il grand tour di grice: impiegato 17/27

 

Mistico -- mystische -- mystical experience, an experience alleged to reveal some aspect of reality not normally accessible to sensory experience or cognition. The experience  typically characterized by its profound emotional impact on the one who experiences it, its transcendence of spatial and temporal distinctions, its transitoriness, and its ineffability  is often but not always associated with some religious tradition. In theistic religions, mystical experiences are claimed to be brought about by God or by some other superhuman agent. Theistic mystical experiences evoke feelings of worshipful awe. Their content can vary from something no more articulate than a feeling of closeness to God to something as specific as an item of revealed theology, such as, for a Christian mystic, a vision of the Trinity. Non-theistic mystical experiences are usually claimed to reveal the metaphysical unity of all things and to provide those who experience them with a sense of inner peace or bliss. mystische -- ystic -- mysticism, a doctrine or discipline maintaining that one can gain knowledge of reality that is not accessible to sense perception or to rational, conceptual thought. Generally associated with a religious tradition, mysticism can take a theistic form, as it has in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions, or a non-theistic form, as it has in Buddhism and some varieties of Hinduism. Mystics claim that the mystical experience, the vehicle of mystic  knowledge, is usually the result of spiritual training, involving some combination of prayer, meditation, fasting, bodily discipline, and renunciation of worldly concerns. Theistic varieties of mysticism describe the mystical experience as granted by God and thus not subject to the control of the mystic. Although theists claim to feel closeness to God during the mystical experience, they regard assertions of identity of the self with God as heretical. Non-theistic varieties are more apt to describe the experience as one that can be induced and controlled by the mystic and in which distinctions between the self and reality, or subject and object, are revealed to be illusory. Mystics claim that, although veridical, their experiences cannot be adequately described in language, because ordinary communication is based on sense experience and conceptual differentiation: mystical writings are thus characterized by metaphor and simile. It is con   593 troversial whether all mystical experiences are basically the same, and whether the apparent diversity among them is the result of interpretations influenced by different cultural traditions. H. P. Grice, “Vitters and the mystic,” Luigi Speranza, “Vitters und das mystische,” per il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

 

Mito -- myth: Grice was aware of Grice, the Welsh philosopher. For Grice had turned a ‘myth,’ the myth of the compact, into a thing that would justify moral obligationWhen Grice, the Englishman, gives a mythical account of communication, alla Plato and Paget, he faces the same problemwhich he hopes is “very minor,” compared to others. In this case, it’s not about ‘moral obligation’ but about “something else.” Grice was possibly motivated by Quine’s irreverent, “The mth of meaning,” a talk at France, “Le mythe de la signification.” It’s odd that he gives the example of a ‘social contract’, developed by G. R. Grice as a ‘myth’ as his own on ‘expressing pain.’ “My succession of stages is a methodological myth designed to exhibit the conceptual link between expression and communication. Rather than Plato, he appeals to Rawls and the myth of the social conpact! Grice knows a little about Descartess “Discours de la methode,” and he is also aware of similar obsession by Collingwood with philosopical methodology. Grice would joke on midwifery, as the philosopher’s apter method at Oxford: to strangle error at its birth. Grice typifies a generation at Oxford. While he did not socialize with the crème de la crème in pre-war Oxford, he shared some their approach. E.g. a love affair with Russell’s logical construction. After the war, and in retrospect, Grice liked to associate himself with Austin. He obviously felt the need to belong to a group, to make a difference, to make history. Many participants of the play group saw themselves as doing philosophy, rather than reading about it! It was long after that Grice started to note the differences in methodology between Austin and himself. His methodology changed a little. He was enamoured with formalism for a while, and he grants that this love never ceased. In a still later phase, he came to realise that his way of doing philosophy was part of literature (essay writing). And so he started to be slightly more careful about his stylewhich some found florid. The stylistic concerns were serious. Oxonian philosophers like Holloway had been kept away from philosophy because of the stereotype that the Oxonian philosophers style is pedantic, when it neednt! A philosopher should be allowed, as Plato was, to use a myth, if he thinks his tutee will thank him for that! Grice loved to compare his Oxonian dialectic with Platos Athenian (strictly, Academic) dialectic. Indeed, there is some resemblance of the use of myth in Plato and Grice for philosophical methodological purposes. Grice especially enjoys a myth in his programme in philosophical psychology. In this, he is very much being a philosopher. Non-philosophers usually criticise this methodological use of a myth, but they would, wouldnt they. Grice suggests that a myth has diagogic relevance. Creature construction, the philosopher as demi-god, if mythical, is an easier way for a philosophy don to instil his ideas on his tutee than, say, privileged access and incorrigibility. myth of Er, a tale at the end of Plato’s Republic dramatizing the rewards of justice and philosophy by depicting the process of reincarnation. Complementing the main argument of the work, that it is intrinsically better to be just than unjust, this longest of Plato’s myths blends traditional lore with speculative cosmology to show that justice also pays, usually in life and certainly in the afterlife. Er, a warrior who revived shortly after death, reports how judges assign the souls of the just to heaven but others to punishment in the underworld, and how most return after a thousand years to behold the celestial order, to choose their next lives, and to be born anew.  Refs.: The main source is Grice’s essay on ‘myth’, in The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.

 

nannini: Grice: “Nannini has intuitions in Italian.” Grice: “I agree with Nannini about the naturalism: the ‘anima’ is there to ‘explain’ ‘spiegare’ the action, ‘l’azione’ – He is the Italian Muybridge!” – Grice: “The Nannini series is the equivalent of the Muybridge series” -- Sandro Nannini (Siena), filosofo. Ha studiato filosofia a Firenze con Luporini e Landucci e, inizialmente, con Cesare Luporini. Ha accompagnato la sua attività di ricerca in campo filosofico ed i suoi impegni accademici con una intensa attività politica a Siena come militante del Partito Comunista Italiano. È stato Professore di Filosofia Morale all'Urbino (1986-1992) e di Filosofia Teoretica all’Università Siena (1992-), dove ha insegnato per alcuni anni anche filosofia della mente ed è stato principale cofondatore e direttore di una scuola di dottorato interdisciplinare in Scienze Cognitive (1999-). È stato inoltre più volte, dal 1989 al , visiting professor presso le Osnabrück, North London, Bremen e Oldenburg. Attualmente in pensione, è ancora pro tempore Docente Senior presso l’Siena e dal  è direttore di Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia (RiFP).  I suoi studi giovanili si sono incentrati sulla filosofia delle scienze sociali, lo strutturalismo francese e la storia del pensiero antropologico. Successivamente, rivoltosi alla filosofia analitica ed in particolare alla teoria dell’azione, ha cercato di sviluppare il “naturalismo metodologico” criticando il ritorno di neo-wittgesteiniani come G.H. von Wright alla distinzione storicistica tra scienze della natura e scienze dello spirito. Sempre muovendosi entro la filosofia analitica, ma rivolgendo il proprio interesse alla filosofia pratica, ha difeso il non cognitivismo in meta-etica. A partire dagli anni Novanta Professoresi è infine spostato dalla teoria dell’azione alla filosofia della mente. In una prima fase si è occupato soprattutto della storia del concetto di mente , per approdare dopo il 2000 ad una forma di naturalismo cognitivo basata su una soluzione fisicalistico-eliminativistica del problema mente-corpo.  Opere: Monografie “Il pensiero simbolico” -- Saggio su Lévi-Strauss, Bologna, Il Mulino. “Cause e ragioni” -- Modelli di spiegazione delle azioni” umane nella filosofia analitica, Roma, Editori Riuniti. “Il Fanatico e l'Arcangelo” -- Saggi di filosofia analitica pratica, Siena, Protagon. “L'anima e il corpo” --  Una introduzione storica alla filosofia della mente, RomaBari, Laterza; 10ª edizione rivista e ampliata . “Naturalismo” cognitivo: Per una “teoria materialistica” della mente, Macerata, Quodlibet, “La Nottola di Minerva” -- Storie e dialoghi fantastici sulla filosofia della mente, Milano, Mimesis. Curatele, “Educazione, individuo e società in Emile Durkheim e nei suoi interpreti, Torino, Loescher.  Naturalism in the Cognitive Sciences and the Philosophy of Mind, Frankfurt a.M., Peter Lang. -- con C. Lumer, Intentionality, Deliberation and Autonomy: The Action-Theoretic Basis of Practical Philosophy, London, Ashgate UK. -- con A. Zeppi), La mente può essere naturalizzata?, Colle di Val D’Elsa (Siena), SeB Editori. Saggi, Freud e l'antropologia, in «La Cultura. Rivista di Filosofia, Letteratura e Storia»,“Studi su Sigmund Freud,” Symbol, Künstliche Intelligenz und Philosophie des Geistes, in «Logos: Zeitschrift für systematische Philosophie»,  Il materialismo “primario”, in , Il pensiero di Luporini, Milano, Feltrinelli,  L'anomalia del mentale «Rivista di filosofia»,  The Logical Connection Argument Again, in Egidi R. , In Search of a New Humanism. Dordrecht, Kluwer, Cognitive Naturalism in the Philosophy of Mind, in Nannini S., Sandkühler H.J. , Naturalism in the Cognitive Sciences and the Philosophy of Mind, Frankfurt a.M., Peter Lang, Mente e corpo nel dibattito contemporaneo, in A.Vv., L’anima, Milano, Mondadori, Theorien mentaler Repräsentation, in Sandkühler H.J. , Theorien und Begriffe der Repräsentation, Bremen, Forschungsprojekt Repräsentation, Mente, corpo e società nel naturalismo forte, in «Nuova Civiltà delle Macchine», Intentionality Naturalised, in M. Beaney, C. Penco, Massimiliano Vignolo , Explaining the Mental: Naturalist and Non-Naturalist Approaches to Mental Acts and Processes, Newcastle upon Tyne UK, Cambridge Scholars Publ.,  Realismo scientifico e ontologia materialistica, in «Giornale di metafisica»,  Nicolaci G., Perone U., Ontologia e metafisica, Il concetto di verità in una prospettiva naturalistica, in Amoretti M.C., Marsonet M. , Conoscenza e verità, Milano, Giuffré, L’Io come Direttore Assente, in Cardella V., Bruni D. , Cervello, linguaggio, società: Atti del Convegno del Coordinamento dei Dottorati Italiani di Scienze Cognitive, Roma, CORISCO, Orologi, menti e cervelli: Riflessioni preliminari su tempo reale e tempo fenomenico tra fisica teorica e filosofia della mente, in Amoretti M.C. , Natura umana, natura artificiale, Milano, Angeli, Cognitive naturalism and cognitive neuroscience: A defence of eliminativism and a discussion with G. Roth, in De Caro M., Egidi R. , The Architecture of Knowledge: Epistemology, Agency, and Science, Roma, Carocci, La naturalizzazione delle rappresentazioni mentali, in «Sistemi intelligenti», Kant e le scienze cognitive sulla natura dell’Io, in Amoroso L., Ferrarin A., La Rocca C. , Critica della ragione e forme dell'esperienza: Studi in onore di Massimo Barale, Pisa, Edizioni ETS, Realismo scientifico e naturalismo cognitivo, in Lanfredini R., Peruzzi A. , A plea for balance in philosophy:  ETS,  La coscienza può essere naturalizzata?, in Nannini S., Zeppi A. , La mente può essere naturalizzata?, Colle di Val D’Elsa (Siena), SeB Editori,  Inconscio, coscienza e intenzionalità nel naturalismo cognitivo, in «Sistemi intelligenti», La seconda svolta cognitiva in filosofia della mente, in «Reti, saperi, linguaggi: Italian Journal of Cognitive Sciences, Time and Consciousness in Cognitive Naturalism, in «Rivista internazionale di filosofia e psicologia», Sandro Nannini, Sandro e Nannini, Il pensiero simbolico: Saggio su Lévi-Strauss, Il Mulino, Sandro Nannini, Cause e ragioni: Modelli di spiegazione delle azioni umane nella filosofia analitica, Editori Riuniti., Sandro Nannini, Il Fanatico e l'Arcangelo: Saggi di filosofia analitica pratica., Protagon, Sandro Nannini, L'anima e il corpo: Una introduzione storica alla filosofia della mente, 10ª edizione rivista e ampliata , Laterza.  Sandro Nannini, Seele, Geist und Körper: Historische Wurzeln und philosophische Grundlagen der Kognitionswissenschaften, Rielaborazione in tedesco di Sibylle Mahrdt, Peter Lang Verlag., Sandro Nannini, Naturalismo cognitivo: Per una teoria materialistica della mente, Quodlibet,  Sandro Nannini, La Nottola di Minerva: Storie e dialoghi fantastici sulla filosofia della mente, Mimesis.

 

nardi: Grice: “The Italians are fortunate: with Alighieri they can philosophise about him!” Bruno Nardi (Spianate di Altopascio), filosofo. Primogenito di una famiglia benestante, composta di nove figli, viene avviato sin dalla tenera età alla carriera ecclesiastica. Nel 1896 entra nel collegio dei frati francescani a Buggiano e nel 1900, a sedici anni, diventa chierico, assumendo il nome di frate Angelo. Nel 1901 uscì dal convento di Buggiano perché non aveva intenzione di continuare nella vita religiosa, avendone perduta la vocazione. Proseguì gli studi di filosofia e teologia frequentando il convento di Sant'Agostino di Nicosia in provincia di Pisa. Volendo proseguire gli studi, i genitori gli indicarono un'unica strada, quella di entrare in seminario e diventare prete. Nel 1902 Nardi venne ammesso al seminario di Pescia e il 4 marzo 1907 diventò sacerdote. Qui si avvicinò fugacemente al movimento Modernista, condannato da papa Pio X con l'Enciclica Pascendi.  Nel 1908 Nardi sostenne l'esame di concorso per una borsa di studio triennale conferita dall'opera Pia Galeotti di Pescia al fine di frequentare un corso di perfezionamento filosofico presso l'Università Cattolica di Lovanio (Belgio). Nel 1909 Nardi aveva da poco iniziato a frequentare l'Università Cattolica di Lovanio che già decise l'argomento della sua tesi di laurea Sigieri di Brabante nella Divina Commedia e le fonti della filosofia di Dante, che venne discussa nel 1911 con Maurice De Wulf. La lettura dell'opera di Pierre Mandonnet, nella parte dedicata a Sigieri, non persuadeva Nardi sulla soluzione data al problema della presenza di questo averroista nel Paradiso dantesco. Due pregiudizi la inficiavano: il primo “consisteva in un'inesatta visione storica di quello che nel Medio Evo e nel Rinascimento era stato l'averroismo. Il secondo pregiudizio del Mandonnet era quello di ritenere il pensiero filosofico di Dante conforme in tutto e per tutto a quello di San Tommaso." Nel momento in cui Nardi entrava a Lovanio abbandonò il modernismo teologico, ma non abbracciò la filosofia neo-scolastica che quella Università belga stava elaborando. Non aveva senso per lui ripetere, sul finire dell'Ottocento, nell'epoca del positivismo, l'operazione culturale di San Tommaso che prevedeva l'unificazione di fede e ragione.  Il metodo di lavoro che Nardi seguì nel corso della sua vicenda di studioso e ricercatore, rimase sempre improntato al massimo rigore filosofico, risentendo come una traccia indelebile dell'esperienza di Lovanio, dove dovette affrontare studi scientifici. Per Nardi l'interpretazione del testo coincide con la libertà, ma tale atto libero non può attivarsi senza uno scrupoloso lavoro di scavo e ricerca del materiale documentario, l'esatta interpretazione filosofica dei testi.  Ottenuta un'ulteriore borsa di studio dall'Opera Pia di Pescia per l'anno scolastico 1911-12, il giovane sacerdote frequentò corsi di filosofia a Vienna, Berlino, Bonn. Oltre alla pubblicazione negli anni 1911-12 della propria tesi su Sigieri nella “Rivista di filosofia neo-scolastica”, Nardi vi pubblicò altri interventi spesso critici con la linea editoriale del periodico. Intorno al 1912 Nardi si era iscritto ai corsi dell'Istituto di Studi Superiori di Firenze perché voleva riconoscere in Italia la sua laurea in filosofia conseguita a Lovanio. A Firenze discuterà la tesi di laurea in filosofia dedicata alla figura del medico e filosofo padovano Pietro d'Abano. Nel 1912-13 Nardi collaborava alla “Voce”, rivista fondata da Giuseppe Prezzolini con il quale mantenne per lunghi anni una fitta corrispondenza.  Nell'autunno 1914 Nardi volle abbandonare il sacerdozio. In una successiva lettera del 1941 indirizzata al vescovo Angelo Simonetti, spiegava che era stato l'ambiente familiare a spingerlo nel 1907 a chiedere la sacra ordinazione, con preghiere e minacce. Nel 1916 si trasferì a Mantova per insegnare filosofia presso il liceo classico Virgilio, dove vi restò fino al 1934, anno in cui si trasferì a Milano. A Mantova Nardi conobbe Giulietta Bertoldi che sposò nel 1921. Dal matrimonio nacquero due figli: Tilde e Franco.  Bruno Nardi nel 1938 ebbe da Giovanni Gentile un incarico per l'insegnamento della filosofia medievale presso la facoltà di lettere dell'Roma. Tuttavia non ottenne la cattedra universitaria (se non dopo molti anni), a causa dell'art. 5 del Concordato del 1929 in base al quale la curia romana escludeva i sacerdoti secolarizzati dall’insegnamento.  Nel 1960 gli fu assegnata la “Penna D’Oro” dal presidente del Consiglio Fernando Tambroni. Nel 1962 gli fu conferita la laurea honoris causa da parte dell’Padova e nel 1964 da parte di quella di Oxford.  Le opere e gli studi su Dante Bruno Nardi si è dedicato instancabilmente per di più in mezzo secolo allo studio del pensiero di Dante, anche quando si occupava di Virgilio, di Sigieri di Brabante, di Pietro Pomponazzi. Nardi ha saputo mettere in discussione schemi consolidati, ha aperto strade nuove, ha formulato proposte inedite che ci permettono di avere una più esatta comprensione dei testi danteschi. Una costante di Nardi è di aver conservato sempre una propria autonomia, se non un vero e proprio distacco, rispetto agli ambienti culturali in cui si era trovato ad agire, fossero Lovanio, Firenze o Roma. Il coraggio con cui seppe polemicamente ribaltare tesi consolidate negli ambienti accademici, gli fruttarono ingiustamente isolamento e non adeguata considerazione rispetto alle sue acquisizioni veramente anticipatrici. Basti pensare alle sue tesi sull'averroismo latino, all'importanza data alla figura di Avicenna, di Alberto Magno, al rifiuto del preteso tomismo di Dante. E se di Gentile parlava come di un "vero e grande maestro", dandogli ragione nella sua polemica con il De Wulf (relatore della sua tesi a Lovanio), Nardi pur tuttavia non aderirà al Neoidealismo, ma vi trarrà soltanto spunti e stimoli per le sue ricerche.  L'incontro con Dante costituisce per Nardi l'episodio decisivo della sua vita intellettuale e morale. Scriverà nel 1956: "in Dante trovai il vero e primo maestro, quello a cui debbo la maggior gratitudine". Il senso della sua ricerca è stato interrogare il "miracolo" della Divina Commedia, questo "singolare poema sbocciato all'improvviso contro tutte le buone regole dell'arte e del dittare". Secondo Nardi nella commedia è custodita la Verità, che si è manifestata ad un poeta ispirato da una profetica visione. La lunga fatica del Nardi è giunta a concludere che la filosofia di Dante non si riduce a nessun sistema codificato; è una sintesi complessa tendente a superare le antinomie e che mantiene intera la sua spiccata originalità, il suo personalissimo pensiero. Per arrivare a coglierlo occorre da una parte ristabilire il preciso significato delle parole in rapporto alla terminologia filosofica e scientifica del Medioevo, e ricostruire dall'altra l'ambiente culturale e l'atmosfera spirituale nelle quali Dante si muoveva per arrivare a determinare la fonte, il libro letto da Dante.  Nardi ha gettato luce su molti elementi e suggestioni che Dante derivava dalla filosofia araba e neoplatonica. Essenziali per comprendere Dante sono per Nardi Alberto Magno e Sigieri più di Tommaso; così come il neoplatonismo e la cultura araba più dello scolasticismo aristotelico. A Nardi interessava particolarmente affrontare il tema della "visione dantesca", esperienza profetica che seppe tradurre come nessun altro nel linguaggio della Divina Commedia. La visione di Dante non è finzione letteraria, è rivelazione reale dell'aldilà, concessa da Dio in virtù di un supremo privilegio. Dante visse il rapimento mistico ed estatico al terzo cielo come esperienza reale. Dante credette di essere sceso veramente nell'Inferno, salito veramente al Purgatorio e al Paradiso. Per Nardi la Commedia si distacca dagli altri scritti di Dante, perché ne è il loro compimento. Tale culmine si realizza attraverso un'esperienza eccezionale, di origine mistico-religiosa a lui soltanto riservata, una rivelazione che ha il potere di trasformare e rendere nuove tutte le altre opere precedenti.  L'opera dantesca, secondo Nardi, si deve suddividere in tre fasi: la prima fase, che termina a venticinque anni, è sotto l'influsso di Guinizzelli, assente del tutto la filosofia. La seconda fase, quella filosofico-politico, coincide con le rime allegoriche, il Convivio, il De vulgari eloquentia e la Monarchia. La terza fase, quella della poesia profetica, coincide con la Divina Commedia, poema che segna il ritorno all'unità della filosofia cristiana. Dante vi compare come profeta che deve annunciare al mondo l'avvento di un inviato di Dio per la redenzione umana. La Commedia è "poema sacro", la sua è poesia religiosa. Nardi vede in questa terza fase finalmente riconciliarsi la speranza cristiana spezzatasi con l'aristotelismo e l'avverroismo. Per Nardi l'aristotelismo è inconciliabile con il cristianesimo, e il tomismo pertanto è "il più strano paradosso del pensiero umano". La Commedia testimonia della riunificazione della filosofia con la rivelazione di Dio. Dante visse una visione profetica, esperienza che mancò ad Aristotele.  Riconoscimenti Nel 1955 l'Accademia dei Lincei gli ha conferito il Premio Feltrinelli per la Filosofia.  Opere principali: “Flosofia dantesca,” Bari, Laterza, “Critica dantesca”, Milano-Napoli, Ricciardi, “Filosofia dantesca” (di Alighieri) Firenze, La Nuova Italia, Studi di filosofia medievale, Roma, Ed. di storia e letteratura, “Alighieri,” introduzione di Tullio Gregory, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1. Paolo Falzone, Dizionario biografico degli italiani,  Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, ."Giornale Critico della Filosofia Italiana",  Premi Feltrinelli, su lincei.it.  Medioevo e Rinascimento,” Firenze, Sansoni, Alberto Asor Rosa, Dizionario della letteratura italiana del Novecento, ad vocem Sigieri di Brabante e Alessandro Achillini, (check). Di un nuovo commento alla canzone del Cavalcanti sull'amore, “Cultura neolatina”, Noterella poetica sull'averroismo di Guido Cavalcanti, Rassegna filosofica, Sigieri di Brabante e le fonti della filosofia di Dante, in “Rivista di filosofia neoclassica” Sigieri di Brabante nella Divina Commedia e le fonti della filosofia di Dante, Spianate, La teoria dell'anima e la generazione delle forme secondo Pietro d'Abano, “Rivista di filosofia neoscolastica”, Vittorino da Feltre al paese natale di Virgilio, in “Atti del IV Congresso nazionale di Studi Romani”, Roma, Lyhomo (note al “Baldus” di T. Folengo), “Giornale critico della filosofia italiana”, Nel mondo di Dante, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Roma,  Sigieri di Brabante nel pensiero del rinascimento italiano, Edizioni italiane, Roma, Dante profeta, in Dante e la cultura medioevale. Nuovi saggi di filosofia dantesca, Bari, Laterza, La mistica averroistica e Pico, L' aristotelismo padovano dal XIV al XVI secolo, Firenze, Sansoni; già edita in “Archivio di filosofia, Umanesimo e Machiavellismo”, Padova,  Il naturalismo del Rinascimento, Corso di storia della filosofia. Anno accademico, T. Gregory, Roma, Edizioni Universitarie 1949. L'alessandrinismo nel Rinascimento, Corso di Storia della filosofia. Anno accademico,  I. Borzi e C. R. Crotti, Roma, “La Goliardica” La fine dell'averroismo, in “Pensée humaniste et tradition chrétienne aux XVeme et XVIeme siècle”, Paris, Boivin  Gli scritti del Pomponazzi. “Giornale critico della filosofia italiana”, Le opere inedite del pomponazzi. Il fragmento marciano del commento al “De Anima” e il maestro del pomponazzi, Pietro Trapolino, Il problema della verità, soggetto e oggetto dell'conoscere nella filosofia antica e medioevale, Editrice Universale di Roma, Roma, La crisi del Rinascimento e il dubbio cartesiano, Corso di storia della filosofia. Anno accademico, T. Gregory, “La Goliardica” Il commento di Simplicio al “De Anima” nelle controversie della fine del sec. XV e del sec. XVI, “Archivio di filosofia”, Padova, La miscredenza e il carattere morale di Nicoletto Vernia, Giornale critico della filosofia italiana, Le opere inedite del Pomponazzi, “Giornale critico della filosofia italiana” Le meditazioni di Cartesio, Lezioni di storia della filosofia. Anno accademico, “La Goliardica”, Roma, Pomponazzi… e la cicogna dell'intelletto, “Giornale critico della filosofia italiana” Il dualismo cartesiano, Corso di storia della filosofia. Anno accademico T. Gregory, “La Goliardica”, Roma, 1953. Il dualismo cartesiano degli Occasionalisti a Leibniz, Corso di storia della filosofia. Anno accademico T. Gregory, “La Goliardica”, Roma, Ancora qualche notizia e aneddoto su Nicoletto Vernia, Giornale critico della filosofia italiana, Marcantonio e Teofilo Zimara: due filosofi galatinesi del Cinquecento, “Archivio storico Pugliese” Un'importante notizia su scritti di Sigieri a Bologna e a Padova alla fine del sec. XV , “Giornale critico della filosofia italiana”, Contributo alla biografia di Vittorino da Feltre, “Bollettino del Museo civico di Padova”, Letteratura e cultura del Quattrocento, in “La civiltà veneziana del Quattrocento”, Firenze, Sansoni, Appunti intorno al medico e filosofo padovano Pietro Trapolin, In Miscellanea in onore di Roberto Cessi, Edizioni di Storia e letteratura, Roma, Copernico studente a Padova, in Mélanges offerts à Etienne Gilson, de l'Accadémie Française, Toronto-Paris 1959. Studi e problemi di critica testuale. Convegno di studi di filologia italiana nel centenario della Commissione per i Testi di Lingua, Bologna, L'aristotelismo della Scolastica e i Francescani, in Studi di Filosofia Medioevale, Edizioni di Storia e letteratura, Roma, Pietro Pomponazzi e la teoria di Avicenna intorno alla generazione spontanea dell'uomo 1962 Mantuanitas vergilana, Edizioni dell'Ateneo, Roma, La scuola di Rialto e l'Umanesimo veneziano, in Umanesimo Europeo e Umanesimo veneziano, Sansoni, Firenze, Studi su Pietro Pomponazzi, Le Monnier, Firenze, Saggi sull'Aristotelismo Padovano dal secolo XIV al XVI, Le Monnier, Corsi manoscritti di lezioni e ritratto di Pietro Pomponazzi, in Atti del VI Convegno internazionale di studi sul Rinascimento, Sansoni, Firenze, Studi su Pietro Pomponazzi, Le Monnier, Firenze, Saggi e note di critica dantesca, Ricciardi, Filosofia e teologia ai tempi di Dante in rapporto al pensiero del poeta, in Saggi e note di critica dantesca, Ricciardi, Milano, Napoli, Saggi e note sulla cultura veneta del Quattro e CinquecentoMazzantini, Editrice Antenore, Padova,  Saggi sulla cultura veneta del Quattro e del CinquecentoMazzantini, Antenore, Padova, Divina Commedia, Treccani.itEnciclopedie on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.  Enciclopedia Italiana, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.  su siusa.archivi.beniculturali.it, Sistema Informativo Unificato per le Soprintendenze Archivistiche. Opere di Bruno Nardi, .Pubblicazioni di Bruno Nardi, su Persée, Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l'Innovation.  Tullio Gregory, Enciclopedia dantesca, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, Un profilo biografico nel sito "dante online", Consulenza scientifica Società Dantesca Italiana. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate,” The Swimming-Pool Library.

 

naso del camello -- thing edge of the wedge -- argumentum ad domino: slippery slope argument, an argument that an action apparently unobjectionable in itself would set in motion a train of events leading ultimately to an undesirable outcome. The metaphor portrays one on the edge of a slippery slope, where taking the first step down will inevitably cause sliding to the bottom. For example, it is sometimes argued that voluntary euthanasia should not be legalized because this will lead to killing unwanted people, e.g. the handicapped or elderly, against their will. In some versions the argument aims to show that one should intervene to stop an ongoing train of events; e.g., it has been argued that suppressing a Communist revolution in one country was necessary to prevent the spread of Communism throughout a whole region via the so-called domino effect. Slippery slope arguments with dubious causal assumptions are often classed as fallacies under the general heading of the fallacy of the false cause. This argument is also sometimes called the wedge argument. There is some disagreement concerning the breadth of the category of slippery slope arguments. Some would restrict the term to arguments with evaluative conclusions, while others construe it more broadly so as to include other sorites arguments. 

 

natoli: Grice: “I like Natoli. He philosophises on the ‘uomo tragico’ at the source of western civilisation, and also the experience of ‘pain’ at the source of it.” -- Salvatore Natoli (Patti), filosofo. Si è laureato a Milano, dove ha trascorso gli anni nel Collegio Augustinianum. Ha insegnato logica alla Facoltà di Lettere e filosofia dell'Università Ca' Foscari di Venezia e Filosofia della politica alla Facoltà di Scienze Politiche dell'Università degli Studi di Milano.  Attualmente è Professore di Filosofia teoretica presso la Facoltà di scienze della formazione dell'Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca.  Attività accademica In particolare, Salvatore Natoli è il propugnatore di un'etica neopagana che, riprendendo elementi del pensiero greco (in particolare, il senso del tragico), riesca a fondare una felicità terrena, nella consapevolezza dei limiti dell'uomo e del suo essere necessariamente un ente finito, in contrapposizione con la tradizione cristiana.  Filosofia del dolore Una particolare e approfondita analisi sul tema del dolore è stata condotta da Natoli in diverse sue opere.  Il dolore è parte essenziale della vita e per gli antichi filosofi greci era l'altra faccia della felicità:  «I greci si sentono parte e momento della più grande e generale natura, crudele e insieme divina, si sentono momento di quest'eterno e irrefrenabile fluire, ove non vi è differenza tra bene e male allo stesso modo in cui il dolore si volge nella gioia e la gioia nel dolore»  La natura infatti dava la vita e nello stesso tempo crudelmente la toglieva. Il dolore in realtà fa parte della vita ma non la nega: il dolore può essere vissuto e reso sopportabile se chi soffre percepisce non la pietà dell'altro ma che la sua sofferenza è importante per chi entra in rapporto con lui e con la sua sofferenza. Se chi soffre si sente importante per qualcuno, anche se soffre ha motivo di vivere. Se non è importante per nessuno può lasciarsi prendere dalla morte.  Secondo Natoli l'esperienza del dolore ha due aspetti: uno oggettivo, il danno («Nel momento in cui la sofferenza è motivata attraverso la colpa, colui che soffre non solo patisce il danno, ma ne diviene anche il responsabile»); e uno soggettivo, cioè come viene vissuta e motivata la sofferenza. La stessa sofferenza è interpretata in modo differente da diverse culture: per alcune il dolore fa parte della contingenza del mondo fenomenico, dell'apparenza per altre invece, è vissuto intensamente come ad esempio nel cristianesimo dove al dolore viene associata la redenzione. Vi è una circolarità tra il dolore e il senso che fa sì che, pur essendo il dolore universale, ad ognuno appartenga un dolore diverso.  Vi è dunque un senso del dolore e un non senso che il dolore causa. Il dolore infatti contraddice la ragione che non sa darsi spiegazione del perché il dolore abbia colpito proprio quell'individuo e per quali colpe quello abbia commesso e, infine, perché il dolore travagli il mondo. Il tentativo di rispondere a queste fondamentali domande fa sì che l'individuo scopra nuove forze in lui che generino un vittorioso uomo nuovo che, partendo dall'esperienza del dolore, s'interroghi sul senso dell'esistere, tenendo sempre presente però, che il dolore può segnare anche una definitiva sconfitta.  Nel dolore l'uomo può scoprire le sue possibilità di crescita ma questo non vuol dire disprezzare il piacere, sostenendo che questo, invece, ottunde gli animi. Il piacere invece affina la sensibilità come accade per chi ascolta frequentemente una buona musica. Il piacere invece è negativo quando diventa «monomaniaco, eccessivo, quando, anziché sviluppare la sensibilità, la fossilizza in un punto di eccessiva stimolazione. E l'eccessivo stimolo distrugge l'organo.» A differenza del piacere, dell'amore che è dialogo tra due, che è espansivo e affabulatorio anche quando è silenzioso, l'esperienza del dolore chiude il singolo nella sua individualità e incomunicabilità, poiché «il corpo sano sente il mondo, il corpo malato sente il corpo. E quindi il corpo diventa una barriera tra il proprio desiderio, l'universo delle possibilità, e la realizzabilità delle medesime possibilità.»  Sebbene il dolore sia "insensato" si cerca di spiegarlo con le parole spesso inutili ed allora si cerca dapprima la parola "efficace" che offre la tecnica o la parola "efficace" della preghiera, della fede, che non annulla il dolore, ma dà una speranza nel miracolo. L'efficace uso della parola per spiegare il dolore fa sì che gli uomini trovino conforto nella comune sofferenza, in quella universalità del dolore dove però ognuno rimane nella sua singolarità di senso. La parola efficace della tecnica per un verso ha alleviato il dolore ma per un altro può creare delle condizioni di vita tali per cui la stessa tecnica controlla il dolore senza togliere la malattia, creando così un'esistenza prolungata senza futuro sotto la continua incombenza della morte:  «A partire dal Settecento, ma ancor più nel corso dell’Ottocento, la tecnica è stata sempre di più associata alle filosofie del progresso: infatti ha emancipato gli uomini dai vincoli naturali, ha ridotto il peso della fatica, ha attenuato il dolore, ha accresciuto il benessere, ha conteso lo spazio alla morte differendola sempre di più… ma la tecnica, oggi, è nelle condizioni di interferire in modo profondo nei processi naturali modificandone i cicli…»  Una soluzione all'inevitabilità del dolore può essere l'adesione a un nuovo paganesimo secondo l'antica visione greca dell'accettazione dell'esistenza del finito e della morte dell'uomo.  «Il cristianesimo ha alterato l'anima pagana. Nel momento in cui il sogno di un mondo senza dolore è apparso, non ci si adatta più a questo dolore anche se si crede che un mondo senza dolore non esisterà mai. La coscienza è stata visitata da un sogno che non si cancella più, e anche se lo crede inverosimile tuttavia vuole che ci sia.»  Anche il cristianesimo infatti teorizza l'uomo finito, ma non essere naturale destinato alla morte, ma come creatura di Dio. Per il cristiano la vita finita condotta secondo il dovere porta all'accettazione della morte come passaggio a Dio. Per il neopaganesimo la vita finita è degna di essere vissuta senza speranza di infinitezza ma vivendola secondo un ethos, che non è dovere di obbedire a un comando morale con la speranza di un premio eterno, ma buona e spontanea abitudine di una condotta consapevole dell'universale fragilità umana.  Magnifying glass icon mgx2.svgDolore (filosofia). Opere: “Soggetto e fondamento” -- studi su Aristotele e Cartesio, Padova, Antenore, -- “La ccritica del linguaggio,” Venezia, Marsilio, “Ermeneutica e genealogia: Filosofia e metodo in Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Milano, Feltrinelli, “L'esperienza del dolore. Le forme del patire nella cultura occidentale, Milano, Feltrinelli, Giovanni Gentile filosofo europeo, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, Vita buona vita felice. Scritti di etica e politica, Milano, Feltrinelli, Teatro filosofico. Gli scenari del sapere tra linguaggio e storia, Milano, Feltrinelli, L'incessante meraviglia. Filosofia, espressione, verità, Milano, Lanfranchi, La felicità. Saggio di teoria degli affetti, Milano, Feltrinelli, I nuovi pagani, Milano, Il Saggiatore, Dizionario dei vizi e delle virtù, Milano, Feltrinelli,  La politica e il dolore (con Leonardo Verga), Roma, EL, Soggetto e fondamento. Il sapere dell'origine e la scientificità della filosofia, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, Delle cose ultime e penultime. Un dialogo (con Bruno Forte), Milano, Mondadori, Dialogo su Leopardi. Natura, poesia, filosofia (con Antonio Prete), Milano, Bruno Mondadori, Progresso e catastrofe: dinamiche della modernità, Milano, Marinotti,  Dio e il divino. Confronto con il cristianesimo, Brescia, Morcelliana, La politica e la virtù (con Luigi Franco Pizzolato), Roma, Lavoro, La felicità di questa vita. Esperienza del mondo e stagioni dell'esistenza, Milano, Mondadori, L'attimo fuggente o della felicità, Roma, Edup, Stare al mondo. Escursioni nel tempo presente, Milano, Feltrinelli,  Il cristianesimo di un non credente, Magnano, Qiqajon, Libertà e destino nella tragedia greca, Brescia, Morcelliana, Stare al mondo. Escursioni nel tempo presente, Milano, Feltrinelli, Parole della filosofia o dell’arte di meditare, Milano, Feltrinelli, La verità in gioco. Scritti su Foucault, Milano, Feltrinelli, Guida alla formazione del carattere, Brescia, Morcelliana, Sul male assoluto. Nichilismo e idoli nel Novecento, Brescia, Morcelliana,I dilemmi della speranza: un dialogo (con Nichi Vendola), Molfetta, La meridiana, La salvezza senza fede, Milano, Feltrinelli,  La mia filosofia: Forme del mondo e saggezza del vivere, Pisa, Ets,  L'attimo fuggente e la stabilità del bene, (contiene la Lettera a Meneceo sulla felicità di Epicuro), Roma, Edup, Edipo e Giobbe. Contraddizione e paradosso, Brescia, Morcelliana, Dialogo sui novissimi (con Francesco Brancato), Troina, Città Aperta,  Il crollo del mondo. Apocalisse ed escatologia, Brescia, Morcelliana, L'edificazione di sé. Istruzioni sulla vita interiore, Roma-Bari, Laterza,  Il buon uso del mondo. Agire nell'età del rischio, Milano, Mondadori, Figure d'Occidente. Platone, Nietzsche e Heidegger (con Massimo Donà e Carlo Sini, introduzione di Erasmo Silvio Storace), Milano, AlboVersorio,  Eros e Philia, Milano, AlboVersorio, .Nietzsche e il teatro della filosofia, Milano, Feltrinelli, .Le parole ultime. Dialogo sui problemi del «fine vita» (con Ivan Cavicchi, Piero Coda e altri), Bari, Dedalo, I comandamenti. Non ti farai idolo né immagine, Bologna, Il mulino, Le verità del corpo, Milano, AlboVersorio, Sperare oggi (con Franco Mosconi), Trento, Il margine. Le virtù dei Giusti e l'identità dell'Europa  Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani alla voce corrispondente  La salvezza senza fede, Feltrinelli Ove non indicato diversamente, le informazioni contenute nel paragrafo "Filosofia del dolore" hanno come fonte Enciclopedia multimediale delle Scienze FilosoficheSalvatore NatoliIl senso del dolore.  in .  L'esperienza del dolore. Le forme del patire nella cultura occidentale, La politica e il dolore, Dialogo su Leopardi: natura, poesia, filosofia, Edipo e Giobbe: contraddizione e paradosso.  La salvezza senza fede, Feltrinelli, L'esperienza del dolore nell'età della tecnica. Siamo "finiti". E anche la tecnica lo è, da Europa,  I Nuovi pagani, Il saggiatore, Milano, Treccani.itEnciclopedie on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.  Opere dopenMLOL, Horizons Unlimited srl. Opere Registrazioni  su RadioRadicale.it, Radio Radicale.  Intervista per Il Rasoio di Occam, di Carlo Crosato. Video intervista su Asia.it, su asia.it. Dov'è la vittoria? “l'Italia civile che resta minoranza” intervista di Paolo Barbie, Il Fatto Quotidiano.

 

natura: naturanatura humana -- human nature -- Grice distinguishes very sharply between a human and a persona human becomes a person via transubstantiation, a metaphysical routinehuman nature is a quality or group of qualities, belonging to all and only humans, that explains the kind of being we are. We are all two-footed and featherless, but ‘featherless biped’ does not explain our socially significant characteristics. We are also all both animals and rational beings (at least potentially), and ‘rational animal’ might explain the special features we have that other kinds of beings, such as angels, do not. The belief that there is a human nature is part of the wider thesis that all natural kinds have essences. Acceptance of this position is compatible with many views about the specific qualities that constitute human nature. In addition to rationality and embodiment, philosophers have said that it is part of our nature to be wholly selfinterested, benevolent, envious, sociable, fearful of others, able to speak and to laugh, and desirous of immortality. Philosophers disagree about how we are to discover our nature. Some think metaphysical insight into eternal forms or truths is required, others that we can learn it from observation of biology or of behavior. Most have assumed that only males display human nature fully, and that females, even at their best, are imperfect or incomplete exemplars. Philosophers also disagree on whether human nature determines morality. Some think that by noting our distinctive features we can infer what God wills us to do. Others think that our nature shows at most the limits of what morality can require, since it would plainly be pointless to direct us to ways of living that our nature makes impossible. Some philosophers have argued that human nature is plastic and can be shaped in different ways. Others hold that it is not helpful to think in terms of human nature. They think that although we share features as members of a biological species, our other qualities are socially constructed. If the differences between male and female reflect cultural patterns of child rearing, work, and the distribution of power, our biologically common features do not explain our important characteristics and so do not constitute a nature. Grice -- Grice: beyond the natural/non-natural distinction     ABSTRACT. When we approach, with Grice, the philosophical question involved in what we may call the ‘natural’/ ‘non-natural’ distinction, various conceptual possibilities are open to us. In this contribution, after providing a a historical survey of the distinction with special focus on  its treatment by Grice, I offer a thesis which, echoing Bennett, I label ‘meaning-naturalism.’  Keywords: H. Paul Grice, meaning, naturalism, non-natural meaning  Introduction  Grice sees his approach to ‘meaning’ (or “meaning that …”, as he would rather put it) as ‘rhapsody on a theme by Peirce.’  When he presents his “Meaning” to the Oxford Philosophical Society (only to be published almost a decade later by The Philosophical Review), Grice endows the philosophical community with a full-blown ‘natural’/‘non-natural’ distinction, for which he has naturally become somewhat infamously famous, as when a philosopher, exploring the different causes of death of this or that other philosopher cites Grice as having passed of ‘non-natural causes.’  What is Grice’s ‘natural’/‘non-natural’ distinction about?  As a member of the so-called ‘Oxford school of “ordinary-language” philosophy’ (he disliked the sobriquet), Grice seems initially to have been concerned with what at a later stage he calls a ‘pre-theoretical’ exploration of this or that use of the lexeme ‘mean,’ notably by Peirce.  Grice finds Peirce’s attempt to ‘replace’ the vernacular Anglo-Saxon ‘mean’ with ‘krypto-technical’ jargon as not too sympathetic to these or those Oxonian ears. So, it is this lexeme, or ‘expression,’ ‘mean,’ to which Grice’s distinction applies.  Carefully, as Bennett would point out, using lower-case ‘x’ and ‘y’ for tokens, Grice attempts to  formulate the distinction into two separate super-expressions, where the sub-expression “means that …” occurs:  i.  x meansN that p.  ii.  x meansNN that q.  What is ‘x’? Grice spends some time on this double-edged elucidation (and indeed, the ‘that’-clause explication is a later vintage). He grants that his main focus of concern is with (ii). In passing, he makes some rather intriguing running commentary.  It’s clear why Grice feels the need to spend some time in explicating what he is about to do. Grice’s distinction, as he formulates it, is supposed to ‘refine’ this or that distinction, made by this or that philosopher. While ‘ordinary-language’ philosophers are taken as approaching ‘ordinary-language,’ their underlying motivation is to criticise this or that philosopher’s mischaracterisation of the linguistic nuance at hand.  Grice’s avowed aim in his talk to the Oxford Philosophical Society is to shed light on, to use his characteristically cavalier wording, ‘what people have been thinking,’ which in that context, means ‘what other philosophers have been thinking’including Ayer -- or even getting at, ‘when they speak of such things as “natural” versus “conventional” signs.’  Grice thinks that, by his sticking with ‘meaning that …’ (rather than ‘sign’) and ‘non-natural’ (rather ‘conventional’) he is setting a better scene. Why would this be a conceptual improvement? Grice gives two reasons.  First, and again, Grice presents himself as a representative of the Oxonian school of ‘ordinary-language’ philosophy, and exercising what these philosophers referred to this or that adventure in ‘linguistic botany.’ Grice thus sets to explore, introspectively, relying on his intuitions behind his own usage, philosophical and other: a ‘word,’ for example, Grice notes, he would not naturally describe as a ‘sign.’ In Grice’s (but surely not Peirce’s) idio-lect, the expression ‘sign’ is restricted to things like a traffic signal, say.  Second, and again in this adventure in ‘linguistic-botany,’ x (or strictly ‘a,’ for ‘agent,’ now) that can ‘mean’ that p, in a way that is specifically NON-factive (as he’ll later put it, echoing the Kiparskys) but which need not be ‘conventional.’ Grice gives the example of ‘a gesture,’ which a few philosophers would associate with Sraffa’s!  The historical background  Grice’s cavalier reference to ‘what people are getting at’ sounds charmingly Oxonian. He surely has no intention to underestimate the knowledge of the fellow members of The Oxford Philosophical Society. He won’t be seen as ‘going to lecture’ them. This is not a seminar, but a public occasion. He is allowed to be a cavalier.  Had this been a seminar, and being indeed a Lit. Hum. Oxon., Grice knows he can trace the distinction he is making, as he refines alternative ones, to Plato’s Cratylus, where we have Socrates and his dialogical companion playing with various adverbial modifiers, notably, ‘phusei’ and ‘thesei.’  Plato’s ‘phusei,’ surely translates to Grice’s ‘nature’ in ‘natural.’ Plato is carefully in avoiding the subsantive nominative ‘phusis.’ His ‘phusei’ is meant to modify the way something may such may be said to ‘mean’ (‘semein’). Possibly the earliest incarnation of what later will be dubbed as the ‘pooh’ pooh theory of language.  Plato’s ‘thesei’ is slightly more complicated. It is best to stay lexically conservative here and understand it to mean, ‘by position,’ i.e. or, in Grice’s freer prose, by convention. While Plato has to his disposal various other lexemes to do duty for this, he chooses a rather weak one, and again, not in the nominative “thesis,” but as applied to something that ‘means’ that p or q. In any case, Plato’s interest, as indeed Grice’s, is ‘dialectic.’ That x (or a) means that q thesei, by position, entails (as Plato would say if he could borrow from Moore) that it is not the case that x (or a) means that q phusei, by nature. The distinction is supposed to be absolute.  The ‘phusis’/‘thesis’ distinction undergoes a fascinating development in the philosophical tradition, from Greek (or Grecian) into Latin (Roman), and eventually makes it to scholastic philosophy: ‘per natura’/ ‘per positionem,’ or ‘ad placitum.’  Closer to Grice, authors partly philosophising in Grice’s vernacular, such as Hobbes, who is indeed fighting against Latin for the the use of the vernacular in philosophical discourse, will speak of what Grice knew would be familiar terminology to his Oxford audience: ‘natural sign’ versus, rather than Grice’s intentionally rather ugly-sounding ‘non-natural,’ ‘artificial’ or ‘conventional’ sign.  Grice does not use ‘scare quotes,’ but perhaps Umberto Eco would have wished he did! (Indeed, it is best to see Grice as treating ‘a means that p’ as the only ‘literal’ use of ‘mean,’ with ‘natural’ and ‘expression-relative’ uses as ‘derivative, or transferred, or figurative. While he does NOT use ‘scare quotes’ for his examples of ‘meanN,’ as in iii.  iii. Smoke means that there is fire.  Grice cares to quote in the talk from just one rather recent philosopher who was being discussed at Oxford in connection with A. J. Ayer’s approach to ‘moral’ language as being merely ‘emotive.’  Grice makes an explicit reference to Stevenson. While Grice finds Stevenson’s account of the ‘non-natural’ use of “mean” ‘circular’ (in that it relies on conditioning related to ‘communication,’ Stevenson explores various ‘natural’ uses of ‘mean’, and, to emphasise the figurative status, explicitly employs ‘scare quotes.’ For Stevenson, (iii) becomes (iv).  iv. Smoke ‘means’ that there is fire.     For surely ‘smoke’ cannot have an intentionand ‘mean’ is too close to ‘intend’ in the Anglo-Saxon vernacular to allow smoke to mean that p or q‘mean’ at most. This is crucial (and suggests just one way of the figuration of ‘mean,’ that will go two ways with Grice when he sees this figuration as applying to ‘expression-relative’ uses of ‘mean,’ as in  v.  ‘There’s smoke’ ‘means’ that there’s smoke.  (Ubi fumus ibi ignis). By carefully deploying scare-quotes, Stevenson is fighting against ‘animism.’ The root of ‘mean’ is cognate with Latin ‘mentare’ and ‘mentire,’ and can notably be traced back to ‘mens,’ the mind. Surely smoke cannot really (if we must use one of those adverbs that Austin called ‘trouser words’) that there is firejust ‘mean’ it. A careful ‘utterer’ is using the same lexeme in an obviously ‘figurative’ way, and marking this fact explicitly by appealing to an ‘echoic,’ or as Grice may prefer, ‘trans-categorial,’ use.  The ‘fun’ side to this (and for Grice, ‘philosophy need be fun’) is that Grice’s distinction then becomes now the ‘non-natural’/‘natural’ distinction. Scare quotes signal that the realm of ‘mean’ is the realm of the ‘mind,’ and not what Plato might have seen as the realm of nature simpliciter.   But back to Hobbes. Indeed, Hobbes may be drawing on the earlier explorations on this in Latin, by, of all people, Ockham, who speaks now of scenarios where ‘significare’ is modified by the adverb ‘naturaliter,’ and scenarios where it is not.  For this or that example of what Grice has as the ‘natural’ use of ‘mean’, Ockham will stick with ‘significare,’ qualified by ‘naturaliter.’  vi. By smiling, Smith means that he is happy.  Or as Ockham more generically puts it,  vii. Risus ‘significat’ naturaliter interiorem laetitiam.  But Ockham can go pretty Griceian too, as when he wonders about a ‘circulus’of a wine barrel ‘artificially’ (or not ‘naturaliter’) placed, or positioned, outside a building, yielding:  viii. Circulus ‘significat’ naturaliter vinum.  The circle, even if artificially (or at least not naturally) placed, is a ‘sign’ or means that wine which is being sold inside the building (Ockham is playing with the composite nature of ‘significare,’ literally to ‘make sign’). In the Peirceian theme on which Grice offers his rhapsody, and which he’ll later adopt in his “Retrospective epilogue,” there is an iconicity involved in the ‘circulus’ scenario, where this ‘iconicity’ requires some conceptual elucidation.   Ockham’s use of the Latin ‘significare’ poses a further question. Strictly, of course, is to ‘make’ (‘ficare’) a sign. Therefore, Grice feels its Latinate counterpart, ‘signifies that…’ as too strong a way to qualify a thing like an expression (or ‘word,’) which for him may not be a sign at all.  Grice’s cavalier attitude and provocative intent is further evidenced by the fact that, years later, when delivering the William James lectures at Harvard, and refining his “Meaning,” he does mention that his programme is concerned with the elucidation of the ‘total signification’ of a remark as uttered by this or that utterer, into this or that variety of this or that explicit and implicit component.  When Grice refers to “what people are thinking,” he is aware that Hobbes more or less maintains the Ockham (or ‘Occam,’ in Grice’s preferred spelling) paradigm, both in his work written in his late scholastic Latin (“Computatio, sive logica”) and the vernacular (“Leviathan”) which almost marks the beginning of so-called, by Sorley, “English philosophy.”  With the coming of empiricism, with Locke’s Essay (1690), and later Mill’s “System of Logic (mandatory reading at Oxford for the Lit. Hum. degree“more Grice to the Mill,” Grice will put it) it seems obvious that the tradition in which Grice is immersed is not strange to ‘naturalism.’  “Nature” itself, as Plato already knew, need not be hypostasized. It is a fascinating fact that, for years, Oxford infamously kept two different chairs for the philosopher: one of ‘natural’ philosophy, and the Waynflete chair of ‘meta-physical philosophy,’ where ‘metaphysical’ is merely an obscure way of referring to the ‘trans-natural.’ Or is it the other way around?  Few empiricist philosophers need to postulate the ‘unity’ (less so, the uniformity) of “Nature,” even if this or that Griceians will later will. Witness Nancy Cartwright in the festschrift for Grice edited by Grandy and Warner for Clarendon, Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, Ends (or “G. R. I. C. E.,” for short): ‘how the laws of nature lie.’  In its simplest formulation, which should do for the purposes of this contribution, the philosophical thesis of ‘naturalism’ may be understood as positing an ontological continuum between this or that allegation concerning ‘Nature’ and what is not nature (‘art,’ as in ‘artifice’).  And then, Grice comes to revisit “Meaning.”  In 1976, Grice gets invited to a symposium at Brighton and resumes his 1948 vintage ‘natural’/‘non-natural’ distinction. He had more or less kept it all through the William James lectures. At Brighton, Grice adds some crucial elaborations, in terms of what he now calls ‘philosophical psychology’ (Surely he doesn’t want to be seen as a ‘scientific’ psychologist). The audience is a different one, and not purely philosophical, so he can be cavalier and provocative in a different way.  While in his talk on “Meaning” for the Oxford Philosophical Society Grice had, rather casually, referred to this or that application, collocation, or occurrence, of the lexeme ‘mean’ as being this or that (Fregeian) ‘sense’ of the lexeme ‘mean’ -- and thus yielding ‘mean’ as, strictly, polysemous -- he now feels it’s time to weaken the claim to this or that (Ryleian) ‘use,’ not (Fregeian) ‘sense,’ of “mean.”  His motivation is obvious, and can be brought back a point he makes in his third William James lectures, and which in fact underlies his philosophical methodology regarding other philosophers’ mistakes when dealing with this or that linguistic nuance. If you are going to be Occamist, ‘senses,’ as specific entities, are not be multiplied beyond necessity.’ Grice is playing the etymological game here, concerning ‘mean’ (mens, mind). His example, in “Meaning revisited,” concerns Smith as ‘being caught in the grip of a vyse/vice.’ The root in both ‘vice’ and ‘vyse’Latin ‘vim’is cognate with ‘violence’ and gives two lexemes in Grice’s vernacular: one applies to something like a carpenter’s tool, and the other to the opposite of a virtue. Grice wants to explore how the ‘natural’/ ‘non-natural’ distinction may compare to the ‘vyse’/‘vice’ distinction. With ‘vice,’ Grice suggests, we have, in his vernacular, as opposed to Latin, two different lexemes (even if ultimately from a common Latin root, ‘vim,’ which surely mitigates the case for polysemy). But with ‘mean,’ that’s surely that’s not the case. The ultimate root is that of ‘mens,’ mind, and there’s no spelling difference to deal with.  Grice does not reverse the order of the terms in his ‘natural’/’non-natural’ distinction, though, as Eco would (“a sign is something you can use to lie”). Rather, he allows for this or that loose, or figurative, or ‘disimplicatural’ use of “means ….” His craving for a further philosophical generality justifies his disimplicature. This generality is of two kinds, one of which he deem thems ‘conceptual,’ or ‘methodological,’ and the other ‘mythic.’  The ‘conceptual’ or methodological manoevure is ontological in flavour. If there is a common core that both our (i) and (ii) above share, it should be rephrasable by a neutral form for both the ‘natural’ and the ‘non-natural’ scenario:  ix.  p is a consequence of x/a  ‘Consequentia’ is exactly the term used by Hobbes (some would prefer post-sequentia) when considering the generic concept of a ‘sign.’ It is thus very apt of Hacking (in his “Why does language matter to philosophy?”) to see Hobbes as a pre-Griceian (or is it, Grice as a post-Hobbesian?)  When it comes to ‘naturalism’ proper, we have to be careful in our exegesis of it as label for this or that philosophical overarching thesis. When reminiscing about his progress to ‘The City of the Eternal Truth,’ in his parody of Bunyan’s, pilgrim Grice meets face to face with the monster of “Naturalism.”  One may see this as Grice’s warning against some trends he found in The New World, ‘the devil of scientism,’ as he called it, towards ‘reductionism’ and ‘eliminationism,’ as flourishing in the idea that a ‘final cause’ is ‘mechanistically reducible.’ In Grice’s philosophical psychology, ‘Naturalism’ for Grice, amounts to rejecting this or that psychological law when this or that physiological law already explains the same phenomenon. Grice finds that his Occamism for ‘mean’ is not enough here and fangles an ‘ontological marxism’: this or that entity (an autonomous rational soul, say) that seems to go against naturalism may be justified, ‘provided they help with the house-work’ the philosopher is engaged in, in this case, and into the bargain, saving the philosopher’s existence.  The spirit, however, if not the letter, of ‘naturalism’ as a grand philosophical thesis still survives. Grice regards himself as ultimately a ‘constructivist.’ The realm of his ‘non-natural’ needs to be rooted in a previous realm of the ‘natural.’ He suggest here a ‘genitorially justified’ ‘myth’ for the ‘natural’/‘non-natural’ distinction:  x.                  a meaninngNN that q derives from x meaningN that p  Grice is exploring ‘emergence’ as a viable concept in philosophical psychology. Philosophical psychology is thus rooted in philosophical ethology. This or that psychological (or souly) state, (or attitude, or stance) may be understood as emerging from (or supervening on) a mere biological and ultimately physical (i. e. natural) state. (He is clear about that in his “Intention and uncertainty,” when, adopting the concept of ‘willing that’ from Prichard, he allows it to be amenable to a ‘physicalist’ treatment).  In his presidential address to the American Philosophical Association, Grice feels the need to creates a new philosophical sub-discipline, which he, echoing Carnap, christens ‘pirotology.’  Grice’s ‘pirotology’ concern Carnap’s ‘pirot,’ that ‘karulises elatically’ in his “Introduction to Semantics.” Grice adds a nod to Locke’s reflection on Prince Maurice’s ‘parot’ being “very intelligent, and rational.” The pirotological justification of the ‘natural’/‘non-natural’ distinction involves three stages.  The first stage in the sequence or series involves the pirot, P1, as a merely physical (or purely ‘natural’) entity, P1.  The second stage involves our ‘natural’ pirot giving way to the emergence, pretty much alla Nicolai Hartmann, of a now bio-logical pirot P2 (a ‘human’), endowed with the goal of survival and adaptation to its natural environment.  The third and last stage sees our P2 ‘re-constituting’ itself as now a psycho-logical pirot P3, as a ‘person’, endowed with a higher type of ‘soul.’ (Grice is following Aristotle’s progression in “De anima.”  Grice carefully avoids the use of ‘mind,’ in what he felt was an over-use by philosophers in the discipline of ‘mental philosophy,’ as it is referred to at Oxford in connection with Wilde. As a Kantotelian, Grice sees the biological pirot P2 as having a ‘soul,’ even if not a rational one. Grice was fascinated by Aristotle’s insight that, ‘soul,’ like ‘figure’ or ‘number,’ is a concept that cannot be defined by ‘genus,’ but only within this or that ‘series,’ such as the three-stage one he provides from the ‘natural’ to the ‘non-natural’ pirot.  It is thus no easy exegetic task to make sense of Grice’s somewhat rhetorical antipathy towards ‘Naturalism,’ but I shall leave that as an open question.  Beyond the distinction?  In the end, for Grice, the key-word is not ‘culture,’ as opposed to ‘nature,’ but ‘rationality,’ as displayed by our ‘non-natural’ pirot P3. Rationality becomes the philosopher’s main concern, as it is conceptualized to develop from this or that pre-rational propension, which is biological and ultimately physical, i.e. natural.  Grice’s exploration on the ‘natural’/ ‘non-natural’ distinction thus agrees with a very naturalistic approaches to things like adaptation and survival in a natural environment, and the evolution of altruism (a ‘talking pirot’ who transfers his psychological attitude to another pirot).  While his tone remains distinctively philosophicaland indeed displaying what he thought as a bit of ‘irreverent, conservative, dissenting rationalism,’ by his example he has indeed shown that the philosopher’s say has a relevance that no other discipline can provide. REFERENCES  Grice, H. P. (1948). ‘Meaning,’ repr. in Studies in the Way of Words.  Grice, H. P. (1975). ‘Method in philosophical psychology: from the banal to the bizarre,’ Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, repr. in Grice, 1991.  Grice, H. P. (1976). ‘Meaning revisited,’ repr. in Studies in the Way of Words.  Grice, H. P. (1986). ‘Reply to Richards,’ in Richard Grandy and Richard Warner, Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, Ends. Oxord: The Clarendon Press.  Grice, H. P. (1991). The conception of value. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.  Hacking, I. M. (1977). Why does language matter to philosophy? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  Hobbes, Thomas. Computatio sive logica.  Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan.  Locke, John. A theory concerning humane [sic] understanding.  Mellor, D. H. (n.d.) ‘Causes of deaths of philosophers’ (accessed February 20th, ) phil.cam.ac.uk/people/teaching-research-pages/mellor/dhm11/deaths-dg.html  Mill, J. S. A system of logic. London: Macmillan.  Ockham, William. Theory of signs.  Pietarinen, Ahti-Veikko and Francesco Bellucci (). ‘H. Paul Grice’s Lecture Notes on Charles S. Peirce’s Theory of Signs,’ International Review of Pragmatics, 8(1):82-129.  Sorley, W. R. (1920). A history of English philosophy. Cambridge. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Natural and non-natural, and naturalism.” NATURA -- natural intelligence -- artificial (or non-natural) intelligence, also called AI, the scientific effort to design and build intelligent artifacts. Grice disliked the phrase “artificial intelligence.” “Strictly, what Minsky means is ‘non-natural’ intelligence.’”Since the effort inevitably presupposes and tests theories about the nature of intelligence, it has implications for the philosophy of mind  perhaps even more than does empirical psychology. For one thing, actual construction amounts to a direct assault on the mindbody problem; should it succeed, some form of materialism would seem to be vindicated. For another, a working model, even a limited one, requires a more global conception of what intelligence is than do experiments to test specific hypotheses. In fact, psychology’s own overview of its domain Arouet, François-Marie artificial intelligence 53   53 has been much influenced by fundamental concepts drawn from AI. Although the idea of an intelligent artifact is old, serious scientific research dates only from the 0s, and is associated with the development of programmable computers. Intelligence is understood as a structural property or capacity of an active system; i.e., it does not matter what the system is made of, as long as its parts and their interactions yield intelligent behavior overall. For instance, if solving logical problems, playing chess, or conversing in English manifests intelligence, then it is not important whether the “implementation” is electronic, biological, or mechanical, just as long as it solves, plays, or talks. Computers are relevant mainly because of their flexibility and economy: software systems are unmatched in achievable active complexity per invested effort. Despite the generality of programmable structures and the variety of historical approaches to the mind, the bulk of AI research divides into two broad camps  which we can think of as language-oriented and pattern-oriented, respectively. Conspicuous by their absence are significant influences from the conditionedresponse paradigm, the psychoanalytic tradition, the mental picture idea, empiricist atomistic associationism, and so on. Moreover, both AI camps tend to focus on cognitive issues, sometimes including perception and motor control. Notably omitted are such psychologically important topics as affect, personality, aesthetic and moral judgment, conceptual change, mental illness, etc. Perhaps such matters are beyond the purview of artificial intelligence; yet it is an unobvious substantive thesis that intellect can be cordoned off and realized independently of the rest of human life. The two main AI paradigms emerged together in the 0s along with cybernetic and information-theoretic approaches, which turned out to be dead ends; and both are vigorous today. But for most of the sixties and seventies, the language-based orientation dominated attention and funding, for three signal reasons. First, computer data structures and processes themselves seemed languagelike: data were syntactically and semantically articulated, and processing was localized serial. Second, twentieth-century linguistics and logic made it intelligible that and how such systems might work: automatic symbol manipulation made clear, powerful sense. Finally, the sorts of performance most amenable to the approach  explicit reasoning and “figuring out”  strike both popular and educated opinion as particularly “intellectual”; hence, early successes were all the more impressive, while “trivial” stumbling blocks were easier to ignore. The basic idea of the linguistic or symbol manipulation camp is that thinking is like talking  inner discourse  and, hence, that thoughts are like sentences. The suggestion is venerable; and Hobbes even linked it explicitly to computation. Yet, it was a major scientific achievement to turn the general idea into a serious theory. The account does not apply only, or even especially, to the sort of thinking that is accessible to conscious reflection. Nor is the “language of thought” supposed to be much like English, predicate logic, LISP, or any other familiar notation; rather, its detailed character is an empirical research problem. And, despite fictional stereotypes, the aim is not to build superlogical or inhumanly rational automata. Our human tendencies to take things for granted, make intuitive leaps, and resist implausible conclusions are not weaknesses that AI strives to overcome but abilities integral to real intelligence that AI aspires to share. In what sense, then, is thought supposed to be languagelike? Three items are essential. First, thought tokens have a combinatorial syntactic structure; i.e., they are compounds of welldefined atomic constituents in well-defined recursively specifiable arrangements. So the constituents are analogous to words, and the arrangements are analogous to phrases and sentences; but there is no supposition that they should resemble any known words or grammar. Second, the contents of thought tokens, what they “mean,” are a systematic function of their composition: the constituents and forms of combination have determinate significances that together determine the content of any wellformed compound. So this is like the meaning of a sentence being determined by its grammar and the meanings of its words. Third, the intelligent progress or sequence of thought is specifiable by rules expressed syntactically  they can be carried out by processes sensitive only to syntactic properties. Here the analogy is to proof theory: the formal validity of an argument is a matter of its according with rules expressed formally. But this analogy is particularly treacherous, because it immediately suggests the rigor of logical inference; but, if intelligence is specifiable by formal rules, these must be far more permissive, context-sensitive, and so on, than those of formal logic. Syntax as such is perfectly neutral as to how the constituents are identified by sound, by artificial intelligence artificial intelligence 54   54 shape, by magnetic profile and arranged in time, in space, via address pointers. It is, in effect, a free parameter: whatever can serve as a bridge between the semantics and the processing. The account shares with many others the assumptions that thoughts are contentful meaningful and that the processes in which they occur can somehow be realized physically. It is distinguished by the two further theses that there must be some independent way of describing these thoughts that mediates between simultaneously determines their contents and how they are processed, and that, so described, they are combinatorially structured. Such a description is syntactical. We can distinguish two principal phases in language-oriented AI, each lasting about twenty years. Very roughly, the first phase emphasized processing search and reasoning, whereas the second has emphasized representation knowledge. To see how this went, it is important to appreciate the intellectual breakthrough required to conceive AI at all. A machine, such as a computer, is a deterministic system, except for random elements. That is fine for perfectly constrained domains, like numerical calculation, sorting, and parsing, or for domains that are constrained except for prescribed randomness, such as statistical modeling. But, in the general case, intelligent behavior is neither perfectly constrained nor perfectly constrained with a little random variation thrown in. Rather, it is generally focused and sensible, yet also fallible and somewhat variable. Consider, e.g., chess playing an early test bed for AI: listing all the legal moves for any given position is a perfectly constrained problem, and easy to program; but choosing the best move is not. Yet an intelligent player does not simply determine which moves would be legal and then choose one randomly; intelligence in chess play is to choose, if not always the best, at least usually a good move. This is something between perfect determinacy and randomness, a “between” that is not simply a mixture of the two. How is it achievable in a machine? The crucial innovation that first made AI concretely and realistically conceivable is that of a heuristic procedure. The term ‘heuristic’ derives from the Grecian word for discovery, as in Archimedes’ exclamation “Eureka!” The relevant point for AI is that discovery is a matter neither of following exact directions to a goal nor of dumb luck, but of looking around sensibly, being guided as much as possible by what you know in advance and what you find along the way. So a heuristic procedure is one for sensible discovery, a procedure for sensibly guided search. In chess, e.g., a player does well to bear in mind a number of rules of thumb: other things being equal, rooks are more valuable than knights, it is an asset to control the center of the board, and so on. Such guidelines, of course, are not valid in every situation; nor will they all be best satisfied by the same move. But, by following them while searching as far ahead through various scenarios as possible, a player can make generally sensible moves  much better than random  within the constraints of the game. This picture even accords fairly well with the introspective feel of choosing a move, particularly for less experienced players. The essential insight for AI is that such roughand-ready ceteris paribus rules can be deterministically programmed. It all depends on how you look at it. One and the same bit of computer program can be, from one point of view, a deterministic, infallible procedure for computing how a given move would change the relative balance of pieces, and from another, a generally sensible but fallible procedure for estimating how “good” that move would be. The substantive thesis about intelligence  human and artificial alike  then is that our powerful but fallible ability to form “intuitive” hunches, educated guesses, etc., is the result of largely unconscious search, guided by such heuristic rules. The second phase of language-inspired AI, dating roughly from the mid-0s, builds on the idea of heuristic procedure, but dramatically changes the emphasis. The earlier work was framed by a conception of intelligence as finding solutions to problems good moves, e.g.. From such a perspective, the specification of the problem the rules of the game plus the current position and the provision of some heuristic guides domain-specific rules of thumb are merely a setting of the parameters; the real work, the real exercise of intelligence, lies in the intensive guided search undertaken in the specified terms. The later phase, impressed not so much by our problem-solving prowess as by how well we get along with “simple” common sense, has shifted the emphasis from search and reasoning to knowledge. The motivation for this shift can be seen in the following two sentences: We gave the monkey the banana because it was ripe. We gave the monkey the banana because it was hungry. artificial intelligence artificial intelligence 55   55 The word ‘it’ is ambiguous, as the terminal adjectives make clear. Yet listeners effortlessly understand what is meant, to the point, usually, of not even noticing the ambiguity. The question is, how? Of course, it is “just common sense” that monkeys don’t get ripe and bananas don’t get hungry, so . . . But three further observations show that this is not so much an answer as a restatement of the issue. First, sentences that rely on common sense to avoid misunderstanding are anything but rare: conversation is rife with them. Second, just about any odd fact that “everybody knows” can be the bit of common sense that understanding the next sentence depends on; and the range of such knowledge is vast. Yet, third, dialogue proceeds in real time without a hitch, almost always. So the whole range of commonsense knowledge must be somehow at our mental fingertips all the time. The underlying difficulty is not with speed or quantity alone, but with relevance. How does a system, given all that it knows about aardvarks, Alabama, and ax handles, “home in on” the pertinent fact that bananas don’t get hungry, in the fraction of a second it can afford to spend on the pronoun ‘it’? The answer proposed is both simple and powerful: common sense is not just randomly stored information, but is instead highly organized by topics, with lots of indexes, cross-references, tables, hierarchies, and so on. The words in the sentence itself trigger the “articles” on monkeys, bananas, hunger, and so on, and these quickly reveal that monkeys are mammals, hence animals, that bananas are fruit, hence from plants, that hunger is what animals feel when they need to eat  and that settles it. The amount of search and reasoning is minimal; the issue of relevance is solved instead by the antecedent structure in the stored knowledge itself. While this requires larger and more elaborate systems, the hope is that it will make them faster and more flexible. The other main orientation toward artificial intelligence, the pattern-based approach  often called “connectionism” or “parallel distributed processing”  reemerged from the shadow of symbol processing only in the 0s, and remains in many ways less developed. The basic inspiration comes not from language or any other psychological phenomenon such as imagery or affect, but from the microstructure of the brain. The components of a connectionist system are relatively simple active nodes  lots of them  and relatively simple connections between those nodes  again, lots of them. One important type and the easiest to visualize has the nodes divided into layers, such that each node in layer A is connected to each node in layer B, each node in layer B is connected to each node in layer C, and so on. Each node has an activation level, which varies in response to the activations of other, connected nodes; and each connection has a weight, which determines how strongly and in what direction the activation of one node affects that of the other. The analogy with neurons and synapses, though imprecise, is intended. So imagine a layered network with finely tuned connection weights and random or zero activation levels. Now suppose the activations of all the nodes in layer A are set in some particular way  some pattern is imposed on the activation state of this layer. These activations will propagate out along all the connections from layer A to layer B, and activate some pattern there. The activation of each node in layer B is a function of the activations of all the nodes in layer A, and of the weights of all the connections to it from those nodes. But since each node in layer B has its own connections from the nodes in layer A, it will respond in its own unique way to this pattern of activations in layer A. Thus, the pattern that results in layer B is a joint function of the pattern that was imposed on layer A and of the pattern of connection weights between the two layers. And a similar story can be told about layer B’s influence on layer C, and so on, until some final pattern is induced in the last layer. What are these patterns? They might be any number of things; but two general possibilities can be distinguished. They might be tantamount to or substrata beneath representations of some familiar sort, such as sentencelike structures or images; or they might be a kind or kinds of representation previously unknown. Now, people certainly do sometimes think in sentences and probably images; so, to the extent that networks are taken as complete brain models, the first alternative must be at least partly right. But, to that extent, the models are also more physiological than psychological: it is rather the implemented sentences or images that directly model the mind. Thus, it is the possibility of a new genus of representation  sometimes called distributed representation  that is particularly exciting. On this alternative, the patterns in the mind represent in some way other than by mimetic imagery or articulate description. How? An important feature of all network models is that there are two quite different categories of pattern. On the one hand, there are the relatively ephemeral patterns of activation in various artificial intelligence artificial intelligence 56   56 groups of nodes; on the other, there are the relatively stable patterns of connection strength among the nodes. Since there are in general many more connections than nodes, the latter patterns are richer; and it is they that determine the capabilities of the network with regard to the former patterns. Many of the abilities most easily and “naturally” realized in networks can be subsumed under the heading pattern completion: the connection weights are adjusted  perhaps via a training regime  such that the network will complete any of the activation patterns from a predetermined group. So, suppose some fraction say half of the nodes in the net are clamped to the values they would have for one of those patterns say P while the remainder are given random or default activations. Then the network, when run, will reset the latter activations to the values belonging to P  thus “completing” it. If the unclamped activations are regarded as variations or deviations, pattern completion amounts to normalization, or grouping by similarity. If the initial or input nodes are always the same as in layered networks, then we have pattern association or transformation from input to output. If the input pattern is a memory probe, pattern completion becomes access by content. If the output pattern is an identifier, then it is pattern recognition. And so on. Note that, although the operands are activation patterns, the “knowledge” about them, the ability to complete them, is contained in the connection patterns; hence, that ability or know-how is what the network represents. There is no obvious upper bound on the possible refinement or intricacy of these pattern groupings and associations. If the input patterns are sensory stimuli and the output patterns are motor control, then we have a potential model of coordinated and even skillful behavior. In a system also capable of language, a network model or component might account for verbal recognition and content association, and even such “nonliteral” effects as trope and tone. Yet at least some sort of “symbol manipulation” seems essential for language use, regardless of how networklike the implementation is. One current speculation is that it might suffice to approximate a battery of symbolic processes as a special subsystem within a cognitive system that fundamentally works on quite different principles. The attraction of the pattern-based approach is, at this point, not so much actual achievement as it is promise  on two grounds. In the first place, the space of possible models, not only network topologies but also ways of construing the patterns, is vast. Those built and tested so far have been, for practical reasons, rather small; so it is possible to hope beyond their present limitations to systems of significantly greater capability. But second, and perhaps even more attractive, those directions in which patternbased systems show the most promise  skills, recognition, similarity, and the like  are among the areas of greatest frustration for languagebased AI. Hence it remains possible, for a while at least, to overlook the fact that, to date, no connectionist network can perform long division, let alone play chess or solve symbolic logic problems. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Intelligence: natural and non-natural.” Natura- natura-ars distinction -- natural life -- artificial life, an interdisciplinary science studying the most general character of the fundamental processes of life. These processes include self-organization, self-reproduction, learning, adaptation, and evolution. Artificial life or ALife is to theoretical biology roughly what artificial intelligence AI is to theoretical psychology  computer simulation is the methodology of choice. In fact, since the mind exhibits many of life’s fundamental properties, AI could be considered a subfield of ALife. However, whereas most traditional AI models are serial systems with complicated, centralized controllers making decisions based on global state information, most natural systems exhibiting complex autonomous behavior are parallel, distributed networks of simple entities making decisions based solely on their local state information, so typical ALife models have a corresponding distributed architecture. A computer simulation of evolving “bugs” can illustrate what ALife models are like. Moving around in a two-dimensional world periodically laden with heaps of “food,” these bugs eat, reproduce, and sometimes perish from starvation. Each bug’s movement is genetically determined by the quantities of food in its immediate neighborhood, and random mutations and crossovers modify these genomes during reproduction. Simulations started with random genes show spontaneous waves of highly adaptive genetic novelties continuously sweeping through the population at precisely quantifiable rates.C. Langston et al., eds., Artificial Life II 1. artificial language artificial life 57   57 ALife science raises and promises to inform many philosophical issues, such as: Is functionalism the right approach toward life? When, if ever, is a simulation of life really alive? When do systems exhibit the spontaneous emergence of properties?  Refs.: Grice: “Life: natural and non-natural.” naturalism, the twofold view that 1 everything is composed of natural entities  those studied in the sciences on some versions, the natural sciences  whose properties determine all the properties of things, persons included abstracta like possibilia and mathematical objects, if they exist, being constructed of such abstract entities as the sciences allow; and 2 acceptable methods of justification and explanation are continuous, in some sense, with those in science. Clause 1 is metaphysical or ontological, clause 2 methodological and/or epistemological. Often naturalism is formulated only for a specific subject matter or domain. Thus ethical naturalism holds that moral properties are equivalent to or at least determined by certain natural properties, so that moral judgments either form a subclass of, or are non-reductively determined by the factual or descriptive judgments, and the appropriate methods of moral justification and explanation are continuous with those in science. Aristotle and Spinoza sometimes are counted among the ancestors of naturalism, as are Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, and Hobbes. But the major impetus to naturalism in the last two centuries comes from advances in science and the growing explanatory power they signify. By the 1850s, the synthesis of urea, reflections on the conservation of energy, work on “animal electricity,” and discoveries in physiology suggested to Feuerbach, L. Buchner, and others that all aspects of human beings are explainable in purely natural terms. Darwin’s theory had even greater impact, and by the end of the nineteenth century naturalist philosophies were making inroads where idealism once reigned unchallenged. Naturalism’s ranks now included H. Spencer, J. Tyndall, T. H. Huxley, W. K. Clifford, and E. Haeckel. Early in the twentieth century, Santayana’s naturalism strongly influenced a number of  philosophers, as did Dewey’s. Still other versions of naturalism flourished in America in the 0s and 0s, including those of R. W. Sellars and M. Cohen. Today most New-World philosophers of mind are naturalists of some stripe, largely because of what they see as the lessons of continuing scientific advances, some of them spectacular, particularly in the brain sciences. Nonetheless, twentieth-century philosophy has been largely anti-naturalist. Both phenomenology in the Husserlian tradition and analytic philosophy in the Fregean tradition, together with their descendants, have been united in rejecting psychologism, a species of naturalism according to which empirical discoveries about mental processes are crucial for understanding the nature of knowledge, language, and logic. In order to defend the autonomy of philosophy against inroads from descriptive science, many philosophers have tried to turn the tables by arguing for the priority of philosophy over science, hence over any of its alleged naturalist implications. Many continue to do so, often on the ground that philosophy alone can illuminate the normativity and intentionality involved in knowledge, language, and logic; or on the ground that philosophy can evaluate the normative and regulative presuppositions of scientific practice which science itself is either blind to or unequipped to analyze; or on the ground that phi- losophy understands how the language of science can no more be used to get outside itself than any other, hence can no more be known to be in touch with the world and ourselves than any other; or on the ground that would-be justifications of fundamental method, naturalist method certainly included, are necessarily circular because they must employ the very method at issue. Naturalists may reply by arguing that naturalism’s methodological clause 2 entails the opposite of dogmatism, requiring as it does an uncompromising fallibilism about philosophical matters that is continuous with the open, selfcritical spirit of science. If evidence were to accumulate against naturalism’s metaphysical clause 1, 1 would have to be revised or rejected, and there is no a priori reason such evidence could in principle never be found; indeed many naturalists reject the a priori altogether. Likewise, 2 itself might have to be revised or even rejected in light of adverse argument, so that in this respect 2 is self-referentially consistent. Until then, 2’s having survived rigorous criticism to date is justification enough, as is the case with hypotheses in science, which often are deployed without circularity in the course of their own evaluation, whether positive or negative H. I. Brown, “Circular Justifications,” 4. So too can language be used without circularity in expressing hypotheses about the relations between language and the prelinguistic world as illustrated by R. Millikan’s Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories, 4; cf. Post, “Epistemology,” 6. As for normativity and intentionality, naturalism does not entail materialism or physicalism, according to which everything is composed of the entities or processes studied in physics, and the properties of these basic physical affairs determine all the properties of things as in Quine. Some naturalists deny this, holding that more things than are dreamt of in physics are required to account for normativity and intentionality  and consciousness. Nor need naturalism be reductive, in the sense of equating every property with some natural property. Indeed many physicalists themselves explain how the physical, hence natural, properties of things might determine other, non-natural properties without being equivalent to them G. Hellman, T. Horgan, D. Lewis; see J. Post, The Faces of Existence, 7. Often the determining physical properties are not all properties of the thing x that has the non-natural properties, but include properties of items separated from x in space and time or in some cases bearing no physical relation to x that does any work in determining x’s properties Post, “ ‘Global’ Supervenient Determination: Too Permissive?” 5. Thus naturalism allows a high degree of holism and historicity, which opens the way for a non-reductive naturalist account of intentionality and normativity, such as Millikan’s, that is immune to the usual objections, which are mostly objections to reduction. The alternative psychosemantic theories of Dretske and Fodor, being largely reductive, remain vulnerable to such objections. In these and other ways non-reductive naturalism attempts to combine a monism of entities  the natural ones of which everything is composed  with a pluralism of properties, many of them irreducible or emergent. Not everything is nothing but a natural thing, nor need naturalism accord totalizing primacy to the natural face of existence. Indeed, some naturalists regard the universe as having religious and moral dimensions that enjoy a crucial kind of primacy; and some offer theologies that are more traditionally theist as do H. N. Wieman, C. Hardwick, J. Post. So far from exhibiting “reptilian indifference” to humans and their fate, the universe can be an enchanted place of belonging. Refs.: H. P. Grice: “My labour against Naturalism.” Naturanaturalism -- naturalistic epistemology, an approach to epistemology that views the human subject as a natural phenomenon and uses empirical science to study epistemic activity. The phrase was introduced by Quine “Epistemology Naturalized,” in Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, 9, who proposed that epistemology should be a chapter of psychology. Quine construed classical epistemology as Cartesian epistemology, an attempt to ground all knowledge in a firmly logical way on immediate experience. In its twentieth-century embodiment, it hoped to give a translation of all discourse and a deductive validation of all science in terms of sense experience, logic, and set theory. Repudiating this dream as forlorn, Quine urged that epistemology be abandoned and replaced by psychology. It would be a scientific study of how the subject takes sensory stimulations as input and delivers as output a theory of the three-dimensional world. This formulation appears to eliminate the normative mission of epistemology. In later writing, however, Quine has suggested that normative epistemology can be naturalized as a chapter of engineering: the technology of predicting experience, or sensory stimulations. Some theories of knowledge are naturalistic in their depiction of knowers as physical systems in causal interaction with the environment. One such theory is the causal theory of knowing, which says that a person knows that p provided his belief that p has a suitable causal connection with a corresponding state of affairs. Another example is the information-theoretic approach developed by Dretske Knowledge and the Flow of Information, 1. This says that a person knows that p only if some signal “carries” this information that p to him, where information is construed as an objective commodity that can be processed and transmitted via instruments, gauges, neurons, and the like. Information is “carried” from one site to another when events located at those sites are connected by a suitable lawful dependence. The normative concept of justification has also been the subject of naturalistic construals. Whereas many theories of justified belief focus on logical or probabilistic relations between evidence and hypothesis, naturalistic theories focus on the psychological processes causally responsible for the belief. The logical status of a belief does not fix its justificational status. Belief in a tautology, for instance, is not justified if it is formed by blind trust in an ignorant guru. According to Goldman Epistemology and Cognition, 6, a belief qualifies as justified only if it is produced by reliable belief-forming processes, i.e., processes that generally have a high truth ratio. Goldman’s larger program for naturalistic epistemology is called “epistemics,” an interdisciplinary enterprise in which cognitive science would play a major role. Epistemics would seek to identify the subset of cognitive operations available to the human cognizer that are best from a truth-bearing standpoint. Relevant truth-linked properties include problem-solving power and speed, i.e., the abilities to obtain correct answers to questions of interest and to do so quickly. Close connections between epistemology and artificial intelligence have been proposed by Clark Glymour, Gilbert Harman, John Pollock, and Paul Thagard. Harman stresses that principles of good reasoning are not directly given by rules of logic. Modus ponens, e.g., does not tell you to infer q if you already believe p and ‘if p then q’. In some cases it is better to subtract a belief in one of the premises rather than add a belief in q. Belief revision also requires attention to the storage and computational limitations of the mind. Limits of memory capacity, e.g., suggest a principle of clutter avoidance: not filling one’s mind with vast numbers of useless beliefs Harman, Change in View, 6. Other conceptions of naturalistic epistemology focus on the history of science. Larry Laudan conceives of naturalistic epistemology as a scientific inquiry that gathers empirical evidence concerning the past track records of various scientific methodologies, with the aim of determining which of these methodologies can best advance the chosen cognitive ends. Naturalistic epistemology need not confine its attention to individual epistemic agents; it can also study communities of agents. This perspective invites contributions from sciences that address the social side of the knowledge-seeking enterprise. If naturalistic epistemology is a normative inquiry, however, it must not simply naturalism, biological naturalistic epistemology 598    598 describe social practices or social influences; it must analyze the impact of these factors on the attainment of cognitive ends. Philosophers such as David Hull, Nicholas Rescher, Philip Kitcher, and Alvin Goldman have sketched models inspired by population biology and economics to explore the epistemic consequences of alternative distributions of research activity and different ways that professional rewards might influence the course of research.  Natura -- the natural/transnatural distinction -- natural philosophyGrice: “It’s funny: there are only three or four chairs of philosophy at Oxford and one had to be on ‘the trans-natural’ philosophy! Back in the day, I might just as well have to have attended the ‘natural’ philosophy lectures!” --  the study of nature or of the spatiotemporal world. This was regarded as a task for philosophy before the emergence of modern science, especially physics and astronomy, and the term is now only used with reference to premodern times. Philosophical questions about nature still remain, e.g., whether materialism is true, but they would usually be placed in metaphysics or in a branch of it that may be called philosophy of nature. Natural philosophy is not to be confused with metaphysical naturalism, which is the metaphysical view no part of science itself that all that there is is the spatiotemporal world and that the only way to study it is that of the empirical sciences. It is also not to be confused with natural theology, which also may be considered part of metaphysics. The Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy is the name of a chair at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford.  The Sedleian Chair was founded by Sir William Sedley who, by his will dated 20 October 1618, left the sum of £2,000 to the University of Oxford for purchase of lands for its endowment. Sedley's bequest took effect in 1621 with the purchase of an estate at Waddesdon in Buckinghamshire to produce the necessary income.  It is regarded as the oldest of Oxford's scientific chairs. Holders of the Sedleian Professorship have, since the mid 19th Century, worked in a range of areas of Applied Mathematics and Mathematical Physics. They are simultaneously elected to fellowships at Queen's College, Oxford.  The Sedleian Professors in the past century have been Augustus Love (1899-1940), who was distinguished for his work in the mathematical theory of elasticity, Sydney Chapman (1946-1953), who is renowned for his contributions to the kinetic theory of gases and solar-terrestrial physics, George Temple (1953-1968), who made significant contributions to mathematical physics and the theory of generalized functions, Brooke Benjamin (1979-1995), who did highly influential work in the areas of mathematical analysis and fluid mechanics, and Sir John Ball (1996-), who is distinguished for his work in the mathematical theory of elasticity, materials science, the calculus of variations, and infinite-dimensional dynamical systems. Refs.: H. P. Grice: “Oxford and the four Ws: Waynflete, White, Wykeham, and Wilde.” Natura-- nautralism -- natural religion, a term first occurring in the second half of the seventeenth century, used in three related senses, the most common being 1 a body of truths about God and our duty that can be discovered by natural reason. These truths are sufficient for salvation or according to some orthodox Christians would have been sufficient if Adam had not sinned. Natural religion in this sense should be distinguished from natural theology, which does not imply this. A natural religion may also be 2 one that has a human, as distinct from a divine, origin. It may also be 3 a religion of human nature as such, as distinguished from religious beliefs and practices that have been determined by local circumstances. Natural religion in the third sense is identified with humanity’s original religion. In all three senses, natural religion includes a belief in God’s existence, justice, benevolence, and providential government; in immortality; and in the dictates of common morality. While the concept is associated with deism, it is also sympathetically treated by Christian writers like Clarke, who argues that revealed religion simply restores natural religion to its original purity and adds inducements to compliance. The  Faculty of Medicine appoints an elector for the professorship of Human Anatomy and for the professorship of Pathology. The Board of Natural Science appoints one elector for the professorship of Pathology and two for the Lee's Readerships. The Board of Modern History appoints two electors for the Beit professorship and lectureship, and three for the Ford lectureship. The Board of Theology appoints three of the seven electors for the Speaker's lectureship in Biblical Studies. Three different Boards of Faculty appoint electors for the Wilde lectureship in Natural Religion.  Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Natural religion at Oxford: the Wilde and the Wilde.”

 

NECESSE -- necessitatum: ananke, when feeling very Grecian, Grice would use ‘ananke,’ instead of ‘must,’ which he thought too English! Grecian, necessity. The term was used by early Grecian philosophers for a constraining or moving natural force. In Parmenides frg. 8, line 30 ananke encompasses reality in limiting bonds; according to Diogenes Laertius, Democrianamnesis ananke 27 4065A-   27 tus calls the vortex that generates the cosmos ananke; Plato Timaeus 47e ff. refers to ananke as the irrational element in nature, which reason orders in creating the physical world. As used by Aristotle Metaphysics V.5, the basic meaning of ‘necessary’ is ‘that which cannot be otherwise’, a sense that includes logical necessity. He also distinguishes Physics II.9 between simple and hypothetical necessity conditions that must hold if something is to occur.  necesseGrice: “The archaic Romans had ‘necessum,’ which they turned to ‘necessum.’ The etymology is not clear  [perh. Sanscr. naç, obtain; Gr. root ἐνεκ-; cf. ἀνάγκη; v. Georg Curtius Gr. Etym. 424]. ichthyological necessity: topic-neutral: Originally, Ryle’s term for logical constants, such as “of ” “not,” “every.” They are not endowed with special meanings, and are applicable to discourse about any subject-matter. They do not refer to any external object but function to organize meaningful discourse. J. J. C. Smart calls a term topic-neutral if it is noncommittal about designating something mental or something physical. Instead, it simply describes an event without judging the question of its intrinsic nature. In his central-state theory of mind, Smart develops a topic-neutral analysis of mental expressions and argues that it is possible to account for the situations described by mental concepts in purely physical and topic-neutral terms. “In this respect, statements like ‘I am thinking now’ are, as J. J. C. Smart puts it, topic-neutral. They say that something is going on within us, something apt for the causing of certain sorts of behaviour, but they say nothing of the nature of this process.” D. Armstrong, A Materialist Theory of the Mind

 

nicoletti – Grice: “His diagramme for ‘arbor porphyriana’ is also brilliant – ending with “Plato,” “Socrates.”” -- Grice: “I especially like his squaring the square of opposition!” -- Grice: “A veritable genius, this Nicoletti.” -- Not under ‘Venezia’! -- paolo di venezia: philosopher, the son of Andrea Nicola, of Venice He was born in Fliuli Venezia Giulia, a hermit of Saint Augustine O.E.S.A., he spent three years as a student at St. John’s, where the order of St. Augustine had a ‘studium generale,’ at Oxford and taught at Padova, where he became a doctor of arts. Paolo also held appointments at the universities of Parma, Siena, and Bologna. Paolo is active in the administration of his order, holding various high offices. He composed ommentaries on several logical, ethical, and physical works of Aristotle. His name is connected especially with his best-selling “Logica parva.” Over 150 manuscripts survive, and more than forty printed editions of it were made,  His huge sequel, “Logica magna,” was a flop. These Oxford-influenced tracts contributed to the favorable climate enjoyed by Oxonian semantics in northern Italian universities. Grice: “My favourite of Paul’s tracts is his “Sophismata aurea”how peaceful for a philosopher to die while commentingon Aristotle’s “De anima.”!” His nom de plum is “Paulus Venetus.”— Paolo da Venezia  Nota disambigua.svg Disambiguazione"Paolo Veneto" rimanda qui. Se stai cercando lo scrittore e vescovo nato a Venezia intorno al 1270, vedi Paolino Minorita.  Paolo da Venezia in una stampa ProfessorePaolo da Venezia, o Paolo Veneto, vero nome Paolo Nicoletti (Udine), filosofo. Eremitano, fu studente all'Oxford e docente all'Padova dal 1408 ove ebbe tra gli allievi Paolo Della Pergola. Nel 1413 divenne ambasciatore veneto presso la corte polacca. Per le sue idee teologiche, nel 1426, fu esiliato a Ravenna ma, due anni dopo, gli fu consentito di tornare a Padova.  Fu seguace di Guglielmo di Ockham e Sigieri di Brabante e autore di vari trattati, tra cui alcuni commenti ad Aristotele . Il suo trattato Logica magna fu utilizzato come testo di insegnamento della logica all'Padova e può essere considerato la maggiore opera di logica formale prodotta dal Medioevo.  Opere: “Logica,” “Commenti alle opere di Aristotele: Expositio in libros Posteriorum Aristotelis,” “Expositio super VIII libros Physicorum necnon super Commento Averrois,” “Expositio super libros De generatione et corruptione. Lectura super librum De Anima. Conclusiones Ethicorum. Conclusiones Politicorum. Expositio super Praedicabilia et Praedicamenta.” “Scritti sulla logica: Logica Parva or Tractatus Summularum, Logica Magna, Quadratura. Sophismata Aurea. Altre opere: “Super Primum Sententiarum Johannis de Ripa Lecturae Abbreviatio,” “Summa philosophiae naturalis,” “De compositione mundi. Quaestiones adversus Judaeos. Sermones. N Dizionario di Filosofia Treccani, riferimenti in .  Vedi «Paolo Della Pergola» in Dizionario di Filosofia Treccani.  Eugenio Garin, Storia della filosofia italiana, terza ed., Edizione CDE su licenza della Giulio Einaudi editore, Milano, «Paolo Veneto», in Enciclopedia Dantesca, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, «Paolo Veneto», in Dizionario di Filosofia Treccani, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, Alessandro D. Conti, Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, . Alessandro D. Conti: Esistenza e verità: forme e strutture del reale in Paolo Veneto e nel pensiero filosofico del tardo medioevo. Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, Roma, Nuovi studi storici, A. R. Perreiah: "A Biographical Introduction to Paul of Venice". In: Augustiniana.  Paolo Veneto, Logica, Venetiis, Bartolomeo Imperatore, Francesco Imperatore,  Enrico Gori, dal sito Filosofico.net (Alessandro Conti, Paul of Venice, in E. Zalta , Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Center for the Study of Language and Information,  Stanford.Filosofia  Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Paolo da  Harborne, and Paolo da Venezia,” lecture for the Club Griceiano Anglo-Italiano, Bordighera.

 

Lockeian ‘sort’ -- natural kind, a category of entities classically conceived as having modal implications; e.g., if Socrates is a member of the natural kind human being, then he is necessarily a human being. The idea that nature fixes certain sortals, such as ‘water’ and ‘human being’, as correct classifications that appear to designate kinds of entities has roots going back at least to Plato and Aristotle. Anil Gupta has argued that sortals are to be distinguished from properties designated by such predicates as ‘red’ by including criteria for individuating the particulars bits or amounts for mass nouns that fall under them as well as criteria for sorting those particulars into the class. Quine is salient among those who find the modal implications of natural kinds objectionable. He has argued that the idea of natural kinds is rooted in prescientific intuitive judgments of comparative similarity, and he has suggested that as these intuitive classifications are replaced by classifications based on scientific theories these modal implications drop away. Kripke and Putnam have argued that science in fact uses natural kind terms having the modal implications Quine finds so objectionable. They see an important role in scientific methodology for the capacity to refer demonstratively to such natural kinds by pointing out particulars that fall under them. Certain inferences within science  such as the inference to the charge for electrons generally from the measurement of the charge on one or a few electrons  seem to be additional aspects of a role for natural kind terms in scientific practice. Other roles in the methodology of science for natural kind concepts have been discussed in recent work by Ian Hacking and Thomas Kuhn. H. P. Grice: “Lockeian sorts: natural and non-natural.”

 

Ligatum, lex, -- the natural/non-natural distinction -- natural law, also called law of nature, in moral and political philosophy, an objective norm or set of objective norms governing human behavior, similar to the positive laws of a human ruler, but binding on all people alike and usually understood as involving a superhuman legislator. Ancient Grecian and Roman thought, particularly Stoicism, introduced ideas of eternal laws directing the actions of all rational beings and built into the very structure of the universe. Roman lawyers developed a doctrine of a law that all civilized peoples would recognize, and made some effort to explain it in terms of a natural law common to animals and humans. The most influential forms of natural law theory, however, arose from later efforts to use Stoic and legal language to work out a Christian theory of morality and politics. The aim was to show that the principles of morals could be known by reason alone, without revelation, so that the whole human race could know how to live properly. The law of nature applies, on this understanding, only to rational beings, who can obey or disobey it deliberately and freely. It is thus different in kind from the laws God laid down for the inanimate and irrational parts of creation. Natural law theorists often saw continuities and analogies between natural laws for humans and those for the rest of creation but did not confuse them. The most enduringly influential natural law writer was Aquinas. On his view God’s eternal reason ordains laws directing all things to act for the good of the community of the universe, the declaration of His own glory. Human reason can participate sufficiently in God’s eternal reason to show us the good of the human community. The natural law is thus our sharing in the eternal law in a way appropriate to our human nature. God lays down certain other laws through revelation; these divine laws point us toward our eternal goal. The natural law concerns our earthly good, and needs to be supplemented by human laws. Such laws can vary from community to community, but to be binding they must always stay within the limits of the law of nature. God engraved the most basic principles of the natural law in the minds of all people alike, but their detailed application takes reasoning powers that not everyone may have. Opponents of Aquinas  called voluntarists  argued that God’s will, not his intellect, is the source of law, and that God could have laid down different natural laws for us. Hugo Grotius rejected their position, but unlike Aquinas he conceived of natural law as meant not to direct us to bring about some definite common good but to set the limits on the ways in which each of us could properly pursue our own personal aims. This Grotian outlook was developed by Hobbes, Pufendorf, and Locke along voluntarist lines. Thomistic views continued to be expounded by Protestant as well as Roman Catholic writers until the end of the seventeenth century. Thereafter, while natural law theory remained central to Catholic teaching, it ceased to attract major new non-Catholic proponents. Natural law doctrine in both Thomistic and Grotian versions treats morality as basically a matter of compliance with law. Obligation and duty, obedience and disobedience, merit and guilt, reward and punishment, are central notions. Virtues are simply habits of following laws. Though the law is suited to our distinctive human nature and can be discovered by the proper use of reason, it is not a self-imposed law. In following it we are obeying God. Since the early eighteenth century, philosophical discussions of whether or not there is an objective morality have largely ceased to center on natural law. The idea remains alive, however, in jurisprudence. Natural law theories are opposed to legal positivism, the view that the only binding laws are those imposed by human sovereigns, who cannot be subject to higher legal constraints. Legal theorists arguing that there are rational objective limits to the legislative power of rulers often think of these limits in terms of natural law, even when their theories do not invoke or imply any of the religious aspects of earlier natural law positions. Refs.: N. Cartwright-Hampshire, “How the laws of phyiscs lie,” in P. G. R. I. C. E., without a response by H. P. Grice. (“That will not be feasible.”)

 

 

 

 

need: H. P. Grice, “Need,” cf. D. Wiggins, “Need.” “What Toby needs” Grice was also interested in the modal use of ‘need’. “You need to do it.” “ ‘Need,’ like ‘ought’ takes ‘to.’” “It’s very Anglo-Saxon.” “Or, rather non-Indo-European substratum!” As it is attested only in Germanic, Celtic, and Balto-Slavic, it might be non-PIE, from a regional substrate language.

 

negri: Grice: “Only in Italy a philosopher philosophises on Pinocchio!” -- Grice: “I like his idea of a new ‘grammar of politics,’ even if he uses the extravagant metaphor, delightful though, ‘fabbrica di porcellana’. He has a gift for metaphor, sure!” – Grice: “’la lenta ginestra’ to qualify Leopardi’s ontology is genial!” -- Grice: “Negri reminds me of ‘pinko Oxford’!” -- Toni Negri, all'anagrafe Antonio Negri (Padova), filosofo, politologo, attivista, saggista, accademico e politico italiano, tra i più noti ed influenti intellettuali italiani dalla fine degli anni sessanta ad oggi.  Tra gli anni sessanta e gli anni settanta, fu uno dei maggiori teorici del marxismo operaista. Dagli anni ottanta in poi, si dedicò invece allo studio del pensiero politico di Baruch Spinoza, contribuendo, insieme a Louis Althusser e Gilles Deleuze, alla sua riscoperta teorica. In collaborazione poi con Michael Hardt, ha scritto libri molto influenti nella Teoria politica contemporanea.  Accanto alla sua attività teorica, ha svolto una intensa attività di militanza politica, come co-fondatore e teorico militante delle organizzazioni della sinistra extraparlamentare Potere Operaio e Autonomia Operaia. A causa della sua attività politica è stato incarcerato e processato, all'interno del processo 7 aprile, con l'accusa di aver partecipato ad atti terroristici e d'insurrezione armata. Venne, tuttavia, assolto da queste imputazioni, per poi venire condannato a 12 anni di carcere per associazione sovversiva e concorso morale nella rapina di Argelato. Opere: “Stato e diritto nel giovane Hegel. Studio sulla genesi illuministica della filosofia giuridica e politica di Hegel,” Padova, Cedam, “Saggi sullo storicismo Tedesco: Dilthey e Meinecke,” Milano, Feltrinelli, “Alle origini del formalismo giuridico: studio sul problema della forma in Kant e nei giuristi kantiani,” Padova, Cedam, Curatela di Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Scritti di filosofia del diritto, Bari, Laterza, Alcune riflessioni sullo stato dei partiti, Padova, Tip. poligrafica moderna, Crisi dello Stato-piano. Comunismo e organizzazione rivoluzionaria, Milano, Feltrinelli, Ideali e realizzazioni d'integrazione europea, con Carlo Ghisalberti e Jean Charpentier, Milano, Giuffrè, Studi su Max Weber, in Annuario bibliografico di filosofia del diritto, I, Milano, Giuffrè, Problemi di storia dello Stato moderno.  in "Rivista critica di storia della filosofia",  La teoria capitalistica dello stato nel '29, John M. Keynes, in "Contropiano", Marx sul ciclo e la crisi. Note, in "Contropiano", “Descartes politico o della ragionevole ideologia, Milano, Feltrinelli, “Rileggendo Hegel” -- filosofo del diritto, in Incidenza di Hegel. Napoli, Morano, Enciclopedia Feltrinelli Fischer, Scienze politiche 1. (Stato e politica), Milano, Feltrinelli, Crisi e organizzazione operaia, con Sergio Bologna e Paolo Carpignano, Milano, Feltrinelli, Partito operaio contro il lavoro, in Sergio Bologna, Paolo Carpignano, Negri, Crisi e organizzazione operaia, Milano, Feltrinelli,  Proletari e Stato. Per una discussione su autonomia operaia e compromesso storico, Milano, Feltrinelli, La fabbrica della strategia” 33 lezioni su Lenin, Padova, “Cooperativa libraria editrice degli studenti di Padova-Collettivo editoriale librirossi, La forma Stato. Per la critica dell'economia politica della Costituzione,” Milano, Feltrinelli, Materiale sul problema dello stato e sul rapporto fra democrazia e socialismo, con Riccardo Guastini, Ugo Rescigno, Emilio Agazzi, Milano, Unicopli-Cuem, “Il dominio e il sabotaggio: sul metodo marxista della trasformazione sociale,” Milano, Feltrinelli, La classe ouvriere contre l'etat, traduzione di Pierre Rival e Yann Moulier Boutang, Paris, Editions Galilée, “Manifattura, società borghese, ideologia: Una famosa polemica sul rapporto struttura-sovrastruttura,” con Franz Borkenau e Henryk Grossmann, Roma, Savelli, Marx oltre Marx [Grice, “Grice oltre Grice”]. Quaderno di lavoro sui Grundrisse, Milano, Feltrinelli, “ Dall'operaio massa all'operaio sociale. Intervista sull'operaismo, a cura di Paolo Pozzi e Roberta Tommasini, Milano, Multhipla, “Il comunismo e la guerra,” Milano, Feltrinelli, Politica di classe: il motore e la forma. Le cinque campagne oggi. Milano, Machina Libri, “Otto Dix,” Milano, Studio d'arte Grafica, “L'anomalia selvaggia. Saggio su potere e potenza in Baruch Spinoza,” Milano, Feltrinelli, “Macchina tempo. Rompicapi, liberazione, costituzione,” Milano, Feltrinelli, Pipe-line. Lettere da Rebibbia, Torino, Einaudi,  Italie rouge et noire. Journal, traduzione di Yann Moulier Boutang, prefazione di Bernard-Henri Lévy, Paris, Hachette, Diario di un'evasione, Cremona, Pizzoni, Les nouveaux espaces de liberté, con Félix Guattari, Gourdon, Bedou, Le verità nomadi: per nuovi spazi di libertà, con Félix Guattari, Roma, Pellicani, “Fabbriche del soggetto: profili, protesi, transiti, macchine, paradossi, passaggi, sovversione, sistemi, potenze: appunti per un dispositivo ontologico, in "XXI secolo. Bimestrale di politica e cultura", “Lenta ginestra: saggio sull'ontologia di Leopardi, Milano, SugarCo, “Fine secolo. Un manifesto per l'operaio sociale. Milano, SugarCo,” “Arte e multitudo. Sette lettere,” Milano, Politi, “Il lavoro di Giobbe. Il famoso testo biblico come parabola del lavoro umano, Milano, SugarCo, “Il potere costituente. Saggio sulle alternative del moderno, Carnago, SugarCo, Spinoza sovversivo. Variazioni (in)attuali, introduzione di Emilia Giancotti, Roma, Pellicani, “Il lavoro di Dioniso. Per la critica dello Stato postmoderno, con Michael Hardt, Roma, Manifestolibri, “ L'inverno è finito. Scritti sulla trasformazione negata, a cura di Giuseppe Caccia, Roma, Castelvecchi, “Le bassin de travail immateriel (BTI) dans la metropole parisienne, con Antonella Corsani e Maurizio Lazzarato, Paris, l'Harmattan, I libri del rogo, Roma, Castelvecchi, Contiene: Crisi dello Stato-piano; Partito operaio contro il lavoro; Proletari e Stato; Per la critica della costituzione materiale; Il dominio e il sabotaggio, La costituzione del tempo. Prolegomeni. Orologi del capitale e liberazione comunista, Roma, Manifestolibri, Spinoza, introduzioni di Gilles Deleuze, Pierre Macherey e Alexandre Matheron, Roma, DeriveApprodi, Contiene: L'anomalia selvaggia; Spinoza sovversivo; Democrazia ed eternità in Spinoza, Sogni Incubi Visioni. Politica e conflitti nella crisi della società del lavoro, con Michael Hardt e Damiano Palano, Milano, Lineacoop, La sovversione. Colloquio di Annamaria Guadagni con Toni Negri, Roma, Liberal, Kairòs, alma venus, multitudo. Nove lezioni impartite a me stesso, Roma, Manifestolibri, Desiderio del mostro. Dal circo al laboratorio alla politica, a cura di e con Ubaldo Fadini e Charles T. Wolfe, Roma, Il manifesto, Impero. Il nuovo ordine della globalizzazione, con Michael Hardt, Milano, Rizzoli,  Europa politica. [Ragioni di una necessità], a cura di e con Heidrun Friese e Peter Wagner, Roma, Manifestolibri, Luciano Ferrari Bravo ritratto di un cattivo maestro. Con alcuni cenni sulla sua epoca, Roma, Manifestolibri, L'Europa e l'impero. Riflessioni su un processo costituente, Roma, Manifestolibri, Cinque lezioni di metodo su moltitudine e impero, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, Il ritorno. Quasi un'autobiografia, conversazione con Anne Dufourmantelle, Milano, Rizzoli, Guide. Cinque lezioni su impero e dintorni, con contributi di Michael Hardt e Danilo Zolo, Milano, Cortina, Moltitudine. Guerra e democrazia nel nuovo ordine imperiale, con Michael Hardt, Milano, Rizzoli, La differenza italiana, Roma, Nottetempo, Movimenti nell'impero. Passaggi e paesaggi, Milano, Cortina, Global. Biopotere e lotte in America Latina, con Giuseppe Cocco, Roma, Manifestolibri, Goodbye Mr Socialism, a cura di Raf Valvola Scelsi, Milano, Feltrinelli, Settanta, con Raffaella Battaglini, Roma, DeriveApprodi, Fabbrica di porcellana. Per una nuova grammatica politica, Milano, Feltrinelli, Dalla fabbrica alla metropoli. Saggi politici, Roma, Datanews,  Il lavoro nella Costituzione e una conversazione con Adelino Zanini, Verona, Ombre Corte, Dentro/contro il diritto sovrano. Dallo Stato dei partiti ai movimenti della governance, a cura di Giuseppe Allegri, Verona, Ombre Corte,  Comune. Oltre il privato ed il pubblico, (Grice: “Cf. Grice on ‘common language’ and ‘private language’”) con Michael Hardt, Milano, Rizzoli,  Inventare il comune, Roma, DeriveApprodi, Il comune in rivolta. Sul potere costituente delle lotte, Verona, Ombre Corte, Questo non è un Manifesto, con Michael Hardt, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2Spinoza e noi, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, Fabbriche del soggetto. Archivio  e una conversazione con Mimmo Sersante, Verona, Ombre corte, Arte e multitudo (a cura di Nicolas Martino), Roma, DeriveApprodi, Storia di un comunista, a cura di Girolamo De Michele, Milano, Ponte alle Grazie, Galera ed esilio. Storia di un comunista, a cura di Girolamo De Michele, Milano, Ponte alle Grazie, Assemblea, con Michael Hardt, Milano, Ponte alle Grazie, Da Genova a domani. Storia di un comunista, a cura di Girolamo De Michele, Milano, Ponte alle Grazie,  a crucial Italian philosopher. Antonio Negri From , the free encyclopedia. Antonio Negri AntonioNegri SeminarioInternacionalMundo.jpg Padua, Kingdom of Italy Alma materUniversity of Padua Istituto italiano per gli studi storici [it] EraContemporary philosophy RegionWestern philosophy SchoolContinental philosophy Autonomist Marxism Neo-Spinozism InstitutionsUniversity of Padua Paris VIII (Vincennes) Paris VII (Jussieu) École Normale Supérieure Collège international de philosophie Main interestsPolitical philosophy Class conflict Globalization Commons Biopolitics Notable ideas Philosophy of globalization multitude theory of Empire Constituent power Immaterial labour Post-fordism Altermodernity Refusal of work Influences[show] Influenced[show] Antonio "Toni" Negri (born 1 August 1933) is an Italian Spinozistic-Marxist sociologist and political philosopher, best known for his co-authorship of Empire and secondarily for his work on Spinoza.  Born in Padua, he became a political philosophy professor in his hometown university. Negri founded the Potere Operaio (Worker Power) group in 1969 and was a leading member of Autonomia Operaia. As one of the most popular theorists of Autonomism, he has published hugely influential books urging "revolutionary consciousness."  He was accused in the late 1970s of various charges including being the mastermind of the left-wing terrorist organization Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse or BR), involved in the May 1978 kidnapping of Aldo Moro, two-time Prime Minister of Italy, and leader of the Christian-Democrat Party, among others. He was wrongly suspected to have made a threatening phone call on behalf of the BR, but the court was unable to conclusively prove his ties. The question of Negri's complicity with left-wing extremism is a controversial subject. He was indicted on a number of charges, including "association and insurrection against the state" (a charge which was later dropped), and sentenced for involvement in two murders.  Negri fled to France where, protected by the Mitterrand doctrine, he taught at the Paris VIII (Vincennes) and the Collège international de philosophie, along with Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. In 1997, after a plea-bargain that reduced his prison time from 30 to 13 years, he returned to Italy to serve the end of his sentence. Many of his most influential books were published while he was behind bars. He now lives in Venice and Paris with his partner, the French philosopher Judith Revel.  Like Deleuze, Negri's preoccupation with Spinoza is well known in contemporary philosophy. Along with Althusser and Deleuze, he has been one of the central figures of a French-inspired Neo-Spinozism in continental philosophy of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, that was the second remarkable Spinoza revival in history, after a well-known rediscovery of Spinoza by German thinkers (especially the German Romantics and Idealists) in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  He is the father of film director Anna Negri. Antonio Negri was born in Padua, in the Northeastern Italian region of Veneto, in 1933. His father was an active communist militant from the city of Bologna (in the Northeastern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna), and although he died when Negri was two years old, his political engagement made Negri familiar with Marxism from an early age, while his mother was a teacher from the town of Poggio Rusco (in province of Mantua, Lombardy).[25] He began his career as a militant in the 1950s with the activist Roman Catholic youth organization Gioventú Italiana di Azione Cattolica (GIAC). Negri became a communist in 1953–54 when he worked at a kibbutz in Israel for a year. The kibbutz was organised according to ideas of Zionist socialism and all the members were Jewish communists.[26] He joined the Italian Socialist Party in 1956 and remained a member until 1963, while at the same time becoming more and more engaged throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s in Marxist movements.  He had a quick academic career at the University of Padua and was promoted to full professor at a young age in the field of "dottrina dello Stato" (State theory), a peculiarly Italian field that deals with juridical and constitutional theory. This might have been facilitated by his connections to influential politicians such as Raniero Panzieri and philosopher Norberto Bobbio, strongly engaged with the Socialist Party.  In the early 1960s, Negri joined the editorial group of Quaderni Rossi, a journal that represented the intellectual rebirth of Marxism in Italy outside the realm of the communist party.  In 1969, together with Oreste Scalzone and Franco Piperno, Negri was one of the founders of the group Potere Operaio (Workers' Power) and the Operaismo (workerist) Communist movement. Potere Operaio disbanded in 1973 and gave rise to the Autonomia Operaia Organizzata (Organised Workers' Autonomy) movement.  Arrest and flight On 16 March 1978, Aldo Moro, former Italian prime minister and Christian Democrat party leader, was kidnapped in Rome by the Red Brigades, his five-man bodyguard murdered on the spot of the kidnapping in Rome's Via Fani. While they were holding him, forty-five days after the kidnapping, the Red Brigades called his family on the phone, informing Moro's wife of her husband's impending death. Nine days later his body, shot in the head, was found dumped in a city lane. The conversation was recorded, and later broadcast and televised. A number of people who knew Negri and remembered his voice identified him as the probable author of the call, but the claim has been since dismissed: the author of the call was, in fact, Valerio Morucci.[27][28]  On 7 April 1979, at the age of forty-six, Antonio Negri was arrested for his part in the Autonomy Movement, along with others (Emilio Vesce, Luciano Ferrari Bravo, Mario Dalmaviva, Lauso Zagato, Oreste Scalzone, Pino Nicotri, Alisa del Re, Carmela di Rocco, Massimo Tramonte, Sandro Serafini, Guido Bianchini, and others). Padova's Public Prosecutor Pietro Calogero accused them of being involved in the political wing of the Red Brigades, and thus behind left-wing terrorism in Italy. Negri was charged with a number of offences, including leadership of the Red Brigades, masterminding the 1978 kidnapping and murder of the President of the Christian Democratic Party Aldo Moro, and plotting to overthrow the government.[29] At the time, Negri was a political science professor at the University of Padua and visiting lecturer at Paris' École Normale Supérieure. The Italian public was shocked that an academic could be involved in such events.  A year later, Negri was exonerated from Aldo Moro's kidnapping after a leader of the BR, having decided to cooperate with the prosecution, testified that Negri "had nothing to do with the Red Brigades." The charge of 'armed insurrection against the State' against Negri was dropped at the last moment, and because of this he did not receive the 30-year plus life sentence requested by the prosecutor, but only 30 years for being the instigator of political activist Carlo Saronio's murder and having 'morally concurred' with the murder of Andrea Lombardini, a carabiniere, during a failed bank robbery.  Part of a series on Libertarian socialism Anarchist flag.svg Political concepts[show] Economics[show] People[show] Philosophies and tendencies[show] Significant events[show] Related topics[show] BlackFlagSymbol.svg Anarchism portal Red flag II.svg Socialism portal A coloured voting box.svg Politics portal vte His philosopher peers saw little fault with Negri's activities. Michel Foucault commented, "'t he in jail simply for being an intellectual?"[30] French philosophers Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze also signed in November 1977 L'Appel des intellectuels français contre la répression en Italie (The Call of French Intellectuals Against Repression in Italy) in protest against Negri's imprisonment and Italian anti-terrorism legislation.[31][32]  In 1983, four years after his arrest and while he was still in prison awaiting trial, Negri was elected to the Italian legislature as a member for the Radical Party.[33] Claiming parliamentary immunity, he was temporarily released and used his freedom to escape to France. There he remained for 14 years, writing and teaching, protected from extradition in virtue of the "Mitterrand doctrine". His refusal to stand trial in Italy was widely criticized by Italian media and by the Italian Radical Party, who had supported his candidacy to Parliament.[33][failed verification]  In France, Negri began teaching at the Paris VIII (Vincennes) and the Collège international de philosophie, founded by Jacques Derrida. Although the conditions of his residence in France prevented him from engaging in political activities, he wrote prolifically and was active in a broad coalition of left-wing intellectuals. In 1990 Negri with Jean-Marie Vincent and Denis Berger founded the journal Futur Antérieur. (The journal ceased publication in 1998 but was reborn as Multitudes in 2000, with Negri as a member of the international editorial board.)  In 1997, after a plea-bargain that reduced his prison time from 30 to 13 years, Negri returned to Italy to serve the end of his sentence. He was released from prison in the spring of 2003, having written some of his most influential works while behind bars.  In the late 1980s the Italian President Francesco Cossiga described Antonio Negri as "a psychopath" who "poisoned the minds of an entire generation of Italy's youth."[34]  Political thought and writing Part of a series on Left communism ICC Logo.svg Concepts[show] Movements[show] People[show] Organizations[show] Related topics[show] Symbol-hammer-and-sickle.svg Communism portal Red flag II.svg Socialism portal A coloured voting box.svg Politics portal vte Unlike other forms of Marxism, autonomist Marxism emphasises the ability of the working class to force changes to the organization of the capitalist system independent of the state, trade unions or political parties. Autonomists are less concerned with party political organization than are other Marxists, focusing instead on self-organized action outside of traditional organizational structures. Autonomist Marxism is thus a "bottom-up" theory: it draws attention to activities that autonomists see as everyday working-class resistance to capitalism, for example absenteeism, slow working, and socialization in the workplace. The journal Quaderni Rossi ("Red Notebooks"), produced between 1961 and 1965, and its successor Classe Operaia ("Working Class"), produced between 1963 and 1966, were also influential in the development of early autonomism. Both were founded by Antonio Negri and Mario Tronti.  Today, Antonio Negri is best known as the co-author, with Michael Hardt, of the controversial Marxist-inspired treatise Empire (2000).[29]  In 2009 Negri completed the book Commonwealth, the final in a trilogy that began in 2000 with Empire and continued with Multitude in 2004, co-authored with Michael Hardt.[35]  Since Commonwealth, he has written multiple notable articles on the Arab Spring and Occupy movements along with other social issues.[36][37]  Labor of Dionysus: A Critique of the State-Form (1994) In this book, the authors ask themselves "How is it, then, that labour, with all its life-affirming potential, has become the means of capitalist discipline, exploitation, and domination in modern society?" The authors expose and pursue this paradox through a systematic analysis of the role of labour in the processes of capitalist production and in the establishment of capitalist legal and social institutions. Critiquing liberal and socialist notions of labor and institutional reform from a radical democratic perspective, Hardt and Negri challenge the state-form itself.[38]  Insurgencies: Constituent Power and the Modern State (1999) This book, written solely by Negri, "explores the drama of modern revolutions-from Machiavelli’s Florence and Harrington’s England to the American, French, and Russian revolutions-and puts forward a new notion of how power and action must be understood if we are to achieve a radically democratic future."[39]  Empire (2000) Main article: Empire (Negri and Hardt book) In general, the book theorizes an ongoing transition from a "modern" phenomenon of imperialism, centered around individual nation-states, to an emergent postmodern construct created among ruling powers which the authors call "Empire", with different forms of warfare:  ...according to Hardt and Negri's Empire, the rise of Empire is the end of national conflict, the "enemy" now, whoever he is, can no longer be ideological or national. The enemy now must be understood as a kind of criminal, as someone who represents a threat not to a political system or a nation but to the law. This is the enemy as a terrorist... In the "new order that envelops the entire space of... civilization", where conflict between nations has been made irrelevant, the "enemy" is simultaneously "banalized" (reduced to an object of routine police repression) and absolutized (like the Enemy, an absolute threat to the ethical order"[40]).[41]  Empire elaborates a variety of ideas surrounding constitutions, global war, and class. Hence, the Empire is constituted by a monarchy (the United States and the G8, and international organizations such as NATO, the International Monetary Fund or the World Trade Organization), an oligarchy (the multinational corporations and other nation-states) and a democracy (the various non-government organizations and the United Nations). Part of the book's analysis deals with "imagin[ing] resistance", but "the point of Empire is that it, too, is "total" and that resistance to it can only take the form of negation"the will to be against".[42] The Empire is total, but economic inequality persists, and as all identities are wiped out and replaced with a universal one, the identity of the poor persists.[43]  Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (2004) Main article: Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire Multitude addresses these issues and picks up the thread where Empire has left off. In order to do so, Hardt and Negri argue, one must first analyze the present configuration of war and its contradictions. This analysis is performed in the first chapter, after which chapters two and three focus on multitude and democracy, respectively. Multitude is not so much a sequel as it is a reiteration from a new point of view in a new, relatively accessible style that is distinct from the predominantly academic prose style of Empire. Multitude remains, the authors insist, despite its ubiquitous subject matter and its almost casual tone, a book of philosophy which aims to shape a conceptual ground for a political process of democratization rather than present an answer to the question 'what to do?’ or offer a programme for concrete action.[44]  Commonwealth (2009) Main article: Commonwealth (book)  Antonio Negri holding a copy of Commonwealth, with co-author Michael Hardt In this book, the authors introduce the concept of "the republic of property": "What is central for our purposes here is that the concept of property and the defence of property remain the foundation of every modern political constitution. This is the sense in which the republic, from the great bourgeois revolutions to today, is a republic of property".[45] Part 2 of the book deals with the relationship between modernity and anti-modernity and proposes "altermodernity". Altermodernity "involves not only insertion in the long history of antimodern struggles but also rupture with any fixed dialectic between modern sovereignty and antimodern resistance. In the passage from antimodernity to altermodernity, just as tradition and identity are transformed, so too resistance takes on a new meaning, dedicated now to the constitution of alternatives. The freedom that forms the base of resistance, as we explained earlier, comes to the fore and constitutes an event to announce a new political project."[46]  For Alex Callinicos in a review "What is newest in Commonwealth is its take on the fashionable idea of the common. Hardt and Negri mean by this not merely the natural resources that capital seeks to appropriate, but also "the languages we create, the social practices we establish, the modes of sociality that define our relationships", which are both the means and the result of biopolitical production. Communism, they argue, is defined by the common, just as capitalism is by the private and socialism (which they identify in effect with statism) with the public."[47] For David Harvey Negri and Hardt "in the search of an altermodernitysomething that is outside the dialectical opposition between modernity and anti-modernitythey need a means of escape. The choice between capitalism and socialism, they suggest, is all wrong. We need to identify something entirely different, communismworking within a different set of dimensions."[48] Harvey also notes that "Revolutionary thought, Hardt and Negri argue, must find a way to contest capitalism and 'the republic of property.' It 'should not shun identity politics but instead must work through it and learn from it,’ because it is the 'primary vehicle for struggle within and against the republic of property since identity itself is based on property and sovereignty.'”[48] In the same exchange in Artforum between Harvey and Micheal Hardt and Antonio Negri, Hardt and Negri attempt to correct Harvey in a concept that is important within the argument of Commonwealth. As such, they state that "We instead define the concept of singularity, contrasting it to the figure of the individual on the one hand and forms of identity on the other, by focusing on three aspects of its relationship to multiplicity: Singularity refers externally to a multiplicity of others; is internally divided or multiple; and constitutes a multiplicity over timethat is, a process of becoming."[48]  Occupy movements of – and Declaration In May  Negri self-published (with Michael Hardt) an electronic pamphlet on the occupy and encampment movements of – called Declaration that argues the movement explores new forms of democracy. The introduction was published at Jacobin under the title "Take Up the Baton". He also published an article with Hardt in Foreign Affairs in October  stating "The Encampment in Lower Manhattan Speaks to a Failure of Representation."[37]  Quotes "Prison, with its daily rhythm, with the transfer and the defense, does not leave any time; prison dissolves time: This is the principal form of punishment in a capitalist society."[49] "Nothing in my books has any direct organizational relationship. My responsibility is totally as an intellectual who writes and sells books!"[50] "...it is indeed necessary to recognize as a fact the emergence of the B.R. [Red Brigades] and NAP [Armed Proletariat Nuclei] as the tip of the iceberg of the Movement. This does not require one in any way to transform the recognition into a defense, and this does not in any way deny the grave mistake of the B.R. line. At one point I defined the B.R. as a variable of the movement gone crazy... I state again that terrorism can only be fought through an authentic mass political struggle and inside the revolutionary movement."[50] In Empire the expansion of capitalism is supposed to be 'internal' rather than 'external,' in that it "subsumes not the non-capitalist environment but its own capitalist terrain—that is, that the subsumption is no longer formal but real."[51] Selected works (English) See also: Category:Books by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt Negri, Antonio. Pipeline: Letters from Prison, translated by Ed Emery. Cambridge, Polity,  Negri, Antonio. Insurgencies: Constituent Power and the Modern State, translated by Maurizia Boscagli. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. Reprint by University of Minnesota Press, 2009. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Commonwealth, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009.  978-0-674-03511-9 The Cell (DVD of 3 interviews on captivity with Negri) Angela Melitopoulos, Actar, 2008. Antonio Negri, The Porcelain Workshop: For a New Grammar of Politics Translated by Noura Wedell. California: Semiotext(e) 2008. Antonio Negri, Political Descartes: Reason, Ideology and the Bourgeois Project. Translated by Matteo Mandarini and Alberto Toscano. New York: Verso, 2007. Antonio Negri, Negri on Negri: In Conversation with Anne Dufourmentelle. London: Routledge, 2004. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire, New York: Penguin Press, 2004. Antonio Negri, Subversive Spinoza: (Un)Contemporary Variations, edited by Timothy S. Murphy, translated by Timothy S. Murphy, Michael Hardt, Ted Stolze, and Charles T. Wolfe, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004. Antonio Negri, Time for Revolution. Translated by Matteo Mandarini. New York: Continuum, 2003. Antonio Negri, The Labor of Job: The Biblical Text as a Parable of Human Labor, (Forward: Michael Hardt; Translator: Matteo Mandarini), Duke University Press, (begun 1983) 2009. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire, Harvard University Press, 2000. Hardt, Michael and Negri, Antonio. Labor of Dionysus: A Critique of the State-Form. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994. Negri, Antonio.The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza's Metaphysics and Politics, translated by Michael Hardt. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991. Antonio Negri, Marx Beyond Marx: Lessons on the Grundrisse, New York: Autonomedia, 1991. Antonio Negri, Revolution Retrieved: Selected Writings on Marx, Keynes, Capitalist Crisis and New Social Subjects, 1967–83,[52] trans. Ed Emery and John Merrington, London: Red Notes, 1988.  0-906305-09-8 Antonio Negri, The Politics of Subversion: A Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989. Félix Guattari and Antonio Negri, Communists like us, 1985. Goodbye Mr. Socialism Antonio Negri in conversation with Raf Valvola Scelsi, Seven Stories Press, 2008. Casarino, Cesare and Negri, Antonio. In Praise of the Common. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009. Declaration, with Michael Hardt, . Online articles Multitudes quarterly journal (in French) Archives of the journal Futur Antérieur (in French) English translations of recent articles by Antonio Negri from Generation Online Hardt & Negri (2002), "Marx's Mole is Dead" in Eurozine Between "Historic Compromise" and Terrorism: Reviewing the experience of Italy in the 1970s Le Monde Diplomatique, August–September 1998 "Towards an Ontological Definition of Multitude" Article published in the French journal Multitudes. Extract from Negri and Hardt's Empire at Marxists.org "Take Up the Baton." Films Marx Reloaded, Arte, April . Antonio Negri: A Revolt that Never Ends, ZDF/Arte, 52 min., 2004.  See also Paolo Virno Libertarian marxism References  Elsa Romeo, La Scuola di Croce: testimonianze sull'Istituto italiano per gli studi storici, Il Mulino, 1992309.  Negri, Antonio: The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza's Metaphysics and Politics. Translated from the Italian by Michael Hardt. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991). Originally published as L'anomalia selvaggia: Saggio su potere e potenza in Baruch Spinoza (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1981). Antonio Negri (1981): "This work [The Savage Anomaly] was written in prison. And it was also conceived, for the most part, in prison. Certainly, I have always known Spinoza well. Since I was in school, I have loved the Ethics (and here I would like to fondly remember my teacher of those years). I continued to work on it, never losing touch, but a full study required too much time. [...] Spinoza is the clear and luminous side of Modern philosophy. [...] With Spinoza, philosophy succeeds for the first time in negating itself as a science of mediation. In Spinoza there is the sense of a great anticipation of the future centuries; there is the intuition of such a radical truth of future philosophy that it not only keeps him from being flattened onto seventeenth-century thought but also, it often seems, denies any confrontation, any comparison. Really, none of his contemporaries understands him or refutes him. [...] Spinoza's materialist metaphysics is the potent anomaly of the century: not a vanquished or marginal anomaly but, rather, an anomaly of victorious materialism, of the ontology of a being that always moves forward and that by constituting itself poses the ideal possibility for revolutionizing the world."  Toscano, Alberto (January 2005). "The Politics of Spinozism: Composition and Communication (Paper presented at the Cultural Research Bureau of Iran, Tehran, January 4, 2005)" . Retrieved 20 June .  Ruddick, Susan (), 'The Politics of Affect: Spinoza in the Work of Negri and Deleuze,'. Theory, Culture & Society 27(4): 21–45  Grattan, Sean (), 'The Indignant Multitude: Spinozist Marxism after Empire,'. Mediations 25(2): 7–8  Duffy, Simon B. (), 'French and Italian Spinozism,'. In: Rosi Braidotti (ed.), After Poststructuralism: Transitions and Transformations. (London: Routledge, )148–168  Maggiori Robert, "Toni Negri, le retour du «diable» Archived 5 January  at the Wayback Machine", Libération.fr, 3 July 1997.  Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, Empire (Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, England: Harvard University Press, 2000), § 3.4.  Goddard, Michael (), 'From the Multitudo to the Multitude: The Place of Spinoza in the Political Philosophy of Toni Negri,'. In: Pierre Lamarche, David Sherman, and Max Rosenkrantz (eds.), Reading Negri: Marxism in the Age of Empire (Chicago: Open Court, ),  171–192  Negri, Antonio: L'anomalia selvaggia. Saggio su potere e potenza in Baruch Spinoza. (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1981)  Negri, Antonio: Spinoza sovversivo. Variazioni (in)attuali. (Roma: Antonio Pellicani Editore, 1992)  Negri, Antonio: Spinoza et nous [La philosophie en effet]. (Paris: Éditions Galilée, )  Negri, Antonio: Spinoza e noi. (Milano: Mimesis, )  Portelli, Alessandro (1985). "Oral Testimony, the Law and the Making of History: the 'April 7' Murder Trial". History Workshop Journal. Oxford University Press. 20 (1): 5–35. doi:10.1093/hwj/20.1.5.  "L' ULTIMA PAROLA SUL CASO '7 APRILE' LA CASSAZIONE CONFERMA LE CONDANNla Repubblica.it". Archiviola Repubblica.it. Retrieved 3 January .  Portelli, Alessandro (30 March ). Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories, The: Form and Meaning in Oral History. SUNY Press.  9781438416335.  Drake, Richard. "The Red and the Black: Terrorism in Contemporary Italy", International Political Science Review / Revue internationale de science politique,  5, No. 3, Political Crises (1984),  279–298. Quote: "The debate over Toni Negri's complicity in left-wing extremism has already resulted in the publication of several thick polemical volumes, as well as a huge number of op-ed pieces."  Windschuttle, Keith. "Tutorials in Terrorism", The Australian, 16 March 2005.[dead link]  Negri, Antonio: Subversive Spinoza: (Un)Contemporary Variations. Translated from the Italian by Timothy S. Murphy et al. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004). Originally published as Spinoza sovversivo: Variazioni (in)attuali (Roma: Antonio Pellicani Editore, 1992). Antonio Negri (1992): "Twenty-some years ago, when at the age of forty I returned to the study of the Ethics, which had been 'my book' during adolescence, the theoretical climate in which I found myself immersed had changed to such an extent that it was difficult to tell if the Spinoza standing before me then was the same one who had accompanied me in my earliest studies."  Žižek, Slavoj: The Parallax View. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006)  Several notable figures of French (and Italian)-inspired post-structuralist Neo-Spinozism including Ferdinand Alquié, Louis Althusser, Étienne Balibar, Alain Billecoq, Francesco Cerrato, Paolo Cristofolini, Gilles Deleuze, Martial Gueroult, Chantal Jaquet, Frédéric Lordon, Pierre Macherey, Frédéric Manzini, Alexandre Matheron, Filippo Mignini, Pierre-François Moreau, Vittorio Morfino, Antonio Negri, Charles Ramond, Bernard Rousset, Pascal Sévérac, André Tosel, Lorenzo Vinciguerra, and Sylvain Zac.  Vinciguerra, Lorenzo (2009), 'Spinoza in French Philosophy Today,'. Philosophy Today 53(4): 422–437. doi:10.5840/philtoday200953410  Peden, Knox: Reason without Limits: Spinozism as Anti-Phenomenology in Twentieth-Century French Thought. (PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 2009)  Peden, Knox: Spinoza Contra Phenomenology: French Rationalism from Cavaillès to Deleuze. (Stanford University Press, )  9780804791342  Autistici/Inventati (ed.). "Intervista a Romano Alquati".  5, 13, 15, 17–18. Retrieved 2 December .  Ganahl, Rainer. "Marx is still Marx: Antonio Negri". Semiotext(e). Archived from the original on 30 October . Retrieved 28 October .  "Tecniche d'indagine. Quando il telefono è un bluff". Panorama (in Italian). 29 September . Archived from the original on 29 September . Retrieved 30 October .  Lucio Di Marzo (10 December ). "Dopo il caso Battisti, ora Toni Negri spiega la filosofia ai francesi". Il Giornale (in Italian). Archived from the original on 3 September . Retrieved 30 October .  Malcolm Bull (4 October 2001). "You can't build a new society with a Stanley knife". London Review of Books. Archived from the original on 13 January . Retrieved 12 December .  Michel Foucault, "Le philosophe masqué" (in Dits et écrits, volume 4, Paris, Gallimard, 1994105)  "Revised bibliography of Deleuze" . Archived from the original  on 30 October 2008. Retrieved 30 August .  Gilles Deleuze, Lettre ouverte aux juges de Negri, text n°20 in Deux régimes de fous, Mille et une nuits, 2003 (transl. of Lettera aperta ai giudici di Negri published in La Repubblica on 10 May 1979); Ce livre est littéralement une preuve d'innocence, text n°21 (op.cit.), originally published in Le Matin de Paris on 13 December 1979  "Pannella: e' chiaro che mira all' amnistia". Corriere della Sera. 22 June 1997. Archived from the original on 4 September . Retrieved 5 January .  The Independent, "Antonio Negri: The nostalgic revolutionary Archived 28 October  at the Wayback Machine", 17 August 2004. Accessed 7/04/10  Gray, John (20 November 2009). "Commonwealth, By Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri / First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, By Slavoj Zizek". The Independent. Archived from the original on 14 November . Retrieved 12 December .  Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Arabs are democracy's new pioneers Archived 12 March  at the Wayback Machine, The Guardian, 24 February .  Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, The Fight for 'Real Democracy' at the Heart of Occupy Wall Street Archived 11 August  at the Wayback Machine, Foreign Affairs, 11 October .  Introductory page on the book by University of Minnesota press  Introduction to the book by University of Minnesota Press  Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, Empire (Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, England: Harvard University Press, 2000), pg 6.  Walter Benn Michaels, The Shape of the Signifier: 1967 to the end of history (Princeton University Press, 2004),  171–172.  Walter Benn Michaels, The Shape of the Signifier: 1967 to the end of history (Princeton University Press, 2004), pg 173.  "The problem, as they see it, is that "postmodernist authors" have neglected the one identity that should matter most to those on the left, the one we have always with us: "The only non-localizable 'common name' of pure difference in all eras is that of the poor" (156)...only the poor, Hardt and Negri say, "live radically the actual and present being" (157)." Walter Benn Michaels, The Shape of the Signifier: 1967 to the end of history (Princeton University Press, 2004),  179–180.  Laurie, Timothy; Stark, Hannah (), "Love's Lessons: Intimacy, Pedagogy and Political Community", Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 22 (4): 69–79  Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt. Commonwealth. Harvard University Press. 2009. Pg.15  Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt. Commonwealth. Harvard University Press. 2009. Pg.107  "Commonwealth. Book Review by Alex Callinicos, March ". Archived from the original on 3 July . Retrieved 21 May .  "David Harvey, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt. An exchange on Commonwealth". Artforum. Archived from the original on 22 September . Retrieved 21 May .  Preface to his The Savage Anomaly. The Power of Spinoza's Metaphysics and Politics. [A study "drafted by the light of midnight oil in prison" (ibid.), from April 1979 to April 1980]. Minneapolis/Oxford: University of Minnesota Press, 1981xxiii  Autonomia: Post-Political Politics, ed. Sylvere Lotringer & Christian Marazzi. New York: Semiotext(e), 1980, 2007.  Hardt and Negri 2000272.  "Revolution Retrieved". Archived from the original on 9 August 2009. Further reading The Cell (DVD of 3 interviews on captivity with Negri) Angela Melitopoulos, Actar, 2008. Empire and Imperialism: A Critical Reading of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Atilio Borón, London: Zed Books, 2005. (Publisher's announcement) Reading Capital Politically, Harry Cleaver. 1979, second ed. 2000. The Philosophy of Antonio Negri,  1: Resistance in Practice, ed. Timothy S. Murphy and Abdul-Karim Mustapha. London: Pluto Press, 2005. The Philosophy of Antonio Negri,  2: Revolution in Theory, ed. Timothy S. Murphy and Abdul-Karim Mustapha. London: Pluto Press, 2007. Dossier on Empire: a special issue of Rethinking Marxism, ed. Abdul-karim Mustapha. London: T&F/Routledge, 2002. Autonomia: Post-Political Politics, ed. Sylvere Lotringer & Christian Marazzi. New York: Semiotext(e), 1980, 2007. (Includes transcripts of Negri's exchanges with his accusers during his trial.)  1-58435-053-9,  978-1-58435-053-8. Available online at Semiotext(e) Antonio Negri Illustrated: Interview in Venice, Claudio Calia, Red Quill Books, .  978-1-926958-13-2 (Publisher's announcement) External links  Media related to Toni Negri at Wikimedia Commons  Quotations related to Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri at Wikiquote vte Continental philosophy vte Social and political philosophy. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, "Grice e Negri," per il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

 

abdicatum: negation: H. P. Grice, “Negation.” the logical operation on propositions that is indicated, e.g., by the prefatory clause ‘It is not the case that . . .’. Negation is standardly distinguished sharply from the operation on predicates that is called complementation and that is indicated by the prefix ‘non-’. Because negation can also be indicated by the adverb ‘not’, a distinction is often drawn between external negation, which is indicated by attaching the prefatory ‘It is not the case that . . .’ to an assertion, and internal negation, which is indicated by inserting the adverb ‘not’ along with, perhaps, nature, right of negation 601    601 grammatically necessary words like ‘do’ or ‘does’ into the assertion in such a way as to indicate that the adverb ‘not’ modifies the verb. In a number of cases, the question arises as to whether external and internal negation yield logically equivalent results. For example, ‘It is not the case that Santa Claus exists’ would seem obviously to be true, whereas ‘Santa Claus does not exist’ seems to some philosophers to presuppose what it denies, on the ground that nothing could be truly asserted of Santa Claus unless he existed.  Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Negation and privation;” H. P. Grice, “Lectures on negation.”

 

neri: Grice: “Neri is an interesting philosopher – he speaks of the aporia of the realization, which is intriguing, and considers that ‘objectivism’ started with Galileo, which is realistic!” -- guido davide neri (Milano), filosofo. Professore a Verona. Allievo di Banfi e Paci, rappresenta una delle ultime sintesi della Scuola di Milano, di cui riprende alcuni dei temi portanti: ricerca fenomenologica, analisi storico-politica, studi estetici. Rispetto ai suoi maestri, del cui pensiero è stato uno dei maggiori interpreti, sviluppa un percorso di ricerca originale, caratterizzato da una critica delle ideologie del Novecento e dei loro fallimenti, e da una lettura non dogmatica della storia contemporanea, volta a metterne in luce discontinuità e aporie. Forte di un'indole scettica e fedele al principio dell'epoché fenomenologica, Neri ha ripercorso le vicende della dialettica marxista, focalizzando in particolare la sua attenzione sull'Europa centro-orientale, e sulle varie forme di controcondotta e dissenso che, a partire dagli anni sessanta, sono andati germinando in quel contesto storico. I suoi autori di riferimentoHusserl e Merleau-Ponty, Bloch e Lukács, Kosík e Kołakowskirivelano la tensione intellettuale tra ricerca teoretica e storica che ha caratterizzato il lavoro di Neri, dalle principali monografie, ai saggi su aut aut e Il filo rosso, fino al materiale inedito conservato presso l'Archivio Neri, da pochi anni istituito presso l'Università degli Studi di Milano.  Durante gli anni universitari, trascorsi tra Pavia e Milano, Neri ha l'occasione di frequentare gli ultimi corsi di Antonio Banfi, ormai lontano dalla fenomenologia e intento a perfezionare (e radicalizzare) il suo umanesimo di stampo marxista, e dell'ancor giovane Enzo Paci che, in quegli stessi anni di dopoguerra, intraprende un confronto innovativo con gli esiti della ricerca husserliana, e in particolare con i contenuti della Crisi delle scienze europee, oggetto di numerosi corsi. Proprio questo "apprendistato fenomenologico", secondo l'espressione di Luciano Fausti, ha consentito a Neri di acquisire un metodo di ricerca che lo ha accompagnato, non solo nei suoi studi delle opere di Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Patočka (dei quali traduce e cura varie pubblicazioni), ma, più in generale, nell'analisi del pensiero storico e politico novecentesco. A questi interessi va ad aggiungersi quello per l'arte e l'estetica, decisivo in questi primi anni, e dovuto in particolare agli insegnamenti di Dino Formaggio, con cui Neri si laureò nel 1957. Neri continuerà a interessarsi a questi temi anche negli anni successivi, dedicando diversi scritti a Panofsky (della cui Prospettiva come forma simbolica cura nel 1962 l'edizione) e a Caravaggio, e interrogandosi sul rapporto tra fenomenologia ed estetica.  Agli anni di studio, segue una fase di ricerca che lo porterà nei primi anni sessanta a Praga, ospite dell'Accademia delle Scienze della Cecoslovacchia e, in seguito, negli Stati Uniti d'America, dove nel 1968 è visiting scholar presso la Pennsylvania State University. A Praga, Neri entra in contatto con la giovane generazione di intellettuali cechi che, in questi anni cruciali, portano avanti l'idea di riformare il socialismo dal suo interno, a partire da una profonda reinterpretazione del materialismo e della prassi marxiana. È grazie a Neri che in Italia si diffondono le opere di Karel Kosík e di Jan Patočka che, pur così profondamente diversi, condividono con Neri l'interesse per la fenomenologia e la politica. Durante la sua esperienza americana, Neri dedica a Marx una serie di lezioni e conferenze, i cui testi inediti, facenti parte del Fondo Neri, sono conservati presso la Biblioteca di Filosofia dell'Università degli Studi di Milano. Analizzando il pensiero di Marx, Neri si rifà in particolar modo, oltre che all'insegnamento di Kosík, agli scritti di Gajo Petrović e alla scuola jugoslava legata alla rivista Praxis. Tornato in Italia, inizia un lungo periodo di insegnamento a Verona, durante il quale incentra i suoi corsi sulla fenomenologia post-husserliana, su Bloch, sull'idea filosofica di Europa e la sua eredità, a seguito del fallimento dei principali progetti politici novecenteschi. Escono in questi anni le sue opere più note: Aporie della realizzazione (1980), sulla filosofia e l'ideologia dei paesi del socialismo realizzato, e Crisi e costruzione della storia (1984), dedicato, ancora una volta, al maestro Banfi.  Pensiero In più occasioni, Neri ha manifestato il suo debito nei confronti dei suoi maestri milanesi, per averlo iniziato allo studio della fenomenologia. In tal senso, il passaggio dall'insegnamento di Banfi a quello di Paci è decisivo. «Al centro non era piùscrive Neri poco prima di morire, ricordando quegli anniil "disperato razionalismo" del fondatore della fenomenologia: il fuoco della rilettura era diventato il "mondo della vita" e la critica dell'obbiettivismo moderno». Un pensiero che ben si presta a una generazione di giovani studiosi che, durante gli anni sessanta, si raccolgono intorno a Paci, desiderosi di affinare un pensiero che consenta di riguadagnare un sguardo disincantato, ma non indifferente, sulla realtà sociale e culturale circostante, contro «l'asfissiante razionalismo» di Banfi e, più in generale, contro l'impronta culturale del PCI.  Neri rientra in questa nuova leva di studiosi e in questi termini si possono interpretare anche i suoi studi fenomenologici. «Con il tema del mondo della vitaribadisce Neri, in un altro tra i suoi scritti più tardila fenomenologia mostrava di saper affrontare i problemi posti dalle scienze storiche e sociali, dall'antropologia culturale e infine anche dal pensiero marxista». L'esempio di Paci, tuttavia, che cercò a tutti gli effetti di coniugare metodo fenomenologico e dialettica marxista, è seguito dall'allievo solo parzialmente, lasciando la sua impronta più visibile nel volumePrassi e conoscenza, una cui parte è dedicata ai critici marxisti della fenomenologia. Col passare del tempo, tuttavia, Neri adotta una posizione di sempre più evidente rottura, prediligendo a qualsiasi tentativo conciliatorio una critica fenomenologica del socialismo realizzato e delle sue distorsioni. A tal proposito, il confronto con Kosík e il dissenso, all'interno del socialismo reale, giocano un ruolo di primo piano.  Come si evince dalla sua “Aporie della realizzazione,” distingue due fasi e due generazioni di filosofi, all'interno della complessa crisi del socialismo in costruzione. Da una parte, la prima generazione è rappresentata da György Lukács e da Ernst Bloch. Proprio al pensiero di quest'ultimo, alle sue concezioni di storia e di utopia e ai suoi numerosi ripensamenti, Neri dedica una lunga analisi, che tornerà periodicamente anche negli anni successivi, come testimoniano i programmi dei suoi corsi universitari. A Bloch è ispirato, d'altronde, il titolo del libro, che Neri ricava da una pagina di Principio speranza. È all'interno della dialettica tra realtà e realizzazione, tra condizione presente e speranza futura, che Neri individua l'andatura del socialismo reale, della sua filosofia e della sua ideologia. Solo con la seconda generazione di filosofi, tuttavia, le aporie della realizzazione socialista vengono veramente al pettine; la malinconia di Bloch cede infatti il passo allo sguardo scettico di Kołakowski e al tentativo di Kosík di rileggere la dialettica marxista in termini concreti, al di là di ogni deriva ideologica. Dello stesso tenore è anche il libro su Banfi, Crisi e costruzione della storia, di pochi anni successivo, in cui Neri si confronta con lo stesso tema della realizzazione, inteso stavolta nei termini del tentativo banfiano di costruire un percorso storico su basi razionali, oltre la crisi della civiltà moderna, verso una nuova prospettiva umanistica. Alla luce del ritratto offertoci da Neri, che si concentra in particolare sugli anni trenta, intesi come momento cruciale per lo sviluppo della teoria banfiana, emerge un'immagine di Banfi particolarmente complessa, nella quale la svolta ideologica e l'adesione al comunismo non offuscano il perdurare di uno spirito critico e di una prospettiva europea, che si sviluppa al di là dei particolarismi delle filosofie nazionali.  L'Archivio Guido Davide Neri Nel 2009 è stato creato presso la Biblioteca di Filosofia dell'Università degli Studi di Milano l'Archivio Guido Davide Neri. In tale archivio è raccolta un'imponente quantità di materiali inediti, che comprendono riflessioni, appunti per corsi e seminari, annotazioni di viaggio, corrispondenze. Sono considerati di particolare rilievo, in vista di futuri studi sul pensiero filosofico di Neri, i 149 quaderni, contenenti le riflessioni del filosofo, dalla metà degli anni cinquanta, fino alla sua morte. Attraverso la lettura di questi scritti, ora completamente consultabili e in corso di digitalizzazione, è possibile chiarire il rapporto e gli scambi di Neri con altri rappresentanti della filosofia milanese: da Banfi a Paci, da Dal Pra a Preti. Grande importanza rivestono anche i commenti in presa diretta su alcuni tra i più rilevanti avvenimenti storici del Novecento: dall'invasione sovietica dell'Ungheria del 1956, alla Primavera di Praga, fino al crollo del socialismo reale. A ciò si aggiungono le riflessioni sul ruolo della filosofia nella società, sul modo e l'opportunità di insegnarla, e sulla sua tenuta, di fronte alle scosse della storia.  Opere: “Prassi e conoscenza,” con una sezione dedicata ai critici marxisti della fenomenologia, Milano, Feltrinelli, “Aporie della realizzazione: filosofia e ideologia nel socialismo reale, Milano, Feltrinelli,  Crisi e costruzione della storia, Napoli, Bibliopolis, “Il sensibile, la storia, l'arte,” Verona, Ombre Corte, Francesco Tava, su Open Commons of Phenomenology. G. Scaramuzza, Presentazione, in Atti della Giornata di Studio e di Testimonianze svoltasi presso la Fondazione Corrente, Milano, Materiali di Estetica, nArchivio Guido Davide Neri, su sba.unimi.it. degli scritti di Neri, in aut aut, n. Atti della Giornata di Studio e di Testimonianze svoltasi presso la Fondazione Corrente, Milano, in Materiali di Estetica,  Quando tra noi muore un filosofo. Ricordo di Guido D. Neri, amici, colleghi e studenti, Pizzighettone, Viciguerra, Luciano Fausti, Guido Davide Neri tra scepsi e storia. Un percorso filosofico, Milano, UNICOPLI, . Laura Frigerio e Elena Mazzolani, Il Fondo Guido Davide Neri, in Sistema Università,  Amedeo Vigorelli, Fenomenologia e storia. A partire da Patocka: itinerario filosofico di Guido Davide Neri, in Leussein,  Francesco Tava, Open Commons of Phenomenology. sba.unimi.it. Fondo librario Guido Davide Neri, su sba.unimi.it. F

 

nesi: Grice: “I once had a fight with Nowell-Smith; he was saying that a philosopher should not be a moralist; I told him that by that token Nesi wasn’t one!” – “De moribus” -- Giovanni Nesi  (Firenze) filosofo. Figlio di Francesco di Giovanni e di Nera di Giovanni Spinelli, si dedicò interamente agli studi filosofici. Strinse stretti rapporti con i principali umanisti fiorentini dell'epoca, tra cui Acciaiuoli e Ficino. Influenzato dall'operato di Savonarola, ricoprì anche diverse cariche politiche.  Opere: Ioannis Nesii adulescentuli oratiuncula, Orazione del Corpo di Cristo, Orazione de Eucharestia, Orazione sull'umiltà ,Sulla carità, De moribus, De charitate, Oraculum de novo saeculo, Canzoniere, Poema. Treccani.itEnciclopedie oIstituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. E. Tortelli, Dizionario biografico degli italiani,  Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.

 

Ariskant -- Kantianism, palaeo-Kantianism, neo-Kantianism, Ariskantianism! -- neo-Kantianismas opposed to ‘palaeo-Kantianism’ -- the diverse Kantian movement that emerged within G. philosophy in the 1860s, gained a strong academic foothold in the 1870s, reached its height during the three decades prior to World War I, and disappeared with the rise of Nazism. The movement was initially focused on renewed study and elaboration of Kant’s epistemology in response to the growing epistemic authority of the natural sciences and as an alternative to both Hegelian and speculative idealism and the emerging materialism of, among others, Ludwig Büchner 182499. Later neo-Kantianism explored Kant’s whole philosophy, applied his critical method to disciplines other than the natural sciences, and developed its own philosophical systems. Some originators and/or early contributors were Kuno Fischer 18247, Hermann von Helmholtz 182, Friedrich Albert Lange 182875, Eduard Zeller 18148, and Otto Liebmann 18402, whose Kant und die Epigonen 1865 repeatedly stated what became a neoKantian motto, “Back to Kant!” Several forms of neo-Kantianism are to be distinguished. T. K. Oesterreich 09, in Friedrich Ueberwegs Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie “F.U.’s Compendium of the History of Philosophy,” 3, developed the standard, somewhat chronological, classification: 1 The physiological neo-Kantianism of Helmholtz and Lange, who claimed that physiology is “developed or corrected Kantianism.” 2 The metaphysical neo-Kantianism of the later Liebmann, who argued for a Kantian “critical metaphysics” beyond epistemology in the form of “hypotheses” about the essence of things. 3 The realist neo-Kantianism of Alois Riehl 18444, who emphasized the real existence of Kant’s thing-in-itself. 4 The logistic-methodological neo-Kantianism of the Marburg School of Hermann Cohen 18428 and Paul Natorp 18544. 5 The axiological neo-Kantianism of the Baden or Southwest G. School of Windelband 18485 and Heinrich Rickert 18636. 6 The relativistic neo-Kantianism of Georg Simmel 18588, who argued for Kantian categories relative to individuals and cultures. 7 The psychological neo-Kantianism of Leonard Nelson 27, originator of the Göttingen School; also known as the neo-Friesian School, after Jakob Friedrich Fries 17731843, Nelson’s self-proclaimed precursor. Like Fries, Nelson held that Kantian a priori principles cannot be transcendentally justified, but can be discovered only through introspection. Oesterreich’s classification has been narrowed or modified, partly because of conflicting views on how distinctly “Kantian” a philosopher must have been to be called “neo-Kantian.” The very term ‘neo-Kantianism’ has even been called into question, as suggesting real intellectual commonality where little or none is to be found. There is, however, growing consensus that Marneo-Euclidean geometry neo-Kantianism 603    603 burg and Baden neo-Kantianism were the most important and influential. Marburg School. Its founder, Cohen, developed its characteristic Kantian idealism of the natural sciences by arguing that physical objects are truly known only through the laws of these sciences and that these laws presuppose the application of Kantian a priori principles and concepts. Cohen elaborated this idealism by eliminating Kant’s dualism of sensibility and understanding, claiming that space and time are construction methods of “pure thought” rather than a priori forms of perception and that the notion of any “given” perceptual data prior to the “activity” of “pure thought” is meaningless. Accordingly, Cohen reformulated Kant’s thing-in-itself as the regulative idea that the mathematical description of the world can always be improved. Cohen also emphasized that “pure thought” refers not to individual consciousess  on his account Kant had not yet sufficiently left behind a “subjectobject” epistemology  but rather to the content of his own system of a priori principles, which he saw as subject to change with the progress of science. Just as Cohen held that epistemology must be based on the “fact of science,” he argued, in a decisive step beyond Kant, that ethics must transcendentally deduce both the moral law and the ideal moral subject from a humanistic science  more specifically, from jurisprudence’s notion of the legal person. This analysis led to the view that the moral law demands that all institutions, including economic enterprises, become democratic  so that they display unified wills and intentions as transcendental conditions of the legal person  and that all individuals become colegislators. Thus Cohen arrived at his frequently cited claim that Kant “is the true and real originator of G. socialism.” Other important Marburg Kantians were Cohen’s colleague Natorp, best known for his studies on Plato and philosophy of education, and their students Karl Vorländer 18608, who focused on Kantian socialist ethics as a corrective of orthodox Marxism, and Ernst Cassirer 18745. Baden School. The basic task of philosophy and its transcendental method is seen as identifying universal values that make possible culture in its varied expressions. This focus is evident in Windelband’s influential insight that the natural sciences seek to formulate general laws  nomothetic knowledge  while the historical sciences seek to describe unique events  idiographic knowledge. This distinction is based on the values interests of mastery of nature and understanding and reliving the unique past in order to affirm our individuality. Windelband’s view of the historical sciences as idiographic raised the problem of selection central to his successor Rickert’s writings: How can historians objectively determine which individual events are historically significant? Rickert argued that this selection must be based on the values that are generally recognized within the cultures under investigation, not on the values of historians themselves. Rickert also developed the transcendental argument that the objectivity of the historical sciences necessitates the assumption that the generally recognized values of different cultures approximate in various degrees universally valid values. This argument was rejected by Weber, whose methodological work was greatly indebted to Rickert. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Kantianism: old and new.”

 

Platone PlatonismWalter Pater -- Neo-platonismas opposed to ‘palaeo-Platonism’ -- that period of Platonism following on the new impetus provided by the philosophical speculations of Plotinus A.D. 20469. It extends, as a minimum, to the closing of the Platonic School in Athens by Justinian in 529, but maximally through Byzantium, with such figures as Michael Psellus 101878 and Pletho c.13601452, the Renaissance Ficino, Pico, and the Florentine Academy, and the early modern period the Cambridge Platonists, Thomas Taylor, to the advent of the “scientific” study of the works of Plato with Schleiermacher 17681834 at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The term was formerly also used to characterize the whole period from the Old Academy of Plato’s immediate successors, Speusippus and Xenocrates, through what is now termed Middle Platonism c.80 B.C.A.D. 220, down to Plotinus. This account confines itself to the “minimum” interpretation. Neoplatonism proper may be divided into three main periods: that of Plotinus and his immediate followers third century; the “Syrian” School of Iamblichus and his followers fourth century; and the “Athenian” School begun by Plutarch of Athens, and including Syrianus, Proclus, and their successors, down to Damascius fifthsixth centuries. Plotinus and his school. Plotinus’s innovations in Platonism developed in his essays, the Enneads, collected and edited by his pupil Porphyry after his death, are mainly two: a above the traditional supreme principle of earlier Platonism and Aristotelianism, a self-thinking intellect, which was also regarded as true being, he postulated a principle superior to intellect and being, totally unitary and simple “the One”; b he saw reality as a series of levels One, Intelligence, Soul, each higher one outflowing or radiating into the next lower, while still remaining unaffected in itself, and the lower ones fixing themselves in being by somehow “reflecting back” upon their priors. This eternal process gives the universe its existence and character. Intelligence operates in a state of non-temporal simultaneity, holding within itself the “forms” of all things. Soul, in turn, generates time, and receives the forms into itself as “reason principles” logoi. Our physical three-dimensional world is the result of the lower aspect of Soul nature projecting itself upon a kind of negative field of force, which Plotinus calls “matter.” Matter has no positive existence, but is simply the receptacle for the unfolding of Soul in its lowest aspect, which projects the forms in three-dimensional space. Plotinus often speaks of matter as “evil” e.g. Enneads II.8, and of the Soul as suffering a “fall” e.g. Enneads V.1, 1, but in fact he sees the whole cosmic process as an inevitable result of the superabundant productivity of the One, and thus “the best of all possible worlds.” Plotinus was himself a mystic, but he arrived at his philosophical conclusions by perfectly logical means, and he had not much use for either traditional religion or any of the more recent superstitions. His immediate pupils, Amelius c.22590 and Porphyry 234c.305, while somewhat more hospitable to these, remained largely true to his philosophy though Amelius had a weakness for triadic elaborations in metaphysics. Porphyry was to have wide influence, both in the Latin West through such men as Marius Victorinus, Augustine, and Boethius, and in the Grecian East and even, through translations, on medieval Islam, as the founder of the Neoplatonic tradition of commentary on both Plato and Aristotle, but it is mainly as an expounder of Plotinus’s philosophy that he is known. He added little that is distinctive, though that little is currently becoming better appreciated. Iamblichus and the Syrian School. Iamblichus c.245325, descendant of an old Syrian noble family, was a pupil of Porphyry’s, but dissented from him on various important issues. He set up his own school in Apamea in Syria, and attracted many pupils. One chief point of dissent was the role of theurgy really just magic, with philosophical underpinnings, but not unlike Christian sacramental theology. Iamblichus claimed, as against Porphyry, that philosophical reasoning alone could not attain the highest degree of enlightenment, without the aid of theurgic rites, and his view on this was followed by all later Platonists. He also produced a metaphysical scheme far more elaborate than Plotinus’s, by a Scholastic filling in, normally with systems of triads, of gaps in the “chain of being” left by Plotinus’s more fluid and dynamic approach to philosophy. For instance, he postulated two Ones, one completely transcendent, the other the source of all creation, thus “resolving” a tension in Plotinus’s metaphysics. Iamblichus was also concerned to fit as many of the traditional gods as possible into his system, which later attracted the attention of the Emperor Julian, who based himself on Iamblichus when attempting to set up a Hellenic religion to rival Christianity, a project which, however, died with him in 363. The Athenian School. The precise links between the pupils of Iamblichus and Plutarch d.432, founder of the Athenian School, remain obscure, but the Athenians always retained a great respect for the Syrian. Plutarch himself is a dim figure, but Syrianus c.370437, though little of his writings survives, can be seen from constant references to him by his pupil Proclus 412 85 to be a major figure, and the source of most of Proclus’s metaphysical elaborations. The Athenians essentially developed and systematized further the doctrines of Iamblichus, creating new levels of divinity e.g. intelligibleintellectual gods, and “henads” in the realm of the One  though they rejected the two Ones, this process reaching its culmination in the thought of the last head of the Athenian Academy, Damascius c.456540. The drive to systematize reality and to objectivize concepts, exhibited most dramatically in Proclus’s Elements of Theology, is a lasting legacy of the later Neoplatonists, and had a significant influence on the thought, among others, of Hegel. Grice: “The implicaturum of ‘everything old is new again’ is that everything new is old again.” “It’s the older generation, knock-knock-knocking at the door!” -- Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Everything old is new againand vice versa.”

 

Otiumm -- Schole –scholasticism -- neo-scholasticism: as opposed to palaeo-scholasticismGrice: “The original name of Oxford was ‘studium generale’! The mascot was the ox!” --. the movement given impetus Neoplatonism, Islamic neo-Scholasticism 605    605 by Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Aeterni Patris 1879, which, while stressing Aquinas, was a general recommendation of the study of medieval Scholasticism as a source for the solution of vexing modern problems. Leo assumed that there was a doctrine common to Aquinas, Bonaventure, Albertus Magnus, and Duns Scotus, and that Aquinas was a preeminent spokesman of the common view. Maurice De Wulf employed the phrase ‘perennial philosophy’ to designate this common medieval core as well as what of Scholasticism is relevant to later times. Historians like Mandonnet, Grabmann, and Gilson soon contested the idea that there was a single medieval doctrine and drew attention to the profound differences between the great medieval masters. The discussion of Christian philosophy precipitated by Brehier in 1 generated a variety of suggestions as to what medieval thinkers and later Christian philosophers have in common, but this was quite different from the assumption of Aeterni Patris. The pedagogical directives of this and later encyclicals brought about a revival of Thomism rather than of Scholasticism, generally in seminaries, ecclesiastical s, and Catholic universities. Louvain’s Higher Institute of Philosophy under the direction of Cardinal Mercier and its Revue de Philosophie Néoscolastique were among the first fruits of the Thomistic revival. The studia generalia of the Dominican order continued at a new pace, the Saulchoir publishing the Revue thomiste. In graduate centers in Milan, Madrid, Latin America, Paris, and Rome, men were trained for the task of teaching in s and seminaries, and scholarly research began to flourish as well. The Leonine edition of the writings of Aquinas was soon joined by new critical editions of Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, and Ockham, as well as Albertus Magnus. Medieval studies in the broader sense gained from the quest for manuscripts and the growth of paleography and codicology. Besides the historians mentioned above, Jacques Maritain 23, a layman and convert to Catholicism, did much both in his native France and in the United States to promote the study of Aquinas. The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies at Toronto, with Gilson regularly and Maritain frequently in residence, became a source of  and  teachers in Canada and the United States, as Louvain and, in Rome, the Jesuit Gregorianum and the Dominican Angelicum already were. In the 0s s took doctorates in theology and philosophy at Laval in Quebec and soon the influence of Charles De Koninck was felt. Jesuits at St. Louis  began to publish The Modern Schoolman, Dominicans in Washington The Thomist, and the  Catholic Philosophical Association The New Scholasticism. The School of Philosophy at Catholic , long the primary domestic source of professors and scholars, was complemented by graduate programs at St. Louis, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Fordham, and Marquette. In the golden period of the Thomistic revival in the United States, from the 0s until the end of the Vatican Council II in 5, there were varieties of Thomism based on the variety of views on the relation between philosophy and science. By the 0s Thomistic philosophy was a prominent part of the curriculum of all Catholic s and universities. By 0, it had all but disappeared under the mistaken notion that this was the intent of Vatican II. This had the effect of releasing Aquinas into the wider philosophical world. 

 

Grecian: Grice: “Much as in London The Royal Opera only staged operas in Italian, and call itself, The Italian Royal Opera, at Rome, they only philosophised in Grecian! That is the elite’s way to separate from the riff raff.”Grice. Grice: “Similarly, at Oxford, I came with a knowledge of Grecian and Roman far superior than Englishand we always looked down on those who came down to Oxford just to do what we insultingly called “Eng. Lit.”!”-.

 

Accademia – Grice: “The etymology of course is fascinating, Echademos being what the Italians call a ‘semiodio’ -- academia: academia vecchia/academia nuova -- accademia nuovav. Grice, “Carneades at Rome, and the beginning of Western philosophy.” New Academy, the name given the Academy, the school founded by Plato in the Athenian suburs, during the time it was controlled by Academic Skeptics. Its principal leaders in this period were Arcesilaus and Carneades; our most accessible source for the New Academy is Cicero’s “Academica.” A master of logical techniques such as sorites which he learned from Diodorus, Arcesilaus attempted to revive the dialectic of Plato, using it to achieve the suspension of belief he learned to value from Pyrrho. Later, and especially under the leadership of Carneades, the New Academy developed a special relationship with Stoicism: as the Stoics found new ways to defend their doctrine of the criterion, Carneades found new ways to refute it in the Stoics’ own terms. Carneades’ visit to Rome in 155 B.C. with a Stoic and a Peripatetic marks the beginning of Rome’s interest, especially with the elite, just to be different and to speak in a tongue that the vulgus would not understand, in what the Romans called “philosophia hellenistica”Cicero, “Since I cannot think of a vernacular Roman term for ‘philosophia.’” An Englishman had the same problem with logic, which he rendered as ‘witcraft.’and ‘witlove.’ His anti-Stoic arguments were recorded by his successor Clitomachus d. c.110 B.C., whose work is known to us through summaries in Cicero. Clitomachus was succeeded by Philo of Larisa c.16079 B.C., who was the teacher of Antiochus of Ascalon c.130c.67 B.C.. Philo later attempted to reconcile the Old and the New Academy by softening the Skepticism of the New and by fostering a Skeptical reading of Plato. Angered by this, Antiochus broke away in about 87 B.C. to found what he called the Old Academy, which is now considered to be the beginning of Middle Platonism. Probably about the same time, Aenesidemus dates unknown revived the strict Skepticism of Pyrrho and founded the school that is known to us through the work of Sextus Empiricus. Academic Skepticism differed from Pyrrhonism in its sharp focus on Stoic positions, and possibly in allowing for a weak assent as opposed to belief, which they suspended in what is probable; and Pyrrhonians accused Academic Skeptics of being dogmatic in their rejection of the possibility of knowledge. The New Academy had a major influence on the development of modern philosophy, most conspicuously through Hume, who considered that his brand of mitigated skepticism belonged to this school. Grice: “Western philosophy begins with Carneades lecturing the rough Romans some philosophy; because Greece is EAST!”Refs.: H. P. Grice, “The longitudinal history of philosophy from Carneades’s sojourn at Rome to my British Academy lecture at London.”

 

Grice, “Oxford’s kindly light” -- Newman (“Lead Kindly light”) -- English prelate and philosopher of religion. As fellow at Oriel , Oxford, he was a prominent member of the Anglican Oxford Movement. He became a Roman Catholic in 1845, took holy orders in 1847, and was made a cardinal in 1879. His most important philosophical work is the Grammar of Assent 1870. Here Newman explored the difference between formal reasoning and the informal or natural movement of the mind in discerning the truth about the concrete and historical. Concrete reasoning in the mode of natural inference is implicit and unreflective; it deals not with general principles as such but with their employment in particular circumstances. Thus a scientist must judge whether the phenomenon he confronts is a novel significant datum, a coincidence, or merely an insignificant variation in the data. The acquired capacity to make judgments of this sort Newman called the illative sense, an intellectual skill shaped by experience and personal insight and generally limited for individuals to particular fields of endeavor. The illative sense makes possible a judgment of certitude about the matter considered, even though the formal argument that partially outlines the process possesses only objective probability for the novice. Hence probability is not necessarily opposed to certitude. In becoming aware of its tacit dimension, Newman spoke of recognizing a mode of informal inference. He distinguished such reasoning, which, by virtue of the illative sense, culminates in a judgment of certitude about the way things are real assent, from formal reasoning conditioned by the certainty or probability of the premises, which assents to the conclusion thus conditioned notional assent. In real assent, the proposition functions to “image” the reality, to make its reality present. In the Development of Christian Doctrine 1845, Newman analyzed the ways in which some ideas unfold themselves only through historical development, within a tradition of inquiry. He sought to delineate the common pattern of such development in politics, science, philosophy, and religion. Although his focal interest was in how religious doctrines develop, he emphasizes the general character of such a pattern of progressive articulation. H. P. Grice, “Oxford’s kindly light.”

 

Res -- realismneo-relaism, New Realismor neo-realismas opposed to “palaeo-realism” -- an early twentieth-century revival in England of various forms of realism in reaction to the dominant idealisms inherited from the nineteenth century. In America this revival took a cooperative form when six philosophers Ralph Barton Perry, Edwin Holt, William Pepperell Montague, Walter Pitkin, Edward Spaulding, and Walter Marvin published “A Program and First Platform of Six Realists” 0, followed two years later by the cooperative volume The New Realism, in which each authored an essay. This volume gave rise to the designation ‘New Realists’ for these six philosophers. Although they clearly disagreed on many particulars, they concurred on several matters of philosophical style and epistemological substance. Procedurally they endorsed a cooperative and piecemeal approach to philosophical problems, and they were constitutionally inclined to a closeness of analysis that would prepare the way for later philosophical tendencies. Substantively they agreed on several epistemological stances central to the refutation of idealism. Among the doctrines in the New Realist platform were the rejection of the fundamental character of epistemology; the view that the entities investigated in logic, mathematics, and science are not “mental” in any ordinary sense; the view that the things known are not the products of the knowing relation nor in any fundamental sense conditioned by their being known; and the view that the objects known are immediately and directly present to consciousness while being independent of that relation. New Realism was a version of direct realism, which viewed the notions of mediation and representation in knowledge as opening gambits on the slippery slope to idealism. Their refutation of idealism focused on pointing out the fallacy of moving from the truism that every object of knowledge is known to the claim that its being consists in its being known. That we are obviously at the center of what we know entails nothing about the nature of what we know. Perry dubbed this fact “the egocentric predicament,” and supplemented this observation with arguments to the effect that the objects of knowledge are in fact independent of the knowing relation. New Realism as a version of direct realism had as its primary conceptual obstacle “the facts of relativity,” i.e., error, illusion, perceptual variation, and valuation. Dealing with these phenomena without invoking “mental intermediaries” proved to be the stumbling block, and New Realism soon gave way to a second cooperative venture by another group of  philosophers that came to be known as Critical Realism. The term ‘new realism’ is also occasionally used with regard to those British philosophers principal among them Moore and Russell similarly involved in refuting idealism. Although individually more significant than the  group, theirs was not a cooperative effort, so the group term came to have primarily an  referent. 

 

newton, -- “Hypotheses non fingo.” Grice: “His surname is a toponymic: it literally means ‘new-town,’ but it implicates, “FROM new-town.”“We never knew what ‘old’ town Sir Isaac is implicating, possibly Oldton, in Cumbria.” -- English physicist and mathematician, one of the greatest scientists of all time. Born in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, he attended Cambridge , receiving the B.A. in 1665; he became a fellow of Trinity in New Realism Newton, Sir Isaac 610    610 1667 and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1671 and served as its president from 1703 until his death. In 1696 he was appointed warden of the mint. In his later years he was involved in political and governmental affairs rather than in active scientific work. A sensitive, secretive person, he was prone to irascibility  most notably in a dispute with Leibniz over priority of invention of the calculus. His unparalleled scientific accomplishments overshadow a deep and sustained interest in ancient chronology, biblical study, theology, and alchemy. In his early twenties Newton’s genius asserted itself in an astonishing period of mathematical and experimental creativity. In the years 1664 67, he discovered the binomial theorem; the “method of fluxions” calculus; the principle of the composition of light; and fundamentals of his theory of universal gravitation. Newton’s masterpiece, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica “The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”, appeared in 1687. This work sets forth the mathematical laws of physics and “the system of the world.” Its exposition is modeled on Euclidean geometry: propositions are demonstrated mathematically from definitions and mathematical axioms. The world system consists of material bodies masses composed of hard particles at rest or in motion and interacting according to three axioms or laws of motion: 1 Every body continues in its state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it. 2 The change of motion is proportional to the motive force impressed and is made in the direction of the straight line in which that force is impressed. [Here, the impressed force equals mass times the rate of change of velocity, i.e., acceleration. Hence the familiar formula, F % ma.] 3 To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction; or, the mutual action of two bodies upon each other is always equal and directed to contrary parts. Newton’s general law of gravitation in modern restatement is: Every particle of matter attracts every other particle with a force varying directly as the product of their masses and inversely as the square of the distance between them. The statement of the laws of motion is preceded by an equally famous scholium in which Newton enunciates the ultimate conditions of his universal system: absolute time, space, place, and motion. He speaks of these as independently existing “quantities” according to which true measurements of bodies and motions can be made as distinct from relative “sensible measures” and apparent observations. Newton seems to have thought that his system of mathematical principles presupposed and is validated by the absolute framework. The scholium has been the subject of much critical discussion. The main problem concerns the justification of the absolute framework. Newton commends adherence to experimental observation and induction for advancing scientific knowledge, and he rejects speculative hypotheses. But absolute time and space are not observable. In the scholium Newton did offer a renowned experiment using a rotating pail of water as evidence for distinguishing true and apparent motions and proof of absolute motion. It has been remarked that conflicting strains of a rationalism anticipating Kant and empiricism anticipating Hume are present in Newton’s conception of science. Some of these issues are also evident in Newton’s Optics 1704, especially the fourth edition, 1730, which includes a series of suggestive “Queries” on the nature of light, gravity, matter, scientific method, and God. The triumphant reception given to Newton’s Principia in England and on the Continent led to idealization of the man and his work. Thus Alexander Pope’s famous epitaph: Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night; God said, “Let Newton be!” and all was light. The term ‘Newtonian’, then, denoted the view of nature as a universal system of mathematical reason and order divinely created and administered. The metaphor of a “universal machine” was frequently applied. The view is central in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, inspiring a religion of reason and the scientific study of society and the human mind. More narrowly, ‘Newtonian’ suggests a reduction of any subject matter to an ontology of individual particles and the laws and basic terms of mechanics: mass, length, and time. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Hypotheses non fingo: Newton e la sua mela,” Luigi Speranza, per il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

 

INTER-LEGERE -- Intellectus: The sensus-intellectus distinction, the: Grice: “Occam’s adage presupposes a bi-partite philosophical psychology for the credibility realm: the ‘sensus,’ or perceptual level, and the ‘intellectus,’ or the realm of intellect. nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu: a principal tenet of empiricism. A weak interpretation of the principle maintains that all concepts are acquired from sensory experience; no concepts are innate or a priori. A stronger interpretation adds that all propositional knowledge is derived from sense experience. The weak interpretation was held by Aquinas and Locke, who thought nevertheless that we can know some propositions to be true in virtue of the relations between the concepts involved. The stronger interpretation was endorsed by J. S. Mill, who argued that even the truths of mathematics are inductively based on experience, as Grice tutored R. Wollheim for his PPE at Oxford: “How did you find that out?” “Multiplication.” “That proves Mill wrong.”

 

activum/passivum distinction: used by Grice, ‘nous poietikos’ ‘nous intellectus activus, intellectus passivus --. Grice thought ‘active’ was misused there, “unless there is a hint that Aquinas means that the self-conscious soul is the site of personal identity, which ‘does’ things.” --.

 

nifo: -- Grice: “I like Nifo; first, because he wrote a treatise he called ‘ludicrous rhetoric;’ second, because he tried to refute Pomponazzi against the mortality of the soul – surely the soul is ‘mortal’ is a category mistake --.” Philosophus Augustinus Niphus Suessanus Agostino Nifo (Sessa Aurunca), filosofo. Alla corte di Carlo V (Luigi Toro, 1876, Municipio di Sessa Aurunca). Durante i propri studi, Nifo frequentò Padova, dove studiò filosofia e divenne allievo di Vernia.  Fu professore a Padova e in seguito insegnò anche a Napoli, Roma e Pisa, guadagnando una fama tale da essere incaricato daLeone X di difendere la dottrina cattolica sull'immortalità contro gli attacchi di Pomponazzi e degli alessandristi. Fu ricompensato con la nomina a conte palatino con il diritto di assumere il cognome del Papa, Medici. Busto esposto nel Liceo classico "di Sessa Aurunca. La sua prima filosofia si ispirava ad Averroè, modificò poi la propria visione giungendo a posizioni più vicine all'ortodossia cattolica. Pubblicò un'edizione delle opere di Averroè corredate di un commento compatibile con la sua nuova posizione.  Nella grande controversia con gli alessandristi si oppose alla tesi del Pomponazzi per il quale l'anima razionale è inseparabile dal corpo materiale e, dunque, la morte di questo porta con sé anche la scomparsa dell'anima. Sostenne, invece, che l'anima individuale, quale parte dell'intelletto assoluto, è indistruttibile e alla morte del corpo si fonde in un'unità eterna.  Tra i suoi allievi, presso l'Salerno, tra gli altri, ricordiamo, Rosselli, filosofo calabrese autore di un testo molto controverso, Apologeticus adversos cucullatos (Parma), in cui cerca di affermare le sue dottrine che tendono a discostarsi da quello del suo maestro.  Lo si ritiene protagonista di un curioso episodio: pubblicò il trattato De regnandi peritia, che alcuni ritengono essere un plagio del più noto Il Principe di Machiavelli del cui manoscritto sarebbe venuto in possesso.  Gli fu conferita la cittadinanza onoraria di Napoli ed iessa fu estesa ai figli ed agli eredi in perpetuo. A lui è dedicato il Convitto Nazionale di Sessa Aurunca, della quale fu anche sindaco. Le sue opere principali sono:  “Liber de intellectu,” “De immortalitate animi,”  “De infinitate primi motoris quaestio Opuscula moralia et politica, “Dialectica ludicra,” “De regnandi peritia.” Furono poi più volte ripubblicati, in quanto ampiamente diffusi, i suoi numerosi commentari su Aristotele, di cui i più importanti sono:  Aristotelis de generatione & corruptione liber Augustino Nipho philosopho Suessano interprete & expositore, Expositiones in libros de sophisticos elenchis Aristotelis, Expositiones in omnes libros de Historia animalim, de partibus animalium et earum causis ac de Generatione animalium, In libris Aristotelis meteorologicis commentaria, Venetiis, Ottaviano Scoto, Physicorum auscultationum Aristotelis libri octo, Super Libros Priorum Aristotelis, Commentarium in tres libros Aristotelis De anima, Dilucidarium metaphysicarum disputationum in Aristotelis Deum et quatuor libros metaphysicarum. L'edizione più nota fu quella stampata a Parigi. Dialectica ludicra, frontespizio; conservato nella biblioteca del Convitto Agostino Nifo di Sessa Aurunca     Dialectica ludicra (disegno interno     Dialectica ludicra, colophon     In libris Aristotelis meteorologicis commentaria   In libros Aristotelis De generatione & corruptione interpretationes & commentaria, frontespizio; conservato anch'esso nella biblioteca del Convitto Nifo di Sessa Aurunca. In libros Aristotelis De generatione & corruptione interpretationes & commentaria, colophon  Genealogia. Una sua breve genealogia è questa:  1. ... Nifo 1.1. Domizio Nifo (Barone di Joppolo, cavaliere) @(Sessa Aurunca) ... 1.1.1. Jacopo/Giacomo Nifo (*Tropea +Sessa Aurunca >1469giureconsulto, ciambellano, commerciante di tessuti) @(Sessa Aurunca) Francesca Galeoni 1.1.1.1. Agostino Nifo (*Sessa Aurunca 1469/1472 +Sessa Aurunca 18 gennaio 1538filosofo) @(Sessa Aurunca 1496) Angela Landi (nobile) 1.1.1.1.1. Domizio Nifo (+Sessa Aurunca) 1.1.1.1.2. Livia Nifo @1 Filippo Toraldo, @2 Col'Antonio di Transo 1.1.1.1.3. Giacomo Nifo @ Isabella Vaccaro 1.1.1.1.3.1. Paolo Nifo @ Livia Transo 1.1.1.1.3.1.1. Agostino juniore Nifo @ Diana di Paulo 1.1.1.1.3.1.1.1. Paolo Nifo 1.1.1.1.3.1.1.2. Giacomo Nifo 1.1.1.1.3.1.1.X. altri 1.1.1.1.3.1.2. maschio Nifo 1.1.1.1.3.1.3. maschio Nifo 1.1.1.1.3.1.4. Isabella Nifo @ Marc'Antonio Giove della Vega 1.1.1.1.3.1.5. Girolama Nifo @ Scipione Cirasolo 1.1.1.1.3.2. Domizio Nifo 1.1.1.1.3.3. Clarice Nifo 1.1.1.1.3.4. Diana Nifo @ Cesare Conso 1.1.1.1.3.5. Quintia Nifo @ Vincenzo Gattola 1.1.1.1.3.X. altri 1.1.1.2. Vincenzo Nifo 1.2. Giovanni Nifo (*Tropea +Romacavaliere, Vicario e Agente Generale del Duca di Sessa). Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.  Giuseppe Gabrieli, "Raccolta Storica dei Comuni", Istituto di Studi Atellani, Sant'Arpino (CE), lCarlo De Lellis, Discorsi delle Famiglie Nobili del Regno di Napoli, Napoli, Giovanni Francesco Paci, Giampiero Di Marco, I sindaci della città di Sessa, Sessa Aurunca, Zano Editore, 38.  Edizioni e traduzioni Agostino Nifo, La filosofia nella corte. Monografia introduttiva, testo latino a fronte, traduzione, note e apparati di E. De Bellis. Collana “Il pensiero occidentale”, Milano, Bompiani, . Studi , «Nifo, Agostino», in Dizionario di filosofia, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, Giampiero Di Marco, Giuseppe Parolino, Incunaboli e cinquecentine nelle biblioteche di Sessa, Minturno, Caramanica Editore, M. Palumbo,  Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, . Ennio De Bellis, Il pensiero logico, Galatina, Congedo, Ennio De Bellis, Nicoletto Vernia e Agostino Nifo. Aspetti storiografici e metodologici, Galatina, Congedo, Ennio De Bellis,  di Agostino Nifo, Collana Quaderni di “Rinascimento”. Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, Firenze, Olschki, Angelico Poppi, Introduzione all'aristotelismo padovano, Antenore, Enciclopedia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.  Agostino Nifo, su BeWeb, Conferenza Episcopale Italiana. ALCUIN, Ratisbona.  Opere su openMLOL, Horizons Unlimited srl.Hugh Chisholm , Nifo, Agostino, in Enciclopedia Britannica, XI, Cambridge University Press.

 

Nihil ex nihilo fit – Grice: “”Nihil” is possibly the most important of philosophical words. “Il nulla” in Italian!” -- Grice: “an intuitive metaphysical principle first enunciated by Parmenides, often held equivalent to the proposition that nothing arises without a cause. Creation ex nihilo is God’s production of the world without any natural or material cause, but involves a supernatural cause, and so it would not violate the principle.

 

nizolio: Grice: “I read Nizolio and it’s like reading myself!” -- Mario Nizolio o Nizzoli (Brescello), filosofo. Ciceronem observationses. Lapide sulla parete del municipio di Brescello. Insegnò a Brescia e pubblicò il lessico “Observationes in M. Tullium Ciceronem,” o “Thesaurus Ciceronianus.” Ebbe una lunga polemica con Maioragio per una critica portata da quest'ultimo a Cicerone che, iniziata con la Epistola ad M. A. Majoragium, proseguì con l'Antapologia e si concluse con i De veris principiis et vera ratione philosophandi contra pseudophilosophos libri IV, pubblicati a Parma, dove insegnava, che interessarono Leibniz al punto che questi li fece ristampare premettendogli il titolo “Antibarbarus Philosophicus, sive Philosophia Scholasticorum impugnata libris IV.” Fu chiamato da Gonzaga a Sabbioneta. Contemporaneamente alle critiche di  Ramo alla logica aristotelica, anche per Nizolio occorre sostituire all'astrattezza di quella logica un pensiero che sia concretamente legato alla realtà e a questo scopo la strada maestra sta nel ritrovare i processi del pensiero direttamente nella struttura grammaticale della lingua. Egli individua cinque principi per fare della buona filosofia. Il primo principio generale della verità e della buona filosofia consiste nella conoscenza dellaa lingua romana,  in cui sono espressi quei testi filosofici. Il secondo principio è la conoscenza di quei precetti e documenti che si trovano nella grammatica e nella retorica, sostituendo la grammatica e la retorica alla metafisica, dal momento che i metafisici si sono preoccupati solo di ricercare la verità, senza occuparsi della utilità, necessità e pertinenza delle cose trattate. Il terzo principio consiste nel leggere i filosofi classici e nello sforzarsi di comprendere il modo con il quale il popolo romano si esprime, essendoci verità in quella schiettezza – Grice: ‘slightness” -- di linguaggio. Il quarto principio generale della verità è la libertà e la vera licenza delle opinioni e del giudizio su qualunque argomento, come richiede la verità e la natura. Non devono essere dunque Cicerone o Aurelio nostril maestri, ma i cinque sensi, l'intelligenza, il pensiero, la memoria, l'uso e l'esperienza delle cose.  Il quinto principio afferma che, oltre a esporre ogni tesi con la chiarezza della lingua comune senza introdurre nel discorso oscurità o sottigliezze, occorre non trattare problemi che non hanno realtà. Esempi di invenzioni filosofichi prive di oggettività sono la idea platonica e la tesi della realtà degli universali. Infatti, la realtà è costituita soltanto da oggetti singoli e individuali e questi devono essere indagati non attraverso la loro natura propria e privata, ma attraverso la loro comune e continua successione. Si fa filosofia e scienza non astraendo, ossia togliendo da una singola realtà quel quid che viene poi analizzato come se esso fosse reale, ma comprendendo, ossia considerando insieme le singole realtà. L'universale è una vana e finta astrazione che deriva invece dalla comprensione di tutti i singolari di ogni genere, accolti insieme con un atto solo, senza astrazioni intellettive, ma con il solo ausilio di un'intelligenza che comprende i singolari. In sostanza, noi non possiamo realmente distaccare, con un'operazione dell'intelletto, un universale da ogni singola cosa, ma semmai passare dall'individuale al collettivo.  L'operazione consiste nel sostituire alla dialettica la retorica e alla logica la grammatica ma, pur mettendo in rilievo i difetti della logica classica, egli non riesce a fondare una nuova logica realmente efficace e persuasiva.  Opere: “Observationes in M. Tullium Ciceronem,” Brixiae (Brescia), in-folio, opera ripubblicata con aggiunte a Venezia nol titolo “Thesaurus ciceronianus,” e  “Lexicon ciceronianum” con aggiunte di Facciolati,  “De veris principiis et vera ratione philosophandi contra pseudo-philosophos, scritto contro gli scolatici,”Parma, “Leibniz ne ha curato una nuova edizione con una prefazione ed una lettera a Thomasius sulla dottrina di Aristotele, Francofurti (Roma, Bocca). Garin, Rossi, Vasoli, Testi umanistici su la retorica. Testi editi e inediti su retorica e dialettica di Nizolio, Patrizi e Ramo, Milano, Bocca  “Marii Nizolii Brixellensis in M.T. Ciceronem observationes Caelii Secundi Curionis labore & industria secundò atque iterum locupletatae, perpolitae, & restitutae. Ejusdem M. Nizolii libellus, in quo vulgaria quaedam verba, & parum Latina, ad purissimam Ciceronis consuetudinem emendantur, ab eodem Caelio, s.c. limatus & auctus” (BU Clermont Auvergne) Note  Margherita Palumbo nel Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. È quindi probabile chei abbia preferito fare ritorno volontariamente a Brescello, dove la morte lo close. Ballestri, Massimiliano. Nizolio, Milano, Cosmo editore, R. Battistella, Nizolio, umanista e filosofo, Treviso, L. Zoppelli, Nizzoli, Alberto. Nizolio e il rinnovamento scientifico moderno, Como, Meroni, P. Rossi,  “La celebrazione della rettorica e la polemica antimetafisica del "De Principiis" del Nizolio, in La crisi dell'uso dogmatico della ragione, Antonio Banfi, Milano, Bocca, Thieme, Klaus, Marius Nizolius aus Bersello: Vier Bücher über die wahren Prinzipien und die wahre philosophische Methode. Gegen die Pseudophilosophen [monografia sui "principi" con traduzione in tedesco], Monaco, Wilhelm Fink, 1980.  Logica aristotelica Universale Idea. Treccani.itEnciclopedie on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. G. Calogero,  Enciclopedia Italiana, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. EEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc.  M. Palumbo, Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.  Opere openMLOL, Horizons Unlimited srl. Opere, Dizionario di filosofia, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.

 

noce: Grice: “Only in Italy, philosophy and history are so connected; it would be as if we at Oxford after the war would be only concerned with understanding Churchill!” Grice: “For us, to do linguistic philosophy was to get away from post-tramautic stress disorder acquired during what Winthrop stupidly called the ‘phoney’ war!” – Grice: “It’s not difficult to understand why Noce’s notes on Gentile were only published posthumously!” -- essential Italian philosopher. Senatore della Repubblica Italiana LegislatureIX Gruppo parlamentare Democratico Cristiano Coalizione Pentapartito CircoscrizioneLazio CollegioRoma VI Incarichi parlamentari Membro della VII Commissione permanente (Istruzione pubblica) Sito istituzionale Dati generali Partito politicoDemocrazia Cristiana Titolo di studiolaurea in lettere e filosofia ProfessioneProfessore di filosofia «Certo i cattolici hanno un vizio maledetto: pensare alla forza della modernità e ignorare come questa modernità, nei limiti in cui pensa di voler negare la trascendenza religiosa, attraversi oggi la sua massima crisi, riconosciuta anche da certi scrittori laici.»  (Risposte alla scristianità, da Il Sabato). Augusto Del Noce (Pistoia), filosofo.  È stato titolare della cattedra di "Storia delle dottrine politiche" all'Università La Sapienza di Roma.  Studioso del razionalismo cartesiano e del pensiero moderno (Hegel, Marx), analizzò le radici filosofiche e teologiche della crisi della modernità, ricostruendo con cura le contraddizioni interne dell'immanentismo.  Argomentò l'incompatibilità tra marxismo, umanesimo, ed altri sistemi di pensiero che propugnavano la liberazione secolare dell'uomo e la dottrina cristiana (affermò: "solo il Redentore può emancipare"). Sostenne tenacemente, per tali motivi, l'impossibilità del dialogo tra cattolici e comunisti e previde il "suicidio della rivoluzione" (1978). Studioso del fascismo, sostenne che tale ideologia fosse peraltro in continuità con il comunismo e fosse anch'esso un momento della secolarizzazione della modernità. Sostenne, inoltre, l'esistenza di molti punti di contatto tra il fascismo e il pensiero dei sessantottini.  Filosofo della politica, preconizzò la crisi del socialismo reale, mentre esso viveva la sua massima espansione a livello mondiale. Argomentò che tale sistema, da una parte applicava coerentemente la filosofia di Marx, ma dall'altra negava le premesse del marxismo: ciò in quantomostrava Del Nocelo stesso sistema di Marx si basava sulla contraddizione tra dialettica e materialismo storico. Ribadiva infine la necessità dei valori di verità e di moralità.  Figlio di un ufficiale dell'esercito e di Rosalia Pratis, savonese discendente di una famiglia nobile savoiarda, Augusto Del Noce nasce a Pistoia nel 1910. L'anno dopo la madre si trasferisce con il figlio a Savona e, allo scoppio della guerra mondiale, a Torino, presso una zia materna. A Torino, Augusto svolge tutta la sua carriera di studi: dapprima al noto liceo D'Azeglio, frequentato da alcuni dei futuri protagonisti della vita politica e culturale della città e della nazione (Norberto Bobbio, Massimo Mila, Gian Carlo Pajetta, Cesare Pavese, Felice Balbo e altri), poi all'Università degli Studi di Torino, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, allievo di Adolfo Faggi, Erminio Juvalta e Carlo Mazzantini con il quale si laurea nel 1932 con una tesi su Malebranche. Inizia quindi a insegnare presso istituti superiori (Novi Ligure, Assisi, Mondovì), mentre sviluppa la sua attività di studio anche con soggiorni all'estero.  Nel 1936 legge con entusiasmo Umanesimo integrale di Jacques Maritain, che rafforza in lui, tra l'altro, una sempre più convinta opposizione al fascismo. Cerca invano di farsi trasferire a Torino e di accedere qui alla carriera universitaria. Nel 1941 si trasferisce a Roma per un distacco propostogli dall'amico Enrico Castelli. A Roma frequenta Franco Rodano che, con Felice Balbo e altri, anima l'esperienza di «Sinistra Cristiana», un tentativo di conciliazione di comunismo e Cristianesimo da quale Del Noce resta per breve tempo affascinato. Nel 1944 viene accolta la sua richiesta di trasferimento presso un istituto superiore di Torino, dove torna a risiedere. Accompagna all'insegnamento un'intensa attività di studio e di collaborazione a diversi periodici, tra cui Cronache Sociali che gli dà occasione di incontrare Giuseppe Dossetti.  Nel 1946 scrive e pubblica il saggio La non filosofia di Marx, che ripubblicherà vent'anni dopo nella sua opera maggiore (Il problema dell'ateismo) e nel quale fissa i termini complessivi della sua interpretazione del marxismo. Nello stesso anno cura l'edizione italiana di Concupiscentia irresistibilis di Lev Isaakovič Šestov. Nel 1948, nasce suo figlio Fabrizio Del Noce. Nel 1954 inizia la collaborazione alla Enciclopedia filosofica del Centro Studi Filosofici Cristiani di Gallarate, diretta da Luigi Pareyson. Dal 1957 al 1961 è distaccato a Bologna presso il centro di documentazione diretto da Giuseppe Dossetti. Nel capoluogo emiliano frequenta Nicola Matteucci e collabora stabilmente al neonato periodico «Il Mulino». Scrive su Ordine Civile, rivista animata da Gianni Baget Bozzo, e altri alcuni saggi, uno dei quali, «Idee per l'interpretazione del fascismo», sarà all'origine delle future revisioni storiografiche di De Felice e Nolte. Nel 1959 partecipa al convegno organizzato dalla Democrazia Cristiana a Santa Margherita Ligure con una relazione intitolata L'incidenza della cultura sulla politica nella presente situazione italiana: sugli stessi temi Del Noce intratterrà per anni un rapporto difficile con il partito cattolico (altri interventi nei convegni di San Pellegrino del 1963 e di Lucca nel 1967).  Nel 1963 partecipa a un concorso a cattedra a Trieste, ma non ottiene il posto; nel 1964 pubblica Il problema dell'ateismo e l'anno successivo Riforma cattolica e filosofia moderna, Volume I, Cartesio. Il 30 aprile del 1966 partecipa alla «Giornata rensiana» con una relazione intitolata Giuseppe Rensi fra Leopardi e Pascal. Ovvero l'autocritica dell'ateismo negativo in Giuseppe Rensi, nella quale espone la sua fondamentale fenomenologia del pessimismo come pensiero religioso. Nello stesso anno vince il concorso per una cattedra di Storia della filosofia moderna e contemporanea all'Università degli Studi di Trieste, dove diventerà Professore e rimarrà a insegnare fino al 1970. In quell'anno esce L'epoca della secolarizzazione, che raccoglie molti dei saggi e degli interventi degli anni sessanta. Sempre nel 1970 si realizza il tanto atteso trasferimento a Roma, dove, all'Università "La Sapienza", insegna prima Storia delle dottrine politiche e poidal 1974Filosofia della politica.  Si infittisce la sua collaborazione a riviste e periodici, sui quali interviene anche riguardo all'attualità politica e culturale. Diresse la collana «Documenti di cultura moderna», dell'editore torinese Borla (poi passata alla Rusconi) proponendo al pubblico italiano autori come Marcel de Corte, Titus Burkhardt, Manuel García Pelayo, Hans Sedlmayr ed Eric Voegelin. Partecipa vivacemente al dibattito sul divorzio. Dopo la metà degli anni settanta inizia il rapporto con gli universitari di Comunione e Liberazione partecipando a convegni e incontri promossi dal Movimento Popolare. Nel 1978 pubblica il saggio Il suicidio della rivoluzione, dedicato al compimento e alla dissoluzione del marxismo. Nel 1981 con Il cattolico comunista chiude i conti con l'esperienza di Rodano (che nel frattempo ha lasciato la DC per il PCI) e dei teorici della conciliazione tra Cattolicesimo e marxismo. Dal 1978 inizia anche la collaborazione continuativa con il settimanale «Il Sabato» e nel 1983 contribuisce alla creazione della rivista «30 giorni», di cui rimarrà stabile collaboratore. Nello stesso anno viene candidato come indipendente nelle liste della Democrazia Cristiana per il Senato: primo dei non eletti, entrerà in Senato l'anno successivo (1984) a seguito della morte di un collega.  Nel 1986 viene insignito del «Premio Internazionale Medaglia d'Oro al merito della Cultura Cattolica». Nel 1989 riceve il «Premio Nazionale di Cultura nel Giornalismo: la penna d'oro»; nell'agosto dello stesso anno viene premiato dal Meeting di Rimini. Muore nella notte tra il 29 e il 30 dicembre a Roma. È tumulato nel Famedio del cimitero di Savigliano. Nel 1990 esce Giovanni Gentile, volume che raccoglie diversi saggi sul padre dell'attualismo, sul fascismo e sul suo significato nella storia contemporanea, frutto di decenni di studi e rielaborazioni di Del Noce. L'archivio del filosofo e la sua biblioteca sono custoditi a Savigliano dalla «Fondazione Centro Studi Augusto Del Noce», sorta nei primi anni novanta, diretta prima da Guido Ramacciotti, poi da Francesco Mercadante, da Giuseppe Riconda, e attualmente da Enzo Randone.  Il pensiero Il problema dell'ateismo Nella sua più celebre opera Il problema dell'ateismo (del 1964) Del Noce inizia l'analisi della storia della filosofia moderna invertendo il paradigma storicistico e positivistico che nel progressismo aveva la sua cifra comune. Il filosofo afferma infatti che tale paradigma di illuministica origine ha come prima condizione d'esistenza la postulazione dell'ateismo come necessità del progredire dei sistemi filosofici e delle scienze a prescindere dalla teologia cristiana, cioè a prescindere dalla Scolastica, anzi in più o meno esplicita opposizione alla Scolastica.  La tesi che Del Noce intende dimostrare in questa sua opera è -come evidenzia appunto il titolo- la considerazione dell'ateismo non più come «necessità» bensì come «problema» della modernità, il cui ultimo, coerente e necessario sbocco è appunto il nichilismo post-nietzscheano distaccato ormai da qualsiasi riflessione filosofica e sfociato in una pura forma di vita, in puro way of life di distruzione e auto-distruzione dell'uomo. Del Noce pone quindi innanzitutto una distinzione fra tre diverse forme di ateismo, ovvero fra l'ateismo positivo o politico («diurno»), i cui esempi perfetti sono stati l'illuminismo di un Diderot o l'umanesimo di un Feuerbach, l'ateismo negativo o nichilistico («notturno»), esemplificato invece dalla filosofia di Schopenhauer, e infine l'ateismo tragico, detto anche «follia filosofica», cioè la forma più rara e particolare di ateismo che Del Noce trova solo in due casi in tutta la storia della filosofia, ovvero in Nietzsche e in Jules Lequier.  Posta questa propedeutica distinzione, Del Noce inizia l'anamnesi del pensiero filosofico moderno per rintracciare la genesi di ogni forma di ateismo, impossibile da pensarsi per la filosofia antica come dimostra il fatto che anche la filosofia epicurea -considerata comunemente come ateistica- ammetteva in realtà l'esistenza degli dèi. Per Del Noce appare evidente che la crisi della Scolastica medievale non ha costituito un processo necessario per il semplice fatto che proprio colui che aveva intenzione di riformarla -cioè Cartesio- fu invece colui che in realtà la tradì e se ne allontanò: è nelle celeberrime Meditazioni metafisiche che il filosofo francese -allievo dei Gesuiti- tentò di riproporre una nuova prova dell'esistenza di Dio da opporre al naturalismo libertinista del Seicento, che predicava relativismo etico e che sostituiva il Dio-Logos con la Natura impersonale e senza ordine.  In realtà però Cartesio, nel suo sforzo apologetico, compì il definitivo tradimento della filosofia cristiana riattingendo ad un agostinismo privato di platonismo e considerando così le idee dei semplici «contenuti della mente». In altre parole se l'idea di Dio, quantunque logicamente necessaria, non è il riflesso intellettivo di una realtà ontologica esterna al soggetto ma è una semplice struttura logica, allora vale realmente la critica kantiana della prova ontologica di Sant'Anselmo secondo la quale non è lecito aggiungere il predicato dell'esistenza alla perfezione dell'idea se non per un paralogismo.  Del Noce in sintesi ha mostrato come il tradimento e la perdita della Scolastica, attuata innanzitutto da Cartesio, ha come punto centrale l'idea di Idea, che è passata ad essere da struttura del reale a struttura del razionale, passando quindi dal dominio dell'ontologia a quello della psicologia. Per questo non vi è alcuna spiegazione se non il rifiuto pregiudiziale di riconoscere uno statuto ontologico all'idea, cosicché non vi sarebbe appunto alcuna necessità di trapasso della Scolastica né tantomeno alcuna necessità di genesi del razionalismo; in tal senso la famosa critica di Kant varrebbe quindi solo contro Cartesio e non contro Sant'Anselmo, il cui platonismo gli permetteva ancora di inferire necessariamente la «perfezione» dell'esistenza dall'idea dell'Essere con ogni perfezione, cioè dall'idea di Dio.  Del Noce prosegue la sua analisi mostrando quindi come in Cartesio, che pur nelle sue intenzioni voleva essere un defensor Fidei, già sussisteva in nuce ogni forma di illuminismo che avrebbe poi dominato nel Settecento, per questo egli parla di un pre-illuminismo cartesiano e aggiunge inoltre che proprio Cartesio, fiero avversario del libertinismo dilagante nel suo tempo, fu colui che tradusse l'ateismo libertinistico e irrazionalistico nella sua forma razionalizzata, cioè nell'illuminismo, che sarebbe stato appunto un libertinismo razionalistico. Si noti che Del Noce non pone giudizi sulla persona di Renato Cartesio, e anzi sottolinea come al suo tempo egli si poteva davvero credere il grande condottiero vincitore della battaglia culturale del Cristianesimo contro il libertinismo, ma ciò perché non era riuscito a prevedere una forma di ateismo non-irrazionalistico e non-relativistico quale fu appunto l'illuminismo settecentesco, che non si limitò più ad opporsi alla Scolastica ma che formò una propria dogmatica visione della storia in cui il Cristianesimo, rappresentato dalle leggende nere del Medioevo, era stato solo un ostacolo per lo «sviluppo» e l'«emancipazione» dell'umanità (si tenga presenta la definizione kantiana di «illuminismo»).  Da Cartesio in poi -secondo Del Noce- sono comunque due i percorsi filosofici che partono e che sviluppano i due aspetti compresenti in Cartesio, ovvero l'illuminismo e lo spiritualismo: da una parte infatti Condillac, Kant, Condorcet, fino a Hegel e Marx riceveranno il lascito propriamente razionalistico e sensu lato materialistico di Cartesio, dall'altra invece Pascal, Malebranche, Vico e infine Rosmini saranno gli eredi del suo patrimonio spiritualistico, inteso questo come filosofia di accordo fra ragione naturale e fede cristiana, posta la distanza epistemologica dalla Scolastica; famosa ed illuminante è a questo proposito la teoria della «visione in Dio» di Malebranche, nonché la distinzione pascaliana fra «Dio dei filosofi» e «Dio di Gesù Cristo». Andando comunque alla radice del problema del tradimento della metafisica cristiana (Tomismo) da parte di Cartesio e del conseguente illuminismo, Del Noce individua come unica possibile condizione per tale tradimento il rifiuto del peccato originale come male metafisico e quindi il rifiuto dello «status naturae lapsae» di cui proprio il Cristo sarebbe il redentore: senza alcuna natura umana da redimere, cioè senzanecessità di alcun redentore, il razionalismo ha sostituito il peccato con l'ignoranza e Dio con la ragion critica, rifacendosi così ad un pelagianesimo laicizzato che da solo rende possibile una qualsiasi forma di ateismo. Egli nota, infine, che avendo rifiutato la radice metafisica del male se ne è dovuta cercare quella fisica o psicofisica, secondo gli schemi ideologici che nel Novecento avrebbero reso la psicanalisi e la psicologia gli elementi complementari allo scientismo per una completa e non riduttiva visione del mondo senza Dio, e per una definitiva «ateologizzazione» della ragione.  Compimento e dissoluzione del marxismo Riguardo al marxismo e alla sua interpretazione Del Noce scrisse due opere, ovvero Il cattolico comunista e Il suicidio della rivoluzione, che costituiscono la continuazione de Il problema dell'ateismo in quanto in esse il filosofo analizza più dettagliatamente solo una delle linee filosofiche originate da Cartesio, quella razionalistica, cioè quella che nella storia moderna fu vincente nella sua estensione politica, nel tentativo di trovare e di dimostrare la continuità necessaria fra razionalismo, materialismo, marxismo e infine nichilismo, quest'ultimo inteso come cifra problematica della civiltà postmoderna.  La giustificazione epistemologica di questa analisi è data dal fatto incontestabile che la storia del Novecento inizia da un fatto filosofico, ovvero dal passaggio della filosofia marxiana in azione politica, ovvero dalla coerentizzazione di quella che Del Noce definisce la «non-filosofia di Marx»: da ciò appare non solo giustificato ma anche necessario portarsi sul piano storico della filosofia per comprenderne il suo portato teoretico, e così disinnescarne il suo sostrato ideologico. Del Noce si affianca a diversi studiosi stranieri, quali ad esempio Voegelin, per rintracciare l'inizio della cosiddetta secolarizzazione, il cui compimento sarebbe stato appunto il marxismo e poi il nichilismo, nel sequestro della nozione di «progresso» da parte di filosofie laiche dalla teologia di Gioacchino da Fiore, o meglio dall'interpretazione di tale teologia: ben nota è infatti la distinzione gioachimita nelle tre età della storia, l'Età di Dio-Padre (Ebraismo), l'Età di Dio-Figlio (Cristianesimo) e infine l'Età di Dio-Spirito che avrebbe dovuto superare i «limiti» del Cristianesimo ed estendere l'elezione e la salvezza in modo universale.  Di tale teologia mistica e profetica si appropriò lo gnosticismo sviluppatosi in seno al Cristianesimo stesso ed estesosi pian piano oltre i confini delle filosofie razionalistiche del Settecento e soprattutto dell'Ottocento. Del Noce nota infatti una sorta di dialettica nata all'interno dell'illuminismo settecentesco non tanto fra atei e deisti bensì fra rivoluzionari e conservatori, ovvero fra il puro giacobinismo ghigliottinatore dell'«ancien Régime» e il progressismo che caratterizzò invece la fase dell'illuminismo dopo la degenerazione della rivoluzione francese in Terrore, ovvero la fase dei cosiddetti ideologues, fra i quali Cabanis e Condorcet. Il punto attorno a cui si sviluppava tale dialettica fu appunto la differente filosofia della storia che aveva caratterizzato l'illuminismo pre-rivoluzionario e l'illuminismo post-rivoluzionario, in quanto il primo aveva escluso una qualsiasi evoluzione storica e necessaria dell'umanità e aveva anzi condannato il Medioevo con la storiografia della leggenda nera, mentre il secondo aveva invece rivalutato l'intera storia pre-illuministica (sia pagana che cristiana) considerandola come momento dialettico necessario pur se negativo della storia universale.  In questo senso Del Noce ha potuto mettere in parallelo l'opposizione fra illuminismo giacobino e spiritualismo in Francia e quella fra kantismo e hegelismo in Germania, ove spiritualismo e hegelismo sono state filosofie vincenti in quanto hanno assorbito in sé il momento rivoluzionario e negativo dell'illuminismo per poi superarlo nella formazione di quella filosofia della storia che ebbe certo in Hegel il suo culmine. Riguardo al binomio illuminismo-spiritualismo la critica vincente del secondo sul primo è stata quella di un estremo e insostenibile riduzionismo rappresentato dal sensismo di Condillac, in altre parole è stata la critica di ridurre la comprensione del mondo al pari di ciò che lo stesso illuminismo aveva accusato la religione di aver fatto. In questo contesto è la nascita della visione sociologica del mondo a rappresentare il tentativo di superare questa aporia illuministica senza tuttavia dover ritornare alla metafisica tradizionale: Del Noce insomma sostiene il trapasso dell'illuminismo in socialismo, non a caso nato in Francia, intesa questa come dottrina che dell'illuminismo mantiene il carattere utopistico (socialismo utopistico) e quindi anti-tradizionalistico, ma ne sconfessa invece il deprecabile riduzionismo che ancora non permetteva un'adeguata analisi della società ai fini della rivoluzione politica.  In Germania invece la dialettica fra kantismo e hegelismo, con netta vittoria dell'hegelismo, ha come punto di svolta la riconsiderazione hegeliana della storia come storia dell'Assoluto («storia di Dio»), secondo il ben noto schema gioachimita che vedeva in ogni momento storico un grado dimanifestazione dell'Assoluto, e quindi «necessario» pur nella sua negatività. In questo senso Hegel è colui che diede forma alla corrente tradizionalistica dell'illuminismo, ove la tradizione non è più peròcome per Tommaso d'Aquinol'insieme delle verità eterne e immutabili che solcano trasversalmente la dimensione temporale mediante il passaggio delle generazioni, ma è bensì la struttura dialettica eterna che necessita l'evoluzione delle verità, e quindi la sua temporalizzazione.  Per questo Del Noce afferma che l'idealismo hegeliano ebbe nei confronti del kantismo la medesima funzione che in Francia ebbe il positivismo comtiano nei confronti del socialismo utopistico: egli ricorda la critica di Comte nei confronti dell'illuminismo settecentesco, la sua rivalutazione della tradizione (in senso dialettico), nonché la celeberrima teoria degli stadi che costituisceancora una voltauna forma secolarizzata della teologia gioachimita. È dopo questa dettagliata analisi che Del Noce innesta il discorso sul marxismo, il quale appunto si configuròper stessa ammissione di Marxcome ripresa critica di Hegel attraverso la filtrazione di Feuerbach e della sinistra hegeliana (celebri sono le marxiane Tesi su Feuerbach) e come fusione fra la dialettica hegeliana e la politica del socialismo utopistico: alla base del cosiddetto socialismo scientifico rimane ancora il desiderio di palingenesi politica propria di Saint-Simon o di Fourier, ma onde evitare il risibile utopismo di questi ultimi ad esso Marx applicò la dialettica hegeliana con cui solamente si sarebbe potuto analizzare il capitalismo e prevederne così il «necessario» fallimento.  A tal punto però l'analisi marxiana di come potrà nascere la società comunista introduce l'elemento di distacco non solo dall'idealismo hegeliano ma anche dalla filosofia stessa, ovvero la necessità di tradurre il pensiero analitico in azione politica e di affidare alla storia invece che alla ragione il compito di dimostrare la verità delle tesi marxiane. In questo Del Noce si riallaccia a una lunga storiografia socialista, uno dei cui esponenti più noti è per esempio Lukács, che afferma la stretta e necessaria continuità fra filosofia di Marx e di Engels, politica di Lenin e politica di Stalin, senza concedere alcuna differenza né alcuna opposizione fra socialismo reale e socialismo ideale (quasi a guisa di giustificazione storica). Il fattore fondamentale di continuità fra Marx e Lenin è infatti quella struttura tipicamente gnostica che equalizza il male all'ignoranza e il bene alla conoscenza e quindi divide il genere umano fra la massa degli ignoranti e la ristretta cerchia degli «illuminati», che nella riflessione leniniana erano gli intellettuali borghesi che per una non spiegata differenza dal resto della borghesia avrebbero potuto e dovuto guidare la rivoluzione; in questo senso la politica leniniana, poi proseguita coerentemente nella politica staliniana, sarebbe stata l'incarnazione perfetta nonché l'unica incarnazione possibile della filosofia marxiana, e non invece -come è tesi di una certa apologetica socialista- un tradimento di Marx.  Ancora una volta Del Noce si rifà a una lunga storiografia critica nel considerare il marxismo non come una filosofia ma come una religione, ma a ciò egli aggiunge la dimostrazione non del suo carattere di religione civile bensì di religione gnostica: in tal modo il marxismo leninista sarebbe davvero il compimento del razionalismo ove quest'ultimo è inteso come gnosticismo laico, religione non di Dio ma dell'Idea/ideale che non ha bisogno dell'Incarnazione di un Dio-Uomo in quanto l'uomo stesso avrebbe potuto e dovuto far incarnare tale Idea nel mondo attraverso la sua azione. Questo è il senso dell'appellativo delnociano di «non-filosofia» per il marxismo, giacché la contemplazione metafisica in esso viene interamente assorbita dall'azione politica, in quanto per Marx la politica è la vera metafisica al pari di come per Nietzsche lo è la morale.  Eppure è proprio questo punto a costituire secondo Del Noce la contraddizione fondamentale interna al marxismo e quindi la causa prima del suo fallimento storico: se infatti la «riconciliazione con la realtà» iniziata da Hegel, proseguita da Feurbach a portata a compimento da Marx deve rivoltare l'intera comprensione del mondo in trasformazione del mondo, cioè in rivoluzione, allora in ciò non rimane giustificato il riferimento ideologico all'avvenire come sede immaginifica della società comunista, ovvero non rimane giustificato il carattere ancora religioso del marxismo per cui esso ha sostituito il futuro all'eternità e il lavoro dell'uomo alla Redenzione del Dio-Uomo.  Il fallimento storico del comunismo, quindi, sarebbe stato non solo la dimostrazione sperimentale della falsità delle teorie marxiane ma anche il coerente compimento del marxismo come auto-distruggersi nella sua forma di religione. Con ciò si spiegherebbe per Del Noce l'attivismo comunista dopo il 1945 nonché la graduale decadenza del socialismo nel mondo fino alla sua profetizzata fine, simboleggiata dalla caduta del Muro di Berlino. È propria di Del Noce infatti la teoria secondo cui il compimento e la dissoluzione del marxismo non siano due momenti separati o addirittura opposti, ma siano bensì il medesimo momento dispiegato coerentemente nel tempo.  L'interpretazione del fascismo Sul fascismo e sulla sua interpretazione in stretta relazione al marxismo Del Noce ha dedicato gran parte dei suoi studi e delle sue opere, partendo appunto dalle opinioni comuni e molte volte ideologiche degli storici nei confronti del fascismo e delineando una struttura paradigmatica tanto controversa quanto precisa e fondata. È a partire dalla definizione data dallo storico tedesco Ernst Nolte di ogni movimento fascista come «resistenza contro la trascendenza», intesa come trascendenza storica e non metafisica, che Del Noce sottolinea la continuità fra questo serio giudizio e la communis opinio del fascismo come movimento reazionario, per questo tradizionalista e nazionalista, e per converso di ogni forma di tradizionalismo e di nazionalismo come rimando implicito e forse inconscio al fascismo.  Di questo Del Noce fa una critica serrata, facendo notare innanzitutto le origini culturali dei due fondatori del fascismo, cioè Gentile e Mussolini, come antitetiche rispetto a ogni forma di politica reazionaria, tradizionalista e nazionalista e come invece affini rispetto al socialismo, del quale Mussolini in particolare fu un esponente. Si noti che l'obiettivo che Del Noce intende colpire e abbattere è quella generale concezione del fascismo come momento singolare e controcorrente rispetto all'intera storia moderna, dalla rivoluzione francese in poi, mentre ciò che intende mostrare è la continuità quasi necessaria che è posta fra l'hegelismo, il marxismo e il fascismo come tre momenti dell'unico processo di secolarizzazione. Il filosofo inizia quindi dall'analisi della figura storica di Mussolini e della sua formazione culturale, notando il suo giovanile anticlericalismo, il suo spontaneo confluire nel socialismo, e il seguente superamento di quest'ultimo per l'evoluzione fascista del suo pensiero. È in particolare sul concetto di «rivoluzione» che Del Noce pone l'accento, essendo questo un concetto base del marxismo che però, attraverso l'incontro mussoliniano con la tedesca «filosofia dello Spirito» risorgente in Italia, dovette radicalmente trasformarsi e portarsi dal livello sociale della «classe» a quello personale del «soggetto».  È insomma -per Del Noce- l'incontro intellettuale di Mussolini con la filosofia di Giovanni Gentile ad aver reso necessaria la trasformazione della rivoluzione in un senso non più finalistico o escatologico (come era nel marxismo puro, il cui fine è appunto la società comunista) ma in un senso propriamente attivistico e lato sensu solipsistico, in termini gentiliani cioè attualistico. Con ciò Del Noce può connettere la psicologia di Mussolini con il vero e proprio formalismo pratico del fascismo, il quale non aveva in realtà alcun contenuto definito, ma proclamava bensì una forma di azione tanto vaga e generale da poter attrarre a sé ogni sorta di ceto sociale (anche il proletariato) e di frangia ideologica, in alcuni momenti persino quella marxistica.  Il concetto di «rivoluzione» infatti contiene in sé già un termine finale ben preciso verso cui lo stato attuale del mondo andrebbe rivoluzionato, mentre nella politica fascista il termine rivoluzione deve necessariamente essere sostituito dal termine «riforma» (si pensi appunto alla riforma Gentile) in senso non più tradizionale, cioè come ri-formare ciò che è stato de-formato, bensì in senso creazionale, cioè come dare una nuova forma (indefinita) alle antiche cose, perciò rimane un concetto molto affine a quello di marxistico di rivoluzione, e permette l'affiancamento ideale dell'attualismo gentiliano al modernismo teologico fiorente a quel tempo e condannato come eresia dalla Chiesa cattolica.  Opere: “Senso comune e teologia della storia nel pensiero di Castelli,” Torino, Edizioni di filosofia, “La solitudine di Adolfo Faggi,” Torino, Edizioni di filosofia, “L'incidenza della cultura sulla politica nella presente situazione italiana, in Cultura e libertà, Roma, Edizioni 5 lune, “ Il problema dell'ateismo: Il concetto di ateismo e la storia della filosofia come problema,” Bologna, Il Mulino, Bologna, “Riforma cattolica e filosofia moderna,” Bologna, Il Mulino, Brescia, Morcelliana, “Il problema ideologico nella politica dei cattolici italiani,” Torino, Bottega d'Erasmo, “Il problema politico dei cattolici,” Roma-Milano, UIPC, Simone Weil, interprete del mondo di oggi, in L'amore di Dio, Torino, Borla, “L'epoca della secolarizzazione,” Milano, Giuffrè, “L'Eurocomunismo e l'Italia,” Roma, Editrice Europea Informazioni, “Il suicidio della rivoluzione,” Milano, Rusconi, Premio Nazionale Rhegium Julii per la Saggistica, “Il cattolico comunista,” Milano, Rusconi, “L'interpretazione transpolitica della storia contemporanea,” Napoli, Guida, “Secolarizzazione e crisi della modernità,” Napoli, Istituto Suor Orsola Benincasa-Edizioni scientifiche italiane, “Gentile: per una interpretazione filosofica della storia contemporanea,” Bologna, Il Mulino, “Da Cartesio a Rosmini. Scritti vari di filosofia,” Milano, Giuffrè, “Filosofi dell'esistenza e della libertà.” Spir, Chestov, Lequier, Renouvier, Benda, Weil, Vidari, Faggi, Martinetti, Rensi, Juvalta, Mazzantini, Castelli, Capograssi, Milano, Giuffrè, “Rivoluzione, Risorgimento, Tradizione: scritti su l'Europa e altri, Milano, Giuffrè, “I cattolici e il progressismo,”  Milano, Leonardo, “Fascismo e antifascismo: errori della cultura,” Milano, Leonardo, Cristianità e laicità. Scritti su Il sabato (e vari, anche inediti), Milano, Giuffrè,  Pensiero della Chiesa e filosofia contemporanea. Leone XIII, Paolo VI, Giovanni Paolo II, Roma, Edizioni Studium, “Verità e ragione nella storia. Antologia di scritti, “ lberto Mina, Milano, Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli, Modernità. Interpretazione transpolitica della storia contemporanea, Morcelliana, Brescia.  Del Noce insegnò nel capoluogo piemontese. Gianni Baget Bozzo. Del Noce, il filosofo della libertà politica. Copia archiviata, su ideazione.com. 19 maggio 2009 2 dicembre 2008).  Augusto Del Noce, «Idee per l'interpretazione del fascismo», Ordine Civile, 15 aprile 1960.  Del Noce fu tra i componenti del comitato promotore del referendum abrogativo antidivorzista del 12 maggio 1974) e più tardi sull'aborto.  premio Rhegium Julii, su circolorhegiumjulii.wordpress.com. 3 novembre .  Paolo Armellini, Razionalità e storia in Augusto Del Noce, in Il pensiero politico, Roma, Aracne editrice, Massimo Borghesi, Augusto Del Noce. La legittimazione critica del moderno. Marietti 1820, Genova-Milano .[collegamento interrotto] Luca Del Pozzo, Filosofia cristiana e politica in Augusto Del Noce, Pagine, I libri del Borghese, Roma, Sergio Fumagalli, Gnosi moderna e secolarizzazione nell'analisi di Emanuele Samek Lodovici ed Augusto Del Noce, PUSC, (scaricabile in PDF dal sito sergiofumagalli.it) Gian Franco Lami, La tradizione in Augusto Del Noce, Franco Angeli, Milano 2009, Marietti 1820, Genova-Milano . Antonio Rainone, «DEL NOCE, Augusto» in Enciclopedia ItalianaV Appendice, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, Pietro Ratto, Ipotesi sul fondamento dell'essenza dissolutiva del marxismo e del fascismo, in Boscoceduo. La rivoluzione comincia dal principio, Sanremo, EBK Edizioni Leudoteca, Ambrogio Riili, Augusto Del Noce interprete del Marxismo. L'ateismo, la gnosi, il "dialogo" con Galvano Della Volpe e con Lucien Goldmann, in iCentotalleri, Saonara (PD), il prato, Francesco Tibursi, Il pensiero di Augusto del Noce come Teoria sociale, in Andrea Millefiorini , Fenomenologia del disordine. Prospettive sull'irrazionale nella riflessione sociologica italiana, Societas, Roma, Nuova Cultura, Xavier Tilliette, Omaggi. Filosofi italiani del nostro tempo, traduzione di G. Sansonetti, Brescia, Morcelliana, Natascia Villani, Marxismo ateismo secolarizzazione. Dialogo aperto con Augusto del Noce, in Pensiero giurdico. Saggi, Napoli, Editoriale Scientifica,  Augusto Del Noce, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.  Repertori Bibliografici, su centenariodelnoce.it). La metafisica civile di Augusto Del Noce: ontologismo e liberalismo dalla rivista telematica di filosofia Dialeghesthai. Pietro Ratto, Laicità e Democrazia: da Del Noce a Giotto, su BoscoCeduo, 15 maggio 2007. Democrazia e modernità in Augusto Del Noce, articolo dal mensile 30Giorni. L'inseparabilità dei Tre. La modernità, di Andrea Fiamma Centro Culturale,//centrodelnoce.it. Fondazione //fondazioneaugustodelnoce.net. centenariodelnoce.it. Articoli di Del Noce «Il dialogo tra la Chiesa e la cultura moderna» da Studi Cattolici. «L'errore di Mounier» da Il Tempo. «Risposte alla scristianità» da Il Sabato. «La sconfitta del modernismo» da Il Tempo. «La morale comune dell'Ottocento e la morale di oggi», tratto da Il problema della morale oggi. «Rivoluzione gramsciana», tratto da Il suicidio della rivoluzione. «Origini dell'indifferenza morale» da Il Tempo. «Le origini dell'indifferenza religiosa» da Il Tempo. «Religione civile e secolarizzazione» da Il Tempo. «Un dramma europeo: il dissenso cattolico» da Corriere della Sera. «Questi poveri cattolici minacciati dal suicidio»[collegamento interrotto] da Il Sabato «In stato di porno-assedio»[collegamento interrotto] da Il Sabato. «La più grande vergogna del nostro secolo» da Il Sabato. «Fu vera gloria? La resistenza 40 anni dopo»[collegamento interrotto], tratto da Litterae Communionis. «Una colomba, non un santo (caso Bukarin)» da Il Sabato. «Intensità d'una gran illusione (Dossetti e dossettismo)»[collegamento interrotto] da Il Sabato. «L'antifascismo di comodo» da Corriere della Sera. «Togliatti? Un perfetto gramsciano. Polemica su Gramsci»[collegamento interrotto] da Il Sabato. «Il nazi contagio»[collegamento interrotto] da Il Sabato. «La morale catto-comunista»[collegamento interrotto] da Il Sabato. «Abbasso Mazzini» da Il Sabato. «I lumi sull'Italia»[collegamento interrotto] da Il Sabato. «Recensione del romanzo di Benson "Il Padrone del mondo"» dal mensile 30Giorni. «Filo rosso da Mosca a Berlino (Hitler-Stalin)»[collegamento interrotto] da Il Sabato. «Le connessioni tra filosofia e politica»[collegamento interrotto] da Il Tempo. «Pci, l'impossibile conversione»[collegamento interrotto] tratto da Prospettive nel mondo. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, "Grice e del Noce," per Il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

 

nola: Gice: “At Oxford, we are proud of our philosophy, at Bologna, and in Italy in general, they are proud of their physicians, as they call them – students of nature!” -- Giovanni andrea de nola (Crotone), filosofo. -- Stemma della famiglia Nola Molise Coat of arms of the House of Nola Molise.jpg Blasonatura Un campo d’argento con una sbarra torchina, dentro la quale sono tre scudi d’arme di color d’oro. Di origini napoletane e zio di Molisi, insegnò per lungo tempo a Napoli. Discepolo di Altomare, divenne noto per sua opera, “Quod sedimentum sanorum, aegrorumque corporum non sit eiusdem speciei aduersus Ferdinandum Cassanum & alios contrarium sentientes.” Opere: “Quod sedimentum sanorum, aegrorumque corporum non sit eiusdem speciei aduersus Ferdinandum Cassanum & alios contrarium sentientes. Giustino Marruncelli, Elementi dell'arte di ragionare in medicina, Napoli, Gabinetto Bibliografico e Tipografico, Salvatore de Renzi, Storia della medicina Italiana, Napoli, Tipografia del Filiatre-Sebezio, National Library of Medicine, Catalog: Washington, Library of Congress, Adalberto Pazzini, La Calabria nella storia della medicina, Roma,  Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science: The sixteenth century, Londra, Macmillan,  Lavoro critico, Bari, Dedalo Libri, 1975.  Giovanni Andrea de Nola, Google Books. 19 maggio . La Famiglia dei Nola Molise, Archivio storico di Crotone.

 

Noeticus -- Nous: Grice’s favourite formation from nous is ‘noetic’, noeticthe opposite of the favourite Griceian sub-disipline in philosophy, aesthetics -- from Grecian noetikos, from noetos, ‘perceiving’, of or relating to apprehension by the intellect. In a strict sense the term refers to nonsensuous data given to the cognitive faculty, which discloses their intelligible meaning as distinguished from their sensible apprehension. We hear a sentence spoken, but it becomes intelligible for us only when the sounds function as a foundation for noetic apprehension. For Plato, the objects of such apprehension noetá are the Forms eide with respect to which the sensible phenomena are only occasions of manifestation: the Forms in themselves transcend the sensible and have their being in a realm apart. For empiricist thinkers, e.g., Locke, there is strictly speaking no distinct noetic aspect, since “ideas” are only faint sense impressions. In a looser sense, however, one may speak of ideas as independent of reference to particular sense impressions, i.e. independent of their origin, and then an idea can be taken to signify a class of objects. Husserl uses the term to describe the intentionality or dyadic character of consciousness in general, i.e. including both eidetic or categorial and perceptual knowing. He speaks of the correlation of noesis or intending and noema or the intended object of awareness. The categorial or eidetic is the perceptual object as intellectually cognized; it is not a realm apart, but rather what is disclosed or made present “constituted” Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu noetic 617    617 when the mode of appearance of the perceptual object is intended by a categorial noesis. 

 

euclidean/non-euclideeian distinction, the:as applied to geometry. H. P. Grice, “Non-Euclidean implicatura of space”“Non-Euclidean geometrical implicaturaNone-euclidean geometry refers to any axiomatized version of geometry in which Euclides’s parallel axiom is rejected, after so many unsuccessful attempts to prove it. As in so many branches of mathematics, Gauss had thought out much of the matter first, but he kept most of his ideas to himself. As a result, credit is given to Bolyai and Lobachevsky. Instead of assuming that just one line passes through a point in a plane parallel to a non-coincident co-planar line, Bolyai and Loachevsky offer a geometry in which a line admits more than one parallel, and the sum of the “angles” between the “sides” of a “triangle” lies below 180°. Then Riemann conceived of a geometry in which lines always meet so no parallels, and the sum of the “angles” exceeds 180°. In this connection Riemann distinguishes between the unboundedness of space as a property of its extent, and the special case of the infinite measure over which distance might be taken which is dependent upon the curvature of that space. Pursuing the published insight of Gauss, that the curvature of a surface could be defined in terms only of properties dependent solely on the surface itself and later called “intrinsic”, Riemann also defines the metric on a surface in a very general and intrinsic way, in terms of the differential arc length. Thereby he clarified the ideas of “distance” that his non-Euclidean precursors had introduced drawing on trigonometric and hyperbolic functions; arc length was now understood geodesically as the shortest “distance” between two “points” on a surface, and was specified independent of any assumptions of a geometry within which the surface was embedded. Further properties, such as that pertaining to the “volume” of a three-“dimensional” solid, were also studied. The two main types of non-Euclidean geometry, and its Euclidean parent, may be summarized as follows: Reaction to these geometries was slow to develop, but their impact gradually emerged. As mathematics, their legitimacy was doubted; but Beltrami produced a model of a Bolyai-type two-dimensional space inside a planar circle. The importance of this model was to show that the consistency of this geometry depended upon that of the Euclidean version, thereby dispelling the fear that it was an inconsistent flash of the imagination. During the last thirty years of the nineteenth century a variety of variant geometries were proposed, and the relationships between them were studied, together with consequences for projective geometry. On the empirical side, these geometries, and especially Riemann’s approach, affected the understanding of the relationship between geometry and space; in particular, it posed the question whether space is curved or not the later being the Euclidean answer. The geometries thus played a role in the emergence and articulation of relativity theory, especially the differential geometry and tensorial calculus within which its mathematical properties could be expressed. Philosophically the new geometries stressed the hypothetical nature of axiomatizing, in contrast to the customary view of mathematical theories as true in some usually unclear sense. This feature led to the name ‘meta-geometry’ for them. It was intended as an ironical proposal of opponents to be in line with the hypothetical character of meta-physics (and meta-ethics) in philosophy. They also helped to encourage conventionalist philosophy of science with Poincaré, e.g., and put fresh light on the age-old question of the impossibility of a priori knowledge. 

 

Mono-tonic/non-monotonice distinction, the: Grice: “It may be argued that we do not need ‘polytonic,’ just a concept that NEGATES monotonebut since at Clifton I learned about Grecian polytonicity, I like the idea!” -- “On occasion, the semantics of implicatura is non-monotonic, i. e. a logic that fails to be monotonic -- i.e., in proof-theoretic terms, fails to meet the condition that for all statements u1, . . . un, if f,y, if ‘u1, . . . un Yf’, for any y, ‘u1 , . . . un, y Y f’. Equivalently, let Γ represent a collection of statements, u1 . . . un, and say that in a monotonic system, such as system G (after Grice), if ‘Γ Y f’, for any y, ‘Γ, y Y f’ and similarly in other cases. A non-monotonic system is any system with the following property: For some Γ, f, and y, ‘ΓNML f’ but ‘Γ, y K!NML f’. This is what Grice calls a “weak” non-monotonic system G-w-n-m. In contrast, in a “strong” non-monotonic systemG-s-n-m, we might have, again for some Γ, f, y, where Γ is consistent and Γ 8 f is consistent: ‘Γ, y YNML > f’. A primary motivation for Grice for a non-monotonic system or defeasible reasoning, which is so evident in conversational reasoning, is to produce a representation for default (ceteris paribus) reasoning or defeasible reasoning. Grice’s interest in defeasible (or ceteris paribus) reasoningfor conversational implicatura -- readily spreads to epistemology, logic, and meta-ethics. The exigencies of this or that practical affair requires leaping to conclusions, going beyond available evidence, making assumptions. In doing so, Grice often errs and must leap back from his conclusion, undo his assumption, revise his belief. In Grice’s standard example, “Tweety is a bird and all birds fly, except penguins and ostriches. Does Tweety fly?” If pressed, Grice needs to form a belief about this matter. Upon discovering that Tweety is a penguin, Grice may have to re-tract his conclusion. Any representation of defeasible (or ceteris paribus) reasoning must capture the non-monotonicity of this reasoning. A non-monotonic system G-s-n-m is an attempt to do this by adding this or that rule of inference that does not preserve monotonicity. Although a practical affair may require Grice to reason “defeasibly”an adverb Grice borrowed from Hart -- the best way to achieve non-monotonicity may not be to add this or that non-monotonic rule of inference to System G. What one gives up in such system may well not be worth the cost: loss of the deduction theorem and of a coherent notion of consistency. Therefore, Grice’s challenge for a non-monotonic system and for defeasible reasoning, generally is to develop a rigorous way to re-present the structure of non-monotonic reasoning without losing or abandoning this or that historically hard-won propertiy of a monotonic system. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Monotonicity, and Polytonicity.” G. P. Baker, “Meaning and defeasibility,” in festschrift for H. L. A. Hart; R. Hall, “Excluders;” H. P. Grice, “Ceteris paribus and defeasibility.”

 

Non-violence: H. P. Grice joined the Royal Navy in 1941and served till 1945, earning the degree of captain. He was involved in the North-Atlantic theatre and later at the Admiralty. Non-violence is the renunciation of violence in personal, social, or international affairs. It often includes a commitment called active nonviolence or nonviolent direct action actively to oppose violence and usually evil or injustice as well by nonviolent means. Nonviolence may renounce physical violence alone or both physical and psychological violence. It may represent a purely personal commitment or be intended to be normative for others as well. When unconditional  absolute    619 norm normative relativism 620 nonviolence  it renounces violence in all actual and hypothetical circumstances. When conditional  conditional nonviolence  it concedes the justifiability of violence in hypothetical circumstances but denies it in practice. Held on moral grounds principled nonviolence, the commitment belongs to an ethics of conduct or an ethics of virtue. If the former, it will likely be expressed as a moral rule or principle e.g., One ought always to act nonviolently to guide action. If the latter, it will urge cultivating the traits and dispositions of a nonviolent character which presumably then will be expressed in nonviolent action. As a principle, nonviolence may be considered either basic or derivative. Either way, its justification will be either utilitarian or deontological. Held on non-moral grounds pragmatic nonviolence, nonviolence is a means to specific social, political, economic, or other ends, themselves held on non-moral grounds. Its justification lies in its effectiveness for these limited purposes rather than as a way of life or a guide to conduct in general. An alternative source of power, it may then be used in the service of evil as well as good. Nonviolent social action, whether of a principled or pragmatic sort, may include noncooperation, mass demonstrations, marches, strikes, boycotts, and civil disobedience  techniques explored extensively in the writings of Gene Sharp. Undertaken in defense of an entire nation or state, nonviolence provides an alternative to war. It seeks to deny an invading or occupying force the capacity to attain its objectives by withholding the cooperation of the populace needed for effective rule and by nonviolent direct action, including civil disobedience. It may also be used against oppressive domestic rule or on behalf of social justice. Gandhi’s campaign against British rule in India, Scandinavian resistance to Nazi occupation during World War II, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s actions on behalf of civil rights in the United States are illustrative. Nonviolence has origins in Far Eastern thought, particularly Taoism and Jainism. It has strands in the Jewish Talmud, and many find it implied by the New Testament’s Sermon on the Mount. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “My Royal Navy days: memoirs of a captain.”

 

Norma: Grice: “Italians think that ‘norma’ is related to ‘gnorma,’ and thus to knowledge – Fascinating!” -- Latin ‘norma’ -- normal/non-normal distinction, the: Grice: I shall refer to the ‘normal form’ as a formula equivalent to a given  formula, but having special properties. The main varieties follow. A Conjunctive normal form. If D1 . . . Dn are disjunctions of sentential variables or their negations, such as p 7 -q 7 r, a formula F is in  what I shall call “conjunctive normal form” provided F % D1 & D2 & . . & Dn. The following are in conjunctive normal form: -p 7 q; p 7 q 7 r & -p 7 -q 7 -r & -q 7 r. Every formula of Grice’s predicate calculusSystem G, Gricese --  has an equivalent “conjunctive normal form.” This fact can be used to prove the completeness of sentential logic. Disjunctive normal form. If C1 . . . Cn are conjunctions of sentential variables or their negations, such as p & -q & -r,  a formula F is in what I shall call “disjunctive normal form” provided F % C1 7 C27 . . Cn. The following are thus in disjunctive normal form: p & -q 7 -p & q; p & q & -r 7 -p & -q & -r. Every formula of sentential logic has an equivalent disjunctive normal form. Prenex normal form. A formula of Grice’s predicate calculussystem G, Gricese -- is in what Grice calls “prenex normal form” if 1 every quantifier occurs at the beginning of the formula, 2 the scope of the quantifiers extends to the end of the formula, and 3 what follows the quantifiers contains at least one occurrence of every variable that appears in the set of quantifiers. Thus, DxDyFx / Gy and xDyzFxy 7 Gyz / Dxyz are in what I shall call “prenex normal form.” The formula may contain free variables; thus, Dxy Fxyz / Gwyx is also in prenex normal form. The following, however, are not in prenex normal form: xDy Fx / Gx; xy Fxy / Gxy. Every formula of Grice’s predicate calculusSystem G, Gricese -- has an equivalent formula in prenex normal form. A formula F in predicate logic is in what Grice, as a tribute to Skolem, calls the “Skolem normal form” provided 1 F is in prenex normal form, 2 every existential quantifier precedes any universal quantifier, 3 F contains at least one existential quantifier, and 4 F contains no free variables. Thus, DxDy zFxy / Gyz and DxDyDzwFxy 7 Fyz 7 Fzw are in Skolem normal form; however, Dx y Fxyz and x y Fxy 7 Gyx are not. Any formula has an equivalent Skolem normal form. “This has implications for the lack of completeness of my predicate calculusbut do I worry?”. Refs.: Grice, “Normal and abnormal forms: a logical introduction.” 

 

notum:  Grice: “Originally, gnotum, as in ignotum.”” Grice was slightly obsessed with “know,” Latin ‘notumnosco’ -- nosco , nōvi, nōtum, 3 (old form, GNOSCO, GNOVI, GNOTVM, acc. to Prisc. p. 569 P.; I.inf. pass. GNOSCIER, S. C. de Bacch.; cf. GNOTV, cognitu, Paul. ex Fest. p. 96 Müll.: GNOT (contr. for gnovit) οἶδεν, ἐπιγινώσκει; GNOTV, γνῶσιν, διάγνωσιν, Gloss. Labb.—Contr. forms in class. Lat. are nosti, noram, norim. nosse; nomus for novimus: nomus ambo Ulixem, Enn. ap. Diom. p. 382 P., or Trag. v. 199 Vahl.), v. a. for gnosco, from the root gno; Gr. γιγνώσκω, to begin to know, to get a knowledge of, become acquainted with, come to know a thing (syn.: scio, calleo). I. Lit. 1. (α). Tem praes.: “cum igitur, nosce te, dicit, hoc dicit, nosce animum tuum,” Cic. Tusc. 1, 22, 52: Me. Sauream non novi. Li. At nosce sane, Plaut. As. 2, 4, 58; cf.: Ch. Nosce signum. Ni. Novi, id. Bacch. 4, 6, 19; id. Poen. 4, 2, 71: “(Juppiter) nos per gentes alium alia disparat, Hominum qui facta, mores, pietatem et fidem noscamus,” id. Rud. prol. 12; id. Stich. 1, 1, 4: “id esse verum, cuivis facile est noscere,” Ter. Ad. 5, 4, 8: “ut noscere possis quidque,” Lucr. 1, 190; 2, 832; 3, 124; 418; 588; Cic. Rep. 1, 41, 64: deus ille, quem mente noscimus, id. N. D. 1, 14, 37.—Pass.: “EAM (tabulam) FIGIER IOVBEATIS, VBEI FACILVMED GNOSCIER POTISIT, S. C. de Bacch.: forma in tenebris nosci non quita est, Ter Hec. 4, 1, 57 sq.: omnes philosophiae partes tum facile noscuntur, cum, etc.,” Cic. N. D. 1, 4, 9: philosophiae praecepta noscenda, id. Fragm. ap. Lact. 3, 14: “nullique videnda, Voce tamen noscar,” Ov. M. 14, 153: “nec noscitur ulli,” by any one, id. Tr. 1, 5, 29: “noscere provinciam, nosci exercitui,” by the army, Tac. Agr. 5.— (β). Temppperf., to have become acquainted with, to have learned, to know: “si me novisti minus,” Plaut. Aul. 4, 10, 47: “Cylindrus ego sum, non nosti nomen meum?” id. Men. 2, 2, 20: “novi rem omnem,” Ter. And. 4, 4, 50: “qui non leges, non instituta ... non jura noritis,” Cic. Pis. 13, 30: “plerique neque in rebus humanis quidquam bonum norunt, nisi, etc.,” id. Lael. 21, 79: “quam (virtutem) tu ne de facie quidem nosti,” id. Pis. 32, 81; id. Fin. 2, 22, 71: “si ego hos bene novi,” if I know them well, id. Rosc. Am. 20 fin.: si Caesarem bene novi, Balb. ap. Cic. Att. 9, 7, B, 2: “Lepidum pulchre noram,” Cic. Fam. 10, 23, 1: “si tuos digitos novi,” id. Att. 5, 21, 13: “res gestas de libris novisse,” to have learned from books, Lact. 5, 19, 15: “nosse Graece, etc. (late Lat. for scire),” Aug. Serm. 45, 5; 167, 40 al.: “ut ibi esses, ubi nec Pelopidarum—nosti cetera,” Cic. Fam. 7, 28, 2; Plin. Ep. 3, 9, 11.— 2. To examine, consider: “ad res suas noscendas,” Liv. 10, 20: “imaginem,” Plaut. Ps. 4, 2, 29.—So esp., to take cognizance of as a judge: “quae olim a praetoribus noscebantur,” Tac. A. 12, 60.— II. Transf., in the tem praes. A. In gen., to know, recognize (rare; perh. not in Cic.): hau nosco tuom, I know your (character, etc.), i. e. I know you no longer, Plaut. Trin. 2, 4, 44: “nosce imaginem,” id. Ps. 4, 2, 29; id. Bacch. 4, 6, 19: “potesne ex his ut proprium quid noscere?” Hor. S. 2, 7, 89; Tac. H. 1, 90.— B. In partic., to acknowledge, allow, admit of a reason or an excuse (in Cic.): “numquam amatoris meretricem oportet causam noscere, Quin, etc.,” Plaut. Truc. 2, 1, 18: “illam partem excusationis ... nec nosco, nec probo,” Cic. Fam. 4, 4, 1; cf.: “quod te excusas: ego vero et tuas causas nosco, et, etc.,” id. Att. 11, 7, 4: “atque vereor, ne istam causam nemo noscat,” id. Leg. 1, 4, 11.— III. Transf. in tem perf. A. To be acquainted with, i. e. to practise, possess: “alia vitia non nosse,” Sen. Q. N. 4 praef. § 9.— B. In mal. part., to know (in paronomasia), Plaut. Most. 4, 2, 13; id. Pers. 1, 3, 51.— IV. (Eccl. Lat.) Of religious knowledge: “non noverant Dominum,” Vulg. Judic. 2, 12; ib. 2 Thess. 1, 8: “Jesum novi, Paulum scio,” I acknowledge, ib. Act. 19, 15.—Hence, nōtus , a, uma., known. A. Lit.: “nisi rem tam notam esse omnibus et tam manifestam videres,” Cic. Verr. 2, 3, 58, 134: “ejusmodi res ita notas, ita testatas, ita manifestas proferam,” id. ib. 2, 2, 34, § “85: fingi haec putatis, quae patent, quae nota sunt omnibus, quae tenentur?” id. Mil. 28, 76: “noti atque insignes latrones,” id. Phil. 11, 5, 10: “habere omnes philosophiae notos et tractatos locos,” id. Or. 33, 118: “facere aliquid alicui notum,” id. Fam. 5, 12, 7: “tua nobilitas hominibus litteratis est notior, populo obscurior,” id. Mur. 7, 16: “nullus fuit civis Romanus paulo notior, quin, etc.,” Caes. B. C. 2, 19: “vita P. Sullae vobis populoque Romano notissima,” Cic. Sull. 26, 72: “nulli nota domus sua,” Juv. 1, 7.— (β). With gen. (poet.): “notus in fratres animi paterni,” Hor. C. 2, 2, 6: noti operum Telchines. Stat. Th. 2, 274: “notusque fugarum, Vertit terga,” Sil. 17, 148.— (γ). With subj.-clause: “notum est, cur, etc.,” Juv. 2, 58.— (δ). With inf. (poet.): “Delius, Trojanos notus semper minuisse labores,” Sil. 12, 331.— 2. In partic. a. Subst.: nōti , acquaintances, friends: “de dignitate M. Caelius notis ac majoribus natu ... respondet,” Cic. Cael. 2, 3: “hi suos notos hospitesque quaerebant,” Caes. B. C. 1, 74, 5; Hor. S. 1, 1, 85; Verg. Cir. 259.— b. In a bad sense, notorious: “notissimi latronum duces,” Cic. Fam. 10, 14, 1: “integrae Temptator Orion Dianae,” Hor. C. 3, 4, 70; Ov. M. 1, 198: “Clodia, mulier non solum nobilis sed etiam nota,” Cic. Cael. 13, 31; cf. Cic. Verr. 1, 6, 15: “moechorum notissimus,” Juv. 6, 42.— B. Transf., act., knowing, that knows: novi, notis praedicas, to those that know, Plaut. Ps. 4, 2, 39.Chisholm: r. m. influential  philosopher whose publications spanned the field, including ethics and the history of philosophy. He is mainly known as an epistemologist, metaphysician, and philosopher of mind. In early opposition to powerful forms of reductionism, such as phenomenalism, extensionalism, and physicalism, Chisholm developed an original philosophy of his own. Educated at Brown and Harvard Ph.D., 2, he spent nearly his entire career at Brown. He is known chiefly for the following contributions. a Together with his teacher and later his colleague at Brown, C. J. Ducasse, he developed and long defended an adverbial account of sensory experience, set against the sense-datum act-object account then dominant. b Based on deeply probing analysis of the free will problematic, he defended a libertarian position, again in opposition to the compatibilism long orthodox in analytic circles. His libertarianism had, moreover, an unusual account of agency, based on distinguishing transeunt event causation from immanent agent causation. c In opposition to the celebrated linguistic turn of linguistic philosophy, he defended the primacy of intentionality, a defense made famous not only through important papers, but also through his extensive and eventually published correspondence with Wilfrid Sellars. d Quick to recognize the importance and distinctiveness of the de se, he welcomed it as a basis for much de re thought. e His realist ontology is developed through an intentional concept of “entailment,” used to define key concepts of his system, and to provide criteria of identity for occupants of fundamental categories. f In epistemology, he famously defended forms of foundationalism and internalism, and offered a delicately argued dissolution of the ancient problem of the criterion. The principles of Chisholm’s epistemology and metaphysics are not laid down antecedently as hard-and-fast axioms. Lacking any inviolable antecedent privilege, they must pass muster in the light of their consequences and by comparison with whatever else we may find plausible. In this regard he sharply contrasts with such epistemologists as Popper, with the skepticism of justification attendant on his deductivism, and Quine, whose stranded naturalism drives so much of his radical epistemology and metaphysics. By contrast, Chisholm has no antecedently set epistemic or metaphysical principles. His philosophical views develop rather dialectically, with sensitivity to whatever considerations, examples, or counterexamples reflection may reveal as relevant. This makes for a demanding complexity of elaboration, relieved, however, by a powerful drive for ontological and conceptual economy.  notum per se Latin, ‘known through itself’, self-evident. This term corresponds roughly to the term ‘analytic’. In Thomistic theology, there are two ways for a thing to be self-evident, secundum se in itself and quoad nos to us. The proposition that God exists is self-evident in itself, because God’s existence is identical with his essence; but it is not self-evident to us humans, because humans are not directly acquainted with God’s essence.Aquinas’s Summa theologiae I, q.2,a.1,c. For Grice, by uttering “Smith knows that p,” the emisor explicitly conveys, via semantic truth-conditional entailment, that (1) p; (2) Smith believes that p; (3) if (1), (2); and conversationally implicates, in a defeasible pragmatic way, explainable by his adherence to the principle of conversational co-operation, that Smith is guaranteeing that p.”Refs.: H. P. Grice, “The monosemy of ‘know’,” H. P. Grice, “The implicatura of ‘know;’” H. P. Grice, “’I know’ and ‘I guarantee’;” H. P. Grice, “Austin’s performatory fallacy on ‘know’ and ‘guarantee.’”

 

CVM-VENIRE – Grice: There’s ‘cum-venire’, and there is ‘de-venire,’ -- conventional/non-conventional distinction, the: “If I were to rename all my taxonomies, I would say I have always been unconventional, and that it was not convention I’m interested, but unconventionality --. Grice: “Philosophers and the unconventional.” “Implicature and the unconventional philosopher.” -- “If I have to chose, I chose non-conventional, but I don’t have to, so I shall use ‘unconventional.’” -- Unfortunately, Grice never came up with a word or sobriquet for the non-conventional, and kept using the ‘non-conventional.’ Similarly, he never came up with a positive way to refer to the non-natural, and non-natural it remained. Luckily, we can take it as a joke. Convention figures TWICE in Grice’s scheme. For his reductive analysis of communication, he surely can avoid convention by relying on a self-referring anti-sneaky clause. But when it comes to the ‘taxonomy’ of the ‘shades’ of implication, he wants the emissor to implicate that p WITHOUT relying on a convention. If the emissor RELIES on a convention, there are problems for his analysis. Why? First, at the explicit level, it can be assumed that conventions will feature (Smith’s dog is ‘by convention’ called ‘Fido”). At the level of the implied, there are two ways where convention matters in a wrong way. “My neighbour’s three-year-old is an adult” FLOUTS a conventionor meaning postulate. And it corresponds to the entailment. But finally, there is a third realm of the conventional. For particles like “therefore,” or ‘but.’ “But” Grice does not care much about, but ‘therefore’ he does. He wants to say that ‘therefore’ is mainly emphatic.The emissor implies a passage from premise to conclusion. And that implication relies on a convention YET it is not part of the entailment. So basically, it is an otiose addition. Why would rational conversationalists rely on them? The rationale for this is that Grice wants to provide a GENERAL theory of communication that will defeat Austin’s convention-tied ritualistic view of language. So Grice needs his crucial philosophical refutations NOT to rely on convention. What relies on convention cannot be cancellable. What doesn’t can. I an item relies on convention it has not really redeemed from that part of the communicative act that can not be explained rationally by argument. There is no way to calculate a conventional item. It is just a given. And Grice is interested in providing a rationale. His whole campaign relates to this idea that Austin has rushed, having detected a nuance in a linguistic phenomenon, to explain it away, without having explored in detail what kind of nuance it is. For Grice it is NOT a conventional nuanceit’s a sous-entendu of conversation (as Mill has it), an unnecessary implication (as Russell has it). Why did Grice chose ‘convention’? The influence of Lewis seems minor, because he touches on the topic in “Causal Theory,” before Lewis. The word ‘convention’ does NOT occur in “Causal Theory,” though. But there are phrasings to that effect. Notably, let us consider his commentary in the reprint, when he omits the excursus. He says that he presents FOUR cases: a particularized conversational (‘beautiful handwriting’), a generalised conversational (“in the kitchen or in the bedroom”), a ‘conventional implicaturum’ (“She was poor but she was honest”) and a presupposition (“You have not ceased to eat iron”). So the obvious target for exploration is the third, where Grice has the rubric ‘convention,’ as per ‘conventional.’ So his expansion on the ‘but’ example (what Frege has as ‘colouring’ of “aber”) is interesting to revise. “plied is that Smith has been bcating his wifc. (2) " She was poor but she was honcst ", whele what is implied is (vcry roughly) that there is some contrast between poverty and honesty, or between her poverty and her honesty. The first cxample is a stock case of what is sometimes called " prcsupposition " and it is often held that here 1he truth of what is irnplicd is a necessary condition of the original statement's beirrg cither true or false. This might be disputed, but it is at lcast arguable that it is so, and its being arguable might be enough to distinguish-this type of case from others. I shall however for convenience assume that the common view mentioned is correct. This consideration clearly distinguishes (1) from (2); even if the implied proposition were false, i.e. if there were no reason in the world to contrast poverty with honesty either in general or in her case, the original statement could still be false; it would be false if for example she were rich and dishonest. One might perhaps be less comfortable about assenting to its truth if the implied contrast did not in fact obtain; but the possibility of falsity is enough for the immediate purpose. My next experiment on these examples is to ask what it is in each case which could properly be said to be the vehicle of implication (to do the implying). There are at least four candidates, not necessarily mutually exclusive. Supposing someone to have uttered one or other of my sample sentences, we may ask whether the vehicle of implication would be (a) what the speaker said (or asserted), or (b) the speaker (" did he imply that . . . .':) or (c) the words the speaker used, or (d) his saying that (or again his saying that in that way); or possibly some plurality of these items. As regards (a) I think (1) and (2) differ; I think it would be correct to say in the case of (l) that what he speaker said (or asserted) implied that Smith had been beating this wife, and incorrect to say in the case of (2) that what te said (or asserted) implied that there was a contrast between e.g., honesty and poverty. A test on which I would rely is the following : if accepting that the implication holds involves one in r27 128 H. P. GRICE accepting an hypothetical' if p then q ' where 'p ' represents the original statement and ' q' represents what is implied, then what the speaker said (or asserted) is a vehicle of implication, otherwise not. To apply this rule to the given examples, if I accepted the implication alleged to hold in the case of (1), I should feel compelled to accept the hypothetical " If Smith has left off beating his wife, then he has been beating her "; whereas if I accepted the alleged implication in the case of (2), I should not feel compelled to accept the hypothetical " If she was poor but honest, then there is some contrast between poverty and honesty, or between her poverty and her honesty." The other candidates can be dealt with more cursorily; I should be inclined to say with regard to both (l) and (2) that the speaker could be said to have implied whatever it is that is irnplied; that in the case of (2) it seems fairly clear that the speaker's words could be said to imply a contrast, whereas it is much less clear whether in the case of (1) the speaker's words could be said to imply that Smith had been beating his wife; and that in neither case would it be evidently appropriate to speak of his saying that, or of his saying that in that way, as implying what is implied. The third idea with which I wish to assail my two examples is really a twin idea, that of the detachability or cancellability of the implication. (These terms will be explained.) Consider example (1): one cannot fi.nd a form of words which could be used to state or assert just what the sentence " Smith has left off beating his wife " might be used to assert such that when it is used the implication that Smith has been beating his wife is just absent. Any way of asserting what is asserted in (1) involves the irnplication in question. I shall express this fact by saying that in the case of (l) the implication is not detqchable from what is asserted (or simpliciter, is not detachable). Furthermore, one cannot take a form of words for which both what is asserted and what is implied is the same as for (l), and then add a further clause withholding commitment from what would otherwise be implied, with the idea of annulling the implication without annulling the assertion. One cannot intelligibly say " Smith has left off beating his wife but I do not mean to imply that he has been beating her." I shall express this fact by saying that in the case of (1) the implication is not cancellable (without THE CAUSAL THEORY OF PERCEPTION r29 cancelling the assertion). If we turn to (2) we find, I think, that there is quite a strong case for saying that here the implication ls detachable. Thcrc sccms quitc a good case for maintaining that if, instead of sayirrg " She is poor but shc is honcst " I were to say " She is poor and slre is honcst", I would assert just what I would havc asscrtcct ii I had used thc original senterrce; but there would now be no irnplication of a contrast between e.g', povery and honesty. But the question whether, in tl-re case of (2), thc inrplication is cancellable, is slightly more cornplex. Thcrc is a sonse in which we may say that it is non-cancellable; if sorncone were to say " She is poor but she is honest, though of course I do not mean to imply that there is any contrast between poverty and honesty ", this would seem a puzzling and eccentric thing to have said; but though we should wish to quarrel with the speaker, I do not think we should go so far as to say that his utterance was unintelligible; we should suppose that he had adopted a most peculiar way of conveying the the news that she was poor and honesl. The fourth and last test that I wish to impose on my exarnples is to ask whether we would be inclined to regard the fact that the appropriate implication is present as being a matter of the meaning of some particular word or phrase occurring in the sentences in question. I am aware that this may not be always a very clear or easy question to answer; nevertheless Iwill risk the assertion that we would be fairly happy to say that, as regards (2), the factthat the implication obtains is a matter of the meaning of the word ' but '; whereas so far as (l) is concerned we should have at least some inclination to say that the presence of the implication was a matter of the meaning of some of the words in the sentence, but we should be in some difficulty when it came to specifying precisely which this word, or words are, of which this is true.” Since the actual wording ‘convention’ does not occur it may do to revise how he words ‘convention’ in Essay 2 of WoW. So here is the way he words it in Essay II.“In some cases the CONVENTIONAL meaning of the WORDS used will DETERMINE what is impliccated, besides helping to determine what is said.” Where ‘determine’ is the key word. It’s not “REASON,” conversational reason that determines it. “If I say (smugly), ‘He is an Englishman; he is, therefore, brave,’ I have certainly COMMITTED myself, by virtue of the meaning of my words, to its being the case that his being brave is a consequence of (follows from) his being an Englishman. But, while I have said that [or explicitly conveyed THAT] he is an Englishman, and [I also have] said that [or explicitly conveyed that] he is brave, I do not want to say [if I may play with what people conventionally understand by ‘convention’] that I have said [or explicitly conveyed] (in the favoured sense) that [or explicitly conveyed that] it follows from his being an Englishman that he is brave, though I have certainly INDICATED, and so implicated, that this is so.” The rationale as to why the label is ‘convention’ comes next. “I do not want to say that my utterance of this sentence would be, strictly speaking, FALSE should the consequence in question fail to hold. So some implicaturums are conventional, unlike the one with which I introduce this discussion of implicaturum.”Grice’s observation or suggestion then or advise then, in terms of nomenclature. His utterance WOULD be FALSE if the MEANING of ‘therefore’ were carried as an ENTAILMENT (rather than emphatic truth-value irrelevant rhetorical emphasis). He expands on this in The John Lecture, where Jill is challenged. “What do you mean, “Jack is an Englishman; he is, therefore, brave”?” What is being challenged is the validity of the consequence. ‘Therefore’ is vague enough NOT to specify what type of consequence is meant. So, should someone challenge the consequence, Jill would still be regarded by Grice as having uttered a TRUE utterance. The metabolism here is complex since it involves assignment of ‘meaning’ to this or that expression (in this case ‘therefore’). In Essay VI he is perhaps more systematic.The wider programme just mentioned arises out of a distinction which, for purposes which I need not here specify, I wish to make within the total signification of a remark: a distinction between what the speaker has said (in a certain favoured, and maybe in some degree artificial, sense of 'said'), and what he has 'implicated' (e.g. implied, indicated, suggested, etc.), taking into account the fact that what he has implicated may be either conventionally implicated (implicated by virtue of the meaning of some word or phrase which he has used) or non-conventionally implicated (in which case the specification of the implicaturum falls [TOTALLY] outside [AND INDEPENDENTLY, i. e. as NOT DETERMINED BY] the specification of the conventional meaning of the words used [Think ‘beautiful handwriting,’ think ‘In the kitchen or in the bedroom’). He is clearest in Essay 6where he adds ‘=p’ in the symbolization.UTTERER'S MEANING, SENTENCE-MEANING, AND WORD-MEANINGMy present aim is to throw light on the connection between (a) a notion of ‘meaning’ which I want to regard as basic, viz. that notion which is involved in saying of someone that ‘by’ (when) doing SUCH-AND-SUCH he means THAT SO-AND-SO (in what I have called a non-natural use of 'means'), and (b) the notions of meaning involved in saying First, that a given sentence means 'so-and-so' Second, that a given word or phrase means 'so-and-so'. What I have to say on these topics should be looked upon as an attempt to provide a sketch of what might, I hope, prove to be a viable theory, rather than as an attempt to provide any part of a finally acceptable theory. The account which I shall otTer of the (for me) basic notion of meaning is one which I shall not  seek now to defend.I should like its approximate correctness to be assumed, so that attention may be focused on its utility, if correct, in the explication of other and (I hope) derivative notions of meaning. This enterprise forms part of a wider programme which I shall in a moment delineate, though its later stages lie beyond the limits which I have set for this paper. The wider programme just mentioned arises out of a distinction which, for purposes which I need not here specify, I wish to make within the total signification of a remark: a distinction between what the speaker has said (in a certain favoured, and maybe in some degree artificial, sense of 'said'), and what he has 'implicated' (e.g. implied, indicated, suggested, etc.), taking into account the fact that what he has implicated may be either conventionally implicated (implicated by virtue of the meaning of some word or phrase which he has used) or non-conventionally implicated (in which case the specification of the implicaturum falls [TOTALLY] outside [AND INDEPENDENTLY, i. e. as NOT DETERMINED BY] the specification of the conventional meaning of the words used [Think ‘beautiful handwriting,’ think ‘In the kitchen or in the bedroom’). The programme is directed towards an explication of the favoured SENSE of 'say' and a clarification of its relation to the notion of conventional meaning. The stages of the programme are as folIows: First, To distinguish between locutions of the form 'U (utterer) meant that .. .' (locutions which specify what rnight be called 'occasion-meaning') and locutions of the From Foundalions oJ Language. 4 (1968),  1-18. Reprinted by permission of the author and the editor of Foundations oJ Language. I I hope that material in this paper, revised and re·arranged, will form part of a book to be published by the Harvard University Press.  form 'X (utterance-type) means H ••• "'. In locutions of the first type, meaning is specified without the use of quotation-marks, whereas in locutions of the second type the meaning of a sentence, word or phrase is specified with the aid of quotation marks. This difference is semantically important. Second, To attempt to provide a definiens for statements of occasion-meaning; more precisely, to provide a definiens for 'By (when) uttering x, U meant that *p'. Some explanatory comments are needed here. First, I use the term 'utter' (together with 'utterance') in an artificially wide sense, to cover any case of doing x or producing x by the performance of which U meant that so-and-so. The performance in question need not be a linguistic or even a conventionalized performance. A specificatory replacement of the dummy 'x' will in some cases be a characterization of a deed, in others a characterization of a product (e.g. asound). (b) '*' is a dummy mood-indicator, distinct from specific mood-indicators like 'I-' (indicative or assertive) or '!' (imperative). More precisely, one may think of the schema 'Jones meant that *p' as yielding a full English sentence after two transformation al steps: (i) replace '*' by a specific mood-indicator and replace 'p' by an indicative sentence. One might thus get to 'Jones meant that I- Smith will go home' or to 'Jones meant that! Smith will go horne'. (ii) replace the sequence following the word 'that' by an appropriate clause in indirect speech (in accordance with rules specified in a linguistic theory). One might thus get to 'Jones meant that Srnith will go horne' 'Jones meant that Srnith is to go horne'. Third, To attempt to elucidate the notion of the conventional meaning of an utterance-type; more precisely, to explicate sentences which make claims of the form 'X (utterance-type) means "*''', or, in case X is a non-scntcntial utterancctype, claims of the form 'X means H ••• "', where the location is completed by a nonsentential expression. Again, some explanatory comments are required. First, It will be convenient to recognize that what I shall call statements of timeless meaning (statements of the type 'X means " ... "', in which the ~pecification of meaning involves quotation-marks) may be subdivided into (i) statements of timeless 'idiolect-meaning', e.g. 'For U (in U's idiolect) X means " ... '" and (ü) statements of timeless 'Ianguage meaning', e.g. 'In L (language) X means " ... "'. It will be convenient to handle these separately, and in the order just given. (b) The truth of a statement to the effect that X means ' .. .' is of course not incompatible with the truth of a further statement to the effect that X me ans '--", when the two lacunae are quite differently completed. An utterance-type rriay have more than one conventional meaning, and any definiens which we offer must allow fOT this fact. 'X means " ... '" should be understood as 'One of the meanings of X is " ... " '. (IV) In view of the possibility of multiplicity in the timeless meaning of an utterance-type, we shall need to notice, and to provide an explication of, what I shall call the applied timeless meaning of an utterance-type. That is to say, we need a definiens for the schema 'X (utterance-type) meant here " ... "', a schema the specifications of which announce the correct reading of X for a given occasion of utterance. Comments. (a) We must be careful to distinguish the applied timeless meaning of X (type) with respecf to a particular token x (belonging to X) from the occasionmeaning of U's utterance of x. The following are not equivalent: (i) 'When U uttered it, the sentence "Palmer gave Nickiaus quite a beating" meant "Palmer vanquished Nickiaus with some ease" [rather than, say, "Palmer administered vigorous corporal punishment to NickIaus."]' (ii) 'When U uttered the sentence "Palmer gave NickIaus quite a beating" U meant that Palmer vanquished NickIaus with some ease.' U might have been speaking ironically, in which case he would very likely have meant that NickIaus vanquished Palmer with some ease. In that case (ii) would c1early be false; but nevertheless (i) would still have been true. Second, There is some temptation to take the view that the conjunction of One, 'By uttering X, U meant that *p' and (Two, 'When uttered by U, X meant "*p'" provides a definiens for 'In uttering X, U said [OR EXPLICITLY CONVEYED] that *p'. Indeed, ifwe give consideration only to utterance-types for which there are available adequate statements of time1ess meaning taking the exemplary form 'X meant "*p'" (or, in the case of applied time1ess meaning, the form 'X meant here "*p" '), it may even be possible to uphold the thesis that such a coincidence of occasion-meaning and applied time1ess meaning is a necessary and sufficient condition for saying that *p. But a litde refiection should convince us of the need to recognize the existence of statements of timeless meaning which instantiate forms other than the cited exemplary form. There are, I think, at least some sentences whose ‘timeless’ meaning is not adequately specifiable by a statement of the exemplary form. Consider the sentence 'Bill is a philosopher and he is, therefore, brave' (S ,). Or Jill: “Jack is an Englishman; he is, therefore, brave.”It would be appropriate, I think, to make a partial specification of the timeless meaning of S, by saying 'Part of one meaning of S, is "Bill is occupationally engaged in philosophical studies" '. One might, indeed, give a full specifu::ation of timeless meaning for S, by saying 'One meaning of S, inc1udes "Bill is occupationally engaged in philosophie al studies" and "Bill is courageous" and "[The fact] That Bill is courageous follows from his being occupationally engaged in philosophical studies", and that is all that is included'.  We might re-express this as 'One meaning of S, comprises "Bill is occupationally engaged (etc)", "Bill is courageous",  and "That Bill is eourageous follows (ete .)".'] It will be preferable to speeify the timeless meaning of S I in this way than to do so as folIows: 'One meaning of S I is "Bill is occupationally engaged (etc.) and Bill is courageous and that Bill is eourageous follows (ete.)" '; for this latter formulation at least suggests that SI is synonymous with the conjunctive sentence quoted in the formulation, whieh does not seem to be the case. Since it is true that another meaning of SI inc1udes 'Bill is addicted to general reftections about life' (vice 'Bill is occupationally engaged (etc.)'), one could have occasion to say (truly), with respect to a given utterance by U of SI' 'The meaning of SI HERE comprised "Bill is oecupationally engaged (ete.)", "Bill is eourageous", and "That Bill is courageous follows (ete.)"', or to say 'The meaning of S I HERE included "That Bill is courageous follows (etc.)" '. It could also be true that when U uttered SI he meant (part of what he meant was) that that Bill is eourageous follows (ete.). Now I do not wish to allow that, in my favoured sense of'say', one who utters SI will have said [OR EXPLICITLY CONVEYED ] that Bill's being courageous follows from his being a philosopher, though he may weil have said that Bill is a philosopher and that Bill is courageous. I would wish to maintain that the SEMANTIC FUNCTION of the 'therefore' is to enable a speaker to indicate, though not to say [or explicitly convey], that a certain consequenee holds. Mutatis mutandis, I would adopt the same position with regard to words like 'but' and 'moreover'. In the case of ‘but’contrast.In the case of ‘moreover,’ or ‘furthermore,’ the speaker is not explicitly conveying that he is adding; he is implicitly conveying that he is adding, and using the emphatic, colloquial, rhetorical, device. Much favoured by rhetoricians. To start a sentence with “Furthermore” is very common. To start a sentence, or subsentence with, “I say that in addition to the previous, the following also holds, viz.”My primary reason for opting for this partieular sense of'say' is that I expect it to be of greater theoretical utility than some OTHER sense of'say' [such as one held, say, by L. J. Cohen at Oxford] would be. So I shall be committed to the view that applied timeless meaning and occasion=meaning may coincide, that is to say, it may be true both First, that when U uttered X the meaning of X inc1uded '*p' and Second,  that part of what U meant when he uttered X was that *p, and yet be false that U has said, among other things, that *p. “I would like to use the expression 'conventionally meant that' in such a way that the fulfilment of the two conditions just mentioned, while insufficient for the truth of 'U said that *p' will be suffieient (and neeessary) for the truth of 'U conventionally meant that *p'.”The above is important because Grice is for the first time allowing the adverb ‘conventionally’ to apply not as he does in Essay I to ‘implicate’ but to ‘mean’ in generalwhich would INCLUDE what is EXPLICITLY CONVEYED. This will not be as central as he thinks he is here, because his exploration will be on the handwave which surely cannot be specified in terms of that the emissor CONVENTIONALLY MEANS.(V) This distinction between what is said [or explicity conveyed] and what is conventionally meant [or communicated, or conveyed simpliciter] creates the task of specifying the conditions in which what U conventionally means by an utterance is also part of what U said [or explicitly conveyed].I have hopes of being able to discharge this task by proceeding along the following lines.First, To specify conditions which will be satisfied only by a limited range of speech-acts, the members of which will thereby be stamped as specially central or fundamental. “Adding, contrasting, and reasoning” will not. Second, To stipulate that in uttering X [utterance type], U will have said [or explicitly conveyed] that *p, if both First, U has 1stFLOOR-ed that *p, where 1stFloor-ing is a CENTRAL speech-act [not adding, contrasting, or reasoning], and Second, X [the utterance type] embodies some CONVENTIONAL device [such as the mode of the copula] the meaning of which is such that its presence in X [the utterance type] indicates that its utterer is FIRST-FLOOR -ing that *p. Third, To define, for each member Y of the range of central speech-aets, 'U has Y -ed that *p' in terms of occasion-meaning (meaning that ... ) or in terms of some important elements) involved in the already provided definition of occasion-meaning. (VI) The fulfilment of the task just outlined will need to be supplemented by an account of this or that ELEMENT in the CONVENTIONAL MEANING of an utterance (such as one featuring ‘therefore,’ ‘but,’ or ‘moreover’) which is NOT part of what has been said [or explicitly conveyed].This account, at least for an important sub-class of such elements, might take the following shape: First, this or that problematic element is linked with this or that speech-act which is exhibited as posterior to, and such that their performance is dependent upon, some member or disjunction of members of the central, first-floor range; e. g. the meaning of 'moreover' would be linked with the speech-act of adding, the performance of which would require the performance of one or other of the central speech-acts.[and the meaning of ‘but’ with contrasting, and the meaning of ‘therefore’ with reasoning, or inferring].Second, If SECOND-FLOOR-ing is such a non-central speech-act [such as inferring/reasoning, contrasting, or adding], the dependence of SECOND-FLOOR-ing that *p upon the performance of some central FIRST-FLOOR speech-act [such as stating or ordering] would have to be shown to be of a nature which justifies a RELUCTANCE to treat SECOND-FLOOR-ing (e. g. inferring, contrasting, adding) that *p as a case not merely of saying that *p, but also of saying that = p, or of saying that = *p (where' = p', or ' = *p', is a representation of one or more sentential forms specifically associated with SECOND-FLOOR-ing). Z Third, The notion of SECOND-FLOOR-ing (inferring, contrasting, adding) that *p (where Z-ing is non-central) would be explicated in terms of the nation of meaning that (or in terms of some important elements) in the definition of that notion). When Grice learned that that brilliant Harvardite, D. K. Lewis, was writing a dissertation under Quine on ‘convention’ he almost fainted! When he noticed that Lewis was relying rightly on Schelling and mainly restricting the ‘conventionality’ to the ‘arbitrariness,’ which Grice regarded as synonym with ‘freedom’ (Willkuere, liber arbitrium), he recovered. For Lewis, a two-off predicament occurs when you REPEAT. Grice is not interested. When you repeat, you may rely on some ‘arbitrariness.’ This is usually the EMISSOR’s auctoritas. As when Humptyy Dumpty was brought to Davidson’s attention. “Impenetrability!” “I don’t know what that means.” “Well put, Alice, if that is your name, as you said it was. What I mean by ‘impenetrability’ is that we rather change the topic, plus it’s tea time, and I feel like having some eggs.” Grice refers to this as the ‘idion.’ He reminisces when he was in the bath and designed a full new highway code (“Nobody has yet used itbut the pleasure was in the semiotic design.”). A second reminiscence pertains to his writing a full grammar of “Deutero-Esperanto.” “I loved itbecause I had all the power a master needs! I decide what it’s proper!” In the field of the implicatura, Grice uses ‘convention’ casually, mainly to contrast it with HIS field, the non-conventional. One should not attach importance to this. On occasion Grice used Frege’s “Farbung,” just to confuse. The sad story is that Strawson was never convinced by the non-conventional. Being a conventionalist at heart (vide his “Intention and convention in speech acts,”) and revering Austin, Strawson opposes Grice’s idea of the ‘non-conventional.’ Note that in Grice’s general schema for the communicatum, the ‘conventional’ is just ONE MODE OF CORRELATION between the signum and the signatum, or the communicatum and the intentum. The ‘conventional’ can be explained, unlike Lewis, in mere terms of the validatum. Strawson and Wiggins “Cogito; ergo, sum”: What is explicitly conveyed is: “cogito”  and “sum”. The conjunction “cogito” and “sum” is not made an ‘invalidatum’ if the implicated consequence relation, emotionally expressed by an ‘alas’-like sort of ejaculation, ‘ergo,’ fails to hold. Strawson and Wiggins give other examples. For some reason, Latin ‘ergo’ becomes the more structured, “therefore,” which is a composite of ‘there’ and ‘fore.’ Then there’s the very Hun, “so,” (as in “so so”). Then there’s the “Sie schoene aber poor,” discussed by Frege --“but,”and Strawson and Wiggins add a few more that had Grice elaborating on first-floor versus second-floor. Descartes is on the first floor. He states “cogito” and he states “sum.” Then he goes to the second floor, and the screams, “ergo,” or ‘dunc!’” The examples Strawson and Wiggins give are: “although” (which looks like a subordinating dyadic connector but not deemed essential by Gazdar’s 16 ones). Then they give an expression Grice quite explored, “because,” or “for”as Grice prefers (‘since it improves on Stevenson), the ejaculation “alas,” and in its ‘misusage,’ “hopefully.” This is an adverbial that Grice loved: “Probably, it will rains,” “Desirably, there is icecream.” There is a confusing side to this too. “intentions are to be recognized, in the normal case, by virtue of a knowledge of the conventional use of the sentence (indeed my account of "non-conventional implicaturum" depends on this idea).” So here we may disregard the ‘bandaged leg case’ and the idea that there is implicaturum in art, etc. If we take the sobriquet ‘non-conventional’ seriously, one may be led to suggest that the ‘non-conventional’ DEPENDS on the conventional. One distinctive featurethe fifthof the conversational implicaturum is that it is partly generated as partly depending on the ‘conventional’ “use.” So this is tricky. Grice’s anti-conventionalism -- conventionalism, the philosophical doctrine that logical truth and mathematical truth are created by our choices, not dictated or imposed on us by the world. The doctrine is a more specific version of the linguistic theory of logical and mathematical truth, according to which the statements of logic and mathematics are true because of the way people use language. Of course, any statement owes its truth to some extent to facts about linguistic usage. For example, ‘Snow is white’ is true in English because of the facts that 1 ‘snow’ denotes snow, 2 ‘is white’ is true of white things, and 3 snow is white. What the linguistic theory asserts is that statements of logic and mathematics owe their truth entirely to the way people use language. Extralinguistic facts such as 3 are not relevant to the truth of such statements. Which aspects of linguistic usage produce logical truth and mathematical truth? The conventionalist answer is: certain linguistic conventions. These conventions are said to include rules of inference, axioms, and definitions. The idea that geometrical truth is truth we create by adopting certain conventions received support by the discovery of non-Euclidean geometries. Prior to this discovery, Euclidean geometry had been seen as a paradigm of a priori knowledge. The further discovery that these alternative systems are consistent made Euclidean geometry seem rejectable without violating rationality. Whether we adopt the Euclidean system or a non-Euclidean system seems to be a matter of our choice based on such pragmatic considerations as simplicity and convenience. Moving to number theory, conventionalism received a prima facie setback by the discovery that arithmetic is incomplete if consistent. For let S be an undecidable sentence, i.e., a sentence for which there is neither proof nor disproof. Suppose S is true. In what conventions does its truth consist? Not axioms, rules of inference, and definitions. For if its truth consisted in these items it would be provable. Suppose S is not true. Then its negation must be true. In what conventions does its truth consist? Again, no answer. It appears that if S is true or its negation is true and if neither S nor its negation is provable, then not all arithmetic truth is truth by convention. A response the conventionalist could give is that neither S nor its negation is true if S is undecidable. That is, the conventionalist could claim that arithmetic has truth-value gaps. As to logic, all truths of classical logic are provable and, unlike the case of number theory and geometry, axioms are dispensable. Rules of inference suffice. As with geometry, there are alternatives to classical logic. The intuitionist, e.g., does not accept the rule ‘From not-not-A infer A’. Even detachment  ’From A, if A then B, infer B’  is rejected in some multivalued systems of logic. These facts support the conventionalist doctrine that adopting any set of rules of inference is a matter of our choice based on pragmatic considerations. But the anti-conventionalist might respond consider a simple logical truth such as ‘If Tom is tall, then Tom is tall’. Granted that this is provable by rules of inference from the empty set of premises, why does it follow that its truth is not imposed on us by extralinguistic facts about Tom? If Tom is tall the sentence is true because its consequent is true. If Tom is not tall the sentence is true because its antecedent is false. In either case the sentence owes its truth to facts about Tom.  -- convention T, a criterion of material adequacy of proposed truth definitions discovered, formally articulated, adopted, and so named by Tarski in connection with his 9 definition of the concept of truth in a formalized language. Convention T is one of the most important of several independent proposals Tarski made concerning philosophically sound and logically precise treatment of the concept of truth. Various of these proposals have been criticized, but convention T has remained virtually unchallenged and is regarded almost as an axiom of analytic philosophy. To say that a proposed definition of an established concept is materially adequate is to say that it is “neither too broad nor too narrow,” i.e., that the concept it characterizes is coextensive with the established concept. Since, as Tarski emphasized, for many formalized languages there are no criteria of truth, it would seem that there can be no general criterion of material adequacy of truth definitions. But Tarski brilliantly finessed this obstacle by discovering a specification that is fulfilled by the established correspondence concept of truth and that has the further property that any two concepts fulfilling it are necessarily coextensive. Basically, convention T requires that to be materially adequate a proposed truth definition must imply all of the infinitely many relevant Tarskian biconditionals; e.g., the sentence ‘Some perfect number is odd’ is true if and only if some perfect number is odd. Loosely speaking, a Tarskian biconditional for English is a sentence obtained from the form ‘The sentence ——— is true if and only if ——’ by filling the right blank with a sentence and filling the left blank with a name of the sentence. Tarski called these biconditionals “equivalences of the form T” and referred to the form as a “scheme.” Later writers also refer to the form as “schema T.” 

 

stuff and nonsense: Grice: “There is an Italian philosopher who wrote about “il sense delle parole,” which reminded me of the 32 translations to Italian made of the Jabberwocky!” -- cf. Grice: “P. M. S. Hacker and the nonsense of sense.’ Grice: “One has to be very careful. For Grice, “You’re the cream in my coffee” involves a category mistake, it’s nonsense, and neither true nor false. For me, it involves categorial falsity; therefore, it is analytically false, and therefore, meaningful, in its poor own ways!”“”You’re the cream in my coffee” compares with a not that well known ditty by Freddie Ayer, and the Ambassadors, “Saturday is in bedbut Garfield ’t.””“ “Saturday is in bed” involves categorial falsity but surely only Freddie would use it metaphoricallynot all categorial falsities pass the Richards test --. Grice: “ “It is not the case that you’re the cream in my coffee” is a truism”But cf. “You haven’t been cleaning the Aegean stablesbecause you’ve just said you spent the summer in Hull, and the stables are in Greece.” Cf. “Grice: “ ‘You’re the cream in my coffee’ is literally, a piece of nonsenseit involves a categorial falsity.” “Sentences involving categorial falsity nonsense are the specialty of Ryle, our current Waynflete!” -- Sense-nonsense -- demarcation, the line separating empirical science from mathematics and logic, from metaphysics, and from pseudoscience. Science traditionally was supposed to rely on induction, the formal disciplines including metaphysics on deduction. In the verifiability criterion, the logical positivists identified the demarcation of empirical science from metaphysics with the demarcation of the cognitively meaningful from the meaningless, classifying metaphysics as gibberish, and logic and mathematics, more charitably, as without sense. Noting that, because induction is invalid, the theories of empirical science are unverifiable, Popper proposed falsifiability as their distinguishing characteristic, and remarked that some metaphysical doctrines, such as atomism, are obviously meaningful. It is now recognized that science is suffused with metaphysical ideas, and Popper’s criterion is therefore perhaps a rather rough criterion of demarcation of the empirical from the nonempirical rather than of the scientific from the non-scientific. It repudiates the unnecessary task of demarcating the cognitively meaningful from the cognitively meaningless.  There are cases in which a denial has to be interpreted as the denial of an implicature. “She is not the cream in my. Grice: "There may be an occasion when the denial of a metaphor -- any absurd utterance when taken literally, e. g., 'You're the cream in my coffee' -- may be interpreted *not* as, strictly, denying that you're *literally* the cream in my coffee, but, in a jocular, transferred -- and strictly illogical -- way, as the denying the implicaturum, or metaphorical interpretant, viz.'It is not the case that that you're the salt in my stew,". Grice was interested in how ‘absurdum’ became ‘nonsense’ -- absurdum, adj. ab, mis-, and Sanscr. svan = “sonare;” cf. susurrus, and σῦριγξ, = a pipe; cf. also absonus.” Lewis and Short render ‘absurdum’’ as ‘out of tune, hence giving a disagreeable sound, harsh, rough.’ I. Lit.: “vox absona et absurda,” Cic. de Or. 3, 11, 41; so of the croaking of frogs: absurdoque sono fontes et stagna cietis, Poët. ap. Cic. Div. 1, 9, 15.— II. Fig., -- Short and Lewis this ‘absurd’ transferred usage: ‘absurd,’ which is not helpful -- “of persons and things, irrational, incongruous, absurd, silly, senseless, stupid.” They give a few quotes: “ratio inepta atque absurda,”The reason is inept and absurd” Ter. Ad. 3, 3, 22: “hoc pravum, ineptum, absurdum atque alienum a vitā meā videtur,” id. ib. 5, 8, 21: “carmen cum ceteris rebus absurdum tum vero in illo,” Cic. Mur. 26: “illud quam incredibile, quam absurdum!” “How incredible! How absurd!” -- id. Sull. 20: “absurda res est caveri,” id. Balb. 37: bene dicere haud absurdum est, is not inglorious, per litotem for, is praiseworthy, glorious, Sall. C. 3 Kritz.—Homo absurdus, a man who is fit or good for nothing: “sin plane abhorrebit et erit absurdus,” Cic. de Or. 2, 20, 85: “absurdus ingenio,” Tac. H. 3, 62; cf.: “sermo comis, nec absurdum ingenium,” id. A. 13, 45.—Comp., Cic. Phil. 8, 41; id. N. D. 1, 16; id. Fin. 2, 13.—Sup., Cic. Att. 7, 13.—Adv.: absurdē . 1. Lit., discordantly: “canere,” Cic. Tusc. 2, 4, 12.— 2. Fig., irrationally, absurdly, Plaut. Ep. 3, 1, 6; Cic. Rep. 2, 15; id. Div. 2, 58, 219 al.—Comp., Cic. Phil. 8, 1, 4.—Sup., Aug. Trin. 4 fin. Cf. Tertullian, “Credo quia absurdum est.”an answer to “Quam incredible, quam absurdum!” -- Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Ryle and categorial nonsense;” “The absurdity of ‘You’re the cream in my coffee.’”

 

norcia: Grice: “By focusing on ‘desire,’ Norcia focuses on Thales who famously, for fixing on the stars, de-fixed from the ground!” --  Grice: “If I had to chose one philosophical word I adore is ‘desideratum,’ and Norcia tells it right – while Short and Lewis doubt it, to desire is like to consider – and the ‘sidus’ is involved!” agostino da Norcia, filosofo. Originario dell'Umbria. Scrisse, a quanto risulta da fonti indirette, un libello intitolato  “De Amore Fundamenta Mundis ac Ethicae..” Di lui non si sa molto e il poco che si sa è incerto. Della sua esistenza infatti si è appreso attraverso i riferimenti nei testi di alcuni autori, i più famosi dei quali sono Bruno e Mersenne, che lo nominano e citano. Alcuni filolofi sostengono, peraltro, che il nome “Agostino” sarebbe in realtà uno pseudonimo, dietro il quale potrebbe nascondersi un autore, probabilmente ben più famoso e conosciuto, che si servì di tale nome d'arte per evitare censure e guai con la Chiesa. Secondo alcune ricostruzioni visse in Italia, prevalentemente fra la Toscana e l'Umbria. Stando a quanto racconta Mersenne in una lettera al fratello morì nel Lazio.Il nucleo centrale del suo pensiero consiste nell'unione dell'idea di Dio come “amore” con uno spunto, totalmente riadattato, di derivazione neo-platonica, secondo cui la realtà è emanazione, a partire da livelli di purezza e deità più elevati. Facendo dell'amore la caratteristica principale di dio, arrivava a dire che la realtà coincide con l'amore, in forme più o meno degradate. Da questo concetto fa derivare una forte istanza di svelamento.Nonostante l'apparente neutralità emotiva del reale, il vero fondamento divino, e quindi dell'universo, è l'amore. La verità si consegue quindi applicando questo principio all'apparenza fenomenica degli oggetti, in modo da svelarne il vero essere, cioè il principio di amore – Grice: “Not to be confused with my principle of conversational self-love!” -- Il suo passo più celebre, tuttavia, riguarda l'etimologia della parola “desiderium”, che Agostino collega all'espressione “de sidera”: come le stelle, infatti, sono qualcosa che percepiamo con i sensi, ma senza potere esperire direttamente l'amore che da loro scaturisce, così il “de-siderio” è in realtà mera apparenza sotto la quale si cela un bisogno. Il “de-siderio,” questo tendere all'apparenza, scompare completamente solo una volta compreso fino in fondo il fondamento dell'essere, nella “mystica copulation” raggiungibile attraverso la filosofia. Il suo pensiero, quindi, sembra unire una forte istanza metafisica a un'altrettanto forte istanza etica, cercando nella realtà una fondamentale armonicità di senso che è compito di ogni uomo, scopertala, riprodurre e preservare.  “De l'infinito, universo e mondi,” Londra, “Praxis descensus seu applicatio entis,” Marburg, Cantimori, Delio, Prospettive di storia ereticale italiana del Cinquecento, G. Laterza, Bolgiani, Franco, Ortodossia ed eresia: il problema storiografico nella storia del cristianesimo e la situazione ortodossia-eresia agli inizi della storia cristiana,CELID.

 

noto: Grice: “Italian philosophers, must be for St. Peter, who DIED there – are obsessed with God – Noto wrote his thesis on that, evidence and lack thereof for God – the part concerining the refutation for those who deny evidence is fascinating! And typically of an Italian philosopher, he narrows down his research to ‘secolo XIII,’ where we at England and Oxford hardly existed!” -- antonio di noto (Pollina), filosofo. Fece gli studi ginnasiali al Convento di Giaccherino e al Convento del Bosco ai Frati. Vestì il saio francescano a Fucecchio e professò. Studia filosofia a Lucca, Bosco ai Frati, il Convento di San Vivaldo, Fiesole, Siena e il Convento di Sargiano. Emise i voti a Fiesole e fu ordinato sacerdote a Siena. Andò a Parigi e frequentò l’Istituto Cattolico, la Sorbona e il Collège de France. Conseguì il Dottorato in filosofia e il Diploma di studi superiori alla Sorbona. Essendo andato a Londra per alcuni mesi ebbe il Diploma di lingua inglese che in seguito perfezionò tornando ogni anno a Londra nel periodo estivo. Pubblicò la tesi di laurea “L’evidenza di Dio nella filosofia del sec.XIII" (Ed. CEDAM, Padova)e e "La théologie naturelle de Pierre de Trabibus O.F.M. Choix de Questions du Ier Livre des Sentences (MS 154 de la Bibliothèque Communale d'Assise)". Si imbarcò per l’Egitto e si stabilì a Ghiza dove insegnò. Lì ricoprì gli incarichi di Guardiano e Maestro dei Chierici. Tornò in Italia e fu per un anno Direttore di un grande hotel di Montecatini Terme. Si trasferì a Figline Valdarno per l’insegnamento all’Istituto “Marsilio Ficino”. Si iscrisse alla Università Cattolica dove conseguì il Dottorato in Filosofia valido in Italia. Aveva iniziato l’insegnamento della lingua inglese alla scuola per infermieri dell’ospedale di Figline e un corso serale per adulti. Stava creando un laboratorio linguistico per facilitare e perfezionare l’apprendimento delle lingue. Deceduto nell’Ospedale di Figline Valdarno il 12 Novembre 1977 alle ore 02,25 per edemapolmonare acuto da miocardite in diabetico. Affetto da grave forma di diabete, si era sentito male nella notte dell’11 novembre, ma dopo aver prolungato il riposo mattutino aveva tenuto lezione fino a mezzogiorno. Prese allora poco cibo e tornò a riposarsi. Alle 18 andò alla preghiera comune e alle 18.30 tenne il corso di lingua inglese per adulti. Alle 20 mentre era a tavola fu chiamato il medico cardiologo che ordinò il ricovero urgente in ospedale. Qui alle 2.25 la sua vita è stata stroncata da un complesso attacco cardiaco polmonare.  Ai funerali, presieduti dal Padre Provinciale nella Chiesa di San Francesco in Figline erano presenti tanti religiosi e sacerdoti, i parenti, molte suore oltre che un grande pubblico di studenti e popolo che riempiva la Chiesa. È stato sepolto nel cimitero di Montemurlo. Convento di Giaccherino Convento del Bosco ai Frati Convento di San Vivaldo Convento di Sargiano Montemurlo  L'evidenza di Dio nella filosofia del secolo XIII La théologie naturelle de Pierre de Trabibus O.F.M. Choix de Questions du Ier Livre des Sentences.

 

notumthe ‘gnotus’ -- divided line, one of three analogies with the sun and cave offered in Plato’s Republic VI, 509d 511e as a partial explanation of the Good. Socrates divides a line into two unequal segments: the longer represents the intelligible world and the shorter the sensible world. Then each of the segments is divided in the same proportion. Socrates associates four mental states with the four resulting segments beginning with the shortest: eikasia, illusion or the apprehension of images; pistis, belief in ordinary physical objects; dianoia, the sort of hypothetical reasondispositional belief divided line 239   239 ing engaged in by mathematicians; and noesis, rational ascent to the first principle of the Good by means of dialectic. Grice read Austin’s essay on this with interest. Refs.: J. L. Austin, “Plato’s Cave,” in Philosophical Papers.

 

Noetico -- noûs: Grice uses ‘nous’ and ‘noetic’ when he is feeling very Grecian. Grecian term for mind or the faculty of reason. Noûs is the highest type of thinking, the kind a god would do. Sometimes called the faculty of intellectual intuition, it is at work when someone understands definitions, concepts, and anything else that is grasped all at once. Noûs stands in contrast with another intellectual faculty, dianoia. When we work through the steps of an argument, we exercise dianoia; to be certain the conclusion is true without argument  to just “see” it, as, perhaps, a god might  is to exercise noûs. Just which objects could be apprehended by noûs was controversial.

 

novaro: Grice: “Novaro comes from my favourite area in Italy, “La riviera ligure”!” Grice: “Novaro wrote a nice little treatise on the nature of the infinite – a concept which fascinates me!” -- Mario Novaro (Diano Marina), filosofo. Fratello di Novaro, nacque da famiglia economicamente agiata e dopo aver condotto brillantemente gli studi liceali, ottenendo la laurea a Torino. Si stabilì a Oneglia dove fu assessore comunale per il partito socialista. Dopo avere per breve tempo insegnato nel locale liceo, con i fratelli si occupò dell'industria olearia intestata alla madre Paolina Sasso.  Pur dedito all'attività imprenditoriale fece parte attiva della vita letteraria dei primo anni del Novecento e fondò la rivista “La Riviera Ligure,” da lui diretta fino alla sua cessazione. Ospitò nel suo giornale filosofi come Pascoli, Roccatagliata, Jahier, Boine e Sbarbaro.  Scrisse saggi di carattere filosofico e raccolse tutte le sue poesie, che hanno come tema principale il bellissimo paesaggio ligure, in un volume intitolato Murmuri ed echi che vide le stampe. Fu anche il curatore dell'edizione delle opere di Boine che sentiva affine negli interessi soprattutto di carattere etico. Opere: “Malebranche,” “ Il concetto di infinito e il problema cosmologico,” Roma, Balbi, “Malebranche,” Lanciano, Carraba, Murmuri ed echi, Napoli, Ricciardi, Ristampato più volte, edizioni recenti: edizione definitiva Giuseppe Cassinelli, premessa di Pino Boero e Maria Novaro, Milano, All'insegna del pesce d'oro, edizione critica Veronica Pesce, prefazione di Giorgio Ficara, Genova, Fondazione Giorgio e Lilli Devoto, Enciclopedia ItalianaIII Appendice, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, E. Cardinale, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, La Riviera Ligure Nicolas Malebranche. Tra Diano Marina e Oneglia: i luoghi dei fratelli Novaro, su parchiculturali.it. Fondazione Mario Novaro, Genova, su fondazionenovaro.it. Scheda biografica nel sito della Fondazione Mario Novaro, Genova, su fondazionenovaro.it.

 

nowell-smithianism. “The Nowell is redundant,” Grice would say. P. H. Nowell-Smith adopted the “Nowell” after his father’s first name. In “Ethics,” he elaborates on what he calls ‘contextual implication.’ The essay was widely read, and has a freshness that other ‘meta-ethicist’ at Oxford seldom display. His ‘contextual implication’ compares of course to Grice’s ‘conversational implicaturum.’ Indeed, by using ‘conversational implicaturum,’ Grice is following an Oxonian tradition started with C. K. Grant and his ‘pragmatic implication,’ and P. H. Nowell-Smith and his ‘contextual implication.’ At Oxford, they were obsessed with these types of ‘implicatura,’ because it was the type of thing that a less subtle philosopher would ignore. Grice’s cancellability priority for his type of implicatura hardly applies to Nowell-Smith. Nowell-Smith never displays the ‘rationalist’ bent that Grice wants to endow to his principle of conversational co-operation. Nowell-Smith, rather, calls his ‘principles’ “rules of conversational etiquette.” If you revise the literature, you will see that things like “avoid ambiguity,” “don’t play unnecessary with words,” are listed indeed in what is called a ‘conversational manual,’ of ‘conversational etiquette,’ that is. In his rationalist bent, Grice narrows down the use of ‘conversational’ to apply to ‘conversational maxim,’ which is only a UNIVERSALISABLE one, towards the overarching goal of rational co-operation. In this regard, many of the rules of ‘conversational etiquette’ (Grice even mentions ‘moral rules,’ and a rule like ‘be polite’) to fall outside the principle of conversational helpfulness, and thus, not exactly generating a ‘conversational implicaturum.’ While Grice gives room to allow such non-conversational non-conventional implicatura to be ‘calculable,’ that is, ‘rationalizable, by ‘argument,’ he never showed any interest in giving one examplefor the simple reason that none of those ‘maxims’ generated the type of ‘mistake’ on the part of this or that philosopher, as he was interested in rectifying. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “The life and times of P. H. Nowell-Smith, which becomes prejudices and predilections,” Luigi Speranza, “Nowell and Smith” --, BANC MSS 90/135c.

 

o: one of the four types of prepositions -- affirmo-nego distinction, the: O: particularis abdicativa. See Grice, “Circling the Square of Opposition.”

 

oakeshott, M.: H. P. Grice, “Oakeshott’s conversational implicaturum,” English philosopher and political theorist trained at Cambridge and in G.y. He taught first at Cambridge and Oxford; from 1 he was professor of political science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His works include Experience and Its Modes 3, Rationalism in Politics 2, On Human Conduct 5, and On History 3. Oakeshott’s misleading general reputation, based on Rationalism in Politics, is as a conservative political thinker. Experience and Its Modes is a systematic work in the tradition of Hegel. Human experience is exclusively of a world of ideas intelligible insofar as it is coherent. This world divides into modes historical, scientific, practical, and poetic experience, each being partly coherent and categorially distinct from all others. Philosophy is the never entirely successful attempt to articulate the coherence of the world of ideas and the place of modally specific experience within that whole. His later works examine the postulates of historical and practical experience, particularly those of religion, morality, and politics. All conduct in the practical mode postulates freedom and is an “exhibition of intelligence” by agents who appropriate inherited languages and ideas to the generic activity of self-enactment. Some conduct pursues specific purposes and occurs in “enterprise associations” identified by goals shared among those who participate in them. The most estimable forms of conduct, exemplified by “conversation,” have no such purpose and occur in “civil societies” under the purely “adverbial” considerations of morality and law. “Rationalists” illicitly use philosophy to dictate to practical experience and subordinate human conduct to some master purpose. Oakeshott’s distinctive achievement is to have melded holistic idealism with a morality and politics radical in their affirmation of individuality. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “The Oxbridge conversation,” H. P. Grice, “The ancient stone walls of Oxford.”

 

Ob-jectivum – Grice: “Italians think they are being witty when they turn old Roman ob-jectum into oggetto – why do they gemminate so easily?” -- Grice: “Kant thought he was being witty when he speaks of the Copernican revolutionWhile I prefer ‘subjectification’ for what he meant, Strawson likes ‘category shift.’ At Oxford, we never took good care of Number One!” --  Grice reads Meinong on objectivity and finds it funny! Meinong distinguishes four classes of objects: ‘Objekt,’ simpliciter, which can be real (like horses) or ideal (like the concepts of difference, identity, etc.) and “Objectiv,” e.g. the affirmation of the being (Sein) or non-being (Nichtsein), of a being-such (Sosein), or a being-with (Mitsein)parallel to existential, categorical and hypothetical judgements. An “Objectiv” is close to what contemporary philosophers call states of affairs (where these may be actual—may obtain—or not). The third class is the dignitative, e.g. the true, the good, the beautiful. Finally, there is the desiderative, e.g. duties, ends, etc. To these four classes of objects correspond four classes of psychological acts:  (re)presentation (das Vorstellen), for objects thought (das Denken), for the objectives feeling (das Fühlen), for dignitatives desire (das Begehren), for the desideratives. Grice starts with subjectivity. Objectivity can be constructed as non-relativised subjectivity. Grice discusses of Inventing right and wrong by Mackie. In the proceedings, Grice quotes the artless sexism of Austin in talking about the trouser words in Sense and Sensibilia. Grice tackles all the distinctions Mackie had played with: objective/Subjectsive, absolute/relative, categorical/hypothetical or suppositional. Grice quotes directly from Hare: Think of one world into whose fabric values are objectively built; and think of another in which those values have been annihilated. And remember that in both worlds the people in them go on being concerned about the same things—there is no difference in the Subjectsive value. Now I ask, what is the difference between the states of affairs in these two worlds? Can any answer be given except, none whatever? Grice uses the Latinate objective (from objectum). Cf. Hare on what he thinks the oxymoronic sub-jective value. Grice considered more seriously than Barnes did the systematics behind Nicolai Hartmanns stratification of values. Refs.: the most explicit allusion is a specific essay on “objectivity” in The H. P. Grice Papers. Most of the topic is covered in “Conception,” Essay 1. BANC.  objectivum. Here the contrast is what what is subjective, or subjectivum. Notably value. For Hartmann and Grice, a value is rational, objective and absolute, and categorical (not relative). objectum. For Grice the subjectum is prior. While ‘subject’ and ‘predicate’ are basic Aristotelian categories, the idea of the direct object or indirect object seems to have little philosophical relevance. (but cf. “What is the meaning of ‘of’? Genitivus subjectivus versus enitivus objectivus. The usage that is more widespread is a momer for ‘thing’. When an empiricist like Grice speaks of an ‘obble’ or an ‘object,’ he means a thing. That is because, since Hume there’s no such thing as a ‘subject’ qua self. And if there is no subject, there is no object. No Copernican revolution for empiricists. the obiectum-quo/obiectum quod distinction: obiectum quo: Griceian for “the object by which an object is known.” Grice: “A sort of meta-object, if you press me.” -- It should be understood in contrast with “obiectum quod,” -- the object that is known. E. g. when Grice’s son knows WHAT ‘a shaggy thing’ is, the shaggy thing is the obiectum quod and Grice’s son’s concept of the shaggy thing is the obiectum quo. The concept (‘shaggy’) is thus instrumental to knowing a shaggy thing, but the concept ‘shaggy’ is not itself what is known. A human needs a concept in order to have knowledge, because a human’s knowledge is receptive, in contrast with God’s which is productive. God creates what he knows. Human knowledge is mediated; divine knowledge is immediate. J. C. Wilson famously believed that the distinction between obiectum quod and obiectum quo exposes the crucial mistake of Bradley’s neo-Hegelian idealism“that is destroying the little that’s left of philosophy at Oxford.” According to an idealist such as Bradley, the object of knowledge, i.e., what Bradley knows, is an idea. In contrast, the Scholastics maintain that an idealist such as Bradley conflate the object of knowledge with the *means* (the obiectum quo) by which human knowledge is made possible. Humans must be connected to the object of knowledge by something obiectum quo, but what connects them is not that to which they are connected“autem natura est terminus ut quo, 3° Obiectum ut qu9 l esi illud ipsum, ad quod potentia, vel scientia spectat.Obiectiim ;t quo est propria raiio , propter qnam potentia, vel scientia circa aliquid versatur. Vel obiectum quod cst illud , quod in scientia demonstratur.0biectum quo consistit in mediis, quibus probantur conclusiones in eadem scientia *, 4* l't quod significat subiecium , cui proprie convenit aliquod attributurn , vel quaedam denominatio: ut quo indicat rationem , propter quam subiectum cst, vel denominatur tale ; e. g., hic terminus albus , si accipiatur sit quod, significal parietem, vel aliud, quod dicitur album; sin autem ut quo denotat ipsam albitudinem. Hoc sensu terminus acceptus ut, quod dicitur etiam usurpari in recto , ut quo, in obliquo *. 5° Denique: Species, per quam fit cognitio alicuius rei, est obiectum, quo illa cognoscitur; res antem a specie repraesentata est obiectum quod : « Species visibilis, ait s. Thomas, non se habet, ut quod videtur, sed ut quo videtur *». Et alibi : « Species intelligibiles, quibus intellectus possibilis fit in actu, non sunt obiectum intelleclus, non enim se habent ad intellectum, sicut quod intelligitur, sed sicut quo intelligit * ». Sane, species non est terminus, in quem cognitio fertur , sed dumlaxat principium, ex quo facultas cognitrix determinatur ad I .*, q. n,l;un r m ab ipsa specie repraesentatam, Quarc , etsi auima cognoseat res pcr species, tamen illas in seipsis cognoscit : « ('ognoscere res per earum similitudines im cognoscente existentes, est cognoscere eas in seipsis * ». Et B. Albcrtus M. • Sensus [*r hoc, quod species est sensibilium, sensibilia imin-diato arripit.” Refs.: H. P. Grice: The obiectum-quo/obiectum quod distinction: and what to do with it. objective rightness. In meta-ethics, an action is objectively right for a person to perform on some occasion if the agent’s performing it on that occasion really is right, whether or not the agent, or anyone else, believes it is. An action is subjectively right for a person to perform on some occasion if the agent believes, or perhaps justifiably believes, of that action that it is objectively right. For example, according to a version of utilitarianism, an action is objectively right provided the action is optimific in the sense that the consequences that would result from its per624 O    624 formance are at least as good as those that would result from any alternative action the agent could instead perform. Were this theory correct, then an action would be an objectively right action for an agent to perform on some occasion if and only if that action is in fact optimific. An action can be both objectively and subjectively right or neither. But an action can also be subjectively right, but fail to be objectively right, as where the action fails to be optimific again assuming that a utilitarian theory is correct, yet the agent believes the action is objectively right. And an action can be objectively right but not subjectively right, where, despite the objective rightness of the action, the agent has no beliefs about its rightness or believes falsely that it is not objectively right. This distinction is important in our moral assessments of agents and their actions. In cases where we judge a person’s action to be objectively wrong, we often mitigate our judgment of the agent when we judge that the action was, for the agent, subjectively right. This same objectivesubjective distinction applies to other ethical categories such as wrongness and obligatoriness, and some philosophers extend it to items other than actions, e.g., emotions. 

 

Ob-ligatum -- Obligatum -- Grice: “This has a deep connection with the Latin idea of ius, cf. iunctumand lex from ligare“Perhaps Hare prefers ‘ought’ because it eye-rymes with ‘obligation.’” Deontology -- duty, what a person is obligated or required to do. Duties can be moral, legal, parental, occupational, etc., depending on their foundations or grounds. Because a duty can have several different grounds, it can be, say, both moral and legal, though it need not be of more than one type. Natural duties are moral duties people have simply in virtue of being persons, i.e., simply in virtue of their nature. There is a prima facie duty to do something if and only if there is an appropriate basis for doing that thing. For instance, a prima facie moral duty will be one for which there is a moral basis, i.e., some moral grounds. This conDutch book duty 248   248 trasts with an all-things-considered duty, which is a duty one has if the appropriate grounds that support it outweigh any that count against it. Negative duties are duties not to do certain things, such as to kill or harm, while positive duties are duties to act in certain ways, such as to relieve suffering or bring aid. While the question of precisely how to draw the distinction between negative and positive duties is disputed, it is generally thought that the violation of a negative duty involves an agent’s causing some state of affairs that is the basis of the action’s wrongness e.g., harm, death, or the breaking of a trust, whereas the violation of a positive duty involves an agent’s allowing those states of affairs to occur or be brought about. Imperfect duties are, in Kant’s words, “duties which allow leeway in the interest of inclination,” i.e., that permit one to choose among several possible ways of fulfilling them. Perfect duties do not allow that leeway. Thus, the duty to help those in need is an imperfect duty since it can be fulfilled by helping the sick, the starving, the oppressed, etc., and if one chooses to help, say, the sick, one can choose which of the sick to help. However, the duty to keep one’s promises and the duty not to harm others are perfect duties since they do not allow one to choose which promises to keep or which people not to harm. Most positive duties are imperfect; most negative ones, perfect. obligationes, the study of inferentially inescapable, yet logically odd arguments, used by late medieval logicians in analyzing inferential reasoning. In Topics VIII.3 Aristotle describes a respondent’s task in a philosophical argument as providing answers so that, if they must defend the impossible, the impossibility lies in the nature of the position, and not in its logical defense. In Prior Analytics I.13 Aristotle argues that nothing impossible follows from the possible. Burley, whose logic exemplifies early fourteenth-century obligationes literature, described the resulting logical exercise as a contest between interlocutor and respondent. The interlocutor must force the respondent into maintaining contradictory statements in defending a position, and the respondent must avoid this while avoiding maintaining the impossible, which can be either a position logically incompatible with the position defended or something impossible in itself. Especially interesting to Scholastic logicians were the paradoxes of disputation inherent in such disputes. Assuming that a respondent has successfully defended his position, the interlocutor may be able to propose a commonplace position that the respondent can neither accept nor reject, given the truth of the first, successfully defended position. Roger Swineshead introduced a controversial innovation to obligationes reasoning, later rejected by Paul of Venice. In the traditional style of obligation, a premise was relevant to the argument only if it followed from or was inconsistent with either a the proposition defended or b all the premises consequent to the former and prior to the premise in question. By admitting any premise that was either consequent to or inconsistent with the proposition defended alone, without regard to intermediate premises, Swineshead eliminated concern with the order of sentences proposed by the interlocutor, making the respondent’s task harder. 

 

 

obversum: a sort of immediate inference that allows a transformation of affirmative categorical A-propositions and I-propositions into the corresponding negative E-propositions and O-propositions, and of E- and O-propositions into the corresponding A- and I-propositions, keeping in each case the order of the subject and predicate terms, but changing the original predicate into its complement, i.e., into a negated term. E. g. ‘Every man is mortal’  ’No man is non-mortal’; ‘Some students are happy’  ‘Some students are not non-happy’; ‘No dogs are jealous’  ‘All dogs are non-jealous’; and ‘Some bankers are not rich’  ‘Some bankers are not non-rich’.  .

 

OB-CASUS -- occasion: “I will use ‘occasion,’ occasionally.” The etymology of ‘occasion’ is fabuluous. It has to do with ‘casus,’ ptosis, fall. Grice struggled with the lingo and he not necessarily arrived at the right choice. Occasion he uses in the strange phrase “occasion-meaning” (sic). Surely not ‘occasional meaning.’ What is an occasion? Surely it’s a context. But Grice would rather be seen dead than using a linguistic turn of phrase like Firth’s context-of-utterance! So there you have the occasion-meaning. Basically, it’s the PARTICULARISED implicaturum. On occasion o, E communicates that p. Grice allows that there is occasion-token and occasion-type.  occasionalism: a theory of causation held by a number of important seventeenth-century Cartesian philosophers, including Johannes Clauberg, Géraud de Cordemoy, Arnold Geulincx, Louis de la Forge, and Nicolas Malebranche. In its most extreme version, occasionalism is the doctrine that all finite created entities are devoid of causal efficacy, and that God is the only true causal agent. Bodies do not cause effects in other bodies nor in minds; and minds do not cause effects in bodies nor even within themselves. God is directly, immediately, and solely responsible for bringing about all phenomena. When a needle pricks the skin, the physical event is merely an occasion for God to cause the relevant mental state pain; a volition in the soul to raise an arm or to think of something is only an occasion for God to cause the arm to rise or the ideas to be present to the mind; and the impact of one billiard ball upon another is an occasion for God to move the second ball. In all three contexts  mindbody, bodybody, and mind alone  God’s ubiquitous causal activity proceeds in accordance with certain general laws, and except for miracles he acts only when the requisite material or psychic conditions obtain. Less thoroughgoing forms of occasionalism limit divine causation e.g., to mindbody or bodybody alone. Far from being an ad hoc solution to a Cartesian mindbody problem, as it is often considered, occasionalism is argued for from general philosophical considerations regarding the nature of causal relations considerations that later appear, modified, in Hume, from an analysis of the Cartesian concept of matoblique intention occasionalism 626    626 ter and of the necessary impotence of finite substance, and, perhaps most importantly, from theological premises about the essential ontological relation between an omnipotent God and the created world that he sustains in existence. Occasionalism can also be regarded as a way of providing a metaphysical foundation for explanations in mechanistic natural philosophy. Occasionalists are arguing that motion must ultimately be grounded in something higher than the passive, inert extension of Cartesian bodies emptied of the substantial forms of the Scholastics; it needs a causal ground in an active power. But if a body consists in extension alone, motive force cannot be an inherent property of bodies. Occasionalists thus identify force with the will of God. In this way, they are simply drawing out the implications of Descartes’s own metaphysics of matter and motion. Refs: H. P. Grice, “What’s the caseand occasionalism.”

 

modified occam’s razorr: cf. Myro’s modified modified Occam razorimplicatura non sunt implicanda praeter implicatura -- see H. P. Grice, “Modified Occam’s Razor” -- known as the More than Subtle Doctor, English Scholastic philosopher known equally as the father of nominalism and for his role in the Franciscan dispute with Pope John XXII over poverty. Born at Occam in Surrey, he entered the Franciscan order at an early age and studied at Oxford, attaining the rank of a B. A., i. e. a “baccalarius formatus.” His brilliant but controversial career is cut short when Lutterell, chancellor of Oxford, presented the pope with a list of 56 allegedly heretical theses extracted from Occam (Grice: “One was, ‘Senses are not be multipled beyond necessity.’). The papal commission studies them for two years and find 51 open to censure“while five are ‘o-kay.’”-- , but none was formally condemned. While in Avignon, Occam researches previous papal concessions to the Franciscans regarding collective poverty, eventually concluding that John XXII contradicted his predecessors and hence was ‘no pope,’ or “no true pope.” After committing these charges to writing, Occam flees with Cesena, then minister general of the order, first to Pisa and ultimately to Munich, where he composes many treatises about church-state relations. Although departures from his eminent predecessors have combined with ecclesiastical difficulties to make Occam unjustly notorious, his thought remains, by current lights, philosophically conservativeor as he would expand, “irreverent, dissenting, rationalist conservative.” On most metaphysical issues, Occam fancies himself the true interpreter of Aristotle. Rejecting the doctrine that the universalse is a real thing other than a name (‘flatus vocis’) or a concept as “the worst error of philosophy,” Occam dismisses not only Platonism, but also “modern realist” doctrines according to which a nature enjoys a double mode of existence and is universal in the intellect but numerically multiplied in this or that particulare. Occam argues that everything real is individual and particular. Universality is a property pertaining only to the expression, sign, or name and that by virtue of its signification (semantic) relation. Because Occam understands a ‘primary’ name to be ‘psychological’, and thus a ‘naturally’ significant concept, his own theory of the universale is best classified as a form of conceptualism. Occam rejects atomism, and defends Aristotelian hylomorphism in physics and metaphysics, complete with its distinction between substantial form and accidental form. Yet, Occam opposes the reifying tendency of the “moderns” unnamed contemporary opponents, who posited a distinct kind of ‘res’ for each of Aristotle’s ten categories. Occam agues that from a purely philosophical point of view  it is indefensible to posit anything besides this or that particular substance and this or that particular quality. Occam follows the Franciscan school in recognizing a plurality of substantial forms in living things in humans, the forms of corporeity, sensory soul, and intellectual soul. Occam diverges from Duns Scotus in asserting a real, not a formal, distinction among them. Aristotle had reached behind regular correlations in nature to posit substance-things and accident-things as primitive explanatory entities that essentially are or give rise to powers virtus that produce the regularities. Similarly, Occam distinguishes efficient causality properly speaking from sine qua non causality, depending on whether the correlation between A’s and B’s is produced by the power of A or by the will of another, and explicitly denies the existence of any sine qua non causation in nature. Further, Ocam insists, in Aristotelian fashion, that created substance- and accident-natures are essentially the causal powers they are in and of themselves and hence independently of their relations to anything else; so that not even God can make heat naturally a coolant. Yet, if God cannot change, He shares with created things the ability to obstruct such “Aristotelian” productive powers and prevent their normal operation. Ockham’s nominalistic conceptualism about universals does not keep him from endorsing the uniformity of nature principle, because he holds that individual natures are powers and hence that co-specific things are maximally similar powers. Likewise, he is conventional in appealing to several other a priori causal principles: “Everything that is in motion is moved by something,” “Being cannot come from non-being,” “Whatever is produced by something is really conserved by something as long as it exists.” Occam even recognizes a kind of necessary connection between created causes and effects  e.g., while God could act alone to produce any created effect, a particular created effect could not have had another created cause of the same species instead. Ockham’s main innovation on the topic of causality is his attack on Duns Scotus’s distinction between “essential” and “accidental” orders and contrary contention that every genuine efficient cause is an immediate cause of its effects. Ockham is an Aristotelian reliabilist in epistemology, taking for granted as he does that human cognitive faculties the senses and intellect work always or for the most part. Occam infers that since we have certain knowledge both of material things and of our own mental acts, there must be some distinctive species of acts of awareness intuitive cognitions that are the power to produce such evident judgments. Ockham is matter-of-fact both about the disruption of human cognitive functions by created obstacles as in sensory illusion and about divine power to intervene in many ways. Such facts carry no skeptical consequences for Ockham, because he defines certainty in terms of freedom from actual doubt and error, not from the logical, metaphysical, or natural possibility of error. In action theory, Ockham defends the liberty of indifference or contingency for all rational beings, created or divine. Ockham shares Duns Scotus’s understanding of the will as a self-determining power for opposites, but not his distaste for causal models. Thus, Ockham allows that 1 unfree acts of will may be necessitated, either by the agent’s own nature, by its other acts, or by an external cause; and that 2 the efficient causes of free acts may include the agent’s intellectual and sensory cognitions as well as the will itself. While recognizing innate motivational tendencies in the human agent  e.g., the inclination to seek sensory pleasure and avoid pain, the affectio commodi tendency to seek its own advantage, and the affectio iustitiae inclination to love things for their own intrinsic worth  he denies that these limit the will’s scope. Thus, Ockham goes beyond Duns Scotus in assigning the will the power, with respect to any option, to will for it velle, to will against it nolle, or not to act at all. In particular, Ockham concludes that the will can will against nolle the good, whether ignorantly or perversely  by hating God or by willing against its own happiness, the good-in-general, the enjoyment of a clear vision of God, or its own ultimate end. The will can also will velle evils  the opposite of what right reason dictates, unjust deeds qua unjust, dishonest, and contrary to right reason, and evil under the aspect of evil. Ockham enforces the traditional division of moral science into non-positive morality or ethics, which directs acts apart from any precept of a superior authority and draws its principles from reason and experience; and positive morality, which deals with laws that oblige us to pursue or avoid things, not because they are good or evil in themselves, but because some legitimate superior commands them. The notion that Ockham sponsors an unmodified divine command theory of ethics rests on conflation and confusion. Rather, in the area of non-positive morality, Ockham advances what we might label a “modified right reason theory,” which begins with the Aristotelian ideal of rational self-government, according to which morally virtuous action involves the agent’s free coordination of choice with right reason. He then observes that suitably informed right reason would dictate that God, as the infinite good, ought to be loved above all and for his own sake, and that such love ought to be expressed by the effort to please him in every way among other things, by obeying all his commands. Thus, if right reason is the primary norm in ethics, divine commands are a secondary, derivative norm. Once again, Ockham is utterly unconcerned about the logical possibility opened by divine liberty of indifference, that these twin norms might conflict say, if God commanded us to act contrary to right reason; for him, their de facto congruence suffices for the moral life. In the area of soteriological merit and demerit a branch of positive morality, things are the other way around: divine will is the primary norm; yet because God includes following the dictates of right reason among the criteria for divine acceptance thereby giving the moral life eternal significance, right reason becomes a secondary and derivative norm there. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Why I love Occam,” H. P. Grice, “Comments on Occam’s ‘Summa Totius Logicae,’” H. P. Grice, “Occam on ‘significare.’” And then there’s Occam’s razor. H. P. Grice, “Modified Occam’s Razor.” Also called the principle of parsimony, a methodological principle commending a bias toward simplicity in the construction of theories. The parameters whose simplicity is singled out for attention have varied considerably, from kinds of entities to the number of presupposed axioms to the nature of the curve drawn between data points. Found already in Aristotle, the tag “entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity” became associated with William Ockham although he never states that version, and even if non-contradiction rather than parsimony is his favorite weapon in metaphysical disputes, perhaps because it characterized the spirit of his philosophical conclusions. Opponents, who thought parsimony was being carried too far, formulated an “anti-razor”: where fewer entities do not suffice, posit more! 

 

ŒCONOMIA: Grice: “The end of philosophy at Oxford came with the PPEI mean, what does a philosopher to do with the ‘laws’ of the ‘home’?” -- Cf. Grice on the principle of oeconomia of rational effort. The Greeks used ‘oeconomia’ to mean thrifty. Cf. effort. There were three branches of philosophia practica: philosophia moralis, oeconomia and politica.  Grice would often refer to ‘no undue effort,’ ‘no unnecessary trouble,’ to go into the effort, ‘not worth the energy,’ and so on. These utilitarian criteria suggest he is more of a futilitarian than the avowed Kantian he says he is. This Grice also refers to as ‘maximum,’ ‘maximal,’ optimal. It is part of his principle of economy of rational effort. Grice leaves it open as how to formulate this. Notably in “Causal,” he allows that ‘The pillar box seems red” and “The pillar box is red” are difficult to formalise in terms in which we legitimize the claim or intuition that ‘The pillar box IS red” is ‘stronger’ than ‘The pillar box seems red.’ If this were so, it would provide a rational justification for going into the effort of uttering something STRONGER (and thus less economical, and more effortful) under the circumstances. As in “My wife is in the kitchen or in the bedroom, and the house has only two rooms (and no passages, etc.)” the reason why the conversational implicaturum is standardly carried is to be found in the operation of some such general principle as that giving preference to the making of a STRONGER rather than a weaker statement in the absence of a reason for not so doing. The implicaturum therefore is not of a part of the meaning of the expression “seems.” There is however A VERY IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE between the case of a ‘phenomenalist’ statement (Bar-Hillel it does not count as a statement) and that of disjunctives, such as “My wife is in the kitchen or ind the bedroom, and the house has only two rooms (and no passages, etc.).” A disjunctive is weaker than either of its disjuncts in a straightforward LOGICAL fashion, viz., a disjunctive is entailed (alla Moore) by, but does not entail, each of its disjuncts. The statement “The pillar box is red” is NOT STRONGER than the statement, if a statement it is, “The pillar box seems red,” in this way. Neither statement entails the other. Grice thinks that he has, neverthcless a strong inclination to regard the first of these statements as STRONGER than the second. But Grice leaves it open the ‘determination’ of in what fashion this might obtain. He suggests that there may be a way to provide a reductive analysis of ‘strength’ THAT YIELDS that “The pillar box is red” is a stronger conversational contribution than “The pillar box seems red.” Recourse to ‘informativeness’ may not do, since Grice is willing to generalise over the acceptum to cover informative and non-informative cases. While there is an element of ‘exhibition’ in his account of the communicatum, he might not be happy with the idea that it is the utterer’s INTENTION to INFORM his addressee that he, the utterer, INTENDS that his addressee will believe that he, the utterer, believes that it is raining. “Inform” seems to apply only to the content of the propositional complexum, and not to the attending ‘animata.’

 

omega: the last letter of the Grecian alphabet w. Following Canto,, it is used in lowercase as a proper name for the first infinite ordinal number, which is the ordinal of the natural ordering of the set of finite ordinals. By extension it is also used as a proper name for the set of finite ordinals itself or even for the set of natural numbers. Following Gödel 678, it is used as a prefix in names of various logical properties of sets of sentences, most notably omega-completeness and omega-consistency. Omega-completeness, in the original sense due to Tarski, is a syntactical property of sets of sentences in a formal arithmetic language involving a symbol ‘0’ for the number zero and a symbol ‘s’ for the so-called successor function, resulting in each natural number being named by an expression, called a numeral, in the following series: ‘0’, ‘s0’, ‘ss0’, and so on. For example, five is denoted by ‘sssss0’. A set of sentences is said to be omegacomplete if it deductively yields every universal sentence all of whose singular instances it yields. In this framework, as usual, every universal sentence, ‘for every n, n has P’ yields each and every one of its singular instances, ‘0 has P’, ‘s0 has P’, ‘ss0 has P’, etc. However, as had been known by logicians at least since the Middle Ages, the converse is not true, i.e., it is not in general the case that a universal sentence is deducible from the set of its singular instances. Thus one should not expect to find omega-completeness except in exceptional sets. The set of all true sentences of arithmetic is such an exceptional set; the reason is the semantic fact that every universal sentence whether or not in arithmetic is materially equivalent to the set of all its singular instances. A set of sentences that is not omega-complete is said to be omega-incomplete. The existence of omega-incomplete sets of sentences is a phenomenon at the core of the 1 Gödel incompleteness result, which shows that every “effective” axiom set for arithmetic is omega-incomplete and thus has as theorems all singular instances of a universal sentence that is not one of its theorems. Although this is a remarkable fact, the existence of omega-incomplete sets per se is far from remarkable, as suggested above. In fact, the empty set and equivalently the set of all tautologies are omega-incomplete because each yields all singular instances of the non-tautological formal sentence, here called FS, that expresses the proposition that every number is either zero or a successor. Omega-consistency belongs to a set that does not yield the negation of any universal sentence all of whose singular instances it yields. A set that is not omega-consistent is said to be omega-inconsistent. Omega-inconsistency of course implies consistency in the ordinary sense; but it is easy to find consistent sets that are not omega-consistent, e.g., the set whose only member is the negation of the formal sentence FS mentioned above. Corresponding to the syntactical properties just mentioned there are analogous semantic properties whose definitions are obtained by substituting ‘semantically implies’ for ‘deductively yields’. The Grecian letter omega and its English name have many other uses in modern logic. Carnap introduced a non-effective, non-logical rule, called the omega rule, for “inferring” a universal sentence from its singular instances; adding the omega rule to a standard axiomatization of arithmetic produces a complete but non-effective axiomatization. An omega-valued logic is a many-valued logic whose set of truth-values is or is the same size as the set of natural numbers. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “I know that there are infinitely many stars.”

 

one-at-a-time-sailor. Grice’s ‘universale’and ‘particulare.’the \/x versus the /\x. For \/x Grice has “one-at-a-time sailor.” For /\x Grice has ‘the altogether nice girl.” “He is loved by the altogether nice girl. Or grasshopper: Grice’s one-at-a-time grasshopper. His rational reconstruction of ‘some’ and ‘all.’ “A simple proposal for the treatment of the two quantifiers, rendered otiosely in English by “all” and “some (at least one),”“the” is definable in terms of “all” -- would call for the assignment to a predicate such as that of ‘being a grasshopper,” symbolized by “G,” besides its normal or standard EXtension, two special things (or ‘object,’ if one must use Quine’s momer), associated with quantifiers, an 'altogether' ‘substitute’, thing or object and a 'one-at-a-time' non-substitute thing or object.”“To the predicate 'grasshopper' is assigned not only an individual, viz. a grasshopper, but also what I call  ‘The All-Together Grass-Hopper,’ or species-1and ‘The One-At-A-Time Grass-Hopper,’ or species-2. “I now stipulate that an 'altogether' item satisfies such a predicate as “being a grasshopper,” or G, just in case every normal or standard item associated with “the all-to-gether” grasshopper satisfies the predicate in question. Analogously, a 'one-at-a-time' item satisfies a predicate just in case “SOME (AT LEAST ONE)” of the associated standard items satisfies that predicate.”“So ‘The All-To-Gether Grass-Hopper izzes green just in case every individual grasshopper is green.The one-at-a-time grasshopper izzes green just in case some (at least one) individual grasshopper izzes green.”“We can take this pair of statements about these two special grasshoppers as providing us with representations of (respectively) the statements, ‘Every grass-hopper is green,’ and ‘Some (at least one) grasshopper is green.’“The apparatus which Grice sketched is plainly not, as it stands, adequate to provide a comprehensive treatment of quantification.”“It will not, e. g. cope with well-known problems of multiple quantification,” as in “Every Al-Together Nice Grass-Hopper Loves A Sailing Grass-Hopper.”“It will not deliver for us distinct representations of the two notorious (alleged) readings of ‘Every nice girl loves a sailor,” in one of which (supposedly) the universal quantifier is dominant with respect to scope, and in the other of which the existential quantifier is dominant.”The ambiguity was made ambiguous by Marie Lloyd. For every time she said “a sailor,” she pointed at herselfthereby disimplicating the default implicaturum that the universal quantifier be dominant. “To cope with Marie Lloyd’s problem it might be sufficient to explore, for semantic purposes, the device of exportation, and to distinguish between, 'There exists a sailor such that every nice girl loves him', which attributes a certain property to the one-at-a-time sailor, and (ii) 'Every nice girl is such that she loves some sailor', which attributes a certain (and different) property to the altogether nice girl.Note that, as one makes this move, that though exportation, when applied to statements about individual objects, seems not to affect truth-value, whatever else may be its semantic function, when it is applied to sentences about special objects it may, and sometimes will, affect truth-value.”“But however effective this particular shift may be, it is by no means clear that there are not further demands to be met which would overtax the strength of the envisaged apparatus.It is not, for example, clear whether it could be made adequate to deal with indefinitely long strings of 'mixed' quantifiers.”“The proposal might also run into objections of a more conceptual character from those who would regard the special objects which it invokes as metaphysically disreputablefor where would an ‘altogether sailor” sail?, or an one-at-a-time grasshopper hop?“Should an alternative proposal be reached or desired, one (or, indeed, more than one) is available.”“One may be regarded as a replacement for, an extension of, or a reinterpretation of the scheme just outlined, in accordance with whatever view is finally taken of the potency and respectability of the ideas embodied in that scheme.” “This proposal treats a propositional complexum as a sequence, indeed as ordered pairs containing a subject-item and a predicate-item.It thus offers a subject-predicate account of quantification (as opposed to what?, you may wonder). However, it will not allow an individual, i. e. a sailor, or a nice girl, to appear as COMPONENTS in a propositional complexum.The sailor and the nice girl will always be reduced, ‘extensionally,’ or ‘extended,’ if you wish, as a set or an attribute.“According to the class-theoretic version, we associate with the subject-expression of a canonically formulated sentence a class of (at least) a second order. If the subject expression is a singular name, like “Grice,” its ontological correlatum will be the singleton of the singleton of the entity which bears the name Grice, or Pop-Eye.” “The treatment of a singular terms which are not namese. g. ‘the sailor’ -- will be parallel, but is here omitted. It involves the iota operator, about which Russell would say that Frege knew a iota. If the subject-expression is an indefinite quantificational phrase, like 'some (at least one) sailor’ ‘or some (at least one) grasshopper', its ontological correlatum will be the set of all singletons whose sole member is a member belonging to the extension of the predicate to which the indefinite modifier “some (at least one)” is attached.So the ontological correlatum of the phrase ‘some (at least one) sailor’ or 'some (at least one) grasshopper' will be the class of all singletons whose sole member is an individuum (sailor, grasshopper). If the subject expression is a universal quantificational phrase, like ‘every nice girl’ its ontological correlatum will be the singleton whose sole member is the class which forms the extension of the predicate to which the universal modifier (‘every’) is attached.Thus,  the correlate of the phrase 'every nice girl' will be the singleton of the class of nice girls.The song was actually NOT written by a nice girlbut by a bad boy.A predicate of a canonically formulated sentence is correlated with the classes which form its extension.As for the predication-relation, i. e., the relation which has to obtain between subject-element and predicate-element in a propositional complex for that complex to be factive, a propositional complexum is factive or value-satisfactory just in case its subject-element contains as a member at least one item which is a sub-class of the predicate-element.”If the ontological correlatum of 'a sailor,’ or, again, of 'every nice girl') contains as a member at least one subset of the ontological correlata of the dyadic predicate ' … loves … ' (viz. the class of love), the propositional complexum directly associated with the sentence ‘A sailor loves every nice girl’ is factive, as is its converse“Grice devotes a good deal of energy to the ‘one-at-a-time-sailor,’ and the ‘altogether nice girl’ and he convinced himself that it offered a powerful instrument which, with or without adjustment, is capable of handling not only indefinitely long sequences of ‘mixed’ quantificational phrases, but also some other less obviously tractable problems, such as the ‘ground’ for this being so: what it there about a sailorwell, you know what sailors are. When the man o' war or merchant ship comes sailing into port/The jolly tar with joy, will sing out, Land Ahoy!/With his pockets full of money and a parrot in a cage/He smiles at all the pretty girls upon the landing stage/All the nice girls love a sailor/All the nice girls love a tar/For there's something about a sailor/(Well you know what sailors are!)/Bright and breezy, free and easy,/He's the ladies' pride and joy!/He falls in love with Kate and Jane, then he's off to sea again,/Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy!/He will spend his money freely, and he's generous to his pals,/While Jack has got a sou, there's half of it for you,/And it's just the same in love and war, he goes through with a smile,/And you can trust a sailor, he's a white man (meaning: honest man) all the while!“Before moving on, however, I might perhaps draw attention to three features of the proposal.”“First, employing a strategy which might be thought of as Leibnizian, it treats a subject-element (even a lowly tar) as being of an order HIGHER than, rather than an order LOWER than, the predicate element.”“Second, an individual name, such as Grice, is in effect treated like a universal quantificational phrase, thus recalling the practice of old-style traditionalism.“Third, and most importantly, the account which is offered is, initially, an account of propositional complexes, not of propositions; as I envisage them, propositions will be regarded as families of propositional complexes.”“Now the propositional complexum directly associated with the sentence “Every nice girl loves a sailor” (WoW: 34) will be both logically equivalent to and numerically distinct from the propositional complex directly associated with ‘It is not the case that no nice girl loves no sailor.’ Indeed for any given propositional complex there will be indefinitely many propositional complexes which are both equipolent to yet numerically distinct from the original complexum. Strawson used to play with this. The question of how tight or how relaxed are to be the family ties which determine the IDENTITY of propositio 1 with propositio 2  remains to be decided. Such conditions will vary according to context or purpose. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Every nice girl loves a sailor: the implicatura.”

 

occam: Grice: “I hate it when people who wouldn’t know London from their elbow pretentiously use ‘Ockham’ when Aquinas consistently uses Occam.” -- a picturesque village in Surrey. His most notable resident is William. When William left Occam, he was often asked, “Where are you from?” In the vernacular, he would make an effort to aspirate the ‘h’ Ock-Home.’ His French friends were unable to aspirate, and he ended up accepting that perhaps he WAS from “Occam.” Vide Modified Occam’s Razor.  occamismGrice, “I’m not so much interested in Occam as in the Occam Society, that I endured!” -- Occamism: d’Ailly, P.: Ockhamist philosopher, prelate, and writer. Educated at the Collège de Navarre, he was promoted to doctor in the Sorbonne in 1380, appointed chancellor of Paris  in 1389, consecrated bishop in 1395, and made a cardinal in 1411. He was influenced by John of Mirecourt’s nominalism. He taught Gerson. At the Council of Constance 141418, which condemned Huss’s teachings, d’Ailly upheld the superiority of the council over the pope conciliarism. The relation of astrology to history and theology figures among his primary interests. His 1414 Tractatus de Concordia astronomicae predicted the 1789  Revolution. He composed a De anima, a commentary on Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, and another on Peter Lombard’s Sentences. His early logical work, Concepts and Insolubles c.1472, was particularly influential. In epistemology, d’Ailly contradistinguished “natural light” indubitable knowledge from reason relative knowledge, and emphasized thereafter the uncertainty of experimental knowledge and the mere probability of the classical “proofs” of God’s existence. His doctrine of God differentiates God’s absolute power potentia absoluta from God’s ordained power on earth potentia ordinata. His theology anticipated fideism Deum esse sola fide tenetur, his ethics the spirit of Protestantism, and his sacramentology Lutheranism.

 

ocone: Grice: “Ocone has selected Croce as the quintessential Italian liberal! That should please Oxonians like Collingwood!” -- Grice: “I like Ocone’s idea of a liberalism without a theory – ‘liberalismo senza teoria’ – that should please J. M. Jack!” --  Grice: “Speranza has  noted that if Bennett speaks of meaning-nominalism, we could well speak of meaning-liberalism.” Grice: “While meaning-liberalism requires that the limit of one’s liberty to make a sign stand for an idea is your co-conversationalist, meaning-anarchism is Humpty Dumpty (‘I didn’t know that!’ ‘Of course you don’t’) and meaning-conventionalism is the idea that there is a repertoire on which conversationalists rely!” -- Corrado Ocone (Benevento), filosofo. Si occupa soprattutto di temi concernenti il neoidealismo italiano e la teoria del liberalismo. Allievo di Raffaello Franchini, è borsista dell'Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici di Napoli negli anni 1993-1994. Qui ha l'opportunità di lavorare direttamente nella biblioteca personale di Benedetto Croce e con l'aiuto di Alda Croce, figlia del filosofo, raccoglie e analizza il materiale scritto nel mondo su di lui. Un frutto parziale e selezionato del suo lavoro vede la luce nel 1993 nel volume  ragionata degli studi su Benedetto Croce pubblicata dalla ESI (Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane) di Napoli, che vince l'anno successivo la prima edizione del "Premio nazionale di saggistica Benedetto Croce", istituito dall'Istituto Nazionale Studi Crociani.  È stato direttore scientifico della Fondazione Luigi Einaudi di Roma, dalla quale è stato successivamente allontanato per le sue posizioni nazionaliste. Successivamente è entrato a far parte della Fondazione Giuseppe Tatarella ed è diventato Direttore Scientifico di Nazione Futura.  È anche membro del Comitato Scientifico della Fondazione Cortese di Napoli, del Comitato Storico Scientifico della Fondazione Bettino Craxi, del Comitato Scientifico dell'Istituto Internazionale Jacques Maritain e del Comitato Scientifico della Fondazione Farefuturo.  Attività e pensiero Nel 1995 fonda a Napoli, con un piccolo gruppo di laureati e laureandi della Federico II, cittadini sanniti e napoletani, il trimestrale "CroceVia" edito dalla ESI (Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane), che si propone di rinnovare il messaggio crociano e che entra in poco tempo nel dibattito culturale nazionale. Nel 2008 i suoi studi crociani prendono corpo nel volume Benedetto Croce, Il liberalismo come concezione della vita, pubblicato dall'editore Rubbettino nella collana “Maestri liberali” della Fondazione Luigi Einaudi di Roma. Il volume, presentando l'immagine originale di un Croce partecipe del processo europeo di distruzione delle categorie epistemiche, ha numerose recensioni. A partire dalla sua interpretazione di Croce, Ocone elabora la prospettiva di un liberalismo senza teoria, cioè storicistico e non fondazionistico. Il suo progetto filosofico può essere così formulato: riconquistare il liberalismo alla filosofia; ritornare in filosofia all'idealismo; ricongiungere il liberalismo con l'idealismo (si vedano, a tal proposito, gli interventi di Ocone nella polemica fra neorealisti e postmodernisti). In quest'ordine di discorso, Ocone ritiene che la critica rivolta a Croce di essere un liberale anomalo, in quanto nel suo pensiero il concetto di individuo sarebbe sacrificato, vada ribaltato: l'individualismo non è affatto consustanziale al liberalismo, ma si è legato ad esso solo in una sua prima fase di sviluppo (all'inizio della modernità). Quello di Ocone è un liberalismo che non prescinde né dal senso storico né dal realismo politico. Successivamente il pensiero di Ocone ha assunto molti caratteri propri dello scetticismo politico di Michael Oakeshott, in particolare della sua critica del razionalismo, del perfezionismo e del paternalismo. Egli ha pertanto insistito sul carattere “anticonformistico” e “eretico” del liberalismo, sulla priorità in esso del momento “negativo” o della contraddizione. La critica delle ideologie, e in particolare del “politicamente corretto”, diviene in quest'ottica il correlato pratico degli approdi antimetafisici della filosofia contemporanea. E filosofia e liberalismo finiscono per coincidere  Da ultimo, la sua riflessione ha messo a tema il significato teorico e storico dell’affermarsi dei cosiddetti “populismi” e “sovranismi”. Essi, prima di essere ostracizzati, vanno per Ocone capiti: pur in modo confuso e contraddittorio, lungi dall'essere un “incidente di percorso” incorso al processo di globalizzazione in atto, essi ne segnalano la definitiva crisi dell’ideologia portante: il globalismo. Questa ideologia può essere considerata una radicalizzazione coerente della mentalità illuministica e progressista, cioè da una parte del processo di secolarizzazione e razionalizzazione e dall'altra dello speculare e connesso relativismo e nichilismo. I “populismi” sono perciò per Ocone movimenti di reazione ai meccanismi di spoliticizzazione (e connesso “disciplinamento” in senso foucaultiano) propri della globalizzazione, che aveva definito la sua ideologia all’incrocio fra le idee di due “deviazioni” dell’autentico liberalismo: il neoliberismo, sul versante economico, e la cultura liberal sul versante di un diritto globale fortemente eticizzato.  Ocone ha scritto su diverse riviste scientifiche e culturali e sui maggiori organi di stampa nazionali. Attualmente è nella redazione della rivista “LeSfide”, edita dalla Fondazione Craxi, e nel Comitato editoriale dell quotidiano online “L’Occidentale”. Collaboratore de “Il Giornale” e de “Il Riformista”, è opinionista politico di “formiche.net”, “Huffpost” e “nicolaporro.it”. Molto seguita è la sua rubrica domenicale di riflessione politico-culturale “Ocone’s Corner” sulla rivista online “startmagazine”.  Curiosità Un estratto di un suo articolo (Intervista a Remo Bodei, in Corrado Ocone, Prendiamola con filosofia, Il Mattino, è stato utilizzato dal Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca come documento per la stesura della traccia della prova scritta di Italiano negli esami di Stato conclusivi dei corsi di studio di istruzione secondaria superiore a.s. (Tipologia BRedazione di un saggio breve o di un articolo di giornale2. Ambito socio-economicoArgomento: La riscoperta della necessità di «pensare»).  Nella sezione Dal dopoguerra ai giorni nostri, Percorso 9f Il dibattito delle ideeDall'“impegno” al postmoderno, dDal periodo tra le due guerre ai giorni nostri) dell'antologia "Il piacere dei testi", editore Paravia, è contenuto il suo saggio "Né neorealisti né postmodernisti" da "qdR". Opere: Coronavirus. Fine della globalizzazione, Il Giornale, Milano  La chiave del secolo. Interpretazioni del Novecento, Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli, Europa. L'Unione che ha fallito, Historica, Cesena  La cultura liberale. Breviario per il nuovo secolo, Giubilei Regnani, Roma-Cesena. Attualità di Benedetto Croce, Castelvecchi, Roma,  Il liberalismo nel Novecento: da Croce a Berlin, Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli[,  (curatore) Il liberale che non c'è. Manifesto per l'Italia che vorremmo, Castelvecchi, Roma  (con altri autori) I grandi maestri del pensiero laico, Claudiana, Torino  (curatore) Robin George Collingwood, Autobiografia, Castelvecchi, Roma   (con Donatella Di Cesare e Simone Regazzoni) Il nuovo realismo è un populismo, Il Nuovo Melangolo, Genova,  (Pietro Reichlin e Aldo Rustichini) Pensare la sinistra. Tra equità e libertà, Laterza, Roma-Bari, Liberalismo senza teoria, Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli  (con Dario Antiseri), Liberali d'Italia, Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli  (con altri autori) Le parole del tempo. Lessico del mondo che cambia, Pierfranco Pellizzetti, Manifesto libri, Roma  (con altri autori), Spettri di Derrida, Carola Barbero, Simone Regazzoni e Amelia Voltolina, Annali della Fondazione europea del Disegno (Fondation Adami),  Il Nuovo Melangolo, Genova, Profili riformisti. 15 pensatori liberal per le nostre sfide, con prefazione di Emanuele Macaluso, Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli, Karl Marx visto da Corrado Ocone, con prefazione di Paolo Savona, Luiss University Press (Collana "Momenti d'oro dell'economia"), Roma (curatore con Nadia Urbinati), La libertà e i suoi limiti. Antologia del pensiero liberale da Filangieri a Bobbio, Laterza, Roma-Bari,  Benedetto Croce. Il liberalismo come concezione della vita, (prefazione di Valerio Zanone), Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli  (curatore), Bobbio ad uso di amici e nemici, con postfazione di Giuliano Amato, I libri di Reset, Marsilio Editori, Venezia (curatore con Enzo Marzo), Manifesto laico, Laterza, Roma-Bari, (coautore, Maurizio Viroli), Lessico repubblicano, Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli, Torino, ragionata degli scritti su Benedetto Croce; prefazione di Vittorio Stella, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Napoli. Cfr. Archivio borsisti in Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici  Premio Benedetto Croce, su mediamuseum.it. Comitato Scientifico, su fondazioneluigieinaudi.it.  Riccardo Ficara, La Fondazione Einaudi allontana Corrado Ocone perché "filo-sovranista", su Secolo Trentino, La Fondazione, su fondazionegiuseppetatarella.it.  Organigramma, su nazionefutura.it.  Fondazione Cortese di Napoli in//fondazionecortese.it/  Fondazione Craxi, su fondazionecraxi.org. Comitato Scientifico dell'Istituto Internazionale Jacques Maritain, su istituto.maritain.net.  Comitato Scientifico e di indirizzo, su farefuturofondazione.it.  Copia archiviata , su rubbettino.it.  Gianni VattimoPubblicazioniLa recensione, Caffe' Europa, su caffeeuropa.it.  Duccio Trombadori, Questo don Benedetto somiglia a Nietzsche, su ilGiornale.it, Il blog di GIANNI VATTIMO: Corrado Ocone e la filosofia classica tedesca, su giannivattimo.blogspot.com.  La filosofia politica è una pseudo-scienza. Parola di filosofo. E che filosofo!, su reset.it.  Corrado Ocone, Attualità di Benedetto Croce su opac..it,  Europa : l'Unione che ha fallito / Corrado Ocone ; prefazione di Francesco Giubilei, su opac..it, La natura del potere svelata dal coronavirus, su ilGiornale.it, CORONAVIRUS: FINE DELLA GLOBALIZZAZIONEDI MARCO GERVASONI E CORRADO OCONEStore ilGiornale, su store.ilgiornale.it.  N°7: FINE DI UNA STORIA. IL RITORNO DELLA POLITICA?, su leSfide.  Chi Siamo, su loccidentale.it.  MIUR Traccia della prova scritta di Italiano per gli esami di Stato conclusivi dei corsi di studio di istruzione secondaria superioreanno scolastico su archivio.pubblica.istruzione.it.  Il piacere dei testi  QDR MagazineQualcosa da Raccontare, su QDR Magazine.  Corrado Ocone, La chiave del secolo : interpretazioni del Novecento / Corrado Ocone, su opac..it, La cultura liberale : breviario per il nuovo secolo / Corrado Ocone, su opac..it, Attualità di Benedetto Croce / Corrado Ocone, su opac..it, Il liberalismo nel Novecento : da Croce a Berlin /su opac..it, Il liberale che non c'è : manifesto per l'Italia che vorremmo su opac..it, I grandi maestri del pensiero laico ntroduzione di Massimo L. Salvatori, su opac..it, Robin George Collingwood, Autobiografia / R. G. Collingwood ; prefazione di Corrado Ocone, su opac..it, Il nuovo realismo è un populismo / Donatella Di Cesare, Simone Regazzoni, su opac..it, Pietro Reichlin, Pensare la sinistra : tra equità e libertà / Pietro Reichlin, Aldo Rustichini, su opac..it, Liberalismo senza teoria / Corrado Ocone, su opac..it, Liberali d'Italia Dario Antiseri ; prefazione di Giulio Giorello, su opac..it, Le parole del tempo / M. Barberis...[et al.] ; Pierfranco Pellizzetti, su opac..it, Spettri di Derrida / Carola Barbero, Simone Regazzoni, Amelia Valtolina, su opac..it, Corrado Ocone, Profili riformisti : 15 pensatori liberal per le nostre sfide / Corrado Ocone ; prefazione di Emanuele Macaluso, su opac..it, Karl Marx : teoria del capitale / [visto da Corrado Ocone], su opac..it, La liberta e i suoi limiti : antologia del pensiero liberale da Filangieri a Bobbio / Corrado Ocone e Nadia Urbinati, su opac..it, Benedetto Croce : il liberalismo come concezione della vita / prefazione di Valerio Zanone, su opac..it, Bobbio ad uso di amici e nemici / a cura della redazione di Reset e di Corrado Ocone ; postfazione di Giuliano Amato, su opac..it, Manifesto laico / Enzo Marzo ; contributi di Sergio Lariccia ... \et al.! ; con un intervento di Norberto Bobbio, su opac..it, 22 giugno .  Lessico repubblicano : Torino, Maurizio Viroli, su opac..it,  ragionata degli scritti su Benedetto Croce / Corrado Ocone ; prefazione di Vittorio Stella, su opac..it, La genialità di Marx agli occhi dei liberisti,  riconosce i pregi dell'analisi... in archiviostorico.corriere.it Premio al Premio nazionale Benedetto Croce di saggistica, in premiflaiano.it Sito internet, su corradoocone.com.

 

oddi: marco degli oddi (padova), filosofo. Figlio del medico Oddo degli Oddi, che era stato convinto sostenitore della scuola galenica, fu professore per incarico del Senato veneziano assieme a Bottoni a Padova, dove insegnò e introdusse senza ricevere emolumenti l'insegnamento della pratica clinica nell'Ospedale di San Francesco Grande, precedendo così tutte le altre scuole europee. Commentari dell'Ateneo di Brescia  Giuseppe Vedova, Biografia degli scrittori padovani, coi tipi della Minerva, Òddi, Marco degli, in Treccani.it Enciclopedie, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Marco degli Oddi, su Treccani.it Enciclopedie on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Opere.

 

offredi: Giovan Pietro Apollinare Offredi (Cremona), filosofo. Gli era tributata grande autorità negli ambienti filosofici. Fu lettore nello studio di Pavia e di Piacenza ed era in buoni rapporti con Eugenio IV, Visconti e Sforza.  Opere “De primo et ultimo instanti in defensionem communis opinionis adversus Petrum Mantuanum,” S.l., Bonus Gallus,  Giambattista Fantonetti, Effemeridi delle scienze, compilate da Giovambattista Fantonetti, Paolo-Andrea Molina, Giorgio A. Pinton, History of Italian Philosophy, Rodopi, Rinascimento, Istituto nazionale di studi sul Rinascimento, Giuseppe Robolini, Notizie appartenenti alla storia della sua patria, raccolte da G. Robolini, pavese, Giambattista Fantonetti, Effemeridi delle scienze mediche, compilate da Giovambattista Fantonetti, Paolo-Andrea Molina. Vide: Luigi Speranza, “Grice ed Offredi,” The Swimming-Pool Library.

 

olgiati: Grice: “I’m impressed that Olgiati dedicated a whole tract to the idea of ‘soul’ in Aquino!” --  Francesco Olgiati (Busto Arsizio), filosofo. Figlio di Giuseppe Olgiati e Teresa Ferrario, si formò presso Seminari milanesi. Collaborò con Gemelli e Necchi alla Rivista di filosofia neo-scolastica e fondò con loro il periodico Vita e Pensiero. Fu insignito da Pio XI del titolo di Cameriere Segreto e da Pio XII di Protonotario Apostolico. Inoltre fu, assieme ad Gemelli, uno dei fondatori dell'Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. Presso tale ateneo insegnò nelle facoltà di Lettere, di Magistero e di Giurisprudenza. Fu condirettore della Rivista del Clero Italiano insieme a Gemelli. Fu autore di innumerevoli scritti relativi alla religione e all'istruzione. I suoi allievi più illustri furono Melchiorre e Giovanni Reale. Tomba di Agostino Gemelli mons. Olgiati. Il libro Le lettere di Berlicche, scritto da C.S.Lewis, oltre ad essere dedicato a J.R.R. Tolkien, è dedicato anche a Olgiati.  Onorificenze Medaglia d'oro ai benemeriti della scuola, della cultura e dell'artenastrino per uniforme ordinaria Medaglia d'oro ai benemeriti della scuola, della cultura e dell'arte — Università Cattolica del Sacro CuoreLa storia: Le origini, su unicattolica.it.  Opere: Religione e vita, Società Editrice "Vita e Pensiero", Milano,Schemi di conferenze, Società Editrice "Vita e Pensiero", Milano I fondamenti della filosofia classica, Società Editrice "Vita e Pensiero", Milano, Il sillabario della Teologia, Società Editrice "Vita e Pensiero", Milano, Il concetto di giuridicità in Aquino, Società Editrice "Vita e Pensiero", Milano, Carlo Marx, Società Editrice "Vita e Pensiero", Milano, Il sillabario della morale cristiana, Società Editrice "Vita e Pensiero", Milano, Il sillabario del Cristianesimo, Società Editrice "Vita e Pensiero", Milano  biografias y vidas. I nuovi soci onorari della Famiglia BustoccaMons. Francesco Olgiati, in Almanacco della Famiglia Bustocca per l'anno 1956, Busto Arsizio, La Famiglia Bustocca, Treccani.itEnciclopedie on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.

 

olivetti: Grice: “Olivetti deals with some topics dear to me and Strawson, like subject, transcendental subject, and the rest – he also uses ‘analogy,’ which is a pet concept of mine – I have been compared to Apel, so the fact that Olivetti in his ‘conversational’ approach relies on him, helps!” -- Marco Maria Olivetti (Roma), filosofo. Professore a Roma -- preside della Facoltà di filosofia. Formatosi nella Facoltà di Filosofia di Roma negli anni sessanta, confrontandosi con i temi del rapporto fede e ragione nell'ambito di un collegio di docenti orientato sul versante marxista, storicista, postidealista, trovò in Zubiena il suo maestro. Con lui iniziò una collaborazione intellettuale che lo portò a studiare i temi della filosofia della religione, partecipando ai colloqui romani inaugurati dal filosofo piemontese, dapprima come segretario e poi, dopo la morte di Zubiena come organizzatore. Dopo iniziali studi di estetica religiosa e di filosofia classica tedesca, si dedicò alla ricerca di un approccio neo-trascendentale al tema della religione, insegnando filosofia morale a Bari e poi sostitundo Zubiena nella cattedra romana di filosofia della religione. Giunse dopo l'incontro decisivo col pensiero di Lévinas, ad elaborare una concezione di questa disciplina come antropologia filosofica e etica in quanto «filosofia prima anzi anteriore» su base storica, nata dalla dissoluzione in età tardo settecentesca, soprattutto ad opera di Kant e Hegel, della onto-teologia. Molta rilevanza aveva nel suo insegnamento lo studio dei classici tedeschi, in chiave storica, e da ultimo il confronto sia con la fenomenologia, specie con Lévinas e Marion, sia con la filosofia analitica. In Analogia del soggetto, la sua opera maggiore, l'autore elabora una teoria analogica del soggetto, riprendendo suggestioni di Husserl, Apel e Lévinas, confrontandosi con Heidegger e suggerendo una teoria dell'"umanesimo dell'altro uomo" su base staurologica ed etico-interinale («espropriarsi del caritatevole nell'interim interlocutivo» ibidem).  La tesi è che non esiste un'essenza dell'essere umano. Tale essenza è immaginata, e senza siffatta immaginazione l'essere e l'umano non si coapparterrebbero. Così si dice, in un certo senso la fine dell'etica. Tuttavia così si dice anche che l'etica, e non l'ontologia, è la filosofia prima, anzi anteriore. Di seguito l'autore prospetta un ripensamento del soggetto trascendentale, con un differimento dell'ergo rispetto al cogito cartesiano, partendo dal “loquor,” ovvero «dall'origine analogica di ogni logica, in modo da scomporre la presenza trascendentale in sum-prae-es-abest. Si perverrebbe così all'abbozzo di un «ripensamento dell'appercezione trascendentale, in modo tale da reimmettere il pensiero rappresentativo nella giusta traccia della rappresentazione. Attività accademica e influenza Direttore dell'Istituto degli Studi Filosofici Enrico Castelli e poi dell'"Archivio di Filosofia", si fece promotore di colloqui e convegni nei quali conveniva, a Roma, ogni due anni, nei primi giorni di gennaio, l'élite della filosofia della religione europea e mondiale (Paul Ricœur, Jean-Luc Marion, Vittorio Mathieu, Sergio Quinzio, Virgilio Melchiorre, Emmanuel Lévinas, Luigi Lombardi Vallauri, Bruno Forte, Bernard Casper, Ingolf Dalferth, Jean Greisch, Philippe Capelle, Jean François Courtine, Emmanuel Falque, Piergiorgio Grassi, Paul Gilbert S.J. Stéphane Mosès, Paul Mendes-Flor, Pietro Prini, Adriaan Peperzak, Richard Swinburne, Gabriel Vahanian, Marcel Hénaff, Vincenzo Vitiello, Xavier Tilliette, Michel Henry, James Taylor, tra gli altri). Nelle sue prolusioni e nei suoi contributi introduttivi si prospettava lo sfondo su cui si sarebbero esercitati i contributi e le discussioni del Colloquio, di seguito pubblicati in numeri monografici della Rivista "Archivio di Filosofia". I temi trattati erano spesso centrali nell'elaborazione di una filosofia della religione come filosofia tout court e abbracciavano, negli anni ottanta e novanta del Novecento, temi centrali come "Teodicea oggi?", l'argomento ontologico, l'Intersoggettività, il Dono, la Filosofia della Rivelazione,il Sacrificio, il Terzo. La sua personalità riservata entro l'ambito strettamente scientifico e il rigore speculativo dei suoi scritti non ne hanno favorito una conoscenza pubblica al di là dei circuiti accademici, e il suo insegnamento ha lasciato un traccia significativa costituendo una vera e propria scuola di filosofia della religione.  Opere La sua produzione vanta oltre 250 pubblicazioni di materia filosofica. Tra queste in particolare:  “Il tempio simbolo cosmico,” Cedam, Padova, “L'esito teologico della filosofia del linguaggio” in Jacobi, Cedam, Padova, “La philosophie de la religion et le développement de la philsophie italienne, “Les Études philosophiques”, Filosofia della religione come problema storico, Cedam, Padova Da Leibniz a Bayle: alle radici degli Spinoza briefe, “Archivio di filosofia”, Analogia del soggetto, Laterza, Roma-Bari "Filosofia della religione" in La filosofia, Le filosofie speciali, Utet, Torino Avant-propos, in Le Tiers, Archivio di FilosofiaArchives of Philosophy, Considerazioni introduttive sul tema: Postmodernità senza Dio?, in «Humanitas» [Postmodernità senza Dio?, a.c. di F. P. Ciglia e P. De Vitiis Traduzioni e curatele:  Kant I., La religione entro i limiti della sola ragione, M.M. Olivetti, Roma-Bari, Laterza (Introduzione del Curatore). La religione nei limiti della sola ragione, con introduzione M.M.O, I.Kant, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1980. Saggio di una critica di ogni rivelazione, con introduzione M.M.O, J.G. Fichte, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1998.  Pierluigi Valenza, «OLIVETTI, Marco Maria» in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 79, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, . Francesco Valerio Tommasi, Nota biografica su  « Archivio di filosofia », 7Francesco Valerio Tommasi, Le persone, infiniti fini in sé. Un ricordo di Marco Maria Olivetti lettore di Kant, « Studi Kantiani », Filosofia della religione Fenomenologia Ontologia Teologia Fede Ragione  Bruno Forte_Del sacrificio e dell'amore_In memoria di M.M. Olivetti , su webdiocesi.chiesacattolica.it. Tributo dell'Roma 2  [collegamento interrotto], su ast.uniroma1.it. Istituzioni collegate, su filosofia.uniroma1.it.  Emanuela Giacca : un filosofo della religione", Giornale di filosofia, su giornaledifilosofia.net. Archivio di filosofia, su libraweb.net.

 

Olivi Enrico Palladio degli Olivi (1580 circa1Udine, 16291), medico e storico italiano.

 

Blackburn: one of the few philosohpers from Pembroke that Grice respects! -- From one-off AIIBp to one-off GAIIB. Surely we have to generalise the B into the PSI. Plus, 'action' is too strong, and should be replaced by 'emitting'This yields From EIIψp GEIIψp. According to this assumption, an emissor who is not assuming his addressee shares any system of communication is in the original situation that S. W. Blackburn, of Pembroke, dubbs “the one-off predicament, and one can provide a scenario where the Griciean conditions, as they are meant to hold, do hold, and emissor E communicates that p i. e. C1, C2, and C3, are fulfilled, be accomplished in the "one-off predicament" (in which no linguistic or other conventional ...The Gricean mechanism with its complex communicative intentions has a clear point in what Blackburn calls “a one-off predicament”a . Simon Blackburn's "one-off predicament" of communicating without a shared language illustrates how Grice's theory can be applied to iconic signals such as the ...Blackburn's "one-off predicament" of communicating without a shared language illustrates how Grice's theory can be applied to iconic signals such as the drawing of a skull to wam of danger. See his Spreading the Word. III. 112.Thus S may draw a pic- "one-off predicament"). ... Clarendon, 1976); and Simon Blackburn, Spreading the Word (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984) ...by Blackburn in “Spreading the word.” Since Grice’s main motivation is to progress from one-off to philosophers’s mistakes, he does not explore the situation. He gets close to it in “Meaning Revisited,” when proposing a ‘rational reconstruction,’ FROM a one-off to a non-iconic system of communication, where you can see his emphasis and motivation is in the last stage of the progress. Since he is having the ‘end result,’ sometimes he is not careful in the description of the ‘one-off,’ or dismissive of it. But as Blackburn notes, it is crucial that Grice provides the ‘rudiments’ for a ‘meaning-nominalism,’ where an emissor can communicate that p in a one-off scenario. This is all Grice needs to challenge those accounts based on ‘convention,’ or the idea of a ‘system’ of communication. There is possibly an implicaturum to the effect that if something is a device is not a one-off, but that is easily cancellable. “He used a one-off device, and it worked.”

 

Unum: One of the transcendentalssee Achillini -- see: one-many problem: also called one-and-many problem, the question whether all things are one or many. According to both Plato and Aristotle this was the central question for pre-Socratic philosophers. Those who answered “one,” the monists, ascribed to all things a single nature such as water, air, or oneness itself. They appear not to have been troubled by the notion that numerically many things would have this one nature. The pluralists, on the other hand, distinguished many principles or many types of principles, though they also maintained the unity of each principle. Some monists understood the unity of all things as a denial of motion, and some pluralists advanced their view as a way of refuting this denial. To judge from our sources, early Grecian metaphysics revolved around the problem of the one and the many. In the modern period the dispute between monists and pluralists centered on the question whether mind and matter constitute one or two substances and, if one, what its nature is.   Unumsee: one over many, a universale; especially, a Platonic Form. According to Plato, if there are, e.g., many large things, there must be some one largeness itself in respect of which they are large; this “one over many” hen epi pollon is an intelligible entity, a Form, in contrast with the sensible many. Plato himself recognizes difficulties explaining how the one character can be present to the many and why the one and the many do not together constitute still another many e.g., Parmenides 131a133b. Aristotle’s sustained critique of Plato’s Forms Metaphysics A 9, Z 1315 includes these and other problems, and it is he, more than Plato, who regularly uses ‘one over many’ to refer to Platonic Forms.  one-off communicatum. The condition for an action to be taken in a specific way in cases where the audience must recognize the utterer’s intention (a ‘one-off predicament’). The recognition of the C-intention does not have to occur ‘once we have habits of taking utterances one way or another.’ one-piece-repertoire: of hops and rye, and he told me that in twenty-two years neither the personnel of the three-piece band nor its one-piece repertoire had undergone a change. Grice uses ‘repertoire’ technically, allowing for a one-piece repertoire.

 

ontogenesis. Grice taught his children “not to tell lies”“as my father and my mother taught me.” One of his favourite paintings was “When did you last see your father?” “I saw him in my dreams,”“Not a lie, you see.” it is interesting that Grice was always enquiring his childrens playmates: Can a sweater be red and green all over? No stripes allowed! One found a developmental account of the princile of conversational helpfulness boring, or as he said, "dull." Refs.: There is an essay on the semantics of children’s language, BANC.

 

casus obliquum -- OB-LIQUUM -- recte-obliquum distinction, the: casus obliquum -- oblique context. As explained by Frege in “Über Sinn und Bedeutung” 2, a linguistic context is oblique ungerade if and only if an expression e.g., proper name, dependent clause, or sentence in that context does not express its direct customary sense. For Frege, the sense of an expression is the mode of presentation of its nominatum, if any. Thus in direct speech, the direct customary sense of an expression designates its direct customary nominatum. For example, the context of the proper name ‘Kepler’ in 1 Kepler died in misery. is non-oblique i.e., direct since the proper name expresses its direct customary sense, say, the sense of ‘the man who discovered the elliptical planetary orbits’, thereby designating its direct customary nominatum, Kepler himself. Moreover, the entire sentence expresses its direct sense, namely, the proposition that Kepler died in misery, thereby designating its direct nominatum, a truth-value, namely, the true. By contrast, in indirect speech an expression neither expresses its direct sense nor, therefore, designates its direct nominatum. One such sort of oblique context is direct quotation, as in 2 ‘Kepler’ has six letters. The word appearing within the quotation marks neither expresses its direct customary sense nor, therefore, designates its direct customary nominatum, Kepler. Rather, it designates a word, a proper name. Another sort of oblique context is engendered by the verbs of propositional attitude. Thus, the context of the proper name ‘Kepler’ in 3 Frege believed Kepler died in misery. is oblique, since the proper name expresses its indirect sense, say, the sense of the words ‘the man widely known as Kepler’, thereby designating its indirect nominatum, namely, the sense of ‘the man who discovered the elliptical planetary orbits’. Note that the indirect nominatum of ‘Kepler’ in 3 is the same as the direct sense of ‘Kepler’ in 1. Thus, while ‘Kepler’ in 1 designates the man Kepler, ‘Kepler’ in 3 designates the direct customary sense of the word ‘Kepler’ in 1. Similarly, in 3 the context of the dependent clause ‘Kepler died in misery’ is oblique since the dependent clause expresses its indirect sense, namely, the sense of the words ‘the proposition that Kepler died in misery’, thereby designating its indirect nominatum, namely, the proposition that Kepler died in misery. Note that the indirect nominatum of ‘Kepler died in misery’ in 3 is the same as the direct sense of ‘Kepler died in misery’ in 1. Thus, while ‘Kepler died in misery’ in 1 designates a truthvalue, ‘Kepler died in misery’ in 3 designates a proposition, the direct customary sense of the words ‘Kepler died in misery’ in 1.  Grice: Things can fall rightly ‘caso recto, or not – caso obliquo –The etymology of obliquo is interesting since people oppose the diestra a la sinestra, and it’s actually the recte versus the obliquo --  Grice: “A bit of a redundancy: if it is a casus (ptosis), surely it fell obliquelythe ‘casus rectum’ is an otiosity! Since ‘recte, ‘menans ‘not oblique’! -- casus rectum (orthe ptosis) vs. ‘casus obliquusplagiai ptoseisgenike, dotike, aitiatike.   “ptosis” is not attested in Grecian before Plato. A noun of action based on the radical of πίπτω, to fall, ptôsis means literally a fall: the fall of a die Plato, Republic, X.604c, or of lightning Aristotle, Meteorology, 339a Alongside this basic value and derived metaphorical values: decadence, death, and so forth, in Aristotle the word receives a linguistic specification that was to have great influence: retained even in modern Grecian ptôsê πτώση, its Roman Tr.  casus allowed it to designate grammatical case in most modern European languages. In fact, however, when it first appears in Aristotle, the term does not initially designate the noun’s case inflection. In the De Int. chaps. 2 and 3, it qualifies the modifications, both semantic and formal casual variation of the verb and those of the noun: he was well, he will be well, in relation to he is well; about Philo, to Philo, in relation to Philo. As a modification of the noun—that is, in Aristotle, of its basic form, the nominative—the case ptôsis differs from the noun insofar as, associated with is, was, or will be, it does not permit the formation of a true or false statement. As a modification of the verb, describing the grammatical tense, it is distinguished from the verb that oversignifies the present: the case of the verb oversignifies the time that surrounds the present. From this we must conclude that to the meaning of a given verb e.g., walk the case of the verb adds the meaning prossêmainei πϱοσσημαίνει of its temporal modality he will walk. Thus the primacy of the present over the past and the future is affirmed, since the present of the verb has no case. But the Aristotelian case is a still broader, vaguer, and more elastic notion: presented as part of expression in chapter 20 of the Poetics, it qualifies variation in number and modality. It further qualifies the modifications of the noun, depending on the gender ch.21 of the Poetics; Top.   as well as adverbs derived from a substantive or an adjective, like justly, which is derived from just. The notion of case is thus essential for the characterization of paronyms. Aristotle did not yet have specialized names for the different cases of nominal inflection. When he needs to designate them, he does so in a conventional manner, usually by resorting to the inflected form of a pronoun— τούτου, of this, for the genitive, τούτῳ, to this, for the dative, and so on — and sometimes to that of a substantive or adjective. In the Prior Analytics, Aristotle insists on distinguishing between the terms ὅϱοι that ought always to be stated in the nominative ϰλῆσεις, e.g. man, good, contraries, but the premisses ought to be understood with reference to the cases of each term—either the dative, e.g. ‘equal to this’ toutôi, dative, or the genitive, e.g. ‘double of this’ toutou, genitive, or the accusative, e.g. ‘that which strikes or v.s this’ τούτο, accusative, or the nominative, e.g. ‘man is an animal’ οὗτος, nominative, or in whatever other way the word falls πίπτει in the premiss Anal. Post., I.36, 48b, 4 In the latter expression, we may find the origin of the metaphor of the fall—which remains controversial. Some commentators relate the distinction between what is direct and what is oblique as pertains to grammatical cases, which may be direct orthê ptôsis or oblique plagiai ptôseis, but also to the grand metaphoric and conceptual register that stands on this distinction to falling in the game of jacks, it being possible that the jack could fall either on a stable side and stand there—the direct case—or on three unstable sides— the oblique cases. In an unpublished dissertation on the principles of Stoic grammar, Hans Erich Müller proposes to relate the Stoic theory of cases to the theory of causality, by trying to associate the different cases with the different types of causality. They would thus correspond in the utterance to the different causal postures of the body in the physical field. For the Stoics, predication is a matter not of identifying an essence ousia οὖσια and its attributes in conformity with the Aristotelian categories, but of reproducing in the utterance the causal relations of action and passion that bodies entertain among themselves. It was in fact with the Stoics that cases were reduced to noun cases—in Dionysius Thrax TG, 13, the verb is a word without cases lexis aptôton, and although egklisis means mode, it sometimes means inflection, and then it covers the variations of the verb, both temporal and modal. If Diogenes Laertius VII.192 is to be believed, Chrysippus wrote a work On the Five Cases. It must have included, as Diogenes VII.65 tells us, a distinction between the direct case orthê ptôsis—the case which, constructed with a predicate, gives rise to a proposition axiôma, VII.64—and oblique cases plagiai ptseis, which now are given names, in this order: genitive genikê, dative dôtikê, and accusative aitiatikê. A classification of predicates is reported by Porphyry, cited in Ammonius Commentaire du De Int. d’Aristote, 44, 19f.. Ammonius 42, 30f. reports a polemic between Aristotle and the Peripatetics, on the one hand, and the Stoics and grammarians associated with them, on the other. For the former, the nominative is not a case, it is the noun itself from which the cases are declined; for the latter, the nominative is a full-fledged case: it is the direct case, and if it is a case, that is because it falls from the concept, and if it is direct, that is because it falls directly, just as the stylus can, after falling, remain stable and straight. Although ptôsis is part of the definition of the predicate—the predicate is what allows, when associated with a direct case, the composition of a proposition—and figures in the part of dialectic devoted to signifieds, it is neither defined nor determined as a constituent of the utterance alongside the predicate. In Stoicism, ptôsis v.ms to signify more than grammatical case alone. Secondary in relation to the predicate that it completes, it is a philosophical concept that refers to the manner in which the Stoics v.m to have criticized the Aristotelian notion of substrate hupokeimenon ὑποϰειμένον as well as the distinction between substance and accidents. Ptôsis is the way in which the body or bodies that our representation phantasia φαντασία presents to us in a determined manner appear in the utterance, issuing not directly from perception, but indirectly, through the mediation of the concept that makes it possible to name it/them in the form of an appellative a generic concept, man, horse or a name a singular concept, Socrates. Cases thus represent the diverse ways in which the concept of the body falls in the utterance though Stoic nominalism does not admit the existence of this concept—just as here there is no Aristotelian category outside the different enumerated categorial rubrics, there is no body outside a case position. However, caring little for these subtleties, the scholiasts of Technê v.m to confirm this idea in their own context when they describe the ptôsis as the fall of the incorporeal and the generic into the specific ἔϰ τοῦ γενιϰοῦ εἰς τὸ εἰδιϰόν. In the work of the grammarians, case is reduced to the grammatical case, that is, to the morphological variation of nouns, pronouns, articles, and participles, which, among the parts of speech, accordingly constitute the subclass of casuels, a parts of speech subject to case-based inflection πτωτιϰά. The canonical list of cases places the vocative klêtikê ϰλητιϰή last, after the direct eutheia εὐθεῖα case and the three oblique cases, in their Stoic order: genitive, dative, accusative. This order of the oblique cases gives rise, in some commentators eager to rationalize Scholia to the Technê, 549, 22, to a speculation inspired by localism: the case of the PARONYM 743 place from which one comes in Grecian , the genitive is supposed naturally to precede that of the place where one is the dative, which itself naturally precedes that of the place where one is going the accusative. Apollonius’s reflection on syntax is more insightful; in his Syntax III.15888 he presents, in this order, the accusative, the genitive, and the dative as expressing three degrees of verbal transitivity: conceived as the distribution of activity and passivity between the prime actant A in the direct case and the second actant B in one of the three oblique cases in the process expressed by a biactantial verb, the transitivity of the accusative corresponds to the division A all active—B all passive A strikes B; the transitivity of the genitive corresponds to the division A primarily active/passive to a small degree—B primarily passive/active to a small degree A listens to B; and the transitivity of the dative, to the division A and B equally active-passive A fights with The direct case, at the head of the list, owes its prmacy to the fact that it is the case of nomination: names are given in the direct case. The verbs of existence and nomination are constructed solely with the direct case, without the function of the attribute being thematized as such. Although Chrysippus wrote about five cases, the fifth case, the vocative, v.ms to have escaped the division into direct and oblique cases. Literally appelative prosêgorikon πϱοσηγοϱιϰόν, it could refer not only to utterances of address but also more generally to utterances of nomination. In the grammarians, the vocative occupies a marginal place; whereas every sentence necessarily includes a noun and a verb, the vocative constitutes a complete sentence by itself. Frédérique Ildefonse REFS.: Aristotle. Analytica priorTr.  J. Jenkinson. In the Works of Aristotle,  1, ed.  and Tr.  W. D. Ross, E. M. Edghill, J. Jenkinson, G.R.G. Mure, and Wallace Pickford. Oxford: Oxford , 192 . Poetics. Ed.  and Tr.  Stephen Halliwell. Cambridge: Harvard  / Loeb Classical Library, . Delamarre, Alexandre. La notion de ptōsis chez Aristote et les Stoïciens. In Concepts et Catégories dans la pensée antique, ed.  by Pierre Aubenque, 3214 : Vrin, . Deleuze, Gilles. Logique du sens. : Minuit, . Tr.  Mark Lester with Charles Stivale: The Logic of Sense. Ed.  by Constantin V. Boundas. : Columbia , . Dionysius Thrax. Technē grammatikē. Book I,  1 of Grammatici Graeci, ed.  by Gustav Uhlig. Leipzig: Teubner, 188 Eng. Tr.  T.  D. son: The Grammar. St. Louis, 187 Fr.  Tr.  J. Lallot: La grammaire de Denys le Thrace. 2nd rev. and expanded ed. : CNRS Éditions, . Frede, Michael. The Origins of Traditional Grammar. In Historical and Philosophical Dimensions of Logic, Methodology, and Phil.  of Science, ed.  by E. H. Butts and J. Hintikka, 517 Dordrecht, Neth.: Reiderl, . Reprinted, in M. Frede, Essays in Ancient Phil. , 3385 Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, . . The Stoic Notion of a Grammatical Case. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of 39 : 132 Hadot, Pierre. La notion de ‘cas’ dans la logique stoïcienne.  10912 in Actes du XIIIe Congrès des sociétés de philosophie en langue française. Geneva: Baconnière, . Hiersche, Rolf. Entstehung und Entwicklung des Terminus πτῶσις, ‘Fall.’ Sitzungsberichte der deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin: Klasse für Sprachen, Literatur und Kunst 3 1955: 51 Ildefonse, Frédérique. La naissance de la grammaire dans l’Antiquité grecque. : Vrin, . Imbert, Claude. Phénoménologies et langues formularies. : Presses Universitaires de France, . Pinborg, Jan. Classical Antiquity: Greece. In Current Trends in Linguistics, ed.  by Th. Sebeok.  13 in Historiography of Linguistics series. The Hague and : Mouton, .-- oratio obliqua: The idea of ‘oratio’ is central. Grice’s sentence. It expresses ‘a thought,’ a ‘that’-clause. Oratio recta is central, too. Grice’s example is “The dog is shaggy.” The use of ‘oratio’ here Grice disliked. One can see a squarrel grabbing a nut, Toby judges that a nut is to eat. So we would have a ‘that’-clause, and in a way, an ‘oratio obliqua,’ which is what the UTTERER (not the squarrel) would produce as ‘oratio recta,’ ‘A nut is to eat,’ should the circumstance obtains. At some points he allows things like “Snow is white” means that snow is white. Something at the Oxford Philosohical Society he would not. Grice is vague in this. If the verb is a ‘verbum dicendi,’ ‘oratio obliqua’ is literal. If it’s a verbum sentiendi or percipiendi, volendi, credendi, or cognoscenti, the connection is looser. Grice was especially concerned that buletic verbs usually do not take a that-clause (but cf. James: I will that the distant table sides over the floor toward me. It does not!). Also that seems takes a that-clause in ways that might not please Maucalay. Grice had explored that-clauses with Staal. He was concerned about the viability of an initially appealing etymological approach by Davidson to the that-clause in terms of demonstration. Grice had presupposed the logic of that-clauses from a much earlier stage, Those spots mean that he has measles.The f. contains a copy of Davidsons essay, On saying that, the that-clause, the that-clause, with Staal . Davidson quotes from Murray et al. The Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford. Cf. Onions, An Advanced English Syntax, and remarks that first learned that that in such contexts evolved from an explicit demonstrative from Hintikkas Knowledge and Belief. Hintikka remarks that a similar development has taken place in German Davidson owes the reference to the O.E.D. to Stiezel. Indeed Davidson was fascinated by the fact that his conceptual inquiry repeated phylogeny. It should come as no surprise that a that-clause utterance evolves through about the stages our ruminations have just carried us. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the use of that in a that-clause is generally held to have arisen out of the demonstrative pronoun pointing to the clause which it introduces. The sequence goes as follows. He once lived here: we all know that; that, now this, we all know: he once lived here; we all know that, or this: he once lived here; we all know that he once lived here. As Hintikka notes, some pedants trying to display their knowledge of German, use a comma before that: We all know, that he once lived here, to stand for an earlier :: We all know: that he once lived here. Just like the English translation that, dass can be omitted in a sentence. Er glaubt, dass die Erde eine Scheibe sei. He believes that the Earth is a disc. Er glaubt, die Erde sei eine Scheibe. He believes the Earth is a disc. The that-clause is brought to the fore by Davidson, who, consulting the OED, reminds philosophers that the English that is very cognate with the German idiom. More specifically, that is a demonstrative, even if the syntax, in English, hides this fact in ways which German syntax doesnt. Grice needs to rely on that-clauses for his analysis of mean, intend, and notably will. He finds that Prichards genial discovery was the license to use willing as pre-facing a that-clause. This allows Grice to deals with willing as applied to a third person. I will that he wills that he wins the chess match. Philosophers who disregard this third-person use may indulge in introspection and Subjectsivism when they shouldnt! Grice said that Prichard had to be given great credit for seeing that the accurate specification of willing should be willing that and not willing to. Analogously, following Prichard on willing, Grice does not stipulate that the radix for an intentional (utterer-oriented or exhibitive-autophoric-buletic) incorporate a reference to the utterer (be in the first person), nor that the radix for an imperative (addressee-oriented or hetero-phoric protreptic buletic) or desiderative in general, incorporate a reference of the addressee (be in the second person). They shall not pass is a legitimate intentional as is the ‘you shall not get away with it,’either involves Prichards wills that, rather than wills to). And the sergeant is to muster the men at dawn (uttered by a captain to a lieutenant) is a perfectly good imperative, again involving Prichards wills that, rather than wills to. Refs.: The allusions are scattered, but there are specific essays, one on the ‘that’-clause, and also discussions on Davidson on saying that. There is a reference to ‘oratio obliqua’ and Prichard in “Uncertainty,” BANC.

 

Aperto – Eco, “Opera aperta” – “Opera chiusa” – Cf. Chomsky ‘open-ended’ open-close distinction, the: open formula: also called open sentence, a sentence with a free occurrence of a variable. A closed sentence, sometimes called a ‘statement,’ has no free occurrences of variables. In a language whose only variable-binding operators are quantifiers, an occurrence of a variable in a formula is bound provided that occurrence either is within the scope of a quantifier employing that variable or is the occurrence in that quantifier. An occurrence of a variable in a formula is free provided it is not bound. The formula ‘xy  O’ is open because both ‘x’ and ‘y’ occur as free variables. In ‘For some real number y, xy  O’, no occurrence of ‘y’ is free; but the occurrence of ‘x’ is free, so the formula is open. The sentence ‘For every real number x, for some real number y, xy  O’ is closed, since none of the variables occur free. Semantically, an open formula such as ‘xy  0’ is neither true nor false but rather true of or false of each assignment of values to its free-occurring variables. For example, ‘xy  0’ is true of each assignment of two positive or two negative real numbers to ‘x’ and to ‘y’ and it is false of each assignment of 0 to either and false at each assignment of a positive real to one of the variables and a negative to the other. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Implicatura of free-variable utterances.”

 

porosität: porosity -- open texture, the possibility of vagueness. Waismann “Verifiability,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, introduced the metaphor, claiming that open texture is a universal property of empirical terms. Waismann claims that an inexhaustible source of vagueness remains even after measures are taken to make an expression precise. His grounds were, first, that there are an indefinite number of possibilities for which it is indeterminate whether the expression applies i.e., for which the expression is vague. There is, e.g., no definite answer whether a catlike creature that repeatedly vanishes into thin air, then reappears, is a cat. Waismann’s explanation is that when we define an empirical term, we frame criteria of its applicability only for foreseeable circumstances. Not all possible situations in which we may use the term, however, can be foreseen. Thus, in unanticipated circumstances, real or merely possible, a term’s criteria of applicability may yield no definite answer to whether it applies. Second, even for terms such as ‘gold’, for which there are several precise criteria of application specific gravity, X-ray spectrograph, solubility in aqua regia, applying different criteria can yield divergent verdicts, the result being vagueness. Waismann uses the concept of open texture to explain why experiential statements are not conclusively verifiable, and why phenomenalist attempts to translate material object statements fail.  Waismanns Konzept der offenen Struktur oder Porosität, hat in der ... πόρος , ὁ, (πείρω, περάω) A.means of passing a river, ford, ferry, Θρύον Ἀλφειοῖο π. Thryum the ford of the Alphëus, Il.2.592, h.Ap.423, cf. h.Merc.398; “πόρον ἷξον Ξάνθου” Il.14.433; “Ἀξίου π.” A.Pers.493; ἀπικνέεται ἐς τὸν π.τῆς διαβάσιος to the place of the passage, Hdt.8.115; “π. διαβὰς Ἅλυος” A.Pers.864(lyr.); “τοῦ κατ᾽ Ὠρωπὸν π. μηδὲν πραττέσθω” IG12.40.22. 2. narrow part of the sea, strait, “διαβὰς πόρον Ὠκεανοῖο” Hes.Th.292; “παρ᾽ Ὠκεανοῦ . . ἄσβεστον π.” A.Pr.532 (lyr.); π. Ἕλλης (Dor. Ἕλλας), = Ἑλλήσποντος, Pi.Fr.189, A.Pers. 875(lyr.), Ar.V.308(lyr.); Ἰόνιος π. the Ionian Sea which is the passage-way from Greece to Italy, Pi.N.4.53; “πέλαγος αἰγαίου πόρου” E.Hel.130; Εὔξεινος, ἄξενος π. (cf. “πόντος” 11), Id.Andr.1262, IT253; διάραντες τὸν π., i.e. the sea between Sicily and Africa, Plb.1.37.1; ἐν πόρῳ in the passage-way (of ships), in the fair-way, Hdt.7.183, Th. 1.120, 6.48; “ἐν π. τῆς ναυμαχίης” Hdt.8.76; “ἕως τοῦ π. τοῦ κατὰ τὸν ὅρμον τὸν Ἀφροδιτοπολίτην” PHib.1.38.5(iii B.C.). 3. periphr., πόροι ἁλός the paths of the sea, i.e. the sea, Od.12.259; “Αἰγαίου πόντοιο πλατὺς π.” D.P.131; “ἐνάλιοι π.” A.Pers.453; π.ἁλίρροθοι ib.367, S.Aj.412(lyr.); freq. of rivers, π. Ἀλφεοῦ, Σκαμάνδρου, i.e. the Alphëus, Scamander, etc., Pi.O.1.92, A.Ch.366(lyr.), etc.; “ῥυτοὶ π.” Id.Eu.452, cf.293; Πλούτωνος π. the river Pluto, Id.Pr.806: metaph., βίου π. the stream of life, Pi.I.8(7).15; “π. ὕμνων” Emp.35.1. 4. artificial passage over a river, bridge, Hdt.4.136,140, 7.10.“γ́;” aqueduct, IG7.93(Megara, V A.D., restd.), Epigr.Gr.1073.4 (Samos). 5. generally, pathway, way, A.Ag. 910, S.Ph.705(lyr.), etc.; track of a wild beast, X.Cyr.1.6.40; αἰθέρα θ᾽ ἁγνὸν πόρον οἰωνῶν their pathway, A.Pr.284(anap.); ἐν τῷ π.εἶναι to be in the way, Sammelb.7356.11(ii A.D.): metaph., “πραπίδων πόροι” A.Su94(lyr.). 6. passage through a porous substance, opening, Epicur.Ep.110,18 U.; esp. passage through the skin, οἱ πόροι the pores or passages by which the ἀπορροαί passed, acc. to Empedocles, “πόρους λέγετε εἰς οὓς καὶ δι᾽ ὧν αἱ ἀπορροαὶ πορεύονται” Pl.Men.76c, cf. Epicur. Fr.250, Metrod. Fr.7,Ti.Locr.100e; “νοητοὶ π.” S.E.P.2.140; o ὄγκοι, Gal. 10.268; so of sponges, Arist. HA548b31; of plants, Id.Pr. 905b8, Thphr.CP1.2.4, HP1.10.5. b. of other ducts or openings of the body, π. πρῶτος, of the womb, Hp. ap. Poll.2.222; πόροι σπερματικοί, θορικοὶ π., Arist.GA716b17, 720b13; π. “ὑστερικοί” the ovaries. Id.HA570a5, al.; τροφῆς π., of the oesophagus, Id.PA650a15, al.; of the rectum, Id.GA719b29; of the urinal duct, ib.773a21; of the arteries and veins, Id.HA510a14, etc. c. passages leading from the organs of sensation to the brain, “ψυχὴ παρεσπαρμένη τοῖς π.” Pl.Ax.366a; “οἱ π. τοῦ ὄμματος” Arist.Sens.438b14, cf. HA495a11, PA 656b17; ὤτων, μυκτήρων, Id.GA775a2, cf. 744a2; of the optic nerves, Heroph. ap. Gal.7.89. II. c. gen. rei, way or means of achieving, accomplishing, discovering, etc., “οὐκ ἐδύνατο π. οὐδένα τούτου ἀνευρεῖν” Hdt.2.2; “οὐδεὶς π. ἐφαίνετο τῆς ἁλώσιος” Id.3.156; “τῶν ἀδοκήτων π. ηὗρε θεός” E.Med.1418 (anap.); π. ὁδοῦ a means of performing the journey, Ar.Pax124; “π. ζητήματος” Pl.Tht.191a; but also π. κακῶν a means of escaping evils, a way out of them, E.Alc.213 (lyr.): c. inf., “πόρος νοῆσαι” Emp.4.12; “π. εὐθαρσεῖν” And.2.16; “π. τις μηχανή τε . . ἀντιτείσασθαι” E.Med.260: with Preps., “π. ἀμφί τινος” A.Su806 codd. (lyr.); περί τινος dub. in Ar.Ec.653; “πόροι πρὸς τὸ πολεμεῖν” X. An.2.5.20. 2. abs., providing, means of providing, o ἀπορία, Pl. Men.78d sq.; contrivance, device, “οἵας τέχνας τε καὶ π. ἐμησάμην” A.Pr. 477; δεινὸς γὰρ εὑρεῖν κἀξ ἀμηχάνων πόρον ib.59, cf. Ar.Eq.759; “μέγας π.” A.Pr.111; “τίνα π. εὕρω πόθεν;” E.IA356 (troch.). 3. π. χρημάτων a way of raising money, financial provision, X.Ath.3.2, HG1.6.12, D.1.19, IG7.4263.2 (Oropus, iii B.C.), etc.; “ὁ π. τῶν χρ.” D.4.29, IG12(5).1001.1 (Ios, iv B.C.); without χρημάτων, SIG284.23 (Erythrae, iv B.C.), etc.; “μηχανᾶσθαι προσόδου π.” X.Cyr.1.6.10, cf. PTeb.75.6 (ii B.C.): in pl., 'ways and means', resources, revenue, “πόροι χρημάτων” D. 18.309: abs., “πόρους πορίζειν” Hyp.Eux.37, cf. X.Cyr.1.6.9 (sg.), Arist. Rh.1359b23; πόροι ἢ περὶ προσόδων, title of work by X.: sg., source of revenue, endowment, OGI544.24 (Ancyra, ii A.D.), 509.12,14 (Aphrodisias, ii A.D.), etc. b. assessable income or property, taxable estate, freq. in Pap., as BGU1189.11 (i A.D.), etc.; liability, PHamb.23.29 (vi A.D.), etc. III. journey, voyage, “μακρᾶς κελεύθου π.” A. Th. 546; “παρόρνιθας π. τιθέντες” Id.Eu.770, cf. E.IT116, etc.; ἐν τῷ π. πλοῖον ἀνατρέψαι on its passage, Aeschin.3.158. IV. Π personified as father of Ἔρως, Pl.Smp.203b.

 

opus -- operationalism: a program in philosophy of science that aims to interpret scientific concepts via experimental procedures and observational outcomes. P. W. Bridgman introduced the terminology when he required that theoretical concepts be identified with the operations used to measure them. Logical positivism’s criteria of cognitive significance incorporated the notion: Bridgman’s operationalism was assimilated to the positivistic requirement that theoretical terms T be explicitly defined via logically equivalent to directly observable conditions O. Explicit definitions failed to accommodate alternative measurement procedures for the same concept, and so were replaced by reduction sentences that partially defined individual concepts in observational terms via sentences such as ‘Under observable circumstances C, x is T if and only if O’. Later this was weakened to allow ensembles of theoretical concepts to be partially defined via interpretative systems specifying collective observable effects of the concepts rather than effects peculiar to single concepts. These cognitive significance notions were incorporated into various behaviorisms, although the term ‘operational definition’ is rarely used by scientists in Bridgman’s or the explicit definition senses: intervening variables are theoretical concepts defined via reduction sentences and hypothetical constructs are definable by interpretative systems but not reduction sentences. In scientific contexts observable terms often are called dependent or independent variables. When, as in science, the concepts in theoretical assertions are only partially defined, observational consequences do not exhaust their content, and so observational data underdetermines the truth of such assertions in the sense that more than one theoretical assertion will be compatible with maximal observational data.  Operatum“Unoriginally, I will use “O” to symbolise an ‘operator’”Grice. if you have an operaturm, you also have an operatoroperans, operaturum, operandum, operatumThe operans is like the operator: a one-place sentential connective; i.e., an expression that may be prefixed to an open or closed sentence to produce, respectively, a new open or closed sentence. Thus ‘it is not the case that’ is a truth-functional operator. The most thoroughly investigated operators are the intensional ones; an intensional operator O, when prefixed to an open or closed sentence E, produces an open or closed sentence OE, whose extension is determined not by the extension of E but by some other property of E, which varies with the choice of O. For example, the extension of a closed sentence is its truth-value A, but if the modal operator ‘it is necessary that’ is prefixed to A, the extension of the result depends on whether A’s extension belongs to it necessarily or contingently. This property of A is usually modeled by assigning to A a subset X of a domain of possible worlds W. If X % W then ‘it is necessary that A’ is true, but if X is a proper subset of W, it is false. Another example involves the epistemic operator ‘it is plausible that’. Since a true sentence may be either plausible or implausible, the truth-value of ‘it is plausible that A’ is not fixed by the truth-value of A, but rather by the body of evidence that supports A relative to a thinker in a given context. This may also be modeled in a possible worlds framework, by operant conditioning operator 632    632 stipulating, for each world, which worlds, if any, are plausible relative to it. The topic of intensional operators is controversial, and it is even disputable whether standard examples really are operators at the correct level of logical form. For instance, it can be argued that ‘it is necessary that’, upon analysis, turns out to be a universal quantifier over possible worlds, or a predicate of expressions. On the former view, instead of ‘it is necessary that A’ we should write ‘for every possible world w, Aw’, and, on the latter, ‘A is necessarily true’. 

 

opocher: Grice: “There are two points that connect me with Opocher: ‘individuality’ in Fichte, since I love the problem of the in-dividuum, perhaps influenced by my tutee Strawson (“Individuals!”) – and Opocher’s ‘analisi’ as he calls it, of the ‘idea’, as he calls it, of ‘giustizia’, particularly in Thrasymachus, for which I propose an eschatological study!” -- Enrico Giuseppe Opocher (Treviso), filosofo. Con Adolfo Ravà e Giuseppe Capograssi è considerato uno dei maggiori filosofi del diritto italiani del Novecento[senza fonte].  Nacque da Enrico Giovanni, ginecologo di fama, e da Ida Cini. Durante la Grande Guerra la famiglia, timorosa dei bombardamenti, si trasferì dapprima nella periferia di Treviso, quindi a Pistoia presso una parente. Gli anni successivi riportarono un clima di serenità e agiatezza, nel quale Enrico crebbe, dividendosi tra la città natale e Vittorio Veneto, meta delle sue vacanze estive.  Dopo il liceo fu avviato, secondo il volere del padre, agli studi giuridici, benché fosse decisamente più inclinato verso la filosofia. Nel 1931 si iscrisse alla facoltà di giurisprudenza dell'Padova, ma continuò a coltivare i propri interessi personali seguendo le lezioni di filosofia del diritto tenute da Adolfo Ravà. Sotto la guida di quest'ultimo stilò una tesi su La proprietà nella filosofia del diritto di G. A. Fichte, con la quale si laureò brillantemente nel 1935.  Ottenuta nel 1942 la libera docenza, vinse nel 1948 il concorso per la cattedra di filosofia del diritto presso la facoltà di giurisprudenza dell'Padova, succedendo a Bobbio che in Veneto era divenuto segretario regionale del Partito d'Azione. Nell'ateneo padovano insegnò ininterrottamente per quarant'anni, tenendo lezioni per i corsi di filosofia del diritto, di storia delle dottrine politiche e di dottrina dello stato Italiano.  È ricordato in maniera particolare per i suoi studi sull'idea di giustizia, e sul rapporto tra diritto e valori, nonché per la redazione di un celebre manuale, Lezioni di filosofia del diritto, prima edizione 1949, usato da generazioni di allievi.  Fu magnifico rettore dell'Università negli anni 19681972. È stato Presidente della Società Italiana di Filosofia Giuridica e Politica dal 1976 al 1983.  Influenzato dall'amicizia con il cattolico Capograssi e col laico Bobbio, fu azionista con Bobbio e Trentin, condividendo (a Palazzo del Bo) le attività cospirative della Resistenza locale. Nel dopoguerra rimase amico stretto di Trentin e di Visentini, divenendo a sua volta il maestro di Toni Negri.  Opere principali: “Il problema dell'individualità,” Padova, CEDAM, “L’esperienza,” Treviso, Tipografia Crivellari, “Giustizia e materialismo storico, Milano, Bocca, Estr. da "Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia del Diritto", Filosofia del diritto. Raccolte ad uso degli studenti dall'assistente Luigi Caiani, Padova, CEDAM,  Il problema della natura della giurisprudenza, Padova, CEDAM, Analisi dell'idea della giustizia, Milano, Giuffrè,Dario Ippolito, Dizionario biografico degli italiani,  79, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, Fulvio Cortese, Liberare e federare: L'eredità intellettuale di Silvio Trentin, Firenze University Press, 2citando D. Fiorot, La filosofia politica e civile di E. Opocher, in Scritti in onore di E. Opocher, G. Netto, Ateneo di Treviso, Treviso, Vedi G. Zaccaria, Il contributo italiano alla storia del Pensiero, riferimenti in .  Padova, I rettori Unipd | Padova, su unipd.it. 15 aprile .  Denominazione attuale: Società Italiana di Filosofia del Diritto, vedi .  Giuseppe Zaccaria, Il Rettore della tolleranza, in La Tribuna di Treviso, Toni Negri: «Un uomo davvero libero nell'università chiusa degli anni '60», in [Il Mattino di Padova] Giuseppe Zaccaria , Ricordo  Omaggio ad un maestro, Padova, CEDAM, 2Giuseppe Zaccaria, Il contributo italiano alla storia del PensieroDiritto, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, . Dario Ippolito, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 79, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, .  Società Italiana di Filosofia del Diritto, su sifd.it.

 

Adverb -- for the speculative grammarian like Alcuin, or Occam, a part of speechpars orationissurely not one of Plato’s basic ones! -- operator theory of adverbs, a theory that treats adverbs and other predicate modifiers as predicate-forming operators on predicates. The theory expands the syntax of first-order predicate calculus of identitySytem G, Gricese -- by adding operators of various degrees, and makes corresponding additions to the semantics. Romane Clark, Terence Parsons, and Richard Montague with Hans Kamp developed the theory independently. Grice discusses it in “Actions and events.” For example: ‘John runs quickly through the kitchen’ contains a simple one-place predicate, ‘runs’ applied to John; a zero-place operator, ‘quickly’, and a one-place operator, ‘through ’ with ‘the kitchen’ filling its place. The semantics of the expression becomes [O1 1a [O2 0 [Pb]]], which can be read as “[through the kitchen [quickly [runs John]]]. Semantically ‘quickly’ will be associated with an operation that takes us from the extension of ‘runs’ to a subset of that extension. ‘John runs quickly’ entails, but does not implicate, ‘John runs’. ‘Through the kitchen’ and other operators are handled similarly. The wide variety of predicate modifiers complicates the inferential conditions and semantics of the operators. ‘John is finally done’ entails, but does not implicate, ‘John is done’. Oddly, ‘John is nearly done’ or “John is hardly done” entails, but does not implicate ‘John is not done’ (whereas “John is hardly done” entails that it is not the case that John is done. Clark tries to distinguish various types of predicate modifiers and provides a different semantic analysis for operators of different sorts. The theory can easily characterize syntactic aspects of predicate modifier iteration. In addition, after being modified the original predicates remain as predicates, and maintain their original degree. Further, there is no need to force John’s running into subject position as might be the case if we try to make ‘quickly’ an ordinary predicate. Refs.: Grice, “Actiosn and events,” H. P. Grice, “Why adverbs matter to philosophy,” Grice, “The semantics of action.” Grice, “Austin on Mly.” --

 

optimum.Grice: “My idea of the optimal is drawon from Pareto’s ‘ottimo’” --  Grice: “I use ‘optimal’ in the case of utterer’s meaning – an ideal complex that is optimally realised only – and for expression meaning, which is an abstraction from utterer’s meaning – Optimal can be also be used for the mechanism that the principle of conversational helpfulness is aimed to maintain: the optimal or most effective exchange of information – including that about the utterer’s or sender’s volitional states – At one point it may be applied to the optimal mutual influencing. Grice: “We must distinguish between the optimum, the maximum, and the satisficing!” -- If (a) S accepts at t an alethic acceptability-conditional C 1 , the antecedent of which favours, to degree d, the consequent of C 1 , (b) S accepts at t the antecedent of C 1 , end p.81 (c) after due search by S for such a (further) conditional, there is no conditional C 2 such that (1) S accepts at t C 2 and its antecedent, (2) and the antecedent of C 2 is an extension of the antecedent of C 1 , (3) and the consequent of C 2 is a rival (incompatible with) of the consequent of C 1 , (4) and the antecedent of C 2 favours the consequent of C 2 more than it favours the consequent of C 1 : then S may judge (accept) at t that the consequent of C 1 is acceptable to degree d. For convenience, we might abbreviate the complex clause (C) in the antecedent of the above rule as 'C 1 is optimal for S at t'; with that abbreviation, the rule will run: "If S accepts at t an alethic acceptability-conditional C 1 , the antecedent of which favours its consequent to degree d, and S accepts at t the antecedent of C 1 , and C 1 is optimal for S at C 1 , then S may accept (judge) at t that the consequent of C 1 is acceptable to degree d." Before moving to the practical dimension, I have some observations to make.See validum. For Grice, the validum can attain different shapes or guises. One is the optimum. He uses it for “Emissor E communicates thata p” which ends up denotating an ‘ideal,’ that can only be deemed, titularily, to be present ‘de facto.’ The idea is that of the infinite, or rather self-reference regressive closure. Vide Blackburn on “open GAIIB.” Grice uses ‘optimality’ as one guise of value. Obviously, it is, as Short and Lewis have it, the superlative of ‘bonum,’ so one has to be careful. Optimum is used in value theory and decision theory, too.  Cf. Maximum, and minimax. In terms of the principle of least conversational effort, the optimal move is the least costly. To utter, “The pillar box seems red” when you can utter, “The pillar box IS red” is to go into the trouble when you shouldn’t. So this maximin regulates the conversational exchange. The utterer is meant to be optimally efficient, and the addressee is intended to recognise that.

 

order: the level of a system as determined by the type of entity over which the free variables of that logic range. Entities of the lowest type, usually called type O, are known as individuals, and entities of higher type are constructed from entities of lower type. For example, type 1 entities are i functions from individuals or n-tuples of individuals to individuals, and ii n-place relations on individuals. First-order logic is that logic whose variables range over individuals, and a model for first-order logic includes a domain of individuals. The other logics are known as higher-order logics, and the first of these is second-order logic, in which there are variables that range over type 1 entities. In a model for second-order logic, the first-order domain determines the second-order domain. For every sentence to have a definite truth-value, only totally defined functions are allowed in the range of second-order function variables, so these variables range over the collection of total functions from n-tuples of individuals to individuals, for every value of n. The second-order predicate variables range over all subsets of n-tuples of individuals. Thus if D is the domain of individuals of a model, the type 1 entities are the union of the two sets {X: Dn: X 0 Dn$D}, {X: Dn: X 0 Dn}. Quantifiers may bind second-order variables and are subject to introduction and elimination rules. Thus whereas in first-order logic one may infer ‘Someone is wise, ‘DxWx’, from ‘Socrates is wise’, ‘Ws’, in second-order logic one may also infer ‘there is something that Socrates is’, ‘DXXs’. The step from first- to second-order logic iterates: in general, type n entities are the domain of n ! 1thorder variables in n ! 1th order logic, and the whole hierarchy is known as the theory of types. ordering: an arrangement of the elements of a set so that some of them come before others. If X is a set, it is useful to identify an ordering R of X with a subset R of X$X, the set of all ordered pairs with members in X. If ‹ x,y  1 R then x comes before y in the ordering of X by R, and if ‹ x,y  2 R and ‹ y,x  2 R, then x and y are incomparable. Orders on X are therefore relations on X, since a relation on a set X is any subset of X $ X. Some minimal conditions a relation must meet to be an ordering are i reflexivity: ExRxx; ii antisymmetry: ExEyRxy & Ryx / x % y; and iii transitivity: ExEyEzRxy & Ryz / Rxz. A relation meeting these three conditions is known as a partial order also less commonly called a semi-order, and if reflexivity is replaced by irreflexivity, Ex-Rxx, as a strict partial order. Other orders are strengthenings of these. Thus a tree-ordering of X is a partial order with a distinguished root element a, i.e. ExRax, and that satisfies the backward linearity condition that from any element there is a unique path back to a: ExEyEzRyx & Rzx / Ryz 7 Rzy. A total order on X is a partial order satisfying the connectedness requirement: ExEyRxy 7 Ryx. Total orderings are sometimes known as strict linear orderings, contrasting with weak linear orderings, in which the requirement of antisymmetry is dropped. The natural number line in its usual order is a strict linear order; a weak linear ordering of a set X is a strict linear order of levels on which various members of X may be found, while adding antisymmetry means that each level contains only one member. Two other important orders are dense partial or total orders, in which, between any two elements, there is a third; and well-orders. A set X is said to be well-ordered by R if R is total and every non-empty subset of Y of X has an R-least member: EY 0 X[Y & / / Dz 1 YEw 1 YRzw]. Well-ordering rules out infinite descending sequences, while a strict well-ordering, which is irreflexive rather than reflexive, rules out loops. The best-known example is the membership relation of axiomatic set theory, in which there are no loops such as x 1 y 1 x or x 1 x, and no infinite descending chains . . . x2 1 x1 1 x0.  order type omega: in mathematics, the order type of the infinite set of natural numbers. The last letter of the Grecian alphabet, w, is used to denote this order type; w is thus the first infinite ordinal number. It can be defined as the set of all finite ordinal numbers ordered by magnitude; that is, w % {0,1,2,3 . . . }. A set has order type w provided it is denumerably infinite, has a first element but not a last element, has for each element a unique successor, and has just one element with no immediate predecessor. The set of even numbers ordered by magnitude, {2,4,6,8 . . . }, is of order type w. The set of natural numbers listing first all even numbers and then all odd numbers, {2,4,6,8 . . .; 1,3,5,7 . . . }, is not of order type w, since it has two elements, 1 and 2, with no immediate predecessor. The set of negative integers ordered by magnitude, { . . . 3,2,1}, is also not of order type w, since it has no first element. V.K. ordinal logic, any means of associating effectively and uniformly a logic in the sense of a formal axiomatic system Sa with each constructive ordinal notation a. This notion and term for it was introduced by Alan Turing in his paper “Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals” 9. Turing’s aim was to try to overcome the incompleteness of formal systems discovered by Gödel in 1, by means of the transfinitely iterated, successive adjunction of unprovable but correct principles. For example, according to Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem, for each effectively presented formal system S containing a modicum of elementary number theory, if S is consistent then S does not prove the purely universal arithmetical proposition Cons expressing the consistency of S via the Gödelnumbering of symbolic expressions, even though Cons is correct. However, it may be that the result S’ of adjoining Cons to S is inconsistent. This will not happen if every purely existential statement provable in S is correct; call this condition E-C. Then if S satisfies E-C, so also does S; % S ! Cons ; now S; is still incomplete by Gödel’s theorem, though it is more complete than S. Clearly the passage from S to S; can be iterated any finite number of times, beginning with any S0 satisfying E-C, to form S1 % S; 0, S2 % S; 1, etc. But this procedure can also be extended into the transfinite, by taking Sw to be the union of the systems Sn for n % 0,1, 2 . . . and then Sw!1 % S;w, Sw!2 % S;w!1, etc.; condition EC is preserved throughout. To see how far this and other effective extension procedures of any effectively presented system S to another S; can be iterated into the transfinite, one needs the notion of the set O of constructive ordinal notations, due to Alonzo Church and Stephen C. Kleene in 6. O is a set ordering ordinal logic 634    634 of natural numbers, and each a in O denotes an ordinal a, written as KaK. There is in O a notation for 0, and with each a in O is associated a notation sca in O with KscaK % KaK ! 1; finally, if f is a number of an effective function {f} such that for each n, {f}n % an is in O and KanK < Kan!1K, then we have a notation øf in O with KøfK % limnKanK. For quite general effective extension procedures of S to S; and for any given S0, one can associate with each a in O a formal system Sa satisfying Ssca % S;a and Søf % the union of the S{f}n for n % 0,1, 2. . . . However, as there might be many notations for each constructive ordinal, this ordinal logic need not be invariant, in the sense that one need not have: if KaK % KbK then Sa and Sb have the same consequences. Turing proved that an ordinal logic cannot be both complete for true purely universal statements and invariant. Using an extension procedure by certain proof-theoretic reflection principles, he constructed an ordinal logic that is complete for true purely universal statements, hence not invariant. The history of this and later work on ordinal logics is traced by the undersigned in “Turing in the Land of Oz,” in The Universal Turing Machine: A Half Century Survey, edited by Rolf Herken.

 

organic: having parts that are organized and interrelated in a way that is the same as, or analogous to, the way in which the parts of a living animal or other biological organism are organized and interrelated. Thus, an organic unity or organic whole is a whole that is organic in the above sense. These terms are primarily used of entities that are not literally organisms but are supposedly analogous to them. Among the applications of the concept of an organic unity are: to works of art, to the state e.g., by Hegel, and to the universe as a whole e.g., in absolute idealism. The principal element in the concept is perhaps the notion of an entity whose parts cannot be understood except by reference to their contribution to the whole entity. Thus to describe something as an organic unity is typically to imply that its properties cannot be given a reductive explanation in terms of those of its parts; rather, at least some of the properties of the parts must themselves be explained by reference to the properties of the whole. Hence it usually involves a form of holism. Other features sometimes attributed to organic unities include a mutual dependence between the existence of the parts and that of the whole and the need for a teleological explanation of properties of the parts in terms of some end or purpose associated with the whole. To what extent these characteristics belong to genuine biological organisms is disputed.  organicism, a theory that applies the notion of an organic unity, especially to things that are not literally organisms. G. E. Moore, in Principia Ethica, proposed a principle of organic unities, concerning intrinsic value: the intrinsic value of a whole need not be equivalent to the sum of the intrinsic values of its parts. Moore applies the principle in arguing that there is no systematic relation between the intrinsic value of an element of a complex whole and the difference that the presence of that element makes to the value of the whole. E.g., he holds that although a situation in which someone experiences pleasure in the contemplation of a beautiful object has far greater intrinsic goodness than a situation in which the person contemplates the same object without feeling pleasure, this does not mean that the pleasure itself has much intrinsic value. organism, a carbon-based living thing or substance, e.g., a paramecium, a tree, or an ant. Alternatively, ‘organism’ can mean, as in a typical Gricean gedenke experiment,  a hypothetical living thing of another natural kind, e.g., a silicon-based living thing, in sum, a pirot“Pirots karulise elatically.” -- Defining conditions of a carbon-based living thing, x, are as follows. 1 x has a layer made of m-molecules, i.e., carbonbased macromolecules of repeated units that have a high capacity for selective reactions with other similar molecules. x can absorb and excrete through this layer. 2 x can metabolize m-molecules. 3 x can synthesize m-molecular parts of x by means of activities of a proper part of x that is a nuclear molecule, i.e., an m-molecule that can copy itself. 4 x can exercise the foregoing capacities in such a way that the corresponding activities are causally interrelated as follows: x’s absorption and excretion causally contribute to x’s metabolism; these processes jointly causally contribute to x’s synthesizing; and x’s synthesizing causally contributes to x’s absorption, excretion, and metabolism. 5 x belongs to a natural kind of compound physical substance that can have a member, y, such that: y has a proper part, z; z is a nuclear molecule; and y reproduces by means of z’s copying itself. 6 x is not possibly a proper part of something that satisfies 16. The last condition expresses the independence and autonomy of an organism. For example, a part of an organism, e.g., a heart cell, is not an organism. It also follows that a colony of organisms, e.g., a colony of ants, is not an organism. 

 

 

Orfeo -- Orphismovvero Orfeo a Crotone -- or as Grice preferred Orpheusianism --  a religious movement in ancient Graeco-Roman culture that may have influenced Plato and some of the pre-Socratics. Neither the nature of the movement nor the scope of its influence is adequately understood: ancient sources and modern scholars tend to confuse Orphism with the Pythagoreanism school led by the native Crotonian “Filolao” at Crotone, and with ancient mystery cults, especially the Bacchic or Dionysiac mysteries. “Orphic poems,” i.e., poems attributed to Orpheus a mythic figure, circulated as early as the mid-sixth century B.C. We have only indirect evidence of the early Orphic poems; but we do have a sizable body of fragments from poems composed in later antiquity. Central to both early and later versions is a theogonic-cosmogonic narrative that posits Night (Nox) as the primal entity  ostensibly a revision of the account offered by Hesiod  and gives major emphasis to the birth, death through dismemberment, and rebirth of the god Dionysus, that the Romans called Bacchus. Plato gives us clear evidence of the existence in his time of itinerant religious teachers who, drawing on the “books of Orpheus,” performed and taught rituals of initiation and purification intended to procure divine favor either in this life or in an afterlife. The extreme skepticism of such scholars as Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and I. M. Linforth concerning the importance of early Orphism for Graeco-Roman religion and Graeco-Roman philosophy has been undermined by archaeological findings in recent decades: the Derveni papyrus, which is a fragment of a philosophical commentary on an Orphic theogony; and inscriptions with Orphic instructions for the dead, from a funerary sites Crotone.

 

ob-tensum ---- Grice: “In late Latin it’s already ostensivo, but there’s an ob there – cf. intensive – The whole point, as Vitters would say, is to show, not tell – it should not apply to definition only!”  ostensum: In his analysis of the two basic procedures, one involving the subjectum, and another the praedicatum, Grice would play with the utterer OSTENDING that p. This relates to his semiotic approach to communication, and avoiding to the maximum any reference to a linguistic rule or capacity or faculty as different from generic rationality. In WoW:134 Grice explores what he calls ‘ostensive correlation.’ He is exploring communication scenarios where the Utterer is OSTENDING that p, or in predicate terms, that the A is B. He is not so much concerned with the B, but with the fact that “B” is predicated of a particular denotatum of “the A,” and by what criteria. He is having in mind his uncle’s dog, Fido, who is shaggy, i.e. fairy coated. So he is showing to Strawson that that dog over there is the one that belongs to his uncle, and that, as Strawson can see, is a shaggy dog, by which Grice means hairy coated. That’s the type of ‘ostensive correlation’ Grice is having in mind. In an attempted ostensive correlation of the predicate B (‘shaggy’) with the feature or property of being hairy coated, as per a standard act of communication in which Grice, uttering, “Fido is shaggy’ will have Strawson believe that Uncle Grice’s dog is hairy coated(1) U will perform a number of acts in each of which he ostends a thing  (a1, a2, a3, etc.). (2) Simultaneously with each ostension, he utters a token of the predicate “shaggy.” (3) It is his intention TO OSTEND, and to be recognised as ostending, only things which are either, in his view, plainly hairy-coated, or are, in his view, plainly NOT hairy-coated. (4) In a model sequence these intentions are fulfilled. Grice grants that this does not finely distinguish between ‘being hairy-coated’ from ‘being such that the UTTERER believes to be unmistakenly hairy coated.’ But such is a problem of any explicit correlation, which are usually taken for grantedand deemed ‘implicit’ in standard acts of communication. In primo actu non indiget volunta* diiectivo , sed sola_» objecti ostensio ... non potest errar* ciica finem in universali ostensum , potest tamen secundum eos 

 

merton: Oxford Calculators, a group of philosophers who flourished at Oxford. The name derives from the “Liber calculationum.”. The author of this work, often called “Calculator” by later Continental authors, is Richard Swineshead. The “Liber calculationum” discussed a number of issues related to the quantification or measurement of local motion, alteration, and augmentation for a fuller descriptionv. Murdoch and Sylla, “Swineshead” in Dictionary of Scientific Biography. The “Liber calculationum” has been studied mainly by historians of science and grouped together with a number of other works discussing natural philosophical topics by such authors as Bradwardine, Heytesbury, and Dumbleton. In earlier histories many of the authors now referred to as Oxford Calculators are referred to as “The Merton School,” since many of them were fellows of Merton . But since some authors whose oeuvre appears to fit into the same intellectual tradition e.g., Kilvington, whose “Sophismata” represents an earlier stage of the tradition later epitomized by Heytesbury’s Sophismata have no known connection with Merton , ‘Oxford Calculators’ would appear to be a more accurate appellation. The works of the Oxford Calculators or MertoniansGrice: “I rather deem Kilvington a Mertonian than change the name of his school!” -- were produced in the context of education in the Oxford arts facultySylla --  “The Oxford Calculators,” in Kretzmann, Kenny, and Pinborg, eds., The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy. At Oxford semantics is the centerpiece of the Lit. Hum. curriculum. After semantics, Oxford came to be known for its work in mathematics, astronomy, and natural philosophy. Students studying under the Oxford faculty of arts not only heard lectures on the seven liberal arts and on natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and metaphysics. They were also required to take part in disputations. Heytesbury’s “Regule solvendi sophismatum” explicitly and Swineshead’s “Liber calculationum” implicitly are written to prepare students for these disputations. The three influences most formative on the work of the Oxford Calculators were the tradition of commentaries on the works of Aristotle; the developments in semantics, particularly the theories of categorematic and syncategorematic terms and the theory of conseequentia, implicate, and supposition; and and the theory of ratios as developed in Bradwardine’s De proportionibus velocitatum in motibus. In addition to Swineshead, Heytesbury, Bradwardine, Dumbleton, and Kilvington, other authors and works related to the work of the Oxford Calculators are Burleigh, “De primo et ultimo instanti, Tractatus Primus De formis accidentalibus, Tractatus Secundus De intensione et remissione formarum; Swineshead, Descriptiones motuum; and Bode, “A est unum calidum.” These and other works had a considerable later influence on the Continent.  Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Sophismata in the Liber calculationum,” H. P. Grice, “My days at Merton.”H. P. Grice, “Merton made me.”H. P. Grice, “Merton and post-war Oxford philosophy.”

 

Esse: Grice: “It’s amazing that Italians say esse like the Ancient Romans did!” -- esse -- ousia: The abstractum behind Grice’s ‘izz’ --. Grecian term traditionally tr. as ‘substance,’ although the strict transliteration is ‘essentia,’ a feminine abstract noun out of the verb ‘esse.’ Formed from the participle for ‘being’, the term ousia refers to the character of being, beingness, as if this were itself an entity. Just as redness is the character that red things have, so ousia is the character that beings have. Thus, the ousia of something is the character that makes it be, its nature. But ousia also refers to an entity that possesses being in its own right; for consider a case where the ousia of something is just the thing itself. Such a thing possesses being by virtue of itself; because its being depends on nothing else, it is self-subsistent and has a higher degree of being than things whose being depends on something else. Such a thing would be an ousia. Just which entities meet the criteria for ousia is a question addressed by Aristotle. Something such as redness that exists only as an attribute would not have being in its own right. An individual person is an ousia, but Aristotle also argues that his form is more properly an ousia; and an unmoved mover is the highest type of ousia. The traditional rendering of the term into Latin as substantia and English as ‘substance’ is appropriate only in contexts like Aristotle’s Categories where an ousia “stands under” attributes. In his Metaphysics, where Aristotle argues that being a substrate does not characterize ousia, and in other Grecian writers, ‘substance’ is often not an apt translation.  Esse -- variations on ‘esse’ give us ‘ontological,’ and thus, ontological commitment: the object or objects common to the ontology fulfilling some regimented theory a term fashioned by Quine. The ontology of a regimented theory consists in the objects the theory assumes there to be. In order to show that a theory assumes a given object, or objects of a given class, we must show that the theory would be true only if that object existed, or if that class is not empty. This can be shown in two different but equivalent ways: if the notation of the theory contains the existential quantifier ‘Ex’ of first-order predicate logic, then the theory is shown to assume a given object, or objects of a given class, provided that object is required among the values of the bound variables, or additionally is required among the values of the domain of a given predicate, in order for the theory to be true. Thus, if the theory entails the sentence ‘Exx is a dog’, then the values over which the bound variable ‘x’ ranges must include at least one dog, in order for the theory to be true. Alternatively, if the notation of the theory contains for each predicate a complementary predicate, then the theory assumes a given object, or objects of a given class, provided some predicate is required to be true of that object, in order for the theory to be true. Thus, if the theory contains the predicate ‘is a dog’, then the extension of ‘is a dog’ cannot be empty, if the theory is to be true. However, it is possible for different, even mutually exclusive, ontologies to fulfill a theory equally well. Thus, an ontology containing collies to the exclusion of spaniels and one containing spaniels to the exclusion of collies might each fulfill a theory that entails ‘Ex x is a dog’. It follows that some of the objects a theory assumes in its ontology may not be among those to which the theory is ontologically committed. A theory is ontologically committed to a given object only if that object is common to all of the ontologies fulfilling the theory. And the theory is ontologically committed to objects of a given class provided that class is not empty according to each of the ontologies fulfilling the theory.  Esse -- variations on ‘esse’ give us Grice’s ontological marxism:  As opposed to ‘ontological laisssez-faire’ Note the use of ‘ontological’ in ‘ontological’ Marxism. Is not metaphysical Marxism, so Grice knows what he is talking about. Many times when he uses ‘metaphysics,’ he means ‘ontological.’ Ontological for Grice is at least liberal. He is hardly enamoured of some of the motivations which prompt the advocacy of psycho-physical identity. He has in mind a concern to exclude an entity such as as a ‘soul,’ an event of the soul, or a property of the soul. His taste is for keeping open house for all sorts of conditions of entities, just so long as when the entity comes in it helps with the housework, i. e., provided that Grice see the entity work, and provided that it is not detected in illicit logical behaviour, which need not involve some degree of indeterminacy, The entity works? Ergo, the entity exists. And, if it comes on the recommendation of some transcendental argument the entity may even qualify as an entium realissimum. To exclude an honest working entitiy is metaphysical snobbery, a reluctance to be seen in the company of any but the best. A category, a universalium plays a role in Grice’s meta-ethics. A principles or laws of psychology may be self-justifying, principles connected with the evaluation of ends. If these same principles play a role in determining what we count as entia realissima, metaphysics, and an abstractum would be grounded in part in considerations about value (a not unpleasant project). This ontological Marxism is latter day. In “Some remarks,” he expresses his disregard for what he calls a “Wittgensteinian” limitation in expecting behavioural manifestation of an ascription about a soul. Yet in “Method” he quotes almost verbatim from Witters, “No psychological postulation without the behaviour the postulation is meant to explain.” It was possibly D. K. Lewis who made him change his mind. Grice was obsessed with Aristotle on ‘being,’ and interpreted Aristotle as holding a thesis of unified semantic ‘multiplicity.’ This is in agreement with the ontological Marxism, in more than one ways. By accepting a denotatum for a praedicatum like ‘desideratum,’ Grice is allowing the a desideratum may be the subject of discourse. It is an ‘entity’ in this fashion. Marxism and laissez-faire both exaggerate the role of the economy. Society needs a safety net to soften the rough edges of free enterprise. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Ontological Marxism and ontological laissez-faire.” Engelsstudied by Grice for his “Ontological Marxism” -- F, G. socialist and economist who, with Marx, was the founder of what later was called Marxism. Whether there are significant differences between Marx and Engels is a question much in dispute among scholars of Marxism. Certainly there are differences in emphasis, but there was also a division of labor between them. Engels, and not Marx, presented a Marxist account of natural science and integrated Darwinian elements in Marxian theory. But they also coauthored major works, including The Holy Family, The G. Ideology 1845, and The Communist Manifesto 1848. Engels thought of himself as the junior partner in their lifelong collaboration. That judgment is correct, but Engels’s work is both significant and more accessible than Marx’s. He gave popular articulations of their common views in such books as Socialism: Utopian and Scientific and AntiDühring 1878. His work, more than Marx’s, was taken by the Second International and many subsequent Marxist militants to be definitive of Marxism. Only much later with some Western Marxist theoreticians did his influence decline. Engels’s first major work, The Condition of the Working Class in England 1845, vividly depicted workers’ lives, misery, and systematic exploitation. But he also saw the working class as a new force created by the industrial revolution, and he developed an account of how this new force would lead to the revolutionary transformation of society, including collective ownership and control of the means of production and a rational ordering of social life; all this would supersede the waste and disparity of human conditions that he took to be inescapable under capitalism. The G. Ideology, jointly authored with Marx, first articulated what was later called historical materialism, a conception central to Marxist theory. It is the view that the economic structure of society is the foundation of society; as the productive forces develop, the economic structure changes and with that political, legal, moral, religious, and philosophical ideas change accordingly. Until the consolidation of socialism, societies are divided into antagonistic classes, a person’s class being determined by her relationship to the means of production. The dominant ideas of a society will be strongly conditioned by the economic structure of the society and serve the class interests of the dominant class. The social consciousness the ruling ideology will be that which answers to the interests of the dominant class. From the 1850s on, Engels took an increasing interest in connecting historical materialism with developments in natural science. This work took definitive form in his Anti-Dühring, the first general account of Marxism, and in his posthumously published Dialectics of Nature. AntiDühring also contains his most extensive discussion of morality. It was in these works that Engels articulated the dialectical method and a systematic communist worldview that sought to establish that there were not only social laws expressing empirical regularities in society but also universal laws of nature and thought. These dialectical laws, Engels believed, reveal that both nature and society are in a continuous process of evolutionary though conflict-laden development. Engels should not be considered primarily, if at all, a speculative philosopher. Like Marx, he was critical of and ironical about speculative philosophy and was a central figure in the socialist movement. While always concerned that his account be warrantedly assertible, Engels sought to make it not only true, but also a finely tuned instrument of working-class emancipation which would lead to a world without classes. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Ontological Marxism.”