by JLS
for the GC
J was making some v. good remarks on 'the Gricean variants on a Kantian quartette'. Surely, Kant can't (no pun intended) have his cake and eat it: singular versus particular?! I suppose one can say, "She (Kate Beckinsale) has a particular beauty: the same that one found in Ava Gardner". So, while Kate and Ava are singular individuals, they surely cannot share a SINGULAR beauty, but a particular beauty of the type that both Kate and Ava shared -- or something. In fact, it's best to strict to 'particular' as opposed to 'total'. It's the totality and the part. The use of 'particular' to mean 'individual' is slightly obscene.
"A particular individual came to town".
Surely it is not meant that a PART of an individual came to town.
On the other hand, a singular individual is also obscene. As when they say, "He is a natural", failing to specify _what_.
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Grice on neotraditionalim may refer to J's point about term logic, and stuff. It's like you are either a modernist (as Grice felt he was, at times -- with Frege and Russell) or a neo-traditionalist, with Strawson, the Aristotelian, Fred Sommers, and the rest of them.:
Grice writes, pp. 373ff Way of Words:
Grice's description of the FOUR tenets of neo-traditionalism:
1. "At a number of points it is clear that the apparatus
of modernism [predicate calculus] does not give a faithful
account of the character of ... ordinary discourse."
"These deviations appear in the ... treatment of the
Square of Opposition, ... and the representation of
universal statements by universal quantifiers."
2. "The aspects thus omitted by Modernists are not
such that their presence would undermine or discredit
[logical form] in the analysis of which they would
appear. Like Cyrano de Bergerac's nose, they are
features which are prominent without being disfiguring."
3. ... "They impede the ... comprehensive and compendious
representation of the body of admissible logical
inferences."
4. The 'logica utens' is not 'logica ducens'.
The points do not quite touch J on 'term' logic so one may need to rephrase.
But it's true that predicate calculus is NOT subject-predicate:
"That girl is a natural"
There is an x such that x is a girl and x is a natural.
No need to specify 'the girl' as SUBJECT.
In fact the 'account' of definite descriptions is also listed in Point I along with the Square of Opposition -- as being related.
Indeed the A E I O of the Square of opposition can be given predicate calculus variants
(x) If x is S, x is P
(Ex) x is S and x is P
(Ex) x is S and it is not the case that x is P
(x) it is not the case (x is S, x is P)
---
The problem also has to do with negation -- and Aristotelian or traditionalist and neo-traditionalists also using '-' versus the ~ to represent negation. But this connects with Point II above, about the truth-value gap. "The king of France is not bald", where 'not' is symbolised by "-", would yield the case of an EXISTING King of France. It is internal negation. External negation ~ is the only one accepted by standard modernists. Engelbretsen wrote on this. Etc.
There are so many variants that it hurts.
Of course we know who Strawson got his logic from: Grice!
I was amused to read Sommers's "The logic of natural language" -- reviewed by Strawson for "The Journal of Philosophy", and especially fascinated that Sommers cares to cite Grice from a couple of seminars he attended as given by Grice and where Sommers was impressed by all the strange symbols Grice would use to qualify his views via substripts and brackets of course!
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Nice discussion, and you get AEIO right tho' yr Gricean translations seem a bit...odd. Frege (and Russell, and the rest of the gang) used conditionals (->, or horseshoe), right? But the top two A and E were the universal; bottom I and O were particular (in Frege's translation as well). You have AIEO.
ReplyDeleteKant's table makes a bit more sense. What is now existential generalization (right) was Ari.'s particular. The particular then more or less inductive, at least with ordinary world: "there exists" (at least one...swan that is white, etc). And singular statements then are shown to be.. unique (even logically so, right)--not on the SOI, like "The King of France." OR descriptions in the fiendish Russell's sense. But I think you could still use "The King of France" in whimsy logic. "The King of France is a King." KFx->Kx Or, "Pegasus has wings"--Px->Wx. Not real deep, but the truth of the premise a separate matter
. But again, premises aren't deductions...not real deep, but in a sense Russell was doing something like verification with descriptions... or something like dat.
I don't know. I think Grice took Strawson's comments very carefully. It may also have to do, at a deep level, with basic predication -- hence my bringing this into discussion vis a vis your reference to 'denotation' or lack thereof.
ReplyDeleteI think in the 1950s Strawson was pretty obsessed with predication -- and reference. I like to think of an real estate dealer who wrote his DPhil on that: J. R. Searle. His DPhil Oxon is really "Reference and Predication" and written under Strawson.
So, -- the other problem that the AEIO square does not represent too well is the iota operator.
It's true that for Quine, indeed, Px --> Wx represents things like x pegasises, etc. But I like to think that fiendish and all, the Russellian expansion of the iota operator (uniqueness, etc.) is not so bad as a representation of 'the'). Oddly, many operas have names like "La Fosca", "La Tosca", "Il Orfeo", etc -- a pretty refutation of the idea that proper names cannot carry 'the' like that. Must be an Italian thing.
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I should re-read what Grice wrote about his 'reactions' to 'neo-Traditionalism', and excerpt a bit.
"At a number of points it is clear that the apparatus of modernism [predicate calculus] does not give a faithful account of the character of ... ordinary discourse."
ReplyDeleteWell, ordinary discourse does not give a faithful account of predicate calculus. Which is to say, we're back to context. Where does formal logic appear? (or should it appear). Only in philosophy classrooms, perhaps a prosecutor's speech, or a few logical operators in programmers' code? Shouldn't say journalists have to be logical? Politicians? All educators, not just math. people, or logicians... It's a bit weird we--even you , El Jefe of Grice Club-- don't demand more logic ...both in formal sense (ie valid arguments), and induction in a sense (ie, verification/evidentialism). Indeed, the tradition--even platonic trad.--was to implement logocracy in a sense (w/o resorting to totalitarianism, hopefully...), destroying the idols of the tribe. Imagine if Katie Couric or Oprah or Limbaughs and pundits were required to offer nothing but true statements, and valid arguments (or at least assign probabilities)....Holy head of MEDUSA.
One reason I say, logic's bad for bidness (not to say boring, or boorish. Recall DH Lawrence calling Bertrand Russell some cold, hypercerebral freak, and then slamming the door, grabbing his fave Nietzsche, his...Schlampe, and heading out for the wilderness...at least for a few months. More Russells, less Lawrences...)
Yes. The place of logic. A good thing to consider. Perhaps I'll drop some thoughts in a blog post. Thanks.
ReplyDelete