Grice's Emphysema

----

This is very sad, so I shall be cautious.



When my mentor, E. A. Rabossi, was lecturing on akrasia (I was his grad. student), a rather irreverent student, who was seated next to me (to my left, as I recall) said,

"It amused me that you should
lecture us about weakness of
the will when you can't stop
reeking that silly pipe of yours."

---

Ditto, or rather non-ditto, Grice. He had problems with smoking, and when he was diagnosed with emphysema he never again touched the Navy's Players Cuts.

---

"I know I should not be smoking, but I am"

-- Is this akratic?

"The problem," Grice notes, "lies on what we mean by 'cigarette'".



Grice is concerned, too, with what he calls the 'paradox' of 'akrasia'.

Basically the inconsistency of a triad,

P1, P2 and P3.

Where P3

is 'There is such a thing as akrasia'.

I note that Grice (after Davidson here) uses 'passion' rather broadly.

I don't know about you anglos but the
example by Grice (after Davidson) strikes me as an odd use of 'passion'.

Grice speaks of 'passion being the victor over duty' and refers to a man
who one night stays in his warm bed rather than go wash his teeth (as he
forgot to do) (p.29). Some passionate acting!

Grice modifies slightly Davidson's symbolism. Notably, the protasis is
written before the apodosis, so we have the akratic as having in his mind:



1. Pf (ATC, !p)

&

2. !~p

(e.g. to do ~p is "would be more pleasant" than to do p).
(And where ATC stands for "all things considered", i.e. "relative to
everything which _SHOULD_ be considered").

Grice refers at this point to his mimeo,


'Probability, Desirability, and Modal Operators'.

Performadillo, 1973, and the Kant Lectures -- sp. II.


Levinson
quotes this as 'Probability, Defeasibility and Mood Operators', i.e. wrongly.

I like
Grice's use of "modal" to mean "related to "mood" or "mode"", though... (He
makes a point about this in _Aspects of Reason_ after critique by J.
Moravcsik).

Grice notes that


Pf (ATC, !p is better than !~p).


can mean, on occasion (of utterance) _two_ different
things.

For it can mean:

(i) "!p" is _good_.

or it can mean

(ii) !p is better than any alternative.
ie !p is _best_ _simpliciter_ (or 'goodest' as Grice preferred).


Grice proposes a seven-step derivation of both alethic and
practical syllogism (p.34):


_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
| | | |
|Steps | Boulomaic Version | Doxastic Version |
|_ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|
| | | |
|Step I | pf(A,!p) | pr(A,p) |
|_ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|
| | | |
|Step II | pf(AB,!p) | pr(AB,p) |
|_ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|
| | | |
|Step III | pf(ABCD,!p) | pr(ABCD,p) |
|_ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|
| | | |
|Step IV |pf(all things before me,!p)| pr(all things before me,p) |
|_ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|
| | | |
|Step V | pf(ATC,!p) | pb(ATC,p) |
|_ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|
| | | |
|Step VI | !p | |- p |
|_ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|
| | | |
|Step VII | R wills !p | R judges p |
|_ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _|


Grice provides some detail about this 'deontic' interpretation of "ATC".

Should it not rather read as

"everything which _SHOULD_ be considered".

He writes:

"Surely an account of akrasia
should provide for the possibility of a measure of scrupulousness in the
deliberation of the agent who subsequently acts incontently!" (p.35).

Therefore of course implicating that Davidson's simplified account fails to do just that.

Grice defines the akratic as the agent who

thinks

that what he's doing is something which he should _not_ be doing". So far so good.

Grice provides two views here.

First, there's a naive one, and a more sophisticated one which is of course the
one he ends up endorsing.

According to the naive one, the incontinent agent judges that he
should do p but does not p.

According to a more sophisticated view which he
endorses, akrasia becomes a sin of thought rather than agency.

For the thinker thinks that he

should judge

that he should do p, but does not
actually judge that he should do A.

Grice concedes that the naive view seems superior, but only on the face of it.

Grice defends the 'naive' view as follows:

"Why should my departure from
the naive view be thougth to give a better account of akrasia? On the face
of it, the naive view seems way superior" (p.41).

The problem is whether it also looks superior on the face of the akratic.

"(i) it seems EASIER to attribute to people
a failure to act as they fully believe they ought to
act than to attribute to them a failure to believe what they fully believe
they ought to believe"

But people, you never know.


The second point is rather subtler, i.e

(ii) "What is there to prevent a person from
judging that he should do p, when he judges that he should judge that he
should do p, except his disinclination to do p, and would it not be more
natural to suppose that this disinclination prevents his judgement that he
should do p from being followed by his doing p than to suppose that it
prevents his judgement that he should judge that he should do p from being
followed by jis judgement that he should do p?"

At this point, one longs for Davidson's simplicities!

Grice is certain that it's all about 'pleasure':


For, after all, "the incontinent person
forms an intention to do ~p to which he is promted by its prospective
pleasantness".

"In spite of the fact, of which he is aware, that the conditions fo far taken into acccount (which include the prospective pleasantness of ~p) so far as they go favour p" (p.44).

"It appears to the
incontinent person that the claim of prospective pleasantness of ~p is or
is being outweighed, but, nevertheless, he judges that the pleasant thing
is the best thing to do and so acts on the judgement" (p.45).

We have yet to analyse how Grice extends his account to deal with
_doxastic_ akrasia, as it were, not only in the way analysed above, as
concerning the agent's judgings, but in the sense that it concerns
_theoretical_ reasoning. Grice is crucial that this all has _theoretical_
counterpart. Specifically, he is analysing cases of defeasibility and
indefeasibility of desirability reasoning vis a vis _probability_
reasoning."

"At one point he makes the following point re: probability
reasoning, which I found of interest if only to amuse you."

"If I am
investigating probabilitistically the possibility that it is now raining in
Timbuctoo, the relevant ideal totality of evidence should _NOT_ include the
fact that it is raining in Timbuctoo." (p.36). Why! --

At another point, he mentions the online version (well he does not say this but I _know_ it's available online) of Lewis Carroll's 'Achilles and the Tortoise'.

The
incontinent man is _not_ like the Tortoise, who would accept modus ponens
and p, and p -> q, but yet, do not infer "q".

What does Grice say about 'incontinence' in _Aspects of Reason_ then, and in what ways it refutes Grice's own earlier views in Performadillo.

Other
than the ref. (cited in my previous post) in the lecture I, and a few other
refs indexed (25, 47 -- and also 73), he does so in the section.

'Fuller
exposition of the 'initial idea' (pp.72ff). He writes:

"I am going to be
almost exclusively concerned with alethic and practical arguments, the
proximate conclusions of which will be, respectively, of the forms (1) Acc
(|- p) and (2) Acc (!p). For example: (3) Acceptable (it is the case that
it snows) and (4) Acceptable (let it be that I go home)."

"There will be two
possible ways of reading "Acc". We might regard it as a _sentential_
modifier."

"In that case, to utter (4) will be to utter: (5) Acceptably, let
it be that I go home."

"However,"

TO ADOPT THIS VIEW WOULD SEEM TO COMMIT US TO
THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF INCONTINENCE;

for since

'Accept that let it be that I go home'

is to be my rewrite for

'V-accept (will) that I go home',

ANYONE x WHO CONCLUDED, BY PRACTICAL ARGUMENT, THAT

'Acceptable let it be that x go home' would

IPSO FACTO
will
to go home."

It is here that Grice, crucially, traces the parallel with what I would
call 'doxastic akrasia'.

"Similarly, THOUGH LESS PARADOXICALLY, at least to me,

any one who concluded, by alethic argument,

'Acceptable it is the case that it snows',

would ipso facto judge that it snows."

"So, an alternative rading seems preferable."

--- or no reading at all, as Geary may conclude.