Electromixosis, Was: The Devil of Scienticism

By J. L. Speranza

for the Grice Club, &c.



Grice is gone on record, no doubt, as an anti-scientist.

"Mind," he would warn his readers, "I'm not against ALL or any types of science. I'm not what you would call a Christian Scientist, either."

"Electromixosis, for example," he adds, "be mighty effective," -- even if the cure will not be "total" ('in Kant's sense of the term).

Grice asks us to consider the following scenario.


Dr. Carnap is considering
how to treat a patient, Pidduck.

-- To simplify our reasonings: we shall translate the doctor's scribblings onto the appropriate Kantian staements using the proper modal operators: 'ought', 'must' and the more colloquial (or less formal) 'is to'."

"Doctor Carnap has, or has available to him, the following alethic acceptability conditionals."

-- Note: "Each of them is derived by an instantiation from a _caeteris paribus_
(defeasible) generalisation which is (we assume) well established -- by Doctor Carnap himself, or at least a not totally unsubstantial number of his colleagues."


In the first SCENARIO (I), what we have is


(1) "Given that

i Pidduck is to
be relieved of cephalagia

(an ailment, a common symptom of which is headache), and

that

ii. Pidduck is of blood group O,

_then_

iii. Pidduck ought to take an aspirin."


Our SCENARIO II is slightly more complex since it involves, now, Pidduck's freedom of the will (to take an aspirin or not, as the case may be).

In this case, Doctor Carnap has to reason:

(2) "Given that

i. Pidduck is to be
relieved of caphalalgia but also of

ii.
gasteroplexis (an ailment, a common symptom of which is stomach cramp),

iii. and that Pidduck is of blood group O,

_then_

iv. Pidduck ought to be treated by
electromixosis (the very latest thing in this region of therapy)."

-- Finally we reach what Kant calls 'the realm of ends':

SCENARIO III:

The Doctor Carnap reasons as follows:

(3) "Given that

i. Pidduck is to be relieved of cephalalgia and also of

ii. gasteroplexis, and that

iii. Pidduck is of blood group O and

iv. that his blood has
an abnormally high alcohol content,

_then_

iv. Pidduck ought to be given gentle massage until his condition changes."

Grice comments:

"IF Doctor Carnap accepts the antecedents of the first two conditionals --
our scenarios I and II above -- but he also _rejects_ the antecedent of the third -- scenario i.e. to wit: III. He does not find an abnormally high alcohol content in Pidduck's blood. And IF however, he does not reject the antecedent of conditional (3), but he considers that he has AMPLE GROUNDS for _rejecting_ the antecedent
of ANY conditional which extends the antecedent of (2). AND, given that Doctor Carnap regards
Pidduck's condition as a perfectly normal case of cephalalgia combined with
gasteroplexis;

THEN,

though there are (perhaps indefinitely many) GOOD 'ceteris
paribus' generalisations with antecedents extending the antecedent of the
GENERALISATION from which conditional (2) is derived,

we can safely conclude that Dr. Carnap will be CONFIDENT that
none of them applies to _Pidduck_.

In such a situation, we suggest, the Doctor Carnap is entitled to treat (in perhaps not fully a professional or medical sense) Pidduck's case

AS IF

it fell under a FULL-ACCEPTABILITY [demonstrative, non-ceteris paribus]
generalisation (one which is NOT defeasible).

And this is cleary so, provided it can be exposed by
CHANGING, in the generalisation that the operator 'ought' conveyes to the alethic operator 'MUST'."

"Only then is the Doctor Carnap allowed to apply DETACHMENT, and decide (think) that
Pidduck MUST be give electromixosis." (p. 86).


Grice adds as a concluding corollary: "Of course, all this is immaterial is Pidduck rather gets the massage _in the end_."