H. P. Grice,
“Prejudices and predilections;
which become,
the life and opinions of H. P.
Grice.”
Grice:
CHILDHOOD AT
HARBORNE: THE START OF A DISSENTING RATIONALISM.
“As I look
back upon my former self, it seems to me that when I began the serious study of
philosophy, the temperament with which I approached this enterprise was one of
what I might call dissenting rationalism.”
“(As I read
what I find myself to have written, I also find myself ready to expand this
description to read ‘irreverent, conservative, dissenting rationalism’).”
“The
rationalism was probably just the interest in looking for reasons which is found in any intelligent person who wants to study
philosophy.”
“The tendency towards dissent may, however, have been derived from, or have been intensified by, my father.”
“The tendency towards dissent may, however, have been derived from, or have been intensified by, my father.”
“My father,
who was a gentle person, a fine musician, and a dreadful business man,
exercised little personal influence over me, but quite a good deal of cultural influence.”
“Herbert
Grice was an obdurate nineteenth-century liberal non-conformist.”
“I
witnessed, almost daily, and without involvement, the spectacle of my father’s religious
non-conformism coming under attack from the women in the household: my mother,
who was heading for High Anglicanism, and, especially, a resident aunt, a
Catholic convert.”
“But
whatever its origin in my case, I do
not regard dissenting rationalism as at all remarkable.”
“I mention
it more because of its continued presence than because of its initial
appearance.”
“It seems to
me that dissenting rationalism has persisted, and indeed may have significantly
expanded, over my philosophical life.”
“This I am
inclined to regard as a much less usual phenomenon.”
OXFORD:
CORPUS.
“I count
myself wonderfully fortunate to have begun my studies as tutee of W. F. R.
Hardie, president of my alma mater, Corpus, the author of an essay on Plato
which both is and is recognised as a master-piece, whose explorations on the Nicomachean
Ethics, in one of their earlier incarnations, as a set of lecture notes, sees me
through terms of teaching Aristotle's moral theory.”
“It seems to
me that I learnt from Hardie just about all the things which one can be taught
by someone else, as distinct from the things which one has to teach oneself.”
“More
specifically, my initial rationalism is developed at Hardie’s tutorials into a
belief that a philosophical question is to be settled by a reason, that is to
say, by an argument.”
“I learnt
also from Hardie how to argue.”
“In learning
how to argue, I came to learn that the ability to argue is a skill involving
many aspects, and is much more than the
ability to see a logical connection (though this ability is, by no means, to be
despised).”
“From
Hardie, I came also to see that, though philosophical ‘progress’ is pretty difficult
to achieve, and is often achieved only after an agonising labour, it is worth achieving; and that the difficulty
involved in achieving philosophical ‘progress’ offers no kind of an excuse for
a lowering of standards, or for substituting for the goals of ‘philosophical
truth’ some more easily achievable or accessible goal, like rabble-rousing.”
“Hardie’s methods,
I grant, are too austere for some.”
“In particular,
Hardie’s long silences at tutorials are found somewhat distressing by some
tutees (though as the years went by, the tempo did speed up.”
“There is a
story, which I am not sure that I believe, that at one point in one of Hardie’s
tutorial, a very long silence developed when it is Hardie’s turn to speak,
which was at long last broken by Hardie with: ‘And what did you mean by ‘of’?’”
“Another
story, which I think I do believe, has a tutee of Hardie’s deciding that the
next time a silence develops in one of Hardie’s tutorials, the tutee is not going to be the one to break it.”
“In the next
tutorial, after the tutee finished reading his essay to Hardie, there follows a
silence which lasts twenty-five minutes, at which point the tutee can stand it
no longer, and says something.”
“Hardie’s tutorial
rigours never bother me.”
“If
philosophising is a difficult operation, as it plainly is, sometimes time, even
quite a lot of time, will be needed
in order to make a move, as chess-players are only too well aware.”
“The idea
that a philosopher either has already answered all questions, or is equipped to
answer any question immediately, is no less ridiculous than would be the idea
that Karpov ought to be able successfully to defend his title if he, though not
his opponent, were bound by the rules of lightning chess.”
“I like the
slow pace of discussion with Hardie.”
“I like the
breath-laden ‘Ooohhh!’ which Hardie sometimes emits when he catches his tutee
in, or even pushes him into, a patently untenable position (though I prefer it
when this ejaculation is directed at someone other than myself).”
“I also like
Hardie’s resourcefulness in the defence of what may be a difficult position, a
characteristic illustrated by the following incident which Hardie himself once
told me about himself.”
“Hardie had parked
his car and gone to a cinema.”
“Unfortunately,
Hardie had parked his car on top of one of the strips on the street by means of
which traffic-lights are, at the time, controlled by the passing traffic.”
“As a
result, the lights are jammed, and it requires four policemen to lift Hardie’s car
off the strip.”
“The police
decides to prosecute.”
“I indicated
to Hardie that this did not surprise me at all and asked him how he fared.”
“‘Oh,’
Hardie says, ‘I got off.’”
“I ask Hardie
how on earth he managed that.”
“‘Quite
simply,’ Hardie answers, ‘I just invoked Mill’s method of difference.’”
“‘The police
charged me with causing an obstruction at 4 p.m.’”
“‘I tell him
that, since my car was parked at 2 p.m.,
it could not have been my car which
caused the obstruction at 4 p.m.’”
“Hardie never discloses his views to his tutees,
no doubt wishing them to think their own thoughts (however flawed) rather than
his.”
“When a
tutee did succeed, usually with considerable difficulty, in eliciting from
Hardie an expression of his own position, what one got was liable to be, though
carefully worked out and ingeniously argued, distinctly conservative in tone.”
“Not
surprisingly, it would not contain much in the way of battle-cries or
campaign-material.”
“Aspiring
knights-errant require more than a sword, a shield, and a horse of superior
quality impregnated with a suitable admixture of magic.”
“They
require a supply, or at least a procedure which can be relied on to maximize
the likelihood of access to a supply, of damsels in distress.”
AYER, ENFANT
TERRIBLE.
“Oxford is rudely
aroused from its semi-peaceful semi-slumbers by the barrage of Viennese
bombshells hurled at it by A. J. Ayer, the enfant terrible of Oxford
philosophy.”
“Many
philosophers, including myself, are greatly interested
by the methods, theses, and problems which are on display, and some are, at
least momentarily, inspired by what they see and hear.”
“For my
part, however, my reservations are never laid to rest.”
“The crudities and dogmatisms seem too pervasive.”
“The crudities and dogmatisms seem too pervasive.”
“And then
everything was more or less brought to a halt by the war.”
POST-WAR
OXFORD
“After the
war, the picture at Oxford is quite different,
as a result of the dramatic rise in the influence of J. L. Austin, the rapid
growth of Oxford as a world centre of philosophy, due largely to the efforts of
Gilbert Ryle, and of the extraordinarily high quality of the many philosophers
who at that time appear on the scene.”
“My own
philosophical life in this period involves two especially important aspects.”
ROBBING
PETER TO PAY PAUL..
“The first
is my prolonged collaboration with my tutee at St. John’s, P. F. Strawson.”
“Strawson’s
and my efforts are partly directed towards the giving of joint seminars.”
“Strawson and I stage a number of joint seminars on topics related to the notions of meaning, categories, and logical form.”
“Strawson and I stage a number of joint seminars on topics related to the notions of meaning, categories, and logical form.”
“But my association
with P. F. Strawson is much more than an alliance for the purpose of teaching.”
“Strawson
and I consume vast quantities of time in systematic and unsystematic
philosophical exploration.”
“From these
discussions springs not just our joint published essay, ‘In defense of a
dogma,’ but also work on predication and categories, one or two reflections of
which are visible in Strawson's own “Individuals: an essay in descriptive
metaphysics.””
“Strawson’s
and my method of composition is laborious in the extreme.”
“Work is constructed
together sentence by sentence, nothing being written down until agreement is reached,
which often takes quite a time.”
“The rigours
of this procedure eventually lead to its demise.”
“During this
period of collaboration, Strawson and I, of course, developed a considerable
corpus of common opinions.”
“But, to my
mind, a more important aspect of it was the extra-ordinary closeness of the
intellectual rapport which Strawson
and I develop.”
“Other people
sometimes complain that Strawson and my mutual exchanges are liable to become
so abbreviated in expression as to be unintelligible to a third party.”
“The
potentialities of such joint endeavours continues to lure me.”
“My collaboration with Strawson is followed by
other collaborations of varying
degrees of intensity, including with J. L. Austin on Aristotle's Categoriae and De Interpretatione, with G. J. Warnock on perception, with D. F. Pears
and with J. F. Thomson on the philosophy of action, with F. G. Staal on philosophical-linguistic
questions, with George Myro on metaphysics, and with J. Baker on ethics.”
SATURDAY
MORNINGS.
The other prominent feature of this period
in my philosophical life is participation in the discussions which take place
on Saturday mornings in term-time and which are conducted by a number of Oxford
philosophers under the leadership of J. L. Austin.”
“This group
which continues to meet up to, and indeed for some years after, Austin's death
is christened by me ‘The Play Group,’ and is often so referred to, though, so
far as I know, never by, or in the presence of, Austin himself.”
“I have little
doubt that this group is often thought of, outside Oxford, and occasionally,
perhaps, even inside Oxford, as
constituting the core, or the hot-bed, of what becomes known as ‘“Ordinary-Language”
Philosophy,’ or, even, ‘The Oxford School of “Ordinary-Language” Philosophy.’”
“As such
core, the Play Group no doubt absorbs its fair share of the hatred and derision
lavished upon the whole ‘School’ by so many people, including Ernest Gellner in
“Words and Things” (and the tirade of letters supporting him in “The Times”) and
Gustav Bergmann, who not actually coined ‘the linguistic turn,’ but the
sobriquets ‘ordinary-language’ philosophy, as opposed to ‘ideal-language’
philosophy’ and who, it is said, when asked whether, one a visit, he is going
to hear a talk delivered by an eminent British philosopher, replies, with
characteristic charm, that he des not propose to waste his time on any English
Futilitarian.”
“Yet, as I
look back on the Play Group activities, I find it difficult to discern any
feature of them which merit this kind of opprobrium.”
“To begin
with, there is more than one group,
or ill-defined association, of Oxford philosophers who are concerned, in one
way or another, with ‘ordinary’ linguistic usage.”
“Besides
those philosophers who, initially at least, gravitate towards J. L. Austin,
there are those who draw special illumination from Gilbert Ryle.”
“And there
are others, better disciplined, perhaps, who look to Wittgenstein, or Witters,
as Austin called him.”
“Now, the
philosophical gait of philosophers
belonging to any of these three groups is, characteristically, markedly
different from that of the philosophers belonging to another.”
“But even within Austin’s Play Group, great
diversity is visible, as one would expect of an association containing
philosophers with the ability and independence of mind of its leader, J. L. Austin,
P. F. Strawson, S. N. Hampshire, G. A. Paul, D. F. Pears, G. J. Warnock, R. M. Hare,
P. H. Nowell-Smith, and P. L. Gardiner, to name a few.”
“Plus, there
is no ‘School.’
“There are
no dogmas which unite the members of Austin’s Play Group, in the way, for
example, that an unflinching, or almost unflinching, opposition to abstract entities unifies and inspires what
I may call the School of Latter-Day Nominalists, or that an unrelenting, or almost unrelenting, determination to
allow significance only to what is verifiable unites the School of Logical
Positivism.”
“It has, I
think, sometimes been supposed that one dogma
which unites Austin’s Play Group is that of the need to restrict our philosophical
attention to ‘ordinary’ language, in a way which disqualifies the introduction
into, or employment in, philosophical discourse of any technical terminology or
jargon, a restriction which seems to put a strangle-hold on any philosophical
theory-construction.”
“It is true
that many, even all, of the members of Austin’s Play Group would have objected,
and rightly objected, to the
introduction of a technical apparatus before the ground is properly laid.”
“The sorry story of deontic logic shows what happens when a technologist rushes in where a well-conducted elephant fears to tread.”
“The sorry story of deontic logic shows what happens when a technologist rushes in where a well-conducted elephant fears to tread.”
“Austin’s
Play Group also (as some of us do
from time to time) objects to the covert
introduction of jargon, the use of a seemingly innocent expression whose bite
comes from a concealed technical overlay, as perhaps has occurred with items of
the philosopher’s lexicon like ‘sensation’ or ‘volition.’”
“But one
glance at J. L. Austin’s “How to talk: Some Simple Ways,” or at “How to Do
Things with Words” should be enough to dispel the idea that there is a general
renunciation of the use of technical terminology, even if some philosophers at
times may have strayed in that direction.”
“Another
dogma to which some may have supposed Austin’s Play Group to be committed is
that of the sanctity, or sacro-sanctity,
of whatever metaphysical judgement or world-picture may be identified as underlying ‘ordinary’ discourse.”
“Such a
dogma is, I imagine, some kind of counter-part to G. E. Moore's ‘Defence of
Common Sense.’”
“It is true
that Austin has a high respect for Moore.”
“‘Some like
Witters, but Moore’s my man,’ Austin would
say.”
“And it is
also true that Austin, and perhaps some other members of the Play Group,
thought that some sort of metaphysic is
embedded in ‘ordinary’ language.”
“But, to
regard such a ‘natural metaphysic’ as present and as being worthy of
examination stops a long way short of supposing such a metaphysic to be guaranteed
as true or acceptable.”
“Any such
further step needs justification by argument.”
“In fact,
the only position which, to my mind, would have commanded universal assent at
The Play Group is that a careful examination of the detailed features of ‘ordinary’
discourse is required as a foundation for philosophical thinking.”
“And, even
here, the enthusiasm of the assent varies from philosopher to philosopher, as
does the precise view taken, if any is taken, about the relationship between some
linguistic phenomenon and a philosophical thesis.”
“It is
indeed worth remarking that the exhaustive examination of linguistic phenomena
is not, as a matter of fact, originally brought in as part of a direct approach
to philosophy.”
“Austin’s
expressed view (the formulation of which no doubt involves some irony) is that
we ‘philosophical hacks’ spend the week making, for the benefit of our tutees,
direct attacks on this or that philosophical issue, and that we need to be
refreshed, at the week-end, by some suitably chosen ‘para-philosophy’ in which some
non-philosophical conception is to be
examined with the full rigour of the Austinian Code, with a view to an ultimate
analogical pay-off (liable never to be reached) in philosophical currency.”
“It is in this spirit that in early days Austin’s Play
Group investigates rules of games (with an eye towards a question about
meaning).”
“Only later
do we turn our micro-scopic eyes more directly upon this or that philosophical
question.”
“It is
possible that some of the animosity directed against so-called ‘“ordinary
language” philosophy’ comes from people who see this ‘movement’ as a sinister
attempt on the part of the intellectual establishment, an establishment whose
home lies within the ancient walls of Oxbridge (walls of stone, not of red
brick) and whose up-bringing is founded on a classical education, to preserve control of philosophy by gearing
philosophical practice to the deployment of a proficiency specially accessible
to the establishment, viz., a highly developed sensitivity to the richness of
linguistic usage.”
“It is, I
think, certain that, among the enemies of this philosophical style, are to be
found the defender of a traditional view of philosophy as a discipline
concerned with the nature of reality,
not with the character of language and its operations, not indeed with any mode
of representation of reality.”
“Such a
person does, to my mind, raise an objection which needs a fully developed
reply.”
“Either the
conclusion which the ‘“ordinary-language” philosopher’ draws from linguistic
data is also linguistic in character, in which case the content of philosophy
is trivialized, or the philosopher's conclusion is not linguistic in character,
in which case the nature of the step from linguistic premisses to a
non-linguistic conclusion is mysterious.”
“The
traditionalist, however, seems to have no stronger reason for objecting to
‘“ordinary-language” philosophy’ than to forms of linguistic philosophy having
no special connection with ‘ordinary’ language, such as that espoused by
logical positivists.”
“But, to my
mind, much the most significant opposition comes from those who feel that ‘
“ordinary-language” philosophy’ is an affront to science and to intellectual
progress, and who regard its exponents as wantonly dedicating themselves to
what Russell, in talking about common sense or some allied idea, once called
‘stone-age metaphysics.’”
“‘Stone-age
metaphysics’ would be the best that could be dredged up from a ‘philosophical’ study
of ‘ordinary’ language.”
“Among such
assailants are to be found those who, in effect, are ready to go along with the
old description of philosophy as the regina
scientiarum but only under a re-interpretation of this phrase.”
“regina must be understood to mean not ‘regina superana’ like Victoria or Elizabeth
II, but ‘regina consors,’ like Alexandra
or Elizabeth the Queen Mother.”
“And the
sovereign of which ‘philosophia’ is the ‘regina consors’ might turn out to be
either science in general, or just physical science.”
“The primary
service which would be expected of ‘philosophia’ as a ‘regina consors’ would be
to provide the sovereign scientist with an ideal, pure, or purified language, for him to use on a
formal occasion (should there be such an occasion).”
“Some, I
suspect, would have been ready to throw in, for good measure, the charge that
the enterprise of ‘“ordinary-language” philosophy’ is in any case doomed, since
it presupposes the admissibility of Carnap’s ‘analytic’/‘synthetic’ distinction
which in fact cannot be sustained.”
“The issue
raised in this attack is both important and obscure, and deserve a much fuller
treatment than I can here provide, but I will do my best in a short space.”
“I have a
few comments.”
“The use
made of Russell’s phrase ‘stone-age metaphysics’ has more rhetorical appeal
than argumentative force.”
“Certainly
‘stone-age’ physics, if by that we
mean a ‘primitive’ set of hypotheses about how the world goes which might conceivably
be embedded somehow or other in an ‘ordinary’ language such as Oxonian English,
does not seem to be a proper object for first-order devotion.”
“But this
fact should not prevent something
derivable or extractable from ‘stone-age’ physics,
perhaps some very general characterization of the nature of reality, from being
a proper target for serious research.”
“For this
extractable characterization might be the same as that which is extractable
from, or that which underlies, twentieth-century physics.”
“Moreover, a
metaphysic embedded in ‘ordinary’ language (should there be such a metaphysic)
may not have to be derived from any
belief about how the world goes which ‘ordinary’ language reflects.”
“Such a
metaphysic might, for example, be derived somehow from the categorial structure of ‘ordinary’ language.”
“Furthermore,
the discovery and presentation of such a metaphysic may thus turn out to be a
properly scientific enterprise, though not, of course, an enterprise in
physical science.”
“A
rationally organized and systematized study of reality might perhaps be such an
enterprise.”
“So might
some highly general theory in formal semantics, though it might, of course, be
a serious question whether these two candidates are identical.”
“To repel
such counter-attacks, an opponent of ‘“ordinary-language” philosophy’ might
have to press into service the argument which I represented him as throwing in for
good measure as an adjunct.”
“The
opponent of ‘“ordinary-language” philosophy’ might, that is, be forced to rebut
the possibility of there being a scientifically respectable, highly general
semantic theory based squarely on
data provided by ‘ordinary’ discourse by arguing, or asserting, that a theory
of the sort suggested would have to presuppose the admissibility of Carnap’s
‘analytic’/‘synthetic’ distinction.”
“With
respect to the suggested allocation to philosophy of a supporting role vis-à-vis
science or some particular favoured science, I should first wish to make sure
that the metaphysical position of the assigner was such as to leave room for
this kind of assessment of roles or functions; and I should start with a lively
expectation that this would not be
the case.”
“But even if
this negative expectation is disappointed, I should next enquire by what
standards of purity a language is to
be adjudged suitable for use by a scientist.”
“If those
standards are supposed to be independent of the needs of science, and so not
dictated by scientists, there seems to be as yet no obstacle to the possibility
that the function of philosophy might be to discover (or devise) a language of
that sort, which might even turn out to be some kind of ‘ordinary’ language.”
“And even if
the requisite kind of purity is to
consist in what I may term such logico-methodological virtues as consistency
and systematicity, which are also those looked for in a scientific theory, what
prevents us, in advance, from attributing these virtues to ‘ordinary’
language?”
‘Ordinary’
language is clever.
“In which
case, the “ordinary-language” philosopher would be back in business.”
“So far as I
can see, once again the enemy of ‘ordinary-language’ philosophy might be forced
to fall back on the allegations that such an attempt to vindicate ‘ordinary’ language
would have to presuppose the viability of Carnap’s analytic/synthetic
distinction.”
“With regard
to Carnap’s analytic/synthetic distinction itself, let me first remark that it
is my present view that neither party, in the actual historical debate, has exactly
covered itself with glory.”
“For
example, Morton White’s earlier argument in “Analyticity,” and W. V. O. Quine’s
later argument in “Two dogmas of empiricism” that any attempt to define
‘analytic’ ends up in a hopelessly circular tour of a group of intensional
concepts disposes, at best, of only one such definitional attempt, and leaves
out of consideration the (to my mind) promising possibility that this type of
definition may not be the right procedure to follow.”
“And, on the
reverse side of the coin, the attempt
by Strawson and myself to defend the distinction by a (one hopes) sophisticated form of the Paradigm-Case
argument (as my tutee at St. John’s A. G. N. Flew calls it) fails to meet, or
even to lay eyes on, the characteristic rebuttal of such types of argument,
namely that the fact that a certain
concept or distinction is frequently
deployed by a population of speakers and thinkers offers no guarantee that the
concept or distinction in question can survive rigorous theoretical scrutiny.”
“To my mind,
the mistake made by both parties has been to try to support, or to discredit,
Carnap’s analytic/synthetic distinction as something which is detectably
present in the use of natural language.”
“It would
have been better to take the hint offered by the appearance of the ‘family
circle’ of concepts pointed to by Quine, and to regard an analytic/synthetic
distinction not as a (supposedly) detectable element in natural language, but
rather as a theoretical device which it might, or again might not, be feasible
and desirable to incorporate into some systematic treatment of natural
language.”
“The
viability of the analytic-synthetic distinction, then, would be a theoretical
question which, so far as I can see, remains to be decided.”
“And the
decision is not likely to be easy, since it is by no means apparent what kind
of theoretical structure would prove to be the home of such a distinction,
should it find a home.”
“A few
further comments seem to me relevant and important.”
“A common, though
perhaps not universally adopted, practice among ‘“ordinary-language”
philosophers’ is to treat as acceptable the forms of ‘ordinary’ discourse and
to seek to lay bare the system, or metaphysic, which underlies it.”
“A common
alternative proposed by enemies of ‘“ordinary-language” philosophy’ has been
that of a rational or ‘ideal’ reconstruction of ‘ordinary’ language.”
“In the
words of Bishop Berkeley, it is proposed that we should speak with the vulgar (the ‘ordinary’) but think with the learned (the ‘ideal’).”
“In such things
we ought to think with the learned, and speak with the vulgar.”
“Berkeley's
response here, that we should think with the learned but speak with the vulgar,
advises us to continue to say that fire heats, that the heart pumps blood, etc.”
“But why
should our vulgar speech be retained?”
“Why should
we not be told merely not to think but also
to speak with the learned?”
“After all,
if my house is pronounced uninhabitable to the extent that I need a new one, it
is not essential that I construct the new one within the outer shell of the old
one, though this procedure might sometimes be cheaper or aesthetically
preferable.”
“An
attachment to the forms of ‘ordinary’ discourse, even when the substance is
discarded, suggests, but of course does not demonstrate, an adherence to some
unstated principle of respect for ‘ordinary’ discourse even on the part of its
avowed enemies.”
“Second,
whether or not a viable analytic/synthetic distinction exists, I am not happy
with the claim that ‘“ordinary-language” philosophy’ pre-supposes the existence
of such a distinction.”
“It might be
that a systematic theoretical treatment of the facts of ‘ordinary’ usage would
incorporate, as part of its theoretical apparatus, material which could be used
to exhibit such a distinction as intelligible and acceptable.”
“But, in
that case, on the assumption that the theoretical treatment satisfies the
standards which theories are supposed to satisfy, it would appear that Carnap’s
analytic/synthetic distinction would be vindicated,
not pre-supposed.”
“For the analytic-synthetic
distinction to be entailed by the
execution of a programme is plainly not the same as is to be pre-supposed by
that programme.”
“For if it
is to be presupposed by the programme of ‘“ordinary-language” philosophy,’ it
would, I imagine, have to be the case that the supposition that anything at all
would count as a successful execution of the programme would require a prior
assumption of the viability of an analytic/synthetic distinction; and how this
allegation could be made out I cannot for the life of me discover.”
“I turn now to the more agreeable task of trying to indicate the features of the philosophical operations of the Play Group which at the time, or (in some instances) sub-sequently, seem to me to be particularly appealing.”
“I turn now to the more agreeable task of trying to indicate the features of the philosophical operations of the Play Group which at the time, or (in some instances) sub-sequently, seem to me to be particularly appealing.”
“First, the
entire idea that we should pay detailed attention to the way we talk seems to
me to have a certain quality which is characteristic of a philosophical revolution (at least a minor one).”
“I was once
dining with P. F. Strawson at Magdalen’s when one of the guests present, an Air
Marshal, reveals himself as having, when he was a student, sat at the feet of
Cook Wilson, whom he revered.”
“Strawson
asked the Air Marshal what he
regarded as specially significant about Cook Wilson as a philosopher.”
“After a
good deal of fumbling, the Air Marshal answers that it was Cook Wilson's
delivery of the message that ‘what we know we know.”
“This
provokes in me, then, some genteel silent mirth.”
“But, a long
time later, I realise that mirth, however genteel and silent, is quite
inappropriate.”
“Indeed,
Cook Wilson’s message was a platitude, but so are many of the best
philosophical messages.”
“For they
exhort us to take seriously something to which, previously, we have given at
best ‘lip service,’ as it were.”
“J. L.
Austin’s message was another platitude.”
“J. L.
Austin’s message, in effect, says that, if in accordance with prevailing
fashion one wants to say that all or some philosophical propositions are really
about linguistic usage, one had
better see to it that one has a proper knowledge of what linguistic usage is and of what lies behind it.”
“This
sophisticated but remorseless
literalism is typical of Austin.”
“When
seeking a way of organizing a discussion group to entertain a visiting logician
from The New World, Austin says, ‘They say that logic is a game. Well then,
let’s play it as a game'; with the result that we spent a fascinating term,
meeting each week to play that week’s improved version of a game called, by
Austin, ‘Symbolo,’ a sequence (I suspect) of less thrilling ancestors of the
game many years later profitably marketed under the name of ‘Wffn’Proof.’”
“Another
appealing element is the fact that J. L. Austin had, and at times communicated,
a prevalent vision of ‘ordinary language’ as a wonderfully intricate
instrument.”
“By this I
do not mean merely that Austin saw, or hoped one day to be able to see, our
language conforming to a Leibnizian ideal of exhibiting an immense variety of
linguistic phenomena which are capable of being elegantly and economically
organized under a relatively small body of principles or rules.”
“Austin
might have had such a picture of language, and may indeed have hoped that some
extension or analogue of Chomsky's work on syntax, which he greatly admired,
might fill in the detail for us, thus providing new access to the Austinian
science of grammar, which seemed to reside in an intellectual Holy of Holies,
to be approached only after an intensive discipline of preliminary linguistic
studies.”
“What I am
imputing to Austin is a belief in our everyday language as an instrument, as
manifesting the further Leibnizian feature of purpose; a belief in it as
something whose intricacies and distinctions are not idle, but rather marvellously and subtly fitted to serve the
multiplicity of our needs and desires in communication.”
“It is not surprising,
therefore, that the Play Group discussions not infrequently involved enquiries
into the [utterer’s?] ‘purpose’ or [utterer’s?] ‘point’ of some feature of
ordinary discourse.”
“When put to
work, this conception of ‘ordinary’ language seems to offer a fresh and
manageable approach to a philosophical idea or a philosophical problem, the
appeal of which approach, in my eyes at least, is in no way diminished by the discernible
affinity between the approach on the one hand and, on the other, the
professions and practice of Aristotle in relation to ‘ta legomena,’ “what is
said.”
“When properly
regulated and directed, ‘linguistic botanising’ seems, to me, to provide a
valuable initiation to the philosophical treatment of a concept, particularly
if what is under examination (and it is arguable that this should always be the
case) is a family of different but related concepts.”
“Indeed, I
will go further, and proclaim it as my belief that linguistic botanising is indispensable, at a certain stage, in a
philosophical enquiry, and that it is lamentable that this lesson has been
forgotten, or has never been learned.”
“That is not
to say that I have ever subscribed to the full Austinian prescription for
linguistic botanising, namely (as one might put it) to go through The Little
Oxford Dictionary and to believe everything The Little Oxford Dictionary tells
you.”
“Indeed, I
once remarked to Austin in a discussion (with I fear, provocative intent) that
I, personally, did not care a hoot what the dictionary said, and drew the
rebuke, ‘And that’s where you make your big mistake.’”
“Of course, not
all these explorations are successful.”
“We once spent five weeks in an effort to explain why, sometimes, ‘very’ allows, with little or no change of meaning, the substitution of ‘highly’ (as in ‘very unusual’) and sometimes does not (as in ‘very depressed’ or ‘very wicked’); and we reached no conclusion.”
“We once spent five weeks in an effort to explain why, sometimes, ‘very’ allows, with little or no change of meaning, the substitution of ‘highly’ (as in ‘very unusual’) and sometimes does not (as in ‘very depressed’ or ‘very wicked’); and we reached no conclusion.”
“This
episode was ridiculed by some as an ultimate embodiment of fruitless
frivolity.”
“But that
response is as out of place as a similar response to the medieval question, ‘How
many angels can dance on a needle’s point?’”
“A needless
point?”
“For much as
this medieval question is raised in order to display, in a vivid way, a
difficulty in the conception of an immaterial substance, so The Play Group
discussion is directed, in response to a worry from me, towards an examination,
in the first instance, of a conceptual question which is generally agreed among
us to be a strong candidate for being a question which had no philosophical importance, with a view to using the results of
this examination in finding a distinction between philosophically important and
philosophically unimportant enquiries.”
“Unfortunately,
the desired results were not forthcoming.”
“Austin
himself, with his mastery in seeking out, and his sensitivity in responding, often in dialogue, to, the
finer points of linguistic usage, provides a splendid and instructive example
to he who is concerned to include linguistic botanising in his philosophical
armoury.”
“I shall
recount a few authentic anecdotes in support of this claim.”
“G. J.
Warnock is being dined at New College, Austin's college with a view to election
to a fellowship, and is much disconcerted, even though he is already acquainted
with Austin, when Austin's first dinner-table
remark to him is:
“’What would
be the difference between my saying to you that someone is not playing golf
correctly and my saying to you that he is not playing golf properly?’”
“On a
certain occasion, we were discussing the notion of a ‘principle,’ and (in this
connection) the conditions for appropriate use of the phrase ‘on principle.’”
“P. H. Nowell
Smith recalls that a tutee of P. L. Gardiner’s, who is Greek, wanting
permission for an over-night visit to London, comes to Gardiner and offers him
some money, saying ‘I hope that you will not be offended by this somewhat
Balkan approach.’”
“At this
point, Nowell Smith suggests, Gardiner might well have replied, ‘I do not take
bribes on principle.’”
“Austin
responds by saying, ‘I should not say that.’”
“‘I should
just say “No, thanks.”’
“On another
occasion, Nowell Smith (again cast in the role of straight man) offers as an
example of non-understandable English
an extract from a sonnet of Donne’s.”
“From the
round earth's imagined corners, Angels, your trumpets blow.”
“Austin
says: ‘It is perfectly clear what
that means.’”
“‘It means:
“Angels, blow your trumpets from what persons less cautious than I am would
call the four corners of the earth.”’
“These
affectionate remembrances no doubt prompt the question why I should have turned
away from this style of philosophy.”
“Well, as l
have already indicated, in some way, I never have turned away, in that I
continue to believe that a more or less detailed study of the way we talk, in
this or that region of discourse, is an indispensable foundation for much of the most fundamental kind of
philosophizing.”
“For just how much seems to me to be a serious
question in need of an answer.”
“That
linguistic information should not be
just a quantity of collector’s items, but should on occasion at least, provide
Linguistic Nature’s answers to questions which we put to her, and that such
questioning is impossible without hypotheses set in an at least embryonic
theory, is a proposition which would, I suspect, have met general, though perhaps
not universal, assent.”
“The trouble
began when one asked, if one actually ever did ask, what sort of a theory this
underlying theory should be.”
“The urgency
of the need for such an enquiry is underlined by one or two problems which I
have already mentioned; by, for example, the problem of distinguishing
conceptual investigations of ‘ordinary’ discourse which are philosophical in character from those
which are not – which may be
‘linguistic’ in character, say, or ‘scientific’ in character.
“It seems
plausible to suppose that an answer to this
problem would be couched in terms of a special
generality which attaches to philosophical
but not to non-philosophical questions.”
“But whether
this generality would be simply a matter of degree, or whether it would have to
be specified by reference to some further item or items, such as (for example)
the idea of a ‘category,’ remains to be determined.”
“At this
point we make contact with a further issue already alluded to by me.”
“If it is
necessary to invoke the notion of a ‘category,’ am I to suppose this ‘category’
to be a linguistic category (a category of expression) or a metaphysical
category (a category of things), a question which is plainly close to the
previously-mentioned burning issue of whether the theory behind ‘ordinary’ discourse
is to be thought of as a highly general, language-indifferent,
semantic theory, or a metaphysical theory about the ultimate
nature of things, if indeed these possibilities are distinct.”
“Until such
issues as these are settled, the prospects for a determination of the more
detailed structure of the theory or theories behind ‘ordinary’ discourse do not
seem too bright.”
“In my own
case, a further impetus towards a demand for the provision of a visible theory
underlying ‘ordinary’ discourse comes from my exploration on the idea of a
conversational implicature, an idea which emphasised the radical importance of
distinguishing (to speak loosely) what an expression, or an utterance, says or
implies from what the utterer, in
uttering the expression, implies, or implicates -- a distinction seemingly
denied by Wittgenstein, and all too frequently ignored by Austin.”
“My own
efforts to arrive at a more theoretical treatment of conversational phenomena
of the kind with which at Oxford I had been concerned derives much guidance
from the work of W. V. O. Quine and of A. N. Chomsky on syntax.”
“Quine helps
to throw light on the problem of deciding what kind of thing a suitable theory
would be, and also, by his example, exhibits the virtues of a strong
methodology.”
“Chomsky
shows vividly the kind of way in which a region for long found theoretically
intractable by scholars (like Otto Jespersen) of the highest intelligence
could, by discovery and application of the right kind of apparatus, be brought
more or less under control.”
“I should
add that Quine's influence on me was that of a model.”
“I was never
drawn towards the acceptance either of Quine’s actual methodology or of his
specific philosophical positions.”
“I have to
confess that I find it a little sad that my two chief theoretical mentors never agree, or even make visible
contact, on the question of the theoretical treatment of natural language.”
“It seems a
pity that two men, who are about as far removed from dumbness as any that I
have ever encountered, should not be
equally far removed from deafness.”
“During this
time, my philosophizing reveals a distinct tendency to appear in formal dress.”
“Indeed, the
need for greater contact with experts in logic than was then available at Oxford
was one of my main reasons for leaving Oxford, if I left Oxford.”
“Work in
this more ‘formal’ style was directed to a number of topics, but principally to
an attempt to show, in a constructive way, that grammar (the grammar of ‘ordinary’
discourse) may be regarded as, in Russell’s words, “a pretty good guide to
logical form,” or to a suitable representation of logical form.”
“This
undertaking involves the construction, for a language, System GHP, which
was a close relative of a central portion of a natural language (including
quantification), of a hand-in-hand syntax-cum-semantics
which makes minimal use of Chomskyan transformations.”
“This
project is not fully finished and has not been published, though its material
was presented in lectures and seminars both in and outside Berkeley, including
a memorable summer colloquium at Irvine.”
“An interest
in ‘formalistic’ philosophising seems to me to have more than one source.”
“It may
arise from a desire to ensure that a philosophical idea which one deploys is capable
of full and coherent development.”
“Not
unnaturally, the pursuit of this end may make use of a favoured canonical
system.”
“I have
never been greatly attached to canonicals, not even those of first-order
predicate logic together with set theory, and in any case this kind of formal
enterprise would over-tax my meagre technical equipment.”
“An interest
in ‘formalistic’ philosophy may, on the other hand, consist in the suggestion
of a notational device, together with a few sketchy indications of the laws or
principles to be looked for in a system, such as System GHP,
incorporating this notational device; the object of the exercise being to seek
out a hitherto unrecognized analogy and to attain a new level of generality.”
“This latter
kind of interest is the one which engages me, and will, I think, continue to do
so, no matter what shifts occur in my philosophical positions.”
“It is
nevertheless true that my disposition to resort to formalism has markedly
diminished.”
“This
retreat may well have been accelerated when, of all people, Hilary Putnam
remarked to me that I was too formal.”
“But its
main source lay in the fact that I begin to devote the bulk of my attention to
areas of philosophy other than semantics
or philosophy of language: mainly to philosophical psychology, seen as an
offshoot of philosophical biology and as concerned with specially advanced
apparatus for the handling of life; to metaphysics; and to ethics, in which my
pre-existing interest was much enlivened by J. Baker's capacity for presenting
vivid and realistic examples.”
“Such areas
of philosophy as philosophical psychology seem much less amenable to a
formalistic treatment.”
“I have
little doubt that a contribution towards a gradual shift of style, from a
formalistic to a non-formalistic one, is also made by a growing apprehension
that philosophy is all too often being squeezed out of operation by
technology.”
“To borrow
words from F. P. Ramsey, that the apparatus which begins life as a system of
devices to combat ‘woolliness’
becomes scholastic.”
“The chief danger of
our philosophy, apart from laziness and wooliness, is scholasticism, the
essence of which is treating that which is vague as if it were precise and
trying to fit it into an exact logical category.”
“But the
development of this variation on a theme by Ramsey will best be at present
deferred.”
“The
opinions which I voice are all general in character.”
“The
opinions relate to such things as what I might call, for want of a better term,
style in philosophizing and to general aspects of methodology.”
“I shall
reserve for another occasion anything I might have to say about my views on
specific philosophical topics, or about special aspects of methodology which
come into play within some particular department of philosophy.”
“I shall
first proclaim it as my belief that doing philosophy ought to be fun.”
“I would
indeed be prepared to go further, and to suggest that it is no bad thing if the
products of doing philosophy turn out, every now and then, to be funny.”
“One should
of course be serious about philosophy; but being serious does not require one
to be solemn.”
“Laughter in philosophy is not to be confused with
laughter at philosophy.”
“There have
been too many people who have made this confusion, and so too many people who
have thought of merriment in philosophical discussion as being like laughter in
church.”
“The prime
source of this belief is no doubt the wanton disposition which nature gave me.”
“But it has
been reinforced, at least so far as philosophy is concerned, by the course of
every serious (!) and prolonged philosophical association to which I have been
a party.”
“Each one has manifested its own special quality which at one and the same time has delighted the spirit and stimulated the intellect.”
“Each one has manifested its own special quality which at one and the same time has delighted the spirit and stimulated the intellect.”
“To my mind,
getting together with others to do philosophy should be very much like getting
together with others to make music.”
“Lively yet
sensitive interaction is directed towards a common end, in the case of
philosophy a better grasp of some fragment of philosophical truth.”
“And if, as
sometimes happens, harmony is sufficiently great to allow collaboration as
authors, so much the better.”
“But as some
will be quick to point out, such disgusting sentimentality is by no means
universal in the philosophical world.”
“It was said
of H. W. B. Joseph that he was dedicated to the Socratic art of mid-wifery.”
“Joseph
seeks to bring forth error and to strangle it at birth.”
“Though the
comment referred to his proper severity at tutorials, H. W. B. Joseph is in
fact, in concert with the much more formidable H. A. Prichard, no less
successful in dealing with colleagues than he was with his tutees.”
“Productivity
in publication among his junior contemporaries at Oxford was low, and one
philosopher even managed to complete a life-time without publishing one word.”
“Perhaps it
is not entirely surprising that the students of his college once crucified him
bloodlessly with croquet hoops on the college lawn.”
“The
tradition did not die with H. W. B. Joseph.”
“To take
just one example, I have never been very happy about J. L. Austin’s “Sense and
Sensibilia,” partly because the philosophy which it contains does not seem to
me to be, for the most part, of the highest quality.”
“But more
because its tone is, frequently,
rather unpleasant.”
“And similar
incidents have been reported not so long ago from The New World.”
“So far as I
know, no one has ever been the better for receiving a good thumping, and I do
not see that philosophy is enhanced by such episodes.”
“There are
other ways of clearing the air besides nailing to the wall everything in
sight.”
“Though it
is no doubt plain that I am not enthusiastic about odium theologicum, I have to
confess that I am not very much more enthusiastic about amor theologicus.”
“The sounds
of fawning are perhaps softer but hardly sweeter than the sounds of rending.”
“Indeed it
sometimes happens that the degree of adulation, which for a time is lavished
upon a philosopher, is in direct proportion to the degree of savagery which he
metes out to his victims.”
“To my
stomach it does not make all that much difference whether the recipient of
excessive attachment is a person or a philosophical creed.”
“Zealotry
and band-wagoning seem to me no more appealing than discipleship, unless it’s
Kantotle.”
“Rational
and dis-passionate commendation and criticism are of course essential to the
prosecution of the discipline of philosophy, provided that they are exercised
in the pursuit of philosophical truth.”
“But passion
directed towards either philosophers or philosophies is out of place, no matter
whether its object is favoured or disfavoured.”
“What is in
place is respect, when it is deserved.”
“I have
little doubt that it is the general beastliness of human nature which is in the
main responsible for the fact that philosophy, despite its supposedly exalted
nature, has exhibited some tendency to become yet another of the jungles in
which human beings seem so much at home, with the result that beneath the cloak
of enlightenment is hidden the dagger of diminution by disparagement.”
“But there
are perhaps one or two special factors, the elimination of which, if possible,
might lower the level of pollution.”
“One of
these factors is, I suspect, a certain view of the proper procedure for establishing
a philosophical thesis.”
“It is, I am
inclined to think, believed by many philosophers that, in philosophical
thinking, we start with certain material (the nature of which need not here
concern us) which poses a certain problem or raises a certain question.”
“At first
sight, perhaps, more than one
distinct philosophical thesis or answers would appear to account for the
material and settle the question raised by it.”
“And the way (generally the only way) in which a particular thesis or answer is established is thought to be by the elimination of its rival answers, characteristically by the detection of an alleged counter-example.”
“And the way (generally the only way) in which a particular thesis or answer is established is thought to be by the elimination of its rival answers, characteristically by the detection of an alleged counter-example.”
“A
philosophical thesis or answer to a philosophical question is supported by
elimination of alternative theses or answers.”
“It is,
however, my hope that in many cases, including the most important cases, a
thesis or an answer can be established by direct evidence in its favour, not just
by elimination of its rival.”
“I shall
refer to this issue again later when I come to say something about the
character of metaphysical argument and its connection with so-called
transcendental argument.”
“The kind of
metaphysical argument which I have in mind might be said, perhaps, to exemplify
a ‘dia-gogic’ as opposed to ‘epa-gogic’ or inductive approach to philosophical
argumentation.”
“Now, the
more emphasis is placed on justification by elimination of the rival, the
greater is the impetus given to refutation, whether of theses or of people.”
“And perhaps a greater emphasis on a ‘dia-gogic’ procedure, if it could be shown to be justifiable, would have an eirenic effect.”
“And perhaps a greater emphasis on a ‘dia-gogic’ procedure, if it could be shown to be justifiable, would have an eirenic effect.”
“A second
possible source of atmospheric amelioration might be a shift in what is to be
regarded as the prime index of success, or merit, in philosophical enquiry.”
“An obvious
candidate as an answer to this question would be being right, or being right
for the right reasons (however difficult the realization of this index might be
to determine).”
“Of course
one must try to be right, but even so I doubt whether this is the best answer,
unless a great deal is packed into the meaning of ‘for the right reasons.’”
“An eminent
topologist whom I knew was regarded with something approaching veneration by
his colleagues, even though usually when he gave an important lecture either
his proofs were incomplete, or if complete they contained at least one
mistake.”
“Though this
eminent topologist was often wrong, what he said was exciting, stimulating, and
fruitful.”
“The
situation in philosophy seems to me to be similar.”
“Now if it
were generally explicitly recognized that being interesting and fruitful is
more important than being right, and may indeed co-exist with being wrong,
polemical refutation might lose some of its appeal.”
“The cause
which I have just been espousing might be called, perhaps, the unity of
conviviality in philosophy.”
“There are,
however, one or two other kinds of unity in which I also believe.”
“These
relate to the unity of the subject or discipline.”
“The first I
shall call the ‘latitudinal unity’ of philosophy, and the second, its ‘longitudinal
unity.’”
“With regard
to philosophy’s ‘latitudinal unity,’ it is my firm conviction that, despite its
real or apparent division into departments or branches or areas, philosophy is
one subject, a single discipline.”
“By this I
do not merely mean that between different areas of philosophy there are
cross-references, as when, for example, one encounters in ethics the problem
whether such and such principles fall within the epistemological classification
of ‘a priori’ knowledge.”
“I mean (or
hope I mean) something a good deal stronger than this, something more like the
thesis that it is not possible to reach full understanding of, or high-level
proficiency in, any one department without a corresponding understanding and
proficiency in the others; to the extent that when I visit an unfamiliar
university and (as occasionally happens) I am introduced to, ‘Mr. Puddle, our
man in political philosophy,’ or in ‘nineteenth-century continental
philosophy,’ or 'aesthetics,’ as the case may be, I am immediately confident
that either Mr. Puddle is being under-described and in consequence maligned, or
else Mr. Puddle is not really good at his stuff.”
“Philosophy,
like virtue, is entire.”
“Or, one
might even dare to say, there is only one problem in philosophy, namely all of
them.”
“At this
point, however, I must admit a double embarrassment.”
“I do not
know exactly what the thesis is which I want to maintain, and I do not know how
to prove it, though I am fairly sure that my thesis, whatever it is, would only
be interesting if it were provable, or at least strongly arguable; indeed the
embarassments may not be independent of one another.”
“So the best
I can now do will be to list some possibilities with regard to the form which
supporting argument might take.”
“It might be
suggested that the sub-disciplines within philosophy are ordered in such a way
that the character and special problems of each sub-discipline are generated by
the character and subject-matter of of a prior sub-discipline; that the nature
of the prior sub-discipline guarantees or calls for a successor of a certain
sort of dealing with such-and-such a set of questions; and it might be added
that the nature of the first or primary sub-discipline is dictated by the
general nature of theorizing or of rational enquiry.”
“On this
suggestion each posterior sub-discipline S would call for the existence of some
prior sub-discipline which would, when specified, dictate the character of S.”
“There might
be some very general characterization which applies to all sub-disciplines,
knowledge of which is required for the successful study of any sub-discipline,
but which is itself so abstract that the requisite knowledge of it can be
arrived at only by attention to its various embodiments, that is to the full range
of sub-disciplines.”
“Perhaps on
occasion every sub-discipline, or some element or aspect of every
sub-discipline, falls within the scope of every other sub-discipline.”
“For
example, some part of metaphysics might consist in a metaphysical treatment of
ethics or some element in ethics.”
“Some part of epistemology might consist in epistemological consideration of metaphysics or of the practice of metaphysical thinking.”
“Some part of ethics or of value theory might consist in a value-theoretical treatment of epistemology; and so on.”
“Some part of epistemology might consist in epistemological consideration of metaphysics or of the practice of metaphysical thinking.”
“Some part of ethics or of value theory might consist in a value-theoretical treatment of epistemology; and so on.”
“All
sub-disciplines would thus be inter-twined.”
“It might be
held that the ultimate subject of all philosophy is ourselves, or at least our
rational nature, and that the various subdivisions of philosophy are concerned
with different aspects of this rational nature.”
“But the
characterization of this rational nature is not divisible into water-tight
compartments.”
“Each aspect
is intelligible only in relation to the others.”
“There is a
common methodology which, in different ways, dictates to each sub-discipline.”
“There is no
ready-made manual of methodology, and even if there were, knowing the manual
would not be the same as knowing how to use the manual.”
“This
methodology is sufficiently abstract for it to be the case that proficient
application of it can be learned only in relation to the totality of sub-disciplines
within its domain.”
“This
suggestion may well be close to the second suggestion.”
“In speaking
of the 'longitudinal unity of philosophy,’ I am referring to the unity of
Philosophy through time.”
“Any Oxford
philosophy don who is accustomed to setting essay topics for his tutees, for
which he prescribes reading which includes both passages from Plato or
Aristotle and essays from current philosophical journals, is only too well
aware that there are many topics which span the centuries.”
“And it is
only a little less obvious that often substantially similar positions are
propounded at vastly differing dates.”
“Those who
are in a position to know assure me that similar correspondences are to some
degree detectable across the barriers which separate one philosophical culture
from another, for example between Western European and Indian philosophy.”
“If we add
to this banality the further banality that it is on the whole likely that those
who achieve enduring philosophical fame do so as a result of out-standing
philosophical merit, we reach the conclusion that in our attempts to solve our
own philosophical problems we should give proper consideration to whatever
contributions may have been provided by the illustrious dead.”
“And when I
say ‘proper consideration,’ I am not referring to some suitably reverential act
of kow-towing which is to be performed as we pass the niche assigned to the
departed philosopher in the Philosopher's Hall of Fame.”
“I mean,
rather, that we should treat those who are great but dead as if they were great
and living, as persons who have something to say to us now.”
“And,
further, that in order to do this we should do our best to ‘introject’ ourselves
into their shoes, into their ways of thinking.”
“Indeed to
re-think their offerings as if it were ourselves who were the offerers.”
“And then,
perhaps, it may turn out that it is
ourselves.”
“I might add
at this point that it seems to me that one of the prime benefits which may
accrue to us from such introspection or introjection lies in the region of
methodology.”
“By and
large, the greatest philosophers have been the greatest, and the most self-conscious,
methodologists.”
“Indeed, I
am tempted to regard this fact as primarily accounting for their greatness as
philosophers.”
“So, whether
we are occupied in thinking on behalf of some philosopher other than ourselves,
or in thinking on our own behalf, we should maintain a constant sensitivity to
the nature of the enterprise in which we are engaged and to the character of
the procedures which are demanded in order to carry it through.”
“Of course,
if we are looking at the work of some relatively minor philosophical figure,
such as for example Wollaston or Bosanquet or Wittgenstein, such ‘introjection’
may be neither possible nor worthwhile.”
“But with
Aristotle and Kant, and again with Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, and others,
it is both feasible and rewarding.”
“But such an
‘introjection’ is not easy, because for one reason or another, idioms of speech
and thought change radically from time to time and from person to person.”
“And in this
enterprise of ‘introjection’ transference from one idiom to another is
invariably involved, a fact that should not be bemoaned but should rather be
hailed with thanksgiving, since it is primarily this fact which keeps
philosophy alive.”
“This reflection leads me to one of my favourite fantasies.”
“This reflection leads me to one of my favourite fantasies.”
“Those who
wish to decry philosophy often point to the alleged fact that, though the great
problems of philosophy have been occupying our minds for millennia or more, not
one of them has ever been solved.”
“As soon as
someone claims to have solved one, it is immediately unsolved by someone else.”
“My fantasy
is that the charge against us is utterly wide of the mark.”
“In fact
many philosophical problems have been (more or less) solved many times.”
“That it appears otherwise is attributable to the great difficulty involved in moving from one idiom to another, which obscures the identities of problems.”
“That it appears otherwise is attributable to the great difficulty involved in moving from one idiom to another, which obscures the identities of problems.”
“The
solutions are inscribed in the records of our subject.”
“But what
needs to be done, and what is so difficult, is to read the records aright.”
“Now this
fantasy may lack foundation in fact.”
“But to believe it and to be wrong may well lead to good philosophy, and, seemingly, can do no harm; whereas to reject it and to be wrong in rejecting it might involve one in philosophical disaster.”
“But to believe it and to be wrong may well lead to good philosophy, and, seemingly, can do no harm; whereas to reject it and to be wrong in rejecting it might involve one in philosophical disaster.”
“As I thread
my way unsteadily along the tortuous mountain path which is supposed to lead,
in the long distance, to the City of Eternal Truth, I find myself beset by a
multitude of demons and perilous places, bearing names like Extensionalism,
Nominalism, Positivism, Naturalism, Mechanism, Phenomenalism, Reductionism,
Physicalism, Materialism, Empiricism, Scepticism, and Functionalism; menaces
which are, indeed, almost as numerous as those encountered by a traveller
called Christian on another well-publicized journey.”
“The items
named in this catalogue are obviously, in many cases, not to be identified with
one another; and it is perfectly possible to maintain a friendly attitude
towards some of them while viewing others with hostility.”
“There are
many persons, for example, who view Naturalism with favour while firmly
rejecting Nominalism.”
“And it is
not easy to see how anyone could couple support for Phenomenalism with support
for Physicalism.”
“After a
more tolerant (permissive) middle age, I have come to entertain strong
opposition to all of them, perhaps partly as a result of the strong connection
between a number of them and the philosophical technologies which used to
appeal to me a good deal more than they do now.”
“But how
would I justify the hardening of my heart?”
“The first
question is, perhaps, what gives the list of items a unity, so that I can think
of myself as entertaining one twelve-fold
antipathy, rather than twelve discrete antipathies.”
“To this
question my answer is that all the items are forms of what I shall call Minimalism, a propensity which seeks to
keep to a minimum (which may in some cases be zero) the scope allocated to some
advertised philosophical commodity, such as abstract entities, knowledge,
absolute value, and so forth.”
“In weighing
the case for and the case against a trend of so high a degree of generality as
Minimalism, kinds of consideration may legitimately enter which would be out of
place were the issue more specific in character; in particular, appeal may be
made to aesthetic considerations.”
“In favour
of Minimalism, for example, we might hear an appeal, echoing Quine, to the
beauty of ‘desert landscapes.’”
“But such an
appeal I would regard as inappropriate.”
“We are not being asked by a Minimalist to give our vote to a special, and no doubt very fine, type of landscape.”
“We are being asked to express our preference for an ordinary sort of landscape at a recognizably lean time; to rosebushes and cherry-trees in mid-winter, rather than in spring or summer.”
“We are not being asked by a Minimalist to give our vote to a special, and no doubt very fine, type of landscape.”
“We are being asked to express our preference for an ordinary sort of landscape at a recognizably lean time; to rosebushes and cherry-trees in mid-winter, rather than in spring or summer.”
“To change
the image somewhat, what bothers me about what I am being offered is not that
it is bare, but that it has been systematically and relentlessly undressed.”
“I am also
adversely influenced by a different kind of unattractive feature which some, or
perhaps even all of these betes noires seem to possess.”
“Many of
them are guilty of restrictive practices which, perhaps, ought to invite the
attention of a Philosophical Trade Commission.”
“They limit in advance the range and resources of philosophical explanation.”
“They limit in advance the range and resources of philosophical explanation.”
“They limit
its range by limiting the kinds of phenomena whose presence calls for
explanation.”
“Some prima-facie candidates are watered down, others are washed away.”
“And they limit its resources by forbidding the use of initially tempting apparatus, such as the concepts expressed by psychological, or more generally intensional, verbs.”
“Some prima-facie candidates are watered down, others are washed away.”
“And they limit its resources by forbidding the use of initially tempting apparatus, such as the concepts expressed by psychological, or more generally intensional, verbs.”
“My own
instincts operate in a reverse direction from this.”
“I am
inclined to look first at how useful such and such explanatory ideas might
prove to be if admitted, and to waive or postpone enquiry into their
certificates of legitimacy.”
“I am
conscious that all I have so far said against Minimalsim has been very general
in character, and also perhaps a little tinged with rhetoric.”
“This is not
surprising in view of the generality of the topic.”
“But all the same I should like to try to make some provision for those in search of harder tack.”
“But all the same I should like to try to make some provision for those in search of harder tack.”
“I can
hardly, in the present context, attempt to provide fully elaborated arguments
against all, or even against any one, of the diverse items which fall under my
label 'Minimalism.’”
“The best I
can do is to try to give a preliminary sketch of what I would regard as the
case against just one of the possible forms of minimalism, choosing one which I
should regard it as particularly important to be in a position to reject.”
“My
selection is Extensionalism, a position imbued with the spirit of Nominalism,
and dear both to those who feel that 'Because it is red' is no more informative
as an answer to the question 'Why is a pillar-box called ‘red’?' than would be
'Because he is Grice' as an answer to the question 'Why is that distinguished-looking
person called "Grice"?', and also to those who are particularly
impressed by the power of Set-theory.”
“The picture
which, I suspect, is liable to go along with Extensionalism is that of the
world of particulars as a domain stocked with innumerable tiny pellets,
internally indistinguishable from one another, but distinguished by the groups
within which they fall, by the 'clubs' to which they belong; and since the
clubs are distinguished only by their memberships, there can only be one club
to which nothing belongs.”
“As one
might have predicted from the outset, this leads to trouble when it comes to
the accommodation of explanation within such a system.”
“Explanation
of the actual presence of a particular feature in a particular subject depends
crucially on the possibility of saying what would be the consequence of the
presence of such and such features in that subject, regardless of whether the
features in question even do appear in that subject, or indeed in any subject.”
“On the face
of it, if one adopts an extensionalist view-point, the presence of a feature in
some particular will have to be re-expressed in terms of that particular's
membership of a certain set.”
“But if we
proceed along those lines, since there is only one empty set, the potential consequences of the possession of in
fact unexemplified features would be
invariably the same, no matter how different in meaning the expressions used to
specify such features would ordinarily be judged to be.”
“This is
certainly not a conclusion which one would care to accept.”
“I can think
of two ways of trying to avoid its acceptance, both of which seem to me to
suffer from serious drawbacks.”
“The first
shows some degree of analogy with a move which, as a matter of history, was
made by empiricists in connection with simple and complex ideas.”
“In that
region an idea could be redeemed from a charge of failure to conform to
empiricist principles through not being derived from experience of its
instantiating particulars (there being no such particulars) if it could be
exhibited as a complex idea whose component simple ideas were so derived.”
“Somewhat
similarly, the first proposal seeks to relieve a vacuous predicate or a general
term from the embarrassing consequence of denoting the empty set by exploiting
the non-vacuousness of other predicates or general terms which are constituents
in a definition of the original vacuous terms.”
“Start with
two vacuous predicates, say ‘is married to a daughter of an English queen and a
pope’ and ‘is a climber on hands and knees of a 29,000 foot mountain.’ If these
two predicates are vacuous, the following predicates are satisfied by the empty
set: ‘is a set composed of daughters
of an English queen and a pope', and ‘is a set
composed of climbers on hands and knees of a 29,000 foot mountain.’”
“Provided 'R
1' and 'R 2 ' are suitably interpreted, the two predicates may be treated as co-extensive
respectively with the following revised predicates 'stands in R1' to a sequence
composed of the sets married to, daughters, English queens and popes; and 'stands
in R2 to a sequence composed of the sets climbers, 29,000 foot mountains, and
things done on hands and knees.’”
“We may
finally correlate with the two initial predicates, respectively, the following
sequences derived from -y 1 and -y2 : the sequence composed of the relation R1
(taken in extension), the set ‘married to,’ the set ‘daughters,’ the set ‘English
queens,’ and the set ‘popes;’ and (o 2) the sequence composed of the relation R
2 , the set climbers, the set 29,000 foot mountains, and the set things done on
hands and knees.”
“These
sequences are certainly distinct, and the proposal is that they, rather than
the empty set, should be used for determining, in some way yet to be specified,
the explanatory potentialities of the vacuous predicates.”
“My chief
complaint against this proposal is that it involves yet another commission of
what I regard as one of the main minimalist sins, that of imposing in advance a
limitation on the character of explanations.”
“For it
implicitly recognizes it as a condition on the propriety of using a vacuous
predicate in explanation that the terms in question should be representable as
being co-related with a sequence of non-empty sets.”
“This is a
condition which, I suspect, might not be met by every vacuous predicate.”
“But the
possibility of representing an explanatory term as being, in this way or that,
reducible to some favoured item or types of items should be a bonus which some
theories achieve, thereby demonstrating their elegance, not a condition of eligibility
for a particular class of would-be explanatory terms.”
“The second
suggested way of avoiding the un-wanted consequence is perhaps more intuitive
than the first.”
“It
certainly seems simpler.”
“The
admissibility of a vacuous predicate in an explanation of a possible but non-actual
phenomenon (why they would happen if they did happen), depends, it is
suggested, on the availability of acceptable non-trivial generalizations
wherein which the predicate in question specifies the antecedent condition.”
“And, we may
add, a generalization whose acceptability would be unaffected by any variation
on the specification of its antecedent condition, provided the substitute were
vacuous, would certainly be trivial.”
“Non-trivial
generalizations of this sort are certainly available, if they are derivable as
special cases from other generalizations involving less specific antecedent
conditions, and these other generalizations are adequately supported by further
specifics whose antecedent conditions are expressed by means of non-vacuous
predicates.”
“The
explanatory opportunities for vacuous predicates depend on their embodiment in
a system.”
“My doubts
about this second suggestion relate to the steps which would be needed in order
to secure an adequately powerful system.”
“I
conjecture, but cannot demonstrate, that the only way to secure such a system
would be to confer special ontological privilege
upon the entities of physical science together with the system which physical
science provides.”
“But now a
problem arises.”
“The preferred entities seem not to be observable, or in so far as they are observable, their observability seems to be more a matter of conventional decision to count such and-such occurrences as observations than it is a matter of fact.”
“The preferred entities seem not to be observable, or in so far as they are observable, their observability seems to be more a matter of conventional decision to count such and-such occurrences as observations than it is a matter of fact.”
“It looks as
if states of affairs in the preferred scientific world need, for credibility,
support from the vulgar world of ordinary observation reported in the language
of common sense.”
“But to give
that support, the judgements and the linguistic usage of the vulgar needs to be
endowed with a certain authority, which as a matter of history the kind of
minimalists whom I know or know of have not seemed anxious to confer.”
“But even if
they were anxious to confer it, what would validate the conferring, since ex
hypothesi it is not the vulgar world but the specialist scientific world which enjoys
ontological privilege?”
“If this
objection is sound, the second suggestion, like the first, takes something
which when present is an asset, bonus, or embellishment, namely systematicity,
and under philosophical pressure converts it in to a necessity.”
“I have, of
course, not been attempting to formulate an argument by which minimalism, or
indeed any particular version of minimalism, could be refuted.”
“I have been
trying only to suggest a sketch of a way in which, perhaps, such an argument
might be developed.”
“I should be
less than honest if I pretended to any great confidence that even this
relatively unambitious objective has been attained.”
“I should,
however, also be less than honest if I concealed the fact that, should I be
left without an argument, it is very likely that I should not be very greatly
disturbed.”
“For my
antipathy to minimalism depends much more on a concern to have a philosophical
approach which would have prospects of doing justice to the exuberant wealth and
variety of human experience in a manner seemingly beyond the reach of
minimalists, than on the availability of any argument which would show the
theses of minimalists to be mistaken.”
“But at this
point some people, I think, would wish to protest that I am treating minimalism
in much too monolithic a way.”
“For, it
might be said, while many reasonable persons might be willing to align
themselves with me, for whatever reasons, in opposition to extensionalism and
physicalism, when such persons noticed that I have also declared my opposition
to mechanism and to naturalism, they might be prompted to enquire whether I
wished to declare support for the ideas of the objectivity of value and of the
presence of finality in nature, and to add that should I reply affirmatively, they
would part company with me.”
“Now I
certainly do wish to affirm, under some interpretation, ‘the objectivity of
value,’ and I also wish to maintain, again under some interpretation, ‘the
presence of finality in nature.’”
“But perhaps
I had better formulate in a somewhat more orderly way, one or two of the things
which I do believe or at least would like to believe.”
“I believe
(or would like to believe) that it is a necessary feature of rational beings,
either as part of or as a consequence of part of, their essential nature, that
they have a capacity for the attribution of value.”
“I also
believe that it follows from this fact, together perhaps with one or more
additional assumptions, that there is objective value.”
“I believe
that value, besides being objective, has at the same time intrinsic
motivational force, and that this combination is rendered possible only by a constructivist approach rather than a simply
‘realist’ approach to value.”
“Only if
value is in a suitable sense ‘instituted’ by me can it exhibit the aforesaid
combination.”
“The
objectivity of value is possible only given the presence of finality or purpose
in Nature, the admissibility of final causes.”
“The fact
that reason is operative both in the cognitive or alethic and in the practical
spheres strongly suggests, if it does not prove, that a constructivist approach is in order in at least some part of the
cognitive sphere as well as in the practical sphere.”
“The
adoption of a constructivist approach
makes possible, perhaps even demands, the adoption of a strong rather than merely a weak version of rationalism.”
“That is to
say, I can regard myself, qua rational being, as called upon not
merely to have reasons for a belief of mine (ratio cognoscendi) and also for other psychological states attitudes,
like a desire or an intention, but to allow, and to search for, a reason for a
thing to be the case, at least in that area of reality which is constructed).”
“Such a
reason will be a ratio essendi.”
“It is
obvious that much of the terminology in which this programme is formulated is
extremely obscure.”
“Any
elucidation of the terminology of strong rationalism, and any defence of the
claims involved which I shall offer on this occasion, will have to wait.”
“I shall
need to invoke specific theses within particular departments of philosophy.”
“I hope to
engage, on other occasions, in a fuller examination of these and kindred
ideas.”
“The editors
of P. G. R. I. C. E. devote most of their ingenious and perceptive attention to
topics which they feel to be specially prominent in my work: questions about
meaning, to questions in and about philosophical psychology, rationality – which I first played with
in my account of “That pillar-box seems red to me” -- and metaphysics, and
finally to questions about value, including ethical or moral questions.”
“I shall first comment on what the editors have
to say about meaning, to turn later the remaining topics.”
“In the course of a penetrating treatment of the development of my views on meaning, the editors list, in connection with what they see as a third stage of this development three problems or objections to which the reductionist psychological approach might be thought to give rise.”
“In the course of a penetrating treatment of the development of my views on meaning, the editors list, in connection with what they see as a third stage of this development three problems or objections to which the reductionist psychological approach might be thought to give rise.”
“I shall say
something about each of these, though in an altered order.”
“I shall
also add a fourth problem which I know some people have regarded as acute, and
I shall briefly re-emphasize some of the points about the most recent
developments in my thinking, which the editors have presented and which may not be generally
familiar.”
“As a
preliminary to enumerating the question for discussion, I may remark that the
treatment of the topic by the editors seems to offer strong support to my
thesis about the latitudinal unity of
my philosophy.”
“The problems which emerge about ‘utterer’s meaning’ are plainly problems in philosophical ‘rational psychology’ and in metaphysics, and I hope that as we proceed it will become increasingly clear that these problems in turn are inextricably bound up with the notion of value, in its ‘optimality’ guise.”
“The problems which emerge about ‘utterer’s meaning’ are plainly problems in philosophical ‘rational psychology’ and in metaphysics, and I hope that as we proceed it will become increasingly clear that these problems in turn are inextricably bound up with the notion of value, in its ‘optimality’ guise.”
“The first
difficulty relates to the allegedly dubious admissibility of a ‘proposition’ as
an entity.”
Grice quotes
from Grandy and Warner:
“In the
explication of utterance-type meaning,
what does the variable “p” take as values?”
“The values
of ‘p’ are the objects or contents of meaning – what is meant --, intention –
what is intended -- and belief – what is believed --: a ‘proposition,’ to call
it by its traditional name.”
“But isn't
one of the most central tasks of a theory of meaning to give an account of what
a propositions is?”
“Much of the
recent history of philosophy of language consists of attacks on or defences of
various conceptions of what a proposition is, for the fundamental issue
involved here is the relation of thought or the utterer’s psychological state,
and language to reality.”
“How can
Grice offer an explication of utterance-type meaning that simply takes the
notion of a proposition more or less for granted?”
Grice: “A
perfectly sound, though perhaps somewhat superficial, reply to the objection as
it is presented would be that, in any definition of utterer’s meaning which I would be willing to countenance, ‘p,’
or ‘q,’ etc., operate simply as a ‘gap sign.’’”
“If a ‘gap
sign,’ such as ‘p,’ appears in a definiendum or analysandum (“Utterer believes
that p”), it will re-appear in the corresponding definiens or analysans, “By
uttering x, thereby meaning that p.”
“If a
philosopher were to advance the not wholly plausible thesis that to feel F (e. g., byzantine) is just to
have a Rylean agitation which is caused by the thought that one is or might be F (i. e., byzantine), it would surely
be ridiculous to criticise the philosopher on the grounds that he had saddled
himself with a general ontological commitment to feelings, or to modes of
feeling.”
“If a
quantifier is covertly involved at all, it will only be a universal quantifier,
“(Ax),” which can in such a case as this be adequately handled by a
SUBSTITUIONAL account of quantification.”
“My
situation vis-a-vis a ‘proposition’ is in no way different.”
“Moreover,
if this last part of the cited objection is to be understood as suggesting that
philosophers have been most concerned with the characterization of the concept of
a ‘proposition’ with a view to using the concept, in this or that way, as a key
to the relationships between language, thought, and reality, I rather doubt
whether this claim is true.”
“And if it
is true, I would regard any attempt to use a ‘proposition’ in such a manner a
mistake which never made.”
“The concept
of a proposition should not, I think, be viewed as a tool, a gimmick, or a bit
of apparatus designed to pull off the ultimately metaphysical conjuring-trick of relating language, thought, and
reality.”
“The
furthest I would be prepared to go in this direction would be to allow it as a
possibility that one or more substantive treatments of the relations between
language, thought, and reality might
involve this notion of a ‘proposition,’ and so might rely on it to the extent
that an inability to provide an adequate theoretical treatment of a proposition
would undermine the enterprise within which they made an appearance.”
“It is,
however, not apparent to me that any threat of this kind of disaster hangs over
my head.”
“In my most
explorations on meaning, I do in fact discuss the topic of the correspondences
to be looked for between language, thought, and reality.”
“I offer
three suggestions about the ways in which, in effect, a rational enterprise may be defeated or radically hampered should
there fail to be correspondences between the members of any pair selected from
the trio of language, thought, and reality.”
“Without a
correspondence or co-relation between a thought and an item of reality,
individual members of such fundamental important kinds of psychological states
as desires and beliefs would be unable to fulfil their theoretical role,
purpose, or function of explaining behaviour, and indeed would no longer be
identifiable or distinguishable from one another.”
Surely a
believer wants to believe what is true.
“Without a
correspondence or co-relation between an utterance and a psychological state on
the part of the utterer, conversation, and so the concerted rational conduct of life, would be
eliminated.”
“Without a direct
correspondence or co-relation between language and reality, over and above any
indirect correspondence provided for by the first two suggestions, no
generalized specification, as distinct from case-by-case specification, of the
conditions required for beliefs to correspond with reality, that is to be true,
would be available to us.”
“So far as I
can see, the foregoing justification of this acceptance of these three
correspondences in question does not in any obvious way involve a commitment to
the reality of a ‘proposition.’”
“And should
it turn out to do so in some unobvious way -- perhaps as a consequence of some
unnoticed assumption --, the very surreptitiousness of this ‘ontological’ commitment
would indicate to me the likelihood that the same commitment would be involved
in any rational account of the
relevant subject matter, in which case, of course, the commitment would be ipso
facto justified.”
“Indeed, the
idea of an inescapable commitment to a proposition in no way frightens me or
repels me.”
“And if such a commitment would carry with it an obligation to give an account of what a propositions is, I think this obligation can be discharged.”
“And if such a commitment would carry with it an obligation to give an account of what a propositions is, I think this obligation can be discharged.”
“It may,
indeed, be possible to discharge the obligation in more than one way.”
“One way to
discharge the obligation to give an account of a proposition is would involve,
as its central idea, focusing on a primitive range of ‘simple’ statements, the
formulation of which would involve no connective or quantifier, and treating
each of these as ‘expressing’ a ‘propositional
complex,’ which in such cases would consist of a sequence whose elements
would be, first, a general item (a set or an attribute, according to
preference) and, second, an ordered sequence of objects which might, or might
not, instantiate or belong to the first item.”
“The propositional complex associated with
the sentence, ‘Grice is wise,’ might be thought of consisting of a sequence
whose first ('general') member would be the set of wise persons, or
(alternatively) the attribute wisdom, and whose second ('instantial' or 'particular')
member would be Grice or the singleton of Grice; and the sentence, 'Stawson
loves Grice', could be represented as expressing a propositional complex which is a sequence whose first element is
love (considered either extensionally as a set or non-extensionally as an
attribute) and whose second element is a sequence composed of Strawson and Grice,
in that order.”
“We can
define a property of ‘factivity’ or ‘alethic satisfactoriness’ which will be
closely allied to the notion of truth.”
“A (simple)
propositional complex will be factive or alethically satisfactory just in case
its two elements (the general and instantial elements) are related by the
appopriate predication relation, just in case (for example) the second element
is a member of the set (possesses the attribute) in which the first element
consists.”
“A
proposition may now, alla Chomsky, be represented as each consisting of a family of propositional complexes.”
“The conditions for family unity may be thought of either as fixed or as variable in accordance with the context.”
“The conditions for family unity may be thought of either as fixed or as variable in accordance with the context.”
“The
notorious difficulties to which this kind of treatment gives rise begin with
the problems of handling a connective or truth-functor and of handling
quantification.”
“In the
present truncated context I shall leave the problem of the truth-functor on one
side, and shall confine myself to a few sketchy remarks concerning quantification.”
“A simple
proposal for the treatment of quantifiers would call for the assignment to each
predicate, besides its normal or standard extension, two special objects
associated with quantifiers, an 'altogether' object and a 'one-at-a-time'
object.”
“To the
epithets 'grasshopper', ['boy', 'girl'], for example, will be assigned not only
ordinary individual objects like grasshoppers [boys, girls] but also such
special objects as ‘the altogether grasshopper’ [boy, girl] and ‘the one-at-a-time
grasshopper’ [boy, girl].”
“We shall
now stipulate that an 'altogether' special object satisfies a given predicate
just in case every normal or standard object associated with that special
object satisfies the predicate in question, and that a 'one-at-a-time' special
object satisfies a predicate just in case at least one of the associated
standard objects satisfies that predicate.”
“So the
altogether grasshopper will be green just in case every individual grasshopper
is green, and the one-at-a-time grasshopper will be green just in case at least
one individual grasshopper is green.”
“We can take this pair of statements about special grasshoppers as providing us with representations of (respectively) the statements, ‘Every grasshopper is green,’ and ‘Some grasshopper is green.’
“We can take this pair of statements about special grasshoppers as providing us with representations of (respectively) the statements, ‘Every grasshopper is green,’ and ‘Some grasshopper is green.’
“The
apparatus which I have just sketched is plainly not, as it stands, adequate to
provide a comprehensive treatment of quantification.”
“It will
not, for example, cope with well-known problems arising from features of multiple
quantification.”
“It will not
deliver for us distinct representations of the two notorious (alleged) readings
of the statement ‘Every girl detests some boy', 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.”
“To cope
with this problem it might be sufficient to explore, for semantic purposes, the
device of exportation, and to distinguish between, (i) 'There is some boy such
that every girl detests him', which attributes a certain property to the
one-at-a-time boy, and (ii) 'Every girl is such that she detests some boy',
which attributes a certain (and different) property to the altogether girl; and
to note, 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 philosophical character from
those who would regard the special objects which it invokes as metaphysically
disreputable.”
“Should an
alternative proposal be reached or desired, I think that one (or, indeed, more
than one) is available.”
“The one
which I have immediately in mind could 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.”
“The new
proposal, like its predecessor, will treat propositional complexes as
sequences, indeed as ordered pairs containing a subject-item and a
predicate-item, and will, therefore, also like its predecessor, offer a
subject-predicate account of quantification. Unlike its predecessor, however,
it will not allow individual objects, like grasshoppers, girls, and boys, to
appear as elements in propositional complexes; such elements will always be
sets or attributes. Though less restrictive versions of this proposal are, I
think, available, I shall, for convenience, consider here only a set-theoretic
version.”
“According
to the set-theoretic version, we associate with the subject-expression of a
canonically formulated sentence a set of at least second order. If the subject
expression is a singular name, its ontological correlate will be the singleton
of the singleton of the entity which bears that name.”
“The treatment
of singular terms which are not names will be parallel, but is here omitted. If
the subject-expression is an indefinite quantificational phrase, like 'some
grasshopper', its ontological correlate will be the set of all singletons whose
sole element is an item belonging to the extension of the predicate to which
the indefinite modifier is attached; so the ontological correlate of the phrase
'some grasshopper' will be the set of all singletons whose sole element is an
individual grasshopper. If the subject expression is a universal
quantificational phrase, like 'every grasshopper', its ontological correlate
will be the singleton whose sole element is the set which forms the extension
of the predicate to which the universal modifier is attached; thus the correlate
of the phrase 'every grasshopper' will be the singleton of the set of
grasshoppers.”
“Predicates
of canonically formulated sentences are correlated with the sets which form
their extensions. It now remains to specify the predication-relation, that is
to say, to specify the relation which has to obtain between subject-element and
predicate-element in a propositional complex for that complex to be [active. A
propositional complex will be factive just in case its subject-element contains
as a member at least one item which is a subset of the predicate-element.”
“So if the
ontological correlate of the phrase 'some grasshopper' (or, again, of the
phrase 'every grasshopper') contains as a member at least one subset of the
ontological correlate of the predicate 'x is green' (viz. the set of green
things), then the propositional complex directly associated with the sentence
'some grasshopper is green' (or again with the sentence 'every grasshopper is
green') will be factive.”
“A dozen
years or so ago, I devoted a good deal of time to this second proposal, and I
convinced myself that it offered a powerful instrument which, with or without
adjustment, was capable of handling not only indefinitely long sequences of
‘mixed’ quantificational phrases, but also some other less obviously tractable
problems which I shall not here discuss.”
“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 subject-elements
as being of an order higher than, rather than an order lower than, predicate
elements.”
“Second,
individual names are in effect treated like universal quantificational phrases,
thus recalling the practice of old-style traditional logic.”
“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 complex directly associated with the sentence 'Some grasshoppers
are witty', will be both logically equivalent to and numerically distinct from
the propositional complex directly associated with the sentence 'Not every
grasshopper is not witty'; indeed for any given propositional complex there
will be indefinitely many propositional complexes which are both logically
equivalent to and also numerically distinct from the original complex. The
question of how tight or how relaxed are to be the family ties which determine propositional
identity remains to be decided, and it might even be decided that the
conditions for such identity would vary according to context or purpose. It
seems that there might be an approach to the treatment of propositions which
would, initially at least, be radically different from the two proposals which
I have just sketched.”
We might
begin by recalling that one of the stock arguments for the reality of
propositions used to be that propositions are needed to give us something for
logic to be about; sentences and thoughts were regarded as insufficient, since
the laws of logic do not depend on the existence of minds or of language.”
“Now one
might be rendered specially well-disposed towards propositions if one espoused,
in general, a sort of Aristotelian view of theories, and believed that for any
particular theory to exist there has to be a class of entities, central to that
theory, the essential nature of which is revealed in, and indeed accounts for,
the laws of the theory in question.”
“If our thought
proceeds along these lines, a proposition might be needed not just as a peg (so
to speak) for a logical law to hang from, but as a thing whose nature
determines the content of the logical system.”
“It might
even be possible to maintain that more than one system proceeds from and
partially exhibits the nature of propositions.”
“Perhaps,
for example, one system is needed to display a proposition as the bearer of
logical properties and another to display it in its role as a content, or
object, of a psychological state or attitude.”
“How such an
idea could be worked out in detail is far from clear; but whatever might be the
difficulties of implementation, it is evident that this kind of approach would
seek to answer the question, 'What are propositions?', not by identificatory
dissection but rather by pointing to the work that propositions of their very
nature do.”
“I have
little doubt that a proper assessment of the merits of the various proposals
now before us would require decisions on some fundamental issues in
metaphysical methodology.”
“What, for
example, determines whether a class of entities achieves metaphysical
respectability?”
“What
conditions govern the admission to reality of the products of ontological
romancing?”
“What is the
relation, in metaphysical practice, between two possible forms of
identification and characterization, that which proceeds by dissection and that
which proceeds by specification of output?”
“Are these
forms of procedure, in a given case, rivals or are they compatible and even,
perhaps, both mandatory?”
“Further objections cited by the editors may be presented together in reverse order, since they both relate to my treatment of the idea of linguistic 'procedures'.”
“Further objections cited by the editors may be presented together in reverse order, since they both relate to my treatment of the idea of linguistic 'procedures'.”
“One of
these objections disputes my right, as a philosopher, to trespass out of the
province of philosophy, interpreted as conceptual analysis, onto the province
of empirical science by attempting to
deliver judgement, either in a specific case, or even generally, on the
existence of what I call a ‘basic procedure’ underlying non-basic procedures
which are, supposedly, derivative from them.”
“The other
objection starts from the observation that my account of conversation involves
the attribution to each conversant of more or less elaborate inferential steps
concerning the procedure possessed and utilized by his conversational partner,
notes that these steps and the knowledge which, allegedly, they provide are
certainly not as a rule explicitly present to consciousness, and then questions
whether any satisfactory interpretation can be given of the idea that the
knowledge involved is implicit or tacit rather than explicit.”
“The editors
suggest that answers to these objections can be found in my work.”
“Baldly
stated, the reply which they attribute to me with respect to the first of these
objections is that the idea that a certain sort of reasoning, which the editors illustrate by drawing on my John Locke
lectures on aspects of reason and reasoning, ‘is involved in meaning, is
something which can be made plausible by Grice’s philosophical method -- by
careful description, reflection, and delineation of the ways we converse.’
“Now, I
certainly hope that my philosophical method can be effective in the suggested
direction, in which case, of course, the objections would be at least partially
answered.”
“But I think
that I would also aim at a sharper and more ambitious response along the
following lines.”
“Certainly, the
specification of any ‘procedure’ as allegedly governing conversation may not be
a matter of philosophical concern, except in so far as it may rely upon some
ulterior and highly general principles.”
“But there
may be general principles of this sort, principles perhaps which specify forms
of procedure which do, and indeed must, operate in conversation simpliciter.”
“Now one
might argue for the existence of such a body of principles on the basis of the
relatively unexciting, and not unfamiliar, idea that, so far as can be seen,
our infinite variety of actual and possible linguistic performances is feasible
only if such performances can be organized in a certain way, namely as issuing
from some initial finite base of primitive procedures in accordance with the general
principles in question.”
“One might,
however, set one's sights higher, and try to maintain that the presence in a
language, or at least in a language which is actually used, of a certain kind
of structure, which will be reflected in these general principles, is
guaranteed by metaphysical considerations, perhaps by some rational demand for
a correspondence between linguistic categories on the one hand and
metaphysical, or real categories on the other.”
“I will
confess to an inclination to go for the more ambitious of these enterprises.”
“As regards
the second objection, I must admit to being by no means entirely clear what
reply Grandy and Warner envisage me as
wishing to make, but I will formulate what seems to me to be the most likely
representation of the editors’s view.”
“The editors
first very properly refer to my discussion of ‘incomplete,’ implicit,
implicated, or truncated reasoning in my John Locke Lectures, and discover some
a suggestion which, whether or not it supplies necessary conditions for the
presence of formally incomplete or implicit reasoning, cannot plausibly be
considered as jointly providing a sufficient condition.”
“The
suggested condition is two-pronged: that the reasoner intends-1 that there should be some valid explicitable supplementation
of the explicitly presented material which would justify or warrant the
‘conclusion’ of the incomplete reasoning, together with a further intention,
i2, on the part of the reasoner that the first intention is causally
efficacious in the generation of the reasoner’s belief in the afore-mentioned
conclusion.”
“The editors
are plainly right in their view that so far no sufficient condition for reasoning
has been provided.”
“Indeed, I
never supposed that I had succeeded in providing one, though I hope to be able
to remedy this deficiency by the (one hopes) not too distant time when a
revised version of my John Locke Lectures is published.”
“The editors
then bring to bear some further material from my writings, and sketch, on my
behalf, an argument which seems to exhibit the following pattern.”
“That I am equipped
to form, and to recognize in my conversational partner, a communicative
intention is something which could be given a genitorial, or transcendental,
justification.”
“If the genitor
were constructing human beings (or a ‘pirot’) with an eye to the pirot’s own
good, the institution in a pirot of a capacity to deploy a communicative
intention would be regarded by the Genitor with favour.”
“We do in
fact possess the capacity to form, and to recognize in others, communicative
intentions.”
“The
attribution of a communicative intention to others at least sometimes has
explanatory value with regard to their behaviour, and so could properly be
thought of as helping to fulfil a rational
desideratum.”
“The exercise of rationality takes place
primarily, or predominantly in the confirmation, or revision, of previously
established beliefs or practices.”
“So, it is
reasonable to expect the comparison of the actual with what is ideal, or
optimal, to be standard procedure in a rational
being.”
“We have, in
the repertoire of procedures available to us in the rational conduct of our
lives, the procedure of counting something which approximates sufficiently
closely to the fulfillment of a certain ideal, or optimum,, as actually
fulfilling that ideal or optimum, the procedure (that is to say) of deeming it to fulfil the ideal, or
optimum, in question.”
“It is
reasonable to attribute to human beings a readiness to deem people, who approximate sufficiently closely in their
behaviour to persons who have ratiocinated
about the M-intentions of others, to have actually ratiocinated in that way.”
“We do
indeed deem such people to have so ratiocinated, though we do also, when called
upon, mark the difference between their deemed ratiocinations and the
‘primitive’ step-by-step variety of ratiocination, which provides us with our
ideal in this region, by characterizing the reasoning of the ‘approximators’ as
implicit rather than explicit.”
“Now whether
or not it was something of this sort which Grandy and Warner had it in mind to
attribute to me, the argument as I have sketched it seems to me to be worthy of
serious consideration.”
“It brings
into play, in a relevant way, some pet ideas of mine, and exerts upon me at
least, some degree of seductive appeal.”
“But whether
I would be willing to pass beyond sympathy to endorsement, I am not sure.”
“There are
too many issues involved which are both crucially important and hideously
under-explored, such as the philosophical utility of the concept of deeming,
the relations between rational and pre-rational
psychological states, and the general nature of implicit thought.”
“Perhaps the
best thing for me to do at this point will be to set out a line of argument
which I would be inclined to endorse and leave it to others to judge how
closely what I say when speaking for myself approximates to the suggested
interpretation which I offer when speaking on behalf of the editors.”
“I would be
prepared to argue that something like the following sequence of propositions is
true.”
“There is a
range of cases in which, so far from its being the case that, typically, one
first learns what it is to be a F and then, at the next stage, learns what
criteria distinguish a good F from a F which is less good, or not good at all,
one needs first to learn what it is to be a good F, and then subsequently to
learn what degree of approximation to being a good F will qualify an item as a
F; if the gap between some item x and good Fs is sufficently horrendous, x is
debarred from counting as a F at all, even as a bad F.”
“In the John
Locke Lectures, I called a concept which exhibits this feature as a
‘value-paradeigmatic’ concept.”
One example
of a value-paradeigmatic concept is the concept of reasoning; another, I now suggest,
is that of sentence.
It may well
be that the existence of value-oriented concepts (¢b ¢ 2 . • • . ¢n) depends on
the prior existence of pre-rational
concepts ( ¢~, ¢~ . . . . ¢~), such that an item x qualifies for the
application of the concept ¢ 2 if and only if x satisfies a rationally-approved form or version of
the corresponding pre-rational concept ¢'.
We have a
(primary) example of a step in reasoning only if we have a transition of a
certain rationally approved kind from
one thought or utterance to another.
If ¢ is a value-oriented
concept, a potentiality for making or producing ¢s is ipso facto a potentiality
for making or producing good ¢s, and is therefore dignified with the title of a
capacity – reason as a faculty, for example, as Kant wanted.”
“It may of
course be a capacity which only persons with special ends or objectives, like
pick-pockets, would be concerned to possess.”
“I am
strongly inclined to assent to a principle which might be called The Principle
of Economy of Rational Effort or Expenditure, or The Principle of Minimisation
of Rational Expenditure, or the Principle of Minimisation of Rational Cost.”
“The
Principle of Economy of Rational Expenditure states that, where there is a ratiocinative procedure for arriving
rationally at certain outcome, a procedure which, because it is ratiocinative, involves an expenditure
of time and energy, if there is a non-ratiocinative, and so more economical
procedure which is likely, for the most part, to reach the same outcome as the
ratiocinative procedure, provided the stakes are not too high, it is rational
to employ the cheaper though somewhat
less reliable non-ratiocinative procedure as a substitute for ratiocination.”
“I think
this principle would meet with Genitorial approval, in which case the Genitor
would install it for use should opportunity arise.”
“On the
assumption that it is characteristic of Reason
to operate on pre-rational psychological
states which Reason confirms, revises, or even (sometimes) eradicates, such
opportunity will arise, provided a rational creatures or pirot can, as we can,
be ‘trained’ to modify the relevant pre-rational
psychological states or their exercise, so that without actual ratiocination
the creature can be more or less reliably led by that pre-rational psychological states to the thoughts or actions which
Reason would endorse were it invoked.”
“With the
result that the creatures can do, for the most part, what reason requires
without, in the particular case, ‘the voice of Reason’ being heard.”
“Indeed in
such creatures as ourselves the ability to dispense in this way with actual
ratiocination is taken to be an excellence or virtue.”
“The more
mathematical things I can do correctly without engaging in overt mathematical
reasoning, the more highly I shall be regarded as a mathematician.”
(This may
not apply to philosophical reasoning at Collections!).
“A similar
consideration applies to the ability to produce syntactico-semantically
satisfactory utterances without the aid of a derivation in some
syntactico-semantic theory.”
“In both
cases the excellence which I exhibit is a form of judgement.”
“I am a good
judge of logical consequences or of satisfactory utterances.”
“That
ability to produce, without the aid of overt ratiocination, transitions which
accord with approved standards of inference does not demand that such
ratiocination be present in an unconscious or covert form.”
“It
requires, at most that our propensity or propension to produce such a
transition is dependent in some way upon our acquisition or possession of a capacity
to reason explicitly.”
“Similarly,
our ability to produce satisfactory utterances does not require a ‘sub-terranean’
ratiocination to acccount for their satisfactory character; it needs only to be
dependent on our learning of, or use
of, a rule-governed language.”
“There are
two kinds of magic travel.”
“In one of
these we are provided with a magic carpet which transports us with supernatural
celerity over a route which may be traversed in more orthodox vehicles.”
“In the
other, we are given a magic lamp from which, when we desire it, a genie emerges
who transports us routelessly from where we are to where we want to go.”
“The
exercise of judgement may perhaps be route-travelling like the first; but may
also be routeless like the second.”
“But problems
still remain.”
“A deductive
system concocted by a logicians may vary a good deal as regards its intuitiveness;
but with respect to some deductive systems (for example, some suitably chosen
system of natural deduction) a pretty good case may be made that they not only
generate for us logically valid inferences, but do so in a way which mirrors
the procedures which we use in argument in the simplest or most fundamental
cases.”
“But in the
case of linguistic theories even the more intuitive among them may not be in a
position to make a corresponding claim about the production of admissible
utterances.”
“They might
be able to claim to generate (more or less) the infinite class of admissible
sentences, together with acceptable interpretations of each (though even this
much would be a formidable claim); but such an achievement would tell us
nothing about how we arrive at the production of sentences, and so might be thought
to lack explanatory force.”
“That
deficiency might be thought to be remediable only if the theory reflects, more
or less closely, the way or ways in which we learn, select, and criticize
linguistic performances; and here it is clear neither what should be reflected
nor what would count as reflecting it.”
“There is
one further objection, not mentioned by Grandy and Warner, which seems to me to
be one to which I must respond.”
“It may be
stated thus.”
“One of the
leading ideas in my treatment of meaning was that meaning is not to be regarded
exclusively, or even primarily, as a feature of language or of linguistic utterances.”
“There are
many instances of non-linguistic vehicles of communication, mostly unstructured
but sometimes exhibiting at least rudimentary structure; and my account of
meaning, based on Peirce, was designed to allow for the possibility that a non-linguistic
and indeed a non-conventional 'utterance', perhaps even manifesting some degree
of structure, might be within the powers of creatures who lack any linguistic
or otherwise conventional apparatus for communication, but who are not thereby
deprived of the capacity to mean this or that by things they do.”
“To provide
for this possibility, it is plainly necessary that the key ingredient in any
representation of meaning, namely intending, should be a state the capacity for
which does not require the possession of a language.”
“Now some
might be unwilling to allow the possibility of such pre-linguistic intending.”
“Against
them, I think I would have good prospects of winning the day.”
“But
unfortunately a victory on this front would not be enough.”
“For, in a
succession of increasingly elaborate moves designed to thwart a sequence of
counterexamples started by Strawson with his example of the ‘rat-infested
house,’ I was led to restrict the intentions which are to constitute utterer's
meaning to “M-intentions”; and, whatever might be the case in general with
regard to intending, M-intending is plainly too
sophisticated a state to be found in a language-destitute creature.”
“So the
unavoidable rearguard actions seem to have undermined the raison d'etre of the
campaign.”
“A brief
reply will have to suffice; a full treatment would require delving deep into
crucial problems concerning the boundaries between vicious and virtuous
circularity.”
“According
to my most recent speculations about meaning, one should distinguish between
what I might call the factual character of an utterance (meaning-relevant
features which are actually present in the utterance), and what I might call its
titular character (the nested M-intention
which is deemed to be present).
“The titular
character is infinitely complex, and so cannot be actually present in toto.”
“In which
case to point out that its inconceivable actual presence would be possible, or
would be detectable, only via the use of language would seem to serve little
purpose.”
“At its most
meagre, the factual character will consist merely in the pre-rational counterpart of meaning, which might amount to no more
than making a certain sort of utterance in order thereby to get some creature
to think or want some particular thing, and this condition seems to contain no
reference to linguistic expertise.”
“Maybe in
some less straightforward instances of meaning there will be actually present
intentions whose feasibility as intentions will demand a capacity for the use
of language.”
“But there
can be no advance guarantee when this will be so, and it is in any case
arguable that the use of language would here be a practically indispensable aid
to thinking about relatively complex intentions, rather than an element in what
is thought about, as I suggest in the last of my William James lectures.”
“I shall now take up, or take off from, a few of the things which Grandy and Warner have to say about a number of fascinating and extremely important issues belonging to a chain of disciplines: metaphysics, philosophical psychology, and value.
I shall be
concerned less with the details of Grandy’s and Warner’s account of the various
positions which they see me as maintaining than with the kind of structure and
order which, albeit in an as yet confused and incomplete way I think I can
discern in the disciplines themselves and, especially, in the connection
between them.”
“Any proper
discussion of the details of the issues in question would demand far more time
than I have at my disposal.”
“In any case
it is my intention, if I am spared, to discuss a number of them, at length, in
future writings.”
“I shall be
concerned rather to provide some sort of picture of the nature of metaphysics,
as I see it, and of the way or ways in which it seems to me to underlie the
other mentioned disciplines.
“I might add
that something has already been said previously about philosophical psychology
and rationality, and that general questions about value, including metaphysical
questions, were the topic of my Carus lectures.”
“So perhaps
I shall be pardoned if here I concentrate primarily on metaphysics.”
“I fear
that, even when I am allowed the advantage of operating within these
limitations, what I have to say will be programmatic and speculative rather
than well-ordered and well-argued.
“At the
outset of their comments on my views concerning metaphysics, Grandy and Warner say, ‘Grice's ontological views are at least
liberal;’ and they document this assertion by a quotation from my Method In
Philosophical Psychology, in which I admit to a ‘taste for keeping open house
for all sorts and conditions of entities, just so long as when they come in
they help with the housework.’”
“I have no
wish to challenge their representation of my expressed position, particularly
as the cited passage includes a reference to the possibility that certain sorts
of entities might, because of backing from some transcendental argument,
qualify as entia realissima.”
“The
question I would like to raise is rather what grounds are there for accepting
the current conception of the relationship between metaphysics and ontology.”
“Why should
it be assumed that metaphysics consists in, or even includes in its domain, the
programme of arriving at an acceptable ontology?”
“Is the
answer merely that that enterprise is the one, or a part of the one, to which
the term 'metaphysics' is conventionally applied and so that a justification of
this application cannot be a philosophical issue?
If this
demand for a justified characterization of metaphysics is to be met, I can
think of only one likely strategy for meeting it.
That will be
to show that success within a certain sort of philosophical undertaking, which
I will with striking originality call ‘first philosophy,’ is needed if any form
of philosophy, or perhaps indeed any form of rational enquiry, is to be
regarded as feasible or legitimate; and that the contents of First Philosophy
are identical with, or at least include, what are standardly regarded as the
contents of metaphysics.
I can think
of two routes by which this result might be achieved, which might well turn out
not to be distinct from one another.
One route
would perhaps involve taking seriously the idea that if any region of enquiry
is to be successful as a rational enterprise, its deliverance must be
expressable in the shape of one or another of the possibly different types of
theory; that characterizations of the nature and range of possible kinds of
theory will be needed; and that such a body of characterization must itself be
the outcome of rational enquiry, and so must itself exemplify whatever
requirements it lays down for theories in general; it must itself be
expressible as a theory, to be called (if you like) Theory-theory.
The
specification and justification of the ideas and material presupposed by any
theory, whether such account falls within or outside the bounds of
Theory-theory, would be properly called First Philosophy, and might
(In these
reflections I have derived much benefit from discussions with A. D. Code).
“I turn out
to relate to what is generally accepted as belonging to the subject matter of
metaphysics. It might, for example, turn out to be establishable that every
theory has to relate to a certain range of subject items, has to attribute to
them certain predicates or attributes, which in turn have to fall within one or
another of the range of types or categories.”
“In this
way, the enquiry might lead to recognized metaphysical topics, such as the
nature of being, its range of application, the nature of predication and a systematic
account of categories.”
“A second
approach would focus not on the idea of the expressibility of the outcomes of
rational enquiry in theories but rather on the question of what it is, in such
enquiries, that we are looking for, why they are of concern to us.”
“We start
(so Aristotle has told us) as laymen with the awareness of a body of facts;
what as theorists we strive for is not (primarily) further facts, but rational
knowledge, or understanding, of the facts we have, together with whatever
further facts our investigations may provide for us.”
“Metaphysics
will have as its concern the nature and realizability of those items which are
involved in any successful pursuit of understanding; its range would include
the nature and varieties of explanation (as offered in some modification of the
Doctrine of Four Causes), the acceptability of principles of logic, the proper
standards of proof, and so on. I have at this point three comments to make.”
“First,
should it be the case that, (1) the foregoing approach to the conception of
metaphysics is found acceptable, (2) the nature of explanation and (understood
broadly) of causes is a metaphysical topic, and (3) that Aristotle is right (as
I suspect he is) that the unity of the notion of cause is analogical in
character, then the general idea of cause will rest on its standard
particularizations, and the particular ideas cannot be reached as
specifications of an antecedent genus, for there is no such genus.”
“In that
case, final causes will be (so to speak) foundation members of the cause
family, and it will be dubious whether their title as causes can be disputed.”
“Second, it
seems very likely that the two approaches are in fact not distinct; for it
seems plausible to suppose that explanations, if fully rational, must be
systematic and so must be expressible in theories.”
“Conversely, it seems plausible to suppose that the function of theories is to explain, and so that whatever is susceptible to theoretical treatment is thereby explained.
“Conversely, it seems plausible to suppose that the function of theories is to explain, and so that whatever is susceptible to theoretical treatment is thereby explained.
“Third, the
most conspicuous difficulty about the approach which I have been tentatively
espousing seems to me to be that we may be in danger of being given more than
we want to receive; we are not, for example, ready to regard methods of proof
or the acceptability of logical principles as metaphysical matters and it is
not clear how such things are to be excluded.”
“But perhaps
we are in danger of falling victims to a confusion.”
“Morality,
as such, belongs to the province of ethics and does not belong to the province
of metaphysics.”
“But, as
Kant saw (and I agree with him), that does not preclude there being
metaphysical questions which arise about morality.”
“In general,
there may be a metaphysics of X without it being the case that X is a concept
or item which belongs to metaphysics.”
“Equally,
there may be metaphysical questions relating to proof or logical principles without
it being the case that as such proof or logical principles belong to
metaphysics.”
It will be
fair to add, however, that no distinction has yet been provided, within the
class of items about which there are metaphysical questions, between those which
do and those which do not belong to metaphysics. The next element in my
attitude towards metaphysics to which I would like to draw attention is my
strong sympathy for a constructivist approach.
The appeal
of such an approach seems to be to lie essentially in the idea that if we
operate with the aim of expanding some set of starting points, by means of
regulated and fairly well-defined procedures, into a constructed edifice of
considerable complexity, we have better prospects of obtaining the explanatory richness
which we need than if, for example, we endeavour to represent the seeming
wealth of the world of being as reducible to some favoured range of elements.”
“That is, of
course, a rhetorical plea, but perhaps such pleas have their place.”
“But a constructivist
methodology, if its title is taken seriously, plainly has its own
difficulties.”
“Construction,
as normally understood, requires one or more constructors; so far as a
metaphysical construction is concerned, who does the constructing? 'We'?”
“But who are
we and do we operate separately or conjointly, or in some other way? And when
and where are the acts of construction performed, and how often?”
“These
troublesome queries are reminiscent of differences which arose, I believe,
among Kantian commentators, about whether Kant's threefold synthesis (perhaps a
close relative of construction) is (or was) a datable operation or not.”
“I am not
aware that they arrived at a satisfactory solution. The problem becomes even
more acute when we remember that some of the best candidates for the title of
constructed entities, for example numbers, are supposed to be eternal, or at
least timeless.
How could
such entities have construction dates?
Some relief
may perhaps be provided if we turn our eyes towards the authors of fiction.
My next
novel will have as its hero one Caspar Winebibber, a notorious English
highwayman born (or so I shall say) in 1764 and hanged in 1798, thereby ceasing
to exist long before sometime next year, when I create (or construct) him.
This mind-boggling
situation will be dissolved if we distinguish between two different
occurrences; first, Caspar's birth (or death) which is dated to 1764 (or 1798),
and second, my creation of Caspar, that is to say my making it in 1985
fictionally true that Caspar was born in 17 64 and died in 1798.
Applying
this strategem to metaphysics, we may perhaps find it tolerable to suppose that
a particular great mathematician should in 1968 make it true that (let us say)
ultra-lunary numbers should exist timelessly or from and to eternity.
We might
even, should we so wish, introduce a 'de-personalized' (and 'de--temporalized')
notion of construction; in which case we can say that in 1968 the great
mathematician, by authenticated construction, not only constructed the timeless
existence of ultra-lunary numbers but also thereby depersonalized and
detemporalized construction of the timeless existence of ultra-lunary numbers,
and also the depersonalized construction of the depersonalized construction of ultra-lunary
numbers.
In this way,
we might be able, in one fell swoop, to safeguard the copyrights both of the
mathematician and eternity.
Another
extremely important aspect of my conception of metaphysical construction
(creative metaphysical thinking) is that it is of its nature revisionary or
gradualist in character.
It is not
just that, since metaphysics is a very difficult subject, the best way to
proceed is to observe the success and failures of others and to try to build
further advance upon their achievements.
It is rather
that there is no other way of proceeding but the way of gradualism.
A particular
bit of metaphysical construction is possible only on the basis of some prior
material; which must itself either be the outcome of prior constructions, or
perhaps be something original and unconstructed. As I see it, gradualism enters
in in more than one place.
One point of
entry relates to the degree of expertise on the theorist or investigator.
In my view,
it is incumbent upon those whom Aristotle would have called 'the wise' in
metaphysics, as often elsewhere, to treat with respect and build upon the
opinions and the practices of 'the many'; and any intellectualist indignation
at the idea of professionals being hamstrung by amateurs will perhaps be seen
as inappropriate when it is reflected that the amateurs are really (since
personal identities may be regarded as irrelevant) only ourselves (the
professionals) at an earlier stage; there are not two parties, like Whigs and
Tories, or nobles and the common people, but rather one family of speakers
pursuing the life of reason at different stages of development; and the later
stages of development depend upon the ealier ones.
Gradualism
also comes into play with respect to theory development.
A
characteristic aspect of what I think of as a constructivist approach towards
theory development involves the appearance of what I call 'overlaps'.
It may be
that a theory or theory-stage B, which is to be an extension of theory or
theory-stage A, includes as part of itself linguistic or conceptual apparatus
which provides us with a restatement of all or part of theory A, as one segment
of the arithmetic of positive and negative integers provides us with a
restatement of the arithmetic of natural numbers.
But while
such an overlap may be needed to secure intelligibility for theory B, theory B
would be pointless unless its expressive power transcended that of theory A,
unless (that is to say) a further segment of theory B lay beyond the overlap.
Gradualism
sometimes appears on the scene in relation to stages exhibited by some feature
attaching to the theory as a whole, but more often perhaps in relation to
stages exemplified in some department of, or some category within, the theory.
We can think
of metaphysics as involving a developing sequence of metaphysical schemes.
We can also
locate developmental features within and between particular metaphysical
categories.
Again, I
regard such developmental features not as accidental but as essential to the prosecution of
metaphysics.
One can only
reach a proper understanding of a metaphysical concept like ‘law’ or ‘cause’ if
one sees, for example, the functional analogy, and so the developmental connection, between a natural law and a
non-natural law (like a ‘legal’ law or a ‘moral’ law).
‘How is such
and such a range of uses of a word (the concept) x to be rationally generated?' is to my mind a type of question which we
should continually be asking.
I may now
revert to a question which appeared briefly on the scene a page or so ago.
Are we, if
we lend a sympathetic ear to constructivism, to think of the metaphysical world
as divided into a constructed section and a primitive, original, un-constructed
section?
I will
confess at once that I do not know the answer to this question.
The
forthright contention that, if there is a realm of constructs, there has to be
also a realm of non-constructs to provide the material upon which the earliest
ventures in construction are to operate, has its appeal, and I have little
doubt that I have been influenced by it.
But I am by
no means sure that it is correct.
I am led to
this uncertainty initially by the fact that when I ask myself what class of
entities I would be happy to regard as original and un-constructed, I do not
very readily come up with an answer.
Certainly not a common thing like a table or a
chair; but would I feel better about stuff like a rock or hydrogen, or bits
thereof?
I do not
know, but I am not moved towards any emphatic 'yes!'
Part of my
trouble is that there does not seem to me to be any good logical reason calling
for a class of ultimate non-constructs.
It seems to
me quite on the cards that metaphysical theory, at least when it is formally
set out, might consist in a package of what I will call an ontological scheme
in which a category C1 of entities and a category C2 of entities are constructively ordered, that all or most
of the same categories may appear within an ontological scheme S1 and an
ontological scheme S2 with a different
ordering, what is ‘primitive’ in ontological scheme S1 not being primitive in
ontological scheme S2, and that this might occur whether the ordering relation
employed in the construction of each scheme is the same or not.
We would
then have no role for a notion of absolute
primitiveness.
All we would
use would be the relative notion of
‘primitive-with-respect-to-an-ontological-scheme-S,’ or primitiveS1
for short.
There might
indeed be room for a concept of authentic or maximal reality.
But the
application of the concept of authentic or maximal reality would be divorced
from any concept of primitiveness, relative or absolute, and would be governed
by the availability of an argument, no doubt transcendental in character, showing
that a given category C1 is mandatory, that a place must be found for it in any
admissible ontological scheme Sn.
I know of no
grounds for rejecting ideas along these lines.
“The
complexities introduced by the possibility that there is no original, un-constructed,
realm of reality, together with a memory of the delicacy of treatment called
for by the last of the objections to my view on the philosophy of language,
suggest that debates about the foundations of metaphysical theory are likely to
be peppered with allegations of a vicious circle; and I suspect that this would
be the view of any thoughtful student of metaphysical theory who gives serious
attention to the methodology of his discipline.”
Where is any
‘first principle’ of first philosophy to come from, if not from the operation,
practised by the emblematic pelican, of lacerating its own breast?
In the light
of these considerations it seems to me to be of the utmost importance to get
clear about the nature and forms of a real or apparent vicious circle, and to
distinguish a circle, if any, which is virtuous, from a circle which is vicious.
To this end,
I would look for a list, which might not be all that different from the list
provided by Aristotle, of different kinds, or interpretations, of the idea of ‘prior’
with a view to deciding when the supposition that A is prior to B allow or
disallows the possibility that B may also be prior to A, either in the same, or
in some other, dimension of ‘prior.’
Relevant
kinds of priority would perhaps include ‘logically’ prior, ‘definitionally
‘prior’ or conceptually prior, epistemically prior, and axiologically prior.
I will
select two examples, both possibly of philosophical interest, where for
differing m and n, it might be legitimate to suppose that the prior-nessm of A
to B would not be a barrier to the priorness-n of B to A.
It seems to
me not implausible to hold that, in respect of one or another version of the
“conceptually” prior, the legal
concept of ‘right’ is conceptually prior to the moral concept of right.
The moral
concept is only understandable by reference to, and perhaps is even explicitly
definable in terms of, the legal concept.
But if that
is so, we are perhaps not debarred from regarding the moral concept as
valuationally or axiologically prior to the legal concept.
The range of
application of a conceptually prior concept of a ‘legal’ right ought to be
always determined by criteria which are couched in terms of the axiologically
prior concept of a ‘moral’ right.
Again, it
might be important to distinguish two
kinds of conceptual priority, which might both apply to one and the same
pair of items, though in different directions.
It might be,
perhaps, that the properties of a sense-datum, like the colour red (and so a
sense-datum itself), is posterior in some way to a corresponding property of a material
thing (and so to a material thing itself).
A property
of a material thing, perhaps, render the property of a sense-datum intelligible
by providing a paradigm for it.
But when it
comes to the provision of a suitably motivated theory of material things and
their properties, the idea of making these definitionally or conceptually explicable
in terms of a sense-datum and its properties may not be ruled out by the
holding of the afore-mentioned definitional or conceptual priority in the
reverse direction.
It is
perhaps reasonable to regard such fine distinction as indispensable if the
philosopher is to succeed in the business of pulling himself up by his own
bootstraps.
In this
connection it will be relevant for me to reveal that I once invented (though I
did not establish its validity) a principle which I labelled as “Boot Strap.”
“The Boot
Strap principle lays down that, when one is introducing the primitive concept of
a theory Th formulated in the object-language L1, the philosopher has freedom
to use a concept C1 expressible in the meta-language L2, subject to the
condition that a counterpart C2 of such a concept C1 is sub-sequently definable
or otherwise derivable in the object-language L1.”
“So the more
economically the philosopher introduces the ‘primitive’ object-language L1
concept C1, the less of a task the philosopher leaves himself for the morrow.”
I must now
turn to a more direct consideration of the question of how a metaphysical
principle is ultimately to be established.
A prime
candidate is forthcoming, namely a special metaphysical type of argument, one
that has been called by Kant, and by various other philosophers since Kant, a ‘transcendental’
argument.
Unfortunately
it is by no means clear to me precisely what Kant, and still less what some
other philosophers, regard as the essential character of such an argument as a transcendental
argument.
Some, I
suspect, have thought of a transcendental argument in favour of some thesis or
category of items as being one which claims that if we reject the thesis or
category in question, we shall have to give up something which we very much
want to keep.
The practice
of some philosophers, including Kant, of hooking a transcendental argument to
the possibility of some very central notion, such as experience or knowledge,
or (the existence of) language, or conversation, or communication, perhaps
lends some colour to the approach.
My view (and
my view of Kant) takes a different tack.
One thing
which seems to be left out in the treatments of a transcendental argument just
mentioned is the idea that a transcendental argument involves the suggestion
that something is being undermined by one who is sceptical about the conclusion
which such a transcendental argument aims at establishing.
Another
thing which is left out is any investigation of the notion of rationality, or the notion of a rational being.
Precisely
what remedy I should propose for these omissions is far from clear to me.
I have to
confess that my ideas in this region of the subject are still in a very
rudimentary state.
But I will
do the best I can.
I suspect
that there is no single characterization of a transcendental argument which
will accommodate all of the traditionally recognized specimens of the kind.
Indeed,
there seem to me to be at least three sorts of argument-pattern with good claims
to be dignified with the title of ‘transcendental.’
One pattern
fits Descartes's ‘cogito’ argument, which Kant himself seems to have regarded
as paradigmatic.
This
argument may be represented as pointing to a thesis, namely his own existence,
to which a real or pretended sceptic is thought of as expressing enmity, in the
form of doubt.
And it seeks
to show that the sceptic's procedure is self-destructive in that there is an
irresoluble conflict between, on the one hand, what the sceptic is suggesting
(that he does not exist), and on the other hand the possession, by his act of
suggesting, of the illocutionary
character (being the expression of a doubt) which his act not only has but
must, on the account, be supposed by the
sceptic to have.
It might, in
this case, be legitimate to go on to say that the expression of doubt cannot be denied application, since without the
capacity for the expression of doubt the exercise of rationality will be
impossible.
But, while
this addition might link this pattern with the two following patterns, it does
not seem to add anything to the cogency of the argument.
Another
pattern of argument would be designed for use against applications of what I
might call 'epistemological nominalism'; that is, against someone who proposes
to admit ys but not xs on the grounds that epistemic justification is available
for ys but not for anything like xs, which supposedly go beyond ys.
We can, for
example, allow a sense-datum but not a material thing, if the thing is thought
of as 'over and above' a sense-datum.
Or we can
allow a particular event, but not, except on some minimal interpretation, a
causal connection between two events, E1 being the cause of its effect E2.
The pattern
of argument under consideration would attempt to show that the sceptic's at
first sight attractive caution is a false economy; that the rejection of the
'over-and-above' entities is epistemically destructive of the entities with
which the sceptic deems himself secure.
If a
material thing goes, a sense-datum goes, too.
If a cause
goes, a datable event goes too.
In some
cases it might be possible to claim, on the basis of the lines of the third
pattern of argument, that not just the minimal categories, but, in general, the
possibility of the exercise of rationality will have to go.
A third
pattern of argument might contend from the outset that, if such-and-such a
target of the sceptic were allowed to fall, something else would have to fall
which is a pre-condition of the exercise
of rationality.
It might be
argued, for example, that some sceptical thesis would undermine freedom, which
in turn is a pre-condition of any exercise of rationality whatsoever.
It is plain
that an argument of this third type might differ from one another in respect of
the particular pre-condition of rationality which they brandished in the face
of a possible sceptic.
But it is
possible that they might differ in a more subtle respect.
Some less
ambitious arguments might threaten a local breakdown of rationality, a
breakdown in some particular area.
It might
hold, for instance, that a certain sceptical position, such as Hume’s, would
preclude the possibility of the exercise of rationality in the practical domain.
While such an
argument may be expected to carry weight with some philosophers, a really
doughty sceptic is liable to accept the threatened curtailment of rationality.
The really
doughty sceptic may, as Hume and those who follow him have done, accept the
virtual exclusion of reason (but not pre-rational passion) from the area of
action.
The threat,
however, may be of a total breakdown of the possibility of the exercise of
rationality.
And here
even the doughty sceptic might quail, on pain of losing his audience if he
refuses to quail.
“A very
important feature of these varieties of a ‘transcendental’ argument (though I
would prefer to abandon the term 'transcendental' and just call it a
'metaphysical argument') may be its connection with ‘practical’ argument or
reason.
In a broad
use of ‘practical,’ which would relate not just to action but also to the
adoption of any psychological state or attitude or stance, including belief,
which is within our rational control,
we might think of all argument, even alethic
(or alethically satisfactory) argument, as practical
perhaps with the practical tail-piece omitted.
Alethic or evidential argument may be thought of as
directing us to accept or believe
some proposition on the grounds that it is certain or likely to be true.
But,
sometimes, we are led to the rational acceptance of a proposition (though
perhaps not to belief in it) by
considerations other than the
likelihood of its truth.
A thing that
is a matter of faith of one sort of another, like one’s fidelity to one's
spouse, or one’s belief in the justice of one's country's cause, is typically
not accepted on evidential grounds but as a demand imposed by loyalty or
patriotism.
And the
argument produced by that who wishes us to have such faith may well not be
silent about this fact.
A metaphysical
argument and acceptance may exhibit a partial analogy with such examples one’s
fidelity to one’s spouse or one’s belief in the justice of one’s country’s
cause, i.e. of the acceptance of something as a matter of faith.
In the
metaphysical region, too, the practical aspect may come first.
We must
accept such and such thesis or else face an intolerable breakdown of
rationality.
But, in the
case of a metaphysical argument, the threatened calamity is such that the
acceptance of the thesis which avoids it is invested with the alethic trappings
of truth and evidential respectability.
Proof of the
pudding comes from the need to eat it, not vice versa.
These thoughts
will perhaps allay a discomfort which some people, including myself, have felt
with respect to a transcendental argument.
It has
seemed to me, in at least some cases, that the most that a transcendental
argument may hope to show is that rationality demands the acceptance, not the truth, of this or that thesis.
This feature
would not be a defect if one can go on to say that this kind of demand for
acceptance is sufficient to confer
truth on what is to be accepted.
It is now
time for me to turn to a consideration of the ways in which metaphysical
construction is effected, and I shall attempt to sketch three of these.
But before I
do so, I should like to make one or two general remarks about such a
construction routine.
It is pretty
obvious that metaphysical construction needs to be disciplined.
But this is
not because without discipline it will be badly done, but because without
discipline it will not be done at all.
The list of
available routines determines what metaphysical construction is.
So it is no
accident that metaphysical construction employs these construction routines.
This
reflection may help us to solve what has appeared to me, and to others, as a
difficult problem in the methodology of metaphysics.
How are we
to distinguish a ‘metaphysical’ construction (hypostasis) from a ‘scientific’ construction
(hypothesis) of such an entity as an electron or a quark?
What is the
difference between a metaphysical hypostasis and a scientific hypothesis?
The answer
may lie in the idea that in a metaphysical construction, including ‘hypostasis,’
we reach a new entity (or in some cases, perhaps, suppose such an entity to be
reachable) by application of the routines which are essential to metaphysical
construction.
When the
scientist hypothesizs, on the other hand, he does not rely on these routines at least in the first instance.
If at a
later stage the scientist shifts his ground, that is a major theoretical
change.
I shall
first introduce two of these construction routines.
Before I
introduce the third I shall need to bring in some further material, which will
also be relevant to my task in other ways.
The first
routine is one which I have discussed elsewhere, and which I call “Humeian
projection.”
Something
very like it is indeed described by Hume, when he talks about 'the mind's
propensity to spread itself on objects.’
But Hume
seems to regard the mind’s ‘spreading itself’ on objects as a source, or a
product, of confusion and illusion which, perhaps, our nature renders
unavoidable, rather than as an achievement of reason.
In my
version of the routine, one can distinguish four real or apparent stages, the
first of which, perhaps, is not always present.
At this
first stage we have some initial concept, like that expressed by ‘not’, or
‘or,’ or, to take a concept relevant to my present undertakings, the concept of
‘value.’
We can think
of such initial item as, at this stage, an intuitive and unclarified element in
our conceptual vocabulary.
At the
second stage we reach a specific psychological state or attitude or stance, in
the specification of which it is possible, though maybe not necessary, to use
the name of the initial concept as an adverb.
We come to
‘not-thinking’ (or rejecting, or denying, e.g. that this is red or that I am
hearing a noise – vide “Negation and privation”), ‘or-thinking’ (or disjoining)
and ‘value-thinking’ (or valuing, or approving).”
“Each
specific psychological state or attitude or stance may be thought of as bound
up with, and indeed as generating, some set of behavioural responses to the
appearance on the scene of instantiation of the initial concept – ‘not,’ ‘or,’
‘value.’”
At the third
stage, reference to the specific psychological state, attitude, or stance, is
replaced by a general (or more
general) psychological verb, together with an operator or device corresponding to the particular specific stage
which appears within the scope of the
general verb, but is still allowed only maximal scope within the complement of the verb and cannot appear in a sub-clause.”
“So we find
reference to ‘thinking not-p,’ ‘thinking p or q,’ or ‘thinking it valuable to
learn Greek.’”
“At the
fourth and last stage, we remove the restriction imposed by the demand that the
operator (“not,” “or,” “valuable”) at Stage III should be scope-dominant within the complement of the
accompanying verb.
There is no
limitation now on the appearance or occurrence of the operator and the operation
in a sub-ordinate clause.
With regard
to this routine, I would make a few observations.
The
employment of the routine of Humeian projection may be expected to deliver for
us, as its result, a concept – the
concept(ion) of value, say, in something like a Fregeian ‘sense,’ rather than an
object.
To generate an
object we must look to other routines.
The
provision, at Stage IV, of full syntactico-semantical freedom for the operator
which corresponds to the initial, intuitive, concept is possible only via the
provision of a condition of alethic satisfactoriness – a table -- or of some different
but analogous valuation, for statements or expressions, within which each
operator appears”
“Only thus
can the permissible complexity be made intelligible.”
Because of
this, the difference between Stage II and Stage III is apparent rather than
real.
The Stage III
provides only a notational variant of
the second stage, at least unless Stage IV is also reached.
It is
important to recognize that the development, in a given case, of the routine
must not be merely formal or arbitrary, but principled, or reason-based.
The
invocation of a sub-sequent stage must be exhibited as having some point or
purpose, as (for example) enabling us to account for something which needs to
be accounted for.
Subject to
these provisos, application of this routine to our initial, intuitive, concept
(‘putting it through the mangle’) does furnish one with a metaphysical re-construction
of that concept.
If the first
stage is missing, we are given a metaphysical construction (not re-construction) of a new concept.
The second
construction routine harks back to Aristotle's treatment of predication and
categories, and I will present my version of it as briefly as I can.
Perhaps its
most proper title is “Category Shift.”
But since I
think of it as primarily useful for introducing new objects, or new subjects of
discourse, by a procedure reminiscent of the operation of nominalization, I may
also refer to it as ‘subjectification, or, for that matter, ‘objectification.’
Given a
class of items which each can become a primary subject of discourse, namely a
‘substance,’ there are a number of ‘slots,’ or categories, into which predicates of a primary subject may fit.
One is
substance itself (secondary
substance), in which case the predication is intra-categorial and essential.
And there
are others into which the predicates assigned in non-essential or accidental
predication may fall.
The list of
these would resemble Aristotle’s ten-fold list of categories -- quality, quantity,
and so forth – later reduced by Kant to just four (‘qualitas,’ ‘quantitas,’
‘relatio,’ and ‘modus.’)
It might be,
however, that the members of my list, perhaps unlike that of Aristotle, would not be fully co-ordinate.
The
development of the list might require not one blow but a succession of blows.
We might for
example have to develop first the category of attribute, and then the sub-ordinate categories of quantitative attribute (‘quantity’) and non-quantitative attribute (‘quality’).
Or again the
category of ‘event’ before the sub-ordinate category of ‘action.’
Now, though it
is to be the primary subject of a
predication, a substance may not be the only
subject.
Derivatives
of, or conversions of, items which start life (so to speak) as predicable, in one non-substantial categorial slot or another, of substances, may
themselves come to occupy the first slot.
An initial
predicable will be a quality of, or a quantity of, a particular type or token
of a substantial.
Not being a
quality or a quantity of a substance, the initial predicable will not be a
quality or a quantity simpliciter.
It is my
suspicion that only for a substance, as a subject, are all the categorial slots
filled by a predicable item.
Some
substantial which is not a substance
may derive from a plurality of items from different original categories.
An event,
for example, might be a complex substantial, deriving from one substance (“I”)
one attribute (“rise”) and one time (“early in the morning”).
My position
with regard to the construction routine of category shift, subjectification, or
objectification, runs parallel to my position with regard to the first
construction routine of Humeian projection, in that here too I hold strongly to
the opinion that the eschatological introduction of (or eschatological shift
to) a new category of entities must not be arbitrary, but principled.
Category
shift has to be properly motivated.
If it is
not, perhaps it fails to be a case of entity-construction altogether, and
becomes merely ‘a way of speaking,’ as when we say that Banbury’s
disinterestedness or altruism is nowhere to be seen.
What sort of
principled motivation is called for is not immediately clear.
One strong
candidate would be the possibility of opening up new applications for existing
modes of explanation.
It may be,
for example, that the substantial introduction of an abstract entitiy, like the
property of being red, makes possible the application to what W. C. Kneale in
“Probability and induction” calls a ‘secondary’ induction, comprising the
principles at work in a ‘primary’ induction.
But it is
not only the sort but the degree of principled
motivation which is in question.
When I
discussed the form of a metaphysical argument, it seemed that, to achieve
reality, the acceptance of a category of entities had to be mandatory.
The recent
discussion, rather, suggests that, apart from conformity to a
construction-routine, all that is required is that the acceptance is merely well-motivated?
Which of the
two views is the correct one?
Or is it
that we can tolerate a division of constructed reality into two segments, with two
admission requirements of differing degrees of stringency?
Or is there
just one sort of admission
requirement, which in some cases is over-fulfilled?
Before
characterizing my third construction-routine I must say a brief word about my
take on what I regard as an essential property and about a final cause, or finality,
two Aristotelian ideas which at least until recently have been pretty
unpopular, but for both of which I want to find metaphysical room.
First,
essence.
In its
logical dress, an essential property would appear either as a property which is
constitutive or definitive or definitional of a given, usually substantial,
kind; or as an individuating property of each individual member of a kind, an
individuating property such that if an individual is to lose it, it would lose
its identity (a = a), its existence, and indeed itself.
It is clear
that, if a property is one of the properties which constitute or define a kind,
it is also an individuating property of each individual member of the kind, a
property such that if an individual is to lose it, it would cease to belong to
the kind and so cease to exist.
A more
cautious formulation would be required if, as the third construction routine might
require, we subscribed to ‘The Grice-Myro View of Identity.’ (a =1 a, a =2 a ).
Whether the
converse holds seems to depend on whether we regard spatio-temporal continuancy
(as Strawson does in “Individuals”) as a constitutive or definitive property
for a substantial kind, indeed for all substantial kinds.
But there is
another more ‘metaphysical,’ rather than merely ‘logical’ dress which an
essential property may wear.
They may
appear as a Keynesian ‘generator property’ (“A treatise of probability,” 1921),
a ‘core’ property of a substantive kind which co-operates to explain the
phenomenal and dispositional features of members of that kind.
On the face
of it, this is a quite different approach.
But, on
reflection, I find myself wondering whether the difference is as large as it
might at first appear.
Perhaps at least
at the level of a type of theorising which is not too sophisticated and
mathematicised, as maybe these days the physical sciences are, a logically
essential property and a fundamentally explanatory property of a substantial
kind come together.
A substances
is essentially (in a ‘logical’ way) a thing such that, in circumstances C, it
manifests feature F, where each gap-sign is replaced in such a way as to
display the most basic laws of the theory.
So perhaps,
at this level of theory, a substance requires a theory to give expression to
its nature, and a theory requires substance to govern it.
A final
cause finality, particularly detached finality (a function or purpose which does
not require sanction from a purposer or an user), is an even more despised
notion than that of an essential property, especially if it is supposed to be
explanatory, to provide us with a ‘final cause.’
I am
somewhat puzzled by this contempt for detached finality, as if it were an
unwanted residue of an officially obsolete complex of superstitions and
priestcraft.
That, in my
view, it is certainly not.
The concepts
and vocabulary of finality, operating as if they were detached, are part and parcel
of our standard procedure for recognizing and describing what goes on around
us.
This point
is forcibly illustrated by William Golding in his novel, “The Inheritors.”
There,
Golding describes, as seen through the eyes of a stone-age couple who do not
understand at all what they are seeing, a scene in which (I am told) their
child is cooked and eaten by iron-age people.
In the description,
functional terms are eschewed, with the result that the incomprehension of the
stone-age couple is vividly shared by the reader.
Now, finality
is sometimes active rather than passive.
The finality
of a thing then consists in what it is supposed to do rather than in what it is supposed to suffer, have done to
it, or have done with it.
Sometimes, the
finality of a thing is not dependent on some ulterior end which the thing is
envisaged as realising.
Sometimes, the
finality of a thing is not imposed or dictated by a will or interest extraneous
to the thing.
And,
sometimes, the finality of a thing is not sub-ordinate to the finality of some
whole of which the thing is a component, as the finality of an eye or a foot
may be subordinate to the finality of the organism to which it belongs.
When the
finality of a thing satisfies all of these over-lapping conditions and
exclusions, I shall call it a case of autonomous finality.
And I shall
also on occasion call it a metier.
I will here
remark that we should be careful to distinguish this kind of autonomous
finality, which may attach to a substance, from another kind of finality which
seemingly will not be autonomous, and which will attach to the conception of
kinds of substance or of other constructed entities.
The latter
sort of finality will represent the point or purpose, from the point of view of
the metaphysical theorist, of bringing into play, in a particular case, a certain
sort of metaphysical manoeuvre.
It is this
latter kind of finality which l have been supposing to be a requirement for the
legitimate deployment of construction-routines.
Now it is my
position that what I might call a finality-feature, at least if it consists in
the possession of autonomous finality, may find a place within the essential
propertiy of at least some kinds of substances (for example, a ‘person’).
A substances
may be essentially ‘for doing such and such.’
Indeed, I
suspect we might go further than this, and suppose that autonomous finality not
merely can fall within a substances essential nature, but, indeed, if it
attaches to a substance at all must belong to its essential nature.
If a
substance has a certain metier, it does not have to seek the fulfilment of that
métier.
But it does
have to be equipped with the motivation
or propension to fulfil the métier should it choose to follow that motivation.
And since
autonomous finality is independent of any ulterior end, that motivation or
propension must consist in respect for the idea that to fulfil the metier would
be in line with its own essential nature.
But however
that may be, once we have a finality feature enrolled as an essential property
of a kind of substance, we have a starting point for the generation of a theory
or system of conduct, say, rational
conduct, for that kind of substance (say, human beings qua persons) which would
be analogous to the descriptive theory which can be developed on the basis of a
substance's essential descriptive properties.
I can now
give a brief characterization of my third construction routine, which is called
Metaphysical Transubstantiation.
Let us
suppose that the Genitor has sanctioned the appearance of a biological type
called ‘human,’ into which, considerate as always, he has built an attribute,
or complex of attributes, called rationality,
perhaps on the grounds that rationality
will greatly assist a human in coping speedily and resourcefully with survival
problems posed by a wide range of environments, which a human would thus be in
a position to enter and to maintain himself in.
But, perhaps
unwittingly, The Genitor has thereby created a breed of a potential
metaphysician.
And what the
human does is (so to speak) to re-constitute himself.
A human do
not alter the totality of attributes which each human possesses.
A human redistributes
them.
A property
which a human possesses essentially as a human becomes a property which, as
substances of a new psychological type, called ‘person’ he possesses
accidentally.
And the
property or properties called Rationality,
which attaches only accidentally to a human, attaches essentially to a person.
While each
human is standardly coincident with a particular person (and is indeed,
perhaps, identical with that person over a time), logic is insufficient to
guarantee that there will not come a time when that human and that person are
no longer identical, when one of them, perhaps, but not the other, has ceased
to exist.
But though
logic is insufficient, it may be that other theories will remedy the
deficiency.
Why,
otherwise than from a taste for mischief, the human (or person) should have
wanted to bring off this feat of trans-substantiation?
We need to provide
metaphysical backing, drawn from the material which I have been presenting, for
a reasonably un-impoverished theory of value.
I shall
endeavour to produce an account which is fairly well-ordered, even though it
may at the same time be one which bristles with unsolved problems and un-formulated
supporting arguments.
What I have
to offer will be close to, and I hope compatible with, though certainly not
precisely the same as, the content of my third Carus Lecture.
Though it
lends an ear to several other voices from our philosophical heritage, it may be
thought of as being, in the main, a representation of the position of that
unjustly neglected philosopher, Kantotle.
It involves
six stages.
The details
of the logic of value concepts and of their possible relativizations are
unfortunately visible only through thick intellectual smog.
So I shall
have to help myself to what, at the moment at least, I regard as two distinct
dichotomies.
First, there
is a dichotomy between value-concepts which are relativized to some focus of
relativization and those which are not so relativized, which are absolute.
If we
address ourselves to the concept being of value there are perhaps two possible
primary foci of relativization; that of end or potential end, that for which
something may be of value, as bicarbonate of soda may be of value for health
(or my taking it of value for my health), or dumbbells may be of value (useful)
for bulging the biceps; and that of beneficiary or potential beneficiary, the
person (or other sort of item) to whom (or to which) something may be of value,
as the possession of a type-writer is of value to some philosophers but not to
me, since I do not type.
With regard
to this dichotomy I am inclined to accept the following principles.
First, the
presence in me of a concern for the focus of relativization is what is needed
to give the value-concept a ‘bite’ on me, that is to say, to ensure that the
application of the value concept to me does, or should, carry weight for me.
Only if I
care for my aunt can I be expected to care about what is of value to her, such
as her house and garden.
Second, the
fact that a relativized value-concept, through a de facto or de jure concern on
my part for the focus of relativization, engages me does not imply that the
original relativization has been cancelled, or rendered absolute.
If my
concern for your health stimulates in me a vivid awareness of the value to you
of your medication, or the incumbency upon you to take your daily doses, that
value and that incumbency are still relativized to your health.
Without a
concern on your part for your health, such claims will leave you cold.
The second
dichotomy, which should be carefully distinguished from the first, lies between
those cases in which a value-concept, which may be either relativized or
absolute, attaches originally, or directly, to a given bearer, and those in
which the attachment is indirect and is the outcome of the presence of a transmitting
relation which links the current bearer with an original bearer, with or
without the aid of an intervening sequence of 'descendants'.
In the case
of the transmission of relativized value-concepts, the transmitting relation
may be the same as, or may be different from, the relation which is embodied in
the relativization.
The
foregoing characterization would allow absolute value to attach originally or
directly to promise-keeping or to my
keeping a promise, and to attach indirectly or by transmission to my digging
your garden for you, should that be something which I have promised to do.
It would
also allow the relativized value-concept of value for health to attach directly
to medical care and indirectly or by transmission to the payment of doctor's
bills, an example in which the transmitting relation and the relativizing relation
are one and the same.
Stage II of
this metaphysical defence of the authenticity of the conception of value will
involve a concession and a contention.
It will be
conceded that if the only conception of value available to us were that of
relativized value, the notion of finality would be in a certain sense
dispensable.
And, further,
that, if the notion of finality is denied authenticity, so must the notion of
value be denied authenticity.
A certain
region of ostensible finality, which is sufficient to provide for the
admissibility of attributions of relativized value, is ‘mechanistically
substitutable.’
That is to
say, by means of reliance on the resources of cybernetics and on the fact that
the non-pursuit of certain goals such as survival and re-production is apt to
bring to an end the supply of potential pursuers, some ostensibly final
explanation is replaceable by, or re-interpretable as, an explanation of a sort
congenial to a mechanist.
But, if the
concept of value is to be authentic and not merely 'Pickwickian' in character, it
is required that it be supported by a kind of finality which extends beyond
this ‘overlap’ with ‘mechanistically substitutable’ finality.
Autonomous
finality is demanded, and a mechanist cannot accommodate and must deny this
kind of finality; and so he is committed to a denial of absolute value.
That
metaphysical house-room be found for the notion of absolute value is a rational
demand.
To say this
is not directly to offer reason to believe in the acceptability of the notion
of ‘absolute value,’ though it makes a move in that direction.
To say that metaphysical
house-room be found for absolute value is a rational demand is, rather, to say
that there is good reason for wanting it to be true that the notion of absolute
value is acceptable.
There might
be more than one kind of rational ground for this want or desire.
It might be
that we feel a need to appeal to absolute value in order to justify some of our
beliefs and attributes with regard to relativized value, to maintain (for example)
that it is of absolute value that
everyone should pursue, within certain limits, what he regards as being of
value to himself.
Or again, it
might be that, by Leibnizian standards for evaluating possible worlds, a world
which contains absolute value, on the assumption that its regulation requires
relatively simple principles, is richer and so better than a world which does
not.
But granted
that there is a rational demand for
absolute value, one can then perhaps argue that within whatever limits are
imposed by metaphysical constructions already made, we are free to rig our
metaphysics in such a way as to legitimize the ‘conception’ of absolute value.
What it is
proper to believe to be true may depend in part on what one would like to be true.
Perhaps part
of the Kantian notion of positive freedom, a dignity which as a rational being a person enjoys, is the
freedom not merely to play the metaphysical game but, within the limits of
rationality, to fix its rules as well.
In any case,
a trouble-free metaphysical story which will safe-guard the credentials of
absolute value is to be accepted should it be possible to devise one.
I have some
hopes that the methodology at work here might link up with my ideas about the
quasi-practical character of metaphysical argument.
On the
assumption that the operation of Metaphysical Transubstantiation has been
appropriately carried through, a class of a biological creature has been
‘invented’ into a class of psychological substances, namely a ‘person,’ who
possesses as part of his essential nature a certain metier or autonomous
finality consisting in the exercise, or a certain sort of exercise, of rationality, and who has only to
recognize and respect a certain law of his nature, in order to display in
favourable circumstances the capacity to realize his metier.
The degree
to which a person fulfils that metier will constitute him a good person (‘good’
qua person); and, while the reference to the substantial kind, ‘person,’
undoubtedly introduces a restriction or qualification, it is not clear (if it
matters) that this restriction is a mode of relativization.
Once the
concept of value-qua-member-of-a-kind has been set up for a class of
substances, the way is opened for the appearance of transmitting relationships
which will extend the application of value-in-a-kind to suitably qualified non-substantial
aspects if members of a kind, such as an action of a person or a characteristic
of a person.
While it
cannot be assumed that a person will be the only original instance of
value-in-a-kind, it seems plausible to suggest that whatever other original
instances there may be will be far less fruitful sources of such extension,
particularly if a prime mode of extension will be by the operation of Humeian Projection.
It seems
plausible to suppose that a specially fruitful way of extending the range of
absolute value might be an application or adaptation of the routine of Humean
Projection, whereby such value is accorded, in Aristotelian style, to whatever
would seem to possess such value in the eyes of a duly accredited judge.
And a duly
accredited judge might be identifiable as a good
person operating in conditions of freedom.
A cat,
adorable as it may be, will be less productive a source of such extension than a
person.
In the light
of these reflections, and on the assumption that to reach the goal of securing
the admissibility of the concept of absolute value we need a class of primary
examples of an unqualified version of that concept, it would appear to be a
rational procedure to allot to a person as a substantial type not just absolute
value qua members of their kind, but absolute value tout court, that is to say
unqualified absolute value.
Such value
could be attributed to the kind, in virtue of its potentialities, and to
selected individual members of the kind, in virtue of their achievements.
Such a
defence of absolute value is of course, bristling with unsolved or incompletely
solved problems.
I do not
find this thought daunting.
If
philosophy generated no new problems it would be dead, because it would be
finished.
And, if
philosophy recurrently regenerated the same old problems, it would not be alive
because it could never begin.
So those who look to philosophy for their
bread-and-butter should pray that the supply of new problems never dries up.
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