (alla Nowell-Smith). And then provide one subsubmaxim for the
desideratum: “Do not give an order which you are not entitled to give” or “Do
not order that for you lack adequate authority,” and the other subsubmaxim for
the creditum: “Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.”Grice: “Echoing
Kant, I call these categories Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner.” Or
Mode. “Manner” may be Ross’s translation of Aristotle’s ‘mode.’ Consider the
exploration of Aristotle on ‘modus’ in Categoriae. It is such a mixed bag that
surely ‘manner’ is not inappropriate!“The category of QUANTITY” – i. e. either
the conversational category of quantity, or as one might prefer, the category
of conversational quantity – “relates to the quantity of information to be
provided,”So it’s not just ANY QUANTUM, as Aristotle or Kant, or Ariskant have
it – just QUANTITY OF INFORMATION, whatever ‘information’ is, and how the
quantity of information is to be assessed. E g. Grice surely shed doubts re:
the pillar box seems red and the pillar box is red. He had till now used
‘strength,’ even ‘logical strength,’ in terms of entailment – and here, neither
the phenomenalist nor the physicalist utterance entail the other.“and under it
fall the following maxims:”That is, he goes straight to the ‘conversational
maxim.’ He will provide supermaxim for the other three conversational
categories.Why is the category of conversational quantity lacking a
supermaxim?The reason is that it would seem redundant and verbose: ‘be appropriately
informative.’ By having TWO maxims, he is playing with a weighing in, or
balance between one maxim and the other. Cf.To say the truth, all the truth,
and nothing but the truth.No more no less.One maximm states the ‘at most,’ the
other maxim states the ‘at least.’One maxim states the ‘maxi,’ the other maxim
states the ‘min.’ Together they state the ‘maximin.’First, “Make your
contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange).”It’s
the contribution which is informative, not the utterer. Cf. “Be as informative
as is required.” Grice implicates that if you make your contribution as
informative as is required YOU are being as informative as is required. But
there is a category-shift here. Grice means, ‘required BY the goal of the
exchange). e.g.How are youFine thanks – the ‘and you’ depends on whether you
are willing to ‘keep the conversation going’ or your general mood. Second, “Do
not make your contribution more informative than is required.”“ (The second
maxim is disputable;”He goes on to give a different reason. But the primary
reason is that “Do not make your contribution more informative than is
required” is ENTAILED by “Make your contribution as informative as is required
(for the current purposes of the exchange)” – vide R. M. Hare on “Imperative
inferences” IN a diagram:Make your contribution as informative as is required
(for the current purposes of the exchange)Therefore, do not make your
contribution more informative than is required (by the current purposes of the
exchange).Grice gives another reason (he will give yet a further one) why the
maxim is ‘disputable.’“it might be said that to be overinformative is not a
transgression of the CP but merely a waste of time.”For both
conversationalists, who are thereby abiding by Ferraro’s law of the least
conversational effort.”“A waste of time” relates to Grice’s previous
elaborations on ‘undue effort’ and ‘unnecessary trouble.’He is proposing a
conversational maximin.When he formulates his principle of economy of rational
effort, it is a waste of ‘time and energy.’Here it is just ‘time.’ “Energy” is
a more generic concept.“However, it might be answered that such
overinformativeness may be confusing in that it is liable to raise side
issues;”Methinks the lady doth protest too much.His example, “He was in a
blacked out city.”It does not seem to relate to the pillar boxA: What color is
the pillar boxB: It seems red.Such a ‘confusion’ and ‘side issue,’ if so
designed, is part of the implicaturum.“and there may also be an indirect
effect, in that the hearers (or addressee) may be misled as a result of
thinking that there is some particular POINT in the provision of the excess of
information.”Cf. Peter Winch on “H. P. Grice’s Conversational Point.”More
boringly, it is part of the utterer’s INTENTION to provide an excess of
information.”This may be counterproductive, or not.“Meet Mr. Puddle”“Meet Mr.
Puddle, our man in nineteenth-century continental philosophy.”The introducer
point: to keep the conversation going.Effect on Grice: Mr. Puddle is hopeless
at nineteenth-century continental philosophy (OR HE IS BEING UNDERDESCRIBED). One
has to think of philosophically relevant examples here, which is all that Grice
cares for. Malcolm says, “Moore knows it; because he’s seen it!” – Malcolm
implicates that Grice will not take Malcolm’s word. So Malcom needs to provide
the excess of information, and add, to his use of ‘know,’ which Malcolm claims
Moore does not know how to use, the ‘reason’ – If knowledge is justified true
belief, Malcolm is conveying explicitly that Moore knows and ONE OF THE
CONDITIONS for it. Cf.I didn’t know you were pregnant.You still do not. (Here
the cancellation is to the third clause). Grice: “However this may be, there is
perhaps a different [second] reason for doubt about the admission of this
second maxim, viz., that its effect will be secured by a later maxim, which
concems relevance.)”He could be a lecturer. His use of ‘later’ entails he knows
in advance what he is going to say. Cf. Foucault:“there is another reason to
doubt. The effect is secured by a maxim concerning relevance.”No “later” about
it!Grice:“Under the category of QUALITY falls a supermaxim” – he forgets to
add, as per obvious, “The category of quality relates to the QUALITY of
information.” In this way, there is some reference to Aristotle’s summumm
genus. PROPOSITIO DEDICATIVA, PROPOSITIO ABDICATIVA, PROPOSITIO INFINITA. Cf.
Apuleius and Boethius on QUALITAS of propositio. Dedicatio takes priority over
abdicatio. So one expects one’s co-conversationalist to say that something IS
the case. Note too, that, if he used “more specific maxims and submaxims,” he
means “more specific supermaxims and maxims” – He is following Porophyry in
being confusing! Cf. supramaxim. Grice “-'Try to make your contribution one
that is true' –“This surely requires generality – and Grice spent the next two
decades about it. He introduced the predicate ‘acceptability.’ “Try to make
your contribution one that is acceptable”“True for your statements; good for
your desiderative-mode utterances.”“and two more specific maxims:”“1. Do not say
what you believe to be false.”There is logic here. It is easy to TRY to make
your contribution one that is true.” And it is easy NOT to say what you believe
to be false. Grice is forbidding Kant to have a maxim on us: “Be truthful!”
“Say the true!” “MAKE – don’t just TRY – to make your contribution one that is
true.”“I was only trying.”Cf. Moses, “Try not to kill” “Thou shalt trye not to
kylle.”Grice:“2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.”This is
involved with truth. In “Truth and other enigmas,” Dummett claims that truth
is, er, an enigma. For some philosophers, all you can guarantee is that you
have evidence. Lacking evidence for what?The qualification, “adequate,” turns the
maxim slightly otiose. Do not say that for you lack evidence which would make
your contribution not a true one.However, Grice is thinking Gettier. And
Gettier allows that one CAN have ADEQUATE EVIDENCE, and p NOT be true.If we are
talking ‘acceptability’ it’s more ‘ground’ or ‘reason’, rather than ‘evidential
justification.’ Grice is especially obsessed with this, in his explorations on
‘intending,’ where ‘acceptance’ is deemed even in the lack of ‘evidential
justification,’ and leaving him wondering what he means by ‘non-evidential
justification.’“Under the category of RELATION I place a single maxim, viz.,
'Be relevant.'”The category comes from Aristotle, ‘pros it.’ And ‘re-‘ in
relation is cognate with ‘re-‘ in ‘relevant.’RELATION refers to ‘refer,’ Roman
‘referre.’ But in Anglo-Norman, you do have ‘relate’ qua verb. To ‘refer’ or
‘re-late,’ is to bring y back to x. As Russell well knows in his fight with
Bradley’s theory of ‘relation,’ a relation involves x and y. A relation is a two-place
predicate. What about X = xIs identity a relation, in the case of x = x?Can a
thing relate to itself?In cases where we introduce two variables. The maxim
states that one brings y back to x.“Mrs. Smith is an old windbag.”“The weather
has been delightful for this time of year, hasn’t it.”If INTENDED to mean, “You
ARE ignorant!,” then the conversationalist IS bring back “totally otiose remark
about the weather” to the previous insulting comment.To utter an utterly
irrelevant second move you have to be Andre Breton.“Though the maxim itself is
terse, its formulation conceals a number of problems that exercise me a good
deal: questions about what different kinds and focuses of relevance there may
be, how these shift in the course of a talk exchange, how to allow for the fact
that subjects of conversation are legitimately changed, and so on. I find the
treatment of such questions exceedingly difficult, and I hope to revert to them
in a later work.”He is having in mind Nowell-Smith, who had ‘be relevant’ as
the most important of the rules of conversational etiquette, or how etiquette
becomes logical. But Nowell-Smith felt overwhelmed by Grice and left for the
north, to settle in the very fashionable Kent. Grice is also having in mind
Urmson’s appositeness (Criteria of intensionality). “Why did you title your
painting “Maga’s Daughter”? She’s your wife!” – and Grice is also having in
mind P. F. Strawson and what Strawson has as the principle of relevance
vis-à-vis the principles of presumption of ignorance and knowledge.So it was in
the Oxonian air.“Finally, under the category of MODE, which I understand as
relating not (like the previous categories) to what is said [THE CONTENT, THE
EXPLICITUM, THE COMMUNICATUM, THE EXPLICATUM] but, rather, to HOW what is said
is to be said,”Grice says that ‘meaning’ is diaphanous. An utterer means that p
reduces to what an utterer means by x. This diaphanousness ‘meaning’ shares
with ‘seeing.’ “To expand on the experience of seeing is just to expand on what
is seen.’He is having the form-content distinction.If that is a distinction. This
multi-layered dialectic displays the true nature of the speculative
form/content distinction: all content is form and all form is content, not in a
uniform way, but through being always more or less relatively indifferent or
posited. The Role of the Form/Content
Distinction in Hegel's Science of ...deontologistics.files.wordpress.com ›
2012/01 › formc... PDF Feedback About Featured Snippets Web results The Form-Content Distinction in Moral
Development Researchwww.karger.com › Article › PDF The form-content distinction
is a potentially useful conceptual device for understanding certain
characteristics of moral development. In the most general sense it ... by CG
Levine - 1979 - Cited by 25 - Related articles The
Form-Content Distinction in Moral Development Research ...www.karger.com ›
Article › Abstract Dec 23, 2009 - The Form-Content Distinction in Moral
Development Research. Levine C.G.. Author affiliations. University of Western
Ontario, London, Ont. by CG Levine - 1979 - Cited by 25 - Related
articles Preschool children's mastery
of the form/content distinction in ...www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pubmed Preschool
children's mastery of the form/content distinction in communicative tasks.
Hedelin L(1), Hjelmquist E. Author information: (1)Department of Psychology,
... by L Hedelin - 1998 - Cited by 10 - Related articles Form and Content: An Introduction to Formal
Logic - Digital ...digitalcommons.conncoll.edu › cgi › viewcontentPDF
terminology has to do with anything. In this context, 'material' means having
to do with content. This is our old friend, the form/content distinction again.
Consider. by DD Turner - 2020
Simmel's Dialectic of Form and Content in Recent Work in
...www.tandfonline.com › doi › full May 1, 2019 - This suggests that for
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duality.11 Ronald L. Breiger, “The Duality of ... Are these distinctions between “form” and
“content” intentionally ...www.reddit.com › askphilosophy › comments ›
are_th... The form/content distinction also doesn't quite fit the distinction
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distinction between form ... Preschool
Children's Mastery of the Form/Content Distinction ...link.springer.com ›
article Preschoolers' mastery of the form/content distinction in language and
communication, along its contingency on the characteristics of p. by L Hedelin
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Verbal Art: A Philosophy of Literature and Literary
Experiencebooks.google.com › books Even if form and content were in fact
inseparable in the sense indicated, that would not make the form/content
distinction unjustified. Form and matter are clearly ... Anders Pettersson -
2001 - Literary Criticism One Century
of Karl Jaspers' General Psychopathologybooks.google.com › books He then
outlines the most important implications of the form–content distinction in a
statement which is identical in the first three editions, with only minor ...
Giovanni Stanghellini, Thomas Fuchs - 2013 - Medical“I include the
supermaxim-'Be perspicuous' –” Or supramaxim. So the “more specific maxims and
submaxims” becomes the clumsier “supermaxims and maxims”Note that in under the
first category it is about making your contribution, etc. Now it is the utterer
himself who has to be ‘perspicuous,’ as it is the utterer who has to be
relevant. It’s not the weaker, “Make your contribution a perspicuous one.” Or
“Make your contribution a relevant one (to the purposes of the exchange).”Knowing
that most confound ‘perspicacity’ with ‘perspicuity,’ he added “sic,” but
forgot to pronounce it, in case it was felt as insulting. He has another ‘sic’
under the prolixity maxim.“and various maxims such as: The “such as” is a
colloquialism.Surely it was added in the ‘lecture’ format. In written, it
becomes viz. The fact that the numbers them makes for ‘such as’ rather disimplicaturable.
“1. Avoid obscurity of expression.”Unless you are Heracleitus. THEY told me,
Heraclitus, they told me you were dead, /They brought me bitter news to hear
and bitter tears to shed./I wept as I remember'd how often you and I/Had tired
the sun with talking and sent him down the sky./And now that thou art lying, my
dear old Carian guest,/A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,/Still
are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;/For Death, he taketh all
away, but them he cannot take. In a way this is entailed by “Be perspicuous,”
if that means ‘be clear,’ in obtuse English.Be clearTherefore, or what is the
same thing. Thou shalt not not be obscure.2. Avoid ambiguity.”Except as a
trope, or ‘figure, (schema, figura). “Aequi-vocate, if that will please your
clever addressee.” Cf. Parker’s zeugma: “My apartment was so small, that I've
barely enough room to lay a hat and a few friends“3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary
prolixity).”Here he added a ‘sic’ that he failed to pronounce in case it may
felt as insulting. But the idea of a self-refuting conversational maxim is
surely Griceian, in a quessertive way. Since this concerns FORM rather than
CONTENT, it is not meant to overlap with ‘informativeness.’So given that p and
q are equally informative, if q is less brief (longer – ars longa, vita
brevis), utter p. This has nothing to do with logical strength. It is just to
be assessed in a SYNTACTICAL way.Vide “Syntactics in Semiotics”“4. Be orderly.”This
involves two moves in the contribution or ‘turn.’ One cannot be ‘disorderly,’
if one just utters ‘p.’ So this involves a molecular proposition. The ‘order’
can be of various types. Indeed, one of Grice’s example is “Jones is between
Smith and Williams” – order of merit or size?‘Between’ is not ambiguous!There
is LOGICAL order, which is prior.But there is a more absolute use of ‘orderly.’
‘keep your room tidy.’orderly (adj.) 1570s, "arranged in order," from
order (n.) + -ly (1). Meaning "observant of rule or discipline, not
unruly" is from 1590s. Related: Orderliness.He does not in the lecture
give a philosophical example, but later will in revisiting the Urmson example
and indeed Strawson, but mainly Urmson, “He went to bed and took off his
boots,” and indeed Ryle, “She felt frail and took arsenic.”“And one might need
others.”Regarding ‘mode,’ that is. “It is obvious that the observance of some
of these maxims is a matter of less urgency than is the observance of others;”Not
as per ‘moral’ demands, since he’ll say these are not MORAL.“a man who has
expressed himself with undue prolixity would, in general, be open to milder
comment than would a man who has said something he believes to be false.”Except
in Oscar Wilde’s circle, where they were obsessed with commenting on
prolixities! Cf. Hare against Kant, “Where is the prisoner?” “He left [while he
is hiding in the attic].”That’s why Grice has the ‘in general.’“Indeed, it
might be felt that the importance of at least the first maxim of Quality is
such that it should not be included in a scheme of the kind I am constructing;”But
since ‘should’ is weak, I will. “other maxims come into operation only on the
assumption that this maxim of Quality is satisfied.”So the keyword is
co-ordination.“While this may be correct, so far as the generation of implicaturums
is concerned it seems to play a role not totally different from the other
maxims, and it will be convenient, for the present at least, to treat it as a
member of the list of maxims.”He is having weighing, and clashing in mind. And
he wants a conversationalist to honour truth over informativeness, which begs
the question that as he puts it, ‘false’ “information” is no information.In the
earlier lectures, tutoring, or as a university lecturer, he was sure that his
tutee will know that he was introducing maxims ONLY WITH THE PURPOSE, NEVER TO
MORALISE, but as GENERATORS of implicatura – in philosophers’s mistakes.But
this manoeuver is only NOW disclosed. Those without a philosophical background
may not realise about this. “There are, of course, all sorts of other maxims
(aesthetic, social, or moral in character), such as 'Be polite', that are also
normally observed by participants in talk exchanges, and these may also generate
nonconventional implicaturums.”He is obviously aware that Émile DurkheimWill Know that
‘conversational’ is subsumed under ‘social,’ if not Williamson (perhaps). – keyword: ‘norm.’ Grice excludes ‘moral’
because while a moral maxim makes a man ‘good,’ a conversational maxim makes a
man a ‘good’ conversationalist. Not because there is a distinction in
principle!“The conversational maxims, however, and the conversational implicaturums
connected with them, are specially connected (I hope) with”He had this way with
idioms.Cf. Einstein,“E =, I hope, mc2.”“the particular purposes that talk (and
so, talk exchange)”He is playing Dutch.The English lost the Anglo-Saxon for
‘talk.’ They have ‘language,’ and the Hun has ‘Sprache.’ But only the Dutch
have ‘taal.’So he is distinguishing between the TOOL and the USE of the TOOL.“is
adapted lo serve and is primlarily employed to serve.”The ‘adapted’ is
mechanistic talk. He mentions ‘evolutionarily’ elsewhere. He means ‘the
particular goal language evolved to serve, viz.’ groom.Grooming, Gossip and the
Evolution of Language is a 1996 book by the anthropologist Robin Dunbar, in
which the author argues that language evolved from social grooming. He further
suggests that a stage of this evolution was the telling of gossip, an argument
supported by the observation that language is adapted for storytelling.
The book has been criticised on the grounds that since words are so cheap,
Dunbar's "vocal grooming" would fall short in amounting to an honest
signal. Further, the book provides no compelling story[citation needed] for how
meaningless vocal grooming sounds might become syntactical speech. Thesis
Dunbar argues that gossip does for group-living humans what manual grooming
does for other primates—it allows individuals to service their relationships
and thus maintain their alliances on the basis of the principle: if you scratch
my back, I'll scratch yours. Dunbar argues that as humans began living in increasingly
larger social groups, the task of manually grooming all one's friends and
acquaintances became so time-consuming as to be unaffordable.[1] In response to
this problem, Dunbar argues that humans invented 'a cheap and ultra-efficient
form of grooming'—vocal grooming. To keep allies happy, one now needs only to
'groom' them with low-cost vocal sounds, servicing multiple allies
simultaneously while keeping both hands free for other tasks. Vocal grooming
then evolved gradually into vocal language—initially in the form of
'gossip'.[1] Dunbar's hypothesis seems to be supported by the fact that the
structure of language shows adaptations to the function of narration in
general.[2] Criticism Critics of Dunbar's theory point out that the very
efficiency of "vocal grooming"—the fact that words are so cheap—would
have undermined its capacity to signal honest commitment of the kind conveyed
by time-consuming and costly manual grooming.[3] A further criticism is that
the theory does nothing to explain the crucial transition from vocal
grooming—the production of pleasing but meaningless sounds—to the cognitive
complexities of syntactical speech.[citation needed] References
Dunbar, R. I. M. (1996). Grooming, gossip and the evolution of language. London:
Faber and Faber. ISBN 9780571173969. OCLC 34546743. von Heiseler, Till
Nikolaus (2014) Language evolved for storytelling in a super-fast evolution.
In: R. L. C. Cartmill, Eds. Evolution of Language. London: World Scientific,
pp. 114-121. https://www.academia.edu/9648129/LANGUAGE_EVOLVED_FOR_STORYTELLING_IN_A_SUPER-FAST_EVOLUTION
Power, C. 1998. Old wives' tales: the gossip hypothesis and the reliability of
cheap signals. In J. R. Hurford, M. Studdert Kennedy and C. Knight (eds),
Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 111 29. Categories: 1996 non-fiction
booksAmerican non-fiction booksBooks by Robin DunbarEnglish-language
booksEvolution of languageHarvard University Press booksPopular science booksGrice:
“I have stated my maxims”the maxims“as if this purpose were a maximally effective
exchange of information;”“MAXIMALLY EFFECTIVE”“this specification is, of
course, too narrow,”But who cares?This is slightly sad in that he is thinking
Strawson and forgetting his (Grice’s) own controversy with G. A. Paul on the
sense-datum, for ‘the pillar box seems red’ and ‘the pillar box is red,’
involving an intensional context, are less amenable to fall under the maxims.“and
the scheme needs to be generalized to allow for such general purposes as
influencing or directing the actions of others.”He has a more obvious way
below:Giving and receving informationInfluencing and being influenced by others.He
never sees the purpose as MAXIMAL INFORMATION, but maximally effective EXCHANGE
of information – does he mean merely ‘transmission.’ It may well be.If I say,
“I rain,” I have ex-changed information.I don’t need anything in return.If so,
it makes sense that he is equating INFORMING With INFLUENCING or better DIRECTION your
addresse’s talk.Note that, for all he loved introspection and conversational
avowals, and self-commands, these do not count.It’s informing your addressee
about some state of affairs, and directing his action. Grice is always clear
that the ULTIMATE GOAL is the utterer’s ACTION.“As one of my avowed aims is to
see talking as a special case or variety of purposive, indeed rational,
behavior, it may be worth noting that the specific expectations or presumptions
connected with at least some of the foregoing maxims have their analogues in
the sphere of transactions that are not talk exchanges.”Transaction is a good
one.TRANS-ACTIO“I list briefly one such analog for each conversational
category.”While he uses ‘conversational category,’ he also applies it to the
second bit: ‘category of conversational quantity,’ ‘category of conversational
quality,’ ‘category of conversational relation,’ and ‘category of
conversational mode.’ But it is THIS application that justifies the
sub-specifications.They are not categories of thought or ontological or
‘expression’.His focus is on the category as conversation.His focus is on the
‘conversational category.’“1. Quantity. If you are assisting me to mend a car,
I expect your contribution to be neither more nor less than is required; if, e.
g., at a particular stage I need fourscrews, I expect you to hand me four,
rather than two or six. He always passed six, since two will drop.“Make your
contribution neither more nor less informative than is required (for the
purposes of the exchange).”This would have covered the maxi and the min.“NEITHER
MORE NOR LESS” is the formula of effectiveness, and economy, and minimization
of expenditure.“2. Quality. I expect your contributions to be genuine and not
spurious.”Here again he gives an expansion of the conversational category,
which is more general than ‘try to make your contribution one that is true,’
and the point about the ‘quality of information,’ which he did not make.Perhaps
because it would have led him to realise that ‘false’ information, i.e.
‘information’ which is not genuine and spurious, is not ‘information.’But “Make
your contribution one that is genuine and not spurious.”Be candid.Does not need
a generalization as it covers both informational and directive utterances.“If I
need sugar as an ingredient in the cake you are assisting me to make, I do not
expect you to hand me salt;”Or you won’t eat the cake.“if I need a spoon, I do
not expect a trick spoon made of rubber.”Spurious and genuine are different.In
the ‘trick spoon,’ the conversationalist is just not being SERIOUS.But surely a
maxim, “Be serious” is too serious. – Seriously!“3. Relation. I expect a
partner's contribution to be appropriate to immediate needs at each stage of
the transaction;”Odd that he would use ‘appropriate,’ which was the topic of
the “Prolegomena,” and what he was supposed to EXPLAIN, not to use in the
explanation.For each of the philosophers making a mistake are giving a judgment
of ‘appropriateness,’ conversational appropriateness. Here it is good that he
relativises the ‘appropriateness’ TO the ‘need’.Grice is not quite sticking to
the etymology of ‘relatio’ and ‘refer,’ bring y back to x. Or he is. Bring y
(your contribution) back to the need x.Odd that he thinks he’ll expand more on
relation, when he did a good bit!“if I am mixing ingredients for a cake, I do
not expect to be handed a good book, or even an oven cloth (though this might
be an appropriate contribution at a later stage).”“I just expect you to be
silent.”“4. Manner. I expect a partner to make it clear what contribution he is
making, and to execute his performance with reasonable dispatch.” For Lewis,
clarity is not enough!The ‘Execute your performance with reasonable dispatch!’
seems quite different from “Be perspicuous.”“Execute your performance with
reasonable dispatch”Is more like“Execute your performance”And not just STAND
there!A: What time is it B just stands there“These analogies are relevant to
what I regard as a fundamental question about the principle of conversational
helpfulness and its attendant conversational maxims,”For Boethius, it is a
PRINCIPLE because it does not need an answer!“viz., what the basis is for the
assumption which we seem to make, and on which (I hope) it will appear that a
great range of implicaturums depend [especially as we keep on EXPLOITING the
rather otiose maxims], that talkers will ingeneral (ceteris paribus and in the
absence of indications to the contrary) proceed in the manner that these
principles prescribe.”Grice really doesn’t care! He is into the EXPLOITING of
the maxim, as in his response to the Scots philosopher G. A. Paul:“Paul, I
surely do not mean to imply that you may end up believing that I have a doubt
about the pillar box being red: it seems red to me, as I have this sense-datum
of ‘redness’ which attaches to me as I am standing in front of the pillar box
in clear daylight.”Grice is EXPLOITING the desideratum, YET STILL SAYING
SOMETHING TRUE, so at least he is not VIOLATING the principle of conversational
helpfulness, or the category of conversational quality, or the desideratum of
conversational candour.And that is what he is concerned with. “A dull but, no doubt at a certain level,
adequate answer is that it is just a well-recognized empirical fact that *people*
(not pirots, although perhaps Oxonians, rather than from Malagasy) DO behave in
these ways;”Elinor Ochs was terrified Grice’s maxims are violated – never
exploited, she thought – in Madagascar.“they, i. e. people, or Oxonians, have
learned to do so in childhood and not lost the habit of doing so; and, indeed,
it would involve a good deal of effort to make a radical departure from the
habit. It is much easier, for example, to tell the truth than to invent lies.”Effort
again; least effort. And ease. Great Griceian guidelines!“I am, however, enough
of a rationalist to want to find a basis that underlies these facts,”OR
EXPLAIN.“undeniable though they may be;”BEIGIN OF A THEORY FOR A THEORY – not
the theory for the generation of implicate, but for the theory of conversation.He
is less interested in this than the other. “I would like to be able to think of
the standard type of conversational practice not merely as something that all
or most do IN FACT follow but as something that it is REASONABLE for us to
follow, that we SHOULD NOT abandon. For a time, I was attracted by the idea
that observance of the principle of conversational helpfulness and the conversational
maxims, in a talk exchange, could be thought of as a quasi-contractual matter,
with parallels outside the realm of discourse. If you pass by when I am
struggling with my stranded car, I no doubt have some degree of expectation
that you will offer help, but once you join me in tinkering under the hood, my
expectations become stronger and take more specific forms (in the absence of indications
that you are merely an incompetent meddler); and talk exchanges seemed to me to
exhibit, characteristically, certain features that jointly distinguish
cooperative transactions:”So how is this not quasi-contractual? He is listing THIS OR THAT FEATURE that
jointly distinguishes a cooperative transaction – all grand great words.But he
wants to say that ‘quasi-contractual’ is NO RATIONAL!He is playing, as a
philosopher, with the very important point of what follows from what.A1.
Conversasation is purposiveA2. Conversation is rationalA3. Conversation is
cooperativeA4. There is such a thing as non-rational cooperation (is there?)So
he is aiming at the fact that the FEATURES that jointly distinguish cooperative
transactions NEED NOT BE PRESENT, and Grice surely does not wish THAT to
demolish his model. If he bases it in general constraints of rationality, the
better.“1. The participants have some common immediate aim, like getting a car
mended; their ultimate aims may, of course, be independent and even in
conflict-each may want to get the car mended in order to drive off, leaving the
other stranded. In characteristic talk exchanges, there is a common aim even
if, as in an over-the-wall chat, it is a second-order one,”Is he being logical?“second-order
predicate calculus”“meta-language”He means higher or supervenientOr
‘operative’“, that each party should, for the time being, identify himself with
the transitory conversational interests of the other.”By identify he means
assume.YOU HAVE TO DESIRE what your partner desires.The intersection between
your desirability and your addressee’s desirability is not NULL.And the way to
do this is conditionalIF: You perceive B has Goal G, you assume Goal G. “2. The
contributions of the participants .should be dovetailed, mutually dependent. Unless
it’s one of those seminars by Grice and J. F. Thomson!“3. There is some sort of
understanding (which may be explicit but which is often tacit)”i.e. implicated
rather than explicated – part of the implicaturum, or implicitum, rather than
the explicatum or explicitum.“that, other things being equal, the transaction
should continue in appropriate style unless both parties are agreeable that it
should terminate. You do not just shove off or start doing something else.”This
is especially tricky over the phone (“He never ends!” Or in psychiatric
interviews!)Note that ‘starting doing something else’ may work. E. g. watch
your watch!“But while some such quasi-contractual basis as this may apply to
some cases, there are too many types of exchange, like quarreling and letter
writing, that it fails to fit comfortably.”TWO OPPOSITE EXAMPLES.Fighting is
arguing is competition, adversarial, epagogue, not conversation,
cooperation, friendly, collaborative
venture, and diagoge.Letter writing is usually otiose – “what, with the
tellyphone!” And letter writing is no conversation.“In any case, one feels that
the talker who is irrelevant or obscure has primarily let down not his audience
but himself.”And the talker who is mendacious has primarily let Kant down!”“So
I would like t< be able to show that observance of the principle of
conversational helfpulness and maxims is reasonal de (rational) along the
following lines”That any Aristkantian rationalist would agree to.“: that any
one who cares about the goals that are central to conversation/communication
(e.g., giving and receiving information, influencing and being influenced by
others) must be expected to have an interest, given suitable circumstances, in
participation in talk exchanges that will be profitable only on the assumption
that they are conducted in general accordance with the principle of
conversational helpfulness and the maxims.”Where the keyword is: profit,
effort, least effort, no energy, no undue effort, no unnecessary trouble. That
conversation is reasonable unless it is unreasonable. That a conversational
exchange should be rational unless it shows features of irrationality.“Whether
any such conclusion can be reached, I am uncertain;”It’s not clear what the
premises are!Plus, he means DEDUCTIVELY reached? Transcendentally reached?
Empirically reached? Philosophically reached? Conclusively reached? Etc.It
seems the conclusion need not be reached, because we never departed from the
state of the affairs that the conclusion describes.“in any case, I am fairly
sure that I cannot reach it until I am a good deal clearer about the nature of
relevance and of the circumstances in which it is required.”For perhaps “I
don’t want to imply any doubt, but that pillar box seems red.”IS irrelevant,
yet true!“It is now time to show the connection between the principle of
conversational helfpulness and the conversational maxims, on the one hand, and
conversational implicaturum on the other.”This is clearer in the seminars. The
whole thing was a preamble “A participant in a talk exchange may fail to
fulfill a maxim in various ways, which include the following: 1. He may quietly
and unostentatiously VIOLATE (or fail to observe) a maxim; if so, in some cases
he will be liable to mislead.”And be blamed by Kant.Mislead should not worry
Grice, cf. “Misleading, but true.”The violate (or fail to observe) shows that
(1) covers two specifications. Tom may be unaware that there was such a maxim
as to ‘be brief, avoid unnecessary prolixity, unless you need to eschew obfuscation!”This
is Grice’s anti-Ryleism. He doesn’t want to say that there is KNOWLEDGE of the
maxims. For one may know what the maxims are and fail to observe them “2. He
may OPT OUT from the operation both of the maxim and of the principle of
conversational helpfulness; he may say, indicate, or allow it to become plain
that he is unwilling to cooperate in the way the maxim requires. He may say, e.
g., I cannot say more; my lips are sealed.” Where is the criminal?I cannot say
more; my lips are sealed.I shall unseal them. What do you mean ‘cannot.’ You
don’t mean ‘may not,’ do you?I think Grice means ‘may not.’Is the universe
finite? Einstein: I cannot say more; my lips are sealed. “3. He may be faced by
a CLASH of maxims [That’s why he needs more than one – or at least two
specifications of the same maxim]: He may be unable, e. g., to fulfill the
first maxim of Quantity (Be as informative as is required) without violating
the second maxim of Quality (Have adequate evidence for what you say).” Odd
that he doesn’t think this generates implicaturum: He has obviously studied the
sub-perceptualities here.For usually, a phenomenalist, like Sextus, thinks that
by utteringThe pillar box seems red to me – that is all I have adequate
evidence forHe is conveying that he is unable to answer the question (“What
colour is the pillar box?”) And being as ‘informative’ as is requiredWithout
saying something for which it is not the case that he has or will ever have
adequate evidence.Cf.Student at Koenigsberg to Kant: What’s the noumenon?Kant:
My lips are sealed.It may require some research to list ALL CLASHES.Because
each clash shows some EVALUATION qua reasoning, and it may be all VERY CETERIS
PARIBUS.Cf.Where is the criminal?My lips are sealed.The utterer has NOT opted
out. He has answered, via implicaturum, that he is not telling. He is being
relevant. He is not telling because he doesn’t want to DISCLOSE the whereabouts
of the alleged criminal, etc. For Kant, this is not a conversation! Odd that
Grice is ‘echoing Kant,’ where Kant would hardly allow a clash with ‘Be
truthful!’“4. He may FLOUT a maxim; that is, he may BLATANTLY fail to fulfill (or
observe) it.Mock? Taunt?The magic flute. Grice’s magic flute.flout (v.)
"treat with disdain or contempt" (transitive), 1550s, intransitive
sense "mock, jeer, scoff" is from 1570s; of uncertain origin; perhaps
a special use of Middle English “flowten,”"to play the flute"
(compare Middle Dutch “fluyten,” "to play the flute," also "to
jeer"). Related: Flouted; flouting.Grice: “One thing we do not know is if
the flute came to England via Holland.”“Or he may, as we may say, ‘play the
flute’ with a maxim, expecting others to be agreeable.”“Or he may, as we might
say, ‘play the flute’ with the conversational maxim, expecting others to join with
some other musical instrument – or something – occasionally the same.”“On the
assumption that the speaker is able to fulfill the maxim and to do so without
violating another maxim (because oi a clash), is not opting out, and is not, in
view of the blatancy of his performance, trying to mislead,”This is interesting.
It’s the TRYING to mislead.Grice and G. A. Paul:Grice cannot be claimed to have
TRIED to mislead, and thus deemed to have misled G. A. Paul, even if he had,
when he said, “I hardly think there is any doubt about it, but that pillar box
seems red to me.”“the hearer is faced with a minor problem:”Implicaturum: This
reasoning is all abductive – to the ‘best’ explanation“How can his saying what
he did say be reconciled with the supposition that he is observing the overall
principle of conversational helfpulness?”This was one of Grice’s conversations
with G. A. Paul:Paul (to Grice): This is what I do not understand, Grice. How
can your saying what you did say be reconciled with the supposition that you
are not going to mislead me?”Unfortunately, on that Saturday, Paul went to the
Irish Sea. Grice “This situation is one that characteristically”There are
others – vide clash, above – but not marked by Grice as one such situation – “gives
rise to a conversational implicaturum; and when a conversational implicaturum
is generated”Chomskyan jargon borrowed from Austin (“I don’t see why Austin
admired Chomsky so!”)“in this way, I shall say that a maxim is being
EXPLOITED.”Why not ‘flouted’? Some liked the idea of playing the flute.EXPLOIT
is figurative.Grice exploits a Griceian maxim.exploit
(v.) c. 1400, espleiten, esploiten "to accomplish, achieve, fulfill,"
from Old French esploitier, espleiter "carry out, perform,
accomplish," from esploit (see exploit (n.)). The sense of "use
selfishly" first recorded 1838, from a sense development in French perhaps
from use of the word with reference to mines, etc. (compare exploitation).
Related: Exploited; exploiting.exploit (n.) late 14c., "outcome of an
action," from Old French esploit "a carrying out; achievement,
result; gain, advantage" (12c., Modern French exploit), a very common
word, used in senses of "action, deed, profit, achievement," from
Latin explicitum "a thing settled, ended, or displayed," noun use of
neuter of explicitus, past participle of explicare "unfold, unroll,
disentangle," from ex "out" (see ex-) + plicare "to
fold" (from PIE root *plek- "to plait"). Meaning
"feat, achievement" is c. 1400. Sense evolution is from
"unfolding" to "bringing out" to "having
advantage" to "achievement." Related:
Exploits. exploitative (adj.) "serving for or used in
exploitation," 1882, from French exploitatif, from exploit (see exploit
(n.)). Alternative exploitive (by 1859) appears to be a native formation from
exploit + -ive.exploitation (n.) 1803, "productive working" of
something, a positive word among those who used it first, though regarded as a
Gallicism, from French exploitation, noun of action from exploiter (see exploit
(v.)). Bad sense developed 1830s-50s, in part from influence of French
socialist writings (especially Saint Simon), also perhaps influenced by use of
the word in U.S. anti-slavery writing; and exploitation was hurled in insult at
activities it once had crowned as praise. It follows from this science
[conceived by Saint Simon] that the tendency of the human race is from a state
of antagonism to that of an universal peaceful association -- from the
dominating influence of the military spirit to that of the industriel one; from
what they call l'exploitation de l'homme par l'homme to the exploitation of the
globe by industry. ["Quarterly Review," April & July 1831] Grice: “I am now
in a position to characterize the notion of conversational implicaturum.”Not to
provide a reductive analysis. The concept is too dear for me to torture it with
one of my metaphysical routines.”“A man who, by (in, when) saying (or making as
if to say) that p”That seems good for the analysandumGrice loves the “by (in,
when)” “(or making as if to). Note the oratio obliqua.Or ‘that’-clause. So this
is not ‘uttering’As in the analysans of ‘meaning that.’“By uttering ‘x’ U means
that p.’The “by” already involves a clause with a ‘that’-clause.So this is not
a report of a physical event.It is a report embued already with intentionality.The
utterer is not just ‘uttering’The utterer is EXPLICITLY conveying that p.We
cannot say MEANING that p.Because Grice uses “mean” as opposed to “explicitly
convey”His borderline scenarios are such,“Keep me company, dear”“If we are to
say that when he uttererd that he means that his wife was to keep him company
or not is all that will count for me to change my definition of ‘mean’ or
not.”Also irony.But here it is more complicated. A man utters, “Grice defeated
Strawson”If he means it ironically, to mean that Strawson defeated Grice, it is
not the case that the utterer MEANT the opposite. He explicitly conveyed that.Grice
considers the Kantian ‘cause and effect,’“If I am dead, I shall have no time
for reading.”He is careful here that the utterer does not explicitly conveys
that he will have no time for reading – because it’s conditioned on he being
dead.“has implicated that q,” “may be said to have conversationally implicated
that q,”So this is a specification alla arbor porphyrana of ‘By explicitly conveying
that p, U implicitly conveys that q.’Where he is adding the second-order
adverb, ‘conversationally.’By explicitly conveying that p, U has implicitly
conveyed that q in a CONVERSATIONAL FASHION” iff or if“PROVIDED THAT”“(1) he is
to be presumed to be observing the conversational maxims, or at least the principle
of conversational helfpulness;”Especially AT LEAST, because he just said that
an implicaturum is ‘generated’ (Chomskyan jargon) when AT LEAST A MAXIM IS played the flute.“(2) the
supposition that he is aware that, or thinks that, q is required in order to
make his saying or making as if to say p (or doing so in THOSE terms)
consistent with this presumption;”THIS IS THE CRUCIAL CLAUSE – and the one that
not only requires ONE’S RATIONALITY, but the expectation that one’s addressee,
BEING RATIONAL, will expect the utterer to BE RATIONAL.This is the
‘rationalisation’ he refers to in “Retrospective Epilogue.”Note that ‘q’ is
obviously now the content of a state in the utterer’s soul – a desideratum or a
creditum --, at least a CREDITUM, in view of Grice’s view of everything at
least exhibitive and perhaps protreptic --“and (3) the speaker thinks (and
would expect the hearer to think that the speaker thinks) that it is within the
competence of the hearer to work out, or grasp intuitively, that the supposition
mentioned in (2) IS required.”All that jargon about mutuality is a result of
Strawson tutoring Schiffer!“Apply this to my initial example, to B's remark that
C has not yet been to prison.”What made Grice think of such a convoluted
example?He was laughing at Searle for providing non-philosophical examples, and
there he is!“In a suitable setting A might reason as follows:”“(1) B has
APPARENTLY violated – indeed he has played the flute with -- the maxim 'Be
relevant' and so may be regarded as [ALSO] having flouted one of the maxims
conjoining perspicuity,”In previous versions, under the desideratum of
conversational clarity Grice had it that the desideratum included the
expectation of this ‘relatedness’ AND that of ‘perspicuity’ (sic). In the
above, Grice is stating that if you are irrelevant (or provide an unrelated
contribution) you are not being perspicuous.But “He hasn’t been to prison” is
perspicuous enough.And so is the link to the question --.Plus, wasn’t
perspicuity only to apply to the ‘mode,’ to the ‘form,’ rather than the
content.Here it is surely the CONTENT – that it is not the case that C is a
criminal – that triggers it all.So, since there is a “not,” here this is
parallel to the example examined by Strawson in the footnote to “Logical
Theory.”The utterer is saying that it is not the case that C has been in prison
yet.The ‘yet’ makes all the difference, even if a Fregeian colouring
‘convention’!“It is not the case that C has been in prison” Is, admittedly, not
very perspicuous.“So what, neither has the utterer nor the addressee.”So there
is an equivocation here as to the utterance perhaps not being perspicuous,
while the utterer IS perspicuous.“yet I have no reason to suppose that he is
opting out from the operation of the CP;”Or playing the flute with my beloved
principle of conversational helpfulness.“(2) given the circumstances, I can
regard his irrelevance as only apparent – as when we say that a plastic flower
is not a flower, or to use Austin’s example, “That decoy duck is surely not a
duck! That trick rubber spoon is no spoon! -- if, and only if, I suppose him to
think that C is potentially dishonest;”As many are!The potentially is the
trick.Recall Aristotle: “Will I say that I am potentially dishonest?! Not me!
PLATO was! Theophrastus WILL! Or is it ‘shall’?”“(3) B knows that I am capable
of working out step (2). So B implicates that C is potentially dishonest.'”Unless
he goes on like I go with G. A. Paul, “I do not mean of course to mean that I
mean that he is potentially dishonest, because although he is, he shouldn’t, or
rather, I don’t think you are expecting me to convey explicitly that he shouln’t
or should for that matter.”“The presence of a conversational implicaturum must
be capable of being worked out; for even if it can in fact be intuitively
grasped, unless the intuition is replaceable by an argument, the implicaturum
(if present at all) will not count as a CONVERSATIONAL implicaturum.”This is
the Humpty Dumpty in Grice.Cf. Provide the sixteen derivational steps in Jane
Austen’s Novel remark, “I sense and sensibilia” – This is what happens
sometimes when people who are not philosophers engage with Grice!For a
philosopher, it is clear Grice is not being serious there. He is mocking an
‘ideal’-language philosopher (as Waissmann called them). Let’s revise the
word:By “counting” he means “DEEM.” He has said that “She is poor, but she is
honest,” is NOT CALCULABLE. So if an argument is not produced, this may not be
a matter of argument.Philosophers are OBSESSED, and this is Grice’s trick, with
ARGUMENT. Recall Grice on Hardie, “Unlike my father, who was rather blunt,
Hardie taught me to ARGUE for this or that reason.”His mention of “INTUITION”
is not perspicuous. He told J. M. Rountree that meaning is a matter of
INTUITION, not a theoretical concept within a theory.So it’s not like Grice
does not trust the intuition. So the point is TERMINOLOGICAL and
methodological. Terminological, in that this is a specfification of
‘conversationally,’ rather than for cases like “How rude!” (he just flouted the
maxim ‘be polite!’ but ‘be polite’ is not a CONVERSATIONAL maxim. Is Grice
implicating that nonconversational nonconventional implicate are not
calculable? We don’t think so.But he might.I think he will. Because in the case
of ‘aesthetic maxim,’ ‘moral maxim,’ and ‘social maxim’ – such as “be polite,”
– the calculation may involve such degree of gradation that you better not get
Grice started!“it will be a CONVENTIONAL implicaturum.”OK – So perhaps he does
allow that non-conventional non-conversational implicate ARE calculable.But he
may add:“Unless the intuition is replaceable by an argument, it will not be a
conversational implicaturum; it will be a conventional implicaturum.”Strawson:
“And what nonconventional nonconversational implicate?Grice: You are right,
Strawon. Let me modify and refine the point: “It will be a dull, boring,
undetachable, conventional implicaturum – OR any of those dull implicate that
follow from (or result – I won’t use ‘generate’) one of those maxims that I
have explicitly said they were NOT conversational maxims.“For surely, there is
something very ‘contradictory-sounding’ to me saying that the implicaturum is
involved with the flouting of a maxim which is NOT a conversational maxim, and
yet that the maxim is a CONVERSATIONAL implicaturum.”“Therefore, I restrict
calculability to CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURUM, because it involves the
conversational maxims that contributors are expected to be reciprocal; whereas
you’ll agree that Queen Victoria does not need to be abide with ‘be polite,’ as
she frequently did not – “We are not amused, you fools! Only Gilbert and
Sullivan amuse me!””“To work out that a particular CONVERSATIONAL [never mind
nonconversational nonconventional] implicaturum is present, the hearer will
reply on the following data:”As opposed to ‘sense-datum.’Perhaps assumption,
alla Gettier, is better:“ (1) the conventional meaning of the words used,
together with the identity of any references that may be involved;”WoW Quite a
Bit. This is the reason why Grice entitled WoW his first book.In he hasn’t been
to ‘prison’ we are not using ‘prison’ as Witters does (“My language is my
prison”).Strawson: But is that the CONVENTIONAL meaning? Even for King Alfred?He hasn't been to prisonprison (n.) early 12c., from Old
French prisoun "captivity, imprisonment; prison; prisoner, captive"
(11c., Modern French prison), altered (by influence of pris "taken;"
see prize (n.2)) from earlier preson, from Vulgar Latin *presionem, from Latin
prensionem (nominative prensio), shortening of prehensionem (nominative
*prehensio) "a taking," noun of action from past participle stem of
prehendere "to take" (from prae- "before," see pre-, +
-hendere, from PIE root *ghend- "to seize, take"). "Captivity,"
hence by extension "a place for captives," the MAIN modern sense.”
(There are 34 other unmain ones). He hasn't been to a place for captives
yet.You mean he is one.Cf. He hasn't been to asylum.You mean Foucault?(2) the principle
of conversational helpfulness and this and that conversational maxim;”This is
more crucial seeing that the utterer may utter something which has no
conventional meaning?Cf. Austin, “Don’t ask for the meaning of a word! Less so
for the ‘conventional’ one!”What Grice needs is ‘the letter,’ so he can have
the ‘spirit’ as the implicaturum. Or he needs the lines, so he can have the implicaturum
as a reading ‘between the lines.’If the utterance is a gesture, like showing a
bandaged leg, or a Neapolitan rude gesture, it is difficult to distinguish or
to identify what is EXPLICITLY conveyed.By showing his bandaged leg, U
EXPLICITLY conveys that he has a bandaged leg. And IMPLICITLY conveys that he
cannot really play cricket.The requirement of ‘denotatum’ is even tricker,
“Swans are beautiful.” Denotata? Quantificational? Substitutional?In any case,
Grice is not being circular in requiring that the addressee should use as an
assumption or datum that U thinks that the expression E is generally uttered by
utterers when they m-intend that p.But there are tricks here.“(3) the context,
linguistic or otherwise, of the utterance;”Cf. Grice, “Is there a general
context for a general theory of context?”“(4) other items of background
knowledge;”So you don’t get:How is C getting on at the bank? My lips are sealed
Why do you care Mind your own business. Note that “he hasn’t been to prison
yet” (meaning the tautologous ‘he is potentially dishonest’) is the sort of
tricky answer to a tricky question! In asking, the asker KNOWS that he’ll get
that sort of reply knowing the utterer as he does. “and (5) the fact (or
supposed fact) that all relevant items falling under the previous headings are
available to both participants and both participants know or assume this to be
the case.”This is Schiffer reported by Strawson.“A general pattern for the
working out of a conversational implicaturum might be given as follows:”Again
the abductive argument that any tutee worth of Hardie might expect 'He has said
that p;”Ie explicitly conveys that p.Note the essential oratio obliqua, or
that-clause.“there is no reason to suppose. that he is not observing the
maxims, or at least the principle of conversational helpfulness”That is, he is
not a prisoner of war, or anything.“He could not be doing this unless he
thought that q;”Or rather, even if more tautologically still, he could not be
doing so REASONABLY, as Austin would forbid, unless…’ For if the utterer is
IRRATIONAL (or always playing the flute) surely he CAN do it!“he knows (and
knows that I know that he knows) that I can see that the supposition that he
thinks that q IS required;”Assumed MUTUAL RATIONALITY, which Grice fails to
have added as assumption or datum. Cf. paraconsistent logics – “he is using
‘and’ and ‘or’ in a ‘deviant’ logical way, to echo Quine,” – He is an intuitionist,
his name is Dummett.“he has done nothing to stop me thinking that q; he intends
me to think, or is at least willing to allow me to think, that q; and so he has
implicated that q.'”The ‘or’ is delightful, for m-intention requires
‘intention,’ but the intention figures in previous positions, so ‘willingess to
allow the addressee to think’ does PERFECTLY FINE! Especially at Oxford where
we are ever so subtle!
Conversational compassion --
conversational empathy – sympathy – empathy – compassion
-- principle of conversational empathy -- Principle of Conversational Empathy – a
term devised by Grice for the expectation a conversationalist has that his
co-partner will honour his conversational goal, however transitory. imaginative
projection into another person’s situation, especially for vicarious capture of
its emotional and motivational qualities. The term is an English rendering by
the Anglo psychologist E. G. Titchener, 1867 7 of the G. Einfühlung, made
popular by Theodore Lipps 18514, which also covered imaginative identification
with inanimate objects of aesthetic contemplation. Under ‘sympathy’, many
aspects were earlier discussed by Hume, Adam Smith, and other Scottish
philosophers. Empathy has been considered a precondition of ethical thinking
and a major contributor to social bonding and altruism, mental state
attribution, language use, and translation. The relevant spectrum of phenomena
includes automatic and often subliminal motor mimicry of the expressions or
manifestations of another’s real or feigned emotion, pain, or pleasure;
emotional contagion, by which one “catches” another’s apparent emotion, often
unconsciously and without reference to its cause or “object”; conscious and
unconscious mimicry of direction of gaze, with consequent transfer of attention
from the other’s response to its cause; and conscious or unconscious
role-taking, which reconstructs in imagination with or without imagery aspects
of the other’s situation as the other “perceives” it.
conversational
maxim of ambiguity avoidance, the: Grice thought that there should be a way
to characterise each maxim other than by its formulation. “It’s a good exercise
to grasp the concept behind the maxim.” Quality relates to Strength or
Fortitutde, the first to “at least,” the
second to “at most.” For Quality, he has a supra-maxim, “of trust” – the two
maxims are “maxim of candour” and “maxim of evidence”. Under relation, “maxim
of relevance.” Under manner, suprapaxim “maxim of perspicuity” and four maxims,
the first is exactly the same as the supramaxim, “maxim of percpicuity” now
becomes “maxim of obscurity avoidance” – or “maxim of clarity” – obscure and
clear are exact opposites – perspicuous [sic] is more of a trick. The second
maxin under mode is this one of ambiguity avoidance – perhaps there should be a
positive way to express this: be univocal. Do not be equivocal. Do not
equivocate, univocate! The next two, plus the extra one that makes this a
catalogue – the next is ‘maxim of brevity’ or “conversational maxim of unnecessary
prolixity avoidance,” here we see the ‘sic’: “Grice’s maxim of conversational
brevity, or of avoidance of conversationally unnecessary prolixity.” The next
is “maxim of order” – and the one that makes this a decalogue: “maxim of
conversational tailoring” --. a phonological or orthographic form having
multiple meanings senses, characters, semantic representations assigned by the
language system. A lexical ambiguity occurs when a lexical item word is
assigned multiple meanings by the language. It includes a homonymy, i.e.,
distinct lexical items having the same sound or form but different senses ‘knight’/’night’, ‘lead’ n./‘lead’ v., ‘bear’
n./‘bear’ v.; and b polysemy, i.e., a single lexical item having multiple senses ‘lamb’ the animal/‘lamb’ the flesh, ‘window’
glass/‘window’ opening. The distinction between homonymy and polysemy is
problematic. A structural ambiguity occurs when a phrase or sentence is
correlated by the grammar of the language with distinct constituent structures
phrase markers or sequences of phrase markers. Example: ‘Competent women and
men should apply’ ‘[NP[NPCompetent
women] and men] . . .’ vs. ‘[NPCompetent[NPwomen and men]] . . .’, where ‘NP’
stands for ‘noun phrase’. A scope ambiguity is a structural ambiguity deriving
from alternative interpretations of scopes of operators see below. Examples:
‘Walt will diet and exercise only if his doctor approves’ sentence operator scope: doctor’s approval is
a necessary condition for both diet and exercise wide scope ‘only if’ vs.
approval necessary for exercise but not for dieting wide scope ‘and’; ‘Bertie
has a theory about every occurrence’
quantifier scope: one grand theory explaining all occurrences ‘a theory’
having wide scope over ‘every occurrence’ vs. all occurrences explained by several
theories together ‘every occurrence’ having wide scope. The scope of an
operator is the shortest full subformula to which the operator is attached.
Thus, in `A & B C’, the scope of ‘&’ is ‘A & B’. For natural
languages, the scope of an operator is what it C-commands. X C-commands Y in a
tree diagram provided the first branching node that dominates X also dominates
Y. An occurrence of an operator has wide scope relative to that of another
operator provided the scope of the former properly includes scope of the
latter. Examples: in ‘~A & B’, ’-’ has wide scope over ‘&’; in ‘Dx Ey
Fxy’, the existential quantifier has wide scope over the universal quantifier.
A pragmatic ambiguity is duality of use resting on pragmatic principles such as
those which underlie reference and conversational implicaturum; e.g., depending
on contextual variables, ‘I don’t know that he’s right’ can express doubt or
merely the denial of genuine knowledge.
maxim of conversational maximin
informativeness: a maxim combining the maximum and the minimum.
maxim of maximal conversational
informativeness: a maxim only dealing with the ‘maximum,’ not the ‘minimum,’
which is a problem for Grice. “Why regulate volunteerness?”
maxim of minimal conversational
informativeness: maxim dealing with the minimum, not the maximum.
maxim of conversational trust: Grice
preferred ‘trust’ to ‘truth.’ Grice: “One of the few useful items in the
English philosophical vocabulary: a word that encompasses the volitional and
the non-volitional. Of course, the same could be said of ‘verum,’ cognate with
German ‘wahr.’
maxim of conversational veracity: Grice:
“When I’m feeling Latinate, you’ll hear me refer to this as the maxim of
conversational veracity – The Romans distinguished the verax and the mendax. I don’t.”
maxim of conversational evidential
adequacy: Grice: “We need a maxim to ensure adequate evidence – this would be
otiose in the volitional – but then we can always generalise the ‘evidence’ to
‘ground,’ or reason, which is what my American tutee, R. J. Fogelin, did.
maxim of conversational relevance: Grice:
“Personally, I prefer ‘relation,’ but Strawson doesn’t. But then Strawson
thinks this is ‘unimportant.’ Not to me, ‘relevant,’ like ‘important,’ are the
most unrelevant and unimportant pieces, especially as abused by an Oxford
philosopher who should know better!”
maxim of conversational perspicuity:
Grice: “D. H. Lewis made me ‘hate’ clarity – “clarity is not enough – plus,
it’s metaphorical? How can I render clear what is essentially obscure? In fact,
I would go on to say that the task of the philosopher is to dramatise the
mundane, to render obscure what seems clear. Perspicuity is unclear enough and
will do fine.”
maxim of conversational clarity, or maxim
of conversational obscurity avoidance: Grice: “It might be said that ‘be
perspicuous’ YIELDS ‘avoid obscurity,’ alla ‘be clear, don’t be obscure.’ But I
prefer to be repetitive, if not AS repetitive as the Jewish God – the Jews have
more than ten commandments!”
maxim of conversational ambiguity
avoidance, maxim of conversational equivocation avoidance, maxim of
conversational univocity: Grice: “This is a teaser, as how ‘ambiguous’ can
‘ambiguous’ be? And why should I dumb down my wit to help my addressee? Dorothy
Parker never did!”
maxim of conversational brevity – or maxim of conversationally unnecessary prolixity avoidance – Grice: “I would call it maxim of redundancy.” “Or maxim of redundancy avoidance,” or maxim of conversational entropy.” A: Did you watch the programme? – Grice: A friend suggested this to me. B: No, I was in a blacked-out city. Versus “No, I was in New York, which was blacked-out. Grice: "In response to my exploration on conversation, I was given an example by a fellow playgroup member which seems to me, as far as it goes, to provide a welcome kind of support for the picture I am putting forward in that it appears to exhibit a kind of interaction between the members of my list of conversational maxims to which I had not really paid due attention — perhaps for the matter not really concerning directly philosophical methodology.” Suppose that it is generally known that Oxford and London were blacked out the day prior. The following conversation takes place: A: Did Smith see the show on the bobby box last night? Grice: “It will be CONVERSATIONALLY unobjectionable for B, who knows that Smith was in London, to reply, B: No, he was in a blacked-out city. "B could have said that Smith was in *London*, thereby providing a further piece of information.” “However, I should like to be able to argue that, in preferring the conversational move featuring the indefinite descriptor, ‘a blacked-out city' B implicates (or communicates the implicaturum) (by the maxims prescribing relation and redundancy avoidance) a more appropriate piece of information, viz., why_ Smith was prevented from seeing the ‘show’ on the bobby box.” "B could have provided BOTH pieces of information, in an over-prolixic version of the above: ‘Smith was in London , which, as every schoolboy knows, was blacked-out yesterday.” — thereby insulting A. But THE ***GAIN****, as Bentham would put it, would have been **INSUFFICIENT** to **JUSTIFY** the additional conversational **COST**.” “Or so I think.” Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Bobby-box implicatura.”
maxim of conversational order: Grice:
“Order is vague: first is the generalised, then the particularized.” By “the
very particularized,” Grice means ‘temporal ordered sequence.” E. g. “Were I to
say, Lady Ogilvy fainted and took arsenic, Strawson would get a different
feeling if I were to utter instead, ‘Lady Ogilvy took arsenic and fainted.’”
maxim of conversational tailoring: ‘The
king of France is not bald – France is a monarchy.”
conversational
point:
Grice distinguishes between ‘point’ and ‘conversational point.’ “What’s the good
of being quoted by another philosopher on the point of ‘point.’?” But that is
what Winch does. So, as a revenge, Grice elaborated on the point. 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
“conversational postulate” – an otiosity
deviced by Lakoff and Gordon (or Gordon and Lakoff) after Carnap’s infamous
meaning postulate, a sentence that specifies part or all of the meaning of a
predicate. Meaning postulates would thus include explicit, contextual, and
recursive definitions, reduction sentences for dispositional predicates, and,
more generally, any sentences stating how the extensions of predicates are
interrelated by virtue of the meanings of those predicates. For example, any
reduction sentence of the form (x) (x has f / (x is malleable S x has y)) could
be a meaning postulate for the predicate ‘is malleable’. The notion of a
meaning postulate was introduced by Carnap, whose original interest stemmed
from a desire to explicate sentences that are analytic (“true by virtue of
meaning”) but not logically true. Where G is a set of such postulates, one
could say that A is analytic with respect to G if and only if A is a logical
consequence of G. On this account, e.g., the sentence ‘Jake is not a married
bachelor’ is analytic with respect to {’All bachelors are unmarried’}.
conversational reason, or ‘dialogical reason.’ With ‘reason,’ Grice is following
Ariskant. There’s the ‘ratio’ and there’s the “Vernunft.” “To converse” can
mean to have sex (cf. know) so one has to be careful. Grice is using
‘conversational’ casually. First, he was aware of the different qualifications
for ‘implication’. There is Nowell-Smith’s contextual implication and C. K.
Grant’s ‘pragmatic implication.’ So he chose ‘conversational implication’
himself. Later, when narrowing down the notion, he distinguished between
‘conversational implication’ and ‘non-conversational implication’: “Thank you.
B: You’re welcome.” If B is following the maxim, ‘be polite,’ the implication
that he is pleased he was able to assist his emissor is IMPLICATED but not
conversationally so. It is not a ‘conversational implication.’ Grice needs to
restrict the notion for philosophical purposes. Both for the framework of his
theory (it is easier to justify transcendentally conversational implication
than it is non-conversational implication). Note that ‘I am pleased I was able
to assist’ is CANCELLABLE or defeatible, so that’s not the issue. In any case,
both ‘conversational impication’ and these type of calculable
‘non-conversational’ implication still yielding from some ‘maxim’ (such as ‘be
polite’) Grice covers under the generic “non-conventional” precisely because
they can be defeated. When it comes to NON-DEFEASIBLE implicatura, Grice uses
‘conventional implication’ (as in “She was poor but she was honest.”). Grice
did not find these fun. And it shows. Strawson stuck with them, but his
philosophising about them ain’t precisely ‘fun.’ Used in Retrospective, p. 369.
Also: conversational rationality. Surely, “principle of conversational
rationality” sounds otiose. Expectation of mutual rationality sounds better.
Critique of conversational reason sounds best! Grice is careful here. When he
provides a reductive analysis of ‘reasoning,’ this goes as follows: the
reasoner reasons from premise to conclusion. That’s the analysandum. What’s the
analysans? At least it involves TWO clauses: If the reasoner reasons from
premise to conclusion, it is assumed that he BELIEVES that the premise obtains;
and he believes that the conclusion obtains. This has to be generalised to
cover the desiderative, using ‘accept.’ He accepts that the premise obtains,
and he accepts that the conclusion obtains. But there is obviously a SECOND
condition: that the conclusion follows from the premise! He uses ‘demonstrably’
for that, or the demonstratum.’ He is open as to what kind of yielding is
involved because he wants to allow for inductive reasoning and abductive
reasoning, not just deductive reasoning. AND THERE IS A TYPICALLY GRICEIAN
third condition, involving CAUSATION. He had used ‘cause’ in reductive analyses
before – if not so much in ‘meaning,’ due to Urmson’s counterexample involving
‘bribery,’ where ‘cause’ does not seem to do – but in his analysis of
‘intending’ for the British Academy. So at Oxford he promotes this THIRD causal
condition as involving that, naturally enough, it is the rasoner’s BELIEF that
demonstrably q follows from p, which CAUSES the reasoner TO BELIEVE (or more
generally, accept) that the conclusion obtains. Grice is happy with that belief
in the validity of the demonstration ‘populates’ the world of alethic beliefs,
and does not concern with generalising that into a generic ‘acceptance.’ The word
‘rationalist’ is anathema at Oxford, because tutor after tutor has brainwashed
their tutees that the distinction is ‘empiricst-rationalist’ and that at Oxford
we are ‘empiricists.’ So Grice is really being ‘heretic’ here in the words of
G. P. Baker. demonstratum: The Eng. word
“reason” and the Fr. word “raison” are
both formed on the basis of Roman “reor,” to count or calculate, whence think,
believe. The Roman verb translates the Grecian “λέγειν,” two of whose principal
meanings it retains, but only two: count and think. The third principal meaning
of the Grecian term, speak, discourse, which designates a third type of putting
into relation and proportion, is rendered by other Roman series: “dicere”
(originally cognate with ‘deixis,’ and so not necessarily ‘verbal’), “loquor,”
“orationem habere” (the most ‘vocal’ one, as it relates to the ‘mouth,’ cf.
‘orality’) or “sermonem habere,” so that ultimately the Grecian λόγος is
approached by Roman philosophers by means of a syntagm, “ratio et oratio,”
reason and discourse. Each vernacular fragments the meaning of logos into a
greater or lesser. Cf. ‘principium reddendae rationis.’ Rationality functions
as a principle of the intelligibility of the world and history, particularly in
Hegel. Then there’s The Partitions of Reason and Semantic diffractions.
Although there is no language that retains under a single word all the meanings
of logos except by bringing logos into the language in question, the
distribution of these meanings is more or less close to Roman. For the
classical Fr. word “raison,” which
maintains almost all the Roman meanings including the mathematical sense of
proportion, as in “raison d’une série,” or “raison inverse,” a contemporary Fr.
-G. dictionary proposes the following
terms: Vernunft, Verstand rational faculty. This example shows that the whole
of the vocabulary is thus mobilized. Reason and faculties We can distinguish
between two interfering systems. The first designates reason, identified with
thought in general, in its relationship to a bodily and/or mental instance. The
second situates reason in a hierarchy of faculties whose organization it
determines. Regarding the first system, as it is expressed in various
languages, where one will find studies of the main distortions, especially
around the expressions of the Roman ‘anima.’ Philosophers especially emphasize
the ways of designating reason and mind that appear to be the most irreducible
from one language to another. Regarding the second system, and the partitions
that do not coincide. For Grice, ‘to understand’ presupposes ‘rationality – not
for Kant, who sticks with Verstand/Vernunft distinction. Ratio speculatum,
praticatum. From Aristotle to Kant, two great domains of rationality have been
distinguished: theory, or speculative reason, and practice. The lurality of
meanings, each represented by one or more specific words. The first question,
from the point of view of the difference of languages, is thus that of the
breadth of the meaning of “reason” or its equivalents, and of the systems
diffracting the meanings of logos and then of ratio. But another complex of
problems immediately arises. The Roman “ratio” absorbs the meanings of other
Grecian terms, such as νοῦς and διάνοια, which are also translated in other,
more technical ways, such as intellectus; so that reason, in the sense of
rationality, is a comprehensive term, whereas ‘reason’ in the sense of
intellect or understanding is a singular and differentiated faculty. However,
none of the comprehensive terms or systems of opposition coincides with those
of another language, which are moreover changing. Then there’s Reason and
Rationality: man, animal, god. Since Aristotle’s definition of man as an animal
endowed with logos, which Roman writers rendered by “animal rationale” — omitting
the discursive dimension—reason, or the logos, is a specific difference that
defines man by his difference from other living beings and/or his participation
in a divine or cosmic nature. Reason is opposed to madness understood as
de-mentia. More broadly, reason is conceived in terms of difference from what
does not belong to its domain and falls outside its immediate law, but which
man may, in certain ways, share with other animals, such as sensation, passion,
imagination, and possibly memory. Rationality and the principle of
intelligibility. Rationality, defined by the logos, is connected with logic as
the art of speaking and thinking, and with its founding principles. Les
quodlibet cinq, six et sept. Ed. by M. de
Wulf and J. Hoffmans. Louvain, Belg.: Institut supérieur de Philosophie de
l’Université, 191 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Elements of the Phil. of Right. Tr.
H. Nisbet and ed. by Allen Wood.
Cambridge: Cambridge , . . Science of LogiTr.
V. Miller. London: Allen and Unwin, . . Werke. Ed. by Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel. 20
vols. FrankfuSuhrkamp, . Heidegger, Martin. The Basic Problems of
Phenomenology. Tr. Albert Hofstadter
Bloomington: Indiana , . . Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique
of Pure Reason. Tr. Parvis Emad and
Kenneth Maly. Bloomington: Indiana , . Hume, D. . A Treatise of Human Nature.
Ed. by D. Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton. Oxford:
Oxford , . Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Translated and
ed. by Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge
, . . Critique of Pure Reason. 2nd ed. Tr.
N. Kemp-Smith. : Macmillan, 193 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Opuscules et
fragments inédits de Leibniz. Extraits des manuscrits. Ed. by Louis Couturat. : Presses Universitaires
de France, 190 Reprint. Hildesheim, Ger.: Olms, . . Philosophical Essays.
Translated and ed. by Roger Ariew and
Dan Garber. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, . . Philosophical Papers and Letters.
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conversational
trustworthiness
– or just trust. Principle of Conversational trustworthiness -- Conversational
desideratum of maximal evidence, information bearing on the truth or falsity of
a proposition. In philosophical discussions, a person’s evidence is generally
taken to be all the information a person has, positive or negative, relevant to
a proposition. The notion of evidence used in philosophy thus differs from the
ordinary notion according to which physical objects, such as a strand of hair
or a drop of blood, counts as evidence. One’s information about such objects
could be evidence in the philosophical sense. The concept of evidence plays a
central role in our understanding of knowledge and rationality. According to a
traditional and widely held view, one has knowledge only when one has a true
belief based on very strong evidence. Rational belief is belief based on
adequate evidence, even if that evidence falls short of what is needed for
knowledge. Many traditional philosophical debates, such as those about our
knowledge of the external world, the rationality of religious belief, and the
rational basis for moral judgments, are largely about whether the evidence we
have in these areas is sufficient to yield knowledge or rational belief. The
senses are a primary source of evidence. Thus, for most, if not all, of our
beliefs, ultimately our evidence traces back to sensory experience. Other
sources of evidence include memory and the testimony of others. Of course, both
of these sources rely on the senses in one way or another. According to
rationalist views, we can also get evidence for some propositions through mere
reason or reflection, and so reason is an additional source of evidence. The
evidence one has for a belief may be conclusive or inconclusive. Conclusive
evidence is so strong as to rule out all possibility of error. The discussions
of skepticism show clearly that we lack conclusive evidence for our beliefs
about the external world, about the past, about other minds, and about nearly
any other topic. Thus, an individual’s perceptual experiences provide only
inconclusive evidence for beliefs about the external world since such
experiences can be deceptive or hallucinatory. Inconclusive, or prima facie,
evidence can always be defeated or overridden by subsequently acquired
evidence, as, e.g., when testimonial evidence in favor of a proposition is
overridden by the evidence provided by subsequent experiences. evidentialism, in the philosophy of religion,
the view that religious beliefs can be rationally accepted only if they are
supported by one’s “total evidence,” understood to mean all the other
propositions one knows or justifiably believes to be true. Evidentialists
typically add that, in order to be rational, one’s degree of belief should be
proportioned to the strength of the evidential support. Evidentialism was
formulated by Locke as a weapon against the sectarians of his day and has since
been used by Clifford among many others to attack religious belief in general.
A milder form of evidentialism is found in Aquinas, who, unlike Clifford,
thinks religion can meet the evidentialist challenge. A contrasting view is
fideism, best understood as the claim that one’s fundamental religious
convictions are not subject to independent rational assessment. A reason often
given for this is that devotion to God should be one’s “ultimate concern,” and
to subject faith to the judgment of reason is to place reason above God and
make of it an idol. Proponents of fideism include Tertullian, Kierkegaard, Karl
Barth, and some Vittersians. A third view, which as yet lacks a generally
accepted label, may be termed experientialism; it asserts that some religious
beliefs are directly justified by religious experience. Experientialism differs
from evidentialism in holding that religious beliefs can be rational without
being supported by inferences from other beliefs one holds; thus theistic
arguments are superfluous, whether or not there are any sound ones available.
But experientialism is not fideism; it holds that religious beliefs may be
directly grounded in religious experience wtihout the mediation of other
beliefs, and may be rationally warranted on that account, just as perceptual
beliefs are directly grounded in perceptual experience. Recent examples of
experientialism are found in Plantinga’s “Reformed Epistemology,” which asserts
that religious beliefs grounded in experience can be “properly basic,” and in
the contention of Alston that in religious experience the subject may be
“perceiving God.”
converse. 1 Narrowly, the result of the
immediate logical operation called conversion on any categorical proposition,
accomplished by interchanging the subject term and the predicate term of that
proposition. Thus, the converse of the categorical proposition ‘All cats are
felines’ is ‘All felines are cats’. 2 More broadly, the proposition obtained
from a given ‘if . . . then . . .’ conditional proposition by interchanging the
antecedent and the consequent clauses, i.e., the propositions following the
‘if’ and the ‘then’, respectively; also, the argument obtained from an argument
of the form ‘P; therefore Q’ by interchanging the premise and the
conclusion. converse, outer and inner,
respectively, the result of “converting” the two “terms” or the relation verb
of a relational sentence. The outer converse of ‘Abe helps Ben’ is ‘Ben helps
Abe’ and the inner converse is ‘Abe is helped by Ben’. In simple, or atomic,
sentences the outer and inner converses express logically equivalent
propositions, and thus in these cases no informational ambiguity arises from
the adjunction of ‘and conversely’ or ‘but not conversely’, despite the fact
that such adjunction does not indicate which, if either, of the two converses
intended is meant. However, in complex, or quantified, relational sentences
such as ‘Every integer precedes some integer’ genuine informational ambiguity
is produced. Under normal interpretations of the respective sentences, the
outer converse expresses the false proposition that some integer precedes every
integer, the inner converse expresses the true proposition that every integer
is preceded by some integer. More complicated considerations apply in cases of
quantified doubly relational sentences such as ‘Every integer precedes every
integer exceeding it’. The concept of scope explains such structural ambiguity:
in the sentence ‘Every integer precedes some integer and conversely’,
‘conversely’ taken in the outer sense has wide scope, whereas taken in the
inner sense it has narrow scope.
convey: used in index to WoW. Etymology is
funny. From con-via – cum-via, go on the road with.
coonway: a., english
philosopher whose Principia philosophiae antiquissimae et recentissimae 1690;
English translation, The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy,
1692 proposes a monistic ontology in which all created things are modes of one
spiritual substance emanating from God. This substance is made up of an
infinite number of hierarchically arranged spirits, which she calls monads.
Matter is congealed spirit. Motion is conceived not dynamically but vitally.
Lady Conway’s scheme entails a moral explanation of pain and the possibility of
universal salvation. She repudiates the dualism of both Descartes and her
teacher, Henry More, as well as the materialism of Hobbes and Spinoza. The work
shows the influence of cabalism and affinities with the thought of the mentor of
her last years, Francis Mercurius van Helmont, through whom her philosophy
became known to Leibniz.
co-operatum: Grice previously used ‘help’ – which has a Graeco-Roman
counterpart -- Grice is very right in noting that ‘helpfulness’ does not
‘equate’ cooperation. Correspondingly he changed the principle of
conversational helpfulness into the principle of conversational co-operation.
He also points that one has to distinguish between the general theisis that
conversation is rational from the thesis that the particular form of
rationality that conversation takes is cooperative rationality, which most
libertarians take as ‘irrationality’ personified, almost! Grice is obsessed
with this idea that ‘co-operation’ need not just be ‘conversational.’ Indeed,
his way to justify a ‘rationalist’ approach is through analogy. If he can find
‘co-operative’ traits in behaviour other than ‘conversational,’ the greater the
chance to generalise, and thus justify. The co-operation would be
self-justifying. co-operation. The hyphen in Strawson and Wiggins (p. 520). Grice
found ‘co-operative’ too Marxist, and would prefer ‘help,’ as in ‘mutual help.’
This element of ‘mutuality’ is necessary. And it is marked grammatical, with
the FIRST person and the SECOND person. The third need NOT be a person – can be
a dog (as in “Fido is shaggy”). The mututality is necessary in that the
emissor’s intention involves the belief that his recipient is rational. You
cannot co-operate with a rock. You cannot co-operate with a vegetal. You cannot
cooperate with a non-rational animal. You can ONLY cooperate with a co-rational
agent. Animal co-operation poses a nice side to the Griceian idea. Surely the
stereotype is a member of species S cooperating with another specimen of the
same species. But then there are great examples of ‘sym-biosis’: the crane that
gets rid off the hippopotamus’s ticks. Is this cooperation? Is this
intentional? If Grice thinks that there is a ‘mechanistically derivable’
explanation,, it isn’t. He did not necessarily buy ‘bio-sociological’
approaches. Which was a problem, because we don’t have much philosophical
seriouis discourse on ‘cooperation’ at the general level Grice is aiming at.
Except in ethics, which is biased. So it is no wonder that Grice had to rely on
‘meta-ethics’ to even conceptualise the field of cooperation: the maximin
becomes a balance between a principle of conversational egoism and a principle
of conversational altruism. He later found the egoism-tag as ‘understood.’ And
his ‘altruism’ became ‘helpfulness,’ became ‘benevolence,’ and became
‘co-operation.’
copulatum: It was an Oxonian exercise to trace the ‘copula.’ “I’ve
been working like a dog, should be sleeping like a log.” Where is the copula:
Lennon is a dog-like worker – Lennon is a potential log-like sleeper.” Grice
uses ‘copula’ in PPQ. The term is
sometimes used ambiguously, for ‘conjunctum.’ A conjunctive is called a
copulative. But Grice obviously narrows down the use of copulatum to izz and
hazz. He is having in mind Strawson.The formula does not allow for differences
in tense and grammatical number; nor for the enormous class of * all
'-sentences which do not contain, as their main verb, the verb * to be '. We
might try to recast the sentences so that they at least fitted into one of the
two patterns * All x is y ' or ' All x are y ' ; but the results would be, as
English, often clumsy andt sometimes absurd. for Aristotle, 'Socrates is a man'
is true "in virtue of his being that thing which constitutes existing for
him (being which constitutes his mode of existence)," Hermann Weidemann,
"In Defense of Aristotle's Theory of Predication," p. 84— only so
long as that "being" be taken as an assertion of being per se. But
Weidemann wants to take it merely copulatively. In "Prädikation," p.
1196, he says that when 'is' is used as tertium adiacens it has no meaning by
itself, but merely signifies the connection of subject and predicate. Cf. his
"Aristoteles über das isolierte Aussagenwort," p. 154. H. P. Grice,
"Aristotle on the Multiplicity of Being," also rejects an existential
reading of tertium adiacens and pushes for a copulative one. Cf. Alan Code,
"Aristotle: Essence and Accident," pp. 414-7. Aristotle has connected the semantic multiplicity in the copula not
with variation between predicates of one subject, but with variation between
essential (per se)predications upon different (indeed categorially
different) subjects (such ...eads
me to wonder whether Aristotle may be maintaining not only that the copula exhibits
semantic ...An extended treatment of my views about izzing and hazzing can
be found in Alan. A crucial ... on occasion admit catégorial variation in
the sense of the copulative 'is', evidently is ... Aristotle has
connected the semantic multiplicity in the copula not with variation ...with
the copulative 'is';
so he rather strangely interprets the last remark. (1017a27-30) as alluding to
semantic multiplicity in
the copula as being.
(supposedly) a consequence of semantic multiplicity in the existential
'is'. This interpretation seems difficult to defend. When Aristotle says that
predicates sometimes say what a thing is, sometimes what is it like (its
quality), sometimes how much it is (its quantity) and so on, he seems to be
saying that if we consider the range of predicates which can be applied to
some item, for example to a substance like Socrates or a cow,
these predicates are categorically various, and so the uses of the copula in the ascription
of these predicates will undergo corresponding variation"H. P.
Grice brings the question he had considered with J. L. Austin and P. F.
Strawson at Oxford about Aristotle’s categories.In “Categoriae,” Aristotle
distinguishes two sorts of case of the application of word or phrase to a range
of situations. In one sort of case, both the word and a single definition
(account, “logos”) apply throughout that range. In the other sort of case, the
word but no single definition applies through the range.These two sorts of case
have a different nature. In the first case, the word is applied synonymously (of
better as “sunonuma” – literally “sun-onuma”, cognomen). In the second case the
word is applied homonymously (or better “homonuma”, or aequi-vocally, literally
“homo-numa.”)Grice notes that a homonymous application has some sort of
sub-division which Aristotle calls "paronymy" (“paronuma”), literally
‘para onuma.’To put it roughly, homonyms have multiple meanings – what Grice
has as “semantic multiplicity.”Synonyms have one meaning or ONE SENSE, but
apply to different kinds of thing.A paronym, such as ‘be,’ derives from other
things of a different kind. Paronyms display a ‘UNIFIED semantic multiplicity,’
if that’s not too oxymoronic: how can the multiplicity be unified while
remaining a multiplicity? Aristotle states, confusingly, that "being is
said in many ways". As Grice notes, ‘good’ (agathon) also is a paronym
that displays unified semantic multiplicity.In Nichomachean Ethics, even more
confusingly, Aristotle says that "good is said in as many ways as
being". He doesn’t number the ways.So the main goal for Grice is to answer
the question: If, as Aristotle suggests, at least some expressions connected
with the notion of "being" exhibit semantic multiplicity, of which
expressions is the suggestion true? Grice faces the question of existential being
and Semantic Multiplicity. Grice stresses that Semantic Multiplicity of "be" is not only the case of it
interpretation. Other words he wants to know in what way of interpretation of
this word the philosophers can detect the SM. Generally speaking there are four
possible interpretations of "being": First, "be" is taken
to mean "exist.”Second, "be" is taken as a copula in a
predication statement.Third, "be" is taken for expressing the
identity.Fourth, "Being" is considered to be a noun (equivalent to
‘object' or ‘entity') – subjectification, category shift: “Smith’s being tall
suggests he is an athlete.” (cfr. A. G. N. Flew on the ‘rubbish’ that adding
‘the’ to ‘self’ results in – contra J. R. Jones). Philosophers have some
problems for this kind of theory with separating interpretations from each
other. It is natural for thinkers to unite the first and the fourth. The object
or entity should be the things which already exist. So the SM would attach to
such a noun as "entity" if, and only if, it also attaches to the word
"exist". Furthermore, it seems to be a good idea to unite the first
and the third. In some ways theorist can paraphrase the word "exist"
in the terms of self-identity. Grice gives an example: “Julius Caesar exists if
and only if Julius Caesar is identical for Julius Caesar.” Cf. Grice on
‘relative identity.’So the philosophers should investigate SM in two possible
interpretations – when "be" is understood as "exist" and
when "be" is understood as copula. From Aristotle's point of view
‘being’ is predicated of everything. From this statement, Grice draws the
conclusion that "exist" can apply to every thing, even a square
circle.This word should signify a plurality of universals and exhibits semantic
multiplicity. But Grice continue his analyses and tries to show, that
"exist" has not merely SM, but UNIFIED semantic multiplicity. God
forbid that he breaks M. O. R., Modifed Occam’s Razor – Semantic multiplicies
are not to be multiplied unificatory necessity.”In “Metaphysics,” Aristotle
says that whatever things are signified by the "forms of
predication". Philosophers understood the forms of predication
(praedicabilium, praedicamentum) as a category. So in this way
"being" has as many significations as there are forms of predication.
"Be" in this case indicates what a thing is, what is like or how much
it is and ctr. And no reasons to make a difference between two utterances like
"man walks (flourishes)" and "the man is walking
(flourishing)" – cfr. Strawson on no need to have ‘be’ explicitly in the
surface form, which render some utterances absurd. Grice says that it is not a
problem with interpretation of verb-forms like ‘walks' and ‘flourishes' while
we can replace them by expression in a canonical form like ‘is walking' and ‘is
flourishing'. Aristotle names them as canonical in form within the multiplicity
of use of "be" because ‘is’ is not existential, but copulative.Cf.
Descartes, I think therefore I am – I am a res cogitans, ergo I am a res.
"When Aristotle says that predicates sometimes say what a thing is,
sometimes what is it like (its quality), sometimes how much it is (its
quantity) and so on, he seems to be saying that, if we consider the range of
predicates which can be applied to some item, for example to a substance like
Socrates or a cow, these predicates are categorically various, and so the uses
of the copula in the ascription of these predicates will undergo corresponding
variation" It means that, from Aristotle's point of view, "Socrates
is F" is not an essential predication, where "F" shows the item
in the category C. So the logical form of the proposition “Socrates is F” is
understood as "Socrates has something which is (C) F" where is (C)
represent essential connection to category C. In conclusion it can be said that
the copula is a matter of the logical nature of constant connection expressed
by "has" and a categorical variant relation expressed by essential
"is". So we have both types of interpretation: as existence and as a
copula. (Our gratitude to P. A.
Sobolevsky). ases of ''Unified Semantic
Multiplicity'' (USM). Prominent among examples of USM is the
application of the word 'be'; according to. Aristotle, “being is said
in ... Aristotle and the alleged multiplicity of being (or
something). Grice is all for focal unity. Or, to echo Jones, if there is semantic
multiplicity (homonymy), it is in the
end UNIFIED semantic multiplicity (paronymy). Or something. Copula – H. P.
Grice on Aristotle on the copula (“Aristotle on the multiplicity of being”) --
copula, in logic, a form of the verb ‘to be’ that joins subject and predicate
in singular and categorical propositions. In ‘George is wealthy’ and ‘Swans are
beautiful’, e.g., ‘is’ and ‘are’, respectively, are copulas. Not all
occurrences of forms of ‘be’ count as copulas. In sentences such as ‘There are
51 states’, ‘are’ is not a copula, since it does not join a subject and a
predicate, but occurs simply as a part of the quantifier term ‘there are’.
corpus: -- Grice’s alma mater – he later
became a Hamsworth scholar at Merton and finally fellow of St. John’s.. Grice
would not have gone to Oxford had his talent not been in the classics, Greek
and Latin. As a Midlander, he was sent to Corpus. At the time, most of Oxford
was oriented towards the classics, or Lit. Hum. (Philosophia). At some point,
each college attained some stereotypical fame, which Grice detested (“Corpus is
for classicists”). By this time, Grice, after a short stay at Merton, accepted
the fellowship at St. John’s, which was “a different animal.” In them days,
there were only two tutorial fellows in philosophy, Scots Mabbott, and English
Grice. But Grice also was “University Lecturer in Philosophy,” which meant he
delivered seminars for tutees all over Oxford. St. John’s keeps a record of all
the tutees by Grice. They include, alphabetically, a few good names. Why is
Corpus so special? Find out! History of “Corpus Christi.” Cf. St. John’s. Cf.
Merton. Each should have an entry. Corpus is Grice’s alma mater – so crucial. Hardieian: you only have one tutor in your life, and Grice’s
was Hardie. So an exploration on Hardie may be in order. Grice hastens to add
that he only learned ‘form,’ not matter, from Hardie, but the ethical and
Aristotelian approach he also admitted. Corpus -- Grice, “Personal identity” –
soul and body -- disembodiment, the immaterial state of existence of a person
who previously had a body. Disembodiment is thus to be distinguished from
nonembodiment or immateriality. God and angels, if they exist, are
non-embodied, or immaterial. By contrast, if human beings continue to exist
after their bodies die, then they are disembodied. As this example suggests,
disembodiment is typically discussed in the context of immortality or survival
of death. It presupposes a view according to which persons are souls or some
sort of immaterial entity that is capable of existing apart from a body.
Whether it is possible for a person to become disembodied is a matter of
controversy. Most philosophers who believe that this is possible assume that a
disembodied person is conscious, but it is not obvious that this should be the
case. Corpus -- Grice’s body --
embodiment, the bodily aspects of human subjectivity. Embodiment is the central
theme in European phenomenology, with its most extensive treatment in the works
of Maurice MerleauPonty. Merleau-Ponty’s account of embodiment distinguishes
between “the objective body,” which is the body regarded as a physiological
entity, and “the phenomenal body,” which is not just some body, some particular
physiological entity, but my or your body as I or you experience it. Of course,
it is possible to experience one’s own body as a physiological entity. But this
is not typically the case. Typically, I experience my body tacitly as a unified
potential or capacity for doing this and that
typing this sentence, scratching that itch, etc. Moreover, this sense
that I have of my own motor capacities expressed, say, as a kind of bodily
confidence does not depend on an understanding of the physiological processes
involved in performing the action in question. The distinction between the
objective and phenomenal body is central to understanding the phenomenological
treatment of embodiment. Embodiment is not a concept that pertains to the body
grasped as a physiological entity. Rather it pertains to the phenomenal body
and to the role it plays in our object-directed experiences.
cosmologicum. Grice systematized metaphysics quite carefully. He
distinguished between eschatology (or the theory of categories) and ontology
proper. Within ontology, there is ‘ontologia generalis’ and ‘ontologia
specialis.’ There are at least two branches of ‘ontologia specialis’:
‘cosmologia’ and ‘anthropologia.’ Grice would often refer to the ‘world’ in
toto. For example, in “Meaning revisited,” when he speaks of the ‘triangle’: world-denotatum;
signum-emissor, and soul. Grice was never a solipsist, and most of his theories
are ‘causal’ in nature, including that of meaning and perception. As such, he
was constantly fighting against acosmism. While not one of his twelve labours,
he took a liking for the coinage. ‘Acosmism’ is formed in analogy to
‘atheism,’ meaning the denial of the ultimate reality of the world. Ernst
Platner used it in 1776 to describe Spinoza’s philosophy, arguing that Spinoza
did not intend to deny “the existence of the Godhead, but the existence of the
world.” Maimon, Fichte, Hegel, and others make the same claim. By the time of
Feuerbach it was also used to characterize a basic feature of Christianity: the
denial of the world or worldliness. Cosmologicum --
emanationism, a doctrine about the origin and ontological structure of the
world, most frequently associated with Plotinus and other Neoplatonists,
according to which everything else that exists is an emanation from a
primordial unity, called by Plotinus “the One.” The first product of emanation
from the One is Intelligence noûs, a realm resembling Plato’s world of Forms.
From Intelligence emanates Soul psuche, conceived as an active principle that
imposes, insofar as that is possible, the rational structure of Intelligence on
the matter that emanates from Soul. The process of emanation is typically
conceived to be necessary and timeless: although Soul, for instance, proceeds
from Intelligence, the notion of procession is one of logical dependence rather
than temporal sequence. The One remains unaffected and undiminished by
emanation: Plotinus likens the One to the sun, which necessarily emits light
from its naturally infinite abundance without suffering change or loss of its
own substance. Although emanationism influenced some Jewish, Christian, and
Islamic thinkers, it was incompatible with those theistic doctrines of divine
activity that maintained that God’s creative choice and the world thus created
were contingent, and that God can, if he chooses, interact directly with
individual creatures.
CILIBERTO -- Michele
Ciliberto Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to
search Michele Ciliberto Michele Ciliberto (Napoli, 16 luglio 1945) è un
filosofo e storico italiano considerato uno dei massimi esperti del pensiero di
Giordano Bruno[1]. Indice 1 Biografia
2 Pensiero
3 Opere
4 Note
5 Voci
correlate 6 Altri
progetti 7 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Nato a Napoli nel 1945, si è formato alla Facoltà di Lettere
e Filosofia dell'Università di Firenze ed è stato allievo di Eugenio Garin, con
cui si è laureato nel 1968 discutendo una tesi sulla fortuna di Niccolò
Machiavelli. Dopo la laurea ha lavorato per alcuni anni come borsista presso il
Lessico Intellettuale Europeo, diretto da Tullio Gregory, per il quale ha
preparato il Lessico di Giordano Bruno[2] edito nel 1979. Nominato nel 1971
assistente alla cattedra di Storia della filosofia della Facoltà di Lettere
dell'Università di Firenze tenuta da Eugenio Garin e da Paolo Rossi, ha
insegnato a vario titolo prima nella stessa Università, poi in quelle di
Trieste e di Pisa, dove ha diretto, dal 1996 al 2002, il Dipartimento di
Filosofia. Dal 2002 insegna Storia della filosofia moderna e contemporanea[3]
alla Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Nella Scuola Normale ha ricoperto vari
incarichi tra cui la presidenza della Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, la
direzione del Centro di Filosofia, la presidenza delle Edizioni della Normale.
Dal 1996 è Presidente dell'Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento di
Firenze[4]. Dal 1998 è presidente di IRIS – Associazione di Biblioteche
Storico-Artistiche e Umanistiche di Firenze[5]. È stato presidente dei Comitati
nazionali per le celebrazioni di Giordano Bruno[6], Marsilio Ficino[7],
Benedetto Varchi[8], Giovanni Della Casa[9] e Lodovico Castelvetro[10].
Ha fatto parte del Consiglio Nazionale per i Beni culturali, fa parte del
comitato direttivo del Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani[11] e del consiglio
scientifico dell’Istituto dell’Enciclopedia italiana[12]; è membro
dell’Advisory Committee della Tatti Renaissance Library della Harvard
University e del comitato dei garanti della Fondazione Gramsci[13]. È direttore
scientifico dell’edizione delle opere latine di Giordano Bruno per la casa
editrice Adelphi[14] e ha coordinato l’enciclopedia Giordano Bruno. Parole,
concetti, immagini[15] e i volumi Il contributo italiano alla storia del
pensiero. Filosofia[16] e Croce e Gentile. La cultura italiana e l’Europa[17]
per l’Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana. Dirige la rivista Rinascimento[18],
oltre a far parte del comitato scientifico della Rivista di storia della
filosofia[19], del Giornale critico della filosofia italiana, degli Annali
della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere[20], di Dianoia[21], di
Philosophia e di Studi storici[22]. È socio nazionale dell’Accademia dei
Lincei[23]. Pensiero Al centro dell’attività scientifica di Michele
Ciliberto sono tre problemi: 1. la filosofia del Rinascimento con speciale
attenzione all’opera e alle figure di Giordano Bruno[1] – al quale ha dedicato
molti lavori – e di Niccolò Machiavelli; 2. la filosofia contemporanea, in modo
particolare la ‘tradizione’ italiana (Gramsci, Croce, Gentile, Cantimori,
Garin). 3. la filosofia politica e in maniera specifica la crisi della
democrazia rappresentativa. Opere Il Rinascimento. Storia di un
dibattito, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1975. ISBN 8822104749 Intellettuali e
fascismo. Saggio su Delio Cantimori, Bari, De Donato, 1977. Lessico di Giordano
Bruno, Roma, Edizioni dell'Ateneo & Bizzarri, 1979, 2 voll. ISBN
9788822228468 Come lavorava Gramsci. Varianti vichiane, Livorno, 1980.
Filosofia e politica nel Novecento italiano. Da Labriola a «Società», Bari, De
Donato, 1982. La ruota del tempo. Interpretazione di Giordano Bruno, Roma,
Editori Riuniti, 1986, 2000. Giordano Bruno, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1990, 2000.
Introduzione a Bruno, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1996, 2000. Umbra profunda. Studi su
Giordano Bruno, Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1999. ISBN
978-88-8711-443-0 Figure in chiaroscuro. Filosofia e storiografia nel
Novecento, Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2001. ISBN 88-2225-129-6 Il
dialogo recitato. Preliminari a una nuova edizione del Bruno volgare, Firenze,
Olschki, 2002 (con N. Tirinnanzi). L'occhio di Atteone. Nuovi studi su Giordano
Bruno, Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2002, 2004. ISBN 88--8498-039-9
Pensare per contrari. Disincanto e utopia nel Rinascimento, Roma, Edizioni di
Storia e Letteratura, 2005. ISBN 978-88-8498-264-3 Giordano Bruno. Il teatro
della vita, Milano, Mondadori, 2007, 2008. ISBN 978-88-4207-337-6 Biblioteca
laica. Il pensiero libero dell'Italia moderna, Roma-Bari, Laterza 2008. ISBN
978-88-4209-982-6 La democrazia dispotica, Roma-Bari, Laterza 2010. ISBN
978-88-4209-464-7 Eugenio Garin. Un intellettuale nel Novecento, Roma-Bari,
Laterza 2011. ISBN 978-88-4209-709-9 Giordano Bruno. Parole concetti immagini,
a cura di M. Ciliberto, 3 voll., Edizioni della Normale, Pisa 2014. ISBN
978-88-7642-479-3 Croce e Gentile. La cultura italiana e l'Europa, (direzione)
Istituto dell'Enciclopedia italiana Treccani, 2016. Rinascimento, Pisa,
Edizioni della Normale 2016. ISBN 978-88-7642-563-9 Il nuovo Umanesimo,
Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2017. ISBN 978-88-5812-738-4 Niccolò Machiavelli. Ragione e
pazzia, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2019. ISBN 978-88-5813-417-7 Il sapiente furore.
Vita di Giordano Bruno, Collana gli Adelphi n.589, Milano, Adelphi, 2020, ISBN
978-88-459-3483-4. Note Ciliberto, Michele, su treccani.it. ^ Michele
Ciliberto, Lessico di Giordano Bruno, in Lessico intellettuale europeo,
Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1979, ISBN 9788822228468. ^ Scuola Normale Superiore, su
sns.it. ^ Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, su insr.it. ^ IRIS
Associazione di biblioteche, su iris-firenze.org. ^ Mibac, su librari.beniculturali.it.
^ Mibac, su librari.beniculturali.it. ^ Mibac, su librari.beniculturali.it. ^
Mibac, su librari.beniculturali.it. ^ Mibac, su librari.beniculturali.it. ^
Biografico, su treccani.it. ^ Chi siamo, su treccani.it. ^ Fondazione Gramsci,
su fondazionegramsci.org. ^ INSR, su insr.it. ^ Edizioni della Normale, su
edizioni.sns.it. ^ Enciclopedia italiana (PDF), su iris.unica.it. ^ Croce e
Gentile. La cultura italiana e l'Europa, su radioradicale.it. ^ Olschki, su
olschki.it. ^ Franco Angeli, su ojs.francoangeli.it. ^ Comitato Editoriale
degli Annali Lettere SNS, su annalilettere.sns.it. ^ Comitato scientifico
Dianoia, su dianoia.it. ^ Comitato scientifico Studi storici, su
fondazionegramsci.org. ^ Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, su lincei.it. Voci
correlate Giordano Bruno Rinascimento Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Altri
progetti Collabora a Wikiquote Wikiquote contiene citazioni di o su Michele
Ciliberto Collabora a Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons contiene immagini o
altri file su Michele Ciliberto Collegamenti esterni Michele Ciliberto, su
Treccani.it – Enciclopedie on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
Modifica su Wikidata Registrazioni di Michele Ciliberto, su RadioRadicale.it,
Radio Radicale. Modifica su Wikidata Pagina di Michele Ciliberto sul sito della
Sns, su sns.it. URL consultato il 24 ottobre 2011 (archiviato dall'url
originale il 5 novembre 2012). Il sito dell'Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul
Rinascimento, su insr.it. Controllo di autorità VIAF
(EN) 41855445 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0001 2129 6945 · SBN IT\ICCU\CFIV\012019 · LCCN
(EN) n79034821 · GND (DE) 1145361498 · BNF (FR) cb120312345 (data) · BNE (ES)
XX1239459 (data) · BAV (EN) 495/165939 · WorldCat Identities (EN)
lccn-n79034821 Biografie Portale Biografie Filosofia Portale Filosofia
Rinascimento Portale Rinascimento Categorie: Filosofi italiani del XX
secoloFilosofi italiani del XXI secoloStorici italiani del XX secoloStorici
italiani del XXI secoloNati nel 1945Nati il 16 luglioNati a NapoliAccademici
dei LinceiStudenti dell'Università degli Studi di FirenzeProfessori
dell'Università degli Studi di FirenzeProfessori dell'Università degli Studi di
TriesteProfessori dell'Università di PisaProfessori della Scuola Normale
SuperioreSaggisti italiani del XX secoloSaggisti italiani del XXI secoloStorici
della filosofia italiani[altre]
CIMATTI not Cinatti
-- Felice
Cimatti Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to
search Felice Cimatti Felice Cimatti
(Roma, 20 settembre 1959) è un filosofo italiano. Indice 1 Biografia
2 Opere
2.1 Narrativa
2.2 Attività
artistica 3 Note
4 Voci
correlate 5 Altri
progetti 6 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Laureato in filosofia alla Sapienza, con una tesi sui
linguaggi animali, relatore Tullio De Mauro, correlatore Alberto Oliverio,
insegna Filosofia del Linguaggio e Filosofia italiana contemporanea
all'Università della Calabria ad Arcavacata di Rende[1]. Ha condotto e conduce, per Rai Radio 3[2], i
programmi radiofonici Fahrenheit, dedicato ai libri e alle idee, e Uomini e Profeti,
programma di approfondimento di temi religiosi e filosofici. Il 26 maggio 2012
ha ricevuto il Premio Musatti conferito dalla Società Psicoanalitica
Italiana[3]. Dal 2015 partecipa al programma televisivo Zettel, per Rai
Cultura.[4] È condirettore, assieme a
Francesca Piazza e Alfredo Paternoster, della Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del
Linguaggio[5]. È figlio del poeta Pietro
Cimatti e della pittrice Laura Giometti.
Opere Linguaggio ed esperienza visiva, 1997, Rende, Centro Editoriale e
Librario. La scimmia che si parla. Linguaggio, autocoscienza e libertà
nell'animale umano, 2000, Bollati Boringhieri Nel segno del cerchio.
L'ontologia semiotica di Giorgio Prodi, 2000, Manifestolibri La mente
silenziosa. Come pensano gli animali non umani, 2000, Editori Riuniti) ISBN
88-359-5160-7 Mente e linguaggio negli animali. Introduzione alla zoosemiotica
cognitiva, 2002, Carocci editore, ISBN 88-430-2343-8 Il senso della mente. Per
una critica del cognitivismo 2004, Bollati Boringhieri Mente, segno e vita. Elementi
di filosofia per Scienze della comunicazione, 2004, Carocci editore Il volto e
la parola. Per una psicologia dell'apparenza, 2007, Quodlibet, ISBN
978-88-7462-157-6 Il possibile ed il reale. Il sacro dopo la morte di Dio,
2009, Codice Edizioni, ISBN 978-88-7578-122-4. Bollettino Filosofico.
Linguaggio ed emozioni, 2009, Aracne ISBN 978-88-548-2417-1 con Marco Tullio
Liuzza e Anna Maria Borghi, Lingue, corpo, pensiero: le ricerche contemporanee,
Carocci, 2010, ISBN 978-88-430-5439-8. Naturalmente comunisti. Politica,
linguaggio ed economia 2011, Bruno Mondadori. ISBN 978-88-6159-521-7. La vita
che verrà. Biopolitica per Homo sapiens, 2011, ombre corte, ISBN
978-88-95366-96-8. Filosofia della psicoanalisi. Un'introduzione in ventuno
passi, a cura di Silvia Vizzardelli e Felice Cimatti, 2012, Quodlibet, ISBN
978-88-7462-472-0 Filosofia dell'animalità, Laterza, 2013, ISBN
978-88-581-0941-0 Corpo, linguaggio e psicoanalisi, a cura di Felice Cimatti e
Alberto Luchetti, 2013, Quodlibet, ISBN 978-88-7462-422-5 con Leonardo Caffo, A
come Animale: voci per un bestiario dei sentimenti, Bompiani, 2015, ISBN
978-88-452-7857-0. Il taglio. Linguaggio e pulsione di morte, Quodlibet, 2015,
ISBN 978-88-7462-731-8. Filosofie del linguaggio. Storie, autori, concetti, a
cura di Felice Cimatti e Francesca Piazza, Carocci, 2016, ISBN
978-88-430-8477-7 Psicoanimot, La psicoanalisi e l'animalità, a cura di Felice
Cimatti, Graphe.it, 2016, ISBN 978-88-9372-007-6 Sguardi animali, Mimesis 2018,
ISBN 978-88-575-4506-6 Per una filosofia del reale, Bollati Boringhieri, 2018,
ISBN 88-339-2961-2 La vita estrinseca. Dopo il linguaggio, Orthotes, Salerno,
2018, ISBN 978-88-9314-155-0 A Biosemiotic Ontology. The Philosophy of Giorgio
Prodi, Springer, Berlin, 2018, ISBN 978-3-319-97903-8 Abbecedario del reale, a
cura di Felice Cimatti e Alex Pagliardini, Quodlibet, Macerata 2019, ISBN
978-88-229-0217-7. La fabbrica del ricordo, Il Mulino 2020, ISBN
978-88-15-28658-1 Unbecoming Human. Philosophy of Animality after Deleuze,
Edinburgh University Press 2020, ISBN 978-1-4744-4339-5 Narrativa Senza colpa ,
2010, Marcos y Marcos) 37ª giornata in C'è un grande prato verde. 38 scrittori
raccontano il campionato di calcio 2012/13, a cura di Carlo D'Amicis, 2013,
Manni Editori “Dopo la natura”, https://not.neroeditions.com/i-bambini-del-compost/
Attività artistica Bestie 13 febbraio 2013, Bestie, presso la Galleria M.A.D.,
via Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, 62-64-66 Roma. Partecipazione alla mostra
Il mondoinfine, presso la Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di
Roma dal 13/12/2018 al 23/1/2019. Note ^ Dipartimento di filosofia, su
dipfilosofia.unical.it. URL consultato il 29 settembre 2013 (archiviato
dall'url originale il 4 giugno 2013). ^ Radio Tre Archiviato il 30 agosto 2010
in Internet Archive. ^ Premio Cesare Musatti a Felice Cimatti, su spiweb.it.
URL consultato il 29 settembre 2013. ^ Zettel ^ Direzione, su rifl.unical.it.
URL consultato il 29 settembre 2013.
Storni / Starlings Voci correlate
Semiotica Animalità Filosofia del linguaggio Psicoanalisi Altri progetti
Collabora a Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons contiene immagini o altri file
su Felice Cimatti Collegamenti esterni Opere di Felice Cimatti, su openMLOL,
Horizons Unlimited srl. Modifica su Wikidata Controllo di autorità VIAF (EN) 48544096 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0001 1637
0936 · SBN IT\ICCU\PUVV\162477 · LCCN (EN) n98068988 · BNF (FR) cb158852626
(data) · WorldCat Identities (EN) lccn-n98068988 Biografie Portale Biografie
Filosofia Portale Filosofia Letteratura Portale Letteratura Categorie: Filosofi
italiani del XX secoloFilosofi italiani del XXI secoloNati nel 1959Nati il 20
settembreNati a RomaSemiologi italiani[altre]
CIONE -- Edmondo Cione Da Wikipedia,
l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to search Domenico Edmondo Cione
(Napoli, 9 giugno 1908 – Napoli, 19 giugno 1965) è stato uno storico della
filosofia, storico, critico letterario, politico e accademico italiano. Indice 1 Biografia
1.1 Formazione
e prima attività politica 1.2 Adesione
alla Repubblica Sociale Italiana 1.3 Attività
politica nel dopoguerra 2 Opere
2.1 Curatele
3 Note
4 Voci
correlate 5 Altri
progetti 6 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Formazione e prima attività politica Di tendenze socialiste,
e in un primo momento antifasciste, è stato allievo di studi di Benedetto
Croce. Perseguitato della prima ora dal Fascismo, viene rinchiuso nel campo di
Colfiorito di Foligno e poi mandato al confino a Montemurro.[1] Adesione alla Repubblica Sociale Italiana
Attratto dal nuovo indirizzo espresso dal Manifesto di Verona, aderisce alla
Repubblica Sociale Italiana. Chiede e ottiene il consenso di Benito Mussolini
(il quale si rende esplicitamente concorde) per la costituzione di una
formazione politica indipendente dal Partito Fascista Repubblicano, denominata in
un primo momento Raggruppamento Nazionale Repubblicano Socialista e, in
seguito, Partito Repubblicano Socialista Italiano. A tale formazione politica, su suggerimento
dello stesso Mussolini, sarà concessa anche la pubblicazione di un quotidiano
L'Italia del Popolo. Il Duce però non aveva nessuna fiducia né nell'uomo, né
nell'impresa, tanto che durante una conversazione con l'ambasciatore Rudolf
Rahn - preoccupato per una possibile apertura "a sinistra" del capo
del fascismo - ebbe a dichiarare: «Per
ingannare i nostri avversari ho lasciato, non appena ho pensato che il nuovo
fascismo in Italia fosse abbastanza forte, che alcune controcorrenti dicessero
la loro, tra l’altro ho permesso che si formasse un gruppo di opposizione sotto
la guida del professor Cione. Il professor Cione non ha una gran testa, e non
avrà successo. Ma la gente che ora sta cercando di crearsi un alibi si
raccoglierà intorno a lui e quindi sarà perduta per il Comitato di liberazione
che è molto più pericoloso.» ([2])
Attività politica nel dopoguerra Salvatosi dalle epurazioni partigiane nel
dopoguerra, si costruirà una carriera politica nell'Italia repubblicana. Dal
1946 al 1949 militò nel Fronte dell'Uomo Qualunque; successivamente, quando il
partito di Guglielmo Giannini si sciolse, entrò nel Movimento Sociale Italiano
e nel 1952 venne eletto consigliere e poi assessore della giunta di Achille
Lauro. Nel 1953 si candidò al Senato con la lista della fiamma nel colleggio di
Afragola ma ottenne il 7.8% dei voti e non fueletto[3]. Deluso dai missini,
aderì alla Democrazia Cristiana, senza però svolgere una militanza attiva nel
partito. Negli ultimi anni di vita cercò di conciliare il messaggio di papa
Giovanni XXIII con le aperture di Nikita Kruscev oltre la "cortina di
ferro". Opere Juan de Valdés: la
sua vita e il suo pensiero religioso con una completa bibliografia delle opere
del Valdés e degli scritti intorno a lui, Laterza editore, 1938 (2ª ed.
Fiorentino, 1963) Francesco de Sanctis, Ed. Giuseppe Principato, 1938 L'opera
filosofica, coautore Franco Laterza, Laterza editore, 1942 Napoli romantica,
1830-1848, Gruppo Editoriale Domus, 1944 L'estetica di Francesco De Sanctis,
Pennetti Casoni Editore, 1945 Dal de Sanctis al novecento, Garzanti, 1941 (2ª
ed. Pennetti Casoni Editore, 1945) Nazionalismo sociale: l'idea corporativa
come interpretazione della storia, Achille Celli Editore, 1950 Napoli e
Malaparte, Editore Pellerano-Del Gaudio, 1950 Storia della repubblica sociale
italiana, Ed. Latinità, 1951 Benedetto Croce, coll. "I Marmi", Longanesi,
1953 Bibliografia crociana, Fratelli Bocca, 1956 Francesco de Sanctis ed i suoi
tempi, Montanino, 1960 Questa Europa, M. Mele, 1962 Fascino del mondo arabo:
dal Marocco alla Persia, Cappelli Editore, 1962 Benedetto Croce ed il pensiero
contemporaneo, Loganesi editore, 1963 Fede e ragione nella storia: filosofia
della religione e storia degli ideali religiosi dell'Occidente, Cappelli
Editore, 1963 La Cina d'oggi, Filippine, Formosa, Giappone, Editore Ceschina,
1965 Leibniz, Libreria scientifica editrice, 1964 Narrativa del Novecento,
Istituto editoriale del Mezzogiorno, 1965 Curatele Francesco De Sanctis, Un
viaggio elettorale, Bompiani, 1943 Note ^
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/domenico-edmondo-cione_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/
^ A. Spinosa, Mussolini. Il fascino di un dittatore, Mondadori, Milano, 1989,
pag. 293 ^ Senato 07/06/1953 Area ITALIA Regione CAMPANIA Collegio AFRAGOLA,
elezionistorico.interno.gov.it. Voci correlate Manifesto di Verona
Raggruppamento Nazionale Repubblicano Socialista Repubblica Sociale Italiana
Altri progetti Collabora a Wikiquote Wikiquote contiene citazioni di o su
Edmondo Cione Collegamenti esterni Opere di Edmondo Cione sul web (da Google
book search) Gennaro Incarnato, «CIONE, Domenico Edmondo» in Dizionario Biografico
degli Italiani, Volume 25, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, 1981.
Repubblichini d'opposizione. Storia. Un ex allievo di Croce negli ultimi mesi
di Salò crea un "partito contro" su suggerimento del ministro
dell'Educazione Biggini di Silvio Bertoldi, Corriere della Sera, 30 gennaio
1995, p. 30, Archivio storico. Controllo di autorità VIAF (EN) 46752996 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0000 8077 1630 · SBN
IT\ICCU\RAVV\064612 · LCCN (EN) n92087681 · BNF (FR) cb109423674 (data) · NLA
(EN) 36503969 · BAV (EN) 495/71313 · WorldCat Identities (EN) lccn-n92087681
Biografie Portale Biografie Fascismo Portale Fascismo Politica Portale Politica
Categorie: Storici della filosofia italianiStorici italiani del XX
secoloCritici letterari italiani del XX secoloNati nel 1908Morti nel 1965Nati
il 9 giugnoMorti il 19 giugnoNati a NapoliMorti a NapoliAccademici italiani del
XX secoloPersonalità della Repubblica Sociale ItalianaPolitici della Democrazia
CristianaPolitici del Partito Nazionale FascistaPolitici italiani del XX secoloProfessori
dell'Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II[altre]
COCO -- Nicola Coco Da
Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to search Nicola Coco
Presidente della prima sezione civile della Corte Suprema di Cassazione[1][2] Durata
mandato 1938
- 1948 Presidente aggiunto del Tribunale Supremo delle Acque[2] Durata mandato 1937 - 1938 Consigliere della Corte
di Cassazione Durata mandato 1930
- 1937 Segretario generale dell'Associazione Generale fra i Magistrati
d'Italia[3] Nicola Coco (Umbriatico, 2 ottobre 1882 – Roma, 3 maggio 1948) è
stato un magistrato, giurista, docente, filosofo e storico italiano[4]. Dal punto di vista sistematico fu molto
vicino alla visione del grundnorm, teoria elaborata in passato dal filosofo e
giurista austriaco Hans Kelsen. Indice
1 Biografia 2 Opere
3 Onorificenze
4 Note
5 Bibliografia
6 Voci
correlate 7 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Figlio di Luigi, di professione farmacista, e di Teresina
Morelli, napoletana e insegnante di pianoforte diplomatasi al conservatorio di
San Pietro a Majella a Napoli, si laureò in Giurisprudenza ed iniziò la
carriera giudiziaria nel 1906, a soli 24 anni, con la nomina a Pretore di
Lagonegro. Nel 1910 fu Pretore di
Moliterno[5], per poi essere nominato Sostituto procuratore del Re a
Cassino. Nel 1917 venne trasferito alla
Regia Procura di Roma[6], ove vi rimarrà fino al 1923, anno della sua nomina a
sostituto Procuratore Generale presso la Corte d'appello di Roma[7]. In quello
stesso anno sarà, insieme a Gaetano Azzariti, tra i principali fondatori e
promotori dell'Ufficio del Massimario.
Nel 1924 ottenne la cattedra di Filosofia del diritto penale
all'Università degli Studi "La Sapienza" di Roma. Consigliere della Corte di Cassazione dal
1930 al 1937, venne poi nominato Procuratore generale del Re presso la Corte
d'appello di Cagliari[2], senza però esercitare mai quella funzione; fu invece
presidente aggiunto del Tribunale Supremo delle Acque[2] fino al 1938, quando
ricevette la nomina a Presidente della prima sezione civile della Corte Suprema
di Cassazione[2]. Fu noto soprattutto
per aver partecipato ai lavori di stesura del nuovo codice civile italiano
nonché del codice di procedura civile, entrambi entrati in vigore nel 1942. Si
occupò prevalentemente della stesura di leggi in materia di contratti,
obbligazioni, diritto del lavoro, ecc.
Nicola Coco si spense a Roma il 3 maggio 1948. Opere Gli eclettismi contemporanei e le
lezioni di filosofia del diritto, Lagonegro, M. Tancredi & Figli, 1909; Una
quistione di diritto transitorio in tema di farmacie, Milano, Società Editrice
Libraria, 1914; Sull'ultimo capoverso dell'art. 375 del codice penale, Milano,
Società Editrice Libraria, 1916; Luce di pensiero italico nelle tenebre della
guerra, Cassino, Soc. Tip. Ed. Meridionale, 1917; Per la tradizione giuridica
italiana, Milano, Società Editrice Libraria, 1918; Saggio filosofico sulla
corporazione fascista, Roma, Edizioni del diritto del lavoro, 1927; Sulla
costituzione di parte civile delle associazioni sindacali, Roma, Edizioni del
diritto del lavoro, 1928; Corso di diritto internazionale (recensita da Santi
Romano, seconda edizione riveduta ed ampliata), Padova, CEDAM, 1929; Intorno
alla pregiudiziale penale nel giudizio del lavoro, Roma, U.S.I.L.A., 1932;
Raffaele Garofalo, Napoli, SIEM, 1934; Il contratto collettivo di lavoro e le
imprese cooperative, Roma, s.n., 1935; Una inchiesta sulla criminalità in
Francia, Napoli, SIEM, 1936. Onorificenze Commendatore dell'Ordine dei Santi
Maurizio e Lazzaro - nastrino per uniforme ordinaria Commendatore dell'Ordine dei Santi Maurizio e Lazzaro
«Su iniziativa del Re d'Italia Vittorio Emanuele III» — Roma, 6 gennaio 1940[8]
Grande ufficiale dell'Ordine della Corona d'Italia - nastrino per uniforme
ordinaria Grande
ufficiale dell'Ordine della Corona d'Italia «Su iniziativa del Re d'Italia
Vittorio Emanuele III» — Roma, 28 settembre 1938[9] Note ^ Annuario - Camera
dei fasci e delle corporazioni, 1941, p. 409
Rivista penale. Rassegna di dottrina, legislazione, giurisprudenza, Roma,
Libreria del Littorio, 1938, pp. 345 e 773 ^ AA.VV., Rivista di diritto
pubblico. La giustizia amministrativa, vol. 40, Roma, Società per la Rivista di
diritto pubblico e la Giustizia amministrativa, 1948, p. 327 ^ Una vita per il
Diritto Giusto, su sentieridigitali.it. URL consultato il 27 gennaio 2018. ^ La
giustizia penale. Rivista critica settimanale di giurisprudenza, dottrina e
legislazione, Società editoriale del periodico La giustizia penale, 1914, p. 31
^ Tale trasferimento avvenne per via di un suggerimento pervenutogli al Re
dagli allora procuratori presso la Corte d'appello di Napoli Salvatore Pagliano
e Giacomo Calabria. ^ La giustizia tributaria. Dottrina, giurisprudenza,
legislazione, Città di Castello, Società tipografica Leonardo da Vinci, 1946,
p. 89 ^ Cfr. Gazzetta Ufficiale del Regno d'Italia n°. 219 del 18 settembre
1940 ^ Cfr. Gazzetta Ufficiale del Regno d'Italia n°. 140 del 16 giugno 1939
Bibliografia AA.VV., La scuola positiva. Rivista di diritto e procedura penale,
Milano, Vallardi, 1931. Voci correlate Corte suprema di cassazione Codice
civile italiano Codice di procedura civile italiano Collegamenti esterni Nicola
Coco, insigne magistrato e giurista della nobile Terra di Calabria, su
attualita.it. URL consultato il 26 gennaio 2018. Biografie Portale Biografie
Diritto Portale Diritto Filosofia Portale Filosofia Storia Portale Storia
Università Portale Università Categorie: Magistrati italianiGiuristi italiani
del XX secoloInsegnanti italiani del XX secoloNati nel 1882Morti nel 1948Nati
il 2 ottobreMorti il 3 maggioNati a UmbriaticoMorti a RomaFilosofi italiani del
XX secoloStorici italiani del XX secoloProfessori della Sapienza - Università
di RomaGrandi ufficiali dell'Ordine della Corona d'ItaliaCommendatori
dell'Ordine dei Santi Maurizio e LazzaroGiudici della Corte suprema di
cassazione[altre]
CODRONCHI -- Nicola Codronchi
Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to search Nicola
Codronchi (Imola, 1751 – Napoli, 1818) è stato un filosofo ed economista
italiano. Saggio filosofico, 1783
(Milano, Fondazione Mansutti). Appartenente alla nobiltà, dopo la laurea in
giurisprudenza prosegue gli studi approfondendo la matematica spinto dal padre
Innocenzo Codronchi. In seguito entra alla corte del regno di Napoli, prima con
Ferdinando I e poi con Giuseppe Bonaparte, da cui ottiene la nomina a
consigliere di Stato. Le sue opere più celebri sono un trattato sull'etica e il
Saggio filosofico su i contratti e giochi d'azzardo (1783), in cui affronta con
semplicità l'argomento del calcolo delle probabilità. Codronchi distingue in
tre classi di contratti aleatori: quelli in cui è noto il rapporto tra eventi
favorevoli contrari, quelli in cui questo rapporto è fondato sull'esperienza,
quelli in cui il rapporto si basa su leggi sicure e in parte
sull'esperienza. Il 9 maggio 1784
divenne socio dell'Accademia delle scienze di Torino.[1] Indice 1 Bibliografia
2 Note
3 Altri
progetti 4 Collegamenti
esterni Bibliografia Fondazione Mansutti, Quaderni di sicurtà. Documenti di
storia dell'assicurazione, a cura di M. Bonomelli, schede bibliografiche di C.
Di Battista, note critiche di F. Mansutti. Milano: Electa, 2011, pp. 110–111
Note ^ Nicola CODRONCHI, su www.accademiadellescienze.it. URL consultato il 28
agosto 2020. Altri progetti Collabora a Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons
contiene immagini o altri file su Nicola Codronchi Collegamenti esterni Opere
di Nicola Codronchi, su openMLOL, Horizons Unlimited srl. Modifica su Wikidata
Controllo di autorità VIAF
(EN) 2033431 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0000 5032 408X · LCCN (EN) no92002746 · GND (DE)
1050674928 · BAV (EN) 495/58786 · CERL cnp02101582 · WorldCat Identities (EN)
lccn-no92002746 Biografie Portale Biografie Storia Portale Storia Categorie:
Filosofi italiani del XVIII secoloFilosofi italiani del XIX secoloEconomisti
italianiNati nel 1751Morti nel 1818Nati a ImolaMorti a Napoli[altre]
COLAZZA -- Giovanni Colazza
Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to search Giovanni
Colazza, noto anche con lo pseudonimo di Leo (Roma, 9 agosto 1877 – 16 febbraio
1953), è stato un filosofo ed esoterista italiano. Indice 1 Biografia
2 Opere
3 Note
4 Voci
correlate 5 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Nato in una famiglia dell'alta borghesia romana, da cui
ricevette un'educazione cattolica, fu istruito agli studi umanistici e si
laureò nel 1902 in medicina e chirurgia all'università La Sapienza. Cultore dell'esoterismo e delle dottrine
massoniche e teosofiche,[1] verso le quali nutriva interessi che condivideva
col suo compagno di studi Giovanni Amendola, come lui membro della sezione
italiana della Società teosofica, fondata nel 1902, diretta da Isabel
Cooper-Oackley. Negli ambienti teosofici ebbe modo di conoscere il fondatore
dell'antroposofia Rudolf Steiner tramite la sua amicizia con la moglie di
questi, Marie von Sivers, che glielo presentò personalmente a Roma in piazza di
Spagna nel 1911.[2] In occasione di quell'incontro, Steiner gli consegnò il
libro sull'Iniziazione da lui scritto, tradotto in francese. Secondo la
testimonianza della baronessa Olga de Grünewald, Steiner sarebbe venuto in
Italia «a conoscere il dottor Colazza perché questi gli era stato indicato dal
Mondo Spirituale»[3] con l'intento di affidargli la guida del movimento
antroposofico in Italia. In quegli anni
Colazza fondò così uno dei primi Gruppi di Studi antroposofici in Italia, che
chiamò «Novalis», tenuto a battesimo dallo stesso Steiner, con il quale
continuò a restare in contatto recandosi annualmente a Dornach, sede principale
del movimento. Sempre secondo la testimonianza della de Grünewald, Colazza «non
solo era il discepolo più caro a Rudolf Steiner, ma la figura più elevata dopo
di lui».[4] Dall'incontro con l'antroposofia Colazza apprese l'esigenza di
seguire pratiche spirituali di concentrazione adatte al contesto occidentale ed
all'epoca attuale, molto diverse dai metodi orientali ritenuti ormai
anacronistici, coltivando in particolare la «via del pensiero
cosciente».[5] Magnifying glass icon
mgx2.svg Lo
stesso argomento in dettaglio: Esercizi di Rudolf Steiner per lo sviluppo
spirituale. Colazza prese parte come volontario alla prima guerra mondiale,
dove fu in trincea come medico ufficiale di campo.[2] Continuò in seguito la sua attività di
medico, anche presso ambasciate straniere, dedicandosi in particolare alla cura
dei bambini poveri, che secondo la testimonianza di un suo discepolo, Enrico
Pappacena, accoglieva gratuitamente nella sua abitazione romana.[6] Dal 1927 al 1929 fu membro del gruppo di Ur,
diretto da Julius Evola,[7] presso il quale scrisse diversi articoli sulla
rivista Ur, pubblicandoli con lo pseudonimo di Leo,[8] rivista i cui contenuti
appariranno in seguito in forma di libro intitolato Introduzione alla Magia
come scienza dell'Io, edito da Mediterranee.
Dagli anni quaranta tenne inoltre numerose conferenze, tra cui un ciclo
sul saggio di Steiner L'Iniziazione, che fu raccolto e pubblicato postumo dalla
casa editrice Tilopa nel 1992, col titolo Dell'iniziazione.[2] Fra i suoi più illustri discepoli vi fu
Massimo Scaligero.[2] Opere
Dell'Iniziazione, Tilopa, 1992 Introduzione alla magia, in collaborazione col
gruppo di Ur (1ª 1955), 3 voll., Edizioni Mediterranee, 1987 Note ^ Nel 1905
sarebbe stato iniziato alla massoneria nella loggia Roma del Grande Oriente
d'Italia, all'interno della quale sarebbe divenuto compagno, e quindi maestro
nel 1907, per poi presumibilmente uscirne nel 1908. Giovanni Colazza, articolo di Piero
Cammerinesi. ^ Massimo Scaligero, Dallo Yoga alla Rosacroce, pp. 86-87, Roma,
Perseo, 1972. ^ Massimo Scaligero, Dallo Yoga alla Rosacroce, pp. 85-86, Roma,
Perseo, 1972. ^ Giovanni Colazza l'asceta adamantino, articolo dal sito di
Econatroposophia. ^ Enrico Pappacena, Di alcuni cultori della scienza dello
spirito, Bari, 1971. ^ Julius Evola e l'esperienza del Gruppo di Ur. La storia
"occulta" dell'Italia del Novecento, articolo di Stefano Arcella su
"Hera", settembre 2012. ^ Presumibilmente in omaggio al suo segno
zodiacale, il Leone. Voci correlate Antroposofia Gruppo di Ur Collegamenti esterni
Conferenza inedita di Giovanni Colazza Piero Cammerinesi, "Giovanni
Colazza" su liberopensare.com V · D · M Antroposofia Biografie Portale
Biografie Filosofia Portale Filosofia Categorie: Filosofi italiani del XX
secoloEsoteristi italianiNati nel 1877Morti nel 1953Nati il 9 agostoMorti il 16
febbraioNati a RomaTeosofi italianiAntroposofi italianiErmetisti
italianiMassoni[altre]
COLECCHI -- Ottavio Colecchi
Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to search Pescocostanzo: targa commemorativa Ottavio Colecchi
(Pescocostanzo, 18 settembre 1773 – Napoli, 28 agosto 1848) è stato un filosofo
e matematico italiano. Indice 1 Biografia 2 Opere
3 Bibliografia
4 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Casa natale di Ottavio
Colecchi, sulla via omonima Nacque a Pescocostanzo nel 1773. Si dedicò dapprima
alla teologia e divenne frate domenicano presso il convento di Ortona, dove
subì diverse perquisizioni da parte dell'Inquisizione per la sua tacita
simpatia verso gli ideali rivoluzionari. Nel 1809, a causa della soppressione
degli ordini religiosi, fu costretto ad abbandonare l'abito religioso.
Insegnante di matematica presso la Reale Accademia Militare della Nunziatella
intorno al 1812, dopo la caduta di Murat, venne mandato in missione in Russia,
dove si dedicò all'insegnamento della Filosofia e della Matematica. Al ritorno,
nel 1817, soggiornò a Königsberg, in Germania, dove ebbe modo di conoscere
l'opera di Immanuel Kant. Fu uno dei primi filosofi italiani a studiare Kant in
lingua originale. Rientrato in Italia,
fondò a Napoli una scuola privata di filosofia ed ebbe tra i suoi allievi i
fratelli Spaventa, Bertrando e Silvio, Francesco De Sanctis, Luigi Settembrini
e Camillo Caracciolo. Il suo merito principale fu quello di essere, insieme a
Pasquale Galluppi, il primo assertore del criticismo kantiano nell'Italia
meridionale. Oggi una targa è posta
sulla sua casa natale in via del Convento (oggi via Colecchi); a lui è dedicata
la biblioteca pubblica e un busto nella piazzetta tra via Colecchi e via Mastri
Lombardi. Opere Se la sola analisi sia
un mezzo d'invenzione, o s'inventi colla sintesi ancora? Memoria di Ottavio
Colecchi, «Progresso», V, 1836, vol. XIV, pp. 213-228. Saggio sulle leggi del
pensiere, «Progresso», VI, 1837, vol. XVI, pp. 161-192. Sulla analisi e sulla
sintesi. Teorica di V. Cousin. Suo esame, «Progresso», VI, 1837, vol. XVII, pp.
189-216. Sulla legge morale, «Progresso», VIII, 1838, vol. XX, pp. 145-159;
vol. XXI, pp. 5-33; VIII, 1839, vol. XXII, pp. 161-175; vol. XXIII, pp. 5-26;
vol. XXIV, pp. 5-27, 225-240. Sulle leggi della ragione, «Progresso», IX, 1840,
vol. XXV, pp. 169-186. Ora in Quistioni filosofiche, pp. 325-346. Se il
raziocinio sia essenzialmente diverso dalla intuizione, «Ore solitarie»,
ottobre 1840, f. 10, pp. 289-299; e «Giornale abruzzese», VI, ottobre 1841,
vol. XX, n. 57, pp. 15-36. Se nell'invenzione eserciti maggior influenza la
sintesi o l'analisi, «Giornale abruzzese», VI, marzo 1841, vol. XVII, n. 51,
pp. 143-154. Se li giudizi necessari sieno solamente gli analitici, «Giornale
abruzzese», VI, aprile 1841, vol. XVIII, n. 52, pp. 26-33. Se quella, che un
moderno scrittore di logica appella identità formale del raziocinio, sia
valevole a convertire il raziocinio empirico in raziocinio misto?, «Giornale
abruzzese», VI, maggio 1841, vol. XVIII, n. 53, pp. 65-74. Principii sui quali
poggia il raziocinio quando classifica e quando istruisce, secondo un moderno
scrittore di logica, «Giornale abruzzese», VI, giugno 1841, vol. XIX, n. 56,
pp. 24-29. Quistioni ideologiche, «Giornale abruzzese», VI, novembre 1841, vol.
XX, n. 59, pp. 100-114. Se diasi una logica pura, ed una logica mista,
«Lucifero», IV, 1841, n. 8, pp. 63-64. Se le idee soggettive non altro sieno
che idee di rapporti, «Museo», II, 1842, vol. IV, pp. 3-8. Sulle idee dello spazio
e del tempo, «Museo», II, 1842, vol. IV, pp. 97-109. Quistione relativa al
primo problema di filosofia - Se le nostre sensazioni sieno esterne di lor
natura, o tali diventino in forza de' giudizi abituali?,«Progr.», n.s., 1843,
vol. I, pp. 43-58. Sopra alcune quistioni le più importanti della filosofia.
Osservazioni critiche, «Giambattista Vico», 1857, vol. I, fasc. 3, pp. 335-397;
vol. II, fasc. I, pp. 123-136; vol. III, fasc. I, pp. 68-96. Ora in Quistioni
filosofiche, pp. 771-874. Scritti inediti (Psicologia, Logica applicata,
Ideologia, Frammento apologetico), in G. Gentile, Dal Genovesi al Galluppi.
Ricerche storiche, Edizioni della Critica, Napoli 1903, pp. [345]-374; e in
Storia della filosofia italiana dal Genovesi al Galluppi, vol. II, Firenze
19372, pp. 211-249. Sopra alcune quistioni le più importanti della filosofia.
Osservazioni critiche di Ottavio Colecchi, 2 voll., Tip. «All'insegna di Aldo
Manuzio», Napoli 1843. Rist. anastatica: Quistioni filosofiche, a cura
dell'Istituto italiano per gli studi filosofici, con introd. di F. Tessitore,
Procaccini, Napoli 1980, 892 pp. Bibliografia E. Pessina, Quadro storico dei
sistemi filosofici, Milano 1845, pp. 259-261. P. G. Falcocchio, Necrologia di
Ottavio Colecchi, in «Poliorama pittoresco», XII (1848), pp. 357-358. N. M.
Zappi, Elogio funebre di Ottavio Colecchi, Chieti 1848. B. Spaventa, Studi
sopra la filosofia di Hegel, Torino 1850. L. Settembrini, Lezioni di
letteratura italiana, III, Napoli 1876, p. 419. F. Fiorentino, Scritti vari di
letteratura, filosofia e critica, Napoli 1877, pp. 474-475. A. De Nino,
Briciole letterarie, I, Lanciano 1884, pp. 57-61. F. De Sanctis, La
lettereratura italiana nel secolo XIX, Napoli 1897, pp. 185, 230. S. Marchi, Il
sistema filosofico di Ottavio Colecchi (filosofo abruzzese), Tip. Sociale di A.
Eliseo, L'Aquila 1900, p. 55. F. Amodeo, Ottavio Colecchi, in «Atti della
Accademia Pontaniana», XLVII (1917), memoria n. 3. C. Imperatore, Ottavio
Colecchi, filosofo e matematico abruzzese, I, Discussioni biografiche e documenti
inediti, Ravenna 1920. A. Zazo, L'istruzione pubblica e privata nel Napoletano
(1760-1860), Città di Castello 1927, pp. 234-235. G. Sabatini, Ottavio Colecchi
filosofo e matematico: nuove notizie e nuovi documenti, in «Rassegna abruzzese
di storia e d'arte», IV (1928), pp. 19-94. G. Gentile, Storia della filosofia
italiana dal Genovesi al Galluppi, vol. II, Milano 1930, pp. 138-249. E.
Codignola, Pedagogisti ed educatori, Milano 1939, pp. 141-142. A. Capograssi,
Nuovi documenti sull'accusa di ateismo ad Ottavio Colecchi, in «Samnium», XIII
(1940), pp. 73-89. P. Romano, Un antagonista del Galluppi: Ottavio Colecchi, in
«Archivio storico per la Calabria e la Lucania», XIII (1944), pp. 157-170. A.
Cristallini, Ottavio Colecchi, un filosofo da riscoprire, Padova 1968. G.
Oldrini, La cultura filosofica napoletana dell'Ottocento, Bari 1973, pp.
158-163. E. Garin, Storia della filosofia italiana, vol. III, Torino 1978, pp.
1091-1093. F. Tessitore, Colecchi e gli scettici, in Introduzione a Quistioni
filosofiche, Napoli 1980. G. Cacciatore, Vico e Kant nella filosofia di Ottavio
Colecchi, in «Bollettino del Centro di studi vichiani», XII-XIII, 1982-1983,
pp. 63-99. G. Sabatini, Io e Ottavio Colecchi. Narrazione biografica in forma
di anamnesi, Japadre Editore, L'Aquila-Roma 2008. Collegamenti esterni Roberto
Grita, «COLECCHI, Ottavio» in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 26,
Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, 1982. Controllo di autorità VIAF (EN) 20569671 · ISNI (EN) 0000
0000 6119 6984 · LCCN (EN) no2001043069 · BAV (EN) 495/162400 · CERL
cnp00570827 · WorldCat Identities (EN) lccn-no2001043069 Biografie Portale
Biografie Due Sicilie Portale Due Sicilie Filosofia Portale Filosofia
Matematica Portale Matematica Categorie: Filosofi italiani del XIX
secoloMatematici italiani del XIX secoloNati nel 1773Morti nel 1848Nati il 18
settembreMorti il 28 agostoNati a PescocostanzoMorti a NapoliDomenicani
italianiEx domenicani[altre]
COLLETTI -- Lucio
Colletti Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to search
Lucio Colletti Lucio Colletti.jpg Deputato della Repubblica Italiana Durata
mandato 9
maggio 1996 – 3 novembre 2001 Legislature XIII,
XIV Gruppo parlamentare Forza
Italia Circoscrizione Lombardia
1 e Veneto 2 Incarichi parlamentari Componente del Comitato di vigilanza
sull'attività di documentazione (XIII legislatura) Componente della III
Commissione permanente Esteri (XIII legislatura) Componente della IV
Commissione permanente Difesa (XIV legislatura) Sito istituzionale Dati generali
Partito politico PdA
(1943-1947) PCI (1947-1964) Indipendente (1964-1994) FI (1994-2001) Titolo di
studio laurea
in lettere e filosofia Università Università
degli Studi di Messina e Università “La Sapienza” Professione docente universitario
Lucio Colletti (Roma, 8 dicembre 1924 – Venturina Terme, 3 novembre 2001) è
stato un filosofo, accademico e politico italiano. Indice 1 Biografia
2 Opere
3 Note
4 Bibliografia
5 Altri
progetti 6 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Partigiano, aderente prima al Partito d'Azione e poi al
Partito Comunista Italiano, dopo la laurea in filosofia insegnò Storia della
filosofia e Filosofia teoretica all'Università La Sapienza di
Roma. Allievo di Galvano Della Volpe, militò nel PCI fino al 1964, anno in
cui uscì dal partito su posizioni di sinistra radicale. Quindi fondò e diresse
il periodico La Sinistra (1966-1967). Pubblicò nel 1969 il volume Il
marxismo e Hegel che rinnovò in profondità gli studi marxisti occidentali. La
sua crisi teorica, a lungo maturata, fu testimoniata dalla celebre Intervista
politico-filosofica del (1974), apparsa dapprima sulla rivista inglese New Left
Review e poi in volume presso i tipi della Casa editrice Laterza, volume con
cui l'allora direttore editoriale Enrico Mistretta iniziò l'innovativa serie
dei libri-intervista. Laterza fu per Lucio Colletti l'editore di riferimento, e
per molti anni ne fu anche consulente. Nel 1971 era stato tra i firmatari della
lettera aperta pubblicata sul settimanale L'Espresso sul caso Pinelli e di
un'altra pubblicata ad ottobre su Lotta Continua in cui esprimeva solidarietà
verso alcuni militanti e direttori responsabili del giornale, inquisiti per
istigazione a delinquere per il contenuto di alcuni articoli.
Intellettuale molto apprezzato dalla sinistra italiana, dal 1974 al 1978 pensò
di lasciare l'Italia e di trasferirsi in Svizzera, rivolgendo sempre più le sue
letture filosofiche al mondo anglosassone del neoempirismo, anche su
sollecitazione di quel suo amico e sodale che da allora fu Marcello Pera. Negli
anni ottanta portò alle estreme conclusioni il processo di revisione della sua
ideologia, che lo condusse dapprima a collaborare con Mondoperaio (rivista
ufficiale del Partito Socialista Italiano) e, in seguito, ad aderire alla
recente formazione politica di Silvio Berlusconi, Forza Italia, nelle cui liste
fu eletto deputato nelle elezioni politiche del 1996 e del 2001. Morì per
un malore durante un bagno alle Terme di Calidario a Venturina, venendo poi
sepolto nel cimitero del Verano di Roma[1]. Opere Il marxismo e Hegel, in
Lenin, Quaderni filosofici, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1958. Ideologia e società,
Bari, Laterza, 1969. Il marxismo e Hegel, Bari, Laterza, 1969. Il futuro del
capitalismo. Crollo o sviluppo?, a cura di e con Claudio Napoleoni, Bari,
Laterza, 1970. Intervista politico-filosofica, con un saggio su Marxismo e
dialettica, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1974. Il marxismo e il "crollo" del
capitalismo, a cura di, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1975. Tra marxismo e no, Roma-Bari,
Laterza, 1979. Tramonto dell'ideologia. [Le ideologie dal '68 a oggi;
Dialettica e non-contraddizione; Kelsen e il marxismo], Roma-Bari, Laterza,
1980. Crisi delle ideologie. Intervista politico-filosofica, Il marxismo del XX
secolo, Le ideologie dal '68 a oggi, Milano, Club degli editori, 1981. Pagine
di filosofia e politica, Milano, Rizzoli, 1989. ISBN 88-17-85214-7. La logica
di Benedetto Croce, Lungro di Cosenza, Marco, 1992. ISBN 88-85350-25-9. Fine
della filosofia e altri saggi, Roma, Ideazione, 1996. ISBN 88-86812-14-0.
Lezioni tedesche. Con Kant, alla ricerca di un'etica laica, Roma, Liberal,
2008. ISBN 88-88835-26-1. Note ^ È morto Lucio Colletti voce "contro"
di Forza Italia, su repubblica.it, 3 novembre 2001. Bibliografia Camera dei
Deputati, Gruppo Parlamentare di Forza Italia, Ricordo di Lucio Colletti, Roma,
Stampa e servizi, 2001 Orlando Tambosi, Perché il marxismo ha fallito Lucio
Colletti e la storia di una grande illusione, Milano, Mondadori, 2001. ISBN
88-04-48844-1 Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali, Lucio Colletti: il
cammino di un filosofo contemporaneo (1924-2001), Roma, Essetre, 2003 Pino
Bongiorno, Aldo G. Ricci, Lucio Colletti scienza e libertà, Roma, Ideazione,
2004. ISBN 88-88800-17-4. Cristina Corradi, Storia dei marxismi in Italia,
Roma, Manifestolibri, 2005, pp. 124–138. ISBN 88-7285-386-9. Altri progetti
Collabora a Wikiquote Wikiquote contiene citazioni di o su Lucio Colletti
Collegamenti esterni Collétti, Lucio la voce nella Treccani.it L'Enciclopedia
Italiana. URL visitato il 20/07/2012 Lucio Colletti, su Camera.it - XIII
legislatura, Parlamento italiano. Lucio Colletti, su Camera.it - XIV
legislatura, Parlamento italiano. La storia di Lucio Colletti di Costanzo
Preve, nel sito Kelebek Controllo di autorità VIAF
(EN) 17220979 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0001 1041 3384 · SBN IT\ICCU\CFIV\103758 · LCCN
(EN) n79063347 · GND (DE) 107565625 · BNF (FR) cb11897319g (data) · WorldCat
Identities (EN) lccn-n79063347 Biografie Portale Biografie Filosofia Portale
Filosofia Politica Portale Politica Categorie: Filosofi italiani del XX
secoloFilosofi italiani del XXI secoloAccademici italiani del XX
secoloAccademici italiani del XXI secoloPolitici italiani del XX secoloPolitici
italiani del XXI secoloNati nel 1924Morti nel 2001Nati l'8 dicembreMorti il 3
novembreNati a RomaMorti a Venturina TermePolitici del Partito d'AzionePolitici
del Partito Comunista ItalianoPolitici di Forza Italia (1994)Deputati della
XIII legislatura della Repubblica ItalianaDeputati della XIV legislatura della
Repubblica ItalianaSepolti nel cimitero del VeranoStudenti della Sapienza -
Università di RomaProfessori della Sapienza - Università di RomaFondatori di
riviste italianeDirettori di periodici italiani[altre]
COLLI -- Giorgio
Colli Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to
search Giorgio Colli Giorgio Colli (Torino, 16 gennaio 1917 – San
Domenico di Fiesole, 6 gennaio 1979) è stato un filosofo, storico della
filosofia, accademico, traduttore italiano. Ha insegnato per trent'anni Storia
della filosofia antica all'Università di Pisa[1]. Indice 1 Biografia 1.1 Filosofia
dell'espressione 1.2 Contributi
alla storia della filosofia 1.2.1 Sapienza
greca 1.2.2 Edizione
critica delle opere di Nietzsche 2 Note
3 Opere
principali 4 Traduzioni
5 Opere
complete di Friedrich Nietzsche (Classici Adelphi) 6 Epistolario di Friedrich Nietzsche
(Classici Adelphi) 7 Opere
di Friedrich Nietzsche (Piccola Biblioteca Adelphi) 8 Bibliografia critica 9 Altri
progetti 10 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Giorgio Colli discendeva da una facoltosa famiglia torinese. Il
padre, Giuseppe, amministrò il quotidiano La Stampa ai tempi di Alfredo
Frassati, incarico dal quale fu poi estromesso all'indomani della marcia su
Roma, su ordine di Benito Mussolini, per mettere alla direzione del quotidiano
lo scrittore Curzio Malaparte. Dopo la Liberazione fu nominato amministratore
del Corriere della Sera, dove restò per sedici anni. Colli frequentò in
giovane età l'Istituto Principessa Clotilde di Savoia, e successivamente
concluse gli studi presso l'Università di Torino, laureandosi in
giurisprudenza[1] l'11 luglio 1939, relatore Gioele Solari, discutendo una tesi
in filosofia del diritto e filosofia politica dal titolo Politicità ellenica e
Platone, sullo sviluppo storico del pensiero politico di Platone[1], ampie
parti della quale furono pubblicate a cura dello stesso Gioele Solari[1].
Studioso schivo e appartato, lontano da correnti di pensiero "in
voga", fedele a Nietzsche e Schopenhauer, scorse nell'antica sapienza
presocratica l'autentico "logos" a cui ritornare. Lo stile di
scrittura, profondo e costellato di aforismi taglienti, era caratterizzato da
un'attenzione maniacale alla musicalità del testo e della parola. Questa dote
musicale emerge con chiarezza dalle letture di alcuni passi di Colli recitati
da Carmelo Bene.[2] Filosofia dell'espressione Magnifying glass icon
mgx2.svg Lo stesso
argomento in dettaglio: Filosofia dell'espressione. La sua opera principale è
Filosofia dell'espressione (1969), che fornisce, mediante una complessa teoria
delle categorie e della deduzione, un'interpretazione della totalità della
manifestazione come "espressione" di qualcosa (l'immediatezza) che
sfugge alla presa della conoscenza. Comunque, Colli ritiene che sia possibile
riguadagnare il fondamento metafisico del mondo portando il discorso filosofico
ai suoi estremi limiti e "(di)mostrando" la natura derivata del
logos. Bisogna quindi fare i conti con Filosofia dell'espressione se non si
vuole scambiare Colli solo per un geniale interprete di Schopenhauer e di
Nietzsche.[3] Contributi alla storia della filosofia Colli, oltre che
filosofo, fu anche apprezzato traduttore dell'Organon di Aristotele e della
Critica della ragion pura di Kant nonché docente di Storia della filosofia
antica all'Università di Pisa e direttore di collana per diverse case editrici
(Einaudi, Boringhieri, Adelphi)[4]. Come storico della filosofia, è stato
particolarmente importante il suo contributo storico, filologico e critico
esercitato su autori come Aristotele, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche.
Sapienza greca Tra i contributi alla storia della filosofia antica vanno
ricordati i tre volumi sulla Sapienza greca, opera rimasta incompiuta a causa
della sua morte. In essa sono raccolti i frammenti dei presocratici e vengono
analizzati l'orfismo, i misteri eleusini e i culti delle divinità greche, in
particolare Dioniso e Apollo, come forme alogiche di sapienza. Al tentativo di
interpretare gli enigmi di questi culti, fra i quali quelli oracolari, viene
fatta risalire l'origine remota della dialettica e della filosofia[5], di cui
Colli si occupa anche in altri libri[6][7]. Edizione critica delle opere
di Nietzsche A lui si deve anche la prima e fondamentale edizione critica delle
opere e degli epistolari di Friedrich Nietzsche, condotta insieme al suo
principale allievo Mazzino Montinari. Questa ultima operazione rappresenta
senza dubbio uno dei più grandi meriti della coppia Colli-Montinari. In
particolare la pubblicazione in edizione critica della "Volontà di
potenza" evidenziò come la versione pubblicata nel 1906 da Elisabeth
Förster-Nietzsche (sorella del celebre filosofo tedesco) presentava numerose e
discutibili manipolazioni in chiave razzista e xenofoba totalmente assenti
nell'originale e introdotte volutamente dalla Förster. L'edizione critica delle
opere nietzschiane diede avvio ad una profonda revisione degli studi su questo
filosofo e in particolare mise in discussione molte interpretazioni che,
proprio partendo dalla lettura "falsata" della Volontà di Potenza del
1906, sostenevano la vicinanza di questo autore a quelle correnti di “destra”
che sarebbero poi sfociate successivamente nella esperienza del nazismo.
Tuttavia questo progetto editoriale fu connotato da molteplici difficoltà. In
primo luogo Colli, non avendo alcun contatto con gli ambienti politici, difficilmente
sarebbe riuscito ad accedere all'archivio Nietzsche di Weimar, dove erano
conservati la gran parte dei manoscritti originali del filosofo tedesco.
Negli anni Sessanta infatti, quando il progetto fu concepito, Weimar
apparteneva alla Repubblica Democratica Tedesca la quale attraverso numerosi
"escamotage" burocratici di fatto impediva agli studiosi occidentali
di accedere in qualsiasi modo alle Istituzione della DDR. Questo problema fu
risolto dal fatto che Montinari, a differenza del suo maestro, era iscritto al
PCI e anzi proprio attraverso di esso riuscì ad ottenere dai responsabili
culturali del partito comunista della Germania orientale i permessi necessari
per studiare nell'archivio Nietzsche. Un'ulteriore difficoltà fu determinata
dal fatto che la casa editrice Einaudi, con la quale Colli e Montinari
iniziarono a definire la pubblicazione delle opere nietzschiane decise
all'improvviso, probabilmente per ragioni politiche, di non dare alle stampe le
opere del "nazista" Nietzsche che invece furono poi accolte dalla
casa editrice Adelphi, fondata alla fine degli anni Cinquanta da un ex
einaudiano come Luciano Foà.[senza fonte] Note Valerio Meattini,
Colli Giorgio, in Annuario dell'Università degli studi di Pisa per l'anno
accademico 1978-1979 on line sul Sistema bibliotecario di ateneo ^ Modi di
vivere - Giorgio Colli. Una conoscenza per cambiare la vita, su youtube.com. ^
Vedi Luigi Anzalone, Giuliano Minichiello, Lo Specchio di Dioniso. Saggi su
Giorgio Colli, Edizioni Dedalo, Bari, 1984, pag. 22. ^ Per Boringhieri diresse
l'Enciclopedia di autori classici, con la collaborazione, tra gli altri, di
Mazzino Montinari, Sossio Giametta, Gigliola Pasquinelli, Giuliana Lanata; a
quest'ultima si deve traduzione e commento di opere del medico greco Ippocrate
di Coo, Boringhieri, Torino, 1961 ^ Giorgio Colli, La sapienza greca I -
Dioniso, Apollo, Eleusi, Orfeo, Museo, Iperborei, Enigma. Adelphi, Milano,
1977, ISBN 978-88-459-0761-6, pagina 48 ^ Giorgio Colli, Dopo Nietzsche.
Adelphi, Milano, 1974, ISBN 978-88-459-0089-1, pgg. 47-49, 167-171, 174 ^
Giorgio Colli, La nascita della filosofia. Adelphi, Milano, 1975, ISBN
978-88-459-0181-2, pgg. 49-81 Opere principali Filosofia dell'espressione.
Adelphi, Milano, 1969, ISBN 978-88-459-0060-0 Dopo Nietzsche. Adelphi, Milano,
1974, ISBN 978-88-459-0089-1 La nascita della filosofia. Adelphi, Milano, 1975,
ISBN 978-88-459-0181-2 La sapienza greca I - Dioniso, Apollo, Eleusi, Orfeo,
Museo, Iperborei, Enigma. Adelphi, Milano, 1977, ISBN 978-88-459-0761-6 La
sapienza greca II - Epimenide, Ferecide, Talete, Anassimandro, Anassimene,
Onomacrito. Adelphi, Milano, 1978, ISBN 978-88-459-0893-4 La sapienza greca III
- Eraclito. Adelphi, Milano, 1980, ISBN 978-88-459-0983-2 Scritti su Nietzsche.
Adelphi, Milano, 1980, ISBN 978-88-459-0414-1 La ragione errabonda. Quaderni
postumi. Adelphi, Milano, 1982, ISBN 978-88-459-0502-5 Per una enciclopedia di
autori classici. Adelphi, Milano, 1983, ISBN 978-88-459-0530-8 La Natura ama
nascondersi - Physis kryptesthai philei. Adelphi, Milano, 1988, ISBN
978-88-459-0289-5 Zenone di Elea. Lezioni 1964-1965. Adelphi, Milano, 1998,
ISBN 978-88-459-1402-7 Gorgia e Parmenide. Lezioni 1965-1967. Adelphi, Milano,
2003, ISBN 978-88-459-1774-5 Introduzione a Osservazioni su Diofanto di Pierre
de Fermat. Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2006, ISBN 978-88-339-0998-1 Platone
politico. Adelphi, Milano, 2007, ISBN 978-88-459-2134-6 Filosofi sovrumani.
Adelphi, Milano, 2009, ISBN 978-88-459-2365-4 Apollineo e dionisiaco. Adelphi,
Milano, 2010, ISBN 978-88-459-2542-9 Empedocle. Adelphi, Milano, 2019, ISBN
978-88-459-3437-7 Traduzioni Kurt Hildebrandt, Platone: la lotta dello spirito
per la potenza, Einaudi, Torino 1947 Karl Löwith, Da Hegel a Nietzsche,
Einaudi, Torino 1949 Aristotele, Organon, Einaudi, Torino 1955 Immanuel Kant,
Critica della ragion pura, a cura e tr. di Giorgio Colli, Einaudi, Torino 1957
Immanuel Kant, Critica della ragion pura, a cura e tr. di Giorgio Colli,
Adelphi, Milano 1976 Platone, Simposio, a cura di Giorgio Colli, Adelphi,
Milano 1979 Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga e paralipomena I, a cura di Giorgio
Colli, Adelphi, Milano 1981 Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga e paralipomena II, a
cura di Giorgio Colli e Mario Carpitella, tr. di Mazzino Montinari ed Eva
Amendola Kühn, Adelphi, Milano 1983 Immanuel Kant, Critica della ragion pura, a
cura e tr. di Giorgio Colli, Adelphi, Milano 1995 Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga
e paralipomena, a cura di Giorgio Colli, Adelphi, Milano 1998 Aristotele,
Organon, a cura di Giorgio Colli, Adelphi, Milano 2003 Opere complete di
Friedrich Nietzsche (Classici Adelphi) Vol. I, tomo 1: Scritti giovanili
1856-1864, a cura di Giuliano Campioni e Mario Carpitella, tr. di Mario
Carpitella, Adelphi, Milano 1998 Vol. I, tomo 2: Scritti giovanili 1865-1869, a
cura di Giuliano Campioni e Mario Carpitella, Adelphi, Milano 2001 Vol. III,
tomo 1: La nascita della tragedia - Considerazioni inattuali, I-III, a cura di
Giorgio Colli e Mazzino Montinari, tr. di Mazzino Montinari e Sossio Giametta,
Adelphi, Milano 1972 Vol. III, tomo 2: La filosofia nell'epoca tragica dei
Greci e Scritti dal 1870 al 1873, a cura di Giorgio Colli e Mazzino Montinari,
tr. di Giorgio Colli, Adelphi, Milano 1973 Vol. III, tomo 3, parte 1°:
Frammenti postumi 1869-1874, a cura di Mario Carpitella, tr. di Giorgio Colli e
Chiara Colli Staude, Adelphi, Milano 1989 Vol. III, tomo 3, parte 2°: Frammenti
postumi 1869-1874, a cura di Mario Carpitella, tr. di Giorgio Colli e Chiara
Colli Staude, Adelphi, Milano 1992 Vol. IV, tomo 1: Richard Wagner a Bayreuth -
Considerazioni inattuali, IV - Frammenti postumi (1875-1876), a cura di Giorgio
Colli e Mazzino Montinari, tr. di Giorgio Colli, Mazzino Montinari e Sossio
Giametta, Adelphi, Milano 1967 Vol. IV, tomo 2: Umano, troppo umano, I e
Frammenti postumi (1876-1878), a cura di Giorgio Colli e Mazzino Montinari, tr.
di Mazzino Montinari e Sossio Giametta, Adelphi, Milano 1965 Vol. IV, tomo 3:
Umano, troppo umano, II - Frammenti postumi (1878-1879), a cura di Giorgio
Colli e Mazzino Montinari, tr. di Mazzino Montinari e Sossio Giametta, Adelphi,
Milano 1967 Vol. V, tomo 1: Aurora e Frammenti postumi (1879-1881), a cura di
Giorgio Colli e Mazzino Montinari, tr. di Mazzino Montinari e Ferruccio Masini,
Adelphi, Milano 1964 Vol. V, tomo 2: Idilli di Messina - La gaia scienza - Frammenti
postumi (1881-1882), a cura di Giorgio Colli e Mazzino Montinari, tr. di
Mazzino Montinari e Ferruccio Masini, Adelphi, Milano 1965 Vol. VI, tomo 1:
Così parlò Zarathustra, a cura di Giorgio Colli e Mazzino Montinari, tr. di
Mazzino Montinari, Adelphi, Milano 1968 Vol. VI, tomo 2: Al di là del bene e
del male e Genealogia della morale, a cura di Giorgio Colli e Mazzino
Montinari, tr. di Ferruccio Masini, Adelphi, Milano 1968 Vol. VI, tomo 3: Il
caso Wagner - Crepuscolo degli idoli - L'anticristo - Ecce homo - Nietzsche
contra Wagner, a cura di Giorgio Colli, Mazzino Montinari, tr. di Roberto
Calasso e Ferruccio Masini, Adelphi, Milano 1970 Vol. VI, tomo 4: Ditirambi di
Dioniso e Poesie postume (1882-1888), a cura di Giorgio Colli e Mazzino
Montinari, tr. di Giorgio Colli, Adelphi, Milano 1982 Vol. VII, tomo 1, parte
1°: Frammenti postumi 1882-1884, a cura di Mazzino Montinari e Mario
Carpitella, tr. di Mazzino Montinari e Leonardo Amoroso, Adelphi, Milano 1982
Vol. VII, tomo 1, parte 2°: Frammenti postumi 1882-1884, a cura di Mazzino
Montinari e Mario Carpitella, tr. di Mazzino Montinari e Leonardo Amoroso,
Adelphi, Milano 1986 Vol. VII, tomo 2: Frammenti postumi 1884, a cura di
Giorgio Colli e Mazzino Montinari, tr. di Mazzino Montinari, Adelphi, Milano 1976
Vol. VII, tomo 3: Frammenti postumi 1884-1885, a cura di Giorgio Colli e
Mazzino Montinari, tr. di Sossio Giametta, Adelphi, Milano 1975 Vol. VIII, tomo
1: Frammenti postumi 1885-1887, a cura di Giorgio Colli e Mazzino Montinari,
tr. di Sossio Giametta, Adelphi, Milano 1975 Vol. VIII, tomo 2: Frammenti
postumi 1887-1888, a cura di Giorgio Colli e Mazzino Montinari, tr. di Sossio
Giametta, Adelphi, Milano 1971 Vol. VIII, tomo 3: Frammenti postumi 1888-1889,
a cura di Giorgio Colli e Mazzino Montinari, tr. di Sossio Giametta, Adelphi,
Milano 1974 Epistolario di Friedrich Nietzsche (Classici Adelphi) Vol. I:
Epistolario 1850-1869, a cura di Giorgio Colli e Mazzino Montinari, tr. di
Maria Ludovica Pampaloni Fama, Adelphi, Milano 1977 Vol. II: Epistolario 1869-1874,
a cura di Giorgio Colli e Mazzino Montinari, tr. di Chiara Colli Staude,
Adelphi, Milano 1981 Vol. III: Epistolario 1875-1879, a cura di Giuliano
Campioni e Federico Gerratana, tr. di Maria Ludovica Pampaloni Fama, Adelphi,
Milano 1995 Vol. IV: Epistolario 1880-1884, a cura di Giuliano Campioni, tr. di
Mario Carpitella e Maria Ludovica Pampaloni Fama, Adelphi, Milano 2004 Opere di
Friedrich Nietzsche (Piccola Biblioteca Adelphi) Sull'utilità e il danno della
storia per la vita, tr. di Sossio Giametta, Adelphi, Milano 1974 Sull'avvenire
delle nostre scuole, tr. di Giorgio Colli, Adelphi, Milano 1975 Così parlò
Zarathustra, tr. di Mazzino Montinari, Adelphi, Milano 1976 ISBN 88-459-0655-8
Al di là del bene e del male, tr. di Ferruccio Masini, Adelphi, Milano 1977
L'anticristo, tr. di Ferruccio Masini, Adelphi, Milano 1977 La gaia scienza e
Idilli di Messina, tr. di Ferruccio Masini, Adelphi, Milano 1977 La mia vita,
tr. Mario Carpitella, Adelphi, Milano 1977 La nascita della tragedia, tr. di
Sossio Giametta, Adelphi, Milano 1977 ISBN 88-459-0199-8 Aurora, tr. di
Ferruccio Masini, Adelphi, Milano 1978 Scritti su Wagner, traduzione di
Ferruccio Masini e Sossio Giametta, Adelphi, Milano 1979 Umano, troppo umano,
I, tr. di Sossio Giametta, Adelphi, Milano 1979 ISBN 88-459-0464-4 Umano,
troppo umano, II, tr. di Sossio Giametta, Adelphi, Milano 1981 ISBN
88-459-0390-7 Ditirambi di Dioniso e Poesie postume, tr. di Giorgio Colli,
Adelphi, Milano 1982 Crepuscolo degli idoli, tr. di Ferruccio Masini, Adelphi,
Milano 1983 David Strauss, l'uomo di fede e lo scrittore, tr. di Sossio
Giametta, Adelphi, Milano 1983 Genealogia della morale, tr. di Ferruccio
Masini, Adelphi, Milano 1984 ISBN 88-459-0588-8 Schopenhauer come educatore,
tr. di Mazzino Montinari, Adelphi, Milano 1985 Ecce homo, a cura di Roberto
Calasso, Adelphi, Milano 1991 ISBN 88-459-0861-5 La filosofia nell'epoca
tragica dei Greci e Scritti 1870-1873, tr. di Giorgio Colli, Milano Adelphi
1991 ISBN 88-459-0866-6 Frammenti postumi I, a cura di Giuliano Campioni, Mario
Carpitella e Federico Gerratana, tr. di Giorgio Colli e Chiara Colli Staude,
Adelphi, Milano 2004 Frammenti postumi II, a cura di Giuliano Campioni, Mario
Carpitella e Federico Gerratana, tr. di Giorgio Colli e Chiara Colli Staude,
Adelphi, Milano 2004 Frammenti postumi III, a cura di Giuliano Campioni, Mario
Carpitella e Federico Gerratana, tr. di Giorgio Colli e Chiara Colli Staude,
Adelphi, Milano 2005 Frammenti postumi IV, a cura di Giuliano Campioni, Mario
Carpitella e Federico Gerratana, tr. di Giorgio Colli e Chiara Colli Staude,
Adelphi, Milano 2005 Lettere da Torino, a cura di Giuliano Campioni, tr. di
Vivetta Vivarelli, Adelphi, Milano 2008 Frammenti postumi V, a cura di Giorgio
Colli, Mazzino Montinari, Giuliano Campioni e Maria Cristina Fornari, tr. di
Giorgio Colli e Chiara Colli Staude, Adelphi, Milano 2009 Il servizio divino
dei greci, a cura di Manfred Posani Löwenstein, Adelphi, Milano 2012
Bibliografia critica Luigi Anzalone, Giuliano Minichiello, Lo Specchio di
Dioniso. Saggi su Giorgio Colli, Edizioni Dedalo, Bari, 1984, ISBN
978-88-220-6040-2 Maurizio Rossi, Colli come educatore, Cartostampa,
Castelfranco Veneto, 1984. Luigi Cimmino, COLLI, Giorgio, in Dizionario
biografico degli italiani, vol. 34, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana,
1988. URL consultato il 5 novembre 2017. Modifica su Wikidata Giuliana Lanata,
articolo in Esercizi di memoria, Levante Editori, Bari, 1989, più il piano di
Colli per l'Enciclopedia da lui curata per Boringhieri, Torino. Fausto Moriani,
Invito alla lettura di... Giorgio Colli, in « Abstracta » Giugno 1989 (anno 4,
n. 38) Fausto Moriani, Implicazioni estetiche nell'opera di Giorgio Colli, in
Le grandi correnti dell'estetica novecentesca, a cura di G. Marchianò, Guerini,
Milano, 1991, pp. 179-190 Andrea Pistoia, Misura e dismisura. Per una
rappresentazione di Giorgio Colli, ERGA, Genova, 1999, ISBN 978-88-8163-169-8.
Giuseppe Auteri, Giorgio Colli e l'enigma greco, CUECM, Catania 2000. Federica
Montevecchi, Giorgio Colli. Biografia intellettuale, Bollati Boringhieri,
Torino, 2004, ISBN 978-88-339-1558-6. Lexicon.org (Voce Giorgio Colli di
Federica Montevecchi - lessico danese per il XXI secolo) Enrico Colli, I
termini di apollineo e dionisiaco nello sviluppo del pensiero di Giorgio Colli,
in Clemente Tafuri e David Beronio, Teatro Akropolis. Testimonianze ricerca
azioni, vol II, AkropolisLibri, Genova, 2011. Marco de Paoli,Giorgio Colli e i
Greci: annotazioni su alcune traduzioni, in "Episteme", Mimesis
Edizioni, Milano, 2011, n. 5, pp. 85–105. Federica Montevecchi, Sull'Empedocle
di Giorgio Colli, Luca Sossella Editore, Roma, 2018 (ISBN 978-88-97356-69-1)
Altri progetti Collabora a Wikiquote Wikiquote contiene citazioni di o su
Giorgio Colli Collegamenti esterni Giorgio Colli, su Treccani.it – Enciclopedie
on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata Giorgio
Colli, in Enciclopedia Italiana, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica
su Wikidata (EN) Opere di Giorgio Colli, su Open Library, Internet Archive.
Modifica su Wikidata (EN) Giorgio Colli, su Goodreads. Modifica su Wikidata
Archivio Giorgio Colli, su giorgiocolli.it. Centro interdipartimentale
Colli-Montinari, su centronietzsche.net. Lexicon.org (Voce Giorgio Colli di
Federica Montevecchi - lessico danese per il XXI secolo) Un ricordo di Valerio
Meattini, su biblio.adm.unipi.it:8081 (archiviato dall'url originale il 16
settembre 2007). Controllo di autorità VIAF
(EN) 64003796 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0001 2136 3175 · SBN IT\ICCU\CFIV\016584 · LCCN
(EN) n80073779 · GND (DE) 119130262 · BNF (FR) cb118973211 (data) · BNE (ES)
XX866579 (data) · NLA (EN) 35029763 · BAV (EN) 495/281230 · WorldCat Identities
(EN) lccn-n80073779 Biografie Portale Biografie Filosofia Portale Filosofia
Letteratura Portale Letteratura Categorie: Filosofi italiani del XX
secoloStorici della filosofia italianiAccademici italiani del XX secoloNati nel
1917Morti nel 1979Nati il 16 gennaioMorti il 6 gennaioNati a TorinoMorti a
FiesoleGrecisti italianiTraduttori italianiTraduttori dal greco
all'italianoTraduttori dal tedesco all'italianoStorici della filosofia
anticaTraduttori all'italianoStudenti dell'Università degli Studi di
TorinoProfessori dell'Università di PisaFriedrich Nietzsche[altre]
COLLINI -- Cosimo Alessandro
Collini Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to
search Cosimo Alessandro Collini Cosimo
Alessandro Collini (Firenze, 14 ottobre 1727 – Mannheim, 21 marzo 1806) è stato
uno scienziato, filosofo e naturalista italiano. Indice 1 Biografia
2 Note
3 Bibliografia
4 Altri
progetti 5 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Lo Pterodactylus
descritto da Collini Cosimo Alessandro Collini era discendente di una nobile
famiglia fiorentina. Abbandonò gli studi di giurisprudenza all'università di
Pisa, e dopo la morte del padre si trasferì prima a Coira e poi a Berlino, dove
conobbe Voltaire e divenne suo segretario, dal 1751 al 1756 [1]. Dopo la
rottura tra Voltaire e Federico il Grande, Collini si trasferì a Francoforte
sul Meno [1] e qui fu invitato dal Principe elettore Carlo Teodoro di Baviera
per rispondere agli eventuali scontri visti tra il Voltaire e il Principe.
Collini venne descritto come un uomo scontroso, spesso in litigio con la nipote
del filosofo, Madame Denis. Dopo la rottura con Voltaire, Collini venne
accusato di furto di un manoscritto del filosofo francese dopo una
perquisizione della stanza privata; si trattava di un libro (intitolato
"Mon séjour auprès de Voltaire"), che raccontava della vita di
Voltaire trascorsa con Collini, il quale venne poi pubblicato nel 1807 [2]. I rapporti
tra i Voltaire migliorarono, dopo il licenziamento. In seguito, Collini venne nominato direttore
del Gabinetto di storia naturale di Mannheim ("Naturalienkabinetts")
[1]. A Collini si deve la descrizione iniziale dello Pterodactylus, un rettile
volante, o pterosauro, vissuto nel Giurassico superiore, circa 145 milioni di
anni fa, il cui fossile fu rinvenuto ad Eichstätt nel 1780. La descrizione del
rettile fu poi completata con maggiore accuratezza da Georges Cuvier, 17 anni
dopo. Negli ultimi anni, Collini
denunciò ampiamente il fanatismo durante le Guerre rivoluzionarie francesi in
Europa e nel 1799 difese tutti i reperti del Gabinetto dalle distruzioni,
reperti che furono poi trasferiti, quattro anni dopo, a Monaco di Baviera. Morì a Mannheim il 21 marzo 1806. Note
Fonte: F.R. De Angelis, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani,
riferimenti in Bibliografia. ^ Vedi Collegamenti esterni. Bibliografia
Francesca Romana De Angelis, COLLINI, Cosimo Alessandro, in Dizionario
biografico degli italiani, vol. 27, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana,
1982. URL consultato il 24 giugno 2016. Altri progetti Collabora a Wikisource
Wikisource contiene una pagina dedicata a Cosimo Alessandro Collini Collabora a
Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons contiene immagini o altri file su Cosimo
Alessandro Collini Collegamenti esterni Mon séjour auprès de Voltaire et
lettres inedites que m'écrivit cet homme célèbre jusqu'à la dernière année de
sa vie, 1807. Testo digitalizzato in Internet Archive, sito "archive.org".
Controllo di autorità VIAF
(EN) 5687940 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0001 2118 9883 · LCCN (EN) no2008024358 · GND
(DE) 100087345 · BNF (FR) cb135765341 (data) · BAV (EN) 495/6837 · CERL
cnp01370271 · WorldCat Identities (EN) lccn-no2008024358 Biografie Portale
Biografie: accedi alle voci di Wikipedia che trattano di Biografie Categorie:
Scienziati italianiFilosofi italiani del XVIII secoloFilosofi italiani del XIX
secoloNaturalisti italianiNati nel 1727Morti nel 1806Nati il 14 ottobreMorti il
21 marzoNati a FirenzeMorti a Mannheim[altre]
COLOMBE -- Lodovico delle
Colombe Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to search
Ludovico delle Colombe o Colombo (Firenze, 20 gennaio 1565 – 1616[1]) è stato
un filosofo aristotelico e letterato italiano, fiorentino, noto per essere
stato uno strenuo avversario di Galileo Galilei. Indice 1 Biografia
2 Note
3 Bibliografia
4 Voci
correlate 5 Altri
progetti 6 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Non sappiamo quasi nulla della sua vita, ma restano diverse
sue opere, nelle quali difende le dottrine aristoteliche con un particolare
disinteresse sia verso le nuove osservazioni sia verso la coerenza logica. Nel 1606 scrisse un discorso sulla nuova
stella apparsa nel 1604 sostenendo che si trattava di una stella non nuova, ma
esistente da sempre. Tra il 1610 e il 1611 scrisse un discorso Contro il moto
della Terra. Per conciliare le
osservazioni di Galileo sulle irregolarità della superficie lunare con la
concezione aristotelica della perfetta sfericità dei corpi celesti sostenne che
le valli e gli spazi tra i monti della Luna fossero colmati da un materiale
perfetto e invisibile. Contrario
all'idrostatica archimedea recuperata da Galileo, nel suo Discorso apologetico,
del 1612, sostenne che il galleggiare o l'affondare dei corpi dipendesse dalla
loro forma. Nella conclusione del discorso usò anche una metafora di questa
teoria, affermando che le ragioni dell'avversario per essere troppo argute e
sottili vanno a fondo senza speranza di ritornare a galla, mentre quelle di Aristotele,
per essere di forma larga e quadrata, non possono affondare in nessun
modo. Sono rimaste anche lettere tra il
Delle Colombe e Galileo, che stimava pochissimo il suo avversario, che aveva
soprannominato Pippione. Vari accenni a questo personaggio sono nella
corrispondenza tra Galileo e i suoi amici.
Note ^ M. Muccillo in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, riferimenti
in Collegamenti esterni. Bibliografia Giorgio Abetti, Amici e nemici di
Galileo, Milano, Bompiani, 1945, pp. 139–144, ISBN non esistente. Voci
correlate Aristotelismo Galileo Galilei Altri progetti Collabora a Wikisource
Wikisource contiene una pagina dedicata a Lodovico delle Colombe Collegamenti
esterni Maria Muccillo, «DELLE COLOMBE (Colombo), Ludovico», in Dizionario
Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 38, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia
Italiana, 1990. Controllo di autorità VIAF
(EN) 28924976 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0000 6131 5891 · LCCN (EN) n2004063565 · GND
(DE) 115791469 · BNF (FR) cb15581057k (data) · BAV (EN) 495/54485 · CERL cnp00382011
· WorldCat Identities (EN) lccn-n2004063565 Biografie Portale Biografie
Filosofia Portale Filosofia Categorie: Filosofi italiani del XVI secoloFilosofi
italiani del XVII secoloNati nel 1565Morti nel 1616Nati il 20 gennaioNati a
Firenze[altre]
COLOMBO -- Giuseppe Colombo
(filosofo) Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to
search Abbozzo Questa voce sull'argomento filosofi italiani è solo un abbozzo.
Contribuisci a migliorarla secondo le convenzioni di Wikipedia. Giuseppe Colombo
(Milano, 1950) è un filosofo e accademico italiano. Docente presso l'Università
Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano, è autore di studi sulla storia della
filosofia italiana (si è occupato di Antonio Rosmini, Piero Martinetti e
Galvano Della Volpe) e sulla filosofia cristiana (Anselmo d'Aosta e Rosmini
stesso), oltre che di contributi nei campi della metafisica e
dell'antropologia. Opere Della Volpe
premarxista. L'attualismo e l'estetica, Studium, Roma 1979. Scienza e morale
nel marxismo di Galvano Della Volpe, CUSL, Milano 1983. Pietra angolare.
Introduzione all'insegnamento sociale della Chiesa, CUSL-Centro Toniolo,
Milano-Verona 1983. Conoscenza di Dio e antropologia, Massimo, Milano 1988.
Ontologismo e trascendenza di Dio. Note a proposito di una recente teoria, in
"Rivista di filosofia neoscolastica", anno LXXXI, luglio-settembre
1989, pp. 478-491. Introduzione al pensiero di sant'Anselmo d'Aosta, Mursia,
Milano 1990. Piero Martinetti. I maestri in persona, "Rivista di filosofia
neoscolastica" anno LXXXVIII, gennaio-marzo 1996, n. 1, pp. 35-94. Il
cristianesimo di Kierkegaard e la modernità, in "Per la filosofia",
anno XIII, n. 38, settembre-dicembre 1996, pp. 50-57. La svolta antropologica
in Antonio Rosmini: il Cristo centro di convergenza totale, in "Per la
filosofia", anno XIV, n.41, settembre-dicembre 1997, pp. 17-25. La
correttezza dei nomi nel Cratilo di Platone, in AA.VV., Le origini del
linguaggio (a cura di Celestian Milani), Demetra, Verona 1999 pp. 61-78. Il
riordino dei cicli scolastici, in "Quaderno di Iter", supplemento al
n. 6 di "Iter Scuola cultura società", settembre-dicembre 1999, pp.
35-38. La filosofia come soteriologia: L'avventura spirituale e intellettuale
di Piero Martinetti, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 2005. Il giusto prezzo della felicità,
Edizioni ISU-Università Cattolica, Milano 2005. Antropologia ed etica, EDUCatt,
Milano 2011. Voci correlate Anselmo d'Aosta Galvano Della Volpe Piero
Martinetti Antonio Rosmini Controllo di autorità VIAF (EN) 69225831 · ISNI (EN)
0000 0000 7821 7657 · SBN IT\ICCU\MILV\090347 · LCCN (EN) nb2012000350 · BNF
(FR) cb15103129r (data) · BAV (EN) 495/305942 · WorldCat Identities (EN)
lccn-nb2012000350 Biografie Portale Biografie Filosofia Portale Filosofia
Categorie: Filosofi italiani del XX secoloFilosofi italiani del XXI
secoloAccademici italiani del XX secoloAccademici italiani del XXI secoloNati
nel 1950Nati a Milano[altre]
COLONNA -- Egidio
Romano Da Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to search
Egidio Romano, O.E.S.A. arcivescovo della Chiesa cattolica Filip4 Gilles de
Rome.jpg Egidio Romano e Filippo il Bello (miniatura di un codice medievale).
Template-Archbishop.svg Incarichi ricoperti Arcivescovo di Bourges
Nato tra
il 1243 e il 1247, Roma Nominato arcivescovo 25
aprile 1295 Deceduto 22
dicembre 1316, Roma Manuale Egidio Romano, latinizzato come Ægidius
Romanus, indicato anche come Egidio Colonna[1] (Roma, tra il 1243 e il 1247 –
Avignone, 22 dicembre 1316), è stato un arcivescovo cattolico, teologo e
filosofo italiano, generale dell'Ordine di Sant'Agostino. Dopo la sua morte,
gli furono tributati i titoli onorifici di Doctor fundatissimus e Theologorum
princeps. Indice 1 Biografia
2 Pensiero
2.1 La
riscoperta di Aristotele e l'agostinismo politico 3 Opere 4 Note 5 Bibliografia
6 Voci
correlate 7 Altri
progetti 8 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Fu discepolo di San Tommaso d'Aquino all'Università di
Parigi, dove più tardi insegnò, prima di diventare generale degli agostiniani e
arcivescovo di Bourges (1295). Fu inoltre il precettore di Filippo il Bello per
il quale scrisse il trattato De regimine principum, sostenendo l'efficacia
della monarchia come forma di governo. Pensiero Egidio Romano è
considerato tra i più autorevoli teologi di ispirazione agostiniana, attivo
anche nella vita intellettuale e politica in un contesto culturale ed
istituzionale travagliato da frequenti ed aspre polemiche sul problema del
rapporto tra potere temporale e potere spirituale. Questo filosofo è
generalmente ricordato, insieme al prediletto allievo Giacomo da Viterbo, per
il contributo nella redazione della celebre bolla Unam Sanctam del 1302 di Papa
Bonifacio VIII e per il ruolo significativo che assunse il Maestro degli
Eremitani di Sant'Agostino quale autore del De Ecclesiastica potestate e,
dunque, quale teorico famoso e autorevole della plenitudo potestatis
pontificia. In Egidio Romano rileviamo subito una compresenza del duplice
atteggiamento dottrinale e politico; infatti è possibile rintracciare, fra le
opere giovanili, il De regimine principum, opera scritta per Filippo il Bello e
di ispirazione aristotelico-tomista inerente alla naturalità dello Stato,
erigendola a difensore della potestas regale. Nel De Ecclesiastica potestate,
invece, Egidio Romano afferma la superiorità del sacerdotium rispetto al
regnum, distinguendosi quale rappresentante della teocrazia papale. La
riscoperta di Aristotele e l'agostinismo politico In seguito alle condanne di
Étienne Tempier del 1277, Egidio difende la tesi di Tommaso, per la sua
qualifica di Baccalaureus formatus, ma, proprio a causa delle condanne stesse,
viene sospeso dall'insegnamento. In quegli anni, gli avversari del papato
trovano nel pensiero di Aristotele gli strumenti per svolgere un'analisi
politica che metta in discussione la sacralità del potere. Dall'altra parte
troviamo l'influenza della corrente speculativa dell'agostinismo politico
(ossia quel fenomeno, tipicamente medioevale, di compenetrazione fra Stato e
Chiesa, all'interno del quale Agostino viene a giocare un ruolo fondamentale dal
momento che l'apporto teorico del suo De Civitate Dei conduce a confusioni
inevitabili fra il piano spirituale della Civitas Dei Caelestis e il piano
temporale della vita terrena che è Civitas Peregrina), che ripropone la teoria
delle “due città” e riafferma la superiorità del sacerdotium rispetto al
regnum, costituendo un vero e proprio “partito del Papa”. Egidio
rivendica la Plenitudo potestatis come proprietà costitutiva dell'auctoritas
del Papa in quanto homo spiritualis. Egidio sostituisce al concetto agostiniano
di ecclesia, quello di regnum al fine di estendere gli ambiti del potere del
sovrano ecclesiastico. Il sovrano ecclesiastico (il Papa) dovrebbe esercitare
la sua sovranità anche sul potere temporale al fine di garantire l'ordine
mediante una forma di dominium che coincida con la sua stessa missione
spirituale. Opere Frontespizio delle In secundum librum
sententiarum quaestiones L'edizione critica dell'opera omnia è stata
intrapresa, per Leo S. Olschki, (Aegidii Romani opera omnia, collana Corpus
Philosophorum Medii Aevi - Testi e Studi), dal gruppo di ricerca di Francesco
Del Punta[2]. (LA) Quaestio de gradibus formarum, Ottaviano Scoto
(eredi), Boneto Locatello, 1502. (LA) In secundum librum sententiarum
quaestiones, vol. 1, Francesco Ziletti, 1581. (LA) In secundum librum
sententiarum quaestiones, vol. 2, Francesco Ziletti, 1581. (LA) Opere, Antonio
Blado, 1555. (LA) In libros De physico auditu Aristotelis commentaria,
Ottaviano Scoto (eredi), Boneto Locatello, 1502. (LA) De materia coeli,
Girolamo Duranti, 1493. (LA) Quodlibeta, Domenico de Lapi, 1481. Note ^ Egìdio
Romano, in Treccani.it – Enciclopedie on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia
Italiana. URL consultato il 3 dicembre 2017. ^ (EN) Roberto Lambertini, Giles
of Rome, in Edward N. Zalta (a cura di), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Università di
Stanford, 2012. Bibliografia Charles F. Briggs e Peter S. Eardley (a cura di),
A Companion to Giles of Rome, Leiden, Brill, 2016. Silvia Donati, Studi per una
cronologia delle opere di Egidio Romano: I. Le opere prima del 1285: I commenti
aristotelici. "Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica
medievale", I/1, 1990, pagg. 1-112. Gian Carlo Garfagnini, Egidio Romano,
in Il contributo italiano alla storia del Pensiero: Filosofia, Istituto
dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, 2012. Francesco Del Punta-S. Donati-C. Luna, Egidio
Romano, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Roma, Istituto
dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Filippo Cancelli, Egidio Romano, in Enciclopedia
dantesca, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, 1970. Voci correlate Papa
Bonifacio VIII Teocrazia Altri progetti Collabora a Wikisource Wikisource
contiene una pagina dedicata a Egidio Romano Collabora a Wikiquote Wikiquote
contiene citazioni di o su Egidio Romano Collabora a Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons contiene immagini o altri file su Egidio Romano Collegamenti
esterni Egidio Romano, su Treccani.it – Enciclopedie on line, Istituto
dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata Ugo Mariani, Egidio Romano, in
Enciclopedia Italiana, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su
Wikidata (EN) Egidio Romano, su Enciclopedia Britannica, Encyclopædia
Britannica, Inc. Modifica su Wikidata (DE) Egidio Romano, su ALCUIN, Università
di Ratisbona. Modifica su Wikidata Opere di Egidio Romano, su openMLOL,
Horizons Unlimited srl. Modifica su Wikidata (FR) Bibliografia su Egidio
Romano, su Les Archives de littérature du Moyen Âge. Modifica su Wikidata (EN)
Egidio Romano, in Catholic Encyclopedia, Robert Appleton Company. Modifica su
Wikidata (EN) David M. Cheney, Egidio Romano, in Catholic Hierarchy. Modifica
su Wikidata (EN) Roberto Lambertini, Giles of Rome, in Edward N. Zalta (a cura
di), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Center for the Study of Language and
Information (CSLI), Università di Stanford. Biografia a cura dell'associazione
storico-culturale S. Agostino, su cassiciaco.it. Predecessore Arcivescovo metropolita di Bourges Successore ArchbishopPallium
PioM.svg Simone di Beaulieu 25
aprile 1295 - 22 dicembre 1316 Raynaud
de La Porte Controllo
di autorità VIAF
(EN) 100187638 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0001 1578 9831 · SBN IT\ICCU\CFIV\051228 · LCCN
(EN) n85147491 · GND (DE) 118500805 · BNF (FR) cb120064271 (data) · BNE (ES)
XX882291 (data) · NLA (EN) 35823708 · BAV (EN) 495/22124 · CERL cnp01880579 ·
NDL (EN, JA) 00671800 · WorldCat Identities (EN) lccn-n85147491 Biografie
Portale Biografie Cattolicesimo Portale Cattolicesimo Filosofia Portale
Filosofia Medioevo Portale Medioevo Categorie: Arcivescovi cattolici italiani
del XIII secoloArcivescovi cattolici italiani del XIV secoloTeologi
italianiFilosofi italiani del XIII secoloFilosofi italiani del XIV secoloMorti
nel 1316Morti il 22 dicembreNati a RomaMorti ad AvignoneScolasticiFilosofi
cattoliciScrittori medievali in lingua latina[altre]
COLONNELLO -- Pio Colonnello Da
Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera. Jump to navigationJump to search Pio
Colonnello (Benevento, 12 febbraio 1951) è un filosofo e docente universitario
italiano. Indice 1 Biografia 2 Bibliografia
3 Voci
correlate 4 Collegamenti
esterni Biografia Ha conseguito la laurea in Filosofia, in Giurisprudenza e in
Lettere. Nell'anno accademico 1973/74 è stato borsista presso l'Istituto
Italiano per gli Studi Storici, fondato da Benedetto Croce, in Napoli. Già
docente nei Licei e Ginnasi, nel 1980 ha conseguito il ruolo di ricercatore
universitario presso l'Università di Napoli "Federico II". Dal 2001
insegna presso l'Università della Calabria, dapprima come Professore Associato
e quindi, dal 2005, come Ordinario di Filosofia Teoretica. Collabora a diversi periodici e riviste
filosofiche tra cui: Kant Studien, Criterio, Filosofia Oggi, Nord e Sud,
Sapienza, Choros, Studi Kantiani, Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, The
Journal of Value Inquiry (rivista di cui è anche Consulting Editor). È membro
del Comitato scientifico di autorevoli riviste filosofiche. È Visiting Professor nella Universidad
Autónoma de Mèxico, nella Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Città del
Messico) e nella California State University – Northridge – Los Angeles. Ha
organizzato Convegni e Congressi nazionali e internazionali. Ha ricevuto per due volte il "Premio
della Cultura" della Presidenza del Consiglio dei ministri. Nel mese di
novembre 2007, ha ricevuto il premio della Cultura "Salvatore
Valitutti". Pio Colonnello ha
privilegiato alcuni filoni di ricerca: l'indagine su temi e autori compresi
nell'arco tra criticismo trascendentale e pensiero fenomenologico (da Kant a
Husserl); la riflessione sui problemi fondamentali della filosofia
dell'esistenza e dell'ermeneutica contemporanea (Heidegger, Jaspers, Ricœur,
Pareyson, Arendt); lo studio di alcune posizioni dello storicismo contemporaneo
tra Europa e America Latina (Croce, Ortega y Gasset, Gaos, Ímaz, Nicol,
Dussel). La sua proposta è verificare l'interazione, in chiave storico-critica,
dei temi fondamentali del kantismo, della fenomenologia husserliana e di quelli
della filosofia dell'esistenza. Bibliografia
Heidegger interprete di Kant, Studio Editoriale di Cultura, Genova 1981. Croce
e i vociani, Studio Editoriale di Cultura, Genova 1984. Tempo e necessità,
Japadre, L'Aquila-Roma 1987. Tra fenomenologia e filosofia dell'esistenza.
Saggio su José Gaos, Morano, Napoli 1990 (tradotto in inglese e in spagnolo:
The Philosophy of José Gaos, Rodopi, Amsterdam-Atlanta 1997; Entre
fenomenologia y filosofia de la existencia. Ensayo sobre José Gaos, Jitajanfora
Morelia Editorial, Morelia México 2006). La questione della colpa tra filosofia
dell'esistenza ed ermeneutica, Loffredo, Napoli 1995. Percorsi di confine.
Analisi dell'esistenza e filosofia della libertà, Luciano, Napoli 1999. Croce e
Dewey oggi (in collaborazione con G. Spadafora), Bibliopolis, Napoli 2002.
Ragione e rivelazione (in collaborazione con P. Giustiniani), Borla, Roma 2003.
Melanconia ed esistenza, Luciano, Napoli 2003. Filosofia e politica in America
latina (a cura di Pio Colonnello), Armando, Roma 2005. Itinerari di filosofia
ispanoamericana, Armando, Roma 2007. Storia esistenza liberta. Rileggendo
Croce, Armando, Roma 2009. Martin Heidegger e Hannah Arendt, Guida, Napoli 2009
(tradotto in spagnolo: Martin Heidegger y Hannah Arendt, Ediciones del Signo,
Buenos Aires 2010; tradotto in francese: Martin Heidegger à Hannah Arendt.
Lettre jamais écrite, Editions Mimesis Philosophie, Paris 2014). Orizzonti del
trascendentale, Mimesis, Milano 2013. Il soggetto riflesso. Itinerari del corpo
e della mente (a cura di Pio Colonnello), Mimesis, Milano 2014. Fenomenologie e
visioni del mondo. Tra mente e corpo (a cura di Pio Colonnello), Mimesis,
Milano 2015. Fenomenologia e patografia del ricordo, Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2017
(tradotto in inglese: Phenomenology and Pathography of Memory, Mimesis
International, 2019). Voci correlate Filosofia latinoamericana Collegamenti
esterni Curriculum, su polaris.unical.it (archiviato dall'url originale il 22
luglio 2011). Elenco pubblicazioni, su polaris.unical.it (archiviato dall'url
originale il 22 luglio 2011). Pagina personale, su dipfilosofia.unical.it (archiviato
dall'url originale il 22 luglio 2011). Controllo di autorità VIAF
(EN) 12380632 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0000 8091 5251 · LCCN (EN) n84115910 · BNF (FR)
cb123373750 (data) · WorldCat Identities (EN) lccn-n84115910 Biografie Portale
Biografie Filosofia Portale Filosofia Categorie: Filosofi italiani del XX
secoloFilosofi italiani del XXI secoloNati nel 1951Nati il 12 febbraioNati a
Benevento[altre]
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