From rbj at rbjones.com Wed Apr 1 10:16:33 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 15:16:33 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] FTD Web Page, analyticity and semantics Message-ID: <200904011516.34004.rbj@rbjones.com> I have today updated my web site with the first materials related to my proposed monograph on "The Fundamental Triple-Dichotomy". I intend to write this monograph in public view with all drafts and other materials updated on my web site on the first of each month. I am looking for as much feedback as possible from discussions on hist-analytic. Drafts of the monograph will be available throughout in HTML and in A4 PDF formats (though not in the target 5.25 x 8in paperback format which will I hope eventually be available from Amazon). I intend the monograph to be short and intelligible to a wide audience (something like the readership of Ayer's "Language Truth and Logic" but I intend there to be considerable additional materials available from the web site, include more detailed arguments, formal models, detailed notes on key documents such as "Two Dogmas" and "Naming and Necessity". All of this should be reachable from the main FTD web page which is itself now prominent at www.rbjones.com. However one topical document I have not yet linked in and that is a bit of formal modelling in relation to definitions of analyticity. Partly in response to Bruce Aune's critique I am arguing carefully that three definitions of analyticity, viz: 1. Kant's "subject contained in predicate" 2. The positivist "true in virtue of meaning" 3. My proposed (though hardly mine) "expresses a necessary truth" are all equivalent, and that the equivalences are all, by the standards of mathematics, "obvious", i.e. once the definitions are formalised the proofs are trivial. A formalisation, with machine checked formal proofs is at: http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/pp/doc/t001.pdf It is probably unintelligible but if anyone out there is interested enough in such formal arguments I would appreciate some help in massaging this until it can be understood by as many philosophers as possible. I will produce a completely informal version of the same arguments. This is also a contribution to my discussion with Steve about general semantics. The point being that general definitions do and language specific definitions of analyticity do not permit this kind of reasoning, and that metaphysical qualms about "meanings" should not prevail against sound methods. More on this (and the rest) anon. Roger Jones From rbj at rbjones.com Wed Apr 1 17:30:44 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 22:30:44 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Frederick's conception of the A Priori In-Reply-To: References: <1415342723F0448AA379C7A4E2CFC634@DFLVQC1J> <200903271355.38033.rbj@rbjones.com> Message-ID: <200904012230.44601.rbj@rbjones.com> Danny, On Monday 30 March 2009 16:26:19 Danny Frederick wrote: >You are right that I attempted to demarcate a priori from empirical >knowledge, rather than a priori from empirical propositions. >... discussion about falsifiability ... >So a general distinction between empirical and non-empirical propositions >does not make sense. This seemed to me a non-sequitur. At best you might have shown that such a distinction cannot be based on falsifiability. >... discussion of a priori knowledge ... >Not entirely straightforward, I know; and no doubt I have left something >out; but it is just a first stab. This topic is one that I do intend to address in my monograph but have not yet reached. When I get there I hope you will still be around to disagree with me. >I completely reject the idea that there is any connection between what a >proposition says and how it can be justified. First, because nothing can be >justified. Well I would raise obvious objections to the first sentence if the second didn't make that seem a bit pointless. You might consider the possibility that someone else might mean by justification something different to what you mean, and that their conception of justification is one which might be realised. For example, a mathematician might use the term "justification" to mean "convincing demonstration that a conjecture is provable in ZFC". My ideas about justification are along these lines. We are free (as individuals or in groups such as professions) to decide what kind of justification we will demand before some conjecture is accepted by us or by some institution as accepted fact. To say that something is justified is to say no more than that it meets the accepted standards for justification. Do you have a problem with this kind of "language game"? >So, you are right: there are substantial disagreements between us! Thanks for your further explanation of the position that you share with Popper. I am a bit puzzled why you are taking a stand against the use of "a priori"/"a posteriori" as a classification of propositions (rather than knowledge) on principle rather than in relation to a specific proposal on how that might be done. On the face of it that is orthogonal to the main thrust of Popper's philosophy (or at least those parts you have sketched) and you might consider proposals along those lines on their merits. The case on principle eludes me so I shall await more concrete objections from you when I provide a fuller account of my position on the a priori/a posteriori distinction. (though we may founder on the notion of justification and fail to reach disagreement). regards, Roger Jones From danny.frederick at tiscali.co.uk Thu Apr 2 12:16:31 2009 From: danny.frederick at tiscali.co.uk (Danny Frederick) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 17:16:31 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Frederick's conception of the A Priori In-Reply-To: <200904012230.44601.rbj@rbjones.com> References: <1415342723F0448AA379C7A4E2CFC634@DFLVQC1J> <200903271355.38033.rbj@rbjones.com> <200904012230.44601.rbj@rbjones.com> Message-ID: Hi Roger, Of course, you can use the word 'justification' in any way you want. The members of a cult, for instance, may have a procedure for deciding on whether to accept particular mystical statements, and any statement that is accepted in that way they can call 'justified.' No doubt the term 'justified' will seem a natural enough one for them to use in such a situation. But if our concern is epistemology (and that has been my assumption throughout this discussion), then the use of the term 'justified' should have some real connection to truth. I maintain that that we are not in a position to ascertain whether our statements are true or likely to be true or even whether one of them is closer to the truth than another. So it seems to me misleading to use the word 'justified' in epistemology, though we can find uses for the word in other contexts in which truth is not in question (for example, when deciding to buy something we may say that the benefits justify the costs). A 'convincing demonstration that a conjecture is provable in ZFC' might justify accepting the conjecture as a move in a game, for instance; but it does not justify it epistemically, since a convincing demonstration may turn out to be invalid or unsound. As you say, 'we are free (as individuals or in groups such as professions) to decide what kind of justification we will demand before some conjecture is accepted by us or by some institution as accepted fact.' Of course we are. But unless we can show that conjectures accepted in this way are true, or probably true, or closer to the truth than conjectures accepted via some other rigmarole, then we have not shown that these conjectures are epistemically justified. Yes, they are justified by our rules. But what bearing do these rules have on truth? We can invent any game we like for accepting propositions that we can then SAY are justified (religious sects and cults do this, don't they?); but that does not mean that they are epistemically justified. I am a bit puzzled why you are a bit puzzled about why I take a stand on the classification of propositions as a priori or empirical. Given the arguments I presented last time (which derive from Duhem), I do not see how we COULD distinguish empirical and a priori propositions. I think we can distinguish empirical and a priori KNOWLEDGE (using 'knowledge' here in a fallibilist sense, given my rejection of all justification). If we know something, we should be able to say how, and that should (eventually at least) identify what we know as either empirical or a priori. But for all the propositions that we don't know, we obviously cannot say how we know them, so the same style of demarcating a priori from empirical is not open to us. We cannot use falsifiability because it seems that any proposition can be an essential part of a falsifiable system of statements. Popper never concerned himself with the issue directly. In fact, he says very little about a priori knowledge or its sources. Lakatos, of course, extended Popper's approach into this area; but, so far as I know, he never ventured to distinguish a priori from empirical propositions. I seem to recall that John Watkins wrote a paper called 'Between a priori and empirical' (or something similar), the topic of his discussion being metaphysical statements. I hope I am still around when you post your further reflections. And I will comment if I think I have anything worthwhile to say. But we come at this from such different angles that we may, as you say, 'fail to reach disagreement.' Cheers. Danny From Jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Apr 2 15:12:27 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 15:12:27 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Cocktails And Laughter (But What Comes After): "A Posteriori" Revisited Message-ID: In a message dated 4/2/2009 1:02:34 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, danny.frederick at tiscali.co.uk writes: John Watkins wrote a paper called 'Between a priori and empirical' (or something similar), cocktails and laughter but what comes after Noel Coward ---- Good. Indeed, when Grice and Strawson (*) wrote "In defense of a dogma", they were giving room for: a. an attack on a dogma b. an attack on the other dogma c. an attack on another dogma. ad a: it's the analytic/synthetic. Dogma for Hume according to Quine. Not a dogma necessarily for Grice/Strawson. ad b: an attack on 'basic statement' dogma -- Duhem. The other of the two dogmas of empiricism for Hume according to Quine. ad c. -- THE DOGMA that I propose to consider now. The a priori vs. a posteriori. I have to call it 'another dogma' because if I call it 'the other dogma', people will naturally feel inclined to think I'm thinking of (b). ----- I recently was discussing with M. Chase (I think) the topic of the post rem. This is interesting. In philosophy of mathematics, and Lakatos would know about this, there's so-called ante rem structuralism and in re structuralism. I found it appalling that nobody has considered 'post rem' structuralism, seeing that the phrase 'post rem' is a charmer. The 'post' in 'post rem' is indeed the 'husteros' of the Greek -- but also 'epi'. (Both, i.e. husteros and epi) are used by Ammonius ad Isag. Porph. to render what will become 'post rem': 'husterogenes' and 'epi pollois'). The idea mainly metaphysical that universalia, for some, come _after_ the individual instances ("epi pollois") or after the 'thing' (post rem). Of course, one may find the distinction (I love Albritton's use here) 'otiose'. We philosophers (unlike mathematical philosophers) are up to our necks with discussions of 'a posteriori' and may find the 'post rem' redundant, if conceived for a different 'pseudo-problem'. But there are similarities. What kind of 'post' is the 'post' in "a POSTeriori" and the "POST rem". Grice once (WOW, iii) considers the hot topic, 'the meaning of 'to'', 'the meaning of 'of'', etc. -- i.e. the meaning of a preposition. The preposition here being 'post'. (or after, if we must). I would think Grice thought that the SPATIAL sense is the only sense possible, and that temporal uses are indeed 'implicatural'. I would agree. So 'a posteriori' (for I'll focus on this as from now) is NOT to be interpreted 'temporally': every serious student of philosophy knows that; not because it's true but in the sense that Grice allows that a student may claim to 'know' that the Battle of Hastings was fought in 1066: teachers reprimand you if you disagree! So, if it's not temporal, it's spatial? He he! No. It's 'justificatory'. I cannot see how D. Frederick, who eschews justification, can even start to think of the 'a priori' (or a posteriori for that matter) for it's all about justification -- Virginia! --- When I see discussions of the a-priori (like "I am thinking", Danny Frederick suggests), I become once again a Millian -- for him, indeed post-rem structuralism galore. "Three and three make six" -- synthetic a priori? No synthetic a POSTERIORI: three oranges and three oranges make half a dozen oranges". With tarts it's different: "six tarts and six tarts do not make a baker's dozen", etc. --- Is what comes after 'empeiria'? i.e. before and after the justification provided by _actual_ experience? But then I would never know that it hurts to be beheaded. Apparently, Guillotin, who invented the mechanism, said, "It doesn't hurt one bit". Is that a priori? Cheers, J. L. Speranza (*) I'm never sure what Grice said and what Strawson said. The problem of 'joint collaborations'! **************New Low Prices on Dell Laptops ? Starting at $399 (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1220433304x1201394525/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fad.doubl eclick.net%2Fclk%3B213540718%3B35046385%3Be) From rbj at rbjones.com Fri Apr 3 06:56:05 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 11:56:05 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Hume's Pitchfork In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200904031156.05625.rbj@rbjones.com> On Tuesday 31 March 2009 17:44:14 Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: >Roger Bishop Jones: you don't have to take me seriously, ah, but I do... >but the image of Hume with the fork is becoming a memory >(I'm using Humean terminology, 'idea > of sensation', 'idea of memory', etc.). > >--- The idea of dealing with metaphysics like that is all right for a >positivist, but recall Cervantes in the 'condemning this or that book' to > the flames. "No book is so bad that we cannot draw some good from it!". I find myself pitched into the middle here. I'm not entirely averse to metaphysics, but am intent on doing away with the necessary synthetic kind I don't hold with burning metaphysics but I can't go all the way with Cervantes. I am often inclined to bin a book, and more often unable to finish one. I like the pitchfork. It has the advantage over table forks of being bi-fur-ked, and the advantage over forks in the road of being handy. It is also an instrument of revolution, thus suitable for Hume's project and mine. My title: "Fundamental Triple-Dichotomy", will of course have to go, it is incompatible with my target readership who are not exclusively philosophers. I expect to take a long time deciding the final title, the following candidates come to mind: Hume's Fork (but not enough Hume in the book for this) The Fork (perhaps a bit obscure?) Or things to do with reason, which is what it is really all about: Roots of Reason? I should wait until I am much closer to a full draft before even thinking about this. (only the title is up for grabs, not the content) Roger Jones From rbj at rbjones.com Sun Apr 5 02:38:35 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 07:38:35 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Frederick's conception of the A Priori In-Reply-To: References: <1415342723F0448AA379C7A4E2CFC634@DFLVQC1J> <200904012230.44601.rbj@rbjones.com> Message-ID: <200904050738.36477.rbj@rbjones.com> On Thursday 02 April 2009 17:16:31 Danny Frederick wrote: >Hi Roger, > >Of course, you can use the word 'justification' in any way you want. The >members of a cult, for instance, may have a procedure for deciding on >whether to accept particular mystical statements, and any statement that is >accepted in that way they can call 'justified.' This is a rhetorical device to suggest contrary to fact that my conception of justification is too bizarre to be taken seriously. >I maintain that that we are not >in a position to ascertain whether our statements are true or likely to be >true or even whether one of them is closer to the truth than another. Whereas this position is one of radical (dogmatic) scepticism which is out of line both with ordinary and scientific norms. What is the point of philosophical discussion if we are not in a position to ascertain which of two statements is more likely to be true? >So it seems to me misleading to use the word 'justified' in epistemology, >though we can find uses for the word in other contexts in which truth >is not in question (for example, when deciding to buy something >we may say that the benefits justify the costs). >A 'convincing demonstration that a conjecture is provable in ZFC' might >justify accepting the conjecture as a move in a game, for instance; but it >does not justify it epistemically, since a convincing demonstration may turn >out to be invalid or unsound. You are here assuming some absolute standard of justification. I do not do that, nor do scientific professionals. They have institutionally defined standards of justification, which they apply to determine whether something has been scientifically or mathematically "proven" and when something has passed these standards they regard its assertion as justified. What purpose does it serve to use the term justification as you are doing, for a standard which nothing will ever meet? >As you say, 'we are free (as individuals or in >groups such as professions) to decide what kind of justification we will >demand before some conjecture is accepted by us or by some institution as >accepted fact.' Of course we are. But unless we can show that conjectures >accepted in this way are true, or probably true, or closer to the truth than >conjectures accepted via some other rigmarole, then we have not shown that >these conjectures are epistemically justified. This is dogmatic scepticism. >Yes, they are justified by >our rules. But what bearing do these rules have on truth? We can invent any >game we like for accepting propositions that we can then SAY are justified >(religious sects and cults do this, don't they?); but that does not mean >that they are epistemically justified. What you are asking for is, as you know, unattainable. What you are rejecting is, practically useful. Your notion of epistemically justified is worthless and I contest your presumption that it is the true meaning of the term. >I am a bit puzzled why you are a bit puzzled about why I take a stand on the >classification of propositions as a priori or empirical. Given the arguments >I presented last time (which derive from Duhem), I do not see how we COULD >distinguish empirical and a priori propositions. Yes, I was lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that we were discussing Popper's demarcation of empirical science, and I forgot your radical holism. Could you explain how Popper's demarcation seems to escape being trashed by your holism? >I think we can distinguish >empirical and a priori KNOWLEDGE (using 'knowledge' here in a fallibilist >sense, given my rejection of all justification). Well that's an interesting move. Since all I am talking about when I talk of "justification" is "conditions which must be met before some claim can be counted as knowledge", I would like to know what term you propose to use for it, so that I can use that term instead of the word justification (which you have rendered useless) and we might possibly understand each other. >If we know something, we >should be able to say how, and that should (eventually at least) identify >what we know as either empirical or a priori. Well that's the kind of thing which in ordinary parlance may be called its justification. >But for all the propositions >that we don't know, we obviously cannot say how we know them, No, but we need to know what kind of thing would count as justification in order to establish whether they are in fact true, And we do in fact usually have a pretty good idea. That is why a mathematician rarely goes into the physics lab to do an experiment when he want to establish a mathematical conjecture, >so the same >style of demarcating a priori from empirical is not open to us. But is in fact done all the time, with very high degree of success. >I hope I am still around when you post your further reflections. And I will >comment if I think I have anything worthwhile to say. But we come at this >from such different angles that we may, as you say, 'fail to reach >disagreement.' Yes, its hard to see how we can come close enough for a contructive discussion. There are aspects of critical rationalism which I would be interested to discuss, but your radical holism and you stance on justification seem very great obstacles to our having such a discussion. Roger From rbj at rbjones.com Sat Apr 4 18:21:27 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 22:21:27 +0000 Subject: [hist-analytic] Aune's objections to Jones on the analytic (1) In-Reply-To: <869F7A51-8068-41D0-B606-97356C5B4734@philos.umass.edu> References: <695366.9461.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <200903182006.56267.rbj@rbjones.com> <869F7A51-8068-41D0-B606-97356C5B4734@philos.umass.edu> Message-ID: <200904042321.27810.rbj@rbjones.com> Bruce has pledged silence on my definition of analyticity and has maintained his pledge by declining to clarify the notion "criterion for analytic truth" which features prominently in his critique. I intend nonetheless to take his critique seriously and to make the most of it. I do not find in it sufficient grounds to change my mind about the definition of analyticity which I will use in my proposed monograph. However I intend to ensure that his criticisms, insofar as I understand them, are fully addressed either in the monograph or in the supporting collateral on my web site, and are also responded to on hist-analytic. This I will do in installments, of which this is the first, and addresses only Aune's first paragraph. On Monday 23 March 2009 20:32:52 Bruce Aune wrote: >1. I continue to believe that Roger?s use of the expression >?analytic? is idiosyncratic and misleading, but I think he is >entitled to use it as he wants to, so long as he makes his meaning >clear to others. They may, or they may not (as I believe), find his >usage useful. I'm not entirely sure of the meaning or significance of describing my definition as idiosyncratic or misleading, and since Bruce is not going to explain this to me I will have to make my best guess at this. "Idiosyncratic" is not by itself, in my mind, a significant criticism. The closest critique I should be concerned about would be that the concept defined is too far removed from previous usage of the term "analytic" to have any bearing on the philosophical debates which have centred around it. I do believe that the concept I have defined is fully in line with its most important predecessors (and had already presented some arguments to that before Aune's last contribution). I now have arguments to the effect that the two most common definitions of analyticity, viz: that of Kant and that given by Ayer (inter alia), criticised by Quine, and used as a starting point by Kripke and equivalent to my definition in terms of necessity. These informal arguments are backed up by formal models and formal machine checked proofs. To the best of my knowledge my usage is identical in substance to that of Rudolf Carnap, though the presentation differs in detail. Carnap and I concur in considering analyticity and necessity interdefinable, though Carnap defined necessity in terms of analyticity where I define analyticity in terms of necessity. Though many philosophers believe that Kant's definition of analyticity in terms of subject predicate judgements is narrower than the more recent "true in virtue of meaning", I don't believe this myself. The usual reason for thinking Kant's definition narrow is that it applies only to judgements in subject-predicate form. However, assuming that analyticity is preserved by logical equivalence, it is easy to see that every judgement is equivalent to one in subject predicate form: Consider the judgement; S Define the two predicates P and Q as follows: P x <=def=> x = x Q x <=def=> P x /\ S Then it is easy to see that: S <=> All Ps are Qs Suggesting that Kant's notion of analyticity is not confined to statemnts in subject predicate form and is equivalent to analyticity as "true in virtue of meaning" which is in turn (by a previous argument of mine, and also by tweaking one of Carnap's) equivalent to the definition I proposed. I am surprised to see Aune suggest that my definition is "misleading", and feel some sense of injustice that he should do so without explicitly stating in what way he thinks it might mislead. In casting around to understand this allegation the following is the closest I have come. My proposed definition is quite "up front" in effectively rejecting Kripkean metaphysics. Readers might suppose that I imagine that this can be done without a direct rebuttal of Kripke's arguments, and I suppose supporters of Kripke, or of Kant, might think this somewhat underhand. Well as it happens, I do think that the common belief that Kripke's arguments refute the contrary doctrines of logical positivism can be refuted in this way, i.e. without reference to his arguments. This is because Carnap defines necessity in terms of analyticity and the thesis that there are no synthetic necessary truths is obviously true in that context. Kripke's arguments, if sound, can only be so in relation to concepts materially different to those of the logical positivists. Nevertheless I do not intend to rest on this, and will offer more detailed explanations of how Kripke's arguments fail to refute the logical positivists, It is an advantage of the definition of analyticity which I have chosen that it makes conspicuous a necessary constraint which Kripke fails to observe. That is, that in judging and comparing the concepts of analyticity and necessity in the same language, the same semantics must be used in both cases (i.e. for both analyticity and necessity). The relevant aspect of semantics is the truth conditions. Both necessity and analyticity are determined by the truth conditions of the judgement in question. By defining analyticity in terms of necessity I ensure that the truth conditions which are used in determining necessity are also used in determining analyticity. By contrast, what Kripke does is to use the hypothesis of rigid designation to establish that certain propositions are necessary, and then ignore the impact of this hypothesis on the truth conditions of the proposition when denying that the judgement is analytic. In fact I don't know how he does arrive at the denial, is this just his "intuitive reasoning" or is there some more substantial argument. Does he present an argument to the effect that the meaning of a rigid designator is not the thing designated? I will check this out more thoroughly in due course, but meantime, whatever his method, it should be rejected. The features of the truth conditions on which necessity depends suffice to establish analyticity. Kripke's claims about meaning suffice to deny analyticity, then they are incompatible with the hypothesis of rigid designation. Roger Jones From aune at philos.umass.edu Sun Apr 5 08:56:13 2009 From: aune at philos.umass.edu (Bruce Aune) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 08:56:13 -0400 Subject: [hist-analytic] Aune's objections to Jones on the analytic (1) In-Reply-To: <200904042321.27810.rbj@rbjones.com> References: <695366.9461.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <200903182006.56267.rbj@rbjones.com> <869F7A51-8068-41D0-B606-97356C5B4734@philos.umass.edu> <200904042321.27810.rbj@rbjones.com> Message-ID: <868C00DB-C635-4B8E-B9D3-A1342BBC63E0@philos.umass.edu> Roger attempts to defend Kant?s conception of analyticity by claiming that any judgment is equivalent to one of subject-predicate form. Thus he says: Let ?P x <=def=> x = x Q x <=def=> P x /\ S Then it is easy to see that: S <=> All Ps are Qs.? An obvious problem with this proposal is that, if it is assumed, no judgment with a Rogerian subject satisfies Kant?s criterion for being analytic. Why is this? Because the subject term of a Rogerian judgment has the form of ?= x?, whereas the predicate term of such a judgment always has extra information, given by ?S? (whatever it is) and the conjunction of ?x = x? and ?S? is never ?contained? (as Kant would say) in the concept of ?= x?. If S is a non-Rogerian subject- predicate judgment such as ?All material objects are spread out in space,? S may be analytic in Kant?s sense, but any other non-Rogerian judgment?for instance, ?P v not-P??will not satisfy Kant?s test even when expanded ? la Roger. Consequently, the standard criticism of Kant?s definition of analyticity?that it does not cover plausible examples such as ?P v not-P??remains unaffected by Roger?s strategy. I want to add two points to this note. The first is that Fred Sommers, who used to teach at Brandeis University (he is now retired from there), has long defended Aristotelian logic against the Fregean charge that it is inherently incapable of expressing the full range of assertions that Frege?s logic can express. I am not familiar with Sommer?s work on this subject, but it does deserve looking into. Perhaps he has suggestions that might partially rehabilitate Kant. (Some information on Sommers? thinking can be found at www.formalontology.it/sommersf.html .)The second point is that my reluctance to continue discussing Roger?s proposals is owing to what I perceive as the futility of doing so. Roger is extremely tenacious in defending his point of view; I have given, as clearly as I can, my objections to his proposals; and I am now tired of carrying the discussion further. Others can take it up in my place. Bruce -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Apr 5 11:10:43 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 11:10:43 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Robbing Peter To Pay Paul Message-ID: In a message dated 4/5/2009 9:38:52 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, aune at philos.umass.edu writes: I want to add two points to this note. The first is that Fred Sommers, who used to teach at Brandeis University (he is now retired from there), has long defended Aristotelian logic against the Fregean charge that it is inherently incapable of expressing the full range of assertions that Frege?s logic can express. I am not familiar with Sommer?s work on this subject, but it does deserve looking into. Perhaps he has suggestions that might partially rehabilitate Kant. (Some information on Sommers? thinking can be found at www.formalontology.it/sommersf.html .) ----- I don't know why I'm titling this like this -- but hey! I did have a look at the _huge_ volume by Sommers -- ed. by J. Jonathan Cohen, defunct now, in the Clarendon Series in Logic and Philosophy. I was able to find the book in a (_the_) philosophy bookshop in Argentina -- This bookseller would order _two_ copies of each book, and I wonder who else in Buenos Aires was interested in Sommers. I did look at the index and there's lots of Strawson -- and one _Grice_! Sommers' point being that he'd seen Grice doing formalism like that! So that's why I'm rehabilitating the polemic. In a historic-analytic perspective. One reads Strawson's 'seminal' Introduction to Logical Theory and one sees _loads_ of Aristotelianism (if not Kantianism). And one wonders. Strawson's "Preface" credits the tutorials with Grice -- in the late 1930s -- and their joint seminars in the 1940s. This was before Quine's visit to Oxford, I expect. But there's not just that acknowledgment in the "Preface" to "Mr. H. P. Grice from whom I never ceased to learn logic since he was my tutor in that area" but a rather more extended one regarding the very 'implicatures' of things like 'all' and 'some' -- Aristotelian logical words _par_ excellence. When one sees discussions of Grice one sees him labelled as a 'truth-functionalist' but of course that's slightly narrowing. He was a 'truth-functionalist' when it came to: negation -- the monadic operator. conjunction disjunction Even when it came to 'material conditional' he has caveats regarding 'if'. He allows that some uses of 'counterfactual' 'if' (i.e. 'non-conditional' if) may not be amenable to truth-functional analysis. And then if you _hear_ to the list of his formal devices -- at the beginning of WOW iii it's not just sentential operators like that, but he goes on to mention, 'all' (or 'every'), 'some' (in logician's garb, 'at least one') and 'the'. Oddly, he never elaborates on these topics in WOW, really. Although he does expand on 'the' in Presupposition and Conversational Implicature, and on 'one' (which should be translated as '(Ex)' -- I broke one finger +> my own. ---- In the "Retrospective Epilogue" (strand 6 I think) he goes on to relabel Strawson's 'informalism' as a 'neo-traditionalism'. Echoes of Strawson's neo-Aristotelian reactionary position (cfr. Sommers or Burton-Roberts in linguistics) are more evident. Grice is seeing himself though as having one foot on each camp: one foot with Strawson's informalist/neotraditionalist -- and I'll add Neo-Aristotelian -- approach, and one foot with the 'formalist' -- that he later lablels 'modernist' -- heirs of Principia Mathematica -- and I'll add "Fregean" proper approach. I see that L. Horn has work on this -- where he credits me! (:)). He calls these things F-implicatures. No, not your expletive deleted. He means plain "F" Frege. But his focus is mainly on the similarities between the Grice of the conventional implicature and the Frege (hardly discussed) of the 'colour' (Farb) and the 'tone'. Robbing Peter to Pay Paul apparently emerged as an idiom, can you believe it, not to refer to Paul Grice and Peter Strawson, but to St. Peter and St. Paul, the former being the real name of Westminster and the other the monstrosity of Christopher Wrenn. But what I mean is hardly different. On a seminar with Gregorio Klimovsky, where I managed to impress him, I titled my contribution, "Post-Modern Grice" (in Buenos Aires you _have_ to use 'post-modern' to get the minimum degree of attention from non-analytic audiences). What I meant was a discussion of Grice's "common mistake". It's not that Grice _makes_ it, the mistake. He says both Fregeans and Aristotelians make it! He rather discovers it. Everytime he plays the logical game and gets irritated by how logicians are blind enough to the 'landscape' that ordinary-language so beautifully paints for us! But one can say: surely Peter (Strawson) does not diminish the florid 'landscape' of ordinary language. Well, no; but like Cohen, and so many others, he turns the floridness into the _semantic_ component when it's much better to keep a neo-classical lawn and maintain the floridity to the backgarden of pragmatics (Everyone familiar with what's regarded as the best backgarden in Oxford -- Grice's St John's -- may agree with the sentiment! (I hope)). So, one _robs_ Peter Strawson -- and his acute observations on the logic of ordinary language -- rehabiliating Aristotelian distinctions and schemes -- but one _pays_ the Gardener, Grice, who likes to proceed prolixically with linguistic botanising proper. Consider 'truth-value gaps'. Horn wrote on this "Showtime at Truth-Value Gap" (he tells me it's a pun on an obscure American western). Apparently, Sommers, Strawson, Burton-Roberts, and Aristotle ('there will be a naval battle tomorrow') think it's a cute notion. Grice says instead, "the crunch comes with negation" (_Aspects of Reason_). Admitting a gap, it means the gap will _survive_ negation, and then negation becomes inoperative, and then the skies may fall. I don't know about truth-certification, that B. Jones was asking about, but gaps arise in not just 'negation' talk, but in talk about so-called 'knowledge' and 'truth-certification'. To have a truth-certified idea of knowledge means that one deals with the oddity of things like: Peter does not know that the Gap was founded in 1996. (* "The Gap" (c) -- clothes) Obviously, the truth-certification is cancelled in some cases: "Peter does not know that the Gap was founded in 1996, because it wasn't; it was founded in 1998". But what about uses of 'know' in the affirmative? What kind of relation holds between 'know that p' and 'p is true'. Grice says: 'entailment' proper. Sometimes I feel that since Grice was proud of having coined a pretty popular term, 'implicature' he felt it was never bad to credit Moore (who _was_ his man) for having coined one which if not as popular is perhaps just as pretty. (I'm using pretty to annoy Fowler, "The King's English"!) Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1220572833x1201387477/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fwww.freecreditreport.com%2Fpm%2Fdefault.aspx%3Fsc%3D668072%26hmpgID %3D62%26bcd%3DAprilfooterNO62) From danny.frederick at tiscali.co.uk Sun Apr 5 12:12:20 2009 From: danny.frederick at tiscali.co.uk (Danny Frederick) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 17:12:20 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Frederick's conception of the A Priori In-Reply-To: <200904050738.36477.rbj@rbjones.com> References: <1415342723F0448AA379C7A4E2CFC634@DFLVQC1J> <200904012230.44601.rbj@rbjones.com> <200904050738.36477.rbj@rbjones.com> Message-ID: <21AF68E3C43A44F49D9F16ADE4D5BE72@DFLVQC1J> Hi Roger, I'm afraid you seem to have misunderstood most of what I said. My reference to the 'justificational' practices of a cult was not rhetorical. It raises a serious problem and one that is fundamental to epistemology, namely, when is a practice of accepting statements one that generates knowledge and when is it not? This is a slight generalisation of Popper's 'problem of demarcation.' If you merely refer to the rules of the 'language game' of science, with its 'institutionally defined standards of justification,' why should I regard that game as an epistemic or scientific one rather than a game of some other kind? This is an outstanding question for you to answer. Until you have provided an answer you have given no reason for us to think you are engaging in epistemology rather than sociology, social psychology or anthropology. Popper, incidentally, said that his methodological rules were the rules of the game of science; but he also argued that the game of science was worth playing for epistemic reasons, because it was the only way of obtaining better explanations. This has no reference to justification. Indeed, one of his rules is that we never stop testing a theory, no matter how successful it has been in the past. That rule acknowledges that justification is unachievable. But theories can fare well or badly in tests and they can have or lack other desirable features. Taking account of all this we can compare and rank theories; and those that come out higher in the ranking are called 'better corroborated.' But the best-corroborated theory today might be refuted tomorrow. So corroboration must not be confused with any kind of epistemic justification. I agree that this is a kind of scepticism. But I deny that it is 'out of line both with ordinary and scientific norms.' It is not out of line with scientific norms: scientists do continue testing and amending theories and coming up with new ones. Although relativity theory is still the dominant theory for the very large, there is all manner of work currently going on in physics which violates this or that assumption of relativity. People like Dennett say that relativity is 'proved beyond reasonable doubt;' but Dennett is not a scientist and appears ignorant of what is going on in science. But I agree with you that Popper's approach does violate lots of 'ordinary norms,' such as those of astrologers, Marxists, psychoanalysts, mystics and other windbags. So much the worse for them! It is simply a fact that we are not in a position to ascertain which of two statements is more likely to be true. What is the point of any philosophical discussion that pretends that this is not so? It is just daydreaming. But even though we cannot ascertain truth, probable truth or verisimilitude, we can often ascertain when one theory is a better explanation than another, for example, if it is simpler, more comprehensive, more precise and entails surprising new predictions which survive severe testing. The history of science gives us examples of such progress. You ask: 'What purpose does it serve to use the term justification as you are doing, for a standard which nothing will ever meet?' I would respond with a question to you: what purpose does it serve to use the term 'justification' in epistemology for a standard which cannot be shown to justify anything epistemically? It is misleading. Why not call a spade a spade? I agree that the notion of epistemic justification is worthless. That is why I don't use it. Can you say that your use of 'justification' in epistemic contexts does not imply or at least suggest that we can attain demonstrations of truth, probable truth or verisimilitude? And since we cannot attain such things, wouldn't it be better to drop the term 'justification' from epistemic contexts? How many people who use the term are deluding themselves and others? I would guess it is a lot of them. For some people this delusion seems important. I am not a holist of any kind, and certainly not a radical one. I referred to Duhem's argument, not Quine's overstatement of it in 'Two Dogmas.' Duhem's position has been called 'largism.' Again, it is just a fact: the writings of Duhem, Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend give lots of examples. It usually takes a big conjunction of theories to get a testable consequence; and this makes it difficult (I think impossible) to demarcate a priori from empirical propositions (rather than empirical from a priori knowledge). This, incidentally, has nothing to do with any thesis about the indeterminacy of meaning (that is also a Quinean thing). I explained how Popper's demarcation criterion is unaffected by the Duhem argument in an earlier email. Popper's demarcation of science from pseudo-science was precisely a response to Duhem's argument. To save you searching, here is what I wrote: 'Finally, going back to Popper, I said that the first step in his demarcation of empirical science was the notion of falsifiability as inconsistency with some (true or false) observation statements. This distinguishes those systems of statements which are candidates for empirical science from those that, for the time being at least, are not (i.e., those which are logical, mathematical or metaphysical). The second step is to distinguish science from pseudo-science. This is a matter of procedures. Any theory can be saved from falsification by amending the other statements used to derive empirical predictions from it or by rejecting any conflicting observation statements. Such procedures are the mark of pseudo-science, EXCEPT where the modifications to background knowledge that are made to save a particular theory themselves lead to novel predictions which survive severe testing.' Thus a proposition or theory that is untestable at time t may be testable at time t+n, so its status as empirical (and thus as a candidate for science) will change. But whether a testable theory IS a part of science depends on how severely it has been tested and what the results were. I agree with you that there is a distinction between the 'formal' and the empirical sciences. But that should be obvious from the fact that I offered a demarcation between empirical and a priori knowledge. But where does this leave metaphysics? It is not derivable from logical or mathematical axioms and it is not empirically testable either. Yet in future, some of it may become testable, like the theory that matter is composed of atoms, which was an ancient metaphysical theory which became a part of science only relatively recently. I hope I have managed to reduce some of the misunderstanding. Best wishes, Danny From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Apr 5 16:46:20 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 16:46:20 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] "Naturally": History and Analysis Message-ID: In a message dated 4/5/2009 12:57:59 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, danny.frederick at tiscali.co.uk writes: Yet in future, some of it may become testable, like the theory that matter is composed of atoms, which was an ancient metaphysical theory which became a part of science only relatively recently. ---- She is, naturally, a good philosopher. Naturally, she is a good philosopher. She is a good philosopher, naturally. She, naturally, is a good philosopher* She is a good, naturally, philosopher. (* -- even though she defends "Transnaturalism") In this post, if I may (the telephone may always _ring_; but don't be discouraged, this phrase of idiom means I have _planned_ the thing) I propose to do a few things: --- criticise D. Frederick's use of 'metaphysical'. --- criticise D. Frederick's use of 'science'. How? Well, by re-editing his dictum: the theory that matter is composed of atoms, which was an ancient metaphysical theory which became a part of science ... I thought: "he meant, physics'", i.e. ... that matter is composed of atoms, which was an ancient metaphysical ... which became a part of [PHYSICS] ... But then call me an adherent of Fowler, "Avoid hybrids". If we are speaking of 'metaphysical' (Greek root), we better stick to Greek formations ('physics') rather than anything else. Should we use 'scientia' (Gk. 'episteme' really) I would have used 'trans-naturalia' in the previous: ... that matter is composed of atoms, which was an ancient [TRANSNATURALIA] ... which became a part of [SCIENTIA] ... etc. but then recall Lucian, "The nature of things" poses a problem! --- Anyway, there are zillions of theories as to what Aristotle meant by metaphysics. Oddly, the pirest who introduced me into the subject -- as a teenager myself -- was so cryptic and cynic that he thought (or wanted me to think) that Aristotle only meant, '[dem books lying next to the thick volumes of] physics.' -- as he would spend half an hour explaining the intrusive 'ta' in "ta meta TA physika" and the fact that 'biblia' was understood tacitly. But then he _was_ a priest! --- Anyway, now -- to make the long history of philosophy short, I'll pass to Grice: * Grice uses 'metaphysical' in various collocations. First with the latest. -- S. Chapman notes that in the 13 cardboxes ('not necessarily small') that Grice left in this world, there are a few notes on a book he did publish in the future called, "Method of Metaphysics", or a new discourse in metaphysics -- 'from Genesis to Revelation'. As years went on, he thought more and more of himself as Moses. -- 'transubstantion, metaphysic' -- I write it like that, as to be included in a philosophical lexicon. For Grice, 'metaphysical transubstantiation' is -- God knows what! One reads his papers in philosophical psychology, or ethics, even, and one is transmogrified. It all looks so _constructivist_. There's many _conceptions_ here. But Grice wants to say that the 'conception' is in the 'conceiving' and that the 'construction' delivers _entia_! To annoy the critical reader he explains that to cover the 'usages' he'll use 'metaphysical' in that _sense_. (This actually parallels D. Frederick's good policy of _not_ using 'justification' at all, if one does not believe in it! -- The reverse: 'use metaphysical if you believe in it!'). -- The early Grice, the middle Grice, the latest Grice. If Wittgensteinians had occasional field days discovering the Wittgenstein No. 6 (alla Chanel), ditto Griceans. The early Grice we know little of. The early Grice wrote a paper (well, with Strawson and Pears) that I first found cited in P. Edwards, The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (entry, "Metaphysics") This paper is called, unimaginatively, 'Metaphysics', and is a chapter in a book unimaginatively titled by D. F. Pears, the editor, "The nature of metaphysics". It was the third-programme lecture at the BBC. I recall I called the BBC, "I want a transcript in the Listener for the lecture that Grice gave". They told me, "Tomorrow". I was fortunate in finding a copy of the thin Pears volume in the private library of J. C. D'Alessio (who'd been a roommate with Dennett at All Souls), and read the Grice thing. Very illuminative, rather than illuminating. The middle Grice would be the one concerned with 'metaphysics' as in Russell's phrase, "Stone-Age metaphysics". I never knew what that meant. Apparently, Newton dwelled in Caves for Russell. It's only what Dennett calls 'the old lady of limerick -- in a relative way (*) that is Bronze. The latest Grice ('never say never', 'latest vs. late' vs. 'last'). In "Life and Opinions", he writes that, like a more famous Pilgrim, he found himself in the path towards the Holly of Hollies, but constantly being attacked by seven (I counted them) _betes noires_. One _is_ empiricism, another (a more fierce one, I hope) is "Naturalism". This destroyed my panorama. In 'Meaning Revisited', he is claiming that something like what as early as 1948 (notably as a joke on his reading Stevenson, I now realise) called 'natural' (meaning -- but 'meaning' is not important here) _backs_ rather than is backed by 'non-natural' meaning. (**). To provide consistency, I have to go shopping with Grice. ---. The second part of his monumental "WOW" (Way of Words) is entitled, provocatively, "Studies in Semantics and Metaphysics". How many of the tennish articles are _about_ metaphysics. Notably _one_: "Metaphysics and Philosophical Eschatology". Alas, his humour is not universal, and I _haven't_ seen a lot of treatment of this delightful discipline, 'eschatologia philosophica' in places. Matter of fact, I have, and I hope S. Chapman has reconsidered. She keeps calling this 'scatological' (and now her book is undergoing the paperback edition). In that essay, written in 1987, Grice lists what he calls 'the shopping list' for metaphysics-cum-philosophical eschatology. It is a suggestion of some areas of research that concern 'metaphysics' not just now defined as a substantive theory of 'nature' (Naturalism) but more like 'trans-naturalia' proper. But not in the sense, 'beyond nature'. It's an in-the-works work. Metaphysics, as I think Grice saw it, had to do with constructive remarks on categorial systems as such. More importantly, it had to cover what Strawson both called 'descriptive' and 'explanatory'. Metaphysics describes categorial schemes and 'plays' with cross-categorial 'transubstantiations'. If a 'physicist' (***) says that nature _is_ atoms which have qualia, the metaphysicist will explore what is meant by 'qualia' and what _loci_ in propositions 'qualium' can hold. Grice also saw important notions like "Analogy" and "Metaphor" as being part of the study of Eschatology, Philosophical. It's a long way, babe, since Carnap criticised Heidegger's "Nothing noths"! (****) --- Cheers, J. L. Speranza * There is this limerick, about this lady who is a firm adherent of relativity-theory. I should find it. ** What's natural and non-natural Grice thinks better epithets than what's natural vs. what's artificial. It boils down to 'factiveness'. "The recent budget means we'll have a hard year" he labels 'natural' and you'll grant there's little of 'natural' about it (but his criterion of factiveness holds: If the recent budget means that we'll have a hard year we'll have a hard year). *** It may do to consider suffixes here: why is 'physicist' for the good man Eddington but 'physician' for the bad man who invented Parkinson? **** "Nichts nichted" -- as criticised by 'positivists' who didn't want to have anything to do with 'metaphysical'. -- cfr. Popper's demarcations and Ayer's subtle change from 'positivist' to 'logical empiricist'. It would be as if he found 'positivism', like Duhem's largism was too French a thing to get digested in Oxon.! **************A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1220572833x1201387477/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fwww.freecreditreport.com%2Fpm%2Fdefault.aspx%3Fsc%3D668072%26hmpgID %3D62%26bcd%3DAprilfooterNO62) From mdoctorow at ca.rr.com Sun Apr 5 20:59:34 2009 From: mdoctorow at ca.rr.com (mdoctorow at ca.rr.com) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 20:59:34 -0400 Subject: [hist-analytic] "Naturally": History and Analysis In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20090406005934.AS3TD.71052.root@cdptpa-web09-z02> Description and Explanation seem to have been frequently been lost sight of among physics researchers (engineers too, of course). I would describe physicists and engineers as Rush-to-the-End-Oriented. Whereas philosophers ponder correctly over Description and Explanation, correctly wondering what in the world they're talking about, physicists (dropping engineers for brevity) resemble the horse which, upon the firing of the starting pistol, rushes to the finishing line across the center of the track or even turns around to return to the start and stops there. My remedy is for every physicist (and engineer - who now makes his return) to be required to have a philosopher as equal (at least!) partner. Osher Doctorow ---- Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 4/5/2009 12:57:59 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > danny.frederick at tiscali.co.uk writes: > Yet in future, some of it may > become testable, like the theory that matter is composed of atoms, which was > an ancient metaphysical theory which became a part of science only > relatively recently. > ---- > > > She is, naturally, a good philosopher. > Naturally, she is a good philosopher. > She is a good philosopher, naturally. > She, naturally, is a good philosopher* > She is a good, naturally, philosopher. > > (* -- even though she defends "Transnaturalism") > > In this post, if I may (the telephone may always _ring_; but don't be > discouraged, this phrase of idiom means I have _planned_ the thing) I propose to do > a few things: > > --- criticise D. Frederick's use of 'metaphysical'. > --- criticise D. Frederick's use of 'science'. > > How? > > Well, by re-editing his dictum: > > the theory that matter is composed of atoms, > which was an ancient metaphysical theory which > became a part of science ... > > I thought: "he meant, physics'", i.e. > > ... that matter is composed of atoms, > which was an ancient metaphysical ... which > became a part of [PHYSICS] ... > > But then call me an adherent of Fowler, "Avoid hybrids". If we are speaking > of 'metaphysical' (Greek root), we better stick to Greek formations > ('physics') rather than anything else. Should we use 'scientia' (Gk. 'episteme' really) > I would have used 'trans-naturalia' in the previous: > > ... that matter is composed of atoms, > which was an ancient [TRANSNATURALIA] ... which > became a part of [SCIENTIA] ... > > etc. but then recall Lucian, "The nature of things" poses a problem! > > --- Anyway, there are zillions of theories as to what Aristotle meant by > metaphysics. Oddly, the pirest who introduced me into the subject -- as a > teenager myself -- was so cryptic and cynic that he thought (or wanted me to think) > that Aristotle only meant, > > '[dem books lying next to the thick volumes of] physics.' > > -- as he would spend half an hour explaining the intrusive 'ta' in "ta meta > TA physika" and the fact that 'biblia' was understood tacitly. But then he > _was_ a priest! > > --- > > Anyway, now -- to make the long history of philosophy short, I'll pass to > Grice: > > * Grice uses 'metaphysical' in various collocations. First with the latest. > > -- S. Chapman notes that in the 13 cardboxes ('not necessarily small') > that Grice left in this world, there are a few notes on a book he did publish > in the future called, "Method of Metaphysics", or a new discourse in > metaphysics -- 'from Genesis to Revelation'. As years went on, he thought more and > more of himself as Moses. > > -- 'transubstantion, metaphysic' -- I write it like that, as to be > included in a philosophical lexicon. For Grice, 'metaphysical transubstantiation' > is -- God knows what! One reads his papers in philosophical psychology, or > ethics, even, and one is transmogrified. It all looks so _constructivist_. > There's many _conceptions_ here. But Grice wants to say that the 'conception' is > in the 'conceiving' and that the 'construction' delivers _entia_! To annoy the > critical reader he explains that to cover the 'usages' he'll use > 'metaphysical' in that _sense_. (This actually parallels D. Frederick's good policy of > _not_ using 'justification' at all, if one does not believe in it! -- The > reverse: 'use metaphysical if you believe in it!'). > > -- The early Grice, the middle Grice, the latest Grice. > If Wittgensteinians had occasional field days discovering the > Wittgenstein No. 6 (alla Chanel), ditto Griceans. The early Grice we know little of. > The early Grice wrote a paper (well, with Strawson and Pears) that I first > found cited in > > P. Edwards, The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (entry, > "Metaphysics") > > This paper is called, unimaginatively, 'Metaphysics', and is a chapter in a > book unimaginatively titled by D. F. Pears, the editor, "The nature of > metaphysics". It was the third-programme lecture at the BBC. I recall I called the > BBC, "I want a transcript in the Listener for the lecture that Grice gave". > They told me, "Tomorrow". I was fortunate in finding a copy of the thin Pears > volume in the private library of J. C. D'Alessio (who'd been a roommate with > Dennett at All Souls), and read the Grice thing. Very illuminative, rather > than illuminating. > > The middle Grice would be the one concerned with 'metaphysics' as in > Russell's phrase, "Stone-Age metaphysics". I never knew what that meant. > Apparently, Newton dwelled in Caves for Russell. It's only what Dennett calls 'the > old lady of limerick -- in a relative way (*) that is Bronze. > > The latest Grice ('never say never', 'latest vs. late' vs. 'last'). In > "Life and Opinions", he writes that, like a more famous Pilgrim, he found > himself in the path towards the Holly of Hollies, but constantly being attacked > by seven (I counted them) _betes noires_. One _is_ empiricism, another (a > more fierce one, I hope) is "Naturalism". This destroyed my panorama. In > 'Meaning Revisited', he is claiming that something like what as early as 1948 > (notably as a joke on his reading Stevenson, I now realise) called 'natural' > (meaning -- but 'meaning' is not important here) _backs_ rather than is backed by > 'non-natural' meaning. (**). To provide consistency, I have to go shopping > with Grice. > > ---. The second part of his monumental "WOW" (Way of Words) is entitled, > provocatively, "Studies in Semantics and Metaphysics". How many of the tennish > articles are _about_ metaphysics. Notably _one_: "Metaphysics and Philosophical > Eschatology". Alas, his humour is not universal, and I _haven't_ seen a lot > of treatment of this delightful discipline, 'eschatologia philosophica' in > places. Matter of fact, I have, and I hope S. Chapman has reconsidered. She > keeps calling this 'scatological' (and now her book is undergoing the paperback > edition). In that essay, written in 1987, Grice lists what he calls 'the > shopping list' for metaphysics-cum-philosophical eschatology. It is a suggestion > of some areas of research that concern 'metaphysics' not just now defined as > a substantive theory of 'nature' (Naturalism) but more like 'trans-naturalia' > proper. But not in the sense, 'beyond nature'. It's an in-the-works work. > Metaphysics, as I think Grice saw it, had to do with constructive remarks on > categorial systems as such. More importantly, it had to cover what Strawson > both called 'descriptive' and 'explanatory'. Metaphysics describes categorial > schemes and 'plays' with cross-categorial 'transubstantiations'. If a > 'physicist' (***) says that nature _is_ atoms which have qualia, the metaphysicist > will explore what is meant by 'qualia' and what _loci_ in propositions 'qualium' > can hold. Grice also saw important notions like "Analogy" and "Metaphor" as > being part of the study of Eschatology, Philosophical. > > It's a long way, babe, since Carnap criticised Heidegger's "Nothing noths"! > (****) > > --- > > Cheers, > > J. L. Speranza > > * There is this limerick, about this lady who is a firm adherent of > relativity-theory. I should find it. > > ** What's natural and non-natural Grice thinks better epithets than what's > natural vs. what's artificial. It boils down to 'factiveness'. "The recent > budget means we'll have a hard year" he labels 'natural' and you'll grant > there's little of 'natural' about it (but his criterion of factiveness holds: If > the recent budget means that we'll have a hard year we'll have a hard year). > > *** It may do to consider suffixes here: why is 'physicist' for the good man > Eddington but 'physician' for the bad man who invented Parkinson? > > **** "Nichts nichted" -- as criticised by 'positivists' who didn't want to > have anything to do with 'metaphysical'. -- cfr. Popper's demarcations and > Ayer's subtle change from 'positivist' to 'logical empiricist'. It would be as > if he found 'positivism', like Duhem's largism was too French a thing to get > digested in Oxon.! > > > > **************A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy > steps! > (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1220572833x1201387477/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fwww.freecreditreport.com%2Fpm%2Fdefault.aspx%3Fsc%3D668072%26hmpgID > %3D62%26bcd%3DAprilfooterNO62) From baynesrb at yahoo.com Thu Apr 9 17:03:47 2009 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 14:03:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [hist-analytic] Notes on Davidson Message-ID: <511449.42690.qm@web36507.mail.mud.yahoo.com> here are some, more or less, random thoughts on Davidson. I've had to "lay off" of the analytic/synthetic distinction. I will return to this but until the book is done the focus has to be this stuff. Again, these are musings; things that came to mind on a sunny morning. Davidson (AE p. 81) says that one may intend to do something without forming an intention. One can, also, perform an action with an intention without forming the intention. The former case may consist in intending to build a squirrel house; the latter may be a case of nailing two boards together with the intention of building a squirrel house. In the first instance we may be dealing with a ?pure intention,? unsullied by action. Practical reasoning understood as Aristotle understood it requires action in its conclusion, thus practical reasoning never has a pure intention, or for that matter an intention, as its conclusion. Moreover, an act of will, as we have come to understand it as something different from a willful act, is always the result of an intention, even if we have not formed it. Anscombe speaks of forming an intention. I do nor form an intention with an intention in mind, otherwise forming an intention would, itself, be an intentional action. According to Davidson, pure intentions pose the problem in giving them some account: if we do not introduce ?mysterious? mental episodes or acts we are at a loss to make explicit what they are exactly. In the case of actually nailing two boards together we can appeal to a desire to build a squirrel house combined with a belief that nailing two boards together is, at least, a first step. In some sense the belief and the desire ?rationalize? the action and what rationalizes the action serves as the cause of the action. Davidson tells us of that a man?s boarding a plane marked ?London?, intentionally, might be explained by his belief that it was headed for London. But under what description is his behavior intentional? Surely, not under the description ?one who believes that it was headed for London?; for if this is what someone were to have in mind it ought to occur to them that what makes something intentional cannot be what, also, explains it. But isn?t the reason we ask for when we ask ?Why?? in the sense relevant to intention what explains the action? Not all propositional attitudes have an opaque reading (?sees that?) but all ?pro? attitudes must be read as opaque. Why? Opacity does not explain the attitude (Brentano?), rather the attitude explains the opacity. What is there about this feature that requires the attitude to select for opaque complements? Further, what is the negative correlative of the ?pro? attitude class? To the best of my knowledge there is no negative class! I can see how one might believe that in order to act with an intention a belief and a desire must provide a reason; but in the case of, merely, intentional actions such as bending down to pick up a rock on the lawn requires anything like a belief or desire. Now an explanation of my action may involve this, but what goes into an explanation of my action need not be what causes me to act. In addition, in the case of Davidsonian causation no signal is transmitted. Is all intentional action acting with an intention? I think not. Only in those cases where we form an intention does it seem reasonable to say that we act with an intention. Can I have a belief in the desirability of loving my enemies without having the desire to love my enemies? If so a practical syllogism may be satisfied but the action may not follow. Mightn?t this describe akrasia of a sort? Or, to take an example drawn from Davidson, himself, (AE p. 86) can?t I believe in the desirability of not smoking while having no desire not to smoke? What, precisely, is the difference between belief in the desirability of not smoking and desiring not to smoke? If there were none, couldn?t we always speak in terms of belief without introducing desire? Suppose I believe it is desirable to torture someone in a ticking bomb situation, but I do not desire to torture someone in a ticking bomb situation. I do not desire what I believe to be desirable. This is a form of weakness of the will. I believe that everyone should avoid red meat; but I do not desire to avoid red meat. ?Everyone? is not such that instantiation is valid, nor is exportation. Now I may be able to instantiate for any name of a person: I believe that everyone should eat red meat; so I believe Steve Bayne should eat red meat. If I don?t then I may be contradicting myself: I believe everyone should eat red meat but I don?t believe Steve Bayne should eat red meat. Davidson is pleased that his belief plus desire account of intention does not require mysterious entities. (AE p. 87) But reason may suggest that the euphoria comes with an eventual let down. He notes not all intentional actions require ?forming? an intention. But if intentions are not entities or states or something over and above beliefs or desires what is an intentional action which does not follow upon the formation of an intention and how does it differ from other intentional acts? His language, particularly, in his discussion of what goes on in writing the word ?action? suggests that the distinction he draws is little more than the distinction between the, merely, ?ideo-motor? actions and voluntary actions we find in James. If so, then, there is little reason to believe that writing the letter ?a? with the intention of writing the word ?action? is intentional at all. Isn?t writing ?a? under these circumstances much like taking off my coat in order to take off my shirt. In this case, according to James, my action fall short of, even, being voluntary (Psychology vol. II, p. 519); and if it isn?t voluntary it is doubtful that it is intentional. Why would James say such a thing? I believe that what he had in mind was that the action of taking off my coat was no part of any voluntary action, which requires attending to an idea. There is an interesting difference between James? case and Davidson?s. In James? case it is not always true that I have to remove my coat to get to my shirt; but in Davidson?s case I must always write ?a? if I?m going to write ?action?. So what leads Davidson to believe that writing ?a? in such a case is intentional except maybe that I had something to do with the fact that it was no accident? If we take a ?pure intention? as Davidson says to be ?intending that is not accompanied by an action? (AE p. 88) and, yet, insist on writing ?a? as something intentional then what would rule out a pure intention to write ?a? with the further intention of writing the word ?action?? Doesn?t it make better sense to say that pure intentions are possible only when an intention has been formed? If I?m interrupted while trying to writing ?a? can?t I say, retrospectively, ?It was my intention to write ?a? but I was stopped?? But if so aren?t intentions possible without having associated with them a belief and a desire? These sorts of problems accrue to thinking of the theory of action as terminological proposals for avoiding an explicit ontology of intentions. No embarrassment, maybe, but only if there is nothing embarrassing about making progress only by rejecting the problem. There are many puzzling things Davidson has to say about pure intentions. For example he remarks (AE, p. 89) that that when the intended action is consummated the intention is present, the same intention as the one that would have existed had it remained pure, or at least of the ?same kind.? But what is puzzling is this: if the action has taken place the intention no longer exists as such. Perhaps we should say that a person has an intention the way a penny has a shape: we are not to conceive of the shape and the penny coming into some relation, nor the intention as coming into some relation to the person. Suppose someone gives me an order consistent with everything I believe and desire, at the time. Is this a new reason to act or not act? Suppose I have a ?pure intention,? but act only when ordered to do so. Is the command upon which I act a cause? Call it what you will; it is not a volition, although we accept volitions over and above intentional actions. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rbj at rbjones.com Fri Apr 10 10:46:56 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:46:56 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] General v. specific definitions of analyticity In-Reply-To: <1724591133.873571238353724599.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> References: <1724591133.873571238353724599.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <200904101546.57384.rbj@rbjones.com> Steve raised a few problems in relation to "general semantics", which I will try to respond to here. Firstly, on whether Quine "called" for it, we have done this already, and my intention was only to refer to the previously cited passage of "Two Dogmas" and the notion he there describes (by contrast I think with Steve's notion of general definition in which analyticity is supposed to be defined completely independently of language). I can't comprehend how this can be thought of as hyperbole, though Quine did not so much call for such a definition as state that it would be required in order to make sense of a language specific definition. Here it is again: In short before we can understand a rule which begins 'a statement S is analytic for language L_0 if and only if ...' we must understand the general relative term 'analytic for': we must understand 'S is analytic for L' where 'S' and 'L' are variable. "we must" is a pretty strong call, and Carnap, possibly in response to this, later delivered such a definition. Of course, I don't deny that Quine was alleging that this call was unanswerable (despite providing a very nice answer later in the paper). However, what Carnap did, and what I agree with him was the right thing to do, was to give the general definition as the sole definition of analyticity, and to abandon the use of the term 'analytic' in defining the semantics of particular languages (or in giving a general account of such definitions). As a result of the various misunderstandings we have had in attempting to discuss the difference between general and specific definitions of analyticity it may now be useful to make the following more elaborate classification: (a) A general definition of analyticity in which S and L are variable such as Quine spoke of, and Carnap offered in the Schilpp volume. (b) A general definition of analyticity in which no specific mention is made of the language. this is the usual form of a definition of analyticity. It is what Hume does in describing his "fork", what Kant does in his definitions of analyticity, and what other philosophers such as Frege, Carnap, Ayer, Quine, Kripke, and in fact every definition of analyticity I have ever come across apart from the language specific ones discussed by Carnap. The fact that these do not explicitly mention the language does not mean that they are definitions which are independent of language, but to make this case to someone who doubts this has to be done on a case by case basis. The most popular rendition in the 20th Century was "true in virtue of meaning", and this clearly applies principally to things which have meaning, and clearly results in a concept which is dependent on meaning, and hence on the semantics of the language in question. (c) A general definition of analyticity in which the concept is independent of language This possibility had simply not occurred to me until I realised that this is what Steve was expecting from a general definition. This I would suggest is only possible for things which *are* meanings rather than things which *have* meanings, e.g. for propositions rather than sentences. In which case Carnap and I would agree that the concept in question is synonymous with logical necessity. (d) Language specific definitions of analyticity in which the set of analytic sentences in some particular language is defined. Personally I think these cause confusion and should be avoided. I am acquainted with none but those of Carnap who appears to have abandoned them by the time of the Schilpp volume. They are of course the principle object of criticism in Quine's "Two Dogmas". Their abandonment does not in itself disarm Quine's criticisms, for to apply a general definition of analyticity to some specific language one would need to know something about the semantics of the language. Steve seems to think that "truth" does not suffer from so severe a problem as "analyticity". It is of course just as dependent on the semantics of the language in question, and Quine's arguments if accepted are equally devastating against truth as they are against analyticity. The idea that one can determine truth without knowing meaning reduces language to a formal calculus. Of what avail is it to know (if one could) that a judgement is true, if we do not know what it means? Now we come to Steve's nominalistic qualms. If we are to come to a good understanding of how descriptive language works, of which an elementary part is the discussion of concepts such as analyticity, then it is valuable to devise precise models of language. The use of mathematics for modelling the real world is pervasive in science, without it science would be devastated. Scientists do this without the slightest ontological qualm. It works. I am aware of no defect in empirical science which has ever been traced to the ontological premises on which mathematics is based. Mathematics has always been considered far more rigorous and reliable in its conclusions than philosophy. So for philosophers to spurn mathematics because of its ontology in the name of rigour seems the greatest hypocrisy. In the theoretical study of language, just as we can reason about syntax by arithmetisation, we can model semantics in similar ways. For general semantics, set theory suffices. Whatever abstract structures we may desire for modelling language, isomorphic structures will be available in the ontology of set theory (i.e. as sets). So the first step out of the mystery of entities such as "meanings" or "propositions" is to come up with set-theoretic models of language. These enable us to reason about language in a general way, and support the demonstration of elementary results such as that expressing the relationship between analyticity and necessity. If nominalistic qualms persist, it is possible by known techniques (discussed by Boolos for example) to eliminate the ontological presumptions and obtain a formal theory independent of ontology. The resulting theory may not mean exactly the same as the set theoretic version (the translation after all is intended to eliminate supposedly undesirable ontological implications or presumptions) but will serve the same purposes in clarifying the issues at stake. I therefore recommend, if an understanding of language is required, the use of mathematical modelling, and suggest that nominalistic qualms can and should be set aside. On Sunday 29 March 2009 20:08:44 Baynesr at comcast.net wrote: ... >I will explain my point about Carnap's view >of analyticity and L-truth. He begins the tradition, >more or less, of assuming logical truths are >analytic. I don't think it is correct to call this an assumption. He used the two terms synonymously, but this was more a deliberate and considered usage than an assumption. In this I agree with him, it seems to me unreasonable to deny the title "logical truth" to any proposition which is "logically necessary" and this is the position in which those who urge that logical truth should be construed more narrowly find themselves. >Restricting ourselves for purposes of >illustration to Boolean logic of propositions, >we say that a proposition of logic is analytic >if it is true in all state descriptions - there >are qualifications to this, such as the propositions >have to be in normal form. But the point is that >the whole idea of L-truth and, therefore, analyticity >in Carnap relies on state descriptions, and >being "true" in all state descriptions (this relates >to but is not exactly the same as worlds). But >now analyticity depends on truth in Carnap. >Since all other analytical truths, 'analytic' >in the broad sense, depend on L-truths it follows >that Carnap's position on analyticity, generally, >depends on the analyticity of L-Truths. I don't really understand your point here. The terms "L-Truth" and "analytic" as used by Carnap are synonymous. Why is that a problem? >"the domain is part of the interpretation, and >therefore the sentence must be true in interpretations >with any cardinality" > >If you interpret the sentence '(Ex)(Ey)(z)[f(x) & >f(y) -> f(z)]' in a domain containing more than >two individuals it is not true. Not necessarily. In any interpretation in which f is somewhere false that sentence will be true. (it is equivalent to: (Ex)(Ey)[f(x) & f(y) -> (z) f(z)] which will be true if: (Ex)(Ey) (not(f(x) & f(y)) in which x and y need not be distinct, i.e. if (Ex)(not f(x)) >Similarly, if you >the sentence '(Ex)(Ey)(z)[z=x v z=y & ~(x=y)' in >any domain greater than or less than 2 it, too, >is false. This one is OK. What you are talking about here is "truth in an interpretation" i.e. your point is that "truth in an interpretation" depends in general on the size of the domain of the interpretation. The reason why I complained is that this is not what you said. You said that "logical truth" depends on the domain of the interpretation, and the term "logical truth" is usually taken in modern logic as synonymous with "valid", i.e. true in all interpretations, so it can't be relativised to an interpretation. >This is pretty much standard stuff. Similarly, >in order to do the semantics for any system capable >of handling transfinite numbers your are going to >need more than a countable domain. Anyway, the real >philosophical point is that the individuals >constituting the domain enter into any philosophical >account of a rational reconstruction of cardinal >arithmetic. I still don't understand the point here. >With respect to your other comments, I take a Quinean >position. I understand the concept 'true' (consider >Tarski "reliance" on Aristotle); I don't understand >'analytic' ab initio. So I don't see much value in >trying to define it with all the "mumbo logics" etc. >The term, unlike 'true', is a technical term. Tell me >why I need it and I'll wade through more of Carnap's >efforts to do whatever it was he was trying to do. >But outside the notion of a "judgment" I see little >use for it, unlike 'logically true'. Well I'm somewhat dumbfounded. How can one of a pair of synonyms be useful and the other useless? >A final point. >It has been argued, vigorously, (and here I'd mention >Marian David's paper "Analyticity, Carnap, and Truth" >_Philosophical Perspectives_, 10, 1996) that Quine >will have to reject 'true' for the same reasons he >rejects 'analytic'. Otherwise, the entire enterprise >initiated by the "linguistic turn" is in danger. >I agree with this assessment, but I don't agree that >Quine is wrong for the reasons he gives. The question >we might pursue is this: can we do without 'true' as >well as 'analytic'? I think not. The problem runs >deeper than constructed languages can carry us. A >general concept of truth is what we get when we use >Tarski as providing a criterion but find the definition >to be "value added." The same might be said of 'analytic'. The arguments which Quine uses in "Two Dogmas" are rooted in a radical scepticism about meaning. They are Pyrrhonean in their scope and impact. You cannot accept those arguments and consistently continue to engage in philosophical debate or in science or in any other enterprise in which descriptive language is involved. >Finally, I like Quine have a problem with meanings; no >one has a convincing argument so far as I can tell >that we need them. We may need essences, but that >depends on how we reconcile them with nominalism >in an empiricist epistemology. You don't need meanings as entities. But why tie one hand behind your back? Understanding semantics is not so easy. Its harder for a radical nominalist. However, it is very much easier than Quine would have us believe, even for dogmatic nominalists. As to essences, I don't know whether they are useful. If we are to continue we probably need to focus down a bit so we aren't chasing too many hares at once. Roger Jones From rbj at rbjones.com Fri Apr 10 15:04:20 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:04:20 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Aune's objections to Jones on the analytic (1) In-Reply-To: <868C00DB-C635-4B8E-B9D3-A1342BBC63E0@philos.umass.edu> References: <695366.9461.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <200904042321.27810.rbj@rbjones.com> <868C00DB-C635-4B8E-B9D3-A1342BBC63E0@philos.umass.edu> Message-ID: <200904102004.20117.rbj@rbjones.com> On Sunday 05 April 2009 13:56:13 Bruce Aune wrote: >Roger attempts to defend Kant?s conception of analyticity by claiming >that any judgment is equivalent to one of subject-predicate form. >Thus he says: > > >Let ?P x <=def=> x = x > > Q x <=def=> P x /\ S > > > >Then it is easy to see that: > > > > S <=> All Ps are Qs.? > > > >An obvious problem with this proposal is that, if it is assumed, no >judgment with a Rogerian subject satisfies Kant?s criterion for being >analytic. >Why is this? Because the subject term of a Rogerian >judgment has the form of ?= x?, whereas the predicate term of such a >judgment always has extra information, given by ?S? (whatever it is) >and the conjunction of ?x = x? and ?S? is never ?contained? (as Kant >would say) in the concept of ?= x?. >If S is a non-Rogerian subject- >predicate judgment such as ?All material objects are spread out in >space,? S may be analytic in Kant?s sense, but any other non-Rogerian >judgment?for instance, ?P v not-P??will not satisfy Kant?s test even >when expanded ? la Roger. Consequently, the standard criticism of >Kant?s definition of analyticity?that it does not cover plausible >examples such as ?P v not-P??remains unaffected by Roger?s strategy. This is not a sound criticism. If Kant's notion of analyticity is closed under logical equivalence then the above demonstration shows that it will be applicable to any sentence whether or not of subject predicate form. Your argument fails to cast any doubt upon this. Whether Kant's definition of analyticity is then equivalent to "true in virtue of meaning" depends upon whether the containment of which Kant speaks is conceptual (i.e. semantic) or literal (as in the recently cited section by Locke on "trivial propositions"). In the latter case Kants notion of analyticity will be the same as Locke's notion of trivial proposition. My reading of Kant is that he is talking about conceptual containment, and all that I have read by others on the matter (except you) confirms my interpretation. If in fact he meant literal containment then that is a much stronger indictment of both Kant's concept of analyticity and of his claim to originality in it than I have previously encountered. Roger Jones From aune at philos.umass.edu Fri Apr 10 17:25:44 2009 From: aune at philos.umass.edu (Bruce Aune) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:25:44 -0400 Subject: [hist-analytic] Aune's objections to Jones on the analytic (1) In-Reply-To: <200904102004.20117.rbj@rbjones.com> References: <695366.9461.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <200904042321.27810.rbj@rbjones.com> <868C00DB-C635-4B8E-B9D3-A1342BBC63E0@philos.umass.edu> <200904102004.20117.rbj@rbjones.com> Message-ID: <60AAD4A0-1D38-4489-9901-E7A9A0B3677F@philos.umass.edu> I am always astonished at Roger's criticism: he always seems to miss the point of what I say, no matter how hard I try to be clear. I will try one more time to clarify the point of my earlier claim about Kant's definition of analyticity. Here it is: 1. The standard criticism of Kant's definition of analyticity is that it applies at best to subject-predicate judgments and does not apply to judgments of other kinds, such as the one Frege's mentioned when he made this criticism of Kant. Frege's example was, " ?If the relation of every member of a series to its successor is one- or many-one, and if m and y follow in that series after x, then either y comes in that series before m, or it coincides with m, or it follows after m.? Frege thought this judgment deserves to be considered analytic, but Kant?s test for an analytic truth?that its predicate is contained in the concept of its subject?does not cover this case. 2. Roger specified a way of converting any judgment into one of subject-predicate form. I didn?t object to this maneuver. We can indeed convert Frege?s example into a subject-predicate statement by making use of Roger?s maneuver. 3. But--and here is the difficulty with Roger?s claim that the standard criticism of Kant?s definition is untenable because any judgment can be put into subject-predicate form?the predicate of the transformed judgment is not contained in the concept of its subject. The subject of the transformed example is ?=x,? and the predicate is "x = x & if the relation of every member of a series to its successor is one- or many-one, and if m and y follow in that series after x, then either y comes in that series before m, or it coincides with m, or it follows after m.? I take it as obvious that this last predicate is NOT contained in the concept of the subject, ?= x?. 4. If you think, Roger, that the predicate here is contained in the concept of the subject, PROVE IT. That is all you have to do. Bruce -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rbj at rbjones.com Sat Apr 11 02:35:56 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 07:35:56 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Aune's objections to Jones on the analytic (1) In-Reply-To: <60AAD4A0-1D38-4489-9901-E7A9A0B3677F@philos.umass.edu> References: <695366.9461.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <200904102004.20117.rbj@rbjones.com> <60AAD4A0-1D38-4489-9901-E7A9A0B3677F@philos.umass.edu> Message-ID: <200904110735.56519.rbj@rbjones.com> On Friday 10 April 2009 22:25:44 Bruce Aune wrote: >3. But--and here is the difficulty with Roger?s claim that the >standard criticism of Kant?s definition is untenable because any >judgment can be put into subject-predicate form?the predicate of the >transformed judgment is not contained in the concept of its >subject. The subject of the transformed example is ?=x,? and the >predicate is "x = x & if the relation of every member of a series to >its successor is one- or many-one, and if m and y follow in that >series after x, then either y comes in that series before m, or it >coincides with m, or it follows after m.? I take it as obvious that >this last predicate is NOT contained in the concept of the subject, >?= x?. This is not correct. The subject of the transformed example is the concept P which I have defined as self identity, i.e. as the trivial concept which is true of everything. The predicate of the transformed example is the concept Q. If S is analytic then Q will also be the trivial concept i.e. it will be the same concept as P and the required containment will hold. >4. If you think, Roger, that the predicate here is contained in the >concept of the subject, PROVE IT. That is all you have to do. QED However, there is a flaw in my argument. The assumption that analyticity is preserved by equivalence is too strong, for we are here talking of material equivalence and such an equivalence may be contingent. It therefore does not suffice to show that: |- (S) (EP)(EQ) (S <=> (x)(P x => Q x)) It is necessary to show (using |= for "is analytic") |- (S) (EP)(EQ) (|= (S <=> (x)(P x => Q x))) which is more difficult because it is metatheoretic. I shall have to come back later on this. Roger Jones From rbj at rbjones.com Sun Apr 12 16:23:12 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 21:23:12 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Frederick's conception of the A Priori In-Reply-To: <21AF68E3C43A44F49D9F16ADE4D5BE72@DFLVQC1J> References: <1415342723F0448AA379C7A4E2CFC634@DFLVQC1J> <200904050738.36477.rbj@rbjones.com> <21AF68E3C43A44F49D9F16ADE4D5BE72@DFLVQC1J> Message-ID: <200904122123.12864.rbj@rbjones.com> On Sunday 05 April 2009 17:12:20 Danny Frederick wrote: >I'm afraid you seem to have misunderstood most of what I said. Thankyou for the various clarifications which you have offered, which might possibly have improved my understanding of your position. I shall briefly state my present (mis)understanding of your stand in relation to the position I intend to articulate in my proposed monograph in relation to the a priori/a posteriori distinction. My position hinges on the use of the terms a priori and a posteriori to classify, in the first instance, justifications, and then derivatively, propositions. You reject my proposal because your usage in epistemic contexts of the term justification entails that there are no justifications. The fact that my usage of the term justification, even in epistemic contexts, is clearly distinct from yours (regardless of whether either of us thinks our usage is other than normal), places you in the position of rejecting my proposal, not on the basis of what I intend the proposal to be, but rather, on the basis of what you believe it says, contrary to my intentions. Thus we remain at cross purposes. You reject a proposal I never intended to make. I know no reasonably way of expressing my proposal that you are likely to be willing to understand. I suppose we are not quite at cross purposes on epistemic use of the word justification. The position I posted was very brief and did not include an account of what I meant by "justification", which I will now certainly include. Presumably this will be a proposal for usage which you will reject. I guess we also disagree on the following point concerning the methods of philosophy. I think it desirable to use terms in whatever way seems to me best in articulating my philosophical position. I suspect that you would deny that I should exercise such discretion. Roger Jones From aune1 at verizon.net Tue Apr 14 19:21:11 2009 From: aune1 at verizon.net (Bruce Aune) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:21:11 -0400 Subject: [hist-analytic] Fwd: Aune's objections to Jones on the analytic (1) References: <3AFE7EBA-53CB-459C-B769-4FC5D7B14C90@philos.umass.edu> Message-ID: <34105FF6-CE41-4B4B-8B7B-E6AC329124CD@verizon.net> Begin forwarded message: > From: Bruce Aune > Date: April 11, 2009 7:02:05 AM EDT > To: Roger Bishop Jones > Subject: Re: Aune's objections to Jones on the analytic (1) > > Roger says, "This is not correct," referring to my claim that the > concept of the Rogerfied judgment is "= x." No, Roger, it is > correct. If "Px" is taken to be "x = x," then "P" = "= x" or, > better, "x =". But the point is unimportant. Suppose we do take > "P" to be "x = x." We still can't reasonably claim that the the > complex predicate, which we can represent as "x = x & F," where "F" > is the Frege sentence, is contained in "x = x". The "F" part of the > predicate represents new information, data extrinsic to "x = x." > What I asked Roger to show is that "x = x & F" is, contrary to what > I am claiming, included in the concept of "x = x"--included in a way > that corresponds to what Kant had in mind. To make the task for > Roger easier, he need only show that, say, "x = x & .P v not-P" is > present in the concept of "x = x." To prove this, he can't just > assume that "P v not-P" is analytic; he has to show that the > judgment containing the trivial subject and the complex predicate > satisfied Kant's test for analytic truth. > > Bruce -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rbj at rbjones.com Tue Apr 21 15:07:40 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:07:40 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Frrom AUNE: Analytic and A Priori (7-11) In-Reply-To: <869F7A51-8068-41D0-B606-97356C5B4734@philos.umass.edu> References: <695366.9461.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <200903182006.56267.rbj@rbjones.com> <869F7A51-8068-41D0-B606-97356C5B4734@philos.umass.edu> Message-ID: <200904212007.40643.rbj@rbjones.com> This is the last installment in my response to Aune, and is principally concerned with what he calls the "truth-certifying property" of a definition of analyticity. On Monday 23 March 2009 20:32:52 Bruce Aune wrote: >7. The principal significance of the preceding paragraphs for my >ongoing dispute with Roger is that the original notion of >analyticity, Kant?s, was intimately connected with a way of >ascertaining the truth of a special class of judgments, or >statements. I don't believe Kant supplied such a method. >Kant?s conception of analyticity is now generally >conceded to be inadequate because it applies, at best, to a narrow >class of statements, UAJs of subject-predicate form or, expanded in a >natural way, to a narrow class of universally quantified >conditionals. It is immediately apparent from a reading of Kant's definition of analyticity that he does not himself regard his definition as constrained to "UAJ"s. He explicitly regards his definition as also applicable to negations of subject predicate sentences, and from this we can reasonably infer that by similar unspecified means he would accept its extension to other kinds of judgement (though possibly he thought there were no other kinds apart from negations). >Frege?s conception, which Frege explicitly advanced >(in his ?Foundations of Arithmetic?) as a means of accommodating the >new logic that he had a large part in inventing, is also closely tied >to a way of showing the truth of analytic statements: S is >analytically true iff is reducible to a truth of logic by a >replacement of synonyms for synonyms. I don't believe that this is Frege's view, it is rather, a corruption of Frege's view which Quine found it convenient to attack in "Two Dogmas". Frege's position required only the elimination of definitions, which is less problematic since it does not depend on a general notion of synonymy, and cannot therefore be accused on this count of circularity. >In my book I argue that >Frege?s conception is still unacceptably narrow, but my own >conception, which is a modification of Carnap?s, retains the truth- >certifying property. I would be interested to know what weakness in Carnap's conception of analyticity your own is intended to remedy. As you know my own conception is easily seen to be equivalent to Carnap's. >8. In a couple of his recent notes, Roger claims that the >requirement that an adequate specification of analyticity should >possess this last property ?can and should be rejected.? This is not correct. I was quite careful in what I rejected, and what I rejected was the existence of an effective decision procedure for analytic truth. If your notion "truth-certifying property" entails the existence of a decision procedure then its non-existence either for mine or for Kant's concept of analyticity would follow from my denial. >9. He says, first, that ?It is clear that to establish "truth" of >a sentence must be in general no more difficult than establishing >"analyticity", since every analytic sentence [according to his >specification] is true.? Should I read the parenthesised interjection as indicating that you have a conception of analytic truth in which an analytic truth need not actually be true? This would be a radical departure from precedent, as well as rather strange terminology. Of course, sometimes the term "analytic" is used to encompass both "analytic" and "contradicatory" but that was obviously not the usage in my above argument (surely it is obvious that what I there intended was the platitude that "every analytically true sentence is true")? >This remark does hold for Roger?s unusual >and anomalous notion of analyticity, but it does not hold for >traditional approaches to analyticity, which purport to make it clear >just how analytic statements are to be identified and why they >deserve to be considered true. Roger bypasses this concern entirely. I have given a definition. I certainly intend to make clear how analyticity can be established. However, I will not be able to supply a decision procedure, any more than Kant could for his conception of analyticity. >10. Roger also says, ?It is also clear that even when the semantics >of a language as a whole is as clear as it possibly could be, for >example the semantics of first order arithmetic (which is as clear as >any language of similar expressive power, and clearer than most) this >does not mean that there is any reliable way of deciding whether >sentences in the language are true.? But the truth of mathematical >truths has always been considered philosophical problematic. Well my definition of analyticity, just like Carnap's encompasses all the truths of mathematics, so you will therefore understand why I cannot supply a decision procedure. >Mathematicians prove them (when they can) by deducing them from >various axioms, but how do we know that standard axioms are, in fact, >true? To ask this question is not cast doubt on their truth; it is >to ask what it rests on, what its basis is. G?del thought we can >apprehend basic mathematical truths by some kind of direct intuition, >which he considered analogous to vision; others, such as Carnap, who >considered them analytic, thought they were reducible to logical >truths. I don't think this is a satisfactory account of Carnap's position. He regarded mathematical truths as logical truths, not as reducible to logical truths, and if an account were to be given of the basis for belief in the truth of the axioms, this would be as true by convention, and as constituting part of or the whole of the definition of the terms they contain (i.e. as implicit or explicit definitions). >(When logicists claimed they were true because analytic, >they were not even suggesting that they are true for the simple >reason that they are necessary.) Carnap defined necessity in terms of analyticity so that course was not open to him. But the end effect of my position is the same as Carnap's. Whichever is taken as "primitive" is not important, because Carnap and I, when called upon to explain the primitive concept will give similar answers. This is because Carnap and I see that when "true in virtue of meaning" is explained as "tautologous" along the lines of Wittgenstein's tractatus (which Carnap mentions in this context) then the result is the same as the explanation of necessity as "true in every possible world". This is because "state of affairs", "possible world", "state description", "model" all contain the same information. (you have to drop Wittgenstein's insistence on the logical independence of distinct atomic propositions to make this work for Carnap's notion of analyticity). >11. The current issue in philosophy about analyticity is partly >directed to the task of finding an acceptable criterion for analytic >truth, one satisfied by all and only uncontroversial examples, that >shows how such truths ?are possible? and can be known by human beings >without requiring them to possess some supposed faculty of a priori >intuition, of the sort rationalists suppose; and it is partly >directed to the question of whether the objects of human >understanding, as Hume described them, can in fact be divided into >two discrete classes, one concerned with matters of fact and >existence, and one concerned with matters that can be decided without >reference to anything irreducibly empirical, except possibly for >ideas we happen to have or what meaning we give to various words. I >can?t see that Roger?s conception of analytic truth applies to either >of these matters. It seems to bypass them entirely. For that reason >alone, I doubt that most philosophers will find it useful. "The current issue in philosophy about analyticity"! I just looked at a paper by Peacocke in which he begins by listing five problems which any philosophical theory of the a priori "must" address, not one of which I intend to consider in my monograph. Naturally I don't accept your attempt to set my agenda. Whether my concerns are "current" is not of interest to me, I am much more interested in fundamental problems which are timeless. I have given a *definition* of analyticity, which I intend in my monograph to expand upon. I will not be giving a "criterion" for analytic truth, nor will I even mention that concept, but I do intend to describe methods which may be used to establish analytic truths (which come down to proof in some analytically sound deductive system). I am puzzled that you should think a definition which is put forward to make more precise Hume's fork is not applicable to that purpose, especially when it is equivalent to the definition most often cited by philosophers in the 20th century. Roger Jones From rbj at rbjones.com Tue Apr 21 12:10:27 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:10:27 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Frrom AUNE: Analytic and A Priori (2-7) In-Reply-To: <869F7A51-8068-41D0-B606-97356C5B4734@philos.umass.edu> References: <695366.9461.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <200903182006.56267.rbj@rbjones.com> <869F7A51-8068-41D0-B606-97356C5B4734@philos.umass.edu> Message-ID: <200904211710.28011.rbj@rbjones.com> This is the second of what will probably be three installments in my response to Bruce Aune's objections to "my" proposed definition of analyticity. In his paragraphs 2-7 Aune is preparing the way for a criticism along the lines that Kant's definition provides but mine does not a "truth certifying property" for analytic sentences. A response on the question of truth certifying properties will be in my next installment. This one will respond to some of Aune's preparatory remarks. On Monday 23 March 2009 20:32:52 Bruce Aune wrote: >2. The standard philosophical use of the expression comes from >Kant, who used it in raising a philosophical problem that has no >connection that I can see with Roger?s concerns. This philosophical >problem persists, at least in a qualified way, and that is my >principal reason for thinking that Roger?s use is less than useful. I have never previously seen used the phrase "standard philosophical use", and if this is intended to suggest that only one definition of analyticity is acceptable then the literature on analyticity unequivocally refutes it. However, that Kant's usage is not connected with mine is also quite incorrect. Kant aknowledged that he was responding to Hume and his objection to Hume I believe was principally to Hume's rejection of metaphysics, in which Hume's "fork" played a central role. My own conception of analyticity owes more to Hume than to Kant, and follows the logical positivists in deliberately supporting Hume's position against Kant. Thus the motivations of Hume, Kant, Carnap and myself are intimately interrelated. >4. UAJs that are not analytic are, Kant stipulated, synthetic: >this is just what a synthetic UAJ is suppose to be. Although we can >see a priori that analytic UAJs are true, the universal and necessary >truth of synthetic judgments is highly problematic. There is no >discernible connection between subject and predicate that guarantees >their truth; this must be accomplished by some ?third thing,? >something additional to semantic inclusion. The question ?How could >judgments of this second kind possibly be known to be true a priori?" >is the fundamental topic of Kant?s famous Critique of Pure Reason. The answer of Hume, Carnap and myself to this question is that they can't, there are no necessary synthetic truths. The difference might possibly be due to a difference in the conceptions of analyticity involved, this is a matter of controversy, the outcome of which is not important to my own philosophical position. In my next message I will discuss "truth certifying properties". Roger Jones From aune at philos.umass.edu Wed Apr 22 07:03:02 2009 From: aune at philos.umass.edu (Bruce Aune) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:03:02 -0400 Subject: [hist-analytic] Frrom AUNE: Analytic and A Priori (7-11) In-Reply-To: <200904212007.40643.rbj@rbjones.com> References: <695366.9461.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <200903182006.56267.rbj@rbjones.com> <869F7A51-8068-41D0-B606-97356C5B4734@philos.umass.edu> <200904212007.40643.rbj@rbjones.com> Message-ID: The only part of RBJ's reply that I will comment on is his statement, "I would be interested to know what weakness in Carnap's conception of analyticity your own is intended to remedy." If you are interested in this, I guess you should read my chapter two. Also, that chapter amply supports what I said to you about Frege and Carnap. I think our discussion has gone on long enough. Bruce From rbj at rbjones.com Fri May 1 07:45:43 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 12:45:43 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Metaphysics: Grice, Carnap, Aristotle Message-ID: <200905011245.43977.rbj@rbjones.com> I was interested to see Speranza getting into Gricean Metaphysics a little while ago, and would have been interested to hear more about it. Unfortunately my notes on WOW don't cover the metaphysics, and I don't actually posess a copy or have convenient access even to a library which contains it. I did google for Grice's metaphysics and didn't find much, but the Stanford Encyclopaedia had a nice quote on ontology, from which: My taste is for keeping open house for all sorts of conditions of entities, just so long as when they come in they help with the housework. Provided that I can see them work, and provided that they are not detected in illicit logical behaviour (within which I do not include a certain degree of indeterminacy, not even of numerical indeterminacy), I do not find them queer or mysterious at all?. To fangle a new ontological Marxism, they work therefore they exist, even though only some, perhaps those who come on the recommendation of some form of transcendental argument, may qualify for the specially favoured status of entia realissima. To exclude honest working entities seems to me like metaphysical snobbery, a reluctance to be seen in the company of any but the best objects (1975, 30-31). Which is quite as liberal as Carnap in some ways (though Carnap would not call these metaphysical). More liberal in appearing to allow the use of the word "metaphysical" in circumstances which Carnap would allow the ontology but not the word. More liberal also in contemplating the possibility of "transcendental arguments" which might confer some special status beyond pragmatic convenience. Speranza wandered into Gricean metaphysics at a time when my "triple dichotomy" mongraph project was transmuting into a "Metaphysical Positivism" book project (which is not so big a change as one might think). This change is now reflected at RBJones.com. In WOW there does not seem to be a lot of metaphysics, and it is coupled with semantics. The identification of analyticity and necessity is one way of making such a coupling (for at least some kinds of metaphysics) quite definite, for the key to this identification is in understanding that a full truth conditional semantics incorporates, because the domain of the truth conditions is the collection of possible worlds, metaphysical presuppositions embedded into the language. For Carnap these are "external questions" to be determined on pragmatic grounds (at least for artificial languages) but we may wonder whether there are fundamental issues at stake which it might be pragmatic to recognise in our languages. ARISTOTLES METAPHYSICS Before I drift off too far the point of this message was really to say that one of the side effects of Speranza's message (believe it or not!) was to provoke me into knocking up a new hypertext edition of Aristotle's Metaphysics. This is based on the Ross translation which I got from the internet classics archive and its main merit (if it has any) is that like my Organon it is more finely chopped, and has part indexes which give you the first line of every paragraph. Also, the intention is that every book and part has a helpful title (supplied by me), though unfortunately I never completed this task for the Organon and have so far only done (titles for) the first five books of the Metaphysics. The Metaphysics can be found at: http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/classics/aristotl/mi.htm Roger Jones From baynesrb at yahoo.com Sat May 2 07:20:26 2009 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 04:20:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [hist-analytic] Kenny: Aristotle on the Will Message-ID: <110776.43217.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I want to apologize for not replying to a number of private emails and postings. I will get to them in due course. I am moving towards the conclusion of this writing project, however, and some "end game" issues remain outstanding. One issue is this: I rely pretty heavily at some places on Anthony Kenny's _Aristotle's Theory of the Will_. Duckworth, 1979. It is the best extended treatment I've seen. I'm not keen on Kenny's views on the nature of the will, but his grasp of Aristotle is impressive. If there is some appalling fact about this treatment that I should know, someone -please - let me know. I might add that in my "travels" I'm noticing a conspicuous overlap of interests and ideas between Anscombe and Kant. Kant, almost invisibly, "controls" much of what is going on in James. I've been toying with the idea that "causa noumenon" in Kant is transient causation, and that a correct theory of the will include a mixed treatment, one involving, also, imminent causation."Singularist" theories have been proposed involving both. This is not essential to the Anscombe project. Historically, Anscombe's take on causation seems in many ways to be a reaction to Russell's views in his earlier papers, involving as they do an assimilation of law and cause - much discussed in the literature. Regards STeve -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From baynesrb at yahoo.com Sat May 2 07:56:38 2009 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Sat, 2 May 2009 04:56:38 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [hist-analytic] Adivice on Approaching Aristotle for the First Time Message-ID: <235526.83473.qm@web36505.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Just a bit of free advice for those who may be approaching Aristotle for the first time, particularly, his Metaphysics. Bk 1, for me, what excruciatingly boring; probably because I wasn't working on Plato's theory of forms at the time. It is, largely, historical. It's great stuff but tedious in my opinion. Pay particular attention to Bk V. Re-read this thing pretty carefully. Another thing: prepare yourself for this by doing the Categories. The value in this will become inestimable by the time you get to book Z of the Metaphysics. There are good commentaries on the Categories, not the least of which is Brentano's. Sellar's articles on Aristotle are, I think, especially good; there are others. Regards Steve -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Fri May 8 22:11:28 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 22:11:28 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Metaphysics: Grice, Carnap, Aristotle Message-ID: Congratulations to R. B. Jones on his efforts, enthusiasm, and vivacity in the progress of analytic philosophy. In a message dated 5/2/2009 6:58:14 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: >I was interested to see Speranza getting into Gricean Metaphysics a little >while ago, and would have been interested to hear more about it. ---- I would need to google to find what I did was getting _into_ if not *at*! :) ---- >Unfortunately my notes on WOW don't cover the metaphysics, and I >don't actually posess a copy or have convenient access even to >a library which contains it. Isn't it available as a 'google book'? I hope so. ---- >I did google for Grice's metaphysics and didn't find much, >but the Stanford Encyclopaedia had a nice quote on ontology, >from which: > My taste is for keeping open house for all sorts > of conditions of entities, just so long as > when they come in they help with the housework. > Provided that I can see them work, and provided that > they are not detected in illicit logical behaviour > (within which I do not include a certain degree of indeterminacy, > not even of numerical indeterminacy), I do not find them queer > or mysterious at all?. > To fangle a new ontological Marxism, they work therefore they exist, > even though only some, perhaps those who come on the recommendation > of some form of transcendental argument, may qualify for > the specially favoured status of entia realissima. > To exclude honest working entities seems to me like metaphysical > snobbery, a reluctance to be seen in the company of any but > the best objects (1975, 30-31). >Which is [very] liberal [...] ---- >"Metaphysical Positivism" >at RBJones.com. ---- Thanks, as always, for the update. Looks like an interesting project. >In WOW there does not seem to be a lot of metaphysics, and it is >coupled with semantics. Yes. Section II, or Part II, to be strict, is titled, "Explorations", as I recall, "in semantics and metaphysics". I take that as a slight insult on people like the IPrA people (the International Pragmatics Association, if you can believe that such a metaphysical entity subsists!) for it takes _two_ to understand Grice's preference (which I share) of 'semantics' _over_ 'pragmatics'. I would think he felt justified to use 'metaphysics' because of the (1987) essay, "Metaphysics, Philosophical Eschatology, and Plato's Republic", which I think was a slight insult (or slap on the face) to people who think that philosophy is all about the latest (fad). There is a 74-year-old man, with a first in Greats from Oxford from the late 1930s still finding Plato _exciting_. A lesson to us all! ---- >The identification of analyticity and >necessity is one way of making such a coupling (for at least >some kinds of metaphysics) quite definite, for the key to this >identification is in understanding that a full truth conditional >semantics incorporates, because the domain of the truth conditions >is the collection of possible worlds, metaphysical presuppositions >embedded into the language. Well, Grice elaborates on the tricks behind this in his "Life and Opinions" (of H. P. Grice). (google books, too, I believe). He discusses at some length the Russell motto of the stone-age metaphysics (I think is the phrase) and the 'riposte' of 'logical form' (whatever _that_ is) being a 'pretty good guide to grammar. (Actually, the riposte is inverse, but I find that philosophers are _amazed_ at grammar, while they find 'logical form' pretty boring.) This would be in the context of "English" Grice does _not_ use "English". He uses, instead, the more pretentious 'natural language', but I never met one, or one who spoke one! (People speak English, French, German, but hardly _a natural language_. Sometimes he uses 'ordinary language', by which I hope he means (again) "English" --- Why he does not use "English" is understandable. Oxonian philosophers had been criticised all too often about their parochialism, and it's good that Grice at least tries _a wider horizon_. A parochial-parochial vis a vis his master in this respect is Strawson. Two anecdotes 'paint' him pretty well: (a) One recounted by C. W. Mundle in "A critique of linguistic philosophy" (A book I found in a second-hand bookshop in Buenos Aires, of all places). Strawson is quoted as saying words to the effect, "And this, is not something which we can _logically_ say" "In English, you mean, Professor Strawson" "Yes, in English, and any other language to which it is translated". (His point, that what is _nonsense_ in English is nonsense in 'any other language to which the nonsensical expression is translated'. But of course I'm not sure; but then I do think a couple of English idioms are nonsensical per se, "it's raining cats and dogs" (?), "Don't want no more beers from this pub", "I could care less" "I couldn't care less", "I _have_ a headache", etc.) (b) In his "Intellectual Autobiograpy" in _The philosophy of P. F. Strawson_ (Library of Living Philosophers -- by the way, I'm looking for a co-editor for a forthcoming series I deviced, "Library of Dying Philosophers" contact me offlist): "And ordinary language says that". "But professor Strawson, that leads you to the perfect position of a petit burgeois". "And that's what I am: a petit burgeois". ------ R. B. Jones continues: >the point of this message was >... to say that one of the side effects of Speranza's >message (believe it or not!) was to provoke me into knocking >up a new hypertext edition of Aristotle's Metaphysics. >This is based on the Ross translation which I got from the >internet classics archive and its main merit (if it has any) >is that like my Organon it is more finely chopped, and has >part indexes which give you the first line of every paragraph. >Also, the intention is that every book and part has a helpful >title (supplied by me), though unfortunately I never completed >this task for the Organon and have so far only done (titles for) >the first five books of the Metaphysics. >The Metaphysics can be found at: >http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/classics/aristotl/mi.htm That is _so_ excellent to learn. I do have (somewhere, at my Swimming-Pool Library, I expect) the two volume edition of the Loeb Classical Library (if two volumes it is), quite dreary. I don't think it's the Ross translation. HUP has a good site for all Loeb classics, and must say I more than often find saying to myself, "All you need is Loeb". The Ross has the better 'ad schol' as in discussion with M. Chase I found out (He put me to task once, to no avail). In _Grice_ by Chapman (Macmillan, Palgrave -- I bought the book which I must have somewhere -- so expensive! It's now on paperback, I understand), she recounts a sort of delightful anecdote by Mrs. Grice: Words to the effect: Grice is teaching metaphysics (Aristotle's) at UC/Berkeley. He has managed to deal only with grad students, if you can believe that. He has Code, and other geniuses there, but mainly Code in metaphysical Aristotelian matters. They together device a pretty good approach to matters Aristotelian (but be careful there, or else you end up echoing Hobbes, "That's not philosophy; that's Aristotelity!"). Notably 'the izz and the hazz' -- which Grice first 'coined' in 1977. Anyway, having taught mainly Cat. and De Interpr. at Oxford, Grice is finding himself teaching, seriously, metaphysics. His classes or seminars were I think catalogued by UC/Berkeley as "Philosophical Problems", though. And the question is ... what edition of Aristotle? --- Mrs. Grice confesses to Chapman that she was surprised Grice could _do_ with English-translations only for the text. His response, "Why, there are quite a few _excellent_ translations out there". --- I think I wrote in the margin to my book, "esp. the one by your tutee, J. L. Ackrill". I'm not familiar with _All_ the translations to Aristotle's metaphysics, and come to think of it, I think R. Hall is reading it now, too. "Metaphysics" in Oxford is quite funny to think about. The Waynflete Prof. of "Metaphysical Philosophy" was at one time Strawson (appointed 1968). I would think that when the Chair was instituted, it was to confront it to "Natural Philosophy" (since after all, 'metaphysical' _is_ 'transnaturalia'). I'm glad there's no current Oxford professor of Natural Philosophy. I too loved the 'ontological marxims' and the _entia realissima_. In "Reply to Richards" -- after the "The Life and Opinions of H. P. Grice" section --, in a section repr. by J. Baker in her edition of 1991 of _The Conception of Value_ -- along with "Method in philosophical psychology" -- Grice plays with the idea or expression of rationes essendi which is just as delightful. It seems he is complaining that philosophers are too much into evidential matters ('rationes cognoscendi', 'rationes credendi') but that _metaphysical_ arguments (as he preferred to call 'transcendental arguments') should aim at explaining why the tiger tigerises (to use his example in _Conception_): final causes for 'entia' (realissima or not) that constitute the metier of _this_ or _that_ thing. Necessity and analyticity, I'm never sure if they are equipolent. But when it comes to _metaphysical_ necessity, a good argument I enjoy hearing is: F is a feature which is an essential feature of the individual i if and only if should i be deprived of F i would _cease_ to *exist*. (I wouldn't use 'property', for isn't 'proper' for Aristotle applied best to _non-essential_ features; and similarly 'accidental property' is also oxymoronic). I'll check with R. B. Jones's new project and report back, hopefully. Among the list of 'unpublications' that Chapman quotes is one "From Genesis to Revelation: a new discourse on metaphysics". I just love the cover of that book, and I do judge a book by it! Grice liked Carnap more than I thought he did. I once looked in the OED for 'pirot' and it says, "a sort of exotic fish". I wrote to the OED and said, "Surely you have to include Carnap, "Pirots karulize elatically", from Intro to Semantics. Grice found the noun delightful for various reasons, not a minor one being that it sounds like Locke's _parrot_. But Grice went one step further in linguistic innovation and creativity when you read in "Method" a whole section dedicated to "explorations in pirotology". L. Horn once wrote a paper on Aristotle which he called "Greek Grice". I congratulated him, and indeed, trying to follow him, wrote one (on Kemmerling) which I called "German Grice". Later Horn told me that _my_ pun is a weaker one: "Greek Grice" (which was delivered in Chicago) was meant, too, as a jeux de mots on Greek _rice_, a local specialty. (In later papers, Horn was able to play on "Gricean" versus "Grecian", too -- indeed most spell-checkers avoid 'Gricean' and turn that into 'Gricean': the ultimate tribute to a man who saw Oxonian Dialectics as "a mere branch" of the _Athenian_ one! Cheers, J. L. Speranza Refs: "Metaphysics", in P. Edwards, Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, citing under 'further references', Grice, H. P., Strawson, P. F., and Pears, D. F., 'Metaphysics' in D. F. Pears, _The Nature of Metaphysics_. London: Macmillan. -- and obscure Grice tryptic piece that gives you some savour of his thinking* Grice, The Tapes. Chapman notes that Grice left a few tapes that he hoped the secretary of UC/Berkeley would one day transcribe. Many deal with metaphysical questions (and answers). **************Remember Mom this Mother's Day! Find a florist near you now. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=florist&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000006) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat May 9 19:21:22 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 9 May 2009 19:21:22 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Aristotle's Metaphysics: The Izz and the Hazz Message-ID: -- and the Hazz Been?! Have just had a good look at R. B. Jones's new pages: rbjones.com on his programme on 'metaphysical positivism' and the specific pages where he tidily displays the W. Ross's translation of Aristotle's 14 books of metaphysics. Since he has displayed an interest in Grice and yet, as he notes, his 'metaphysical positivism' is intended for 'the twenty-first century' as retreating from some unwanted 'tendencies' in late twentieth-philosophy, I offer some links to some questions of Aristotle's metaphysics as discussed by Grice and Code, in a sort of 'analytic' manner. A website at aristotle.tamu.edu/~rasmith/Courses/Ancient/predication.html -- by R. A. Smith -- summarises "To reflect this distinction, [H. P.] Grice [born Holborne, 1913-1988] and [A. D.] Code [I _think_ his PhD student at UC/Berkeley] have proposed calling the two types of predication izzing and hazzing respectively." The question of attribution is slightly important here. Indeed it was Code, in his "Aristotle" paper in the "Metaphysics" section in the Gricean festchrift, P. G. R. I. C. E. Clarendon, 1986) who 'published' the 'unpublished' views of Grice. Code ably credits the occasion: a 1976 Toronto Classics conference. "Rather than following the more usual practice of discussing essentialist claims in terms of first-order predicate calculus with modal operators, I will follow Grice's insights into the basic predication relations, IZZING and HAZZING, when stating the definitions and specifying the operations involves in the construction of a general theory of substance and categories. Much of Aristotle's vocabulary can be understood and simplified in terms of Grice's "izzing" and "hazzing". And, what's more, it is possible, by displaying a number of theorems couched in Grice's terminology, to give a semantico-pragmatic treatment that lies behind Aristotle's own insights." When Loar submitted for publication the "Aristotle" paper by Grice (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 1988 -- issue, 'in memory of H. P. Grice' --), one realised that Grice _had_ indeed to refer to Code as the first 'publication' on the matter (in a footnote). Smith goes on: >if Socrates izz a human and an animal, whereas he hazz paleness. >To summarize this in a table: IZZING HAZZING >Subject and predicate in the same category Subject and predicate in different categories Predicate says what subject is Predicate says what subject has etc. ----- Grice is careful to refer to sources here: some _are_ from the Metaphysics indeed (apparently, his immediate trigger was G. E. L. Owen, "The snares of ontology" which he keeps quoting) but some from other bits from Aristotle's corpus: the Organon, mainly. Indeed, in McFarlane (who teaches courses on both _Grice_ *and* metaphysics) has the Gricean concoction as pertaining to the Categories: johnmacfarlane.net/25a/unit3.html: Categories What is the difference between being SAID OF and being IN (i.e., between IZZING and HAZZING)? Or cfr. Cohen's page faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/433/catlec.htm "For Aristotle, man is what Socrates IS; wise, on the other hand, is not what he IS (even though we say he is wise). Rather, it is something he HAS. (Cf. Grice and Code on IZZing and HAZZing.)" You would think that, by this time, izzing and hazzing SHOULD have made it to the OED3. _Mailto:oed3 at oup.co.uk_ (mailto:oed3 at oup.co.uk) . "To ti en einai" is perfect Aristotle. It encapuslates the treating of the 'infinitive' as a neuter, and the Indeed, I have recently had occasion for discussion this with R. Hall in CHORA. I was indeed challenged by M. Chase, as we were debating some of Aristotle's concoctions: I paraphrase Chase: For Ross (ad Metaph 983a27), to ti en einai means "the answer to the question, what was it to be so-and-so". Ross chronicles three explanations that been given to explain the problematic imperfect of the verb, 'to be', "en" : 1. It's a philosophical imperfect which I take as ad hoc and a petitio. 2. It represents duration. 3. It expresses Arist.'s doctrine of the existence of form before its embodiment in a particular matter. As Chase notes, Ross declines to come down on the side of any one of these three interpretations. Chase, who works in France, goes on to suggest Tricot's French translation of the Metaph. ( n. 3, vol. I, pp. 23-24 of the 1986 reprint) which accounts for the views of Thomas Aquinas, Br?hier, Ravaisson, Bonitz, Werner, Waitz, the Ps.-Alexander, Colle, Ritter and Preller, Lalande, L?on Robin, Schwegler, Rodier, Cruchon, etc., etc." But I rather account for Grice! I find a parallelism, indeed, between Aristotle's "To anthropoi einai" with Grice on 'to tigerise' Conception of Value, ch. iii). Aristotle is somewhat vague to allow 'anthropoi' in the dative _singular_. It reads, colloquially as "what it takes to be a man". Aristotle writes (cf. 1006a34) Cf. Top. 101b38-102a5 1028 33 36, An. Post. 91b-5, and Part. An. 640a33ff, "what it is to be a member of a kind"): "hoti men oun estin ho horismos ho TOU TI EN EINAI logos, kai TO TI EN EINAI ? mon?n t?n ousi?n estin ? malista kai pr?t?s kai hapl?s, d?lon. poteron de tauton estin ? heteron TO TI EN EINAI kai hekaston, skepteon. esti gar ti pro ergou pros t?n peri t?s ousias skepsin: hekaston te gar ouk allo dokei einai t?s heautou ousias, kai TO TI EN EINAI legetai einai h? hekastou ousia. epi men d? t?n legomen?n kata sumbeb?kos doxeien an [20] heteron einai, hoion leukos anthr?pos heteron kai TO LEUKOI ANTHROPOI EINAI ei gar to auto, kai TO ANTHROPOI EINAI kai to leuk?i anthr?p?i to auto: to auto gar anthr?pos kai leukos anthr?pos, h?s phasin, h?ste kai to leuk?i anthr?p?i kai to anthr?p?i: ? ouk anank? hosa kata sumbeb?kos einai [25] tauta, ou gar h?saut?s ta akra gignetai tauta: all' is?s ge ekeino doxeien an sumbainein, ta akra gignesthai tauta ta kata sumbeb?kos, hoion to leuk?i einai kai to mousik?i: dokei de ou: epi de t?n kath' hauta legomen?n ar' anank? tauto einai, hoion ei tines eisin ousiai h?n heterai [30] m? eisin ousiai m?de phuseis heterai proterai, hoias phasi tas ideas einai tines; ei gar estai heteron auto to agathon kai to agath?i einai, kai z?ion kai to z?i?i, kai to onti kai to on." This Ross (now available at _http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/classics/aristotl/mi.htm_ (http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/classics/aristotl/mi.htm) courtesy of R. B. Jones) translates as: "Essence must be used in more than one sense. Thus in one sense there will be no definition of anything, and nothing will have an essence, except substances; and in another those other things will have a definition and essence. It is obvious, then, that the definition is the formula of the essence, and that the essence belongs either only to substances, or especially and primarily and simply. We inquire whether the essence is the same as the particular thing. This is useful for our inquiry about substance; because a particular thing is considered to be nothing other than its own substance, and the essence is called the substance of the thing. In accidental predications, indeed, the thing itself would seem to be different from its essence; e.g., "white man" is different from "essence of white man." If it were the same, "essence of man" and "essence of white man" would be the same. For "man" and "white man" are the same, they say, and therefore "essence of white man" is the same as "essence of man." But perhaps it is not necessarily true that the essence of accidental combinations is the same as that of the simple terms; because the extremes of the syllogism are not identical with the middle term in the same way. Perhaps it might be thought to follow that the accidental extremes are identical; e.g. "essence of white" and "essence of cultured"; but this is not admitted. But in "per se" expressions, is the thing necessarily the same as its essence, e.g., if there are substances which have no other substances or entities prior to them, such as some hold the Ideas to be?For if the Ideal Good is to be different from the essence of good and the Ideal Animal and Being from the essence of animal and being" Ref.: Bostock, D. Aristotle, Metaphysics. Series ed. by J. L. Ackrill Bostock, D. on Grice on conditionals. In R. Walker, 'Conversational implicature' Smith, R. "Aristotle" 1997. Clarendon Aristotle Series, ed. by J. L. Ackrill. Oxford: Clarendon). One notes that strictly, Aristotle's phrase translates, in German, as "Das Ein Man zu sein", which is not _far_ from your common-or-garden Heideggerian idiom that appalled Carnap! Kirwan translates it as either 'for a man to be' or 'to be a man', but doubts (and I with Grice would disagree) Aristotle would make a distinction (too fine?) here. Kirwan, unlike Grice/Code, proposes a modal formalisation using strict-conditional. In his exegesis, Cohen rightly complicates things when he writes, "For it [sc. the essence of X] is not the same as Y, i.e. the X Y, it it is the same as the attribute [X-ness"]. Cohen 1988:313. Enough to be looking forward to the Indian summer. Relying on _http://groups.google.com/group/fa.analytic-philosophy/browse_thread/thread/ 3c425947a2399988/0a57e98b4634d00c?lnk=gst&q=izzing#0a57e98b4634d00c0_ (http://groups.google.com/group/fa.analytic-philosophy/browse_thread/thread/3c4259 47a2399988/0a57e98b4634d00c?lnk=gst&q=izzing#0a57e98b4634d00c0) I offer some symbolisation alla Grice/Code: 1. A izz A. 2. (A izz B & B izz C) --> A izz C. 3. A hazz B -> -(A izz B). 4. A hazz B iff A hazz Some-Thing that izz B. 5. Each universal is a form. 6. (A hazz B & A is a particular) -> there is a C such that (C =/= A) &( A izz B). 7. A is predicable of B iff ((B izz A) v (B hazz Something that izz A). 8. A is essentially predicable of B iff B izz A. 9. A is accidentally predicable of B iff B hazz something that izz A. 10. A = B iff A izz B & B izz A. 11. A is an individual iff (Nec)(For all B) B izz A -> A izz B 12. A is a particular iff (Nec)(For all B) A is predicable of B -> (A izz B & B izz A) 13. A is a universal iff (Poss) (There is a B) A is predicable of A & -(A izz B & B izz A) 14. If A is Some Thing, A is an individual. 15. If A is a Form, A is Some Thing and Universal. 16. A is predicable of B iff (B izz A) v (B hazz Some Thing that Izz A). 17. A is essentially predicable of A. 18. A is accidentally predicable of B -> A =/= B 19. - (A is accidentally predicable of B) -> A =/= B. 20. A is a particular -> A is an individual. 21. A is a particular -> No Thing that is Not Identical with A izz A. 22. No Thing is both particular & a Form. 23. A is a Form -> nothing that is not identical with A izz A. 24. X is a particula -> there is no form B such that A izz B. 25. A is a form -> ((A is predicable of B & A =/= B) -> B hazz A) 26. (A is a form & B is a particular) -> (A is predicable of B iff B hazz A). 27. (A is particular & B is a universal & predicable of A) -> there is a C such that (A =/= C & C is essentially predicable of A) 28. If there are particulars, of which universls are predicable, not every universal is Some Thing. 29. Each universal is Some Thing. 30. If A is a particular, there is no B such that (A =/= B & B is essentially predicable of A). 31. (A is predicable of B & A =/= B) -> A is accidentally predicable of B. Much of Grice's interest here is to analyse Aristotle's casual expression, 'being is said in many ways'. Alert for Grice, "I hope he doesn't mean _senses_!" (Grice's Modified Occam Razor, do not multiply senses beyond necessity -- and his account of 'pragmatic ambiguity' in the final section of "Aristotle on the [alleged] multiplicity of being" PPQ, cited, vol. 69). Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************Remember Mom this Mother's Day! Find a florist near you now. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=florist&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000006) From rh1 at york.ac.uk Mon May 11 10:00:36 2009 From: rh1 at york.ac.uk (rh1 at york.ac.uk) Date: 11 May 2009 15:00:36 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Metaphysics: Grice, Carnap, Aristotle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No, R. Hall isn't reading the Metaphysics just now, though he did read all except the last two books, in Greek, in 1955/56. He was ill recently, and could not face a modern book. He remembered his favourite classics master saying to him that reading ten lines of Homer made him feel that all was right with the world. He also remembered the chap who was going to retire, who was asked by William Golding, "How's your Greek?" Golding explained that the thing to do in retirement was to read Homer. So he got out the Iliad _Loeb edition conveniently, a la Speranza - and since then has read at least 20 lines a day; now he's in the middle of Book Five. He last read it in 1951 (the whole of Homer). The large vocabulary and wide variation in grammatical forms make it quite difficult, but the poetry, which he now appreciates better, is marvellous. The English is no substitute. He has every intention of going on through the 24 books. Best, Roland From Jlsperanza at aol.com Mon May 11 17:21:47 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 17:21:47 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Aristotle's Metaphysics: The Izz and the Hazz Message-ID: For the record: the exact link for Aristotle's Met. 1006a34 is, in the Ross edn, Bk 7, Pt. 6 -- Sections 1-2. -- in R. B. Jones's pages that is: http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/classics/aristotl/m1706c.htm The Greek reads as follows along with Ross's translation. hoti men oun estin ho horismos ho TOU TI EN EINAI logos, kai TO TI EN EINAI ? mon?n t?n ousi?n estin ? malista kai pr?t?s kai hapl?s, d?lon. poteron de tauton estin ? heteron TO TI EN EINAI kai hekaston, skepteon. esti gar ti pro ergou pros t?n peri t?s ousias skepsin: hekaston te gar ouk allo dokei einai t?s heautou ousias, kai TO TI EN EINAI legetai einai h? hekastou ousia. epi men d? t?n legomen?n kata sumbeb?kos doxeien an heteron einai, hoion leukos anthr?pos heteron kai TO LEUKOI ANTHROPOI EINAI ei gar to auto, kai TO ANTHROPOI EINAI kai to leuk?i anthr?p?i to auto: to auto gar anthr?pos kai leukos anthr?pos, h?s phasin, h?ste kai to leuk?i anthr?p?i kai to anthr?p?i: ? ouk anank? hosa kata sumbeb?kos einai tauta, ou gar h?saut?s ta akra gignetai tauta: all' is?s ge ekeino doxeien an sumbainein, ta akra gignesthai tauta ta kata sumbeb?kos, hoion to leuk?i einai kai to mousik?i: dokei de ou: epi de t?n kath' hauta legomen?n ar' anank? tauto einai, hoion ei tines eisin ousiai h?n heterai m? eisin ousiai m?de phuseis heterai proterai, hoias phasi tas ideas einai tines; ei gar estai heteron auto to agathon kai to agath?i einai, kai z?ion kai to z?i?i, kai to onti kai to on." "Section 1." "We must inquire whether each thing and its essence are the same or different." "This is of some use for the inquiry concerning substance; for each thing is thought to be not different from its substance, and the essence is said to be the substance of each thing." Section 2. "Now in the case of accidental unities the two would be generally thought to be different." "E. g. white man would be thought to be different from the essence of white man. [leukos anthropos] =/= [to leukoi anthropoi einai] lit. white man to be a white man white-man being "For if they are the same, the essence of man and that of white man are also the same." [Cfr. 'white suprematism'!] 1981 Times 18 Mar. 8/6 "The Rustenburg constituency..represents some of its most far-right votes for white supremacy"] Aristotle/Ross goes on: "For a man and a white man are the same thing, as people say, so that the essence of white man and that of man would be also the same." "But perhaps it does not follow that the essence of accidental unities should be the same as that of the simple terms." "? ouk anank? hosa kata sumbeb?kos einai tauta, ou gar h?saut?s ta akra gignetai tauta" Right. But then is Aristotle saying that in the old-use of 'coloured' every man has to be _coloured_. I would think so. In fact, my friends who describe theirselves as 'white' I say, "don't you think _pink_ describes you better?" (I narrow down 'white' to what _Diary of a Disappointed Man_ calls a 'Tuke boy')Oddly, the OED defines 'coloured', among other ways, as, "Having a skin other than ?white?" (This is _not_ analytic a priori alla "Nothing [not even The Times] can be white and black and red all over"] (The first use for 'coloured' (in this use) being (1611) but a colourful quote found in Mrs. Stowe: 1850 MRS. STOWE Uncle Tom's C. xviii. 182 Among the coloured circles of New Orleans). Aristotle goes on: >For the extreme terms are not in the same way identical with the middle term. But perhaps this might be thought to follow, that the extreme terms, the accidents, should turn out to be the same, e.g. the essence of white and that of musical; but this is not actually thought to be the case." Exactly. But we do speak of _black_ music, though. ("jazz"). :). Oddly I was reading in a book in the series of Sexual Diversity edited by the University of Sussex (of all the world's universities) that 'musical' (that some translate as 'cultured') was once synonym with 'gay'! ("Are you musical?" Being a code question. But surely some say I'm rambling and that the Metaphysics is complex enough without us needing to tease about coloured and musical! JLS **************Recession-proof vacation ideas. Find free things to do in the U.S. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-ideas/domestic/national-tourism-week?ncid=emlcntustrav00000002) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Mon May 11 14:22:34 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 14:22:34 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Metaphysics: Grice, Carnap, Aristotle Message-ID: I wrote: >come to think of it, I think R. Hall [read it sometime ago -- all the books 'except the last two books' (*) (* An excellent thing about the internet is that you can edit what you can _come to think_ [of it]).] In a message dated 5/11/2009 10:01:19 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, rh1 at york.ac.uk writes: >So he [Hall] got out the Iliad _Loeb >edition conveniently, a la Speranza Right. If we apply the mutatis mutandis ["lit. ?things having been changed that have to be changed? (1272 in a British source)" I provide the OED to tease friendly Hall since he worked with _them_] [[Incidentally, when Grice said to Austin, "I don't care what the dictionary says?" explain why the Oxford is both _meant_ and not meant]] that's less of a dilemma alla Buridan for it's Tredennick or Tredennick (Hobson's choice). (Hugh Tredennick who [izz] professor of classics at Royal Holloway College and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at London University) With _Iliad_ (and sticking conveniently alla Speranza to Loeb) there's no Hobson's choice and I _know_ Hall is properly 'ignoring' what he calls 'no substitute' by, of all people, Augustus Taber Murray, Professor of Greek at Stanford University, who produced his Loeb edition of the Iliad fin 1924. "No more faithful translation of Homer was ever made, and its elegance matched its fidelity. Homer's formulaic epithets, phrases, and sentences were consistently rendered, and his artificial amalgam of dialects and archaic vocabulary were, as was perfectly acceptable in those days, reflected in archaic English." When the Loeb group decided to 'renew' the thing they engaged the services of William F. Wyatt (professor of classics at Brown) -- "The Greek text facing a faithful and literate prose translation by Murray. William F. Wyatt brings the Loeb's Iliad up to date, with a rendering that retains Murray's admirable style but is written for today's readers." i.e. that does _not_ retain Murray's 'admirable style', so admirable that it has to be rewritten. I expect Patroclus is now 'gay'. Anway, what we have come to! Enough to give Borges the creeps if he were alive ("I have read Quixote in both the vernacular and in Motteaux's translation for Dent -- and can honestly testify that the original is not faithful to the translation"). Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************Recession-proof vacation ideas. Find free things to do in the U.S. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-ideas/domestic/national-tourism-week?ncid=emlcntustrav00000002) From rbj at rbjones.com Thu May 14 09:23:09 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 14:23:09 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Aristotle's Metaphysics: The Izz and the Hazz In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200905141423.09844.rbj@rbjones.com> I have spend some time cogitating on Speranza's interesting pastiche on Aristotle's metaphysics. There is resonance with the direction I am heading with metaphysical positivism, and in some future message I hope to give an account of where I stand there and what kind of interest in Aristotle it engenders. However, for now, some minor observations on Speranza's message. When I first read of the IZZing and HAZZing distinction it made my think of the conflation in Aristotle's notion of predication of two things which set theory carefully distinguishes, viz. set membership and set inclusion and for a very short while I though the two distinctions connected (I now see that they are pretty much orthogonal). I played with giving an account of Aristotelean predication in terms of both for a while. This would have taken us along the lines of treating Aristotlean predication using a predicate calculus, which we are assured is common though Speranza had no examples of this apart from the material he supplied at the end (of which more anon). It wasn't very clear what milage was made out of IZZing and HAZZing, since Grice seems here to be providing duplicates for Aristotle's use of SAID OF and IN, and Code apparently in discussing Grice declined to use his terms and invented a third pair for the same purpose. I am guessing that the virtue in the exercise was not in this colourful terminology but in some substantive analysis which followed, and perhaps yielded the conclusions which Speranza presented in a formal manner. My knowledge of Aristotle is not good enough to give a proper critique of Speranza's 31 propositions, but some things stuck out and I shall mention them. On Sunday 10 May 2009 00:21:22 Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: >I offer some symbolisation alla Grice/Code: > >1. A izz A. >2. (A izz B & B izz C) --> A izz C. >3. A hazz B -> -(A izz B). >4. A hazz B iff A hazz Some-Thing that izz B. >5. Each universal is a form. >6. (A hazz B & A is a particular) -> there is a C such that (C =/= A) &( A >izz B). The premise of 6 entails (using (3)) the denial of the second conjunct in the conclusion. Is there a typo here? >7. A is predicable of B iff ((B izz A) v (B hazz Something that izz A). >8. A is essentially predicable of B iff B izz A. >9. A is accidentally predicable of B iff B hazz something that izz A. >10. A = B iff A izz B & B izz A. >11. A is an individual iff (Nec)(For all B) B izz A -> A izz B >12. A is a particular iff (Nec)(For all B) A is predicable of B -> (A izz >B & B izz A) >13. A is a universal iff (Poss) (There is a B) A is predicable of A & -(A >izz B & B izz A) >14. If A is Some Thing, A is an individual. >15. If A is a Form, A is Some Thing and Universal. >16. A is predicable of B iff (B izz A) v (B hazz Some Thing that Izz A). >17. A is essentially predicable of A. >18. A is accidentally predicable of B -> A =/= B >19. - (A is accidentally predicable of B) -> A =/= B. On the face of it 18 and 19 (with excluded middle) give A =/= A. >20. A is a particular -> A is an individual. >21. A is a particular -> No Thing that is Not Identical with A izz A. >22. No Thing is both particular & a Form. >23. A is a Form -> nothing that is not identical with A izz A. >24. X is a particula -> there is no form B such that A izz B. No X on right hand side, so we can delete the condition (if there are any particulas) and hence conclude -(A izz A)? >25. A is a form -> ((A is predicable of B & A =/= B) -> B hazz A) >26. (A is a form & B is a particular) -> (A is predicable of B iff B hazz >A). >27. (A is particular & B is a universal & predicable of A) -> there is a C >such that (A =/= C & C is essentially predicable of A) >28. If there are particulars, of which universls are predicable, not every >universal is Some Thing. >29. Each universal is Some Thing. Don't 28 and 29 together deny the premise of 27 (and hence make its conclusion unconditioal)? >30. If A is a particular, there is no B such that (A =/= B & B is >essentially predicable of A). >31. (A is predicable of B & A =/= B) -> A is accidentally predicable of >B. Don't we have: A is essentially predicable of B -> - (A is accidentally predicable of B) If we do then using 31 we can get A =/= B -> -(B izz A), and with the above -(B izz A) for any A and B. 31 seems to be denying essential predicability except where A and B are identical. Hopefully these are mostly typo's on Speranza's part or misundertandings on mine. I would be interested to know the sources in Aristotle of these conclusions, presumably there are references in Grice's paper, and I would put up a page linking to the relevant paragraphs if this information could be unearthed and any problems resolved. Ideally one would come up with formal definitions of the relevant concepts and prove these claims, but coming up with suitable definitions could be tricky. I will to try to come up with a concise account of why a "Metaphysical Positivist" might be interested in Aristotle's metaphysics and what kind of interest he might have in it. Roger Jones From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun May 17 14:05:32 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 14:05:32 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Aristotle's Metaphysics: The Izz and the Hazz Message-ID: In a message dated 5/15/2009 7:02:10 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: >I have spend some time cogitating >on Speranza's interesting >pastiche on Aristotle's metaphysics. Excellent you found it interesting. And pastiche is _so_ Speranza! --- >There is resonance with the direction I am heading with >metaphysical positivism, and in some future message I >hope to give an account of where I stand there and what >kind of interest in Aristotle it engenders. Yes, but remember Hobbes's motto (I learned it via the OED): "That's not philosophy, that's Aristotelity!" Strictly: "That study is not properly Philosophy, but Aristotelity." Leviathan (1651) IV xlvi 370 Also remember that Grice loved, rather, "Ariskant" (vide Chapman, _Grice_, now in paperback), a.k.a. Kantotle (vide "Life and Opinions of Paul Grice" and "In the tradition of Kantotle" -- the latter being J. F. Bennett's reply of a book aptly called, Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, Ends [PGRICE], for the TLS). >However, for now, some minor observations on Speranza's >message. >When I first read of the IZZing and HAZZing distinction >it made my think of the conflation in Aristotle's notion >of predication of two things which set theory carefully >distinguishes, viz. set membership and set inclusion and >for a very short while I though the two distinctions >connected (I now see that they are pretty much orthogonal). Excellent. In "Reply to Richards", which Grice contributed to PGRICE, there is some extense treatment of what Grice calls "extensionalism". I think he sees himself as pilgrim in the path to the holly of hollies, and being attacked by (as I recall counting them) _nine_ betes noires. One is Extensionalism. He goes on to express why it fails. As I understood him, it has to do with, er, well, the inability to account for _intensions_. I think in Aristotelian idiotic parlance (I'm using 'idiotic' to refer to his view of the _idion_ or proper -- 'idiosyncratic' is a more polite term) it's the problem of 'man' (anthropos) = {R. B. Jones, J. L. Speranza, Steven Bayne, etc...} extension of man Then there's 'definition' c) man = class of 'featherless bipeds' ({J. L. Speranza, R. B. Jones, Steven Bayne... etc} Then there's the class b) man = homo ridens ({R. B. Jones, Steven Bayne, J. L. Speranza...}) Finally, there's the class a) man = zoon logikon ({R. B. Jones, J. L. Speranza [in his best moments], Steven Bayne...} For Aristotle (and Porphyry -- my views here are helped by discussion with M. Chase who wrote his PhD on Porphyry): (a) is _horismos_ or definitio per genus et differentiam specificam (that Porphyry calls 'quality of the being' -- ousious poiotes); (b) is by 'proprium', which is not so good (indeed what I call "Aristotle's idiocy"); (c) is even worse, by 'sumbebekos' (accidens). There is a lot of Aristotelian confusion here. The Romans translated 'sumbebekos' by 'contingens', which is an essentially modal notion (as everything we are discussing here is -- if we don't use modal logic if because with Grice/Code, we're over-respecting or abiding by what D. Kaplan calls 'a lingering prejudice' -- vide the online pdf by B. Partee on the memorable Summer Institute at Irvine 1971). Aristotle uses "haplos idion" with the example of 'triangle' -- the passage is in a googlebook on Aristotle on modality). Apparently he did realise the _proprium_ can be either 'essential' or not. And yet not accidental. _Very_ hard to formalise in modal logic, or in the more primitive logic of izzing and hazzing, I claim (Never mind testing the validity of the postulates or theorems). R. B. Jones continues: >I played with giving an account of Aristotelean predication >in terms of both for a while. This would have taken us >along the lines of treating Aristotlean predication using >a predicate calculus, which we are assured is common though >Speranza had no examples of this apart from the material >he supplied at the end (of which more anon). Yes. What surprised me slightly in reading Grice's formalization is x I y x izz y (strictly, Grice uses, "x izzES y") This he symbolises as a two-place predicate I(x, y). The problems are: avoidance of "=", but surely we don't want the 'is' of "identity" _everytime_. In fact, Myro-Grice developed this theory of time-relative identity where you hardly get to get 'identity' in _no_ time. The other problem is Pears/Thomson (I think it is), in Strawson, "Philosophical Logic": Is existence a predicate? It would seem, on the face of it, that if one sees this I(x, y) one needs an elaboration or justification to the fact that 'izz' is _not_ a predicate. The Romans apparently were pretty confused about this, and Hobbes too. I read and reread Kretzmann on this ("History of Semantics", in Edwards, Encyclopaedia of Philosophy) and other places, but could never understand the _subtlety_ (call it _nice_ distinction alla how many angels can dance on the head of a pin) of treating: 'animal rationalis' as predicate or 'is animal rationalis' as predicate -- it's all, apparently, about the copulation. ---- Strawson was so fascinated about this that all of his students in Oxford as from circa 1959 wrote their theses on this, starting, I hope, with J. R. Searle: Predication. ---- >It wasn't very clear what milage was made out of IZZing >and HAZZing, since Grice seems here to be providing duplicates >for Aristotle's use of SAID OF and IN, and Code apparently >in discussing Grice declined to use his terms and invented >a third pair for the same purpose. I see. Beautiful you were able to re-translate the izz back to the 'said of' and the hazz to the 'in'. Will think about this. This is an occasional reply, seeing that I _have_ to leave the house soon, but would rather send this as it is. The 'said of' is very interesting as it may connect to 'ta legomena' (what is said). Particularly, I believe the verb 'say' is overused. Man is said to be musical, yes, and white, and cultured, and grammatikos. Surely who says what for what purpose is of no amount when it comes to things that matter (Butterflies -- are they what they are because they are _said_ to be this or that? If so, surely the Categories of Aristotle by far define exclusively what he meant by the Metaphysics). The 'in' sounds more promising. Count me in for that analysis. >I am guessing that the virtue in the exercise was not in >this colourful terminology but in some substantive analysis >which followed, and perhaps yielded the conclusions >which Speranza presented in a formal manner. Well, yes. I counted the things Code notes in his "Aristotle: Essence and Accident" (I think the title is) in PGRICE. I counted 31. I once tried to formalise them in terms of System G -- This I called System G-HP, which is a variant of Myro's System G (for Grice) The HP is not for Herbert-Paul but for hopefully plausible/highly powerful, I forget what). Myro is ironising on Grice's use of System Q in his tribute to Quine. So there are quite a few systems -- i.e. predicate calculus with or without identity which we can work on here, and they need not be first-order only. Indeed, most of Metaphysics seems (as Strawson notes) to be about 'substantiation' which is licensed by _grammar_: "Grice's musicality is admirable". Jones: >My knowledge of Aristotle is not good enough to give a >proper critique of Speranza's 31 propositions, but >some things stuck out and I shall mention them. >> A izz A >> (A izz B & B izz C) ---> A izz C >> A hazz B ---> ~(A izz B) >> A hazz B <---> A hazz Some-Thing that izz B >> Each universal is a form. [Yes, Code skips formalising that, for better or worse. I followed his blue suit and blue print] >> (A hazz B & A is a particular) ---> there is a C such that (C =/= A) & (A izz B). Jones: >The premise ... entails (using (3)) the denial of the second conjunct in the >conclusion. Is there a typo here? I think there is! Will double check. Note that the clumsy "=/=" is meant to symbolise the inequality sign -- as Rawls calls it [Just joking after his _Theory of Justice_.]. Why wonders why all this fuss is they are going to use "=" and define it alla Leibniz, but I should revise that too. It pained me to write, "There is a C..." perhaps it's best to retranslate A, B, and C, as x, y, and z. "There is a C" may make sense in second-order logic, though. Imagine the problem with Aristotle: no proper history of logic and those old parchment full of Greek symbols. I wonder how he manage to _think_ things. ---- >> A is predicable of B <---> ((B izz A) v (B hazz Something that izz A) >> A is essentially predicable of B <---> B izz A In this and other uses of the biconditional, I am I think retransliterating Code's more harmless, "=df", which I avoid since it implies "=", and I'd rather keep this as extensional as I can. >> A is accidentally predicable of B <---> B hazz something that izz A >> A = B <---> A izz B & B izz A -- And Lebniz is turning on his grave. :) >> A is an individual <---> (Nec)(For all B) B izz A ---> A izz B Again, for commodity, seems ok. But best to symbolise whatever B _stands_ for as 'y'. >> A is a particular <----> (Nec)(For all B) A is predicable of B ---> (A izz B & B izz A) >> A is a universal <----> (Poss) (There is a B) A is predicable of A & -(A izz B & B izz A) -- and Ockham is turning on his grave. >> If A is Some Thing, A is an individual. >> If A is a Form, A is Some Thing and Universal. Oddly, "Formosa" the country in the Philippines, I believe is something but hardly universal. >> A is predicable of B <----> (B izz A) v (B hazz Some Thing that Izz A) >> A is essentially predicable of A -- Problem here is otiosity. Surely one can say, "My horse is a horse". As opposed to a _toy_ horse? I trust every instantiation of the above theorem yields a flout to Grice's conversational maxim of informativeness (cfr. "War is war"; "women is women" discussed in WOW, ii) >> A is accidentally predicable of B ---> A =/= B >> ~(A is accidentally predicable of B) ---> A =/= B. This must involve some typo too. I shall check. >On the face of it 18 and 19 (with excluded middle) give A =/= A. Right. I'll find the typo for you. >> A is a particular ---> A is an individual cfr. Strawson, "Individuals: an essay in descriptive metaphysics". All the words have value there. And Grice says, "a reflection by yours truly found in the proceedings, unacknowledged" -- or words to that effect. >> A is a particular ---> No Thing that is Not Identical with A izz A >> No Thing is both particular & a Form. >> A is a Form ---> nothing that is not identical with A izz A >> X is a particular ---> there is no form B such that A izz B Jones: >No X on right hand side, so we can delete the condition (if there are >any particulars) and hence conclude -(A izz A)? No. I wouldn't. I rather blame it on a typo -- _somewhere. Perhaps "B is a particular"? Admittedly, by this stage, the izz and the hazz has evaporated and Code is just using some telegraphic thing which he calls "exegesis of Aristotle"! (Just joking. I love the man). >> A is a form ---> ((A is predicable of B & A =/= B) ---> B hazz A) >> (A is a form & B is a particular) ---> (A is predicable of B <----> B hazz A) >> (A is particular & B is a universal & predicable of A) ---> there is a C such that (A =/= C & C is essentially predicable of A) I have a suspicion this "C" is what Aristotle called the _trittos anthropos". I have a suspicion that Code thinks all this is monumentally important to prove Plato _false_. Indeed he provides "Platonic theorems" which I avoided them since my spellchecker couldn't make neither _reason_ or *rhyme* with them. >> If there are particulars, of which universals are predicable, not every universal is Some Thing. Such as the 'square circle'? >> Each universal is Some Thing. Jones: >Don't 28 and 29 together deny the premise of 27 (and hence make its conclusion >unconditional)? I wisely erased all numbers, because I cannot concentrate on two things at the same time. Right now I'm trying to make sense of the formulae. At a later stage I can renumber them and see what you mean. Just joking. Yes, blame it on a typo. >> If A is a particular, there is no B such that (A =/= B & B is essentially predicable of A) >> (A is predicable of B & A =/= B) ---> A is accidentally predicable of B. Jones: >Don't we have: >A is essentially predicable of B -> - (A is accidentally predicable of B) >If we do then using 31 we can get > > A =/= B -> -(B izz A) > >and with the above -(B izz A) for any A and B. >31 seems to be denying essential predicability except where A and B are >identical. Isn't that _deep_? Which is back to anthropos and zoon logikon. Another problem with Aristotle here is _Socrates_. I'm surprised I forgot to mention _him_ when I listed the featherless bipeds: MAN = {Socrates, J. L. Speranza, R. B. Jones, S. Bayne, ...} Aristotle, then, denies that "Socrates" can be predicated. "Socrates izz Socrates"? I would think Aristotle is into very 'eschatological' things (to echo Grice, "Metaphysics and Philosophical Eschatology", in WOW): It's like, "if to be a man, you have to be a zoon, then it is essential that a man _breathes_, and a posteriori, is rational. So while "a man breathes" is _accidental_ to his being rational, then it can be predicated provided ..." etc. And then Hobbes said -- in Leviathan: "That study is not properly Philosophy, but Aristotelity." Leviathan, Book IV, section xlvi 370 >Hopefully these are mostly typos on Speranza's part or >misundertandings on mine. But never both, of course! :) >I would be interested to know the sources in Aristotle of these >conclusions, presumably there are references in Grice's paper, >and I would put up a page linking to the relevant paragraphs if >this information could be unearthed and any problems resolved. Yes. I should check with Code's and Grice's papers. Grice's would be "Aristotle on the multiplicity of being". Don't expect a "reference section" at the end of it. There's the occasional ref. to Arist. Met., Cat., Top., with the good numbering of the Greek edition. >Ideally one would come up with formal definitions of the relevant >concepts and prove these claims, but coming up with suitable >definitions could be tricky. >I will try to come up with a concise account of why a >"Metaphysical Positivist" might be interested in >Aristotle's metaphysics and what kind of interest >he might have in it. Excellent. From what I see, and you do mention Comte as coining the thing, _none_! I mean, it's all contingency, accidency, and (almost) the apocalypse! But what _is_ interesting is that _talk_ of 'contingency', 'accidency' and the apocalypse is almost Gricean if not altogether Aristotelian and Grecian to the core. Chapman lists among the unpublications of Grice: From Genesis to Revelations: a new discourse of metaphysics. It would seem that the anti-metaphysical postivist _is_ somehow 'implicated' (in the legal sense now, almost) to account for, of all things, the _rejection_ of Aristotelian essentialism! What is fun about Carnap and the "logical" positivists, is that they indeed found it to be so much 'over their heads' (Grice is dismissive in "Actions and Events" (PPQ 1988), as Chapman notes, when he refers to the "Vienna rednecks") that they thought a _logical syntax_ would do wonders. Start with: Nicht nichtet --- But from a few idiocies by Heidegger, we cannot go on to claim that _metaphysics_ *in toto* should be forbidden from the universities! --- In fact, as a serious student of philosophy, one is not too serious about Aristotle. One has to become _empiricist_ and _sceptical_. By the time one resumes Aristotle's seminars (at the postgrad level with Code and Grice) it's perhaps too late, but as _Plato_ said, "it's never too late" (to fall in love). And now _must_ rush... Talk to you later. Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************Recession-proof vacation ideas. Find free things to do in the U.S. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-ideas/domestic/national-tourism-week?ncid=emlcntustrav00000002) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun May 17 22:39:08 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 22:39:08 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Aristotle's Metaphysics: The Izz and the Hazz Message-ID: Something to consider, also, vis a vis 'analytic' (or modern analytic) attempts to formalise Aristotle's metaphysics, is Code's caveat -- which I have posted already in the first memo to this thread: "Rather than following the MORE USUAL practice of discussing essentialist claims in terms of first-order predicate calculus WITH MODAL OPERATORS, I will follow Grice's insights ..." (my emphasis). But then one sees some of his formulae, involving (in my treatment of them, granted) things like "Nec" and one wonders if the desideratum has been fulfilled. I think the most serious Grice himself got into this is in the formal sections of his "Vacuous Names" where he considers various interpretations for syntactic structures using model-theory and formal semantics. As for the formulas themselves, we should perhaps use "F" and "G" and "H" instead of the A, B, and C. -- to quinise things a bit. And proper variables. One thing that intrigued me in the Code approach is indeed the close faithfulness to the Aristotelian idioms. Alas, I seem to have erradicated the Greek, but Code is careful to quote in Greek, e.g. "tode ti", "kath'olou", etc. So it is more like a running commentary on Aristotle for, er, UC/B grad students... I would suggest some reformulations then: >> A izz A Greek, like Latin, was pretty free, grammatical. "Homo est homo" or 'to anthropos esti to anthropos' would be things philosophers could say. "Man is man" can be the closest. Now, Greek commentators (i.e. Anglophone speakers commenting on Greek idioms) will say that "homo est homo" (or its Greek equivalent) could not be just _understood_ as "man is man" but also a2. This man is this man a3. A man is a man and all sort of confusing variants. Since one may not want to swallow the subtletites of Greek or Latin grammar (plus, one couldn't), it's best prehaps to treat "A" as a definite descriptor, "the A" -- true: this sounds a bit of a 'constraint' (there is another word but I can't think of it right now). In that case "The A izzes the A" may be something one can say in English, "The cat is a cat". Now, if we stick with Grice to use "I" (izzes) as a predicate, there is the further problem that one would need a formula including two definite descriptors, however identical. Suppose we call the cat, "Little Paw" and symbolise it by "p". I think Grice would want us to have: I(p, p). Which is Frege: a = a, almost. I recall, also that Code has all sorts of rubrics for all sorts of things: axioms, postulates, theorems, corollaries. I just erased all that, and numbered the things. Grice's "Aristotle on the multiplicity" cares to give some account of the formation rules, and basic properties of izzing and hazzing (transitive? commutative?). Yet, none of the detail he displays in "Vacuous Names" or Myro in his unpublished "System G" ("in gratitude to Paul Grice for the idea"). >> (A izz B & B izz C) ---> A izz C this seems to be the mere transitivity of the predicate I: I(x,y) & I(y,z) ---> I(x,z) Also formalisable as a 'formation' rule, or metalogical principle with the first two conjuncts as premises a = b b = c _____ ergo a = c >> A hazz B ---> ~(A izz B) This reminds me of the rather offensive phrase by Grice (in "Actions and Events") about the "rednecks of Vienna". Suppose one of them is called, er... Karnap. (Just to tease!). Surely the proper thing to say of Karnap is that he _has_ a redneck, not that he is one. On the other hand, Grice seems to be teasing Strawson and his non-ownership (so-called) theory. We _don't_ usually say, "Apple has smelly". "Apple _is_ smelly; it has smell". So it does not hurt to recall that the 'hazz' is merely Grice's idion (or idiom, even) for 'has among its accidental properties ...' H(x, y) ---> ~I(x, y) If an apple merely has a worm (because it's rotten) it doesn't mean the apple _is_ wormy. I'm not sure I have symbolised Code's formula alright. Perhaps the scope of ~ should be the whole formula: ~(H(x, y) --> I(x, y) >> A hazz B <---> A hazz Some-Thing that izz B Well, we should get serious here about this "Some-thing". In ebonic English, I am told, they don't say _thing_ any more. They say "some". "I saw some" This seems like a good grammatical manoeuvre, since -- things: what are they? H (x, y) <----> y = z & H (x, z). I'm not sure that above symbolises the thing. I tend to recall that whenever I use the biconditional, <----->, is to mark a mere stipulation or definition. I guess my feeling if that you are going to present the whole thing or attempt of metaphysica more geometrico as a chain of definitions, who'll buy it? Biconditionals look more honest. ---- >> Each universal is a form. This has to do, and can be ignored, with Code's attempt to prove Aristotle over Plato. So he needs to rephrase Platonisms like 'form' (eidos) and universal in "Aristotelian" terms. I was so flabbergasted when I read that 'theorem' that I became formally illiterate! >> (A hazz B & A is a particular) ---> there is a C such that (C =/= A) & (A izz B). H(x, y) & [x is a spatio-temporal continuant?] --> etc. Problem there is that while _spatio-temporal continuants_ seem, to me, basic particulars, or individuals, I'm not sure that was the case for Aritotle. "White" is a _particular_ colour, for example. Or "the white" as the Greeks would say. But I do think that it's best to stick to _particulars_ in the lower eschatological stages of our methaphysical endeavours (this reminds me of Borges's dedication to himself in "Fictions": 'an argentine lost in metaphysics') to 'prima substantia', prote ousia. Things like Socrates, you, and me, rather than the colour white, or the Republic of Indonesia. >> A is predicable of B <---> ((B izz A) v (B hazz Something that izz A) Jones is right, if I understood him alright, that 'predicable' seems to metalinguistic to be true. In any case, shouldn't there be a quote there, somewhere: "A" is predicable of B? I wouldn't say that my mother is predicable of my father. It's predicates which are predicable. This is where our use of variables condemns us. And definite descriptors seem to be of no better avail. We need simpler predicates like "clumsy", "silly", "forgetful", etc. I still think "B" above, could be "my uncle", i.e. a definite descriptor. My uncle is forgetful, clumsy, silly, and only a political one, anyways. ---- >> A is essentially predicable of B <---> B izz A Perhaps using Phi and Khi could do too. Or Phi-1 and Phi-2. Yes, that would be the best. Now the 'lexical' trick here is that 'essence' (for it's all about the essence in Aristotle) has become a lexical expression (as Mussolini said of Italy, "Italy had become a mere geographical expression"). "Essentially predicable" is ambiguous. First, nobody should be forced to predicate anything. "predicable in the essential mode" sounds softer. Here I do think something like INCLUSION versus membership is, as R. B. Jones suggests, what is at stake. homo est rationalis therefore 'rationalis' is predicable of 'homo' in the essential mode. I.e. (Ex) Mx & ~Rx ---> E! read: should there be a man who is not rational, ERROR! -- the item desintegrates! --- >> A is accidentally predicable of B <---> B hazz something that izz A Well, I suppose that in a world where things are either accidentally or essentially predicable, there is an easier way to define 'predicable in the essential mode' by excluding the other possibility. >> A = B <---> A izz B & B izz A x = y <----> I(x, y) & I(y, x) Here one _should_ consult, Myro, "Time and Identity", in PGRICE -- the example of Hobbes's wooden ship. For this requires a chronological logic with time indexes. So that x = y is relative to time 1. Grice/Myro borrowed this from Geach. >> A is an individual <---> (Nec)(For all B) B izz A ---> A izz B So here we distinguish 'particular' (as in "particular" colour) from 'individual'. "Individual color" is possibly obsolete or pedantic. <----> Nec (y) (I (y, x) ---> I (x, y)) I fail to see how that transmogrification _clarifies_ the simpler 'individual' ('atomon', in Greek). >> A is a particular <----> (Nec)(For all B) A is predicable of B ---> (A izz B & B izz A) Nec. (y) ... I(x, y) & B(x, y) >> A is a universal <----> (Poss) (There is a B) A is predicable of A & -(A izz B & B izz A) I think the use of "Poss" (definable of course in terms of "Nec") is that a 'kath'olou' need not be _instantiated_. I will not name 'circular squareness', but something like "being the mother of 54 children". & ~(I(x, y) & I(y, x) Most of these formulae seem to be dangerously ending with the same proposition. >> If A is Some Thing, A is an individual. I suppose one _may_ want to include here, "individual colour"? Mary uses hats with very _individual_ colours. She is very _individual_ as to clothes. Note that with 'particular' it seems otiosely appropriate. >> If A is a Form, A is Some Thing and Universal. This is more like the Platonic side to Aristotle. With 'eidos' as form. Or sometimes 'morphe' (as in 'hylemorphism). >> A is predicable of B <----> (B izz A) v (B hazz Some Thing that Izz A) I(x, y) v H(y, z) & I(x, z) >> A is essentially predicable of A Not Socrates is Socrates, but 'a silly man is a silly man'. Note that people overdo this: boys will be boys. Surely not: they will be silly men, oneday. >> A is accidentally predicable of B ---> A =/= B >> ~(A is accidentally predicable of B) ---> A =/= B. >> A is a particular ---> A is an individual So, it's the other way round, "particular car", "individual car". "A particular car with an individual colour", or "an individual car with a particular color" (Or chariots if you want to keep the Grecian spirit) >> A is a particular ---> No Thing that is Not Identical with A izz A I(x, x) >> No Thing is both particular & a Form. >> A is a Form ---> nothing that is not identical with A izz A I(x, x) >> X is a particular ---> there is no form B such that A izz B I(x, y) >> A is a form ---> ((A is predicable of B & A =/= B) ---> B hazz A) Back to the 'eidos': ---> H (y, z) >> (A is a form & B is a particular) ---> (A is predicable of B <----> B hazz A) <---> H(y, x) >> (A is particular & B is a universal & predicable of A) ---> there is a C such that (A =/= C & C is essentially predicable of A) >> If there are particulars, of which universals are predicable, not every universal is Some Thing. >> Each universal is Some Thing. >> If A is a particular, there is no B such that (A =/= B & B is essentially predicable of A) >> (A is predicable of B & A =/= B) ---> A is accidentally predicable of B. As R. B. Jones says, one should have a clue or key as to where Aristotle in his Rossian metaphysics says all this. And second, _why_! Never mind, _what for_! One thing to keep in mind here is Neivens. He has worked a lot on what I call 'general ontology'. Evans too. It's all general ontology we are treading. Only then we should try ontologia specialis which comes in two flavours: cosmologia, and my favourite, anthropologia or psychologia rationalis -- but I have discussed them elsewhere, -- in my "Aristotle's Idiocies" (rejected for the Classical Association of Aristotelian Scholars, South Pacific). If you can't schiffer, grice (Kemmerling) If you can't Aristotelize, platonize blatantly. And if you can't either, join the METAPHYSICAL POSITIVIST LEAGUE! Oddly, Chapman keeps misspelling 'eschatology' in her book on Grice as 'skatology' -- which may be a reminder of what Karnap would say of all this, "Sh--t" (implicating: "To hell!"). But little did he know. Cheers, J. L. Speranza "All metaphysics has been but footnotes to Plato" (Whitehead) **************Recession-proof vacation ideas. Find free things to do in the U.S. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-ideas/domestic/national-tourism-week?ncid=emlcntustrav00000002) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Mon May 18 19:13:18 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 19:13:18 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Aristotle's Metaphysics: The Izz and the Hazz Message-ID: And of course, what is perhaps Grice's greatest inspiration from Aristotle's metaphysics is the account of _final cause_ (or plain 'telos'). We should revise Aristotle's passages on that. To me, Grice came clearest in his Conception of Value (middle lecture) when he speaks, of all things, of the tiger that tigerises --- I would think that in the scheme of izz and hazz one is asking what izz a tiger? a thing that tigerises. It is on account of the _metier_ or telos of the tiger that we build on 'ontological' postulates as to what the tiger izz or merely hazz. Surely he loved cats. But in "Reply to Richards" he admits, "Charming as they are, cats won't do as pirotically justified transubstantials" (or something). He proposes, instead, 'humans'. A 'human' _has_ a metier -- what the human izz. To become a _person_, where 'person' is now a technical term, almost, for 'rational human', I would think. Grice speaks a lot of 'pirots' (apres Carnap), since I would think his programme was one of _applied_ or 'special' ontology (what he called 'philosophical psychology'). It is with a view to finality, then, that Aristotle's _categories_ assume _sense_. They cease to be 'arbitrary' if only in the sense of self-entrenched via constructive 'metaphysical' routines... Otherwise, it seems, it would be just a game -- not much different from Austin's "Symbolo"! But this is all so obscure that I'm starting to sound like Marina Sbisa (*) ----- (*) See or rather read her contribution in "Grice's Heritage". Bepols. (If you can, I mean, it's not _essential_). J. L. Speranza **************Recession-proof vacation ideas. Find free things to do in the U.S. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-ideas/domestic/national-tourism-week?ncid=emlcntustrav00000002) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Mon May 18 19:02:27 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 19:02:27 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Aristotle's Metaphysics: The Izz and the Hazz Message-ID: Another thing to consider and which I hope falls within what Grice calls the 'shopping list' for eschatology (or metaphysics in general) seems to be a pet interest of his: analogical predications alla 'milk is healthy for you' Aristotle discusses 'healthy' at large. Right now I would not be sure what thing IZZES healthy for Grice. I suppose it may be that a thing HAZZ healthy, also. Grice considers these and other phenomena in the closing section of "Aristotle on the multiplicity of being". Grice's examples (and surely for each of Code's formulae we'd hope to get at least _one_ example or instantiation) include: (as I recall) "a French teacher" "a French poem" "a French poet" ---- In the case of "French" it would seem that what IZZ French is anything (tode ti?) related to "France" qua country. "French poem" can mean, I think Grice says: either (and this he calls, dangerously, one may think, 'pragmatic' or 'contextual' ambiguity (*)): -- poem written in the French language -- poem written by a French subject. Or perhaps that's "French poet": "a poet who writes in the French language", or "a poet from France". So this would be a good application of eschatology -- There seem to be transcategorial epithets involved, even of a harmless kind. In the paper on Eschatology, Grice is really considering 'just' in two senses: moral and legal! The other day, I was watching television and someone was saying of a _legal_ measure: "There's no good about it". Which got me thinking. "Indeed!". Why should _legal_ have to do with _good_ anyway? I would assume mutatis mutandis with 'just'. Grice is fragmenting the Socrates/Thrasymachus discussion (For Trasymachus, 'just' = legally just -- what the powerful deems just; for Socrates, 'just' morally just). It is this debate that leads him to 'eschatology' proper. The Aristotle paper (in PPQ 1989) is more _abstract_ and seems to be basically a reply to Owens, "The snares of ontology". It would seem as if for Grice being snared (if that's the word) has some pleasures to it! JLS **************Recession-proof vacation ideas. Find free things to do in the U.S. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-ideas/domestic/national-tourism-week?ncid=emlcntustrav00000002) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rbj at rbjones.com Tue May 19 16:31:49 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 21:31:49 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Aristotle's Metaphysics: The Izz and the Hazz In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200905192131.49571.rbj@rbjones.com> I am pursuing two lines connected with this thread, apart from directly responding to JLS, which I thought I would mention before getting into details. The first is to play with the formal stuff which JL "transcribed" from Code to see if I can make anything work with my proof tool. This uses a higher order logic, which makes some things easier than the would be in first order. Second, I am trying an exposition, for a hypothetical audience consisting of Carnap, of why a positivist should take metaphysics a bit more seriously and what point there might be in looking at Aristotle's metaphysics. However, these will take longer than a day, so I shall try to keep things going. On Sunday 17 May 2009 19:05:32 Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: >>There is resonance with the direction I am heading with >>metaphysical positivism, and in some future message I >>hope to give an account of where I stand there and what >>kind of interest in Aristotle it engenders. > >Yes, but remember Hobbes's motto (I learned it via the OED): > > "That's not philosophy, that's Aristotelity!" > >Strictly: > >"That study is not properly Philosophy, but Aristotelity." > Leviathan (1651) IV xlvi 370 I am so far from being a scholar that I imagine myself immune to falling into the trap of studying Aristotle and losing the point. >Excellent. In "Reply to Richards", which Grice contributed to PGRICE, there > is some extense treatment of what Grice calls "extensionalism". I think he >sees himself as pilgrim in the path to the holly of hollies, and being >attacked by (as I recall counting them) _nine_ betes noires. One is >Extensionalism. He goes on to express why it fails. A trouble with this are is that the terms extensional and intensional are too heavily overloaded. I should like to know what "Extensionalism" is so that I can decide whether to support this bete noire. I am an extensionalist in this respect, that I believe that an extensional set theory suffices for abstract semantics, even for non-extensional languages. For example, the semantics for modal logics can be given using an extensional language. Whether this has any bearing on Grice's points I have no clue. >>It wasn't very clear what milage was made out of IZZing >>and HAZZing, since Grice seems here to be providing duplicates >>for Aristotle's use of SAID OF and IN, and Code apparently >>in discussing Grice declined to use his terms and invented >>a third pair for the same purpose. > >I see. Beautiful you were able to re-translate the izz back to the 'said >of' and the hazz to the 'in'. Will think about this. This is an occasional >reply, seeing that I _have_ to leave the house soon, but would rather send >this as it is. You give me too much credit here, I got that from one of the reference in your message. >I counted the things Code notes in his "Aristotle: Essence and >Accident" (I think the title is) in PGRICE. I counted 31. I once tried to >formalise them in terms of System G -- This I called System G-HP, which is a >variant of Myro's System G (for Grice) The HP is not for Herbert-Paul but >for hopefully plausible/highly powerful, I forget what). Myro is ironising >on Grice's use of System Q in his tribute to Quine. So there are quite a > few systems -- i.e. predicate calculus with or without identity which we > can work on here, and they need not be first-order only. Indeed, most of > Metaphysics seems (as Strawson notes) to be about 'substantiation' which > is licensed by _grammar_: "Grice's musicality is admirable". I'm playing with ProofPower HOL which is a polymorphic w-order logic. Lots of issues arise. I think you need to completely separate the notion of predication in Aristotle from the notions of predication in modern logics. You have to use the latter to give a modern account of the former but they should not be confused. Thus, in most treatments "izz" and "hazz" will be predicates (in some modern sense) though of course they are not predicates in Aristotle's sense. >In this and other uses of the biconditional, I am I think retransliterating > Code's more harmless, "=df", which I avoid since it implies "=", and I'd >rather keep this as extensional as I can. I haven't grasped what the problem with "=" is. >Jones: >>Don't 28 and 29 together deny the premise of 27 (and hence make its > >conclusion > >>unconditional)? There is an elementary logical error in this observation of mine, which should read: >>Don't 28 and 29 together deny the premise of 27 >>(and hence make it vacuous)? This "redneck" stuff sounds rather ad hominem! Not what I would have expected from Grice. Roger From Jlsperanza at aol.com Fri May 22 13:45:52 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 13:45:52 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Aristotle's Metaphysics: The Izz and the Hazz Message-ID: R. B. Jones on post of 19/5: >I am trying an exposition, for a hypothetical >audience consisting of Carnap, of why a positivist >should take metaphysics a bit more seriously and >what point there might be in looking at Aristotle's >metaphysics. >I am an extensionalist in this respect, that I believe >that an extensional set theory suffices for abstract >semantics, even for non-extensional languages. >For example, the semantics for modal logics can >be given using an extensional language. >I'm playing with ProofPower HOL which is a polymorphic w-order logic. >Thus, in most treatments "izz" and "hazz" will be predicates >(in some modern sense) though of course they are not predicates >in Aristotle's sense. ------ I love the idea of the ProofPower HOL and you are perfectly right about the other points. I'm not sure what Grice meant by "Extensionalism". A consideration of his 'Retrospective Epilogue' (WOW, 1989), 'Strand 5' (I think) may be in order. He himself has not used, as far as I know, _modal_ formalisms ('nec' and 'poss'). His talk of 'intensional' dates back, as I can see, to his 6th William James Lecture on 'word-meaning'. When concluding what a definition of '... means ...' in terms of '... believes ...' (or at least '... displays psychological attitude ...') he makes a point that the audience (which included, if not Carnap, Quine) would have to _bear_ (if that's the word) with, e.g. 'the use of quantification in intensional contexts' ("utterer believes that there is no inference element such that ..."). I believe in his more formal 'Vacuous Names' (in the Quine festschrift, "Words and Objections [sic!]", he has a final section on '... believes ...' predicates per se, and how a semantics of 'vacuous' names should account for some 'intensional'/'extensional' ambiguity (of the simple type, "There is an honest man such that Diogenes is looking for" -- also discussed in Grice's colleague, J. O. Urmson, in "Criteria of Intensionality", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society). Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society: I just _love_ that title! ---- But back to the history of analytic philosophy. While Grice indeed seems to be treating izzing and hazzing as predicates, one wonders. At one point R. B. Jones mentions the 'grasp[ing] of [the problem] with ' = '. At that point, I was referring to what I think rather loose use of ' = ' by, of all people, linguists: 'cat' = 'chat' 'Gavagai' = ???? If Grice has things like a) I(x, y) & I(y, z) ----> x = y (I think) One may like to compare that with the usual definition of " = " as per Leibniz's Law of the identity of indiscernibles: b) (x)(y) Fx <----> Fy ----> x = y What I do like about (b) is its _formal_ abstract general 'aspect': it does not mention _which_ property (for which F stands for): _any_ property. In this case, Grice's (or Aristotle's) (a) seems, rather, to mention a specific (albeit pretty abstract) predicate: "I". I would think that when interpreting any formal system is best to deal with "uninterpreted" predicates in ways which "I" is _not_. I think there is a good hope of providing a ProofPower HOL for Aristotle's basics. After all, all that can be said in Aristotle's metaphysics, one hopes, is retrievable (if that's the word) alla Venn -- if not algorithmically, at least in some way procedurally (if that's the word). The izz and the hazz are perhaps best seen, alas, as 'didactical' tools for the expression of Aristotle's thought. But back to the Dialogue with Carnap! Perhaps we should try a little fancification (if that's the word) of what the dialogue or conversation should look like (or flow like). I would fix the setting (to reprimand good ol' Grice for his 'redneck' stuff about the Viennese) in: Vienna. People present: C: standing for Carnap. Q: standing for Quine. A: standing for Ayer. It's sad there was no 'would-be' Oxonian in the group. Ayer perhaps is the closest. After all, if he was in Vienna, it was because, of all people, Gilbert Ryle. And Grice does mention, in "Life and Opinions" how Ayer was indeed thought as the 'enfant terrible' of Oxford at the time. S. R. Chapman has noted the affinities (albeit vague) between Ayer and Grice in some respects. The connection has to be made via J. L. Austin, who perhaps provided the link. Ayer and Austin did meet in Oxford in the 1930s (with Ayer back from Vienna and his book for Gollancz -- "Language, Truth, and Logic" published -- he wrote it in 3 weeks, I think). Grice did not (meet with them regularly), but Chapman quotes from unpublished views by Grice on, of all topics, 'negation', 'intention', besides his 'Personal Identity' and suggests that they should be seen as 'post-verificationist' attempts to _provide_ some sense for notions the verificationists failed to provide. In the case of Grice: pretty basic ideas like "I", 'I want to go to London', and 'My wallet is _not_ empty'. Consider "I" (as in "I am J. L. Speranza). I try and try and try but I'm not happy with either J. L. Speranza IZZ J. L. Speranza J. L. Speranza HAZZ J. L. Speranza Not because of Kripkean considerations ("I could have been named, "Yoko Ono""), or even duncier ones (after Duns Scotus, the 'haecceity' of J. L. Speranza). But more because I feel like I _want_ to 'conjugate' the predicate! I AM J. L. Speranza ---- Obviously, logicians ignore that, but J. R. Perry does not (vide his "Identity" papers in his own University of California Press edited book and the PGRICE festschrift). ----- We know Aristotle could not grasp the problems of the 'predications' of J. L. Speranza, but he's constantly speaking of _Socrates_ who, to me, is less existent than _me_ ----- I would think that the Carnap would start with an account of the "Unity of Science": so there would (as Grice would say) the 'devil of scientism' lurking large! I would imagine that 'predicates' accepted in the calculus would be 'observational', and the rest is the basic logic. One idea that has Carnapian resonances here is Grice's idea (and rejection) of 'metaphysical excrescence(s)' I never saw one. But I think he means, primarily, Strawson's problem with 'if'. For Strawson, 'if' cannot be just _extensional_ or truth-functional. There is a 'metaphysical excrescence' attached to it (Grice, WOW, ii). Both the formalists (like the heirs of Principia Mathematica) and the neotraditionalists of Aristotelian vintage, like Strawson, would have to deal with the _excrescence_: the formalists by rejecting its relevance in the regimentation of the language; the neotraditionalists by tweaking the logic so as to include it -- e.g. with ideas like 'truth-value gaps' and other. But one would think that if Grice discovered a 'common mistake' (I think it's the phrase he uses, WOW, ii) in both formalists and neo-traditionalists, he grew more and more incomfortable with the _limitations_ of this or that regimentation. In the "Unity of Science" approach, there are then predicates for 'observational' (and here the problem of 'dispositions' arises -- the counterfactual account of 'breakable' or 'fragile' for example?). Then comes the baggage of 'psychological' predicates. Not genuine for the verificationist. Why? Not observational. Grice experimented here (at a later stage, granted) with the _metaphysics_ of psychological properties (the "Ontological Marxism" with which R. B. Jones started this thread). This is in connection with his "Functionalism" (alla Ned Block). So a psychological property is defined functionalistically as a 'link' (alla Turing) between TWO observational predicates: sensorial -------> (( BLACK BOX ------> behavioural input psychological output 'property' PSI )) Now, so far so good. But I think Grice points to the problem of 'irreductibility' of 'psychological' laws. A _phsyicalist_ explanation of the 'relevant' "observational" predicates attached to a simple psychological explanation, alla practical syllogism: I want to go to London This limousine leads me to London ------------------- I hire the limousine (sorry, I distrust the underground) ---- may leave me _cold_. Especially as it relates to 'allegedly' observational predicates _inside_ my cranium [the identity theory of Smart], which only counterfactually could be open with me being still alive! --- And then, there's the moral predicates. Hardly observational, and perhaps with Blackburn, hardly 'real'! But in need of some explanation, too (Recall that for Ayer 'should' amounts to "!", "Ouch!"): There is a protest against the war in London I should support it -------------- I'm hiring a limo to Trafalgar Square where the moral is the 'should', say. To conjugate all these complexities, Grice borrowed from Carnap ("Thank you, sir"): 'pirot''s the word. A pirot is a creature (like a human, maybe -- Carnap only says that a pirot karulises elatically), who is: 1. a spatio-temporal continuant (i.e. an occupant in the scheme of things that a physical theory need to 'explain' or account for, 'describe' perhaps) 2. agent of psychological predicates like '... believes that ...' which have to be given some consideration. (Grice grew so comfy with his account that he started to ascribe psychological states to all sorts of 'creatures' like squarrels -- something like a squirrel, but _smaller_). 3. self-entrenched, self-justifying attitudes A world with just '... believes that ...' but no " ... thinks he _should_ ..." is, to echo S. Bayne, "less interesting" than a world with "... thinks he should ..." ---- (Here would come Grice's notions of 'value' -- the big absent in positivistic metaphysics, and in general his interest in showing how 'morality' may be said to 'cash out' in a favoured notion of 'interest' -- e.g. J. Baker in PGRICE). "We should be alert of the devil of scienticism that will have you believe that you don't know, but know you don't" -- or something like that, Grice concludes his Presidential Address which J. F. Bennett qualified as "mandatory to be learned by heart by all philosophers". But I guess he didn't! As Strawson would have said, "Hey: Waynflete thought it relevant to institute a chair in Oxford of "Metaphysical Philosophy": isn't that a good enough reason to _suspect_ there is something to it?" Sometimes I do feel that back in Vienna in the early 30s (when Ayer arrived), the Viennese were really into "Continental" matters -- their target seems to have been the 'idiocies' that Heidegger was saying -- "Nichts nichtet", 'Nothing noths' -- and note that Ryle, who had sent Ayer to Vienna, had published a favourable review of Heidegger in Mind for 1929!). But the way things impacted in Oxford certainly woke up a few of the 'dreaming' spires... Cheers, J. L. Speranza Refs: Ayer, A. J. Language, truth and logic. Gollancz Bennett, J. F. In the tradition of Kantotle: review of PGRICE. TLS Grice, H. P. "Aristotle on the multiplicity of being" PPQ Grice, H. P. "Actions and Events", PPQ Grice, H. P., and P. F. Strawson and D. F. Pears, 'Metaphysics', in D. F. Pears, "The nature of metaphysics". London: Macmillan. Grice, H. P. 'Reply to Richards', in PGRICE. Grice, H. P. The Conception of Value. Strawson, P. F. "Entity and Identity" and other essays. Strawson, P. F. "Individuals: An essay in descriptive metaphysics". London: Methuen **************Recession-proof vacation ideas. Find free things to do in the U.S. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-ideas/domestic/national-tourism-week?ncid=emlcntustrav00000002) From baynesrb at yahoo.com Sat May 23 12:12:00 2009 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 09:12:00 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume Message-ID: <642543.79601.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> "For if events were causes, then a true description of some event would be 'the cause of b', and, given that such an event exists, it follows logically that the cause of b caused b." (Davidson in Action and Events p. 150) But does the fact that this means that it is logically necessary that the cause of b caused b is not so obvious. Let's take a look. Suppose events were predecessors, then a true description of some event would be 'the predecessor of b', and, given that such an event exists, it follows logically that the predecessor of b preceded b. Note the definite description 'the cause of b' and 'the predecessor of b' can be regarded in two ways (Donnellan 1966): attributive and referential. Suppose the claim in the 'predecessor' case is that predecessors are events. If so, then on Davidson's reasoning why can't we infer that it is a logical truth that the predecessor of b preceded b and that since this is absurd predecessors cannot be events? But some, Russell, have maintained that events are *defined* as what can occur in the relation 'before' or 'after'. Now the point we can derive from Donnellan's distinction. Clearly, 'the cause of b caused b' follows if it is true that a caused b and the description 'the cause of b' obtains. But the problem, if it is a problem, is that this is true only of the attributive employment of the description. If we take the description 'the predecessor of b' as referential, then it is a contingent fact that 'the predecessor of b preceded b'. The same holds in the causal case, especially since we are speaking about singular causation. It is necessarily true that whatever preceded b was a predecessor of b, but that *this* event or fact, etc. preceded b is not a necessary truth. Can we make this explicit using Donnellan's distinction. I am inclined to think so, but we may need to appeal to some other notion. I haven't reached a firm position on this sort of criticism of Davidson. Part of the problem is that I don't think so much as rejected the necessity of causation, only that the "necesssity" was objectual (between events outside the mind). Note the connection here with some remarks by Melden on the causal theory of action. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aune at philos.umass.edu Sat May 23 13:49:37 2009 From: aune at philos.umass.edu (Bruce Aune) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 13:49:37 -0400 Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume In-Reply-To: <642543.79601.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <642543.79601.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <86E08873-0F4F-42EA-A386-7FFB48047DC1@philos.umass.edu> I think Steve has misunderstood Davidson. Davidson says, "Given that an event of causing b exists, it follows logically that the cause of b caused b." This assertion does NOT imply that it is logically necessary that the cause of b caused b." What is logically necessary according to Davidson's claim is the conditional, "If an event of causing b exists, then the cause of b caused b." But Davidson does make an error here. The relevant necessary conditional needs a stronger antecedent, "If there is one and only one cause of b." This antecedent allows us to infer that the cause of b caused b. Bruce From rbj at rbjones.com Sat May 23 17:20:09 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 22:20:09 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume In-Reply-To: <642543.79601.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <642543.79601.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200905232220.09380.rbj@rbjones.com> On Saturday 23 May 2009 17:12:00 steve bayne wrote: >"For if events were causes, then a true description of some event would be > 'the cause of b', and, given that such an event exists, it follows > logically that the cause of b caused b." (Davidson in Action and Events p. > 150) > >But does the fact that this means that it is logically necessary that the > cause of b caused b is not so obvious. Let's take a look. The bit you quote from Davidson, after the correction offered by Aune seems OK, Its not clear from your message what Davidson concluded from this, e.g. did he make the inference you question above? Roger Jones From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat May 23 19:21:24 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 19:21:24 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Hume Is Where The Heart Is Message-ID: I was pleased to read S. Bayne's post and B. Aune's response to it. No Hume! Yes, I realise S. Bayne is typically addressing all his commentaries to the intelligent reader who _will_ get the Hume. This reminds me of ... guess who. Grice. In one of the essays in the _second_ part of WOW, "Explorations in semantics and metaphysics" he reprints an older (much older) piece that he wrote when discussing one wonders what. (I don't). One criticism concerns the use of 'cause'. He must be having _Hume_ in mind, but I don't think he feels the need to quote him. I think Grice's point is that x causes y is 'anthropomorphic' or animist in nature, i.e. as involving a x wills y but I would have to unbury the Greek for things like "x causes y". Aitia is the noun (causa in Latin, 'cosa' in Italian, thing -- ain't that idle?) but one wonders about the _verb_. Verbs do the trick. ---- In any case this a good memento (as any) to reconsider _Ayer's_ Hume. If Ayer did not go the way of Carnap, etc. it was, I submit, for his love of Home (Hume). For the Viennese positivists _know_ or knew of Hume, but they didn't really _love_ him as a true Brit that Ayer was did. So the Viennese talk of 'observational' predicate, or 'verifiable by Experience' was loosely used. Ayer took the _empiricist_ root of all problems back to Hume. It's no wonder that after his "Language, Truth and Logic" he got more and more serious with "The problem of knowledge", "Empirical Knowledge", etc. He thought this would reconcile him with the Brit tradition, and it did: the Oxford way: J. L. Austin kept repudiating Ayer's simplicities in much of his _Sense and Sensibilia_! Grice wrote a paper with J. C. Haugeland on "The Vagaries of Personal Identity for Hume". Haugeland made a name for hisself [sic] later as an anti-computationalist. And back to 'positivistic' metaphysics -- how much of it is Humean. While I did quote from Strawson and Grice, perhaps the clearest _anti-Humean_ metaphysics comes from New Zealand: Romano Harre and his idea of "powers" in _things_: Aristotelian to the core. Finally, Grice has a 'metaphysical routine' I think he calls it, called "Humean projection", which is, simply, to think of, say, value, as not really _out there_. Have you noticed the importance of the _there_ in English existentials: "There are fairies at the bottom of the garden". It's never "Here is". ('Here is Benny Hill"). So, 'value' is not really out there (cfr. Quine, "On What There Is"). But it may be a Humean projection. This is the soft type of weak 'metaphysical' transubstantiation Grice allows: one _thinks_ value. One _projects_ value. Then there _is_ value. The rationes essendi are constituted by rationes cogitandi (as he also puts it). His metaphysical views, seeing that he agrees with Humean projection, are best then seen as 'constructivist'. I hope R. B. Jones will like that! Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************Recession-proof vacation ideas. Find free things to do in the U.S. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-ideas/domestic/national-tourism-week?ncid=emlcntustrav00000002) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat May 23 21:04:39 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 21:04:39 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume Message-ID: In a message dated 5/23/2009 12:19:48 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, baynesrb at yahoo.com writes: "For if events were causes, then a true description of some event would be 'the cause of b', and, given that such an event exists, it follows logically that the cause of b caused b." (Davidson in Action and Events p. 150) ---- It struck me that Davidson would use "b" rather than "a": 'the cause of b caused b' so after a quick search I see he is self-quoting p. 14, where he is considering 1. 'a causes b' 2. a = the cause of b ----------------------------------- 3. Therefore, the cause of b causes b It's natural he'd use the _past_ (cfr. Grice, "Utterer _meant_ this and that"), for surely it's more difficult to check this things in the present. But I loved S. Bayne's comment to the effect that "that events are *defined* as what can occur in the relation 'before' or 'after'". Now (3) Davidson describes as 'analytic', which _has_ to please Hume _and_ R. B. Jones! Cheers, JL Speranza **************Recession-proof vacation ideas. Find free things to do in the U.S. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-ideas/domestic/national-tourism-week?ncid=emlcntustrav00000002) From baynesrb at yahoo.com Sat May 23 21:19:17 2009 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 18:19:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume Message-ID: <857489.31354.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Prof. Aune may be right, but I need a little more from him, I?think. Let me restate my view.Davidson wants to argue that for Hume something more like descriptions than events are to be regarded as causes. This view, he remarks, is "fortified by Hume's claim that causal statements are never necessary." So the question becomes: how does the description interpretation of cause get "fortified" by denying the necessary connection, some allege, between cause and effect. Davidson's claim is that this is because taking events as causes, not descriptions, leads to the necessity of causation, whereas the description need not affirm it. So how does the? event approach lead to the necessity of causation? Davidson says "For if events wee causes, then a true description of of some event would be 'the cause of b', and, given that such an event exists, it follows logically that the cause of b caused b. (Notice the lack of quotes; we are in the extensional mode). But Aune overlooks a second modal element that gives credence to his claim that the descriptive approach "fortifies" the Hume's position. That second modality is the one that describes 'the cause of b caused b'. Look at it this way: suppose we deny this. Suppose we say "It is not the case that the cause of b caused b." This would be a contradiction, or close. True, what follows?"logically" is something like what Aune proposes,(the business about 'If an event of causing b...etc. though I'm not so sure Davidson is errs. Central to our disagreement, perhaps, is that on the event view causation must be necessary, but if Hume is right it can't be, and therefore a descriptive approach is more acceptable. It is in THIS sense that Hume is 'fortified'.? Now I might be pursuaded by Prof. Aune; it would not be the first time. But one thing he must do for me to budge is explain how on his view Hume's position is fortified by a descriptive approach. Notice Davidson's use of 'fortified', a tricky word, deliberately placed with an intended nuance. We need to know from Prof. Aune what that nuance is, if I'm wrong - which I? may very well be. On my interpretation Davidson wants to show that if we take events as not being necessary, then the claim that causation relates necessarily can be shown to be , in this case the absurdity that if a causes b it must necessarily cause b. Here's why. If the? relata are events, then there is a description for any caused event, b, such that this description entails this logical connection; but, since the causal relation is not a logical one, this must be ruled out. Regards STeve--- On Sat, 5/23/09, Bruce Aune wrote: From: Bruce Aune Subject: Re: Davidson's Hume To: "steve bayne" Cc: hist-analytic at simplelists.com Date: Saturday, May 23, 2009, 1:49 PM I think Steve has misunderstood Davidson.? Davidson says, "Given that an event of causing b exists, it follows logically that the cause of b caused b."? This assertion does NOT imply that it is logically necessary that the cause of b caused b."? What is logically necessary according to Davidson's claim is the conditional, "If an event of causing b exists, then the cause of b caused b."? But Davidson does make an error here.? The relevant necessary conditional needs a stronger antecedent, "If there is one and only one cause of b."? This antecedent allows us to infer that the cause of b caused b. Bruce -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun May 24 07:27:22 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 07:27:22 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Causatives Message-ID: A few remarks on 'cause'. Since Grice loved Kiparsky/Kiparsky 'factive', I'm introducing the word with 'linguistic' resonance: 'causative'. The word is old, and one cite in the OED goes: "Lay is manifestly the causative of Lie." GILCHRIST, Etymol. Interp. 1824. (The other quotes refer to other languages). My point: it seems that while Davidson aptly considers the analyticity of things like "the cause of A caused A", it strikes me that an account of causation has to cover cases where the word 'cause' is not even used. To echo Gilchrist, words like "lay". The other point concerns the mentioning of an author I forgot to mention in "Hume is where the heart is", but which I think was operative in at least Grice's account of causation: H. L. A. Hart. His _Causation in the law_, a classic. Grice wants to (strictly) correct Hart. Hart seems to have overlooked the fact that while it _is_ relevant that an 'event' needs to be noticeable to care for its cause, that needs not be so. "The plant grows" allows an explanation as much as "Why the plant dried." Considering the remark by S. Bayne on 'events' being either 'after' or 'before' an event, I do wonder why 'consequentialism' is not more seriously developed in common speech. It seems a very practical thing to account for the phenomenon in terms of its _effects_, rather than its _causes_. Davidson seems to be wanting to say that, for Hume, there is _something_ *in* the event that must have 'priority' in terms of 'causal efficiency'. And indeed. Davidson's campaign is the very introduction of _event_ as an ontological basic. But for Aristotelian it's spatio-temporal continuants. So Aristotelians like Romano Harre/Madden ("Causal Powers") it would be something in the 'causative agent' and not necessarily the _event_. If the bridge collapsed because an agent wickedly bombed it, we know it's the _will_ of the agent that 'caused' it. Cfr. "The Bridge on the River", the film. It seems Hume is rejecting not just the "necessity" of the causal link but its dependence on 'other' fictions of a metaphysical kind: 'will', or 'substance' --. As for the 'necessity' itself, it may do to revise Burton-Roberts's "Modality and Implicature": the word 'contigent' (as in: all causal explantion is _contingent_: no necessity need to be involved) is just as _modal_ as 'necessary'. When Grice wrote "The Causal Theory of Perception" he _knew_ what he was talking about. In "Meaning" (1948) he is already qualifying Stevenson (1944) as providing a _causal_ theory of meaning itself. Grice never abandoned a causalistic approach. Sometimes he was criticised by scientifically-minded philosophers in 'dismissing' the details of a relevant causal explanation involved. the pillar -------> my perception box is red of the pillar box as red The link need not concern the philosopher, he writes in Section III of "Causal Theory": any filling of the gap will do. In 1967 he touched on 'causal theories' of knowledge when crediting Gettier (without mentioning) with the counterexample to 'justified true belief'. If 'know' is _factive_ it should involve some time of 'causative'. If 'see' is factive, it should involve some 'causative' -- allowing for loose uses: "Macbeth didn't see Banquo: he wasn't there to be seen". "Still we can say he saw him." --- Later on he became inamoured of Aristotle's _final cause" (to heneka, to telos). And there is no way to understand Grice on finality (or 'end') without this idea of 'causative', I would think. If the _end_ matters it's because Aristotle was not being otiose in calling the 'telos' a type of cause (aitia). This would render much of Davidson's fight to re-constitute 'reasons' as 'causes' as historically redundant? Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************Recession-proof vacation ideas. Find free things to do in the U.S. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-ideas/domestic/national-tourism-week?ncid=emlcntustrav00000002) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat May 23 21:37:58 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 21:37:58 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume Message-ID: In a message dated 5/23/2009 12:19:48 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, baynesrb at yahoo.com writes: Now the point we can derive from Donnellan's distinction. ... Clearly, 'the cause of b caused b' follows if it is true that a caused b and the description 'the cause of b' obtains. But the problem, if it is a problem, is that this is true only of the attributive employment of the description. If we take the description 'the predecessor of b' as referential, then it is a contingent fact that 'the predecessor of b preceded b'. The same holds in the causal case, especially since we are speaking about singular causation. ... It is necessarily true that whatever preceded b was a predecessor of b, but that *this* event or fact, etc. preceded b is not a necessary truth. Can we make this explicit using Donnellan's distinction. I am inclined to think so, but we may need to appeal to some other notion. ------- I read B. Aune's objection with interest. I still think S. Bayne's 'toying' (he'll like that) with Donnellan can lead _somewhere_. It always struck me as 'contemporary' of Grice that when he submitted the "Vacuous Names" piece for "Words and Objections" (1969) he manages to quote from Donnellan, with a caveat about pragmatics: are these 'uses' ... or what? In any case, he develops a formal notation to take care of the two readings: identificatory -- THE CAUSE -- and non-identificatory, 'the cause'. His example is actually Marmaduke Blogg's haberdasher, as I recall. ---- One problem here may be the 'the' in 'the' cause. I do have a problem with the definite description per se: B. Aune: >Davidson does >make an error here. The relevant necessary conditional needs a >stronger antecedent, "If there is one and only one cause of b." This >antecedent allows us to infer that the cause of b caused b. UNIQUENESS. For "C" being "... cause ..." C(x, y) and "CAUSANS"x being a is antecedent "CAUSATUM"x being x is effect and how it connects with: (Ex)Ax & (z)Az --> z = x 'the one and only one cause'. I like that. But I think people are sometimes sloppy in their speech: "The cause of his madness is The Three Stooges" I would say the three stooges caused the boy's madness, Tommy's madness. I would say that the cause is UNIQUE: the three stooges. Not _each_ of them (Curly, Moe, Larry). But yet I'd use something like a numerical quantifier "(Ex3)", rather than the 'iota' operator to represent "the" in "the three stooges". The iota operator seems to be necessitated when the denotatum of the definite description is just singular. I suppose what B. Aune is having in mind is multiple causation, and also like Mill's 'generalisations', plus the idea that it should be a 'bi-conditional'. The Falklands War caused Argentina's return to Democracy but also: Alfonsin who re-organised the structure of the political parties and also: the general deterioration of the military chiefs. So, only in the case of 'one and onely one cause' seems to license Davidson's inference. His point about the 'analyticity' of "the cause of E caused E" (where e stands for effect) sounds more harmless, though? I agree that something more than a Donnellian 'stroke of the pen' (as Grice calls this) is in order. "C caused E" Grice's formula: "See if you can append, to "C", 'whatever that may be': if you can, it's non-identificatory, if you can't it's otherwise" Then Martha, the maid, whoever she may be, served us breakfast. seems otiose in that "the maid" seems _referential_ and attributive. It seems Davidson is into circularities like: (to use Grice's example of 'reasons' as causes' in "Aspects of reason") the bridge collapsed. why? bad manufacture: hurricane and generally gusty winds overweight bulls crossing it. ---------- SOMETHING caused the collapse of the bridge. The cause of the collapse of the bridge caused the collapse of the bridge. "analytic", screams Davidson. "The cause of the collapse of the bridge could have been avoided." BAYNE: "How? How can you avoid a hurricane?" SPERANZA: I was meaning the heavy bulls. AUNE: Manufacture. It's all malpractice. Grice got so much into this that he started to consider what the OED has as 'woman's reason': (4) The bridge collapsed because it collapsed. "analytic", and 'tautological'. But if "war is war" and "women are women" _are_ informative at the level of the implicature, so is (4): there's little we can do about it -- and the culprit is possibly on his way to Rio anyway. Cheers, JL Speranza **************Recession-proof vacation ideas. Find free things to do in the U.S. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-ideas/domestic/national-tourism-week?ncid=emlcntustrav00000002) From Baynesr at comcast.net Sun May 24 09:12:36 2009 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 13:12:36 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1936234790.7420031243170756079.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> "I still think S. Bayne's 'toying' (he'll like that) with Donnellan can lead _somewhere_." Actually 'toy' is a very interesting words in contexts such as 'real good toy' where 'real' is either syncategorematic or not. 'toy guns' are one thing, 'toy balloons' are another; there is a complex semantics to this. Anyway, the point I was trying to make on Donnellan was the best part of my post, I think. Consider the question; "Is there a non-trivial sense to the sentence 'The cause of b caused b'? I think there is only one way of making it non-trivial. We must view 'the cause of b' in such a way that it may refer even if the event referred to is not the cause of b, much like 'the man standing in the corner with a martini' even where the man only appears to be in the corner of the room (mirrors) and is drinking water. My use here is the best way to capture the meaning of the sentence when we are engaged in discussing singular causation. I suspect that this issue is, actually, an issue we owe Melden - who spoke out eloquently against a Humean approach based largely on how descriptions can be "logically" related. More on that later. I think Melden is who Davidson is addressing. Anscombe addresses Melden's point (Free-Action) but never mentions his name. He is rarely cited but his presence is clear from the issues, issues such as the difference between happenings and doings. Let me end the digression by saying that Donnellan's distinction *might* (I don't know) be a way of getting around certain claims by "regularity" theorists in the theoy of causation. Davidson steers a middle course here between guys like Ducasse and Russell. Regards Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: Jlsperanza at aol.com To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Saturday, May 23, 2009 6:37:58 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Re: Davidson's Hume In a message dated 5/23/2009 12:19:48 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, baynesrb at yahoo.com writes: Now the point we can derive from Donnellan's distinction. ... Clearly, 'the cause of b caused b' follows if it is true that a caused b and the description 'the cause of b' obtains. But the problem, if it is a problem, is that this is true only of the attributive employment of the description. If we take the description 'the predecessor of b' as referential, then it is a contingent fact that 'the predecessor of b preceded b'. The same holds in the causal case, especially since we are speaking about singular causation. ... It is necessarily true that whatever preceded b was a predecessor of b, but that *this* event or fact, etc. preceded b is not a necessary truth. Can we make this explicit using Donnellan's distinction. I am inclined to think so, but we may need to appeal to some other notion. ------- I read B. Aune's objection with interest. I still think S. Bayne's 'toying' (he'll like that) with Donnellan can lead _somewhere_. It always struck me as 'contemporary' of Grice that when he submitted the "Vacuous Names" piece for "Words and Objections" (1969) he manages to quote from Donnellan, with a caveat about pragmatics: are these 'uses' ... or what? In any case, he develops a formal notation to take care of the two readings: identificatory -- THE CAUSE -- and non-identificatory, 'the cause'. His example is actually Marmaduke Blogg's haberdasher, as I recall. ---- One problem here may be the 'the' in 'the' cause. I do have a problem with the definite description per se: B. Aune: >Davidson does >make an error here. The relevant necessary conditional needs a >stronger antecedent, "If there is one and only one cause of b." This >antecedent allows us to infer that the cause of b caused b. UNIQUENESS. For "C" being "... cause ..." C(x, y) and "CAUSANS"x being a is antecedent "CAUSATUM"x being x is effect and how it connects with: (Ex)Ax & (z)Az --> z = x 'the one and only one cause'. I like that. But I think people are sometimes sloppy in their speech: "The cause of his madness is The Three Stooges" I would say the three stooges caused the boy's madness, Tommy's madness. I would say that the cause is UNIQUE: the three stooges. Not _each_ of them (Curly, Moe, Larry). But yet I'd use something like a numerical quantifier "(Ex3)", rather than the 'iota' operator to represent "the" in "the three stooges". The iota operator seems to be necessitated when the denotatum of the definite description is just singular. I suppose what B. Aune is having in mind is multiple causation, and also like Mill's 'generalisations', plus the idea that it should be a 'bi-conditional'. The Falklands War caused Argentina's return to Democracy but also: Alfonsin who re-organised the structure of the political parties and also: the general deterioration of the military chiefs. So, only in the case of 'one and onely one cause' seems to license Davidson's inference. His point about the 'analyticity' of "the cause of E caused E" (where e stands for effect) sounds more harmless, though? I agree that something more than a Donnellian 'stroke of the pen' (as Grice calls this) is in order. "C caused E" Grice's formula: "See if you can append, to "C", 'whatever that may be': if you can, it's non-identificatory, if you can't it's otherwise" Then Martha, the maid, whoever she may be, served us breakfast. seems otiose in that "the maid" seems _referential_ and attributive. It seems Davidson is into circularities like: (to use Grice's example of 'reasons' as causes' in "Aspects of reason") the bridge collapsed. why? bad manufacture: hurricane and generally gusty winds overweight bulls crossing it. ---------- SOMETHING caused the collapse of the bridge. The cause of the collapse of the bridge caused the collapse of the bridge. "analytic", screams Davidson. "The cause of the collapse of the bridge could have been avoided." BAYNE: "How? How can you avoid a hurricane?" SPERANZA: I was meaning the heavy bulls. AUNE: Manufacture. It's all malpractice. Grice got so much into this that he started to consider what the OED has as 'woman's reason': (4) The bridge collapsed because it collapsed. "analytic", and 'tautological'. But if "war is war" and "women are women" _are_ informative at the level of the implicature, so is (4): there's little we can do about it -- and the culprit is possibly on his way to Rio anyway. Cheers, JL Speranza **************Recession-proof vacation ideas. Find free things to do in the U.S. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-ideas/domestic/national-tourism-week?ncid=emlcntustrav00000002) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Baynesr at comcast.net Sun May 24 09:36:28 2009 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 13:36:28 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Causatives In-Reply-To: <1740686518.7420751243171335461.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <1199965771.7421731243172188882.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Speranza, I dealt with causatives many years ago in a lengthy paper. The subject of causatives gets tied up with ergatives and unaccusatives etc. We need to contrast sentences like Killing the goose that laid the golden egg caused the confusion among the people and sentences like I cooked the steak black. In the second the causativity is "incorporated." In the former (periphrastic construction) it is not. There are numerous fascinating causative constructions. I couldn't comment much further without refreshing my memory, BUT I will say this: that in Davidson's treatment of the logical form of action sentences if we take action sentences involving causative of the latter sort, then Davidson will have trouble linking prepositional phrases to verb in logical form using simply conjunction and modified predicates. The two best people in my day on this topic were Shibatani, Masayoshi who in 1976 published _The grammar of causative constructions: A conspectus. The Grammar of Causative Constructions Syntax and Semantics 6, 1-40 New York: Academic Press and Mark C. Baker who discusses the topic at length and great illumination in his classic: _Incorporation. A Theory of Grammatical Function Changing_, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1988, pp. viii-543. For now I'll leave it at that but say one more thing regarding your interesting post. You say, "Davidson seems to be wanting to say that, for Hume, there is _something_ *in* the event that must have 'priority' in terms of 'causal efficiency'." Davidson wants to deny that events cause because they cause only under certain descriptions (much like some events are actions (intentional actions) only under certain descriptions). VERY briefly, what is going on is this: Hume advocates a law approach to causation. Laws relate predicates and predicates are like descriptions. He wants to get away from properties, since these would be "in" events, although I don't think he is right to gerrymander Hume's position like this. Much of this was a fad, suggested by saying things like events are propositions etc. What nonsense! Regards STeve ----- Original Message ----- From: Jlsperanza at aol.com To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2009 4:27:22 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Causatives A few remarks on 'cause'. Since Grice loved Kiparsky/Kiparsky 'factive', I'm introducing the word with 'linguistic' resonance: 'causative'. The word is old, and one cite in the OED goes: "Lay is manifestly the causative of Lie." GILCHRIST, Etymol. Interp. 1824. (The other quotes refer to other languages). My point: it seems that while Davidson aptly considers the analyticity of things like "the cause of A caused A", it strikes me that an account of causation has to cover cases where the word 'cause' is not even used. To echo Gilchrist, words like "lay". The other point concerns the mentioning of an author I forgot to mention in "Hume is where the heart is", but which I think was operative in at least Grice's account of causation: H. L. A. Hart. His _Causation in the law_, a classic. Grice wants to (strictly) correct Hart. Hart seems to have overlooked the fact that while it _is_ relevant that an 'event' needs to be noticeable to care for its cause, that needs not be so. "The plant grows" allows an explanation as much as "Why the plant dried." Considering the remark by S. Bayne on 'events' being either 'after' or 'before' an event, I do wonder why 'consequentialism' is not more seriously developed in common speech. It seems a very practical thing to account for the phenomenon in terms of its _effects_, rather than its _causes_. Davidson seems to be wanting to say that, for Hume, there is _something_ *in* the event that must have 'priority' in terms of 'causal efficiency'. And indeed. Davidson's campaign is the very introduction of _event_ as an ontological basic. But for Aristotelian it's spatio-temporal continuants. So Aristotelians like Romano Harre/Madden ("Causal Powers") it would be something in the 'causative agent' and not necessarily the _event_. If the bridge collapsed because an agent wickedly bombed it, we know it's the _will_ of the agent that 'caused' it. Cfr. "The Bridge on the River", the film. It seems Hume is rejecting not just the "necessity" of the causal link but its dependence on 'other' fictions of a metaphysical kind: 'will', or 'substance' --. As for the 'necessity' itself, it may do to revise Burton-Roberts's "Modality and Implicature": the word 'contigent' (as in: all causal explantion is _contingent_: no necessity need to be involved) is just as _modal_ as 'necessary'. When Grice wrote "The Causal Theory of Perception" he _knew_ what he was talking about. In "Meaning" (1948) he is already qualifying Stevenson (1944) as providing a _causal_ theory of meaning itself. Grice never abandoned a causalistic approach. Sometimes he was criticised by scientifically-minded philosophers in 'dismissing' the details of a relevant causal explanation involved. the pillar -------> my perception box is red of the pillar box as red The link need not concern the philosopher, he writes in Section III of "Causal Theory": any filling of the gap will do. In 1967 he touched on 'causal theories' of knowledge when crediting Gettier (without mentioning) with the counterexample to 'justified true belief'. If 'know' is _factive_ it should involve some time of 'causative'. If 'see' is factive, it should involve some 'causative' -- allowing for loose uses: "Macbeth didn't see Banquo: he wasn't there to be seen". "Still we can say he saw him." --- Later on he became inamoured of Aristotle's _final cause" (to heneka, to telos). And there is no way to understand Grice on finality (or 'end') without this idea of 'causative', I would think. If the _end_ matters it's because Aristotle was not being otiose in calling the 'telos' a type of cause (aitia). This would render much of Davidson's fight to re-constitute 'reasons' as 'causes' as historically redundant? Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************Recession-proof vacation ideas. Find free things to do in the U.S. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-ideas/domestic/national-tourism-week?ncid=emlcntustrav00000002) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun May 24 11:31:10 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 11:31:10 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume Message-ID: In a message dated 5/24/2009 9:39:33 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: My use here is the best way to capture the meaning of the sentence when we are engaged in discussing singular causation. ----- as to B. Aune's attending comment, if it _joins_ with the Donnellan thing: I note some overlap (a good one, I hope) between -- S. Bayne's emphasis on SINGULAR causation and -- B. Aune's comment on "the one and only one cause" In his interesting post on 'Re: Causatives', S. Bayne considers: >if we take action sentences involving [explicit] causatives ... Davidson >will have trouble linking prepositional phrases to verb in logical form >using simply conjunction and modified predicates. I discussed this with B. Aune in connection with 'conjunction', as I recall. Aune's point is that "&" only holds between propositional structures (whole "p's" and "q's"). In my example: (i) The three stooges caused Timmy's lunacy. One _may_ want to say that while 'co-caused' is the strictly better in terms of style, one may still want to count as true (if misleading) something like: (ii) Curly caused Timmy's lunacy. I.e., with R. M. Harnish, I would be taking 'conjunction reduction' as 'implicatural' in nature. I for one, would rather count (ii) as _true_ (if misleading on the account that Curly in conjunction with Moe and Larry caused ...) than (iii) ~(Curly caused Timmy's lunacy). A different thing is with "co-operate" and other verbs (well, Grice _loved_ 'co-operate') which _already_ *incorporate* the 'co-'. So 'conversationalists follow the co-operative principle', etc. "John co-operated". I would still hold it true that if the latter, then "John operated" (!) I loved S. Bayne's use of gerrymander to account for Davidson's Hume. That's the style I enjoy on this list! I like Davidson's actual quotations from Hume, but is one wishing for more?! >although I don't think he is right to gerrymander Hume's position like this. S. Bayne will be pleased that Russell was involved in all this: -- what is the origin of the phrase 'gerrymander'? From the OED "In 1812, while Elbridge Gerry was Governor of Massachusetts, the Democratic Legislature, in order to secure an increased representation of their party in the State Senate, districted the State in such a way that the shapes of the towns forming such a district in Essex county brought out a territory of regular outline. This was indicated on a map which Russell the editor of the ?Continent? hung in his office. Stuart the painter observing it added a head, wings, and claws, and exclaimed ?That will do for a salamander!? ?Gerrymander!? said Russell, and the word became a proverb. (Mem. Hist. Boston, 1881). Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************Recession-proof vacation ideas. Find free things to do in the U.S. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-ideas/domestic/national-tourism-week?ncid=emlcntustrav00000002) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun May 24 13:23:08 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 24 May 2009 13:23:08 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume Message-ID: In a message dated 5/23/2009 8:43:11 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, rbj at rbjones.com quotes from S. Bayne: >>But does the fact that this means that it is logically necessary that the >>cause of b caused b is not so obvious. Let's take a look. and comments: >The bit you quote from Davidson, after the correction offered >by Aune seems OK, >It's not clear from your message what Davidson concluded from this, >e.g. did he make the inference you question above? I wonder, too. I find that in the relevant page in "Reasons, Causes...", he uses 'the cause of b caused b' as _analytic_, which I'd take as 'logically necessary'. But Davidson is _gerrymandering_ Hume and not wanting to leave matters at _that_ level. Some sense of 'metaphysical' or 'ontological' necessity seems to be in the proceedings. Hence S. Bayne's use of the referential vs. attributive reading of "the cause of b -- REFERENTIALLY: this singular cause -- caused b" vs. "the cause of b -- WHATEVER that may be -- Attributive Use -- caused b" --- Grice laughed, in a good way, at distinctions here. He (as R. Warner notes -- in editing Grice's 1977 Kant Lectures re-delivered as 1979 Locke Lectures -- now "Aspects of Reason") speaks of ichtyological necessity i.e. necessity of _fish_! (of all creatures). He is making a point that if we are going to multiply necessities we should consider Ockham's _praeter necessitatem_. Odd. Schiffer wrote about this, but his contribution is more methodological, or 'cosmetic' as I write: he writes to the effect that Occam's Razor is very good even if you do need a good splashing of "Schiffer's After-Shave" ex post facto. I particularly don't think fish _have_ necessity. What caused the death of the fish is that you kept him out of water for 80 minutes. The fish is death. (Something must have caused the death). Consider: P. F. Strawson is dead. Something must have caused his death. Sure. Actually, 'the cause of P. F. Strawson's death caused P. F. Strawson's death". _Very_ informative. Just joking. (The ref. to Strawson's death to be taken with respect, as with Dennett speaks of the cause of H. P. Grice as being 'non-natural' --). Consider: The death of Lucrezia Borgia's son: The cause: the pill (venom) his own mother gave him (Gennaro -- opera by Donizzetti). Davidson wants to stick to the _event_ of Gennaro 'drinking' the poison. Ultimately Lucrezia offering the drink. Ultimately the whole rotten politics of the Duchy of Mantova... In "Actions and Events", I _think_ Grice wants to stick to some _willing_ element in the case of actions causing this or that. His examples: "The death of Caesar" cause: Brutus's wicked will. Or ill-will "The crossing of the Rubicon" by Caesar: Caesar's good will to provoke his civil enemy. Etc. It's for cases involving the _will_ of the casual agent that we feel more at home (more at home, but less at hume) talking of 'cause'. Hence his remark that it's animistic, not much different from: measles cause those spots 'those spots "mean" measles' fire causes that smoke "smoke "means" fire" --- the concentrated humidity causes the dark shade in the clouds "black clouds 'mean' rain" -- From Hobbes, "Computatio", he takes the idea of 'consequence' But in the use of 'mean', it's strictly a scare-quote use that is involved, since clouds, spots, smoke cannot really 'mean'. Ditto for 'cannot really "cause". Grice dropped the scare quotes when he quoted from Stevenson. In 1944 (and S. R. Chapman's book helped notice me this), it's 'the thermostat 'means' that the room is warm. --- Questions of causation are involved two steps further with a vengeance when we say, 'the computer 'means' the disk is full -- The animistic side to 'mean' or 'cause' (meaning 'will' originally) striking indeed with a vengeance, and needing people like Searle and Haugeland to counter-attack! Another point to consider is Aristotelian. If 'telos' _is_ cause, the usual distinction between 'causal' and 'teleological' "explanation" is far-fetched: the 'telos' _is_ a cause (vide Aristotle, Metaphysics now available in a proper philosophy page by courtesy of R. B. Jones). Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************Recession-proof vacation ideas. Find free things to do in the U.S. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-ideas/domestic/national-tourism-week?ncid=emlcntustrav00000002) From rbj at rbjones.com Mon May 25 05:59:51 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Mon, 25 May 2009 10:59:51 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Aristotle's Metaphysics: The Izz and the Hazz In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200905251059.51355.rbj@rbjones.com> I am responding to Speranza on Grice and Leibniz here and to Speranza on Grice and Carnap in my next message. On Friday 22 May 2009 18:45:52 Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: >While Grice indeed seems to be treating izzing and hazzing as predicates, >one wonders. At one point R. B. Jones mentions the 'grasp[ing] of [the >problem] with ' = '. At that point, I was referring to what I think rather > loose use of ' = ' by, of all people, linguists: > > 'cat' = 'chat' > > 'Gavagai' = ???? > >If Grice has things like > >a) > > I(x, y) & I(y, z) ----> x = y > >(I think) > >One may like to compare that with the usual definition of " = " as per >Leibniz's Law of the identity of indiscernibles: I'm inclined to doubt that that is the usual definition of identity, though it may be the one which most readily comes to the mind of philosophers. Certainly, outside of philosophical circles I don't believe it is much referred to. In first order logic identity is usually taken as primitive. It is not defined and does not necessarily comply with Leibniz's law. In higher order logic identity is also likely to be primitive but the extra ontological content trivialises Leibniz's law. This is because for every object x there exists is a predicate "equal to x" which is true only of x. Anyway, be that as it may, I think Grice's rule can be reconciled with Leibniz's and I have attempted below an explanation which may or may not be helpful! Before my attempted reconciliation, some nit picking. >b) > >(x)(y) Fx <----> Fy ----> x = y > Putting aside my previous remarks, you should have: (x)(y)((F) Fx <----> Fy) ----> x = y Its hard to get out of quantifying over properties or predicates here. If you leave the quantifier out, then, whether F is a variable ranging over propositional functions or a syntactic variable ranging over formulae, you will still need only one property shared or shunned by x and y to get x=y, which is not enough. To spell it out: ((F)(x)(y) ((F x <=> F y) => x = y)) => (x)(y) x = y is a theorem of higher order logic. i.e. your presentation of Leibniz's principle suggests that there is only one thing (of each type). The connection between Leibniz's law and Grice's: A izz B and B izz A => A = B can be explained as follows. We have noted before that from a modern point of view "izz" may be thought to conflate set membership and set inclusion, since it will be the former if A is an individual and B is a universal and the latter otherwise. However, an alternative is to confuse individuals (or identify) with their unit sets (which is what I have done in my formalisation of the Grice/Code/Speranza formulae). This is possible because there are no singular universals, so we might as well think of an individual as its unit set and treat izz uniformly as set inclusion. Gice's principle then becomes the familiar: A subsetof B & B subsetof A => A = B from set theory. Now set theory is a very parsimonious theory, it needs only one primitive predicate (relation), membership (equality is definable). Leibniz's principle can then be spelled out explicitly without quantifying over the predicates: (x)(y) ((z) (x in z <=> y in z) & (z in x <=> z in y)) => x = y However, sets are extensional, so we have the following axiom: (x)(y) ((z)(z in x <=> z in y)) => x = y Which can be rendered without the equality as: (x)(y) ((z)(z in x <=> z in y)) => ((z) (x in z <=> y in z)) (dropping the redundant repetition of the lhs on the right.) and equality defined by Leibniz's definition, and the result is that Leibniz's law agrees with Grice's(Aristotle's?) rule for deriving equality from reciprocal izzing. Aristotle is of course not dealing with a pure set theory, so the rules for equality of sets do not suffice, one needs also to be able to tell when the members of the sets (possibly not themselves sets) are equal. But nevertheless, the rule for equality of the sets still holds, and is consistent with the Leibniz law. The complication arising from the lack of purity (i.e. the existence of non-sets) might be thought of as transforming the rule: x subsetof y <=> (z)(z in x => z in y) into: x subsetof y <=> (z)(z in x => (Ez') (z = z' & z' in y)) instead of saying A is a subset of B if every member of A is a member if B say that A is a subset of B if every member of A is "equal to" some member of B, Thus in this impure set theory, the same rule holds for equality of the sets but involves an implicit appeal to a possibly more complex standard of equality (involving more relevant predicates) on the things which may be in the sets, >I think there is a good hope of providing a ProofPower HOL for Aristotle's >basics. After all, all that can be said in Aristotle's metaphysics, one >hopes, is retrievable (if that's the word) alla Venn -- if not >algorithmically, at least in some way procedurally (if that's the word). I now gather that Aristotle's theory is inconsistent, which is a bit of an impediment to a proper formalisation! This may explain or contribute to the apparent incoherence of the Grice/Code/Speranza formulae. My biggest problem however, is not having the Code paper, if anyone can come up with an electronic copy I should be very grateful. Roger Jones From Jlsperanza at aol.com Mon May 25 09:57:53 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 25 May 2009 09:57:53 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Aristotle's Metaphysics: The Izz and the Hazz Message-ID: Before engaging in further exegesis with R. B. Jones I thought I'd drop this summary of the Metaphysics as per, yes, the wiki. I'll try to add a VERY FEW items that may connect with the history of analytic philosophy. But I thought that since R. B. Jones uploaded the whole thing, it's best to approach the topic systematically: --- Book Alpha >Outlines "first philosophy" [prote philosophia -- analytic equivalent: ontologia] which is a >knowledge of the first principles [arkhe] or causes [aitia] of things. >The wise are able to teach because they know the "why" [aitia -- but not a category, it >seems] of things, unlike those who only know that things _are_ a certain way based on >their memory and sensations. This would involve a distinctin between 'explanatory' versus 'descriptive' adequacy, of the type Chomksy explores (Chomsky adds 'observational' adequacy). >Because of their knowledge [episteme] of first causes and principles they are better fitted to >command, rather than to obey. But when they do, people laugh at them (the philosopher king of Plato). >Book Alpha also surveys previous philosophies from Thales to Plato, especially their >treatment of causes -- [which connects nicely with Hume being jerrymandered by Davidson] >"Little alpha": addresss a possible objection to Aristotle?s account of how we understand >first principles and thus acquire wisdom. Aristotle replies that the idea of an infinite causal >series is absurd, and thus there must be a first cause which is not itself caused. This idea >is developed later in book Lambda, where he develops an argument for the existence of >God. Oddly, the paradox resumes in Davidson: the cause of 1 causes 1 2 causes the cause of 1 ----- Ergo the cause of 2 causes 1 and so on ad infinitum 'eis apeiron' was unthinkable for Aristotle but notably not for the presocratics -- since mathematicians are _always_ relying on the infinity, I cannot see why metaphysicians can't. >Beta: A listing of metaphysical puzzles. THIS should have been the topic of that memorable talk by Popper, "Are there philosophical problems", fresh from Vienna (almost), in Cambridge, 1946 -- narrated in Wittgenstein's Poker. >Gamma: Chapters 2 and 3 argue for its status [of ontologia] as a subject in its own right. >The rest is a defense of (a) what we now call the principle of contradiction, the principle that >it is not possible for the same proposition to be (the case) and not to be (the case) ~(p & ~p) best named, "The principle of NON-contradiction". >and (b) what we now call the principle of excluded middle: tertium non datur - there cannot >be an intermediary between contradictory statements From rbj at rbjones.com Mon May 25 11:41:26 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Mon, 25 May 2009 16:41:26 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200905251641.27508.rbj@rbjones.com> On Sunday 24 May 2009 18:23:08 Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 5/23/2009 8:43:11 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > >rbj at rbjones.com quotes from S. Bayne: >>>But does the fact that this means that it is logically necessary that the >>>cause of b caused b is not so obvious. Let's take a look. > >and comments: >>The bit you quote from Davidson, after the correction offered >>by Aune seems OK, >>It's not clear from your message what Davidson concluded from this, >>e.g. did he make the inference you question above? > >I wonder, too. > >I find that in the relevant page in "Reasons, Causes...", he uses > > 'the cause of b caused b' > >as _analytic_, which I'd take as 'logically necessary'. Well that seems to contradict Aune and support Steve's qualms. On that basis, I should (more definitely than Steve) say that Davidson is wrong, unless it were logically necessary that every event has a unique cause (which I can't swallow). However, if the sentence is read in plain English, rather than as a surrogate for something one might say in predicate logic, then its possible that it might have been intended to express a conditional. the cause of b (if it has one) caused b and I would concede the analyticity if that were the intention (and hence the speakers meaning). However, if the claim is attenuated enough for it to be analytic, then it will have insufficient force to be a problem for Hume. So the only hope for Davidson is equivocation (I don't think this is the same as gerrymandering). He must use the weak interpretation subtly in establishing the claim, and then glide effortlessly into the stronger one when it comes to using it against Hume. Roger Jones From Jlsperanza at aol.com Tue May 26 10:24:58 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 10:24:58 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Hume Is Where The Heart Is Message-ID: I won't discuss directly R. B. Jones's recent post in the "Davidson's Hume" thread but point to a few things: Like Hume in this section, Kant says that although the statement "Every effect has a cause" is analytic, "Every event has a cause" is not; ... books.google.com/books?isbn=1557530130... I thought there _was_ an article by an Oxonian title "Every event has a cause" (I thought Warnock, perhaps) but can't find the reference. Back to Davidson's analytic: The cause of b caused b (Reasons, Causes -- and Causal Relations) it's good to consider the 'non-analyticity' as per above of "every event has a cause". Also, what I called conjunction reduction: one may want to say that an event has more than one cause one may reduce a possible 'conjunction' and treat the oddity as 'implicatural'. But in this post, I'd rather re-consider Aristotle -- Grice -- and another figure which Grice lists as 'great': Hume. In the second lecture on "Aspects of Reason", Grice considers various 'uses' of the word 'cause'. The book is available partially as googlebooks, and it contains some diagrams: Basically, Grice works with _three_ formulae, all of which contain the 'cause' operator, which I symbolise with "C" for cause and "E" for effect: TYPE 1 For a nongeneral C, C causes E to be the case (that E). TYPE 2 C is (a) cause (for x) to E (not E to be the case (that E)). TYPE 3 X's thought that (to) C not cause of X's E-ing, nor (invariably) cause for x to A. The bracket "(a)" is to represent that sometimes 'cause' is mass-noun, but sometimes it's not. Grice considers some variants, some of which he calls 'terrible'. Grice seems to be happy with the reasoning: The bridge's girders were made of cellophane A bus drove onto the bridge ______________________________________ Therefore, the bridge collapsed. I offered this example to my Aristotelian colleague, Michael Chase, and he said, "Stuff and nonsense" (we were trying to make Aristotelian _sense_ of this). As he pointed out: For Aristotle, _things_ have causes, not _events_, which is _not_ a good Humean start, if you ask me. Then, it's "primarily" or primary substances that have the FOUR causes: the bridge itself: material: cellophane girders The design may be counterproductive: i.e. designing the girders in a _form_ such that cellophane fulfils the form ("formal cause") is not a good idea. A zig-zag design for a bridge is neither. The 'efficient cause' is the engineer for the bridge, but not for the _collapse_ of the bridge. Finally, (this _has_ to come 'finally') is the final cause. For the uncollapsed bridge it is to transport people and goods across a stretch of water. Now, the event of the collapse of the bridge for Aristotle may be 'necessary' and 'contingent', but it would not have the four causes. If contingent, it may be due to a number of factors, etc. ---- Grice touches the 'problem' of 'cause' as used by H. L. A. Hart. He writes: my love of cricket caused me to neglect my work. But it would be 'odd' to say my love of cricket caused me to play cricket yesterday -- Grice does not expand on this 'oddity' which is surely implicatural. He keeps referring to the 'vernacular sense of 'cause'', which can confuse the non-initiated. When Davidson suggested a 'conversational-implicature' explanation for the 'implication' of _belief_ behind 'intention': I intend to build a house I believe I can do it. Grice protested (reported by Pears, "Motivated Irrationality"). Grice thought the conversational-implicature explanation was, "too social to be true". So one may imagine that a similar objection may be operative for 'cause'. So what H. L. A. Hart detected about 'cause' being used in certain contexts but not others may be part of the _entailments_ of dicta containing 'cause', and not mere 'implicatures'. (But I wouldn't buy that argument). ----- Finally, Grice considers a tricky example A dandelion growing leaves The cause, he notes, is: the dandelion derives its energy from photosynthesis'. This, he claims, looks like an Aristotelian 'final cause', but with Hume, he would deny them _in that scenario_ (in 1977). For the simple reason that a dandelion 'doesn't have wants'. ("so to have leaves cannot be the final cause"). He goes on to suggest that 'final cause' does play an essential (er) role in _ethics_, though, when we _have_ to be concerned with willful agents. (Reading the "Metaphysics of Value" chapter in his later, "Conception of Value", one may challenge that when he allows for things like "the tiger tigerises", "it's the tiger's tigerising that _causes_ the tiger", -- but I guess the tiger _may_ have wants, so there). Grice remained an Ariskantian. And perhaps in the discussion of Davidson's Hume it may do to reconsider Kantian considerations of CAUSATION as an 'a priori' synthetic constraint of our understanding of things (but remaining 'phenomenal' rather than 'noumenal'). Ends, on the other hand, apply to noumena themselves. In Grice, the rationalism is meant as 'irreverent', he explains in "The Life and Opinions of Paul Grice". It was almost anathema in the Britain (or Oxford) of his day -- even when there was quite a strong tradition of the exegetical type dealing with Kant in the utmost rationalistic fashion. I usually refer to Strawson's The Bounds of Sense for a reading of Kant, but people say they can't swallow so much loaded reading. I disagree, and find the book a good landmark in the history of Oxford philosophy (not necessarily being conceptual analyses of vernacular idioms -- and hey, it was the notes from his LOOONG seminars on the topic). Ayer even, the enfant terrible of (logical) positivism or verificationism retreated to subtler issues when he joined L. J. Cohen in a proceeding of the Aristotelian Society for yet another symposium on "The Causal Theory of Perception", which sounds like a slightly un-humean thing for one to do. Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************We found the real ?Hotel California? and the ?Seinfeld? diner. What will you find? Explore WhereItsAt.com. (http://www.whereitsat.com/?ncid=emlwenew00000004) From baynesrb at yahoo.com Tue May 26 12:02:35 2009 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 09:02:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume Message-ID: <160008.39266.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> It is useful, perhaps, to compare 'the cause of b? caused b' with 'the number of planets is greater than eight' As long as 'the number of planets' is purely referential then if there is analyticity, it could be argued that this is an example, since it "means" '9>8', but a lot depends on whether 'the number of planets' is, purely, referential. Similarly, we need to know if in the first sentence 'the cause of b' is, purely, referential. If it is, then it looks like it might be analytic; but the existence of a cause, unlike, the number nine is not a matter of necessity, waving endless debate on 'necessary''; There is, however, another perspective. Isn't Donnellans referential employment of definite descriptions a use of a purely referential expression, even though they are not proper names? Suppose, just suppose, that we say that it is. Still, it is a contingent fact, I believe, that what caused b, the cause of b, might not have been the cause of b - imagine other world cases of preemption (Lewis) for example. In other words, I believe there is a reading of 'the cause of b caused b' which is not such as to make it a necessary truth. Here we connect descriptions logically, without connecting events. This tug of war between descriptions and events is at the heart of Davidson's support of Hume. Another neglected consideration: How are we to interpret sentences such as 'the cause of b caused b' where we are talking about not events of a kind but particulars. I have grown vey skeptical of the regularity theories of causation; I don't think the debate will revolve around the semantics but, rather, the ontology of events causes, etc. Regards Steve --- On Mon, 5/25/09, Roger Bishop Jones wrote: From: Roger Bishop Jones Subject: Re: Davidson's Hume To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Date: Monday, May 25, 2009, 11:41 AM On Sunday 24 May 2009 18:23:08 Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 5/23/2009 8:43:11 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > >rbj at rbjones.com quotes from S. Bayne: >>>But does the fact that this means that it is logically? necessary that the >>>cause of b caused b is not so obvious. Let's take? a look. > >and comments: >>The bit you quote from Davidson, after the correction? offered >>by Aune seems OK, >>It's not clear from your message what? Davidson concluded from this, >>e.g. did he make the inference you question? above? > >I wonder, too. > >I find that in the relevant page in "Reasons, Causes...", he uses > >? ? ? 'the cause of b caused b' > >as _analytic_, which I'd take as 'logically necessary'. Well that seems to contradict Aune and support Steve's qualms. On that basis, I should (more definitely than Steve) say that Davidson is wrong, unless it were logically necessary that every event has a unique cause (which I can't swallow). However, if the sentence is read in plain English, rather than as a surrogate for something one might say in predicate logic, then its possible that it might have been intended to express a conditional. ? ???the cause of b (if it has one) caused b and I would concede the analyticity if that were the intention (and hence the speakers meaning). However, if the claim is attenuated enough for it to be analytic, then it will have insufficient force to be a problem for Hume. So the only hope for Davidson is equivocation (I don't think this is the same as gerrymandering). He must use the weak interpretation subtly in establishing the claim, and then glide effortlessly into the stronger one when it comes to using it against Hume. Roger Jones -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aune at philos.umass.edu Tue May 26 09:51:24 2009 From: aune at philos.umass.edu (Bruce Aune) Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 09:51:24 -0400 Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume In-Reply-To: <857489.31354.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <857489.31354.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I am late to respond to Steve?s rejoinder to my observation because I have been occupied with non-philosophic matters. I have not read all the comments his original email provoked, so I may be covering old ground. But I would like to clarify my earlier remark a little, anyway. When I spoke of Davidson?s error, I had in mind the fact that ?the cause of b caused b? contains a definite description, which Davidson, thinking of Russell rather than Donnellan, should have taken to imply that b has one and only one cause. In a subsequent note Steve asked what happens if we deny ?the cause of b caused b.? From a Russellian point of view, the definite description in the denied sentence shows it to be equivalent to ?There is one and only one cause of b and this one thing caused b: in symbols, ?Ex[(y)(Cyb <-> y=x] & Cxb].? The denial of this quantified sentence, expressed in English, reduces to ?Either there is more than one cause of b or b has no cause.? The error I said Davidson made amounted to neglecting the logical possibility that b has more than one cause. In speaking of logical possibility here, I mean possibility in the narrow logical (or formal) sense, not possibility in some broader sense. It is not a logical truth that an occurrence has exactly one cause. It is not a logical truth that an occurrence has any cause at all. Steve did mention the possibility that the definite description ?the cause of b? might be used purely referentially in the given sentence, not attributively. When Donnellan introduced the notion of a purely referential description, he observed that such a description may pick out a referent that does not strictly satisfy it. He illustrated this by an example like this: ?The man over there drinking a martini is my thesis advisor.? The referent of the description is a certain man, one that the speaker believes to be drinking a martini. But that man may not actually be drinking a martini; he may be drinking water in a martini glass. But the "referential" description might pick him out just the same. Suppose that ?the cause of b? is used, in ?The cause of b caused b,? in this referential sense. Although the speaker uses the description to refer to an occurrence he or she believes to be the cause of b, the speaker?s belief may be false: the actual cause of b may have been some other occurrence. If this is so, the speaker?s statement is contingently false. I think we should consider that it was contingent all along. Bruce From Jlsperanza at aol.com Wed May 27 12:38:42 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 12:38:42 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Criteria of Intensionality Message-ID: J. O. Urmson -- and someone should COLLECT his manifestly GENIAL papers -- has this "Criteria of intensionality" as a Proceedings of Aristotelian Society. And I have considered some uses of 'intension' by Grice. Here, in a sort of reply to R. B. Jones's request for clarification as to what Grice meant by "Extensionalism" as being one of the (nine, I think) 'betes noires' of MINIMALISM, is what Grice displays in "Life and Opinions" -- available as googlebooks: Grice says he'll select "Extensionalism" -- "a position imbued with the spirit of Nominalism and dear both to those who feel that (b) is no more informative an answer to the question (a) than would be (d) as an answer to (c)." a: Why is a pillar box called 'red'? b: Because it is red. c: And why is that person called 'Paul Grice'? d: Because he is Paul Grice. The picture of Extensionalism Grice presents is: "a world of PARTICULARS as a domain stocked with tiny pellets ... distinguish[ed] by the clubs to which they belong". "The potential consequences of the possession of in fact UNEXEMPLIFIED features [or properties] would be ... the same." One may want to "relieve a certain VACUOUS predicate ... by exploiting the NON-VACUOUSNESS of other predicates which are constituents in the definition of the original vacuous predicate." Grice exemplifies with two vacuous predicates: 1 -- " ... is married to a daughter of an English queen and a pope" 2 -- " ... is a climber on hands and knees of a 29,000 foot mountain." By appealing to different "relations" to the 'primitive' predicates, one can claim is such _distinct_ relations, rather than the empty set which each vacuous predicate is made equivalent to. His objection to this move has to do with what he feels an adhocness in defining the relations as involving NON-VACUOUS predicates. -- the relevant passage is available as google books --. (p. 70). A second way out to the alleged problem involves 'trivial' versus 'non-trivial' explanations: "the explanatory opportunities for vacuous predicates depend on their embodiment in a system". His caveat here is purely ontological: "I conjecture, but cannot demonstrate, that the only way to secure such a system would be to confer SPECIAL ONTOLOGICAL privilege upon the ENTITIES of PHYSICAL SCIENCE..." -- But that's Eddington "non-visible" 'table'. Grice notes: "It looks AS IF states of affairs in the ... scientific world need, for credibility, support from the vulgar world of ORDINARY OBSERVATION..." -- Eddington's _visible_ 'table'. And this, he feels would be an 'embellisment' in need of some justification. Urmson's essay takes a different approach to intensions, from what I recall! Cheers, JL Speranza **************We found the real ?Hotel California? and the ?Seinfeld? diner. What will you find? Explore WhereItsAt.com. (http://www.whereitsat.com/?ncid=emlwenew00000004) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Wed May 27 12:00:09 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 12:00:09 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Aristotle's Metaphysics: The Izz and the Hazz Message-ID: R. B. Jones: >I am responding to Speranza on Grice and Leibniz here ... >I'm inclined to doubt that that is the usual definition of identity, >though it may be the one which most readily comes to the mind >of philosophers. Certainly, outside of philosophical circles I >don't believe it is much referred to. >In first order logic identity is usually taken as primitive. >It is not defined and does not necessarily comply with Leibniz's >law. >In higher order logic identity is also likely to be primitive >but the extra ontological content trivialises Leibniz's law. >This is because for every object x there exists is a predicate >"equal to x" which is true only of x. It would be good to check what the strategy was in Russell/Whitehead (or Whitehead/Russell, as everyone should prefer) "Principia Mathematica". I don't know if that work has been scanned online. Should check. >Anyway, be that as it may, I think Grice's rule can be reconciled >with Leibniz's and I have attempted below an explanation which >may or may not be helpful! >Before my attempted reconciliation, some nit picking. >>(x)(y) Fx <----> Fy ----> x = y >Putting aside my previous remarks, you should have: >(x)(y)((F) Fx <----> Fy) ----> x = y >It's hard to get out of quantifying over properties >or predicates here. >If you leave the quantifier out, then, whether F is >a variable ranging over propositional functions >or a syntactic variable ranging over formulae, >you will still need only one property shared or >shunned by x and y to get x=y, which is not enough. >To spell it out: ((F)(x)(y)((Fx <=> Fy) => x = y)) => (x)(y) x = y >is a theorem of higher order logic. >i.e. your presentation of Leibniz's principle suggests that >there is only one thing (of each type). Point taken. I'm glad it's a theorem in higher-order logic. >The connection between Leibniz's law and Grice's: I(x, y) & I(y, x) ---> x = y [my reformulation. JLS -- :)] >can be explained as follows. >We have noted before that from a modern point of view >"izz" may be thought to conflate * set membership >and * set inclusion >since it will be the former if [x] is >an individual and [y] is a universal and the latter otherwise. Good. I am reluctant now to have replaced your fine "A" and "B" by 'x' and 'y', but I kept the square bracket to show it's my idiosyncrasy. Indeed, from what I recall Aristotle ONLY uses "A" and "B" in _his_ symbolisms. >However, an alternative is to confuse individuals >(or identify) with their unit sets (which is what I >have done in my formalisation of the Grice/Code/Speranza formulae). Yes, this is _Very_ Good. I think it's a _good_ Quinean move. I recall his "Fa" -- Pegasus flies ~Fa Pegasus does not fly But in "On What There Is" ('to be is to be the value of a variable') "Pegasus" -- becomes "to pegasise" -- Grice discusses this in "Vacuous Names". If we call the horse, "Adolphus" instead Fa Then for Quine it becomes Ax (x is "Adolphus") where x is included in the unit set {Adolphus} I stick to "a" because apparently logicians use "a, b, c, ..." for names of individuals, while "F, G, H, ..." for names for predicates. In meta-logic, they use Greek letters (phi, psu, I think) for _general_ predicates, but I don't know what they use for _general_ names. And in any case, names are not so important (in science or academia). ---- R. B. Jones: >This is possible because there are no singular universals, >so we might as well think of an individual as its unit set >and treat izz uniformly as set inclusion. Excellent. >Gice's principle then becomes the familiar: A subsetof B & B subsetof A => A = B >from set theory. Very good. >Now set theory is a very parsimonious theory, >it needs only one primitive predicate (relation), >membership (equality is definable). Very good. I agree that equality is best definable rather than taken as a primitive. But certainly it must be a problematic notion. Grice did not have worries in accepting his credo as being that of 'first-order predicate logic WITH IDENTITY" as the slogan goes. In fact, I never met anyone whose credo is "first-order predicate logic WITHOUT identity". I haven't read your post on Carnap yet, and I hope it's not _he_. >Leibniz's principle can then be spelled out explicitly >without quantifying over the predicates: (x)(y) ((z) (x in z <=> y in z) & (z in x <=> z in y)) => x = y >However, sets are extensional, so we have the following axiom: (x)(y) ((z)(z in x <=> z in y)) => x = y >Which can be rendered without the equality as: (x)(y) ((z)(z in x <=> z in y)) => ((z) (x in z <=> y in z)) >(dropping the redundant repetition of the lhs on the right.) Very good. I'm currently studying the use of "Simpl." by logicians and people in general. (e.g. "It rains and it rains" +> I'm so tired of this weather). >and equality defined by Leibniz's definition, and the result is >that Leibniz's law agrees with Grice's(Aristotle's?) rule for deriving >equality from reciprocal izzing. Excellent. >Aristotle is of course not dealing with a pure set theory, I don't know Venn's Aristotle _is_. And if Davidson can gerrymander Hume like that I cannot see how a distinguished Logician as John Venn was cannot gerrymander Aristotle. Aristotle has been often gerrymandered. Possibly the most idiotic gerrymandering was the object of affection of my logic tutor: Lukasiewicz, so we would spend precious hours doing the Polish notation to please the Slavs. Another good gerrymandering of Aristotle involves Davidson's Hume. I am thinking (alla Strawson, "Causation and Explanation", available online as one chapter of his "Analysis and Metaphysics") that CAUSE _is_ an Aristotelian RELATION that holds between substances! (with Kant, but against Hume and Davidson) Jones: >so the rules for equality of sets do not suffice, >one needs also to be able to tell when the members of >the sets (possibly not themselves sets) are equal. or co-extensional. But I see what you mean. I'll see if I can doublecheck with Grice's 'extensionalism' in "Reply to Richards". In set terms, I would think 'married bachelor' for example would be a null set. It's the intersection of the set "married" and "bachelor" but we know by definition it's empty. Oddly when J. L. Borges reviewed the Buenos Aires edition of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" he wrote: "An impoossible book, almost -- as Dodgson has the intersection of things that weigh TWO tons and that a child is able to lift. -- Symbolic Logic -- So we shouldn't forget that set-theory was all the rage in Oxford, and it takes a Grice to criticise extensionalism like that and get away with it. Oddly, when it comes to 'cause', Strawson, with Anscombe, think of it as an _intensional_ relation, but I'm not sure I understand them. Jones: >But nevertheless, the rule for equality of the sets still holds, >and is consistent with the Leibniz law. >The complication arising from the lack of purity >(i.e. the existence of non-sets) might be thought of >as transforming the rule: x subsetof y <=> (z)(z in x => z in y) >into: x subsetof y <=> (z)(z in x => (Ez') (z = z' & z' in y)) >instead of saying A is a subset of B if every member of A >is a member if B say that A is a subset of B if every >member of A is "equal to" some member of B, >Thus in this impure set theory, the same rule holds for equality >of the sets but involves an implicit appeal to a >possibly more complex standard of equality >(involving more relevant predicates) on >the things which may be in the sets, Good. >I now gather that Aristotle's theory is inconsistent, which is a bit >of an impediment to a proper formalisation! This may explain or >contribute to the apparent incoherence of the Grice/Code/Speranza >formulae. >My biggest problem however, is not having the Code paper, >if anyone can come up with an electronic copy I should >be very grateful. Well, yes. It may be inconsistent, but I hope Plato's is too! Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************We found the real ?Hotel California? and the ?Seinfeld? diner. What will you find? Explore WhereItsAt.com. (http://www.whereitsat.com/?ncid=emlwenew00000004) From Baynesr at comcast.net Thu May 28 07:05:02 2009 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 11:05:02 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <716912540.8422911243508702005.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> I agree with Prof. Aune that "we should consider that it was contingent all along." We might, even, want to "extend" the contingency. We might want to say that causes may be contingently causes and, also, it is only contingent that a cause has a certain effect. This is the thesis that causes do not determine, even if they *are* causes. I don't believe in the long run this will hold up. However, I am skeptical of the idea that the cause and effect relation between events described in the sentence 'my tripping caused me to fall' is, ultimately, a conflation of laws taken together with initial conditions. In other words I think there is much to be said for singular causation in the sense of Ducasse. I'm still undecided but the Humean position, I no longer believe, is impregnable. Regards Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bruce Aune" To: "steve bayne" Cc: hist-analytic at simplelists.com Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 6:51:24 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Re: Davidson's Hume I am late to respond to Steve?s rejoinder to my observation because I have been occupied with non-philosophic matters. I have not read all the comments his original email provoked, so I may be covering old ground. But I would like to clarify my earlier remark a little, anyway. When I spoke of Davidson?s error, I had in mind the fact that ?the cause of b caused b? contains a definite description, which Davidson, thinking of Russell rather than Donnellan, should have taken to imply that b has one and only one cause. In a subsequent note Steve asked what happens if we deny ?the cause of b caused b.? From a Russellian point of view, the definite description in the denied sentence shows it to be equivalent to ?There is one and only one cause of b and this one thing caused b: in symbols, ?Ex[(y)(Cyb <-> y=x] & Cxb].? The denial of this quantified sentence, expressed in English, reduces to ?Either there is more than one cause of b or b has no cause.? The error I said Davidson made amounted to neglecting the logical possibility that b has more than one cause. In speaking of logical possibility here, I mean possibility in the narrow logical (or formal) sense, not possibility in some broader sense. It is not a logical truth that an occurrence has exactly one cause. It is not a logical truth that an occurrence has any cause at all. Steve did mention the possibility that the definite description ?the cause of b? might be used purely referentially in the given sentence, not attributively. When Donnellan introduced the notion of a purely referential description, he observed that such a description may pick out a referent that does not strictly satisfy it. He illustrated this by an example like this: ?The man over there drinking a martini is my thesis advisor.? The referent of the description is a certain man, one that the speaker believes to be drinking a martini. But that man may not actually be drinking a martini; he may be drinking water in a martini glass. But the "referential" description might pick him out just the same. Suppose that ?the cause of b? is used, in ?The cause of b caused b,? in this referential sense. Although the speaker uses the description to refer to an occurrence he or she believes to be the cause of b, the speaker?s belief may be false: the actual cause of b may have been some other occurrence. If this is so, the speaker?s statement is contingently false. I think we should consider that it was contingent all along. Bruce -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rbj at rbjones.com Thu May 28 16:49:23 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 21:49:23 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume In-Reply-To: <160008.39266.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <160008.39266.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200905282149.23689.rbj@rbjones.com> On Tuesday 26 May 2009 17:02:35 steve bayne wrote: >It is useful, perhaps, to compare > >'the cause of b? caused b' > >with > >'the number of planets is greater than eight' > >As long as 'the number of planets' is purely referential then if there is >analyticity, it could be argued that this is an example, since it "means" > >'9>8', > >but a lot depends on whether 'the number of planets' is, purely, > referential. Indeed. But why should we suppose that it is? > Similarly, we need to know if in the first sentence 'the cause > of b' is, purely, referential. If it is, then it looks like it might be > analytic; but the existence of a cause, unlike, the number nine is not a > matter of necessity, waving endless debate on 'necessary''; There is, > however, another perspective. Isn't Donnellans referential employment of > definite descriptions a use of a purely referential expression, even though > they are not proper names? Suppose, just suppose, that we say that it is. > Still, it is a contingent fact, I believe, that what caused b, the cause of > b, might not have been the cause of b - imagine other world cases of > preemption (Lewis) for example. In other words, I believe there is a > reading of 'the cause of b caused b' which is not such as to make it a > necessary truth. Here we connect descriptions logically, without connecting > events. This tug of war between descriptions and events is at the heart of > Davidson's support of Hume. I obviously got the wrong end of the stick, because I thought that Davidson was using the alleged necessity of "the cause of b caused b" to mount an attack on Hume. Roger Jones From baynesrb at yahoo.com Fri May 29 11:02:06 2009 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 08:02:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume Message-ID: <293943.11911.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> "'but a lot depends on whether 'the number of planets' is, purely, referential.'Indeed. But why should we suppose that it is?"My point is, merely, that there is ambiguity. If we take the description one way, we get one view of its status and another view if read another way. As for the "right" reading that's much like the de dicto/de re situation. Some verbs I can read only one way, transparent; others I can read either way. Here is a description we can read either way and what follows depends on the reading.RegardsSteve --- On Thu, 5/28/09, Roger Bishop Jones wrote: From: Roger Bishop Jones Subject: Re: Davidson's Hume To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Date: Thursday, May 28, 2009, 4:49 PM On Tuesday 26 May 2009 17:02:35 steve bayne wrote: >It is useful, perhaps, to compare > >'the cause of b? caused b' > >with > >'the number of planets is greater than eight' > >As long as 'the number of planets' is purely referential then if there is >analyticity, it could be argued that this is an example, since it "means" > >'9>8', > >but a lot depends on whether 'the number of planets' is, purely, > referential. Indeed.? But why should we suppose that it is? > Similarly, we need to know if in the first sentence 'the cause > of b' is, purely, referential. If it is, then it looks like it might be > analytic; but the existence of a cause, unlike, the number nine is not a > matter of necessity, waving endless debate on 'necessary''; There is, > however, another perspective. Isn't Donnellans referential employment of > definite descriptions a use of a purely referential expression, even though > they are not proper names? Suppose, just suppose, that we say that it is. > Still, it is a contingent fact, I believe, that what caused b, the cause of > b, might not have been the cause of b - imagine other world cases of > preemption (Lewis) for example. In other words, I believe there is a > reading of 'the cause of b caused b' which is not such as to make it a > necessary truth. Here we connect descriptions logically, without connecting > events. This tug of war between descriptions and events is at the heart of > Davidson's support of Hume. I obviously got the wrong end of the stick, because I thought that Davidson was using the alleged necessity of "the cause of b caused b" to mount an attack on Hume. Roger Jones -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Fri May 29 18:52:57 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 18:52:57 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] I Don't Know Why (I Just Do) Message-ID: Aitiology -- Revisited. Further to R. B. Jones's consideration of Aristotle -- and the idea of a proof tool, I wonder about -- we know Ryle on knowing how and knowing that -- but 'knowing why' It seems Aristotle is exaggerating things a bit when he says in Metaphysics 983a: -- cfr. http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/classics/aristotl/mi.htm epei de phaneron it is clear hoti t?n ex arch?s aiti?n dei labein that it is required to obtain knowledge OFF causes epist?m?n tote gar eidenai phamen hekaston because it is when we think we understand hotan t?n pr?t?n aitian oi?metha gn?rizein its primary cause that we CLAIM to know each particular thing ta d' aitia legetai tetrach?s Now, 'cause' is said fourfoldly h?n mian men aitian phamen Of this we hold that one such way is einai t?n ousian the essence kai to ti ?n einai anagetai and the essential nature of the thing gar to dia ti eis ton logon eschaton because the "why" of a each thing goes towards the word aition de kai arch? to dia ti pr?ton de TO DIA TI and the why which is first is a cause and principle)." But is this so? Suppose I say: "I love you." You ask, 'Why do you say so?' -- And I, echoing Tony Bennett, go: All day long you're asking me _What_ I 'see' in you. All day long I'm answering But what good does it do? (None). I have *nothing* to explain. -- cfr. Brody, "Aristotle and scientific explanation" Brit. Journal Phil. Sc. cfr. Dirk Bogaarde, "Never explain, never complain" I *just* love you (love you) and I'll tell you once again I don't know why I love you like I do. I don't know why -- I just do. I don't know why you thrill me like you do. I don't know _why_ -- you *just* do You never *seem* to want my romancing The only time you hold me is when we're dancing I don't know why I love you like I do I don't know why, I just do Possible answers (Gricean included). I'll ignore the counterfactual: "I should NOT be loving you -- since you reject my other-than-kinetic romancing First caveat: Bennett is _not_ saying (i) I don't know why I love you. but the Aristotelian answer to a specific 'why' question -- cfr. Why did Jenny Wren kill Cock Robin _like she did_? (ii) I don't know why I love you LIKE I DO. i.e. +> (implicating) (iii) Tony Bennett is unaware of the reason for his abnormal (say) intensity of the feeling he experiences towards his addressee. But the title of the song (as per the header) is then confusing -- and ambiguously so in a good _way_ in leaving the _object_ of knowledge unstated. Reply to First Caveat: It may be argued that, by transformation, we can 'simplify' (ii) into (i), thus having (iii) yield (iv): (iv) Tony Bennett is unaware of the reason (_simpliciter_) why he feels any feeling at all towards his addressee. In any way, the cheek which he displays is enough to have The Stagirite turning in his one. Second Caveat: Gettier It may be argued that unless you can answer 'why' you are not entitled to say "know" ('knowing why' as * _factive_) Apply to Tony Bennett (using "~" as external negation only). (* For the analysis of 'reason why' as (sometimes) factive I owe to H. P. Grice in First Lecture of _Aspects of Reason_) Etc. J. L. Speranza **************We found the real ?Hotel California? and the ?Seinfeld? diner. What will you find? Explore WhereItsAt.com. (http://www.whereitsat.com/#/music/all-spots/355/47.796964/-66.374711/2/Youve-Found-Where-Its-At?ncid=eml cntnew00000007) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Fri May 29 22:00:21 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 22:00:21 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] I Don't Know Why (I Just Do) Message-ID: Just a little ps. I realise the "I just do" of the title refers to "I just LOVE you", _not_ "I just know". Surely it is _very_ conceivable to know that p, but not to know why p. Although surely there is also some ambiguity in the 'why'. I recall M. Dascal's example in "Conversational Relevance" (Journal of Pragmatics) PRIEST: Why did you rob the bank, my son PRISONER: Because that's where the dough is. ---- In any case, the song -- which I actually first heard via my friend M. E. Rowntree, of London, getting for me the Ambrose and his orchestra version with the great Sam Browne as 'crooner' -- touches on topics of inocorrigibility and privileged access -- of Wittgensteinian fame, but also dealt with by Grice, in "From the banal to the bizarre". Grice wants to formalise this in terms of iteration of operators: KNOW that I love you KNOW that I know that I love you. Etc. things considered by Hintikka in his epistemic/doxastic logic. "I have nothing to explain" (in the lyrics, where 'explain', nicely, rhymes with 'again' -- _contra_ most Tin Pan Alley that have 'THEN' rhyme with 'again'). It's like a _reason_ for love is uncalled for. This may sound Pascalian: 'reason of the heart', which I never actually bought. Anyway, just the note to consider the logic of interrogatives including 'why' then. It strikes me (slightly) that other phrases with 'know' -- know who did it. -- know what colour the flag is. etc. are _imcomplete_ -- they are x-questions, as it were, in indirect report. He doesn't know WHO did it. He doesn't know WHAT colour the flag is. -- In the case of He doesn't know WHY since the answer would require a _final_ or 'causative' clause p _because_ q the logical form does not seem to correspond exactly to the 'know _what_', or 'know _who_'. It's also perhaps odd that while "I don't know why I love you (like I do)" is not odd at all, replacing 'know' by a _weaker_ verb (entailed by 'know') doesn't seem to have the right effect: I don't believe why I love you like I do (But then, 'believe who', and 'believe what' _are_ also ungrammatical). The reason seems to be that the correct way to say this is: "I don't THINK I _know_ why I love you like I do" (Grice considers the weakening of factives on that obvious type in "WOW", xi). It may also be argued that the "~" of the 'DON'T KNOW' is external and thus able to cancel the whole 'implicature': A: I didn't know you were pregnant. B: You still don't. (example by Harnish, Logical Form and Implicature In this case, as Harnish notes, we require something like the square-bracket device. While it's usually the third clause in Gettier's analysis that gets cancelled (on the face of the first two clauses being 'common ground' and thus _beyond_ doubt) B's reply challenges the very first clause ("B is pregnant"). In the case of the song, the speaker may end up saying: "You know _what_? Now that you ask (for nth time): "I don't know why I love you like I do. Because I don't!" But that is _not_ Ambrose for ya! Cheers, J. L. S. **************We found the real ?Hotel California? and the ?Seinfeld? diner. What will you find? Explore WhereItsAt.com. (http://www.whereitsat.com/#/music/all-spots/355/4 7.796964/-66.374711/2/Youve-Found-Where-Its-At?ncid=emlcntnew00000007) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat May 30 10:17:32 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 30 May 2009 10:17:32 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] I Don't Know Why (I Just Do) Message-ID: While I provided the general link to the relevant passage in Aristotle's Metaphysics 983a, I am pleased to provide now the specific link Book 1, Part 3 -- Paragraph 1 http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/classics/aristotl/m1103c.htm#1 (Ross) Evidently we have to acquire knowledge of the original causes (for we say we know each thing only when we think we recognize its first cause), and causes are spoken of in four senses. In one of these we mean the substance, i.e. the essence (for the 'why' is reducible finally to the definition, and the ultimate 'why' is a cause and principle); in another the matter or substratum, in a third the source of the change, and in a fourth the cause opposed to this, the purpose and the good (for this is the end of all generation and change). We have studied these causes sufficiently in our work on nature, Along with a variant English translation at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Met.+1.983a (Tredennick) It is clear that we must obtain knowledge of the primary causes, because it is when we think that we understand its primary cause that we claim to know each particular thing. Now there are four recognized kinds of cause. Of these we hold that one is the essence or essential nature of the thing (since the "reason why" of a thing is ultimately reducible to its formula, and the ultimate "reason why" is a cause and principle); another is the matter or substrate; the third is the source of motion; and the fourth is the cause which is opposite to this, namely the purpose or "good";for this is the end of every generative or motive process. We have investigated these sufficiently in the Physics4 ; http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Met.+1.983a (Aristotle) epei de phaneron hoti t?n ex arch?s aiti?n dei labein [25] epist?m?n tote gar eidenai phamen hekaston, hotan t?n pr?t?n aitian oi?metha gn?rizein, ta d' aitia legetai tetrach?s, h?n mian men aitian phamen einai t?n ousian kai to ti ?n einai anagetai gar to dia ti eis ton logon eschaton, aition de kai arch? to dia ti pr?ton, heteran de t?n hul?n [30] kai to hupokeimenon, trit?n de hothen h? arch? t?s kin?se?s, tetart?n de t?n antikeimen?n aitian taut?i, to hou heneka kai tagathon telos gar genese?s kai kin?se?s pas?s tout' estin, tethe?r?tai men oun hikan?s peri aut?n h?min en tois peri phuse?s, What fascinates me is the Greek, 'to dia ti' -- the 'why'. I find there's a way to identify a philosopher: the OED has it very well when it goes: She could supply the ready ?because? to many of the old philosopher's ?whys?. Steinmetz, Weahtercasts (1866). It may also pay to consider 'causation' as a "relation" in Aristotle (i.e. one of the categories). Kant indeed has 'hypotheticals' as falling under 'relation' -- And cfr. B. Aune's symbolism C(x,y) --- To the objection that hypotheticals are _not_ causatives, one may advice, alla Stanford Encyclopedia does in the brilliant "Metaphysics of Causation" that one cannot really understand 'cause' without a serious analysis of counterfactuals! Cheers, JL Speranza **************We found the real ?Hotel California? and the ?Seinfeld? diner. What will you find? Explore WhereItsAt.com. (http://www.whereitsat.com/#/music/all-spots/355/47.796964/-66.374711/2/Youve-Found-Where-Its-At?ncid=eml cntnew00000007) From rbj at rbjones.com Wed Jun 3 03:25:22 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 08:25:22 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume In-Reply-To: <293943.11911.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <293943.11911.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200906030825.22516.rbj@rbjones.com> On Friday 29 May 2009 16:02:06 steve bayne wrote: [RBJ wrote] >> "'but a lot depends on whether 'the number of planets' is, purely, >> referential.'Indeed. But why should we suppose that it is?" [Steve] > My point is, merely, that there is ambiguity. > If we take the description one way, we get > one view of its status and another view if read another way. As for the > "right" reading that's much like the de dicto/de re situation. Some verbs I > can read only one way, transparent; others I can read either way. Here is a > description we can read either way and what follows depends on the > reading. Perhaps you can read a description "either way" but I don't myself think that the two readings are equally plausible, and I don't think there is substantive ambiguity in this case. I will assume that you mean by calling a description "purely referential" that it is in Kripke's terms a "rigid designator" (correct me if I am wrong). It seems to me plausible that names (real names, i.e. proper nouns) are rigid designators, but not plausible that descriptions are (generally!). Here's why: The fact (if it is one) that a name is a rigid designator means that to understand the name you have to discover what it refers to, and you do not need to know anything specific about that thing, any way of identifying it will do. Kripke has these stories about christenings I believe. If descriptions were rigid designators then we would have to understand them in like manner. We would have to know when the definitive use of that description had occurred and what in that context it had referred to. I don't believe that is the way we understand descriptions and if it were it would be disasterous for mathematics, and we would have to invent a new kind of description which was not rigid. The language works nicely if descriptions are not rigid and names are. Then if you want a rigid designator for something you give it a name. Thus, if we say: Let n be the number of planets. Then, necessarily n>9. Unless the number of planets <10, in which case necessarily n is not >9. But if the descriptions were themselves rigid then we would be in trouble. Nothwithstanding "the Colossus of Rhodes", which probably is rigid. Roger Jones From rbj at rbjones.com Tue Jun 2 16:18:10 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 21:18:10 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Aristotle-Grice-Code-Speranza-Jones: Chinese wispers on izz and hazz Message-ID: <200906022118.10833.rbj@rbjones.com> I have just done my monthly upload to rbjones.com. This makes available for anyone interested my work-in-progress on formalisation of aspects of Aristotle's Logic and Metaphysics reaching me via the Grice/Code/Speranza channel. See: rbjones.com/rbjpub/pp/doc/t028.pdf for the gory details. Feedback welcome. Other Aristotelian enhancements include: The sixth volume of the Organon, On Sophistical Refutations. (I just realised a decade after putting it up that I was missing a volume, discovered while digging around in Robin Smith's web pages) Also courtesy Robin Smith, the proper book names (letters) for the Metaphysics. Roger Jones From baynesrb at yahoo.com Wed Jun 3 09:23:45 2009 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 06:23:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume Message-ID: <914408.35210.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Sorry to make this brief but lots of things are "conspiring" against my time budgeting. We have to distinguish at least three things. 1. Attributive uses of definite descriptions and referential uses. (Donnellan) 2. Rigid and non-rigid designation (Kripke) 3. Purely referential vs non purely referential designators. Each has a history and some would argue, incorrectly in my opinion, that there was overlap. In "Reference and Modality" Quine notes that while '9>7' is a necessary truth 'The number of planets > 7' is not a necessary truth because the number of planets is a contingent fact. The source of the problem is that 'The number of planets' is not purely referential. We find something similar in Russell's "logically proper names." Donnellan's distinction may show itself within a single world and says nothing about other possible worlds, while (as you know) rigidity is very much about "worlds." These distinctions do not require much of anything with respect to what we know. It is a semantical not an epistemological conception. In 'The cause of e caused e' IF we take ' the cause of e' attributively' then my claim is that the sentence 'The cause of e caused e' is contingent. On the other hand if we think of the sentence as completely devoid of pragmatic elements, and here I have in mind Jerry Katz's notion of 'linguistic meaning' then the sentence is trivial, like 'I married my wife'. So it's not so much which is the right reading but what you get on different readings. One reading may come with greater statistical regularity but that is besides the point. As for ridid designation, I'm still not a faithful believer; one reason is that for Kripke other worlds are stipulated counterfactually. I think this introduces a number of problems that have to do with questions like "Can one world have more individuals than another." Worlds by counterfactual stipulation and requirements of maximally consistent sets (blah blah), etc. don't go very far with me, although I'm not equipped to address thses issues, at present. Suppose someone says: "No! That is NOT a rigid designator." Show me that he's wrong. How do I do this? What all goes into it? By the way, I happened to notice some interesting connections between Brentano on these issues and opacity. But since I'm doing philosophical psychology I can't mess up my brain any worse than it is by pursuing the matter. Anyway, the cause of e might have caused something else; and something else might have caused e, other than that which did cause e. That is, basically, my point. Regards Steve --- On Wed, 6/3/09, Roger Bishop Jones wrote: From: Roger Bishop Jones Subject: Re: Davidson's Hume To: "steve bayne" Cc: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Date: Wednesday, June 3, 2009, 3:25 AM On Friday 29 May 2009 16:02:06 steve bayne wrote: [RBJ wrote] >> "'but a lot depends on whether 'the number of planets' is, purely, >> referential.'Indeed.? But why should we suppose that it is?" [Steve] > My point is, merely, that there is ambiguity. > If we take the description one way, we get > one view of its status and another view if read another way. As for the > "right" reading that's much like the de dicto/de re situation. Some verbs I > can read only one way, transparent; others I can read either way. Here is a > description we can read either way and what follows depends on the > reading. Perhaps you can read a description "either way" but I don't myself think that the two readings are equally plausible, and I don't think there is substantive ambiguity in this case. I will assume that you mean by calling a description "purely referential" that it is in Kripke's terms a "rigid designator" (correct me if I am wrong). It seems to me plausible that names (real names, i.e. proper nouns) are rigid designators, but not plausible that descriptions are (generally!). Here's why: The fact (if it is one) that a name is a rigid designator means that to understand the name you have to discover what it refers to, and you do not need to know anything specific about that thing, any way of identifying it will do. Kripke has these stories about christenings I believe. If descriptions were rigid designators then we would have to understand them in like manner.? We would have to know when the definitive use of that description had occurred and what in that context it had referred to. I don't believe that is the way we understand descriptions and if it were it would be disasterous for mathematics, and we would have to invent a new kind of description which was not rigid. The language works nicely if descriptions are not rigid and names are.? Then if you want a rigid designator for something you give it a name. Thus, if we say: Let n be the number of planets. Then, necessarily n>9. Unless the number of planets <10, in which case necessarily n is not >9. But if the descriptions were themselves rigid then we would be in trouble. Nothwithstanding "the Colossus of Rhodes", which probably is rigid. Roger Jones -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From baynesrb at yahoo.com Wed Jun 3 09:46:11 2009 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 06:46:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [hist-analytic] Correction:Re: Davidson's Hume Message-ID: <187684.51697.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I meant to say that if we take 'the cause of e' referentially then the sentence 'the cause of e caused e' is contingent. Sorry Steve --- On Wed, 6/3/09, steve bayne wrote: From: steve bayne Subject: Re: Davidson's Hume To: hist-analytic at simplelists.com Date: Wednesday, June 3, 2009, 9:23 AM Sorry to make this brief but lots of things are "conspiring" against my time budgeting. We have to distinguish at least three things. 1. Attributive uses of definite descriptions and referential uses. (Donnellan) 2. Rigid and non-rigid designation (Kripke) 3. Purely referential vs non purely referential designators. Each has a history and some would argue, incorrectly in my opinion, that there was overlap. In "Reference and Modality" Quine notes that while '9>7' is a necessary truth 'The number of planets > 7' is not a necessary truth because the number of planets is a contingent fact. The source of the problem is that 'The number of planets' is not purely referential. We find something similar in Russell's "logically proper names." Donnellan's distinction may show itself within a single world and says nothing about other possible worlds, while (as you know) rigidity is very much about "worlds." These distinctions do not require much of anything with respect to what we know. It is a semantical not an epistemological conception. In 'The cause of e caused e' IF we take ' the cause of e' attributively' then my claim is that the sentence 'The cause of e caused e' is contingent. On the other hand if we think of the sentence as completely devoid of pragmatic elements, and here I have in mind Jerry Katz's notion of 'linguistic meaning' then the sentence is trivial, like 'I married my wife'. So it's not so much which is the right reading but what you get on different readings. One reading may come with greater statistical regularity but that is besides the point. As for ridid designation, I'm still not a faithful believer; one reason is that for Kripke other worlds are stipulated counterfactually. I think this introduces a number of problems that have to do with questions like "Can one world have more individuals than another." Worlds by counterfactual stipulation and requirements of maximally consistent sets (blah blah), etc. don't go very far with me, although I'm not equipped to address thses issues, at present. Suppose someone says: "No! That is NOT a rigid designator." Show me that he's wrong. How do I do this? What all goes into it? By the way, I happened to notice some interesting connections between Brentano on these issues and opacity. But since I'm doing philosophical psychology I can't mess up my brain any worse than it is by pursuing the matter. Anyway, the cause of e might have caused something else; and something else might have caused e, other than that which did cause e. That is, basically, my point. Regards Steve --- On Wed, 6/3/09, Roger Bishop Jones wrote: From: Roger Bishop Jones Subject: Re: Davidson's Hume To: "steve bayne" Cc: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Date: Wednesday, June 3, 2009, 3:25 AM On Friday 29 May 2009 16:02:06 steve bayne wrote: [RBJ wrote] >> "'but a lot depends on whether 'the number of planets' is, purely, >> referential.'Indeed.? But why should we suppose that it is?" [Steve] > My point is, merely, that there is ambiguity. > If we take the description one way, we get > one view of its status and another view if read another way. As for the > "right" reading that's much like the de dicto/de re situation. Some verbs I > can read only one way, transparent; others I can read either way. Here is a > description we can read either way and what follows depends on the > reading. Perhaps you can read a description "either way" but I don't myself think that the two readings are equally plausible, and I don't think there is substantive ambiguity in this case. I will assume that you mean by calling a description "purely referential" that it is in Kripke's terms a "rigid designator" (correct me if I am wrong). It seems to me plausible that names (real names, i.e. proper nouns) are rigid designators, but not plausible that descriptions are (generally!). Here's why: The fact (if it is one) that a name is a rigid designator means that to understand the name you have to discover what it refers to, and you do not need to know anything specific about that thing, any way of identifying it will do. Kripke has these stories about christenings I believe. If descriptions were rigid designators then we would have to understand them in like manner.? We would have to know when the definitive use of that description had occurred and what in that context it had referred to. I don't believe that is the way we understand descriptions and if it were it would be disasterous for mathematics, and we would have to invent a new kind of description which was not rigid. The language works nicely if descriptions are not rigid and names are.? Then if you want a rigid designator for something you give it a name. Thus, if we say: Let n be the number of planets. Then, necessarily n>9. Unless the number of planets <10, in which case necessarily n is not >9. But if the descriptions were themselves rigid then we would be in trouble. Nothwithstanding "the Colossus of Rhodes", which probably is rigid. Roger Jones -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Wed Jun 3 11:42:57 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 11:42:57 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] R. B. Jones's Aristotle Message-ID: I am fascinated by the pdf that R. B. Jones has made public to hist-analytic, rbjones.com/rbjpub/pp/doc/t028.pdf and not just because it mentions Grice! ---- I intend to spend some time browsing at it, and hopefully providing VERY constructive commentary. i. I loved R. B. Jones's idea that indeed it's best to work with the underlying logic in Aristotle's system with any 'calculus' that may have been available to Aristotle. Jones provides three models for the syllogistic -- none of which involves the standard first-order predicate logic with which some of us are familiar. These three models concern the standard syllogistic -- without the 'existential fallacy'; the syllogistic-cum-existential fallacy; and the modal syllogistic. ii. R. B. Jones has nicely harmonized the passage from the syllogistic -- and I'm pleased the Ell. Soph. is now available at his site -- to the metaphysics, and I'm also pleased he has been able to find the Greek titles for the books -- apres Smith. iii. This is not meant as a criticism, but I loved his square bracket references sections, and I'm pleased he has been able to make such good use of the Code. Since Grice is not credited as _author_ per se in the references, allow me to drop them here. I would have: Grice [1979]. Aristotle on being and good. The Philosophy of Aristotle. A conference at the University of Victoria, sponsored by the Canada Council. January. Section III: "Semantic Multiplicity and Copulative Being". as quoted by Code in his footnote. In any case, that reference may now be updated -- Code was writing in 1986 -- and his paper was published in 1988, as R. B. Jones notes --. In 1988 Grice died, in August. In September (I assume) 1988, Brian Loar was able to submit the Grice paper on Aristotle (referred to by Code) to the Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. The reference being Grice 1988. Aristotle on the multiplicity of being. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. 69:175-200. Indeed, as Code notes, Grice's interest in that study is many and varied, but there is a _specific_ section where he develops the 'izz' and the 'hazz'. Grice was able to add the Code reference in a footnote -- with words to the effect: Code has provided some formal definitions in terms of izz and hazz in "Aristotle: Essence and Accident". --- I know R. B. Jones is trying to be Aristotelian and rightly so, rather than Gricean (I _know_ I don't have a lot of time in my hands as I write this post, so I'll summarise). But it strikes me that a _good_ (very good) reference to deal with the 'existential fallacy' is indeed Grice's "Vacuous Names", which he presented to the Quine festschrift. "Words and Objections" ed. Davidson and Hintikka -- with a "Reply to Grice" by Quine himself. While not necessarily focusing on the existential fallacy: All of the books I own are in French _______________________________ But I have no books. --- Strawson 1952 -- quoting "H. P. Grice" for the account of this oddity in terms of 'implicature' -- Grice deals with even perhaps more basic stuff: the existential 'commitments' of any claim, and not just 'universal'. I particularly like that essay by Grice because it is _very_ formal. Grice somehow recollected his formalistic years with endearment. "I stopped being so formal when, of all people, Hilary Putnam, advised me too". ('Life and Opinions'). ----- I think it is _very_ plausible (but surely hardwork but none of it to be wasted) to provide a unified account of Aristotle's syllogistic-cum-metaphysics, to include, even, the modal inferences. This to let R. B. Jones have my appreciation for the neat work he has undertaken. All best, J. L. Speranza **************We found the real ?Hotel California? and the ?Seinfeld? diner. What will you find? Explore WhereItsAt.com. (http://www.whereitsat.com/#/music/all-spots/355/47.796964/-66.374711/2/Youve-Found-Where-Its-At?ncid=eml cntnew00000007) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Wed Jun 3 11:53:47 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 11:53:47 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume Message-ID: In a message dated 6/3/2009 9:31:57 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, baynesrb at yahoo.com writes: 'The cause of e caused e' is contingent. On the other hand if we think of the sentence as completely devoid of pragmatic elements, and here I have in mind Jerry Katz's notion of 'linguistic meaning' then the sentence is trivial, like 'I married my wife'. --- I loved that, since the trivium has always been an interest of mine. ---- I would even provide a _more_ trivial utterance: "My mother bore me" -- Again, one should recall that the word Davidson uses for The cause of e caused e is "analytic" -- in "Actions, Reasons and Causes": The essential Davidson - Google Books Result by Donald Davidson, Ernie Lepore, Kirk Ludwig - 2006 - Philosophy - 282 pages Then the cause of B = A; so substituting, we have 'The cause of B caused B ', which is analytic. The truth of a causal statement depends on what events are ... books.google.com/books?isbn=0199288852... - repr. in A&E collection. ---- I'm not sure "My mother bore me" is analytic. With all the sci-fi around I'm suspecting it's not. "_Some_ mother bore me" may be analytic in that one may define 'mother' as 'anything that gave birth to me'. "I married my wife" is a good one for analysis. I find it's indeed otiose unless you specify the place or year. And it becomes interesting for Quine if the utterer is an self-confessed 'unmarried' bachelor, I assume. Locke called 'trivialities' -- and R. B. Jones may testify this, since he has the whole Essay 1690 online -- 'trifles', or 'trifling propositions'. The term should have seduced Hume. But again, I'm not sure Davidson is meaning 'triviality' in the sense his gerrymandered Hume would! Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************We found the real ?Hotel California? and the ?Seinfeld? diner. What will you find? Explore WhereItsAt.com. (http://www.whereitsat.com/#/music/all-spots/355/47.796964/-66.374711/2/Youve-Found-Where-Its-At?ncid=eml cntnew00000007) From rbj at rbjones.com Wed Jun 3 13:37:31 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 18:37:31 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] R. B. Jones's Aristotle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200906031837.32257.rbj@rbjones.com> Thanks J.L. for your very positive response to my work on Grice's (...) Aristotle. I have put in a reference to Grice88 (and uploaded it). Couldn't get it to the top, BibTex insists on having them in alphabetic order. I would love to see that paper, but the Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (web site) doesn't even aknowledge that it existed in 1988. If anyone has an electronic copy I would be glad to have it (rbj at rbjones.com). You have given me credit even for the bits which are aspiration rather than substance, for the section on modal syllogism is empty and the modal syllogism with izz and hazz doesn't even have a section yet! I look forward to more from you, when you have time. Roger Jones From Jlsperanza at aol.com Wed Jun 3 14:50:16 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 14:50:16 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Vacuity Message-ID: "The hours of thoughtful vacuity I had spent." A. R. Hope, My Schoolboy F, 1875, p. 72 Further to R. B. Jones's considerations of the 'existential fallacy' in rbjones.com/rbjpub/pp/doc/t028.pdf some remarks on (a) Grice -- 'vacuous names': two quotes by Grandy. (b) Strawson -- on 'all' -- citing Grice. -- and Carroll citing Jones. (a) 1. From Grandy, in "Predication and Singular Terms" (Nous, vol. 11 -- pp. ) commenting on Burge: "As Burge notes, we often want to make further distinctions as to the EXISTENTIAL SCOPE of a singular term. His system can be extended to handle these distinctions, but, as he remarks, 'the matter is tricky' [...] and the ONLY SYSTEM in which such distinctions have been treated SYSTEMATICALLY (Grice [Vacuous Names]) shows how complex such a system can be. (endnote: It should be mentioned that Grice also had some other goals in mind for the extension of his theory to definite descriptions [...])" (p. 165). 2. From Grandy's review of WORDS AND OBJECTIONS (Phil. Review, vol. 82, 1973): "Paul Grice's contribution, 'Vacuous Names', is an attempt to formulate a theory within which APPARENTLY CONTRADICTORY intuitions about logical form and DENOTATION are reconciled. For example, ... he wishes to preserve EXISTENTIAL GENERALIZATION without restriction [...] ... This is done by making distinctions of SCOPE ... so that EXISTENTIAL GENERALIZATION always hold for terms which have MINIMAL SCOPE. ... The system which Grice presents is ... equivalent to a system in which one replaces names by DEFINITE DESCRIPTIONS and treats the resulting descriptions as always having minimal scope. ... footnote: The semantics in this paper ['Vacuous Names'] could have been made MORE PERSPICUOUS: the COMPLICATIONS in the definition of VALIDITY (pp. 137-138) would have been AVOIDED if the residual sub-domain was permitted to be empty, or, if the residual sub-domain was never introduced." "There is a trivial mistake in that the SPECIAL sub-domain should *not* be permitted to be empty, and a more serious one in that the inference rule (15) is unsound." (p. 108). (b) Strawson on 'all': From Introduction to Logical Theory (1952) citing Grice: available online at: www.archive.org/stream/introductiontolo010626mbp/introductiontolo010626mbp_d jvu.txt CHAPTER 6 : SUBJECTS, PREDICATES, AND EXISTENCE -- THE TRADITIONAL SYSTEM OF CATEGORICAL PROPOSITIONS l : All x is y No x is y Some x is y Some x is not y "The system invites comparison with the predicative calculus. But there are important differences." All alcohol is poisonous All elephants are long-lived All tigers growl All the guests sat down All non-# is y All x is non-y All non-# is non-y Instead of writing : * The inference-pattern xKy yAz .*. xAz is valid ', I shall simply write down the first-order formula xAy . yAz D x Az The laws of the square of opposition, which give certain logical relations between formulae in which the terms, their quality, and their order are the same. The Square of Opposition The doctrine of the Square of Opposition concerns the logical relations between any two statements of different forms having the same subject and predicate. Since the terms, their position, and quality are identical in the related statements, we can symbolize the laws of the doctrine simply by using the letters A, E, I, O. The doctrine is as follows : A is the contradictory of O, and E of I; A and E are contraries, and I and O subcon- traries ; A entails I, and E entails O. Since there are four figures, there are altogether 256 possible moods of the syllogism. Of these 256 only twenty-four are recognized as valid; THE ORTHODOX CRITICISMS OF THE SYSTEM Criticisms of the traditional system have centred round the question of whether or not, in using a sentence of one of the four forms, we are to be regarded as committing ourselves to the existence of anything answering to the description given by the first term of the sentence. It is felt that this question cannot be left unanswered ; for the answer to it makes a difference to the validity of the laws. It is argued that the usage of the ordinary words (e.g., * all ') corresponding to some of the con- stants of the system varies in this respect. "Everyone agrees that it would be absurd to claim that the man who says 'All the books in his room are by English authors' has made a true statement, if the room referred to has no books in it at all. Here is a case where the use of * all ' carries the existential commitment. On the other hand, it is said, we sometimes use 'all ' without this commitment. To take a classic example : the statement made by 'All moving bodies not acted upon by external forces continue in a state of uniform motion in a straight line' may well be true even if there never have been or will be any moving bodies not acted upon by external forces. The consistency-problem for the traditional system is then posed as follows. We must decide, with regard to each of the four forms, whether it carries the existential commitment or whether it does not. But, for any plausible decision, i.e., any decision which keeps the constants of the system reasonably close in sense to their use as words of ordinary speech, we find that some of the laws of the traditional system become invalid. It has generally been assumed that, in the case of the particular forms, i.e., I and O, only one decision was reasonable, viz., that they did carry the existential commitment; and that whichever decision was made for one of the universal forms, the same decision should be made for the other. So the problem reduced itself to a dilemma. Either the A and E forms have existential import or they do not. If they do, one set of laws has to be sacrificed as invalid; if they do not, another set has to go. Therefore no consistent interpretation of the system as a whole, within the prescribed limits, is possible. We should normally accept All the books in his room are by English authors and At least one of the books in his room is not by an English author as contradictories. The second sentence seems very close in form to (Ex)(Fx . ~Gx) which is the contradictory of (x)(fx --> gx) It is quite unplausible to sug- gest that if someone says ' Some students of English will get Firsts this year ', it is a sufficient condition of his having made a true statement, that no one at all should get a First. But this would be a consequence of accepting the above interpreta- tion for I. Note that the dropping of the implication of plurality in * some ' makes only a minor contribution to the unplausibility of the translation. We should think the above suggestion no more convincing in the case of someone who said "At least one student of English will get a First this year". The third table of translations, then, does, if anything, less than the other two to remove our sense of separation from the mother tongue. Suppose someone says ' All John's children are asleep '. Obviously he will not normally, or properly, say this, unless he believes that John has children (who are asleep). But suppose he is mistaken. Suppose John has no children. Then is it true or false that all John's children are asleep ? Either answer would seem to be misleading. But we are not compelled to give either answer. 174 SUBJECTS, PREDICATES, EXISTENCE [CH. 6 We can, and normally should, say that, since John has no child- ren,, the question does not arise. But if the form of the state- ment were ~(Ex)(fx.~gx) the correct answer to the question, whether it is true, would be "Yes"; for 4 ~ (3tf)(/#) * is a sufficient condition of the truth of * ~(3 gx) ' as giving the form of these sentences ; and why our uneasiness was not to be removed by the simple addition of positively or negatively existential for- mulae. Even the resemblance between There is not a single book in his room which is not by an English author and the negatively existential form ' ~ (Ex)(fx . ~ gx) was deceptive. The former, as normally used, carries the presupposition 'books- in-his-room ' and is far from being entailed by 'not-a-book-in- his-room ' ; whereas the latter is entailed by ~(3x)(fx). So it is that if someone, WITH A SOLEMN FACE, says, "There is not a single foreign book in his room and then later reveals that there are no books in the room at all, we have the sense, not of having been lied to, but of having been made the victim of a sort of linguistic outrage. Of course he did not say there were any books in the room, so he has not said anything false. Yet what he said gave us the right to assume that there were, so he has misled us. For what he said to be true (or false) it is necessary (though not sufficient) that there should be books in the room. Of this subtle sort is the relation between, 'There is not a book in his room which is not by an English author' and 'There are books in his room \ l What weakens our resistance to the negatively existential analysis in this case more than in the case of the corresponding * All '-sentence is the powerful attraction of the negative opening phrase * There is not . . .'. To avoid misunderstanding I must add one point about this proposed interpretation of the forms of the traditional system. I do not claim that it faithfully represents the intentions of its principal exponents. They were, perhaps, more interested in formulating rules governing the logical relations of more imposing general statements than the everyday ones I have mostly considered ; were interested, for example, in the logical powers of scientific generalizations, or of other sentences which approximate more closely to the desired conditions that if their utterance by anyone, at any time, at any place, results in a true statement, then so does their utterance by anyone else, at any other time, at any other place. We have yet to consider how far the account here given of certain general sentences of common speech is adequate for all generalizations. FOOTNOTE: "Some will say these points are irrelevant to logic (are ' merely prag- matic *). If to call them *irrelevant to logic* is to say that they are not considered in formal systems, then this is a point I should wish not to dispute, but to emphasize. But to logic as concerned with the relations between general classes of statements occurring in ordinary use, with the general conditions under which such statements are correctly called * true * or ' false'' these points are not irrelevant. Certainly a 'pragmatic ' con- sideration, a general rule of linguistic conduct, may perhaps be seen to underlie these points: the rule, namely, that one does not make the (logically) lesser, when one could truthfully (and with equal or greater linguistic economy) make the greater, claim. Assume for a moment that the form "There is not a single . . . which is not . . ." were introduced into ordinary speech with the same sense as ~(Ex)(fx . ~gx). Then the operation of this general rule would inhibit the use of this form where one could truly say simply There is not a single . . . (or ~(Ex)(fx & ~Gx). And the operation of this inhibition would tend to confer on the introduced form just those logical presuppositions which I have described. The form would tend, if it did not remain OTIOSE, to develop just those differences I have emphasized from the logic of the symbolic form it was introduced to represent. The operation of this * pragmatic rule ' was first pointed out to me, in a different connexion, by Mr. H. P. Grice." ----- * One way to unify some accounts here is to recall Grice's amusing conversations on Marmaduke Bloggs in "Vacuous Names" A: Where are you going? B: Didn't you know. There's a special meeing of the Merseyside Geographical Society. A: What for? B: We're honouring Marmaduke Bloggs. He climbed Mt Everest on hands and knees. A: But didn't you read? It was a lie. He was invented by the journalists. B (shocked). Then someone is not going to be at the party. A: Did you hear me distinctly? I said he doesn't exist. B: And did _you_ hear me distinctly? That's what I implied, too. ---- (adapted) And cfr. Lewis Carroll, Symbolic Logic -- cited by L. Horn in http://www.yale.edu/linguist/faculty/doc/horn97_eximport.pdf. (pp. 160-161). CARROLL. Well, Jones, have you got your new club started yet? JONES (rubbing his hands): Well, you'll be glad to hear that some of the members (mind, I only say 'some') are millionaires! Rolling in gold, my boy! CARROLL. That sounds well. And how many members have entered? JONES (staring). None at all. We haven't got it started yet. What makes you think we have? CARROLL. Why, I thought you said that some of the members. JONES (contemptuously). You don't seem to be aware that we're working on strictly _logical_ principles. A particular proposition does not assert the existence of its subject. Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************We found the real ?Hotel California? and the ?Seinfeld? diner. What will you find? Explore WhereItsAt.com. (http://www.whereitsat.com/#/music/all-spots/355/47.796964/-66.374711/2/Youve-Found-Where-Its-At?ncid=eml cntnew00000007) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Mon Jun 8 20:46:10 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 20:46:10 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] "I Am What I Am" (Was: Aristotle's Metaphysics) Message-ID: I was watching the Tony awards yesterday and there was this clip of this musical by J. Herman, "La cage aux folles". Never liked it, and there's the hit number: belting out, "I am what I am" This is JEHOVA. But Seriously, Aristotelically speaking, is that otiose, too as in the Bible? I claim that Aristotle possibly failed to distinguish between the important who/what distinction in his categories, no, Roger? ----- How to formalise: 1. I am what I am Davidson would have it as "analytic" and thus a trifle. But S. R. Bayne would claim that _if_ Donnellian, then contingent, and possibly false. --- I don't know. Consider the negation 2. ~(I am what I am) Surely contradictory. What bothers me is the _what_. I hardly know _who_ I am, never mind _what_. Anyway, R. Hall, who read it in Greek, may help! ---- J. L. Speranza ------There's a new film on Greece presently showing, "My life in ruins" (!) **************Download the AOL Classifieds Toolbar for local deals at your fingertips. (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolclassifieds/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000004) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Jun 11 10:29:46 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:29:46 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Pirotologica Message-ID: Grice: Against Ichthyological Necessity I note that in my "Davidson's Hume", I misspelled 'ichthyological', so I provide this post as correction. I find Grice's commentary _very_ funny and serious at the same time. He writes in "Aspects of Reason" about it is necessary that p and the different 'adverbials': it is morally necessary it is legally necessary it is epistemically necessary it is ontologically necessary etc. etc. He is fighting against _all_ that: do not multiply necessities beyond, er, necessities (what he calls the _equi_-vocal theory of 'necessity' to bridge the is/ought gap). And he brings in _fish_ for good measure. While he loved a gradual series alla Aristotle (vide "Method in philosophical psychology") he seems to have agreed with Guenther who as early as 1880 noted: "The commencement of the history of Ichthyology coincides with that of Zoology generally." "Fishes". ---- What Grice writes needs to be paraphrased, a bit -- it's in Aspects of Reason, and the collocation 'ichthyological necessity' is I think used in scare quotes. One would expect, Grice is saying, that there are special 'laws' or generalities, which apply _peculiarly_ to _fish_. But, even if this _be_ a fact (I haven't checked with all fishermen) that's different from saying that it would give one (one philosopher, even) a special type or kind of 'necessity', to wit: "ichthyological necessity". It would seem as, almost surely, any theory (cfr. 'pirotology') which desires to create an adverbial (alla 'morally', 'legally', 'epistemically', 'ontologically') to modify 'necessary' HAS TO PROVIDE for a specific type of GENERALITY -- that ichthyology fails to do. Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************Download the AOL Classifieds Toolbar for local deals at your fingertips. (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolclassifieds/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000004) From rbj at rbjones.com Thu Jun 11 15:41:29 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:41:29 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume In-Reply-To: <914408.35210.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <914408.35210.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200906112041.29419.rbj@rbjones.com> On Wednesday 03 June 2009 14:23:45 steve bayne wrote: >We have to distinguish at least three things. > >1. Attributive uses of definite descriptions and referential uses. > (Donnellan) > >2. Rigid and non-rigid designation (Kripke) > >3. Purely referential vs non purely referential designators. > >Each has a history and some would argue, incorrectly in my opinion, that > there was overlap. Thanks for pointing that out. I have to confess that I don't really understand any of these distinctions. (groping in the dark, as usual) A brief search for enlightenment on Donellan left me doubting that the distinction in use which he is discussing reflects any underlying difference in meaning or sense. On Kripke, so far as I understand him, his separation of necessity from analyticity depends on it being coherent to suppose that something can be a rigid designator without that being a consequence of its meaning. So that brings me to wonder about what is now meant by speaking of something as purely referential. Presumably it means that the designator has no sense apart from its reference, but I don't know whether the case that the meaning *is* the denotation counts as purely referential or whether that term is reserved for the case that the reference is contingent and the designator meaningless. >In "Reference and Modality" Quine notes that while '9>7' is a necessary > truth 'The number of planets > 7' is not a necessary truth because the > number of planets is a contingent fact. The source of the problem is that > 'The number of planets' is not purely referential. We find something > similar in Russell's "logically proper names." Donnellan's distinction may > show itself within a single world and says nothing about other possible > worlds, while (as you know) rigidity is very much about "worlds." These > distinctions do not require much of anything with respect to what we know. > It is a semantical not an epistemological conception. If meaning is used in the same way as Carnap and I use it, then, if the meaning of a designator is the thing which it designates, that designator will be rigid. Furthermore in relation to this kind of semantics, (which we might call a full truth conditional semantics), this is the only way in which you can get a rigid designator, and results in the disappearance of Kripke's counterexamples to the analytic/necessary identification. Whether we are talking about different uses in one world or uses in different worlds, the touchstone is the semantics, and this ought to result in there being connections between these issues (if indeed they are anything to do with meaning, as one might doubt for the Donellan distinction). >In 'The cause of e caused e' IF we take ' the cause of e' attributively' > then my claim is that the sentence 'The cause of e caused e' is contingent. Perhaps you could expand for me on the "attributive" use, and how it yields this result? Having just read Strawson I think he would say, and I would agree, that e having a unique cause is presupposed here and that the sentence has the status of being true whenever it has a truth value, but in many possible worlds lacking one. Though one might very reasonably insist that in those cases it is false. > On the other hand if we think of the sentence as completely devoid of > pragmatic elements, and here I have in mind Jerry Katz's notion of > 'linguistic meaning' then the sentence is trivial, like 'I married my > wife'. Can't say I like the idea that its trivial. > So it's not so much which is the right reading but what you get on > different readings. But we have been here before and this looks to me like a non-sequitur. How have you come to the conclusion that there is no basis for considering one reading correct and the other mistaken? I did offer some reasoning for not taking descriptions as "purely referential" but you haven't responded to them. regards, Roger Jones From rbj at rbjones.com Thu Jun 11 15:02:50 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:02:50 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Vacuity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200906112002.51295.rbj@rbjones.com> On Wednesday 03 June 2009 19:50:16 Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: >(a) Grice -- 'vacuous names': two quotes by Grandy. >(b) Strawson -- on 'all' -- citing Grice. -- and Carroll citing Jones. There are a lot of variations of terminology and in other matters in logic, depending on background (where you learnt about logic), and mine is not particularly philosophical. From time to time I find myself wondering what philosophers are talking about. e.g. what does "Existential Scope of singular terms" mean? I know what the scope of an existentially quantified variable is, but that's presumably not the same thing. This term EXISTENTIAL GENERALISATION sounds like an oxymoron to me! A much more transparent term is EXISTENTIAL INTRODUCTION, which says exactly what it does. I see reading on in Strawson from the passages Speranza cited, that Strawson was critical of Russell's theory of descriptions. I am broadly in agreement with his position insofar as it relates to natural languages, and I have also in other contexts been inclined to the view that statements often presuppose things on which their having a truth value depends without properly being held to assert them. Carnap's internal/external distinction gives us very many examples of this, for an answer to an internal question may be said to presuppose but not assert a positive answer to the relevant externsl questions. Thus, to be more concrete, in mathematics, the assertion that there exist infinitely many prime numbers is a true mathematical statement which might be said to presuppose but not to assert that numbers exist. However, technically it is inconvenient to consider statements whose presuppositions are not satisfied as lacking a truth value. This may be the right way to read natural languages but for the purposes of mathematics it is better to arrange that sentences are always true or false. I checked out Strawson, chapter 6 in connection with my Aristotelian modelling. There is a minor problem in that it is "Traditional" rather than "Aristotelian" and its not clear what really came from Aristotle. Strawson has these rules of direct inference, and I have included a smattering of these in my formalisation. These are supposed to be used to prove the syllogisms, I haven't paid much attention to how they are derived by Aristotle, but maybe another time. There is a document by Spade out there with a thumbnail history in which there is a concise story about this. [Strawson] >Since there are four >figures, there are altogether 256 possible moods of the syllogism. >Of these 256 only twenty-four are recognized as valid; I had only 19, which I believe are the ones cited by Aristotle. The extra 5 in Strawson all exhibit the existential fallacy (easy to spot since all the premises are universal but the conclusion is existential). I have updated my document, and added in the extra five, which are provable in my second model of the syllogism using the same general proof tactic. I managed to find the names for them, which I think Strawson omits, which is a shame for they are informative. The new version, at: rbjones.com/rbjpub/pp/doc/t028.pdf also now contains the two models which I promised but had not included in the last version, viz: modal syllogism (with existential fallacy) and the whole caboodle: modal sysllogism with izz and hazz predication and existential fallacy.. though still the emphasis is on the formal modelling and the philosophical payoff is yet to come. >THE ORTHODOX CRITICISMS OF THE SYSTEM I have to say that this seems rather laboured to me. In constructing my models of the syllogism, I considered very briefly adding existential import to the universal. I immediately ruled this out because it violated the square of opposition, and concluded that `empty' subjects would have to be outlawed. I never considered the other working alternative which Strawson cites, it lacks plausibilty. However, Strawson's interest is in the match with ordinary language, mine is in the match with Aristotle. I'm not sure that there is any point in approaching the syllogism in this way these days, for it is clearly hopeless for giving a good account of ordinary language, and its interest lies in its place in the history of logic and of analytic philosophy. Furthermore, it seems pretty unlikely that Aristotle ever though of it in terms of ordinary language. It was for him a tool for doing demonstrative science (and hence his attitude to logic appears in this respect closer to Carnap's than the work of contemporary mathematical or philosophical logicians, who are primarily engaged in metatheory). Strawson does not consider Aristotle's metaphysics, and I believe that this provides support for (what I suppose to be) the usual way of resolving the problem of the existentials. If you look only at the syllogism it seems natural to read the terms in the syllogism as sets, and in that case its no so easy to justify the exclusion of the empty set. However, when you look at the Metaphysics you get a more complex idea of what terms are, which is equally compatible with the syllogism and provides a kind of explanation of the existential position. In this view the terms are sets of individuals, which latter it is convenient to consider as singleton sets since this make the explanations shorter. In that case, "izz" is just set inclusion, which is consistent with the obvious reading of the syllogism. But for Aristotle "izz" isn't merely set inclusion, for the sets here are part of something like a taxonomy (either of substance of some category of attributes). They do not correspond to aribitrary descriptions but to definitions, about which Aristotle is a bit picky. When you consider this as a taxonomy it's natural enought to expect all the defined concepts to be non-empty. When we look at "hazz" the situation is different. Here we do not need to insist on non-empty extensions (and my last model does not) because, in effect, syllogisms never quantify over the extension of an attribute. If an individual attribute is the subject of a predication then the predication must be an "izz", and the syllogism rather than saying anything about the objects in the extension of the attribute is simply stating that the attribute is IN some universal, e.g. red is a colour. Aristotle's logic+metaphysics as I understand it at present (mainly at second hand) doesn't allow you to say "All red things are coloured". So, by making clear that the sets whose extensions must be non-empty are rather special and reasonably required to be non-empty, the Metaphysics helps in understanding the syllogism. However, I think futher analysis will reveal that the syllogism interpreted as it is in the Metaphysics is even more limited than one might otherwise have suspected. For example, you can't really talk about universals. To do this you would need a term whose extension included only universals, but all terms are sets of individuals. You can have a predicate SUBSTANCE which is truly predicable of every substance, individual or otherwise. But it is just the set of all individual substances. VACUOUS There is a terminological difficulty here which still has me guessing the best way to talk about the existential fallacy. Depending on how you think about this the terminology has opposite meaning. If you think in terms of extension, then a predicate with an empty extension may naturally be called vacuous. But a predicate with empty extension is always false, and hence contradictory. On the other hand, a concept which is empty of content may also be called vacuous, and these are the concepts which are always true, and hence whose extension is the Universe rather than the empty set. Being devoid of content is exactly opposite to having an empty extension, and there is a dilemma about which of these we should consider vacuous. My own inclination is to consider content as the important stuff and count the everywhere true predicate as vacuous. Perhaps, by way of both having and eating our cake, we should use the term vacuous when speaking of predicates and empty only when speaking of sets, so that a predicate can be said to be vacuous iff its extension is the universe and a predicate is said to be contradictory iff its extension is empty, placing vacuous and empty at opposite ends of the spectrum. I have been greatly entertained and engrossed by my efforts to formalise Aristotle's Logic and Metaphysics. It seems a productive way of working for me, and so I am inclined to do more, and to make it a principle method of research for the historical aspects of what I am trying to do for Metaphysical Positivism. Translating it into more widely intelligible philosophy is a challenge for the future. Roger Jones From rbj at rbjones.com Thu Jun 11 16:24:05 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:24:05 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Pirotologica In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200906112124.05787.rbj@rbjones.com> On Thursday 11 June 2009 15:29:46 Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: >etc. etc. He is fighting against _all_ that: do not multiply necessities >beyond, er, necessities (what he calls the _equi_-vocal theory of >'necessity' to bridge the is/ought gap). I'm afraid I'm against Occam here, and similarly Grice. All this "have no more than necessary" is a bit parsimonious, and in ontology one need no longer be so careful, since set theory gives us an adequate grasp on consistency (risk of losing this is the principle reason for caution). All this is a Carnapian "tolerance", and connects with the pragmatic resolution of "external questions". In that context I prefer the much less incisive (blunt razor) of not multiplying beyond consistent convenience. Sometimes ontologically it is much easier to have more than one strictly needs, and one can comfortably leave to enthusiastic dogmatic nominalists the task of showing how little suffices. In necessities one can take a similar position. It is convenient to talk about physical necessity, provided one is clear what is meant by that, viz, following necessarily from accepted laws of physics (so long as there is no disagreement about what they are). This usage extends into any domain in which there is a body of theory relative to which necessity can be judged. The problem, if there is one, is then in the identification of the relevant body of theory. The problem then with fishy necessity, is not in the relativisation of necessity, but in the uncertainty about what constitutes the relevant body of fishy theory. Roger Jones From Jlsperanza at aol.com Thu Jun 11 20:49:26 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:49:26 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Pirotologica Message-ID: In a message dated 6/11/2009 4:25:04 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: The problem then with fishy necessity, is not in the relativisation of necessity, but in the uncertainty about what constitutes the relevant body of fishy theory. ---- Excellent commentary. And before I go to bed, I should provide some background which should prove amusing. I belong to this Classics Discussion List, and a member, out of the blue, said -- it's all publicly displayed somewhere --: "I'm looking for a word for the study of weasels. Should I say 'galeology' or 'studia mustelina'?" A fastidious fellow classicist -- from England -- commented: "galeAlogy: it's feminine in the Greek" So I said, "This is getting a bit too much. Surely zoology should be enough. Consider Grice on ichtyology." And then the owner of the list replied, jocularly as usual: "Ichthyology not necessary? Why not give the big anthropocentric jump and say that _anthropology_ is all you need?" I haven't yet replied to his incisive criticism, but it was checking with the Grice quote that I thought: I should drop this in hist-analytic too, for good measure. In any case, the remark about 'anthropology' got me thinking. Of course there is a logical fallacy here: zoology ----- ichthyology (and Grice is not considering 'zoology' at all). The scheme would be: ichthyology zoology anthropology ornithology etc. -- Oddly, I'm a birder, and cannot think of any specific -logy I would love over another. I even love the archaeopteryx. It seems otiose to coin a word for the study of, all all beasts, weasels -- and the querier has not specified why he wanted it for in the first place. I titled my post to Classics-L, "Geleologica", I think. And I similarly shared views elsewhere on "Ichtyologica". But for my favourite, hist-analytic, I thought I could do better, hence the PIROTOLOGICA --- In _one_ section of Grice, "Method in philosophical psychology" he mentions, 'pirotology' -- i.e. the science of 'pirots'. I once checked with the OED about 'pirot'. A sort of fish, it read. But that's _not_ the meaning postulate for Grice. S. R. Chapman in her bio of the man mentions how irritable Grice became when pressed to use a word processor ("whose spell checker did not recognise either 'sticky wicket' or 'pirot'"). The 'pirot' Grice is thinking about -- Chapman muses and I agree -- is yet another pun of Grice on Locke and Carnap. In "Essay" -- in R. B. Jones's page -- there is an amusing account by Locke on Prince Maurice's parrot. A "very intelligent" animal. Yet, _not_ a very intelligent _man_ (It's in the section of "Personal Identity"). Locke describes it as "a very intelligent parrot", as I recall. (Indeed, he could speak languages). O. T. O. H., Carnap uses 'pirot' in _Introduction to Semantics_ (1942) "Syntax is all we need. After all, pirots karulize elatically". -- and I would disagree, but I'll leave that for a longer day on Strawson not giving a good account of metaphysics -- It's a fascinating topic how metaphysics-obsessed Strawson was, although surely not in "Intro" --. "Pirots karulise elatically" may not say much but it does. It's like The Jabberwocky of Alice. Recall her reply, "Well, at least someone has done something to something". In this case, it is the nature of a pirot that the pirot karulises in an elatic mode. Perhaps not the essential nature, though. It is a fact that pirots do karulise in an elatic fashion. So Grice _loved_ the pirot, and in his ideal-observer theory he uses them in "Metaphysical Transubstantiation". In "Reply to Richards", he needs to transmogrify the man ------> the person the human I'm not sure if he uses 'pirot' in "Reply" but he does mention the 'Genitorial Project', of seeing yourself as _god_. So, I was joking on the idea that when it comes to _pirotology_ we _are_ justified in using the -logy form. There _would_ be a kind of pirotological necessity. The level of generality attained here is 'metaphysical' and 'eschatological'. For we would like to say that some generalities that apply to us as _humans_ do not apply to us as _persons_ or vice versa. And thanks for the thoughts. Cheers, J. L. Speranza ps. I'm just *fascinated* by R. B. Jones's post on 'Vacuity'. I felt bad burdening him -- such a nice pdf document, and to see that he has updated to include the 5 odd syllogisms by Sir Peter moves me! I too loved his reply to S. Bayne. Indeed R. B. Jones has grasped Sir Peter's metaphysics perfectly. Surely there may be a reason to posit, say, 'truth-value gaps' -- that's the ticket -- but I loved R. B. Jones when in such a Gricean unashamed fashion, goes on, "But there are possibly more consistent reasons to affirm that presuppositions are vacuous and that presupposition-free statements are _false_" (or words to that effect, I recite from memory as they say!) -- my bible here has been Grice, "Presupposition (as) [&] Conversational Implicature", in WOW -- a blatant way of a tutor to criticise his tutee for 'metaphysical excrescences' like truth-value gaps and that! **************Download the AOL Classifieds Toolbar for local deals at your fingertips. (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolclassifieds/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000004) From baynesrb at yahoo.com Fri Jun 12 07:30:11 2009 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:30:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume Message-ID: <352095.46488.qm@web36502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> The attributive use of a definite description is one where a correct use is not dependent on the actual extension of the predicates contained in the description but, rather, pragmatic circumstances of application. Donnellan's example, as I recall, is that of situation where a man is standing across the room talking to someone at a cocktail party. I am talking to a friend who asks me who someone is, so I say "He' the man drinking the martini over there. Now, as it turns out, the man is NOT drinking a martini; he is drinking water, but there is a sense in which the description succeeds, even though he is not included in the, literal, extension of the predicate. On Carnap, be a bit careful. At least in Meaning and Necessity he adhere to the "method of intention and extension," so meaning is not reference. Regards Steve --- On Thu, 6/11/09, Roger Bishop Jones wrote: From: Roger Bishop Jones Subject: Re: Davidson's Hume To: "steve bayne" Cc: hist-analytic at simplelists.com Date: Thursday, June 11, 2009, 3:41 PM On Wednesday 03 June 2009 14:23:45 steve bayne wrote: >We have to distinguish at least three things. > >1. Attributive uses of definite descriptions and referential uses. > (Donnellan) > >2. Rigid and non-rigid designation (Kripke) > >3. Purely referential vs non purely referential designators. > >Each has a history and some would argue, incorrectly in my opinion, that > there was overlap. Thanks for pointing that out. I have to confess that I don't really understand any of these distinctions. (groping in the dark, as usual) A brief search for enlightenment on Donellan left me doubting that the distinction in use which he is discussing reflects any underlying difference in meaning or sense. On Kripke, so far as I understand him, his separation of necessity from analyticity depends on it being coherent to suppose that something can be a rigid designator without that being a consequence of its meaning. So that brings me to wonder about what is now meant by speaking of something as purely referential. Presumably it means that the designator has no sense apart from its reference, but I don't know whether the case that the meaning *is* the denotation counts as purely referential or whether that term is reserved for the case that the reference is contingent and the designator meaningless. >In "Reference and Modality" Quine notes that while '9>7' is a necessary > truth 'The number of planets > 7' is not a necessary truth because the > number of planets is a contingent fact. The source of the problem is that > 'The number of planets' is not purely referential. We find something > similar in Russell's "logically proper names." Donnellan's distinction may > show itself within a single world and says nothing about other possible > worlds, while (as you know) rigidity is very much about "worlds." These > distinctions do not require much of anything with respect to what we know. > It is a semantical not an epistemological conception. If meaning is used in the same way as Carnap and I use it, then, if the meaning of a designator is the thing which it designates, that designator will be rigid. Furthermore in relation to this kind of semantics, (which we might call a full truth conditional semantics), this is the only way in which you can get a rigid designator, and results in the disappearance of Kripke's counterexamples to the analytic/necessary identification. Whether we are talking about different uses in one world or uses in different worlds, the touchstone is the semantics, and this ought to result in there being connections between these issues (if indeed they are anything to do with meaning, as one might doubt for the Donellan distinction). >In 'The cause of e caused e' IF we take ' the cause of e' attributively' > then my claim is that the sentence 'The cause of e caused e' is contingent. Perhaps you could expand for me on the "attributive" use, and how it yields this result? Having just read Strawson I think he would say, and I would agree, that e having a unique cause is presupposed here and that the sentence has the status of being true whenever it has a truth value, but in many possible worlds lacking one. Though one might very reasonably insist that in those cases it is false. > On the other hand if we think of the sentence as completely devoid of > pragmatic elements, and here I have in mind Jerry Katz's notion of > 'linguistic meaning' then the sentence is trivial, like 'I married my > wife'. Can't say I like the idea that its trivial. > So it's not so much which is the right reading but what you get on > different readings. But we have been here before and this looks to me like a non-sequitur. How have you come to the conclusion that there is no basis for considering one reading correct and the other mistaken? I did offer some reasoning for not taking descriptions as "purely referential" but you haven't responded to them. regards, Roger Jones -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From baynesrb at yahoo.com Fri Jun 12 09:11:53 2009 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:11:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [hist-analytic] Correction:Re: Davidson's Hume Message-ID: <325480.67304.qm@web36507.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I meant to say "referential" when I said "attributive." Sorry Steve --- On Fri, 6/12/09, steve bayne wrote: From: steve bayne Subject: Re: Davidson's Hume To: hist-analytic at simplelists.com Date: Friday, June 12, 2009, 7:30 AM The attributive use of a definite description is one where a correct use is not dependent on the actual extension of the predicates contained in the description but, rather, pragmatic circumstances of application. Donnellan's example, as I recall, is that of situation where a man is standing across the room talking to someone at a cocktail party. I am talking to a friend who asks me who someone is, so I say "He' the man drinking the martini over there. Now, as it turns out, the man is NOT drinking a martini; he is drinking water, but there is a sense in which the description succeeds, even though he is not included in the, literal, extension of the predicate. On Carnap, be a bit careful. At least in Meaning and Necessity he adhere to the "method of intention and extension," so meaning is not reference. Regards Steve --- On Thu, 6/11/09, Roger Bishop Jones wrote: From: Roger Bishop Jones Subject: Re: Davidson's Hume To: "steve bayne" Cc: hist-analytic at simplelists.com Date: Thursday, June 11, 2009, 3:41 PM On Wednesday 03 June 2009 14:23:45 steve bayne wrote: >We have to distinguish at least three things. > >1. Attributive uses of definite descriptions and referential uses. > (Donnellan) > >2. Rigid and non-rigid designation (Kripke) > >3. Purely referential vs non purely referential designators. > >Each has a history and some would argue, incorrectly in my opinion, that > there was overlap. Thanks for pointing that out. I have to confess that I don't really understand any of these distinctions. (groping in the dark, as usual) A brief search for enlightenment on Donellan left me doubting that the distinction in use which he is discussing reflects any underlying difference in meaning or sense. On Kripke, so far as I understand him, his separation of necessity from analyticity depends on it being coherent to suppose that something can be a rigid designator without that being a consequence of its meaning. So that brings me to wonder about what is now meant by speaking of something as purely referential. Presumably it means that the designator has no sense apart from its reference, but I don't know whether the case that the meaning *is* the denotation counts as purely referential or whether that term is reserved for the case that the reference is contingent and the designator meaningless. >In "Reference and Modality" Quine notes that while '9>7' is a necessary > truth 'The number of planets > 7' is not a necessary truth because the > number of planets is a contingent fact. The source of the problem is that > 'The number of planets' is not purely referential. We find something > similar in Russell's "logically proper names." Donnellan's distinction may > show itself within a single world and says nothing about other possible > worlds, while (as you know) rigidity is very much about "worlds." These > distinctions do not require much of anything with respect to what we know. > It is a semantical not an epistemological conception. If meaning is used in the same way as Carnap and I use it, then, if the meaning of a designator is the thing which it designates, that designator will be rigid. Furthermore in relation to this kind of semantics, (which we might call a full truth conditional semantics), this is the only way in which you can get a rigid designator, and results in the disappearance of Kripke's counterexamples to the analytic/necessary identification. Whether we are talking about different uses in one world or uses in different worlds, the touchstone is the semantics, and this ought to result in there being connections between these issues (if indeed they are anything to do with meaning, as one might doubt for the Donellan distinction). >In 'The cause of e caused e' IF we take ' the cause of e' attributively' > then my claim is that the sentence 'The cause of e caused e' is contingent. Perhaps you could expand for me on the "attributive" use, and how it yields this result? Having just read Strawson I think he would say, and I would agree, that e having a unique cause is presupposed here and that the sentence has the status of being true whenever it has a truth value, but in many possible worlds lacking one. Though one might very reasonably insist that in those cases it is false. > On the other hand if we think of the sentence as completely devoid of > pragmatic elements, and here I have in mind Jerry Katz's notion of > 'linguistic meaning' then the sentence is trivial, like 'I married my > wife'. Can't say I like the idea that its trivial. > So it's not so much which is the right reading but what you get on > different readings. But we have been here before and this looks to me like a non-sequitur. How have you come to the conclusion that there is no basis for considering one reading correct and the other mistaken? I did offer some reasoning for not taking descriptions as "purely referential" but you haven't responded to them. regards, Roger Jones -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Fri Jun 12 08:46:38 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:46:38 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Vacuity Message-ID: In a message dated 6/11/2009 3:52:03 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, rbj at rbjones.com writes: But for Aristotle "izz" isn't merely set inclusion, for the sets here are part of something like a taxonomy (either of substance of some category of attributes). They do not correspond to aribitrary descriptions but to definitions, about which Aristotle is a bit picky. When you consider this as a taxonomy it's natural enought to expect all the defined concepts to be non-empty. ... When we look at "hazz" the situation is different. Here we do not need to insist on non-empty extensions (and my last model does not) because, in effect, syllogisms never quantify over the extension of an attribute. If an individual attribute is the subject of a predication then the predication must be an "izz", and the syllogism rather than saying anything about the objects in the extension of the attribute is simply stating that the attribute is IN some universal, e.g. red is a colour. Aristotle's logic+metaphysics as I understand it at present (mainly at second hand) doesn't allow you to say "All red things are coloured". ----- As I said in my ps for "Re: Pirotologica", I am fascinated by the post by R. B. Jones on vacuity. My reference to Strawson was meant historically for various reasons: i. I do think he was a master in capturing the nuances of ordinary language like nobody before or after did. ii. It's _his_ nuances that Grice took seriously when developping that side of his programme connected with logic. iii. Grice/Metaphysics/Strawson/Aristotle overlap too, in that Grice was closely aware (and he says uncrediting contributing) to Strawson's masterpiece in Metaphysics: His Individuals. etc. ----- In this post I would like to mention what Grice found a syntactical device to deal with Strawson's problems. The easiest access is in WOW, Strand 6 -- I think: modernism versus neo-traditionalism. As R. B. Jones notes, it's difficult to check with Strawson: how much is "Aristotelian" and how much is just "traditional". In this respect, I should say I loved to teach logic -- I recall one seminar where we set to music all the 'barbara celarent' little ditty. Since the Chair of the Department was not happy in hearing my class sing, I had to find a reference to back me; and I did: a book called "Barbara Celarent" -- printed in London. I should have the complete reference somewhere. Now, where Grice gets in: Indeed, "The king of France is bald" is _false_ for Grice -- and R. B. Jones -- and me. It's true-value gappy for Strawson and Burton-Roberts (this person calls himself a neo-Strawsonian) "The king of France is not bald" is thus _true for Grice, Jones, and me. It's true-value-gappy for Strawson and Burton-Roberts (Oddly, Burton Roberts worked marvels with the Square of Opposition in connection with necessity in "Implicature and Modality" -- he is a linguist rather than a philosopher, so be careful there -- I find that linguists and some logicians are pretty inconsidered when it comes to handling of calculus; as if they do not care for any metaphysical reverberation this or that technical tweak may have on the system). Now, this is indeed all about Russell (Ex) Kx & ( ) & ~Bx The king of France is bald (skipping the uniqueness clause). Grice mentions Sluga for some considerations into the interpretation of the 'iota' operator: (ix)Kx & ~Bx. So I will use (ix) as iota operator and avoid the uniqueness clause altogether -- but recall it's _three_ conjuncts in the Russellian expansion. Now, as Grandy I believe notes in the two quotes on Grice's Vacuous Names, Grice seems to be saying that ~ shall always have maximal scope: ~(ix)(Kx & Bx) I.e. it is not the case that the king of France is bald. This is the only thing that "The king of France is bald" _means_. The implicature that there _is_ a king of France arises because of considerations of trivial (or non-trivial, sometimes) "common-ground status" of "There is a king of France" -- (ix)Kx. (The point about 'trivial' and 'nontrivial' is somewhat complex: A: I loved that concert B: My aunt's cousin went to that concert, and loved it too. It would be otiose to _expect_ that A knows that B has an aunt ("let alone that B's aunt has a cousin"), so it's not so much 'common ground' but non-trivial/trivial knowledge worth sharing or not). Now, Grice seems to have _preferred_ to keep the _natural_ order of the surface formula: It's not like we do say: ~(ix)Kx & ~(ix)Bx "There is not a king of France, and he is not bald". Rather we do say, at one fell swoop -- if that's the expression, "The king of France is not bald" and it would be otiose to be asking for 'it is the case' reformulations. Strawson oddly considers this under 'not' in "Introduction" and he insists that "~" represents "It is not the case" only, not plain "not". I would follow him, since I'm Italian and the Italians are redundant, but honest, to be saying, It is the case that the wife married her husband, instead of the shorter, "The wife married her husband" seems a bit too much -- for surely if 'it's not the case that ...' is necessary for negative propositions, 'it is the case that' should be symmetrically preferred for affirmative sentences too. So Grice was following what he called 'wisdom', when he says (in WOW): What the eye no longer sees the heart no longer grieves for. His idea is to get _rid_ of the impilcature even in the surface form. How? TWO METHODS. * In "Vacuous Names", it's his subscript notation. He corresponded with Boolos and Parsons on that, and G. Myro helped him there. Myro has an interesting "Rudiments of Logic" which covers much of this ground. In this subscript notation we would need to subscribe each element of the formula. Let's call the king of France 'Bob' Bob hazz bald It is not the case that Bob hazz bald Bob hazz no bald etc. I'll settle for the iii, albeit cacophonically. In the subscript system it comes out as Bob-1 hazz-2 no-3 bald-4. Each element is giving a scope ordering and index. In this case, as I recall, Bob has a lower index than no (Bob has 1; no has 3), so the implicature could be _defended_ on logical grounds. But Grice wants to say that the neutral preferred ordering is with "no" giving maximal scope: Bob-2 hazz-3 no-1 bald-4 Syntactically, it's a teller. He then goes on to propose 'interpretation' in the systems for one or the other reading. I recalled I found it witty and easy to digest at one time: ~Fa Surely that's ambiguous: ~1 F2 a3 is less so The fact that he uses subscript makes for a nicer outlook. In that way, ~1 F2 a3 ("Pegasus doesn't fly") differs from ~3 F2 a1 (Also, "Pegasus doesn't fly, but as ascribed of the non-vacuously named Pegasus -- and I agree with R. B. Jones that one should distinguish between 'vacuous' and 'empty'. (Stanford Univ. was editing a collection on "Empty names" and I wrote to the editors: I hope you credit Grice -- they replied back, "And then NOT get the book published? This is supposed to be new, edgy stuff" Ah well -- Unfortunately when "Vacuous Names" was felt as if it needed a reprint, it was only a _partial_ one, in "Definite Descriptions", MIT -- a reader. Of course Grice is aware of 'x pegasises', so the counterparts for the two formulae above in Quinean -- and Grice calls his system Q in honor of Quine -- I write 'honor' without the 'u' because Quine _is_ (WAZZ?) American. (HAZZED American). ----- * The other device is studied by Robert Harnish -- the (Kantian-Fregean) philosophically minded of the group Harnish/Bach -- I love Bach, too -- in "Logical form and implicature". This is the SQUARE-BRACKET DEVICE and it's cute. Grice loved square brackets but here they mean 'immune to negation'. He presented it in WOW iv and Retrospective Epilogue. Also in "Presupposition and Conversational Implicature" -- his example, the slate for "Arrest the intruder! Should the intruder exist!") What this does is respect the surface-form of the utterance (One of Grice's supermaxims, Be perspicuous -- falls under the category of MODE, so he has to be careful HOW the info is presented). So, the square bracket device allows for a way to avoid the fastidious ~(ix)Kx & ~(ix)Bx We could write the shorter: ~[(ix)Kx] & Bx I think. Here is where I think Sluga's considerations enter. Should we take the definite description as a _term_ or as a quantified expression? (I'll omit the details but should get back to them) In any case, what "[ ... phi ... ]" represents is that _it is common ground_ and thus immune to negation that phi. If we bracket in squares "There is a king of France" we cannot then go _and_ deny that. Grice is pragmatical here: he loves his square-bracket device, but realises Russellians will hate him (G. Bealer once quoted a paper, "Definite Descriptions in Russell and the Vernacular", by Grice). So, as prolixic Grice is for the steps of introducing the square-brackets he also is in providing steps for their elimination. The elimination relies on simplification of formula and repetition, too: ~[(ix)(Kx] & Bx) becomes indeed, via elimination of the square brackets, the original verbose formula where we make it clear which of the three Russellian conjuncts _gets_ denied: the last one, that the king is bald: (ix)(Kx & ~Bx) But surely Grice wants to say that CETERIS PARIBUS and on logical principles, it's the maximally located ~ that trumps any other consideration. This above is the 'surface' form for the implicaturally loaded expression, in case someone should not be as careful as Grice and think that the utterer _is_ 'presupposing' the existence of the king of France when denying his baldness. It's "~(ix)(Kx & Bx)" that is the right thing to do, in formulation. ------ In "Life and Opinions" as I think I shared with the forum, Grice goes back to the problem of "explanation" with empty sets, but on re-reading those commentaries, I find he is more into the ultimate metaphysical claims of a unified scientific approach -- and he is pretty open as to what options are open for the metaphysically-oriented scientist or philosopher. Grice writes in his Vacuous Names that it creates no "Meinongian jungle" but in other writings (Life and Opinions) he criticised Quine for preferring dessert landscapes in springtime! So one has to be careful -- especially when one sees indeed that the Modified Occam Razor may even contradict his "Ontological Marxism" (not so, but on the face of it) In considering his extension to 'definite descriptions' besides the idea of 'dossier' that G. Evans took up in "Varieties of Reference" with a credit (in a footnote), I liked Grice's expression, 'by a stroke of a pen', whatever that meant. He said that -- in his funny scenario where the butler mixed his and his friend's hat. It turns out that the butler was the gardener. So Grice says, "the butler whoever he is mixed my and my friend's hat" -- It would do to play with non-existentials here. If they were mixed, by chance -- since there is no butler, I _suppose_ the 'whoever he is' (whatever it is, etc) may be expanded to cancel the unwanted 'existential fallacy': 'whoever he is, if he is _anything_ at all' Bellorophon owed Pegasus. Bellorophon owed Pegasus, whoever he was, if he was at all. Bellorophon, whoever he was, if he was at all, owed Pegaus, whoever he was, if he was at all. etc. Recall that Grice wants to say that even if he didn't exist, Pegasus possibly _could_ fly -- for Apollodorus says it's so. But if that's not a Meinongian jungle it's not the desert of Gaza, either. "The present king of France" is more of a political dogma. I'm sure there are royalists in France who think that a particular individual _is_ the present king of France. I know in Italy they do vis a vis the present King of Italy! Cheers, J. L. Speranza Ref.: Grice, H. P. Vacuous Names', in Davidson/Hintikka, Words and Objections. Grice, H. P. Studies in the Way of Words. Harvard. (esp. "Presupposition and Conversational Implicature") **************Download the AOL Classifieds Toolbar for local deals at your fingertips. (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolclassifieds/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000004) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jun 13 13:47:06 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:47:06 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Vacuity Message-ID: A brief comment, I hope, on a few lines -- having now seen the updated pdf -- excellent! -- by R. B. Jones. These are his lines in his "Re: Davidson's Hume", but I'm taking the liberty of appending them to the thread on 'Vacuity': R. B. Jones writes in his reply to S. Bayne on "Davidson's Hume": >Having just read Strawson I think he would say, and I would agree, >that e having a unique cause is presupposed here and that the >sentence has the status of being true whenever it has a truth >value, but in many possible worlds lacking one. >Though one might very reasonably insist that in those cases it >is false. Excellent application. For the record, three things: * Strawson did use 'imply' in "On Referring" (predating Introductin to Logical Theory by four years?). This I find fascinating, because he later did introduce 'presuppose' which links nicely with the 'continental' philosophical tradition -- I can think of Collingwood on 'presupposition' and the whole idea of 'suppositio' in mediaeval logic. When Grice coined 'implicate' he was obviously having 'imply' in mind; and when in "Presupposition and Conversational Implicature" he is thinking of 're-coining' Strawson's 'presuppose' as 'implicate' it's like the full circle. * ASYMMETRY of the 'alleged' gap. Part I. Strawson puzzled everyone, "The king of France is bald" _and_ "The king of France is not bald" (oddly he uses 'wise') are _neither true nor false_. They lack a truth-value. They diplay a truth-value gap (I tend to think the coinage of that phrase is Quine's?). But there is some asymmetry here, Grice feels, that Strawson ignores: "The king of France is bald" _is_ *false* if there is no king of France. This is, Grice does (and I would) claim -- drawing on G. E. Moore's own coinage of 'entailment' -- because 'The king of France is bald' _entails_ there is a king of France -- Russellian expansion -- three prong analysis. * ASYMMETRY of the 'alleged' gap. Part II. What about the other claim by Strawson, "The king of France is not bald" is neither true nor false when there is no king of France? Grice claims the picture is perfectly opposite: "The king of France is not bald" _is *true* if there is no king of France. (I wonder what Strawson _was_ thinking). This is because it's a mere matter of 'cancellable' implicature (or presupposition). Surely it's wittily cancellable, "The king of France is not bald; there is no such thing". Grice plays with "contextual" cancellation even, "The Loyalty Examiner won't be exa mining you" -- his example in WOW, op. cit. ---- This and R. B. Jones's document. I will have another look at the document, which pleases me bunches -- I can _see_ Jones's enjoyment in building it! I would think that on account of that asymmetry of 'negation' one would re-consider the five odd syllogisms Strawson thinks 'valid' but only on account of the existential fallacy. In my previous I provided some formalism for the treatment of '~', and I would wonder if there is an effect on what syllogisms are valid (regardless or not regardless) vis a vis this 'asymmetry'. It seems to me that those involving "~" (E and O, in Aristotle) would be valid regardless, and only A and I -- affirmative -- would ask for the deployment of the existential-fallacy tweak? ----- Negation is fascinating. I don't know what exactly Grice, Aristotle, or Kripke, or Wittgenstein meant by that. I would think that nature does abhor a vacuum. Imagine if all we knew about the world (the totality of state of affairs, Wittgenstein says) were: ~p A big fat noth! ---- Grice's subscript device and square-bracket device are realistic along Aristotelian lines. As R. B. Jones notes, it would be _otiose_ (or odd) to display a detailed taxonomy of things (and define them, too -- picky as the Stagirite is on that front) to add, "But all this may be vacuous".) So, while ~Fa does not display its _phylogenesis_, Grice notes that: 1. If Fa is introduced at one stage of the conversation 2. And ~Fa at a later stage, one may want to say that [Fa] _is_ cancellably presupposed. This 'phylogenesis' is best shown in the subscript device. If the ordinal attached to "F" is _greater_ than that attached to "~", there is _no_ way to avoid the existential fallacy: ~-3 F-2 a-1 --- shows that the order is, first posit "a" (hence the ordinal 1), then F, hence the ordinal 2, and then ~, hence ordinarl 3. In that formula, ~ would _not_ have maximal scope. What fascinates me is that ~ differs from &, v, and --> in various respects. It's an operator on a _phrastic_ direct: ___________________________ V the king of France is bald (Grice uses this symbolism in "Aspects of Reason". The "radix" of "The King of France is bald"). Should it include the ~? Is ~ part of the phrastic or part of the neustic? ________________________________ V the king of France is not bald i.e. _________________________________ V ~ (The King of France is bald) --- I can make sense of that, but, how do we distinguish it from ______________________________ ~ V The king of France is bald --- Grice is well aware, and this is his wording, that 'the crunch comes with negation' -- but he adds that a conversational-implicature approach to the trickiest and darkest problems of value gaps and presuppositions will _be_ available. In a way, the truth-functionality of ~ is at the core of this. But unlike the operators which are dyadic (and connect, &, v and -->) "~" does _not_ connect. So what kind of a functor is it? It's a monadic functor that _inverts_ the truth-value of the 'atom'. Gazdar notes that there are at least three other monadic functors like that p ~p Rp Cp Tp 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 Gazdar -- in his PhD for Reading -- notes that only "~" gives a conversational contribution. "Tp" maintains the truth-value of the atom, Rp yields true regardless, and Cp yields false regardless. ---- The issue of 'vacuity' I find fascinating. I am with R. B. Jones that 'vacuous' and 'empty' should be distinguished. In various and many ways -- and perhaps this would be a good reminder that Carnap perhaps over-reacted to Heidegger's dictum, "Nothing noths"! Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************Download the AOL Classifieds Toolbar for local deals at your fingertips. (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolclassifieds/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000004) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sat Jun 13 18:27:18 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:27:18 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume Message-ID: We are considering the status of c causes e ---- R. B. Jones: >Having just read Strawson I think he would say, and I would agree, >that e having a unique cause is presupposed here and that the >sentence has the status of being true whenever it has a truth >value, but in many possible worlds lacking one. >Though one might very reasonably insist that in those cases it >is false. ---- Exactly. If such cases exist. Oddly, the word 'ineffectual' is just as interesting here. Surely if there are effects which have no causes, there should be causes which have no effects? 1896 MRS. CAFFYN Quaker Grandmother 142 "In everything she had become ineffectual. Work had lost its savour, prayer its creative atmosphere." 1897 T. HODGKIN Chas. Gt. 90 "Pope Stephen III., the Sicilian, a weak and ineffectual man." 1925 G. GREENE Babbling April 4 "You snobbish intellectual, Suburban ineffectual, Can't you feel that shimmy in the air?" ---- I feel that writers _overuse_ (abuse) 'ineffectual'? Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************Download the AOL Classifieds Toolbar for local deals at your fingertips. (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolclassifieds/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000004) From baynesrb at yahoo.com Sun Jun 14 12:17:15 2009 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 09:17:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [hist-analytic] Dray's Book Now Online Message-ID: <678767.58032.qm@web36503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Here is another classic. It deserves to be on Hist-Analytic. Steve Laws and Explanation in History by William Dray The Covering Law Model http://www.hist-analytic.org/Dray1.pdf The Doctrine of Implicit Law http://www.hist-analytic.org/Dray2.pdf Explaining and Prediction http://www.hist-analytic.org/Dray3.pdf Causal Laws and Causal Analysis http://www.hist-analytic.org/Dray4.pdf The Rationale of Actions http://www.hist-analytic.org/Dray5.pdf Explaining Why and Explaining How http://www.hist-analytic.org/Dray6.pdf -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Sun Jun 14 12:50:35 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:50:35 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump Message-ID: Of Grice on Strawson's truth-value gaps, citing Johnson: "There are objections against a plenum, and objections against a vacuum; yet one of them must be true." Does Natural Logic Abhor A Vacuum? vacuum, plural 'vacua'. Cfr. denotatum: denotata. denotans. This denotans denotates a vacuum. "Having his head as full of vacuum as his small proportion of brains was capable of." Poor Robin "A vacuum was the only thing she could be trusted to handle with safety." Judge. "Nothing is said to be empty, but when you look for a fullness in it." Preston "The hours of thoughtful vacuity I had spent." A. Hope, My Schoolboy "In this age, when men may say any thing if they have but rhetoric to fill up the vacuities." -- Baxter "This Art is very profitable: to prove, that Vacuum, or Emptines is not in the world." DEE. Further to our discussion on 'vacuity', some quotations which I hope will be of some interest." The first examination should go to Set-Theoretical Considerations -- basic sense, I trust. Between 'empty' domain and non-empty domain. Vis a vis Grice's doubts about the 'explanatory' adequacy of extensionalism. Quotes ordered chronologically: 1903 RUSSELL Princ. Math. "A propositional function is said to be _null_ when it is false for all values of x; and the class of x's satisfying the function is called _the null-class_, being in fact a class of no terms." "Non-empty" made its OED appearance two years later: 1905 Amer. Math. Soc. "[...] is a _non-empty_ sub-class in K." 1906 YOUNG & YOUNG Theory of Sets of Points 288 "The _null-set_ [...] contains no point." 1932 LEWIS & LANGFORD Logic "The universal function is expressible as "p v ~p". The null-function is the negative of this. 1937 Mind "There is another _non-empty_ sub-set ... of sentences of C2 which are nonsensical but not -nonsensical. 1937 Symbolic Logic "A set or class is said to be _empty_ if there is no element of it." 1941 HELMER Tarski "We have ... in the calculus of relations two special relations, the universal relation and the _null_ relation, the first of which holds between any two individuals, and the second between none." 1946 WEIL Geom. "The bunch of varieties defined by an _empty set_ of varieties will be called _empty_." 1955 PRIOR Logic "Both the domain and the converse domain of _the null relation_ are _the null class_. 1965 CAWS Sci. "The restriction must be added that the domain be _non-empty_." 1966 BEER Decision "This does not matter; it simply means that the complementary set has no elements and this is called _a null set_." 1966 HU Topology "A function f: X Y is said to be one-to-one or injective iff, for every point y Y, the inverse *image* f-1(y) is either _empty_ or a singleton." 1996 CONWAY Numbers "If you have any collection of _nonempty_ sets of things, you can make a new set by choosing just one from each set of the given collections." 1981 CHANDOR Microprocessors "_Null string_, a string with no characters. Also known as _empty_ string." 1991 Econ. "The _class_ of reasons ... for choosing an option a must *not* be _null_. For broad use of 'empty' to mean 'syncategorematic': 1892 SWEET Gram. "When a form-word is entirely devoid of meaning, we may call it an _empty_ word, as opposed to *full* words such as "earth" and "round"." 1953 ENTWISTLE Aspects of Lang. "Chinese ... makes considerable use of ?empty words?, that is of auxiliaries in the broad sense of the term, which includes prepositions as well as subordinate members of the verbal complex." --- cf. 'flatus vocis'. 1968 KRATOCHV?L Chinese Lang. "Traditional Chinese linguists considered practically all minimal forms, beside what would be called nouns, as ?empty words?." Other uses of 'vacuous': As applied to a 'life': 1897 Review of Rev. 37 "There are many rich people who ... lead such mean and vacuous lives." E.g. Marmaduke Bloggs, climbing up the Everest on hands and knees and turning out not to exist -- Grice, "Vacuous Names". As applied to a 'look': "He was rather a vacuous-looking young man." ?H. S. MERRIMAN? Grey Lady. As applied to a style: 1879 HOWELLS "Mrs. Erwin wrote an epistolary style exasperatingly _vacuous_ and diffuse." In the phrase, 'in vacuo' -- in the 'void'. Could a Universe of Discourse, to use Venn's phrase, exist 'in vacuo'? 1660 EVELYN "various experiments in vacuo." 1716 CHEYNE "Supposing a body moving in vacuo." 1812 DAVY "A wire of platina may be preserved in a state of intense ignition in vacuo." 1937 [see ELECTRONIC a. 1]. 1942 Tee Emm "It is more correct to regard a running fix as a means of approximating the position ?in vacuo? so to speak, when more precise methods are unobtainable. 1955 Times "Whatever meaning people might ascribe to the word ?tramp? in vacuo." (iii) Was Grice a 'vacuist'? 1660 BOYLE "Those spaces which the Vacuists would have to be empty, because they are manifestly devoid of Air, and all the grosser bodies." 1664 POWER "The second Hypothesis 's of the Vacuists." 1682 CREECH "[Hobbes] adds another argument, which is of no force against the Vacuists." -- "On what there isn't, or How to Vacuefy System Q" 1727 BAILEY "To Vacuefy, to make void or empty." You vacuefy "Pegasus" by killing him. R. Martin, the semanticist, called his cat Pegasus just to tease Quine. 1828 CRAIGIE "Vacuefying apparatus ... found in the upper surface of the head of the sucking fish." 1432 Higden "Philip should destroy soon the city if that it were vacuate and void of discrete men." 1617 MIDDLETON "I cannot see that vacuum in your blood". (which is just as well). 1630 LENNARD "It were a vacuum, a defect, a deformity too absurd in nature ... that betwixt two extremes ... there should be no middle." But a middle value -- a truth value gap -- is something we may unnecessarily _mind_. 1670 HACKET "Commonly they misspent that triennial probation, and left upon that place a vacuum of doing little or nothing." 1710 PALMER "'Tis infinitely pleasing to observe there has been no Vacuum in our Life." 1772 Phil. "It should therefore seem that the larks from the more adjacent parts crowd in to supply the vacuum occasioned by the London Epicures." 1829 MARRYAT "The vacuum occasioned by my mother's death." When "Elizabeth" became a _vacuous name_, in Grice's parlance. 1846 GROTE "They filled up the vacuum of the unrecorded past." Or how to Fill Up "Pegasus". 1879 ELLIOT "So Martin Kerr ... was left with a sheer, hopeless vacuum to fill up as best he could." 1903 Hardwareman "A decision of ... serious import as regards the operations of the Vacuum Cleaner Co." This above relates to Grice's ontological marxism: Any entity welcomed, provided they help with the housework. VACUITY proper: 1546 LANGLEY "Epicurus ... puts two Causes Atoms or Motes and Vacuity or emptiness." 1597 MIDDLETON "For him ... the Horizons and hemispheres obey, and winds the fillers of vacuity." 1626 DONNE "Water will clamber up hills and air will sink down into Vaults rather than admit Vacuity." Some people. 1644 DIGBY "Aristotle has demonstrated that there can be no motion in vacuity." 1700 KEN "Some Dotards dream'd..That Atoms..Should rise from nothing in Vacuity." 1728 CHAMBERS "Vacuum, but mere Space, or vacuity, is supposed to be extended; therefore it is material." 1829 Chapters "A large portion of interspersed vacuity is sufficient for all purposes." 1860. OUTRAM "She beats the taeds that live in stones an' fatten in vacuity." 1603 HOLLAND "There is no voidness or vacuity in nature." 1660 COKE "So the laws of nature will admit of many things contrary to nature, rather than endure a vacuity." 1704 RAY "Nature's abhorrence of a Vacuity." 1631 DONNE "In the first vacuity, when thou wast nothing he sought thee so early as in Adam." 1655 FULLER "To prevent a vacuity, (the detestation of nature,) a new plantation was soon substituted in their room." 1579 BAKER "Some bones are embossed for to enter, and other have vacuity that receives." 1651 BIGGS "The vacuity of the depleted veins does attract the blood beneath." 1822 GOOD "This vacuity of the arteries upon death was one of the objections urged very forcibly by the ancients against the circulation of the blood." 1660 BROOKE "Leading him to a dark deep well ... but terrified with the vacuity and darkness, he retired." 1759 JOHNSON "The princess and her maid,..seeing nothing to bound their prospect, considered themselves as in danger of being lost in a dreary vacuity." 1775 JOHNSON "Madam, I do not like to come down to vacuity." 1818 SCOTT "Such sunbeams as forced their way through the narrow Gothic lattices and lost themselves in the vacuity of the vaults behind." 1842 ROGERS "The grim spectres who stalk from desolation to desolation, through the dreary vacuity of chill and comfortless chambers." 1891 HARDY "As he gazed, a moving spot intruded on the white vacuity of its perspective." 1664 EVELYN "But 'tis cheaper to supply the vacuity of such accidental decays by a new plantation." 1844 MRS. BROWNING "To fill the vacant thrones of me and mine, which affront Heaven with their vacuity." 1603 FLORIO "To make them feel the emptiness, vacuity, and no worth of man." 1640 REYNOLDS "The most general cause of desire is a vacuity, indigence, and self-insufficiency of the soul. 1690 NESSE "They have the most light to discover to themselves their own vacuity and nothingness." 1806 KNOX "It would follow that..the great central appetite of intellectual man was abandoned to the self-torture of irremediable vacuity." 1850 CARLYLE "Here is an abyss of vacuity in our much-admired opulence." 1885 PATER "It was an experience which came in the midst of a deep sense of vacuity in things." For Grice: "It was an experience which came in the midst of a deep sense of vacuity in names" (apres Marius The Epicurean) 1711 KEN "Thou all-sufficient art, and I Am nothing but vacuity." 1751 JOHNSON "Think on the misery of him who is condemned to cultivate barrenness and ransack vacuity." 1776 Let. to Mrs. Thrale "I know that a whole system of hopes, and designs, and expectations, is swept away at once, and nothing left but bottomless vacuity." 1819 WIFFEN "The drear Vacuity of sorrow on thee lay." 1840 CARLYLE "Having once parted with Reality, he tumbles helpless in Vacuity." 1888 FITZGERALD "In my lonely blue chamber, there is a sort of vacuity for thought, the world is shut out." 1594 HOOKER "Men are at the first without understanding or knowledge at all. Nevertheless from this utter vacuity they grow by degrees." 1661 K. W. Conf. "Which will avail him little; but to be an indicium of his own vacuity and emptiness of all solidity." 1707 FLOYER "The pulse, if it be weak, indicates vacuity and fear." 1773 MORE "Though more to folly than to guilt inclined, a drear vacuity possess'd my mind." 1818 FERRIER "Imputing to fatigue of body, what in fact was the consequence of mental vacuity, he proposed returning home." 1854 MARION HARLAND "She heard and saw all that passed; but in place of heart and sense, was a dead vacuity." 1885 CLODD "We cannot so far lull our faculty of thought as to realise the mental vacuity of the savage." 1760 STERNE "That perplexed vacuity of eye which puzzled souls generally stare with." 1784 COWPER "'Tis thus the understanding takes repose in indolent vacuity of thought." 1829 COBBETT "A great fondness for music is a mark of ... great vacuity of mind." Oops, above. (I can see that in Sir Paul McCartney) 1863 COWDEN "He frequents low dissolute haunts from no graver cause than idleness and vacuity of mind." Not the swimming-pool library! 1879 FARRAR "We may be sure that the vacuity of thought in which most men live was for Saul a thing impossible." But not for Paul (Grice). 1601 CORNWALLIS "Which vacuity of virtue at that time will breed more terror to him then darkness to children." 1642 ROGERS Naaman "Christ is a sufficient store to a poor soul in the vacuity of other things." 1698 COCKBURN "She was in an admirable vacuity of all desire of knowing." 1782 BURNEY "When he is quite tired of his existence, from a total vacuity of ideas, he must affect a look of absence." 1792 YOUNG "There is as much character in his air and manner as there is vacuity of it in the countenance of St. Etienne." 1822 GOOD "To contemplate the body and mind at birth as consisting equally of a blank or vacuity of impressions." 1619 FOTHERBY "The soul cannot have in it, any true joy unless the same be founded, both in security, and in confidence, and in tranquillity. All which do imply a vacuity from fear." 1648 SANDERSON "By the evenness of the mind and the vacuity from those secret lashes that haunt a guilty conscience." 1665 GOODWIN "A well-grounded vacuity or freedom from all troublesome, distracting, and tormenting fears and cares." 1607 Scholast. "From this preposterousness of the Cross setting the sense before the spirit, come we to his vacuity for his inward devotion." 1817 JAS. MILL "A whole race of men..whom the pain of vacuity forced upon some application of mind." 1875 HOPE "The hours of thoughtful vacuity I had spent." 1541 COPLAND "Some bones are enbossed for to enter, and other have vacuities that receive." 1607 TOPSELL Four-f. Beasts 330 "That so those places being emptied the vacuity may be replenished with better blood." 1659 HAMMOND "The earth sinks down and fills up the vacuities." 1677 GREW "There are vacuities in water. That is to say, that all the parts of water are not contiguous." 1731 MEDLEY "Those pieces become as hard as flints, and altogether as smooth and solid; not the least vacuity or interstice being to be seen." 1770 Phil. Trans. "Every particle of light that issues from the sun, must leave a spherical vacuity of one millionth of one millionth of an inch diameter." 1800 Ibid. "A wad was placed over the powder, dry sand superadded, to fill all vacuities." 1840 Jrnl. Engl. Agric. Soc. "Water in descending seeks the nearest vacuity." 1872 DANA "The polyp has no blood-vessels but the vacuities among the tissues." 1643 SIR T. BROWNE "When this sensible world shall be destroyed, all shall then be here as it is now there, an empireal Heaven, a quasi vacuity." 1667 MILTON "That seat soon failing, he meets a vast vacuity." 1685 BOYLE "Whilst their numberless atoms wildly roved in their infinite vacuity." 1795 W. BLAKE "The eeep fled away on all sides, and left an unformed dark vacuity." 1624 WOTTON "To place the columns precisely one over another, that so the solid may answer to the solid, and the vacuities to the vacuities." 1655 FULLER "The great pillars thereof are wreathed with indentings; which vacuities, if formerly filled up with brass,..added much to the beauty of the building." 1726 LEONI "The vacuities which are left between the back..of the Arch, and the upright of the wall." 1775 JOHNSON "Round which there are narrow cavities or recesses formed by small vacuities or by a double wall." 1823 P. NICHOLSON "Rooms are the interior vacuities or habitable parts of a building." 1845 Florist "An ingeniously contrived trap for earwigs, leaving a vacuity for the reception of the insects." 1870 ROLLESTON "By a vacuity in the skull walls for the blood to pass out from the lateral sinus." 1658 SIR T. BROWNE "Whereby the Elephants passing the vacuities of the Hastati, might have run upon them." 1757 BURKE "The Scots and Picts rushed with redoubled violence into this vacuity." 1863 HAWTHORNE "The market-place of the town is a rather spacious and irregularly shaped vacuity." 1822 GOOD "He has also seen others reproduce a smaller or larger number of teeth to supply vacuities progressively produced in earlier life." 1849 SOMERVILLE "Those dark vacuities called ?coal sacks? by the ancient navigators, which are so numerous between Centauri and Antaris." 1867 CHAMBERS "The central vacuity is not quite dark." 1631 DONNE A filling of all former vacuities, a supplying of all emptinesses in our souls. 1651 BAXTER "In this age, when men may say any thing if they have but rhetoric to fill up the vacuities." 1682 OWTRAM "Our Saviour filled up the vacuities that Moses had left in moral duties." 1732 POPE "Each want of happiness by hope supplied, and each vacuity of sense by pride." 1776 ADAM SMITH "Whatever vacuities this excessive circulation occasioned in the necessary coin of the kingdom." 1841 EMERSON "But yesterday I saw a dreary vacuity in this direction in which now I see so much." 1850 KINGSLEY "Oh those Sabbaths when there was nothing to fill up the long vacuity but books of which I did not understand a word." 1648 BEAUMONT "That with those huge adored vacuities, which puff the World up with their frothy flood, even massy Gold must counted be." 1665 MANLEY "The Prince, by the Concessions of these Honorary Vacuities, redeeming the War from delay." 1843 CARLYLE "Thou for one wilt not again vote for any quack, do honour to any edge-gilt vacuity in man's shape." ---- Finally, "VACUOUS" proper -- cfr. Grice, "Vacuous Names" in Davidson/Hintikka: -- as applied to 'birth': 1651 SMALLWOOD Commend. Verses to W. Cartwright's Wks., "False vacuous births in every street we see: But seldom, true and ripened, such as He." -- as applied to the 'third dimension': 1655 STANLEY "It were impossible for one body to make another to recede, if the triple dimension were vacuous." --- "as applied to 'space': 1677 GALE "Will they say that these atoms were introduced or produced in this vacuous space in time?" 1794 SULIVAN He contended, that thunder or sound would not be able to pass through walls, unless there were some vacuous spaces in those bodies." 1860 TYNDALL "The water is not able to fill it, hence a vacuous space must be formed in the cell." -- as applied to 'nature' of all substances. 1813 BUSBY Lucretius "He notices many natural circumstances which demonstrate the vacuous natures of all substances." -- As applied to 'receiver'. This is closest to Grice's "Vacuous Name" -- where name is jocularly seen as a receiver or recipient which can be filled. 1669 BOYLE Contin. "I put Pears bruised into a vacuous Reciever." As applied to who knows: 1842 E. A. PARNELL "The difference between its weight when containing the gas, and when vacuous." As applied to 'bubbles': 1862 GROVE "No air is given off from the bubbles, so they seem to be vacuous." -- but they are not? As applied to 'globe': 1892 Photogr. "In incandescent lamps the electric current heats up a carbon filament inclosed in a vacuous globe." As applied to a bract" 1866 Treas. Bot. "Bracts which usually support flowers are said to be vacuous when they have no flower in their axils." As applied to 'air': 1877 MORLEY "As the flies of a summer day dart from point to point in the vacuous air." As applied to a snob: 1848 THACKERAY "A vacuous, solemn snob." As applied to 'mind': 1883 Standard "The absence of anxiety leaves their minds vacuous." As applied to 'person': 1889 Times 26 Oct. 9/1 "That gift of oppressive familiarity which by some vacuous people is taken to indicate sterling sense." As applied to 'look' (or 'man'): 1895 ?H. S. MERRIMAN? "He was rather a vacuous-looking young man." As applied to 'leer': 1855 THACKERAY "With that vacuous leer which distinguishes his lordship." As applied to 'eyes': 1858 O. W. HOLMES "These negative faces with their vacuous eyes and stony lineaments." As applied to 'expression: This may connect with Grice's "Vacuous Names". For surely he discusses 'vacuous descriptions' later. And names and descriptions make up for 'expression' -- e.g. Searle, Meaning and Expression. 1873 BLACK "There was a cheery, vacuous, smiling expression on his round face." As applied to 'eyes': 1879 MCCARTHY Own Times v. I. 116 "A huge white-headed, vacuous-eyed man was to be seen." As applied to 'desire' 1870 SWINBURNE "The vacuous monotonous desire and discontent, the fitful and febrile beauty of Alfred de Musset." As applied to 'style': 1879 HOWELLS "Mrs. Erwin wrote an epistolary style exasperatingly vacuous and diffuse." As applied to 'day': 1872 MORLEY "It cannot for ever be tolerable that the mass should wear away their lives in unbroken toil without hope or aim, in order that the few may live selfish and vacuous days." As applied to 'life': 1897 Review of Rev. 37 "There are many rich people who lead such mean and vacuous lives." Cfr. 1648 W. MOUNTAGUE In that vacuousness the winds and vapors of tediousness and displicence rise. 1816 J. GILCHRIST The mistiness and vacuousness of abstract expression. 1860 All Year Round No. 88. 283 He had a broad fair face, rather vacuously good natured in its ordinary expression. 1880 Daily Tel. So there he stood, with his hands in his pockets,..gazing vacuously at the fighting and rough play. 1572 J. JONES Galen wills to vacuate, cleanse, or empty, that which is evil. 1607 T. WALKINGTON That so the superfluous humidity of his stomach may be vacuated. 1657 TOMLINSON Senny, Rhabarb..vacuate phlegm also. 1760 Ann. Reg. We have..portable ventilators which are continually employed in vacuating the foul air from our hold. 1651 WITTIE If he that hath been once abundantly vacuated, must necessarily relapse into the same disease. 1684 Bonet's Merc. When the Heart-burn is violent, we must not vacuate the whole Body. 1765 Phil. Trans. LV. 84 It's so well vacuated by boiling the quicksilver in the tube, that I depend on its being luminous after being carried so far. 1654 GAYTON Toboso too was flesh and blood; and how If some great Prince should vacuate her vow? 1681 HICKERINGILL Which Law vacuates and makes null and void all Laws of Man, ipso facto, that are made to the contrary. 1709 MRS. MANLEY There can be no Laws contrived..but what they can vacuate. 1684 Col. Rec. Pennsylv. They may act irregularly, to the vacuating and Insecurity of such acts and Judgments of ye said Courts. 1541 COPLAND Of bones, they that have the embossynges and vacuations be they that make the joints. 1590 BARROUGH Through abundant sweets, and all other immoderate vacuations. 1607 TOPSELL The vacuation of blood & seede, is a dubble charge to nature. 1635 A. READ The vacuation of the humor impacted in the part. 1657 TOMLINSON Which distinction is taken from the manner of excretion or vacuation. 1721 BAILEY, Vacuation, an emptying. 1611 FLORIO, Vacuation, emptiness, vacuity, voidness. 1660 Contemp. Hist. Irel. They very joyful handling the same [a trunk], found it promising noe vacuation, but very heavy. 1656 RIDGLEY The vital spirits..are consumed by heat, malignity, vacuatives, grief. 1766 G. CANNING Anti-Lucretius Wherever a spot vacuitous is found, there you must own that Matter feels a bound. 1550 CRANMER Natural reason abhorrs vacuum, that is to say, that there should be any empty place, wherein no substance should be. 1570 DEE Math. This Art is very profitable: to prove, that vacuum, or emptiness is not in the world. 1626 BACON "The more gross of the tangible parts do contract and serve themselves together to avoid vacuum." 1657 TRAPP "For beyond the moveable Heavens, Aristotle says there is neither body, nor time, nor place, nor vacuum." 1676 Poor Robin "Having his head as full of vacuum as his small proportion of brains was capable of." 1795 BLAKE "Round the flames roll,..mounting on high Into Vacuum, into nonentity, Where nothing was." 1843 Penny "The astronomical argument, therefore, in favour of absolute vacuum has fallen." 1607 BREWER "First shall the whole machine of the world return to chaos, then the least vacuum be found in the universe." 1638 WILKINS "To dispute against Democritus, who thought, that the World was made by the casual concourse of Atoms in a great Vacuum." 1714 Let. from Layman "A Government can't rightfully restrain a Man's professing the Belief of a Vacuum, or a Plenum." 1763 JOHNSON "There are objections against a plenum, and objections against a vacuum; yet one of them must be true." 1865 GROTE "Proceeding upon his hypothesis of atoms and vacua as the only objective existences." 1884 F. TEMPLE "The reasons why Nature abhors a vacuum were discovered." 1652 FRENCH "So much air being spent, there would of necessity follow a vacuum." 1660 BOYLE "The Interest of the air, in hindering the descent of the Quick-silver, in the famous Experiment touching a Vacuum." 1713 DERHAM "The Ear-wig..and some other Insects would seem unconcerned at the Vacuum a good while, and lie as dead; but revive in the Air." 1758 REID tr. Macquer's Chym. I. 299 "The air contained therein is condensed, and leaves a vacuum, which the external air..tends to occupy." 1829 Nat. Philos., "Count Rumford proved the passage of heat through a Torricellian vacuum, that is, the space left at the top of a barometer by the mercury falling." 1860 MAURY "At the height of 80 or 90 miles there is a vacuum far more complete than any which we can produce by any air-pump." 1872 COOKE "Alcohol expands more slowly into the aqueous vapor than it would into a vacuum." 1777 Phil. Trans. "That the vacua be as nearly as possible complete." 1832 BREWSTER "The plates, being raised or depressed by the voluntary muscles, form so many vacua." 1910 Judge "A vacuum was the only thing she could be trusted to handle with safety." 1922 Hotel World "I have three vacuums going all day." 1960 Farmer "Is it better to have a powerful or a handy cleaner? That has always been a problem when choosing a vacuum." 1977 New Yorker "Green Haven's deputy superintendent of administration was preoccupied with the size of the wet-dry vacuums being used to clean the prison kitchen." 1589 NASHE "The Scythians, who swaddle themselves straighter, to the intent no vacuum being left in their entrails." 1635 RANDOLPH "Unnatural vacuum, can your emptiness answer to some slight questions?" 1700 T. BROWN "He made a Dive into my Pocket, but encountring a Disappointment, Rub'd off, Cursing the Vacuum." 1758 J. S. Le Dran "I discovered a Vacuum upon the intercostal Muscles, from whence about a spoonful of matter was discharged." 1791 WALPOLE "I shall fill my vacuum with some lines that General Conway has sent me." 1838 MORRIS "The Dandy's head, A vacuum dead, Ne'er tries for thought to seek." 971 Blickl. "The Virgin Mary w?s ?ful? cweden n?s ??metuu?." 1300 Beket "The school al empty was: and no brain therein believed." 1386 CHAUCER "Almost all empty is a ton." 1514 BARCLAY "With empty belly and simple poor array." 1599 SHAKES. "The empty vessel makes the greatest sound." -- and for Ockham the flatus vocis. 1628 PRESTON "Nothing is said to be empty, but when you look for a fullness in it." 1673 WALKER "They bring forth yellow and empty ears, before the harvest." 1732 POPE "Which of these is worse, Want with a full or with an empty purse?" 1732 ARBUTHNOT "They might be taken in an empty stomach." 1845 BUDD "The gall~bladder and ducts are found empty." 1860 TYNDALL "I now filled our empty wine-bottle with snow." And now we are more emptily prepared to go through Grice's Vacuous Names. The header indicates one of my favourite paintings ever, by one Wright of Derby. Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************Download the AOL Classifieds Toolbar for local deals at your fingertips. (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolclassifieds/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000004) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Mon Jun 15 13:28:11 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:28:11 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] The History of Analytic Philosophy -- of History Message-ID: Fascinating to have Dray's book available for us in hist-analytic. Congratulations to Dray and Bayne. ----- >From the list to PHILOS-L and PHILOSOP-L I see the content of the book, chapter by chapter: In a message dated 6/14/2009 12:23:14 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, baynesrb at YAHOO.COM writes: Laws and Explanation in History _http://www.hist-analytic.org/Dray1.pdf_ (http://www.hist-analytic.org/Dray1.pdf) The Covering Law Model The Doctrine of Implicit Law Explaining and Prediction Causal Laws and Causal Analysis The Rationale of Actions Explaining Why and Explaining How ---- I'm fascinated by Dray's CV -- which I see in his site: MA and DPhil Oxon! --- I'm also cutting and pasting the biblio he cites in his page for easy reference here: History as Re-enactment: Collingwood's Philosophy of History, Clarendon Press. Philosophy of History, Englewood Cliffs On History and Philosophers of History. Brill. Perspectives on History. Routledge "Broadening the Historian's Subject-Matter in the Principles of History", in Collingwood Studies, vol. 4 "Causes, individuals and Ideas in Christopher Hill's Interpretation of the English Revolution" in Court, Country, and Culture: Essays on Early Modern British History. University of Rochester Press, "Historicity, Historicism, and Self-Making", in Fackenheim. University of Rochester Press, "Von Wright on Explanation in History", in The Philosophy of G. H. Von Wright (ed. P.A. Schilpp and L. E. Hahn), La Salle, III.-- ----- As S. Bayne notes in his letter to PHILOS-L and PHILOSOP-L 'philosophy of history' CAN'T be any longer neglected! I was happy to have a good tutor in the area: Daniel Brauer. We did a good work on various things. He was a Hintikkian, from what I recall, since he tortured us with "Explanation and Understanding". I find Hintikka's prose flowing in the vernacular (Finnish) but not so much in other lingo's (sic). Brauer has a PhD from Germany and was aggressive with the Brits. We did Gibbons, "Decline and Fall" -- I recall I used the J. L. Borges's edition -- just to prove how confused Gibbons was about the causes -- and so it is nice to see that Dray has considered the "English Revolution", too. I love Sellars and Yeatman, on things or people being good or bad as 'causes' of this or that. Brauer eventually heard me talk of Danto -- but I don't think he was impressed. We didn't pay much attention to the law-covering thing, but some to "Cleopatra's Nose" and the impredictability of history. On top of that, I think Brauer was 'eschatological' at heart, so we did a bit of St. Augustine! As an Argentine, I also had to endure a course on "History of Philosophical Ideas in Argentina". Fortunately, there is only one: "Revolution!". So I did (under Oscar Moran) a study of the Causes and Consequences of the Argentine Revolution. I grasped that the cause was a man (dutily poisoned afterwards) called "Mariano Moreno". He had the cheek to translate Rousseau's "Social Contract" into the vernacular, and publish it too! ----- I see the latter chapters of Dray's book sound like Winch -- the very idea of a social science. Historians sometimes forget that! Laws and Explanation in History _http://www.hist-analytic.org/Dray1.pdf_ (http://www.hist-analytic.org/Dray1.pdf) The Covering Law Model --- what R. B. Jones would call "Barbara". Just joking. I could never understand this model. But then I never understood why this raven needs to be black because every raven is black. I like the word 'nomological' but don't use it _every day_. The Doctrine of Implicit Law --- This is good -- how emplicit. This reminds me of Grice: (Jack has broken his crown) Jill: "You'll survive, Jack. You are an Englishman; therefore you'll be brave." Apparently Jill is reassuring Jack on account of an implicit premise, which Grice fails to make explicit -- in "Aspects of Reason". "With implicit things, which some call 'subterranean' it's very difficult to see what people mean." Explaining and Prediction This is so good. Wasn't there this book, "Historical Impredictability". So I guess where Dray is going to! Hintikka would say that 'predict' applies to 'statitive' (?) illocutionary forces: "I will go to London" is a prediction. "I shall go to London" is not -- it's a future-intentional, not future indicative. Or the other way round, I forget. Depends if it's first person or second person. I suppose in history it should be the third person: The Canadian Prime Minister shall do it. The Canadian Prime Minister will do it. For all I know, what is safe to say is that as things are, the Canadian Prime minister (the current one) will die. The rest is a nebulosa of intentional agencies that escapes me. This is different from saying, ex post facto, which is the only thing Brauer allowed, that we cannot explain (for we _can_) the actions of the Prime Minister, in terms of his intentions, you know. Causal Laws and Causal Analysis This is good. Sellars and Yeatman use 'cause' a lot. "The cause of the war with the Zulus: the Zulus. The Consequence: the extermination of the Zulus.: The Rationale of Actions This is good. At one stage of my philosophical I grew so otiose that I introduced, alla Grice, izz and hazz, the word, reassssson versus reason or reaZon versus reaSon Reason is any old reason. But a reaZon is a reason which has been 'effectual' (as opposed to ineffectual). My reaZon for going to Ascot is to be seen, not to see (the horses). When we appeal to a reason which is not a reaZon we call it (or rather Anna Freud called it) 'rationalization', which is just 'reaZon' sounding German. "Rationale" sounds like 'rationalisation'. Explaining Why and Explaining How This is excellent as it relates to that song, "I don't know why I love you like I do. (I just do)" It seems to me that 'explaining-that' can be redundant. "He explained to me that the house was rat-infested" (to use Strawson's example contra Grice). i He explained to me why the house was rat-infested (the previous owner as hardly hygienic, there's a sewer next to it, and the cat died) He explained to me how the house was cat-infested. i.e. alla von Wright: he explained to me how it came to pass that the house, due to the _reasons_ and causes mentioned in (i) became rat-infested. ------ I was reading the other day Grice on "the bridge collapsed -- because it was made of cellophane". He says something terrifically funny, I find: "Surely to say that the fact that it was made of cellophane was a _bad_ reason why the bridge collapsed is _terrible_." Cheers, JL Speranza (Mr, etc. etc, Esq., etc. etc.) Bordighera, Imperia (etc. etc. etc. etc.) **************Download the AOL Classifieds Toolbar for local deals at your fingertips. (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolclassifieds/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000004) From rbj at rbjones.com Sun Jun 21 11:17:33 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:17:33 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume In-Reply-To: <352095.46488.qm@web36502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <352095.46488.qm@web36502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200906211617.34307.rbj@rbjones.com> On this occasion I have an excuse for my slow response, having been on holiday for a week. (does that really count as an excuse if I might easily have taken this long anyway?) In responding to Steve I would like to take his point on Carnap first, since what I have to say there is useful background to the main issue. On Friday 12 June 2009 12:30:11 steve bayne wrote: >On Carnap, be a bit careful. At least in Meaning and Necessity he adhere to > the "method of intention and extension," so meaning is not reference. I'm not well acquainted with the details of Carnap's Meaning and Necessity, since I have always regarded Carnap's semantic methods as archaic, however, I would expect that though the distinction is made between intension and extension, there is no reason why the intension should not uniquely fix the reference, and every reason why it must in the case of a "rigid designator". For a rigid designator of some object "obj" the intension would have to be something like "being equal to obj" (or simply "being obj", more formally "lambda x. x = obj"). (I think this would be necessary for Carnap because he defines necessity in terms of analyticity, with the effect that this becomes the only way in which you can have a rigid designator). In this case, though meaning is not reference the effect is much the same. This is what I had in mind when I spoke of the possibility that "the meaning *is* the reference". If "rigid designator" were defined as something having the same referent in every possible world but not "meaning it" in that sense, then it would follow from Carnap's conception of meaning that there could be no such thing. Having said all that, I not longer remember how it bears upon the rest, but maybe it will occur to me again before I am through. >The [referential] use of a definite description is one where a correct use is > not dependent on the actual extension of the predicates contained in the > description but, rather, pragmatic circumstances of application. > Donnellan's example, as I recall, is that of situation where a man is > standing across the room talking to someone at a cocktail party. I am > talking to a friend who asks me who someone is, so I say "He' the man > drinking the martini over there. Now, as it turns out, the man is NOT > drinking a martini; he is drinking water, but there is a sense in which the > description succeeds, even though he is not included in the, literal, > extension of the predicate. I am inclined to doubt that this is a correct description of what is going in the example cited. Firstly I observe that it is not clear from the example that the usage in question is correct, but I propose to say nothing more on that point. What I accept is that the use in question was successful, in that the hearer understood the point the speaker intended to make. However, this is in my opinion an example of a more widespread phenomenon which tells us little about the semantics of languages. The phenomenon in question is the ability of intelligent hearers to guess what a speaker intended to say even when that is not what he actually said. This incidentally, is not (I suspect) the same as Grice's "speakers meaning" where the meaning of some construct might be said to depend crucially on the intentions or on the idiomatic habits of the speaker. In the Donellan example it is not the case that the speaker was being eccentric in his use of language and that what he meant by his words was not what we normally suppose to be meant by them. His use of language was completely correct, he just happened to be mistaken about the facts which he used to pick out the person he wished to refer to. I do not accept myself that this tells us anything so bizarre as that a definite description might be held to mean (refer to) some object which does not satisfy the description. (though this does happen in some formal languages, including the HOL which I used in my models of Aristotle's metaphysics, in the case that the description is not satisfied). Going back to "the cause of e caused e", I remain of the opinion that this can be necessary only if it is necessary that "e" has a unique cause. Roger Jones From Baynesr at comcast.net Mon Jun 22 09:14:44 2009 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:14:44 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] The History of Analytic Philosophy -- of History In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <2008860811.5120951245676484963.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Thanks, Speranza. I had no idea I would be putting that book up. It occurred to me that a lot of the issues related explaining human action "fit" some of the arguments that go back to problems related to the covering law model. In particular, I happened to notice (or imagine) that Anscombe in her work on causation (1971) was addressing issues first raised by Russell. Her "singularist" position has as a consequence her view that not all causes are necessitating. But here is one interesting fact: if one maintains that some are necessitating and others are not Armstrong's defense against Anscombe collapses. In _A World of States of Affairs_. p. 218, Armstrong grants her criticism of Davidson's type of view, although he ignores Davidson's attempting to walk a tightrope between singularism and regularity. I think Roger Bishop Jone's would really find this interesting, insofar as it introduces issues connected with analyticity etc. in connection with a wider reality than, pure, semantics. Armstrong seems to think that there is a necessary a posteriori connection, ala Kripke, between causality and lawlikeness. I take a radical singularist view, along the lines of Ducasse, but with a couple of twists. This make me, ultimately, I would imagine a historicist. Egad! By the way, I'm going to be mentioning Grice. Do you remain firm in your belief that there is little connection, either historically or "structurally"? I am adding a short chapter on causation in Anscombe. Let me share a thought that has guided me somewhat. You know, one of those ideas you might not publish but crowds your mind at the wrong times. It is this: causality and intentionality have a funny relation. If Dretske is right (does anyone recall the issue of Minn. Studies where he says this?) causation is king. But here's my thought: when intentionality is wedded to an event that event becomes an action; when causality is wedded to an accidental generaliation it becomes lawlike. The proper comparison is between intentionality and causation, compare the agent case. Armstrong and others tie the difference between an accidental generalization and lawlikeness to the semantics of counterfactuals; then, the muck around looking for a semantics and get lost, if I am right in other worlds. They, then, have the problem of linking causality and lawlikeness. Now there are two moves; one between accident and law, and the other between causation and law. One jump is, I think, all we need; or at least, at this stage, this is all I think we need. I have learned more about human action by looking at historical explanation that looking at psychology. The reason vs. cause debate flourishes in the fructifying warmth of singularity vs. regularity. I will end this morning ramble with this: I find no justification for the feeling of compulsion the regularity theorists have in somewhat linking causation to a law. If you have one you don't, really, need the other. Within a couple of weeks I have to resolve this to my own satisfaction. Popper Poverty of Historicism is a work I've had trouble accepting, but it has driven me much deeper into the very nominalism I formerly eschewed. ----- Original Message ----- From: Jlsperanza at aol.com To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 10:28:11 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: The History of Analytic Philosophy -- of History Fascinating to have Dray's book available for us in hist-analytic. Congratulations to Dray and Bayne. ----- >From the list to PHILOS-L and PHILOSOP-L I see the content of the book, chapter by chapter: In a message dated 6/14/2009 12:23:14 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, baynesrb at YAHOO.COM writes: Laws and Explanation in History _http://www.hist-analytic.org/Dray1.pdf_ (http://www.hist-analytic.org/Dray1.pdf) The Covering Law Model The Doctrine of Implicit Law Explaining and Prediction Causal Laws and Causal Analysis The Rationale of Actions Explaining Why and Explaining How ---- I'm fascinated by Dray's CV -- which I see in his site: MA and DPhil Oxon! --- I'm also cutting and pasting the biblio he cites in his page for easy reference here: History as Re-enactment: Collingwood's Philosophy of History, Clarendon Press. Philosophy of History, Englewood Cliffs On History and Philosophers of History. Brill. Perspectives on History. Routledge "Broadening the Historian's Subject-Matter in the Principles of History", in Collingwood Studies, vol. 4 "Causes, individuals and Ideas in Christopher Hill's Interpretation of the English Revolution" in Court, Country, and Culture: Essays on Early Modern British History. University of Rochester Press, "Historicity, Historicism, and Self-Making", in Fackenheim. University of Rochester Press, "Von Wright on Explanation in History", in The Philosophy of G. H. Von Wright (ed. P.A. Schilpp and L. E. Hahn), La Salle, III.-- ----- As S. Bayne notes in his letter to PHILOS-L and PHILOSOP-L 'philosophy of history' CAN'T be any longer neglected! I was happy to have a good tutor in the area: Daniel Brauer. We did a good work on various things. He was a Hintikkian, from what I recall, since he tortured us with "Explanation and Understanding". I find Hintikka's prose flowing in the vernacular (Finnish) but not so much in other lingo's (sic). Brauer has a PhD from Germany and was aggressive with the Brits. We did Gibbons, "Decline and Fall" -- I recall I used the J. L. Borges's edition -- just to prove how confused Gibbons was about the causes -- and so it is nice to see that Dray has considered the "English Revolution", too. I love Sellars and Yeatman, on things or people being good or bad as 'causes' of this or that. Brauer eventually heard me talk of Danto -- but I don't think he was impressed. We didn't pay much attention to the law-covering thing, but some to "Cleopatra's Nose" and the impredictability of history. On top of that, I think Brauer was 'eschatological' at heart, so we did a bit of St. Augustine! As an Argentine, I also had to endure a course on "History of Philosophical Ideas in Argentina". Fortunately, there is only one: "Revolution!". So I did (under Oscar Moran) a study of the Causes and Consequences of the Argentine Revolution. I grasped that the cause was a man (dutily poisoned afterwards) called "Mariano Moreno". He had the cheek to translate Rousseau's "Social Contract" into the vernacular, and publish it too! ----- I see the latter chapters of Dray's book sound like Winch -- the very idea of a social science. Historians sometimes forget that! Laws and Explanation in History _http://www.hist-analytic.org/Dray1.pdf_ (http://www.hist-analytic.org/Dray1.pdf) The Covering Law Model --- what R. B. Jones would call "Barbara". Just joking. I could never understand this model. But then I never understood why this raven needs to be black because every raven is black. I like the word 'nomological' but don't use it _every day_. The Doctrine of Implicit Law --- This is good -- how emplicit. This reminds me of Grice: (Jack has broken his crown) Jill: "You'll survive, Jack. You are an Englishman; therefore you'll be brave." Apparently Jill is reassuring Jack on account of an implicit premise, which Grice fails to make explicit -- in "Aspects of Reason". "With implicit things, which some call 'subterranean' it's very difficult to see what people mean." Explaining and Prediction This is so good. Wasn't there this book, "Historical Impredictability". So I guess where Dray is going to! Hintikka would say that 'predict' applies to 'statitive' (?) illocutionary forces: "I will go to London" is a prediction. "I shall go to London" is not -- it's a future-intentional, not future indicative. Or the other way round, I forget. Depends if it's first person or second person. I suppose in history it should be the third person: The Canadian Prime Minister shall do it. The Canadian Prime Minister will do it. For all I know, what is safe to say is that as things are, the Canadian Prime minister (the current one) will die. The rest is a nebulosa of intentional agencies that escapes me. This is different from saying, ex post facto, which is the only thing Brauer allowed, that we cannot explain (for we _can_) the actions of the Prime Minister, in terms of his intentions, you know. Causal Laws and Causal Analysis This is good. Sellars and Yeatman use 'cause' a lot. "The cause of the war with the Zulus: the Zulus. The Consequence: the extermination of the Zulus.: The Rationale of Actions This is good. At one stage of my philosophical I grew so otiose that I introduced, alla Grice, izz and hazz, the word, reassssson versus reason or reaZon versus reaSon Reason is any old reason. But a reaZon is a reason which has been 'effectual' (as opposed to ineffectual). My reaZon for going to Ascot is to be seen, not to see (the horses). When we appeal to a reason which is not a reaZon we call it (or rather Anna Freud called it) 'rationalization', which is just 'reaZon' sounding German. "Rationale" sounds like 'rationalisation'. Explaining Why and Explaining How This is excellent as it relates to that song, "I don't know why I love you like I do. (I just do)" It seems to me that 'explaining-that' can be redundant. "He explained to me that the house was rat-infested" (to use Strawson's example contra Grice). i He explained to me why the house was rat-infested (the previous owner as hardly hygienic, there's a sewer next to it, and the cat died) He explained to me how the house was cat-infested. i.e. alla von Wright: he explained to me how it came to pass that the house, due to the _reasons_ and causes mentioned in (i) became rat-infested. ------ I was reading the other day Grice on "the bridge collapsed -- because it was made of cellophane". He says something terrifically funny, I find: "Surely to say that the fact that it was made of cellophane was a _bad_ reason why the bridge collapsed is _terrible_." Cheers, JL Speranza (Mr, etc. etc, Esq., etc. etc.) Bordighera, Imperia (etc. etc. etc. etc.) **************Download the AOL Classifieds Toolbar for local deals at your fingertips. (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolclassifieds/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000004) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jlsperanza at aol.com Mon Jun 22 09:51:20 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 09:51:20 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] The History of Analytic Philosophy -- of History Message-ID: S. Bayne: >I had no idea I would be putting [Dray's] book [Laws and Explanation in History, 1957] up. >It occurred to me that a lot of the issues related explaining human >action "fit" some of the arguments that go back to problems >related to the covering law model. And it was a good idea, even if you did not have it. Of course you did. ---- Anyway, the OED credits Dray four times in the OED, and guess who I think may have been responsible (R. H.) under philosopher "1967 W. H. DRAY in P. Edwards Encycl. Philos. VI. 252/1 "Few philosophers of history can be classified without qualification as linear, cyclical, or chaos theorists." I think in this case, if R. Hall it was, it was the motto, "Look for extra-ordinary words": linear, cyclical, or chaos'. I think St. Augustine was _linear_. Nietzsche (and Empedocles) whom Borges loved -- doctrine of the eternal return -- was cyclical. Being an Atheist, Borges was fascinated by the cycle where Jesus Christ is crucified _ad aeternum_. Ovid could be 'chaos': his account of the creation of the world out of mud is _chaotic_. ---- That encyclopaedia by Edwards is a masterpiece. I have found quotes on Grice (e.g. his "Metaphysics" in Pears 1957 -- not cited elsewhere -- Hamlyn, "Metaphysics" entry--. Also good stuff on Grice on personal identity (before Perry had compiled it for his book). The second cite is under reconstructionist, n. and adj. riven in W. H. Dray Philos. Analysis & Hist. 255 T This is more of a reference to Scriven (who has scriven this -- without Dray no). 1966 M. SCRIVEN in W. H. Dray Philos. Analysis & Hist. 255 The difference between this analysis and the reconstructionist approach. The third quote is under retrodiction In this case it's Berlin -- who without Dray not: 1960 I. BERLIN in W. H. Dray Philos. Analysis & Hist. (1966) 13 "In the case of an historical study, retrodictionfilling in gaps in the past for which no direct testimony exists with the aid of extrapolation performed according to relevant rules or laws." Finally, but there's _Mailto:oed3 at oup.co.uk_ (mailto:oed3 at oup.co.uk) -- since this is an open-ended thing: the history of the English language! Under "signalize" it's a genial quote: 1964 W. H. DRAY Philos. Hist. 53 "The willingness of the revisionists to apportion blame, however, does not signalize a return to the sectional type of partisanship." Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************Make your summer sizzle with fast and easy recipes for the grill. (http://food.aol.com/grilling?ncid=emlcntusfood00000004) From Jlsperanza at aol.com Mon Jun 22 09:35:13 2009 From: Jlsperanza at aol.com (Jlsperanza at aol.com) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 09:35:13 EDT Subject: [hist-analytic] "The Shopping List": Grice on Ascombe Message-ID: In a message dated 6/22/2009 9:17:33 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: By the way, I'm going to be mentioning Grice. Do you remain firm in your belief that there is little connection, either historically or "structurally"?---- ---- I would. I don't think I have the passage exactly to hand. But Grice does seem to quote Anscombe only tangentially in the first page of his "Intention and Uncertainty" (Proc. of the Brit. Academy, separata issued by the Clarendon Press, 1971). His example was Anscombe's 'shopping list' -- in Intention (1959), which has more to do with 'direction of fit' (Austin's term): 'the shopping list' before the shopping has a ARROW-UP direction of fit (let's get fruit salad, bread, milk, eggs, etc.). Once the shopping is done, it has ARROW-DOWN (let's check if we got the fruit salad, the bread, the milk, the eggs, etc.) So nothing extraordinarily supercalifragilistiespeallidouceously philosophical. I tend to think that the "Play Group" to which Grice belonged was more into S. N. Hampshire's "Thought and Action" which had appeared two years after Anscombe's. Grice's own thoughts on action and intention are pretty conservative and trace back: -- historically, to Prichard -- seeing that J. O. Urmson, a playgroupy, had edited Prichard's basic writings on 'willing' for Clarendon. -- non-historically: to discussions with, of all people, (he mentions) (i) James Thomson (I have not bee able to find a trace of what Thomson may say about the philosophy of action -- but Grice cites him as having indulged in 'joint' work with him in that area in "Life and Opinions of Paul Grice" googlebooks, PGRICE) and (ii) D. F. Pears. Grice cites Pears at the end of Intention and Uncertainty which had started by citing Anscombe. Grice would of course occasionally quote from _Philosophical Investigations_ by Witters, as tr. by Anscombe, so that may count as a secondary-influence. The Oxford years of Anscombe are interesting and I wouldn't know much about it. What I was surprised to see when I was in Oxford was how _separated_ from the whole rest Somerville (College) is, which has given us so many true Griceans like Anita Avramides (via Julie M. Jack) -- the other great Gricean female hailing from Oxford -- Nuffield College has to be Deirdre Susan Moir Wilson. Oddly, Grice seems to have had more of a contact with Iris Murdoch. I seem to remember that the lady contributed to the same volume that Grice contributed: "The nature of metaphysics", ed. by D. F. Pears --. If this was a Third Programme for the BBC, I often wondered if the whole lot had to make it to London (BBC House), or would they just bring the microphones to the Gown? -- "Anscombe used the example of a shopping list to illustrate the difference (see Intention (1957), par.32). The list can be a straightforward observational report of what is actually bought (thereby acting like a cognitive state), or it can function as a conative state such as a command or desire, dictating what the agent should buy. If the agent fails to buy what is listed, we do not say that the list is untrue or incorrect; we say that the mistake is in the action, not the belief." -- Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************Make your summer sizzle with fast and easy recipes for the grill. (http://food.aol.com/grilling?ncid=emlcntusfood00000004) From Baynesr at comcast.net Wed Jun 24 08:43:54 2009 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:43:54 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] Davidson's Hume In-Reply-To: <200906211617.34307.rbj@rbjones.com> Message-ID: <1836478677.5789771245847434217.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Sorry for the delay in responding. As I said, before, I'm not working in this area at the time and I'm being eaten alive by copy editing the ms. I'd mentioned. Most of your concerns are over what Carnap referred to in Foundations of Mathematics, and elsewhere, as pragmatics. Whether this sort of thing can be treated formally is, I think, doubtful. The idea of language as a calculus, along the lines, say, ofHintikka is something I never really bought into. In other words, semantics to my way of thinking is not really a branch of anything that looks as much like algebra as some would have it. For example, I don't believe meanings can be understood as intensions or iddy biddy transparent entities that hover over words in a dictionary, viz. Fregean senses. Sure as long as meaning enters in a largely irrelevant way, you can put models together; but, then, you have to map the models and the natural language. Once you come up against natural language and cases like Donnellan's then the concept of meaning looks more like a biological aspect of language than an algebraic one. Russell, at one point at least, thought of meaning, entirely, in terms of Skinnerian/Watsonian type terms. Grice is a "sophistication" of that idea with the added brilliance of the addition of intention over intension. Don't get me wrong, the "algebraists" have made contributions to making sense of syntax in natural language, but the area of meaning has been treated in such a way as to make meaning something very remote from performance (vs. competence). Let me give an analogy. Topology is an example of where mathematics interfaces with natural phenomena. The idea of a boundary in topology "fits" nicely with our intuitive ideas of a boundary in nature. Same with things like surface and dimension and point in space, even. But compare the use of 'meaning' in formal semantics to 'boundary' in topology. Meaning is what? Reference? Sense? Do these ideas capture meaning in natural language as effectively as topology fits nature? I don't think so. This is meant as a very general observation. I admit that it is a bit impressionistic, but my point is that I am moving more in the direction of looking at nature, directly, rather than as a reflection of logic as in some way the mirror of nature. Donnellan cases might be absorbable into some formal model, language as calculus, but then what do we have the is of interest to the philosopher interested in areas outside formal logic. The underlying theme, really, goes back to Heraclitus: flux vs. forms. If I am right, flux wins; forms drop out as conventions. Flux is constrained by cyclicity, as even Heraclitus realized; by analogy cyclicity is a spiral in a world where the champion thinkers are thinking either in circles or straight lines. I know this is all, pretty, obscure; but sometimes obscurity is the price we pay for trying to say as much as possible as quickly as possible. Aune and you have raised good points on analyticity. I need to return to these after this mess of a book is cleaned up to my satisfaction. Regards Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Bishop Jones" To: hist-analytic at simplelists.com Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2009 8:17:33 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Re: Davidson's Hume On this occasion I have an excuse for my slow response, having been on holiday for a week. (does that really count as an excuse if I might easily have taken this long anyway?) In responding to Steve I would like to take his point on Carnap first, since what I have to say there is useful background to the main issue. On Friday 12 June 2009 12:30:11 steve bayne wrote: >On Carnap, be a bit careful. At least in Meaning and Necessity he adhere to > the "method of intention and extension," so meaning is not reference. I'm not well acquainted with the details of Carnap's Meaning and Necessity, since I have always regarded Carnap's semantic methods as archaic, however, I would expect that though the distinction is made between intension and extension, there is no reason why the intension should not uniquely fix the reference, and every reason why it must in the case of a "rigid designator". For a rigid designator of some object "obj" the intension would have to be something like "being equal to obj" (or simply "being obj", more formally "lambda x. x = obj"). (I think this would be necessary for Carnap because he defines necessity in terms of analyticity, with the effect that this becomes the only way in which you can have a rigid designator). In this case, though meaning is not reference the effect is much the same. This is what I had in mind when I spoke of the possibility that "the meaning *is* the reference". If "rigid designator" were defined as something having the same referent in every possible world but not "meaning it" in that sense, then it would follow from Carnap's conception of meaning that there could be no such thing. Having said all that, I not longer remember how it bears upon the rest, but maybe it will occur to me again before I am through. >The [referential] use of a definite description is one where a correct use is > not dependent on the actual extension of the predicates contained in the > description but, rather, pragmatic circumstances of application. > Donnellan's example, as I recall, is that of situation where a man is > standing across the room talking to someone at a cocktail party. I am > talking to a friend who asks me who someone is, so I say "He' the man > drinking the martini over there. Now, as it turns out, the man is NOT > drinking a martini; he is drinking water, but there is a sense in which the > description succeeds, even though he is not included in the, literal, > extension of the predicate. I am inclined to doubt that this is a correct description of what is going in the example cited. Firstly I observe that it is not clear from the example that the usage in question is correct, but I propose to say nothing more on that point. What I accept is that the use in question was successful, in that the hearer understood the point the speaker intended to make. However, this is in my opinion an example of a more widespread phenomenon which tells us little about the semantics of languages. The phenomenon in question is the ability of intelligent hearers to guess what a speaker intended to say even when that is not what he actually said. This incidentally, is not (I suspect) the same as Grice's "speakers meaning" where the meaning of some construct might be said to depend crucially on the intentions or on the idiomatic habits of the speaker. In the Donellan example it is not the case that the speaker was being eccentric in his use of language and that what he meant by his words was not what we normally suppose to be meant by them. His use of language was completely correct, he just happened to be mistaken about the facts which he used to pick out the person he wished to refer to. I do not accept myself that this tells us anything so bizarre as that a definite description might be held to mean (refer to) some object which does not satisfy the description. (though this does happen in some formal languages, including the HOL which I used in my models of Aristotle's metaphysics, in the case that the description is not satisfied). Going back to "the cause of e caused e", I remain of the opinion that this can be necessary only if it is necessary that "e" has a unique cause. Roger Jones -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Baynesr at comcast.net Wed Jun 24 09:12:52 2009 From: Baynesr at comcast.net (Baynesr at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:12:52 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [hist-analytic] "The Shopping List": Grice on Ascombe In-Reply-To: <446127751.5790801245847717020.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <1650479923.5795731245849172016.JavaMail.root@sz0010a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Speranza, You make some interesting points on direction of fit. Searle has had some, rather, interesting things to say on this. Performance errors as opposed to errors in belief are, certainly, are key ideas. But the idea of fitting may be less general in some instances. Consider a class of cases which I think, so far, have gone unnoticed. Suppose we distinguish 'descipta' and 'descriptions', saying that, say, 'heavy' is a description and an elephant might be a descriptum. The elephant MAY "fall under" the description 'heavy'; but since a feather is not heavy, we might want to say that whether something is correctly said to be heavy depends on the descriptum: "It was heavy for a feather, but not heavy for an elephant." Here there is "direction of fit" in some sense where the direction runs from descriptum to description; the description's applicability is relative to the descriptum. But now take another case. Davidson says that an action is intentional relative to a description. There is no natural class of intentional acts; what counts as such an act is, then, relative to a description. The "direction" of fit is just the opposite of the first case; in THIS case the direction of fit runs from description to descriptum. Now whether "direction" of fit is a desirable locution may be debated, but there is a "direction" to each of these two sorts of dependency. So my claim is this: "direction of fit" applies to descriptions and not, merely, speech acts, etc. Regards Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: Jlsperanza at aol.com To: hist-analytic at simplelists.co.uk Sent: Monday, June 22, 2009 6:35:13 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: "The Shopping List": Grice on Ascombe In a message dated 6/22/2009 9:17:33 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, Baynesr at comcast.net writes: By the way, I'm going to be mentioning Grice. Do you remain firm in your belief that there is little connection, either historically or "structurally"?---- ---- I would. I don't think I have the passage exactly to hand. But Grice does seem to quote Anscombe only tangentially in the first page of his "Intention and Uncertainty" (Proc. of the Brit. Academy, separata issued by the Clarendon Press, 1971). His example was Anscombe's 'shopping list' -- in Intention (1959), which has more to do with 'direction of fit' (Austin's term): 'the shopping list' before the shopping has a ARROW-UP direction of fit (let's get fruit salad, bread, milk, eggs, etc.). Once the shopping is done, it has ARROW-DOWN (let's check if we got the fruit salad, the bread, the milk, the eggs, etc.) So nothing extraordinarily supercalifragilistiespeallidouceously philosophical. I tend to think that the "Play Group" to which Grice belonged was more into S. N. Hampshire's "Thought and Action" which had appeared two years after Anscombe's. Grice's own thoughts on action and intention are pretty conservative and trace back: -- historically, to Prichard -- seeing that J. O. Urmson, a playgroupy, had edited Prichard's basic writings on 'willing' for Clarendon. -- non-historically: to discussions with, of all people, (he mentions) (i) James Thomson (I have not bee able to find a trace of what Thomson may say about the philosophy of action -- but Grice cites him as having indulged in 'joint' work with him in that area in "Life and Opinions of Paul Grice" googlebooks, PGRICE) and (ii) D. F. Pears. Grice cites Pears at the end of Intention and Uncertainty which had started by citing Anscombe. Grice would of course occasionally quote from _Philosophical Investigations_ by Witters, as tr. by Anscombe, so that may count as a secondary-influence. The Oxford years of Anscombe are interesting and I wouldn't know much about it. What I was surprised to see when I was in Oxford was how _separated_ from the whole rest Somerville (College) is, which has given us so many true Griceans like Anita Avramides (via Julie M. Jack) -- the other great Gricean female hailing from Oxford -- Nuffield College has to be Deirdre Susan Moir Wilson. Oddly, Grice seems to have had more of a contact with Iris Murdoch. I seem to remember that the lady contributed to the same volume that Grice contributed: "The nature of metaphysics", ed. by D. F. Pears --. If this was a Third Programme for the BBC, I often wondered if the whole lot had to make it to London (BBC House), or would they just bring the microphones to the Gown? -- "Anscombe used the example of a shopping list to illustrate the difference (see Intention (1957), par.32). The list can be a straightforward observational report of what is actually bought (thereby acting like a cognitive state), or it can function as a conative state such as a command or desire, dictating what the agent should buy. If the agent fails to buy what is listed, we do not say that the list is untrue or incorrect; we say that the mistake is in the action, not the belief." -- Cheers, J. L. Speranza **************Make your summer sizzle with fast and easy recipes for the grill. (http://food.aol.com/grilling?ncid=emlcntusfood00000004) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rbj at rbjones.com Wed Jun 24 10:05:04 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:05:04 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] hazzard at first fence Message-ID: <200906241505.04852.rbj@rbjones.com> I have been trying since my return from Guernsey to get my Aristotelean models moving forward. I found that the fifth and most interesting model in which izzing and hazzing are integrated with the rest, did not cleanly enough separate the categories, so I rewrote it. It is more complicated than any of the others and did not succumb to the brute force proof methods I used for them, so I returned to Aristotle to get closer to how he did things. Right back to the Prior Analytic, Book 1, Part 1. And there on the very first conversion which Aristotle "proves" hazz fell on its face. After a while wondering why that conversion: if no A is B then no B is A was proving hard, and hard to prove, it dawned on me that it was false (the most common reason for diffulty in a proof). Perhaps my model is wrong, but I suspect not. It looks to me like, after doing all this great syllogistic logic Aristotle went off to dissect predication into the essential and inessential parts in his Metaphysics and came up with a notion of predication for which syllogistic reasoning is unsound! The trouble is that hazz is really very asymmetric by contrast with izz. In hazz the subject must be substantial and the predicate must not be substantial. So far as hazz is concerned no A hazz B will always be true if B is substance but we don't want that to mean that no B hazz A just because B is substance do we? I have no idea whether anyone has noticed this. On the basis of the above account it doesn't look like it's a defect in my model, unless it's one which arises from a defect in my understanding of Aristotle which is apparent in that argument. I don't know whether this is an isolated failure or the tip of an iceberg, but I suspect somewhere between the two. There must be plenty of syllogisms normally held valid which have something of this in them, and which will trip up once hazzing is snuck in. Either way, its an entertaining bit of payback for messing about in models (though one *could* have got it less formally). Roger Jones From rbj at rbjones.com Wed Jun 24 15:08:55 2009 From: rbj at rbjones.com (Roger Bishop Jones) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:08:55 +0100 Subject: [hist-analytic] Vacuity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200906242008.55962.rbj@rbjones.com> On Saturday 13 June 2009 18:47:06 Jlsperanza at aol.com wrote: >* ASYMMETRY of the 'alleged' gap. Part I. Strawson puzzled everyone, "The >king of France is bald" _and_ "The king of France is not bald" (oddly he >uses 'wise') are _neither true nor false_. They lack a truth-value. They >diplay a truth-value gap (I tend to think the coinage of that phrase is >Quine's?). But there is some asymmetry here, Grice feels, that Strawson > ignores: > >"The king of France is bald" _is_ *false* if there is >no king of France. > >This is, Grice does (and I would) claim -- drawing on G. E. Moore's own >coinage of 'entailment' -- because 'The king of France is bald' _entails_ >there is a king of France -- Russellian expansion -- three prong analysis. > >* ASYMMETRY of the 'alleged' gap. Part II. What about the other claim by >Strawson, "The king of France is not bald" is neither true nor false when >there is no king of France? Grice claims the picture is perfectly opposite: > >"The king of France is not bald" _is *true* if there >is no king of France. But why should it be so? If "the King of France is bald" is held to be false because he doesn't exist then "Its not true that the King of France is bald" would be true But "The King of France is not bald" looks more like complementing the predicate than negating the assertion, and also implicates the existence of the King of France. (I'm not saying this follows from Russell's theory of descriptions, since I never do follow it) You may think this a stretch, and I agree, for I like neither alternative. More to the point, neither satisfies my intuitions about normal usage.. >(I wonder what Strawson _was_ thinking). This is because it's a mere >matter of 'cancellable' implicature (or presupposition). Surely it's > wittily cancellable, "The king of France is not bald; there is no such > thing". Grice plays with "contextual" cancellation even, "The Loyalty > Examiner won't be exa mining you" -- his example in WOW, op. cit. Rings wrong to me. I might say "Its not true, there is no such thing" just to avoid asserting the negation, but again a definite negation seems to me better than complementing the predicate. >---- This and R. B. Jones's document. I will have another look at the >document, which pleases me bunches -- I can _see_ Jones's enjoyment in > building it! > >I would think that on account of that asymmetry of 'negation' one would >re-consider the five odd syllogisms Strawson thinks 'valid' but only on >account of the existential fallacy. In my system (and in others of course) it isn't directly because of ``the existential fallacy'' that one admits these extra syllogisms, but of course, because of some alteration to the semantics provoked by it. In particular, because the nice way to fix the semantics so that Aristotle's four examples of "the fallacy" are true (i.e. not fallacious) is to banish empty terms, which also happens to make sense in Aristotle. (Strawson mentions another rather bizzarre solution, but I know no reason why it should be taken seriously). If you put in that change to the semantics, then you get not only Aristotle's four but also the other five (which I first saw in Strawson but presumably were discovered long before him). To keep the four without acquiring the five would require some compromise and I have no idea what that might be, since I have not spotted any material difference between them, though one must wonder why some were included and others not. Did he not spot the others, or did he not think them valid? If the latter we might be inspired to look harder for a way to exclude them. >In my previous I provided some formalism for the treatment of '~', and I >would wonder if there is an effect on what syllogisms are valid (regardless >or not regardless) vis a vis this 'asymmetry'. It seems to me that those >involving "~" (E and O, in Aristotle) would be valid regardless, and only A >and I -- affirmative -- would ask for the deployment of the >existential-fallacy tweak? The existential fallacy consists in inferring from a universal to an existential, so the syllogisms involving it all have A or E premises and an I or O conclusion. This applies both to Aristotle's and to the later ones. Let me say a bit more about descriptions and truth values. First, it seems to me that it may not often enough be said that discussions about ordinary language of this kind may not have definite answers because there may be too much unsystematic diversity of usage, so that in the end you can compare alternatives for how it might be systematically be done, but not affirm that language works uniformly in any way at all. The question simply about whether there is a truth value gap seems to me to be one, various issues about how descriptions work are others. So far as descriptions are concerned, Russell's is I regret to say, the worst option I am aware of, so I shall say little more about it. The two most serious alternatives (if we were able to chose) would be as follows (one with and one without truth value gaps). First we allow that the truth value of some sentences is really neither true nor false, lets call it "U" for undefined. Note that saying the truth value is "U" is not the same as making a statement of ignorance. Its not that we don't know whether its true or false, we might know that it is neither. We can then also use U for the denotation of descriptions which are not satisfied and make predication "strict", i.e. if you put in U you get U out. Then you have to be more subtle with the logical connectives, since they are not completely strict (U in U out) and there are many alternative three valued truth tables, but the most plausible are: A B -A (A \/ B) (A /\ B) T T F T T T F F T F T U F T U F T T T F F F T F F F U T U F U T T T U U F T U F U U T U U And analogous treatment of quantifiers. Anyway this is still pretty awful and a two valued logic is much nicer. So now we assume no truth value gaps and no non-denoting terms. The way it works is that we use ignorance instead of undefinedness, ignorance turns out quite convenient. We use term operators for descriptions, i.e. Hilbert's choice function (for definite desciptions), and someone else's iota for indefinite descriptions. These work as follows. All you know is the two axioms. There exists an x s.t. D(x) => D(An x s.t. D(x)) and There exists a unique x s.t. D(x) => D(The x s.t. D(x)) i.e. if there is something which satisifies D then the reference "An x s.t. D(x)" satisfies D and if there is a unique something which satisifies D then the reference "The x s.t. D(x)" satisfies D Now if D is not satisfied or not uniquely satisfied then the relevant desriptions don't yield objects satisfying the descriptions. They still point to something, but we don't know what. So ignorance kicks in and influences how we reason about failing descriptions. This "The king of France" is a failing definite description, which in this scheme doesn't mean it fails to refer. It means it fails to refer to something satisfying the description. So what is the truth value of "The King of France is Bald" Well we have no way of telling, because the failing reference might refer to anything, which might or might not be bald. We do know that the sentence has a truth value and therefore that it either is or is not true, so you might be able to say that: "Either the King of France is Bald or he isn't." is true, but I wouldn't risk it myself since the reference might be to a fit of pique, and I would plump for: "Either it is true that the king of France is bald or it is false." which is true under this scheme. (or simpler "The King of France is Bald" is either true or false, which I already said). This as far as I am aware is the only scheme which retains the laws of logic intact. Russell's theory of descriptions is logically disasterous unless you expand out the incomplete symbol before you start to reason with it. Roger Jones From baynesrb at yahoo.com Tue Jun 30 16:44:06 2009 From: baynesrb at yahoo.com (steve bayne) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:44:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [hist-analytic] Previewing Part of the Anscombe Book Message-ID: <24901.25992.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I'm finding that most of the work in writing a book comes in the final stages of production. This does not make me happy. Somewhat asked how things were going on the book. So I thought I'd send out a copy of the table of contents, but only of those sections completely "completed." There is a lengthy Part on causation that doesn't show up in this table. The Part on causation is based on the historical observation that what animated discussion of mental causation in Anscombe and others was animated by Russell's views on causation. Anscombe departs from his "regularity theory." But the relation is much deeper. This has relevance to both her views on Chisholm's "endeavoring" and Davidson's "anamolous"-ness. I've also completed a paper on mental causation; much is said about Davidson, D. Lewis, and, a little, on Igal Kvart. These issues as far as Anscombe is concerned wiill converge at that point where we are able to describe "mental causation" as a sort of "bridge" between wanting and acting; viz. at that point where we, really, understand the practical syllogism (where the conclusions, that is, are not commands). Well here is the completed uncompleted part of a larger whole etc. Steve Bayne TABLE OF CONTENTS PART 1: INTENTION AND KNOWLEDGE ? 1:? ?Prediction?, ?Intention?, and ?Intentional? ? 2:? Prediction, Commands and the ?Falsity? of Expressions of Intention. ? 3:? Expressions of Intention, Prediction and Talking Leaves. ? 4:? The Agent as Sole Authority in Knowledge of Intentions PART 2: REASONS, INTENTIONS, AND KNOWLEDGE ? 5:? ??A Certain Sense of the Question ?Why?? ? 6:? Intentional ?Under a Description? ?????? a. Anscombe?s Later Discussion of ?Under a Description? ?????? b. Davidson?s Use of ?Under a Description? ?????? c. The Intentionality of Sensation ?????? d. Anscombe?s Criticism of Davidson on Agency ?????? e. Davidson on Tying One?s Shoes ?Under a Description? ? 7:? The Involuntary ? 8:? Non-Observational Knowledge ?????? a. Donnellan on ?Knowing What I Am Doing? ? 9:? A Difficult Distinction Based on Causation 10: Introducing Mental Causes 11: Mental Causes are neither Intentions nor Desires 13: Backward Looking Motives and Motives-In-General 14: Mental Causes and Backward-Looking Motives 15: Mental Causes or Reasons? PART 2: ACTING WITHOUT REASON 16: ?I Don?t Know Why I Did It? 17: ?I Don?t Know Why I Did It? (Continued) 18: When the Answer to the Question ?Why?? Makes No Sense 19: What Makes an Action Intentional? 20: Non-Forward Looking Intentional Actions 21: Chains Consisting of Actions PART 3: SERIES OF INTENTIONAL ACTIONS 22: ?Acting with the Intention That? 23: Whether an Intentional Action has a Unique Description as Such 24: Individuating Actions 25: Identifying Intentional Actions 26: How Many Actions are There? 27: Acts of Intending and the Presumption of Their Efficacy ???????? a. Intentional Acts of Creation 28: Observational Knowledge of Intentions, Again 29: I Do What Happens 30: Against the Idea of Intentions as Initiating Causes of Action 31: Knowledge of Intention is not Like Our Knowledge of Commands 32: Lists and Two Kinds of Error: Introducing Practical Wisdom PART 4: PRACTICAL WISDOM 33: Aristotle?s Practical Syllogism 34: Wants and Practical Reasoning 35: Wanting as the Starting Point of a Practical Syllogism ????? a. Actions as processes ????? b. Wants not Included in a Practical Syllogism ????? c. Incontinence and the Division of Responsibility ????? d. The Difference between Theoretical and Practical Syllogisms 36: Wanting and Its Place in Reasoning -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: