The Descriptive-Revisionary Distinction

The other day I was, yet again, re-reading Chapman's Grice -- There's Chapman's Homer, and Chapman's Grice.

She has a few quotes by Grice on

'revisionary'.

Recall that when Strawson published "Individuals" ('a book,' Grice recalls, 'in which you'll see one reflection, uncredited, by yours truly' (or words), Reply to Richards), the subtitle went:

an essay in DESCRIPTIVE metaphysics.

This was 1959. Two years before then, Grice and Strawson and Pears had published their ambitious

"Metaphysics",
in D. F. Pears, The nature of metaphysics

where they discuss the limits of the discipline and, among other things, call Kant an 'ambitious metaphysician'.

For Strawson, it makes sense to do 'descriptive' metaphysics. For Grice?

---

I read from Chapman ("Grice", Palgrave, 2006):

"Grice offers an explicit defence of metaphysics,
contrasting it particularly with the RIGID
empiricism of logical POSITIVISM"

This should please Jones, above.

Chapman quotes from Grice, 1988:75 -- the Aristotle paper:

Grice:

"A definition of the nature and range
of metaphysical enquiries is among
the most formidable of philosophical
tasks; we need all the help we can get,
particularly at a time when metaphysicians
have only recently begun to re-emerge
from the closet, and to my mind are still
hampered by the aftermath of decades of
ridicule and vilification at hand of the
rednecks of Vienna and their adherents".

We don't need to go there, and Jones is very right in going along much more polite lines when he imagines an imaginary conversation, alla Landor, between Grice and Carnap in his pdf whose link he shared elsewhere.

Chapman comments:

"Grice saw the 'revisionary character' of metaphysical theorising a topic to which he would need to return."

-- But did he?

Chapman continues:

"In fact, it [i.e. this 'revisionary character'] is closely linked to another area of ... interest: ... "the vulgar and the learned"."

"In this terminology," Chapman notes, "and in the ideas it described, it seems likely that Grice was borrowing from Hume,"

-- for Hume is where the heart is, as I and Jones agree.

"one of the 'old boys' of philosophy he particularly admired"

-- indeed. He co-wrote something with Haugeland on this, that Haugeland reprinted, without much of a credit to Grice, in one of his books (Hume on the vagaries of personal identity -- and cfr. "Humean projection", A Dictionary of Grice, THIS BLOG).

I wrote in my margins to the book,

"Grice posing as indignant", when he mentions the rednecks. It's a _pose_ in a way that brings colour to his prose. Of course the methodology of metaphysical inquiry cannot get so gladiatorial, to use Jones' charming epithet.

Chapman notes, "Grice argued that," as in Hume, "pre-theoretical intutions, or common-sense accounts, are often USED as the foundations of metaphysical theories."

"Very generally," Chapman notes -- and this is in the last chapter of her intellectual biography, on Metaphysics --, "Grice urges that theorists of metaphysics are WELL ADVISED to"

"KEEP DESCRIPTIVE" (my term, JLS), i.e.

"to take account of common-sense understanding."

"It is not", Chapman argues Grice argued, "that common sense is 'superior' to metaphysical accounts, or can replace them. The complex accounts offered by philosophers serve a different FUNCTION from those of everyday life, and can coexist."

Here he brings in Eddington's two tables for good measure. Chapman notes: "Grice's brief notes suggest that he is happy to accept BOTH the vulgar and the learned descriptions of the table".

You'll recall, the mainly vacuous table of the quantum-physicist, and the thing where I lay my tea things on, of me.

Chapman writes: "Grice is advocating philosopical respect for common sense, and as such aligning himself with ... Berkeley, Moore and Aristotle."

In much earlier notes, and this should ALSO please Jones since he has a thing or two to say about Phyrro in his interesting pdf nojtes, Grice, Chapman notes,

"his jotted 'Aspects of respect for vulgar' include

'protection against sceptic'

and

'proper treatment of Folk Wisdom'

but also

'protection of speech from change""

-- and decay, in all around I see (JLS, to the tune of "Abide with me")

"and impropriety".

So, I would say that there is more than one reason to suggest that for Grice

the revisionary
metaphysics

should be at most _constructed_ out of a proper _descriptive_ one.

In any case, I know _I_ would never have cared for Grice if (and only if) the first thing he wrote on metaphysics came directly from his idiosyncratic head, rather than as giving credit, descriptively if somewhat fastidiously or pedantically, to the ways of what he called 'words', of, of all sacred organs, "ordinary language" as we knew her!

Cheers,

JL