co-agency: social action: Grice: “My principle of
co-operation you can call the ‘conversational contract.’ In this respect, I
agree with Grice: Grice: “When I speak of conversation, I mean of a social
action – where one agent’s expectations influence his co-agent’s” -- a subclass
of human action involving the interaction among agents and their mutual
orientation, or the action of groups. While all intelligible actions are in
some sense social, social actions must be directed to others. Talcott Parsons
279 captured what is distinctive about social action in his concept of “double
contingency,” and similar concepts have been developed by other philosophers
and sociologists, including Weber, Mead, and Vitters. Whereas in monological
action the agents’ fulfilling their purposes depends only on contingent facts
about the world, the success of social action is also contingent on how other
agents react to what the agent does and how that agent reacts to other agents,
and so on. An agent successfully communicates, e.g., not merely by finding some
appropriate expression in an existing symbol system, but also by understanding
how other agents will understand him. Game theory describes and explains
another type of double contingency in its analysis of the interdependency of
choices and strategies among rational agents. Games are also significant in two
other respects. First, they exemplify the cognitive requirements for social
interaction, as in Mead’s analysis of agents’ perspective taking: as a subject
“I”, I am an object for others “me”, and can take a third-person perspective
along with others on the interaction itself “the generalized other”. Second,
games are regulated by shared rules and mediated through symbolic meanings;
Vitters’s private language argument establishes that rules cannot be followed
“privately.” Some philosophers, such as Peter Winch, conclude from this
argument that rule-following is a basic feature of distinctively social action.
Some actions are social in the sense that they can only be done in groups.
Individualists such as Weber, Jon Elster, and Raimo Tuomela believe that these
can be analyzed as the sum of the actions of each individual. But holists such
as Marx, Durkheim, and Margaret Gilbert reject this reduction and argue that in
social actions agents must see themselves as members of a collective agent.
Holism has stronger or weaker versions: strong holists, such as Durkheim and
Hegel, see the collective subject as singular, the collective consciousness of
a society. Weak holists, such as Gilbert and Habermas, believe that social
actions have plural, rather than singular, collective subjects. Holists
generally establish the plausibility of their view by referring to larger
contexts and sequences of action, such as shared symbol systems or social
institutions. Explanations of social actions thus refer not only to the mutual
expectations of agents, but also to these larger causal contexts, shared
meanings, and mechanisms of coordination. Theories of social action must then explain
the emergence of social order, and proposals range from Hobbes’s coercive
authority to Talcott Parsons’s value consensus about shared goals among the
members of groups. -- social biology,
the understanding of social behavior, especially human social behavior, from a
biological perspective; often connected with the political philosophy of social
Darwinism. Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species highlighted the significance of
social behavior in organic evolution, and in the Descent of Man, he showed how
significant such behavior is for humans. He argued that it is a product of
natural selection; but it was not until 4 that the English biologist William
Hamilton showed precisely how such behavior could evolve, namely through “kin
selection” as an aid to the biological wellbeing of close relatives. Since
then, other models of explanation have been proposed, extending the theory to
non-relatives. Best known is the self-describing “reciprocal altruism.” Social
biology became notorious in 5 when Edward O. Wilson published a major treatise
on the subject: Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Accusations of sexism and
racism were leveled because Wilson suggested that Western social systems are
biologically innate, and that in some respects males are stronger, more aggressive,
more naturally promiscuous than females. Critics argued that all social biology
is in fact a manifestation of social Darwinism, a nineteenthcentury philosophy
owing more to Herbert Spencer than to Charles Darwin, supposedly legitimating
extreme laissez-faire economics and an unbridled societal struggle for
existence. Such a charge is extremely serious, for as Moore pointed out in his
Principia Ethica 3, Spencer surely commits the naturalistic fallacy, inasmuch
as he is attempting to derive the way that the world ought to be from the way
that it is. Naturally enough, defenders of social biology, or “sociobiology” as
it is now better known, denied vehemently that their science is mere right-wing
ideology by another name. They pointed to many who have drawn very different
social conclusions on the basis of biology. Best known is the Russian anarchist
Kropotkin, who argued that societies are properly based on a biological
propensity to mutual aid. With respect to contemporary debate, it is perhaps
fairest to say that sociobiology, particularly that pertaining to humans, did
not always show sufficient sensitivity toward all societal groups although certainly there was never the crude
racism of the fascist regimes of the 0s. However, recent work is far more
careful in these respects. Now, indeed, the study of social behavior from a
biological perspective is one of the most exciting and forward-moving branches
of the life sciences. -- social choice
theory, the theory of the rational action of a group of agents. Important
social choices are typically made over alternative means of collectively
providing goods. These might be goods for individual members of the group, or
more characteristically, public goods, goods such that no one can be excluded
from enjoying their benefits once they are available. Perhaps the most central
aspect of social choice theory concerns rational individual choice in a social
context. Since what is rational for one agent to do will often depend on what
is rational for another to do and vice versa, these choices take on a strategic
dimension. The prisoner’s dilemma illustrates how it can be very difficult to
reconcile individual and collectively rational decisions, especially in
non-dynamic contexts. There are many situations, particularly in the provision
of public goods, however, where simple prisoner’s dilemmas can be avoided and
more manageable coordination problems remain. In these cases, individuals may
find it rational to contractually or conventionally bind themselves to courses
of action that lead to the greater good of all even though they are not
straightforwardly utility-maximizing for particular individuals. Establishing
the rationality of these contracts or conventions is one of the leading
problems of social choice theory, because coordination can collapse if a
rational agent first agrees to cooperate and then reneges and becomes a free
rider on the collective efforts of others. Other forms of uncooperative
behaviors such as violating rules established by society or being deceptive
about one’s preferences pose similar difficulties. Hobbes attempted to solve
these problems by proposing that people would agree to submit to the authority
of a sovereign whose punitive powers would make uncooperative behavior an
unattractive option. It has also been argued that cooperation is rational if
the concept of rationality is extended beyond utility-maximizing in the right
way. Other arguments stress benefits beyond selfinterest that accrue to
cooperators. Another major aspect of social choice theory concerns the rational
action of a powerful central authority, or social planner, whose mission is to
optimize the social good. Although the central planner may be instituted by
rational individual choice, this part of the theory simply assumes the
institution. The planner’s task of making a onetime allocation of resources to
the production of various commodities is tractable if social good or social
utility is known as a function of various commodities. When the planner must
take into account dynamical considerations, the technical problems are more
difficult. This economic growth theory raises important ethical questions about
intergenerational conflict. The assumption of a social analogue of the
individual utility functions is particularly worrisome. It can be shown
formally that taking the results of majority votes can lead to intransitive
social orderings of possible choices and it is, therefore, a generally
unsuitable procedure for the planner to follow. Moreover, under very general
conditions there is no way of aggregating individual preferences into a
consistent social choice function of the kind needed by the planner. -- social constructivism, also called social
constructionism, any of a variety of views which claim that knowledge in some
area is the product of our social practices and institutions, or of the
interactions and negotiations between relevant social groups. Mild versions
hold that social factors shape interpretations of the world. Stronger versions
maintain that the world, or some significant portion of it, is somehow
constituted by theories, practices, and institutions. Defenders often move from
mild to stronger versions by insisting that the world is accessible to us only
through our interpretations, and that the idea of an independent reality is at
best an irrelevant abstraction and at worst incoherent. This philosophical
position is distinct from, though distantly related to, a view of the same name
in social and developmental psychology, associated with such figures as Piaget and
Lev Vygotsky, which sees learning as a process in which subjects actively
construct knowledge. Social constructivism has roots in Kant’s idealism, which
claims that we cannot know things in themselves and that knowledge of the world
is possible only by imposing pre-given categories of thought on otherwise
inchoate experience. But where Kant believed that the categories with which we
interpret and thus construct the world are given a priori, contemporary
constructivists believe that the relevant concepts and associated practices
vary from one group or historical period to another. Since there are no
independent standards for evaluating conceptual schemes, social constructivism
leads naturally to relativism. These views are generally thought to be present in
Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which argues that observation
and methods in science are deeply theory-dependent and that scientists with
fundamentally different assumptions or paradigms effectively live in different
worlds. Kuhn thus offers a view of science in opposition to both scientific
realism which holds that theory-dependent methods can give us knowledge of a
theory-independent world and empiricism which draws a sharp line between theory
and observation. Kuhn was reluctant to accept the apparently radical
consequences of his views, but his work has influenced recent social studies of
science, whose proponents frequently embrace both relativism and strong
constructivism. Another influence is the principle of symmetry advocated by David
Bloor and Barry Barnes, which holds that sociologists should explain the
acceptance of scientific views in the same way whether they believe those views
to be true or to be false. This approach is elaborated in the work of Harry
Collins, Steve Woolgar, and others. Constructivist themes are also prominent in
the work of feminist critics of science such as Sandra Harding and Donna
Haraway, and in the complex views of Bruno Latour. Critics, such as Richard
Boyd and Philip Kitcher, while applauding the detailed case studies produced by
constructivists, claim that the positive arguments for constructivism are
fallacious, that it fails to account satisfactorily for actual scientific
practice, and that like other versions of idealism and relativism it is only dubiously
coherent. Then there’s the idea of a
‘contract,’ or social contract, an agreement either between the people and
their ruler, or among the people in a community. The idea of a social contract
has been used in arguments that differ in what they aim to justify or explain
e.g., the state, conceptions of justice, morality, what they take the problem
of justification to be, and whether or not they presuppose a moral theory or
purport to be a moral theory. Traditionally the term has been used in arguments
that attempt to explain the nature of political obligation and/or the kind of
responsibility that rulers have to their subjects. Philosophers such as Plato,
Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant argue that human beings would find life in a
prepolitical “state of nature” a state that some argue is also presocietal so
difficult that they would agree either
with one another or with a prospective ruler
to the creation of political institutions that each believes would
improve his or her lot. Note that because the argument explains political or
social cohesion as the product of an agreement among individuals, it makes
these individuals conceptually prior to political or social units. Marx and
other socialist and communitarian thinkers have argued against conceptualizing
an individual’s relationship to her political and social community in this way.
Have social contracts in political societies actually taken place? Hume
ridicules the idea that they are real, and questions what value makebelieve
agreements can have as explanations of actual political obligations. Although
many social contract theorists admit that there is almost never an explicit act
of agreement in a community, nonetheless they maintain that such an agreement
is implicitly made when members of the society engage in certain acts through
which they give their tacit consent to the ruling regime. It is controversial
what actions constitute giving tacit consent: Plato and Locke maintain that the
acceptance of benefits is sufficient to give such consent, but some have argued
that it is wrong to feel obliged to those who foist upon us benefits for which
we have not asked. It is also unclear how much of an obligation a person can be
under if he gives only tacit consent to a regime. How are we to understand the
terms of a social contract establishing a state? When the people agree to obey
the ruler, do they surrender their own power to him, as Hobbes tried to argue?
Or do they merely lend him that power, reserving the right to take it from him
if and when they see fit, as Locke maintained? If power is merely on loan to
the ruler, rebellion against him could be condoned if he violates the
conditions of that loan. But if the people’s grant of power is a surrender,
there are no such conditions, and the people could never be justified in taking
back that power via revolution. Despite controversies surrounding their
interpretation, social contract arguments have been important to the
development of modern democratic states: the idea of the government as the
creation of the people, which they can and should judge and which they have the
right to overthrow if they find it wanting, contributed to the development of
democratic forms of polity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. and
revolutionaries explicitly acknowledged their debts to social contract
theorists such as Locke and Rousseau. In the twentieth century, the social
contract idea has been used as a device for defining various moral conceptions
e.g. theories of justice by those who find its focus on individuals useful in
the development of theories that argue against views e.g. utilitarianism that
allow individuals to be sacrificed for the benefit of the group -- social
epistemology, the study of the social dimensions or determinants of knowledge,
or the ways in which social factors promote or perturb the quest for knowledge.
Some writers use the term ‘knowledge’ loosely, as designating mere belief. On
their view social epistemology should simply describe how social factors
influence beliefs, without concern for the rationality or truth of these
beliefs. Many historians and sociologists of science, e.g., study scientific
practices in the same spirit that anthropologists study native cultures,
remaining neutral about the referential status of scientists’ constructs or the
truth-values of their beliefs. Others try to show that social factors like
political or professional interests are causally operative, and take such
findings to debunk any objectivist pretensions of science. Still other writers
retain a normative, critical dimension in social epistemology, but do not
presume that social practices necessarily undermine objectivity. Even if
knowledge is construed as true or rational belief, social practices might
enhance knowledge acquisition. One social practice is trusting the opinions of
authorities, a practice that can produce truth if the trusted authorities are
genuinely authoritative. Such trust may also be perfectly rational in a complex
world, where division of epistemic labor is required. Even a scientist’s
pursuit of extra-epistemic interests such as professional rewards may not be
antithetical to truth in favorable circumstances. Institutional provisions,
e.g., judicial rules of evidence, provide another example of social factors.
Exclusionary rules might actually serve the cause of truth or accuracy in
judgment if the excluded evidence would tend to mislead or prejudice
jurors. -- social philosophy, broadly
the philosophy of socisocial Darwinism social philosophy 856 856 ety, including the philosophy of social
science and many of its components, e.g., economics and history, political
philosophy, most of what we now think of as ethics, and philosophy of law. But
we may distinguish two narrower senses. In one, it is the conceptual theory of
society, including the theory of the study of society the common part of all the philosophical
studies mentioned. In the other, it is a normative study, the part of moral
philosophy that concerns social action and individual involvement with society
in general. The central job of social philosophy in the first of these narrower
senses is to articulate the correct notion or concept of society. This would
include formulating a suitable definition of ‘society’; the question is then
which concepts are better for which purposes, and how they are related. Thus we
may distinguish “thin” and “thick” conceptions of society. The former would
identify the least that can be said before we cease talking about society at
all say, a number of people who
interact, whose actions affect the behavior of their fellows. Thicker
conceptions would then add such things as community rules, goals, customs, and
ideals. An important empirical question is whether any interacting groups ever
do lack such things and what if anything is common to the rules, etc., that
actual societies have. Descriptive social philosophy will obviously border on,
if not merge into, social science itself, e.g. into sociology, social
psychology, or economics. And some outlooks in social philosophy will tend to
ally with one social science as more distinctively typical than others e.g., the individualist view looks to
economics, the holist to sociology. A major methodological controversy concerns
holism versus individualism. Holism maintains that at least some social groups
must be studied as units, irreducible to their members: we cannot understand a
society merely by understanding the actions and motivations of its members.
Individualism denies that societies are “organisms,” and holds that we can
understand society only in that way. Classic G. sociologists e.g., Weber
distinguished between Gesellschaft, whose paradigm is the voluntary
association, such as a chess club, whose activities are the coordinated actions
of a number of people who intentionally join that group in order to pursue the
purposes that identify it; and Gemeinschaft, whose members find their
identities in that group. Thus, the are
not a group whose members teamed up with like-minded people to form society. They were before they had separate individual purposes.
The holist views society as essentially a Gemeinschaft. Individualists agree
that there are such groupings but deny that they require a separate kind of
irreducibly collective explanation: to understand the we must understand how typical individuals behave compared, say, with the G.s, and so on. The
methods of Western economics typify the analytical tendencies of methodological
individualism, showing how we can understand large-scale economic phenomena in
terms of the rational actions of particular economic agents. Cf. Adam Smith’s
invisible hand thesis: each economic agent seeks only his own good, yet the
result is the macrophenomenal good of the whole. Another pervasive issue
concerns the role of intentional characterizations and explanations in these
fields. Ordinary people explain behavior by reference to its purposes, and they
formulate these in terms that rely on public rules of language and doubtless
many other rules. To understand society, we must hook onto the
selfunderstanding of the people in that society this view is termed Verstehen.
Recent work in philosophy of science raises the question whether intentional
concepts can really be fundamental in explaining anything, and whether we must
ultimately conceive people as in some sense material systems, e.g. as
computer-like. Major questions for the program of replicating human
intelligence in data-processing terms cf. artificial intelligence are raised by
the symbolic aspects of interaction. Additionally, we should note the emergence
of sociobiology as a potent source of explanations of social phenomena.
Normative social philosophy, in turn, tends inevitably to merge into either
politics or ethics, especially the part of ethics dealing with how people ought
to treat others, especially in large groups, in relation to social institutions
or social structures. This contrasts with ethics in the sense concerned with
how individual people may attain the good life for themselves. All such
theories allot major importance to social relations; but if one’s theory leaves
the individual wide freedom of choice, then a theory of individually chosen
goods will still have a distinctive subject matter. The normative involvements
of social philosophy have paralleled the foregoing in important ways. Individualists
have held that the good of a society must be analyzed in terms of the goods of
its individual members. Of special importance has been the view that society
must respect indisocial philosophy social philosophy 857 857 vidual rights, blocking certain actions
alleged to promote social good as a whole. Organicist philosophers such as
Hegel hold that it is the other way around: the state or nation is higher than
the individual, who is rightly subordinated to it, and individuals have
fundamental duties toward the groups of which they are members. Outrightly
fascist versions of such views are unpopular today, but more benign versions
continue in modified form, notably by communitarians. Socialism and especially
communism, though focused originally on economic aspects of society, have
characteristically been identified with the organicist outlook. Their extreme
opposite is to be found in the libertarians, who hold that the right to
individual liberty is fundamental in society, and that no institutions may override
that right. Libertarians hold that society ought to be treated strictly as an
association, a Gesellschaft, even though they might not deny that it is
ontogenetically Gemeinschaft. They might agree that religious groups, e.g.,
cannot be wholly understood as separate individuals. Nevertheless, the
libertarian holds that religious and cultural practices may not be interfered
with or even supported by society. Libertarians are strong supporters of
free-market economic methods, and opponents of any sort of state intervention
into the affairs of individuals. Social Darwinism, advocating the “survival of
the socially fittest,” has sometimes been associated with the libertarian view.
Insofar as there is any kind of standard view on these matters, it combines elements
of both individualism and holism. Typical social philosophers today accept that
society has duties, not voluntary for individual members, to support education,
health, and some degree of welfare for all. But they also agree that individual
rights are to be respected, especially civil rights, such as freedom of speech
and religion. How to combine these two apparently disparate sets of ideas into
a coherent whole is the problem. John Rawls’s celebrated Theory of Justice, 1,
is a contemporary classic that attempts to do just that. Refs.: H. P. Grice,
“Grice and Grice on the conversational contract.”
Philosophical essay: ‘saggio filosofico.’ – a subgenre
of the prose genre of ‘essay.’ Grice seems to prefer ‘study’ (“Studies in the
way of words”) but surely each piece is an essay. Austin preferred “papers”
(vide his “Philosophical Papers.”). “The implicature,” Grice says, “seems to be
that an essay is too sketchy!” --.
Società italiana per lo
studio del pensiero medievale: the title of this Society is telling. For the
Italians, they do not want to distinguish Politics, Economics, Theology, and
Philosophy – It is all covered under ‘thought,’ ‘pensiero.’ This is in
accordance with de Sanctis’s view of philosophy as one of the belles lettres
(“if perhaps less ‘belle’ than the rest). The subgenre of the essay –
‘philosophical essay.’
sozzini: -- Socinianism, NELLA PRIMA METÀ DEL SEDICESIMO SECOLO NACQUERO IN QUESTA CASA LELIO E
FAUSTO SOZZINI LETTERATI INSIGNI FILOSOFI SOMMI DELLA LIBERTÀ DI PENSIERO
STRENUI PROPUGNATORI ______ CONTRO IL SOPRANNATURALE VINDICI DELLA UMANA
RAGIONE FONDARONO LA CELEBRE SCUOLA SOCINIANA PRECORRENDO DI TRE SECOLI LE
DOTTRINE DEL MODERNO RAZIONALISMO ______
I LIBERALI SENESI AMMIRATORI REVERENTI QUESTA MEMORIA POSERO 1879
a movement originating in the sixteenth century from the work of reformer Laelius Socinus “Sozzini” and his
nephew Faustus Socinus. Born in Siena of
a patrician family, Sozzini is widely read. Influenced by the evangelical
movement, Sozzini makes contact with noted Protestant reformers, including
Calvin and Melanchthon, some of whom questioned his orthodoxy. In response,
Sozzini writes a confession of faith, one of a small number of his writings to
have survived. After his death, Sozzini’s oeuvre was carried on by his nephew,
Faustus, whose writings including “On the Authority of Scripture,” “On the
Savior Jesus Christ,” and “On
Predestination,” expressed heterodox views. Sozzini believed that Christ’s
nature is entirely human, that the souls does not possess immortality by nature
though there is selective resurrection for believers, that invocation of Christ
in prayer is permissible but not required, and he argues, like Grice, Pears,
and Thomson, against predestination. After publication of his writings, Sozzini is invited to Transylvania
and Poland to engage in a dispute within the Reformed churches there. He
decides to make his permanent residence in Poland, which, through his tireless
efforts, became the center of the Socinian movement. The most important document
of this movement was the Racovian Catechism, published shortly after Faustus’s
death. The Minor church of Poland, centered at Racov, became the focal point of
the movement. Its academy attracted hundreds of students and its publishing
house produced books in many languages defending Socinian ideas. Socinianism,
as represented by the Racovian Catechism and other writings collected by
Faustus’s disciples, involves the views of Laelius and especially Faustus
Socinus, aligned with the anti-Trinitarian views of the Polish Minor church..
It accepts Christ’s message as the definitive revelation of God, but regards
Christ as human, not divine; rejects the natural immortality of the soul, but
argues for the selective resurrection of the faithful; rejects the doctrine of
the Trinity; emphasizes human free will against predestinationism; defends
pacifism and the separation of church and state; and argues that reason not creeds, dogmatic tradition, or church
authority must be the final interpreter
of Scripture. Its view of God is temporalistic: God’s eternity is existence at
all times, not timelessness, and God knows future free actions only when they
occur. In these respects, the Socinian view of God anticipates aspects of
modern process theology. Socinianism was suppressed in Poland in 1658, but it
had already spread to other European countries, including Holland where it
appealed to followers of Arminius and England, where it influenced the
Cambridge Platonists, Locke, and other philosophers, as well as scientists like
Newton. In England, it also influenced and was closely associated with the
development of Unitarianism. H. P.
Grice, “Sozzini, rationalism, and moi.”
athenian
dialectic – Socrates, Grecian
philosopher, the exemplar of the examined life, best known for his dictum that
only such a life is worth living. Although he wrote nothing, his thoughts and
way of life had a profound impact on many of his contemporaries, and, through
Plato’s portrayal of him in his early writings, he became a major source of inspiration
and ideas for later generations of philosophers. His daily occupation was
adversarial public conversation with anyone willing to argue with him. A man of
great intellectual brilliance, moral integrity, personal magnetism, and
physical self-command, he challenged the moral complacency of his fellow
citizens, and embarrassed them with their inability to answer such questions as
What is virtue? questions that he
thought we must answer, if we are to know how best to live our lives. His ideas
and personality won him a devoted following among the young, but he was far
from universally admired. Formal charges were made against him for refusing to
recognize the gods of the city, introducing other new divinities, and
corrupting the youth. Tried on a single day before a large jury 500 was a
typical size, he was found guilty by a small margin: had thirty jurors voted
differently, he would have been acquitted. The punishment selected by the jury
was death and was administered by means of poison, probably hemlock. Why was he
brought to trial and convicted? Part of the answer lies in Plato’s Apology,
which purports to be the defense Socrates gave at his trial. Here he says that
he has for many years been falsely portrayed as someone whose scientific
theories dethrone the traditional gods and put natural forces in their place,
and as someone who charges a fee for offering private instruction on how to
make a weak argument seem strong in the courtroom. This is the picture of
Socrates drawn in a play of Aristophanes, the Clouds, first presented in 423.
It is unlikely that Aristophanes intended his play as an accurate depiction of
Socrates, and the unscrupulous buffoon found in the Clouds would never have won
the devotion of so serious a moralist as Plato. Aristophanes drew together the
assorted characteristics of various fifth-century thinkers and named this
amalgam “Socrates” because the real Socrates was one of several controversial
intellectuals of the period. Nonetheless, it is unlikely that the charges
against Socrates or Aristophanes’ caricature were entirely without foundation.
Both Xenophon’s Memorabilia and Plato’s Euthyphro say that Socrates aroused
suspicion because he thought a certain divine sign or voice appeared to him and
gave him useful instruction about how to act. By claiming a unique and private
source of divine inspiration, Socrates may have been thought to challenge the
city’s exclusive control over religious matters. His willingness to disobey the
city is admitted in Plato’s Apology, where he says that he would have to
disobey a hypothetical order to stop asking his philosophical questions, since
he regards them as serving a religious purpose. In the Euthyphro he seeks a
rational basis for making sacrifices and performing other services to the gods;
but he finds none, and implies that no one else has one. Such a challenge to
traditional religious practice could easily have aroused a suspicion of atheism
and lent credibility to the formal charges against him. Furthermore, Socrates
makes statements in Plato’s early dialogues and in Xenophon’s Memorabilia that
could easily have offended the political sensibilities of his contemporaries.
He holds that only those who have given special study to political matters
should make decisions. For politics is a kind of craft, and in all other crafts
only those who have shown their mastery are entrusted with public
responsibilities. Athens was a democracy in which each citizen had an equal
legal right to shape policy, and Socrates’ analogy between the role of an expert
in politics and in other crafts may have been seen as a threat to this
egalitarianism. Doubts about his political allegiance, though not mentioned in
the formal charges against him, could easily have swayed some jurors to vote
against him. Socrates is the subject not only of Plato’s early dialogues but
also of Xenophon’s Memorabilia, Socinus, Faustus Socrates 859 859 and in many respects their portraits are
consistent with each other. But there are also some important differences. In
the Memorabilia, Socrates teaches whatever a gentleman needs to know for civic
purposes. He is filled with platitudinous advice, and is never perplexed by the
questions he raises; e.g., he knows what the virtues are, equating them with
obedience to the law. His views are not threatening or controversial, and
always receive the assent of his interlocutors. By contrast, Plato’s Socrates
presents himself as a perplexed inquirer who knows only that he knows nothing
about moral matters. His interlocutors are sometimes annoyed by his questions
and threatened by their inability to answer them. And he is sometimes led by
force of argument to controversial conclusions. Such a Socrates could easily
have made enemies, whereas Xenophon’s Socrates is sometimes too “good” to be
true. But it is important to bear in mind that it is only the early works of
Plato that should be read as an accurate depiction of the historical Socrates.
Plato’s own theories, as presented in his middle and late dialogues, enter into
philosophical terrain that had not been explored by the historical
Socrates even though in the middle and
some of the late dialogues a figure called Socrates remains the principal
speaker. We are told by Aristotle that Socrates confined himself to ethical
questions, and that he did not postulate a separate realm of imperceptible and
eternal abstract objects called “Forms” or “Ideas.” Although the figure called
Socrates affirms the existence of these objects in such Platonic dialogues as
the Phaedo and the Republic, Aristotle takes this interlocutor to be a vehicle
for Platonic philosophy, and attributes to Socrates only those positions that
we find in Plato’s earlier writing, e.g. in the Apology, Charmides, Crito,
Euthyphro, Hippias Minor, Hippias Major, Ion, Laches, Lysis, and Protagoras.
Socrates focused on moral philosophy almost exclusively; Plato’s attention was
also devoted to the study of metaphysics, epistemology, physical theory,
mathematics, language, and political philosophy. When we distinguish the
philosophies of Socrates and Plato in this way, we find continuities in their
thought for instance, the questions
posed in the early dialogues receive answers in the Republic but there are important differences. For
Socrates, being virtuous is a purely intellectual matter: it simply involves
knowing what is good for human beings; once we master this subject, we will act
as we should. Because he equates virtue with knowledge, Socrates frequently
draws analogies between being virtuous and having mastered any ordinary subject cooking, building, or geometry, e.g. For
mastery of these subjects does not involve a training of the emotions. By
contrast, Plato affirms the existence of powerful emotional drives that can
deflect us from our own good, if they are not disciplined by reason. He denies
Socrates’ assumption that the emotions will not resist reason, once one comes
to understand where one’s own good lies. Socrates says in Plato’s Apology that
the only knowledge he has is that he knows nothing, but it would be a mistake
to infer that he has no convictions about moral matters convictions arrived at through a difficult
process of reasoning. He holds that the unexamined life is not worth living,
that it is better to be treated unjustly than to do injustice, that
understanding of moral matters is the only unconditional good, that the virtues
are all forms of knowledge and cannot be separated from each other, that death
is not an evil, that a good person cannot be harmed, that the gods possess the
wisdom human beings lack and never act immorally, and so on. He does not accept
these propositions as articles of faith, but is prepared to defend any of them;
for he can show his interlocutors that their beliefs ought to lead them to
accept these conclusions, paradoxical though they may be. Since Socrates can
defend his beliefs and has subjected them to intellectual scrutiny, why does he
present himself as someone who has no knowledge
excepting the knowledge of his own ignorance? The answer lies in his
assumption that it is only a fully accomplished expert in any field who can
claim knowledge or wisdom of that field; someone has knowledge of navigational
matters, e.g., only if he has mastered the art of sailing, can answer all
inquiries about this subject, and can train others to do the same. Judged by
this high epistemic standard, Socrates can hardly claim to be a moral expert,
for he lacks answers to the questions he raises, and cannot teach others to be
virtuous. Though he has examined his moral beliefs and can offer reasons for
them an accomplishment that gives him an
overbearing sense of superiority to his contemporaries he takes himself to be quite distant from the
ideal of moral perfection, which would involve a thorough understanding of all
moral matters. This keen sense of the moral and intellectual deficiency of all
human beings accounts for a great deal of Socrates’ appeal, just as his
arrogant disdain for his fellow citizens no doubt contributed to his demise.
Socrates Socrates 860 860 -- Socratic intellectualism, the claim that
moral goodness or virtue consists exclusively in a kind of knowledge, with the
implication that if one knows what is good and evil, one cannot fail to be a
good person and to act in a morally upright way. The claim and the term derive
from Socrates; a corollary is another claim of Socrates: there is no moral
weakness or akrasia all wrong action is
due to the agent’s ignorance. Socrates defends this view in Plato’s dialogue
Protagoras. There are two ways to understand Socrates’ view that knowledge of
the good is sufficient for right action. 1 All desires are rational, being
focused on what is believed to be good; thus, an agent who knows what is good
will have no desire to act contrary to that knowledge. 2 There are non-rational
desires, but knowledge of the good has sufficient motivational power to
overcome them. Socratic intellectualism was abandoned by Plato and Aristotle,
both of whom held that emotional makeup is an essential part of moral
character. However, they retained the Socratic idea that there is a kind of
knowledge or wisdom that ensures right action
but this knowledge presupposes antecedent training and molding of the
passions. Socratic intellectualism was later revived and enjoyed a long life as
a key doctrine of the Stoics. -- Socratic
irony, a form of indirect communication frequently employed by Socrates in
Plato’s early dialogues, chiefly to praise insincerely the abilities of his
interlocutors while revealing their ignorance; or, to disparage his own
abilities, e.g. by denying that he has knowledge. Interpreters disagree whether
Socrates’ self-disparagement is insincere.
-- Socratic paradoxes, a collection of theses associated with Socrates
that contradict opinions about moral or practical matters shared by most
people. Although there is no consensus on the precise number of Socratic
paradoxes, each of the following theses has been identified as one. 1 Because
no one desires evil things, anyone who pursues evil things does so
involuntarily. 2 Because virtue is knowledge, anyone who does something morally
wrong does so involuntarily. 3 It is better to be unjustly treated than to do
what is unjust. The first two theses are associated with weakness of will or
akrasia. It is sometimes claimed that the topic of the first thesis is
prudential weakness, whereas that of the second is moral weakness; the
reference to “evil things” in 1 is not limited to things that are morally evil.
Naturally, various competing interpretations of these theses have been offered.
Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Oxonian dialectic; or, Athenian dialetic, revisited.”
solus ipse, solipsism: Grice: “If my theory of
conversation has any value, is the refutation of solipsism!” -- the doctrine
that there exists a firstperson perspective possessing privileged and
irreducible characteristics, in virtue of which we stand in various kinds of
isolation from any other persons or external things that may exist. This
doctrine is associated with but distinct from egocentricism. On one variant of
solipsism Thomas Nagel’s we are isolated from other sentient beings because we
can never adequately understand their experience empathic solipsism. Another
variant depends on the thesis that the meanings or referents of all words are
mental entities uniquely accessible only to the language user semantic solipsism.
A restricted variant, due to Vitters, asserts that first-person ascriptions of
psychological states have a meaning fundamentally different from that of
second- or thirdperson ascriptions psychological solipsism. In extreme forms
semantic solipsism can lead to the view that the only things that can be
meaningfully said to exist are ourselves or our mental states ontological
solipsism. Skepticism about the existence of the world external to our minds is
sometimes considered a form of epistemological solipsism, since it asserts that
we stand in epistemological isolation from that world, partly as a result of
the epistemic priority possessed by firstperson access to mental states. In
addition to these substantive versions of solipsism, several variants go under
the rubric methodological solipsism. The idea is that when we seek to explain
why sentient beings behave in certain ways by looking to what they believe,
desire, hope, and fear, we should identify these psychological states only with
events that occur inside the mind or brain, not with external events, since the
former alone are the proximate and sufficient causal explanations of bodily
behavior.
Solovyov: philosopher, author of major treatises and
dialogues in speculative philosophy, The
mystical image of the “Divine Sophia,” which Solovyov articulated in
theoretical concepts as well as poetic symbols, powerfully influenced the
Russian symbolist poets of the early twentieth century. His stress on the human
role in the “divine-human process” that creates both cosmic and historical
being led to charges of heresy from Russian Orthodox traditionalists.
Solovyov’s rationalistic “justification of the good” in history, society, and
individual life was inspired by Plato, Spinoza, and especially Hegel. However, at
the end of his life Solovyov offered in Three Conversations on War, Progress,
and the End of History, 0 a contrasting apocalyptic vision of historical and
cosmic disaster, including the appearance, in the twenty-first century, of the
Antichrist. In ethics, social philosophy, philosophy of history, and theory of
culture, Solovyov was both a vigorous ecumenist and a “good European” who
affirmed the intrinsic value of both the “individual human person” Russian
lichnost’ and the “individual nation or people” narodnost’, but he decisively
repudiated the perversions of these values in egoism and nationalism,
respectively. He contrasted the fruits of English narodnost’ the works of Shakespeare and Byron, Berkeley
and Newton with the fruits of English
nationalism the repressive and
destructive expansion of the British Empire. In opposing ethnic, national, and
religious exclusiveness and self-centeredness, Solovyov also, and quite
consistently, opposed the growing xenophobia and antiSemitism of his own time.
Since 8 long-suppressed works by and about Solovyov have been widely
republished in Russia, and fresh interpretations of his philosophy and theology
have begun to appear.
sophisma, a sentenca illustrating a semantic or logical
issue associated with the analysis of a syncategorematic term, or a term
lacking independent signification. Typically a sophisma was used from the
thirteenth century into the sixteenth century to analyze relations holding
between logic or semantics and broader philosophical issues. For example, the
syncategorematic term ‘besides’ praeter in ‘Socrates twice sees every man
besides Plato’ is ambiguous, because it could mean ‘On two occasions Socrates
sees every-man-but-Plato’ and also ‘Except for overlooking Plato once, on two
occasions Socrates sees every man’. Roger Bacon used this sophisma to discuss
the ambiguity of distribution, in this case, of the scope of the reference of
‘twice’ and ‘besides’. Sherwood used the sophisma to illustrate the
applicability of his rule of the distribution of ambiguous syncategoremata,
while Pseudo-Peter of Spain uses it to establish the truth of the rule, ‘If a
proposition is in part false, it can be made true by means of an exception, but
not if it is completely false’. In each case, the philosopher uses the
ambiguous signification of the syncategorematic term to analyze broader logical
problems. The sophisma ‘Every man is of necessity an animal’ has ambiguity
through the syncategorematic ‘every’ that leads to broader philosophical
problems. In the 1270s, Boethius of Dacia analyzed this sophisma in terms of
its applicability when no man exists. Is the knowledge derived from
understanding the proposition destroyed when the object known is destroyed?
Does ‘man’ signify anything when there are no men? If we can correctly
predicate a genus of a species, is the nature of the genus in that species
something other than, or distinct from, what finally differentiates the
species? In this case, the sophisma proves a useful approach to addressing
metaphysical and epistemological problems central to Scholastic discourse. sophisma: Grice: “Literally, a
wisecrack.” “’Sophisma’ is a very Griceian and Grecian pun on ‘sophos,’ the
wise men of Gotham -- any of a number of ancient Grecians, roughly
contemporaneous with Socrates, who professed to teach, for a fee, rhetoric,
philosophy, and how to succeed in life. They typically were itinerants,
visiting much of the Grecian world, and gave public exhibitions at Olympia and
Delphi. They were part of the general expansion of Grecian learning and of the
changing culture in which the previous informal educational methods were
inadequate. For example, the growing litigiousness of Athenian society demanded
Solovyov, Vladimir Sophists 862 862 instruction
in the art of speaking well, which the Sophists helped fulfill. The Sophists
have been portrayed as intellectual charlatans hence the pejorative use of
‘sophism’, teaching their sophistical reasoning for money, and at the other
extreme as Victorian moralists and educators. The truth is more complex. They
were not a school, and shared no body of opinions. They were typically
concerned with ethics unlike many earlier philosophers, who emphasized physical
inquiries and about the relationship between laws and customs nomos and nature
phusis. Protagoras of Abdera c.490c.420 B.C. was the most famous and perhaps
the first Sophist. He visited Athens frequently, and became a friend of its
leader, Pericles; he therefore was invited to draw up a legal code for the
colony of Thurii 444. According to some late reports, he died in a shipwreck as
he was leaving Athens, having been tried for and found guilty of impiety. He
claimed that he knew nothing about the gods, because of human limitations and
the difficulty of the question. We have only a few short quotations from his
works. His “Truth” also known as the “Throws,” i.e., how to overthrow an
opponent’s arguments begins with his most famous claim: “Humans are the measure
of all things of things that are, that
they are, of things that are not, that they are not.” That is, there is no
objective truth; the world is for each person as it appears to that person. Of
what use, then, are skills? Skilled people can change others’ perceptions in
useful ways. For example, a doctor can change a sick person’s perceptions so
that she is healthy. Protagoras taught his students to “make the weaker
argument the stronger,” i.e., to alter people’s perceptions about the value of
arguments. Aristophanes satirizes Protagoras as one who would make unjust
arguments defeat just arguments. This is true for ethical judgments, too: laws
and customs are simply products of human agreement. But because laws and
customs result from experiences of what is most useful, they should be followed
rather than nature. No perception or judgment is more true than another, but
some are more useful, and those that are more useful should be followed.
Gorgias c.483376 was a student of Empedocles. His town, Leontini in Sicily,
sent him as an ambassador to Athens in 427; his visit was a great success, and
the Athenians were amazed at his rhetorical ability. Like other Sophists, he
charged for instruction and gave speeches at religious festivals. Gorgias
denied that he taught virtue; instead, he produced clever speakers. He insisted
that different people have different virtues: for example, women’s virtue
differs from men’s. Since there is no truth and if there were we couldn’t know
it, we must rely on opinion, and so speakers who can change people’s opinions
have great power greater than the power
produced by any other skill. In his “Encomium on Helen” he argues that if she
left Menelaus and went with Paris because she was convinced by speech, she
wasn’t responsible for her actions. Two paraphrases of Gorgias’s “About What
Doesn’t Exist” survive; in this he argues that nothing exists, that even if
something did, we couldn’t know it, and that even if we could know anything we
couldn’t explain it to anyone. We can’t know anything, because some things we
think of do not exist, and so we have no way of judging whether the things we
think of exist. And we can’t express any knowledge we may have, because no two
people can think of the same thing, since the same thing can’t be in two
places, and because we use words in speech, not colors or shapes or objects. This
may be merely a parody of Parmenides’ argument that only one thing exists.
Antiphon the Sophist fifth century is probably although not certainly to be
distinguished from Antiphon the orator d. 411, some of whose speeches we
possess. We know nothing about his life if he is distinct from the orator. In
addition to brief quotations in later authors, we have two papyrus fragments of
his “On Truth.” In these he argues that we should follow laws and customs only
if there are witnesses and so our action will affect our reputation; otherwise,
we should follow nature, which is often inconsistent with following custom.
Custom is established by human agreement, and so disobeying it is detrimental
only if others know it is disobeyed, whereas nature’s demands unlike those of
custom can’t be ignored with impunity. Antiphon assumes that rational actions
are selfinterested, and that justice demands actions contrary to
self-interest a position Plato attacks
in the Republic. Antiphon was also a materialist: the nature of a bed is wood,
since if a buried bed could grow it would grow wood, not a bed. His view is one
of Aristotle’s main concerns in the Physics, since Aristotle admits in the
Categories that persistence through change is the best test for substance, but
won’t admit that matter is substance. Hippias fifth century was from Elis, in
the Peloponnesus, which used him as an ambasSophists Sophists 863 863 sador. He competed at the festival of
Olympus with both prepared and extemporaneous speeches. He had a phenomenal
memory. Since Plato repeatedly makes fun of him in the two dialogues that bear
his name, he probably was selfimportant and serious. He was a polymath who
claimed he could do anything, including making speeches and clothes; he wrote a
work collecting what he regarded as the best things said by others. According
to one report, he made a mathematical discovery the quadratrix, the first curve
other than the circle known to the Grecians. In the Protagoras, Plato has
Hippias contrast nature and custom, which often does violence to nature.
Prodicus fifth century was from Ceos, in the Cyclades, which frequently
employed him on diplomatic missions. He apparently demanded high fees, but had
two versions of his lecture one cost
fifty drachmas, the other one drachma. Socrates jokes that if he could have
afforded the fifty-drachma lecture, he would have learned the truth about the
correctness of words, and Aristotle says that when Prodicus added something
exciting to keep his audience’s attention he called it “slipping in the
fifty-drachma lecture for them.” We have at least the content of one lecture of
his, the “Choice of Heracles,” which consists of banal moralizing. Prodicus was
praised by Socrates for his emphasis on the right use of words and on
distinguishing between synonyms. He also had a naturalistic view of the origin
of theology: useful things were regarded as gods.
sorel: sphilosopher best known for his “Reflections on
Violence,” which develops the notion of revolutionary syndicalism as seen
through proletarian violence and the interpretation of myth. An early proponent
of the quasiMarxist position of gradual democratic reformism, Sorel eventually
developed a highly subjective interpretation of historical materialism that,
while retaining a conception of proletarian revolution, now understood it
through myth rather than reason. He was in large part reacting to the
empiricism of the Enlightenment and the
statistical structuring of sociological studies. In contrast to Marx and
Engels, who held that revolution would occur when the proletariat attained its
own class consciousness through an understanding of its true relationship to
the means of production in capitalist society, Sorel introduced myth rather
than reason as the correct way to interpret social totality. Myth allows for
the necessary reaction to bourgeois rationalism and permits the social theorist
to negate the status quo through the authenticity of revolutionary violence. By
acknowledging the irrationality of the status quo, myth permits the possibility
of social understanding and its necessary reaction, human emancipation through
proletarian revolution. Marxism is myth because it juxtaposes the
irreducibility of capitalist organization to its negation violent proletarian revolution. The
intermediary stage in this development is radical syndicalism, which organizes
workers into groups opposed to bourgeois authority, instills the myth of
proletarian revolution in the workers, and allows them in postrevolutionary
times to work toward a social arrangement of worker and peasant governance and
collaboration. The vehicle through which all this is accomplished is the
general strike, whose aim, through the justified violence of its ends, is to
facilitate the downfall and ultimate elimination of the bourgeoisie. In doing
so the proletariat will lead society to a classless and harmonious stage in
history. By stressing the notion of spontaneity Sorel thought he had solved the
vexing problems of party and future bureaucracy found in much of the
revolutionary literature of his day. In his later years he was interested in
the writings of both Lenin and Mussolini.
sorites, an argument consisting of categorical
propositions that can be represented as or decomposed into a sequence of
categorical syllogisms such that the conclusion of each syllogism except the
last one in the sequence is a premise of the next syllogism in the sequence. An
example is ‘All cats are felines; all felines are mammals; all mammals are
warm-blooded animals; therefore, all cats are warm-blooded animals’. This
sorites may be viewed as composed of the two syllogisms ‘All cats are felines;
all felines are mammals; therefore, all cats are mammals’ and ‘All cats are
mammals; all mammals are warm-blooded animals; therefore, all cats are
warm-blooded animals’. A sorites is valid if and only if each categorical
syllogism into which it decomposes is valid. In the example, the sorites
decomposes into two syllogisms in the mood Barbara; since any syllogism in
Barbara is valid, the sorites is valid.
sorites paradox from Grecian soros, ‘heap’, any of a
number of paradoxes about heaps and their Sorel, Georges sorites paradox
864 864 elements, and more broadly
about gradations. A single grain of sand cannot be arranged so as to form a
heap. Moreover, it seems that given a number of grains insufficient to form a
heap, adding just one more grain still does not make a heap. If a heap cannot
be formed with one grain, it cannot be formed with two; if a heap cannot be
formed with two, it cannot be formed with three; and so on. But this seems to
lead to the absurdity that however large the number of grains, it is not large
enough to form a heap. A similar paradox can be developed in the opposite
direction. A million grains of sand can certainly be arranged so as to form a
heap, and it is always possible to remove a grain from a heap in such a way
that what is left is also a heap. This seems to lead to the absurdity that a
heap can be formed even from just a single grain. These paradoxes about heaps
were known in antiquity they are associated with Eubulides of Miletus, fourth
century B.C., and have since given their name to a number of similar paradoxes.
The loss of a single hair does not make a man bald, and a man with a million
hairs is certainly not bald. This seems to lead to the absurd conclusion that
even a man with no hairs at all is not bald. Or consider a long painted wall
hundreds of yards or hundreds of miles long. The left-hand region is clearly
painted red, but there is a subtle gradation of shades and the right-hand
region is clearly yellow. A small double window exposes a small section of the
wall at any one time. It is moved progressively rightward, in such a way that
at each move after the initial position the left-hand segment of the window
exposes just the area that was in the previous position exposed by the
right-hand segment. The window is so small relative to the wall that in no
position can you tell any difference in color between the exposed areas. When
the window is at the extreme left, both exposed areas are certainly red. But as
the window moves to the right, the area in the right segment looks just the
same color as the area in the left, which you have already pronounced to be
red. So it seems that one must call it red too. But then one is led to the
absurdity of calling a clearly yellow area red. As some of these cases suggest,
there is a connection with dynamic processes. A tadpole turns gradually into a
frog. Yet if you analyze a motion picture of the process, it seems that there
are no two adjacent frames of which you can say the earlier shows a tadpole,
the later a frog. So it seems that you could argue: if something is a tadpole
at a given moment, it must also be a tadpole and not a frog a millionth of a
second later, and this seems to lead to the absurd conclusion that a tadpole
can never turn into a frog. Most responses to this paradox attempt to deny the
“major premise,” the one corresponding to the claim that if you cannot make a
heap with n grains of sand then you cannot make a heap with n ! 1. The
difficulty is that the negation of this premise is equivalent, in classical
logic, to the proposition that there is a sharp cutoff: that, e.g., there is
some number n of grains that are not enough to make a heap, where n ! 1 are
enough to make a heap. The claim of a sharp cutoff may not be so very
implausible for heaps perhaps for things like grains of sand, four is the
smallest number which can be formed into a heap but is very implausible for
colors and tadpoles. There are two main kinds of response to sorites paradoxes.
One is to accept that there is in every such case a sharp cutoff, though
typically we do not, and perhaps cannot, know where it is. Another kind of
response is to evolve a non-classical logic within which one can refuse to accept
the major premise without being committed to a sharp cutoff. At present, no
such non-classical logic is entirely free of difficulties. So sorites paradoxes
are still taken very seriously by contemporary philosophers.
sort: Grice, “One of the few technicisms introduced by
an English philosopher, in this case Locke.” – a sortal predicate, roughly, a
predicate whose application to an object says what kind of object it is and
implies conditions for objects of that kind to be identical. Person, green apple,
regular hexagon, and pile of coal would generally be regarded as sortal
predicates, whereas tall, green thing, and coal would generally be regarded as
non-sortal predicates. An explicit and precise definition of the distinction is
hard to come by. Sortal predicates are sometimes said to be distinguished by
the fact that they provide a criterion of counting or that they do not apply to
the parts of the objects to which they apply, but there are difficulties with
each of these characterizations. The notion figures in recent philosophical
discussions on various topics. Robert Ackermann and others have suggested that
any scientific law confirmable by observation might require the use of sortal
predicates. Thus ‘all non-black things are non-ravens’, while logically
equivalent to the putative scientific law ‘all ravens are black’, is not itself
confirmable by observation because ‘non-black’ is not a sortal predicate. David
Wiggins and others have discussed the sortal sortal predicate 865 865 idea that all identity claims are
sortal-relative in the sense that an appropriate response to the claim a % b is
always “the same what as b?” John Wallace has argued that there would be
advantages in relativizing the quantifiers of predicate logic to sortals. ‘All
humans are mortal’ would be rendered Ex[m]Dx, rather than ExMxPDx. Crispin
Wright has suggested that the view that natural number is a sortal concept is
central to Frege’s or any other number-theoretic platonism. The word ‘sortal’
as a technical term in philosophy apparently first occurs in Locke’s Essay
Concerning Human Understanding. Locke argues that the so-called essence of a
genus or sort unlike the real essence of a thing is merely the abstract idea
that the general or sortal name stands for. But ‘sortal’ has only one
occurrence in Locke’s Essay. Its currency in contemporary philosophical idiom
probably should be credited to P. F. Strawson’s Individuals. The general idea
may be traced at least to the notion of second substance in Aristotle’s
Categories.
Soto, Domingo de -- Dominican theologian and
philosopher. Born in Segovia, he studied in Paris, taught at Segovia and
Salamanca, and was named official representative of the Holy Roman Empire at
the Council of Trent by Charles V. Among Soto’s many works, his commentaries on
Aristotle’s Physics and On the Soul stand out. He also wrote a book on the
nature of grace and an important treatise on law. Soto was one of the early
members of the school of Thomism, but he
did not always follow Aquinas. He rejected the doctrine of the real distinction
between essence and existence and adopted Duns Scotus’s position that the
primary object of human understanding is indeterminate being in general. Apart
from metaphysics and theology, Soto’s philosophy of law and political theory
are historically important. He maintained, contrary to his teacher Vitoria,
that law originates in the understanding rather than in the will of the
legislator. He also distinguished natural from positive law: the latter arises
from the decision of legislators, whereas the former is based on nature. Soto
was a founder of the general theory of international law.
soul: -- cf. Grice on “soul-to-soul transfer” -- also
called spirit, an entity supposed to be present only in living things,
corresponding to the Grecian psyche and Latin anima. Since there seems to be no
material difference between an organism in the last moments of its life and the
organism’s newly dead body, many philosophers since the time of Plato have
claimed that the soul is an immaterial component of an organism. Because only
material things are observed to be subject to dissolution, Plato took the
soul’s immateriality as grounds for its immortality. Neither Plato nor
Aristotle thought that only persons had souls: Aristotle ascribed souls to
animals and plants since they all exhibited some living functions. Unlike
Plato, Aristotle denied the transmigration of souls from one species to another
or from one body to another after death; he was also more skeptical about the
soul’s capacity for disembodiment
roughly, survival and functioning without a body. Descartes argued that
only persons had souls and that the soul’s immaterial nature made freedom
possible even if the human body is subject to deterministic physical laws. As
the subject of thought, memory, emotion, desire, and action, the soul has been
supposed to be an entity that makes self-consciousness possible, that
differentiates simultaneous experiences into experiences either of the same
person or of different persons, and that accounts for personal identity or a
person’s continued identity through time. Dualists argue that soul and body
must be distinct in order to explain consciousness and the possibility of
immortality. Materialists argue that consciousness is entirely the result of
complex physical processes.
soundness: Grice: “The etymology if fascinating.” The English
Grice. "Most of the terms I use are
Latinate." "I implicate: a few are not." "I say that System
G should be sound." "free from special defect or injury," c. 1200,
from Old English gesund "sound, safe, having the organs and faculties
complete and in perfect action," from Proto-Germanic *sunda-, from
Germanic root *swen-to- "healthy, strong" (source also of Old Saxon
gisund, Old Frisian sund, Dutch gezond, Old High German gisunt, German gesund
"healthy," as in the post-sneezing interjection gesundheit; also Old
English swið "strong," Gothic swinþs "strong," German
geschwind "fast, quick"), with connections in Indo-Iranian and
Balto-Slavic. Meaning "right, correct, free from error" is from
mid-15c. Meaning "financially solid or safe" is attested from c.
1600; of sleep, "undisturbed," from 1540s. Sense of "holding
accepted opinions" is from 1520s Grice: “’sound’ is not polysemous,
but it has different usages: of an argument the property of being valid and
having all true premises; of a system, like Sytem G, the property of being not too strong in a
certain respect. A System G has weak
soundness provided every theorem of G is
valid. And G has strong soundness if for every set S of sentences, every
sentence deducible from S using system G is a logical consequence of S.
spatium: space, an extended manifold of several dimensions,
where the number of dimensions corresponds to the number of variable magnitudes
Soto, Domingo de space 866 866 needed
to specify a location in the manifold; in particular, the three-dimensional
manifold in which physical objects are situated and with respect to which their
mutual positions and distances are defined. Ancient Grecian atomism defined
space as the infinite void in which atoms move; but whether space is finite or
infinite, and whether void spaces exist, have remained in question. Aristotle
described the universe as a finite plenum and reduced space to the aggregate of
all places of physical things. His view was preeminent until Renaissance
Neoplatonism, the Copernican revolution, and the revival of atomism
reintroduced infinite, homogeneous space as a fundamental cosmological
assumption. Further controversy concerned whether the space assumed by early
modern astronomy should be thought of as an independently existing thing or as
an abstraction from the spatial relations of physical bodies. Interest in the
relativity of motion encouraged the latter view, but Newton pointed out that mechanics
presupposes absolute distinctions among motions, and he concluded that absolute
space must be postulated along with the basic laws of motion Principia, 1687.
Leibniz argued for the relational view from the identity of indiscernibles: the
parts of space are indistinguishable from one another and therefore cannot be
independently existing things. Relativistic physics has defused the original
controversy by revealing both space and spatial relations as merely
observer-dependent manifestations of the structure of spacetime. Meanwhile,
Kant shifted the metaphysical controversy to epistemological grounds by
claiming that space, with its Euclidean structure, is neither a
“thing-in-itself” nor a relation of thingsin-themselves, but the a priori form
of outer intuition. His view was challenged by the elaboration of non-Euclidean
geometries in the nineteenth century, by Helmholtz’s arguments that both
intuitive and physical space are known through empirical investigation, and
finally by the use of non-Euclidean geometry in the theory of relativity.
Precisely what geometrical presuppositions are inherent in human spatial
perception, and what must be learned from experience, remain subjects of
psychological investigation.
space-time, a four-dimensional continuum combining the
three dimensions of space with time in order to represent motion geometrically.
Each point is the location of an event, all of which together represent “the
world” through time; paths in the continuum worldlines represent the dynamical
histories of moving particles, so that straight worldlines correspond to
uniform motions; three-dimensional sections of constant time value “spacelike
hypersurfaces” or “simultaneity slices” represent all of space at a given time.
The idea was foreshadowed when Kant represented “the phenomenal world” as a
plane defined by space and time as perpendicular axes Inaugural Dissertation,
1770, and when Joseph Louis Lagrange 17361814 referred to mechanics as “the
analytic geometry of four dimensions.” But classical mechanics assumes a
universal standard of simultaneity, and so it can treat space and time
separately. The concept of space-time was explicitly developed only when
Einstein criticized absolute simultaneity and made the velocity of light a
universal constant. The mathematician Hermann Minkowski showed in 8 that the
observer-independent structure of special relativity could be represented by a
metric space of four dimensions: observers in relative motion would disagree on
intervals of length and time, but agree on a fourdimensional interval combining
spatial and temporal measurements. Minkowski’s model then made possible the
general theory of relativity, which describes gravity as a curvature of
spacetime in the presence of mass and the paths of falling bodies as the
straightest worldlines in curved space-time.
spatio-temporal continuity, a property of the careers,
or space-time paths, of well-behaved objects. Let a space-time path be a series
of possible spatiotemporal positions, each represented in a selected coordinate
system by an ordered pair consisting of a time its temporal component and a
volume of space its spatial component. Such a path will be spatiotemporally
continuous provided it is such that, relative to any inertial frame selected as
coordinate system, space, absolute spatiotemporal continuity 867 867 1 for every segment of the series, the
temporal components of the members of that segment form a continuous temporal
interval; and 2 for any two members ‹ti, Vi and ‹tj, Vj of the series that differ
in their temporal components ti and tj, if Vi and Vj the spatial components
differ in either shape, size, or location, then between these members of the
series there will be a member whose spatial component is more similar to Vi and
Vj in these respects than these are to each other. This notion is of
philosophical interest partly because of its connections with the notions of
identity over time and causality. Putting aside such qualifications as quantum
considerations may require, material objects at least macroscopic objects of
familiar kinds apparently cannot undergo discontinuous change of place, and
cannot have temporal gaps in their histories, and therefore the path through
space-time traced by such an object must apparently be spatiotemporally continuous.
More controversial is the claim that spatiotemporal continuity, together with
some continuity with respect to other properties, is sufficient as well as
necessary for the identity of such objects
e.g., that if a spatiotemporally continuous path is such that the
spatial component of each member of the series is occupied by a table of a
certain description at the time that is the temporal component of that member,
then there is a single table of that description that traces that path. Those
who deny this claim sometimes maintain that it is further required for the
identity of material objects that there be causal and counterfactual dependence
of later states on earlier ones ceteris paribus, if the table had been
different yesterday, it would be correspondingly different now. Since it
appears that chains of causality must trace spatiotemporally continuous paths,
it may be that insofar as spatiotemporal continuity is required for
transtemporal identity, this is because it is required for transtemporal causality.
Refs.: H. P. Grice and P. F. Strawson, “Categories,” in The H. P. Grice Papers,
BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, The University of California, Berkeley.
specious present: the supposed time between past and
future. The phrase was first offered by Clay in “The Alternative: A Study in
Psychology,” and is cited by James in his
Principles of Psychology Clay challenges
the assumption that the “present” as a “datum” is given as “present” to us in
our experience. “The present to which the datum refers is really a part of the *past*,
a recent past delusively given as benign
time that intervenes between the past and the future. Let it be named ‘the
specious present,’ and let the past that is given as being the past be known as
‘the obvious past.’” For James, this position is supportive of his contention
that consciousness (conscientia) is a stream and can be divided into parts only
by conceptual addition, i.e., only by our ascribing past, present, and future
to what is, in our actual experience, a seamless flow. James holds that the
“practically cognized present is no knife-edge but a saddleback,” a sort of
“ducatum” which we experience as a whole, and only upon reflective attention do
we “distinguish its beginning from its end.” Whereas Clay refers to the datum
of the present as “delusive,” one might rather say that it is perpetually *elusive*,
for as we have our experience, now, it is always bathed retrospectively and
prospectively. Contrary to common wisdom, no single experience ever is had by
our consciousness utterly alone, single and without relations, fore and aft.
Refs.: H. P. Grice, “The logical-construction theory of personal identity.”
speculatum: Grice: “Philosophy may broadly be divided
into ‘philosophia speculativa” and “philosophia practica.”” -- speculative
philosophy, a form of theorizing that goes beyond verifiable observation;
specifically, a philosophical approach informed by the impulse to construct a
grand narrative of a worldview that encompasses the whole of reality. Speculative
philosophy purports to bind together reflections on the existence and nature of
the cosmos, the psyche, and God. It sets for its goal a unifying matrix and an
overarching system whereswith to comprehend the considered judgments of
cosmology, psychology, and theology. Hegel’s absolute idealism, particularly as
developed in his later thought, paradigmatically illustrates the requirements
for speculative philosophizing. His system of idealism offered a vision of the
unity of the categories of human thought as they come to realization in and
through their opposition to each other. Speculative thought tends to place a
premium on universality, totality, and unity; and it tends to marginalize the
concrete particularities of the natural and social world. In its aggressive use
of the systematic principle, geared to a unification of human experience,
speculative philosophy aspires to a comprehensive understanding and explanation
of the structural interrelations of the culture spheres of science, morality,
art, and religion. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Practical and doxastic attitudes: why I
need exhibitive clauses.”
austinianism: speech act theory, the theory of language use,
sometimes called pragmatics, as opposed to the theory of meaning, or semantics.
Based on the meaninguse distinction, it categorizes systematically the sorts of
things that can be done with words and explicates the ways these are
determined, underdetermined, or undetermined by the meanings of the words used.
Relying further on the distinction between speaker meaning and linguistic
meaning, it aims to characterize the nature of communicative intentions and how
they are expressed and recognized. Speech acts are a species of intentional
action. In general, one and the same utterance may comprise a number of
distinct though related acts, each corresponding to a different intention on
the part of the speaker. Beyond intending to produce a certain sequence of
sounds forming a sentence in English, a person who utters the sentence ‘The
door is open’, e.g., is likely to be intending to perform, in the terminology
of J. L. Austin How to Do Things with Words, 2, 1 the locutionary act of saying
expressing the proposition that a certain door is open, 2 the illocutionary act
of making the statement expressing the belief that it is open, and 3 the
perlocutionary act of getting his listener to believe that it is open. In so
doing, he may be performing the indirect speech act of requesting illocutionary
the listener to close the door and of getting perlocutionary the hearer to
close the door. The primary focus of speech act theory is on illocutionary
acts, which may be classified in a variety of ways. Statements, predictions,
and answers exemplify constatives; requests, commands and permissions are
directives; promises, offers, and bets are commissives; greetings, apologies,
and congratulations are acknowledgments. These are all communicative
illocutionary acts, each distinguished by the type of psychological state
expressed by the speaker. Successful communication consists in the audience’s
recognition of the speaker’s intention to be expressing a certain psychological
state with a certain content. Conventional illocutionary acts, on the other
hand, effect or officially affect institutional states of affairs. Examples of
the former are appointing, resigning, sentencing, and adjourning; examples of
the latter are assessing, acquitting, certifying, and grading. See Kent Bach
and Robert M. Harnish, Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts, 9. The type of
act an utterance exemplifies determines its illocutionary force. In the example
‘The door is open’, the utterance has the force of both a statement and a
request. The illocutionary force potential of a sentence is the force or forces
with which it can be used literally, e.g., in the case of the sentence ‘The
door is open’, as a statement but not as a request. The felicity conditions on
an illocutionary act pertain not only to its communicative or institutional
success but also to its sincerity, appropriateness, and effectiveness. An
explicit performative utterance is an illocutionary act performed by uttering
an indicative sentence in the simple present tense with a verb naming the type
of act being performed, e.g., ‘I apologize for everything I did’ and ‘You are
requested not to smoke’. The adverb ‘hereby’ may be used before the
performative verb ‘apologize’ and ‘request’ in these examples to indicate that
the very utterance being made is the vehicle of the performance of the
illocutionary act in question. A good test for distinguishing illocutionary
from perlocutionary acts is to determine whether a verb naming the act can be
used performatively. Austin exploited the phenomenon of performative utterances
to expose the common philosophical error of assuming that the primary use of language
is to make statements.
spencer: English philosopher, social reformer, and editor of
The Economist. In epistemology, Spencer adopted the ninespeculative reason
Spencer, Herbert 869 869 teenth-century
trend toward positivism: the only reliable knowledge of the universe is to be
found in the sciences. His ethics were utilitarian, following Bentham and J. S.
Mill: pleasure and pain are the criteria of value as signs of happiness or
unhappiness in the individual. His Synthetic Philosophy, expounded in books
written over many years, assumed both in biology and psychology the existence
of Lamarckian evolution: given a characteristic environment, every animal
possesses a disposition to make itself into what it will, failing maladaptive
interventions, eventually become. The dispositions gain expression as inherited
acquired habits. Spencer could not accept that species originate by chance
variations and natural selection alone: direct adaptation to environmental
constraints is mainly responsible for biological changes. Evolution also
includes the progression of societies in the direction of a dynamical
equilibrium of individuals: the human condition is perfectible because human
faculties are completely adapted to life in society, implying that evil and immorality
will eventually disappear. His ideas on evolution predated publication of the
major works of Darwin; A. R. Wallace was influenced by his writings. Refs.: H.
P. Grice, “Evolutionary pirotology,” in “Method in philosophical psychology:
from the banal to the bizarre.”
speranza: luigi della --. Italian philosopher, attracted, for
some reason, to H. P. Grice. Speranza knows St. John’s very well. He is the
author of “Dorothea Oxoniensis.” He is a member of a number of cultivated Anglo-Italian
societies, like H. P. Grice’s Playgroup. He is the custodian of Villa Grice,
not far from Villa Speranza. He works at the Swimming-Pool Library. Cuisine is
one of his hobbies – grisottoa alla ligure, his specialty. He can be reached
via H. P. Grice. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Vita ed opinion di Luigi Speranza,”
par Luigi Speranza. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft
Library, The University of California, Berkeley.
spinoza: Jewish metaphysician, born in the Netherlanads -- epistemologist,
psychologist, moral philosopher, political theorist, and philosopher of
religion, generally regarded as one of the most important figures of
seventeenth-century rationalism. Life and works. Born and educated in the
Jewish ‘community’ of Amsterdam, he forsook his given name ‘Baruch’ in favor of
the Latin ‘Benedict’ at the age of twenty-two. Between 1652 and 1656 he studied
the philosophy of Descartes in the school of Francis van den Enden. Having
developed unorthodox views of the divine nature and having ceased to be fully
observant of Jewish practice, he was excommunicated by the Jewish community in
1656. He spent his entire life in Holland; after leaving Amsterdam in 1660, he
resided successively in Rijnsburg, Voorburg, and the Hague. He supported
himself at least partly through grinding lenses, and his knowledge of optics
involved him in an area of inquiry of great importance to seventeenth-century
science. Acquainted with such leading intellectual figures as Leibniz, Huygens,
and Henry Oldenberg, he declined a professorship at the of Heidelberg partly on the grounds that it
might interfere with his intellectual freedom. His premature death at the age
of fortyfour was due to consumption. The only work published under Spinoza’s name
during his lifetime was his Principles of Descartes’s Philosophy Renati Des
Cartes Principiorum Philosophiae, Pars I et II, 1663, an attempt to recast and
present Parts I and II of Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy in the manner
that Spinoza called geometrical order or geometrical method. Modeled on the
Elements of Euclid and on what Descartes called the method of synthesis,
Spinoza’s “geometrical order” involves an initial set of definitions and
axioms, from which various propositions are demonstrated, with notes or scholia
attached where necessary. This work, which established his credentials as an
expositor of Cartesian philosophy, had its origins in his endeavor to teach
Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy to a private student. Spinoza’s
TheologicalPolitical Treatise Tractatus Theologico-Politicus was published
anonymously in 1670. After his death, his close circle of friends published his
Posthumous Works Opera Postuma, 1677, which included his masterpieces, Ethic,
Demonstrated in Geometrical Order Ethica, Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata. The
Posthumous Works also included his early unfinished Treatise on the Emendation
of the Intellect Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione, his later unfinished
Political Treatise Tractatus Politicus, a Hebrew Grammar, and Correspondence.
An unpublished early work entitled Short Treatise on God, Man, and His
Well-Being Korte Vorhandelung van God, de Mensch en deszelvs Welstand, in many
ways a forerunner of the Ethics, was rediscovered in copied manuscript and
published in the nineteenth century. Spinoza’s authorship of two brief
scientific treatises, On the Rainbow and On the Calculation of Chances, is
still disputed. Metaphysics. Spinoza often uses the term ‘God, or Nature’
“Deus, sive Natura“, and this identification of God with Nature is at the heart
of his metaphysics. Because of this identification, his philosophy is often
regarded as a version of pantheism and/or naturalism. But although philosophy
begins with metaphysics for Spinoza, his metaphysics is ultimately in the
service of his ethics. Because his naturalized God has no desires or purposes,
human ethics cannot properly be derived from divine command. Rather,
Spinozistic ethics seeks to demonstrate, from an adequate understanding of the
divine nature and its expression in human nature, the way in which human beings
can maximize their advantage. Central to the successful pursuit of this advantage
is adequate knowledge, which leads to increasing control of the passions and to
cooperative action. Spinoza’s ontology, like that of Descartes, consists of substances,
their attributes which Descartes called principal attributes, and their modes.
In the Ethics, Spinoza defines ‘substance’ as what is “in itself, and is
conceived through itself”; ‘attribute’ as that which “the intellect perceives
of a substance as constituting its essence”; and ‘mode’ as “the affections of a
substance, or that which is in another through which also it is conceived.”
While Descartes had recognized a strict sense in which only God is a substance,
he also recognized a second sense in which there are two kinds of created
substances, each with its own principal attribute: extended substances, whose
only principal attribute is extension; and minds, whose only principal
attribute is thought. Spinoza, in contrast, consistently maintains that there
is only one substance. His metaphysics is thus a form of substantial monism.
This one substance is God, which Spinoza defines as “a being absolutely
infinite, i.e., a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, of which
each expresses an eternal and infinite essence.” Thus, whereas Descartes
limited each created substance to one principal attribute, Spinoza claims that
the one substance has infinite attributes, each expressing the divine nature
without limitation in its own way. Of these infinite attributes, however,
humans can comprehend only two: extension and thought. Within each attribute,
the modes of God are of two kinds: infinite modes, which are pervasive features
of each attribute, such as the laws of nature; and finite modes, which are
local and limited modifications of substance. There is an infinite sequence of
finite modes. Descartes regarded a human being as a substantial union of two
different substances, the thinking soul and the extended body, in causal
interaction with each other. Spinoza, in contrast, regards a human being as a
finite mode of God, existing simultaneously in God as a mode of thought and as
a mode of extension. He holds that every mode of extension is literally
identical with the mode of thought that is the “idea of” that mode of
extension. Since the human mind is the idea of the human body, it follows that
the human mind and the human body are literally the same thing, conceived under
two different attributes. Because they are actually identical, there is no causal
interaction between the mind and the body; but there is a complete parallelism
between what occurs in the mind and what occurs in the body. Since every mode
of extension has a corresponding and identical mode of thought however
rudimentary that might be, Spinoza allows that every mode of extension is
“animated to some degree”; his view is thus a form of panpsychism. Another
central feature of Spinoza’s metaphysics is his necessitarianism, expressed in
his claim that “things could have been produced . . . in no other way, and in
no other order” than that in which they have been produced. He derives this
necessitarianism from his doctrine that God exists necessarily for which he
offers several arguments, including a version of the ontological argument and
his doctrine that everything that can follow from the divine nature must
necessarily do so. Thus, although he does not use the term, he accepts a very
strong version of the principle of sufficient reason. At the outset of the
Ethics, he defines a thing as free when its actions are determined by its own
nature alone. Only God whose actions are
determined entirely by the necessity of his own nature, and for whom nothing is
external is completely free in this
sense. Nevertheless, human beings can achieve a relative freedom to the extent
that they live the kind of life described in the later parts of the Ethics.
Hence, Spinoza is a compatibilist concerning the relation between freedom and
determinism. “Freedom of the will” in any sense that implies a lack of causal
determination, however, is simply an illusion based on ignorance of the true
causes of a being’s actions. The recognition that all occurrences are causally
determined, Spinoza holds, has a positive consolatory power that aids one in
controlling the passions. Epistemology and psychology. Like other rationalists,
Spinoza distinguishes two representational faculties: the imagination and the
intellect. The imagination is a faculty of forming imagistic representations of
things, derived ultimately from the mechanisms of the senses; the intellect is
a faculty of forming adequate, nonimagistic conceptions of things. He also
distinguishes three “kinds of knowledge.” The first or lowest kind he calls
opinion or imagination opinio, imaginatio. It includes “random or indeterminate
experience” experientia vaga and also “hearsay, or knowledge from mere signs”;
it thus depends on the confused and mutilated deliverances of the senses, and
is inadequate. The second kind of knowledge he calls reason ratio; it depends
on common notions i.e., features of things that are “common to all, and equally
in the part and in the whole” or on adequate knowledge of the properties as
opposed to the essences of things. The third kind of knowledge he calls
intuitive knowledge scientia intuitiva; it proceeds from adequate knowledge of
the essence or attributes of God to knowledge of the essence of things, and
hence proceeds in the proper order, from causes to effects. Both the second and
third kinds of knowledge are adequate. The third kind is preferable, however,
as involving not only certain knowledge that something is so, but also
knowledge of how and why it is so. Because there is only one substance God the
individual things of the world are not distinguished from one another by any
difference of substance. Rather, among the internal qualitative modifications
and differentiations of each divine attribute, there are patterns that have a
tendency to endure; these constitute individual things. As they occur within
the attribute of extension, Spinoza calls these patterns fixed proportions of
motion and rest. Although these individual things are thus modes of the one
substance, rather than substances in their own right, each has a nature or
essence describable in terms of the thing’s particular pattern and its
mechanisms for the preservation of its own being. This tendency toward
self-preservation Spinoza calls conatus sometimes tr. as ‘endeavor’. Every
individual thing has some conatus. An individual thing acts, or is active, to
the extent that what occurs can be explained or understood through its own
nature i.e., its selfpreservatory mechanism alone; it is passive to the extent
that what happens must be explained through the nature of other forces
impinging on it. Thus, every thing, to whatever extent it can, actively strives
to persevere in its existence; and whatever aids this self-preservation
constitutes that individual’s advantage. Spinoza’s specifically human
psychology is an application of this more general doctrine of conatus. That
application is made through appeal to several specific characteristics of human
beings: they form imagistic representations of other individuals by means of
their senses; they are sufficiently complex to undergo increases and decreases
in their capacity for action; and they are capable of engaging in reason. The
fundamental concepts of his psychology are desire, which is conatus itself,
especially as one is conscious of it as directed toward attaining a particular
object; pleasure, which is an increase in capacity for action; and pain, which
is a decrease in capacity for action. He defines other emotions in terms of
these basic emotions, as they occur in particular combinations, in particular
kinds of circumstances, with particular kinds of causes, and/or with particular
kinds of objects. When a person is the adequate cause of his or her own
emotions, these emotions are active emotions; otherwise, they are passions.
Desire and pleasure can be either active emotions or passions, depending on the
circumstances; pain, however, can only be a passion. Spinoza does not deny the
phenomenon of altruism: one’s self-preservatory mechanism, and hence one’s
desire, can become focused on a wide variety of objects, including the
well-being of a loved person or object
even to one’s own detriment. However, because he reduces all human
motivation, including altruistic motivation, to permutations of the endeavor to
seek one’s own advantage, his theory is arguably a form of psychological
egoism. Ethics. Spinoza’s ethical theory does not take the form of a set of
moral commands. Rather, he seeks to demonstrate, by considering human actions
and appetites objectively “just as if it
were a Question of lines, planes, and bodies”
wherein a person’s true advantage lies. Readers who genuinely grasp the
demonstrated truths will, he holds, ipso facto be motivated, to at least some
extent, to live their lives accordingly. Thus, Spinozistic ethics seeks to show
how a person acts when “guided by reason“; to act in this way is at the same time
to act with virtue, or power. All actions that result from understanding i.e., all virtuous actions may be attributed to strength of character
fortitudo. Such virtuous actions may be further divided into two classes: those
due to tenacity animositas, or “the Desire by which each one strives, solely
from the dictate of reason, to preserve his being”; and those due to nobility
generositas, or “the Desire by which each one strives, solely from the dictate
of reason, to aid other men and join them to him in friendship.” Thus, the
virtuous person does not merely pursue private advantage, but seeks to
cooperate with others; returns love for hatred; always acts honestly, not
deceptively; and seeks to join himself with others in a political state.
Nevertheless, the ultimate reason for aiding others and joining them to oneself
in friendship is that “nothing is more useful to man than man” i.e., because doing so is conducive to one’s
own advantage, and particularly to one’s pursuit of knowledge, which is a good
that can be shared without loss. Although Spinoza holds that we generally use
the terms ‘good’ and ‘evil’ simply to report subjective appearances so that we call “good” whatever we desire,
and “evil” whatever we seek to avoid he
proposes that we define ‘good’ philosophically as ‘what we certainly know to be
useful to us’, and ‘evil’ as ‘what we certainly know prevents us from being
masters of some good’. Since God is perfect and has no needs, it follows that
nothing is either good or evil for God. Spinoza’s ultimate appeal to the
agent’s advantage arguably renders his ethical theory a form of ethical egoism,
even though he emphasizes the existence of common shareable goods and the
instrumental ethical importance of cooperation with others. However, it is not
a form of hedonism; for despite the prominence he gives to pleasure, the
ultimate aim of human action is a higher state of perfection or capacity for
action, of whose increasing attainment pleasure is only an indicator. A human
being whose self-preservatory mechanism is driven or distorted by external
forces is said to be in bondage to the passions; in contrast, one who
successfully pursues only what is truly advantageous, in consequence of genuine
understanding of where that advantage properly lies, is free. Accordingly,
Spinoza also expresses his conception of a virtuous life guided by reason in
terms of an ideal “free man.” Above all, the free man seeks understanding of
himself and of Nature. Adequate knowledge, and particularly knowledge of the
third kind, leads to blessedness, to peace of mind, and to the intellectual
love of God. Blessedness is not a reward for virtue, however, but rather an
integral aspect of the virtuous life. The human mind is itself a part of the
infinite intellect of God, and adequate knowledge is an eternal aspect of that
infinite intellect. Hence, as one gains knowledge, a greater part of one’s own
mind comes to be identified with something that is eternal, and one becomes
less dependent on and less disturbed
by the local forces of one’s immediate
environment. Accordingly, the free man “thinks of nothing less than of death,
and his wisdom is a meditation on life, not on death.” Moreover, just as one’s
adequate knowledge is literally an eternal part of the infinite intellect of
God, the resulting blessedness, peace of mind, and intellectual love are
literally aspects of what might be considered God’s own eternal “emotional”
life. Although this endows the free man with a kind of blessed immortality, it
is not a personal immortality, since the sensation and memory that are
essential to personal individuality are not eternal. Rather, the free man
achieves during his lifetime an increasing participation in a body of adequate
knowledge that has itself always been eternal, so that, at death, a large part
of the free man’s mind has become identified with the eternal. It is thus a
kind of “immortality” in which one can participate while one lives, not merely
when one dies. Politics and philosophical theology. Spinoza’s political theory,
like that of Hobbes, treats rights and power as equivalent. Citizens give up
rights to the state for the sake of the protection that the state can provide.
Hobbes, however, regards this social contract as nearly absolute, one in which
citizens give up all of their rights except the right to resist death. Spinoza,
in contrast, emphasizes that citizens cannot give up the right to pursue their
own advantage as they see it, in its full generality; and hence that the power,
and right, of any actual state is always limited by the state’s practical
ability to enforce its dictates so as to alter the citizens’ continuing
perception of their own advantage. Furthermore, he has a more extensive
conception of the nature of an individual’s own advantage than Hobbes, since
for him one’s own true advantage lies not merely in fending off death and
pursuing pleasure, but in achieving the adequate knowledge that brings
blessedness and allows one to participate in that which is eternal. In
consequence, Spinoza, unlike Hobbes, recommends a limited, constitutional state
that encourages freedom of expression and religious toleration. Such a
state itself a kind of individual best preserves its own being, and provides
both the most stable and the most beneficial form of government for its
citizens. In his Theological-Political Treatise, Spinoza also takes up popular
religion, the interpretation of Scripture, and their bearing on the well-being
of the state. He characterizes the Old Testament prophets as individuals whose
vivid imaginations produced messages of political value for the ancient Hebrew
state. Using a naturalistic outlook and historical hermeneutic methods that
anticipate the later “higher criticism” of the Bible, he seeks to show that
Scriptural writers themselves consistently treat only justice and charity as
essential to salvation, and hence that dogmatic doxastic requirements are not
justified by Scripture. Popular religion should thus propound only these two
requirements, which it may imaginatively represent, to the minds of the many,
as the requirements for rewards granted by a divine Lawgiver. The few, who are
more philosophical, and who thus rely on intellect, will recognize that the
natural laws of human psychology require charity and justice as conditions of
happiness, and that what the vulgar construe as rewards granted by personal
divine intervention are in fact the natural consequences of a virtuous life.
Because of his identificaton of God with Nature and his treatment of popular
religion, Spinoza’s contemporaries often regarded his philosophy as a thinly
disguised atheism. Paradoxically, however, nineteenth-century Romanticism
embraced him for his pantheism; Novalis, e.g., famously characterized him as
“the God-intoxicated man.” In fact, Spinoza ascribes to Nature most of the
characteristics that Western theologians have ascribed to God: Spinozistic
Nature is infinite, eternal, necessarily existing, the object of an ontological
argument, the first cause of all things, all-knowing, and the being whose
contemplation produces blessedness, intellectual love, and participation in a
kind of immortality or eternal life. Spinoza’s claim to affirm the existence of
God is therefore no mere evasion. However, he emphatically denies that God is a
person or acts for purposes; that anything is good or evil from the divine
perspective; or that there is a personal immortality involving memory. In
addition to his influence on the history of biblical criticism and on
literature including not only Novalis but such writers as Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Heine, Shelley, George Eliot, George Sand, Somerset Maugham, Jorge
Luis Borges, and Bernard Malamud, Spinoza has affected the philosophical
outlooks of such diverse twentieth-century thinkers as Freud and Einstein.
Contemporary physicists have seen in his monistic metaphysics an anticipation
of twentieth-century field metaphysics. More generally, he is a leading
intellectual forebear of twentieth-century determinism and naturalism, and of
the mindbody identity theory. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Hampshire’s Spinoza.”
spir: philosopher. He served in the Crimean War as a
Russian officer. His major works are “Forschung nach der Gewissheit in der
Erkenntnis der Wirklichkeit,” and “Denken und Wirklichkeit: Versuch einer
Erneuerung der kritischen Philosophie..” The latter essay presents a
metaphysics based on the radical separation of the apparent world and an
absolute reality. All we can know about the “unconditioned” is that it must
conform with the principle of identity. While retaining the unknowable thing-in-itself
of Kant, Spir argues for the empirical reality of time, which is given to us in
immediate experience and depends on our experience of a succession of
differential states (cf. Grice, “Personal identity”). The aim of philosophy is
to reach fundamental and immediate certainties. Of the works included in his “Gesammelte
Schriften,” the essay “Right and Wrong,” was tr.There are a number of
references to Spir in the writings of Nietzsche, which indicate that some of
Nietzsche’s central notions were influenced, both positively and negatively, by
Spir’s analyses of becoming and temporality, as well as by his concept of the
separation of the world of appearance and the “true world.” Refs.: H. P. Grice,
“Bradley’s absolute: a relative account.”
split brain effects, a wide array of behavioral effects
consequent upon the severing of the cerebral commisures, and generally
interpreted as indicating asymmetry in cerebral functions. The human brain has
considerable leftright functional differentiation, or asymmetry, that affects
behavior. The most obvious example is handedness. By the 1860s Bouillaud, Dax,
and Broca had observed that the effects of unilateral damage indicated that the
left hemisphere was preferentially involved in language. Since the 0s, this commitment
to functional asymmetry has been reinforced by studies of patients in whom
communication between the hemispheres has been surgically disrupted. Split
brain effects depend on severing the cerebral commisures, and especially the
corpus callosum, which are neural structures mediating communication between
the cerebral hemispheres. Commisurotomies have been performed since the 0s to
control severe epilepsy. This is intended to leave both hemispheres intact and
functioning independently. Beginning in the 0s, J. E. Bogen, M. S. Gazzaniga,
and R. W. Sperry conducted an array of psychological tests to evaluate the
distinctive abilities of the different hemispheres. Ascertaining the degree of
cerebral asymmetry depends on a carefully controlled experimental design in
which access of the disassociated hemispheres to peripheral cues is limited.
The result has been a wide array of striking results. For example, patients are
unable to match an object such as a key felt in one hand with a similar object
felt in the other; patients are unable to name an object Spir, Afrikan split
brain effects 874 874 held in the left
hand, though they can name an object held in the right. Researchers have
concluded that these results confirm a clear lateralization of speech, writing,
and calculation in the left hemisphere for righthanded patients, leaving the
right hemisphere largely unable to respond in speech or writing, and typically
unable to perform even simple calculations. It is often concluded that the left
hemisphere is specialized for verbal and analytic modes of thinking, while the
right hemisphere is specialized for more spatial and synthetic modes of
thinking. The precise character and extent of these differences in normal
subjects are less clear.
square of opposition – figura quadrata – Grice: “It is
clear that the apparatus of Modernism does not give a faithful account of the
character of semantic phenomena. One such less than faithful account, indeed,
deviant account, appears in the treatment of the square of opposition.” cited
by Grice in “Retrospective epilogue.” Since tutoring Strawson on this for
Strawson’s ‘logic paper,’ Grice kept an interest, if only to witness Strwson’s
playing with the square – and ‘uselessly trying to circle it’ -- a graphic
representation of various logical relations among categorical propositions.
Relations among modal and even among hypothetical propositions have also been
represented on the square. Two propositions are said to be each other’s 1
contradictories if exactly one of them must be true and exactly one false; 2
contraries if they could not both be true although they could both be false;
and 3 subcontraries if at least one of them must be true although both of them
may be true. There is a relation of 4 subalternation of one proposition, called
subaltern, to another called superaltern, if the truth of the latter implies
the truth of the former, but not conversely. Applying these definitions to the
four types of categorical propositions, we find that SaP and SoP are
contradictories, and so are SeP and SiP. SaP and SeP are contraries. SiP and
SoP are subcontraries. SiP is subaltern to SaP, and SoP is subaltern to SeP.
These relations can be represented graphically in a square of opposition: The
four relations on the traditional square are expressed in the following theses:
Contradictories: SaP S -SoP, SeP S -SiP Contraries: -SaP & SeP or SaP P
-SeP Subcontraries: SiP 7 SoP Subalterns: SaP P SiP, SeP P SoP For these
relations to hold, an underlying existential assumption must be satisfied: the
terms serving as subjects of propositions must be satisfied, not empty e.g.,
‘man’ is satisfied and ‘elf’ empty. Only the contradictory opposition remains
without that assumption. Modern interpretations of categorical propositions
exclude the existential assumption; thus, only the contradictory opposition
remains in the square. Refs.: H. P.
Grice, “Apuleius on the square of opposition,” H. P. Grice, “Boethius and the
square of opposition.”
standard: Grice:
“People, philosophers included, misuse ‘standard’ – in Italian, it just means
‘flag’!” -- model, a term that, like ‘non-standard model’, is used with regard
to theories that systematize part of our knowledge of some mathematical
structure, for instance the structure of natural numbers with addition,
multiplication, and the successor function, or the structure of real numbers
with ordering, addition, and multiplication. Models isomorphic to this intended
mathematical structure are the “standard models” of the theory, while any
other, non-isomorphic, model of the theory is a ‘non-standard’ model. Since
Peano arithmetic is incomplete, it has consistent extensions that have no
standard model. But there are also non-standard, countable models of complete
number theory, the set of all true first-order sentences about natural numbers,
as was first shown by Skolem in 4. Categorical theories do not have a
non-standard model. It is less clear whether there is a standard model of set
theory, although a countable model would certainly count as non-standard. The
Skolem paradox is that any first-order formulation of set theory, like ZF, due
to Zermelo and Fraenkel, has a countable model, while it seems to assert the
existence of non-countable sets. Many other important mathematical structures
cannot be characterized by a categorical set of first-order axioms, and thus
allow non-standard models. The
philosopher Putnam has argued that this fact has important implications
for the debate about realism in the philosophy of language. If axioms cannot
capture the spontaneity, liberty of standard model 875 875 “intuitive” notion of a set, what could?
Some of his detractors have pointed out that within second-order logic
categorical characterizations are often possible. But Putnam has objected that
the intended interpretation of second-order logic itself is not fixed by the
use of the formalism of second-order logic, where “use” is determined by the
rules of inference for second-order logic we know about. Moreover, categorical
theories are sometimes uninformative.
state, Grice: “I will use the phrase ‘state of the soul’ –
This may sound pedantic, and it is!” – “I will use ‘psychological state,’ where
the more correct phrase would be ‘state’ of the ‘soul,’ since theory – as in
‘-logical,’ has nothing to do with it. Now you’ll wonder if the soul has
states. A state of the soul – or a ‘frame of mind,’ as Strawson wrongly puts it
– is a physical state on which a ‘state’ of the soul supervenes, alla
Funcionalism” – “Note that a ’state’ of the soul may be quite specific and involving
other states, like the belief that Strawson’s dog is shaggy.” – “A state is
anything that follows a ‘that’-clause; the way an object or system basically
is; the fundamental, intrinsic properties of an object or system, and the basis
of its other properties. An instantaneous state is a state at a given time.
State variables are constituents of a state whose values may vary with time. In
classical or Newtonian mechanics the instantaneous state of an n-particle
system consists of the positions and momenta masses multiplied by velocities of
the n particles at a given time. Other mechanical properties are functions of
those in states. Fundamental and derived properties are often, though possibly
misleadingly, called observables. The set of a system’s possible states can be
represented as an abstract phase space or state space, with dimensions or
coordinates for the components of each state variable. In quantum theory,
states do not fix the particular values of observables, only the probabilities
of observables assuming particular values in particular measurement situations.
For positivism or instrumentalism, specifying a quantum state does nothing more
than provide a means for calculating such probabilities. For realism, it does
more e.g., it refers to the basis of a
quantum system’s probabilistic dispositions or propensities. Vectors in Hilbert
spaces represent possible states, and Hermitian operators on vectors represent
observables.
state of affairs. Grice: “My poor friend D. F. Pears
got himself into a lot of trouble by offering to correct C. K. Ogden’s passe
translation of Vitters’s Tractatus!” a possibility, actuality, or impossibility
of the kind expressed by a nominalization of a declarative sentence. The
declarative sentence ‘This die comes up six’ can be nominalized either through
the construction ‘that this die comes up six’ or through the likes of ‘this
die’s coming up six’. The resulting nominalizations might be interpreted as
naming corresponding propositions or states of affairs. States of affairs come
in several varieties. Some are possible states of affairs, or possibilities.
Consider the possibility of a certain die coming up six when rolled next. This
possibility is a state of affairs, as is its “complement” the die’s not coming up six when rolled next.
There is in addition the state of affairs which conjoins that die’s coming up
six with its not coming up six. And this contradictory state of affairs is of
course not a possibility, not a possible state of affairs. Moreover, for every actual
state of affairs there is a non-actual one, its complement. For every
proposition there is hence a state of affairs: possible or impossible, actual
or not. Indeed some consider propositions to be states of affairs. Some take
facts to be actual states of affairs, while others prefer to define them as
true propositions. If propositions are states of affairs, then facts are of
course both actual states of affairs and true propositions. In a very broad
sense, events are just possible states of affairs; in a narrower sense they are
contingent states of affairs; and in a still narrower sense they are contingent
and particular states of affairs, involving just the exemplification of an
nadic property by a sequence of individuals of length n. In a yet narrower sense
events are only those particular and contingent states of affairs that entail
change. A baseball’s remaining round throughout a certain period does not count
as an event in this narrower sense but only as a state of that baseball, unlike
the event of its being hit by a certain bat.
statistics – Grice: “I shall use the singular,
‘statistic’” -- statistical explanation.
Grice: “Jill says, “Jack is an Englishman; he is, therefore, brave.” Is the
validty of her reasoning based on statistics?” -- an explanation expressed in
an explanatory argument containing premises and conclusions making claims about
statistical probabilities. These arguments include deductions of less general
from more general laws and differ from other such explanations only insofar as
the contents of the laws imply claims about statistical probability. Most
philosophical discussion in the latter half of the twentieth century has
focused on statistical explanation of events rather than laws. This type of
argument was discussed by Ernest Nagel The Structure of Science, 1 under the
rubric “probabilistic explanation,” and by Hempel Aspects of Scientific
Explanation, 5 as “inductive statistical” explanation. The explanans contains a
statement asserting that a given system responds in one of several ways
specified by a sample space of possible outcomes on a trial or experiment of
some type, and that the statistical probability of an event represented by a
set of points in the sample space on the given kind of trial is also given for
each such event. Thus, the statement might assert that the statistical
probability is near 1 of the relative frequency r/n of heads in n tosses being
close to the statistical probability p of heads on a single toss, where the
sample space consists of the 2n possible sequences of heads and tails in n
tosses. Nagel and Hempel understood such statistical probability statements to
be covering laws, so that inductive-statistical explanation and
deductivenomological explanation of events are two species of covering law explanation.
The explanans also contains a claim that an experiment of the kind mentioned in
the statistical assumption has taken place e.g., the coin has been tossed n
times. The explanandum asserts that an event of some kind has occurred e.g.,
the coin has landed heads approximately r times in the n tosses. In many cases,
the kind of experiment can be described equivalently as an n-fold repetition of
some other kind of experiment as a thousandfold repetition of the tossing of a
given coin or as the implementation of the kind of trial thousand-fold tossing
of the coin one time. Hence, statistical explanation of events can always be
construed as deriving conclusions about “single cases” from assumptions about
statistical probabilities even when the concern is to explain mass phenomena.
Yet, many authors controversially contrast statistical explanation in quantum
mechanics, which is alleged to require a singlecase propensity interpretation
of statistical probability, with statistical explanation in statistical
mechanics, genetics, and the social sciences, which allegedly calls for a
frequency interpretation. The structure of the explanatory argument of such
statistical explanation has the form of a direct inference from assumptions
about statistical probabilities and the kind of experiment trial which has
taken place to the outcome. One controversial aspect of direct inference is the
problem of the reference class. Since the early nineteenth century, statistical
probability has been understood to be relative to the way the experiment or
trial is described. Authors like J. Venn, Peirce, R. A. Fisher, and
Reichenbach, among many others, have been concerned with how to decide on which
kind of trial to base a direct inference when the trial under investigation is
correctly describable in several ways and the statistical probabilities of
possible outcomes may differ relative to the different sorts of descriptions.
The most comprehensive discussion of this problem of the reference class is
found in the work of H. E. Kyburg e.g., Probability and the Logic of Rational
Belief, 1. Hempel acknowledged its importance as an “epistemic ambiguity” in
inductive statistical explanation. Controversy also arises concerning inductive
acceptance. May the conclusion of an explanatory direct inference be a judgment
as to the subjective probability that the outcome event occurred? May a
judgment that the outcome event occurred is inductively “accepted” be made? Is
some other mode of assessing the claim about the outcome appropriate? Hempel’s
discussion of the “nonconjunctiveness of inductivestatistical” explanation
derives from Kyburg’s earlier account of direct inference where high
probability is assumed to be sufficient for acceptance. Non-conjunctiveness has
been avoided by abandoning the sufficiency of high probability I. Levi,
Gambling with Truth, 7 or by denying that direct inference in
inductive-statistical explanation involves inductive acceptance at all R. C.
Jeffrey, “Statistical Explanation vs. Statistical Inference,” in Essays in
Honor of C. G. Hempel. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Jack and Jill.”
steiner: Austrian spiritualist and founder of anthroposophy.
Trained as a scientist, he edited Goethe’s scientific writings and prepared the
standard edition of his complete works from 9 to 6. Steiner’s major work, Die
Philosophie der Freiheit, was published in 4. His Friedrich Nietzsche: Ein
Kämpfer gegen seine Zeit 5 was tr. in 0 by Margaret deRis as Friedrich
Nietzsche: Fighter for Freedom. Steiner taught at a workingmen’s and edited a literary journal, Magazin für
Literatur, in Berlin. In 1 he embraced a spiritualism which emphasized a form
of knowledge that transcended sensory experience and was attained by the
“higher self.” He held that man had previously been attuned to spiritual processes
by virtue of a dreamlike state of consciousness, but was diverted from this
consciousness by preoccupation with material entities. Through training,
individuals could retrieve their innate capacity to perceive a spiritual realm.
Steiner’s writings on this theme are The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity 4,
Occult Science: An Outline 3, On the Riddle of Man 6, and On the Riddles of the
Soul 7. His last work was his autobiography 4. To advance his teachings, he
founded the Anthroposophical Society 2 and a school of “spiritual science”
called the Goetheanum near Basel, Switzerland. His work inspired the Waldorf
School movement, which comprises some eighty schools for children. The
anthroposophy movement he established remains active in Europe and the United States.
G.J.S. Stephen, Sir Leslie 18324, English literary critic, editor, intellectual
historian, and philosopher. He was the first chief editor of the great
Dictionary of National Biography, writing hundreds of the entries himself.
Brought up in an intensely religious household, he lost his faith and spent
much of his time trying to construct a moral and intellectual outlook to
replace it. His main works in intellectual history, the two-volume History of
English Thought in the Eighteenth Century 1876 and the three-volume English
Utilitarians 0, were undertaken as part of this project. So was his one purely
philosophical work, the Science of Ethics 2, in which he tried to develop an
evolutionary theory of morality. Stephen was impatient of philosophical technicalities.
Hence his treatise on ethics does very little to resolve the problems some of them pointed out to him by his friend
Henry Sidgwick with evolutionary ethics,
and does not get beyond the several other works on the subject published during
this period. His histories of thought are sometimes superficial, and their
focus of interest is not ours; but they are still useful because of their scope
and the massive scholarship they put to use.
Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Steiner and moi.”
Stillingfleet: e.
English divine and controversialist who first made his name with “Irenicum,”
using natural-law doctrines to oppose religious sectarianism. His “Origines
Sacrae” ostensibly on the superiority of the Scriptural record over other forms
of ancient history, was for its day a learned study in the moral certainty of
historical evidence, the authority of testimony, and the credibility of
miracles. In drawing eclectically on philosophy from antiquity to the Cambridge
Platonists, he was much influenced by the Cartesian theory of ideas, but later
repudiated Cartesianism for its mechanist tendency. For three decades he
pamphleteered on behalf of the moral certainty of orthodox Protestant belief
against what he considered the beliefs “contrary to reason” of Roman Catholicism.
This led to controversy with Unitarian and deist writers who argued that
mysteries like the Trinity were equally contrary to “clear and distinct” ideas.
He was alarmed at the use made of Locke’s “new,” i.e. nonCartesian, way of
ideas by John Toland in Christianity not Mysterious, and devoted his last years
to challenging Locke to prove his orthodoxy. The debate was largely over the
concepts of substance, essence, and person, and of faith and certainty. Locke
gave no quarter in the public controversy, but in the fourth edition of his
Essay he silently amended some passages that had provoked Stillingfleet.
Schmidt: -- Stirner, Max, pseudonym of Kasper Schmidt, philosopher
who proposed a theory of radical individualism. Born in Bayreuth, he taught in
Gymnasiums and later at a Berlin academy for women. He tr. what became a
standard G. version of Smith’s Wealth of Nations and contributed articles to
the Rhenische Zeitung. His most important work was statistical probability, “Der
Einzige und sein Eigenthum,” tr. by Steven T. Byington as The Ego and His Own,
and Grice as “The idiot and his idiocy.” -- His second book was “Die Geschichte
der Reaktion.” Schmidt is in reaction to Hegel and was for a time associated
with the left Hegelians. He stressed the priority of will and instinct over
reason and proposed a radical anarchic individualism. Each individual is
unique, and the independent ego is the fundamental value and reality. Stirner
attacks the state, religious ideas, and abstractions such as “humanity” as “spectres”
that are deceptive illusions, remnants of erroneous hypostatizations. His
defense of egoism is such that the individual is considered to have no
obligations or duties, and especially not to the state. Encouraging an
individual “rebellion” against state domination and control, Stirner attracted
a following among nineteenthand twentieth-century anarchists. The sole goal of
life is the cultivation of “uniqueness” or “ownness.” Engels and Marx attack
his ideas at length under the rubric “Saint Marx” in The G. Ideology. Insofar
as his theory of radical individualism offers no clearly stated ethical
requirements, it has been characterized as a form of nihilistic egoism. Refs.:
H. P. Grice: “Schmidt, or the idiot and his idiocy.”
stochastic process – 1660s,
"pertaining to conjecture," from Greek stokhastikos "able to
guess, conjecturing," from stokhazesthai "to guess, aim at,
conjecture," from stokhos "a guess, aim, fixed target, erected pillar
for archers to shoot at," perhaps from PIE *stogh-, variant of root
*stegh- "to stick, prick, sting." The sense of "randomly
determined" is from 1934, from German stochastik (1917). a process
that evolves, as time goes by, according to a probabilistic principle rather
than a deterministic principle. Such processes are also called random
processes, but ‘stochastic’ does not imply complete disorderliness. The
principle of evolution governing a stochastic or random process is precise,
though probabilistic, in form. For example, suppose some process unfolds in
discrete successive stages. And suppose that given any initial sequence of
stages, S1, S2, . . . , Sn, there is a precise probability that the next stage
Sn+1 will be state S, a precise probability that it will be SH, and so on for
all possible continuations of the sequence of states. These probabilities are
called transition probabilities. An evolving sequence of this kind is called a
discrete-time stochastic process, or discrete-time random process. A
theoretically important special case occurs when transition probabilities
depend only on the latest stage in the sequence of stages. When an evolving
process has this property it is called a discrete-time Markov process. A simple
example of a discrete-time Markov process is the behavior of a person who keeps
taking either a step forward or a step back according to whether a coin falls
heads or tails; the probabilistic principle of movement is always applied to the
person’s most recent position. The successive stages of a stochastic process
need not be discrete. If they are continuous, they constitute a
“continuous-time” stochastic or random process. The mathematical theory of
stochastic processes has many applications in science and technology. The
evolution of epidemics, the process of soil erosion, and the spread of cracks
in metals have all been given plausible models as stochastic processes, to
mention just a few areas of research. H.
P. Grice, “Stochastic implicatum.”
stoa – H. P. Grice: “The Stoa and Athenian dialectic.” -- stoicism,
one of the three leading movements constituting Hellenistic philosophy. Its
founder was Zeno of Citium, who was succeeded as school head by Cleanthes. But
the third head, Chrysippus, was its greatest exponent and most voluminous
writer. These three are the leading representatives of Early Stoicism. No work
by any early Stoic survives intact, except Cleanthes’ short “Hymn to Zeus.”
Otherwise we are dependent on doxography, on isolated quotations, and on
secondary sources, most of them hostile. Nevertheless, a remarkably coherent
account of the system can be assembled. The Stoic world is an ideally good
organism, all of whose parts interact for the benefit of the whole. It is
imbued with divine reason logos, its entire development providentially ordained
by fate and repeated identically from one world phase to the next in a
never-ending cycle, each phase ending with a conflagration ekpyrosis. Only
bodies strictly “exist” and can interact. Body is infinitely divisible, and
contains no void. At the lowest level, the world is analyzed into an active
principle, god, and a passive principle, matter, both probably corporeal. Out
of these are generated, at a higher level, the four elements air, fire, earth,
and water, whose own interaction is analogous to that of god and matter: air
and fire, severally or conjointly, are an active rational force called breath
Grecian pneuma, Latin spiritus, while earth and water constitute the passive
substrate on which these act, totally interpenetrating each other thanks to the
non-particulate structure of body and its capacity to be mixed “through and
through.” Most physical analysis is conducted at this higher level, and pneuma
becomes a key concept in physics and biology. A thing’s qualities are
constituted by its pneuma, which has the additional role of giving it
cohestochastic process Stoicism 879 879
sion and thus an essential identity. In inanimate objects this unifying pneuma
is called a hexis state; in plants it is called physis nature; and in animals
“soul.” Even qualities of soul, e.g. justice, are portions of pneuma, and they
too are therefore bodies: only thus could they have their evident causal
efficacy. Four incorporeals are admitted: place, void which surrounds the
world, time, and lekta see below; these do not strictly “exist” they lack the corporeal power of
interaction but as items with some
objective standing in the world they are, at least, “somethings.” Universals,
identified with Plato’s Forms, are treated as concepts ennoemata, convenient
fictions that do not even earn the status of “somethings.” Stoic ethics is
founded on the principle that only virtue is good, only vice bad. Other things
conventionally assigned a value are “indifferent” adiaphora, although some,
e.g., health, wealth, and honor, are naturally “preferred” proegmena, while their
opposites are “dispreferred” apoproegmena. Even though their possession is
irrelevant to happiness, from birth these indifferents serve as the appropriate
subject matter of our choices, each correct choice being a “proper function”
kathekon not yet a morally good act, but
a step toward our eventual end telos of “living in accordance with nature.” As
we develop our rationality, the appropriate choices become more complex, less
intuitive. For example, it may sometimes be more in accordance with nature’s plan
to sacrifice your wealth or health, in which case it becomes your “proper
function” to do so. You have a specific role to play in the world plan, and
moral progress prokope consists in learning it. This progress involves widening
your natural “affinity” oikeiosis: an initial concern for yourself and your
parts is later extended to those close to you, and eventually to all mankind.
That is the Stoic route toward justice. However, justice and the other virtues
are actually found only in the sage, an idealized perfectly rational person
totally in tune with the divine cosmic plan. The Stoics doubted whether any
sages existed, although there was a tendency to treat at least Socrates as
having been one. The sage is totally good, everyone else totally bad, on the
paradoxical Stoic principle that all sins are equal. The sage’s actions,
however similar externally to mere “proper functions,” have an entirely
distinct character: they are renamed ‘right actions’ katorthomata. Acting
purely from “right reason,” he is distinguished by his “freedom from passion”
apatheia: morally wrong impulses, or passions, are at root intellectual errors
of mistaking what is indifferent for good or bad, whereas the sage’s
evaluations are always correct. The sage alone is happy and truly free, living
in perfect harmony with the divine plan. All human lives are predetermined by
the providentially designed, all-embracing causal nexus of fate; yet being the
principal causes of their actions, the good and the bad alike are responsible
for them: determinism and morality are fully compatible. Stoic epistemology
defends the existence of cognitive certainty against the attacks of the New
Academy. Belief is described as assent synkatathesis to an impression
phantasia, i.e. taking as true the propositional content of some perceptual or
reflective impression. Certainty comes through the “cognitive impression”
phantasia kataleptike, a self-certifying perceptual representation of external
fact, claimed to be commonplace. Out of sets of such impressions we acquire
generic conceptions prolepseis and become rational. The highest intellectual
state, knowledge episteme, in which all cognitions become mutually supporting
and hence “unshakable by reason,” is the prerogative of the wise. Everyone else
is in a state of mere opinion doxa or of ignorance. Nevertheless, the cognitive
impression serves as a “criterion of truth” for all. A further important
criterion is prolepseis, also called common conceptions and common notions
koinai ennoiai, often appealed to in philosophical argument. Although
officially dependent on experience, they often sound more like innate
intuitions, purportedly indubitable. Stoic logic is propositional, by contrast
with Aristotle’s logic of terms. The basic unit is the simple proposition
axioma, the primary bearer of truth and falsehood. Syllogistic also employs
complex propositions conditional,
conjunctive, and disjunctive and rests
on five “indemonstrable” inference schemata to which others can be reduced with
the aid of four rules called themata. All these items belong to the class of
lekta “sayables” or “expressibles.”
Words are bodies vibrating portions of air, as are external objects, but
predicates like that expressed by ‘ . . . walks’, and the meanings of whole
sentences, e.g., ‘Socrates walks’, are incorporeal lekta. The structure and
content of both thoughts and sentences are analyzed by mapping them onto lekta,
but the lekta are themselves causally inert. Conventionally, a second phase of
the school is distinguished as Middle Stoicism. It developed largely at Rhodes
under Panaetius and Posidonius, both of whom influenced the presentation of
Stoicism in Cicero’s influential philosophical treatises mid-first century
B.C.. Panaetius Stoicism Stoicism 880
880 c.185c.110 softened some classical Stoic positions, his ethics being
more pragmatic and less concerned with the idealized sage. Posidonius c.135c.50
made Stoicism more open to Platonic and Aristotelian ideas, reviving Plato’s
inclusion of irrational components in the soul. A third phase, Roman Stoicism,
is the only Stoic era whose writings have survived in quantity. It is
represented especially by the younger Seneca A.D. c.165, Epictetus A.D.
c.55c.135, and Marcus Aurelius A.D. 12180. It continued the trend set by
Panaetius, with a strong primary focus on practical and personal ethics. Many
prominent Roman political figures were Stoics. After the second century A.D.
Stoicism as a system fell from prominence, but its terminology and concepts had
by then become an ineradicable part of ancient thought. Through the writings of
Cicero and Seneca, its impact on the moral and political thought of the
Renaissance was immense.
stoutianism: g. f., philosophical psychologist, astudent
of Ward, he was influenced by Herbart and especially Brentano. He influenced
Grice to the point that Grice called himself “a true Stoutian.” He was editor of Mind 20. He followed Ward in
rejecting associationism and sensationism, and proposing analysis of mind as
activity rather than passivity, consisting of acts of cognition, feeling, and
conation. Stout stressed attention as the essential function of mind, and
argued for the goal-directedness of all mental activity and behavior, greatly
influencing McDougall’s hormic psychology. He reinterpreted traditional
associationist ideas to emphasize primacy of mental activity; e.g., association
by contiguity a passive mechanical
process imposed on mind became
association by continuity of attentional interest. With Brentano, he argued
that mental representation involves “thought reference” to a real object known
through the representation that is itself the object of thought, like Locke’s
“idea.” In philosophy he was influenced by Moore and Russell. His major works
are Analytic Psychology 6 and Manual of Psychology 9.
Strato: Grecian philosopher and polymath nicknamed “the
Physicist” for his innovative ideas in natural science. He succeeded
Theophrastus as head of the Lyceum. Earlier he served as royal tutor in
Alexandria, where his students included Aristarchus, who devised the first
heliocentric model. Of Strato’s many writings only fragments and summaries
survive. These show him criticizing the abstract conceptual analysis of earlier
theorists and paying closer attention to empirical evidence. Among his targets were
atomist arguments that motion is impossible unless there is void, and also
Aristotle’s thesis that matter is fully continuous. Strato argued that no large
void occurs in nature, but that matter is naturally porous, laced with tiny
pockets of void. His investigations of compression and suction were influential
in ancient physiology. In dynamics, he proposed that bodies have no property of
lightness but only more or less weight.
strawsonise: verb invented by A. M. Kemmerling. To adopt
Strawson’s manoever in the analysis of ‘meaning.’ “A form of ‘disgricing,’” –
Kemmerling adds.
Strawsonism – Grice’s favourite Strawsonisms were too
many to count. His first was Strawson on ‘true’ for ‘Analysis.’ Grice was
amazed by the rate of publishing in Strawson’s case. Strawson kept publishing
and Grice kept criticizing. In “Analysis,’ Strawson gives Grice his first
‘strawsonism’ “To say ‘true’ is ditto.’ The second strawsonism is that there is
such a thing as ‘ordinary language’ which is not Russellian. As Grice shows,
ordinary language IS Russellian. Strawson said that composing “In defence of a
dogma” was torture and that it is up to Strawson to finish the thing off. So there are a few strawonisms there, too. Strawson
had the courtesy never to reprint ‘In defence’ in any of his compilations, and
of course to have Grice as fist author. There are ‘strawsonisms’ in Grice’s
second collaboration with Strawson – that Grice intentionally ignores in “Life
and opinions.” This is a transcript of the talk of the dynamic trio: Grice,
Pears, and Strawson, published three years later by Pears in “The nature of
metaphysics.” Strawson collaborated with “If and the horseshoe” to PGRICE, but
did not really write it for the occasion. It was an essay he had drafted ages
ago, and now saw fit to publish. He expands on this in his note on Grice for
the British Academy, and in his review of Grice’s compilation. Grice makes an
explicit mention of Strawson in a footnote in “Presupposition and
conversational implicaturum,” the euphemism he uses is ‘tribute’: the
refutation of Strawson’s truth-value gap as a metaphysical excrescence and
unnecessary is called a ‘tribute,’ coming from the tutor – “in this and other
fields,” implicating, “there may be mistakes all over the place.” Kemmerling
somewhat ignores Urmson when he says, “Don’t disgrice if you can grice.” To
strawsonise, for Kemmerling is to avoid Grice’s direct approach and ask for a
higher-level intention. To strawsonise is the first level of disgrice. But
Grice first quotes Urmson and refers to Stampe’s briddge example before he does
to Strawson’s rat-infested house example.
strawson’s
rat-infested house. Few in Grice’s
playgroup had Grice’s analytic skills. Only a few cared to join him in his
analysis of ‘mean.’ The first was Urmson with the ‘bribe.’ The second was
Strawson, with his rat-infested house. Grice re-writes Strawson’s alleged
counterexample. To deal with his own rat-infested house example, Strawson
proposes that the analysans of "U means that p" might be restricted
by the addition of a further condition, namely that the utterer U should utter
x not only, as already provided, with the intention that his addressee should
think that U intends to obtain a certain response from his addressee, but also
with the intention that his addressee should think (recognize) that U has the
intention just mentioned. In Strawson's example, in The Philosohical
Review (that Grice cites on WOW:x) repr. in his "Logico-Linguistic
Papers," the potential home buyer is intended to think that the realtor
wants him to think that the house is rat-infested. However, the potential
house-buyer is not intended by the realtor to think that he is intended to
think that the realtor wants him to think that the house is rat infested. The
addressee is intended to think that it is only as a result of being too
clever for the realtor that he has learned that the potential home
buyer wants him to think that the house is rat-infested; the
potential home-buyer is to think that he is supposed to take the artificially
displayed dead rat as a evidence that the house is rat infested. U
wants to get A to believe that the house A is thinking of buying is
rat-infested. S decides to· bring about this belief in A by taking into the
house and letting loose a big fat sewer rat. For S has the following
scheme. He knows that A is watching him and knows that A believes that S
is unaware that he, A, is watching him. It isS's intention that A should
(wrongly) infer from the fact that S let the rat loose that S did so with the intention
that A should arrive at the house, see the rat, and, taking the rat as
"natural evidence", infer therefrom that the house is rat-infested. S
further intends A to realize that given the nature of the rat's arrival, the
existence of the rat cannot be taken as genuine or natural evidence that the
house is rat-infested; but S kilows that A will believe that S would not so
contrive to get A to believe the house is rat-infested unless Shad very good
reasons for thinking that it was, and so S expects and intends A to infer that
the house is rat-infested from the fact that Sis letting the rat loose with the
intention of getting A to believe that the house is rat-infested. Thus S
satisfies the conditions purported to be necessary and sufficient for his
meaning something by letting the rat loose: S lets the rat loose intending (4)
A to think that the house is rat-infested, intending (1)-(3) A to infer from
the fact that S let the rat loose that S did so intending A to think that the
house is rat-infested, and intending (5) A's recognition of S's . intention (4)
to function as his reason for thinking that the house is rat-infested. But
even though S's action meets these conditions, Strawson feels that his
scenario fits Grice's conditions in Grice's reductive analysis and not yet
Strawson's intuition about his own use of 'communicate.' To minimise Strawson's
discomfort, Grice brings an anti-sneaky clause. ("Although I never shared
Strawson's intuition about his use of 'communicate;' in fact, I very rarely use
'communicate that...' To exterminate the rats in Strawson's rat-infested house,
Grice uses, as he should, a general "anti-deception"
clause. It may be that the use of this exterminating procedure is
possible. It may be that any 'backward-looking' clauses can be exterminated,
and replaced by a general prohibitive, or closure clause, forbidding an
intention by the utterer to be sneaky. It is a conceptual point that if you
intend your addressee NOT TO REALISE that p, you are not COMMUNICATING that
p. (3A) (if) (3r) (ic): (a) U utters x intending (I) A to
think x possesses f (2) A to thinkf correlated in way c with the type
to which r belongs (3) A to think, on the basis of the fulfillment of (I)
and (3) that U intends A to produce r (4) A, on the basis of the fulfillment of
(3) to produce r, and (b) There is no inference-element E such
that U intends both (I') A in his determination of r to rely on E (2') A to
think Uto intend (I') to be false. In the final version Grice reaches after
considering alleged counterexamples to the NECESSITY of some of the conditions
in the analysans, Grice reformulates. It is not the case that, for some
inference element E, U intends x to be such that anyone who
has φ both rely on E in coming to ψ, or think that U ψ-s, that p and think that (Ǝφ) U intends x to be
such that anyone who has φ come to ψ (or think that U ψ-s) that
p without relying on E. Embedded in the general definition. By uttering x,
U means that-ψb-dp ≡ (Ǝφ)(Ǝf)(Ǝc) U
utters x intending x to be such that anyone who
has φ think that x has f, f is correlated in way c
with ψ-ing that p, and (Ǝφ') U intends x to be such
that anyone who has φ' think, via thinking that x has
f and that f is correlated in way c with ψ-ing that p, that U ψ-s that
p, and in view of (Ǝφ') U intending x to be such
that anyone who has φ' think, via thinking that x has
f, and f is correlated in way c with ψ-ing that p, that U ψ-s that
p, U ψ-s that p, and, for some
substituends of ψb-d, U utters x
intending that, should there actually be anyone who
has φ, he will, via thinking in view of (Ǝφ') U
intending x to be such that anyone who has φ' think, via
thinking that x has f, and f is correlated in way c
with ψ-ing that p, that U ψ-s that p, U ψ-s that
p himself ψ that p, and it is not
the case that, for some inference element E, U intends x to be such
that anyone who has φ both rely on E in coming to ψ, or think that U ψ-s, that p and think that (Ǝφ) U intends x to be
such that anyone who has φ come to ψ (or think that U ψ-s) that
p without relying on E,
strawson: p. f. – Grice’s tutee. b.9, London-born,
Oxford-educated philosopher who has made major contributions to logic,
metaphysics, and the study of Kant. His career has been mainly at Oxford (he
spent a term in Wales and visited the New World a lot), where he was the
leading philosopher of his generation, due to that famous tutor he had for his
‘logic paper’: H. P. Grice, at St. John’s. His first important work, “On
Referring” argues that Baron Russell’s theory of descriptions fails to deal
properly with the role of descriptions as “referring expressions” because
Russell assumed the “bogus trichotomy” that sentences are true, false, or
meaningless: for Strawson, sentences with empty descriptions are meaningful but
“neither true nor false” because the general presuppositions governing the use
of referring expressions are not fulfilled. One aspect of this argument was
Russell’s alleged insensitivity to the ordinary use of definite descriptions.
The contrast between the abstract schemata of formal logic and the manifold
richness of the inferences inherent in ordinary language is the central theme
of Strawson’s “ Introduction to Logical Theory,” where he credits H. P. Grice
for making him aware of ‘pragmatic rules’ of conversation – Grice was amused
that Baron Russell cared to respond to Strawson in “Mind” – where Russell’s
original “On denoting” had been published. Together, after a joint seminar with
Quine, Strawson submitted “In defense of a dogma,” co-written with Grice – A
year later Strawson submitted on Grice’s behalf “Meaning” to the same journal –
They participated with Pears in a Third programme lecture, published by Pears
in “The nature of metaphysics” (London, Macmillan”). In Individuals,
provocatively entitled “an essay in DESCRIPTIVE (never revisionary)
metaphysics,” Strawson, drawing “without crediting” on joint seminars with Grice
on Categories and De Interpretatione, Strawson reintroduced metaphysics as a respectable
philosophical discipline after decades of positivist rhetoric. But his project
is only “descriptive” metaphysics
elucidation of the basic features of our own conceptual scheme and his arguments are based on the philosophy
of language: “basic” particulars are those like “Grice” or his “cricket bat”,
which are basic objects of reference, and it is the spatiotemporal and sortal
conditions for their identification and reidentification by speakers that
constitute the basic categories. Three arguments are especially famous. First, even
in a purely auditory world objective reference on the basis of experience
requires at least an analogue of space. Second, because self-reference
presupposes reference to others, persons, conceived as bearers of both physical
and psychological properties, are a type of basic particular – cfr. Grice on
“Personal identity.” Third, “feature-placing” discourse, such as ‘it is snowing
here now’, is “the ultimate propositional level” through which reference to
particulars enters discourse. Strawson’s next book, The Bounds of Sense 6,
provides a critical reading of Kant’s theoretical philosophy. His aim is to
extricate what he sees as the profound truths concerning the presuppositions of
objective experience and judgment that Kant’s transcendental arguments
establish from the mysterious metaphysics of Kant’s transcendental idealism.
Strawson’s critics have argued, however, that the resulting position is
unstable: transcendental arguments can tell us only what we must suppose to be
the case. So if Kant’s idealism, which restricts such suppositions to things as
they appear to us, is abandoned, we can draw conclusions concerning the way the
world itself must be only if we add the verificationist thesis that ability to
make sense of such suppositions requires ability to verify them. In his next
book, Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties 5, Strawson conceded this:
transcendental arguments belong within descriptive metaphysics and should not
be regarded as attempts to provide an external justification of our conceptual
scheme. In truth no such external justification is either possible or needed:
instead and here Strawson invokes Hume
rather than Kant our reasonings come to
an end in natural propensities for belief that are beyond question because they
alone make it possible to raise questions. In a famous earlier paper Strawson
had urged much the same point concerning the free will debate: defenders of our
ordinary attitudes of reproach and gratitude should not seek to ground them in
the “panicky metaphysics” of a supra-causal free will; instead they can and
need do no more than point to our unshakable commitment to these “reactive”
attitudes through which we manifest our attachment to that fundamental category
of our conceptual scheme persons.
Strozzi:
Important Italian philosopher -- Luigi Speranza,
"Grice e Strozzi -- Grecian, Griceian," per il Club Anglo-Italiano, The
Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.
structuratum: mid-15c.,
"action or process of building or construction;" 1610s, "that
which is constructed, a building or edifice;" from Latin structura "a
fitting together, adjustment; a building, mode of building;" figuratively,
"arrangement, order," from structus, past participle of struere
"to pile, place together, heap up; build, assemble, arrange, make by
joining together," related to strues "heap," from PIE *streu-,
extended form of root *stere- "to spread.” structuralism, a
distinctive yet extremely wide range of productive research conducted in the
social and human sciences from the 0s through the 0s, principally in France. It
is difficult to describe structuralism as a movement, because of the
methodological constraints exercised by the various disciplines that came to be
influenced by structuralism e.g.,
anthropology, philosophy, literary theory, psychoanalysis, political theory,
even mathematics. Nonetheless, structuralism is generally held to derive its
organizing principles from the early twentieth-century work of Saussure, the
founder of structural linguistics. Arguing against the prevailing historicist
and philological approaches to linguistics, he proposed a “scientific” model of
language, one understood as a closed system of elements and rules that account
for the production and the social communication of meaning. Inspired by
Durkheim’s notion of a “social fact”
that domain of objectivity wherein the psychological and the social
orders converge Saussure viewed language
as the repository of discursive signs shared by a given linguistic community.
The particular sign is composed of two elements, a phonemic signifier, or
distinctive sound element, and a corresponding meaning, or signified element.
The defining relation between the sign’s sound and meaning components is held
to be arbitrary, i.e., based on conventional association, and not due to any
function of the speaking subject’s personal inclination, or to any external
consideration of reference. What lends specificity or identity to each
particular signifier is its differential relation to the other signifiers in
the greater set; hence, each basic unit of language is itself the product of
differences between other elements within the system. This principle of differential and structural relation was extended by Troubetzkoy to the
order of phonemes, whereby a defining set of vocalic differences underlies the
constitution of all linguistic phonemes. Finally, for Saussure, the closed set
of signs is governed by a system of grammatical, phonemic, and syntactic rules.
Language thus derives its significance from its own autonomous organization,
and this serves to guarantee its communicative function. Since language is the
foremost instance of social sign systems in general, the structural account
might serve as an exemplary model for understanding the very intelligibility of
social systems as such hence, its
obvious relevance to the broader concerns of the social and human sciences.
This implication was raised by Saussure himself, in his Course on General
Linguistics6, but it was advanced dramatically by the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss who is generally acknowledged to be the
founder of modern structuralism in his
extensive analyses in the area of social anthropology, beginning with his
Elementary Structures of Kinship 9. Lévi-Strauss argued that society is itself
organized according to one form or another of significant communication and
exchange whether this be of information,
knowledge, or myths, or even of its members themselves. The organization of
social phenomena could thus be clarified through a detailed elaboration of
their subtending structures, which, collectively, testify to a deeper and
all-inclusive, social rationality. As with the analysis of language, these
social structures would be disclosed, not by direct observation, but by
inference and deduction from the observed empirical data. Furthermore, since
these structures are models of specific relations, which in turn express the
differential properties of the component elements under investigation, the
structural analysis is both readily formalizable and susceptible to a broad
variety of applications. In Britain, e.g., Edmund Leach pursued these analyses
in the domain of social anthropology; in the United States, Chomsky applied
insights of structuralism to linguistic theory and philosophy of mind; in
Italy, Eco conducted extensive structuralist analyses in the fields of social
and literary semiotics. With its acknowledgment that language is a rule-governed
social system of signs, and that effective communication depends on the
resources available to the speaker from within the codes of language itself,
the structuralist approach tends to be less preoccupied with the more
traditional considerations of “subjectivity” and “history” in its treatment of
meaningful discourse. In the post-structuralism that grew out of this approach,
the philosopher Foucault, e.g., focused
on the generation of the “subject” by the various epistemic discourses of
imitation and representation, as well as on the institutional roles of
knowledge and power in producing and conserving particular “disciplines” in the
natural and social sciences. These disciplines, Foucault suggested, in turn
govern our theoretical and practical notions of madness, criminality,
punishment, sexuality, etc., notions that collectively serve to “normalize” the
individual subject to their determinations. Likewise, in the domain of
psychoanalysis, Lacan drew on the work of Saussure and Lévi-Strauss to emphasize
Freud’s concern with language and to argue that, as a set of determining codes,
language serves to structure the subject’s very unconscious. Problematically,
however, it is the very dynamism of language, including metaphor, metonymy,
condensation, displacement, etc., that introduces the social symbolic into the
constitution of the subject. Althusser applied the principles of structuralist
methodology to his analysis of Marxism, especially the role played by
contradiction in understanding infrastructural and superstructural formation,
i.e., for the constitution of the historical dialectic. His account followed
Marx’s rejection of Feuerbach, at once denying the role of traditional
subjectivity and humanism, and presenting a “scientific” analysis of “historical
materialism,” one that would be anti-historicist in principle but attentive to
the actual political state of affairs. For Althusser, such a philosophical
analysis helped provide an “objective” discernment to the historical
transformation of social reality. The restraint the structuralists extended
toward the traditional views of subjectivity and history dramatically colored
their treatment both of the individuals who are agents of meaningful discourse
and of the linguistically articulable object field in general. This redirection
of research interests particularly in France, due to the influential work of
Barthes and Michel Serres in the fields of poetics, cultural semiotics, and
communication theory has resulted in a series of original analyses and also
provoked lively debates between the adherents of structuralist methodology and
the more conventionally oriented schools of thought e.g., phenomenology,
existentialism, Marxism, and empiricist and positivist philosophies of science.
These debates served as an agency to open up subsequent discussions on
deconstruction and postmodernist theory for the philosophical generation of the
0s and later. These post-structuralist thinkers were perhaps less concerned
with the organization of social phenomena than with their initial constitution
and subsequent dynamics. Hence, the problematics of the subject and
history or, in broader terms,
temporality itself were again engaged.
The new discussions were abetted by a more critical appraisal of language and
tended to be antiHegelian in their rejection of the totalizing tendency of
systematic metaphysics. Heidegger’s critique of traditional metaphysics was one
of the major influences in the discussions following structuralism, as was the
reexamination of Nietzsche’s earlier accounts of “genealogy,” his
antiessentialism, and his teaching of a dynamic “will to power.” Additionally,
many poststructuralist philosophers stressed the Freudian notions of the libido
and the unconscious as determining factors in understanding not only the
subject, but the deep rhetorical and affective components of language use. An
astonishing variety of philosophers and critics engaged in the debates
initially framed by the structuralist thinkers of the period, and their
extended responses and critical reappraisals formed the vibrant,
poststructuralist period of intellectual
life. Such figures as Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, Kristeva, Maurice Blanchot,
Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, Philippe
LacoueLabarthe, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Irigaray inaugurated a series of
contemporary reflections that have become international in scope. Refs.: H. P.
Grice, “The structure of structure.”
Suarez, also known as Doctor Eximius, Jesuit philosopher and theologian. Born in
Granada, he studied at Salamanca and taught there and at Rome, Coimbra, and
other leading universities. Suárez’s most important works are De legibus “On
Law,” 1612, De Deo uno et trino “On the Trinity,” 1606, De anima “On the Soul,”
1621, and the monumental Disputationes metaphysicae “Metaphysical
Disputations,” 1597. The Disputationes has a unique place in philosophy, being
the first systematic and comprehensive work of metaphysics written in the West
that is not a commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Divided into fifty-four
disputations, it discusses every metaphysical issue known at the time. Its
influence was immediate and lasting and can be seen in the work of Scholastics
in both Europe and Latin America, and of modern philosophers such as Descartes,
Leibniz, Wolff, and Schopenhauer. Suárez’s main contributions to philosophy
occurred in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of law. In all three
areas he was influenced by Aristotle and Aquinas, although he also drew
inspiration from Ockham, Duns Scotus, and others. In metaphysics, Suárez is
known for his views on the nature of metaphysics, being, and individuation.
Metaphysics is the science of “being insofar as it is real being” ens in
quantum ens reale, and its proper object of study is the object concept of
being. This understanding of the object of metaphysics is often seen as paving
the way for early modern metaphysical theory, in which the object of
metaphysics is mental. For Suárez the concept of being is derived by analogy
from the similarity existing among things. Existing reality for Suárez is
composed of individuals: everything that exists is individual, including
substances and their properties, accidents, principles, and components. He
understands individuality as incommunicability, namely, the inability of
individuals to be divided into entities of the same specific kind as
themselves. The principle of individuation is “entity,” which he identifies
with “essence as it exists.” This principle applies both to substances and
their properties, accidents, principles, and components. In epistemology, two
of Suárez’s views stand out: that the intellect knows the individual through a
proper and separate concept without structuralism, mathematical Suárez,
Francisco 884 884 having to turn to
reflection, a position that supports an empiricist epistemology in which,
contrary to Thomism, knowledge of the individual is not mediated through
universals; and 2 his view of middle knowledge scientia media, the knowledge
God has of what every free creature would freely do in every possible
situation. This notion was used by Suárez and Molina to explain how God can
control human actions without violating free will. In philosophy of law, Suárez
was an innovative thinker whose ideas influenced Grotius. For him law is
fundamentally an act of the will rather than a result of an ordinance of
reason, as Aquinas held. Law is divided into eternal, divine, natural, and
human. Human law is based on natural or divine law and is not the result of
human creation.
Sub-perceptual -- subdoxastic, pertaining to states of
mind postulated to account for the production and character of certain
apparently non-inferential beliefs. These were first discussed by Stephen P.
Stich in “Beliefs and Subdoxastic States” 8. I may form the belief that you are
depressed, e.g., on the basis of subtle cues that I am unable to articulate.
The psychological mechanism responsible for this belief might be thought to
harbor information concerning these cues subdoxastically. Although subdoxastic
states resemble beliefs in certain respects
they incorporate intentional content, they guide behavior, they can
bestow justification on beliefs they
differ from fullyfledged doxastic states or beliefs in at least two respects.
First, as noted above, subdoxastic states may be largely inaccessible to
introspection; I may be unable to describe, even on reflection, the basis of my
belief that you are depressed. Second, subdoxastic states seem cut off
inferentially from an agent’s corpus of beliefs; my subdoxastic appreciation
that your forehead is creased may contribute to my believing that you are
depressed, but, unlike the belief that your forehead is creased, it need not,
in the presence of other beliefs, lead to further beliefs about your visage.
Sub-iectum – sub-iectificatio -- subjectification: Grice
is right in distinguishing this from nominalization, because not all
nominalization takes the subject position. Grice plays with this. It is a
derivation of the ‘subjectum,’ which Grice knows it is Aristotelian. Liddell
and Scott have the verb first, and the neuter singular later. “τὸ ὑποκείμενον,”
Liddell and Scott note “has three main applications.” The first is “to the
matter (hyle) which underlies the form (eidos), as opp. To both “εἶδος” and
“ἐντελέχεια” Met. 983a30; second, to the substantia (hyle + morphe) which
underlies the accidents, and as opposed to “πάθη,” and “συμβεβηκότα,” as in
Cat. 1a20,27 and Met.1037b16, 983b16; third, and this is the use that
‘linguistic’ turn Grice and Strawson are interested in, “to the logical subject
to which attributes are ascribed,” and here opp. “τὸ κατηγορούμενον,” (which
would be the ‘praedicatum’), as per Cat.1b10,21, Ph.189a31. If Grice uses
Kiparsky’s factive, he is also using ‘nominalisation’ as grammarians use it.
Refs.: Grice, “Reply to Richards,” in PGRICE, also BANC.
sub-iectum -- subjectivism: When Grice speaks of the
subjective condition on intention, he is using ‘subject,’ in a way a
philosophical psychologist would. He does not mean Kant’s transcendental subject
or ego. Grice means the simpler empiricist subject, personal identity, or self.
The choice is unfelicitious in that ‘subject’ contrasts with ‘object.’ So when
he speaks of a ‘subjective’ person he means an ‘ego-centric’ condition, or a
self-oriented condition, or an agent-oriented condition, or an
‘utterer-oriented’ or ‘utterer-relative’ condition. But this is tricky. His
example: “Nixon should get that chair of theology.” The utterer may have to put
into Nixon’s shoes. He has to perceive Nixon as a PERSON, a rational agent,
with views of his own. So, the philosophical psychologist that Grice is has to
think of a conception of the self by the self, and the conception of the other
by the self. Wisdom used to talk of ‘other minds;’ Grice might speak of other
souls. Grice was concerned with intending folloed by a that-clause. Jeffrey
defines desirability as doxastically modified. It is entirely possible for
someone to desire the love that he already has. It is what he thinks that
matters. Cf. his dispositional account to intending. A Subjectsive
condition takes into account the intenders, rather than the ascribers, point of
view: Marmaduke Bloggs intends to climb Mt. Everest on hands and knees.
Bloggs might reason: Given my present state, I should do what is
fun. Given my present state, the best thing for me to do would be to do
what is fun. For me in my present state it would make for my well-being,
to have fun. Having fun is good, or, a good. Climbing a mountain would be
fun. Climbing the Everest would be/make for climbing fun. So, I shall
climb the Everest. Even if a critic insisted that a practical syllogism is
the way to represent Bloggs finding something to be appealing, and that it
should be regarded as a respectable evaluation, the assembled propositions dont
do the work of a standard argument. The premises do not support or yield the
conclusion as in a standard argument. The premises may be said to yield the
conclusion, or directive, for the particular agent whose reasoning process it
is, only on the basis of a Subjectsive condition: that the agent is in a
certain Subjectsive state, e.g. feels like going out for dinner-fun. Rational
beings (the agent at some other time, or other individuals) who do not have
that feeling, will not accept the conclusion. They may well accept as true. It
is fun to climb Everest, but will not accept it as a directive unless they feel
like it now. Someone wondering what to do for the summer might think that if he
were to climb Everest he would find it fun or pleasant, but right now she does
not feel like it. That is in general the end of the matter. The alleged
argument lacks normativity. It is not authoritative or directive unless there
is a supportive argument that he needs/ought to do something diverting/pleasant
in the summer. A practical argument is different. Even if an agent did not feel
like going to the doctor, an agent would think I ought to have a medical check
up yearly, now is the time, so I should see my doctor to be a directive with
some force. It articulates a practical argument. Perhaps the strongest
attempt to reconstruct an (acceptable or rational) thought
transition as a standard arguments is to treat the Subjectsive
condition, I feel like having climbing fun in the summer, as a premise, for
then the premises would support the conclusion. But the individual, whose
thought transition we are examining, does not regard a description of his
psychological state as a consideration that supports the conclusion. It
will be useful to look more closely at a variant of the example to note when it
is appropriate to reconstruct thinking in the form of argument. Bloggs,
now hiking with a friend in the Everest, comes to a difficult spot and
says: I dont like the look of that, I am frightened. I am going back. That
is usually enough for Bloggs to return, and for the friend to turn back with
him. Bloggss action of turning back, admittedly motivated by fear, is, while
not acting on reasons, nonetheless rational unless we judge his fear to be
irrational. Bloggss Subjectsive condition can serve as a
premise, but only in a very different situation. Bloggs resorts to reasons.
Suppose that, while his friend does not think Bloggss fear irrational, the
friend still attempts to dissuade Bloggs from going back. After listening and
reflecting, Bloggs may say I am so frightened it is not worth it. I am not
enjoying this climbing anymore. Or I am too frightened to be able to safely go
on. Or I often climb the Everest and dont usually get frightened. The fact that
I am now is a good indication that this is a dangerous trail and I should turn
back. These are reasons, considerations implicitly backed by principles, and
they could be the initial motivations of someone. But in Bloggss case they
emerged when he was challenged by his friend. They do not express his initial
practical reasoning. Bloggs was frightened by the trail ahead, wanted to go
back, and didnt have any reason not to. Note that there is no general
rational requirement to always act on reasons, and no general truth that a rational
individual would be better off the more often he acted on reasons. Faced
with his friends objections, however, Bloggs needed justification for acting on
his fear. He reflected and found reason(s) to act on his fear. Grice plays with
Subjectsivity already in Prolegomena. Consider the use of carefully. Surely we
must include the agents own idea of this. Or consider the use of phi and phi –
surely we dont want the addressee to regard himself under the same guise with
which the utterer regards him. Or consider “Aspects”: Nixon must be appointed
professor of theology at Oxford. Does he feel the need? Grice raises the topic
of Subjectsivity again in the Kant lectures just after his discussion of mode,
in a sub-section entitled, Modalities: relative and absolute. He finds the
topic central for his æqui-vocality thesis: Subjectsive conditions seem
necessary to both practical and alethic considerations. Refs.: The source is
his essay on intentions and the subjective condition, The H. P. Grice Papers,
BANC.
sub-iectum, subject: hypokeimenon -- When Frege turned
from ‘term logic’ to ‘predicate logic’ “he didn’t know what he was doing.” Cf.
Oxonian nominalization. Grice plays a lot on that. His presentation at the
Oxford Philosophical Society he entitled, in a very English way, as “Meaning”
(echoing Ogden and Richards). With his “Meaning, Revisited,” it seems more
clearly that he is nominalizing. Unless he means, “The essay “Meaning,”
revisited,” – alla Putnam making a bad joke on Ogden: “The meaning of
‘meaning’” – “ ‘Meaning,’ revisited” -- Grice is very familiar with this since it’s
the literal transliteration of Aristotle’s hypokeimenon, opp. in a specific
context, to the ‘prae-dicatum,’ or categoroumenon. And with the same sort of
‘ambiguity,’ qua opposite a category of expression, thought, or reality. In
philosophical circles, one has to be especially aware of the subject-object
distinction (which belong in philosophical psychology) and the thing which
belongs in ontology. Of course there’s the substance (hypousia, substantia),
the essence, and the sumbebekon, accidens. So one has to be careful. Grice
expands on Strawson’s explorations here. Philosophy, to underlie, as the foundation
in which something else inheres, to be implied or presupposed by something
else, “ἑκάστῳ τῶν ὀνομάτων . . ὑ. τις ἴδιος οὐσία” Pl.Prt.349b, cf. Cra.422d,
R.581c, Ti.Locr.97e: τὸ ὑποκείμενον has three main applications: (1) to the
matter which underlies the form, opp. εἶδος, ἐντελέχεια, Arist.Metaph.983a30;
(2) to the substance (matter + form) which underlies the accidents, opp. πάθη,
συμβεβηκότα, Id.Cat.1a20,27, Metaph.1037b16, 983b16; (3) to the logical subject
to which attributes are ascribed, opp. τὸ κατηγορούμενον, Id.Cat.1b10,21,
Ph.189a31: applications (1) and (2) are distinguished in Id.Metaph.1038b5,
1029a1-5, 1042a26-31: τὸ ὑ. is occasionally used of what underlies or is
presupposed in some other way, e. g. of the positive termini presupposed by
change, Id.Ph.225a3-7. b. exist, τὸ ἐκτὸς ὑποκείμενον the external reality,
Stoic.2.48, cf. Epicur.Ep.1pp.12,24 U.; “φῶς εἶναι τὸ χρῶμα τοῖς ὑ. ἐπιπῖπτον”
Aristarch. Sam. ap. Placit.1.15.5; “τὸ κρῖνον τί τε φαίνεται μόνον καὶ τί σὺν
τῷ φαίνεσθαι ἔτι καὶ κατ᾽ ἀλήθειαν ὑπόκειται” S.E.M.7.143, cf. 83,90,91,
10.240; = ὑπάρχω, τὰ ὑποκείμενα πράγματα the existing state of affairs,
Plb.11.28.2, cf. 11.29.1, 15.8.11,13, 3.31.6, Eun.VSp.474 B.; “Τίτος ἐξ
ὑποκειμένων ἐνίκα, χρώμενος ὁπλις μοῖς καὶ τάξεσιν αἷς παρέλαβε”
Plu.Comp.Phil.Flam.2; “τῆς αὐτῆς δυνάμεως ὑποκειμένης” Id.2.336b; “ἐχομένου τοῦ
προσιόντος λόγου ὡς πρὸς τὸν ὑποκείμενον” A.D.Synt.122.17. c. ὁ ὑ. ἐνιαυτός the
year in question, D.S.11.75; οἱ ὑ. καιροί the time in question, Id.16.40,
Plb.2.63.6, cf. Plu.Comp.Sol.Publ.4; τοῦ ὑ. μηνός the current month, PTeb.14.14
(ii B. C.), al.; ἐκ τοῦ ὑ. φόρου in return for a reduction from the said rent,
PCair.Zen.649.18 (iii B. C.); πρὸς τὸ ὑ. νόει according to the context,
Gp.6.11.7. Note that both Grice and Strawson oppose Quine’s Humeian dogma that,
since the subjectum is beyond comprehension, we can do with a ‘predicate’
calculus, only. Vide Strawson, “Subject and predicate in logic and grammar.”
Refs: H. P. Grice, Work on the categories with P. F. Strawson, The H. P. Grice
Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c.
sub-ordination. Grice must be the only Oxonian
philosopher in postwar Oxford that realised the relevance of subordination.
Following J. C. Wilson, Grice notes that ‘if’ is a subordinating connective,
and the only one of the connectives which is not commutative. This gives Grice
the idea to consult Cook Wilson and develop his view of ‘interrogative
subordination.’ Who killed Cock Robin. If it was not the Hawk, it was the
Sparrow. It was not the Hawk. It was the Sparrow. What Grecian idiom is
Romanesque sub-ordinatio translating. The opposite is co-ordination. “And” and
“or” are coordinative particles. Interrogative coordination is provided by
‘or,’ but it relates to yes/no questions. Interrogative subordination involves
x-question. WHO killed Cock Robin. The Grecians were syntactic and hypotactic.
Varro uses jungendi. is the same and wherefrom it is different, in relation to
what &c." It may well be doubted whether he has thus improved upon his
predecessors. Surely the discernment of sameness and difference is a function
necessarily belonging to soul and necessarily included in the catalogue of her
functions : yet Stallbaum's rendering excludes it from that catalogue. The fact
that we have ory hv $, not orcp ecri, does not really favour his view—"
with whatsoever a thing may be the same, she declares it the same.' I coincide
then with the other interpreters in regarding the whole sentence from orw t' hv
as indirect INTERROGATION SUBORDINATE interrogation subordinateto \iyeiThis
mistake in logic carries with it serious mistakes in trans lation. The clause
otw t av ti tovtov rj kcu otov hv erepov is made an indirect INTERROGATIVE
COORDINATE with itpbs o tC re pu£Aio-ra xai ottt? [ 39 ] k.t.\., which is
impossible. Stallbaum rightly makes the clause a substantive clause and subject
of elvai or £vp.f}aivei elvai. (3) eKao-ra is of course predicate with elvai to
this sthe question, ‘How many sugars would Tom like in his tea?’ is not
‘satisfied’ by the answer ‘Tom loves sugar’. It may well be true that Tom loves
sugar, but the question is not satisfied by that form of answer. Conversely the
answer ‘one spoonful’ satisfies the question, even though it might be the wrong
answer and leave the tea insufficiently sugary for the satisfaction of Tom’s
sweet tooth.
sub-perceptum: This relates to Stich and his sub-doxastic. For
Aristotle, “De An.,” the anima leads to the desideratum. Unlike in ‘phuta,’ or
vegetables, which are still ‘alive,’ (‘zoa’ – he had a problem with ‘sponges’
which were IN-animate, to him, most likely) In WoW:139, Grice refers to “the
pillar box seems red” as “SUB-PERCEPTUAL,” the first of a trio. The second is
the perceptual, “A perceives that the pillar box is red,” and the third, “The
pillar box is red.” He wishes to explore the truth-conditons of the
subperceptum, and although first in the list, is last in the analsysis. Grice
proposes: ‘The pillar box seems red” iff (1) the pillar box is red; (2) A
perceives that the pillar box is red; and (3) (1) causes (2). In this there is
a parallelism with his quasi-causal account of ‘know’ (and his caveat that
‘literally,’ we may just know that 2 + 2 = 4 (and such) (“Meaning Revisited). In
what he calls ‘accented sub-perceptum,’ the idea is that the U is choosing the
superceptum (“seems”) as opposed to his other obvious choices (“The pillar box
IS red,”) and the passive-voice version of the ‘perceptum’: “The pillar box IS
PERCEIVED red.” The ‘accent’ generates the D-or-D implicaturum: By uttering
“The pillar box seems red,” U IMPLICATES that it is denied that or doubted that
the pillar box is perceived red by U or that the pillar box is red. In this,
the accented version contrasts with the unaccented version where the implicaturum
is NOT generated, and the U remains uncommitted re: this doubt or denial implicaturum.
It is this uncommitment that will allow to disimplicate or cancel the implicaturum
should occasion arise. The reference Grice makes between the sub-perceptum and
the perceptum is grammatical, not psychological. Or else he may be meaning that
in uttering, “I perceive that the pillar box is red,” one needs to appeal to
Kant’s apperception of the ego. Refs.: Pecocke, Sense and content, Grice, BANC.
subscriptum: Quine thought that Grice’s subscript device was
otiose, and that he would rather use brackets, or nothing, any day. Grice plays with various roots of ‘scriptum.’
He was bound to. Moore had showed that ‘good’ was not ‘descriptive.’ Grice
thinks it’s pseudo-descriptive. So here we have the first, ‘descriptum,’ where
what is meant is Griceian: By uttering the “The cat is on the mat” U means, by
his act of describing, that the cat is on the mat. Then there’s the
‘prae-scriptum.’ Oddly, Grice, when criticizing the ‘descriptive’ fallacy,
seldom mentions the co-relative ‘prescriptum.’ “Good” would be understood in
terms of a ‘prae-scriptum’ that appeals to his utterer’s intentions. Then
there’s the subscriptum. This may have various use, both in Grice. “I
subscribe,” and in the case of “Pegasus flies.” Where the utterer subscribes to
his ontological commitment. subscript device. Why does Grice think we NEED a
subscript device? Obviously, his wife would not use it. I mean, you cannot
pronounce a subscript device or a square-bracket device. So his point is
ironic. “Ordinary” language does not need it. But if Strawson and Quine are
going to be picky about stuff – ontological commitment, ‘existential
presupposition,’ let’s subscribe and bracket! Note that Quine’s response to
Grice is perfunctory: “Brackets would have done!” Grice considers a quartet of
utterances: Jack wants someone to marry him; Jack wants someone or
other to marry him; Jack wants a particular person to marry him,
and There is someone whom Jack wants to marry him.Grice notes that
there are clearly at least two possible readings of an utterance
like our (i): a first reading in which, as Grice puts it, (i) might be
paraphrased by (ii). A second reading is one in which it might be
paraphrased by (iii) or by (iv). Grice goes on to symbolize the
phenomenon in his own version of a first-order predicate calculus. Ja wants
that p becomes Wjap where ja stands for the individual constant Jack
as a super-script attached to the predicate standing for Jacks psychological
state or attitude. Grice writes: Using the apparatus of classical predicate
logic, we might hope to represent, respectively, the external reading and the
internal reading (involving an intentio secunda or intentio
obliqua) as (Ǝx)WjaFxja and Wja(Ǝx)Fxja. Grice then
goes on to discuss a slightly more complex, or oblique, scenario involving this
second internal reading, which is the one that interests us, as it involves an
intentio seconda.Grice notes: But suppose that Jack wants a specific
individual, Jill, to marry him, and this because Jack has been deceived
into thinking that his friend Joe has a highly delectable sister called Jill,
though in fact Joe is an only child. The Jill Jack eventually goes up the hill
with is, coincidentally, another Jill, possibly existent. Let us
recall that Grices main focus of the whole essay is, as the title goes,
emptiness! In these circumstances, one is inclined to say that (i)
is true only on reading (vii), where the existential quantifier
occurs within the scope of the psychological-state or -attitude verb,
but we cannot now represent (ii) or (iii), with Jill being vacuous,
by (vi), where the existential quantifier (Ǝx) occurs outside the
scope of the psychological-attitude verb, want, since [well,] Jill does
not really exist, except as a figment of Jacks imagination. In a manoeuver that
I interpret as purely intentionalist, and thus favouring by far Suppess over
Chomskys characterisation of Grice as a mere behaviourist, Grice hopes that
we should be provided with distinct representations
for two familiar readings of, now: Jack wants Jill to marry him and
Jack wants Jill to marry him. It is at this point that Grice applies a
syntactic scope notation involving sub-scripted numerals, (ix) and (x),
where the numeric values merely indicate the order of introduction of the symbol
to which it is attached in a deductive schema for the predicate calculus in
question. Only the first formulation represents the internal reading (where ji
stands for Jill): W2ja4F1ji3ja4 and
W3ja4F2ji1ja4. Note
that in the second formulation, the individual constant for Jill, ji, is
introduced prior to want, – jis sub-script is 1, while Ws sub-script is the
higher numerical value 3. Grice notes: Given that Jill does not exist, only the
internal reading can be true, or alethically satisfactory. Grice sums up
his reflections on the representation of the opaqueness of a verb standing for
a psychological state or attitude like that expressed by wanting with one
observation that further marks him as an intentionalist, almost of a Meinongian
type. He is willing to allow for existential phrases in cases of vacuous
designata, provided they occur within opaque psychological-state or attitude
verbs, and he thinks that by doing this, he is being faithful to the richness
and exuberance of ordinary discourse, while keeping Quine happy. As Grice
puts it, we should also have available to us also three neutral, yet distinct,
(Ǝx)-quantificational forms (together with their isomorphs), as a philosopher
who thinks that Wittgenstein denies a distinction, craves for a generality!
Jill now becomes x. W4ja5Ǝx3F1x2ja5, Ǝx5W2ja5F1x4ja3, Ǝx5W3ja4F1x2ja4. As Grice
notes, since in (xii) the individual variable x (ranging over Jill) does not
dominate the segment following the (Ǝx) quantifier, the formulation does not
display any existential or de re, force, and is suitable therefore for
representing the internal readings (ii) or (iii), if we have to allow, as we do
have, if we want to faithfully represent ordinary discourse, for the
possibility of expressing the fact that a particular person, Jill, does not
actually exist.
more grice to
the mill: sous-entendu: used by, of
all people, Mill. An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's
Philosophybooks.google.com › books ... and speak with any approach to
precision, and adopting into [the necessary sufficient clauses of a piece of
philosophical conceptual analysis] a mere sous-entendu of common conversation
in its most unprecise form. If I say to any one, Cf. understatement, as opposed
to overstatement. The ‘statement’ thing complicates things, ‘underunderstanding’
seems better, or ‘sub-understanding,’ strictly. Trust Grice to bring more Grice
to the Mill and provide a full essay, indeed theory, and base his own
philosophy, on the sous-tentendu! Cf. Pears, Pears Cyclopaedia. “The English
love meiosis, litotes, and understatement. The French don’t.” Note all the
figures of rhetoric cited by Grice, and why they have philosophical import.
Many entries here: hyperbole, meiosis, litotes, etc. Grice took ‘sous-entendu’
etymologically serious. It is UNDERSTOOD. Nobody taught you, but it understood.
It is understood is like It is known. So “The pillar box seems red” is
understood to mean, “It may not be.” Now a sous-entendu may be cancellable, in
which case it was MIS-understood, or the emissor has changed his mind. Grice
considers the paradoxes the understanding under ‘uptake,’ just to make fun of
Austin’s informalism. The ‘endendu’ is what the French understand by
‘understand,’ the root being Latin intellectus, or intendo.
stoicus --- stoicism -- Neo-stoicism -- du Vair,
Guillaume, philosopher, bishop, and political figure. Du Vair and Justus
Lipsius were the two most influential propagators of neo-Stoicism in early
modern Europe. Du Vair’s Sainte Philosophie “Holy Philosophy,” 1584 and his
shorter Philosophie morale des Stoïques “Moral Philosophy of the Stoics,” 1585,
were tr. and frequently reprinted. The latter presents Epictetus in a form
usable by ordinary people in troubled times. We are to follow nature and live
according to reason; we are not to be upset by what we cannot control; virtue
is the good. Du Vair inserts, moreover, a distinctly religious note. We must be
pious, accept our lot as God’s will, and consider morality obedience to his
command. Du Vair thus Christianized Stoicism, making it widely acceptable. By
teaching that reason alone enables us to know how we ought to live, he became a
founder of modern rationalism in ethics. Stōĭcus , a,
um, adj., = Στωϊκός, I.of or belonging to the Stoic philosophy or to the
Stoics, Stoic: “schola,” Cic. Fam. 9, 22 fin.: “secta,” Sen. Ep. 123, 14:
“sententia,” id. ib. 22, 7: “libelli,” Hor. Epod. 8, 15: “turba,” Mart. 7, 69,
4: “dogmata,” Juv. 13, 121: “disciplina,” Gell. 19, 1, 1: “Stoicum est,” it is
a saying of the Stoics, Cic. Ac. 2, 26, 85: “non loquor tecum Stoicā linguā,
sed hac submissiore,” Sen. Ep. 13, 4: “est aliquid in illo Stoici dei: nec cor
nec caput habet,” Sen. Apoc. 8.— Subst.: Stōĭcus , i, m., a Stoic philosopher,
a Stoic, Cic. Par. praef. § 2; Hor. S. 2, 3, 160; 2, 3, 300; plur., Cic. Mur.
29, 61; and in philosophical writings saepissime.— 2. Stōĭca , ōrum, n. plur.,
the Stoic philosophy, Cic. N. D. 1, 6, 15.—Adv.: Stōĭcē , like a Stoic,
Stoically: “agere austere et Stoice,” Cic. Mur. 35, 74: dicere, id. Par. praef.
§ 3.H. P. Grice, “The Stoa: from Athenian to Oxonian dialectic,” H. P.
Grice, “The Stoa and Athenian dialectic.”
stupid. Grice loved Plato. They are considering
‘horseness.’ “I cannot see horeseness; I can see horses.” “You are the epitome
of stupidity.” “I cannot see stupidity. I see stupid.”
sub-gestum -- suggestio falsi – suggest. To suggest is
like to ‘insinuate,’ only different. The root involves a favourite with Grice,
‘a gesture.’ That gesture is very suggesture. Grice explores hint versus
suggest in Retrospective epilogue. Also cited by Strawson and Wiggins. The
emissor’s implication is exactly this suggestio, for which suggestum. To suggest, advise, prompt, offer, bring to mind: “quoties aequitas restitutionem suggerit,” Dig. 4,
6, 26 fin.; cf.: “quae (res) suggerit, ut Italicarum rerum esse credantur eae res,” reminds, admonishes, ib. 28, 5, 35 fin.: “quaedam de republicā,” Aur. Vict. Vir. Ill. 66, 2. — Absol.: “suggerente conjuge,” at the instigation of, Aur. Vict. Epit. 41, 11; cf.: “suggerente irā,” id. ib. 12, 10 suggestio falsi. Pl. suggestiones
falsi. [mod.L., = suggestion of what is false.] A misrepresentation
of the truth whereby something incorrect is implied to be true; an indirect
lie. Often in contexts with suppressio veri. QUOTES: 1815 H.
Maddock Princ. & Pract. Chancery I. 208 Whenever Suppressio veri or
Suggestio falsi occur..they afford a sufficient ground for setting aside any
Release or Conveyance. 1855 Newspaper & Gen. Reader's Pocket
Compan. i.4 He was bound to say that the suppressio veri on that occasion
approached very nearly to a positive suggestio falsi. 1898 Kipling
Stalky & Co. (1899) 36 It seems..that they had held back material
facts; that they were guilty both of suppressio veri and suggestio falsi.
1907 W. de Morgan Alice-for-Short xxxvi. 389 That's suppressio veri
and suggestio falsi! Besides, it's fibs! 1962 J. Wilson Public
Schools & Private Practice i. 19 It is rare to find a positively
verifiable untruth in a school brochure: but it is equally rare not to find a
great many suggestiones falsi, particularly as regards the material comfort and
facilities available. 1980 D. Newsome On Edge of Paradise 7
There are undoubted cases of suppressio veri; on the other hand, he appears to
eschew suggestio falsi. --- Fibs indeed. Suppress, suggest.
Write: "Griceland, Inc." "Yes, I agree to
become a Doctor in Gricean Studies" EXAM QUESTION: 1.
Discuss suggestio falsi in terms of detachability. 2. Compare suppresio
veri and suggestion falsi in connection with "The king of France is
bald" uttered during Napoleon's time. 3. Invent things for
'suppressio falsi' and 'suggestio veri'. 4. No. You cannot go to the
bathroom.
sub-gestum --
suggestum: not necesarilyy ‘falsi.’
The verb is ‘to suggest that…’ which is diaphanous. Note that the ‘su-‘ stands
for ‘sub-‘ which conveys the implicitness or covertness of the impicatum.
Indirectness. It’s ‘under,’ not ‘above’ board.’ To suggest, advise, prompt,
offer, bring to mind: “quoties aequitas restitutionem suggerit,” Dig. 4, 6, 26
fin.; cf.: “quae (res) suggerit, ut Italicarum rerum esse credantur eae res,”
reminds, admonishes, ib. 28, 5, 35 fin.: “quaedam de republicā,” Aur. Vict.
Vir. Ill. 66, 2. — Absol.: “suggerente conjuge,” at the instigation of, Aur.
Vict. Epit. 41, 11; cf.: “suggerente irā,” id. ib. 12, 10.— The implicaturum is
a suggestum – ALWAYS cancellable. Or not? Sometimes not, if ‘reasonable,’ but
not ‘rational.’ Jill suggests that Jack is brave when she says, “He is an
Englishman, he is; therefore, brave.” The tommy suggests that her povery
contrasts with her honesty (“’Tis the same the whole world over.”) So the
‘suggestum’ is like the implicaturum. A particular suggesta are ‘conversational
suggestum.’ For Grice this is philosophically important, because many
philosophical adages cover ‘suggesta’ which are not part of the philosopher’s
import! Vide Holdcroft, “Some forms of indirect communication.”
sub-pressum --
suppresum veri: This is a bit like an
act of omission – about which Urmson once asked, “Is that ‘to do,’ Grice?” – Strictly,
it is implicatural. “Smith has a beautiful handwriting.” Grice’s abductum: “He
must be suppressing some ‘veri,’ but surely the ‘suggestio falsi’ is
cancellable. On the other hand, my abent-minded uncle, who ‘suppresses,’ is not
‘implicating.’ The ‘suppressio’ has to be ‘intentional,’ as an ‘omission’ is. Since
for the Romans, the ‘verum’ applied to a unity (alethic/practical) this was
good. No multiplication, but unity – cf. untranslatable (think) – modality ‘the
‘must’, neutral – desideratum-doxa – think – Yes, when Untranslatable discuss
‘vero’ they do say it applies to ‘factual’ and sincerity, I think. At
Collections, the expectation is that Grice gives a report on the philosopher’s
ability – not on his handwriting. It is
different when Grice applied to St. John’s. “He doesn’t return library books.”
G. Richardson. Why did he use this on two occasions? In “Prolegomena,” he uses
it for his desideratum of conversational fortitude (“make a strong
conversational move”). To suppress. suggestio falsi. Pl. suggestiones
falsi. [mod.L., = suggestion of what is false.] A misrepresentation
of the truth whereby something incorrect is implied to be true; an indirect
lie. Often in contexts with suppressio veri. QUOTES: 1815 H.
Maddock Princ. & Pract. Chancery I. 208 Whenever Suppressio veri or
Suggestio falsi occur..they afford a sufficient ground for setting aside any Release
or Conveyance. 1855 Newspaper & Gen. Reader's Pocket Compan.
i.4 He was bound to say that the suppressio veri on that occasion
approached very nearly to a positive suggestio falsi. 1898 Kipling
Stalky & Co. (1899) 36 It seems..that they had held back material
facts; that they were guilty both of suppressio veri and suggestio falsi.
1907 W. de Morgan Alice-for-Short xxxvi. 389 That's suppressio veri
and suggestio falsi! Besides, it's fibs! 1962 J. Wilson Public
Schools & Private Practice i. 19 It is rare to find a positively
verifiable untruth in a school brochure: but it is equally rare not to find a
great many suggestiones falsi, particularly as regards the material comfort and
facilities available. 1980 D. Newsome On Edge of Paradise 7
There are undoubted cases of suppressio veri; on the other hand, he appears to
eschew suggestio falsi. --- Fibs indeed. Suppress, suggest.
Write: "Griceland, Inc." "Yes, I agree to
become a Doctor in Gricean Studies" EXAM QUESTION: 1.
Discuss suggestio falsi in terms of detachability. 2. Compare suppresio
veri and suggestion falsi in connection with "The king of France is
bald" uttered during Napoleon's time. 3. Invent things for
'suppressio falsi' and 'suggestio veri'. 4. No. You cannot go to the
bathroom.
summum genus. What adjective is the ‘sumum’ translating, Grice
wondered. And he soon found out. We know that the Romans were unoriginally
enough with their ‘genus’ (cf. ‘gens’) translating Grecian ‘genos.’ The highest
category in the ‘arbor griceiana’ -- The categories. There is infimum genus, or
sub-summum. Talk of categories becomes informal in Grice when he ‘echoes’ Kant
in the mention of four ‘functions’ that generate for Kant twelve categories.
Grice however uses the functions themselves, echoing Ariskant, rather, as
‘caegory’. We have then a category of conversational quantity (involved in a
principle of maximization of conversational informativeness). We have a
category of conversational quality (or a desideratum of conversational
candour). We have a category of conversational relation (cf. Strawson’s
principle of relevance along with Strawson’s principles of the presumption of
knowledge and the presumption of ignorance). Lastly, we have a category of
conversational mode. For some reason, Grice uses ‘manner’ sometimes in lieu of
Meiklejohn’s apt translation of Kant’s modality into the shorter ‘mode.’ The
four have Aristotelian pedigree, indeed Grecian and Graeco-Roman: The quantity
is Kant’s quantitat which is Aristotle’s posotes (sic abstract) rendered in Roman
as ‘quantitas.’ Of course, Aristotle derives ‘posotes,’ from ‘poson,’ the
quantum. No quantity without quantum. The quality is Kant’s qualitat, which
again has Grecian and Graeco-Roman pediegree. It is Aristotel’s poiotes (sic in
abstract), rendered in Roman as qualitas. Again, derived from the more basic
‘poion,’ or ‘quale.’ Aristotle was unable to find a ‘-tes’ ending form for what
Kant has as ‘relation.’ ‘pros it’ is used, and first translated into Roman as
‘relatio.’ We see here that we are talking of a ‘summum genus.’ For who other
but a philosopher is going to lecture on the ‘pros it’? What Aristotle means is
that Socrates is to the right of Plato. Finally, for Grice’s mode, there is
Kant’s wrong ‘modalitat,’ since this refers to Aristotle ‘te’ and translated in
Roman as ‘modus,’ which Meiklejohn, being a better classicist than Kant,
renders as ‘mode,’ and not the pretentious sounding ‘modality.’ Now for Kant,
12 categories are involved here. Why? Because he subdivides each summum genus
into three sub-summum or ‘inferiore’ genus. This is complex. Kant would
DISAGREE with Grice’s idea that a subject can JUDGE in generic terms, say,
about the quantum. The subject has THREE scenarios. It’s best to reverse the
order, for surely unity comes before totality. One scenario, he utters a
SINGULAR or individual utterance (Grice on ‘the’). The CATEGORY is the first
category, THE UNUM or UNITAS. The one. The unity. Second scenario, he utters a
PARTICULAR utterance (Grice’s “some (at least one). Here we encounter the
SECOND category, that of PLURALITAS, the plurum, plurality. It’s a good thing
Kant forgot that the Greeks had a dual number, and that Urquhart has fourth
number, a re-dual. A third scenario: the nirvana. He utters a UNIVERSAL (totum)
utterance (Grice on “all”). The category is that of TOTUM, TOTALITAS, totality.
Kant does not deign to specify if he means substitutional or
non-substitutional. For the quale, there are again three scenarios for Kant,
and he would deny that the subject is confronted with the FUNCTION quale and be
able to formulate a judgement. The first scenario involves the subject uttering
a PROPOSITIO DEDICATIVA (Grice elaborates on this before introducing ‘not’ in
“Indicative conditionals” – “Let’s start with some unstructured amorophous proposition.”
Here the category is NOT AFFIRMATION, but the nirvana “REALITAS,” Reality,
reale.Second scenario, subject utters a PROPOSITIO ABDICATIVA (Grice on ‘not’).
While Kant does not consider affirmatio a category (why should he?), he does
consider NEGATIO a category. Negation. See abdicatum. Third scenario, subject
utters an PROPOSITIO INFINITA. Here the category is that of LIMITATION, which
is quite like NEGATIO (cf. privatio, stelesis, versus habitus or hexis), but
not quite. Possibly LIMITATUM. Regarding the ‘pros ti.’ The first scenario
involves a categorema, PROPOSITIO CATEGORICA. Here Kant seems to think that
there is ONE category called “INHERENCE AND SUBSTISTENCE or substance and
accident. There seem rather two. He will go to this ‘pair’ formulation in one
more case in the relation, and for the three under modus. If we count the
‘categorical pairs’ as being two categories. The total would not be 12
categories but 17, which is a rather ugly number for a list of categories,
unles it is not. Kant is being VERY serious here, because if he has
SUBSTISTENCE or SUBSTANCE as a category, this is SECUNDA SUBSTANTIA or
‘deutero-ousia.’ It is a no-no to count the prote ousia or PRIMA SUBSTANTIA as
a category. It is defined as THE THING which cannot be predicated of anything!
“SUMBEBEKOS” is a trick of Kant, for surely EVERYTHING BUT THE SUBSTANCE can be
seen as an ‘accidens’ (In fact, those who deny categories, reduce them to
‘attribute’, or ‘property.’ The second scenario involves an ‘if’ Grice on ‘if’
– PROPOSITIO CONDITIONALIS – hypothetike protasis -- this involves for the
first time a MOLECULAR proposition. As in the previous case, we have a
‘category pair’, which is formulated either as CAUSALITY (CAUSALITAS) and
DEPENDENCE (Dependentia), or “cause’ (CAUSA) and ‘effect’ (Effectum). Kant is
having in mind Strawson’s account of ‘if’ (The influence of P. F. Strawson on
Kant). For since this is the hypothetical, Kant is suggeseting that in ‘if p,
q’ q depends on p, or q is an effect of its cause, p. As in “If it rains, the
boots are in the closet.” (J). The third scenario also involves a molectural proposition, A
DISJUNCTUM. PROPOSITIO DISJUNCTIVA. Note that in Kant, ‘if’ before ‘or’! His implicaturum:
subordination before coordination, which makes sense. Grice on ‘or.’ FOR SOME
REASON, the category here for Kant is that of COMMUNITAS (community) or
RECIPROCITAS, reciprocity. He seems to be suggesting that if you turn to the
right or to the left, you are reciprocally forbidden to keep on going straight.
For the modus, similar. Here Kant is into modality. Again, it is best to
re-order the scenarios in terms of priority. Here it’s the middle which is
basic. The first scenario, subject utters an ASSERTORIC. The category is a
pair: EXISTENCE (how is this different from REALITY) and NON-EXISTENCE (how is
this different from negation?). He has in mind: ‘the cat is in the room,’ ‘the
room is empty.’ Second scenario, the subject doubts. subject utters a
problematical. (“The pillar box may be red”). Here we have a category pair:
POSSIBILITIAS (possibility) and, yes, IMPOSSIBILITAS – IMPOSSIBILITY. This is
odd, because ‘impossibility’ goes rather with the negation of necessity. The
third and last scenario, subject utters an APODEICTIC. Here again there is a
category pair – yielding 17 as the final number --: NECESSITAS, necessity, and
guess what, CONTINGENTIA, or contingency. Surely, possibilitas and contingentia
are almost the same thing. It may be what Grice has in mind when he blames a
philosopher to state that ‘what is actual is not also possible.’ Or not. Refs.:
H. P. Grice, “Gilbert Ryle’s criticism of Ariskant’s categories,” Ryle,
“Categories.” “The nisnamed categories.” Ryle notes that when it comes to
‘relatio,’ Kant just murders Aristotle’s idea of a ‘relation’ as in higher
than, or smaller than. – “His idea of the molecular propositions has nothing to
do with Aristotle’s ‘relation’ or ‘pros ti.’”
super-knowing. In WoW. A notion Grice detested. Grice,
“I detest superknowing.” “For that reason, I propose a closure clause – for a
communicatum to count as one, there should not be any sneaky intention.” The
use of ‘super’ is Plotinian. If God is super-good, he is not good. If someobody
superknows, he doesn’t know. This is an implicaturum. Surely it is cancellable:
“God is supergood; therefore, He is good.” “Smith superknows that p; therefore,
Smith, as per a semantic entailment, knows that p.” Grice: “The implicature
arise out of the postulate of conversational fortitude: why stop at knowing if
you can claim that Smith superknows? Why say that God is love, when He is
super-love?”
subjectum – Grecian hypokeimenon – Grice’s ‘implying,’
qua nominalization, is a category shift, a subjectification, or
objectificiation. – We have ‘employ,’ ‘imply,’ and then ‘implication,’ ‘implicature,
and ‘implying’ Using the participles, we have the active voice present
implicans, the active voice future, implicaturum, and the passive perfect
‘impicatum.’ subjectivism, any philosophical view that attempts to understand
in a subjective manner what at first glance would seem to be a class of
judgments that are objectively either true or false i.e., true or false independently of what we
believe, want, or hope. There are two ways of being a subjectivist. In the
first way, one can say that the judgments in question, despite first
appearances, are really judgments about our own attitudes, beliefs, emotions,
etc. In the second way, one can deny that the judgments are true or false at
all, arguing instead that they are disguised commands or expressions of
attitudes. In ethics, for example, a subjective view of the second sort is that
moral judgments are simply expressions of our positive and negative attitudes.
This is emotivism. Prescriptivism is also a subjective view of the second sort;
it is the view that moral judgments are really commands to say “X is good” is to say, details aside,
“Do X.” Views that make morality ultimately a matter of conventions or what we
or most people agree to can also be construed as subjective theories, albeit of
the first type. Subjectivism is not limited to ethics, however. According to a
subjective view of epistemic rationality, the standards of rational belief are
the standards that the individual or perhaps most members in the individual’s
community would approve of insofar as they are interested in believing those
propositions that are true and not believing those propositions that are false.
Similarly, phenomenalists can be regarded as proposing a subjective account of
material object statements, since according to them, such statements are best
understood as complex statements about the course of our experiences.
the subiectum-obiectum-abiectumm-exiectum quartet:
Grice: subject-object dichotomy, the distinction between thinkers and what they
think about. The distinction is not exclusive, since subjects can also be
objects, as in reflexive self-conscious thought, which takes the subject as its
intended object. The dichotomy also need not be an exhaustive distinction in
the strong sense that everything is either a subject or an object, since in a
logically possible world in which there are no thinkers, there may yet be
mind-independent things that are neither subjects nor objects. Whether there
are non-thinking things that are not objects of thought in the actual world
depends on whether or not it is sufficient in logic to intend every individual
thing by such thoughts and expressions as ‘We can think of everything that
exists’. The dichotomy is an interimplicative distinction between thinkers and
what they think about, in which each presupposes the other. If there are no
subjects, then neither are there objects in the true sense, and conversely. A
subjectobject dichotomy is acknowledged in most Western philosophical
traditions, but emphasized especially in Continental philosophy, beginning with
Kant, and carrying through idealist thought in Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and
Schopenhauer. It is also prominent in intentionalist philosophy, in the
empirical psychology of Brentano, the object theory of Meinong, Ernst Mally, and
Twardowski, and the transcendental phenomenology of Husserl. Subjectobject
dichotomy is denied by certain mysticisms, renounced as the philosophical
fiction of duality, of which Cartesian mindbody dualism is a particular
instance, and criticized by mystics as a confusion that prevents mind from
recognizing its essential oneness with the world, thereby contributing to
unnecessary intellectual and moral dilemmas.
sub-lime, neuter. sublīmie (collat.
form sublīmus , a, um: ex sublimo vertice, Cic. poët. Tusc. 2, 7, 19; Enn. ap.
Non. 169; Att. and Sall. ib. 489, 8 sq.; Lucr. 1, 340), adj. etym. dub.; perh.
sub-limen, up to the lintel; cf. sublimen (sublimem est in altitudinem elatum,
Fest. p. 306 Müll.), I.uplifted, high, lofty, exalted, elevated (mostly poet.
and in postAug. prose; not in Cic. or Cæs.; syn.: editus, arduus, celsus,
altus). I. Lit. A. In gen., high, lofty: “hic vertex nobis semper sublimis,”
Verg. G. 1, 242; cf. Hor. C. 1, 1, 36: “montis cacumen,” Ov. M. 1, 666:
“tectum,” id. ib. 14, 752: “columna,” id. ib. 2, 1: “atrium,” Hor. C. 3, 1, 46:
“arcus (Iridis),” Plin. 2, 59, 60, § 151: “portae,” Verg. A. 12, 133: “nemus,”
Luc. 3, 86 et saep.: os, directed upwards (opp. to pronus), Ov. M. 1, 85; cf.
id. ib. 15, 673; Hor. A. P. 457: “flagellum,” uplifted, id. C. 3, 26, 11:
“armenta,” Col. 3, 8: “currus,” Liv. 28, 9.—Comp.: “quanto sublimior Atlas
Omnibus in Libyā sit montibus,” Juv. 11, 24.—Sup.: “triumphans in illo
sublimissimo curru,” Tert. Apol. 33.— B. Esp., borne aloft, uplifted, elevated,
raised: “rapite sublimem foras,” Plaut. Mil. 5, 1: “sublimem aliquem rapere
(arripere, auferre, ferre),” id. As. 5, 2, 18; id. Men. 5, 7, 3; 5, 7, 6; 5, 7,
13; 5, 8, 3; Ter. And. 5, 2, 20; id. Ad. 3, 2, 18; Verg. A. 5, 255; 11, 722 (in
all these passages others read sublimen, q. v.); Ov. M 4, 363 al.: “campi armis
sublimibus ardent,” borne aloft, lofty, Verg. A. 11, 602: sublimes in equis
redeunt, id. ib. 7, 285: “apparet liquido sublimis in aëre Nisus,” id. G. 1,
404; cf.: “ipsa (Venus) Paphum sublimis abit,” on high through the air, id. A.
1, 415: “sublimis abit,” Liv. 1, 16; 1, 34: “vehitur,” Ov. M. 5, 648 al.— C. On
high, lofty, in a high position: “tenuem texens sublimis aranea telum,” Cat.
68, 49: “juvenem sublimem stramine ponunt,” Verg. A. 11, 67: “sedens solio
sublimis avito,” Ov. M. 6, 650: “Tyrio jaceat sublimis in ostro,” id. H. 12,
179.— D. Subst.: sublīme , is, n., height; sometimes to be rendered the air:
“piro per lusum in sublime jactato,” Suet. Claud. 27; so, in sublime, Auct. B.
Afr. 84, 1; Plin. 10, 38, 54, § 112; 31, 6, 31, § 57: “per sublime volantes
grues,” id. 18, 35, 87, § 362: “in sublimi posita facies Dianae,” id. 36, 5, 4,
§ 13: “ex sublimi devoluti,” id. 27, 12, 105, § 129.—Plur.: “antiquique memor
metuit sublimia casus,” Ov. M. 8, 259: “per maria ac terras sublimaque caeli,”
Lucr. 1, 340.— II. Trop., lofty, exalted, eminent, distinguished. A. In gen.:
“antiqui reges ac sublimes viri,” Varr. R. R. 2, 4, 9; cf. Luc. 10, 378:
“mens,” Ov. P. 3, 3, 103: “pectora,” id. F. 1, 301: “nomen,” id. Tr. 4, 10,
121: “sublimis, cupidusque et amata relinquere pernix,” aspiring, Hor. A. P.
165; cf.: “nil parvum sapias et adhuc sublimia cures,” id. Ep. 1, 12,
15.—Comp.: “quā claritate nihil in rebus humanis sublimius duco,” Plin. 22, 5,
5, § 10; Juv. 8, 232.—Sup.: “sancimus supponi duos sublimissimos judices,” Cod.
Just. 7, 62, 39.— B. In partic., of language, lofty, elevated, sublime (freq.
in Quint.): “sublimia carmina,” Juv. 7, 28: “verbum,” Quint. 8, 3, 18: “clara
et sublimia verba,” id. ib.: “oratio,” id. 8, 3, 74: “genus dicendi,” id. 11,
1, 3: “actio (opp. causae summissae),” id. 11, 3, 153: “si quis sublimia
humilibus misceat,” id. 8, 3, 60 et saep.—Transf., of orators, poets, etc.:
“natura sublimis et acer,” Hor. Ep. 2, 1, 165: “sublimis et gravis et
grandiloquus (Aeschylus),” Quint. 10, 1, 66: “Trachalus plerumque sublimis,”
id. 10, 1, 119.—Comp.: “sublimior gravitas Sophoclis,” Quint. 10, 1, 68:
“sublimius aliquid,” id. 8, 3, 14: “jam sublimius illud pro Archiā, Saxa atque
solitudines voci respondent,” id. 8, 3, 75.—Hence, advv. 1. Lit., aloft,
loftily, on high. (α). Form sub-līmĭter (rare ): “stare,” upright, Cato, R. R.
70, 2; so id. ib. 71: “volitare,” Col. 8, 11, 1: “munitur locus,” id. 8, 15,
1.— (β). Form sub-līme (class. ): “Theodori nihil interest, humine an sublime
putescat,” Cic. Tusc. 1, 43, 102; cf.: “scuta, quae fuerant sublime fixa, sunt
humi inventa,” id. Div. 2, 31, 67: “volare,” Lucr. 2, 206; 6, 97: “ferri,” Cic.
Tusc. 1, 17, 40; id. N. D. 2, 39, 101; 2, 56, 141 Orell. N. cr.: “elati,” Liv.
21, 30: “expulsa,” Verg. G. 1, 320 et saep.— b. Comp.: “sublimius altum
Attollit caput,” Ov. Hal. 69.— 2. Trop., of speech, in a lofty manner, loftily
(very rare): “alia sublimius, alia gravius esse dicenda,” Quint. 9, 4, 130.
Grice’s favoured translation of Grecian ‘hypsos’ -- a
feeling brought about by objects that are infinitely large or vast such as the
heavens or the ocean or overwhelmingly powerful such as a raging torrent, huge
mountains, or precipices. The former in Kant’s terminology is the
mathematically sublime and the latter the dynamically sublime. Though the
experience of the sublime is to an important extent unpleasant, it is also
accompanied by a certain pleasure: we enjoy the feeling of being overwhelmed.
On Kant’s view, this pleasure results from an awareness that we have powers of
reason that are not dependent on sensation, but that legislate over sense. The
sublime thus displays both the limitations of sense experience and hence our
feeling of displeasure and the power of our own mind and hence the feeling of
pleasure. The sublime was an especially important concept in the aesthetic
theory of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Reflection on it was
stimulated by the appearance of a translation of Longinus’s Peri hypsous On the
Sublime in 1674. The “postmodern sublime” has in addition emerged in late
twentieth century thought as a basis for raising questions about art. Whereas
beauty is associated with that whose form can be apprehended, the sublime is
associated with the formless, that which is “unpresentable” in sensation. Thus,
it is connected with critiques of “the aesthetic” understood as that which is sensuously
present as a way of understanding what
is important about art. It has also been given a political reading, where the
sublime connects with resistance to rule, and beauty connects with conservative
acceptance of existing forms or structures of society.
sub-sidiarium -- subsidiarity, a basic principle of
social order and the common good governing the relations between the higher and
lower associations in a political community. Positively, the principle of
subsidiarity holds that the common good, i.e., the ensemble of social resources
and institutions that facilitate human self-realization, depends on fostering the
free, creative initiatives of individuals and of their voluntary associations;
thus, the state, in addition to its direct role in maintaining public good
which comprises justice, public peace, and public morality also has an indirect
role in promoting other aspects of the common good by rendering assistance
subsidium to those individuals and associations whose activities facilitate
cooperative human self-realization in work, play, the arts, sciences, and
religion. Negatively, the principle of subsidiarity holds that higher-level
i.e., more comprehensive associations
while they must monitor, regulate, and coordinate ought not to absorb, replace, or undermine
the free initiatives and activities of lower-level associations and individuals
insofar as these are not contrary to the common good. This presumption favoring
free individual and social initiative has been defended on various grounds,
such as the inefficiency of burdening the state with myriad local concerns, as
well as the corresponding efficiency of unleashing the free, creative potential
of subordinate groups and individuals who build up the shared economic,
scientific, and artistic resources of society. But the deeper ground for this
presumption is the view subjunctive conditional subsidiarity 886 886 that human flourishing depends crucially
on freedom for individual self-direction and for the self-government of
voluntary associations and that human beings flourish best through their own
personal and cooperative initiatives rather than as the passive consumers or
beneficiaries of the initiatives of others.
sub-sistum -- subsistence translation of G. Bestand, in current
philosophy, especially Meinong’s system, the kind of being that belongs to
“ideal” objects such as mathematical objects, states of affairs, and
abstractions like similarity and difference. By contrast, the kind of being
that belongs to “real” wirklich objects, things of the sorts investigated by
the sciences other than psychology and pure mathematics, is called existence
Existenz. Existence and subsistence together exhaust the realm of being Sein.
So, e.g., the subsistent ideal figures whose properties are investigated by
geometers do not exist they are nowhere
to be found in the real world but it is
no less true of them that they have being than it is of an existent physical
object: there are such figures. Being does not, however, exhaust the realm of
objects or things. The psychological phenomenon of intentionality shows that
there are in some sense of ‘there are’ objects that neither exist nor subsist.
Every intentional state is directed toward an object. Although one may covet
the Hope Diamond or desire the unification of Europe, one may also covet a
non-existent material object or desire a non-subsistent state of affairs. If one
covets a non-existent diamond, there is in some sense of ‘there is’ something
that one covets one’s state of mind has
an object and it has certain properties:
it is, e.g., a diamond. It may therefore be said to inhabit the realm of Sosein
‘being thus’ or ‘predication’ or ‘having properties’, which is the category
comprising the totality of objects. Objects that do not have any sort of being,
either existence or subsistence, belong to non-being Nichtsein. In general, the
properties of an object do not determine whether it has being or non-being. But
there are special cases: the round square, by its very nature, cannot subsist.
Meinong thus maintains that objecthood is ausserseiend, i.e., independent of
both existence and subsistence.
sub-statum: hypoeinai, hypostasis, hypokemeinon -- substantia – Grice:
“The Romans never felt the need for the word ‘substantia’ but trust Cicero to
force them to use it!” -- Grice lectured on this with J. L. Austin and P. F.
Strawson. hypousia -- as defined by Aristotle in the Categories, that which is
neither predicable “sayable” of anything nor present in anything as an aspect
or property of it. The examples he gives are an individual man and an
individual horse. We can predicate being a horse of something but not a horse;
nor is a horse in something else. He also held that only substances can remain
self-identical through change. All other things are accidents of substances and
exist only as aspects, properties, or relations of substances, or kinds of
substances, which Aristotle called secondary substances. An example of an
accident would be the color of an individual man, and an example of a secondary
substance would be his being a man. For Locke, a substance is that part of an
individual thing in which its properties inhere. Since we can observe, indeed
know, only a thing’s properties, its substance is unknowable. Locke’s sense is
obviously rooted in Aristotle’s but the latter carries no skeptical
implications. In fact, Locke’s sense is closer in meaning to what Aristotle calls
matter, and would be better regarded as a synonym of ‘substratum’, as indeed it
is by Locke. Substance may also be conceived as that which is capable of
existing independently of anything else. This sense is also rooted in
Aristotle’s, but, understood quite strictly, leads to Spinoza’s view that there
can be only one substance, namely, the totality of reality or God. A fourth
sense of ‘substance’ is the common, ordinary sense, ‘what a thing is made of’.
This sense is related to Locke’s, but lacks the latter’s skeptical
implications. It also corresponds to what Aristotle meant by matter, at least
proximate matter, e.g., the bronze of a bronze statue Aristotle analyzes
individual things as composites of matter and form. This notion of matter, or
stuff, has great philosophical importance, because it expresses an idea crucial
to both our ordinary and our scientific understandings of the world.
Philosophers such as Hume who deny the existence of substances hold that
individual things are mere bundles of properties, namely, the properties
ordinarily attributed to them, and usually hold that they are incapable of
change; they are series of momentary events, rather than things enduring
through time.
substantialism, the view that the primary, most
fundamental entities are substances, everything else being dependent for its
existence on them, either as a property of them or a relation between them.
Different versions of the view would correspond to the different senses of the
word ‘substance’.
Potts: English philosopher, tutee of H. P. Grice.
Semanticist of the best order! Structures and
Categories for the Representation of Meaning T.C. Potts. Potts, alla Grice,
addresses the representation problem ... how best to represent the meanings of
linguistic expressions... One might call this the 'semantic form' of
expressions (p. xi, italics in the original). The book begins with "three
chapters in which I survey the contributions made by linguistics, logic and
computer science respectively to the representation of meaning" (p. xii).
These three chapters are not easy to understand, principally because of Potts's
obtuse style, an example of which is that instead of saying "'either P or
Q' is false if 'P' and 'Q' are both false; otherwise, it is true," he
says, "we lay down that a proposition having the structure represented by
'either P or Q' is to be accounted false if a false proposition is substituted
for 'P' and a false proposition for 'Q', but is otherwise to be accounted
true" (p. 53). These chapters are also outdated. In particular, the
chapter on computer science, discussing the work of researchers whose goals are
the closest to Potts's own stated goals, is mainly a review of work as of the
seventies. There are citations to several of the papers in Findler (1979), but
only three to more recent research publications: Hayes (1980), Sowa (1984), and
Hobbs and Shieber (1987). Perhaps the most valuable aspect of these three
chapters is Potts's criticisms of some of the work he surveys. Of course, some
of the problems noted have been corrected in literature that Potts hasn't yet
got around to reading. By the end of the three survey chapters, Potts has
introduced two techniques that he 427 Computational Linguistics Volume
21, Number 3 then develops into his own representation-- categorial grammars
and graphs as representation formalisms. He takes the categorial analysis to be
the prior of the two, with his graphs, which he calls categorialgraphs, being
the clearer representation of sentence meaning. Unfortunately, "formalism"
and "clearer" must be taken with a grain of salt. Potts never
formally defines his categorial graphs, let alone gives a formal semantics for
them. Although I have had extensive experience reading, interpreting, and
devising graphical representations of meaning, I could not understand the
details of Potts's graphs. But then, neither, apparently, can he: "The
relationship between semantic and syntactic structures has not been spelled
out, so that it is not fully determinate what our semantic representations
represent at the syntactic level" (p. 168). The four substantive chapters
are useful for the linguistic issues that they address, even if they are not
useful for the representation scheme that they develop. These issues, which
must eventually be faced by all knowledge representation formalisms that aspire
to complete coverage of natural language include: quantifier scope; pronouns;
relative clauses; count nouns, substance nouns, and proper names; generic
propositions; deictic terms; plurals; identity; and adverbs. Appropriately, the
book does not end on a note of claimed accomplishment, but on a note of work
yet to do: "The purpose of a philosophical book is to stimulate thought,
not to put it to rest with solutions to every problem ... It is still premature
to formulate a graph grammar for semantic representation of everyday
language... The representation problem is commonly not accorded the respect
which it deserves" (p. 288). Many people agree, and have, accordingly,
produced a vast literature that Potts is apparently not familiar with. (Some
relevant collections are Cercone and McCalla 1987, Sowa 1991, and Lehmann
1992.) Nevertheless, Potts is still correct when he suggests that there is much
work left to do.--Stuart C. Shapiro, State University of New York at Buffalo
References Cercone, Nick and McCalla, Gordon (editors) (1987). The Knowledge
Frontier: Essays in the Representation of Knowledge. Springer-Verlag. Findler,
Nicholas V. (editor) (1979). Associative Networks: The Representation and Use
of Knowledge in Computers. Academic Press. Hayes, Patrick J. (1980). "The
logic of frames." In Frame Conceptions and Text Understanding, edited by
Dieter Metzing, 46-61. de Gruyter, 1980. Also in Readings in Knowledge
Representation, edited by Ronald J. Brachman and Hector J. Levesque, 287-295.
Morgan Kaufmann. 1985. Hobbs, Jerry R., and Shieber, Stuart M. (1987). "An
algorithm for generating quantifier scopings." Computational Linguistics,
13(1-2), 47-63. Lehmann, Fritz (editor) (1992). Semantic Networks in Artificial
Intelligence. Pergamon Press. Sowa, John E (1984). Conceptual Structures.
Addison-Wesley. Sowa, John F. (editor) (1991). Principles of Semantic Networks:
Explorations in the Representation of Knowledge. Morgan Kaufmann. Refs.: Luigi
Speranza, “Potts at Villa Grice.”
The salva-veritate/salva-congruitate distinction: The phrase occurs
in two fragments from Gottfried Leibniz's General Science.
Characteristics: In Chapter 19, Definition 1, Leibniz writes: "Two
terms are the same (eadem) if one can be substituted for the other without
altering the truth of any statement (salva veritate)." In Chapter 20,
Definition 1, Leibniz writes: "Terms which can be substituted for one
another wherever we please without altering the truth of any statement (salva
veritate), are the same (eadem) or coincident (coincidentia). For example,
'triangle' and 'trilateral', for in every proposition demonstrated by Euclid
concerning 'triangle', 'trilateral' can be substituted without loss of truth
(salva veritate)." ubstitutivity salva veritate: Grice: “The phrase
‘salva veritate’ has been used at Oxford for years, Kneale tells me!” -- a
condition met by two expressions when one is substitutable for the other at a
certain occurrence in a sentence and the truth-value truth or falsity of the
sentence is necessarily unchanged when the substitution is made. In such a case
the two expressions are said to exhibit substitutivity or substitutability
salva veritate literally, ‘with truth saved’ with respect to one another in
that context. The expressions are also said to be interchangeable or
intersubstitutable salva veritate in that context. Where it is obvious from a
given discussion that it is the truth-value that is to be preserved, it may be
said that the one expression is substitutable for the other or exhibits
substitutability with respect to the other at that place. Leibniz proposed to
use the universal interchangeability salva veritate of two terms in every
“proposition” in which they occur as a necessary and sufficient condition for
identity presumably for the identity of
the things denoted by the terms. There are apparent exceptions to this
criterion, as Leibniz himself noted. If a sentence occurs in a context governed
by a psychological verb such as ‘believe’ or ‘desire’, by an expression
conveying modality e.g., ‘necessarily’, ‘possibly’, or by certain temporal
expressions such as ‘it will soon be the case that’, then two terms may denote
the same thing but not be interchangeable within such a sentence. Occurrences
of expressions within quotation marks or where the expressions are both
mentioned and used cf. Quine’s example, “Giorgione was so-called because of his
size” also exhibit failure of substitutivity. Frege urged that such failures
are to be explained by the fact that within such contexts an expression does
not have its ordinary denotation but denotes instead either its usual sense or
the expression itself. Salva congruitate From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search Salva congruitate[1] is a Latin scholastic
term in logic, which means "without becoming ill-formed",[2] salva
meaning rescue, salvation, welfare and congruitate meaning combine, coincide,
agree. Salva Congruitate is used in logic to mean that two terms may be
substituted for each other while preserving grammaticality in all
contexts.[3][4] Contents 1 Remarks on
salva congruitate 1.1 Timothy C. Potts 1.2 Bob Hale 2See also 3References
Remarks on salva congruitate Timothy C. Potts Timothy C. Potts describes salva
congruitate as a form of replacement in the context of meaning. It is a
replacement which preserves semantic coherence and should be distinguished from
a replacement which preserves syntactic coherence but may yield an expression
to which no meaning has been given. This means that supposing an original
expression is meaningful, the new expression obtained by the replacement will
also be meaningful, though it will not necessarily have the same meaning as the
original one, nor, if the expression in question happens to be a proposition,
will the replacement necessarily preserve the truth value of the
original.[5] Bob Hale Bob Hale explains
salva congruitate, as applied to singular terms, as substantival expressions in
natural language, which are able to replace singular terms without destructive
effect on the grammar of a sentence.[6] Thus the singular term 'Bob' may be
replaced by the definite description 'the first man to swim the English
Channel' salva congruitate. Such replacement may shift both meaning and
reference, and so, if made in the context of a sentence, may cause a change in
truth-value. Thus terms which may be interchanged salva congruitate may not be
interchangeable salva veritate (preserving truth). More generally, expressions
of any type are interchangeable salva congruitate if and only if they can
replace one another preserving grammaticality or well-formedness. See also Salva veritate Reference principle
Referential opacity Crispin Wright Peter Geach References W.V.O. Quine, Philosophy of logic Dr. Benjamin Schnieder, Canonical Property
Designators, P9 W.V.O. Quine,
Quiddities, P204 W.V.O. Quine,
Philosophy of Logic, P18 Timothy C.
Potts, Structures and categories for the representation of meaning, p57 Bob Hale, Singular Terms, P34 Categories:
Concepts in logicPhilosophical logicPhilosophy of languageLatin logical
phrases. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Implicaturum salva veritate,” H. P. Grice, “What
I learned from T. C. Potts.” – T. C. Potts, “My tutorials with Grice at St.
John’s.”
summum bonum: Grice: “that in relation to which all
other things have at most instrumental value value only insofar as they are
productive of what is the highest good. Philosophical conceptions of the summum
bonum have for the most part been teleological in character. That is, they have
identified the highest good in terms of some goal or goals that human beings,
it is supposed, pursue by their very nature. These natural goals or ends have
differed considerably. For the theist, this end is God; for the rationalist, it
is the rational comprehension of what is real; for hedonism, it is pleasure;
etc. The highest good, however, need not be teleologically construed. It may
simply be posited, or supposed, that it is known, through some intuitive
process, that a certain type of thing is “intrinsically good.” On such a view,
the relevant contrast is not so much between what is good as an end and what is
good as a means to this end, as between what is good purely in itself and what
is good only in combination with certain other elements the “extrinsically
good”. Perhaps the best example of such a view of the highest good would be the
position of Moore. Must the summum bonum be just one thing, or one kind of
thing? Yes, to this extent: although one could certainly combine pluralism the
view that there are many, irreducibly different goods with an assertion that
the summum bonum is “complex,” the notion of the highest good has typically
been the province of monists believers in a single good, not pluralists.
Urmson’s super-erogation: ‘super-erogatum --. 1520s, "performance of more than duty requires,"
in Catholic theology, from Late Latin supererogationem (nominative
supererogatio) "a payment in addition," noun of action from past
participle stem of supererogare "pay or do additionally," from Latin
super "above, over" (see super-) + erogare "pay out," from
ex "out" (see ex-) + rogare "ask, request," apparently a
figurative use of a PIE verb meaning literally "to stretch out (the
hand)," from root *reg- "move in a straight line." Grice
got interested in this thanks to J. O. Urmson who discussed his ‘saints and
heroes’ with the Saturday morning kindergarten held by Austin -- the property
of going beyond the call of duty. Supererogatory actions are sometimes equated
with actions that are morally good in the sense that they are encouraged by
morality but not required by it. Sometimes they are equated with morally
commendable actions, i.e., actions that indicate a superior moral character. It
is quite common for morally good actions to be morally commendable and vice
versa, so that it is not surprising that these two kinds of supererogatory
actions are not clearly distinguished even though they are quite distinct.
Certain kinds of actions are not normally considered to be morally required,
e.g., giving to charity, though morality certainly encourages doing them.
However, if one is wealthy and gives only a small amount to charity, then,
although one’s act is supererogatory in the sense of being morally good, it is
not supererogatory in the sense of being morally commendable, for it does not
indicate a superior moral character. Certain kinds of actions are normally
morally required, e.g., keeping one’s promises. However, when the harm or risk
of harm of keeping one’s promise is sufficiently great compared to the harm
caused by breaking the promise to excuse breaking the promise, then keeping
one’s promise counts as a supererogatory act in the sense of being morally
commendable. Some versions of consequentialism claim that everyone is always
morally required to act so as to bring about the best consequences. On such a
theory there are no actions that are morally encouraged but not required; thus,
for those holding such theories, if there are supererogatory acts, they must be
morally commendable. Many versions of non-consequentialism also fail to provide
for acts that are morally encouraged but not morally required; thus, if they
allow for supererogatory acts, they must regard them as morally required acts
done at such significant personal cost that one might be excused for not doing
them. The view that all actions are either morally required, morally
prohibited, or morally indifferent makes it impossible to secure a place for
supererogatory acts in the sense of morally good acts. This view that there are
no acts that are morally encouraged but not morally required may be the result
of misleading terminology. Both Kant and Mill distinguish between duties of
perfect obligation and duties of imperfect obligation, acknowledging that a
duty of imperfect obligation does not specify any particular act that one is
morally required to do. However, since they use the term ‘duty’ it is very easy
to view all acts falling under these “duties” as being morally required. One
way of avoiding the view that all morally encouraged acts are morally required
is to avoid the common philosophical misuse of the term ‘duty’. One can replace
‘duties of perfect obligation’ with ‘actions required by moral rules’ and
‘duties of imperfect obligation’ with ‘actions encouraged by moral ideals’.
However, a theory that includes the kinds of acts that are supererogatory in
the sense of being morally good has to distinguish between that sense of
‘supererogatory’ and the sense meaning ‘morally commendable’, i.e., indicating
a superior moral character in the agent. For as pointed out above, not all
morally good acts are morally commendable, nor are all morally commendable acts
morally good, even though a particular act may be supererogatory in both
senses. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Urmson’s supererogation,” H. P. Grice, “Urmson no
saint, hero perhaps –.” H. P. Grice, “Urmson, my hero.”
Hareian supervenience: a dependence relation between
properties or facts of one type, and properties or facts of another type. In
the other place, G. E. Moore, for instance, holds that the property intrinsic
value is dependent in the relevant way on certain non-moral properties. Moore
did not employ the expression ‘supervenience’. As Moore puts it, “if a given
thing possesses any kind of intrinsic value in a certain degree, not only must that same thing possess it,
under all circumstances, in the same degree, but also anything exactly like it,
must, under all circumstances, possess it in exactly the same degree” (Philosophical
Studies, 2). The concept of supervenience, as a relation between properties, is
essentially this: A poperties of type A is supervenient (or better, as Grice
prefesrs, supervenes) on a property of type B if and only if two objects cannot
differ with respect to their A-properties without also differing with respect
to their B-properties. Properties that allegedly are supervenient on others are
often called consequential properties, especially in ethics; the idea is that
if something instantiates a moral property, then it does so in virtue of, i.e.,
as a non-causal consequence of, instantiating some lower-level property on
which the moral property supervenes. In another, related sense, supervenience
is a feature of discourse of one type, vis-à-vis discourse of another type.
‘Supervenience’ is so used by Hare. “First, let us take that characteristic of
“good” which has been called its ‘supervenience.’” Grice: “Hare has a good ear
for the neologism: he loved my ‘implicature,’ and used in an essay he submitted
to “Mind,” way before I ventured to publish the thing!” – “Suppose that we say,
“St. Francis is a good man.” It is logically impossible to say this and to
maintain at the same time that there might have been another man placed exactly
in the same circumstances as St. Francis, and who behaved in exactly the same
way, but who differed from St. Francis in this respect only, that it is NOT the
case that this man is a good man.” (“The Language of Morals”). Here the idea is
that it would be a misuse of moral language, a violation of the “logic of moral
discourse,” to apply ‘good’ to one thing but not to something else exactly
similar in all pertinent non-moral respects. Hare is a meta-ethical irrealist.
He denies that there are moral properties or facts. So for him, supervenience
is a ‘category of expression,’ a feature of discourse and judgment, not a
relation between properties or facts of two types. The notion of supervenience
has come to be used quite widely in metaphysics and philosophical philosophy, usually
in the way explained above. This use is heralded by Davidson in articulating a
position about the relation between a physical property and a property of the
‘soul,’ or statet-ypes, that eschews the reducibility of mental properties to
physical ones. “Although the position I describe denies there are psycho-physical
laws, it is consistent with the view that mental characteristics are in some
sense dependent, or supervenient, or plainly supervene on physical
characteristics. Such supervenience might be taken to mean that there cannot be
two events alike in all physical respects but differing in some mental
respects, or that an object cannot alter in some mental respects without
altering in some physical respects. Dependence or supervenience of this kind
does not entail reducibility through law or definition. “Mental Events.” A
variety of supervenience theses have been propounded in metaphysics and
philosophical psychology, usually although not always in conjunction with
attempts to formulate metaphysical positions that are naturalistic, in some way,
without being strongly reductionistic, if reductive. E. g. it is often asserted
that mental properties and facts are supervenient on neurobiological
properties, and/or on physicochemical properties and facts. And it is often
claimed, more generally, that all properties and facts are supervenient on the
properties and facts of the kind described by physics. Much attention has been
directed at how to formulate the desired supervenience theses, and thus how to
characterize supervenience itself. A distinction has been drawn between weak
supervenience, asserting that in any single possible world w, any two
individuals in w that differ in their A-properties also differ in their
B-properties; and strong supervenience, asserting that for any two individuals
i and j, either within a single possible world or in two distinct ones, if i
and j differ in A-properties then they also differ in Bproperties. It is
sometimes alleged that traditional formulations of supervenience, like Moore’s
or Hare’s, articulate only weak supervenience, whereas strong supervenience is
needed to express the relevant kind of determination or dependence. It is
sometimes replied, however, that the traditional natural-language formulations
do in fact express strong supervenience
and that formalizations expressing mere weak supervenience are
mistranslations. Questions about how best to formulate supervenience theses
also arise in connection with intrinsic and non-intrinsic properties. For
instance, the property being a bank, instantiated by the brick building on Main
Street, is not supervenient on intrinsic physical properties of the building
itself; rather, the building’s having this social-institutional property
depends on a considerably broader range of facts and features, some of which
are involved in subserving the social practice of banking. The term
‘supervenience base’ is frequently used to denote the range of entities and
happenings whose lowerlevel properties and relations jointly underlie the
instantiation of some higher-level property like being a bank by some individual
like the brick building on Main Street. Supervenience theses are sometimes
formulated so as to smoothly accommodate properties and facts with broad
supervenience bases. For instance, the idea that the physical facts determine
all the facts is sometimes expressed as global supervenience, which asserts
that any two physically possible worlds differing in some respect also differ
in some physical respect. Or, sometimes this idea is expressed as the stronger
thesis of regional supervenience, which asserts that for any two spatiotemporal
regions r and s, either within a single physically possible world or in two
distinct ones, if r and s differ in some intrinsic respect then they also
differ in some intrinsic physical respect. H. P. Grice, “Hare on supervenience.”
H. P. Grice, “Supervenience in my method in philosophical psychology: from the
banal to the bizarre.” H. P. Grice, “Supervenience and the devil of scientism.”
sub-positum, suppositum – (literally, ‘sub-positum,’) -- cf.
presuppositum -- in the Middle Ages, reference. The theory of supposition, the
central notion in the theory of proprietates terminorum, was developed in the
twelfth century, and was refined and discussed into early modern times. It has
two parts their names are a modern convenience. 1 The theory of supposition
proper. This typically divided suppositio into “personal” reference to
individuals not necessarily to persons, despite the name, “simple” reference to
species or genera, and “material” reference to spoken or written expressions.
Thus ‘man’ in ‘Every man is an animal’ has personal supposition, in ‘Man is a
species’ simple supposition, and in ‘Man is a monosyllable’ material
supposition. The theory also included an account of how the range of a term’s
reference is affected by tense and by modal factors. 2 The theory of “modes” of
personal supposition. This part of supposition theory divided personal
supposition typically into “discrete” ‘Socrates’ in ‘Socrates is a man’,
“determinate” ‘man’ in ‘Some man is a Grecian’, “confused and distributive”
‘man’ in ‘Every man is an animal’, and “merely confused” ‘animal’ in ‘Every man
is an animal’. The purpose of this second part of the theory is a matter of
some dispute. By the late fourteenth century, it had in some authors become a theory
of quantification. The term ‘suppositio’ was also used in the Middle Ages in
the ordinary sense, to mean ‘assumption’, ‘hypothesis’. H. P. Grice,
“Implicaturum, implicatum, positum, subpositum;” H. P. Grice: “A
communicational analogy: explicatum/expositum:implicatum/impositum,” H. P.
Grice, “The positum: between the sub-positum and the supra-positum,” H. P.
Grice, “The implicaturum, the sous-entendu, and the sub-positum.”
more grice to
the mill: SOUS-ENTENDU,
-UE, part. passé, adj. et subst. masc. I. − Part. passé de sous-entendre*. A. −
Empl. impers. Il est sous-entendu que + complét. à l'ind. Il est inutile de
préciser que. Synon. il va sans dire que.Elle lui écrivit (...) que (...) elle
aurait enfin, après avoir été si souvent reçue chez eux, le plaisir de les
inviter à son tour. De lui, elle ne disait pas un mot, il était sous-entendu
que leur présence excluait la sienne (Proust,Swann,1913, p. 301). B. − Empl.
ell. à valeur de prop. part. Sous-entendu (inv., le locuteur suppléant ce qui
n'est pas exprimé mais suggéré). Ce qui signifie par là (que). Mon cher Ami,
Encore une! sous-entendu: demande de croix d'honneur (Flaub.,Corresp.,1871, p.
287). II. − Adjectif A. − Synon. implicite, tacite; anton. avoué, explicite,
formulé. 1. Qu'on laisse entendre sans l'exprimer. Le lendemain, à table, mon
mari me dit (je me demandai d'abord s'il n'y avait pas là quelque dessein
sous-entendu): − Sais-tu ce que m'a annoncé Brassy? Gurgine a essayé de se tuer
(Daniel-Rops,Mort,1934, p. 291). 2. Qui reste implicite. Je me rappelle (...)
d'avoir lu dans la déclaration des droits de l'homme cette maxime sous-entendue
dans tous les codes qu'on nous a donnés depuis: « Tout ce qui n'est pas défendu
par la loi ne peut être empêché, et nul ne peut être contraint à faire ce qu'elle
n'ordonne pas » (Bonald,Législ. primit.,t. 1, 1802, p. 152).Toute mélodie
commence par une anacrouse exprimée ou sous-entendue (D'Indy,Compos. mus.,t. 1,
1897-1900, p. 35). B. − GRAMM. Qui n'est pas exprimé, mais que le sens ou la
syntaxe pourrait suppléer aisément. Observez qu'ainsi est tantôt adverbe,
tantôt conjonction. (...) Il est encore adverbe dans celle-ci [cette phrase],
ainsi que la vertu, le crime a ses degrés; il signifie de la même manière.
C'est que, qui est la conjonction qui lie ensemble la phrase exprimée, le crime
a ses degrés, avec la phrase sous-entendue, la vertu a ses degrés (Destutt de
Tr.,Idéol. 2,1803, p. 140).L'intelligence fait donc naturellement usage des
rapports d'équivalent à équivalent, de contenu à contenant, de cause à effet,
etc., qu'implique toute phrase, où il y a un sujet, un attribut, un verbe,
exprimé ou sous-entendu (Bergson,Évol. créatr.,1907, p. 149). III. − Subst.
masc. A. − Au sing. Comportement de celui qui sous-entend les choses sans les
exprimer explicitement. C'est la plus immense personnalité que je connaisse
[Zola], mais elle est toute dans le sous-entendu: l'homme ne parle pas de lui,
mais toutes les théories, toutes les idées, toutes les logomachies qu'il émet
combattent uniquement, à propos de tout et de n'importe quoi, en faveur de sa
littérature et de son talent (Goncourt, Journal, 1883, p. 251). B. − P. méton.
1. Parfois péj. Ce qui est sous-entendu, insinué dans des propos ou dans un
texte, ou p. ext., par un comportement. Synon. allusion, insinuation.Plus libre
que ses confrères, il ne craignait pas, − bien timidement encore, avec des
clignements d'yeux et des sous-entendus, − de fronder les gens en place
(Rolland,J.-Chr.,Adolesc., 1905, p. 365). − Au sing. à valeur de neutre. Henry
Céard a passé avec moi toute la journée, causant du roman qu'il fait, − et
qu'il veut faire dans le gris, le voilé, le sous-entendu (Goncourt,, Journal1878,
p. 1276). − En partic. Allusion grivoise. Les conversations fourmillaient
d'allusions et de sous-entendus dont la grivoiserie me choquait (Beauvoir,Mém.
j. fille,1958, p. 165). 2. Ce qui n'est pas exprimé explicitement. Synon.
restriction, réticence.Personne ne dit: « Je suis », si ce n'est dans une
certaine attitude très instable et généralement apprise, et on ne le dit alors
qu'avec quantité de sous-entendus: il y faut parfois un long commentaire
(Valéry, Variété IV,1938, p. 228). REM. Sous-entente, subst. fém.,vx. a) Action
de sous-entendre par artifice; p. méton., ce qui est ainsi sous-entendu. Il ne
parle jamais qu'il n'y ait quelque sous-entente à ce qu'il dit. Il y a quelque
sous-entente à cela (Ac. 1798-1878). b) Gramm. Synon. de sous-entendu. (Ds Bally
1951). Prononc. et Orth.: [suzɑ ̃tɑ ̃dy]. Ac. 1694: sousentendu, -ue, 1718:
sousentendu, -üe, dep. 1740: sous-entendu, -ue. Fréq. abs. littér.: 249. Fréq.
rel. littér.: xixes.: a) 189, b) 230; xxes.: a) 480, b) 484. Bbg. Ducrot (O.).
Le Dire et le dit. Paris, 1984, pp. 13-31. − Kerbrat-Orecchioni (C.).
L'Énonciation. De la subjectivité ds le lang. Paris, 1980, 290 p., passim.
survival: discussed by Grice in what he calls the ‘genoritorial
programme, where the philosopher posits himself as a creature-constructor. It’s
an expository device that allows to ask questions in the third person, “seeing
that we can thus avoid the so-called ‘first-person bias’” -- continued
existence after one’s biological death. So understood, survival can pertain
only to beings that are organisms at some time or other, not to beings that are
disembodied at all times as angels are said to be or to beings that are
embodied but never as organisms as might be said of computers. Theories that
maintain that one’s individual consciousness is absorbed into a universal
consciousness after death or that one continues to exist only through one’s
descendants, insofar as they deny one’s own continued existence as an
individual, are not theories of survival. Although survival does not entail
immortality or anything about reward or punishment in an afterlife, many
theories of survival incorporate these features. Theories about survival have
expressed differing attitudes about the importance of the body. supervenient
behaviorism survival 892 892 Some
philosophers have maintained that persons cannot survive without their own
bodies, typically espousing a doctrine of resurrection; such a view was held by
Aquinas. Others, including the Pythagoreans, have believed that one can survive
in other bodies, allowing for reincarnation into a body of the same species or
even for transmigration into a body of another species. Some, including Plato
and perhaps the Pythagoreans, have claimed that no body is necessary, and that
survival is fully achieved by one’s escaping embodiment. There is a similar
spectrum of opinion about the importance of one’s mental life. Some, such as
Locke, have supposed that survival of the same person would require memory of
one’s having experienced specific past events. Plato’s doctrine of
recollection, in contrast, supposes that one can survive without any
experiential memory; all that one typically is capable of recollecting are
impersonal necessary truths. Philosophers have tested the relative importance
of bodily versus mental factors by means of various thought experiments, of
which the following is typical. Suppose that a person’s whole mental life memories, skills, and character traits were somehow duplicated into a data bank and
erased from the person, leaving a living radical amnesiac. Suppose further that
the person’s mental life were transcribed into another radically amnesiac body.
Has the person survived, and if so, as whom?
swedenborgianism: the theosophy professed by a worldwide movement
established as the New Jerusalem Church in London by the followers of the
philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg. Swedenborg fuses the rationalist Cartesian and
empiricist Lockean legacies into a natural philosophy “Principia Rerum
Naturalium,” that propounds the harmony of the mechanistic universe with
biblical revelation. Inspired by Liebniz, Malebranche, Platonism, and
Neoplatonism, Swedenborg unfolds a doctrine of correspondence, “A Hieroglyphic
Key,” to account for the relation between body and soul and between the natural
and spiritual worlds, and applied it to biblical exegesis. What attracts the
wide following of the “Spirit-Seer” are his speculations in the line of Boehme
and the mystical, prophetic tradition in which he excelled, as in Heavenly
Arcana. Grice’s great uncle was a Swedenborgian.
swinburne: Grice: “Those Savoyards among us should never confuse
Swinburne, parodied in “Patience,” and the Oxonian theologian – hardly an
aesthete!” -- English philosopher of religion and of science. In philosophy of
science, he has contributed to confirmation theory and to the philosophy of
space and time. His work in philosophy of religion is the most ambitious
project in philosophical theology undertaken by a British philosopher in the
twentieth century. Its first part is a trilogy on the coherence and
justification of theistic belief and the rationality of living by that belief:
TheCoherence of Theism 7, The Existence of God 9, and Faith and Reason 1. Since
5, when Swinburne became Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian
Religion at the of Oxford, he has
written a tetralogy about some of the most central of the distinctively
Christian religious doctrines: Responsibility and Atonement 9, Revelation 2,
The Christian God 4, and Providence and the Problem of Evil 8. The most interesting
feature of the trilogy is its contribution to natural theology. Using Bayesian
reasoning, Swinburne builds a cumulative case for theism by arguing that its
probability is raised sustaining cause Swinburne, Richard 893 893 by such things as the existence of the
universe, its order, the existence of consciousness, human opportunities to do
good, the pattern of history, evidence of miracles, and religious experience.
The existence of evil does not count against the existence of God. On our total
evidence theism is more probable than not. In the tetralogy he explicates and
defends such Christian doctrines as original sin, the Atonement, Heaven, Hell,
the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Providence. He also analyzes the grounds for
supposing that some Christian doctrines are revealed truths, and argues for a
Christian theodicy in response to the problem of evil. Refs.: H. P. Grice,
“Swinburne et moi.”
synaesthesia: cum-perceptum: co-sensibile – cum-sensibile –
co-sensatio, co-sensation -- a conscious experience in which qualities normally
associated with one sensory modality are or seem to be sensed in another.
Examples include auditory and tactile visions such as “loud sunlight” and “soft
moonlight” as well as visual bodily sensations such as “dark thoughts” and
“bright smiles.” Two features of synaesthesia are of philosophic interest.
First, the experience may be used to judge the appropriateness of sensory
metaphors and similes, such as Baudelaire’s “sweet as oboes.” The metaphor is
appropriate just when oboes sound sweet. Second, synaesthesia challenges the
manner in which common sense distinguishes among the external senses. It is
commonly acknowledged that taste, e.g., is not only unlike hearing, smell, or
any other sense, but differs from them because taste involves gustatory rather
than auditory experiences. In synaesthesia, however, one might taste sounds
sweet-sounding oboes. G.A.G. syncategoremata, 1 in grammar, words that cannot
serve by themselves as subjects or predicates of categorical propositions. The
opposite is categoremata, words that can do this. For example, ‘and’, ‘if’,
‘every’, ‘because’, ‘insofar’, and ‘under’ are syncategorematic terms, whereas
‘dog’, ‘smooth’, and ‘sings’ are categorematic ones. This usage comes from the
fifth-century Latin grammarian Priscian. It seems to have been the original way
of drawing the distinction, and to have persisted through later periods along
syllogism, demonstrative syncategoremata 896
896 with other usages described below. 2 In medieval logic from the
twelfth century on, the distinction was drawn semantically. Categoremata are
words that have a definite independent signification. Syncategoremata do not
have any independent signification or, according to some authors, not a
definite one anyway, but acquire a signification only when used in a
proposition together with categoremata. The examples used above work here as
well. 3 Medieval logic distinguished not only categorematic and
syncategorematic words, but also categorematic and syncategorematic uses of a
single word. The most important is the word ‘is’, which can be used both
categorematically to make an existence claim ‘Socrates is’ in the sense
‘Socrates exists’ or syncategorematically as a copula ‘Socrates is a
philosopher’. But other words were treated this way too. Thus ‘whole’ was said
to be used syncategorematically as a kind of quantifier in ‘The whole surface
is white’ from which it follows that each part of the surface is white, but
categorematically in ‘The whole surface is two square feet in area’ from which
it does not follow that each part of the surface is two square feet in area. 4
In medieval logic, again, syncategoremata were sometimes taken to include words
that can serve by themselves as subjects or predicates of categorical propositions,
but may interfere with standard logical inference patterns when they do. The
most notorious example is the word ‘nothing’. If nothing is better than eternal
bliss and tepid tea is better than nothing, still it does not follow by the
transitivity of ‘better than’ that tepid tea is better than eternal bliss.
Again, consider the verb ‘begins’. Everything red is colored, but not
everything that begins to be red begins to be colored it might have been some
other color earlier. Such words were classified as syncategorematic because an
analysis called an expositio of propositions containing them reveals implicit
syncategoremata in sense 1 or perhaps 2. Thus an analysis of ‘The apple begins
to be red’ would include the claim that it was not red earlier, and ‘not’ is
syncategorematic in both senses 1 and 2. 5 In modern logic, sense 2 is extended
to apply to all logical symbols, not just to words in natural languages. In
this usage, categoremata are also called “proper symbols” or “complete
symbols,” while syncategoremata are called “improper symbols” or “incomplete
symbols.” In the terminology of modern formal semantics, the meaning of
categoremata is fixed by the models for the language, whereas the meaning of
syncategoremata is fixed by specifying truth conditions for the various
formulas of the language in terms of the models. H. P. Grice, “Implicatures of
synaesthesia,” “Some remarks about the senses.”
syneidesis,
conscientia -- synderesis: Grice
disliked the word as a ‘barbarism.’ Grice: “synderesis was by most of us at the Playgroup
reckoned to be a corruption of the Greician
“συνείδησις” shared knowledge, literally
‘co-ideatio,’ formed from ‘syn’ and ‘eidesis,’ ‘co-vision,’ or
conscience, the corruption appearing in the medieval manuscripts of what
Austin called ‘that ignorant saint,’ Jerome in his Commentary.” Douglas Kries in Traditio vol.
57: Origen, Plato, and Conscience (Synderesis) in Jerome's Ezekiel
Commentary, p. 67. συνείδησις , εως, ἡ, A.
Liddell and Scott render as “knowledge shared with another,” -- τῶν ἀλγημάτων
(in a midwife) Sor.1.4. 2. communication, information, εὑρήσεις ς. PPar. p.422
(ii A.D.); “ς. εἰσήνεγκαν τοῖς κολλήγαις αὐτῶν” POxy. 123.13 (iii/iv A.D.). 3.
knowledge, λῦε ταῦτα πάντα μὴ διαλείψας ἀγαθῇ ς. (v.l. ἀγαθῇ τύχῃ) Hp.Ep.1. 4. consciousness,
awareness, [τῆς αὑτοῦ συστάσεως] Chrysipp.Stoic.3.43, cf. Phld.Rh.2.140 S., 2
Ep.Cor.4.2, 5.11, 1 Ep.Pet.2.19; “τῆς κακοπραγμοσύνης” Democr.297, cf.
D.S.4.65, Ep.Hebr.10.2; “κατὰ συνείδησιν ἀτάραχοι διαμενοῦσι” Hero Bel.73;
inner consciousness, “ἐν ς. σου βασιλέα μὴ καταράσῃ” LXX Ec. 10.20; in 1
Ep.Cor.8.7 συνειδήσει is f.l. for συνηθείᾳ. 5. consciousness of right or wrong
doing, conscience, Periander and Bias ap. Stob.3.24.11,12, Luc.Am.49; ἐὰν
ἐγκλήματός τινος ἔχῃ ς. Anon. Oxy.218 (a) ii 19; “βροτοῖς ἅπασιν ἡ ς. θεός” Men.Mon.654, cf. LXX
Wi.17.11, D.H.Th.8 (but perh. interpol.); “ς. ἀγαθή” Act.Ap.23.1; ἀπρόσκοπος
πρὸς τὸν θεόν ib.24.16; “καθαρά” 1 Ep.Ti.3.9, POsl.17.10 (ii A.D.);
“κολαζομένους κατὰ συνείδησιν” Vett.Val.210.1; “θλειβομένη τῇ ς. περὶ ὧν
ἐνοσφίσατο” PRyl.116.9 (ii A.D.); τὸν . . θεὸν κεχολωμένον ἔχοιτο καὶ τὴν ἰδίαν
ς. Ath.Mitt.24.237 (Thyatira); conscientiousness, Arch.Pap.3.418.13 (vi
A.D.).--Senses 4 and 5 sts. run one into the other, v. 1 Ep.Cor.8.7, 10.27 sq.
6. complicity, guilt, crime, “περὶ τοῦ πεφημίσθαι αὐτὴν ἐν ς. τοιαύτῃ”
Supp.Epigr.4.648.13 (Lydia, ii A.D.). Grice: “The rough Romans could not do
with the ‘cum-‘ of the ‘syn-‘ but few of us at Oxford think of Laurel and Hardy
or Grice and Strawson when they say ‘conscientia’!” con-scĭo , īre, v. a. * I.
To be conscious of wrong: nil sibi, * Hor. Ep. 1, 1, 61.— II. To know well
(late Lat.): “consciens Christus, quid esset,” Tert. Carn. Chr. 3. moral theology, conscience. Jerome used ‘synderesis.’
‘Synderesis’ becomes a fixture because of Peter Lombard’s inclusion of it in
his Sentences. Despite this origin, Grecian ‘synderesis’ is distinguished from Roman
‘conscience’ (from cum-scire) -- by
Aquinas. For Aquinas, Grecian ‘synderesis’ is the quasi-habitual grasp of the
most common principles of the moral order i.e., natural law, whereas ‘conscienntia’
is the *application* of such knowledge to fleeting and unrepeatable
circumstances. ’Conscientia,’ Aquinas misleadingly claims, is allegedly ambiguous
in the way in which ‘knowledge’ is. Knowledge (Scientia) can be the mental
state of the knower or what the knower knows (scitum, cognitum) – Grice: “In
fact, Roman has four participles, active present, sciens, passive perfect,
sctium, future active, sciendus, future passive, sciturus -- But ‘conscientia’ like ‘synderesis’, is typically used for the
state of the soul. Sometimes, however, conscientia is taken to include general
moral knowledge as well as its application here and now; but the content of
synderesis is the most general precepts, whereas the content of conscience, if
general knowledge, will be less general precepts. Since conscience can be
erroneous, the question arises as to whether synderesis and its object, natural
law precepts, can be obscured and forgotten because of bad behavior or
upbringing. Aquinas holds that while great attrition can take place, such
common moral knowledge cannot be wholly expunged from the soul. This is a
version of the Aristotelian doctrine that there are starting points of
knowledge so easily grasped that the grasping of them is a defining mark of the
human being. However perversely the human agent behaves there will remain not
only the comprehensive realization that good (bonum) is to be done and evil (malum)
avoided, but also the recognition of some substantive human goods. Refs.: Luigi
Speranza, “Grice ad Aquino,” Villa Grice --. H. P. Grice, “Kenny on Aquinas,”
“Kenny uses barbaric Griceian and Grecian.”
Implicaturum: Grice fought with this. It’s a term of
art, and he mainly wants to avoid, fastidiously, equivocation. “I say
fastidiously because at Oxford, few – Hare is one of them – followed suit --.
Most stuck with ‘implicatio.’ “So, if we
stick with Roman, we have ‘implicatio.’ This gives English ‘implication,’
because the Anglo-Norman nominative proceeded via the Roman accusative, i. e.
‘implicationem.’ The use of –ure is also Anglo-Norman, for Roman ‘-ura.’ So we
have ‘implicatura,’ and in Anglo-Norman, ‘implicature.’ ‘Implicatio’ is a
feminine noun, and so is ‘implicatura.’ ‘Implicatio’ is a ‘active voice’ noun;
so is ‘implicatura.’ The Roman allows for a correlative neuter to the past
participle, ‘implicatum,’ or ‘implicitum’ (there are vowel alternation here).
So, the two neuter correlative active forms for the two neuter passive perfect
forms, ‘implicatum’ and ‘implicitum’ are ‘implicaturum’ and ‘impliciturum.’
Kneale has expanded on the use of ‘implicans.’ If ‘implicans’ is the active
PRESENT participle for ‘implicare,’ ‘implicaturum’ is the active FUTURE
participle. There is no need to specify the vehicle, as per Kneale, ‘propositio
implicans,’ ‘propositio implicata’ – Since ‘implicatura’ is definitely
constructed out of the active-voice future participle, we should have in fact a
trio, where the two second items get two variants, each: the implicans, the
implicaturum/impliciturum, and the implicatum/implicitum. Note that in the
present participle, the vowel alternation does not apply: there’s ‘implicans’
(masculine, feminine, and neuter) only, which then yields, in the neuter forms,
the future, ‘implicaturum’/’impliciturum,’ and the perfect,
‘implicatum’/’implicitum.’ The same for ‘explicare’: explicatio, explicatura,
-- explicans, yielding explicaturum/expliciturm, explicatum/explciitum. Note
that when I speak of what is seen, ‘see’ being diaphanous, I refer to ‘visum,’
what is seen. – There is no need, and in fact it is best not to, spceficy the
vehicle. The Romans used the neuter, singular, for each case --.” “If I were serious about ‘implicature’ being
feminine, I would speak of the ‘implicata’ as a singular form, but I do not. I
use ‘implicatum,’ what is implied – and use ‘implicata’ as plural neuter. Since
an implicatum is usually indeterminate, it’s best to refer to the plural,
‘implicata’ – Ditto for the ‘implicaturum,’ which becomes, in the plural,
‘implicatura.’ – the vehicles are various in that stress, emphasis, context,
all change the vehicle, somehow --. Implicatio then is like ‘conceptio,’ it is
an abstract form (strictly feminine) that has a process-producti ambiguity that
the neuter family: implicans, implicaturum/impliciturm, implicatum/implicitum
avoids. Note that while –ure form in Anglo-Norman does not derive from the
accusative, as ‘implication,’ does hence no accusative nasal ‘n’ (of
‘implicatioN,’ but not ‘implicatio’) in ‘implicature.’ The fact that the
Anglo-Normans confused it all by turning this into ‘employ,’ and ‘imply’ should
not deter the Oxonian for his delightful coinages!” Active
Nominal Forms Infinitive: implicā́re Present participle: implicāns;
implicántis Future participle: implicītúrus; implicātúrus Gerund:
implicándum Gerundive: implicándus Passive Nominal Forms Infinitive:
implicā́re Perfect participle: implicī́tum; implicā́tum. implicitura (Latin
Dictionary) lemma part voice mood tense
gender number case implicare verb active participle future feminine singularnominative
ablative vocative lemma part voice mood tense gender number case implicare verb
active participle future neuter plural nominative accusative vocative
INFLECTION Temporal inflection present – masculine implicans future – masculine
impliciturus / implicaturus present – feminine implicans future – feminine
implicitura / implicatura present – neuter implicans future – neuter
impliciturum / implicaturum. De camptgii , vel eampacis dicemus inlra in vita
Galheni apud TtebeUtum Pollionem, ratdeiorum cajcci ISc imperatotum ita
vocabantur , non "gamba," vel "campa," qua pro crure
pofteriores wfuipatunt, quod crure tenus calcea xeniui: id k corrigiarum
flexuris, & implicaturis , quibus circumligabantur. lologiae et Mercurii
di Marziano Capella (I 68), e avanza una nuova ipotesi di ... naculis implicaturis in retia sua
praecipites implagabuntur, syllogismis tuae pro- ... miliae suae longo ordine
ac multis stemmatum inligata flexuris in
parte prima. It may be argued that when Grice compares ‘impicature’ to “the
‘implying,’ that’s a feminine form, cognate with German/Dutch, -ung. Cf. Grice,
“The conception of value” – The conceiving of value,” the concept of value, the
conceptus of value, the conceptum of value. Active
Nominal Forms Present participle: cōncipiēns; cōncipiéntis Future participle:
cōnceptúrus Passive Nominal Forms Perfect participle: cōnceptum. Since Grice
plays with this in “Conception of value,” let’s compare. “Grice: “It is worth
comparing ‘to conceive’ with ‘to employ’.” Active present participle: implicans
– concipiens, concipientis --. Active future participle:
implicaturum/impliciturm, concepturus --. Passive perfect participle:
implicatum/implicitum – conceptum. Hardie would ask, “what do you mean ‘of’?” –
The implication of implication. The conception of value. In an objective
(passive) interpretation: it’s the conceptum of ‘value’. In a subjective (active)
interpretion, it’s the ‘conceiving’ of ‘value.’ Cfr. “the love of god,” “the
fear of the enemy.” “The implication of implication.” For Grice, it’s the
SENDER who implicates, a rational agent – although he may allow for an
expression to ‘imply’ – via connotation --, and provided the sender does, or
would occasionally do. In terms of the subjective/active, and objective/passive
distinction, we would have, ‘implication,’ as in Strawson’s implication,
meaning Strawson’s ‘implying’ (originally a feminine noun), i. e. Strawson’s
‘implicatio’ and Strawson’s ‘implicatura’, and Strawson’s ‘implicature,’ and
Strawson’s ‘implicaturum’/’impliciturm.’ In terms of the passive/objective
realm, what is implied by Strawson – the implicatum, and the implicitum. There passive
interpretation allows for only one form (with two vowel alternates): implicatum
and implicitum. The active forms can be present: ‘implicans’ and
‘implicaturum’. If it’s Strawson the ‘implier’ – implicans is ‘masculine.’ If
it’s Strawson the one about to imply, it’s “Strawson implicaturus” --. By use
of the genitive – “Ciceronis” we would have, “implicatura Ciceronis” – Cicero’s
implicature --, Cicero the implier, Cicero implicans --. Surely Cicero did
something to imply. This ‘something’ is best conceived in the neuter,
‘implicans,’ as applied, say, to sententia, or propositio – ‘propositio
implicans – ‘sententia implicans’ – ‘implicatura’ would refer to the act of
implying – as the conceiving of value --. Since ‘implicatura’ is formed out of
the future participle, its corresponding form in the neuter would be
‘implicaturum.’ By his handwave (implicaturum/implicitum – qua vehicle of
Cicero’s implicature – or implicatura – his act of implying), Cicero
(implicans) implies (implicat) this or that ‘implicatum’ or ‘implicitum.’
synergism: in
soteriology, the cooperation within human consciousness of free will and divine
grace in the processes of conversion and regeneration. Synergism became an
issue in sixteenth-century Lutheranism during a controversy prompted by Philip
Melanchthon 1497 syncategorematic synergism 897 897 1569. Under the influence of Erasmus,
Melanchthon mentioned, in the 1533 edition of his Common Places, three causes
of good actions: “the Word, the Holy Spirit, and the will.” Advocated by
Pfeffinger, a Philipist, synergism was attacked by the orthodox,
predestinarian, and monergist party, Amsdorf and Flacius, who retorted with
Gnesio-Lutheranism. The ensuing Formula of Concord 1577 officialized monergism.
Synergism occupies a middle position between uncritical trust in human noetic
and salvific capacity Pelagianism and deism and exclusive trust in divine
agency Calvinist and Lutheran fideism. Catholicism, Arminianism, Anglicanism,
Methodism, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century liberal Protestantism have
professed versions of synergism.
systems
theory: the transdisciplinary study of
the abstract organization of phenomena, independent of their substance, type,
or spatial or temporal scale of existence. It investigates both the principles
common to all complex entities and the usually mathematical models that can be
used to describe them. Systems theory was proposed in the 0s by the biologist
Ludwig von Bertalanffy and furthered by Ross Ashby Introduction to Cybernetics,
6. Von Bertalanffy was both reacting against reductionism and attempting to
revive the unity of science. He emphasized that real systems are open to, and
interact with, their environments, and that they can acquire qualitatively new
properties through emergence, resulting in continual evolution. Rather than
reduce an entity e.g. the human body to the properties of its parts or elements
e.g. organs or cells, systems theory focuses on the arrangement of and
relations among the parts that connect them into a whole cf. holism. This
particular organization determines a system, which is independent of the
concrete substance of the elements e.g. particles, cells, transistors, people.
Thus, the same concepts and principles of organization underlie the different
disciplines physics, biology, technology, sociology, etc., providing a basis
for their unification. Systems concepts include: system environment boundary,
input, output, process, state, hierarchy, goal-directedness, and information.
The developments of systems theory are diverse Klir, Facets of Systems Science,
1, including conceptual foundations and philosophy e.g. the philosophies of
Bunge, Bahm, and Laszlo; mathematical modeling and information theory e.g. the
work of Mesarovic and Klir; and practical applications. Mathematical systems
theory arose from the development of isomorphies between the models of
electrical circuits and other systems. Applications include engineering,
computing, ecology, management, and family psychotherapy. Systems analysis,
developed independently of systems theory, applies systems principles to aid a
decision maker with problems of identifying, reconstructing, optimizing, and
controlling a system usually a socio-technical organization, while taking into
account multiple objectives, constraints, and resources. It aims to specify
possible courses of action, together with their risks, costs, and benefits.
Systems theory is closely connected to cybernetics, and also to system
dynamics, which models changes in a network of synergy systems theory 898 898 coupled variables e.g. the “world
dynamics” models of Jay Forrester and the Club of Rome. Related ideas are used
in the emerging “sciences of complexity,” studying self-organization and
heterogeneous networks of interacting actors, and associated domains such as
far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics, chaotic dynamics, artificial life,
artificial intelligence, neural networks, and computer modeling and simulation.
tautologum: The difference between a truth and a tautological
truth is part of the dogma Grice defends. “A three-year old cannot understand
Russell’s theory of types” is possibly true. “It is not the case that a
three-year old is an adult” is TAUTOLOGICALLY true. As Strawson and Wiggins
note, by coining implicaturum Grice is mainly interested in having the MAN
implying this or that, as opposed to what the man implies implying this or
that. So, in Strawson and Wiggins’s rephrasing, the implicaturum is to be
distinguished with the logical and necessary implication, i. e., the
‘tautological’ implication. Grice uses ‘tautological’ variously. It is
tautological that we smell smells, for example. This is an extension of
‘paradigm-case,’ re: analyticity. Without ‘analytic’ there is no
‘tautologicum.’ tautŏlŏgĭa , ae, f., = ταυτολογία,I.a repetition of the same
meaning in different words, tautology, Mart. Cap. 5, § 535; Charis,
p. 242 P. ταὐτολογ-έω ,A.repeat what has been said, “περί τινος” Plb.1.1.3; “ὑπέρ τινος” Id.1.79.7; “τ. τὸν λόγον” Str.12.3.27:—abs., Plb.36.12.2, Phld. Po.Herc.994.30, Hermog.Inv.3.15.
Oddly why Witters restricts tautology to truth-table propositional logic,
Grice’s two examples are predicate calculus: Women are women and war is war.
4.46 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Unter den möglichen Gruppen von Wahrheitsbedingungen
gibt es zwei extreme Fälle. In dem einen Fall ist der Satz für sämtliche
Wahrheitsmöglichkeiten der Elementarsätze wahr. Wir sagen, die
Wahrheitsbedingungen sind t a u t o l o g i s c h. Im zweiten Fall ist der Satz
für sämtliche Wahrheitsmöglichkeiten falsch: Die Wahrheitsbedingungen sind k o
n t r a d i k t o r i s c h. Im ersten Fall nennen wir den Satz eine
Tautologie, im zweiten Fall eine Kontradiktion. 4.461 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Der
Satz zeigt was er sagt, die Tautologie und die Kontradiktion, dass sie nichts
sagen. Die Tautologie hat keine Wahrheitsbedingungen, denn sie ist
bedingungslos wahr; und die Kontradiktion ist unter keiner Bedingung wahr.
Tautologie und Kontradiktion sind sinnlos. (Wie der Punkt, von dem zwei Pfeile
in entgegengesetzter Richtung auseinandergehen.) (Ich weiß z. B. nichts über
das Wetter, wenn ich weiß, dass es regnet oder nicht regnet.) 4.4611 GER [→OGD
| →P/M] Tautologie und Kontradiktion sind aber nicht unsinnig; sie gehören zum
Symbolismus, und zwar ähnlich wie die „0“ zum Symbolismus der Arithmetik. 4.462
GER [→OGD | →P/M] Tautologie und Kontradiktion sind nicht Bilder der
Wirklichkeit. Sie stellen keine mögliche Sachlage dar. Denn jene lässt j e d e
mögliche Sachlage zu, diese k e i n e. In der Tautologie heben die Bedingungen
der Übereinstimmung mit der Welt—die darstellenden Beziehungen—einander auf, so
dass sie in keiner darstellenden Beziehung zur Wirklichkeit steht. 4.463 GER
[→OGD | →P/M] Die Wahrheitsbedingungen bestimmen den Spielraum, der den
Tatsachen durch den Satz gelassen wird. (Der Satz, das Bild, das Modell, sind
im negativen Sinne wie ein fester Körper, der die Bewegungsfreiheit der anderen
beschränkt; im positiven Sinne, wie der von fester Substanz begrenzte Raum,
worin ein Körper Platz hat.) Die Tautologie lässt der Wirklichkeit den
ganzen—unendlichen—logischen Raum; die Kontradiktion erfüllt den ganzen
logischen Raum und lässt der Wirklichkeit keinen Punkt. Keine von beiden kann
daher die Wirklichkeit irgendwie bestimmen. 4.464 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Die
Wahrheit der Tautologie ist gewiss, des Satzes möglich, der Kontradiktion
unmöglich. (Gewiss, möglich, unmöglich: Hier haben wir das Anzeichen jener
Gradation, die wir in der Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre brauchen.) 4.465 GER [→OGD |
→P/M] Das logische Produkt einer Tautologie und eines Satzes sagt dasselbe, wie
der Satz. Also ist jenes Produkt identisch mit dem Satz. Denn man kann das
Wesentliche des Symbols nicht ändern, ohne seinen Sinn zu ändern. 4.466 GER
[→OGD | →P/M] Einer bestimmten logischen Verbindung von Zeichen entspricht eine
bestimmte logische Verbindung ihrer Bedeutungen; j e d e b e l i e - b i g e
Verbindung entspricht nur den unverbundenen Zeichen. Das heißt, Sätze, die für
jede Sachlage wahr sind, können überhaupt keine Zeichenverbindungen sein, denn
sonst könnten ihnen nur bestimmte Verbindungen von Gegenständen entsprechen.
(Und keiner logischen Verbindung entspricht k e i n e Verbindung der
Gegenstände.) Tautologie und Kontradiktion sind die Grenzfälle der
Zeichenverbindung, nämlich ihre Auflösung. 4.4661 GER [→OGD | →P/M] Freilich
sind auch in der Tautologie und Kontradiktion die Zeichen noch mit einander
verbunden, d. h. sie stehen in Beziehungen zu einander, aber diese Beziehungen
sind bedeu- tungslos, dem S y m b o l unwesentlich. 4.46 OGD [→GER | →P/M]
Among the possible groups of truthconditions there are two extreme cases. In
the one case the proposition is true for all the truth-possibilities of the
elementary propositions. We say that the truth-conditions are tautological. In
the second case the proposition is false for all the truth-possibilities. The
truth-conditions are self-contradictory. In the first case we call the
proposition a tautology, in the second case a contradiction. 4.461 OGD [→GER |
→P/M] The proposition shows what it says, the tautology and the contradiction
that they say nothing. The tautology has no truth-conditions, for it is
unconditionally true; and the contradiction is on no condition true. Tautology
and contradiction are without sense. (Like the point from which two arrows go
out in opposite directions.) (I know, e.g. nothing about the weather, when I
know that it rains or does not rain.) 4.4611 OGD [→GER | →P/M] Tautology and
contradiction are, however, not nonsensical; they are part of the symbol- ism,
in the same way that “0” is part of the symbolism of Arithmetic. 4.462 OGD
[→GER | →P/M] Tautology and contradiction are not pictures of the reality. They
present no possible state of affairs. For the one allows every possible state
of affairs, the other none. In the tautology the conditions of agreement with
the world—the presenting relations— cancel one another, so that it stands in no
presenting relation to reality. 4.463 OGD [→GER | →P/M] The truth-conditions
determine the range, which is left to the facts by the proposition. (The
proposition, the picture, the model, are in a negative sense like a solid body,
which restricts the free movement of another: in a positive sense, like the space
limited by solid substance, in which a body may be placed.) Tautology leaves to
reality the whole infinite logical space; contradiction fills the whole logi-
cal space and leaves no point to reality. Neither of them, therefore, can in
any way determine reality. 4.464 OGD [→GER | →P/M] The truth of tautology is
certain, of propositions possible, of contradiction impossible. (Certain,
possible, impossible: here we have an indication of that gradation which we
need in the theory of probability.) 4.465 OGD [→GER | →P/M] The logical product
of a tautology and a proposition says the same as the proposition. Therefore
that product is identical with the proposition. For the essence of the symbol
cannot be altered without altering its sense. 4.466 OGD [→GER | →P/M] To a
definite logical combination of signs corresponds a definite logical
combination of their meanings; every arbitrary combination only corresponds to
the unconnected signs. That is, propositions which are true for ev- ery state
of affairs cannot be combinations of signs at all, for otherwise there could
only correspond to them definite combinations of objects. (And to no logical
combination corresponds no combination of the objects.) Tautology and
contradiction are the limiting cases of the combination of symbols, namely
their dissolution. 4.4661 OGD [→GER | →P/M] Of course the signs are also
combined with one another in the tautology and contradiction, i.e. they stand
in relations to one another, but these relations are meaningless, unessential
to the symbol. 4.46 P/M [→GER | →OGD] Among the possible groups of
truthconditions there are two extreme cases. In one of these cases the
proposition is true for all the truth-possibilities of the elementary
propositions. We say that the truth-conditions are tautological. In the second
case the proposition is false for all the truth-possibilities: the
truth-conditions are contradictory. In the first case we call the proposition a
tautology; in the second, a contradiction. 4.461 P/M [→GER | →OGD] Propositions
show what they say: tautolo- gies and contradictions show that they say
nothing. A tautology has no truth-conditions, since it is unconditionally true:
and a contradiction is true on no condition. Tautologies and contradictions
lack sense. (Like a point from which two arrows go out in opposite directions
to one another.) (For example, I know nothing about the weather when I know
that it is either raining or not raining.) 4.4611 P/M [→GER | →OGD] Tautologies
and contradictions are not, however, nonsensical. They are part of the
symbolism, much as ‘0’ is part of the symbolism of arithmetic. 4.462 P/M [→GER
| →OGD] Tautologies and contradictions are not pictures of reality. They do not
represent any possible situations. For the former admit all possible situations,
and latter none. In a tautology the conditions of agreement with the world—the
representational relations—cancel one another, so that it does not stand in any
representational relation to reality. 4.463 P/M [→GER | →OGD] The
truth-conditions of a proposition determine the range that it leaves open to
the facts. (A proposition, a picture, or a model is, in the negative sense,
like a solid body that restricts the freedom of movement of others, and, in the
positive sense, like a space bounded by solid substance in which there is room
for a body.) A tautology leaves open to reality the whole—the infinite whole—of
logical space: a contradiction fills the whole of logical space leaving no
point of it for reality. Thus neither of them can determine reality in any way.
4.464 P/M [→GER | →OGD] A tautology’s truth is certain, a proposition’s
possible, a contradiction’s impossible. (Certain, possible, impossible: here we
have the first indication of the scale that we need in the theory of
probability.) 4.465 P/M [→GER | →OGD] The logical product of a tautology and a
proposition says the same thing as the proposition. This product, therefore, is
identical with the proposition. For it is impossible to alter what is essential
to a symbol without altering its sense. 4.466 P/M [→GER | →OGD] What
corresponds to a determinate logical combination of signs is a determinate
logical combination of their meanings. It is only to the uncombined signs that
absolutely any combination corresponds. In other words, propositions that are true
for every situation cannot be combinations of signs at all, since, if they
were, only determinate combinations of objects could correspond to them. (And
what is not a logical combination has no combination of objects corresponding
to it.) Tautology and contradiction are the limiting cases—indeed the
disintegration—of the combination of signs. 4.4661 P/M [→GER | →OGD] Admittedly
the signs are still combined with one another even in tautologies and
contradictions—i.e. they stand in certain relations to one another: but these
relations have no meaning, they are not essential to the symbol. Grice would
often use ‘tautological,’ and ‘self-contradiction’ presupposes ‘analyticity,’
or rather the analytic-synthetic distinction. Is it contradictory, or a
self-contradiction, to say that one’s neighbour’s three-year-old child is an
adult? Is there an implicaturum for ‘War is not war’? Grice refers to Bayes in
WOW re Grices paradox, and to crazy Bayesy, as Peter Achinstein does (Newton
was crazy, but not Bayesy). We can now, in principle, characterize
the desirability of the action a 1 , relative to each end (E1 and E2), and to
each combination of ends (here just E1 and E2), as a function of the
desirability of the end and the probability that the action a 1 will realize
that end, or combination of ends. If we envisage a range of possible actions,
which includes a 1 together with other actions, we can imagine that each such
action has a certain degree of desirability relative to each end (E1 and (or)
E2) and to their combination. If we suppose that, for each possible action,
these desirabilities can be compounded (perhaps added), then we can suppose
that one particular possible action scored higher (in actiondesirability
relative to these ends) than any alternative possible action; and that this is
the action which wins out; that is, is the action which is, or at least should,
end p.105 be performed. (The computation would in fact be more complex than I
have described, once account is taken of the fact that the ends involved are
often not definite (determinate) states of affairs (like becoming
President), but are variable in respect of the degree to which they might be
realized (if ones end is to make a profit from a deal, that profit might be of
a varying magnitude); so one would have to consider not merely the likelihood
of a particular actions realizing the end of making a profit, but also the
likelihood of its realizing that end to this or that degree; and this would
considerably complicate the computational problem.) No doubt most readers are
far too sensible ever to have entertained any picture even remotely resembling
the "Crazy-Bayesy" one I have just described. Grice was
fascinated by the fact that paradox translates the Grecian neuter paradoxon. Some
of the paradoxes of entailment, entailment and paradoxes. This is not the first
time Grice uses paradox. As a classicist, he was aware of the nuances between
paradox (or paradoxon, as he preferred, via Latin paradoxum, and aporia,
for example. He was interested in Strawsons treatment of this or that paradox
of entailment. He even called his own paradox involving if and probablility
Grices paradox.
telementationalism: see psi-transmission. The coinage is interesting.
Since Grice has an essay on ‘modest mentalism,’ and would often use ‘mental’
for ‘psychological,’ it does make sense. ‘Ideationalism’ is analogous. this is
a special note, or rather, a very moving proem, on Grices occasion of
delivering his lectures on ‘Aspects of reason and reasoning’ at Oxford as the
Locke Lectures at Merton. Particularly apt in mentioning, with humility, his
having failed, *thrice* [sic] to obtain the Locke lectureship, Strawson did, at
once, but feeling safe under the ægis of that great English philosopher (viz.
Locke! always implicated, never explicited) now. Grice starts the proem in a
very moving, shall we say, emotional, way: I find it difficult to convey to you
just how happy I am, and how honoured I feel, in being invited to give these
lectures. Difficult, but not impossible. I think of this university and this
city, it has a cathedral, which were my home for thirty-six years, as my
spiritual and intellectual parents. The almost majestic plural is Grices implicaturum
to the town and gown! Whatever I am was originally fashioned here; I never left
Oxford, Oxford made me, and I find it a moving experience to be, within these
splendid and none too ancient walls, once more engaged in my old occupation of
rendering what is clear obscure, by flouting the desideratum of conversational
clarity and the conversational maxim, avoid obscurity of expression, under be
perspicuous [sic]!. Grices implicaturum on none too ancient seems to be
addressed to the truly ancient walls that saw Athenian dialectic! On the other
hand, Grices funny variant on the obscurum per obscurius ‒ what Baker found as
Grices skill in rendering an orthodoxy into a heterodoxy! Almost! By clear
Grice implicates Lewis and his clarity is not enough! I am, at the same time,
proud of my mid-Atlantic [two-world] status, and am, therefore, delighted that
the Old World should have called me in, or rather recalled me, to redress, for
once, the balance of my having left her for the New. His implicaturum seems to
be: Strictly, I never left? Grice concludes his proem: I am, finally, greatly
heartened by my consciousness of the fact that that great English philosopher,
under whose ægis I am now speaking, has in the late afternoon of my days
extended to me his Lectureship as a gracious consolation for a record threefold
denied to me, in my early morning, of his Prize. I pray that my present
offerings may find greater favour in his sight than did those of long ago. They
did! Even if Locke surely might have found favour to Grices former offerings,
too, Im sure. Refs.: The allusions to Locke are in “Aspects.” Good references
under ‘ideationalism,’ above, especially in connection with Myro’s ‘modest
mentalism,’ The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
‘that’: a demonstrative. Since Grice would make so many
references to the ‘that’-clause, he is aware that ‘that’ is etymologically a
demonstrative, that has lost its efficacy there. But the important etymological
lesson is that what follows a ‘that’-clause (cf. the classical languages Grice
learned at Clifton, Greek and Latin) is a ‘propositio’ just because the ‘that’
POINTS at the proposition. Sometimes he refers to ‘obliquus casus,’ and ‘oratio
obliqua,’ but he is more at home with things like ‘verba percipienda,’ verba
volendi, etc.
‘that’-clause: Grice’s priority for the ‘that’-clause is multiple.
He dislikes what he calls an ‘amorphous’ propositional complex. His idea is to
have at least ‘The S is P,’ one act involving a subjectum or denotatum, and one
involving the praedicatum. There is also what he calls sub-perceptual
utterances. They do look like structured (“That red pillar seems red”) but they
are not perceptual reports like “I perceive that the pillar box is red.” At
points he wanst to restrict utterer’s communucatum to a ‘that’-clause; but
ignoring Austin’s remark that to wonder about what a ‘word’ ‘means’ is
senseless, Grice sometimes allows for things like ‘The cat sat on the mat’ to
‘mean’ that the cat sat on the mat. Grice thinks that his account of ‘the
red-seeming pillar box’ succeeded, and that it was this success that prompted
him to apply the thing to other areas, notably Strawson, but one hopes, all the
theses he presents in “Causal” and “Prolegomena.” But he does not go back to
the is/seems example, other than perhaps the tie is/seems blue. The reason is
that the sense-datum theory is very complex. Note “seems.” “It seems to me
that…” but the ‘that’-clause not as a content of a state of the agent. If the
pillar box seems red to Grice because it is red, what ‘that’-clause are we
talking about to involve in the implicaturum? And what generates the implicaturum.
“By uttering “The pillar box seems red,” U conversationally implicates that
there is a denial or doubt, somewhere as to whether the pillar box IS red.” Grice
thought of Staal as particularly good at this type of formalistic philosophy, which
was still adequate to reflect the subtleties of ordinary
language. How do we define a Griceian action? How do we define a
Griceian event? This is Grices examination and criticism of Davidson, as a
scientific realist, followed by a Kantian approach to freedom and causation.
Grice is especially interested in the logical form, or explicitum, so that he
can play with the implicaturum. One of his favourite examples: He fell on his
sword, having tripped as he crossed the Galliæ. Grice manages to quote from many
and varied authors (some of which you would not expect him to quote) such as
Reichenbach, but also Robinson, of Oriel, of You Names it fame (for any x, if
you can Names it, x exists). Robinson has a brilliant essay on parts of Cook
Wilsons Statement and inference, so he certainly knows what he is talking
about. Grice also quotes from von Wright and Eddington. Grice offers a
linguistic botanic survey of autonomy and free (sugar-free, free fall, implicaturum-free)
which some have found inspirational. His favourite is Finnegans alcohol-free.
Finnegans obvious implicaturum is that everything is alcohol-laden. Grice kept
a copy of Davidsons The logical form of action sentences, since surely
Davidson, Grice thought, is making a primary philosophical point. Horses run
fast; therefore, horses run. A Davidsonian problem, and there are more to come!
Smith went fishing. Grices category shift allows us to take Smiths fishing
as the grammatical Subjects of an action sentence. Cf. indeed the way to cope
with entailment in The horse runs fast; therefore, the horse runs. Grices
Actions and events is Davidsonian in motivation, but Kantian in method, one of
those actions by Grice to promote a Griceian event! Davidson had published,
Grice thought, some pretty influential (and provocative, anti-Quineian) stuff
on actions and events, or events and actions, actually, and, worse, he was
being discussed at Oxford, too, over which Grice always keeps an eye! Davidsons
point, tersely put, is that while p.q (e.g. It is raining, and it is pouring)
denotes a concatenation of events. Smith is fishing denotes an action, which is
a kind of event, if you are following him (Davidson, not Smith). However,
Davidson is fighting against the intuition, if you are a follower of Whitehead
and Russell, to symbolise the Smith is fishing as Fs, where s stands for Smith
and F for fishing. The logical form of a report of an event or an action seems
to be slightly more complicated. Davidsons point specifically involves adverbs,
or adverbial modifiers, and how to play with them in terms of entailment. The
horse runs fast; therefore, the horse runs. Symbolise that! as Davidson told
Benson Mates! But Mates had gone to the restroom. Grice explores all these and
other topics and submits the thing for publication. Grice quotes, as isnt his
wont, from many and various philosophers, not just Davidson, whom he saw every
Wednesday, but others he didnt, like Reichenbach, Robinson, Kant, and, again
even a physicist like Eddington. Grice remarks that Davidson is into hypothesis,
suppositio, while he is, as he should, into hypostasis, substantia. Grice then
expands on the apparent otiosity of uttering, It is a fact that grass is green.
Grice goes on to summarise what he ironically dubs an ingenious argument.
Let σ abbreviate the operator
consists in the fact that , which, when prefixed to a sentence,
produces a predicate or epithet. Let S abbreviate Snow is white,
and let G abbreviate Grass is green. In that case, xσS is 1 just
in case xσ(y(y=y and S) = y(y=y) is 1, since the first part of the
sub-sentence which follows σ in the main sentence is logically equivalent
logically equivalent to the second part. And xσ(y(y=y and S) =
y(y=y) is 1 just in case xσ(y(if y=y, G) = y(y=y) is 1,
since y(if y=y, S) and y(if y=y, G) are each a singular term, which, if
S and G are both true, each refers to y(y=y), and are therefore
co-referential and inter-substitutable. And xσ(y(if y=y, G) =
y(y=y) is true just in case xσG is 1, since G is logically equivalent
to the sub-sentence which follows σ. So, this fallacy goes, provided that
S and G are both 1, regardless of what an utterer explicitly conveys by
uttering a token of it, any event which consists of the otiose fact that S also
consists of the otiose fact that G, and vice versa, i. e. this randomly
chosen event is identical to any other randomly chosen event. Grice hastens to
criticise this slingshot fallacy licensing the inter-substitution of this or
that co-referential singular term and this or that logically equivalent
sub-sentence as officially demanded because it is needed to license a
patently valid, if baffling, inference. But, if in addition to providing
this benefit, the fallacy saddles the philosopher with a commitment to a
hideous consequence, the rational course is to endeavour to find a way of
retaining the benefit while eliminating the disastrous accompaniment, much
as in set theory it seems rational to seek as generous a comprehension
axiom as the need to escape this or that paradox permits. Grice proposes to retain
the principle of co-reference, but prohibit is use after the
principle of logical equivalence has been used. Grice finds such a
measure to have some intuitive appeal. In the fallacy, the initial
deployment of the principle of logical equivalence seems tailored to
the production of a sentence which provides opportunity for
trouble-raising application of the principle of
co-referentiality. And if that is what the game is, why not stop
it? On the assumption that this or that problem which originally prompts
this or that analysis is at least on their way towards independent
solution, Grice turns his attention to the possibility of providing a
constructivist treatment of things which might perhaps have more intuitive
appeal than a naïve realist approach. Grice begins with a class of
happenstance attributions, which is divided into this or that basic
happenstance attribution, i.e. ascriptions to a Subjects-item of an
attribute which is metabolically expressible, and this or that non-basic
resultant happenstance attribution, in which the attribute ascribed,
though not itself metabolically expressible, is such that its possession
by a Subjects item is suitably related to the possession by that or by some
other Subjects item, of this or that attribute which is metabolically expressible. Any
member of the class of happenstance attributions may be used to say
what happens, or happens to be the case, without talking about any special
entity belonging to a class of a happening or a happenstance. A next stage
involves the introduction of the operator
consists of the fact that This operator, when prefixed to a
sentence S that makes a happen-stance attribution to a Subjects-item,
yields a predicate which is satisfied by an entity which is a happenstance,
provided that sentence S is doxastically satisfactory, i. e., 1, and that some
further metaphysical condition obtains, which ensures the metaphysical
necessity of the introduction into reality of the category of a happenstance,
thereby ensuring that this new category is not just a class of this or
that fiction. As far as the slingshot fallacy, and the hideous consequence
that all facts become identical to one Great Big Fact, in the light of a
defence of Reichenbach against the realist attack, Grice is reasonably
confident that a metaphysical extension of reality will not saddle him with an
intolerable paradox, pace the caveat that, to some, the slingshot is not
contradictory in the way a paradox is, but merely an unexpected
consequence ‒ not seriously hideous, at that. What this metaphysical
condition would be which would justify the metaphysical extension remains,
alas, to be determined. It is tempting to think that the metaphysical
condition is connected with a theoretical need to have this or that
happenstance as this or that item in, say, a causal relation. Grice goes on to
provide a progression of linguistic botanising including free. Grice
distinguishes four elements or stages in the step-by-step development of
freedom. A first stage is the transeunt causation one finds in
inanimate objects, as when we experience a stone in free fall. This is Hume’s
realm, the atomistss realm. This is external or transeunt casuation, when an
object is affected by processes in other objects. A second stage is internal or
immanent causation, where a process in an object is the outcome of previous
stages in that process, as in a freely moving body. A third stage is the
internal causation of a living being, in which changes are generated in a
creature by internal features of the creature which are not earlier stages of
the same change, but independent items, the function or finality of which is to
provide for the good of the creature in question. A fourth stage is a
culminating stage at which the conception of a certain mode by a human of
something as being for that creatures good is sufficient to initiate the doing
of that thing. Grice expands on this interesting last stage. At this stage, it
is the case that the creature is liberated from every factive cause. There is
also a discussion of von Wrights table of adverbial modifiers, or Grices
pentagram. Also an exploration of specificity: Jack buttering a parsnip in the
bathroom in the presence of Jill. Grice revisits some of his earlier concerns,
and these are discussed in the appropriate places, such as his exploration on
the Grecian etymology of aition. “That”-clause should be preferred to ‘oratio
obliqua,’ since the latter is a misnomer when you ascribe a psychological state
rather than an utterance. Refs.: The main sources are given under ‘oratio
obliqua’ above, The BANC.
theism: as an
Aristotelian scholar, H. P. Grice is aware of the centrality of God, nous
nouseos, in Aristotle’s philosophy -- atheism from Grecian a-, ‘not’, and
theos, ‘god’, the view that there are no gods. A widely used sense denotes
merely not believing in God and is consistent with agnosticism. A stricter
sense denotes a belief that there is no God; this use has become the standard
one. In the Apology Socrates is accused of atheism for not believing in the
official Athenian gods. Some distinguish between theoretical atheism and
practical atheism. A theoretical atheist is one who self-consciously denies the
existence of a supreme being, whereas a practical atheist may believe that a
supreme being exists but lives as though there were no god.
theology -- Grice’s philosophical theology -- concursus
dei, God’s concurrence. The notion derives from a theory from medieval
philosophical theology, according to which any case of causation involving
created substances requires both the exercise of genuine causal powers inherent
in creatures and the exercise of God’s causal activity. In particular, a
person’s actions are the result of the person’s causal powers, often including
the powers of deliberation and choice, and God’s causal endorsement. Divine
concurrence maintains that the nature of God’s activity is more determinate
than simply conserving the created world in existence. Although divine
concurrence agrees with occasionalism in holding God’s power to be necessary
for any event to occur, it diverges from occasionalism insofar as it regards
creatures as causally active.
theory-theory, v. Grice’s theory-theory.
theseus’s
ship. Grice sails on Theseus’s ship. Theseus’ ship: Example used by Grice to relativise
‘identity.’ After the hero Theseus accomplished his mission to sail to Crete to
kill the Minotaur, his ship (Ship 1) was put on display in Athens. As the time
went by, its original planks and other parts were replaced one by one with new
materials until one day all of its parts were new, with none of its original
parts remaining. Do we want to say that the completely rebuilt ship (Ship 2) is
the same as the original or that it is
a different ship? The case is further complicated. If all the original
materials were kept and eventually used to construct a ship (Ship 3), would
this ship be the same as the original? This example has inspired much
discussion concerning the problems of identity and individuation. “To be
something later is to be its closest continuer. Let us apply this view to one
traditional puzzle about identity over time: the puzzle of the ship of
Theseus.” Nozick, Philosophical Explanation. Grice basically formalized this
with G. Myro. Refs.: Collingwood, translation of Benedetto Croce, “Il paradosso
della nave di Teseo,” H. P. Grice, “Relative identity,” The Grice Papers, BANC.
thomson: Grice did not collaborate with that many friends. He
did with his tutee Strawson. He later did it with G. J. Warnock only on the
theory of perception (notably the ‘visum’). He collaborated with two more
Oxonian philosophers, and with both on the philosophy of action: D. F. Pears
and J. F. Thomson. J. F. Scots London-born
philosopher who would often give seminars with H. P. Grice. They also explored
‘philosophy of action.’ Thomson presented his views on public occasons on the
topic, usually under the guidance of D. F. Pears – on topics such as ‘freedom
of the will.’ Thomson has assocations with University, and is a Fellow of
Corpus, Grice’s alma.
thomsonianism: Grice explored philosophy of action with J. F.
Thomson. Thomson would socialize mainly with Grice and D. F. Pears. Oddly,
Thomson was also interested in ‘if’ and reached more or less the same Philonian
consequences that Grice does.
three-year-old’s
guide to Russell’s theory of types, the
– by H. P. Grice, with an appendix by P. F. Strawson, “Advice to parents,” v.
Grice’s three-year-old’s guide.
transcendens -- transcendental argument: Transcendental
argument -- Davidson, D.: H. P. Grice, “Reply to Davidson,” philosopher of mind
and language. His views on the relationship between our conceptions of
ourselves as persons and as complex physical objects have had an enormous
impact on contemporary philosophy. Davidson regards the mindbody problem as the
problem of the relation between mental and physical events; his discussions of
explanation assume that the entities explained are events; causation is a
relation between events; and action is a species of events, so that events are
the very subject matter of action theory. His central claim concerning events
is that they are concrete particulars
unrepeatable entities located in space and time. He does not take for
granted that events exist, but argues for their existence and for specific
claims as to their nature. In “The Individuation of Events” in Essays on
Actions and Events, 0, Davidson argues that a satisfactory theory of action
must recognize that we talk of the same action under different descriptions. We
must therefore assume the existence of actions. His strongest argument for the
existence of events derives from his most original contribution to metaphysics,
the semantic method of truth Essays on Actions and Events, pp. 10580; Essays on
Truth and Interpretation, 4, pp. 214. The argument is based on a distinctive
trait of the English language one not obviously shared by signal systems in
lower animals, namely, its productivity of combinations. We learn modes of
composition as well as words and are thus prepared to produce and respond to
complex expressions never before encountered. Davidson argues, from such
considerations, that our very understanding of English requires assuming the
existence of events. To understand Davidson’s rather complicated views about
the relationships between mind and body, consider the following claims: 1 The
mental and the physical are distinct. 2 The mental and the physical causally
interact. 3 The physical is causally closed. Darwinism, social Davidson, Donald
206 206 1 says that no mental event is
a physical event; 2, that some mental events cause physical events and vice
versa; and 3, that all the causes of physical events are physical events. If
mental events are distinct from physical events and sometimes cause them, then
the physical is not causally closed. The dilemma posed by the plausibility of each
of these claims and by their apparent incompatibility just is the traditional
mind body problem. Davidson’s resolution consists of three theses: 4 There are
no strict psychological or psychophysical laws; in fact, all strict laws are
expressible in purely physical vocabulary. 5 Mental events causally interact
with physical events. 6 Event c causes event e only if some strict causal law
subsumes c and e. It is commonly held that a property expressed by M is
reducible to a property expressed by P where M and P are not logically
connected only if some exceptionless law links them. So, given 4, mental and
physical properties are distinct. 6 says that c causes e only if there are
singular descriptions, D of c and DH of e, and a “strict” causal law, L, such that
L and ‘D occurred’ entail ‘D caused D'’. 6 and the second part of 4 entail that
physical events have only physical causes and that all event causation is
physically grounded. Given the parallel between 13 and 4 6, it may seem that
the latter, too, are incompatible. But Davidson shows that they all can be true
if and only if mental events are identical to physical events. Let us say that
an event e is a physical event if and only if e satisfies a basic physical
predicate that is, a physical predicate appearing in a “strict” law. Since only
physical predicates or predicates expressing properties reducible to basic
physical properties appear in “strict” laws, every event that enters into
causal relations satisfies a basic physical predicate. So, those mental events
which enter into causal relations are also physical events. Still, the
anomalous monist is committed only to a partial endorsement of 1. The mental
and physical are distinct insofar as they are not linked by strict law but they are not distinct insofar as mental
events are in fact physical events.
transcendental
club. “A club I created to discuss
what I call a ‘metaphysical argument,’ but Kant calls ‘transcendental.’
Strawson objected to my calling it “The Metaphysical Club.” transcendentalism: Also called “New England
transcendentalism,” an early nineteenth-century spiritual and philosophical
movement in the United States, represented by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry
David Thoreau. It was centered in the so-called The Transcendental Club in Boston,
and published a quarterly journal The Dial. Influenced by German idealism and
Romanticism, it claimed that there is a spirit of the whole, the over-soul,
which is beyond the space and time of the everyday world but at the same time
immanent in it, and which forms a higher spiritual reality. It advocated an
ascetic lifestyle, emphasized selfreliance and communal living, and rejected
contemporary civilization. The eventual goal of life is to achieve a mystical
unity with this spiritual reality, that is, with nature. Transcendentalism is
viewed as a mixture of speculative philosophy and semi-religious faith. This
philosophical movement had a deep influence upon existentialism, James’s
pragmatism, and contemporary environmental philosophy. In a broad sense,
transcendentalism is any doctrine that emphasizes the transcendental, and is
taken as a synonym of transcendental philosophy. In this sense, all types of
absolute philosophy, especially those idealist systems that emphasize the
transcendence of the Absolute over the finite world, are considered examples of
transcendentalism. Thus, transcendentalists had aims differing from those of
Kant’s transcendental philosophy, which criticized those who wished to extend
knowledge beyond experience and instead sought to use a transcendental argument
to establish the conditions for the possibility of experience. “The
transcendentalists believed in man’s ability to apprehend absolute Truth,
absolute Justice, absolute Rectitude, absolute goodness. They spoke of the
Right, the True, the Beautiful as eternal realities which man can discover in
the world and which he can incorporate into his life. And they were convinced
of the unlimited perfectibility of man.” Werkmeister, A History of
Philosophical Ideas in America.
triangulus -- Grice’s triangle. He uses the word in “Meaning
Revisited,” (WoW: 286). It’s the semiotic triange between what he calls the
‘communication device,’ the denotatum, and the soul. While
often referred to as H. P. Grice’s triangle, or H. P. Grice’s semiotic
triangle, or "Ogden/Richards triangle" the idea is also expressed in
1810, by Bernard Bolzano, in his rather obscure, Grice grants, “Beiträge zu
einer begründeteren Darstellung der Mathematik.” However, the triangle can be
traced back to the 4th century BC, in Aristotle's Peri Hermeneias (often
referred to in its Latin translation De Interpretatione, second book of his
Organon, on which Grice gave seminars as University Lecturer at Oxford with J.
L. Austin). H. P. Grice’s semiotic Triangle relates to the problem of
universals, a philosophical debate which split ancient and medieval
philosophers (mainly realists and nominalists). The triangle describes a
simplified form of relationship between the emissor as subject, a concept as
object or referent or denotatum, and its designation (sign, signans, or as
Grice prefers ‘communication device’). For more elaborated research see
Semiotics. Ogden semiotic triangle.png Contents 1Interlocutory
applications 1.1Other triangles 1.2The communicative stand 1.3Direction of fit
2See also 3References 4External links Interlocutory applications Other
triangles The relations between the triangular corners may be phrased more
precisely in causal terms as follows[citation needed][original research?]. The
matter evokes the emissor's soul. The emissor refers the matter to the symbol.
The symbol evokes the emissee’s soul. The emissee refers the symbol back to the
matter. The communicative stand Such a triangle represents ONE agent, the
emissor, whereas communication takes place between TWO (objects, not
necessarily agents). So imagine another triangle and consider that for the two
to understand each other, the content that the "triangles" represent
must fit or be aligned. Clearly, this calls for synchronisation and an
interface as well as scale among other things. Notice also, that we perceive
the world mostly through our eyes and in alternative phases of seeing and not
seeing with change in the environment as the most important information to look
for. Our eyes are lenses and we see a surface (2D) in ONE direction (focusing)
if we are stationary and the object is not moving either. This is why you may
position yourself in one corner of the triangle and by replicating (mirroring)
it, you will be able to see the whole picture, your cognitive epistemological
and the ontological existential or physical model of life, the universe,
existence, etc. combined.[citation needed][original research?] Direction
of fit Main article: Direction of fit This section has multiple issues.
Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and
when to remove these template messages) This section does not cite any sources.
(December 2012) This section is written like a personal reflection, personal
essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal
feelings or presents an original argument about a topic. (December 2012) Grice
uses the notion of "direction of fit" (in “Intention and
Uncertainty”) to create a taxonomy of acts. [3] [4] This table
possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims
made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original
research should be removed. (December 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this
template message) World or Referentintended →Writer's Thought
decoded ↑ ↓ encoded Thought Emissee's← extendedSymbol or
Word Emissor's THOUGHT retrieves SYMBOL suited to REFERENT, Word
suited to World. Reader's THOUGHT retrieves REFERENT suited to
SYMBOL, World suited to Word. Actually the arrows indicate that there is
something exchanged between the two parties and it is a feedback cycle.
Especially, if you imagine that the world is represented in the soul of both
the emissor and the emissee and used for reality check. If you look at the
triangle above again, remember that reality check is not what is indicated
there between the sign and the referent and marked as "true', because a
term or a sign is allocated "arbitrarily'. What you check for is the
observance of the law of identity which requires you and your partner to sort
out that you are on the same page, that the emissor is communicating and the
emissee is understanding about the same thing. So the chunk of reality and the
term are replaceable/interchangeable within limits and your concepts in the
soul as presented in some appropriate way are all related and mean the same
thing. Usually the check does not stop there, your ideas must also be tested
for feasibility and doability to make sure that they are "real" and
not "phantasy". Reality check comes from consolidating your
experience with other people's experience to avoid solipsism and/or by putting
your ideas (projection) in practice (production) and see the reaction. Notice,
however how vague the verbs used and how the concept of a fit itself is left
unexplained in details.[editorializing] See also The Delta Factor De
dicto De se De re References Colin Cherry (1957) On Human
Communication C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards (1923) The Meaning of
Meaning John Searle (1975) "A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts",
in: Gunderson, K. (ed.), Language, Mind, and Knowledge (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press) pp. 344-369. John Searle (1976) "A
Classification of Illocutionary Acts", Language in Society, Vol.5, pp. 1-24.
External links Jessica Erickstad (1998) Richards' Meaning of Meaning Theory.
University of Colorado at Boulder. Allie Cahill (1998) "Proper Meaning
Superstition" (I. A. Richards). University of Colorado at Boulder.
Categories: SemioticsSemanticsPragmaticsPhilosophy of languagePhilosophy of
mind. Semiotisches Dreieck Zur Navigation springen. Zur Suche springen. Das
semiotische Dreieck stellt die Relation zwischen dem Symbol, dem dadurch
hervorgerufenen Begriff und dem damit gemeinten realen Ding dar. Das
semiotische Dreieck ist ein in der Sprachwissenschaft und Semiotik verwendetes
Modell. Es soll veranschaulichen, dass ein Zeichenträger (Graphem, Syntagma,
Symbol) sich nicht direkt und unmittelbar auf einen außersprachlichen
Gegenstand bezieht, sondern dieser Bezug nur mittelbar durch eine
Vorstellung/einen Begriff erfolgt. Das semiotische Dreieck publizierten
erstmals Charles Kay Ogden und Ivor Armstrong Richards in dem Werk The Meaning
of Meaning. Das semiotische Dreieck in vereinfachter Beschreibung. Die Welt
besteht aus Gegenständen, Sachverhalten, Ereignissen und Ähnlichem. Diese sind
wirklich und bestimmen alles, was geschieht. Das Symbol für ein Einzelnes davon
steht in den folgenden Dreiecken rechts und bedeutet vereinfacht: Ding oder
„was Sache ist“. Wenn der Mensch ein Ding bemerkt oder sich vorstellt, macht er
sich ein gedachtes Bild davon. Das Symbol dafür steht in den folgenden
Dreiecken oben und bedeutet: Begriff oder „was man meint“. Wenn Menschen mit
diesen Begriffen von Dingen reden, so verwenden sie Zeichen (meist hörbar,
gelegentlich auch sichtbar oder anders wahrnehmbar). Das sind Wörter (auch
Bezeichnungen, Benennungen, Symbole oder Ähnliches). Das Symbol dafür steht in
den folgenden DREIECKEN links und bedeutet: Wort oder „was man dazu sagt“. Ding,
Begriff und Wort sollen eindeutig zusammengehören. Das gelingt nicht immer,
vielmehr muss man immerzu aufpassen, ob der eben verwendete Begriff das
betrachtete Ding richtig erfasst, ob das eben verwendete Wort den gemeinten
Begriff trifft, und sogar ob das eben betrachtete Ding überhaupt eins ist und
nicht etwa einige oder gar keins. Passen die drei Ecken nicht zueinander, „So
entstehen leicht die fundamentalsten Verwechslungen (deren die ganze
Philosophie voll ist).“ Vitters: Tractatus 3.324. Das semiotische Dreieck
als bildliche Darstellung der Mehrdimensionalität der Zeichen
Begriff /\ / \ / \ /
\ / \ Zeichen ......
Gegenstand (Wort) (Ding). Das semiotische Dreieck ist zunächst nur
ein bildliches Hilfsmittel, um sich Beziehungen „im“ bzw. „des“ Zeichens zu
veranschaulichen. Seine Interpretation und nähere Ausgestaltung hängt daher von
der zugrunde gelegten Erkenntnistheorie ab. In entscheidender Weise wird
durch das semiotische Dreieck veranschaulicht, dass zwischen dem Wort (der Zeichenform,
d. h. dem Schriftbild oder dem Lautbild) und dem Bezeichneten (Ding,
Gegenstand) keine direkte Beziehung, sondern nur durch (mindestens) eine hier
so genannte Vermittlungsinstanz vermittelte Beziehung besteht. Graphisch wird
dies durch eine unterschiedliche Linie dargestellt. Gebräuchlich ist ein
Dreieck. Entscheidend ist die nicht-direkte Beziehung zwischen Zeichen (Wort)
und Gegenstand (Ding). Je nach Anzahl der zu veranschaulichenden (nicht
auszublendenden) Bezugspunkte und Vermittlungsinstanzen und der Art der
betonten Beziehungen kann man auch ein Quadrat, ein sonstiges Vieleck bzw.
einen mehrdimensionalen Körper benutzen. Darauf hinzuweisen ist, dass die
Vermittlungsinstanz – hier mit dem mehrdeutigen Ausdruck „Begriff“ bezeichnet –
sehr unterschiedlich gesehen wird, was aus dem Terminologiebefund unten
deutlich wird. Das semiotische Dreieck ist Veranschaulichung eines
Zeichenverständnisses, das dem Zeichenbegriff von Ferdinand de Saussure, wonach
ein Zeichen eine „psychische Einheit“ zwischen einem „akustischen Bild“
(Signifikanten) und einem „Begriff“ (Signifikat) (bei ihm im Sinne einer
psychischen Vorstellung)[2] sein soll, widersprechen dürfte:[3] statt der
„Papierblattmetapher“ für das Verhältnis von Signifikant/Signifikat (von de
Saussure) wird im semiotischen Dreieck eine optische Trennung und Distanzierung
von Zeichenkörper und Begriff (Sinn) vorgenommen. Das semiotische Dreieck
blendet auch pragmatische Bedingungen und Bezüge aus bzw. reduziert sie auf die
semantische Dimension und wird daher von pragmatischen Bedeutungstheorien
kritisiert (vgl. Semiotik). Das Fehlen einer unmittelbaren Beziehung
zwischen Zeichen und Gegenstand wird zugleich als Ausdruck der (von de Saussure
betonten) Arbitrarität und Konventionalität von Zeichen interpretiert.
Geschichte Man muss unterscheiden zwischen dem semiotischen Dreieck als Bild
und einem dreiseitigen (triadischen) Zeichenbegriff, dessen Veranschaulichung
es dient. Verbreitet wird die sprachwissenschaftliche Entwicklung so
dargestellt, als gäbe es ein semiotisches Dreieck erst seit Ogden/Richards, die
damit einen nur zweigliedrigen Zeichenbegriff von de Saussure
modifiziert/überwunden hätten.[4] Es heißt, bis ins 19. Jahrhundert sei der
Zeichenbegriff im Wesentlichen hinsichtlich seines Sachbezugs als „zweistellige
Relation“ diskutiert worden.[5] Andere betonen den zugrunde liegenden
dreiseitigen („triadischen“) Zeichenbegriff, der meist bei Aristoteles,
mitunter auch schon bei Platon angesetzt wird. Schon bei Platon findet
sich ein gedankliches Wort-Gegenstand-Modell zwischen Namen (Zeichen) – Idee
(Begriff) und Ding. Bei Aristoteles ist ein Zeichen (semeion, damit meint er
ein Wort) ein Symptom für eine Seelenregung, d. h. für etwas, das der Sprecher
sich vorstellt. Diese Vorstellung des Sprechers ist dann ein Ikon für ein Ding.
Dies sind für ihn die primären Zeichenrelationen (rot in der untenstehenden
Figur). Davon abgeleitet ist die sekundäre Zeichenrelation (schwarz in der Figur).
Das Semiotische Dreieck bei Aristoteles Seit Aristoteles wird vertreten,
dass Zeichen Dinge der Welt nicht unvermittelt, sondern vermittelt über einen
„Begriff“, „Vorstellung“ etc. bezeichnen. Dies bedeutet eine Differenzierung
gegenüber der einfachen aliquid-stat-pro-aliquo-Konzeption und ist „für die
ganze Geschichte der Semiotik entscheidend“. Bei Aristoteles stehen „Zeichen
[…] für Sachen, welche von den Bewußtseinsinhalten abgebildet worden sind“. „Die
Sachen werden von den Zeichen nicht präsentiert, sondern repräsentiert.“. Die
Interpretation von De interpretatione ist dabei seit Jahrtausenden kontrovers.
Die oben wiedergegebene Interpretation entspricht einer psychologischen
Deutung, die einen Psychologismus nahelegt. Dies erscheint fraglich, da
Aristoteles eher einen erkenntnistheoretischen Realismus vertreten haben
dürfte. Scholastik In der Sprachphilosophie der Scholastik finden sich
Überlegungen zum Dreierschema res (Sache, Ding), intellectus (Verstand,
Gedanken, Begriff), vox (Wortzeichen). Logik von Port-Royal. In der
Grammatik von Port-Royal (Mitte des 17. Jh.) soll das semiotische Dreieck
eingeführt worden sein.[10] In der Logik von Port-Royal sind die Gegenstände
und die Sprachzeichen nicht unmittelbar, sondern über Universalien miteinander
verknüpft. Nach KANT ist das zwischen Begrifflichkeit und Sinnlichkeit bzw.
Gegenstand vermittelnde Element das Schema als ein bildhaftes und anschauliches
Zeichen. Das Verfahren des Verstandes, mit Hilfe der ‚Einbildungskraft‘ die
reinen Verstandesbegriffe zu versinnlichen, heißt Schematismus. Auch Arthur
Schopenhauer, ein deutscher Philosoph des 19. Jahrhunderts, unterscheidet in
seinem Hauptwerk Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung strikt zwischen Wort,
Begriff und Anschauung. Ausblendung des Referenzbezugs im Zeichenmodell von de
Saussure Nach verbreiteter Auffassung haben die moderne Sprachwissenschaft und
der moderne Zeichenbegriff erst mit de Saussure eingesetzt. Nach de Saussure
ist ein Zeichen die Verbindung eines Ausdrucks (signifiant) mit einem Inhalt
(signifié), wobei das Zeichen als „psychische Einheit mit zwei Seiten“[14]
aufgefasst wurde. In diesem zweigliedrigen (dyadischen) Zeichenmodell „hat die
reale Welt keine Bedeutung“:[15] „Hier Bezeichnetes als geistige Vorstellung,
dort Bezeichnendes als dessen Materialisation in der Sprache, aber kein Platz
für das Objekt selbst“. Triadisches Zeichenmodells bei Peirce. Charles S.
Peirce entwickelte eine pragmatische Semiotik[16] und die Pragmatik soll auf
dem triadischen Zeichenmodell von Peirce beruhen.[17] Statt eines dyadischen
entwickelte Peirce ein kommunikativ-pragmatisches, triadisches Zeichenmodell:
das Zeichen ist eine „triadische Relation (semiotisches Dreieck)“. Dies, indem
er zu Zeichenmittel und Objekt den „Interpretanten“ ergänzte, d. h. die
Bedeutung, die durch Interpretation der Zeichenbenutzer (Sprecher bzw. Hörer)
in einem Handlungszusammenhang zustande kommt. „Das, was als
Bewusstseinsinhalt erscheint, der Interpretant, ist der individuell erkannte
Sinn, der seinerseits kulturell vor- oder mitgeprägt sein kann. Daher wird in
diesem Konzept die Zeichenbedeutung (…) auch als „kulturelle Einheit“ (Eco,
1972) postuliert.“Peirce-Interpreten wie Floyd Merrell oder Gerhard Schönrich
wenden sich gegen die Dreiecksdarstellung peircescher Zeichentriaden, da sie
suggerieren könnte, dass sich die irreduzible triadische Relation zerlegen
lasse in einzelne zweistellige Relationen. Stattdessen schlagen sie eine
Y-förmige Darstellung vor, bei der die drei Relate jeweils durch eine Linie mit
dem Mittelpunkt verbunden sind, aber entlang der Seiten des „Dreiecks“ keine
Linien verlaufen. Charles Kay Ogden / Ivor Armstrong Richards Als „die“
Vertreter eines dreiseitigen Zeichenmodells bzw. eines semiotischen Dreiecks
(unter Ausblendung ihrer Vorläufer) werden verbreitet Charles Kay Ogden und
Ivor Armstrong Richards angeführt. Diese erkannten eine Welt außerhalb des
menschlichen Bewusstseins ausdrücklich an und wandten sich gegen „idealistische
Konzepte“. Nach Charles Kay Ogden und Ivor Armstrong Richards symbolisiert das
Zeichen (symbol) etwas und ruft einen entsprechenden Bewusstseinsinhalt
(reference) hervor, der sich auf das Objekt (referent) bezieht.[6] Das
semiotische Dreieck wird wie folgt erklärt: „Umweltsachverhalte werden im
Gedächtnis begrifflich bzw. konzeptuell repräsentiert und mit Sprachzeichen
assoziiert. So ist z. B. das Wort „Baum“ ein Sprachzeichen, das mit dem Begriff
bzw. Konzept von „BAUM“ assoziiert ist und über diesen auf reale Bäume (Buchen,
Birken, Eichen usw.) verweisen kann.“. Siehe auch Organon-Modell (von Karl
Bühler) Literatur Metamorphosen des semiotischen Dreieck. In: Zeitschrift für
Semiotik. Band 10, (darin 8 einzelne Artikel). Umberto Eco: Semiotik – Entwurf
einer Theorie der Zeichen. 2. Auflage. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, München 1991, ISBN
3-7705-2323-7. Umberto Eco: Einführung in die Semiotik. Wilhelm Fink Verlag,
München 1994, ISBN 3-7705-0633-2. Einzelnachweise C. K. Ogden, I. A.
Richards: The Meaning of Meaning. 1923 Kassai: Sinn. In: Martinet
(Hrsg.): Linguistik. Ohne Problematisierung trotz der Nähe zu Saussure hingegen
bei Kassai: Sinn. In: Martinet (Hrsg.): Linguistik. 1973, S. 251 (S. 254 f.)
referiert So wohl Fischer Kolleg Abiturwissen, Deutsch (2002), S.
27 So z. B. Schülerduden, Philosophie (2002), Semiotik Triadische
Zeichenrelation. In: Homberger: Sachwörterbuch zur Sprachwissenschaft.
2000 Trabant: Semiotik. Trabant: Semiotik. So auch Triadische
Zeichenrelation. In: Homberger: Sachwörterbuch zur Sprachwissenschaft. 2000,
wonach Aristoteles das Platonische Modell „psychologisiert“ haben soll So
Schülerduden, Philosophie (2002), Sprachphilosophie Schülerduden,
Philosophie (2002), Sprachphilosophie Baumgartner: Kants „Kritik der
reinen Vernunft“, Anleitung zur Lektüre. [1988], neu ersch. 5. Auflage. ALBER,
Freiburg Hierzu vor allem das Kapitel: „Zur Lehre von der abstrakten, oder
Vernunft-Erkenntnis“ (Zweiter Band) Fischer Kolleg Abiturwissen, Deutsch
(2002), S. 26 Ernst: Pragmalinguistik. 2002, S. 66 Schülerduden,
Philosophie (2002), Peirce So Pelz: Linguistik. 1996, S. 242
Zeichenprozess. In: Homberger: Sachwörterbuch zur Sprachwissenschaft.
2000 Bedeutung. In: Homberger: Sachwörterbuch zur Sprachwissenschaft.
2000 Kategorien: SemiotikSemantik. For Grice, the triangle represents the three
correspondences. First, psychophysical, second psychosemiotic, and third
semio-physical.
tukey’s bit: from binary digit, a unit or measure of information.
Suggested by John W. Tukey, a bit is both an amount of information a reduction
of eight equally likely possibilities to one generates three bits [% log2 8] of
information and a system of representing that quantity. The binary system uses
1’s and 0’s.
type: v.
Grice’s three-year-old’s guide to Russell’s theory of type
tarski: a., cited by Grice. Grice liked Tarski because unlike
Strawson, he was an Aristotelian correspondenntist at heart, philosopher of
logic famous for his investigations of the concepts of truth and consequence
conducted in the 0s. His analysis of the concept of truth in syntactically
precise, fully interpreted languages resulted in a definition of truth and an articulate
defense of the correspondence theory of truth. Sentences of the following kind
are now known as Tarskian biconditionals: ‘The sentence “Every perfect number
is even” is true if and only if every perfect number is even.’ One of Tarski’s
major philosophical insights is that each Tarskian biconditional is, in his
words, a partial definition of truth and, consequently, all Tarskian
biconditionals whose right-hand sides exhaust the sentences of a given formal
language together constitute an implicit definition of ‘true’ as applicable to
sentences of that given formal language. This insight, because of its
penetrating depth and disarming simplicity, has become a staple of modern
analytic philosophy. Moreover, it in effect reduced the philosophical problem
of defining truth to the logical problem of constructing a single sentence
having the form of a definition and having as consequences each of the Tarskian
biconditionals. Tarski’s solution to this problem is the famous Tarski truth
definition, versions of which appear in virtually every mathematical logic
text. Tarski’s second most widely recognized philosophical achievement was his
analysis and explication of the concept of consequence. Consequence is
interdefinable with validity as applied to arguments: a given conclusion is a
consequence of a given premise-set if and only if the argument composed of the
given conclusion and the given premise-set is valid; conversely, a given
argument is valid if and only if its conclusion is a consequence of its premise-set.
Shortly after discovering the truth definition, Tarski presented his
“no-countermodels” definition of consequence: a given sentence is a consequence
of a given set of sentences if and only if every model of the set is a model of
the sentence in other words, if and only if there is no way to reinterpret the
non-logical terms in such a way as to render the sentence false while rendering
all sentences in the set true. As Quine has emphasized, this definition reduces
the modal notion of logical necessity to a combination of syntactic and
semantic concepts, thus avoiding reference to modalities and/or to “possible
worlds.” After Tarski’s definitive work on truth and on consequence he devoted
his energies largely to more purely mathematical work. For example, in answer
to Gödel’s proof that arithmetic is incomplete and undecidable, Tarski showed
that algebra and geometry are both complete and decidable. Tarski’s truth
definition and his consequence definition are found in his 6 collection Logic,
Semantics, Metamathematics 2d ed., 3: article VIII, pp. 152278, contains the
truth definition; article XVI, pp. 40920, contains the consequence definition.
His published articles, nearly 3,000 s in all, have been available together
since 6 in the four-volume Alfred Tarski, Collected Papers, edited by S. Givant
and R. McKenzie.
tautologicum – Grice gives two examples: War is war, and Women are
women – “Note that “Men are men” sounds contingent.” tautology, a proposition
whose negation is inconsistent, or self- contradictory, e.g. ‘Socrates is
Socrates’, ‘Every human is either male or nonmale’, ‘No human is both male and
non-male’, ‘Every human is identical to itself’, ‘If Socrates is human then
Socrates is human’. A proposition that is or is logically equivalent to the negation
of a tautology is called a self-contradiction. According to classical logic,
the property of being Tao Te Ching tautology 902 902 implied by its own negation is a
necessary and sufficient condition for being a tautology and the property of
implying its own negation is a necessary and sufficient condition for being a
contradiction. Tautologies are logically necessary and contradictions are
logically impossible. Epistemically, every proposition that can be known to be
true by purely logical reasoning is a tautology and every proposition that can
be known to be false by purely logical reasoning is a contradiction. The
converses of these two statements are both controversial among classical
logicians. Every proposition in the same logical form as a tautology is a
tautology and every proposition in the same logical form as a contradiction is
a contradiction. For this reason sometimes a tautology is said to be true in
virtue of form and a contradiction is said to be false in virtue of form; being
a tautology and being a contradiction tautologousness and contradictoriness are
formal properties. Since the logical form of a proposition is determined by its
logical terms ‘every’, ‘some’, ‘is’, etc., a tautology is sometimes said to be
true in virtue of its logical terms and likewise mutatis mutandis for a
contradiction. Since tautologies do not exclude any logical possibilities they
are sometimes said to be “empty” or “uninformative”; and there is a tendency
even to deny that they are genuine propositions and that knowledge of them is
genuine knowledge. Since each contradiction “includes” implies all logical
possibilities which of course are jointly inconsistent, contradictions are
sometimes said to be “overinformative.” Tautologies and contradictions are sometimes
said to be “useless,” but for opposite reasons. More precisely, according to
classical logic, being implied by each and every proposition is necessary and
sufficient for being a tautology and, coordinately, implying each and every
proposition is necessary and sufficient for being a contradiction. Certain
developments in mathematical logic, especially model theory and modal logic,
seem to support use of Leibniz’s expression ‘true in all possible worlds’ in
connection with tautologies. There is a special subclass of tautologies called
truth-functional tautologies that are true in virtue of a special subclass of
logical terms called truthfunctional connectives ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘not’, ‘if’,
etc.. Some logical writings use ‘tautology’ exclusively for truth-functional
tautologies and thus replace “tautology” in its broad sense by another
expression, e.g. ‘logical truth’. Tarski, Gödel, Russell, and many other
logicians have used the word in its broad sense, but use of it in its narrow
sense is widespread and entirely acceptable. Propositions known to be
tautologies are often given as examples of a priori knowledge. In philosophy of
mathematics, the logistic hypothesis of logicism is the proposition that every
true proposition of pure mathematics is a tautology. Some writers make a sharp
distinction between the formal property of being a tautology and the non-formal
metalogical property of being a law of logic. For example, ‘One is one’ is not
metalogical but it is a tautology, whereas ‘No tautology is a contradiction’ is
metalogical but is not a tautology.
taylor, philosopher, educated at Oxford where he
taught. Taylor’s oeuvre has a broadly analytic character, although he has
consistently opposed the naturalistic and reductionist tendencies that were
associated with the positivist domination of analytic philosophy during the 0s
and 0s. He was, for example, a strong opponent of behaviorism and defended the
essentially interpretive nature of the social sciences against efforts to
reduce their methodology to that of the natural sciences. Taylor has also done
important work on the histiory of philosophy, particularly on Hegel, and has
connected his work with that of Continental philosophers such as Heidegger and
Merleau-Ponty. He has contributed to political theory and written on
contemporary political issues such as multiculturalism in, e.g., The Ethics of
Authenticity, 1, often with specific reference to politics. He has also taken an active
political role in Quebec. Taylor’s most important work, Sources of the Self 9,
is a historical and critical study of the emergence of the modern concept of
the self. Like many other critics of modernity, Taylor rejects modern
tendencies to construe personal identity in entirely scientific or naturalistic
terms, arguing that these construals lead to a view of the self that can make
no sense of our undeniable experience of ourselves as moral agents. He develops
this critique in a historical mode through discussion of the radical
Enlightenment’s e.g., Locke’s reduction of the self to an atomic individual,
essentially disengaged from everything except its own ideas and desires. But
unlike many critics, Taylor also finds in modernity other, richer sources for a
conception of the self. These include the idea of the self’s inwardness, traceable
as far back as Augustine but developed in a distinctively modern way by
Montaigne and Descartes; the affirmation of ordinary life and of ourselves as
participants in it, particularly associated with the Reformation; and the
expressivism of, e.g., the Romantics for which the self fulfills itself by
embracing and articulating the voice of nature present in its depths. Taylor
thinks that these sources constitute a modern self that, unlike the “punctual
self” of the radical Enlightenment, is a meaningful ethical agent. He suggests,
nonetheless, that an adequate conception of the modern self will further
require a relation of human inwardness to God. This suggestion so far remains
undeveloped. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Taylor
et moi.”
teichmüller: philosopher who contributes to the history of
philosophy and develops a theory of knowledge and a metaphysical conception
based on these historical studies. Born in Braunschweig, Teichmüller teaches at
Göttingen and Basel and is influenced by Lotze and Leibniz. Teichmüller’s major
works are “Aristotelische Forschungen” and “Die wirkliche und scheinbar Welt.” His
other works are “Ueber die Unsterblichkeit der Seele,” vide H. P. Grice, “The immortality of
Shropshire’s soul” Old English steorfan "to
die" (past tense stearf, past participle storfen), literally "become
stiff," from Proto-Germanic *sterbanan "be stiff, starve"
(source also of Old Frisian sterva, Old Saxon sterban, Dutch sterven, Old High
German sterban "to die," Old Norse stjarfi "tetanus"), from
extended form of PIE root *ster- (1) "stiff." The conjugation
became weak in English by 16c. The sense narrowed to "die of cold"
(14c.); transitive meaning "to kill with hunger" is first recorded
1520s (earlier to starve of hunger, early 12c.). Intransitive sense of "to
die of hunger" dates from 1570s. German cognate sterben retains the
original sense of the word, but the English has come so far from its origins
that starve to death (1910) is now common. “Studien zur Geschichte der
Begriffe,” “Darwinismus und Philosophie,” “Ueber das Wesen der Liebe,” “
Religionsphilosophie,” and “Neue Grundlegung der Psychologie und Logik.”
Teichmüller maintains that the self of immediate experience, the “I,” is the
most fundamental reality and that the conceptual world is a projection of its
constituting activity. On the basis of his studies in the history of
metaphysics and his sympathies with Leibniz’s monadology, he held that each
metaphysical system contained partial truths and construed each metaphysical
standpoint as a perspective on a complex reality. Thinking of both metaphysical
interpretations of reality and the subjectivity of individual immediate
experience, Teichmüller christened his own philosophical position
“perspectivism.” His work influenced later thought through its impact on the
philosophical reflections of Nietzsche, who was probably influenced by him in
the development of his perspectival theory of knowledge.
teilhard: philosopher whose oeuvre is vigorously discussed
throughout his career. Teilhard de Chardin’s philosophy generates considerable
controversy within the church, since one of his principal concerns is to bring
about a forceful yet generous reconciliation between the traditional Christian
dogma and the dramatic advances yielded by modern science. His philosophy
consisted of systematic reflections on cosmology, biology, physics,
anthropology, social theory, and theology
reflections guided, he maintains, by his fascination with the nature of
life, energy, and matter, and by his profound respect for human spirituality.
Teilhard is educated in philosophy at Mongré. He entered the Jesuit order at
the age of eighteen and was ordained a priest.He went on to study at
Aix-en-Provence, Laval, and Caen, as well as on the Isle of Jersey and at
Hastings, England. Returning to Paris after the war, he studies biology,
geology, and paleontology at the Museum of Natural History and at the Institut
Catholique, receiving a doctoral degree in geology. Shortly after appointment
to the faculty of geology at the Institut Catholique, he takes leave to pursue
field research. His research resulted in the discovery of “Sinanthropus
pekinensis,” which he saw as “perhaps the next to the last step traceable
between the anthropoids and man.” It was during this period that Teilhard begins
to compose one of his major theoretical works, “Le phenomene de l’homme,” in
which he stressed the deep continuity of evolutionary development and the
emergence of humanity from the animal realm. He argues that received
evolutionary theory is fully compatible with Christian doctrine. Indeed, it is
the synthesis of evolutionary theory with his own Christian theology that
perhaps best characterizes the broad tenor of his thought. Starting with the
very inception of the evolutionary trajectory, i.e., with what he termed the “alpha
point” of creation, Teilhard’s general theory resists any absolute disjunction
between the inorganic and organic. Indeed, matter and spirit are two “stages”
or “aspects” of the same cosmic stuff. These transitions from one state to
another may be said to correspond to those between the somatic and psychic, the
exterior and interior, according to the state of relative development,
organization, and complexity. Hence, for Teilhard, much as for Bergson whose
work greatly influenced him, evolutionary development is characterized by a
progression from the simplest components of matter and energy what he termed
the lithosphere, through the organization of flora and fauna the biosphere, to
the complex formations of sentient and cognitive human life the noosphere. In
this sense, evolution is a “progressive spiritualization of matter.” He held
this to be an orthogenetic process, one of “directed evolution” or “Genesis,”
by which matter would irreversibly metamorphose itself, in a process of involution
and complexification, toward the psychic. Specifically, Teilhard’s account
sought to overcome what he saw as a prescientific worldview, one based on a
largely antiquated and indefensible metaphysical dualism. By accomplishing
this, he hoped to realize a productive convergence of science and religion. The
end of evolution, what he termed “the Omega point,” would be the full presence
of Christ, embodied in a universal human society. Many have tended to see a
Christian pantheism expressed in such views. Teilhard himself stressed a
profoundly personalist, spiritual perspective, drawn not only from the
theological tradition of Thomism, but from that of Pauline Neoplatonism and
Christian mysticism as well especially
that tradition extending from Meister Eckhart through Cardinal Bérulle and
Malebranche. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Teilhard et moi,” – “Method in philosophical
psychology: from the banal to the bizarre.”
telesio: philosopher whose empiricism influences Francis Bacon
and Galileo. Telesio studies in Padova, where he completed his doctorate, and practiced philosophy in Naples and Cosenza
without holding any academic position. His major oeuvre, “De rerum natura iuxta
propria principia,” contains an attempt to interpret nature on the basis of its
own principles, which Telesio identifies with the two incorporeal active forces
of heat and cold, and the corporeal and passive physical substratum. As the two
active forces permeate all of nature and are endowed with sensation, Telesio
argues that all of nature possesses some degree of sensation. Human beings
share with animals a material substance produced by heat and coming into
existence with the body, called spirit. They are also given a mind by God.
Telesio knew various interpretations of Aristotle. However, Telesio broke with foreign exegeses, criticizing
Aristotle’s Physics and claiming that nature is investigated better by the
senses than by the intellect. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Telesio e Grice,” per il
Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.
telishment: punishment of one suspected of wrongdoing,
but whom the authorities know to be innocent, imposed as a deterrent to future
wrongdoers. Telishment is thus not punishment insofar as punishment requires
that the recipient’s harsh treatment be deserved. Telishment is classically
given as one of the thought experiments challenging utilitarianism and more
broadly, consequentialism as a theory of ethics, for such a theory seems to
justify telishment on some occasions. Grice considers the sophisma that only
the condemnable is supposed to be responsible – as a disregard for the
implicaturum.
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