Speranza
begin quoted text:
"Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
Neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England .
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
We find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
And, a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And, why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing,
Grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them,
What do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship...
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And, how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
While a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
In which your house can burn up as it burns down,
In which you fill in a form by filling it out,
And, in which an alarm goes off by going on.
And in closing..........
If Father is Pop, how come Mother is not Mop.???"
Friday, February 3, 2012
Griceian implicatures
Speranza
---
begin quoted material:
--
English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horsefull carriage or a strapfull gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would actually hurt a fly? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on.
--
--- end quoted material.
Commentary:
"English is a crazy language."
Strictly, it's people who are crazy. As Lord Russell said, philosophers should not stick with the silly things silly people say."
"There is no egg in eggplant"
---- etymologically, there is?
"nor ham in hamburger";
-- The 'haem' in hamburg is not cognate with 'ham'?
"neither apple nor pine in pineapple".
--- Pinapple is not native to England.
"English muffins weren't invented in England"
--- but they were not invented in Japan, were they?
"or French fries in France".
A "French fry" should be added to Grice's discussion of "French" in "Multiplicity" (PPQ):
"French poem" --
"Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat".
There should be an implicature somewhere.
"We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig."
Grice considers that 'disc' should still be called 'disc' even if come to be made square (WoW:III, Logic and Conversation).
"And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?"
Oddly, and sadly, playwrights write.
"If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?"
Grice knew of Boolos's attempt to quantify the plural in "Logic of plurality". In Symbols,
Some goose is nice --- may implicate MANY. The 'number' is not a category of logical importance, pre-Boolosian logicians thought.
"If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?"
Good paradox.
"If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane."
Vide Grice on hyperbole.
"In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?"
"Your feet smell." requires a subtle analysis alla Grice, "Some remarks about the senses".
"You look beautiful" is short for "I look at you and I _SEE_ you as beautiful.
Similarly, 'your smelly foot' requires an analysis as "_I_ smell your foot". But feet indeed have no noses.
---
"How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horsefull carriage or a strapfull gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love?"
Cfr. "How I met my wife". This is the phenomenon of what Austin and Grice called 'trouser-word'.
---
"Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would actually hurt a fly?"
Again, trouser-word.
"You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down,"
Grice on preposition in "Actions and events": the action is 'burn'; the rest is emphatic.
"in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on."
And so on.
---
begin quoted material:
--
English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horsefull carriage or a strapfull gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would actually hurt a fly? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on.
--
--- end quoted material.
Commentary:
"English is a crazy language."
Strictly, it's people who are crazy. As Lord Russell said, philosophers should not stick with the silly things silly people say."
"There is no egg in eggplant"
---- etymologically, there is?
"nor ham in hamburger";
-- The 'haem' in hamburg is not cognate with 'ham'?
"neither apple nor pine in pineapple".
--- Pinapple is not native to England.
"English muffins weren't invented in England"
--- but they were not invented in Japan, were they?
"or French fries in France".
A "French fry" should be added to Grice's discussion of "French" in "Multiplicity" (PPQ):
"French poem" --
"Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat".
There should be an implicature somewhere.
"We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig."
Grice considers that 'disc' should still be called 'disc' even if come to be made square (WoW:III, Logic and Conversation).
"And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?"
Oddly, and sadly, playwrights write.
"If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?"
Grice knew of Boolos's attempt to quantify the plural in "Logic of plurality". In Symbols,
Some goose is nice --- may implicate MANY. The 'number' is not a category of logical importance, pre-Boolosian logicians thought.
"If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?"
Good paradox.
"If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane."
Vide Grice on hyperbole.
"In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?"
"Your feet smell." requires a subtle analysis alla Grice, "Some remarks about the senses".
"You look beautiful" is short for "I look at you and I _SEE_ you as beautiful.
Similarly, 'your smelly foot' requires an analysis as "_I_ smell your foot". But feet indeed have no noses.
---
"How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horsefull carriage or a strapfull gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love?"
Cfr. "How I met my wife". This is the phenomenon of what Austin and Grice called 'trouser-word'.
---
"Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would actually hurt a fly?"
Again, trouser-word.
"You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down,"
Grice on preposition in "Actions and events": the action is 'burn'; the rest is emphatic.
"in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on."
And so on.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Grice on "Izz" and "Hazz": the Kantotelian background
Speranza
There is an online discussion going on between D. O'Brien and R. B. Jones. I'm reporting those bits which concern Grice, for the record.
Jones refers to his
"point of entry into Aristotle."
"My interest was provoked by ... a version
of set of semi-formal principles formulated by [Alan Dodds] Code [former student of Grice at UC/Berkeley]
following his collaboration with Grice on some
Aristotelian studies. Grice was interested inter alia
in "the multiplicity of being", i.e. in whether the
verb "to be" has many different or one single "sense".
D. O'Brien:
"Recall that our own discussion stems from your enquiries
regarding several rather modern interpretations of the
Aristotelian categorical propositions (A,E,I,O types)
w.r.t. 20th c. controversies regarding "existential
import" and "non-empty predicates". Thus our discussion
hasn't been of "being qua being", but of that highly
qualified sense in which being might be affirmed or
denied in a proposition (as defined by Aristotle).
"Being qua being" is discussed in the Metaphysics, and
if I recall correctly, somewhere in those books
Aristotle argues that being has no single highest genus.
I'm quite rusty on the matter since it's been a long
time since I read the books, but for sure Aristotle
distinguishes between the beings of physical and
mathematical individuals, e.g. between a cat and a
number, and in rhetoric he distinguishes many other
kinds of being, metaphorical, representational,
hypothetical, etc."
Jones:
"I am aware of the distinction between the metaphysics and
the organon. However, part of the point at issue with [Alan Dodds] Code was in what
logical context the examination of Aristotle might best be
conducted.
He suggested that it was then common to work with a first
order logic but himself chose to work with some "semi-
formal" notations."
---- Indeed. Grice has a lot to say about First-Order Predicate Calculus With Identity. And indeed, Izz and Hazz diverge from it. There is a way in which they don't.
Ixy
Hxy
i.e. Izz and Hazz would be two-place predicates. And so the logic of Izz and Hazz can be seen as a variety of a first-order predicate calculus, with identity (vide Grice, "Reply to Richards" for his short commentary on First Order Predicate Calculus with Identity -- his locution).
Jones:
"I thought that it would be interesting to see whether the
metaphysics fitted well with Aristotelian logic, and so I
attempted to construct models of both.
I did the syllogism separately at first, and we had some
exchanges on this, and I did a model which encompassed both
the syllogism and certain aspects of the metaphysics,
including the difference between essential and accidental
predication.
I don't believe we discussed this."
Jones:
"In this connection Grice coined two words to
unambiguously express essential and accidental
predication, viz: "izz" and "hazz"."
D. O'Brien objects:
"This is a different question than whether being has a
single sense."
Jones aptly replies:
"It isn't a question at all, but it certainly is something
which any opinion on whether there are multiple sense of
being would need to take into account (to be taken seriously
by me!)."
To be considered later. This is best seen in terms of what Grice calls the Modified Occam's Razor ("Do not multiply senses [not just entities -- 'entia'] beyond necessity" -- entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.).
D. O'Brien:
"Socrates, for example, had a temporal,
ephemeral being contingent on his birth and death dates,
and this is so regardless of the fact that, when we say
that Socrates was human and so Socrates was a mammal,
according as the syllogism this last was predicated
essentially of Socrates in virtue of the definition of
his humanity. Likewise, if Socrates had a pug-nose,
this would be an accidental predication of one and the
same Socrates. Socrates, the subject of these
propositions, isn't being said to have this or that mode
or kind of existence, but is said to be a subject which
this or that quality or property etc. belongs to."
Jones, like me, agrees:
"Well, that is interesting, and it may well bear on the
question which Grice was interested in."
It does. Grice was also pretty obsessed with relative identity, which may bear on this. Consider the first opera ever, "Dafne": a girl, called Dafne, turned into a plant of laurel (In Greek, "laurel" is called "Dafne").
Here we have
a = a
a = b
Grice, following arguments by Geach, and in collaboration with Myro, came to the conclusion that,
Socrates is essentially human --.
If Socrates is changed into a plant of laurel (as he wasn't), the formerly essential predication ("Socrates IZZ human") no longer applies, since Socrates IZZ now a plant.
--- vide Myro, "Identity and Time", in PGRICE. Along with the Code essay (on Grice on izz and hazz) in the "Metaphysics" section of PGRICE.
Jones:
"I have not yet come to understanding of Grice on this, and
in particular I still do not understand what are the
criteria he applies in deciding whether a word has one or
many "senses"."
It's his "Modified Occam's Razor". He coined 'implicature' to save appearances. So we can now argue that, if this philosopher (his target: Owens, the Welsh Aristotelian scholar) had said that, for Aristotle, 'being' bears 'semantic multiplicity' ("The snares of ontology" is Owens's paper cited by Grice), there is a way to deal with that. We can explain the divergence in terms of 'implicature'. Or we can expand on the 'deep berths' of language, and play with the syntax: we would have not just
"S izz P"
as the logical form, but at least two varieties:
"S izz P"
and
"S hazz P".
In other words, Grice, alla Kantotle, brings 'hazz' to metaphysical notoriety.
Jones:
"Up and till now, I had not thought that he was asking about
kinds of existence, but rather about kinds of predication,
which is what izz and hazz are concerned with."
Grice briefly refers to a "Meinongian jungle" in "Vacuous Names", and in "Method in philosophical psychology" he speaks of "Ontological Marxism" (Entities, if they work, they exist"). So his deepest motivation was into kinds of existence.
D. O' Brien:
"I've read of no usage similar to a Grice's "izz" and
"hazz" in either the direct translations of Aristotle,
or the various commentaries that I've scanned through.
I understand the intent behind this coinage, but in
practice I don't see why anyone would require the added
complexity."
It would be good to comment on direct translations from the Greek. Recall that it was Grice's student, J. L. Ackrill, who started the tendency of discussing Aristotle in the local vernacular of Oxford (English) rather than the local vernacular of Athens. (Grice on "Oxonian Dialectic" and "Athenian Dialectic" in Studies in the Way of Words, "Retrospective Epilogue"). "A bad practice", Grice added.
Jones aptly challenges that:
"It does not add complexity.
These words correspond directly to a distinction expressed
by Aristotle which is not clearly made in ordinary language,
and it is just convenient when considering the differences
between accidental and essential predication to be able to
state a proposition in a way which makes it explicit and
unambiguous whether essential or accidental predication is
involved.
When the predicates are themselves variable names there is
no other way to know."
Which was a brilliant thing to say.
----
Jones:
"My formal treatment of the Aristotelian syllogism,
which we discussed on phil-logic, and in which
discussion you eventually persuaded me of the two
points recently mentioned in relation to predication
in Aristotle's philosophy, that affirmative
propositions carry existential import and that there
is no presumption of non-emptyness of the extension of
terms."
"My last combined formal treatment of the syllogism with
this distinction of types of predicate was done before
that happened and is therefore based on the opinion of
Robin Smith that Aristotle should be understood to
presume non- empty term extensions. However, even
without the present revelations (of which more in a
second) this treatment suggests that the theory of the
syllogism is in need of modification once Aristotle's
distinction between essential and accidental
predication (as given in the Metaphysics rather than
the Categories) is taken into account."
O'Brien:
"What "theory of the syllogism" are you talking about
here?"
Jones:
"The word "theory" here has a precise meaning in relation to
the tool ProofPower which I have been using in constructing
models of various aspects of Aristotle's syllogism and
metaphysics.
The result of my formal work is a set of "theories" each of
which consists of some definitions and some theorems derived
from them.
Listings of these theories may be found in appendix A of:
http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/pp/doc/t028.pdf
Nothing I have said should suggest to you that it is my
purpose to "correct" Aristotle, I am simply trying to
understand him (in small part) and his place in the history
of certain ideas."
O' Brien:
"Aristotle's? Do you seriously think Aristotle's
theory of categorical logic has to be modified, as based
on your reading of his distinction between
essential/accidental predications?"
Jones:
"No."
Jones:
"What Maritain tells us presents a further difficulty,
> > if it is intended to be a claim about Aristotle's
> > philosophy (though this seems doubtful given that
> > Maritain was a thomist rather than an Aristotelian,
> > and even then not a blind follower of Thomas but one
> > progressing along the direction he set out, and does
> > not appear to be making, or justifying claims about
> > Thomas or Aristotle, but rather stating his own views
> > on the matters treated by them)."
O'Brien:
"> I don't know on what you base these judgments of
> Maritain's work. I don't know what it could mean that
> "Maritain was a Thomist rather than an Aristotelian"."
Jones:
"Until you mentioned Maritain I had never even heard of him.
On reading your message I consulted the Stanford
Encyclopaedia where he is described along the lines which I
used above.
I then downloaded the PDF of the work which you mentioned,
and consulted just the page you referred to and perhaps a
little of the context.
In saying that Maritain was a Thomist rather than an
Aristotelian I am considering the possibility that the view
expressed by Maritain may not all be opinions which were
held by Aristotle.
It is certainly the case that the medieval logicians went
beyond what is explicit in Aristotle, they do so
notationally by devising the AEIO notation, they do so by
identifying more valid syllogisms.
Maritain is represented by SEP as an original philosopher,
not merely an Aristotelian scholar, and we must therefore in
reading what he says not assume that he is confining himself
to opinions which can be shown to have been held by
Aristotle."
O'Brien:
"> To say that he was a "Thomist" is really no more
> than to say that he wrote his texts specifically for use
> in seminaries of the Catholic church, where there's a
> Thomist tradition, but little more than that."
Jones:
"I would be very surprised if that was what the author of the
SEP article intended to say."
Jones:
"> > Maritain says that the existential import is associated
> > with affirmative propositions only if they are
> > accidental, not if they are essential."
O'Brien:
> Maritain doesn't say anything like that.
Jones:
"Indeed he does not.
Not, at least, in so many words.
What he does say is that an essential predication of the
form "Some A are B" may be true even if there is no A,
provided only that there is some possible A.
I don't know that either he or Aristotle uses the phrase
"existential import", but in my usage of that term affirming
the consistency of a predicate is not what is meant by
existential import.
So I think what he says is "something like" what I said."
Jones:
> > He does not seem to be offering any way in which we can
> > discover whether a proposition is essential or
> > accidental,
O'Brien:
> Maritain does explain the distinction.
Jones:
"I already understand the distinction.
The issue here is whether one can tell whether any
particular predication is accidental or essential.
This presumably one might do from a knowledge of the
meanings of the terms in the proposition, however, in the
syllogistic one works with variables, and from a
propositional scheme such as "B is predicated of all As"
once does not know whether essential or accidental
predication is involved."
Excellent!
There is an online discussion going on between D. O'Brien and R. B. Jones. I'm reporting those bits which concern Grice, for the record.
Jones refers to his
"point of entry into Aristotle."
"My interest was provoked by ... a version
of set of semi-formal principles formulated by [Alan Dodds] Code [former student of Grice at UC/Berkeley]
following his collaboration with Grice on some
Aristotelian studies. Grice was interested inter alia
in "the multiplicity of being", i.e. in whether the
verb "to be" has many different or one single "sense".
D. O'Brien:
"Recall that our own discussion stems from your enquiries
regarding several rather modern interpretations of the
Aristotelian categorical propositions (A,E,I,O types)
w.r.t. 20th c. controversies regarding "existential
import" and "non-empty predicates". Thus our discussion
hasn't been of "being qua being", but of that highly
qualified sense in which being might be affirmed or
denied in a proposition (as defined by Aristotle).
"Being qua being" is discussed in the Metaphysics, and
if I recall correctly, somewhere in those books
Aristotle argues that being has no single highest genus.
I'm quite rusty on the matter since it's been a long
time since I read the books, but for sure Aristotle
distinguishes between the beings of physical and
mathematical individuals, e.g. between a cat and a
number, and in rhetoric he distinguishes many other
kinds of being, metaphorical, representational,
hypothetical, etc."
Jones:
"I am aware of the distinction between the metaphysics and
the organon. However, part of the point at issue with [Alan Dodds] Code was in what
logical context the examination of Aristotle might best be
conducted.
He suggested that it was then common to work with a first
order logic but himself chose to work with some "semi-
formal" notations."
---- Indeed. Grice has a lot to say about First-Order Predicate Calculus With Identity. And indeed, Izz and Hazz diverge from it. There is a way in which they don't.
Ixy
Hxy
i.e. Izz and Hazz would be two-place predicates. And so the logic of Izz and Hazz can be seen as a variety of a first-order predicate calculus, with identity (vide Grice, "Reply to Richards" for his short commentary on First Order Predicate Calculus with Identity -- his locution).
Jones:
"I thought that it would be interesting to see whether the
metaphysics fitted well with Aristotelian logic, and so I
attempted to construct models of both.
I did the syllogism separately at first, and we had some
exchanges on this, and I did a model which encompassed both
the syllogism and certain aspects of the metaphysics,
including the difference between essential and accidental
predication.
I don't believe we discussed this."
Jones:
"In this connection Grice coined two words to
unambiguously express essential and accidental
predication, viz: "izz" and "hazz"."
D. O'Brien objects:
"This is a different question than whether being has a
single sense."
Jones aptly replies:
"It isn't a question at all, but it certainly is something
which any opinion on whether there are multiple sense of
being would need to take into account (to be taken seriously
by me!)."
To be considered later. This is best seen in terms of what Grice calls the Modified Occam's Razor ("Do not multiply senses [not just entities -- 'entia'] beyond necessity" -- entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.).
D. O'Brien:
"Socrates, for example, had a temporal,
ephemeral being contingent on his birth and death dates,
and this is so regardless of the fact that, when we say
that Socrates was human and so Socrates was a mammal,
according as the syllogism this last was predicated
essentially of Socrates in virtue of the definition of
his humanity. Likewise, if Socrates had a pug-nose,
this would be an accidental predication of one and the
same Socrates. Socrates, the subject of these
propositions, isn't being said to have this or that mode
or kind of existence, but is said to be a subject which
this or that quality or property etc. belongs to."
Jones, like me, agrees:
"Well, that is interesting, and it may well bear on the
question which Grice was interested in."
It does. Grice was also pretty obsessed with relative identity, which may bear on this. Consider the first opera ever, "Dafne": a girl, called Dafne, turned into a plant of laurel (In Greek, "laurel" is called "Dafne").
Here we have
a = a
a = b
Grice, following arguments by Geach, and in collaboration with Myro, came to the conclusion that,
Socrates is essentially human --.
If Socrates is changed into a plant of laurel (as he wasn't), the formerly essential predication ("Socrates IZZ human") no longer applies, since Socrates IZZ now a plant.
--- vide Myro, "Identity and Time", in PGRICE. Along with the Code essay (on Grice on izz and hazz) in the "Metaphysics" section of PGRICE.
Jones:
"I have not yet come to understanding of Grice on this, and
in particular I still do not understand what are the
criteria he applies in deciding whether a word has one or
many "senses"."
It's his "Modified Occam's Razor". He coined 'implicature' to save appearances. So we can now argue that, if this philosopher (his target: Owens, the Welsh Aristotelian scholar) had said that, for Aristotle, 'being' bears 'semantic multiplicity' ("The snares of ontology" is Owens's paper cited by Grice), there is a way to deal with that. We can explain the divergence in terms of 'implicature'. Or we can expand on the 'deep berths' of language, and play with the syntax: we would have not just
"S izz P"
as the logical form, but at least two varieties:
"S izz P"
and
"S hazz P".
In other words, Grice, alla Kantotle, brings 'hazz' to metaphysical notoriety.
Jones:
"Up and till now, I had not thought that he was asking about
kinds of existence, but rather about kinds of predication,
which is what izz and hazz are concerned with."
Grice briefly refers to a "Meinongian jungle" in "Vacuous Names", and in "Method in philosophical psychology" he speaks of "Ontological Marxism" (Entities, if they work, they exist"). So his deepest motivation was into kinds of existence.
D. O' Brien:
"I've read of no usage similar to a Grice's "izz" and
"hazz" in either the direct translations of Aristotle,
or the various commentaries that I've scanned through.
I understand the intent behind this coinage, but in
practice I don't see why anyone would require the added
complexity."
It would be good to comment on direct translations from the Greek. Recall that it was Grice's student, J. L. Ackrill, who started the tendency of discussing Aristotle in the local vernacular of Oxford (English) rather than the local vernacular of Athens. (Grice on "Oxonian Dialectic" and "Athenian Dialectic" in Studies in the Way of Words, "Retrospective Epilogue"). "A bad practice", Grice added.
Jones aptly challenges that:
"It does not add complexity.
These words correspond directly to a distinction expressed
by Aristotle which is not clearly made in ordinary language,
and it is just convenient when considering the differences
between accidental and essential predication to be able to
state a proposition in a way which makes it explicit and
unambiguous whether essential or accidental predication is
involved.
When the predicates are themselves variable names there is
no other way to know."
Which was a brilliant thing to say.
----
Jones:
"My formal treatment of the Aristotelian syllogism,
which we discussed on phil-logic, and in which
discussion you eventually persuaded me of the two
points recently mentioned in relation to predication
in Aristotle's philosophy, that affirmative
propositions carry existential import and that there
is no presumption of non-emptyness of the extension of
terms."
"My last combined formal treatment of the syllogism with
this distinction of types of predicate was done before
that happened and is therefore based on the opinion of
Robin Smith that Aristotle should be understood to
presume non- empty term extensions. However, even
without the present revelations (of which more in a
second) this treatment suggests that the theory of the
syllogism is in need of modification once Aristotle's
distinction between essential and accidental
predication (as given in the Metaphysics rather than
the Categories) is taken into account."
O'Brien:
"What "theory of the syllogism" are you talking about
here?"
Jones:
"The word "theory" here has a precise meaning in relation to
the tool ProofPower which I have been using in constructing
models of various aspects of Aristotle's syllogism and
metaphysics.
The result of my formal work is a set of "theories" each of
which consists of some definitions and some theorems derived
from them.
Listings of these theories may be found in appendix A of:
http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/pp/doc/t028.pdf
Nothing I have said should suggest to you that it is my
purpose to "correct" Aristotle, I am simply trying to
understand him (in small part) and his place in the history
of certain ideas."
O' Brien:
"Aristotle's? Do you seriously think Aristotle's
theory of categorical logic has to be modified, as based
on your reading of his distinction between
essential/accidental predications?"
Jones:
"No."
Jones:
"What Maritain tells us presents a further difficulty,
> > if it is intended to be a claim about Aristotle's
> > philosophy (though this seems doubtful given that
> > Maritain was a thomist rather than an Aristotelian,
> > and even then not a blind follower of Thomas but one
> > progressing along the direction he set out, and does
> > not appear to be making, or justifying claims about
> > Thomas or Aristotle, but rather stating his own views
> > on the matters treated by them)."
O'Brien:
"> I don't know on what you base these judgments of
> Maritain's work. I don't know what it could mean that
> "Maritain was a Thomist rather than an Aristotelian"."
Jones:
"Until you mentioned Maritain I had never even heard of him.
On reading your message I consulted the Stanford
Encyclopaedia where he is described along the lines which I
used above.
I then downloaded the PDF of the work which you mentioned,
and consulted just the page you referred to and perhaps a
little of the context.
In saying that Maritain was a Thomist rather than an
Aristotelian I am considering the possibility that the view
expressed by Maritain may not all be opinions which were
held by Aristotle.
It is certainly the case that the medieval logicians went
beyond what is explicit in Aristotle, they do so
notationally by devising the AEIO notation, they do so by
identifying more valid syllogisms.
Maritain is represented by SEP as an original philosopher,
not merely an Aristotelian scholar, and we must therefore in
reading what he says not assume that he is confining himself
to opinions which can be shown to have been held by
Aristotle."
O'Brien:
"> To say that he was a "Thomist" is really no more
> than to say that he wrote his texts specifically for use
> in seminaries of the Catholic church, where there's a
> Thomist tradition, but little more than that."
Jones:
"I would be very surprised if that was what the author of the
SEP article intended to say."
Jones:
"> > Maritain says that the existential import is associated
> > with affirmative propositions only if they are
> > accidental, not if they are essential."
O'Brien:
> Maritain doesn't say anything like that.
Jones:
"Indeed he does not.
Not, at least, in so many words.
What he does say is that an essential predication of the
form "Some A are B" may be true even if there is no A,
provided only that there is some possible A.
I don't know that either he or Aristotle uses the phrase
"existential import", but in my usage of that term affirming
the consistency of a predicate is not what is meant by
existential import.
So I think what he says is "something like" what I said."
Jones:
> > He does not seem to be offering any way in which we can
> > discover whether a proposition is essential or
> > accidental,
O'Brien:
> Maritain does explain the distinction.
Jones:
"I already understand the distinction.
The issue here is whether one can tell whether any
particular predication is accidental or essential.
This presumably one might do from a knowledge of the
meanings of the terms in the proposition, however, in the
syllogistic one works with variables, and from a
propositional scheme such as "B is predicated of all As"
once does not know whether essential or accidental
predication is involved."
Excellent!
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Viscoian Maxims, Griceian Maxims
Speranza
---
--- begin quoted text:
How To Write Good
by Frank L. Visco
My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:
1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren't necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don't be redundant; don't more use words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. Profanity sucks.
15. Be more or less specific.
16. Understatement is always best.
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?
---
In the handwritten notes "Logic and Conversation" (ii), Grice has 'sic' in two places:
"Be perspicuous". For really, who knows that 'perspicuity' is _clarity_?
Also:
"Avoid unnecessary prolixity": long for 'be brief'.
--
Visco:
>How To Write Good
>by Frank L. Visco
>My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:
---- as did Grice's way of ideas, way of words.
1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
----
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
------- What _is_ a cliche? Grice would say that
"You're the cream in my coffee" meaning "you're my pride and joy" (Grice's gloss), compares with
"They're old hat". To consider.
Note that Grice is interested in breaches to 'sincerity' (say the truth). Someone who says, "you're the cream in my coffee" knows he is saying something false. Grice notes that this type of falsity can be second-order. One can use, 'ironically', "You're the cream in my coffee" to mean, Grice's interpretant, "You're my bane".
----
4. Employ the vernacular.
---- Grice loved it. The etymology of 'vernacular', in the vernacular, is not learned.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
----
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
----- This is indeed the spirit behind Grice's campaign.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren't necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
Incidentally, there's an accent on the 'a' of apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
--- And Marhsall, "Quote in full: chapter and verse".
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
--- only different.
13. Don't be redundant; don't more use words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
---- unless you implicate.
14. Profanity sucks.
15. Be more or less specific.
---- avoid unnecessary prolixity, unless you don't. Williamson wrote a book on that: "Vagueness". He claims that since lingo is vague ('more or less specific') per se, one should not say it.
16. Understatement is always best.
--- And implicature is Grice's word for 'understatement', meiosis. The opposite is overstatement, as in "Your handwriting sucks" (Grice's meiosis, and understatement, "He was slightly intoxicated" (said of a man known to have broken the house furniture), and "You have beautiful handwriting" (+> but your philosophy is perhaps not Kantian enough).
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
---- Grice calls it 'hyperbole': "Every nice girl loves a sailor". "Even in the circumstances that it's a different sailr meant for each girl, this hardly becomes truth-conditional."
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
---
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
----- or a fish without a bicycle.
20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
------ by most people.
21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
vide: Avoid cliches like the rats.
22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
--- e.g. "You're the cream in my coffee, but not the apple of my eye."
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?
Plato? The Pope?
---
--- begin quoted text:
How To Write Good
by Frank L. Visco
My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:
1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren't necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don't be redundant; don't more use words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. Profanity sucks.
15. Be more or less specific.
16. Understatement is always best.
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?
---
In the handwritten notes "Logic and Conversation" (ii), Grice has 'sic' in two places:
"Be perspicuous". For really, who knows that 'perspicuity' is _clarity_?
Also:
"Avoid unnecessary prolixity": long for 'be brief'.
--
Visco:
>How To Write Good
>by Frank L. Visco
>My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:
---- as did Grice's way of ideas, way of words.
1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
----
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
------- What _is_ a cliche? Grice would say that
"You're the cream in my coffee" meaning "you're my pride and joy" (Grice's gloss), compares with
"They're old hat". To consider.
Note that Grice is interested in breaches to 'sincerity' (say the truth). Someone who says, "you're the cream in my coffee" knows he is saying something false. Grice notes that this type of falsity can be second-order. One can use, 'ironically', "You're the cream in my coffee" to mean, Grice's interpretant, "You're my bane".
----
4. Employ the vernacular.
---- Grice loved it. The etymology of 'vernacular', in the vernacular, is not learned.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
----
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
----- This is indeed the spirit behind Grice's campaign.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren't necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
Incidentally, there's an accent on the 'a' of apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
--- And Marhsall, "Quote in full: chapter and verse".
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
--- only different.
13. Don't be redundant; don't more use words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
---- unless you implicate.
14. Profanity sucks.
15. Be more or less specific.
---- avoid unnecessary prolixity, unless you don't. Williamson wrote a book on that: "Vagueness". He claims that since lingo is vague ('more or less specific') per se, one should not say it.
16. Understatement is always best.
--- And implicature is Grice's word for 'understatement', meiosis. The opposite is overstatement, as in "Your handwriting sucks" (Grice's meiosis, and understatement, "He was slightly intoxicated" (said of a man known to have broken the house furniture), and "You have beautiful handwriting" (+> but your philosophy is perhaps not Kantian enough).
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
---- Grice calls it 'hyperbole': "Every nice girl loves a sailor". "Even in the circumstances that it's a different sailr meant for each girl, this hardly becomes truth-conditional."
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
---
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
----- or a fish without a bicycle.
20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
------ by most people.
21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
vide: Avoid cliches like the rats.
22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
--- e.g. "You're the cream in my coffee, but not the apple of my eye."
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?
Plato? The Pope?
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
A robin is a robin is a robin
Speranza
Commentary on the OED.
3. Chiefly N. Amer. A large, migratory thrush, Turdus migratorius (family Turdidae), which has brick red underparts and a dark head, widespread and common in North America. Also more fully American robin. Also (with distinguishing word): any of several similar American thrushes.Earlier in robin redbreast (see robin redbreast n. 2a).
1703 S. Sewall Diary 16 Mar. (1973) I. 483 The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn.
1750 J. Birket Voy. N. Amer. (1916) 13 They have‥a bird like our field fare with a red brest which they call a Robin that sings delightfully.
1808 A. Wilson Amer. Ornithol. I. 37 The Robin is one of our earliest songsters.
1858 H. W. Longfellow Miles Standish iii. 3 Into the tranquil woods, where blue-birds and robins were building.
1888 G. H. Kingsley in Field 16 June 869/2 In America I shoot robins and find them thrushes.
1931 Times Lit. Suppl. 5 Nov. 859/3 A lovely little bird hardly as large as an American robin.
1966 Vancouver Province 19 Nov. 1/5 The robin had been sitting in a mountain ash tree in his front yard.
1987 Field Guide Birds N. Amer. (National Geographic Soc.) (ed. 2) 330 Rufous-backed Robin. Turdus rufopalliatus.‥ Clay-colored Robin. Turdus grayi.
1992 J. Osborne Cardinal i. 19 Some songbirds occasionally sing from the ground. The American Robin is one of these.
1703—1992(Hide quotations)
4.
Categories »
a. Chiefly N. Amer. Any of various unrelated songbirds that resemble the European or American robin, esp. in having reddish or orange colour on the breast or underside. Usu. with distinguishing word.blue, golden, ground, Pekin, swamp robin, etc.: see the first element.
1769 R. Smith Jrnl. 18 May in Tour Four Great Rivers (1906) 41 The lively Note of the Swamp Robin, the Red Bird and other Birds from the earliest Dawn is entertaining.
1794 Philos. Soc. Trans. 4 110 This bird was the chewink, or ground robin.
1855 Orr's Circle Sci., Org. Nat. III. 265 One of the commonest species, the Baltimore Oriole,‥has received the name of fire-bird.‥ It is also called the Golden Robin.
1884 Harper's Mag. Mar. 610/1 Our New England forefathers call him the ‘blue robin’.
1905 Newark (Ohio) Advocate 2 June 4/3 The Japanese nightingale, or Pekin robin, is becoming naturalized in the parks of London.
1955 Sci. News Let. 23 Apr. 271 The towhee is a bird of many aliases. ‘Ground robin’ is a popular name, and justified by his deceptively robin-like appearance.
2004 T. Wheeler Falklands & S. Georgia 62 It's easy to see why the meadowlark, with its bright red breast, is known locally as the ‘robin’ or ‘military starling’.
---
The OED has this as
"3."
i.e. Use 3. To speak of "SENSE" 3 would beg the question (as Frege would have it).
"Chiefly North American: a large, migratory thrush, Turdus migratorius (family Turdidae), which has brick red underparts and a dark head, widespread and common in North America."
"Also more fully American robin."
The retronym then becomes the Old-World robin.
---
"Also (with distinguishing word): any of several similar American thrushes."
The interesting point is:
"Earlier in "robin redbreast" (see "robin redbreast" n. 2a)."
---- So, it's the "robin-redbreast" (description?) we should be aiming at.
CITES:
1703 S. Sewall Diary 16 Mar. (1973) I. 483 The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn.
---- We have analysed this. Sewall was born in Hampshire, England. So we expect he had seen European robins.
"The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn."
----- Most likely, he was aware of the earlier use, "robin redbreast". Seeing that the Turdus migratorius, like the European robin, both have redbreasts, he felt like shortening 'robin-redbreast' into 'robin'.
----- The ONLY philosophical point I was considering here was whether the utterer THOUGHT that what he had seen was a specimen of the same class as the European robin redbreast. Most likely, not. He just thought that 'Robbin' would be a good appellative.
---
Further quotes:
1750 J. Birket Voy. N. Amer. (1916) 13
"They have ... a bird like our field fare with a red brest which they call a Robin that sings delightfully."
This above is very complex. "They" call a robin. One wonders if the implicature is that "they" are wrong.
----
In any case, Birket NEVER explains WHY "they" call "a bird like our field fare with a red breast, too", 'a robin'. Most likely because it resembled the European robin.
--- At this point one wants to know the dates of the introduction of the scientific names (or not).
THIRD QUOTE:
1808 A. Wilson Amer. Ornithol. I. 37
"The Robin is one of our earliest songsters."
Here, alla Grice, to say, "The American Robin is one of our earliest songsters" would be too informative (redundant, even).
FOURTH QUOTE:
1858 H. W. Longfellow Miles Standish iii. 3
"Into the tranquil woods, where blue-birds and robins were building."
Odd that he would use 'blue-birds' but 'robins' rather than 'robin-redbreasts'.
---
FIFTH QUOTE:
1888 G. H. Kingsley in Field 16 June 869/2
"In America I shoot robins and find them thrushes."
Since Kingsley was English, I guess the implicature is that 'robin', qua American robin, is a misnomer. In England robins are NOT shot. So the mistake on the part of Kingsley is to shoot a robin. He should shoot a thrush and find a robin?
---
SIXTH quote:
1931 Times Lit. Suppl. 5 Nov. 859/3
"A lovely little bird hardly as large as an American robin."
--- not an ostrich, then.
SEVENTH quote:
1966 Vancouver Province 19 Nov. 1/5
"The robin had been sitting in a mountain ash tree in his front yard."
---- This is so late one wonders why the OED cares to quote it. Is it, like we are surprised people are STILL using 'robin' to mean the American thing?
EIGHTH quote:
1987 Field Guide Birds N. Amer. (National Geographic Soc.) (ed. 2) 330
Rufous-backed Robin. Turdus rufopalliatus.‥ Clay-colored Robin. Turdus grayi.
--- Interesting. We see that 'robin' then applies to 'turdus' per se. Interesting, this turns the 'redbreast' into an accidental rather than essential feature, in that we expect that neither the rufous-backed robin nor the clay-colored robin have redbreasts.
NINTH QUOTE:
1992 J. Osborne Cardinal i. 19
Some songbirds occasionally sing from the ground. The American Robin is one of these.
----- When is "The American robin" NOT a redundancy?
Then comes
USAGE 4.
a. Chiefly N. Amer.
"Any of various unrelated songbirds that resemble the European or American robin, esp. in having reddish or orange colour on the breast or underside."
"Usu. with distinguishing word.
blue, golden, ground, Pekin, swamp robin, etc.: see the first element.
So this gives:
blue robin
golden robin
ground robin
Pekin robin
swamp robin.
for which one is invited to check with 'blue', 'golden', etc.
Quotes:
1769 R. Smith Jrnl. 18 May in Tour Four Great Rivers (1906) 41
"The lively Note of the Swamp Robin, the Red Bird and other Birds from the earliest Dawn is entertaining."
1794 Philos. Soc. Trans. 4 110
"This bird was the chewink, or ground robin."
1855 Orr's Circle Sci., Org. Nat. III. 265
"One of the commonest species, the Baltimore Oriole,‥has received the name of fire-bird.‥ It is also called the Golden Robin."
1884 Harper's Mag. Mar. 610/1
"Our New England forefathers call him the ‘blue robin’."
1905 Newark (Ohio) Advocate 2 June 4/3
"The Japanese nightingale, or Pekin robin, is becoming naturalized in the parks of London."
1955 Sci. News Let. 23 Apr. 271
"The towhee is a bird of many aliases. ‘Ground robin’ is a popular name, and justified by his deceptively robin-like appearance."
---- THIS ABOVE IS INTERESTING. For my point is that Sewall was perhaps ALSO DECEIVED by the deceptive European-robin-like appearance of the North-American robin. Or not.
2004 T. Wheeler Falklands & S. Georgia 62
It's easy to see why the meadowlark, with its bright red breast, is known locally as the ‘robin’ or ‘military starling’.
Commentary on the OED.
3. Chiefly N. Amer. A large, migratory thrush, Turdus migratorius (family Turdidae), which has brick red underparts and a dark head, widespread and common in North America. Also more fully American robin. Also (with distinguishing word): any of several similar American thrushes.Earlier in robin redbreast (see robin redbreast n. 2a).
1703 S. Sewall Diary 16 Mar. (1973) I. 483 The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn.
1750 J. Birket Voy. N. Amer. (1916) 13 They have‥a bird like our field fare with a red brest which they call a Robin that sings delightfully.
1808 A. Wilson Amer. Ornithol. I. 37 The Robin is one of our earliest songsters.
1858 H. W. Longfellow Miles Standish iii. 3 Into the tranquil woods, where blue-birds and robins were building.
1888 G. H. Kingsley in Field 16 June 869/2 In America I shoot robins and find them thrushes.
1931 Times Lit. Suppl. 5 Nov. 859/3 A lovely little bird hardly as large as an American robin.
1966 Vancouver Province 19 Nov. 1/5 The robin had been sitting in a mountain ash tree in his front yard.
1987 Field Guide Birds N. Amer. (National Geographic Soc.) (ed. 2) 330 Rufous-backed Robin. Turdus rufopalliatus.‥ Clay-colored Robin. Turdus grayi.
1992 J. Osborne Cardinal i. 19 Some songbirds occasionally sing from the ground. The American Robin is one of these.
1703—1992(Hide quotations)
4.
Categories »
a. Chiefly N. Amer. Any of various unrelated songbirds that resemble the European or American robin, esp. in having reddish or orange colour on the breast or underside. Usu. with distinguishing word.blue, golden, ground, Pekin, swamp robin, etc.: see the first element.
1769 R. Smith Jrnl. 18 May in Tour Four Great Rivers (1906) 41 The lively Note of the Swamp Robin, the Red Bird and other Birds from the earliest Dawn is entertaining.
1794 Philos. Soc. Trans. 4 110 This bird was the chewink, or ground robin.
1855 Orr's Circle Sci., Org. Nat. III. 265 One of the commonest species, the Baltimore Oriole,‥has received the name of fire-bird.‥ It is also called the Golden Robin.
1884 Harper's Mag. Mar. 610/1 Our New England forefathers call him the ‘blue robin’.
1905 Newark (Ohio) Advocate 2 June 4/3 The Japanese nightingale, or Pekin robin, is becoming naturalized in the parks of London.
1955 Sci. News Let. 23 Apr. 271 The towhee is a bird of many aliases. ‘Ground robin’ is a popular name, and justified by his deceptively robin-like appearance.
2004 T. Wheeler Falklands & S. Georgia 62 It's easy to see why the meadowlark, with its bright red breast, is known locally as the ‘robin’ or ‘military starling’.
---
The OED has this as
"3."
i.e. Use 3. To speak of "SENSE" 3 would beg the question (as Frege would have it).
"Chiefly North American: a large, migratory thrush, Turdus migratorius (family Turdidae), which has brick red underparts and a dark head, widespread and common in North America."
"Also more fully American robin."
The retronym then becomes the Old-World robin.
---
"Also (with distinguishing word): any of several similar American thrushes."
The interesting point is:
"Earlier in "robin redbreast" (see "robin redbreast" n. 2a)."
---- So, it's the "robin-redbreast" (description?) we should be aiming at.
CITES:
1703 S. Sewall Diary 16 Mar. (1973) I. 483 The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn.
---- We have analysed this. Sewall was born in Hampshire, England. So we expect he had seen European robins.
"The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn."
----- Most likely, he was aware of the earlier use, "robin redbreast". Seeing that the Turdus migratorius, like the European robin, both have redbreasts, he felt like shortening 'robin-redbreast' into 'robin'.
----- The ONLY philosophical point I was considering here was whether the utterer THOUGHT that what he had seen was a specimen of the same class as the European robin redbreast. Most likely, not. He just thought that 'Robbin' would be a good appellative.
---
Further quotes:
1750 J. Birket Voy. N. Amer. (1916) 13
"They have ... a bird like our field fare with a red brest which they call a Robin that sings delightfully."
This above is very complex. "They" call a robin. One wonders if the implicature is that "they" are wrong.
----
In any case, Birket NEVER explains WHY "they" call "a bird like our field fare with a red breast, too", 'a robin'. Most likely because it resembled the European robin.
--- At this point one wants to know the dates of the introduction of the scientific names (or not).
THIRD QUOTE:
1808 A. Wilson Amer. Ornithol. I. 37
"The Robin is one of our earliest songsters."
Here, alla Grice, to say, "The American Robin is one of our earliest songsters" would be too informative (redundant, even).
FOURTH QUOTE:
1858 H. W. Longfellow Miles Standish iii. 3
"Into the tranquil woods, where blue-birds and robins were building."
Odd that he would use 'blue-birds' but 'robins' rather than 'robin-redbreasts'.
---
FIFTH QUOTE:
1888 G. H. Kingsley in Field 16 June 869/2
"In America I shoot robins and find them thrushes."
Since Kingsley was English, I guess the implicature is that 'robin', qua American robin, is a misnomer. In England robins are NOT shot. So the mistake on the part of Kingsley is to shoot a robin. He should shoot a thrush and find a robin?
---
SIXTH quote:
1931 Times Lit. Suppl. 5 Nov. 859/3
"A lovely little bird hardly as large as an American robin."
--- not an ostrich, then.
SEVENTH quote:
1966 Vancouver Province 19 Nov. 1/5
"The robin had been sitting in a mountain ash tree in his front yard."
---- This is so late one wonders why the OED cares to quote it. Is it, like we are surprised people are STILL using 'robin' to mean the American thing?
EIGHTH quote:
1987 Field Guide Birds N. Amer. (National Geographic Soc.) (ed. 2) 330
Rufous-backed Robin. Turdus rufopalliatus.‥ Clay-colored Robin. Turdus grayi.
--- Interesting. We see that 'robin' then applies to 'turdus' per se. Interesting, this turns the 'redbreast' into an accidental rather than essential feature, in that we expect that neither the rufous-backed robin nor the clay-colored robin have redbreasts.
NINTH QUOTE:
1992 J. Osborne Cardinal i. 19
Some songbirds occasionally sing from the ground. The American Robin is one of these.
----- When is "The American robin" NOT a redundancy?
Then comes
USAGE 4.
a. Chiefly N. Amer.
"Any of various unrelated songbirds that resemble the European or American robin, esp. in having reddish or orange colour on the breast or underside."
"Usu. with distinguishing word.
blue, golden, ground, Pekin, swamp robin, etc.: see the first element.
So this gives:
blue robin
golden robin
ground robin
Pekin robin
swamp robin.
for which one is invited to check with 'blue', 'golden', etc.
Quotes:
1769 R. Smith Jrnl. 18 May in Tour Four Great Rivers (1906) 41
"The lively Note of the Swamp Robin, the Red Bird and other Birds from the earliest Dawn is entertaining."
1794 Philos. Soc. Trans. 4 110
"This bird was the chewink, or ground robin."
1855 Orr's Circle Sci., Org. Nat. III. 265
"One of the commonest species, the Baltimore Oriole,‥has received the name of fire-bird.‥ It is also called the Golden Robin."
1884 Harper's Mag. Mar. 610/1
"Our New England forefathers call him the ‘blue robin’."
1905 Newark (Ohio) Advocate 2 June 4/3
"The Japanese nightingale, or Pekin robin, is becoming naturalized in the parks of London."
1955 Sci. News Let. 23 Apr. 271
"The towhee is a bird of many aliases. ‘Ground robin’ is a popular name, and justified by his deceptively robin-like appearance."
---- THIS ABOVE IS INTERESTING. For my point is that Sewall was perhaps ALSO DECEIVED by the deceptive European-robin-like appearance of the North-American robin. Or not.
2004 T. Wheeler Falklands & S. Georgia 62
It's easy to see why the meadowlark, with its bright red breast, is known locally as the ‘robin’ or ‘military starling’.
A robin is a robin is a robin
Speranza
From the OED below.
Cheers.
---
3. Chiefly N. Amer. A large, migratory thrush, Turdus migratorius (family Turdidae), which has brick red underparts and a dark head, widespread and common in North America. Also more fully American robin. Also (with distinguishing word): any of several similar American thrushes.Earlier in robin redbreast (see robin redbreast n. 2a).
1703 S. Sewall Diary 16 Mar. (1973) I. 483 The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn.
1750 J. Birket Voy. N. Amer. (1916) 13 They have‥a bird like our field fare with a red brest which they call a Robin that sings delightfully.
1808 A. Wilson Amer. Ornithol. I. 37 The Robin is one of our earliest songsters.
1858 H. W. Longfellow Miles Standish iii. 3 Into the tranquil woods, where blue-birds and robins were building.
1888 G. H. Kingsley in Field 16 June 869/2 In America I shoot robins and find them thrushes.
1931 Times Lit. Suppl. 5 Nov. 859/3 A lovely little bird hardly as large as an American robin.
1966 Vancouver Province 19 Nov. 1/5 The robin had been sitting in a mountain ash tree in his front yard.
1987 Field Guide Birds N. Amer. (National Geographic Soc.) (ed. 2) 330 Rufous-backed Robin. Turdus rufopalliatus.‥ Clay-colored Robin. Turdus grayi.
1992 J. Osborne Cardinal i. 19 Some songbirds occasionally sing from the ground. The American Robin is one of these.
1703—1992(Hide quotations)
4.
Categories »
a. Chiefly N. Amer. Any of various unrelated songbirds that resemble the European or American robin, esp. in having reddish or orange colour on the breast or underside. Usu. with distinguishing word.blue, golden, ground, Pekin, swamp robin, etc.: see the first element.
1769 R. Smith Jrnl. 18 May in Tour Four Great Rivers (1906) 41 The lively Note of the Swamp Robin, the Red Bird and other Birds from the earliest Dawn is entertaining.
1794 Philos. Soc. Trans. 4 110 This bird was the chewink, or ground robin.
1855 Orr's Circle Sci., Org. Nat. III. 265 One of the commonest species, the Baltimore Oriole,‥has received the name of fire-bird.‥ It is also called the Golden Robin.
1884 Harper's Mag. Mar. 610/1 Our New England forefathers call him the ‘blue robin’.
1905 Newark (Ohio) Advocate 2 June 4/3 The Japanese nightingale, or Pekin robin, is becoming naturalized in the parks of London.
1955 Sci. News Let. 23 Apr. 271 The towhee is a bird of many aliases. ‘Ground robin’ is a popular name, and justified by his deceptively robin-like appearance.
2004 T. Wheeler Falklands & S. Georgia 62 It's easy to see why the meadowlark, with its bright red breast, is known locally as the ‘robin’ or ‘military starling’.
From the OED below.
Cheers.
---
3. Chiefly N. Amer. A large, migratory thrush, Turdus migratorius (family Turdidae), which has brick red underparts and a dark head, widespread and common in North America. Also more fully American robin. Also (with distinguishing word): any of several similar American thrushes.Earlier in robin redbreast (see robin redbreast n. 2a).
1703 S. Sewall Diary 16 Mar. (1973) I. 483 The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn.
1750 J. Birket Voy. N. Amer. (1916) 13 They have‥a bird like our field fare with a red brest which they call a Robin that sings delightfully.
1808 A. Wilson Amer. Ornithol. I. 37 The Robin is one of our earliest songsters.
1858 H. W. Longfellow Miles Standish iii. 3 Into the tranquil woods, where blue-birds and robins were building.
1888 G. H. Kingsley in Field 16 June 869/2 In America I shoot robins and find them thrushes.
1931 Times Lit. Suppl. 5 Nov. 859/3 A lovely little bird hardly as large as an American robin.
1966 Vancouver Province 19 Nov. 1/5 The robin had been sitting in a mountain ash tree in his front yard.
1987 Field Guide Birds N. Amer. (National Geographic Soc.) (ed. 2) 330 Rufous-backed Robin. Turdus rufopalliatus.‥ Clay-colored Robin. Turdus grayi.
1992 J. Osborne Cardinal i. 19 Some songbirds occasionally sing from the ground. The American Robin is one of these.
1703—1992(Hide quotations)
4.
Categories »
a. Chiefly N. Amer. Any of various unrelated songbirds that resemble the European or American robin, esp. in having reddish or orange colour on the breast or underside. Usu. with distinguishing word.blue, golden, ground, Pekin, swamp robin, etc.: see the first element.
1769 R. Smith Jrnl. 18 May in Tour Four Great Rivers (1906) 41 The lively Note of the Swamp Robin, the Red Bird and other Birds from the earliest Dawn is entertaining.
1794 Philos. Soc. Trans. 4 110 This bird was the chewink, or ground robin.
1855 Orr's Circle Sci., Org. Nat. III. 265 One of the commonest species, the Baltimore Oriole,‥has received the name of fire-bird.‥ It is also called the Golden Robin.
1884 Harper's Mag. Mar. 610/1 Our New England forefathers call him the ‘blue robin’.
1905 Newark (Ohio) Advocate 2 June 4/3 The Japanese nightingale, or Pekin robin, is becoming naturalized in the parks of London.
1955 Sci. News Let. 23 Apr. 271 The towhee is a bird of many aliases. ‘Ground robin’ is a popular name, and justified by his deceptively robin-like appearance.
2004 T. Wheeler Falklands & S. Georgia 62 It's easy to see why the meadowlark, with its bright red breast, is known locally as the ‘robin’ or ‘military starling’.
Robbin Gets Baptised
Speranza
On top of that, there's Kripke.
So that morn of March 16, 1703,
Sewall said,
"The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn."
He was _naming_ the Turdus migratorius "Robbin" (now spelt "Robin") and he *knew* it.
---
It is still different with Chaucer:
C. Riggs:
"I found a 1374 Chaucerian reference for Robin in my OED. I'll get more
detail if you like, but now it is time for tea."
-- For the use of 'Robin' to mean the Old World (as I prefer) thing (Erithacus rubecula, if you mustn'nt) is fanciful in nature (or something).
On top of that, there's Kripke.
So that morn of March 16, 1703,
Sewall said,
"The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn."
He was _naming_ the Turdus migratorius "Robbin" (now spelt "Robin") and he *knew* it.
---
It is still different with Chaucer:
C. Riggs:
"I found a 1374 Chaucerian reference for Robin in my OED. I'll get more
detail if you like, but now it is time for tea."
-- For the use of 'Robin' to mean the Old World (as I prefer) thing (Erithacus rubecula, if you mustn'nt) is fanciful in nature (or something).
A robin is a robin is a robin
Speranza
Putnam would speak of division of labour.
J. Friedman notes that there is one use of "robin" for the American bird from 1792. This is in /The American Geography/, by Jedidiah Morse.
http://books.google.com/books?id=PUcMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA59
Friedman comments:
"Morse is not what you'd call reliable on natural history."
---- And one wonders if he was quoting Sewall. He couldn't. Because Sewall's Diary only got published in the 1800s.
So, there are two paths to consider here. Or not. Or more.
Putnam would speak of division of labour.
J. Friedman notes that there is one use of "robin" for the American bird from 1792. This is in /The American Geography/, by Jedidiah Morse.
http://books.google.com/books?id=PUcMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA59
Friedman comments:
"Morse is not what you'd call reliable on natural history."
---- And one wonders if he was quoting Sewall. He couldn't. Because Sewall's Diary only got published in the 1800s.
So, there are two paths to consider here. Or not. Or more.
"The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn" -- Samuel Sewall, "Diary" -- March 16, 1703.
Speranza
---
Sewall, Samuel. Born: 1652 AD. Died: 1730 AD, at 77 years of age. Nationality: American Categories: Abolitionist. 1652 - Born at Hampshire, England on the 28th of March. 1661 - He emigrated from England to the Massachusetts colony. 1692 - He also entered local politics, and was elevated to the judiciary that judged the people in Salem accused of witchcraft. 1730 - Died in Boston, Massachusetts on the 1st of January.
1703 S. SEWALL Diary 16 Mar. (1879) II. 75
The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn.
Seeing that Sewall was Hampshire (rather than New Hampshire) born, I would think that he perhaps thought that the 'robbins' that he heard as "cheerfully uttering their notes" that morn of March 16, 1703 -- when he was:
1703
- 1652
---
at age 51
He was 51.
He heard, rather than saw the things, and said, to his diary (cfr. Grice on 'utterer's meaning in the absence of an audience" -- diary writing):
"The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn."
We can assume that he was familiar with
robin = Eritacus rubecula.
(Possibly, Sewall would spell that 'robbin').
So, for Sewall there's
'robbin'---> the "Erithacus rubecula"
and
"the Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn."
---- He could NOT have thought that those were specimens of Eritacus rubecula. So perhaps he was wrong.
---
Sewall, Samuel. Born: 1652 AD. Died: 1730 AD, at 77 years of age. Nationality: American Categories: Abolitionist. 1652 - Born at Hampshire, England on the 28th of March. 1661 - He emigrated from England to the Massachusetts colony. 1692 - He also entered local politics, and was elevated to the judiciary that judged the people in Salem accused of witchcraft. 1730 - Died in Boston, Massachusetts on the 1st of January.
1703 S. SEWALL Diary 16 Mar. (1879) II. 75
The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn.
Seeing that Sewall was Hampshire (rather than New Hampshire) born, I would think that he perhaps thought that the 'robbins' that he heard as "cheerfully uttering their notes" that morn of March 16, 1703 -- when he was:
1703
- 1652
---
at age 51
He was 51.
He heard, rather than saw the things, and said, to his diary (cfr. Grice on 'utterer's meaning in the absence of an audience" -- diary writing):
"The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn."
We can assume that he was familiar with
robin = Eritacus rubecula.
(Possibly, Sewall would spell that 'robbin').
So, for Sewall there's
'robbin'---> the "Erithacus rubecula"
and
"the Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn."
---- He could NOT have thought that those were specimens of Eritacus rubecula. So perhaps he was wrong.
A robin is a robin is a robin -- Sewall 1703
Speranza
The sources expanded:
OED antedating for "robin" (American bird)
From: trio@xxxxxxxxxx (Donna Richoux)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:30:35 +0100
Peter Duncanson (BrE) wrote:
On Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:24:25 -0800 (PST), "jerry_friedman@xxxxxxxxx"
wrote:
Me again. "Chickadee" led me to "robin" -- the real one, not that tiny
Rightpondian impostor.
Does anyone feel like checking whether the OED on line or other sources has anything before 1798?
OED:
Robin
1
3. N. Amer. The red-breasted thrush, Turdus migratorius.
FIRST CITE:
1703
S. SEWALL
"Diary" 16 Mar. (published in 1879)
II. 75
"The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn."
---
NEXT QUOTE:
1798 Monthly Mag. May 331/2
"The American robin, larger than ours."
The "Dictionary of American English", vol. 4 (Chicago, 1944) defines
"robin" as "a large-red-breasted thrush, Turdus (syn. Merula)
migratorius."
Citations begin with the Sewall 1703, then Fithian 1774
and Wilson 1808.
So the order here should be:
Sewall 1703 "The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn."
Fithian 1774
1798 -- "The American robin, larger than ours."
A separate quotation refers to the practice of hunting
and eating robins, beginning with:
1759 Essex Inst. Coll.
"Supped on Robens which my Chum and Wingate killed."
[Followed by 1775, 1805, and more.]
"Do I see a serious attempt to force the OED to document all American
usage?"
"They have a rather patchy track-record there." (Donna Richoux).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
•From: "jerry_friedman@xxxxxxxxx"
•Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:54:47 -0800 (PST)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Nov 25, 9:30 am, t...@xxxxxxxxxx (Donna Richoux) wrote:
Peter Duncanson (BrE) wrote:
I've just discovered that there's one of those in a library about
half a mile from my house.
The Am. Dict. defines
"robin" as "a large-red-breasted thrush, Turdus (syn. Merula)
migratorius." Citations begin with the Sewall 1703, then Fithian 1774
and Wilson 1808. A separate quotation refers to the practice of hunting
and eating robins, beginning with:
1759 Essex Inst. Coll. Supped on Robens which my Chum and Wingate
killed. [Followed by 1775, 1805, and more.]
....
Jerry Friedman:
"Thanks to both! So much for antedating this time. If it's of any interest, none of the citations above are in Goo Boo."
"There are two uses of "robin" for the American bird from 1792."
"One is in "The American Geography", by Jedidiah Morse.
http://books.google.com/books?id=PUcMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA59
Morse is not what you'd call reliable on natural history.
The other is "The History of New-Hampshire", volume III, by Jeremy
Belknap.
http://books.google.com/books?id=rzIBAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA172
"Some of his vernacular names are charming:
"hang bird" (Orchard Oriole, which builds a hanging nest?), "little hang-bird" (Northern
Parula, ditto?), "tom teet" (Black-capped Chickadee), and my favorite,
"humility" (Ruddy Turnstone?)."
"But the earliest one is from 1789: "Cultivation of the Vine", by
Edward Antill, from /Transactions of the American Philosophical
Society."
http://books.google.com/books?id=LbgAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA230
"I think I checked all the earlier hits on "robin" at Goo Boo, but I
might have been careless, or they might have an OCR error."
Jerry Friedman:
"I'm not going to search for "robbin" right at the moment."
"I checked to see whether S. Sewall was writing from an American perspective
and found:
http://www.s9.com/Biography/Sewall-Samuel
Sewall, Samuel
Born: 1652 AD
Died: 1730 AD, at 77 years of age.
Nationality: American
Categories: Abolitionist
1652 - Born at Hampshire, England on the 28th of March.
1661 - He emigrated from England to the Massachusetts colony.
1692 - He also entered local politics, and was elevated to the judiciary
that judged the people in Salem accused of witchcraft.
1730 - Died in Boston, Massachusetts on the 1st of January.
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
The sources expanded:
OED antedating for "robin" (American bird)
From: trio@xxxxxxxxxx (Donna Richoux)
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:30:35 +0100
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
On Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:24:25 -0800 (PST), "jerry_friedman@xxxxxxxxx"
Me again. "Chickadee" led me to "robin" -- the real one, not that tiny
Rightpondian impostor.
Does anyone feel like checking whether the OED on line or other sources has anything before 1798?
OED:
Robin
1
3. N. Amer. The red-breasted thrush, Turdus migratorius.
FIRST CITE:
1703
S. SEWALL
"Diary" 16 Mar. (published in 1879)
II. 75
"The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn."
---
NEXT QUOTE:
1798 Monthly Mag. May 331/2
"The American robin, larger than ours."
The "Dictionary of American English", vol. 4 (Chicago, 1944) defines
"robin" as "a large-red-breasted thrush, Turdus (syn. Merula)
migratorius."
Citations begin with the Sewall 1703, then Fithian 1774
and Wilson 1808.
So the order here should be:
Sewall 1703 "The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn."
Fithian 1774
1798 -- "The American robin, larger than ours."
A separate quotation refers to the practice of hunting
and eating robins, beginning with:
1759 Essex Inst. Coll.
"Supped on Robens which my Chum and Wingate killed."
[Followed by 1775, 1805, and more.]
"Do I see a serious attempt to force the OED to document all American
usage?"
"They have a rather patchy track-record there." (Donna Richoux).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
•From: "jerry_friedman@xxxxxxxxx"
•Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:54:47 -0800 (PST)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Nov 25, 9:30 am, t...@xxxxxxxxxx (Donna Richoux) wrote:
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
I've just discovered that there's one of those in a library about
half a mile from my house.
The Am. Dict. defines
"robin" as "a large-red-breasted thrush, Turdus (syn. Merula)
migratorius." Citations begin with the Sewall 1703, then Fithian 1774
and Wilson 1808. A separate quotation refers to the practice of hunting
and eating robins, beginning with:
1759 Essex Inst. Coll. Supped on Robens which my Chum and Wingate
killed. [Followed by 1775, 1805, and more.]
....
Jerry Friedman:
"Thanks to both! So much for antedating this time. If it's of any interest, none of the citations above are in Goo Boo."
"There are two uses of "robin" for the American bird from 1792."
"One is in "The American Geography", by Jedidiah Morse.
http://books.google.com/books?id=PUcMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA59
Morse is not what you'd call reliable on natural history.
The other is "The History of New-Hampshire", volume III, by Jeremy
Belknap.
http://books.google.com/books?id=rzIBAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA172
"Some of his vernacular names are charming:
"hang bird" (Orchard Oriole, which builds a hanging nest?), "little hang-bird" (Northern
Parula, ditto?), "tom teet" (Black-capped Chickadee), and my favorite,
"humility" (Ruddy Turnstone?)."
"But the earliest one is from 1789: "Cultivation of the Vine", by
Edward Antill, from /Transactions of the American Philosophical
Society."
http://books.google.com/books?id=LbgAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA230
"I think I checked all the earlier hits on "robin" at Goo Boo, but I
might have been careless, or they might have an OCR error."
Jerry Friedman:
"I'm not going to search for "robbin" right at the moment."
"I checked to see whether S. Sewall was writing from an American perspective
and found:
http://www.s9.com/Biography/Sewall-Samuel
Sewall, Samuel
Born: 1652 AD
Died: 1730 AD, at 77 years of age.
Nationality: American
Categories: Abolitionist
1652 - Born at Hampshire, England on the 28th of March.
1661 - He emigrated from England to the Massachusetts colony.
1692 - He also entered local politics, and was elevated to the judiciary
that judged the people in Salem accused of witchcraft.
1730 - Died in Boston, Massachusetts on the 1st of January.
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
OED antedating for robin
A robin is a robin is a robin.
Two online links:
Re: OED antedating for "robin" (American bird) - Derkeiler.comnewsgroups.derkeiler.com › ... › 2008-11En caché - Traducir esta página
Haz hecho público que te gusta. Deshacer
25 Nov 2008 – The red-breasted thrush, Turdus migratorius. ... May 331/2 The American robin, ... ... Citations begin with the Sewall 1703, then Fithian 1774 ...
Re: OED antedating for "robin" (American bird) - Derkeiler.comnewsgroups.derkeiler.com › ... › 2008-11En caché - Traducir esta página
Haz hecho público que te gusta. Deshacer
25 Nov 2008 – The red-breasted thrush, Turdus migratorius. 1703 S. SEWALL Diary 16 Mar. ( 1879) II. 75 The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn. ...
Two online links:
Re: OED antedating for "robin" (American bird) - Derkeiler.comnewsgroups.derkeiler.com › ... › 2008-11En caché - Traducir esta página
Haz hecho público que te gusta. Deshacer
25 Nov 2008 – The red-breasted thrush, Turdus migratorius. ... May 331/2 The American robin, ... ... Citations begin with the Sewall 1703, then Fithian 1774 ...
Re: OED antedating for "robin" (American bird) - Derkeiler.comnewsgroups.derkeiler.com › ... › 2008-11En caché - Traducir esta página
Haz hecho público que te gusta. Deshacer
25 Nov 2008 – The red-breasted thrush, Turdus migratorius. 1703 S. SEWALL Diary 16 Mar. ( 1879) II. 75 The Robbins cheerfully utter their Notes this morn. ...
A robin is a robin is a robin: 1703 and beyond
Speranza
---
From another online source:
"In N.Amer., the name was applied to the red-breasted
thrush by 1703."
The above is slightly interesting in that 'red-breasted thrush' sounds like a more technical thing.
Note that 'robin' is for "Robert", which for Frege, but not Mill, would have no sense, but just reference. (Cfr. Alice, "Must a name mean anything? -- this club and beyond).
---
From another online source:
"In N.Amer., the name was applied to the red-breasted
thrush by 1703."
The above is slightly interesting in that 'red-breasted thrush' sounds like a more technical thing.
Note that 'robin' is for "Robert", which for Frege, but not Mill, would have no sense, but just reference. (Cfr. Alice, "Must a name mean anything? -- this club and beyond).
A robin is a robin is a robin
Speranza
---
From wiki:
"The term 'robin' for this species has been recorded since at least 1703. Simpson, E. Weiner (eds), ed (1989). "Robin". Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-861186-2.
---
From wiki:
"The term 'robin' for this species has been recorded since at least 1703. Simpson, E. Weiner (eds), ed (1989). "Robin". Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-861186-2.
"A robin": a tribute to Michael Dummett
Speranza
The illustration above, which I extracted from
http://media-3.web.britannica.com/eb-media/05/25905-004-E47C9B39.jpg
shows, as per the caption:
>scarlet robin: scarlet robin, European robin, and American robin
Strictly, a better caption, below the figure, reads:
"(Top) Scarlet robin (Petroica multicolor), (middle) European robin (Erithacus rubecula), (bottom) American robin (Turdus migratorius).
--- and there's quite a bit as to how to cite this.
INTERLUDE. How to cite this.
-- begin quoted text:
Credit Murrell Butler/EB Inc.
Links
•American robin (bird)
•European robin (bird)
•robin (bird)
•scarlet robin (bird)
Citations
MLA style:
scarlet robin: scarlet robin, European robin, and American robin. Art. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Web. 31 Jan. 2012..
APA style:
scarlet robin: scarlet robin, European robin, and American robin. [Art]. In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/7156/Scarlet-robin-European-robin-American-robin
Harvard style:
scarlet robin: scarlet robin, European robin, and American robin. [Art]. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 31 January 2012, from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/7156/Scarlet-robin-European-robin-American-robin
Chicago Manual of Style:
scarlet robin: scarlet robin, European robin, and American robin, Art, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online, accessed January 31, 2012, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/7156/Scarlet-robin-European-robin-American-robin
--- end cited text. I'll stick with:
scarlet robin, European robin, and American robin.
To credit Frege, I would go with this other caption, too:
"European robin (Erithacus rubecula), ... American robin (Turdus migratorius)."
----
A Griceian scenario.
What I was wondering, seeing that the birds (the European, so-called, robin) and the American (so-called) robin, are pretty different...
The first spotter of an American robin must have said:
"A robin!"
----
My point -- Griceian -- is that he (the utterer) did think that this was a robin.
Indeed, it is.
Yet, it is not a
Erithacus-rubecula, but a Turdus-migratorius.
It is best to approach
"Erithacus-rubecula" and "Turdus-migratorius"
as complex names, alla Frege. Surely, 'robin' is _also_ a name, yet less complex (but cfr. "Robin Hood", now a complex name).
So, the scenarios are different:
A Linneaus-type genealogist, travelling to America: "That is a bird which I will refer to as 'a robin'. Not because it is a robin, in the _Fregean_ sense of "Erithacus-rubecula" but because, ... well, just because."
----
If the utterer did think that the Turdus-migratorius was an Erithacus-rubecula, surely the correct thing for him to say, under the circumstances, was:
"That's a robin".
---- Since he perhaps did not spot a big difference. Note that the complete name is "robin redbreast". And both the Erithacus-rubecula and the Turdus-migratorius have a red-breast (And since 'robin' is so fancy, why kant the name be used, with a different sense (and of course, reference) to two birds?).
And so on.
----
Next would be to doublecheck sources for this. Or not!
---
Cheers!
The illustration above, which I extracted from
http://media-3.web.britannica.com/eb-media/05/25905-004-E47C9B39.jpg
shows, as per the caption:
>scarlet robin: scarlet robin, European robin, and American robin
Strictly, a better caption, below the figure, reads:
"(Top) Scarlet robin (Petroica multicolor), (middle) European robin (Erithacus rubecula), (bottom) American robin (Turdus migratorius).
--- and there's quite a bit as to how to cite this.
INTERLUDE. How to cite this.
-- begin quoted text:
Credit Murrell Butler/EB Inc.
Links
•American robin (bird)
•European robin (bird)
•robin (bird)
•scarlet robin (bird)
Citations
MLA style:
scarlet robin: scarlet robin, European robin, and American robin. Art. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Web. 31 Jan. 2012.
APA style:
scarlet robin: scarlet robin, European robin, and American robin. [Art]. In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/7156/Scarlet-robin-European-robin-American-robin
Harvard style:
scarlet robin: scarlet robin, European robin, and American robin. [Art]. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 31 January 2012, from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/7156/Scarlet-robin-European-robin-American-robin
Chicago Manual of Style:
scarlet robin: scarlet robin, European robin, and American robin, Art, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online, accessed January 31, 2012, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/7156/Scarlet-robin-European-robin-American-robin
--- end cited text. I'll stick with:
scarlet robin, European robin, and American robin.
To credit Frege, I would go with this other caption, too:
"European robin (Erithacus rubecula), ... American robin (Turdus migratorius)."
----
A Griceian scenario.
What I was wondering, seeing that the birds (the European, so-called, robin) and the American (so-called) robin, are pretty different...
The first spotter of an American robin must have said:
"A robin!"
----
My point -- Griceian -- is that he (the utterer) did think that this was a robin.
Indeed, it is.
Yet, it is not a
Erithacus-rubecula, but a Turdus-migratorius.
It is best to approach
"Erithacus-rubecula" and "Turdus-migratorius"
as complex names, alla Frege. Surely, 'robin' is _also_ a name, yet less complex (but cfr. "Robin Hood", now a complex name).
So, the scenarios are different:
A Linneaus-type genealogist, travelling to America: "That is a bird which I will refer to as 'a robin'. Not because it is a robin, in the _Fregean_ sense of "Erithacus-rubecula" but because, ... well, just because."
----
If the utterer did think that the Turdus-migratorius was an Erithacus-rubecula, surely the correct thing for him to say, under the circumstances, was:
"That's a robin".
---- Since he perhaps did not spot a big difference. Note that the complete name is "robin redbreast". And both the Erithacus-rubecula and the Turdus-migratorius have a red-breast (And since 'robin' is so fancy, why kant the name be used, with a different sense (and of course, reference) to two birds?).
And so on.
----
Next would be to doublecheck sources for this. Or not!
---
Cheers!
Monday, January 23, 2012
The Izz and the Hazz, the Deep and the Shallow
Speranza
Jones was sharing some material in phil-logic, which I quote below.
Jones is interested in the
necessary-contingent distinction
as it parallels the
analytic-synthetic distinction
and how this touches on
Grice's izz-hazz distinction.
On top of that, I brought Kripke into the picture, with Kripke's examples of
Socrates
Socrates is
Socrates is called "Socrates"
and so on.
Kripke jokes:
"See how high the seas of language can rise. And
at the lowest points, too."
----
The "lowest points" I identified with what Grice calls the 'shallow' almost, "BERTHS" of language -- the Grice manuscript reads, "deep berths". For Grice there are deep berths and shallow berths. If he mentions Long. and Lat. elsewhere, here he mentions depth. He was a sailor at heart.
----
I would suggest that he saw necessity and analyticity as dealing with the deepest berths (which are at premium, and thus beyond controversy/denial/doubt -- they constitute 'knowledge').
---
On the other hand, Jones is considering both 'mathematical' and other types of 'knowledge'. I would think that Grice (like me) never considered science (empirical science) as a matter of 'necessity'.
In "Aspects of Reason" he mentions, as a joke, the idea of
ichthyological necessity.
He is considering uses of 'must'. He wants to say, "You must not kill" and "what goes up must come down". Surely, there are NO two senses -- one 'alethic', one 'practical' -- of "must". There is a Thesis of AEQUI-vocality, as he calls it. It's the same vox ('must') that allows for the different uses. Similarly, here the joke, it would be otiose to think of the necessity of fish.
"Ichthyological necessity".
---
We should provide some generalisations in empirical science about fish, and find what's allegedly necessary about them. Nothing! But perhaps what a fish izz is not what a fish hazz.
---
Here below some running commentary on some material by Jones elsewhere that may relate:
Jones recalls his source hre:
"This is in fact close to my point of entry into Aristotle. My interest was provoked by [...] [a] version of set of semi-formal principles formulated by Code following his collaboration with Grice on some Aristotelian studies. Grice was interested inter alia in "the multiplicity of being", i.e. in whether the verb "to be" has many different or one single "sense". In this connection Grice coined two words to unambiguously express essential and accidental predication, viz: "izz" and "hazz"."
Jones goes on to point out that
"[his -- i.e. Jones'] formal treatment of the Aristotelian syllogism"
and the points regarding
"predication in Aristotle's philosophy",
to wit,
that
"affirmative propositions carry existential import and that
there is no presumption of non-emptyness of the extension of
terms."
Jones notes that in view of this,
"the theory of the syllogism is in need of
modification once Aristotle's distinction between essential
and accidental predication (as given in the Metaphysics
rather than the Categories) is taken into account."
Jones then brings Maritain into account.
For Maritain,
"the existential import is associated with
affirmative propositions only if they are accidental, not if
they are essential."
Jones comments:
"[Maritain] does not seem to be offering any way in which we can
discover whether a proposition is essential or accidental,
and this characteristic is shown in his examples by
parenthetical remarks, suggesting that in the absence of
these remarks there is material ambiguity on this point.
This seems to me quite a radical departure from anything I
have previously seen suggested about Aristotle's
syllogistic, and so naturally, in default of textual
evidence (which in the passage in Maritain [...] is
not conspicuous) I would have to suspend judgement on it."
Jones goes on:
"At some point I did intend to produce a better combined
partial model of the syllogistic with accidental and
essential predication, since I wanted to remove the
presumption of non-emptyness in the terms."
"Prior to reading Maritain I would have done this by instead
attaching existential import to affirmative propositions,
irrespective of whether they are accidental."
"If I believed Maritain then I would have to do this
exclusively for accidental predication, and I would have to
do something different for essential predication, withdrawing
existential import from both universal and particular
essential predications."
Jones then goes to consider
Some A is B
A = B
Some A is A.
Jones rewrites this, as it
"seems to correspond to my reading of
Maritain, which can be rendered in Gricean terminology by
saying that:
All A izz A
and
Some A izz A
are necessary truths, but
All A hazz A
and
Some A hazz A
will be at best contingently true, if an A contingently
exists."
Jones notes:
"The question then arises whether this reading can be shown
to be true to Aristotle."
Jones is
"looking for specific refences in the contemporary
secondary literature which explain the relevant Aristotelian
doctrines, preferably with appropriate detailed references
to the Aristotelian texts."
A mention of
Terence Parsons
--- cited by Grice in "Vacuous Names" --
incidentally, was
"was enough for [Jones] to find on
his web site a description of Aristotle's syllogism which was
clear on the required points"
For the record, the site to Aristotle's work at
http://texts.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/classics/aristotl/o1110c.htm#18
As we provide the Aristotle quotes...
Part of this is Greek (to me).
Grice (his wife would confess) complained that Berkeley students could read no Greek. Grice was already suffering that in Oxford.
In the Oxford of Grice's youthful days, NO ENGLISH translation of Aristotle was necessary. Loeb -- we love Loeb -- Loeb is all you need -- is a charm, but it was not Loeb's Aristotle that Oxonians were reading. They were dealing with the Oxford Aristotle -- in Greek only.
By the time Grice was tutoring in Oxford, he happened to have J. L. Ackrill as one of his students. Ackrill will go on to translate Aristotle into Greek. The sad thing is that Oxford would then go on to publish Aristotle _in English only_! (In the preface, Acrkill credits Grice -- and Austin, his other tutor).
----
So, when discussing Aristotle quotes, we have to consider the 'deep berths' of Greek syntax, too.
Recall that
"All A izz A"
"Some A izz A"
"Some A hazz B"
then become things to consider.
Recall that the Greeks, from what I recall, also use things like 'ekhein' (to have), and perhaps things like 'participate'.
--- So we should start with predication as a syntactic phenomenon.
Surely the Square of Opposition, as set by Aristotle, is a basic thing. But we should also be careful when we deal with 'singular terms' (not a Greek notion) like "Socrates".
The examples by Aristotle do involve
"Socrates"
and
"white".
"Socrates laughs".
"Socrates is rational"
"Socrates is mortal"
"MEN are mortal".
"Men laugh."
----- Consider 'to idion'. What is proper (Latin proprium). This FOLLOWS from a necessary predication, but is not necessary itself.
Then there's the 'qua'.
This particle Aristotle uses. Aristotle did not care much for 'ordinary language'. In fact, Grice would say that, like Austin, or Grice himself, Aristotle felt the need to 'work' on the ordinary language and come up with concoctions like 'implicature' or 'performative'. In the case of Aristotle, the
'qua'
-- in Greek, 'e' --
we have a dative case formation.
"Socrates, qua man, is mortal."
But consider
"Plato".
"I was reading Plato".
In this case,
"Plato, qua man, was NOT what I was reading."
Plato can refer to something resembling a world-3 construction by Popper. The THOUGHTS of Plato, say, rather than Plato qua res extensa. More like 'res cogitans'. And so on.
-----
The point about Grice's "deep berths" reappear, more superficially, in his "Presupposition and Conversational Implicature" -- In fact, in "Indicative Conditionals" and "Presupposition and Conversational Implicature", and Jones may examine this.
Grice, indeed following Terence Parsons, considers the square-bracket device:
Some A izz A
Some A hazz A
as
[Some A] izz A
[Some A] hazz A
The point is to consider things like
"My aunt's cousin went to that concert"
as
[My aunt's cousin] went to that concert.
In the "Oxford philosophy" notes (MS, Grice collection) where he speaks of 'deep berths', he is considering the syntax of predication. If there is such a thing like 'knowledge', it would correspond to those things which we cannot challenge. We are anchored to them; deep berths are at a premium.
----
Grice, in his more colloquial parlance, considers what it would be a 'conversation without' THAT type of logic -- where EVERYTHING can be doubted or denied.
Recall that his:
Tweetie: "That looks like a big black cat to me."
---- should only project the implicature of 'doubt or denial' (D-or-D, in the parlance of "Causal theory").
In "Presupposition and Conversational Implicature" he has A and B:
A: Lovely concert.
B: I agree.
A: You went?
B: No. Not me. My aunt's cousin did.
"It is quite natural to say to somebody,
when we are discussing some concert,
"My aunt's cousin went to that concert,"
when we know perfectly well that the
person we are talking to is very likely
not even to know that we have an aunt,
let alone know that our aunt has a cousin.
So the supposition must be not that
it is common _knowledge_ but rather that
it is _noncontroversial_, in the sense
that it is something that we would
expect the hearer to take from us
(if he does not already know). That is to
say, I do not expect, when I tell
someone that my aunt's cousin went
to a concert, to be QUESTIONED whether
I have an aunt, and if so, whether
my aunt has a cousin."
---
Here Grice is then, mutatis mutandis, considering the non-emptyness of classes.
The class
"My aunt"
the class
"my aunt's cousin".
This is in the context of
"The Loyalty Examiner won't be summoning you."
(WoW: 271).
In this case the square-bracket status
[There is a loyalty examiner]
is cancelled, qua implicature that it was.
This is what Grice calls a 'contextual cancellation':
---
An implication regarding the non-emptyness of the subject-class
"seems to be", on occasion, "contextually cancellable, that is
cancellable by circumstances attending the utterance [of a
negative S-P sentence, The S is not P.].
"If it is a matter of dispute whether the
Government has a very undercover person who
interrogates those whose loyalty is
suspect, and who, IF HE EXISTED, could
be legitimately referred to as "The Loyalty
Examiner"; and if, further, I am KNOWN to be
very sceptical about the existence of such
a person, I could _perfectly well_ say to a
plainly loyal person,
"Well, the loyalty examiner won't be
summoning you, at any rate."
--- "without, I would think, being taken to
IMPLY that such a person exists."
----
This then relates with commentary by Jones, elsewhere, along the lines of:
"Marmaduke Bloggs won't be at the party."
--- "Well, he doesn't exist."
--- "That's what I mean. When I use "There is", I don't implicate the things I do when I say, "There exists"."
And so on.
And so on.
-----
It is in "Vacuous Names" that Grice quotes from Parsons, and indeed Boolos and Myro and Mates. This in the context of Quine, but surely the point can be extended to cover Aristotle.
Strawson, for example, never understood Quine, and thought him otiose. Strawson would rather play with Aristotle _for hours_, if indeed _not years_. Predication in Aristotle, or Kantotle, if you mustn't, is Grice's essential game.
Or something.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Jones was sharing some material in phil-logic, which I quote below.
Jones is interested in the
necessary-contingent distinction
as it parallels the
analytic-synthetic distinction
and how this touches on
Grice's izz-hazz distinction.
On top of that, I brought Kripke into the picture, with Kripke's examples of
Socrates
Socrates is
Socrates is called "Socrates"
and so on.
Kripke jokes:
"See how high the seas of language can rise. And
at the lowest points, too."
----
The "lowest points" I identified with what Grice calls the 'shallow' almost, "BERTHS" of language -- the Grice manuscript reads, "deep berths". For Grice there are deep berths and shallow berths. If he mentions Long. and Lat. elsewhere, here he mentions depth. He was a sailor at heart.
----
I would suggest that he saw necessity and analyticity as dealing with the deepest berths (which are at premium, and thus beyond controversy/denial/doubt -- they constitute 'knowledge').
---
On the other hand, Jones is considering both 'mathematical' and other types of 'knowledge'. I would think that Grice (like me) never considered science (empirical science) as a matter of 'necessity'.
In "Aspects of Reason" he mentions, as a joke, the idea of
ichthyological necessity.
He is considering uses of 'must'. He wants to say, "You must not kill" and "what goes up must come down". Surely, there are NO two senses -- one 'alethic', one 'practical' -- of "must". There is a Thesis of AEQUI-vocality, as he calls it. It's the same vox ('must') that allows for the different uses. Similarly, here the joke, it would be otiose to think of the necessity of fish.
"Ichthyological necessity".
---
We should provide some generalisations in empirical science about fish, and find what's allegedly necessary about them. Nothing! But perhaps what a fish izz is not what a fish hazz.
---
Here below some running commentary on some material by Jones elsewhere that may relate:
Jones recalls his source hre:
"This is in fact close to my point of entry into Aristotle. My interest was provoked by [...] [a] version of set of semi-formal principles formulated by Code following his collaboration with Grice on some Aristotelian studies. Grice was interested inter alia in "the multiplicity of being", i.e. in whether the verb "to be" has many different or one single "sense". In this connection Grice coined two words to unambiguously express essential and accidental predication, viz: "izz" and "hazz"."
Jones goes on to point out that
"[his -- i.e. Jones'] formal treatment of the Aristotelian syllogism"
and the points regarding
"predication in Aristotle's philosophy",
to wit,
that
"affirmative propositions carry existential import and that
there is no presumption of non-emptyness of the extension of
terms."
Jones notes that in view of this,
"the theory of the syllogism is in need of
modification once Aristotle's distinction between essential
and accidental predication (as given in the Metaphysics
rather than the Categories) is taken into account."
Jones then brings Maritain into account.
For Maritain,
"the existential import is associated with
affirmative propositions only if they are accidental, not if
they are essential."
Jones comments:
"[Maritain] does not seem to be offering any way in which we can
discover whether a proposition is essential or accidental,
and this characteristic is shown in his examples by
parenthetical remarks, suggesting that in the absence of
these remarks there is material ambiguity on this point.
This seems to me quite a radical departure from anything I
have previously seen suggested about Aristotle's
syllogistic, and so naturally, in default of textual
evidence (which in the passage in Maritain [...] is
not conspicuous) I would have to suspend judgement on it."
Jones goes on:
"At some point I did intend to produce a better combined
partial model of the syllogistic with accidental and
essential predication, since I wanted to remove the
presumption of non-emptyness in the terms."
"Prior to reading Maritain I would have done this by instead
attaching existential import to affirmative propositions,
irrespective of whether they are accidental."
"If I believed Maritain then I would have to do this
exclusively for accidental predication, and I would have to
do something different for essential predication, withdrawing
existential import from both universal and particular
essential predications."
Jones then goes to consider
Some A is B
A = B
Some A is A.
Jones rewrites this, as it
"seems to correspond to my reading of
Maritain, which can be rendered in Gricean terminology by
saying that:
All A izz A
and
Some A izz A
are necessary truths, but
All A hazz A
and
Some A hazz A
will be at best contingently true, if an A contingently
exists."
Jones notes:
"The question then arises whether this reading can be shown
to be true to Aristotle."
Jones is
"looking for specific refences in the contemporary
secondary literature which explain the relevant Aristotelian
doctrines, preferably with appropriate detailed references
to the Aristotelian texts."
A mention of
Terence Parsons
--- cited by Grice in "Vacuous Names" --
incidentally, was
"was enough for [Jones] to find on
his web site a description of Aristotle's syllogism which was
clear on the required points"
For the record, the site to Aristotle's work at
http://texts.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/classics/aristotl/o1110c.htm#18
As we provide the Aristotle quotes...
Part of this is Greek (to me).
Grice (his wife would confess) complained that Berkeley students could read no Greek. Grice was already suffering that in Oxford.
In the Oxford of Grice's youthful days, NO ENGLISH translation of Aristotle was necessary. Loeb -- we love Loeb -- Loeb is all you need -- is a charm, but it was not Loeb's Aristotle that Oxonians were reading. They were dealing with the Oxford Aristotle -- in Greek only.
By the time Grice was tutoring in Oxford, he happened to have J. L. Ackrill as one of his students. Ackrill will go on to translate Aristotle into Greek. The sad thing is that Oxford would then go on to publish Aristotle _in English only_! (In the preface, Acrkill credits Grice -- and Austin, his other tutor).
----
So, when discussing Aristotle quotes, we have to consider the 'deep berths' of Greek syntax, too.
Recall that
"All A izz A"
"Some A izz A"
"Some A hazz B"
then become things to consider.
Recall that the Greeks, from what I recall, also use things like 'ekhein' (to have), and perhaps things like 'participate'.
--- So we should start with predication as a syntactic phenomenon.
Surely the Square of Opposition, as set by Aristotle, is a basic thing. But we should also be careful when we deal with 'singular terms' (not a Greek notion) like "Socrates".
The examples by Aristotle do involve
"Socrates"
and
"white".
"Socrates laughs".
"Socrates is rational"
"Socrates is mortal"
"MEN are mortal".
"Men laugh."
----- Consider 'to idion'. What is proper (Latin proprium). This FOLLOWS from a necessary predication, but is not necessary itself.
Then there's the 'qua'.
This particle Aristotle uses. Aristotle did not care much for 'ordinary language'. In fact, Grice would say that, like Austin, or Grice himself, Aristotle felt the need to 'work' on the ordinary language and come up with concoctions like 'implicature' or 'performative'. In the case of Aristotle, the
'qua'
-- in Greek, 'e' --
we have a dative case formation.
"Socrates, qua man, is mortal."
But consider
"Plato".
"I was reading Plato".
In this case,
"Plato, qua man, was NOT what I was reading."
Plato can refer to something resembling a world-3 construction by Popper. The THOUGHTS of Plato, say, rather than Plato qua res extensa. More like 'res cogitans'. And so on.
-----
The point about Grice's "deep berths" reappear, more superficially, in his "Presupposition and Conversational Implicature" -- In fact, in "Indicative Conditionals" and "Presupposition and Conversational Implicature", and Jones may examine this.
Grice, indeed following Terence Parsons, considers the square-bracket device:
Some A izz A
Some A hazz A
as
[Some A] izz A
[Some A] hazz A
The point is to consider things like
"My aunt's cousin went to that concert"
as
[My aunt's cousin] went to that concert.
In the "Oxford philosophy" notes (MS, Grice collection) where he speaks of 'deep berths', he is considering the syntax of predication. If there is such a thing like 'knowledge', it would correspond to those things which we cannot challenge. We are anchored to them; deep berths are at a premium.
----
Grice, in his more colloquial parlance, considers what it would be a 'conversation without' THAT type of logic -- where EVERYTHING can be doubted or denied.
Recall that his:
Tweetie: "That looks like a big black cat to me."
---- should only project the implicature of 'doubt or denial' (D-or-D, in the parlance of "Causal theory").
In "Presupposition and Conversational Implicature" he has A and B:
A: Lovely concert.
B: I agree.
A: You went?
B: No. Not me. My aunt's cousin did.
"It is quite natural to say to somebody,
when we are discussing some concert,
"My aunt's cousin went to that concert,"
when we know perfectly well that the
person we are talking to is very likely
not even to know that we have an aunt,
let alone know that our aunt has a cousin.
So the supposition must be not that
it is common _knowledge_ but rather that
it is _noncontroversial_, in the sense
that it is something that we would
expect the hearer to take from us
(if he does not already know). That is to
say, I do not expect, when I tell
someone that my aunt's cousin went
to a concert, to be QUESTIONED whether
I have an aunt, and if so, whether
my aunt has a cousin."
---
Here Grice is then, mutatis mutandis, considering the non-emptyness of classes.
The class
"My aunt"
the class
"my aunt's cousin".
This is in the context of
"The Loyalty Examiner won't be summoning you."
(WoW: 271).
In this case the square-bracket status
[There is a loyalty examiner]
is cancelled, qua implicature that it was.
This is what Grice calls a 'contextual cancellation':
---
An implication regarding the non-emptyness of the subject-class
"seems to be", on occasion, "contextually cancellable, that is
cancellable by circumstances attending the utterance [of a
negative S-P sentence, The S is not P.].
"If it is a matter of dispute whether the
Government has a very undercover person who
interrogates those whose loyalty is
suspect, and who, IF HE EXISTED, could
be legitimately referred to as "The Loyalty
Examiner"; and if, further, I am KNOWN to be
very sceptical about the existence of such
a person, I could _perfectly well_ say to a
plainly loyal person,
"Well, the loyalty examiner won't be
summoning you, at any rate."
--- "without, I would think, being taken to
IMPLY that such a person exists."
----
This then relates with commentary by Jones, elsewhere, along the lines of:
"Marmaduke Bloggs won't be at the party."
--- "Well, he doesn't exist."
--- "That's what I mean. When I use "There is", I don't implicate the things I do when I say, "There exists"."
And so on.
And so on.
-----
It is in "Vacuous Names" that Grice quotes from Parsons, and indeed Boolos and Myro and Mates. This in the context of Quine, but surely the point can be extended to cover Aristotle.
Strawson, for example, never understood Quine, and thought him otiose. Strawson would rather play with Aristotle _for hours_, if indeed _not years_. Predication in Aristotle, or Kantotle, if you mustn't, is Grice's essential game.
Or something.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Grice, The "Deep Berths"
Speranza
--- vide Grice, "Philosophy at Oxford 1945-1970", The Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
--- vide Grice, "Philosophy at Oxford 1945-1970", The Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
The Deep Berths of Language
--- To izz or not to izz, that hazz the question.
Grice's reply to Kripke's irreverential:
"See how high the seas of language can rise. And at the lowest points, too."
Speranza
Jones, in "Izz", etc., writes:
"Without as yet actually using Grice's words (though I might well put them in soon), the subject matter of Grice's work on predication in Aristotle is one of the topics under discussion at the moment on the phil-logic@philo.at mailing list. It may not be a favourite haunt of Grice club denizens (Grice doesn't often get a mention) but I thought it worth a mention."
Thanks for _that_!
--
Jones:
"In my own formal work partly inspired by the Grice/Code collaboration I combined formal models of essential and accidental predication (izzing and hazzing in Grice's terms) with the syllogistic logic. In doing so, my preliminary conclusions were that once you bring in that distinction (which seems to originate rather in Aristotle's metaphysics than his organon), then the rules of the syllogism become more complex, the usual conception of validity not being reflected fully for all kinds of predication."
Excellent points.
"Grice's interest seems to have been at least partly in multiplicity of "being", the question whether that verb has more than one sense. Izzing and Hazzing are different names to distinguish two ways in which "being" (and some other words like "having") are used, the neologism being useful because the distinction between essential and accidental predication (as this is conceived by Aristotle) is not in ordinary language consistently conveyed by distinct vocabulary."
Indeed. In other languages, it may even be inexistent. (I have not checked this. I would not be surprised if in some aboriginal -- i.e. there from the origins -- language (or 'lingo' as Kant says) there is no word for 'is': "Your letter, sir" -- the butler says. Surely it would be redundant to add, "Here IS your letter, sir".). Note that in classical Latin, 'est' is also omitted:
Tu quoque.
"You, too" -- surely "are".
---
One may wonder why the _need_ for 'is'. Recall that in Aristotelian logic,
"S est P"
but, as Aristotle argued, and Kant, too, 'is' (the copula) is "NOT" a predicate.
--- And so on.
Jones:
"Grice I believe was inclined to question that multiple senses really are involved, and the question arises by what criteria one can judge whether observed usage constitutes a single or multiple senses. On this I remain at present, much less than adequately acquainted with Grice's position, but there is one possible criterion which now occurs to me as a result of material on phil-logic."
Lovely always to have the cross-references!
Jones:
"It seems that there may be differences in Aristotle's conception of the ontological commitments implicit in affirmative propositions according to whether they involve essential or accidental predication, and hence differences in truth conditions.
The idea is that an accidental universal affirmation does entail existence, whereas an essential one does not. I am still not clear on whether this is the case, but if it were and the truth conditions do vary in such a manner, then it is hard to see how these two kinds of predication could avoid being distinguished as different senses."
--- Personally (I hate this redundancy) I'm not too sure that's the case.
We can consider Grice's ("Descartes" essay, WoW) example:
"I think; therefore I am".
---- By contraposition, this becomes Speranza's dictum:
"I am; therefore I think" (echoes of my uncle)
---
Grice's 'izz' and 'hazz' have (is?) the incovenience that it's not meant for first-person, surely the most important person (to some).
I suggest then, to reformulate:
I am; therefore, I think.
As:
Speranza IZZ; therefore Speranza HAZZ thought.
Or something.
Jones is suggesting taht to say that
"Speranza hazz thought" is _accidental_, or an accidental thing to say. Whereas to say that God (rather than Speranza) _IZZ_ would be, again in someone's parlance, _essential_ (or an essential thing to say). But I disgress.
Jones:
"Could one plausibly argue against the "multiplicity of being" if it were once established that there is a multiplicity of truth conditions?"
Yes. But perhaps we should bring Kripke in:
Kripke wrote:
'the seas of language'.
Dummett found that funny and entitled his odd collection of this and that, "The seas of language". Kripke considers things like:
Socrates is white.
Socrates has a big nose (Socrates "hazz" a big, flat, nose, in Grice's spelling).
Socrates is called "Socrates".
Of the latter, Kripke said:
"Actually sentences like 'Socrates is called "Socrates"' are very interesting and one can spend, strange as it may seem, hours talking about their analysis. I actually did, once, do that. I won't do that, however, on this occasion. (See how high the seas of language can rise. And at the lowest points, too.)"
And Kripke should possibly be quoting from Grice, unless he isn't (Determinists find, I read, counterfactual thinking a hard thing to engage in). For Grice wrote:
The source here is interesting enough and the keyword:
the 'deep berths' of language
KEYWORD: deep berths
---
Quote:
Grice, H. P. "Philosophy at Oxford 1945-1970", in The Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c. The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
---
Grice is attempting to reconcile the Oxford 'school' of philosophy (as he never named it) with Aristotle's idea that philosophy is about the nature of things (to use the title of a book by Lord Quinton) , rather than language.
Grice proposes to adopt the _hypothesis_ that OPINION (Greek 'doxa') is generally reflected in language ("ta legomena").
But this is done with different 'levels' (Grice's word) representing differents degrees of commitment.
Some aspects of 'knowledge' receive the DEEPEST levels of embedding within (even) SYNTAX.
This aspects of knowledge then reside in what Grice describes, indeed, as the 'DEEP BERTHS' of language.
It is not possible, Grice suggests, for an utterer to use a language such as English WITHOUT BEING committed to (or anchored in) these 'deep berths' of language.
----
The DEEPEST levels are at a premium. So, it is in the interests of utterers (within population speaking Lingo L) to reserve these deepest levels (the "deep berths" of language), naturally enough, to their deepest commitments.
---
Other people MIGHT challenge this, Grice suggests, but it would DANGEROUS to do so. If we subscribe to this account, we might be tempted to argue that 'first principles' of 'knowledge' (as it were) are to be found in the deep categorial, syntactic even, structure of this or that lingo, rather than, say, in the VOCABULARY of a given language ("is" as categorial: "izz" and "hazz" as its representations).
Grice writes:
'[H]ow w talk OUGHT [emphasis Grice's -- in his
usual underlining] to reflect our most
solid, cherished and generally accepted
opinions'.
(Grice, op. cit.).
---
In this discussion of what is presented as 'uncontroversial', say, and what is, rather, available for 'denial', Grice might be described as interested in the ways in which different syntactic (as it were -- in Gentzen's sense) devices are available for conveying 'information' (or 'knowledge', if you mustn't) bring with them different 'existential' or 'ontological' commitments, if you mustn't.
And so on.
But back to Kripke:
Socrates: I am, therefore, I think (NON-SEQUITUR).
I think; therefore I am.
Socrates thinks.
Socrates is.
Socrates izz
Socrtaes is a thinking being.
Socrates, on top of that, is called (IZZ called, HAZZ called) "Socrates".
What is essential? What is not?
Kripke:
"Actually sentences like 'Socrates is called "Socrates"'
are very interesting and one can spend, strange
as it may seem, hours talking
about their analysis. I actually
did, once, do that. I won't do that,
however, on this occasion. (See
how high the seas of language can
rise. And at the lowest points,
too.)"
----
Perhaps Grice was too much of a sailor (as Kripke ain't) and went straight to the deepest berths, as perhaps he shouldn't ('have' or 'izz'). And so on.
Grice's reply to Kripke's irreverential:
"See how high the seas of language can rise. And at the lowest points, too."
Speranza
Jones, in "Izz", etc., writes:
"Without as yet actually using Grice's words (though I might well put them in soon), the subject matter of Grice's work on predication in Aristotle is one of the topics under discussion at the moment on the phil-logic@philo.at mailing list. It may not be a favourite haunt of Grice club denizens (Grice doesn't often get a mention) but I thought it worth a mention."
Thanks for _that_!
--
Jones:
"In my own formal work partly inspired by the Grice/Code collaboration I combined formal models of essential and accidental predication (izzing and hazzing in Grice's terms) with the syllogistic logic. In doing so, my preliminary conclusions were that once you bring in that distinction (which seems to originate rather in Aristotle's metaphysics than his organon), then the rules of the syllogism become more complex, the usual conception of validity not being reflected fully for all kinds of predication."
Excellent points.
"Grice's interest seems to have been at least partly in multiplicity of "being", the question whether that verb has more than one sense. Izzing and Hazzing are different names to distinguish two ways in which "being" (and some other words like "having") are used, the neologism being useful because the distinction between essential and accidental predication (as this is conceived by Aristotle) is not in ordinary language consistently conveyed by distinct vocabulary."
Indeed. In other languages, it may even be inexistent. (I have not checked this. I would not be surprised if in some aboriginal -- i.e. there from the origins -- language (or 'lingo' as Kant says) there is no word for 'is': "Your letter, sir" -- the butler says. Surely it would be redundant to add, "Here IS your letter, sir".). Note that in classical Latin, 'est' is also omitted:
Tu quoque.
"You, too" -- surely "are".
---
One may wonder why the _need_ for 'is'. Recall that in Aristotelian logic,
"S est P"
but, as Aristotle argued, and Kant, too, 'is' (the copula) is "NOT" a predicate.
--- And so on.
Jones:
"Grice I believe was inclined to question that multiple senses really are involved, and the question arises by what criteria one can judge whether observed usage constitutes a single or multiple senses. On this I remain at present, much less than adequately acquainted with Grice's position, but there is one possible criterion which now occurs to me as a result of material on phil-logic."
Lovely always to have the cross-references!
Jones:
"It seems that there may be differences in Aristotle's conception of the ontological commitments implicit in affirmative propositions according to whether they involve essential or accidental predication, and hence differences in truth conditions.
The idea is that an accidental universal affirmation does entail existence, whereas an essential one does not. I am still not clear on whether this is the case, but if it were and the truth conditions do vary in such a manner, then it is hard to see how these two kinds of predication could avoid being distinguished as different senses."
--- Personally (I hate this redundancy) I'm not too sure that's the case.
We can consider Grice's ("Descartes" essay, WoW) example:
"I think; therefore I am".
---- By contraposition, this becomes Speranza's dictum:
"I am; therefore I think" (echoes of my uncle)
---
Grice's 'izz' and 'hazz' have (is?) the incovenience that it's not meant for first-person, surely the most important person (to some).
I suggest then, to reformulate:
I am; therefore, I think.
As:
Speranza IZZ; therefore Speranza HAZZ thought.
Or something.
Jones is suggesting taht to say that
"Speranza hazz thought" is _accidental_, or an accidental thing to say. Whereas to say that God (rather than Speranza) _IZZ_ would be, again in someone's parlance, _essential_ (or an essential thing to say). But I disgress.
Jones:
"Could one plausibly argue against the "multiplicity of being" if it were once established that there is a multiplicity of truth conditions?"
Yes. But perhaps we should bring Kripke in:
Kripke wrote:
'the seas of language'.
Dummett found that funny and entitled his odd collection of this and that, "The seas of language". Kripke considers things like:
Socrates is white.
Socrates has a big nose (Socrates "hazz" a big, flat, nose, in Grice's spelling).
Socrates is called "Socrates".
Of the latter, Kripke said:
"Actually sentences like 'Socrates is called "Socrates"' are very interesting and one can spend, strange as it may seem, hours talking about their analysis. I actually did, once, do that. I won't do that, however, on this occasion. (See how high the seas of language can rise. And at the lowest points, too.)"
And Kripke should possibly be quoting from Grice, unless he isn't (Determinists find, I read, counterfactual thinking a hard thing to engage in). For Grice wrote:
The source here is interesting enough and the keyword:
the 'deep berths' of language
KEYWORD: deep berths
---
Quote:
Grice, H. P. "Philosophy at Oxford 1945-1970", in The Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c. The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
---
Grice is attempting to reconcile the Oxford 'school' of philosophy (as he never named it) with Aristotle's idea that philosophy is about the nature of things (to use the title of a book by Lord Quinton) , rather than language.
Grice proposes to adopt the _hypothesis_ that OPINION (Greek 'doxa') is generally reflected in language ("ta legomena").
But this is done with different 'levels' (Grice's word) representing differents degrees of commitment.
Some aspects of 'knowledge' receive the DEEPEST levels of embedding within (even) SYNTAX.
This aspects of knowledge then reside in what Grice describes, indeed, as the 'DEEP BERTHS' of language.
It is not possible, Grice suggests, for an utterer to use a language such as English WITHOUT BEING committed to (or anchored in) these 'deep berths' of language.
----
The DEEPEST levels are at a premium. So, it is in the interests of utterers (within population speaking Lingo L) to reserve these deepest levels (the "deep berths" of language), naturally enough, to their deepest commitments.
---
Other people MIGHT challenge this, Grice suggests, but it would DANGEROUS to do so. If we subscribe to this account, we might be tempted to argue that 'first principles' of 'knowledge' (as it were) are to be found in the deep categorial, syntactic even, structure of this or that lingo, rather than, say, in the VOCABULARY of a given language ("is" as categorial: "izz" and "hazz" as its representations).
Grice writes:
'[H]ow w talk OUGHT [emphasis Grice's -- in his
usual underlining] to reflect our most
solid, cherished and generally accepted
opinions'.
(Grice, op. cit.).
---
In this discussion of what is presented as 'uncontroversial', say, and what is, rather, available for 'denial', Grice might be described as interested in the ways in which different syntactic (as it were -- in Gentzen's sense) devices are available for conveying 'information' (or 'knowledge', if you mustn't) bring with them different 'existential' or 'ontological' commitments, if you mustn't.
And so on.
But back to Kripke:
Socrates: I am, therefore, I think (NON-SEQUITUR).
I think; therefore I am.
Socrates thinks.
Socrates is.
Socrates izz
Socrtaes is a thinking being.
Socrates, on top of that, is called (IZZ called, HAZZ called) "Socrates".
What is essential? What is not?
Kripke:
"Actually sentences like 'Socrates is called "Socrates"'
are very interesting and one can spend, strange
as it may seem, hours talking
about their analysis. I actually
did, once, do that. I won't do that,
however, on this occasion. (See
how high the seas of language can
rise. And at the lowest points,
too.)"
----
Perhaps Grice was too much of a sailor (as Kripke ain't) and went straight to the deepest berths, as perhaps he shouldn't ('have' or 'izz'). And so on.
Grice on dthis and dthat
Speranza
Jones writes in "Maggee", etc.
"I am always interested in critiques of one man's analytic philosophy in the terms of another's. And also in the dispossessed or marginalised, those who might possibly have become academic philosophers had not their philosophical inclinations been too far removed from the prevailing orthodoxy of their day or whose philosophy was conducted in some more liberal context sheltered from the critical gaze of the principle centers of analytic orthodoxy. In that category I count Gellner, Berlin, and Magee, possibly Murdoch and in all of these cases the orthodoxy of their youth was probably "linguistic philosophy". Why not Popper, Lakatos, ...? In these terms perhaps LSE is a haven for philosophical unorthodoxy. Well I don't feel that Popper and Lakatos were marginalised. Perhaps it's just an Oxford thing I am groping at, since Gellner, Berlin, Magee and Murdoch were all in some way dissenting Oxonians."
Too true.
--- Keyword: ALWAYS (or all-ways, as I prefer) Oxford.
Jones:
"It had not occurred to me that Dummett should be thought outside the fold of linguistic philosophy until Speranza's recent postings about his critical attitude towards Austin. I suppose to make sense of this we must distinguish between "linguistic philosophy" and "ordinary language philosophy", and say that Dummett may not have been an "ordinary language philosopher" but he was certainly a linguistic philosopher."
Too true. It is fun to see how his books are 'catalogued' by the British library, say, or the Library of (the American) congress. "Philosophy of Language". I would think the serious keyword here is:
'philosophy of Language' -- but this is tricky, since "Philosophy of X" is "ALL-ways" second-rate when it comes to philosophical methodology: "Metaphysics" is fine, but "he was a philosopher of language" cannot be complimenary -- ever.
Jones goes on:
"[Dummett] was a linguistic philosopher because he gave primacy to philosophy of language, and because he seems to have subscribed to a point of view which Magee singled out for especially thorough refutation in his "confessions of a philosopher".
If we take this view (which I will explain shortly) then we can see Grice's philosophy as moderating not only the extremes of Austinian ordinary language philosophy, but also the extreme of linguistic philosophy which Dummett inhabited."
Good. Will check this out!
Jones:
"The doctrine which Magee singled out for special obloquy is the argument for the primacy of linguistic philosophy on the grounds that thought is essentially linguistic."
Mmm. Echoes of Peacocke?
I treasure a little chapter, by Peacocke, somewhere, "Thought and Language" (or "Language and Thought" -- I never recall).
Jones:
"When we sit silently chewing the cud, the argument goes, our thinking is a stream of bits of language which we just happen to refrain from articulating.
Since all thought consists of propositions expressed or repressed, the philosophy of language has prime place, and a study of language is an essential part of any philosophical enterprise. This is a doctrine which Dummett does explicitly subscribe to, somewhere, perhaps in his "Is analytic philosophy systematic and should it be?"."
Echoes of that UNPUBLISHED lecture by Grice -- for years. The very last "William James" lecture on "Logic and Conversation" (WoW:vi). It's all about the alleged primacy of "mean" (meaning) -- Grice's prefered locution -- over thought, or vice versa.
---
Jones:
"Dummett also at least some of the time, and particularly in his attempt to provide a philosophical justification for intuitionistic logic. The analogous caricature of Austinian ordinary language philosophy would be that philosophy is just the study of ordinary language, and the advancement of our understanding of this instrument through a detailed analysis of its use. This nominally as a prelude to the resolution of extra-linguistic philosophical problems. This seems to be the line in Austin's "A Plea for Excuses", which is his most explicit metaphilosophical pronouncement. The Austin of "Sense and Sensibilia" is using observations about ordinary language in a critique of a philosophical argument concerning a problem which is not itself purely linguistic. But the Austin of "Doing things with words" seems to have moved on from criticising a philosophical position to practicing a new kind of philosophy consisting primarily or exclusively in the study of language through its non philosophical manifestations."
Indeed. There probably is more continuity in Austin's thought (I love that: 'the continuity of ...' -- e.g. "The continuity of Middle English philosophy from Beowulf") than his manuscripts suggest.
Recall that "How to do things with words" was never thought by Austin to be published. Urmson did that for him! And on top of that, Oxford engaged Marina Sbisa to finish the thing! ---- The "Sense and sensibilia" was, also, never meant for publication by Austin. Warnock did that for Austin, since Warnock's ego moved Warnock to have Austin's discussion of Warnock in the latter lectures (Austin focuses on Warnock's booklet on Berkeley).
I think there is a lot of continuity in Austin's oeuvre, as there is in Grice's oeuvre, but we have to consider, almost, year-by-year dating of publications and unpublications, and separate the 'public' Austin from the more personal philosophical Austin, and so on. I'm pleased I'm not an Austinian, or else this would be the Austin Club (or something).
Jones:
"My impression is that Grice doesn't himself fit in with either of these extremes.
His essay on philosophical method and ordinary language in WOW suggests: firstly, that philosophical analysis is a kind of conceptual analysis (which surprises me a little, I would not have thought that consistent with the whole of his philosophical output); secondly, the assertion of an "unswerving association" of philosophy with the study not just of language but of "ordinary language""
What a beautiful word.
--- begin quoted text:
swever, early 13c., "to depart, make off;" early 14c., "to turn aside, deviate from a straight course," probably from O.E. sweorfan "to rub, scour, file" (but sense development is difficult to trace), from P.Gmc. *swerbanan (cf O.N. sverfa "to scour, file," O.S. swebran "to wipe off"), from PIE base *swerbh-. Cognate words in other Germanic languages (cf. O.Fris. swerva "to creep," M.Du. swerven "to rove, stray") suggests the sense of "go off, turn aside" may have existed in O.E., though unrecorded. The noun is recorded from 1741.
---
Jones:
"But an association is not an identification, so there is some softening there. Grice associates the opposition to this point of view (thinking of Russell and Quine) with "scientism". This critique is probably even more applicable to Rudolf Carnap"
--- intersting. Grice will re-quote "Scientism" later in his "Method" -- by this time, it has become "The devil of Scientism" (big quote repeated elsewhere, etc.).
Jones:
"[This critique is probably even more applicable to Rudolf Carnap] who, because of his dedication to the formalisation of science and his conception of science as encompassing all systematic study of empirical or synthetic truth, does at least regard the study of ordinary language as empirical science (and the kind of philosophy which he practiced as a deductive/demonstrative science insofar as it establishes new truths rather than proposing new languages and methods)."
Interesting. There are various points here:
---- I would associate Carnap indeed with that grand movement, American in spirit, apparently, of the "Unified science".
--- the other point is sublter. When I was studying kewords, I made a distinction between
philosophical linguistics
and
linguistic philosophy.
Indeed, 'philosophical linguistics' seems oxymoronic, since, since Saussure, linguists have NOT been _too_ philosophical. By registering Carnap's attitude towards things such as 'pragmatics' as the empirical study of assertion and belief, say, in that little essay that we have discussed elsewhere with Jones, Carnap seems to be minimising linguistics, and linguistic philosophy (into the bargain) so! I don't mind about his minimising empirical linguistics (I guess) --. But then I would disagree that what Austin or Grice are doing is 'empirical' linguistics alla Naess. They are more into Kantotelian linguistics. For Austin (and more so for Grice) the study of language is important because it is a study of _categories_. And categories can come in ontological, cognitive, AND linguistic format.
---
SOME empirical linguists (notably Whorf) emphasised this. But others (notably Chomsky and his followers, such as some of the early Griceains) did not, and rather stuck with relative paradigms of a given language AS if they were universalia, without knowing (or something like that).
Jones:
"Sorry, I think I must have lost my thread. I am trying to get a better handle quite generally on the kinds of philosophical analysis which have been proposed or practiced and their relationships, which seems like an enterprise of unending complexity, since it is in the nature of philosophy not only that no two philosophers share a common philosophy, but probably also that no two share the same conception of what philosophy is or how it should be done. Making an illuminating story out of this (which is what I am trying to do) is a bit of a challenge, and I am interested especially in how my own limited conception of 20th Century philosophy looks wrong to others (particularly in how it exposes my extensive ignorance!)."
Not at all. It's very simple! You love to make things complicated, which I love!
-----
("It's very simple!" is an utterance of utter complexity).
It all starts with the first Witters. (When philosophers engage to discuss the history of 20th century philosophy -- they HAVE to mention Witters). His "Tractatus". This is ONE language. Then there's the second Witters: the USES of language.
Then there's the Unified Science Movement. Carnap noted one big complication of this: physicalism versus phenomenalism. Given the complexities of quantum physics, say, why bother to formalise, in first-order predicate calculus, what physicists are saying? They may not even know it (Echoes of Dummett: "metaphysics is an examination of the philosophy of physics").
Then comes Austin. It is best to understand Austin in terms of how philosophy (how BORINGLY) philosophy was conducted in Oxford before he came. Try to read any pre-Austinian philosopher! They are just impossible! -- Bradley, Prichard (realism), Cook Wilson. Big words! Big manifestos. Ryle softened this a bit, with his irreverencies. But Austin set the thing _on fire_. He thought: 'let us focus on how 'know' works -- perhaps it works 'performatively', as I might say'. And so on. His students were FASCINATED (except Dummett, -- and the female philosophers Murdoch and Anscombe).
Austin exerted a fascination NOT ONLY On his students (this is understandable) but on people like GRICE who was only TWO YEARS his junior!
--- The rest is history!
In the case of Grice, he starts to get serious when he tries to systematise on what he was doing.
Recall that in 1967, in "Logic and Conversation", he chose himself as an example of a linguistic philosopher. He lists like 16 philosophers, mostly obscure. One philosopher he cites is NOT obscure. He refers to his own,
"Causal theory of perception", 1961.
He starts to wonder what he meant by 'implication', as it applies to the phenomenalist verb, 'seems':
That red pillar box seems red to me.
Why not 'is'?
This 'doubt-or-denial' implication, is it part of the _sense_ of 'seem'? It's not!
----
Things sometime seem as they are!
---
So, Grice is bringing in a caveat: the analysis of use versus meaning or over meaning should take into consideration that conditions of use do not specify conditions of meaning necessarily (contra Witters I and Witters II).
---
By this time, he was finding 'enemies' in Strawson (who had said that 'and' and "&" have different _meanings_ -- in "Introduction to Logical Theory") or with much younger (and American) philosophers like Searle. I like to think of Grice's "Logic and Conversation" as a response to Searle, "Aberrations and modifications", in British Analytic Philosophy.
---
Grice has the answer. He thinks that we need a theory of lingo (or language) as a rational activity. This should explain things like the scale:
seem, is.
know, believe
3,2,1,...
etc.
We say 'seem' when we think 'is' would be too strong a thing to say. We say "There are four apples" in the basket, when we think that to say that there are 3 apples is too soft or weak a thing to say (when there are four -- surely if there are 4 apples, there are 3 apples).
---
He then needs to evoke the rule by which we play:
'be strong, unless you kant' -- in the things you say. The category of Quantity, as he later relabelled.
No other philosopher had considered these pragmatic categories, almost.
Nowell-Smith HAD, in his "Ethics", when he speaks of 'relevance' and 'sincerity', or Urmson in various papers, as Austin. Indeed Strawson himself had pointed to a principle of relevance, and a principle of ignorance (and of knowledge) explaining our use of 'definite descriptions'.
In this light, Grice comes out as bringing to the fore the rationale behind various uses of locutions of philosophical interest.
Philosophers had been loose in their wordings. Take L. J. Cohen, who was teaching at Oxford at the time. His "Diversity of Meaning" and later work suggests that we can very well 'multiply' senses, as we need them. Grice finds Rationalism a better practice. In the proceedings, he finds alliances with Aristotle and Kant (his Kantotle) which helps...
Philosophers who examine Grice only for his contribution to this or that (dthis or dthat, in Kaplan's parlance) but are unware or uninterested in the continuity of his thought are bound to ignore this or that, but that's life!
----
And so on!
Jones writes in "Maggee", etc.
"I am always interested in critiques of one man's analytic philosophy in the terms of another's. And also in the dispossessed or marginalised, those who might possibly have become academic philosophers had not their philosophical inclinations been too far removed from the prevailing orthodoxy of their day or whose philosophy was conducted in some more liberal context sheltered from the critical gaze of the principle centers of analytic orthodoxy. In that category I count Gellner, Berlin, and Magee, possibly Murdoch and in all of these cases the orthodoxy of their youth was probably "linguistic philosophy". Why not Popper, Lakatos, ...? In these terms perhaps LSE is a haven for philosophical unorthodoxy. Well I don't feel that Popper and Lakatos were marginalised. Perhaps it's just an Oxford thing I am groping at, since Gellner, Berlin, Magee and Murdoch were all in some way dissenting Oxonians."
Too true.
--- Keyword: ALWAYS (or all-ways, as I prefer) Oxford.
Jones:
"It had not occurred to me that Dummett should be thought outside the fold of linguistic philosophy until Speranza's recent postings about his critical attitude towards Austin. I suppose to make sense of this we must distinguish between "linguistic philosophy" and "ordinary language philosophy", and say that Dummett may not have been an "ordinary language philosopher" but he was certainly a linguistic philosopher."
Too true. It is fun to see how his books are 'catalogued' by the British library, say, or the Library of (the American) congress. "Philosophy of Language". I would think the serious keyword here is:
'philosophy of Language' -- but this is tricky, since "Philosophy of X" is "ALL-ways" second-rate when it comes to philosophical methodology: "Metaphysics" is fine, but "he was a philosopher of language" cannot be complimenary -- ever.
Jones goes on:
"[Dummett] was a linguistic philosopher because he gave primacy to philosophy of language, and because he seems to have subscribed to a point of view which Magee singled out for especially thorough refutation in his "confessions of a philosopher".
If we take this view (which I will explain shortly) then we can see Grice's philosophy as moderating not only the extremes of Austinian ordinary language philosophy, but also the extreme of linguistic philosophy which Dummett inhabited."
Good. Will check this out!
Jones:
"The doctrine which Magee singled out for special obloquy is the argument for the primacy of linguistic philosophy on the grounds that thought is essentially linguistic."
Mmm. Echoes of Peacocke?
I treasure a little chapter, by Peacocke, somewhere, "Thought and Language" (or "Language and Thought" -- I never recall).
Jones:
"When we sit silently chewing the cud, the argument goes, our thinking is a stream of bits of language which we just happen to refrain from articulating.
Since all thought consists of propositions expressed or repressed, the philosophy of language has prime place, and a study of language is an essential part of any philosophical enterprise. This is a doctrine which Dummett does explicitly subscribe to, somewhere, perhaps in his "Is analytic philosophy systematic and should it be?"."
Echoes of that UNPUBLISHED lecture by Grice -- for years. The very last "William James" lecture on "Logic and Conversation" (WoW:vi). It's all about the alleged primacy of "mean" (meaning) -- Grice's prefered locution -- over thought, or vice versa.
---
Jones:
"Dummett also at least some of the time, and particularly in his attempt to provide a philosophical justification for intuitionistic logic. The analogous caricature of Austinian ordinary language philosophy would be that philosophy is just the study of ordinary language, and the advancement of our understanding of this instrument through a detailed analysis of its use. This nominally as a prelude to the resolution of extra-linguistic philosophical problems. This seems to be the line in Austin's "A Plea for Excuses", which is his most explicit metaphilosophical pronouncement. The Austin of "Sense and Sensibilia" is using observations about ordinary language in a critique of a philosophical argument concerning a problem which is not itself purely linguistic. But the Austin of "Doing things with words" seems to have moved on from criticising a philosophical position to practicing a new kind of philosophy consisting primarily or exclusively in the study of language through its non philosophical manifestations."
Indeed. There probably is more continuity in Austin's thought (I love that: 'the continuity of ...' -- e.g. "The continuity of Middle English philosophy from Beowulf") than his manuscripts suggest.
Recall that "How to do things with words" was never thought by Austin to be published. Urmson did that for him! And on top of that, Oxford engaged Marina Sbisa to finish the thing! ---- The "Sense and sensibilia" was, also, never meant for publication by Austin. Warnock did that for Austin, since Warnock's ego moved Warnock to have Austin's discussion of Warnock in the latter lectures (Austin focuses on Warnock's booklet on Berkeley).
I think there is a lot of continuity in Austin's oeuvre, as there is in Grice's oeuvre, but we have to consider, almost, year-by-year dating of publications and unpublications, and separate the 'public' Austin from the more personal philosophical Austin, and so on. I'm pleased I'm not an Austinian, or else this would be the Austin Club (or something).
Jones:
"My impression is that Grice doesn't himself fit in with either of these extremes.
His essay on philosophical method and ordinary language in WOW suggests: firstly, that philosophical analysis is a kind of conceptual analysis (which surprises me a little, I would not have thought that consistent with the whole of his philosophical output); secondly, the assertion of an "unswerving association" of philosophy with the study not just of language but of "ordinary language""
What a beautiful word.
--- begin quoted text:
swever, early 13c., "to depart, make off;" early 14c., "to turn aside, deviate from a straight course," probably from O.E. sweorfan "to rub, scour, file" (but sense development is difficult to trace), from P.Gmc. *swerbanan (cf O.N. sverfa "to scour, file," O.S. swebran "to wipe off"), from PIE base *swerbh-. Cognate words in other Germanic languages (cf. O.Fris. swerva "to creep," M.Du. swerven "to rove, stray") suggests the sense of "go off, turn aside" may have existed in O.E., though unrecorded. The noun is recorded from 1741.
---
Jones:
"But an association is not an identification, so there is some softening there. Grice associates the opposition to this point of view (thinking of Russell and Quine) with "scientism". This critique is probably even more applicable to Rudolf Carnap"
--- intersting. Grice will re-quote "Scientism" later in his "Method" -- by this time, it has become "The devil of Scientism" (big quote repeated elsewhere, etc.).
Jones:
"[This critique is probably even more applicable to Rudolf Carnap] who, because of his dedication to the formalisation of science and his conception of science as encompassing all systematic study of empirical or synthetic truth, does at least regard the study of ordinary language as empirical science (and the kind of philosophy which he practiced as a deductive/demonstrative science insofar as it establishes new truths rather than proposing new languages and methods)."
Interesting. There are various points here:
---- I would associate Carnap indeed with that grand movement, American in spirit, apparently, of the "Unified science".
--- the other point is sublter. When I was studying kewords, I made a distinction between
philosophical linguistics
and
linguistic philosophy.
Indeed, 'philosophical linguistics' seems oxymoronic, since, since Saussure, linguists have NOT been _too_ philosophical. By registering Carnap's attitude towards things such as 'pragmatics' as the empirical study of assertion and belief, say, in that little essay that we have discussed elsewhere with Jones, Carnap seems to be minimising linguistics, and linguistic philosophy (into the bargain) so! I don't mind about his minimising empirical linguistics (I guess) --. But then I would disagree that what Austin or Grice are doing is 'empirical' linguistics alla Naess. They are more into Kantotelian linguistics. For Austin (and more so for Grice) the study of language is important because it is a study of _categories_. And categories can come in ontological, cognitive, AND linguistic format.
---
SOME empirical linguists (notably Whorf) emphasised this. But others (notably Chomsky and his followers, such as some of the early Griceains) did not, and rather stuck with relative paradigms of a given language AS if they were universalia, without knowing (or something like that).
Jones:
"Sorry, I think I must have lost my thread. I am trying to get a better handle quite generally on the kinds of philosophical analysis which have been proposed or practiced and their relationships, which seems like an enterprise of unending complexity, since it is in the nature of philosophy not only that no two philosophers share a common philosophy, but probably also that no two share the same conception of what philosophy is or how it should be done. Making an illuminating story out of this (which is what I am trying to do) is a bit of a challenge, and I am interested especially in how my own limited conception of 20th Century philosophy looks wrong to others (particularly in how it exposes my extensive ignorance!)."
Not at all. It's very simple! You love to make things complicated, which I love!
-----
("It's very simple!" is an utterance of utter complexity).
It all starts with the first Witters. (When philosophers engage to discuss the history of 20th century philosophy -- they HAVE to mention Witters). His "Tractatus". This is ONE language. Then there's the second Witters: the USES of language.
Then there's the Unified Science Movement. Carnap noted one big complication of this: physicalism versus phenomenalism. Given the complexities of quantum physics, say, why bother to formalise, in first-order predicate calculus, what physicists are saying? They may not even know it (Echoes of Dummett: "metaphysics is an examination of the philosophy of physics").
Then comes Austin. It is best to understand Austin in terms of how philosophy (how BORINGLY) philosophy was conducted in Oxford before he came. Try to read any pre-Austinian philosopher! They are just impossible! -- Bradley, Prichard (realism), Cook Wilson. Big words! Big manifestos. Ryle softened this a bit, with his irreverencies. But Austin set the thing _on fire_. He thought: 'let us focus on how 'know' works -- perhaps it works 'performatively', as I might say'. And so on. His students were FASCINATED (except Dummett, -- and the female philosophers Murdoch and Anscombe).
Austin exerted a fascination NOT ONLY On his students (this is understandable) but on people like GRICE who was only TWO YEARS his junior!
--- The rest is history!
In the case of Grice, he starts to get serious when he tries to systematise on what he was doing.
Recall that in 1967, in "Logic and Conversation", he chose himself as an example of a linguistic philosopher. He lists like 16 philosophers, mostly obscure. One philosopher he cites is NOT obscure. He refers to his own,
"Causal theory of perception", 1961.
He starts to wonder what he meant by 'implication', as it applies to the phenomenalist verb, 'seems':
That red pillar box seems red to me.
Why not 'is'?
This 'doubt-or-denial' implication, is it part of the _sense_ of 'seem'? It's not!
----
Things sometime seem as they are!
---
So, Grice is bringing in a caveat: the analysis of use versus meaning or over meaning should take into consideration that conditions of use do not specify conditions of meaning necessarily (contra Witters I and Witters II).
---
By this time, he was finding 'enemies' in Strawson (who had said that 'and' and "&" have different _meanings_ -- in "Introduction to Logical Theory") or with much younger (and American) philosophers like Searle. I like to think of Grice's "Logic and Conversation" as a response to Searle, "Aberrations and modifications", in British Analytic Philosophy.
---
Grice has the answer. He thinks that we need a theory of lingo (or language) as a rational activity. This should explain things like the scale:
seem, is.
know, believe
3,2,1,...
etc.
We say 'seem' when we think 'is' would be too strong a thing to say. We say "There are four apples" in the basket, when we think that to say that there are 3 apples is too soft or weak a thing to say (when there are four -- surely if there are 4 apples, there are 3 apples).
---
He then needs to evoke the rule by which we play:
'be strong, unless you kant' -- in the things you say. The category of Quantity, as he later relabelled.
No other philosopher had considered these pragmatic categories, almost.
Nowell-Smith HAD, in his "Ethics", when he speaks of 'relevance' and 'sincerity', or Urmson in various papers, as Austin. Indeed Strawson himself had pointed to a principle of relevance, and a principle of ignorance (and of knowledge) explaining our use of 'definite descriptions'.
In this light, Grice comes out as bringing to the fore the rationale behind various uses of locutions of philosophical interest.
Philosophers had been loose in their wordings. Take L. J. Cohen, who was teaching at Oxford at the time. His "Diversity of Meaning" and later work suggests that we can very well 'multiply' senses, as we need them. Grice finds Rationalism a better practice. In the proceedings, he finds alliances with Aristotle and Kant (his Kantotle) which helps...
Philosophers who examine Grice only for his contribution to this or that (dthis or dthat, in Kaplan's parlance) but are unware or uninterested in the continuity of his thought are bound to ignore this or that, but that's life!
----
And so on!
More on Izzing and Hazzing
Roger Bishop Jones
Without as yet actually using Grice's words (though I might well put them in soon), the subject matter of Grice's work on predication in Aristotle is one of the topics under discussion at the moment on the phil-logic@philo.at mailing list.
It may not be a favourite haunt of Grice club denizens (Grice doesn't often get a mention) but I thought it worth a mention.
In my own formal work partly inspired by the Grice/Code collaboration I combined formal models of essential and accidental predication (izzing and hazzing in Grice's terms) with the syllogistic logic.
In doing so, my preliminary conclusions were that once you bring in that distinction (which seems to originate rather in Aristotle's metaphysics than his organon), then the rules of the syllogism become more complex, the usual conception of validity not being reflected fully for all kinds of predication.
Grice's interest seems to have been at least partly in multiplicity of "being", the question whether that verb has more than one sense.
Izzing and Hazzing are different names to distinguish two ways in which "being" (and some other words like "having") are used, the neologism being useful because the distinction between essential and accidental predication (as this is conceived by Aristotle) is not in ordinary language consistently conveyed by distinct vocabulary.
Grice I believe was inclined to question that multiple senses really are involved, and the question arises by what criteria one can judge whether observed usage constitutes a single or multiple senses.
On this I remain at present, much less than adequately acquainted with Grice's position, but there is one possible criterion which now occurs to me as a result of material on phil-logic.
It seems that there may be differences in Aristotle's conception of the ontological commitments implicit in affirmative propositions according to whether they involve essential or accidental predication, and hence differences in truth conditions.
The idea is that an accidental universal affirmation does entail existence, whereas an essential one does not.
I am still not clear on whether this is the case, but if it were and the truth conditions do vary in such a manner, then it is hard to see how these two kinds of predication could avoid being distinguished as different senses.
Could one plausibly argue against the "multiplicity of being" if it were once established that there is a multiplicity of truth conditions?
RBJ
Without as yet actually using Grice's words (though I might well put them in soon), the subject matter of Grice's work on predication in Aristotle is one of the topics under discussion at the moment on the phil-logic@philo.at mailing list.
It may not be a favourite haunt of Grice club denizens (Grice doesn't often get a mention) but I thought it worth a mention.
In my own formal work partly inspired by the Grice/Code collaboration I combined formal models of essential and accidental predication (izzing and hazzing in Grice's terms) with the syllogistic logic.
In doing so, my preliminary conclusions were that once you bring in that distinction (which seems to originate rather in Aristotle's metaphysics than his organon), then the rules of the syllogism become more complex, the usual conception of validity not being reflected fully for all kinds of predication.
Grice's interest seems to have been at least partly in multiplicity of "being", the question whether that verb has more than one sense.
Izzing and Hazzing are different names to distinguish two ways in which "being" (and some other words like "having") are used, the neologism being useful because the distinction between essential and accidental predication (as this is conceived by Aristotle) is not in ordinary language consistently conveyed by distinct vocabulary.
Grice I believe was inclined to question that multiple senses really are involved, and the question arises by what criteria one can judge whether observed usage constitutes a single or multiple senses.
On this I remain at present, much less than adequately acquainted with Grice's position, but there is one possible criterion which now occurs to me as a result of material on phil-logic.
It seems that there may be differences in Aristotle's conception of the ontological commitments implicit in affirmative propositions according to whether they involve essential or accidental predication, and hence differences in truth conditions.
The idea is that an accidental universal affirmation does entail existence, whereas an essential one does not.
I am still not clear on whether this is the case, but if it were and the truth conditions do vary in such a manner, then it is hard to see how these two kinds of predication could avoid being distinguished as different senses.
Could one plausibly argue against the "multiplicity of being" if it were once established that there is a multiplicity of truth conditions?
RBJ
Grice, Dummett and Magee
Roger Bishop Jones
I am always interested in critiques of one man's analytic philosophy in the terms of another's.
And also in the dispossessed or marginalised, those who might possibly have become academic philosophers had not their philosophical inclinations been too far removed from the prevailing orthodoxy of their day or whose philosophy was conducted in some more liberal context sheltered from the critical gaze of the principle centers of analytic orthodoxy.
In that category I count Gellner, Berlin, and Magee, possibly Murdoch and in all of these cases the orthodoxy of their youth was probably "linguistic philosophy".
Why not Popper, Lakatos, ...? In these terms perhaps LSE is a haven for philosophical unorthodoxy. Well I don't feel that Popper and Lakatos were marginalised. Perhaps its just an Oxford thing I am groping at, since Gellner, Berlin, Magee and Murdoch were all in some way dissenting Oxonians.
It had not occurred to me that Dummett should be thought outside the fold of linguistic philosophy until Speranza's recent postings about his critical attitude towards Austin.
I suppose to make sense of this we must distinguish between "linguistic philosophy" and "ordinary language philosophy", and say that Dummett may not have been an "ordinary language philosopher" but he was certainly a linguistic philosopher. He was a linguistic philosopher because he gave primacy to philosophy of language, and because he seems to have subscribed to a point of view which Magee singled out for especially thorough refutation in his "confessions of a philosopher".
If we take this view (which I will explain shortly) then we can see Grice's philosophy as moderating not only the extremes of Austinian ordinary language philosophy, but also the extreme of linguistic philosophy which Dummett inhabited.
The doctrine which Magee singled out for special obloquy is the argument for the primacy of linguistic philosophy on the grounds that thought is essentially linguistic. When we sit silently chewing the cud, the argument goes, our thinking is a stream of bits of language which we just happen to refrain from articulating.
Since all thought consists of propositions expressed or repressed, the philosophy of language has prime place, and a study of language is an essential part of any philosophical enterprise.
This is a doctrine which Dummett does explicitly subscribe to, somewhere, perhaps in his "Is analytic philosophy systematic and should it be?".
Dummett also at least some of the time, and particularly in his attempt to provide a philosophical justification for intuitionistic logic,
The analogous caricature of Austinian ordinary language philosophy would be that philosophy is just the study of ordinary language, and the advancement of our understanding of this instrument through a detailed analysis of its use.
This nominally as a prelude to the resolution of extra-linguistic philosophical problems. This seems to be the line in Austin's "A Plea for Excuses", which is his most explicit metaphilosophical pronouncement.
The Austin of "Sense and Sensibilia" is using observations about ordinary language in a critique of a philosophical argument concerning a problem which is not itself purely linguistic.
But the Austin of "Doing things with words" seems to have moved on from criticising a philosophical position to practicing a new kind of philosophy consisting primarily or exclusively in the study of language through its non philosophical manifestations.
My impression is that Grice doesn't himself fit in with either of these extremes.
His essay on philosophical method and ordinary language in WOW suggests:
Firstly that philosophical analysis is a kind of conceptual analysis (which surprises me a little, I would not have thought that consistent with the whole of his philosophical output),
Secondly the assertion of an "unswerving association" of philosophy with the study not just of language but of "ordinary language".
But an association is not an identification, so there is some softening there.
Grice associates the opposition to this point of view (thinking of Russell and Quine) with "scientism".
This critique is probably even more applicable to Rudolf Carnap, who, because of his dedication to the formalisation of science and his conception of science as encompassing all systematic study of empirical or synthetic truth, does at least regard the study of ordinary language as empirical science (and the kind of philosophy which he practiced as a deductive/demonstrative science insofar as it establishes new truths rather than proposing new languages and methods).
Sorry, I think I must have lost my thread.
I am trying to get a better handle quite generally on the kinds of philosophical analysis which have been proposed or practiced and their relationships, which seems like an enterprise of unending complexity, since it is in the nature of philosophy not only that no two philosophers share a common philosophy, but probably also that no two share the same conception of what philosophy is or how it should be done.
Making an illuminating story out of this (which is what I am trying to do) is a bit of a challenge, and I am interested especially in how my own limited conception of 20th Century philosophy looks wrong to others (particularly in how it exposes my extensive ignorance!).
RBJ
I am always interested in critiques of one man's analytic philosophy in the terms of another's.
And also in the dispossessed or marginalised, those who might possibly have become academic philosophers had not their philosophical inclinations been too far removed from the prevailing orthodoxy of their day or whose philosophy was conducted in some more liberal context sheltered from the critical gaze of the principle centers of analytic orthodoxy.
In that category I count Gellner, Berlin, and Magee, possibly Murdoch and in all of these cases the orthodoxy of their youth was probably "linguistic philosophy".
Why not Popper, Lakatos, ...? In these terms perhaps LSE is a haven for philosophical unorthodoxy. Well I don't feel that Popper and Lakatos were marginalised. Perhaps its just an Oxford thing I am groping at, since Gellner, Berlin, Magee and Murdoch were all in some way dissenting Oxonians.
It had not occurred to me that Dummett should be thought outside the fold of linguistic philosophy until Speranza's recent postings about his critical attitude towards Austin.
I suppose to make sense of this we must distinguish between "linguistic philosophy" and "ordinary language philosophy", and say that Dummett may not have been an "ordinary language philosopher" but he was certainly a linguistic philosopher. He was a linguistic philosopher because he gave primacy to philosophy of language, and because he seems to have subscribed to a point of view which Magee singled out for especially thorough refutation in his "confessions of a philosopher".
If we take this view (which I will explain shortly) then we can see Grice's philosophy as moderating not only the extremes of Austinian ordinary language philosophy, but also the extreme of linguistic philosophy which Dummett inhabited.
The doctrine which Magee singled out for special obloquy is the argument for the primacy of linguistic philosophy on the grounds that thought is essentially linguistic. When we sit silently chewing the cud, the argument goes, our thinking is a stream of bits of language which we just happen to refrain from articulating.
Since all thought consists of propositions expressed or repressed, the philosophy of language has prime place, and a study of language is an essential part of any philosophical enterprise.
This is a doctrine which Dummett does explicitly subscribe to, somewhere, perhaps in his "Is analytic philosophy systematic and should it be?".
Dummett also at least some of the time, and particularly in his attempt to provide a philosophical justification for intuitionistic logic,
The analogous caricature of Austinian ordinary language philosophy would be that philosophy is just the study of ordinary language, and the advancement of our understanding of this instrument through a detailed analysis of its use.
This nominally as a prelude to the resolution of extra-linguistic philosophical problems. This seems to be the line in Austin's "A Plea for Excuses", which is his most explicit metaphilosophical pronouncement.
The Austin of "Sense and Sensibilia" is using observations about ordinary language in a critique of a philosophical argument concerning a problem which is not itself purely linguistic.
But the Austin of "Doing things with words" seems to have moved on from criticising a philosophical position to practicing a new kind of philosophy consisting primarily or exclusively in the study of language through its non philosophical manifestations.
My impression is that Grice doesn't himself fit in with either of these extremes.
His essay on philosophical method and ordinary language in WOW suggests:
Firstly that philosophical analysis is a kind of conceptual analysis (which surprises me a little, I would not have thought that consistent with the whole of his philosophical output),
Secondly the assertion of an "unswerving association" of philosophy with the study not just of language but of "ordinary language".
But an association is not an identification, so there is some softening there.
Grice associates the opposition to this point of view (thinking of Russell and Quine) with "scientism".
This critique is probably even more applicable to Rudolf Carnap, who, because of his dedication to the formalisation of science and his conception of science as encompassing all systematic study of empirical or synthetic truth, does at least regard the study of ordinary language as empirical science (and the kind of philosophy which he practiced as a deductive/demonstrative science insofar as it establishes new truths rather than proposing new languages and methods).
Sorry, I think I must have lost my thread.
I am trying to get a better handle quite generally on the kinds of philosophical analysis which have been proposed or practiced and their relationships, which seems like an enterprise of unending complexity, since it is in the nature of philosophy not only that no two philosophers share a common philosophy, but probably also that no two share the same conception of what philosophy is or how it should be done.
Making an illuminating story out of this (which is what I am trying to do) is a bit of a challenge, and I am interested especially in how my own limited conception of 20th Century philosophy looks wrong to others (particularly in how it exposes my extensive ignorance!).
RBJ
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Dummett gets interviewed
Speranza
Jones was wondering about the source for the Dummett interviews.
One is at:
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/552/
-- and there are TWO interviewers, which I have simplified as "Q", and where Dummett becomes "A". The two interviewers are R. F. and M. S. They tend to expand on the questions in a charming way. At one point, Dummett (our "A") utters, (words to the effect): "Hey, I shouldn't be posing the questions, I know..."
There is another interview, to Dummett, which Dummett cared to reprint in his book, "Origin of Analytic Philosophy". He conducted the interview in German. He later found the thing fascinating enough to care to translate it to English. It is perhaps less technical than the RF/MS interview.
BUT...
The interview in "Origin of Analytic Philosophy", and I was thinking of sharing this with "City of Eternal Truth" AND Carnap Corner, there is a reference, by Dummett to
CARNAP.
This in the context of Austin. He calls Austin's influence 'noxious', and I can only think that if Grice was motivated to defend the Oxonian dialectic, was to counterpoint this rather otiose comments by Dummett.
When it comes to Austin, Dummett notes that it was not so much what Austin DID that bothered him, but what Austin CEASED to do. "Disregard for Carnap", comes first to Dummett's mind.
So --- it's like saying that Austin should have been different from what Austin was.
Oxonian types of a certain generation -- not Grice's -- expected too much from their tutors and stuff (staff?). Dummett, as the interviewer to "Origin of Anaytic Philosophy" points out, disregards Austin.
"So, Austin did teach you something useful, then?" (The interviewer is referring to the fact that Dummett would never have heard the name "Frege" had it not been for Austin caring to translate the "Grundlagen" into English prose for Blackwell for this 'Foundations of modern epistemology' course.
----
The RF and MS interview was published in a non-philosophical venue, and it covers pretty much everything. The latter sections of the interview bring in Dummett's philosophy of mind, and his conception of metaphysics as "philosophy of physics".
And so on.
----
Hopefully, the Dummett unpublished papers will be deposited at the Bodleian, for Griceains and Dummettians alike to investigate.
As we know, the references by Grice to Dummett are meagre: a passing reference in WoW:4, and a mention of Dummett as a "no" philosopher (along with female philosophers Murdoch and Anscombe). But we can imagine further connections, as we bring in Urmson into the picture (who taught Dummett at Christ Church) and indeed Flew, a tutee of Grice -- this is something that fascinates philosophers: the 'genealogy' in terms of tutorials.
On the whole, the most technical reference by Dummett to Grice is the idea that 'implicature' is so technical a notion that it cannot fit with 'ordinary language philosophy' (in "Is analytic philosophy systematic, or ought it be?", repr. in "Truth and other enigmas").
Personally, I believe that "The influence of Grice on Frege" should also shed light on further connections. It seems to be considered that Dummett's Frege is the definite, reference Frege. But he ain't! --- There are many notions in Frege that correspond quite closely to notions in Griceian pragmatics: colouring, for example. Dummett was interested in just one side to Frege, and wanted to 'deconstruct', as it were, the idea of truth behind 'truth-conditional' semantics as Dummett saw it or failed to do it!
---- The funeral for Dummett took place at St. Alosyus, Oxford.
----
R. I. P.
Jones was wondering about the source for the Dummett interviews.
One is at:
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/552/
-- and there are TWO interviewers, which I have simplified as "Q", and where Dummett becomes "A". The two interviewers are R. F. and M. S. They tend to expand on the questions in a charming way. At one point, Dummett (our "A") utters, (words to the effect): "Hey, I shouldn't be posing the questions, I know..."
There is another interview, to Dummett, which Dummett cared to reprint in his book, "Origin of Analytic Philosophy". He conducted the interview in German. He later found the thing fascinating enough to care to translate it to English. It is perhaps less technical than the RF/MS interview.
BUT...
The interview in "Origin of Analytic Philosophy", and I was thinking of sharing this with "City of Eternal Truth" AND Carnap Corner, there is a reference, by Dummett to
CARNAP.
This in the context of Austin. He calls Austin's influence 'noxious', and I can only think that if Grice was motivated to defend the Oxonian dialectic, was to counterpoint this rather otiose comments by Dummett.
When it comes to Austin, Dummett notes that it was not so much what Austin DID that bothered him, but what Austin CEASED to do. "Disregard for Carnap", comes first to Dummett's mind.
So --- it's like saying that Austin should have been different from what Austin was.
Oxonian types of a certain generation -- not Grice's -- expected too much from their tutors and stuff (staff?). Dummett, as the interviewer to "Origin of Anaytic Philosophy" points out, disregards Austin.
"So, Austin did teach you something useful, then?" (The interviewer is referring to the fact that Dummett would never have heard the name "Frege" had it not been for Austin caring to translate the "Grundlagen" into English prose for Blackwell for this 'Foundations of modern epistemology' course.
----
The RF and MS interview was published in a non-philosophical venue, and it covers pretty much everything. The latter sections of the interview bring in Dummett's philosophy of mind, and his conception of metaphysics as "philosophy of physics".
And so on.
----
Hopefully, the Dummett unpublished papers will be deposited at the Bodleian, for Griceains and Dummettians alike to investigate.
As we know, the references by Grice to Dummett are meagre: a passing reference in WoW:4, and a mention of Dummett as a "no" philosopher (along with female philosophers Murdoch and Anscombe). But we can imagine further connections, as we bring in Urmson into the picture (who taught Dummett at Christ Church) and indeed Flew, a tutee of Grice -- this is something that fascinates philosophers: the 'genealogy' in terms of tutorials.
On the whole, the most technical reference by Dummett to Grice is the idea that 'implicature' is so technical a notion that it cannot fit with 'ordinary language philosophy' (in "Is analytic philosophy systematic, or ought it be?", repr. in "Truth and other enigmas").
Personally, I believe that "The influence of Grice on Frege" should also shed light on further connections. It seems to be considered that Dummett's Frege is the definite, reference Frege. But he ain't! --- There are many notions in Frege that correspond quite closely to notions in Griceian pragmatics: colouring, for example. Dummett was interested in just one side to Frege, and wanted to 'deconstruct', as it were, the idea of truth behind 'truth-conditional' semantics as Dummett saw it or failed to do it!
---- The funeral for Dummett took place at St. Alosyus, Oxford.
----
R. I. P.
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